00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 327, "Learning to Love Your Human Self." 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 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast. I am just so glad to have you here. If you're new, it's a great place to be. I hope that you find here things that will nudge you along in your journey to have better relationships and to feel more fulfilled with this middle life life that you are living. And if you are coming back, thanks, and thanks for sharing this. I appreciate the reviews that I get on the podcast, and I appreciate you sharing this with people. I just feel so passionate about doing this work and about what this work creates for us, because I have seen the powerful impact that it has had on my life, in incorporating these skills into a marriage that I have now that is just nothing like the previous marriage I had, into creating better relationships with my children and with people in my lives, and just showing up in such a way that feels so much more integrity with who I am and who I want to be and becoming the more Christlike person that I want to be. Now, I'm far from being where I need to be, but I'm closer than I used to be for sure, and that's why I'm here, and that's what I hope that you walk away from this with as well. 

01:42 

Alright, just a couple of things I want to make you aware of. I am going to start doing some webinars called, I don't know, Talking with Tanya, something along those lines. They're going to be free, and you'll sign up for them to get the link, and then you just show up and we can talk about your personal situations. We can just discuss a topic more in-depth that you may want to discuss with me. Maybe you just want to come and see what other people are talking about, but it's, I think it's just going to be fun. It's going to be kind of casual and just an opportunity to to ask me questions. You can ask me questions about my personal life, about my previous marriage, about what things are, how things are going in this marriage, if you're curious about any of that. Pretty much anything's going to be game for this. So looking to start those in October. So keep your eyes open if you are interested in that and you want to learn more about it. 

02:42 

Make sure that you are on my email list, which I don't send out a ton of stuff. When I'm doing classes you'll get more, but generally you're just going to get one thing a week and that's going to be my "weekend win," which is a great email that's meant to be read in about two minutes or less. I'm just talking about a life coaching concept, something that's different than what we're doing on the podcast, but good, good stuff. So if you want that, you're going to want to go to tanyahale.com, my website. You're going to want to go to the "contact me" button and then scroll down just a little bit and it will say, "sign up for the weekend win." And that's what you're going to want to be doing. And then you're going to want to open those emails when they come, just so that you know what's going on and so that you can be aware when I'm starting the Talk with Tanya. 

03:25 

And also, I am going to be doing a holiday class this year that's going to be, it's going to start in November and it'll end a week or two before Christmas. And it's just a, "come on, let's deal with all the stress that the holidays have to offer us between having too much to do and having people in our lives that we sometimes struggle being around." We're just going to have a class that covers a lot of that and I'm going to leave a lot of time in there for personal coaching in a group context. And again, that class is going to be limited to people because I like to keep the classes small. I just think that that's a brilliant venue for having discussions and for really helping you step into learning the things that you want to learn. 

04:12 

And then I'm also going to be starting some more group classes in the new year, probably another couples class as well. I've had some requests for that for the new year. So if you have suggestions of what you would want a class on or classes that I've taught before that you did not get to sign up for that you would like to circle back around, again, you can go to that  "contact me" button on my website and you can send me a note and I will take all of that into consideration as I move forward. 

04:41 

So let's jump into today's podcast. I'm calling this one "Learning to Love Your Human Self." And this one actually is coming about as a result of class number one of the "Ready, Set, Date" class that I'm doing. We had such an amazing discussion about learning to love our journey, love ourselves where we are. 

05:03 

So it starts off with this question that that always intrigues me, is "why is it so hard for so many of us to love ourselves, our human selves?" It's fascinating, isn't it, that we were created to be humans. We are here on earth with a huge capacity to make mistakes. That's how God created us. And our primitive brains are primed for protection, not perfection. Right? We actually have this incredibly long learning curve for physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth. Those of us in our 50s, gosh darn it, we are still feeling like we're not even close on so many of these things. On all those things actually, for me, right? But knowing what we know about God's Plan of Happiness for us is that we came here to Earth to learn and to grow, to figure things out, to learn to rely on God and on the Savior that He provided. 

06:03 

I love that in The Book of Mormon in Alma, chapter 42 verse 15, this Plan of Happiness is also referred to as the Plan of Mercy. And what is mercy? Mercy is compassion and forgiveness shown to someone by someone else in a position of power. So inherent in this definition, to me at least, is the idea that the first person who receives the mercy doesn't deserve compassion or forgiveness. That nothing they can do warrants the person in power extending this mercy to them. And yet God calls His plan the Plan of Mercy. He knew from the first moment of our birth that we would need mercy because of the human nature that we were born into. 

