Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / #HURDLEMOMENT: Essential Lessons in Self Confidence with a Master Certified Life Coach

Transcript

#HURDLEMOMENT: Essential Lessons in Self Confidence with a Master Certified Life Coach · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Observing your thoughts and changing your relationship to them makes
0:03
Speaker 1: a huge difference, even before you're able to actually change
0:06
Speaker 1: the thoughts.
0:21
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Emily Abadi here bringing you another installment of
0:25
Speaker 2: Hurdle Moment from Hurdle. On today's episode, I am chatting
0:29
Speaker 2: with Kara Lowenthiles. She is a mindset coach and host
0:33
Speaker 2: of the wildly popular Unfuck Your Brain podcast.
0:38
Speaker 3: You're welcome, It's explicit here today.
0:41
Speaker 2: I do want to say I'm wildly motivated by Kara.
0:46
Speaker 2: I love her show, and I have a feeling that you,
0:50
Speaker 2: if you're not already listening to it, are going to
0:52
Speaker 2: be adding it to your rotation asap after listening to
0:57
Speaker 2: us chat today. Today we are chatting about self confidence,
1:01
Speaker 2: how to up your strategies that you can use to encourage.
1:06
Speaker 3: Better self talk.
1:08
Speaker 2: What I loved about this was really just her no
1:12
Speaker 2: nonsense and manageable approach to having a better dialogue with yourself.
1:19
Speaker 2: Kara admits that if she was flawless from day one,
1:23
Speaker 2: that she wouldn't be the person that she is today.
1:26
Speaker 2: She wouldn't be the person that is so overly qualified
1:30
Speaker 2: to help us connect better with ourselves.
1:34
Speaker 3: If this is the pick.
1:35
Speaker 2: Me up that you have been looking for and I
1:37
Speaker 2: have a feeling it will be. Head on over to
1:39
Speaker 2: social media tag at Hurdle podcast at Emily Abadi and
1:43
Speaker 2: of course head on into the iTunes store to rate
1:46
Speaker 2: and review the show. A huge thanks to all the
1:49
Speaker 2: listeners that submitted a question for next week's Hurdle Listeners episode.
1:55
Speaker 3: I am so emped to bring you some goodness and
1:58
Speaker 3: get a little.
1:59
Speaker 2: Extra real And again, a huge, huge thanks to Kara
2:03
Speaker 2: for her time and her knowledge and her good vibes.
2:07
Speaker 3: With that, let's get to hurdling.
2:17
Speaker 2: Today. I am sitting down with Caara Lowenthile. She is
2:20
Speaker 2: a life coach. She's also the host of the wildly
2:23
Speaker 2: successful podcast Unfuck your Brain. How you doing today?
2:28
Speaker 1: I'm doing well.
2:29
Speaker 3: You know.
2:29
Speaker 1: It's funny. I get a lot of requests for people
2:31
Speaker 1: for me to do a version of the podcast where
2:32
Speaker 1: I don't curse, which I obviously do not satisfy.
2:36
Speaker 2: Unfork your Brain. No, this is I'm totally game with
2:39
Speaker 2: this being an explicit episode one hundred percent. Thank you
2:42
Speaker 2: so much for taking the time to come on Hurdle today.
2:44
Speaker 2: I am actually really excited about this because I am
2:49
Speaker 2: constantly seeking out really badass women to help spread the
2:56
Speaker 2: inspirational You got this vibes here on Hurdle and you
2:59
Speaker 2: are certainly a great candidate for the cause.
3:03
Speaker 1: Thank you. I like to think I've half got it
3:05
Speaker 1: at least.
3:06
Speaker 2: Ye. Well, that's a good place to start. So why
3:09
Speaker 2: don't we before we get into the nugget of today. Today,
3:12
Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about strategies to really grow
3:15
Speaker 2: self confidence. I would love for you just to give
3:18
Speaker 2: me a little taste of who you are and how
3:21
Speaker 2: you got into what you're doing now.
3:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, typical career path. I was a
3:28
Speaker 1: women's rights lawyer and then I was supposed to become
3:32
Speaker 1: a law professor. So I was kind of on the
3:33
Speaker 1: track to doing that. I did a couple of fellowships,
3:36
Speaker 1: and then before I was supposed to go on the
3:38
Speaker 1: market as they call it, to get a law professor position,
3:42
Speaker 1: I was like, let's just you know, let's throw this
3:46
Speaker 1: last ten years of this career out the window and
3:48
Speaker 1: quit and become a life coach. So that's what I
3:50
Speaker 1: did every Jewish parents dream, but best decision I ever
3:55
Speaker 1: made for me. So I took that leap. I guess
3:58
Speaker 1: five years four or five years ago, and I coach
4:02
Speaker 1: feminist women, although I mean most of the women I coach,
4:06
Speaker 1: I would say identify as feminists, and if they didn't before,
4:08
Speaker 1: they do when I'm done with them. But I basically
4:11
Speaker 1: coach women on how to identify the ways that we've
4:15
Speaker 1: absorbed a lot of messages from society about women, what
4:18
Speaker 1: women are supposed to be like, and how women are
4:20
Speaker 1: supposed to behave and you know, making everybody else happy
4:23
Speaker 1: and focusing on our appearances, and you know, being pleasing
4:28
Speaker 1: and pleasant and kind like all the things that so
4:31
Speaker 1: society teaches a woman she's supposed to be. We've internalized
4:33
Speaker 1: all that messaging, and so I teach women how to
4:36
Speaker 1: identify that messaging. It's not always obvious. A lot of
4:39
Speaker 1: our thoughts that we have that sound like they're just
4:42
Speaker 1: our own accurate thoughts about ourselves are actually produced by
4:47
Speaker 1: all of this socialization that we experience. So how to
4:50
Speaker 1: like identify those Decide whether you really want to believe
4:53
Speaker 1: that you're supposed to be this certain way or after
4:55
Speaker 1: a certain way, or do these certain things, and then
4:57
Speaker 1: how if you don't want to, how to actually change
5:00
Speaker 1: your thought process so that you are living life for
5:04
Speaker 1: yourself on your own terms, and you are able to
5:06
Speaker 1: create authentic, true confidence because we're all taught that confidence
5:11
Speaker 1: comes from outside of us, and women in particular are
5:13
Speaker 1: taught that confidence comes from everybody else approving of you
5:15
Speaker 1: all the time, which is impossible and is a very
5:18
Speaker 1: shaky foundation. And so learning how to have your confidence
5:21
Speaker 1: come from your opinion of and your relationship with yourself
5:25
Speaker 1: is I think the most kind of liberating work that
5:28
Speaker 1: any woman can do. And so that's what I teach
5:30
Speaker 1: women how to do.
