[00:00:00] How long have you been mad at yourself about your weight?

[00:00:03] Maybe you’re still angry about the weight you gained, the weight you released and gained back, the promises you made to yourself and didn’t keep, or all the years you spent thinking you should have figured this out by now.

[00:00:16] Or maybe it’s smaller than that.

[00:00:18] You got off track last week, or the scale went up this morning, or you ate more than you intended to last night, and you’re giving yourself a good talking to about it today.

[00:00:28] When we’ve struggled with our weight for years, we can build quite an evidence file against ourselves, and to just forgive yourself can sound a whole lot easier than it actually feels.

[00:00:41] In this episode of Thin Thinking, we’re looking at self-forgiveness as a practical weight mastery skill.

[00:00:47] I walk you through three very different layers of self-forgiveness from making peace with the person you used to be to learning from the times you get off track to a five-minute forgiveness practice you can use when you simply ate more carrot cake than your body was particularly thrilled about.

[00:01:04] Because forgiveness isn’t about letting yourself off the hook or pretending choices don’t matter.

[00:01:09] It’s about getting out of the courtroom, getting curious about what happened, and becoming someone you can trust to come back for yourself again and again.

[00:01:19] So come on in.

[00:01:28] Did you know that our struggle with weight doesn’t start with the food on your plate or get fixed in the gym?

[00:01:35] 80% of our weight struggle is mental. That’s right.

[00:01:40] The key to unlocking long-term weight release and management begins in your mind. Hi there.

[00:01:47] I’m Rita Black.

[00:01:48] I’m a clinical hypnotherapist, weight loss expert, best-selling author, and the creator of the Shift Weight Mastery process.

[00:01:56] 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.

[00:02:08] And after two decades of failed diets and fad weight loss programs, I lost 40 pounds with the help of hypnosis.

[00:02:16] Not only did I release all that weight, I have kept it off for 25 years.

[00:02:22] Enter the Thin Thinking podcast, where you too will learn how to remove the mental roadblocks that keep you struggling.

[00:02:29] 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.

[00:02:43] Sound good? Let’s get started.

[00:02:47] Hello, hello.

[00:02:49] Hello, my friends.

[00:02:50] We meet yet again, and if you’re brand new, well, hello.

[00:02:54] It’s nice to meet you. We are heading off into the beautiful month of October.

[00:02:59] I’m so thrilled.

[00:03:00] Things are beginning to cool down a little.

[00:03:03] And today, I wanna talk about something that I believe has been absolutely central to my own long-term weight mastery, and something I see many people struggling with right now, which is forgiveness.

[00:03:16] More specifically, forgiving ourselves when it comes to our weight and our weight journey.

[00:03:22] So let me ask you a question.

[00:03:25] How long have you been mad at yourself about your weight?

[00:03:30] Maybe you’ve been mad at yourself for gaining the weight in the first place, or maybe you’re mad at yourself because you released weight, gained it back, and perhaps more than once.

[00:03:41] And maybe you’re mad because at some point you thought, “This should be easy. I know what to do. Why can’t I just do it?”

[00:03:47] Or maybe you get mad about the money you’ve spent on the diets, and the programs, and the books, and the memberships, and the supplements, and all the things you hoped were finally going to be the thing.

[00:03:58] Maybe it goes even deeper than that.

[00:04:01] Maybe you look back and see the ways your weight struggle kept you from fully participating in your life.

[00:04:07] Things you didn’t wear, places you didn’t go, pictures you avoided, opportunities you didn’t pursue because you told yourself, “I’ll do that when I lose the weight.”

[00:04:17] That’s one kind of forgiveness, but then there’s another kind.

[00:04:21] Maybe you’ve been really doing well lately, but this past week you got off track and you didn’t follow through with something you said you were gonna do.

[00:04:30] You didn’t meet the goal you’d set for yourself.

[00:04:33] The scale went up instead of down, and you’re disappointed in yourself.

[00:04:38] And then there’s the really small stuff.

[00:04:40] Last night you ate three cookies when you intended to eat one or none.

[00:04:45] You skipped the walk you told yourself you were gonna take.

