Ep 173: How to Take Your Power Back! Interview with Paula

Dr. Deb Butler: Welcome to the Thinner Peace in Menopause and Beyond. This is Dr. Deb Butler, master life and weight coach. And as always, your coach. Today is episode number 173. I’m bringing you another one of my beloved clients on and you will be so inspired. I promise you. Stay tuned.

Hey everybody, how are you today? I just got back from the Azores. Let me tell you what, if you have not been to the Azore Islands, which are kind of off of Portugal in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, you must go. It is fantastical. And we went to two different islands, and I was with my son and my daughter, in parentheses in law because, you know, I think of her as my daughter, and my two grandkids, and my beautiful husband, and we spent five days together in one beautiful place on one island.

And then my kids left and me and my husband took a plane and went to another island and spent another five or six days there by ourselves. It was so romantic, and it was so beautiful. And the house that we stayed in was like in a cliff, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. And I don’t even know how, I think maybe, I wonder if I can put a picture on it just for you guys to see it because it really doesn’t look real.

Anywho it was the best time ever, the most gorgeous place. I’m so glad I went. And I think I’m going back really soon. I think I’m gonna go there maybe for a month, six weeks, I don’t know, I want to live there for a while. I love my house so much. And I think we can do it. And I’m going to work from there. That’s the beauty of my job is I can work from anywhere. Talk to you from anywhere. Oh my god, I feel so lucky.

Which also the other thing that I want to say because I’m kind of going on and on is when you hear the interview that you’re about to listen to, it’s going to come out the day before my birthday. So I want you to know that on my birthday, which will be Wednesday, July 31st, it is the highest day of the year for me.

And it’s when I put out what I want for myself for the entire year, and this podcast, in this interview that you’re going to be listening to, is exactly what my intention is for the year— is to help as many women as possible and inspire many women as possible, to learn how to love themselves, to learn how to manage their minds, to learn that their weight does not define who they are, and that this time in their lives, menopause is going to create the next best half of their life.

And I’ll tell you what I am a living testament of that. Hence going to the Azores and going back to the Azores. And doing this job that is so purposeful that I love so much. And that I get paid well for doing it, that I can do it anywhere in the world. Oh my gosh. And this is what I want to inspire you to do, too, and I can’t think of my birth week and my birthday as a better time to do that.

And so this interview today that I’m doing with Paula could not put it any better than what she says about why I do what I do, and when you see where she is, where she is. It’s like, oh my gosh, there is nothing better in the world than being able to do that for somebody else, and I am so proud of her.

So I want you to listen to this podcast closely. She will inspire you. She will relate to her. And then in the end, I’ll pop in at the very end and maybe say a few words about the interview. So enjoy this podcast with Paula.

Hello, Paula. Welcome to the podcast. Here you are.

Paula: Hi, Deb. I’m so excited to talk to you.

Dr. Deb: And I’m so excited to talk to you. And we’ve been working together for a while now. And as I was telling you before I started the podcast, it is so hard for me to believe when I go over my notes when we first started working, that you were where you were and that you are where you are now. It almost doesn’t seem like I’m talking to the same person.

Paula: I feel the same way. I don’t feel like the same person.

Dr. Deb: Which is why you’re on the podcast today.

Paula: Well, thank you.

Dr. Deb: Yeah, because, you know, you’re an inspiration to me and I can’t wait for you to share your story with everybody. Because one of the things that you and I were talking about is that I think we all feel so separate from everybody else. And we think everybody else has got their act together and there’s just something wrong with us.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Deb: You know, and I think like when you share your story, because you’re so smart, and it seems like you’ve got everything together, and you work, you have a fantastic job, and yet, the struggle that you have is the struggle that everybody that listens to this podcast has. And so I just thought sharing that will inspire other people to realize that if you can do it, they can do it too.

Paula: I sure hope so. I believe that to be true.

Dr. Deb: Good. So I thought where I would start because you actually wrote an iTunes review on my podcast when you first started working with me.

