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Self-Awareness Hell & the Practice of Self-Amusement · Powerful Stuff

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of Powerful Stuff.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today we are going to be talking about my capstone favorite self-development tool that I have been living, marinating in, returned to, reminded of, which is self-amusement is the new self-awareness.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what do I mean by that?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Meredith, what do you mean?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Self-amusement is the new self-awareness.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as a recovering high achiever and a leadership coach, I noticed with self-awareness, I myself had fallen victim to always thinking about the next like healing modality, the next ayahuasca journey, if you will, the next Hoffman process, the next therapy tool.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And would, you know, always wonder, is my inner child healed enough?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Or is my shadow self doing this?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, these are all great tools and I fucking love them and I use them with my clients all the time.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I realize it's a yes and the secret sauce on top of that is actually having fun and being a little playful, being a little cheeky with our self-development.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always have to be so serious.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite quotes, in fact, is it is our responsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have personally lived this, not just with my coaching training and going through all the ceremonies and whatever that I've been through on my own personal quest, but also doing a lot of stand-up classes, a lot of improv classes, and having a lot of funny moments along the way where, you know, if I had kept them in the dark shadows of shame, if you will, I would have been a masochist, like lashing myself on the back for all of the horrible things I've done wrong, versus being like, that's my shadow self coming out again.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: She can be a little crazy bitch sometimes, but God do I love her, you know?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like we all have that crazy friend that we have to take care of and tuck into bed after a night where they went too hard at the club, get them some electrolytes, but you know, we still get a hoot out of them.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what self-amusement as a new self-awareness is.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually an advanced spiritual practice.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna help guide you guys through it today with some of my favorite tools through a series of my own anecdotes.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I actually ran my keynote speech, if you will, last night at She Speaks at an open mic because I've been doing all of this as it is with powerful stuff, like powerful stuff, right?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cheeky self-development, but I hadn't really like crystallized what, how to like explicitly explain that through line to everyone.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I really like marinated on it the last six months in my experience house mastermind, and I actually fully lived it yesterday.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: My husband and I went to go see a Santa Monica legendary coach who's like not on Instagram, he is just like word of mouth.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, shout out Peter.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we were talking about some of our patterns and our worries going into parenthood.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm worried that if, you know, Spencer doesn't show up for me during the birth, and then that'll represent this time in the past.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Peter's like, look at him.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: He's an idiot.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, and then both Spencer and I were like, what?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we both just started laughing because it was so unexpected.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, and I'm an idiot, and all guys are idiots, and you know, he's your idiot, and you have to help set him up for success.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, don't worry about the past.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: The birth is between you and the baby, and he's there to support as your like loyal idiot.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like so funny, and like the comedic relief we needed in a splash of cold water to my own face of like, you know, it's I need to be my client zero.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here I am teaching that and teaching all these like funny modalities at powerful stuff, and to my coaching clients.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then when when I find myself taking myself too seriously, it's literally a reminder to be my own client zero and to have fun.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Peter was telling me too.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, see, you're laughing now.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're out of your thinking mind, you're out of your to-do list of the future or the anxieties of the past, and you're fully present.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a beautiful thing about self-amusement, is that, you know, it's kind of like this idea that life is like one big game.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a video game, it's kind of a cosmic joke, and it's like we're only here for such a short amount of time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So how can we laugh with ourselves?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because we, when we laugh with ourselves, we're laughing with our inner children.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then our inner children don't feel so much shame or like I am not enough, or I need to please you, or your love is conditional, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, we all get to have fun.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when we having fun, when our inner child is delighted, when they don't feel so judged, that's when the creativity comes online.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's when the forgiveness is had, the permission slip is had.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we have our best ideas, we're most in flow.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I want to give you guys a few anecdotes of how I got here my fucking self.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I told this story last night, but picture this it's mile 92 of the Whistler Iron Man.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And Iron Man, if you don't know, is the triathlon of all triathlons.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a 2.4 mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and a full fucking marathon, 26.2 miles.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I am a natural runner and swimmer.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've done both those things my whole life, and I thought I could just wing the bike.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I had literally never worn clip-ons uh for a bike until the month before the Iron Man, and I promptly fell to the side and had never trained on hills.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was at mile 92, my thighs were on fire.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was passing me on the bike.