Pillar 3 of Embodied Eating – Curiosity & How to Manage Your Mind (Part 1) | Ep.06

Chanci Dawn: 00:00:05

This show is about freedom. Freedom from your constant struggle with food and letting the size of your thighs determine your worth. Join me weekly for no whole fat, unfiltered girlfriend kind of conversations that will inspire, teach and empower you. As we tune into our own body's wisdom and tune out of the diet industry lives, we can live our most radiant, pleasurable and fulfilled lives. My name is Chanci Dawn. I'm a non diet nutritionist embodiment and mindset coach. But most importantly, I'm a woman on a mission to grow a deeply connected and conscious relationship with food and my body. And I'm here inviting you to do the same. Let's go.

Chanci Dawn: 00:00:53

Hey, there, I hope your week is going awesome. I had a really cool experience this week. My daughter had some appointments in Vancouver. So I took her and we decided to make it a little girls trip and went to Cirque Cirque du Soleil alegria. Oh, my goodness, have you gone? Have you seen that show? I am still in awe seriously, if you have an opportunity to go and see it, do it blew our minds. And what I love is that alegria stands for like joy and happiness. And that is exactly what that show was about my daughter and I laughed so hard and cried, and it was just absolutely beautiful, highly recommended. So on that note, I just gave a really great review for Cirque du Soleil. And I want to share with you something that I just thought was really neat. So the reviews are coming in and they're beautiful. Thank you for everyone who is leaving them, it really helps spread the news about the show. And this came in from a friend. It's not a review, but it was a private message that she received from another friend that she actually hasn't been in contact with for a while. So this friend saw a post about this podcast on her Facebook and listened in and this is what she said, Hello, my friend. So I saw your post on Chanci Dawn's podcast and decided to give it a try. I must admit I have never listened to a podcast before, but decided to give it a try. I think I am now hooked. And I've only listened to the introduction and the first episode with Alena Z. Oh, I just love that so much for so many different reasons. Brand new podcast listener and you know, being hooked on this show that is just so cool. My heart is just bursting with excitement for her. And the fact that it actually connected friends who haven't chatted for a while I think that is just so neat, too. And that is what this is all about. We as women who are on this path to healing our relationship with food in our bodies, we really do need community, we really will thrive when we have other like minded women surrounding us where we can link arms and love on each other and support each other as we all move towards freedom. So that being said, Please share the show. Let's get the word out there. Do not underestimate the power that you have to help change lives by sharing this.

Chanci Dawn: 00:03:28

Okay, so let's dive into the topic of today's show. Today we're talking about curiosity. Curiosity is pillar number three of the Intesa like freedom program. Now, the difference, a big huge difference between dieting and embodied eating is the fact that it's non linear, embodied eating has no failure involved, there's no on again off again, there's no wagon to hop on. Right, so there's no wagon to fall off. But your brain as a dieters brain, as someone who's really used to feeling like I'm on again, off again, I'll start again on Monday, oh, I failed here. Or I did good here, or I'm rewarding myself here. That part of your brain has very strong patterns, very strong habitual thoughts that are going to creep up for you again, and again. And again. And this is normal. So we want to be aware of this. And I want to give you this tool of curiosity and so many awesome tools that you're going to use to be able to help support yourself in curiosity, so that you don't default to wanting to use willpower and self control ever again in your entire life. With embodied eating, there's no such thing as I'm going to do better. Okay, there's no such thing as I'm going to start again on Monday. It is absolutely a journey. It's a release Shouldn't ship that you are building, and there's going to be ups, and there's going to be downs, and they're all welcome. So, instead of having the mindset of I have to do better, or oh my goodness, I need to go now to the gym and workout for hours because I over ate. What we want to do instead is we want to really look at these opportunities when we do over eat, when we binge when we fall back into these, these harmful, not healthy patterns with the relationship of food. So what we want to do is we want to pull back and instead of punishing ourselves, instead of feeling like a failure, we're going to look at it as an opportunity. It's an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with yourself, it's an opportunity to dig in deeper. Remember, embodied eating is a relationship approach, you are building a relationship between your beautiful body, and your beautiful mind and your soul, your highest self. And when you look at it this way, just like with any relationships, there's going to be ups and downs. But that does not mean that it's failing. What it means is that you get to go, Oh, here's an opportunity to communicate, here's an opportunity to really get to know myself my body better. Here's the beautiful opportunity to be able to love myself more through this. So when we're looking at this, there's a lot of different tools that we can use. Now today's program, I really want to chat with you more about mindset. When I first trained as a life coach around 13 years ago, at the Life Coach School, my teacher mentor Brooke Castillo taught me a really cool tool called the model. So we're going to chat about the model today. Because I feel like this is one of the very best tools that I can give you to be able to help you first of all, create awareness, awareness around what is happening. And then being able to look at the result you really, really want to create in your relationship with food and body and then being able to use this tool to help you do just that. And my goal over many episodes is to be able to give you a huge, a huge toolkit, a big, beautiful, sparkly toolkit, full of tools that you can use that you can draw on, to be able to really help yourself, get to know you better, and love yourself more and be able to, again, build this beautiful relationship with your body.

