Why do diets fail more than 90% of the time?
It’s no secret to many of us out there. If you’ve ever lost weight only to pack it back on again, this show is for you.
Today, we’re here with Tanya Dyer, Esq., an author, speaker, business coach, and 22-year divorce lawyer.
She has a lot to say about how to manage relationships these days, as well as how to stay mentally strong.
On today’s show we’re chatting about:
- The art of self-rescue
- How to address your hidden weaknesses
- Why dieting fails 97% of the time
- Giving yourself permission to take a deep breath
- Why we need more tough love, honesty and truth
- And much, much more…
Let’s go hang out with Tanya.
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Tanya Dyer, Esq.: The Art of Self Rescue
Abel: Today we’re here with Tanya Dyer, a 22-year divorce lawyer, author, spiritual teacher, and coach for alpha women entrepreneurs.
She divorced in 2011, then Tanya set out to learn why so many marriages fail, and used what she learned to save her second marriage, and authored the book The Smart Guide to Life After Divorce, with advice on finally separating struggle from success in life and marriage.
Welcome to the show, Tanya.
Hi, I’m so excited to be here.
Abel: Me, too. And thank you, by the way, for waking up early for us, because you’re not just down the road.
It’s amazing that we can do this at all.
I’m down under. I am in South Australia. So, I’m makeup ready at 7:00 AM. Yes, that’s how important this is.
If you’re listening, if you’re in your kitchen, if you’re driving, you need to just pull over. Drop a child at daycare, do what you need to do.
Because this is a makeup at 7:00 AM important level conversation.
Abel: Let’s go.
Alright. So, what I want to talk about is why smart, successful women stay stuck in bad relationships, because this is a problem.
The whole world is cruising around, and everybody’s focused on this pandemic, this epidemic. But there’s an epidemic that I want to help women with.
And I’ll explain what an alpha woman is, but alpha women are struggling. They’re struggling in all four corners of their foundation—which are their health, their wealth, their love, and their mission.
They’re struggling in all 4 corners of their foundation—which are their health, their wealth, their love and their mission. @AlphaWomenCoach Click To Tweet
And you are helping people with their health, which is awesome. Alphas are great, by the way, with health, because they will lock focus.
They get like a dog, they just lock it in their teeth, and they just shake their health.
Abel: Just execute. Yeah.
They want everything. They’re like, “Give it to me, give it to me. Mmm.” So they love you.
So, I’m so excited to be here talking to them because maybe you’re working your health and maybe you’re even making some money, but you’re still in relationships that are struggling.
You don’t have all the women friendships. The women you do have stab you in the back. They don’t support you. You feel alone. You feel abandoned.
If you’re married or in a relationship, it loses intimacy. You lose the sex, you lose the connection, and then again, you feel like you’re caretaking.
So, I want to fix that.
What is An Alpha?
Abel: Yeah. So, alpha women, and alphas in general, get a bad rap.
So, let’s dig in a little bit to why that is and how you define it, as well.
Oh, yeah. You’re so brilliant. You’re on Team Alpha here.
So, here’s the thing, when you hear the term “alpha” usually you have a negative connotation with it.
We tend to associate it most commonly with alpha male. You go, “Ooh, what an alpha male.”
And we think of an alpha male like this caveman with a club, he’s just running around bamming people on the head, doing what he wants to do, taking things that aren’t his because he’s the biggest and the strongest.
That’s not an alpha. That’s awful.
That’s what that is, okay? That’s not an alpha.
What you’re looking at when you’re talking about alpha women is a woman that was created a very specific way.
An alpha woman usually has an alpha mother, she’s usually got a dad who taught her that she had to earn love.
There was usually an origin story on alphas. We’re like Batman. Okay.
Everybody, we got an origin. Superman. We got our own origin story. And alphas need to know what you are.
What you are is beautiful and strong, but you’re also too much, too opinionated.
You’re considered too aggressive, too bossy. You talk too fast. Yeah, big shot, right?
So, you’ve got this very intense you, and it makes other people uncomfortable.
And where did it come from?
It came from when you were a child, when your parents did something that convinced you that you were alone, that it was you against the world, that you had to take care of yourself.
Usually, you took care of your family too, by the way.
So, usually, alphas, at 5 and 6, like I was a little child, I was managing the household.
That’s a very common story, we’re wired for responsibility.
That is an alpha woman, and the problem is she’s got great strengths, but she has very predictable challenges, and the biggest one, relationships. We screw up relationships.
Abel: How so?
We don’t trust. Now, I want you to understand that the word trust is a synonym for the word love.
So wherever you see the word love, you can always substitute the word trust.
What you need to understand is that when you were… When whatever happened to you as a kid, usually it was your mom, she did something and it breached trust.
It taught you that you were not lovable, that you were not worthy, that you weren’t worth enough, that you weren’t safe, that no one was going to protect you, you developed a core abandonment wound.
That is our jazz, we are so adverse to being abandoned, and what we did is we developed an entire persona, so to speak, it’s really a defense mechanism to protect ourselves.
We became alpha to protect ourselves, because if you’re super-independent and you don’t need anybody, then nobody can hurt you, and you’re not expecting anybody to help you.
And this carries on into adult life.
You actually create an entire life where, because you’re not expecting help, you don’t get it, because you don’t believe people will show up for you.
You attract weak people, you keep them around you, you enable them, and you never ask for help.
