574. Be Where You Are

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved the advice to be where you are, or be here now, or whatever version of it. We hear people talk about this all the time in the world of mindfulness and personal development and self-help. And it’s because it’s really good advice. Like, put your cell phone away if you’re with a group of people, and just be with the people you’re with. And try to be present and try to try to just be in the now, right?

But this concept lately, I am noticing has application that is so much deeper than what I ever considered before and what I’ve heard people talk about today. And I want to share with you some of the insights I’ve had for myself and with my clients and offer to you how to execute this on a much deeper level in your life so that you can feel less stress, less overwhelm, less anxiety, less worry, and more joy, more happiness, right now, day to day. You don’t have to wait for it. You don’t have to change anything. You don’t have to solve anything. I promise you. We’re going to dive into it today. I’m Jody Moore. Welcome to Better Than Happy and thanks for joining me. Let’s go.

Welcome to Better Than Happy, the podcast where we apply all the tools of psychology, human behavior, and mindfulness to live our best lives, navigate challenges, and achieve our goals. I’m Jody Moore and I’ll be your coach today. Let’s do it.

Okay, my friends. So have you ever had this experience? I remember having this experience when I was in college, which was many years ago. We won’t say how many. But at any rate, I remember being in a class, taking notes on my notebook, ’cause that’s what we did back then. Maybe you take notes on a device now, I would imagine. But anyway, I’m taking notes in my notebook and I was kind of bored and I remember like starting to write in the margins of my notes, which I would do sometimes. I would kind of journal my thoughts or put things down.

And I remember writing, I’m so tired of waiting. I’m tired of waiting to be done getting my degree, or to find the relationship that I’m looking for, or to get married and have children or move on with that phase of my life. I’m tired of waiting for my hair to grow longer. I’m tired of waiting to lose this little bit of weight I want to lose. I’m tired of waiting to just be happy and feel fulfilled.

And I don’t remember exactly how I worded it, but I do specifically remember thinking that I was constantly waiting for the next thing that I thought was going to be the thing that would make me feel good about myself, feel good about my life, and find happiness. And a part of me knew even at that young age that was an illusion, right? That there was probably no end at which now I was going to think everything was complete, but also that it wasn’t necessary. And I think that’s what I felt more than anything back then was like, I don’t think it’s necessary for me to wait.

And by the way, I was a pretty happy person at this point in my life. I really enjoyed college. I had lots of friends. I was having lots of good experiences. So this wasn’t coming from a place of depression or anything like that for me. Overall, I was happy, but I did realize that I had this constant waiting to really let myself enjoy my life and feel like it was complete in some way.

And now, as I’ve gotten older, I find that I’m not so much waiting for a future thing as being tempted to reminisce on the past, right? To think back to, oh, remember when the kids were littler, and wasn’t that a magical time? Or remember when, you know, I had more energy or I could go to a really intense kickboxing class and come out of there feeling good instead of having my joints hurt. Or remember when all my children lived at home and I got to see them every day? And I’m noticing it’s a similar feeling of like things aren’t quite right. There’s something missing, but it’s even more discouraging because when you think it’s coming in the future, at least you have some hope that you’re going to feel complete one day. This is a like, that’s gone. That time’s never coming back. And so it’s like the missing out without the hope that it’s coming.

And again, I’m a happy person overall, I would say. And I enjoy my life and I find fulfillment in a lot of things that I do. So this is like, and for some of you, maybe it is coming from really heavy feelings of depression or despair or something. And for others of you, maybe more like me, it’s just like a little, not a problem, not something we have to do something about. But I want to encourage you to try on the message I have for you today. Because when you learn to embrace your current life and to embrace yourself and to embrace your immediate setting, even, and embrace everything about what’s happening right now, everything just sort of turns to vivid color, Technicolor, if you will.

It’s like you realize you’ve been living in black and white and that’s okay. But suddenly this Technicolor life opens up and it feels magical and expansive. And I’m not able to do it all the time. In fact, I’ve just started executing some of the concepts I’m going to offer to you today. But as I do it, I’m noticing just an expansion of my soul is the best way I can describe it, and a minimizing of the worry and anxiety and negative emotions.