Chanci Dawn: 00:07:49

Now before we dive into all the nitty gritty details about the model, I invite you to go to the show notes. Because in there, there's a link to a PDF that I've created for you to really help you follow along, to be able to use it now as I'm teaching it to you as well as moving forward in your own self coaching. I promise you, if you take this seriously, and you actually use this tool, the awareness you're going to create, and the new results you're going to create in your life with food and body will blow your mind. When I first learned this tool, like I said around 13 years ago, I was actually going through a divorce at the time, my little girl was really ill with a brain tumor. And I was starting a new business in network marketing. And the this model is the only reason that I was able to not only move through it all but actually thrive in it, it really helps again to to have awareness and then to be able to take accountability and create the results you ultimately want in your life. So go pause this right now and go and print that PDF off and come back.

Chanci Dawn: 00:08:59

Now the model is a simple yet incredibly powerful tool. And there's so much to it. So today we're just going to talk about the first part, the first step when we're using the model, and that is creating awareness. So when we are in patterns that are not serving us around food and our relationship with our body, what we first want to do is we want to like step outside of ourselves and look at ourselves like the watcher with that beautiful curiosity and compassion, which we're going to talk about in future episodes. But with that beautiful curiosity and compassion to go, Oh, sweetheart, what's going on for you here? Why are you doing the things you're doing? Why are you creating these results you're creating, why are you self sabotaging? When you have the very best intentions at heart. The model is a beautiful way to be able to help create this awareness for yourself. So that's what we're focusing on today. And then if future episodes, we're gonna dissect it further to be able to learn the other ways that we can use it. Now, I love to think of ourselves, like pickles floating around in a jar, we're in this jar. And we think the way we think, and we're creating the results that we're creating, and we're just sort of bopping along. And the reason I love coaching. And the reason I love this model is because it really helps us read the label on the outside of the jar. So we can't read the label of our own jars, we're too busy being in the jar. And when you have a coach, they can help you dissect this, they can help you like look and go, Oh my goodness, did you even realize this was going on. And the model is really good for one on one coaching as well as self coaching. And that is what I really encourage you to start to do more and more of with this beautiful tool.

Chanci Dawn: 00:10:58

Okay, so when we look at the model, what we first want to look at is that line one, circumstance, we are often very triggered by our circumstances. And a lot of the times we can move forward in life feeling like a victim of our circumstances. So what we really want to understand here, and a very important part that we need the foundation to be of this model is that the circumstances are neutral, they have no charge. And when you think about a circumstance, what we want to do is really looked at look at the fact of what's actually happening. So for example, say we're going to a party, and there's going to be cake at this party, and you have a particular affinity for cake. Okay. So in this circumstance, we would just put the fact there's cake at a birthday party, the circumstance, again, being a fact it has to be something that no one will argue about, everyone will agree that there's cake at this party. Now the second part of the model is looking at the circumstance, and then looking at the thought that we have about the circumstance. So again, the circumstances neutral, and then enter our thought, and quite often this thought will be primal brain lead. So we've talked about that in previous episodes, what we want to do is really look at the primal brain is like a friend, someone who's trying to take care of us trying to keep us safe. But obviously, very often misdirected. Okay? Because it's, it's fearful of everything. So when we look at the thoughts, we really want to go, oh, what's going on here? What am I actually thinking. And a big, big thought that many people have around cake and a party is, if I eat it, I'll gain weight, right? Cake is forbidden, I can't have the cake. So in that thought line, write down one thought, one thought is one sentence that you have about the circumstance. So I'm gonna go with if I eat it again, wait. So the cake is neutral. And then enter my thought that I'll gain weight if I eat it. And then we want to look at how we feel when we think this thought. For me, when I think Oh, my goodness, if I eat that I'll gain weight. I feel deprived, I feel scared. You want to look at what feeling you experience when you think of thought. Now a feeling is a vibration that goes through your body. And this vibration is what will create the actions that you take. So if you're feeling deprived, if you're thinking that you're going to gain weight, and you're feeling deprived, think about the actions that you take in that circumstance. So for me, I would really like become obsessive thinking about the cake, I'd be at the party and I'd be looking at the cake and I'd be looking at other people's cake. I'd probably be serving large pieces to other people as a way to kind of, you know, interact with the cake. It all sounds so silly, but this is really true. I would probably go and eat other things to make up for not eating the cake. I fill my plate with tons of vegetables. The dip, I would look at, you know, back in mind, let me think low carb days I'd be like, Oh, I'll eat cheese. Ooh, I'll eat cauliflower. I'll eat the pepperoni. And the entire time. I'll be thinking about the cake. But I won't eat the cake. And then I'll think more about the cake. And then I'll go to the cake and maybe I'll just get a little piece of icing, a little corner bit of icing and I'll taste it

