We’re still in the month of January, but we’ve passed the two week mark…meaning resolutions have, generally speaking, been abandoned.

Well, that’s fine. “New Year New Me,” “The diet starts Monday” …it’s all the kind of catchphrase bullshit we tell ourselves to motivate ourselves in our endless pursuit of happiness.

Here’s a secret that no one talks about (outside of the self-help community, anyway)…motivation doesn’t magically appear. It’s a byproduct of taking action every day, even when it feels like everything in your being is fighting against you.

“A body in motion stays in motion; a body at rest stays at rest.” It’s Newton’s First Law of Motion: Action is required to stay in motion.

But there’s a second part, and that’s the part that’s vital. It’s giving yourself full credit for those actions, NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT THEY MAY SEEM TO YOU. 

Noticing every time you improve, acknowledging it. Celebrating it. 

Even leaving one bite behind at dinner or eating 11 cookies instead of 12 - that’s progress. 

YES, IT IS.

WRITE IT DOWN. REMEMBER IT. That’s how you begin.

Yesterday I had an absolutely terrible mental health day. (I used to call it a “bad mind day” but everyone thought I was saying “bad Monday” and would correct me: “Dana, it’s Thursday.”)

I listened to The Office Ladies podcast a few years back with Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, and this is where I learned the simple yet clever concept of depression being like a backpack from Jenna, who lives with depression. 

She refers to her tough days, the days where her depression is very present and makes it more difficult for her to function as she ordinarily would, as “heavy backpack days.”

So back to yesterday. Yesterday I had an anvil in my backpack. 

And on anvil days I have a protocol that I follow: I follow my 5 Pillars (see previous blogs or download my free guide here: 5 Simple Ways to Revolutionize Your Weight Loss) and I do the barest of minimum tasks. I look at my work day and see what absolutely NEEDS to get done. I do those couple of things and that’s it.

And from then on I practice mindful self-care. I read, I journal, I eat what I want while following my hunger cues. I hydrate. I take a nap if I need to.

Yesterday I mustered up the energy to do two things that I’m practicing establishing as new habits: I played piano for 6 minutes and I strapped on my boxing gloves and hit my heavy bag for 3 minutes.

But you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t shame myself for not doing either one of those for longer. I did what I could, and then I told myself how proud I was for it. 

I’m telling YOU how proud I am of myself, too. 

It’s not bragging. It’s pointing out exactly what you need to do to change your trajectory of comfortable misery.

The way I used to be? I would’ve berated myself for my food choices, for not working enough, for not exercising enough, for not dedicating more time to my goal of playing the piano proficiently again. For caving in to my depression.

Today’s backpack is lighter. It’s still heavier than I prefer, but ALLOWING MYSELF to nurture myself the way I needed yesterday made TODAY slightly better.

I didn’t cave in; I leaned in.

A body in motion stays in motion.

When we begin to pay attention and really listen to the way we talk to ourselves, we can begin to change it. And when we are showing ourselves appreciation for those little things, those things grow into bigger ones. 

Because kicking the shit out of yourself doesn’t feel good; therefore, it’s not motivating. It’s discouraging. It’s hurtful. The motion is painful, not joyful.

But can’t we allow for feeling terrible? Feeling miserable?

Of course we can. I felt like nothing was ever going to get better all day yesterday. I felt hopeless and groundless.

But rather than reinforcing it, I chose to tell myself this:

“You’re allowed to feel like this today. But this is temporary.”

Because those feelings are caused by thoughts, and you can choose to work on not believing them.

And every time the feelings of hopelessness welled up, I cried. I wrote my sad, despairing thoughts in my journal to help get them out of my mind and body and on to the page. 

I read a page or two from a Pema Chodron’s book When Things Fall Apart and Dr. Nicole LaPera’s book How To Be The Love You Seek. 

I checked out on Netflix for a couple of hours.

What I didn’t do? Judge myself for not doing enough work.

My dear reader…that’s still really hard for me sometimes. 

Quick story: Last July I was accidentally coached by my mentor Corrine Crabtree. I was at a VIP event she held for her No BS weightloss membership. 

She was coaching many of the women in the room. Now, I wasn’t there to be coached; I was there to learn and to grow my own coaching skills. 

But I kept raising my hand and asking questions or answering the ones she was posing between coaching to the room of 75 women that were there.

So eventually she said to me, “Just get up here, we need to talk about this.”

