310. Change From Love

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 310: Change From Love.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

If you love something then why would you want to change it? If you appreciate something why would you want to make it any different than it is? This is a question I get a lot. This is a question that I wrestle with in my head as well, that I am not proclaiming to have all the answers to. But today I want to talk to you about this concept of change from love because what I’ve found is that trying to change something because you hate it is 10 times harder than changing something because you love it.

And so I think that yes, we absolutely can choose to change something and love that thing. And I’m going to give you some examples of that today. But I do want to mention that it’s not unfortunately a really simple linear thing. It’s complicated and I might be wrong about some of this even. But I have coached thousands of people through changes that they wanted to make in their lives.

And probably most profoundly I’ve watched my own self shift from trying to change some things out of hate and loathing into trying to change them out of love and appreciation. And what a huge difference that’s made. So the reason that I felt prompted to do this episode is I got a message from one of my members in Be Bold and this is what she said, “You’d said something at the end of this month’s VIP call. You said something that I’ve heard before but this time it was stated kind of differently and it stopped me in my tracks. I played it over and over.

I wonder if you might do a post or something in the future expanding on this. You said, “I don’t know how to progress in any area of your life from feeling bad about where you’re at.” I wanted to hear more about this but the person you were coaching just took it in, in stride and moved on, which was totally fine. For me it was one of those light bulb moments and I can’t stop thinking about it. I love everything I’m learning. Thank you so much.”

Okay, so thank you my friend who sent this in, you know who you are. I said, “Hey, I think that’s a great idea. Maybe we should do a whole podcast on it.” It’s true. I don’t know very many people anyway that have made long term sustainable change from hating where they’re at. I’ve seen people make temporary change. I’ve seen people make a change to a place that now they want to make a change again. But I haven’t seen people make the kind of change that we want to make from hating where you’re at. That is the honest truth.

And I love knowing that. It doesn’t make it easy to do all the time but I love knowing that. So let’s talk about why this might be the case. So we’ve learned a lot about shame over the course of the past, at least I’ve learned about it I should say over the course of the last five to seven years thanks to the work of Brené Brown, shame researcher and other individuals who are studying and talking about shame. One of the main things that everybody seems to agree upon is that shame loves hiding.

Brené Brown describes it as if you were to put shame in a petri dish and keep it hidden it would grow and fester. So shame says we should hide and then it grows even bigger when we hide it. The opposite of shame then is vulnerability, openness and sharing. And when you share something, immediately the shame becomes reduced. So she says the antidote to shame is empathy. And no one can empathize with us if we aren’t willing to share the reality of what’s going on. So we see this in a lot of different situations.

We see this with people who have some kind of a secret and maybe something they’ve done wrong, or something that’s not even wrong, just something about them that other people don’t know. And maybe it’s their sexuality. Maybe it’s a secret interest or something that they have. As soon as you share it in a safe place with someone that responds with empathy and kindness it immediately starts deflating the shame bubble.

So if you have something like that that you’ve been hiding, the best thing you can do is share it with a trusted source. You don’t need to share it on social media right away. You might not run into a lot of empathy there necessarily or you might anyway, get some of the opposite. So share it with someone you’re close to. Share it with somebody in authority that you trust. Share it with a therapist. Share it with a coach. It doesn’t matter who. You need someone to not be freaked out and shocked at what you share. That is what will start to diminish the shame.

So if that’s true, shame thrives in hiding, then if we are rejecting ourselves, if we’re rejecting a part of us, if we’re rejecting where we’re at and we want to make a change then we can’t get the leverage over ourselves necessary to make that change in a healthy sustainable way because we cannot become as aware of ourselves as we ideally want to be in order to make the change. Are you with me?

Because we will hide even from ourselves, what does it look like to hide from yourself? It looks like not paying attention, not being willing to think about it, and question it, and be curious about it on a deep level. It looks like sort of just trying to move on from that, doing things in a hurry. So even though you can’t really actually ever hide from yourself, you kind of can. You cannot pay attention to certain parts of yourself, certain habits, certain routines, certain things about you. And you will do that over and over again if you’re in shame about it.

If every time you think about it you feel terrible because you beat yourself up over it you’re not going to want to think about it very often. This makes sense. So we want to understand where we’re at so we can figure out how to get where we’re trying to go. Let me give you a metaphorical example first of all.

If you ever use Uber or Lyft, maybe you’ve had this experience. So sometimes if I’m traveling I will use Lyft, I’ll use their app on my phone. And I’ll put in, “Hey, I need to be picked up at this location and I need to go to that location.” And thanks to modern technology I don’t even have to put in the address of where I’m at. It has the GPS from my phone tells it here’s where I am and then I just tell it where I want to go. But that GPS, that satellite up in space is pretty crazy accurate but sometimes a little off.

