Episode 075: A Behind the Scene Look at Bravery

So many people have told me how brave I am for writing and publishing a book. We tend to compare our insides to other people's outsides and think they have it all together. Today I am pulling back the veil on how I successfully (and unsuccessfully) dealt with my Monger attacks the week of my book launch.

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Hey everyone, I'm so excited to be back here. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who sent me a message and responded via email or called me about the book that came out last Tuesday, January 30th, The Happier Approach. The response has been phenomenal and exciting, and I just was so excited to hear from everyone. If you haven't gotten your copy, head to Amazon, and you can get an eBook or a paperback book, or an audiobook. Lots of different options for ways for you to hear and read The Happier Approach and start implementing it into your life.

This podcast is going to be a little different. I wanted to pull back the mystique of the veil, I guess you would say, of writing this book, and specifically this week of putting it out there into the world. A lot of people have been talking to me and telling me how brave they think I am, and I'm so brave because I've written this book and put it out there, and how brave that is. Yes, I would argue it was brave to stick it out there. I always joke, is it brave, or is it delusional? Who knows?

But I wanted to address that topic because I think we tend to put people upon on pedestals that do things that we deem brave and scary, and we assume that everything is awesome with them, back to that idea of comparing your insides to other people's outsides. I guess I wanted to share a little bit of my insides from this week to let you know that it isn't all sunshine and rainbows. Being brave is a choice, and it is something that we have to do daily, minute by minute sometimes, to challenge ourselves to show up and be present.

In the book, I have a chapter called Knowing When the Monger is Running the Show. The reason I have that chapter in there is because I think a lot of us get so comfortable with the monger, we don't even know it's running the show. That was me, and it is me in a lot of ways, and that's been a big part of my work in this inner critic stuff, is paying attention to when my monger is running the show.

One of the ways I know my monger is running the show is because I go into automatic. I go into kind of a numbing spot where I just run on autopilot, and I don't engage with what's engaging. So, when I wrote this book, and when I started writing it, I said to my husband, "I don't want to go on autopilot when it comes to this book. I want to be intentional and show up all the way, so I'm present for everything that happens."

Because when I do this autopilot, I miss opportunities and I miss ideas, and I'm not fully there. So that's one way my monger lulls me into complacency is by just telling me how much I suck, and it's so hard to face that monger all the time. I just go into this autopilot. That has been a battle this week, is knowing that's what I do. I think that's the first step in a lot of this monger stuff is knowing what it is, your go-to is. My go-to is autopilot. It's also just really getting hopped up on doing right and making sure everything's perfect, and so that pressure that everything has to be perfect becomes so great that I go into autopilot to relieve it.

My monger is telling me everything has to be perfect; it has to be just right. My BFF is like, "Don't worry, let's just sit on the couch and watch some Housewives and have some Reese's peanut butter cups. Everything will be fine. Just relax, no big deal." I don't show up because my BFF is running the show. The more I do this work, the more I recognize the BFF is just as toxic as the monger. We just don't recognize it.

Back to knowing when the monger's running the show. This week, I've tried to be intentional about this numbing pattern that I have and knowing when I go on autopilot. It has been challenging really challenging. To give you a little backstory, Monday of this week was the year anniversary of my dad's death. Not surprisingly, it was a very, very hard day. Those anniversaries are just amazing to me that your body knows what's happening before your mind does. It was a really hard day. I spent part of the day with family and just tried to really soak up what was happening.

Then the next day, Tuesday, was the day my book launched. So, it was a high-energy day, and there was a lot of contact with people, great stories, and so much fun, but an underlying sadness that my dad wasn't there to read the book and hear about the book and be a part of the book. It's kind of in this emotional rollercoaster. Are we going back-and-forth between being super excited about the book launch and then also just this sadness in reliving this was the day of the funeral, and this is what we did this day and all that replaying of a year ago.

That to be said that it was really easy, it would have been really easy for me to numb out, and have the BFF had the perfect excuse. This is the anniversary week of your dad's death, take it easy. You deserve it. Take the week off. I really had made a commitment to myself that I wasn't going to do that. I think that is the key to being brave, is committing to yourself that you're really going to show up this time. You're really going to take whatever the next step is. It doesn't have to be some ginormous, crazy, huge step. This book that I've written was a culmination of a lot of really tiny steps. It wasn't like one day I woke up and had this brilliant idea to write a book, and here is the brilliant plan what the book's going to be about, and here we go.

