The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Past Diet Experience and Expectations with Dr. Beverley David - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

In this episode, recorded on May 2, 2024, Gina talks past diet experience and expectations with Dr. Beverley David. Dr. Beverley is a Clinical Psychologist registered with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She also holds a Ph.D. in Sleep Research (Insomnia) and a Master's in Health Psychology.You can find the full video hosted at:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:Introducing Dr Beverley, Clinical PsychologistFood issues and associations - the effects the diet industry has had on usWhy it’s difficult to make change - understanding how change makes us feelLearning to trust again - after the diet industry has broken our trustDealing with the scale and its effects on our thoughtsAssessing how you’re feeling at each step along the wayUtilizing Catch It, Cancel It, Correct It to redirect negative thoughtsFeeling worthy  - do we feel deserving of success?Having “all the things”, still not feeling worthy and where imposter syndrome comes inQuote from Mary Morrissey Addressing past traumas and focusing on the here and nowPrioritizing yourself now - how to ground yourselfThe Livy Method is so much more than what to eat and when, it’s about honouring how we feelWhere to find Dr Beverley - www.yourpsychologycentre.ca @drdrbeverleyDr Beverley’s final words - the struggle is worth it. Be calm, kind and compassionate.Find Dr. Beverley:https://www.yourpsychologycentre.ca/@drdrbeverleyTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple,

and Amazon Music. You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. I think it's pretty common knowledge or more mainstream nowadays to talk about how any type of history with past diets affect not only you physically, but also mentally. Today, we're going to get into how your history with dieting is affecting your current journey and your ability, honestly, to reach your finally and forever weight loss goals. Joining me today is the perfect guest to chat about this. It's Dr. Beverly David. She's a clinical psychologist. She's also a sleep researcher, which we're going to get into that at another time. Welcome, Dr. Beverly. Hello. Hi.

Hello, Gina. We're back. We're back. You know, this is our first, we haven't seen you in a while, few weeks since our last program. We have thousands of new members joining us. So maybe just a quick introduction before we get into it. Just sort of who you are and why we need you. Oh, why we need you, Gina. I am Beverly. I am, yes, as Gina said, a clinical psychologist.

I did all of my, most of my training in the UK. So when we train over there, I started with a human psychology degree. From that, I needed a break because it was really hard. So off I went to the Bahamas for two years and just lifeguarded, came back and I knew I wanted to use the brain again and I did my master's in health psychology that led on to a PhD in insomnia looking at what goes wrong with our sleep and how to get it back and then after lecturing and and being part of the academic world for a while I realized I really wanted to to get into more helpful sort of the on hands part of it and went back and did a second doctorate a second PhD in clinical psychology and over there we train across the lifespan we start you know even before birth

all the way through the lifespan to understand how we develop where we get our personalities from our temperament our the nature nurture debate and all the way through to later life. And even after, you know, loss, I work with grief as well. So I covered the gamut. And then I got here, I moved to Canada. Life presents you with challenges and you step up. And I brought my little boy and I over here to start again. And little did I know there would be so much more to do. So I had to re-qualify and become registered with the Ontario Psychologists. So I am very pleased to be here and very pleased to be part of this program, Gina. Oh, well, I'm so grateful for you. And I'm happy that you're here today.

Something that triggered me when you talked about how well, what we've learned from talking to you is that especially when we get into the few weeks coming up where we start addressing portion sizes, food waste issues, the need to eat all the food on our plate that that can tie back to where you were an infant. But I'm not going to get into that today. But there is something to be said about your history of dieting. And we've heard so many people signed up for Weight Watchers at the age of 12. You know, I think whether it's 20 years or two years, we all know that the diet industry hasn't been great starving ourselves, depriving ourselves, ignoring our body's cues has got us really disconnected, being really hard on ourselves.

