Rita Black: Tired of feeling trapped and thinking that has you going around and around in circles about your diet and weight? Our thinking about weight, our expectations and beliefs that are given to us by our family, our culture and the diet industry create a literal trap that we get stuck in and it feels like it's impossible to escape from. So today, I wanna take a look at what kind of thinking ,the real long game thinking about yourself and weight loss that can really set you free and start you on a more productive path towards health and long term permanent weight success. So let's get started.

Rita Black: Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn't start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym? 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That's right, the key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there, I'm Rita Black. I'm a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery Process. And not only have I helped thousands of people over the past 20 years achieve long-term weight mastery, I am also a former weight struggler, carb addict, and binge eater. And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis. Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years. Enter the Thin Thinking Podcast where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling. I'll give you the thin thinking tools, skills, and insights to help you develop the mindset you need. Not only to achieve your ideal weight, but to stay there long-term and live your best life. Sound good. Let's get started.

Rita Black: Hello everybody. I hope you are enjoying the spring wherever you are. I know in some places it's probably warmer than others right now, but, let's just all take a nice deep spring air breath in and just settle into spring together. So, my son is in the middle of his spring break right now, but we aren't going anywhere. Oh, he has all these AP tests and that he's just studying for. Gosh, I feel so sorry for him. I mean, kids in testing these days, I have to say it's a completely different ball game than, you know, when I was growing up. Maybe when you were growing up too, if you have kids or no kids or have grandkids, I mean, gosh, I remember rolling into my SAT test and I was, my mom was like, get up. It's the SATs. I was like, huh. You know, I had to grab a number two pencil. I had to go down to, the University of Washington, that's where they were holding the SATs. I was literally like, what's going on? What test am I taking? And, I'm I don't know if I did. I don't even remember what score I got, but nowadays, like kids are like all over their scores and their grades. And I mean, even to get into an okay university, you have got to be able to do back flips and I have done, you know, a zillion hours of community service, started a nonprofit. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And then once they accept you, you have to pay them so much money. It is just ridonculous. Okay. So, I mean, sorry, I don't mean to get on my little soapbox, but I guess I did anyway. You can tell I'm a mother in my second round of kids, you know, getting ready to fly the coop. And I'm so glad this is the last round and yet, so tragically, you know, awaiting the sadness that will come.

Rita Black: So anyway, so speaking about kids, I, and I do swear to you that this has to do with today's topic. I, I had the honor of coaching for a few weeks or probably a month, one of my best friends from college daughter. And, she is out of college now and she's at that age where, oh, it, I, I mean, like I look at my son and I think that's tough, but the toughest year of anybody's life, if they went to college, I think is the year they get out of college. It's just such a come down, especially if you're not going to graduate school or going on, you know, or you don't have like a job immediately lined up. I mean, I just, I just, I remember being 22 fresh out of college and feeling like the biggest loser in the world. There were so many choices. There's just too many choices at that time. Like where could I do, what can I be? Who am I gonna be? You know, unless you really dial down. And she just kind, she's kind of, my friend's daughter was right there. It's just like, what am I gonna do? Who am I gonna be? And she was really kind of imploding, you know, they, we kids, again, like I said, they, their expectations on themselves are huge. And I think college just really set them up too, to really expect, like you gonna get outta here and you are gonna be so amazing and it's all gonna be great and you're gonna have your career and your path and your dream, and it's all gonna come true for you and you get out and you're like, I gotta get a job and nobody wants to hire you. And you get a job at like a, you know, for, you know, like a measly salary doing something that is completely not what you wanna be doing. And it makes you feel bad about yourself.

Rita Black: And I think we go about setting kids up and our expectations of what life should look like and what you should be. And all of that, it just gets so overwhelming. So one of the things I helped her with and, and, you know, this is again, to the point of today, because this is kind of what we're gonna be doing is like really looking at what a true journey of, you know, finding your career and shifting the expectations so that it isn't like you have to be amazing right now. And you have to have the right job right now and be making lots of money that, that there's a natural progression to discovering yourself. Who you are. And part of that progression really includes trial and error, you know, figuring out who you are and that takes maybe some pain and self acceptance. Not unlike the weight mastery journey I have to say. And, but the interesting thing is because I, I work with so many people, you know, and I get, I, I, which is the joy way of my life, cuz I just got to meet so many different people, people who are lawyers and doctors and bus drivers and surfers and Olympic athletes and you know, like just all the whole gamut of human beings. It's I just love what I do because I love people and I love helping people.

