You Can’t Think Your Way Into Self-Trust

Renae: Well, hello. Laura, welcome to week three of The Worrier. How are you?

Laura: I’m well. How are you? Are you worried? That was a good question. bit. Just a parts joke, Renae. Just a parts joke.

Renae: Is all of me worried? Is a part of me worried? Yes, a part of me is worried, but I also feel like I have a better, not a bitter, but a better handle on what I do with that now. So I’m glad we get to talk about this self-trust piece for The Worrier today.

Laura: Yeah, that sounds awesome. So we’ve talked about, you know, like identifying it, kind of sitting with it. And so this week is more just about… And like you said, building trust, but also just integrating this into part of our whole. So I guess the first thing that I would be curious about is when you think about like waiting to do something until conditions are perfect, until you have no worries. Have you noticed anything like that happening in your life right now that you can share?

Renae: Um, yeah, there’s, I, I have been writing, I have been writing a book for 10 years. I know that’s crazy to think about, but I’ve been writing a book for 10 years. I’ve been writing another book for like five years. I’ve been writing a bunch of workbooks for a number of months. Um, I, I do have a, a bit of a, I think, I think it’s cause it’s in print and cause. People can like point to it. There’s evidence. It makes me very nervous to put things into print because what if I want to change it later? Or what if I learn something new? Or what if I’m wrong? Or what if I say things the wrong way? And so I will wait and really just hold on to things way too long when it comes to that type of expression. Yeah, I have a similar thing.

Laura: I’ve been thinking about just an essay or some kind of content around storytelling is something that I’ve thought of a lot. And I know exactly what I want it to be. And it has been difficult for me to work on it for many of the same reasons that you’re saying. Like, well, is this even new? Is anyone… And I think that, you know, that this is even helpful for them. How original is this thinking? And all those kinds of things just are keeping me from moving forward. All those kind of little worries. And what are people going to say when they realize that it’s no good? Right? So then what, for both of us, I’m wondering, you know, when you, what has been the cost of us waiting to do that?

Renae: Well, I, you know, honestly, the, the, the whole story of why I even started writing a book 10 years ago came from a coaching session. And in that coaching session was someone who someone was coaching me. And it was like, you know, what are you doing with your life? And I said, I really think I should be public speaking. I really think that I should, I have, I have a lot that I can help people with. And. And a lot of knowledge and a lot of lived experience in this space of compassion fatigue and burnout and caregiving. And then also the faith-based piece of it of we can do this better as people of faith. And so she said, what’s stopping you? I said, I don’t feel like I have authority to do that. I don’t think people know who I am. And so there’s not really the opportunities. And she said, well, what would give you that authority? And I said, well, maybe if I wrote it down and shared it with people and they could see, like, she knows what she’s talking about, then I would be invited to speak. Fast forward 10 years. I don’t have time to write because I’m speaking so much.

Laura: Really fascinating, right? What was the? What do you think was the, what was the turning point? mean, like, when did you go from, I’m worried that I don’t have enough authority to be a speaker to just actually just doing it?

Renae: I don’t know that there was actually, like, even a flash point other than the, I just said yes. I said yes to a lot of things that, I said yes to a lot of free speaking, right? So that was one piece of it. And, you know, for those listening, I don’t tend to speak for free anymore. Like, it’s not, it doesn’t support my family anymore for me to do that. So it’s really, really. Specific situations in which I will do that. But I did that for a long time and I didn’t, I still, I still don’t, such a terrible business model. I still don’t promote myself as a speaker. Like there’s a part on my page, it’s like, here’s things I talk at, but I don’t pitch myself and I don’t network and it’s still referral and word of mouth. Um, and so that is what gave me the confidence because other people would say, oh, you really want to have her come and speak because this and this, you know, she’s, here’s what she’s great at. And, um, and so I think that that’s, that gave me like the confidence, um, because it’s people, people were voting with their requests, right? They were giving me evidence and then like the feedback too. So I, I definitely, um, I’ve. Collected as much of the feedback forms, like I have a whole file of them, of people letting me know what they think I could do better. And by and large, it’s the comments to let me know what was the most effective. And so I’m just continuing to lean into that. Yeah.

Laura: So here’s what’s funny to me when you, so when we first asked the question, like, what have you waited for? And you said writing the book, but I’ll go back 10 years and say that you were first waiting to be a speaker until you had these other things in place. But then despite that, you know, like, it’s a good thing that you didn’t wait the 10 years to get the book done. You still wouldn’t be speaking, right? So you would have cost yourself 10 years of experience and iterating and having, you know, more knowledge about what was good, what needed work until, you know. And I’m sure you continue to polish and refine, but like you wouldn’t be near the speaker that you are today if you hadn’t, if you had waited and not just gone ahead and did it. So that’s really interesting.

