To listen to this episode on iTunes, click HERE. If you prefer another platform you may click HERE for other options! You will also find the transcript below.
Please subscribe and SHARE with anybody you think would be helped by this message. If you love the podcast, please leave a review on iTunes. Thank you and have a great day!
This week we will talk about how ruminating over and obsessing over conversations holds us back, oppresses us and keeps us trapped in the past. When we do this we feel helpless and hopeless and utterly powerless. I hope you find this helpful. Enjoy!
TRANSCRIPT:
I want to talk about obsessing over our conversations. I want to talk about when we constantly ruminate over and spend vast amounts of time dissecting conversations that we have had recently or at some point in the past. My sister so eloquently calls this “conversation hangover”. A phrase that I have readily adopted. It’s the perfect way to capture exactly what it is in two words.
For those of you that have not had a hangover, or don’t know what it is; it’s when you drink a bit too much; enough that your body is feeling for quite some time, and usually it’s accompanied with regret. Conversation hangover is a problem because it is a complete waste of our time and energy. It makes us feel terrible and doesn’t serve our lives at all. It’s also at the root of social anxiety and causes us to spiral. It’s when we think about what we have said over and over again and we can’t stop. When we are stuck in conversation hangover, it can last for a long time. All the while, we are not as productive and we feel held back and oppressed.
So, let’s get into how this has impacted me a bit. Let me tell you… this is an experience that I have had over and over and over again. It’s a crippling cycle for me that really takes me down. For me, this so often happens when I am vulnerable with new people; or maybe with new people; or maybe people that I really care about and respect and sometimes elevate a bit. Years ago my husband worked for a firm that had lavish holiday parties and sometimes other events. I felt sort of inferior around a lot of the people at these events. So many of them went to ivy league schools and they were super wealthy. These are the types of people that I struggled with a lot over my life with thinking they were better than me. I didn’t want to think that and I never wanted to think that, and yet my brain clung to those ideas. So we would go to these company events and I would smile and I would try to be myself; but inevitably I would end up feeling awkward and as though I just didn’t fit in, and I really wanted to. Despite what anyone else thought, that didn’t really matter. I was just overly consumed by it. I would try and I would kind of become a chameleon as much as I could. I would end up going home and obsessing over every interaction with some of these people despite my desire to just enjoy myself. Since my husband left that firm I have not gone to any such events, which has been a nice break for some time in some ways, but this has still played out in other interactions. It’s not as often or as powerful now but still does happen.
Anybody who has had children knows what a transition it can be into parenthood. Maybe for some of you motherhood was a somewhat natural transition. I thought it would be. I cared a lot for my brother when I was young and I loved children and I wanted to be a mother my whole life, so obviously it would be natural and somewhat easy, right? Wrong! Anyway, fast forward into motherhood a bit and I found myself really challenged coming into interactions with other mothers. It was just so awkward and challenging and hard to put myself out there. A large part of it being that I wanted to feel like, or at least seem like, I was doing a good job in this new role; this super vital role. I needed a tribe and I yearned to feel connected. I didn’t accept myself as a new mother, or really even as a person deep down. There were a lot of issues, many of which I have talked about. But, really, I just needed the acceptance of the women around me because I didn’t accept myself. So, I felt that this substitute would be enough. When I would meet new mothers, I would just struggle with this predicament often. Sometimes it was easier than at other times. But isn’t that just life? There were just so many things I felt that I could be doing wrong. But not knowing what was right, I just tried to cling to whatever it was. And along the way, I fumbled with my words so much and made ignorant statements just trying to do well and stand for the right things. It was just such a huge struggle for me, and it led to tremendous imposter syndrome (among other things); fear of being found out as a fraud and the mind rattling outcomes that I predicted that this would mean for me and my value.
Conversation hangover is a huge tool of the liar. It’s the result of the function of our brain trying to keep us safe but in doing so clinging to lies that keep us small and oppressed; that keep us feeling weak and trapped and stuck somewhere other than our current moment; the lives we are actually living in; where we are actually trying to get to.
