75. How To Move Forward When You Don't Have All The Answers

Discover what's fun , unique and powerful about being an introvert , and how to make the elegant transition from quiet achiever to quiet warrior in your life and work anytime you want , in more ways than you imagined possible . Welcome Today I'm trying something a little bit different .

Instead of using my Samsung microphone , I'm speaking directly to my phone , so what I wanted to talk about is how to know what the next step is for you

now . I know a lot of people say that they need clarity first , and this was me . I have been that person that needed every answer worked out . I needed to know all the details . I needed every possible exit route , every plan B , plan C , every way of anticipating what if the worst happens .

Worst happens , and because I was often so busy in my head overthinking all the worst case scenarios , I lost the joy of simply being curious and finding things out for myself , and so I realized that if I had been braver earlier in life , if I had tried more things failed more often , had more experiences , it would not have taken me so many decades to get this

far , this far being not even that far yet .

I'm only just getting started in my 50s , but for most of my life I was busy pleasing , placating , trying to be perfect , trying to tick all the boxes , trying to earn the recognition to hear someone say you're really competence , I think you've got great things in you , and I realise now what I didn't know then , that these are the things we can and should be

saying to ourselves every day . We don't need an external person , an authority figure , to certify or accredit our competence or our lived experience or all the mistakes we've made that have made us wiser , richer , more rounded , more human .

I remember when a supervisor once asked me how are you , how are you doing ?

And my immediate answer was to deflect the question and go straight into a list of all the things I had been doing , things I felt proud of , things I felt a sense of pride and achievement in , and she gently pointed out I asked you how you are you're doing , you know , how are you feeling about things ?

But instead you have told me all the things you are doing , and that moment crystallized for me this habit of bypassing recognizing sitting with being honest about my emotional state , of where I am at any point being comfortable enough to recognize what that emotion is , being comfortable enough to talk about it and instead defaulting to action mode .

And yes , I can point to my early conditioning as the root cause of why I always feel I need to be doing and busy .

But I think it's more important now that that I know what I know to practice being , and to me what that looks like , is going back to who I was as a child , before I became overly conditioned and overly aware of what adults and authority figures perceived as who I should be .

And when I think back far enough to about maybe three or four years old , even five years old , when I look back at the few baby photos you know , those black and white old photos I see innocence , I see joy . I don't see any self-consciousness yet I just see an ordinary child being herself Laughing , smiling , lovable .

Fast forward a few years and the photos start to look different . Fast forward a few years and the photos start to look different . I'm looking self-conscious . I'm avoiding the camera , avoiding eye contact , looking sideways In class photos , I'm sandwiched between two people and standing awkwardly as if I'm trying to hide myself and a little more

. And when I'm standing with my peers , with my friends , it's really obvious who's the nerdy one and who's the cool one . It's really obvious who's the confident one and who's that awkward one . And where does all this self-consciousness , body consciousness , anxiety about our image come from ?

It comes from the stories we were told , and the stories we told ourselves . And I think the stories we told ourselves are even more profound and significant and we need to look at them . We need to ask ourselves why we told those stories . What did those stories do for me ? How did they help me ?

And I think , at the very root of it , we find that we were just trying to be safe . We were trying to protect ourselves .

We were trying to keep that precious part of us away from people who would harm us in some way , people who were negative , people , who were overly critical , people who were judgmental , people who could shame us , people who had power over us and who were not afraid to use that power in a way that felt intrusive , maybe even abusive .

And so when I go back to sit with my younger self , with my four-year-old self , I like to remind her that even then , long before she knew what the world was about or knew that she had to perform to expectations , she was already loved and lovable .

And if she didn't receive the love that she needed at that time , if she didn't feel safe in her world at that time , things are different .

Now she's got me , and together we're going to take care of things and make sure that she's okay , to make sure that she gets the space to speak her mind , to be herself fully , to express everything that is on her soul , whether that's through words , through music , through art , through just being her unique , quirky self , her own brand of humour , her way of

moving through the world , to let her know that just the fact that she exists is already something miraculous and magical and that , whatever else she decides to do with her life as she grows up , it

is fine . And so this is an invitation to you too that you can do this enormously profound , important inner work for yourself , simply by sitting with your younger self , having a conversation , giving yourself a hug , giving yourself the love , the words of affirmation , the physical touch , the assurances that you feel you didn't receive as a child .

All of us can do this for ourselves as a child . All of us can do this for ourselves right now , and if you need extra support with this process , let me know . I'm also a certified root cause therapist . What I do is help my clients to go beyond the intellectual , because we are done intellectualizing .

We know that our solutions lie much deeper , that it is what happened a long time ago . That could be the reason why we are showing up the way we do , that it's not just another theory , another concept , another framework , another three ways to do something that's going to help us . What we need is far deeper , and we're ready to do this brave walk .

So if that is , you reach out to me . Let's have a conversation so we can help you to get back in touch with who you are , with how you feel , with the essence of you , and help you find and rekindle that magic that is already

inside you . See you on the next episode . I'm so grateful that you're here today . If you found this content valuable , please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform . Together , we can help more introverts thrive .

To receive more uplifting content like this , connect with me on Instagram at Serena Lo Quiet Warrior Coach . Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me . See you on the next episode .