Your Inner Critic with Andrea Hanson [Ep. 17]

Lisa: 0:03

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. Hi, everyone. I have a super fun show for you today, but before we get into it, I just want to remind you that, you know, Thanksgiving is next week. So if you haven't listened to handling the holidays, which is episode 15, I know you'll get a lot out of that. So don't forget to go listen to that. Also, don't forget when you share the podcast, just like a screenshot to your stories while you're listening here, tag me in that, and I'll send you a gift card to Starbucks, no limit on that. So anytime you do it, I'll buy your drink for this morning. Okay. I have Andrea Hanson on the podcast today as my guest, and we had such a fun time with this one. I actually laughed several times out loud as I was editing this one because we laughed a lot. I tell you some of my terrible inner thoughts, and it's also just really informative and inspiring. Andrea is a master certified coach and works a lot with the inner critic that we all have. She does. So primarily with those that have autoimmune illnesses, but I don't want that talk at the beginning here as she's introducing herself to put you off from listening to this show because her work is totally applicable to all women, especially to those of us trying to make changes to her health. And that is why I invited her here on the show. So. Without further ado here is our conversation. All right. Uh, I just wanna welcome Andrea Hansen to our podcast today. So we are gonna start with an introduction from,

Andrea: 2:01

Hi Lisa. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and talking to everybody. I am a master certified life and mindset coach. I am also an author of two books talking about positive mindsets and living with a chronic illness. Um, my books are Live Your Life, Not your Diagnosis and Stop carrying the weight of your ms. And I just, a few months ago recently started a, my podcast. Live your life, not your diagnosis. Where I talk to people who are living with a chronic illness, but doing amazing things with their lives to show that having a chronic illness does not mean that your life has to stop at all.

Lisa: 2:42

That is awesome. Thank you. Oh, like what kinds of chronic illnesses do you highlight on that show?

Andrea: 2:47

A lot of them are autoimmune. So I have multiple sclerosis, which is an autoimmune disorder, and a lot of people that I speak with ha, I mean, there's. So many different autoimmune disorders. That's not necessarily narrowing it down, but the idea is not that it's necessarily a specific chronic illness, it's just the idea of a chronic illness is specific in itself to where it's a diagnosis that often has no cure. But is something that we can work on both, you know, medically and holistically and naturally, and calm our bodies, calm the symptoms. And it's also something that we have to always keep at least one eye on because as life. It goes, Some things are gonna be stressful. We're gonna have things happen. As you know, life is, and we always have to keep an eye on, okay, how is this affecting my health? How is this going to affect my health? How do I need to moderate what I'm doing or what's going on on our lives to make sure my health stays okay? So it's the idea that with a chronic illness, you're always. Taking an inventory of what's going on with your life and looking at how you can minimize that stress.

Lisa: 4:00

Awesome. Well, one thing that drew me to Andrea was her work on the inner critic, and I know with my clients, This comes up a lot because I work with those that want to lose weight, and so we often talk to ourselves horribly because we feel like this weight, it's all quote unquote, our fault, and so we're very, very critical of that. So let's jump in with that. Tell us how you define the inner critic and where does that come?

Andrea: 4:34

So I define the inner critic as really that. It's within that ecosystem that we all have in our minds, right? That that dialogue that we have going and what we're saying to ourselves, and sometimes it's something that's totally normal, like, Oh, I need to figure out what. I'm gonna have for dinner tonight. And sometimes that dialogue says something like, Oh, I better make sure I don't eat pasta because that's gonna make me fat Right? It's

Lisa: 5:06

mm-hmm.

Andrea: 5:06

sometimes it's just normal dialogue and sometimes it comes in and says things that are horrible and not even necessarily true and mean, and make us feel just deflated. Deflated, I want, I'm meant to say, deflated and defeated. And so sometimes our dialogue is just gonna be something that's normal and sometimes it's gonna be something that's really horrible and really mean and it's just going to make us feel defeated. And so that is when the inner critic comes in, right? The inner critic is that voice, I like to call it the inner mean girl.

Lisa: 5:44

mm-hmm.

Andrea: 5:45

that voice that is, it can be anything, right? It can be repeating something that we heard when we were five from our, you know, teacher. It can be repeating something that we just read somewhere on the internet, and we think that's true. It can, it can be saying all sorts of stuff and it plays on all of our, uh, insecurities and things that we're worried about. it's a voice in our head and it's a way that we talk to ourselves that often we have talked to ourselves like that for quite a while, and so we don't even necessarily realize that it is something that's happening because to us it just sounds normal and it just sounds natural. And it's not until we really look at it that we can tease out and realize like, Wow, I'm saying some really mean things and they're making me feel. Really bad

Lisa: 6:35

mm-hmm.

