MODULE 1

EATING PSYCHOLOGY & MIND BODY NUTRITION

Section 4

Our approach is to combine some of the best coaching and counseling techniques that are simple to practice and naturally teach us to become better practitioners.

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Greetings once again, my friends. This is Mark David, founder of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. Here we are continuing the conversation of laying a foundation for how to be a great practitioner. So this conversation is all about key counseling skills and distinctions. My goal for you is to be the kind of practitioner that doesn't waste a lot of energy. My goal for you is to be the kind of practitioner who can function with a sense of some flow and function, with a sense of ease, and not get hooked and not get distracted by going down the wrong road because you are contexting your role in a way that drains your energy. I see this happen with so many practitioners in terms of how they look at their job and what they're here to accomplish. So our task is to, of course, we're putting in effort when we're seeing clients, but to do that, paradoxically in an effortless way. So let's just talk about a few musings. I always like to, I often like to start out our conversation by recapping a little bit, reminding us, updating us. What makes for a great coach, counselor, or practitioner is our ability to fully step into the best of what this role is asking of us. It's a role you put on a hat. You're playing a role where functioning as a very specific archetype when you're being a mother, you're being a mother. That's very different from when you're being a friend. It's very different from when you're being a sister. When you're being a father, you're being a father. That's very different from being, I don't know, a mechanic at work, a scientist. It's different from, you know, uh, uh, uh, playing first base on your baseball team. Different archetypes. We step into different roles. So we're learning how to answer the call of that particular role, so we do it best. Another way of saying that is we're being asked to play a very specific part in the grander play, the grander journey of our client's life. You are, you are stepping into their movie. They're the, they're the star of their show. They're the star of their movie, their journey, their story, and you're coming into play a role. It's a lesser role, quite frankly, because they're the important guy or gal. And that role is, oh, so important because as mentors, guides, advocates, cheerleaders, we're, we're, we're here to be a great friend, a great ally, a wise man or woman, a good listener. We're here to be a human being who can be present with unconditional acceptance. When you do that, when you can just step into that role and own it and be it in a good way, that's a good third of your success with your client, is just staying true to your role and not trying to be a fixer, and not trying to be a mechanic, and not trying to be someone who takes away somebody's pain and not trying to be someone who helps your client be perfect, because that's what they're trying to do most likely. And none of that works. So we're gonna look at some of the DNA, some of the skills, some of the distinctions that further help us be the best practitioner possible. One of the first things for you, my friends, that I want to suggest is that for every client,
the moment they walk into the session, the moment you get on the phone with them, the moment they walk in the door, what, whatever the context of the session is, whether it's phone, online, live in the office, I'm looking for you to create this fascinating experience called a container.
We're learning to create a container where containing the space with our client. Now, a way to describe creating con a container is to acknowledge that our clients are asking us for help in holding their issue, protecting it, nurturing it, loving it. We're creating an energetic container for them. It's a space, it's a metaphoric vessel, it's a safe container. Our clients need our help in creating a container of safety, because in that container of safety, guess what? They can relax. And when they can relax, wisdom can start to happen. When they relax, insight can start to happen. When they relax, clients can start to hear us. So as a container you create for your client, is it strong? Does it have leaks? Are you big enough? Can you, can you make yourself energetically big enough to contain, to hold, to embrace, to hug what your client is bringing to you? So when I ask that the container you create for your client, be strong. That means are you gossiping about them? Don't do that. Please. Are you creating confidentiality? 100%. Please do that. Let your client know, Mr. And Mrs. Client, everything that happens in this session is between you and I only, and you don't share with anybody else. Sure, you can share with a fellow professional without naming names and without giving away the kinds of details that in any way, shape, or form would identify this client, you know, as a very specific individual, because you never know what happens. Um, when you're sitting with your client and they're sharing something with you, are you saying, oh, yeah, you know something, this issue that you have that reminds me of the same thing, and, oh yeah, I've got the same wallpaper in my house, and, and are you, do you go off talking about yourself when you are here to listen to your client? So you are here to be focused on your client. You're here to be focused on making sure that when your client is sitting with you, there is nobody else in the world but them. It's you and them. So it's a energetic, invisible, tight, strong container. And when you're able to con to create that container through your intention, our clients feel it. They sense it. So when my client comes to see me, I want them to know, this is your safe haven. This is your safe place. Your story is important to me. It is sacred to me. I'm not gonna make fun of you. I'm not gonna laugh at you. I'm holding their story as if it's the rarest, most treasured storybook. When I do that, my client gets it. They feel it, they understand, they get in, they feel that they're important. And if I'm holding them as sacred invisibly, energetically unspoken, they get to start to feel that in their own life. If you want to, if you're the, like a visualization type of person, you can literally visualize and surround you and your client in a, in a, in an energy field, a white light, blue light, whatever it is that works for you. But ask yourself, do I create a safe space, a safe environment for my client, by the way, my friends. That also means is your phone ringing when your client's with you turn it off, turn off your cell phone handle that. Don't be in a session and your client's sharing some deep vision. All of a sudden your phone starts blowing up. Um, did you shut off all the electronic gizmos in the house? Whatever it is in your space that can create a distraction? Are you going to be undisturbed? Is it clear that your dog, your animal, your pet is outside the room and they're not gonna be barking, screaming, scratching, clawing? So you are the one who is 1000% responsible for eliminating all possible distractions. So when you sit down with your client, they feel you've created that space for them. They know it's a tight container because the littlest things sometimes are the biggest things. And if your phone starts to go off while you're in a client session, that's sloppy. I'm gonna just tell you straight up. So I keep a tight container with my client. I make sure that there's silence outside of my office as best as humanly possible. All the electronics that can possibly go off are off. So really what I'm asking you to do is to love and value your client in the moment that you are with them and tighten your container. Make sure that you've done a little bit of work on yourself to clear your mind. Now, maybe you just got off the phone with your friend, with a coworker or husband, wife, whatever it is, and you had an argument and you're p****d and you're upset, and your client's gonna be with you in another five or 10 minutes. You have to do the work. You have to do the work to clear your mind. You have to do some long, slow, deep breathing. You have to put on whatever kind of music you can put on that relaxes you, that helps you clear, that helps cleanse the space. You burn incense, you burn sage, you put on music, you open up a window, whatever. You have to find what it is that helps you be clear, that helps you let go. Even simple things like making sure you've used the bathroom beforehand, making sure that you're well fed and you're not gonna be sitting there hungry, making sure that you have your glass of water or tea or whatever it is that you need.
We're creating a container for our clients. People feel that I, I, I mean, just think of anybody that you're hanging out with or you're hanging out with a friend. And if they're distracted and you wanna have a deep conversation with them and you know they're not really present and they're looking around and they're distracted by this or distracted by that, there should be nothing that can distract you in a session. Whatever it is, there shouldn't be any computer on in the background or a TV on whatever it is that might distract you some way in some shape has to be handled before your client comes in. So you've got a tight space. And when I say tight, I mean it's airtight, it's clean. Now, when you and I create that container, this is a beautiful opportunity to invite and invoke the sacred.
And that's a choice. What does it mean to invite and invoke the sacred? To invite and invoke The sacred means that there's something more than us, more than me, more than you that does the coaching, the counseling. We are not the person that heals them. Life heals them. There's something more than me, my brain, that, that that's doing all this. There's something more that meets the eye when it comes to life, my friends, when it comes to the world, when it comes to the universe, when it comes to any relationship you have, and when it comes to the moments, the precious moments that you are with your client. So what I would love for you to do is ask yourself, how do I invite and invoke the sacred into a session with a client? Now, depending on your orientation, that could mean making a prayer before they step into the office. It might mean silently asking the universe for help. Uh, it might mean you make some affirmation that you silently say to yourself before your client steps in an affirmation. Like, you know, may this session, uh, be an experience where I give my absolute best and I'm totally focused, and I can provide my client what they need to take a big step forward in their life. Or I intend to be present and clear and conscious so you don't have to believe in God and believe in a higher power. Invite a higher code, invite a higher intention. But it's you taking the time, taking a moment to understand that this process is bigger than you and I and our client. This experience is about you being invited into somebody's inner world, their inner life, their deepest journey, and you're here to help them grow and transform. That's an honor and that's a responsibility. So let's, let's just treat it as such because when we honor that and treat it as such, then I think there's an invisible that that meets us there in that place. So I ask the sacred, I ask the divine to come into my office to come into the space, to come into the container that is this relationship with me and my client, and show me and guide me and inform me and direct me. Now, for sure, there are moments when I'm with a client that where I'm gonna get confused. I might be clear, I might not be clear. I might get activated, I might get p****d. I I get annoyed. Am I get afraid? You know, those moments come up absolutely, where all of a sudden I'm dropping into my own fear, my own ego, my own confusion, oh my God, this is such a difficult client. What am I gonna do? And oftentimes in that moment, I might say a quick prayer or a quick affirmation to the universe asking for help, acknowledging that I don't know all the time what I'm doing, and I could use some insight and I can, I can use, um, a higher help. You know, it, it's, it's like in life when you partner with the right people in a business opportunity in any kind of venture, when you have the right comrades, the right partners, things work out whether you're partnering with a marriage partner, boyfriend, girlfriend, business. Well, When it comes to the coaching, counseling practitioner relationship with a client, with a patient, I'm suggesting that we're partnering with a higher power, with a higher intelligence, with a higher code. And how could you possibly go wrong in that case?
So my friends, when it comes to invoking the sacred, you choose what this means for you. You choose your ritual, you discover it, you play with that. It's all about the assumption that we are conduits you and I we are conduits, channels, mouthpieces, step down transformers for a higher wisdom. You know, how many times have I met so many great teachers in any realm who will often say, I don't know. When I say things, when I talk about things, when I have these ideas, they'll, they'll go, I don't even know where it comes from. It just comes through me. Or Let me ask you this question. Have you ever had a moment, not even as a professional, just as a friend, just as a loved one to somebody in any moment where you're in an interaction and all of a sudden you start saying something and something's coming through you, and like, where is this coming from? And, and you're saying things that you might not normally say to some, to a person you might not normally say it to, but it turns out it's spot on. It's the right thing to say. And it literally just, it it spoke through you that my friends, is what I'm talking about. Now, if we don't operate on the assumption that we're conduit channels, mouth pieces, or a step down transformer for a higher wisdom, then guess what? My friends, the pressure's really on me and you to perform and to be super human. And that's a lot of pressure
and it's an unfair amount of pressure. And I think it's an inaccurate kind of pressure because it ain't your job
to do this all by yourself. So I'm always asking the question, how can I create a sacred space for myself, for my clients? How can you remember that you are not the one who does the healing and the transforming? You are the one who helps invite in a greater wisdom into the coaching experience. How do you do that? Invent something. Once again, if this is not something that comes natural to you or that feels a little out there and a little weird, then please consider any way that you can invoke something higher, deeper and intention. You just speak your intentions to yourself in a way that works for you before your client comes in. So you are psychically cleaning house and psychically affirming that you're here to do your best so your client can get to the place where they need to go.
