Your Automatic Life

Photo by Alex Knight from Pexels

The conscious brain occupies 17 percent of total brain mass (about one-sixth of the brain’s weight), yet controls only 2 to 4 percent of actual perceptions or behavior. The nonconscious brain occupies 83 percent (about five-sixths) of total brain mass and controls 96 to 98 percent of perception and behavior.          John Assaraf and Murray Smith, The Answer

 

Life on Automatic

The human brain evolved over time to give us every possible survival advantage. Because the nonconscious brain handles the overwhelming majority of what we perceive and do, most of us live a ground hog day life. We repeat the same thoughts, feelings, actions, and outcomes day after day, year after year.

This evolutionary survival feature must have been designed to keep us alive long enough to procreate. Most experts agree that humans have roamed the planet for about six million years, give or take, so it seems like its working.

Automaticity /ˌɔːtəməˈtɪsɪti/ is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice.   Wikipedia

If you like the life you have, then the automaticity of your life is working well for you. But if you don’t like the life you have, automaticity is a problem to solve.

If you would like your life to change, then the automatic patterns of your life will have to change. To change your automatic patterns, it will help to understand how an automatic life becomes automatic.

We’re blessed with the ability to connect the dots. When something good happens, we want to be able to repeat the experience. When something bad happens, we want to avoid it. In either case, success depends on accurately identifying the cause of what happens.

For example, if I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar when I was a kid, and was punished by my mother, I would want to avoid that experience in the future. I might make the experience mean…

• that I wasn’t sneaky enough,
• that women are punitive,
• that wanting what I want isn’t worth the risk of trying to get it, or any number of other explanations.

As a result of my dot connecting, I may refine my sneaking skills, avoid women, or decide to settle for cookie crumbs rather than pursuing what I really want.

While this is an oversimplified example, it illustrates how an automatic life happens. It also provides clues for how to exchange the automatic life you have for the automatic life you want.

If the story you made up to explain how that bad thing happened resulted in an automatic disempowering thought, feeling, or behavior, it’s possible to make up a better story. Replacing automatic thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (habits) with new ones will change the trajectory of your life. How to change a habit can be found in Charles Duhigg’s book, The Power of Habit and James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits. Both resources provide science-backed clarity about this.

Telling a better story may require a degree of conscious attention greater than what is available, however. Changing a habit by overriding your nonconscious brain with your conscious brain requires leveraging your conscious brain long enough for the habit to change. Remember, the conscious brain handles only 2 to 4 percent of your perception and behavior. This can be frustrating if life serves up a big heaping helping of fresh, steamy drama, that steals your conscious attention and stops you from sustaining your new story long enough to change the habit.

Habit 2 of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey is “Begin with the end in mind.” If you’re not happy with your automatic life, start to imagine the life you would rather be living. With an inspiring vision of your desired life, you can work backwards with clarity and purpose.

Just like building a house, the construction of the life you want starts with a blueprint. That’s what it means to start with the end in mind. A blueprint will save you a lot of mistakes. You wouldn’t want to build the roof before digging the hole for the foundation. It won’t work well to dig that hole before tapping into the utilities. It may cost you dearly to tap into the utilities before securing the correct zoning and building permits.

If you’re thinking about how to go about having the life you want, consider these steps.

Step 1 – Reset the automatic programming that is creating the life you already have.

Most of the beliefs (thought habits) that drive the feelings and behaviors for the life you already have were formed when you were young and dependent. In your naive and innocent mind, you made up stories to explain what hurt you and what scared you. These cause-and-effect stories enabled you to formulate strategies to protect yourself. If you hadn’t come up with strategies to comfort yourself, the helplessness may have overwhelmed you.

Of course, you are no longer dependent and vulnerable. But your nonconscious brain may not know that. Those parts of you that operate these outdated strategies live in your nonconscious brain and never got the memo that you’re now an independent adult, living a safe life and perfectly capable of taking care of yourself.

Step 2 – Design the life you want.

Maybe you aren’t as clear about the life you want as you are about the life you don’t want. That’s okay. Start there. Make a list of what you don’t want. Use that list to consider what an opposite life would look like. Then find the life you want somewhere between those two extremes.

