Oct. 12, 2022

Disappointment Either Way [Ep. 12]

Disappointment Either Way [Ep. 12]

Avoiding negative emotions actually doesn't work that well. Let me teach you how we end up feeling the exact emotions we are trying to avoid! 

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Key takeaways:

  • Disappointment happens in response to a thought
  • The full range of positive and negative emotions is what creates the human experience
  • Learning to experience negative emotions actually produce positive emotions, such as empowerment and confidence
  • More on the model listen to The Self Coaching Model

More from Well with Lisa:

More from Well with Lisa:

Transcript
Lisa:

Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Hey, welcome back. I hope you're enjoying the podcast as much as I am putting it together. If you have any specific topics you'd like to hear, please be sure to let me know. I know last week we had Amy Nash from house of Nash eats. And we were talking about cooking and how to make your, your cooking really great. That seemed pretty popular. So I am thinking you guys might want some more lifestyle things. So let me know. I do have a couple of fun interviews coming up on the Live Well type pillar for the podcast. So. I am excited about some of those, I'm also considering doing some live coaching on the podcast. If you have a topic you're interested in getting coaching on and wouldn't mind it being recorded, let me know. I think that would be so fun. You get some coaching and everyone else gets to hear what coaching is all about. All right. Let's jump into today's topic. It's so fun. If you saw the title, you're like, um, it didn't really sound fun. But thanks for pushing play. Anyway, because today we're going to be talking about disappointment. Disappointment is an emotion. It's a feeling. Which means it's a vibration that goes through your body as a result of a thought. Emotions generally last about 90 seconds. And then will retreat. If we're thinking about something else. If we continue thinking in the same lines as what first caused the emotion, then the emotion will continue to come in waves and we can get stuck in a loop there. But an emotion is a response to a thought and circumstance that happens automatically in the body. Okay. So we are going to be talking about disappointment either way. Which means either way you go, there will be some disappointment. I'm going to walk you through this, but first we need a little recap of the model. So, if you think about the model, we have a circumstance that is neutral. We give that circumstance meaning, or in other words, we have a thought about And because of that thought our brains sends chemicals to the body that we identify as an emotion. We then take certain actions or inactions. If, if it's like procrastination. That in turn give us the result in our lives. That's just a quick and dirty overview of the model, which is the tool I use in coaching. If you want a more in-depth explanation. You can check out my episode on that. It's called the self coaching model and that is episode four. So you can just go to podcast.wellwithlisa.com/4. Okay. So disappointment goes in the feeling lane. Let's give this an actual circumstance. So you know what I'm talking about? Let's say your daughter makes cookies and she's very good at it. And so, you know, they are going to be delicious, but you are thinking I didn't plan those. So I won't be eating them. And you feel sort of disappointed by this. You're like, I know how yummy they are. I really do want one and it's disappointing not to have one. You can process that disappointment and move on with your day processing, by the way, just means that you feel the disappointment. You notice where it is in the body. You don't make any effort to push it down or make it go away. You just allow it to exist. And remember the chemicals that flow through your body with an emotion. Only last about 90 seconds, and then you allow it to dissipate. The other option is to go ahead and eat the cookies. You think how good they are and you have that desire to eat them. You have several, they are delicious. And then the next day you notice the scale didn't move again, or your jeans are feeling tight again. And guess what? You're disappointed. Wait. What. Isn't that fascinating either way. You're going to experience some disappointment. This is crazy, right? Because we eat the cookies. To avoid feeling disappointed that we are missing out on how delicious they are. But there's a good chance when we do this repeatedly that we will not meet our health goals and we will feel disappointed. Let me also acknowledge that we don't gain weight overnight. You don't gain weight from eating three cookies and cause your clothes not to fit. What I'm talking about here is the general overall habit of eating and likely overeating. Every time you want to avoid feeling disappointed that you might be missing out. You might also just feel that disappointment, not really in response to your clothing or the scale. But just in thinking about. Yet again, I didn't eat according to my plan and you'll feel disappointed about that. Negative emotions are just part of life. Our lives really are 50 50. That is 50% of the time we feel positive emotions and 50% of the time we feel negative emotions. It seems like we want to be happy all the time, but really we don't. We actually don't want to always feel positive emotions because we want to be outraged. When we hear of children suffering in the We want to be sad when a loved one dies. We want to be frustrated when people don't agree with us. If we don't have these emotions, we are S sociopath. What I mean, there is a sociopath is characterized by a lack of empathy or remorse sociopath's do not care about, or for others. It is exactly our care and compassion and love that create this outrage and sadness and frustration. Does that make The full range of negative and positive emotions is what creates our humanness. So when we do things like eat cookies in order to avoid feeling a negative emotion, we ultimately are trying to get away from our human experience. And as it turns out, We can't. Because we will end up feeling that disappointment later on. Whether we are disappointed that we aren't being true to ourselves and what we said we wanted for ourselves. Or just disappointed that we aren't meeting the math of our goals. Like our scale weight has gone up. So you get to