So many people have worked really hard to lose weight, and then they've just gained it all back plus more, which of course is just the way the diets are designed. But that does make us feel like we're failures. And we want to lose this weight. But now even where the diet industry is, it's like you get shamed for wanting to lose weight. Now you get shamed if you do lose weight. There's a lot of feelings around all of it. So how do we unpack it? Where do we start? How do you recognize that you're how do you recognize that you are dealing with issues from years of past dieting maybe start there okay so where to begin and and Gina's really lovely to remind us all that this is just the beginning and there'll be plenty of time to to scratch at

the rest of it and unpack so what we talk about today we could we can talk again we'll talk about it but if I was thinking about anybody coming in for psychology or anybody starting your program you already ask people the why that you know the why are you here what do you hope for how would we know if things were different um how would we know if it was working and often in those first little bits of an intake or a question or just talking to ourselves in the mirror what am i doing here will reveal some of our past because it will tell us well i want I want something to be different, or I am not where I want to be, or I believe that there is a possibility of something else. And so then when we dig a little bit deeper, my first intake is all about that, to be thinking, okay, where have

we come from? Why do you think there's something wrong in the first place? OK, because there's this this idea of right and wrong and there isn't. We're just humaning. We're working out our way through this navigating life. But right now, people that have joined up, they want something different. So where does that come from? So people will have a different answer. They might say, I have noticed something, I've noticed that I'm not moving as easily with my grandchildren or my children, or I am irritable, or I'm not present as much with my family and my friends, or I've started to avoid things, I've lost confidence. So there's often something that's happening that spurs us on, that pushes us to think there's something up and I want to I want to know what it is.

So the very the very reason everybody's tuning in today and the very reason everybody has bought this program is that they already know that something in their past is holding them up because they want something new for today and for tomorrow. Oh, that's a really interesting way to frame it because everybody is here because they want to make change. Because whatever was going on with them before isn't exactly working for them. Yeah. Okay. I love it. Okay. It's hope, isn't it?

It's like I'm going to invest, which is really important. When we invest in ourselves, this is a big message. You know, I'm going to invest in myself to learn more. And you, you spoke just beautifully in your introduction about past diets, past methods, you know, calories in calories out deprivation, you know, that sort of mentality, that theory that we had. And you were very right to be saying that often we have been learning to tune out, to tune out of our body, to look away and ignore the cues and ignore our normal needs. And this program immediately invites everybody to tune back in. And immediately that's going to be maybe uncomfortable because we're not used to it. You know, the things that we have done for so, so long become very easy, very habitual. And for you to say, okay, we're

going to start taking a look at this, that's going to maybe be uncomfortable because we've been practicing not looking in the mirror. We don't want to see what we look like we don't want to feel what we feel like so the first step is already massive you know I always say it with people in my in my psychology practice the very idea of maybe shall I reach out to somebody? So the very idea of maybe I'm going to join Gina's group. The work started then. The work started way before they said, yes, I'm doing it. Because something was starting to happen, drip, drip, drip, that they suddenly thought, I'm worth it. I'm worth looking at my feelings.

I'm worth looking at my body and seeing how am I doing? Where do I want to be? You know, this year, next year, five years from now. So celebrate the fact that you are here. You are here. I've been talking about the why, the why is sort of that motivator. Why the why is what got you signed up. The why is not necessarily like like we're going to talk motivation

um another time we're going to talk about you know what what what's what's the whole thing behind motivation you're you were motivated to sign up and that was your why but you're not necessarily going to be motivated every single day but i want to talk about um change trust sabotage so i was motivated to sign up i know why I want to sign up, but then I, I get into it and I have to make change, but I don't want to make the change. I don't, I don't want to change. And so what do people do with that? Well, I'd ask them to ask them a question. What is so, why is change difficult? does it mean does it mean that you know we just want to to stay in where we're at because the very you know by paying up by deciding you

already want change so let's be honest about that and write it down be specific what changes do you want to see I want them to think inside and outside, you know, a lot of people start thinking it's just external, you know, what we might look like, what we might, but it's so much more than that. It's how we feel, it's how we think, it's how we turn up, how we, what are the voices saying in our head about this? And I read, I was looking at um some of the you I think you'd put a post out there just to say you know what would people that have already done this program say to new programs I love that you just said the word trust so many people said that trust Gina trust the process just trust because that really is a big thing you you know, and trust ourselves, go through the process and see what

happens. Because change doesn't happen unless we change. It does take work, you know, and that we why are we frightened of the work? What does working mean to us? Does it mean if we work? What are we scared that we might fail? Are we scared that we might not see what we want are we scared that people will think something about our want to change i i want them i want people to start writing on a piece of paper and then people will get to know that as we talk more words matter words matter thoughts matter thoughts are our internal words. We're talking to ourselves all of the time. And if we can catch that, if we can slow it down and commit it to paper, it means it's moved from the emotional side of the brain, the right hand side of the brain, into the left side of the brain,

the language center, where we're able to see logic and reason. and it's sort of a calmingness because if we can name it, we can tame it. We can think, am I scared? Am I frightened? Am I a bit excited? Am I, you know, what is going on? And so ask yourself that question. You know, if I don't want to change, why am I here? And then say, okay, so I do.

