Conquering Joy

This is The Joyful You Podcast, episode 105, Conquering Joy.

Welcome to The Joyful You Podcast.

On this show, I talk all about the tools you need to cultivate a healthy relationship with food, your mind, and your life.

I’m your host, Rachael Collins.

As an eating psychology practitioner, a certified life coach, and a weight loss expert, it is my mission to show you how to work with your body, manage your mind, process your emotions, and create supportive habits so you can live well, feel well, and become your strongest, healthiest, happiest, most amazing self, a joyful you.

Hey there, and welcome to this episode of The Joyful You Podcast.

I am so grateful that you are here.

This episode is for you if you struggle with self-image, body image, or embracing your own divine nature.

This episode is for you if you are struggling with overeating, whether that’s binge eating, emotional eating, stress eating, or mindless eating.

This episode is for you if you are always thinking about food and you feel like food controls you more than you control it.

This episode is for you if you are frustrated with your body.

Maybe you’re frustrated with the shape of your body or you’re frustrated with the health of your body or even what your body can and can’t do.

This podcast is for you if you are sick and tired of dieting and exercising your butt off and still not getting a solution to your struggles around food and your body.

This episode is for you if you feel stuck on the on again, off again, black and white all-or-nothing roller coaster with your body and you’re ready to get off and be done with the ride forever.

And lastly, this episode is for you if you are ready to up level your life in any way.

If you are ready to break free from all the nonsense and finally have a happy and healthy relationship with food, with your body, and with yourself.

So that you can discover your true identity and live the kind of life you want.

I believe that this is 100% possible to finally be done once and for all with all the food and body drama.

I also believe it is completely possible to say goodbye forever to dieting, to worrying, stressing and obsessing over what you eat, how much you eat, freaking out over what your body looks like and what jean size you wear.

And let’s not forget to mention the drama of all the shame, the guilt, all of the punishments that we give ourselves when we feel like we are lacking or we think we’re insufficient in willpower or discipline.

So have you ever felt this way?

I have.

I’ve talked about it a lot here on this podcast.

It’s funny because we try something like a diet, for instance, and it doesn’t work.

Yet we keep going back and trying the same things over and over and over again.

It’s like we’re on a hamster wheel and we can’t get off and we just keep spinning around and around and around, hoping that one of these times something will click and then we will be quote unquote fixed.

In probably around the eighth grade, I started getting compliments about my looks.

And so I started associating my worth with my looks.

And in my immature mind, I really thought that the only thing that I had going for me was my body.

So I became really obsessive about it.

And even though I was not really overweight, I remember thinking a lot about how I would and how I really wanted to change my body.

I wanted to be taller.

I wanted to have a smaller waist.

I wanted to have bigger boobs.

I wanted long, skinny thighs with knobby knees.

That is what I remember wanting.

However, if you don’t know, I’m five foot two and I have a pretty stocky body frame.

Think about an Olympic gymnast.

That is the kind of body that I have.

Yet, I had all of these hopes and dreams and I was really searching for some way to change my body.

It was all I could think about.

I’ve had thoughts of this constantly playing over and over and over again in my head.

So, fast forward, probably, I don’t know how many years, 20 years.

I had my fifth baby and after baby number five, my body didn’t do what it normally does.

Normally, what happens is I have a baby and within five or six months, I lose all the baby weight and I’m just back to my normal size.

But this time with baby number five, my body decided that it was going to hold on to all of the weight instead of losing it.

And by the time my baby was six months old, I weighed more than I did on the day that I delivered her.

Now, as you can imagine, this was very troublesome to me because I sadly believed that being thin was the only worthwhile thing about me.

I ended up going to a doctor who put me on weight loss pill and I lost a significant amount of weight.

And then I became pregnant with baby number six very shortly after.

And after baby number six, the same thing happened.

Do you think my body is trying to tell me something or what?

I was gaining weight instead of losing weight.

But this time along with the weight, I started experiencing some major health issues.

I did not feel good at all.

I was losing hair.

I was fatigued all of the time to the point where I had to take naps for two or three hours every day.

Keep in mind, I had six kids.

Okay?

My elimination was off.

I had digestive issues.

I had mood issues.

I had insomnia.

I could not sleep for the life of me.

And I just did not feel good.

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.

Well, long story short, after seeing doctor after doctor and taking prescription after prescription, nothing was helping me to feel better or to lose the weight.

In fact, one of the side effects from all the medication that I was on was weight gain.

So after getting off all the meds, all the supplements, all the hormones, and just deciding that maybe my health was just what I was going to have to live with, I decided that I was going to place all of my focus and all of my attention on actually getting the weight off.

So I tried diet after diet, program after program, nothing helped, nothing would work.

The weight just stayed.

