Episode 23: It's Not About YOU

Welcome to The Love Your Life Podcast, This is Episode #23: It’s Not About You The thing I love most about coaching is the way it can help us improve our relationships. With higher levels of awareness leading us to personal responsibility, we set ourselves and those we love up to become more curious about the people around us which then leads to more compassion for their perspectives and personal struggles. As you have spent some time with me in previous podcasts, you might have already grabbed a hold of an idea or a thought process that has helped you to become more aware of what is going on in your own mind. Awareness is the number one most important first step any of us can make if we want to progress towards change, which could be a myriad of different goals: changing our behaviors, changing our feelings, changing our levels of acceptance for our circumstances, increasing more love and connection in our relationships, etc. Oftentimes, awareness can feel awful. Once we start seeing what we are bringing with us everywhere in terms of our attitudes and actions and start to take 100 percent responsibility for it, it is impossible to not see the things we have done that we are not proud of. If you have hit this stage already - congratulations! You are progressing into the next stage which is using this awareness to make subtle shifts in your thinking, which will change how you feel and how you behave in any given area of your life. You are not doing it wrong, you are simply beginning the process of waking up for the fog that has kept you from seeing the power you have to be the creator of your own life. As I say this, it sounds kind of flowery, and mythical. So let me try another way to explain it - So many of us have spent our lifetimes believing that our circumstances are in charge of how we feel and interface with our life. We believe that feelings are unpredictable and are made or managed by how many good or bad things are happening to us or around us. This is a very vulnerable way to live. It feels out of control, powerless, and sometimes like we are victims to the whims of the people and entities around us. What I am offering as the next step is the understanding that as we become aware of what we are thinking and start to connect our thoughts to the creators of our feelings, and we step into responsibility that those feelings drive the actions of our lives which create the results of our lives, it feels like power and a new form of control. We are no longer victims to the people and entities around us, we are in the driver's seat of what we feel and what we do - and with that awareness comes a bit of remorse for the things we have done when we believed that we were not responsible for our feelings. It also brings the awareness that you have options and choices to make in how you want to create, set up, direct, and interface with your life. You are in charge and this is great news! No one can tell you how you have to think about your life, and no one can limit what you want to create in it. Awareness of this process is such a gift! (which is why I am on a mission to make it available to as many people as I can!) Frequently when I am coaching a client they feel remorse that they didn’t know these things sooner in their life. They wish that they could have had it when their kids were younger and they could have taught them better, or built a stronger family culture. I myself had to slog through this kind of remorse. I had to go through the process to learn that everything happens in perfect timing. This kind of thinking helped me feel grateful that I got my hands on this knowledge when I did. Even though gratitude feels better than sadness that I missed out earlier, it doesn’t take away my awareness that the sooner these principles and practices are gifted to a human, the better off that human is because they will have more clarity as they set up the foundation for their future sooner than I did! So if you are someone who loves younger people and wants to share this information with them, this episode is for you and for them! It is the number one thing I wish I could help younger people understand so that they can shield themselves with this belief when people around them behave poorly. That is - that what other people say and do, or don’t say and don’t do, tells you more about them than it does about yourself. In fact, their words and actions can lead you to understand what they think, you can actually start figuring out what their thought models are, and you will be able to do that long before they do, with my help. What is a thought model anyway? A thought model is the name for the process I have been teaching since episode 2 in this podcast - it is simply that we all have circumstances outside of our control. These circumstances are made up of the people, places, and things around us. They are the facts of our lives, it can be as big as the economy of the world, or as small as what someone whispered as they walked by you in the hallway at school. But circumstances are just facts. They don’t mean anything until we think a thought about them. We think thoughts about circumstances because our brains are always trying to make sense of how the things happening around us relate to ourselves. There are a number of reasons the brain does this. For today, let's just go with the understanding that it is a primary survival instinct because our ancestors who were hyper-aware of their needs, dangers, and social status had a better chance of surviving and passing on their genes. It's important to understand