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Inner Freedom · This Daring Adventure

• 0:03
  Trista: Welcome to This Daring Adventure Podcast, where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life.
• 0:14
  Trista: In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be.
• 0:22
  Trista: Here's your host, mindset mentor and life coach, Trista Gertin.
• 0:33
  Trista: Hey everybody.
• 0:34
  Trista: Welcome back to This Daring Adventure.
• 0:36
  Trista: So today, I wanted to talk to you about freedom.
• 0:42
  Trista: I know this is an important driving factor, force in my life.
• 0:50
  Trista: Ultimately, I think a lot of what I do is because I want freedom.
• 0:56
  Trista: And that includes mental freedom.
• 0:59
  Trista: It includes emotional freedom.
• 1:02
  Trista: It includes physical freedom.
• 1:04
  Trista: Basically though, the freedom to be in your life without being tossed around by every single thing that happens in it, Because maybe this is you too.
• 1:20
  Trista: You wake up feeling pretty good and then you check your phone and there's an email that you weren't expecting.
• 1:28
  Trista: Or maybe someone hasn't replied.
• 1:31
  Trista: Or your partner says something with a tone.
• 1:34
  Trista: Your boss sends you a message.
• 1:36
  Trista: Your mother makes a comment.
• 1:39
  Trista: You look at your bank account, you see something on Instagram, and there goes your morning.
• 1:45
  Trista: Suddenly you're irritated or worried or doubting yourself or replaying a conversation from three days ago.
• 1:52
  Trista: And the interesting thing is that nothing catastrophic necessarily happened.
• 1:57
  Trista: Somebody said something.
• 1:58
  Trista: Somebody did something.
• 2:00
  Trista: Somebody didn't say something.
• 2:02
  Trista: Something didn't go according to plan.
• 2:05
  Trista: And your brain grabbed it and ran.
• 2:11
  Trista: Now you're starring in a full psychological drama before you've even finished your coffee, right?
• 2:17
  Trista: We've all been there.
• 2:19
  Trista: I've done it.
• 2:20
  Trista: I one time got an email from my dad and I stewed about it for days, but I tell you, I got it first thing in the morning and boy did it set me off.
• 2:32
  Trista: And I've coached many women through different versions of this several times.
• 2:38
  Trista: But here's what I want you to consider today.
• 2:42
  Trista: You may be giving other people in circumstances far too much authority and power over the quality of your life.
• 2:53
  Trista: And that's what we're gonna change.
• 2:55
  Trista: And that's a lot of the work that we do in coaching because it's optional.
• 3:02
  Trista: All of this giving your power away to other people, to circumstances that you can't control is not helpful.
• 3:13
  Trista: So what is the freedom that we're actually looking for?
• 3:16
  Trista: And I've been thinking a lot lately about the stoics and particularly Marcus Aurelius and his meditations, which is a really powerful, interesting book.
• 3:29
  Trista: But this isn't about a philosophy lecture per se.
• 3:32
  Trista: There's not gonna be any tests, there's not gonna be a lecture.
• 3:36
  Trista: But what fascinates me about meditations is that Marcus Aurelius wasn't writing a book to tell everybody else how to live.
• 3:45
  Trista: It was essentially reminders to himself.
• 3:50
  Trista: Things like pay attention to your mind, remember what you can control, stop getting worked up over things you cannot control, don't waste your limited life being offended by everybody, appreciate what you have, decide what kind of person you
• 4:06
  Trista: wanna be and get on with it.
• 4:09
  Trista: And 2,000 years later, what he wrote are things that we are still struggling with today.
• 4:18
  Trista: All a part of the human experience, all very normal, except Marcus didn't have Instagram.
• 4:25
  Trista: Imagine what would've happened if he had written about that.
• 4:29
  Trista: But underneath so much of stoicism, and Ryan Holiday is a great authority for this, is an idea that I absolutely love.
• 4:39
  Trista: And this is at the heart of all of the coaching that we do.
• 4:43
  Trista: Your circumstances do not get to decide the quality of your mind, the quality of your life and how you're feeling.
• 4:58
  Trista: And I think this is especially important when you're feeling stuck because when you feel stuck, your attention tends to go outward, right?
• 5:08
  Trista: You think it's all the external circumstances that are to blame for how you're feeling.
• 5:15
  Trista: If my relationship changed, I'd feel better.
