Episode 27: How to Approve of Yourself (Exactly As You Are)

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and this is Episode 27. I'm so excited to be here with you.

[00:46]
So, I wanted to start today as usual with a little plug for coaching. This week I've had some really incredible experiences with clients who signed up for a free coaching session and they were able to get some real relief from the painful story that their brain had created. And so if you've been thinking about coaching or putting it off for whatever reason—maybe it's too good to be true or you don't want to be that vulnerable or you really don't want to know what's going on inside of your brain because that could be terrifying—

I've been thinking about the topic for today's podcast for a couple of weeks now and I wanted to start by sharing a couple of stories by way of introduction. So first the other day I was listening to a recording of Brooke Castillo and she was teaching and coaching at a Business workshop that was held this spring. And at one point in the conference someone raised their hand asking a question about the best way to present themselves and their business to other people. And so, this woman she's asking this question and then Brooke says, "You guys are just so freaked out to be who you are."

You guys are just so freaked out to be who you are.

And we are, aren't we? Aren't we just like totally freaked out to be exactly who and what we are? Each one of us, if we're honest, has so much self-doubt and self-loathing and we wish we were different in so many ways and we're just totally freaked out to be who we are.

[02:31]
Okay, and so then a couple of Sundays ago we had our primary program at church which is where the children in our congregation put on the program after we take the sacrament and they sing and they share their thoughts and their testimonies and they share little stories and it's like totally the most delightful thing ever.

Anyway, at one point in the program all the littlest children in the congregation, all the four-year olds, were taking turns with the microphone and telling the audience how much Jesus loved them. And one at a time they're taking the mic and they're saying things like "I love Jesus and he loves me." And then somebody else would take the mic and they'd say, "I know Jesus loves me."

And then they gave the mic to this one little girl and she said, "I'm really sad because I don't think Jesus loves me." And this kind of quiet moment just descended on the room and I thought, "Yep. Deep down, I think that's the truth of it." Deep down I think that's what we all think. Like maybe we're all a little sad because there's a part of us that doesn't believe that we're lovable at all and we're all a little freaked out to be ourselves because we're pretty sure that we are unacceptable in some major ways and we're unworthy and unlovable.

And so today I want to talk about this idea about why it's so hard to love ourselves and why it feels so necessary and even automatic to hate ourselves and then to give you some thoughts and tools to help you as you do the work that no one else can do which is to approve of yourself and to love yourself.

[04:07]
So, I want to start with some groundwork in case you've forgotten. Okay, so first of all I want you to remember that self-loathing is the human experience. You are not unique in your wish to be different. No one is immune. No matter how beautiful, or talented, how rich, how holy, how good and kind and amazing you are. Every one of us questions our worth and hates things about ourselves and wishes things were different.

And I believe that is what happened when our spirit got put in a human body to have an Earth-life experience. The scriptures talk about the veil that separates us from God and doesn't allow us to remember who we were before this life. And I think this veil also means that we question automatically our worth and we hate our own selves.

I just want you to understand that your self-loathing and the feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness that you have is just the result of living in a human body and a human brain that's interpreting the world with you in it. That's it. There's actually nothing wrong with you and there's not even anything to fix about that.

So, I have lots of people who come to me as their coach and they say I really want to fix this part of me that doesn't like myself, right? Can you just fix this and make it so that I feel okay about myself, right? And they're all a little disappointed to find out that that is not going away. That coaching doesn't make you not human. That coaching doesn't remove your brain—as much as we'd like to.

[05:43]
And you might be disappointed to hear that too but I'm telling you that if you can just accept that this feeling of inadequacy is part of the deal and it's part of your Earth-life experience then you could stop fighting it so hard and giving up that fight alone will bring you immense relief.

So, to explain this I want to give you a little metaphor. So maybe you've had the experience with one of your kids when they're playing by the stairs and they get their head stuck in the banister. Right? I don't know if this happens in houses anymore, but once upon a time my parents lived in a house that had a banister that had these curved posts, so that the distance between the posts would vary depending on where you were on the post, right? And so there were some spaces between the post where a child could fit their head and but if they then shifted their position at all, and moved their head up or down, they would come to a place where the space between the posts was suddenly smaller and then they would think that they were stuck.

