Latest / Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur / Finally Get What You Want: 4 Words That Reveal Why You're Stuck (& What to Do Instead)

Transcript

Finally Get What You Want: 4 Words That Reveal Why You're Stuck (& What to Do Instead) · Change Your Life with Dr. Amen Kaur

• 0:00
  In the 1970s, a psychologist asked mothers to sit with their babies and then for two minutes, go completely still.
• 0:11
  No words, no expression.
• 0:14
  Within seconds, the babies protested.
• 0:17
  Within a minute, they collapsed.
• 0:21
  Nothing had been taken away except attention.
• 0:26
  If you are months out of your role, that you lost, or maybe you want to start something and you just can't, maybe you know what it is that you want to do next, but you still can't make yourself
• 0:39
  move towards it.
• 0:41
  This experiment is everything we need to know to help you.
• 0:46
  You're not short on discipline, you're probably not short on ideas and creativity.
• 0:52
  You're short on one thing, the switches that wanting, that motivation, that drive back on.
• 1:00
  In the next minutes we have together, we're going to look at four words that show you exactly where your energy is going and why being wanted never fixes it.
• 1:14
  And the finding from 50 years of therapy research that explains what actually does.
• 1:21
  You say, I should.
• 1:24
  We all do that, and sometimes we hear ourselves say that in our own mind all day long.
• 1:31
  Have you ever noticed what you're actually looking at when you say it, though?
• 1:36
  What are you saying to yourself about what you should be doing?
• 1:41
  Let's picture this.
• 1:43
  Sometimes something has ended in our life.
• 1:46
  There's been some sort of loss, something.
• 1:49
  Maybe it's a divorce, maybe it's your job has been lost.
• 1:53
  Or maybe, you know, you want to start a business, but you're not able to.
• 1:59
  You know roughly what it is that your life looks like moving forward.
• 2:04
  But every plan starts with, I need to be doing this, I should have done this, I have to do this.
• 2:12
  And nothing really moves in your life.
• 2:15
  Really think about it.
• 2:17
  Is that the kind of conversation you're having with yourself?
• 2:20
  Are you telling yourself, I have to, I should.
• 2:24
  And the other thing that you really need to look at, somewhere before the stuckness, there was something that happened in your life.
• 2:33
  Let's just trace it back.
• 2:35
  A redundancy that they didn't treat you right.
• 2:40
  They didn't treat you right as you left.
• 2:43
  Or a marriage that ended, or a role that stopped valuing you long before they let you go.
• 2:51
  It was like they were trying to push you out without you even knowing.
• 2:55
  Something outside of you, in some way, shape or form, said, you are not wanted here.
• 3:03
  And your system did what every human system does when attention is withdrawn.
• 3:09
  It went still.
• 3:11
  Remember the babies.
• 3:12
  Remember how we started this conversation.
• 3:15
  That was the still face moment in adult form.
• 3:20
  And it's not easy.
• 3:23
  Everything you might have tried before.
• 3:25
  Maybe it's more discipline, maybe it's looking at different strategies.
• 3:29
  Maybe you do a lot of self awareness learning, you read a lot.
• 3:34
  You listen to so many different podcasts.
• 3:36
  Maybe you put pressure on yourself.
• 3:38
  Maybe you tell yourself, I should be doing this, but has it worked?
• 3:43
  It's not worked.
• 3:44
  It's not working because there's one more thing we need to be ashamed of, which is I should have done this.
• 3:51
  I should be more ahead.
• 3:52
  I shouldn't have got myself into that situation.
• 3:55
  Look at everything you've wanted to change for the last decade and you haven't.
• 4:02
  Maybe it's the last five years, maybe you even want to look at the last two years.
• 4:07
  Every one of them has probably got a should attached to it.
• 4:12
  Whatever you shame to yourself, you repeat.
• 4:17
  Whether someone else is shaming you, you will repeat.
• 4:21
  Whether you're shaming yourself to try and get yourself to do something, you're gonna repeat it.
• 4:27
  This is the one thing that we need to see when we're dealing with addictions as well.
