99. Understanding the Essence of a Thought Pattern
This week, I’m bringing you a new teaching that I recently came up with while coaching one of my clients in Satisfied AF.
My client got a flat tire, and they were experiencing guilt and shame about it, thinking that if they were actually a responsible person, this situation would not have happened.
In this case, my client had actually gone and had their tire checked out recently because they thought it had a leak. But since getting the tire checked out hadn’t saved them from the flat tire, they thought they hadn’t done enough.
Basically, this client thought that being smart and responsible = not getting a flat tire ever no matter what.
And since they did get a flat tire, they had to feel shitty about themselves.
You may have experienced something similar. I know I have (so, so many times).
In this case, the client had learned in their childhood that it was very important to be responsible and to take care of themself.
Once they could see the essence of the thought pattern, they could understand why an adult had taught them to think this way.
And they could keep what was useful about the thought pattern while letting go of the guilt and shame.
My client did take action to avoid the situation, even if it didn’t prevent the flat tire.
And they did take care of the situation once it arose.
They didn’t need to feel guilt and shame, too. They could keep the essence of the thought pattern and let the rest of it go.
This may also be true for you.
There may be a thought pattern you’ve had for a long time that’s creating a lot of suffering for you.
But if you dig in, there may be something in the essence of the thought pattern that you like or want to keep.
Understanding the essence of a thought pattern is a beautiful thing and a great way to explore any thought pattern you’re experiencing.
This is also a great approach for sticky thought patterns you’ve been having trouble uprooting.
Tune in this week and I’ll show you how to dig into your thought patterns, uncover the essence of them, and decide which pieces you want to keep (if any).
If you want to supercharge your capacity to create a life that blows your mind, I have some one-on-one coaching slots opening up soon. Send me an email and let's talk about it or click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
Satisfied AF is officially open for enrollment! Click here to get on a consult call and talk about what it would be like for you to be Satisfied AF in your life and career.
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Why the intention behind an unhelpful thought pattern might never have been to make you feel bad.
How to see whether a thought pattern is protecting you, versus whether it’s making you feel bad when things don’t go perfectly.
Where to look to find the essence of a thought pattern you have.
How to change the construction of a thought into something useful for you without losing the essence of it.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about understanding the essence of a thought pattern.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, happy, happy Wednesday to you. I hope this day finds you just like having a ridiculously fantastic day. Like maybe for some really exciting reason, maybe for no fucking reason at all, but just like yummy, delicious. And if it doesn't, I love you just as much. We have lots of tools for those days as well.
And yummy days are coming for you too, my friend. They're coming because life is 50/50, so even if things are shitty and falling apart sometimes, they're not always that way. Although I know while they are that way, it can feel like they will always be that way. But they're not.
So this week I'm so excited to talk to you about a new teaching that I kind of just came up with through coaching one of my clients in SAF. And I think it's an idea I've probably had before and I've maybe coached on before, but the way I said it this time and the way I thought through it this time, I was like, “Oh man, everyone on the podcast needs to know about this because I think it's really impactful.”
Okay, so the client, and I got permission to share what they were getting coached on. The client was talking about this thought pattern that they've learned from their dad, okay? And I just want to take a minute, and I think I've said this before, but let's say it again, when I talk about my clients I just use they for all of them, even though that's not everyone's pronouns, just to add an extra layer of an anonymity.
So if you're ever listening and I'm talking about you, and those aren't the pronouns you prefer, I'm sorry about that and I respect your preferred pronoun usage 100%. I just want to add as much an anonymity as I can. So I'm just going to call everyone they as a way to do that. I also personally think it's the most inclusive of all of them, but I know not everyone prefers that pronoun.
Okay, anyways, this person learned a thought pattern from their dad. You know, it happens to a lot of us. A lot of us learned our thought patterns from our dad, our mom, another adult in our lives, grandparents, teachers, aunts, and uncles, other people's adults who belong in their lives but like our lives crossed over. And the thought pattern that this person learned is creating pain for them.
So basically, what happened is that they got a flat tire, which let's be honest, that happens to a lot of us. I've had a flat tire, some of you all have had flat tires. If you haven't, I'm so happy for you. I hope you don't have one, they're kind of a pain in the ass but they are a part of life, for most of us.
And the person was like kind of feeling a lot of guilt and shame and like they'd been irresponsible because they got this flat tire. And I was like, I'm sorry, this is something that happens to many people when we ride around in these motorized vehicles with these parts on them that are definitely going to fail and fall apart at some point. Whether it's sooner or later, cars require maintenance, that's just the way it is with cars, at least at this point in reality.
