So on today’s episode of Share & Let’s Live! I talk about a concept my therapist taught me, called “acting opposite.”
Press play to listen to today’s podcast episode that goes with this blog post and meme!I cuss so listen when the kids aren’t around.
Essentially, acting opposite is when you do the opposite of what you would normally do. Sound simple, right? Well… it is simple. But like I learned from the amazing author and writing coach, Elizabeth Lyons, simple isn’t always easy.
In practice, acting opposite looks like choosing to handle things differently than you normally would, despite the pull of habit toward doing otherwise. So maybe you’re a person who has a short-temper. When you decide to act opposite, you choose to respond differently to the things that trigger you. Instead of yelling, you choose to take deep breaths, or laugh to calm yourself down. If you are a person who let’s the dishes pile up, when you start to place that first dirty dish in the clean sink you decide, “Nope. Let me wash this right now.” If you’re a person who tends to keep drinking after you’re tipsy, and things always go south from there, you decide, “Next time I feel tipsy, I’m going to request a glass of water, and I’m done with alcohol for the night, no matter what.”
Acting opposite is a gamechanger. And on today’s episode, I note my growth over time, and how “acting opposite” has been a huge part of the shift.
Check out today’s episode. Maybe this is something you can incorporate into your own life, and personal growth journey.
Day 12 “Punking Our Kids” #MARCH4WARD Share and Let’s Live! #Podcast Series w/ Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
Press play to listen to today’s podcast episode that goes with this blog post and meme!I cuss so listen when the kids aren’t around.
I wasn’t really sure what a great title for this podcast/blog would be, but this idea of “punking our kids” seems pretty accurate.
We don’t realize the long lasting impact of how we interact with our children. Some of the ways we were raised are not things that need to be repeated for another generation.
Granted everybody has a different response to discipline, reprimands, etc. And I believe that some catering needs to be done, because you could have three children and all of them respond differently to your authority.
On today’s podcast episode I talk about the damaging nature of … .punking your kids. How do I explain this? Hmmm…. let’s just say that although it’s important to teach our children to respect us, adults, authority, etc. some parents take a step too far and actually break the spirit of their child.
Maybe your child is one who is always looking out for everyone else. They are the one who’s going to speak up if they notice some form of injustice. But you have a blanket belief that under no circumstances should a child confront you about being wrong. Maybe you’re even mean and scary about it. Some kids will be deeply impacted by that response. They learn that it is not safe to speak out against injustice, that if they speak up and advocate for themselves or others that they are placing themselves in danger.
The unfortunate thing about this is that, for some, this will last well into adulthood. They won’t even realize why they have trouble advocating for themselves. They’ll have stress responses to addressing people who mistreat them. And they’ll let people run all over them because it doesn’t feel safe to speak up.
If this at all resonates with your experience, or if you want to hear more about this, including my personal story, check out today’s episode of Share & Let’s Live! with Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist.
Press play to check out today’s Share & Let’s Live! podcast episode! “Bigger Than You & Me” w/ Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
Day 11 “Bigger Than You and Me” #MARCH4WARD Share & Let’s Live! #Podcast Series w/ Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
“All things work together for good,” but not necessarily our individual good….
I think this is a hard lesson that many buck against. However, from my observations and my personal experiences, I have learned that I’m not just here for myself. Some stuff I go through allows me to support someone else as they go through it.
This is how I find meaning in life’s painful moments. Some things hurt so much that I REFUSE to accept that there’s nothing more to it than I just got screwed by life. I choose to find a lesson it. I choose to hold on to the thought that this painful moment may allow me to understand someone better one day. It may allow me to help somebody some day. It may allow me to create a new system so others don’t experience the same pain.
And that might be a far reach for you. You may feel we’re all here on our individual journeys and they have nothing to do with each other. I’ve seen too many circumstances overlap in my life to believe that anymore. And it serves me well to see myself as a part of a bigger picture.
If this resonates with you, you’ll enjoy today’s podcast. I’m being my usual raw, honest, oversharing self. And I do that because I believe that something for you can be in the stories I tell about me. Maybe my lessons can save you some time, some pain, some effort. And that’s why I do this daily podcast, Share & Let’s Live!
As we share with each other, all our lives have the opportunity to be enriched.
Anxiety can be crippling. Where does it come from?
Press play to listen to the audio version, PLUS additional info I didn’t share in this blog post, that’s exclusively in the podcast episode!
For me anxiety presents itself as thoughts that my body immediately reacts to with panic.
I was thinking today, what are the thoughts and memories that lead to anxiety? What are the main 3 ways it presents itself to me?
1) You’re doing it wrong. Don’t make a mistake. One of the most crippling things when I’m moving forward on a goal, is when my mind convinces me that “they” are not going to like it because it’s not good enough. As a kid who wasn’t celebrated for good grades, but always admonished for any variations in the straight A’s pattern, I knew that making mistakes was unacceptable. I soon learned that doing well was the expectation; it didn’t garner praise. I lived for praise. Perfection was the standard. So I learned that if I couldn’t do it perfectly, I might as well not try at all.
Now, as an adult in her 40’s, I still struggle with starting projects before I’m completely certain I can do it perfectly. I plan… and plan… and plan some more.
You can only imagine how many projects I don’t even start, and how many more I don’t finish.
I didn’t realize ‘til now that perfectionism is not only at the root of my projects that take forever to complete, but also the ones I start and stop.
2)Don’t ask for help, others have their own stuff to do. One of the most challenging parts of being neurodivergent is that I nearly always need help, but I’m conditioned not to ask for it.
I’m sure childhood stuff is at the root. It was a regular/daily occurrence that I’d ask for help and be told I “should have learned it in school with everyone else.” Or they told me they have their “own work to do” so I needed to “figure it out.”
To this day, I’m still trying to figure it out. And since my mind processes things so differently, and takes longer to do it, my figuring out typically leads to long seasons of not completing things, and frustrating moments of dealing with problems and not choosing the most obvious solution. When it comes to problem solving, what’s obvious to “most” people is rarely obvious to me.
3) They’re not gonna like it. It’s funny that I never thought about how that phrase (“like it”) has two meanings. I realize now that the current struggle was influenced by the original.
Let me explain. So I have always been creative and artistic. Yes, I would draw all the time as a kid, but I also would fix things and create things. I would build models of objects out of index cards. I remember I created a camera (the old school type where the back opens and you put the film in), with a button you could push down all out of index cards. I think it even had a zoom lens. I sat by myself working on it for hours. I also loved to draw. I would sketch all the time, but no matter how good my work was to me, my teachers, and classmates, I was never met with excitement or awe or encouragement at home. I just got a dry, “Oh,” and maybe a semi smile that implied my artwork wasn’t that fascinating.
But I continued to show the same people over the years, hoping for that moment of excitement, awe, or encouragement. I rarely, if ever, received it. It doesn’t matter so much now, as I get to understand their personalities with adult eyes, but as a kid it mattered and definitely influenced my beliefs, behaviors, and expectations. It’s no wonder that on social media receiving likes and hearts (or not receiving them) had so much power over me, and regularly encouraged/derailed my progress.
So today, I took a little nap after doing some journaling. In my dream, I received some guidance.
“Don’t let your fear be stronger than your intentions.”
— Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
I woke up to these words, “Don’t let your fear be stronger than your intentions.” Those words led me to start writing this piece. I wasn’t sure if it would be a journal entry for me, or a blog post/podcast episode for you.
Earlier today, long before my nap, I was meditating and came to the awareness that I have been living for intentions that are outside of my control. Even if my original reason is for the joy of doing it, by the time I post it, those fears kick in and my intention becomes both for the joy and for some form of external reward. Of course, being honest about that feels icky but I’d rather just out it and do differently moving forward.
Here are some examples of doing things for an external reward:
If I buy my daughter something she’s been wanting forever, I picture her joy and big hugs and seeing her all but skipping away happily as I give it to her. That joyful expectation fuels me as I go to whatever lengths to supply her with the gift. But if she receives it and is grateful, but not overjoyed, my happiness drains from me and I’m back miserable again until the next idea comes to me.
As I create what I’m certain will be my most life-changing, trajectory-shifting post to date, I’m so joyfully eager to post it so people’s lives can be changed for the better. Then, I post it, and hear crickets, and the tumbleweeds go rolling by. The only ❤️ reaction on the post is mine. Let’s just say feeling deflated is a gross understatement.
Today, during that meditation time, it came to me that I need to set intentions differently. And one of those differences is that my intentions need to be within my control.
Just like I did as a kid, I offer what I’ve created and wait for a joyful response and often get nothing in return. But with the way social media is run by bots (human and manmade) that have their own intentions, I can’t even control who sees my posts, much less if they react to them. And that’s the whole point….
I have to stop creating with the expectation of a return. I know the business coaches may have a problem with this, but they aren’t about to work with me for free anyway so WHATEVER.
What I’m saying is that I need to focus on what’s within my control. I can have the desire and even an internal intention that this one day leads to expansion, abundance, being known around the world, etc. But my main intention needs to be pure, direct, and within my control.
Okay so “within my control” may make sense, but what do I mean by pure and direct? I mean that I can’t say my intentions are for one thing when they are really for another. Like if I say, I am sharing a post to make people smile, but I’m really sharing the post because I’m broke and want people to buy my products. I need to be clear within myself and aligned with my intentions as I put out content.
My new standard is that I: must be aware of the root of why I am doing what I am doing, and get aligned with my truest intentions (rather than my fears) before I put out content. No more panic posting. Truly aligned, intentional, and heart-centered posting is my new standard.
I guess that’s all I have for you, today. Thank you for being here!