So, what’s the problem and what is it doing to us? Our brains are taking what is coming in, filtering through it all, and clinging to data and information that supports the ideas that we have chosen to believe; whether we know we are choosing to believe these thoughts or not, and whether these ideas are actually helpful or harming us, as I’ve talked about before. Our brains might relate an awkward situation to another experience that might have happened in the past. Perhaps this past experience left us feeling vulnerable and insecure and unworthy. This leaves us feeling afraid of this new experience affirming our unworthiness or in some way producing fear and shame. Our brains want us to stay safe, and this awkward tension feels so unsafe so it works very hard to fix it. But in doing so it is just replaying it over and over and over again in our heads. Sometimes we are trying to think about what we should have said or done differently; but we are essentially stuck in hyper-regret, wasting our energy consuming all of our focus on something that is outside of our control; something that has already happened; something that we have no power to actually go back and change. This results in the opposite of self-acceptance and self-love. It results in self-loathing. It results in us acting out of hateful and unkind thoughts that support feelings of fear and shame. We continue this cycle, judging circumstances beyond our control; agreeing with thoughts that hurt us as to what these circumstances mean. In this example, the circumstances are the conversations or the experience of the past; feeling lonely, and ashamed and afraid and like a fraud.
When I get stuck in this cycle, I feel so disconnected from reality and the people in my life that it’s self-supporting. I’m literally not here; I’m back there as the event plays over and over in my mind on repeat relentlessly. My confidence is destroyed. My productivity is super low and my ability to perform in my life is completely compromised, causing me to make careless mistakes and feel dumb and incompetent in my life. And that just feeds more shame and fear.
Hang in there, I am getting to how we can work it out and get out of this cycle. Ways that I have found helpful so stick with me.
When we start to see that we are stuck in a conversation or an event in the past that happened recently or even a long while back, it can be incredibly hard to pull ourselves out of it. To draw ourselves away from it long enough to gain perspective and awareness because it’s almost addicting, because our brain is stuck in this cycle and we think we need to perpetuate it. It feels unsafe and we just want to resolve it, so we are stuck, but the cycle itself keeps us trapped so we don’t find relief.
First, I want you to know that you’ll never learn and grow when you’re obsessing over anything that is beyond your control. Anything that has happened in the past is a great example of this. When you’re obsessing over the past you’re entertaining and partying with lies. You’re totally enmeshed in the lies and you can’t see beyond them.
So, what can we do? What actual steps can we take to get out of this trap? What I’ve been working to do, and what I would recommend you try is to realize that you have a thought about this that is creating feelings of shame. So, the circumstances themselves are beyond your control and your brain presented you a verdict of what that experience means for you; and that is the thought that you’re clinging to as though it’s fact; as though it’s final and all-powerful; a verdict for you. The thought is the mystery.
As I have said it before, and I will say it a thousand times over and over again… write it out! If you want to know what’s going on in your head, you have to allow your brain to take it out of your ruminating thoughts and process it enough to put it on paper without judgement. Then you can see the thoughts naked. You can really feel them. Not suppressing them or hiding them. Not hiding from them or blindly following them. You can see them. You can empathize with yourself and then reflect. You will be able to see what the thought is.
For me, I often struggle with a lie that comes in and says that I am not enough; that the real me is not likable; that I had better pretend and pretend well or I will be rejected and lonely. It’s the imposter syndrome, yes! That thought in and of itself, is a sentence of loneliness. It is the source of my loneliness and my shame and when we are never really seen, we can’t really be loved and accepted; and we will live in fear of rejection, keeping us from the connection we so desperately need and crave. Now, my interaction could have been unequivocally terrible. It could have been painful and awkward and embarrassing and painted me as a blubbering or ignorant idiot. Regardless of what the interaction was or your interaction was, we can’t change it. Additionally, I can’t change anyone else’s interpretations or opinions of the experience. That fact can lead to thoughts that make us feel incredibly helpless. Thoughts that say that this means I am all of those things and again all I said before. I can feel helpless and powerless and hopeless. But those are just feelings reminding me of the thought that is controlling me. You see, despite my inability to control a situation of the past, I do have control over what thoughts I will allow myself to cling to going forward. I can choose to reassess the circumstances proactively for a different set of resulting emotions that can actually empower me and propel me toward the growth that I am working on, rather than totally derailing me and dominating my thoughts.
So, I can stop and remind myself of truths about my identity; truths about who I am that are unchanging; truths such as the fact that I am imperfect and not supposed to be perfect. I can remind myself that I am loved and lovable despite what I do or don’t do and I can put on a learner’s hat. I can get curious and ask myself what the lesson here is.
I read somewhere that it is a great practice to ask yourself what three lessons that you can learn from a current struggle to shift your perspective of an event, so I can do that. I can say “thank you” to God for the situation because I know that I need it right now, even if I don’t know why; there is a reason that I am facing this challenge. I can ask myself what three lessons I can take away from it, and in that, taking responsibility for my words and actions. I can also be accountable also without shaming myself; you see, shame says something about my identity that is a lie that produces more lies; and that propels me to act out of those lies. That action then affirms the illusion of these lies and spreads the lies around.
I am going to mess up, no matter how much I grow… no matter how much we all grow; tomorrow we will get up and we will mess up. So, it’s not about obsessing over our mistakes, but about owning them and the power they hold to transform our lives and our character incredibly and in deep and profound ways.
This wrestling with the lies and the truth can be very hard at first, especially if the triggered thoughts hit deep unresolved pain and shame triggers. We will make progress when we keep practicing. It is sometimes as simple as taking a deep breath while acknowledging the truth of who you are. For me, this is that I am safe, that I am loved, that I am lovable and that I love myself. Then breathing out deeply all of the lies. Visualizing them leaving my body. You can try this. Visualize yourself free of these thoughts that are holding you back, binding who you are. How would you feel and how would you look if you didn’t believe those thoughts? Do those thoughts produce any good in your life? If not, they’re lies. Where do you feel them in your body? The thoughts that are truth, produce good fruit. Thoughts that are truth produce good energy and a light and a charged feeling in your body, not tension and pain and nausea. Now, that doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy and you won’t have discomfort. Making changes to your thoughts and feelings and actions is not supposed to be comfortable or easy or have no wrestling, then it wouldn’t be work. It is indeed good and worthy work however.
Another helpful way to move away from this thinking, especially for me when I am having a hard time getting myself to think the truth, is to shift my attention elsewhere. I ask myself what I need. I try to fill a need. Maybe I breathe deeply and think about some ways to find some relief and empowerment, and I shift my focus to that activity.
So, even though the past is a circumstance that is beyond our control, guess what is within our control? Our actions here and now! What could you do right here and now? What do you need to do? What would feel so good to do? When we focus on things outside of our power we surrender the power we actually do have. When we aren’t present here and now, how can we take charge of our current power? We can’t!
Alright sunshine, so… I want to challenge you this week to stop rejecting yourself. Realize that this is so not helpful and just tell yourself that the new you, the real you, refuses to bully yourself. Refuse to be caught in self-loathing and choose to love yourself, letting go of the past. Letting go of what you can’t control and owning your power right now. If the creator of the universe knew you would be imperfect and yet still created you, lovingly and joyfully; this creator that loves you more than you could ever imagine, then you’re not a mistake, you’re not a disappointment, and you’re enough. You do not get to hate on yourself. Stop bullying yourself and teach yourself instead to embrace your own being as you are and see your worthiness.
The more we practice the less we suffer from internal oppression; the less we waste time and suffer from imposter syndrome; we are more energetic and productive and we stop needing everyone to like us. We realize that we can’t control what other people think or feel and we allow ourselves to live our lives imperfectly with our best efforts through grace; feeling free and totally empowered.
If you work toward this new way of thinking, you will take your power back! Celebrate every little victory and I will continue to share both my struggles and my victories with you, because sister, you’re not alone. We are in this together. It can be rough, but we won’t quit and we will be stronger from all of this. We will rise together and all of it will be incredibly worth while. I hope you’ll share with me anything you’ve found helpful in this area. You can message me here or on Instagram. Share with me #theradicalimperfectionist & #radicalimperfection. I look forward to hearing from you. Have an amazing week my friend.
Love,
Holly Ann Kasper
The Radical Imperfectionist