What's the story you tell yourself about yourself?

Change your thoughts, change your life is TOMORROW

Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday.

TOMORROW
✨ Join me February 12th for Self Made’s next monthly Life Design Skill Session (free! ):

February’s topic is Changing the Way you THINK: an Introduction to Thoughtwork
→ The problem with most attempts at self-development is that it has you focus solely on changing your actions. When you change your actions but don’t change the thoughts and feelings behind those actions, a gap opens between any success you might be reaching, and an inner experience that despite all evidence to the contrary has you continuing to feel shitty. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to see real change.
→ In February's session, I'll teach the fundamentals of THOUGHTWORK, a self-coaching tool that will help you shift your inner experience so that the voice in your head becomes more helpful than harmful. → During the session, you'll apply this information and "workshop" a shitty thought pattern. → All are welcome! If you’re already familiar with this tool, this is a great opportunity to revisit. One of the best parts of these workshops is the resource shares and suggestions that open up between us.
→ All are welcome!
→ There will be a recording - so please sign up even if you can’t make it live. (Wednesday, 2/12, 9am-10am PST, FREE)

Today’s inspiration:

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant –
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

~Mary Oliver

Photo by Alexandru Goman on Unsplash

Most of you here are on a sincere pursuit to transform your habits and patterns so you can create lives you are actively designing rather than only tolerating. I bear witness to your quests every single day: In 1:1 client sessions; in group calls; in emails, and in my own lived experience as someone inside of my own inquiry alongside you. You are here because you want to do better, to reconnect to who you were before life did its life thing to you, to heal and evolve and become, and to hopefully make some dear friends along the way.

But what is the point of “doing better”—of checking boxes, hitting goals, and so on—if you don’t also start to feel better?

Every single one of you have brains that are quick to point out all the ways you fall short and don’t measure up. This is a normal functioning of a human brain: looking for what is wrong, scanning for potential pitfalls—or even actual danger—is how you keep yourself safe. In addition, you have all been socialized to understand the world through extremes, rather than relationships: this vs that, good vs bad, up vs. down, etc. You are literally programmed to see the world in black-and-white, which in turn has you moving through your life oblivious to the vast spectrum of color—which is to stay, oblivious to infinite possibilities—available at any given moment.

There are occasions when your inherent negative bias is valuable—moments when you might actually be in danger, and you need that “scanning for bad” part of your brain to guide you. It’s also true that while these thoughts can have value, they are unhelpful when it comes to, oh, basically every thing else.

Por ejemplo:

• You are kind and forgiving to the people you love, and terrible at extending yourself the same tenderness.

• You look at things as binary, foregoing the “messy middle” to be at the mercy of extremes, forgetting that it’s between these extremes where *real life* actually happens.

• You hold yourself to impossible standards, and when you inevitably fail, you stay mired in self-loathing and a persistent lack mentality.

The problem with most attempts at self-development is that it has you focus solely on changing your actions. When you change your actions but don’t change the thoughts and feelings behind those actions, a gap opens between any success you might be reaching, and an inner experience that despite all evidence to the contrary has you continuing to feel shitty. It becomes difficult, if not impossible, to see real change.

🤷🏽‍♀️ What’s the point of any of this if I still hate myself?

At tomorrow’s Skill Session, I’ll be sharing three different approaches toward how you might shift your inner experience so that the voice in your head becomes more helpful than harmful.

My aim is to explore how we might create conditions inside of which transformation and evolution can occur, in a way that not only causes the least amount of harm, but also actively has us feeling as good as possible as we go.

We’ll start with a concept in the coaching world known—fittingly—as “thoughtwork" ¹ (emphasis mine):

Thoughtwork refers to managing your mind, with the aim of feeling more empowered and in control of thoughts and feelings.

Thoughtwork involves raising awareness of limiting beliefs, [automatic negative thoughts] and understanding thought patterns, both detrimental and beneficial. This consciousness about the thoughts allows you to have more agency over your thinking, rather than allowing your mind to create anxiety loops, rumination cycles or unproductive overthinking.

Doing thoughtwork prevents reactivity and promotes intentional, confident responses. By understanding what goes on inside your own brain, you have better control over how you react to people and events. This will impact your further thinking and feelings.

There’s an Ask Polly I like that dips into this but it’s behind a paywall so I can’t link the whole thing, but here’s a nice gem that hits the “why practice thoughtwork” nail on the head (again, emphasis mine):

Instead of scrutinizing your shortcomings the way you always have, pick up the very good habit of saying, “Everyone is fucked up and so am I.” Then shift your focus from self-scrutiny to belief. Remind yourself what you value, what you want to create, how you want to live, what connections you want to celebrate. Move away from your relentless intellectual search for answers and solutions (which can so easily become neurotic and self-hating) into a space of feeling more, of asking better questions, of cultivating your curiosity, of moving toward the deep connections that teach you more than that dark space inside your skull ever will.

Anything you can do to disrupt the autopilot and reduce the dominance of your brain is a worthwhile undertaking. You can’t intellectualize your way through any of this, you see. You have to practice.

But don’t take any of this from me. Join me tomorrow, and then get out and try it on for yourselves. Collect your own data. Because far be it from me to tell any of you what to do. I’ve got plenty of ideas and tools and models and frameworks and warmth and care, but ultimately - you know best what you need. You are the author of your own narrative.

What story are you telling?

See you tomorrow~

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At SELF MADE, the game is to uncover your essential self so you can design a rebellious, bold, on-purpose life that is an expression of who you really are and what you really want. Posts are written by me, Dani Cirignano, writer, Integral Coach, and recovery guide based in San Francisco, CA.

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