No, no, no. This was years in the making and years of thinking about it. Years of writing and debating and talking. So, it takes tiny little steps I think when we read these memes on Facebook, we see these inspirational stories, we think, oh my gosh, this has to be some huge, big thing I'm going to do. Nope. Bravery is choosing to show up every day. It's me choosing to sit down at my computer and write. It's me choosing to sit down at my computer and come up with some social media post to spread the word about my post.

So, this brings me to today. Today is the first day that I've really had a chance to just take it all in, and sit down, and make the next steps. Everything had gone up to the launch of the book, and then I didn't really have what's happening next. When I sat down today, one of the things on my list is to record this podcast. My monger was just so loud. You have nothing to say, and no one wants to hear what you have to say anyway. Who do you think you are? That same refrain that monger has for me all the time.

I had practiced ASK multiple times. Multiple times this morning, I practiced ASK. I acknowledged what I was feeling. I slowed down and got into my body. And I kindly pulled back to see the big picture. I was doing it kind of again on automatic. I wasn't showing up and doing the steps of ASK. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm feeling scared. Let me roll my neck a little bit. Okay, and now I'm going to pull back and see the big picture, and kind of see yeah, this isn't a big deal. There's a lot of other things going on in the world.

It wasn't actually doing ASK. I was on automatic pilot doing ASK. It wasn't helping. I bet I did ASK 20 times, and my monger was just like, "See? This doesn't work. You really can't help people. Who do you think you are?" It just built up more and more fodder for my monger.

Finally, it was 1:00. I was still in my pajamas, and I was like, I need to take care of myself here. I need to work out. I need to take a shower. I need to get dressed. I need to start the day and get serious about this. Within five minutes of my workout, I felt so much better, like I was able to acknowledge like, wow, I am scared here, and I'm feeling really vulnerable and out there. The slowing down helps. I'm going to do some extra yoga stretches.

Then I was able to pull back and be like, okay, this was one week in your life that was hard and stressful. Let's see some other options of where we want to take this. My monger tends to convince me I need to have all the answers, and I need to be in charge. That is one of the biggest complaints I have about the coaching and counseling industry as a whole, and all of the "gurus" out there is that they act like they have it all together and like they have the answers. That was why when I was in the shower, I was like, I'm going to do a podcast about how I don't have all the answers. How I don't know what's happening.

But this is how I did my day, and this is what worked for me. In the shower, I slowed way down. I got in the shower, and I was able to implement ASK in a sincere way. When I came back to my office, it was a completely different day. I checked a whole bunch of stuff off my list. My brain was clear. I was ready to focus. My monger was not in charge anymore. It was my biggest fan, kind of stepped into the lead position. I got a lot done. Here I am recording a podcast showing you how this stuff works in real life.

That's been my week in launching The Happier Approach. I hope that you will purchase the book and implement some of the stuff that's in there because it's one of those things, yes I wrote the book, and then every time I implement what it says, it is helpful. I think that's probably true for a lot of books out there, that I just never took the time to implement what they said because I was all looking for the easy answer, and looking for the quick fix. It isn't out there.

There is no quick fix. We have to do the work. We have to slow down and show up, and face our mongers, and challenge our biggest fans, and tell our BFFs to take the day off. We have to get serious about this stuff if we're going to be happier. It isn't easy, but man, once we start implementing this stuff, it's so much better. I promise. I swear. Do it.

So, your takeaway for today is to really pay attention and start noticing when your monger's running the show. You know, is it that you numb out? Is it that you have a 10 reaction to a two problem? Is it that you take on more than you should? There are a lot of ways that our mongers lull us into a state of "safety" that isn't really serving our higher purpose. It isn't helping us get to the next thing.

Once we know the behaviors we engage in, then we can start paying attention to those behaviors and start catching them. Today, I knew that I was doing the numbing and I wasn't really showing up. I was just kind of jumping from thing to thing, and I was really unconscious in what I was doing. That's when it hit me. Wait a minute; your monger's in charge here. Your monger's running the show.

We need to slow down and pay attention and notice when our monger is in charge. That is the key, and then we can implement ASK. We can implement ASK in a sincere, concrete, really showing up way. Not just a yeah, yeah, yeah, let me run through these three letters like I was doing earlier today. But like a let me pause and really do this so that I can get my biggest fan in charge and have my monger be quiet for a little bit.

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Episode 074: A.S.K. Part 3 Slowing Down and Seeing the Big Picture

My system for quieting your Monger (inner critic) and hearing from your Biggest Fan.  In which I chat about stress, Mongers, BFFs, and the potential healing power of Tim Horton's doughnuts.

