Episode 63: I Can't Believe How Wrong I Was

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think, and that my friends is 100% awesome!

Hello podcast universe! Welcome to episode 63 of the 100% Awesome Podcast. I'm April Price and I'm so happy to be here with you. How is your summer going? This is a summer unlike any other for sure, but last week my family and I were able to take a little vacation to the beach where we all got to be together for a few days. Enjoy the 72-degree sunshine. We got to ride our bikes up, and down the boardwalk, and go for donut runs at eleven o'clock at night. We played games, we reconnected, and it was heaven to be able to have all my kids together for a few days. I got to work out with my son which is always so enjoyable for me, and we just had such a good time. And then we came home, and my daughter started her mission that she is serving for our church and because of the pandemic, she started her training here at home, and so our home has become an extension of the missionary training center. And like I said I have never had a summer like this one in my life, and I hope that even with the pandemic that you're finding a way to enjoy this season, and create a space for connection this summer with those that you are closest to.

Anyway, while we were on vacation and laying on the beach I got to read a lot, and listened to podcasts, and I started like getting all of these ideas of things that I wanted to talk to you about. And so, today I wanted to start with this idea that was sparked for me last week, somewhere along the way in something that I read, or something that I listened to, someone mentioned this thought. They said "I can't believe how wrong my brain was."

"I can't believe how wrong my brain was." And that phrase I just can't believe how wrong my brain was has just kind of stuck with me. And I find myself thinking about it again, and again, "I can't believe how wrong my brain was." And I have to admit to you that I just kind of love it, right? Because here's the thing, as you know our brains just love to be right, and they love to see the world in a certain way, and think that like that is the way of things, they'd like to think that they know how things are gonna go for us. But, what I have found for me is that the best parts of my life right now, are the parts that my brain was completely wrong about. And really I find that the more wrong my brain is, the better my life gets. And so, today I wanted to talk to you about this idea and talk to you about all the things that my brain has been wrong about, in the hopes that you can look at your own life and start to question the things your brain is telling you, and start to wonder what would be different in your life if your brain was wrong about it.

So, I started making a list of all the things that I can't believe how wrong my brain was about, and I'm going to share that with you. And they're in no particular order, I just wrote them down as they came to me. So, first, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about my body, right? I thought I just had a middle-aged body that was compromised by past health problems. I had had cancer as a child, I had difficult pregnancies, it seemed like every time I went to the doctor with a problem, and said like "Something just isn't right." They could never figure out what it was, and I thought that my body was just kind of broken, and not only that, I thought that my body could never look athletic or healthy, right?

4:00
I thought that I would always have pain, and that I would probably die young, and believe it or not that is what my brain thought about my body. That my body was less than in so many ways, right? That my body just didn't have the capacity that other people had, and that a life of pain, and fatigue, and extra weight was like all I could really hope for. I just can't believe how wrong my brain was about that. I also kind of thought I had to hate my body. That everybody hates their body, and that's just the way of life. Why should I be any different? I used to believe that there was nothing I could do about my body except hate it, right? I used to believe that you either won the genetic lottery, or you didn't. And I've told you guys this before, but when I first started lifting weights at the gym, I thought all those guys, and girls that had muscles, and that were strong, that they were just born that way, and that they were just different than me, right? That I was like a subspecies, or they were just like built differently, right?

And I still remember the day when I realized that every person that I walk past at the gym where I could see their muscles, I realized suddenly they had worked for that, and I was like in total awe, right? Just like standing at the gym, like staring at people who had put in so much effort, and harness the power of their own mind in their own body to create all of those muscles. It was like an utter shock that they had created it, because all this time my brain thought, "Well that's just the way they are." And I also used to believe that it was too late for me to do anything about my body, that I was middle- aged and it was too late to really change anything, right? I had learned in biology class, I was a biologist, that by the time you reached the age of 25 your body starts dying, and the more cells die every day than are regenerated, right? And I was nearly like two decades past that, so surely it was way too late for me, right? But my brain was wrong about all of it. It was just a story that my brain made up, it looked at my body, and it created a story about it, and I believed it.

Now brains do this because one of their primary jobs is survival, and it wasn't that my brain like looked at my body, and made like an accurate assessment like, "There's not much to work with here. I guess we'll just settle for mediocre health." No, my brain is always just concerned about survival, right, about the ways that I might die, in the ways that I might get picked off by predators, if all humans ever have like a foot race, right? And so my brain was always alerting me to the fact that I was not the fittest of the species, right? My brain is concerned about survival, and in an effort to alert me to danger it pointed all the ways that I wasn't the fittest, and I was likely going to die.

