Episode 109: Don't Use Your Possibility Against Yourself

Episode Summary

Sometimes when we hear that we are capable of anything and that it’s possible to create any change we want in our lives, we use that amazing possibility against ourselves. Instead of feeling excited and hopeful, we end up feeling stressed, paralyzed, and wrong. Our brain has all kinds of ways to keep us the same—and shaming ourselves for all the things we aren’t doing is one of the most effective.

You have a life of magnificent possibility. But don’t use that against yourself. In this week’s podcast, I’m sharing four ways your brain might be using your limitless possibility to keep exactly as you are.

Episode Tools and Questions

Sometimes when we think about all the possibilities our life holds for us, it’s easy to use that possibility against ourselves. Right in the moment that we could get excited about creating the results in our lives that we’ve always wanted, our brain steps in with fear, anxiety, and shame for how we’ve done it wrong in the past. 

None of this is a problem. Your brain is doing its job: using negative thoughts to stop you from trying, to protect you from failure and pain. Your job becomes recognizing the difference between you and your thoughts. Your brain may not want something, but do you want it?

Today, I’m sharing four ways that your brain could be using your possibility against you. It can be scary to think that inside you lies limitless possibilities. It’s also scary to think that you could miss out on an amazing earth life by not creating an experience you love. Whether you pursue your possibility or not, there will be negative emotions either way. Why not let it be the negative emotion that still gets you what you want?

Episode Notes

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Transcript for Episode 109

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price, you might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!

Hello, podcast universe. Welcome to episode 109 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price, and I want to welcome you to the podcast today to the beginning of summer, and to the middle of the year. I don't know how that happened, but here we are. And it is always surprising to me, it kind of sneaks up on me. My brain like notes the passage of time, according to the school year, and here at the end of our school year, like every year, I kind of look up and I like, realize like, whoa, another year of life has passed, and I don't know what I'm going to do after my son graduates next year. I feel like I will have no outside indicators of the passage of time. But as we go to begin another summer, and another school year, and I notice again that like inexorable passage of time, it reminds me of a really important paradox that I want to share with you. And that is that life is long, and life is short.

Like so profound, right? Like our brains are really good at resisting change, right? And so, whenever we're thinking about changing our brain, let's say, oh, my gosh, it's too late, there's not enough time to create what I want in my life. Like, I've missed the opportunity. And it's like just not in the cards for us, right? I used to think this. I used to think, well, like I wasted my life better luck next time, right? Like, it's too late to change things now, I guess I'm just going to, like, ride this out, right? And then on the other hand, my brain will say, oh, my gosh, you have plenty of time, we can just do that later, right? We can do it tomorrow, we'll start next week or like or some other time when it's going to be easier, or more convenient, when we're going to have more time or money or energy, right? Like that's coming someday for all of us, right?

So, I just want to, like, make you aware that your brain is using this truth, that life is long, and life is short to keep you the same. And I want you to use this paradox for you, right? To help you when your brain doesn't really want to change, and doesn't want to really, like, create the life that you want, right? When your brain says it's too late, you can remind it that, in fact, no brain, life is long, and we don't need that much time to change our thoughts. We can change our thoughts in an instant, right? And then, when your brain says, well, we can just do that tomorrow, we'll do it later, like someday we're going to do that. You can remind it that you don't have to wait for the life that you want, that there is nothing stopping you except your brain. And you don't have to wait for a better time. A better time is never coming, right?

3:20
Life is short, let's use today. And so, no matter which protest your brain is giving you, I want you to have an answer to it. And I think the best way to have those answers to the excuses, all of the excuses your brain gives you is to have a coach, right? Your brain wants to talk you out of all your changes, and it will use time, for example, as a reason, but it will also use a million other things as a reason. So, I think you should have a coach to get your brain out of the way. And for just a minute here, I want to be your coach. I want you to just imagine I'm your coach and we're going to have this heart to heart today. I really want you to imagine that is just you and me for a moment, and then we are sitting together, and my whole goal is to encourage you, and motivate you, and light a fire under you so that you can create what you want. Because I think that there are things that you came to Earth to do, and that while you're here, well, you're lucky enough to be here and to be alive, I think you should do them, right? Because there is nothing that you want that you can't have.