Rita Black: And anyway, enough about me that the point I'm trying to make is I have seen people who left school and had the perfect trajectory. They went to medical school or to law school or, you know, they, they had a lot of expectations and they lived up to them and it all looked good for them and they got to their thirties and they crashed. They were like, who am I? Where am I? What am I? So it, I, and again, I compare it to that weight journey where you get on the diet and you do really well and you really well. And then you get to your ideal weight and go, but I don't know who I am or, you know, I don't know how to sustain this weight. And so I kind of said to my friend's daughter, I said, you're kind of lucky, even though this is really painful for you right now, you're doing all the footwork now that some of your friends who seem to have the awesome jobs. And, and again, I know this because I was a 22-year old kid thinking I was the biggest loser. And then all of my friends who had the job on Wall Street or, you know, they went to graduate school, you know, they up having to go through the very same process just later.

Rita Black: So I said, you're kind of lucky, you know, it's painful and it's frustrating, but you're kind of going, you're internalizing and, and really figuring out who you are now. And it doesn't have to look perfect. And you just put one foot in front of the other. So we spent a lot of time thinking about where she wanted to be a few, few years from now, but really getting clear on like, there's a path there. She doesn't have to be there now. So hopefully that was helpful for, I, I know she ended up getting her foot in the door somewhere kind of exciting, but again, it was an apprenticeship and, and that's kind of perfect for where she needs to be anyway.

Rita Black: So I think you kind of can gather where I'm going with all of this. And I just wanted to say before, you know, we get into today that, to this week I am opening up, in the doors to free masterclass that, you are more than welcome to come. It's gonna be on April 21st, but please the, the link is in show notes. And, the, what it's about really is a, about the well it's called "How to Stop the Start Over Tomorrow Weight Struggle Cycle and Begin Releasing Weight for Good," because as I'm gonna get into today, a lot of our thinking is stuck in a cycle and, you know, being good, being bad, being good, being bad, self-correcting game, being good, being bad, you know, like we, we end up in this box, we're going around in circles over and over again. Right? So, so the masterclass is really designed to get you clear in many ways, we're gonna look at the three major weight loss mistakes that most people make. And these are really cognitive mistakes. They're thinking mistakes. We're gonna really look at the three shifts that you can make to remove at subconscious resistance and the roadblocks and start releasing weight for good. And then I'm gonna walk you through a proven four-part shift process that has helped thousands of people lose weight long term by using mind power over willpower, which we all know does not work. So we will also be doing some hypnosis in this masterclass. So I hope you join me. It's gonna be super fun. And one thing you do need to know full disclosure, it's limited. Like there is seating is limited because my webinar, my, whatever, my service only lets me so many seats and in this masterclass. So there's two masterclasses on April 21st, one in 9:00 AM, Pacific time and one at 5:00 PM Pacific time. So please, if you are, listening to this prior to April 21st, 2022, please go sign up and join me.

Rita Black: Okay. So now let's talk about the long game mindset. I have been noticing an epidemic of smart people, because people who are attracted to, you know, my clients, people, my communities, my students are usually smart people who are very, you know, self aware, but caught up in a mindset that just isn't working. It's this short term weight loss mindset. That really is not their fault, right? It has been given to them by their family, their culture, the media, our friends. I mean, we are immersed in a weight loss culture that has really cognitive distortion and negative thinking and, and really makes us feel bad about ourselves and trains us to permanently feel bad about ourselves. It really kind of feeds on that. So, you know, and there's a mythology, it's like, you know, be good on a diet. You're gonna lose the weight and then you're gonna live happily ever after, not a problem. Right? So, so we get really stuck in this short term focus and, you know, it's incredibly damaging and painful. And, you know, and it's short term, you know, most diets are offering you a relief, right? They're, they're offering you a relief from the pain of feeling over weight, or they're offering you a relief from the pain of feeling chaotic and unstructured. And, and they're saying, this is quick because, and, and we aren't, dumies, we aren't like, oh, it's quick, but, but because we're in pain, our brain doesn't think this is short term. So this really doesn't mean, you know, like if I lose 20 pounds in two weeks, what's gonna happen on week three. We're not thinking there. We're just thinking, great. I can feel lighter and lose some weight, get this weight off me that makes me feel horrible about myself in a short term. All I have to drink is this drink, or all I have to do is cut this macronutrient group out of my diet. I'm all in. Right. And we can do it. We can go at it really with a focus for a short term.

