Episode Transcript
You're listening to the Arm Coach Podcast with me, Christine Rucker, Arm Coach and founder of the Arms by Christine program. Here, we talk about toned and sculpted arms and what it really takes to get sustainable results so you can feel proud and confident in your arms. Sleeveless clothes.
Hi everybody. And welcome to the arm coach podcast episode. Number one. This is the first podcast that I've ever done. And you know, I was going to spend this whole first podcast giving you an introduction to the arm coach and me and what I'm all about. But what I decided to do is just give you something that you really genuinely want, right?
Which is a lesson. You know, you've come here to learn how to sculpt your arms. So what I'll do is I'll intersperse my story throughout all of the upcoming podcasts. So you'll get a sense of who I am and what I do and why I do it. But let me just preface all of this by saying that the arm coach was created because of my love for toned sculpted arms and life coaching.
So I really decided to do this podcast because I have so much to teach and so much to offer. And I really want to give you a chance to get to know me before you ever sign up for a training. And I hope this podcast will do that for you. So let's start with the topic, which is today, why you aren't taking action on your arm goals.
And I would say that, you know, I constantly get emails. And even when I'm talking to clients and talking to people, one of the most frustrating things for them is they're seemingly Inability to take action. You know, they have all these workout programs and gym memberships and things that they want to do, and they try and try and try to do them, but they just can't get themselves motivated to do it.
And they always want to ask me, why is it that I can't follow. a nutrition plan. Why is it that I can't exercise? Why is it that I'm not building muscle and seeing definition in my arms? Why is it that I'm constantly embarrassed and I can't feel comfortable in sleeveless clothes? And it all comes down to the same answer, which I think is great to know.
One of the tools that I teach, right? My main tool that I teach is called the model. I became certified in the model from the life coach school. It's a model created by Brooke Castillo, and it's based on all of her teachers and all of her mentors and all of their ideas that were so brilliant. You know, she's heavily influenced by Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle and Abraham and many of the, the forward thought thinkers of our generation and the basic premise of the model, you know, which I did not create.
It is the basic premise of how the world works, which is this, there are circumstances in the world, and those are the things that we cannot control. Everything that happens outside of us is a circumstance, and that's just a given. There are so many things that we can't control, right? We can't control other people.
We can't control our past, you know, because it's already done. We can't control anything that happens out there in the world. And those are all of our circumstances. And really, those are the only things that we can't control in our lives, right? The rest of the components of the model include our thoughts, our feelings, our actions, and our results.
And all of those things are within our control. Now we forget that often, right? We think that everything is either in our control or nothing is in our control. And it never is that way. It's always that circumstances are not within our control and everything else is. So again, circumstances, are other people, right?
Other people are not within our control. I'm sorry, but it's true. They're just not. And the world out there is not within our control and our past, even though we keep trying to change it, it's just not within our control to change, but everything else is. And everything in our present experience Is within our control, like what we decide to think, you know, what we think about the conscious thoughts that go through our, our head are completely within our control.
Now we forget this. We don't remember that everything is in our control. We think that our thoughts are not within our control. And in fact, most of us don't even know what we're thinking. We are responding to our thoughts that we aren't even aware of. Now, why does this matter? And what does this have to do with toning and sculpting our arms?
It really, really matters because our thoughts are what create our feelings. And everything you do in your life is because you want to feel a certain way. Everything, every single thing you do. is because you want to feel a certain way. That's just really good to know. If your feelings are caused by your thoughts and everything you do in your life is in order to feel better, wouldn't it be important to know what you're thinking?
It absolutely would. And the problem is nobody teaches us. They don't pull us aside and say, okay, here's the deal. Everything you want in your life is because of a feeling, the feeling that you think you will have in getting it, or the feeling you think you will avoid in not getting it. So if feelings are the most important thing, don't you think they should teach us that all of our feelings are caused by our thoughts, and maybe we should learn how to think on purpose so we can create.
The feelings that we want that would have been amazing. I really wish someone would have pulled us aside and taught us these things. So our thoughts create our feelings. Now our feelings are also important because they drive all of our actions. They are the fuel for our actions. So when you ask me the question, why am I not taking action to tone and sculpt my arms?
It's because of the way you feel. Or why are you taking an action you don't want to be taking? It's because of the way you feel. So your feelings are driving your actions. And then of course, your actions are always going to create the results you want in your life or you don't want in your life. Your actions, your feelings.
