Guest Episode
January 18, 2024
Episode 139:
How to Feel Whole & Love your Body with Rachel Lavin
Listen or watch on your favorite platforms
Rachel Lavin is a Published author of The Doughnut Diaries, a Professional Speaker and Body Love Educator, a Certified Personal Trainer and a Certified Health Coach.
In 2020, Rachel wrote her first book, "The Doughnut Diaries," about her struggles with her weight and restrictive diets, which lasted for over thirty years.
As Rachel turned forty, the expression I got sick and tired of being sick and tired hit home, and she decided to take her power back and heal from decades of negative thinking and self-sabotage, the expression I got sick and tired of being sick and tired hit home, and she decided.
Her mission is to create a safe space for all women to feel whole in their bodies.
Today, we will discuss how to feel whole and love your body.
0:00
hello everybody Welcome to True Hope cast the official podcast of true hope Canada where we take a deep dive into
0:05
the many psychological and physiological aspects that make up mental health this is the show for you if you're looking
0:11
for motivation inspiration knowledge and solutions and that's what we are all about here at trueu Hope Canada and true
0:17
hope Canada is a mind and body based supplement company dedicated first and foremost to promoting brain and body
0:22
Health through non-invasive nutritional means for more information about us and our products please visit trueu hopec
0:28
canada.com something new for the podcast is we are concluding each episode with a two to3 solution-based idea to a
0:34
specific question that question today is how can we start on a journey of self
0:39
forgiveness and today on the podcast I welcome Rachel Lavin now Rachel is a published author of The Donut Diaries
0:46
she's a professional speaker and body love educator certified personal trainer and certified health coach in 2020 retel
0:53
wrote her first book The Donut diaries about her own struggles with her weight and restrictive diets which lasted over
0:59
30 years is as Rachel turned 40 the expression I got sick and tired of being sick and tired hit home for her and she
1:05
made a decision to take back her health and healed from Decades of negative thinking and self sabotage her mission
1:12
is to create a safe space for all women to feel whole and own their own body today we're going to be discussing how
1:18
to feel whole and love yourself enjoy the show all right hi Rachel welcome to
1:23
True Hope cast thank you so much for being with us today how are you what is going well I am doing wonderful thank
1:29
you it's Thursday almost the weekend so have that to look forward to how are you
1:35
uh yeah good thank you very much yeah the um I've got young kids so my my weekends aren't quite as um relaxed as
1:42
they used to be but they are they're they're busy in different ways but it's it's always a lot of fun but it's also I
1:48
get to Sunday night and we're just done super tired how young are they my kids are two
1:55
and four little little little little beautiful bundles of incredible wild
2:03
uncontrollable energy yeah to say the least um well
2:08
yeah thank you so much for joining us today um we're going to be discussing how to feel whole and love your body
2:15
interesting topic that's going to take us in many different ways I think a lot of people um would love to know how to
2:21
feel a little bit more complete each and every day and at the end of the podcast we're going to be offering some
2:27
solutions to the question how can we start on a journey of self forgiveness so we're going to kind of build up to
2:34
that point so stick around with us to um to learn a few tips and tricks you can take into your day right away but to
2:40
kick off with Rachel why don't you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what it is that you do please okay
2:45
well I have been in the Fitness and Wellness space for over 20 years my career has gone across from beginning as
2:53
a group ex instructor to all the way now where I love to call myself a body love
2:58
educator so I have been working with men and women in the fitness space for many
3:05
many years and I think the interesting part of my career is that here I am
3:11
trying to walk alongside someone and support them on their health journey and kind of do the same for
3:18
myself and it feels very different now in a way where I'm trying to help people
3:24
and inspire people to learn how to walk back to who they really are and how a
3:29
better relationship with themselves and I can honestly say that I've done the work on myself that I've also too come
3:37
to that place where I just I wanted to be a happy human being and I didn't want
3:42
to think about myself and my body all day every day but I knew that that meant
3:48
that I had to heal and I had to heal from many many years of not only trauma
3:54
things that I've experienced in my life but things that I've done and said to myself I had to really heal from that so
4:01
here we are today and I'm hoping to share that message with your listeners
4:07
yeah that's that's that's an interesting introduction just as you're talking about um your experience of working with
4:13
people in in a gym setting it it just makes me think about my own experience going to gyms and working out and using
4:19
my body and I think through the years I'm for 40 now and when I was 20 my
