Episode 47: Don't Wait to Love the Life You Are Living

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to Episode 47 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I'm so happy to have you out there listening and joining me today on the podcast. You are not alone. I'm out here. You are out there. We are not alone. Isn't that awesome?

00:00:54:04 - 00:01:22:03
I thought about that yesterday as we were having the sacrament on our back porch together as a family. And I thought about how we really aren't alone, how we might be separated, but we're not alone. And how God was with us in that moment and in that moment how there were probably like millions of families breaking sacramental bread in their own homes around the world. And I love the thought that we are not alone and that we will never be alone. It's such a powerful thought.

So I talked to a client this week and he shared a thought that many of you might be having. And we were talking about his goals and he said, "You know I just don't think I'm disciplined enough to work on this now with like everything in like turmoil." And then his next thought was "I should have done more before everything fell apart. I should have been working on this sooner." And maybe something you can relate to this. Right? You might be thinking "What does it matter now?" Right? "I can't change when I'm just trying to survive daily life" or "It's just too late." Right? "The end is nigh, the end is here. And I'm not ready. Big surprise." Right? Now I want you to know that you aren't alone in thinking this but these thoughts aren't serving you.

And it's really interesting because as I have coached people over the last couple of weeks it's funny because you think it would be all about the virus, but really it's just the same garbage that's coming up and that our brains are constantly feeding us. Right? It's still always rooted in the idea that we aren't worthy and that we're failing and that we're fundamentally flawed. And even in a crisis, all of our negative thoughts about ourselves and our life just continue to surface.

00:02:30:29 - 00:03:15:09
And I want to encourage each of you who might be thinking like "It's too late and I should have done more earlier," I want to encourage you to sign up for coaching. I know it takes courage to sign up. And I know that you think you're too far gone and it doesn't matter anyway—that you can't change. But I want you to know that something amazing happens just when you sign up. Signing up to try coaching signals to your brain that you believe in yourself. Signing up for a free session to see what's possible for you and to see if coaching can work for you is where your transformation begins. It's saying to the universe to your brain, "I believe I'm worth it. I'm not giving up I believe in myself enough to want something else for myself."

And just because our world has dramatically changed it doesn't mean that the work on ourselves stops, right? Our becoming happens in sunshine and shadow and it is why we're here on Earth. And I'm here to help you as your coach to overcome your own human brain and become what you want to be, to become who you want to be. So I encourage you not to give up, to believe in yourself, and to sign up for a free session. You can do that at my website, aprilpricecoaching.com.

So I think one of the thoughts that has been most painful and detrimental for me over the last few weeks is the idea that this right now, what we're experiencing, is life on hold and that hopefully soon we can just get back to normal and get back to our real lives. Right? I want you to notice how this thought that seems almost positive, like we're going to get back to normal, is actually keeping me stuck and creating pain.

00:04:09:19 - 00:04:38:07
And I want to make a case that this thought makes where we are now seem unbearable in a way. Right? Like I need to escape and I need to get somewhere else, I need to get back to normal. And it makes someday in the future look so much more appealing than where I am now. And this just makes it so that the life I'm living now, it makes that life unacceptable in some way and it puts me in a position where I am waiting for a different version of my life to show up so that I can be happy.

And this is an easy trap to fall into as humans. Right? We think it will be better then. We think it we'll be better when we're skinny. We think we'll be better when we're married. We think well we better when we're divorced. We think it will be better when the kids are grown. We think it will be better when the kids come visit. We think we'll be better when we're out of debt or when our business reaches a certain point or when the economy improves. We definitely think it will be better when we are better. Right?

And when we do that we are missing the life we have for the life that we wish we were having and that we wish we were living. We're waiting for things to change in order to love our life. We're waiting until there isn't a negative 50 percent of our life or at least until the 50 percent changes so that it looks closer to like to twenty percent. Right?

00:05:25:00 - 00:06:01:23
And this waiting for a different version shows up in other ways as well. We are often waiting for people to change or be different. We are waiting for the people in our lives to be kind, or understanding or loving. Or, like in the case of our children, we're waiting for them to be thankful and obedient. We're waiting for our spouse to be different in so many ways. We're waiting for our sister-in-law or the president or our child's teacher to be different. We're waiting for the Relief Society president to be different and the bishop to be different. Like if they could just be different versions of themselves—our version of themselves—then we could love them.

