If you’ve been stuck – repeating the same patterns over and over again, it’s likely because you’re focusing on the outside more than you’re paying attention to the inside.
You’re focusing on the result (or outcome). Such as:
- Weight gain/loss or scale not moving
- Clothes not fitting
- Emotional Over-eating or Over-drinking (or Over-anything)
- Symptoms not improving
- Health worsening
- Less than ideal lifestyle patterns
- Debt
- Unhappiness in life/work/relationships
Which leads you to focus on the action plans (process) to get different results:
- Meal plan/diet plan/macros/recipes
- Detox plan/abstinence plan/elimination plan/protocol/cleanse
- Workout plan
- Supplement plan
- Go to bed earlier plan
- Savings/Spending plan
- Career transition plan
But the plan requires that YOU implement it – consistently – forever… and that’s the inside job.
This is the work.
Let’s say you want to stop overeating.
It’s making you gain weight, it hurts your gut, it makes you sluggish, you feel out of control and it just doesn’t feel good. < That’s your OUTCOME (the outer circle).
You make your eating plan. You know all the foods you’re going to eat – how much you’ll eat… you stock your fridge with all the veggies, protein and fats, you meal prep and you throw away all the tempting junk. < That’s the PROCESS (the 2nd circle)
That’s all great stuff, BUT….
Your habitual, subconscious patterns – are still there in the inner circle. This is what the book, Atomic Habits, refers to as your IDENTITY.
Who you identify yourself as being is who you will be.
You will always be compelled to act in accordance with your identity.
In other words, how you identify yourself drives your thoughts, feelings and actions – more than your desires and plans.
This inner belief will always lead you back to what’s familiar and congruent with your identity.
Anything outside of your well established identity is considered unsafe, uncertain, unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
SO….Unless you start to shift your identity to someone who doesn’t overeat, you’ll likely foil your plans/processes and results/outcomes.
You’ll set up your plan and stick to it for a while, but “something” will set you off course (often called a “trigger”).
It could be “stress”, a special occasion or social event, a global pandemic, or just everyday thoughts that create feelings of overwhelm, hopelessness, deservedness, rebellion, deprivation, rationalization or disconnect…
Next thing you know you’ll find yourself automatically reverting to the old pattern – as if you were possessed by it.
As if you couldn’t control it.
Like IT was controlling you.
And this is where I’ve experienced my own disconnect with drinking wine in the past.
My old identity:
The Partier.
I liked to party! I partied all through high school, college and my 20s. All my old friends partied too.
Then when I got older and developed more sophisticated identities:
Health Conscious Mom. Successful Executive. Career Leaping Nutritionist who drinks “clean” wine.
Wine’s not ‘bad’ and I still enjoy wine, but I just don’t identify with it like I used to.
Wine is not who I am.
My goal Self – a mindful, authentic, aligned, balanced human – is who I am.
I’m now someone who can take it or leave it.
I had to let go of old Ev to become Ev 2.0.
I have other clients that are VERY attached to their protein bars or cheese, or cream and sugar or bananas. Or Spin class, or Crossfit, or shopping, or binge watching Netflix.
It’s not that these things are ‘bad’, it’s your attachment and identification with them that may be negatively creating results in your life that you no longer tolerate…
One of my favorite clients had a self diagnosed “sugar addiction”. She was an excellent baker and always made amazing treats for her kids, family and friends.
After putting on 50 pounds through the decades and through peri-menopause. She felt desperate and decided to work with me. She was getting sick of how she looked in pictures, getting winded climbing a flight of stairs in her 40s. She was too young to feel so old and was ready for a change.
She was keto curious and showed signs of insulin resistance so we got her “fat adapted” on a flexible, personalized keto plan. She immediately started to lose weight.
Of course, she wanted to focus on the diet. “I need more ideas! Do you have more recipes?”
She was about half way through her program and lost about half of her 50 pounds – almost effortlessly – because she was very focused and felt so great – and this was only with her relying on those outer two rings.
We didn’t really “need” to go to the identity piece too much at first because her identity had become “keto”. Keto took care of the “sugar addiction” because there was no sugar involved.
BUTTTTTT……
The longer she was at it, the more she encountered cravings for “keto treats”…. —- which are totally fine in and of themselves —-
BUTTTT she hit a pretty lengthy plateau for several weeks eating them.
Why? It’s not just the Swerve, nuts and almond flour…
It’s that she slipped back into overeating…but now she was just overeating Keto foods instead of regular sugar and flour foods.
Same outcome.
This is where her old identity of using foods to show love – using food to distract herself – using food to avoid uncomfortable feelings – began to emerge…
In her case, she had a lot of job stress and the paradox of boredom/unfulfilling work, loneliness with the kids not needing her as much – no one to bake for anymore…
This was the real work. The inner identity.
Keto alone could only take her so far. That was the outer.
Once we worked on helping her connect:
- How she was using keto treat foods to soothe her blah/bad feelings..
- She let go of that old part of her identity and connect more with her new identity.
- She was able to stop overeating.
- She learned to feel, express and let go of the thoughts and patterns – the busyness – the boredom – that were no longer serving her…
- More weight released and her new identity became stronger.
As she let go of the weight of the world, she let go of the weight.
She had a few slips here and there, but the more she got in front of them, learned from them, the more she actually applied her awareness tools before overeating – the more skilled she became at allowing discomfort.
She was too smart and strong to let her old twisted habits continue. In her words. “This is Bullshit! I’m better than this. I’m smarter than this. I’m done.”…and as soon as she chose to honor that commitment to herself, she really was done.
Not too long after, she reached and has maintained her goal weight, but most importantly, she has healed her relationship with food, with her emotions, with her body, with her true identity – her Self.
Even her work and relationships have shifted…. but only because she had to learn to accept and allow her uncomfortable feelings to be experienced without masking them with food. She had to find fulfillment and release in something other than food.
This is what paved the way for total transformation.
Her identity had to change too.
And THAT IS the real work.
xo,
Ev