I want to change why am I here and then say okay so I I do I want to change yeah because you can want to change but not want to change like you can be like but I I want to lose the weight but I don't want to change the things I'm doing but there's probably an underlying reason for that so I love journaling we're gonna we're gonna talk more about journaling. Journaling is great. Not just tracking. Tracking is great. Collecting data. Yes, that's important, especially, you know, in a program like this, while we have the app, but journaling your feelings are, you know, that, that setting those intentions in the morning and end of day reflections, you can build on that with how are you feeling as well. You mentioned trust. Okay. Trust is so hard because the diet industry has fucked everybody over. People don't trust it. And so they look at me and they're like, they, their friend maybe told them to do the program. They look at the before

and afters. They're going to hear real members talk. We did that post where we asked returning members to share their advice, but that's not, it's like not getting through the wall. It's like, they're like, yeah, I've heard this before. I've been here before. I mean, I can sit up here and try to show and prove that it's different. And the thing is, it is different, but people are resistant to making the change because it's different and they don't trust it. So how do you get past that trust? Well, I would say well done brain, because our brain, as you know, is on the lookout for danger constantly. We're wired for danger. We're wired for threat.

And so if we have experienced a break in trust, our brain is going to be a little bit more cautious. It's going to be on the lookout. And that's sensible. That's very sensible. We're cautiously stepping forward. Okay, we want to change, you know, making peace with our past is, is tricky, because the brain is going to say, hold on, hold on a minute, the last time you did this, it hurt, or it upset you, or it, it caused these uncomfortable feelings, don't go there again, okay, we're supposed to learn, we're not supposed to, you know, march down to the forest of no return, if that's what the science is, okay, so we want to think, okay, let's be mindful of that, let's catch that, let's be mindful of that let's catch that let's catch the the fears what's my brain saying you know am i trusting her let's walk cautiously forward let's lean into the community let's lean

into hear what people are saying and then let's start experiencing it because staying still is going to do nothing for us we do have to be brave and step forward. We have to think, okay, let's have a look. And it is a do no harm program. It really is. This program is going to be teaching us to care about our body. And what's wrong with that? You know, we are going to be, through your program, you cultivate curiosity.

You cultivate care you cultivate compassion and you do it at the same time as honoring our body so I think very quickly I hope people's brains start to think hang on I am nourishing myself I am celebrating myself and when our brain and body feels more comfortable we start to enjoy it and we think okay this is it's it's like a gradual exposure if I'm gradually exposing somebody back to something that was frightening I'm gonna go slow and steady and I'm going to take my thoughts seriously and say hey don't worry I'm not gonna just make you go there. I'm going to go slow and steady. Slow and steady wins the race. I always say it. Well, again, why I love the living method,

it's that day by day approach and it's systematic where one week leads into the next and you're building on each week, what you're learning and the things that you're doing and the changes that you're making and, and whatnot. Okay. So trust. First of all, I love that you said good on you brain. Like it is normal to not have trust for dieting. That's normal. So let's like, let's, I just think that's a, okay. Right. Okay. All right. I'm, I'm, I'm, I should expect almost to have this mistrust if I've spent any time in the diet industry and time. Time is going to show you that it's different, that you can do this. Time, time, time, time. Okay. So, and again, to Dr. Beverly's point, we're going to build on these conversations and this is like a, just a kind of bring it to the surface, a highlighted conversation is a big,

massive conversation to have. What about what's happening on the scale? Because I tell people it's normal for your weight to go up before it drops. It's normal to have plateaus. It's normal for your weight to go up for so many reasons. I mean, I could talk about that all day, every day. It's just the reality of getting on the scale every day. And getting on the scale every day can really help because it's a tool. It's data collection, along with the choices you're making and how you're feeling and understanding what weight loss looks like and feels like to you. But it is so incredibly difficult for some people. They get on it. If they don't see the number that they want to see, even if they've lost five pounds and you know, last week, and then today the scale

didn't move. It's the, the feels of that. I'm hearing words like disappointed and just distraught and all of that so is there a way like it's all expected but people have big feels about it so what can we do about that hmm I would say people I get it right like you can ruin someone's whole day and that's the bit that I want to help people with is to know that the emotion is totally okay. We don't want to judge the emotion. So if we feel disappointed, we feel it. That's it.