6:49
But the trouble was, this outlook, this belief in my brain never made me any fitter. This outlook made me think there was no hope. Why should I try? But, I have learned that I can have any experience I want in my body, and I can love my body in any moment, because loving my body is a choice. My brain wanted to believe that loving my body was contingent on meeting a certain standard. But loving the body, I have been given, and using it in a way that brings me joy are both just choices. It's the way I choose to think about the gift of living in my human body, and it's the same for you.

What if your brain is wrong about your body? What if your body is 100 percent loveable as it is? What if your body is capable of anything? What if your body's unacceptable ness or its limitations are just a story your brain made up?

Okay, next, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about my worth, and my love ability. So the story my brain told me was that I needed to change, and improve, and be different in order to be lovable. My brain told me I needed to work hard, and serve others, and be righteous, and achieve great things. But, I was only doing these things in order to have worth. I spent my life trying so hard to be lovable, and failing, right? Always falling short, never being enough, never seeing anything I did as good, or noteworthy. I constantly criticized myself, and harassed myself, and relived my experiences, and showed myself all the ways I did it wrong again, and again, and again, right?

Now again, brains do this out of survival instinct, if you can be worthy, then you're going to have a place in the tribe, and not get kicked out, and face extinction. But, what my brain was wrong about was the idea that I could add to my worth, or add to my love ability in any way. The truth is, I was already 100% worthy and lovable, and I just didn't know it. My brain was wrong about the idea that I could be more lovable than I already was. So, every day I talk to clients who feel this exact same way, right? And their brain, like your brain, is just wrong about the idea that we can be more lovable, or more acceptable, or more enough, than we already are.

9:15
How would it change things for you if you knew your brain was wrong about the idea that you aren't enough, or that you aren't lovable? Love ability, remember, isn't based on the object of our love. Love ability is based on our ability to love. You are 100% lovable as you are. And if you love yourself, or if you don't, that is just a skill, an ability you have. An ability you have either acquired or you haven't yet. But you don't have to change anything in order to love yourself, you just have to practice increasing your own ability to love you. We do that through our thoughts.

Okay, next, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about being happy. This is like so important, I used to think that I was supposed to be happy, and then if I wasn't happy, then something was wrong with me. I used to think that there was one right way to be happy, and if I wasn't happy then clearly, I had done something wrong, and I think this is such an easy trap for us to fall into. We live in a society in which most of the messages we get is that we should be happy. If you aren't happy, we have to find a way to fix that, right? Try this, buy this, try that! And, then as Christians, I think this can be more ingrained in us, right? Because if you have hope in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and if you know that he has saved you, then you shouldn't be sad, right? You should always be happy, there's not a reason to really be sad. And I can't believe how wrong my brain was about that.

The truth is that Earth's life was designed to be a 50/50 experience. It was purposely designed from the beginning to have opposition in all things. The contrast between good, and bad, misery, and happiness, joy, and pain, were all built in, and are what creates the possibility of learning here in the Earth life experience. And my brain was looking at this built in programming of the Earth life experience as evidence that there was something wrong with me, or the way that I was living. And I can't tell you what an enormous relief it was when my coach told me that I was supposed to be sad, at least 50% of the time, right? And that nothing had gone wrong with me, or my experience. The idea that I should be happy when I wasn't was adding enormous amounts of pain and suffering to my 50/50 life, and so that it started to feel like it was all hard and all painful and all difficult. The truth is there is nothing wrong with negative emotion. I can't believe how wrong my brain was about that. That negative emotion wasn't supposed to be there, that I didn't have to solve for it, that I didn't have to run from it, or buffer from it, or change it. It was just there to be experienced.

That's what it meant to be human, to experience negative, and positive emotion, and learn from it. And it also meant that I didn't have to solve for the negative emotion of my children, or my husband, or my friend, or my sister, anybody that I loved. And this was so freeing, I no longer had to control the world for all the people that I loved. I could just allow for sadness, allow for grief, and heartbreak, and disappointment, and anger, not need to solve any of it.

Okay, and while we're talking about negative emotion I'm gonna throw in one more here. I can't believe how wrong my brain was about what was creating my feelings. So, my brain used to think that my feelings were caused by the world outside of me, by what happened, right? By what I did, or I didn't do, by what my kids, or my husband, or my mom did. I used to think they were caused by the economy, or the church leaders, or the choices the people in my life made. I thought that my emotions were created by all the things in my life, and when I learned that every emotion I felt was created inside of me, because of my own thoughts, it changed everything for me, right? Because, look if my emotions are the result of what happens outside of me, then I have to live my life in fear, and worry, and I need to control everything that's happening. But, understanding that between everything that happens in the world, and my emotions is a thought that I choose, was incredibly empowering for me.