And they would suddenly start to panic, right? And they'd start to pull harder and harder and harder on the banister trying to remove their head and the harder they pulled the more scared they got and the more hurt they got. And pretty soon they're like screaming, right?

And in many ways, this is how resistance works in our lives. When we're in resistance to the human condition, to this feeling of self-loathing that we think shouldn't be there, then we pull against that feeling; we resist it. We try so hard to escape it and we pull harder and harder to try not to feel it. We think we shouldn't feel this way we think we should just love ourselves and then we only end up getting more stuck because there's even more reasons to hate ourselves, right?

So, when your kid is stuck in the banister you have to show them that they have to stop struggling and stop pulling and simply move their head up or down to where the opening is a little bit bigger to remove their head.

[07:38]
And when we can accept that self-loathing and inadequacy is the human condition and stop fighting it, we can allow ourselves to stop panicking about the fact that we feel so bad about ourselves then we can stop pulling against what is. And if we can relax into the idea that this is just how it is and nothing's gone wrong then we can calm down enough to see "Oh if I just move my head a little and think a little bit differently about this I can free myself and get relief."

What if you just relaxed and knew that this is the way of it? This is what it means to be a human? That the inadequacy and the self-loathing was not something to actually solve for but it's just an indication that you are having a human experience.

So I love this quote and I think I've shared it before that Catharine Thomas spoke about once and she talked about the pain that was an incident to fallenness, meaning that because we're spiritual beings having an Earth-life experience, there is inherent pain in that transformation into humanness.

And she said "As we came to earth separated from the presence of heavenly parents we died spiritually and, in a sense, we were orphaned. And now with memory veiled and much reduced from our premortal estate, somewhat as aliens in a world that is unfriendly to our spiritual natures, we may carry an insecurity, a self-pain that pervades much of our emotional life.

[09:09]
In other words, she's saying because we came to earth and we're in a sense orphaned from heavenly parents we feel vulnerable and inadequate. And then she asks, "Are we all just trying to soothe a fallen homesick self?"

Of course, you feel self-loathing. Not because you're worthy of loathing not because you're despicable and worthy of hate. You don't feel self-loathing because it's true. You feel it because you are human.

So, how's that for some good news, right? You're like, "Dang, I wish I would have started life coaching a long time ago." So, are you feeling 100 percent awesome right now? You’re like, "I'm so glad that I can expect a lifetime of self-loathing ahead of me. Thanks for that, April. Where do I sign up?" Right?

Okay, so here's where I thought where it can play such an important role. I'm going to give you three thoughts or ideas that will help you navigate your life as a self-loathing human so that you can get unstuck and find relief and learn to purposefully approve of yourself regardless of being human.

[10:23]
So, the first idea I want to give you is this.

1. There's something wrong with me and that's 100% okay.

So, what do I mean by this? As you know your brain is programmed to look for problems. And it sees you and who you are and the things you do as the biggest problem. So, your brain is hypercritical and hyperaware of everything you do. It notices automatically all the things you do wrong that may get you kicked out of the tribe where you will die. It's constantly comparing and ranking you to other members of the tribe to see which one of you is going to get eaten first. Right?

And even though we understand that we aren't under immediate threat of death our brains, our primitive brains, think we are, and they always want to know where we stand. And so, it's always taking stock of your faults and your weaknesses and evaluating your chances of survival. It's saying if you're a bad mother your offspring will die. If you're a bad friend you're gonna get kicked out of the tribe and die. If you're not as pretty or thin or smart, the tribe won't need you and you'll die. If you say something stupid people will know you're not the fittest and you'll get left behind to die. If you don't have as much money or education or retirement savings, then you won't have enough resources to survive and you'll probably die.

Pick any area of your life and your human brain will show you all the ways you are lacking. Your brain thinks there's something wrong with you. Of course, there's something wrong with you! There's something wrong with all of us, but you don't have to worry about it and obsess about it and think about it. Your brain wants you to obsess about it and think about it because it thinks it's going to die.