I think before I found coaching, I always had this sort of like vague sense of possibility, right? Like a vague sense of potential that I was like somehow squandering every possibility of my life sort of seemed like way out of my reach. And I felt this sort of nudge that there was more. That there was more that I could do, that there was more I was capable of, more experiences that I could have, and more ways that I could help people, right? Like I had this sense that, that was out there, but instead of filling me with hope, and energy, these thoughts usually filled me with shame, right? Shame for where I was, for who I was, for what I had missed out on, for what I had squandered, for what could have been. And amazingly, like shame never got me doing more, or becoming more, right? Looking at where I was, and feeling that pull for more, didn't ever inspire me because my shame just shut me down.

And so, as we have this little heart to heart today, I want to start with that. Like I think there are things that you came to Earth to do. I think there are so many things that you are capable of that you haven't even imagined. But I never want you to use this against yourself. I never want you to tell yourself you're doing it wrong, or shame yourself for the way that you are doing it. It's kind of like, do you remember that old story that they used to tell in Sunday school about that guy? Like, he goes on a cruise, and he thinks he only has enough money to pay for the ticket on the cruise so, he packed all his food with him, right? Like crackers, and water in his suitcase. And every night he could, like, smell the food, and he could hear the people heading to dinner, and he wished that he could be a part of it. And like at the end of the cruise, somebody was like, hey, you never joined us for dinner, like, why don't you ever come in and join us at dinner? And he's like, oh, I didn't have enough money to pay for, like, fancy meals, I just like ate my own food. And the passenger was like, well, don't you know that the meals are included, like they're part of the ticket, right? Your meals have already been paid for. And I remember hearing the story and like we just feel so bad for the man, right? That he missed out on this amazing experience, because he didn't know any better.

And I am afraid that sometimes when you hear me say that you can create any result you want in your life, that you came to Earth to do amazing things, I'm afraid that you feel like this guy, right? You came on this cruise ship, this Earth-life experience, but all you're doing is eating crackers in your room, and so much more is available to you, but you don't know how to get it. And you feel stupid, and ashamed that you don't know better. And that is not what I want. I do not want you to feel bad, and tell yourself you were doing it wrong. Shame for where you are, or what you have created in your life is never going to create more possibility in your life, okay?

So, I have had an experience recently that has reminded me of how we do this, okay? So, how we take what's possible for us, and then we use it against ourselves to shame ourselves, and make ourselves wrong instead of using it to help ourselves create different results. And admittedly, this is like sort of a personal example, and probably David will not love me sharing this right, honey? But I think it's a really good example of how we do this to ourselves, how we take our possibilities, and use it against ourselves.

8:04
Okay, so recently I hired a coach to help me specifically with my sex-life. And when I started working with her, I sort of had this thought that women in general have less capacity for satisfaction than men, right? And of course, I thought this was totally unfair, and terrible, okay? But that's how life was so, okay let's just deal with it, right? Like, how do I make the best of what is like, clearly kind of a bummer, right. But that’s just the way things are. And one of the very first things that my coach asked me to question was that thought, this thought that women have less capacity for satisfaction. And actually, she's like, you are just as capable as a woman, as any man of enjoyment and satisfaction, right? And for the briefest moment, this was like a beautiful thought to me, right? It was like wonderful to think that pleasure was just as available to me as anyone else. But then, my brain took that thought and used it against myself, because if I was just as capable of satisfaction, and that wasn't always my experience, then clearly there was something wrong with me. Clearly, I was doing it wrong. Clearly, I was the problem, okay?

My brain always thinks I'm the problem, of course. And then, I had shame that this was an experience that I should be able to have more in my life, and I wasn't because I was broken, or doing it wrong in some way, okay? Now I think this can happen to all of us on some level, right? Like when you hear me talk on the podcast about how you can have whatever you want and that you're infinitely capable of creating the life you want, and that it's not just for me, and not just for the people you admire, but that you are capable of that, too. For a brief moment, maybe that gives you hope. But then, I worry that you use that powerful, amazing thought that this is, for you to to shame yourself, and tell yourself, well, then clearly I'm doing it wrong. Clearly, I am the problem, right? And clearly, this is just like one more thing in my life that I am messing up.

And this is what I want to caution you against today, don't use the power of your possibility against yourself. Yes, you are capable of anything you want to create, but that doesn't make where you are wrong. You have a good reason for being exactly where you are, you have thought thoughts, and that has created your life, and your relationships, and your income, and your confidence, and your connection, and all of it as it is. And none of those things, none of those thoughts even are a problem. They were just a choice that we made thoughts that our brain offered us, and we chose to believe them. And really, it was the best choice, the only choice we knew how to make at the time. And what we can look at our choice without shame or judgment or telling ourselves that we should have been like eating at the buffet this whole time, right? Then we can allow ourselves the opportunity to drop our shame, and just choose new thoughts, which will then create totally new things in our life.