Andrea: 6:36

or really upset

Lisa: 6:39

So sometimes you're saying it just is like the regular inner voice. We don't even realize how awful it is because we don't realize other people don't talk to themselves in that way. Or maybe that other people are having a different experience in their brains.

Andrea: 6:54

Yeah, I mean it's, it's the regular dialogue that we have in our head and sometimes it can get really, really mean and chances are other people are doing it too, right? I think everybody can relate to. Talking to ourselves in a way that we would never talk to somebody else. Like I say things in my head, right? Like I say things in my head that I will never say to my friends, and I think we can all relate to that. And that is your inner critic. That's, that's where that's coming from. And as far as the origin of the inner critic, that's something. A lot of people have a lot of different theories. It depends on what, type of psychology you're seeing it through, right? What lens of psychology you're looking at it through, right? Some people say it's your ego. Some people say it's your it. Some people say that it's Different parts of your brain. I mean, there's so many different, you know, it's your lizard brain, It's, there's so many different ways to say where it came from. I think that it doesn't necessarily matter so much where it comes from. It just matters that it's there and what you're saying to yourself and that you can change it.

Lisa: 8:03

Yeah. I sometimes think it comes from, and this, I mean, like you said, there's tons of different theories, but I often think it comes from that need to belong that we all have as part of our dna because we. really come from tribal ancestry, which is how the human race existed for so long. And we have this strong need to belong to the tribe. And so if someone doesn't like us, then that's certain death if you get kicked out of the tribe. And so I feel like some of that inner critic comes from making sure that we're liked. And so it's like, Don't do that. Don't do this wrong. Don't do that wrong. Don't look like that. Don't be like that. And. I wonder if it comes somewhat from that need to belong.

Andrea: 8:51

Absolutely. And that's that lizard brain, right? That's our social self taking over. That is the ego that wants to make sure that we are accepted and we are doing things that are socially accepted so we don't kick, get kicked out of, like you said, like of the group. Because way back when that meant literally that we were. Gonna be eaten, Right.

Lisa: 9:16

Right.

Andrea: 9:17

whatever is chasing us. Uh, so yeah, I think it does. I think it's this idea that we need to conform either to societal norms, or to health norms. it can come from something that we very much want for ourselves. It can come from a very good place. It doesn't have to be, Oh, well, I have to keep up with the Jones's and so I'm gonna be mean to myself. It can come from a place of, I know it's really healthy for my body, for it to be. You know this way, or I know it's really healthy for me to not eat cheesy poofs or soda or things like that, right? It can come from a good place, but then it can get twisted into, if I have another can of soda, I'm gonna have a, you know, a heart attack and this is gonna happen, and why can't you stop drinking soda? And what's wrong with you that you can't stop drinking? So, Right. It can spiral

Lisa: 10:13

It's the what's the, what's wrong with you statements. I think that are some of the worst.

Andrea: 10:19

Yeah.

Lisa: 10:20

But Yeah, when you're talking about food and thinking about what you're going to eat, and especially, I notice this a lot too with getting people that are quote unquote, getting into the gym, getting back to exercise. They think like if, if I'm not hard on myself, Then I won't do it. Or they think I, I have to be hard on myself. I have to think that I'm wrong in some way, that my body looks wrong, that I, you know, behave wrong. And that is what's motivating. If I love my body, if I love myself, I'm not gonna be motivated to do anything. And so they think that keeping up this mean dialogue is what's motivating.

Andrea: 11:03

Right.

Lisa: 11:04

We know as coaches that is completely untrue and possibly the exact opposite of the truth, but why? Why do we continue as women especially to think that being so hard on ourselves is what's motivating us to get healthy,

Andrea: 11:22

Yeah, and I think It's a very layered answer because on one level, this idea of tough love. Has very much been a part of our culture for a while, and the idea that I've gotta be tough on myself because I want this good thing to happen, and it's something where we can see short term. Gains, like sometimes this tough love approach to ourselves, right? Go ourselves or, or you know, making ourselves not be lazy and get to the gym. Um, with this example, sometimes that works, but the thing is, it is not gonna work long term

Lisa: 12:04

Yeah, that's a short term solution for

Andrea: 12:06

Yeah. And so really what we all need, you know, more than how long you work out at one time or even necessarily what you're doing. We need that consistency. It's the fact that we're doing it. Every day, every other day, whatever it is that you're, you know, you wanna do, it's the consistency that matters. And so, even though tough love can maybe motivate you, if it's something that you react to in a good way that can get to you, to the gym for the first month, two months, or whatever, it's not going to work for the consistent changes that you need for lifestyle. It's just not gonna work that way. And so we see that it works short term. And then because really on that deeper level, it doesn't make us feel good. It doesn't make us feel motivated in a loving, energetic way. That's not gonna work. And we start to see ourselves drop off. And then we go into another cycle of being mean to ourselves of, Oh, why can't I keep up with this? Why can't I keep doing this? Why can't, Right. And that just,

Lisa: 13:18

again, with the, like, What's wrong with me?

