Latest / SAY GRACE | Weight Loss + Health for Overwhelmed Women- Stress, Busy, Consistency, Realistic, Motivation, Starting Over, No Restrictions / Releasing perfectionism in food, body and goals while building confidence in your day-to-day

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Releasing perfectionism in food, body and goals while building confidence in your day-to-day · SAY GRACE | Weight Loss + Health for Overwhelmed Women- Stress, Busy, Consistency, Realistic, Motivation, Starting Over, No Restrictions

• 0:40
  On today's episode, I am so excited to welcome my sweet friend, Lisa V.
• 0:46
  Lisa is a former corporate sales leader turned women's confidence coach who
• 0:51
  helps mompreneurs trust themselves, reclaim their voice, and show up boldly
• 0:57
  no matter what season of life.
• 0:59
  After walking through an eating disorder recovery, divorce, and the rebirth
• 1:04
  that came through pregnancy and motherhood, she now guides women out of perfectionism
• 1:09
  and into their most unapologetic selves.
• 1:12
  Her work blends mindset, self-expression, and emotional honesty rooted in the
• 1:18
  belief that your real unfiltered story is the thing that changes lives.
• 1:23
  When I tell y'all that she is one of a kind, you will see exactly what I mean
• 1:27
  here shortly. I have been so blessed to know her and experience her energy.
• 1:32
  And I can't wait for you to feel it too. Let's go.
• 1:36
  Welcome, Lisa. I'm so excited to have you here on the Say Grace podcast.
• 1:42
  Yes, I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to this. It's like a full circle
• 1:46
  moment for me. We'll talk about, I'm sure.
• 1:50
  Okay, y'all. So I want to talk about Lisa. I will say, so I think you guys have
• 1:56
  heard me talk before about the retreats I went on on a whim back in.
• 2:03
  The first one I went to was in January of 2025.
• 2:06
  So the beginning of this year, I had never done anything like that in my life.
• 2:10
  And Lisa was there and you were like one of the first ones to be nice to me.
• 2:16
  I feel the same way. I think it's your energy.
• 2:19
  Okay. Okay, so this is part of what I was going to talk about today is like
• 2:23
  you were so comfortable there.
• 2:26
  Was that not – had you not been there before?
• 2:29
  So that was not my first time. Okay. However, I will say –,
• 2:34
  that I get this crazy like alive energy when I'm meeting new people.
• 2:39
  My husband says I'm nuts because he is uncomfortable unless he knows me pretty well.
• 2:46
  We're completely stark opposites and there's some excitement that just like
• 2:50
  comes over me to like get to know new people.
• 2:52
  So that's my comfort zone, which I know people are like, what? But it truly is.
• 2:56
  That was so evident.
• 2:59
  Like I cannot even, y'all, okay, I think I told you guys about how Emily had
• 3:04
  us dance at the very beginning of the very first day.
• 3:08
  And I was like, what? Like I cannot.
• 3:14
  And so I'm over here like holding my breath, like barely shaking my shoulders, barely.
• 3:20
  Lisa has climbed up on a chair and is like breaking it down.
• 3:25
  And you'll understand. You'll understand why i'm sure as we talk more but i
• 3:29
  was just like is this where i need to be i forgot about that i'm so glad you brought up the chair,
• 3:37
  But it was good energy. And I will say, as uncomfortable as I was at the beginning
• 3:42
  of all that, like she knew what she was doing with all that, you know.
• 3:46
  So at the end, I was dancing a little.
• 3:49
  Say that again? She brings the right people together, too.
• 3:52
  I think there's like, we'll talk about it, but there's such a safety in that
• 3:57
  type of like community energy, like-minded energy. Yeah. Yeah,
• 4:01
  that's right. That's right.
• 4:02
  So this is how I met Lisa was in January. And then we came back together in
• 4:08
  July and we were a part of this, of the same event, but a different group of people, right?
• 4:14
  There were several of us that came back, but there were several new people.
• 4:18
  Are you going in January?
• 4:20
  No. Okay. I don't know. I have not booked yet. I don't know.
• 4:24
  I actually from the July retreat decided to host my own retreat.
• 4:30
  Amazing. Yes, do you know, a sweet friend that I had just met was like,
• 4:35
  She really spoke it over me. She was like, you need to do this.
• 4:38
  And I was like, okay, I've been thinking about it. And so that was really like
• 4:42
  what pushed me over the ledge. So anyway, my retreat is the next week.
• 4:46
  And so I'm just like, can I leave my husband two weeks?
• 4:50
  Yeah, I have an opportunity to vacation with my family.
• 4:54
  And one of the big things that I walked away from that retreat that I was on
• 4:57
  with you was setting those intentional boundaries between the business and my family time.
• 5:03
  And so we've had a discussion and she's all on board with me making that decision.
• 5:10
  I love that for you. Where are y'all going to go? We vacation in Naples,
• 5:14
  Florida, and we escape the winter and it's our thing.
• 5:17
  And the dates just, you know, don't line up. So it's all good.
• 5:22
  Do you know, so we just got back. I told you we went to, we went to,
• 5:26
  took my daughter on her 10th birthday to Disneyland and Yosemite.
• 5:30
  So it was like a whole week of just chaos. But it was the first time in four
• 5:36
  years that I traveled without my laptop.
• 5:40
  So proud of you. Well, I'm proud of me too. But I mean, Jess and I went to Tulum
• 5:44
  for our anniversary in June and I took my freaking laptop.
• 5:48
  You know what I mean? Like, and so just the progress of that,
• 5:53
  even for me since January has been so big as far as saying like,
• 5:57
  okay, it's so fun at first, right?
• 6:00
  Like when you first start your business, it's so fun to be all in and all consumed and,
• 6:05
  golly, then that same exact energy can be what sucks you under and burns you out.
• 6:11
  And so my kids were like, mama didn't bring her computer. And I was like, this is ridiculous.
• 6:16
  I have to do this more often, you know.
• 6:19
  Yeah, my three and a half year old recently said to me after dinner, mama, are you coaching?
• 6:26
  I don't even know how he knew that I'm a coach. But for him to recognize that
• 6:31
  mom's on her computer after dinner time and must be coaching,
• 6:34
  I shut it immediately and was like, that is it.
• 6:37
  With the evening stuff, it's not necessary.
• 6:41
  Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard to do. I'm so proud of you for making that decision
• 6:44
  because I know you're going to feel like you're missing out,
• 6:47
  you know? Yeah, I'm a big FOMO girl.
• 6:51
  Okay, so let's talk about the business because I feel like I got to witness
• 6:56
  in January a big epiphany for you with the business, which was so beautiful.
• 7:01
  But like people right now have no idea what you do, how you do it. So let's talk about it.
• 7:06
  Yeah, I mean, to simplify it down, I am what I call a corporate dropout.
• 7:11
  And so I spent years and years in high pressure sales.
• 7:16
  And I basically burned my life down in the most beautiful way and rebuilt.
• 7:21
  And I'm sure we're going to get to that. But in my rebuild, I just knew that
• 7:26
  I wanted to do something fulfilling and I wanted it to be my own.
• 7:29
  So the bread and butter of what I do in the core of my mission is to really
• 7:34
  help women find their voice within their own businesses and within their own lives.
• 7:39
  So mompreneurs, birth workers, I do a ton of work with doulas. I'm a doula myself.
• 7:45
  And I just love bringing women's unique gifts to the forefront.
• 7:51
  And that includes their vulnerabilities and their past.
• 7:55
  And I essentially help women get comfortable and confident selling their incredible
• 8:02
  services and products and just getting the word out about who they are and their personal brand.
• 8:08
  And I try to lead by example.
• 8:11
  So really, it's I work with women who are looking to put themselves out there
• 8:17
  and stop apologizing for who they are.
• 8:19
  That's really everything in a nutshell. I love that.
• 8:23
  But okay, because I think you and I both know, you know, just even over the
• 8:29
  past several years in business, you know.
• 8:31
  You can't just put on the internet, like, this is what I offer anymore.