13:47
It meant that I didn't have to control the world, I just had to control the way I thought about the world, which felt like a miracle to me. So, the other day I heard a coach describe it like this, and she said the "T-line protects us from the C's in our life." The T- line protects us from the C's in our life. Now, what did she mean by that? So, just like I was saying in life there are things that are outside of us that we have no control over, the facts and realities of life, the things that other people do the things that happen.

And in coaching we call these circumstances, and sometimes we use a shorthand, and we call them the C'S, right? And the C'S, or the circumstances, are the things that just happen, right? They're like the viruses, or the weather, or the choices that other people make, or the things our husband says, right? There are all those things that are happening outside of us, and we don't control the C's. And like when we think that the C's create our feelings, when we think the circumstances create our feelings, that leaves us really vulnerable to things outside of us. When we attribute our feelings to the circumstances in our life, then we feel at the mercy of what's happening in the world.

It can be like a really scary way to live and to experience the world, it makes us constantly worried about the possible C's that are outside of our control. Now, this is what my brain was so wrong about, what I didn't know then, what I do know now, is the fact that my thoughts, and nothing else, create all of my feelings. Which means that between every circumstance, and every feeling is a thought. That thought is my choice, and that thought is my protection from any circumstance that can possibly happen.

Do you see? Our T's or our thoughts, protect us from our C's, our circumstances. We are protected from every C because every C has to go through the filter of our own mind, the filter of our own thoughts, before we ever have a feeling. The thoughts we choose protect us from every C in our life, and no C by itself can destroy our peace, or devastate us, or create suffering all by itself. Because between every C, and every feeling is our thought, and our T's protect us from the C's in our life. We get to think about everything that happens to us any way we want, and when you recognize that power there is nothing you can't handle, just pretty amazing, right? Our T's protect us from our C's. I love it!

Okay, so next, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about my mistakes. So, I don't know how to really like talk about this except to say that up until a few years ago, I thought my life was just a long series of mistakes, and that meant that I had failed big time, that I had failed Earth life, right? I felt like I had failed as a mother, I felt like I had failed in developing my gifts, and abilities from God. I felt that I had failed in really living up to my potential, right? Like you hear that so much, like are you living up to your potential? And I felt sure that I wasn't, and even worse, I felt like I never really could. I used to have this blog called "The Two Regrets," and I kind of lumped all of my mistakes into these two huge categories of regrets, right?

17:11
One of the categories was the way that I treated all the people I loved, and the other category was all the dreams that I never fulfilled, and the life that I was too scared to live, right? Those were my two big regrets, the way I hurt people, and the things that I never accomplished, right? And I kind of thought my whole life was defined by these two huge regrets, and that because of that I had like categorically failed as a human. And that like the final grades were already in, the verdict was in, and I had failed. I can't believe how wrong my brain was about this

First, my brain was wrong about the idea that I wasn't supposed to make mistakes. Of course, I was. That is the exact reason I was having a human experience, to make mistakes. And then it was wrong about the final verdict, and the idea that all my mistakes defined me as a person. Our brains are always quick to find our faults, and to notice all the things we do wrong, again this is a protective instinct to keep us in a tribe. But since we don't actually live in a tribe with the threat predators, these thoughts about my feelings were only ever keeping me stuck.

I noticed my regrets only kept me living a life I regretted. My regret never created any change, it only made me hate the version of me that I was. My brain was wrong about the idea that I was supposed to do it right, and it was wrong about the idea that my mistakes meant I was failing. Because not only am I supposed to make mistakes, a lot of them, but thinking that I shouldn't be making them, was the only thing that kept me continuing to make them.

Okay, that leads me to the next thing, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about my ability to change. So, because I had this really long track record of mistakes, I concluded that I could not change, right? I had to, I had tried to change seriously. I had set goals, I had made promises to myself and others, I had repented, I had tried, I had started over, and over, and over, only to end up where I started. At least that's what my brain said, and that's what I was so wrong about, because we never end up where we start. We are always farther along, we are always learning more even if we're making the same mistakes, we are never at square one.

And what I learned was the only reason that change felt so elusive to me, was because I was going about change all wrong. I was trying to change by changing my behavior, I was trying to change by changing my actions, and this seemed super logical to my brain. But, again I can't believe how wrong I was about this. I was trying to change by acting better, but I learned that real change comes by thinking better. We can never really change in a long term permanent way, unless we change the thoughts, and feelings that are fueling our actions.

20:13
I had always thought I had to change all these things that I was doing, but the only thing I ever had to change was my thoughts. When I learned this secret to change I found that I could change absolutely anything I wanted in my life. I changed my body, I changed my relationships, I changed my money, I changed the way I saw myself. My brain was totally wrong about how to change, and that's why it believed that I couldn't change. The truth is that every one of us has an endless infinite capacity to change, our ability to change is literally endless. And when that change is powered by love, and motivation, and joy, and curiosity, and belief, and faith, our capacity to change increases all the more. Don't believe the lie, your brain is selling you, that you can't change. You could change anything you want, and I can't believe how wrong my brain was about that.

Okay, here are a couple more, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about relationships, right? And I just did a podcast on this, I'm not going to belabor the point, but basically, I thought that the quality of my relationships was based on other people. And so, I was always waiting for them to change, and I was always waiting for other people to make me feel a certain way. But, the truth is how I feel, and the quality of my relationships is 100% up to me, and the way I think about them, and the way I think about me.

Okay, another one, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about money. And I'm actually going to come back to this in the future podcast, because I think it deserves its own discussion. But for now, I'll just tell you that in so many ways I just thought money kind of happened to me, right? It felt like totally out of my control, like I'm like, I don't know where it comes, right? Like either I have it or I don't. And mostly I just never had it, right? And what my brain was wrong about is that I didn't know that I was creating all of my results with money, and I was creating those results by how I thought about my money. It's crazy, right? I didn't know that the way I thought about money, and the way I thought about my ability to have money, was directly correlated to how much money I actually had.

Okay, next one, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about God, and in particular his disappointment in me. So, for the most part I thought for sure God must be disappointed in the way that I had lived my life. I thought that because I had failed in so many ways he must just be up in Heaven like, shaking his head at me, throwing his hands up in disgust, and like writing me off, right? I thought his love, like my love was conditional on me meeting certain conditions, which I could not seem to meet, and I can't believe how wrong my brain was about this. My own brain was superimposing my own judgmental thoughts onto God, and assuming that of course he felt the exact same way about me as I felt about me, and it wasn't good. I thought even that his rules, and his commandments were there to condemn me, and then he was always going to find me lacking, and coming up short.

But the truth is that God is never disappointed. I love this thought, because disappointment comes when something fails to meet a certain expectation, right? And because God knows me, he knows the mistakes I'm going to make. He knows the lessons I need, and because he knows all of it, I can never fall below his expectation. His knowledge of me is perfect, and so it is impossible to disappoint him. I also came to understand, as I said before, that love ability is not based on me and what I do, it's based on the ability of the person doing the loving, and God's ability to love is perfect. Not because I am perfect, but because he has the perfect ability to love, because of who he is, and he loves everyone perfectly as they are. His ability to love is because of who he is, not because of who we are. When I understood this, I understood how I don't need to do anything to be loved by him, but that is just his nature, that is his ability. He loves me right now as I am, because of who he is, and that is incredibly freeing, and also aspirational to me, I want to be able to love like that without condition.

24:47
I also learned that his whole business is the education business, right? It's not the rule business, it's not the like throw them out of court business, right? It's education. The purpose of Earth life was never to choose the right, it was to learn to choose the right. And it was to always make that choice, because I wanted to, not because I had to in order to be loved. And I was wrong about all of that, and discovering that changed my relationship with God, and helped me understand better his unwavering love, and mercy, and grace.

Okay, a couple more, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about my ability to contribute. So, like many of you when I was a kid I had lots of dreams, and ways I wanted to make a difference in things I was going to do in the world, right? And over the years I just started to think that my ability to change the world, or do great things, or contribute, or ease other people's suffering was limited. And, I started to believe that my influence had to be quiet, and it would probably turn out to be pretty insignificant for the most part. And I told myself that's okay, right? My brain even told me that ambition, or wanting to make a difference, or make a contribution in the world was wrong somehow. That was a path, and a life that other people lived, but it wasn't a life for me, that it just wasn't in my destiny, it wasn't in the cards for me. My brain said some people can change the world, and do great things but I wasn't one of those people, right? And then my brain told me, but that's okay. I can't believe how wrong I was about that.

