I've really really appreciated the thoughts 2.0 stuff this month. It's given me so much good stuff to add to my tool belt.

This weekend I was really in a shitty diaper. I've been doing a lot of pootin' and finally just had a total wipeout There were a LOT of different thoughts getting me there but one yesterday was being particularly noisy..

"I hate living in a house that I can't be proud of"

I kept picking at that one.. spiraling around it... arguing for my pain... blaming others...all the things. There didn't seem to be another truth out there for me. But then, while journalling I change just one little thing... all I did was remove the word 'can't'.

"I hate living in a house that I'm not proud of" was something I could act on. I was unblocked, because that statement, could be a call to action, it opened me up to ask questions, it was challenge to 'figure it out' instead of a statement of finality.

When I read it written that way another part of my brain was able to say "Then what can you change? You can change your thoughts, or you can change your house, or you can do both...."

I'm pretty good at finding a better thought to have, and I often find one and am able to see it as truth. I can thought swap, turn down the volume etc. I'm realizing that when I get stuck more often then not, it's because of words like 'should' 'can't' 'have to' 'always' 'never'. They block creativity, they block questions, they block our ability to believe we can figure it out.... Look for those words in your journal. scratch them out, read the sentence again and see if there's now a new truth that you couldn't see before.... go ahead, I'll wait

 I finished a 5k today - and I want to share with you what happened...

My daughter and her friend asked if I wanted to do a fun 5k with them - we would walk it. Since I haven’t done steady cardio in ages I said - sure!

Now race day came and for absolutely valid/important reasons, both of them had to cancel so I was at the start line... by myself (my thought)

Now, I’ve read and embraced some really interesting concepts over the years...and I’ll share them with you here... someday during your meditation, think of your inner self as a bus. And all the parts of you are sitting on that bus. Some of them you can see and know well - they are usually sitting at the front of the bus and they are the ones we let drive and/navigate the most. Some are in the middle. Maybe you don’t pay attention to them as much and some of them get obnoxious to try and get that attention. Some are quiet and don’t want to be noticed. Some are waaaay back - so far back we can’t even see or recognize them. But they are all US and they are neither good - nor bad. They just are. A fun excercise is to try walking theough the bus - talking to each one and getting to know them better - find their names.. Some of mine are - the mother, the child, the sister, the father, the dictator, the feast beast, the wild child, the vixion, the minx, the Amazon. So - if all this entities are us.. who is it that’s looking at them, talking to them, and processing their characteristics? That’s who I call the watcher. Some might call we the inner goddess - I think there is a physiological term for it - but I’ll get it wrong if I try to guess. Anyway-they are the one who can separate our selves, observe them and does nothing but love them. When I’m not getting the results I want or not feeling the feelings I want I engage the watcher and try to observe everything from that place of non-judgement.

Soooo back to the race. I was at the starting line and The Child was in the drivers seat fighting with the dictator and others

The child: this sucks! Everyone is here with their friends and we’re here alone. This was supposed to be fun, but it’s no fun at all!

The mother: stop - they couldn’t be here for good reasons!

The child: I know, but this still sucks. It’s hot and we only agreed to do this cause they were doing it!

Announcer says the race is three laps and we can stop after any of them.

We start and...

The child: good! This is boring! We only do one then go home!

The protecter: it’s hot, we didn’t train we shouldn’t over do it. Only one

The perfectionist: but it’s a 5k, one lap is not a 5k. We have to do all three

The dictator: stop being a lazy cow! I can’t belive you would even think of stopping!

On and on...

Then 1/2 way through the first lap - someone maybe the mother said “does any of these thoughts making doing this any easier?” (Even the ‘helpful ones?)

Everyone: No!

Engage the watcher

The watcher: Well then - what will

Everyone:....thinking of our goals!!

It started then. “What are my goals?” And the ones I write on my planner every day popped up - fitter, faster, stronger... I held onto those like a mantra with the dictator leading the chant with ever step

Then others started joining in:

The vixen: sexier running is sexy

The minx: and it makes our butt look good

Amazon: running is badass too

The crone: and it makes our bones strong so we won’t be a ‘bent’ old lady

The rest of the event flew by! All the reasons to finish coming up - even the feast beast helped by reminding me that his goal is to eat more... and running means we can do that

“With in reason” reminded the mother

When I got hot - the Amazon reminded me that Amazon’s don’t fear the heat!

When I got bored - the child started making up games

When I got tired - the protecter reminded me it was ok to slow down...

And we all crossed the finish line together with a big SMILE!!

All reactions:

442Kim Siberski, Angela Moore and 440 others

 A long time ago (over a year... oh god a year and a half!?) I was struggling with my inner dictator - the one that tells me a diet is the only way to lose weight (must not eat bread... you know, that guy) - and I went on a coaching call. Corinne asked me if I was waiting for hunger to eat and I said Hell Yeah!! She then asked if I was stopping at enough. And I wasn’t as confident. She suggested THAT was my work. So, I’ve dropped the diet bullshit and I’ve been working on figuring out enough since then.

Fast forward to present times. I’ve gained some weight back. There’s not a lot of drama about it cause I know I haven’t been consistently doing the basics. I love myself as much as ever. Anyway...(making a long story longer - hah!) something struck me when we were going through basics 2.0. Corinne mentioned that ‘doable hunger’ didn’t roar at you. Doable hunger sounded more that Kathy instead of Corinne and a lightbulb went off!! I started tracking when I was eating. My accountability partner (my daughter) and I made a scale that made it fun - naming our hunger levels after each of the coaches. And you’ll hear us tell each other. Ooo waiting too long - I’m Corinne hungry right now... or I’m MJ hungry!

That’s when I realized I was still having some diet BS going on. You see I’m REALLY REALLY good at waiting for hungry. I mean, 35 years ago I was drinking bullion and diet tea for lunch to lose weight...10 years ago I went 8 months only eating 900 - 1200 calories a day. Add on top of that a little ADD and when my body ‘whispers’ it’s easy to forget to eat cause...something shiny! It has to roar at me to get me to put food in my face more than 1/2 the time. And when my body is roaring it makes finding enough harder... (not impossible...) my feast beast kicks in and says we need to eat cause there is no telling when this bitch is going to stop to eat again!!

So last night I made a goal to ‘find Kathy hunger and listen to it’ I’ve taken my urge jar and every time I eat within 15 minutes of the whisper, I get a rock...

This AM - I missed the whisper by about 40 minutes. Was at MJ hunger when I started to cook my breakfast. But even then I could tell the difference! I had put a pancake on my plan... but didn’t want to go through the trouble of fixing it. So I grabbed an English muffin. Then though hmmm may that’s not totally an equal swap...so I grabbed 1/2 of one instead. Then sat down to eat and 1/2 way through —- I lost interest in my food. Like I seriously looked down at my plate and went ... eh I totally don’t need the rest of this. Guys!! Before, finding ‘enough meant stopping when my body was still yelling at me and having to sit with hunger for about 10 minutes or so and seeing if it went away...this was such a different experience!

I can’t wait to see what the rest of this week’s experiment shows me!!!

All reactions:

27Nancy Martin Curran, Paige Allison and 25 others