So write it down. I feel disappointed. But now we don't want to add a judgment. I'm so stupid that I feel disappointed. I'm so silly that I feel disappointed. I'm so silly that I feel disappointed. So we want to be careful about adding on. We just want to say, okay, I'm disappointed today. Once we're in our emotional mind too much, if our emotion is driving the bus, that's where often we then do actions that don't think of the long consequences. So we're disappointed. But if that

disappointed gets too big, and moves to the front of the steering wheel, we might say, I'm not going to do this. I'm not good. I'm not going to carry on with Gina. Now we've made a behavioral choice, because of an emotion instead of going, it's okay to be disappointed. That's an emotion is going to give's okay to be disappointed that's an emotion it's going to give me information what does what information could it give that this matters to me that I am anticipating change I'm excited for it I want I want this very much instead of I'm less than I can't do it I'm a. If that's where it's coming from, we want to write it down. And then we want to think, right, I'm not going to act on anything too quickly when I'm in emotional mind. Because if we act too quickly, it's a little bit like not sending that email. If we are really

angry, that might not be the time to sit down and draft the email and send it, sit on it for 24 hours, and then see how you feel the next day. And that's the beginning of pausing and noticing and emotional regulation. So a big part of this program is managing those emotions that come up, because we all have them. They're all normal, we're going to be elevated, we're going to be disappointed. We're going to be feeling hopeless. We might feel helpless. So we just want to know that's okay. And I am still on this journey. It's not going to derail me because perhaps if you are going into the past and thinking what's happened in past diets or whatever, however somebody's arrived here, they may realize, aha, it was that disappointment that made me give up and stop. And then I didn't do it anymore. And one, you know, we don't want to do it on one action. We don't, you know, a day is 86,000 seconds. So that one second that we see that scale, we don't want that to contribute to the rest of our day.

But we know it happens. We know that our thoughts matter. And the minute we think, I suck, I'm useless, it's not working, that we need to be very mindful of our next behavior. So that's the slowing down. Because often when we we feel something, then we either want to self soothe, we want to avoid, we want to look away, we want to give up because our emotions say, you don't like that, that's uncomfortable. But I'll tell you what, if we don't look at our emotions i love this analogy somebody shared it a few months ago that it they our emotions will go down into the basement they will pick up the weight they will

do a workout and they will come back stronger okay so deal with them in the here and now right every day part of it but start doing this with gina to be thinking how am i feeling today how am i and it's okay whatever you're feeling is okay how am i feeling today when i wake up how am i feeling after i got on that scale how am i feeling when i i skipped that meal or snack because i didn't make time for myself how am i feeling if i ate that bag of chips? And that could be like, wow, this is obsessive, but it's not. I think people have set aside 91 days to make change. And this is what real sustainable weight loss is all about. Healthy weight loss, not just physically, mentally. Again, the goal is to get to a place where you've not just lost your weight,

but you're calm about it. Calm around food, calm with the choices that you're making. You don't have that internal dialogue. Is this where capture, cancel, correct might be helpful? It will be. It will be where it starts because everybody that knows, in a first session, we want to remind everybody that we have got, as human beings, our thoughts. And I often put thoughts at the 12 o'clock bit. We've got our emotions or our feelings, and that's at the 3 o'clock bit. Then we've got our behaviors.

That's at 6 o'clock. And then we've got our beautiful body with our brain sitting on top, the superpower. OK, and these all have a bidirectional arrow. OK, so what we think will cause our emotions, what our emotions are telling us, it will pollute or sort of taint our thoughts. And our behaviors are often because we're human, what we do to get that feeling away. Okay, we don't go to that party, we don't turn up at the swimming pool, we go and eat the crisps. So these are the things that we can see. So when I talk about the catch it, and cancel it or correct it, I'm starting to ask people to catch the thoughts, what was the thought before it slow it down did you think this is it

you know it's not going to work and then we want to catch it and then say hang on a minute today might today might not look good on the scale but why isn't tomorrow working why isn't it next week not working and then we want to to just gently ask it you know if if we were taking our you know little person to school for the first time ever and they said you know I'm not going to do well at school we're not going to take them out of school for the rest of their life we're going to be kind to them we're going to say let's see how tomorrow goes. We're going to encourage them to make some friends. That's community. We're going to tell them what it was like when it was the first day of school for us. We're going to be kind to that thought instead of absolutely believing that to be true, because

thoughts don't mean anything is true. Just because we think something doesn't mean it's real. So we want to catch that. And we want to notice, are we thinking in the future? Are we thinking in the past? You know, because the past is should have, could have, would have. The thoughts ahead are, you know, I'm not going to do very well. I bet everybody else is going to do better than me. And we're stealing from our potential.