4:24
objectives and reason for going to the gym were very different when I was 30 and then definitely now as I'm 40 and
4:32
it's interesting what the individual journey is for each person because it's going to be worldly different but
4:38
there's certainly some themes with it because a lot of people end up going to the gym you know it's nearly January right where we'll see this boom of
4:44
people starting to go to the gym right and it's and it's certainly not out of PL not really out of a place of like
4:50
self love and selfworth it's usually the opposite of that that drives us to go
4:55
and you know go spend money to to to go into that environment and it's not
5:02
really out of self-love and I feel like that's the wrong attitude we should be taking when we're looking to you know
5:08
kind of make a deeper connection with our body and and our minds and end up wanting to appreciate what we have and
5:15
what we could have yeah I love that so much and you're so right I think we are
5:21
all and you're right it's already starting it's not even December yet it's like let's start thinking about those
5:27
resolutions let's start S about how you're going to be the best you of 2024
5:33
and it's like we I have to I have to remind myself like we in this space have all
5:42
drank that Kool-Aid at some point right we've all believe that it's the it's
5:48
this year's we're gonna do it this year I I've said that aloud for many years I
5:54
do understand that but I think the most important beginning of this whole
6:00
relationship with yourself is like you have to recognize that you've been lied to by social media by the fitness and
6:07
wellness and beauty industry and that it's it's kind of like this is a self-love Journey this is a
6:14
self-love thing and you have to do it at your own pace you have to do it in a way that makes you feel whole and makes you
6:22
feel like I'm doing this for me I'm not doing this for anyone else and that's I
6:27
think the barrier for why so many people kind of like January 1 they in the gym
6:33
and by January 15th they're not right because it's just so much pressure like
6:38
you like you said yeah I think it's interesting because there's certainly some benefits
6:44
of going to like going to the gym and going to classes or even just doing a workout yourself and literally trying to
6:50
literally killing yourself and feeling really like awful maybe at the beginning but then once you finish up you feel
6:55
great but I I feel like what's the intention you're going into that gym session that class or that workout in
7:01
because there are times where I don't want to do a workout like yesterday at 3 p.m. I wanted to go go to sleep I was
7:07
done I was tired I was like I've got three more hours of like near of engaging of work and and with my kids
7:13
and my family I'm going to I did like a 25 minute like little Weight Workout in my like small little office here and I
7:20
felt amazing afterwards but I was doing that with the intention of like I don't want to be this boring droopy slow
7:27
unengaged Dad when I go upstairs I want to be fun and energized you know and I want my kids to experience that
7:33
but that's I feel like for me that's like a really positive um future and a
7:39
positive story that I have but then you have a lot of people when I was 20 I would go to the gym and kill myself
7:45
because I wanted to have this idea of the kind of like the perfect body or this beach body that I thought that I
7:51
needed to have because that's going to bring me happiness um so I was going
7:57
into it with I would say I don't know a a negative a negative um way of thinking
8:06
and then going into stressing my body out even more so I'm stressing my brain out with this negative thoughts and I'm stressing my body out even more with the
8:13
actual physical workout and it's not I don't know it's really short-term thinking it's really reductionist thinking and it's not really something
8:19
that I would that I would consider to be a smart way of going into any type of change that you actually want to do for
8:26
the long term I guess yes I think that you really to become aware of that and
8:32
how your your intentions that you're setting and why are you doing all these
8:38
hardcore crazy routines in the gym are you doing it for longevity to be present
8:44
dad to be you know mobile as long as we can no at that time you're thinking I
8:51
need to get the girl or I need to get the job or I need to do this I got to look like this because that's what
8:58
you've seen your whole life men who look like this get that and it's so awful
9:05
because the longer I'm in the space I realize how much men have to cope with it as well but women you know we really
9:13
kind of do a number on ourselves as well mentally physically I think to stay in
9:19
that smallest form of our body when we are not n giving ourselves the nutrients
9:25
that we need to get through the day and that's where that tiredness comes in that's where the low energy comes in
9:31
that's where you know your moods shift and if I can have any parts before I
9:38
leave this earth to kind of debunk that and and tell people in general that
9:44
you're not eating enough you're not resting enough you're over
9:49
exercising then I I feel like my my dream will have been you know I will be
9:56