• 5:18
  Trista: If I knew what to do next, I'd feel confident.
• 5:23
  Trista: If I made more money, I'd relax.
• 5:26
  Trista: If my kids were okay, I'd be okay.
• 5:30
  Trista: If I knew the business would work, I'd go all in.
• 5:34
  Trista: If I knew I wouldn't regret leaving, I'd leave.
• 5:38
  Trista: If someone would just give me some reassurance, I'd finally trust myself.
• 5:44
  Trista: And so you wait.
• 5:45
  Trista: You wait for the outside world to give you permission to feel differently.
• 5:50
  Trista: And this is where we lose years, not because we're incapable of changing, but because we've made our internal freedom dependent upon external circumstances.
• 6:06
  Trista: And we have no control over those external circumstances.
• 6:10
  Trista: People will have opinions, people will send emails, relationships will change, jobs will end, businesses will have good months and not so good months.
• 6:20
  Trista: Bodies will age.
• 6:21
  Trista: Children will be children and they will make decisions that we wouldn't make.
• 6:27
  Trista: Plans will fall apart.
• 6:29
  Trista: Trips will get canceled.
• 6:31
  Trista: People don't text back.
• 6:33
  Trista: Life keeps laughing.
• 6:38
  Trista: So if your peace requires life to behave itself, good luck because that is a full-time job.
• 6:48
  Trista: Now, I want to really point out the cost here because this isn't just about wanting to feel calmer.
• 6:57
  Trista: If you don't learn how to manage your mind and emotions, you start organizing your life around avoiding discomfort and then you don't have the conversation, you don't make the decision, you don't apply, you don't leave, you don't start,
• 7:17
  Trista: you don't ask, you don't risk re being rejected.
• 7:22
  Trista: You don't do the thing you secretly wanted to do because you're waiting to feel certain first.
• 7:28
  Trista: And slowly but surely, your world gets smaller.
• 7:34
  Trista: You call it being practical, being realistic, waiting for the right time, needing clarity.
• 7:43
  Trista: But often what is actually happening is that You never learned how to move while feeling uncertain, and that is a completely different problem.
• 7:56
  Trista: It's solvable.
• 7:58
  Trista: So I wanna give you four practices today.
• 8:02
  Trista: They're influenced by stoic philosophy and meditations, but I've translated them into the things that you can actually use while living your very modern, very messy life.
• 8:13
  Trista: Let's start with the first one.
• 8:16
  Trista: Practice one is fact, judgment, choice.
• 8:22
  Trista: This one is incredibly simple.
• 8:24
  Trista: Something happens, you have a circumstance.
• 8:29
  Trista: Now, before you disappear into your story about it and get wrapped up, you wanna ask yourself, "What is the fact?"
• 8:39
  Trista: Then you wanna think about what is your judgment about that fact?
• 8:47
  Trista: And then finally, you wanna ask, "What is mine to choose now?"
• 8:54
  Trista: Let's say you sent someone an email and they haven't responded.
• 8:58
  Trista: The fact is, I sent an email on Monday and I haven't received a response.
• 9:05
  Trista: The judgment is the story that your brain is telling you about this.
• 9:11
  Trista: "They're not interested.
• 9:12
  Trista: I shouldn't have sent it.
• 9:14
  Trista: I sound stupid.
• 9:16
  Trista: They've changed their mind.
• 9:18
  Trista: Nobody wants what I'm offering.
• 9:20
  Trista: I should probably shut down my entire business and move to a remote island.
• 9:25
  Trista: "You know how quickly your brain can escalate things.
• 9:29
  Trista: And here's what's fascinating.
• 9:32
  Trista: Most of your suffering isn't happening in the fact.
• 9:36
  Trista: It's happening in the interpretation.
• 9:38
  Trista: It's the story that your brain is telling you.
• 9:41
  Trista: It loves drama.
• 9:43
  Trista: It's adding a ton of drama.
• 9:47
  Trista: The fact is neutral.
• 9:49
  Trista: It's incredibly boring.
• 9:50
  Trista: Someone said words, someone didn't respond.
• 9:54
  Trista: The number in the bank account is this.
• 9:58
  Trista: Your boss sent an email.
• 9:59
  Trista: Your partner came home late.
• 10:01
  Trista: Your business made a certain amount this month.
• 10:04
  Trista: That's what happened.