So, today I just want to encourage you to, like, stop using your possibilities against yourself. I want you to stop settling, and start dreaming, and start doing all of the things that you want to do while you're here on Earth. And in order to do that, I think you have to stop shaming yourself. You have to stop using the power of possibility against yourself, okay? Our brains are very clever, right? Remember that the brain's whole goal is survival, and status quo. And your brain is not interested in your possibility, I promise you. It's like so rude, right? But because our brain is not interested in our possibility, it gives us thoughts that just keep us the same, and keep us stuck. Remember that the brain's whole goal is survival, and status quo. And your brain is not interested in your possibility. It really isn't. And so, for a while, one of the thoughts that keeps us the same, and keeps us in that status quo is that, hey, whatever is out there, that is just not for you. That's just not possible for you. And you should stop thinking that it is. But once we realize that we are creators, and we are just as capable of creating as anyone else, then our brain has another tactic to keep us the same. And that is to use the very possibility, right? The very fact that we are capable of getting what we want, against us.

12:52
So as a coach, I see this show up and a lot of ways, but today I just want to talk about four common thoughts come up for people a lot. And I want to talk about them today in case any of these thoughts are keeping you from the possibility of your life. Okay, so the first one that people tell me is, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want, right? Like to hear me say, hey, you can create anything, and their brain is like, yeah, but I don't even know what that is, right? Like I told you, your brain is clever. It will figure out a way not to spend energy, and it will figure out a way to avoid failure at all costs, right? No matter what, it figures out a way. So, I don't know what I want, is always a lie. I know it doesn't feel like a lie. I know it feels like a fact, it feels like the truth. But it is a lie that your brain is telling, because your brain is scared. It is scared of failure. It is scared of doing it wrong. It is scared of believing in something, and then getting disappointed. And for your brain, being confused about what it wants is way easier than being scared.

Okay, so I like to ask myself questions like this, if I knew I would be 100% successful, what would I want to do? If I knew I couldn't fail, and then it would be amazing, what would I do? And you kind of trick your brain by taking some of the fear out of the question of what you want. So, we have spent a lot of years, right? Like some of us have spent a lot of decades telling ourselves that we can't do something, that we can't create what we want. And so, our brain is like stuffed those possibilities away, it has in many ways stopped wanting, right? At least not wanting really loudly. It has learned not to ask, or not to think, or pay attention to what you really want. And so, you kind of have to wake that part up again, and ask yourself, if I knew I could be successful, what would I want? Like if time, and effort, and failure weren't a possibility, weren't a part of the equation, what are the things you would want just for the fun of it? Just for the joy of it, just because you can?

Okay, now this leads me into the second thought that stops people from getting what's possible for them, because as soon as they say, hey, what would be fun to do? What would be joyful? Our brain adds a whole lot of weight to this question by saying, but is wanting to do it enough? Like, is the fun of it really enough? Surely there is more on the line than what you want? And we start to wonder about the worthiness of our desires, the worthiness of what we want. And then this idea comes up that like, what if this isn't my purpose? Like, what if I do this thing, and I miss the real purpose that I came to Earth for? And people tell me this all the time, I don't know what my purposes is? I can't find my purpose. And our brains think it's like this big, important, like eternity altering thing out there called purpose. And there's this idea that we have to find our purpose, or fulfill our purpose, and we make it so important and heavy. But when we think about it in this way, the importance of our purpose just ends up paralyzing us with shame, and fear. Because what if we get it wrong? What if we don't have a purpose? What if we can't figure it out, and we end up wasting our life, and we make the stakes so incredibly high?

So, what I want you to know is that you have already fulfilled your purpose. You are here having a human experience, and that is your purpose, just by being alive, you have fulfilled your purpose. Which was like to come, and experience mortality in a physical body, and learn to make choices with your mind, right? And every choice you make creates your life. Purpose ful-filled. There is no purpose outside of you. There is nothing to find. Your purpose isn't what you do while you're here on Earth. Your humanness, your mortality is your purpose. Everything else is just choices, it's just the things we choose to do. So, don't confuse the choices that you get to make with your purpose. There is nothing you have to find, or discover, or accomplish. Don't use the idea that you have to, like, magically discover something outside of you, some mystical, eternal purpose to shame yourself, and to keep you from the joy of just getting to use your power of choice to create a life you love.

