Managing Your Mind's Chatter (part 2)

This episode is the second in our two-part series about managing your mind's chatter.

Last episode, we talked a lot about anxious and depressive rumination and self-limiting beliefs. I told you about my mind, the Amazon AI bot that hangs out there and torments me sometimes, and we also talked about the ABC model, identifying an Activating event, managing your Beliefs about the event, and making careful choices about the Consequences therein.

We talked about how to reframe our beliefs, and that's where this episode continues. Hear several ways to reframe unhelpful thoughts, and explore the technique of "Radical Acceptance" from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.

• Visit the Show Notes for links to anything mentioned in this episode.

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Transcript

Welcome to the Get Yourself Together Chica Podcast, the show that helps you thrive, or, you know, sometimes just survive. I'm Rebecca Fernandez. In each episode, we dive deep into something that has an impact on our lives as women, whether that's money or love, motherhood or friendship, our careers, or just making space for joy. 

This is episode number 19, which is the second in our two-part series about managing your mind's chatter. Last time, we talked a lot about anxious and depressive rumination and self-limiting beliefs. I told you about my mind, the Amazon AI bot that hangs out there and torments me sometimes, and we also talked about the ABC model, identifying an activating event, that's the A, managing your beliefs about the event, that's the B, and making careful choices about the C, the consequences they're in. We talked about how to reframe our beliefs, and that's where we're going to pick up today. 

Episodes 18 and 19 are full of resources and information. So be sure to visit the show notes at GetYourselfTogetherChica.com/podcast for links to anything we talk about, and you can email me at podcast @ getyourselftogetherchica.com to let me know what you thought of today's episode. 

But first, I want to share what's blowing my mind right now. More than once this week, I have reached out to someone to share an article or tell them about my program, and they've responded back almost immediately. Wow, this is exactly what I needed today. It seriously feels like a miracle almost, or divine intervention, people have used phrases like that. 

And just a couple weeks ago, I was going through some old cards and letters, and I picked up one from my friend Todd, who I hadn't spoken to, and I realized over a year. At that exact moment, while I had a letter from him in my hands, he texted me, and he said, "Hey, I know I fell off the face of the Earth for a while," and he started to catch me up. 

I just love that. When it feels like there's some tiny, invisible thread like a spiderweb or a fishing line that gets pulled across the universe in that way. When I was little girl, that was the sort of thing that people in my church would refer to as, being an instrument of God or God using you. And it sort of makes me smile now because, well, it's the sort of church that if you don't believe the things they believe, they unfortunately think that you're going to hell and tell you that a lot. 

But in some ways, it makes me smile because it makes me think, well, if they're right about God existing, even if God is different than they think, I guess that means that he (or she or they or it or all of them) haven't quite given up on me yet, have they? 🙂

So let's jump right back in and talk about managing our mind’s chatter. How do you reframe the more destructive thoughts and beliefs? One technique for reframing is one that I learned from speech coaching. So many years ago, I used to coach executives on their presence when they got up on stage. I still do, to some extent. But one of the tactics that I learned as a coach in this area is if something goes wrong when you get on stage, immediately think to yourself, it might be a good thing that this happened. Do you notice how your mind started filling in the blank? 

It might be a good thing that this happened because now the audience feels at ease or because now I'll remember to slow down before I begin or because it makes me seem more human. 

You don't have to supply the answer to why it might be a good thing. You may not even know yet why it's it might be a good thing. But just introducing that possibility allows your mind to open up to the possibility that this could be something better than it seems like on the surface. 

There is a parable that comes out of the Zen Buddhist tradition, I think, it's hard to tell with these kinds of stories on the internet, but it goes like this. I'll read you the version from tinybuddha.com. 

A farmer has a horse for many years. It helps him earn his livelihood and raise his son. One day, the horse runs away. His neighbor says sympathetically, "Ah, such a bad luck." 

The farmer replies, "Maybe. Who knows?" 

The following day, the horse makes its way back home, bringing with it another horse. The neighbor says with a smile, "such good luck." 

The farmer replies, "Maybe. Who knows?" 

The next day the farmer's son rides the new horse, tries to tame it and in the process he breaks his leg. The neighbor says sympathetically, "such bad luck." 

The farmer replies, (You guessed it), “Maybe. Who knows?" 

The last day in the story, the military comes to the village to draft all the able-bodied young men to fight in a war. The son, of course, is exempt from the draft due to his broken leg. 

You can guess what the neighbor said and how the farmer replied. 

But I think of this story a lot. Anytime life hands me something that my reaction is to feel elated and to believe all kinds of positive things about it, and more often when life hands me something negative or seemingly negative, and my reaction is to start to worry. 

The truth of the matter is, none of us knows what the best outcome of any situation is or what any turn of events might mean for us in the long run. So why not suggest to yourself (when you're concerned and when your beliefs and thoughts and emotions are swirling negative) why not offer yourself the possibility that it might be a good thing that this happened? 