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Hey everyone, I am so excited to be back here with you guys on the podcast. I'm back committed to my weekly shows, and so this week, we are continuing with A.S.K., which is the system I use to quiet my monger, and I talk about the system more in my book that's coming out on Tuesday. I can't wait, I'm so excited!

Okay, so today, we're moving on to the Part III of A.S.K. In Part I, which was two weeks ago, I talked about an overview of A.S.K. and what the process was. In Part II, which was last week, we just did A, which acknowledge your feelings. Then this week, I'm going to combine the last two, the S and the K, because it's easy to do it in one episode.

Last week we acknowledged our feelings. This week we're in the S of A.S.K., and S is slow down and get into your body. If you've been listening to my podcasts for a while, you know I'm a huge believer in this idea of happiness hacks and quick little weekly ritual challenges that get you into your body. I used to do a weekly ritual challenge every week with my podcast and on my newsletter and Instagram to encourage people this process of just getting into your body for 30 seconds.

So this doesn't have to be a huge meditation or a process of slowing down intensely. For those of us who are Type A personalities and go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, goes, which raise your hand if you can relate to that, the idea of slowing down and getting into your body is like the worst thing in the world. It is the last thing you want to do. Even myself, who knows how important it is, sometimes slowing down and getting into my body is extremely challenging, so I like these short mini ways that we can slow down and get into our bodies.

Something as simple as touching your toes, doing a quick neck roll, moving your neck from side to side, reaching up to the sky, doing some stretches, there are thousands of them. If you listen to any of my podcasts from last year or the year before, you will hear a weekly ritual challenge every week to give you some ideas. There are also more ideas in the book on how to slow down and get into your body.

When you're doing this process of A.S.K., it is implemented because you're being harassed by your monger. Your monger is basically being mean and nasty, and you need to hear from your biggest fan. That's the goal here. So the example I'm going to use today is a personal example for me from last week. I have recently decided to cut out sugar in my diet because white sugar had become a major food group, and so I needed to cut that out as well as adding more fruits and vegetables.

The thing is, I feel amazing doing it. It's one of the easiest switches I've ever made. I definitely miss sugar, but the benefits I'm getting are really positive, so I highly recommend it if anyone wants to try. I'm not being super militant. It's just white sugar like candy and cookies and desserts, that's mainly where I'm at with this. I've been doing that for a while and this week was an extremely stressful week.

I had a lot going on, it was a little overwhelming, so I noticed my monger was really chiming in a lot this week because that's when they tend to come out is when you're feeling overwhelmed. Ironically, when your monger comes out, then what tends to come out to "get your back" is your B.F.F. The B.F.F. is what I consider to be false self-compassion. So false self-compassion is the idea of go ahead, do whatever you want. It will be great, just go ahead and do it. Whatever you need, just do it. Doing what's fun and easy and isn't really there to hold your feet to the fire or make you feel more productive. They're just there to have a good time and make you feel better at any cost.

So backing up to I have cut out sugar in my life and had a really stressful week so my monger is chiming in telling me how much I'm doing everything wrong and how much I'm missing the boat. So I'm walking past Tim Horton's and my B.F.F. is like, "Go girl. Get some TimBits my friend. You really need some doughnuts. This will make everything better. Doughnuts will make everything better. You've had a tough week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're doing this sugar thing, but come on, TimBits, you'll just feel so much better."

So I went into Tim Horton's, and I got some TimBits and headed out the door. As I was walking out the door I was like okay, wait a minute. Do I want these TimBits? I've worked hard to get sugar out of my system, and sugar does not work well in my system and is this really what I want? My B.F.F. was like, "Yeah girl, you do because this week has sucked."

So I just want to put a pause in here to say that previously in my life, even a year ago I would have totally, and I mean Totally with a capital T, grabbed those TimBits and ran and would have believed every bit of that B.F.F. and would have thought this will fix everything. This will make everything better. I would have been wrong, but that is the power of the B.F.F. Just the idea that I know you're in all this emotional distress and I know all these things are happening that are out of your control, but doughnuts girlfriend, that's the key.

So now I can kind of pause when I hear that message and think really doughnuts? Is this really what's going to fix this? So at that moment, I paused as I was walking back to my destination with my TimBits in hand. I paused to A.S.K. and to acknowledge what I was feeling, which was stressed and overwhelmed and vulnerable and lonely and all those yucky feelings that we don't want to be feeling. Then I slowed down and got into my body.

That was simply just rolling my neck from side to side and feeling that I had a body underneath my head because that's what happens when we get into this monger B.F.F. fighting is we lose track of our bodies, and we're just in our heads. So just doing a simple stretch can slow us down enough to be like, "Oh yeah, I have a body here and how does my body feel right now?" Well, it feels stressed and really, my stomach's kind of upset and TimBits might not taste good with this upset stomach I'm having. It might not taste really good.