Vision boards are great too. They can be created with poster board, using drawings, and magazine cutouts. Or build one virtually using processes that can be found online for free.

The most important reason for creating a vision board is to have a clear picture about the life you want. Clear doesn’t mean perfect. Just begin to imagine what your life would look like if you could have the life you want and dare to believe it might be possible.

As you take steps to complete the past and create the the future you want, your vision will evolve.

Step 3- Accumulate the materials, skills, and support required to build the life you want.

The beliefs that drive the life you already have were formed over a lifetime and are made up of a dynamic tapestry of experiences and assumptions. Each experience and the meanings that resulted are seamed together to create the life you have. A reorganization of this information and these experiences can be facilitated when viewed from a new, empowering perspective.

This perspective can be found in the wisdom of those outside your current sphere of influence. An experienced guide is an important element of your transformation. Gather a support team of fellow travelers, authors, speakers, therapists, support groups, coaches, and compassionate loved ones.

You may have to borrow the energy of your support group as you dig deep to do your work.

Step 4 – Begin building the life you want as you heal and let go of the life you already have.

This process is not especially linear. You will be taking many of these steps simultaneously. Building the life you want, however, does require some initial groundwork. When you have…

• gotten into the habit of resetting the beliefs that run the life you already have,
• designed the life you want, and
• created adequate support for your journey,

you will have reached a state of readiness and can start building the life you want.

Pulling out your blueprints, put your project manager hat on. What needs to happen first, next, and last? How will you know it’s time to move to the next phase of the project? What are the milestones that will mark your progress?

Summary

If you don’t like the automatic life you have now, you don’t have to settle for it anymore.

Before I transformed my life, there were giants who had already blazed the trail. Their experience and wisdom gave me know-how, support, confidence, and enough commitment to stick to the process long enough to arrive at my destination – the automatic life I want. I haven’t taken this journey alone and you don’t have to either. I’m standing on the shoulders of the giants who blazed the trail for me. Those shoulders are broad and there’s room for you too.

You have done a good job of surviving the life you’ve had. And when you’re ready, you can start building the life you want. May you have an exciting and rewarding journey!

Resources

I’ve borrowed, adapted, or created several tools, distinctions, and exercises to help my coaching clients with each of these steps. They include:

• The Personal Empowerment Exercise; to understand and leverage the impact of your conscious attention.
• Four Steps to a New Perspective; cleaning your lens to reclaim your power
• Climb the Ladder; quickly elevate your perspective to get the bigger picture.
• Outcome by Design; reverse engineering for the results you want.
• How Thoughts Create Results; understanding how it works behind the curtain of your psyche
• The Mindset Reset Coaching Curriculum; incorporating all these tools and more.
• True Self Leadership Coaching Curriculum; based on the Internal Family Systems therapy model to restore your innate power and wisdom.
• The Life Categories Self Evaluation; establish a baseline and measure your progress.
• 39 Vision Questions; to begin the process of creating a vison of the life you want.
• Take it On; to further your exploration of what you would change in your life if you could.
• Relationship Ratings; to help evaluate your level of satisfaction in relationships.
• Writing a One Year Vision; putting it all on paper.  This is the blueprint.
• Project identification. What are the three to four most important projects to begin working on now? What will be accomplished? How will it be measured? When will it be completed?
• Project motivation. What is important about each project in building the life you want?
• Project milestones. How will you know you are making sufficient progress and moving in the direction of the life you want?
• Project strategies. What strategies will you employ to complete your projects?
• What’s Next, What’s Important. A project managers best friend for staying organized and efficient.

 

Healthy Communication

  

Image by John Hain from Pixabay

Developing healthy relationships can be challenging. What if you had a technique to follow that would help you create a healthy relationship with anyone who is capable of and interested in having a healthy relationship with you?

There is a principle in sales that people won’t buy from you unless they know you, like you, and trust you. While I agree that this is true, it’s also true that people aren’t likely to feel that they know you, like you, or trust you until you create an environment to engender that kind of relationship.

