Why you must, must must "heal yourself first."
Because you can't do anything else until you do.
Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
Not many people understand how much their nervous systems will fuck them out of making different choices.
A little background for this one- when I started writing publicly three years ago, even though I did it online for about 20 years in somewhat of a “safe, regulated way,” with every piece I wrote I convinced myself that the whole world was going to hate me, someone was going to come and kill me, and I’d be dead in a ditch.
(Yes, this is real. I talk in more depth about it in my free ten-day email series: Overthink Less in Just One Minute a Day)
I’m not some sort of wackadoodle.
I am, like many people, afraid of success. So much so that when I take any new action at all, I have to manually force myself to do it, and actively shut down the thoughts about how I will die as a result. (**For some people death is not the big threat… It’s a loss of love or acceptance.)
I, among many people I have worked with, have an easier time visualizing my own death than a life of tremendous, bountiful success.
Are you one of these people?
We spoke about the alleged fear of failure quite a lot in the early days of Day 1. - my women's coaching experience that went on from June 2022-July 2023.
Then, for the most part, the idea of it went by the wayside. Why? Because fear of failure isn't usually the issue. People say it is, maybe even think they mean that it is, but most humans are actually afraid of succeeding.
And by afraid, I mean they have a nervous system that is trying to protect them by keeping them small and safe, usually because of things that happened when they were young.
This is why in an event I attended with Brendan Burchard last year, he said something along the lines of “What’s the first step to starting a business? Personal Development.”
It’s a process, and it shifts and changes over time. I no longer feel those visceral fear-based anxieties when writing, creating new things, leading programs, or accepting money, but each and every time I did those things when I first started, I absolutely felt like I was going to vomit.
This is why it’s so important to find the knots you tied. And this is exactly what working with a coach (yes, someone like me, will help you do.)
The feeling of the nervous system “You’re going to be dead in a ditch, go hide in the closet” is the exact feeling you get when you’re craving a cigarette. It’s that real.
It’s the “I want to crawl out of my skin, I’d rather be dead than do this. I’d rather burn down the house than spend one more minute in this agony.”
I know an average, “never-smoked-a-day-in-their-life” reader will be like “What the fuck does this have to do with anything?”
It’s about neuroscience, and how what you think is reality is actually just hard-wiring… hard-wiring that you did.
I want to quote Megan Miller from the Friendship Bench last week, who said the brilliant line “That neural pathway is so well-trodden you have a bench with your name on it right in the middle there.”
How does one actually overcome this?
Well, “let me tell ya.”
(My brother tells me I say this a lot.)
In my perspective, there are three things that must be done in order to move forward:
Eliminate limiting beliefs
Renegotiate your identity
Micro-steps forward
The last one being the operative.
And I’ll add 4. REGULATE YOUR NERVOUS SYSTEM.
Back in the day, when I thought of nervous system regulation and wizardry, I thought “I never did any of that voodoo! Not necessary!” (I have since, fyi.)
FORGETTING that I’m an endurance athlete, which means I can put up with prolonged discomfort for days, weeks, or months on end.
However, you don’t need arduous, prolonged upset if you have some assistance with the wiring. And there are strategies that help with that.
While discomfort is unavoidable, suffering is 100% optional.
Understanding how you operate, and knowing that once you have that owner’s manual, you have complete agency to change everything in your life—that’s gold.
So, let’s talk. Email me: andee@getthefuckoff.com
Or visit my website and fill out the shortest application ever: https://www.getthefuckoff.com/coaching
(It’s going to be ridiculously hard for you to do that which is why it’s short. When you go to hit “send” your fingers will seem like they’re fighting you. That’s a testament to your hard-wiring. Go. Try it. LMK what comes up.)
We’ve got four months left in this year. Why not now?
You can’t solve problems with the same thinking that created them.
And you’ll be surprised how deep the rabbit hole goes. (It’s really cool. Trust me. Becoming really fucking good-looking is just a bonus. 🤣)
