Episode 110: Ten Things I Wish Everybody Knew

Episode Summary 

Over the last four years I have changed my life in lots of significant ways. And all of that change was created because I started thinking differently. Today I’m sharing ten life-changing things that I have learned that have made the biggest impact on my life and my relationships. They are the ten things I wish everybody knew.

No matter who you are or what your life looks like, I think if you really know and understand these ten things…it will change your life in really big ways. These ideas have far-reaching impact on how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we experience our lives, and I want to make sure you know them too.

Episode Tools and Questions

You get to create all kinds of experiences in your earth life, because this life is a chance to grow and learn and become. I spent years feeling miserable about who I was and the life I was living, until coaching gave me a completely new way of seeing myself and the world.

Now that I’ve gone through the 180 degree turn of mindset and perspective shifts, and earned hundreds of hours coaching people through their own transformations, I’ve learned a thing or two - or ten - that I think would be so helpful for you to know.

Today, I’m sharing the ten things available to you to greatly impact your life and relationships. When you really know and understand these ten things, you can start to create a life that is sweet, joyful, and fun to live.

1. You are not your brain
2. You are not your feelings either
3. Your quest for happiness is making you miserable
4. Agency is the most powerful power in the universe
5. Love isn’t easy
6. Other people aren’t there to love us. Other people are there for us to practice loving.
7. Curiosity is a 10000 x more effective than condemnation
8. You can’t displease or disappoint god
9. You can change
10. Even though you can change, you don’t have to

Episode Notes

This month I am teaching a free class: “How to Love Yourself and Your Life.” It will be on June 25th at 12 pm EST. Click this link to register.

Sign up for a free coaching consultation

Episode Transcription 

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 110 of the 100% Awesome Podcast, I'm April Price, and today I'm just getting ready to go on a trip with my amazing husband. Last year was our 25th wedding anniversary, and because of Covid and everything being shut down, we never got to celebrate and take a trip for that. So, here it is a year later, and we are finally going to do that celebration. And I do not have a brain that manages travel well. That's the best way to say it. At least it doesn't handle pre travel well, okay? So, like on every trip we ever go on about three to five days before, I'm like, no, I just can't do it. I can't like, organize my brain, and my life in the suitcase enough to be able to go, right? Like I am not going, I can't do it. But David just rolls with it, he understands that it's all part of my process. So, here we are about 12 hours from takeoff, and we are going no matter what, right? But before I go, I wanted to record a podcast and share some things that I wish everybody knew.

So, whether you are my client or not, whether you see the benefits in coaching or not, I think if you really knew, and really understood these ten things that I'm going to talk about today, I think it will change your life. I think it will change your life in so many ways, and each one of these things actually has such far reaching impact on how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we experience our lives. And so, I want to make sure you know them, okay? And I want to let you know that for those of you who want some more free help for me, I am teaching a free class how to love yourself, and your life at the end of this month. On June 25th, it's going to be at nine a.m. Pacific. So, I'm going to teach you why it is so hard to love ourselves, and love our lives, like why we don't love it, and that there is a good reason for it, okay? And I'm going to give you the simple solution to change all of that so that you can love yourself, love your life without, like, trying harder, or needing to change everything about you, and your life first- hand. I'm going to teach you how to make loving yourself, and your life just like a permanent way of living. Plus, you're going to get a chance to get some free coaching from me during that class. So, save the date for June 25th, 9:00 a.m. Pacific. You can go to aprilpricecoaching.com/loveyourlife to register for that class.

3:19
Okay, let's do this! The ten things I wish everybody knew, 10 things that will change your life when you really know and understand them. And admittedly, if you've been listening for a while, hopefully these won't be totally new ideas, you've probably heard most of them before, right? But I want to talk about them again, present them in this slightly different way to really help you, and help you see yourself, and your life differently. And just know that even though I'm talking about this, like, okay everybody should know this, like, I still don't really know it. Like I do, but then my brain comes online every day, and I am always learning, and relearning it, right? I'm learning all of these things every single day, and it's not like I have them all mastered, right? This is the work I'm doing in my life, and it is making a difference in my early life experience. And I want you to know that that is available for you, too, okay? All right, here we go!

Number one, the first thing that I wish everybody knew is you are not your brain. You are not your brain, right? There is you, and then there is your brain. And like your kidney, or your heart, or your pancreas, your brain is just an organ in your body with a very specific function. But because of the way our spirit is housed in our body, it sometimes feels like the same thing, right? Like our spirit in our brain, it's sometimes hard to distinguish between us that real us, the eternal us, that is going to be there long after our brain is in the ground, right? And then our actual brain. But your brain is an organ, like I said, and its function is to watch for danger, to notice what has gone wrong, or what could go wrong. Its job is to keep you alive by noticing where all the potential problems are, and by judging everything in your life against that standard. Whether you're going to survive or not, whether it's good or bad, whether it's helpful or unhelpful, whether it's like positive, or negative, good or bad for you.