So just to give you some perspective on the slow down and get into your body.

Then I was able to kindly, kindly, that is the K, kindly pull back to see the big picture. When I pulled back to see the big picture, I was able to recognize TimBits, not so much going to make this better. It's not going to solve all your problems and TimBits; they taste good, so maybe having one or two TimBits, just experiment with it just to see how, you haven't had sugar in a while, let's taste some TimBits. Now's the time. You've got them, let's see what it tastes like.

I was able to kind of, I think of it as expanding your brain, giving yourself some wiggle room to kind of get out of that black and white thinking, which is the monger and the B.F.F. They go back and forth in you're a loser who can't control herself to go ahead, do whatever you want. It's been a really tough time. It's that black and white thinking that keeps us trapped, so by kindly pulling back to see the big picture we can be like, "Wait a minute, there are a lot of options here. I could throw away the TimBits. I could eat two TimBits and throw away the rest. I could give the TimBits away. I could eat the whole box of TimBits. I could eat the whole box of TimBits and feel great. I could eat the whole box of TimBits and feel awful."

There are lots of options here, so it goes on and on and on. That is why the word kindly is so key in this phrasing, because it needs to be I think kindly pull back to see the big picture. I can give myself some grace while I look around and see what the options are. So kindly pulling back, I could say to myself, "Okay, we've worked really hard to get sugar out of our system. It was not easy initially and do we really want to go back to that eating pattern again when it wasn't really serving us?"

I'm able to pull back from the idea that bad things are happening, you need to reward and into the idea of isn't the reward being kind to yourself and giving yourself food that makes you feel better and doesn't upset your stomach? What I ended up doing is I ate two TimBits. I gave myself, I pulled them out, and I sat myself down. I wasn't just eating them on the run. I sat myself down, I was like, "You're going to eat these TimBits and taste what they taste like. You're going to taste them, so you're either going to enjoy them and savor every bite, or you're going to be like yeah, I'm not so much on the TimBits."

I was shocked to find it was yeah, not so much on these TimBits. They weren't all that. I wanted something different. It didn't taste that great. So at that moment, it was just like oh, I don't want these TimBits and I was able to put them aside. The part about that that I want to share that was most amazing was that it was at that moment that time there may be another time where TimBits taste fabulous, and I eat the whole box, and that's okay.

But in this moment, the TimBits weren't that great and I ended up putting them aside and actually ended up throwing them away, which is a shock. I don't think I've ever thrown away TimBits in my life. The idea is that the monger and the B.F.F. keep us in this militant thinking, so if I throw away the TimBits this time, then I'm always going to throw them away. If I eat all the TimBits in the box, then I'm always going to eat all the TimBits in the box. It's recognizing that for this moment this is the choice I'm making in this moment right now and I may make a different choice around TimBits or sugar or fruits and vegetables next week.

All I have control of is at this moment. So that's the power of A.S.K. because it slows us down, it gets us out of that black and white thinking, and it allows us to see the variety of options. For those of us who are driven by perfectionism and people pleasing and go, go, go, go, go mentality, that act of giving ourselves grace and getting into our bodies and seeing the big picture is miraculous.

I am a huge fan of this system, obviously. It has been years of research and coming and making it happen, and the most amazing part of it is that even myself, every time I practice it I'm just like, "Wow, this really works. Wow, this really is a different way of looking at it." So I'm just excited to share it with you guys and I hope you can implement it in your own life to play around with it and see how it shows up for you.

The idea of getting rid of that black and white thinking and the arguing, constant arguing between the monger and the B.F.F. and bringing in the Biggest Fan who says, "Wait a minute, they're freaking TimBits. They're not miraculous. They're not going to heal everything, and they might taste good. Let's experiment here. Let's see what can happen with this."

That's A.S.K. in detail. There's a lot more detail about this in the book. I'll be talking about these concepts more as the months go along and diving into more about the inner critic and the monger, so I hope you will stay tuned for that.

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Episode 073: A.S.K. Part 2: Acknowledge What You Are Feeling

My system for quieting your Monger (inner critic) and hearing from your Biggest Fan. First step: Acknowledge What You Are Feeling. I promise it isn't as painful as it sounds.