that this is the default mode of your brain. It is what your brain does consistently when not managed. As we grow, we are better able to manage our brains and have them work for us, instead of against us. And understanding the thought model helps us grow into this ability to manage our thoughts- Once you understand that your brain is always thinking thoughts about the people places and things around you, you are ready to see how that relates to the next step of the thought model - That is that the thoughts you think, contribute to and sometimes outright create the feelings in your body. Feelings are simply vibrations of energy that pulse through your body like waves - and they are generated by your thoughts. By being informed of this early in your life you are at an advantage. You don’t have to be scared when you feel feelings, even when they are big ones. They are simply vibrations of energy in your body - and the best part is that you have more control over them than you might have believed when you thought your circumstances created them. The truth is that we are all the buffer between our circumstances and our feelings- The thought model continues to teach us that once a feeling is vibrating through our body, that vibration of energy drives our actions or our inactions - and those actions and inactions combined together, create results in our lives. You might be saying, ok Ronda, this is all fine and good, but why do you want me as a teen or young adult to know this about myself and the people I bump into on the daily? And I am eager to answer that question today! It is because when you understand that every person on this planet is walking around thinking thoughts about their circumstances (which ps you are a circumstance to other people frequently) and that the thoughts they think create their feelings, and that those feelings, drive their actions and inactions - then you can understand why I am telling you that what other people say and do and don’t say and don’t do has nothing to do with you! It is only giving you clues to what they are thinking - because those thoughts are creating all of their feelings, actions and results. The person who can be curious about what other people are thinking and question why someone does what they do, is the person who is better able to stay insulated from the actions of others, and is the person who is able to become aware of what their own thoughts are about themselves and others - it saves you a lot of self induced suffering, Let’s look at some examples - that can help me illustrate my point with the most clarity I can. Here is a pattern that plays out in educational institutions daily. Sam says to George, you are so weird. Why are you hanging out with losers? This is the circumstance - are you having a reaction to this right now, just as I speak it? Let’s look at two possible options for George to react. The first would be a reaction that is not aware of thoughts, and is unmanaged. George - could feel embarrassed when he heard Sam say this, and he then entertained the thought that his friends are losers, and he must be a loser too as long as he is around them. This feeling of embarrassment would produce specific actions - like avoiding his friends when others were watching, trying to act like he doesn’t like them either to Sam, he might abandon his own integrity and say things he doesn’t believe that are negative about his friends, he might even speak disparagingly to them in front of others - and he would then in effect create the result of isolating himself from his friends, and create a situation where he has lost connection to peers and even more sadly lost connection to trusting himself. As he created isolation and disconnection from good friends in his life, he would be creating more evidence that he doesn’t have good friends and that he has indeed lost them or is a loser- Here is how this could play out differently if George had the super power of understanding that Sam’s words mean more about Sam than they do about him. This is is how it would shake out - Sam says to George, you are so weird. Why are you hanging out with losers? When Sam says this - George is instantly aware that Sam is giving him a coded message - and George shifts into a feeling of curiosity. He listens to what Sam says, and wonders what feelings are driving Sam’s actions? Is Sam feeling judgmental because he has grown up being judged by outward things? Is Sam lashing out because someone hurt him recently? Is Sam pointing out something negative in others because he feels lonely and excluded from friends himself? Is Sam having a hard time in his own life, at home, with school, or any other area? AS George fuels his thoughts with curiosity about Sam - nothing Sam says feels so personal - He doesn’t shift to believing Sam - He doesn’t shift towards defending himself or being embarrassed because Sam is right - He simply stays curious about what Sam is teaching him about Sam. It is much easier at this point to notice that Sam is feeling something - that created the energy to speak negative words - which create the result of George steering clear of Sam in the near future - or at the very least - suspending trust towards Sam. and George walks away unaffected by Sam’s Negativity. Case Study 2 - Here is another scenario I hear frequently. Elizabeth walks into a room where she doesn’t know anyone - Maybe it’s a new class schedule and her close friends aren’t in her lunch time, or she has moved to a new school and doesn’t know anyone, or it is a new season of a sport at a new level and they all played before but she