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had one hour left to finish the bike, or I would be disqualified.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't be allowed to start the marathon.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm at mile 92, a guy comes up to me and he's like, Why do you have your bike on the highest gear going up the hills?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What do you mean?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You need to have your bike on the lowest gear going up the hills.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I had trained at I had done my bike training at SoulCycle, as one does.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever there was a, you know, simulating a hill, whenever Soul Cycle was simulating a hill, they would be like, turn up your gear.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought that that's what you were supposed to do on a hill.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that that was just to simulate the hill, but on an actual hill, it should be on the lowest gear.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: This guy told me and was like a knife in my heart, right?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the old masochistic meredits would have been like, you fucking idiot.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: How could you?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: We would have been like two hours, you know, finished with the bike by now, and now we're racing against the clock to finish the mare like before the marathon.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, hold on, this isn't gonna serve me.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm gonna do instead?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna make light of it.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: What a hilarious thing that I could laugh about later.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually made a jingle to get myself through the bike portion of the Iron Man.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, good thing, I like hills, good thing, I like hills.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: When I performed this last night, I was like, everyone.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're listening, you can sing it with me.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Good thing, I like hills, good thing, I like hills.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just this like playfulness and this also like mind over matter and like words cast spells that like got me through the hill.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't change the hill, it didn't take away the hill, but it changed my relationship to the hill.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like this funny little game that I played with myself.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And spoiler alert, it helped me get through the bike portion.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to go on to the marathon.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was able to finish the Iron Man in 14 hours.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of my favorite um moments of using self-amusement instead of like being in awareness hell or beating myself up.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to take you guys back to, you know, where I kind of started this thought process.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I came from one of the pinnacle places of self-achievement and and high achiever energy, going to Harvard undergrad and Oxford grad school.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought I had actually escaped the high achiever hamster wheel because after school, when most people went into consulting, banking, startups, I did what anyone with those two elite degrees would do and ended up teaching yoga around England on sublists for the year after I graduated Oxford.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: So all of my friends from Harvard were getting Forbes 30 under 30.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, I was begging studio owners for me to teach yoga at their studio and get paid 30 pounds an hour.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, my mom calls it my my gap in my LinkedIn year, but I call it my renaissance year.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, you know, I had a lot of shame about that year, even though it was like a choice.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I still had a lot of shame of feeling I was behind from my Harvard friends.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Did I, didn't I make the right decision?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I went so deep into the self-development and yoga world.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I kind of turned my high achievement into like getting the next yoga pose and doing the next plant medicine ceremony and you know, being healed enough, you know.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like my high achievement energy didn't go away.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was just turned inward.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started to realize this, that's when I was like, okay, I'm also again taking myself too seriously.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the point of doing all this healing if I feel like I'm on a same, same but different hamster wheel than I was in the outer high achievement world?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So flash forward, I ended up founding a beverage company when I got to LA and I worked on it for four years and I decided it was no longer a fit, it wasn't an alignment, and I ended up shutting it down.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when I shut it down, I um, you know, decided to go into coaching full time because I had already had my yoga breathwork meditation training.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had already started to take on some coaching clients and started to develop my own methodology.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But then I noticed this imposter syndrome flaring up again, as the imposter syndrome always does.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a bad sign.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It just means you're about to be stretched and ready to grow.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say if you aren't experiencing imposter syndrome, it means that you're not growing.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I like to celebrate it when it shows up.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: All of that is to say, guys.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I noticed that imposter syndrome coming up, and I noticed these thoughts starting to swirl of like, you know, my Harvard friends will be like, who is she to be a coach?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: She's a failed startup founder.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that kind of really weighed on me.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: I almost felt like embarrassed to do that, which is so funny because it's like leadership and life coaching.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I'm supposed to be helping people find confidence, and yet I'm allowing these insecurities to kind of take the driver's seat in my mind.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then I remembered this self-amusement tool about not taking it so seriously, bringing it to light.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if we keep it in the shadows and we don't say it, and we punish ourselves internally, we punish our inner child internally, it be it can become so loud and paralyzing.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually brought it to light.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And when I made my announcement to become a coach, you know, to open my coaching practice to the world, I made an Instagram post and I actually made that the very first line of the Instagram post, which was, who is she to become a coach?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: She's a failed startup founder.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the hilarious and ironic thing about this is when you own your shame, it becomes your superpower because lo and behold, my first clients were my Harvard friends who are four of 30 under 30, who I was so afraid would judge me.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it turns out that they were seeking that permission internally to be as free or creatively expressed that I had given myself, right?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just a hilarious example of when you don't take yourself too seriously, it actually radiates self-confidence, it radiates self-worth, and you are able to control the narrative.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: You are able to own the story rather than having the story own you.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So both of these examples turn into like tools that I love to use with my clients.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So the Iron Man example, we have the jingle.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, the jingle is also just like a fun way of like having a having a fun musical mantra.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So my advice to you as a listener or my encouragement, my tool for you would be like thinking of a challenging moment or your metaphorical Iron Man Hill, if you will, and coming up with your own jingle for that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes up, like how can you say, like, ooh, plot twist?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sing this, I'm gonna reaffirm, I'm gonna claim, I'm gonna laugh at myself because it feels kind of awkward and funny.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to remind myself that it's not so serious.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, whatever that is for you, you can come up with your own jingle for that.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll give an example of another one.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in my early days of pregnancy in the first trimester, I had bleeding, which was psychologically challenging because you never know, is it something, is it nothing?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I noticed my nervous system, my cortisol just spiking every time I went to the bathroom.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And will I or won't I see blood?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: So every time I went to the bathroom and I didn't see blood, I had this little incantation that I sang, and then my husband started singing with me, which was like, healthy, happy baby, thank you, thank you, thank you, baby, happy, healthy.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it became this like funny thing in our house.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've since given it to other pregnant friends to sing, and now we've like made other incantations, uh, jingles for like other parts of the pregnancy journey, right?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was like a response to something that was like really painful and fearful and uncertain for me, like the surrender of the pregnancy journey.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to turn it into this playful thing of gratitude and allowance that lightened the mood a little bit and gave me more enjoyment of the pregnancy journey than just like the fear that came with the spotting.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, whatever your jingle is, I want to hear that as well.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other one, which I kind of mentioned with the Instagram caption for my coaching practice, is like making your shadow side or your shame or your pattern into like this funny main character, right?
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like how if you guys have ever seen the movie Bridesmaids, it's like Kristen Wig follows this character arc of, you know, having her best friend, and she's kind of down and out on luck, on love, and feeling left out of like uh her best friend's friend group as her best friend gets married, and and then she has a romantic suitor, but kind of self-sabotages and fucks it up, and then has like a whole mental breakdown between the second and third act, and it's like a funny movie, right?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like almost viewing, uh, and then she finally gets you know her friendship rekindled and the love with the guy back, and she starts baking again and you know, tapping in back into her zone of genius.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we watch the movie and we're entertained and we're laughing and we're rooting for her because there is some character development, but you also get it because we've all been through those ah cringe moments.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, with that, it's like almost like personifying that shadow version of you or that self-saboteur and making them like this other main character of this movie that you're watching.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so every time that something happens that you know you notice your shadow acting out, it's like, ooh, my inner catastrophizer again, or like, ooh, you know, interesting, interesting plot twist, or like, ooh, someone's being like a little cranky.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, she wants to prove that she in fact is not enough.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: How adorable.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually, in my upgrade group coaching program, have the women in it make love island bios for their shadow side, as if their shadow is this like, you know, raging bitch who's also a reality TV star that everybody loves because they're so unpredictable and crazy.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, for an example, one that I did for myself before I met my husband Spencer and healed my love patterns of not being enough was this is Meredith.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: She just loves going after emotionally unavailable guys that do not care about giving her the time of day because then she gets to overanalyze them instead of working on her creative projects and give them all her power, which allows her to reaffirm that she in fact is not enough.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show, Meredith.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, woo! Welcome to the show, Meredith.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'll have each woman read their shadow bio and everyone will cheer for their shadow, and everyone ends up laughing as they read it because it's just so hilarious.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've all been there.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it can come from obviously a really painful place, like our shadow, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: These patterns that we've learned as children and we've carried with us through into our adult years.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the whole point of making light of it is like I am not so embarrassed by it that I'm gonna push it away into a closet.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if we push things away into a closet, it's like spiritual bypassing, it will keep coming up.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about ignoring a kid having a temper tantrum, which is kind of like our shadow side acting out, the more we ignore it, the louder it'll get.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: But the more we're like, I love you and I'm laughing with you and I'm not ashamed of you.