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Hey everyone, I am so excited to be here. I'm excited to have you listening. If you have not listened to last week's episode, I highly recommend you go back and listen to Episode 72. It kind of kicks off this series that I'm doing, which is in honor of my upcoming book called The Happier Approach: Be Kind to Yourself, Live Happier, and Still Accomplish Your Goals, which is coming out January 30th. I wanted to do some teasers to that, give you some information about the content that's going to be in that book, encourage you to pre-order the book because I think this book is a game-changer, and I'm very excited about the content in it.

And I wanted to give a little background story into how the book got written and how the idea came about. For years I would teach these classes on how to quiet your inner critic, and in the classes, I would do what I've always heard to do, what I was taught to do, what I taught other people to do, all the books I've read, talked about two things.

One, find your inner critic, you know, get to know her and be able to pull her out of yourself, so the key I was taught is to make the Monger become another person that you realize that wait, that's a Monger talking, and that's not myself talking. That's a voice that's separate from me, which I still do in my work around Mongers.

But the second piece was to then be self-compassionate and be kind to yourself. So step one, really get to know your Monger. Step two, be self-compassionate. And so I would teach classes on this topic, and I worked with my clients in really getting to know their Mongers and being able to draw pictures of their Mongers and understand the themes their Mongers had and what their Monger talked about. We would spend lots of time on the subject of what does your Monger look like. Then we would do a little bit about "be kind to yourself," and it was always like this frivolous be kind to yourself part.

A couple of years ago, I was teaching this class, and I taught it to a group of women that I know well, and one of them, who's a very close friend of mine, came up to me after, and she was like, "It was amazing. You did a great job. I love the presentation. It was absolutely fabulous. It doesn't apply to me, though, because I still need my Monger. I won't get anything done if I don't have my Monger."

And we laughed and joked around about how her Monger was helping her, blah, blah, blah. As I got home, I realized that's kind of how I feel too, that I won't get anything done without this Monger. So from that point on, I stopped teaching as much about the Monger. I pulled back because I was like, this isn't working, A, and B, I'm getting eaten alive by this Monger, and I don't quite know what to do with it because I have a secret belief that I need my Monger.

So, way back years ago, she put the notion in my head that we need a different way. So I figured out after years of working on this and researching, and doing my own work and helping clients, that it wasn't so much that we needed to do this big piece about getting to know our Monger and understanding her. It was more about part B, which was how to be kind to yourself. That was the piece that had so much complexity and so much depth to it, and we would just do this blanket "be kind to yourself" piece.

The book The Happier Approach dives into that piece. Exploring the piece of what does our Monger look like. But, more so, what does it look like to not have something telling you what to do all the time, and what does it look like to be kind to yourself and how does that work when we're so used to be nasty to ourselves all the time? That's kind of a backstory on how this all got involved, and I just was talking to that same friend earlier this week. I had given out a free copy to the group that had come to that presentation I had done years ago, and I called her and said, "You are part of the reason this book exists because you challenged me by saying, 'Wait a minute. I love my inner critic,' and she was like, 'I don't love my inner critic. I just need it,' and I was like, noted, I totally get that. It's for those of us who have a love-hate relationship with our Monger, and we know we don't want it to be in our lives. It drives us crazy, but we can't imagine a life without it."

So that is the spirit of this book, The Happier Approach. With that, last week, I talked about the three steps I think are necessary to bring in what I call the Biggest Fan. And the Biggest Fan is the person in our head, similar to the Monger, except the Biggest Fan wants us to get stuff done. She is supportive of us and is wise and kind. This is the voice that is kinda quiet, probably for most of us because you're probably not used to hearing that voice because your Monger is just so loud and so overwhelming.

The Biggest Fan voice is very quiet, but she keeps us on our goals. She always knows what's best for us, and she is very kind and wise and pushing us toward our goals. What I like to say is that there's the Monger who's the voice that's continuously berating us. There's the B.F.F. who is the voice that's like, "Go ahead. Do whatever you want." I call her our false self-compassion, so a lot of us think self-compassionate with ourselves, but in reality, we just have a B.F.F. The B.F.F. and the Monger argue and go back and forth all the time. They're like siblings constantly fighting.

And then there's the Biggest Fan, who is the voice of wisdom and kindness who says, "You can do this. It's okay. It's going to be hard but let's keep plugging along." To channel the Biggest Fan, when we hear our Monger talking, we need to engage in what I call A.S.K., and we need to ask to hear from our Biggest Fan. A.S.K. is an abbreviation for Acknowledging what you're feeling, Slow down and get into your body, and Kindly pull back to see the big picture.

