Today’s episode focuses on self-love, confidence, and trusting yourself, and how these are created by our decisions, thoughts, emotions, and emotional processing that we do in real-time. In this episode, Dr. Alex also talks about the importance of acknowledging the way you feel about a situation and allowing yourself to feel those feelings in order for you to better understand yourself and decide how you want your identity to look, where you are approaching yourself with love.
Connect with us:
Follow us on IG: @zesty_ginger
Find us on FB:Â www.facebook.com/zesty_ginger
You can listen to the episodes on iTunes here.
You can listen to the episode on Spotify here.
You can listen to the episodes on Google Podcast here.
You can listen to the episodes on Amazon Music here.
You can listen to the episode on YouTube here.
Hi there, it’s Dr. Alex here with you and I am popping in for a short podcast episode today about abandonment. This is going to be part of a series that I’m going to put together. Now it’s not going to be a formal series, this is going to be more of a casual series as I pop in with things. But I wanted to create some podcasts that are the how of talking nicely to yourself on different topics. This is something that is really important for me personally because this is something that I had to learn how to do. And I previously did not have a good concept of what it even looked like to love yourself. Like I would always hear that kind of stuff. And I would understand the importance of it even. But I didn’t really even know what that meant. So if you are relating to that, this is going to be A helpful intro to this whole subject for you. But what happened is that over time, I have realized that things like self-love, things like confidence, things like trusting yourself, are created by moment-by-moment decisions, thoughts, emotions, and emotional processing, that we do in real-time. I do think that most people and I have been there as well are looking for the big aha moment that will flip everything around. And most of the time, life does not kick up big moment after big moment after big moment after big moment. Now, are these people? And are there times in life that happens? Sure. But is that everybody at all times? No. And you can tell that by looking around, right? So even though we want big shifts, and when we’re really in a place of pain and hurt, we of course want the big shift so that we feel better. But if that’s not happening, we have the opportunity to gather the magic and the results from the little moments. Instead, you are not stuck. If something big isn’t happening. Where you can reclaim that is in the small moments. Now, even if there are big things happening, these small moments still matter. So it’s kind of like no matter what the small moments still matter whether you’re feeling stuck, whether you’re in transition, whether you’re actively going through something, it does not matter. The moment-by-moment decision to think differently, to be more kind towards yourself, to feel the emotions instead of sweeping them under the rug, to take care of physical sensations, and make sure that you are not living in fight or flight all the time. All of these things begin to really add up. And so in the spirit of teaching, how does one even talk to yourself, right? I just wanted to have these little bite-size podcast episodes, especially because we’re having more each week now is that kind of what is my reply to my mental Gremlins on certain subjects? Of course, none of these are going to be the end all be all to what you should say to yourself. This is simply an example of something that I have found that works for me. And it’s going to kick off hopefully some ideas for you to noodle on and decide how you want to do it instead. Now you may find that you like my thing, and you may apply. But really that’s not the case here because some of the things that I may say may not fit you. And that’s okay. These are just examples of what works for me so that I can show the really nitty gritty, these are thought replies and something that I habitually teach myself to think when I have certain things. So abandonment and rejection have been things that have come up for me in the past multiple times. Right and the flow of life, there seem to be certain lessons that we master on certain topics. And for each of us, they look a little bit different and they’re on different things. And thank goodness because if we didn’t all have different mastery levels and different things that we were all good at them, the world would be a much worse place. And so with that abandonment, and feeling rejected is something that I’ve dealt with, right and so when I know that that comes up for me, then that is the kind of time that I do not want to leave myself kind of hanging without help over and over again if it’s something that happens once in a while. Limone is probably less important, but something like abandonment or maybe as low self-worth, or I’ll think I’ll talk through other ones in the future. But if they come up again, and again, that’s where having a standardized habitual response to the mental Gremlins comes in really handy, because you think the crappy thought that you always think, and then you begin to reinforce with a new thought that you then have a response to. And because that response makes you feel differently as an extension, then your actions are then more aligned with the response rather than the crappy thought. So at each point, we get to shut down our own mental Gremlins powerfully that way. Now, of course, this is only one strategy. This is not something that works for me all the time in every scenario, that would be silly. But when I practice and have this be part of my toolkit, I then get to do things in real-time. Instead of you