356. Owning What’s True

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 356: Owning What’s True.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast. Today’s a good day to record a podcast. I just happened to schedule it today. It happens to be a Tuesday afternoon and this was the time that I had this week to record a podcast episode. But I’m so glad that I scheduled it for right now because I am feeling so on fire because Tuesdays are my really deep dive personal development days.

I am in two coaching programs right now with two different coaches. I paid many thousands of dollars, over $10,000 total for these two programs that each last about three months and it’s totally worth it. And I’m only telling you that because I want you to know that I practice what I preach. I have a coach always and sometimes multiple coaches like right now. And I do that because I know that I need it first of all. I have to take care of myself in order to maintain the level of mental health that I want to maintain.

And for me coaching is the best way to do that, that’s not the case for everybody but I hope you have some way that you are maintaining and strengthening your mental health which reminds me, I want to invite you to an opportunity.

If you’ve been listening to the podcast but you’ve never actually heard live coaching, or been coached yourself, or taken it to that next level. Then I want to invite you to an opportunity that’s a really small commitment, it’s a small amount of time and it’s a small financial commitment and it’s even a small risk commitment, if you will, in terms of your level of vulnerability. But it’s enough of a step that you’re going to feel the impact of the tools that I’m teaching you 10 times more than what you can possibly get by listening to this podcast.

So that step I want to invite you to is a five day virtual program called Wellness Week. It’s starting on May 30^th so it runs May 30^th to June 3^rd, it’s just five days. It just happens to overlap the end of May the beginning of June. And it’s just 90 minutes a day right in the middle of the day but everything’s recorded so you can come live if you can, come and ask questions. Raise your hand, come on, let me coach you. Or you could just listen after the fact and get the same impact.

But here’s the thing, you can’t just listen to me talking and teaching and get the same impact as you’ll get by listening to coaching. Even if you’re too shy to raise your hand, or you don’t get there live and you don’t come on and get coached, you’re still listening. But you’re going to be listening to real life application. I try to give you real life application here but it’s still only me telling you stories or relaying application. It’s nothing like the level of awareness, and understanding, and ability to apply the tools I’m teaching here that you will get from coming to Wellness Week.

So, like I said, it’s five days, 90 minutes a day, $19. If you don’t have $19 to spend on it, ask somebody close to you to loan you 20 bucks and then use the extra dollar to get yourself a diet coke or something and come to Wellness Week. Because I promise you, it will 10x and that is not exaggerating here. I really, I’m confident that you will get 10x the results that you can get by simply listening to a podcast. And I’m glad you’re here listening to the podcast. I just want you to take that next step if you haven’t done that yet.

Now, some of you are my clients, some of you are in Be Bold and you’re getting even beyond what I could give in five days, or other things that you’ve done to work with me. Those of you in Be Bold you don’t have to pay the $19, I’m going to put it all in Be Bold for you, you’ll get all the replays there so don’t worry about it. But this is for anybody who isn’t really sure that you want to go all in on working with a life coach or anything like that. You’re not sure about that yet, that’s okay. But you do want to feel better. So that’s what Wellness Week will be.

And we’re going to focus on a different pillar of wellness each day of the week. We’re going to talk about emotional wellness, physical wellness, financial wellness, social wellness and spiritual wellness, alright, you go to jodymoore.com/wellness to register.

Okay, so today we’re going to talk about owning what’s true, owning what’s true. Now, I want to begin by mentioning that this is a really important, and I think, highly underestimated part of personal development. I think the degree to which we need to be able to own what’s true for us is highly misunderstood. I think most people go, “Yeah, it’s important, you’ve got to know where you are.”

But I think that once you truly know where you are. If you just put 90% of your personal development focus on really understanding where you are, and not judging where you are, and just embracing where you are, and getting a little bit curious where you are that you would make tremendous progress on your personal development.

Okay, now, as I was writing this outline and I wanted to start with that point, I thought, well, some people are going to go, “That’s fine and sounds good and all but why? I mean why do I need to make progress on my personal development? What does that even mean? Is that just something that sounds nice that we should be doing? And no, it’s not. Okay, so here’s what I mean by that.