My purpose isn't to be a coach. It isn't to build a business. Even the whole reason I started a business, which is to make Earth-life easier for people, and show people that it could be different, that they don't have to be so unhappy, that isn't my purpose either. That's just something I get to do while I'm here because I want to. My purpose isn't even to be a wife, or a mother. As important as those are to me, and as much joy as those choices give me, my purpose was fulfilled by being human, and all the rest is just the things I want, and the choices that I get to make while I'm here. And notice how if I don't have this, like, heavy need to fulfill some big purpose, or create purpose in my life, that I can just choose what I want just for the joy of it, which is really awesome.

18:22
Okay, number three, another way that we use our possibility against ourselves is closely related to that idea of finding our purpose, and that is the idea that I hear people say, which is I want to do what God wants me to do. I want to make sure that whatever I do is in alignment with his will, and I'm doing what he wants me to do. And believe me, I'm not saying that I don't want you to do what God wants you to do, but I just want you to check-in with yourself as you think that thought, right? This is how we test our thoughts, and see if they are useful to us. We check-in with our feelings, and see how we feel when we think the thought. And for most people, when they think I want to do what God wants me to do, this thought makes them feel some pressure, some stress. Again, it paralyzes them because it feels so big, and the stakes feel so high, like how am I going to figure out what that is? How am I going to make sure it's what he wants, right?

What God is interested in is your education, in your growth. He is interested in you learning to exercise your agency over your brain. And whatever you choose to do, or create is going to require you to acquire that skill. Like, we sort of have the misconception that there is only one path to our education, and if we pick the wrong career, or the wrong major, or the wrong partner, that we aren't going to learn the lessons that we came to learn. But you are not that powerful, I promise you. You can't thwart the plan of God with your choices. He uses every choice as part of your education, and you can't mess that up no matter what you choose to do, no matter what possibility you want to create for yourself in any area of your life, right? Your money, your health, your career, your relationships. Like no matter what, you are going to have to exercise the agency of your spirit, over your brain, to create anything in any of those areas. And that learning is going to happen no matter what you choose.

I think that we want to know what God wants us to do, because if we knew that for sure, like if he could send us a letter, or an email, or a text, or something, and he's like, hey, here's what I want you to do, then it would be easier for us to believe that we could do it. It would be easier to believe that we could be successful, and failure would be less scary, right? Like if we were Moses, and he asked us to go get the children of Israel out of Egypt, well, we might doubt our ability a little bit, but at least it would be easier to think that we weren't alone, and there was a chance that we could be successful at it, right? Like it's going to be scarier if Moses just had an idea, hey, you know, what would be cool is that if I went and freed the children of Israel. Like, if it's just his plan, that feels a lot scarier, right?

21:04
But listen, most of us are not going to get a burning bush, most of us just get to choose. But it doesn't mean that you are alone, and it doesn't mean that God isn't in it with you. He wants you to learn to create what you want. That's what he does, and he knows that whatever you choose to do, there will be lessons in it that will teach you those things. And the thing itself doesn't really matter. I think we all get nudges, and I think you should pay attention to yours, to the things that like don't really go away. To those desires, and those little dreams that are always kind of back there nudging you, asking to be fulfilled. I think you have those nudges and those desires for a reason. And if you follow them, if you pursue them, and you bring them into existence in your life, you will learn and grow in so many ways, which is what God really wants for you.

Okay, and that brings me to the last thing that I want to talk to you about that when it comes to the idea that anything is possible for us, the last way that we use this against ourselves as we start down that path, as we start pursuing our goal, or something that we want in our life, and it starts to get hard, it starts to get scary, then our brain says, well, maybe we don't really want this after all, right? Maybe I don't want this. Maybe I was wrong, right? We start the thing, then it's a little bit terrifying and our brain is like, wait a minute, maybe we don't want this.

So, I was a stay at home mom for many, many years. When my last child started like full time school, I was like, okay, what am I going to do with my life, right? And I floundered for a bit, wondering what I was going to do, and what I wanted to do, and wondering about so many of the things that I have already talked about today. Like, I don't know what I want? I don't know what God wants me to do? I don't know what my purposes? And I remember being like so like miserable, and unfulfilled, and lost, trying to figure this out. And I remember my husband asking me, like, well, what do you want? And I just really didn't know. I believed my brain when it told me, I didn't know.

