The Livy Method Podcast - Setting Yourself Up for Success with Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer - Winter 2025

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

In this guest expert episode, Gina sits down with Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer, a learning strategist and returning guest, for a transformative conversation. Dr. Deena shares insights on how to personalize your approach to weight loss by choosing resources that work for you and why doing less can sometimes lead to better results. Together, they explore the emotional and psychological barriers to sustainable weight loss, tackling common frustrations, how to move past them, and actionable strategies to continue when feeling less motivated. Whether you're new to the program or a returning member, this episode dives deep into the mindset shifts needed to make weight loss feel possible—and inevitable.You can find the full video hosted at:www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodwinter2025Where to find Dr. DeenaInstagram: @awakenedlearningWebsite: www.awakenedlearning.caPromo code for video series: DEENA10To learn more about The Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livi and welcome to the Livi 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 relisten 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. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned, the protesters repeatedly get back. CBC News brings the story to you, live. Hundreds of wildfires are burning.

Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canada. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. Download the free CBC News app or visit cbcnews.ca. I want to stop right here and take a minute to hear from our new sponsor. It's a good one and they are offering a promo code.

So you're going to want to listen up. It's Joe Fresh, known for great value. So you know you are getting quality for the price point. You know that we love that around here, as well as stylish everyday essentials. They want you to know that they have a new active wear collection that offers three new support levels. So their everyday line is light support,

buttery soft pieces, perfect for low key activities. Their balance line is their medium support, perfect for things like yoga or studio classes that are made with soft fabric that's made to move as you move. And then their momentum line, you know what, come on, this name is amazing. This is their medium to high support level for more intense workouts, a fabric that helps you power through every rep. However you choose to move, Joe Fresh has you covered. choose to move, Joe Fresh has you covered. And here is the promo code. It is livymethod25. Just use the code when you check out online at joefresh.com or through the Joe Fresh app.

This is an opportunity to become curious. To learn some things. How do we help you feel less overwhelmed so you can continue on your journey? Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. My guest today is Dr. Dina Kara Schaefer, learning strategist, the author of Feel Good Learning and Raising Well Learners.

Welcome to the show. This is a conversation that we have every single time and every single time it's the conversation we didn't know that we needed. Weight loss, I'll say it a million times, is about unlearning, it's about relearning, and it's about learning new things, and it's about being aware of all of it,

which is a lot easier said than done. So let's get into the conversation. Welcome Dr. Dina Karashefer. Hello, hi. Hi, Gina. Hi everyone. Hi friends, new and returning. Also, I just want to let everyone know

I did have every intention of dressing up for you. And I could not, cause it's minus a billion. So I hope everyone is just showing up in their cozies and their sweaters today. Hi. We love warm, we love cozy, we love comfort, we love familiar, which is why sometimes it's really hard for us to make change.

So I'm not sure where to start with this. I do want to ask you later on, I got asked on the live last night, how do you let go of counting and weighing and measuring if it's all you've ever done, it's all you ever have known and and you and you believe it works because you probably lost weight that way before. And then we forget about the part where we gain it back. So I want to set that aside for now and come back to that question. But should we address new members versus returning members differently? Or is it the same?

I think we can say a very warm hello to everyone. And I think we can say that what the returning members might have just a little bit, wouldn't say edge, but familiarity is they've already been through the kind of common overwhelm that often hits folks when they first join. It's like, we're so excited because all of us are here. We knew, we know somebody, we know many people

who've been through the program. They're looking great, they're feeling phenomenal. And then we start and we're like, wow, that's an onslaught of material. And we might get flustered or frustrated or angry, or like, like a deer in headlights. And so that for the new members, I would just say, I think you're beginning to get into the swing now or getting the picture that all of those resources Have at their core helpfulness and access There are some people who are gonna want the full hardcore science

There are some people who want like just give me an app to pop in some numbers and let me get on with my day There are some people who want to go deep into the soul searching and want to write everything out. And so it's meant to create a broad and wide access. It's not intended for you to literally do all of those things. It's meant to provide choice and enable agency. And so returning members, I would say either keep doing what's been working, you have proof of concept.

Or if you're like, I could use some of that new member excitement, great, like try one of the different modalities that Gina has offered. So the starting place is like the warm welcome. Welcome is the starting place. But how are you going to access that welcome might be a little bit different if you are like old hand, I know exactly where I'm going from my info. Or if you are brand new and like, that's a lot of info. Yeah. And I think the price people underestimate the value because the price is affordable. Well, affordable for most.

