Ep 169: The Power of Listening to Yourself: Reconnecting to Your Inner Wisdom

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello friends . I hope you had an amazing week .

Today I want to talk about listening , but probably not in the way that you would expect , because I think most of the time when we talk about listening , we think about it in the context of we need to work on being a better listener . If we're a manager of people or a parent , we want to be a better listener to our partner or our friends .

We think about it in that way , or sometimes we think about the degree to which we wish those people in our life friends , coworkers , bosses , partners , kids would listen to us . That's usually the lens , but that's not what we're going to talk about today .

We're going to talk about today what I think is the most important part of listening , which is the degree to which we listen to ourselves . This is coming up for me today because a couple of weeks ago I did an episode 167 .

I did an episode on the importance of prioritizing yourself and how to do that , how to put yourself first instead of last , which so many women have a habit of doing . I guess some men too , but it seems to be a very prevalent thing with women In that episode . I was just re-listening to it the other day because I wanted to reference it on a client call .

I was listening to it and I made a statement in there that actually became the epitome for what I wanted to talk to you about today . I said that not prioritizing ourselves is really the first part , the first phase of not knowing ourselves Right . When we're so busy and when we come last , we learn to sort of shut ourselves off from ourselves .

And I can say as a coach , I've always been struck by just the sheer volume of people who will say I don't know when asked what they really want or what they want to do next or who they want to be in this next phase of their life .

90% of the people that I've talked to across the age spectrum , whether it's those who are just graduating from college or those who are entering mid-career or those who are late in mid-career , looking to pivot into an early stage , of what a retirement , their version of retirement , could be .

Almost everyone says I don't know , and , by the way , I used to do it myself . I did a podcast episode on that too . When I first became a coach back in 2019 , I was going through the training . I don't know myself all the time , so it was a thing that I did , and there is still occasions when I will say I don't know .

The difference now is that I do make myself answer the question I do not let myself off with I don't know . But I want to talk about this symptom of not knowing ourselves through a different lens .

I believe that most of us don't know ourselves , and I think we actually get to know ourselves less by the time we get to midlife , because by the time we get here , there's so much going on with the life that we built . There's so many other humans and goals and aspirations and all of that stuff that's in our life . There's just so much to manage .

So much noise .

I guess Some of it's good noise , some of it's just noise noise that we could do without , and I think we just shut ourselves off from ourselves and we just get through our day and we just go through the motions and do the things that we have to do in order to manage our life and our relationships , and you know all of the obligations that we have that

there's really no space For ourselves to be with ourselves alone . Some of us don't even like to be alone , right ? So ? So this came up for me today because of that episode , and also this week I had a couple of private coaching client sessions and it made me think about , like I've talked before about my private coaching clients .

Several of them have been with me for two years , one going on three and and I had a couple of those , those longer term clients this week and it always strikes me when I'm coaching them , because I've been able to see their journey over the past you know two to three years and I can tell you from firsthand experience that this listening that a coach does with

their client is so incredibly valuable .

You may or may not know this , but as a trained coach , one of the first things that were taught is how to do what they call hold space , and holding space means how to be a compassionate witness or listener , and that means without judging or without needing to solve the problem that the client is or opportunity that the client is coming to us to talk about .

Because the foundational aspect of coaching at least the coaching that I was trained in , which is more of a cognitive coach we believe that we , as the coach , don't have the answers were a guide , and sometimes we have pieces of valuable information to teach , but it's up to the client to guide where they go , and the power of learning how to hold space for them

, how to be that compassionate listener , is that you're basically putting like think of it like a , a force field between them and their fears , and they're able to enter this safe space that you create , that's between them and their problems , their fears , their Darkest worries , right .

You create the safe place where they can come in and they're able to talk about it , they're able to fully explore it .

As the coach , you ask them questions about it , thought-provoking questions that allow them to explore it , and when they're bringing up their darkest fears or their anger or their worry or their concerns , you're able to help them see that those things aren't real , they haven't happened yet , and that they have the power to work their way through it I in a safe way

, in a way that serves them and that allows the individual to safely explore their experiences , their thoughts , feelings , and it connects them , most importantly , with their inner wisdom , because that's the place where the answer lies . The answer doesn't lie in the coach . The answer lies in themselves .

They know the right thing to do based on the things that are going on in their life . They just aren't allowing themselves to know . And , as a person who's witnessed what this can really do , the transformation , first of all the transformation it's had in my own life because I practice this on myself right is pretty amazing .

But I was just struck this week by the journey that a couple of them have been on and the just amazing next leveling that they continue to do that .

They're doing all that stuff , they're leading themselves fearlessly into the future that they envisioned when they first came to me and they're bringing that to pass and they're doing that themselves and they're doing it by connecting to who they really are and what they really want and allowing themselves to overcome and move past the irrational fear and worry and anger

and angst and all the other stuff that comes up when we try to really become the next level version of ourselves . This holding space , this compassionate listening , is one of the greatest gifts that we can give to another and it's absolutely the greatest gift that you can learn to give to yourself .

I was a few years into my coaching journey before I really got that fully . I understood the value of it within the context of helping clients during a session and I got it also in the daily coaching that I do for myself . So I have a daily practice and it's every morning .

It's about 25 to 30 minutes and most of mine sometimes there's something I'm working through , but a lot of it is just getting through the day in the most productive way with the best version of myself that I can bring , both in my corporate life and in this business . So I'm trying to do both things .

I have to be very intentional every day or I just won't get to everything because it's so easy to tell ourselves we don't have time or there's too much going on . And it requires me to live in both worlds the entrepreneur and the corporate world . It really requires me to be at my best . So I get it .

I get this like compassionate listening thing and the exploring and the all of the self-coaching stuff that I teach in my practice to my clients . I get it on a daily basis during that defined window of time in the morning .

But a couple years ago I realized I may be doing a thin listening to myself , but as things come up during my workday I'm only really listening to myself sometimes , and the rest of the time I wasn't holding space for myself Outside of those defined coaching windows .

I was defaulting , in some cases , to some of my old buffering habits , the numbing behaviors that we do around binge watching TV or shopping online or eating or drinking or any of the things that we do to numb ourselves , so that we don't have to feel the feelings that we have , which we know are coming from the thoughts and the worries and the self-doubt and

all the things that are running on repeat through our mind .

I realized that the importance of not just coaching myself during that defined window of time in the morning , but that to stay in touch with the things that I'm feeling throughout the day or the things that happened to me throughout the day , so that in those moments too I'm there for myself , I'm able to listen to myself and to guide myself , sometimes in real

time , but sometimes I think , okay , I've got to take note of this , this is something I've got to work on tonight , right , and so that's what I want to talk about . I want to challenge you to think about your own life , your own average day , your career , whether it's in the corporate realm , it's a business you're running , or both .

If you're like me and doing both , how are you with your children ? How are you with your partner ? How are you with your friends ? How are you with your colleagues ? And are you in the context of everything you experience during an average day , or everything that you're asking of yourself during an average day ? How well do you listen to yourself ?

Are you doing that , or are you pushing it away ?

And when you feel uncomfortable about something , or when you're experiencing something that might be more difficult or might trigger you in some way , do you kind of turn away from it and default to those old patterns of scrolling endlessly through your social feed or just doing mind-numbing things or physically body-numbing things like eating or drinking or whatever , so

that you just don't have to feel those things ?

It's really , really important for you to connect to the degree to which you either are good at listening to yourself when you feel a little angstful or uncomfortable or angry or any of the emotions that are a more negative side of the spectrum , or how well you turn into that and face it , whether it's in the moment , if you have the space for that , or whether

you take note of it and you do it later , when you get home , instead of like having the two glasses of wine . Right , nothing against wine , but we can certainly have our preferred patterns of behavior when it comes to not dealing with the things that life throws our way , and so that's what I want to talk to you about today .

So I'm going to give you some things to think about when it comes to learning to listen to yourself , and I just want you to think about this , like if you were to look at your week to come and say , okay , I'm going to try to be present enough to understand the experiences that are happening for me through the context of my day , the interactions I might

have , the conversations I might have , the experiences , the things that happen at work that are out of my control , the things that your children might do that are out of your control , like anything that's going on in your life . I would challenge you for the coming week , or even if it's just on Monday morning , think about what's going on with you .

Given what's just happened , it's always really good to just ask yourself how do I feel about this ? Because I think a lot of us , especially by midlife we have so much going on . We just lose touch with how we feel about most things .

When I first went through the coach training , to be really honest with you , I had a real difficult time answering the question of how I felt . I could not name the emotion . You may or may not be the same , but I want you to think about that in the week to come , because you might say to yourself oh , I'm very aware of how I feel .

But my question to you is are you really think about your time and what you do with it through the day ? How are your eating habits ? How are your self-care habits ? How often are you just vegging out in front of the TV ? How often do you lose 30 minutes , 15 minutes an hour scrolling social media ? I have news for you , my friend .

That is called buffering . That is a numbing behavior and you are doing it out of habit . And you're probably doing it because there are things that you aren't connected to that make you feel uncomfortable and you don't want to deal with it because it feels too scary . It feels like something you're just not ready to do .

So you push it away and you distract yourself with behaviors that really don't serve you . Over shopping , over gambling , over drinking , over eating , over anything that you do in excess , over social meeting , whatever it is you are trying to escape from yourself and how you feel about the things that are happening around you or to you .

So the first thing to do if you pick up on patterns , behaviors that you have that you think aren't serving you they're numbing sorts of behaviors one of the most important things to do is to learn how to name the emotion that you're feeling .

So when something's going on like if there was just a layoff at work and maybe you weren't impacted but your friend was , or if your partner just lost their job , or if someone that you love is sick and you just found out , or there could be anything that's going on how often in that moment can you sit quietly and just acknowledge to yourself how you feel ?

If a friend says something to you that you feel like is a little passive , aggressive or off-color , or a colleague does something that triggers you . Can you name that emotion ? Can you tell yourself how you feel In one word ? That's a challenge . Not a sentence , not a paragraph , not describing what they did and justifying it , but just say I feel blank .

What is the word ? Anxious , pissed , upset , scared , whatever it is ? The value of being able to name how you feel is incredibly important . When you can just acknowledge that , that's the beginning of really listening to yourself . Because you're listening to your body , because those emotions show up in your physiology not to get too woo , but they do .

I mean , how often have you experienced a situation at work that has you feeling a little tense ? And you realize , if you really were to connect into that emotion , your shoulders are so stiff , they're up to your ears , maybe your heart is racing , maybe your stomach is clenched right .

Your emotions are incredibly important and it's those emotions that we're running from when we have behaviors that are more numbing or consumption behaviors . We are running from those emotions that make us feel physiologically uncomfortable and psychologically uncomfortable . We run from them and we numb and we do other things so that we can escape .

So the first thing for you to learn is just ask yourself what am I feeling . What emotion do I have ? And challenge yourself to find a word . When I first did it , a lot of my emotions were I feel sad or I feel scared .

I had a very limited repertoire of emotions , but now I have a very full vocabulary of emotions I'm very connected with when I feel joyful versus excited .

There's a whole range and spectrum of things that we feel based on what we're experiencing and our thoughts about those experiences , and it's really , I think , very important to be able to say name it , like what is that range of emotions ? Because you'll find that when you can name it , for whatever reason , it is less scary to deal with it .

When we can actually name it , it's far more frightening and uncertainty causing to have emotions that we can't name or we refuse to name because we feel that they're just too scary . That's when our emotions control us , right , because we're running from them . We're not actually dealing with those feelings and the thought that caused them , right ?

And when you can name them and when you can actively focus on them so that you can get in touch with what it actually is , it reduces their power over you . They don't control you anymore .

You're the one in control because you have the courage to actually pay attention to your physiology and to name the emotion that was actually causing those physiological or psychological symptoms that you have around self-doubt or stomach clenching or shoulder tightening or whatever shallow breathing like whatever it is . Acknowledge your emotion and learn to name it .

That is number one part of listening to yourself . The second thing is learn how to be compassionate by asking yourself questions Like once you learn how to name it , you say , oh , I'm feeling scared or I'm feeling sad today or whatever it is . Just learn how to give yourself some space without getting wrapped up in that emotion .

Allow yourself to kind of get a little distance from it and ask yourself a very coachy type question why do I feel that way ? What's really happening here that's causing that emotion ? Because that is going to help you . If you can answer that question , like why do I feel this way ?

I would challenge you to kind of put a pen in your hand and a piece of paper or open up a Google Doc and just answer that question One sentence per line and just keep going until you're done Everything that you wrote down . Those are the thoughts that are actually causing that emotion . It isn't the thing that's happening .

It isn't the thing that someone said to you , it isn't the . It isn't anything except what you're thinking about . That thing , that thought , is the secret power that created that feeling or emotion that's making you uncomfortable or wanting to hide from it .

And learning how to get in touch with the thing that's behind the emotion , which is what's really happening here and your thoughts about that , why you feel that way . Learning how to do that is about Uncovering the source of the problem . Yes , you can do other mindful things like learning how to breathe through it , meditating on it , like .

All of those things are valuable and they can also help you connect into the thought behind it . But learning how to be the counselor or the coach to yourself , once you've acknowledged the emotions , trying to understand , like , why do you feel that way ? What's really happening here ?

For me , getting in touch with that is Incredibly valuable because when you do that , you'll learn that You're diffusing the emotion . You're kind of pulling it apart . By Analyzing it , by understanding the source of the emotion , the thought , you're diffusing the power the whole thing has over you .

You're realizing , oh , these thoughts that I have are what are creating that emotion . So it's okay if I you know , like , for example , if someone Passed away or if someone's sick and you're feeling sad about that .

I'm not asking you to change the thought so you feel happy , because it's not a happy occasion , but understanding , okay , well , this , this thought that I have about their illness or their death is what's creating that emotion .

And over time you could start to evolve that , when you're ready , into something that Maybe serves you better and maybe serves the situation better . Meaning it's okay to stay in grief , it's okay to stay in fear , you know , or whatever , or sadness for a while , but it helps to evolve from that so you can kind of take up a higher level view of the situation .

So , in the case of an illness , you might want to evolve from Feeling sad for your friend or scared for your friend to eventually saying okay , how can I help them , how can I be there for them ? And answering that question Takes you to a different emotional state , one of empathy and compassion and service .

In the case of a death , I just went through that with my parents a Year ago . I lost both of them within six months .

I've done some podcast episodes on that and I really tried to stay grounded in in gratitude through a lot of it , because For me it was very sad to be going through that and very , very difficult to be going through that so close together and To lose them within six months of each other was devastating for me and my siblings .

But I took myself To a place of gratitude that that we could be there for them at the end of their life , that we each Were very involved with them , and I look at that time and I looked at that time , as difficult as it was , as a gift and that allowed me to , in between the moments of sadness , to feel gratitude and and thankfulness that I had the time

to say goodbye . It wasn't a sudden thing where they were just gone right . So there's always a way To evolve yourself from even the most difficult of things , if you look at it .

So let's just say , in the course of the past week , let's say that there was a big layoff where you are and maybe your job is okay , but one of your good work friends was let go and you know how she's feeling and you're feeling Very torn about it and angry , maybe , about it . Maybe you don't think they got a fair shake .

Whatever your thoughts are on the subject , allow yourself to really Explore that for yourself . How are you feeling ? Name that emotion and then Understand , like , ask yourself , okay , why am I feeling this way ? What's really happening here ? So coach yourself .

Once you're in touch with that and you work your way through that , you'll have the space and the distance from that thing to really Understand the emotion and why you're feeling that way . But then to ask yourself , okay , well , do I want to stay here right now , or how could I be of more service to my friend who might need my support right now ?

And when you start asking yourself that question , that leads you to a different set of thoughts that will then deliver you to a different set of emotions that will allow you to actually reach out to your friend , to have the courage to do that , where you don't have to have the answers , you don't have to have the right thing to say , and you just help them

process their way through what they're going through by just being the compassionate listener to them . So it's just really important to understand the things that you're experiencing

. And let's just try one more example before I close out the episode . Let's say that you're looking forward in your life and you're at midlife and midcareer and maybe you're happy with your career , but there's something that's been calling to you and you haven't pursued it .

Maybe it's change of a career track , maybe it's quitting your job and starting a business , maybe it's going back to school who knows what it is but you just don't allow yourself to think about it . You just kind of keep plotting through and you have an endless list of reasons why that's not a practical thing for you to be doing right now .

What you're doing , when you're doing that , is you're shutting yourself off from your inner wisdom . The reason that keeps coming up for you it's not random .

It's because your inner self , you at your core , is trying to tell you something that maybe , as much as you've loved the path that you're on , maybe it's time to open yourself up to the next phase of your journey . And when we run from that , when we deny that , when we justify the fact that we can't afford it , it's too late , we have too many obligations .

Whatever the thoughts are we're telling ourselves , those thoughts will create emotions that are maybe anger , fear . I just feel like it's a recipe for a life that isn't fully actualized . If there's something in your life , whether it's pursuing a new dream or finally getting the courage to leave the relationship you've been in that you don't want anymore .

Whatever it is , you have to listen to that , because the reason it keeps coming up is that it's trying to tell you something . It is time for a change , and there's no amount of food or wine or social media consumption or Kardashian episodes , whatever it is like that is going to take that away from you , that glimmer of a dream , that hope , that voice .

It's trying to tell you something . That is your inner self , your authentic self , the self that knows who you really are and what you really want out of this life . It's trying to tell you something and you have to listen . So if you have thoughts running through your head on repeat I wish I could do this I should do that .

I should have done this with my life , whatever it is it's . I'm tired of this . I want that . Any of those types of thoughts do the same thing I've been talking about Ask yourself why am I thinking this ? What's really happening here ? And explore the emotions that come up when you answer those questions . How does it make you feel ? Are you afraid ?

Are you excited ? Are you filled with self-doubt ? Get underneath those emotions . What's causing you to feel scared or self-doubt or uncertain . Understand that , counsel yourself , coach yourself , ask yourself why do you feel that emotion ? What's really happening here ?

What's the worst that could happen if you allowed yourself to pursue it and allow yourself to play with that in a safe way , not in a scary way . Give yourself the space and the compassionate listening to really explore it . You don't have to do anything about it .

If it's an aspiration or a dream or a different path you wanna take , you never have to pursue it .

But don't you owe it to yourself to pursue the exploration of it , at least in your own mind , and then decide , after you've worked through , what's behind the fear , what's behind the uncertainty , what's the worst thing that could happen If you decide you could live with those outcomes , honor yourself and allow yourself to explore it .

Even if you start and decide it's not for you , what have you really lost ? I think it's really , really important to know yourself , and to know yourself you have to listen to yourself Both . Listen to the emotions and the sensations in your body that those emotions cause . Look at your behaviors that you're demonstrating day in and day out .

How many of these behaviors don't serve you ? That's the clue that you're actually shutting yourself off from yourself . You are doing things to try to ignore what you really think and feel about what you want for your life and where your life is at and the things that you're experiencing and you deserve so much better than that .

So realize that your emotions are not something you have to run from , even if you're feeling something on the very negative end of the spectrum , like you've just lost someone you really care about or whatever . Honor yourself by allowing yourself to really feel what you feel . There's no reason to run from it or numb from it .

In fact , when you do that , that's when you're really not honoring yourself in the way that I think you deserve . Allow yourself to feel it , acknowledge it , learn how to name it , because , if you're like me , maybe you've numbed yourself for so long you don't even know what you feel .

As you work on this , you will get good at it again and you will be able to name emotions beyond fear or scared , or angry or sad , like there's a whole spectrum of emotions that we have as humans . Honor yourself by allowing yourself to feel it and by honoring the feeling that you have and then by exploring the thought that's behind that , that caused it .

That is the key to really getting all the way in and learning who you really are now . Not who you really were 25 years ago , but who you are now and what you really want now .

And when you get in touch with that and start to honor that day in and day out , that's when you can have the most purposeful life and the most purposeful career , and that is what I wish for each of you . With that , I will leave it till next time . Make it a great week , my friends .

["the Life Coach"]

. Do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside , we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level .

Join me and together we'll make your career and life everything you dream of . We'll see you there . ["the Life Coach"] .