Rita Black: Okay. So, so that, first of all, we, we go at it, not because we're stupid, but because, or we go after these short term things, because it's so painful, the way we feel about ourselves, when we're overweight, we don't like ourselves. We have a lot of distrust in ourselves. So diets or weight loss regimes, or all these quick fixes offer an escape to, to our brain and our dopamine center. And our brain, our reward center is like, yes, I want that. You know, it's like almost an it's an addiction. All right.

Rita Black: So, so secondly, obviously it's self defeating because when we're focused outside of ourselves on a diet, on a plan, it may seem rational at the time. But the problem is when you're focused on like a, you know, do it this way and, and you only can do it this way, you can't do it any other way. It has to be done this way, which a lot of diets are, you know, like eat this, eat that, but don't eat this, eat this much, blah, blah, blah. Yu know, the, the lore of that is that we are, um, really saying I need to be controlled, you know, because I'm chaotic internally. I can't trust myself, but I can trust something outside of me or a guru outside of me or some sort of structure. So let me do that. And, and again, momentarily, we get a relief from the self distrust and the self hatred, because we're now committed to something, you know, and that can make us feel sort of like a, kind of a false sense of confidence.

Rita Black: You know, and then there is the, third thing, which is, you know, the lore of you're gonna go on this, you're gonna lose the weight and that it's life is gonna be perfect. You're finally gonna have, you know, it all. You're going to, it's gonna be good. And then you can focus on other things. And again, that the idea that we have to, that we're gonna find this magic cure that is going to well, you know, take away the fact, you know, our thinking about food, having to manage food, thinking about exercise and all of that stuff, the idea that there's a something out there that's gonna remove all of that from our life so we finally don't have to think about food anymore, and don't have to think about exercise, that is actually again, a false advertisement. Because even thin people. And I work with a lot of thin people, and I ask them all the time, how do you manage your weight? And they say, yes. I said, did you ever struggle with your weight? No. I just know that, you know, I can't eat certain foods or I'm gonna gain weight, you know? So, so that I idea that, you know, you are that we live in a world full of food. We live in bodies that, you know, like a full of food that our bodies were not designed to be eating, you know? And again, I'm not going to down that road of like, you know, we gotta go back to our ancestors and eat the way they do. I'm just saying our bodies, weren't designed to eat all this, to have it all around us and our brains weren't designed to be stimulated by this food all day long. Right?

Rita Black: So people even thin people have had to adapt a internal structure for themselves of managing this world of food so that they can maintain their weight. You got it. So, or I'm not talking about like, so, so the, the, the whole weight loss industry is built on. I don't wanna say lies, and I'm not, it's like a, it is developed in this way that really takes us down a wrong path. You know, and look, we are never gonna be perfect and life is never gonna line up for us to do good on a diet, you know, 24/7, 7 days a week, you know, 365 days a year, look at how many there's a holiday in every month. You know what I mean? Like, there's always gonna be some reason to go off your diet. There's always gonna be some interruption. There's always gonna be, you know, so we gotta get real, really real, real, real, real.

Rita Black: Okay. So, you know, and I, and I apologize, I, that this is, you know, the way it is, but I think like the 22-year old it's like, you know, once you kind of can have acceptance about like, you know, you, aren't going to get that $150,000 job right off the bat. And it's, you know, people aren't going to be paying you to, you know, do all those fun and super creative things that you did in college, but you're gonna have like a low paying job and you're gonna be doing really menial labor in the beginning, you know, but the sooner you accept it and go, okay, I'm here, you know, like that. And, and I don't mean that that's what you're gonna have to do, but I'm just saying there's a certain freedom in going, okay, let me start from a real place. Let me start from something real with myself and begin something that I'm creating for me.

