Episode Transcript
Hi, everybody, and welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode #13.
Okay, so today we are talking about the think-feel-act cycle and
how it relates to our arms. I've introduced this concept before,
but today we're going to have a little bit of a primer, and here's
why: learning about the think-feel-act cycle was the key. It was
so key when it came to me understanding why I was hiding my
arms in long sleeves, why I relied on baggy clothes in certain
situations, and how to unlearn my desire to cover up. That was
huge.
You can decide to bare your arms and embrace tank tops, and
I did, many times. I wore many, many sleeveless shirts, tried
many, many arm workouts, but making that decision does not
change your desire. If you want to change your desire, you
have to understand the think-feel-act cycle. Not only that, but
this model became my framework for understanding myself
and my relationship with my arms. I talk about it all the time as
a meta skill.
So you might learn this model, you might learn how to apply it
in relation to toning your arms and your self-confidence, but
here's the thing: once you learn it, once you understand how it
works, once you see it in action and learn how to harness it, it
becomes a meta skill. And what I mean by that is that once you
have it down, you can apply it to anything you want to change
about your arms and your life.
Okay, I'm going to talk all about this cycle. I'm going to teach
you how to tell the difference between the different parts,
between thinking, feeling, and acting when it comes to your
arms. I'm going to show you how to bring more awareness into
your life so that you can actually see the cycle in action. And
I'm also going to explain why this isn't just an interesting
concept. Because if it was just an interesting concept, well, it
wouldn't explain why all of the results you have with your arms,
including hiding them, why you have those results.
So today, we're starting with thoughts about your arms. Alright,
what do I mean when I say a thought about your arms? It
sounds really obvious, but people actually have very different
ideas about what your arm thoughts are. This is the way I think
about it: any language that goes through your head about your
arms is a thought. So you can think of it as a sentence in your
mind about your arms, that's what an arm thought is.
Now, there are a lot of different metaphors that you can use to
imagine what your arm thoughts are, but one of my favorite
ones is the idea that your arm thoughts are like an electronic
news ticker.
So I want you to imagine the news ticker on the bottom of the
TV, that scrolling ticker that's constantly circulating the
headlines of the day. You can imagine that the thoughts about
your arms in your mind are just like that ticker. There is a
constant stream of arm thoughts that are running through your
head. Okay, so why is this metaphor useful? It's useful because
first and foremost, the most important skill you need to have in
order to harness the think-feel-act cycle for your arms is to
practice making a distinction between the arm thoughts that
you're thinking and the part of you that can observe the arm
thoughts that you're thinking, okay?
This is a key thing. Understanding the distinction between the
arm thoughts that you're thinking and your ability, or that part of
you, to observe those arm thoughts. So if you're familiar at all
with meditation, it's sometimes called The Watcher or The
Observer. That's how they'll reference this part of you that can
watch your thinking about your arms. You might also think of it
as your consciousness, your ability to think about your arm
thoughts.
But listen, the point of this, the point of making this distinction,
is that if you can observe your arm thoughts, if you can think
about your thinking about your arms, then you and your arm
thoughts are not one and the same. You are not your arm
thoughts. And in a minute, I'm going to explain why this is so
important. But most of us really have never considered this
before, the idea that because there's a part of us that can
watch how we think about our arms, that can observe how we
think about our arms, it means there's a part of us that is
separate from how we think about our arms. And that is so key.
So think of it, you've got this electronic news ticker in your
mind, and every day on the ticker, you're thinking tens of
thousands of thoughts about your arms. Not only are you
noticing your arms, not only are you noticing how they look in
the mirror, but you're also making assessments about your
arms. You are assessing with your thoughts your biceps, your
triceps, your shoulders, you name it, you are assessing all of
these things.
So your mind is not just noticing your arms, it's making
judgments about your arms. I want you to think of it this way:
think about when you look at your arms in the mirror. When that
happens, when you stand in front of your mirror at home, you
are not just thinking to yourself, oh those are my arms, that's
my reflection. You are assessing your arm reflection. You look
in the mirror and you might think something along the lines of,
my arms look flabby, my biceps are too small, I've got bat
wings, whatever it is. So you're not just noticing that those are
your arms in the mirror, you're not just saying hey, there are my
arms. You are assessing your arm reflection.
