Ep 188: How to Develop Your MQ (Mindfulness Quotient) 

Dr. Deb Butler: Welcome to 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 188. I want to talk to you about something I talked to you a couple years ago on my podcast. I want to talk to you again, and I’m going to run the exact same recording because I think it’s so amazing for the holidays. And it’s called your MQ. So stay tuned and enjoy.

Hi there, my dear, dear friends. We’re in November, and if you haven’t noticed, the holidays are coming, the holidays are coming, the holidays are coming. And for all of you this creates all different kinds of thoughts. What I want to talk about with you today is for those of you who are frightened by the concept of, with the holidays coming, that means you’re going to be gaining weight. And if that’s what you’re thinking, then learning about your MQ is what’s going to save you this holiday season. And what I mean by saving you, I mean one, keeping you from gaining weight. Two, helping you lose weight, and three, having all of these ah-ha moments. 

Yes, I want you to decide to have an intention this year for the holidays that you’re going to have a new way to approach it. And instead of the thought like, uh oh, what am I going to do? How am I going to keep myself from gaining weight? How am I not going to enjoy all the goodies that happen this year? All the things that you think about that mess with you? What if this is the year that you decide number one, because you’re going through a transition of menopause, and that you don’t want to continue doing all the things that you used to do that got you here, you decide this holiday season you’re going to think differently? In other words, think about what you want to think about. Now that you’re going through menopause, how do you want to transition? If before menopause, you always gain weight during the holidays due to what we would now call it mindless eating, what if you made the intention that this holiday season, you were going to decide ahead of time that things are going to be different? Starting now. I have all the empowering thoughts that you could have. This is what I want to begin with. What if you thought I can eat anything I want, but how do I want to feel inside of my body when I’m done? I think it’s just a really fantastic question to ask yourself. 

Now I began this whole thing with talking to you about this new concept that I want to introduce to you, and it’s called your MQ, or your mindfulness quotient. So before I explain what that means, let me talk about some of the other quotients that you already know about. So let’s start with your IQ. Now your IQ is considered how intelligent you are, or your intelligent quotient. And basically what it is, it is a total score derived from one of several standardized tests that are designed to assess human intelligence. And the abbreviation of IQ was actually coined by a psychologist. His name is William Stern and it was for the German term intelligence quotient. And it was his term for a scoring method for intelligence tests and it was advocated in 1912, just for a little bit of history. Okay, so there’s the IQ, how smart are you? And I know, for all of you that are listening to me, all of you have a pretty high IQ. I know for most of my clients that I work with, I tell you over and over again they are smart. And yet, when it comes to making themselves a priority, and making choices that are actually good for them, and eating from a mindful kind of way, it seems so very difficult. They almost become like idiots when it comes to choosing the right foods for themselves. 

And I want to explain to you why that is, is because IQ is not the only quotient that can be measured. I don’t know if you’ve heard the term EQ, emotional quotient. But that became very, very, very popular, like in the 1960s. And then again, by I’m sure you’ve heard of him, special journalist and a psychologist, Daniel Goleman, who wrote his very, very popular book in 1995, called Your Emotional Quotient, your EQ, or emotional intelligence. And now, emotional intelligence or EQ is defined as the capability of individuals to recognize their own and other people’s emotions, to discriminate between different feelings, and label them appropriately to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior and to manage and or adjust emotions to adapt environments or achieve one’s goals. Okay, so that’s your EQ. So first, we had IQ, how smart you are. And then came EQ, which is how emotionally aware you are about how you feel and how you think other people feel. And according to Daniel Goldman’s book, that is more a deciding factor of how successful you will actually be in life. In other words, how emotionally aware will help you much more than how smart you are. 

Okay, so you with me on all of this. Now, for most of the people that I work with, they have high IQs, they also have very high EQs. Very, very emotionally aware. But this is where the problem is. And this is the term that I have created, that I am sharing with you that my whole book is going to be about. But it’s this new term called MQ, which is your mindfulness intelligence, or your mindfulness quotient. Or even you can call it your mindfulness eating quotient. I love that even more. Okay, so your mindfulness quotient, basically, is what mindfulness is, is a non-judgmental, receptive mind state in which one observes thoughts and feelings as they are, without trying to suppress or deny them. We cannot ignore our pain and feel compassion for it at the same time. And at the same time, mindfulness requires that we not be over identified with thoughts and feelings so that we are caught up and swept away by negative reactivity. So the difference between your MQ and your EQ is, MQ is you are non-judgmentally aware of what’s going on inside of you, and what’s going on around you. And that non-judgmental awareness is really what separates your EQ from your MQ. And I am here to tell you, especially during the holidays, that if you can learn how to develop your MQ, you, my darling, cannot only have a much better holiday season, but if you want, you could actually lose weight. And that is what I want to talk about today, and how for you to discover what that is for you. And what I’ve devised, is I’ve devised a little quiz. 