So, alphas don’t ask for help and they don’t receive help.
So, we’ve really created an ongoing problem from a device that was designed for survival when we were kids. Does that make sense?
Abel: Yeah, yeah.
So it’s just… I get so excited. I’m like, there’s someone… There’s an alpha listening to me right now.
And she’s looking around and she’s like, “Oh my God, I’m an alpha.”
Yes, you are, baby. Yes, you are. And it’s beautiful.
Alphas are like thunderstorms, like electricity.
Alphas are like thunderstorms, like electricity. @AlphaWomenCoach Click To Tweet
We’re powerful and beautiful and awe-inspiring, but we’re also scary as… Okay?
We are scary people because we blow things up. We crush things without meaning to.
You probably don’t have a lot of female friends. Now, the ones you have are ride or die.
If you have an alpha as a friend, people love us as friends because we’re the person you call at 3:00 AM if there’s a body.
We already have a shovel in lie, and an emergency burial place, and we have the trunk. We’re prepared.
Alphas love organization. We’re the planners. We’re the strategizers.
If there’s a crisis, you throw an alpha at it, but this doesn’t work well for relationships, because relationships have a natural balance that they have to them, and alphas are not in balance.
We’re all on or all off. We’re very extreme.
So, when it comes to our life, this is the juicy part, alphas have a life cycle.
The first phase is the fight cycle.
The second phase is your control cycle, that’s where alphas tend to just die.
We never make it to the third cycle, which is surrender, because we don’t like the idea of surrendering.
We’re warriors, and when you’re a warrior, you always need to war.
It’s like, oh my gosh, Abel, it’s like, you know how when soldiers are coming back in America, you have all of this machinery of war, you have all this stuff.
Nobody wants that to go away because we have so many warriors. If there’s no war, the warriors have no purpose.
So, alphas are warriors, and we’re built for battle and struggle.
So, hear this, alpha. You’re listening to me at your kitchen table. Put your coffee cup down and listen.
Everything in your life is wired for struggle. You seek it subconsciously. Your core belief is that if it’s not hard, it’s not valuable.
That’s why your relationships always have struggle in them because you validate everything’s meaning and quality by the struggle.
How to Address Your Hidden Weaknesses
Abel: So, how do you undo that? Or how do you address the weaknesses that you can’t see because you’re so covered in calluses?
Oh my god, I completely love you. I want that little snippet. We’re going to cut that piece of audio.
Abel: Go for it.
How do you address the weaknesses you can’t see because you’re covered in calluses? That’s exactly it.
You can see them. I’m just going to tell you. I love just telling people…
I’m going to tell you, this is not sneaky, okay, life is designed to mirror to you.
The way I teach this is you’re driving in a car and there’s something called a check engine light.
If you’re old enough, you know the minute you see a check engine light, you’re screwed because it always means something expensive has gone wrong with your car.
It’s like, “Oh my gosh.”
So, what I’m telling you is how you can spot the things that you can’t see.
It’s not a secret. It’s not a trick. The way I teach this is with a check engine light.
If you’re driving your car, and you just see the check engine light come on, you know you’re screwed.
If you’re old enough, you’re like, “Oh no,” because immediately you know something really expensive is wrong.
You’re like looking around, and your first instinct is to… Honestly, it’s to ignore it.
You’re like, “Well, I have to get to work. I have to get back home. I have to pick up the kids and get the groceries.”
And a couple of days go by and you’re still just like, “Ugh.”
Because you don’t actually want to know what it means. You don’t actually want to find out.
You don’t want somebody to give you the invoice, the bill to tell you, “Oh my goodness, this is what’s going on with you.”
Your life is designed to be a series of check engine lights. Problems are not meant to be solved.
If anybody’s sitting in front of a piece of paper and you’re looking for writer-downers, bing.
Problems aren’t meant to be solved. Problems are just guideposts. It’s how the universe speaks to you.
Problems aren’t meant to be solved. Problems are just guideposts. It’s how the universe speaks to you. @AlphaWomenCoach Click To Tweet
It’s telling you to pay attention, because we’re not good with paying attention to our life when it’s working.
If your life is working, you pay zero attention.
If your guy is behaving, you’re like, “Okay, whatever, I don’t need to do anything better or different.”
If your children are alright, you’re like, “Okay, don’t need any extra over there.”
You do not give your attention to things when they’re working. You only pay attention when it’s broken.
When your car won’t start, when you’re fighting every day with your husband, when your children start getting notes at home with the teacher every week, honestly, that’s when you pay attention.
So, the check engine light of your life shows you… Your problems in life will show you very reliably what it is that you believe.
It will show you what I call your core beliefs. These core beliefs are where all of your garbage is.
If you think of it like a… You’ve ever been in a skyscraper, and you’re in the elevator, and they’ve got like five, four, three, two, one, ground, and then they’ve got P1, two and three.
These are like the parking levels, they’re subterranean, way below ground.
Your stuff’s on P3. That’s the stuff that you’ve got to deal with. You have to get down to P3.
Now, you don’t want to go there.
Universe is showing you, God is showing you, sources showing you what’s the matter by showing you the problem.
So, I’ll give you an example.
I was just talking to an alpha I took a walk with. She needed some help.
We needed to… I couldn’t just coach, we needed to have a walking coach.
I’m like, “We need to go four and a half miles ’til we get this.”