able to fulfill my dream I should say but I have a long way to go yeah I I I
10:03
think of it I've got some like teenagers in my life um my my wife's younger
10:10
brothers and they're they're 18 19 they're going to the gym all the time which is really great for them and it's really awesome I think there's so many
10:16
young people and then myself as well and I was 18 1920 as a young man I feel like everything you do is very much a
10:23
performance to basically what you're not conscious of it at the time but you
10:29
trying to you're trying to find your partner and you're trying to do everything you possibly can with within this performance which isn't genuine
10:35
really to try and get this partner and I did that for nearly I did that until I was about 30 when I met my wife and uh
10:43
we got married and had kids and now I feel like I have um
10:48
completed my manhood kind of thing so now I don't have to put on this performance obviously I have to be a
10:55
nice person still and evolve as a person to keep my wife but I feel like that
11:01
that performance of like trying to do all these things where I think I have to impress other people so they want to
11:06
like me like that's that's not there that's not there anymore as you know you get that as you age but like so much of
11:13
what Young adolescent men do is to you know get the attention of of the people
11:19
who they want to be with and it's uh that's an okay thing to do it's obviously nor normal and natural
11:25
but there's so many other things about being you know know being a man being a woman that come that comes with with
11:31
that very interesting part of your life I agree with you I think if we
11:37
would have focused on at that age being good people being good humans being a
11:44
good partner I think you said we're so focused on the Aesthetics of how to land
11:49
a person we have no idea what it's like to be a good partner yeah like so and
11:56
there's not enough emphasis on that I think we can go back to you know the
12:02
holidays and how people are already inundated with what diet they're going to do come January 1 what about like hey
12:11
let's go to therapy this year let's be the you know mentally healthy so that
12:16
those things are skipped over I think you have to really be an aware human being to want those things for yourself
12:25
and um it would be lovely if more people thought that way mhm yeah well we
12:31
do we don't necessarily do the self- individual work at that young age again
12:37
it's not it's not our in our educational system to really know focus on yourself
12:43
as as an individual who you are what it is that you want and these personal development skills and then we go out
12:49
and you know these young people try to as I said before that they're performing they're putting on these acts they got
12:55
different personalities for this friend group this school group at home with their grandparents you know and it's
13:01
never really a um never really on this genuine path and then maybe when you hit 30 40 maybe even 50 you start figuring
13:09
out kind of like who you are and what it is that you do want and you kind of put a lot of that nonsense to the side and
13:14
you end up just being this genuine individual and that's when you can start expressing yourself in ways in which
13:19
people genuinely connect to because people have like a phony you know a phony radar and they can tell when
13:26
people aren't being super genuine in in the in the long-term especially but not everyone's got it in the short term because you can pull the wo over
13:32
people's eyes I guess but it's yeah it's interesting it takes a lot of experience
13:37
it takes a lot of time and it can take a lot of suffering before you recognize that the things that you're doing to
13:42
your mind yourself your body um haven't really been in your best interest at all
13:48
but when you start to lay that down a little bit and you start doing that self-work and you're going into let's
13:54
say starting to move your body deliberately in ways that's going to benefit you as you age
13:59
that's when I feel like your mind and your body connect and you can really start um stepping
14:07
forward into a position that's going to inspire yourself to go even further and Inspire those other people around you as
14:14
well yeah that was beautifully said I would like to add just a little bit to
14:19
that and it is interesting from a person who this is such a personal Journey for
14:25
me that had those experiences every day of my life for more than 40 years I'm 52
14:33
now that there are still days where I have to deal with that and the beauty of
14:39
it now is that because I did the work I have the tools to manage those days
14:45
where it does get hard because I don't think and and me still I have to
14:51
understand our brains are so intricate that if you have a trauma deep down
14:57
inside there that something can trick trigger that like all these years later but if you give yourself the tools to
15:04
deal with that it becomes just a moment and so I'm grateful for just the moments
15:09
now it's like I have those moments and then I can say no you're you're safe
15:14
You're beautiful your body is the right body all the things I was incapable of
15:20
self soothing myself in my 20s and 30s self soothing yeah for sure and then you
15:26