So we do this with everything about our arms. And I'll tell you
that most of us have gotten so used to the steady stream of
judgments that we're always making about our arms, and
judgments that are always running through our minds, that the
truth is we don't really pay attention to the fact that we're
making judgments about our arms at all. Sometimes, and
actually often, we don't even notice that they're there. These
arm judgments, they really just become the background noise
of our life.
So one way to think about it is if you've ever decided that you
were going to focus on toning your arms, and you start doing
arm exercises while watching TV, so the TV's on. And you
might kind of half be listening to the TV while you're working on
your arms, but after a while, you might not even notice that it's
turned on at all. It's like a TV is on in the background that we're
not paying attention to.
This is exactly what it's like with this news ticker of thoughts
and judgments and assessments about our arms that we're
having all day long. But if you're going to harness the think-
feel-act cycle to change how you feel about your arms, you
have to change this. You have to become aware. So first, to
harness that cycle, you need to bring awareness to your arm
thoughts. You need to notice that electronic news ticker in your
mind about your arms; you need to pay attention to it. It can't
just be something in the background, it has to be something
that you notice and you tune into.
Second, you have to recognize that you are not your arm
thoughts. You can observe your arm thoughts, if you can think
about your thinking about your arms. It means that you are
separate from your arm thoughts. And if you're separate from
your arm thoughts, then you and your arm thoughts are not one
and the same. This is so key. If you're not one and the same
with your arm thoughts, then you can change them. If your arm
thoughts are you, if you can't observe them, you can't watch
them, if you can't look at them, there's no way you can change
them. But you can change them. But it starts with recognizing
that you are not the same as your thinking about your arms.
And then third, if you want to start to harness the think-feel-act
cycle for your arms, you need to start to notice all the judging
and assessing about your arms. You are not just looking in the
mirror and saying to yourself, hey, those are my arms, that's my
reflection. You're having an opinion, you are assessing your
arms.
So your arm thoughts are what start the think-feel-act cycle.
You don't ever feel an emotion about your arms, and that
includes the desire to hide them, without first thinking a thought
about your arms. But most of us don't really pay attention to
our thinking about our arms and don't understand that our
thinking about our arms is creating our emotions about our
arms or understand that our thinking about our arms is creating
our desire to hide them. Paying attention is what allows us to
not just notice why we feel the way we do about our arms, but
to really begin the work of understanding that our emotions
about our arms, including the desire to hide them, are things
that can be changed.
I'm going to tell you that really just the act of bringing
awareness to your thinking about your arms, bringing
awareness to your arm thoughts, can actually be challenging
for some people. And if you've ever thought to yourself, you
know what, I don't really like looking at my arms, you'll
understand why.
So some of the people that I will work with, and I will tell you
that when I first started to do this work as well, when I started
to tune into my arm thoughts, I hated doing it. And the reason
why was because I didn't like what I heard. I didn't like looking
at my thinking about my arms because you know what, there
was a lot of negative thinking about my arms in there.
But here's the thing, if you're in the same boat, if you don't
really like noticing all the negative thoughts that you're thinking
about your arms, it's okay. All it means is that you're witnessing
the think-feel-act cycle about your arms. You are watching that
cycle unfold, and here's why: if you think a negative thought
about your arms, you are going to feel a negative emotion
about your arms, and that's okay. Nothing has gone wrong.
When you think negative thoughts about your arms, you will
feel negative emotions about your arms. That's how the cycle
works. But most people get stuck here and I want to explain
why.
The reason why people get stuck here, the reason why people
tune in to their arm thoughts just for a little bit and then say,
Ooo, I don't want to do that, I don't want to look anymore, I
don't like the way I feel about my arms, I don't like looking at
my thinking about my arms, I don't like listening to all these
negative arm thoughts, it's because they don't yet realize that
they are not their arm thoughts.
Any negative thought you have about your arms, whatever it is,
my arms are too flabby, my biceps are too small, I hate my bat
wings, whatever the negative arm thought is, it is not who you
are. It is just your thinking about your arms. And most of us
have no idea that there is a huge difference between the two of
these things, but there is.