Create your results. So let me summarize this again, your thoughts, right? Those sentences in your mind are what create your feelings and your feelings are what drive your actions and your actions create your results. Now, this is a very. Clean and simple way of looking at the world. And it's a hundred percent accurate.
I have not found any examples where this is not the case. Everything you learn in all of the cognitive thought work that you'll ever study. Everything they teach you is about your thinking and your thinking, creating your feelings and your feelings, driving your actions and your actions, giving you your results.
Now, what determines what we think? Okay. This is the next logical question. If my thinking is driving everything, if it's creating my feelings, if it's creating my actions, if it's creating my results, then I need to know what I'm thinking. And I also need to know how to change that thinking if I want a different result in my life.
So, most of us have never been taught to witness our own thinking. To compassionately observe our own thinking. And it's a practice that takes practice, really. So, what I mean by that is that the process of watching your mind think requires you to separate yourself from your own mind. And most of us don't make that separation.
We don't even recognize that there is a separation there. So in order to go into what, you know, into that observer mode, we have to separate ourselves from our mind in order to watch ourselves think this is what a lot of, you know, meditation is based on. And I personally have never been one that could.
sit and meditate for hours and hours, but I can sit and watch my brain think. And I can be in that space of recognizing my own thinking. And once you start doing that, once you start noticing what your own mind is You might be a little astonished and you might also say to yourself, you know, Oh, like that.
Well, you know, that totally makes sense when I learned that my thoughts create my feelings and my actions and my results. And then I look at my mind. I can see exactly why I'm getting the results I'm getting in my life. My mind is creating them. That's where it, it's all starting. A lot of my clients will come to me and they'll say, okay, so I've had a look in my mind and I've observed it and I don't like any of it.
And I want to change it all immediately. This is pretty common, you know, for all of us, right? We start looking at our mind, we start being more conscious, and it's amazing the number of negative thoughts we have. We have like 60, 000 thoughts per day. And if you've never directed your mind or never told your mind what to think, you may be thinking, Old, like really old thoughts, right?
Thoughts from childhood. And maybe, you know, maybe on a negative spin, thinking a lot of negative thoughts. You know, who knows? It's been an unsupervised toddler, basically running wild. You know, I like to picture the mind. When it's unsupervised, like a two year old left in the house unsupervised, okay? It might, you know, it may have sharp objects and be running around with them.
And once you turn the light on in your mind, you may be tempted to turn it right back off. And I've had this happen with a lot of people that I've coached, right? They start looking in their mind and they start recognizing how much pain they're in and how much negativity they are creating, and they just don't want to deal with it.
Listen, that's totally fine, but it really denies you of all your power and of all your ability to change. And if you change in your life without understanding this, It's much more challenging. Let me tell you why. Okay. Most of us try to make change from the action piece of our lives. So if you think about this, remember what I just taught you.
Your thoughts create your feelings, which drive your actions. Now, if you try to change your action without changing the thought or feeling that's driving the action, you're going to have a struggle because you're going to have to work against that. That feeling and that thought that's creating that feeling.
That's why for so many of us, change is so frustrating because we try to change how much we're eating, or we try to change exercise, or we try to stop procrastinating without changing the thought and feeling that's driving that very thing that we're doing. When you can instead really get a hold of why you're not doing something or why you are doing something, then it will reveal to you the thought and feeling combination that's driving it.
When you change the thought and feeling, the changing the action becomes so much easier. That's why a lot of people, you know, for example, Smokers, there'll be chain smokers. They'll try to quit many, many, many, many times, and they've been unable to quit. And then they'll get a diagnosis, right? This happened to my grandfather.
They they'll get a diagnosis of emphysema or cancer or something else that has been brought on by their smoking. And immediately they'll be able to change their action. They will be able to quit smoking. What changed? The only thing that's changed is their mind. They were told something that switched that thought in there and made it so the feeling and the feeling driving that action were completely changed.
Therefore, the ability to quit smoking became easier. People that have been unable to quit for years immediately and cold turkey stop forever. This has happened over and over and over again with my clients when they start to understand why they're doing something or why they are not. They understand they're in action or they understand why they can't take action because of the thought and a feeling that's driving it and they decide to change that thought pattern and change that feeling pattern.
They are able to change the actions so much more easily. That's really what arm coaching is all about. It's about finding the cause of our habits, the cause of our patterns, why we do what we do when we discover that. Change is so much easier. Let me give you an example. So you might be able to kind of play this out in your own life because understanding this can change everything.