Paula: Right. I think it was about maybe six weeks into us working together.

Dr. Deb: Okay. And, you know, they just kind of pop up on my phone when they come in. And I read it and I thought, “Oh, that’s so cool.” And then I realized it was you.

Paula: Yeah, I didn’t hide it.

Dr. Deb: No, no, no, no, not at all. But it’s just, number one, it’s, you know, I didn’t ask you to do it. I thought you just probably felt compelled to write something.

Paula: Yeah, that’s true.

Dr. Deb: Yeah. So I thought what I would do is just kind of read it to everybody. And then we could go from there about what you think about what you wrote.

Paula: Perfect.

Dr. Deb: Okay, so this is what you said in the podcast and you labeled it Changing My Life One Podcast At A Time. Well, what can I say Dr. Deb’s podcast is something I can listen to daily. Her podcasts are slowly changing my life for the better. After a breast cancer diagnosis and quickly going into menopause, the pounds came on fast.

I was almost to the point of becoming hopeless when I found this podcast. I also signed up to be one of her clients and she is just amazing, I have more than hope now, I know it’s just a matter of time and weight will come off. I’m learning how to take care of my mind and my body.

Paula: Yeah, so true. It’s all there.

Dr. Deb: Why don’t we talk about like, what inspired you to sign up to do a mini session with me? Like, how did you go from listening to the podcast to taking that next step to sign up for a mini session?

Paula: Yeah, right. So it was about, I would say last December, I started listening to your podcast. I came across it kind of by accident.

Dr. Deb: Yeah. Tell me about that. I’m kind of curious.

Paula: I was in the throes of menopause which was induced by a medication that I have to take for the breast cancer diagnosis. And so I was looking at menopause and weight loss since I’ve been dealing with, you know, losing the same 20 to 30 pounds and gaining it pretty much my whole adult life.

And I just came across yours and started listening to it, and I think I was about 45 episodes in, and, you know, I had pretty much lost hope in my ability to lose the weight and keep it off because I had lost it and gained it back so many times. But then I heard you, you know, talk about this 30 minute session, and I thought, wow, you know, the way that you spoke on your podcast, just really resonated with me. I tend to be a very direct person, and take things, and run with it. And I thought this woman could help me. I just felt like you could help me. So I thought, let’s do this free session. So I tried it.

By the end of the 30 minute session, when you laid it out to me and how it would work. I pretty much immediately called my husband and said, “You know, this is going to cost a little bit. But it’s important to me, and I want to do it.” And my husband, I thought he would be cringing a little bit, you know, because the cost is the cost. And he was so supportive. He said, “Go for it.”

Because I knew that losing weight was no longer about what I was putting in my mouth. And it was more about how my mind was thinking. And I always knew that. I tried to see counselors in the past, and have them help me on a weight loss plan. But it feels like counselors don’t really have that type of training. And they are more concentrated on what you’re eating and how much you’re exercising. And I know all that.

Dr. Deb: Of course.

Paula: I mean, at this point in life, we know how to lose weight and what it takes. But we don’t know how to keep it off. That was me. So I thought, “Okay, let’s do it.”

Dr. Deb: So, let me interject right here because I want to ask you a question because I think this is a problem for a lot of people. It’s like, so you do the mini session and you think, wow, this is, like you knew that you wanted to do it.

Paula: I knew right away.

Dr. Deb: Exactly. But how did you rectify spending that kind of money on yourself? Because a lot of people won’t do it. You know, it’s like they have the money, but they say they don’t have the money.

Paula: Well, to be straight with you.

Dr. Deb: Be straight with me.

Paula: Yeah, I’ll be straight with you. I was desperate, I knew that this time my tricks were not working with the menopause, and the breast cancer, and the medications that I was on. I knew that I no longer was willing to go through this up and down, you know, gaining and losing, I wanted this to be a permanent solution for my health, for the rest of my life.

