episode 162: how do you know if you’re actually happy?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the phrase we use all of the time to explain why we want to lose weight, look different, get Botox, buy a new sweater.
“If it makes you happy”
If losing weight makes you happy, do it.
If getting a tummy tuck makes you happy, do it.
If getting that new bag makes you happy, do it.
But what’s really happening here? Are these things really making us happy? Or is that a story we’re telling ourselves?
I spend today’s episode diving into this, sharing my perspective on this reasoning, how I’m personally navigating this and some skills to help you get more clarity around why you’re doing what you’re doing when it comes to body confidence and what makes you feel good.
It’s a little philosophical, but it’s a good one.
If you liked this episode, check out episodes 147 and 159.
Also, there’s a quick reminder upfront about Eat with Ease! That’s my 6 month semi private group coaching program that starts Feb 12. You can get more details by adding your name to the early interest list here. We’ll be working on all things nutrition, losing weight without counting calories, behavior change, and body image with a small, intimate group of women who get it because they’ve been where you’ve been. I can’t wait for this to get started.
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[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Today's episode 162 of the Diet Diaries. Thank you for taking time out of your day to listen. I appreciate you being here. I can really just never say that enough. I am always overwhelmed by the number of podcasts out there. So the fact that you're listening to this one at this moment is will never get old and it's really fucking awesome.
[00:00:23] Um, Before I jump in, um, this episode gets published Monday January 22nd. Just a quick reminder, Eat With Ease is quickly approaching. Um, if you are interested, this is six months of semi private coaching, um, super small intimate group of women. We are going to be working on skills connected to fat loss, body image, um, exercise, behavior change.
[00:00:45] Um, we're going to be meeting twice a week. over the course of the six months, we're going to have a group WhatsApp chat to stay in contact in between our meetings. Um, and this is really going to be about long term change. So if you have been curious or been thinking About wanting to work with me or have wanted to do one to one, but felt like maybe it was outside of your budget Um, this is the place to be so by adding your name to the waitlist just gives you options gives you more information I'm emailing with those folks about once a week right now Already just to kind of connect and let them know what to expect and as of right now Registration is gonna open February 1st.
[00:01:23] I might decide to open it up sooner. I haven't like I don't know I'm a little bit Just trying to figure things out. So, um, if you joined from the waitlist, there's a 50 discount for those folks just because I appreciate you being here and committing to things and um, showing up for yourself on the earlier side.
[00:01:39] And you also just get first access. This is a super small group. This isn't like an unlimited thing where like I'm taking 15 people. This is going to be small. Um, so that we can connect, we can share, um, and it can be really Productive and we're all participating, right? This isn't really, this is definitely not me lecturing at you.
[00:01:55] This is coaching. So it's going to be very dynamic, very interactive, and everyone who's in the group is going to be playing just as much of a role in terms of learning and sharing, um, and coaching, to be quite honest, as I am. That's truly what group coaching is. So, link in the show notes for that. Um, now, wanted to dive into today's topic.
[00:02:15] This is going to be a pretty short episode. I know we all like short podcast episodes. I do. I love getting helpful information and short digestible kind of tidbits. And here's what I want to talk about. Um, if you follow along with me at all, if you're on my email list or you follow me on Instagram, you've seen me talking a lot lately kind of about Getting dressed and following stylists and how I'm thinking about my body and using clothes and I'm not gonna get so much into that Specifically, um, I will in another podcast and I have on email but I've also been having some conversations around like plastic surgery and injections and fat loss and more, um, some more invasive things, some more, um, extreme things that we do.
[00:02:56] And when I say extreme, I don't necessarily, necessarily mean bad. Sometimes it can mean more like negative. Um, but right, there's a difference between putting on makeup and getting plastic surgery. Right. In terms of like the level of, um, intervention, I guess is maybe a good word to use. And a lot of times we will talk about this.
[00:03:16] A lot of women out there, and I do this, I have done this too, and I'm trying to get curious about where this is coming from. We'll say, if it makes you happy, if it makes you feel good, do it, right? If getting Botox injections makes you happy, do it. If getting, um, a breast implants makes you feel good, do it.
[00:03:31] If using Ozempic makes you feel good, do it. do it. If losing weight makes you feel good, do it. If buying that pair of jeans makes you feel good, do it. Right? We kind of see that across the spectrum. And I don't have anything wrong inherently with that messaging, right? If it makes you feel good, if it makes you happy.
[00:03:50] What I'm asking us to do here is to get curious about what that actually means. What does it mean if getting Botox, if losing weight, if buying those pants makes you happy? What does that actually mean? Is doing those things actually making you happy? Or is it doing something else? It's definitely doing something.
