Episode 77: What Are You Avoiding?

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 thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to Episode 77 of the 100% Awesome Podcast, I'm April Price, and I'm so thrilled to be with you today. For those of you who really want to be doing something, and creating something amazing in your life, but continue to find yourself not taking action in the way you want. I think this episode is really going to help you. And maybe that's just all of us, right? All of us really want to be doing some amazing things, and our brains kind of get in the way.

So, I hope this episode will help. But before we get started, I just wanted to let you know that my one-on-one coaching program is officially full. And so, I have decided to start a small group coaching program. That is going to be an awesome way for more of you to be able to get coached, and create what you really want in your life. It is no secret that I love life coaching. I love being a coach, and I love being coached. It saved my life in so many ways, and it helps me use my life in such powerful ways. It really is such an amazing tool to be able to clean out your own brain, and feel better, feel free, and light, and purposeful, and loving, and to get to that place where you can stop beating yourself up, and start creating more of what you want to have happen in your life, is just such a blessing. And I want to make that experience available to even more of you.

I was talking to David, because last Friday, I coached a client in France, and then I coached one in Italy. And I coached a couple of people here in the U.S. and then somebody in Toronto. And I was talking to David about it, how cool that was, right? I said, "It is so amazing that no matter where you grew up, no matter what culture you belong to, no matter how you were raised or even what language you speak, we all have human brains and they are always the only thing in our way." Our own thoughts are creating all of our pain. Our own thoughts are limiting what we can do in the world. Our own thoughts are what keep us stuck, and spinning, and never quite measuring up. And so, no matter where we live, right? This is the human experience. This is what it means to have a brain. And I am so glad to have been introduced to these ideas that show me the truth about my brain, and allow me to, like, hack it, or at least understand it so, that I don't have to accept the limitations that it just gives me on default. And this is why I really believe that every human brain needs a coach. And it’s such a privilege to have a coach and be coached. And I would love to be yours!

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So, I'm going to be opening slots for the group coaching program in just a couple of weeks. So, if you're interested in that, you'll want to get on my email list. I'm going to be sending out all the information on what that coaching program will look like, all the details, how to apply, to everyone on my email list before the end of October, it's my plan. So, to get my emails, you can just click on the link in the show notes, and it will take you to a page where you can sign up. Or you can just text the word awesome to 66866 and that will put you on the list as well.

Okay, all right. Let's get into today's episode. Like I said before, I think this episode will be really helpful for you if you are ready to create something amazing in your life. And I tried to make this episode as practical as possible for you. So, I have included a number of exercises, and questions that you can ask yourself along the way, and afterwards do your own work on your own thoughts. And I really think if you do that work, it's going to give you some traction. And I hope that you'll do this work right along with me, right? Not just hear about it, but actually put it into practice. And so, I actually included a worksheet that has all of these questions written out for you as well. And you can find that in the show notes if you want to do some writing on these prompts that I give you as well.

Okay, so today I want to start with a story. Okay, so last week I was coaching a client, and she told me, "I'm just not a good communicator. I don't explain things well and this really gets in my way." Now, my client, of course, thought she was just telling me the facts of her life. Really, like she's just telling me the news, it's October 16th, it's going to be 100 degrees in Phoenix today, and I'm a bad communicator. So this is how all of our thoughts appear to us, like facts, right? Like the news. And so, I asked her, "Okay, when you think you are a bad communicator, how do you feel?" And she said, "I feel terrible. I feel incompetent. I feel incapable." Now, probably all of us would agree that incompetent does not feel good, right? Like as feelings go, it's probably not one of your favorites. And it was not one of my client's favorites, right? And yet her brain, her own brain was creating this feeling inside of her with this thought, "I'm not a good communicator." So, I asked her, "Okay, thinking that you're a bad communicator makes you feel incompetent, so why do you think your brain is choosing that thought?" And she kind of just sat there for a minute, right? And she finally said, "I don't know. I don't know why my brain would choose to think I'm a bad communicator, unless it's true." She's like, here's why it's true.

