episode 14 - Can I Really Love Myself-Part 2

Summary: This is a continued discussion about radical self-acceptance and love, not the self-serving love we may have been taught to think self-love is, but having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Learning what your needs are and not sacrificing them to please someone else. We visit the cost of people pleasing and Laurie gives tools for working through your emotions to process them rather than stuffing them.

[00:00:02] Vicki: Hi, Laurie. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for joining me. Our topic today is Can I Really Love Myself. I'm really excited about this topic with you because I know that you have a coaching business and you've done a lot of self-work yourself on this topic. To make sure that we get it right, I'll ask you to introduce yourself and tell us what you're up to and what you do.

[00:00:39] Laurie: Yes, thank you. My name is Laurie Schible. My business is Laurie Schible Coaching.

[00:21:01] Vicki: How did you come to this work and what do you gain personally from doing this?

[00:21:10] Laurie: [laughs] That is such a good question, Vicki. I seriously- I know I will be on a growth journey for the rest of my life because I love it. It is this constant self-discovery that is constantly taking me deeper. The more that I do and the deeper I go, the more I'm able to do for my clients, and the more I do, the more I learn, and the more I learn, the more I realize how much I have to learn. It is so humbling and empowering at the same time.

I was just going through a practice the other day, where I was thinking about- I was going through a whole confidence issue like- having a doubt day. I just looked at where I was even six months ago. I am in totally a different place than I was even six months ago because I'm just constantly on this journey and I have made it my life's work. Where did this start? It's funny to hear that question because I attributed it to-- When I was in the corporate world, always what I loved more than anything was managing a team because I love to mentor and guide them. I would always tell my employees, "My goal is for you to one day become my boss."

When I realized this was like my life's work and making the transition, I was telling a lifelong friend this, "Okay, this is what I'm doing. I'm going to become a life coach. I'm getting certified." He just looked at me and he said, "Laurie, you have been coaching your whole life. I remember you in middle school. You were the person who could literally- would have a sense and a pulse on everyone in the room and would sense that one shy person in the corner, and you would go up and you would talk to that one person." He was like, "In high school, you were the person who didn't belong to any click or club, and you were a part of every click or club." [laughs]

It was really interesting to hear that just from external observation, that it has been such a natural thing that I've actually been doing my whole life, which makes sense now, looking back why I was so drawn to that and did it so naturally in my corporate world, and how it ultimately led me down to this path.

 [00:24:04] Vicki: Thank you. It's very fulfilling I can tell for you. As many of my clients, and I'm sure you run into it too, are very challenged with putting themselves first, can you share a little bit the price tag they pay for people-pleasing and for accommodating?

[00:24:25] Laurie: Absolutely, and I will just tell you this, the price is immense. It is the difference between actually living the life you're meant to live and living unhappy, having misery in your life. It is the difference between actually going after your dreams and making them a reality because it's all possible. It's all possible for us and living with regrets.

The cost to me, when I think about it, is actually immeasurable and we all have gifts. We are all born worthy, and nothing has changed. We're just conditioned to think otherwise. There's a reason that none of us looks the same. We all have different body shapes and types and styles and personalities. We all have unique gifts, and they look like every dif ferent shape and form that you can imagine.

When we really tap in and assess what are the core values and what do I really want, what do I really desire, and asking yourself that question without the external influence, "This is what I want, but I could never do that because--" "This is what I would love to do, but I don't have the talent for that," how quickly we squash our own dreams, the cost is that we might live completely out of alignment and not truly find our joy in life. The cost is exhaustion, overwhelm, disease. It's profound.

When any of us, and especially as women, because of conditioning, we're conditioned, when we're little, that boys are rewarded for what they do. "Oh, look at Billy running out in the field and catching the ball. He fell down and isn't that great."

As girls, we're conditioned for who we are. "Oh, little Susie, she's so polite and quiet. Oh, look at her pretty little dress." From a very early age, we get conditioned, and we follow in that path, and it gets so deeply rooted in us that it can mask what we truly desire. It can also make us feel like we could never have that, when those glimpses of our true desires come to the surface, our conditioning, we immediately go to, "Oh, but I can never have that. I can never do that," just because of this deep conditioning.