Not only are we waiting for the alternative version of our life and the alternative version of other people who show up, we are also waiting for a different version of us to show up. We are waiting to love ourselves as well. We would really love it if a different version of us would show up. Sooner rather than later. We think that when we are different, when we accomplish something like a goal or a dream, when we start behaving in a certain way, when we develop certain habits or eliminate other ones, when we're the type of person who does X, Y or Z, then we can love ourselves. We are waiting for the acceptable version of us to show up, just like we're waiting for the best version of our lives or the best version of the people in our lives.

And so I want to talk today about loving what is and not waiting to be happy, not waiting to love your life, not waiting to love yourself. I'm going to talk about how to choose to love your life and the people in it and yourself exactly as they are without needing them to be different first.

00:07:00:26 - 00:07:20:10
So I want you to know that I speak from experience. This is the work that I have done in my own life and on my own self. And there was a time when I felt like I needed to change everything and I wanted everything to be different, especially myself, so that I could finally love my life and and accept the life that I was living.

So just to give you a little example of one of these areas, in 2011 after my husband's position got eliminated, he found a new job. And then we had to move and the housing market at that point had lost so much value that our house was only worth like half of what we paid for it and we couldn't sell it. We ended up losing the house and all the money that we had invested in it. And so he got a new job, we moved, and then we rented a house while we waited for our credit to recover from the loss of our other home.

And for years I did that, right? I just waited. I feel like I was just waiting for my credit to repair and waiting to be able to love my life again. And I waited for my life to restart. And waited to feel okay about myself. I waited to feel safe. I waited to feel secure. I waited to feel worthy and adequate and acceptable. And I felt like I was kind of like walking around on eggshells in my own life, just trying to wait it out until my life could start up again. And it was like putting myself in some sort of kind of waiting purgatory.

00:08:25:16 - 00:08:43:07
Now maybe in a way you have felt that way for the last couple of weeks. Like you're in some big waiting room with the rest of the world, right, where we're all waiting for it to be safe or waiting for real life to start again. We're waiting for the "all clear" to be able to go and spend money and be happy and to feel safe.

What I want to show you is that we feel like this, like we're on hold, because of our thoughts. So in 2011 through about 2016 or 2017, I had this thought that this wasn't my real life. I was waiting for my real life, my good life, to start. And I was in like some kind of time out. This wasn't how I was supposed to go. And so either I had messed up or the universe had messed up but now I just had to sit here and pay the price. I had to wait for things to be made right before I could live my life and before I could love my life. And for sure before I could love myself.

So I want you to kind of think about that for a minute and think about the thoughts that you've had over the past couple of weeks, not in a judgment way, but just as like a curious observer. Have you thought, "We just have to wait for things to get better?" Have you thought, "We just have to be careful for a while." Have you thought "Maybe none of this really matters anymore." Have you thought, "Let's just get through this and then we'll work on our goals." Have you thought, "Well everything's on hold for now. We can't predict what's going to happen."

00:09:53:24 - 00:10:13:15
What I want to offer to you is that these thoughts, and not the uncertain circumstances that we are in, are what are making you feel stuck and in limbo and on hold. And as I said in the last podcas, the circumstances have always been uncertain but our brain has made us believe that we could feel safe and secure because of the thoughts it had.

In February you didn't have the thought that you have to wait for things to improve or you didn't have the thought that now's not the time to work on this goal or that goal. We didn't have the thought that everything was on hold. These thoughts weren't being thought. Even though technically they were always available to us. Even though we live in just as uncertain a world, we didn't feel uncertain because we weren't thinking those thoughts.

Which is like so amazing, right? Like our thoughts have changed dramatically over the last three weeks and that has changed everything else. It's changed how we feel, it's changed what we do, it's changed how we show up. And because of your thoughts is why you feel so different today than you did three weeks ago.

00:10:58:03 - 00:11:25:06
But the thoughts you need to love every moment of your life, even this one where it's hard, are always available to us. Right now. Not in a week. Not when the quarantine is over. Not when the economy recovers. Not next fall when our kids go back to school. Just right now. Right now if we aren't loving what is and we're wishing that it could be different and a different version of life would show up, it's only because of the thoughts we have decided to think.