• 8:37
  Like, people are glazing over that. They have to, more and more am I getting
• 8:41
  like clients that are like, I've listened to the podcast for six months.
• 8:45
  I've followed you on Instagram for a year before they buy, right?
• 8:50
  And it's because they need to know you. They need to feel like they know you.
• 8:54
  And I'm the same way. I'm not going to buy from somebody that I don't know, you know?
• 8:57
  And it's because the internet is so saturated.
• 9:00
  It's because people have gotten burned by liars and manipulators, you know, online.
• 9:05
  And so now more than ever, especially with like AI coming online and,
• 9:12
  you know, so much automatically generated information out there,
• 9:16
  it's more important now than ever for people to feel like they know you.
• 9:21
  And to know you, you have to know who you are, right?
• 9:24
  You have to, And then you have to be willing to be vulnerable in that and share it with the world.
• 9:29
  And girl, that is scary. Can we just talk about it?
• 9:33
  Terrifying. I mean, yes, so terrifying.
• 9:36
  So, okay. So in January, you decided what the big pivot.
• 9:42
  I don't want to say it. So you say it. You will explain it better than I will.
• 9:47
  In January, I feel like you had just this big epiphany. What was it?
• 9:52
  Well, it's funny because to be fully transparent, which is my jam,
• 9:56
  even when it's so uncomfortable, I had a big epiphany in January and I have
• 10:00
  had another epiphany since January. Okay.
• 10:04
  The funny thing about all of this, like I'll call it rebranding and shifting,
• 10:10
  and I've been joking that it's more of like a ping pong, is that,
• 10:14
  So much of my life, I wanted to look put together and refined and like I had
• 10:21
  everything under control.
• 10:23
  And so to be able to come out and say in January, I shifted my niche from working
• 10:29
  with doulas to working with women entrepreneurs in general.
• 10:33
  Right. Then I had like an identity crisis between January and July.
• 10:39
  And I had another big shift where I said, actually, if I'm being really honest
• 10:44
  with myself, I'm lying to myself if I believe that broadening my niche is the answer.
• 10:52
  And so I have actually gone back home to really,
• 10:59
  really speaking directly to doulas and mompreneurs who are building businesses
• 11:07
  with babies on their laps,
• 11:08
  who are thinking about having additional children or who are finding themselves
• 11:14
  postpartum or are done having kids but really lost themselves in that whole transition.
• 11:22
  And so I've narrowed back down. And from the outside looking in,
• 11:27
  it probably looked like a messy disaster.
• 11:29
  But my business has doubled.
• 11:32
  And I think it's because I had to get really super honest with myself of like,
• 11:37
  why are you doing the thing?
• 11:38
  And I was doing the thing because I had external noise telling me that I was playing small.
• 11:44
  But I also had self-limiting beliefs going on.
• 11:49
  And I've recognized that that That's actually all bullshit and that the only
• 11:53
  truth that I have is my truth.
• 11:56
  Yeah. Yeah. So I love this. I have been. I've ping ponged.
• 12:00
  No, I love it, Lisa. I have been right where you are. And like, I have not.
• 12:06
  If you're close to me, you know how heavy this has been for me.
• 12:10
  But I've done this exact same thing where I've been really niched down to weight loss.
• 12:14
  And then I've thought, actually, I feel like I'm more of a life coach, right?
• 12:19
  Because we touch on everything. And you can ask my up-level clients,
• 12:23
  my PFM Plus clients. They're like, girl, we talk about all the things up in here.
• 12:27
  And so then it caused me to second-guess myself because I'm like,
• 12:31
  maybe I should be broadening this and not be so weight loss focused and advertise
• 12:37
  differently and open it up.
• 12:39
  And then I had to come back and say, no, but weight loss is my jam.
• 12:43
  Like, yes, I offer all the other things.
• 12:46
  And if you've listened to more than one episode of this podcast,
• 12:49
  you know that we don't just talk about, you know, how to lose a pound this week.
• 12:52
  Like we talk about all the things that play into the weight loss.
• 12:55
  And so while, you know, I'm sure you felt like you had a lot to offer additionally,
• 13:01
  you know where your strength is.
• 13:04
  You know where it comes easiest, right? And that's people gravitate towards
• 13:10
  what is rolling off of you naturally.
• 13:13
  And so I'm so proud of you for that. And like in the reason this is so funny,
• 13:20
  it's not funny. You're probably gonna be like, what the heck?
• 13:22
  No. But in that room, when you said, I feel like I'm so frustrated with myself
• 13:29
  for maybe not speaking up about it.
• 13:31
  But in that room, when you said,
• 13:32
  I feel like, you know, I need to broaden who I talk to. I thought, no.
• 13:39
  Yeah, that was a lesson I had to learn the hard way on my own.
• 13:42
  Right. But again, because I'm like, I don't know the doula world.
• 13:46
  So I'm like, maybe it's small. Maybe she feels like she needs, you know, I don't know.
• 13:50
  I had no authority to, you know, come at you with any kind of,
• 13:55
  quote, wisdom in that moment. And so I'm super proud of you for that,
• 13:59
  you know, just coming back to you. And that's what it's all about is.
• 14:02
  And there's, I think that it's also strengthened the work that I do with my
• 14:07
  clients, because Because niching is such an important piece of having magnetic
• 14:13
  marketing and what I call soulful sales.
• 14:16
  And so many birth workers, all these perinatal professionals,
• 14:21
  anybody that is working with moms and babies, it is like heart-led work.
• 14:28
  And there is a different skill set and there is a different underlying mission
• 14:34
  under that. And I think I also had to own some things that I believe in my soul.
• 14:41
  For example, this is going to sound funny, but it's like, I don't want to work
• 14:45
  with women in corporate suits who put on like a full face of makeup and have
• 14:52
  like to put on a persona to walk through the doors of work.
• 14:55
  I've been there. I hated it. It sucked my soul.
• 14:59
  So I prefer to show up like I am right now in like the most comfortable attire.
• 15:04
  Maybe a baby on my boob in the future and like that be acceptable because at the end of the day.
• 15:10
  And I think this all ties back to my recovery. Everything does, always.
• 15:15
  It's like I wish that we could almost float around the world as blobs and that
• 15:20
  the only thing that people would actually see is like your personality and your
• 15:24
  vibrance and not like the color of our hair or the size of our pants or like all the things.
• 15:30
  And so it's like if you can't sell from that crazy authentic place,
• 15:34
  then you are actually masking something along the way.
• 15:37
  And to me, that's inauthentic. So coming home has really amplified my mission
• 15:43
  in this crazy, indirect, mind-blown way where you're like, of course,
• 15:48
  of course I'm meant to be here.
• 15:51
  And sometimes it just takes the
• 15:53
  time to, you know, like you needed that period of time to figure it out.
• 15:58
  And just hear me like, I have changed my name. I have changed my business name so many times.
• 16:03
  I mean, like there is nothing to be like feeling a type of way about,
• 16:08
  you know, about yourself. Because like that is part of the process.
• 16:11
  Like think about Emily, who we met through. Like how many times has she changed
• 16:14
  her program name, you know?
• 16:16
  That's a great point. We forget. Yeah. Like once people hit a certain level,
• 16:21
  we look at the past and say, yeah, that makes total sense.
• 16:25
  But then when we're looking at our own process and journey.
• 16:29
  You feel like it's so magnified and it's not. It's not at all.
• 16:32
  And like I think that can be said across the board for everyone,
• 16:35
  not just entrepreneurs, like in our day-to-day lives, right?
• 16:38
  Like women can get so caught up in thinking that all eyes are on them when really
• 16:43
  everybody's just focused on themselves, you know? 100%.
• 16:47
  100%. Okay, so you mentioned your recovery. And so I do, I think this is a great
• 16:51
  way to kind of lead into that because you said you burned your life down and
• 16:56
  built it back up. And that is such truth.
• 16:59
  So I want to dive even more into this and kind of talk about where did it all begin?
• 17:05
  Yeah, so I don't get to answer this question that often. So I'm just going to speak from the heart.
