Inside our messy minds

Music (00:00:00) – She’s dreaming, she’s drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else than she would rather be.

Koren (00:00:19) – Hello and welcome. This is Koren Motekaitis. And you’re listening to how she really does it. The place where inspiration and possibility meet. How are you all doing? I’m pretty delighted because I’ve got some big things going on that I’ll be sharing with you at some point later on, but it’s not prime time yet to share. But I am so delighted and I hope you can find some moments of delightment in your day. So while I have big things going on, there have been moments of delightment in my day. And remember if you remember back in January I was in a place of struggle and maybe even deep struggle. And that’s the beauty of life, is that there’s these ups and these downs. And it’s not that I’m really, really excited. I’m really delighted. I’m also really calm.

Koren (00:01:10) – And so I give you that there’s going to be all these feelings that we experience, which helps me go into and segue into today’s topic, inside our messy minds. So here’s the thing. Our minds are messy and often mean. And that’s if and I’m going to say it’s a big if that you are aware of the voices in your head. Because here’s the thing. Some of us aren’t aware because we keep ourselves so busy to drown out the noises in our head. We’ve got so much going on. Maybe their lives are so chaotic. And this is not to put any shame on anyone, right? Like I’ve had lots of chaos in my life. Part of it was the way of surviving. Part of it was a way of tuning out the noise in my head. Part of it was a way of I had bought into the cultural programming of being really busy working really hard. Overcoming the chaos was the pathway to success. So it’s okay if you’re not even aware of the voices in your head.

Koren (00:02:20) – Sometimes my clients come to me and they’re not aware when I ask them the question of what’s the story? Or What are you making this mean? They have a blank look. They’re not aware. It doesn’t mean that it’s not happening. It’s they’re not aware they’re moving so fast. And that’s okay. Because as we partner and as we work together, what happens over time is they become aware and then that helps us to be able to help them overcome and create the goals that they want to create. So it’s okay if you’re like, Koren, I don’t know what you’re talking about. My hunch is you may be a newbie on the show because we’ve been talking about this for a long time, or maybe you’ve been listening for five years and you’re like, Oh, I’m starting to get what she’s talking about, my friend. I’ve been there with you. There have been times I was like, Oh, this is what so-and-so meant five years ago. Not a joke. There would be sometimes I would be so drawn to somebody, they’d be a guest on the show, and I would love everything they said.

Koren (00:03:26) – And they could have basically been speaking a different language because while I felt really good being in that moment, I really had no idea what they were saying. And it would take me five years and then I would have clarity and insights around it. So if that’s where you are, any of these places, either you’re not aware or you now are understanding something that I said five years ago, or maybe you are self-aware. You are exactly where you need to be today. And that’s okay. You’re not better, you’re not worse, you’re not smarter, you’re not dumber. You’re just where you are. And notice I put that word just in. For those of you that don’t know, I actually did a podcast many years ago eliminating the word just because it’s a way we dismiss ourselves and notice I did that we practice, we fall down, we get up. So as you slow down and as you become more self aware, you start to notice the stories, the beliefs in your head, the meaning that you give things.

Koren (00:04:27) – This is all happening inside of our heads, inside of our minds, inside of our brains. Right? Their stories, their beliefs, their meanings that we put on things. And you’re like, okay, Koren, what are you talking about? So here are some that my clients have given me over the last week. And let me remind you, they’re smart. My clients are smart, they’re successful, they’re educated, they are in relationships that they want to be in. They have certain arenas that are doing fantastic. Maybe they’re living their dream and they’re in a position that they always wanted to be in, and they have this messiness inside of their brain. And I realize, as I even say when I start to give you some of their accomplishments, you’re going, oh, well, Koren’s working with special people and I’m not one of those. My invitation to you is do not discount yourself in your own story, in your own success. Because, yes, if you were in a room, if I had an event and I had my clients in a room with you, you may think, wow, they’re really special.

Koren (00:05:26) – But here’s the thing. You are too. And it’s about being able to recognize it. And if you’re not at the goal that you want, if you’re not at the level of the work that you want, it’s a matter of what are the steps for you to take to create that. Okay. And that’s what I help people do. That’s what I help people do every single day. With that being said, here are the stories of my highly accomplished, successful clients who have messy brains inside. So these are the stories that they said. I’m just going to read through them. This was said today. I’m just shit about following up. I did something wrong. He doesn’t care. Maybe there’s something. We’ve done it. Meaning my company will go down on my watch. I’m not important. It’s all downhill from here. Can we just get rid of Mother’s Day? Side note, I at least had two clients this week ask that same question. There are reasons that a trillion revenue came and I can’t replicate it.