So I want you to try this on with me today. We’re going to go through five different things that are important to keep in mind, five different situations when this is relevant or points that I want to make with you today. Follow along, but only if you want more joy and peace and happiness in your life. Which is probably everyone, right?

Side note, I would love for you to share this episode if you find it useful. If halfway through or when you get to the end, you think, oh, this is good stuff, please do me a favor, drop it in your social media feed, give me a shout out anywhere you like to give a shout out, or even just verbally recommend it to someone. I would be so grateful if you would help me spread the word about the podcast.

Okay, so let’s dive in. First, let’s talk about the most obvious application of this concept of being here now, which is to literally stop being on your device every time you’re with a group of people, right? Stop being distracted. And this is so much easier said than done. I’m going to be the first to call myself out on it. This is hard for me to do. I like to scroll social media. I like to do a little online shopping when I’m bored. And this is usually for me times when I’m like sitting in the living room with my kiddos and we’re watching TV or with my husband and we’re watching right now a lot of World Cup soccer. And I like to watch the soccer game, but I like to also like be on my device a little bit while I’m watching it.

Now, is it wrong to do that? No. I don’t think it is. I just notice it’s a different experience. And you get to decide, by the way, if you want to never do that or sometimes do that or whatever. I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life. I’m trying to tell you that you’re going to have a different experience if you decide you’re going to watch World Cup soccer or football. I feel like we should start calling it football. But anyway, if you’re going to watch a game on TV, you’re going to have a different experience of it if you’re also scrolling your phone and shopping online at the same time, right? You’re going to have a different experience of the game and a different experience of shopping if you do those two things at more intentional times and you be present with one or the other. Maybe you don’t need to be present with the soccer game. Maybe you don’t need to be present with the shopping. But why not at times challenge yourself to go all-in on one or the other? Okay? That’s what we’re talking about here.

And obviously, there are times when for me, it really does matter. If I’m at family dinner, I don’t want to be on my phone. I want to be engaging with my family. If I’m, you know, at a young women’s activity, the young women will all be talking and they’re fine and they don’t seem to need me and it’s tempting to like engage in something different, even if it’s like chatting with the other leaders. And I do a little bit of that, but then sometimes I ask myself, wait a second, I’m here to connect with the girls. Can I be here now? Can I be with the girls? Even though it’s more uncomfortable. It’s much easier for me to talk to one of the other leaders who’s more of a peer to me than it is to talk to a teenage girl who’s so much cooler than me. But if I’m there to be at a young women’s activity, wouldn’t I want to at least in moments challenge myself to be here now? Why am I here? What do I want to create in this experience?

Okay, so that’s the most obvious way is like physically be where you are, okay? And I think it’s great advice. But there’s a lot of people talking about that and teaching that and I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. And so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that. I want to go into these other concepts that you may not have considered yet.

I want you to think about being here now in relation to the time you are in your life. Okay? So I talked about this a little bit in the intro, but let’s just revisit. It’s easy for the brain to live in the past or to live in the future instead of living in the present. So if we’re living in the past, which we all do at times, right, we are reminiscing about the past. We are thinking about the past. And some of that can bring you joy, right? You might have joyful memories and you might want to reminisce about the past a little bit. But if it starts feeling like disappointment because that time is gone and because you can’t recreate that, or if you have a lot of regret and you’re telling yourself that you did it wrong in the past, or you have a lot of judgment and upset and resentment and anger about what somebody else should have done differently in the past or how something else should have gone differently.

Some of that you might be going through grief, right, when you experience something really traumatic, you need to grieve. So I’m not saying to never do that. I’m just saying there are times when I see a lot of people living in the past in a way that is not serving them because it’s robbing you of the present. Okay, the brain is actually only capable of really, truly focusing on one thing at a time. And so if I’m when I’m focused on the past, I am not focused on the present. I’m missing out on the present.

And the same is true when I am focused on the future. Now, again, not wrong to think about the future. I want you thinking about your future. That’s what makes human beings the most advanced species on the planet, okay? But when we do it extensively, when we are waiting for this future thing to happen in order to then feel how we want to feel, we’re missing out on the opportunity of the right now. And unfortunately, that day actually never really comes.