[12:09]
But remember there isn't a threat. So, you don't have to worry about what's wrong with you. In other words, your brain will keep showing you what's wrong with you because that's its job. But you actually don't have to pay any attention to that. You don't have to think about it at all or worry about it or give it a moment's thought. There is no danger. You're 100% safe and okay. Even though there are all these things wrong with you.

So, when we think there's danger we obsess about that thing. When we think there's a lion in that bush then we keep our eye on the bush. We watch the bush. We concentrate on that bush and we don't take our eyes off it. The same is true when our brain says there's something wrong with us.

When we think we're fat or ugly or lazy or dumb or weird or boring or too loud or annoying or untalented—or whatever it is, right? (these are just a few that I thought of off the top of my head)—when we think there's something wrong with us and it's dangerous to our survival, our brain will think about those things all the time. It watches for it. It concentrates on it. It won't let us take our mind or our eyes off it. Whatever we're focused on will be our full-time focus because our human brain thinks it's the lion in the bush. But it's not.

There is no danger. Nothing happens if you're fat. Nothing happens if you're ugly. Nothing happens if you have thick ankles or boring stories or an obnoxious laugh. Nobody gets eaten. What I'm trying to say is that your brain will always tell you there's something wrong with you. It'll find something. But I'm telling you can just ignore it when it does.

[13:57]
So, let me give you a little example of this. I have a client who has the thought a lot: "I'm not like regular people" and this it makes her feel ashamed. Her brain thinks it's really important for her survival that she knows that she's not like regular people so that she can do something about it and stay alive. It feels so important to listen to her brain right. It feels like this thought is super critical to her survival: "I'm not like regular people." Death is coming!

So, to show her how there's actually no danger here at all, I asked her, "Okay, what if it's true? What if you're not like regular people? Then what?" And so, like she thought about it for a minute, right? And she said, "Actually I don't even want to be regular. I'm not like regular people. And what if that's not bad?" Right? Her brain had sold her the story that the fact that she's not like regular people was terribly dangerous. But when she really thought about it, she realized there's no threat here. And given the choice she doesn't even want to be regular.

So, for you right now, you have a thought that your brain has given you that you need to be different in some way. You need to lose weight. You need to get out of debt. You need to be more patient. Whatever. A million things. You need to be a better friend. It goes on forever right? And it feels very important to your brain that you keep an eye on this thing so that it can ensure your survival.

For me my brain is always saying, "You're too loud. You're so loud. Why are you so obnoxious? Can't you just be quiet? No one wants to hear what you have to say." That's what my brain is saying all the time. That's that lion in the bush for me, right? And my brain thinks it would be better if I was quiet. I'd have a better chance at survival if I could just be quiet.

But what's going to happen if I'm loud? What's going to happen to my client if she's not like regular people? Nothing. There is no danger here. Your brain will notice problems, but you don't have to believe it. You don't have to give it a moment of your concentration or worry or time.

[16:11]
I like telling my brain, "Yes, and..." Right? When it says, "You're so loud." I'm like, "Totally. And it's not a problem." That's why I say: There's something wrong with you and it's 100% okay. That thought will give you power over all the things your lower brain is telling you. "Of course there's something wrong with me but it's 100% okay."

Aren't you glad you tuned in to find out there's something wrong with you.? This is like life coaching at its best.

[16:49]
2. The second thing that I want to give you is the idea that other people don't have to approve of you for you to approve of you.

We have this idea that if other people can say we're okay then maybe we can think we're okay and this feeling of self-loathing will go away. And so, we're waiting around for other people to approve us so that we can feel better and not hate ourselves.

But this is problematic in so many ways because 1) the feeling of inadequacy as I said isn't ever going away. 2) other people can't make us feel anything. Only our thoughts make us feel things. And 3) other people are living their own lives and they have their own self-loathing to deal with and so they don't have time to worry about approving of us in the ways that we want them to. So, if we're waiting for other people to approve us so that we can feel okay we're going to be stuck. And so that's why this idea that other people don't have to approve of me for me to approve of me is so powerful.