06:55 

In fact, I'm reading a book from Adam Miller which is basically a retranslation of the Book of Romans where he talks about Paul and all of the grace that's offered in there. And I love how he makes it very clear that the plan was grace. The plan wasn't that we would mess up and then need grace. The plan was grace and that's where it starts. And this human nature that we were born into, we were born into this Plan of Grace. And what is the human nature? The human nature is that we go from knowing nothing. Think about a brand new baby born. They may still have ties with the pre-Earth life. Maybe, we don't know that for sure, but I have a hard time believing that that's not true. But even that, when we put them as a human on this earth, they know nothing. And they slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly, over a lifetime, here a little, in there a little, line upon line, precept on precept, increase in knowledge and understanding. We go from knowing nothing to understanding a little more and a little more and more and more and more over time, which means when we know nothing or very little, we are going to make a lot of mistakes along the pathway to knowing more. 

08:20 

Think of it, this newborn baby, right? At first, they have zero bodily control. They can't move their arms or their legs at will. They can't speak or communicate intentionally. Everything that they do is instinctual at that stage, but by three or four months, they can track you with their eyes. They are beginning to figure out how to move their arms and their hands, and they can start to lift their heads, and by six months they might be able to sit up by themselves. Then they learn to roll their bodies from front to back, and then from back to front, and then they learn to grasp things with their fingers and with their hands, and they start to shuffle their little bodies however they do it, whether they're crawling or shuffling on their bottoms. And then they start standing up, and then they start cruising along the furniture, and then they start walking, and by, I don't know, that's different for everybody, right? We'll just, by 14 months or so, they start like even running a little bit. Little by little, they gain more and more capacity to control their physical body. Little by little, they gain the capacity for understanding language, and then they start learning how to form sounds in their mouth, and eventually learn to say the words. 

09:36 

Their growth can seem so small, even imperceptible at times, except for the grandparents, who show up after a few months away, and all of a sudden the baby is so much bigger and has grown so much, not just in length and weight, but also in their functional capacities. And guess what? We are all super okay with this process, and we should be. We recognize that all of the learning and growth is a process. Yes, it doesn't happen all at once. It doesn't happen quickly. It is a slow and arduous process, okay? Sometimes as the parent, it doesn't seem slow and arduous. It seems to be right on time for most of our kiddos. And even if it is slow, we're like, "oh, perfect timing," right? Like "this is when it's supposed to happen." And we marvel, and we ooh, and we aww over every little spurt of growth and development, and we cheer that first step and the second step and all of that stuff. 

10:33 

And then it seems that the older we or the people in our lives get, the less we find amazement over small bits of growth. In fact, often the older they get, and we get, the more we start to have these ideas that we should all have it figured out. When I taught 8th grade, so keep in mind 13 and 14 year old kids, right, a lot of people were like, "oh that's the hardest age" and I agree. I think that they're just, they're just at the peak of of craziness and that's what I loved about them, right? I think it matched my mentality. But it was amazing how much we expected these 13 and 14 year old kids to behave like adults when they aren't even close to being an adult. They are still In the throes of puberty, the huge amounts of estrogen and testosterone and other hormones that are surging through their bodies in order to turn their child bodies into an adult body in just a few years, these hormones are taking over and leaving these poor kids overwhelmed and confused by the physical, emotional and mental changes taking place. 

11:46 

And we get frustrated when they make mistakes that we, as a 30 or 40 or 50 something person, would never make, right? We get angry when they are late to go to school, while often finding ourselves late to get to church. How can they not have control of themselves within time? Well, how can we as full-fledged adults not have control over ourselves within time? It's because we're humans, always needing to figure it out, sometimes over and over again, our whole lives. 

12:26 

And thus it is, the unrealistic expectations that others, and we, should be in a place we aren't even capable of being yet. Or, what seems to be backsliding, because we're now not doing something we used to do, but that is part of the human experience as well. But here's what happens: before we know it, we're a 50 year old woman who can't fathom that we don't have it all together by now and we are so mean, so mean, to ourselves in our heads for not saying the right thing at the exact right time and sometimes even saying the wrong thing and hurting somebody. We get so frustrated with our capacity to misunderstand situations and misread people's intentions. We can have a tendency to internalize other people's bad behavior and think that it's because of us that they are being that way. 