When we become aware of that and we actually allow ourselves to dream and we allow ourselves to desire and really actually just own what we want without knowing how, just owning what we want, we're already coming into alignment with ourselves where we're staying true to who we are. This can work even in the corporate world where the tendency is, we overwork. We take on things and more things because we think, "Oh, that's the right thing to do," or "If I could only do this or work harder, then I'll get the promotion."

The list goes on and on. Really it stems from people-pleasing and over-giving and thinking that "Oh, if I just do more, take on more," and what ends up happening is we throw ourselves into exhaustion, overwhelm burnout, and we lose our joy in life.

We lose our sense of liveliness. It takes an extreme toll on our mental and emotional well-being our physical well-being, and if we keep going down that path, it can lead to all sorts of disease illness. The key for us is to become aware and to take ownership and agency over our lives, to know that it doesn't have to be that way. When we think about what is the cost, when we keep going to that level, what is the cost to not only your life but your marriage, the relationship with your kids, relationships with your friends, your family, your level, your quality of life.

There are so many prices that we pay for walking someone else's path for not speaking up, for not taking on the extra project, for saying yes when we want to be a no, there's so many levels to this. At the core, this is where we get to see it for what it is. This really stems into what we define as what's called patriarchy. Patriarchy has been around for a very, very long time. Patriarchy affects men and women.

If we look at how we're living today, everything really shifted in the last 50 years or so, 100 years or so with the industrial revolution in the last 50 years with women having more or less equal rights to really go after any job that we desire, now we're all in the workforce, and as women, we're now full-time, full-time employees, we're full-time moms, we're cooks, we're cleaners, we're taking care of the 1,001 tasks.

We haven't been given the tools on how to say no and how to really stand up for what we believe is actually right. Think about how many times have we actually really felt it in our bones, in our intuition that something's off, something's not right and we didn't speak up, and then we later found out the consequences of that, and we wished that we had said something. So many layers to this around the costs that we pay.

This is true for men too. Women come from a level of oppression, where it used to be that we were actually worth less than men. We didn't have the right to own property or earn money. On the flip side, men had the expectation that they must provide. They must fight. They must fight for the best life possible. They have to be providers. They can't show or express emotion because that would make them appear weak. So interesting when we really look at this history and where we are today, where that's not really true anymore. We all have the opportunity to really create the life that we desire.

Especially in our country, it is not true in every country, but in our country, in our culture, we have an abundance, we have opportunities and abundance and capabilities. What we get to really own for women is that it's okay to say no. We don't have to people-please, because remember, when we have radical self-acceptance and we put ourselves first, that's when we create joy in our lives, and that benefits everybody around us. When we people-please and we over-give, we're exhausted, and then no one around us benefits, including ourselves, we all lose.

Then on the flip side, really, we get to give permission for our men to feel, to own their emotions, to be compassionate, to be open and vulnerable, to not always put on their warrior hats and be the strong one. We're all human. We get to have real human experiences. The key for all of that is the acknowledgment of our feelings or thoughts and emotions and the allowance for them.

A lot of times what we do is we just resist it. Anytime anything uncomfortable or painful pops up, we just want to shove it down. Those emotions live in our system. They don't go away. The more we shove down, the more we're resisting them, the more they-- The stronger they get, the bigger they get and the more issues they cause in our system. It's universal.

[00:34:29] Vicki: Yes. You're really talking about both men and women living authentic lives, whatever that means for them, knowing what it is, first of all, which is the first step, really, and then creating a community around you that allows you to express that.

[00:34:50] Laurie: So true. My current mentor is Dr. Valerie Rein. She wrote the book Patriarchal Stress Disorder. She is a well-trained psychotherapist. What she discovered over time, she's like, "Okay, talk therapy isn't quite cutting it. There's got to be something else." She started doing somatic body processing and she started doing it with all of her clients.

She had clients who went through major traumas in their life. Then she had clients who had great lives, great upbringing, no major trauma happening in their life, but they were in high-stress jobs, putting a lot of pressure on themselves. They were people-pleasing, over-giving. What she noticed is this sematic body processing, which is really just showing you how to process through your emotions and complete your stress cycle and allow it all to come through you, that everybody was benefiting from it.

It's really interesting digging into this somatic body level and understanding how our emotions live within us and how profoundly they affect us, and  when we just simply allow them through and process them, how much peace we can gain. Remember when we bring that peace to ourselves, when we actually, instead of stuffing, we just acknowledge and we allow, and we let it to process through, we can bring peace, we can bring acceptance and that radical acceptance allows us to love. It's really a beautiful process that we're at large learning so much more around how the brain works and how pliable it is.