Andrea: 13:21

What's wrong with me? Right. So we think it works and it might work for some people short term, but it's not gonna work, I promise. It's not gonna work for a long term thing. And as far as why do we go there with the tough love, I think again, I think it's something that is baked into our culture. It's something you see, like how often do you see like, Especially going to the gym. How often do you see personal trainers doing things like boot camp and like, Let's go. We've gotta do this and, and it's a big problem, so we've gotta attack it. And I think it just kind of, it, it folds in with the, Let's go, let's go. And, and like, I had a trainer, what did he tell me? He told me Sweat is weakness leaving my body. That's what he told

Lisa: 14:04

Oh, Oh dear

Andrea: 14:08

But that can be a, a big part of that culture and we think that that's what we need because everybody that has these bodies and has this fitness level that we want. Seemingly are like that. So why can't we do that with ourselves and make it work? And so it's just, I think it's something that happens with this inner critic is not all of our thoughts are ours, right? Very few of our thoughts are unique to us and created by us. A lot of times. Our mind will just. Pull in thoughts that we hear from other people and other things, and we think it works and kind of adapt it to us. And so I think a lot of times if you looked at the mean thoughts that you had in your head, a lot of times, like when I'm talking with people and working with them on this, and they'll have, they'll be looking, I'll have them write them down, write down their thoughts, and they'll look at it and they'll be like, Oh my God, that's not even mine. You know who told me that my gym teacher in third grade told me that

Lisa: 15:08

Oh, no,

Andrea: 15:08

you know, like I can't believe I've had this in my head the whole time. But a lot of times our brain just kind of takes on other people's thoughts and other thoughts in our society that we hear, and that can be another, another reason for it, I think. On top of that, I think it's just, if you wanna go even deeper, I think it's just the idea that women are harder on themselves than men are. And women see in society that society is harder on women than it is on men. And so we internalize that and we, again put it into our thinking and our mindset, and it turns into being quite mean to ourselves. Much meaner, I think, than most men.

Lisa: 15:54

Yeah. Yeah. And thinking that we're just gonna motivate ourselves by being mean. It really is kind of a form of willpower, which I always say is so similar to a muscle in that it fatigues. It fatigues over the day. It's why we rarely eat an entire chocolate cake for breakfast, but sometimes find ourselves doing that after dinner because that if we're just depending on willpower. which is to me a form of this inner critic, which is, you better do this. Hold on tight. It's, it's not a really kind way of looking at yourself. And so that willpower, it wears out. Whether it wears from, from morning till evening, or like you said over the month of, say, going to the gym, that willpower of getting yourself there by virtue of just being so mean to yourself, it's just gonna tire and. It's not a problem that willpower doesn't work. You just have to be fueled by a more positive emotion.

Andrea: 16:56

Right? Yeah. And, and I think that when you have a better way of talking to yourself, when you have a better dialogue, that will encourage energy. And there's nothing wrong with willpower, it's just that it's not meant for things like diet working out. Like

Lisa: 17:18

Not for long term success.

Andrea: 17:21

that's just not what, it's what really the best way of using willpower. Um, and so when you change the dialogue, one of the things that. my clients say when we're doing this work is how much more energy they have, because you really can wear yourself down because these mean thoughts in your head. It's not like you're doing it in isolation. It's not like if you're sitting down and thinking about, Okay, I need to work out, and in that moment is when you're mean, but then all other moments, you're fine. That's not how it works. It's these mean thoughts. Running through your head constantly. They're like in the background, like you're not even really aware that they're happening. It's kind of like when you wear clothes, like when you wear your shirt, chances are you don't feel your shirt right now. It doesn't mean you're not wearing it, it just means that you're so accustomed to it and so used to it. You just don't pay attention to it because you don't need to pay attention to it. And that's the way our thoughts are. So as we have these thoughts, and a lot of times they're the same ones over and over again, and they're these mean thoughts that are creating emotions when we think them. But they're running in our heads and we're so used to them being there, we don't even really pay attention to them, and they just kind of run on this loop. And so that is constantly giving us little pings of feeling depressed and feeling upset and feeling deflated and all of these little things, and that robs energy.

Lisa: 18:52

So say your client then, or any of our listeners are feeling that twinge of depression. Of course this isn't for clinical depression, but if we're just having a down day and we're like not really aware, could it be that constant dialogue in the back of our heads that we're not really aware of? And secondly, How do we become aware of it so that it can be changed? Which of course we don't wanna constantly jump to our, what we call in coaching, our intentional model, which is our intentional thought and feeling before we're really processing what's happening. But over time we do want to have a a different intentional thought. So how do we kind of make that switch?