Affordable, accessible, doable, sustainable. That's our mantra around here. And I think some people aren't prepared. They're like, what is this little weight loss program going to do for me? And they get in, they realize, wow, it's a lot of information. Now, I have been really pushing that all people really need to review is those weekly guidelines. So last week, the prep week guidelines, which obviously introduced the food plan. There's a whole food plan guide that really goes in depth about what to eat and when. And then of course, this week, week one, we are working on fine tuning and adjusting.

But people still get a little freaked out by all the information. And granted, there's a lot of information, but it is there because we get a lot of questions. And to your point, some people want, give it to me. Give me everything you've ever learned about weight loss. I wanna learn it all. And then some people just want the Coles Notes. You also mentioned our resources. So we have the Facebook support group

where we're going live now. You can also download and listen to this conversation by way of our podcast available on all podcast platforms. You have a written version of all the information available on Amazon if you want to get this book, you like to make notes and highlight. We also have, and you held up there, I don't have mine, our journal, our Livvy Method journal that goes along with the program. You also have our app that not only do you track your food and your fluid and your weight and your mood and your movements that your intentions and end of day reflections, it also guides you through the program.

And so I just want to reiterate what you said there about although all these resources are amazing, you don't have to learn everything, do everything and use everything. Can you talk a little bit more about that? You don't have to learn everything, do everything, and use everything. Can you talk a little bit more about that? I feel like people are like, I wanna do it all, and then they feel overwhelmed. That maybe is gonna stop you from actually showing up and following through.

Yeah, if we think about what excitement is like in the body, it's a whole bunch of aliveness, and it's also a little bit kin to stress almost. Like it's a lot, it's a really amplified emotion. And so unsurprisingly, you don't have to go that much further on the stress curve until we're actually in overwhelm. So if you're already in overwhelm or you're prone to overwhelm,

and sorry, like what human alive right now isn't, but if you are like overwhelm adjacent, then streamline. Go with what either feels most resonant or what feels simplest for you to access. So to be very honest, like I would, the what makes me feel so good about coming back and coming back, the affordability, because that's a form of access,

but also the way that you are enabling every way to learn this program. Learning styles has been long since debunked, that's not a thing, but what is a thing is being neuro-inclusive. And some folks are like, I need to have all the information. Please don't tell me to just trust you. I need to know what I'm doing.

I need you to say it in different ways. I need you to give me examples. I need you to give me lists. Awesome. Other people are like, I think I'm here to meet myself and what's really happening underneath. Ooh, look at that, sorry, that should be a this. And so like, that's what I'm here to do.

That like, I'm all the way filling out deeply because there's some work for me to do here. So you're enabling, it's like our different inclinations, the rhythms of our lives, what we're drawn to. And that I really love that, I really love that. And so if you're feeling overwhelmed or are like likely to feel overwhelmed, pick one of those modalities.

I find it easy to listen to Gina's podcast as if like the Facebook live podcast when I cook dinner at night. that's how I can access it. Awesome, do that. And then you're like, oh, cool. That makes it feel more doable to like get into the book. Cool. You know, do that.

Or like actually I feel like it's really easy to go to the digital places. Sometimes people are like, I don't understand Gina. Where do I find this? Where do I find this? Great, so like maybe more like a tech onslaught Sometimes people are like, I don't understand, Gina. Where do I find this? Where do I find this? Great, so like maybe more like attack onslaught isn't gonna be your best bet.

Everything is linked everywhere, not to make your life difficult, but to make your life easy. It's just meant to make your life easy. How do we reduce overwhelm? We limit the choices. Make it small, make it doable. It's the same principle, make it doable. Well, I set the bar really high, right?

I really set the bar high for all the people who wanna do all the things. I wanna share everything that I've learned with everybody, but it's about you really picking up what I'm putting down, what resonates with you, figuring out how to make the process work for you. At the end of the day, you are going to get out of it, what you put into it.

But if you are organized in a way where it is making more sense to you, is less stressful for you, and seems more doable for you, the more successful someone's going to be. And more isn't better. I think people need to understand this because remember, all of us were duped. More exercise, more restriction. Like I think people need to understand this because remember all of us were duped more exercise more restriction. We don't have to bring the same mindset here in fact we're all here to unlearn that mindset. Doing more of the things isn't going to be the ticket it's like quality over quantity depth over breadth. We want to go deeply into how we cope,

how we deal with stress, how we tend to our relationships, where we are in our list of priorities. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here for. This comment here from Connie, thank you Connie. This is my last and lifetime program. Thank you to Gwen Rumble for explaining the program to me.

