00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 167, "I Didn't Sign Up For This." 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. 

00:21 

Okay, my friends, how are you doing today? I am doing so great. Can I tell you, I've prepared this podcast and I've been working the last two hours with people from Apple Tech because something's been going wrong with my microphone. If you're a regular listener, you may have noticed a few weeks ago that my intro came on a little bit chipmunk-y and it's been doing that lately. And sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it does and I couldn't figure it out and I just missed that one. I didn't catch that that one had done that. Finally today, I got online and I was like, "okay, somebody help me figure this out" and I got online with a tech person and it took us about 45 minutes to figure out what it was and it just, it wasn't a setting that I had changed but something had happened anyway. We finally figured it out so now if it happens again, I know how to fix it but whoo, tech issues sometimes. 

01:17 

Alright, before I start, I'm going to ask, are you getting my "weekend win" email? If you are not, go to my website, tanyahale.com and there's a place on there where you can sign up for my "weekend win" email. It's an email that goes out every weekend, usually Friday mornings but not always, but it goes out and it's meant to be read in one minute or less, just to give you a quick little, "oh, that's interesting. That's a piece of information I can use," and I hope that it's really helpful for you. I know that when I write them, I'm always like, "oh, this is helpful for me." So hopefully you can get signed up for that and you can do that. 

01:55 

If you have not left me a review, please go ahead and do that. That really helps other people find this. And share this! If you hear stuff that's helping you, that is moving you in a better direction for your life, I would really ask that you would share this because most likely the kind of people you hang out with are the kind of people who would like this kind of stuff as well. So let's move this up. I'm coming up on 40,000 downloads, which for me, for being a little small town podcaster, not too bad. I'm kind of excited about that. So thank you for helping me to reach some goals and to do some great stuff. I love doing this for you. I love creating this content every week. It's such a beautiful thing that I get to put this out into the world and I get emails from people all over the world thanking me for specific content and for doing this and it just makes me get a little bit teary eyed every time because I love that I have clients worldwide, clients whether you're paying me or not. Clients worldwide whose lives are being changed by this content. I love doing that. I love feeling like I get to be an instrument in God's hand, in creating something that is making a difference in the world. That means a lot to me. And thank you for being here. And thank you for helping me fulfill a lifelong dream of making a difference in the lives of women. That's been on my bucket list. I think since I was a teenager, I felt like this was a calling for me to make a difference in the lives of women. And I really feel like I am. And so thanks for being here. 

03:32 

Okay, we're going to get started today. The title of today's podcast is "I Didn't Sign Up for This." Have you heard that phrase before? Okay, I'm just going to jump right in and I'm going to say let's take a look at the victim mentality in this phrase, shall we? Okay, "victim mentality phrase?" you say. "Isn't that a little bit harsh?" Well, okay, let's talk about it. I don't think so. I really believe, my friends, that it is time for us to really start being honest with ourselves about what we're thinking. We may use a phrase like that, like "I didn't sign up for this" kind of casually thinking we're kind of funny, thinking it's kind of whatever. But honestly, it is victim mentality thinking. Because even though we may use it as a cliche, as kind of thinking we're cute and funny, which sometimes we do that kind of stuff, our brain is hearing us say that and our brain is putting it out there. And this is the thing, when I say that it puts me, puts my brain, in a space where I think that I have no control. It says that everything is done to me that I am at the mercy of other people and circumstances. 

04:50 

Now, the part of this that is true is that there absolutely are circumstances that happen in our lives over which we have no  control. Hurricanes happen, earthquakes happen, tornadoes happen, and then children happen, and spouses happen, and friends happen, health happens, accidents happens, just life happens, other people come into our lives and say things and do things, and we get sick and somebody crashes into our car. I mean, life happens, right? These are absolutely things over which we have no control. Those are all what we call "circumstances." But this is the thing about circumstances: we have to keep them factual, with no thoughts and opinions allowed. Okay? When we put a circumstance into our thought model, circumstances are facts only, things that could be proven in a court of law. So if we said that car crashed into me, t-boned me on the intersection of whatever, that's facts. If we say that stupid driver crashed into me, That has an opinion in it. That stupid driver. That's an opinion my friends. Okay? Anytime we start adding adjectives, we're putting thoughts and opinions into it. So no thoughts and opinions allowed when we're talking about the circumstances. 

