You can want something with your whole heart and still have a part of you working against it.

You can know that your goal, whether it’s to overcome emotional eating, move your body consistently, or stop thinking about food 24/7, will improve your life. Yet resistance keeps coming up.

That’s not because you don’t want it enough, or because you’re not good enough to achieve it. It’s because that’s what happens when your goal is attached to something your nervous system reads as a threat.

I got back from Sedona a couple of days ago and I have been dying to record this episode!!! Because what came out of that trip…I did NOT see coming.

What Happened in Sedona

I’ve been to Sedona four or five times at this point. I go with my business girlfriends, Rachel and Rebecca, who are both incredible coaches AND people who act as mirrors in a way that very few people in my life can. When you put that many years of personal work and client work in the same room, whatever has been quietly bubbling underneath the surface starts coming up. Everyyyyyy time.

I went in thinking I didn’t have that much to work through (LOL).  I’ve been feeling really good lately, doing intentional identity work every single day. Noticing myself changing. And I thought…. I don’t think I have that many blocks waiting for me.

Boy, boy, boy was I wrong.

Within the first day or two, I started experiencing anxiety I couldn’t explain. My friends were asking, what’s coming up for you? And I genuinely had NO idea.

So we’re sitting around the fire, and they just kept asking me questions to dig up my subconscious blocks I didn’t even know I had. And after a little back and forth, I was completely falling apart. Bawling my eyes out.

I was not expecting that at all 🙃. 

Because I realized that this goal I’d been working toward for months, a goal I thought I was FULLY on board with, had something attached to it I hadn’t seen.

The Hidden Cost of Your Goal 

When I got really honest about what the scared part of me was afraid would happen if I actually achieved this goal, here’s what came up:

My family wouldn’t come with me. I’d outgrow my friends. Luke would feel threatened and leave. I’d end up completely alone. And THEN, on top of all of that, someone would start a Reddit thread about me. Storm my Instagram with nasty comments. And I’d have to go into hiding.

I am not kidding. That is where my subconscious had taken me.

And the thing is, none of that is rooted in anything real. But it didn’t matter.

Because that part of me that created that story? It’s young. I’m the youngest of five in a family of high achievers, and somewhere along the way I learned that shrinking meant staying connected. I had friendships growing up where my success was met with resentment.

That part of me got frozen in the past and never got the update that my life looks completely different now.

So it was subconsciously keeping me small. One foot in, one foot out. Not because I didn’t want the goal, but because I had decided the goal came with a price it wasn’t willing to pay.

That’s what self-sabotage actually is. It’s not a character flaw, it’s a protection mechanism running on old software.

How This Relates to You

As you’ve been reading, I want you to think about your own goal.

• Maybe it’s that you want to stop using food to push down your emotions. 
• Maybe it’s that you want to stop obsessing, stop tracking, stop micromanaging every single thing you put in your body. 
• Maybe you just want to eat lunch on a Tuesday and then think about something else without mental drama.

That goal is real. You really want it.

But if you’ve been working on it for longer than a few months and it still feels sticky, there is almost certainly a part of you that has attached that goal to losing something.

If it wasn’t running things underneath the surface, you’d feel expansiveness when you picture yourself achieving it, not tightness or dread. Not that quiet voice of I don’t know if I can actually do this.

The Exercise For You : Follow the Thread

I want you to think about your goal. Get specific, picture yourself living it, and then pay attention to what happens in your body.

Is there tension in your chest? Weight on your heart? A pit in your stomach? Or thoughts that start creeping in: “you’ve tried before, you always end up back here, this isn’t going to be different”. 

That’s the resistance…and it’s actually your map.

Once you notice it, get curious. Ask yourself: what am I actually afraid is going to happen if I stop using food to cope? If I stop obsessing over every calorie? And then follow the thread. Keep asking: okay, then what? Then what?

For a lot of women I work with, it goes something like this:

If I stop using food to cope with my emotions… then I won’t be able to manage them. I’ll get overwhelmed. I’ll break down. I won’t be able to function at work, in my relationships. I’ll spiral into something I can’t come back from.

That story might be running you without you even realizing it.

And the part of you that created it wasn’t exactly wrong.At some point in your life, you probably DIDN’T have the tools, the capacity, the support to handle those emotions. That part of you could be 5 years old, it could be 15. It got frozen in the past and it doesn’t know that you are a grown adult now with new resources, new knowledge, a support system it doesn’t even know exists.

It needs a software update.

What the Update Actually Looks Like

The goal isn’t to push through the fear. It’s to show that scared part of you a new story. One that’s actually rooted in what’s true right now.

What I had to do in Sedona was walk through, really specifically, what would actually happen if the thing I was afraid of came true.

And when I did that, I realized: I have a huge support system. I have been through SO much in the past few years. I have broken down and picked myself back up, and every.single.time it has made me stronger.

I can handle it.

That became my new mantra. Honestly…I kind of want to get it tattooed. Maybe???

Because the reason you’re stuck isn’t that you don’t WANT the goal. It’s that part of you doesn’t yet believe you can survive getting it.

We’re not actually scared of failure. We’ve failed before. We know what it feels like, we can predict it, we can survive it. Failure is familiar.

Success is the unknown. And the unknown feels a lot more dangerous to your nervous system than the pain you’re already in, even when that pain is really, really bad.

So if you’ve been wondering why you can’t seem to get there no matter how much you want it: you’re not broken. You’re not lazy. You’re running an old program, and the good news is that old programs can be updated.

I recommend listening to this episode again and letting it land. Going through the exercise again. Because when it really clicks for you, there is going to be this release of energy in your body. The resistance that has been driving you on a subconscious level will start to loosen. And that’s when things actually start to shift.

In This Episode You’ll Learn

• Why wanting a goal with your whole conscious mind doesn’t mean all parts of you are on board — and what to do about the parts that aren’t
• How your subconscious quietly attaches your goals to worst-case scenarios and keeps you stuck as a result
• The “follow the thread” exercise for uncovering the hidden fear that’s been driving your behavior around food
• Why the scared part of you that keeps resisting isn’t the enemy — and how to work with it instead of against it
• Why your nervous system finds failure more comfortable than success, and what that means for your healing
• How to do a “software update” so your goal feels safe instead of threatening
• The real reason self-sabotage keeps happening (and why willpower was never going to fix it)

Timestamps

00:00 — Introduction: the question nobody asks about their goals

13:30 — Why I went to Sedona and what I thought I’d find there

16:30 — The anxiety I couldn’t explain, and what it was actually pointing to

20:00 — Sitting around the fire: the conversation that broke me open

24:00 — The goal I thought I was fully on board with (and the fears underneath it)

28:00 — The specific worst-case scenarios my subconscious had created (yes, including the Reddit thread)

33:30 — Why our nervous systems try to keep us small even when change is good

37:00 — How this relates directly to your food freedom goal

42:00 — The “follow the thread” exercise: try this yourself

50:00 — What happens when you identify the resistance vs. when you don’t

54:00 — What your mind does when you picture no longer using food to cope

58:00 — The software update: how to show your nervous system a new story

59:30 — Why we’re delusional about the worst case and how to flip it

01:01:00 — The cliff analogy: why familiar misery beats uncertain possibility (for now)

01:04:00 — “I can handle it”: why this became my new mantra

01:05:00 — Why your nervous system is more scared of success than failure

01:07:00 — How Food Freedom Academy addresses this at the root

If you’ve been stuck in this for longer than makes sense, this episode is for you. And if it lands the way I think it will, send it to a friend who needs to hear it.

I love you so much. Thank you for being here.

xo, Sabrina