You know, so the IQ test was all about standardized testing. And I think for my MQ the beginning is I’m going to start with some questions, and how you would answer it. And then what I will do today is I will tell you the correct mindful answer, why it is correct, and how you can develop that inside yourself. Do you want to enjoy the holidays more? Would you like to lose weight, or even stay the same during the holidays? Then I want you to get ready for this quiz that I’m about ready to give you. Are you ready? 

Question number one. Now, these questions are all going to be in regard to Thanksgiving, because that’s the first holiday that’s coming up. And we’re going to be very aware of what we’re thinking, okay? So here we go. Question number one. You’re getting ready to go to a party and you’re feeling hungry, about a negative one on the physical hunger scale, what do you think and what do you do? Here’s the first possible answer, this is what you think, I’m not going to eat now, I’m going to save my appetite for the party because the food is going to be so delicious and I really, really want to be hungry to eat it. And let’s say that by the time you get to a party, you’re at a negative six. And what do you do? You eat as much as possible, you think to yourself, you’ll never have a chance to eat all this beautiful food again. So you eat and drink as much as possible because number one, you’re so hungry. And number two, you think you may never have it again and it looks so good. And you also think, hey, it’s the holidays, for Pete’s sake. Here’s the second possible answer. You think to yourself, about all the things that you’re not going to be able to eat because you’re on a diet, and you feel so sorry for yourself. And by the time you get to the party, you finally think to yourself, what a hack, it’s just one night, and you’ve been so good, you deserve to eat it. That’s the second possible answer. And here’s the third possible answer that you can come up with. You eat a little fuel food now because you’re at a negative one. So you bring yourself up to a plus two. And you tell yourself that you can eat anything you want at the party, as long as you’re hungry, or you must enjoy every single bite if it’s a joy food. You pause when you get to the party, you pay attention to all the people that you want to talk to. And you pay attention to all the food that’s around that are your choices. And you’re not very hungry, you have very little hunger at this point, too, right? Because you ate a little bit before you came. So you really get to be mindful about what you want to eat and what you don’t. So what you decide to do is you enjoy communicating and socializing with the people that you decided that you want to talk to. And two, when you eat, you pay attention to every single bite that goes on into your mouth. So you’re either paying attention to socializing, or you’re paying attention to the food that’s going into your mouth, but you’re not doing both at the same time. And you’re being very mindful about how good it tastes, and you’re also very aware when your physical body brings you up to a plus two, and you stop. And the way that you feel when you leave that party is you feel proud, you feel happy, and you feel in control. Alright, so those are the three possibilities. 

Now let me go over each possibility, and then tell you which of these answers has the highest MQ. In other words, where you rate the highest in mindfulness. All right. So the first answer was, I’ll save my appetite for the party. Okay, let’s talk about that. So you know that when you’re getting ready to go to the party, you’re a little bit hungry already. Now, if you think to yourself, I don’t want to eat now, I just want to save my appetite. By the time you get to the party, you’re going to be a lot hungrier. And when I put in this scenario, that by the time you got there you are actually at a negative six. That is really, really hungry. And what I’ve told you in the past is what I’ll tell you now is that it’s very hard to be mindful when your physical body is so hungry. And so already, you’re at a disadvantage. I just want you to know that, that regardless, just by the thought that you’re going to save your appetite creates the environment and the result of not being able to control yourself. Do you remember me giving you the example a long time ago that if I went into one of my favorite restaurants here in St. Louis, where they serve the most delectable baked goods that all sit in front of the window. If I go in there with a very strong hunger scale, like at a negative six, you know, when I’m going to want to eat, I’m going to want to eat the pretzel roll. Not the salad, right? Because I’m so hungry, and that pretzel roll looks irresistible. But it’s just because I’m compulsive. My body is compulsive because I’m so hungry as opposed to if I go into that same restaurant, and I’m at a negative one or a negative two, I can actually make the best decision for my body because my body is not screaming at me. Same thing, if you’re going to this Thanksgiving party, if you’re at a negative six, you do not have a choice, it makes it very, very difficult. So the mindful way of doing this is that when you feel a little bit hungry, before you leave for the party, you take care of that hunger to ensure that when you get to that party, your body is not screaming at you. And you can be extremely mindful of what you want to put in your body. Right? So that first answer is not the correct answer, saving my appetite for the party. Uh-uh, nope. If you’re starting to get hungry, before you leave, you take care of it right there and right then. 

