Phase 2: Starting Your Shift
What is the issue?
Every mind holds two powerful voices that shape how we navigate food, body, and daily choices. The Sea Witch you know well — that inner critic who loves to remind you of every misstep and perceived failure. But there's another voice, one that's been there all along: your inner coach, sailing beside you in a small coach boat, ready to shine a light when waters get rough.
What do you think?
Take a moment to remember a time when you felt deeply capable, when something clicked and you just knew you could handle whatever came next. Maybe it was in the gym, on a playing field, or in a quiet moment by water. What was happening? Who was there? What words do you remember? Most importantly, how did your body feel in that moment of knowing?
Write about this experience in your Captain's Log. Don't worry about perfect prose — just capture the feeling, the essence of that moment. These memories aren't just nice to revisit - they're clues about your inner coach's voice.
What else would be good to know?
Your inner coach represents your deepest wisdom and strength, but it's not about relentless positivity or denying reality. Think of how a skilled coach operates — they see exactly where you are, acknowledge the challenges ahead, and still maintain absolute confidence in your ability to grow and learn.
Your coach speaks from this same place of grounded optimism. When the Sea Witch shouts about failure and judgment, your coach offers perspective and practical next steps. When you're in rough waters, your coach remains steady, neither minimizing the challenge nor catastrophizing it.
What else would be good to know?
Your inner coach represents your deepest wisdom and strength, but it's not about relentless positivity or denying reality. Think of how a skilled coach operates - they see exactly where you are, acknowledge the challenges ahead, and still maintain absolute confidence in your ability to grow and learn.
Your coach speaks from this same place of grounded optimism. When the Sea Witch shouts about failure and judgment, your coach offers perspective and practical next steps. When you're in rough waters, your coach remains steady, neither minimizing the challenge nor catastrophizing it.
The Science Behind Your Coach
This isn't just feel-good psychology. Your coach's voice actually helps regulate your nervous system, bringing you into what neuroscientists call "blue mind" - a state of calm, alert presence where you can think clearly and make choices aligned with your values.
When you're stuck in the Sea Witch's narrative, your body shifts into Red Mind. Your prefrontal cortex - the part of your brain responsible for planning, decision-making, and impulse control - goes offline. This makes it nearly impossible to read your appetite signals clearly or make thoughtful choices about food.
But when you can access your coach's voice, something different happens. Your nervous system settles into Blue Mind. Your thinking becomes clearer. You can hold multiple perspectives at once, seeing both challenges and possibilities. Most importantly, you can actually feel your hunger and fullness signals, making it easier to eat from a place of awareness rather than reaction.
Building Your Coach's Presence
Like any skill, hearing and trusting your coach's voice takes practice. This isn't about creating something new - your coach has always been there. It's about learning to notice and amplify this voice, especially when the Sea Witch is shouting for attention.
Think about skilled sailors you know, or athletes, or anyone who's mastered a complex skill. They didn't start out confident and capable. They built that mastery through consistent practice, through falling and getting back up, through learning to trust their deeper knowing even when doubt crept in.
Your coach grows stronger the same way - not through occasional grand gestures, but through small, consistent moments of choosing to listen to that supportive voice. Each time you pause to take a breath before eating, each time you respond to a setback with curiosity instead of judgment, each time you choose to trust your body's signals - you strengthen your coach's influence.
Shirzad Chamine's "Positive Intelligence" introduces the concept of the Sage, which aligns with our Above Water coach. The aim is to amplify this supportive presence, making it a more prominent guide in your journey. He states:
“Your Sage is the deepest and most intelligent part of you. It is the part that can rise above the fray and resist getting carried away by the drama, negativity, and tension of a situation."
Shirzad Chamine
How do I apply this right now? How do I explore this more?
Let's do some deep exploration to really understand your coach's voice. Find a quiet moment, somewhere you feel settled, and open your Captain's Log. We're going to spend time with three key questions that will help surface your coach's presence.
You may stop reading the lesson and do the activity now or wait until the end of the lesson to do the activity in sequence.
Once you complete the lessons, the activities appear on their own pages so you can find them and repeat them anytime.
Activity:
Meet Your Inner Coach
Time to do some exploration to find your coach and understand their voice.
How do I bring it all together?
Your coach becomes clearer through practice, but this isn't about perfection. Start by simply noticing when supportive thoughts arise naturally. Write them down in your Captain's Log. Practice inviting your coach's presence during meals - not to control or judge, but to observe and guide.
Remember how skilled athletes make complex movements look effortless? That's not magic - it's practice made automatic. The same applies here. Over time, accessing your coach's voice becomes more natural, more automatic, especially if you practice in calm moments rather than waiting for a crisis.
How will I know if this is making a difference? How do I start noticing the changes?
Watch for subtle shifts. You might notice you recover more quickly from setbacks. Instead of spiralling into self-criticism when you eat past fullness, you might find yourself getting curious about what your body was really asking for. You might catch yourself offering the kind of support to others that your coach offers you.
Most importantly, you'll likely notice a growing trust in your own wisdom. This isn't about ignoring the Sea Witch entirely — that voice has its purpose. But you'll develop the ability to hear both voices and choose which one to follow.
What is next?
In our next lesson, we'll add a powerful navigation tool to your boat: Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM). Think of it as installing radar that helps you see below the surface of your appetite. Your coach will be essential here - helping you stay curious rather than judgmental about the data you discover.
Just as a good coach helps athletes read and respond to their body's signals, your coach will help you interpret what your CGM reveals. This isn't about perfect numbers or rigid control. It's about gathering information that helps you make more conscious choices.