Episode 148: For Those of You Who Wish You Were Different

Episode Summary

Being a human is incredibly challenging. But what makes things even harder is the nearly constant nagging and criticism that can come from our own brains. Many of us are especially harassed and bothered with the thought that we should be different—in. every. way.

One of the gifts of coaching is being able to see that every one of these thoughts is optional and unnecessary. And when we stop believing them and stop thinking that we should be different, then we are free to be ourselves and heal the world in the way only we can.

On this episode of the podcast, I want to answer back to some of your brain’s thoughts about how you “should be different,” to help heal the wounds your own brain is inflicting on you and encourage you to not let these thought errors keep you from contributing your own healing to others.

Episode Transcript

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 148 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April price and I want to tell you a couple of things before we start. I have two important announcements that I want to make sure that you know about. So first, I want to tell you about a free class that I am holding tomorrow. It's happening tomorrow, March 4th at 9:00 a.m. Pacific. It's called, "Is Coaching the Answer For You?" And I just want you to know that this class is for all of you. I know you hear me talking about coaching all the time. I know you hear me invite you to it all the time, but I suspect that many of you disqualify yourself from those invitations to coaching, right? Like, without even really thinking about it, without even really noticing it, right? I remember, like I for many years, I've listened to Russell Brunson's podcast and like, he always just has really good information. He's always sharing such good stuff. And so I'm like, he's always making offers for his programs and for his product.

And like I one day I was listening to him and I was like, I just realized that as he was making the offer, I was completely thinking that he wasn't talking to me at all, right? That offer was for somebody else, the offer was for an entrepreneur. That offer was for like somebody who had a business, the product. Like, I just I didn't even think he was talking to me, and I just said this moment where I was like, Oh, he's talking to you, April. And listen, I just want you to know that like, if you are listening to me, I am talking to you, I am inviting you.

Your brain said like, you're not talking to me because of this or this or this, right? Like, your brain has disqualified you for some reason. I am inviting every single person in my audience that has a human brain, that it's all of you and everyone with a human brain can benefit from more awareness, more acceptance, and knowing how to adjust the thoughts so that you can manage that human brain. And that's what we do in coaching.

So, I am talking to you right now, and I would love for you to come to this class about if coaching is the answer for you because I want you to know what is available to you. Listen, the answer might be no, no. Coaching isn't the answer for you, and there's no obligation, right? It's just a class. But before you disqualify yourself, I want you to see. I want you to get your questions answered. I want you to see where your own brain might be keeping you from, something that could change your life without you even knowing it, okay?

So, I was thinking about how our brains do this without us even realizing how they disqualify us, right? Like, they just like, well, I'm not like that type of a person and not a person that actually like, signed up for coaching or whatever, right? I don't know, but I was thinking about my brother I told you a few episodes ago that I'm doing this endurance event in September with my son, and with my brother. And my brother has already done the event twice, right? And like for a couple of years, he's like telling me about it, like last summer when we went to the beach, he's like, you should do it with me. And I was just like, yeah, yeah, right, right? Like, I just completely disqualified myself. But he would just kind of mention it like, you could do this April, you should do it. I was just like in my mind, thinking, like, I'm not that kind of person.

Like, Yes, I exercise. I go to the gym like, you know, but I'm not an endurance athlete. There's no way I could do that. But the more he planted the idea that like it was possible for me, the more like I just noticed that like my brain disqualified me without me even questioning it, and then I started to question it. And now I'm signed up, and I'm questioning it all over again. But I just want to offer you that like your brain might have said, like coaching isn't for you, and I want you to make sure that that's true, that it's not just your brain making that decision. So, get registered, is coaching the answer for you, the classes tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. Pacific. If you can't make that class, there will be a replay sent out to everyone that's registered. So, to get registered and get the link for that, you need to either go to my website aprilpricecoaching.com and click on the link to get registered for it. Or you can simply text 66866 in your phone. Text the word "answer" to 66866 and that will register you. They will send the link to the class into your inbox and you'll be ready to go.