Let me give you an example. I coach a lot of entrepreneurs who are building businesses and they think, once I get to this point in my business, once I make my first 100K, once I get my first three clients, once I get to 500K, once I get to a million, once I get staff hired and I get these people on my team. And there’s no end to it, because I see them arrive at that milestone they’d set for themselves, and I don’t see them spend very much time feeling fulfilled and peaceful and excited about it. I see them move very quickly into the next thing they want to accomplish, which is great. I want you having new goals and growing in any way you want to. But not because then you’ll give yourself permission to believe you have a legitimate business. Then you’ll enjoy what you’ve created. Then you’ll be proud of yourself. Then you’ll feel fulfilled and believe that you’re good enough or something, right? So that’s what I’m talking about with the future.

When we are living in the past, when we are living in the future, we’re missing out on the present. So what does that even mean and how do we do that? Well, you have to ask yourself, how do I be here now? Again, I’m going to go back to, you know, I’m in my 50s now. I’ve got a couple of kids that are in college and out of the home, and then I’ve got a couple still at home. So I’m kind of in that in between like having kids at home and empty nester phase, and I’ll be in the empty nest before we know it.

So I’m noticing myself, and I’m also anticipating what it’s going to feel like when they all leave, right? But I’m noticing myself want to live in the past or the future. And it’s causing me to miss out on the here and now because when I’m constantly thinking about how awesome it was in the past, or what I did wrong in the past and feeling guilty about things I should have done differently as I was raising my kids, right? Or I’m thinking about the future, whether it’s things I’m really looking forward to, like one day having grandkids and things like that, or things that I’m worried about, like again, becoming a truly empty nester or worrying about my children or whatever. I’m missing out on right here, right now.

So I have to come back to what is awesome about this phase of life, but also, not just what’s amazing about it, ’cause there are amazing things about every phase of life. But what version of myself do I actually want to be right now? Like right now, I’m a mom who’s in between what I call being in the thick of raising kids and empty nest. What kind of mom do I want to be in that phase? I didn’t really think about it before because this is kind of a phase that I just hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about. And so it’s a really interesting question to ask myself. How do I want to think about myself? Who do I want to be? And I like to get as granular as like, how do I want to dress right now in this phase of my life? What kind of clothing do I want to wear? What do I want my style to be?

What kinds of habits and routines do I want to have in my life? What kinds of hobbies do I want to have? What kinds of interests or passions do I want to take on? And that might be, again, a result of the phase that my family’s in, or it might just be what’s going on in the world, or it might just be me and how I’m feeling and what I’m excited about. But who do I want to be right now that feels good to me? And by feel good, I mean, I can get excited and enjoy this. And also this feels like it would push me and expand me in a way that I choose. This would be good for me. This is something I’m either interested in learning or developing, or this kind of discomfort that I’m going to choose, right, is something that pushes me towards what I want to be more of.

Okay, so all of those things are questions I ask myself, again, starting from the very granular, like what kind of food do I want to eat, and what time do I get up in the morning? What time do I go to bed? Am I a person who takes naps now? Am I a person who goes on a walk every day? Am I a person who doesn’t eat this food and eats this, more of this food? Am I, what kind of beverages do I consume? Like all of these little things make up who I am and what my experience is. And how do I interact? Like, I notice as my kids have friends over, like a couple of my kids, my younger ones who are still at home have had a few friends over now that are new friends, kids they’ve met at school who I don’t really know very well, and I don’t know their parents very well. And so we’re just getting to know these people.

And I notice myself being a lot more lighthearted and friendly and just like, I don’t know, a little bit more playful with these kids than I was with my older kids. I was just a little bit busier, a little more stressed maybe, a little more focused. And I’ve asked myself, do I like that? Is that who I want to be? What kind of, you know, kids’ friends’ mom do I want to be? How do I want to interact with their parents? Even if, and this is what’s tempting, right, is we think we know who we are. We’re like, I’m just not like that. I’m not that outgoing, or I’m a talker, I’m a hugger, I’m friendly, I’m not friendly. All of these things are up for grabs. Who do you want to be today? Don’t think about who you’ve been in the past. Don’t even think about who you need to be in the future. Who do you want to be today? At this moment in time.