Sometimes it thinks that instead of being out front of the hotel I’m staying at, it think that I am at the Walgreens across the street from my hotel. Sometimes instead of knowing that I am at Terminal E at a particular airport, it thinks that I’m at Terminal F at a particular airport – at the same airport. So it’s pretty dang close but sometimes a little off.

And what happens if it thinks I’m at Walgreens instead of outside my hotel? Then the Lyft driver goes to Walgreens and then he says, “I don’t see you.” And I say, “I don’t see you either even though the Lyft app says you’re here.” So then we have to figure out together using our human brains instead of the GPS satellite in the phone how to find each other. Not super challenging but you can see where, we need to know, I need him to know exactly where I am or I need to be able to walk over to where he or she is in order to get in that car and go where I’m trying to go.

It’s not enough to know I’m at the airport, depending on what city I’m in the airport might be really big. I need him to know that I’m at baggage claim at Terminal E or wherever I am, ideally. Or else I need to figure out where he is or she is. If we don’t know exactly where each other is we can’t get together, and I can’t get in that Lyft, and I can’t get the ride to where I’m trying to go. And this is true for you and your goals my friend.

And if you have lots of self-loathing about where you’re at, if you tell yourself that you should be further along, that there’s something wrong with where you’re at and you hate where you at and you’re trying to make a change from hate fueled by hate, and disapproval, and dissatisfaction, and shame. You’re going to get an entirely different result than if you fuel it with acceptance, and compassion, and curiosity, and appreciation, and ideally even from love.

So I’m going to give you examples in a minute but I just want you to keep that little analogy in mind, that we want to get as precise as we can about understanding where we’re at. So this is the debate. I mean this comes up in all kinds of ways. This can come up in your business. Maybe you think that you’re not far enough along in your business, you need to be doing more and you’re trying to grow from that place.

Maybe it’s with your home, you hate your home, it’s just not good enough, it’s not big enough, it’s not clean enough, it’s not pretty enough, it’s not whatever and you want a new home.

I think it’s probably the most obvious and the most prevalent with our bodies. We walk around judging our bodies, hating our bodies, wishing we looked better, wishing we were thinner, wishing we looked different, wishing we were younger, wishing we had less wrinkles or less whatever. And then we try to make a change from that place and it is painfully challenging. If you’re a woman you can probably relate to this. But if you’re even just any gender of human you probably have experienced this in some form or another.

So this is where we get the question, “Alright Jody, if I just love my house why would I want to get a new one, or why would I want to clean it up if I love it?” “If I love my business just as it is, why would I want to grow it?” “If I love my body why would I lose weight or why would I try to get healthier? Or why would I want to take better care of it? Why would I drink more water if I just love it as it is?” So I’m going to just preface this by saying it’s complicated, it really is.

There might be times when you do the work to love something and then decide that you don’t want to change it. That might happen. And that would be okay because the only reason we want to change it is so that we can love it more in many cases, in some cases. And if that’s true, if the reason I want to change it is so that I could love it more, but I learn to love it more instead then I may decide I don’t want to change it. And I still get what I want which is to love it. That will happen in some cases.

But there are other times when you may choose to change something out of love because you love it. We do this all the time you guys. Let me give you some examples. I like to get my nails done, it’s one of my favorite little indulgences is to go to the nail salon and get the gel nails. You’ve got to get the gel because otherwise the nail polish just chips off after a day, not worth it. So I go and get gel nails. I keep them really short because my piano teacher says they’ve got to be short for me to play the piano. But I just like to go get some nail polish.

And right now I have on this really bright like salmony pink color nail polish, it’s much brighter than what I normally wear. But you know what? I went in and I was like, “I think instead of this neutral color that I have on right now. I think I’ll do a bright color today.” And it isn’t because I was like I hate this neutral color nail polish. I’ve got to get it off my nails, I can’t love my hands and my fingernails until I get a bright color. No, I just was like I think I will change it today.

And the reason I go in and get my nails done is because I love myself. I take care of myself, it’s out of appreciation, it’s not like you are an embarrassment Jody until you get those nails done. No, it’s just you know what would be fun? Get my nails done. You know what would be fun? Change up the color. I don’t get the same color every time. If you do that’s okay. But I’m just saying we all have areas of our life where we make change all the time, not out of hate, just because we want to, just out of playfulness, just out of fun.

Did you know that as human beings we actually do like change to a certain extent? We have a lot of parameters around that, we want it to be our idea and we want it to be under our terms, and we want to determine all the parameters of the change ideally. But if we don’t have any change we create problems for ourselves. If there’s too much change we create problems for ourselves.