So last week, I did an overview of A.S.K., and this week I want to dive specifically into Acknowledging what you're feeling. The first thing I want to say is that no one wants to acknowledge what they're feeling, and I get that. You know, I joke that I went into therapy so I could figure out my feelings and be able to justify them away, and I would never have to deal with them at all. It isn't so much I am the opposite of most therapists, and I hate feelings, especially those negative, you know, sadness and anger and anxiety and fear. Those are hard to deal with.

For a lot of us, we were taught let's just pretend they don't exist. Just keep moving on. Just keep soldiering on. Think positive. Be grateful. Whenever those negative feelings come up, just push them down and soldier on and forget they even exist. The idea of acknowledging your feelings is scary and is one that people are going to be like, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that." So bear with me. Keep listening. I promise it's not as painful as it sounds.

Let me give you an example of what I mean by Acknowledge what you're feeling and why this is so important. Let's take the example of you're caregiving for an elderly parent. Your Monger steps in and is like, "You're totally dropping the ball. They are unsafe in their home by themselves. I can't believe you're doing this. You suck. You're a terrible daughter. How can you be doing this?" And just really hammering you.

And so, the ability to acknowledge what you're feeling is simply to pause and say, "Oh my gosh. I am so scared that one day I'm going to be sick like this. Are my kids going to be able to take care of me? Am I going to be a burden to someone?" Or, "Oh my gosh. I'm so scared of losing my parent. It just makes me so sad to think that they may not be here one day." Or, "I am so angry that this disease has taken over my life and my parent's life, and I just don't know what to do with all this anger I'm experiencing."

So the idea of just being able to label it and own it, and what we do is when our Monger comes in and says, "You shouldn't be feeling this way" or "You shouldn't be upset" or "You should be doing a better a job," we immediately jump into, "Okay, I need to be sucking this up, and I need to be doing this differently."

And so we immediately go into justifying our behavior and justifying what we're doing or trying to rationalize it away. "So I shouldn't be feeling scared. That's stupid because it's going to be fine. This isn't going to happen to me" or "I have kids, and that's what they're there for, and they'll take care of everything."

So we jump into denial. We jump into a superb rationalization. We don't give ourselves the, "Oh sweet pea, you're right. This is so hard right now." Instead of acknowledging the feeling and giving ourselves some grace around that feeling, we immediately jump into fixing it, avoiding it, or stuffing it down. That's the beauty of acknowledging what you're feeling. It's just allowing a little space to come in so that you can hear the "It's totally understandable you're feeling this way." That's all you have to say. "Wow, this must be hard."

And I love the phrase, "Oh sweet pea." It's just a term of endearment that I say to myself. For me, I know that's what the Biggest Fan would say to me is, "Oh sweet pea. Oh my gosh, this is so hard. You're right. Let's give yourself a little room here." That immediately just relaxes everything—the minute you acknowledge and give yourself the permission just to feel that.

You know, a really simple example is a lot of us are exhausted. We're so tired from jumping from thing to thing and running and pushing ourselves so hard, and the minute we admit, "Wait a minute. I'm a little tired today," a Monger jumps in with, "What? How can you be tired? You got eight hours of sleep" or "You're supposed to be superwoman" or "You have too many things to do. You can't be tired. This can't be happening."

Instead of softening and saying, "It's not a personal defeat that I'm tired. I'm just tired. That's all it is." That piece of acknowledging what's going on and giving yourself that trust to say, "I don't have to keep denying a large part of my life. I can just make room for it here. I can acknowledge that this is happening, and it doesn't mean I need to do anything."

When I acknowledge, "Wait a minute, I'm tired," then I can pull back and see is there a chance for a five-minute nap today, or can I go for a walk and try to re-energize? How can I take care of myself? When we spend our lives in justification and analyzing it, that's a huge one that we do. We just analyze the feeling. Well, why am I feeling sad? The analyzing it is trying to find a justification for why you feel sad, and your Monger will never give you the justification. That is the power of just saying, "I'm just going to own it. I'm just going to own that. I'm sad. I don't have to find a reason for it. I just am going to label that it's there, and that's what I'm feeling." That's all step one is about.

Now, a lot of times, people have resistance to this step because we are so afraid, those of us that have the love-hate relationship with our Monger, we're so afraid that we're going to be whiny or needy or overly emotional. To the minute it comes up that I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling scared, in rushes the Monger saying, "You're needy" or "You're too much." So start recognizing, "Wait a minute. By acknowledging the fact that I am sad right now, which is a pretty normal human reaction to a parent being sick, am I being overly emotional? Am I too much? No. You're pretty normal here."

So the idea that we who have trained ourselves to keep it down and stuff it down and soldier on, any emotion that comes up that is slightly less than positive, we totally hammer ourselves with it. To start recognizing how often you do that, and the pressure and the stress that is caused by pushing down our feelings is so overwhelming. It just amplifies everything ten-fold.

So all it involves is acknowledging, acknowledging what you're feeling, simply saying to yourself, "Oh my gosh. I'm feeling sad right now." Now trust me. I know there's a lot of pushback around this concept. I know that the idea of doing this is scary, and your Monger is going to flip out, but what I want you to do is practice it this week. This week when you notice your Monger talking, and you're feeling especially hammered, stop and say, "What am I feeling?" Just start labeling it. "I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling scared. I'm feeling angry." No justification is necessary. No positive thinking necessary. No gratitude is necessary. Just labeling the feelings. That's all I want you to do. Step one, acknowledge what you're feeling.

Okay, so that's Acknowledge. The first step in A.S.K., how to channel in your Biggest Fan. This is all from my book called The Happier Approach. So that's the show. Thanks for listening.

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Episode 072: The Power of A.S.K.

Today I am sharing my system for quieting your Monger (inner critic) and hearing from your Biggest Fan

+ Read the Transcript

Hey everyone, I am so excited to be back. It has been quite a while before Thanksgiving, before I did a podcast. I have missed you all, and I hope you had a fabulous holiday season and had a good time with friends and family, and were able to find some peace and joy in your holidays. Today, I want to talk about the power of ASK. ASK is the abbreviation for the system I use to call in my biggest fan.

The system is going to be talked about in my upcoming book. It's coming out on January 30th called the happy approach. In the happy approach, I talk about this idea. Because the book is coming out at the end of this month, I wanted to give you all a sneak peek into what the system is all about and what I mean when I say ASK.

Today, I'm going to go over just kind of a brief introduction to ASK. And then, over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be diving into each letter in more depth. And so, you can get a sneak peek before the book comes out on January 30th, and hopefully, you will want to buy and learn more about the system. I am so excited about this 'cause it is one of those things that every time I practice it, I'm like, "Oh my God, this works!" I'm just shocked that the system that I came up with really works.

It is something I developed, yes, but the idea of it is nothing new. Personal development and self-help it's all pretty much the same. You have to feel your feeling; you have to get into your body; you have to see the big picture. That stuff is universal. This system works for me and my clients who tend to be more type A, super driven, carry a lot of stress, carry a lot of expectations for themselves. Their Mongers just really run the show. And so, this ASK system is for those of us who are overwhelmed by our Mongers. I have found, and my clients have found, that it really works.

That's the thing I'm most excited about. Because for years, I tried to do it the way everyone kept telling me to do it. To be grateful and to think positively, and to argue with my Monger, tell my Monger how much I loved her. That just did not work for me. So, I have spent some time trying to find something that would. And so, I came up with ASK.

ASK is three parts. A, acknowledge what you're feeling. S, slow done and get into your body. And K, kindly pull back to see the big picture. How it works is when you are getting attacked by your Monger, and that's a big step right there. Just to be able to hear yourself getting attacked by your Monger. In the book, I have a lot of resources on how to start recognizing your Monger. But we've talked a lot about the Monger here, and a lot of those myths and all that stuff. Hopefully, you have a little bit of a head start on what your Monger sounds like.

When you start hearing your Monger, the first thing I do is I usually say, "Okay, I need to hear from my biggest fan." So, I ask to hear from my biggest fan, and the first thing I do is acknowledge what you're feeling. This is a huge, huge step that for those of us who have been raised with suck it up buttercup and soldier on, the acknowledging what we're feeling piece is challenging. I actually wrote something about this on Facebook this week because everyone's been talking about the Oprah speech, which was absolutely amazing, the Golden Globes.

Everyone keeps talking about the idea of speaking your truth and how powerful that is. And I have big-time red flags that go up around that. First, if we're going to practice speaking our truth, we need to practice listening to other people's truths as well. It is one thing to speak your truth; it's another thing to have it be heard. We, as humans, just really need to practice our ability to listen to that. But that's for another podcast. What I think is, when we're speaking our truth, we need to start speaking our truth with ourselves. I've talked about this here about labeling what we're feeling and owning it, there is a podcast episode I did a few months ago, and that's what I'm talking about. Acknowledging what you're feeling, I'm feeling sad, or I'm feeling scared right now, or I'm feeling overwhelmed.

A great example of this would be, this is an example actually from a client this week. She was saying that her Monger was telling her, "You really should get some work done." It was a Sunday; she wanted to watch the Golden Globes, she didn't really want to do some work. Her Monger was like, "You need to be working. What's your problem? You should be working from home." We went through the ASK process, and she was like, "Well, acknowledging what I'm feeling, I'm feeling annoyed that my Monger is talking to me."

