00:00 

This is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 70 "Self-Reflection and Self-Coaching." 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. Hey, nice to be with you today. I'm just happy. I have a couple of things I want to talk to you about first. I have starting next week two classes that I'm running. They're going to be group coaching classes, which means that we would all meet together as a class. I'm going to teach some concepts and then we're going to have time for question and answers. And if someone on there wants some specific one-on-one coaching, we can do that and everyone else can listen. It's really such a phenomenal opportunity to not only be coached, but also to hear other people get coached, because when we hear other people get coached we oftentimes see correlations to our own lives in our own situations. So it's a great opportunity. 

01:06 

I have two classes that I'm going to be starting next week. The first one that starts a week from today, next Thursday, November 7th, is called LDS Happy and Divorced. That's just it, you know what, so many people get divorced and they just struggle, struggle, struggle, and there's a lot of reasons for that. There's a lot of trauma associated with divorce and there's a lot of negative thoughts that are associated with divorce. We're going to work through a lot of those. It's going to be a six week course. Every week has a different topic of what we're going to be discussing. Calls will be up to an hour and a half and they will be every Thursday night and they're going to be over Zoom. So it's all over the computer, so you can just join in and if for some reason you can't make a class then replays will be sent out to your email. So you can get on my website tanyhale.com, go under the courses tab and you can look and find a little bit more information about that course called LDS Happy and Divorced. 

02:11 

Alright, and if you know somebody who is in that situation, divorced and just struggling to make it work and struggling to be at peace with where they are that they didn't plan on being, send them my way. Have them get signed up and have them join this. It's going to be a terrific course and I am limiting the size number of that, so there's just going to be limited seats because I don't want it to get too big and I want people to be able to have questions answered and be able to ask those questions. 

02:42 

The second class I'm going to be starting is going to be on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m. mountain time and this class is called Happy Holidays to Me. And it's basically a stress buster for the holidays, because I think so many of us just get these ideas in our head of what we think the holidays should be and we get stressed out and unhappy and we're grumpy and the holidays get over and we're just like, "I hated this holiday season," right? We need to learn to control our thoughts around the holidays. So that's what this four week course is going to be, and classes will be every other Saturday, two in November and then two in December. And so you can check that out as well in the same place, my website, tanyahale.com and you can go to the "courses" tab and you can find this class, Happy Holidays to Me. Alright, so I would love to have you join me for either one of those. I think they're just gonna be, well, I don't think, I know they're gonna be amazing. I've got some great content prepared and the opportunity to work through some of your own thoughts in these areas will be spectacular. So get on my website, go check it out, and see if it's something that's going to work for you. 

04:02 

Okay, so moving on to today and today's podcast. You know, one thing that I love about doing this podcast, really love, is that you are my tribe, right? Not all people are self-reflective and looking for ways to move into greater mental health, but you are. And because you are, you recognize that not everybody is. But that's why you're here. You see and understand the  value that you are creating in your own life as you seek to understand yourself better, what you think, what you feel, what you do. You understand that there is no happiness without growth and that learning to work through the difficult times in our lives in a healthy way really constitutes a huge aspect of mental health. You recognize that only becoming aware of our strengths and our weaknesses can we begin to move into this place of growth, and only by taking the time to see ourselves for who we really are can we begin to make progress into becoming the best version of ourselves possible. And the older I get, the more I realize that my greatest contentment, peace, and joy comes from truly discovering not only who I am and where I came from, but also in changing into the person God has created me to be. 

05:30 

So there is this authentic us, a true self, that exists buried somewhere beneath all of the expectations and false beliefs and negative thought patterns, and she's struggling to have her voice heard and to be seen amidst all of the social norms and misconceptions. And I know that we feel this. I thought it was amazing this morning at exercise, three other ladies were there and we were talking and I said, "Oh, this is kind of a thought that I'm working on with my podcast," and all three of them were like, "Oh, I know that person. She's down there and I don't let her out," right? All three of them. So there's four of us there and a hundred percent of us feel like there is this person inside of us struggling to get out. Don't you feel her wanting so desperately to step into the light? Don't you sometimes just feel this ache to allow her to walk out with her head held high confident in who she is and what her purpose is? I feel that all the time. I feel that my true self has been held back by my ideas of what I should be doing or what a good person does. I have felt her my whole life pushing against the walls that I built to keep her in because she scared me a little bit. 