[00:04:48] You ate something you hadn’t planned on eating and afterwards thought, “Ugh, why did I do that?”

[00:04:54] And here’s what I want us to understand today.

[00:04:57] Those are not all the same forgiveness problem.

[00:05:00] There are layers to this.

[00:05:02] Because if you’ve been struggling with your weight for 20, 30, even 40 years or more, having someone just tell you, “Oh, just forgive yourself and move on,” can almost feel insulting because it’s not that simple.

[00:05:18] Sometimes we have built up years of disappointment and resentment toward ourselves.

[00:05:24] Sometimes we don’t even feel like we deserve forgiveness.

[00:05:27] We worry that forgiving ourselves means we’re being too easy on ourselves, as though beating ourselves up is somehow the thing that’s gonna keep us accountable.

[00:05:38] And yet, I will tell you that learning how to forgive myself has been one of the most important skills in my own long-term weight mastery.

[00:05:48] And I see the same thing in the people in our Ship community who have been maintaining their ideal weight for years.

[00:05:54] They haven’t become perfect.

[00:05:56] They have just gotten so much better at managing their relationship with themselves when things don’t go perfectly, and self-forgiveness is a huge part of that.

[00:06:07] Because weight mastery isn’t about what happens when you’re doing everything you said you were gonna do.

[00:06:12] It’s also about how you treat yourself when you don’t.

[00:06:16] So today we’re gonna look at three layers of self-forgiveness, from the deep resentment we may have been carrying for decades, all the way down to those little everyday moments when we simply didn’t do what we intended to do.

[00:06:29] And most importantly, we’re gonna talk about how to forgive ourselves without giving up accountability, because those two things are not opposites.

[00:06:38] In fact, I will argue learning how to hold both may be one of the most important skills we ever develop on this journey.

[00:06:47] So let’s look at layer number one, shall we?

[00:06:52] Forgiving the person you were.

[00:06:55] So the first layer is probably the deepest one.

[00:06:58] This isn’t about the french fries you didn’t mean to eat last night, or like I said, the walk you skipped this morning.

[00:07:05] This is the resentment that has built up over years, decades of struggling with your weight.

[00:07:11] Because every time we start over, every time we lose weight and gain it back, every time we make ourselves a promise and don’t keep it, we quietly add another piece of evidence to this case that we are building against ourselves in our mind, the evidence folders.

[00:07:29] “See? I always do this. See? I can’t trust myself. I should have figured this out by now. Look at all the time I’ve wasted. You blew it.”

[00:07:38] And eventually, we’re not simply disappointed about something we did.

[00:07:43] We’ve built a case against who we believe we are, and some of us have pretty thick evidence files.

[00:07:52] I mean, really thick.

[00:07:54] Maybe yours goes back 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.

[00:07:58] I know mine did.

[00:07:59] I talk about one of the most important moments of my own journey happened when I got on the bathroom scale after actually losing weight.

[00:08:08] The scale had gone down, and normally, that would have meant, “Yay, I win. It’s gonna be a good day.”

[00:08:15] But instead of feeling happy, I just stood there and suddenly felt the weight of the entire struggle I had been in for over 20 years, and not the physical weight, just the emotional weight of it, all the binges, all the times I’d beaten myself up, all the deprivation, the cruel things I said to myself, the energy I spent thinking about food and my body, and whether I was good or I was bad.

[00:08:41] I thought about how much of my life and my relationships have been overshadowed by this struggle, and I just sat down on that bathroom scale, and I cried, and cried, and cried.

[00:08:53] And that moment wasn’t really about what the scale said that morning.

[00:08:56] It was just grief.

[00:08:59] And I think underneath a lot of resentment towards ourselves, there is grief.

[00:09:06] Grief for all the years, the things we didn’t do, the way we treated ourself, grief for all of those versions of ourselves who were desperately trying to figure out this thing and didn’t know how.

[00:09:23] And this is where forgiveness becomes so important because forgiveness doesn’t mean saying, “Everything I did was fine.”

[00:09:32] It doesn’t mean pretending you didn’t wish you hadn’t done some things differently, and it doesn’t mean giving yourself a giant hall pass and saying none of it mattered.