And I understand this is easier said than done. So, let's talk about why that is. Why is this so hard to let this go, other people's approval. It's really because as humans we're pack animals. We like to belong.

And in our house we have this little dog named Auggie and he used to sleep in a crate. When we bought the crate, our trainer said, "Get a crate that's just a tiny bit bigger than him because it will help him feel safer. He likes to feel enclosed and when he's in there he wants to feel safe. He's a pack animal."

[18:25]
Now somehow since our kids left for college, we've started letting Auggie sleep on our bed. (Don't tell my mom. She'll be so disappointed in me, right?) And so, we have this big king size bed with plenty of room for two people and a small dog. But it doesn't matter how much room there is on the bed, Auggie is snuggled right up next to me every night. And in the middle of the night, I'm like pushing him over to the middle of the bed. Right? And he just scoots himself right up next to me again. He likes to be tucked right into my legs or into my back or into my neck because he's a pack animal and he likes to be close and helps him feel safe.

And in many ways as humans we are the same way. We feel safer in the group which is great until we start to notice that we're different than other people. And there are things that are wrong with us and this makes us feel very insecure in the group. Just like Brooke said "You guys are so freaked out to be who you are" because then we might not fit in the group anymore and we want to fit in. Instinctively it feels safer to fit in.

So, when my daughter was a freshman in high school they had a spirit week. And every day of the week they had represented by a different decade. And the first day of the week was supposed to be 50s day and everybody's was supposed to wear 50s gear to express their spirit. And so like the night before I was making the poodle skirt. She really wanted this poodle skirt. And so I'm like at my sewing machine at eleven o'clock at night sewing the poodle skirt. And she gets it on she looks so cute. She's got a little white blouse. She's got her hair in a little bandana. She looks adorable.

I take her to school. We pull up to the school and she looks and all the kids that are walking into the school. Not one of them has any 50s gear on. And she's a pack animal. She's a human being. And she looks down at herself and she's like, "Oh no I can't go out there in this skirt because people are going to see that I'm different. And I stand out. This is very very bad." Right?

[20:35]
Her brain is completely freaking out. She's like, "You've got to take me home. I've got to change." Well I am the Mother of the Year and I had spent all night at my sewing machine and I was like, "Oh no. I worked on that skirt and you're going to wear that skirt. Have a nice day." I kiss her and out the door she goes. Right? Now eventually, she being a pack animal, found other animals who are dressed in the 50s gear, but her brain was freaking out because she was different. Right? And she noticed immediately how different she was. And this was seemed very threatening.

It's the same for us in any area of our lives. We start looking around at the people around us and comparing ourselves. We start to notice, "Oh my gosh I don't look like everybody else. I'm different than everybody else." And this is super terrifying to our lower brain. We know we're different but the human parts of us want so desperately to be the same as everybody else. And emotionally for each of us this kind of equates to if other people like us than we can like us if other people approve less than we can approve of us.

For example, I have a client who really wants her sister-in-law to like her. This will feel so much safer to her human brain, right? She'll be a part of the pack. She'll be acceptable if her sister-in-law likes her. And then she can like herself and she can feel okay about herself. I have another client who wants her father-in-law to approve of her and to think that his son made a good choice in marrying her. This will feel safer to her human brain. She'll belong to a pack. She'll be acceptable in some way if her father-in-law loves her. Then she can love her and she can feel okay about herself.

I'll give you one more, right? I have a client who wants his father to be proud of him. This will feel safer to his human brain. He'll be part of the pack and will finally be acceptable and worthy. If his father is proud of him then he can be proud of himself and feel okay about himself.

[22:38]
Do you see? As humans we only want other people to accept us and love us and be proud of us and like us so that we can accept and love and be proud and like ourselves. Being in the pack gives us the sense that we are okay. Being a part of the pack makes us feel like we're acceptable and lovable and worthy.