So we got to experience this firsthand last year during a pandemic when our lives got changed quite a bit. And we suddenly started feeling bored. We didn’t get to experience as much change as we were used to. We didn’t get to have change of scenery. We didn’t get as much change in our location. We didn’t get as much change in the people that we got to interact with. We experienced a lot of that variety being taken away from our lives. And then we struggled as a result many of us. So we do actually like change in certain conditions.

We change our clothes. We don’t wear the same clothes every single day most of us, a few people, Steve Jobs did. But most of us we like to change up our clothes even though I might be wearing something that I really like, I might choose to wear something different the next day. This is because we like variety. We like to make changes. And it doesn’t mean I hate what I wore today necessarily. It just might be I like that and I like this. And I want some variety. I want to change things up. We even crave growth. And growth doesn’t have to mean something’s wrong with where we’re at.

We do not look at our child who is crawling and think if only you could walk then I would love you. No, we’re delighted that the child is crawling and we want to see them walk. And we try to help them learn to walk. And we’re excited when they learn to walk because growth is a natural part of our progression here as humans, part of our experience. It’s a natural desire and need that we all have.

So I don’t hate that my child can’t swim. I just think learning to swim might add to his life, might make it better, might keep him safer, might provide opportunity for him to experience more things in the world. And so I’ll put him in swimming lessons. But it’s not because I’m super mad and disapproving of the fact that he can’t swim. Are you with me? Do you see how we make changes all the time?

Even changes that we might say this would be better, it doesn’t come from I hate where you’re at right now, I’m super mad at it, I can’t look at it, I’m very ashamed, I’m very embarrassed. You should be embarrassed. No, it’s just, this would be cool. Do you see how there’s a lightness, a playfulness, a fun energy around it?

So I want you to think about it this way though, the reason that, again, we have to work to accept. And not be at least so angry and disapproving of where we’re at is this age old concept that I’ve heard taught in this way before where what most people think, what our natural default brains believe is that we should do something, in order to have something, in order to be something, do, have, be. We want to start with action. What should I do? Let’s just use weight loss again, let’s use the body.

Tell me what diet I should try. Tell me what exercise routine I should try. Tell me what you’ve done. What do you do? What have you done to lose the weight? And we think that if we just do those things then we will have the body that we want, at the weight that we want, that looks how we want and then we will be confident. Are you with me? Do, have, be.

What did you do to achieve that goal? I’m going to do that so I can have what you have so that I can be the person I’m trying to be. In other words, so that I can feel how I’m trying to feel. I can feel happier. I can approve of myself. I can love myself. And what we want to do is just take the be and move it up to the front of the equation. Instead of do, have, be, we want it to be, be, do, have. I need to be confident first in order to do what I’m trying to do in a healthy, effective way. And then I will have the results I’m wanting to have.

But notice that in the beginning I already chose the emotions, I already chose to be the person who I’m trying to be. In other words, if I’m trying to be a person who loves herself and loves her body, I’ve got to be her first. And then if I want to go do something, alright, but I’m going to be doing it from a totally different energy, from a different place. I’m going to have an entirely different experience and create a different result. Are you with me? Be, do have, that is the secret to the universe. Again, I didn’t make this up. People have been teaching this for decades, it’s got to be, be, do, have.

Here’s the thing, I know that’s easier said than done. People are like, “Great, Jody, I want to love my body but I don’t know how. How do I?” And that has been the question on my mind that I have been studying, not only studying, but practicing and trying out for the last three to four years.

I made a decision three and a half years or so ago to stop doing everything I was doing when it came to my food, and my body, and my weight, to just put a pause on thinking about all of it anyway so intentionally. And to just figure out how to love myself better, and especially how to love my body exactly as it was, I was about 150 pounds which on my 5’3 frame is fine, but I knew that I would feel better and be healthier about 20-25 pounds lighter.

So I put a pause on all that and I just focused on loving my body. And I did that for a couple of years before I felt myself be in a healthy headspace to focus on that goal again. At which point I went to work and that was just a year ago actually. And because I’ve done all the work leading up to it and continued to do the work, and I still have to do it, you guys. I am not here to say, “Yeah, I’ve figured it out. Now I love my body and I never judge how it looks and I appreciate it all the time.” That’s not at all what I’m saying.

What I’m saying is I know how to do it. I know what the work is. And I do it sometimes. I wish I could say I do it all the time consistently but I don’t, that’s the honest truth. I still slip back into old patterns sometimes. I still find myself judging my body. I know that my motivations for losing weight, I’ve now lost 20 of those pounds and I have another five or seven that I could stand to lose but I’m not really in a rush. I’m not super motivated to lose it to be honest. I keep trying to get myself motivated and it’s just not happening.

