I won't let my body out be outwait everything that I'm made done, won't spend my life trying to change.
I'm learning love who I.
Am, agam strong. I feel free, I know every part of me. It's beautiful and that will always out way if you feel it. But you are fell some love to the mood?
Why get there?
Take you one day and did you and die out way?
Happy Saturday, out weigh. We are back.
I'm back with the beautiful Suzanne. We are here for our Unfiltered Confidence series where we are navigating self discovery within recovery, and this recovery journey it is not always roses and butterflies, but it's also not just about food in your body, and so hopefully this series is illuminating you to all of the little intricacies and all of the little nooks and crannies that are challenges might be kind of sneaking up on us if we're not aware of it, to give you that insight.
But then also it is all interrelated to.
Showing you how things that might seemingly have nothing to do with food in your body absolutely are all interrelated. So we want to cover all of that in between. If you miss the last couple of episodes, go back and check those out. First, we talked about navigating life beyond the checklist. Keyword, beyond the checklist. I know a lot of us get caught up in the day to
day and the doing. Then last week we talked about this concept of owning your worth even when there are haters or doubters or people are outright going against the version of you that you know you want to be, and how to step up into your own self endorsement in the face of that. And today we're talking about self compassion, beyond the reflection, and this beyond the reflection
thing I mentioned in the first episode. You know, for me, I was so obsessed with my appearance and my weight that anything beyond that was kind of out of reach for me. And I think that's one of the reasons I'm so ex to bring this series to you, is because to show you that there's life beyond all of that. And if that's where you are, there is no shame,
there is no judgment, nothing but love. That's what we're here to help spark some inspiration for you, to show you that there's life on the other side of this. But I want to turn it over to you, Suzanne, and really talking about this idea of self forgiveness and compassion.
It's almost like a skill set that we have to learn.
It's like, if you don't know how to ride a bike, you've got to learn how to ride a bike. If you don't know how to speak Spanish, you have to learn how to speak Spanish. And self forgiveness and self compassion is oftentimes the opposite of what we've been speaking. If you've gotten fluent like I did in self rejection or shame or self condemnation or comparisonitis and all those things. But then there's also the side of it of like, wait, independent of my reflection in the mirror.
So that's a loaded topic. I'm just gonna spin it around and throw it back at you.
So would you mind just kind of opening up the conversation and share what was your experience learning this language of self compassion and self forgiveness after what thirty forty years of the opposite shares a little bit about where you came from and then how you learned that skill for yourself.
Yeah, this topic is so important to me because I think it's maybe one of the biggest changes and shifts that I've had in my life in the last five years was learning how to forgive myself, learning how to offer myself the grace and compassion that I provide to others, that I am worthy of having that same compassion, and understanding when I'm not perfect, I'm never going to be perfect,
and giving up that idea of perfection. And I also had this idea of perfection interwoven with safety and security, that if everything is perfect, if I perform perfectly, if I am behaving perfectly, everything will remain safe and secure in my world, which is completely an illusion and it is not sustainable. And being able to get give up those two intertwined ideas has probably made the biggest impact
in my life. Using the tools that I developed when I was seventeen years old and then never learned new ways to soothe myself when I was upset or when I was scared, or when something big happened. There were traumatic events that led me to thinking that I had to control everything and the reality is my actions, And you know, striving for perfectionism was not controlling anything. It was simply just you know, creating a spiral of shame and doubt and self hatred that I didn't want to
live with anymore. And that's actually where I was when we started working together, was how do I stop the voice in my head that is judging herself in everything?
You know?
Did I do enough on my to do list? Did I eat the right things? Did I buy the right gift for somebody? Did I make enough money? Did I save enough money? All of the ways that I was judging myself? And I'm glad to say that I'm so much kinder to myself now than I was then, and everything is still safe and secure, as safe and secure as life can be.
Yeah, oh so powerful, because what I just heard you say is that the safety and security under the guise of perfectionism was an illusion. And first and foremost just having that realization of like, wait a minute, this idea.
First of all, Like my favorite way that I heard perfectionism described is we think of perfectionism as the highest standard, the thing that we want to attain, right, But I got invited into this question of like what if perfectionism was actually the lowest standard, what if it was not something that you wanted to look for, strive for, hope for. And that gave me a lot of freedom, because again, you said it best when you said, it's this kind of you know, this illusion of safety and security, but
it's not really safe and secure. And once you step outside of that and create a new reality, which is exactly what you did, that's when you were able to find that the safety and security came with you when you created safety and security, and the illusion of perfectionism was just keeping you stuck in that. And self forgiveness and compassion one of the things that kind of happened behind the scenes, and it happens for all my clients.