And the only problem with that is that when we identify as our brain, and then we also identify with the judgment or thoughts of our brain, we start to think that we are bad. And that we are not a good person, because of what our brain says, right? We start to think like we're really negative, or we're really ungrateful, or something because of the thoughts offered to us by our human brains. It is not a problem that your brain makes judgments, right? It is not a problem that your brain judges you, and judges others. It is just doing its job. The problem is when you think you are doing the judging, and you make yourself wrong for your brain's judgment, your brain was built to judge. That's its job. And when you can separate yourself from what your brain is saying, from what your brain is judging out in the world, then you can decide what you want to do about those thoughts, do about those judgments.

Okay, so I have two quick examples to share. I had a client this week whose kids got out of school. Maybe you had a similar experience, like they're out of school for the summer, and like within five hours of them being home, her brain was like, this is bad. The noise is bad, the fighting is bad, the mess is bad. And her brain is offering thoughts like, I don't like this. I don't like my kids, I don't like being the mom right now. If she thinks that is her, and instead of her brain, then she feels terrible, because she thinks like a mother shouldn't think this. But when she knows, hey, my brain is at work here, and my brain wants to conserve energy, and it doesn't like processing noise, and it doesn't like spending energy, playing referee, or teaching children, or unforeseen consequences, right?

7:08
Because the brain likes what's easy, and it wants to use the least amount of energy. And when she knows that, then she can see why her brain is offering her these thoughts, and she can decide if she wants to keep thinking them, or choose something else. But it's just so powerful to know it's not her. I have another client who has a lot of judgment about her body. Her brain thinks smaller is better, her brain has been conditioned by the media, by society, by family values, by, quite frankly, life in America, right? Marketing in America to think that smaller is better. And so it's ranking her body as worse, right? Because it isn't as small as the other bodies she sees. Her brain judges a specific body type as more preferable, and her brain has a good reason for that. Her brain wants to fit in, it wants to be accepted by its tribe. But it thinks the best way to do that is to be as small as possible. That's the message her brain has received and it's trying to fit in. But this is just her brain operating under this kind of like made up delusion that one person can be better than another for any reason, right? And that is her brain, that is not her. And so, when she sees her brain's bias for what it is and that, yeah, it had a good reason for thinking that way, but is it really serving her doesn't really help her to think that it would be better to be smaller. She can then question that bias, and decide what she wants to think about human size and shape, including her own.

Okay, so when we aren't our brain, and we notice that distinction, then we can stop being mad at ourselves for what we think, for what our brain thinks. We can just see it as our brain, and then more easily make decisions about what we want to direct our brain to think on purpose.

All right, number two, you are not your feelings either. Just as you are not your brain, and not your thoughts, you are also not your feelings. Your feelings are created by your body when you think certain thoughts, and you aren't any of those feelings. And you aren't better or worse or good or bad, depending on the feelings you are experiencing. So, I want to talk about this in terms of language. So, in English, we don't really have a way to distinguish between who we are, like as an identity, and what we feel like. We use the same verbs for that. Like, I am, right? And they sound the same. Like when I say, I am April, and I am sad, I am happy that I am, makes us think that like we are the feeling. I was thinking about how in Spanish they have different verbs for this.

Now, admittedly, it's been a long time since high school Spanish, so please don't like write in about how much Spanish I don't know, because I'm very well aware. But for things that are permanent, there's a different verb, right? They use the verb "ser" which indicates like a permanent state of things. Soy es April, I am April, as like a permanent thing. But they also have like an "I am" verb estar, which indicates like a changeable state, something that's changing, right? Estoy mollo, I am sad, but it's, I am not that thing, that is not my identity, it's just an experience I'm having. And I really want you to think about how much we say the phrase "I am" in relation to our feelings.

And because there is no differentiation in our language between permanent, and changeable states, we sometimes identify ourselves as that feeling, and then we assign judgment, or morality to it. Especially when it comes to negative emotion, we think we shouldn't feel bad, right? I think in so many ways we make ourselves wrong for feeling bad, and you will get so much relief in your life, if you can realize that your emotions are a temporary experience created by your brain. And they don't say anything about you, or your worth, or whether or not you are good, or doing your life right.

