From skwigg's journal:
I listened to a great podcast tonight, The WOW Collective with Nardia Norman, #039 Krista Scott Dixon - F Calories.
Here are my notes:
Where did we ever get the message that change has to come from pain, and suffering, and self-abuse, and self-hatred. Like to me that is the anti-success recipe right there. If I was designing an epic failure, I couldn't design one better than that.
Humans need affirmation and love and security and compassion and empathy and relationships to change.
We don't change in the face of shame because shame is a threat. Suffering is a threat, and when we're under threat we shut down. There is no space for change when it's threat time.
"Enough" is not amazing. "Enough" is not awesome. "Enough" is not like, "Ah, I'm a superstar." Sometimes we try to counterbalance our feeling of inadequacy by proclaiming that we are divas and we're goddesses, but honestly when you get up in the morning, most of us don't feel like a goddess. The goddessness is going to have to wait until I've had a shower. Those affirmations never really felt true to me. They were almost like the flip side of the same coin, that sort of brittle and very fragile identity. Whereas proclaiming yourself to be "enough" is an incredibly radical statement because it's like, here I am as is, not awesome, not exceptional, not amazing or goddess. I am myself and that is enough, and I have done enough today, and I am enough today. To me that is just mind blowing.
When you can tolerate the idea that you are intrinsically worthy, the world opens up and you actually do feel inspired to go and be awesome as a result.
3 top tips for improving your life:
1. Have compassion for yourself. If it's hard, imagine having compassion for some small defenseless creature like a baby or a pet. Train yourself to have that reaction for yourself. To genuinely care for yourself. It's a skill that takes practice.
2. Cultivate a growth mindset. This is the idea that everything is negotiable and can be improved with practice. If you're not good at something in the beginning, it doesn't mean you suck or you're dumb or you're a failure. It just means that whatever you're trying to do takes more attention and practice. Growth is always possible. (The opposite is a fixed mindset, that you're born with a certain amount of talent or luck and that's just how it is.)
3. A real commitment to awareness. Gather data, information, and feedback about yourself. Feedback is not opinion. It's objective information that can lead to action. It can help you make a decision about what to do next. Examples: journal, Fitbit data, identifying feelings, noticing outcomes. Become a detective. Approach it with curiosity and kindness.
One of the most radical things that you can do is love yourself. And that sounds so cliché like, barf, love myself, bleh, whatever. I'm not talking about thinking you're amazing all the time. Sometimes that's how people interpret it. Oh, self-love means you wake up and you're like, "I'm a special person." It's not like that. It's the kind of love that you have for your kid when you look at them and you're like, "My kid has funny hair, and they're really pissing me off right now," but you LOVE them with this ferocity, even if they're imperfect in so many ways. Self love is about that ferocity, that protection of the self, that care for the self despite everything. You recognize that you have to be your own number one, because no one else can or will protect you like you can protect yourself. It's like the love of a mother bear. You're just going to claw someone's face off if they invade your boundaries. That's a radical act in such a self-loathing culture.