choose your disappointment. You get to choose which disappointment is going to move you in the direction you want to go. You can choose disappointment ahead of time. Or you can choose it later. And I know I said you would feel disappointment either way, but your emotions might differ. You might call it something else. I just want you to be aware and fully informed that eating a cookie. So you aren't disappointed. Will not prevent disappointment from ever happening. Or eating a treat. So you don't have to feel whatever negative emotion you are feeling. It's not going to prevent it from ever happening or prevent it from coming up later. We also see this in a slightly different way with fear. We let fear get in the way of even starting something. You might be afraid. You're never going to lose weight because you've tried so many times in the past and you let that fear keep you from finding real solutions. And then when you meet with a coach for the first time, or even just listened to this podcast and the mental work that is involved with weight loss. And you say I'm afraid this won't work for me. You're afraid to even do a worksheet. I give you because you're afraid of what might come up. So it's like fear either way, either you sit in fear that you'll never lose weight or you feel fear that what you're trying with using your brain to help you lose weight, my expose some emotional stuff you need to work on. But being willing to feel the fear of taking a look at that emotional stuff is way more likely to get you to your goals. Just being afraid you won't lose weight. Isn't actually creating any movement for you. Here's what's crazy though. And this is really the takeaway from this episode. Deciding you can experience a negative emotion, whether it's disappointment or fear. Actually produces a positive emotion. Because doing hard things. Is empowering. Now the phrase I can do hard things is overused and overdone. I get that. But if you actually put all this stuff in a model like this self coaching model, What you'll find is that feeling that disappointment ahead of time when you choose not to eat the cookies off will actually fill you. With a sense of accomplishment, empowerment, and the realization that you are totally capable of feeling negative emotions. And that you don't need to hide from them. Getting good at feeling and experiencing negative emotions is actually very empowering. Which is an awesome positive emotion. I love. Operating from empowerment. This is also where I point to point out that there is a third scenario available in the disappointment either way, cookie example. I plan cookies or other pleasure type foods for myself on a pretty frequent basis. I do not avoid any food in particular like sugar or flour. What I do do though, is planned for them. I know when I'm going to eat something that isn't a power food. And I mean a power food, as opposed to like the pleasure food. I'm talking about things I'm eating for nutrition and things. I eat for enjoyment. So I make these decisions ahead of time and I allow for plenty of pleasure foods in my week, some weeks, even I plan every day for our pleasure I like this method because nothing is ever off limits to me, but it also puts me in charge of when and what I eat. If you never plan pleasure foods. And so then you are always eating pleasure foods. Quote off plan. You will always feel like you are cheating. And that you shouldn't be doing something in some way or another. Because the truth is you will eat those pleasure foods we all do. And that's fine. But you'll hear all kinds of diet, mentality, language come up in your brain. Like I'm not supposed to have this, or I can't have that. Or I shouldn't have that, things But when you create plans, you don't have to feel that way. I rarely feel that shouldn't can't language because I plan for pleasure foods. I don't feel like I shouldn't be eating Because I already decided ahead of time that I'm going to eat it. This creates tons of abundance in my brain. And so when I decide not to eat something. I don't really have to deal with that much disappointment. Because I know I can either plan it for another day or I know that's just a food that really won't serve me. I know this is going to be helpful for you as you really start to pay attention to the emotions that you are having around food. Let me know what you thought of this concept. Either post in the comment section of the Instagram post for this episode, or just send me a DM on Instagram. And if this emotion stuff is resonating with you and you know, it's time to get some help with your emotions around food. I would really invite you to work with me. One-on-one. My clients are becoming emotionally stronger, as well as seeing the scale move I'd love to have you join me in my eat. Well think well live well, 12 week coaching program. It's the same name as the podcast. We work on all three pillars. We get your food dialed We work on your thoughts. And emotions, and then we make sure there's some good stuff in your life going on as well. We want your life to be amazing. So food doesn't have to do the job of entertainer, comforter and compensator. I even make sure to address actual lifestyle changes such as sleep and exercise that can contribute to your mental health and weight loss. So schedule a time for your free strategy session with me today, and let's get you going right now. Honestly, is a perfect time because 12 weeks from right now, will take you right through the holidays. It's always been so helpful in past years for women that have been my clients during that time, they actually have all said, I'm so glad. That I had you during the holidays. So get that scheduled for yourself and I will talk to you soon. hey, thanks for listening today. If you're ready to get some personalized coaching from me, I'd encourage you to schedule a free strategy session. Visit www.wellwithlisa.as.me or it's easier just to find that link in the show notes. We'll talk about where you currently are with your weight loss goals. And I'll give you some actionable tools. You can start implementing right away. Before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes, right when they're released. And if you're learning something new and enjoying the podcast, I'd love for you to leave me a five star rating and a review. Thanks again for joining me, Lisa Salisbury in this episode of Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well.