Taming Your Inner Critic: Mindset Shifts with Health Coach Stefani Scotch

Jeanette (00:00.672)

I did an interview a couple weeks ago and it didn't work. Like the recording didn't work and I was like, not good. It was very embarrassing because this was a lady I had literally just met. it was not good at all. Anyway, so my son was in first grade and he's doing like

you

Jeanette (00:28.972)

all this like weird stuff with his eyes. And my ex-husband was like, what is going on with him? And I said, it's just a, you know, in my family, we have some ticks, you know, it's just kind of part of our genetics. So that's what I thought it was, right? And then the teacher was like, Jeanette, I don't think he can see the board. And I was like, for goodness sake. So I take him to the eye doctors and the eye doctor is like, yeah, he's got,

and astigmatism and it's different in each eye. And she was like, he was like, yeah, and he's gonna need glasses. And I said, well, how long will he have to wear them for? And she's like, the rest of his life. was like, my gosh. And here I am like blowing it off, you know.

He's just got a tick.

Like, he's just got to take. But now I know when his prescription is getting bad because he'll start doing that again. Like, his eyes go all over the place. It's very funny. Not funny, but you know. And I just felt so terrible. I was like, I look stupid now.

I think it's funny that you were like, how long is he gonna have to wear these?

Jeanette (01:40.718)

Forever. And he has been to doctors that have said to him that his eyes are like the worst astigmatism they've ever seen.

It's a whole thing. really is. Mine are so bad that I started wearing them in second grade and I don't, I didn't wear them like I should and honestly I still don't wear them like I should and they've just gotten worse because I've never really worn glasses, you know what mean? So I've my own worst like I'm to my own detriment. But anyways, I tried to get LASIK. LASIKs? LASIK?

It is.

Stefani (02:18.67)

LASIKS is the diuretic. don't know. LASIKS? Whatever the diuretic. Whatever the one that's not the diuretic. That procedure, but they said that my eyesight is so bad it would not be FDA approved. Crazy. I know. So I need to just go back to trying to wear contacts again. I tried that once in junior high, which was forever ago. I know they've come a long ways with contacts, but.

Gosh, I know.

Jeanette (02:50.252)

Yeah, he doesn't like them at all. He's got dry eyes anyway, so yeah, he doesn't like them.

Yeah, so I'll just rock the glasses.

Yeah, exactly. All right, well, let's go ahead and get started. Did you I didn't get a chance to look because I was in that meeting. I'm assuming you went ahead and filled out that.

Yes, I did. I'm so glad you said something about it because I had honestly missed it and then I found it. Yeah.

And a lot of people do that. And what I've started to do is tell them inside the email when I say, hey, we're going to do this whatever. Don't forget about the Google Form. OK, let's see.

Jeanette (03:38.011)

there we go. Okay.

Jeanette (03:44.238)

Let me just start A.

This is why my Google Drive is so disorganized, because I do things like this, where I'm like, OK, I'll just put this on a Google Doc. OK, I'm just going to read through this one time real quickly. then, and it is scotch, correct?

Yes, like the drink or the take.

That's what I thought. just was like, I better double check. right. So Stephanie is an accidental health coach who helps women take control of their health and feel their best. After struggling with emotional eating for years, she found a sustainable way to break free from old habits and build healthier, more balanced life. Now she's passionate about sharing what she's learned and empowering others to do the same with a straightforward and relatable approach.

Stephanie offers real life strategies for long-term success in health mindset and personal growth. I think I'm gonna do this again and do it on my, what do call it? I can't remember what it's called, but the, yeah.

Stefani (04:55.214)

A script thingy? Yeah. Yeah. Or teleprompter thingy?

Teleprompter, that's what I'm looking for. That's the word I'm looking for. So yeah, I think I'm gonna do it again later and do that. But all right, so I like this to work like we're sitting down, we're having a cup of coffee and we're just chatting and wherever the conversation goes, it goes. And if there's anything that you say that later you're like, I shouldn't have said that, then you just let me know and I can cut it out. Because it's like an audio podcast, it can be totally cut out.

Okay, good tea.

All right, so we're going to go ahead and get started. I am so excited. I'll just start that over. You're good. am so excited today to welcome my friend Stephanie Scotch.

And full disclosure, she and I were neighbors at Smith Lake for quite a number of years. And we recently reconnected and we had just the best conversation. And Stephanie is not a music teacher, as you heard from her bio, but she is an amazing person and she's got such a wealth of information to share. based on our conversation over coffee, I just felt like...

Jeanette (06:11.84)

my audience would really benefit from hearing what she has to say about self-talk and self-care. And we just had the best conversation. And I'm so excited for Stephanie to be here today.