06:49 

Well, let's be honest. She scared me a lot bit because what would happen if I let her out? Would I fit in? Would I outgrow the people around me that I loved? It's probably one of my biggest negative thoughts around this area. I remember so many times when I was married feeling that I had to hold back if I was going to protect my marriage. I had this feeling that what if I outgrew my husband and then we just became so incompatible. Well, we were incompatible anyway, which is where I ended up where I was. But was that a true thought? Probably not. But it was a thought I had that felt safe. It was a thought that kept me playing small because it seemed easier. It seemed more comfortable and definitely not so scary. But this was all coming from a place of fear. I was so scared of the real me that had so much to offer and to share. I was terrified of the responsibility I would have when I let her out because then I would have so much more work to do and so many other people were relying on me and I wasn't sure I wanted to take all of that on. 

08:14 

But allowing this true authentic me to soar requires a level of love for myself that I am just starting to tap into. I'm finally hitting a point where I am no longer scared of her and what she will be taking on. I'm no longer holding her back because of fear, but I'm finally learning to love her enough to allow her freedom to have a voice and to be seen. And this is part of that growing up process, right? But here's the thing, I am not one of those people who has struggled with self-love over the years. I've always loved myself and I've always recognized my worth and I've never been one of those people who talk bad in my head to myself about how ugly I was or how incapable I was or how stupid I was...that's just never been me. So I've not struggled with self-love. So I feel like the love required is not a love with the person I am now or the person I've been in the past, because I feel like I have that. The kind of love I'm talking about is the kind of self-love that requires me to embrace this person that I have yet to meet, someone who right now exists just in my future and the only way she can grow and flourish is if I love and trust her enough to allow her to grow and move into the light. There's a level of love for this person that I don't know yet that I have to get to. I have to love not the person that I know, but I have to love the person that I don't yet know inside of me. 

09:55 

But here's what I also believe: when I do allow her to come forth in all of her glory, that is when I will really begin to find my purpose, my direction, and my fulfillment. Then I will feel that my soul is full because I will be allowing her to spread her wings and create what God created her for. Then I will find a communion with God that I sometimes feel is lacking or shallow because my freed spirit will finally be fully capable of connecting to him. This level of self-awareness will be the ultimate step in my growing up process. I have gotten so much closer over the years. In the past I didn't even acknowledge that she was there. But slowly I've started to hear her voice and I am allowing it to get louder and louder louder. The last few years I have started to finally listen to what she is saying. She would try and speak to me in the past and I would always just "shh shh shh, don't say anything. I don't want to know. It's too scary to go there," right? I truly believe that this is where self reflection takes us. 

11:15 

Self-reflection takes us to our true selves, to this authentic self. It helps us to find the courage to look and to listen to this authentic self, to our eternal spirit. And this is where mental health, I believe, starts to take an amazing turn for us. When our spirit can finally connect with our bodies and our brains in such a way that our spirit is no longer being held back, then there is no longer this internal struggle of fighting ourselves because we are scared of what we will find. Our spirit can finally step into her own space and create the life that we were meant to live. When we let go of this internal struggle, then we can begin to find the peace that is a part of mental health. 

12:09 

So let's spend a little bit of time right now talking about how we can really start to move into this place of self-reflection. First of all, as I mentioned before, just the fact that you are listening to a podcast from a life coach is a sign that you are seeking a greater self-awareness and you're wanting to improve your life situation. So step one, check, girlfriend, you are done. Nicely done. The next step, though, is to truly start to move beyond just the "gathering information" stage, to the implementing information stage. Sometimes we're in the" gathering" stage for a long time while we start to wrap our heads around the content that we're consuming. And I think that that can be okay. I think it's part of the process, right? Really getting a handle on what we're learning and starting to see connections between concepts and ideas is a really important first step. 