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: It actually ironically loses its power over us.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, when I was at Tony Robbins a few weeks ago, Unleash the Power Within, when we were repatterning old beliefs to new beliefs, he had, I don't know how Tony Robbins does this.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I guess this is why they called him the master, but he had everyone like share what their limiting belief was out loud to a stranger, but you'd have to stick your finger in your nose and like pick your nose.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like 11,000 people in a stadium doing this, like sticking my finger in my nose, being like, My name's Meredith, and I'm not enough.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like so funny to like make light of how serious we can get in our own inner monologue and our own ego when we aren't in self-amusement, when we are in awareness hell, when we're just like sitting in purgatory lashing ourselves.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are two tools that I will really focus on and uh emphasize today is the jingle and the shadow.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this idea too of like, just to give you an example for your own life, like say, like your boss slacks you and they're like, we need to talk.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, oh my gosh, they're gonna fire me.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: They must have thought this, this, this, and your heart starts racing, and then you start replaying all the things that you've done wrong, and you're like, they're gonna finally find me out, and in fact, reveal that I, in fact, am not capable, I'm not enough, I'm not trustworthy.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And instead, the self-amusement would be like, okay, my inner, you know, screenwriter is having the time of their life, writing this dramatic second act.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I see you.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what happens.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know, but we are equipped to handle it either way, you know, and having a little bit more playfulness and generosity and self-compassion, which again allows us to come back to the present, allows our nervous system to come down, and allows us to be in this state of creation and instead of a state of fear of the future or incredibly punishing regret of the past.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the ironic thing about that is when we are in fear or regret, we are completely self-absorbed.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like we are so like it can be quite navel-gazy, right?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We self-awareness is obviously a great first step, but if we stay there, we're constantly um replaying old patterns or kind of like looking for the next thing to heal ourselves in, but we're never actually growing and expanding.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's when we add the levity that we can have that space to grow and that space to expand.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I talk about this in my pregnancy stand-up with hypnobirthing, because when we think about birth and labor, there can be so much fear attached to it.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they talk about contractions, like you squeeze, you you clench, you contract.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about when you're triggered in real life, it's like you you have that familiar feeling and it's a feeling that you hate, but it feels so familiar of like someone says something and you take it as criticism, and then you go into defense mode and then you shut down, and then it's this whole cycle, right?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's like the contraction, which makes it way more painful and it makes it last for longer.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You go in a vicious cycle versus in hypnobirthing, which is meditations, visualizations to help you reframe pain, pain into power for birth, uh, which can be very applied to real life, is you re reframe it as a surge, allowance.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: How is this coming up to help me create more space to heal me?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Taking deeper breaths with it, this pain can't be stronger than me because this pain is me.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Each surge brings me closer to meeting my baby, right?
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, like in the self-amusement realm, each trigger uh helps me see where I'm not healed, where I can add more levity, space, where I can find an opening, and that leads to my expansion.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's through this complete relaxation and allowance, huh, that that growth actually happens.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're able to birth your metaphorical or your physical baby.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, so with that, we'll go into a quick meditation and we will wrap up with some self-amusement healing as humor questions.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: So for your journaling, for your expansion, for whatever it may be that you are moving through and that you are ready to get your black belt and spiritual enlightenment by being able to remove yourself from yourself and have a little cheeky laugh about it.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: All of that's to say, we'll close our eyes, take a deep breath in, exhale, let it go.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: Another deep breath in.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Exhale, release.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And third and deepest breath in.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Exhale.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sigh it out.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now go ahead and imagine that you are back in this recent cringe experience, or maybe it's a cringe experience from the past that just feels seared in your brain.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and allow yourself to relive it.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're reliving it at first, feeling that heaviness of it, that just like, oh, cringe self-loathing.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Notice where that heaviness is in your body.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then imagine within this feeling, you are telling the story of this cringe moment on stage to all your friends, enemies, past crushes, bosses, mentors.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then imagine as you're telling it, you literally shit yourself.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone's watching.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: So not only are you telling this cringe story, now you literally have just gone to the bathroom in front of everyone.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you are completely bare, and there is literally no cringe left to not be had because it is all laid out there, smelly on that stage.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And just taking a few moments to really breathe and smell that shit, metaphorically, literally, that you have just created, and be like, ha, well, this is rock bottom.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: There is no further bottom than this.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: And almost allow a freedom as you start to breathe in that very cosmic and poignant truth.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you're breathing it in, you're feeling relaxed, something miraculous happens.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: That shit starts to turn to gold.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it starts to smell like sage and lavender.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because this horribly embarrassing moment that you were just telling now you've turned into a book.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a memoir, and it's your your best seller.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: People really relate and they resonate with your vulnerability of how you had that cringe story and you shit yourself on stage.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now it is a best-selling New York Times book, and you are traveling around the world giving autographs, laughing with people of the absurdity of life and how funny it was that you took yourself so seriously in that moment, but now you have this deep learning.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're signing those books, starting to feel this lightness come over you, this levity of why that cringe moment had to happen, because now it has made you a multimillionaire.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so many people around the world resonate with you.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're signing that book, your next book stop, your six-year-old self comes up to you.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they tell you how proud they are of you and how relieved they are because that was such a heavy burden for them to carry, too.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: The weight of that cringeness.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they're so glad you both can laugh about it together.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then you apologize to them for putting so much weight on them and that you're just ready to play again.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just asking them what do they want to do next now that you can laugh about it.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: How do you want to own this story together moving forward?
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they tell you, and you high-five, and you hug, and then you both go off together to go to an in-sync concert.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Relive your childhood glory.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And life feels good.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and breathe in the excitement, the relief.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And exhale, let it go.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And another breath in.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Exhale, letting it out.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Slowly coming back into the space when you're ready.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: I can't wait to read your memoir of how you turned cringe into gold, your shame into your superpower.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the TLDR of this, guys, and I'm reminding myself of this as I go into birth, as I go into motherhood, two things that are very completely unpredictable is that self-awareness is incredible, right?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Therapy is incredible, plant medicine ceremonies are incredible, but it's just not to kind of stay in this continual spiral of what more do I need to heal?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: What more do I need to heal?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: What more do I need to heal?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is our high achiever, disguised in sheep's clothing.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and our key is like, okay, I have the awareness and now I have the compassion.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: If those old stories come up again, it doesn't mean they're true.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: It just means my inner child needs a little reassurance.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let it out, cry it out.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: What do you need?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where do we go from here?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when we invite in humor or self-amusement, we're actually deeply connecting to our self-worth because we're telling our inner children, you deserve to have fun, you deserve to play, even when things aren't perfect, even when you've messed up.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the ultimate form of enughness.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: So my questions for you are where have I been taking myself too seriously?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what is the humor in it?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I was writing the main character act, what would the main character do next?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: That would just be fucking hilarious, right?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Where have I been taking myself too seriously?
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: What is the humor in it?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: What would the main character do next?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been self-sabotaging, writing out your shadow bio.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Who is your shadow on Love Island?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can even put it into Chat GPT and ask Chat GBT to help it roast you.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then the third thing, as I already mentioned with the jingles, is like if there's something hard or challenging, maybe you're going to, you know, back home for the holidays and you find family or old friends or in-laws or whatever, like triggering.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, what is a fun jingle where you can claim your own energy around this thing, you know, or that that uncertainty that can feel cripplingly painful.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: What is that fun, playful jingle that you can claim for yourself to own it and and declare your energy?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you guys like one last jingle for the road that um that my friend Alex and I did, which is just kind of an evergreen jingle when we're feeling low, but it's like up my soul, up my spine, making me feel so divine, up my soul, up my spine, making me feel so divine.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So just kind of like breaking out of the norm.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you have your jingle, your shadow bio, your main character plot twist.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the invitation to is when these old stories come up to just like hold your inner child, let them feel it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying don't bypass it or don't like humor, humorize everything.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: But then after that initial processing, where do we go from here?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that, my friends, is powerful stuff.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to hearing your jingles bios.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey you, thank you for coming on this powerful journey with me.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it was as powerful for you as it was for me.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if it was, it would mean the world to me if you rate, review, and subscribe to powerful stuff so I can keep bringing you the goods.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: We can keep going on this transformative journey together.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's powerful stuff that you want to share with me, with the powerful stuff community, tag us on Instagram at that's powerful stuff or the Meredith Baker.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to seeing you next week for more powerful stuff.