Are you trying to hate yourself good?

A couple of days ago, I asked why do you really want to lose weight? 
While wanting to be healthier or fitting into a smaller size pair of pants are not bad reasons for wanting to lose weight, I suggested the real reason we want to lose weight is actually that we are trying to like ourselves more. We think we are broken, and we are trying so hard to get fixed. For so many of us, losing weight is part of the quest to get there, and there is where we will find our happiness. 

This has totally been a true story for me. I have spent a lot of time in my life thinking that once I lost weight, I would find happiness. I thought I had to lose weight to be liked more by others or worthy enough to be loved. I have done all the things (joined the gyms and created the meal plans) and have lost weight only to gain it back and then totally blamed it on the fallacy that something was really wrong with me. And the few times I had gotten to a much smaller size (I got there), life was still 50/50- there was not a miraculous spell of happiness that fell upon me. Losing weight allowed me to not beat myself up as much, but it did not solve my problems. Talk about a helpless place to be.

We believe in getting there and finding happiness so hard, and we do all the things we have been told to get there. We choose food plans (that we do not enjoy). We create exercise goals (that make us want to cry). We do these things as a means to the end of getting there. But we missed the most important part... and that is that happiness is not the destination, but is actually a necessary element in the journey if we are ever really going to get there. We fixate on what is wrong with us and try to hate ourselves into a better place as if hating ourselves enough will make us good. 

What if we focused on what we were already amazing at rather than focusing on what we needed to fix? How might that change our results? Don't we treat those we love better than those we despise? I want to propose that this is why we are not only not hitting our weight loss goals but also other goals we have set in so many areas of our lives-  that reason is that we do not like ourselves enough to treat ourselves with love and compassion. We think we can beat ourselves into someone or something better. It's a vicious cycle... We don't like something about us, so we need to be fixed, which causes us to focus on actions that we dread to be better, all the long beating ourselves up and waiting for happiness. 

What is your brain telling you about YOU? How are you talking to yourself? Are you inadvertently trying to hate yourself good? 

I work with my clients to help them identify the thoughts that are driving their results. I'd love to help teach you the skills to overcome this and get the outcomes you truly desire. Please click here to schedule your complimentary coaching session to explore what coaching could bring to your life.

Sincerely,
Donda