Abel: You’ve got to walk this off.
I was like, “Let’s sweat this out.”
Alphas, this is a very common belief, her core belief is that love means you meet my needs, and you make me safe, make me safe, because alphas don’t feel safe, because that’s that core origin issue.
We don’t feel safe. We never feel safe. We’re constantly looking for somebody to secure us, which sounds funny because we’re super-independent.
That’s just our shell. We’re very strong on the outside, we’re a hot mess on the inside, which is true.
Strong on the outside, hot mess on the inside.
A woman actually should be the other way, you should be soft and approachable on the outside and, of course, steel on the inside.
That’s actually the appropriate way.
But so here we are, we’re cruising along. She feels that needs are what she needs to fill up.
And by the way, I’ll raise my hand. I had that same similar one too.
So, who does she attract? She attracted a man who wants a super-independent woman.
Translation: He wants a woman that has no needs, so he’s not responsible for anything.
The universe puts those two people together on purpose. He is her check engine light.
He is showing her that she needs to deal with this need issue.
Alphas, this is a crazy thing I’m telling you to straight out.
We hate needy people, like grit teeth, like lose some enamel, hate needy people. Ugh.
Punch, punch really wanting to just get Violet in the face with those… You get those soft, fluffy, needy, “I don’t know how to do it. Show me how to do it. Fix it. Make it work for me.”
Oh my God, we can’t stand them.
The reason we hate them is because that’s the part of ourselves that we’re denying. We’re denying that soft part of us that has needs.
So, when we see it outside of ourselves kind of exaggerated and buffy or fluffy, oh my goodness, we can’t stand that woman.
We are needy, we just are. We have it inside of us.
And what we’re really looking for is for somebody in a relationship to come and to rescue us. This is why Alphas are actually rescuers.
I promise you, you’re trying to figure out if you’re an alpha woman, you’re surrounded by strays, you just are.
We’re talking animals, men, business partners, friends, your neighbors. I’m not kidding.
You are the person who you will have some project to do, and the next thing you know, you’re moving your neighbor’s furniture.
Abel: Right.
And then, while you’re moving her furniture, you’re helping her fix her relationship with her husband, and then she tells some other friend.
And the next thing you know, next Saturday, you’re on the phone with some other woman, doing some other thing.
And all that time, what you’re not doing is you’re not doing your health, your wealth, your love, your mission.
You’re not writing your book. You’re not building your business. You’re not doing your inner work to read these check engine lights.
Alphas are surrounded by weak people, and what we believe is that all people… Secretly, we believe this, all people are broken.
They’re not. It is that we actually ask for needy people because, and this is the big trick, we want to not be abandoned, so we think…
You see it. You see it coming. We think that if I have somebody who needs me, they won’t leave me.
Abel: Yeah.
It’s completely not true. I’ve proven this.
If there’s a stove, I have touched this. If there’s a stove manufacturer, they could hire me because I have touched the hot stove of the lie on that one so many times.
Just because they need you, doesn’t mean they won’t leave you. And even if they don’t leave you, they will abandon you emotionally.
That’s where you get these relationships, where your best friend… I discovered… This is recently, that my best friend wasn’t my best friend.
It’s more like a lord and a vassal situation. I was the lord of the castle, and she was the person that… You know what I mean?
She lived in the land, and she got the benefit, and she’d come to parties at my castle, and everything was great.
And if there was an emergency, what’s the rule of the land?
You run into the castle, and I secure the castle. I go out and fight the battle.
She stays inside where it’s safe, I go outside where it’s not safe.
That is a very strong pattern that alphas get trapped in.
That’s actually not a friendship. It’s not balanced. It’s not equal. I’m paying her to approve of me.
Abel: Right. That’s a dangerous situation, and it’s everywhere.
Oh, my gosh, it’s a train wreck. And so I want you to look, alpha, if you’re listening…
Yeah, you’re an alpha. You have a pattern. And I teach two important things.
One, you do everything the way you do one thing.
So, if you’re doing something in one area, you’re doing in other areas.
If you’re doing it in your health, I promise you you’re doing it in your wealth, your love and your mission. Okay?
And the other thing is it’s the pattern, not the people.
So, if you’re asking me, “Oh my gosh, Tanya, how do we fix this?”
You have to actually deal with the pattern, not the people.
You’re trying to fix your husband, it will not work.
I am a 22-year high-conflict divorce lawyer. I’m telling you it won’t work.
My first marriage failed. My second marriage started to fail.
I was like, “Hey, wait a second. I’m a world’s best relationship expert, how could my relationship start to go sideways?”
It was the pattern… The pattern that is inherent in the way an alpha is born, those calluses that hide our wounds, we actually have to get in there and see the real core beliefs.
My real core belief I got from my mom who was an alpha was that, “If you love me, you’ll meet all my needs.”
Well, he’s not supposed to. Really, he’s not supposed to. Because he’s not supposed to, the universe sabotages it.
Even if you have a guy who wanted to meet all your needs, they will sabotage it because you’re not supposed to have that, because if you do that, you’re abdicating your own stuff.
If you do this in the love corner, I promise you your wealth corner will fail, your mission corner will never get started, and you’ll start to develop health issues and struggle in your health.
You’ve seen this with people where they’re heavy, and there’s no reason why they’re heavy, like they exercise, they eat well, and they’re just freaking heavy.