Neuroplasticity, habit, just because we have it, it's changeable. It's just a path that's well-worn in our brain. We can create new paths. With consistency, we create new well-worn paths with a habit that better serves us. Now, we're really learning about this emotional process and how the body never forgets. All the emotions reside in us and when we don't allow them through, they sit in us, and they fester, and they grow. It's really important for us to process that through. Yes, so much to this and what all of these things, the mental, the emotional, the physical that can bring us back into this radical self-acceptance and self-love.

[00:37:41] Vicki: Mind, body, and spirit. If we minimize or disregard one part, the other parts either become more exaggerated to try to make up for what I'm ignoring in my body, so to find that alignment and harmony-- My show is based on small changes leading to big shifts. This is a big topic. You and I have been in this work for a long, long time. Somebody that's just getting started or thinking, "Well, this is what I need," what are some concrete things they might do? Small-

[00:38:22] Laurie: Small shifts, right? I always say small hinges swing big doors.

[00:38:29] Vicki: I love that.

[00:38:30] Laurie: Very small changes over time create massive shifts, massive results. Just a couple of things, I want to touch on the emotional piece. The nice thing is you don't have to actually know, what are all the emotions that are surfacing with me? When emotions arise, the first step is to allow them. Acknowledge that they're present and allow them to be because when we consciously acknowledge them, we immediately lessen the hold that they have on us because remember in all of this, our thoughts and emotions, typically warn us. This shifts so that we are in charge of our thoughts and emotion, all the difference in the world.

You do that by simply acknowledging whatever comes up. This is another piece of conditioning. We want instant gratification. "I want the quick fix, give me the pill. I want it now." When we feel pain, we just want to make it better. Even if you're getting consoled by someone, usually what we hear people say is, "Oh, it'll be okay. It's going to be better. Oh, just do this. It'll be great." Actually, what serves us so much better is to just say, "Hey, it's okay, just be with it."

When we create allowance for everything we feel without judgment, feelings are fleeting, we usually have a ton of feelings, we could feel like deep grief and utter joy, literally at the same time, and emotions are fleeting. They come and they go, they usually have a 90-second span, which is really interesting. Then some feelings stay with us mainly because it's a habit. We like to feel a certain way. Even if logically, it doesn't make sense to us, we're like, "Okay, I don't want to feel overwhelmed," but it's such a habit to feel overwhelmed, we stay in overwhelm.

Just know that emotions are fleeting, and when we allow them, then we can process through them and get them out of our system much quicker, and they no longer have a hold on us. The first step is to acknowledge what am I feeling and create space for it, allow it, and then just a quick tip to process it through. One of the easiest ways to actually process emotions through, which is also like completing our stress cycle, is to move your body.

Whatever that looks like for you, go for a run, go for a walk, do a quick boxing series, dance like a crazy person in your house for five minutes, any kind of movement allows those emotions to come through you and you can release them, and you need to acknowledge them and just know like, "Okay, this is here." Say whatever needs to come out, allow it to come out, versus when we resist, we're just shoving it in. It's not going away. It will continue to get louder and louder.

Create space, acknowledge, allow, and process, move those emotions through you, through movement. That's my first beginner level. If you did that on a daily basis, you don't even have to know what the emotions, all of them are, just say whatever needs to come through, allow it to come through, and just move your body and allow that to come through. That will help reduce your stress, overwhelm, any emotions that are residing. You will feel relief.

Another thing that is a really great practice, and this is actually a way to help keep things in a neutral space, when we do something, whether we have great success or if it's an utter failure, here's the way I look at this, whenever we have success, there are always things that we did do wrong, even though it was successful. Conversely, when we failed at something, it didn't work out, there are many things that we did do right. Then some things that we didn't do right, that had it not work.

When we think about success and failure, that way, it's a lot easier to look at it all from a neutral space. I do a very simple three-step process to evaluate anything. I do this in my business, and always if I have a consult or if I have a coaching session, I'm like, "It didn't go well, let me evaluate this," or, "It went great. Let's evaluate it. What did work?" Or anything, a conversation with my husband. Anything in your life you can evaluate and learn from, whether it is a success or failure or ongoing.

