Episode Transcript
Grief can knock you off your feet—and often, your health goals go
right along with it. In this deeply personal episode, I’ll show you
how I’m facing big emotions without abandoning my body, so you
can keep building the strong, confident woman you’re meant to
be, even in life’s hardest seasons.
Hey everyone! Welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode 70!
Today we’re talking about something a little deeper—grief. And
more specifically, how grief can impact the way we show up for
ourselves, especially when it comes to food, movement, and body
goals. So many women turn to food—or check out from their
health routines entirely—when grief hits. And honestly, it makes
sense. Grief is overwhelming. It’s heavy. It can feel like it’s
running the show.
But what I want to offer you today is a way to shift that dynamic.
I’m going to walk you through a simple, powerful exercise that can
help you feel more in control—even when the emotion you're
dealing with feels anything but manageable. And while we’re
talking about grief today, this tool works for any emotion that feels
big or all-consuming—like frustration, loneliness, discouragement,
or overwhelm. You can use it anytime you feel stuck or like you’re
going through the motions instead of truly living in your body.
On a personal note, I wanted to share why this topic feels so
important right now. I’m currently grieving the loss of my
stepmom, and it’s been really hard. The sadness comes in
waves—some days it’s quieter, and some days I wake up and it
just hurts. I debated whether or not to share this with you because
this podcast isn’t about me—it’s about helping you create strong,
toned arms and a life that feels like yours again. But I also know
that so many of us go through seasons of grief. And when that
happens, it’s easy to fall back into old habits—skipping workouts,
emotionally eating, or just checking out altogether.
Grief is one of those emotions that can completely derail your
routine—especially when it comes to your health. For so many
women, it becomes the reason they start emotionally eating
again… or stop moving their body… or say, “I’ll get back on track
next week,” over and over again.
And I get it. That’s exactly why I wanted to walk you through how
I’m working through my grief right now—because I know I’m not
the only one. When I first thought about sharing this, I hesitated. I
was grieving the passing of my stepmom, and a part of me
thought, Who am I to talk about grief when so many others have
lost so much more? A parent, a child, a spouse. Some of you
listening have gone through unimaginable loss.
But then I realized: this is exactly what we’re taught to do as
women. We minimize our pain. We tell ourselves things like:
“It’s not that bad.”
“I should be grateful.”
“I should be over it by now.”
“Other people have it worse.”
“Pull it together.”
Sound familiar?
But here’s what I want you to hear: grief is grief. It doesn’t have to
be justified. Whether you’re grieving a person, a pet, a divorce, an
old version of yourself, or even the body you used to have… it’s
real. And it deserves to be acknowledged in a way that helps you
move through it—not escape from it.
Because when we don’t know how to process emotions like grief,
we default to numbing. We overeat. We stop working out. We
distract ourselves with work or caretaking or mindless scrolling.
Not because we’re lazy or weak—but because we don’t know
what else to do.
I’ve had those thoughts myself: I just want to go back. I want this
to not be real. I want to fast forward through the pain. But the truth
is, no amount of food, or rest, or distraction takes the pain away. It
just delays it. And as much as I hate the cliché—it’s true: the only
way out is through.
The way to move through something that feels big and
heavy—like grief, disappointment, or overwhelm—is to actually
face it head on. And I know… that can feel terrifying. It used to
feel that way for me too.
But I want to be really clear about something, especially if you’re
listening to this and thinking, “I haven’t been doing that.” If you’ve
been using food to cope, or skipping workouts to emotionally
check out, or telling yourself, “I just need to get through this
week,” that’s okay. There is zero shame here.
What I teach inside this podcast—and in my coaching—isn’t
about perfection. It’s about curiosity. So instead of beating
yourself up, I want you to get curious:
Why have I been reaching for food when I feel emotional?
Why do I tell myself I need a break from workouts when life gets
heavy?
Why do I believe the emotion I’m feeling is too big, too painful, or
too much for me to handle?
Because that belief—that the feeling is too much—is what leads
us to disconnect from our goals. But when you drop the judgment
and just look at the emotion itself, you’ll start to see: it’s not as
scary as your brain makes it out to be.
Emotions aren’t monsters. They’re just physical sensations.
That’s it. Grief, frustration, discouragement… they’re just changes
in your body. A shift in your breathing. A little muscle tension. A
racing heart. Maybe your temperature rises, or your posture sinks
a little. But that’s all.
When you look at emotions through that lens—like a wave your
body is experiencing—it becomes way easier to let it pass without
needing to numb it, escape it, or sabotage yourself to make it
stop.