You’ve heard this before, weight is not W-E-I-G-H-T, it’s W-A-I-T. It’s you’re waiting for something. Something is layered on you.
I just lost 21 pounds or 10 kilos in three months.
Abel: Wow.
I didn’t exercise. Yeah, I did. I’m like, I’m excited with my cheek… I’m like, “Hey, look, it’s my cheekbones.”
Abel: You’re looking great from where I’m standing.
I’m excited. That weight came from grief. It came from struggle. It came from stress. It came from resistance to the truth of what was.
And when I was ready to deal with the truth, and I was ready to deal with my core beliefs, when I was ready to navigate from where I was as opposed to where I wanted to pretend I was, or where I preferred to be, or where I deserve to be, when I was ready to do that, yeah, then the weight just comes off.
Addressing Core Beliefs & Weight-Loss
Abel: How do you make that shift though? Easier said than done.
They say some things are… It’s simple, but not easy.
My three pillars in coaching in The Art of Self Rescue are massive truth, massive action, massive transformation.
Alphas are so wired… The alpha is wired for the masculine, it’s the doing. So you want to do. You want to do something.
You want me to give you a template. You want me to give you a blueprint. You want me to give you a structure.
When alphas start coaching with me, they’re just like, “Yes, and I would like… ” I’m like, “I’m not giving you that.” That’s about control.
I want you to understand the word control is absolutely about fear. We’re afraid all the time, so we control things.
And by the way, the word planning is a synonym for control. Sorry.
What we’re trying to do is we’re trying to learn to trust, we’re trying to learn to open up what is our more feminine side, which is our intuition, which is our knowing, which is our receiving, which is our asking, which is our needing.
Opening up that side, you actually don’t need all of the structure and the blueprints and all these things that you think that you need, all these things that you think you need to secure yourself because you’re so afraid that no one has your back.
Alpha, I have your back, because I’ve screwed this up, hand up, a lot, so very much.
And I want you to know that the reason this is critically-important is because you’re… I’m going to tell you the truth, you’re breaking your children and you know this.
The opposite of the doing is the being, and the being has to start with the truth.
The truth is that you’re making your daughter an alpha, that’s why she fights, fights, fights, with you, and you’re breaking your boys, you’re making them beta, you’re making them soft.
That’s the reason why, if you’re married, you’re married to a beta man.
And by the way, the wheels come off the bus in an alpha/beta marriage in about five to seven years.
In the beginning, it’s awesome because he does everything to get you, because he wants you, because, listen very carefully, he was raised by an alpha female.
His core belief of safety is connected to an alpha female. So that beta softer male wants you.
He finds you, he becomes his best self, he becomes his most alpha-like self, he becomes kind of a…
He looks like a soft alpha, and you get so excited, because oh he loves me, and he’ll let me do what I want.
And he isn’t making me all angry, because remember the life cycle is fight, control, surrender.
First 20 years of your life, you just fight with men, and then you get tired of that crap.
And then you go into the control cycle where you meet a man, you meet your beta, and you can control him, so you’re happy.
And then the wheels come off the bus and then you end up fighting with him, just more or less forever, until you decide that it’s him…
It’s not him, it’s you.
The way that you break out of this cycle is you have to sit with the truth that I love you, but it’s us.
The play of your life is written by you, and you are completely in control.
You don’t have to be spiritual.
My spiritual beliefs say I have dominion and I’m a creator, that my thoughts create things, that whatever I focus on expands.
When you are focusing on being abandoned, you get more abandonment.
If you’re seeing abandonment in your life, it’s because you abandoned yourself first, first.
The part of you that you’re abandoning is the part that has needs, the part that has feelings.
So many alphas are divorced from their feelings. We don’t cry. We don’t cry. We’re just… Remember the warrior thing, we’re so strong, we’re so tough, we don’t cry.
And life has taught you four lies.
Life has taught you to chase the money, chase the money. You want the money, go get the money. That is a lie.
The truth is when you do what you love, the money actually follows. @AlphaWomenCoach
That really is the truth. The reason that annoying statement is still said is because it’s true.
It’s annoying, it annoyed me for years until I really got it. I’m like, oh my God, it’s actually true.
The reason alphas can’t get what that is is because we don’t trust, we have trust issues.
So trusting that I could do what I love and I’ll be financially-secured and protected, we have to engineer and force it and do it.
We have to take action on it. It’s not… It’s a lie. Chasing…
Weight loss is another one. You can never be too rich or too thin.
We believe that if we have the right size and the right shape, then not only will he love us, but you’ll love you.
You don’t love yourself if you’re heavy.
You’re like, “I love myself when I was a nine. I love myself when I could wear this dress. I love myself when my belly didn’t roll.”
You don’t love yourself now, you won’t lose the weight. You won’t. You health people know this.
It’s like there’s a billion-dollar health industry, and it’s like you would have nothing to talk about because you’d be like,
“If you love yourself, you’ll take good care of yourself because you’re valuable.”
And that’s it. That would be a really short conversation.
So, we talk about our carbs and our sugars and our keto, and stuff like that. But, hey, it’s really a short conversation.
If you can’t get yourself to love yourself as you are, the universe will not permit you to be rewarded by losing weight. It won’t. That’s a lie.
Abel: Yeah.
One of the other lies that alphas are taught is to chase work-life balance. There is no such thing, I whisper.