13:22 

Like in the dating class we talked about how if they're in communication (I have a woman in the class) with a man and he leaves, how easy it is for us to think that "oh, there's something wrong with me that he left," when really it's nothing to do with us at all. It's not to say we're perfect, but he's leaving for his reasons, right? He gets to own his behavior. But during all of this we completely forget that we are still humans on the path of learning and growth and that it's a lifetime event, even a beyond this lifetime event, just like we started to lose our perspective with that five year old who doesn't pick up his toys or who makes a mess at the dinner table and we get frustrated and annoyed and maybe a little bit snippy. We forget that we in our 50s or 60s or wherever you are we are still the learning curve as well. A five year old isn't supposed to know how to do everything, even if they've already been shown or taught it multiple times. 

14:31 

And neither are we as 50 year olds, even if we've been shown it or taught it over a lifetime. Our human brains are not built to understand everything the first time around, and also not to understand it at the available depth, even the 50th time around. And our human brains are geared toward...they're like water, always searching for the easiest, most comfortable place to be. And growth isn't always easy, and it's rarely comfortable. So even if we have grown and developed in one area, our brain will easily slip back into previous pattern behaviors. Like if we started exercising or started eating really well or getting up early and using our time to do scriptures or whatever, our body will let go of those. Our brain will let go of those so quickly because our primitive brain wants protection. It doesn't want perfection. I've been in my body for 56 years, and you would think that I would have a pretty good bodily control over it. And yet it has taken me three summers to learn how to wake surf behind a boat. And I'm still a little sketch at it, let's be honest, although I'm doing pretty darn good, right? I still fall a lot when I go snow skiing. In fact, I even tore my ACL a year and a half ago snow skiing. What the heck is wrong with me? Shouldn't I have more bodily control at this point? Of course you wouldn't think that I should. Things take time to learn and master. 

16:09 

And that's just physically learning a new skill, when I've already had 56 years of figuring out how to maneuver and manage my body. New skills also take time to learn and master in the emotional realm, or in the spiritual or the mental or the intellectual realm. Things just take time. Progress takes time. Perfection takes an eternity. And yet we can get so frustrated with our humanity sometimes. We say something thoughtless to someone and they're hurt by our words and we go into self flagellation, beating ourselves down for not knowing better, for not seeing things more clearly, for hurting someone in a way we would never ever intend to. We compare ourselves with others who seem to know exactly what to say to extend compassion and kindness. We berate ourselves for not being as emotionally attuned or as emotionally intelligent. We find ourselves laughing at inappropriate times or making light of something that someone else takes seriously. We inadvertently hurt others and dismiss others. We don't notice when someone is in pain, so we don't extend a compassionate hand to them. We have these expectations that we should have it all figured out, that we shouldn't ever say something unkind or thoughtless or miss the social cue that someone else is hurting and needs our compassion. 

17:34 

And yet we will do all of these things. We will be unkind. We will be dishonest. We will question our faith. We will have horrible thoughts. We will think about doing horrendous things. Not because we are bad or immoral, but because we are humans. We are not, nor were we, intended to be perfect. We were created to be imperfect beings raised by imperfect parents with imperfect siblings in an imperfect circumstance surrounded by other highly imperfect people, some who may have done some pretty horrific things to us. And this is all part of our human experience. 

18:15 

And our God-given agency plays so much into this. We have our agency to make decisions even when we don't have all the good data and even when we don't have the emotional capacity to understand the circumstances. I look back at my previous marriage. I did not have good tools. I did not have the emotional capacity to understand what was going on and to create something healthier. I can beat myself up over that. Or I can go, "oh, I didn't have it. Oh, don't love how I showed up. Let me do something different from this point on. Let me move forward. Let me figure things out." I think it's fascinating that so many decisions that will impact a person's whole life are in the hands of young teenagers who just don't have the intellectual or emotional capacity to make good decisions. If they choose to have unprotected sex, to get addicted to drugs, or do things that will put their own lives at risk, they are making decisions that could impact them for the rest of their lives, and yet their inexperience makes it so difficult for them to make wise decisions. Even before their brains are functioning at full human capacity, which they generally are saying is about age 25, these kids are making life-altering decisions. 

19:42 

That is something that is fascinating to me about God's plan. He has his reasons for this, I'm sure, and I can't wait to find out what they are. But God gives us this incredible gift of agency, and He values it so highly that He allows us to make mistakes that hurt ourselves and that even hurt others. It's all part of His plan for us to learn and to grow. Just as that baby needs to learn and grow a bit at a time to figure out how to control their bodies, we need to learn and grow a bit at a time our whole lives to learn to control all of the aspects of our lives. From learning a new physical skill like wake surfing, to learning how to communicate better with others, to learning how to be more emotionally attuned to others, to learning how to circle back around and try it again when we aren't, to learn how to be more aware so that we show up better and more loving and kind and not giving unsolicited advice and not being passive aggressive and not being manipulative. Because even after a lifetime we will still not do these things perfectly. 