[00:04:12] It has a job for sure, but I'm not sure that it has the job that we think it has. I'm not sure that it has the job that we're telling ourselves that it has to maybe in some ways make ourselves feel better about doing it. And I include myself in this group. I want to be very clear. At no point on this podcast ever, I hope, but especially with this, am I preaching at people?
[00:04:34] The things I talk about are things I am experiencing, I am going through, I am getting curious about in my own behavior. So I am including myself. This is really me kind of self reflecting and sharing that with you because I think it's extremely relevant and it's a pattern. This if it makes you happy catchphrase I see.
[00:04:53] I was just watching, um, an influencer that I follow, this girl Claire Tamaro, who actually unfollowed just because her content was just not really, um, it was a lot of, like, unboxing and trying on hauls of clothes I didn't really like, necessarily some of the clothes she was sharing. I, her body image stuff I thought was helpful, but, um, I've got some other folks that I was enjoying following more.
[00:05:13] Anyway, so I ended up unfollowing her, but before, a couple weeks ago I was watching her and she was talking about potentially getting a tummy tuck and breast implants, I think. And I was kind of listening to her talk about it and people were commenting, if it makes you happy, do it. If it makes you happy, do it.
[00:05:29] If it makes you happy, do it. And I'm like, okay, yeah, like you know, in theory that makes sense. But again, it got me thinking, like, Is that actually going to make her happy? Does doing these things make us happy? Right? I wrote in today's email I'm recording this a week in advance about Shopping and how I'm taking a break from shopping for a good chunk of time several months for a couple of different reasons But one of them is because when I buy things, I think that that thing is going to make me happy.
[00:05:57] That that thing is going to be the thing and once I get that thing, I won't want other things. Except that never happens. And this is true for things like shopping, for things like weight loss, for things like injections or plastic surgery. For things like, um, you know, hair and nails, all these things we do to maybe impact our appearance.
[00:06:17] And I'm not saying don't do them, right? I am all for doing these things, but I think we have to get a lot more curious about why. We say we're doing it to make us happy. Is it actually making us happy? What does that mean? One of the big questions that this brings up for me is, is that happiness permanent or is it temporary?
[00:06:37] Does doing that thing, buying that thing, whatever it is, Make you happy forever, or is it only until then the next thing comes along and then that becomes the thing? Oh, then I'll do that thing and that will make me happy. Right, so if you see yourself in this pattern of constantly doing things, buying things, Injecting things, right?
[00:06:56] And again, I don't mean this to sound like judgmental or critical at all, um, because I'm doing it too. If it's constantly one after the next, I think there's reason to pause there and ask ourselves, what are we actually doing? Is this actually doing the thing that I'm telling myself that it's doing or not?
[00:07:14] I think the honest truth when we're willing to get really vulnerable with ourselves is that it's not doing the thing that we're telling ourselves it's doing. We're using that as an excuse to kind of make it okay to kind of justify it. But if we start to put ourselves in a really uncomfortable position to do the work, we're going to see that that thing, not all the time, but very often, is not going to be the thing to make us happy.
[00:07:36] Maybe it could be part of it, but in isolation, the only thing or the most important thing? No. I don't think that's true. Um, and I think we start relying on those things to do that work, and then we don't do the work that actually does the thing we want it to do, right? We're relying on shopping, makeup, injections, weight loss to make us happy, and then we're not But those aren't actually making us happy.
[00:08:02] And at the same time as we're relying on those things, we're not actually doing the work that's going to make us happy. And not that happiness is the be all end all. It's not. We want to be feeling a range of emotions. And also we want to live content lives, right? I think I love the word content. Um, separate kind of topic.
[00:08:19] So, I think some ways that you can start to get curious if you're willing to get uncomfortable, because I will tell you, thinking about this shit in the context of your own behavior is fucking uncomfortable, it is, and I'm sharing my discomfort with you, and I am going through this in real time as I'm taking a break from shopping, to see what happens, and already I shared in my email, um, some things that it's opened up for me, um, that I wrote about kind of at length today.
[00:08:46] In terms of a way to get curious, a way to reconnect with my body, a form of self care that there would not have been space for had I been continuing to buy thing after thing after thing, right? So, I think a couple of questions, things I kind of have been using to think about this, I'm just going to share with you, maybe they're helpful, maybe they're not.
[00:09:03] One thing is, again, asking yourself, is this temporary, is this permanent? Do you find yourself doing that thing, buying that thing, taking that action, and then after X amount of time has passed, Not that long of a time, which could be a month, it could be weeks, months, couple months. That thing is no longer making you happy, it's no longer doing the job that you thought it was going to do.