First of all, personal development is the way that we get out of pain. So, if you are in a great deal of pain and what I mean by that is if you feel really overwhelmed, or unhappy, or resentful, and maybe there’s an obvious circumstance that you attach that to, maybe you’re in a really difficult marriage. Or maybe money is really a challenge or jobs. Maybe you have health problems or somebody that you love has health problems, or maybe you have a child who’s making a bunch of choices that are concerning etc.

Sometimes there’s an obvious, this circumstance is creating a lot of pain for me which the circumstance doesn’t create the pain. But because of my thoughts about this circumstance, we can see and understand why we’re in pain. Okay, so personal development is a really great way to minimize and know how to handle that pain. We’re not going to take it away altogether, we actually wouldn’t want to. But we’re going to make it so that you know how to use that pain to leverage your best solutions. And that the pain becomes first of all, way more tolerable and less intense.

But second of all, something that guides you and refines you in the way that it’s meant to. So, in that example, personal development is a way to sort of get away from something, get away from the unnecessary part of the pain and suffering. Other times there’s not an obvious circumstance and you’re still in pain.

Sometimes for some people this can be even worse because instead of being able to go, “This is the reason I’m struggling, because of this person, or this thing, or this situation in my life.” Instead, they say, “I don’t have any right to be struggling. There are people who are struggling so much more than me, I don’t have real problems. I have a great life, or on paper, if I’m on the outside everything looks fine. And yet I’m still struggling, what’s the matter with me?” So, then we have the struggle and then we layer guilt, or shame, or something like that on top of it.

So still that’s what I would put in the bucket of trying to get away from something. Personal development is really useful for that. Other times we use personal development to say, “Hey, I wonder if I could achieve this goal. I kind of want to try this thing. I want to write a book. I want to start a business. I want to get healthy. I want to get married etc.” So, it might be going towards something. The tools of coaching, the way I’ve learned them and used them in my life have been really impactful for going towards something.

And then finally, the third reason and one of my most favorite reasons I should say for personal development work is just because it’s so much fun, it really is. Now, that might sound very Pollyanna and altruistic. But here’s what I mean by it. When I’m doing this work of personal development on myself sometimes I don’t even have obvious pain I’m trying to get away from or something I’m headed towards. I just am working on myself because I choose to, the most amazing things happen in my life.

Sometimes they’re little tender moments, sometimes they’re big awesome unexpected miracles. Sometimes it’s just that life feels more interesting when I’m doing personal development work. And the alternative for me anyway to not doing personal development work outside of, like we said with number one and number two, getting away from something or going towards something. The alternative is stagnation.

I start to feel bored and unfulfilled like I’m not growing and changing which puts us back into pain again and then we either have to get out of pain or go toward something to avoid the stagnation. So anyway, those are the three reasons I came up with of why I do personal development work. You might have different reasons but consider that it really can solve any of those issues for you.

And then let’s talk about owning what’s true because again in any one of those situations, whether I’m trying to get away from something, go towards something or I’m just developing myself because it’s fun. I have to be able to own what’s true for me. And I coach people and I notice over and over again that being able to own what’s true is just as challenging, if not more challenging than taking responsibility for your current situation. It’s hard for us to take responsibility. We tend to what to blame outside things. That’s a natural human condition. Coaching helps you take responsibility for it.

But then the tendency is to then blame yourself and to reject, or judge, or feel bad about where you are. And today I want to make a case for you that that is the opposite of what is going to serve you, first of all. And then I’m going to teach you how to be onto yourself if you’re not owning what’s true and kind of some strategies to help you wrap your arms around it.

So, to begin with I like to use the analogy of the GPS whenever I teach this concept. So, I love that nowadays we have GPS’s in our cars, and on our phones, and on our computers and devices. And so, it’s really much easier to get around in the world than it was. I still don’t know how we did it. I guess we used maps and asked for directions. But at any rate, we all have GPS’s now. So, if we want to go somewhere and we don’t know how to go there we just type into the GPS, how do I get there?

Now, what is the first thing the GPS needs to know? It needs to know where you’re starting from. So, either you can put in your location or many times it has a handy dandy satellite function that will simply read your location if you tell it yes, begin from my current location. So, the GPS needs to know where you are. Now, when my phone, I’m not going to say her name because I don’t want to wake her up. You know who she is. When the woman on my phone or the man on your phone or whatever voice you’ve chosen, calculates where you are, there’s no judgment there.

She never says, “Well, why are you there? That’s a dumb place to be, that’s really far away from the location you’re trying to get to.” She never says that, she just says, “Where are you?” She doesn’t think that the past is relevant at all. And a lot of times again when I’m coaching people, I’m like, “Okay, what’s going on? What do you need help with today? What do you want coaching on?” They want to start in the past. Some people want to go all the way back to their childhood and they want to tell me all about the past as though that’s relevant to where we are now.

I notice myself do the same thing, by the way. First you need to understand about my history. You need to know about all the things that I haven’t been good at or about my relationship with this person up until now. These things are relevant. But guess what? The GPS navigator doesn’t think that’s relevant at all. She never says, “Where were you yesterday?” She never even asks, “Have you been to this place before or have you attempted to go to this place before?” She knows that’s irrelevant, it doesn’t matter.

What matters is where are you today. What are you thinking, and feeling, and believing right now today? The GPS also doesn’t have a lot of disbelief about our ability to go somewhere else. She never says, “I can’t believe you’re there. You’re never going to get to your destination, it’s so far away.” This is what I love about the GPS, is it’s a robot, it’s not a human. So, I’m not trying to turn you into a robot, I just want you to try on the idea that the more you could pinpoint your current situation, your current struggle, I’m going to give you a bunch of examples in a minute so stay with me.

But the more accurately we can pinpoint where we currently are the more leverage we have over getting to wherever we want to go. And again, it’s one thing for me to say to the GPS, “I’m at home.” It’s another thing for me to be able to say, “I’m in my driveway facing west.” She can give me more accurate directions the more accurate I can give my location.

Okay, so this is what we want to do with our personal work too. We want to own it. We don’t want to judge it. We don’t want to reject it. We don’t want to push it away because when we do all of that we’re just lost again. So today I’m going to walk you through some of the common signs that you might not be owning where you’re at. And with these examples I hope it will help clarify why it’s so important.

So, the first sign is that you’ll notice that what you’re saying, the words coming out of your mouth don’t match the feeling that you’re feeling. So, by way of example, let’s imagine that your sister is doing something really amazing that you wish you could be doing but you’re not. So maybe your sister calls you to tell you that they just planned a family vacation to Hawaii. And maybe you’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii and you’ve never been.

So now you’re thinking about your sister going to Hawaii, maybe you’re talking to another friend, or family member, or your spouse, or somebody and you’re telling the story. And you’re saying things like, “I mean I know I should be happy for her, I want to be happy for her. I am really happy for her.” But what you’re feeling inside is not happiness. You’re feeling jealousy, or envy, according to Brené Brown it’s now envy, jealousy is something different. At any rate you’re feeling envy, you’re feeling resentful, you’re feeling maybe even a little part of you wants her trip to get cancelled.

There’s this little part of you hopes that something negative happens for her, that she feels disappointment. If you’re saying, “No, I mean I am, I’m really happy for her”, but what you’re feeling inside is not happiness then this is just a situation where you’re not owning what’s true for you. You’re not going to be able to get leverage over it and understand it if you can’t own what’s true.

So, what’s the alternative to saying one thing and feeling another? It’s not that you should call your sister and tell her you’re really envious and you’re unhappy that she’s going and you hope her trip gets cancelled. That’s not what I’m talking about when I say, own what’s true. Owning what’s true doesn’t happen on the outside. It’s not words that you say to other people necessarily. It’s owning it for yourself. It’s what happens in your mind. It’s you taking the time to go, “I notice that I am not nearly as happy for my sister as I am envious, and resentful, and in self-pity for myself.”

This is interesting, I wonder what that’s about? I mean first of all it’s indicator that one of my desires is to go on a nice vacation or to go to Hawaii. It’s good to know. That’s just something I desire, something I crave, something I want in my life. Okay, that’s good, I want to know more about what I want. I want to be able to focus again as specific as possible on what I want. It makes me more likely to get it. Okay, that’s good to know. What else is there?

What else can I learn about myself? Is there something I could learn about my relationship with my sister in general? Is there something I can learn about the way I view myself? Is there something I can learn about my belief in my ability to get what I want? Do I have some scarcity around success? Do I believe that one person’s success minimizes somebody else’s chances of success? Some answers to these questions might be no, I don’t think that, there’s nothing there. But do you see how we want to really own where we’re at and really explore it and get as specific as I can with myself?

This might happen again with a coach. It might happen in a journal. You can journal it. It might happen with a person who it is safe for you to have these kind of vulnerable conversations with. But instead of judging yourself and shutting it away and pretending you’re just happy for your sister, what if you own, gosh, a very little part of me is happy for her. A much bigger part of me has self-pity, and resentment, and envy. That’s fascinating. Do you see what I’m saying?

Okay, so there’s another clue and I sort of alluded to it in the last example. But another clue that you’re not owning where you’re at is that you have a should or a shouldn’t somewhere in your thoughts or you’re operating from a should or a shouldn’t. This is one that people talk about all the time, what is the saying, don’t should on yourself. But the reason why, I think the main reason not to is because you lose the awareness of where you are.

And you can’t get leverage over yourself and get to where you’re trying to go as easily, as quickly, as efficiently, as peacefully if you don’t know clearly where you’re beginning from. So, if you find yourself saying things like, “I know, I shouldn’t spend money on all these things.” That is your brain’s way of deflecting away from really understanding what’s really going on. It’s sort of like a way to just close the lid on the box. I know I shouldn’t buy all this stuff. I don’t need any of it.

And then we just close the lid on the box. I want you to open the box. I want you to go, “Why am I buying stuff I don’t need? What am I trying to feel by purchasing things that my prefrontal cortex doesn’t even really want? I wonder why I do that? I wonder what I’m chasing. I wonder what that’s about for me.” And I think that we’re afraid, if we look in the box then we’re going to have to stop doing it. And you don’t have to stop doing it at all. Maybe you’ll decide that you have reasons you like. Maybe you’ll keep doing it.

Or maybe you’ll have reasons you don’t like and you’ll still decide that you’re going to keep doing it. The key is to stop judging and rejecting this part of yourself. The irony is you probably won’t find it as enjoyable if you open the lid on the box. But that will be okay. It isn’t that I want you to stop doing behaviors that aren’t serving you. It’s that I want you to stop wanting to participate in behaviors that aren’t serving you. That’s totally different.

Maybe your thought is, I don’t like playing with my toddlers and I should. I hear this one a lot. I coach on this one a lot. Listen, you young moms with young kids, why are you telling yourself that you should like playing with your kids? If you didn’t tell yourself that and just shut down the awareness of where you’re at. If you just owned it, I don’t enjoy playing with toddlers. Okay, what am I making that mean? Are you making that mean that you’re not a good mom, that you don’t love your kids? And is that what it means? What does it really mean?

Do you believe it would be better if you did like playing with your kids and how do you know that’s true? And what if you’re wrong about that? So do you see how we can just own where we are which is I don’t enjoy playing with my kids. Interesting, good to know, what do I want to make it mean? So much more valuable than you saying, “I should want to.”

How about this one, maybe you have a sister-in-law, or somebody in your family that you just really can’t stand being around. Now, again, in coaching we’re always trying to give ourselves the accountability over our experience. So, a lot of my wonderful, brilliant clients will say, “I know it’s not my sister-in-law’s fault. I know that me feeling insecure, or whatever it is, whatever negative emotion you feel around her, is on me. I know I’m creating that with my thoughts.” And I say, “Yes, that’s true, that’s step one.”

Step two is not that you shouldn’t be. Step two isn’t so you should just be confident, and just don’t care what she thinks, and just stop thinking that. No, step two is, that’s interesting, okay, good to know. Just own it. Sometimes I can coach someone who will come on and say, “I’m really insecure around my sister-in-law.” I can coach them and they’ll be more confident but not mostly. Mostly I coach them to just be insecure, just plan on next time you go to your sister-in-law you’re going to feel really insecure.

Sometimes I even encourage them to tell her, “Hey, I get so insecure around you. I’m probably going to act weird.” I don’t coach people to not act weird. I coach them to own being weird. I have coached so many people on this and when it comes to group settings, they’re like, “I don’t know, I go to church and I get around all these people and I just get really awkward and nervous.” And I’m like, “Why don’t you just own that? Why don’t you just say to everyone, “Listen, I’m going to be totally awkward and nervous here.””

Do you know what? It’s okay. Now, here’s the irony of it all, what we’re doing in that situation is we’re becoming confident about our insecurity so doesn’t that negate the insecurity? Yeah, kind of, but also maybe not. Maybe you just don’t have layers of insecurity. Maybe you just have the base layer and you take other top layers off. And then it’s not that big a deal. So own where you’re at. Don’t say, “I should just be confident around my sister-in-law. I should like playing with my kids, or I shouldn’t be spending so much money at Target.”

Own where you’re at, you’ll get way more personal development, and progression, and leverage on yourself when you do that.

Okay, the third thing we do that can be a sign is our action line doesn’t line up with what we’re saying we believe or what we think we believe. So, the actions that we’re taking, I say action line because that comes from the model we use. But the actions that we’re taking or the inaction or the way we’re taking action or not taking action doesn’t match what we think we believe or what we say out loud. So, for example, I coach a lot of entrepreneurs. I have a whole coaching program called Business Minded.

And often entrepreneurs will say to me, “I mean I know I can do this. I know this is going to be successful. I know it’s going to work and I know I’m going to help so many people. And I know this is what Heavenly Father wants me to do. I know it’s the right thing to do but I just can’t get myself to do it. I just can’t get myself to follow through and to show up and work when I’m supposed to”, etc.

So that’s a sign that you’re not owning where you’re at because if you really believed that you could do this and it was going to be successful, and you were going to help people, and it’s what the lord wanted and all of those things that we’re saying. You would show up with full force and excitement. So, step one isn’t, so just power your way through. I mean you can, I’m all for you taking action. I’d rather you take action than not. But step one is to just own, okay, so part of me doesn’t believe that this is going to work or what’s that about.

There must be a part of me that isn’t sure if this is the right thing, or that I’m supposed to do it, or that it’s going to help people the way I think it’s going to, or that I’m going to be able to succeed at my personal goals. What is that about? What’s going on there? Own where you’re at. And embrace it and don’t judge it and reject it and tell yourself that you’re doing something wrong. Just own it. Are you with me?

Let’s see, another example here where your action line might be a good tip off that you’re not really owning where you’re at is around spiritual matters. I notice this in myself sometimes. If I’m saying things like, “I really have a testimony of prayer”, and I’m not praying as regularly as I want to be, whatever that is, you get to decide that. Then I just need to pause and go, “Maybe I don’t really have a testimony of prayer like I thought I did.” That’s good to know. Now, again, most people immediately feel ashamed, and guilty, and they want to shut it down and then we lose awareness to it.

What I’m saying is let’s open up to it. Let’s understand it. Maybe it’s that your definition of prayer doesn’t fit into a little box of a certain format where you’re on your knees and saying certain words. Maybe your prayer exists in different ways and it’s a prayer that you say in your mind. Or I don’t know, I’m just kind of spit balling here. But do you see how if we just owned where we’re at and don’t make it mean something negative about yourself, don’t judge yourself for it, then you can develop such an awareness of yourself and progress, and start praying if you want.

But I would much rather you pray, going, “I’m just going to pray because I want to develop a testimony of prayer.” Rather than trying to go the other way around which is tell ourselves we do but then we don’t take action and then we feel bad for not taking action. Do you see what I’m saying?

Let’s go on to the fourth way. This is the fourth and final way that you can be onto yourself and know if you’re not owning where you’re at. You have to take a look at what emotions are fueling you. If you are being fueled, and I’ll tell you what I mean by that in just a minute. What are you operating from? If you are being fueled by guilt, or shame, or fear, or lack, or scarcity, anything in that family then you are not owning where you’re at. I want you to be fueled by confidence, love, curiosity, abundance, things like that.

