Isn’t that awesome? And see this idea came to me when I was having one of those moments of a, Oh, I’m so glad that didn’t stop me. And it isn’t related to weight loss, but it is related to the work that you hear me doing now. And a couple of years ago we got a new puppy. His name is Cash, like Johnny Cash. And two and a half years ago we got this puppy and I remember,  although being excited for the puppy, being more excited because I was building Weight Loss with the Holy Spirit program, I was really feeling the Lord calling me to help more, bring more women to him and help them overcome emotional eating and help them overcome their struggle with weight loss so that they could feel peace and freedom around food and weight. 

So I knew the Lord was calling me to do this. And here I had this puppy and I worked from home and so of course my work was around taking care of this puppy, taking him out to go potty, training him. And I would find myself thinking things like, Oh, it’s just so much I can’t do it. I can’t do this right now. It’s just too much. But I wasn’t willing to not take care of my puppy and I wasn’t willing to give up on my dream of helping women find peace and freedom with food and weight.  But I kept finding this thought just made it feel so heavy. And so I started to practice new thoughts and I thought to myself, when I would start walking my dog, Cash and I are going to help these women.

Cash and I will bring peace and freedom to women. Cash and I will bring souls to the Lord. And so I just kept practicing over and over this concept that we’re doing this together, that he was not an obstacle because the truth was that the only obstacle was my belief in thinking that, oh, it’s just too hard I can’t do this. And so I started to overcome that excuse  and reframe it to a way that now you guys, two and a half years later, as I was sitting in my office and it was just so quiet and my dog was quiet and relaxing on his bed because it’s two and a half years later. And here we are with the weight loss of the Holy Spirit community in the program and we just started our 63 Surrendered challenge with over 300 Catholic women and I was just reflecting on uh, ah I’m so glad I didn’t let that stop me. 

I’m so glad I didn’t let that stop me. And that’s why I want you to get to I want you to get to a place where you can where you are two and a half years later from where you are now and you’ve overcome the excuse for whatever it is that you want. And I assume it’s freedom with food and freedom from excess weight so that you say, oh, I’m so glad it didn’t stop me. Or maybe you say, Oh, I’m really glad I waited. But either way, I want you to just love your reasons. And we talk about that a lot in our community. Just love your reasons. That’s all!  just love your reasons. And so I thought it would be fun for you to go through and understand what the difference is between a reason and an excuse.

But seriously, it doesn’t really matter what you label it as. I think the more important part is the third part of this podcast, which is after me describing what a reason is and an excuse, where I’m actually teaching you how to process the common excuses, the common thoughts you feel going through your head. And I like to call them excuses or obstacles, but the truth is that they’re just thoughts and the reason we call them an excuse is just because they’re not getting us closer to what we want. And I want you to take whatever thoughts are going through your head that you might be calling excuses and to move them into the category of a reason.

A reason, and a reason for why you’re choosing to wait, because it is a choice, or a reason for why you’re moving forward. Okay? And so when we look at what a reason is, a reason is typically based on facts; there’s no judgment and if we use the example of I didn’t bring my lunch to work. A fact would be I didn’t bring my lunch to work because I forgot it.

There’s no judgment in it. It just happened. That’s exactly what happened. It can be proven in a court of law. An excuse is likely what’s popping through your brain and my brain that doesn’t feel clear like that. It doesn’t feel like something I feel really great about when we have reasons,  And we love our reasons. There’s this  peace and clarity that I really believe comes from the Holy Spirit.

But when we have what we call an excuse, it really feels complicated and garbled and we’re unsure and we’re feeling unsteady. And it’s got a lot of words and a lot of exaggerations and a lot of judgments. Truthfully,  we’re just trying to say it in a way that we’re trying to convince ourselves and maybe trying to convince somebody else, but in the end, it really is just negating the fact that it’s our choice and we’re just not really willing to tell ourselves the truth. 

I’m not ready. I’m scared. I don’t think it’s going to work. I find that there’s two things that come with excuses. Number one is that we just don’t understand or we’re not willing to take responsibility for the choice or we’re not recognizing that we have a choice. We believe someone else is making us do something. The circumstances are putting us in a situation where we don’t have a choice. 