13:04 

But at some point you're going to start to feel as though it's not quite enough for you to just listen. It feels comfortable but you will begin to start seeing situations in your life where the information could make a difference. You know, you'll start to feel like, "I should really do that. I should put that into practice. I should start doing this", right? But this can be scary and overwhelming because change can be hard and your primitive brain will be fighting you against any thoughts of change. Because remember, your primitive brain just wants to be comfortable. It wants to protect you from things that don't feel good. And the process of change often does not feel good. It can be painful and difficult and awkward and scary, but just because that's what your primitive brain is telling you does not mean that it is telling you the truth. 

14:02 

Your primitive brain lies to you all the time. It's like a 14 year old, right? It's like those sweet little kids I teach at school. They lie all the time, right? Your primitive brain does not have the ability to distinguish between what's truth and what's not or what is right or what is wrong. Your primitive brain is just working from what it has already experienced and knows, and that's everything that's in your past. So if we want to move into a different future, we have to start letting our prefrontal cortex do the thinking and override the primitive brain. Our prefrontal cortex can look into the future and envision something different. Our prefrontal cortex is what makes plans and prepares for a different future. So getting past the discomfort of going from consuming information to implementing information requires the discipline of the prefrontal cortex. 

15:08 

Okay, but that's totally doable. We just have to be willing to push forward despite our primitive brain objections and be willing to sit in the discomfort that we will feel. And here's the thing, once we start doing the uncomfortable thing regularly, eventually it becomes the regular thing that our primitive brain feels comfortable with and it will no longer present us with the same resistance as before. This is how we create new habits. We start creating new patterns of behavior that later on become the go-to for our primitive brain because eventually they become old patterns of behavior. Now I'm sure you've been through this process before of creating a new pattern of behavior, so it's not new. But here's a question I wanna ask you. Did it kill you? Are you still alive to tell the tale? What was the end result of you implementing a new and better behavior into your life? Was it a happier and more fulfilling life? Most likely, and that's awesome. And that's what we're doing here. So it's important to have a chat with our primitive brain when it starts acting up and giving us grief about ideas to change. 

16:28 

This is like a conversation that I have in my head. I can say, "hey, you, primitive brain, thank you so much for protecting me and wanting to keep me safe because you are so awesome like that. But honestly, this is a situation where I don't really need protecting from. Yeah, yeah, it may be hard and it may cause us some discomfort, but ultimately it's going to get us to a better place. Trust me. We've made changes and adjustments before and we've always ended up in a better place, haven't we? So sit back, primitive brain, and let me do some things for myself that I know will move us into a better and more  capable version of ourselves." So there you go. That's how we talk ourselves down from the cliff of fear and onto the stable ground of love. 

17:13 

At some point, we have to love ourselves enough to take a stand to move forward even when it's painful, even when it's difficult, when it's awkward, and when it feels strange. At this point, we now start to implement the new thoughts and behaviors into our lives and start living them. We just have to be persistent because it takes time to create these new thought patterns in the brain. Remember, it's like leaving the well-worn, dirt-packed path and forging a new path in the thick undergrowth. Eventually, the new path will become easier to walk and the old path will become overgrown through a lack of use, but you just have to keep moving and don't stop. You have to keep getting to that new thought pattern. 

18:03 

So here are some things I've found in my own life. When I am consistently filling my brain with new ideas and better ideas, eventually I will start to see places I can implement them into my life. I love that a client I was working with just last night said that she's decided to start reading different kinds of books, like more self-help kind of books and inspirational books because if she puts better stuff in, she's going to start getting better stuff out. Good advice, right? For me, every morning I spend some time reading the scriptures and then when I'm getting ready for the day after my shower, my hair and my makeup, I listen during that time to a conference talk and then I also listen to a podcast that I enjoy and I find that by feeding myself with uplifting good concepts early in the day that it impacts my whole day and I naturally become more self reflective in the course of my day and pieces start fitting together and I start seeing a different path that I could be walking. 