Now, here I am reminding you again, let go of the fixing you will inevitably try to fix. I still try to do it. And when I do it, I remind myself that I'm not here to fix anyone. And if you're new to the helping professions, you're gonna quickly learn what I mean. If you've been doing this a while, you know exactly what I'm talking about because we tend to be trained to be fixers. That's how, that's how we've kind of been taught by the world. So this is a key and core concept that cannot be spoken enough because your client is not broken no matter how broken they feel. So part of creating a container is to not buy into your client's false beliefs is to not buy into your client's toxic beliefs is to not buy into your client's belief. That is, I am not enough in terms of who I am. I am unlovable, I am broken. I don't buy it. I will never buy it. Do they have an issue? Yes. Are they in pain? If they say so? Yes. Are they in suffering? If they say so, yes. Is this a major challenge for them? Yes, but we are not broken into decrepit creatures that unless we're fixed, we're broken, decrepit, and we have this, we walk around with this, with this, oh, it's a sourness, it's a lack. It's a sense of incomp completion. It's a sense that I'm not the real me yet. From that place, we will always choose. People who think they're broken will choose strategies from a place of lack and fear. So once again, the assumption is we're already whole beings who are simply facing the challenges of growth, healing, transformation, and living a life in a challenging world. And ain't your fault. You live in a challenging world and you're doing your best. It's not your client's fault. They live in a challenging world. They're doing their best. So if I'm trying to fix them, again, it's about ego and performance. I did it, I did it, or oh my God, I didn't do it, I'm screwed.
Remember that trying to fix someone takes away their authority, their ability to be the author of their own life. It takes away their responsibility, their ability to respond to what life is presenting them with.
So as always, my friends fixing is a bit of a paradox because yes, we want our clients to get better, we want to help them, we want them to be free or whatever's holding them back. The thing is, what's often at the root of our food and body challenges is the core belief, the false belief that I'm broken. That's actually the issue. We're walking around feeling broken. We're walking around feeling unlovable. We're walking around feeling I'm not enough. I gotta do something to be lovable and to be unbroken.
So that's our strategy. But that's the very issue. Remember, once we have a false belief, we must then adopt behaviors that support that belief. If I'm walking around with a belief that damn life is great, and I'll be constantly looking for evidence of that belief, if I am walking around with a belief called nature is amazing and beautiful and wonderful and powerful, then I will keep finding evidence of that and keep finding great places in nature that support that belief. If I'm walking around with a belief that all women are bad and they're b*****s, and I'm gonna keep gathering evidence of that, if I'm walking around with a belief that, gosh, women are amazing people, I'm gonna find evidence of that. If I'm walking around with a belief that I'm broken, then I will create the evidence and the behaviors that proves my belief.
So whatever we believe the prover in us needs to prove and we unconsciously set out to prove it. So the paradox is trying to fix a broken person actually reinforces the very issue that we're trying to help. Again, this is a subtle distinction, but of utmost important. And I want you to consider this an advanced PhD concept. Let's talk about, oh, something I love to talk about, which is this thing called uncertainty. Uh, allow me for a moment to uh, honor one of my teachers, the late Gordon Tappen, who was in the, uh, graduate psychology department at Sonoma State University in California when I was a graduate student. And I remember my first class with him. There was about 150 students in the room and it was actually a number of teachers getting up and, you know, presenting different aspects of, you know, introduction to psychology and psychological theories and different counseling distinctions. And every teacher that came up, you know, gave like a 15 minute presentation. 'cause we were getting to know our teachers and they're all very clear and they're all very certain, and here's how it is, and here's what you do and here's how the mind works and here's how emotions work. And he's, here's the best strategies and the best approach. And then when it came time for Dr. Gordon Tappen to deliver, uh, whatever he came up to say, he walks up to the podium and he's silent for a minute and he looks around the room and he takes a deep breath and he looks over at all the teachers who had just, um, delivered. He was the last guy to go. And it was smart that he's the last guy to go. 'cause he's clearly the elder statesman of the group. He's oldest, he's got the grayest hair. And what I discovered was he's also probably the wisest and the first things out of his mouth. As he looked at the other teachers and then looked at the students, he said, what about uncertainty?
And he stayed silent for a very uncomfortable amount of time.
Enough time for me to repeat the question to myself. What about uncertainty? And I'm thinking, what the heck does this guy mean? But somehow it stopped the room.
And what I started to see was we had so much everybody who got up had so much certainty. And every time somebody spoke with certainty, I go, yes, that's it. And he was always a stand for uncertainty. Yes, here's what we believe, yes, here's what we practice. Yes, here's what we do, but let's value this thing called uncertainty because we really don't know.
We really, really, really don't know. Uncertainty is so powerful, it's so valuable. It's worth its weight in gold because that's what we have. You don't know. You don't know what's gonna happen today, tomorrow, the next day. You don't know what the body's going to do. You don't know how much weight it needs to lose, when it's gonna lose it. You don't know when and if you're gonna heal. You don't know when you're gonna die. You don't know when your kid is gonna do this or that. You don't know. The weather. Life is constantly changing on us. Things change. You know, look at where you are now and today, like in your life, did you plan that all out? Did you exactly plan out who you're gonna be with? Who was gonna be your partner? Who are you gonna be married? These kind of people in your life, this kind of situation? Chances are your life is a product of, wow, how did I get here? Did you really, really, really know at any particular point with such certainty, the absolute trajectory that got you to the specifics of your life right now? And this is exactly how it was gonna play out. Of course not. Come on, be honest. So what I am saying is when we em embrace uncertainty, there's a wisdom and zen. It's called the wisdom of don't know. I don't know.
It's a form of humility.
It's a form of wisdom. When my client comes to see me, I'm uncertain. I don't know. I don't know how to help them. I don't always know what direction I'm gonna go in. And I'm fine with that. I love it. I'm okay, because when we can relax into uncertainty, something magical happens. I am offering this to you, postulating this to you, suggesting this to you, not only as a very deep counseling coaching skill, but also as a life skill, my friends. Because the truth is you don't know how it's gonna turn out. Of course, you and I make plans, of course we make financial plans, of course we make educational plans, of course we make all kinds of plans about all kinds of different things as we should. And we don't always know how it's gonna work out and how it's gonna play out. So when we're relaxing into that uncertainty, it's a paradox. So yes, I'm moving in this direction, yes, here's what I wanna do. I'm a coach, here comes my client. I am here to help guide Cheerlead, mentor, be their best friend, help them get where they want to go, help them deal with their food issue, their health issue. So yes, I am here so that the product of this relationship, as they come out, a better person, a more happy person, and they have less of the symptom or the complaint that they came in with. So yeah, so, so that's, I'm, I'm certain about that, but I'm uncertain how I'm gonna get there
because I don't know. 'cause I've never met this person. 'cause I don't know how the relationship is gonna go. I, I'm, when I look back on, on all the clients that I've ever seen, the, the moment they walk into my office, some clients turn into clients that are with me for many years. Some I end up seeing a few sessions, one session, and that's it. Some I have an amazing, powerful impact on their lives and others, they just walk away thinking, what the heck was that? Um, so anything can happen.
So when we are open to uncertainty and note the difference between uncertainty, relaxing into uncertainty, yeah, I don't know how this is gonna go, but I'm trusting. And I know that if I relax into uncertainty and I do my job, I ask questions, I listen. I have all these checklists in the back of my mind. I'm listening from my mind-body nutrition distinctions, dynamic eating, psychology distinctions. I have these intakes that I go through. I have these different puzzle pieces that I'm listening for. I will trust that all of that will come to bear and come together at some point in a session or in a future session that things will start to get clear. So I'm trusting that. And you know what? I'm trusting that if it doesn't come together, something good will come out of that. It just means, oh, you're not the right client for me. But you know something, I know the perfect person for you to go see, or you know something. I think you need to see this kind of practitioner. So whatever it is, I'm trusting that the right outcome is going to go down. Now, the difference between uncertainty and confusion, confusion is the chicken running around without a head confusion is I'm like, I don't know what to do. This is so crazy. I don't know if I should turn left. I should, if I should turn right. Okay, so that's confusion. You're driving in the car and you start freaking out because you're not sure if you should go left or right. And if you freak out enough about going left or right, you might lose your, lose your composure for a second. You might not pay attention and you might, you know, smack into a car on the side of the road. But if you're uncertain, huh? Not sure which way to go, huh? Deep breath, huh? Let me pull over, huh? Let me stop the car, huh? Let me figure this out. So relaxing into uncertainty gives us a path. It gives us a spaciousness, stressing into uncertainty, creates confusion. And in that confused state, we are confused humans and we are rather ineffective. You know, if you are coming from a place of fear and not relaxing into uncertainty, clients sense to clients tend to sense that. You know, if you're sitting there thinking, oh my God, how do I fix my client? I'm so confused. I don't know what to do. She said this, then she said that I could start here. I could start there. Oh my God, this is so crazy. I don't know what's gonna happen. And, and all of a sudden the container that we've created is filled with a little bit of static. So relaxing into uncertainty is a process of trust. Relaxing into uncertainty is you being willing to be uncomfortable for a little while. Not knowing, get comfortable, not knowing. Get comfortable sitting there and thinking to yourself, huh, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do, huh? Not sure where I'm gonna be going with this. But then we continue to pay attention. We continue to ask questions, we continue to be present, we continue to ask curiosity questions.
And from that place, if you're feeling stuck, if you're not sure that stuckness can unwind itself, because oftentimes the stuckness is our unwillingness to relax into, I don't know, but I need to gather up more information
so my friends be willing to be uncertain. Be uncertain about when you are going to get where you wanna go because you don't know. And that's okay. You know, you'd like to get to where you wanna go as quickly as possible in your career with your body, with your health. Yeah, of course you know that. But how I'm gonna do that and when it's all gonna come together, I don't know. So instead of banging my head against the wall about that and judging myself, oh, I should have been there already. How come I'm not there? How come this is not happening? How come? How come? How come poor me, self attack, self hate? I'm not there yet. I should have been there. She's there, he's there. She has that body, he has that body.
Deep breath and relax into uncertainty. Begin from the beginning. I don't care how long my client has been dealing with their weight issue, their food challenge, their overeating issue, their binge eating issue, their emotional eating issue, their digestion. I don't care how long they've been dealing with it, when they come to see me, what I'm thinking in the back of my mind is that I'm here to help my client relax into the unknown about how this is all gonna unfold and how this is all going to unwind. Because they've been doing the opposite. They've been stressing into the unknown. They've been operating in confusion. And quite frankly, understandably so, because there is little popular information out there, there's very little popular information out there available to people that makes sense, that has wisdom, that is caring, kind, compassionate, accurate, useful, skillful, and delivers results. When it comes to the most common eating challenges that people are facing, once again, the weight challenges, the body image challenges, the endless dieting, the emotionally eating, binge eating, et cetera. If there was enough good information out there, people would be using it already. And we wouldn't have an epidemic of massively challenged relationships with food and body. So that's why you and I are here. We are here to further the action. We are here to help others. We're here to make the world a little bit of a better place. We start with ourselves, we branch out to our clients. And you know, being with uncertainty is such a key.
If you're now relaxing into uncertainty, you're gonna be in stress. If you're in stress, you're in physiologic stress. And in physiologic stress, we lose our ability to fully tap into wisdom, prefrontal cortex, executive function of the brain. We're insight and intelligent decision-making happens. I'm even talking for you as a, as a practitioner, you wanna have all your smarts, you wanna have all your wisdom, you wanna have all your ability to synthesize all the different puzzle pieces. You wanna have that ability available to you. Well, in order to do that, you have to be out of the stress state and into the relaxation state, which means, in part, you need to embrace uncertainty. Because if you don't, you're gonna be naturally stressed out. And understandably so. By the way, that's what I'm here to help my client do. I'm doing it for myself, relaxing into uncertainty. And all along the way in my relationship with my client, I'm always noticing the places where they forget to relax into their journey. And I point it out to them, it's okay,
I'm reminding my client all the time, one of your jobs, my friends. See, here's the thing, here's the thing.