And this person had even gone and had that tire checked out because they thought it might have a leak. And so I think there was like this urge with that person of like, I should have known better, if I were more responsible I could have avoided this. And I think that's a really common thought pattern.
And one of the things I shared with this client is like I have that thought pattern too. My brain thinks that I should be able to optimize for everything. And I'm a person who's actually really good at optimizing, and part of that is because I have that brain that catastrophizes and thinks that like so many things that could go wrong.
And one of the things I've taught about before in the podcast is the idea of useful content and like looking at our catastrophizing thoughts as a way to understand things we may, you know, like we pull that useful content out and we may want to do something about it, right?
So I actually really treasure about myself that ability to anticipate every problem and solve it ahead of time. But the reality is, it's not going to be every problem. Like my brain for sure is like, “It should be every problem, you should anticipate and solve all of them.” That's how my brain talks. But I can't and I don't because I'm a human and because sometimes I come across things that I didn't know how to anticipate before they'd ever happened in my life.
And if I'm honest, the way I became a person who can anticipate a lot of things is because a lot of stuff happened to a very unsuspecting child Kori, who then was shocked and like disturbed and unsettled by so many things. And those big fucking feelings I had as a child and like me not really knowing how to grapple with those feelings or what to do with them probably is what turned me into a catastrophizer.
And then I had to like be a catastrophizer for a while and deal with all the stress and anxiety of that before I could then be like, wait a minute, I can use this. I mean when I was doing it earlier in my life I was sometimes like using that as a way to like, anticipate and manage things. But a lot of times it was just like making me feel like fucking terrible and out of control.
Okay, so this is like a little micro lesson in this podcast, which is like the brain will find something you do that's good and wonderful, like your ability to anticipate and solve things ahead of time. But then it'll be like, you should be able to do that all the time. So anytime you are doing it, those don't count because you're doing it the way you should be all the time, but then you didn't do it these three times so now we have to feel shitty.
And I just think that's really interesting. It's like if you're doing something well 97% of the time, but your brain is like, “Now feel bad about it.” I'm like, wait a minute, I don't think that's a great plan for having a fun and enjoyable life, or like a satisfying as fuck life, or even a successful life and career.
One of the things I work on with myself and my clients is being able to notice and enjoy what is working. And so instead of being upset that a few times I'm not able to anticipate and solve ahead of time, one of the things I really work on and am still working on, let's be honest, we're all a work in progress here, is like really being like, wow, but I do anticipate what won't work and solve it ahead of time so much of the time.
And what if I just like really revel in and enjoy that because guess what? Some people actually don't have that skill, even highly successful intelligent people. I don't think Alex would mind me sharing that in our relationship she doesn't do that as much as I do. She's really good at it, I think, in like a business context, like for her work that she does in her job.
But when it comes to the household and like anticipating out who might be cold and what might we need? And like what like little accouterment do we want to bring on this trip. And like, we need these face masks, and we need like whatever the little things are, I'm the one who's really good at that.
And I'm good at that, again, because I had a lot of experiences when I was a kid of being like dismayed and disappointed. And then I eventually over time and with effort and a lot of coaching was able to turn that into a beneficial skill.
But again, if I don't enjoy that beneficial skill, then it's still a symbol of pain in my life and that's no fucking fun. And it makes me feel shitty, helpless, get in the pit of despair, and then give up on things. So that's for sure not what we want.
Okay, so that's the micro lesson on that. But the bigger lesson and what this podcast is all about is understanding the essence of your thoughts, right? And sometimes it's about understanding the essence of thoughts from the point of view of your brain. And sometimes it's about understanding the essence of the thought from the point of view of the person who taught the thought to you.
Okay, so in this example, the person learned the thought from their dad. And I said to them, I'm going to read my actual coaching to y’all. I said to them, “Why do we think your dad may have instilled this idea in you? Like the idea of being responsible, the idea of making sure you take care of everything for yourself, and you anticipate things ahead of time as much as possible, blah, blah, blah.” And the person was like, “Oh, to protect me, right?”
And I was like, “Yeah, exactly. But is this thought pattern actually protecting you? Is it actually protecting you or is it just making you feel like shit when you're imperfect?” Right? And if the thought is not protecting you, or not protecting you as well as you want to be protected, because sometimes we have thoughts that are doing 70% of the job, but maybe we want something a little bit better, or something that does 70% but doesn't guilt and shame us, right?