And so when you spoke to me, and my husband was so supportive, I said, “Okay, this is it.” All you were almost like my last, it was like my last chance to do this and try to do it the right way. I had put my body through so much through the years, restricting, losing the weight, feeling good, and then going straight back to the way I would eat, which was eating, you know, foods that were not necessarily feel foods. Because it was a diet, it was called a diet. I was just doing it for a period of time.

Dr. Deb: Right, right. And so, with you, what I remember the most is how hopeless you were and also how much you were using having cancer against you. Like not, you know, so it was like another thing. And I want you to talk a little bit about how you’ve changed the way you look at that.

Paula: Well by the end of our 30 minute phone call, you know, you learned a lot about me in 30 minutes.

Dr. Deb: I sure did.

Paula: And I think the question you asked me is, “What do you think about this? Do you want to do this?” And I said, “Absolutely.” And then you said, “Why? Why do you want to do this?” And I said, “Because I’m worth it. Like, I’m worth it.” And you said, “That’s the smartest thing I’ve heard you say during the whole conversation.”

Dr. Deb: That was a brilliant thing you said, looking back. Because you felt so hopeless,  right?

Paula: Right. I, you know, I knew with like I said, with these medications and such, I just wanted to get healthy. It was about taking care of myself for the rest of my life. And I didn’t know where to start. And it really started with my thinking.

Dr. Deb: Right. And so with your thinking, your thinking has everything to do with taking care of yourself. And my recollection is that up until that point, you really didn’t know how to take care of yourself. You knew how to push yourself to do anything, but you really didn’t know how to connect and take care of your body. So it’s like, I think for you, it’s like even the cancer diagnosis, I think in one of our sessions, we talked about how really it was there more to help you than to hurt you.

Paula: Yeah, hindsight is amazing. You know, after going through the mastectomy and starting the medication last summer, and then starting to work with you, I was kind of able to look back and say, “Wow, you know, this is getting me to the place I need to be to take care of myself.” Because I was so much outside of myself, looking at taking care of my children and taking care of my mother with dementia who lives with me. I was taking care of everything at work, trying to be so helpful to everybody else, completely living outside of myself and running myself ragged.

Dr. Deb: Right.

Paula: Right. So I was giving too much of myself outwardly and not really even knowing what I was feeling and what was going on with me internally. And frankly, I was giving way too much power to the cancer. Because I was angry at first and you showed me that. I said, “Well, the doctors, you know, made me do this. Take this medicine that put me into menopause and made me and made me gain weight.” And you, that was probably like our second session.

Dr. Deb: I remember.

Paula: You were like, “Hold on a minute, sister.” You’re like, “Take that power back. You chose that. You chose to do the surgery, the mastectomy, you chose to take them, the medicine.” To get yourself to a place where you realized, “Hey, if I’m going to live this life and have a full, long life, I’m gonna give myself the best chance I have,” and that was so empowering because I didn’t realize that…

Dr. Deb: I just get chills right now while you’re telling me.

Paula: I didn’t realize I was blaming outside circumstances for my, quote, weight gain.

Dr. Deb: And so where are you now?

Paula: Well, you know, I’m still in the midst of reconstruction. And you have been with me through a couple surgeries. So the weight loss is slow, but that’s okay.

Dr. Deb: And we keep talking about that, that you still have a thought that it’s slow. Right? Because I don’t think that but you think that

Paula: Well, I used to think that. And I am…

Dr. Deb: I’m so glad you caught yourself.

Paula: I used to tell you how much I love pizza as well.

Dr. Deb: That’s right. Let’s talk about that next.

Paula: It is kind of funny. I was someone who was just obsessed with pizza.

Dr. Deb: Yeah.

Paula: And I would eat it, I mean, probably three to four times a week. Ridiculous. But now, I don’t even crave it. I mean, I’ve had it a few times since working with you and it was no big deal. And I was like, “Wow, that is amazing.” I mean, for the last 30 years, I tell everybody how much I love pizza.

