[00:01] Rise. Renew. Reconnect.
[00:04] Welcome to from the Ashes, a podcast where every episode ignites hope and healing.
[00:09] I'm your host, Valerie Hwang Beck, and I'm on a mission to help you embrace your unique potential and become the vibrant visionary you knew you were meant to be.
[00:29] The question of the hour, my friends,
[00:32] seems to be,
[00:33] how do I get out of my own way?
[00:36] Now, before we dive into today's topic, I want you to run,
[00:40] get your journal, get a pen, something to write with.
[00:43] Because personal growth doesn't happen passively, it happens actively. And you're going to want to take notes, you're going to want to jot down your thoughts so that you can organize them later and take real aligned action.
[00:59] Ready?
[01:00] All right, I'm going to start with a story.
[01:03] I sometimes go to my husband's shop and I run into people that I know.
[01:12] And one day I happen to run into one of his regulars and he suddenly tells me, as many people do, they kind of just tell me what they're working on in their lives.
[01:22] They like to share. It's like, I've been thinking about needing to lose some weight.
[01:28] Do you have any advice for how to do that?
[01:30] I asked him a few questions to probe like, well, you know, what have you tried? What can you fit into your schedule? And he's like, well, you know, I can try walking.
[01:40] And I was like, great,
[01:42] why don't you try walking 30 minutes every day around the block? How about that?
[01:48] And he was like, oh, well, I,
[01:51] you know, by the time I get home from work, I'm so exhausted and all that, so how about doing it before you go to work?
[01:58] And he's like, yeah, you know what, I could try that. Like, I could wake up earlier and take a half hour walk before I go to work.
[02:08] And I told him, yeah, that would be a really great way to start. Why don't you start doing that tomorrow?
[02:14] And he said,
[02:16] hmm, well, that's a really good thing to think about.
[02:19] And in my head I was like, man,
[02:21] come on, dude,
[02:23] I just paved the way,
[02:25] helped you get a solution,
[02:27] and your health is just something to think about for tomorrow.
[02:31] And I didn't really say it like that, but I was like, really? You gotta start tomorrow.
[02:36] Do it. Just say that you're going to do it.
[02:38] Because I know after talking to so many people about changing their habits for the better, for improving their lives, for improving their health.
[02:47] A lot of us just tell ourselves that would be nice.
[02:51] And then we go back to our old habits.
[02:55] Now,
[02:56] there are a couple of reasons why someone would know what to do and not do it.
[03:03] But then there are certain times where we don't even know what to do because we don't know what we want.
[03:08] And all of these happen to be instances of self sabotage.
[03:17] Now for a random person that I'm talking to in everyday life is hard to see what exactly it is that they want. Either their pain or their,
[03:28] you know, what their big, big, big goal is.
[03:31] And sometimes it's just not, they're not even present to it. Which is why when I give them a little piece of advice like, yeah, start tomorrow. And I really try to motivate them,
[03:40] they're not really present to, well, why would I actually do that? Because I feel actually pretty comfortable right now where I am.
[03:47] But the thing is, I work with a lot of people who aren't comfortable where they are.
[03:51] They know that they're getting in their way. They know what they even want to do sometimes,
[03:57] but they're not doing it.
[03:59] So today we're going to go through a couple of exercises to help whoever's out there listening try to weed out what it is that's really holding you back.
[04:11] Now,
[04:12] people that are stopped, they're not able to take action towards the things that they truly want.
[04:18] This happens to everyone across the board.
[04:21] It doesn't matter if you are financially struggling to a high level achiever in a corporate environment.
[04:28] I work with a wide range of people and oftentimes what stops them from taking action is,
[04:37] is that they are getting in their own way and it still happens to them no matter where they are in their personal growth journey. And this is a fundamental obstacle that I think that pretty much everyone at some point faces.
[04:53] Now we call this self sabotage.
[04:56] And the first question that I want you to ponder and to write some notes down on is what is the thing you truly want?
[05:03] Want?
[05:05] What is the thing actually that you want that you're afraid to admit that you want?
[05:10] Because we all have superficial wants, right? Like, oh, it would be nice if I had some money someday. Oh, it would be nice if I had a partner someday.
[05:18] But the thing is, when we have the it would be nice part of it,
[05:22] part of us is telling us that we don't actually believe that we can get it.
[05:27] So the first thing I want you to think about is,
[05:30] is what do you truly want?
[05:33] Is it love?
[05:34] Is it to become an artist, to Live life on your own terms. Is it to start a family?
[05:40] Oftentimes, actually our deepest desires are buried underneath many, many layers of people's opinion, society's conditioning that are all telling us that we're being unrealistic in what we desire.