Rita Black: So, because the alternative is to continue to stay stuck in this, looking outside of yourself, finding the next quick fix, you know, doing good on it for a little bit, falling off, getting off track, going, eating more, going back, you know, and then, you know, gaining weight, feeling horrible about yourself, feeling you, you know, like over and over and over again and over and over and over again. And I say this because, you know like, my mother never, ever, you know, like escaped that cycle, you know, to me that is a tragedy, you know, before she passed and went on to hopefully bigger and better things. But, you know, and I see it all the time. I see, you know, clients who have been stuck in the struggle for decades. And so we really need to come back to ourselves and we really need to start to look at ourselves as the answer, not as a problem.

Rita Black: So I really came at to this conclusion one day, you know, and of those of you who don't know my story, you'll, you know, come to the masterclass here, it in a little more depth, but, you know, like I kind of hit my wall and after dieting for 20 years and yoyo-ing up and down the scale 40 pounds, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can't diet anymore. I really have to come at this from a different way, cuz I cannot live life anymore like this, like my life was in ruins. So, in that moment I really made a decision, not gonna do that anymore and I'm gonna do something different. And something that helped me a lot at the time was this idea of the hero's journey and the hero's journey is a Joseph Campbell's concept. I believe. I mean, you know, like I'm not a super duper anthropology expert, but my husband is, works, you know, has he doesn't work in the movies anymore, but at the time he was, working in the movies. And in the, the movies in Hollywood, a lot of screenplays, well, every screenplay really follows the, what you would call the story of the hero's journey. Most screenplays, not every single one, but you know, most of those action movies and most of those, the, the, the, a, the structure of a movie is, you know, most heroes in a movie are reluctant. They don't wanna go on whatever, you know, in the beginning, it's, you know, the guy he's like, uh, like the village wants him to go and slay the monster. And he's like, no, not me. I'm not the guy who can do that. And you guys do that. No, not me, not me. And then, you know, finally, he's called into action, or she's called into action by a vision or a need bigger than themselves. But usually it's a, a vision that pulls them forth and not a vision vision, but just like something bigger than them. They need to save somebody, they need to save their village or whatever. They get out of their own ego and they, you know, move forward.

Rita Black: So, and then, and then the hero's journey continues. So once the reluctant hero steps in and begins the journey, the journey is a series of obstacles, right? The, the hero then has to confront all these obstacles, each obstacle that the hero has to struggle with and find a solution for actually makes the hero stronger. Now, many, many times the hero wants to turn back. I can't do this. It's too hard, or he gets hurt or whatever. He, you know, there's many times, or at times she has, you know, like just it's the, oh my God, one more thing. Are you kidding me? You know, you guys have all watched the movies, you know what it's like? And then there's always that like scene towards the end, the climax of the film, where the hero has to slay the dragon. And she, you know, has to like pull together, you know, the, the, and the dragon really is representative of the, the biggest protagonist, the, the, I mean, the antagonist, the, the dark force, the, you know, the, the heroes antithesis, you know, the, and coming at them again and again, and again, it's not like they slay them in one stab. It's like they keeps coming back and keeps coming back. But finally, the hero perseveres and slays the dragon. They come home and they're, you know, or to the end movie and they are transformed, right. They are not who they were when they began the journey.

Rita Black: So I, there, I was thinking about my weight and, and I was like, I get it. You know, a weight journey is a hero's journey. And the point of the journey isn't about being good or perfect. The point of the journey is finding the solutions and believing in yourself and building yourself as you go along and, and slang the dragon. And, you know, I know that I'm speaking in metaphors for a moment, but, but the reason why I say this is because most people stop at the first obstacle, right? Like, you'll start a diet. And then Friday night, you know, pizza time comes out and there's the first obstacle, because life is gonna be full of pizza. You know what I mean? It's not like you go on a diet and pizza ever operates pizzas in your life. And you are, you know, if you're managing your weight, you need to learn to manage pizza on a Friday night. And that might mean eating pizza on a Friday night, but figuring that out for yourself. Right.