Now sometimes those activating events will be so intense that we're not ready yet to reframe our thinking. So when you're in that state, just put some space between the activating event and taking any consequences or doing anything. Take a breather when you feel destabilized inside, overwhelmed, intense emotions and fears. Just pause and wait a little bit. Give yourself the space and the time to start to unpack what's going on inside of you before you do anything. 

One of my favorite tactics for feeling overwhelmed in particular comes from the business coach Melisa Liberman and I'll link to her stuff in the show notes. But she often says, Okay, you know, let's say you were feeling like I'm going to fail at this. That's not worth my time. I don't even want to go out and try to get any new leads for my business. She says, Try saying, okay, can I just (blank)? 

So: Can I just make one phone call today? Can I just update this one section of my website? Can I just follow up on that bid that I put out there? 

Can I just do one small manageable thing? Yeah, I can do the next thing. And that tends to get you moving again and out of this world. 

Something that I learned recently is that when you go through a stressful time, a traumatic experience, especially if it's prolonged or particularly difficult, you actually will likely regress in your ability to manage your mind's chatter. 

So I noticed this in myself not too long ago. Last year was a particularly emotionally turbulent and difficult year for me, just in one area of my life. But I started noticing, I started having these impulses to like react in destructive ways to things and they were impulses that felt familiar like this is my much younger, like 15 years younger self, all of a sudden is like trying to take hold of the wheel and do things. 

And I didn't act on those impulses. I mean, not much from time to time. I certainly caught myself, you know, being a little snappish or irritable or something. But I thought, where is this coming from? And in fact, that's what led me to go dig up that ABC model and I thought, oh my gosh, I remember 15 plus years ago learning about this model and internalizing this concept of, it's possible that, dot, dot, dot, to help me create that space between the, you know, that adverse event or activating event and the consequences of what I would do. 

But what I noticed is when you start to go through something really difficult, even in the, like especially in the aftermath of it as you're recovering, you fall backwards a little bit. Some of those old beliefs that you thought you pretty well had conquered, they start to become activated again. And it makes sense because your nervous system is under threat when you go through something traumatic. So of course, those really primitive parts of you, those old, you know, safety, self preservation behaviors and ways of thinking, they get activated again. So observe it and change it. 

I've had a really powerful experience as the facilitator and host of the Get Yourself Together Chica program because it's given me a front row seat to seeing what other people's fears are, what their mind chatters on about and how it deludes them. And you know, there's a power in stating your fears out loud to someone else. I remember in one of the cohorts, a woman said, "You know, deep down, I just don't think I'm going to be able to find another job, not without taking a big pay cut, you know, or giving up things that are important to me." 

And I remember another woman in that cohort said, "Huh, I have that fear too. But when you say it, it sounds crazy.” 

And isn't that often the way? The voice inside our own head seems pretty rational until we speak it out loud or until we hear that same voice speaking to someone else? Then we realize, "Wait a second, that's a little extreme, that's a little rigid, that's not real logical." 

So state your fears out loud, put them into words to someone else and see, do they lose some of their power over you? 

A technique I learned from a former boss of mine, and now friend, Jan, is find a way to personify that little voice. So some people like to refer to that unproductive voice in their head as like the A-hole in their mind, right? But I remember Jan, she was observing a woman who was presenting and it was, you know, during a presentation skills workshop. And she said, "Huh, it's so interesting watching you because you're so intelligent and confident when you're speaking casually to all of us about your part of the business, but when I watch you stand up front to give a formal presentation, it's like there's this little crow that's sitting on your shoulder, whispering in your ear, telling you to be quiet, telling you you don't know what you're talking about as you're trying to deliver this. So I think you just, you know, need to reach up there and when you start hearing that crow, you just close his little beak.” 

I loved that metaphor and I've thought of that sometimes when I feel doubt creep in, in particular if I'm doing a talk on a subject and you know, I get that shaky feeling of, "Wait, should I be up here?” I'll just kind of, in my mind's eye, close that little crow's beak right up. 

Some people like to personify that little voice as like the fear gremlin or sometimes I think of a particular self-defeating voice that I hear sometimes, I think of it as Ursula the Sea Witch. But however you personify it, however you visualize it as a real person of its own, it helps take away some of its power and it makes you sort of chuckle at it instead of being hijacked by it. 

We've talked a lot about anxious thoughts in particular but there are other types of thoughts that also limit how far we can go in life that cause us to doubt ourselves. And you know, I have an interesting set of what I think of as self-limiting thoughts around what is possible for me, what I'm capable of. And one thing I have learned is that generally, other people think that I can do more and they can see a bigger future for me than I've ever been able to see for myself, especially the people who know me best, you know, sort of my biggest fans, my partner, every boss I've ever had, just many people in my lives, my friends, some of my colleagues. But I sometimes am surprised by what they see for me. 

And something I've started to do this year is to really double down and say, okay, I need to make the assumption that what these folks see for me has always been more accurate and more reflective of what's possible for me than what I see for myself. I, by nature, will play much smaller than I ought to. And so this year, one of the things I've really focused on is letting go of those self-limiting thoughts that I have and choosing to believe as best as I can and even if I don't believe to act as if bigger things are possible for me. To really stop thinking about surviving and think about soaring. 