But the problem is, like I said before, when we're waiting for other people to make us feel anything, we're in trouble. Because what creates our feelings? Only ever our own thoughts. Other people's approval doesn't make us feel good. Our thoughts that we belong make us feel good. Your thoughts that you are enough make you feel good. Your thoughts that you are loved make you feel good. And you have 100% control over your thoughts.

So this is what you need to know. Your brain will seek outside approval because it's a pack animal, but you have to use your higher brain to provide your own approval because you are the only one who can do it. You are the only one who can make yourself feel good. You have to love you. You have to approve of you. You have to be proud of you.

And so, I'm sure you're thinking like, "How? Okay, I'm ready to love myself, tell me how I do this."

You just do. Right?

[24:01]
I hear you you're out there and you're saying like, but you don't understand. I got all these problems. I got this and this and this and I need to fix this and this and this. And if I love me, I might just stay like this. And we think in some way that approving of ourselves will then say that we approve of all of our behaviors and we'll let down our guard and then we'll really be in trouble.

So, I'm going to tell you a secret: Not approving of yourself isn't fixing anything. Your list of faults that is produced by your brain is never going away. If you're waiting for that list to be resolved before you can love yourself and approve of yourself, you're going to wait forever.

We want the people in our lives to love us and approve of us and be proud of us. But we are unwilling to do that for ourselves. How do we expect other people to do for us what we are unwilling to do for ourselves?

You just have to decide to approve of yourself, as you are, in your mess, in your inadequacy, with all your problems, with all the things you wish you were different. I don't want you to approve of you when you're the spiffed up perfect version of you. I want you to approve yourself right now with all the problems that your lower brain says you have. When I tell my clients you've got to love yourself, they're like, "Okay, let me fix these things and then I totally will."

I'm telling you like all those things that you think need to be fixing, that list won't ever end, and your brain will always make that list longer.

[25:40]
So, I have my clients do an exercise where I have them list 10 things a day that they really appreciate about themselves and two of them have to be things that that they wish were different so they can start to see it in a different way.

You have to love all the parts of you. There is no magic formula to approving of yourself. Until your dying breath your brain will believe you aren't lovable or likable or acceptable. But who cares? You just have to love yourself anyway.

So, another coaching friend gave me a thought the other day that I thought might help. She said, "When I see things about myself that I that I don't really like, I just say to myself 'There I am.' There I am. That is me. All of that all of that is me. Totally unworthy and totally worthy. Totally flawed and totally awesome. There I am. And I refuse to hate myself for any of it."

So, I check in with my health coach a couple of times a week and we track data like scale weight and measurements and pictures. And so, once a month I have to turn in pictures to my coach and this last month as you know has been a struggle. Right? And I really didn't want to take these pictures because I felt like I had gone backwards since the last time that I had checked in with pictures. And as I'm looking at these pictures to send to my coach, I remember that thought "There I am." Right? There I am. I am who I am because of the choices I made this month. And it's reflected in my body and there I am. And what if I could just love all of it?

You don't need other people to approve of you. That's your job. And it's not an easy job. It requires you to love all the parts of you even the parts you think should be different. So start with the idea: There I am. Start with accepting all of that. And when you see something you don't like or you notice a flaw, say to yourself, "There I am. That's me. There I am." You're working towards: "There I am. And I love who I am." This is continual work that you'll need to do over and over the course of your lifetime. (I know the good news just keeps on coming, right?)

[27:56]
3. Okay, so the last idea I want to give you is that you don't have to feel good about yourself to show up in your life.

You're like, "Geez where is the good news in this podcast? I thought you were going to make me feel better.” So stay with me here.

So many of us think that all I got all these things that are wrong with me and I got to fix them before I go after my goals and my dreams. And we're waiting for our human brains to stop working before we go and do things that require us to be brave. But recognize that if your human brain stops working, you're not going to be able to do anything at all. So you just have to know that the inadequacy and the self-loathing is a permanent human condition. Now what do you want to do?

So I want to remind you of something that may appear obvious but somehow is not, somehow as we're here in earth-life, it gets confusing. So this is what I want you to know: You are not your body. You are just in your body. You are also not your brain any more than you or your heart or your elbow or your spinal cord.