Best decision of my life. Not an easy program to explain. We do want it to be the last diet that people ever do. And in order to do that, we have to, a lot of people have to work through some issues and associations tied into food, their beliefs, their beliefs that they're worthy, that their beliefs that they can do this. Some people, definitely a lot of people have it, so you can't continue and just do the

same thing and expect a different result. I know we've all heard that time and time again. And some people have to work through past trauma. And it's really about acquiring the skills and the knowledge to actually be able to make change and then be able to sustain and maintain that change in the end. Do you have advice for how to best do that? Yeah. So, I want, I'm going to say something that's utterly infuriating. Okay. I think that you're making weight loss inevitable.

And that's going to land challenging for some folks because of how much they have been manipulated and lied to. So I'll give you an example, because like why is a learning human here? Why is a teacher educator here as a guest expert? So when the student clients I work with, when they attend class and with their cameras on as a PS if it's virtual class,

if they do their reading the little bit of prep beforehand, if they sleep and are well rested, if they can pay attention in little bursts, if they prioritize their well-being, they make the A inevitable pretty close. It's the same. You are making weight loss inevitable if we rest well, if we like really wide awake face how we deal with stress, if we give ourselves a chance to slow down, wind down, lie on the floor, go to bed early. You know you said something riveting the other day on the podcast. I don't think I've ever heard it put quite like this. We can't think when we eat. And I was so moved, like, why do we eat? Why do we overeat?

Why do we eat when we do? Oh yeah, so many of us are full throttle all day long. We eat to keep going. We eat to take a break. We eat because we just like, need some kind of pleasure and delight. We eat because sometimes everything else is so hard. But boy, there's a lot of invitations there

to take a kind and careful look, how we respond to each one of those, to all of life's stresses and challenges. And I think that's what we're here to do. And when we take care of our sleep and our rest and our relationships, and when we move and get fresh air and feel good connections with other people, wow, weight loss becomes inevitable and you're teaching us that. Yeah.

Well, and this is why we said just follow the... Honor your mood, follow the plan. follow the follow, honor your mood, follow the plan, follow the plan, honor your mood. You're going to have a lot of thoughts, a lot of feels. If you just keep showing up, you can't mess it up. You are going to be successful. And then the tricky part is, is after you're done losing your weight, then you got to work on maintaining and sustaining your weight.

And that's a whole, that's a whole other thing. Right. Imposter syndrome, worthiness, self-sabotage, because you have to change your life. It's not going to look like the same life. It's just not. The way that we deal with stress and face our demons, that's what winds up happening. We peel the onion layers like Olinka describes. Let me ask you this.

Let me just straight up. Are we capable of change? I know we are and I know the process behind it, but there are a lot of people who are watching and listening right now who don't really believe they can make the kind of change that they know that they need to make to lose their weight in the way that is going to mean being able to sustain and maintain. So we just have a really frank conversation about like how much change are we actually capable of?

Yeah, I don't believe that we're really fated with how things go. When you asked me that, my first answer is you have literally helped hundreds and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people lose weight. That's real. You have helped hundreds of thousands of people change their lives. You got a SHRC grant. You have done research around the clinical impact. So I don't, that is all real. And we walk around thinking like we're the exceptions.

Each one of us is like, well, it worked for them. It won't work for us. Yes, yeah. Right underneath that is just like the sorest wounds, the sorest spots, place that are like, I don't really wanna look under that rock. That rock hurts and it's heavy. And that's why it's so beautiful that you encourage folks

if you need a therapeutic ally, get one. Like get one. If that's what's really here, if that's the hitch, if that's the last kind of like roadblock or barricade. Yeah, this is deep work. It's really like, that's why when we talk about calories or whatever, all of Yeah, this is deep work. It's really like that's why when we talk about calories or whatever, all of that stuff is illusion of control. We have to get very

honest, like number one, it's for people to sell you stuff. It's a it's a misrepresentation, or skewing of science. And it's a playing on how people might not have, like, you know, deep scientific knowledge about physiology and nutrition. So we're being sold a bill of goods. It's fat shaming and unkind, desperately unkind around the variations of bodies and like the are it's like what we what we carry in our bodies over a lifetime. And I just, you exploded all open and I'm so grateful for that.