So if it's not doing the job or if it's not doing it as well as we want it to, could we perhaps keep the essence of that thought, without keeping the thought itself? Without keeping the specific rules and teachings that the thought is encased within? Right?
So as an example for this client, their dad taught them things, lessons about life and rules about life because he wanted to protect them. And there's something I think very beautiful about that because I'd love to say this life is all cozy peachy, but it's fucking not. And you know it's not, it's full of like dangers and inconveniences and problems, right?
So the dad was trying to protect them. Now, the thought that the dad gave them to help them protect themselves is making that client feel shame. So I would argue that that thought is not doing the job it was meant to do.
And this happened to a lot of us. A lot of our parents, and probably because of the way they were parented and the thoughts they learned, they tried to use shame to make us behave in ways that they actually did think would be for our benefit and that they actually did think would serve us. But shame was just like the functionality and the vehicle, or fear or other things like that.
So that's just good to know because when we realize that, we can keep the essence of the thought, but we can change the construction of the thought. We can change like what the thought literally means. So instead of a thought like, I should have known better or a thought like this is all my fault or I should have been able to like whatever, like fa, la, la, la. Like I should have been able to prevent this.
We can choose a thought like I know how to protect myself in this situation, or I can be a person who protects myself. Or people who take good care of themselves sometimes get flat tires. I personally believe that to be very true. We can't anticipate everything, and shit does not always go according to plan.
So when we look at the essence of the thought we can kind of appreciate what the other person did, even if the actual thought that they gave us isn't really fucking working out for us in the like straightforward way they gave it to us, like in the literal language. We can still be like, wow, it's so fucking cool that this person wanted to teach me, they wanted to protect me, and they wanted to teach me to be a person who protects myself. That's really wonderful. I actually really value that. I appreciate that.
However, the specific sentence that they encased that teaching in may be not fucking working for me so much, may be not what I want to be thinking to myself. Ooh, look, it makes me feel shame. And when I feel shame, I want to hide and when I hide, I actually don't create the life I want. And maybe I don't even protect myself, right?
And this is really interesting, actually, because a lot of thoughts do the opposite of what they sound like they're going to do, right? So when we can get to the essence it can be so much easier to change the thought to something more useful because we're like, wait, the essence of what this thought is trying to accomplish and what this thought actually creates in my life when I think it are opposed. So maybe I'm going to go with the essence instead of going with the top level meaning.
Okay, so that's when we learn thoughts from other people. And listen, I know some of y'all are thinking like, okay, but sometimes people taught me thoughts and they were not trying to help me and protect me, and they were not looking out for my best interest. That may be true. There may be people who taught you thoughts who wanted to harm you. That may be possible in this world.
But when you look at the essence of both the thought and what you think the person was trying to do, if you discover you think the essence was they were trying to hurt me and make me feel bad about myself, I think that's also good to know. Because then you can be like, oh, wow, this thought was designed to hurt me and make me feel bad about myself. So get rid of it. Get rid of all of it. Just get it the fuck out of here. Delete, delete, delete, right?
Now, I want to also talk about why your brain may repeat thoughts, because there's like the inputs that fed the thoughts to your brain when the thoughts were new. Which is often like parents, authority figures, but could be peers, other kids when you were a kid. It could also be just things your brain interprets from like watching movies, or engaging in other media. And then there's also thoughts that like you can already see aren't helpful, but your brain keeps repeating them to you.
And so the way I like to think about this is also thinking about like what's the essence of what's happening here, right? So if my thought is repeating a thought to me that I know isn't helpful, I could believe my brain is an asshole. And when I was younger, like a few years ago in thought work, I thought my brain was an asshole a lot of the time.
But ultimately, I was like that thought is not really working for me because that just makes me feel like I'm at war with myself, I'm at war with my own organs. Is the brain an organ? I don't fucking know, y'all, I'm not a scientist. I'm at war with myself, right? I'm going to have to be divided. I have to like protect myself from myself.
And I was just like, I don’t fucking like any of this. And there's this other idea, I think I actually learned it from Geneen Roth, which is interesting because she writes weight loss books and I'm like absolutely not a weight loss person. I'm much more of a like your body is an animal who can be your friend kind of person.
Because I also think, we could do a whole podcast about this, but weight loss is a, it's a cultural thing that's like a tool for control and like makes people hate their bodies, blah, blah, blah. We're not going to get into all of that right now. But I just wanted to, you know, put a little blurb in there about that because Geneen Roth is well known for being this weight loss writer.