So there are still some motives in there that are not healthy. It’s true. I still kind of think I would look better. And that would be cool and I could approve of myself easier and other people might approve of me more. I still have all that drama. I still, all of us do by the way, I think most of us do anyway. If you never put on make-up, you never color your hair, you just wear the same t-shirt and jeans every day, you don’t pay attention to clothes, or think about, or care about clothes.

If you have zero thoughts about your appearance, I heard somebody talking the other day about how women used to view themselves before we had mirrors. And it sort of made my head explode. Wait a second. What would it be like to not have mirrors, to never see yourself except maybe in the reflection of a lake accidentally for a second? Wouldn’t that be so crazy? Think about how much headspace that would free up, how much time and money it would free up. I can’t even imagine it.

So I’m not here to say that I’m free from the socialization and the noise in my head about how my looks matter. You guys know, I love to get my hair done and I love lipstick and all the things. And I do think that some of that can be playful, and fun, and just wanting to make a change for the sake of wanting change. But I do also have some unhealthy thoughts with it. But what I was saying is I know how. And I’m 80% consistent at loving my body. And that’s the only way I lost 20 pounds during the pandemic.

I did it because I loved myself enough to do it. I loved my body enough to say, “Listen, body, I’m so sorry for all the abuse I’ve put you through, physical abuse, verbal abuse even if they were through thoughts in my mind. I have not been nice to you. I have been very mean to you in many ways. I’ve fed you a lot of things that you don’t like, you don’t feel good when I eat those things. And I’ve talked to you in ways that are not nice. And I’m done with that.”

And so in Be Bold for the month of July I’m going to teach you how to love your body. I’m going to teach you the exact process. I’m going to share with you examples and more importantly, I’m going to be coaching you on what’s going on in your head. Because remember, we have to become aware of where you’re at, even if where you’re at is that you hate your body. We’re going to become aware of that. I’ll be your Lyft’s driver, I’m going to come and pick you up. And from I hate my body, I can help you progress to loving your body.

And if you want to make a change in your body at that point, okay, if you want to because it sounds fun and because – this was me. There’s a pandemic going on, I’ve got some free time now. I got a little bit of headspace that I wasn’t expecting to have. And I love this body enough that I’m going to devote some time, and energy, and resources to it, to helping it feel better, to helping it function better. And then that little part of me is like, “And it’s going to look better.” I’m like, “Yeah, but that’s not going to be our main motivator.”

I’ll tell you what, weight loss even, I don’t think personally that there’s anything wrong with wanting to lose weight. Again, I think it can be coming from a healthy place. But I also think it’s the least interesting part of all of this. It’s sort of like making money in business, I’ve been doing these business podcasts, if you’ve been listening to the bonuses. And making money is awesome, it’s an awesome part of having a business. But it’s the least interesting part, it really is.

If your only motivation is to make money you’re probably not going to stick with it very long or it’s not going to be that enjoyable. I don’t recommend becoming an entrepreneur if your only goal is to make money or if that’s your main motivator is just to become rich. We all know this, it just doesn’t work. And that’s how I feel about the work we’re going to do on bodies, on your thoughts about your body and even on changing your nutrition, and your eating, and your exercise habits.

Weight loss is great, it is. It’s fun to lose weight. Maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe that’s socialization that we need to undo. But I’m not there yet. I still like it. I still think it’s fun. But it’s the least powerful part. It’s the least interesting part. If that’s your only motivation I would say don’t start dieting, don’t start focusing on what you’re eating. But there are so many other benefits to doing this work, the main one being that you walk around liking yourself, and respecting yourself, and trusting yourself.

So if any of those things sound interesting or if you’re even just like, “I want to love my body, I know it would be beneficial but I don’t know how”, then you’ve got to join me in Be Bold because this is a brand new workshop. I’ve never taught it before. I won’t be teaching it again for at least a year. And we’re starting next week. So don’t miss it, jodymoore.com/membership.

It’s $49, you’ll get the workshop and you’ll get all the other things that happen in Be Bold which you can learn more about on the program page. And I cannot wait to see you there. Take care.

Who is your life coach? If you don’t have one I would be so honored to be your coach. I created a virtual coaching program called Be Bold that I want to invite you to join me in. We can address challenges, we can work on goals, and we can do it in so many different ways.

We have group coaching, individual private coaching, and online chats along with hundreds of hours of courses and content that I’ve created just for you. When you’re ready to really take what you’re learning on the podcast to the 10x level, then come check out Be Bold at JodyMoore.com/membership.