11:21
Okay, and this brings me to number three, the third thing I wish everybody knew. And that is that your quest for happiness, is making you miserable. Okay, like this thought that we should be happy, is just like one of the worst thoughts we can have. Because life is 50/50, and we aren't going to be happy half of the time. No one is. And no one is supposed to be happy all of the time, but somehow we make ourselves wrong when we aren't. So, I might have told you that my husband got a new assignment at work, and he really doesn't like it right now. It's all new, there's lots of overwhelming work to do, the position is brand new. And so, like, there's no like, he needs to create the whole organization for it. And he finds himself most mornings pretty unhappy about going to work.

And the other day he said, I don't think I'm supposed to be this unhappy every morning. And I said, why not? Like thinking I'm not supposed to be unhappy, and telling yourself that you're not supposed to be unhappy, just makes you more unhappy. Because it makes you seem like you're doing it wrong somehow. Who says you're supposed to be happy? Now, I know. I know you're like April, but shouldn't we be happy? Like, shouldn't we? And I totally think you should 50% of the time, right? That is how it was designed. We live in a world that was specifically designed by our creator to be 50/50, and I haven't really figured out a way to ever avoid that or undo that. Like, the whole point of your life is learning and growth, and to have learning, and growth, we have to experience the contrast. And I'm not saying you shouldn't be happy. I just think there is so much peace when you stop making yourself wrong for the times when you aren't.

And I also think that it's just good to know that being happy isn't even the real skill we came to develop here. It's not even the real thing we need to be working on while we're here on Earth. In fact, like getting good at discomfort, getting good at feeling bad is actually the most important skill you could ever learn while you're here. Like, if you really want to make the most of your Earth-life experience, that is going to include some amount of discomfort, and pain, and negative emotion. It's going to include time outside your comfort zone, which is uncomfortable. And if we're always just trying to avoid feeling bad, we aren't going to get a lot of the things that we really want. For example, building my business makes me feel so much joy, it makes me feel so fulfilled and helpful, but it also makes me feel scared, and inadequate, okay? And this is true of everything that I want in my life. Like my brain is going to create negative emotion around anything I decide to do. And if my goal is just to feel happy, then I'm not going to get a lot of the things I want out of my life.

Alright, the fourth thing I wish everybody knew is that agency is the most powerful power in the universe. That it's the most powerful power you guys, there's probably a better way to say that. Like, it is the most powerful thing you have in your life. And for the most part, we aren't using it enough. Or maybe actually it's more accurate to say that we aren't using it for us enough. Because the truth is, you can't not use your agency like you were always choosing, even if you don't know it. But we need to spend more time using it for us deliberately. So, our brain is convinced that other people create our feelings, right? That other people can make us feel hurt, or angry, or happy, or diminished, like whatever it is, right? Our brain is convinced that things outside of us are creating our experience of our life. And we don't understand really that we are always choosing our experience. Most of the time, we don't know it, but in fact, we are always choosing like God's plan is really amazing when you think about it.

15:36
So, he sent us all to Earth, he gave all of us the ability to act, knowing full well that our actions were going to impact each other, right? None of us are acting alone here. None of us are acting in a bubble. Every action we take has a consequence for someone else in the world, for the people around us. So, how does he trust us? Like us messy humans that make a ton of mistakes to wield that kind of power, to be able to act any way we want? And knowing that as we do that, we're going to do it wrong, and we're going to impact other people, like how does he reconcile that? How does he make that work? And the answer, of course, is agency. He can let us choose how we're going to act, because he gave every other person that we share this planet with agency to. Meaning we can all act, but other people's actions aren't the thing creating each one of our experiences.

People act, and then we each use our agency to choose our own thoughts about those actions and that choice, what we choose to think about what they do creates our feeling, and the experience of our life. And no person, no matter what they do, can take away your ability to choose your experience, to choose your feelings. Because that's what agency means, it means that our feelings are not created by things outside of us, but by the choice that we are making in our mind. And when we really understand that, we know that we can never be acted upon, but that we are always choosing, right? No matter what other people do, we get to choose how we feel when we know that, then we could just start using our power in a way that works for us. And that changes so much in our life, we no longer have to control other people, we no longer need them to behave in a certain way. We take control of our emotional life, and this improves every single relationship we have, and frees us up to just love people.