And I was like, "Yeah, but go a little deeper and acknowledge what you're feeling. You're feeling scared that you're going to lose your job. You're feeling overwhelmed with all the work you have to do. Angry that you have so much to do," etc., etc. I asked her to go a little deeper beyond. I'm just feeling tired, or I'm just feeling annoyed at my Monger, to be like, "Wait, I'm feeling scared that I'm behind and I'm going to lose my job. I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the work I have to do. I'm feeling angry that the deadlines are approaching, and I don't know what's up next."

So, to dig a little deeper, acknowledging what you're feeling is key. But when you're first starting this, if you can just say, "Oh no, I'm tired," or "I'm overwhelmed," or "I'm scared right now." 'Cause we tell ourselves, "Hurry up, move on, get it together, what's your problem?" We don't acknowledge what we're feeling. That process of acknowledging what you're feeling starts to slow your body down and get into what's happening. And then you could move on to S, which is slow down and get into your body.

And slow down and get into your body is simply one of the weekly rituals that I've talked about here every week. One of the ideas of wiggle, or dance, or touch your toes, some way of getting in your body. That just forces you to slow down; the power of that is incredible to me. The power of slowing down and getting it to our bodies is truly life-changing, even if it's for 10 seconds. Ten seconds, 20 seconds, it doesn't have to be five minutes. If you do five minutes, that's great. But for a lot of us, that's just so overwhelming to do five minutes. And so, the idea of acknowledging what's going on, slowing down and getting into my body for 10 seconds, and then K, kindly pulling back to see the big picture.

We'll go back to my client example who acknowledges what she was feeling, and she's feeling scared that she might lose her job. S is slow down; she got into her body, touched her toes or whatever, and then K kindly pull back to see the big picture. Well, the big picture could be, "Okay, I'm ahead of the deadline." The big picture could be, "I'm behind the deadline. I need to get more time in. Where can I get that time in?" Or maybe, "I work better in the morning. So, I'm going to get up early in the morning and hit that." Or, "Maybe I'm going to start asking for help at work and get my coworker to join in and help me figure this out."

The power of pulling back and see the big picture is, you can give yourself some options that aren't necessarily, "Oh my gosh, I have to do this tonight. I have to work tonight at 9, but I want to watch the Golden Globes." And our Mongers push us so hard without really seeing the big picture because our Monger lives in black and white. To her, it's work now, or you're going to lose your job. When in reality is lots of options there. Ask someone for help, do it at a different time, maybe crackdown on your distractions that you would have at work, and really focus more when you're doing your work. There's a lot of options. That's the concept of ask. When you hear your Monger, Acknowledge what you're Feeling, slow down and get into your body, and kindly pull back to see the big picture.

Now, a lot of times, when you hear these ideas, the first thing people will say when you're spinning out on anxiety is, you need to slow down and get into your body. The reason that is not the first step in this process is because that's the last thing we want to do. Truth be told, that's why I'm so amazed every time I get into my body that it works so well. Because I don't want to do it. And so, Acknowledging what you're Feeling gives you a little teaser, a mental exercise, a way to ease into that process of, "Oh wait, I'm putting myself first, I want to hear from my Biggest Fan, so I'm going to acknowledge what I'm feeling."

Those of us that the system works for love analyzing and justifying and can get good at that intellectualizing. Acknowledging what you feel allows us to do a little bit of that practice before we have to slow down and get into our bodies. And then, once we can slow down and get into our bodies, that gives us the chance to pull back and be able to see the big picture. Which is where the key is to unhooking that black and whiteness of the Monger.

That's the idea behind the Happier Approach, ASK, Acknowledge what you're feeling, Slow down and get into your body, and Kindly pull back to see the big picture. Like I said, over the next few weeks, I will be diving into each one of these concepts a little deeper so that you can figure them out and practice them in your own life. And if you want to pre-order the Happier Approach book, you can simply go to HappierApproach.com, and you can download an audio version or a Kindle version or a print copy, and we'll send that out to you on January 30th.

Okay. Usually, I do the weekly ritual challenge at this stage of the game in the podcast, and I'm going to be pausing that for 2018 and just giving that a little bit of break. Obviously, I still believe in the power of the weekly ritual because it's slow down and get into your body. Last year, my challenge was to do a different weekly ritual every week, and that happened. This year, I just really want you to be practicing getting into your body and figuring out which of the weekly rituals from last year you enjoy the most.

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