Harnessing Curiosity for Emotional Resilience

In this episode, I'll guide you through breaking the negative thought cycles, we explore the cathartic practice of angry journaling, the strength in self-compassion, and how curiosity can lead to understanding the protective parts of ourselves. Together, we'll take the first steps toward navigating the complex maze of emotions and interpersonal conflict, offering you personal insights and actionable advice on finding your way to inner peace and control.

As we peel back the layers of vulnerability, I'll share my own journey of growth through the genuine connections made when laying bare our deepest fears. This isn't a story of weakness, but one of empowerment; to truly thrive, we must risk exposure and embrace empathy. Tune in for a heart-to-heart on how showing our true selves isn't just liberating; it's the key to unlocking a life of unstoppable power.

In this episode, you'll learn the following:
1. The importance of tailored guidance and understanding context in providing effective advice.
2. The role of self-compassion and curiosity in managing negative thoughts.
3. Having difficult conversations to regain control of oneself.

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💗 Dr. Steph
@DrStephanieLopez
www.brave-method.com

Chapters

• 0:04 Breaking Negative Thought Cycles
• 12:17 Empowerment Through Vulnerability and Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Hi, I'm Dr Steph and I'm here to guide you on your journey to healing from a difficult relationship with your mother, whether she was narcissistic, emotionally immature or just plain toxic. I want you to know that you are in fact, not broken and you do not have to suffer from anxiety or explosive emotional reactions like lashing out. You can break the cycle. You are a strong, capable woman who can handle any challenge that comes your way, and I'm going to show you how to have the ultimate control over your reactions so that you are unstoppable. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome back. I hope you had a wonderful week the girls had off school yesterday. I think if you have kids, that's probably true for you too. It was really nice to get some extra time with them, especially because I won't see them for several days this week.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Later this week, at the time of this recording, I am in full blown preparation for my four day bravecation healing retreat. I'm so freaking excited and I really cannot wait to witness the breakthroughs. The last time that I offered this was exactly one year ago today and it was literally, I think, one of the best experiences we're going to say best professional experience of my life. So amazing. I'm just super excited and my retreat assistant arrives a day early tomorrow to help me prep, which is really nice, because usually I'm doing all of the packing and shopping and this and that by myself and it's kind of a lot. So I've never had somebody come a day early and help me out, so I'm hoping that it just makes everything feel smoother and less chaotic. Yeah, okay, I just gave you a bit of an update there, but let's dive into today's episode.

Speaker 1: 2:11

I want to take some time to address a question that I received from one of you and I want to make a couple caveats. First, I have been doing this work for more than a decade. There is no way that I can convey all of the information in a single, one way podcast episode. When you join Brave Academy and you attend one of the weekly what the F with Dr Steph coaching sessions, what you'll see is that when someone asks me a question, I almost always ask more questions prior to answering theirs. Why is that? Because understanding the details and the context of the situation matters. Think about it. If my guidance was a simple, one size fits all answer, you wouldn't need my guidance. You would have literally already found it on the internet or in a book or something like that. It's the tailored guidance that is for you that really really helps and really matters. Okay, another reason why I ask a lot of questions is because, if the situation involves another person and it very often does understanding what you said and how they responded is helpful to identify next steps, and I can identify if there's anything that you might have said that triggered their defenses, vice versa, as well as a slew of other things.

Speaker 1: 3:44

And then, finally, sometimes the quote unquote right question isn't being asked, and this is like nothing against you or anyone in the program. I myself, I'm in a business program and sometimes when I ask my mentor a question, he takes me in a completely different direction, and one of the reasons that you hire a coach or a mentor is for that reason. It's so that they because they're able to see beyond what you're able to see they're able to see past your blind spots. And so all that to say me answering this question in this format. I can't do any of that, but I'm going to still do my best. I'm going to just dive into this without the full context and anticipate the details as much as I can. So let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 4:39

All right, here's the question what is the best way to break cycles of stressful and negative thoughts that are taking over on repeat, despite efforts to manage them and change the subject inside of your head? Someone in my daily life doesn't like me, or seems not to, and could potentially ruin an incredibly important part of it, part of her life. It's kind of like an adult mean girl situation where I have daily contact and all of my middle school and high school insecurities are on high alert. Okay, first, I'm so sorry this is happening. You know, I don't know if this is a work context or somebody in your personal life, but it's not comfortable. So, all right, I have a few thoughts.

Speaker 1: 5:25

I'm going to dive into these recommendations. The first piece here's what I want you to do. Imagine a friend or someone that you care about. Imagine that person standing in front of you and explaining all of the things that she's afraid of and the hard things that she's going through, and, in response to her, you just change the subject or, in response to her saying those things, you try to manage her or make her feel better or give her new thoughts. How is that going to land? Not great. The person would probably feel completely invalidated. That person would probably feel like she doesn't matter to you, probably insignificant, all kinds of stuff. So take that lesson and apply it to yourself. What you suppress will persist. What that means is like it makes sense that if you are trying to manage these stressful and negative thoughts, that they will take over. If the thoughts are negative about the other person, what you might do is maybe you do some angry journaling to get the gunk out, rather than holding it in and rehashing it over and over and over. If you're rehashing something over and over and over, that's a sign that you're actually not allowing yourself to go deep enough. That's one recommendation, one very small first step for where to go there.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Now, if the thoughts are negative about yourself, I recommend switching to a compassionate and curious place. Literally thank the part of you that is feeling insecure. Maybe it will sound something like thank you for bringing up this fear, like I know that you're trying to keep me safe and I appreciate you for that. Now this has to come from a genuine place for you. I don't want you to just like recite what I say, but I want you to find a place where you can meet that part of yourself with compassion and with curiosity and even gratitude, like I'm demonstrating now, and then asking that part of you is there anything else that you want me to know? The more curiosity that you express with yourself, the more you will create safety internally to learn more about your experience, and the more that you learn about your experience, the easier time you will have in letting things go. There's more to it, but those are some helpful steps. Okay, let me sit here and think for a second if there's anything else.

Speaker 1: 8:07

On this first piece, yeah, I mean most of the time, if you are trying to control your thoughts or control your experience, that is not going to go the way that you want it to, because that doesn't work, and so it's learning to shift out of that. The second piece is this question the woman said that she, like all of her high school and middle school insecurities are on high alert, which that is a sign that healing needs to be done on those insecurities. Inside of the Brave Academy, what I do is I guide women through three pillars of the Brave Method analyze data, activate choice and absolute acceptance in order to heal those insecurities. Now, every single human has insecurities. However, when you do the work to heal, you will no longer be controlled by your insecurities and, trust me, if you haven't done that inner work, they're controlling you in ways that you don't even know. Beyond this situation, all right.

Speaker 1: 9:10

Third piece is if this is someone that's in your daily life and that could potentially ruin an incredibly important part of your life, then I'm guessing that it's either a family member or a co-worker, and I know this question, like mentioned. Well, I can't avoid her and I rarely rarely recommend that, because avoiding doesn't solve the problem. Think about it If you spend your life trying to avoid any situation that will trigger your insecurities, who has the power? You don't have the power anymore. Your insecurities do. I want you to live a life where you're in control of yourself. Well, I'm assuming that you want that. I'll just speak for myself. I want to live a life where I'm in control of myself, and I'm just assuming that you do too. So, given all of this, I recommend having a direct conversation with this individual.

Speaker 1: 10:06

It's really, really common for people to resist this advice and tell me all the reasons why they can't, and that makes sense, because very few people have learned the tools to frame up these conversations, and it's really not just about framing up the conversations. It's getting comfortable with feeling vulnerable as well. So a lot of people tend to feel quite anxious about having them like, afraid that they will shut down or that they'll go into people pleasing mode, or that they won't get their point across or that they'll get angry. I want you to think about does that feel true for you? Do those fears pop up when you think about having hard conversations? If right now, you're thinking to yourself well, I don't want to have these hard conversations because it wouldn't do any good anyways, or I've already tried to talk to them about it, or they're not going to respond well, etc.

Speaker 1: 11:05

I encourage you to look at this differently. Having the hard conversation is not for the other individual. It's not to get them to respond a certain way. It's not to get them to see your side. It's for you. It's one way to honor yourself. It's one way to come back to yourself. Will you ignore the part of you that wants to have this conversation, or will you honor that part of you?

Speaker 1: 11:36

Framing up these conversations is one of the things that I guide women through inside of the Brave Academy. Honestly, it is one of the most common things that people want help on. Why? Because we don't learn it, and I'm just going to give you one tip to start with today. Take a minute, think about a hard conversation that you have been avoiding and ask yourself what am I afraid of when it comes to having that conversation? And then say that first yes, say the fear first. It makes a huge difference.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Now there's obviously more to frame up the conversations, but when I started saying my fear first which, yes, can feel incredibly vulnerable everything shifted for me. Not exaggerating there, because we don't really ever say it, but literally every freaking human is walking around this planet with all kinds of fears and concerns. So, like, why aren't we just open about it? It really changes the dynamic between you and the other individual, or it can. It doesn't always because we don't control the other people's responses.

Speaker 1: 12:51

But I'm going to leave that there. I have to wrap up for today so that I can get everything packed for Bravcation. I hope you have a beautiful rest of your week and I will see you on the next show. Thank you for listening today. If you're ready to heal so that triggering situations no longer control you and so that you can feel empowered, brave and thrive in any situation. Dm me the word brave on Instagram and I'll send you a training where you will learn three of the most common mistakes driven women are making that are keeping them stuck in negative emotions, and what you can do instead.