We want to be in the here and now so by catching our thoughts to begin with we're again tuning in again all this program is all about tuning in to our body our thoughts our emotions where we have likely tuned out of it for so long being either over busy or like however we've managed this we've stopped asking ourselves how am I and maybe because we don't want to know the answer and isn't that terrible that we're not befriending ourselves it's like ask yourself how am I how are you doing is everything okay it's like avoiding a friend that you don't, like a frenemy. We're treating ourselves so nasty.

But we'll get to the catch, it can't sit corrected, because it includes compassion. It includes a way of noticing if you have a bully in your brain, if you have a critic in your brain that tells you you can't do it, you're less than, you know, we want to call it out, we want to be kind to that part of us, we don't want to just tell it off, we want to say what's going on, why are you hurting so much, why are you angry so much, what are you frightened of and we want to start just paying attention instead of just letting it all be on autopilot. That's where mindfulness comes in.

You're going to be teaching mindful eating, but we're also being mindful in our thoughts. Yeah, that internal dialogue, right? Dr. Beverly introduced this concept of capture your thoughts, cancel your thoughts, correct it. It's been a game changer. And we're going to talk about it again and again and again. The point today is that there is something you can do about those negative thoughts. I always say we're rewiring how your body's come to function physically, but we are also rewiring your brain and how that's come to function. And you can choose different thoughts. You're going to get to a point where you're going to recognize, you're going to be like, oh yeah, no, I don't need to do that today. I am choosing this. I am choosing that. But it's just not like a, it's not easier said than done but the longer you've been doing it the longer your brain has ingrained these circuits okay it's like a highway okay we're building these circuits for years and years and so we just want to start small with a could I think about that differently or if somebody could hear what I'm saying to

myself would I soften it what would I say to my best friend what would I say to my little girl or little boy what would I say to my granny like we just want to add just a tiny little bit of inquiry tiny little bit of detective work and that if I had you in a brain scanner would show a different bit is just lit up. And that's the beginning of changing neuroplasticity. The wonderful thing about our brain is it can rewire, it can go, ah, I just managed to think more gently and kindly about that. And and then we feel that. And then we feel better. And then we do better. People often think, if I'm always kind to myself,

won't I just keep doing the wrong thing? Well, interestingly, well, what's the wrong thing in the first place? Interestingly, when we are aware and kind to ourselves, we need those self-soothing techniques less. We're looking after ourselves we're just humans trying to do our best aren't we and if we can remember that even when we think we've got it wrong be gracious be kind be patient be forgiving forgive yourself so i wrote down neuroplasticity because this, this is the change.

This is the work that this is the work that so many men, if you've been trying to lose weight for 20 years, it is not the food. It is not the exercise. Yes, of course that comes in. You got to get better sleep and manage your stress, but this is the work. And, you know, a lot, a couple of years ago, we went to the Canadian Obesity Summit last year, Canadian Obesity Summit. And the brightest minds in obesity research were talking like, yeah, people can lose weight in a healthy way, but it's hard for them because your body gets wired a certain way. But your brain gets wired a certain way and there are certain triggers and habits.

And, you know, the conversation was so depressing about how it's like so impossible. And because these are people who are working with one person at a time, they're like, you know, I can maybe see 500 people a year. We are not going to change obesity rates at that rate. And I'm like, but you, but it is possible for people to change the way their brain is wired. And they're like, absolutely. It's but how do you teach millions of people how to do that? I mean, with the Levy method. And Dr. Beverly, I mean, this is what you are doing. I want everyone who is watching and listening to understand.