And I will argue with you all day long that you always have a choice. And in my house, we say,  you always have a choice. And if you don’t think you have a choice, well, then that’s a choice.  But I promise you, even the things that we don’t want to do, we’re choosing to do them because not doing them is a choice that we’re not willing to do.

An example of that might be, My mom bakes me a birthday cake. I only want to eat one piece,  but I eat more  because I don’t want to offend her. Well, I’m choosing to eat more, but I’m choosing that because it feels more comfortable than the thought that I might be offending her.  Now I just want to tell you I did have one client recently who her mom gave her a birthday cake. She had one piece. She threw the cake away and when her mom asked her about it, she told her that she threw it away. And you can see that although you might be cringing and feeling the discomfort that my client felt, she was willing to feel that discomfort. She was willing to choose the discomfort of her mom’s reaction than she was to put more cake in her body. 

I see it’s just always a choice and I say it in that voice so that you can see the difference between an excuse and excuses like it’s kind of up this way and it’s got like lots of words and I’m really trying to convince myself and I’m not sure is this true is this really the thing is this really reality blah blah blah instead of saying no I have a choice  and again by the end of this podcast I just want you to feel so calm. 

And say, Oh, I’m so glad I waited or I’m so glad I didn’t let that stop me. But I want to tell you that both whether it’s for a reason or an excuse, it’s just a thought, friends. It’s just sentences that are going through your brain. And some of those sentences lead you closer to what you want. And some of those sentences leave you farther from what you want.

And what I mean by that is that they’re just sentences and you can believe them to be true or you can question them. And whether or not you believe them to be true, it is simply how much you have practiced them. Because those sentences that go through your brain, those thoughts, the more you practice them, then they start to feel true and become true in your brain.

But they’re only true in your brain.  And you know that’s true, ha ha ha, because the story I just told you about my client and the birthday cake. You might believe you can’t throw birthday cake away.  And my client believes I don’t have to eat that birthday cake. So you just get to choose.  There’s a whole process that goes with unbelieving thoughts. 

And when I just said that a whole process, doesn’t that sound like it’s extensive? No, it’s not. It’s a very simple process. It’s just being able to step away from your thoughts, recognizing that it is a thought, that even if you want to call it a belief, it’s still just a thought. Because the truth is, there’s only beliefs that come from the Lord that as Catholics, we choose to not question. 

Everything else is optional. And that should be the best news ever. And so you have thoughts that are going through your brain, some are keeping you stuck. For example, I thought that I was thinking when we first got our puppy, oh, so hard. I just can’t do this. I can’t do this. I would feel overwhelmed. I would feel stuck. I would feel paralyzed. And when I decided, no, I don’t want to feel that way. I’m not willing to give up on my dream. The Lord is calling me to this. How can I change this? How can I feel motivated? How can this feel possible? And so I started practicing new thoughts. Cash and I are going to help these women.

Cash and I are going to bring women freedom from food and weight struggles. Here we are two and a half years later you’re listening to a podcast that has over 50 episodes. We have over 300 women in our 63 surrendered challenge, and we’ve got hundreds of women in our weight loss with the Holy Spirit community. That my friends is the result of changing your thoughts. 

So what could be possible if you look at the thoughts that are going through your brain and we’re going to go through those right now. Some of those common thoughts, you can call them excuses. You can call them whatever you want that are going through your brain that are likely holding you up. I want to give you the option and the opportunity to say to yourself, two and a half years from now, oh, I’m so glad I didn’t let that stop me.

Four common things and thoughts I hear from women are, I don’t have time, I have a lot going on, it’s not a good time now, and it’s too hard, and you can just ask yourself the questions I’m going to be posing to you to start to decide. Do I love this reason? Do I want to keep it? Do I want to change it? All right, so let’s start with I don’t have time. There’s two big questions that I would suggest you ask your brain and the first one is so you notice yourself having the thought I don’t have time. Huh? Okay brain Well, how much time do you think it would take?Really push your brain and ask your brain to answer that question. How much time do you think it would take? 

Now the next thing that you need to know is  I have a theory on time. I believe that you cannot waste time. I believe that time is either spent getting you closer to what you ultimately and really and authentically and truly want, or it’s not moving you closer to that. I don’t think you can waste time because even if somebody was scrolling on social media for like two hours, they’re still getting what they want.