Repetition is very good when it comes to this work, when it comes to working with a client in their relationship with food. All humans learn from repetition. That is the most fundamental learning skill known to humankind is repetition. Children, notice children, remember when you were a child, how did you learn the ABCs? Well, you learn the ABCs because you sang A, B, c, D, A a hundred times and kids could sing it over and over and over and over again. You do it a hundred times because you're learning. Do you ever see, when you play peekaboo with an infant and you hide your face and you go peekaboo, and they start laughing and cracking up? What? Why does an infant find that funny? Did you ever wonder why an infant finds that so funny? Lemme tell you exactly why they find it funny. Because when you cover up your eyes to an infant's as yet developed nervous system, they think your face is gone forever. That's what they think. That's exactly what's going on in the infant's mind. Oh my god, there was a face there. Now that face is gone, but as soon as you remove your hands and you go peekaboo, and you got a big smile, the infant goes, oh my God, I thought my mommy was gone. But here she is again and she got a big smile on her face, and that face really didn't disappear. She's still here hot. That is so funny. And they wanna see you do that a hundred times. You could go peekaboo a hundred times and they're still not bored. And you're thinking, when is this gonna end? 'cause they're learning through repetition, my friends, you and I will, life will keep giving us the same lessons over and over and over and over again until we learn them.
You'll keep getting the same lessons over and over again in school until you pass a test, until you graduate and you get to the next grade, the next class, whatever it is, that that's how life works. That's how school works, that's how education works. That's how the mind works. It learns from repetition. So my whole point of talking about repetition is that you will likely forget that your client needs to hear the same simple messages again and again. They need to be reminded of it as if you are lovingly reminding a child, because they're gonna forget to love themselves. They're gonna forget to speak kindly to themselves. They're going to forget to relax into their journey. They're going to forget to love themselves into transformation as opposed to hate themselves into it. You could tell them once they can, oh my God, that's so important. It's so powerful, I get it. And then they're gonna forget. So you must remind them, and you must remind them as if each time you tell them, it's the first time you're saying that or you're happy to tell them again.
So you have to be willing to be repetitive because oftentimes our clients and their challenges, you've heard me say this, we shapeshift into a previous age. We become a little young, we shift into a different persona. Oftentimes in our eating challenges, in our body image woes, we become a 5-year-old, a 13-year-old, whatever it is. So in many ways, when I notice this in a client, I speak from a more loving place. I speak from a more repetitive place to make sure that they understand. So repetition is important. That's why I do it with you a little bit,
my friends, we are all on a journey. Your job, my job, first and foremost, respect your own journey.
Respect your own journey. As you start to respect your own journey, you will build your muscle for respecting your client's journey. Likewise, even if you don't fully respect your own journey, which chances are none of us do, we all have the places where we self judge, self-attack. The more you practice respecting your client's journey, the easier it's gonna be to respect your own journey. Works both ways. Our journey through life, it's an epic story. It has a wisdom to it. Everything in my belief system, and I'm asking you to try this on everything that happens in your client's life, everything that happens in your life has a wisdom to it has a flow to it, has an intelligence to it, and it's an epic story. And when you start to see it as an epic story, you can begin to write a happier and happier ending. But in order to write a happier ending, we need to begin to take steps on that road to happiness. So you are here first and foremost, to witness your client's journey. Witness, witness, witness.
You know, so often, have you ever had this happen? You just were carrying a burden, you had a story, something happened, and, and man, was it hard man? Is it weighing you down? You might have been carrying something your whole life. And finally you had an opportunity. You just told your story to someone. Maybe a friend could have been even a stranger, whoever it was, therapist, counselor, teacher. And, and just by having somebody hear your story and and witness you telling your story and them just un silently embracing you, that in and of itself is healing for people. We are healed when we are witnessed, when we are noticed, when we are seen with a capital SEEN that is very healing, my friends, chances are your client, he she does not respect themselves. They've abandoned themselves, they self attack. They speak harshly and unkindly to themselves in the silence of their own head.
You are modeling for them a different way to be. So you are listening to their story and hearing it and embracing it and accepting it unconditionally. And you are knowing that this is a good story. Hard, challenging, difficult, painful. Ouch. Wow, Mr. And Mr. Client, you have things that happened in your life that if it happened to me, honestly, I would've jumped off a roof. I would not be here like you are today. I, I've said that to clients. I've had clients who've had a way hard time than I ever had. Um, so I'll say it, I'll own it. You're here to honor your client's journey. Witness it. You're here to tune into the wisdom of your client's journey. The place where it all makes sense, where that journey is exactly what they need to reach their highest potential. You are here to be a positive influence on their journey, to bless their journey to, to, to, to hold it in a higher light and to do your best to help them make their journey a better one and better. One means a more conscious one, a more aware one. The kind of journey where they're taking all the garbage, all the nonsense, all the muck, and turning it into fertilizer, turning it into nutrition that we can then use to become better humans and strengthen ourselves. You've done this before, ma. Uh, you've definitely done this in your own life. You've had hardships, you've had challenges where you met them and it helped you be a better person. I mean, think of any simple thing you did when you were a kid, a teenager, whenever that it was a hardship and you met that hardship at some point, eventually you overcame and it helped you become a better person. Well, that's life journey's hard. And we are midwives for our clients as they birth themselves through some difficult times. Your first birth is coming down, mama's womb coming out, coming down the chute. All other births, for the most part, particularly as we become adults, are self birthing. We help birth ourselves into a new place. And oftentimes we need help along the way. You and I are here to help others along their way. Others have helped you and I along the way. So all the food and body challenges are crucial and necessary parts of our journey. And your client doesn't know that. And I'll tell them, I'll say it in the moment that I think it's right to say that. What's the moment? That's right to say that you intuit, that you feel it out, you deliver it, you say it because this is what your client needs to get. At some point, you can talk to them and speak this to them in this, in a similar manner that I'm speaking it to you. Okay? I'm just delivering my wisdom. I'm telling you like I see it. I'm telling you, from a caring place, from a loving place, from a place of my experience, my gathered wisdom, my care, my concerned, and my sense of, hey, here's how I think I can help you further yourself along on this journey. When we speak from that place, it is far easier for people to hear us.
Hmm, here's something important, letting go of judgment. Easier said than done. So much of what we're here to do with self is let go of judgment of self. So much of what we're here to do is let go of judgment of others. We live in an existence, a planet
that's filled with a ton of judgment. Things get judged. If you're poor, you get judged. If you're sick, you get judged. If you're old, you get judged. If you're quote unquote fat, you get judged. If you are Democrat, you get judged. If you're Republican, you get judged. If you're liberal, if you're conservative, you're this religion, that religion, this color, that color, everybody's judging everybody else and everybody's judging themselves and we're swimming in judgment. Ouch. It hurts. Judgment does not do humans so much. Good judgment is something we must learn to notice. We must learn to identify. We must learn to spot and then to let go of. And of course, letting go of judgment is not easy because we love doing it a lot of ways. There's a certain enjoyment in judging why. 'cause you get to be right. And a lot of people like to be right. So if we judge this group of people or that group of people, well we're right and they're wrong. And uh, whenever you're on the right side, that's the good side. That's the just side. And it's the best side. So there's a certain thrill, la la there's a certain pleasure, believe it or not, in judging, there's a critic in us, the judge in us, a critic in us. These are two archetypes. They're slightly different but very closely related. Um, and it's in a strange way, it's a beautiful archetype because it's the critic in us, the judge in us that indeed has a positive function. It assesses the world. The judge in us measures things up. The judge in us weighs things out and needs to understand when justice needs to happen, needs to understand when we need to make things right or when somebody has crossed a boundary, when somebody has broken a law, either an actual human law or a spiritual law, it's the critic in us that tends to keep us on our toes and often keeps us doing our best. So these are not bad features of humanity, but oftentimes we end up pushing the pedal to the metal on the judgment factor in us, and the critic factor in us. And they run amuck. They go wild. And remember, judgment has a certain pleasure to it because judgment means we are right and the thing we are judging is wrong. So bizarrely enough, many humans become state addicted to judgment, whether it's self-judgment or judgment of others or both. So when you're actually self judging, it will put you in a stress response. And that stress response creates insulin and cortisol. It creates stress hormones that make you more alert, that get you on your toes, that, that make your brain cells start popping and get you active and get you doing things. And we actually get used to that state. It's kind of like a cup of coffee. It quote unquote motivates us.
So we all judge the things that we judge to the degree that we do it. Chances are your client is coming in, chances are with a lot of judgment, especially clearly if they have body image issues, weight concerns, overeating, binge eating, emotional eating. People are in self-judgment. And it's understandable why. So judgment will eventually reveal itself as you're speaking with your client. So get curious. Listen, I'm wondering where is my client judgmental? Who are they judging? Where am I judgmental? Who do I judge? What do I judge? As we learn to squeeze out the judgment from us, like water out of a sponge, uh, you know, as we squeeze out the kinds of judgments that are a little more toxic, that pull us down, that diminish the rest of the world, that demean other people, that demean ourselves. As we wr that out of our system like water out of a sponge, we become more purified. We become more empty. We feel more whole. We feel more clear. And when judgment is emptied out, something takes its place. What takes its place is wisdom. What takes its place's acceptance. What takes its place? Its love, its information is awareness, its consciousness. Good things happen as we begin to let go of judgment, which is a practice.
So I'm noticing when my client comes into my office, when I get on the phone with them, what's going on? Um, you know, I might think, gosh, this person should have taken a shower. Wow, they smell, or Wow, I wouldn't dress like that. Or, wow, I thought you had money while you driving a car like that. Or, wow, I can't believe you don't take better care of yourself. So, so judgments come up for me for sure. Um, first and foremost, I try not to judge myself for having a judgment. 'cause that would increase judgment. Um, judgments are natural and I don't harp on them. I tend to not give them energy. I notice them. Um, they often judgments don't belong to us. They're, they're just circulating through the universe and they land in us. So I'm going to suggest that a significant amount of judgment that lives in your system doesn't even belong to you. You inherited it from the world. You got it from your parents, your culture, your family, your religion, your social system, your nationality, the place where you were born. You got it from the world, from the media. We inherit judgments. Judgments are flying through the airwaves every given second. This isn't about blame, I'm just trying to say that we're swimming in it. There's so many stereotypes and criticisms that are just free floating in the environment. And we catch 'em. Like we catch a cold, we pick up on it. So just allow yourself to be human. Judgment is human. Uh, and we're learning how to manage judgment so it doesn't overpower us as humans. So it doesn't overpower us as a practitioner.
So your job approach and be with your client with unconditional acceptance as best you can, as best you can, as best you can, as best you can. So this is a practice. The moment I find myself judging my client, I take a deep breath and I allow myself to drop into accepting them. So your job, my job, our job is to let go of judgments around weight. Your weight, her weight, his weight. Anyone's weight, anyone's weight. I don't care what it is, it's not worthy of judgment, it's nonsense. Your job is to let go of your judgments about any nutritional approach. That's a hard one, my friends. 'cause we get so freaking religious about our nutritional approaches because we're right, my nutritional approach is right. Being a vegan is right. Being a paleo person is right. Eating meat is right. Not eating meat is right. Being raw is right. Eating cooked is, it's, oh, it's all right. There's a nugget of wisdom in all of it. What's right for you? What's right for your client? And yes, your nutrition system might have a lot of usefulness in it that people need to learn. But if you are judging the people around you, if you truly believe everyone should be following your nutritional approach, which I personally disagree with. But if you truly believe that, and if you feel in your soul that that's true, that ultimately you wanna see the world eat like this, then if that's what you want your best place for helping people get there, is to not judge them.