So, that is the first thing that I want you to know that classes tomorrow. The second thing I want you to know is that some of you already know that coaching is the answer you've already been planning and preparing. I've talked to several of you and you already know that you want to be part of my next group that starts the first week in April, which is a little more than a month away. And I want you to know that there is a bonus that ends on Sunday night this Sunday in three days. At the time, this podcast is going to come out, that bonus ends, and that bonus is that in addition to all of the group coaching sessions and the workbook, and the membership portal with all the videos and and all the bonus workshops. In addition to everything that you get in my program, anybody that signs up before Sunday also gets two free, one-on-one coaching sessions with me during the six-months that you can sign-up and use any time in that six-months.

So, if you have already decided yes, coaching is for me, I want to be in that group, I want more for my life. I'm ready to sign up before Sunday and you will get that bonus and I don't want you to miss it, okay?

So, with all that said on to the episode. So, I've put a lot of like time and thought into this episode, and maybe it will feel a bit unnecessary, but sometimes I feel like I talk so much about changing your life, I talk so much about changing your results, I talk so much about like what is possible for you, and really expanding what's possible for you that I worry sometimes that you think that you have to do that to be better in some way to like be a better person, to be the best. You know, we hear that all the time, like, be the best you, right? And I just want to make sure that I'm very clear that, yes, you can change anything. You can get all the change you want in your life. You can live any life experience you want. You can create any result you want in your life. You can create any relationship changes that you want, like your life is yours to create it as you want, and all of that is possible.

But, you do not have to do any of that to be okay, to be worthy, to be enough to be better. You cannot be any better, none of that will make you better. Nothing can make you better than you are right now. You have unlimited potential, but you are also infinitely valuable exactly as you are. And I just think it's so important that you understand it. I talked to so many of you who are just wracked with torment, wishing you could be different, and that if you were different, then you would finally be able to like yourself, and accept yourself. And so, this episode is for all of you who wish that you were different. I want you to know that you do not have to be different. Not one tiny bit to love yourself, to love your life, to be proud of yourself, to find joy and to stop nagging and criticizing yourself for who you are.

And so, this episode really was born out of a text conversation that I had with a client and a dear friend, and she sent me a poem by Sean Thomas Doherty, and the poem was called Why Bother? This is what he wrote.

Why bother? Because right now there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.

And ever since she sent me that poem, I've been thinking about, the holiness, the tenderness, the sacredness of those words. And so, let me just read it one more time, so they can kind of like echo in your own heart and your own spirit in the same way that it did for me. Again, he writes,

Why bother? Because right now there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.

And today, I just want to pause and talk to all of you, all of you who have wounds, all of you who wish so desperately that some part of you could be different, that you could be better, or changed, or different, or just fundamentally changed so that you could feel okay about yourself. I want to talk to all of you who have wounds, and I want to point out that those wounds, yes, sometimes we get them in the world, right? Sometimes there are circumstances. There are people. There are things that happen that create pain for us. As we interpret them, they create pain for us that exist. But I think there is so much unnecessary wounding of ourselves that happens in our own brains. Like Earth, life is not easy. I know, you know that the fall is incredibly challenging for every one of us. Like, there are so many times when I kneel down to say my prayers, like the only sentence I can get out is like Heavenly Father, it is so hard down here, right? Like, it is just so difficult to be a human on this Earth sometimes.

And on top of that, there are wounds that we inflict upon ourselves with the thoughts in our own mind. And that is by design like that is built into our fallen human experience, right? We were born into weakness. We were born into a body with a brain that is constantly focused on what's negative, what's wrong with us. And it does that to ensure our survival. And so, that's just like part, and parcel of our human experience. But I want you to know that that doesn't have to go unanswered all the time, right? Like like your brain is going to point out what's wrong. But like also, we need to start pointing out all the things that are right, and we don't need to take our brains word for it every single time and hurt ourselves and tell ourselves that we need to be different. So, today I have some words, okay, like I have some words that I hope will fit the shape of your wounds. And I want to offer some words, some different thoughts than the ones that your brain is giving you, and I would love for you to just hear and believe these words, and when your brain is harassing you with thoughts of failure and telling you that it's never enough that you suck, as one of my clients told me just this week that I hope that after hearing this episode, perhaps you will have a different thought about it, and that you will refuse to hear the criticism of your brain.