Andrea: 19:38

I think the first thing to really be aware of is that these thoughts are not unconscious thoughts, right? We're not completely unaware, never to be aware. It is very, very easy to become aware of what we're thinking. just has to be something that we pay attention to,

Lisa: 19:59

I have to say, this is something I've been struggling with myself, I've noticed like a really flat affect lately. I've noticed I'm just kind of like depressed that like where I'm like, what is happening? And I'm just as we're talking, I'm like, is there something that I'm not, that I'm not hearing? And that's kind of what fueled that question.

Andrea: 20:20

Yeah. So. I think that these thoughts that are going on in our heads absolutely can contribute to feeling, feeling depressed. Right? Little de depressed. Like you said, not like we're not talking clinical here, but you can feel depressed, right? Without it being like a big clinical situation.

Lisa: 20:38

Right. It's an emotion

Andrea: 20:39

It's an emotion. That's exactly right. And so these thoughts do contribute to these emotions, and just because we're not necessarily aware of them all the time, especially if you're coming into this and you're thinking, Wow, I might have been talking to myself like this the whole, my whole life. How do I really even know? It's because, you know, we're so used to it, we're not paying attention to it. but that's, that's the answer, right? All you have to do is pay attention. And so instead of. Launching into a big thing that can be overwhelming. To be honest, when we first start looking at how we're really talking to ourselves, it can get, alarming just how bad it is. I know I was horrified when I first really started looking at all the things that I was saying. I would say don't feel like you have to jump in and know all the things immediately. cuz that's gonna be overwhelming. but you can start with things like, like situations, right? So you can look at, a, I would go, I would even just start with something that's even more neutral. You don't even have to look at something where you know you're beating yourself up, but you can say like, Hey, I had ice cream for dessert. Let's just say, what do I think about that? What do I think about having ice cream for dessert? And you can just sit and write down, just make a list of all the things that pop up into your head, and the more that you write, I think the more aware you're gonna be of what you're saying. So it might be, at first your thought was, I like ice cream. I like chocolate ice cream. I want more ice cream than I was gonna really eat. And then you're gonna start to see if those thoughts are in there. It's gonna be, I always want more ice cream. I should never eat, I always eat more ice cream than I should. I, I eat too much ice cream sugar is bad for me. Right? You're gonna start to see that spiral.

Lisa: 22:41

and I can tell you where all those come from. When we were talking about where things come from, that's the diet industry,

Andrea: 22:47

Absolutely.

Lisa: 22:48

I'm always like, get rid of those diet mentality thoughts whenever we hear those like should and should and can't and not supposed to and

Andrea: 22:57

And I think the whole diet industry was built on that tough love, right? It's all of these little. Underhanded things like, you really shouldn't eat that because don't you love yourself and you really should lose weight because you could be so pretty if you lose weight. Right. It's, it's just that whole thing in that diet industry is, Predicated on this tough love dialogue. So that's a way to really dip in and there's all sorts of ways that you can do it. one thing I like to do with my clients is have them look at themselves in the mirror and then write down, And this, this is something that is a little bit sneaky cuz you think on it, on the surface like, Oh, that's easy. Just look at yourself in the mirror. Know that that can be really hard for some.

Lisa: 23:47

Mm-hmm.

Andrea: 23:48

so if you think, Oh, okay, I'm gonna do this exercise where I look at myself in the mirror and then start noticing what my thoughts are, If just the idea of that is off putting or like, No, no, no, no, I can't do that. There's no way. Notice the thoughts and why you don't wanna do it. right? What are often it's you're afraid of how you're gonna be talking to yourself. So what are those thoughts that you're afraid of? So you don't even necessarily have to look in the mirror if that's something that really bothers you, it can be, Okay, why don't I wanna look in the mirror? What am I thinking is gonna happen? What am I thinking? I'm gonna say to myself, that could be a good entry point. If looking in the mirror is something that is, it feels okay and feels good, look yourself in the eye. Right. And if looking at yourself, you in the eye. Right? And, and you can, you can up level every single one of those. But that's often a really good way to just start just having one instance where you can start looking at your thoughts surrounding that. And that can be a really good window into how you're talking to yourself and what that inter mean girl is saying. we don't have. You know, thousands of unique thoughts in our heads, in our every day, right? We have the same thoughts. And so chances are what you're thinking when you're looking at having ice cream for dessert or what you're thinking when you're looking at yourself in the mirror is the same thing you're thinking about when you're trying on clothes or when you're looking, if you're looking at the scale, if you're looking at a meal play, right, it's chances are it's the same type of thing.

Lisa: 25:22

Yeah. Cause we're always like, you have like 60,000 thoughts a day. They're not a different 60,000 than what you had yesterday. You tend to say the same general mean things to yourself day after day after day, which is why it becomes so painful,

Andrea: 25:37

right. I mean, think about it, how exhausting that would be if we had

Lisa: 25:40

so exhausting,

Andrea: 25:41

different thoughts in our heads every single day.

