Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:01]:
Hello, fabulous. It's Dr. Stephanie Fein here with weight loss for fertility. And today we are talking about something so important. I've touched on it before, but I'm making this whole podcast it so you have a one place to come for it. And it's this idea of like when we're stuck, like the numbers on the scale aren't moving, or when we're not seeing progress, like with our hunger scale, or when we're in a loop that we keep doing the same thing over and over again. One tool that can really help is curiosity. Curiosity, the definition is the desire to learn or know more about something.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:00:46]:
Curiosity. It's not necessarily intuitive. When we're used to handling things differently. It's a very different feeling than the usual ones evoked by stuck or not progressing or spiraling in a loop. Those are usually anger or frustration or hopelessness or despair. And the end result of those emotions is stuck. And we've talked about the model before and I'm going to actually put in the show notes the episode I talked about the model. But if we put frustration in the feelings line, the action is basically no action.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:01:30]:
Often when we're frustrated, it's hard to do anything, except sometimes we can do non productive actions. Eating would be one of them. But in general in terms of progress, there's no action at all. It's kind of like a wall. And then the result is no progress. Right? So frustration is not a great emotion to get stuff done from, to get a result that you want from. So when we notice that we're feeling this way, we can use it as a sign. And the sign is indicating for us to go to curiosity.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:02:09]:
And this is the way we move out of the emotions that lead to inaction. How we get ourselves out of that frustration, no action, no progress loop is that we get curious. And when we're doing that, we're asking ourselves, what's going on? Why did I do that? But and this is very important with no judgment, with open hearted curiosity. So there's that a big, like energetic difference between frustration, that feeling sort of in your body of frustration, and the feeling of open hearted curiosity. That is a huge difference and makes all the difference when it comes to generating action. And in this case it would be learning about ourselves. And when we learn about ourselves, then we can do something about it. When we're in open hearted curiosity, there is an assumption of innocence that's so important, right? We're like, oh, something is very innocent here.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:28]:
This is not a problem. I'm just so Interested to know what's going on. The assumption is that there's no malice. It wasn't on purpose. It wasn't evil. It's just a simple misstep. A direction we didn't mean to go. An accident, mistake.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:03:51]:
It's not that there's something wrong with us. That's never going to be the answer. The answer is much simpler than that. It's much more practical, and it's interesting because our brain really likes us to stay stuck. It actually has a motivation to do that because that's the way it knows we're safe, we're alive right now. If it keeps us the way we are, right now, it's done its job. Yep, you're alive. Great.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:22]:
I just. If I keep you sitting right here, not doing anything else, I win. Because you stay alive. It's literally like the brain is keeping itself alive by keeping you safe, meaning exactly how you are. We're not going to change anything. Change is very scary to the brain because there's risk. And it. Every risk, it thinks is that you die, so.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:04:48]:
And if you die, it dies. So it's very protective. It really wants to keep you stuck. It's very, very happy when it keeps you stuck. But we have our prefrontal cortex, we have other desires. We have wants bigger than that primitive part of the brain that just wants to stay alive. And that's where we get into this, a little tussle with each other. But the prefrontal cortex, the bigger us, the bigger you, the bigger me.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:17]:
We win. Like, we have more space, we have more agility, and we can move forward, we can progress, we can change and get the things that we want. It's just that we have to deal with the primitive part of our brains. And that's okay, because once we know it, we just. That's what we do. We deal with it. And so we're learning that right now, which is really, really helpful. So we don't want to fall for the brain's tricks, trying to confuse us or keep us in a cloud of overwhelm.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:05:55]:
We can get out. We can emerge from that cloud by assuming that there's a perfectly good answer. So we ask the question, with clear, open energy, what's going on here? I wonder why that happened, huh? Why did I do that? That energy, that light energy, is the one we're looking for with our curiosity. Now, what's sneaky is those same words can be said in a very different way. What's going on here? Why did that happen? I wonder why I Did that. Those kinds of questions are not what we're looking for. Because really what that is is not an actual question. It's a punishment, it's a put down.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:06:48]:
Like the answer is because there's something wrong with me, because I'm terrible, because I do it wrong, because, because, because, because it's usually a not real answer. It's just that simple answer that the brain is looking for. Because again, that keeps us stuck. If we're, if there's just something fundamentally wrong with us. Oh well, nothing we can do. Guess I'll just stay here on the couch. It's a trick that the brain is playing, but we can get out of that by having the open energy of the light hearted curiosity. So we ask the questions, huh, I wonder why I did that? And we get still and we wait for the answer.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:07:36]:
Now if we actually get still in our brain now we don't have to be physically still, we can be walking and doing this. But if we quiet our brain to listen for the answer, we will get it. It usually comes pretty quickly. And whatever comes up is usually the answer. Unless it comes with some harshness or like shouting at you. That is not the real answer. It's kind of like the one before. Like it'll say that because there's something wrong with you, because you're lazy, because you're, you know, something, something like that.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:06]:
That is never the answer. The answer is not that. And if you hear that answer, we just have to stay quiet and ask again with even more openness. Because the voice that we're listening for has wisdom. It's quiet but clear. That's the one you listen to, the quiet one. The one that doesn't have to prove anything to anybody. It just comes up with an answer that's the one to listen to.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:08:36]:
And it's usually something really simple like, oh, I got too hungry. And actually that leads me to the next part, which is some examples. So any emotion that is uncomfortable is a call for curiosity. Okay, so one example is this idea of getting hangry, which is hungry and angry. The hunger part, we know the answer to that. Why do I get hungry? Because our body needs fuel. Okay, that's really simple. But the angry part, that's the part we want to understand because we can be hungry and not angry.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:09:16]:
But if we are angry, something's up. And the angry part of hangry will have us be stuck, not progressing. Because usually that ends in there's some frustration there. The anger, that's that wall where we're like, eff It I'm just gonna eat this or you know, something like that. It keeps us stuck. But if we ask ourselves, why am I angry? What's here? And an example is because I let myself get over hungry again. If I'm hangry and I ask about the anger, I may get an answer like I let myself get over hungry again. And the anger piece in this example is really a punishment.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:06]:
It's a self punishment. If I get angry, then I won't do it again. It's that idea of if I punish myself with some sort of pain. And here I'm just saying it's an uncomfortable feeling, anger. I keep myself stuck because I'm not willing to do any, I'm not willing to look for any answers. I'm just stuck in the anger and I feel like I've done something by punishing myself. I'm putting air quotes around that because I've punished myself by being angry at myself. Done.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:10:45]:
But that didn't feel good and it didn't help the situation whatsoever at all. No help we get again, no progress. But if we ask why am I angry? With open, lighthearted curiosity we can get the answer of, oh, because I got over hungry, I didn't bring a snack with me, I didn't plan for when I was gonna have my lunch. That's a really basic, great, fabulous, perfect answer. Oh good, good point. I ran out of the house, I totally forgot my, my Tupperware, there was too much traffic. I didn't plan for that. Great.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:11:26]:
Those are such good answers because now we can plan differently next time. Another example of where to use curiosity is when we get physically uncomfortable from overeating. We talked about emotion, that's uncomfortable emotion. And now we're talking about when we get physically uncomfortable from overeating. And that's going past two on the hunger scale. That's my definition of overeating. And again we get curious and when we do, we'll hear the answers again. It's not going to be self flagellation.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:04]:
That's not going to be an answer. It's not helpful. And it perpetuates eating, right? I mean if we feel terrible a lot of the time the coping mechanism we have is eating. It's just again another way to get stuck. So we're going to get curious about oh, I wonder why I did that, what was going on. And we're going to be still for a moment and listen, you could get the answer of I was over hungry or I felt pressure from my mother in law or everyone else. Was eating or I was bored, I was distracted. Any of those answers are useful? Those are very useful answers.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:12:44]:
Because now that we have those answers and remember none of them are I'm lazy, there's something wrong with me that those are not true and they're not helpful. But these are helpful. Over hungry pressure from my mother in law. Everyone else was eating, I was bored, I was distracted. Now there's something we can do next time. Amazing. That is progress. There is always an answer.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:15]:
And if you ask yourself enough times why? And you get still. Because you may ask yourself why and you get like a superficial answer. If you keep going with the whys and you're still, the answers will be there and they may be direct like we talked about. And the answer will be I'll bring a snack next time. Or planning for the week would really help. Amazing. Or the answer can lead us to an important discovery. Because in my experience there is always a good reason of an overeat or whatever it is.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:13:51]:
There's always a good reason, at least to your brain. Your brain thinks it's a good reason. You may not think it's a good reason, it might not make logical sense to you, but there's some part of you that it makes perfect sense to and we want to discover those that is extraordinarily helpful. Approaching the incident in question with curiosity can help you find the rules you have for yourself and potentially others. These unspoken rules and their beliefs are things like, we have to have supper together, it's my birthday, we have to go out to eat, I have to clean my plate. I should never waste food. The way we show love is with food. I have to have three meals a day, I have to get my money's worth.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:14:42]:
And once you're pregnant, I'm eating for two. That's another one. And finding these rules, these, they may even be unconscious, subconscious rules is so valuable they can be long held. And these beliefs can keep you stuck for years and years and years. And so finding them is so important. And when you question them with open, lighthearted curiosity, is it true? Or even is it true anymore? I should never waste food, I have to clean my plate. Is that true? Sometimes when we just question them, they poof, disappear, just the questioning itself. And other times they become sort of an obvious pattern.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:15:39]:
And then once we see the pattern, we can shift it. And we do that with more curiosity, by the way. So either way, revealing a practical answer or uncovering a long held belief, approaching emotional or physical discomfort around food with curiosity will have you moving forward. And that's the whole point. Because if we're always moving forward, we're getting to our goal. Period, end of sentence. It's when we're stuck, when we give up, when we feel defeated and we can't find our way out, that's when things end. But if we keep moving forward, we will get where we want to go.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:16:27]:
That's what we do around here, help you get where you want to go. So when you're stuck, get curious. We're going to just remember that stuck, get curious. That's the answer to stuck. When we're frustrated or angry, we get curious. When we're physically uncomfortable due to overeating, we get curious. We get into the open non judgmental energy of curious and we ask what's going on? Like my mentor says, what's going on, love? What's going on, love? And then we get still and we wait for the non harsh answer and then we act on that nugget of wisdom and we get the ball rolling again and it feels so much better. The curiosity is not judgmental, so it's not scary.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:17:26]:
And we can do that for ourselves. That's us building a really strong, beautiful relationship with ourselves that not only helps us lose weight, but impacts positively the rest of our lives, all the decisions that we're making. So if you want support with this, I am right here. Lose weight with me. The weight loss for fertility way. I'm ephaniefinemd on Instagram or LinkedIn or find [email protected] and we can be connected and start right away. I am sending you so, so much love. This is December.
Stephanie Fein MD [00:18:03]:
We're talking about the holidays. Getting curious about all the things that feel like they're rules will be really helpful and we'll be talking more about preparing for the holidays in the coming weeks. I'm sending you so much love.