Well, my last attempt to lose weight was to do a popular elimination diet, Whole30.

Well guess what?

It worked.

Or at least that’s what I thought.

I lost weight and on top of losing weight, I felt better than I had in years.

But this is when my obsession with food began.

I had seen the effects that eliminating various food groups had done for my body, and I was convinced that this was the one and only perfect way to eat.

I got way super deep into nutrition and health, and not that that’s a bad thing, but it became an obsession for me.

I was convinced that if I could just eat clean, that one, I would stay healthy, and I would never get sick, I wouldn’t age, I wouldn’t get wrinkles, my hair wouldn’t turn gray, and my weight would stay off.

So I started reading every single book I could get my hands on.

I did trainings, I certified as a family herbalist, and I watched all the health documentaries on Netflix.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

I was looking for the perfect diet, the holy grail, the thing that would make me 5’9, long-legged, gorgeous, happy, and have the perfect life.

And after one documentary in particular, I decided that all animal products were what was keeping me from reaching my goal.

And I became a vegan.

However, at the time, I was also paleo, and so I became a paleo vegan.

Now, as you can imagine, this did not go well.

I did it for nine months until I just could not take it anymore.

My hair really started to fall out.

I started to feel so tired.

I was bloated all of the time.

It just did not work well for me and my body.

So what did I do?

I moved on to the next obsession, which was cutting out all flowers and all sugars, honey included.

I did, however, allow one small what I call Joy Eat each week.

And it’s funny because no matter what diet I was on, I never called it a diet.

I just called it a lifestyle change.

Also, I could never stick with whatever lifestyle change I was on 100%.

I would do really well.

I would stay on plan.

I would diet.

I would restrict until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

And then I would end up bingeing.

I would eat everything I could get my hands on.

And then I would follow up my eating with a big gulp of shame and guilt.

Then when Monday rolled around or maybe the next month rolled around depending on where I was, I would recommit and I would swear that this time I would never eat this and never eat that ever.

And I mean ever again until I looked like this.

And then maybe I would go back to eating like a normal person again, maybe.

I lived on this all-or-nothing rollercoaster for years.

And I was the opposite of free.

I was the opposite of joyful.

I was definitely the opposite of happy.

I originally thought that once I lost all the weight and got down to my goal weight, and I say goal weight with air quotes because my goal weight kept changing.

I thought that once I got down to this certain amount of pounds, I would feel beautiful and happy and free.

All of the things that the magazines and the media promised me and that my life would be perfect.

Nope.

Long story, a little less long.

Eventually, what ended up happening was I realized that I was living in a self-made prison.

I was looking for the magic pill, the thing that would finally make me thin, so that I could go back to eating like a normal person who ate normal non-diet food.

And I would stay skinny, which means that I’d be happy and life would be awesome.

Because I would be one of the fabulous, pretty people who all seem to have this perfect storybook life that everybody seemed to love and admire and wants to be.

Now, once I realized that I was the one imprisoning myself and that I held the keys, I was able to conquer my habits, my eating, my relationship with food, and break free from this toxic way of thinking and living.

I realized the thing that I needed to conquer was not another diet.

I needed to conquer myself.

It was me against me, my brain against my brain, my habits against my habits.

And if my mind and my nervous system and my body was against me, then no diet, no habit change was going to work.

And I was going to stay miserable, not having the joy that I was so desperately wanting to conquer for myself.

I call my newfound freedom Joyful Freedom.

Why?

Because it allows me, and it will allow you to be free from all the endless chatter in your head, all the self-doubt, self-criticism, all the shaming, blaming, and judging.

And it will allow you to conquer and free yourself from all the food obsessing, the disordered eating, all the crazy amounts of over dramatic thinking that tends to come with it.

And having this joyful freedom allows you to be able to open up your heart and fill the joy that you were truly meant to fill.

We were created to fill this way.

How do I know?

Because we are told in the scriptures that men are that they might have joy.

And I really believe that this is true.

So let me ask you, do you think that there is a difference between joy and happiness?

One of my very favorite books is a book called The Joy Plan.

And I will link it in the show notes if you’re interested in reading it.

And the author Kaia Roman says that happiness and joy are different.

And she quotes scientific research that says, happiness is induced by and dependent on outside conditions, while joy is something we experience more deeply.

She then goes on to say that while happiness is a state of mind based on circumstances, joy is an external feeling that disregards circumstances and is a state of deep inner peace and contentment that’s sustained throughout various experiences.

Happiness is fleeting, but joy is everlasting.

Another one of my very favorite definitions is that joy is well-being.

And I love that because that’s what we are all aiming for.

We just want this sense of well-being.

We all want to have this deep inner peace and contentment, which I believe is what we are actually searching for.

It is the reason that we diet.

