If you’ve ever found
yourself in a spiral of self-
loathing and
recrimination after
skipping a workout or
eating more than you
intended, then you’ll
know how hard it can be
to stop beating yourself
up.
Sometimes the shame and
guilt can last for days,
long after the physical
side effects have worn off.
Even though beating
yourself up feels terrible,
most people believe that it
serves an important
purpose: keeping you in
line.
Join me as I explain why
you beat yourself up, the
detrimental effect is has
on you and your arms,
and why beating yourself
up is doing more to keep
you stuck than to change
your actions. We’re
talking about how you can
stop beating yourself up
so that you can
understand why you
sometimes miss workouts
or eat more than you want
and how to change this
habit.
Hi everybody and
welcome to The Arm
Coach Podcast episode
#26.
So I want to start off
today’s episode by sharing
with you something that’s
been on my mind lately.
You know, I started the
podcast almost 6 months
ago and I have to tell you,
I’m really – I’ve been
absolutely astounded by
how quickly it has grown.
And I was actually looking
at the stats recently, and
we have listeners from
around the world, from
over 50 different
countries, which is just
crazy. It blows my mind.
But I wanted to share this
with you because I want
you to know that there are
so many other people out
there, so many people like
you wanting to sculpt
their arms and
understand their habits,
wanting to create new
habits and wanting to try
to find a different solution
that works for them. And I
want you to know this,
because I know, I know
how isolating it can feel to
struggle with your arms
and worry that having
more fat or flab on your
arms than you want,
might be a sign of
somethings wrong with
you or thinking that you
might not figure this out.
Maybe arms will always
be a struggle.
I understand this so
completely, I was exactly
where you are right now,
feeling isolated and alone,
and truly like no one
could understand what I
was going through. So
please know this: if this is
how you feel right now,
there are so many people
listening around the world
that are in your shoes.
They are also listening
every week trying to figure
this out for themselves.
And here’s the thing, and
this maybe is more
important. I want to tell
you guys how truly, truly,
truly proud I am of you.
I’m serious. I have heard
from so many of you over
the past months. You have
written in and shared
your stories and your
struggles and your
questions, I’ve talked with
many of you on the
phone, and I just want to
remind you that you don’t
have to be doing this
work, you don’t have to be
tuning in every week, you
don’t have to be trying to
unravel why you’re not
exercising or you’re eating
more than you want to, or
practicing awareness or
trying to build the pause
muscle, or working on any
of the tools that I am
teaching you.
But you are. You are doing
this hard work, you are
showing up and choosing
to do this. You are asking
yourself, “Hey wait, slow
down, why do I want to
skip my arm exercises
right now? Why do I want
to eat right now? What, if
anything, am I trying to
avoid? Is it stress? Is it
loneliness? Is it boredom?
What feeling am I
resisting?” You are all
asking yourselves these
questions, and you know
what, most people will
never do this work.
They will never ever get
the insight that you are
getting from asking
themselves these
questions. They will never
understand why they skip
lifting weights or overeat
or question their desire
and really go beyond just,
“Well, everybody else
does” or “It’s fun”, or “It
tastes good”, “It’s just
what you do, it’s what you
do at a restaurant, it’s
what you do on the
weekend.” They will stay
at that surface level, and
you know what, that’s
okay. Not everybody
needs to dive in, but when
you do, when you embark
on this work, there is so
much waiting for you on
the other side.
There is so much that you
can understand about
who you are, and how you
relate and cope with stress
and anxiety and
frustration and any
negative emotion for that
matter. There is so much
to learn about what you
really enjoy doing and
what you truly find fun
and how you want to
spend your time and what
you want your
relationships and
friendships to look like.
And who you want to be
when you walk into a
room and you feel a little
out of place and a little
insecure, or when you
come home from a long
day of work feeling so
stressed out and
frustrated, right?
There’s so much to learn
there, and do you want to
be the person who
immediately turns on the
TV, runs to the kitchen to
get a snack or goes into
the pantry and opens the
bag of chips so that you
can feel better? Or do you
want to see who you are
and who you can be
without screens and food
as your go to method to
feel better?
I will tell you that
addressing my the fat and
flab on my arms opened
my eyes. My life is so
much more fun. It is so
much more exciting, so
much more fulfilling, and
I had no idea that it could
be this way. Honestly. I
thought that I was
sculpting my arms for my
health, right? I thought
that this was going to be
you know, suffering in the
name of being a healthier
version of me. And I am a
healthier version of me,
but I had no idea that it
wasn’t just about being
healthier. It was about
becoming a better,
happier, more exciting,
more engaged version of
myself.