didn’t play with them - you pick for you how this might look in your world. But Elizabeth walks into a room where she doesn’t know anyone - and nobody looks up from their phones or their groups - no one says, hello. No one invites her to sit near them, in fact, they act like she isn’t there. Elizabeth doesn’t know that all of these non actions are telling her something about the people in the room - she thinks it means something about her - Her thoughts are - “What is wrong with me? Why doesn’t anyone see me?” This jumping off point - spirals to other thoughts - like “ What am I going to do? Feeling a little panicky, or I knew I shouldn’t have worn this outfit, or maybe, I can get my mom to come get me?” These thoughts lead her to feel embarrassed about herself, nervous and panicky about being in a place where no one cares about her, and drives her to sit separated and not initiating any conversation, eye contact, or smiles herself- Which creates the result of further separation and no chance to get to know anyone in the room. This can go on as long as Elizabeth keeps believing her thoughts that something is wrong with her - or as she shifts to judging them for being non inclusive snots - and new friendships will not be made. Let’s try on the circumstance with an Elizabeth that understands that what people do and don’t do tells her something about them, not about her. When she walks in the room and nobody looks up, makes eye contact or invites her to sit - she is aware that her brain wants to look inward - instead she remembers she needs to stay curious right now and figure out the clues these kids are giving her. She wonders if she has ever been in a room of people she is comfortable with before and not been aware enough that someone was new and not including them? She remembers that there was that new girl at the church meeting recently that she didn’t go introduce herself- she kind of kicks herself for that in this moment, and also realizes that sometimes people are just distracted. She wonders what these kids are distracted with? Do they use their phones as shields because they have social anxiety? Are they having a bad day? Are they worried about not fitting in? Is it possible they are judgmental and self absorbed? Sure - that could easily be the case - and she remembers how that one girl in the bathroom didn’t sound very nice talking to her friend about the teacher. But she reminds herself that she wasn’t judgmental when she forgot to talk to the new girl at church, she was just distracted and a little nervous - This curiosity feels soothing - like she can look at herself from outside her body and see what it's like to be a new person in a room of full of people- She uses this moment of soothing - to scan the room and look for someone that looks sad, bored, or isolated themselves - and chooses them as the person she will go sit by and practice her reaching out skills that she has been learning with her life coach, Ronda. She takes a deep breath and wills herself forward - She decides to go with the Use an Observation + Question Approach- This means that she sits herself comfortably near the person and speaks out loud an observation about the room of people. It could be something like - wow - looks like there are a lot of people on their phones right now - Followed by a question: Do you think the teacher will ask us to put them away when they get here? Once the person looks up from their phone and answers, Elizabeth moves into the next step Ronda has taught her - which is to Introduce Yourself with Confidence She has the person’s attention and she is not expecting the other person to do the work to help Elizabeth feel better - she knows that is her own job. She looks her in the eye and says “Hi, I’m Elizabeth. I’m new here and excited to meet everyone. What’s your connection to this group?” This is a great lead in because it is using curiosity - it works because It breaks the ice quickly and invites the other person to share about themselves. And remember - brains are always happy to talk and notice things about themselves. This helps the person feel comfortable around you, and at the very least - have something specific to answer- From there - Elizabeth can continue asking her questions - and keep the conversation moving along- or feel like she can at least sit by someone and not be awkward. In the best case scenario - it could be enough of a shake up for the person you introduced yourself to to keep them talking and not hiding - I have had people tell me that they select the person they will go sit by in different ways The most success will come when you are on the lookout for something that you might have in common with someone - it makes the curiosity natural - and easy to respond to when a question is asked. The most important thing in this kind of circumstance - is to stop your brain from going down the rabbit hole of thinking bad things about yourself and to access curiosity to look outward and play with understanding what is going on in the thought models of the people around you. It helps each of us turn into a bit of a detective instead of beating up on ourselves for no good reason. Let me close today by sharing that the very best super power is that you will learn to lean into curiosity AS we invite curiosity into our lives more consistently - life gets better, we attract great people to be around us, and we stop getting hung up on focusing on what people around us think and feel about us, while having more energy to be aware of what we think and feel about ourselves. Whether you are 15 or 50 - these principles work!