And she told me all the reasons, right? But I stopped her, and I explained to her that our brain is always offering us thoughts to keep us safe. The thoughts that it gives us, and offers to us, it does so, because it thinks it will ensure our survival in some way. So, I said, "Right now, your brain is choosing to think you're a bad communicator. It's offering you the thought that you're a bad communicator because as bad as incompetent feels, when you think that, that feeling is better, and safer than another feeling that you could choose to feel, right?" So, I asked her, "What is worse to you than feeling incompetent?" And then she could see it, right? She said, "Rejected." She said, "If I feel incompetent, then I don't have to try to explain. I don't have to tell other people my ideas. And then they can't reject what I'm saying. They can't argue, or disagree with me, or think negatively about me." My client's brain would rather feel incompetent, than rejected. And this strategy, by her brain, to avoid being rejected was keeping her attached to this thought that she was a bad communicator, which in fact was causing her to show up as a bad communicator, and keeping her stuck. And this is what our brains do in an effort to keep us safe, they end up keeping us stuck.

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Now, I want to show you something. If you think about it, in this case, even though my client's brain thought she was avoiding the feeling of rejection by thinking she was a bad communicator, this thought only caused her to reject herself. And I want you to be aware that wherever you find yourself not taking action, or not getting the results you want in your life, it is likely that your brain is employing a similar strategy with you. By giving you thoughts, that seem like facts, that don't make you feel great in order to avoid something that it views as dangerous. And I want you to notice how our brains attempt at keeping us safe, ends up really just being the most effective sabotage campaign ever, right? So let me give you one other example.

I think I've already told you that a couple of months ago as my coaching practice started to fill, I could see that eventually, I was going to run out of one-on-one coaching hours. And often, when I was with my coach, she would ask me questions like, "What's next? What's your plan?" And my brain would just keep saying, "I don't know, I don't know." And I just kept taking clients, and believing my brain when it said, "I don't know, I don't know what comes next. I don't know how to solve this right now." Luckily for me, I actually did run out of hours. And so, it came to a point where I actually had to solve this problem, instead of continuing to say, "I don't know." And so, as I looked at all of this with my coach, she said, "Why do you keep choosing? I don't know. Why does your brain keep offering you confusion? What feeling are you avoiding by continuing to feel confused?" And I could see that my brain was trying to avoid shame. Big surprise, right? My brain is always trying to avoid shame.

My brain thought that if I launched a group coaching program, and it failed, then I would feel shame. And instead of that, my brain decided confusion was preferable to shame. Now, what I want to show you, for both my client who is experiencing incompetence, and for me who is experiencing confusion. Our brains were keeping us, quote unquote, "safe" by keeping us stuck. Our brains were doing their very best to avoid risking rejection for her, and risking shame for me. But in both cases, we ended up feeling the emotion our brain was trying to avoid anyway. My client felt rejection, by rejecting herself and her ability to communicate. And I felt shame, secret shame, that I still hadn't figured this out, that I couldn't figure it out, and I didn't have a solid plan going forward. And what I also want to show you is that the answer to getting unstuck, and moving forward, was a willingness to feel the negative emotion our brains were trying to avoid. My client had to be willing to feel rejected if necessary, and I had to be willing to feel shame, if necessary. That was the only way to move forward.

My coach told me you have to be willing to fail, you have to be willing to do it wrong. You have to be willing to feel shame if you choose those thoughts when, and if, you fail. So, maybe that doesn't sound too awesome to you right now. But remember that your brain is always just trying its best to avoid an emotion, and so it keeps us stuck. Safe, yes, but stuck. And in most cases, when we're stuck long enough, we end up feeling the emotion we're trying to avoid anyway. Okay, so I want to break this down for you into really actionable questions, and steps that you can take, so that you can get unstuck, so that you can be on to your brain, and stop sabotaging yourself, and start creating the results you really want in your life.