There’s no… Get close to your monitor if you’re not driving. There’s no such thing.
There’s no such thing as a static balance. Not anywhere in the universe is anything still or frozen or not moving, alpha, nothing.
Your relationships, your money, your health, your wealth, everything is in flux and in flow.
What I teach is… It’s like juggling. If you imagine somebody juggling, and each of the balls was health, wealth, love, and mission, when you focus on one ball and throw one ball up, the other balls are falling.
And that’s okay, that’s okay.
If you just give yourself permission to just take a deep breath, let your shoulders drop, make sure you use a good belly breath, it’s okay.
Give yourself permission to just take a deep breath. Let your shoulders drop, make sure you use a good belly breath. @AlphaWomenCoach Click To Tweet
You can’t actually focus on all of them simultaneously.
Multi-tasking is a myth too, not good for you.
You don’t chase work-life balance, you actually believe in and focus on the one thing that you’re focusing on, and you launch that, and then you pick up the next thing, and you switch, but you don’t try to have everything.
Arianna Huffington, everyone will tell you that, apparently, she has perfect children, multi-million dollar businesses, great sex every night, she doesn’t…
Can’t gain a pound, she doesn’t go… I mean, no.
There are times in her life where her marriage is probably not good, but her business is awesome, and there’s times when her business is suffering, but she’s there for her kids.
Please allow these truths to hit you.
Allow yourself to look at… I keep touching this steel bar behind me. I built these shelves, so I’m in love with them.
Abel: That’s awesome. They’re beautiful.
So, these are my babies. I shipped them from Australia, for crying out loud.
Abel: Oh my gosh.
Yeah, that cost a fortune, didn’t care. These are your core beliefs.
In fact, this is really much an alpha, this is wood and steel, because wood is warm, and the steel is the strength, and this should be your outside and this should be your inside.
Your core beliefs can be located.
I’m going to tell you something, it’s going to be annoying but true.
The biggest thing you can do right now is to actually just spot the core beliefs that are causing you the problem.
If you just spot them and keep an eye on them, they will start to shift.
It’s like a child. If you’re looking at a 5-year-old and you keep looking at them, the odds they’re going to pick up a can of Kool-Aid and pour it on your rug are very low.
You keep your eye on it.
Your ego does stuff mostly by distraction. It gets you looking in this direction, and it does all this crazy crap over here.
And you look back and you’re like, “What? Where did that come from? Why isn’t my man connecting with me? Why is it when I lean forward in this relationship, he leans back? Why? What happened?”
No, it’s because it was doing stuff you weren’t noticing.
If you actually notice your core… If you notice the core belief in you, is that your definition of love is someone meeting all your needs, then you can go, “Wow, it’s kind of a problem.”
You can kind of look at it and then you’ll start seeing it. You’ll start seeing it when you’re talking to your friend.
When you’re talking to your friend, you’ll see that, underneath the conversation you’re having, you’re trying to get her to meet all your needs, and underneath the conversation you’re having with your boss, you’re trying to get them to meet your needs.
At the same time that you’re using your callus… I love that, by the way.
You’re using that callus, that alpha callus that you got to try to be all tough and strong, you’re constantly trying to get people to meet your needs.
And people aren’t doing it, and you feel abandoned, and lost and frustrated.
That’s what we have to stop. These are the truths that we have to tell.
So, you ask me that question, was a long answer.
You have to start telling yourself the truth, the ugly truth.
Now, do not tell these truths to other people. Yes, you heard me say that. You’re not ready.
If you go to your husband and start with the, “I’m going to have this conversation,” and tell him all these truths, if you haven’t been coached up a little bit first, this conversation won’t go well, because there is something I call the law of behavior, which is very important.
The law of behavior states that demand never changes behavior.
Four words, change your life, mic drop: Demand never changes behavior.
Demand never changes behavior. @AlphaWomenCoach Click To Tweet
You cannot demand another person to change their behavior.
Now, somebody’s like, “But Tanya, I asked my husband to do something, and he did it.”
Okay. What happened is, is whatever you asked him was already in alignment with one of his core beliefs.
If what you ask him is not in alignment with a core belief, it’s not going to happen. It’s just not going to happen.
I’ll give you an example, and this is a great, because it’s a stupid example.
My husband bites his nails. Can the camera focus on how appalled I am? Can we get a good, clear shot of me being appalled?
Abel: I think it’s getting it, for the most part.
Okay, good. So I just think it’s gross. Yeah.
The world is on fire and all these problems are going on, we’ve got racial issues everywhere, but I am really pretty annoyed by my husband biting his nails, okay.
True story. My husband could give zero flips that it bothers me that he bites his nails.
I have asked, I have tried, I’ve done all those things.
His core belief… Mind you, he doesn’t have a core belief about nail-biting, he has a core belief about independence and autonomy and what is none of my business. And that falls in that category.
So, it doesn’t matter how I ask him.
And please understand when you say demand never changes behavior, demand includes a question, a nice question, a request.
Most of these marriage counselors, which… You’re going to get me going. Just drive a bus over that, marriage counseling does not work.
Most of these people in these programs they’re teaching you is crap, because what they’re teaching you is how to make a better demand.
They’re like, “Phrase it like this. Use these words. Watch this timing.”
They’re bleah. The word demand is everything, and you cannot demand somebody to change a core belief.
