How Our Regrets In Life Influence Our Journey With Weight & Body Image – In Session with Marc David

How Our Regrets In Life Influence Our Journey With Weight & Body Image – In Session with Marc David

Marc David 

Welcome, everybody. I’m Mark David, founder of the Institute for the psychology of eating. Here we are in the psychology of eating podcast, and I’m with Mardeen today. Welcome Mardeen.

Mardeen 

Hello. It’s so good to be here with you.

Marc David 

I’m glad we’re doing this. Where are you geographically?

Mardeen 

Santa Cruz, California.

Marc David 

Oh, what a lovely place.

Mardeen 

It really is.

Marc David 

I have been there so many times over the years. And as a young man, I grew up in New York and I so wanted to go to college at University of Santa Cruz, don’t ask me how I picked that place out. And it didn’t end up happening. My family wanted me close by, but ever since I visited there so many times, and just absolutely love it.

Mardeen 

Yeah, I grew up in LA and moved to Santa Cruz in 1988. So once we landed here, and made our community and found the home of our dreams, you know, it really is the only place that’s felt like home to me, and I love Santa Cruz.

Marc David 

Good for you. So you all know how this works. So this is our first time meeting. And we’re going to have a session together. And the idea is, we look to move you forward and make a difference for you. So if you could wave your magic wand and you can get whatever you want with food and body. What would that be for you, Mardeen?

Mardeen 

If I had a magic wand, I would just magically have my 25 year old body back. Yeah, for all the… I mean, mainly, that my metabolism was just so smooth and high, and you know, everything. I felt really healthy and energetic, and I weighed 125 pounds. And I didn’t have to really think about it, it just, you know, I ate what I wanted to eat and it didn’t seem to matter. So yeah, if I could have a magic wand, that’s what I would do.

Marc David 

Okay, so and the reason why you would want to do that, obviously, you’d feel good. You’d be 25 years old again. And does that have anything to do with where your weight would be at?

Mardeen 

Yes, it does. It was also before I had my my first child. And I think that that is kind of the focus of my thoughts recently. I’ve done a lot of things to change my lifestyle, my diet. And I’ve had success returning to the weight that I would like to be. But I think there’s something connected to pregnancy and childbirth and all of that, that I just need to undo the threads and figure out what’s what’s holding me back.

Marc David 

So how much weight do you want to lose?

Mardeen 

I would ideally like to be about 130 pounds, and I’m currently about 157.

Marc David 

So you want to lose about 25, 26, 27 pounds. Yeah. And you said you’ve had success getting there. When was the last time you were at your ideal dream weight?

Mardeen 

Well, I adjusted my expectations somewhat and was happy getting to 150 which was my weight before I got pregnant. So that’s kind of, you know, that was comfortable. And I felt healthy, and you know, energetic and light enough at 150. So I was at 150 right before Thanksgiving.

Marc David 

So what you’re saying is even if you lost seven pounds that would make a difference for you.

Mardeen 

Yes, it would.

Marc David 

Okay, and how old are you now?

Mardeen 

Marc David 

And so, and when was your last pregnancy?

Mardeen 

I’ve only had one and he was born in 1995.

Marc David 

Got it? So what makes you think that your weight these days is connected to the pregnancy?