When you first hear something like this, you might be like, what in the world is she talking about? I don't know. Or. Maybe this is obvious to you. I've taught this to people who are like, well, of course, that's how the world works. Isn't that amazing that you've known that? Why didn't you share that with us?
You guys, Oh my gosh. I wish I would have known this years and years ago. When you start to understand this. You can think about something in your life. And my background is in weight coaching. I started off as a weight loss coach and I spent many years just coaching clients who wanted to lose weight. I use an example there, but I want to give you an example to demonstrate.
How this, why you're not taking action on your arm goals, how this works. I had a client who really wanted to start exercising. Okay. And it was really important to her that she lose weight. She wanted to be healthier. So she wanted to start exercising. She wanted to start taking that action, but she just could not get herself to do it.
She would write it all out. She would set reminders. She would get it on her schedule. She would plan it. Nothing. As soon as it came time to do it, she wouldn't do it. So I asked her to remember what I had taught her about how our thoughts drive all our feelings, which drive all of our actions, reaction, or inaction.
So in this case, It was in action. She wasn't exercising. So I asked her, what do you feel when you don't exercise? Like right before, and she said, right before I decide that I'm not going to exercise, I just feel like I'm motivated. I feel no drive at all. And I said, okay, what are you thinking? That's causing the feeling of unmotivated.
So remember, our thoughts create our feelings, cause our actions or inaction. So I knew that her feeling was unmotivated. I knew that unmotivated was creating this inaction, this lack of exercise. I needed to find out what was the thought creating unmotivated. And what we found out was that she was thinking it wouldn't matter anyway.
She had exercised before. She hadn't seen any results. She didn't really want to exercise. She didn't see it as something that she enjoyed doing. She was telling herself that she had to do it to get results. Yet, her thought was, It's not going to matter anyway, which created the feeling of unmotivated, which of course drove in action.
It drove her not to exercise. Now typically when a client discovers something like this, they immediately want to change it. What I told her is, you know, I said, listen, Let's just understand this with some compassion. So many of us spend so much time beating ourselves up. It's one thing I don't allow any of my clients to do.
I tell them, listen, Hey, we're not going to beat ourselves up today. We're not going to beat ourselves up ever again. If we can help it, what we're going to do is understand with curiosity and fascination. Why you do what you do, because I believe that everyone has a really good reason for why they do what they do or why they don't do what they do.
If we don't take the time to really have some compassion and be curious with ourselves, we won't reveal our truths to ourselves. When she discovered this pattern, when she recognized that she was creating her own lack of motivation, she was She was the one creating that emotion that was driving her inaction.
She started to get mad at herself. Oh gosh, I can't believe I'm doing that. And I said, no, no, no. Now let's wait a minute. Let's have a look at this. If somebody told you that they didn't think something mattered, wouldn't you want to listen to them? Wouldn't you want to understand why they were saying that?
And let's have that same compassion with ourselves. That's really what I think the most important piece of coaching is. It's really revealing ourselves to ourselves and developing that relationship where we can trust ourselves. So she decided to just notice it. She decided to pay attention to it. And I asked her not to change it.
I said, I think for you to truly understand it, you need to be patient with yourself and fully understand the pattern and why you are thinking that way, as she was able to watch this pattern in herself and see it with compassion and understanding why she was not doing it, why she was doing it and literally not doing it.
She understood. And from there, when she understood, you know, like, of course, this is what you're thinking. You're exasperated with all of the things you've tried to do. You've been beating yourself up. You've been putting yourself on these crazy diets and you had been making yourself for years, do crazy exercise routines that were punishing and painful.
And now of course you are unmotivated Towards it, when she was able to connect with herself and give herself really her due to understand that the reason why she was thinking that made sense. Like, of course, that's what she was thinking from there. She could really decide whether she wanted to change the way she was thinking or not, but you can't really change your thinking.
Until you understand it in the upcoming podcast, we're going to talk a lot about how to change your thinking and how to deliberately create emotion that you want to create. I purposely don't want to go into that in this podcast because one of the things that I want you to understand. The first thing you need to understand really is to know that you must understand yourself before you can change yourself and your arms, you must be in a place of compassion and understanding and love, and from there, you can ignite yourself to change.
You can't struggle yourself into change. You can't. Beat yourself into change. It won't be permanent and it won't last. Whether you are trying to sculpt your arms or lose weight, or you're trying to do something in your life, create something in your life, you can't do it with force because you'll buckle under the pressure.