But I just want to brag on you for a moment. Is you made that decision.
You drew that line in the sand where you're like, listen, I'm not judging myself for the fact that I learned these coping mechanisms at seventeen, and that I've been being you know, my inner critic, my any inner judger, judging mcjudgerson for however many years. I'm not going to sit here and shame myself for becoming who I've become. But I'm drawing a line in the sand, and I'm no longer going to allow this to rule my life. I'm no longer allowing myself to be this me lacking compassion,
you know, perfectionist itself. And I'm ready to learn this language of self forgiveness and compassion and really step into that. And that's the first step that has to take place, in my opinion, is making the decision. So learning how is step two right? The first and foremost becomes making that decision. So I remember when we were on the phone and you made that decision to transform your life.
But you know from your perspective, what was it like to decide like, No, I'm I mean again, I'm not aiming for perfectionism when it comes to self compassion, because that's its own little double edged sword. But I'm no longer willing to walk around kind of unconsciously sleepwalking treating myself this way.
What was that like for you?
I think it was bringing to life things that I had said to myself, but it had never like really put thought behind, like I'm worthy, I'm good enough, I you know, I do X y Z. How I was judging myself was really internalized, and those that knew me well were actually quite surprised to hear how harshly I was speaking to myself about myself I know that I
am naturally, you know, a cheerful, optimistic, joyful person. And to know that my inner conversation was not cheerful and joyful and loving and kind was a big thing for me to admit. It took a lot of vulnerability to say that out loud to somebody else and to allow them to see a glimpse of what that inner conversation was looking like, and that change was empowering. And it's not perfect, you know. There are still days that I'll
catch myself saying, oh, why did you do that? But I don't ruminate on things the way I had, you know, stressing about every detail or why didn't I say X y Z in this kind conversation. I'm giving myself a past to be human, to say humans are never supposed to be perfect. We are going to make mistakes. Can I strive to be great? Can I strive to be excellent? Absolutely? But what excellent? In? What excellent? In being myself? I
want to be excellent in how I treat myself. I want to be excellent in the kindness that I show to others. That doesn't mean I'm going to do it right every single time, But can I practice being that best self and forgive myself for the times when I make mistakes along the way.
For you, what was it like to Because we're talking about self compassion beyond the reflection, and I know for you you had a beautiful interaction and conversation with your body over the years too, because I think some people think like, oh, I'll be compassionate with myself when I get to my ideal weight or when I look a certain way. But it's like, no, stop and become her now while you work on the rest or you know,
get healthier or whatever your goals are. Can you talk to us a little bit about your experience with self compassion that had nothing to do or that was independent of your reflection in the mirror. Can you talk to us a little bit about your experience with self compassion that had nothing to do or that was independent of your reflection in the mirror.
I vividly remember the day that I looked in the mirror and I didn't say anything unkind to myself, and I like, I wasn't talking myself out of saying anything unkind. That I looked in the mirror and I said, you look lovable. It was such a profound moment for me, like it's making me smile thinking about it. I remember like it brought tears to my eyes because it was such a shift for me in self acceptance and in
forgiveness who I am. It wasn't like, oh, you know, this doesn't fit, or that I was not critiquing myself. I was firmly accepting myself. And that was like such a beautiful guiding moment for me in giving myself compassion and forgiveness and also permission to love and to be loved. And that was, you know, such a huge part of this journey was allowing myself to say, you don't have to be perfect to love yourself, you don't have to
do every single thing right to forgive yourself. Being able to offer the same forgiveness to me that I was offering to others shifted how I was living my life. I'm still striving to do things well. That's part of how I'm wired and who I am and how I live my life. To let go of the reins and know that I can be excellent without controlling every single thing, and I feel better being able to lean into the things I know I'm really good at doing and shine
there allow my light to shine. That piece of self. Forgiveness allowed me to be more fully who I am and to bring my gifts forward and have confidence in that knowing that I'm not supposed to do everything perfectly. There's not a single person on earth who does, and that I you know, when I mess up, I can soothe myself in ways that are also loving and kind.