What I do is I first ask myself, "Okay, what worked or what's working?" I write down all the things that worked, and it's important to ask yourself what worked first. The next question I ask is, "Okay, what didn't work, or what's not working?" It's important to ask that what worked first because when our brain goes to that, we start thinking about all the things that really did work out and that'll lead to other things, "Oh, well, then this happened, and this happened. Oh, and this happened," when we focus on what didn't work first, it tends to set us in that negative mood, and it's harder to look at the positive or the things that worked.

Do it in this order. Step one, what worked? Step two, what didn't work? Then step three, just ask yourself, what can I learn here? What am I learning from this situation? What are all the things that I learned? Here's the goldenness. All those things that you learned; those are the things that you can go take action on. You'll always know what you need to do. That's a really easy way, whether you do this to evaluate your business, a project that you're doing, that you're working on or finished, a conversation that you have, anything, you can use that process for anything in your life, and it is profoundly revealing.

When we can look at it from a neutral space, not make ourselves bad and wrong for all the stuff we did wrong, then we can learn. It's coming from that place. Let me learn from this situation where all the gold is. Those would be the two basic practices that I would say are really, really awesome. If you did nothing else and followed those two, you're going to continue to move yourself forward.

[00:45:57] Vicki: I agree. I use those practices or something similar too, and I especially like the neutrality and not judging ourselves. Recently, I was asking myself, and you've talked about the habit of overwhelm, I create my own schedule. If I'm overwhelmed, who created that? It is a habit, but the benefit that I got from it was being a little deceitful with myself because underneath it for me is resistance. When I started recognizing, "Oh, what I'm really saying is I'm resisting. I'm resisting something I set up that I want to do myself anyway." [chuckles] That can be- and if I was judging and heavy-handed on myself, I could use that as a reason to beat myself up, but instead, isn't that interesting?

[00:47:02] Laurie: Yes. I love that approach, Vicki, it's coming from curiosity instead of judgment. That takes that clears out the self-critic when we just get curious instead. When we get curious and we honor ourselves, for what we're doing, no matter what the result is, good or bad, when we honor ourselves for being human, instead of criticizing ourselves, accept ourselves, then we are creating that radical self-acceptance and self-love. We really get to check in when that critic pipes up, and instead of all the judgment, just simply get curious.

[00:47:59] Vicki: Do you have any services or programs you want to tell our audience about and how would our audience find you?

[00:48:07] Laurie: Yes. Yes. I do group programs and I do one-on-one clients right now. I have a Facebook group where I do lots of teachings, webinars, and special workshops. I do all of that for free, so the Facebook group is the B&B Club: Breaking your Own Boundaries and BS.

[00:48:33] Vicki: I love it.

[00:48:34] Laurie: Yes. Anyone is welcome to join that. That is that space where I create a community where we all talk and share and where I create a lot of value and content and just teach. That's a big space. You're welcome to join that. I also have a website. It's just laurieschible.com. It is just that simple. On my website, I have a freebie giveaway that I want to offer to your audience. On my website, there is a button for it. You just click the link and it'll download, and we'll send it to your email. The giveaway is Five Steps to Stop Procrastinating and Achieve your Goals With Ease. That is available for your audience and anybody who would like it. You just go to my website for that.

Also, I am in Facebook, Laurie Schible Coaching is my business site, and then on Instagram as well, also under Laurie Schible Coaching. Lots of ways to get in touch with me, feel free to send me a Facebook message. That's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me, send me a message or through Instagram, yes, and join the Facebook group, and join us in some of the workshops and the content. You are all welcome here, and I love and honor the community that we've created.

[00:50:10] Vicki: Thank you, Laurie. Thank you so much for being here. I've really enjoyed the show and you've contributed a lot to the understanding for the audience and I know they'll appreciate and value it too.

[00:50:23] Laurie: Awesome. Thank you so much, Vicki. This's been a true honor and a pleasure. Thank you.

[00:50:29] Vicki: Thank you. For my audience as I close out and end the show, you can find me, the easiest place is https://linktr.ee/vickidawn.com. You'll find my website, and how to subscribe to the podcast. My Facebook group link, everything will be there for you, and more probably than you care to push. As we say goodbye, remember you create your beautiful life one moment, one step at a time. Thank you for listening.