Renae: Well, and I think that what I’m looking at now is I’ve hit kind of like a plateau about the places that I’m invited into. And I’m seeing a lot of things where I’m like, oh, I think I probably, I know that was invite only. I think I probably should have been invited to that. That’s like really what I talk about. And they know me. I wonder why I didn’t. And then I’m looking at the other speakers. I’m like, oh, they all have books. And so we’re kind of back in the, you know, 10 years later or back in the, oh, shoot, like that, that back and forth. And so I, I think, but what I, if I was going to really distill it, I think. And And so It is, what if I get the timing wrong?

Laura: Talk about that.

Renae: think that that’s sort of like a universal worry of, what if I’m too late? What if I’m too early? What if nobody is on the same page as me? What if people are like, yeah, we already know about that? And I think that applies to anybody. It, talking about anything, anywhere, is the timing piece of it. And what’s so crazy about that is we can’t control it. We can’t control what other people, where they’re at. And any, like, so we’re worrying kind of for nothing.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting. I really identify strongly with that. I’m sorry. I’m I’m already too late. It’s already too late. And it’s that old, like, what’s that cliche about the tree? know, the best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago, but the second best time is right now. And I, I have to, I remember that cliche to myself a lot because I do always kind of track into, oh, well, it’s too late. Someone else already did this. And, you know, back to the experience and the learning is, I do feel really strongly that you learn by doing the thing, you know, not by thinking about doing the thing, not by learning how to do the thing, not by talking about the thing, but by like doing the thing. And so even if your initial, even if your initial ideas maybe are not that original or maybe are a little bit too late, it’s only by working through those that you’re going to get to the stuff that’s on time or the stuff. That is more original. Like I was reading a Ryan Holiday book this morning and he said something about like, you know, like we want to escape the void, like the hard parts, but that’s where the real work gets done. Like that’s where your original critical thought happens when you’re like facing that kind of cliff and you don’t know where to go. And instead of walking away from it, you figure a way to like traverse it. Um, so I think that that brings us to another piece of this, which is like, why do you think that, you know, you have this warrior part, like why is it so good at pointing out all the reasons not to do something or what could go wrong instead or what did go wrong if you’ve already completed a thing versus what might go right with that or what might be the potential in that?

Renae: Um, I mean, without going too deep into attachment theory or, um. Too much neuroscience. It’s part of it is that, you know, our brains, our amazing brains do such a good job of protecting us by seeing patterns of failure, which equals hurt, right? Failure will equal rejection, will equal shame, will equal things that keep you from surviving. And so the hypervigilance piece or the, it’s different than the preparedness. It’s different than the, I’m aware that there’s a potential issue, but it is where you start to loop a little bit more, I think, when the warrior takes over and you do get stymied. You do get to the place where you feel like you. You can’t take action. And then it’s, then all you can do is collect it, like your brain just is continuing to collect evidence of, see, you didn’t take action and you’re staying safe. See, you didn’t take action and you’re staying safe. And so I think that that’s where it’s protecting us, right? Right. And then there’s, it’ll also, if we do take action and we, something goes poorly, then it’s like, see, you took action and it went poorly because it’s, it’s trying to keep you safe. Right. Stasis is safe. Change is dangerous. Yeah.

Laura: Even though we know that those, those statements are not the full truth. Yeah. The warrior is really confident that those things are true. Yeah. And I think that you made a good point, which I’ll like just further a little bit where there’s, it’s one thing. To trust that things are going to go well, like, I’m going to go for it because I know it’s going to go great, versus trusting that whatever does happen, you’re going to be able to handle it. And I think the latter is what we are trying to cultivate, right? When we are dealing with this worrier part, to be like, yeah, it might end up a huge failure, but also we’re going to be okay about that. I mean, you know, like we were resilient. We can, we both, and, and you listening can, can list all of our failures and here we still are.

Renae: Absolutely.

Laura: Absolutely.

Renae: Well, and like coming back to my favorite definition of resilience is I know what to do, or I know who to call or reach out to. And that there’s a piece of the preparedness that says, I want to proactively think about how can I, how can I create this container that allows me. Or allows me to try something out and try something differently. And as you were talking before about the importance of taking action, I think taking action while staying present and then creating space for reflection afterward. I think that that’s an important piece of it because if we don’t spend time marking the evidence for ourselves, collecting the evidence that we have done hard things and that we have survived the hard things, whether they’ve gone well or not, but we’re collecting that evidence that develops that trust.

