00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 135, "Why is That?" Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Well hello there, my friends. Tanya here. Happy to have you with me today. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate those of you who keep coming back. Thanks for your support and thank you for your notes of gratitude to me. I appreciate that a lot and thank you for leaving me referrals. For those of you who are new, I hope that you find here a place of understanding and a place of insight for you to understand how to move more into the experience of the kind of life that you want to live. A more connected life, a more meaningful life. That's what I'm here for. That's what I love to do and I consider you my clients and I consider me your life coach, and I strive to create content for you that will enrich your life and make things better for you. 

01:16 

Along those lines, if you have not yet signed up for my "weekend win" email, you can do that at tanyahale.com. Just scroll down to the bottom of that first page and there is a place for you to just enter your name and your email address and every Friday morning I send out a "weekend win" email. It is something that is meant to be read in less than a minute but something to give you some thoughts to help you move into a better space and to help you have something to think about, what you want to do over the weekend, and how you want to improve your life, and how those concepts fit in with your life and how you can move forward. 

01:58 

So that being said, let's go ahead and jump into today's podcast. Today's podcast is entitled, "Why is That?" So one of the most amazing tools I have to offer you as your life coach is to learn to look at your thoughts and become aware of how those thoughts are impacting your life. And one of the best ways to do that is to start learning to ask yourself the question, "why is that?" So let's put this in context so you can begin to see what I mean. Take any behavior, any action you engage in in the course of your day. So let's say you had your alarm set to get up early so you would have time for yoga, but you kept hitting your snooze until there was no time left to do yoga before your day needed to start. Without judgment, but with curiosity, just ask this question: "I wonder why?" Let's stop beating yourself down and get curious instead. "I wonder why I struggled to get up. I wonder why I chose sleeping instead of yoga." 

02:59 

Another example, let's say you had planned to make dinner for your family but on your way home about 5pm you decided to stop and get takeout instead. Again, no judgment about it either way. Just ask yourself, "huh, I wonder why?" And here's another one. Someone asked you to make dinner for a family in your ward tonight. You set aside what was on your schedule to do that and ask yourself, "huh, I wonder why?" Here's the really amazing thing: when you really engage in this activity several times a day and really hold off on the judgment and rather step into curiosity, you will start coming to a self awareness you haven't had before. 

03:39 

Okay, let's take the dinner for a neighbor example. It may have not even crossed your mind to say "no," but isn't that fascinating. Ask yourself "why?" Why did you so quickly abandon everything you had scheduled for you to make dinner for someone else? You may find that you really love your reasons but you may also find that some of your reasons are a little sketchy. So let's say that the family you were asked to make dinner for just recently found out that the wife has cancer and the family is up to their eyeballs in managing chemo and the illness and the new schedules. And what you had planned is something that is easily rescheduled or delegated. You love this family and you value service to others very highly. In this case, you may love your reasons for dropping everything to care for another person. 

04:30 

So same situation, same family, and again you say "yes." But let's say when you ask yourself "why is that?" you realize that you did it so that the person asking you would think that you were a good person. Or you didn't want to feel guilt for not helping someone who is in such great need. Fascinating information, right? This information helps us to really come into a place of self-awareness that increases our growth so much as a person. It helps us to begin to understand our reasons behind our actions. And we may find again that we love our reasons. We may find that we don't love our reasons. It's all good. No judgment. Remember, the point here is to understand yourself in a deeper, more meaningful way and then make adjustments where we feel we want to. 

05:21 

So many of us, myself included, can find ourselves running on autopilot, making choices just because those are the choices we have always made. Someone asks us to make dinner for someone else? Check! On it. Dinner made and delivered. What if we really took an honest, integrity-filled look at our reasons of why we so quickly said "yes?" In doing this, I'm not suggesting we stop taking meals and serving others. Absolutely not. What I am suggesting is that we get really clear on our "why" and learn to live our lives in integrity with ourselves, doing the things we do from a really clean place. I love in The Book of Mormon, in Moroni chapter seven, verse 26, the prophet Mormon quotes Christ as saying, "whatsoever thing ye shall ask the Father in my name which is good, in faith, believing that ye shall receive, behold it shall be done unto you." I like to think of that as not only is the thing I'm asking for good, but my reasons for wanting it are good as well. I ask from my good clean place. 