[00:09:23] Right? Is it temporary? Is it permanent? How long have you wanted this thing? Have you been sitting with it for some time, really thinking about it and contemplating it? I think that's an important thing. To kind of delay the gratification of the thing, right? Whether, again, like, shopping is so easy for instance, you see, click, buy, arrives on your doorstep a few days later, right?
[00:09:43] What if you just kind of let it sit there and see if a week later, maybe a month later, you still want that thing? Um, you know, is it because everyone else is doing it? Again, this applies to so much, right? Oh, if it makes her happy to get Botox? Cool. Like, it makes me happy too. Like, it made her happy to buy those jeans?
[00:10:03] Cool. She lost 15 pounds. She said it makes her happy. Okay, cool. It makes me happy too. Like, but does it really? Does it really? Um, are you doing things, and this is like the classic like peer pressure, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge too? Like, But one of the downsides of social media is it does constantly expose us to what everyone else is doing and not in the context of reality, only in the context of the 1 percent of that person's life that you're seeing, because that is all that you are seeing.
[00:10:31] And I can attest to that as someone who creates content and shares that you're only seeing 1 percent of my life, because that's really all that's realistic. Um, and I try to be as honest as I can with that, but obviously it's not the full picture, it just can't be. Um, But we see people sharing these things, and it's this constant, like, Look what she did.
[00:10:50] Look what she did. Look what she did. She now looks happy, right? That's the thing of social media. She bought those pants. She looks happy. She got fillers. She looks happy. She lost 20 pounds. She looks happy because that's what that person is choosing to show you. Is that actually real? No one knows. Um What else makes you happy that is not related to anything external?
[00:11:13] Clothes, makeup, hair, cosmetic stuff, uh, physical size and shape. What else do you have in your life, do you do, that makes you happy? Hobbies, spending time with people, activities, um, the way you talk to yourself, meditation, like, it could be anything. Right? What else do you have in your life that makes you feel good?
[00:11:35] What else are you relying on? What else can you turn to aside from these external things? What can you turn to internally to make you happy? This is super, super important. Um, What would happen if you didn't do that thing? Right? This is kind of what I'm experimenting right now without shopping. Like, I'm just not buying stuff.
[00:11:55] What is happening as a result of that? I'm setting a boundary. Um, And in turn, it's created space for something else that I don't think would have appeared in the same way. It's really fucking cool. And I don't, this maybe doesn't apply to like everything, because I'm not suggesting that would say, well, what would happen if I just stopped eating carbs for two weeks?
[00:12:18] That's not really what I'm saying, right? You have to kind of like put this into context appropriately. Um, and it's not even necessarily forever. It's a period of time, right? So I think there are things. That you can. There are ways to kind of set boundaries in a way that doesn't feel overly restrictive, especially if this is something like, maybe it's like, what if I didn't go on a diet?
[00:12:44] What if I did something else instead? What if I didn't do the diet that I'm always used to doing and I focused on eating more vegetables or eating more protein or whatever? Like, you know, I don't mean to like be cliche, but I'm just, you know, off the top of my head, random stuff. Basically, the idea is kind of instead of doing the thing that you always do, that you always kind of default to, that you think is going to make you happy, What if you didn't do that for a period of time and let yourself kind of sit in that discomfort and maybe it creates space for something that might be more aligned with your values, that might connect, um, more internally, might connect with you in a way that will have more longevity, um, that will stay with you longer than the thing that we think we need to do, that we always do, that we think is going to make us happy kind of provides that immediate relief, right?
[00:13:33] There's some type of discomfort that is coming up from whatever Right. Right. stuff we're dealing with in our lives. And we turn to this thing to provide relief from that discomfort. I don't look like her. She looks better than me. I look old. I don't look healthy. Um, I look fat. I'm disgusting. I don't fit into these clothes.
[00:13:52] Um, my skin looks blotchy, right? I'm thinking of all the thoughts, all the negative thoughts we have about our bodies and we want to fix them instantly. So we do these things and then we say it's in the name of, Oh, this is going to make, this makes me happy. Makes me happy. I'm going to do it. But again, is it actually making you happy or is it just providing relief from something that you feel uncomfortable about in terms of your body?
[00:14:14] Is this thing going to actually resolve or give you a productive way of coping with that discomfort or is it just kind of like plugging the hole? It's like whack a mole, right? If you try to, quote, fix something. It's like a mismatch. I talk about this with dieting and body image, right? Going on a diet does not improve your body image because they're a total mismatch.
[00:14:37] It's like trying to drink water when you're tired. Total mismatch. might help at first for a little bit, might feel like you're doing something, but then after a bit of time, it's like, what? This is not affecting this at all. And so that symptom, that tiredness, to stay with that analogy, is going to pop up again somewhere else, right?