You know, I personally think it's it's best for people to eat the highest quality food possible. I don't care what it is. But if my client comes in and they clearly eat a lot of junk food, I'm not gonna say to them, you idiot, how could you be such a fool? There is so much information on healthy eating. There is so much information about how all these poisons and artificial ingredients and foods are toxic for you. And here you are, like a knucklehead eating this food. I, I like, wow. Like what a bunch of nonsense. I can't believe you. Do you really think that's gonna move that person in the direction that I want them to go? And no, people don't respond to our judgments in an evolutionary conscious way, in a way that elevates them. Judgments don't elevate people. It will either make them feel bad about themselves, it'll make them hate you, or it'll make them run the other way. It'll create separation. So if you truly think your nutritional approach is the best, then you have to get rid of all judgment about anybody else's nutritional approach in order to help them get where you want them to go. Let go of your judgment around whatever your client's challenge or concern is. Whatever it is, you might think to yourself, oh, my client caused this illness, this disease, this challenge that they have. I can see it. They're so dumb. No, listen to your mind. Let it say that. Take a deep breath. This is your practice. It's a professional practice. It's a spiritual practice. Whatever you judge, you judge men, you judge women. Let it go. Let go of your judgments around anything that comes up for your clients. It's a practice, practice, practice. That's what it is, my friends. It's a practice.
One of the things that happens as we buy and buy, let go of judgment, as we make that a practice, we are better able to be good listeners. 'cause if I had a lot of, if I have a lot of noise in my head, oh, you know, people will wanna lose weight. They're so, they're so lazy if they've gained weight. So if I have that judgment, if I have that noise in my head, then I really can't hear. I really can't listen. And my friends listening, listening, listening, listening is everything. Listening is your gold. If you can do one thing in your practice, if you can do one thing in your life, it is learning how to listen. Because listening, believe it or not, and you might know this is very rare in this world. It's not a lot of listening going on. It's a lot of talking. Everybody's got answers. It's not a lot of listening. How many times have I been in a conversation? I consider myself a very good listener. And how many times have I been in a conversation? Has this ever happened to you where the person's talking a lot, the other person's talking a lot, but you're actually listening. I'm, I'm really listening to them and I'm listening and I'm listening. And we might have a 15 minute conversation or a 30 minute conversation. And they've talked about 96% of the time. And when the conversation is over, the person looks at you, they look at me and they go, this has been such a great conversation. Wow, this is really great. I didn't say anything. I hardly said anything. But what I did is I listened. And oftentimes what happens is when people get listened to for the first time in a deep way, they notice it. They feel it, they get it. Because so many of us go through this world and we haven't been listened to really. So what you and I want when we're kids, when we're children, is we want the adult world to see us for who we are and to really listen to us so deeply that we get, that they get our inner experience. As children, we are vulnerable. We are in need. Our emotions are a little chaotic. We can go into fear. We are learning how to live in a big, dangerous world, and we want the adults around us to protect us, not just physically, but emotionally. So in order to be protected, children need to know that they are seen and heard. When we grow up in this world with the feeling that we haven't been seen or heard, we hunger for that. And then when we get it, it's like water in the desert.
So listening is a gift that we give. It's you. It's literally a gift to give someone. Listening is an art. Listening has a tremendous magic to it. You know, as you know, I I grew up as a stutter. You know, from the time I was able to talk, I couldn't say a single word without stuttering. At 10 times, um, the adult world thought I was, um, you know, brain damaged or just special needs something wrong with me. Uh, they're always giving me all kinds of hearing tests and this test and that test. And, and they assumed I was kind of dumb. And I knew I was smart. I just couldn't talk without stuttering. And consequently, you know, it's, it's kind of mean and kids could be mean and nasty. So as I was growing up, I quickly realized I better stop talking because every time I talked, all the kids would make fun of me. So I got quiet. The only people I would talk to would be my parents and, you know, my relatives and maybe one or two friends who just were loving on me. You know, this is from the time I was four years old up until I was about 12. Um, but here's the thing, because I decided not to talk very much. I spent the majority of my time listening. So I wished when I was a kid growing up, I wished with every cell and fiber of my being that I could learn how to talk and not stutter and not be made fun of. Um, that was my deepest wish in life. And now that I look back on it, what a gift it was for me, because I was silent and I learned how to listen. And I listened and I listened, and I paid attention. And I watched people and I watched the words that they said in the expression on their face and their mannerisms. And I learned to understand people and read people and notice the subtleties and notice the nuances. And I learned to start to hear beneath the words they were actually saying. I didn't even know that was happening. I thought everyone could do that until I noticed like, wow, people actually don't listen to each other. I would watch adults talking. Everybody's talking, and no one's listening.
So listening my friends is an art. It's a skill. It's a treasure hunt. Listening is a magical act. It's powerful. Listening helps you become the best. And I mean that the best healer, counselor, coach, teacher, uh, that you can possibly be. You cannot know another human being unless you listen to them. And I spent a lot of time in the first session asking a lot of questions and listening for answers. And then when I hear answers, I'll ask for elaboration on those answers. Tell me more. Wow, that's fascinating. Can you say more about that? That's really interesting. Listening gives us direct access to the soul. It gives us direct access to the invisible. You know, people talk to us and oftentimes people are talking to us in a very distinct and clear and powerful way. They might not even know it. We might not even know it because we're not listening. So when I speak to friends or to clients, if I'm coaching anyone around relationship, one of the most common complaints with people in relationship is he doesn't get me. They don't listen. It's one of the common complaints. My partner doesn't listen. So we are here to listen. Listening is a space we create for our clients to expand into the bigger the listening that we offer, the more wisdom is revealed, and the more powerful and fulfilling is the healing journey. So my friends, deep listening, deep, deep, deep listening means you let go of your agenda. Just, just let go. Pretend you're not even here to help your client for a moment, just, just pretend You are here to do nothing but listening. So deep listening means I let go of my agenda. I just let go of everything. I just, I'm here to listen and nothing else is happening, but listening. So I'm relaxing into not knowing, into, into uncertainty. I'm relaxing into not fixing. I'm noticing if my mind wanders, you know, and I start to fantasize about the TV show I wanna watch, or the meal I want to eat. After this client session is over, I catch my wandering mind. I get present, I focus. Listening means you linger with a client. You just linger you, you be there. You create a sense of timelessness.
Even though you only have 45 minutes, 55 minutes, an hour in your session, whatever it is, you create a sense of timelessness simply by dropping into it. Because when you drop into timelessness, listening happens on a deeper level. Deep listening means you learn to be fascinated by your client. If you can't be fascinated by your client, you will be somewhat bored by your client. Being bored by your client is not about your client. That's about you. If you can't get fascinated by your client, and, and trust me, I've had clients where I had to dig deep to get interested in them, and I worked it. 'cause their answers are brief, their answers are short, and they are committed to being bland and dull. Some people are like that. They're committed to playing every card very close, and they don't wanna show their emotion. They don't wanna show anything. And it's easy to give up on someone like that. But I keep probing and I keep staying with my commitment to listen and to be fascinated by my client, to fall in love with them, to listen with unconditional acceptance, to breathe through any resistance or judgment that comes up. And I'm softly listening for connections.
My friends, I'd love to share with you a story which changed my life as a listener and set me on a path of, um, really being a devotee, a student of listening. I was living in Hawaii. In fact, I had just moved to Hawaii where I ended up living for a number of years. And I was with a friend who was already living there. And, um, we went to his bank and there was a long line in the bank. It was lunchtime. So I was waiting outside for my friend and he said to me, wow, you know, we came at the wrong time. This could be a really long time. Sometimes these lines are just bank. It could be an hour long. So I said, no worries. It's a beautiful Hawaiian day. And I just stood out in a parking lot and it was sunny and I was just facing the sun and just breathing and being happy to be in Hawaii. And I notice out of the corner of my eye, across the street, there's a man crossing the street. And I notice as the man is crossing the street and there's numerous people around crossing the street at this corner, at this light, I notice people moving away from this man as if it is clear. Everybody's saying, stay away from this guy. Um, and I noticed as he was getting closer, 'cause he was walking sort of towards me, crossing the street, wa coming towards the bank, I noticed that this man is looking to me like he's in his late forties, maybe early fifties. I noticed that he is extremely short. He might be below five feet. I noticed that he's wearing very, extremely thick glasses, like a barely. It just looks like those glasses where you can't even see somebody's eyes. I notice he's talking to himself, uh, with reckless abandon. And as clo, the closer he comes to me, people literally stepping out of his way. And then I notice him, notice me looking at him. And that was his apparent invitation to come right over to me. So this man walks up to me, and sure enough, I would say he was about four foot 10 or something. So his head came up to my chest. Indeed, he's 50 years old. He is what I would call a local Hawaiian, uh, more of a native, some type of Asian. And he is talking nonstop. And it, it, it is clear babbling, uh, of which I cannot understand a word. Literally, I can't make out a single word of what he's saying. And he's endlessly babbling. And I take a deep breath and I think to myself, oh damn, how did I get myself into this? And he's literally standing right in my personal space. He's literally four inches from me, s talking and babbling nonsense. And I was, uh, thinking to myself, okay, now I know everybody around this neighborhood knows him and they walk the other way. And here I am. And this is why people walk away from him. So I'm thinking, oh my God, my friend could be in this bank for the longest time. What do I do? Do I Just walk away from this guy? Do I push him away? Do I bad vibe him? And, and I was, I was really a little stuck. I wasn't sure what to do. And I decided to just take a few deep breaths. And as I'm breathing deep, I notice I'm an intense judgment about this man, because he's crazy. I'm an intense judgment because he is babbling and he's in my personal space, and I didn't invite him to be there. And I'm feeling sorry for myself. I'm judging him.
