Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 109
Sometimes when you do this work, even when you're trained in this work, there are moments where you catch yourself repeating and regurgitating old socialisation patterns that have been drilled into you which don't align with your morals. And it's really interesting when these things come up just to notice them. And then it's even more interesting, to notice then what you do with the stuff that is coming up for you.
So every week, I try and spend a little moment on a Friday writing a little accomplishment block. And my accomplishment block is the things that I did well, the things I'm proud of for myself this week, the areas where I feel like I treated myself well and didn't do things that I didn't want to be doing. I think possibly praising myself for not falling into old habits was something that I really felt like I needed to have as an activity in my diary that reinforced how important this was. And so I decided to have this accomplishment block where the joyful, the happy, the good things, not the productivity, but the way that I've treated myself moments. And to mark them throughout the week.
And I was doing this last week, and I wrote down on the list that I allowed someone to do something that I didn't want to do in my house without making a fuss. And I got to the end of the sentence, and I was like, "what on earth?" I have phrased that and classified that as something that is a good thing that I've just done, just there to not make a fuss and to not inconvenience someone else within my own walls of what I didn't want to do. And I'm praising myself for being obedient and a non-boat rocker and someone who doesn't make other people feel uncomfortable. I just stared at this sentence, and I was like, "wow, this stuff goes really deep, doesn't it?"
And at this juncture, when you notice something like that, you notice that you're repeating other people's patterns that you don't really want a part of. You're kind of at a fork in a road. I was at a fork in a road. We all are. I can either choose to go down the route of judging myself. "Oh, my God. I study this stuff. I teach this stuff. I can't believe that I'm making such a silly mistake. This is, like, feminism 101 right here. What is going on with this perfectionism, people-pleasing nonsense that is happening in my own very house and my own very head?" Or I could look at it and go, "Yeah, this stuff runs really deep. Doesn't it? Like, even I didn't notice that I'd classified it like that until I put it down on paper. I didn't spot myself doing it. Like, this is really clever the way that this stuff gets under your skin. Like how incredible that I noticed it now. And now that I have noticed it, what do I want to do with it?"
One approach is riddled with judgment and is going to make me want to be more defensive and criticise myself a whole heap more. And one result is going to lead me to just being able to pause and check in and work out if it's something that I want to keep or not. And so it gives me my agency back. It gives me a sense of power in a situation that, frankly, quite often feels pretty powerless when you're regurgitating all of these socialised messages.
And I share this story with you today because I invite you to just get a little bit more observant with yourself, where you might be repeating some of these patterns that we have all been taught, but you've internalised with your own voice. And so you think that they're your story. You think that it's something that's just gone on for you in your everyday life.
I wonder where this can apply to the amount of things that you would classify as being "nice". How many times would you be "nice" this week? You to write a little list out how many of those things actually serve you and how many of them are trying to hopefully manage other people's emotions or other people's expectations? Or are you doing something in the hope that someone else will feel more comfortable? But actually, in truth, they make you feel a lot more uncomfortable.
Once we notice this stuff, we can begin to decide which bit of it are the bits that we want to carry forward into our future and which bits we're wanting to put a little bit of extra work in to let go.
If you do want to do some of that work together, that is obviously what we do over at www.SelfCareSchool.co.uk And I would love to support you in trying to get some of this patriarchal nonsense out of your head. And this hopefully has been just a little episode to remind yourself that it's a journey. There's no constant, there is no absolute destination where we've solved all of this stuff, especially when we are surrounded in it daily, reminding ourselves that we should put everybody else first and not consider our own needs. If we're constantly surrounded by it, we need to constantly be unlearning it. It's really good to have some tools to help us be able to unpick this stuff on a day to day basis so we can become more in alignment with the person that we want to be moving forward.
I hope this has been useful this week, and I look forward to speaking to you next week. Try to be a little bit less "nice".
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