Lisa: 25:44

but also so exhausting to hear that same mean one every day.

Andrea: 25:49

And just because we're not aware of it doesn't mean it's not working in our heads and creating emotions and creating, uh, you know, the actions that we're doing.

Lisa: 25:58

Yeah. So when we have this loud inner critic, like what do we see on the exterior?

Andrea: 26:04

Mm-hmm.

Lisa: 26:05

Like what is a common effect, of having a loud inner critic? What do, how do we see that show up in behavior?

Andrea: 26:13

A lot of times it can quiet you, right? A lot of times my clients say, You know, I used to be so outspoken. I used to be so willing to answer the question or speak up in meetings or try new things or make new friends, right? It really, can inhibit us from being as outgoing as we normally are or speaking up as much as we are used to speaking up. It can make us mute ourselves because this judgment that is happening in our head can happen very quickly. And so if say you're in a group and you wanna speak up in your head very quickly, if this is kind of where your mean girl goes, you can realize this is what I wanna say. They're gonna think it's stupid. I don't really wanna say that and then not say anything. Right? And so it can really show up. Not being able to say your opinion, not feeling like you have a voice, or that you can really speak your mind because you're afraid of what other people are gonna think. Right? It plays out and really being worried about, it's that social self right that we were talking about before, that lizard brain where you, it can show up as being very afraid of what other people think of you. which is why again, you kind of mute yourself. It can show up in lack of confidence, in insecurities, in not necessarily following through with a lot of things, right? Getting to that specific a lot of times. We're very good at getting to a specific spot in a goal that we're gonna have, and then falling off and then having to muster up that confidence. And then we feel like we're starting again. So we kind of feel like we're still, We're always doing the first like 25% of a goal before we fall off, and a lot of times it's our inner critic that is contributing to us falling off and not just getting back on and finish. Whatever that goal is. So there's a lot of things that are left, started, but never finished.

Lisa: 28:22

Okay. That's me. I gotta do some inner critic work. I'm like, Andrea's describing me

Andrea: 28:28

Yeah.

Lisa: 28:29

I tend to be a starter. Yeah. In fact, someone asked me recently, so have you like, continued doing that podcast every week? And I'm like, um, yes. Like, and I was, and I thought, oh no. Does she think I'm not a finisher as well?

Andrea: 28:46

right? Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: 28:48

Which then of course my inner critic is like, It's cuz you're not

Andrea: 28:54

She doesn't think so because you're not, She knows.

Lisa: 28:58

She knows.

Andrea: 29:00

that's exactly right. Yeah. Cuz often when we, you know, when we start, if, I mean, and this is really any, any goal, but a lot of times when we start the goal, that's when we're doing things either in the background. Or we're doing things that not a lot of people are seeing either. If it's, let's say that's going to the gym, like the first 25% of that goal, you're not necessarily, you know, you're, you're building up muscle and you're feeling differently, but nobody's really seeing many changes and it, you know, once you get to that point, After that is when like your body starts to change and people start noticing things. People start really tuning into your podcast and asking like, Oh my gosh, what's next week? And, and where can I hear? Right? And that's when it starts to get a little bit more public. Whatever it is that you're doing, right? If you're changing how you're eating, you can start and do it just on your own or just figuring out how to do it when you. Cooking at your house, but then you do it for a certain amount of time, then you're gonna start to go out with friends and they're gonna see what you're eating or what you're not eating, and that's when you're gonna have to start making decisions more publicly. And our inner critic often will at that point be like, Well, what are people gonna think? And are you gonna be able to carry this on? Because if they start noticing you're doing this, what if you don't keep doing it and then they notice that you failed and that you don't do it. Right. It's, it's that whole inner critic hopping in.

Lisa: 30:30

like, Uhhuh, Uhhuh. That's what mine sounds like it. it. sounds a lot too, like, what we sometimes call people pleasing, which is just saying yes when we mean no or the

