How To Be Truly Free

We are all looking to be free of specific demands or upsetting external circumstances, but the only way to truly be free is not to feel impacted by the things we cannot control. Let's talk about how we get to the place where we can face those things and be released from their effect on us. 

In This Episode: 
- Entrepreneurship, self-doubt, and quality over quantity. 
 - ADHD, rejection sensitivity, and personal growth. 
-  Honoring oneself and facing internal triggers. 
-  Personal growth and emotional maturity. 
-  Communication and emotional regulation in relationships. \


  

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Transcript

Hey Besties how are you? It's them in at. I hope that you're having a great week. Did you love my chat with Mattia, I found it. so eye opening. And I was taking part in it, I actually listened to it back to do some light editing. And I got even more great takeaways. The biggest was the conversation they had with a client who said, they could totally run a business, but don't have the bandwidth to learn how to run a business write something to that effect, I'm paraphrasing, but that struck me so hard, because that I feel like is one of the biggest challenges I'm facing right now is, yeah, like I could do the things. But there is a lot of learning, right? There's a learning curve. And I'm not always like down to do that learning because it feels very taxing. And so it feels like an either or it's like I either learn how to do it, or I just do it. And what I end up getting caught up in is like, it's a waste of time like this kind of thinking like it's a waste of time to try out different things. But that is just like the price of admission, right is that experimentation. And sometimes I'm not going to have the bandwidth for that. 

So, you know, that hit me particularly hard, as I'm on my entrepreneurial journey, just sort of negotiating all of that, especially with SoulCycle. So I'm finding I have less energy altogether. And when I have less energy, I actually like have less brain activity, I'm not making the same kind of connections I'm normally making, I'm also finding that I don't quite have as much to say in the moment. So you may have noticed that, like, I haven't been releasing podcasts as regularly. And this is all because of the same kind of thing. I'm making that okay for me right now. Because I only want to show up when I know that I have a lesson that's going to like make an impact, that I feel good about the content that I'm creating. So my commitment for the near future is quality over quantity. I can assure you that when I am creating content, that it will be because I think it's necessary. I think it's useful. And I'm not just going to show up to show up. 

To me, that is an outdated way of thinking about things. I do want to talk about the difference between, like succumbing to negative self-talk Gremlins and actual quality control. Because there is a difference. So I do believe that I could just show up, put the mic on talk for five or 10 minutes. And whatever I said would be valuable. I believe that one of my favorite episodes recently was the one that I recorded from the coaches forum, where like I had a minute and I was just like, You know what, let me pop on and like talk about my takeaways. In the moment. It feels really, like profound and helpful. It was quick, unplanned, I thought it was packed full of value. So I don't believe that it like has to be this like fully thought out like dissertation or like big statement. That would be like the the negative self talk Gremlins coming in. Like it's not valuable unless it's a completely planned out podcast, right? Like, I've been there done that. And I feel like I'm past that. This is not my brain telling me that the work I'm doing isn't good enough or that no one wants to hear it. It's about not wanting to give in to the idea that in order to call myself a success that I have to be producing all the time. 

This is one of the things that I've been working on personally, is not having my value and worth tied up in producing, like always being a product and having a product. And that's really, really hard. I feel like for me, the bar I was trying to reach was set by Brooke Castillo right, who was sort of my entry point into the coaching space.  So I look to her as a model and she's a force y'all like she started doing a podcast and has released episodes every week for like nine years like that is baller. But I'm not her. And also along the way like she's gained more and more support and I currently don't have any. I'm doing a lot of relearning of like how to be in the world as I uncover more and more of the challenges I have been pretending I don't have. And I am coming to the conclusion that I will probably need to get support if I want to continue to grow my business but for that I actually need my business to grow a bit more. So we're kind of in this like catch 22 right now. It's all good. There's a reset happening Something's coming all that jazz, like, I'm not stressed about it. It is to say that like, I set that bar, and it was arbitrary, and it was based on somebody else's performance. And I'm really trying to get back to a place where I'm being more authentic. I have that like, self authority and autonomy, and I'm basing things on my actual capacity, and my actual goals.