Rita Black: So, you know, but most of us get to points in the journey, where we wanna turn around and go back? And we do, we go back to the beginning, cuz it doesn't look perfect. And the reason for that, a lot of times isn't that it's too hard, but we don't like looking bad to ourselves. And cuz there's a lot of self shame within ourselves because one of our biggest dragons within us is our inner critic. That's always there to say, you blew it. You didn't do it right. This is going too hard. This plateau is going on too long. You're blowing it somehow because it's not working for you. Right. And then there's also that other dragon, it's kind of a twin headed dragon of the, the rebel within us. Right. And that rebel is, you know, really they're ready to say, oh yeah, this diet sucks. Let's just start again Monday. Everybody else is eating, why can't we? You know, so there's this, this, this powerful force, you know, talk about obstacles that is always there as we're going. So I wanna just kind of go through the hero's journey as a weight master, you know, just briefly to give you a flavor of, you know, really where I feel like we want to start from.

Rita Black: Now reluctant hero. Let's talk about the reluctant hero. So, you know, I get why diets do so well because, you know, and really a weight loss journey, like I said, like a long term, permanent journey is not about, you know, like I'm gonna lose 20 pounds in a month. And I it's really about like, I am ready to take ownership of myself. I am ready to step forward and stretch myself past where I've been stretched before, you know, have been stretched before and I'm willing to go through something because where I am now is so painful. And because I also see something better for myself. Right. You know, the crazy thing is I, I don't know where I learned this, but that they did a poll and like 80% of people really live their lives. Not from like, if you ask them, like where do you wanna be five years from now, most people don't know. You know, like what do you see yourself doing next year? Most people don't know. We know where we don't wanna be. We know where we don't want to happen to us, but we really don't create our future and, and live our life like we're living into it. Right?

Rita Black: And so the reluctant hero, it, it, you know, we, it is painful being overweight, but it's also familiar and is comfy, you know, on a certain level. And, and the idea of, you know, to our dieting mind, going on a weight journey, like a long term journey, it might seem scary. It might seem fearful like, you know, I have to change really, and, and not only ourselves, but we don't wanna be, feel deprived because that's the, the diet, mind thinks of deprivation. When we think of weight management, it doesn't think of transformation. It doesn't think of self fulfillment and nourishment and sustaining ourselves in a powerful way. It thinks of I'm gonna have to eat less. I'm gonna have to exercise more. And that seems really hard to me.

Rita Black: And, and we also, and this is kind of crazy. But I'm gonna be honest with you is that we might have to shift our relationships with the other people in our lives. And that is incredibly scary, you know, because we're comfy with the people in our lives, even though they might be, you know, the source of some of our weight. So we have to be powerful and I get it. That's why we're reluctant. You know, it's not just because we're, you know, don't have willpower. It's, it's really not that, I mean, people who struggle with their weight have tons of willpower. I mean, like some of the most disciplined people I know are people who struggle with their weight. So I don't think that that's, it, there's just a lot more to it. So when we're sitting in this place of, you know, being reluctant, it, I get it. But what you wanna start to do is think about, and this is what I did for myself was I was like the me here, 40 pounds above where I wanna be. Okay, that's me now, unhappy, overweight, you know, things aren't really working out well for me. And the me 40 pounds down the scale. Okay. There's some things going on there too. Like I'm 40 pounds lighter, but I'm also who I need to be to sustain my life 40 pounds lighter is gonna be, think differently, behave differently, and probably have shifted relationships with the people that I have in my life because, you know, we set, you know, we, we teach people how to treat us. Right. And so, that to me, I was like, you know, I kind of gulped. And I was like, okay, I'm committing to this, you know, just like the reluctant heroes, like, they're like, okay, I'm gonna do this, but, but I stepped forward and I was excited because I was so ready for transformation.

Rita Black: And, and, and I, you know, sat down with myself and I kind of had to love myself in the moment and say, okay, I believe in me, I believe I can do this even though it's uncomfortable. The, the comfort from the, you know, painful and frustrating, familiar weight, you know, I don't want that anymore. I want something new. I'm willing to stretch. I'm willing to be in something unfamiliar. And I'm also willing not to be perfect. I'm willing to be a student. I'm willing to be a learner because that's what an apprentice is, right. Just like my friend's daughter got that job as an apprentice. It's like you, an apprentices, the good news is you get to make mistakes. You get to make mistakes almost immediately. So I started to see myself differently and I started treat myself differently and I started to feed myself differently and exercise and, you know, use hypnosis and all those things.

Rita Black: But the, the thing I want you to understand is that I've been doing this for 25 years you guys, and, and that's a, I'm on still in my long term, permanent weight mastery journey. So there are many, many, many, many, many phases to a weight mastery journey. And yes, you know, there is a certain point, I think, where you slay your dragons to the, to certain degree, to the most degree, and, you know, in your, in your journey of down the scale, but, you know, maintenance, you start another journey. And, so I, I want to inspire you about this because in becoming that in being that hero in, you know, really going through what I call struggle points, which are all the points that you've probably have gone on before, like when you've gone on a diet where you've stopped and got off track were probably your struggle points. And our struggle points like we gain weight in the same places in the same time with the same foods, for the most part, right? And we keep banging our heads against the wall, thinking, somehow it's gonna change this time and it's gonna be different. No, it's not, but we've gotta figure these out. But the good news is once you get it, you can do it. And when you do it, you're like, I solve that problem. And that is the joy I have in seeing my clients and students go through and go, that has been bugging me for years. And I slayed that dragon, Woohoo. I own that.

Rita Black: And that my friend is some taste of like, better than any cake, better than any, you know, potato chip like, oh my God, that is as good as it gets, when you, you go through a struggle point and you, you, you put it to sleep and you move forward like people figuring out night eating and putting that to rest and people, managing their stress without, or emotional eating start to manage their emotions without food. People learning to socialize and having a really good time at restaurants and parties without overeating or overdrinking and, and taking ownership for that, because these are the things that take us off track again and again and again. So when you start to look at this journey, not from being perfect on a diet, but you really start to look at it as a, a series of transformational steps that you're taking that every, just like the heroes in the movies, where they each step along the way, it, you know, maybe doesn't happen overnight, but they, they, they get that. They get a little more powerful and they get a little more powerful and they get a little more powerful with every step forward. And, and I call it the thin thinking brain. Like we, our it's like flexing a muscle or thin thinking brain gets stronger and it's stronger and stronger until that's who you are, are a, a thin thinker and that old fat thinking, old habits, beliefs that kept you in that struggle, that part of the brain is dormant and that, you know, and, and slang.

Rita Black: So here's the thing about the critic and the rebel. You can't slay them, but you can learn to work with them because that part of the brain, you know, and really turn them way down. Like you can turn the volume way, way down, but we are human beings. We are gonna always have our inner critic and rebel, but, but we are developing on our, our weight mastery journey - our inner coach ,and our inner coach is the longer we're on. You know, like the more we use our inner coach, the louder that voice gets, the more empowered we become, the more self forgiving, self empathy, self reinforcing. We can figure out this problem. We got this, you know, we start to talk to ourselves differently. And again, if, if we reach that struggle point and we turn around and we try to be perfect, oh, well, I didn't do good today. I'm gonna go back and be perfect. You lose that. You lose that ability to build that inner resource, that inner strength within you, to develop that inner structure within yourself, because is weight diets, weight regimes are structures that you go on, but really when we're, we're shifting and we're on our weight mastery journey, we are creating the structure from within us, within us. And you don't lose that. You don't ever lose that. You own that. And, you get, keep it so that when you get to your ideal weight, guess what, you own that. And, uh, that's what happened for me. That's what happened for many of my, you know, students and clients is like that when they get there and get to maintenance, which is a different journey, but they, they, they're not afraid like, oh my God, I'm gonna go all the way back up the, I mean, they might have some insecurity. I'm not saying it's perfect. There is insecurity. But they, they they're like, but I got this, like, I've got the tools and they start to work that muscle of maintenance. And they're like, oh my God, I got this too. Like, this is actually gonna work for me.

Rita Black: You know, so, so, you know, but along the way, there will be boredom. You know, like, I don't think the weight loss industry tells you this, but you know, like people get to places like I'm bored. There must be something wrong with me. I'm like, no, welcome to a long term permanent weight master journey. You will be bored sometimes, but there is something underneath the, at boredom that you will learn about and you'll crack that boredom and you'll get through it and you will be stressed out. You'll have times in your life when you're stressed and you might have to tread water or figure some stuff out for yourself and you will get through it. And there will be plateaus. And guess what you will get through your plateaus too, if you just keep going. And you'll get off track and guess what? I invite you to get off track so that you can exercise that muscle of getting back on track. So it's so tight that the second you get off track, you're like, what, what do I do to get back on track? I get right back. And that my friend is the key to consistency. Not superhuman discipline, not starving yourself, not ex exercising like a maniac, but really finding a way of living your life on your terms, solving those struggle points and developing yourself from the inside out, transforming yourself from the inside out.

Rita Black: You know, I think of my son, you know, he's, he's going to be 17 in, in two months. And, he started playing piano when he was five. And, I think of him like, you know, not even being able to put it, like his hands were so small, he couldn't even like reach some of the keys. And now he's playing Rockman enough, which requires your hands to be like, so stretched out that you, because there's so many chords and notes that you have to hit that your hands have to be really spread out. Like, so, yeah, he's a young man now and he has those hands and he has that capability of playing, you know, incredibly complicated music that, you know, but I remember when he started out and I remember so many struggle points where he wanted to quit. He wanted to just, oh, so many, not too many, where, you know, and in the beginning I either me or his father had to sit with him or us both. And just say, you gotta, you just take a breath and, and think about, you know, this isn't just about playing the piano, but this is about mastery. This is about like, life is full of these times where you don't wanna, but you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. And then he would get to the other side of whatever that struggle point was, and he'd have a breakthrough and his playing or who he was as a player. And, the beautiful thing is, and I'm gonna cry cuz it's just so wonderful to see as a mom or, you know, just as a fellow human being, is that he now does it for himself. You know, he gets to those struggle points and he can talk himself through that.

Rita Black: And that is what I want for you. That ability to really love yourself enough to sit with yourself and believe in yourself that you can get through those struggle points and solve them so that you own them and you get that breakthrough for you.

Rita Black: So, and to slay those dragons and to come home to yourself, you know, to your own inner village or our community here, I'd like to think of as a village or thin thinking community. But you know, to have that transformation for yourself because it really isn't just about weight, you know, with the clients that I work with. Like I said, you know, it's clients, students, people in the community, people in my mastermind. It's not just about weight. It, people get transformed in their life because they really coming home to yourself, really showing up for yourself, transforms every single part of your life, not just your weight. So, you are the hero.

Rita Black: So in the next couple of weeks, I am gonna be interviewing some of the people I consider masters on their heroes journey. Some of my students and we are gonna dive into how they are releasing weight and changing themselves from the inside out. So I look forward to sharing some of these weight mastery heroes with you. And, if you are ready for a transformation, if you're at that point, and you're feeling a little like the reluctant hero, I love teaching this masterclass. So come, come, come to the, you know, masterclass. I wanna inspire you. I wanna motivate you. Obviously I have a lot to say about this, but I really wanna give you a, an internal structure that you can really, you know, take those first few steps with and get out of the struggle and get moving on your journey. So go to the show notes, sign up, it's called that, you know, Stop the Start Over Tomorrow Weight Struggle Cycle and Start Releasing or Losing Weight for Good. And it's April 21st, like I said, sign up seating is limited. So get on that list and I will look forward to seeing you then, and in the meantime, have an amazing week and remember that the key and probably the only key to unlocking the door, the weight struggle is inside you. So keep listening and find it.

Rita Black: Thanks for listening to the thin thinking podcast. Did that episode go by way too fast for you? If so, and do you want to dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release? Head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com where you'll find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release, tips, strategies, and more, and be sure to check the show notes to learn more about my book From Fat to Thin Thinking: Unlock Your Mind For Permanent Weight Loss. and to learn how to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode.