Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 12: Life’s Not Always Awesome: Find Your Footing When Things Get Hard
Transcript
- 0:22Coach Sam Pruitt: Hey superstars, welcome back.
- 0:24Coach Sam Pruitt: So what are we talking about today?
- 0:33Coach Polly Mertens: This is actually an episode that we were like "should we talk about this?
- 0:38Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, we should - the elephant in the room.
- 0:43Coach Polly Mertens: Our show name is Everyday Awesome Project O ne of the things that we said to ourselves is some people are going to say, "well, not every moment of my life is awesome.
- 0:51Coach Polly Mertens: It's like, okay, we should give that some space, right, and this isn't the always awesome project correct, a little distinction, but it can be every day and it's finding it right.
- 1:03Coach Polly Mertens: So what we want to talk about today is when you're having periods of things aren't going awesome, you know, and what to do.
- 1:11Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, and this is a side, you know, we're not going to delve deep into things like grief, which is a whole thing we could unpack on episodes and episodes of that, but we want to talk about those times when people maybe don't feel motivated, you know, you're just having a non-motivated day, or things like lower confidence or doubt is creeping in or being stuck.
- 1:31Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, being stuck.
- 1:34Coach Polly Mertens: Fear, worry, anxiety.
- 1:36Coach Polly Mertens: You and I are saying catastrophizing, right.
- 1:40Coach Polly Mertens: So having those moments or those periods, or those phases, I'm really wanting to share with people, you know it's okay.
- 1:49Coach Sam Pruitt: Sometimes they last a day, sometimes they last a week, a month, for some people a year.
- 1:56Coach Polly Mertens: I think what we want to help people realize is you know some of that is in your control things.
- 2:01Coach Polly Mertens: Absolutely A big part of it.
- 2:03Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, absolutely.
- 2:04Coach Polly Mertens: So let's go into that and help people understand you know where does this come from and when you're having.
- 2:09Coach Polly Mertens: You know those, like you said, periods of days, weeks, months.
- 2:13Coach Polly Mertens: You know where is your role and responsibility in this.
- 2:16Coach Sam Pruitt: And when we say in your control, we're not shaming and blaming.
- 2:20Coach Sam Pruitt: We are simply pointing out that people can become more empowered in their own lives by choosing to think in that differently.
- 2:29Coach Sam Pruitt: That's what we're talking about.
- 2:30Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, w e' interested.
- 2:31Coach Polly Mertens: you realize w and maybe there are things that are within your control, that you don't realize that are in your control, that you're simply like oh, I didn't realize I was doing that to myself.
- 2:44Coach Polly Mertens: Thank you very much.
- 2:44Coach Polly Mertens: Okay, let me stop that.
- 2:46Coach Polly Mertens: And so one of the things I want to talk about is like emotional stacking, or, you know, taking on responsibility for all that's going on and stacking these things in a way that makes you feel powerless right, and so stuckness feels like disempowered, powerless I'm.
- 3:04Coach Polly Mertens: You know I'm at the effect of this, like you know I can't get out of this, like I'm unmotivated, I can't, what do I do, kind of thing.
- 3:10Coach Polly Mertens: And so I want to talk about three Ps around what's creating, let's call it powerlessness, or this stacking that leads to powerlessness.
- 3:19Coach Polly Mertens: So the three Ps are permanent, pervasive and personal, and by permanent what I mean is, you know, people see a problem, a situation, a challenge, a scenario, something that's shown up.
- 3:33Coach Polly Mertens: This is permanent.
- 3:34Coach Polly Mertens: They're like oh my god, this problem is permanent, it's going to be around forever.
- 3:38Coach Polly Mertens: You know this is never going to change.
- 3:40Coach Polly Mertens: He's never going to change.
- 3:41Coach Polly Mertens: This is never going to change.
- 3:42Coach Polly Mertens: I'm never going to leave this job.
- 3:44Coach Polly Mertens: I'm never, never, never right, like it's always going to be this way and it's not right Like.
- 3:51Coach Polly Mertens: Is that true?
- 3:53Coach Sam Pruitt: It's not true for anything.
- 3:54Coach Sam Pruitt: Right From moment to moment, day to day, everything changes, so we also change with it.
- 4:01Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, so recognizing that no problem is permanent, only your soul is permanent, right?
- 4:06Coach Polly Mertens: So that's the first Ps.
- 4:08Coach Polly Mertens: Second Ps is pervasive.
- 4:10Coach Polly Mertens: What's that Pervasive is relentless.
- 4:13Coach Polly Mertens: Just liken it to it's everywhere.
- 4:18Coach Sam Pruitt: It's everything.
- 4:19Coach Polly Mertens: Exactly Like the disease of the mind.
- 4:22Coach Polly Mertens: You take one area of your life that there is a problem, something doesn't you know.
- 4:26Coach Polly Mertens: You've got a frustration, a challenge, something's.
- 4:29Coach Sam Pruitt: nobody listens to me right At work.
- 4:31Coach Sam Pruitt: And then you go home, See nobody listens to you.
- 4:34Coach Sam Pruitt: And then you go to your family reunion Nobody listens to you.
- 4:36Coach Sam Pruitt: So you take that with you, yeah.
- 4:38Coach Polly Mertens: And it keeps showing up.
- 4:39Coach Polly Mertens: Oh my gosh Right or you know, something's not good at one area.
- 4:43Coach Polly Mertens: Like, oh, I've got this relationship challenge, or you know something at work, or got a job, oh well, do you have your health?
- 4:50Coach Polly Mertens: You know, do you have good?
- 4:51Coach Polly Mertens: Something else you know?
- 4:52Coach Polly Mertens: Or your finances?
- 4:53Coach Polly Mertens: Okay, like is it true, like it's pervasive the whole you know, your whole life is broken down Probably not Like.
- 5:00Coach Polly Mertens: If you look for it, you can find things that are going well.
- 5:03Coach Polly Mertens: It's just the mind focuses on what's not going well.
- 5:06Coach Polly Mertens: Yes, and it makes it pervasive, makes it everywhere and always.
- 5:09Coach Polly Mertens: The third P is personal, and this is definitely where we can have a you know, you know that monkey mind can take us down right, this is where the drama happens.
- 5:22Coach Polly Mertens: The self talk.
- 5:23Coach Polly Mertens: It's a little out of control, yeah, right.
- 5:25Coach Polly Mertens: And so we think it's us.
- 5:28Coach Polly Mertens: We think this problem is there's something wrong with me.
- 5:31Coach Polly Mertens: If I were X, prettier, smarter, you know, more available somewhere else, you know, if I were further along in my life older, younger, you know, heavier, whatever stronger, then this wouldn't be happening, right.
- 5:47Coach Polly Mertens: And then we say that's something wrong with me.
- 5:49Coach Polly Mertens: And then we take it personally, like I can't change that, like I'm just not whatever I need to be.
- 5:54Coach Polly Mertens: So when you stack permanent, pervasive and personal on top of whatever's going on in your life, yeah, it can feel like I can't get out of this.
- 6:04Coach Polly Mertens: You create that learned helplessness.
- 6:05Coach Polly Mertens: And the more you stack those three and you build you know mountains of this problem into something bigger and bigger and bigger, and the more you focus on those three areas and you just sort of like turn in this little soup of you know self-doubt, self, you know nothing's gonna happen, nothing's gonna change.
- 6:23Coach Polly Mertens: I can't change this.
- 6:24Coach Polly Mertens: Something's wrong with me.
- 6:25Coach Polly Mertens: Learned helplessness shows up.
- 6:28Coach Polly Mertens: But the important thing there is it's learned, like we're learning it from ourself, like we're repeating that, we're growing that, and so this is where we get those periods like you were talking about.
- 6:39Coach Polly Mertens: It's not just I'm having a moment Like okay, yeah, that things happen.
- 6:43Coach Polly Mertens: Like, oh, I had an accident happen in my car.
- 6:46Coach Polly Mertens: Okay, well, that doesn't mean like I'm never gonna drive again or something.
- 6:50Coach Sam Pruitt: Right, right.
- 6:50Coach Polly Mertens: So just recognizing we can shift that.
- 6:52Coach Polly Mertens: So a couple of things that I wanted to share that I think are helpful that I look at things when they show up that help interrupt the stacking or the powerlessness, letting these thought situations get out of hand is asking yourself questions that point your mind in the right direction, right Point it in a healthier, more empowered direction.
- 7:14Coach Polly Mertens: So one of the things I say is well, what if everything is always working out for me?
- 7:18Coach Polly Mertens: I wonder what direction this is gonna go on.
- 7:21Coach Polly Mertens: It's gonna work out.
- 7:23Coach Polly Mertens: Right, it's gonna add some levity to it.
- 7:25Coach Polly Mertens: Right, I start to believe in a new possibility instead of the doldrums, or something's wrong with me.
- 7:31Coach Polly Mertens: This is never gonna change.
- 7:32Coach Polly Mertens: It's everywhere.
- 7:33Coach Polly Mertens: And then my second favorite one is I wonder what's trying to happen here.
- 7:39Coach Sam Pruitt: I love that one.
- 7:40Coach Sam Pruitt: That's my favorite, and you and I have been in some situations and you've pulled that out of your wallet purse pocket and drop that and it was like baboon game changer.
- 7:51Coach Polly Mertens: Right, it just helps you recognize.
- 7:53Coach Polly Mertens: Like okay, there's something else going on here.
- 7:56Coach Polly Mertens: Like outside of my control, exactly, and you know, if I was to let go of controlling everything, which is a tendency we might have, or the mind's you know need to control things.
- 8:08Coach Polly Mertens: Gets you know, gets it into you know, all this learned helplessness.
- 8:11Coach Polly Mertens: Instead we say I wonder what's trying to happen here, and then you just leave it open.
- 8:15Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah With a curiosity.
- 8:17Coach Sam Pruitt: Curiosity, exactly.
- 8:19Coach Polly Mertens: So the other thing I wanted to share that a girlfriend of mine helped me with a lot and I think, if we can gift ourselves with this one phrase and this may not fit for everyone, depending on what's going on in your life but I remember I was sitting in some not good space for a couple of days and my girlfriend's like oh, it sounds like you're having a pity party.
- 8:39Coach Sam Pruitt: I was like, okay, were you wearing a hat?
- 8:42Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, I didn't feel like it.
- 8:44Coach Polly Mertens: I was wearing a lot of shame, I was wearing a lot of grief.
- 8:47Coach Sam Pruitt: you know just self loathing, if you will.
- 8:49Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, and she's like oh, I have those, you know.
- 8:51Coach Polly Mertens: I have a little pity party, but then I give myself a little timer.
- 8:54Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know, am I going to do this pity party with myself for a couple of hours or a couple of days?
- 8:59Coach Polly Mertens: Okay, but it's my choice, right, like all right, give myself that's right Few hours.
- 9:03Coach Sam Pruitt: You can leave the party anytime you want.
- 9:05Coach Sam Pruitt: Exactly.
- 9:07Coach Polly Mertens: Exactly so how about you?
- 9:08Coach Polly Mertens: Do you have any moments in your life like one of the ones we've talked about is like that feeling of being trapped?
- 9:14Coach Sam Pruitt: Yes, you know so like trapped in a job or relationship.
- 9:19Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, what do you do?
- 9:20Coach Sam Pruitt: It sucks.
- 9:20Coach Sam Pruitt: Well, I know a ton of people can relate to that, that feeling of trapped as in, and it can be job, it can be relationship, it can be experience, it can be physical health challenges you know I've had those two, so it can be any of the things that are feeling awful.
- 9:39Coach Sam Pruitt: But it's one thing for it to feel awful, it's another thing to feel trapped in the awful.
- 9:46Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, so that's the stuck piece, like you don't move through it or you can't figure out how to see your way out of it.
- 9:54Coach Sam Pruitt: And really for me, because I've been trapped so many times, I guess I'm getting good at getting unstuck, right, you know I have some ways and it just depends on the circumstances of course.
- 10:06Coach Sam Pruitt: But at some point you have to get a reality check, or I have to get a reality check in the situation that can be going to somebody I trust, a friend.
- 10:17Coach Sam Pruitt: You know I can have a conversation with you and say is this really happening?
- 10:20Coach Sam Pruitt: Is this a reality?
- 10:21Coach Sam Pruitt: It can also be yourself just doing that, stepping away from the circumstances, whether it be for the day so I used to, when I was more often stuck Literally leave the circumstances of my life physically, yes, for the day, for several days, but a lot of times, you know, I was still working and I was mothering and all the things.
- 10:44Coach Sam Pruitt: So I would just leave for the day.
- 10:45Coach Sam Pruitt: I play hooky for the day and I would drop out of all the circumstances and get myself space to breathe and process and really take inventory of what's really going on here.
- 11:00Coach Sam Pruitt: Why do I feel?
- 11:00Coach Sam Pruitt: Am I really stuck?
- 11:01Coach Sam Pruitt: Why do I feel stuck?
- 11:02Coach Sam Pruitt: Is this a reality or am I making this up in my mind right?
- 11:07Coach Sam Pruitt: Do I have choices?
- 11:08Coach Sam Pruitt: I always did have choices, by the way, and what I would find is I would come back empowered with some options.
- 11:17Coach Sam Pruitt: I would provide myself options or, like you know, talking to a good friend, they can help you come up with some options so you don't feel stuck and you start making different choices, exploring change, right, even though maybe those options look pretty gnarly, like I don't know, but at least you know I have options, whether you're going to execute them or not.
- 11:40Coach Sam Pruitt: That alone feels a lot better.
- 11:42Coach Polly Mertens: You know, what you're reminding me of is like that feels like a moment of self coaching.
- 11:46Coach Sam Pruitt: Yes.
- 11:47Coach Polly Mertens: You know you're like I'm going to take myself out of the situation.
- 11:49Coach Polly Mertens: I'm going to go sit myself down, think about this, be realistic, or you know, one of the things you just reminded me of as you were saying that story is I remember sitting in a situation of a housing situation and it was like, oh my God, got to find another place to live, this and that, whatever, yeah, and literally feeling not a lot of options, and so I was like starting to feel stuck, I can't get out of this place, and so literally sat down, wrote down what were the like across the top, what were the options?
- 12:19Coach Polly Mertens: Like, stay where I was, ok, pros and cons.
- 12:21Coach Polly Mertens: Oh, you got right to stuff down Exactly.
- 12:24Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, did a little T chart and I was like on the top, it's like the pros.
- 12:27Coach Polly Mertens: On one side, the cons of option one, second one, option B Yep, do this, don't do that, you know.
- 12:33Coach Polly Mertens: And then, just having it laid out in front of me, I was like OK.
- 12:38Coach Polly Mertens: I have options.
- 12:39Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, give me myself the power back.
- 12:41Coach Polly Mertens: Maybe they're not all like rainbows and sunshine or whatever, but like you, feel that power come back exactly into your body Exactly.
- 12:51Coach Sam Pruitt: So being stuck is a disempowerment.
- 12:52Coach Sam Pruitt: You have surrendered that you have no power over your own life, choices, circumstances, and we will confess that's true for some people like that's a reality.
- 13:02Coach Sam Pruitt: Not everybody has agency over their own life, but a lot of people do and are pretending they don't.
- 13:09Coach Polly Mertens: Well, I think there's agency over your circumstances, and then there's agency over what does it mean to you?
- 13:16Coach Sam Pruitt: to like.
- 13:17Coach Polly Mertens: I think about, I don't know.
- 13:18Coach Polly Mertens: I mean that amazing story of Nelson Mandela sitting in prison for two decades, mindboggling.
- 13:26Coach Polly Mertens: And yet he walked out, hugged all the people that were his captors you know, the prison guards and all of that and walked out a better man, like imprisoned yeah, literally, not figuratively, like I'm in a job that we're wishing us on anybody.
- 13:43Coach Polly Mertens: No, but it's just a way of going about looking at a situation.
- 13:47Coach Polly Mertens: You know, even if you feel imprisoned, can you look at the situation differently, you know.
- 13:53Coach Polly Mertens: So I remember.
- 13:54Coach Polly Mertens: I forget where this quote comes from, but it's like OK, so there's, there's what's so like this is what's so.
- 14:01Coach Polly Mertens: I'm here, she's that way, he's that way, I've got this job, whatever, this is what's so, ok, so what?
- 14:06Coach Polly Mertens: So what are you going to do about it?
- 14:08Coach Polly Mertens: What are you going to make it mean?
- 14:10Coach Polly Mertens: What were your options?
- 14:12Coach Polly Mertens: What's next?
- 14:12Coach Polly Mertens: Like OK, there's what's OK, so what?
- 14:14Coach Polly Mertens: And that answer, what comes next is 100% in your control, your charge, like you can make it up.
- 14:24Coach Sam Pruitt: I want to hear from you some examples, because I know our styles are very different and it's pretty entertaining, possibly for our audience.
- 14:33Coach Sam Pruitt: But my mode when I have become stuck generally is I say this circumstances or situation is broken and is it my job to hang around and fix it and be stuck in the duct taping and less duct taping of fixing the situation, the circumstances, whatever.
- 14:54Coach Sam Pruitt: I love to break shit, so I feel like if something's already cracked or broken, generally I'm going to smash it and start over.
- 15:04Coach Sam Pruitt: That tends to be my mode of doing.
- 15:07Coach Sam Pruitt: That is like that's, that's kind of my style and it's worked for me.
- 15:12Coach Sam Pruitt: And how I discovered that I'm sure was out of necessity.
- 15:16Coach Sam Pruitt: Things were terribly broken and I had to do some radical things.
- 15:20Coach Sam Pruitt: So then I learned that sometimes being radical was my best bet forward.
- 15:26Coach Sam Pruitt: You know I'm not saying that's going to work for everybody or in all circumstances.
- 15:30Coach Sam Pruitt: Do you need to be Radical?
- 15:32Coach Sam Pruitt: I feel like you might be a little more gingerly at your techniques.
- 15:36Coach Sam Pruitt: Can you maybe share with us?
- 15:38Coach Polly Mertens: some of those.
- 15:38Coach Polly Mertens: Well, the first thing I want to say, if you don't know my story, you know 20 years with an eating disorder, 20 years with an addiction, right, and so that's a pattern.
- 15:46Coach Polly Mertens: That is pattern, stacked upon pattern, stacked upon pattern.
- 15:49Coach Polly Mertens: And you know, not all addictions are the same, but they all have some similar Traces and stuff.
- 15:57Coach Polly Mertens: And eating disorders are particularly pervasive around shame because they're hidden.
- 16:02Coach Polly Mertens: You know, especially bulimia, anorexia not as hidden oftentimes, but bulimia can be quite hidden.
- 16:08Coach Polly Mertens: The person can look quite normal.
- 16:10Coach Polly Mertens: You know, nobody knew.
- 16:11Coach Polly Mertens: I mean like nobody in my life knew for all those 20 years, besides the few select people that I had spoken with about it ever knew.
- 16:20Coach Polly Mertens: So you walk around in this veil of shame.
- 16:22Coach Polly Mertens: It's like this and you want to talk about learned helplessness.
- 16:26Coach Polly Mertens: Oh, wow, lots of learned helplessness.
- 16:29Coach Polly Mertens: So that this empowerment was stacked and stacked.
- 16:33Coach Polly Mertens: Your addiction owned you.
- 16:34Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 16:35Coach Polly Mertens: So I cannot say back then I was doing a great job at any of this.
- 16:39Coach Polly Mertens: So it took some learning.
- 16:41Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, it took some lessons, and I'd say you know that addiction definitely owned.
- 16:47Coach Polly Mertens: One of the things I say is I was like a bird in a cage and I didn't know I had the key.
- 16:51Coach Polly Mertens: I was like I had the key and then I can unpack that at another time.
- 16:55Coach Polly Mertens: But really I had the key to get out of that but I didn't realize it and I just kept, you know, reinforcing that learned helplessness idea, and now I have tools.
- 17:08Coach Polly Mertens: I have a toolbox, a toolkit.
- 17:09Coach Polly Mertens: I have an underlying belief, like I said, you know, like, if everything is always working out for me, like having that belief in your back pocket as a way of living or a philosophy, and the other one I have is my life is supposed to feel good now, like what?
- 17:26Coach Polly Mertens: Like a baseline, like I think this is something we share.
- 17:28Coach Polly Mertens: I mean, our core message is how your life feels is better than how it looks, 1000%.
- 17:34Coach Polly Mertens: And we live that.
- 17:36Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, like we're living that, not just spouting it, but like no, it's more important to us that it feels good in this life every day.
- 17:45Coach Polly Mertens: You know, that's why we're doing this is helping people realize for themselves, like it can be for you too.
- 17:51Coach Polly Mertens: So I think, building up the toolbox yeah, mine definitely feels like I've taken some left turns when people are going straight and I'm like gotta go.
- 18:00Coach Polly Mertens: It's been fun.
- 18:02Coach Polly Mertens: I'll be getting off here now You're getting off at this accident.
- 18:05Coach Polly Mertens: Maybe that's why you have to travel.
- 18:06Coach Polly Mertens: A Wunderlust, yes, yeah.
- 18:08Coach Polly Mertens: So I would say, you know, yeah, I've had to break some things, break some relationships, break some agreements in work or whatever, or projects, and it's like not going to continue on like this.
- 18:18Coach Sam Pruitt: Right.
- 18:18Coach Sam Pruitt: What I see a lot is that people will think or say out loud if you question them about why they're continuing to be stuck in whatever the thing is, I'm not strong enough yet.
- 18:31Coach Sam Pruitt: I would say you will not get stronger until you start doing it.
- 18:38Coach Sam Pruitt: Isn't that kind of the thing I mean?
- 18:41Coach Sam Pruitt: I know for me that's personally what it took, over and over repeatedly to build that muscle.
- 18:47Coach Sam Pruitt: I didn't wait till I woke up one day and felt strong enough to do the radical things.
- 18:52Coach Sam Pruitt: I did the radical things and therefore became strong.
- 18:54Coach Polly Mertens: Exactly, exactly.
- 18:56Coach Sam Pruitt: Is that?
- 18:56Coach Polly Mertens: what you're experiencing?
- 18:57Coach Polly Mertens: I think, yeah, you know, expecting to not have fear, not reasonable behavior.
- 19:03Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, like oh when I, when I, when I'm we still have fear, yeah, we still have anxiety, we still have all the things, and that's where courage comes in.
- 19:10Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, is the courage shows up because you have fear.
- 19:14Coach Polly Mertens: Courageous people don't lack fear.
- 19:16Coach Polly Mertens: They have fear, and they do it anyway, exactly.
- 19:19Coach Sam Pruitt: Right, so we embrace it.
- 19:21Coach Polly Mertens: Doing the things that you're afraid of.
- 19:22Coach Polly Mertens: You're worried about how people are going to think of you.
- 19:24Coach Polly Mertens: Look, how's this going to go?
- 19:26Coach Polly Mertens: Speaking up, speaking out, whatever it is.
- 19:28Coach Polly Mertens: It's like, yeah, you know, and we talked in another episode about the enough moment.
- 19:34Coach Sam Pruitt: Right, and so, oh yeah, reaching that point.
- 19:37Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, I mean, I think that is laced in with this.
- 19:40Coach Polly Mertens: If you're finding yourself stuck, stuck, stuck, like enough already, right, when is enough enough, when is enough enough?
- 19:48Coach Sam Pruitt: And that's.
- 19:48Coach Polly Mertens: That's up to each person.
- 19:49Coach Polly Mertens: Right and you and I it's like like now, like no, no, no, not going to like wallow or perpetuate.
- 19:56Coach Sam Pruitt: But we were born that way and we didn't live a big chunk of our lives that way.
- 20:00Coach Sam Pruitt: Right Things became too much and then there was a tipping point.
- 20:06Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, and whatever I broke things you stayed, took exit stage, left.
- 20:10Coach Sam Pruitt: You know, we learned over time so now we are very aware.
- 20:15Coach Sam Pruitt: When we start to feel in our bodies or experience something here doesn't feel right, I'm starting to feel stuck, this that fear, anxiety, all the things.
- 20:26Coach Sam Pruitt: So I should just be aware and address it now, before the tipping point.
- 20:32Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, and I think the recognizing that the power is within us.
- 20:40Coach Polly Mertens: Just take it back, right.
- 20:43Coach Polly Mertens: So, yes, you may not be able to change the situation immediately, but you can make some changes in yourself, your actions, the thing outside it's not pervasive, right.
- 20:55Coach Polly Mertens: So it's not permanent, it's not pervasive and it's probably not personal.
- 20:59Coach Polly Mertens: So, if you take that off the table, okay, there's what's so, okay.
- 21:03Coach Polly Mertens: So what?
- 21:03Coach Polly Mertens: So what, right?
- 21:05Coach Polly Mertens: And I think, again, what is reinforced, that feeling good, is what your life is about.
- 21:11Coach Polly Mertens: Life is too short to go on for too many days, weeks.
- 21:15Coach Polly Mertens: You know, like you said, some people wallow in this.
- 21:17Coach Polly Mertens: It becomes a part of their personality or their attitude.
- 21:21Coach Sam Pruitt: We're not saying that human being isn't hard.
- 21:23Coach Sam Pruitt: It's hard, but you deserve to feel good on the journey in this one precious life, in this one timeframe.
- 21:29Coach Sam Pruitt: So we've talked about how to address it, identify it, what's the process of actually doing it?
- 21:36Coach Sam Pruitt: Good question Walk us through a process of somebody coming to a point where they're like okay, I recognize I'm stuck, okay, sick of the misery, the suffering, the self-imposed, whatever might be happening here.
- 21:53Coach Polly Mertens: Now what?
- 21:53Coach Polly Mertens: Well, there's a lot of ways to do this.
- 21:55Coach Polly Mertens: I'll share a fun one that this has to do with NLP, neurolinguistic programming, that I didn't realize when I was doing it with a friend that that's what this was, but learning what NLP is, that this is what it is and it's God.
- 22:10Coach Polly Mertens: I'm not going to too much of how your brain works, but your brain basically stores a lot of things in pictures, right, and so I'll tell you the scenario so I was facing after the 2008 crisis.
- 22:21Coach Polly Mertens: You know that whole thing.
- 22:22Coach Polly Mertens: I'm sure a lot of people's finances looked a little different than they did a couple years before.
- 22:27Coach Sam Pruitt: That's happening again now.
- 22:30Coach Polly Mertens: Surprise.
- 22:30Coach Polly Mertens: So I had this debt that to me at the time felt ginormous, drowning.
- 22:36Coach Polly Mertens: Drowning in this debt that I had created, like I, you know, I got a little screwed by some you know scammers and unfortunately found myself with a big debt sitting on my shoulders and what happened was I was going into that.
- 22:51Coach Polly Mertens: It's permanent, pervasive.
- 22:53Coach Polly Mertens: You know, if I hadn't done this, this never would have happened.
- 22:55Coach Polly Mertens: Well, that wasn't helping the scenario, right.
- 22:57Coach Polly Mertens: So my girlfriend introduced me to this thing.
- 22:59Coach Polly Mertens: There's this book out there and we can link to it.
- 23:01Coach Polly Mertens: I think it still exists.
- 23:02Coach Polly Mertens: She found it, we found it again.
- 23:04Coach Polly Mertens: It's called the cube.
- 23:06Coach Polly Mertens: It's that simple, the cube.
- 23:08Coach Polly Mertens: And I won't go into like exactly the process, but this process is a way for you to change the relationship you're having with the problem.
- 23:16Coach Polly Mertens: Okay, so let's, it's very visual.
- 23:19Coach Polly Mertens: So for me, for example, in general, how the process looked is, let's say, my previous to doing the cube process.
- 23:29Coach Polly Mertens: If you had asked me like how big is this?
- 23:32Coach Polly Mertens: Like if you close your eyes, and how big is this amount of debt, I would have said it's fricking like the Empire State Building, like you know and I'm a five foot woman, you know, I'm like I'm this and it's that I was like, wow, no wonder you feel so disempowered Like it's.
- 23:49Coach Polly Mertens: You know how you're relating to.
- 23:51Coach Polly Mertens: It is ginormous, and this process walks you through, and so at the end of it, I could hold my debt in my palm of my hand.
- 23:57Coach Polly Mertens: It was like a little tiny thing in the palm of my hand, oh wow.
- 24:00Coach Polly Mertens: And I was like and how I could relate to something that I can hold in my hand.
- 24:03Coach Polly Mertens: Very different, like it's not bigger than me.
- 24:06Coach Polly Mertens: I'm way bigger than it.
- 24:07Coach Sam Pruitt: I can do something about this.
- 24:09Coach Polly Mertens: You know just that internal representation, the visualizing, the, you know feeling, the relationship to that debt, the thing, the story I was telling myself about it transformed it.
- 24:21Coach Polly Mertens: So from then on it was like all right, I know what to do.
- 24:24Coach Polly Mertens: And it didn't go away.
- 24:25Coach Polly Mertens: I'm not saying like right not the same dollar sign.
- 24:29Coach Polly Mertens: Debt was sitting in my bank account one moment to the next.
- 24:31Coach Polly Mertens: But my relationship to it, how I felt, my experience of it, dramatically different.
- 24:36Coach Sam Pruitt: You can do that with the relationships too, then yeah, people, other peoples in your life, problem Definitely jobs, yeah, Put the, put the problem.
- 24:45Coach Polly Mertens: Even health, yeah yeah, situations We'll share about that cube, that's one process.
- 24:49Coach Polly Mertens: So do you have any pointers to people if they're, you know, sitting in situations that are leading to pervasive?
- 24:56Coach Polly Mertens: You know the thoughts.
- 24:58Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, have a suggestion, call us.
- 24:59Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, we're coming.
- 25:04Coach Sam Pruitt: Sometimes you really do need some outside help and I think there's a lot of people, unfortunately, that get into isolation and into a cycle of loneliness and really retraction from people who care about them when this is happening, because there is a lot of shame and blame and guilt and all of these things that will only further compound the problem Right.
- 25:30Coach Sam Pruitt: So bringing it out into the light, I think, is absolutely critical.
- 25:35Coach Sam Pruitt: Being honest with at least one person that you love and trust, and if there isn't that person, or there's too much shame and blame to go to that person, someone who has no investment or attachment to it, as a sounding board, I think that can be really, really powerful.
- 25:53Coach Sam Pruitt: We're both coaches, so we understand the value of that relationship, you know.
- 25:56Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, but I do think, like you said, taking yourself out self-coaching like that, if nothing else, if you don't feel comfortable sharing, you know whatever's going on, get in the car and drive away.
- 26:07Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, just you know.
- 26:09Coach Polly Mertens: One of the things we've talked about on our own is about the importance of your environment.
- 26:13Coach Sam Pruitt: Your circles Massive.
- 26:16Coach Polly Mertens: Let's talk about circles, friends, friends family, friends, family Right, like those people.