06:11 

So there are five parts to the model. Circumstances are the first part, and they are the only part that we don't have control over. The remaining four parts of the thought model are thoughts, feelings, actions, and results. We have 100% control over these. Okay, we're not gonna focus on that a ton ton today, but we want to realize that, yeah, there are circumstances that happen that we don't have control over. Oh, those pesky little circumstances, right? They just get in the way. Here's the thing...even if it's factual that I didn't sign up for it, that still is not being helpful. Okay, I didn't ask to weather a storm or for my spouse to have an affair (which my spouse didn't) or to get laid off of my job. I didn't sign up for...we didn't sign up for these things, right? We didn't want those things. Is that true that we didn't sign up for it? Probably. We're gonna hit that in another end, but while those things may be true, the thought I have is "is that thought serving you?" That I didn't sign up for these things? How in the world is deciding that you didn't sign up for something...how is it serving you? Is it solving the problem? Is it making you feel better? Is it strengthening your relationships? Is it clarifying your own beliefs and ideas? 

07:39 

Absolutely not. It isn't all. It is allowing you to feel sorry for yourself. "Life is so hard. Will everyone please feel sorry for me," okay? And while that may feel good for for a small bit. Because this is the deal, we all like to feel like a victim every once in a while for just a bit. But after that bit, it feels like crap, it feels horrible. Then we feel trapped, we feel stuck, we feel as if there is no way out of our horrible circumstance. And when we step into this, "I didn't sign up for this," it gets us stuck like there's no way out. So many women, middle-aged women, that I work with feel so stuck in middle-age. And it's because of this thought or a thought very similar to it, a thought like "this isn't the life I wanted. I didn't pick this life, I didn't choose this." Stuck, stuck, stuck, right? This is what's kind of fascinating. We let our brain know that we just want to wallow, that we don't want to fix it. When I say "this isn't the life I wanted, I didn't choose this, I didn't sign up for this," we tell our brain, "hey listen, I'm not interested in fixing it. I just want to wallow. I just want to feel sorry for myself." And that is what stuck in middle age is all about. 

09:06 

But here's the deal, our brains are amazing and our brains were created to figure things out. They were created to solve problems and to find solutions. And we tell our brains and everyone around us that we didn't sign up for this. We're telling our brains not to worry about it and to not worry about figuring it out. We're giving our brain permission to not work on it, to not look for solutions. In essence, it's a phrase that says, "I'm okay with this. It may hurt, I may hate it, it's too much, but it's too much to work on and figure it out. And it's too much to put the effort into moving into a different place, so don't worry about it. I'll just learn to be okay with how it is." Now I'm sure there are some of you who probably think I'm overreacting a bit, and maybe so. But here's what I know about our primitive brain: it wants things to be as easy as possible. It wants to conserve energy today. It's not worried about tomorrow or the next day or next month or next year. It is worried about right now. It doesn't concern itself with figuring out tomorrow because that job belongs to our prefrontal cortex. Our primitive brain wants to feel better right now this second. And stepping into victim mode feels really good right now because we're thinking we're going to get pity and we don't have to step into the harder work of figuring it out, of creating a solution. It means that our brain, our primitive brain, doesn't have to engage and get to work to figure things out. 

10:42 

And figuring things out can be a challenge, especially when we first get started. A lot of times once we get moving on figuring something out, we get the momentum started, we're good. But those first steps of moving into figuring out, they can be challenging. So for me, I see this very often with preparing these podcasts. I love doing these, but taking the initial step to sit down here at my computer and to start preparing content can sometimes feel so big. Now, listen, I know that it's not. I know that once I sit down and get started, it's amazing and it's fun. And I love it so much. But that first step of sitting down at the computer and knowing that I have to engage my brain in working through stuff and creating content,  sometimes I'm just like, "uhhhhh" and it will feel better, short term, my primitive brain tells me it feels better to wander around the house, feeling sorry for myself that I don't get to go play. And instead I have to do some hard thinking and processing to prepare a podcast. And my primitive brain goes a little crazy with wanting to feel better right now. And so it wants to go get a snack. It wants to go wander around the house. It wants to just chill and scroll Facebook for a bit. And it knows that there is preparation, that my preparation is going to require energy and my primitive brain wants to conserve the energy. 

12:08 

But here's the deal: as soon as I just say, "okay, come on, I love to do the podcast, I'm just going to sit down and do it." As soon as I engage my prefrontal cortex and I sit down and I get started, it's usually not very hard at all. My thinking brain kicks in and I get all of these ideas and the energy starts flowing and the thrill of creating content takes over. So using phrases like "I didn't sign up for this" or "this isn't the life I chose," gives our primitive brain permission to check out and find short term comfort in the wallowing. When we intentionally choose, instead, to think more proactive thoughts, we engage our prefrontal cortex in starting to solve the problem, which is what this thinking part of our brain was created for. It was created to solve problems, to figure things out, to find a better way. So I didn't sign up for this. Maybe it's true. Maybe we didn't. But it's not helpful. And it is not creating movement. So instead moving into, "okay, so now what?" Or "let me think about this." Or "I can figure this out," moves the problem out of our primitive brain and into our prefrontal cortex where we can start intentionally solving the problem and getting unstuck. 

13:30 

It's so important that we really start listening to the small, seemingly innocuous, comments that can come so easily to us. These are the thoughts that we are completely unaware of that are keeping us stuck. And stuck in midlife is the refrain of so many people I chat and work with. It's because we keep using these phrases that we do don't even realize we're using that sideline us. Sometimes we started using them when we were younger because we just thought it was funny. We thought it was clever. We thought it was whatever. I know that's where most of mine came from. But as I get older, I see that these phrases really, as my primitive brain latches on to them and as they become part of my thinking process, they are damaging me. And this is why working with a coach can be so helpful because I can help you see patterned behaviors that are keeping you stuck. Patterns that you don't even see that are keeping you from the life you actually want to sign up for. Okay, so here we go. So we've got to start moving out of our primitive brain into our prefrontal cortex to thinking intentionally with using those phrases like, "okay, so now what?" or "let me think about this" or "I know I can figure this out," right? That's going to help. 

14:52 

So one last thought for today before we sign off. There's another thought behind, "I didn't sign up for this," that I really want us to take a look at. Maybe we actually did sign up for this. Okay. Now, if we look at the big, big, big picture of a pre-earth life when we lived with God, maybe we did sign up for this specifically. Maybe there were little checklists where we got to go around and sign up and say," I'll take this one and I'll take this one." I don't know how all that works. I know that I really believe that God, that we have specific challenges for us that are custom made for us to move into the greater purpose of our life and to help move us into our greatest possibility. Okay. So that's one option. Maybe we did actually sign up for it that way. But I also am talking about the fact that the life we're living right now today is the accumulation of every thought and every feeling and every action that we have engaged in over a lifetime. Every thought, feeling, and action has moved me in a direction. It has created the path that I have walked. It has created everything that I am. Everything that I believe, everything that I think and feel today. One step at a time. I am where I am today because of all of that. 

16:24 

So for example, when I look back at my divorce six years ago, I could have very easily stood my ground on saying that I didn't get married to get divorced. This isn't what I signed up for, 24 years of a really challenging marriage. I didn't sign up for that. But it actually was the life that I chose over and over throughout the years when I didn't leave earlier when I wanted to. In single digit years when I was like, "oh, this is too much. I got to get out of here." I didn't. In the teen years, guess what? I didn't leave. Even though there were so many times when I felt like I wanted to, and where it would have been a good thing to, I didn't. It was the life I chose when I decided at the age of 23 to marry somebody that I didn't know very well. When I really stand back and get out of my own brain drama and look at it, I'm like, "you know what? I did choose this life. I did choose to marry someone I didn't know very well." And even though there were so many times over the course of the years where I was like," I think I want to get out. I think I want to get out." I chose not to. So when I get to 24 years in a marriage and I say, "this isn't what I signed up for," I gotta be honest with myself. It kind of is what I signed up for. 

17:54 

Okay, so you may have just gone through a natural disaster, guess what? You did choose to live where you live or you did choose to be on vacation at the time where you were. If you chose to have children, you did choose to have them grow up and make their own decisions. If you chose to have a job, you chose to work with random people you didn't get to choose, and you chose to work in that specific field. When we really step out of this space of blaming other people and saying, "not my fault, I didn't sign up for this," when we step into the responsibility of what our life is today and where our life is today, 

we become so free. So empowered. We are empowered by realizing that if my choices brought me here, my choices can move me somewhere else. So I'm not stuck, I'm in figuring it out mode. 

18:59 

One of the greatest things I do as a coach is to help people stop blaming other people and circumstances for where and how and what their life is. I help them learn to step instead into taking responsibility for all of it. Because if we don't want to step into this kind of responsibility, if that's not for you, if you don't want to step into that responsibility, then right now, coaching is not the best option for you. Signing up to work with me would be a waste of your time and money and energy. And if that's you right now where you're like, "eee, I'm not ready for that responsibility," that's great. Just keep listening here and keep moving the needle of your life a little bit at a time. And maybe someday you will be ready for a more intensive practice to move your life into the space that you want it to be at. 

19:56 

But if you're at a space right now where you are ready to get unstuck, if you're ready to take a good hard, sometimes difficult, look at your life and the patterns you've created and the life that you did sign up for, I promise you coaching can be an indispensable tool to help you do that. I know that most of the big aha moments and discoveries that I make about my own dysfunctional patterns of behavior come when I'm working with my coach or when I have had a small aha and I take that to my coach and we help dig a little bit deeper. And I'll tell you what, I love about these discoveries, love love love them so much, that they get emotional when I start talking about them. When I first started doing this work, I was scared to death of what I would find. I was afraid that I would find things that were so big that I would crawl in bed and never come out. And then what if I stop going to my job and I lose my job and then I lose my house and then I lose my car? And then I would go into this worst case scenario that if I see too much, then I'm going to shut down, which is ridiculous because I've never done that in my life. So why my brain goes to worst case scenario, total primitive brain response, right? It's just what our primitive brain does. But the increased awareness seemed as though it would be overwhelming and way too much for me to deal with. 

21:25 

But here's the thing, as I continue to move into a space of more and more awareness about my own behaviors and my own responsibility for my life, the more liberated I feel. And I can tell you, I'm moving out of this space where I'm not even scared to see things that are so dysfunctional in my life anymore. In fact, I get a bit of a high when I find something new. When I discover something new, I'm always like, "Oh my gosh, look what I just discovered. Look what I found out." It's thrilling and exciting for me to see that because before where I felt clueless, I felt unaware of how to fix things and what needed to happen before I felt that everybody else needed to figure out their crap and then things would be better in my life. But now I fully understand that every problem in my life is my problem to figure out, that I have the capacity to figure it out, whatever it is that comes my way. I don't feel helpless in the face of awareness these days. 

22:44 

Now, that doesn't mean that things aren't difficult and hard to face sometimes. It doesn't mean that I don't have tough things. But I don't feel helpless ever. I don't remember the last time I felt helpless, because now I recognize that I can figure it out. And what it does mean as well is that it's getting so much easier for me to step out of blame and victimhood, and easier to step into responsibility and to feel empowered by my ability to move forward. The awareness that I gain of myself is thrilling and exciting because I know that it's going to take me to a better space. Is it hard to see sometimes? Sometimes I see it and I'm like, "whoa, like I had no idea that's what I was doing. Had no idea that's how I was showing up and what I was creating in other people's lives." Yeah, so sometimes it's hard for sure. But I would rather have that kind of hard the pain of awareness rather than the pain of avoidance or ignorance, not knowing what's going on, not knowing how to fix it is always worse. Because when I know what it is, when I see what's holding me back, when I see why I'm stuck, then I am empowered by my ability to move forward. 

24:13 

This is what coaching has to offer you. Love coaching so much and I love growing up into the space where I'm no longer scared of seeing my stuff, of becoming aware of what's holding me back. I love this space so much This is what middle age is bringing to me and this is why when a lot of people are like, "oh middle age is horrible," I'm like, "are you kidding? Middle age is phenomenal. It's fantastic," right? It's this place of moving into, I really believe, the best years of my life. I've got 20, 30, 40 good years left in me to make an impact in the world and to do amazing things, to use all of my experience, and my expertise, and my knowledge, and my wisdom thus far to make a difference in the world. And you have the same thing. This is our time to shine, my friends This is our time to step into the best, most productive, most fulfilling years of our lives. And if you're having trouble stepping into that, let's chat. Because we do not have to stand around and waste our time and waste our energy ever again. We can move into this. 

25:34 

So this is how you do it. You go to my website tanyahale.com. There's a "contact me" button that you can book a free 30 minute consult. We can talk about how coaching will help you, how it can help you get to your best self-effort, to really tap into your possibility. Okay? That, my friends, is the end of what I prepared for you today. I hope you have a really fabulous week, a terrific rest of your day, and I will talk to you next week. See you then. 

26:08 

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: a short 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.