And I take another couple of deep breaths, and I think to myself, okay, this is one of my first days on the island that I've moved to Hawaii and I decide, you know, something, I'm gonna take this as a learning experience. And what if? And I started to play with myself. And, and this is as this guy is like standing four inches from me, just endlessly babbling at me. I think to myself, what if I just engage with him and be present with him until he's done? Like, would that take seven hours? Because that's my fear. This is gonna, this is gonna take seven hours. This is gonna take an hour. This is gonna take 15 minutes. E even 15 minutes sounded like a lifetime. But I thought, what if I just let go? What if I just let go? 'cause I don't have anything to do. I'm waiting for my friend and he'll be okay if I'm still listening to this guy, Babel, when my friend comes out, he's that kind of a guy. So I decide that I'm gonna just let go of all my judgment and all my nonsense and be present to this man. So I took another deep breath. And as I did that, I started to notice something interesting. I started to notice that in his, what I was calling foolish babbling to myself, his voice had an intonation to it. I also noticed that he was gesturing with his hands and his body and his and his head would move. And what I started realizing is that if he was speaking a foreign language, which it wasn't, it was just babbling, I could tell that if he was speaking a foreign language, he would actually be, everything was in sync. The intonation of his voice, the movement of his hands, everything, he was actually communicating something. So he actually, in my experience, knew what he was saying. So I started realizing this is a person who knows what he is saying. I have no idea what he's saying, but he knows what he's saying and he's actually coherent. I just can't understand him. And then I thought, oh, that makes total sense. So I just start focusing on him, and I just start looking at him. And as I really started focusing on trying to understand him, which is kind of silly, on one level, he kind of locks in with me more. Now, I, I wanna draw a comparison. There's these things called stereograms. I don't know if you've ever seen them. They're these computer generated images that when you look at it, it looks like just a bunch of nonsense lines. It looks like an incoherent picture. But when you focus on these stereograms and you relax your mind, and you relax your vision, all of a sudden it becomes 3D. And there's this image, this very clear image that you couldn't see before, because now you're seeing three dimensionally. So if you ever had that experience, it's really fascinating. So the reason why I mentioned that is I just started relaxing into listening to this guy. I let go of all my judgment, I let go of my agenda, I just relax. And I was just listening and listening. I was really listening to the words. I stopped calling it babbling. And all of a sudden, my friends, I don't know how to explain this to you, but all of a sudden it's as if he was speaking perfect English, even though he wasn't. And I can understand everything he was saying. And he was repeating a story. And the story was about how he was taken away from his parents when he was a child. And he was put in an orphanage and he was put in different homes, and it really affected him. And the people who took him away from his parents, they're bad people. And I said to him in English, I said, I am so sorry that that happened to you, my friend. I really am. That's a terrible story. I wish that didn't happen to you. And he stopped and his mouth was hanging open. And he said, you understand me? And I said, yes, I do. He said, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And it's, it's babble. I could hear one part of my brain is babbling, but I understand exactly what he's saying. He said, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And, and he repeats the story again. Uh, and I said, oh, I'm so sorry that that this happened to you. I really am. And then finally he says, do you wanna know my name? And I said, absolutely. He, with his finger on my chest, he, he draws each letter, uh, I forget what his name was, and he, he draws his name on my chest and I say the name and I didn't get it right. And he says it and I repeat it. He says, yes. Now what's your name? And he makes me draw my name on his chest. And then he was able to say, oh, mark, like, wow, that was pretty good. I couldn't, I couldn't figure out your name when you wrote it on my chest with your finger. And he kept thanking me. And he had, this guy had the biggest smile on his face. And at some point he said, don't ever let this happen to anyone. You know, don't let children be taken away by bad people. And I said, I promise you I will keep my eyes open for that. And he said, thank you very much. I thanked him. We hugged it out literally. And he walked on his way. And that changed me for the rest of my life. Uh, because I learned something about myself. I learned something about humanity. I, he was me in so many ways because I was that kid that was stuttering that nobody could understand. My parents can understand me. Nobody else could really, um, nobody had really listened to him as far as I can tell. And maybe I was the first adult human to listen to him, to the point where I was able to hear him Listening, my friends is such a gift that we give. And it takes patience. It takes a certain calmness, it takes a certain generosity. And what I am suggesting to you that at some point in the listening process, there's a magic that is unleashed. There's a magic that happens that is worth its weight in gold. Thanks for listening to my story, by the way. So fall in love with your client through listening. Listen through your client rather than listen to them. So yes, I'm listening to my client, I'm listening to the word that they're saying, but I'm also softening when I'm listening to them. I hear what they say, but I'm also hearing beneath what they say. Do you have a dessert? Oh yeah. I, yeah. I, I have, um, yeah, I have ice cream, uh, every night. So yeah, I heard that they have ice cream every night. But I also heard that they're feeling a little guilty about that or that they hesitated to tell me because they probably think it's wrong. Oh yeah, I have chocolate ice cream every night. I love it. Okay, great. I heard that they eat chocolate ice cream, and I hear that they allow themselves pleasure with food. And I hear that, okay, they have a certain relationship with food that, that gives me more information so I can listen deeply because I'm letting go of fixing, I'm letting listening be enough.
I'm listening so deeply that nothing else is happening, but listening. And I'm trusting in the mystery of listening, in the wisdom of it, because something, my friends, I promise you, something eventually happens if you keep softening into the listening languaging. Okay? This is a big one. Positive, empowering life-affirming language is a fundamental key for effective work with your clients. Language is everything in this universe.
Languaging, in a positive way, changes our reality. I am looking to speak in a language that always affirms life, that always gives beauty, that always creates a sense of soulfulness that creates, that invites in consciousness, that invites in empowerment. Language creates our reality. How we language to ourselves, I'm no good. I'm not enough. I suck. I'm too fat. That's how we create the world. That's how we create our metabolism.
Words have power. My friends, you know, what are you taught as a child in certain cultures? We, we, we have this saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never harm me. Meaning we're trying to protect ourselves when somebody is being harmful towards us with their negative words, with their language. We need to protect ourselves from harmful language. Why? Because language creates reality. And when we let language into us and we believe it, when we believe somebody's words, your fat, you're ugly. You're no good. No one's ever gonna love you. You're dumb. You're not smart. You're never going to amount to anything. When I, if I let those words in, then I believe it. And then I will take those words and I will reproduce and own in my own mind. So those words, then I, I start to own them. They become my words. So chances are, whatever the negative conversation you have in your mind, whatever the negative conversation your client has in their mind, you didn't invent it. They didn't invent it. It comes from the world. Other people have it.
Words have power.
We are learning to protect ourselves from words. Those can be the words of others, or those can be the words of ourselves. So many of our clients have adopted language, words, languaging that they heard that was either said directly to them or indirectly. And that language then becomes a radio station. In their mind, it becomes a mantra that they speak.
And the more we speak those words to ourselves, the more those words have power. So terms such as overweight, I'm overweight, I'm a compulsive eater. I'm an over eater. I am a food addict. These terms are charged oftentimes with invisible judgment and negativity, and they deplete our energy and they deplete our dignity.
Now, yeah, somebody might be carrying around extra weight. Somebody might be compulsively eating, but when we say I am
it, it means we totally identify with that I am an overeater. No. Because that is a, there's actually a judgment in there, and we're making it seem like this is the reality of who we are. Whereas not, I am an over eater. I am a binge eater. I am an emotionally eater. I will correct my client. You do indeed, from what I can tell, engage in the behavior called binge eating. You do binge eat, you do occasionally overeat. You do occasionally emotionally eat. That is a behavior. It is not a thing. A human is a thing. A rock is a thing. There's no such thing as an overeater. There's no such thing as a food addict. These are behaviors. Behaviors can change far more easy than changing a rock into a frog or something. It doesn't work. So we oftentimes, our clients oftentimes have self diagnoses that are in a strange way, rather toxic.
So any diagnosis
that is stated in the negative is toxic. So the diagnosis called you're overweight, really, I change that becomes, hey, you're on a journey of self-discovery. You're learning how to nourish yourself. You're learning how to love your body into its rightful shape and its rightful weight.
You notice the difference. You're overweight, hi, I am overweight. No, you're not overweight. Yes, okay, you could say you're overweight. But if you live in that diagnoses, you have limited yourself to the tiniest box because that term overweight has a judgment with it. It has a bucket load of negativity that is raining down on you when you say it, when your client says it to themselves. No, you're on a journey of discovery. You're learning how to nourish yourself. You're learning how to feed yourself. You're learning how to nutrify yourself. You are learning what do I need to do to love my body, to its rightful weight and shape. So the toxic diagnosis called join over eater becomes, Hey, you're learning how to be more aware in life. You're learning how to be more present to listen to your body. You are learning how to find your body's natural appetite regulation that is so freaking different than I'm an over eater because I'm an over eater. You might as well say I'm a disgusting human. That's what the person is saying to themselves. I'm a disgusting, unacceptable human overeater, binge eater, emotionally disgusting and unacceptable. I'm fat, disgusting and unacceptable, not okay with me. Um, we need to help our clients step out of their toxic diagnoses. So you're not here to judge your client. You're here to cheerlead them, inspire them, coach them, and show them the beauty of their journey, even when their journey is difficult or unacceptable to them. And you're here to help do that by helping them re language how they are speaking to themselves.
Somebody can commit a crime. Does that mean you're a criminal? Have you ever stole something? Have you ever shoplifted something when you were a kid? Do we say, oh, you're a criminal for life now? No, chances are you might have engaged in the behavior called taking something that wasn't yours, okay? In that moment, that's a criminal act. But are you indeed a criminal? Are you a criminal for the rest of your life? Would you give yourself, did you ever take something? Chances are you did at some point. But if you had the label criminal for the rest of your life, imagine what it would be like to live with that. It wouldn't be fair. So we are languaging for our clients. Our words create our reality. We're here to help our clients use language in an empowering and effective way. The conversation we have inside our own head is quite often negative, toxic, and demeaning. Until we change that conversation, we will live in misery and suffering. And no matter what the good behaviors we do,
they will be diminished by the negative conversation in our head. Which, when it is negative, when it is self attacking, when it is self judging, the negative conversation will literally create a different biochemistry.
Think of that in your own life, times when you've changed your internal conversation and you changed, your body might have changed. We're here to help our clients change their internal conversation as well as their external ones. Again, if your friends said the same kinds of things that you say to yourself in your own head, chances are that person would no longer be your friend. That shows us the absolute insanity that can go on in the human mind. So whenever we say, I am, I'm an overeater. I'm this, I'm a that we give the thing, we are claiming such great power. We are not these things. We are not a binge eater. We are not an emotional eater. These are behaviors. I overeat. I emotionally eat, I binge eat. We can change our behaviors. We can't change our essence. I am a human. I can't change that essence. I am a man. I can't change that essence. When you say I am a binge eater, you are literally saying on a certain level, I am. This is etched in stone.
And then we wonder why it's difficult to get where we want to go. So believe it or not, that subtle shift is a powerful one, my friends. It can help liberate just enough energy that we can start to step into greater self-awareness, greater consciousness, more self-love. Oh, this is a behavior. I thought I was this thing. I thought I'm a binge eater. I thought I was a food addict. I thought I was this thing that can't change, that I have to somehow change. It's a behavior. So I'm gonna be listening to my clients. I am going to catch them. So our job as a, as a practitioner language, your client's challenge or concern in a positive, conscious, growth oriented way for them. So, you know, a client comes to see me and they're telling me how much they hate their body. And I've had tons of clients like this who are actually, they, they, they, they, they almost, they're almost proud of how easy it is for them to say how much they hate their body. They're wearing it on their sleeve. And at some point in the conversation, I'm gonna say, listen, Mr. And Mrs. Klein, I would love for you to start to play with language. You probably said about five different times how much I hate my body. And I get it. I get it, I get it, I get it. Can we reframe that? Can we re story that? Can we reish that? What if we said, I'm learning to love my body more. I'm learning to treat it with some care and respect.
That changes everything. I hate my body. I hate my body, I hate my body. When we change that to, I'm learning to love my body more. I'm learning to take baby steps to care for my body, to respect it, to even like it a little bit. That's a reframe. I will constantly look to catch my clients' languaging and offer them offer in a very simple way. So again, if my client says, I, I, I can't control my appetite, I can't control myself around food, the reframe is, okay. So you are learning how to best regulate your appetite. You are learning how to embrace and enjoy the natural need to eat.
We are diagnosing in the positive.
It is a, it's, it's turning psychology up and down from a negative psychology into a positive psychology. I hope you can see the difference, because it's important and it's powerful. And I'm not saying every time your client speaks in a negative way, you have to reframe it. But what I'm saying is gentle reminders for your client, once, twice, three, four times in a session if need be. And do it in such a way where you're giving them them the positive reframe and say, can you see how that creates a whole different approach? Instead of saying, I'm an emotional eater, saying, yeah, there are times when I do emotionally eat and I'm learning how to better regulate my emotions without turning to food. Wow. Now I have something to live into. Because if I'm just walking around, I'm an emotional eater, I'm an emotional eater. Like, where do you go with that? What do you do? It's a death sentence. There, there, there's, there's no opening. It doesn't create a sense of possibility.
So you're gonna watch this, watch how your client languages watch how you language to yourself. How can you language your own challenge differently? Whatever the challenge is, a food body, health, weight, relationship, work, money challenge. How do you reframe it in a positive way?
I don't have enough money. I am learning how to earn the money and bring money into my life in a way that better supports me. Haven't figured it out quite yet, but that's the track I'm on. Very different. Okay, my friends, let's talk about our clients. Each and every client is in somehow and in some way a reflection of some part of you, some part of me, some part of the coach, the practitioner.