• 17:10
  If I really dial it back, I mean, I've been in dance since I was three years
• 17:16
  old, since I was literally potty trained.
• 17:19
  And then I pretty quickly, you know, fell in love with that art,
• 17:24
  like where it became my whole life and my whole identity.
• 17:27
  And so I would say right around that like puberty time where bodies start to
• 17:34
  change for women, I started to kind of compare myself to other dancers,
• 17:40
  specifically like the best, most elite dancers, because that's what I wanted to be.
• 17:45
  And I think that the environment that I was in,
• 17:50
  was also something that at the time I didn't recognize. But now looking back,
• 17:54
  I mean, I literally every single day after school would walk in a dance class
• 17:57
  and stand in front of a mirror.
• 18:00
  And, you know, at the time we were required to wear tights and leotards and
• 18:04
  things that showed all of the lines, but also all of the imperfections.
• 18:09
  And I quickly realized that like I had a different body type than a lot of the more elite dancers.
• 18:17
  And now that is something I embrace and it is something I use to my advantage
• 18:23
  in dance, but at the time, you know, felt like I was at a disadvantage.
• 18:27
  And simultaneously, and I don't love talking about this, but that's part of
• 18:32
  my story, is that my mother was into every fad diet under the sun.
• 18:39
  Girl, you are telling half of my lady's stories right now.
• 18:42
  Yeah. And the thing is, like, I adore my mother. I look up to her.
• 18:47
  She's the most powerful woman I know.
• 18:49
  Basically invented the hashtag no filter before it was a hashtag.
• 18:54
  And all the fire and all of the confidence and everything that is who I am comes
• 19:00
  from her. So I want to honor her in the most incredible way.
• 19:03
  But I can't possibly look
• 19:06
  back at my story and not recognize that
• 19:09
  I was looking up to her the way I always
• 19:12
  did and always do and not wanting to
• 19:15
  also be in control of every single thing that went
• 19:17
  into my mouth and and and
• 19:20
  emulate that essentially so between I mean I can
• 19:23
  actually remember being like I think 13 and going
• 19:26
  to wait like begging my mom to go to Weight Watchers meetings with
• 19:30
  her and weigh in with her yeah yeah because then you had to show up in your
• 19:34
  leotard and so you you were making the connection for sure yeah and perfectionism
• 19:41
  is something that I I say I'm I'm recovering perfectionist and I've I've even like.
• 19:49
  I'm all over the place here, but I do think it all connects.
• 19:52
  I definitely like have done a ton of research over the years and recognize that
• 19:58
  when we are incredibly restrictive,
• 20:01
  that the body actually fights against that.
• 20:05
  And so like the physiology doesn't even want you to be that kind of restrictive the way that I was.
• 20:12
  And I still had success with it. So I remember recognizing maybe a decade ago,
• 20:20
  holy crap, like the 2% or whatever the crazy low number is of women who actually
• 20:25
  can sustain the type of restriction that I was doing, I was that 2%.
• 20:30
  And for years, I was so proud of that fact until I realized that that is not
• 20:37
  something to be proud of. And it's not how you were designed.
• 20:40
  It's not how your body was designed. 100%. So I think that between...
• 20:46
  Dance and just the importance
• 20:49
  put on the body between watching my
• 20:52
  mom plus my dad has four sisters who still
• 20:55
  to this day are always on the latest fad diet so
• 20:58
  it was also talked about at family settings
• 21:01
  on the regular and then and
• 21:04
  then just some other pieces to that puzzle where like I
• 21:07
  went to an all-girls high school which was great for
• 21:10
  me but we wore uniforms which was
• 21:13
  also great in its own way but it was like
• 21:16
  everybody wore the exact same thing which
• 21:19
  really amplified like the variations of different
• 21:22
  body types and different shapes and sizes and there was just this this struggle
• 21:28
  that I had every single day when I would wake up look in the mirror and not
• 21:32
  like what I was seeing and then see your outfit on bodies that you wish you had had yeah any tiny
• 21:40
  like petite little bodies, which I know now,
• 21:43
  that is like genetics and science.
• 21:46
  And that is not something that we have all the control over.
• 21:51
  Like there are things at play that we need to honor and embrace and love.
• 21:56
  And yeah, so I think this is something that just snowballed for me.
• 22:01
  And as I got better at dance, and as I found myself in more like audition settings
• 22:07
  and more performance opportunities, I started to spin a story that as I got better at my craft,
• 22:15
  I also had to have like the more perfect ideal body that you see in a magazine that accounts for what,
• 22:21
  like 0.0001% of the population.
• 22:25
  But I wanted that and I was willing to do anything to get there.
• 22:28
  And so I would say my eating disorder had morphed from...
• 22:34
  I would say, like, bordering anorexia, but then when it was at its peak,
• 22:39
  absolutely binge eating disorder, which I, one thing that I thought was always
• 22:44
  interesting about my story was I didn't know that that's what it was called for years.
• 22:49
  So I had binge, practicing binge habits, but it wasn't until,
• 22:55
  like, a therapist actually, like.
• 22:57
  So what do you think? It was just a moment of weakness? Would you,
• 23:00
  like, what made you, yeah.
• 23:02
  Absolutely. It was literally like you lost your strength in this moment and
• 23:08
  it was a complete, I was so unaware of what was underlying all of it.
• 23:14
  I was so unaware and unwilling to look at the cycle, like unwilling to analyze the data.
• 23:24
  Having a complete like you know fog when
• 23:28
  it came to the patterns what might
• 23:31
  trigger it when it was happening during the day which was
• 23:34
  always in the evening the things that
• 23:37
  I would gravitate toward when I would sit down and
• 23:40
  binge and it took years and years and years of understanding that it was because
• 23:44
  I was in complete starvation not to mention I went to college for dance and
• 23:49
  I would probably say that I was training five hours a day and then I would have
• 23:55
  like at least two hours of rehearsal in the evening every single day.
• 24:00
  So I was in a complete deficit while also burning an insane number of calories.
• 24:07
  Do you think it also had like,
• 24:11
  Do you think there were some mental and emotional struggles there, too?
• 24:15
  Like, did you notice, like, when there was less control of every other thing
• 24:18
  around you that the binges were more often? 100%.
• 24:24
  Breakup, binge every single day,
• 24:26
  right? You know, didn't get a part that I auditioned for, total spiral.
• 24:33
  Missed my family because I went away to school, out of town,
• 24:36
  and I'm a total homebody.
• 24:39
  Binge. and it was, it got out of control.
• 24:43
  I think, I just, I want to, I want to stop you here if you don't mind for just a minute.
• 24:49
  So first of all, if you guys go to Lisa's profile and you see Lisa,
• 24:54
  you're going to see she is the petite girl that she is talking about, you know, right?
• 24:59
  And so this is, I want to point that out because I think, you know,
• 25:03
  it just, it helps you visualize and understand.
• 25:06
  And so with that being said, And we have women that are listening right now
• 25:13
  that feel exactly the things you described, right?
• 25:16
  And it's wild because they think, gosh, if I could just get to her size,
• 25:22
  if I could just, you know, whatever, be that small, whatever,
• 25:25
  then all my problems would go away.
• 25:27
  And so here we are talking about a tiny dancer who still was struggling with
• 25:34
  all these, you know, binge tendencies and, you know, body image issues.
• 25:40
  And so it just goes to show that like no body size, no ability,
• 25:46
  like you were away at college to dance. Like that in itself is a huge accomplishment.
• 25:51
  So many girls would have killed for that opportunity, right?
• 25:54
  And yet still that couldn't be enough to stop what was happening internally.
• 26:00
  And so I think a lot of women miss it. They miss that.
• 26:06
  The binging doesn't just happen because you don't have enough willpower.
• 26:10
  Like there, it's not just, there's something wrong with Lisa.
• 26:13
  She didn't have enough willpower today.
• 26:15
  There's so much more deep rooted that goes along with it.
• 26:19
  And I love how you talked about like two different things, right?
• 26:21
  Like the lack of control and the emotional aspect that goes with that.