It is the reason that we get plastic surgery.

It is the reason that we over exercise and do drugs and eat junk food and gamble and binge watch on Netflix or over scroll on social media.

We all want to feel joyful and we think that changing our circumstances is one of the ways that we will get there.

My goal is to help you rediscover joy.

I believe that we were all created and born with this joy.

Deep down inside of us, we just have to uncover it.

Now, a lot of us are in such a hurry to rediscover this joy, that we try to do everything all at once.

We set too many goals.

We try to accomplish everything all at one time as quickly as we can.

And what happens is this ends up overwhelming us and we end up failing.

And then we go deeper and deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole of self-hate and self-rejuvenation.

Which is the exact opposite of the joy that we are seeking.

I remember as a teenager getting this crazy notion to organize and clean my room.

Yes, I was a very messy teenager.

So this notion was definitely a rare for me.

Well, my plan was to clean everything out and then organize and put things back where they were supposed to go.

So I emptied my closet, all my dresser drawers.

I cleaned out underneath my bed.

I cleaned out my desk.

I would pause every now and then and try out a shirt or a skirt I hadn’t seen for years.

I even stopped to read my second grade journal for a bit that I had found hidden under a bunch of papers in my desk.

Stuff was everywhere.

And I mean everywhere.

I couldn’t see my carpet.

I couldn’t see my bed.

There was just stuff everywhere.

So now, it was time to organize it all, to throw out all the things that I didn’t need and to put back the rest of the things into their proper place.

There was just one problem.

By this time, I was exhausted.

So I did what most teenagers do and I decided to just quit.

I just left everything where it was.

I made this little trail so that I could get in and out of my room without tripping over everything.

And I lived with that mess for a long time.

Probably until my mom decided she had had enough and it was time for me to clean it up.

This is how we are when we try to change too many things at once.

It’s exhausting and we’re left with a bigger mess than when we started.

So unlike how I decided to clean my room, small steps line upon line is the way you’re going to conquer.

My room would have been so much easier to clean and way less exhausting if I had just cleaned it a little bit at a time.

One thing at a time.

One day I just cleaned my closet.

One day I just cleaned out underneath my bed.

One day I just cleaned my desk.

It would have been so much easier.

I have come to realize that healing your relationship with food, with your body, and really with your life is an inside job.

If you want to conquer this for the last time, you have to do it from the inside out.

Unfortunately, our culture and media have conditioned us to believe the opposite.

And like me growing up, a lot of us are walking around with the toxic belief that our outside is what matters and that if we can just control our eating habits, we can change our body size and then everything in our lives will be perfect.

Our help, our relationships, our happiness level, our job, our money situation, our kids, pretty much everything will be exactly the way we want it to be.

And we’re excited about this.

We want it and that is something that is good to aim for.

But we get in a hurry to do it.

And we try to shortcut the system and then it just ends up backfiring on us.

And it actually just exacerbates the problem.

It makes us feel more out of control.

It makes us not like ourselves even more.

It makes us feel even less joy.

We end up doing the same things over and over and over again.

We diet, we restrict, we over exercise, then we bully and we beat ourselves up with the hopes that maybe this time, if we just try hard enough and we just have enough willpower and enough discipline, we will make it work.

And it never does.

At least not permanently.

I propose that it is time for us to try something else.

And that something else is to work on our inside, to change from the inside out.

That is how you are going to conquer this once and for all.

Now changing from the inside out is about working together with your mind, with your heart, with your nervous system, with your spirit, with your body.

Not just working on your body.

It’s understanding how your brain works, how your thoughts and your habits and your nervous system function.

It also looks like working with your body, your specific body to nourish yourself and to give it what it uniquely needs because we are all unique people and our bodies all need different things.

So if you are struggling with any of these things, I want you to know that you are not alone.

I want you to know that this is a safe place for you.

I have been there, I get it, and I’ve got you.

So let’s do this thing.

Let’s make these changes together.

I have created a conquer program that is going to give you practical tools so that you can conquer this once and for all.

I’m going to teach you how to work with your body, your mind, and your life.

I want you to have tools that if you apply them and use them in your life, they are going to allow you to live joyfully free.

I’m super excited about this and I hope that you will join me.

I will leave a link in the show notes and you can check out and see if it is right for you.

Let’s end this struggle once and for all.

You have everything you need within you.

One tool at a time, small and simple.

That’s all you need.

And before you know it, you will begin experiencing more of your life in the best way ever as a Joyful You.

Thank you for listening and I will see you next time.

Thank you for listening to The Joyful You Podcast.

If you’d like additional support, click the link in the show notes and let’s chat about how we can work together to get you to your goal.

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If you want to hang out on social media, you can find me on Instagram at A Joyful You or on my website, ajoyfulyou.com.