Now that leads me right into number five, now when we think about loving other people, and knowing that we have the choice to do it, when you hear me say that, some of you think that, I'm implying somehow that that choice is easy. And I want you to know, I want everybody to know, that it isn't, right? Just because you have the choice to love doesn't mean it's easy, and it's not supposed to be easy. Like choosing your experience while your brain is wanting you to choose hurt, and offence, and pain is not easy, and it is not supposed to be. And I wish everybody knew that. I wish everybody knew that love isn't easy, and it's not supposed to be because, again, we make ourselves wrong. When that commandment love one another seems so simple, and we find it difficult, right? But it was never supposed to be easy. That's why it wasn't the first law that we ever got. As humans, love takes practice. It takes practice in marriages, it takes practice in families, it takes practice in congregations, it takes practice in neighborhoods, and countries. You are not supposed to be good at it.

You have a brain that is offering you fear, right? It is looking for danger, for problems, for threats, and it finds those everywhere. And it's just not supposed to be easy to overcome that brain and choose love. And that is why we need to practice. Stop telling yourself that you should be good at this, it should be easy. Even when we pick the person that we want to live with, it's still hard. It takes discipline and practice and incredible brain management to do it. And that is the very thing we came to practice. So, allow yourself to do it, allow yourself to get it wrong as many times as you need to.

19:39
Okay, this leads me right into six and seven, I'm not sure which one to talk about first, but let's start with this, okay? Number six, other people aren't there to love us. Other people are there for us to practice loving. So, we get into trouble, and we create a lot of pain for ourselves when we think that people are supposed to love us. Husbands are supposed to love us, parents are supposed to love us, kids are supposed to love us, friends are supposed to love us, right? We're in trouble, right? Because you live in a world with other humans who, I just said in number five, have brains that make loving hard. Like other humans, like you, aren't really good at loving. It's not easy for any of us to love. And when you give people that job, and that expectation, they fall short.

When you can release people from this job, it makes your life so much better. Other people are in your life so that you can practice loving, that is always their job to just show up as them so that you can practice getting to love regardless of what your brain says. And they are providing the mechanism for that learning. Through their actions in the world, we get to practice loving. Like they're going to say things, they're going to do things, and a lot of times the way that they say and do things, our brain is like thinking that is threatening, or bad, or a problem. And that is where we get to practice managing our brain, and choosing what we want to think, and the experience we want to have. So, the better you can get at letting other people choose, and then just deciding who you want to be, and how you want to feel, the more peace, and joy, and contentment, you are going to have in your life. If instead you're waiting for people to love you, or treat you the way you want to be treated, like we are setting ourselves up to be dependent on their behavior in order to feel what we want our lives. And I just want you to know you never have to wait again, right? Because you have agency.

So, now that brings us to number seven, the seventh thing I wish everybody knew is that curiosity is a thousand times, a million times more effective than condemnation. So, when we understand that love is up to us, and that our experience is up to us, then we often start to condemn ourselves for our choices. And this is not useful. I think that shame is the most used and also the most useless emotion that humans have. Like we choose that all the time, and it's just so useless, like whether we are choosing love, or whether we are not, like whatever experience we are choosing, we have to be able to look at that choice curiously, in order to ever be able to choose something different. We have to see what that choice is creating for us, and what we really want. And shame just never allows us to do that. Shame just has a way of blocking us from really being able to see our choice in it. So, if you want to change anything in your life, curiosity is like a billion times, how many times can we make it? It's just so much more effective than condemnation, okay?

And going along with that, going along with this discussion on shame, that brings us to number eight, that I wish everyone knew that you cannot displease, or disappoint God. I actually think this idea would change the world, and it would certainly change our relationship with God, which would change our world at least. So, I want you to know that you simply can't displease, or disappoint God. It is actually impossible, and I want to explain why. Just like other people don't have the power to create your feelings because you have agency, right? You always get to choose your experience. I want you to see that not only do you have agency, but God does, too, right? Like, obviously, he gave you your agency. He has agency, and he has the agency to choose his experience, right? Whatever experience God has, he is choosing it. In fact, he is perfect at using his agency to choose. And so, just like in our lives, when other people act, their actions aren't creating our feelings, right?

What we choose to think is creating our feelings. And it is the same for God. We act, and then he gets to choose, he makes a choice and his choice, and the feeling that that choice creates is independent of what we do. Independent of our actions, and I believe that he always chooses love. He always chooses compassion, and grace, and love. That's what he asked us to do. And he is perfect at making that choice. He never chooses disappointment, or disapproval because he is better at choosing than we are. He is better at using his agency, right? He chooses love. A lot of us really believe that our actions create God's feelings. We believe that the way we act causes him to feel pleased, or displeased, proud or frustrated, right? Happy or disappointed. But this isn't the case. How God feels is up to him, and how he uses his agency. And it is never dependent on our actions. In other words, God loves us because of the choices he makes, not because of the choices we make. And when you really know that, then you can give up your shame in your relationship with God, your shame is created when you think you created his disappointment, or his frustration, or his disapproval, and that is impossible.