They still are getting that escape from life. Now it might not ultimately getting them the life that they want,  the true goal, but it is still getting them something that they do want, which is likely an escape from life, relaxation, not feeling their feelings. And so then I just, so knowing that we’re either spending our time getting us closer to what we ultimately and truly and authentically and in our deepest hearts desires want or we’re not. 

The second question to ask your brain, brain, where am I using my time not getting me closer to what I ultimately truly and authentically want and deeply desire? So where am I spending my time not getting that I could instead  be using my time getting me closer to that deep desire. So where am I spending time? Maybe doing something good, but it’s not getting me closer to what I deeply desire. It’s not getting me closer to being at a healthy weight. It’s not getting me closer to feeling freedom from food, from my weight struggle. 

It doesn’t mean you’re spending time doing something bad. It just means it’s just not getting you closer to what you ultimately want. It’s when you find yourself saying, I don’t have time, ask yourself those two questions. All right, the next thing that I hear women say, and their brains like to tell them, is I have a lot going on. I have a lot going on. And so ask what  does that mean? What do we have going on? And write that down. List things you have going on. And then the second question is, what does a lot mean? So if I sit down in a day and I would say, Oh, I have a lot of work to do. And I asked my brain, what does a lot mean? It means that I have tasks that have deadlines that are meant to be completed today or I have a portion of a deadline that I want to complete today. 

Another thing that my brain likes to say is I have a lot going on. Well, what does that mean? It typically means that I have many commitments with little downtime. That would be a lot in my brain, but I like to then just not use the vague term a lot. I like to say we have back to back appointments with downtime scheduled at such and such time. And then that just really helps me. Okay, the third one is it’s not a good time now. It’s just not a good time. All right, so I would ask my brain three questions. Brain, what makes now not a good time? 

Right? Your brain wants to pretend like it’s not a good time. Is it really now? For example, if it’s basketball season for my son, I might not choose to deep clean my house or to do some extra things at work  because we’re in basketball season. The second question is brain, how will I know when a good time is? Maybe it’s after basketball season. Now, if you can’t answer this, it’s typically not a reason that’s related to the season of life that you’re in or schedules. It might be something deeper that’s unrelated to time and schedules and the rhythm of your life.

Now it may be that the truth is that it’s not a good time because I don’t trust myself. I’m afraid I’ll fail. Something like that. Then the third thing is how is now actually the best time ever? That’s not actually the best time. So if it was something related to work and it’s basketball season, maybe now is actually the best time because I’ll have more time staying up later driving my son.

So I’ll have more free time in the afternoon or I will show up at games and maybe while they’re warming up, I can do some work or maybe I can ponder some concepts as I’m driving to my son’s game. I want to give you an example of  this opposite thinking that we had used with one woman in our community who said, Oh, it’s just so hard to lose weight as you get older. And we pressed her brain and said, well, how is it actually not harder to lose weight as you get older? Because her brain wanted to say the hormones, the body, the metabolism and all that jazz. And what we started to think was it’s actually easier to lose weight as you get older because you’re not willing to waste your time on gimmicks, on short term results, you know what you’re willing to do and not do.

You’re not willing to deprive yourself. You’re more authentically in tuned to your needs so that you can meet your emotional needs way easier than just accepting, I’m just going to eat some Doritos. You usually are starting to question whether the mean girl voice in your head is even beneficial and you’re more willing to change that and speak more kindly to yourself a lot quicker.  You just see how it’s not working being critical and mean and punishing yourself. You’re willing to experiment and try new things because you see that doing things that are easy and fit into your lifestyle will get you farther than those gimmicks and short term results. So the maturity that comes with getting older makes losing weight way easier. Do you see how when we can look at the opposite, it will get us closer to what we actually want instead of staying stuck in that thought of it’s too hard to lose weight as you get older. Okay, there was this brings us to my the  this brings us to our last thought which is it’s too hard. Now I just went through the opposite thinking that it’s too hard to lose weight. But let’s talk about it in a more broad and general sense. You can ask your brain, brain, what does hard mean? And I’m really challenging the women in our community to use different words to describe hard.

What does hard mean? Does it mean it’s familiar? That it’s new? That I haven’t done this before? That I don’t feel good at it? That I have to try new things? Yeah, you guys, I want to tell you that new things do feel unfamiliar. New things will create new feelings of feeling overwhelmed and not good at it.