20:55 

Part of this is just that we literally do not have the capacity for perfection or for being without flaw. And that is because we weren't created to be perfect, we were created to be human. The words "human" and "perfect" do not even belong in the same paragraph together. Our human brain is not omniscient. It does not have the ability to be 100% aware of everything going on around us at all times. Now, God can do that, but we're not God. We cannot. We are human. And because our brains have a limited human capacity, we won't always notice things that are right in front of our face. We won't always notice a friend's struggle or the strained reply of our spouse. We will miss a lot of things. That's part of what it means to be a human. 

21:49 

So what if we normalize being a human rather than normalizing perfection? Now, not that we want to settle for way less than we're capable of, but let's get realistic about what we're really capable of. And perfection is not anything we're capable of. We might use the phrase "I should have known better." But really, should we? Should we have known better, given our  brain's capacity for filtering information and only showing us a small percentage of what's going on? Given our relative, limited life experience and given the knowledge that our primitive brain is always loud and obnoxious about pushing a protection from pain agenda? Should we really have known better? We get seduced and distracted by a lot of things. And not because we're bad, but because we're human and that is how our brain is programmed. It's all part of our learning journey, and making a lot of mistakes is a normal part of this journey. 

23:01 

A piece of this that is so tragic is that while we are beating ourselves for not being perfect, we are often also tying that performance in with our worth as a human being. We often think that our worth as a human is in direct correlation with our ability to be as close to perfect as possible. And my friends, that is false. Our worth as a human has nothing to do with anything that we do or don't do, past, present, or future. Our worth was great on the day we were born, it has never changed, and it will never change. What we do, how we think, all of that changes our experiences in life and how we contribute, but it never changes our worth. And holding onto the idea that we have to be perfect is making us miserable. We think it's going to prove our worth and make us more valuable and more happy, but it actually makes us more miserable. 

24:12 

So how do we learn to love our human self? How do we make peace with our humanity? Well, as I've touched on, we really have to accept that humans will be humans, and we will all be ridiculous sometimes. We can't be perfect or even close to it. We weren't created that way. We were created to make a bunch of mistakes our entire life. The process in the plan isn't not to make mistakes. The process and the growth come when we learn how to respond to our mistakes in powerful ways. When we learn to be humble around our mistakes, when we learn to accept our imperfections and then learn from them., when we learn how to circle back around and apologize and try again and again and even again, this is how we learn to be more Christlike, to be more like God. Because when we can learn to accept God's offered grace, we can grow a bit at a time to be a little bit better. Which is our human experience? 

25:21 

So how do we learn to accept God's grace? By offering ourselves grace for our gift of humanity, by learning to let go of our foibles and move on by doing what it takes to repent and move forward. Being a human is the journey. God expects our lives to be a mess today, and for us to even die a mess. That's what being a human means. Embracing our humanity could sound like phrases like this, "ugh, that didn't turn out how I planned. Let me try that again." Or maybe, "hey babe, I don't love how I showed up just then. Can I circle back around and try it again?" Or, "oh friend, I am so sorry that I misunderstood what you were saying yesterday and glossed over your pain. I really adore you and would never do that on purpose. Any chance you have some time that we can sit down and chat this week?" Or how about, "huh, still figuring this one out. Gosh, this one's tricky." Or, "sweet child, I am so sorry. I got a little heavy-handed with some unsolicited advice yesterday. I'm really working to be more aware so I don't do that. Please forgive me." 

26:41 

Here's the deal: of course you will show up as an imperfect human. That's what you are. It's what you were created to be. Use that phrase: "Of course. Of course I show up this way. Of course I make mistakes. Of course I miss things. Of course I forget birthdays." Right? It's just what we do. One of my daughters had an umbilical hernia when she was younger, and she was asking me a few weeks ago about it. And I'm just like, "I don't even remember that." And she's just like, "what? You don't even remember I had this surgery." And I'm like, "I don't know. I don't remember." And it's been a bit of a, not a bad issue, but it's a source of teasing for sure. But in my brain I'm thinking, "of course I'm not gonna remember all the things. I had four kids. I had a lot going on. I was up to my eyeballs sometimes in soccer games and music practices and schools and teaching school and a bad marriage and all this other stuff. Of course I'm not gonna remember all the things." Right? Of course we will show up as an imperfect human. It's how we were created. It is the gift that God gave us. Imperfect humanity. And the more we can learn to embrace our own humanity, to receive the grace that God is offering us, the greater our capacity to accept the humanity of those around us. 

28:15 

And this is the next huge piece of this concept. Often as I work with clients, we notice that things that we tend to get upset about with others, is that they show up as freaking humans with all the same limitations as us. They forget our birthday. They don't notice that we were upset. They didn't call when they knew we were struggling with something. They didn't ever talk to us about our divorce. They don't ask questions about a big project we're working on. They always seem focused on their own stuff and don't ask about ours. Their problems always seem worse than ours. They never ask about my kids. They  didn't ask about my big presentation at work yesterday. Right? The list is endless. 

28:57 

These are all just human things. It's humans being humans. People figuring out how to interact and communicate better and juggle all of their own life complexities while occasionally reaching out to friends. It's people who are also dealing with brains who filter out 95% of the information coming into our brains so that we don't get overwhelmed. We are all in the thick of humanity. We all get distracted by our own struggles and challenges. We are all spread thin and don't reach out when we feel prompted by the Spirit. We, every single one of us, is caught up in our own human lives and we miss things around us, sometimes really important things. We just can't do it all or be it all. 

29:56 

Sione and I do a great job being in touch with each other at the end of every day, but when we look at our day in entirety, he gets up early, he goes running with a friend, they have conversations, he goes to work, he does things with all these different people all day long, he has drives here and there, he has other things he's doing. Me, I get up, I do my exercise here, I get ready, I come in the office, I work with clients, I write podcasts, I read books, I engage in other stuff. We both have very different experiences and so when we come together at the end of the day, my brain has all of my whole day's life experiences that it's processing and figuring out. His has all of his. Of course we're not going to be on the same page about everything. Of course there are going to be days where I'm concerned about a client or overwhelmed with something or he's going to have his brain filled with something else and is not going to walk in the house and go, "oh look, I see that you did this," right? 

30:59 

It just doesn't work that way. We have to give each other space to be humans. And, when we can learn to love our path, when we can learn to love what we are learning along the way, to embrace the struggles because they've made us who we are, then we can begin to embrace our human self. And when we drop the expectations of perfection from us and other people, then we can stop being disappointed in our humanity and in other people's humanity. When we stop being disappointed and instead embrace the struggle, the process, the human side of us and embrace the grace that so freely God offers us, then we are posed to progress. 

31:51 

It is in this space of accepting our humanity that we are free to push against the walls of our comfort zone, when we are free to find courage and power in our flaws. And when we can do this with ourselves, then we have the capacity to accept the humanity in others. We are then free to offer them the same kind of grace that God offers to us. Grace that gives us the space to make mistakes, to circle back around and to try it again. The grace to be a human having a human experience. Grace that frees up our hearts to love cleanly and unconditionally without expectation of perfection. And this is where we have the capacity to really start creating the emotional intimacy that strong relationships are made of. 

32:47 

When we learn to embrace and even love our humanity and our human journey as imperfect as it is. When we learn to accept God's grace for our imperfect human self, then our capacity to love the other humans around us multiplies. Our love increases and we are free to move into the next best version of our human self, which will still be deeply flawed. But is on a path that feels really good. And this is all part of growing up. It's all part of growing into our next best version. 

33:34 

Okay, that's going to do it for me, my friends. Hope this shifted something in your brain about your journey and about learning to give yourself more grace for being a human. Come on, it's all about being a human. Let's just embrace it and love it and go with the flow. Doesn't mean we're not growing and progressing. That's what we're doing here. But let's stop beating ourselves down for not being perfect when we're not supposed to be, okay? Have an amazing amazing week. If you feel like moving into this next version of yourself is a great option, I would love to meet with you on a free coaching call. You can go to my website, tanyahale.com. Go to the "free consultation" tab at the top. You can sign up on my calendar. Let's talk about coaching and how it would work in your life, and let me coach you so that you can see and feel the power of what coaching can offer you. It is an amazing experience and I would not be where I am in my life without the help of my coaches that I have had over the years. It just makes a huge difference in my growth and in my progress you, and it continues to as I continue to meet with my coaches in my life. So let's get signed up. 

35:09 

You can make progress on your own, but I promise you, you will make progress at an unbelievably quicker rate when you're working with a coach. It's just how it works. And I would love to be part of your journey. If you are interested in that, even if that journey is just one coaching session, take me up on it. Will you please? Okay. Go to tanyahale.com, click on the "free consultation" button, and let's get that set up. Have a great, great week, and I will talk to you next time. Bye. 

35:43 

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.