So know this: know that
no matter what, if right
now you are not able to
feel proud of the work
that you are doing, the
work that you are doing to
tune in every week and to
be open-minded to a
different way of thinking
about sculpting your arms
and a different way of
examining your choices
that you make and just
being open-minded to a
different perspective, if
you aren’t right now able
to feel proud of what
you’re doing, know this. I
am so proud of you.
Because when I was in my
20s, just listening to a
podcast like this probably
would have been difficult
for me. I would have been
so afraid about what it
meant and did it say
anything about who I was
and did it mean that I had
a problem, and so anyone
who dives into this work
and shows up every week
and is trying out the tools
and really bringing
awareness and
consciousness to
something most people
never think about, it’s
something that you
should be so proud of,
really.
So on that note, so many
of you have been sending
in questions and ideas for
episodes and I really want
to get to all of them, but a
couple weeks ago, I got
this amazing email from
one of my listeners in
Australia who really
wanted me to do an
episode on how to deal
with the regrets and the
emotional turmoil that
you feel after overeating.
Now, keep in mind, this
can look a lot of different
ways. Maybe you’re trying
to take a break from sugar
and flour and you
committed yourself to
that and then you made
the choice to eat cookies
and you’re dealing with
that the next day. Maybe
you’ve been trying to
workout 3 days a week
and you had a plan for
how your day was going to
go and then you ended up
scrolling on your phone
longer than you intended.
Really, the outcome is still
the same, right? For many
of you, what will happen
is you’ll enter into the
shame spiral, right? You
just start beating yourself
up, and the question
really is, okay, so how do
you stop doing that? How
do you stop beating
yourself up and move on?
Because I know for a lot of
you, the negative
emotions that you’re
feeling won’t just last a
couple hours. They can
sometimes last a couple
days, right? So how do
you move on from there?
So that is what we’re
talking about today, how
to stop beating yourself
up after a day or night
that did not go the way
you planned. Now listen, I
know that a lot of you
listening are like, “Yeah,
yeah, I know that I
shouldn’t beat myself up.”
But here’s the thing,
knowing that you
shouldn’t and actually
stopping yourself from
doing it are two very
different things.
If knowing that you
shouldn’t beat yourself up
was enough to actually
stop yourself from doing
it, then you would have
stopped a long time ago.
You would have stopped
the first time someone
said, “Hey, you know
what, beating yourself up,
it’s really not all that
effective. You probably
should cut it out.” Right?
The first time someone
said that to you, you’d be
like, “Okay, thanks. I had
no idea. Now I’ll stop.”
But that’s not what
happens. Knowing is not
enough, and what
happens for most of us is
that we end up saying,
“Well I know I shouldn’t
do it, but it’s just so hard
to stop.” So that’s what I
want to break down for
you. In order to
understand why it is so
hard to stop beating
yourself up, you need to
understand three things.
First, what you are really
doing to yourself when
you beat yourself up;
second, why you do it,
why you beat yourself up;
and the third, how to start
practicing doing
something different.
And guess what, I’m just
going to tell you right
now, the solution is not to
love yourself more. When
I was in the midst of this,
when I would hear that,
when I was beating myself
up and the antidote
presented to me was just
love yourself more, you
just have to learn to love
yourself, I was like, “Okay,
yeah, right. You try loving
this screw up.” So I
promise you, that’s not
the prescription that I’ve
giving and I’m going to
explain why loving
yourself is not the answer,
at least not right now.
Alright so first, what you
are really doing to
yourself when you beat
yourself up. Now, you
need to be really clear on
this, and the reason is
because so many of you
will just casually say, “Yes,
I know, I beat myself up.”
You have this kind of
matter of fact-ness about
it, like it’s not a big deal,
it’s just what everybody
does, it’s to be expected.
Right?
I mean, no one has ever
come to me and been like,
“Oh my god, I just
discovered that I beat
myself up, this is terrible,
what do I do? How do I fix
it?” Right? You’re so
much more likely to say,
“Yes, I know, I beat myself
up. I know I shouldn’t do
it, but what are you doing
to do?” Telling yourself
that beating yourself up is
not a big deal, is a
problem. That in and of
itself is a problem because
it is a lie. Beating yourself
is and always is a big deal.
Always. I don’t want you
to ever tell yourself
otherwise.
Never dismiss it. Never
say, “That’s just who I am.
It’s just how I was born.”
Right? That’s not true. It’s
not who you are. You were
not born beating yourself
up. You may have learned
to do it at a very young
age, but it’s not an innate
part of you. Beating
yourself up is something
that your brain
unconsciously learned to
do, and I always say this
when people say, “Well
how come we learn this?