This is why I say time and time again, your thoughts and feelings, no matter what they are, that is doing the work. Your thoughts and feelings are part of the program. Wanting to quit, not trusting it, being unsure, being like unsettled about all of it, having it be hard mentally, that is sustainable weight loss that the the food plan and you know the tweaks each week nicely packaged for you to follow along and address your body's physical needs but this like if you've had big feels since day one and you're like ah yeah welcome to the program welcome to the program you are here you are. You are here. You are here. I love this so much. Okay. What about feeling worthy? What about feeling like we're worthy? Cause I want to get into sabotage. I know that's going to be part of it. You know, you're feeling deserving of prioritizing yourself, feeling deserving of making change, feeling deserving of spending the money

on yourself to, you know, to buy that nutrient rich foods? What about the what about feeling worthy of looking and feeling your best worthy of being successful? That was, that triggered me in all sorts of areas, because you're right, worthy, worthy of, are we worthy of nourishing? Are we worthy? You know, are we worth it? Do we think we deserve food? Do we think we deserve time? Do we think we deserve rest? Now, this, again, can come from our history, our internal voices that we've grown up with our family of origin. What we watch, what we see when we're little, is the beginning of what how we think the world works, you know, so if we've, if we've grown up in a house, where a mom doesn't think that she has time to sit down or eat with us, or if her job is to serve us, and, you know, we're going to be starting to develop these ideas and these schemas, if we hear somebody, you know, talking negatively

about their body and their body image, we're going to internalize this. So our worthiness, again, can come from what we've started to believe. Are we only worthy if we get this degree? Are we only worthy if we earn this much money? Are we only worthy when we're a parent? Where did we get these ideas of worth? And when we're thinking about worth, we want to be thinking, okay, can I separate worth from externals? So when our worth equals the job, the marriage, our weight, if we're married, things like that, then it can be really difficult, because when something changes, maybe we lose the job, maybe we get divorced, maybe we can't have a baby, whatever those then suddenly we go, Oh,

well, what's my purpose? What's my meat? What's the meaning? Well, I want everybody to know you are worth you, you are worthy, regardless, you were worthy when you were born, you are so important. And when we're born, we know it. And then unfortunately, as time goes by, we hear stories, and we watch things, and we start to have these ideas of what is, you know, whether we have to be this or have to be that and different cultures will will value different things you know there will be cultures where you know being an earner is valued whereas in a different culture it's different or a curvy body is valued here and a different shaped body is curvy there so it's all different depending on who you are, where you are, what you grew up in. Okay, so we are all

joining in from a different place, but ask yourself that, you know, and then it's, it's, what does the world praise now, this 24 hours, seven, don't stop, don't sleep, work constantly, look busy. And if we're not, are we lazy? You know, are we not doing the work? And actually we've got to think, hang on, is this working? Is this sustainable? Am I happy? Am I enriched? Am I present or am I going through autopilot? And that's our own personal story to be addressing, to think, am I?

Have I smelt the roses? Have I heard the birds? Did I even taste my tea? And ask yourself, is this too fast? Because you get to pick now. You get to pick what are your values? How do you want to step into tomorrow? And you can step into tomorrow whenever you want. Yesterday's gone. You don't have to be held up by yesterday. Yeah. I do want to point out because this is where I got worthy wrong. You can be successful. You can be financially successful. You can be in a wonderful relationship. You can have nice houses. You can have a great job. You

can also be doing the things you need to do and not feel worthy. And then at some point, sabotage, well, that feeling unworthy is going to creep in at some point, you know, and this is where sabotage come in. So it's not like just, you know, a person who doesn't feel worthy is broke. They just are a disaster. They're a wreck. They're not doing any things for themselves. You can be

hugely successful, and still not feel worthy. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, I was delivering a workshop on imposter syndrome a few weeks ago. And it's very similar, you know, when we realize imposter syndrome can get the best of us, you it in fact it does you know we we do think who are we who am I to say this have I got good ideas you know what makes me an expert versus somebody else like everybody has self-doubt you know self-doubt actually is probably a very effective thing to get us to to level up and to want to learn more and want to better ourselves. Emotions communicate something to us. So if we're not feeling something, let's look at why.