Okay, so first, it's important to recognize that your brain always has a good reason for thinking what it thinks. It has a good reason for offering you the thoughts that it offers you. Now, let me explain this for a minute. This does not mean that your brain is thinking in your best long-term interest. It doesn't mean that your brain is thinking the truth about you. It means that your brain always has a good reason for thinking what it thinks, in terms of your survival, right? It has weighed out the options, it has assessed all the dangers, it has tried to figure out the best course of action to keep you safe. And it has given you the thought that it has given you in order to ensure that in order to ensure the status quo, in order to keep you safe, and the same, in order to maximize your pleasure, minimize your pain, and save you the most energy. That's it. That's how it's functioning.

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Your brain has a good reason for thinking the thoughts it does, when it comes to your survival. But it's so important to note that these thoughts are the ones keeping you stuck. So, your brain is well-intentioned, but it is also totally confused about your purposes for being here on Earth. So, for a minute, I want you to think about something that you really want to do in your life, right? Maybe you have a dream, or a goal. Maybe you have that thing in the back of your mind all the time, or that thing that you think about all the time that you wish you were doing. That you wish you could have, that you wish you were acting on, instead of continuously procrastinating, and putting it off and not doing it. Okay, now I want you to think about why you aren't doing it when you go to do it. What does your brain say? What thoughts come up when you think about moving forward, and taking action in this way? Maybe your brain thinks, "I don't know where to start. I don't know how. I have no idea how to move forward." Thoughts like these make you feel confused. Maybe your brain thinks, "You're not good enough, you don't have the talent, or you don't have the skills that you can't figure it out." Thoughts like these make you feel insecure or inadequate. They fill you with self-doubt.

Maybe your brain thinks, "It's too hard, it'll take too long. It will take so much effort, and time, and money, that it's not worth it." Thoughts like these make you feel overwhelmed. Maybe your brain thinks "You might fail, that you're going to do it wrong, that you're never going to get it right, that people will laugh at you, that you might start, and then you might give up." Thoughts like these make you feel scared, and uncertain. Now, notice that none of these feelings, confusion, inadequacy, overwhelmed, fear or any other emotion that your thoughts are producing, none of these feelings feel good. We don't love any of them, right? None of them are going to show up on a list of our top five feelings. But, our brain has offered them to us because as bad as they feel, your brain prefers this feeling. And the safety that it provides to moving forward, to taking action, and facing whatever feeling that going forward might create for you.

So, ask yourself, what does my brain say to me when I go to take action on the thing I want? Right, what are the thoughts that it's giving me? And then ask yourself, how do I feel when I think this thought? Once you identify that feeling, ask yourself, why does this feeling feel safe to my brain? In other words, when you feel this way, what emotion are you actually trying to avoid? Another way to say it is when you feel this way, what do you do, or not do? What danger does your brain think you are avoiding by feeling this way? This is a really powerful way to reframe your in action, right?

Sometimes, when we don't work towards the things we say we want, we blame it like on a lack of discipline, or a lack of consistency, or like our chaotic schedule, or we just need to get more organized, right? Sometimes we blame it on all the obligations, or responsibilities that we have. We tell ourselves that we're just not the kind of people who keep their word to themselves, right? That we don't know how to keep commitments to ourselves. But, the real reason that we don't take the action we want is that our brain has offered us thoughts, that produce feelings, that keep us from taking action. Feelings like confusion, and overwhelm, fear, anxiety, or self-doubt. We aren't doing the things we say we want to do because our brain prefers the status quo, it just feels safer to our brain. Our brain prefers life with no risk, and no danger, and no uncertainty, and no failure. And so, it offers us thoughts that it thinks will be useful in keeping us alive, not thoughts that will be useful in creating an amazing life.

Okay, so the next powerful question in this process, once you have identified the thought, and the feeling your brain has given you to keep you stuck. And once you can see the feeling that you are avoiding, by choosing this thought, and feeling, I want you to notice how in some way you are probably already experiencing the emotion your brain is trying so hard to avoid. So, the question is, what emotion are you trying to avoid by not taking action? And then, in what way am I feeling this way, anyway?