Dr. Deb: Yes, and you told me too. And as soon as you told me how much you loved pizza, it was a whole session.

Paula: It was.

Dr. Deb: On pizza. Right? Because of the power you gave the pizza.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Deb: You know, you talk about giving your power away to the cancer to the pizza.

Paula: Yes, and more and more as I work, you know, my protocol and work these models. I say, “Okay, food is just food.” It is just pizza, you used to say. Or whatever it is, it’s just a cookie, whatever it is that you have an urge that you think you want to eat.

Dr. Deb: Yeah.

Paula: And wow, to just be able to even plan, right? To plan and enjoy food. Go out, have pizza, and say, “Oh, that was alright. But it was, you know, just pizza.”

Dr. Deb: Right. So how do you think, I mean, so you went from being obsessed with pizza, loving pizza, did not think you could live without pizza. In fact, I think that was such a big thing for you. It’s like, “Well, what am I going to do about pizza?” I mean, seriously, this was like a big deal at the time. And it’s like this for a lot of people going like, “Well, I want to be able to eat that again.” And it’s like what I said to you, you can eat it whenever you want. And do you understand what I mean by that now?

Paula: Yes, yes. The only thing I do now that’s different from before is I plan it if I want to have it.

Dr. Deb: Right.

Paula: And it’s, you know, allowing those urges. Like if it’s not something I plan 24 hours ahead of time and I, you know, let’s say, I remember the one night my daughter brought home a pizza, cheese.

Dr. Deb: Another pizza?

Paula: I was, “I did not plan for that.” So you said, “Well, what did you do?” And I said, “Well, I had a slice.” And at the time, I was kind of proud of myself, right? For just having a little slice. And you said, “Why?” And I think that’s key to how you operate. You’re like, “Why?” And you have to think about why did I do that? And ultimately, we determined I had it because I felt bad that my daughter had gone and bought a pizza, and came to visit me, and I thought maybe she’d be disappointed in me if I didn’t eat it. Ridiculous again.

Dr. Deb: Well, it’s ridiculous now when you’re looking at it with your observant mind. But at the time, it was so meaningful to you that you felt necessary to eat the pizza. Even when you didn’t love it anymore.

Paula: Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Deb: Right. And it’s not like you can’t eat it. It’s just like, “Why do you want to eat it?”

Paula: Right. Just stopping long enough to ask.

Dr. Deb: Yeah. And I would say for you, because that’s probably one of your issues that we worked on throughout other sessions was the whole idea of thinking that it was your job to please other people to begin with. Like, the focus is on you, and if you don’t put something in your mouth or eat something, the whole world is gonna fall apart.

Paula: Right.

Dr. Deb: You remember that?

Paula: Yeah, I do.

Dr. Deb: Yeah. So where are you with that now?

Paula: Well, you know, I’m just recognizing my faulty thinking more. You know, because you brought it to my attention. I mean, over the years, this is something that’s kind of been ingrained in my mind. Even prior to, you know, the cancer diagnosis. And now, instead of saying for instance, I would say things to myself like, “You go ahead and eat what you want Paula. Poor you. You deserve this, you know, you’ve had a bad day or you have breast cancer. You know, poor you. Go ahead.”

And I saw how that was so faulty in the past and then through the diagnosis that it was really contributing to my weight gain. It wasn’t doing anything positive for me. And now I understand that, you know, I gotta appreciate this body that carries me around each day. I got to take care of it. How amazing this body is. And to be to a healthier place, to move to that healthier place. Feeding myself pizza, and cookies, and whatever isn’t taking care of myself.

Dr. Deb: You really believe that now, right? Because you used to think that’s how you were taking care of yourself. It’s like, “You poor you, you should have cookies and pizza.” It’s like as a way of taking care of yourself, but all you were really doing was indulging.

Paula: Yes. And I love that podcast that you have that kind of explains the difference.