And we don't have to believe it. Somebody might have in our lives told us over and over again we're not worthy. So then we want to notice that and think okay where did this script come from where did this narrative come from and it was that them and actually not me and then we want to to re to rethink if we can if we feel safe enough to to think have I been have I had other messages that would serve me did I have a teacher that helped me understand my internal worth, my intrinsic value? Did I have a coach? Did I have a best friend? Do I have a partner now? Is it when, you know, what else, you know, who else has spoken to you? Because our main attachment figures, you know, often they're our parents, they might not have been available in the way

that we wanted them to build us up, because that's where it begins, that belief of unconditional positive regard and importance. And they just might not have had the tools to be able to do that. But often we will have found it from somewhere else. Was it our granny? Was it our neighbor? Was it our big sister? Who else has taught us that we're worthy? You know, that they sat down and they spoke to us or they held our emotions or they were there when we needed us. And when you're in this community, I hope people see each other supporting one another and we see the worthiness of turning up and being brave and being vulnerable to say hey I want to do some learning over the next 91 days even if that's all that happens that is such a big thing you know when we think of the non-scale victories, learning, being here, listening, you know, you can do nothing of the practical stuff if you don't want to, but absorb it.

And we will start changing. You will start looking at water differently. You will start looking at sleep differently. You will start looking at moving your body differently and you'll start wondering wondering is wonderful and I want to want to help people wonder more that's the that's the the fear of busyness isn't it we don't wonder we don't daydream we don't okay so um wonder I love that I was gonna my next question is like why are we so hard on ourselves right that. I was going to, my next question is like, why are we so hard on ourselves? Right. And then I was thinking like, is it the, why like, you know, when we were talking about, you know, our parents, my dad would say to figure it out, just fucking figure it out, figure it out. So I am really good at figuring stuff out to me. Like, it's like a superpower. I'm always problem solving, trying to figure it out. One time my dad said to me, cause I came in

second, I'm like, Oh, I won second place. He's like, you didn't win anything. You win if you're in first place. I'm like, no, but I won second. He's like, that's not winning. You know, like first place is winning. You didn't win. You're in second. But I think this is what drives me to be the best at what I do now. I understand that's not necessarily a perfect way to live because it comes with feelings. And then I was thinking, okay, but like we could all go back and be like, someone said this, someone said that, you know, and especially when, when it comes to diets, right? We starve ourselves, we deprive ourselves, we berate ourselves, then we punish ourselves. Do we even need to know why we do it? Or is there like something we can do about it? Why are we so hard on ourselves, especially when it comes to dieting?

That went in a few directions, Gina. Sometimes my brain goes, because something you just said really was important. Sometimes we do spend too long in the past. OK, we do churn the past too long okay and that isn't actually helping us move forward there is a time and a place for actually saying the past is in the past I'm here now okay so because it takes a lot of energy okay a lot of energy so we've got like this is a beautiful quote said even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go, to release the hurt, to release the fear, refuse to entertain your old pain.

The energy it takes to hang on to the past is holding you back from a new life. So what would you let go of today? So I get goosebumps even when I read it. That was from Mary Morrissey. And, and I've still got goosebumps. It's a goosebumps on goosebumps, but I don't even know what your question was. So yeah. Let me take a minute there. Cause I do have some questions that people, I want you to read that again. Cause I do have some questions from people. And one was from Penny. I'm really wanting to delve into my past traumas so I can work through them and get on with letting them go rather than allowing them to creep in whenever how do I do this is it easy just letting go so we we can have two absolute opposites happening at the same time we can

be disappointed and hopeful we can be frightened and excited so yes we can have a part of us in the past to think this is going to spur me on because the past is important for us to learn we want to learn want to understand but if we stay there too long we're just reliving it our brain doesn't know it doesn't have a clock in our brain so if we keep telling our past stories our brain thinks it's here and now it's happening okay so we also want to be able to practice presence. And this is where mindfulness comes in, grounded work, therapies that bring us into the here and now. Very little things can help us bring. So when I would do a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, that would be looking for five things, touching four things, smelling three things, tasting two things. And I can't remember what I've done. I'm

listening to one thing. Now, once when we do that sort of activity, or even just looking at our fingers or doing, you know, like a finger scan, we invite our brain to the here and now and our brain doesn't do that very often. It's often in the past. It's often thinking of what didn't happen or what I wish happened or about, you know, what am I going to get into the shops later or what we, you know, how are tryouts going, blah, blah, blah. So we want to cultivate this presence to help our brain do this. So then for Penny, if that past is creeping in, those stories are creeping in we want to have time for that but see if we can set some time for it in a day so that we think okay I'm gonna create some space where I'm thinking about that and then I'm going to create an ending for that because I want to then live in the here