There is a big difference between who you are and what you're
thinking about your arms. Any negative thought that you have
about your arms, any one, is not who you are. It is your
judgment; it is your assessment of your arms right now. It is
that moment when you're looking at your arms in the mirror and
instead of just objectively assessing what you see, 'hey those
are my arms, that's my reflection', you start to bring in all your
judgment about your arms.
Most people do not get this, well, because no one's ever
explained it to us. So most of us just assume that our negative
arm thoughts are who we are. We assume that the thoughts,
my arms are too flabby, my biceps are too small, my bat wings
are horrible, whatever it is, we assume that these arm thoughts
are true. We assume that these arm thoughts are us, instead of
recognizing that they're judgments about our arms.
The fact that you can observe the electronic news ticker in your
mind with all those thousands of thoughts about your arms
going by, the fact that you can observe your thinking about your
arms, the fact that you can notice its effect on you, means that
you are not your thinking about your arms. And this is the best
news ever, because if you are not your arm thoughts, then you
can learn how to change them.
When you believe that your arm thoughts are who you are, let
me tell you, you are going to feel helpless about your arms.
And this is how I felt for a long time. And I think for many of you
out there, many of you who are very introspective and really do
pay attention to what you're thinking about your arms, you pay
attention but not in a way that gives you any distance. So think
about it: the pages and pages and pages that you write down in
your journal about your arms, that to you is all just true. That to
you is all just who you are. And it feels really negative a lot of
the time. And it can feel very helpless. Because we think, we
convince ourselves that the only way to stop feeling negative
about our arms, is to change our arms. And so we work and
work and work to change our arms, to tone them, to shape
them, whatever it is. And when that changing doesn't work,
when we try as hard as we can but we're still not happy with
our arms, then what often happens is we turn to something
outside of us that helps us cover up our arms.
So think about it, when I went to a party and I thought to
myself, I just don't belong here with these arms, my arms don't
measure up, I'm so out of my element with these arms, I just
thought all of that was true. I didn't understand that there was
any distance between my arm thoughts and myself. It was all
just true. And when my attempts to get more toned and shapely
arms didn't make me feel better, well I felt stuck. And I wanted
to feel better about my arms. I wanted some relief. And the
truth is that I knew how to get it. I had learned a long time ago
the very best way to change how I felt about my arms, and that
meant hiding them.
You do that enough times, and guess what? You will create a
habit of using long sleeves to numb your negative emotions
about your arms and to change how you feel about your arms.
The only problem is, it's not very sustainable. You can keep
hiding your arms so that you can feel less awkward, less
insecure, less out of your element with your arms, but guess
what? When you show up to your next party, those feelings
about your arms haven't gone away because those arm
thoughts haven't changed, and so you keep needing to grab a
sweater so that you can start to feel better about your arms.
And I'll tell you, if you've ever felt bombarded by your thinking
about your arms, and I know that this is something that is so
true for me and a lot of the people that I work with will say that,
that they feel kind of bombarded by all the thoughts about their
arms in their mind; it's only because you believe that your
thinking about your arms is outside of your control. And the
only reason you believe that is because no one has ever
shown you the think-feel-act cycle about your arms in action.
No one has ever shown you how to harness it and how to use it
to your advantage when it comes to your arms. And instead,
what happens is that almost all of us assume that the way we
think about our arms is fixed, that our arm thoughts are just
who we are, they are just a true assessment of our arms, and
we really miss the connection between the way we think about
our arms, the way we feel about our arms and the way we act
about our arms, and we have no idea how much power we
have to actually harness this cycle for good when it comes to
our arms.
So if you find the concept of observing your arm thoughts
challenging, look, all you have to do is something that is called
an arm thought download. All I want you to do is set a timer for
five minutes and write down whatever comes into your head
about your arms. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have
to flow in a logical order, just observe what's in your head about
your arms and get it down on a piece of paper. And when the
timer is up, stop writing and look at what you wrote. Those are
your arm thoughts; what's on the piece of paper is that inner
monologue that is going on in your mind about your arms all
the time.
When you get those arm thoughts on a piece of paper, it's one
way to give yourself distance. To look at them, and also to start
the process of questioning them. That will be huge and that's
something we're going to talk more about in another episode.