• 26:25
  So anything that spun off the rails for you, and now we're adults,
• 26:28
  like it wouldn't be your breakup that would send you there, but it could easily
• 26:32
  be a fight with your husband, right? We have, I see that a lot.
• 26:36
  That could send you into a binge. And so a lot of that emotional stuff that
• 26:40
  we as adult women still deal with, but also you mentioned being in such a deficit.
• 26:46
  And so we see this a lot with women that come to us and want to lose weight.
• 26:50
  And they're like, okay, I'm just not gonna eat breakfast. I'm gonna have a smoothie for lunch.
• 26:55
  You know, I'm gonna have a handful of nuts for snack.
• 26:58
  And then they eat the house down at 9 p.m. and they don't understand why.
• 27:03
  And you just explained it perfectly where your body can't handle that.
• 27:08
  It needs you to eat, right? Like we were put here to eat so our body can sustain itself.
• 27:15
  And so anyway, I just, I wanted to make that parallel for those of you listening
• 27:19
  and those of you who may like see Lisa.
• 27:22
  It is not one body type, one shape, one struggle that deals with this.
• 27:28
  People all across the board deal with this, right?
• 27:32
  And so if Lisa can be in recovery, so can you. Okay, so anyway, continue.
• 27:37
  It's so important. And I think that part of the reason I struggled so much to
• 27:42
  talk about my story, my recovery,
• 27:45
  was that exact fact because there is a shame in recognizing that now,
• 27:53
  now that I'm able to see that there are,
• 27:56
  you know, there's health at every size.
• 27:58
  And that was just completely, I had blinders to that entire concept for so, so long. And I think.
• 28:06
  I think that we should talk on the control piece because I think this is what resonates so often.
• 28:11
  And the reason I know is because I have opened up about my story online,
• 28:17
  which was absolutely terrifying.
• 28:19
  Still is. I think I posted something yesterday and it was still scary to hit
• 28:23
  send. And then the DMs start coming in in the comments.
• 28:27
  Oh, wow. I see myself in your story. Thank you for putting words to my pain.
• 28:31
  And then it just makes it worth it. But I think I really believed if I could
• 28:37
  just control everything, so my food, the way my body looked, my emotions,
• 28:42
  my success, like how people even saw me, then I would finally feel okay.
• 28:47
  I would finally feel safe in my own thought. You'd find the pace you're seeking, yeah.
• 28:51
  Exactly. And then I also had this thought that discipline was what made me strong
• 28:57
  as a human and that perfection was what protected me.
• 29:03
  Even though it really was the thing that like nearly destroyed me and so so
• 29:08
  I lived in a cycle of like restriction binging that,
• 29:12
  The shame of it all and then starting over and then trying to overcorrect and
• 29:17
  trying to have perfect, quote, habits.
• 29:21
  And people didn't know on the outside because I had done such a great job putting
• 29:26
  on this persona of like, I've got it all together. I'm in control. I'm good.
• 29:31
  And and yeah, I think that all of that led to just an epiphany that I had when I when I got pregnant.
• 29:39
  But I want to make sure that if there's anything else that we need to talk about
• 29:42
  before we get to that kind of like milestone, you know, that we that we dive into it.
• 29:47
  No, yeah, I think I just I think this is so beautiful because it is it can be
• 29:54
  anybody's story, right?
• 29:55
  Like yours happened a little younger than but there are women right now who
• 30:01
  are like running a full time career,
• 30:03
  coming home, trying to be everything for their children, trying to keep a perfect
• 30:08
  home, trying to eat their protein, you know, trying to do all the things.
• 30:12
  And like, while it may not look like a full-blown eating disorder,
• 30:16
  you know, control is consuming women.
• 30:22
  And the outcome is different for everyone.
• 30:27
  But no matter what the outcome looks like, there is no peace.
• 30:31
  Women are spinning out of control all the time. I don't know,
• 30:36
  I guess it's just my profession.
• 30:38
  But like, I get the grunt of that. I get the aftermath.
• 30:42
  I get the word vomit, you know, from them when they are at their absolute peak.
• 30:47
  And it's like, because we have been sold through whatever it is,
• 30:52
  right? Like you were sold probably through like.
• 30:54
  Dance culture, and maybe even some of what you went through watching your mom
• 30:59
  or whatever, you were sold this idea that we could be perfect.
• 31:03
  And so you were just faking it until you made it internally, right?
• 31:09
  And the deal is, is we just can't. We're just not going to be able to do it
• 31:13
  all. I'm so proud of myself.
• 31:14
  Thanksgiving is in two days. And my sweet husband went to the store to get us.
• 31:19
  We're hosting at our house.
• 31:20
  So he went to get us plates, like paper plates for you know, Thanksgiving plates.
• 31:25
  And I said, get napkins that match. And he was like, he texted me,
• 31:28
  he was like, there are no napkins here. What do I do?
• 31:30
  And I was like, I guess we'll just use paper towels.
• 31:33
  And like the level it took me to be okay with that, that like paper towels might
• 31:39
  be in the photos instead of cute Thanksgiving napkins.
• 31:43
  You know, it's little stuff like that, that we as women can't let go of,
• 31:48
  but it's also the things that make us, you know, eventually explode. You know what I mean?
• 31:53
  So anyway, I think, again, I think so many women can hear themselves in your
• 31:58
  story just with how things parallel that way.
• 32:03
  But yeah, let's, okay, so epiphany, pregnant, let's go. Yeah.
• 32:08
  And then I also wanted to really quick mention, you said how all-consuming it
• 32:12
  is, and I cannot tell you the breakthroughs I've had on that front.
• 32:18
  I believe that my entire business would not be here if I was still in the deep
• 32:24
  trenches of this disordered eating because it took up so much of my bandwidth,
• 32:29
  so much of my brain power, so much of my mental capacity that there is no way
• 32:36
  that I would have the life that I have now if I was still. in that cycle.
• 32:40
  And there's this surrender that has to happen. And I think that's where pregnancy
• 32:45
  really like cracked something open in a way nothing else had.
• 32:50
  I remember finding out I was pregnant with my rainbow baby and really turning
• 32:57
  to God and saying, God, I have no idea how I'm going to fight this battle,
• 33:02
  but this is it. This is the time.
• 33:04
  Like, all the things
• 33:07
  I had tried in the past like I had been going to therapy regularly
• 33:10
  I had been in binge eating to support
• 33:13
  groups like I had taken initiative to get this under
• 33:16
  control but nothing worked nothing worked on a level of where I was making real
• 33:21
  practice and strides and it came to a head when my therapist who I'm still with
• 33:27
  today said I think that we need to get you in an outpatient facility and I Bye.
• 33:34
  I was in shock. I was like, you didn't think you were that bad.
• 33:38
  Oh, I was like, what is she talking about?
• 33:42
  Yeah. And, and, and it really, really started to sink in.
• 33:48
  I think when this professional who had known me for a decade was saying,
• 33:52
  you need a program, you need professional help.
• 33:56
  And, and so I find out that I'm pregnant.
• 33:59
  I turned to God and basically I was
• 34:02
  just getting these like messages from from God
• 34:05
  that was like you need to get painfully honest and this
• 34:09
  was like a recurring theme in my life so if
• 34:12
  we back up even just a couple of years I left
• 34:16
  my soul-sucking corporate job where by the
• 34:19
  way I was selling laser fat removal every single
• 34:23
  day okay and I'm talking like
• 34:26
  i'm talking like 250
• 34:30
  000 worth of laser
• 34:33
  fat removal per year like i was crushing it in the corporate space but i i was
• 34:39
  like losing a piece of myself every time somebody would would would purchase
• 34:44
  this this fail safe and i knew deep down that what wasn't getting fixed was
• 34:50
  what the underlying emotion. Yes. Yes, girl.
• 34:53
  So I had to get painfully honest about the way that I was treating myself and
• 34:57
  like abandoning myself.
• 34:59
  And I, I basically. There is something to be said about this. Yeah.
• 35:04
  Like when you are work, when you are doing something day in and day out and
• 35:08
  you're trying to disassociate yourself from the very thing that it,
• 35:13
  that you do not align with and And you were steadily showing up for it day in and day out.