Andrea: 30:43

Absolute symptom of your inner critic. For sure. I mean, this is all how we're talking to ourselves, right? How we talk to ourselves is really like the epicenter of all of these other things, right? It starts with how we talk to ourselves. It start to starts with how we make ourselves feel with how we're talking to ourselves, and it resonates out to. Confidence. Two, You know when you have that confidence, you are more confident putting up boundaries. When you are confident putting up boundaries, you're not really people pleasing and you're confident, not people pleasing. And when you're not, you know, people pleasing, you're not worried so much about what other people are thinking and you're not taking responsibility for what people are thinking, right? And so this whole thing kind of resonates out. So when that epicenter is more positive, really having your own back it has that ripple effect where you're more confident and all these other things are happening. You feel more confident speaking out. You just feel more like yourself. But when that epicenter is you just tearing yourself down, which I'm gonna be honest, sometimes when we really, I mean, it's what happened when I started to really look at my inner critic, I, it was, it was a blood bath in there. It was horrible. It was horrible to. And I could see it rippling out into low confidence. When you have low confidence, you have some really bad boundaries. You do some serious people pleasing. You don't really follow through with things. You really worry about what other people are thinking. You don't necessarily make decisions for yourself. You go with the flow of what other people say you should be doing, right? So you start listening to other people more than you start listening to yourself. You start ignoring that inner. Guidance that we all have that really says what's best for us. And so it really is this ripple effect where the center of it all is how we're talking to ourselves.

Lisa: 32:30

Yeah. It's so tricky for me when I think about people pleasing because. I worry, and maybe this is my inner critic worrying for me, that if I get to the point where I don't care what other people think, then is that selfish? Then I'm like, But then what will they think if they know, I don't care what they think. I'm like, Oh wait, I haven't gotten to the point yet, but

Andrea: 32:57

I love that you just said that cuz that is absolutely true. Sometimes we overlook that and we think if I don't care what other people are thinking, I'm gonna be this menace to society. That

Lisa: 33:07

Yes.

Andrea: 33:13

Yeah. Like it's this, this worry about what other people think of us that keeps us in check and y. Yeah. Yeah, and I think that all comes from this. We're still looking at ourselves the way our inner critic kind of looks at us, right?

Lisa: 33:29

Hmm.

Andrea: 33:29

So, Right. She is everywhere. But here's the thing though, is once you stop looking at yourself through the lens of that critic and start looking at yourself through your authentic lens, we realize that it's not worrying what other people think that keeps us, quote unquote in check. It's our own sense of morality. It's our own sense of what is ethical and what is good and what is contributing to society and what we want to do, right? It's, it's this whole other area that our inner critic just kind of pushes aside and says like, That doesn't matter, that doesn't exist. But once you stop looking at yourself through that lens of the inner critic, you realize like, No, I am a good moral. Ethical person who just wants to do my best and you know, help in community do whatever it is that you wanna do. But chances are you're not this mena to society that is only being kept in check by worrying what other people are gonna think of you

Lisa: 34:37

That's hilarious. Okay, so we've pretty clearly identified what it sounds like in our brains, how it looks on the outside, so, What do you have for some actionable things? We talked about writing some things down. When you're looking in the mirror, when you're thinking about certain actions, What else can we do to calm that inner critic, to, replace her perhaps? I feel like it's possible that she'll always be there, but I've learned to quiet her and and to ignore her more often than I used to. That's for sure.

Andrea: 35:19

Yeah, I think it's a little bit of all of that. really. I think first and foremost awareness is. A big, big deal. So the idea of really being aware of what is happening in our heads is really important because without that awareness, we cannot. Take those steps to, soothe the inner critic, which is really what we're doing. so awareness is not to be, dismissed because it is a huge, huge part and depending on how much awareness you're starting with, a lot of times we just know that we're really mean to ourselves, but we don't necessarily know exactly how mean we are and exactly what we're saying.

Lisa: 36:06

Yeah, the exact words, like it's not just, and it's not really enough to be like, Yeah, I know I have a mean girl in my head. Like, we really need to know what she's

Andrea: 36:15

What she's saying. And so that step is actually very, very big. And like I said, it could be alarming and it can be a lot, It can be overwhelming. So it's actually something that I encourage people to take their time with. Don't get antsy, because just through that awareness we are able to kind of discard a lot of stuff. It's kind of like when you're cleaning out that, you know, we all have that drawer that has. Everything that we've put in it for years and we don't even know what's in there and we're scared. We're like, I know I need to clean that door out. I'm so scared what I'm gonna find. It could be like old slime from when your kid was like three just sitting there, right? And so we look in that drawer and it can be very easy for some things to just go straight to the. And like, don't even think about that again. Like I will, some things you're gonna find, you're gonna be like, Oh, maybe I wanna hold onto that. I don't know. What am I gonna do with it? And, and so some of the things in that drawer are gonna be, you know, you kind of wanna hold onto it even though you don't really know if it's helpful or, or useful. And then some stuff you know, is, you know, gonna be good and you wanna keep, and you can't believe you forgot about it in that drawer and you wanna put it in another place where you can use it every single day.

Lisa: 37:30

Yeah. Cause not all our thoughts are terrible.

Andrea: 37:33

No,

Lisa: 37:34

Yeah. Let's not feel, let's not feel really bad. Everybody that's listening, not, not everything you think is coming from this inner critic. So yeah, some things in the drawer were like, Oh, I am good at this.