Mardeen 

Well, okay, so when I when I got pregnant, I was about 150, and I you know, I expected that I would gain 50 to 60 pounds probably you know, during pregnancy. My weight right before he was born actually was just over 200 pounds. So I got up to about 203. And I was, you know, okay with that, because obviously, that’s what my body needed, you know, to bring a healthy pregnancy to term. And after he was born, I went right back down to around 155. And, you know, I felt okay, great, you know, I’m doing good. But things changed, my body changed, my metabolism changed. And probably because I was breastfeeding, you know, I was also really hungry. So I ate a lot, and I ended up over the following, you know, it’s been 27 years. So I got to as high as 192 pounds at one point, that was probably about 10 years ago that I was that heavy. And I was actually listening to one of your podcasts, I don’t remember which one it was, but the person, you know, that was talking about it, just said something that made me think that I was putting on this weight because I wasn’t done being pregnant… I wanted to be pregnant again. And so that was kind of my body’s way of pretending to be pregnant, you know, putting on the weight.  And there’s other things attached to that, you know, feeling attractive, feeling desirable. Putting barriers in the way of connection with with other people. It’s a very complicated thing. And part of it has to do with, I developed, like 10 years after my son was born, I developed a very large fibroid tumor, and I ended up having to have a hysterectomy. And the thing that I realized is that that tumor was also my body’s attempt to recreate another pregnancy, that you know, is a physical manifestation of that desire to have another child. And that goes way back to when I was a teenager, and I always thought I would have two children, I had dreams about a boy and a girl. And when my son was born, my husband and I talked about it and you know, realized, really, one is enough. We were happy, you know, we had a healthy child, we couldn’t really afford another child, we didn’t have a house big enough for another child, and we didn’t really want to complicate our lives any further, you know. And so we talked about it, and we decided we’re only going to have one, but my soul, my plan for my life, never really accepted that. And, you know, I wanted to have a daughter, and I couldn’t. So now once I had the hysterectomy, it’s like, well, you know, there’s no way, you know, obviously, I don’t have the ability to have another child. But I never really dealt with all of that. I never really looked inward and realized all of that until I sort of had a revelation about it while listening to one of your podcasts.

Marc David 

So, it’s been a while that you’ve been, so it’s been about 27 years that you wanted to lose weight. And you’ve been up and down in that time. And I’m just kind of summarizing a little bit. And so 27 ish years dieting up and down. And yeah, you have your ideal target weight, which is what you were when you were 25, and at some point you, you know, relaxed those expectations and realize wow, even at 150 which is only a seven pound less weight loss than you are right now. You’re good, you feel healthy. And you’re you’re noticing that you believe there’s a connection with wanting to be pregnant and wanting a second child, particularly a girl. And, you know, maybe the weight and the tumor was connected to that. And there’s also your feeling of, you know, wanting to feel like you’re attractive and desirable. That’s a piece of the puzzle. So let’s just, in no particular order, I just want to break a few things down. So I can understand better. So you’re still with your husband? How does he feel about your weight?

Mardeen 

He never talks about it, never brings it up, doesn’t you know, complain about anything. He’s not particularly diet conscious. You know, he likes what he likes to eat what he wants to eat, and doesn’t really worry about it. And he’s, you know, perfectly happy with the way I am right now.

Marc David 

So the piece about you feeling attractive and desirable, is sounds like in terms of your relationship with your primary person, That it’s more about how you feel about you, than how he feels about you.

Mardeen 

Yes, I think so. There were times when I was at my heaviest, you know, up around 190 pounds, that we talked about it then. And you know, we’re like, really, this is not healthy, to be this heavy. And I didn’t know how to change it. You know, I never really did follow diets, fad diets and stuff. Probably the only thing that I’ve done in that realm is my husband actually found a book called Fit for Life that talks about combining protein and starches and you know, timing your eating for your cycles, you know, higher metabolism, lower metabolism periods during the day, and not combining things incorrectly, you know, the way that they digest doesn’t work well. And when we did that, we read the book, and we follow the guidelines, it’s not really a diet, it’s more of a an eating method. We both lost about 10 or 15 pounds, and felt the healthiest we’d ever been. But that was before we got married. So I was back when I was 25. That’s why I weighed 125 pounds then. And since then, when I was you know, heavier than I wanted to be I tried counting calories I tried, you know, increasing my exercise. But I never really followed any of the, you know, Atkins diet or any of that kind of stuff.

Marc David 

So let me ask you this question. Let’s say, if we can wave our magic wand today and put you at 140 pounds, or 145 even.  Okay, then what happens, then who you’re going to be? Tell me tell me how life is going to be different for you when you feel you’re at a weight that you want to be at. What’s going to change?

Mardeen 

I will feel more comfortable wearing a nice, clingy dress, you know, going out in public, and wearing a bathing suit, going to the beach. Just not looking down at myself and going you know, I wish I didn’t have this roll of fat on my belly, you know. It’s a body image thing, you know, that I would rather have just a trim, fit body. It’s not so much the weight as the body tone and energy level, and the way that I feel when I’m lighter.