I guess you could say this, the law of attraction. We tend to attract who we resonate with. You'll attract the clients that you need to see, for whatever reason, that need to see you For whatever reason, every client is here to teach us about ourselves and to help us improve our craft. That I believe fully a thousand percent try it on for yourself. Some of them, again, are gonna be easy, some are gonna be challenging, but every client is here to teach us something about ourselves. Sometimes it's a difficult lesson. Sometimes it's seeing where we get caught up, where we get stuck, where we get confused, where we get an angry, where we can't handle certain kinds of people, certain kinds of emotion. By the way, whatever you like in your client, if you happen to like a client, it's chances are it's a reflection of you. It's something you like about yourself or something you would like to have in yourself.
Likewise, whatever you dislike about your client, chances are, is a reflection of you. And it might be a disowned part of you, A part of you that you don't even realize that you have. And herein lies our work as practitioners. It's the hidden work on self. Notice who shows up in your practice. Notice who shows up in your life. Everyone that's showing up in your life is here to teach you something, is here to reflect something back to you.
Once we can see that and embrace that, we can see the beautiful important learning reflections that are coming our way.
So remember, this is a two-way relationship. Yes, you're here to help your client. Yes, you're here to serve your client. Yes, you're here to give your best gifts to your client. Yes, you're here to help them alleviate whatever complaint they came to see you for. However, this is an equal relationship. They are here to help you do your service by giving you money, which then allows you to do your life and live and do all the things that money allows you to do. They're also here to help you better learn your craft and to do your craft in a way that you become more effective sometimes by inspiring you and sometimes by challenging you and everything else in between. You might have a client that comes to see you and they have a thyroid issue, and you're busy thinking yourself, oh my God, I don't know anything about hypothyroid. So you know what you do after that client session? You get online and you start researching. You get a book, you learn,
my clients have taught me so much. They've inspired me in so many different directions, and it's helped me become a better professional, helped me become a better person, a more well-rounded person. When I've been committed to my craft and noticing what is it that my client is reflecting back to me?
How is this client asking me to grow? How are they asking me to step up? What is it in my client that I might be reacting to? Because if I'm reacting to something in my client, it means I have to clean that up. I have to see, is this a part of me? I so make sure to make it a practice to notice how each client who comes your way is somehow perfect for you. Take some notes after a session. What is this? What did this client session teach me? How might it be teaching me even if things didn't work and they went south, even if they're extremely difficult, even if everything was great, how is this a learning experience? Our clients will magically expose the parts of us that need some work and some awareness and more consciousness. You know, being a coach, a practitioner is not all glory and fun and ease. It's work. It's a craft. It's a challenge. It's a path, it's a practice, it's an honor. It's powerful. It's rewarding. It can be crazy making, it could elevate you to great heights. It's any of it. And it is all of it. So it's our job to embrace that. I was once mentoring a graduate, mentoring a coach, and she was going through a very difficult, uh, couple of client sessions. It was a new client. They'd had about three or four sessions together. And this client that she was seeing is a woman in her late forties. The woman was about six foot two. She wanted to lose about 75 pounds. Um, and she hated her body. She hated her looks. She was constantly complaining that men were not interested in her. And my graduate, this coach was so activated by this client, I, I don't know what to do. I I just don't like her. Everything she says irritates me. I just, I, I I don't like her. And I said, well, gimme more specifics. What don't you like about her? Well, she hates herself so much, and, and she's so, she's so, she's so masculine. She looks like a man. I said, wow. I said, interesting. I said, how can you notice parts of this client that are inside you?
How is this client like you? How are you like this client? And this was a shocking question for this coach, because the first answer is that we're nothing like each other. And I said, well, I know you a little bit. I said, you complain about your body. You complain about your weight, and you don't complain about yourself looking like a man. But isn't there this part of you that thinks you need to be shaped like this or look like that to be more feminine so you could be loved and accepted? I said, it sounds to me like this client is just an exaggeration on certain levels of you.
Wow, was that a powerful moment? And I said to this coach, I said, here's, here's your task. Here's your job. Your job is to fall in love with this client. Your job is to really listen to her. Your job is to really hear her story. Your job is to fall in love with her, is to unconditionally accept her and let go of all your baggage and just see her as this woman who's a woman who's going through her challenges. That's your task. Well, I'm gonna tell you the very next session, my coach, she just, for she did it. She realized that indeed this client was an exaggeration. And everything this client would complain about in some way, shape, or form. This coach had her own issues, concerns, slightly different languaging how she spoke to herself, but it was the same. And in fact, this particular client that she had is almost her nightmare scenario of who she wouldn't wanna be. And I said, if you can fall in love with this woman, you can, you can, you can love anyone. And it happened. And she ended up having the greatest session ever. Her client just broke down and cried and was sharing just really on a deeper level how awful she feels about herself. And this client had never allowed herself to express her own pain and her own self disappointment and her own self hate. And she felt really safe, and she felt loved, and she felt held in being able to do that with this coach. And this woman completely softened. My coach said to me, she just became just, she transformed into this beautiful woman right before my eyes. And I said, congratulations, you not only helped yourself, you did this woman an incredible service.
So my friends, it's every client is here to teach us something. The good ones, the challenging ones, all of it. Creating equality. Great coaches and great counselors create equality. What do I mean? This means that you and your clients are a hundred percent equals no matter what your client's age, race, sex, income, social, standing, personal problems, health challenges, we're all equal in the eyes of the universe. Yeah, you might be smarter than them in certain places. They might be smarter than you in certain places. You might be wiser than them here. You might know a lot more than they know about nutrition and eating psychology. Fine. They probably know more about this, that the other thing. My point is, when we create equality,
something good happens. Even if I'm working with a 15-year-old, we're still equals. I'm older than them. But in the eyes of the universe, I'm talking to somebody who will eventually be the same age as me. We're, we're we're equals equal as a soul.
How do you create equality? How do you get off your high horse? How do you step up when you are intimidated by a client and you feel that you can't measure up to them because they make more money. They're better looking, they're stronger, they're more this, they're more that
creating equality.
You know, sometimes we feel superior to our client for whatever reason. Sometimes we're more comfortable around men, comfortable around women. Sometimes we're intimidated by a client who's more this, more that, more successful, more smart.
We might feel superior or inferior to a client relative to their body weight or their body shape. Let it all go. Creating a sense of equality helps your client relax. It helps create a safe container. And when there is a safe container, you then have a relationship. This is about you creating relationship with your client so the wisdom of the relationship can reveal itself. I have clients who come to see me to lose 20 pounds, to lose 50 pounds to lose 150 pounds. And we end up talking about the most amazing things that have nothing to do with weight loss. Do they have something to do with weight loss? Really? Sure. But because I allow space in the relationship, because I create equality, and I'm not just looking at them like, oh, you poor person that needs to lose a bunch of pounds of body fat. I don't need to lose body fat. You need to lose body fat. I'm here to help you lose body fat and then you're gonna be a better person. No, nothing. We're equals, we're both good. We're both equals in the eyes of the universe. Okay, you say you wanna lose a bunch of pounds, let's have at it. Let's take a look at this. Let's explore it. But I'm not holding that there's something wrong with them. I'm not holding that. They're less than they are. Chances are holding that. But I'm not. I am vigorously in my energy, in my affect inside me. I'm, I'm holding them up. I'm uplifting them to where they ought to be, which is self-respecting no matter what the challenge is, which is self-loving. No matter what the challenge is, which is self-referencing, no matter what the challenge is. Let's talk a little bit about curiosity. Can you say more about that? Mr. And Mrs. Client, I don't want you to hear just yes or no answers. Sometimes a yes or no answer suffices. But I want you to learn how to fall in love a little bit more with the details. The details about their diet, the details about their relationship with food, the details about their relationship with their body. I hate my body. Well, what exactly do you mean when you hate your body? Like specific, can you actually get specific just for me and you like, exactly. What do you hate about it? Like, can you just like, go down the list? Like really? You wanna hear that? Yeah, just like name it.
Part of what that is, is you're gathering up information. Part of what that is, is you are letting your client know that you want the details, that you are interested. What do they say? God is in the details. Uh, you are also asking your client to be forthright and present with the contents of their inner world. Because sometimes when you ask good questions that your client hasn't been asked by anyone, they begin, believe it or not, the process of healing and transformation. Because they can hear themselves answer your question.
They can hear listening happening on the other end, which in a strange way, puts us in a spotlight, puts the client in a spotlight, and it helps them step into a higher place
simply because we're cultivating details. We're learning how to be fascinated by what our client has to say. So this is a trust. You are learning how to trust that there's a deliciousness, there's a beauty in the details that your client shares with you. Your job as a practitioner is to elicit conversation, information, thoughts, stories, and details from your clients. Anytime I have a practitioner that I'm mentoring and says, oh, my, my client just, she doesn't say anything. He doesn't say anything, they don't answer. That's your job to draw them out. I don't, you, you have to learn how to draw them out. Your job is to bring your client out of their shell. Or if your client loves to talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, which that will happen, your job is to effectively direct the conversation and elegantly and skillfully manage their participation. You're gonna hear more about this as we discuss the architecture of a session, the architecture of a first session, an intake session. But what I will tell you is this, you know, yes, I want my client to talk and I wanna hear them, but I don't want them to go on rambling about things that they don't need to ramble about. So you are smart enough already to know when people are rambling and they're getting off topic and they're going elsewhere. So you have to learn how to be a traffic cop, a good traffic cop, an effective manager of a conversation, because you're the coach. You are the guide. So yes, one word answers from your client will generally not do. But if your client is saying a gazillion words and they're going off, I'm gonna say, Hey, hey, hey, Mr. And Mr. Client, just time out for a second. I, you have, you have a lot to say. I love it. I love it, I love it. I just wanna make sure we use our time. So effectively, I wanna get onto the next question because I have so much that I wanna learn about you.
And there you are. You've just redirected the conversation. So you find a generous way to raise your hand. And, and sometimes some clients speak so fast and they're so on and they're so happy that somebody's listening to them, that they just, they can literally talk a whole session without stopping. So I will literally put my hands up in a team and say, hold time out, time out. Deep breath for a second. I love it that you have so much energy and so much enthusiasm and so much passion, and you have so many words to say, and I wanna make sure that I get to learn everything I wanna learn in this session. So I'm gonna just move us in a different, down, a different street, down a different direction right now. Is that okay with you? It always is. That's how you do it in a generous way. Your natural interest in them and your enthusiasm to be of service to them will eventually win out. So you're being curious. You're falling in love with the details. And while you're doing this yet another skill, and I'm not gonna tell you how to develop your intuition, I'm just gonna ask you to respect it. Intuition, when it comes to the coaching, counseling practitioner client relationship is so imperative. It's so juicy. It is so good. We just need to learn how to respect it. That's all. Respecting your intuition means there's a part of you that understands that there's an invisible domain. An invisible realm, an insight, a knowledge, a wisdom that doesn't just come from a bunch of books, it doesn't come from a computer, it doesn't come from the world of mathematics and physics. It comes from this unseen realm called the intuition sphere. When you're respecting your intuition, you give it space. You notice it. Think of any time in life that you had an intuition about something or someone, or a situation where you wanted to do something different. Say something, go somewhere, make something ha whatever the intuition was, and it turned out to be Oh. So correct. And you don't even know where that intuition came from. There it was, it just showed up. That is what I'm talking about. So how do you tune into your intuition for you? How do you allow for it? Do you get quiet? Do you pray? Do you meditate? Do you sit in silence? Is there a voice, an intuitive voice that talks to you sometimes? What does it sound like? What does it feel like when your intuition is strong? What does it feel like when you're uncertain about your intuition, but you think, yeah, but it's on the borderline, but you're not quite sure?
When are the times in life when you followed your intuition and it worked? When are the times in life when you followed your intuition and it didn't work?