So again, let me to go to another example we can use here. So many people are trying to lose weight, or nowadays we don’t call it that, we call it getting healthy. But whatever you call it, if you’re trying to change your body out of guilt, or shame, or a belief that there’s something wrong with your body, out of a rejection of your body, then you have not done the work to own where you’re at. Why are you trying to get healthy?

Why are you trying to lose weight? Why are you trying to change your body? Is it because you want to love your body? You want to feel good in your body? You want to be proud of yourself? You want to believe that you’re a good steward of your body? Okay, then let’s do that part first. Let’s own where your body is. Let’s do the work of believing that we’ve done exactly right by our body up until now. We’ve done exactly what we were capable of and that was good enough. And let’s embrace and love that body. Own where your body’s at.

And then if you want to lose weight, or get healthier, or get stronger, or whatever you want to do, okay, you’ve got to own where you’re at, that’s the only way. I see this again in my entrepreneurs. They’re like, “If I could just get to a 100K in my business then I could believe that what I have is valuable and that I can do this.” And I say, “You’ve got to own where you’re at. You’ve got to be wherever you are which is maybe zero dollars in revenue. And believe that what you have is good and that you can do this.”

And that’s the way to get to a 100K, it doesn’t go the other way around. If you want to stop yelling at your kids you can’t be mad at yourself and yelling at yourself for yelling at your kids. You’ve got to own where you’re at. You’ve got to go, “I yell at my kids. I just yelled at them again, I wonder why. I wonder what’s going on for me.”

Here’s the truth about why we yell at our kids. Because it works, because when we ask them five times to get their shoes on and they don’t do it. And then we yell and then they get their shoes on, our brains go, yelling works really well. We should just shortcut to that next time. You yell because you’re a human being operating from human emotions. What if you just told yourself, I’m an amazing mom and I just yelled at my kids. Do you think you would yell less or more if you genuinely believed that? I promise you would yell less.

You can’t yell at yourself for yelling at your kids and think that you’re going to stop yelling. You’re just getting better at yelling. Do you see what I’m saying? So, the metaphor I always use to explain this is we’re trying to get to the south end of the lake. At the south end of the lake, we are our best versions of ourselves. Do you know what version that is? That’s the us that is confident, and curious, and embraces ourselves, first of all, feels good about ourselves.  And when we make mistakes we just get curious about it and we do better next time.

We get up and try again every time we fall down. And we are able to be a positive influence on those around us, and we’re not judging others, we’re able to the same way with others that we are with ourselves which is loving, and compassionate, and kind. And then sometimes curious when they behave in other ways, and fascinated and open. And we’re continuing to learn, and grow, and evolve, and we’re healthy and all the things. That’s the south end of the lake.

So how do we get to the south end of the lake? Most people row north. They think rowing north is the way to get to the south end of the lake. If I want to be more confident then I should work really hard to try to achieve something to prove to everyone because I’m afraid they all think that I’m not good and then I’m not going to succeed. So, I’ll show them and I’m thinking about how they’re judging me. And I’m worried about them judging me. I’m rowing north thinking that will take me to the south end of the lake. It won’t.

Why do you want to, again, change your body? Because you want to love your body. Okay, let’s row south then. Let’s just love our bodies exactly as they are. If people are like, “No, if I love my body then I’ll just eat anything.” No, I think that’s what you’ve been doing all this time. You’ve been hating your body and eating junk. You’ve been rowing north. Let’s row south. We’ve got to row south if we want to go to the south end of the lake. I promise you, I know this feels counterintuitive but if you embrace where you’re at including all your shortcomings, and embrace the good too by the way.

So many people are not embracing all of their positive attributes, and their success, and their strengths, they call it bragging. I’m just like, “Alright, let’s brag then.” But anyway, embrace where you are. Embrace the positive and embrace the negative, that is the way you expand yourself. You’re not going to become any better than you are because you already are complete. You’re just going to expand yourself. You’re going to evolve yourself. You’re going to become the next version of you and that’s pretty fun to do my friends.

Alright, so if you want some more help with this, don’t forget to join me at Wellness Week. I’ll see you there, otherwise I’ll talk to you next time. Thanks for joining me. Have a good one.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.