And then I found coaching. And I remember when I joined my coaches program, she had this whole section in her program about like a side gig, a side business, how to grow your side business. And I was like, yeah, I'm never going to use that part of the program, right? Like, I'm just trying to survive, I'm just trying to figure out how to be happy in this world, I'm just trying to figure out how to manage my own brain. I had no interest in any of that. But I joined the program, I cleaned up my thinking, I changed how I felt about so many areas of my life. And when that happened, I started to dream again. I started to see, like, I really am capable, and it's only my brain in the way. And I started to think about what I wanted to try. By this point, I had fallen in love with coaching, and I felt so changed by it, I wanted everybody I knew to be able to experience it.

And so, I went to coach training and I started coaching. And amazingly, as soon as I did that and I started to coach, and I started being outside of my comfort zone, my brain said, oh my gosh, maybe we don't really want to do this, right? Like, this is so hard, and so scary, maybe we don't really want to do this. And I remember those summer mornings two years ago standing in my shower, and my brain just screaming at me that this is not what we wanted, right? That we didn't have to be this scared, that we didn't have to do any of this, that we could just go back to being bored. Like by then I knew that I was enough, even if I didn't do anything, even if I laid in my bed all day that I didn't have to do anything to earn my worthiness. So, why do it? My brain was like, why are we doing this? We don't want to do this. But what I realized standing in that shower, like, filled with fear and insecurity is I realized that while my coaching business was 100% optional, I realized that negative emotion wasn't. My brain was playing a trick on me. It was like, hey, this is really scary, and if we stop doing this, we're going to feel okay. But I can't escape negative emotion, right? And I'm not going to escape it by not going after what I want. By not pursuing my goals, I would just feel another kind of negative emotion.

25:24
Instead of standing there feeling fear and inadequacy, I would be standing there feeling disappointment, and regret, and discontent, right? And I had had enough of those emotions. And this is the same for you. Whatever it is you want in your life, you're good to go! Set some goals. You're going to decide, hey, I'm going to do this thing, and then there will come a moment when the negative emotion will arise inevitably, no matter what you choose to do, and your brain will say, oh, maybe we don't want to do this thing. And in that moment, you have a choice, but if you pursue your possibilities, or if you don't, either way there is going to be negative emotion, you don't escape that. Instead of thinking that if this is what I really wanted, I wouldn't feel bad doing it, instead of thinking if this is what I really wanted, it wouldn't be hard, and I wouldn't be scared. It will help you so much more to think, this is what I want and it's scary. It's supposed to be scary. Everything you want is on the other side of negative emotion, and its presence doesn't mean you don't want it. It means your brain doesn't want it, and you can have it if you are willing to feel bad. Your fear, and your anxiety, your inadequacy, whatever it is, isn't there because it's a wrong desire, or we are lacking true desire. It's there because your brain thinks anything outside your current capacity, or comfort- zone is risky, and that's it.

Your brain doesn't want it, but do you? The possibilities of your life don't exist outside of negative emotion, they exist alongside it. In fact, they only exist accompanied with the compensatory negative emotion required. I promise you, everyone who has pushed, and gone after their possibility has a brain that said at some point, maybe we don't want to do this, and then they did it anyway. And maybe the best example of this is Christ. The possibility of being our Savior was only made possible by the willingness to feel the accompanying negative emotion it required in his brain, said, maybe we don't want to do this. And he even asked his father for another way. There is no other way.

So, to get what you want to go after all the possibilities of your life, you have to know the truth of that. When the going gets tough, and your brain says maybe we don't even want to do this, this is the moment where you allow your brain not to want it, but you keep going anyway. You have a life of magnificent possibility, but don't use that against yourself. You don't need to find your purpose, you already have it in being alive. Now that you fulfilled that, what do you want if you knew you would be successful? What do you want to do with your life, with any part of your life, and just know that whatever you do, whatever you pick, there will come a moment where your brain doesn't want to do it. And when you stand up to your brain, and you do it anyway, you are doing the growth work that God intended you to do all along, exercising your agency over your brain to create just like he does.

This is what he wants for you. The goal doesn't really matter, but who you become in the process does. And that's what he wants for you, I want you to know that for sure. You don't have to do anything, you don't. Your life is 100% awesome as it is. But I also want you to know that you can. That you have limitless possibility and you don't ever have to use that against yourself. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today, if you want to take the things I've talked about and apply them in your life so that you can love your earth life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com. This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever as your coach. I'll show you that believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay. And that, my friends is 100% awesome!