What will happen, if he loves you, is he’ll do it for like a week or two, and then he’ll fall back.
And then you’re even more angry because, as an alpha, you’d have locked it down, you’d have… Grr.
You can hold it so you’re mad at his beta self that he changed and then flopped back.
It’s because your core belief controls your behavior, period. Period.
That’s why dieting fails 97% of the time, because dieting is a demand that you’re making on yourself to change your behavior.
Doesn’t work. That’s why people like you teach that you actually have to change your lifestyle, you actually have to change these beliefs.
If you get in here and get that belief that sugar is a toxin, you don’t have a problem with sugar anymore.
It’s not like you’re like, “Oh, the donuts are free today? Well, I’ll just have these four since they’re free.”
You’re like, “That’s a crap toxin. I’m not putting that in my body. It’ll wrinkle me.”
And by the way, for any men that happen to listen, sugar causes erectile dysfunction, just throwing that out there, erectile function is a vascular thing, and sugar messes up…
Just saying, just… That was a service for any man that was listening this far, to throw the guys a bone.
Abel: Much appreciated, pass that on.
Thank you. Yeah, just get that. Just a high five. That’s me helping my women too, so if you’re…
Women who are out there, you’re struggling, cut his sugar, just saying.
Okay. So I want you guys to understand that you’re smart and you’re beautiful, and you’re…
And by the way, alphas tend to be pretty, I don’t even understand that, but…
Abel: They make themselves pretty, right? They force themselves to be pretty.
They do. They do. We change our thoughts, we get prettier.
We’re pretty people, we’re pretty and we’re powerful, and everyone looks at us, and we think we have it all together, and we just don’t.
And we’re afraid, and we don’t know who to help.
You ask me, because I know what your dirty laundry looks like, because I have a room of it, big room of it. I figured out how to wash it.
The first place you start is you tell yourself the truth, and then once we get through the truth, and we get enough truth in there, and you’re really…
You got it stuck in, then we go to action.
Alphas want to start at action, they want to start with the action, and they really just want to get…
Just hand me the transformation, just put it in my mouth, put it right in my mouth, put the… You get that in health.
People just… Oh, my favorite. Oh, I’ve never said this one before, Abel. I want to share this with you.
You ever get somebody who asks you, “I just want to lose the fat on my stomach?”
Abel: Yeah, all the time.
Oh my God. So I’m just going to help everybody here… not going to happen. Last fat to go. Okay?
Abel’s too nice to really just slap you with this truth. Here’s how this works…
You can’t spot clean your health, okay?
You can’t spot clean your health, okay? @AlphaWomenCoach Click To Tweet
Abel: Yeah.
The same way that you can’t spot clean your life.
Most of you are in this group and you’re putting all this energy in your health, and you’re ignoring the fact that you’re struggling in your relationships.
You can’t spot clean it, and if you go do your relationships, you try to pick this little… I’m just going to fix this one relationship.
No, okay? This is your mom, your dad, your kids, your husband, your boyfriend, your sister, your co-workers.
This is all one concept. This is how you love you, and that’s how they’re all showing up. We can’t spot clean it.
So, if someone’s coming to me, I tell people the Art of Self Rescue, we save marriages by saving you first.
I save relationships by saving you first.
The big secret is actually I don’t deal with the relationship, I deal with you, because we can’t spot clean you.
You’re the thing that keeps showing up. You’re the common denominator in all of the relationships.
You’re never going to get a six-pack by getting… By doing more crunches, like, “Oh, I did 100 crunches today.”
Congratulations, I’m sure those muscles look fantastic under the layer of fat.
He’s laughing, but he’s like, “Oh my god, she’s frightening all my health people.”
Why We Need More Tough Love, Honesty & Truth
Abel: No, it’s wonderful because we need more tough love than ever, to some degree.
We need more honesty and truth, and to face the things that are problems, and it’s so easy for people who think that they’re leaders to become enablers, right?
The people who think that they’re in the right are actually not helping people as much as they think, right?
Did you just say… I’m looking around, like I’m 10,000 miles away from you, but I want to give you a pat on the back because that’s brilliant.
Thank you so much, air high-five, because listen to what you said.
Okay, everybody listening for a writer-downer, bam, that was a writer-downer on that one.
It’s like strong, smart, successful women, alpha women, you’re almost always a leader.
Yeah, hashtag enabler. You’re enabling people.
You’re attracting these weak people around you, and then you’re resentful of the fact that nobody can support you.
Because I promise you, when you have these friendships and relationships, when there’s a crisis, you’re on it, and you stay with it until it works, until it’s okay, until it’s safe.
But when you have a crisis, crickets, and that’s because you’ve surrounded yourself with people who are not strong enough to help you, to protect you, to serve you, to tell you hard truths, to get in your face and go, “You’re lying.”
I can’t tell you how many people I looked at, and I said, “Stop pretending that you love your husband. Stop pretending your husband loves you.”
Usually, each person has a different definition of love. I had this in my own marriage. I looked at that and realized,
“Oh my gosh, my definition of love and my husband’s definition of love are completely different. How could he possibly love me using this definition of love?”
Abel: Right.
He was using his alpha mom definition of love.
Guess what? Tanya doesn’t fit that one. It’s like, oh my gosh, when you tell those kinds of truth.