[05:55] And maybe the question isn't why? Isn't it urgent enough that you want to take action?
[06:03] But perhaps there are many, many different voices in your head that are telling you that it shouldn't be urgent.
[06:10] So I want you to write down all of those voices, what they are saying,
[06:15] all of the excuses that you're giving yourself,
[06:19] because you're thinking about what other people might say if you actually went for the thing.
[06:25] Now, I love the term Brules B R U L E S.
[06:30] It stands for bullshit rules. And it was a term used by Vishen Lakhiani, the founder of Mindvalley,
[06:39] to talk about all of the rules that we just kind of take at face value and adopt as our own when they don't actually serve us and our highest good or even what we want to accomplish in life.
[06:55] They're just the rules that happen to be there by default and that we blindly accept because everybody else is following that rule.
[07:03] There are so many rules like this that are taught to us in our schools, in our churches or religious institutions, in our government institutions,
[07:15] online.
[07:16] There are so many different voices telling us what we should think, how we should feel, how we should behave, how women should be, how men should be, how,
[07:25] you know, how white people should be, how black people should be, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[07:30] I want you to think about what are the rules in your life that govern what you do, that you feel are holding you back,
[07:39] and be very unapologetic about what those rules are.
[07:44] Be honest with yourself.
[07:46] What rules perhaps you adopted that you realized didn't actually take you to where you wanted to go, and now you're stuck somewhere that you don't want to be.
[07:56] I know for me,
[07:58] I had a lot of bullshit rules around achievement, around worthiness,
[08:03] and to no fault of their own.
[08:06] My parents raised me to go to college,
[08:11] to do well,
[08:13] to actually go for my dreams, which I'm super grateful for.
[08:16] But there was a belief under that where if you work hard and get into a good school, your future would be set.
[08:25] And that's simply just not true for someone who's a very free spirit, who's wanted to do everything her own way and has a very unconventional way of thinking.
[08:37] I've done everything in my power, actually, and not even because I Was like, actively, actively rebelling,
[08:43] but because my soul was telling me to go in a different direction,
[08:48] to basically break all of those rules.
[08:52] But I lived with a lot of negative self talk, and I still do because there are voices in my head that tell me that I am.
[09:01] That I'm a failure, that I'm betraying myself, my family, that I am doing everything wrong because of some bullshit rules.
[09:10] Everybody has bullshit rules. It just that some of us don't wake up to the fact that they're bullshit until it's too late.
[09:16] Or they live their entire lives wondering why they're not quite happy,
[09:22] why they're not fulfilled, why they feel like there's something missing.
[09:26] And so we really want to wake up our minds to start to be present with what are the rules that actually govern our behav?
[09:36] Are those rules rules that we consented to and that we continue to consent to because we can choose what we consent to in the future even though we can't change the past?
[09:50] Next, I want you to think about, what are the bullshit stories that tell you that you are unworthy?
[10:00] What are the stories that tell you that you're not enough?
[10:05] Write all of those stories down. Pause this podcast episode if you need to.
[10:10] Write all of them down. And I want you to label them in a square that says bullshit.
[10:17] We tell ourselves so many stories because we allow other people's voices and opinions to enter our minds. They're not even real.
[10:26] They're the ones that we think people would say,
[10:29] the criticism that we think we'll receive when we actually stick up for ourselves.
[10:35] I've had friends tell me that they're really afraid even when their parents aren't around,
[10:43] to do something that would upset their parents,
[10:45] as if they had some kind of, like, secret camera watching them every day.
[10:51] I'm Asian, so this is. This is a common thing.
[10:54] It allows us,
[10:57] well, allows our lives to be ruled by these invisible forces,
[11:02] these invisible authorities that control everything. We're outside of our control when we allow those voices in our head to take over.
[11:12] And what this is,
[11:14] is survival mindset.
[11:17] It's not a mindset where we can thrive.
[11:20] And the crazy thing is,
[11:23] pretty much all humans are wired for a survival mindset, not a thrive mindset. And it's completely different,
[11:29] the outcome of those two mindsets,
[11:32] because when we're younger,
[11:34] we don't know any better. We are just living our lives. We're blissful,
[11:38] we're innocent.
[11:39] And then maybe one day a parent gets upset or something happens where we don't get the attention we want or we feel threatened because all of a sudden we don't feel safe.
[11:49] We start to create responses,
[11:53] reactions based off of the very, very little knowledge we know as small children to make sure that we get what we need.
[12:04] And so if one day, for example,
[12:09] you get spanked for crying,
[12:12] maybe something was upsetting you that you don't know,
[12:15] right?
[12:16] But you get spanked for crying and all of a sudden your dad is angry at you.
[12:21] And so what you teach yourself to do is to avoid that punishment and be a good girl,
[12:29] right? Always fall in line in my life. This is true too,
[12:33] because in Chinese culture there's a word in the language,
[12:39] obedient,
[12:41] and that is often used to praise small children, especially girls.
[12:47] And so obedient becomes a good thing.
[12:49] Whenever we're obedient, we get praised.
[12:53] And so it becomes a lot about being quiet,
[12:56] falling in line,
[12:58] doing your work and doing it well.
[13:01] And if you do that,
[13:03] you get the love,
[13:05] you get the approval, and you get to stay safe because no one's going to spank you.
[13:09] It's a survival mindset.
[13:11] We don't get to dream big when we're stuck there.
[13:15] We don't get to think,
[13:16] what if I did this? Because we're always avoiding the punishment. And that's the thing is this is reinforced again and again and again as you go through your life and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy until you finally realize down the line you've fallen in line, you've become so obedient that you no longer have a life that you want,
[13:37] that you recognize as yours. You no longer have a voice that you recognize as yours because you're afraid to express it.
[13:44] And I'm talking about myself. Yes, but I'm also talking about so many other people who stay in this place of fear due to some occurrences way back in the past.
[13:58] Now the mindset to thrive takes a conscious shift and it doesn't happen on its own.
[14:07] The shift to thrive requires courage because it requires us to make choices that are unfamiliar. By the time we're, we're adults,
[14:16] our behaviors are so set in habits and they're formed from the beliefs that have been reinforced to us over and over and over again.
[14:24] But when they don't work, when something doesn't work, we start to question a little bit.
[14:28] But that doesn't mean that it's easy to change.
[14:31] In fact, it's really, truly difficult because the mind will keep going back to but, but, but, but, but.
[14:38] Remember when it wasn't safe to voice what you Wanted. Remember what? It wasn't safe to actually be bright and be vibrant.
[14:49] So I want you to go back and think about what you wrote down that you actually do want.
[14:57] What is it that you're trying to achieve?
[15:00] What are your goals?
[15:03] If you want to be an artist, a thriving artist, or if you want to start a family, if that is one of the things that you truly want, that you haven't realized in your life yet,
[15:13] be honest with yourself right now first and ask yourself,
[15:18] do you truly want it?
[15:22] And perhaps a question to ask beyond this is, are you okay with dying without having experienced it,
[15:28] or are you okay with dying without at least having tried to attain it?
[15:35] Because it's actually the action that is really causing us that fear.
[15:41] Are you okay with going through your entire life not taking the action towards that goal?
[15:50] Because sometimes what we want is due to our old conditioning.
[15:56] Maybe we're just doing it because we want to feel more validated, right? We want to get a higher paying job. We want to make millions of money to be more validated.
[16:03] That's not the same as wanting to thrive with resources. That would allow us to live on purpose and contribute to others and in our highest self.
[16:14] Two completely different things. You can be chasing money for very different reasons, which is why we have people who can corrupt themselves with resources and there are people who can really, really contribute and thrive with resources.
[16:28] Or are you creating goals,
[16:34] doing it to just make ends meet?
[16:37] I think I want this other job that might make me more money because I want to,
[16:42] you know, it'll help me with my interests or something like that, or maybe it would help me survive a little bit longer, but that's the key thing when we are doing something that would be nice, but because we want to make ends meet.
[16:56] This is another survival or scarcity mindset.
[17:00] I remember when I think it was when I was doing my full time travel job,
[17:10] and I don't quite remember when exactly it was in the timeline,
[17:17] but I think there was a time between leaving that job and starting school for holistic medicine. And I was really, really struggling for money.
[17:27] And I remember telling my parents it might have been actually around the time when I was finishing some of that school because I needed to now make money.
[17:36] Maybe I should actually just go and become an accountant because they have a stable income, right?
[17:40] And it was just so out of alignment, but I was feeling really desperate.
[17:46] It's like, oh, maybe I should get this so that I can support my struggling career in holistic medicine. That's emerging because I don't have any confidence in it.
[17:55] But that's the thing,
[17:56] is that some of us are just not confident in anything that we do. And so we're like, oh, maybe I need to get that certification. When you get get this to validate me again and again and again and again.
[18:08] Is what you truly want just another way to survive?
[18:13] Or is what you want right now leading you towards the TRA trajectory of your highest self?
[18:24] What do I mean by highest self? Right. The one that's aligned,
[18:27] the one that's vibrant, the one that's joyful, the one that is in flow,
[18:32] who's doing what they're meant to be doing with joy, with abundance, with freedom.