So here's the final point, and this one is essential for you to be
able to use the think-feel-act cycle for your arms. What you
have written down on that piece of paper, whatever your inner
monologue is about your arms, whatever that electronic news
ticker is of yours that's running through your mind about your
arms, here's the thing: it's not an objective reflection of reality
about your arms. It's not. And the reason why is because all of
those arm thoughts contain your assessments and your
judgments about your arms.
An objective reflection of reality would be to look at your arms
in the mirror and think, oh, those are my arms, that's my
reflection, but that's probably not what is running through your
mind. That's probably not what goes through your head when
you look at your arms in front of the mirror.
For so many of us, what's running through our minds are
thoughts like my arms look terrible, what's wrong with my bat
wings, I really should lose the flab on my arms, whatever it is,
all these judgments and assessments that we have about our
arms. When you think about the think-feel-act cycle for your
arms, it really is looking at your arms in the mirror and
understanding that your arm reflection never causes a negative
emotion about your arms. You only feel insecure or anxious or
awkward about your arms when you have a thought that judges
or assesses how your arms look.
The reflection of your arms in the mirror doesn't create the way
you feel about your arms, your thoughts about your arm
reflection create how you feel about your arms. And for most of
you, those are some pretty negative emotions about your arms.
But guess what? Those arm thoughts are not who you really
are. They are just thoughts in your mind about your arms that
you haven't learned to notice and you haven't learned to
question until now.
Once you get those arm thoughts down on paper, once you
start to observe your thinking about your arms instead of being
at the effect of it all the time, you will start to see that your arm
thoughts are changeable. And I'll tell you, this is not something
that you have practiced yet when it comes to your arms. What
you have practiced and what all of us spend years practicing
are these unconscious arm thoughts – well, if I think something
about my arms it must be true, or this is just the way my arms
are, or I can't change how I feel about my arms.
We've all unknowingly practiced this belief that it's not our
thoughts that create our feelings about our arms, right? It's our
arms themselves. And our feelings about our arms frankly, are
not within our control. But they are. The reason why it's so
important to really pay attention to the think-feel-act cycle when
it comes to your arms and really start to understand how it
works in relation to your arms is because it flies in the face of
what our society and what our culture conditions us to believe
about our arms.
We are conditioned to believe that our arms themselves create
how we feel about them and it's the exact reason why we
spend so much time and energy wishing that our arms were
more toned, more shapely, less flabby, whatever it is, because
we've been taught that these are the things that keep us from
feeling good about our arms. We've been taught that it's not the
thoughts that we think about our arms, but it's our actual arms
themselves.
So the reason why so many of us spend so much of our time
preoccupying ourselves with trying to find the perfect arm
workout or the perfect arm-toning diet or fantasize about
getting arm liposuction, whatever it is, because we think this is
what's going to make us feel better about our arms, we think
that that's how we're going to feel better about showing off our
arms. And when we don't feel better about our arms, when we
try all of these things and we still have these negative emotions
about our arms, we still feel insecure or awkward about our
arms, whatever it is, we often turn to something outside of us to
feel better about our arms. We do that enough and it becomes
a habit.
So this week, I really want you to pay attention to the thoughts
that you are thinking about your arms, and I want you to remind
yourself that they are just sentences in your mind about your
arms. Get those arm thoughts on a piece of paper and practice
observing them with some distance. Be aware that these arm
thoughts are not who you are. And you know what, if you start
to do this regularly, you will notice that you feel a little bit
calmer and you have a bit more perspective on your arms, and
it will really open the door to start to examine all the thinking
you have about your arms, all the thinking you have about what
change will be like for your arms, and all the thinking you have
that creates your desire to hide your arms. But first, you have
to start with really practicing observing and understanding your
arm thoughts.
Alright, that's it, everybody, thank you so much for listening to
this episode all about understanding your thoughts about your
arms. If you're ready to take the next step in transforming your
relationship with your arms, I'd love for you to join me in the
Arms By Kristine Master Class, where we dive deep into the
think-feel-act cycle as it relates to our arms and learn how to
harness it to liberate ourselves from long sleeves and embrace
our arms with confidence. You can find out more and sign up at kristinerucker.com. Okay, that's it for today. I'll see you on the next
episode!