But she taught this idea that I thought was really compelling. And the idea was to assume that you're sane and you're doing things for good reasons. So she teaches a lot about like people who are struggling with eating. And it's interesting because you may be wondering why did I even read her books if I'm not about weight loss? And the answer is I read an article once about her and didn't even realize they were about weight loss, which I don't know how I didn't.
But I picked up one of her books and I just kind of ignored all the weight loss stuff because there's so many other teachings that in there to me were super valuable. And so you know, there are people who like binge and they're like, oh, this behavior doesn't make sense. Why would I do this? And she kind of has this teaching of assume you're sane and that what you're doing does make sense.
And I found that to be a really powerful idea because if we think we're insane and our behavior doesn't make any sense, I feel like that can be very unsettling. And again, it can make it hard to trust yourself. It can make you feel at war with yourself. Versus assuming it's sane, and your brain is doing it for a good reason, but your brain is just confused about how to help you get what you want, or how to get what it wants.
Okay, an example could be like an impostor syndrome thought, right? So if your brain has the thought like, “I fucking suck at this,” right? That may be a thought your brain offers you and there may not be like a person you can go back to who taught you that thought, like a teacher. And it may not be a thought you learned in that way, it may be something like you got a bad grade on a test and your brain was like, “Oh, I fucking suck at this.”
It doesn’t matter why you have the thought. Let's just say you have the thought, you can see it's not helpful, but you're having a really hard time putting it down, letting it go and not thinking it anymore. In that case I think thinking about like what is the essence of this thought can also be really useful and can help you transcend that thought pattern.
And so if you have the thought like, “I fucking suck at this,” what's the essence of this? What is the brain trying to accomplish by thinking this all the time? Why is the brain telling me this? What's going on here? What is the brain trying to do?
And it could be different for everybody, but one of the things I've seen commonly for myself and for others with this thought, “I fucking suck at this,” is the brain is trying to protect us from feeling bad. But weirdly the brain is trying to protect us from feeling bad by making us feel bad now.
And so it's kind of almost this like the brain is like, “Well, I would hate to think I'm good at things and then later discover I'm not good at them. That would feel very scary and unsettling. So if I just go ahead and think I'm bad at them, that's safer.”
And I think that's really interesting because it kind of doesn't make sense but it kind of does make sense, right? And I think, going back to assuming you're sane and assuming you're doing things for good reasons, I think the brain trying to protect you is the reason that we do lots of stuff. And stuff that when we really look at it, we're like, this doesn't make any fucking sense.
But again, in this other way it does make sense, especially for anyone who thinks the feeling of disappointment or regret would be really, really intolerable. So if you think disappointment is intolerable, then your brain may feel much more comfortable making you feel like shit all the time, than allowing you to feel good with the potential for being disappointed later, right? That like, “if the other shoe drops,” or whatever that thing is.
And I think also, for a lot of people feeling good, feeling happy, feeling like successful, feeling satisfied as fuck can be very uncomfortable. It can feel very alien. Again, that's part of why in my programs we work on being able to feel that. People always think like that shouldn't be a skill. But it is a skill because the brain only wants to do things it's done before because it thinks those things are safe.
So again, the brain doing things that seem like they don't make sense, but they do. Anything you’ve felt before that didn't kill you, your brain is like, “Well, it wasn't great, but it didn't kill me, I didn't die there. So play it again.” Right?
So understanding that about your brain can help you kind of come to terms with like sometimes at first, and repetitively, success and satisfaction can feel very unsettling. And we may have to learn how to tolerate, how to metabolize, how to allow those feelings. And if your brain keeps offering you these really painful thoughts like, “I fucking suck at this,” it may actually be trying to like, the essence of what it's doing may be trying to help you and protect you from potential future pain.
Okay, so to review brains have thoughts for reasons, and people teach us thoughts for reasons. And when we really dig into like what is the essence of this thought? What was this person trying to accomplish by teaching me this thought? And what is my brain trying to accomplish by repeating this thought?
Then, first of all, it's often easier to shift thoughts that are unhelpful. But it also helps us understand and have compassion for ourselves and others. And I think it can kind of just make everything that we're dealing with a little lighter. Like I'm like, “Oh yeah, brain, of course you're saying I fucking suck at this because you're scared.”
And if I treat my brain like it's a sweet, scared person who's trying so hard to help me and protect me, I have so much more gentleness and so much more softness, and even like humor. And I can also be like, “You know what, brain? It's okay, I'm pretty good at this. And if I'm not good at it and I make a mistake or fuck things up, that's okay.”