You exploded all open because your priority is around health and repair and reconnection. That's what's really happening. You know what just occurred to me? We know how, we know diets, we know eating less exercise more, counting, weighing and measuring doesn't work for sustainable weight loss.

I mean, our memory of it is it does work because so many of us had lost our weight before, but we gained it all back. And that's why it doesn't work for sustainable weight loss. We know how detrimental the diet industry has been to our, not just our physical, but our mental health. But it occurred to me we have no reference for the other side of that. It's like, you know, you tell the story of like, oh, when I was your age, I walked, you know, an hour to school or I, you know, I did this and I did that. But if your kid has never walked

an hour to school before, they don't understand, you know, there's, you know, there's kids starving in the world. If your kid has never starred before, they don't understand starving. So if all we've ever known is the counting, the weighing, the measuring, the diet mentality, and we don't know any different, how do we get to a place where we believe that that is possible? Yeah, I think there are a couple of ways.

So one is thank goodness for community. All you have to do is pop in and you will hear the stories of people who've been successful. That's really helpful to lean in to the comfort of like the collective care that's here. You're not in this alone. Number two is to understand that any form of restriction is just around control and why do we control things? Like, because there is like a humming anxiety and stress underneath and that doesn't go away. We just try to control other stuff,

like the people around us or make our houses perfect or like, it's just, it's whack-a-mole with control. So we're just gonna keep like whack-a-mole until the underneath thing is soothed, right? We have to see it and then we can soothe it. So when people have questions there's proof of concept, there's existing current community, and there's understanding that it's just around control. And so the invitation there is, what is begging you for you to see it? Is it that you don't give yourself enough rest

because you don't feel like you can take it? Is it that you don't voice your own needs because either you're not really sure what they are or how to articulate them or like the difficulty of giving yourself permission? Is it that it's hard to know what you're feeling because your feelings have been so played with or tinkered with or like go, go, go workaholism is a cover for the emotional life underneath. There's

really rich, deep stuff here that is going to need mining. And that's where change happens. You're like, Oh, I see you unmet need. Oh, I see you voice that I inherited. Totally not mine, but I can identify where that came from. Yeah. Oh, like the kind of inner part that needs some healing. It's gonna happen. It's gonna come up here. And so really, it's like, there's some courage, actually, we get the excitement. And then we try to work through overwhelm, and then we need a little bit of like, deep breath, here we go, here we go, we're going to get into it.

What are some common factors of people that quit? Well first humanity. Like people who quit are scared. People who quit have come to believe they cannot. People who quit struggle with patience. Slow is kind and slow is real and slow is what leads to transformation. You bring up atomic habits on purpose because it's so powerful, this idea of like 1%, the aggregate of 1%, meaning small change today, small change tomorrow, incremental change has big impact.

That is a very, very powerful provocation. But it's so true, and there's all kinds of beautiful examples, it's worth a read. And so that's when you say like, keep showing up. It's not a line, you're not throwing people a line. It's so real, keep showing up. It's not a line. You're not you're not throwing people a line. It's so real. Keep showing up. Maybe it's this much more water, this much more rest, two more lines in your journal, one Facebook post, one Facebook question. Incremental change. And so we need some patience to really sit with that and go,

but I want to be at the end of 91 days and I want 10 pounds already gone. That's hard. That's hard. But to your point, it didn't just come all at once. So it's not gonna go all at once. I want to take a quick minute out here to introduce to you our new podcast sponsor and

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Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly get back. CBC News brings the story to you live. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canada. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most.

Stay in the know. Download the free CBC News app or visit cbcnews.ca. I don't want to talk about exactly that because there's some chatter on here that people quit because they get frustrated that they don't lose quickly enough. And that's not it because you've done all the quick fix diets. There's people who've done quick fix diets for 20 years. It's not very quick and it doesn't fix anything. There's so much proof in the pudding here. We say all the time it's normal for your weight not to drop in the beginning.

It's not concerned even if it's not. We've had people not lose weight till week seven and go in the back end to be successful. We explain the science behind what healthy, sustainable weight loss looks like. We talk about it, the information is there to prove to somebody why it's totally normal for some people to not to see the scale move. And so this is why I don't believe it's just

because they were frustrated that they're not losing enough because you can people get frustrated all the time and you will be frustrated frustrated that you don't have time that you want to put into this frustrated that life is smacking you in the face Frustrated that there's health issues that you're dealing with frustrated that you've been trying to lose a weight for 20 years There's there's a lot of frustration. So I don't believe it's just as easy as someone quits because they're frustrated because they just didn't lose quickly enough. What is behind that? Yeah. And so you've answered it. It's so beautiful. It's like a real, there's poetry there, our capacity to sit with frustration. What do we do when we're frustrated?