• 35:19
  The two cannot exist. Like you cannot...
• 35:22
  And overcome whatever it is, whatever the battles are, while also looking,
• 35:27
  like turning a blind eye, looking the other way on the habits,
• 35:31
  the behaviors, the job, the paycheck.
• 35:35
  Whatever it is, you know, like you cannot have both.
• 35:38
  Oh, this is good. Okay, keep going. And talk about an identity crisis because
• 35:43
  like my corporate prestige was who I was, right?
• 35:48
  My body image was who I was, right? My dance, my name in my dance community was who I was.
• 35:56
  These were things that like if I recovered, I would essentially lose,
• 36:01
  right? If I fully recovered.
• 36:03
  And so literally in the same day, I quit my job. I asked my husband at the time for a divorce.
• 36:11
  I didn't know it was the same day. Yeah.
• 36:15
  Day. And I basically, you know, just decided I'm going to turn,
• 36:21
  I'm going to go back to who I was before I wasn't able to, you know,
• 36:28
  show up at Thanksgiving dinner.
• 36:29
  At the end of that day, what did it feel like?
• 36:33
  It was like the biggest relief I'd ever experienced.
• 36:39
  I was like,
• 36:41
  The weight that was lifted, it's like this proverbial weight.
• 36:45
  And the funny thing about it is the heaviness.
• 36:48
  It was like the weight that I had been working so hard to shed for so many years was gone.
• 36:56
  Immediately. Because the husband, he fed into a lot of these lies you told yourself.
• 37:02
  He was not a great, a great person to be married to, correct?
• 37:06
  Would literally like ask me to change my outfit before we left the house because
• 37:11
  like it wasn't up to his standards, you know, things that just make it hard
• 37:15
  for me to even say out loud these days.
• 37:17
  Because if you met Lisa today, you would be like, wait a minute,
• 37:21
  you let a man tell you what to do.
• 37:26
  And and so it is it is, again, it's an identity thing that I had to get painfully honest about.
• 37:32
  And, you know, now if we were to fast forward,
• 37:35
  I meet my soulmate who not only embraces all of my quirks and struggles and
• 37:44
  flaws, but also like amplifies every strength that I have and in the most beautiful way.
• 37:49
  And and so we get married. We have the you know, the whole beautiful relationship.
• 37:56
  Over the rainbow, you know, redemption story, lease on life.
• 38:01
  And, and then I get pregnant with my rainbow baby and we, and we go in on this together.
• 38:08
  I, you know, I had to sit down with, with this man who I loved,
• 38:12
  who I had never honestly told how bad this eating problem was.
• 38:18
  And I had to sit down and admit the truth of it all.
• 38:22
  And that was really intense. It took me weeks to kind of like get the courage
• 38:26
  to sit down and say, this is a real issue.
• 38:31
  And, you know, he had awareness to a degree, but I did such an incredible job.
• 38:37
  Like at this point, I had 30 years under my belt of pulling the wool over people
• 38:42
  in my life who I loved eyes.
• 38:44
  And so I was able to really,
• 38:48
  convince him that what I was doing was in the in the name
• 38:51
  of health right but when he when I
• 38:54
  was honest with him I again I cannot tell you
• 38:57
  like the shedding of the weight of like
• 39:00
  now I don't have to keep a secret from my person right who
• 39:04
  who by the way surprise surprise still loves me unconditionally even after learning
• 39:09
  all of that nothing changed and so it became with his support it became an undoing
• 39:18
  of all the restriction that I had gotten to be so comfortable with.
• 39:23
  And I, you know, I'm trying to think like, I remember it was December 15th.
• 39:29
  I remember the date that I made the decision.
• 39:31
  Like I like woke up and I said to God, like today's the day that I am going
• 39:35
  to start like unwinding this net that I've like gotten myself tangled in.
• 39:42
  And it just started with changing the relationship I had with food.
• 39:47
  So were you pregnant when that was happening?
• 39:51
  Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's also painful to talk about because at
• 39:57
  the end of the day, I would say that my binge eating disorder,
• 40:02
  sneaky, sneaky, sneaky, morphed into orthorexia.
• 40:06
  And I didn't recognize it. So there was this, oh, I have like chills because
• 40:11
  I remember I'm talking to the same therapist who's been through all of this
• 40:15
  with me and I'm on, I'm on a walk and.
• 40:20
  With her in my headphones and I'm and
• 40:23
  I'm power walking and she's like what are you
• 40:26
  what are you doing right now and I was and I told her like I'm on my
• 40:29
  walk or whatever and and she starts asking me
• 40:31
  questions and it like 10 questions and I started recognizing
• 40:35
  that like she was trying to figure something out and and
• 40:39
  I and we started to quickly like recognize that
• 40:43
  I couldn't even have a therapy appointment
• 40:46
  without exercising simultaneously because
• 40:50
  because who sitting is not
• 40:53
  okay right like we're not burning calories if we're sitting right and
• 40:56
  she writes the time baby yeah and she so
• 40:59
  she started to like help me understand that things
• 41:02
  were starting to morph to an orthorexia and for people that don't know what
• 41:07
  that is because I didn't know what that is and you could probably speak better
• 41:10
  to this Constance than I can but essentially it is like becoming obsessed with
• 41:14
  clean eating to a point where everything has a good or bad label.
• 41:21
  And I was actually at this point in my pregnancy, I was like animal based.
• 41:28
  So I was only eating lean meats and fruit. I wasn't allowing myself vegetables.
• 41:35
  I wasn't allowing myself carbohydrates. I wasn't allowing myself anything aside
• 41:40
  from meat and fruit and like a tablespoon of honey.
• 41:45
  And at that point, you thought you were recovering. I was convinced I was recovering.
• 41:53
  And I think it's because in my brain, I did this game where I was like,
• 41:57
  well, I can fill my plate with tons of like beef and chicken and like two pounds
• 42:04
  of fruit. Wonder why my stomach was a disaster.
• 42:07
  And I can walk away from that meal feeling full for the first time in years.
• 42:12
  Yeah. And so there was this shift of like, well, I'm not depriving myself. Yeah.
• 42:18
  So there is some serious power that the brain can have over us.
• 42:24
  For sure. But also that was progress, right? Like sometimes we think,
• 42:29
  oh, to be healed, we go from zero to 100.
• 42:32
  And like, no, girl, you were at like five, but at least you weren't at zero anymore.
• 42:37
  Right. And like that is such an example of our journeys across the board with anything.
• 42:42
  It's like it can't you cannot be fully you're still probably in recovery still, you know.
• 42:48
  Moving up the ladder, you know, but I think it's so funny to be able to look
• 42:54
  back, though, and be like, and I thought I was doing so good, you know.
• 42:57
  Yeah, I appreciate you honoring that because I do think that because I hold
• 43:05
  pregnancy and birth and postpartum in such a sacred space, it is very,
• 43:09
  very difficult for me to look back on that and say I was essentially depriving
• 43:15
  myself of certain things at that time, but I thought I was doing what was best for my baby.
• 43:21
  I thought that I was, you know, doing all the right things. And yeah.
• 43:25
  You know, I would say that the biggest jump that I made in my recovery came postpartum. Okay.
• 43:33
  And doesn't motherhood do that for us? Girl. So many ways.
• 43:38
  It highlighted every lie that I was still telling myself.
• 43:43
  And at the end of the day, I'm so grateful for the shifts that happened once
• 43:52
  I surrendered to motherhood and said, now this isn't just about me.
• 43:57
  This is about my son. And the mantra that I told myself on a regular basis was,
• 44:03
  I do not want him to grow up watching me have habits that don't honor myself
• 44:08
  and that doesn't emulate self-love and self-confidence and grace and humanity.
• 44:16
  And like you just said, it's not linear. And I want him to understand it's okay to have a messy middle.
• 44:23
  And that has been my mantra since then. And I've made incredible strides.
• 44:28
  We're a couple days from Thanksgiving, so by the time this airs,
• 44:32
  that will come and have gone.