06:34 

For example, I may pray that my children are strong and gain their own conversion to Christ and his gospel. I ask the question, "I wonder why? Why do I pray for this? Is it because," here's some options, "I'm afraid for their future and what could happen to them? Is it because I worry what my family or friends will think if I have a 'wayward child'? Is it because I know the gospel has brought me joy and direction and I want the same for them?" And as we've talked about this kind of concept before, this will probably not be a 100% kind of answer. You may be 70%, 75% that you want joy and direction for your child and 25% worried about the reaction of family and friends. 

07:22 

And this is what's fascinating about this process. If you do notice that there is a percentage that is worried about the reaction of others, this is a place we can start cleaning up. And we don't clean it up because we're horrible and not good humans and it decreases our worth. We're actually awesome humans, but we're humans who will not always have clean reasons behind why we do all the things that we do. We choose to clean it up because we're choosing to live a life grounded in more pure Christlike love we want to develop and create this Christlike love. We want to have the experience of loving from a clean place. It's not going to increase our worth. It's not going to give us a different. It's just going to give us a different experience. Our worth is already set. It's already 100%. Nothing we do increases or decreases our worth. It just creates an experience. And we get to choose what kind of experience we want to have. The goal here is not to get to the point where we make every decision from a 100% clean place because again, as humans, we will never make every decision from a 100% clean place. It's just not going to happen. We are not created to become perfect in this lifetime. The goal is to become so much more self-aware, to really be onto ourselves and our brains about why we make the decisions we make. 

08:55 

So let's go back to an earlier example. Did you snooze and miss yoga? Ask yourself, "I wonder why?" And that could produce some of the following thoughts. You might think, "I'm just so tired and I didn't get enough sleep." Great. Now you know that if you really want to incorporate morning yoga into your life, that getting enough sleep is an important component for you. So adjusting your life and your mindset to get to bed earlier would be a process to focus on, or you may decide "it's not worth it for me to get up in the morning. I enjoy getting things done in the evening," for whatever your particular reasons are. But understanding that what your thought is helps. So maybe your, "I wonder why," is that you're feeling some social pressure because all of your friends do yoga. Great. Now you know that you're making that decision for someone else and not for you. Good information, right? Nothing to beat yourself down about, but information to be fascinated about. 

09:58 

So ask some follow up questions. Why is it important for you to be doing what your friends do? How does it make you feel when you don't value the same experiences as your friends? When we start answering these kinds of questions, we start finding some amazing insightful answers that help us to become more self-aware. And then we can make decisions from this place. So maybe you're "wondering why" about not getting up for yoga is that you feel you should be more concerned about your health. OK, so now we're getting somewhere. Right? First of all, the "should" is always an indication that we need to take a look at it. Right? OK, and then just follow up your answers with more questions. Why do I want to be more concerned  about my health? How am I not taking care of my health? How would my life be different if I took better care of my body? So the more curious we get about what's going on in our lives and the reasons behind what we're doing, the more self-aware we become and the more we can start to really live from a place of integrity with ourselves and with our world. This is the kind of tool that I help my clients really learn to implement for themselves when they work with me. 

11:16 

So let's chat about integrity for just a bit. Merriam-Webster defines it as "a firm adherence to a code of values or the quality or state of being complete or undivided." So a few synonyms would be like "incorruptible" or "completeness." So what does it mean then to be in integrity with yourself? Using these definitions, it would mean that I adhere to or I stick by my values. And I am not divided within myself regarding how I want to live. So I'm honest with myself and live according to the values that I claim. Now, none of us are going to do this all the time. Again, we're humans after all, right? But the more we become self-aware, the more we can make small adjustments that bring us into alignment with our values, the more we live in integrity with ourselves. It's just a process of awareness and adjustment time and time and time again. 

12:19 

This process of becoming more self aware may be really challenging for you. Totally okay. I know that so many of us have not grown up learning how to move into this space of awareness, the space of self-awareness. 'Cause I know that I didn't. That was not even on my radar for years and years and years. Working with a client this morning, we were doing this process and her first response was, "Oh, I don't know." 

12:46 

Okay. So let me give you a little heads up here. Your primitive brain loves the phrase, "I don't know," because it's a place where it doesn't have to take any responsibilities and it doesn't have to do any work and your primitive brain really, really enjoys this space. It enjoys survival, not growth, and survival means the bare minimum required. So it's like water; water will always seek the lowest point possible. And then it settles there. Our primitive brain likes to do the same thing. What is the bare minimum necessary to keep us alive? Primitive brain likes this place. There is very little to no pain and there is pleasure and it conserves energy. So think sitting on the sofa, binge watching Netflix, eating a bag of chips. Right? No pain. All pleasure conserves energy. Our primitive brain would be happy to stay on that sofa all day, every day, right? So your primitive brain for sure is going to want to say, "I don't know. I don't know." Okay. No work involved there. Technically, do we need to know for our survival? Nope. Loads of people live out their entire lives never asking themselves the question "I wonder why" with regards to their own behavior, and guess what? They're still alive and they survive, right? Then why do we do it? Why would we want to move into this space of asking ourselves "I wonder why?" and be self reflective? If we can survive just fine by never asking this question, why push ourselves to learn the answer to that question? 

14:31 

For me, I think it's because we want to live a life experiencing what it's like to be more self-aware, to be growing into a stronger place of understanding who we are and intentionally moving into the kind of person we really want to be. Living the life we really want to live. We seek the experience of thriving and not just surviving. So your brain says, "I don't know." Expect that your brain's gonna say that and choose to push beyond it, because I'll teach you a secret here. You do know everything you need to know to move into a different space is within you. When I coach my clients, I don't give them advice and tell them what they should be doing. I help them access their own knowledge about themselves by asking them tough questions and not taking "I don't know" for an answer. 

15:23 

So when coaching yourself, don't take "I don't know" for an answer. Push yourself to begin to discover yourself at a deeper and more intimate level. This kind of self-honesty can be a little bit painful, but I will tell you that when you engage with it, it is so liberating. So the client I was working with this morning who wanted to answer "I don't know," I didn't let her off the hook. And it was amazing that when she started exploring the reason why she engaged in a certain behavior, she made some pretty amazing strides in understanding herself. She realized that she was making the certain decision we were talking about over and over in her life and making it from a place of guilt, feeling like she should be making that decision and thinking that people would like her better if she made that decision. So notice that both of these reasons are fear-based. So fascinating, right? When she starts to clean up her reasons, she learns to come from a place of unconditional clean love for herself and for others. She will very likely make the same decision and engage in the same behavior, but it will be made from a place of integrity with herself and with others. And this ends up being a love-based decision. She will make those decisions because that is the kind of person she wants to be, rather than seeking to people-please, or guilt trip herself into  doing it. 

16:49 

And this is the beauty of coaching. This is a tool that many of you will be able to use on yourself, and you will clearly see your "why" and obtain the self-awareness that we're talking about here. Many of you, as well, may feel intimidated or stuck with this concept. You may find it difficult to move past the "I don't know," or to move into this space of self-honesty, even though you may really want to. And that's what I'm here for. I can help you learn how to step into a place of self-awareness you haven't even been able to access yet. And I want you to think, what impact would it make in your life if you could step into this self-awareness? What would it mean to you to be able to get into this place? My goal as your life coach isn't to make you dependent on me for all of your growth for the rest of your life. I seek to give you these tools to teach you how to use and implement them and help you learn how to manage your personal growth projects in a healthy, self-compassionate loving way. It's the teaching you how to fish rather than just giving you a fish philosophy. 

18:03 

So as I get ready to finish up, I will tell you this, moving into self-awareness and truly understanding our reasons behind our actions is a very liberating place, and that can seem counterintuitive. Our primitive brain wants to tell us that when we see our deep, and sometimes dark, thoughts that we will be overcome with shame and we will feel powerless and we'll start drowning in depression or self-pity. But for me, I have found that the opposite is true. Right? When I summon the courage to really discover what is going on in my peripheral vision or in deeper parts of my brain, that it is actually a very empowering space to be in. Very often, they can be thoughts that sit off to the edge and I never really look at them because they seem scary or embarrassing. But pulling them out and setting them on the table lets me see them for what they are: thoughts. They're thoughts that are either helping me or they're not helping me. They're helping me become what I want to become or they're not. When I keep myself in a neutral space and don't judge myself for those thoughts, it's super amazing to see how much clarity about myself that I can gain. 

19:16 

So let me share with you how this worked for me very recently as in the last few days. So this last weekend, I went on a coaches retreat with four of my great friends who are also life coaches. I know them very well. We met about a year ago and once a week, we get together on a Zoom call to touch base to discuss our own personal growth and the growth of our businesses. I'm very comfortable with them and I adore them all. They are amazing women and I truly consider them to be some of my best friends. But here's the thing I noticed for me this weekend: within about a day of hanging out with them, I noticed that I was often feeling insecure. Nothing to do with them. Feeling of insecurity is gonna come from my own thoughts, right? So when I did my own thought downloads, I started to explore why I felt insecure by asking the question, "I wonder why?" And I discovered some really fascinating thoughts that were coming up. 

20:13 

At first, I was completely mortified by the feeling of insecurity. And then when I looked at it closer, I was mortified by the thoughts behind the insecurity. And I'll tell you what, I didn't wanna write them down because I was embarrassed, right? But then I just decided to get them out and look at them. I can't adjust it if I don't know where it's off, right? So I started to write them all down so I could look at them. And then I chose intentionally to step out of the place of judgment about them. When I was feeling mortified or embarrassed, it was because of the thought that I shouldn't be feeling or thinking what I was. Okay, see how multifaceted this process can be? The judgment may come really easy for you, but pay attention, sidestep it, and get into curiosity instead. So not only did I have to summon the courage to acknowledge that I was having those thoughts and to write them down, but then I had to very intentionally step out of judgment and choose to be curious, because at first there was a lot of judgment coming up, which is why I felt mortified, okay? 

21:24 

Now, I can't say that I'm super ecstatic about what I found, about the thoughts that were going on, but I am enlightened and I'm fascinated, and I'm choosing not to beat myself down about them. They are what they are. They're just thoughts in my head that may or may not be true, but getting them out and looking at them in the face is an empowering process, because now I feel as though I know what I'm working with. Now I feel empowered in understanding the cause of my feelings of insecurity, which were my thoughts. My thoughts created the insecurity, right? And here's the thing: I know I can manage my thoughts. I've learned the skills to know how to take those thoughts out, look at them with compassion and understanding, decide if they're serving me or not, and then make adjustments accordingly. Redirecting the thoughts that were creating the insecurity in me will take some time, but taking the time to get to know my enemy helps me know how to  overcome my enemy, right? Okay, now that's a little dramatic, but you get the gist, right? I have to know what's going on before I know how to overcome it. 

22:34 

I really, really want to encourage you to start asking yourself several times a day "I wonder why." And I don't care what it's about. Anything in your life, just start questioning, "why am I doing this? I wonder why I'm eating this food. I wonder why I responded this way in this conversation. I wonder why I put on makeup and do my hair. I wonder why I drive the kind of car that I drive," right? Anything in your life, when you ask that question "I wonder why," it's going to help move you into a space of self-discovery. And I think you'll be amazed at what you start discovering about yourself. But please, please, please remember to stay in a place of curiosity and compassion rather than judgment about what you find. 

23:28 

Okay, if you want some help with this process, you can go to tanyahale.com and set up your free consult so we can discuss how to help you get to this place of greater self-awareness. How to give you the tools that you need to move yourself into a healthier and happier place. I know I can help you. Give me 12 weeks of your time. Invest your time and your effort in yourself and let's see what we can do to move you into a space of greater awareness. And here's an exercise: if you're interested in coaching but find yourself scared to try it, ask yourself, "I wonder why?" See what comes up and see if you like those thoughts or not. Right? Fascinating work. This "I wonder why" question will change your life if you really intentionally incorporate it and start using it. 

24:22 

Okay, I love, love having you here with me and I love that we're growing up together. I love that we get to learn these concepts and improve our lives. Okay, that my friends is going to do it for today. I guess that's it. Have an awesome, awesome week and I will talk to you next time. Bye. 

24:45 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: ashort and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.