OK, so I made a list of some of the thoughts we used to wound ourselves. And I want you to know that I made it from experience, okay? I think I just spent so many years wishing everything about me could be different. So many years, like just hating myself, criticizing myself, and so I make this list from experience, you may have additional wounds, things that your brain has pointed out to you. And if you want help with those thoughts, I'd love to coach you on that. I'm a free call anytime and we can coach through those thoughts. But today I'm going to share the ones that I think come up for a lot of us. And I want to give you some words and thoughts to heal some of those wounds, okay?

So first, for those of you who think you failed, okay, especially at mothering or parenthood or marriage, like that family relationship that's supposed to be so important and you think you failed? I want you to know that you cannot do it wrong. That it is all part of your learning experience. You were never supposed to be good at it. How could you possibly know all the things you're supposed to know, except by experience? And you were always supposed to be amazing at it, and you were always supposed to be a mess at it. And it's both, right? Whatever combination of amazingness and messiness that is like the way you're doing it is the exact combination that your children need. Especially the mess, right? So, much of their learning comes through our mistakes, and that is as it should be. It's by divine design. I just want to remind you that God did not intend for these children to come to perfect parents, right? The whole intention was for them to come to you with your specific combination of imperfection is exactly what they needed. All of it was his business. All of it was by his design.

Next, for those of you who think that you've wasted your life, how many times have I said this sentence to my husband? I just want you to know that you can't. You literally cannot waste your life. It just isn't impossible. The reason you came to Earth was to learn, and you can't not learn every moment you are learning, even in every wrong choice, every right choice, in every tiny thought, choice you are making. Moment by moment, inside your own mind, you are learning, and I know that it feels like you aren't like or that if you are learning, things would be changing, right? But you are always learning, and you just had no idea how many practices it would take. But every one of them count, every one of them are stacking up, every one of them we are learning.

For those of you who think you have made too many mistakes, I want you to know that there is no such thing, okay? And as soon as you start making yourself wrong for these like perceived mistakes, the sooner that you get to try it again. Like, I think the problem comes when we like to think that we were supposed to, like, know what we were doing. We were supposed to do it right. That is not the case. We were supposed to learn and grow. Period. And that requires trial effort mistakes. Like we've just been watching the Winter Olympics and it just like occurs to me, like how many mistakes they had to make to like progress in their sport. And that is like a requirement to acquiring skill, and it is no different in your life.

For those of you who wound yourself with the thought that, okay fine, I'm supposed to make mistakes, but it's terrible that these mistakes negatively impact other people. They negatively impact the people I love. That is not okay, right? We wound ourselves with that thought that we shouldn't be like hurting other people with our mistakes, right? And I want you to know that your mistakes have in fact, negatively impacted other people and they were supposed to. It's not a problem. This is what it means to have a human experience. It means by definition that we are going to enter a sphere where everyone else has agency would affect our circumstances. Would they would affect the story and the narrative of our life, right? Like, everybody's going to come, everyone's going to get a choose, and those choices are going to affect everyone in the world, right? But that is by design.

Because what we came to Earth to do was not to practice choosing in a vacuum or practice, choosing when everything is ideal. What we came to do was practice, choosing and controlling our own agency despite what's happening around us. We came to choose our experience inside, like how we were going to choose to feel, and act, and the results that would create in our lives how we were going to choose despite the experiences that happened outside of us, despite what other people chose, and what other people did, and the other things that happened to us. We each came to learn to be an agent over ourselves, no matter what was happening outside of us. And you know what we all need so that we can practice that other people's mistakes, your mistakes, your choices. You're not doing it perfectly, enables all the rest of us to practice.

Next, for those of you who tell yourself that you are undisciplined, you're uncommitted, you're not good at being an adult, okay? That is another story that I told first so long ago, right? Like, I'm just not going to be an adult, I'm not good with money, I'm not good at doing hard things. I'm not good at like adult relationships. Like I just felt like I had, like, failed at like being an adult, right? So, I want all of you to know that there is nothing wrong with you. Undisciplined isn't who you are, right? Like uncommitted, undisciplined. That isn't like an identity. You are all just making choices. We are all just making choices, and none of those choices make you good or bad. Different choices don't make you better, right? You can have any life experience you want. Anything you want is available to you,

But you aren't bad now, and making different choices won't make you any better. You get to do those things if you want, but it will never make you better. We keep thinking that if I could just be different, if I could just be like those people, then I would be better. There's no such thing. They are better now and you won't be if you make those choices either. It's just a preference and how you want to live your life. So, stop wounding yourself with these thoughts that like they are better because they can do those things.