• 44:33
  But I used to actually come up with excuses to not show up at holiday dinner,
• 44:39
  or I would hide my own Tupperware with whatever diet food I had,
• 44:45
  and then I would go sneak and eat that in the bathroom and then come out because
• 44:49
  I couldn't even enjoy a holiday meal. And now I look forward to...
• 44:54
  To that experience. I look forward to the yummy food. I look forward to the laughter.
• 44:58
  I look forward to the fact that I'm not going to hate myself that evening or the next day.
• 45:04
  It's a complete change.
• 45:07
  Girl, do you know how powerful that is?
• 45:09
  I mean, that is like, that brings tears to my eyes because it's not just about
• 45:14
  like the food and the healing and the body and all the things.
• 45:16
  It's like the comfort, like you have allowed yourself, you've opened up the
• 45:21
  ability to experience comfort and ease and flow and really like make memories
• 45:29
  with your people and not worry about your stupid Tupperware.
• 45:32
  And I will tell you, so many women do it.
• 45:36
  So they will, and it's very much similar like to kind of what you described
• 45:40
  at the beginning or like they have gone through cycles of seeing their mom do that.
• 45:45
  Where, you know, even to this day, their mom is like 70 years old bringing diet
• 45:50
  food to Thanksgiving. given. And I'm like, Lord, have mercy.
• 45:53
  Like, what is this life, you know? And, and, but the.
• 45:59
  Just like you did, you know, they tell themselves it's discipline.
• 46:02
  They tell themselves they're superior.
• 46:04
  They tell themselves they've got more control, but they're missing it.
• 46:08
  You know what I mean? They're missing it.
• 46:11
  Yeah, and there's grief. There's grief for me. There's a lot of things I know
• 46:15
  I missed. There's a lot of moments that I didn't enjoy.
• 46:18
  There's a lot of times that I sat in agony, that I sat in just so many negative
• 46:27
  emotions, And I have to constantly catch myself and say, but you made a choice to change.
• 46:34
  Yes, ma'am. And look at how bountiful your life is now.
• 46:37
  Look at all the incredible things your body allows you to do.
• 46:40
  I dance every single week without fail, sometimes twice a week.
• 46:45
  And I had stopped dancing for a number of years after, you know,
• 46:52
  going through this because I felt like my body had failed me.
• 46:56
  And when I brought dance back into my life I was like I don't even know who
• 47:00
  I would be today if I didn't have that I don't even know and yeah,
• 47:06
  Just this morning, my son went into the pantry. He was hungry for breakfast.
• 47:11
  I was ready to give him like eggs and this like beautiful whole grain toast
• 47:15
  that I found and all this stuff. And he's like, Mama, can I have one of my favorite bars?
• 47:19
  So I have these like kid granola bars with chocolate drizzle.
• 47:23
  He thinks it's like a candy bar. It's not even that bad for you,
• 47:26
  but not my first choice for breakfast.
• 47:29
  And I literally went to open my mouth and then I closed it.
• 47:33
  And I like took a deep breath and I said sure babe that's what you want for
• 47:38
  breakfast today that was not easy let me tell you because I don't want him to
• 47:43
  eat that garbage for breakfast.
• 47:46
  But he's gonna be four years old it's not
• 47:49
  gonna kill him no it's not and I have made the intentional decision to say risk
• 47:54
  reward I would rather my son pick an unhealthy choice for breakfast today than
• 48:00
  to form a relationship with food that is going to silently shrink him.
• 48:07
  Right. Covered in shame. Covered in shame. Yeah. And so that's the decision
• 48:11
  that I have to make on the regular. And it's not easy with a toddler,
• 48:14
  but we're making progress.
• 48:15
  Right. And two, because you're still trying to make that mindset shift with yourself, right?
• 48:20
  Like the thoughts and the beliefs you have about certain foods,
• 48:24
  that doesn't just go away.
• 48:26
  Like And our brain loves...
• 48:29
  Repetitive things. Our brain loves a pathway that it's been down over and over again.
• 48:35
  So your brain is still some days going to wake up and say, Lisa,
• 48:39
  your pants were a little tight today.
• 48:41
  Maybe you should only have meat and fruit, you know what I mean? Or whatever.
• 48:44
  Like your brain is still going to do that to you. So while you are still on your own journey,
• 48:51
  right, and coming up against those battles, you are simultaneously trying to
• 48:56
  show your child a different way.
• 49:00
  And it is something to be said because it is hard. And so many women,
• 49:05
  especially here in the South, unfortunately didn't get raised that way.
• 49:09
  You know, their parents, their mother was struggling with their body image and
• 49:12
  their relationship with food. And so they thought the best option was to shame
• 49:18
  those foods for their children to for their children's sake.
• 49:21
  And now we still have overweight women, right? Because everybody loves a cookie.
• 49:26
  I do not care how small you are, how, you know, how many vegetables you ate
• 49:30
  growing up, like we all still love a cookie.
• 49:32
  And we don't know how to handle it mentally and emotionally when we have the
• 49:36
  cookie, you know, so good for you.
• 49:39
  I would love to hear like how, like
• 49:43
  what because again it's not immediate and it
• 49:46
  takes a lot of time so what steps do you
• 49:48
  feel like really helped you the most with changing your
• 49:51
  thinking like changing how you showed up for yourself
• 49:54
  every single day yeah I love this question and I thought about this and I sat
• 49:59
  with this and of course I swear my business just kept coming up and that's why
• 50:04
  I love how I blur those lines between my life and and the work that I do and
• 50:09
  I think it's like recognizing the difference between control versus connection.
• 50:14
  This is the shift that I swear changed everything for me.
• 50:17
  So if you're not sure what I mean, like think of it like control says,
• 50:22
  I will be worthy when, but connection says, I'm allowed to be a human freaking being.
• 50:28
  You know, control tries to eliminate the discomfort that you're feeling.
• 50:34
  And connection helps build the capacity so that you can keep moving forward.
• 50:40
  So you can feel like I have the resilience to keep going.
• 50:45
  Control used to like fuel the obsession that
• 50:48
  I had with the way that my body looked whereas connection helped
• 50:52
  me trust my body and
• 50:55
  so when when I talk about how I teach soulful sales it is putting connection
• 51:01
  above control we're not convincing someone to do something we are forming a
• 51:06
  deep connection with that person to understand what they need and then position
• 51:10
  ourselves as the solution because we love them.
• 51:13
  It is so much different than persuading something to make a decision on false pretenses.
• 51:19
  And so I started looking at every single thing in my life that way.
• 51:23
  Is that control speaking or can I connect in this moment and be present and
• 51:28
  recognize the truth, even if it's uncomfortable or hard to hear?
• 51:33
  Literally, I will go out to dinner and I will sit to my mind is the control.
• 51:41
  Okay, Lisa, first thing you're going to scan this menu and you're going to eliminate
• 51:44
  anything with like high saturated fat or, you know, too much sugar or XYZ, whatever, whatever.
• 51:50
  And then I'll have to say, okay, brain, I hear you. Thank you for your input. Goodbye.
• 51:57
  I'm going to connect into my body. I'm going to take a deep breath.
• 52:00
  I'm going to bring myself into the present moment and what this dinner represents.
• 52:03
  And I'm going to pick what I want to eat.
• 52:05
  And I'm going to eat it mindfully and I'm going to enjoy it and the experience
• 52:09
  and I'm not going to attach shame and blame.
• 52:11
  Which some, some, this is so powerful because sometimes that's the salad.
• 52:17
  Am I right? Like it's not, you're not always picking the thing covered in gravy
• 52:22
  with, you know, no vegetables.
• 52:24
  Like sometimes when you do that, your body says, Lisa, you've had a protein
• 52:29
  bar and you know, whatever today, you need some vegetables.
• 52:33
  Like if you take the time to listen, your body will say to you,
• 52:38
  I need the things that's going to make me feel good. You know what I mean? That is so good.