She asked me what was tripping me up, so I told her about how I would spend every evening thinking, “I didn’t get enough done today,” usually while eating a portion of chocolate covered pretzels that I had in my protocol but wasn’t actually hungry for. 

At the time I still had 20 pounds I wanted to lose, and she said that just sitting with the restless feelings and holding space for the negative thoughts I had instead of eating those pretzels would be seven pounds of that.  

Basically she pointed out the thought loop that I was caught in and how I was still comforting myself with food. I was allowing myself to eat even though I wasn’t hungry to ignore the thought, “I’m not good enough.”

She addressed the room, saying something like, “High achieving type A women do this to ourselves. We often don’t allow ourselves the space to not be busy. We feel like we always have to be DOING something.” 

My reflexive thought was, “Who the fuck is she talking about? I’m not a high-achieving woman. I’ve done nothing of any significance beyond having two children.”

That thought right there? Ouch. That’s the one she was looking for.

I’m still working on that thought, along with the restlessness of thinking that I have to be productive every waking moment of the day.

I previously judged and shamed myself for nearly every bit of my existence since I was a child. After decades of thinking and believing really awful things about myself, that behavior doesn’t change easily.

That seven pounds she mentioned, though? Gone by mid-September.

By learning how to hold space for those feelings (which are still there) AND also allow myself to practice responding to those feelings with compassion and understanding, I’ve changed my life. 

I’ve also unearthed new levels of frustration, restlessness, and disappointment. 

That’s what happens when you grow. You reach a point where you’re feeling amazing about your progress, and then BAM - you ram head first into a wall you didn’t expect.

THAT created a loop for me where I became obsessed with a situation that was hurting me way more than it was helping…I was seeking something external to bring me validation, excitement, something to look forward to. (Dopamine.)

I did that because 1) this work is HARD and 2) I still have that well of sadness, judgement, and shame inside me. It hasn’t vanished; it’s lessened.

Apparently I’m not finding the amount of internal validation that I need yet. I haven’t created a life that I love yet.

And that’s okay. That can take a long time.

I manage things better now. And I continue to acknowledge my progress, no matter how challenging it is to see it some days.

I continue to do the work. I continue to experience all of these feelings while reinforcing to myself that I’m bumping up against a growth edge, not failing. 

And here’s something else no one talks openly about: Things can feel really fucking terrible right before you make a breakthrough.

I know this because it’s been happening to me for five years.  I’ve had some incredible growth happen in that time. My emotional intelligence has expanded; so has my kindness and compassion…for myself and for other people. 

I’m especially proud of how far I’ve come in not taking everything so personally. I’ve released a lot of hurt I’d been carrying around like luggage from insults and criticism in my past.

I’ve come to accept that, as a friend of mine once said to me years ago, “People do what people do.”

So the rejection I’ve experienced recently that felt so personal? I’ve known this entire time in the logical part of my brain that it had nothing to do with me. But the painful feelings of rejection, grief, and loss will need time to fade, because logic doesn’t make what you feel in your heart just disappear. 

You can’t turn off feelings like a faucet; at least I can’t.

Sometimes people get so wrapped up in their own internal drama that hurting others is an unfortunate side effect, not an intention.

In experiencing more emotional pain than I anticipated, I was led to what is now my favorite Pema Chodron quote: "Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us."

Throughout this journey I’ve learned to shift my mindset from “Why is this happening to me?” to “What is this trying to teach me?” 

I still feel ALL of the negative emotions. But instead of ignoring them (therefore storing them in my body as physical pain) or stuffing them down with food and/or alcohol, I’m processing them through my body and mind by:

1. Writing in my journal

2. Writing angry letters I won’t send

3. Screaming in my car

4. Sobbing in the shower

5. (Now that I’m cleared by my doctor to start boxing again ) going HAM on my heavy bag

And beyond the processing of these negative, painful feelings, I ask myself: How can I grow and nurture that indestructible part of myself with compassion and love rather than with bitterness and anger?

And the most fucking rad thing of all is that, by practicing and reinforcing different ways of working through that pain, I’m no longer defaulting to self-harming behaviors.

THAT’S WHY I’m keeping the weight off. It’s not because I made a resolution to eat low carb or intermittently fast.

It’s because I’m learning how to take care of my mind. 

That’s what leads to being ABLE to take care of your body the way you deserve. Full stop.

Love & hugs,

Dana

P.S. This work usually requires guidance. Reach out to me at dana@revolution-within.com and let’s schedule a free consultation.