Marc David 

So you’re going to like your body better, you’re going to feel more confident, and you’re going to feel more comfortable. Okay. So let me ask you one other question that might seem unrelated. As you know, you’ve mentioned the, I’ll call it a regret, of not having that sort of vision for yourself, that dream come true, of having two children, a boy and a girl. If you had another regret in life that was high up on the list, does any come to mind?

Mardeen 

Yeah, probably that I didn’t really pursue the plan that I had for being a professional artist, or you know, exhibiting in galleries, and just really focusing on my art rather than getting a job and you know, starting a career. Although the career that I have is a good one, and I’ve been doing it for 40 years, and you know, it’s perfectly fine. But if I had focused my energy, when I got out of college, on becoming an artist, that is where I would be right now. I went with my plan B. So that’s probably, yeah, that’s my other regret.

Marc David 

Yes, yeah, thanks for sharing that. So let me give you a few initial thoughts that are that are swimming in my head right now. And we’ll see if they’re useful and helpful for you. You know it’s, getting older is not easy. Because we don’t have the body that we had when we were 20, or 30, or 40. Or even at this point for you, 50. I understand what that’s like. And it’s a journey. And I think part of watching the body change. You know, I’ve worked with so many women over the, over the years, who were wanting to have a family and wanting to get pregnant, but they were just so afraid that they would be big when they’re pregnant, like just any any weight gain, doesn’t matter. Yeah, 20 pound weight gain or 30, or 40, or 50, just the thought of having a bigger body was horrifying to them. And that’s a challenge, I think being a human being, is being with the changing nature of the body, and being with the uncertain nature of the body. Because yeah, you get pregnant and you don’t know if you’re gonna have a boy or a girl, you don’t know if it’s going to be a healthy child, you don’t know if it’s going to be a successful pregnancy, you don’t know how much you’re going to gain. And then when you gain something, you don’t know how much you’re going to lose. And you don’t know what your metabolism is going to be like after. If you speak to enough people, you’ll hear all kinds of different stories.

My point is that the body is just sort of this great place called the unknown. And I think it’s our job to, as best we can, ride the wave that the body takes us on.  I just got back from my uncle’s funeral, you know, a day ago, and he was in his 80s and died of essentially kidney failure. And you know, he was down to 80 pounds. And his body was just saying goodbye. He couldn’t live in it anymore. And I was just, it’s not my first time with death, but I just realized, my goodness, this is further proof of where we’re all going. So in a weird way, it doesn’t matter what to eat, it’s kind of where we’re going to end up. So there’s a, there’s a wave to ride.

I’m interested for you, in this thing called regrets. And I believe personally that we have, each of us has, certain deeper lessons, I like to call them soul lessons in life, that are just, they just tend to be bigger lessons for us. You know, sometimes we have to learn the lesson of, you know, being in relationship and the challenges that that has, sometimes we have to learn the lesson called being a mother, or being a father. Sometimes we have to learn lessons around career, or money, or disease or, you know, addiction, all different kinds of challenges. And my little alert light is on for you around this thing called regret and how you be with that, and how you process that. It’s beautiful, to have dreams. That’s who we are. We’re human beings and we have visions for ourselves. We have a dream for ourselves. And a lot of those dreams start when we’re young. And when those dreams don’t unfold for us the way we want it, we have to adjust somehow. And a lot of times, it’s not easy to deal with regret, it’s not easy to deal with disappointment, which is a really close cousin to regret. And I think for you, disappointment might be a more interesting word to describe, I think, what you’re grappling with.