• 52:44
  I'm glad you bring that up because I think, again, like I have chills because
• 52:48
  when I came home to my niche, like my home, doulas, birth workers,
• 52:52
  perinatal professionals, right, mompreneurs, what we have been conditioned our
• 52:57
  whole lives as women is to not trust those signals.
• 53:00
  And so I had to, again, say, I'm not going to lead with control.
• 53:04
  I'm going to lead with connection. What do I need in this present moment?
• 53:08
  What is the information that my body is telling me? Because that is sacred information.
• 53:12
  It is intrinsic. And there are no external voices that can answer this question
• 53:16
  for me. And I know that I'm making a big deal out of like a menu choice,
• 53:20
  but this applies across the board.
• 53:23
  And so I really think that when you ask like what works, it is bringing yourself
• 53:30
  to the present moment and connecting within yourself, within your body.
• 53:35
  By the way, the emotional component of that is so strong. There is no disconnect
• 53:39
  between our physical and emotional. Look at birth. I could talk about that for hours.
• 53:44
  And I think that sometimes we think, well, I need to find the confidence to trust myself.
• 53:49
  No, you train the confidence to trust yourself.
• 53:52
  And when I look at my business and I try to live the same way as I do within
• 53:57
  recovery, which is my visibility, letting myself be seen as who I am on the
• 54:02
  internet, that's not easy.
• 54:03
  But every time I do it, every time I show up like that, every time I give a
• 54:07
  voice to other women and even myself, it's,
• 54:11
  You know, the proof is in the pudding, you know, body neutrality repetition,
• 54:16
  like respecting my body even when I don't adore it.
• 54:19
  Like, so maybe, you know, once a month and I'm all bloaty and we all can relate to that.
• 54:24
  Right. And it's like, hey, body, thanks so much for carrying my beautiful baby
• 54:29
  and birthing my beautiful baby and letting me take that dance class last night. Right.
• 54:34
  Being honest with yourself. Or like, hey, body, we're going to rest.
• 54:38
  But I know I feel like I should do my daily walk or whatever it is.
• 54:42
  But like, I know you're struggling right now because this time of the month really sucks.
• 54:47
  So instead, we're going to take our extra 30 minutes and just rest.
• 54:50
  Maybe do some breath, yoga, whatever, you know, like respecting it in that way as well, you know.
• 54:57
  So, right, like rest reps, I call them.
• 55:00
  Like, you know, bravery reps, self-kindness reps. I'm saying these are the repetitions
• 55:05
  that we have to pattern into our day-to-day to train the confidence to trust
• 55:10
  our bodies and trust our intrinsic value.
• 55:13
  Because I think what happens far too often is, like, we are so consumed with the noise.
• 55:19
  Like, if there is so much, if you sit for the menu, go back to the menu,
• 55:22
  if you sit down with the menu and you're thinking, okay, I saw this thing on
• 55:25
  Instagram where she said, if I only eat this or if I ask for this on the side
• 55:29
  or whatever, or eat completely in the opposite, right?
• 55:32
  If you sit down with that menu and you've had a hard day and,
• 55:35
  you know, your boss was a jerk and your husband's kind of sucking and you were
• 55:39
  running late and the noise is like, I'm so stressed out.
• 55:42
  I've had such a hard day. I deserve, I deserve whatever.
• 55:45
  Then you go to the menu and you pick something that is like,
• 55:49
  you know, maybe super delicious, but maybe not.
• 55:52
  You didn't take the time to silence the noise to say, nobody, what do you really want?
• 55:56
  I see women do this all the time at Mexican. They'll go to like girls' night
• 56:00
  and they're like, the day was so stressful and blah, blah, blah.
• 56:02
  So I ended up having three margaritas.
• 56:04
  I'm like, is the hangover going to help all the problems we just talked about, you know?
• 56:10
  And so you've got to find, you've got, like, I think that to me,
• 56:15
  and you may have a better term for it, but that does require some discipline.
• 56:19
  In my life, like, you've got to be disciplined to silence the noise so that
• 56:26
  the confidence can come,
• 56:28
  so that you aren't just living reactively instead of, you know, I guess intrinsically.
• 56:36
  I don't know what the right word is there, you know? I'm glad you brought that
• 56:39
  up because I so dance has really saved me in so many different ways from like
• 56:44
  a self-expression and a self-love, you know, place like I just can't talk enough about it.
• 56:50
  And that is rooted in discipline. So I do not want I'm glad you brought that
• 56:55
  up because I don't want, you know, the way that I've painted the restriction,
• 56:59
  because I agree with you. discipline to me is self-love. It's self-loyalty.
• 57:05
  And, you know, I agree with you 100%.
• 57:08
  It takes more restraint to quiet the noise and to tune into our inner voice
• 57:17
  than it does to just, you know,
• 57:21
  act on a whim and, you know, jump to that control.
• 57:24
  So I'm really glad that you reframed that because I think I would not be where
• 57:29
  I am today without the discipline. Yeah.
• 57:34
  Discipline has gotten me to where I am in my life and all aspects of my life.
• 57:38
  But I think that we need to be able to use it in a way that benefits us,
• 57:44
  like you said, to be able to have the discipline and the restraint to say,
• 57:47
  I'm going to tune in. I'm going to trust myself.
• 57:51
  I think the.
• 57:55
  I don't know, highlight here would be that discipline is not the same as restriction.
• 58:02
  Discipline is not, you know, sometimes discipline isn't enjoyable,
• 58:06
  right? Like, I mean, you know, we discipline our children.
• 58:09
  We, you know, whatever we are, if you work for someone, they may discipline
• 58:13
  you. Like, if you don't do things correctly, whatever.
• 58:17
  It's not always enjoyable, but it is for the greater good, right?
• 58:22
  Whereas restriction is just a means of suffering with that intention of control.
• 58:29
  You know, the intention is you think you are going to find some kind of magical,
• 58:35
  you know, pot at the end of a rainbow that's never going to come.
• 58:39
  And instead, it's going to turn you inside out, you know?
• 58:42
  Yeah. Oh, my gosh, this is so good. The point that
• 58:45
  you're making really speaks to me because I
• 58:48
  think that like our identity is built from what we
• 58:51
  repeatedly choose yes and in order
• 58:55
  to be able to repeatedly choose something you absolutely need discipline and
• 58:59
  I think that my eating disorder recovery like rewired my understanding of what
• 59:05
  self-trust was and meant and I think that like women lose themselves in motherhood
• 59:12
  in marriage in their careers.
• 59:14
  And so we have to be able to say, we have to have the discipline to say,
• 59:18
  how can I reconnect back to myself?
• 59:22
  Is it the guy? Is it leave the job? What is it?
• 59:26
  Right. I'm so interested in this with you because I'm very much about retraining your brain, right?
• 59:36
  And so you could not be in recovery today or on December 15th when you decided,
• 59:41
  If then on December 16th, you woke up and said, like, I'm so fat, I need to eat,
• 59:47
  you know, I need to stop eating so much stuff. I need to do this for my baby.
• 59:51
  I need to, like, you could not have kept the same thoughts back.
• 59:55
  And then made the progress that you are currently, you know,
• 59:59
  or the journey that you're currently on and the progress that you've made, right?
• 1:00:02
  And so it's about, there is discipline there, right?
• 1:00:06
  To say like, Lisa, because your brain's going to say, nope, it's a new day.
• 1:00:10
  We're going to start thinking negative things about ourselves.
• 1:00:11
  And we're going to, you know, torture ourselves until we either,
• 1:00:15
  you know, exercise ourselves to death or go binge eat.
• 1:00:18
  And so you had to have discipline to say, no, I am not doing this again today.
• 1:00:24
  You know, and I am going to stop those thoughts.
• 1:00:27
  I talk about on here a lot. I have anxiety.
• 1:00:30
  Like anxiety is in my, I've keep, I told Samson I was going to stop saying I have anxiety.
• 1:00:35
  You know, I experience anxiety on occasion, but my family is full of people experiencing anxiety.
• 1:00:42
  And so that is how it was bred, honestly.
• 1:00:46
  And so I have had some experiences in my life here recently where the anxiety
• 1:00:51
  has wanted to come up. And like, I have had to say...