You know.
I learned the value of a nice, warm shower or a hug, like how healing a hug is and how good it feels to connect with somebody who also enjoys the beauty of nature. I found that walking and talking is one of the things that I love and that soothes me. The sound of the ocean or hearing music or letting myself just sing. Those are the ways that I freed myself. And none of those are done perfectly.
There's no way to do them perfectly. And that gave me permission to say, Okay, I can live life in a really wonderful, beautiful way that has nothing to do with perfection.
Oh so beautifully said.
And it's so interesting because everything that you just said, and there was a series of different transformations that occurred within what you just shared.
It really all started with.
A decision, you know, and sometimes that decision looks like, Hey, I don't even know what it looks like to do this and to step into this, but I am committed. And sometimes it means saying like, hey, I'm scared and I'm you know, nervous about leaving my past behind and stepping into something new, but drawing that line in this. And you know, one of the things that I love about your journey to is it's witnessing you, like you said, step into knowing who you are, but then being unapologetic
about letting others see you in that as well. And it's so interesting because when you shared that experience of you looking in the mirror, I mean, for anybody listening to this, I want you to just think, when was the last time you looked in the mirror and you didn't Your first thought wasn't anything about a physical attribute about yourself, right, It wasn't about how air quotes fat or skinny you think you look, or how air quotes ugly or pretty you think you look, or whatever it is.
Maybe you're saying all the great things, but there's still these physical things. That moment was so profound for you because it's the first time, probably ever that you looked in the mirror and what reflected back to you had nothing to do with what you look like.
Right.
I jokingly say, like, what if our what we look like was the least interesting thing about us or the
most boring thing about us? And I say it jokingly, but I'm also being dead serious, right, And the fact that you had that soul moment and in the mirror, it's just such a metaphor to the internal journey that you went through, and nobody can take that from you, and you had it fired and wired in your nervous system from then on, and then you got to just keep building and building and building and showing up as that version of you unapologetically, which actually is a great
segue into what we're going to be talking about next week. So, first of all, thank you so much for just sharing that vulnerable piece of you and letting us see an inside peek into your journey.
Oh thank you for taking me back there. It made me smile to remember that moment and to be filled with that same sense of self acceptance and to be able to reflect back and see that, yes, I was scared when I drew that line in the sand. But I was living in a place that was rooted in fear, and my perfectionism was rooted in fear, and to be able to live in a place of gratitude instead has been so much more fulfilling and has made a world of difference in my life.
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's kind of like the devil that you know versus the devil that you don't. It's like, you know, I know when I invite women into the next level of freedom or the possibility of freedom, it's like, wait a minute, Leanne, you're telling me to stop doing the one thing or stop trying to control the one thing. I've been trying to control my entire life, when ironically, if we look back at it, it's like the more we try to control it, the more out of control
we feel. Right, And obviously I'm talking about controlling food, controlling our body, thinking it'll control us. But it's like it's again, it's the devil that you know versus the devil that you don't know. What's scarier is staying stuck living inside the prison that you're in without a key is so much scarier than the not knowing, right, And so I think that's the dance. It's a delicate dance.
It's like do I want you do I not fear security, fear, belief, fear, freedom, all the things, And it's that our brain just you know, trying to do what it does, which is keep us safe, even when safe is so unsafe. Right, So, such a great conversation.
We could go on and on about this. I love I love.
These conversations because again, it's so much deeper than the reflection in the mirror.
It's so there's so much more outside the bounds of just the food and.
Body recovery conversation, which is such an important conversation, but it can also be so much more three dimensional than that. Right. So that being said, we are going to be back next week and we're going to bring back We touched on it a couple weeks ago when Susanne mentioned a journaling exercise. But we're going to actually take you through what that looks like in this concept from vision to reality through grateful anticipation.
Grateful anticipation.
We're going to tell you exactly what that is and how to do it and how that showed up in Suzanne's life. She's a first hand encounter of the power of literally teaching your brain a new thought process and a new program. So thank you so much for being here to join us again. And yeah, ladies, if you want to learn more about the nitty gritty details of how to rewire your brain for freedom, head on over
to stresslesseding dot com. You can check out my entire masterclass where I've laid out those five steps step by step, bit by bit for you. So you can also find me over at Leanne Ellington on Instagram. Well, we are signing off for now, see you next Saturday.
Talk to you then bye.