To foster than environment, do what you can to help them feel known and liked by you. They will be far more open to getting to know you and far more likely to find things that they like about you. Don’t think of this as a manipulation. Think of it as an acknowledgement of how most human beings like to be treated.

This principle is certainly not limited to developing a relationship to make a sale. It applies to building any healthy relationship. It’s impossible to have a healthy relationship when mutual trust does not exist.

A healthy relationship is like a healthy body. If you have a healthy body, you can fight off disease, have sufficient energy and stamina, and are free of toxins and addictions. A healthy relationship includes many of the following elements. The relationship…

• has room for disagreements and misunderstandings,
• generates positive energy,
• inspires commitment,
• embraces differences,
• generates safety,
• encourages authenticity,
• considers the well-being of both parties equally,
• is honest and fair,
• values each individual,
• welcomes alternative perspectives,
• is mutually respectful, and
• is built on trust.

 

If you are in a relationship that lacks any or all of these qualities, don’t despair. It may take some time, but these qualities can be developed with positive intention and a commitment to learning new communication skills.

Healthy relationships are built on trust. If you have damaged trust in a relationship, you will need to restore it proactively. Contrary to popular belief, time does not heal all wounds. Over time, the wounds from the past hurt less because we think about the injury less often. If trust is to be restored, the injury must be acknowledged, and any damages repaired. Otherwise, the forgotten injury will get jabbed from time to time and the pain will be reactivated.

Even in healthy relationships, it’s almost impossible to have untarnished trust. Feelings get hurt. Disagreements trigger angry and hurtful words. Beliefs clash. Expectations go unmet. Assumptions are made. Tensions build, using up our capacity for love and tolerance. Life unfolds and activates unhealed wounds that predate the relationship.

Having a healthy relationship doesn’t mean doing everything perfectly. It does, however, require that both parties have grace and patience for mistakes.

To restore or maintain trust in any relationship, it is critical to establish open and honest communication.

And the most important part of communication in a healthy relationship is listening. The following is a step by step process that can be employed to develop healthy communication.

You don’t have to wait for there to be tension or conflict in the relationship to use this method. I suggest that you use this technique to reduce the frequency of tension and conflict and to maintain peace and connection in the relationship.

Set an intention to listen and learn about your partner in the relationship. Your partner may be your spouse, significant other, child, coworker, friend, employer, business partner, or any of the relationships you have in your life. Commit to providing a safe and trusting environment for the relationship to develop and grow. Bring as much curiosity and authenticity as you can to the conversation.

Here is a step by step guide to healthy communication.

Step 1.  Be willing to listen first. Don’t be concerned about being heard until your partner feels seen, heard, understood, and appreciated for what they have shared with you. Do you see them? What do you see? (body language, eye contact, physical distance, tone of voice, etc.)  Check out your interpretations of what you see with statements and questions like…

• “I’m noticing __________ and I’m making up that__________. Is that what is happening.?”
• “I’m imagining that you are/ feel / intend to ________________. Am I reading you right?”

Step 2.  Do you hear what they intend to communicate? As you listen to their words, notice where your own mind travels. Stop them whenever you notice your mind drifting to what you think about what they are saying. Notice when you can no longer listen because you are thinking about what they said 30 seconds ago, or when you got triggered by something they said. Report your experience honestly, then check out your interpretation with statements and questions like…

• “I think I heard ________. Is that accurate?”
• “Can I check something out with you? When you said ___________, I made it mean that _____________. Is that what you meant?”
• “I want to hear all that you are saying but I missed part of it.  Can you rewind back to when you said, ________? I started thinking about what you said at that point and missed the rest.”

Step 3.  Do you understand them? It is easy to assume you understand what they are saying and what they mean by what they are saying. But don’t just assume that you do. From time to time, check it out with statements and questions like…

• “This is what I understand, is that accurate?”
• “So, you’re telling me that ________________. Did I get that right?”
• “Would you be willing to clarify what you mean by __________? I don’t think I’m understanding what you are trying to tell me.”