I actually have the capacity to feel disappointed. I have the capacity to tolerate that. And I also have the capacity to fucking figure it out, move on, make amends, do whatever I need to do to handle whatever arises.
And you know what? So do you. But if all of this sounds cool, but like way too much work to do on your own, guess what? You don't fucking have to, and I do think it's actually much more fun, more enjoyable, and more effective to do this work with others. So I think you should come and sign up for a Satisfied As Fuck consult.
That's right, Satisfied As Fuck consults are open now. The waitlist is done, and we're moving into consults and come and get on one and let's talk about what it would be like for you to be satisfied as fuck in your life and career. Let's talk about what it would be like for you to join a community of wonderful people who are working on the same shit you're working on, creating a satisfying as fuck life, creating a satisfying as fuck career, and creating so much like joy and delight.
And going really deep with your brain and like understanding your brain, having a better experience with your brain, having fun with your brain, and just having a great time and being able to accomplish all the big shit you want to accomplish too. So you can scoot on over to my website, sign up for a consult call and let's have a conversation about it. And with that, let's say adieu and I will talk to you next week. All right, y'all, have a great week. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving women who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, happy, happy Wednesday to you. I hope this day finds you just like having a ridiculously fantastic day. Like maybe for some really exciting reason, maybe for no fucking reason at all, but just like yummy, delicious. And if it doesn't, I love you just as much. We have lots of tools for those days as well.
And yummy days are coming for you too, my friend. They're coming because life is 50/50, so even if things are shitty and falling apart sometimes, they're not always that way. Although I know while they are that way, it can feel like they will always be that way. But they're not.
So this week I'm so excited to talk to you about a new teaching that I kind of just came up with through coaching one of my clients in SAF. And I think it's an idea I've probably had before and I've maybe coached on before, but the way I said it this time and the way I thought through it this time, I was like, “Oh man, everyone on the podcast needs to know about this because I think it's really impactful.”
Okay, so the client, and I got permission to share what they were getting coached on. The client was talking about this thought pattern that they've learned from their dad, okay? And I just want to take a minute, and I think I've said this before, but let's say it again, when I talk about my clients I just use they for all of them, even though that's not everyone's pronouns, just to add an extra layer of an anonymity.
So if you're ever listening and I'm talking about you, and those aren't the pronouns you prefer, I'm sorry about that and I respect your preferred pronoun usage 100%. I just want to add as much an anonymity as I can. So I'm just going to call everyone they as a way to do that. I also personally think it's the most inclusive of all of them, but I know not everyone prefers that pronoun.
Okay, anyways, this person learned a thought pattern from their dad. You know, it happens to a lot of us. A lot of us learned our thought patterns from our dad, our mom, another adult in our lives, grandparents, teachers, aunts, and uncles, other people's adults who belong in their lives but like our lives crossed over. And the thought pattern that this person learned is creating pain for them.
So basically, what happened is that they got a flat tire, which let's be honest, that happens to a lot of us. I've had a flat tire, some of you all have had flat tires. If you haven't, I'm so happy for you. I hope you don't have one, they're kind of a pain in the ass but they are a part of life, for most of us.
And the person was like kind of feeling a lot of guilt and shame and like they'd been irresponsible because they got this flat tire. And I was like, I'm sorry, this is something that happens to many people when we ride around in these motorized vehicles with these parts on them that are definitely going to fail and fall apart at some point. Whether it's sooner or later, cars require maintenance, that's just the way it is with cars, at least at this point in reality.
And this person had even gone and had that tire checked out because they thought it might have a leak. And so I think there was like this urge with that person of like, I should have known better, if I were more responsible I could have avoided this. And I think that's a really common thought pattern.
And one of the things I shared with this client is like I have that thought pattern too. My brain thinks that I should be able to optimize for everything. And I'm a person who's actually really good at optimizing, and part of that is because I have that brain that catastrophizes and thinks that like so many things that could go wrong.
And one of the things I've taught about before in the podcast is the idea of useful content and like looking at our catastrophizing thoughts as a way to understand things we may, you know, like we pull that useful content out and we may want to do something about it, right?
So I actually really treasure about myself that ability to anticipate every problem and solve it ahead of time. But the reality is, it's not going to be every problem. Like my brain for sure is like, “It should be every problem, you should anticipate and solve all of them.” That's how my brain talks. But I can't and I don't because I'm a human and because sometimes I come across things that I didn't know how to anticipate before they'd ever happened in my life.