• 10:06
  Trista: And then your brain writes a screenplay.
• 10:10
  Trista: Now, this is where your mental freedom can begin if you are aware of what's going on.
• 10:17
  Trista: And it's not about forcing yourself to think positively.
• 10:20
  Trista: I don't want you walking around saying," Everything is amazing, "because that's not freedom either.
• 10:26
  Trista: I want you to become someone who can notice, be aware, that's what happened and this is what I'm making it mean.
• 10:35
  Trista: Because once you can separate those two things, that's when you take your power back.
• 10:41
  Trista: Then comes the third question.
• 10:44
  Trista: What is mine to choose now?
• 10:47
  Trista: You can't choose whether they respond.
• 10:51
  Trista: You can't choose whether they respond.
• 10:53
  Trista: You can choose whether you follow up and when.
• 10:58
  Trista: You can't choose what someone thinks about you.
• 11:01
  Trista: You can choose whether you're willing to be misunderstood.
• 11:07
  Trista: You can't control the economy, but you can control what you do in your business today and how you show up.
• 11:15
  Trista: You can't change what happened 10 years ago, but you can decide what you're gonna make it mean about the next 10 years.
• 11:22
  Trista: Fact, judgment, choice.
• 11:26
  Trista: Use it.
• 11:31
  Trista: Practice two is feel it, don't obey it.
• 11:36
  Trista: This one is huge.
• 11:37
  Trista: I don't actually like the phrase emotional control because we're not trying to control every emotion that shows up.
• 11:45
  Trista: I mean, good luck with that, right?
• 11:47
  Trista: You're a human, you're having the full human experience.
• 11:52
  Trista: It entails emotions.
• 11:54
  Trista: Your brain is going to produce emotions based on what you're thinking.
• 11:59
  Trista: Fear, jealousy, embarrassment, disappointment, anger, grief, insecurity, all of it.
• 12:07
  Trista: It's all a part of being human, and as long as you have a human brain and you're alive on the planet, you're gonna experience all of those emotions from time to time.
• 12:17
  Trista: What I'm talking about here is developing emotional authority, which means you can feel an emotion without automatically doing what that emotion tells you to do.
• 12:31
  Trista: Fear says, "Don't send it.
• 12:34
  Trista: Don't say it, don't go, don't risk it, don't change anything."
• 12:41
  Trista: Anxiety says, "Think about this for another seven hours.
• 12:45
  Trista: Surely the 418th lap around this problem will produce the answer."
• 12:52
  Trista: Embarrassment says, "Hide."
• 12:54
  Trista: Disappointment says, "Quit."
• 12:55
  Trista: Anger says, "Send the text."
• 12:58
  Trista: Maybe don't send the text.
• 13:01
  Trista: This is where emotional authority comes in.
• 13:03
  Trista: You notice the feeling, you allow it, you take a pause, you breathe, you let your body experience it without immediately trying to make it disappear.
• 13:15
  Trista: Don't resist it, don't tell yourself you shouldn't feel that way.
• 13:19
  Trista: And then you remind yourself, "This feeling is allowed to be here.
• 13:25
  Trista: Nothing has gone wrong, but it just doesn't get to make the decision."
• 13:31
  Trista: And that alone can change so much.
• 13:35
  Trista: Let's say you're thinking, "I'm afraid."
• 13:38
  Trista: Okay, fear can come.
• 13:41
  Trista: I'm disappointed.
• 13:43
  Trista: Okay.
• 13:44
  Trista: Disappointment can come.
• 13:46
  Trista: I'm nervous.
• 13:48
  Trista: Fantastic.
• 13:49
  Trista: Nervous, sit in the passenger seat.
• 13:53
  Trista: But nervous does not get the steering wheel.
• 13:57
  Trista: This is something I work on constantly with myself and my clients because most of us, we're never taught how to actually feel an emotion.
• 14:06
  Trista: We're taught to avoid it, fix it, drink over it, eat over it, shop over it, scroll over it, overthink it or change our entire lives so we don't have to experience it.
• 14:19
  Trista: But when you know how to experience an emotion without being controlled by it, your life opens up because suddenly fear isn't a stop sign anymore.
• 14:30
  Trista: It's a sensation, and that's a completely different relationship with yourself.
• 14:38
  Trista: Practice three is to stop requiring reality to be different.
• 14:44
  Trista: And this is a good one because notice how often your mind argues with something that has already happened.