I’ve noticed again that in this phase of my life, I’m in some crowds, I’m like either the oldest or one of the oldest, right? In other crowds, I’m like the youngest. I feel like I’m like the youngest of the older people. And sometimes I’m in that crowd. And so it’s interesting. I’m like, when I’m in this crowd where I’m kind of on the end of being one of the older people, how do I want to show up? Who do I want to be? When I’m one of the youngest, who do I want to be? Is it the same? Is it different? I don’t know. These are just interesting questions that I’m asking myself to allow me to be here now, be where I am. It’s challenging to do because you know what I want to do? Think about how do I keep my skin healthy so I don’t age. How do I keep my body healthy so I don’t age? And again, these are not wrong things to think about. I just don’t want to spend more time thinking about the future or the past than I’m spending thinking about the present. I want to spend the most time thinking about who I want to be right now. Are you with me? Okay.

An exercise that you can try out that might help you get started is to do what I call a stop, start, and continue. Every now and then, I like to ask myself, okay, what parts of myself, again, from my habits to my clothing to anything else, maybe how I am in my job, what I’m doing with my business, how I interact with my spouse, what things do I want to start doing, what things might I want to stop doing, and what things do I want to continue doing? Now, I know that feels big because I’ve talked about almost every area of your life, and you don’t have to do it with every area of your life.

Maybe you want to pick one area of your life, especially if it’s an area where you find yourself not being here now. Maybe it’s your marriage, maybe it’s your relationship with your kids, maybe it’s your health, maybe it’s your business. Pick one and do a stop, start, continue. And don’t think that you have to keep being what you’ve been, and don’t think that you have to be what other people expect you to be. You get to choose.

Who am I going to be? Start, stop, and continue. I love to do an exercise like that. It kind of directs my brain and helps me consciously make those choices. Okay, let’s talk about the next area I want you to apply this to. So we’ve talked about applying it in the really obvious physical, literal way. We talked about applying it in time. Let’s talk about applying it in relation to your goals, to the things you are working on, the things that you want to create in your life.

So I’m going to give you three areas that for me have come up in my life. You apply this to any area that works for you. The first area where this came up a lot for me, especially in the past, was with regards to my relationships and my family status. So again, when I was in college or when I was single, I remember thinking, I just want to get married. I just want to have a family. I just want to move on and start that part of my life. And I did do a little bit of this work when I was single, but knowing what I know now, I would encourage anyone in that situation to do even more of it, which is to ask myself, how do I be here now?

So if where I’m at right now is single and dating and maybe even looking for a spouse, what version of me do I want to be right now? As a single dating person, what feels like the most expansive version of me, right? Because now as someone who’s been married for over 20 years, I can look back at someone single and dating, and I can see some people handling it really well and some people struggling with it and some people showing up in a way that I admire and some people showing up in a way that I really disagree with. And I didn’t choose consciously very well at that point who I was going to be. Like what kind of person am I going to be as I go out and meet people, as I go on dates, as I have some relationships that last and some that don’t? Who do I want to be? How do I be my best, most expansive and evolving, growing self in this phase of my life, in my relationship, or my family status?

Same with then when I decided I wanted to have kids. Who do I want to be as somebody who is trying to get pregnant or who is pregnant or who’s not able to get pregnant? Like, who do I want to be? How do I make the most of this scenario in yes, choose positivity, but also, this is really important, allow for the negativity for myself. Allow myself to struggle, allow myself to be dissatisfied and unhappy at times. How do I embrace all of that?

Okay, so the next area where this comes up a lot is again with my business and with those of you who have businesses who I coach in this area. It’s so tempting to want to get to the next phase and think that the next milestone is going to be the thing that will help you now enjoy what you’re doing. That’s not how this works. Be where you are. As someone who has had a business now for 14 years, 12 years, I don’t know, for over 10 years, I can look back on the startup phases of my business and see some really beautiful, fun, amazing parts of it, and challenging, growth-promoting, difficult parts of it. And I can look back at it with such adoration.

It’s kind of like the couple who has the big complicated life with everything they want and the family and the money and all that. And every now and then they’re like, remember when we were first married and we didn’t have any money and life was so simple and it was hard, but then every now and then we’d find $20 in the couch cushions and we’d order a pizza and it was the best night. Right? Like you can look back at even things that were hard and recognize that it was also kind of awesome. So that’s cool, but can you start to see that about where you’re at right now so that you can experience it more fully, so that you can both enjoy the beautiful parts and embrace for yourself the difficult parts and just be so proud of yourself, so compassionate with yourself.