Yeah. Because chances are they quit everything that doesn't come fast enough to them. It's not just weight loss. Totally, totally. So think about a project that you're working on that's boring. A boring project. How easy is it to sustain focused attention? Ooh, that phone and all that's happening seems a lot more fun. We do it all the time.

I'm frustrated, I'm uncomfortable, I'm bored. I'm gonna go do anything else. This is literally who I work with all the time. That's who I work with. There's students who are like, I have a project, I procrastinate, I have this, I put it off. Until then we create a sense of urgency. Now I've got a wedding that I wanna look

really dramatically beautiful for in Svelte. Now it's like become an urgent task. What if, since nothing else really worked in a sustained way before, what if we took a way like veered over here, we just, we took a totally different route and said, I would take losing eight pounds in a month that I will never ever see back,

and moreover, my skin is luminous, my sleep is great, I'm so much less moody, my cravings are down, I'm not hungry all the time, I have the energy to go for a walk, my joints don't hurt over five pounds in five days. I would so much rather the former. That's why the gift here, like the sort of, you know, you always ask about secret sauce.

Non-scale victories. Non-scale victories. Asking us to notice. If we fixate on a number that is always in flux, we miss things like, ooh, I feel real good in my jeans today. And I by the way, I feel very good in my jeans today. My you know, it's like, well, my hair I feel like I, you know, like I feel good. I feel I feel kind of luminous today. I feel like

I've got a brightness in my eyes today. I feel like I'm clear headed. I feel like I have more brain space to think about the business I want to create, the art project I want to get started on, the book I want to write, because I'm not like, shouldn't have eaten that. You got to work out more today. Better skip a meal today.

What are you going to eat today? Freed up mental space and peace of mind. We gotta notice the non-scale victories. Yeah, things are happening, things are changing. You are getting one step closer. It's just everyone looks at that scale as a measure of success when it really truly is just a tool at the end of the day.

I do wanna, I just to stop and read this comment here from Hillary. I didn't lose an ounce for five to six weeks first round. Then the weight just slid off up and down for a 42 pound slide. This program taught me consistency of daily effort and patience. And she mentions atomic habits. So atomic habits, if you missed it, is a great book by James Clear called Atomic Habits by James Clear. And it's all about recognizing when your old habits don't serve you and creating new habits that are going to serve the life that you truly want to live and how it's not any one

thing you're going to do. It's all the little things that you do each day. But let's talk about motivation. Because I say to people, motivation isn't gonna do it for you. Motivation is why you signed up for the program. Your why, understanding why you're doing it might be a little bit more of your motivator,

your beacon of light. But just like when we go to jobs, just like when our kids go to school, we're not always motivated to show up and do the work every day. And so how do we stay motivated when we're not motivated? That's a paradox there. It's like a, I was beautiful. It was a riddle. It's a secret riddle everyone. Secret riddle. I need to know the answer.

Yeah, it's so fascinating. You don't need to be motivated to do it. It just doesn't matter. Motivation is really pleasant. Motivation is lovely fuel. I'm so much more interested in the how than the why. I know, you know, like I get it, the Simon Sinek, the what's your why, I get it. Purpose, I teach purpose, yes.

And how do you do it if you're like, I'm not feeling it, I just not feeling it. Yeah, that's more interesting to me. That's so much harder. Our why is gonna change, our why is like is a little bit influenced by social media and all the pictures we see, fine. Have a why, why is good, but it's insufficient.

It is incomplete. How, how do you keep going on the days you don't want to? How do you keep going when you are unmotivated? What? Habits. That's what habits are for. Habits are fundamental. Okay, there, I did it. Well, I did it.

Habits are about automation. Habits mean we don't have to think so hard or make so many decisions in a day. And for anybody who's struggling with overwhelming burnout, we want to make things easier. We don't wanna have more things to decide in a day. We've got enough micro decisions all day long. So what we do is we go,

I am going to tune in at nine o'clock every day to listen to Gina. Not convenient, you're a shift worker, caregiver, you're teaching, you're working, no problem. I am going to tune into Gina on the commute home every day, whether I want to or not. Our wants are fickle. They're fickle. They're going to change. Our motivation is also going to change. Are we rested? Are we not rested? Has somebody said something unkind to us? Has somebody been a real jerk to us? Like our motivation is going to be in flex.