 And this is something I coach people on all the time. And, yeah, I often need to bring myself back to it as well. or have someone else helped me with that I had a great coaching session with a coach today, a new coach, actually, someone I haven't worked with before. And it was amazing. But yeah, beware of those negative thought monsters, right. I've been learning a lot about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is part of the ADHD experience. There hasn't really been a lot of research on it. But it's definitely all over the socials. And therapists are talking about it, they talked about it on the Divergent Conversations podcast that I listened to, I was just listening to another podcast, where clinicians were talking about it. And it's one of those things where it's like, what is the root? Cause? Is it trauma-based? Is it just a normal part of the way that we function that is, in some way disproportionate for people who have ADHD, the jury is out. Regardless, that's I'm not here to debate whether or not it's a real thing, or not a real thing, or should be part of the diagnosis or not. Because this is a thing that some people experience, right to a greater degree than other people. 

So that idea of like, the way dysregulation happens to either actual rejection or perceived rejection is real. And that could be trauma related. It could be from attachment wounds, it could be like from a nervous system perspective, right? Like just the sensations that one feels when they're experiencing rejection, if they're highly sensitive, and maybe their their sensory issues, whether it's related to autism, or ADHD, or just, you know, not either of those things, but just someone who has a more sensitive nervous system, right? Like, there is a possibility for people to be high end rejection sensitivity, regardless of a diagnosis. Anyway, that is all to say, like, I did have to check in with myself to see if I was maybe being sensitive to possible or imagined rejection upon deciding not to release content unless it meets a certain standard. It could easily have been perfectionism, trying to protect me from rejection. But I don't think it is, it doesn't feel like that, to me, it's me making a decision about what I have the bandwidth for. And I do not have the energy to sit down at a mic and like dredge up something to talk about, just because I made an unconscious commitment to emulate Brooke and release every week. I'm not doing that. That, to me feels like that old shit, that hustle mentality, that very white male says business thing that we're not doing here, we're not doing that. 

So I feel like I am making a conscious choice to really think about what lights me up, what is important, impactful, and what I really feel like you're gonna benefit from it, I don't necessarily think that you're going to benefit me from me just like showing up and rambling. As I'm doing right now just ramble ramble. The other thing I really want to do is to have more guests on because those episodes are a bit easier for me to produce, it's just a conversation. But on the back end, it does require like some executive function that I don't always have, right. So it's the scheduling and the organizing. And that takes a toll to or sometimes I just don't have the capacity for it. So we're figuring it out.

I think more than anything, I'm telling you this because I want to be transparent about what it is looking like to build a business. I really had not anticipated that I would be full time in just my business for the last year. And I didn't know how hard it was going to be. I have not really been faced with this like level of stress on all of my faculties in a very long time. So I want to say there really is something to be said for working for someone else, and following their rules, and right, that can feel really claustrophobic for us. But at the same time, if some of these other tasks are really hard for you, it might be worth looking into how you can lessen your responsibility by being in an environment where someone is asking things of you that you know, you can reasonably accomplish. And they're giving you some kind of structure. I don't know. 

For me, the lesson here is about honoring myself. And also kind of doing the work to sort of parse out what exactly it is that is not working, what I have the capacity for, and really, like believing it's really the belief work, like doing the belief work around, being able to build a business that looks and feels like me, and I've helped other people do this. And girl, it really is hard to do it for yourself, like you really do, or I really do. And maybe you don't, but I'm seeing that having that support is super important. And I think I've also just been without it for too long. 