Dr. Deb: Yes. And and now you’re using self-compassion, and you’re actually giving yourself what you really need, which is beautiful, healthy, nutritious food for that beautiful, healthy body of yours. It’s the kindest thing that you could do.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Deb: And I think that’s where you live now.

Paula: I am. And, you know, but it does take practice and awareness each and every day. I still listen to you and your podcasts over and over again, just to remind myself. I mean this is, you know, 30 something years of practice that I’m overcoming.

Dr. Deb: That’s correct. So I’m not saying you’re there. I don’t know where there is. But what I’m saying is you’ve crossed that line of once you know what you know, you can’t not know.

Paula: Yes. And that was part of my, you know, how I know that this is the last time that I will lose weight. That we kind of did during my last session with you was, I love that quote, and you use it often as well, I call it Oprah’s quote, but it’s Maya Angelou’s quote, but, you know, “As I know better, I’m doing better.”

Dr. Deb: Yeah. And you can’t beat yourself up when you didn’t know.

Paula: Right.

Dr. Deb: Right. You did the best you could.

Paula: It doesn’t work.

Dr. Deb: No, it doesn’t work and you were doing the best you could at any given point in your life.

Paula: Right, we also talked about the timing. You know, how come I didn’t meet you? You know, you’ve been doing this for a while. I wish I could have done this, you know, five years ago.

Dr. Deb: Right. I think you said that.

Paula: And you said, “No, this is the perfect timing Paula.”

Dr. Deb: Do you believe that?

Paula: I do now. Because I think without the going into menopause so quickly, I would have continued to go to the weight watchers and the, you know, the quick fix keto, low carb diet, whatever it was that was working for me at the time where I could lose the weight quickly and then put it right back on. I would have continued that cycle.

Dr. Deb: Right. And so it’s almost like the diagnosis and what happened to you has actually helped bring you back to wanting to connect to your body. You didn’t know that. You thought it was a weight problem. But the reason you hired me is because you knew you wanted to be able to connect and that you weren’t

Paula: Right, exactly.

Dr. Deb: Do you feel more connected now?

Paula: I do. I do. And I’ve given up a lot of what I thought was my responsibility and it really wasn’t, you know, in dealing with the things outside of me. You know, my children, my mother. You know, you taught me how to, it’s okay. Like you can make a meal for your mom and she can eat it, or she doesn’t have to eat it. That is not something you need to worry about. If she’s hungry, she’ll eat when before I was fretting about it. You know, like, “Oh, I got to make her something else.” And I was taking all of that time, and attention, and putting it outside of myself. That’s just one example.

Dr. Deb: That’s a really good example, because that was about two sessions on your mother.

Paula: Hmm, yeah.

Dr. Deb: Right. I mean, these outside sources, the reason that we spend time on them isn’t because outside sources are a problem. It’s a problem because of what you make it mean in your mind and how you end up treating yourself.

Paula: Right.

Dr. Deb: Right. And once you could see that everything changed for you.

Paula: Right.

Dr. Deb: You know, your thinking changed around that. And then instead of putting all that energy into what your mama’s thinking, feeling, and all of that, you put it more into what’s going on with what you’re thinking, and feeling, and doing.

Paula: Yes. And not obsessing about it. Like just letting things go. Like as you talk about calming yourself down.

Dr. Deb: Yes, I would say you’ve done a very good job of that.

Paula: ‘Cause I can’t control everything.

Dr. Deb: You can’t?

Paula: No.

Dr. Deb: I mean, that is such an awakening.

Paula: I was hoping I could. But I can’t.

Dr. Deb: I know! I know! And if I knew how to do that, believe you me I’d be teaching it.

Paula: Right. It’s very, it’s such a relief to allow things to just be and not force matters. You taught me to, and this is really important, because I have had a battle with the scale. And I always thought, “Well, you know, you just don’t get on the scale because that’s gonna ruin your day.” And you said, “What? Get on the scale! Why aren’t you getting on the scale? It’s a tool.”