Step 4.  Do you appreciate them? What do you appreciate about them?  Tell them. If you can’t find something that you appreciate about them, check in with yourself and report what you are experiencing from first person.  For example,

• “I just really appreciate how honest you are being with me right now.”
• “I didn’t realize you felt that way. Thank you for telling me.”
• “Thanks for trusting me to tell me all of this.”

If you find that you feel defensive and want to argue, report that. Don’t pretend that you are appreciative if you are struggling. That might sound like,

• “I’m having a hard time with a couple of the things you said, and I notice that I want to defend myself. But I also want to understand how you see things. Can I check out a couple of things?”

Then use statements and questions like those in steps 1, 2, and 3. You may still want to defend yourself but DON’T. Stay committed to listening and find something you appreciate about your partner as it relates to this conversation.

Step 5.  Make sure that they feel seen, heard, understood, and appreciated. Ask them.

“Do you feel like I see you? Hear you? Understand you?  Appreciate you?”

If the answer is no, you may have to listen more. It may be a good idea to take a break if you feel fatigued or emotionally triggered. Take a short break and come back together from a refreshed state so you can really get your partner.

Step 6.  If you wish to be heard, ask you partner if they will listen. They may answer no. Accept that. If they are willintg to listen, honestly and respectfully tell them what is on your mind.

This technique is certainly not a fix-all. For example, if the relationship is already burdened with unhealed wounds from the past, those will have to be repaired. And using this approach may help to accomplish that if both parties are willing to clean up the past and invest in an honest and healthy relationship.

Breaking the Insecurity Pattern

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Bob started a book group and Nancy agreed to participate. They met every Monday night with four others to discuss the book. Concerned that his opinions may sour the other members of the book group, Bob usually kept quiet and kept his thoughts to himself. When he did speak, he carefully considered the possible consequences of being misunderstood or of accidently making someone uncomfortable.

During one book group, when it was apparent that Nancy had mis-quoted the author, Bob corrected her. He immediately felt a twinge of fear and guilt, but because Nancy thanked him for the clarity provided by his comment, he ignored his discomfort. About 3 AM the next morning, Bob woke up to go to the bathroom and began thinking about his exchange with Nancy. He worried that she had been offended and embarrassed but reasoned that she had hidden it well.

Bob was unable to go back to sleep. He tossed and turned, thinking about how to make things right. By now he was convinced he had offended her and felt unbearable shame. He wondered what she thought of him and what she might do. He didn’t want her to quit the book club. He had to make things right.

Bob knew that Nancy left her house for work around 8:30 AM. He called her just after 8 to smooth things over. When she answered, Bob told her that he was sorry if he had offended or embarrassed her. Nancy was surprised and barely remembered the circumstance. She reassured him that she had not been offended or embarrassed and that she was enjoying the book group.

As Bob hung up, he judged his emotions as childish. He was still afraid that she might be mad at him. Bob patted himself on the back for forcing himself to call Nancy to clear things up. This, he thought was what any mentally stable adult would do, and he had done it despite his “childish” fears.

Bob thought of other instances when he had harmed others. He suspected that Nancy really was upset and was just placating him. He began recalling all the times in the past when he believed he had hurt others, had apologized, and received what he judged as insincere forgiveness. Each time, he believed, those who had offended were just trying to be nice and wanted to put it behind them. In Bob’s mind, they were being gracious and tolerating him.

Managing insecurity is a lot of work.

It is admirable that Bob was willing to call Nancy and clear things up despite his fear.

But there had been nothing to clear up. Bob made it all up. He felt better after talking to Nancy because she reassured him that what he thought happened, had not actually happened at all.

Bob was eventually able to stop worrying about the non-incident.  But he vowed he would redouble his efforts to be more careful in his book group in the future.

This pattern repeats itself several times a week in Bob’s life. What can Bob do about it?  The strategy he used with Nancy seemed to work, but only temporarily. Bob will get triggered again and again. And when he gets triggered, he will react with strategies to put out the flames of shame, guilt and fear. These strategies are designed to reassure and comfort him when he believes he has tarnished his reputation by offending or hurting others.

What is going on with Bob?  

Some of us might say he is being too sensitive and should just stop worrying about what other people think.