And if I'm honest, the way I became a person who can anticipate a lot of things is because a lot of stuff happened to a very unsuspecting child Kori, who then was shocked and like disturbed and unsettled by so many things. And those big fucking feelings I had as a child and like me not really knowing how to grapple with those feelings or what to do with them probably is what turned me into a catastrophizer.
And then I had to like be a catastrophizer for a while and deal with all the stress and anxiety of that before I could then be like, wait a minute, I can use this. I mean when I was doing it earlier in my life I was sometimes like using that as a way to like, anticipate and manage things. But a lot of times it was just like making me feel like fucking terrible and out of control.
Okay, so this is like a little micro lesson in this podcast, which is like the brain will find something you do that's good and wonderful, like your ability to anticipate and solve things ahead of time. But then it'll be like, you should be able to do that all the time. So anytime you are doing it, those don't count because you're doing it the way you should be all the time, but then you didn't do it these three times so now we have to feel shitty.
And I just think that's really interesting. It's like if you're doing something well 97% of the time, but your brain is like, “Now feel bad about it.” I'm like, wait a minute, I don't think that's a great plan for having a fun and enjoyable life, or like a satisfying as fuck life, or even a successful life and career.
One of the things I work on with myself and my clients is being able to notice and enjoy what is working. And so instead of being upset that a few times I'm not able to anticipate and solve ahead of time, one of the things I really work on and am still working on, let's be honest, we're all a work in progress here, is like really being like, wow, but I do anticipate what won't work and solve it ahead of time so much of the time.
And what if I just like really revel in and enjoy that because guess what? Some people actually don't have that skill, even highly successful intelligent people. I don't think Alex would mind me sharing that in our relationship she doesn't do that as much as I do. She's really good at it, I think, in like a business context, like for her work that she does in her job.
But when it comes to the household and like anticipating out who might be cold and what might we need? And like what like little accouterment do we want to bring on this trip. And like, we need these face masks, and we need like whatever the little things are, I'm the one who's really good at that.
And I'm good at that, again, because I had a lot of experiences when I was a kid of being like dismayed and disappointed. And then I eventually over time and with effort and a lot of coaching was able to turn that into a beneficial skill.
But again, if I don't enjoy that beneficial skill, then it's still a symbol of pain in my life and that's no fucking fun. And it makes me feel shitty, helpless, get in the pit of despair, and then give up on things. So that's for sure not what we want.
Okay, so that's the micro lesson on that. But the bigger lesson and what this podcast is all about is understanding the essence of your thoughts, right? And sometimes it's about understanding the essence of thoughts from the point of view of your brain. And sometimes it's about understanding the essence of the thought from the point of view of the person who taught the thought to you.
Okay, so in this example, the person learned the thought from their dad. And I said to them, I'm going to read my actual coaching to y’all. I said to them, “Why do we think your dad may have instilled this idea in you? Like the idea of being responsible, the idea of making sure you take care of everything for yourself, and you anticipate things ahead of time as much as possible, blah, blah, blah.” And the person was like, “Oh, to protect me, right?”
And I was like, “Yeah, exactly. But is this thought pattern actually protecting you? Is it actually protecting you or is it just making you feel like shit when you're imperfect?” Right? And if the thought is not protecting you, or not protecting you as well as you want to be protected, because sometimes we have thoughts that are doing 70% of the job, but maybe we want something a little bit better, or something that does 70% but doesn't guilt and shame us, right?
So if it's not doing the job or if it's not doing it as well as we want it to, could we perhaps keep the essence of that thought, without keeping the thought itself? Without keeping the specific rules and teachings that the thought is encased within? Right?
So as an example for this client, their dad taught them things, lessons about life and rules about life because he wanted to protect them. And there's something I think very beautiful about that because I'd love to say this life is all cozy peachy, but it's fucking not. And you know it's not, it's full of like dangers and inconveniences and problems, right?
So the dad was trying to protect them. Now, the thought that the dad gave them to help them protect themselves is making that client feel shame. So I would argue that that thought is not doing the job it was meant to do.
And this happened to a lot of us. A lot of our parents, and probably because of the way they were parented and the thoughts they learned, they tried to use shame to make us behave in ways that they actually did think would be for our benefit and that they actually did think would serve us. But shame was just like the functionality and the vehicle, or fear or other things like that.
So that's just good to know because when we realize that, we can keep the essence of the thought, but we can change the construction of the thought. We can change like what the thought literally means. So instead of a thought like, I should have known better or a thought like this is all my fault or I should have been able to like whatever, like fa, la, la, la. Like I should have been able to prevent this.