[00:14:52] So if you're using like weight loss or shopping or, you know, Stop doing stuff to your face or your body or whatever to fix or try to resolve some kind of discomfort in that you feel about yourself. It's not actually going to do that. Um, so it's going to pop up somewhere else. Um, and then kind of the last thing is like, is this the only thing that you have, right?
[00:15:16] We need more than one way to feel good about ourselves. Now I am not saying that caring about what you look like. The way you get dressed, um, that doing things to change your appearance can't feel good, right? I feel like I did like a double negative there. Let me say it more clearly. Appearances do matter.
[00:15:39] Never gonna say that they don't, humans have not evolved in a way such that appearances don't matter. I talk all about time, about doing my hair, wearing makeup, getting dressed. These things can have a huge impact on body image. when they are done in a way that's in alignment with your values. And that they are not the only thing that we are relying on, right?
[00:16:00] So, let's say, look, I've talked openly about this before. I'm not even gonna, you know what? I was gonna bring up my nose job when I was 16, but it's so, like, such different circumstances and so long ago, I'm not even gonna bring it up. But, um, you know, I have a tooth that's chipped. It's been chipped for a while.
[00:16:15] I really don't like how it looks. I don't like how my smile looks. It's been really bothering me. I'm getting it fixed. That's part of a bunch of other dental work I'm doing, right? It's gonna, I feel like it's gonna make me happy. I feel like I'm gonna like my smile better. Is that the only thing that I'm doing to feel good in my body?
[00:16:31] No, right? I work out. I go to sleep on time. I eat food. That gives me nourishment and makes me feel good. I work on speaking kindly to myself. Um, I'm not relying solely on these aesthetic, external things to, quote, make me happy. There are other things at play that I am doing. Um, and I've also, again, been working on this practice.
[00:16:56] I'm getting really honest. I'm like, is that going to make me happy? Right? Like, You know, there's, I have other issues, I have a lot of issues with my teeth, and I'm like, oh, wouldn't it be awesome to like get veneers and my teeth would be perfect? Like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that for a lot of different reasons, but also because I know that there is becomes a very slippery slope of like, well, when is it enough?
[00:17:18] When do you look good enough to be happy? Like, how do we draw that line? I don't know that there like is one. There's always something that we feel like could look better, could look different, or could look less whatever we think is the problem. And part of like being human is like, I think sitting in that discomfort of not doing that thing, of not changing that thing, of not fixing that thing, because it's part of being human, right?
[00:17:43] That having yellow teeth and wrinkles and sunspots and whatnot is literally part of being alive in a human body. It's not a problem. You know, I think this is kind of a separate topic that I didn't bring up yet is that so many of these things that we're looking to fix, especially when it comes to like our actual body in terms of like skin, hair, um, body weight, size and shape, those kind of things.
[00:18:07] It's just the nature of being human, but we've just been so conditioned to think that there's only one way to look and one way to be, and so much of that is ingrained in us, right? So part of this, too, is also getting curious with yourself about where does this come from? Why do I think that I have to do this?
[00:18:23] Why do I think that having no lines on my face? Is going to make me happy. Well, it's because you've been shown that at every turn. You're constantly being shown that everywhere you look. It makes sense. But I also think it's up to us to do the work to question that. To pause and to ask, where is this coming from?
[00:18:43] I actually want to do a separate podcast about that. So I think I'm just going to kind of like, pause here. And kind of leave it at that. So again, this is like me being pretty vulnerable. This is me asking you to get vulnerable. This is me kind of giving you some space, I hope, to like get honest with yourself.
[00:18:59] To ask the hard questions. There's no right, there's no wrong, there's a right or a left. I just heard that recently. I love that kind of, um, whatever, language to think about options, not good or bad. There's just an option here and an option here. There's you getting honest with yourself about why you're doing things.
[00:19:20] It's never the, the thing itself. It's never the piece of clothing, the injection, the weight loss, whatever it is. That isn't, that, the thing itself is not the problem. It's the, are you doing it for the reasons that you say you're doing it? And is that thing going to actually get you the objective, right?
[00:19:39] The objective that you have, oh, it's going to make me happy, is that thing actually doing that? Truthfully, honestly, long term, is it actually doing that? And that's where the discomfort comes up. That's where the hard work comes up, is really thinking about it and seeing your patterns of behavior, seeing the way you talk to yourself, seeing the things that you're doing, and how does all this line up?
[00:19:59] It's probably got a little longer than I intended it to. Yeah, 20 minutes. Sorry guys. Thanks for hanging in. Um, I'll be back next week.