It's not a reliable, sustainable source of keeping us here. So how do we show up? Well, one, phenomenal. Everyone, you've made the like first step of actually signing up and being here and tuning in. Number two, you're going to create some automation. Think of your touch points in the day, small windows. This is how you actually practice the language of like prioritizing yourself, this is it. Where are you going to actually touch this program in your day?

You're gonna listen to something, you're gonna write something, you're gonna think about something, you're gonna reflect about something, you're going to think about something, you're going to reflect about something. That's it. When are you going to activate what Gina is saying? Like taking that walk, taking that moment to breathe, taking that moment to notice big feelings.

When is that going to fit into your day? And the third, so we have like one, you're here, amazing. Number two, habits and number three, community. Because if you're struggling, if you, that would be the struggle bus you talk about, that's the beauty of having so many people in a cohort with you. Why do students not drop out? The number one variable is belonging. It's no different here. This is like a class. It's a master class. It's a transformative life class that we're in. Get connected. You can have an accountability buddy where you wind up emailing or DMing each other being like, I'm struggling today. I kind of want to not do it.

And then you can lift each other up or just pop in and say, I could really use some words of kindness. That's a great place to start. You said I have half an hour. I want half an hour on each of those things, but that's what I could say for right now. I want to circle back to the concept of priority because I think that gets thrown at a lot. Just prioritize for yourself. What the fuck does that even mean?

I first want to, I just read a comment here. What, where is it? I've lost it, but it's, I wanna do all the things. I don't have the money to do all the things, so sometimes I can't eat the things that I'm supposed to eat. Someone else says, I just had surgery, and so I'm limited, I wanna do all the things, I can't do all the things that I'm supposed to eat. Someone else says I just had surgery and so I'm limited I want to do all the things I can't do all the things.

What do you say to people who can't do all of the things? It's really beautiful question. So number one, so many of us here know about financial precarity. So to that first person you are not alone. Yeah, you're not alone. In this weird world, there's like an illusion of luxury all the time, but the real story is that many, many people live on the edge. And to the person who is undergoing surgery, you are also not alone.

So we are thinking of both of you and of all the humans and all of their iterations. There's so there's so many challenges. Gina never says do all the things. Gina says do most of the things, do the things you can. And in fact, that's why the book is so thick, because you have already, this is the inclusive part, you've already thought about the varieties of human experience. Are you pregnant? Are you breastfeeding? Are you working shifts at night?

Are you on your period? Are you in med school? Like you have tried already to think about how to welcome people. Do you need to eat organic every single day? Wouldn't it be lovely if we all had our own farms of the most beautiful, biodynamic work? I mean, like sign me up for that. I am so in. All the time and money to be able to focus on ourselves.

Oh my goodness. So let's, so I love your question because it pokes an important hole. Like bless you for bringing that up. And when we talk about self care, I feel like I'm really on the soap box today. Forgive me. Let me, I'm just gonna keep going. So we conflate self-care with like some bougie, you have to pay money for it. I'm gonna give you an example of self-care, like a genuinely lived experience of self-care. I'm gonna give you two. Last summer kicked the shit out of me.

We had my husband's teaching schedule change. I had a very particular schedule. I have one lovely human. She, my daughter, struggles profoundly with anxiety, would only go to these camps and not those camps. It had us driving all over. My older one had already been registered here. We both worked during the day. We're a bereaved family. There is no one else who can help. We are like, what did we forget to do? We forgot to think about how we would feel at the end of each and every day doing all of the things. We forgot about ourselves. We literally forgot about ourselves.

And then I understood something. I really understood something when life gets harder. Financial pressures, surgery, caregiving, loss and grief, the list goes on. Go gentler. Doesn't mean you go harder, you rise to the occasion, you sleep when you're dead. That is old school, unhelpful, punishing, traumatizing advice. Go gentler. So today, my day today, had to get my kids out the door.

That is no easy feat. I'm on with everyone here. I got a doctor's appointment on behalf of my kid. I teach for three hours at TMU. I have two private clients, and then we're hosting a pop-up, I'll invite you all to it later. This day is a marathon day.

And I have written down when I am resting, I've written down when I am napping, I have put those in there so that I don't keep recreating the patterns of overworking, overdoing, overreaching, overgiving. Please don't feel alone in it feeling difficult to do this or difficult to attend to your health and life goals. We do have to think about our days and our time differently.

Yeah. It's about awareness of what you've been through, where you're at, what you're dealing with, to figure out what you need and how you can best support yourself. There are some people who maybe they financially have no problem affording all the groceries, but they're struggling with feeling worthy, or maybe they have other stresses in their life. Someone that they love is sick

or passed away. Or you have somebody who, for whatever reason, can't drink the water that everyone else can drink. And then you have someone else who can't move their bodies in the way. We talked to an amazing member who had cerebral palsy last group, unable to go to the bathroom on her own, unable to make her own food, unable to move her body, unable to weigh herself, still successful. I think it's awareness and being like, what do I need?

I have been so broke. I've had my car repossessed, been months behind trying to feed my kids on $5 for the week. Like I get it. It's a matter of being like, what can I do? Like reaching out for help to look to the sense of community, figuring out what can you do, problem solving. And when it comes to foods, there are things, I don't know where you live, but buying your

foods on sale, seasonal foods, canned foods, frozen foods. Frozen foods. And maybe you can't do it all perfectly, but just trying because you're going to realize it's so much more than food. It's also about the things we're talking about today. It's also about your stress. And maybe your stress isn't going to go away, but we're going to tell you how to better manage it or your sleep.

Maybe you can't get more sleep, but we're going to teach you how to get the best quality sleep for the sleep that you're getting. It's so much more. That's it. And your situation is going to change. And when your situation changes, you're going to be in a completely different place because the work you are doing here matters and it makes a difference. You aren't just starving yourself and depriving yourself for a period of time.

You aren't just putting your body in ketosis for a period of time. You aren't just putting your body in ketosis for a period of time. You are making real foundational change. Tina, I love this so much. So we don't want to share somehow or get a message across that this only works if your life conditions are perfect. Yes, thank you.

We are never gonna have the right amount of time, the right amount of restedness, the right amount of funding. That that is actually why we're here is how do we take care of ourselves and keep ourselves in our resource when we don't. So it's so interesting when I work with students, and we'll talk about studying, and they'll be like, no, I can only study if I have three hours quiet at the library and no one is being annoying with the sounds of, you know, like chewing gum

or a fan over top and I have to be perfectly rested and I have to have the right snacks. And the list goes on and you're like, well, I don't know if you got 20 minutes and some earplugs from shoppers. I think we could do some game changing work. The conditions are never perfect. Conditions are never perfect. Conditions are never perfect. Conditions are never perfect. That's why we're here. So if it's around like what food can you buy?

If it's around, you don't need to actually purchase anything other than entry into the program. There are like the rest you can just do in free access. So there's nothing more, there's nothing more that you really need to do. And I think the brilliance of your question is it pierces through equating self-care with paying money. And I need you to think about all of the free, ready at hand things that you can do. It costs nothing to breathe, not even time.

One minute, 30 seconds to turn a breath that's high up here down to your belly. One minute to go, whoa, my jaw is clenched. I'm just gonna like, I'm gonna just remind my jaw, like you're safe, you're okay. Any kind of self compassionate stance that then releases oxytocin, hands on cheeks, hands on heart, hands by our throat,

a hug like this costs nothing. My favorite lying on the floor with my legs up the wall, that's my go-to, costs nothing. Reflecting on a piece of paper or even taking a quiet contemplative moment being like, oh I got a lot on in this life, it costs nothing. But we don't often do it and we often give a bunch of reasons why we can't participate and so that's going to be a really really interesting place for you to look at and being like, in what ways is it contextual? And in what ways can I actually do something

about the conditions of my life and what I'm saying I can do and can't do? Yeah, because what you are going to do and learn, the skills you're gonna acquire in order to lose weight here are the things you need to do and learn and the skills you need to acquire to make any kind of change in your life. To achieve any goal, not just your weight loss goal.