We've kind of talked about mistakes, but I just want to also just say that like for those of you that wound yourself with a thought like you should have known better, I think that like clearly I should have known better I. I had the knowledge I know how to live my life, I just don't do it like we wound ourselves. This thought that like, like knowing what to do is the same as like being able to do it and that we should know, right? I want you to know that you are always doing your best. Every single one of us always doing our best. We are always acting from the knowledge we have, and we are always using, like our current level of ability to overcome our brain. Our current level to choose what we want over what our brain wants, that is what always is in play. And we are always at the exact level we should be. We are always exactly where we should be in the process. So, there is no such thing as like I should have known better. Like when we know better, when we know how to do better, when we know how to choose differently we do. Period.

Okay, just a couple of more that I wrote down. For those of you that wound yourself with the thought that you are difficult. Man, I use this one against myself so many times, even just like last month, you guys, I had to get coached on this because I had this thought my daughter was coming home from her mission and in my preparations and things to get her ready. I felt like I just like hadn't done as good a job as I should have, and I had this thought. I told my husband, I'm like, I am still the most difficult one in this family. This thought likes to rear its head, right? I know I admit I sometimes like to wound myself for this thought that like, I'm the difficult one still and always, right? So, I just like you to know that there is no such thing, right? There is just our brains perception that we are difficult, but that is never true. There is no such thing. There's no such thing as a difficult person. I have a whole podcast about it, but all there are conditions we set up.

In our loving other people that like we tell ourselves a story that they're difficult because of these conditions, we put on them. And this is what I was doing to myself, and I suspect some of you do to yourself. You tell yourself that you are difficult and it's because you've put conditions on yourself on loving yourself, you see yourself as difficult. It's all happening in your mind, okay? And I just want you to know that you don't have to do that.

Okay, for those of you that feel tired, and hopeless, and powerless in your own lives I want you to know that your brain is actively working to have you give up. That is its full time job. It is like always trying to get you to give up, and it's always offering you thoughts that create that hopelessness, that create that exhaustion, that create thoughts like it doesn't matter anyway and make you feel powerless in your own life. And I want you to know that your power is always inside you. It is always there is always available to you by the thoughts you choose to think. When your brain offers you thoughts that create hopelessness, and create powerlessness, and you just you feel victimized by your own life, and your own choices and your own self, like all of that, is optional. And when we choose to refuse to believe our brain and think about ourselves differently, all of that changes.

Your brain wants you to believe that it's all happening to you and then it's all out of your control because that requires the least amount of energy and the least amount of rejection and the least amount of like risk to your brain. And what we're doing here is we're working to overcome it. And the fact that your brain like offers all of that to you is not a problem, but I want you to know that it can be different when you choose to acknowledge I am an agent, I get to choose. I am powerful in my own life. By the way, I choose to think and feel.

So, I kind of want to just wrap up this part of the podcast by just saying, for those of you that wish you could be different, I want you to know that there isn't an end to that kind of thinking, like there aren't enough changes that you can make. There aren't enough things that you could be different in and and behave differently about. There aren't enough things to change this feeling, okay? Because our feelings are created by our thoughts and we'll go, and we'll change things in our lives and we'll do things differently. And these thoughts that we are not enough, that we are not good enough, that we have failed. And like all these thoughts that I've given, you will still be there and we will still feel bad, we will still wish we could be different. In other words, if you don't change your thoughts about yourself, you will always wish you could be different no matter what you change.

I spent so much of my life, like I said, wishing I was different. It's like a really old thought habit, and David will tell you that there are moments when my guard is down and I'm tired and I'm sick and I haven't been coached in a while and I get discouraged when that habit will come back, right? And it is a battle. It's a battle for every one of us to reject those thoughts that we need to be different and to choose to believe that we are okay, that we are enough, that we are lovable, and valuable as we are because that doesn't come naturally to a human brain.

