Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 381 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! How’s it going? I heard from someone they wanted to hear an episode around healing. Healing from heartbreak specifically but I thought it would be good to include the normal things we all have to go through. Because pain is part of our human experience. Everyones. No one is exempt. We all feel hurt or pain or sadness or fear at some point in our lives. And those feelings are valid. We can’t measure how much pain is appropriate based on the circumstance compared to someone else’s painful situation. Your pain is valid. Know that.
Kevin, My trainer and I were talking about comparison and he said which is heavier a pound of cotton or a pound of steel? What do you think? I quickly said steel…and by the look on his face I knew I was missing something…ahhhhh they are both a pound. They weigh the same. Our pain is like that, maybe someone else is going through something that you think pales in comparison to what you’re going through or vice versa. Don’t do that don’t compare, What you’re feeling is valid. We just need to get to the bottom of how to get you where you want to be, which is feeling better, but make sure you want to feel better. Some will identify and attach themselves to their pain for many reasons, so ask yourself do I want to feel better or is this working for me in some way? That’s a really really good thing to know. Some people were only given love growing up if they were sick or hurt and as an adult may still find that that works and so they hang on to it. So answer that question first.
But let’s say that isn’t the case for you…
Let start with this….it’s perfectly normal to feel sad or find it really hard to function normally when something bad happens maybe you’ve had a break up or someone you love died. It’s perfectly normal to feel sad or to feel physical pain, my sister said she sometimes physically hurts missing her husband who passed. You’re going to feel bad, there’s nothing wrong with you there probably be something wrong with you didn’t. So feeling pain at different times in life is very normal. I use pain as a general term for sadness, anxiety, grief. All those feelings that feel like pain. We have this idea that we should be happy all the time and if we aren’t somethings bad wrong. Ive thought that in the past, my nature is naturally happy so I would avoid pain like a hot stove. I’ve since realized avoidance doesn’t make pain not be there, it just tucks itself deep inside the mind ready to pounce, sometimes showing itself in complete over-reaction to someone cutting you off in traffic or your spouse looks at you wrong…. Have you ever done that? Had a meltdown that didn’t really match the circumstance, yeah a lot of times that’s just something that you tucked away and didn’t deal with and when it gets big enough it’s gotta go somewhere. So pain is a normal human emotion, you’re going to feel it, and it’s good to process it, but we do not want to live there.
Secondly, it helps to recognize the power you have to make things better or worse. We are human with human emotions. So we now know No one is exempt from feeling pain at some point or another. Which means There is nothing wrong with you because bad things happen to you. It’s not god punishing you, that’s a classic from religion. No. No. God only knows love. You are love at your core, you are goodness at your core, you are joyful and peace at your core. That’s why it feels so bad when you feel something other than love, goodness, joy…it’s because that’s not who we are at our core. We are meant to feel good. We are supposed to be having fun and enjoying life. But we are also humans in human bodies with human emotions, which have a very wide range. We have more control of our mind than we were ever taught. The people who understand this are so powerful because they are able to move through life, through inevitable pain and heartbreak, we all have it but they’re able to bounce back from that pain and heartbreak and become even stronger. Great awakenings a lot of times come from processed pain. You have that power too. Think about the things you’ve overcome already and here you are still standing, still going to work, still able to find peace sitting at the ocean, still hopefully able to smile at all the cute animal videos all over the internet.
Everything you experience, good or bad, is coaxing you or guiding you to some sort of self actualization. It’s when you realize that that you start seeing clearly that life is working in your favor. I can think of a couple of the most painful things Ive been through and the trajectory they put me on blows my mind. I mean that. Life is happening for you. Every thing that’s happened to you has lead you to where you are right now and if you have allowed it, has helped you grow, has made you stronger.
And maybe you think where you are right now is not that great. Maybe you’re not feeling that great about yourself or your life. But where is that coming from? Is it coming from your core of who you are or is it coming from the thoughts you’re telling yourself. That’s one thing I’ve learned to do, when I’m feeling sad I ask myself what am I thinking right now that’s making me feel sad. I’ve been on vacation before and was feeling sad..it happened recently. My family went hiking. In fall creek falls. I’ve talked about it but my sister, Molly, and her husband and my brother Stuart and his wife Stacey left early so we stayed a full night a full day longer than they did and their cabin was right across from ours so the morning I got up and they left I was looking at their cabin and I was just so sad. I was really feeling down and I was thinking how sad it is that they’re gone but what was I doing? I was sitting in this beautiful cabin in a beautiful in the beautiful mountains with my beautiful mom and dad and big sister and husband, I was creating these things that make me feel sad because I was focusing on what was missing instead of what was right there in front of me. Now I know enough to let that feeling be there OK so I sat there and I thought alright I feel a little bit sad here’s the reason, I understand that. Where am I feeling it feeling it sort of in my chest in my heart area and I just let myself feel it for a minute and then I thought OK am I gonna let myself feel this way all day I gonna just be sad all day because our whole family isn’t together or do I want to have a good day and enjoy what’s right in front of me And that’s what we did we hiked and swim in the falls in Grille Dallas and had played games. We had a great time and then we went home and it was a wonderful vacation. I was thinking my way into sadness, and look it’s ok to feel sad when someone leaves but are you gonna live there? No you have the power to not live there. You do. You have the power to keep moving forward. To keep finding a better feeling thought.
This is part of our work. We have to tell our mind what to think sometimes, a lot of times actually. Don’t be a victim to your mind. You have to control your mind.
If you just leave the mind to it, let it run free like a 2 year old, nothing good comes from that, it will conjure terrible thoughts. Especially about yourself. It will say…This was all my fault. I’m unlovable. I’m a wreck. I hate myself. This is never gonna stop happening. And then it will pile on too, it will remind you of all the bad things you’ve done in the past , it will spiral into worse and worse thoughts….until you stop it and you can stop it. But you have to be open and aware enough that you’re having those thoughts and that you have the ability to change those thoughts. And part of that comes from maybe changing what you’re doing, what you’re watching, what you’re reading or listening to. Because Our mind is sensitive and reactive to the things we consume. How many times have you felt yourself getting upset because you’re reading an article or maybe you’ve jumped on your ex’s Instagram or you’re listening to sad music? That all plays a role in how we feel.
I was in the car with my mom and dad my big sister Heather, we had a long drive in the car so we were listening to music, my dad is listening to music that we all love when he decides to put on a radio station for me..I grew up in love with Phil Collins. That’s all I wanted to play, everyone knew how much I loved him. So my dad decides to play Phil Collins radio, which at the time I thought was a great idea. But a few songs in…not sure if you are familiar with all of his music but one song was separate lives and then it went right into groovey kind of love and I happen to look over at my big sister and she’s bawling crying. Both of these songs were sad and were bringing back memories of early years with her husband and I could see that….so I’m like change the channel change the station. We can’t play this music anymore and my parents are shocked like what!? why not? and then they see Heather and they’re like oh ok..got it. So we asked what she would like to listen to and she said let’s play frank Sinatra. And that’s what we did and a few minutes later we are singing to New York New York and she’s smiling and laughing again. Big change in emotions from minute to minute. She can’t change the fact that her husband died but she knows that some things are going to bring her down more than lift her up. If you know certain things lift you and certain things don’t, stop doing the things that don’t. And note we aren’t trying to act like things didn’t happen or stick our head in the sand, we are simply reaching for a better feeling thought by playing a better feeling song. There’s power in that. You have so much power to create a better feeling, for yourself by reaching for a better thought.
And look music is very very powerful. According to Andrew Huberman if you listen to 13 minutes of sad music, that is the amount of time studies show can help you process that sadness and sort of let it release. 13 minutes of a sad playlist could help you process and work through painful emotions. This is all according to studies they did. I thought that was so interesting. Processing the pain you’re feeling can help it fade and that is one tool you have. Now, on the flip side of that, and this is the part where you don’t live in the pain…..listening to 9 minutes or more of happy music will cause a shift in your emotional state towards happiness.. Amazing. These are tools for us. Scientifically proven to help us navigate the ups and downs we feel as humans. So music is a powerful too, use it wisely.
Consider yourself the maestro of your life. You’re pulling all the strings. The sooner you know that the better. You know the things that lift you vs the things that don’t. And you can watch that in real time if you’re awake and aware. You may have tons and tons of support around you and I hope you do…..but you have to do the work on yourself if you want to feel better.
Pain is a part of the human experience. But, Suffering is optional.
You are not broken
You are not waiting for something or someone to come and save you.
You are whole just as you are.
The sooner you know that and the sooner you realize that no matter where you are, there is always a better feeling thought available. But no one can think it for you. That’s your work, to always be reaching for that better feeling thought.
My challenge to you today is to remember this….. You were born with something in you that could take on the world, The idea that you cannot handle hard things was sold to you by society. It’s not true, you weren’t born thinking that. When you were a kid, when you fell down you got right back up, you probably did that 1000 times. And you didn’t think there was something wrong with you, you just innately knew eventually you’d be walking no problem, so you kept on trying. Where is that innate knowing now? It didn’t leave, innate means inborn, it means natural. You still have that. You at your core can rise above and even thrive through hard times, people do it all the time. People find happiness after loss, they find love after heartbreak, they find wealth after losing everything. But they don’t do that from a place of victimhood. They do it from a place of never giving up, always knowing it’s gonna be better just around the corner… you innately know that, that’s what comes naturally. You get down, you get back up. Share this with 3 people who you want to see fly. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