• 4:31
  Whatever we shame ourselves about, we're going to repeat.
• 4:36
  Just think of it in this way.
• 4:37
  Say if there was a boss and they talked to you in the way that you kind of talk to yourself, which is, hey, you should have done this five minutes ago.
• 4:46
  You're not very good.
• 4:47
  You should have done that five hours ago.
• 4:50
  You probably hand in your notice.
• 4:54
  I mean, I do want to put in a caveat here.
• 4:56
  If you've been in a toxic workplace, your boss would have started off probably nice and then turned toxic over time.
• 5:03
  So it never happens straight away.
• 5:05
  There's always that love bombing phase and then they turn toxic.
• 5:09
  But it's safe.
• 5:10
  Someone came along and they were just rude to you straight away, telling you, you should have done this, you shouldn't.
• 5:16
  You'd be like, I'm out of here.
• 5:18
  Who do you think you are treating me like that?
• 5:21
  I'm not your skivvy or I'm not your servant.
• 5:25
  The problem that most of us have is that one, we feel judged by others and second, is we judge ourselves as well because we've been trained to do so.
• 5:37
  The biggest issue we have is comparison.
• 5:40
  And comparison just sucks because all we're doing is looking at other people and thinking, hey, they seem to be able to do this, that and the other.
• 5:50
  And we then conclude we just don't have the drive.
• 5:53
  We just don't have the get up and go or the talent or something.
• 5:58
  And they do.
• 6:00
  But comparison never gives us a full picture.
• 6:03
  Have they had the history that you've had?
• 6:06
  Have they had the background that you've had?
• 6:09
  Have they had the same solutions or have they had someone that's helped them help them up?
• 6:16
  So we can't fully compare ourselves on one aspect.
• 6:20
  Say you want to start your business, whereas you're seeing somebody else who's been maybe funded by their parents.
• 6:26
  You can't judge yourself against them.
• 6:29
  They are starting at different points.
• 6:32
  Before we go any further, I want to get something really clear.
• 6:37
  Every single person you meet, unless they're enlightened, feels some shame about something.
• 6:45
  It's something we're always carrying.
• 6:48
  Every one of us feels like I'm not that good, or maybe I'm bad, I'm maybe not good enough in some way.
• 6:56
  Some of us feel it and we know we're feeling it.
• 7:00
  We feel that uncomfortability, but some of us avoid it so hard that we don't let people near us.
• 7:09
  Feeling it now and again is not a fault.
• 7:12
  It's not something you should try and not feel either, by the way.
• 7:17
  Because if you don't feel anything and you're so numb to it, what you'll end up doing is projecting, which might mean that you're getting more on that narcissistic scale.
• 7:31
  So if you are feeling it, it feels uncomfortable every now and again.
• 7:34
  And you're living with this, albeit unconscious to some level, it's not a bad thing.
• 7:42
  It means that you're still in contact with yourself to some degree.
• 7:46
  So if that is you, and if you can feel that while I'm talking and it feels uncomfortable, just let it be there.
• 7:56
  What is?
• 7:58
  Here's a strange one for you.
• 8:01
  So many of us talk about what we want, our goals, but what is wanting?
• 8:08
  I know you're probably thinking, what?
• 8:11
  What is she talking about?
• 8:13
  What do you mean?
• 8:15
  What is wanting?
• 8:17
  I'm not asking about what you want, but what is wanting itself?
• 8:23
  The thing that happens in you before the object, or before you even decide what it is that you want and it shows up.
• 8:33
  You see, if we look at these four words that we sometimes use, should I should have this?
• 8:39
  That's always looking at what is already missing.
• 8:42
  So if I say to myself, I should have done this already, I shouldn't have got into that situation.
• 8:48
  I should be further ahead.
• 8:50
  I should have known better.
• 8:52
  What we're looking at is looking at ourselves in a way and then comparing ourself or making ourselves feel like, I'm missing something, it's me, I'm missing something, I am bad in some way.
• 9:06
  Then there's this other word that we sometimes use, which is have I have to do This I have to make sure that there's food on the table or I have to get this, this job done or this project
• 9:20
  done.
