Episode 145: Unpacking Your Story

Today, we are talking about unpacking your internal story. Your internal story is very critical, lots of judgment behind it, seemingly in a self protective way, you can just call the inner critic, the Gremlin. When we are doing scary things is usually when it makes an appearance.

When we are trying new things when there's a lot of uncertainty. Our brain kicks in these messages, because it's trying to keep us safe. It's trying to make sure that we don't take big risks, we don't get ourselves hurt. And I forgot what the study is. But essentially, our internal belief systems are set up from the time that like, essentially, once we hit seven, we've absorbed all of these beliefs that then become our, our truth, as you will. So it becomes this lens that we see the world through. And you know, I'm 37. So 30 years later, what are the stories? What are the belief systems that I'm carrying through from me being five, six and seven. And so if we don't check those, then we're essentially living out of the fear of our childhood self.  

I want you to imagine that you are looking at your belief systems out on the table. So you know, whether it's don't try new things, it's too scary, or I'm always going to fail. Or if I fail, I'm going to disappoint people, or new is scary, or people are trying to hurt me. Put it out on the table. Imagine they're in like little jars. Within the jars are kind of nuggets of judgment, there's like little pebbles of judgment there are some nuggets of truth. So you know, risk does exist. Or there could be scary people out there. But then there's also these elements that you have learned as an adult, there are things that you have built resilience around. So if you've been around risk and you've gotten through, then you have really worked up your resilience muscle, you have learned skills, you've had experiences that may contradict that. And so what we can do with this jar, and I'm making this analogy up as I go, so bear with me. So if we take this jar, and we dump it out on the table, we can then sift through where the judgment is showing up and where the actual truth is, and also what is true for now. So that belief system, there may be one pebble of truth that we want to take with us. And we may want to leave the judgment behind. But I want you to ask yourself, the question, when you're thinking about the story that you're operating with, when you get scared, is if judgment couldn't exist.

What's true about the story, I'm telling myself? If judgment can't exist, what's true about this story? And this became the lightbulb for my client this morning because she had a lot built up around not disappointing people about not showing up not being acceptable, not being the best, not being perfect.

And the reality is when things are uncertain and unknown, number one, perfection does not exist, but there's too much that's unclear to even have a plan or pathway forward. So if judgment can exist, then she is showing up with ideas with openness, empathy with curiosity. And she will do her best with what she has. The truth is, risk can sometimes be scary. The reality is, she actually thrives in stress, she thrives in risk. She thrives in building new plans and new strategies and solutions. But when her ego kicks over, when that inner critic kicks over, it paralyzes her. And so she starts to dance around the topic, instead of saying, here's what's important to me, here's what my needs are. Here's what I want to do. What does that look like for you? So when we make the story up, about us feeling like we have to have the right answer, like we have to be in control, like we have to get it right, it prevents us from creating the space to have dialogue to have the connection with the other person. So where's the door opening that you can allow someone to say, Yeah, I hear what you're saying. And here's what works for me, this is the shift to shared agreements versus I have an expectation, and what's worse, I have an unspoken expectation that you need to meet. And that's where the control thing comes in. It's like, I'm just gonna keep micromanaging and gripping this, when the reality is, we just want the best for ourselves, for the project for other people. And we want to create peace, we want to create ease, we want to create flow. But when the ego pops in, when the inner critic pops in, it's trying to default to these old protective methodologies, processes and frameworks. And so the simplest way to resolve this is to get back to what's most important. So if you haven't done this exercise, I know that I'm like a broken record on it, but I don't care. I'm going to keep doing it. 

What is most important to you? And why is it important? If you jump into the “How do I fix this”? How do I make this better? How does this work? You are in a stress reaction. And you can try to disagree with me all you want. But that's your ego talking, it's gonna fight you. The simplest way to do it is to take a deep breath when you notice that you're jumping into a How do I fix this? That's the story coming in. Acknowledge it's a story. What is true about this? Now, what is not true about this? What is important for me right now and why is it important? And how do I focus on that, the How comes last, and the How will become so much clearer, it will emerge, because you've allowed it to process fully with enough information. If you jumped to how without a clarity around what and why, then it just becomes a circling around tactic, you're going to just keep circling around the airport, you're not actually going to know where to land. But what is important, why it creates the target, it creates a pinpoint, a milestone that we're aiming for. And that's really what our brain wants, it wants direction, it wants to know what its job is. So we have to give it a job. So the way to do it is to first take a deep breath. Notice where there's tension, notice where there's friction for my client this morning, it was in her stomach. And then it was in her brain. So when she felt the brain race happening, it was almost like I think, so she had to take a breath. And I told her, she's not allowed to do any processing or thinking until that sensation goes away. So there is a level of discipline. And this is actually where control comes in, where you can feel like you're driving things forward. But you need to be aware, have that self awareness in the mind body connection, to Breathe it out, to then create a different pathway and process and framework. Because if we don't, if we're in this autopilot, our default is going to be the stress reaction.

So know that once you know you can't unknow but now, let me not use but and now you have a responsibility to shift things once you notice it. So notice it, do something about it, shift it. But if we ignore it, then it becomes the cycle. And it starts to really become a story that gets really deep and painful. Like we end up having a physical response to it. And this is where resentment builds up. So we have these patterns, we have these buttons that get pushed. And this is how we start to offload them. This is how we start to rebuild a new narrative that actually works for us. So first, What are the stories put them on the table? Where is the judgment? And if judgment couldn't exist? What would be true about that story? What's most important to you? Why is it important? And how do you honor that value? super simple. You can do it. I believe in you. Let me know how it goes. 

And until next time, y'all keep being awesome.