[00:09:43] It just means beginning to understand that the person you were was operating with the beliefs, habits, tools, and understanding that she had at that time.

[00:09:56] And maybe she didn’t know what you know now.

[00:10:00] Maybe she believed another diet was really the answer, and she thought that if she could just be more disciplined, more perfect, more controlled, everything would finally work.

[00:10:11] And she was trying very, very hard.

[00:10:14] And that’s the distinction I want us to make.

[00:10:17] Forgiveness is not approval.

[00:10:20] Forgiveness is releasing the debt.

[00:10:23] You don’t have to make the person you used to be keep paying for the rest of your life.

[00:10:29] And if saying, “I forgive myself” feels too big right now, that’s okay.

[00:10:33] You don’t have to force yourself into some giant emotional breakthrough.

[00:10:36] I’m not asking you to do that.

[00:10:38] I’m just asking you to start to look and see.

[00:10:41] And maybe the first step is simply being willing to look at that earlier version of yourself with a little more compassion, understanding.

[00:10:51] So let’s just do that for a moment, shall we?

[00:10:54] Think about the version of you you are still angry with.

[00:11:00] Maybe she’s 25 or 45 or the you five years ago.

[00:11:05] And perhaps you’re angry because she gained back the weight or she stopped taking care of herself or she just spent years starting and stopping and starting and stopping.

[00:11:13] And maybe there were things that she didn’t do because she kept telling herself, “I’ll do that when I lose the weight.”

[00:11:19] So just take a moment and picture her or him.

[00:11:25] And instead of asking what was wrong with me, take this on.

[00:11:32] Ask, what was she trying to accomplish? What did she believe she needed at the time?

[00:11:44] What didn’t she understand yet that I understand now?

[00:11:49] And you could go as far as to ask, if she had known what I know now, what might she have done differently?

[00:11:59] So let’s take this a little further, and just for a moment, imagine sitting next to this version of you, taking their hand in yours, and touching them tenderly on the cheek.

[00:12:14] Now see if you can say to them, “I understand you a little better now. You were trying.

[00:12:22] You didn’t have all the tools yet, and you don’t need to keep punishing you in order for us to move forward.”

[00:12:31] You may not be ready to say, “I completely forgive you,” but that’s okay.

[00:12:37] Maybe today the sentence is simply, “I’m willing to stop building the case against you and using all the evidence against you.”

[00:12:47] That’s enough for now.

[00:12:49] Because long-term weight mastery isn’t built by putting your past self on trial over and over again, hoping someday they’re gonna get it and get better, be more disciplined, have more willpower.

[00:13:07] Long-term permanent weight mastery comes from learning, learning from her, making peace with her, and becoming the person who knows how to lead herself differently now.

[00:13:20] Okay?

[00:13:22] All right, layer number two, forgiving yourself when you’ve gotten off track.

[00:13:30] So let’s come up with one layer.

[00:13:33] We are no longer talking about 30 or 40 years of resentment.

[00:13:37] We’re talking about the last few days, or maybe the last couple of weeks.

[00:13:41] You were doing really well, and then vacation happened, or your sister came to visit, or work got crazy.

[00:13:47] You stopped tracking. You stopped weighing. You stopped exercising.

[00:13:51] You said, “I’m gonna release five pounds this month,” and here we are at the end of the month, and well, those five pounds apparently didn’t receive the memo.

[00:14:02] So this is the layer where we say, “I was doing so well, and then I got off track.”

[00:14:10] And now this is where our inner critic loves to put her little prosecutor outfit on, you know, and, and look like she’s from LA Law, and she comes marching into the courtroom with her briefcase.

[00:14:21] Can just picture her. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have seen this before. Exhibit A, she stopped tracking. Exhibit B, she didn’t exercise for six days. Exhibit C, there was pizza.”

[00:14:37] And before you know it, what began as a few off-track days becomes a full-blown trial about your character.

[00:14:45] “See, you can’t be trusted. Here we go again. You always do this.”

[00:14:48] And here’s the problem.

[00:14:51] When we’re busy prosecuting ourselves, we’re not learning anything.