And so today I want to offer you some ideas to help you love the life that you're living right now whenever you listen to this podcast. Because they apply not only to our current circumstances, but they apply to the way we see the current version of our life at any time. Right? There's always a current version. There's always a current version of our life. There's a current version of the people that we live with and there's a current version of us. And no matter where you are in your life, you get to choose how you think about it and not wait to love it until it becomes a different version. So I offer you these thoughts as a way to think about the current version of everything in your life—right now or any time you want to.

Okay, so the first idea is that it is never better there than it is here. Life is 50/50 here. There's good and bad and it will be 50/50 there. There will be good and bad there. Now I know you don't believe me. I know you think it will be easier to love your life when things change. I know you think will be easier to love the people in your life when they change or yourself when you change. But this is never the case. There is always opposition it's always 50/50. That is the nature of our Earth life experience.

00:12:41:28 - 00:13:04:28
Your brain will always be able to find a problem, no matter how good life gets. It can find problems on vacation, right? It can find problems married. It can find problems single. You can find problems when you're doing all the things you want to do in your life and reaching all your goals. It still finds the faults. There are still like negative emotions. It's still 50/50.

And we kind of have this idea that there's an arrival point where life gets good and you just have to get there and then you can relax and be happy. And it's always in some distant place. It's never right here, right? I want you to know that you never arrive because it's never better there than it is here. And when you find yourself projecting your happiness or your security or your joy into the future, to some future version of you or your life, you need to remember that whatever you will think then, you can think now.

So let me explain this a little bit. When we imagine that we were going to feel differently in this alternate version of our life with this alternate version of ourselves or others, we think it will be because things will have changed. And that may be true, but the only thing that can change our feelings is our thoughts. So we'll feel better then, when things are "certain" or when we are a certain person or people behave in a certain way, because we will be thinking something different than we are now.

00:14:07:15 - 00:14:50:19
And you're like, "April. Yeah I know. I'll be thinking things are good. I'll be thinking I'll be safe or I'll be thinking good thoughts about me and others." But what's important to know is that the thoughts you will be thinking then are always available to you. That thought and all thoughts at all times are always available to you and you don't have to reach a moment, you don't have to arrive somewhere, things don't have to change including yourself to get permission to think whatever thought you want. Every thought is always available to you and you get to think whatever you want. Don't wait to be happy then. Think the thoughts right now that will allow you to love your life and yourself and others right now.

So let me give you a little example. So right now I have three of my kids who were at college. They're all at home now doing their courses online. Their semester looks very different than the one they had planned and I would say that the number one emotion they are feeling is disappointed. They are disappointed that it ended early. They are disappointed that the spring play they got cast in finally is postponed indefinitely. They are disappointed that the internships and the study abroad that they had planned have been canceled.

And if we could change the circumstance and "magic Presto!" them back into their lives, what would they be thinking? They would be thinking something like, "I didn't miss anything. My life is on track." What I want to offer you is that they can still believe these thoughts. They didn't miss anything. Their life is right on track. It was always going to be this way. They didn't miss it because it was never going to happen. Their life is on track because they're exactly where they should be right now.

00:15:48:21 - 00:16:22:10
Now let me be careful here. I'm not saying you have to love what is. You don't. You are allowed your pain. Whatever pain you want to feel is yours to feel. But it's so powerful to know that you're only in pain because of the thoughts you choose, because you have chosen a thought like "I missed out. My life is a mess right now and it shouldn't be." That thought and only that thought is what causes the pain. And choosing to love what is allows my children, and allows all of us, to love the life they're actually living right now.

So I want you to think about your life right now. I want you to think about what needs to be different in order for you to love it. What's the list in your head? What are the things that you think need to change in order for you to love your life? Or what are the things about yourself that need to change in order for you to love your life?What are the circumstances outside of you that you think will allow you to think different thoughts and love your life? What I want to ask you is, "What if none of those things had to change. What if nothing had to change and you could still love what is?"

So Pema Chodron and others have compared this idea to the weather. Right? There's different kinds of weather. There's sun, there's rain, there's wind, there's snow, there's like a million different kinds of weather. Right? But and people have different opinions about what weather is good and what weather is bad. But our opinion never changes the weather right? Our opinion changes our experience of the weather. So what has to be different for you to love the weather? Only your opinion. Only your thoughts about it.

00:17:25:01 - 00:18:00:11
So when we lived in San Diego it was always the same weather. Like I haven't lived there for 15 years but I can tell you what the weather is there today. Right? It's 72 with marine cover until about noon and then that's going to burn off. It's the same thing every single day. And when I lived there I hated that. I hated 72 with the marine layer that's going to burn off. Right? But it was never the weather. It was me. It was my opinion about the weather. My opinion was: This weather is boring. So what has to be different for me to love the weather? Nothing but my thought about the weather.

And it is the same with your life. What needs to be different in order for you to love it? It is only your opinion and your thought that it needs to be different. That it's not good that makes it feel so bad, right? It's only your opinion that sun is better than rain that's keeping you from loving it right now. So what if you could open up to the 50/50 and embrace all of it and choose on purpose to love all of it—the entire 50/50? You when you're in 50/50? Like you when you're 50 percent positive and 50 percent negative? You when you're awesome and you when you're at your worst? Your life when it is 50/50? Your life when it is awesome in your life when it is 50 percent the worst?

This is the human experience. All the weather. It won't be better there. There's always weather. No matter where you go there's weather. And maybe you're like, "April. I don't like rain. Like I just don't like it." But again I just would offer you that that is your thought and it's just as available to you to love rain as it is sunshine. So it's just as available to me to love 72 and a marine layer as it is to love a really good thunderstorm.

00:19:09:21 - 00:19:45:25
Okay, so I want to give you one more example of this that I hope will help you. So we have some friends that I've talked about here on the podcast before, named Zach and Tessie Friedli. And about a year after they got married, Zach went blind because his optic nerve began to swell for unexplained reasons. And then about a year after that, their oldest son, Dakota, had a brain injury in an accident and he could no longer walk or talk or eat or play or do the things that he used to be able to do. And in many ways nothing in their life had turned out the way it was supposed to. It felt impossibly unfair.

Tessie said that she and Zach kept praying and praying for miracles that would return their life back into the fairy tale, that would return their life back to normal. Back to the way that it was supposed to be. That Zach would be able to wake up one day and be able to see. Or that she was at the hospital she would pray that the next day she would open her eyes at the hospital and Dakota would recognize her and smile at her and things would be okay again.

And she said that the days when she brought Zach home from the hospital and he was still blind and the day that Dakota was transported home from the hospital and he was still unable to do all the things that he used to do, he was still injured and unresponsive, that those were the hardest days of her life. Because suddenly it was real. Like there was no going back. Like this was it. This was her life. This was her real life and it was a completely unacceptable version.

00:20:36:20 - 00:21:10:29
She wanted the version that she was promised. She wanted the version that she expected. She wanted the version that she deserved. She wanted the version where her husband could see and her son could walk and talk and play and do all the things. And on a much smaller scale, it's no different for us. On a much less painful scale. We want the version we expected and part of us thinks that's the version we deserve—that we've tried to do it right. And a part of us thinks that we deserve a life without bad weather. There's an expectation that little rain now and then are fine but there are limits to how much bad weather you can take.

So I just want to offer something that Tessie later recorded that helped her in the hopes that it might help no matter what the weather is outside for each of you. She said, "I remember so clearly one night sitting in bed crying—one of the many nights I spent crying and struggling after months and months of really hard days and nights—"

(So let me just interrupt this to say that because of their son's injury he had to have round the clock care. She said in those first few months all she did was feed him, exercise his body, wash him ,move his muscles, clean his trachea. And then they would start it all up again. Medicine, food, move his muscles, clean his trach. And they would just go like round the clock, right? They couldn't leave him and he required constant care. And all this and Zach is blind. Her husband's doing his part of it totally blind.

00:22:00:14 - 00:22:35:07
Their life was nothing like it used to be. And in many ways they were doing it alone. Like right now, we are all kind of suffering together and having a shared uncomfortable experience. But Zach and Tessie talk about how when their life was crashing down around them, everyone else was just living their life. One day their parents came to relieve them at the hospital and they just went to Target to get a little break and have a little rest. And she said it was so painful to see other people just living their lives like a regular Friday afternoon when their lives felt like they were ending. They were in the most excruciating pain of their lives.)

Anyway, this is what she said: "I remember so clearly one night sitting in bed crying—one of the many nights I spent crying and struggling after months and months of really hard days and nights—I remember wishing so badly that I could just fast forward life like 10 years. I wanted to feel happiness again and I had hope that I would. I just couldn't see how or when that would be. Sitting there that night, I could see the future me and she was happy. In 10 years, I was really genuinely happy. Suddenly I realized I could just be her anytime I wanted. It is what we choose that determines who we are and how happy we can be. And I could choose that anytime I wanted."

Now what Tessie figured out is the way she thought about her life is what mattered. Not that it changed the weather. Thinking about her life differently did not change the weather. It did not change her circumstances. It just changed her experience of the weather. It changed her in that moment of pain.

00:23:42:23 - 00:24:02:18
Later she wrote, "I have completely accepted God's will for Dakota and that has been a huge part in letting go of what I thought life should look like and finding joy in what life is." She let go of what she thought life should look like and found joy in what life is.

So the Friedli's example is so instructive to each one of us to give us real perspective on how we let go of life should look like and I really can't add anything to that, right? Like their example is so eloquent. But I do want to give you a few tools and questions that you can use to help you love what is about your life, about yourself, and the people in it, exactly as it is right now.

So the first question is, "What do I think I will feel when I arrive?" In other words, "When the different version of my life or the different version of me shows up what do I think I will feel? What is the emotion that I think I can't have now? What is the emotion that I am waiting to feel?" You can also ask, "How do I think I will feel when this problem is solved? How do I think I will feel when I'm different or he's different she's different or the situation is different?"

00:25:00:02 - 00:25:19:02
When you can identify the feeling then remind yourself that every emotion is created by a thought. However you think you will feel when you arrive is available to you right now. You are one thought away from whatever you want to feel. So then you can ask yourself, "What do I need to think to feel that way?"

For Tessie she had to think "I can be happy even here. I can be happy when I let go of the idea that it should have been a different way." Now I just want to add that the goal here is not to never feel bad. The goal actually is to feel the bad, to feel the rain, to feel the tragedy, and not need to change it. To also feel okay and to love your experience. And I know that that can be confusing. The goal is to feel bad and to also feel that it's okay to love this experience even when it's hard.

So I want to give you one more story to see if I can illustrate that a little better. So I recently heard the story that Oprah tells about when her mother died. And as you probably know Oprah's mother got pregnant with her when she was just a teenager. She was just young, like 15 or 16, and her parents were only together that one time and her mother was just not in a position to be able to take care of a baby. And so Oprah went to live with her grandmother and she slept in the same bed as her grandmother and her grandmother took care of her until she was about six.

00:26:29:07 - 00:26:52:25
And then when she was six, she was taken back to her mother and she said, "This is your mother. You're living with her now." And at the time Oprah didn't know that her grandmother was sick and dying and she couldn't take care of her anymore. So Oprah goes to live with her mother and the woman that Oprah's mother is living with looked at Oprah and she said, "I don't like this child. I don't want her in my house she's not sleeping in here."

And Oprah's mother instead of like defending her or moving or doing something to protecvt her child, she had Oprah asleep on the back porch like a dog. And she said that like when she was out there on the porch, she was terrified, right? She didn't know where her grandmother was. She was in this strange place on this porch where nobody wanted her. And she said she remembered praying to God. And she just prayed that he would comfort her and he would take care of her.

And she said in that moment she knew that she was on her own. But she also knew that it would be okay, that she would be okay, but very likely, she said, she also knew that things would get worse before they got better. And that's exactly what happened.

00:27:34:04 - 00:27:58:29
And a couple of years ago her mother was on her deathbed and even though Oprah had taken care of her parents financially she didn't really have a relationship with them, right? And she said, in this like period where her mother was dying ,she said that there were so many things in her life that had been left unsaid, that needed to be said, right? But she didn't know how to talk to her mother and she couldn't think of anything to say to her.

And she said her mother was in hospice, right? And they had all these like pamphlets about how to talk to people who were dying and she said like like one of them said like "Talk about the times that you felt joy together." And Oprah was like, "I have nothing to say. I can't remember feeling joy together." And another pamphlet said "Share what you've learned from them," and she's like, "I have nothing to say." And she didn't have one thing to say to her mother.

And so time went on and it became the last day that Oprah was going to be able to see her. Her mother was dying and she said on the last day she said, "I suddenly knew what I needed to say." And so she said to her mother, "Thank you for bringing me into the world. Thanks for not listening to all the people that said you should get rid of the pregnancy. Thank you for giving me my life. That was the only thing you needed to do. And I'm so grateful for it."

00:28:48:07 - 00:29:07:26
And then she said, "And thank you for being the person that you are. Because of who you are because of the experiences that I had as your daughter, I am who I am. I am who I am. And I love you for that." And she like wished her mother peace and expressed her love for her.

And what Oprah says about that experience is that she says we keep ourselves stuck thinking life would be better if it had gone differently. She said we we always think it "woulda coulda shoulda" happened a certain way. And she said, "I am at peace in my life because I never have the thought that it woulda coulda should have been different." She never thinks it would have, could have, should have been different. She never thinks it should have been different.

And that is it, you guys. Not to say that it is a hard but not to hate that it is. Not to say that it just feels amazing all the time but to know that it's not supposed to. Not to wish that all went according to our plan but to know that all of what has happened is necessary. That is where your power is.

00:29:58:15 - 00:30:19:05
Whatever you're struggling with right now—the circumstances in your life, the person you're married, to the person you are—know that it's supposed to be a mess. It's supposed to go wrong. You are supposed to have rain and sorrow and grief. Life was always supposed to be 50/50. There is no woulda coulda shoulda place where it isn't 50/50.

So often we think we deserve to be happy. We think we deserve to be loved. We think we deserve to have healthy children without accidents. We think we deserve to have perfect childhoods and we think our kids deserve perfect parents. We think we deserve to finish the semester. We think we deserve to be able to go to the store whenever we want. Says who?

What we deserve is the full human experience. What we deserve is the opportunity to learn what we came to learn. And we do that through the 50/50 experience. And that doesn't mean that you deny what's happening, right? You just decide what you want to think about what's happening.

00:30:59:02 - 00:31:35:14
Oprah didn't deny that she was unwanted and mistreated. She just decided that that was exactly what was supposed to happen and she was grateful for what it created in her. Tessie Friedli didn't deny that Dakota's accident was excruciating and the hardest work she has ever done and continues to take monumental effort in her life, but she knows it was the way it was supposed to be. And the fact that God didn't change it was because he had something else in mind—a different kind of miracle. And she's grateful for what it has created in her and in her family.

So I'm not saying that you have to look at the storm and the wind and the rain and say it's not raining, right? That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying you get to think about the rain, and feel wet, and feel the wind, and feel the experience, and not hate it. You can stop saying you don't deserve the rain. That's the part that you're in charge of. In other words, managing our minds and our thoughts is not about getting to a place where it doesn't hurt. Managing our thoughts is understanding that it's okay that it hurts. Managing our thoughts is understanding that it's supposed to hurt because it's 50/50.

Don't wait to love your life until it stops hurting, right? Don't wait for a place without pain or hardship to also feel the joy of it. It's 50/50 and it's supposed to be. Remember that it's not better there than it is here. This is your life. Don't trade the idea of an alternate version of your life for the one you are in. Ask yourself how you think you'll feel when the problem you're facing is solved and then recognize that any way you want to feel is 100% available to you at any time through the thoughts you choose. And don't get caught in the "woulda coulda shoulda" loop. Peace is knowing that it never woulda coulda shoulda been different. Instead our work is to love what is. Yes, it's hard and that's okay.

00:33:03:11 - 00:33:43:02
The last couple of weeks I keep thinking of that question Byron Katie asks: "Could it be that all along we have lived the life we always should have lived." Instead of waiting for things to be different, your agency is given to you to love what is—right now—in all its heaviness and in all its joy. And we get this opportunity not because it's perfect and not because it's supposed to be perfect but because it was perfectly designed for us, for our growth, through the 50/50 experience. And that my friends is 100% awesome!I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!