So if you’ve been trying to numb lately… or you're realizing that
emotional eating or skipping your workouts has become your
default… I want you to know: nothing has gone wrong. Let’s just
learn how to move through it instead of running from it.
Let’s turn everything we’ve talked about into something you can
use—something that helps you respond differently to your
emotions instead of feeling like they’re in charge.
Because changing your relationship with food or your body—or
rebuilding consistency after loss—isn’t just about habits. It’s about
changing your relationship with your thoughts and feelings. So if
you’ve been numbing out, skipping workouts, or emotionally
eating to cope… please don’t beat yourself up. But also—don’t let
that be the only thing you do.
Because here’s the truth: it doesn’t work. Not long term.
As much as this season of grief has hurt—and trust me, it
has—there’s a part of me that’s deeply grateful I’m not trying to
numb it away. Not because it’s more virtuous or I’m more
disciplined. But because I’ve lived through the alternative. And I
know where it leads.
In the past, I tried to eat, overwork, and check out through every
painful feeling—and all it did was create more pain. Because now
you’re not just dealing with grief or frustration… you’re also
dealing with guilt. Regret. Shame. Physical exhaustion. And
maybe even that familiar fog that comes from throwing your body
and mind completely out of balance.
It’s such a wild concept, this idea that we can “bury our emotions”
or “drown our sorrows”—as if emotions are something you can
get rid of. But they’re not things that live outside of you. They’re
part of you. Because you’re alive. And because you’re alive, you
get the full human experience—love, joy, connection and
heartbreak, disappointment, and grief.
When I was preparing this episode, I came across a definition of
grief that really stuck with me:
Grief is the reflection of a connection that has been broken.
And that hit me. Because in connection, we find love. And when
that connection is lost, we feel its absence. We feel grief.
And here’s the thing: as long as you are a human who seeks
connection (and you are—that’s how we’re wired), then you will
also experience grief when that connection breaks. That’s not
failure. That’s just being human.
You can try to avoid connection to protect yourself from the pain
of loss—I did that for a long time—but even that brings grief. The
grief of disconnection. The ache of not letting yourself experience
the closeness you actually crave.
So the question isn’t: How do I get rid of grief?
The better question is: How do I move through it without
abandoning myself in the process?
How do I stay present and make different choices when emotions
feel overwhelming? How do I stay committed to myself when I’m
hurting?
There is a way. And it starts with agency.
Agency doesn’t mean you get to delete the pain.
It means you get to choose how you meet it.
Now, you’ve probably heard of the five stages of grief—denial,
anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. And that model has
helped a lot of people process what they’re going through. But
that’s not what I want to talk about today.
Today, I want to show you how to look at your pain, really see
what’s there, and then decide—intentionally—how to respond. In
a way that builds strength. In a way that reconnects you to your
body. In a way that makes you proud.
For a lot of us, looking at our pain feels like the last thing we want
to do.
Honestly? I didn’t want to look at mine either. I just wanted it to go
away.
That was my go-to for a long time. Just avoid the pain, push it
down, distract myself, and move on.
But that’s kind of like trying to heal a broken bone without ever
looking at the fracture. You can’t set it correctly if you don’t
examine where and how it broke. And if you don’t set it right? It
doesn’t heal right. Pain works the same way.
When my stepmom passed, I felt that same kind of fracture. It had
been a long, emotional day—phone calls, processing, supporting
family—and by the end of it, I felt this huge wave of pain that I
couldn’t quite name. And I caught myself in the moment, riding
home in the car, thinking: This isn’t just one feeling. There’s more
going on here.
And I want to be super clear: this is not how I used to respond to
pain. In my 20s, I didn’t stop and examine my emotions. I
avoided. I numbed. I stayed busy. I ate. I skipped self-care. I
disconnected.
But over the last decade, I’ve practiced what I now teach
you—how to recognize what you’re feeling, where it’s coming
from, and what choice you want to make in response to it. It’s the
exact process I use when I teach the Think, Feel, Act cycle.
See, our emotions don’t just “happen” because of outside
circumstances. They’re shaped by how we interpret those
circumstances—by the meaning our mind attaches to what’s
happening. And once you start seeing that, you realize: you don’t
have to run from your emotions. You can get curious instead.
That’s what I did that day. My instinct was still, “Let’s escape.
Let’s not deal.” But I’d practiced not following that instinct. So I
stayed. I looked at the pain. I asked, “What’s actually going on
here?”