These are just feelings. They’re not hard. They’re uncomfortable, but you know what else is uncomfortable? Uncomfortable is staying stuck in the cycle that you’ve been in. Uncomfortable is waking up, feeling the way you do in your body, carrying excess weight, feeling yourself held back from life and enjoying the most amazingly profound experience of life because you’re feeling controlled or held back by your body side. 

That’s uncomfortable. Trying new things is just unfamiliar and it’s just new. So really press your brain. Brain, what does hard mean? Then ask your brain, what else is too hard? What else is too hard? What am I enduring that’s too hard right now? And I just went through some examples of how living the way you are now might be harder than making a change. And you can just talk to your brain, which hard do we want?  Which is hard? We get hard, which is learning new skills, which by the way, skills are things that you have never done before, but as you practice them, they get easier and easier and easier. 

Are we willing to endure and experience that hard? Or do we want to stay in the heart that we know, which is simply familiar. Yeah, and just recognize there’s a comfort in that, but there is a heart in it. There is a discomfort in it. And the last question is really just leaning into that brain. What is hard about living the way that I am now? And I want you to just choose which heart you really want. Part of the familiarity of where you possibly could be living now is it’s familiar and it’s comfortable. And I want you to recognize that there is a lot of peace that comes with familiar and comfort, and change and trying new things by really leaning into the hope and the possibility. 

And the future that you are creating that two and a half years from now you will say, Oh, so worth it. In fact, by next week you would say, Oh, it’s so worth it. I’m glad I didn’t let that stop me.  And leaning into that future, I did a podcast on creating your future vision and your future you. And that is, oh, it’s so yummy to live in that future.

Listen to that podcast. Oh man, that’ll motivate you to move forward. And so just like I found myself thinking, Oh, that’s too much, I just can’t do it. I was able to change my thought to create the future that I deeply desire, that I authentically want. And I was able to create that future because my thoughts changed.

And so now I want to give you a couple thoughts that might help you that you can borrow as you choose to either wait or to take steps forward. But either way, just love your reasons. I want you to say, Oh, I’m so glad or I’m so glad I didn’t let that stop me. So thoughts that you can borrow.  I know how to get help. I know who to ask when your brain wants to be like, I don’t know how to do this.  

I know who to ask. I know some things I could try. I’m willing to try new things. I’m willing to be uncomfortable to get what I really want. I’m willing to be uncomfortable. I’m committed to learning how to get what I really want. I’m willing to see that this could be possible. I’m willing to try. I’m willing to try new things. I’m willing to find a way to get what I really want. I know this will all be worth it. I’m willing to see if this could all be worth it. 

Now, some of these thoughts might not feel true for you, but I’m going to tell you some that really helped me now. I’m a woman who knows herself. I’m a woman who knows what she really wants. I’m committed to getting what I really want. I know this will all be worth it. 

And you guys, there are some thoughts. If I’m feeling too much pressure, I’ll tell myself it’s okay to not do it until I’m ready. That really helps me, you know, we’re not trying to strong arm ourselves into life. That softness and that gentleness takes me way farther than being critical and condemning. 

I’m learning how to be kind and tender to myself. I’m just not willing to do this yet and that’s okay. Those are the thoughts that will help you say, I’m really glad I’m waiting. I’m so glad I’m waiting because sometimes it isn’t the action that we take. Sometimes it’s simply being willing to change our thoughts and being willing to consider what thoughts are blocking us and what thoughts just meet us where we are and we just say, hey, Denise, you’re just not ready. And that’s okay. I still love you right where you are. 

Okay, everybody. I hope this has been helpful. And I hope that as you hear my voice, you’re saying, Hmm, I’m so glad I’m waiting. I’m just not ready. And that’s the truth. I’m scared. Or you’re saying, things can be different. I’m willing to take a step forward. I know what to try next.  And if one of the things that you’d like to try is to feel freedom from your food and weight struggles, visit me at  weightlosswithaholyspirit.com. We have a five day free challenge there and you might decide, hey, I just want to dive in right away, but go to weightlosswithaholyspirit.com and you will find what you’re looking for. 

All right, everybody have a blessed day.