Where does this come
from?”
Just look at the messages
that we get from
advertising. It is all about
not being good enough as
we are, it’s all about fixing
ourselves, improving
ourselves and selling us
on this imaginary version
of the perfect man and the
perfect woman and the
perfect family and the
perfect Instagram life,
right? You’ve been
bombarded with these
messages about not
measuring up as a way to
sell you things.
So it is no wonder your
brain has taken on some
of these messages of not
being enough, not doing
things right, and adopted
them as your own.
Beating yourself up is a
big deal, but it’s also
something that you
learned, which means you
can unlearn it, which is
fantastic news. But you
have to be really clear on
what it is exactly.
Beating yourself up is
literally giving your brain
a bunch of negative
thoughts to think about
who you are and your
actions. Thoughts like,
“I’m so stupid”, “What’s
wrong with me?”, “I’m
such a screw up”, “I’m an
idiot”, “I’m never going to
figure this out”, “I’m
hopeless”. I mean, you
know what this sounds
like.
When you look into the
mind of someone who is
beating herself up, you
will see excessively harsh,
critical, black and white
language. And you know
what, you can always spot
it in a friend or a loved
one, right? It is so easy to
see when we see it in
another person, but when
it comes to ourselves, our
brain is like, “Oh no, no,
no, this is true. These are
actually factual.” It’s very
difficult sometimes to see
it in ourselves because we
so cling to the idea that
this is just a true
assessment of who we
really are.
Now, just because you
have created the habit of
beating yourself up does
not mean that you are
necessarily aware of it. So
many of you have no idea
how prevalent this kind of
talk is in your day-to-day
life. But I promise you, so
much of your internal
dialogue about yourself
and your actions is
incredibly negative. I
watch this all the time.
The tiniest thing, the
tiniest insignificant thing.
You stub your toe, you
forget your keys, you leave
the store and you get to
the car and then you
remember, “I forgot to
buy that thing that was on
my list.”
Something so small, and
your brain is like, “I’m
such an idiot.” And you
know what, I point this
out to people all the time,
how often they call
themselves stupid or an
idiot or a screw up, and
most of us carry around
this kind of self-talk all
day long. It’s so pervasive
that we don’t even notice
it, and if you do notice it,
and when I do point this
out to people, we’re so
quick to shrug it off.
We’re so quick, right, to
just think, “Whatever, it’s
not that big a deal.”
Right? “It doesn’t really
matter, beating yourself
up is normal.” But do not
tell yourself otherwise.
The reason it is a big deal
is because of the think-
feel-act cycle, and think of
it this way. If you’re
telling yourself habitually
that you’re an idiot when
you forget your keys,
right, or you forget
something at the store, or
that you’re stupid when
you stub your toe, just
imagine what your brain
is doing after a day of
eating more than you
intended, or when you
told yourself you weren’t
going to skip your
workout. Imagine the
kind of overdrive of
beating yourself up your
brain goes into.
You want to understand
that because you need to
see how it’s playing out in
the think-feel-act cycle.
Now remember, I talk
about this cycle all the
time, but your thoughts
create how you feel. So
when you’re thinking,
“I’m stupid, I’m a failure,
I’m an idiot”, what
emotions do you think are
being created? Positive
ones? I don’t think so.
And when you feel
negative emotions, what
do you do?
Now, most people do one
of two things. They will
either hide and hold
themselves back when
they feel a negative
emotion, so they won’t go
after what they want, they
won’t take any risk,
because they don’t want to
make any mistakes.
They’ve assumed that
mistakes are what make
them feel terrible and
then they’ll just start
beating themselves up, so
they will hide. Or, you’ll
start chasing perfection.
You’ll go on this mad dash
to prove to everyone your
worthiness, by doing
everything perfectly and
racking up
accomplishments.
But you know what, all
the gold medals in the
world, all the
compliments on your
arms, all the
accomplishments that you
can start marking up,
they’re not going to make
you finally feel good about
yourself. And you know
this to be true, right? All
they end up doing is
making you think, “That
wasn’t enough, what do I
have to go after next?”
“That didn’t do it, that
muscle on my arms didn’t
do it, that weight loss
didn’t do it, that home,
that degree, these things
didn’t make me feel
better, so what do I have
to keep hunting after?”
So that’s what will happen
when you create all these
negative emotions for
yourself, right? You either
go into hiding or you start
chasing perfection. And
when you understand the
think-feel-act cycle, you
realize that beating
yourself up is a big deal
because it creates negative
emotions, which fuel
negative actions, which
leave you with negative
results.
And this brings me to the
second point. Why do we
do it? Why do we beat
ourselves up? Now, I will
tell you that I believe that
we beat ourselves up
because deep down, our
brain thinks that doing
this, engaging in all this
negative self-talk is
actually helpful. It
actually believes that it’s
helping us. And I want
you to think about it this
way, why wouldn’t you
want to stop beating
yourself up? What do you
think might happen if you
did?
Now, I often pose this
question to my clients,
and I’ll tell you, when I
ask them why they may
want to stop beating
themselves up for missing
a workout or overeating,
what do they think would
happen, at first they’re a
little puzzled, but usually I
get a pretty similar
reaction. And the reaction
is this: if I stop beating
myself up over missing
workouts and eating more
than I want or overeating
at all when I don’t want
to, then I might as well
give myself permission to
keep making the same
mistake over and over
again. That’s what we
think, right?
At some point our brain
has come to believe that
beating ourselves up is
what keeps us in line. We
think it’s how we learn a
lesson, that we need to be
punitive in order to teach
ourselves to behave and to
act differently. And I don’t
know about you, but I will
tell you that being
punitive or getting
punished never helped me
learn anything faster. It
just taught me to be
terrified of making
mistakes.
And some of you will tell
me, “Well wait, being hard
on myself is actually really
motivating. It’s how I’ve
always pushed myself to
do better.” But I will tell
you, there is a huge
difference between setting
high standards for
yourself and pushing
yourself even when things
are really challenging,
versus using excessively
harsh and demeaning or
critical language as a way
to crack the whip. It’s the
difference between “You
can do this, I’ve got you, I
believe in you”, versus,
“Do this or else. Your
worthiness depends on it.
Only an idiot would keep
making this mistake over
and over again.”
I work with so many
successful women who
have used beating
themselves up as a way to
push themselves through
college and medical
school and high-powered
jobs and then onto
becoming star mothers,
and you know what,
maybe it worked for a
while, maybe it worked to
tell yourself you had to do
everything perfectly or
else, but you know what,
it’s exhausting.
And I will tell you that I
think so many of us rely
on harsh, overly critical
words to try to teach
ourselves a lesson or to
motivate ourselves to
work harder or to do
more, simply because no
one has ever shown us the
think-feel-act cycle. No
one has ever explained to
us why we do the things
we do. And so our actions
start to feel kind of
mysterious and
unpredictable, right? If
you don’t have the cycle to
understand them, you
don’t really understand
why you make the choices
you do in your life.
You don’t understand that
what you do or don’t do is
directly tied to how you
feel, which is tied to how
you think. And without
that knowledge, most of
us end up in this place
where we think, “Well,
maybe I’ll just keep
bullying myself so that I
can try to make different
choices.”
I really believe – I will tell
you this. I really believe
that most people beat
themselves up because
they think in some way it
is protective and or
motivating. But truthfully,
most of us have just never
seen another way forward
modeled. And the
problem is that beating
yourself up not only does
it feel terrible, but over
the long haul, it keeps you
stuck, or it keeps you
exhausted because you’re
always chasing perfection.
You’re always chasing the
next accomplishment.
And you know, if you
don’t believe me, just
think of it this way: you
know that beating
yourself up as a way to
change your arms hasn’t
worked thus far, right?
Otherwise you wouldn’t
be listening to me. If
beating yourself up
worked, then your arms
wouldn’t be causing
problems for you. But
here you are, you’re still
trying to figure out a way
forward.
So with that in mind,
knowing that evidence,
why not try something
different?
Okay, so this is where the
final point comes in. What
should you practice
instead and how do you
do it? Now, I said at the
beginning that in order to
stop beating yourself up,
this is not just about
turning around and loving
yourself. And I’ll tell you
that so many of us when
we look for help and
support on how do we
stop beating ourselves up,
what we find is just, just
love. Just love yourself,
love is the antidote. Love
is the salve, love will fix
everything.
And, you know, love is
great. I’m not down on
love, but I think in my
experience, love,
especially at first, does not
work. It doesn’t, and it
doesn’t work for the exact
same reason that just
slapping on positive
thinking doesn’t work.
You can’t just slap on all
these new thoughts about
rainbows and daisies and
just loving yourself no
matter what, when you
are in a habit of thinking
of yourself as a screw up.
Or telling yourself that
you’re an idiot or you’re
stupid, or you’re never
going to figure this out,
right?
Loving yourself no matter
what, it’s not going to feel
good because it’s not
going to be believable.
Your brain is going to just
reject these new thoughts
as untrue. It’s too big of a
leap to go from, “I’m an
idiot” to “I love myself no
matter what.” You can get
there, trust me. I’m not
saying that love isn’t the
direction that you want to
head in, but you have to
take gradual steps, and I
think it’s too big of a jump
for most people to just go
from, “Well, I just beat
myself up all the time” to
“Now I love myself all the
time.”
So the solution is this: the
solution is curiosity. And
isn’t just knowing that
kind of a relief? Curiosity
is so much easier than
love, especially at first.
You can be curious.
Everyone is curious.
Curiosity is just the need
to investigate and learn
about the world around
you and yourself, and all
humans have it. You were
born with it. Curiosity is
innate. It helped us
survive as a species.
Venturing out from the
cave and figuring out how
to get food and how to
find a mate and how to get
shelter and how to
survive, all of that
required curiosity. You
had to be curious. And so
after an incident when
you ate more than you
intended, or you were
planning to lift weights
after work and you ended
up watching Netflix
instead, and you find
yourself beating yourself
up, the solution is not
love. Not yet. The solution
right now is just to be
curious.
Can you be curious about
what happened? And I
will tell you there are so
many questions that you
can ask yourself. So many
questions that can stop
the cycle of just all these
really negative self-
recriminating, excessively
critical thoughts that so
many of us get caught in.
Questions like, “Why did I
make the decision to
overeat or skip weight
lifting?” And remember,
it’s always a choice, right?
Why did you make that
decision?
What were the emotions
that seemed to trigger
your desire to overeat or
watch Netflix? Did you
notice any emotions?
Were you feeling
uncomfortable? Were you
feeling awkward or
insecure or lonely or
stressed or frustrated?
What emotions seemed to
trigger that desire? What
happened when you let
yourself try to feel them,
or did you even let
yourself try to feel them?
Did you notice the
emotion and then
immediately try to move
away from it? Did you try
to see, “Hey, what’s
happening in my body?
What does this emotion
feel like?”
You know, you want to
know. Did you
immediately go into
resisting and distracting?
And why do you find
whatever emotion it was,
why do you find it difficult
to feel? Be really specific
with yourself. Don’t just
say, “I don’t know, I don’t
like feeling it. I don’t like
feeling stressed, I don’t
like feeling awkward.
What makes it so
intolerable? I talk about
this all the time, but every
emotion is just a set of
physical sensations in
your body, and when you
can understand it in this
way, you can really start
to ask yourself, “Okay, so
why was it so intolerable
for me to feel bored or
lonely or angry or
frustrated?”
And then what did the
urge feel like? When did
the urge appear and what
did it feel like? Can you
describe that? Do you
have any information
about that that can help
you understand urges
better? Did you try to
resist the urge or did you
try to let it be there, and
what is resisting feel like,
and what does observing
feel like?
There is so much that you
can start to unravel and
ask yourself if you will be
curious with what
happened. What
happened is always an
opportunity to learn,
always. And you do that
by being curious. You put
your brain to work, and
you can start looking for
patterns. You can start
seeing “Hey, what
worked, and what didn’t
and how might I do this
differently next time?”
And I’ll tell you, if you can
get to curiosity, you can
start to shift away from
that cycle of just beating
yourself up over what
happened.
The salve for beating
yourself up is to be
curious. It is to try and
understand what
happened, to try and ask
yourself questions, to
learn from the situation
and plan a different way
forward the next time.
And you know what,
curiosity is actually
motivating. It’s actually
self-protective, but we
don’t realize that because
we’re not used to using it.
And I will tell you, one of
the most important things
that you can do is to
notice how you are
beating yourself up on a
day-to-day basis, in all
these tiny little ways.
You have to constantly
remind yourself that
beating yourself up at any
time is a big deal, and not
just because you should
be nice to yourself, but
because of how the think-
feel-act cycle works.
When you are thinking
harsh, critical thoughts,
you are generating
negative feelings, and
those emotions do not get
you any closer to the
actions you want to be
taking to sculpt your
arms.
So that is what I really
want to encourage you to
start practicing. You have
to start practicing not just
in those moments, not
just the day after when
that beating yourself up
and the self-recrimination
is so strong, but just
practice and notice how it
comes up in so many
different areas of your life.
And I really hope that this
episode will help you the
next time you find
yourself in a shame spiral.
Be curious, ask yourself
questions. Really look at it
from the position of a
scientist. Look at it from a
dispassionate, non-
judgmental place, and see
what you can learn and
then take that information
and put it to use.
Alright, that’s it for
today’s episode. Keep
sending those questions
in, you can always email
me at
[email protected]
om and I’ll see you next
week.