and now as well or bring in like a mindful exercise so that your brain starts to go, I can, I know that. And I know here because generally in the here and now we do not feel pain. We are in the here and now and all is well. It's when we think about the next minute or the minute that's passed that we have this feeling of, you know, so practice that. But Christine Podetsky, she wrote Mind Over Mood. Brilliant, brilliant. That's very cognitive behavior therapy. She'll say, let's talk more walk. Let's talking about this now and let's do. Let's start doing the thing. Let's start living how we want to live let's start thinking the way we want to think we are we are we we have some control over this we want to say okay I caught

that thought now do I want it to consume me for the next 45 minutes I want instead I'm going to make a cup of tea I'm going to watch it boil I'm going to taste it I'm going to make a cup of tea. I'm going to watch it boil. I'm going to taste it. I'm going to go for a walk and I'm going to evaluate how I feel when I get back. Okay. So we want to be able to start noticing, but also step forward. Stop churning, stop churning. And yes, easier said than done. But the more we practice changing this radio channel, okay, then we can start hearing a different song. Find the different radio channel. It just occurred to me, this whole conversation is about that. This whole conversation is about what you're dealing with in the past and why you're having your, all the thoughts and feels that you're having. You've given us so many things to think about today with dealing with your, your past or your, not just your past history of dieting, but you know, it's all,

you're going to come to realize in further conversations with Dr. Beverly that it's all really connected. I love the grounding moment. Dr. Dina was with us on Tuesday. She talked about, you know, putting your feet on the ground and taking a few really deep breaths. And what I love about this whole program, it is a massive lesson in self-love and prioritizing yourself and being mindful and aware. I mean, it's so multi-layered and level. Like, even how often you are eating and having to think about, you know, everything that you're doing is keeping you connected with yourself. It's making you prioritize yourself. It's making you think about how you're feeling and what you're thinking and the feels that you're having like, ah, it's lovely. It's really lovely. It's taking care of yourself. You know, it really

is. And it's realizing that perhaps you haven't been for a very long time. So if you're doing that, you're doing it. You've succeeded every day. That if you think, right, how am I today, that's it, you have done something different. You know, and grounding is really key, because often you will find once you're slowing down that you're aware of oh I wasn't grounded I was I was out of my body or I was just you know opening the cupboard out of habit or autopilot or I just thought you know the pattern is I sit down and I watch tv for the evening so once we start noticing it we can change we can start adding in little bits. But yes, letting go of old stories, the first thing we have to spot them, like anything, we've got to spot them to be able

to do anything about them. Well, awareness is, I mean, we're not going to solve years of trauma and dieting today. This conversation is about awareness. And we have it so early on in the program to help you understand that it's not just showing up and following the food plan. It's so much more than that. You probably are having all kinds of fields and to recognize them, bring awareness to them, honor them, right? Like you, you have that saying honor, honor, honor your, what's that saying? Honor your mood and follow the plan. Yeah, you wrote that and I thought, yes, it's brilliant. We can have our emotions, we can have our feelings and carry on.

You know, carry on. Dr. Beverly, thank you so much. People can find you at yourpsychologycenter.ca. Again, that's yourpsychologycenter.ca. You can also follow her and her great tips over at Dr. Beverly over on Instagram. Dr. Beverly is going to be back and we are going to continue the conversation in so many ways. This is just a taste of the conversations we're going to have, and this is just bringing awareness to the things you're going to want to bring awareness to.

Dr. Beverly, final word. I'd like to give you the final word. The struggle is worth it. I think whenever I think of something to finish off just today I want you to know that it is it's worth it staying where you were you did you already knew you didn't want to so let's just do it do dive in see how it goes you know avoiding stuff will will not get a different result so let's just go. Let's just, I'm hopeful. I'm so hopeful that we'll just unpack, unpack, unpack and start to realize

that you are worth it. So that's it. I don't know what, how to end today. Just be kind, calm and compassionate. Be kind, calm and compassionate. You are worth it. As you know, I absolutely adore you. Thank you for joining me today. And thank you for everyone joining us live. We see your comments. I have been keeping an eye on them. Thank you for joining us today and for everyone listening. If you want to watch this 10 times over, it will be stored in our guides in the support group. And if you want to listen to it 10 times over, it'll be available on our podcast, The Libby Method. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Until next time.

Bye.