And in fact, if you heard my New Year's episode, you'll know that's my theme for 2024, “soar.” So for example, make the assumption that I can more than exceed my W2 job income in my consulting business. Instead of thinking, I can probably get by, I can probably do all right. 

I mean, when in my life has that ever been what I've achieved? I've always achieved so much more than that. Why should this time be any different than the last? 

And you know, I love my partner so much. When I shared that with him, he was like, I think you could probably do way more than that. I think you could do double that. Why not think about double that? He's a very eternally optimistic sales guy and I love that about him. I love that for him, and I love that he sees me in that way. It's really inspiring to me and reinforcing. 

Now, when things are really hard, there's a different approach that I would suggest. Simply notice when you're questioning reality or pushing back against reality. When you're thinking things like, why is this happening? It shouldn't be like this. I don't know, I won't take it. I'm fighting it. It's just not fair. It's not right. 

You know, even the most well-adjusted people have this reaction to awful things, a terminal diagnosis, losing someone you love, being in a relationship or in a job that you thought was going really well only to have the rug pulled out from under you, with no satisfying explanation. 

There are hard situations that can put all of us into that resisting or fighting against reality situation. Usually when we do that, when we question reality or we push back against reality, our mind's chatter gets louder and more upset and we feel worse and worse. 

One solution for those situations is to embrace radical acceptance. This is a model that comes from dialectical behavioral therapy. It was developed specifically to treat borderline personality disorder, which is a personality disorder that makes negative emotions really distressing and intense for a person to deal with. So they often resist change and fight back against what is. 

If you think about, I don't know, the angry neighbor who just refuses to accept that the fence has been moved to the property line, even though you show them every which way, it's okay to be this way. They want to light things on fire in your yard and hold onto it for years. It's that type of individual who just really struggles to accept what is. 

But the reason why this approach is powerful for those of us who maybe don't struggle all the time with that, but who do struggle with accepting really hard reality truths is that it doesn't force you to change your feelings. It doesn't expect you to change your feelings. It helps you accept that you won't necessarily feel great about this because it's not the kind of thing that you feel great about. 

So I'm going to summarize just a little bit about what radical acceptance looks like and what the model includes. This is pulled from Clearview Treatments website and I'll link to it in the show notes. You can go dig deeper if you want. 

Remind yourself that you can't change reality. Hard things, awful things happen sometimes and you can't always stop them or change the situation. Often, the only thing you can control in a situation is yourself and your response to the situation. 

So take a step back, look at the causes of the situation, what led up to it, were you at fault in any way? Get some outside perspective on that too because it is easy to blame yourself for the situation or to have false beliefs about things you could do to change it. But often, the situation has nothing to do with you. 

And then practice acceptance. Think about how you feel when you're pushing against reality. Anxious, agitated, angry, you feel that tension in your body too. So build yourself a toolbox, full of tools like relaxation techniques, mindfulness, healthy ways to distract yourself from rumination, helpful self talk. 

My own toolkit includes a list of things that help me unhook from overly compelling mental chatter like going for a walk, or doing four by four box breathing, or petting my dog, or just bringing myself into the now into this one present moment, which is all that's really real anyway. 

Well, I wanted to give you a quick update on my 24 for ‘24 list. That's the 24 things I want to do in 2024 and my theme, which those of you who are regular listeners know, is soar. My first and second goal on my list are about my consulting business and they were to exceed my W2 job salary while working a little less and enjoying it a lot more, and to generate more new business opportunities that I can fulfill on my own. Build out some partnerships and my freelancer talent bench. 

To achieve those goals, I've been doing some pretty heavy business development and lead generation work. What that basically means is pushing myself out of my comfort zone not just relying on repeat business and referrals, but instead putting myself out there and telling people, "Hey, this is what I do for a living. Do you know anybody who might be looking for somebody like me? Are you looking for somebody like me?" 

And in the beginning, that was really uncomfortable but now I have been at it for about three months and it's gotten pretty comfortable and actually kind of fun. I'm having lots and lots of coffees and those are turning into business opportunities. You know, you just never know who might know somebody and when you've had that conversation recently, they often pass somebody along. 

So in the past week alone, I've had three different leads come to me, meaning potential clients who want to work with me and I signed my first new business deal of 2024 and I did that actually in this first and second week of the month. 

So super exciting, glad to see that that is starting to come together and I'm pretty proud of myself for really pushing hard to soar. 

Well, it's time to tell you what I've been reading lately. It's one of my book club picks, "The Collective Regrets of Clover" by Mikki Brammer. I really enjoyed this book. It's about a death doula in New York City and her struggle to learn how to truly live. Highly recommend, I'll put a link in the show notes. 

Well, Chicas, that's all for today. For more episodes or links to the resources I might have mentioned, visit GetYourselfTogetherChica.com/podcast. If you liked today's episode, please share it with your friends, post it on social media, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any episodes. I would value so much if you would leave a review on Apple Podcast or whatever app you listen to podcasts.