Conditions are not always going to be perfect. As long as you keep showing up, you can't mess it up. Doing some of it is better than doing none of it. Dr. Dena Kara-Shafer, I am so grateful for you and so appreciative for you. There's a lot of things we didn't get into. I want to get into specializing. I was left. I mean, I don't have any acronyms. Shoot. Wait, I got another page. I'll make some. I love her. If you are new to the program, these conversations aren't necessarily to solve anything for you. They are really to bring awareness of the kinds of things that you need to think about and consider when doing the program to really get you to understand there is more than just what you are eating and when when it comes to losing your weight in a healthy and sustainable truly

hoping this is the last diet you ever do kind of way. And Dr. Dina Kara Schaeffer is going to be back. One of the things I want to talk to her is like ADHD, people who have learning issues with learning, menopause brain when it comes to your hormones, how to keep going because there's different stages. Right now everyone's pretty excited still. We just started, but what about the middle when we know? What do we do when we're bored?

Oh no. Oh no. There is so much to still talk about. People can reach out to you at Awakend Learning on Instagram where you're always sharing great tips on what you are up to. So that's Awakend Learning. You can also go to your website, awakendlearning.ca.

And just quickly, we also love to highlight whatever our guests have got going on. You come on, you share your knowledge. What do you have? Any courses coming up? Do you have any more books coming out? Your book again, Feel Good Learning and Raising Well Learners, a book available on Amazon. But what else are you up to these days?

You're a beautiful human. Thank you, Gina. To be an ethical entrepreneurship community with you is gorgeous. Every time any other woman founder goes like, hey, do you want to share what you do? That is like, I just never take that for granted. So yes, one is everyone is invited. Tonight, I'm doing learning strategy pop-ups.

We do learning strategies different. Meet like, what the hell is a learning strategy? Right, so pandemic learning gaps, ADHD, learning disabilities, ADHD, learning disabilities, anxiety, studying that goes on for hours, and then the student gets, you know, like a D, we help with all that. So if we can be of service,

please come to our pop-ups tonight. We're doing bullet journaling tonight. We're doing, oh yeah, on SMART goals. Let's find some new methods. And then on Thursday, we're doing, oh yeah, unsmart goals. Let's find some new methods. And then on Thursday, we're doing high volume workloads. So they're just like low cost group strategies. My team is ready also to help with learners across the ages and grades all the way from grade five

and six through middle and high school and post-secondary and professional learners. People are like, oh, you know what? I quit my job and I'm becoming a psychotherapist. We help across the lifespan with helping you learn what you want to learn. And my team of holistic learning strategists, writing strategists, math writing strategists, career and leadership learning strategists. Everyone's waiting and ready. And lastly, I put out a video series

because I'm aware that there are people across the time zones who can't come. You can use a promo code. Nice one, Jodi, look at that. So smart, look at that. So I'm all about access just like you. I want low cost, I want pathways for people to participate. I wanna be the Gina Livy of the learning world.

Accessible and life- changing is really the point. So those are three ways that we can interact together to lighten the load of how school is going. I love that. A promo code, Dina, D-E-E-N-A-10. My team is on it. My good team is on it. I like, what else can you put there?

Shall launch. That's a throw down, Jodi. If you want to find out more information, just head to our website. Where are the pop-ups and all that? Awake and Learn. Do you still have your newsletter? Are you still doing your newsletter? I do. I do. My newsletter is kind. So people are absolutely encouraged to sign up. It's non-salesy, non-gross, and learning strategies for the professionals and the parents. That's how we try to be non-salesy and non-gross.

Non-salesy, non-gross. Thanks, everyone. I hope you picked up what we were putting down today. I hope you found some good tidbits, maybe had some aha moments. This segment, if you want to watch again, will be available in our guides in our Facebook support group. And of course, you can also download and listen on any podcast. And it's a reminder, it's about awareness. You don't have to walk away with a big, massive to-do list. We are just starting. It's week one of the program. Dr. Dina Kara Schaefer

hopefully gave you some things that made you go, hmm, okay, interesting here. And she's going to be back for more. She's's gonna be back for more. She's gonna be back for more. We're gonna have a lot more amazing conversations. Did I not tell you it's the conversation that you didn't know you needed to have? And it's so much more than how to set yourself up for success because we need more around here.

Dr. Deana Kara-Shafer, thank you so much. Thank you, Gina, so much. All my best wishes to all the folks who are, you know, your heartfelt attempts, like you're giving it your all. And I love that you have this variety of folks who come on because you're right, no one is coming with any answers, but we're coming with different tools,

different ways of shining the spotlight on maybe something that's worth noticing. And if there's something in one of the things that we phrase, one tiny example or one tiny way that it's been articulated that lands in a good way, phenomenal. So thank you, Gina, for your trust and for everyone's warm welcome. It's beautiful to be here. Amazing. All right. Until next time, everyone.

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