Now, the second answer that I gave you was, if you’re going to this Thanksgiving party, if you think to yourself, like for instance, you’re on a diet, like many of us are during the holidays, and the thing that you start thinking about is, oh, poor me, I can’t eat all that good food, and you start feeling so sorry for yourself. Poor, poor, you. This is what you’re thinking, then what absolutely can happen is that when you get to this Thanksgiving party, and you’re feeling deprived, and we’ve talked a lot about deprivation is when you feel deprived, there is a part of you that will open up and jump in and say what the heck, it’s just one night, and you deserve it. That is not being mindful at all. But if you’re not aware, in other words, if your MQ is not high enough, you are not aware that that is what’s going on through your mind so you have no possibility to change it. But now that we’re talking about your MQ, you are now seeing that you can see, you can become aware, you can have no judgement about the things that are running around in your mind. Right? So I just gave you two possibilities. One, I’ll save my appetite for the party, uh-oh, not gonna work. Or two, poor me, poor me, I’m on a diet, I can’t eat all those foods. Oh, and then you get to the party and what the heck, it’s a party and you throw it all out the window. All low MQ’s. Low mindfulness quotients. 

Now, let me give you the third answer. And I think I’ve already told you what it’s all about. What if you eat a little fuel food now because this is the high MQ. This is really the answer, I gave it to you and maybe you chose it. But let me really explain it to you. If you eat a little fuel food now and you bring yourself up to a plus two, and you tell yourself, you can eat anything you want at the party, because you know what, you can. You can either enjoy a food that’s not a fuel food. In other words, enjoy every bite and stop the minute that you’re through. Or you can eat a fuel food and make sure that you’re paying attention to the physical part of your body and you’re stopping when you get to that plus two. You pause, you pause before you decide who you’re going to talk to you pause before you decide what you’re going to eat. And you see what’s going on inside of your head. Non judgmentally, you just watch it because really, everything that I’ve told you so far could all be thoughts that are running around up there. Every single answer that I gave you, I’ll say my appetite for the party, oh poor me, or maybe I’ll just take care of myself now and I’ll pay attention at the party. You just get to choose. When you become this mindful, you choose the thoughts that work the best for you. And of course, what you want the result to be, is you want to walk away from this party at a plus two physically. That’s the best thing that you can ask for yourself, is that you walk away with a plus two. And if you had some food that was so delectable and delicious, and it wasn’t a fuel food, you enjoyed every bite of it, and you didn’t need too much of it. 

Hey, would that be lovely? This is the way a naturally thin person thinks. And with a high MQ on your end, you can do exactly the same thing. This is so exciting, this little MQ test that I’m giving. And on the next couple podcasts, I’m going to give more of my quiz, more questions and more answers, and how to raise your own MQ. And this is what I believe, the higher your MQ, the lower your body weight, really, because you know by now that what goes on in your mind, affects your feelings, affects how you treat yourself, and affects the overall result. 

This transition of menopause is truly a reflective time to reflect on what works for you in your body, and what doesn’t. And as we went through that mindfulness quiz, you certainly could see that there were some thoughts there that you probably have had for a long time that were never working for you. And you also see that there are some thoughts that you could adapt, that would really help you. 

So you know, menopause isn’t just about hormonal imbalance. It’s about transition. And it’s all about deciding to do the things that work for you because you now have enough wisdom to know what doesn’t work for you. Use this time mindfully, and use this holiday season to make not only the season the best ever for you, but the best way to get the highest MQ possible. Because you know what? Your body and your life depend on it. So until next week. I want you to be very, very kind to yourself. Bye bye.

Dr. Michael Butler: I would like to invite you to correspond with Dr. Deborah, go to iTunes, drdebbutler.com/iTunes. And you can review the show and you can even give some helpful suggestions on what you would like to talk about in the future to accomplish your mindfulness and your journey into mindfulness. Thank you.