25:28
You don't create any of that for God. You are not that powerful. He knows how to choose perfectly and he is always choosing love. And when you know that that your actions never create, or destroy his love, then you can drop your shame, and connect with him, and connect with his love. And knowing that, is going to improve your relationship in every way.

Okay, number nine, I wish everybody knew that they could change. I wish everybody knew that your past doesn't define your future, and that every single moment is up for grabs. Every moment is a new one in which you can exercise your agency. The only thing keeping you from change ever, is your brain. Your brain not wanting to, your brain thinking you can't, your brain shaming you for where you are, and who you are right now. But you can change. And I want you to know that I spent so much of my life convinced of the opposite of this, and convinced that I was a hopeless case, and that no matter how I tried, I was never really going to be able to change. And I just want you to know that it's nonsense. You can change. It is the right of every human being because it is given to you again by your agency.

Because you have agency, you can choose, and change at any moment. Every moment presents another moment of choice to think something differently. And you've got to stop listening to your brain on this. It is 100% wrong about who you are, and what you are capable of. The other day, I was doing this workshop with my clients on our relationship with ourselves, and I reminded them that like our brains are new on the scene. I, like your brain, has only been around for like a few years, a handful of decades, right? It's like 30 or 40 or 50 or like in some cases 100 hundred years old. Maybe your brain is one hundred years old, but it is still the new guy. Okay, the real you is old. You are ancient, in fact, you are eternal. And we spend way too much time listening to the new guy.

We spend way too much time listening to the newcomer, like to this transitory mortal human organ that doesn't know the real us, and doesn't know what we're capable of. We are taking direction from this organ in our body that has no idea of who we are, and what we are, and what we are capable of. We are accepting our brain as the expert, believing that like what we're capable of the change was we're capable of making. We're basing on the word of a brain that doesn't really know us. And we need to spend more time, way more time listening to the real us, the eternal us. You have infinite potential to create, and grow and change. And the whole point of this Earth-life is progress. And you need to stop letting your brain tell you what's possible for you while you're here. It doesn't know. It can't possibly know. And if you can lift the barriers of your mortal brain, there is nothing you can't change. I promise you that.

Okay, and that brings us to number 10. The tenth thing I wish everybody knew, and that is that, even though you can change, you don't have to. You don't have to change one single thing to be lovable, or worthy, and in fact, whatever changes you make won't ever, ever, ever make you any better than you are right now. For better or worse, is just a construct of our human brains, right? And I want you to know that there is no such thing, there is no such thing as better. No human can be better or worse than another. It is impossible. We are equally valuable, equally worthy. And so it follows that no human can be better or worse than themselves either. Through your choices, you can create all kinds of experiences, you can develop all kinds of skills for love, and that will make your life sweet, and joyful, and fun to live. But it will not make you better. No matter what you do, you will never get better, and like someday arrive at being good enough because you are already there.

29:45
I used to think this, I really did, I used to think that I was such a terrible person that I just needed to fix everything so that I could finally be good and worthy and lovable. But the truth is, like even though my life has changed 180 degrees in almost every area over the last four years, I am not better. I'm no more worthy of love, like none of that has changed. It was always there. I was always worthy. I was always enough. And nothing I do will ever change that. This life is a chance to grow and learn and become we are here to become more like our heavenly parents in the ways that we exercise our agency. But as we do that, we do not become better. We just change our Earth-life experience. And if we can stop thinking that we need to get somewhere, or be something, or accomplish something, or behave in a certain way to finally get there and finally be good enough, then we can drop all that, and just enjoy the practice of exercising our agency. To like, show up in our lives the way we want.

And if we stop needing to be someone else or get somewhere else, then we can stop making where we are, and who we are right now wrong. And I wish everyone knew this, and I think knowing it will fundamentally and permanently change your relationship with you.

Okay, my friends, that's what I have for you today. I wish everyone knew that you are not your brain and you are not your feelings either. You aren't supposed to be happy all the time, and you aren't doing it wrong when you aren't. Your agency is the most powerful thing that God has given you, and learning to use it for you will change your life. Choosing love isn't easy and it isn't supposed to be. We are here to practice and other people provide the perfect opportunity to do that. That is why they are here, not to love us, but to be here for us, to practice loving. And as you do that practice, curiosity is a thousand times more effective than condemnation, God knows this and that is why you can never disappoint him or create disapproval for him. You can change and if you do, it won't make you better, who will make you more worthy or more valuable or more lovable in any way? The better you know and understand these things, the more amazing your Earth-life experience becomes. 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 percent 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!