• 14:52
  Trista: "He shouldn't have said that.
• 14:54
  Trista: I didn't want this.
• 14:57
  Trista: She should have known better.
• 14:59
  Trista: It's not fair.
• 15:00
  Trista: It shouldn't be happening.
• 15:01
  Trista: I shouldn't be here at this age.
• 15:03
  Trista: I should have this figured out already.
• 15:06
  Trista: My marriage shouldn't have ended.
• 15:09
  Trista: My career should be further along.
• 15:12
  Trista: I should have more money.
• 15:14
  Trista: I shouldn't still be dealing with this.
• 15:17
  Trista: Okay, maybe.
• 15:20
  Trista: But here's the problem.
• 15:25
  Trista: It is happening.
• 15:28
  Trista: You can't continue arguing with reality.
• 15:31
  Trista: Well, you can, but it's not helpful and it's giving away all your power.
• 15:38
  Trista: It's sucking up your time, your energy, your resources, your attention.
• 15:44
  Trista: So now what?
• 15:46
  Trista: And this is where I think stoicism is incredibly powerful.
• 15:49
  Trista: There's a willingness to deal with reality as it actually exists instead of spending enormous amounts of energy arguing with it.
• 16:00
  Trista: That doesn't mean approving of everything.
• 16:02
  Trista: It doesn't mean liking it.
• 16:04
  Trista: It doesn't mean becoming passive, and it doesn't mean tolerating behavior that you don't wanna tolerate, but it means this is what's true right now.
• 16:14
  Trista: So what do I wanna do with it?
• 16:16
  Trista: How do I wanna show up?
• 16:20
  Trista: That question is so much more useful than why is this happening to me?
• 16:26
  Trista: Because that keeps you trapped in resistance.
• 16:31
  Trista: The other put you back into a relationship with your power.
• 16:36
  Trista: "This happened.
• 16:37
  Trista: This is where I am.
• 16:40
  Trista: This is what I'm feeling.
• 16:43
  Trista: Now what?
• 16:45
  Trista: I think midlife is such an extraordinary opportunity to practice this because maybe your life doesn't look the way you though it would.
• 16:55
  Trista: Okay, here we are.
• 16:59
  Trista: Maybe the relationship ended.
• 17:01
  Trista: Here we are.
• 17:03
  Trista: Maybe the career you spent 20 years building doesn't fit anymore.
• 17:09
  Trista: Here we are.
• 17:12
  Trista: Maybe you woke up one day and realized," I don't actually want the life I've been working so hard to maintain.
• 17:19
  Trista: "Here we are.
• 17:22
  Trista: None of that determines what happens next, but fighting with the fact that you're here will keep you here that much longer.
• 17:32
  Trista: The fourth practice is to practice gratitude before life forces you to.
• 17:40
  Trista: This isn't Instagram gratitude.
• 17:42
  Trista: It's not I'm grateful for coffee, sunshine and my dog while secretly being annoyed with everybody.
• 17:49
  Trista: I'm talking about really understanding that what you have today is temporary.
• 17:55
  Trista: The stoics thought about impermanence a lot.
• 17:59
  Trista: And rather than making life depressing, I think it can make life incredibly vivid.
• 18:05
  Trista: Try this.
• 18:06
  Trista: Choose one ordinary thing in your life, your home, your morning walk, your sister calling you, your partner beside you, your dog waiting at the door, your body carrying you through another day, your business, your independence, your coffee, a
• 18:22
  Trista: beautiful view.
• 18:25
  Trista: And just imagine for one moment that it's not available anymore, not to scare yourself, just long enough to remember this isn't guaranteed and then come back.
• 18:38
  Trista: It's here today.
• 18:40
  Trista: You get another day with it.
• 18:43
  Trista: And this is gratitude.
• 18:46
  Trista: And we spend so much of our lives focused on what's missing that we've become blind to what's already here.
• 18:55
  Trista: And gratitude, when we generate it with purpose and intention, it is one of the most powerful emotions that we can experience and that we can create from.
• 19:14
  Trista: We think that, when we get that thing, then we'll appreciate our lives.
• 19:21
  Trista: When we make more money, when we find the relationship, when we lose weight, when the kids settle down, when we know what we're doing, when the business grows, then we'll relax, then we'll enjoy it, then we'll feel grateful.