know, you can always journal you can always step away and hash it out, you can always do certain things, right? And so this is the kind of thing I have in my toolkit. So when I feel abandoned, my go-to is, thank goodness, for me, very simple. They always are my responses to myself for the habitual thoughts are, because the reason that it works for me and I was going to talk it out because again, this is an example this is not something for you to take on unless you relate to it. But what would a statement sound like for you, in my take, when I feel abandoned and rejected, is often when I am putting power in someone else’s hands, I want them to like me, and I want them to come to hang out with me, I want them to prioritize me, I want them to choose me. I want them to do XYZ for me, right? And the reply Thank goodness for me does a couple of things. It puts it reminds me that my power is with me and that even if I don’t like something, I get to choose how I respond and make it different or make it feel different to me even if I can’t change the end result. Right. So that’s it thank God for me because I is going to be the one that handles the fallout handles the abandonment handles taking care of me shows up for me, right? And then for the other one, it really also reinforces thank God for me. Or Thank goodness for me however I phrase it at the moment is that I’m, I’m anchoring back to the way that I feel, the way that I show up, the way that I stand is something that I can be proud of. Right. And so I’m both using the gratitude portion of that, and I’m honing in on the meat portion of that. And you can quickly see how when you’re coming up with up to abandonment, having the antidote of bringing it back to yourself and anchoring it into gratitude is essentially saying that abandonment and turning the other way, you’re just okay, I see you. But here’s over here, this is what I’m doing. This is who I’m being and what I want to do next.
And over time, as I’ve habituated, that thought and that reply, the feelings that come from the thoughts of abandonment, the interpretation and the story that I tell myself around there is then interrupted by this new story that I’m telling myself. Now, have there been times where I’ve been like screaming at this guy, you know, thank goodness for me, I got this. I’m the one because I am mad about abandonment. Yes, because I was venting our emotions along the way. But in doing so, I got to reinforce the idea of coming back to myself and coming back to myself with gratitude and love for myself no matter what. And to be honest, I do think that I needed a little bit of that anger piece for me to disconnect and not put all my eggs in someone else’s basket of what they thought of me what they wanted for me what they thought was right for me what they thought I should do. And that anger let me know you know that feels bad because they’re overstepping. It feels bad. Because I’m handing over my power. It feels bad because that’s not aligned with me. Right? And when I honor the anger, and I allowed myself to think those thoughts and feel the anger, it taught me a lot about who I am and how I can stand on my own. And it resolved the anger about that. And I get to just say thank goodness for me when I feel abandoned, and I make a decision of how I want that new identity to look like where I’m approaching myself with love where I’m showing up for me and that’s what we’re doing today. or at least in the next second. And if the mental Gremlins come back the following second, well, gosh, I got answers for them too, right? I don’t leave myself and attended, whether it’s thoughts like this or applies some mental Gremlins or beliefs. I’m making sure that if I hear something that doesn’t feel good, I am not leaving it, I am finding a thought that I like that feels better. Okay, this is resourcefulness. This is taking action. And it seems small. And I do think that most of us want the gold star to say, hey, look, what a good job I did today. And it’s weird to say that about a thought. But let that go. Like just let it go. To need the validation by looking at what I checked off my list. Or just get over the fact that it sounds weird and say I’m so proud of the thought I had today. Even if that does sound weird, right? One way or another we own it. We own the celebration, the up-leveling, the difficult moments that we have that we then work through and answer the mental Gremlins to say oh my gosh, I just gave myself evidence that I can do that. And if I can do that, on this topic, I can do it on this other thing that I think is even more important. Or is weighing on my heart more or whatever it is that’s going on for you? So play around with that one. If abandonment and rejection speak to you see what you come up with. Right? And any other mental grandmas like I said, I’m going to be popping in and just showing examples, and why I like those ones and speaking to it. I would love love, love to hear your versions though. So please shoot us an email, send us a DM and Instagram, and just let me know. Okay, on the podcast, this is the this is what I heard and this is my version. And I would love to hear what kind of stuff you have and begin to weave it all together because how cool is it when we can all come together and share these little things it’s like how everyone wants to know how to love themselves. But if we can all come together work together to create that and really teach each other the world becomes so much more fun so much more fulfilling and hey, for any of us who are in the abandonment rejection feel maybe will feel less of that right? Or I’m sure we will because we’re showing up but the rest of the world can begin to catch up. And that is a beautiful thing. Alright, that’s it for today. I’ll catch you on the next podcast episode.