Latest / Unstuck with Bill / Unstuck With Bill - Clearing negative self-beliefs part 2
Transcript
- speaker-0: Mm-hmm. With my mom, she always gave me the sense that I was gonna hurt myself. ⁓ that everything was dangerous. And it gave me a sense of just pause, right? In terms of you know, that your your podcast is called Unstuck. Well, there's nothing that will get you stuck more than being frozen in fear. speaker-1: I'm Bill Ferguson III. For more than 20 years as a mediator, I've helped people move through conflict, uncertainty, and change. This is Unstuck With Bill, the podcast where we don't just talk about problems, we give you the techniques to get unstuck. Tim from Los Angeles is back. Last time, we explored the challenge of feeling like he didn't belong, despite his accomplishments. Today we'll see what shifted. And how he's learning to own his place at the table. Hi Tim, thanks for coming back. It's good to see you. speaker-0: Thanks for having me. It's good to be back. speaker-1: So the last time we spoke, we gave you a pretty specific set of things to work on, clearing out those old voices and then rewriting them. What actually happened when you did that work? speaker-0: ⁓ well it was very interesting. ⁓ so I ⁓ I did exactly what the instruction said and I went in and they weren't always voices, they were just almost like feelings. that I gave words to. ⁓ you know, like what does this crappy feeling feel like? ⁓ and then I would write that down. and in some cases speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: They were delivered by more than one person. Again, not in those exact words sometimes. Right. speaker-1: Same through same theme kind of or speaker-0: Yeah, just the the the lesson that I got from the interaction and the relationship. speaker-1: Okay, gotcha. speaker-0: And ⁓ and then and I'm sure you've already told the audience or reminded the audience what my ⁓ lesson was what or my tool was, ⁓ but I did go down and write the backstory and ⁓ specifically on my family members, I've done a lot of research, ⁓ even going back to like my great grandparents in Ireland. Yeah, ⁓ and I've also speaker-1: ⁓ wow. speaker-0: ⁓ you know, studied ⁓ generational trauma as and specifically how it affects me. Right. so it helped to inform the backstory of for instance my mom. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: And ⁓ you know, I know what her father was like. I knew her mom, my grandmother, but I never met my grandfather. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And I was able to go back ⁓ all the way to her grandfather, my great grandfather. speaker-1: Wow. speaker-0: and what the echoes of his choices were. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: ⁓ and it was a it was an emotional process to think, you know, I'm home now in in Boston to my mom's eighty nine now and the roles have reversed. and ⁓ so I take care of her and it gave me just ⁓ a lot of compassion. speaker-1: Right. That's amazing. speaker-0: Yeah. How those messages were things that she believed. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And oftentimes for things that she thought would help. speaker-1: ⁓ that's an interesting perspective, yeah. speaker-0: I can give examples if you want, I have them all written down. speaker-1: Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah. It helps people understand like how you got there and and some of the details to it, right? speaker-0: Yeah, I won't go through the all of it 'cause it's quite extensive. I'll ⁓ I'll I'll pick a few the highlights, the topic. Yeah. So with my mom with my mom, she always gave me the sense that I was gonna hurt myself. ⁓ that everything was dangerous. And it gave me a sense of just pause, right? In terms of you know, that your your podcast is called Unstuck. speaker-1: No, I know, but that's that's the There we go. speaker-0: Well there's nothing that will get you stuck more than being frozen in fear. speaker-1: True. I have a whole technique for that. speaker-0: ⁓ good. I'll do another one. But ⁓ yeah, so you're gonna hurt yourself. So I I thought about ⁓ and and wrote about her father, who was a World War One veteran. He was a Canadian county and he fought in the Battle of Vimy, which is kind of like the equivalent of our D Day. Okay. speaker-1: Okay. speaker-0: Big, big battle, World War One battle. And the reason that I know about that battle is because I he wrote an essay about it and I ended up finding it at my mom's house once and I read it. So he was a writer, which I did speaker-1: There you go. Doesn't fall very far, does it? speaker-0: It doesn't. And what he wrote about was absolutely horrific. and I have always been ⁓ I've had I've had a World War One phobia, for lack of a better word. Like when I read Johnny Gotta Gun in high school, I remember being deeply affected by it. Right. Which is set in World War One. even like the Wonder Woman movie that was set in World War One, the first one. Right. with the trench warfare, it's wired into me. ⁓ he became an alcoholic, ⁓ and he ⁓ died of alcoholism. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And I can imagine that that is a lesson that was transmuted to my mom. You know, the world is dangerous. People are violent. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And ⁓ you know, I think my mom learned to conflate, you know, safety with, you know, doing nothing. You know, or or yeah. speaker-1: Sometimes people feel that if they just don't do anything, nothing bad will happen, right? speaker-0: That part. That part. Yeah. So really kind of c curbing your adventurousness. Now my mom, she still lives in the home that she grew up in. She does she has adventure. She's she's had some adventures in her life and I'm I'm proud of her. She really has done a lot of ⁓ things because she you know, she grew up, you know, thinking her life was gonna be Ozzy and Harriet, and I think, you know, most women who grew up with that kind of fifties ideal and then the seventies hit and everything after the sixties and the seventies really right ⁓ it really upended ⁓ her concept of the world. ⁓ so yeah, so I had I had ⁓ a lot of compassion for ⁓ why my mom I mean that's something that she was trying to protect me really in the way that she protected herself. speaker-1: That's why she knew how, based on what she learned, right? speaker-0: the best way she knew how based on what she learned. Absolutely. A thousand percent. ⁓ so I rewrote her backstory. I won't get into the entirety of it, but but I I kept that her, you know, that her dad, you know, fought in World War One, but he ⁓ he got sober and he learned how to talk about his feelings and talk about what he went through with other veterans and help other veterans. ⁓ And that helped him to process everything that he experienced and to grieve and and and fully ⁓ experience it so he could process it through, you know, his his psyche and his body really. That stuff really gets trapped in there. Right. ⁓ and then he, you know, raised my ⁓ my mom to be the same way. Sure. You know, to when you're, you know, having tough feelings, talk about them, feel them, ⁓ and don't be afraid. speaker-1: There you go. So how does how does that feel now for you moving forward, having looked at their history and then rewriting it so how it would flow through to your feelings and and what you're trying to do? speaker-0: ⁓ it it was I mean ultimately these are all stories, right? Right. You know, the stories were told and then the ones that we learn to tell ourselves. So ⁓ correct telling that different story, really allowed me to ⁓ to be, you know, to to really I mean, cause fear is fear is very kind of for me at least, it comes from a very deep place. It's not something I can usually consciously control. Right. ⁓ you know, I can to some degree. But ⁓ but you know, there was kind of a ⁓ a test, I guess I would say. I have terrible stage fright and I had a an event where there were like two hundred and fifty people, many of them drunk, ⁓ and I had to get up on stage and say something. And and before that I was kind of hosting the event, making sure people got parked, making sure people got, you know, in the in the venue. speaker-1: Right. speaker-0: And ⁓ Bill, I was I was I had the time in my life. I did not feel ⁓ afraid. speaker-1: That's fantastic. I just speaker-0: And I repeated so the the the phrase that my mom said, which is you're gonna hurt yourself, ⁓ I rephrased and I don't I don't remember if this was in the instructors, I think it was. It is, okay. so her alternative ⁓ message was you're brave and your courage will be rewarded. speaker-1: Yeah, it is. And there you go. You got the time of your life. speaker-0: And I had the time of my life, and I felt ⁓ I was able to take in people's ⁓ positive feelings towards me, you know, which in the past I would have been suspicious of, right? Whether it's good or bad, if it's focused on me, it's dangerous, right? ⁓ I was able to take it in, and there were some people who were upset that they weren't able to bring alcohol into the theater, and I had to tell them no. And I was also able to deal with. speaker-1: Right, right. speaker-0: But with that negative feedback without ⁓ without really it affecting me at all. So yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, well in that particular circumstance that wasn't about you, that was about them, right? Something they wanted to do that they knew they couldn't but they were still gonna push a boundary. Right. speaker-0: They were gonna push a boundary. I mean, to be fair to them, the bartenders told them they could and they weren't. speaker-1: Yeah, not the job. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: It may be. They wanted to sell that drink, I guess. speaker-1: Yeah, ⁓ true. It's true. So now using Go ahead, sorry. No no. speaker-0: ⁓ I I have and I had three other sort of people from the past, or maybe four. I know I I'm sure we have limited time, but I'm happy to go over any. speaker-1: The other one. We're good. so with this exercise and now moving forward with your writing and your other projects, where is that is it feel like something that is now more a part of you? Like going forward you can you can take this forward. ⁓ speaker-0: Yes. there you know, there's a few projects that I have in the pipeline. ⁓ one of them is a film and ⁓ I usually don't like to ask people for anything and I asked a friend to pass along the script to ⁓ an up and coming actress and ⁓ and she was happy to do it. and ⁓ right now ⁓ her manager's reading it, so ⁓ you know, it may seem to people who are ⁓ used to, you know, just being able to approach people and ask them for things, you know, but that's not usually easy ⁓ for me to do. ⁓ and I just don't feel I don't feel constrained ⁓ by that particular fear that I'm gonna hurt myself, right? I mean if we're just sticking with that one of you know, several. ⁓ you know, there's others that are like, You're gonna make a fool of yourself, everyone's gonna laugh, or blah, blah, blah. And then I have counter messages for all of those. speaker-1: There you go. That's great. That's that's fantastic. That's fantastic. So then going forward, you know, you you have changed the stories, you know, and and now and you've taken something from that that you can change your own direction with, right? what's gonna be and I'm asking for a reason, but what's what would what will be your point of reference when when ⁓ something kind of feels like it's going backwards? Like how it's speaker-0: When something feels like it's going back speaker-1: So like for example, you asked about the script, right? Would you s you know, let's use that as an example. And ⁓ the person was happy to do it, but then the next person says, Well, why would I do that? Or I'm not comfortable or understanding that they have may have a reason, but how are you gonna feel and react to that, do you think? speaker-0: Sure, sure. Well, one of the ⁓ one of the ⁓ core rewired messages I have and it's very foundational is that ⁓ I deserve to exist and I deserve to take up space. And you know there's a whole road that get that gets to that affirmation, but that's pretty much become when nothing else will do like that one absolutely. will slay any ⁓ negative feelings that I'm sending towards myself. Like that it that one I didn't get originally through the exercise. It came to me at the tail end. I sort of walked back to like, ⁓ where'd I get that message from? ⁓ what's the bad like so I I went backwards on on on that one. and ⁓ speaker-1: Right. Sure. speaker-0: And so I don't I don't really ⁓ I don't think that setbacks are going to be an issue. speaker-1: Well, derail you like the past. speaker-0: Or derail me. Yeah. Because it doesn't hit that if it doesn't if it hits one of those stories, and there's only so many, Bill. I mean, that's the thing that's really great about this exercise is that they're finite. When you're when you're not writing them down and ⁓ walking through them consciously, you think, ⁓ my god, it's just I'm I'm anxious, and there's like just like this ball of speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah, there you go. speaker-0: nervousness and teasing them apart you know, and assigning them sort of counter messages and you know, really the backstory I think was the biggest thing for me. I think that like rewriting the backstory, because every other piece of the tool in some to some degree I've done, you know, positive thinking. Sure. Well, you know, they had a bad they had a bad childhood. They didn't mean it. But rewriting their backstory. For me was the key. Because it's it's just it's unique, it's not ⁓ it's it is not something I've tried before. And speaker-1: There go. That's great. A lot of people have never heard of it, and I find it's very effective in in many circumstances, very specific circumstances, it could be very effective. So I'm glad it I'm glad it was for you. So I want to add something to your arsenal now that you have an arsenal. Because ⁓ I have this other technique, you know, because I'm always gonna show other techniques, right? But have a technique I call action review and course correction. And you've kind of already talked about it in in your position about what you would do if somebody you tried to present a script and somebody says, No, I don't want to do that. You by presenting it, which is a the biggest hurdle that you probably had prior to work doing the first exercise, was asking people. So now you're in a position where you're okay with the action of asking or the action of standing up for yourself or the action of, you know, whatever it may be. ⁓ and what I find with this next technique is that ⁓ When you do an action, a lot of people internalize how it goes. Well, if they you know, if that friend won't give the script, you know, then it has something to do with me or they think I'm a bad writer or whatever. You know, you know what I'm saying? That kind of that's where you ⁓ a lot of people can go when they put themselves out there, like you said. ⁓ but what I always say with this technique is the action is movement. And what you do with that, sometimes it'll be successful movement, you don't have to do anything. And sometimes you step back and review the action. And again, in the case of let our example we're using and you give a script to somebody and they're not comfortable sharing it with somebody, you know, somebody that might be able to help push it forward. The review is not has to do with you, right? The review and action, review course correction is, okay, let me think about where where they're at or why they might be uncomfortable with this. And then A, they're A, maybe I can do another action to make them comfortable, ⁓ including just let no, hey, I don't expect anything of this, you know, and and you know, I don't want to be pushy or whatever. ⁓ but that's the course correction part. Or B, you start with a whole new action to move whatever it is you're trying to move forward. ⁓ I mean you've you started that and you had a successful output, but you're going to continue to find ⁓ as you do things you wouldn't normally have in the past been comfortable with that sometimes you'll get pushback. And the key is remember that the review part of that is not saying, ⁓ what did I do wrong or what's wrong with me? It's ⁓ let me review why it was a no or why it didn't work this time and it worked last time. Right. So I'm offering that because you know it's the neck kind of