You know, intuition is very, very powerful in this profession. And when I mentor students and show them how I work with clients that, you know, in a live demo, they're often amazed at some of the questions I ask that will get right down a business with a client that'll really help open a client up. And that's because I've learned to listen to my intuition and to respect it. And I'll get a notion to ask a question that seemingly might not have anything to do with anything to do with anything that they say that comes outta left field. But it's just, I'm picking it up from the intuitive sphere. Sometimes my intuition is wrong. You know what I do? If I ask a question, I say, Hey, Mr. And Mr. Alein, I just have a question that I just want to ask you and or a direction I want to go in. And if it turns out to be a dead end, I'll go, you know something? I had an intuitive hit about that it didn't pan out. Let's move in another direction. And I let go right away. I don't beat myself up. And if I do, I give myself about 10 seconds of beat up. That's it. So we're human, we will beat ourselves up. We will feel bad. I always, always feel bad when my intuition leads me in a wrong direction. I, I don't like it personally. I just, I just wanna be intuitively correct all the time. But I don't do that for 30 minutes when I'm with my client. Otherwise, I've cheated them out of a session. I don't do that for an hour with my client. I don't do that for 15 minutes. I don't do it for five minutes. I give myself about five to 10 seconds to self reject and then I'm done. So it's shortening the time that you go into the bad neighborhood in your head.
You know, sometimes as practitioners, our intuition is our lifeline. That's what's gonna help us get through a session. So trusting your intuition, my friends, is a practice. It's a real phenomenon. It's real. It's real. It's real. It's a skill, it's a power, it's an ability. And sometimes our intuition, again, is off is off. And that's okay. Okay? You're not gonna be perfect. We're letting go of perfection. Because when we let go of perfection, we also actually let go of self-abuse. Sometimes your intuition is talking very loudly. Consider listening to it.
I will say that intuition is, I think, best heard with a quiet mind, an open mind, a curious mind, a trusting mind, a patient mind.
Play with your intuition. Be willing. You know, some of us, I just noticed the people who I think have the best intuition, they're really the people who respect their intuition the most. They've played with it, they've practiced it, they've allowed for it. As opposed to some people are more intuitive than others. What I have learned, I think every person I've ever met, and I really mean this once I get to know them, is extremely intuitive. They're intuitive in the ways that they're intuitive. Once you get to know them, certain people are more intuitive in certain directions. So I'm extremely intuitive when it comes to food, body health and all the various conditions, because that's my obsession. That's what I study, that's what I watch. So I'm more intuitive about that. Um, I'm very intuitive when I'm in nature, because I've spent a lot of time in nature. I'm intuitive when I'm on the ocean because I've learned about it. I spent time on it. So chances are you're intuitive about people, about certain kinds of people, maybe about girls, boys, men, women. You might be, there's so many things you are intuitive about that you might not have given yourself credit for my friends, okay? Yet, another skill that I'm gonna ask you to practice is to be authentically you, my friends. Just be you. What kind of coach you want to be? Be the coach that you are. Practitioners, we, we, we often adopt a voice, a way of speaking and being that's not actually who we truly are, but it's who we think we should be. Oh, hello, Mr. Mrs. Client, sit down. Yes, I am your coach, and I'm going to ask you questions. And these questions are going to help me understand who you are. And when I understand who you are, I will be able to help you. Nobody talks like that, but we often talk like that. Notice the experts that you've gone to, the doctors, the healers, the practitioners, the coaches that you might have gone to, who they go into this weird voice that, that, that it's is, is a little offputting. Uh, and that's because we, we, the collective, we the professional, we, we often have this pre-programmed ideas of what a coach, what a counselor, what a doctor, what a healer, what a medical professional should sound like. And says, who be you? Just be you learn to let your authentic voice come out so often. If you can hear me in a client session, it, it sounds like I'm talking to my best friend. It sounds like I'm interviewing my best friend. I'm asking my best friend question. I might make fun of my client if I feel I can make fun of them. I joke with them a little bit. I get real serious with them. I'm very caring towards them. I'm clear with them. I'll, I'll go in any direction. I I'll just be authentically me because the real me is where the power is. The real you is where the power is You. I want you to be, you. Don't be me. Don't be some other guy. Be you. What's the real you? And and that's a journey to discover that. It's letting your authentic voice come out so you're not trying to be someone else. So being the real you with anybody oftentimes requires a risk. Because if I'm the real me, oh my God, what's gonna happen? People might not love me because I really wanna say this, or I'm really thinking that. Obviously you have to learn how to craft your words. Now if you're sitting there inside your head thinking, God, this client is such a jerk, I'm not calling that the real you that needs to come out. Yeah, in that moment, that's what's going on for you. But those are the judgements. I'm asking you to pop the balloon on those and to let those judgements go.
I'm asking for the real you, the authentic you to come out that has a, a higher voice, that has a clear voice. Not the judge, not the critic, not the jerk, but the authentic you. Who's a best friend to your client? Who's a coach, who's a counselor, who's a mentor, who's a guide, who's a cheerleader. Does that make sense my friends?
You know, at the same time that you are being the real you, I am wanting you to ongoingly use bold imagination. So, and you're gonna see this as we go through different case stories, case studies. I'm always giving my clients homework assignments. I'm inventing the homework assign on the spot. Yes, there will be certain, I, we will have a list of certain homework assignments that you're gonna see in your handouts that you're gonna hear about. But I'm always inventing homework assignments based on how I'm assessing my client, how I'm intuiting them, what I'm getting about them. Sometimes those suggestions are a little bit edgy. So if it happens to be, if I noticed that, okay, my client is coming to see me with an eating challenge and I noticed that they have been trying to lose weight and control their appetite so they can find a partner so they could be more sexually attractive. And I noticed that they have a fear of pleasure, fear of sexuality. They have withholds. They've clearly told me that I might give the edgy suggestion called Mr. And Mrs. Client, I want you to go home and, and do a, do a your sexual write, your sexual autobiography. This might take a week or two. I want you to take time with it from the beginning that you could remember you first had a sexual impulse. Write about it. What was that like? When was your first kiss? When was your first attraction? When was the first time you had sex? What was that like? Write about all your sex partners. What did they teach you? Write about the difficult experiences, the beautiful experiences. What did you wish you have? Just an autobiography. And then I just want you to, once you've written it, I want you to read over it and just notice what happens for you. Notice what comes up. So that's for many people, that's an edgy suggestion. Each client is beautifully unique. I am asking you, my friends, to tap into that uniqueness in a more radical, authentic, and uplifting way. So you are learning how to be creative in this work. You are learning how to be creator. You are learning how to invent homework assignments. You are learning how to invent exercises for your clients that really make sense for them. This might not be for all your clients, obviously. There was one particular client I had early on in my practice. My, my first true practice when I had my first office. It was on Wall Street in New York City in the, in the mid eighties. And one of my clients, you know, uh, who was, who was just very successful, um, was sharing with me how he had no time to cook, no time for meals, no time for healthy eating. I said, listen, like, time out a second. And this was after a lot of bitter complaining. He was, he was, he was arguing for why it was impossible for him to eat healthy. I said, forgive me for what I'm about to say here, but you've been really clear that you can't cook. Your wife works. She has no interest in cooking for you. Um, neither of you have time. You don't have time. That's your biggest complaint. You can't eat healthy. And here you have all these health complaints. Do me a favor. Can you afford to cook? Can you afford somebody to come in every day and cook you three meals for the day? A takeout for, for lunch that you could bring to work and dinner that you can heat up when you get home? You could afford that, right? Guy shakes his head. Yes. So do it. It's an outrageous request, but if somebody can afford it, it's not outrageous. So, but here I am, I'm getting big enough to speak to a client, even though I at that point could not afford to hire a cook by any stretch of the imagination. I have to listen to my client, listen into their life and get big enough to inspire them to do something that's gonna help them get where they need to go
next, my friends, I wanna invite you to feel the fear and do it anyways. There's a lot of times maybe when you're ready to see your first client and you're not really ready, when you have a client come in to see you, and you start to feel the fear. What am I gonna do? I don't know how to do this. I'm so scared. I am asking you to learn how to better metabolize fear. It is not about getting rid of fear. Fear exists. Fear happens. Fear is part of the human experience. Fear is good. Fear is okay. There are certain things we should indeed fear. We should fear creatures that wanna harm us, people that want to harm us. Situations that are not good for us. Um, situations where damage can happen. So as practitioners, let's expect to experience some fears in our profession. Might be the fear of failure. Fear with certain clients. Fear about not knowing what to do, fear about money, fear about losing a client. I'm asking you to embrace that fear and stop resisting it. 'cause you know what we resist tends to persist. So you're gonna remember that fear is natural. You're gonna let it move through your system and you're gonna remind yourself that it doesn't need to stop us. It doesn't need to rule us, it doesn't need to own us. Fear is energy. What did I once hear somebody say, uh, fear. FEAR. False evidence appearing real. We think our fear is real. And the energy called fear can actually turn into excitement. It can turn into motivation. It can turn into power. So you and I are here not only to metabolize our own fear, but this is what we're helping our clients to. We're helping them metabolize their fear. So their fear doesn't immobilize them. People get fearful around food. They get fearful around appetite. They get fearful around fat in food. They get fearful around, oh my God, I'm going to gain weight, or, I'm never going to lose weight, or, I'm always going to be like this and this is never going to change.
So I just want you to be in an ongoing experience of noticing when fear comes up and learning to take deep breaths with it. 'cause as you breathe deeply, the breathing pattern of fear is shallow. A rhythmic and infrequent. The breathing pattern of relaxation will be regular, rhythmic, and deep. So as you adopt the breathing pattern of relaxation, regular, rhythmic and deep, you fool your nervous system and you will eventually help metabolize that fear,
not by suppressing it, but by noticing it, letting it circulate in your body, acknowledging it, and then allowing yourself to breathe through it and continuing forward in your life in the session with your meal, whatever. It's okay. One of the skills that we do, that you will see me doing with clients ongoingly in our case stories, is I'm always looking to elicit and cultivate my client's own wisdom.
Sometimes my client will present with an issue and I'll just throw it right back at them. So what, what do you think you should do in this case? What do you think you should do when your boss tells you no, you have to continue to eat at your desk while you're working? What do you think you should do? Or, okay, so you've been dieting all these years and it hasn't worked. Why do you think that's happened? Now, I don't need my client to have the right answer, but I'm practicing with them, asking them, and I'm actually not asking them as a throwaway question. I'm really interested in their answer. I am. I ask the question, I'll say to a client, okay, what would you tell you right now? If you were me, if you were me, what would you say to you?
Yeah, I might spring that question with a client, you know, especially after I've gotten to know them a little bit after a session or two. If you were me, what would you tell you right now based on what you just said? Because you've seen this happen. You've, you've been in conversations with your friends, where your friends are presenting something to you like it's this big problem, but on some level, you know, they know the answer and they're just complaining or moaning or whining a little bit. So I'm often going to ask my client to step into their wisdom moment. Now, this doesn't mean I'm not going to address the issue or the challenge or the question. It doesn't mean I'm not gonna offer my insights. It just means that this is a playful way to let your client know that part of this journey is them learning how to self metabolize is them learning how to be more self referenced, is them learning how to not abandon themselves, them learning how to trust themselves. I actually trust my client's wisdom. I actually trust that they can eventually learn to manage and regulate their relationship with foods such that it works for them. They don't trust that, but I actually do. They just haven't gotten there yet. But I have worked with some of the most challenged humans on the planet when it comes to their relationship with food. And I've seen growth and healing and transformation. So I know that anyone can do it. That is my belief system. So I know that anyone can go from a punishing relationship with food to a nourishing one, from a painful one to a pleasurable one. Does it mean they're gonna go to a perfect relationship with food? No. I know a few people that have that, but they could have a perfectly imperfect relationship with food, a relationship that works. So that is why I am silently trusting in the wisdom of my client, in the wisdom of their journey. And when I'm holding that invisible space, that invisible belief, and I'm infusing it into the container that is felt in the invisible realm. So our job is to bring out our clients inner resources, their inner authority, their wisdom. This is way different than just telling people what to do, even though I will tell a client, okay, here's what I want you to do. But that's just a piece of the puzzle. So we're doing all kinds of different strategies. Yeah, I'm telling my client, okay, here's what I think you should do. But I'm also eliciting their wisdom in moments that that comes up. So I want you to be constantly vigilant for when you can do that. I will often use my client's own experience to prove the point that I'm trying to make. So that'll be questions like when a client starts self rejecting, well, how could I possibly meet somebody who's gonna love me if I don't have the perfect weight, if I don't lose 50 pounds? Have you ever known anyone who weighs exactly what you weigh, if not a lot more, and they have a happy relationship and a happy sex life? Love life, et cetera? Yes, I have. Okay. I just blew my point. From your experience.