Okay, so be where you are in your business. There’s so many amazing things about just starting out. There’s days when I’m like, man, when I was a solopreneur doing this all by myself, it was so much easier in some ways. And there were benefits to it that I took for granted, right? And then there were things that were harder and I’m so glad now that I have a team and that I have other people working with me in my business. But how do I take that mindset and go, what’s awesome about this phase of my business? What am I taking for granted that I want to appreciate? And how do I also acknowledge the difficult parts?

The other area that this comes has come up a lot for me and maybe for some of you is with my health, right? With whatever size and weight my body was, whatever condition my body was at the time. It was so tempting to think, once I just lose this weight, once I change this thing about my body or I gain this traction in my health, then things will be better. Then I’m going to enjoy my life. Then I’m going to feel good about myself, right? But guess what? You got to do that work right now. Be where you are. How do you be in this condition and love and appreciate your body and do the best you can with it and take care of it the best you can? Sure. But not because you hate it and need it to change, just because you love it.

The next area you can apply this to is with regards to your emotional state. Now, I know this one sounds kind of weird and vague, so I’m going to expand on it. I’m going to give you a lot of examples, but here’s what I discover is that the work I get to do with people teaches that your thoughts are creating your feelings, and what you’re focusing on and what you’re thinking is creating your emotional state, and that’s affecting everything in your life. And that’s so powerful to know. People start applying it and realizing, oh my gosh, my life is so much easier, so much better as I’ve learned how to apply that. And then it becomes fun to apply it in all different kinds of ways.

And I would say about half the time when I coach my clients, that’s what we do. We do reframing or we change their focus, or we notice that their thoughts aren’t just facts, or some version of what we call thought work. But the other half of the time, people come to me often thinking that’s what we’re going to do, thinking that’s what they need and want. And what I say to them is like, why is this a problem? Why don’t you just let yourself feel how you’re feeling? Because I’m not trying to turn you into a robot. I wouldn’t want that for you. It wouldn’t serve you. It wouldn’t serve anybody in the world and it’s not even actually possible, but it’s still not ideal. It’s not what we’re aiming for, okay?

I want you to have the full human experience. And the negative emotions are part of it, and they are useful in many ways. They are informing you or directing you or refining you, making you more of your best self, making you more divine, whatever it is that you believe, right? So negative emotions are important and necessary. So half the time, I would say on average, when people bring me coaching, my response is like, okay, let’s just feel that emotion. What does that feel like? Why is that a problem? And that has to do with being where you are emotionally.

So I think this is obvious when it comes to grief, right? Something really tragic happens that you’re upset about, and you want to be upset about it. And people say, why would I want to be upset? Because it’s understandable. It’s human. You want to have values. You want to have opinions. The goal isn’t to just stop having thoughts. Sometimes I’ll post something online and people go, that’s just a thought. And I’m like, yes, it’s it’s my thought. And I like that thought and I’m keeping that thought, right? Even if it generates negative emotion sometimes, I want to have opinions. I want to have emotions, and I want you to as well.

So again, with grief, I think it’s pretty obvious, right, that even though it can be extremely painful and people often want help getting out of it, the best way out is through, to allow the emotions, to open up to them, to move them through your body, which happens through things like breathwork and meditation and even just being with it, allowing it, loosening up your muscles in your neck, in your face, in your body, deep breaths, remind yourself, this is just sadness, and I can be sad, or this is anger, or this is guilt, or this is frustration, or whatever the emotion is.

You get to decide, but you allow it, you take breaths, you can go on a walk and or exercise helps move emotion through you, right? But don’t do any of those things in the name of like, let’s clean it up, let’s get rid of it. It has to be like, okay, got this emotional experience happening. My brain is creating it, but it makes sense. I’m going to just move it through my body. And you can actually do that any time you have negative emotion. But half the time, I think that’s our best option.

