It's often the seemingly small unimportant things that are having a large cumulative effect. In her shower stall, for example there is room on the shelf for three items across. Four of those were hers, two were her husband's. She put hers in the back so he could access his more easily.

One day she thought, "Forget that. I've got more stuff I need more room." So she moved her stuff to the front. Result? He didn't even notice. "That`s when I realized there were so many little things I was deferring. Things that had bothered me for a long time. I was doing all this so it would be more convenient for my spouse, dismissing what was best for me."

This may seem insignificant but these subtleties accumulate and suddenly women find themselves at a place where they've lost themselves in the process. "Smart women think this doesn't happen to them," says Brown, "And yet it does. I speak about this in terms of integrity, keeping a wholeness about yourself and your needs, keeping promises to yourself. You don't gain or lose integrity in one choice but in the many choices over time."

Another way that women give away their power is in how they make requests of others. For example, when a woman wants to go to the movies she may ask her spouse, "Do you still want to go to a movie today?" Asking in this way defers her own needs. Instead Brown recommends saying, "I'm going to go to a movie do you still want to join me?" This puts the power back in your hands as no matter what he says you're still going and don't have to explain it. Contrarily, if you say you're going to go that could be construed as a subtle diss to him. Asking in this way you're neither deferring your power nor being over-controlling. "True power doesn't need to control or accommodate," Brown notes.

In her practice Brown teaches non-judgement. That means not judging your body, what you eat, how you react at work or at home. "Judgement and learning can't co-exist. If you choose to go down the path of judgement you set yourself up to go to this moment again and again and get stuck. Once you choose learning everything opens up and becomes curiosity-driven. It's a compassionate lens and everything is new. This works even if you feel you need to go to store and indulge." Brown recommends looking at that experience and recognizing that you may need to do it to learn from it as an experience of contrast to behaviour you actually want in your life.

"Notice "what is" and that truth is neutral. If you're fighting reality you're spending a lot of energy fighting "what is" and that energy isn't available for other parts of your life.

Brown considers herself fortunate to have had coaches who were excited with whatever she brought to them no matter how "negative" or extreme. "They thought everything was 'awesome'. They were my compassionate witness and my unconditional champion." We need constants like this in our lives, whether it be a coach, parent, or friend who teach us, believe in us and see every act we do as revolutionary and necessary for our progress so we can internalize these qualities for ourselves.

Kathrine Brown, North America's most innovative weight loss coach, is the developer of the process Conscious Weight Loss: weight loss while life happens and the publisher of the ezine Wisdom Connoisseur: your voice of clarity on weight loss, which has subscribers in 10 countries.

Susan Harrow is the author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul. She runs a Media Consultancy where she helps everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to celebrity chefs, entrepreneurs to authors grow their business through media coaching and the power of PR. For more information please contact Susan.