Andrea: 37:45

this is great. Like this is a, these are like a really good pair of scissors. I forgot. We're in the drawer and I am totally gonna use it. So that's kind of like what happens when we start looking at our thoughts, right? Some thoughts, Just that awareness piece. It's gonna be like old slime thoughts that have been sitting there and you're like, Ugh, I don't even like this. I don't even know where it came from. Like who did even like, this doesn't even fit and it's gonna be very easy. Kind of release, so, So that awareness piece is really, really big and actually kind of a sneaky way to start getting rid of some of those thoughts that just aren't serving us, that are, you know, pretty mean. I think another piece is to realize that, yeah, we call it the inner critic. We call, you know, I call her my inter mean girl. Some of my clients name them You know, like I call her Madge I call her, you know, whatever it is. But knowing that it's not like this is some, you know, other worldly thing that just happens to be in our head. Like, this is our brain, this is us, this is a piece of who we are. And when you look at it from that perspective, There's not gonna be a piece, you know, And, and I think you, I'm sure you talk about this when you're talking about health, like just because we wanna change a part of our health doesn't mean it's an evil part of our body. Right. Just because I want my stomach to be smaller doesn't mean my stomach is awful and evil. It needs to leave. Right. It's not that at all. Yeah. Our mind is no different. So just because there's parts of our brain that are attacking us for whatever reason, or saying these mean things, doesn't mean that it's this horrible part of ourselves that needs to be just excised. It's even something that we need to embrace and love and figure out, like, okay. What is this really trying to say to me? What am I really trying to get at here? What is the motivation behind this thought? And that's when you can start to calm it down. Like I don't think the inner critic is ever something to completely. do away with, because there are some things that are gonna be. Right. Like our inner critic is the one that says, What are you doing going down this road? Like this is ridiculous. There's not a lot of street lamps. You could get hurt, there could be a problem here. What are you doing? You have to turn right. That is our inner critic that is coming from the same spot. And that is something that can be very helpful. It's just that it's getting a little bit, misguided. And I think that is another way to kind of look at it. It's not this evil part that needs to be squashed. It's something that just needs to be maybe guided a little bit differently.

Lisa: 40:23

I think that, sometimes Disney, Pixar gets it a little too close to home. Because I swear that Inside Out movie, do you know the one

Andrea: 40:32

I do.

Lisa: 40:33

with all the little characters? It's like that disgust, right? She's green and she's always like, Seriously

Andrea: 40:40

Yeah, exactly.

Lisa: 40:41

What? And she's not like disgusted. Like that's a gross thing. She's like disgusted with herself, Really, she's disgusted with what's going on. And so sometimes my inner mean girl is green because she's green and I'm just like, There she goes again.

Andrea: 41:01

Mm-hmm.

Lisa: 41:02

And anyway, I just think those movies sometimes are, sometimes they're hard to watch cause they're

Andrea: 41:09

Yeah, they're, I know they do hit a little, I mean, they're, they're getting really good. They hit a little close to home, that's for sure. But I think you know what you just did. There is a really good example of that awareness piece of like, Oh, there she is. There she goes saying this. And just by getting to that point where you can notice it, it stops being this. Undercover thought in your head that you don't even necessarily know is happening, creating this angst or whatever it is that you're feeling to something that you see and you notice is happening and It might still make you feel a little bit yucky, it's not rooted as much as it was because you are aware of it and because you're calling it out now, it could always spiral into something else to like, Why am I still thinking this? Why am I still talking to myself like this? Right? We can think of a million ways to beat ourselves up, but that awareness piece lightens that load just a little bit.

Lisa: 42:03

Okay, so becoming aware and then we can just dismiss some as old slime

Andrea: 42:09

little bit. Mm-hmm.

Lisa: 42:12

Is there anything else that works for your clients that you find is helpful to replace some of these thoughts?

Andrea: 42:19

I mean, the idea of replacing a thought with a better thought is always good. Right? It's always something that, we can look at. I think that we need to, We need to slow down. Sometimes our approach, sometimes we're very quick, like, Oh, this is a horrible thought. It feels really bad. I wanna replace it. I'm gonna go from, I look bad in these genes to, I look fantastic in these genes, and I love, you know, how my, legs look and we try. To just quickly flip it to something that's better. But the problem is that we don't believe that new thought.

Lisa: 42:59

Yeah, I was just thinking that. I'm like, no one believes that

Andrea: 43:02

And you can't do it. And so like, it sounds nice like a lot of times I know if you, you know, get on the Google and look up all these ways to be nice to yourself. They have like, people have lists of, instead of saying this, say this.

Lisa: 43:16

Hmm.

Andrea: 43:17

So often I look at those lists and I'm like, That's not gonna work. That's gonna work for like three seconds of feeling good, and then you're gonna go right back to it. Which is why I think some of those people stay in business, right? Because people are always looking for How can I be nicer to myself? Because all the things out there are these quick little things that we don't really believe that don't work for very long. And so we're backed on it looking, Okay, well how can I be nicer to myself? Because that was great, but doesn't really.