And I thought, “It’s a tool. Oh, it’s not gonna make you have a bad day, or make you have a good day. It’s giving you feedback. It’s a tool.” And so that has really been an eye opener for me as well. It helps me tweak my food plan to say, “Yeah, okay. Let’s do something a little different today, tomorrow, and then check the scale.” And I know people could be obsessed about the scale, but I was always wanting to just avoid the scale.

Dr. Deb: And that’s still an obsession. I mean if you’re avoiding it, it’s just as much of an obsession as getting on it.

Paula: Right.

Dr. Deb: The obsession is what’s in your mind about what you think about the scale.

Paula: For sure. And I thought it had the power to make or break my day.

Dr. Deb: You’re right. You thought the cancer had the power, you thought your mother had the power. And you know, speak a little bit just for a second, you have a pretty important job too.

Paula: It’s a stressful job. Yeah, I am, I work for the government. And I’m retired as well as a reservist from the military, and, you know, it’s been almost well over 25 years, and I also realized that I give probably too much. I mean, you can tell it’s still hard for me to say. But you taught me how to give myself space in my work day because I would be so stressed. And the way I thought I would reward myself at the end of the day was to have a drink or a food that’s not considered non, you know, that’s not fuel food. That was like the reward for working so hard. It’s just completely faulty thinking.

Dr. Deb: Mm hmm. So what’s it like now for you? Because the job is probably pretty much the same.

Paula: It is. Um you know, I allow myself 10 minute breaks to just walk a little bit to get up from the desk. I was always, prior to working with you, I would work straight through lunch and I would be starving. And then by the time I got home, I’d be eating way more food than necessary to fuel my body. So I was feeding a void there.

Dr. Deb: So between being hungry and being stressed?

Paula: Yes. And I also learned that the work is going to be there the next day.

Dr. Deb: Oh, what an amazing concept.

Paula: Yeah, it’s never ending. It’s not as if you complete it and the to do list is finished, right? So again, it calmed myself down. It was the ability to kind of say, “It’s okay. You can finish that tomorrow.”

Dr. Deb: I think what you’re saying to me and I think it’s really important for people to hear is you change the way you thought about that. Instead of it seemed like if you didn’t do it now, the whole world is going to fall apart?

Paula: Or worse. That people around me, you know, may think that Paula is not getting this done fast enough for us. I was more worried about what everybody else was thinking.

Dr. Deb: I call that the world falling apart. That would be your world falling apart if that’s what people did. Everybody’s world falling apart is different, but it’s a whole thing that you see that nothing really happens.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Deb: Right? And the only thing that changes is what’s inside of you, and how you treat yourself. And you realize that you don’t have control over all of those people at your job to begin with.

Paula: I have tried.

Dr. Deb: I know. I know. We’ve done a few sessions on that. And it was very hard at times. Like I think you wanted to knock me over the head about somebody we were talking about.  You were going like, “You don’t understand. That guy is running my life.”

Paula: Yeah, that guy is so difficult.

Dr. Deb: Yes. I mean, but you couldn’t understand. I mean, it was so hard. And it’s so hard for a lot of us to realize that you’re not reporting the news. You’re just telling me a thought that you thought for so long that makes you feel terrible. It’s not the guy.

Paula: Yes. We spent again, almost a whole session on one difficult person that I had to work with and how it affected my life. I mean, for years.

Dr. Deb: Yes. Yeah. And how it was affecting, because the reason he came up was something in your food journals.

Paula: Yes. Yes.

Dr. Deb: It was what you were eating.

Paula: Yeah.

Dr. Deb: And I asked you questions, and then he came up. And then we talked about your mind around that. And what you do, we modeled it. We put it in a model as he is the circumstance, or he’s just the news, he’s just who he is, and how you in your action, what you do that is so negative against yourself.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Deb: Right? Like he has got nothing to do with it.