And when I did that, I realized the pain wasn’t just one big,
overwhelming blur—it had texture. It had layers. There was
sadness, yes. But also anger. Guilt. Fear. All bundled together in
what we so often call “grief.”
And that shift—seeing your pain not as something to fear, but as
something to observe—is powerful. It allows you to separate the
feeling from your actions. It gives you agency. And in that space,
you get to choose what you want to do next.
So if you’ve been feeling something big lately—grief, frustration,
loneliness, even the shame of falling off your workout routine—I
want to encourage you to pause. Don’t rush to fix it or cover it up.
Look at it. Get curious.
There’s a lot going on when you’re grieving—or even when you're
just going through a hard season. And I think that’s what makes it
feel so overwhelming. It’s not just one feeling—it’s a whole bundle
of them, all tangled together.
And that’s why so many women avoid looking at it. We’re afraid
that if we do look, we’ll see too much. It’ll be too big, too messy,
too painful. But here’s what I’ve found: when you break it down, it
actually becomes so much more manageable.
I used the same tool I teach inside Arms By Kristine—the Think,
Feel, Act cycle—to help me process what I was feeling after the
loss of my stepmom. And instead of feeling like I was drowning in
grief, I started to see: Oh, this is actually made up of specific
emotions, created by specific thoughts.
When I thought,
“I’m never going to have another conversation with her.”
I felt deep sadness.
When I thought,
“She didn’t get the time she deserved.”
I felt anger.
When I thought,
“I should’ve visited more often.”
I felt guilt.
And when I thought,
“What if I lose someone else and I can’t handle it?”
I felt fear.
All of these emotions were bundled inside what I was calling grief.
And when I separated them out, everything started to feel more
manageable. It wasn’t just this big, dark cloud—I could actually
name what I was feeling.
And here’s something really important: even if you know
something logically, your emotional brain can still throw thoughts
at you that create guilt, fear, or self-blame. That doesn’t mean
you’re broken—it means you’re human. And being aware of those
thoughts is how you start to challenge them.
That’s what I did. I realized:
I want to feel sad. That’s a natural, honest response to losing
someone I loved.
I’m even okay feeling angry—that’s valid, too.
But the guilt and the fear? That’s where I want to start doing some
work. That’s where I want to redirect my mind.
So instead of taking on all the grief at once, I got to choose where
to focus. I got to say, I can feel this… but I don’t have to stay
stuck in it.
And this is something I teach all the time inside my program.
When clients come to me feeling stuck in emotional eating, or
saying they’ve fallen off their routine again, we don’t start with
discipline. We start with curiosity. We ask:
What are you feeling?
What are you thinking that’s creating that feeling?
And what do you want to do next, now that you see it
clearly?
For me, making space for emotions like sadness and anger has
become a practice—and it’s simpler than you might think.
Sometimes, it sounds like this:
“Kristine, you’re sad—and that’s okay.”
“You’re angry—and you have every right to be.”
And I know… it might sound a little silly or too simple. But think
about how rarely we actually do this. How often do we not give
ourselves permission to feel what we’re feeling? Most women I
work with are so quick to push it down, distract themselves, or tell
themselves, “I should be over this by now.”
But instead, I’ve been practicing just naming the emotion—and
allowing it.
Then I ask:
“What does sadness feel like in my body?”
“What’s happening with my breathing?”
“How is this different from anger?”
That kind of body awareness gives you a place to focus that’s not
rooted in shame or judgment. It pulls you out of that mental loop
of, “I should feel grateful,” or “Why am I not past this yet?” And
honestly? It’s incredibly freeing to give yourself that kind of
permission.
But I also started noticing something else—these sneaky thoughts
that were creating guilt and fear. And I had to draw a line in the
sand.
I realized: if I leave those thoughts unchecked—if I let them spiral
without challenging them—they grow louder, faster, and more
powerful.
So I made a decision: I’m going to challenge those thoughts. I’m
going to poke holes in them. I’m going to treat them the same way
I’d respond to a dear friend if she said something cruel about
herself. I wouldn’t let her sit in guilt or catastrophizing without
pushing back with love and truth.
And that’s something I’ve been working on—and helping you work
on—because most of us aren’t taught to question our own
thinking. We’re taught to question other people, but not the inner
critic running unchecked in our own mind.
So now, anytime I catch myself spiraling into blame or worst-case
scenarios, I stop. I notice it. I call it out.
Now, that doesn’t mean my brain doesn’t still go there. It does.
I’ve had to redirect it many times. But the difference now is—I see
it. I don’t follow it blindly anymore. I don’t let it steer the ship.