Lisa: 43:43

I think that is what they call toxic positivity.

Andrea: 43:46

Yes, absolutely.

Lisa: 43:49

And I always, yeah, I always make it clear with my clients that I am not a positive thinking coach. I'm an intentional thinking. Some, some of our intentional thoughts don't feel amazing because some of our intentional thoughts are like, I'm choosing. to eat this or do this because I know it's good for me but it might be uncomfortable. Or just even things like getting on podcasts, like I'm a little nervous and I'm gonna do it anyway. So it's an intentional thought.

Andrea: 44:23

Yeah.

Lisa: 44:24

Right, because positive thinking, positive thoughts are usually thoughts that give us happiness, basically. But not all of our intentional thoughts need to lead to super, super positive emotions. Some of 'em are just like discomfort, determination, because that's what we want to do in our long term goals.

Andrea: 44:44

Well, and and to be clear, I'm very much into the positive mindset. I think positive mindset is something that is essential. I think it's something that is helpful, but I think it's something that, it's like any instrument, you have to be careful how you use it. And in that toxic positivity is the idea that you're thinking something, you're believing something. It's not great, may or may not be true, but it's making you, you know, those thoughts are making you feel not great and you wanna flip to something positive because it sounds great and it does initially give you that little shot of feeling good. but you're not gonna be able to stay there because you haven't, you haven't processed all of those feelings that your previous beliefs have given you. And the idea that positive thinking and just being positive is all about positive emotions is not necessarily true. It's actually a very positive thing to process negative emotions. And I know that sounds like a you. Irony, but, I don't even know if that was the right word, but

Lisa: 45:58

I think so.

Andrea: 45:59

I think so. Right. It sounds like it shouldn't, like, you shouldn't have anything to do with negative thoughts because negative thoughts are bad, but negative thoughts that aren't felt.

Lisa: 46:10

much. They don't.

Andrea: 46:12

are what's bad negative thoughts that are just emotions that are allowed to run through your body and be felt like every other emotion. That is a very positive thing to do with negative emotions. And if you wanna go further, really there are no positive or negative emotions. They're all just emotion. they're all just energy moving through your body. And if you suppress it, if you push it down, if you try to deflect and you don't wanna feel it because you wanna think something positive, that is going to negatively affect you, If these emotions are something that you feel and you allow yourself to, just like you, allow yourself to laugh freely, you allow yourself to cry, you allow yourself to feel afraid, which is just okay, you know, just fine. Processing those emotions is a positive thing for your body, and that is truly what goes into that positive mindset. So it's not overlooking feeling negative, it's not overlooking that you're saying mean things to yourself. being able to process that and then moving onto something that you believe that's just a little bit better. It doesn't have to be jumping to rainbows and unicorns. It can be something that's a little bit more neutral, but just moving away and kind of intentionally moving onto a thought that's a little bit better feeling, but it's not ignoring the fact that you have these thoughts. It's not running from the fact that you have these thoughts. It's not ignoring or pushing back on the negative emotions that these thoughts create.

Lisa: 47:44

I love that distinction between having a positive mindset and just thinking positive mantra thoughts, which is that toxic positivity. Totally different. Totally different. Yeah. Okay. This has been so informative, so fun. So great. Why don't you tell us where people can connect with you more, learn more, little more about your podcast.

Andrea: 48:07

My podcast is Live Your Life, Not Your Diagnosis, and it's available wherever you listen to your podcasts. I have my book is Live Your Life, Not Your Diagnosis, and Stop Carrying the Weight of your ms. Both of those are available wherever you get your book. Amazon or any other bookstore, and you can connect with me by going to just my website, AndreaHansoncoaching.com that is H A N S O N coaching.com, and that's where you can find my podcast. You can find my books, you can connect with me, you can stay in touch with me. And I am also opening up a wait list for an upcoming online course that I have coming. January. So that is also where you can find out more information about that.

Lisa: 48:58

And what's that course about?

Andrea: 49:00

the course is live your life, not your diagnosis. It's based on this method that talks about healing your inner critic. It talks about positive mindset. It talks about, Really creating the mindset that can help us going forward in creating whatever changes that we need in our lives. So increasing that confidence and allowing us to stop the people pleasing, allowing us to put up those boundaries, right? Stop worrying what people are thinking and do what we know. What our inner authentic voice knows is good for us in making changes that can help us improve our.

Lisa: 49:41

Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming to be on my podcast and just sharing your wisdom with my listeners, so thank you so much.

Andrea: 49:50

Thank you so much for having me. This was super, super fun.

Lisa: 49:54

All right. Talk to you later. 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.