Paula: Yes, it was. It was a miracle.

Dr. Deb: Another miracle for Paula. Right. You said, “If we can get through this, you know, because he is my nemesis.” But it really did help, didn’t it? To help to open up your mind.

Paula: Yes. And calm myself down.

Dr. Deb: And realized that you were giving him your power.

Paula: I was.

Dr. Deb: And you took your power back. You took your power back period, woman. Really. Everything we’re talking about is how you took your power back.

Paula: Yeah, I am amazed at working, you know, for the 12 or so weeks that we work together. I’m amazed how quickly, but of course, I mean, there is some effort in this. You have to really question your thoughts and you help me do that. To see where I am today versus then, and just so much kinder to myself.

Dr. Deb: Yeah, it is miraculous, isn’t it?

Paula: Mm hmm. It is.

Dr. Deb: It is. The only thing is, you know, Marianne Williamson, Williamson has a wonderful way of stating a miracle. She says a miracle is a change in your perception.

Paula: Oh, wow.

Dr. Deb: And that’s why I’m calling this miraculous is because you have changed your perception. And everything around you seems better.

Paula: Yes.

Dr. Deb: Right. But it’s only because of how you see it.

Paula: Change in your perception.

Dr. Deb: Yes, yes. And, you know, so the scale is going down. Your relationships are better. You like your job better. But really, all those outside things are exactly the same.

Paula: They are.

Dr. Deb: They are. The miracle has happened inside of you.

Paula: It is completely the way I think about those things now. And that has resulted in, you know, the model, the different actions.

Dr. Deb: Yeah, yeah. So you went from totally hopeless, where are you now?

Paula: I’m excited about my future. I know that this is a lifetime of health that I have before me. I know what it takes to take care of myself. It’s not complicated, but I was making it so much more complicated than it had to be. Very simple.

Dr. Deb: Do you know this is the last time you’ll ever have to lose weight again?

Paula: Yes, it is.

Dr. Deb: Lovely. It was wonderful talking to you today. I know you’re going to be an inspiration for everybody that’s listening. Thank you, Paula.

Paula: Thank you, Deb.

Dr. Deb: What did I tell you? She’s amazing. She has done the work. And I’ll tell you what, that’s another thing that I always want to talk about is, and she said it in the podcast too, it takes effort. This girl did some work, right? She did her food journal, she wrote on her models, she was vulnerable, she was willing to go there. But as she said, is that she decided that she was worth it. That’s the reason she decided to hire me. She knew the price was high. And then she said, “And I’m worth it.”

And I’ll tell you that a lot of people will say to me, “Well, I have to talk to my husband first.” The reason her husband probably said yes, and was so supportive, is because she was so determined to do it. She already had a yes. And I think that when you decide that what you’re going to do is the best thing for you and it’s a yes for you, usually your husband, whoever is with you in terms of deciding on spending a certain amount of money, usually it’s gonna be a yes.

So I just want you to think about that as you go on in your day, and if you’re thinking about working with me, and you’re thinking about it’s expensive, it is, remember that you are worth it. That’s what Paula decided, that she was worth it. And I’ll tell you what, listen to her now. And you can see that where she was, which was hopeless, this woman is hopeful, and she’s excited for her future, and you know what that is available to you too.

All you need to do is if you would like to find out how I can help you, and if you would be a good fit for my program, you can go to drdebbutler.com/workwithme, and you can apply, and have a mini session with me. All you have to do is go to drdebbutler.com/workwithme. And where Paula is, is where you can be too. See you next week.

Oh, wait a minute before I say that I almost forgot. No matter what else you do, you got to be please, please, please be very, very kind to yourself. And see you next week. Bye-bye.

Dr. Michael Butler: To get a free copy of Dr. Deb’s companion workbook, with all the tools, homeworks, and discussions that she uses in her podcast with our private clients, please go to drdebbutler.com/change. This will make it even easier to follow along with her in future broadcasts.