 Anyway, on to what I actually wanted to talk to you about, you always get a double lesson. It's this idea of like, the thought came to me, or the question came to me of what do you want to be free from? And I thought this was such an interesting question. And I wanted to share it and ask it of you, as I'm asking it of myself. Because what came up when I started asking that question was, well, when we start with that question of what do you want to be free from? A lot of things might come up for us, right? Like, maybe we want to be free from the demands of our family, or we want to be free from certain social expectations, right? Like there might be a bunch of things that we think we want to be free from, but here's the thing, you can only be free from what you're willing to face. So it really comes back to that choice of what do you want to manage your mind around? Normally, our brains are thinking about being free from something by cutting it out of our lives, right. Or another way to say that is like changing the circumstance or altering the external world so that our internal world can shift and change and we can be more at peace. But here's the thing that does not actually make you free from the thing. 

This takes me all the way back to when I was reading a new earth by Eckhart Tolle. And he talked about like, you know, if you think you're enlightened, like, go spend some time with your family of origin. And you'll see how unenlightened you are, right? Because when you're not around your triggers, you seem like really good. You're like, Oh, I'm so at peace. And I've built this life. And it's amazing, and nothing bothers me. And then you go back into situations where you haven't been being triggered the same way. Because those same external factors aren't there. And it's like, you're right back to being 11 years old, and you are not this enlightened being that you think you are, right. So you don't get to do this in a vacuum. Now, this is not to say, right, that you can't cut stuff out of your life, I have definitely cut relationships out of my life that I know, were not good for me. And, like, I needed to not have those people in my life. And then I still continue to do work my my own work around that without them present, but like, I couldn't do it with them present. 

So that is a thing. But it also I think, takes a little bit longer to get there because you know, that I'm afraid I'm gonna run into them everywhere, you know, and it's like, I'm not I haven't done the healing work with them. Like in my presence. I just like stopped looking at them. You know, I looked away from the problem. And things looked felt fine, right? It was like, I wasn't looking at the problem anymore. Everything was great, but the problem didn't go away. So this is why I'm saying that you can only be free from what you're willing to face. Because to truly be free from it means that it doesn't have an effect on you. It can still be happening, but you're not bothered by it. Now, big disclaimer that we don't always have control over what we can get to that place with. So I've done a lot of work around, like triggers from my youth, and places where I'm traumatized. And what I've had to do is create a different relationship with my triggered self. So there's a lot of self compassion there around, like knowing that I might not necessarily be able to be unaffected, right, or to be not bothered by certain triggers with certain people. But I can have a more self compassionate relationship with me, where I'm like, Oh, listen, okay, this is what's going on, you have a tool for this, you can work through this. But then there are those things where potentially, you keep wanting the external circumstance to change, and you keep telling yourself like if this would just be different, and happens a lot with our partners, if they would just have my side more often, right? So classic example is like you tell your partner something. And for whatever reason, you're interpreting their response as not having your back, right? Like, maybe they're asking you questions.

 Or maybe they're like explaining the other person's perspective, maybe they relate to the other person's perspective. And to you, that feels invalidating and that feels like they're not having your back. And you just want them to have your back. And, yeah, it would be really great, right? You could tell them how you want them to behave. But then they're changing their behavior, and it might not actually be authentic to them. And like, the one time they forget to alter their behavior, you get pissed off again, right? Because you made it their responsibility to manage your emotions, right? We talked about this with emotional adulthood and emotional childhood, that's putting the responsibility on the other person, so that you can feel better. So yeah, they altered your behavior. And listen, maybe they want to do that work, maybe they want to, like, they really care about you. And they want to do the work to like, figure out what it means to actually support you. 