[18:37] And oftentimes we realize that we were just making,
[18:43] you know, we were creating a desire out of lack.
[18:48] Now what do we do about this?
[18:51] Aside from journaling, aside from shining light on the issue,
[18:56] how do I get out of my own way?
[18:59] Because the thing is, the mind is a mighty, mighty force.
[19:04] The Yoga Sutras, an ancient text on yoga, is actually a manual written entirely for calming the actions of the minds that distract us from our inner peace and alignment.
[19:19] And all the principles in that book have nothing to do with stretching.
[19:24] There's no instruction even on breathing.
[19:28] It's all how to make the mind more stable.
[19:33] So this is a human conundrum that's been happening for thousands and thousands of years that we all get in our own way. So don't feel bad if you are getting in your own way.
[19:44] If you really want to make a change in your life,
[19:47] if you know that mindset is going to be an issue.
[19:53] And I know that it is for me, because I was not born with grit. I was born with the same **** that everyone else was born with. A lot of negative self talk, a lot of self doubt.
[20:03] You need a guide,
[20:05] you need a coach or a mentor who has done the work to change their mindset and radically shift their lives.
[20:12] Someone who's been able to stand up for themselves and continues to do the work to stand up for themselves and to continue to uncover the layers of conditioning that allows them to grow and evolve.
[20:26] Because if you're surrounded by people who are at the same level or lower and struggling just like you,
[20:34] or who want to stay the same and want to stay in their fear bubble,
[20:39] more than likely is that you're going to go back into your fear bubble and into enabling the behaviors that got you stuck there.
[20:46] The second thing that you need is strategy,
[20:50] A plan to get you to your goal or benchmarks.
[20:55] Because to be honest,
[20:56] at this stage, you're probably a noob,
[21:00] meaning that you're new at creating habits,
[21:05] beliefs,
[21:07] routines that actually serve you and to put them in place in a way that, that you're not going to overwhelm your system, that they're going to be sustainable and that actually lead you towards the trajectory that you desire.
[21:20] You need strategy. You need someone to work with as well, which is why the mentor is so important,
[21:25] someone that can help guide your strategy and revise it when there are things that get in your way.
[21:32] The third thing that you need is commitment, and that comes from you. Meaning that you commit to your change.
[21:40] You commit to becoming the person that you want to be,
[21:43] even if it's going to be hard, knowing that's going to be hard,
[21:46] committing to the habits and practices that are set in place even when you don't want to do them.
[21:51] And we have all sorts, sorts of excuses as to why we don't want to do the hard thing.
[21:57] But staying stuck,
[21:58] right, whether that be staying unhealthy, staying single, staying broke, staying poor, staying disempowered is also hard.
[22:07] And I'm sure you've heard this before, but choose your hard.
[22:11] And the fourth thing that I'm going to mention that you need, if you really, really want to get out of your own way,
[22:18] is to build accountability.
[22:20] Don't keep your dreams, goals and vision to yourself.
[22:25] Join a group of people who have done or are doing what you want to be doing.
[22:31] Find accountability partners that you can communicate with often who keep you on track and keep you motivated.
[22:39] I know very, very few people, if any,
[22:43] that have done all the work by themselves to do radical changes in their lives.
[22:47] It's always with a group of people.
[22:50] Because the only way, really you're going to radically shift your life by yourself is, is if you have tremendous willpower and you know exactly where you need to go.
[23:03] But if you did that, then why aren't you already there?
[23:08] Okay,
[23:09] so I am going to also be working on getting out of my own way. And I'm sure I will be working on this for the rest of my life.
[23:18] But is that commitment to getting out of my own way that separates me from the people who just want to get by and survive, from the people who actually want to thrive.
[23:30] So thank you for listening.
[23:33] If you are interested in getting coaching, in getting strategy,
[23:39] in committing to your habits and practices and real change, if you're interested in accountability,
[23:44] then I invite you to explore my Phoenix programs.
[23:48] They are all a year long where you join a community of people who are working on creating real, sustainable change towards a thriving life,
[23:57] and you get all of the coaching and guidance that you need in order to implement those changes.
[24:03] Check out my website, intrepidwellness Life,
[24:07] and check out the show notes below for all other relevant links.
[24:11] Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.
[24:17] Thanks for tuning in to from the Ashes. If this episode sparks something in you, I want you to know your evolution matters and we're rooting for you all the way.
[24:26] For coaching, community, and resources to help you rise into your full potential,
[24:30] visit intrepidwellness Life and check out what we have to offer.
[24:34] If you love the episode, please leave a comment, share it with a friend, or tag me on Instagram ntrapidwellness Val, because I'd love to hear what resonated for you.
[24:44] Until next time, keep rising.