[00:14:55] We’re just mad, and mad is not very curious, and mad doesn’t sit down and say, “Hmm, that’s interesting. What happened here?”

[00:15:03] Mad says, “You idiot,” which as long-term weight mastery strategy is somewhat limited, ’cause this is where forgiveness becomes incredibly practical.

[00:15:15] Because forgiving yourself isn’t saying, “Who cares? I’ll just do whatever I want.”

[00:15:20] It’s saying, “Okay, this happened. I’m not gonna spend the next week punishing myself for it. Let’s get curious and find out what happened.”

[00:15:30] And this is where I want you to become what I call your inner scientist.

[00:15:35] Inner scientist doesn’t walk into the laboratory and look at the results of an experiment and scream, “You failure, how could you do this to me?”

[00:15:44] That would be a very strange scientist, don’t you think?

[00:15:47] The scientist says, “Well, huh, that didn’t go the way I expected. Let’s take a look.”

[00:15:54] And that is exactly what we want to do with ourselves.

[00:15:58] Because once we forgive ourselves enough to calm down, we can move back into the rational part of our mind.

[00:16:04] We get curious.

[00:16:05] What happened? Where did I begin to get off track? Was I tired or stressed?

[00:16:11] Did I stop planning? Was I traveling? Did I stop checking in with myself?

[00:16:18] Did one off-track meal turn into another off-track meal?

[00:16:23] Point being, we are not asking these questions to build another case against ourselves.

[00:16:29] We are asking because there’s information here, valuable information to be mined.

[00:16:34] This is gold.

[00:16:36] And when we get angry with ourselves, we miss the gold.

[00:16:39] We stop digging for the gold.

[00:16:41] We don’t even look for the gold.

[00:16:43] That’s the tragedy of self-resentment.

[00:16:46] We think beating ourselves up is gonna teach ourselves something, but very often it prevents us from learning what we need to learn.

[00:16:54] Forgiveness opens the door to curiosity, the door to learning, and once we learn something, we can do something.

[00:17:03] We can take action. We have agency.

[00:17:06] We’re no longer the victim of ourselves.

[00:17:09] So here’s the little exercise I want you to try if you’ve been off track lately.

[00:17:13] Let’s just take this step by step.

[00:17:17] First step, forgive.

[00:17:19] Say, “Okay, I got off track. I forgive myself. I’m human. Now let’s learn something.”

[00:17:25] You’re shifting your brain out of the emotional brain into the curious scientist brain, the rational brain.

[00:17:32] Nothing dramatic. No doves are being released to the sky.

[00:17:36] We’re just getting you out of the courtroom, the emotional overstimulation, and into rational thinking, into the lab, okay?

[00:17:47] Two, become the scientist.

[00:17:49] Put on the lab coat and ask, “What happened?” Not, “What’s wrong with me?”

[00:17:53] Those are two totally different questions, if you haven’t noticed.

[00:17:58] One creates shame, right?

[00:18:00] And the other creates information.

[00:18:03] So look at the last few days or weeks with as much neutrality as you can.

[00:18:09] When did things begin to shift?

[00:18:10] What was going on? What changed?

[00:18:12] What did you need that you weren’t giving yourself?

[00:18:15] That’s a good one.

[00:18:17] What could you do differently next time? Even more important, right?

[00:18:22] What could you do differently next time? Because you can change your future by getting curious in the present.

[00:18:29] Three, take one action forward.

[00:18:33] Simple. And then this is the important part, just do something.

[00:18:37] So you forgive yourself, you’ve become the scientist, and then you take your next step forward.

[00:18:46] Take one action that physically puts you back on your weight mastery journey.

[00:18:50] Maybe you sit down and set your goals for the week, or plan tomorrow’s meals, or go for a walk, or maybe you put your walking shoes by the door.

[00:19:00] It doesn’t have to be amazing and grand.

[00:19:03] You don’t have to declare, “Tomorrow I’m gonna become the healthiest human being who has ever walked the earth,” which is usually what we try to do.

[00:19:10] We all know how that movie ends.

[00:19:12] You need one simple action that says, “I’m showing up for myself, I’m reconnected to myself, and I’m back in the driver’s seat.”