We might advise him to learn to love himself more.

We might tell him to just keep his fears and worries to himself.

And we may judge Bob as weak and defective. Maybe he was just born with insecurity, destined to worry about how others see him. He should just toughen up, right?

The truth about Bob

Bob is doing what most of us that deal with insecurity do. We pretend to feel secure and spend a good portion of our lives trying to manage what others think of us.

We all know people like Bob who need constant reassurance that they are loved, cared for, and important. They need to know we aren’t mad at them, that we aren’t judging them, that they matter, that they have value, and that they aren’t too much trouble.

A world full of Bobs

Those who struggle as Bob does sense that they are making more withdrawals than deposits in their relationships. But they don’t know how to break the pattern. They fear that they will eventually overdraw the account and will lose the love and respect of those they care about.

Those like Bob assume that practically everyone else is secure and confident. They are surprised when others act and react as they themselves do.

Despite reassurances, they believe their own version of what you feel toward them and react accordingly.

The sad irony is that those who are close to insecure people eventually run out of the energy required to maintain a relationship with them. Their partners, family, coworkers, and friends stop trying and eventually withdraw their attention and energy. Those in relationships with insecure people ultimately end the relationship or tolerate it from a sense of pity or obligation.

I used to be just like Bob.

I was practically obsessed with what others thought of me and vacillated between avoiding others altogether and smothering those close to me with my needs and demands.

I’m not like Bob anymore. Thanks to the personal development work I have done, I now understand what caused me to be like Bob. And I know what happened that ended the pattern for me.

If you are like I was and like Bob is, it may help you to understand the pattern you’re in so you can understand the problem you are trying to solve.

What problem are you trying to solve?

If you are like Bob, you may think that you are trying to stop feeling unliked, unloved, and insecure. To solve that problem, you try to prevent others from disliking you, try to get them to love you, and try to minimize your painful insecurity.

What do you believe is the cause of the problem?

You may believe that current circumstances are causing you to feel unliked, unloved, and insecure. But current circumstances are most likely only triggers that activate the pain you brought with you into the relationship.

Here’s the pattern I discovered.

1. Something painful happens, usually at a young age (an emotional wound).
2. Expression of the associated emotion is resisted, preventing emotional healing.
3. Energy is invested to suppress the energy behind the emotion. Because the energy of the emotion has not been released, (because the emotion has been suppressed) a constant level of suppressing energy is required to prevent the emotion from being released.
4. Strategies are employed to avoid circumstances that would increase the energetic power behind the suppressed emotion (triggering circumstances).
5. These strategies eventually fail due to a triggering circumstance that overwhelms the defense system.
6. The overwhelming excess emotional energy is vented.
7. Pacifying repair strategies are employed effectively, stopping the energetic leak of emotion and resuming normal defenses in steps 4 and 5, or
8. If pacifying repair strategies fail, or if other triggering occurs, step 7 is repeated. More extreme pacifying repair strategies are required and resorted to. These could include distractions, addictions, and self-harming on a variety of ways.

This pattern repeats until the original wound is healed.

Every step in this pattern prevents the wound from being healed. Beliefs and values are at the core of the defensive strategies designed to suppress the emotion and prevent it from becoming activated again.

Because the emotional wound occurred in the past, it must be healed by retrieving it from the past. Instinctively, to survive painful circumstances, we assign parts of ourselves to hold the energy of unresolved emotions and associated beliefs until the threat of pain passes.  These parts get locked in time, holding the painful emotions habitually even when the painful circumstance has passed. By using the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy model, we can retrieve those parts of ourselves and help them release the pain of the past.

Healing means freedom and expansion

As we heal our historical wounds, the energy and beliefs required to suppress the emotions of these old wounds are released. This creates the internal expansion and freedom required to respond in balanced, healthy, harmonious, and mature ways to the circumstances of our current lives.

After doing enough of this healing work, I am no longer obsessed and insecure. A new and thrilling confidence has emerged and I now have access to inner resources I had no previous awareness of. I’ve been able to help my clients find the same freedom and internal spaciousness by using IFS and other tools that have helped me along the way.

