Episode 77 - Super Simple Snoozing Strategies, Part VI

Transcript

Renee Stephens: Welcome to Inside Out Weight Loss. I’m your host Renee Stephens, and together we’re accessing and adjusting the control panel of your mind/body/spirit system, bringing ease and joy to your weight loss journey and fullness to the rest of your life. A special welcome to new listeners to the show. We’re delighted you found us. I encourage you to jump right in to today’s episode and also go back to the beginning, starting at the prologue where I share the Inside Out Weight Loss and Renee Method philosophy, as well as why I care so much about ending the weight struggle. Inside Out Weight Loss is here to help you. We blend cutting edge behavior change tools with a foundation of unconditional self-acceptance to give you a whole new experience of weight loss. And I’ll be right up front about it; I have a hidden agenda. Yes, I want you to be slim and fit and healthy. I want you to easily lose weight like snow melting off a mountain in Springtime. Or like water evaporating from the ground in the afternoon sun. Yes, I want that for you. Absolutely. But even more than that, I want you to discover, develop and grow the rest of your life. ‘Cause lets face it, all that time that you’ve been spending worrying about your weight, managing your multiple wardrobes, criticizing yourself, being frustrated, all that time and energy is soon to be released and available. What the heck are you going to do with it? There’s so many possibilities. And that’s what it’s really all about. So take this moment to dream what you’ll do with all of that time and energy.

Renee Stephen: Now go ahead and drop inside, as I share a moment of bliss courtesy of blisstrips.com, and you sink into this episode, opening yourself up to healing and transformation, stepping into the life that you’ve been dreaming of. Swing high and free into the mighty blue. Imagine yourself on a wonderful swing, cutting lovely arcs through the air. Hold on tightly and kick your legs out, pulling yourself closer to the sky, then tuck your feet under your seat and flow on back. Feel that lovely pause at the top of the curve, as you hang suspended in midair for the briefest of moments. Then down you swoop, skimming the grass with your toes. Feel the wind sweep your skin and ripple through your hair. Feel the rhythm of your motion, back and forth, back and forth. Feel a power of your body propelling you even higher. Set yourself free as you fly into the sky, right on in to your dreams. Remember what it was like to be a child on a swing? I used to love the fun and the freedom of it, as well as that mix of being both in and out of control at the same time. I could control how high and how fast I went, but I could also stop anytime I wanted. At the same time, there was that feeling of freefall and adventure of the swift movement. And now I’d like you to dive right into that feeling. Dive right in to the future that you’ve been wanting to create. Dive right in to your naturally slender self. Don’t worry about the body; doesn’t matter. What matters is making those changes on the inside, because you can be naturally slender today. It’s easy. All you have to do is honor your body and choose the foods that cause you to have the most pleasure over the most time. It’s all there is. It’s really simple. The foods that will sit well with you, that will allow you to arrive at your next meal with a good appetite so you really enjoy the foods that you eat.

