Latest / Good Morning From The Chicken Coop! / Season 3 - Episode 58 - Is your story your identity?

Transcript

Season 3 - Episode 58 - Is your story your identity? · Good Morning From The Chicken Coop!

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  Welcome to the Good Morning From the Chicken Coop Podcast with
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  Kim Johnson, your creative strategist and mastermind set
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  coach. Filled with inspiration,
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  distinctions, perspectives, and possibilities, we help you to
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  cultivate a mindset that leads you to create the best version
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  of yourself you could ever imagine.
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  Join Kim every morning from one of her favorite happy places,
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  her chicken coop along with all her chickens.
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  Hey, everybody. Good morning from the chicken
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  coop. So the question for you today
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  is, does your story equal your identity?
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  So I want you to pause and think about this for a second.
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  Does your story about your life, who you are, does that equal
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  your identity? Is that who you are or is it
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  just your story? And it's important distinction
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  from the standpoint of coaching and where I spend all day, every
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  day talking to people. Your story is intrinsically tied
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  to you one way or another. But if your story equals your
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  identity, basically you're screwed because it while it can
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  shape you, it should not be your identity.
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  When it is, you're in trouble. So you have to stop right now
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  and ask yourself, OK, let me check in with this.
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  Is this something that I'm doing to myself?
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  Because we all have a tendency to do this and we let our story
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  define us instead of us deciding what we're going to take from
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  that story and utilize. It's a very fine line of
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  distinction, but it's worth exploring.
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  Because once you start making that happen, once you start
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  looking at that and you start digging into it, you get extreme
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  clarity about what parts of your story you're going to allow to
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  be told in a way that can be useful.
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  Obviously you could tell your whole story and have it be
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  useful, but it doesn't define who you are as a person.
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  You define who you are as a person.
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  You decide how it shapes you. You decide what happens with it.
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  Some people, and we've talked about this before, can have two
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  two experiences very similar. Two people can have two very
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  similar experiences. People go to war and they come
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  back and one is a complete mess and the other one turns out to
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  be this amazing, giving, loving person.
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  What's the difference? One, the experience, their
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  story, define them. The other one, they never let
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  that happen. They just said Nope, this is who
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  I'm going to choose to be. They could take lessons from it.
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  They could have it shape them. They could use that sand, that
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  grit. Like what happens when you put a
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  stone into a machine that buffs it and smooths it.
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  You can that that grit ends up shaping that stone into
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  something smooth and wonderful or you know it it you can have
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  it so turned on so high it destroys it.
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  It's a question of what you are going to allow to have happen.
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  And without the distinctions it's very hard to know.
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  So when you go back and you start thinking about your story
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  and you start thinking about, OK, I need to make sure that I'm
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  aware of what parts of my story I'm utilizing in a positive way
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  or to my greater good, or what part of my story has become my
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  identity. So a way I love to have people
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  do this is to sit down and actually ask them.
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  Identify yourself. Really write down what is your
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  identity? Who are you?
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  Sit there and and struggle with it because it is a hard thing to
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  sit and write down. But when you start the process
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  and you actually start looking at it, you're going to be amazed
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  at how much you come up with because you are a myriad of
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  items, of thoughts, of emotions, of feelings.
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  It it, it is so memories, it is so complex and so intrinsically
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  tied together. Unless you start to look at it
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  all, you can't get clear on it. You have to just say some of
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  this just shows up and you're like, wow, I didn't even know
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  that was something that I was doing.
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  I didn't even recognize that as part of myself.
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  And then when you start digging, you can say, OK, that happened
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  to me, but I'm not going to let it define me.
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  That's what we're looking for. That's the kind of thing we are
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  looking for at this point. So pen to paper helps.
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  Recording obviously always helps.
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  You know, I'm a big fan of that. I talk about that all the time.
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  You can go back and watch it. You can hear how you say things.
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  Sitting and talking to yourself on camera or going back and
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  listening to it on audio is super useful because you can
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  hear how you talk about it. You can hear the emotion in your
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  voice. It's a huge tool that I use when
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  I'm working with clients. I I take that the the way that
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  they you know that they say something and that that
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  interpretation of it and I can really feel it in that moment.
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  So you could do the same thing with yourself.
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  You can hear well how do I describe this?
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  So if I was to use myself as an example, I would say, you know,
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  I had things in my life that happened to me.
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  Losing my dad very young was a big thing for me.
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  And if I talk about it now, I can talk about it.
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  And if I am telling the story from the standpoint of it's a
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  story and it's not defining me, I can give you the facts.
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  And I don't necessarily fall to pieces.
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  But when I let it define me, when I let it, when I step into
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  a different part of it and I start to go back into it, all of
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  a sudden I'm in tears. So for me, tears seems to be a
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  good indication of am I in that story where it's defining me, or
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  am I just saying the facts? And so, yes, it's a part of what
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  happened to me. But what was a bigger part of
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  what happened to me? That was how he raised me, how
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  he brought me up, how he gave me the good stuff from him.
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  And that's the part I want to focus on.
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  That's the part I want to be part of my identity.
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  So that's just one trick for me. Now, some people say, oh, the
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  tears aren't that way for me. And that may be very true
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  because we're all different. So you have to dig in.
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  You have to look, You have to see.
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  Let's see what you come up with. All right, my friends.
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  Happy hunting. I'll see you tomorrow.
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  Bye.