Managing our pain and healing our pain are two different things. You already know how to manage your pain. This is a job that never ends. Bob probably thought he had healed the pain as soon as Nancy told him she wasn’t offended. But he had only managed it by looking outside of himself for validation and reassurance.

Healing your pain puts an end to the need to manage it and frees you up to enjoy your life.

Learn more about Internal Family Systems at www.IFS-Institute.com. You will find me there in the IFS Practitioner Directory.

 

Louise’s Journey to Personal Empowerment

 Photo by Brenadette Grindle Faust from Pexels

Louise, a coaching client, was in a state of confusion. She had thoughts and feelings that seemed to be in opposition with each other.

As I listened, she explained the circumstances surrounding her confusion.

Louise told me that she had recently been promoted to the leadership team. She had been recognized as a rising star. Her new opportunity came with a substantial increase in both compensation and responsibility.

While she was thrilled with the increased income, she was plagued with doubt in her ability to perform in her new role.

Louise had a new vision for her department. At first, she held back on sharing her ideas to get a feel for the other members of the leadership team. She was the youngest member and had replaced Larry, a retiring senior member who represented the old way of doing things.

Although everyone on the team was courteous, there seemed to be a subtle undercurrent that put her on edge.

The day before we met, the edge Louise had been feeling had come into stark definition. While attending a leadership team meeting, she was asked to update the rest of the team on key performance indicators for her department.

Although well prepared, she was practically overcome by anxiety as she delivered her report. During her presentation, two of the team members held a private whispering conversation at the end of the conference table.

Louise told me that she remained poised, a skill she had mastered in her childhood when being antagonized by her older brother. But while she presented as calm on the outside, she was seething inwardly and felt embarrassed by the obvious display of disregard and disrespect. She wanted to run out of the room but maintained her composure as she finished her report.

After the meeting she sat in her office, replaying what had just occurred. Marie was one of the two whisperers who had been so distracting during Louise’s presentation. Marie had been friendly and welcoming when Louise had first joined the leadership team. But Louise sensed that Marie wasn’t sincere. Now she was sure that her new friend was not to be trusted.

It bothered Louise that her emotions had almost sabotaged her ability to perform in the meeting. While she was pleased that she’d held it together, she felt like an imposter and worried that she might be in over her head. Who did she think she was? How had she convinced the decision makers that she was the right person to replace Larry?

Louise considered confronting Marie but decided to let it ride. She was concerned Marie may already be judging her as wrong or incompetent and didn’t want to give her any more ammunition. She wondered if Marie might be undermining her behind her back.

When she spoke with me during our coaching session, Louise told me that she was confused about her inner conflict. Why had she suddenly felt panicked when asked to present? She had stayed up past midnight the night before, preparing. Why didn’t she have the courage to confront Marie? Why did it upset her so much that Marie was holding a side conversation during her presentation? Why was she so concerned about what Marie and the other members of the leadership team thought of her? Why did she doubt her own competence?

As a coach, it’s difficult to not take sides with my clients. But to do so handicaps my ability to help them see the roles that they themselves play in their breakdowns. As long as a client believes that others and external circumstances are responsible for their reactions, they have lost their power.

I like Louise and want her to succeed. I was tempted to see the situation through her lens and could easily imagine her challenge. I was able to set my bias aside and got curious about her reactions. After Louise had answered all my questions about what had taken place, I attempted to help her sort out her confusion.

Looking at my notes, I reflected her story from a “parts” perspective.

Many of us naturally speak about the parts of us that influence the way we think, feel, and act. For example, there was a part of me that sympathized with Louise and wanted to defend her. But, fortunately, there was another part of me that knew she needed a new perspective.

“Would it be alright if I tell you what you just told me from a parts perspective?”

Louise agreed. She already knew how liberating it was to step back and view the parts of herself that influence the way she thinks, feels, and reacts. When we first started working together, she wondered if she had made a mistake when she hired me. She had expected me to tell her how to think, how she should feel, and what to do to get the promotion that she had just gotten.