So, the other day I just realized how wrong my brain has been about all of this. And someone, I heard someone talking about how for people of color our country has systems that are institutionally limiting to them, right? And I started to think about that phrase, "institutionally limiting" how limitations are built into the system. And I was thinking about how each of our brains in a way are "institutionally limiting" to each of us. That because of fear, and insecurity, and self-disparagement, and anxiety about criticism, right? Our brains want to limit how much we do, they want to limit how far we can go, or how much we can contribute. Our brains want to say that's enough, we don't need to do anymore, you don't need to help there, you don't need to try to make a difference. You don't need to put out a podcast, or have a coaching practice, or any of it, right? It wants to limit our contribution, because it feels so much safer to our primitive brain. And whenever we try to do something outside of our comfort zone these limitations arise. And I just want you to be aware of how wrong your brain is about all of it.

Every contribution is needed, and this thought you should be small, or stay small, or your influence isn't needed, your contribution doesn't matter, is just something I want to challenge you to not keep believing. I can't believe how wrong my brain was about how much I have to give.

Okay, obviously, I could go on and on about the things my brain has been wrong about, I've been wrong about a lot of things, but I want to end today with this one. So, I can't believe how wrong my brain was about the future. So, even two years ago I never could have predicted where I would be today. At the time I was just at loose ends, right? Wondering how to be happy? Wondering how to fix, and undo all the mistakes, I had made? How to find my purpose? How to just like endure, the next couple of decades of my life? I thought that I had really nothing to look forward to, and that not only did I have nothing to show for my time on Earth, but that it was too late to try anything new, or be anything different than I was.

But my brain was wrong about all of that, and really even a year ago I couldn't have predicted where I am right now. I was just thinking about how a year ago, I was in coach training, and my mentor Chris Blackie told us one day like she was just making an offhand comment about how she had eight clients on her schedule that day, and I was like eight clients, in one day!

29:07
And at the time like I was doing free coaching, and I was coaching one or maybe two people a day, at the most, right? And to do those calls, I would prep for hours before, and after the call, and I would be like emotionally, and physically exhausted from one call. I would be completely spent after one session with the client, and I remember Chris just saying "Oh yeah, I gotta go, I've got eight clients on the schedule today." And I was thinking like, how impossible that seemed to me, right? To coach someone for money which she was, and then to coach that many clients in one day. And just the other day I realized that I coach seven, or eight clients a day, all the time. That what was once impossible, is now just the future that I live in. And what I want to say is that I can't believe how wrong my brain was about the future, because in fact there are zero limitations on any future I want, or any future you want, because all of it was created one thought at a time.

The future exists as a thought, and I built my belief in my capacity, and my value, one thought at a time. And I just decided to believe whatever I wanted. The truth is that each of us is a child of God, and God is a creator, which means that we have inherited his ability to create, and we can create, and form the future we want, if we stop believing that we can't. So, I just want to challenge you here at the end to look at your life, and the things you think, and to wonder, what your brain is wrong about.

What does your brain believe? What does your brain tell you that is just categorically wrong? And what would it mean for your life, for the trajectory of your life, if you knew it was wrong? So, I just love doing this exercise, I'm noticing all the things my brain has been wrong about, and it made me think of two other questions that I thought might help you. So, after I made this list I asked myself what else could my brain be wrong about if I was wrong about all these things?

31:14
What else could I be wrong about? In other words where else do I have self-imposed limitations that I'm not even aware of. And the second question that I think is even more powerful is this. What else do I want to be wrong about? What else do I want my brain to be wrong about? What are the things in my life that I think are true that I wish they weren't, right? Because I could just decide that I'm wrong about them right now, and think something else entirely. Isn't that awesome?

Okay, what else do you want to be wrong about? What do you wish your brain was wrong about? Do you wish your brain was wrong about your relationship, or your failures, or your abilities, or your capacity to earn or your worthiness, or your abilities as a parent? What do you wish your brain was wrong about, you could just decide that it is and you could decide to believe the exact opposite thing that your brain is telling you now.

And notice how when you're willing to be wrong about any of those things, look at what suddenly changes, and becomes available to you. Look at the possibility that suddenly opens up to you, just when you allow your brain to be wrong about any of it. What becomes possible to us when we question the limiting beliefs of our own brains is astounding, and powerful, and exciting. And I want you to know that you have the ability at any moment to decide that what your brain thinks is just wrong, and then believe whatever you want instead.

And that my friends is 100% awesome! I love you for listening and I'll see you next week!

Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you want to take the things that I've talked about and apply them to your life sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever. Believing your life is 100% Awesome is totally available to every one of us. And as your coach I'll show you exactly how to do that so that you can truly love your Earth life experience the way things are is not the way things have to stay.

And that my friends is 100% Awesome!