So Mr. And Mrs. Client, you told me you've been dieting for 15 years and you've lost the weight and you've gained it back, and you've lost the weight and you gained it back and you lost the weight and you've gained it back. And I offered to you that you actually need to stop meal skipping in order to start to reach your natural appetite and your natural weight. I also offered to you that you need to slow down when you eat, and yes, you will be eating more food, especially for you, more healthy protein, healthy fat. You expressed to me that you are worried that, wow, you're gonna gain weight if you're eating more food
and you're not sure you wanna do this. But let me ask you again, has your approach worked? Mm-Hmm. Okay. So what I'm suggesting to you is we're going to try something different. If this doesn't work, then you can go back to your old ways. So there's an experiment when I'm gonna have you eating three meals a day, as opposed to skipping two of your meals or one of your meals, or one and a half meals, whatever it is. So yes, I'm asking you to eat more food, but here's the scientific mind cookie. Your body's probably been in a bit of a starvation response that thinks it's been on a desert island.
And when we're in a starvation response, the body wisely says, Hey, there's a lack of food in the environment. I better slow down metabolism, slow down calorie metabolism. I better hold onto body fat and not build muscle, which is the opposite of what you wanna do. So I'm suggesting that's what's going on in your body. So I'm suggesting that when you eat more food, your body will actually start to come out of a survival response. Your metabolism will increase. But we're not gonna know unless we tried it. But we do know, as you said, that your way hasn't worked.
So that's using their experience to prove your point. And again, oftentimes I'll put questions to my client back in their court. Not all the time, but sometimes you intuit those moments. And I'm always trusting in their inner knowing. If my client says they want to, they've been like reading about this particular supplement that they really wanna take. Do, do I think this is a good supplement? 19 times outta 20, when my client says that I, I will often say, Hey, you're attracted to it. You're drawn to it. You're intuition, something's happening. Why don't you give it a try? See what happens And tell me, I don't know. I don't know that anyone can necessarily answer that question for you. Let's experiment and we'll see what happens in your body.
Okay, my friends, here's one of the most important strategies that you can follow as a practitioner when it comes to serving your client in the best possible way in the universe, which is this. You are here in working with your clients to help them create the results that they expect. At the end of the work together. You're creating the end results. In the beginning, you are helping your client create the end results in the beginning. What the heck does that mean? Creating the end results in the beginning means this. Okay, Mr. And Mrs. Client, this is especially useful for weight loss, by the way. Um, this is especially useful for clients who no matter what they come to see you for, there's a very big component of body image challenge of self-hate around body or weight or shape. Okay, Mr. Client, let me ask you this question, and I really mean this. Who would you be when you have the body that you want? Who's this person gonna be? Describe him to me. Oh, I'm gonna have more energy. I'm gonna be out there. I'm gonna be the real me. I'm gonna take risks. I'm gonna wear the clothes that I wanna wear. I'm gonna be more confident. I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, I'm gonna socialize more. I'm gonna, I'm gonna put myself out there. I'm gonna circulate. I'm gonna be happier. I'm gonna be more confident. I'm gonna like myself better. I'm gonna feel lighter. Great. So of everything you just said, pretty much all of those I could see you doing now, other than to fit into your skinny clothes, you can start to be more confident. Now you can start to love yourself more. Now. You could be out there more, more. Now you can be the real you more. Now you could be more confident. Now you could actually feel lighter. Now it's gotta lighten up a little bit. So I'm looking for then, what are the practical things we could do? Okay, so you said you're gonna go out more when you lose weight. How would you start to go out more now? Who would you go out with? Where would you be doing? Where would you be going? Then the homework assignment is go do that in this next week. Pretend you have the weight and the shape that you eventually want to have. Pretend that you have that now and start being that person because you know what's gonna happen. What's gonna happen is you're gonna start to relax. And when you put your body into a relaxation response, here's what happens to metabolism, to digestion, assimilation and calorie burning and natural appetite regulation. So you're gonna be changing your metabolism 'cause you're gonna be relaxed more into your life and you're not gonna be as self judging on top of that. You're gonna start to do all these things you wanna do now and be the real you now. And in the worst case scenario, if you never lose a single pound in our work together, or if you never lose a single pound for the rest of your life, you'll have, you'll be being the person you wanna be to a large degree other than your skinny clothes and all those other things. So what do you think, Mr. Mrs. Client? So then you're gonna invent homework assignments, baby step assignments that help move them in that direction. So I'm gonna find out for my client, what does it mean to be the real you? Specifically, what would you be doing? Where would you be going? Who would you be hanging out with? What activities would you be doing? You'd be going out dancing, great, go out dancing now. Enjoy it now. You would be more confident. Hey, fake it till you make it. Start to invoke confidence. Play with it, experiment with it. You would be shocked, my friends, how well this strategy works. People will resist it because they believe I can't be the real me until, and you're turning that upside down because it's a bunch of nonsense. Because if somebody's walking around saying, I can't be the real me until I lose weight, until I stop overeating, binging, emotional eating, then
we're not wanting ourselves. We're not accepting self. We're rejecting self and a road of self-rejection cannot possibly lead to a road of self-acceptance and personal power equals metabolic power. As we begin, as you, as your client makes the step forward to start becoming the person they say they're gonna be when they have such and such a body. As you start to become that person now, because you make the efforts, the personal efforts where you see, wow, I can put myself out there. When you start to do that and you create the personal power, you put your body in the best possible probability and chances to shapeshift in the way that you wanna shapeshift it towards. That's what I wanna say.
So many people think happiness is in the future. Whenever this, that the other thing happens, so many people are operating on that. It's kind of the human condition. And I think it's been around from time immemorial. And we take happiness and wholeness out of the now into someday down the road, and we're not living our lives. And you can die. And I watched, I watched my parents on their deathbed talking about their regrets that they didn't do because whatever nonsense was holding them back, they both owned it. They both said it. And I remember when watching both my parents on their deathbed saying the things that they regretted that they didn't do because they were waiting for some time in the future when this, that the other thing that they could have done. I remember saying to myself, wow, I really need to learn from this. Our job as practitioners is to understand that people wanna lose weight so they can love themselves and be happy. They wanna stop over eating, binging, emotionally eating so they can love themselves and be happy. But instead of making happiness and self love, depending on these outcomes, determine the baby steps and assignments your client can do right now that indeed moves them into little bitty bits of happiness and little bitty bits of self-love into that equation right now. So they practice it. Now, I mean that, that's not what a lot of people want to hear. That might not be what you want to hear. I, I truly get it. I truly get it. 'cause we all have places in our lives for the most part where we think, when this happens, then I'll be happy. Then I'll be the real me, then I'll be saved, then I'll be okay then, then, then, then, then.
And it's one of the most important things in our personal growth, our spiritual growth, and in reaching our metabolic potential is to slowly, slowly take the wind and the life out of that toxic belief.
We are here to love our clients and to transformation and to invite them into the same strategy. Love yourself, honor yourself, respect yourself into transformation. From that place, I wanna say to you, my friends success is assured.
Next, I wanna remind you about using brief and powerful scientific mind cookies, as you've heard me do in moments, as you will hear me do throughout the training, every time you wanna make a point letting your client know that, Hey, listen, you know, I'm asking you to love yourself into weight loss. I'm asking you to love yourself in this journey of healing your binge eating or your emotional eating. Why am I asking you to do that? Because you've been hating yourself. You told me you're all stressed out about this. I get it, I get it. That's totally normal and natural and human and understandable. But here's the thing, when you're in a stressed state, what happens? That means sympathetic nervous system dominance, sympathetic nervous system dominance. When that aspect of the central nervous system is activated in a full-blown stress response, we're in complete digestive shutdown in a full blown stress response. We have decreased calorie, day in, day out, calorie burning capacity, increased insulin and cortisol. They signal the body to store weight, store fat, and not build muscle. And appetite is deregulated during a stress response. 'cause when you're running from a lion, you don't need an appetite. You don't need to be figuring out what you're hungry for. All your metabolic energy goes into survival while you're living in that stress state, when you're self rejecting and you're self hating. So Mr. And Mrs. Klein, this is, this is a, this is a scientific and metabolic reality. When I ask you to step into self-love, there's a real reason for it. Simple scientific mind cookie right there, my friends. A final reminder before we finish this conversation. Um, so many people I meet have such good hearts. They have big hearts and they're out to save the world. And, and when I say that, I mean they just, they just wanna do good. They see all the craziness and they wanna save people. And the world is what it is. People are who they are. I want to ask you to focus on how you can help save the world in little ways. So trust in the bigger picture, in the divine play, I'm seeing far too many people getting agitated and stressed by what the world drama is or what they perceive as the world drama or what the media tells you is the world drama. Every day you and I wake up and if you read the news, listen to the news. It tells you the talking points that you should be thinking about and worrying about for the day. I don't know that that's a good thing. Of course I want to be aware of the world. But if you are awareness of the world, depletes your energy, stresses you out, makes you apathetic, makes you depressed, immobilizes you, or angers you in a way that disables you, then you need to turn that around. Then you need to consume media and information in a different way. And you need to stay positive while you and I do our small parts. So I want to ask you to consider believing in the goodness of humankind. We are constantly being fed information about how God awful the world is. Uh, I traveled a lot and I don't know how true that is. I'm not saying that there's not challenging things going on around the planet, but I believe 99% of humans are good. And if you want a different world than begin to create that world in your own life, literally create the world you want in your own life. Create the world you want inside your own head. If you don't want war in this world, if you don't want,
if you don't want people saying stupid nonsense, if you don't want judgment from crazy politicians, then listen to the judgments in your own mind. Change those first 'cause you have. That's where you have some say. That's where you have control. Create the kind of world you want in your own mind, in your own life, and then do it in your own household. Then do it in your own small tribe of people and then do it with your clients. That's how you save the world. You don't have to save the world as a whole. And I know you know that, but I'm just reminding us that doing our small part is actually a big part and you don't know the client that you help, the person that you inspire to have a healthier relationship with food. So all of a sudden they're not draining their energy and body hate, they're not draining their energy and an unwanted eating challenge and their energy is now freed up. So they could be the person they're meant to be and you don't know the kind of impact, positive impact that they're going to Have on the world now. So we're lighting some candles here. And when you light someone else's candle, they might light another a hundred candles from the one candle that you lit for them. We don't know. But trust in the goodness, trust in the divine play of it all. Trust that what you do with a client is important. It's important for them. It's important for you to give your gift. It's important for them to receive the gift.
My friends, I hope this was helpful. I really appreciate your time and attention and this is the end of our conversation about counseling and listening skills, architecture of healing. Part one is next. I look forward to more my friends. You take care.

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