[00:19:23] Because that’s what I want you to remember, forgiveness shortens the distance between getting off track and getting back on track.

[00:19:31] Without forgiveness, we can spend days, weeks, months sitting on the side of the road arguing with ourselves about how we got there.

[00:19:39] With forgiveness, we say, “Okay, wrong turn. What did I learn? Which way is the road? Let me get back on.”

[00:19:47] And we keep going. That is weight mastery.

[00:19:50] Not never getting off track, getting better and better and better at finding your way back.

[00:19:58] That’s the key. Okay?

[00:20:02] All right. Ready for layer number three?

[00:20:04] Let’s do this, the five-minute forgiveness.

[00:20:07] Now- The third layer is the smallest layer, but honestly, this is probably the one we’re gonna use the most.

[00:20:15] This is the everyday stuff.

[00:20:17] You ate something you hadn’t planned, you went over your calorie budget, you skipped your walk, you got on the scale and you saw a number you didn’t like.

[00:20:30] And this kind of forgiveness does not need to become a major emotional event.

[00:20:34] We don’t need candles, or a forgiveness retreat, or a family meeting.

[00:20:40] Sometimes we just need to take a moment, five minutes, and I’ll tell you, I had one of these moments just last week.

[00:20:48] So I was invited very last minute to the Hollywood Bowl with a friend of mine.

[00:20:54] Her boyfriend had these incredible season tickets to the pool section, which, if you’re a Hollywood Bowl person, you know is basically right there at the very front.

[00:21:05] Now, normally, when I go to the Hollywood Bowl, I’m way there up, you know, in the nosebleed section, in the bleachers.

[00:21:11] And parking is a nightmare for the Hollywood Bowl.

[00:21:15] You have to walk forever, hiking under the freeway and over the river and through the woods, and climbing ramps and escalators, and carrying your picnic basket like you’re on some sort of outdoor expedition.

[00:21:27] Honestly, it can take an hour and a half just to get there.

[00:21:31] But this night was very different. Oh my gosh.

[00:21:35] I’m laughing so hard because I almost said no to this night, ’cause I wanted just to be home and cozy and she wanted me to go out, and the Hollywood Bowl, like I said, is just was this big adventure in my mind.

[00:21:47] My friend said, “No, don’t worry about it. I’ve got a parking pass. Don’t worry about it, and I’ll, we’ll, we’ll get in and it will, it will be easy, I assure you.”

[00:21:56] And I had no idea.

[00:21:58] But anyway, we pulled up to the Hollywood Bowl, and it was like magic.

[00:22:03] All these people were waving us in, further and further in to the parking lot, literally up to the very gate, like we were extremely important people, which we are not.

[00:22:17] And she pulled up in this Toyota, like a very well-used Toyota Prius, right?

[00:22:22] A- amongst all of these incredibly fancy cars.

[00:22:26] This is LA, folks. I mean, as fancy as fancy gets.

[00:22:30] But they just treated her like she was a goddess saying, you know, “Right this way because she’s with so and so. Her boyfriend’s this, this guy.”

[00:22:39] And so we’re ushered into this amazing pool section it’s not a pool, like a swimming pool, but it’s called The Pool, and right in front of the stage.

[00:22:49] And Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra are playing this incredible tribute to John Coltrane, and it was amazing.

[00:23:00] I mean, we were so close I felt like I could reach out and play the horn myself, although I think Wynton probably would have not liked that very much.

[00:23:11] But anyway, we had brought our little picnic dinner, and then later in the evening, it was just her, I, my husband, and then her boyfriend shows up.

[00:23:22] And he is one of the most generous, larger than life people you could ever meet.

[00:23:26] He knows everyone there at the Hollywood Bowl.

[00:23:28] He’s been coming there for, like, 45 years.

[00:23:31] And he literally knows everybody by name. They all know him.

[00:23:35] And he starts he pulls out a wad of cash and starts handing 20s to all of these people.

[00:23:42] And then he says, “Bring my friends dessert.”

[00:23:44] And we’re saying, “No, no, you know, we’ve eaten. We’re fine.”

[00:23:48] He’s like, “No, no, no. Bring them dessert.”

