3 Ways of Thinking That Changed My Life

There comes a time when the facade of perfection crumbles, and the raw, unfiltered truth of our struggles with toxic relationships emerges. That's what happened to me, and I'm ready to peel back the layers of that transformative journey.

My emotional breakdown, under the crushing weight of overachievement and the constant pursuit of perfection instilled by my mother, became the unlikely catalyst for profound personal growth. As you listen to my story, it's not just the retelling of my challenges you'll hear; you'll discover essential life lessons that hold the power to change the trajectory of your own healing process.

In this episode, I cover the following:
1. My journey of personal growth and inner work.
2. Emotional breakdowns and patterns.
3. The importance of becoming consciously aware of one's patterns and motivations.

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

Chapters

• 0:04 Healing From Toxic Relationships
• 7:00 Breaking Patterns for Emotional Breakthroughs

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 gonna 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're having a great week.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Today I'm just hopping on here, a little bit raw, a little bit real, and I'm just going to let this flow and, to be honest, right now I don't even know exactly what is going to come out of my mouth, and usually I try to have some pretty good sense of what I want to share with you, what I want to talk about. So, yeah, here we are. If there's lots of ums, lots of sos, lots of filler words, lots of pauses, just forgive me. Here I am Now. There have been a few of you who have reached out over time and asked me about my inner work journey and that really got me thinking that it would be fun to share a few things, maybe mostly one thing that changed my life, completely, changed the game for me. I look back over the years, I view almost nothing the way that I used to not myself, not other people, not the way the world works and that's not to overwhelm you at all. I not my intention, but just that doing this work has resulted in me viewing so many things differently. So I want to share something that was pretty monumental for me and when I introduced this to clients it has shifted so many patterns for them. But sometimes it takes them hearing what I'm sharing over and over and over again before it clicks and they're like, oh my God, I get it. That is not to say that it will take you that long to get it, but I will be honest, it did for me. I revisited what I'm about to share multiple times before I really let it sink in and before I fully integrated it, and I have also had clients who I share this thing with them one time and they embody it and they get it and it's like a just mind blowing moment. So I want you to know it doesn't have to take a long time for you to get, and if it doesn't seem quite profound the first time that I share it, come back to it and, better yet, come join us inside of Brave Academy, because I will take you by the hand and guide you to understand really and integrate what I'm about to share.

Speaker 1: 3:37

So where should we start with this? I think I will start with how I perceived myself. So, if I look back, I considered myself a high achiever type, a hard worker, dependable, responsible I'm gonna do what I say that I'm gonna do Perfectionist, disciplined, motivated. These were all things that were part of my identity and they were all things that I valued, and this will matter. I'm gonna circle back to this later, okay, so what I want you to do for now is picture me in my dining room working on a project, and this is a project where I was looking at a whole bunch of different personality assessments for each client and then creating an integrated report where I basically go over who they are, given all of this different information, and this is something that I hadn't done before. I didn't feel like I knew how to do it. Well, I was receiving some guidance from another business owner and I felt overwhelmed and questioned if I could do it as well as she could, and you know all that negative self-talk.

Speaker 1: 5:03

Okay, at the time I was working full-time at NASA and part-time for another entrepreneur, and this was for her business, and I share that. I was working both jobs because I was essentially burning the candle at both ends. I would work all day, I would come many evenings, I would work in the evening, I would work on day, I would come many evenings, I would work in the evening, I would work on the weekend, and it felt like too much. So here I am at my dining room table grinding it out, trying to get this done, and each moment that passes by, moment that passes by, I noticed more well in hindsight.

Speaker 1: 5:50

Probably in that moment I don't know if I really noticed a lot of discomfort in my body, but there was a lot of discomfort building, a lot of agitation building, and with each passing moment that was going up and up and up and I got to the point where I had a massive emotional breakdown and I just could not stop crying. I was so overwhelmed and felt so incompetent, so incapable of doing this project. And I remember going to the back porch and just sitting there and crying and crying and crying, and like I couldn't get over it, I couldn't let it go, I couldn't like get myself together and I tried to go back to the table and work on it more and I just like couldn't even focus on the task. My mind was just like not present at all. And then I tried to bring the work back to the back patio, thinking well, maybe change of scenery will help me, and I was just so upset that I couldn't.

Speaker 1: 7:00

And that was essentially my day. I ended up not being productive that day and not being able to get it done, and at that time I viewed it as a waste of a day. And then I was mad at myself for wasting the day. Okay, and right now I can't remember if it was a day later or two days later or three days later, but very quickly after this it hit me. This was my pattern. And then I had a flashback to when I was a teenager and my mom said to me you're perfect for three months, and then you lose it. Every three months you lose it. You're perfect. Other than that and this. This was it. Over and over and over and over again, I had reoccurring emotional breakdowns and probably nobody knew about it breakdowns and probably nobody knew about it. This was just something that I was dealing with that I felt was part of who I was and I was wrong. So at this point I was into my inner work journey and I had experienced profound shifts and enlightening moments and I was figuring out more and more like what was creating all of the issues that I had. And I still had a long way to go.