And that’s what I want for you too.
Because whether you’re grieving a loved one, your former body,
or a season of life that’s behind you—your thoughts are shaping
how you show up in your body today. And you get to decide which
ones you want to keep… and which ones you’re ready to
challenge.
So here’s what I started practicing:
Whenever I saw myself spiraling—headed down that road of guilt
or fear—I would gently but firmly say,
“Kristine, you can be as sad as you need to be. You can be
as angry as you want to be. But we’re not going to shame.
We’re not going to blame. We’re not going to live in regret
over the past or anxiety about a future that hasn’t even
happened.”
And let me be clear—this wasn’t a one-and-done moment. This
was (and still is) a process. I’ve had to repeat it over and over
again. But because I had taken the time to really look at what was
inside my pain—because I’d pulled apart the bundle of
emotions—I was able to make a powerful decision:
Which emotions do I want to make space for?
And which ones am I ready to challenge and let go?
That’s where the shift happens. Redirecting your mind—not letting
it stay on autopilot—is what gives you back your power.
Because the real problem with emotions like grief or overwhelm
isn’t the emotion itself.
It’s what happens when we check out and go into autopilot.
That’s when your brain starts scanning for what’s wrong. It loops
on guilt, catastrophizes, and digs up every past mistake or future
fear. It searches for relief—in food, in distractions, in habits you’ve
worked so hard to outgrow.
But let’s be honest—blaming isn’t helpful.
Catastrophizing isn’t helpful.
Eating over your emotions? Not helpful.
Skipping your workouts and calling it self-care when it’s really
self-abandonment? Not helpful.
And neither is judging yourself for feeling what you feel.
What is helpful is pausing long enough to say:
“Okay, fear… guilt… I see you. But you’re pretending to be
helpful. And you’re not.”
Because the truth is: nothing protects us from loss. Loss is part of
life.
But what does protect you is learning how to show up for yourself
differently—especially when life is hard.
That’s what I want you to consider today:
Your pain might feel like one overwhelming wave—but it’s actually
a bundle of emotions. And when they’re tangled together, it feels
impossible to process them. That’s when you want to run, or quit,
or eat your way through it.
But if you slow down and untangle the emotions—if you look at
them one by one—you get something powerful back: agency.
And it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Grab a piece of paper. Set a two-minute timer.
Write down your thoughts—just as they are.
Ask yourself:
“What do I think about what happened?”
“What do I think about how I’m feeling?”
Then look at each thought and ask:
“When I think this, how do I feel?”
That’s how you start to separate the noise from the truth. That’s
how you reclaim control. And that’s how you keep showing up for
the strong, powerful woman you’re becoming—even when life
feels heavy.
And just like me, you may discover that there are certain emotions
you want to give yourself full permission to feel—like sadness or
anger—and others you’re ready to challenge—like guilt or fear.
That’s where your agency comes in. That’s where you stop going
on autopilot and start making powerful, intentional choices about
how you respond to pain.
And I’ll tell you—this is exactly why it’s become so much easier
for me not to numb out with food or check out of my body.
Because once you have agency, you realize: This isn’t just
happening to me. I’m part of this process.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t still cry. It doesn’t mean my chest
doesn’t still feel heavy some days. It does. But I’m not hiding from
it anymore. I’m participating in it. I’m choosing how I want to move
through it.
Untangling the bundle of emotions—looking at each piece of the
grief or frustration or overwhelm—has given me something
productive to do. It’s shown me a path forward. For me, that
started with working through the guilt and fear—because those
were the thoughts I didn’t want leading my life.
And this process isn’t about forcing gratitude, or comparing your
pain to someone else’s, or telling yourself to get over it.
It’s about facing what’s really there.
Looking at the full picture.
Asking yourself:
“What do I want to make space for?”
“What am I ready to question?”
And how am I going to do that?”
When you have those answers, you don’t need to drown your
sorrows—because you already have something more powerful to
do. Something that actually helps.
So if you’re going through something hard—whether it’s grief,
discouragement, shame, or the quiet fear that you’ll never get
back on track—I want to invite you to pause and take a look.
Gently untangle the mess. Look at it head-on. That’s where your
power lies.
Because when you can make sense of what’s happening inside
you, you stop reacting and start responding. You stop quitting on
yourself and start supporting yourself. And that’s when everything
begins to shift.
For anyone grieving, or just feeling emotionally heavy right now, I
hope this episode gave you a new lens—a new way to
understand what’s happening inside of you, and a new direction
for how to move through it.
That’s it for today. I’ll see you next week.