I just want you to know that like when I first came to coaching and I figured out like, there is a good reason for everything I do, it's all coming for my thoughts. I was like, Oh my gosh, this is the best news I have ever heard. It was like I had hope for the first time because I thought, Oh my gosh, I can finally change. I can finally be different. I can finally clean up all this mess and then I can like myself. I can finally be different. And over time, I started to realize like, Oh, I only want to be different because of the way I'm thinking about myself, and no amount of change is ever going to change that. I have to change the thought. And I realized it wasn't about cleaning up the mess, so I could like myself. It was about choosing the thoughts that would allow me to like myself in the mess, right? The work became not cleaning myself up, so I could like myself. The work became liking myself as I am in my mess, right?

Even beyond that, you guys, what I know now is that there is such a mess there at all. The mess is created by the perception of my brain. I am always exactly where I should be, I am always behaving exactly as I should be given my current skill level to choose. I'm always exactly where I am supposed to be in my growth and progression in the way I'm living my life. And none of it is a mess, it is exactly as it should be. And it's just so good to know that all of the things that I think thought needed to be different. All the mess, all the things that I was just like, these are unacceptable, those are all made up by your brain.

Okay, now here at the end, I kind of want to like switch the perspective of this poem, and have you think about it in a slightly different way? So, remember the words I just can't say enough, I'm going to read it one more time. Okay, so Sean Thomas Doherty wrote,

Why bother? Because right now there is someone out there with a wound. In the exact shape of your words.

And I just want to flip the perspective here for a minute. An offer that if we are only listening to our brain, if we are only hearing what's wrong with us, if we are only hearing the criticism, if we are only hearing how we aren't enough. And we're only ever like wounding ourselves with our own thoughts. Then we are unavailable to heal the wounds of someone else. What I want to offer you is the idea that each one of us has a way to heal the wounds of someone else may not be through words even. But you all have gifts, you all have a calling, a place in this world to heal the wounds of others. And every one of us has a part in that.

I know I've told you a million times about the Jewish concept of tikkun olam. I just I talk about it all the time because I think it's so beautiful. But the idea is that the world is broken and every one of us has a part to play in its healing that every one of us is responsible for healing the wounds of those around us, and that each of us are placed here by design because we have the capacity to heal others. But I believe we can't do it when we're too busy wounding ourselves, right? When we're wounding ourselves, we have fear, and insecurity, and doubt, and and then we're too scared to offer the words the healing that we have.

When I let my brain run wild and tell me that like, I need to be different right then I'm scared to do my work in the world. I'm still scared to contribute, I'm scared to set goals. I'm scared to like, believe something else is possible for me and then I don't do that work in the world. And from that place, my brain just is always telling me that I should give up, that it doesn't matter that it's no good anyway, right? And as Sean Doherty says, like, why bother? And if I believe my brain then there are wounds that go on healed, right? And the shape of your healing is going to look different than mine, but we all have gifts, we all have healing to give, and our brains are the ones that are keeping us from that work. Our brains are the ones that are saying it's too hard and it's too scary and we don't know enough and no one likes us. And who do we think we are anyway? Why bother? Right? Our brains are the ones saying we don't know how and no one cares and we should give up, and we're just fooling ourselves and like somebody else, is doing it better.

Why bother? And like, listen, I just want to shake every one of you, and I beg you not to listen to your brain. I want you to bother. I want you to stand up to your brain. You are here. You can take part in the healing of yourself, of your family, of your community, of the world. Don't let your brain keep you from the work that only you can do. At this point in, I have coached hundreds of clients, hundreds of human brains. And they all think the same thing. They all think they're not enough, they all think they're not worthy. They all think they are capable and it's never true. We are all insecure, and scared, and embarrassed, and ashamed, and all of that is coming from our brains. Don't let that keep you from the work that you came to do. Your life is such a gift, you are such a gift. You are awesome. You are amazing. You are enough and whole and good. And I want you to bother.

I want you to talk back to your brain and heal your wounds. And then I want you to use, like all your courage and all those thoughts about your capacity and your capability and your gifts. And I want you to go and heal the wounds in someone else. We are enough and we are whole. And we were all made for more. And that, my friends, is 100%awesome. I love you for listening and I'll see you next week.

If you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you have heard me talk over and over about how awesome coaching is, and at some point you've probably wondered, yeah, but is coaching the answer for me? I would love to help you answer that question. I am offering a free class on March 4th.
To answer your questions and help you decide if coaching is right for you, you have to be registered to get a link to the class or go to Aprilpricecoaching.com or text the word answer to 66866. I'll see you there.