Koren (00:06:31) – I’m not in the inner circle. I’m not important enough for people to keep their commitments. Us ____ are so unlucky. I’m lazy. Did those resonate with you? Have you been able to identify with one of those, maybe a handful of them that goes on in your brain? This is what goes on in the brains of successful people. This is what goes on in the brains of successful athletes, professionals, and parents. I’ve heard these stories. I’ve had these stories. They’re limiting beliefs or the way that we give meaning to certain circumstances in our life. And here’s the thing. You probably thought it was only you. The thing is, you probably think that my clients are well accomplished, smart. And if you’re ever to meet them in your workplace or personal life, you would never think these thoughts lived inside of them. And here’s what I can tell you. I’ve been coaching for a really long time. I’ve been working with humans for a really long time. But, you know, outside of being a life coach, a leadership coach, a business coach, an executive coach, I’ve been a coach of athletes.

Koren (00:07:44) – I’ve been a confidant to so many thousands of parents or people like within the AquaMonsters. And it doesn’t matter. Like I always would say in my town, I live in a university town. Everybody has a D at the end of their name, a PhD and MD or a JD, JD for being a lawyer. Right? And that’s the armor of if I accomplish this, then I’ll be safe. Then you go into the parenting arena and for those of you that are parents, it is the biggest shit show, most vulnerable experience parenting these incredible humans that we have and it’s so vulnerable and scary. And then we go into these stories. Maybe there’s something we’ve done wrong. My child doesn’t love me. I’m a mean parent. I had somebody say to me recently, Oh, maybe I’m just being a bitch about this again. Highly accomplished on the outside, the way they present themselves, where they show up. You wouldn’t know that this was going on the inside. And when I can share with you this is happening all day long and these are with the people that understand these are their stories and are working on reframing them.

Koren (00:08:52) – Okay. Like when my client told me, when he told me today, he goes, I’m lazy. I was like, is that really true? He goes, Well, like, is it really true? You’re lazy? Like, my client is not lazy. My clients are not lazy. One, to show up and do the work that we do together. It’s not lazy work. It is hard work where they’re really working on taking ownership as well as not taking on too much ownership, which most of them do. They’re hard working. Their professions are really important to them. Their families are really important, their relationships are really important. Probably the person that’s not so important is themselves because they were taught to discount themselves and put their work in front of them or other people in front of them. So my clients aren’t lazy, but a lot of them will align with that belief of I’m lazy. Like maybe you’re working too much, maybe we need to work less Koren. How’s that possible? This isn’t working.

Koren (00:09:47) – And what if you could do better work and actually be more profitable? And I have a lot of clients that have accomplished this by working less. I’m not talking about the four hour workweek. I’m talking about not working 60 or 80 hours a week. So here’s the thing we mistakenly believe. We think it’s only me that thinks this way. It’s only me that has this messiness inside my head. And what I am here to tell you today, whether you can receive it or not is I can assure you we all have messy minds. It’s inside all of us. And they’re often secrets that we carry. We carry them so deep inside. And sometimes it may be so secretive. You may not even know. You may not have that self awareness. So for instance, for years I didn’t know I had this voice in the back of my head that said, hm, money doesn’t happen to people like you, Koren. That was the voice of my 20s when I was in university. I really believe that I wasn’t aware of it.

Koren (00:10:50) – I just didn’t think it was possible. I was hoping and praying this as I was going to university in the early 90s. I was hoping and praying that if I can make 18,000 a year, that would be double what it was costing me to go through school and put myself through school, right? Like 18,000. That was I was like, Gosh, if I can do that, I’m going to be okay. Because I didn’t believe that money happened to people like me. That was a limiting belief based on what I put meaning to in my childhood, based on the stories that I created to try to understand what was going on. And then I applied these to my own limiting beliefs. And then one day I realized, oh, it’s not about money happening to me or money not happening to me. Money doesn’t grant me worthiness or not. There are tools to make money. They’re tools that can destroy money. Right? But I learned that. And I was like, wow. And then I started to learn what it meant.

Koren (00:11:47) – Money is a math problem, not a problem in terms of it’s a horrible thing. It’s about how do you get to the number four. There’s many different ways. There’s not a right way or a wrong way. There’s many different ways. Then the other one that I uncovered much later on in my 30s was, Oh, I’m a loser from Loser Street. And if you’ve been a long time listener on my show, you’ve heard me talk about this loser from Loser Street, which was so opposite when I would finally start to when I once I realized that was a limiting belief I had. And then once I had the courage to, like, start to share it with people, people would look at me really perplexed, probably how you would look at my clients if you saw them. And I matched up the stories that I shared with you earlier to who you saw or who you knew, you’d be perplexed. And I’ll never forget, like one of my good friends looked at me and goes, how are you a loser from Loser Street? I watch you.

Koren (00:12:45) – And when you set your mind to something, you make things happen, right? But the inside of me was beating me down and telling me I was a loser from Loser Street. And then I couldn’t have what I wanted. And don’t dream too much because I’m only going to be disappointed. It was a mess up in my brain and it still can be messy. Not as much as the mess. So in my university years, I just figured it wasn’t possible to have lots of money and I didn’t even have a deep understanding of why. It was just that way. And that was the example of a secret and not even knowing it. And part of it was there was so much shame I was hiding from that. You know, something was wrong with me and something was wrong with my family. And that’s why we had financial struggles. So because of the shame, I was just so disconnected from the voice inside, you know? And then next, later in my 30s, it was about uncovering being that loser from Loser Street and that that was a huge secret.

Koren (00:13:41) – Like that was a secret I kept for myself for until I was like 34. And then once I identified it, I was like, I’m not telling anybody this. What are you talking about? I can’t let people know this because the last thing I wanted to be perceived as was a loser. So it was a huge secret I kept for myself until then, in my mid 30s. And it was an even bigger secret of me not sharing it. And now I share it all the time because I’ve overcome it. And now I understand. Shame loves secrecy, right? And so it’s really important to own your story and love yourself, as Brené says, and share it with people who earned the right to hear it. So I’ve really moved, done a lot of work, and I can share it here with you. It’s not going to be the trigger that’s going to take me down like it did 20 years ago. So back then, that’s when I learned about limiting beliefs. So here’s the deal. All of this is taking a lot of coaching, deep work to let go of that belief.

Koren (00:14:33) – Because when I first found out about it, I was like, oh, what was it? Different Strokes, the show Different Strokes. Remember when he would say, what are you talking about, Willis? Like, that’s kind of how I responded to my own brain. Like, what are you talking about? Koren What do you mean? This loser from Loser Street. And we’re going to just put that away because we don’t even want to identify with that. We don’t even want to bring that up. Because what if it’s true? And being able to own it with myself and then being able to talk about it with people who’ve earned the right to hear it, people who could be confidential, people who weren’t going to use it as a weapon against me. Right. And that’s why coaching can be so helpful for my clients as they come and they share their innermost stories in a place that is safe that will never be used against them. So I needed to challenge these beliefs. I needed to question it, to own it, and then finally to be willing to laugh with myself about it.

Koren (00:15:29) – Like, Oh yes, here’s this belief I have that I’m a loser from Loser Street. Is that really even true? No. There are times that I lose. There’s times that I win and there’s a whole bunch of in between. And then I could be astonished of how this is even, would even be possible because it’s so contrary to so much of my life. So remember, we also are meaning making creatures. We are awfully fantastic at telling ourselves painful stories in defense of ourselves because we don’t want to be too arrogant. We don’t want to be disappointed. We don’t want to lose face. We don’t want to be too much. And here’s the thing, my friend. We all have messy stories. We all have insecurities. We all have limiting beliefs. And you may be like, No, Koren, I’m really good. And here’s the thing, because I remember years ago I was talking to somebody for a gentleman and I was talking about shame. And he’s like, Huh? Who’s really interested in it? He goes like, Yeah, I don’t experience shame.

Koren (00:16:34) – And the thing that I know, I don’t know the situation and the thing that I know is that typically for men it’s going to be around money. How much money do you make or how much are you worth? What is your title? Or about sex. Those are very triggering arenas for men, right? There’s other ones. So we all have limiting beliefs. So it can come down to what arena For example, I don’t have the shame or insecurity about not being an athlete, especially the athlete I once was. I’m really clear when people like to identify me as a swimmer, I remind them I was a swimmer in a different century. I was a swimmer up until the mid 90s, and then I retired and I’ve no longer been an athlete nor a swimmer. And that’s a really important identity for me because what I identify as being an athlete is not a lifestyle. I want to continue to live and that’s okay. So I have accepted that I’m a 50 year old human and don’t want to train the 20 hours a week that I used to.

Koren (00:17:33) – And when I was an athlete, there were so many days where I had so much shame for not being good enough in one aspect or another as an athlete or as a swimmer. That’s an example of maybe you don’t have shame in this arena, maybe you don’t have shame in the arena of parenting. And you’re like, Wow, Cory And I understand that being a parent is really hard for you. And this has always been my sweet spot and this is the area that I can really thrive. That is awesome, right? We all have different arenas and then look for the arena where it is a shame trigger for you and it’s okay, unpack those. Declutter those messy stories. So while you may not have these limiting beliefs, these messy minds in one arena, or you may not be aware of it right now, when you do come across it, my invitation is to get out of your own blind spot, right? To own your story and know that you’re not alone and there’s nothing wrong with you.

Koren (00:18:29) – And the bonus is there’s a way through this to the other side. The first step is to start to listen. Slow down. Write it out. Declutter it out of your brain. Work with the coach. The reason a coach is that there’s a boundary in that relationship where it’s safe, it’s confidential. You can unpack it, right? Sometimes with friends, they may try to fix it and may not allow for that space. But with the coach, you can unpack it and listen to what you say. You may want to verbally vomit it first because it may be all pent up and then start to listen. Go around in your world and listen to others and you’ll start to hear their stories, too, in their limiting beliefs. The other thing to do is read books. These are great places to find. You are not alone. Another resource for you is to listen to my show. There’s over 800 episodes here. I have monologues like this, as well as lots, hundreds and hundreds of shows with past guests.

Koren (00:19:35) – And no matter how famous, New York Times bestselling author, how accomplished the thing is, is that they’ve had their own messy brains. The examples I use with work with my clients are always with the idea of protecting their privacy and their identity and their true stories. Right. Much like the stories I shared earlier in the podcast, you’re not able to identify them. My clients might be able to identify themselves, but you’re not able to. You’re not going to know who they are or who’s on my client roster. Their true stories. Those were the stories that I wrote down while taking notes in their sessions. And I went through the notes and I grabbed them to put in here and share with you. They weren’t something that I paraphrased. They were direct words out of their mouth. So the beauty is having someone to confide in, because then it’s harder for that story to live. So I’m going to go back to this. The first step is to start to listen to the voice in your head.

Koren (00:20:36) – Slow down. Write it out. Talk with someone about it. Somebody who you know who’s going to be safe, Right? Sometimes friendships or partnerships or marriages can be hard because they may not know what to do with the information and want to come in and fix it. So that’s where working with a coach can be helpful. Resources to hear other people’s stories: listening as you go about your day to day. Listen to the stories that people share. Sometimes people aren’t going to be as vulnerable, right? They may not tell you they’re the difficulties that they’re having in certain arenas and listen, read books because again, you’ll hear stories and you’ll gather insights. Listen to my show for guests that share with you or former client work that I share in a confidential way. Right. So that this is all providing the common humanity of you’re not alone. And remember, it’s not just you. We all have these messy minds. And it’s so important that we love ourselves as we unpack, laugh with ourselves, not judge ourselves, because that is how we can release it, is by letting it go, by owning it and loving ourselves and laughing with ourselves.

Koren (00:21:49) – The judgment makes us hold on to it longer. If you or someone you know would benefit from working on their mindset, I help people do that. Go to How She Really Does It and click work with Koren and we’ll also have a link in the podcast page. I’m smelling big for you. Hey there. Before we go, I have a question for you. Have you subscribed to the show yet? This is an awesome opportunity for you to preserve your brain juice. I love the fact that I can subscribe to podcasts and television shows and they go straight to my iPhone or they go straight to my DVR and then I don’t have to worry, oh no, especially with television shows. Did I hit record? Is it going to be there or now do I have to watch it on demand and go through all the commercials? So go and hit the subscribe button. There’s a link in the show notes and that will ensure you that you never miss a show. And you can also save your brain juice for other things in your life.

Koren (00:22:51) – There’s way more important things, but you and I will still be connected because the show will be waiting for you in your phone. Go to the link in the show notes. Subscribe to the show so you can automatically get all the shows to your phone on the link.

Music (00:23:07) – She’s dreaming, she’s drifting. Never been so wide awake. Captured in the moment by the beauty all around her. There’s nowhere else than she would rather be.