You know, I’m not 100% sure of your assessment that weight gain, or having a tumor that leads to a hysterectomy, that that’s your body’s desire to be pregnant. It may be that’s true, it could be 100% true. But what that points to is that there’s a part of you, that is carrying disappointment around there. And until we let go of our disappointments, to the best of our ability, that’s going to determine, sort of how that disappointment lives inside of us. Usually when there’s an unprocessed emotion, when there’s emotion that doesn’t have a chance to unwind itself, it comes out as either an unwanted symptom, or unwanted behaviors, or unwanted thinking. Now, unwanted symptoms could mean a tumor, it could mean weight, it could mean joint pain, it can mean anything. Unwanted behaviors could mean i emotionally eat, or I binge eat, or I overeat, or I gamble, or I watch too much TV – just examples. Unwanted thinking could mean I put energy into a system of thinking that actually kind of doesn’t do anything for me. It’s a way for me to try to order my world, and order my disappointment. And what I’m thinking of for you is, I’m believing that a big piece of your desire to lose weight and have a certain body – yeah, it’s the part of us that wants a younger body for sure. Absolutely, absolutely. I get it. Everybody wants that. So many people want that. It’s the part of us that, yeah, I’ll be happy, I’ll feel better about my body, when it looks the way I want it to look, I totally understand that. But there’s also a place in us, where we can put a lot of energy around weight, around diet, around what I should and shouldn’t eat, around weighing myself. And it almost creates, it creates a little universe for us. It orders our world. Here’s what I’m gonna be thinking about today, here’s I’m gonna be worrying about how I’m going to be weighing myself, here’s my goals. Because weight loss is all about goals, and reaching my goal. So it’s way to measure progress. And all the while it can be a distraction. Because you’re trying to order your world around having a certain body. And in a strange way, that’s a very known world – oh, well, I just have to change my diet, and then I’ll lose weight, and when I lose weight I’ll be happy. So it’s it’s a very simple formula, tweak your diet or tweak your body somehow, tweak your metabolism, lose weight, feel better about myself. Now that makes sense. And for some people that works.

I think feeling better about yourself right now has less to do with weight than you think. And I think feeling better about yourself means doing everything you can to get current with this is my life. These were my dreams. Here’s my disappointments. Here’s my, here’s my gosh, I wish it would have gone this way. I wish it would have gone that way. Because when our disappointments are more front and center, they order our world and it’s harder to be in the present. So I would love to see you do some kind of, really what I think of is just some kind of ritual, where you’re able to go to the ocean and make a piece of art that’s temporary that represents having a second child that represents a daughter, and talk to it. Give it a lot of love. Honor that beautiful dream, it’s a beautiful dream, beautiful.  And get good with the fact of life, that that’s not going to happen for you in the way that you wished it would have been. And give it back. You know, give it back to life, give it to the ocean.

Mardeen 

That’s a beautiful idea. Yeah. And it pulls together the, you know, my, my artistic, creative side, as well as the attachment to you know, the dream of two children of the daughter that I never had. Yeah, that’s, that’s a beautiful idea.

Marc David 

And you can at the same time, give up this dream of wishing I had gone down the artists path. We don’t know what that would have been like for you. It’s not an easy path. Most paths are not necessarily easy, but the path of an artist is not an easy one. It’s true. It’s hard to be an artist in this world. It just is. It’s hard to get represented in a gallery. It’s hard to make a living. It’s hard. A lot of people that succeed, succeed because of connections, because of family. The art world is not a meritocracy. I know that firsthand. So all I’m saying is, we don’t know how life would have gone for you had you chosen that path. You don’t know.

Mardeen 

Right. And we don’t know what would have happened if I’d have that second child, you know? I might’ve had a girl, it might have been, you know, unhealthy, I might have had a miscarriage, you know, all kinds of things could have happened.

Marc David 

Yes. Yeah. So I think dealing with those regrets, and letting them go symbolically, and knowing that, that this is important for your soul, because otherwise you can continue to live this life as you, because you’re wishing you could have been someone else. And wanting to be a different weight, I think for you is very closely connected to I want to be somebody else. I want to be this other person that has a girl.

Mardeen 

I want that parallel life that I could have had.

Marc David 

Yeah. So we all have our preferences and our preferences are wonderful and beautiful. Your preferences to here’s the weight, I prefer to be at that preference, that preference does not define you. That preference does not stop the most important people in your life from loving you. Don’t hear your husband, I don’t hear you saying that your husband and your son are calling you up and saying, you know, hey, Mardeen, we’re really not going to love and accept you until you lose like 10 pounds. Nobody’s saying that. Definitely not. Nobody is waiting to love and accept you until you…

Mardeen 

I’m not saying that to myself, either. You know, it’s not that I don’t like myself, even when I was 190 pounds, you know, I have a very positive attitude. And I I give myself a lot of space and I give myself affirmations. I focus on gratitude for the things that I have, you know, I’m very conscious of the power of thought, you know, the intentions that I hold. And I really don’t have a negative, you know, monkey mind, telling me I’m unworthy and you know, it just I don’t. In fact, I think the things that brought me success in you know – here’s another thing – I prefer not to say losing weight, but gaining lightness, growing lighter. You know, because of that focus on the positive, trying to look at everything in a positive way, I want to grow lighter.

Marc David 

I love that. So what I’m going to suggest is that in 27 years, your activities to lose weight, so you can feel lighter and grow lighter. haven’t worked for you sustainably. Yeah, you’re not where you want to be. And to me, you’re putting a lot of faith and energy into this is going to help me feel lighter. And what I’m saying I think is going to help you feel far lighter is embracing the disappointments and beginning to let them go. The disappointments around having a daughter, the disappointment around your career and being an artist. And there might be some more disappointments, it would be good for you to maybe sit down and just write a list. And it’s all good. Like, here’s all the disappointments I have, here’s all the – I wish that I would have done it like this, or this would have happened, or this would have been different. And begin to inventory disappointments, because disappointments are heavy. Yeah, they make us heavy. And I’m just, my spidey senses are really tingling around my belief that you’re putting a lot of faith that weight loss is going to make you lighter. And it might, it has temporarily, like, yeah, okay, I lost this weight, I felt lighter. But that’s not sustainable. It didn’t sustain your lightness. And what I’m suggesting is that the belief that that’s going to make me lighter, needs to loosen up a bit. And the desire to be the desire to let go of weight in order to be lighter, that by itself can be heavy, because well, I’m not getting there. And then well, it must be my metabolism. It must be this, it must be that, and you’re looking to solve a problem I think, that that’s, you’re looking to solve it in the wrong place. Kind of like the old story of you know, a guy loses his his car keys, and he’s looking around on the ground for it and it’s nighttime, and he’s looking by a light post. And somebody says, what’s going on? You say, well, I lost my keys. And he said, well, let me help you find them. And he said, well I didn’t lose them over here, but the light is better over here.

Mardeen 

Yeah. So wrong places.

Marc David 

Yeah. So I’m, I want you to have your preference for your body. But I’m also aware that in the scheme of things, seven pounds, 10 pounds is nothing. Right? So yeah, like really, it’s nothing. Like sure, you might go – oh, I’ve lost 10 pounds, and I look better in a bathing suit, and I’m more confident – that’s true. But you can also own your body and be more confident. You just own it. You have, I will bet you have, seen women who are far larger than you and they’re walking around owning their body. Yeah. So we invent, we invent the numbers, and you’re inventing a tight number. And when we invent a tight number, my alert light goes on. Because then you’re trying to order your world around it. And I don’t know that that’s where you want to put your energy. I would want to see you for now… Because the 27 years of trying to lose weight hasn’t worked for you sustainably. Now we got to be careful, because this is what happens in the weight loss mind. The weight loss mind goes – I remember way back when, I weighed 130 pounds, I felt great – well, yeah, you were younger, and everything, right? Life was easier in those days. And, you have a completely different body not in weight, but in everything. Yeah. So, and even if you lost weight five years ago, and you say – oh, I felt lighter – sure, every time I reach a goal that I want, I feel lighter. But when that lightness doesn’t sustain itself, it means it’s temporary. You know, I feel lighter if I have, I don’t know, three shots of tequila, but I can’t do that all the time. So oftentimes the lightness that we feel from a weight loss, it’s temporary, it’s a high, it’s drug like, and it’s not necessarily sustainable. So all I’m saying to you is, I want to see you lighten up. Because you say you want to be lighter, so great. Let’s lighten up in other ways. Take six months… So you’ve taken 27 years to try to lose weight. I’ll say great, take six months. That’s 1/54 of that time. Take six months, and just focus on all the other ways you can lighten up. Where am I being heavy? Where is there disappointment that pulls me down? Where is there regret that pulls me down? Those are heavies. What burdens am I carrying. That’s why I mentioned doing this ritual letting go. It’s sometimes we just need to let go of the dream. Yeah. So something else can be born. And you don’t know what’s going to be born. You don’t.

Mardeen 

I like the way you put that because yes, I mean, it sort of transfers that disappointment from a daughter that I couldn’t have to something else that I still could create.

Marc David 

Yes. And that is a great question like – what else wants to be born into my life? What else wants to be born in me? Other than a girl? Other than weight loss? What else wants to be born? Who do you want to be?

Mardeen 

Yeah. And of course, yeah, I still, you know, have a lot of dreams that I haven’t achieved. And I know that wherever I focus, my energy is going to be where things manifest. And by focusing my energy on regrets and disappointments, I am preventing those possible futures from becoming true.

Marc David 

So well put very wise. So all you need to do is just embrace and listen to your own wisdom. And don’t let weight, don’t give a bunch of pounds of body weight, all the power to make you lighter. It doesn’t have that power.

Mardeen 

There was something that occurred to me when you were talking earlier about regret and disappointment that gaining weight, allowing my body basically to gain weight, was in some way punishing myself for not having that daughter. I was, you know, saying… well, if I can’t have that dream, then you know, I don’t deserve to be light and you know, happy in my body. I’ll just eat what I want, and, you know, do what I want, and forget about the consequences, and I don’t care how fat I get, you know.

Marc David 

Such a great observation. And I want to point out that the weight gain part of that is the furthest thing down the line, what comes first is I’m not going to take care of myself anyway. That’s what we’re saying. We’re saying, I’m not going to take care of myself. This body is no longer precious to me. This life is no longer so precious to me. And if my body and my life are not precious, God would do whatever I want with it.

Mardeen 

Right. I might as well enjoy, have that cake and ice cream and you know, just party on and… I don’t care.

Marc David 

Right. Yes. The weight itself is not the original punishment, the original punishment is I am abandoning myself. Yeah, my life is not worthy and deserving. So therefore, I’m not going to take care of myself. That would almost be like, if you’re a child, if you’re a five year old, and your parent all of a sudden says to you, you know honey, I’m not gonna take care of you. Not gonna dress you, not gonna clothe to you, not gonna feed you, not gonna love you, not gonna take care of you. That would be horrible.

Mardeen 

Yeah.

Marc David 

That would be horrible. But we do that to ourselves at different points in life when we encounter hardship, when we encounter traumas, or we encounter disappointments. That’s oftentimes where we go. It’s very human. And you have now, the smarts and the wisdom and the life experience, to look upon that and see, oh, yeah, I’ve done that. But, I just want you to make sure to not make it all about the weight. Because it’s the mindset of I’m not worthy, I’m not okay, I’m not going to take care of myself. Yeah. Because if I’m taking care of myself, if I’m doing things that I know are good for me, that feel good, then we have to let the chips fall where they may. You could eat the healthiest food in the universe and still get sick. I know people who eat the worst junk and they’re really healthy. Yeah. So we don’t know what our good healthy habits are going to do for us at the end of the day, but at the very least, what they can do for us, is give us a way of living in a way of being where we’re affirming, my life is valuable to me, my time is valuable, I want to be here a while. So I’m going to do all the things that helped me feel good, and helped me feel energy, and give me the best chance of being healthy. So that’s more of what I’m interested in for you, to take the conversation away from diet and weight loss, because you’re trying to figure out how to use diet to lose weight. I would much rather you notice what makes you feel good, what makes you feel healthy, based on everything you’ve learned and everything you’ve read, and everything you’ve experienced – what what feels good for me to eat? And what feels healthy? What gives me energy? And what’s a way of eating that does that that’s more sustainable? That’s not a weight loss diet that I can follow for two weeks? And then – Oh, this is too difficult, that’s too tough. No, that’s not going to work. Because we’re focused on thinking I’m going to use diet to manipulate my weight. For some people, that’s an okay, strategy. I’m not saying that’s a bad strategy. I think for you, that strategy is completely unhelpful, it doesn’t get you anywhere, because it hasn’t.

Mardeen 

It has gotten me pretty far actually. And, you know, we haven’t really even talked about the sort of practical things that I’ve done. In the last, it’s probably been about the last five years that I’ve really focused on mindset, changing my mindset, changing my feelings and attitude about food and about my body. As well as changing dietary habits, you know, that I have, I have lost, I’ve grown 25 pounds lighter in the last three years. So you know, that’s a comfortable, sustainable amount of weight loss that I can maintain. And, you know, once I reach the place where I feel comfortable in my body, I don’t have a problem staying there.

Marc David 

Okay, so…

Mardeen 

I don’t eat emotionally. I don’t feel the need to you, you know, to use food as reward.

Marc David 

So that’s all wonderful. So I’m, congratulations, that’s amazing that you’ve gotten to that place. I’m just wanting to make sure that you don’t put too much religious and scientific belief in your number. And then life is going to begin, when I lose that seven more pounds, then it all starts to happen. Maybe you’ll get there. I don’t know. But I’m just aware that when we put intense faith and belief in a specific number, like where does that come from? Who invented that? Where’s the proof of that? And this thing called I will feel more comfortable – very subjective. Very subjective.

Mardeen 

I can choose to be comfortable right now.

Marc David 

100%. That’s all I’m saying. You can choose to hold your cards, keep doing all the good things you do and let your body do what it does. As opposed to, okay body, I’m going to feel comfortable in you when you lose seven more pounds, but until then I’m not going to feel comfortable. I’m not going to feel comfortable.

Mardeen 

I really don’t do that. I don’t you know, I’m not attached to that specific number. Obviously, you know, I would have liked to be 125 pounds, but I’m okay with 150. You know, it’s more the way that I feel inside, just the the energy level really has a lot to do with it, and feeling light enough to participate you know, to take a walk, to join in the volleyball game, you know, whatever.

Marc David 

Seven pounds, all I’m saying to you is, seven pounds, I’m going to just make an assertion, makes no difference there. In theory, seven pounds could make no difference. There would be people I meet every day who would love to be the weight that you’re at right now. And they would say, well, I would be celebrating, and I’d be the happiest person in the world. So all I’m saying is, I just want you to notice how much power you’re giving to that seven pounds to hit your sweet spot. And that’s what I’m putting into question. Because you can choose to say, I’m comfortable now. And seven pounds is not, I’m going to tell you, it’s highly subjective. Yes, I think it’s a creation in our mind, you can have a preference. Now want to, it’s fine to say, I want to weigh seven pounds less. That’s different from saying, I will not be comfortable, I will not be my real me, I will not participate fully in life, until I lose that seven pounds. Wow, that’s given a lot of power to seven pounds! That seven pounds chooses whether you’re going to be the real you or not. You see what I’m saying? That’s all I’m asking you to consider and to question of yourself, to notice you’re giving seven pounds the power to decide if you’re going to be your best self or not. If you’re going to live your best life or not. Live your best life, be your best self and go about your business, and eat healthy and see if the seven pounds comes off. And if they do great, not only am I living my best life, I just lost seven pounds and got my lovely little desire.

Mardeen 

Yeah, I think the thing that you brought to this most, most significant thing, is the focus on regret and disappointment and letting go of things that I cannot change. You know, it’s… and just be comfortable where I am, and focus on the things that I still can do for the rest of my life.

Marc David 

You got it Mardeen. That’s it. That’s it.

Mardeen 

Yeah. And you know, it’s not too late to be an artist.

Marc David 

Oh, absolutely. You got it. It’s so true. It’s not too late at all. And this iteration of you as an artist, it’ll be completely different because you have so much experience and so much more gravitas in you than you had when you were 25 or 30. And, you know, the best art comes from years of life and years of experience. So I’m excited to see what happens for you.

Mardeen 

Thank you, I will create that temporary artwork and take it down to the beach and let the ocean wash it away.

Marc David 

I love it. I’ll think of you in a beautiful Santa Cruz beach.

Mardeen 

Thank you.

Marc David 

Mardeen, thanks so much for being so willing, and for sharing so openly, and you know, I just really appreciate you and everything you’ve accomplished on your journey. And how you’ve, you know, just used your life to learn your lessons and better yourself. And sometimes that’s all we can do is let life be the great teacher for us. So…

Mardeen 

Thank you. I really appreciate you allowing me to participate in your podcast and giving me the benefit of your insights.

Marc David 

Thanks, Mardeen. And thanks everybody for tuning in. Take care of my friends.