talk about moments you know I think about moments and being aware of those moments you're present you're there you're in you're in the moment you're
15:32
there with yourself and other people around you and without question the more we can stay within that present moment
15:39
and not Drift Off to anxieties of the futures or depressions of the past and we can stay in that stay in that zone
15:46
you're naturally going to shift one way or the other and fluctuate but how quickly um can you bring yourself into
15:52
the middle and how frequently are you there as well cool I want to talk about about
15:58
dieting so what does the word dieting mean to you and you also spoke about
16:04
like these media lies and the social media lies about what it is to be healthy or what it means to like have
16:11
this perfect body or whatever that means can you kind of touch on that a little bit for us of course I mean unfortunately the word diet is just the
16:19
word to describe what we daily intake our food or drink that's what the word
16:24
diet really means but we've created Creed the word diet to
16:31
mean the thing that I'm doing to restrict my body to make it the smallest
16:37
or in a man's case the most muscular body that's my diet and fat diets you
16:44
know if you even want to get more specific there they are you know all the diets that are out there in the world
16:50
The Fad diets the 10day challenges the drink the pill the powder whatever and
16:59
none of that is real food none of that is approved by your body they are not
17:09
going to have the nutrients that you need to be healthy daily and I think that we are
17:17
all so undernourished with real food and we like skip lunch but we're we're
17:25
having a power bar or we're skipping lunch we're having a protein Shake we're skipping meals and we're eating this
17:32
created food source from a you know Factory and that's normal for us and
17:40
that to me is the scary part and I lived it too so I I'm not coming from a place of judgment I'm coming from a place of
17:48
awareness yeah well I think yeah the word diet like I think I looked this up it comes from the Greek at for way of
17:54
life and how opposite are we of that original definition you know I think of I think most people if you ask them what
18:01
dieting means they would associate that immediately with weight loss MH which is
18:07
which makes no sense because you've got all these fad diets and all these all these Trends and these things that that people are on and none of them are
18:14
sustainable none of them are a way of life none of them are like the standard way that you could you could be for long
18:19
periods of time and that's kind of essentially what we want to do you know like there you people who you know yo-yo
18:25
with their weight Yo-Yo Yo-Yo diet they're going up and down one obviously that's a very intensely unhealthy thing
18:33
for your body to be continuously going through and very very unnatural for your for our human biology but it it's just
18:41
not something you can do in the long term and certainly something you can't do in the long term and be happy with and I think that's the key here it's
18:46
just like how can you how can you be happy with what you're doing and who you are and then making the right choices
18:53
wrapped around that especially around you know something so fundamentally important to our biology and our culture
18:59
as food well you have to think about it in the most simplest way right food is fuel
19:05
for our body if you equate our body our vessel as your vehicle your car whatever
19:12
Transportation what do you put in there to make it go and I'll even like come with it into the time of where we are
19:19
with hybrid cars and you know plug-in cars you still have to plug it in to
19:24
give it energy to go right well our bodies are the same way if we do not nourish it with food
19:31
equal energy you're going to be lethargic you're going to be moody you're not going to be able to cre just
19:38
do the daily activities because your body is depleted so for someone like me
19:44
who used to literally get angry at my own hunger I have come to the other side to
19:51
realize what a gift it is to be able to eat and feel better and feel like I have the energy to talk to you to have a
19:59
relationship to train my clients to do whatever I need to do so if we as a
20:05
collective don't heal our relationship with food we're never going to understand like you mentioned the the
20:13
things that we're doing to our body and our health in a negative way yeah I think it's good for people to
20:21
understand that when we see these Tik Tok videos or we see even like the the front of men's fitness these magazines
20:27
or whatever the women's alternative women's fitness um they want you to buy it and they want you to click and it's
20:34
not about you it's not about wanting to support you or help you it it it's about
20:40
getting that relevance and that attention from you rather than you actually being able to maybe put that on towards yourself and and learning
20:47
something of significant value I think that you know I I started studying I
20:53
started taking nutrition courses about 10 years ago and the first one I did
20:58
blew my mind because that was the first time I was actually really educating myself on something I had to do three
21:04
times a day which was eat food and also to exercise and to get sunlight and to
21:10