But that’s not what I did. I’m not an expert in Louise’s life. How could anyone know better than Louise what she is dealing with internally? How could I know her values, her fears, her beliefs, her emotional wounds, and her essence better than she does? My job is to help her remember who she really is so she can show up as the best version of herself in every area of her life. My experience shows that tapping into the wisdom and power of the True Self is the key to true success.

“You’re in your new position at work. You feel proud of your promotion and the extra money. But a part of you doubts your ability to do the job. Does that sound about right?

Louise nodded.

“You’re excited about some changes you’d like to make in the department now that you’ve got some authority but there is a part of you that has you feeling cautious about moving too fast until you get a better feel for the rest of the leadership team.”

“Right,” Louise agreed.

“A part of you got scared when it was time to present at the meeting despite being so prepared. But you were able to deliver your report while appearing to be poised.”

I could see that Louise was replaying the meeting in her mind. She continued to affirm my observations with slight nods as her eyes looked off into the distance.

“When Marie began to whisper, your body remembered being picked on by your brother and you felt a very familiar embarrassment and anger. The poised part of you was pressed to its limits but you managed to survive the meeting even though you felt like running away.

The anger that you felt was the last line of defense for an embarrassed part of yourself that you’ve been trying to protect for years. If we could help you to resolve those old childhood feelings, none of the other strategies would be necessary.”

I stopped and waited for Louise to process what I had just shared. I could see her wheels turning until they got stuck.

“What strategies?” she asked.

“You have a calm, cool, and collected part that helps you appear poised when you are actually experiencing inner turmoil.

Being cautious and feeling out the rest of the leadership team before advancing your ideas is a strategy.

Spinning theories about what others are thinking, doing, and saying behind your back is a strategy.

Staying up past midnight preparing for the presentation is a strategy.”

Louise was able to see that her unhealed childhood wound was the source of her anxiety and self-doubt. We used the rest of the session to learn more about those parts of her that had developed the strategies that enabled her to be a top performer despite the wound.

Over the next few sessions, we continued to work with her Internal Family System of parts until she was ready to address the original emotional injury that had set it all in motion.

Gradually, Louise recovered her True Self and relaxed at work. She started to see Marie through a different lens as she noticed that she was genuinely kind and thoughtful. But that day in the conference room still bugged Louise so she asked Marie about the whispering.

She was moved to learn that Marie had been so impressed with her presentation that she whispered to her fellow team member, “Looks like Louise is really going to be an asset. She’s a breath of fresh air.”

 

The Personal Development Coaching relationship is confidential. What my clients experience and share with me, I keep to myself unless I have their permission to share their stories. The story you just read is a conglomeration of coaching conversations I have had with several different clients over the past few years.

I am able to help my clients in this way thanks in large part to the training I’ve gotten through the IFS Institute (www.IFS-Institute.com)

Press On or Time for a Break?

Photo by Kat Jayne from Pexels

Over the years, I’ve read or heard a sentiment expressed that if the conditions of your life are challenging, learn to love them before making any changes. Or something to that effect.

There is some merit to this idea. If I just cut and run any time I get uncomfortable, my potential for growth will be limited. Remaining committed to challenging circumstances until the lesson is learned can provide opportunities to uncover limiting fears and beliefs. And working through challenging circumstances provides valuable evidence that perhaps I can do what is hard and feel what is uncomfortable. This is one of the important ways to expand growth, overcome fears, and modify beliefs in ways that make life more workable.

But in the extreme, this concept can be equally limiting. Tolerating what should not be tolerated has no intrinsic value. Sometimes it makes sense to cut and run. Or at least take a break.

There is discomfort and there is misery. I would define misery as the condition of having pain, discomfort, or suffering triggered so frequently that there is no time for recovery. Without recovery, there is no time to reflect, to learn, or to grow.

To manage the gap between discomfort and misery, know your capacity. Growth is possible in this gap as long as there is time to recover from triggering events. If there is no time to recover, consider taking a break or releasing yourself from the commitment. Then, get curious about what got triggered.

Triggering events and circumstances occur for just this reason – to help us recognize what is in us that gets triggered in the first place. Disarming these triggers creates greater capacity for whatever in life comes our way.