We can choose a thought like I know how to protect myself in this situation, or I can be a person who protects myself. Or people who take good care of themselves sometimes get flat tires. I personally believe that to be very true. We can't anticipate everything, and shit does not always go according to plan.
So when we look at the essence of the thought we can kind of appreciate what the other person did, even if the actual thought that they gave us isn't really fucking working out for us in the like straightforward way they gave it to us, like in the literal language. We can still be like, wow, it's so fucking cool that this person wanted to teach me, they wanted to protect me, and they wanted to teach me to be a person who protects myself. That's really wonderful. I actually really value that. I appreciate that.
However, the specific sentence that they encased that teaching in may be not fucking working for me so much, may be not what I want to be thinking to myself. Ooh, look, it makes me feel shame. And when I feel shame, I want to hide and when I hide, I actually don't create the life I want. And maybe I don't even protect myself, right?
And this is really interesting, actually, because a lot of thoughts do the opposite of what they sound like they're going to do, right? So when we can get to the essence it can be so much easier to change the thought to something more useful because we're like, wait, the essence of what this thought is trying to accomplish and what this thought actually creates in my life when I think it are opposed. So maybe I'm going to go with the essence instead of going with the top level meaning.
Okay, so that's when we learn thoughts from other people. And listen, I know some of y'all are thinking like, okay, but sometimes people taught me thoughts and they were not trying to help me and protect me, and they were not looking out for my best interest. That may be true. There may be people who taught you thoughts who wanted to harm you. That may be possible in this world.
But when you look at the essence of both the thought and what you think the person was trying to do, if you discover you think the essence was they were trying to hurt me and make me feel bad about myself, I think that's also good to know. Because then you can be like, oh, wow, this thought was designed to hurt me and make me feel bad about myself. So get rid of it. Get rid of all of it. Just get it the fuck out of here. Delete, delete, delete, right?
Now, I want to also talk about why your brain may repeat thoughts, because there's like the inputs that fed the thoughts to your brain when the thoughts were new. Which is often like parents, authority figures, but could be peers, other kids when you were a kid. It could also be just things your brain interprets from like watching movies, or engaging in other media. And then there's also thoughts that like you can already see aren't helpful, but your brain keeps repeating them to you.
And so the way I like to think about this is also thinking about like what's the essence of what's happening here, right? So if my thought is repeating a thought to me that I know isn't helpful, I could believe my brain is an asshole. And when I was younger, like a few years ago in thought work, I thought my brain was an asshole a lot of the time.
But ultimately, I was like that thought is not really working for me because that just makes me feel like I'm at war with myself, I'm at war with my own organs. Is the brain an organ? I don't fucking know, y'all, I'm not a scientist. I'm at war with myself, right? I'm going to have to be divided. I have to like protect myself from myself.
And I was just like, I don’t fucking like any of this. And there's this other idea, I think I actually learned it from Geneen Roth, which is interesting because she writes weight loss books and I'm like absolutely not a weight loss person. I'm much more of a like your body is an animal who can be your friend kind of person.
Because I also think, we could do a whole podcast about this, but weight loss is a, it's a cultural thing that's like a tool for control and like makes people hate their bodies, blah, blah, blah. We're not going to get into all of that right now. But I just wanted to, you know, put a little blurb in there about that because Geneen Roth is well known for being this weight loss writer.
But she taught this idea that I thought was really compelling. And the idea was to assume that you're sane and you're doing things for good reasons. So she teaches a lot about like people who are struggling with eating. And it's interesting because you may be wondering why did I even read her books if I'm not about weight loss? And the answer is I read an article once about her and didn't even realize they were about weight loss, which I don't know how I didn't.
But I picked up one of her books and I just kind of ignored all the weight loss stuff because there's so many other teachings that in there to me were super valuable. And so you know, there are people who like binge and they're like, oh, this behavior doesn't make sense. Why would I do this? And she kind of has this teaching of assume you're sane and that what you're doing does make sense.
And I found that to be a really powerful idea because if we think we're insane and our behavior doesn't make any sense, I feel like that can be very unsettling. And again, it can make it hard to trust yourself. It can make you feel at war with yourself. Versus assuming it's sane, and your brain is doing it for a good reason, but your brain is just confused about how to help you get what you want, or how to get what it wants.
Okay, an example could be like an impostor syndrome thought, right? So if your brain has the thought like, “I fucking suck at this,” right? That may be a thought your brain offers you and there may not be like a person you can go back to who taught you that thought, like a teacher. And it may not be a thought you learned in that way, it may be something like you got a bad grade on a test and your brain was like, “Oh, I fucking suck at this.”