Thank you. I'm honored to be a guest on your show, on your podcast. And you're right. would, who, who knew, who would have, who would have thought, you know, when we met each other so many years ago at the lake, being neighbors that we'd be sitting here today talking on your podcast. It's amazing.

I know, I know it is amazing. Stephanie is a health coach as you heard in her bio and I am just gonna let her talk from there because she knows all the things. So go ahead, tell us a little bit about you and about your journey and what your mission is, what your, cause I know you are all about helping people and I have a lot of women on my.

in my audience and I know do you exclusively work with women or do you work with women and men or

Do not discriminate. There are women and men that come to me for coaching or for health, making changes in their health, but primarily it is women. Sometimes women will start, well, a lot of times I'll see women start, they'll go first. They'll be the first ones to make the changes in their health. And then their partner will say,

Stefani (07:43.022)

hey, what are you doing over there? And then they all wanna come along too, which I absolutely love when that happens because it's just a totally different way for couples to bond and become closer. So to answer your question, yes, both women and men, but primarily women. And I love what I get to do because I've been in that space of feeling...

yucky, just feeling not like myself anymore, not recognizing who I was and knowing I needed to make a change. And so that's what kind of prompted me to start my own journey. And then

Tell us a little bit more about that. Like how did that happen? What was the whole journey?

Yeah, so about four years ago, I was 45 pounds heavier and I was in a cycle of emotional eating, binge eating. I did not have any healthy coping mechanisms as far as how to cope with stress and life that didn't revolve around food. And so any emotion that I felt

whether it was boredom, stress, happiness, I was either binge eating or not eating at all. So I had a very poor relationship with food. And I also am a recovering codependent. So I had zero, I didn't even know what a boundary was. Like I didn't even know what that meant, you know, four years ago. So I was terrible at setting boundaries. I was a people pleaser to a fault.

Stefani (09:23.154)

and I had just given everything of myself away, literally and figuratively, and I was empty. And I remember looking at myself in the mirror one day and not recognizing who I was. And I even saw a picture of myself and saying, that's not me. And I felt like I was just a shell of myself. Like my eyes were empty and I said, something's got to change. So I started making small changes.

in my health, starting just with my nutrition and implementing new habits around nutrition and the way I cope with stress and life and emotions. And little by little, I started honestly, just revamping my whole life, one habit at a time. And it changed everything for me. made me a better mom. It made me a better friend. I was married at the time.

And I'm now divorced. and I had to go through a really difficult, I mean, not that any divorce is easy, like, I mean, here are we kidding? You know, but it was a very not a typical, it was hard. It was really hard, but the tools that I had learned and was learning along the way that those tools helped me go through that in a much healthier way than maybe I would have before. And so now here I am four years later, still

45 pounds down on the scale, which that's a great win. But the biggest win for me has been how I feel the habits I've learned so that I can not only have lost that, but keep it off and teach someone else how to do it, like help the next person. So that's what I do. That's my passion. I love helping other people just find themselves again, believe in themselves again. Like you said earlier,

you know, quit the negative self-talk and just grow. And it's, we're never done growing.

Jeanette (11:28.398)

No, no, we were not.

Yeah, so I found that I was like, okay, I've got to my goal weight. What's next? You know, because there's, mean, that's, just a small piece of the puzzle. So.

Well, and that's the case. mean, you know, when you're, when you're trying to self correct, and that's really not the word I want to use. When you're, when you're trying to improve yourself in some way and you and I talked about, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast is because we have such negative self talk, like, women, especially, but I think there are men out there doing the same thing that

And as teachers, music teachers especially, we are perfectionists to the max. Like we grew up with teachers telling us, you you can't make a mistake and you can't be this and you can't, and you have to play this certain kind of music. And musicians are such perfectionists. I have a feeling artists probably on some level are also very much perfectionists, but.

you get into this habit of this negative self-talk. And, you know, for us, it's, I'm a bad teacher and I failed today. And, you know, I go into Facebook groups and I just read and I'm like, my heart is just breaking for people who are, you know, they're talking to themselves in this way. That's, know, like we talked about at our coffee, you wouldn't talk to your best friend that way. So tell me a little bit about the kind or tell my audience, I should say a little bit about

Jeanette (13:06.892)

the type of self-talk that you were talking to yourself. Like, what were you saying to yourself back, you know, when, and not even the weight part of it, but the, you know, the person that you were, and because I know I'm also a people pleaser, and when I was in my 20s and 30s and even early 40s, I let people walk all over me. And, you know, it would be colleagues and it would be friends and it would...

quote unquote friends, know, not real friends, but you know, and I had this self-talk that I just felt so negative about myself and so down about myself. Tell me a little bit about what you said to yourself. What were some of the things that you said to yourself and what are some of the things that you're still struggling with? Because, know, if you're watching this podcast on video, you can see Stephanie is just a beautiful, beautiful woman.

She's beautiful inside and out, even somebody as pretty as she is and as wonderful a person still has these negative thoughts, right?

Yes, yes. And they are. And thank you for saying that. Thank you so much. But it's so easy to get into that habit of just being being your own bully. It's like the bully brain. I think we talked about this to maybe a little bit at coffee. You know, you have this bully brain that you would never ever this things that you say to yourself if you stepped back and you said, gosh,

Either a would I say that to my best friend? No. Or if my best friend said that to me, would we still be friends? No. You know, so why do we talk to ourselves that way? And so a lot of the things, goodness, I mean, when you asked what are some of the things that I would say to myself, I mean, how long is this podcast? Because

Jeanette (15:03.248)

Right? Yeah!

Cause I mean the list is very long, but I mean, I would, I mean, I'm not perfect. Nobody's perfect. If I would make a mistake or make someone upset or was worried, I would make someone upset. I would beat myself up and say, you're a failure. You're not good enough. You're, you're dumb. You know, no wonder they, no wonder they're mad at you. You know, like look, look at you, look what you did.

You know, how could someone, how could, and I remember this one too. How could someone love me that like that?

when I'm not worthy of that love. And that's tough. Like that makes me wanna choke up when I think about it. Or if I would go through a binge eating episode, I would kick myself, you're so stupid. Why would you do that? You know how you feel after you do this. Why are you, you know? So just learning how to speak life into yourself and learning how to catch those thoughts.

quick, as soon as they start coming in, catch the thought and stop it. I've even had to say over and over to myself when I start thinking a thought of, you're so dumb. Literally out loud saying stop, stop and just stop that thought and then replace it with you're so smart. You know, just those little tweaks and then just saying it over and over again.

Stefani (16:42.76)

and it sounds cheesy and silly, but it really does work. I think it's Mel Robbins. She has an amazing podcast about how you should high five yourself in the mirror every day.

And Zach.

Yes. And she talks about how it seems silly to high five yourself in the mirror, but the actual action of seeing yourself, give yourself a high five helps rewire your brain because usually when you're giving someone a high five, you're telling them, good job, know, great job. You're encouraging them. So just do it to yourself. Make that a habit to start encouraging yourself and speak those positive, affirming thoughts over your life. Really watch your words because your words have power, you know? Yes.

Yes, I mean, words have power like to other people, but they also have power to you. And, you know, that was one of the things that really struck me when we were talking is you wouldn't say these things to yourself out, you know, like you wouldn't say them out loud about yourself. You would not describe yourself in the way that you're talking to yourself in your head. And so how did you get through that? Like, how did you stop?

doing the negative self-talk. How did you, and what do you say to yourself now? Like what's the most powerful thing that you say to yourself in the morning?

Stefani (18:05.006)

Ooh, okay. The most powerful thing I say to myself in the mornings is you are worthy. Because for a long time, my self-worth was in the toilet, which is why I was, you know, what led me to being unhealthy is I just, my self-worth had gotten knocked down just over the years and over the different experiences that we all have. And so

reminding myself every day, I'm worthy. I'm worthy. That's the most powerful thing for me. And what I had to do was there are days where I would write down, just pen to paper, journal out, affirmations. I'm a good mom. I'm smart. I'm a hard worker. I'm a really great friend. Anytime I would feel like going down the negative self-talk path,

I would make myself sit down and just write out all the opposite things. So if my brain was telling me something negative, I would write down the opposite of that. And there's still days that I, you know, I have to catch myself with them, you know, but it's gotten a lot. You just feel a lot lighter when you start really speaking to yourself like you would your best friend, treat yourself as if you were your, your best friend, you know?

I love that. And I love that you write things down and stick them in a place where you can see them because I feel like that's super important. You know, it's super important to and for me, I have and I'm sure I'm far from the only person that does this. I'll look at myself in the mirror when I'm getting dressed in the morning and I look at I look at my butt and I'm like, it's so big. You know, and I look at my face because I'm

I'm aging, I'm gonna be 60 next month. And I go, my gosh, look at all those wrinkles, know, and my, you know, and so we do that to ourselves where we look at ourselves and we just beat ourselves up. it's, you know, I've been at several schools in the last little while where they have all these positive affirmations on the wall or on the door or whatever, or on the mirror in the bathroom.

Jeanette (20:28.096)

It's really important to have something visual. mean, not just to say to yourself, but to have something visual. have, you know, I've got my positive affirmations behind me and I've got some that I look at when I'm working and because, you know, it's hard to do what we're doing. It's hard to be an entrepreneur and it's hard to be a leader. And I know for both of us, we love it.

But there are days where we totally feel like we're not doing the right thing, know, days where you're not feeling successful and all the things.

Yes, absolutely. And I love that you said having things written down like behind you or in front of you for you to see. So I'm going to show you this one thing real fast. I have this I wrote down. actually wrote it down last year, but I mean, I have a lot of things written down and I have my little affirmations behind me, too. But this right here, it's backwards, but it says I'm bound. And oh, good. These are my these were actually this was actually my mantra for twenty twenty four.

Actually, I can see it. You can't!

Stefani (21:33.262)

But I loved it so much. I'm like, I'm going to keep it up for 2025. So I'm balanced. I'm worthy and I'm abundant. And so whenever I think of different words that make me feel, you know, feel good, I write them down and I see them. another thing that I remembered was, so I have, you know, I have Mason, he's 17 now, but I now remember when he was,

can't believe it. was like seven when I, maybe, I don't know, five when I first met him. He was this, I just have to tell a little aside. So Mason loves to fish and my dad loved to fish. And I remember one time he was just a little guy and he would like wake up in the morning before you guys, I don't even know if you guys were out of bed and he would be down there on the dock fishing. And my dad would go down and you know, and my dad was visiting and he would,

fish with him and my dad just thought that was the greatest thing. He was such a little cutie. my gosh.

I remember their little bond they had Mason and your dad, yes loves to fish And he's honestly he's got these little nuggets of wisdom. I mean he's 17 now So don't get a whole lot of you know, I don't get a whole lot of words out of that Like when he was you know fishing on the dock when you would see him, but I remember he was probably around Maybe nine or ten and I remember being I can see us sitting in the car

Adding time.

Stefani (22:58.924)

and I'm driving and we stopped at a red light and I pulled my mirror down, know, opened it up, looked at myself, slammed the visor down and said, I look awful. And he said, mom, you shouldn't say that about yourself. He said, you're wonderfully made. And when you say that about yourself, it's not being very nice. And I said, you're right. And so I still think of that moment when I, like you said,

When I see my, you you're like, look at my butt and I'm like, are my wrinkles? And I think, no, I am so thankful for the wrinkles. And this is exactly how I'm supposed to look. And I have, mean, I have to work at that, but I remember Mason's words of wisdom when he was nine. So, yeah, yeah.

I love that. And the other thing about that is, you you are a model for your children, you know, and especially if you have little girls, be you a man or a woman, if you have little girls and you're, know, I don't know, I just feel like women are so hard on themselves. And if you are modeling that behavior for your children, boys or girls, right? It's not good for them. So

You know, it's, good to feel positive about yourself and to, you know, no matter what you look like, no matter what your weight, no matter what you're doing in your life, no matter how you feel, if you can lift yourself up instead of bringing yourself down. And I love that he put, he said, you're wonderfully made. That's so special.

So special. Yes. And I have to tell myself that too. That's another thing that I say. If I start going down that negative road, I am wonderfully made. made exactly how I'm supposed to be made. And that's amazing.

Jeanette (24:53.346)

Yes. I loved that your words of affirmation were just written down, like just on a piece of notebook paper. so if you're not watching the podcast and you're listening to it instead, Stephanie held up just a piece of notebook paper that had her three words written down on the notebook paper. So you don't have to, it doesn't have to be something fancy and pretty if you're into that. That's great, but I'm not very artistic. I love Canva.

but I'm not very artistic. so, you know, anytime these I bought, you know, my words of affirmation, I bought them at home. But it doesn't have to be something pretty. It just has to be something that speaks to you, you know, write the words down, cut them out, slap a piece of, you know, masking tape on the mirror and put them there because you need to remind yourself of how amazing you are.

what an amazing teacher you are. And I tell people all the time when they're talking about, I had a really bad day with my kids, write down little things in a journal or on your phone or whatever to give you an idea of, okay, maybe today didn't go so well, but look back at another day where some kid came up to you and was like, that was the best class ever, that sort of thing. So I do think it's really important.

to remind ourselves of how amazing we are because we are all amazing. If you are listening to or watching this podcast, you are an amazing person and an amazing teacher because you are trying to learn and grow as a person, you know? And I think that's so important. So one of the reasons that I had Stephanie on is because she, besides all of the wonderful, amazing advice she has, because I follow her on all the social medias,

is she just started a podcast herself and I wanted to make sure that people knew because I knew it was going to be full honesty. I have not listened to any of her podcast episodes yet, but because it's almost brand new, but I've been listening to and watching her on social media and I know she has so many amazing things to share. So tell us a little bit about your podcast and you told me that it was kind of a

Jeanette (27:16.544)

something that had been on your heart for a long time. So tell us a little bit about it.

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm so excited that I actually did it. You know, it was one of those things that had been on my heart for a couple of years. And I just kept putting it on the back burner and I kept saying, that is so silly. Who would even listen to you? You know, just that, again, that little self, that negative soft rock trying to talk me out of, you know, out of pursuing my dream or a goal. And I almost let it get the best of me, but I said, you know what?

I would rather go for this. I would rather push through this fear and go for this because if it helps one person, then mission accomplished. Just one person. And I would rather go into it with that mindset instead of waking up one day. I think I shared this with you at coffee. I don't want to wake up one day regretting that I didn't do it. That to me,

is a bigger gut punch than it being a total flop. So I set out to do it and it launched last week. It's called She Lost It. You can find it on Apple, Spotify, all the places.

And I will link to it in the show notes as well.

Stefani (28:37.858)

Thank you. Thank you. I'm learning as I go. You know, I don't have a fancy studio. It's just me and a microphone. And I just really want to help other people find their voice or get their voice back. And I'm going to share different lessons I've learned over the years, things I've lost, but the things that I've gained in return, you know.

So I just I want it to be a space where people feel seen and heard and empowered to really step into fear, step into whatever their purpose is. So, yeah, I'll be talking about real life in real time, sharing real stories, having guests on like you, Jeanette, and just talking about how much we have the mistakes we've made and how we've grown through them, you know, what we've learned through.

all of the things that life throws at you.

Love it. I love it. And I'm so excited to start listening because I saw that it went live last week and I was like, and I was I've been babysitting my niece and nephews who are older niece and nephews, but still like being the quote unquote mom for the for four days was a lot of work. I forgot how much work it was. But I'm really excited to listen and the episodes are quick, like they're quick little tidbits, which

It's a lot of

Jeanette (30:09.62)

I love because sometimes you just don't have a lot of time, you know, yours is quick and easy and I know it's going to give people so much value and I'm so excited to start listening.

Thank you so much. Yes, I just want you to feel like you're sitting in a coffee shop or going on a walk with a friend. And I did want to I do want to keep them a little bit shorter, just, you know, because I know people are running around and maybe don't have a whole lot of capacity to listen to a really long, you know, episode. So we'll see. So we'll see. I guess I'm very excited. Yeah, thank you. So.

if someone wanted to get in touch with you for just positivity or for weight loss or for any of the amazing things you offer, where is the best place for them to get in touch with you?

Yes, okay, so honestly the best place to start is social media. So you can find me on Instagram. It's my handle is Steph does a 180 or you can find me on Facebook and send me a.

Spell Steph for them because I know you spell your name a little bit differently.

Stefani (31:17.836)

Yes, it's a little different. It's S-T-E-F-A-N-I. So no P-H and no E on the end. I think it's supposed to be Italian or something. I don't know. The story goes, I was supposed to be named Shelby. That was gonna be my name. And then the day before I was born, my mom saw a painting and the artist had signed the painting and spelled her name.

Stephanie with no E and with an F and the day before. And so my mom said, nope, we're changing the name and my gosh. it's either Italian or I don't know. It's a different version. But yeah, so just find me on Facebook. You can type in my name there. Find me on Instagram. You can always email me. You know, I don't know if you want me to. It's a long email address. It's kind of obnoxious.

Well, yeah, go ahead and share it and then I will put it in the show notes as well.

Okay, so my email is just helpcoachsteff82 at gmail.com.

and it's S-T-E-F.

Stefani (32:28.534)

S-T-E-F. Yep. Yep. Cool. So that's the easiest way to find me. Message me there.

Thank And I wanted to ask you, do you have a lead magnet of any kind? To get people onto an email list. Have you started an No, I have not. Because I have an idea for you. So I'm going to wrap it up and then I'll chat with you for a quick second if you have another second.

started my email yet. have all my notes of things to

Jeanette (32:58.274)

Yeah, so Stephanie, I am so happy that you came on. I'm really excited about your podcast and I know that people are going to really love it because if you don't follow Stephanie on any of the social media apps, she is just a wealth of information and positivity. that really to me, the positivity is really what speaks to me and why I keep following her. So I really appreciate you coming on today.

Thank you for having me. It was so much fun. was a blast.