19:07 

At this point, I have to choose to make the jump from the old thought path to the new thought path and when I do this, this is what happens, this is the amazing piece here, it is scary, it's hard, it's difficult, all that stuff, but when I do it and when I start walking that new path, I feel a surge of self-respect and confidence and strength. Changing from our primitive brain thoughts to our prefrontal cortex thoughts is what we call self-coaching. That little discussion we had with our primitive brain earlier, that's part of self-coaching. Self-coaching is coming to a realization that the thought we are currently thinking is not serving us and so we begin to intentionally move into a thought that will serve us better. We are making a conscious choice to change the way we think, thereby changing our feelings and our behaviors and, ultimately, the results in our lives. 

20:11 

So let's say that I keep encountering the thought that I need to be more intentional with my scripture reading. More consistent, more aware, just doing it, etc., something along those lines. This is self-reflection when I realize that I'm not engaging at the level I feel that I want to or that I feel that I need to. These times, these self-reflective times will often come to me when I am listening to a conference talk, when I'm sitting in church during the sacrament especially or even in a Sunday school or a Relief Society class. They will come to me when I'm praying, sometimes they just come to me when I'm thinking about things or out of the blue, but I have these thoughts that I need to be doing something different to engage at a better level. 

20:58 

Okay, but again my primitive brain will give me some pushback when I've decided to start getting up 20 minutes earlier in the morning In order to accomplish this goal. Okay, my primitive brain is going to start putting all kinds of thoughts into my consciousness like "there's no way I can get up 20 minutes earlier," or "I don't need to do that I can just make some time later in the day," or "I'm just always so tired. I want to stay in bed and sleep. Real people don't get up at that time." Okay, have you heard those kinds of excuses before when you decide you want to change a behavior? It could be scriptures, but it could just as easily be exercising or watching less TV or eating healthier or reading more. When we're trying to move into healthier behaviors, our primitive brain starts to freak out a little bit by giving us all kinds of unhelpful thoughts. So self coaching requires that we become aware of the thoughts our primitive brain is creating, and guess what? 

22:02 

It's totally okay that our brain gives us these thoughts. It's just doing what it is created to do, so no need to beat ourselves up and say "oh, I have the worst thoughts. I do this..." no. That's just what we do, but we have to allow our prefrontal cortex to do what it is created to do as well and that is to envision a greater future and move us into that place. And how do we do that? We start off by doing what's called a thought download. So sit down and start writing all of your thoughts =aAbout whatever it is you're trying to do, Don't hold back just get it all out there, right? This is not a place to judge. There's nothing right or wrong about any of this. We're just trying to get the thoughts out there so we can filter through them. These are  called our unintentional thoughts. Thoughts we're having that we're not controlling or that we're not creating on purpose. Self-coaching is then taking these thoughts, realizing that they are not serving us well or helping us to move into a better version of ourselves, and creating different thoughts that will help us move into this better person. We are intentionally creating the thoughts that will create the feelings and the actions that will produce the results we want in our lives. 

23:22 

So when the brain says "real people don't get up at that time," we learn instead to have a thought like "I know lots of successful people who all get up early in order to accomplish their goals," or maybe "I love that I'm creating a new pattern that is helping me to be a better person." Maybe we think there's no way I can get up 20 minutes earlier. A more intentional thought would be" I'm kind of anxious to see the difference in my life when I commit to doing this in the mornings." It always amazes me when I talk to people about the fact that I exercise at five o'clock in the morning and most people will say, "Oh, I could never do that." And in my head I'm immediately thinking, "well, of course not, because you already have decided you can't, right?" Your thought is "I could never do that." So you will never do that. You can't do it because you're thinking that you can't, right? 