You can't do it with willpower because you are against you. You are trying to defeat your own mind. With your own mind, the mind loves to repeat itself. It likes to look for patterns and it likes to be efficient. Once the brain and the mind had been thinking the same thought over and over and over and over and over again, because it's been unsupervised and it has, you haven't even been aware that you're thinking these thoughts to change.
It requires practice. And if you're trying to change it without understanding it. You're going to be in a battle with your own mind. Of course, when it's you against you, you are going to be the loser. I want to emphasize that once you understand that your thoughts create your feelings, which create your actions, and that's why you're not taking action, or that's why you're not doing something you don't want to do.
That you take a breath, understand the pattern and not beat yourself up for it. The other example that people always are coming to me with is overeating. Now, remember if you are overeating, that's an action. It's fueled by a feeling, which is created. That feeling is created by a thought you have to back up.
You know, what is this feeling that I'm having when I'm overeating? Most people will say anxiety, I would say. Most people will say resistance. For some, it's frustration. For some, it's apathy. For some, it's hostility, loathing, whatever it is. You, you need to not just try to stop overeating because You probably have.
And it probably didn't work. You need to look at that action that you're taking and understand it. What is the feeling fueling it? And if it's anxiety, then what is the thought that's creating that anxiety? When you understand what you're thinking and that that thought is creating anxiety, for example, one of my clients was having the thought constantly, I'm going to miss out.
There's not going to be enough. I'm going to miss out. That's what she was constantly thinking. She wasn't aware of this at all. This was a thought she'd been thinking since she was a little kid, but it wasn't serving her as an adult. So when she discovered that she was having that thought, she was like, okay, Well, that's ridiculous.
Why am I even thinking that? That's so dumb. I just got to stop thinking that. And again, I told her, whoa, whoa, let's slow down here. Let's understand this thought. Let's understand this pattern before we just, you know, start beating ourselves up over it. Let's really see if it makes sense because usually everything we do, even if it seems illogical on the surface, we usually have a very good reason for it.
If we take the time to be curious and fascinated with ourselves, we can find that answer. For her, as a child, there wasn't enough. There wasn't enough love. There wasn't enough food. So as an adult, that pattern, because when she was a child, when she thought those thoughts, they created really strong emotions in her.
The same thing happened to her as an adult. As she thought those thoughts, it created a lot of emotion for her. And that drove her overeating. So even when she tried to stop overeating. And she tried to replace it with, there is plenty. There is so much food. It will be fine. She wasn't going to be able to do that until she understood what the cause was.
And once she did, you know, then she could comfort herself and be kind to herself without using food and without the anxiety that she was creating. Then she didn't have the need to overeat. I've seen it thousands and thousands of times when you take the time to Really understand why you do what you do from there.
You can start to change it. It doesn't mean that you have to go back to your past. It doesn't mean you have to sit on a therapist couch and talk about any kind of anything that happened when you're a child. All you have to know is that the thought you're thinking now and that you might have been thinking since you were a child is what's causing your pain.
You don't have to understand exactly why you're thinking it as an adult. You just have to recognize that you are. And be kind to yourself in that recognition. Let me just summarize what I taught you because I gave you a lot in this first podcast. And I know for some of you who haven't been exposed to me before, this might be, you know, kind of mind bendy or mind blowing, but then for others of you, this might seem very basic, but I want to take you through the process.
I really want to make sure that you understand that every action in your life, not just your arms, is because of a feeling. And every feeling in your life is because of the thought you are thinking. Step one is to really begin to look inside your mind. And see what you're thinking to become conscious of your thoughts, to ask yourself, why, when it comes to anything in your life, if you ask yourself, why you are doing something that you are doing, why you are feeling the way you are feeling the answer that you give yourself.
will always be a thought. And that is the best way to get to know what's going on inside your mind, because what's going on inside your mind is what will determine how you feel act and the results you get with your arms and in your life, practice this. Check out the show notes and you can kind of get a sense of this model.
Remember to be patient, to give yourself a chance to really understand yourself. And only then can you decide if you want to change. That's enough for the first session. I hope you enjoyed it. It has been my absolute pleasure to be here with you and to begin the process of teaching you what I teach in Arms by Christine.
Until next time, I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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Thank you so much for your support. I've loved having you here today and talk soon in the next episode.