restrict screens and things like that like we i' never been taught that I didn't have that educational resource in
21:16
my head before so learning that for the first time was mindblowing but also it's
21:21
like how is this not like a standard fundamental knowledge and understanding that I have and it's significant shame
21:29
that most people don't have it but we as you we you you've kind of mentioned this before with like the media lying to us
21:35
and social media lying to us we forget that knowledge that we certainly have
21:41
like universally within us all but we also look for these quick fixes and these quick Solutions these 10day
21:47
challenges these Master cleanses or 30-day whatever it is rather than actually sitting down and doing the work
21:55
and re-educating yourself trying different foods trying different things and actually you know creating a
22:03
enthusiasm around that learning process as well so it solidifies and it becomes a diet it becomes a way of
22:09
life that's beautiful and I think that just to tell your listeners the
22:16
health beauty industry is 90 billion dollar in just the past two years and
22:22
it's expected to grow so I like some good homework watch TV count how many
22:29
commercials or ads that you see that have to do with a diet with some kind of food some kind of drug some kind of
22:36
exercise or some kind of message that you need to lose weight and I guarantee
22:41
you in probably 25 minutes you'll see about 15 ads because we are constantly
22:47
in our media in our magazines in our the Tik I mean Tik Tok I just I can't even
22:52
look at it because it just makes me crazy but everywhere you turn is some ad
22:59
for making you beautiful making you thin making you happy because you finally got
23:06
the weight off and kept it off no no well you're I mean you're in the
23:12
states right so you obviously get the drug advertisements all over the place and your news is sponsored by fiser and
23:19
all these other companies right and they're they're pushing all these things so they get the air time and they get the ears and they get the eyes and you
23:25
know if you subconsciously pump that out 24 hours a day to people it's going to it's going to break through it's going
23:31
to get in there and be a you know the only conventional source that you would go to so yeah it's super unfortunate and
23:38
even when we're talking about the majority of pharmaceuticals you know they're Band-Aids they're quick they're quick fixes in many cases not fixes at
23:45
all but it's not the it's not the same of actually sitting down and doing the work and you know reading know reading
23:52
books and educating yourself a little bit more and experimenting with different things for your body without
23:57
question question like we've just we just haven't been to we haven't been to health school ever and if you're lucky
24:04
to find it in your adulthood by um a chance chance inspirational podcast or a
24:10
book or the friend who continuously nags you about this amazing thing you have to read and then you finally read it you're
24:16
oh my gosh wow some people never get there and they live 80 years of their life um without actually getting to this
24:23
knowledge and I would guess probably maybe 30 years of that maybe even more
24:28
maybe three four Decades of that person's life they're actually living with chronic pain and chronic illness
24:34
and they're having to rely on surgeries drugs and machines to get them around
24:40
when that generally does not have to be the case and you know I I think I've seen some amazing recoveries from people
24:45
in their late 60s who have completely changed their lives around and it comes from a place of of acceptance it comes
24:53
from a place of being humble and empathetic to themselves and and and
24:58
exposing themselves to different sources of information that they've just been blasted with subconsciously
25:03
unconsciously for decades and decades oh my goodness that was perfectly said Simon you're right it it has to be
25:11
something in your life that inspires you to want to learn more and I think that's
25:17
what happened to me you know when I realized when I turned 40 that I had and
25:23
I don't know if I shared this part of my story but I had turned 40 was finally a
25:29
size zero which I strive for my whole life and when I realized I was still
25:37
miserable it it was the Catalyst to make me understand that it wasn't my body
25:44
that perfect body that was ever really going to achieve that happiness I had no
25:50
idea who I was I had no idea where I wanted to be and how I wanted to live
25:56
the rest of my life life and that's what kind of inspired me to start doing the work because I wasn't
26:04
happy yeah it's wild it's a very interesting and I'm I'm I'm sure that happens to so many people they strive
26:10
and strive and strive for that goal that thing that they think that they want and that they need but they're still within
26:16
the same mind you know you know if you can be there obviously the very happy H happiness can kind of come at
26:23
any any opportunity you know so many of the emotions that we experience are are
26:29
are programmed into us but we also have a lot of choice when it comes to which programs we select I guess and another
26:36
piece that just just makes me think because you know our Flagship product here at true hope Canada is called empow
26:41
plus it's a broadspectrum micronutrient formula that really provides the brain and body with the foundational
26:48
ingredients it needs to function and we have so many people around the world
26:53
that are consuming even if they're consuming organic organic food that the food that
26:58
they're consuming is not providing the necessary nutrients vitamins antioxidants Omega fatty acids that they
27:04
need as building blocks to you know create everything from skin and hair and
27:10
nails to you know their liver cells and kidney cells Etc if you don't have the building blocks actually getting from
27:17
your digestive system into your into your blood NE essentially into your body and doing the things it needs to do if
27:23
we're not doing that and we're not having the the supply coming in a consistent basis you are going to struggle with not feeling great within
27:30
your body not feeling great within your mind so I think nutritional deficiency significantly comes into that
27:37
psychological process of of um not feeling connected with yourself and your
27:44
body and maybe feeling depressed and anxious and stressed about the things that you think that you need but I I've
27:51
experienced it with so many people who have got on the product where they start taking it and they've they've basically been nutrient deficient for decades they
27:57
take this product and within a few days they've finally got the necessary ingredients into their body and their
28:03
brain just starts firing and wiring in different ways and then that connects with their body and they start feeling a little less pain a little bit more
28:09
energy and it gives them that that Catalyst to go out and do more of the things that make them feel happy like they've finally had the energy to go out
28:16
and go for a hike or a walk with their parent or something that they've not had the energy to do that for 10 years and
28:22
it comes simply down to the fact that they have been deficient and depleted of
28:27
essential nutrients for so long yeah it's wild there's so many
28:34
different aspects to to Health Nutrition dieting happiness anger I agree with you
28:41
but I will say that we make this so hard as human complic so hard and if we were
28:48
to we've literally forgotten the ability to trust our own bodies and I think if we can find our
28:55
way back to that because our body are literally the smartest things and
29:01
they give you signals and messages when something is not right and they also
29:06
give you signals and messages when things are a okay so I just if I could
29:12
even stress another point to you know everybody but your listeners for at the
29:17
moment that paying attention to your body and listening to your body can
29:23
alleviate so many different problems
29:29
I completely agree with you yeah absolutely I feel like our culture has this we just we have this this part of
29:35
our body severed and we have this head and we have this body and they never communicate they never talk they're like
29:41
roommates that never communicate and they have to be doing that and I know so many people yeah who
29:47
have had long have had pain for long periods of time and then they start meditating or they just start sitting
29:53
and actually feeling the pain that they have within their body body and they finally start
29:58
open up these these very important channels that we have between our our psychology and our
30:04
physiology and their pain the story around their pain completely changes because they're finally actually bringing attention towards themsel in
30:11
like an internal way rather than putting all of their energy on like their phones and their jobs and these other people
30:18
and all this all these other stuff which certainly have value but if you're not actually breathing and meditating and
30:24
bringing that energy back towards you then you're never going to be able to be connected to yourself oh my God that was
30:31
perfectly said yes I love that so can you let's dive into a little bit more
30:37
solution based idea here so like how do you think we can begin to actually start accepting our body and having a
30:44
conversation around that I think the most important thing two things one is
30:50
recognize how do I treat myself what are the things that I'm saying to myself on a daily basis that are only solidifying
30:58
this way that I'm trying to project myself out into the world and I bet you nine out of ten
31:06
times you're going to realize you're not being very kind to yourself and I had to realize that that's what I was doing I
31:12
was saying horrible degrading things to myself I was then in turn uh looking
31:20
outward for that acceptance that I was looking so much for and I realized that
31:25
I had to stop doing those two things but was not going to be easy it was going to take practice and I wasn't going to
31:33
believe the nice things I was saying to myself for a while but I had to accept that and one of the the easiest ways for
31:42
me was to uh I got a package of poits in my favorite color at the time it was hot
31:48
pink and I wrote Things three things on there to start with you are lovable I am
31:55
beautiful I am am healthy and I I put them in various places of my 400 squ
32:03
foot New York City apartment and I made sure that I said them out loud to myself
32:09
every day before I left and then every night before I went to bed and there were some days where I choked on those
32:17
words because it was so hard but then there was a day a few months later where I said it was such conviction and I felt
32:24
it and I was like okay I got to keep going because it was a shift not only in my mindset but it was a shift in my
32:30
energy it was a shift on how I treated other people I mean I really started to
32:36
see some magic happening and so for such a simple act it made the world a
32:42
difference and it's kind of who I am today well the power of mantras and
32:48
being and and repeating those affirmations is ABS I mean scientifically proven that that that's
32:54
going to work and I like to I like to tell a lot of people who have who feel
32:59
that they have a lot of negative thoughts that do do any of those thoughts that
33:05
ruminate and circulate in your brain thousand times a day do they actually have any validity to them is there any
33:10
actual evidence to those those being true like I'm not worthy I'm not good enough for this Etc and there never
33:17
really is when people really sit down and analyze it I know with something like cognitive behavioral therapy where
33:23
you're looking to analyze the thoughts that you have that lead to the emot that you have that lead to the actions that
33:28
you might take when people actually sit down and really assess the thoughts that go
33:36
through their head a lot of the time none of them are actually really true
33:41
and then if you can start replacing those with very positive things that actually certainly are true that you are worthy of love that you can be happy
33:49
100% true statements then you're just um
33:55
replacing the storage space face of thoughts I guess in your brain and then you start becoming aware of your
34:00
thoughts a little bit more and you start becoming um you start to have the actual strength and ability and skill
34:07
to kind of digest the thoughts that come up because there always going to be negative things that come up for you be like you know oh I'm absolutely rubbish
34:14
at doing this but you can actually sit there and like hear that first of all hear that thought rather than it just being a thought and then immediately
34:20
making you feel stressed beyond your con beyond your uh Consciousness but you can
34:25
actually hear that thought you can digest it you can eliminate it because so many of the thoughts that we have are just random neurons
34:32
firing and then we can actually start listening to the things that do make sense that we actually want to hear and
34:38
I love I love your um your hot pink Post-it statements that you had around
34:44
your placees I think that's an amazing thing to do and without question there are words there are sentences that you
34:51
can have on you know around your apartment around your office even on your phone that certainly worth
34:58
repeating and being um solidifying the fact that you are worthy and you are
35:03
good enough and and that's part of the work is having those available to you
35:09
and also too when I started to believe those thoughts it it gave me the courage
35:14
and the faith to go and take action on those so things that I wouldn't normally
35:20
do I felt like I could do and you know for me growing up I had a hard time
35:26
being by myself I wasn't really ever allowed that space growing up and then
35:33
you know when I was in college I had so many friends and so much stuff going on that I didn't understand that I was an
35:41
introverted person with like extrovert Tendencies so I was never giving myself
35:48
that time for my energy to replenish so I was always I just wasn't a good friend and I wasn't a good person because I was
35:55
always so depleted but when I started to learn that there was things that I
36:00
needed to do for myself because I felt a little bit stronger every day in my own
36:06
worth that I was allowing myself to rest I was allowing myself time alone I was
36:12
allowing myself to go experience something by myself that I didn't need someone else's approval I think that
36:19
also too those steps kind of kind of go hand inand
36:25
and very great for that lesson as well beautiful yeah I think being alone and
36:31
reestablishing a relationship with yourself is absolutely vital to this to this healing process and to be able to
36:37
understand that you have everything within you to feel amazing and progress
36:42
and do all these things that you want to do and yeah it's it's a very strong reminder Rachel thank you so much um can
36:48
you tell us a little bit about the three pillars of Fitness that you that you have that you discuss on your website of
36:56
course again this is something else I had to learn was that you can't have the
37:03
healthy strong body that I want to have without exercise I can't have the
37:09
healthy strong energy without food and I can't have any of those things without
37:15
rest and so any time throughout my life that I had to try to do one without the
37:22
other I failed miserably and or I would have shortterm
37:27
success and then the weight would come back or whatever the case and so when I
37:32
realized that and I hate using the word balance because I think it's so overused but when I started to realize that those
37:39
three things go very well together and for me they don't work without each
37:44
other I always like to kind of at least bring that up to someone I'm working with hey this part this part and this
37:52
part of your life is there a disconnect do you have maybe two or one of those
37:59
things maybe we need to revisit learning how to have all three and I just feel
38:04
like having that mentality that it's okay to rest our bodies were created to
38:11
move and like you and I talked about earlier eating is something I have to do every single day I might as well be at
38:17
peace with it I think that's where that Hess comes in yeah the wholeness and we the word
38:25
like holistic and and wholesome come up for me especially if you're going to make any any type of significant change
38:32
in your life that's going to have a big impact on you you have to be looking at every single aspect of yourself and
38:39
there are so many when it comes to health and nutrition and fitness and
38:44
yeah it's it's um it's the way forward is completely opposite to what we've
38:49
conventionally been told what we need and what we have to have to be happy and
38:54
be have the the body that we want or whatever but it certainly takes
38:59
commitment it takes forgiveness forgiveness and it certainly is it certainly is work that's there's no
39:05
question about that you know I think that a lot of people have the ability to change and do amazing things but you
39:11
have you've got to really want to do it because it's not it's not a 10day fast
39:16
it's not it's not a 5day yoga retreat it's it's a significant commitment to to
39:22
yourself and your body but when when people are in the right space and they've got that right motivation then
39:28
they do absolutely phenomenal things and there's absolutely nothing that can stop them I agree with that awesome well
39:34
let's finish up on that question that we that we asked at the top of the show um I would love to you know we love to give
39:39
people um solutions that they can kind of take into their their day rway so the
39:45
question is how can we start on that journey of self
39:50
forgiveness you have to want it and you have to know that it's not a light switch I wish it was but it is going to
39:58
take some healing on your part and accepting that doing the work and
40:06
really kind of making it a daily practice because we've been talking about that we've done this for so many
40:13
years and had all that negative stuff tooling around it is literally going to take a 180 shift for those thoughts to
40:21
be transformed into something where you support yourself and you love yourself
40:27
and you're kind to yourself and the one thing I do want to point out more than anything is that I saw from my own self
40:35
firsthand what a difference it made me how I dealt with humans out in the world
40:42
like what a Kinder and more patient person I became and to be able to have
40:48
relationships with other human beings I mean that's why we're here right it's to be to be in a community to be nice to
40:56
each other to help each other and I didn't realize that when you are only thinking about yourself it's impossible
41:03
to be a good human yeah I think connection community and relationships is a huge part of this
41:09
of this healing I don't think you can think of uh a significant event where you've changed and done something you've
41:16
not done you've not done that alone and it's very important to reach out to people who you know will be supportive
41:23
to you and um allow that do the whole journey with somebody but that elevated
41:29
emotion that comes with it is without question something that will push you through to get to you to
41:36
where you want to be yeah so simple small steps like I love my posted idea
41:41
you know some people do shy away from mantras and affirmations but how else
41:47
are you going to learn and teach yourself how to be nice to yourself if it's not something that you say to
41:53
yourself every day yeah so you yeah you literally have to reprogram
41:59
big parts of your thinking pattern and if you're exposing yourself to let's say the negativities of social media for six
42:05
seven hours a day that's going to be your program inside of your head but if you are listening if you listening to um
42:14
let's just say positive podcasts or you've got this one Post-It note on the side of your computer that says
42:20
something that you really love about yourself and you're seeing that 100 times a day that's going to be the new
42:25
Norm that's going to be the new program within your head and you know you want to fill yourself with those hot pink
42:31
pieces of paper [Music] yeah awesome Rachel well can you let us
42:36
know how people can connect with you and learn more of course uh Rachel Lavin Wellness is my website it's also most of
42:45
my handles on social media you can't miss me because there's a picture of me holding my book and every picture and my
42:52
book The Donut Diaries is available on Amazon amazing well thank you so much for
42:58
coming to the show and uh we'll make I will make sure that all those links are
43:03
in the show notes available so people can get a hold of you thank you very much for sharing well thank you for
43:08
having me awesome Rachel well thank you again but that is it for this episode everybody of true Hope cast the official
43:15
podcast of true hope Canada we'll be uh back with you next week see you
43:25
soon [Music]