the next step with where you're at. when things, you know, you when you in this new position of feeling comfortable doing it, then all of a sudden one, two, or three times in a row, it's like, ⁓ wait a minute, these actions aren't getting me anywhere. ⁓ does that make sense? Is the way I'm explaining the technique make sense? speaker-0: It it does and in a sense it's it's similar in when you're saying, you know, like where are they coming from? It is it's kind of it's not exactly backstory, it's it's but it's looking at it from their perspective and not making assumptions, you know, and not centering myself, which is, you know, I I one one thing that I've learned is when y it's like, you know, even if you're like everyone hates me and I'm so terrible, you're still centering yourself, you know. It's like it's it's really It's just another form of narcissism. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Reverse narcissism. Yeah. Reverse narcissism. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-0: Personarchis. and you know, to to just look at it, you know, kind of like ⁓ I I remember I I had a a job interview and I got to the top three out of hundreds and ⁓ I went and I I had lunch with the ⁓ the woman who I was her number one choice, but I was not her staff's number one choice. And I asked her, I said, What what could I have done better? ⁓ and I think that that was a really speaker-1: ⁓ speaker-0: helpful exercise to do just to, you know, not tell stories because the the other story you can say is like, ⁓ they are terrible and they have no taste and you know speaker-1: But you did the review. You did the review part of the action. I did. By asking speaker-0: If you in that yeah, I sure did. speaker-1: And then the next time something came up, I'm sure you then you took that into account when you were speaker-0: I learned that I didn't want to do that job anymore. speaker-1: ⁓ there you go. That's ev that's a force correction too, right? speaker-0: So I'm retiring next year. I just stayed with the job I had and realized what I wanted to do was write anyway. Right. And I think you know, sometimes the Greek chorus is telling you no because you're not where you're supposed to be. speaker-1: Right. Right. speaker-0: What it did tell me i is that I was good enough to get to the top three. and so it countered the negative e the negativity I had about where I was in my current job and I felt much more confident in that job going forward. speaker-1: And then you made a decision how you want to finish out your career. So there you go. Cour that's so that's that was an action, a review, and a course correction, all I'm just saying. Yes. speaker-0: Correct. I mean how at that, but I love that it's a thing. speaker-1: Yeah, it is a thing. So ⁓ so this is great. I'm glad this worked. I'm glad it's helping you move forward. That's that's the techniques are all about forward motion. ⁓ like I said, at at some point if if you want to come back on and talk about the fear mapping technique and how that's used, if you have some places where you're finding fear is getting back in the way of certain things. ⁓ we can have a whole nother episode on that. It's a great technique. ⁓ and it You know, a lot of my techniques build on each other. You know, some come before, some come after, depending on the person's circumstances. But what most people realize is if they understand the technique and how to use them, they can kinda, as we like to say, choose your own adventure. You know, here's the techniques and you pick which one to do in certain order and things like that. So ⁓ But I'm glad this worked and I appreciate you coming back on and have a great visit with your mom. speaker-0: Thank you so much for having me. This was a great speaker-1: And anytime you want to come back on and and move forward with something else, I'm here. We're all about getting people on stuff. So All right, Tim, have a great rest of your day. Before we wrap up, I want to leave you with one thought. Many of us are carrying messages that were handed to us years ago. Messages about who we are, what we're capable of, what we should be afraid of. And often we've been carrying these messages for so long that we stopped. questioning where they came from. What stood out to me about Tim's journey is that he didn't just challenge those messages, he became curious about them. He looked at the people who gave them to him and asked what experiences, fears, and beliefs may have shaped them in the first place. And something interesting happened. The messages didn't necessarily disappear, but they lost some of their authority. Because understanding creates compassion. And compassion has a way of losing the grip of old stories. The people who shaped us may explain some of what we believe, but they don't get to decide what we believe forever. So if there's a message you've been carrying about yourself for years, maybe spend a little time asking where it came from. You might discover that it belongs more to someone else's story than it does your own. Thanks for joining us on Unstuck With Bill. I'm Bill Ferguson III and I'll see you next time. To learn more about my Unstuck techniques, or if you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, visit UnstuckWithBill.com. My latest book, Unstuck, How to Move Forward When You Don't Know What to Do, is available now on Amazon.com. And be sure to follow me on social media at Unstuck With Bill. Unstuck With Bill is produced by Unstuck Productions LLC.