• 1:00:54
  We are not going to go down the Google rabbit hole the way that we would have in the past.
• 1:00:59
  We are not going to ruin this current moment that I'm in because I am mentally
• 1:01:04
  somewhere else dwelling on something I can't control,
• 1:01:07
  you know, like, and so I am curious, did you practice this like mental rewiring
• 1:01:13
  while you were in this journey?
• 1:01:16
  Yeah, we have that in common. And I just want to validate those of us with that
• 1:01:21
  genetic predisposition.
• 1:01:23
  So real yeah I have a few tools that
• 1:01:26
  like really changed my life so I have like what I call the
• 1:01:29
  three question body check-in and it literally these are all so simple but they
• 1:01:33
  work I swear so it's like I would stop dead close my eyes and ask myself what
• 1:01:39
  do I need what do I feel and what can I give myself right now so that one was
• 1:01:44
  really really helpful what else I have my.
• 1:01:48
  Like a same idea two minute self-connection reset
• 1:01:51
  I've called it which is like I put my hand on
• 1:01:54
  my chest I breathe and I name one truth and
• 1:01:58
  this one's really good when your mind is spiraling out and telling
• 1:02:00
  yourself a bunch of lies and stories it's like
• 1:02:03
  hand on chest breathe what's one truth it
• 1:02:07
  brings you present it sure does and then
• 1:02:10
  I have one that I call like the messy middle permission slip
• 1:02:13
  and it's just like accepting imperfect consistency as
• 1:02:17
  my goal because I think through my whole life that was
• 1:02:20
  never okay it was like perfect consistency was
• 1:02:24
  the goal and so I was like am I accepting of the fact that imperfect consistency
• 1:02:29
  is the goal because that's still progress wow I love that yeah I love that that's
• 1:02:35
  so good I love that you named them you know yeah I name everything. It's like a joke.
• 1:02:42
  I love that, though. Make that real.
• 1:02:47
  That is like, you know, then you can recall it. Then you can come back to it. Yeah.
• 1:02:54
  Okay, so as we wrap this up, do we have anything else we want to hit on?
• 1:02:59
  This has been really good.
• 1:03:00
  I know our ladies are going to love this. They're going to love you.
• 1:03:03
  I'm so glad. I just want to thank you because from the moment that I met you,
• 1:03:08
  I had this like, oh, I'm safe with her. It was very like sister energy.
• 1:03:13
  And it's interesting because I've learned even just today some things about
• 1:03:17
  you I didn't know before. And it's all making so much sense about that like energetic connection.
• 1:03:22
  And I think that I want listeners to just know that you don't have to become
• 1:03:27
  a different woman to trust yourself. You just have to come back to who you've always been.
• 1:03:32
  And you do not have to stop abandoning that woman.
• 1:03:38
  Oh, that struck me. Yeah, yeah. Perfection won't save you. Yeah.
• 1:03:44
  Well, and it's like some for all of us, I think, and this is something in my
• 1:03:48
  work with Samson And that, you know, really I've come to just, oh my gosh,
• 1:03:52
  so much awareness where it's like in our lives, all of us, you know,
• 1:03:59
  at some point or another, someone told us that who we truly were or someone
• 1:04:04
  or something or some experience or, you know, all of it.
• 1:04:08
  Started to form our thoughts that who we are at our core is actually not enough,
• 1:04:14
  is actually not good enough, right?
• 1:04:16
  Is, you know, not who we want to come back to.
• 1:04:20
  We need to change that person because that version of me let somebody down or
• 1:04:27
  disappointed somebody or didn't win the race or, you know, whatever it is,
• 1:04:31
  that person was not good enough.
• 1:04:33
  And so I think that is something that I struggle with daily,
• 1:04:37
  right, is to remind myself that like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 1:04:40
  God brought you into this world as you are.
• 1:04:43
  And like everything, sure, the things that we go through that are failures or
• 1:04:48
  disappointments or whatever, they shape you.
• 1:04:51
  They help form you. They help, you know, hopefully create a more positive energy in you.
• 1:04:58
  But they are not failures.
• 1:05:01
  Like they are, they do not define you. They do not make you broken or make you,
• 1:05:05
  you know, unworthy anymore.
• 1:05:08
  And so like so many people and myself up until literally 2025,
• 1:05:12
  you know, are caught in that.
• 1:05:15
  And like, then what does that do? And I'm sure this is what you see in your
• 1:05:18
  line of work all the time. Like, I know I do.
• 1:05:22
  It reinforces this idea that they can't do it.
• 1:05:25
  They're not, no, they would love to quit for you, I'm sure.
• 1:05:28
  They would love to quit their job and be able to be home with their babies and
• 1:05:31
  create their own schedule or whatever, but they can't because of all these things
• 1:05:36
  that are wrong with them.
• 1:05:37
  For me, they would love to see the weight loss, to get their self-confidence,
• 1:05:42
  to, you know, finally feel comfortable around food, but they can't because of
• 1:05:46
  all these other things that have happened to them. And it's like...
• 1:05:50
  You will never break that barrier until you accept exactly what you just said,
• 1:05:55
  that you trust, you can trust yourself and, you know, you are,
• 1:06:00
  you need to go back to who you are.
• 1:06:02
  You are exactly who you were made to be. And that is enough, right?
• 1:06:05
  But you have to believe that in your daily walk or else it, I mean,
• 1:06:10
  it doesn't, nothing comes to light, you know, nothing comes,
• 1:06:14
  nothing turns out the way you wish, you know. You articulated that so powerfully.
• 1:06:20
  I just want listeners to know confidence is not built in the mirror.
• 1:06:25
  And this is what I teach within my coaching. It is built in the moments you
• 1:06:29
  choose yourself over that story loop that's telling you that you're not enough.
• 1:06:33
  And I will tell you from my experience, and I really hope that somebody can...
• 1:06:38
  Buy into this today and then that my mission is complete for today.
• 1:06:42
  But the moment I stopped trying to shrink, which is like my body,
• 1:06:46
  my voice, like the external things of my life, everything else expanded.
• 1:06:52
  So I think it's looking at yourself and saying, what if? What if I did choose
• 1:06:56
  me? What if I did choose connection over control?
• 1:06:58
  What could that look like? And all of a sudden you start to think and dream
• 1:07:02
  so much bigger and it's a beautiful thing.
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, like what do you have to lose at this point. We've been how many years
• 1:07:08
  of our lives with the other way, you know?
• 1:07:11
  So good. Love this conversation. Me too. I wish we could go forever.
• 1:07:16
  Okay. So tell people where they can find you so that they can keep getting this wisdom.
• 1:07:22
  Yeah. I just loved being here and I love connecting, as you can tell.
• 1:07:27
  And I would love to meet up with you on Instagram. I spend a lot of time there
• 1:07:30
  and you can find me there at The Lisa V. That's V-E-E.
• 1:07:35
  The Lisa V. Shoot me a DM. Let's have a conversation.
• 1:07:39
  I have a podcast called Loudmouth Lisa, and it's full of birthy,
• 1:07:45
  mom life, business, sales, and marketing.
• 1:07:48
  And if this resonated with you, I think you'll love it over there too.
• 1:07:52
  Yeah, I love it. I love your Instagram. My favorite reels are
• 1:07:55
  the ones where you are dancing because she dances y'all
• 1:07:58
  and it's so good but like where you're dancing but then
• 1:08:01
  there's like the really powerful statements on top
• 1:08:04
  you know of the I just think that it's so inspirational
• 1:08:08
  I don't know I appreciate you and it makes me happy that someone's enjoying
• 1:08:13
  that yes I love it okay so I don't know I don't want it to end but we gotta
• 1:08:19
  end I'm so glad to have you here today thank you so much Lisa for coming on
• 1:08:22
  Say Grace and I know our ladies are gonna love this conversation,
• 1:08:26
  Love the podcast and I love being here and I love you. So thank you for this opportunity.
• 1:08:32
  Thank you for listening to today's episode of Say Grace Podcast.