- 26:23Coach Sam Pruitt: You have a million circles in your life, yeah, yeah, whether you're a woman or not, and you need to look at them.
- 26:27Coach Polly Mertens: You know, one thing people often tell me is like I can't like just own my family or whatever.
- 26:32Coach Polly Mertens: I'm like, yeah, but you can minimize the amount of time.
- 26:35Coach Polly Mertens: You can, you know, change the percentage of time you're spending with these people and some people say, no, I can't, they're just a a gobble up all my time.
- 26:44Coach Polly Mertens: That's you letting them Feeding the turkey.
- 26:48Coach Sam Pruitt: Yes, yeah.
- 26:49Coach Polly Mertens: So recognizing if you have friends in your life or colleagues or circles.
- 26:53Coach Polly Mertens: If you can't exit Sejal Eft, if you can't change that, break that like, can't own those, those circles can keep you stuck, though.
- 27:01Coach Sam Pruitt: I mean they're sticky and muddy and messy and it's.
- 27:04Coach Sam Pruitt: You've got to definitely examine if there are circles you need to leave permanently.
- 27:10Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah.
- 27:11Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, so taking stock, you know, like where in my life is the, are the external people in my life, because that's very important, those people are.
- 27:20Coach Polly Mertens: That's huge.
- 27:20Coach Polly Mertens: It's critical, the way that they're shaping your life, whether you know it or not.
- 27:24Coach Polly Mertens: So take inventory.
- 27:25Coach Polly Mertens: Can I exit the relationship?
- 27:28Coach Polly Mertens: Can I find new relationships?
- 27:30Coach Polly Mertens: Can I reprioritize the time I spend in any of these relationships, and am I willing to If you?
- 27:37Coach Sam Pruitt: stay in them, even though maybe they're not serving you.
- 27:40Coach Sam Pruitt: Can you have solid boundaries?
- 27:42Coach Sam Pruitt: Around what you will and will not engage in conversation time, et cetera.
- 27:47Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think also with yourself, you know.
- 27:50Coach Polly Mertens: So some of the things that people will do is they'll hermit themselves, they'll hide away and we have this thing called a pandemic.
- 27:58Coach Sam Pruitt: People got really good at this skill, yeah, yeah, so let's all make awareness too.
- 28:02Coach Sam Pruitt: Maybe we are still hermiting.
- 28:04Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, and where are you?
- 28:06Coach Polly Mertens: Where is you spending too much time with you?
- 28:09Coach Polly Mertens: Not helpful, right.
- 28:11Coach Polly Mertens: Where is it going a little off course, yeah.
- 28:15Coach Sam Pruitt: If you're not loving yourself right now, would you spend all that time with somebody who is not loving on you?
- 28:22Coach Polly Mertens: And I, you know not this isn't the solution for everyone, but you know, definitely one of the fastest.
- 28:28Coach Polly Mertens: What's it cures for depression.
- 28:30Coach Polly Mertens: Or you know ways to counteract that, because often the deepest, darkest emotions that we're experiencing are because we're overly obsessed with our problem, like whether I would just describe this you know skyscraper, you know size problem, or we just are thinking about it constantly.
- 28:46Coach Polly Mertens: Right, rumination, Can you get out of overthinking about yourself for a minute?
- 28:50Coach Polly Mertens: Right, can you go give back to someone you know, make a phone call, help a friend, check in with other people who?
- 28:56Coach Polly Mertens: Maybe you're going through other things?
- 28:57Coach Polly Mertens: Right, like, you feel like you've got it bad.
- 28:59Coach Polly Mertens: Well, you know, maybe somebody else is having some problems too.
- 29:03Coach Polly Mertens: And when we feel like we're a contribution, we're a gift, we're support to other people, it can radically transform a the focus you're not focusing on your Right, don't go join another pity party.
- 29:16Coach Sam Pruitt: That's not what we're suggesting.
- 29:17Coach Sam Pruitt: Go find a positive circle, whether it's people you don't even know random strangers at the coffee shop start a conversation you never know how that's going to go or people that you know have high vibes, like going to the gym or going somewhere where those people in general are positive and crushing life.
- 29:35Coach Polly Mertens: Maybe you need to go hang out there and rub up against them, and it can be one person, it can be one person, totally One person that, as you talk with them, either you're helping them.
- 29:45Coach Polly Mertens: So your focus is not on your problem.
- 29:48Coach Polly Mertens: For a change, perhaps, and then helping them get into their life.
- 29:52Coach Polly Mertens: Like they get you out of what's wrong with me in my life and into how can I be of service.
- 29:57Coach Sam Pruitt: How can I help another?
- 29:58Coach Polly Mertens: soul and that can really kind of break that pattern that sometimes we find ourselves over-ruminating on our own problem.
- 30:06Coach Polly Mertens: So those are some ways, so let us know Do you have other ideas.
- 30:10Coach Polly Mertens: What would you do to get out of this?
- 30:12Coach Polly Mertens: But I think, recognizing that there are moments that not always are awesome.
- 30:21Coach Sam Pruitt: And it's okay.
- 30:22Coach Polly Mertens: Where is the gift in it?
- 30:23Coach Polly Mertens: Wondering what's trying to happen here, telling yourself new stories or asking new questions, better questions?
- 30:30Coach Polly Mertens: What if everything is always working out for me?
- 30:32Coach Polly Mertens: I wonder where this is going, recognizing that maybe you are having a pity moment or something is.
- 30:39Coach Polly Mertens: Just Take that moment.
- 30:41Coach Sam Pruitt: I have one more tool I'd like to add to the toolbox Please, please, okay, because many a day things are not going awesome in the world for all of us, as we said.
- 30:51Coach Sam Pruitt: But what if you can just find one thing today to do for yourself that feels awesome?
- 31:00Coach Sam Pruitt: So I have my things that make me feel good.
- 31:04Coach Sam Pruitt: Right, and sometimes they're really, really small, like stopping in the middle of a really hard day when I'm stressed out or pissed off or whatever, and hitting the pause button and going and getting my favorite latte at my favorite coffee shop or whatever, carving that out.
- 31:20Coach Sam Pruitt: That didn't solve all of my problems and it surely did not, course, correct my entire life, but that one little gift of awesomeness that I gave to myself completely changed my physiological state.
- 31:35Coach Polly Mertens: Yes, Interrupting the pattern.
- 31:37Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, interrupting the pattern.
- 31:38Coach Sam Pruitt: That's what it is Right, and it could be around nourishment for the physical body or a spiritual nourishment or whatever.
- 31:46Coach Sam Pruitt: It could be a really, really small thing, like one thing I see you do frequently is give love on your cats and receive love on your cats.
- 31:55Coach Sam Pruitt: Talk about a pattern.
- 31:57Coach Polly Mertens: Inruption.
- 31:58Coach Sam Pruitt: I mean, a furry animal is loving on you.
- 32:01Coach Sam Pruitt: That's so massive Right, so sometimes it's seeking out that small thing.
- 32:07Coach Sam Pruitt: That really is a huge, awesome gift, absolutely.
- 32:12Coach Polly Mertens: And just recognizing.
- 32:13Coach Polly Mertens: You know one of my little things I find myself when I can't get away or break something.
- 32:20Coach Polly Mertens: I just get out of my head.
- 32:23Coach Polly Mertens: It can be as simple as I don't have to think about this right now.
- 32:28Coach Sam Pruitt: So how do you turn it off though?
- 32:31Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, I'll go think about something else I'll go do something else Walk away from the computer Walk away from the cell phone.
- 32:39Coach Sam Pruitt: Walk away from the family, that's going, you know, hog wild in the game room or whatever they're all doing while you're trying.
- 32:45Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah.
- 32:46Coach Polly Mertens: Yeah, there you go so oftentimes.
- 32:47Coach Polly Mertens: You know the stuckness is pretty routinely created when you're alone with yourself.
- 32:53Coach Polly Mertens: So you're alone with yourself, you're ruminating on the problem or magnifying the problems like stacking yourself and it's like no wonder you feel like that.
- 33:03Coach Polly Mertens: It's like you know what I don't just like.
- 33:06Coach Polly Mertens: You know like if somebody serves you a big old buffet of food that you don't want to eat, you're like I don't need to eat.
- 33:12Coach Sam Pruitt: No, thank you, no, thank you.
- 33:14Coach Polly Mertens: Your mind is serving up all the crap in your life and you're like not going to think about that right now.
- 33:18Coach Polly Mertens: What else can you do?
- 33:20Coach Polly Mertens: Right?
- 33:20Coach Polly Mertens: And for some people, like when I was when I was coaching my eating disorder clients, I was like have 10 other things that you can do.
- 33:26Coach Sam Pruitt: Right, like what are 10 other ways that you can.
- 33:28Coach Polly Mertens: What else you know?
- 33:29Coach Polly Mertens: Like you said, pet your cat, go for whatever.
- 33:31Coach Polly Mertens: That is usually situational, so brilliant.
- 33:34Coach Polly Mertens: Do something else.
- 33:34Coach Polly Mertens: But one of my favorites is just drop the damn thinking, just let it go Like course correct, Change thought.
- 33:42Coach Polly Mertens: We're not thinking about this Like turn on a song, turn on a TV, go outside, look out the window instead of looking, you know, at the floor or your navel or whatever the hell you're focusing on oh my God, what's our takeaway for our audience today, polly?
- 33:59Coach Polly Mertens: Well, you know, I know we've said this before, but I think really you know we do honor that.
- 34:04Coach Polly Mertens: Awesome isn't always right.
- 34:07Coach Sam Pruitt: But it can be every day, yes.
- 34:10Coach Polly Mertens: You know you can find it.
- 34:11Coach Polly Mertens: So you know, maybe you need an opportunity to start again.
- 34:13Coach Polly Mertens: But takeaway is the power is within you.
- 34:16Coach Polly Mertens: Change the thought, change the focus, change the meaning, change the story, change the location, change the environment.
- 34:22Coach Polly Mertens: Something and recognizing how do you want to feel now?
- 34:25Coach Polly Mertens: Now now and that's within your control.
- 34:28Coach Polly Mertens: I love that.
- 34:30Coach Sam Pruitt: Yeah, hey, remember beautiful humans.
- 34:32Coach Sam Pruitt: How your life feels is way more important than how it looks, and every day is an opportunity to find your awesome.
- 34:41Coach Polly Mertens: All right, let's get at it.
- 34:42Coach Polly Mertens: Thanks, guys.
- 34:43Coach Polly Mertens: Bye.