Laura: Yeah, I think it is collecting evidence and to your point of like… Bringing more intentionality into it so that you have built in reflection time of being able to say what is going well versus what isn’t going well and how can I make adjustments along the way instead of just like kind of crashing into a head first and not learning as much from the experience as you might if you were being more thoughtful.

Renae: Well, I think that the intentionality and that reflection does give you, putting that into place gives you a pause as well that helps you to continue to develop the muscle of I can pause. I think that sometimes the worrier spiral gets going and that it’s hard to pause. so taking that moment to say. Let me step back for, for a second and take a look at this. Like what’s, what’s actually going on here? And what’s the part I can hold? And what’s the part I can’t? What’s the part I can control? What’s the part I can’t? And I’m going to take the energy that I have been spinning around about the part I can’t control and focus that on creating a container that will hold me in this.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s really, that’s really wise advice. And I also, if you’ve noticed that this is a pattern with yourself, instead of saying like, am I overthinking this? I think you can just skip to, yeah, I am. And how do I, how do I then break that pattern of overthinking? Because I have a friend who has a strong warrior part and he, he is always the one to say, to overthink it. then to say, am I overthinking this? And then this. Spiral on about how he’s overthinking it or whether he is or not. So I think it’s an interesting snap for yourself to just be like, okay, what if I were overthinking and I am, and what would I do then?

Renae: And if we’re overthinking and we’re actually thinking, I think we’re still in a good place when we’re, because we can still do, there’s still critical connection to decision making and problem solving and emotional regulation and all those parts that are helpful. It’s, I think, when we spiral into the downstairs brain and it becomes a stress pattern, right, that we then start to have more physiological. Cues that are telling us that we might be heading to fight, flight, or freeze. We’re no longer thinking, right? We’re in the worry spiral.

Laura: Yeah. So what you’re saying is maybe what we’re terming overthinking isn’t actually thinking as much as it is. Well, I guess I think of it when it’s preventing someone from moving forward. It’s sticking them in freeze, really. Because they can’t undo the loop of whatever that thought pattern is.

Renae: Yeah. And that’s when we start to create those pauses, whether it is through a ritual or whether it’s through we practice it and just say like with a safe person or in a safe place, let me just contemplate. Like, what if things went? Sideways, what would I do? Or I was just having a conversation with somebody this weekend about doomsday prepping, and it was a couple, and they were kind of getting into it, and I just paused and said, hey, wait, so what I’m really hearing, I’m saying to the husband, is that I know you feel like you need to throw a bunch of money at this, but what you really need is to practice what to do if these things happen, and to have a plan, and to have it printed, and to just know, like if you just have a plan, and have it printed, and you practice, and have that muscle memory, that will calm your fear, and so it doesn’t become this source of continual worry, because you’ve taken action before you’ve had to take action. Yeah, right.

Laura: And then you can have that in place and move forward instead of continuing the worry about it. Yeah, think that, I think another thing that, you know, to take that from a specific example to more of an overall, like, what, you know, asking yourself, what would it look like for me to be able to trust myself moving forward and kind of setting out that parameter or that definition? And maybe also being okay with some uncertainty because you have evidence that you have survived difficult times, unexpected changes, failures, et cetera, in the past and have made it through.

Renae: Yeah. And I think at the… Base, just at the basis of that, like the baseline version for me is, I will find myself saying, I’m going to be okay.

Laura: I’m going to be okay.

Renae: And when we do that, what we’re really doing is we’re co-regulating ourselves using evidence that was provided by someone else who cares about us at another time in our life. Like when we were a baby and we’re picked up and someone’s holding us and saying, it’s okay. I got you. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. Or a good friend who’s like, you’re going to get through this. You’re going to be okay. And so it’s actually important how we reflect other people and provide that mirror, that evidence for them that they do have resilience, that they do have this evidence. And if they can’t remember it. And so putting those, whether it’s visuals in place, whether it’s, you know, mantras, whether it is a body movement, practices, whatever it might be that brings us back to this central light, again, that muscle, triggering that muscle memory of, oh yeah, I’ve had this feeling before and I did not die. I’m going to be okay. Right.

Laura: Absolutely. So if you want to look closer into your warrior patterns and start to flesh some of this out for your own self, we have our micro journeys and we also have our bigger workbook if you want to go really deep and you’ll be able to find that in a link that accompanies this podcast.

Renae: Well, thank you so much, Laura, for bringing this container, I would say, to us to walk through. I think that especially in this day and age, in this time, there’s an awful lot of things to worry about. And I think that this is some really good opportunity for us to reflect and contemplate how we might actually use this to create resilience for ourselves.

Laura: Yeah, likewise. I appreciate you always sharing your experience here as well, because I know that you have. So much good data from helping other people and working through things on your own, which you have always done so beautifully. So thank you for having me here.

Renae: Awesome.