Renee Stephens: Now while we’re talking about enjoying the moment, while we’re talking about being naturally slender now today, relaxing in the knowledge that your body will catch up, that reminds me of something that I’ve really wanted to talk to you about for a while now. It’s been on my mind, I had this flash about it and I’ve been thinking and thinking about it and now is the time to bring it up. I want to talk to you about patience. Patience is a concept I have kind of struggled with. I have to be honest; I am indeed a multi-tasker, I’m pretty darn good at it. I have the ability to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time. Give me a deadline, two kids and add a PhD program to the mix and that’s all I need. Off I go. So I confess that I have my moments where patience is clearly not my strong point. So do I wait for my coffee to brew in the morning or the milk to foam? I like cappuccinos by the way. No. While the coffee’s brewing and the milk is foaming, I’m unloading the dishwasher, making breakfast for my kids, making lunch for the kids, and making my own breakfast at the same time. I might even be listening to the radio and catching a glimpse of the newspaper at the same time. And I think, “Okay, patient, be patient, be patient”, but its never really worked for me. Kind of like “Don’t eat, don’t eat, don’t eat” has never worked for me either. And for that matter, “Don’t be grumpy.” “Don’t open your mouth”, and all those other don’ts that I give myself. Patience has always had kind of a ‘don’t’ feeling to it. So I checked it out at dictionary.com, and dictionary.com says, “Patience denotes the capacity to endure hardship, difficulty or inconvenience without complaint.” Now that is not exactly a sexy sales pitch, is it? I mean honestly, who wants to sign up for that? Hardship? Inconvenience? Difficulty? Yuck! You know, the martyrdome thing just doesn’t really work for me. No fun. And besides, I’m a bad martyr. I always seem to want to get a gold star for my martyrdome efforts, and somehow I think I’ve missed the point when I do that. So then I thought about patience in a different way, maybe in an Inside Out sort of way. What is patience a call to do? And then I got it. Patience is a call to enjoy the moment, to be present in the moment. And then I got a big “Ah ha” on that one. Well that sounds a lot more interesting. I mean, ‘enjoy’ is right there, “enjoy the moment, be present in the moment”. Because when I’m present in the moment, if I’m sitting in traffic or waiting for the coffee to brew, and I’m simply present. I could actually enjoy myself. So lately I’ve found myself in those little pockets of time when I’m waiting, waiting in line or waiting for somebody, waiting in the car, on a train or a bus, occasionally content to just be. To not have to be reading or talking or listening to the radio, but rather to just simply be. Now someone else might look at me and say, “Oh, she’s so patient just waiting there.” And I think, well gosh, you know, all I’m doing is shifting my focus to the present moment, to my experience in this moment from waiting for whatever it is. In fact, sometimes I even use a meditation mantra. Is that multi tasking? I’m not sure. But it’s nice, and I think that qualifies as enjoying the moment. So as I was contemplating all this I saw this great bumper sticker, and it said, “I’d rather be here now.” I thought that was so great. You know all those bumper stickers that say, “Oh, I’d rather be fishing” or “sailing” or this, that and the other thing, and it just said, “I’d rather be here now.” Woo hoo! Nice one. So when you find yourself telling yourself that you need to be patient with your journey, patient with your weight loss, how about turning it inside out and thinking instead, “My intent is to enjoy the process. My intent is to enjoy the learning process, enjoy the journey, enjoy the discovery.” Remember that listener I mentioned a couple episodes ago who had, had this great experience with self-correcting. She overate and was so delighted to discover that she could in fact self-correct the next day. So she really enjoyed that process, that learning, that discovery as something new that really works. And I’ll finish on this topic by simply quoting the title of a book by Ram Das, which is simply, “Remember, be here now.”

Renee Stephens: And now it’s time for us to take a short break to support our sponsors. You are listening to Inside Out Weight Loss on Personal Life Media.

Renee Stephens: We’re back now. This is Renee Stephens, your host, and it’s time to turn our attention to super simple snoozing strategies in this sixth episode in our series. We’ve talked about sleep cycles so you understand that you’re going through typically about four cycles of deep to light sleep throughout the night. And we talked about prioritizing taking the time to sleep and relieving anxiety about sleep. In fact last episode I lead you through a round of EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique, with some suggested wording for your tapping. And I’d love to hear how it went. Post a comment to the blog. And today I’d like to cover some simple techniques to actually fall asleep. Because no one ever tells us how to fall asleep. They just say, “Go to sleep. Go to bed.” And they talk about, well if you can’t sleep. But when was the last time someone said, “Well this is what you do to go to sleep”? Because there are mental steps that each of us go through to fall asleep. I think the perception is that it’s some sort of magical thing that just happens to us. But in fact it’s something that we can discover how it’s done. And by understanding how it’s done we can use those techniques when we need them to fall asleep easily, deeply and restfully. Now these techniques will work both for falling asleep in the evening when you first go to bed, and also if you happen to wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling asleep. Falling back asleep, that is. Typically when we have trouble falling asleep, or at least for many people, what’s going on is our heads are whirring away, as in w-h-i-r-r-i-n-g, whirring away with thoughts about the day, about a problem we have, about things that we need to get done. Our mind is just busy, busy, busy trying to solve our own and the worlds problems. And of course when we’re in that state, that aroused, that anxious, that kind of anxiety ridden or amped up state, it is completely the opposite of being in the kind of state in which you would fall into a deep and restful sleep. And before I go any further I want to mention not to listen to this part of the podcast while operating heavy machinery. Hey, have you ever wondered what the heck heavy machinery is that you might be operating when people give you those warnings? I certainly have. I guess I think about these things. I think, “Well, is it a forklift? A tractor?” How many of us have heavy machinery in our daily lives? Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that the heavy machinery in my life is in fact a car or cardio equipment in the gym. I’m thinking that if you were on a horse it probably wouldn’t qualify as heavy machinery, but definitely the cardio equipment. So if you’re doing that then it’s probably a good idea to pause the podcast and tune in again when you’re about to drift off. Okay, what to do to fall asleep. We want to move from that place of our head, of thinking, thinking, thinking, racing thoughts, to a place a place of feeling, a place in our body. So one technique that’s really nice to use is to begin by simply noticing our thoughts, noticing them come up and go. And then turning our attention to the way we feel physically in our bodies. Notice how you feel physically in your body and begin to pay attention to those sensations in your torso region. Pay attention to those sensations deep inside your torso region. And when you notice the first sensations, begin to pay attention to the sensations that are even deeper. Do you feel the rhythm of your pulse? Do you feel blood flowing within you? Do you feel a little nudge or a gentle ping? What do you feel deep inside your torso? You can start at the top, deep inside, underneath your chest, noticing what it feels like at the deepest place in your heart. Simply notice without judgment, just observing, and move your attention down into your solar plexus, going deeper down inside there. And notice any sensations there. And whatever you notice allow it on its way as you pay attention to how it might ebb and flow, move. There may even be an image associated with the feeling. And simply notice that. And move your attention deeper down into your belly. Notice any sensations in your belly, deep inside your belly. And now go even deeper, in the very center of your own center, noticing how far, how deep you can go. And by doing this exercise, every time you notice a sensation, go to the next deeper level. Continue and continue and continue.

Renee Stephens: We have three primary representational systems. One is visual, what we see. Another is auditory, what we hear. And also there’s kinesthetic, what we feel. And different people are primarily one of these different representational systems. You might be a very visual person, a very auditory person or a very kinesthetic person or some combination. We all have all three, it’s just that some of us are more inclined to use one over another. And we’ll mention that with practice we can become more adept at the ones that we might not have been naturally adept at. So what we’ve just talked about is a kinesthetic way. When we’re focused on feeling we move into a slower space. And that’s why it’s so effective, because it takes us into that place in our bodies where rest is so natural and easy. And you could also use a technique using the visual representational system. I use this one myself as well. Often times I’ll close my eyes and I’ll see a mental image of something. Or sometimes I’ll just see what seems to be the back of my eyelids. And either way, that image is always changing and evolving. And so I simply watch it. I simply watch the changing colors or images, mental images, whatever it is that I see with my eyes closed. I watch those images as they shift and change and move. And just watching them carries me away. Similarly, you can use a technique that is auditory based. If when you’re resting in bed you hear sounds, you hear tones, or perhaps you hear a music, and simply listen to that, you could adjust the volume making it softer. You could adjust the tempo making it slower. And simply pay attention to the changing tones, allowing yourself to drift with the gentle sounds or images that are there with your eyes closed and your body relaxed.

Renee Stephens: That brings us to the end of our show today. Thank you for being present. Be sure to go to personallifemedia.com/signup to receive a weekly email that tells you the minute a new episode becomes available of this and other shows on the Personal Life Media Network. Also, if you’d like to accelerate your progress and go deeper, then consider investing in the guided journeys available for sale on my site. Sabotage Self Sabotage to create beautiful inner alignment and ease in your weight loss journey. The Compulsion Blowout to resolve a single compulsion, food or situation that you felt out of control in. Use it many times to resolve many different compulsions and situations. Or The Appetite Adjuster to turn down your appestat and adjust it to slim and fit. All available at mindforbody.com, m-i-n-d-f-o-r-b-o-d-y, dot com. This is your host, Renee Stephens, and I am on a mission to eradicate the weight struggle from the planet, enabling you to develop and share your abundant souls gifts. Join me as we evolve the world by evolving ourselves. Take good care.