And we know this because we can observe our own thinking. We can think about what we're thinking about. We can notice our thoughts just like we notice our heartbeat. The US that is inside of our body is separate from our brain and our thoughts. And I like to call this our spirit and what I mean by this is this the part of you that is the authentic you, the eternal you, the real you—separate, completely separate, from your brain and your body and your feelings. And that separate part of you wants something more from your life.

[29:40]
This is the part of you that thinks about what's possible. It's the part of you that asks you to try and to strive to be calm and to evolve. And when we feel the pull of that higher part of us calling us to do extraordinary things. The human part of us then says "Yeah but you got problems. You should stay in the cave you should watch for danger and stay in the middle of the herd. Don't go standing out. You got problems and people are going to notice." It’s like, "Hey have you noticed your problems? Let me review them again for you." And then we stay small and quiet and safe.

But your spirit—that authentic you the part that you that is not your body and is not your brain—is not satisfied with mere survival. It's not satisfied with hiding. That eternal part of you knows you have things to do. You have ways to contribute and things you need to learn, and ways you need to grow and try. And it asks you to push yourself and share your gifts and be different—and be you.

So in order to fill the higher purpose of that spirit you need to think in a way that will allow you to be who you want to be. Even though you are a human being with problems. Even though there are a million and one things wrong with you.

So I really like the word "nevertheless." Right? And it's a word that appears in scripture, right? And it means like regardless, or anyway, and sometimes like "So what?" Right? And I like saying it to myself so that I can fulfill my higher purpose.

[31:15]
So when my brain says, "This podcast is terrible and you're terrible,” I just say, "Nevertheless. Nevertheless, I'm publishing it anyway." When my brain says "You don't know how to write a book. This is going to be terrible," I say, "Nevertheless. Nevertheless I am." Right?

When my brain says, "You are failing in every area of your life," I say,"Nevertheless. Here I am doing it and I'm going to keep trying." When my brain says. "You're a bad Christian. You're never going to figure this love thing out," I say, "Nevertheless I'm willing to practice and be bad at it until I get better at it."

And I just answer my brain with "Nevertheless." Because my brain, like your brain, tells me that I can't go out and accomplish what I want until I solve the fundamental problem of me. But I don't have time for that and neither do you. That part is not going away. You can't solve for it. Move forward. Say "Nevertheless" and move forward.

Okay, so do you feel better or worse? The

[32:29]
The truth is we think we're supposed to love ourselves. What if I told you that's not true? What if I told you that your brain is designed to kind of hate yourself? Right? In the scriptures it says that the natural man—that human part of us—is an enemy to God. And God is love. That a human part of us is an enemy to all that is good and glorious and loving inside of us. And it's only going to notice the bad.

So what if we just stop needing to change that? And instead we understood that, "Yes there are a lot of things wrong with me. And that's 100% okay?

Other people don't have to approve of me. That's my job. Approve of your self—problems at all. We can redirect our lower brain by thinking "There I am. There I am and I love all of me."

And understand that we don't have to feel better about ourselves to be brave and to contribute into the world exactly as we are, right? As they say, embrace your freak flag. Let that thing fly! Be flawed! Be a mess! Be the first draft! Your brain keeps saying in effect, "You're not perfect. You're not perfect! Hey, dude, you're not perfect!!" And I'm like, "Yeah, no kidding brain. I'm not supposed to be. I'm here to learn. I'm going to let myself do just that. I'm not perfect. Nevertheless, I'm going to live my life in the fullest way that I can."

[34:03]
If it freaks you out to be you or if you think that maybe you're unlovable or unworthy it's because you're having an Earth-life experience. You feel self-loathing, not because you're worthy of loving, not because you're despicable or worthy of dislike. You never feel self-loathing because it's true. You only feel it because you're human. Think about that.

You are having an Earth-life experience. You get to think thoughts and feel feelings and act in a body and learn and evolve and become because you are having an experience as a human being! And that my friends is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!