• 19:37
  Trista: No, because your brain will simply move the finish line.
• 19:44
  Trista: Gratitude is a skill you practice now.
• 19:49
  Trista: So let's put all of this together.
• 19:51
  Trista: The goal isn't to become the person who never gets upset.
• 19:54
  Trista: It's not what we're talking about here.
• 19:56
  Trista: You're human, you're gonna have the fuel, the full human experience, all of the emotions, the full range.
• 20:05
  Trista: It'd be exhausting otherwise.
• 20:08
  Trista: You don't need to be permanently positive either.
• 20:10
  Trista: Please don't.
• 20:12
  Trista: The goal isn't to float around your house quoting Marcus Aurelius while nothing bothers you.
• 20:18
  Trista: But the goal is actually a lot more interesting here.
• 20:23
  Trista: Become harder to knock off yourself.
• 20:27
  Trista: Something happens, you notice your story, an emotion comes, You feel it without immediately obeying it.
• 20:38
  Trista: You stop arguing with what's already true and decide what you wanna do next.
• 20:44
  Trista: Decide how you wanna show up.
• 20:47
  Trista: Decide what you wanna think about it and how you wanna feel.
• 20:51
  Trista: If life is feeling ordinary, remember how extraordinary it is that you get to have this ordinary day at all.
• 20:59
  Trista: This is mental freedom.
• 21:01
  Trista: It's emotional authority, and I think this is where our power lives, because you stop waiting for life to make you feel safe enough to really go out there and live it.
• 21:15
  Trista: So try this for yourself.
• 21:17
  Trista: Become a student of yourself.
• 21:19
  Trista: Every morning, ask yourself, "What might challenge my peace today And who do I want to be when it does?
• 21:28
  Trista: 'Cause you know it will.
• 21:30
  Trista: So prepare in advance.
• 21:33
  Trista: The more prepared you are, the better off you'll be to handle it.
• 21:38
  Trista: We're not trying to figure out how to make sure nothing goes wrong because things will go wrong.
• 21:43
  Trista: People will people, technology will technology, your brain will brain, life will life, and we're expecting all of it.
• 21:53
  Trista: Then during the day, whenever you notice yourself getting activated, pause and come back to what are the facts, what is my judgment, and what is my choice here?
• 22:07
  Trista: What happened?
• 22:08
  Trista: What am I making it mean?
• 22:10
  Trista: And what can I choose now?
• 22:13
  Trista: And then at night, you wanna ask yourself, just do a little review.
• 22:18
  Trista: Where did I give away my peace today?
• 22:21
  Trista: What did I handle well?
• 22:23
  Trista: What would I do differently?
• 22:27
  Trista: And what happened today that I'm grateful I got to experience?
• 22:31
  Trista: That's it, five minutes.
• 22:33
  Trista: You don't need another complicated morning routine involving 17 journals and the sunrise.
• 22:39
  Trista: You just need to practice this.
• 22:42
  Trista: And really, this is the work that we do in coaching, because knowing that these ideas intellectually exist is one thing, but seeing exactly where your own brain is keeping you trapped is another.
• 22:54
  Trista: Most of us cannot easily see the thinking we're inside of, right?
• 23:00
  Trista: It's like being inside a box, you can't see the label on the outside, or I heard another coach describe it as, "If you have spinach in your teeth, you probably can't see it.
• 23:10
  Trista: You need somebody to help you know that it's there."
• 23:16
  Trista: Otherwise, you just feel like you're, you're living reality and you get stuck in these loops and all of these big emotions and they can become overpowering and overwhelming.
• 23:26
  Trista: So try this out for yourself.
• 23:30
  Trista: Be patient.
• 23:31
  Trista: It's a new practice.
• 23:32
  Trista: It's something different.
• 23:34
  Trista: It will take a while for you to make this habit.
• 23:41
  Trista: Have compassion for yourself.
• 23:44
  Trista: And if you make a mistake or you forget, just start again.
• 23:47
  Trista: Start where you are.
• 23:48
  Trista: It's not a problem.
• 23:51
  Trista: Write these things down on a card or on your phone so you can remind yourself throughout the day to come back to it and practice it.
• 24:01
  Trista: All right, everybody.
• 24:03
  Trista: Thank you so much for joining me.
• 24:04
  Trista: I'll talk to you next time.
• 24:05
  Trista: Bye-bye.