24:13 

Once we change the thought, "oh, I could do that," then we start creating a way to make that happen. But coaching ourselves is all about identifying the thoughts that are not serving us and intentionally replacing them with thoughts that will take us where we want to go. Sometimes this can take a bit of effort, but other times it can happen pretty quickly. I remember about 10 years ago, I watched the movie Super Size Me. So if you are not familiar with that, it's about someone who ate only McDonald's for 30 days every meal and they tracked their health and their weight. So they went to the doctor beforehand, had their triglycerides and all this stuff measured. Then they continue to go to the doctor and over the course of the month and continue to weigh themselves. 

25:02 

Now, I've heard stuff people say, "well, yeah, but that wasn't a valid study case." So whether it was a valid study or not is not the point here. What happened to my thoughts is the point that I want to make. After I watched that movie, I was so grossed out by the negative health changes in this man's body, I pretty much swore off fast food. And honestly, my reaction was so strong that changing my thoughts about fast food was pretty easy. Since that time, I just don't even find fast food appealing. I don't even drive past a Wendy's or a McDonald's or whatever and go, "oh, that just sounds good. Right? I drive past and I go...just makes me want to throw up, right? The thought of eating a hamburger from a fast food establishment just sounds disgusting to me. I would rather go hungry than eat most fast food. And this was a really quick change for me. Other changes I've made over the years to help myself move into a better place have been slower, but when I learn to manage and create the thoughts that will create the feelings and actions I ultimately want to have, then my consistency in thinking them and training my brain to think them ultimately results in the change. 

26:19 

And here's another piece to this self -coaching puzzle that I think is amazing. When I successfully change a thought and intentionally start creating the life I want to have, my confidence and my self-respect begin to increase. I feel so proud of myself that I can do something hard and stick with it and create a different life. And that confidence and self-respect help to fuel my next self-coaching adventure. I know for me starting this podcast was something that had been on my mind for quite some time. When I finally did it, and the fact that now today I'm recording podcast number 70 and I've done two podcasts a week for almost seven months, my confidence and self-respect for myself because of that have skyrocketed. I am so proud of myself that I have done this, that I have created this amazingness. I love what I'm creating and I love that I feel like I'm helping people and I love when you send me notes or get in contact with me and say "oh my gosh, I love this podcast today." I have friends that do that. I just got one yesterday, a friend who just was like "oh my gosh, I loved your podcast on the brain and the mind." And I was like "oh thank you, because I loved giving it to you." But it's creating a greater confidence and self-respect in myself. 

27:52 

And at this point when we start hitting this greater confidence and self-respect, we are creating mental health because we are increasing in confidence, we are proving to ourselves that we can do hard things, we are engaging in self-care activities that nourish our soul. And the more we nourish our soul and create this confidence and self-respect, the less afraid we become of that amazing person inside of us that is just aching to come out and be known. 

28:28 

So, my sweet friends, let's let her out, shall we? Let's move into a place that we are no longer scared of what she has for us because she's got amazingness going on. She really really does. And if we can let her out and if we can let her fly, we will find a greater sense of mental health and a greater sense of connection with God than we ever thought was possible. Isn't growing up just amazing? I love the stage in my life where the pieces fit together. Alright, if you would like some personal help from me, some one-on-one coaching, you can get a free consult. Just go on my website tanyahale.com. You can go under the "coaching" tab and you can send me an email or a "contact me" tab. You can send me an email and I will contact you and we will set up a 20 minute free consult to help get you started. We can talk about how coaching can help you. I would love to help you work through that. 

29:32 

And again, if you're loving the podcast, please subscribe. Please leave me a review. I would love to get up to a hundred reviews. And please share this with people that you feel could really really benefit from these concepts as well. Okay, my friends, can I just say I love you? Thank you for being here with me. Thank you for sharing this time and this place of growth with me, because it means the world. Have a great one, bye. 

30:03 

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.