5:31
Speaker 2: So much exciting things to unpack here. I'm feeling like
5:36
Speaker 2: amped and more like four minutes and twenty seconds into
5:38
Speaker 2: what's going on here, First I've got to ask. I
5:41
Speaker 2: know that you are a Master certified life coach. Unpacked
5:45
Speaker 2: that for me? Like, what does that mean? Yeah?
5:48
Speaker 1: Uh, it means, you know, life coaching as an industry
5:50
Speaker 1: in the early stages, it's not highly regulated, and so
5:55
Speaker 1: for me, it means that I'm I was certified as
5:58
Speaker 1: a coach by my teacher, Brooke Ast with the Life
6:00
Speaker 1: Coach School that was a sort of group training program,
6:05
Speaker 1: and then I got Masters certified with her, which was
6:08
Speaker 1: meant like basically a year of intensive mentoring coaching and training.
6:13
Speaker 1: So you know what it really means is this person
6:17
Speaker 1: from this school of coaching gave me this certificate. I think, like,
6:22
Speaker 1: you know, licensing as a whole, that's a whole other
6:24
Speaker 1: interesting thing. But like, there's a lot of good reasons
6:26
Speaker 1: I have industries licensed, and then there's also a lot
6:28
Speaker 1: of ways that licensing just becomes a barrier to entry
6:32
Speaker 1: for people who don't have access to certain resources or education,
6:35
Speaker 1: and also becomes just a way of generating a lot
6:38
Speaker 1: of money for licensing organization.
6:41
Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely okay. And so what I love to also
6:44
Speaker 2: ask before we get into this, because I think a
6:46
Speaker 2: lot of the time when we have the opportunity to
6:48
Speaker 2: talk about these topics to a wide audience, people just assume, like, Wow,
6:52
Speaker 2: this person has their shit totally together and they must
6:55
Speaker 2: have always totally been like this. But I mean, I've
6:57
Speaker 2: got to ask you. Growing up, you definitely and throughout
7:00
Speaker 2: life now certainly have times where your self confidence waivers.
7:04
Speaker 1: Correct, Yeah, I don't think. First of all, my favorite
7:08
Speaker 1: my favorite saying is you'd be amazed what you can
7:09
Speaker 1: accomplish with a half managed mind. Like I really put
7:13
Speaker 1: a huge not priority. Does my brain work anymore? In
7:16
Speaker 1: twenty twenty only some of the time a huge premium
7:19
Speaker 1: there we go on authenticity and transparency. And so I
7:24
Speaker 1: am always talking on my podcast when I'm coaching my students,
7:28
Speaker 1: when I'm teaching about like the ways my brain is
7:31
Speaker 1: still crazy. And I definitely if I were naturally I mean,
7:33
Speaker 1: here's the thing, Like, if I were naturally like this,
7:35
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know how to teach anyone else how to
7:37
Speaker 1: do it right, because I would just be like, I
7:39
Speaker 1: don't know, You're just born, you wake up, you feel great.
7:42
Speaker 1: That was not my experience. Yes, So, like everything that
7:46
Speaker 1: I teach has been hard earned and hard learned and
7:50
Speaker 1: hard and hard fought for. So I grew up and
7:53
Speaker 1: it's all the way through my twenties and through my
7:55
Speaker 1: early thirties was a mess of insecurity and anxiety and
8:00
Speaker 1: stress and guilt and shame, like all the negative emotions.
8:04
Speaker 1: Even though I had this sort of accomplished, prestigious life
8:07
Speaker 1: on the outside, I just you know, it was a
8:09
Speaker 1: mess on the inside. And so whatever confidence and kind
8:15
Speaker 1: of relationship with myself I have now I've built. I
8:19
Speaker 1: mean in terms of like do I have times I
8:21
Speaker 1: don't feel confident now it's like yes and no, because
8:24
Speaker 1: I think when you engage with yourself in this way
8:27
Speaker 1: where you consciously choose what to believe, and you practice
8:30
Speaker 1: doing that, and I teach a very concrete like system
8:33
Speaker 1: for doing it bit by bit, it's not just like
8:36
Speaker 1: think positive. So when you've really dug in and done
8:39
Speaker 1: this work, which I have for several years now, your
8:42
Speaker 1: relationship with yourself changes. So of course, one hundred percent
8:45
Speaker 1: of my brain still says bullshit stuff to me all
8:48
Speaker 1: the time that about like what's wrong with me, But
8:51
Speaker 1: my relationship to it is so different. I don't believe
8:54
Speaker 1: it in the same way, and so it doesn't feel
8:55
Speaker 1: the same. Like I now have a relationship with myself
8:58
Speaker 1: where I always have my own back. So I do
9:01
Speaker 1: still have thoughts come up in my mind that are like,
9:05
Speaker 1: you know, you should lose weight and then this would
9:07
Speaker 1: be easier. That person doesn't like you or whatever, But
9:10
Speaker 1: my relationship to those thoughts is very different, So I
9:13
Speaker 1: do not feel the insecurity in the same way I
9:15
Speaker 1: used to, where I just one hundred percent believed those thoughts.
9:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel that. I feel that I was listening
9:21
Speaker 2: to an old episode that you had talking about self
9:23
Speaker 2: confidence and something a nugget that I took from that
9:26
Speaker 2: was something that you said, external circumstances don't create our feelings.
9:29
Speaker 2: Our thoughts create our feelings.
9:31
Speaker 1: Oh oh my god. When I heard that first time,
9:34
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm sorry, Why didn't no one tell
9:37
Speaker 1: me this before? Like we were a meeting about the
9:39
Speaker 1: secret to life and I just did not get the memo.
9:42
Speaker 1: Like it truly just blew my whole life wide open,
9:45
Speaker 1: and I could not believe that, Like, why do we
9:47
Speaker 1: not teach this to four year olds? My whole life
9:49
Speaker 1: would have been different? Yeah, that was like if we
9:52
Speaker 1: have some up in one line, what completely changed my life?
9:54
Speaker 2: It was learning that you mentioned before, the concept that
9:57
Speaker 2: women are often seeking to external validation to grow their
10:01
Speaker 2: inner self confidence, probably a lot more than men. Why
10:04
Speaker 2: do you think that that is?
10:06
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean I think you know, I always
10:08
Speaker 1: think of it as like layers. So it's like layer
10:11
Speaker 1: number one, we're all taught the wrong things about what
10:13
Speaker 1: causes our feelings and confidence, but then women get this
10:16
Speaker 1: extra layer of socialization, and then there's layers on top
10:20
Speaker 1: of that, Like if you are a woman of color,
10:21
Speaker 1: you get this extra layer. If you live in a
10:23
Speaker 1: fat body, you get this extra layer, right, So there's like,
10:26
Speaker 1: depending on what identity you have, you may get like
10:28
Speaker 1: multiple layers of this kind of messaging. So I think
10:32
Speaker 1: women are you know, if we like take it back
10:35
Speaker 1: to the kind of basics of feminist theory, It's like
10:37
Speaker 1: women are taught that they are more objects than subjects,
10:44
Speaker 1: meaning like their value comes from what other people get
10:49
Speaker 1: from them, or how they look right, or what utility
10:53
Speaker 1: they have to other people, or what pleasure other people
10:56
Speaker 1: get from them or from looking at them right, Whereas
10:59
Speaker 1: men are really tough that they're the subjects, like they're
11:01
Speaker 1: the hero of their own story. They are the kind
11:05
Speaker 1: of point of view that matters. They're like the self
11:09
Speaker 1: that matters. And women are taught that what matters is
11:13
Speaker 1: do other people like how I look? Do other people
11:16
Speaker 1: think that I'm nice? Am I helping everybody else? Do
11:20
Speaker 1: I put everybody else's interests in front of my own? Right?
11:23
Speaker 1: Those are the kinds of things that women are taught
11:25
Speaker 1: their value comes from. And historically, you know, if you
11:27
Speaker 1: look back one hundred, two hundred and three hundreds, then
11:30
Speaker 1: thousands of years, right, women are taught like your value
11:33
Speaker 1: is the services you provide to a household, Like, this
11:35
Speaker 1: stuff goes very deep. And so even though we've made
11:38
Speaker 1: social progress externally in a lot of ways, you don't
11:42
Speaker 1: undo thousands of years of social messaging, you know, with
11:46
Speaker 1: like an equal opportunity employment law. There's that stuff is
11:49
Speaker 1: really deep and still continues to get taught to us
11:52
Speaker 1: implicitly and explicitly. And then I think what my work
11:56
Speaker 1: really identifies as the problem that we haven't spent enough
11:59
Speaker 1: time on in the movement, either in psychology or the
12:02
Speaker 1: feminist movement in both, is that you know, it'd be
12:05
Speaker 1: one thing if what you heard in your voice was
12:07
Speaker 1: like some male announcer voice being like, if you don't
12:10
Speaker 1: lose ten pounds, no one will ever love you like that,
12:13
Speaker 1: that would be easy to dismiss. More right, that's not
12:16
Speaker 1: what you hear. What you hear is your own voice
12:18
Speaker 1: saying things like, you know, you like should really lose
12:21
Speaker 1: some weight. I mean, if you're going to be getting
12:23
Speaker 1: back into dating, like there's a lot of younger, thinner
12:25
Speaker 1: women out there, right, it just like sounds like it's
12:28
Speaker 1: just an observation you're that your brain is making, and
12:31
Speaker 1: it's in your own voice, and it seems so reasonable.
12:33
Speaker 1: And that's why it's so insidious and why we have
12:36
Speaker 1: such a hard time if we don't learn how to
12:39
Speaker 1: do it on purpose, changing our thought patterns. And it's
12:42
Speaker 1: why you can have all these you know, beliefs about
12:44
Speaker 1: women's value and independence and women loving themselves and then
12:48
Speaker 1: be not actually experiencing any of that emotionally.
12:51
Speaker 2: Oh, not actually experiencing it, depriving ourselves of such goodness
12:56
Speaker 2: here that can just be established by having better self talk.
13:00
Speaker 2: So so then let's dive into that even more. Now
13:03
Speaker 2: we want to talk about strategies for creating a better
13:06
Speaker 2: inner dialogue, for creating that self confidence. Where is one
13:10
Speaker 2: to start?
13:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is I think a big thing that
13:13
Speaker 1: distinguishes my work and was so important to me in
13:16
Speaker 1: doing this work is that I don't know if they're
13:19
Speaker 1: the people who teach just like believe you're an amazing goddess, Like,
13:22
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that worked for them, that shit
13:25
Speaker 1: did not work for me. I'm like a Jewish lawyer
13:27
Speaker 1: from New York, Like that is not You're like, that's
13:30
Speaker 1: not how my brain works. So the big, first, big
13:33
Speaker 1: area in my life I did this work on was
13:34
Speaker 1: my body image, which was really a great place to start,
13:36
Speaker 1: because I really saw how, you know, sure I could
13:41
Speaker 1: identify what I wanted to believe, like all bodies are beautiful,
13:44
Speaker 1: that was so far from what I believed right that
13:48
Speaker 1: it was just like impossible. There was no way to
13:50
Speaker 1: cross that chasm. I had no idea how to. First
13:53
Speaker 1: of all, I didn't know how to believe something new
13:54
Speaker 1: on purpose yet, because that's literally a skill that no
13:56
Speaker 1: one had taught me. So I didn't have the skill yet,
14:00
Speaker 1: and I was being told to try to use it
14:02
Speaker 1: on like a completely impossible seeming belief at the time.
14:06
Speaker 1: So it was like both the goal was too big
14:08
Speaker 1: and I didn't have the skill yet. And so what
14:11
Speaker 1: I really did was I started breaking it down into
14:14
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller pieces. And I found, like for me
14:17
Speaker 1: especially and a lot of my clients have brains like mine,
14:21
Speaker 1: what was so helpful was focusing on neutral baby step thoughts,
14:26
Speaker 1: and I'll give you an example in a minute, and
14:28
Speaker 1: understanding that if we're if I'm practicing a neutral baby
14:31
Speaker 1: step thought, all I should expect is a baby step
14:35
Speaker 1: and feeling a little less terrible, right, Because like one
14:37
Speaker 1: of the things that happens is we try to make
14:39
Speaker 1: these meant we try to do these cognitive reframing strategies.
14:42
Speaker 1: Maybe even if we get taught a good one, and
14:44
Speaker 1: then we think we're supposed to feel blissful immediately right
14:47
Speaker 1: right like, and that's no. If we can only take
14:49
Speaker 1: a tiny step in the thought, then we should only
14:51
Speaker 1: be expecting a tiny step in the emotion. It's going
14:53
Speaker 1: to build up over time. So, for instance, when I
14:56
Speaker 1: started doing this work, I had a lot of thoughts
14:58
Speaker 1: about my stomach, and you know, my my general thought
15:01
Speaker 1: was like, my stomach is disgusting, Like that's what I
15:03
Speaker 1: really thought. So going to like I'm a beautiful fertility
15:06
Speaker 1: goddess was not working. So I practice thinking thoughts like
15:12
Speaker 1: this is a human stomach. Some other people have stomachs
15:16
Speaker 1: that look like this. My worth as a human is
15:20
Speaker 1: not entirely created by my stomach. And then what you're
15:22
Speaker 1: going for is you may not even feel good yet,
15:25
Speaker 1: you just want it to feel a little less terrible
15:27
Speaker 1: than the original thought. And when you practice that technique
15:31
Speaker 1: of like, I'm here's a small baby step neutral thought
15:34
Speaker 1: I'm gonna practice, I feel a tiny bit less terrible.
15:37
Speaker 1: You can build from that. It's literally a skill you're
15:40
Speaker 1: developing and you're helping your brain by picking something that
15:43
Speaker 1: is easier for you to believe, so you get a
15:45
Speaker 1: little payoff. You know, your brain works in reward loops,
15:49
Speaker 1: like so when you try to do positive thinking, you
15:51
Speaker 1: can't believe you don't get any emotional payoff, and your
15:53
Speaker 1: brain's like, well fuck this, I don't want to do this.
15:56
Speaker 1: Whereas when you do get a tiny bit of payoff,
15:59
Speaker 1: then your brain's like, oh, it's like giving. It's like
16:00
Speaker 1: training a dog with a cookie. You know, it's like, Okay,
16:04
Speaker 1: it's a little bit worth it. I feel a little
16:05
Speaker 1: bit better. Okay, I'm willing to do it again.
16:07
Speaker 2: And I think also with this, it's like when you're
16:09
Speaker 2: establishing like goals for your productivity and a lot of
16:12
Speaker 2: the time on the pod I chat about those smart goals,
16:14
Speaker 2: you know, like making things small and manageable, and if
16:17
Speaker 2: you're not, if you're setting some huge goal, like some massive,
16:21
Speaker 2: insane thing like I'm going to lose one hundred pounds
16:23
Speaker 2: in two months, Like, no, it doesn't work like that.
16:26
Speaker 2: It doesn't work like that at all. But if you
16:27
Speaker 2: say to yourself, Okay, maybe I'm not going to eat
16:30
Speaker 2: like eighteen chocolate chip cookies, every single day. Okay, small win.
16:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And I mean the truth is, especially with
16:36
Speaker 1: that example, that losing weight is not what's going to
16:39
Speaker 1: make you confident, and if you try to do it
16:41
Speaker 1: from not liking your body, it will never work.
16:44
Speaker 2: Definitely if you are.
16:46
Speaker 1: Eating eighteen cookies because you don't know how to deal
16:49
Speaker 1: with your thoughts and feelings, all you're doing when you
16:52
Speaker 1: tell yourself to only eat twelve is just you're just
16:55
Speaker 1: you're just like hoping that your stress level won't take over.
16:57
Speaker 1: Kind of right, You're not. You have resolve the problem.
17:01
Speaker 1: The problem isn't that you lack willpower or that cookies
17:04
Speaker 1: are addictive. They're not. The problem is that you're eating
17:07
Speaker 1: to solve a non hunger problem, which is emotional. And
17:10
Speaker 1: so until you learn how to deal with your emotions,
17:14
Speaker 1: you're never going to stop using that tool. Humans are
17:16
Speaker 1: built to use coping tools, and food is one of
17:18
Speaker 1: the earliest. I mean, babies cry they get food, right, Like,
17:23
Speaker 1: this is very ingrained. So I think you always have to,
17:26
Speaker 1: like I am always coaching people to get out of
17:29
Speaker 1: their action line of like what they're gonna do and
17:32
Speaker 1: get back up into their focusing on like how they
17:35
Speaker 1: what do they want to think that they can believe?
17:37
Speaker 1: And how do they want to feel? Because that's what
17:39
Speaker 1: drives all of our actions.
17:41
Speaker 2: Okay, so we start with having the right thoughts, which
17:45
Speaker 2: can feel like everest within itself.
17:47
Speaker 1: Right, That's why we have to start small and understand
17:50
Speaker 1: that there's no such thing as like a right or
17:51
Speaker 1: wrong one. Everybody's thoughts are going to be different. It's
17:54
Speaker 1: all very like, how does it feel when I think
17:56
Speaker 1: this thought? So if my thought is like, I can't
17:58
Speaker 1: believe I eat eighteen cookies. I'm such a disgusting pig,
18:01
Speaker 1: I have no self control. I have to do better tomorrow.
18:03
Speaker 1: Let me vow now to be perfect tomorrow. Right. I
18:06
Speaker 1: mean that feels good in that little moment because you're
18:07
Speaker 1: pretending you're gonna be a whole different person tomorrow. But
18:10
Speaker 1: then tomorrow comes and you never are right. So right,
18:14
Speaker 1: But if your thought is you know, and under that
18:17
Speaker 1: you why did you eat agent cookies? Because your thought was,
18:21
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, I don't have any willpower, my
18:23
Speaker 1: body's disgusting, and no one's ever gonna love me when
18:25
Speaker 1: I look like this. Okay, that's what we need to
18:27
Speaker 1: work on, is that thought, that thought is what's driving
18:30
Speaker 1: this behavior. And so even if you just move to
18:33
Speaker 1: a neutral thought, like it's possible that there are things
18:38
Speaker 1: other than my body that people might appreciate about me.
18:40
Speaker 1: It's like that. I always say, like your first kind
18:43
Speaker 1: of neutral thought, it's not gonna look like it would
18:45
Speaker 1: be a great pinterest graphic, you know, like it's not
18:47
Speaker 1: gonna be inspirational, right, Like, here's a way I could
18:51
Speaker 1: hate myself a little less and that and then when
18:55
Speaker 1: we think that's not enough, but that's how you have
18:56
Speaker 1: to start and build up. And then as you start
18:59
Speaker 1: learning how to deal with your thoughts, you will find
19:01
Speaker 1: you have less desire to eat eighteen cookies because you're
19:04
Speaker 1: not trying to solve an emotional problem with something that
19:06
Speaker 1: won't work anymore.
19:15
Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to bring you something really,
19:19
Speaker 2: really exciting, y'all, Hurdle has a new sponsor. Welcome Gooder
19:26
Speaker 2: to the fam. If you have never heard of Gooder.
19:30
Speaker 2: Gooder makes affordable, polarized active sunglasses that are no slip,
19:36
Speaker 2: no bounce, all fun, and the craziest part about it
19:41
Speaker 2: is that they start at just twenty five dollars a pair.
19:45
Speaker 2: Let me tell you I have been wearing their mock
19:48
Speaker 2: g style the operation Blackout All Black, and I have
19:53
Speaker 2: never received so many compliments on a pair of sunglasses.
19:58
Speaker 2: And again, I can't even believe that they're not only
20:00
Speaker 2: good for activity, but they look great when I'm just
20:03
Speaker 2: bopping around town as well. I have picked out a
20:07
Speaker 2: few of my favorites for you to check out. Head
20:09
Speaker 2: on over to Gooder dot com slash Hurdle or enter
20:13
Speaker 2: Hurdle at checkout for ten dollars off your order. This
20:17
Speaker 2: offer is good for only the first two hundred hurdlers.
20:21
Speaker 2: So not only are the glasses inexpensive to start with,
20:24
Speaker 2: but today you can get an additional ten dollars off
20:28
Speaker 2: your order.
20:29
Speaker 3: Also, let it be known they.
20:30
Speaker 2: Have never ever done anything like this before, so it's
20:35
Speaker 2: kind of a big deal again. Head on over to
20:38
Speaker 2: Gooder dot com slash Hurdle or enter the code Hurdle
20:42
Speaker 2: at checkout to get ten dollars off your order today.
20:47
Speaker 3: Look good, Move Gooder. Let's get back to it.
20:57
Speaker 2: Okay, so we start to solve the problem with something
21:01
Speaker 2: that will work over time. Then what happens?
21:05
Speaker 1: Yeah? And then you know, I still think cookies are delicious,
21:08
Speaker 1: but I just don't want to make you of them
21:10
Speaker 1: because it doesn' actually feel it. Right. That's the thing
21:12
Speaker 1: when you are using and you know food is it's
21:14
Speaker 1: not all always food. It's like Netflix or booze or
21:18
Speaker 1: shopping or whatever. Right. I am a huge proponent of
21:21
Speaker 1: women embracing and owning pleasure, including with food, and not
21:26
Speaker 1: trying to demonstrate their like moral superiority through restraint and
21:31
Speaker 1: you know, non enjoyment of life. But there's a big
21:33
Speaker 1: difference between like a false pleasure and a real pleasure.
21:35
Speaker 1: A real pleasure is like eating one cookie, maybe two cookies,
21:38
Speaker 1: maybe three, because they just taste so delicious and you
21:40
Speaker 1: love them. False pleasure is you know, when you eat
21:44
Speaker 1: eighteen cookies, you don't actually feel physically good, right, You're
21:47
Speaker 1: not even paying attention your your taste buds shut off
21:50
Speaker 1: after cookie four, like you're not actually experiencing that. And
21:54
Speaker 1: so what happens when you learn to deal with your
21:57
Speaker 1: own emotional state is that you just you are not
21:59
Speaker 1: motive to seek that false pleasure anymore because you can
22:03
Speaker 1: think about it like that false pleasure is like trying
22:05
Speaker 1: to drown out your thoughts, right with dopamine from some substance,
22:10
Speaker 1: whether it's food, or booze or Netflix or shopping or whatever.
22:14
Speaker 1: Right like sex, people use drugs, people use all sorts
22:16
Speaker 1: of things. You're trying to like you've got this, like
22:19
Speaker 1: you've got this voice in your brain saying mean things
22:21
Speaker 1: that you may or may not be consciously aware of,
22:23
Speaker 1: and you're trying to drown it out with a flood
22:25
Speaker 1: of dopamine. When you stop saying mean shift to yourself,
22:28
Speaker 1: there's just no need to have a flood. You don't
22:30
Speaker 1: have that desire to flood.
22:32
Speaker 2: In the same way, I also think it's important to
22:34
Speaker 2: touch on that, like you have to want to shift
22:36
Speaker 2: the dialogue right, Like it's not just like you're like,
22:39
Speaker 2: oh well I heard on Hurdle and then I listened
22:41
Speaker 2: to cars podcast, and it's like if I start talking
22:43
Speaker 2: to myself like this, like I'll be better for it.
22:46
Speaker 2: But like if you don't want to do that, and
22:48
Speaker 2: you're just doing it because you feel as though you
22:50
Speaker 2: should doing it, going back to this idea of like
22:53
Speaker 2: the should thing, like.
22:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not getting to Heaven any faster because you
22:56
Speaker 1: did thought work. It's not a moral issue, right to me,
23:00
Speaker 1: It's really just like when I discovered this work, I
23:02
Speaker 1: just feel like oh, there actually is a user manual
23:06
Speaker 1: to the human experience and this is what it is, right,
23:09
Speaker 1: It's like but without this awareness, it just felt like
23:11
Speaker 1: I couldn't. Had like I was on this emotional roller
23:14
Speaker 1: coaster all the time. I had like kind of no
23:16
Speaker 1: control over how I felt. It just depended on like
23:19
Speaker 1: who said what to me that day? Right, like what
23:21
Speaker 1: happened at work? And did I get an annoying email
23:23
Speaker 1: from you know, a family member, and like did that
23:26
Speaker 1: guy text me back? And it just I was like
23:27
Speaker 1: all up and down right, because that's the problem with
23:30
Speaker 1: relying on validation is like you live by their praise,
23:32
Speaker 1: you'd die by the criticism. So I just felt like
23:35
Speaker 1: I was emotional all over the place. I had all
23:37
Speaker 1: of these goals. I was constantly setting these like whatever
23:40
Speaker 1: food and movement and professional. I was like set goals,
23:43
Speaker 1: not achieve them. Had that experience a lot of people have,
23:45
Speaker 1: I think, where you feel like you're kind of whatever
23:49
Speaker 1: your habit is, eating, drinking, shopping, nail body, whatever it is,
23:52
Speaker 1: it's like you're doing it against your own will, right
23:55
Speaker 1: Like I just felt like I was like I can't.
23:57
Speaker 1: I just did not feel in control of what was
23:59
Speaker 1: going on or it's just like I'm living in this body,
24:02
Speaker 1: in this mind, but I don't know who's in charge
24:03
Speaker 1: here because it doesn't seem to be me. And then
24:07
Speaker 1: when I learn this work, it was like, oh, now
24:10
Speaker 1: I understand, Like this shows me why am I doing
24:14
Speaker 1: when I do something that seems against my will? Quote unquote,
24:17
Speaker 1: Now I have a way of understanding why. It's like
24:19
Speaker 1: what am I thinking? What am I feeling? How does
24:21
Speaker 1: that make me take this action? Like it was it
24:24
Speaker 1: really felt like getting the manual to like, you know,
24:26
Speaker 1: how the dishwasher works, like to how the whole system works,
24:29
Speaker 1: like why do I feel elated and then despondent? Oh,
24:32
Speaker 1: because of what thoughts I'm thinking about the feedback on
24:35
Speaker 1: that memo or not getting this text and what I'm
24:37
Speaker 1: making it mean about myself and is It was just
24:41
Speaker 1: sort of like okay, like now I understand shit. So
24:43
Speaker 1: of course I'm still a human. My brain still does
24:45
Speaker 1: this kind of thing sometimes, right, But I just never
24:49
Speaker 1: have that like, oh my god, my life is just
24:52
Speaker 1: like happening to me and I don't understand what's I
24:54
Speaker 1: can't control my experience anymore.
24:56
Speaker 2: Right, right, And that's so valuable. I mean when it
24:58
Speaker 2: comes to like kind of an everyday execution sense. Do
25:01
Speaker 2: you have any small hacks that you utilize to help
25:05
Speaker 2: you better your self confidence if you're going into either
25:08
Speaker 2: a big meeting or you're showing up to record with someone,
25:11
Speaker 2: or whatever the case may be.
25:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for me personally, like those things don't
25:15
Speaker 1: freak me out anymore. But really that, like doing those
25:17
Speaker 1: small neutral thoughts is what I always recommend. You know,
25:20
Speaker 1: the kind of people who need thought work the most
25:22
Speaker 1: are the kind of perfectionists who want to do everything perfectly, amazingly,
25:26
Speaker 1: all at once right, And so our brains immediately are like, well,
25:30
Speaker 1: it's not worth it to just feel a little less bad,
25:32
Speaker 1: or to just believe like this baby step thought right,
25:34
Speaker 1: Like that's not going to help me, but it actually
25:37
Speaker 1: will help you more than you realize. So, you know,
25:40
Speaker 1: when people listen to the podcast or work with me
25:42
Speaker 1: in the Clutch, which is my feminist coaching community, I
25:44
Speaker 1: teach them like a five step process you can go
25:47
Speaker 1: through to figure out what you're thinking and then shift it.
25:51
Speaker 1: But even if you just listen to this podcast and
25:53
Speaker 1: you are nervous about going into an interview or a
25:56
Speaker 1: meeting or whatever, just stopping for five minutes, write down
25:59
Speaker 1: what you thinking, right, which is like, what if I
26:02
Speaker 1: mess up, They're gonna think I'm stupid, I don't deserve
26:05
Speaker 1: this race. They're gonna think I'm greedy. Right, It's like
26:06
Speaker 1: you're gonna find out there's all those thoughts in there
26:09
Speaker 1: and then just picking even one neutral thought that you
26:12
Speaker 1: can practice, Like, you know, I'm allowed to ask for
26:16
Speaker 1: what I want even if someone else doesn't want to
26:18
Speaker 1: give it to me. Or I've done good work here
26:21
Speaker 1: and it's normal and appropriate to ask for a raise
26:23
Speaker 1: or whatever. Right, It's like we're not going to like
26:26
Speaker 1: I'm the queen of the universe. Just a little baby
26:29
Speaker 1: step that, or even sometimes you just have to go
26:31
Speaker 1: to like if they say no and I cry, it's
26:34
Speaker 1: still okay, right, Like just baby step thought.
26:39
Speaker 2: Baby step thought. If someone comes to you and they say, like,
26:43
Speaker 2: I really just need to get my shit together, is
26:45
Speaker 2: that just the first piece of advice that you offer them,
26:47
Speaker 2: baby step thought?
26:49
Speaker 1: Well, if I'm coaching someone, I would dig into what
26:51
Speaker 1: does that mean? What does it mean that you say
26:53
Speaker 1: you have to get your shit together? We all say
26:54
Speaker 1: that to ourselves. We like my brain, I'll like you know,
26:57
Speaker 1: I don't know, try to throw a piece of paper
26:59
Speaker 1: in the trash can, and my brain will like, you've
27:01
Speaker 1: got to get your shit together. That seems a little
27:03
Speaker 1: out of proportion brain, you know, So like generally, it's like, actually,
27:07
Speaker 1: probably that's not a useful thought in general, because it's
27:10
Speaker 1: anytime we have a thought about ourselves, it's like I'm
27:12
Speaker 1: not doing well enough in this vague, unspecified, all consuming way,
27:16
Speaker 1: like not having my shit together, Like what does that mean? Right?
27:19
Speaker 1: Usually the person like has a job, has a relationship
27:22
Speaker 1: or friends, has an apartment, they keep clean, like most
27:24
Speaker 1: of their shit is together. Right, There's just actually some
27:27
Speaker 1: one little thing you're thinking.
27:28
Speaker 2: About so often, And this is really important. It comes
27:30
Speaker 2: to self confidence. There's like one thing that's totally off
27:33
Speaker 2: that you feel like your entire world is rocked. But
27:36
Speaker 2: when you can separate and distinguish that one thing from
27:38
Speaker 2: the fact that you have, as you mentioned, like all
27:40
Speaker 2: this other important stuff going on around you, like this
27:44
Speaker 2: life that you have maybe at one point or another
27:46
Speaker 2: like literally dreamed of you are living, but you also
27:49
Speaker 2: happen to be in the middle of a breakup or
27:51
Speaker 2: dealing with a job thing, and that thing feels like everest,
27:54
Speaker 2: like that isn't the only thing going on in your life.
27:58
Speaker 2: And it takes a big person to be able to
28:00
Speaker 2: take a step back and be like I can see
28:03
Speaker 2: that now.
28:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and your brain, like brains are so dramatic. My
28:07
Speaker 1: brain is like constantly throwing itself on the fainting couch
28:10
Speaker 1: and having a fit. So a lot of the work
28:13
Speaker 1: that I do is just really helping women change their
28:16
Speaker 1: relationship with their own minds, with their own thoughts. Right,
28:20
Speaker 1: I just don't believe my brain all the time anymore,
28:22
Speaker 1: and especially anytime my brain is like all is lost,
28:26
Speaker 1: woe as me, we are ruined, It's like that's you know, actually,
28:31
Speaker 1: probably what happened is you skipped lunch. You know, Like
28:33
Speaker 1: any the more dramatic my brain is being the less
28:36
Speaker 1: I usually have an actual problem. So it's like also
28:39
Speaker 1: just learning some you know, perspective on your relationship with
28:44
Speaker 1: your own experience. Like a lot of this, I mean
28:46
Speaker 1: then a lot of this comes from awareness traditions that
28:49
Speaker 1: you know, some people get through meditation. I really need
28:52
Speaker 1: an analytical version of it, and so to my kind
28:55
Speaker 1: of students and clients. But it's like observing your thoughts
28:58
Speaker 1: and changing your relationship to them makes a huge difference
29:01
Speaker 1: even before you're able to actually change the thoughts. That's why,
29:05
Speaker 1: just in that moment when I heard, oh, your thoughts
29:09
Speaker 1: cause your feelings and your thoughts aren't always true, even
29:13
Speaker 1: before I changed any specific thought, that alone changed everything
29:17
Speaker 1: for me, because it meant that I went from from
29:19
Speaker 1: just anything I think must be true, which is like
29:23
Speaker 1: our default state, right, we're just like, well, I thought it,
29:26
Speaker 1: Why would I think it if it wasn't true? Seems
29:27
Speaker 1: true must be true? Like going from that unconscious belief
29:31
Speaker 1: to consciously being like, oh, the fact that a sentence
29:34
Speaker 1: went through my mind actually kind of means nothing about
29:36
Speaker 1: whether it's true or useful or I should keep thinking
29:38
Speaker 1: it or whatever. Even just that like metas shift in
29:41
Speaker 1: my relationship to my own thinking made a huge difference
29:44
Speaker 1: before I ever successfully changed a single thought.
29:46
Speaker 2: I'm curious, are you a believer of either positive affirmations
29:50
Speaker 2: or a mantras situation?
29:52
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't thingse are all just different terms
29:55
Speaker 1: for like thinking on purpose. I don't tend to call
29:57
Speaker 1: them positive affirmations because usually in my I experience, when
30:01
Speaker 1: people somebody teaches you a positive affirmation, it is often
30:03
Speaker 1: an example of like a thought that's too hard to
30:05
Speaker 1: believe for you, that's kind of that's why I don't
30:09
Speaker 1: teach it that way, because that's like a positive affirmation
30:12
Speaker 1: is like I am beautiful and amazing, and like when
30:14
Speaker 1: you think you're disgusting and terrible, that's just too far.
30:18
Speaker 1: And a part of what goes on is we judge
30:19
Speaker 1: ourselves and shame ourselves so much that we don't even
30:21
Speaker 1: want to be honest with ourselves about what our true
30:23
Speaker 1: thoughts are. Right. So, like most women will say that
30:28
Speaker 1: they basically like themselves, but then when you actually get
30:30
Speaker 1: them to download their thoughts onto paper without editing them,
30:33
Speaker 1: it's a shit show in there. And people are thinking
30:36
Speaker 1: things that are incredibly meaning cruel to themselves that they
30:39
Speaker 1: would never say to anyone else, and they don't even
30:41
Speaker 1: want to admit to because they think that that means
30:43
Speaker 1: then something bad about them, or that they really those
30:47
Speaker 1: thoughts are true or there's something wrong with them, when
30:49
Speaker 1: I'm just like, no, you just have a human brain.
30:51
Speaker 1: That's like evolutionary biology kind of fucked you. Now. The
30:54
Speaker 1: patriarchy has fucked you also, and white supremacy and everything else.
30:58
Speaker 1: So you know this is normal, and we just need
31:02
Speaker 1: to be willing to be aware of what we're truly
31:05
Speaker 1: thinking about ourselves without judging it, and then we can
31:08
Speaker 1: focus on these baby step thoughts when you don't want
31:10
Speaker 1: to be truthful with yourself about what you really think
31:12
Speaker 1: about yourself, or you just don't even know, and then
31:15
Speaker 1: you try to layer on this super positive affirmation that
31:17
Speaker 1: you don't believe. I don't believe you. You don't get
31:20
Speaker 1: any change, You don't get any emotional payoff to create
31:22
Speaker 1: a reward loop to keep doing it. I don't think
31:25
Speaker 1: that you get any really neural rewiring happening, because neurons
31:29
Speaker 1: that fire together wired together. It takes repetition to change
31:32
Speaker 1: a thought pattern, and you won't get repetition if you
31:34
Speaker 1: don't have any emotional payoff. And when you think something
31:37
Speaker 1: you one hundred percent don't believe, you don't get any
31:39
Speaker 1: emotional payoff. I do think part of what happens is
31:41
Speaker 1: once you are you know, learning to believe something you
31:43
Speaker 1: don't believe on some level is a skill. So when
31:46
Speaker 1: you start, you really can't do it yet. And that's
31:49
Speaker 1: why you really need to only pick thoughts that are
31:51
Speaker 1: like very baby step that you can believe. As you
31:54
Speaker 1: get better at believing things you haven't believed before, to
31:58
Speaker 1: some extent, you're able to make bigger I still don't
32:00
Speaker 1: think you can just pick anything and believe it one
32:02
Speaker 1: hundred percent immediately, but you can make bigger jumps. So
32:05
Speaker 1: I would say the most charitable explanation is that the
32:07
Speaker 1: people who are teaching that kind of thing like don't
32:09
Speaker 1: remember what it was like at the beginning, or they
32:11
Speaker 1: just didn't have as crazy a brain as I did.
32:13
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it worked.
32:15
Speaker 2: I feel that I think I think for me and
32:17
Speaker 2: my experience, like it really is going back to this
32:20
Speaker 2: idea of like the rewiring doesn't happen immediately, and sometimes
32:23
Speaker 2: it's like that power of repetition. Obviously not like today
32:27
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep like using this Everest example, but
32:30
Speaker 2: today I'm gonna climb Mount Everest. Like no, that's not
32:32
Speaker 2: a reasonable like positive affirmation and to like put on
32:34
Speaker 2: my front door to see before I walk out in
32:36
Speaker 2: the morning. But if it's like today is going to
32:38
Speaker 2: be a good day, then like maybe today's going to
32:40
Speaker 2: be a good day, especially if you like really believe
32:43
Speaker 2: to yourself, like I think, you start to believe it
32:45
Speaker 2: at least that's how I like to think about it.
32:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think part of this comes down to, like,
32:49
Speaker 1: some people are capable or willing or whatever to practice
32:53
Speaker 1: thoughts they don't believe for a very long time until
32:55
Speaker 1: they finally start to believe them. I guess what I'm
32:56
Speaker 1: saying is like for people for whom affirmations like some
32:59
Speaker 1: people are like, well, I didn't believe I love myself
33:01
Speaker 1: at all, and then I just repeated it for six
33:03
Speaker 1: hundred days and then I did. It's like, and that's fine.
33:05
Speaker 1: I'm sure that works for some people. But my concern
33:08
Speaker 1: is all the people who give up along the way.
33:10
Speaker 1: Right that baby step, neutral step thought process, which I did,
33:14
Speaker 1: I needed to see some like results a little bit faster,
33:17
Speaker 1: like I wasn't, you know, I just wasn't committed enough,
33:19
Speaker 1: Like I just wasn't gonna be able to get up
33:22
Speaker 1: the three hundred and sixty second day say it again,
33:24
Speaker 1: still not believing it. And mantras, I think, you know,
33:27
Speaker 1: one of the reasons mantras are powerful is from that
33:29
Speaker 1: repetition neural rewiring. So you know, I think I obviously
33:33
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with them, and I think
33:35
Speaker 1: I don't think there's not much difference between a mantra
33:37
Speaker 1: and picking a thought you want to believe in practicing
33:39
Speaker 1: it a lot.
33:40
Speaker 2: I feel that, okay, So aside from last question, the
33:45
Speaker 2: external circumstances don't create our feelings. Our thoughts create our feelings.
33:48
Speaker 2: If you had to identify, like one other earth shattering,
33:52
Speaker 2: foundation shattering kind of tidbit that you have picked up
33:55
Speaker 2: over the last couple of years of this work, hit
33:58
Speaker 2: me with it.
33:59
Speaker 1: I think. The thing that I love to remember that
34:01
Speaker 1: blows my mind is that you are one hundred percent
34:04
Speaker 1: wrong about how much you can change, and the you
34:07
Speaker 1: you are now can't even imagine what's possible for you.
34:10
Speaker 1: But I mean that quite literally, like the you that
34:12
Speaker 1: has the set of thoughts that you have now is
34:16
Speaker 1: incapable of truly imagining where you can end up. It's
34:20
Speaker 1: like you have to go through it in phases. But
34:22
Speaker 1: like the me that started this work could never have
34:26
Speaker 1: imagined who I would be now, And so the idea
34:29
Speaker 1: that I have no idea what my own potential is
34:32
Speaker 1: I find kind of always mind blowing.
34:36
Speaker 3: I love that.
34:37
Speaker 2: I love that. Thank you so much for like literally
34:39
Speaker 2: blowing my mind over the last thirty minutes I'm like,
34:42
Speaker 2: holy shit, I need to like wind down after this
34:45
Speaker 2: and like maybe have a glass of wine.
34:47
Speaker 1: I don't even know.
34:47
Speaker 2: It's definitely not a happy hour yet, Kara, how do
34:50
Speaker 2: they keep up with you? Give me all the details.
34:53
Speaker 1: Yes, you can find my podcast unfuck your Brain wherever
34:57
Speaker 1: you find your podcast or at on fuckrbrain dot and
35:01
Speaker 1: you can come join the Clutch, which is my feminist
35:04
Speaker 1: coaching community where we take these general concepts. We really,
35:07
Speaker 1: as you can tell from the way I teach, we
35:09
Speaker 1: drill them down. I teach you a whole process for
35:11
Speaker 1: identifying what you're thinking, deciding if you want to keep it,
35:15
Speaker 1: changing your thoughts one by one, piece by piece live coaching.
35:19
Speaker 1: I do a private podcast. You can get written support
35:22
Speaker 1: at any time. We have an amazing Facebook group. It's
35:24
Speaker 1: just I like created the place that I wanted to
35:26
Speaker 1: hang out and now there's tons of other amazing women
35:29
Speaker 1: hang out there with me.
35:30
Speaker 2: I love it. It sounds awesome and I can't wait
35:32
Speaker 2: to check it out myself. I am over at Emily
35:35
Speaker 2: Abadi at Hurdle Podcast Another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys
35:39
Speaker 2: next time.