• 9:22
  To have is more like a obligation, it's a responsibility.
• 9:26
  It's like you're having to do something, but it's not.
• 9:31
  There's not a choice there.
• 9:33
  Then we have another word that we sometimes use, which is I need.
• 9:39
  Need is where we're thinking, oh my gosh, I don't have enough and I need this.
• 9:46
  So it's coming from a space of scarcity or lack of.
• 9:50
  But what is want?
• 9:53
  Want looks at the thing itself.
• 9:55
  It's just looking purely at the goal.
• 9:58
  I want this.
• 10:01
  That one's the only one that actually pulls us forward to what our goal is.
• 10:08
  Wanting is like a life force.
• 10:11
  Energy is pointing towards something that you want, you, like, you're driven towards.
• 10:17
  And that's the same thing that makes a tree grow towards light.
• 10:22
  It wants the light, it wants the nutrients from the ground, it wants the water, it wants to grow.
• 10:30
  It does that naturally.
• 10:32
  Nothing in nature is shaming.
• 10:36
  It doesn't need the tree doesn't need to be shamed to grow.
• 10:40
  The grass doesn't need to be told, grow more.
• 10:44
  You should be bigger and then be growing.
• 10:47
  A child from birth to say seven years old changes and grows so much than you'll ever grow from zero to seven, there's a huge amount.
• 11:00
  And usually at that time, unless it's been conditioned in, there's no critic there saying, you need to grow, you've got to grow more, you got to grow big, you got to grow this.
• 11:13
  So the question is never how much drive someone has.
• 11:20
  That's not the thing.
• 11:21
  It's not about motivation, it's not about talent that helps us grow and evolve and be the best version of ourself.
• 11:30
  It is where that wanting has been pointed to.
• 11:35
  Are we wanting?
• 11:36
  That's the key here.
• 11:38
  Because a lot of time people say that they want something, but they are really deep down, they're not aligned, their emotions aren't aligned to the thoughts that they have.
• 11:50
  They don't feel worthy of it.
• 11:53
  So if you have plenty of wanting, and most of us do, most of us know where we want to be.
• 12:01
  We want to maybe have more wealth, we maybe want to have a loving relationship, or maybe we want another job, or we want to be in doing something that feels really worthwhile, like a business that actually really puts
• 12:15
  your value out there and changes the world.
• 12:18
  So what is wanting?
• 12:21
  How does it even start?
• 12:22
  The most important thing we need to look at Bear with me especially, this is really hard if you've had some sort of devaluation.
• 12:32
  So we need to raise the question that I have sat with for a while.
• 12:38
  What does it even mean to be wanted?
• 12:41
  What is someone actually giving you when they want you?
• 12:46
  The biggest thing is attention.
• 12:50
  That is the whole gift.
• 12:52
  Sometimes when someone wants you, they are giving you their attention right now.
• 13:00
  For those people that think, oh, having attention is, is negative, we all need a level of attention and we'll go into the pros and cons and the different types of attention.
• 13:14
  But the key thing this is, and we can go back to the baby scenario.
• 13:20
  Attention is how a person knows they exist, that they're alive to actually even want in the first place.
• 13:33
  This is where that still face experiment from the opening really explains so much to us.
• 13:43
  Nothing was removed except attention from the babies.
• 13:50
  And the whole infant's whole system read that as danger.
• 13:56
  So being seen is not a luxury.
• 14:01
  It's a condition for growing, for being, for existing, for wanting without fear.
• 14:10
  Think about a teacher, a child nobody expected much of.
• 14:17
  And then a teacher comes along and sees that child and within a year their whole life changes.
• 14:26
  I mean, maybe you know of a teacher like that.
• 14:29
  They just saw you, they believed in you, they seen you and then things just shifted and changed.
• 14:36
  So nothing changed but the attention or say if you've had a really tough time in your life, you've struggled through some scenario and then someone came along, maybe a coach, maybe a therapist, and they believed in you, they
• 14:55
  understood you.
• 14:57
  Just you feeling like someone got you, you felt witnessed by them in some way and then your life started to change.
• 15:07
  We've all had that person that's just sparked something inside of us.
• 15:12
  It's like their presence, their.
• 15:16
  They've just spark something where you recognize your own life force energy within yourself.
• 15:23
  You start to see yourself differently than you did before because of them.
• 15:29
  So I imagine it like this.
• 15:32
  Say if the teacher's attention does not hand the child her life force energy, if you like, it starts like an engine.
• 15:42
  So if you imagine you've got a car but you haven't turned the engine on, there's no fuel in the car, or there is fuel in the car, but you just haven't turned the engine on, what happens is when
• 15:57
  a teacher comes or somebody comes that really trusts and believes in you and sees something in you that is, yeah, I believe in you.
• 16:04
  I can see it.
• 16:05
  It's like they literally turn the engine on inside you and you can't explain what they've Done.
• 16:11
  But you just know it feels good to be around them.
• 16:14
  They make you feel good within you.
• 16:18
  She really reminds me of Maya Angelou's saying where she says it doesn't matter what you did in your life, what people remember is how you made them feel.
• 16:31
  And that is it.
• 16:32
  It's that.
• 16:34
  It's like, can we spark someone else's light within them so they feel more like themselves?
• 16:40
  They feel good within themselves so they can go out and do what it is that they're meant to do.
• 16:47
  So let's come back to those four words and just listen to those four words again.
• 16:55
  Should I have to.
• 16:57
  I need to.
• 16:59
  All three are waiting at the door.
• 17:02
  But want is the one that has already been seen.
• 17:07
  I.
• 17:08
  I want something is because they've been seen inside them.
• 17:13
  It's like they've been lit up, their engine is turned on.
• 17:16
  That's the difference if you're exhausted.
• 17:20
  I just want to make it.
• 17:22
  I want you to know it's real, every bit of it.
• 17:27
  And I'm never going to tell you that what you feel isn't there, that exhaustion is real.
• 17:34
  But I want you to show you where it comes from.
• 17:38
  Effort runs on.
• 17:40
  I have to.
• 17:41
  I should.
• 17:42
  I need to.
• 17:44
  Wanting it runs.
• 17:46
  Once you've been seen, like really seen, acknowledged for your brilliance.
• 17:52
  When someone devalues you, it's almost like they cut that.
• 17:59
  That wanting from you.
• 18:01
  That is why we can rest as much as we want to.
• 18:06
  It just doesn't fix it for us.
• 18:07
  We never get that energy back like we used to.
• 18:11
  Rest was never the missing part then.
• 18:14
  The research on burnout shows the same thing in different words.
• 18:18
  Though the drivers are not workload alone, they are lack of control, lack of reward, unfairness, loss of belonging.
• 18:33
  All the things where you're not seen, you're not acknowledged, you're not validated in the way of being seen.
• 18:42
  In terms of your life force, energy, your, Your ability, your potential.
• 18:48
  Every one of those is.
• 18:50
  Is a way of not being valued.
• 18:53
  So the tiredness is real.
• 18:55
  Melish and letters Burnout research identifies six mismatches.
• 19:01
  Workload, control, reward, community, fairness, values.
• 19:06
  So if your workload is too much, you're being devalued.
• 19:10
  You're probably not being paid as much as you're being expected to have.
• 19:16
  As output control, you don't feel like you have control.
• 19:21
  Reward isn't appropriate.
• 19:23
  Community might not be right, you might not be feeling fair.
• 19:27
  In fact, I think all of these six are a form of being devalued.
• 19:32
  If attention is how we know, we Exist, then being seen is not a nice to have.
• 19:39
  It's the ignition.
• 19:41
  But here is what I got wrong for years.
• 19:45
  So hopefully I hope you don't get this wrong either.
• 19:49
  Being seen and being validated are not the same thing.
• 19:54
  Winnicott, the paediatrician and psychoanalyst, put it in one image.
• 20:01
  When a baby looks at her mother's face, what she sees there is herself.
• 20:09
  We exist in someone else's attention before we can hold ourselves in our own.
• 20:17
  This is really deep when we think about it.
• 20:20
  So we exist in someone else's attention before we can hold ourselves in our own.
• 20:29
  So across decades of research into what makes therapy work, the method matters less than what most people think.
• 20:39
  The strongest single predictor of whether someone gets better is the relationship.
• 20:45
  And inside of that the client's felt sense of being understood and accepted without conditions.
• 20:54
  Personally, I think that's about self love and acceptance and whether someone gives you permission to love yourself and accept yourself as you are to really bring compassion, understanding, love into the equation.
• 21:12
  Carl Rogers named it in the 1950s.
• 21:16
  The meta analysis since has kept confirming it.
• 21:21
  Hebbian learning the rule that neurons that fire together, wire together.
• 21:28
  Whatever you keep attending to strengthens.
• 21:33
  Wherever your attention goes, it strengthens.
• 21:36
  That includes the waiting.
• 21:39
  Every hour spent watching the door for someone else's wanting makes the watching easier and the moving harder.
• 21:50
  It's like we're waiting for someone to give us permission to actually feel like it's.
• 21:56
  We are allowed to have more, we're allowed to speak, we're allowed to be who we want to be.
• 22:04
  Attention is like a jump lead.
• 22:07
  It's not, it does not need you to fuel or it's not that you don't have the fuel, it's the engine.
• 22:16
  And that engine is already yours as well.
• 22:20
  It's just that attention, it just, it's like, yes, I'm alive, I'm here, I'm here.
• 22:25
  So he's like, oh, okay, I remember who I am.
• 22:29
  And you just connect and you turn yourself on.
• 22:34
  When we get applause or recognition or acknowledgement for our performance, for something that we do, it lands on that performance.
• 22:45
  It's not really that we have been witnessed.
• 22:49
  So in those scenarios, even if you've got awards and you've been successful, et cetera, speak to founders, CEOs well when they exceed and they're doing really well, if they don't have that sense of I've been witnessed, I've been
• 23:07
  seen, I've been understood, I've been given permission to be me, they don't really feel seen unless there is that someone that can do that.
• 23:20
  Winnicott's term for performance was that the false self.
• 23:26
  And his observation was that praise for it leaves a person emptier, not fuller.
• 23:33
  That's what happens when people get to those levels where they're super successful, but they don't have that sense of self worth, sense love, self love.
• 23:42
  They burn themselves out or they feel really bored with life as it is.
• 23:48
  So sometimes we're not.
• 23:52
  It's really important to understand we're not addicted to validation.
• 23:56
  What we're doing is we keep buying the wrong thing, wondering why it's not working.
• 24:03
  So we keep trying to get more and more validation, but it just leaves us emptier and emptier over time.
• 24:10
  So people go in one of two ways with this and both get stuck.
• 24:17
  There is a third option and we will look at that, see if you recognise that maybe you've gone one or the other way or both.
• 24:26
  If you're like me, I've experimented in lots of different ways.
• 24:31
  Route one is I'll do it myself.
• 24:35
  Sorry, I'm laughing because I stayed in that one for a long time, hoping I could do it all myself, like I don't need anyone.
• 24:45
  Hudson traces this to learning young that nobody would take care of you.
• 24:50
  And it is painful that often you have to take care of someone else or be aware of what other people needs.
• 24:57
  And it looks like strength on the outside, but what you're really trying to do is avoid asking for help because it's really painful.
• 25:06
  It's painful just in case they don't deliver.
• 25:09
  And it's just painful to just even ask.
• 25:12
  You cannot say what you want.
• 25:14
  You cannot say when you're hurt, you cannot say when you need support because it's almost like a huge weakness and you feel really vulnerable asking for help.
• 25:28
  The Route 2 is I will earn attention by being what people want.
• 25:33
  People pleasing, looking, like warmth.
• 25:36
  It means that the real you never really enters the room.
• 25:40
  It's like you're having to perform.
• 25:41
  It's really, really tiring every time you go and meet people, it's so tiring because you just really can't be yourself.
• 25:49
  You really can't feel like you can just let yourself go and be ignited, but you're aiming to ignite others or just be seen as a good person.
• 26:09
  Both routes are the same wound, just in different strategies.
• 26:12
  And maybe you do both, maybe you do one mainly, but both keep the same.
• 26:19
  The true you out of sight.
• 26:23
  No one can really see you.
• 26:24
  Then and both are totally understandable, by the way, because both are the smartest thing a child can do, right, to survive.
• 26:33
  Which leaves the question that really matters.
• 26:37
  If the first spark has to come from outside, which is actually what is yours to do?
• 26:47
  Here's a sequence.
• 26:48
  You need to be seen.
• 26:51
  It's important for you to be seen as you, the real you.
• 26:55
  And you need to find a safe space to be able to do that.
• 27:00
  Then you learn your own value.
• 27:02
  Like really know your value.
• 27:05
  Really work on knowing your value and expressing your value.
• 27:10
  What is it that you came here to do?
• 27:13
  Your unique talent.
• 27:15
  And then you receive your value.
• 27:18
  The first step needs another person, because it always has.
• 27:24
  If we look at biology, if we look at the baby experiment, this is not a flaw in you.
• 27:33
  It's how every human being starts.
• 27:36
  Because we came here, imagine that we're all a ray of God.
• 27:42
  Why did God create us as rays?
• 27:45
  Because it would have something to love.
• 27:49
  We are all here to love something or someone.
• 27:54
  That's what we here to do.
• 27:56
  Experience love.
• 27:59
  And that's why we need each other.
• 28:02
  Our brain is built for connection.
• 28:06
  We nobody can get out of this alone.
• 28:08
  We need each other, but not to conform, but to be yourself so you can be seen.
• 28:19
  Once someone has seen you, the real you, not the polished you, you can start doing it for yourself.
• 28:25
  What they did, like really build your self love, turning towards what it is that you want, giving it your attention and letting it move you forward.
• 28:38
  And here's why this matters for you.
• 28:41
  What you actually want.
• 28:43
  The role, the business, the number on the offer.
• 28:47
  Working harder was never the missing piece.
• 28:51
  When the wanting comes back, the asking will come back with it.
• 28:57
  You can start saying what you want out loud to people who can give it to you, rather than asking from people that can't.
• 29:06
  This is how people get what they actually want.
• 29:08
  Not by pushing harder, by wanting clearly and being seen doing it.
• 29:16
  And actually finding the people that will ignite you.
• 29:19
  That's so important.
• 29:20
  Get around those people.
• 29:22
  There's loads of them out there.
• 29:25
  One thing you can try this week, Pick one thing you keep telling yourself to do.
• 29:31
  Drop the should the have the need and ask yourself, how could I Enjoy this like 10% more?
• 29:42
  Not to change it, not to buy something for it.
• 29:45
  Just how can I make it more enjoyable for myself from the inside so you can light your fire?
• 29:52
  Or how, how can I find someone to connect with, Someone that used to believe in me or will believe in me to help me light my fire?
• 30:03
  Then notice which of the four words do you start using.
• 30:07
  When you think about that whole thing, that whole experiment, and if you want to know where you actually are in all of this, not where you think you should be, I really want to find out what.
• 30:20
  What is going on.
• 30:23
  What could be keeping people stuck or not achieving their full potential.
• 30:30
  If you just want to have a chat, have a look and book in some time with me to see where you are, what's going on, and you can find out more about what could be going on with you.
• 30:41
  And I could also explore with you so we can both benefit from understanding what's holding you back, what's really going on.
• 30:51
  And if that sounds of interest, we'll have a coffee and a chat.
• 30:56
  Then let's do that and I'll put the link in the show notes.
• 30:59
  It'd be great to talk to you.
• 31:00
  Here's the thing you've never been short of wanting, not from the moment that you were born.
• 31:08
  But we just need to kickstart that.
• 31:10
  Please do rate this podcast or share it with somebody just so it helps us get to the right people, even if it helps one more person.
• 31:21
  You're helping us make the world a better place.
• 31:25
  I'm sending you so much love.
• 31:26
  Till next time.