Chanci Dawn: 00:14:58

and then I'll feel bad and And then I'll go and probably get more pepperoni. And then I would go back to the cake and maybe just, again have a little bit more, and then I beat myself up for that. And then I would go home at the end of the night, and feel really deprived, because I didn't actually get any satisfaction from eating any of the cake. And all of the other foods I stuffed my mouth with did not satisfy because what I really wanted was a little piece of cake. So as a result, then I'd probably go in the fridge or in my pantry and pick out all sorts of different foods and binge binge eat because my body, my brain felt so deprived and so restricted. Now, this is a very common pattern for a lot of my clients, too. When you look at what happens when you feel deprived, it's actually crazy making, we end up eating so much more than we would otherwise. And then we beat ourselves up for it, and then the cycle continues. And then we're like, I'll start again on Monday. And then maybe you have four days of quote unquote good on the wagon, and then again, something comes up, maybe you're having a hard emotional day or a trigger food is in the room. And then you give in, and then you again feel guilty, and it just continues. So the result of this, what we want to look at is, okay, let me go back, we have our circumstance, that is a neutral fact that everyone will agree on, then we have a thought about the circumstance. And then from there, that thought will create a vibration in our body that we experience as an emotion. And in this case, feeling deprived. And then that emotion will drive us towards actions that actually feel kind of out of our control, we don't realize that it's actually our thought that's creating this. And these actions will then create the result that we get in our life. And the result here, think about it, you're obsessing about cake, you're stressed. So your body is feeling stress. So with holding on to extra weight, it thinks you're in like threat. So it's going to hold on your metabolism is going to slow down, your digestion is going to slow down. And then you go and eat all of the other things other than the cake trying to satisfy. And in the end, most likely, you're going to be stressed out, like I said, and over eating, because you're eating all of these things, when probably just a little piece of cake for pleasure would have satisfied. Oh, do you see the power of this, we're going to be dropping into so many different models on this podcast. And if there's certain circumstances you have triggers around and you want to work through, please drop message me share them, I'll bring them on the podcast and we can work through them together on here. The power of this is absolutely going to blow your mind when you really start to utilize it in your life. And start to then create what you want to on purpose. And we'll talk about that next session. I don't want to overload you on this one. So we're just going to create that awareness piece here of why we're creating what we're creating, why we're getting the results we're getting. And then next week, we'll drop into that what to create on purpose, okay, and how to actually do that. Now, this is Brookes model. Like I said, she's the one who created this model to be able to really help with the management of our mind. And I love it. And I also love to add something more to it, okay, because I am an embodiment coach, not just a mindset coach. And I really feel it's important to honor the sensations in our body that really just come from that primal response, not necessarily from like a thought we can access. So when you look at the model that you printed off here in the PDF, you'll see that CTF A R, and then and then you'll see a red s under this C. Okay, so everything else in black, and then there's a circumstance and then there's a red s. Now this stands for sensation. I don't want to bypass this part. I added this in here because I think it's a very important piece to this awareness of ourselves and to this relationship building. Your body is so wise your body is full of knowledge for you. And we really want to along with the mindset piece, we want to be able to drop into this as well. So when you have this circumstance before you go oh, when am I thinking about it? I invite you to stop and feel what is going on in my body right now? What sensations am I experiencing? If you're feeling comfortable to do so, I would invite you to put your hand on your heart and the other one on your stomach, your womb space. And allow yourself to really go, Hmm, what's here for me?

Chanci Dawn: 00:20:27

How does my tummy feel? How do How does my heart feel? Does it feel closed? Does it feel expansive? Am I feeling open? Am I feeling shut? What is there for me right now what is my body trying to show me trying to communicate with me. And then from here, what will happen is that whatever we're sensationally experiencing whatever sensations are going on in our body, will actually send a message to our brain of I'm not safe here, or there's something off, or there is a threat. Or perhaps, oh, wow, this is a really safe place to be. So that sensation that your body is experiencing, it's almost like a reflex. So this sensation that your body is experiencing will give feedback to your brain, and then your brain will have a thought about it. And then it'll, again, move through your body, again, as a vibration, which will create that emotion. So it doesn't always work this way. Sometimes, you're just going to have a thought, right, we have our conditioning, we will have thoughts, and it'll create the vibration. But most often than not, you will have a sensation, that is like a reflex that will happen first. So pay attention to that don't discredit it, because what we want to do again, is we really want to build that relationship, Mind, Body Soul. So we don't want to take any of it out. Okay, we will work more on this, I promise, it might feel a little bit confusing and complicated to you. But the more you practice it, and the more you tune in here, it's just going to become second nature. I'm at a place now where I actually view the world for the most part, as a model. I'm like, Oh, look at what's going on there. Look at the result that's happening here. From these actions. This is what they must be thinking and feeling like it's really such a tremendous superpower. Actually, this model is I just I absolutely love it. Okay, so that's it. That's everything for this show. Please tune in next time. Next time, we're going to look at what's called the intentional model. So today, it was really the unintentional model, what we're doing by default, what our patterns are, to be able to dissect that and look at it with awareness to be able to create more understanding with compassion for ourselves. And next week, we're going to dive into how to actually use the model to create what you want. It's so fun and so exciting. So please tune in and again to share it because every woman needs to have this tool. Well, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, I love you. I appreciate you. I am here for you have a beautiful rest of your week, my friend, take care.