And by the way, yeah, that’s an ugly cry in the bathtub kind of truth, but after you tell that truth, then you can build something real, then you can build an actual foundation.
Other than that… It’s funny because my husband’s company is an earth-moving company, they build foundations, like I can’t even make this stuff up.
I’m a foundations coach, and I’m like, “God sent me a man who builds foundations.”
I was like, ha ha ha.
Abel: They have a sense of humor, those gods.
Is that not funny? I’m an emotional and structural foundation builder.
I tell people, “I’m the coach you get before somebody else.”
Because once you’ve had my coaching, then you can do anybody else’s, you’re going to blow the doors off it.
Have you ever been in a situation where you get the coaching and you don’t do the stuff, and you get the program and you don’t finish, and alphas are strong starters and poor finishers.
It’s because your foundation is flawed, and yet, you hang on to it.
You’re hanging on to the foundation, the crumbs of love in your relationship in your marriage, you’re hanging on to them for dear life, because you’re so scared if you let them go, you’ll have nothing.
Well, what you’ll have is you’ll have a flat, smooth foundation that we can pour something real on.
And by the way, I’m going to tell you you want to know the secret to how to change your partner?
Okay, everybody’s listening. People are leaning in. I’ll give people time to pull off the road, right? Okay, good.
This secret to how to change your partner is you have to actually make enough space for them to do so.
You make that space by disengaging from them.
The biggest problem I see when someone’s trying to, quote, ‘save a marriage’ is that their goal is to save the marriage.
A marriage is composed of two people, two people drowning.
I’m going to tell you something profound… Two people, in the history of ever and never, never saved each other.
Never did you have one drowning person turn to another drowning person, and they swam over, because they can’t swim, over to the other drowning person and said,
“Wait, wait, wait. I’m drowning, but let me help you.”
Abel: Yeah.
That’s what marriage counseling is, by the way. In marriage counseling, one lifeguard swims out to save two drowning people.
Just think about that for a second. Drowning people are freaking dangerous, by the way.
Drowning people drown other people, true stuff.
No lifeguard will ever try to save two drowning people, accept in marriage counseling, someone decided that that would be okay.
I don’t know why. It’s broken. Trust me on this one.
You are drowning, and while you’re drowning, you’re looking at your husband who’s drowning.
You’re looking at your partner who’s drowning, you’re looking at your friend who’s drowning, you’re looking at your business partner who’s drowning, and you’re blaming them for the crap that they asked you to carry.
And they did, I promise you. They’re an idiot. They piled on the bricks. They didn’t listen. They didn’t love you.
They weren’t… I promise you they did all the crap you think they did, and you are actually holding a backpack full of bricks.
So, the first thing I have you do is drop their backpack, and then stop trying to tap them on the shoulder and get their attention and demand they come help you.
Just save yourself, just save you. When you do that, it actually gives them space to stop hearing you call for them.
At this point, they can actually pay attention to the fact that they’re drowning.
They can do their own work if they’re going to. If they’re going to, the best chance you’ve got is that you take the responsibility for saving you off of them.
You are responsible for you by universal law. He’s responsible for him by universal law.
When you save you… Now, if you want this relationship, it’s got a chance, because now the only person he’s responsible for saving is himself.
Remember, we’re rescuers, so what are we always trying to do?
We’re always looking over there. It’s like cheating on a test. We’re looking at somebody else’s paper.
We’re like, “Oh, what’s on your paper? Oh, you didn’t do this one right. Let me show you.”
We’re running out of time on our own test, but we’re over here…
They call it hoeing in somebody else’s garden. Don’t hoe in somebody else’s garden.
Abel: And it’s a distraction for yourself.
It’s another way to distract yourself from dealing with your own problems, which is scarier than being on the hook for all these random open loops that you have in your life.
Why are you so profound?
Abel: Because I’m a recovering alpha.
You are. I want to bottle you.
Yes! I call it the productive delay. Productive delay is where you get off on these tangents, where you’re rescuing, you’re doing other things.
They’re always… And the other thing I call is a noble distraction. Here it goes.
Your niece shows up, and your niece is in an abusive relationship, and she’s with this guy, and you’re worried he’s going to hit her, and he’s talking bad to her.
So, now you are moving her out, you are finding her an apartment, you are talking to her every night when she sobs on the phone.
What are you not doing? Your children, your husband, your work, your business, your sleep, your health.
All of those things need your attention. All of those things are in danger.
All the foundations on your health, wealth, love and mission are cracked and flawed, and you don’t have to deal with it because you’re over here doing this other thing.
Abel had it just right. It’s a distraction, and it is the distraction that you get patted on the back for, because remember, you’re an enabler.
Everyone’s like, “Oh, thank you, Tanya. It’s so awesome that you saved our niece.”
Translation: We didn’t have to do…
Abel: Right.
Thank you for that. Thank you for taking us completely off the hook.
You surround yourself with people who you’re letting off the hook, and then you’re surprised that they won’t show up for you.
Abel: Yeah, it’s so easy to fall into that.
And I can’t believe it, we could definitely talk all day, but tell folks what is the best place to find your work?
What are you working on next? What else do we have to be excited about?
Oh my gosh. We have stuff. You know what? I’m going to tell you something I didn’t tell anybody.
So, one of the biggest things we have to be excited about is.. God called me to this. I didn’t, I promise you I didn’t ask for it.
Your life is your curriculum.
I tried to get out of this. I did. I was like talking to God. I was like, “Really, can we skip this?” There was a no.
Where to Find Tanya Dyer
I’m actually creating online courses. I’m creating an online course for alphas. It’s going to be the broken marriage breakthrough.
And it’s not ready yet, but it’s coming because I want any alpha anywhere in the world to be able to get this information and to get this coaching.
And for right now, the first thing I want you guys to do is you have to learn about your life cycles. You have to learn about your origins.
When you understand who you are, how you’re wired, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses and challenges are, you can figure out why history keeps repeating itself. You can spot the pattern.
And you can get that at www.fearlessfocuscoaching.com/origins, because it’s the origin of an alpha.
I want you guys to know why you’re struggling. I want you to understand that struggle is suspicious.
And you can find me anywhere in the universe of social media, I’m @ArtOfSelfRescue on Instagram and Facebook, and @AlphaWomenCoach on Twitter.
My website is FearlessFocusCoaching.com.
And then, you can also get a free gift, my surest way to save your marriage by saving you first by going to http://www.fearlessfocuscoaching.com/OneThing…
Abel: Awesome. Tanya, you’re so wonderful to talk to. Thank you for taking the time here today.
I have so enjoyed it. You are so smart. Your people are so lucky to have you.
Abel: Oh, come on.
Yes, it’s true. Alphas don’t BS. Look in my eyes. Lucky to have you.
Abel: I see you. Thank you. I’ll accept that gladly.
Before You Go…
Here’s a note that came in from Ali who says…
Hey Abel and Alyson,
I’m looking to shed those final 10 pounds, and I’m struggling to get there.
Can you help me break through the plateau?
Best wishes,
Ali
Hey Ali, thanks for writing in to ask this question.
We get this question a lot because a lot of times people find that they’re losing weight consistently by doing something that’s working for them, a combination of nutrition and movement most of the time.
And then without a few more tweaks, you don’t get quite to where you want to go. You don’t get to your goal weight, your high school athlete weight or just your ideal body composition.
So a lot of times it takes some extra tweaking to get there, but you do have to ask yourself, “What is progress?”
And for a lot of people right now, just maintaining is excellent progress.
Because unfortunately, there are many folks out there who are having a really hard time going to food addiction, substance abuse, and all sorts of other coping mechanisms that are not serving them.
We all need coping mechanisms, but sometimes getting that last 10 pounds off takes a lot of effort and will, depending on where you’re at in your journey.
So make sure that you have a good handle on what progress actually means to you.
For me, I want to stay strong, fit, healthy, and somewhat fast. At least fast enough to get away from a lion who’s trying to eat me out here in the mountains of Colorado.
I want to stay that strong for the rest of my life. I want my grip strength. I want to be able to have my balance.
And you always have to ask yourself, “Where do I want to be?”
It’s not necessarily realistic to walk around at 3% to 5% body fat, but if you’re looking to get those final 10 pounds off, and it’s the stubborn fat—that for women a lot of times it’s around the legs, the hips, the mid-section.
For men as well, the love handles.
Here are a few things that might help you…
You can cut back on fruit and other sugars.
Also cutting down or even cutting out nuts and seeds can be a big win for some people.
Ditching dairy for a little bit can be very helpful.
In fact, a lot of times my body weight—I’ve experimented, I’ve been down to 148 pounds when I was running marathons, and it has gone up to around 180 pounds.
And I like to be between 170 – 175.
So when I hit that 180, the cream comes out of the coffee in the morning, the fat comes out.
I’ve done that in the past week or two, and around four pounds have come off.
And so, when you make these little tweaks, sometimes it takes a few weeks for your body to catch up with you, but the results speak for themselves.
So try cutting out dairy for a bit, or at least have less or try to fast from certain foods for more days or more hours than you otherwise would.
Getting more sleep is an unpopular but very effective solution and answer to a lot of these problems.
You want to make sure that you get enough fat in your diet, but if you’re having trouble losing those last few pounds, a lot of times prioritizing protein and dialing down the fat a little bit can actually help.
And of course, you want to keep the sugar and carbs in check as well, and scale those according to your metabolism activity and all the rest of that.
And then also just indulging a little bit less or with more moderation can help.
So if you’re talking about alcohol, instead of polishing off a six pack or a couple of bottles of wine with your friends or even by yourself these days, try having one or two.
It makes a massive difference for me, tracking sleep, alcohol, the difference between having one or two compared to even having three or four, or certainly four to five, six servings of alcohol, even over the course of the entire night.
There’s a massive difference for some reason, after those one or two that you have with dinner.
Your heart rate will probably spike, you won’t sleep quite as well.
So especially during the holidays and all the rest of that. There’s a big difference between having one cookie and having six cookies.
Big difference between having one beer and having six beers.
So you really can enjoy anything, but if you’re trying to get all the way there with the stubborn 10 pounds, it’s going to be tougher to get there.
It’s going to take more effort on your part, generally speaking.
And then to maintain that, that might take a bit more effort or a few more tweaks as well, but the good news is that the bag of tricks is deep here on Fat-Burning Man.
You can always sign up for our newsletter, and we’ll send you a 7-day meal plan and quick start guide.
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Tell your friends, we’re in this for the long haul and we couldn’t do it without you. We really appreciate your support.
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What did you think of this show with Tanya? Drop a comment below!