Speaker 1: 8:35

And that week after that emotional breakdown, I found myself asking something that, if you're hearing this for the first time, might sound weird. I asked myself what if I am choosing to have emotional breakdowns? What's the hidden reward? And if you've never heard me say this before, you might have just like, I don't know, depending on where you are, like slammed on this brakes or spit up your, your juice or water or whatever you're like, what, like why would you choose emotional breakdowns? I'm not nuts. I mean maybe I was, but no, no, this is it. This is big. What if I'm choosing to have reoccurring emotional breakdowns? What's the hidden reward? So let's sit with this for a moment.

Speaker 1: 9:39

If I got a hidden reward for creating a pattern in my life of having reoccurring emotional breakdowns. What would it be? Well, let's go back to my identity. Who do I think that I am? Who do I like that I am, and is it tied to that? Now, just little side note here the hidden reward doesn't always have to be related to your identity, but in this case it was, and this is something that I help all of my clients discover.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Now, what is the hidden reward for creating a pattern that they say that they don't want? So, if we go back to my identity, things that mattered to me were being viewed as a hard worker, doing what I said I was going to do, being responsible, and being viewed as responsible, being dependable, doing it perfectly. I said I was a perfectionist, so I would burn the candle at both ends. I worked two jobs and the last thing that I would ever have wanted anybody to say is that I wasn't who I thought I was, that I wasn't these things. Okay, so these are not conscious things that were happening for me. This was all in my, not in my, awareness.

Speaker 1: 11:10

Okay, but what did this reoccurring pattern give me? Well, if I worked myself like a dog to use a quote for my mom I don't know that she would always say that if I work like a dog, could anyone tell me that I was not a uh, that I didn't have great work ethic, if I worked myself like a dog? Could anyone tell me that I wasn't responsible, that I wouldn't do what I said I was going to do, that I wasn't trying my hardest? No, and subconsciously, what did I want? I wanted to be viewed in those ways. I wanted to have that experience. So I created a pattern in my life where that would always be true. And and then why on earth would I choose to have emotional breakdowns? Well, turns out I'm human and I need breaks. Turns out I need time to rest. Now, if I grinded until I literally couldn't work anymore, what did I get? I got to rest and everyone still had these beliefs about me. Are you following me here? This is like important and big and it was life altering for me, and I've had people say, after hearing this story, this actually created a breakthrough for them, and so I'm so curious how this is landing for you. So let's just recap this really quickly.

Speaker 1: 13:00

I created a pattern of having emotional breakdowns so that I could get a break, while still being perceived the way that I wanted to be perceived. What could I do instead? Like, what other options were there? Well, one I could just proactively take breaks. I feel like that sounds so basic, but I mean seriously. I could just do that and choose not to grind constantly. I could give that gift to myself, rather than creating this awful reoccurring pattern so that I could have these breaks that, honestly, were not even enjoyable because I was sobbing my eyes out and hysterical. So that's one thing. I can just proactively take breaks and I have the opportunity also to separate in my mind. Now this is in my conscious awareness. I can separate in my mind. I can still be an incredible employee and have great work ethic and be responsible and dependable without creating emotional breakdowns. Those don't go hand in hand. Like, have you ever met someone who who had incredible work, ethic and had these qualities, but they didn't have emotional breakdowns? Yes, in fact, you're listening to one right now, because that is no longer a pattern for me.

Speaker 1: 14:33

So often these things are happening outside of our conscious awareness and our mind puts these two things together, that it knows that, that we want. Like oh, I have to hear another example. I have to have mom guilt in order to be a good mom. Those two things are often like married together in our subconscious mind, but in reality, have you ever met a good mom that didn't feel mom guilt? Yes, you're listening to one, okay, so that's part of it.

Speaker 1: 15:18

And then the other part is like when I learned to listen to what my insides were begging me for, which was take a freaking break, staff, then I broke the pattern. Then I broke the pattern and I'm happy to say I wish I could remember exactly what year that was and I don't know for sure, but I'm happy to share that this is no longer a reoccurring pattern for me, no longer a reoccurring pattern which is mind blowing, but this is the power of bringing things from your unawareness into your awareness. This is the power of activating choice, and this is exactly what I do with my clients to bring things from their unawareness to their unawareness so that they can choose to show up and to have the experiences that they want every single day. Part of the work that I love is that I use a number of different modalities to help people bring things from their unawareness to their unawareness, to their awareness, because, if I'm being honest, what you are aware of is a very, very, very, very, very tiny part of your entire experience, and you cannot regulate and manage and choose what you are not aware of. So I hope this was helpful for you. I can't wait to hear how this landed with you and, yeah, let me know what questions you have and if this created a shift for you, let me know.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Send me a DM, tell me in the podcast review section what happened for you as you listen to this, and what I want to leave you today is with this thought to ponder on what if I take on the mindset of I choose everything? What if I take on that mindset? What would be different for me? A whole heck of a lot. I'll just leave you with that, all right, so I will see you next week. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I appreciate you so much for listening. Enjoy your week and your weekend and I'll see you next Tuesday. 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 guide.