But often people are not even necessarily in grief. And what I mean by that is they haven’t experienced something really traumatic or tragic. They just notice something, and they know the thought work is available, and they’ll bring it to me. Like I’ve had clients bring me things like, I get really nervous in this certain setting at my job. Maybe there’s like a certain person or type of person that they’re intimidated around. And they’ll say, I get kind of nervous. And I’ll say, why is this a problem? Right? And so we dive in. If they’re like acting out in a way that they really don’t like or that isn’t serving them or they’re being really mean or they’re not able to complete their work or something, then we might go in and do some thought work.

But most of the time, it’s not a problem. They’re like, no, no, I’m able to compensate for it in this way. Everybody’s still satisfied with my work. It’s not putting my job at risk. I’m not behaving terribly. I just don’t like that feeling. I don’t like feeling that way. And I’ll say, I know, but what if it’s okay? What if you did embrace that feeling? What if you just decide to be here now with that emotional state? And instead of going, I shouldn’t be nervous. I don’t want to be nervous. If you went, oh yeah, I get nervous in this setting because of my thoughts. I have lots of stories and thoughts that make me feel nervous and that’s okay. It’s kind of sweet, right? It’s kind of endearing. It’s certainly understandable. Not really a problem.

I’ve had people say this about one of their children. They may say, like, I have this child that’s really easy for me to be around and I feel this way around them. I have this one that’s more difficult and I feel frustrated or I feel whatever. And again, I’ll say, why is it a problem? And we’ll explore it. And maybe it is really a problem and we want to do some reframing, but oftentimes it’s not. They just feel guilty. They feel like they shouldn’t feel that way. They think they should have the same emotions about every child and that in some way this is unfair or this makes them not a good parent. To which I say, what? No, this makes you a human being with a human brain. And what if you just allowed yourself to feel that way about your child or sometimes it’s about a parent or somebody else. What if you just decided to be here now with yourself in the state you’re in emotionally, and the story that you have and the thoughts that you have and the opinions that you have about this situation.

Do you know what happens when you choose to be with yourself? You become more grounded, more loving, first of all to yourself, more understanding of yourself. But then it becomes much easier to behave that way with the people around you as well, because you have patience and understanding. It’s more real. It’s more connecting with yourself, which serves you. It feels a lot better, but it serves everyone around you as well. Be where you are with regards to your humanness, and that includes strengths and weaknesses.

Now, here’s the last point I want to make is that being where you are in any of these ways we’ve talked about does not mean that you aren’t going to change. That’s the big rub I think, is people think that when I say just embrace that you get nervous in that situation, just accept that you struggle with that person in your life and that you feel uncomfortable around them because you’re still behaving very polite and kind and I don’t hear that it’s a big problem. They’ll say, well, then it’s never going to get better. And I say, disagree, agree to disagree. I mean, maybe not, I don’t know, but if you’re embracing of it and understanding of it and you use it as an opportunity to connect with you, then it’s okay that it never gets better. It doesn’t have to get better. It doesn’t, I’m not saying that it should.

But the irony is, it often does. It often does change because the reason it’s been so difficult is because you’re already struggling and then you’re rejecting yourself for struggling. And so we just layered on negativity, which makes it really hard to have authority over yourself. But when you embrace yourself and you allow for your humanness and you allow for discomfort and negativity and weakness and shortcoming, then the compassion that you add on top of it gives you a lot of authority over yourself.

You are an ever-changing, ever-evolving human being. We are all changing all the time. Your opinions might change, your political views might change, your personality can even change and your strengths and weaknesses can change. And when you embrace where you are, they change usually much more in the way that you want them to. So that’s my challenge to you today. Be where you are. Be where you are physically, be there in the stage of life that you’re in time, be there with regards to your goals and things you’re trying to accomplish, and be there with yourself emotionally.

You cannot reject yourself and your life and find satisfaction. Those two things don’t go together. Embrace it all, accept it all, choose with intention how you’re going to show up for it, and you’ll be amazed at how much joy it will bring to you right now and how your life will continue to just get easier.

Thanks for joining me today, everybody. That’s what I got for you on this episode. I’ll see you next week. If you have a topic that you want to hear about or a question for me, you’re welcome to call it in to our podcast hotline, which is 1-888-HI-JODYM. That’s Jody with a Y, M as in Moore, 1-888-HI-JODYM. I’d love to hear what you want to hear me talk about on the podcast or a question you want me to answer. I’ll see you next time. Take care.

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