[00:23:51] And they said, “Sir, the, the kitchen’s actually closed. We can’t.”

[00:23:54] And he’s like that, “You can’t say no to me.”

[00:23:57] So basically it was a parade of waiters come out with six desserts and arrange them all on the table and basically give us back massages.

[00:24:09] It was all very surreal.

[00:24:12] And there was chocolate cake, ice cream cake, carrot cake.

[00:24:16] And now usually I’m pretty good, as if you’ve been listening to me long enough, at saying, “No thank you,” or using my little three-bite rule, which works really well.

[00:24:25] But this was one of those moments where I thought, “Oh, you know what? I’m just gonna have a little of this, and then a little of that.”

[00:24:34] And then, hmm, maybe those three bites became, let’s just say, a number larger than three.

[00:24:42] And it was delicious and I enjoyed it.

[00:24:44] It was from one of the most amazing restaurants in LA.

[00:24:48] And then I finished the carrot cake, and I thought, “Ugh.”

[00:24:56] Not, “Oh, I was bad,” or, “I blew it.” Not that. I sh- or, like, I ruined everything, but just, like, God, I ate so much.

[00:25:05] For my body, and right now I feel really full, kinda gross, and very wobbly.

[00:25:13] So I got up and I just went to the restroom, ’cause I just needed some space.

[00:25:17] I just needed to get away from everybody, and even went and Marcel was… and I needed a breath.

[00:25:24] And often I will say to people, if you’re, you know, stuck in a restaurant or somewhere public, going to the restroom is a great place where you can just go into the bathroom stall, be by yourself, and take a breath.

[00:25:36] So that’s where I went, and this is where my five forgiveness, five minute forgiveness happened.

[00:25:41] I sat down on the toilet, very glamorous, and I said to myself.

[00:25:48] You know, I took a shift breath and I said, “Okay, I forgive myself.”

[00:25:52] And then I got real about what happened.

[00:25:56] I said, “I enjoyed the dessert,” so I said what was so.

[00:26:01] “I ate more than my body wanted.” Again, what was so.

[00:26:05] And both things can be true.

[00:26:08] And then I acknowledged exactly how I felt. “I feel full. I feel wobbly. I ate too much for my body.”

[00:26:17] And again, not I was bad, just information.

[00:26:23] And then I actually talked to my body and I said, “I’m sorry. That was a lot. I’ll take care of you. The next thing I eat is going to be something that feels nourishing, and tomorrow we’ll get right back to taking very good care of you.”

[00:26:40] And then I left the bathroom stall, I washed my hands, and as I washed my hands, I thought, “I’m just washing my hands of this. I’m just taking what I can and washing away the rest,” just like washing that man right out of my hair, right?

[00:26:54] It’s done. No courtroom, no sentencing, no three-day trial of myself.

[00:27:00] And then I walked out, and I asked myself one more question, and this is always important: What did I learn?

[00:27:09] And what I learned was very simple. The next time I’m in that situation, if I want dessert, I’ll enjoy my three bites, and I’ll stop there.

[00:27:18] And not because I need to be the good girl, not because I’m afraid that one night of dessert is gonna cause me to suddenly gain five pounds, but because I know myself, and when I eat more than that, I don’t feel good.

[00:27:32] I feel heavy, off-kilter, and I wanna take care of myself. I wanna advocate for me, and that’s a very different motivation.

[00:27:42] So I washed my hands.

[00:27:43] I walked back out, sat down in the pool with all the fancy people, and I enjoyed the rest of the beautiful evening.

[00:27:54] And that, my friends, is the third layer of forgiveness.

[00:27:58] It can be that quick. Notice, okay, what happened?

[00:28:02] Name it all. Forgive it. Forgive myself for being human. Learn.

[00:28:08] What can I learn useful here that I can carry with me without the guilt?

[00:28:13] What do I wanna do next?

[00:28:15] And that’s it, because the goal is never not to have one of these moments.

[00:28:21] The goal is to stop turning one moment into a whole story about who you are.

[00:28:26] One dessert doesn’t need to become a weekend, and one skipped exercise session doesn’t have to become a month of being off track.

[00:28:36] You forgive, you learn, you continue, and that’s what keeps you in the driver’s seat.

[00:28:41] So now I know you might be saying like, “Okay, Rita, but what if I keep forgiving myself? Aren’t I just giving myself permission to keep doing the same thing?”

[00:28:50] And I understand that because I think many of us have spent years believing that being hard on ourselves is what keeps us accountable.

[00:28:57] Our inner critic says, “If I stop beating you up, who knows what you’re gonna do? You’ll probably be completely out of control by Thursday.”

[00:29:04] She believes she’s providing a very valuable public service. But let’s look at this. If criticizing ourselves, shaming ourselves, staying mad at ourselves were the secret to long-term weight mastery, most of us would have mastered this decades ago.

[00:29:20] We have plenty of practice.

[00:29:22] Forgiveness doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter.

[00:29:24] It just means it matters enough that I am not gonna waste the next three days punishing myself for what happened yesterday.

[00:29:33] I can forgive myself and learn, I can make a different decision next time, and I can take responsibility.

[00:29:40] In fact, forgiveness may be what finally allows me to take real responsibility because I’m no longer spending all my energy defending myself from myself.

[00:29:51] And that’s what I want you to take away from our time together today.

[00:29:55] We talked about three very different layers of forgiveness.

[00:29:58] Maybe the person who needs your forgiveness today is the woman you were 30 years ago, the woman who went on that diet after diet after diet, who gained the weight back, who made the promises that she couldn’t always keep, and the woman that you have a really thick evidence folder against.

[00:30:17] Maybe today you can just close that folder.

[00:30:20] You don’t have to erase what happened.

[00:30:22] You don’t have to pretend it didn’t matter.

[00:30:24] But maybe you can just stop using it as evidence against who you can become.

[00:30:31] Or maybe the person who needs forgiveness is the you from three weeks ago.

[00:30:35] You got off track, something happened, life happens.

[00:30:39] And rather than putting yourself on trial, perhaps it’s time to put your little scientist coat on and say, “Okay, what happened? What can I learn? And what’s one thing I can do today to move myself forward?”

[00:30:53] And then go do it. Set your goals.

[00:30:55] Take the walk. Open your tracker. Plan tomorrow.

[00:31:00] Or maybe you need to forgive the person from 20 minutes ago, the one who ate the carrot cake and had seconds and skipped the walk.

[00:31:12] That can be a five-minute forgiveness.

[00:31:14] Notice it, forgive it, learn from it, and continue.

[00:31:22] Because all three of those women need the same thing from you.

[00:31:25] They need your inner coach.

[00:31:27] And here’s what I’ve learned from after all these years of maintaining my weight.

[00:31:30] I don’t forgive myself because my journey doesn’t matter.

[00:31:33] I forgive myself because it does. I don’t wanna spend another day of my life fighting with the very person I’m asking to lead me forward.

[00:31:43] You know what I mean? And neither should you.

[00:31:46] So perhaps the question to leave yourself with today isn’t, what do I need to do to forgive myself?

[00:31:52] Maybe it’s, which version of me needs forgiveness today?

[00:31:57] Find her, sit beside her, and get curious, and forgive her as much as you are able to today.

[00:32:07] And then take her hand, touch her face, give her a smile- And keep going because weight mastery was never going to require you to become perfect.

[00:32:21] It asks you to become someone you can trust to come back for yourself again and again.

[00:32:27] So keep coming back for yourself, showing up for yourself again and again.

[00:32:35] And forgiveness, my friend, is one of the ways we learn to do exactly that. Okay?

[00:32:42] So have a great week.

[00:32:46] Please, if you like what you hear, hit subscribe.

[00:32:54] And remember that the key, and probably the only key, to unlocking the door of the weight struggle is inside you.

[00:33:01] So keep listening, keep forgiving, and find it, and I will be here with you next week.

[00:33:11] If you wanna dive deeper into the mindset of long-term weight release head on over to www.shiftweightmastery.com.

[00:33:22] That’s www.shiftweightmastery.com where you will find numerous tools and resources to help you unlock your mind for permanent weight release, tips, strategies, and more.

[00:33:35] 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.