But girl, you need to know what that looks like. Right? It can't just be like, I need you to always agree with me, like, why do you need them to agree with you? Or what is the behavior? Like? Why do you need validation? Like you need to do the work on your side to figure out what your actual needs are in that situation? And then communicate those needs. You can't just be like, you never stick up for me? What the fuck does that mean? The power comes in, or your power comes in, you get to feel empowered, when you do the work on your end, to really unpack why when your partner relates to the other person side of the story, why that feels like they're not supporting you. That's simple. Like, it's not simple. But like, that's the question. Why does that? Why are you interpreting it that way? And when you can start to get curious about that, then you start to wiggle this around in your mind, and it's not so black or white. It's not so like, my partner's only supporting me if they do X, Y, Z. You can get curious about like, well, in what way are they're supporting me? Is what they're doing helpful? Do they think they're being helpful? Because right, you're so concerned with yourself. And that moment, you're not even considering that maybe your partner thinks they're being helpful.

This is where like, making the most generous assumption about people comes in handy. So this is the way that we free ourselves from things, I can free myself of the stress that I feel because of my partner's behavior by bringing it back to me in that situation. And I can also decide that like, no, I really want their behavior change. And this is where deal breakers come in. And I don't know doesn't need to be a deal breaker that anytime you express your feelings, they try to, like have a conversation with you to understand you better. Because I think that's sometimes what it is like, that's what it is. For me. If my husband started talking to me about something like I started asking him questions. I'm a life coach. I don't know. I also don't always understand, like, what the what the expected response, or action is supposed to be? Right. So it's like, I'm not sure this has happened recently, but just sick an example of like, he tells me a story about someone who did something. And I'm like, okay, yeah, that what, like, what's the problem with that? Right. But to him, like, into maybe other people, it's quite obvious what the person did. But like, I don't understand that like, there is an expected way for that person to behave. 

But it's very clear to him right, can you see what I'm saying? And so it's like, I'm asking questions or I don't I'm not outraged and he can understand on why I'm not outraged. And so I get curious about it. But then like he's interpreting that as like me being unsupportive or playing devil's advocate. And like, that's not what I'm doing. I will tell you, I don't think this has actually ever happened with me and my husband. And quite frankly, it probably would have happened to the other way around, where I'm the one that's like, you don't support me like this is how they should have behaved. But that is just a good example, whichever side of that conversation you're on, is that like, maybe your person does not understand what your expectation was, from that engagement or interaction. And if they can ask you questions about it and understand you a little bit more, maybe that will help them to be on your side. But if you just want them to be on your side, without like, understanding anything about it, like that's just like compliance, right? Like, you just want them to be mindless and compliant, and like behave the way you want them to behave, and not actually be a whole human being themselves. And so do you want to be in a relationship with a robot who just does everything that you want them to do? We have a great AI now where you can just like, have a conversation with chat GPT, and they can have your back and you don't need a human being to be in a relationship with you know what I'm saying? 

All right, friends. That's it for today. I'm just going to leave you right with that question of what do you really want to be free from, because that process that I explained that I detailed for you is the process that you would need to go through the self evaluative process, the mindset shifts, the emotional regulation, the emotional maturity, that is a lot of work. And for those of us with, like, limited executive function, my coach that I worked with today, so that like, using a coping skill, takes executive function, right, just to even like, implement that coping skill, right, figuring out like, what, like, how do I apply that coping skill? What is the sequence with which I need to do it? Right? Am I doing a tapping? Am I doing a mantra like, all of that requires executive function that sometimes we just don't have. 

So getting really clear on your values is going to be a way that you make the decisions around what it is worth it for you to do the work to be free from. And just understand that cutting something out of your life, and looking away from something does not make that thing go away. If that thing happens to cross your path again, you will become just as dysregulated you will become just as triggered. Because you really aren't free from it. And that's okay, too. Like, this is not a judgment. It's just like, uh, don't be surprised. If like, all of a sudden, that thing pops back up and you're like, What the fuck? Like, why do I feel crazy around this? It's because you didn't spend the time there. And maybe that's okay for like every once in a while for that to come up. And it's not a big deal. But if it starts to like, impact your life, then maybe we want to look back at it and be like, is that something now that I actually have the bandwidth and the energy and the capacity to face so that I can indeed be free? Have a great week.