It doesn’t matter why you have the thought. Let's just say you have the thought, you can see it's not helpful, but you're having a really hard time putting it down, letting it go and not thinking it anymore. In that case I think thinking about like what is the essence of this thought can also be really useful and can help you transcend that thought pattern.
And so if you have the thought like, “I fucking suck at this,” what's the essence of this? What is the brain trying to accomplish by thinking this all the time? Why is the brain telling me this? What's going on here? What is the brain trying to do?
And it could be different for everybody, but one of the things I've seen commonly for myself and for others with this thought, “I fucking suck at this,” is the brain is trying to protect us from feeling bad. But weirdly the brain is trying to protect us from feeling bad by making us feel bad now.
And so it's kind of almost this like the brain is like, “Well, I would hate to think I'm good at things and then later discover I'm not good at them. That would feel very scary and unsettling. So if I just go ahead and think I'm bad at them, that's safer.”
And I think that's really interesting because it kind of doesn't make sense but it kind of does make sense, right? And I think, going back to assuming you're sane and assuming you're doing things for good reasons, I think the brain trying to protect you is the reason that we do lots of stuff. And stuff that when we really look at it, we're like, this doesn't make any fucking sense.
But again, in this other way it does make sense, especially for anyone who thinks the feeling of disappointment or regret would be really, really intolerable. So if you think disappointment is intolerable, then your brain may feel much more comfortable making you feel like shit all the time, than allowing you to feel good with the potential for being disappointed later, right? That like, “if the other shoe drops,” or whatever that thing is.
And I think also, for a lot of people feeling good, feeling happy, feeling like successful, feeling satisfied as fuck can be very uncomfortable. It can feel very alien. Again, that's part of why in my programs we work on being able to feel that. People always think like that shouldn't be a skill. But it is a skill because the brain only wants to do things it's done before because it thinks those things are safe.
So again, the brain doing things that seem like they don't make sense, but they do. Anything you’ve felt before that didn't kill you, your brain is like, “Well, it wasn't great, but it didn't kill me, I didn't die there. So play it again.” Right?
So understanding that about your brain can help you kind of come to terms with like sometimes at first, and repetitively, success and satisfaction can feel very unsettling. And we may have to learn how to tolerate, how to metabolize, how to allow those feelings. And if your brain keeps offering you these really painful thoughts like, “I fucking suck at this,” it may actually be trying to like, the essence of what it's doing may be trying to help you and protect you from potential future pain.
Okay, so to review brains have thoughts for reasons, and people teach us thoughts for reasons. And when we really dig into like what is the essence of this thought? What was this person trying to accomplish by teaching me this thought? And what is my brain trying to accomplish by repeating this thought?
Then, first of all, it's often easier to shift thoughts that are unhelpful. But it also helps us understand and have compassion for ourselves and others. And I think it can kind of just make everything that we're dealing with a little lighter. Like I'm like, “Oh yeah, brain, of course you're saying I fucking suck at this because you're scared.”
And if I treat my brain like it's a sweet, scared person who's trying so hard to help me and protect me, I have so much more gentleness and so much more softness, and even like humor. And I can also be like, “You know what, brain? It's okay, I'm pretty good at this. And if I'm not good at it and I make a mistake or fuck things up, that's okay.”
I actually have the capacity to feel disappointed. I have the capacity to tolerate that. And I also have the capacity to fucking figure it out, move on, make amends, do whatever I need to do to handle whatever arises.
And you know what? So do you. But if all of this sounds cool, but like way too much work to do on your own, guess what? You don't fucking have to, and I do think it's actually much more fun, more enjoyable, and more effective to do this work with others. So I think you should come and sign up for a Satisfied As Fuck consult.
That's right, Satisfied As Fuck consults are open now. The waitlist is done, and we're moving into consults and come and get on one and let's talk about what it would be like for you to be satisfied as fuck in your life and career. Let's talk about what it would be like for you to join a community of wonderful people who are working on the same shit you're working on, creating a satisfying as fuck life, creating a satisfying as fuck career, and creating so much like joy and delight.
And going really deep with your brain and like understanding your brain, having a better experience with your brain, having fun with your brain, and just having a great time and being able to accomplish all the big shit you want to accomplish too. So you can scoot on over to my website, sign up for a consult call and let's have a conversation about it. And with that, let's say adieu and I will talk to you next week. All right, y'all, have a great week. Bye.
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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