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For example, if you're avoiding taking action to be at your preferred weight, because your brain is afraid that you will feel deprived, in what way are you depriving yourself right now in your life? If you are avoiding taking action to write your book, or create your art, or build your business, because your brain is afraid that you will feel rejected, in what ways are you rejecting yourself right now? If you are avoiding taking the action of loving someone because you're afraid of getting hurt, in what way are you hurting yourself right now, by not experiencing all the love you could? And I ask these questions, not to call you out, or shame you, but to show you that your brain's attempts to keep you, quote unquote, "safe" are only keeping you stuck. And that stubbornness ends up producing the very emotion that it was so carefully trying to avoid in the first place.

So, I want to share one more example with you, with an exercise that I hope will help you, if you decide to move out of stuck, and into action. So, this week I spoke to a dear client, who's taking some really brave, bold action in her life. She's going back to school, and she's applying for a master's program. And as she has continued to take action toward her goals, and dreams, her brain, which is just like your brain, super concerned about her survival, has just roared into life, right? And it has offered her all kinds of thoughts about how this is too much, and more than she can handle, right? There's the overwhelm about how her chances of getting into the program are very small. There's self-doubt, and that it might negatively impact her family. There's fear, and that she's just making her life hard when she doesn't need to, and questioning if she should really even be doing any of it. That's confusion.

And she, like most of us, when she's faced with her brains doubts, and concerns, and misgivings, she sometimes starts to question why she's doing any of it. We all do this. We question if we've made a mistake, and if it's really worth it. We worry that maybe we've made the wrong decision, because our brain is protesting. But your brain isn't protesting because you have made the wrong decision, your brain is protesting because you are taking action. Action that could lead to pain, and negative emotion. Action that takes energy, action that is harder than not taking action, and isn't always the path of pleasure. And so, the brain says, "Wait a minute, hold on a minute." Right? And of course, it says, hold on a minute, its job is survival. Its job is not creating the most amazing life possible, right? And of course, from where you are right now, you can see that my client's brain has just offered her all these thoughts to possibly avoid some negative emotion in the future, right? It wants to avoid possible disappointment, or failure, or shame, or heartache, and that's easy to see, when it's happening to someone else.

But when it happens to us, it feels much more personal. It feels much more real. It feels much more true, right? The thoughts our brain offers us feel more true, and much less like thoughts may feel much more like real actual facts or concerns that we should have. They feel realistic, and logical, and that like you should be wise, and listen to them. But they are just thoughts that are designed to keep us stuck, and safe, and the same. And you can listen to them totally. But when you want something else than what you currently have, we have to question if we are willing to feel all those negative emotions that our brain is trying so hard to avoid. In order to be able to create something amazing in the world, and help other people, and fulfill the measure of our creation, we are going to have to be willing to risk those negative emotions. We have to be willing to feel the very feelings our brain is trying so hard to avoid. And as you go to do that, I hope it will help you to remember that in some way, if we don't go for the life we want, if we don't create the future we want, in some way we're going to feel those negative emotions anyway, right? If my client decides to pass on grad school, and not pursue her dreams, she will feel a measure of disappointment, and failure, and shame, and a bit of heartache, no doubt about it.

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Now, I want to leave you with one final exercise that I did with my client after I had listened to all the thoughts her brain had, all the fears, and concerns, and reasonable protests that it had. Once she had given voice to all those things that her brain had to say about what she was doing, I asked to talk to the other part of her. I asked to talk to the highest part of her, the part that wants to grow, and change, and become the part that has something to do. Something to contribute, a work to perform. The part of her that has a higher, clear vision of who she really is. And I said, "What does she think? What does that part of you, what does she think about what you're doing?" And for a really beautiful few minutes, we got to listen to that part of her that wasn't just concerned about her survival, and didn't need to avoid all the negative emotions. She said, "I have a lot to offer. I have love, and acceptance, and caring, and wisdom, and experience. I have ideas that can help. I have a willingness, and ability to understand other people, and inquire, and dig deeper. I can see the potential in everyone. I can see the immeasurable worth, and value, and capacity of other people. I feel like I have gifts, and abilities to help. I have always felt drawn to this work. And in nudging to give more, I can ease the suffering of others. I can help."

Do you see under all those thoughts of fear, and overwhelming anxiety, and self-doubt, there was a gentle shore, eternal knowing. And I explained how as my client was going to move forward to create this new version of her life, her brain was going to protest probably all the way along, but that this truth was also there inside of her. And I like to imagine that. That highest, holiest, most eternal part of us, the part of you that came to Earth to do some things, and learn some things, and love some things, that it is like the sun in a bright, blue sky. And sometimes the clouds come in, and they cover up the sun. And even though we can't see the sun, when the clouds are thick, the sun is still there. The thoughts that our brain gives us cloud out the part of us that knows what we're capable of, right? Sometimes that keeps us locked in for weeks or months. And we start to think that the clouds are like the reality, but the sun is always there. That part of you that wants to stretch, and grow, and become, and contribute, and ease the suffering, and use your talents, and help others, and make life more beautiful, is always there. And sometimes it gets covered up, and drowned out by the thoughts of your human brain. But if you get quiet, and centered, you can always find that part of you. Ask yourself what your inner wisdom has to tell you?

Allow the part of you that knows you are an eternal being with unlimited potential to create, have a say in this. What does that part of you know is true? What does that part of you know is possible? Write it down. You can write yourself a letter from that inner wisdom, and go back, and reread it now, and then. And the clouds get heavy, and it seems like you haven't seen the sun in weeks, tap into this part of you. Read this note from your inner wisdom, or ask again, what does the highest part of me think about this? Don't be distracted by the thoughts of your brain. What feels like safe, is really just sabotage, keeping us from all the things we really want to be doing, and creating in our lives.

Now, I know a few weeks ago we talked about the parable of the prodigal son, which we decided to rename the "parable of the father." But there's a line in that parable that I just want to emphasize for you here. In verse 17 as its describing the son who has spent his days away from the father in riotous living, it says. "And when he came to himself," it says, "And when he came to himself, he arose." Now, I want you to imagine how many years this young man's brain told him he couldn't have what he wanted, that he couldn't go back, that he had fallen too far, that it was just too late, that he'd made too big of a mess. I want you to imagine the thoughts that held him back from living the life he really wanted to be living. And the scriptures say, that when he came to himself, then he rose, then he took action, and he started going back to get the life he wanted to be living. And I know this scripture is about repentance, and grace, but I love this line. And I think it applies to all of us who are inundated, and clouded over by thoughts that limit us in any way. Thoughts that keep us confused, thoughts that keep us overwhelmed, and not starting, thoughts that keep us scared, and not daring. Thoughts that keep us the same, day after day, and month after month.

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When he came to himself, he could then take action, and that is what I am suggesting as well. That we stop being distracted by those survival thoughts of our human brain, and come to ourselves, to our higher selves, to ourselves who came to Earth for more than just survival. To ourselves, that came to learn, and grow, and serve, and contribute, and magnify our talents, and abilities, to the parts of us that is here to ease the suffering of others. Come to that part of you, and let that part of you get a say as well in the life you are creating. Remember that the only thing keeping us stuck, sabotaging our progress, and preventing us from creating what we really want, is our brains misguided attempts to avoid another feeling. Something that the brain thinks would be worse in some way.

What are you avoiding feeling by not taking action? And the more willing you are, to feel that feeling, if required, the more you are going to get the life you really want. 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 I've talked about, and apply them in your life so that you can love your Earth-life experience. Sign up for a free coaching session at aprilpricecoaching.com This is where the real magic happens and your life starts to change forever as your coach. I'll show you that believing your life is 100% awesome is totally available to every one of us. The way things are is not the way things have to stay. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome!