Three Internal Voices That Stress You Out
Get ready to retire three internal voices that trigger unhealthy stress.
Week 9 (of 12) of Soul University’s Holiday Blues Busters Series.
With the first month of the new year pretty much tucked away, we now dive into a common issue that we face daily. Stress. In this particular segment of Stress Management, you can do your own research on what is stress. You can look it up in the dictionary. You can Google it. I’m going to add to this mix regarding stress.
We must look at three common voices that are often quite active inside our head. And those voices are the Perfectionist. The Critic. And the Judge. The Perfectionist, the Critic, and the Judge. Now you can wrap your own meaning and definitions around each of those. And you might think isn’t the Critic and the Judge the same thing?
To some degree it is. Judge has more to do with the moral issue. Critic has more to do with societal and expectations issues. And the Perfectionist has more to do with how we have been raised. What’s been our own way of navigating through the world of what is expected from us. Other item I’ll add to your research around stress is this constant awareness of time. Speed.
The speed in which life seems to be going. Who amongst us has not had that issue where at the end of the day, all of the things that were needing to be done, did they get done? How can we more rapidly identify what those stressors are in our lives so that we can dissolve the unhealthy stressors more quickly.
I’m going to jump back to a homework assignment that I gave you in one of our prior episodes. When it comes to stress management, I’m going to ask you to recall, look at your calendar. Or look at your to do lists. How’s that working out so far this year? An eye opener that I often ask new clients to do — so that we can get a handle on how life is going — is I ask them on the beginning of whatever their work week looks like, is to sit down and plan out a week more or less.
I’m not talking too granular. I’m talking about you’re aware of certain things that are certain people or certain events that need to be taken care of at a certain time. Put those on your calendar. And then fill in your calendar with other things you know you need to do. And complete that calendar in advance.
Then, each day, document what really happened. And then at the end of the day, you can look at what did you plan, and what actually happened. And to do that looking, stress free. Meaning no judgment involved. No Critics involved. No labeling of what was good or bad or right or wrong.
Just look at the fact that, alright. I had scheduled X amount of time to do an X project. These other things came in. And over time, when you do a side by side comparison between what is planned and what actually happens, the magic of it is the themes begin to come out. And it is those very themes that either create good stress or bad stress.
Here’s an example of a theme. As I look at my own results, I can begin to see, Wow, I always seem to run late. Because I start late. Something always causes me to get my day started later than I thought. Therefore, like dominoes, it’s pushing everything back. It’s creating more and more stress because I’m beginning to be more and more late as the day goes on.
And I see that as a pattern day after day. Another issue I had to address was my eating habits. I saw on my calendar how I pushed my own nutritional needs off to the side. I grabbed what I could when I could because of my busy calendar. That’s how I got to be almost 325 pounds. People would snicker when they’d see in my own personal calendar breakfast, lunch, dinner.
And I took a full 90 minutes for each one because I wanted a little time to just close my eyes and just relax. Others thought that was pretty crazy. A lot of people don’t have that luxury. When they work with me, they get that luxury. They learn. Their time is more important. Their health is more important than the almighty dollar.
So by looking at the calendar. Looking at your to do lists, what are those things on the calendar that get bumped and bumped and rescheduled and rescheduled? Or what are those things on the to do lists that seem to get forwarded to every other to do list? Stress. We’re imposing stress.
Self imposed stress is lethal. And let’s look at those three areas that I spoke about earlier, self imposed stress, because of that internal Judge. That internal Perfectionist. And that internal Critic. One way to grasp how noisy these three voices are inside your head, is if you dare, take a small piece of paper, like a post it or a little note card or something like that, just a small piece of paper that you can carry with you. And each time you notice your Perfectionist kicks in. Or your Critic kicks in. Or your Judge kicks in. Just put a tick mark on that piece of paper.
You don’t need to necessarily delineate whether it was your Judge, your Perfectionist, or your Critic. Just put a tick mark. A check mark, something to notice, just to be conscious of the fact that Perfectionistkicked in. And one way that I’ve helped dissolve my own inner Perfectionist… is I’ve come to terms with the fact that those teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny little things that I were all excited about, that my Perfectionisthad to have, no one really cared.
In the long run, it didn’t really make a difference. I’ll give you an example to that. One of my Perfectionisttechniques was when I was producing reports for clients, I would have a certain format. And sometimes that format was a little bit difficult because when I would email the report, to another client, their software, the format in which I laid things out, did not necessarily line up the way I had originally laid it out.
So the report would not look exactly like I wanted it to look like. And one time I was sitting with a client and I saw a copy of the report that I had emailed them. And I saw it printed out, and it looked terrible. To me, it looked terrible. Things were out of alignment. And I happened to show them the report that I printed out.
And everything was aligned correctly and looked the way I wanted it to look. And they looked at me and they just smiled and they said, “Soul, we know that different applications interpret coding differently. We know that you probably didn’t intend to have these things out of alignment. The way it looks doesn’t matter to us. It’s the content. And you always have great content and that’s why we work with you.” So the extra time that I spent fussing over getting it just right, that little Perfectionist within me, consumed more time than was necessary. That additional time spent on the report reduced the time I needed for other things. That reduced time caused unhealthy stress!
Let me be clear about perfectionism. There’s a difference between perfectionism and discipline. As a spiritual teacher, as a spiritual guide, when I see students use perfectionism as a way to sabotage their learning process. If I catch you using perfectionism as a way… to sabotage discipline, I’ll call you on it.
There’s a difference between doing something perfect and doing something in a way that you’ve been disciplined to do. Two different things, so let’s keep it very clear. Perfectionism has generally roots of feeling inadequate. Feelings of inadequacy can supposedly be covered over or resolved by, look how perfect it is.
It’s rolling a big stone up a large hill. I invite you, when it comes to stress, bad stress is definitely linked to perfectionism, criticism, and judgment.
If you go back through all of the different classes and you begin to listen to the themes that are in the classes. What I’m inviting you to do is look at habits. Look at themes. Look at traits overall in life. One of the easiest ways is to rapidly identify unhealthy stress is when something comes along that gives you that knot in your stomach or you feel your shoulders rise up to your ears.
When you discover that your body is preparing for war, it wants to be protected. Pay attention to this. Identify that unhealthy stress. Classic example. You’re at work. It’s time to go home. Someone of superiority comes up to you. People who could fire you and they want you to work extra time to get something done at a spur of the moment’s notice.
And this stress that goes on inside between, “Alright, do I do what my boss tells me and keep my job? Or do I make some sort of an agreement to get it done so that I can get home and be with my family, be with my friends, be with my kids?” There’s that tug of war inside there. By identifying the pattern and asking your boss. Asking whoever it is that’s creating the stress. “I want to get this done. I really would like to do what you ask me to do. Unfortunately, it’s in conflict with the following things. If you were in my place, what would you do?” Those famous words. If you were in my place, what would you do? And if your boss comes right back around and says, “You know what I would do is I’d get this done because I don’t want to get fired.” you clearly have an insight to what’s driving your boss. And your boss is probably going to expect you to follow what drives them. It gives you a key insight. And that insight can help you take the stress down a few notches and be able to work at ways of dialoguing with your boss or with whoever it is that’s creating the stress.
After you say, what would you do in my situation? It goes into problem solving. One of the fastest ways to dissolve stress is to switch from analytical mode to explorer mode. For example, when I was training customer service reps. Especially customer service reps who were generally the front line for something responsible for resolving a problem.
I coached customer service agents to come up with a menu of ideas. Along the lines of, “Ma’am, Sir, here’s three options that I’m aware of that I can do. Boom boom.” They would label them off. Which one of those work best for you? And if none of them work best for them. Okay. Here are the resources I have at hand that I can work with.
If we can work together to find out something that will be at least okay with you, we can resolve this issue. Go into stress reduction mode by getting people involved in resolving the problem with you. I’ll conclude with the stress management issue by returning to one of the first things I talked about in Pay Me What I’m Worth.
There’s a hidden secret. There’s a hidden secret in the world that it’s easy to forget. And the secret is? Choice. We all have the divine gift of choice. And for those of you who want to argue that you have no choice in anything, therein lies your trap, the paradox. We do have choices. What the choices are may not necessarily be pretty in some people’s eyes. But we do have those choices.
And by making those choices, often I have found that when I make those tough calls. Those tough choices. When I’m being proactive. Making a resolution to the problem, before the problem goes on so long that the stress is literally giving me a heart attack. The stress is literally giving me a stroke.
The stress is literally distracting me so much that I’m at jeopardy of having a car accident. Or an accident of some type. Or the stress is so chewing up my immune system that I’m sick more often than not. Being proactive and making choices. Even the difficult ones. Is one of the best ways to turn stress around such that it’s a healthy way of living. Versus an unhealthy way of living.
Our call to action this particular week is, for some of us, it could be kind of tRiky. Because I know at one point in time I was a news junkie. I had to read the newspaper. I had to watch the TV. I had to be online, clicking around, looking all the news sites. And I realized that news was the source of most of my stress.
People being killed. Catastrophes happening. People’s lives being decimated. Wars. Hunger. I felt so helpless most of the time because I didn’t think I could do anything about it. So my call to action to help reducing stress — now and going forward — is slowly taper yourself off from news. All sources.
That means reading. That means listening. That means watching. Taper yourself off from news, as quickly as you can. And you’re going to find out that the stress level in your life will drop in the same level of less news watching.
All right, that’s it. Lecture time is done. Time to get into our conference call classroom. And in class, we’re going to explore more the information that you just experienced in this lecture. To register for the series, click the links at the bottom of the page. Follow the registration instructions to join us for our weekly, live, lively, conference call classroom. Get ready for some wonderful laughs, some ah hahs all from the comfort of your phone.
I look forward to meeting you and to being of service. And now, time for class.
Soul: And here we are, ladies and gentlemen. Segment 9 of 13 in our Holiday Blues Busters. This is where we get to really dive deep into the material that we just covered. I want to Thank everybody for joining back in. So far, we have some familiar voices, David, Marcia, Rik, Cheryl and of course, your host. Welcome back, everybody.
David: Glad to be here, Soul.
Cheryl: Aloha. This is Cheryl from the Big Island of Hawaii. I am glad to be here, too. Looking forward to the stress management update here.
Soul: It is Rik with us.
Rik: I am here. Good to hear your voice.
Soul: Yaaaay! Rik is an alumni of this class. I think everybody in this class has taken this class once. And tonight I’m delighted to share with you that you don’t have to listen to me babble on for an endless amount of time, you can listen to David babble on because he’s going to co pilot with us tonight.
David: Oh, now you’re in trouble. This is David H. Paul from Minnesota. Really glad to be here tonight. And I’m also glad to share. I do have some of my own techniques and stuff that have worked great for me. And you can all look me up later on if anything jives with or resonates with you. Happy to be of service as a coach and as a teacher.
Soul: I appreciate the extra wisdom, David. As always, what popped out for you as you were listening to tonight’s class? And we’ll go from Cheryl, to Rik, to Marsha, and then David, you can begin to tie in from there. Cheryl, any initial ahas from tonight’s journey?
Cheryl: The thing that popped out through that entire class was yes, I was there. I lived that. And then another thing you said, I was there so long ago, and I was stuck in that entire thing, accepting all of those stresses. Just every single one that you pointed out, I let those things stress me.
And I am so happy, as you said, to be an alumni of this class, because I really took to heart everything that we were studying. Even though I had dropped some of it previously. It really helped me to be able to drop so many more of those things that I was torturing myself with. That’s what…
Soul: Wow. A gentle reminder. All right. I love it. Rik?
Rik: What popped out for me is that I haven’t watched or listened to the news for years. When I stopped years ago reading it and being jerked around by it and listening to it. It did alleviate a lot of stress in me. I think I mentioned this on the last call that when I’m able to identify individuals that are acting unconsciously, I don’t act in the normal manner that I do because I know that they may not be aware of what they’re saying or doing. I knew that before, but going through Pay Me What I’m Worth reminded me that I couldn’t really solve anything in my life by changing anything external. So everything had to be from within me. And anything that I tried to do that outside of myself was totally futile. As I started to drop all the crap, what they told you at high school. What they tried to feed you at college. I started to feel a lot more happier and stress free. A lot more joyful. Because I make my decisions like, is that going to make me happy? Oh, I’m not doing it. Is it going to make everybody else happy? I don’t care. Good for them. I’ve always been a real outgoing person. Before I did anything in my life, I always looked at everyone else first. Being a dad and a parent. And now it’s time in my life where I can actually look at myself, or I don’t have to look at them. They’re old enough to look at themselves.
Soul: All right. Very good. Good review there. Miss Marsha, you’ve been through this grist once before. What popped out for you this time around?
Marsha: I started having a reflection. As I was listening to the recording, I had a reflection of the times in my past when I was such the perfectionist. Oh, my God. And there’s a story.
Soul: No. No. Marcia, we found a last perfectionist. I love it.
Marsha: What is so funny is, my daughter reminded me of a story one time, where… I was trying to cook this perfect meal. Everything imaginable was going wrong with this meal. She told me, and I don’t remember this happening, but she told me, “Mom, it was so funny, I’ll never forget the night you actually had a food fight in the kitchen.”
I don’t know what I was doing, throwing around the food, I was so mad. But yeah, I was reflecting back to that. All those moments in my past when I would let all those little things irritate me because the perfectionist in me was coming out so strongly. And today, it’s I’m totally different. I just let things go. The perfectionist has really… I guess quieted down a whole lot.
Soul: That is good news. Good news. Mahalo, Marsha. David H. Paul. First, what popped up for you?
David: That was awesome. What popped for me was taking a look at this perfectionist, this critic, and this judge and thinking back to over, over that timeline of history in my life at all the times when the perfectionist, critic, and judge just ruled my life. And then somebody told me, you’re 100 percent responsible for all of it.
Soul: How rude was that!
David: And you must take 100 percent responsibility if you’re going to get anywhere. Now, keep in mind that when I first heard that, my life was ruled by doubt, guilt, shame, worry, and fear. Ruled by that. It was all based in and around that perfectionist, that critic, and that judge. I think it’s really important to understand the paradox here. Because I am 100 percent responsible for all of it. But the question is, what am I responsible for?
Am I responsible for the perfectionist, the critic, and the judge? Am I responsible for handling all that and juggling all those balls? Or, is there an alternative? And for me, what I found was that there was an alternative. And the alternative was that I’m responsible for only one thing. Noticing all that stuff and then finding peace. We’ve talked about noticing before up in here, just a couple times, haven’t we?
Soul: David, that brings up an interesting point. For everybody in class right now… have you noticed, pun intended, that the more you’re noticing, there is a dual edged sword to observing? Because, have you noticed in yourself, David, when you are just observing yourself. Your perfectionist, your critic, and your judge is going, — slurping sounds — laughs! Huh? Have you noticed?
David: Absolutely! Oh, yeah! Especially for me, it’s especially the critic. It’s especially strong for me. What are people thinking? Oh, I don’t know. For the longest time, there was a real moral flavor to it. “ Oh, you better be doing the right thing!” So as I’m noticing those things it wasn’t quite enough, for me, it wasn’t quite enough. I had to start to understand what am I really responsible for? When I mentioned earlier was that I’m really responsible for how I feel about it all. Not necessarily what’s going on in my mind and what my history is telling me, because that stuff is going to come up. Those thoughts are going to come flying up.
The question is, how am I going to feel about it? I found out that there was some magic sauce in that. The more I find that I can get my feeling self, at least at courageousness. But more toward acceptance and peace, the better things tend to go. Or at least the better things tend to go in my life.
My experience has been that, as I move toward those emotions, which I call the love emotions, courageousness, acceptance, and peace. That life changes. The circumstances and what’s going on around me, a lot of that really hasn’t changed. In fact, a lot of times it’s gotten more intense. But my response to it has changed. And what I’m welcoming in is different. And then the outcome starts to change.
Soul: Listeners, did you just catch what David said? David, you need to repeat that last bit.
David: Okay. I’m not telling you guys that my, that life around me changed, but my response to it has.
Soul: Life around you had gotten more intense, but you decided to choose a different response. Right? Who else has done that recently? Marsha, Rik, Cheryl, have you chosen to respond differently to a stressful situation?
Marsha: Absolutely. I, choose that I am not going to respond in my old pattern. The way I used to would have responded in my mind, which is oh gosh, you don’t want to know. I would have been fed, oh my gosh, you better believe it. And in my new pattern, it is so completely different because I’m so aware when something happens and I know, okay, this is it! I’m feeling that stress for a minute.
I will actually just sit back for a minute. Just take a deep breath or drink a glass of water and let that moment pass. Because I know it’s only a moment that I’m feeling it. I don’t need to choose it. I let it pass. Yeah. It feels so much better to be in the piece, so to speak.
Soul: This too shall pass. I love it. I love it. Rik, Cheryl, have you noticed, with David saying, just shift your orientation, is that a fair way to summarize, David? Shift your perspective?
David: Yes.
Soul: Shifting your perspective. Rik, Cheryl? Have you been shifting your perspective as much?
Cheryl: I have. I have become much more aware of everybody around me. What they’re doing. And now I have the ability to stay out of that. Almost remember that TV show Bewitched? You’d be up in the corner and you could watch what everybody else is doing. It’s like I can do that with a situation. Like if I’m at the store or if I’m, different places. Because I’ve been able to pinpoint some of their behaviorisms and in doing different things. Now I can laugh at it before it would, make me angry. And then I laugh at myself now for being that way back then.
Soul: Oh, are we dating? David? I heard you chuckle! Bewitched. Are we dating ourselves or what?
David: Absolutely.
Soul: So David, you’ve been a professional working with people and helping them take the stress down a few notches. What are some of your techniques that you help folks?
David: One of the techniques that I’ve actually learned from you — Soul — and from the Pay Me What I’m Worth course is as simple as just breathing. But making a conscious breathing. In inhaling for four beats. Then holding that briefly. And exhaling four, four beats. And then making a choice of adding in, when the perfectionist and the critic and the judge come up: “Boy, I’m not at peace with it!” Welcoming all that with the inhale. Holding that, and then releasing it all on the exhale. And welcoming it again, until I get to the point where the inhale and the exhale are equal.
And in watching that all dissolve. That’s been a real powerful, and yet simple thing to do. There’s a prayer that some Hawaiians taught me called Hoʻoponopono. And this is a little confusing because, again, this is a hundred percent responsibility thing. Meaning I’m a hundred percent responsible for all of it and its creation. And I might not even know where the heck it came from, but it goes a little something like this. Thank you. I’m thinking about something that my perfectionist, critic and judge brought up. Just, thanks so much, right? I’m thinking about that. I get focused on that, and then I say to myself, inside, in my heart space, gosh, I’m sorry that came up. Please forgive me. Because I may not even know where the heck that came from, but please forgive me. And thank you for the opportunity to take a look at it, and for bringing that up, way to go. And I love you, because you’re perfect just the way you are. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
Probably the two most important phrases in there are the thank you and the I love you. And the thank you is, thank you no matter what it felt like before. And again, I love you at the deepest corners of what that means. Those are just a couple of techniques that you’ll find in my tools of Letting Go course.
Soul: Did you catch that everybody? David? Why did you say that it was shockingly simple? What is it about our journey that when you took that deep breath for the first time you went: “DOOH! I know this!”
David: Most the time, that’s part of that paradox is that I at least for myself. I had this illusion — again, the perfectionist, critic, and judge are really good at making me think that because life is so damn hard, that change and choice and feeling good has to be just as damn hard too, but it’s not. It’s not. And so practicing these simple kinds of things, like simply breathing. And releasing. And allowing. There’s nothing hard about that. There’s nothing complicated about that. But that professional critic and judge sure wants to try to convince me otherwise. And when I wake up to it and go D’oh! It’s like that Homer Simpson moment, and I think it’s real important to understand that the D’oh! That’s for real! Oh yeah. And it doesn’t take any more than that. It really doesn’t.
Soul: I’m chuckling with stress management, we’re talking about stress management on our segment 9 of 13 of our Holiday Blues program, now granted we’re beginning to wind down this program. But obviously stress management is something that we need to be mindful of daily. For those who have taken the Pay Me What I’m Worth journey, now do you see why I hit you square between the eyes in your first few pages of your journey. You gotta deal with doubt, guilt, shame and worry. Because if we don’t start dealing with doubt, guilt, shame and worry, when we start addressing our Chaos Committee, Oy!
David: Yep.
Marsha: Yep.
David: It’s a good thing to have a few tools in the tool belt during those times. It’s a very good thing.
Soul: If I didn’t make you sign a contract stating that you were going to let doubt, guilt, shame and worry go. Meaning you’re more than welcome to have doubt, guilt, shame and worry if you’re going to afford it. But I put the price tag up there rather high for each episode of doubt, guilt, shame and worry. If I hadn’t done that, would your journey through Pay Me What I’m Worth been extraordinarily more stressful?
Marsha: Yeah
David: I think we would have been thinking up exit strategies.
Marsha: Yeah, I think you’re right.
Soul: Part of all of this is beginning to get in touch with our sabotage ways. One of the things I want to tickle out in tonight’s journey is how sabotage, how subtle forms of sabotage are. Now, one of my best examples of subtle sabotage. Years ago as I was on my way to 335 pounds is I would just grab what I could, where I could in a moment that I could nine out of 10 way too expensive. Okay, I had to eat something. That was convenient. And now we get back to work. Anybody else have an episode or two of that in their journey?
David: That came up this afternoon. I went and had a cup of coffee with my beautiful daughter. And we had a wonderful talk and, it was very in depth. I was amazed at her brilliance and compassion. And on the way back home, I noticed that I was famished. And four opportunities popped up along the way. Four. Oh, I could get this. Oh, I could get that. Oh, I could go get that. And all of them were incredibly unhealthy. And I chuckled at each one of them as they popped up and verbalized it. My daughter chuckled along with me. And she says, “Man, you are hungry.” And I said, “Yep, time to go home, and it’s time to make that lovely piece of fish. And the broccoli.” And boy did I savor that. I came home and I cooked for myself and I savored that along with a really nice clean glass of water.
Soul: What I’m smiling eye to eye on and my face is all wrinkled up is all of you have figured out my little secret sauce distress management and that is you’re getting in touch with your themes, your patterns, and you’re dealing with them. David, you got in touch as you were going by each place that you would have normally pulled right into an order, right?
David: Yeah. Oh, yeah. We have to stop there.
Soul: Cars on automatic going through the drive thru. Here we go, right?
David: Yep.
Soul: How many drive thru windows do we go through every day, metaphorically? How many drive thru windows do we sabotage ourselves? For example, for years, I would always be spending five to six dollars a day on getting a bottle of water. And then I realized, okay, I’m, not only am I spending a dollar on these small little bottles of water, which probably cost maybe a penny to produce. I’m filling up the landfills. If I would just get over my, “Oh, I can’t be inconvenienced to carry a water bottle. It’s too heavy.” When I got in touch with the fact that I’m sabotaging our earth our very source of life by buying all these bottles of water I quickly snapped back and reminded myself, my goodness, it’s not that big of a deal to carry around a bloody water bottle.
What other first world problems, as we stop and think about how blessed we are on a daily basis to have access to such abundance in so many different ways. Anybody got a story of a time where they were unknowingly adding so much more stress into their life because there was a way of doing things that was, this is just the way you do it. This is the way you were taught. This is the way you were expected to do it. You were brought up doing that. You never really questioned it. You never really even questioned the level of stress. The holidays are rife with examples of this is how we’ve always done it, right? Anybody got a story where they’ve modified some of their holiday traditions to be far less stressful.
Cheryl: Totally. All of my traditions have changed so that it’s way less stressful. I was reflecting this holiday season and I cannot believe what I used to go through and the stress that I would put myself through every single holiday season. We used to buy gifts, I think I counted up, like 15 people. And you wouldn’t just get one, you’d get a couple of things. And that was a huge stress, so that’s one of my things that has been super modified. We don’t even exchange with anyone now.
Soul: Retailers of America are taking you off their list.
Cheryl: They are, yep.
David: Oh wait, was that a bad thing?
Cheryl: Yep, I used to do the Christmas cards too. Stress out getting them. Yep, all of that. So many different stresses I used to, put myself through just for, yeah.
Rik: My dad told me, I was in the army, don’t ever volunteer.
Soul: So is it accurate to say that you all are having a less stressful holiday because you’ve chosen to start simplifying? Is that accurate?
Marsha: Absolutely. The things that we used to do as a family, the traditions that we had, they’ve all changed. We don’t cook big, huge meals anymore during the holidays. And then have everybody come over to our house. We might have one or two people that we invite. It’s not like we’re making a seven course meal during the holidays or anything like that. We just do what we feel like doing. If we feel like baking cookies, we’ll bake cookies. It’s just so much more free. It feels so much nicer.
Soul: Now I’m going to kick open another big can of worms. You know I love doing this. You know I love just kicking open cans of worms. For the parents on the call, as you reflect on how traditionally you have crafted and molded your holidays. And now you’re changing some of those traditions and habits, have you gotten any whiplash from your children? Have they like, what? What are you doing? Mom! Mom!
Marsha: I don’t have to worry about that. My kids are all grown up. They’re on their own. We’re not even in the same state, so it’s really comfortable. Everybody’s agreed we don’t need to exchange gifts. It’s only for the grandchildren now. Simplifies it for me.
David: I actually, got lucky. I’ll just call it luck. My kids, I actually allowed my kids to decide what the traditions were going to look like. Rather than dictate to them or say, “Oh, this is how we’ve always done it.” That just didn’t come up. I’m glad I had the foresight because man, the holidays are so much fun now. It’s especially fun to see what my kids decide they would like, traditions to look like. And then they decided this Christmas, my two oldest daughters to take the reins with planning the family Christmas event. We thought the tradition would be for New Year’s Eve every year. None of us really liked New Year’s Eve that much to begin with. So getting together and doing something fun. Having a bunch of cool things to do that felt really good. And it felt good for everybody because my old starters are really good at consulting. And but what was interesting was this Christmas, they decided to move that all up to almost a full week before New Year’s Eve. And they decided that kind of spurred the moment. My youngest daughter actually was not pleased because she felt like she got railroaded.
And so that was interesting. To see that, “Hey, this is how it’s supposed to be now. And now it’s not that way. And hey, that’s not cool.” It’s interesting to see that come up. She expressed it. The one thing that I made a point of was saying: “You need to express that. It’s okay to express that. And it’s okay to say, ‘Hey, I don’t think it’s all that cool that y’all want to change this just cause.’ That’s a valid feeling.” And so she expressed that and then she was fine. But it was interesting.
Soul: Which now queues us up perfectly. I was wondering when we were going to get to this. It took almost the entire class to get to the paradox for the class time. We can get into a routine. We can establish habit. We can establish discipline. It has a way of reducing stress, because this is how our day flows. This is what I do during Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. This is more or less what happens. It helps reduce stress because there’s this sense of continuity and stability, right? Follow?
David: Yeah.
Marsha: Follow.
Soul: Where am I going with this? Help me complete the paradox, ladies and gentlemen.
David: What if all that continuity also makes me unconscious of my bad habit?
Soul: Bingo! We have a bingo winner here. What happens if even just one domino falls? Something that you usually do, doesn’t happen. What does it do for the rest of the day, week, or month? Does it throw you out of whack?
Marsha: I’ve had days where I’ve had my day planned and then it’s interrupted. I have no choice but to deal with that situation at that moment. So I know pretty much that no matter what I can deal with whatever I need to deal with. And I can’t wait. Because if I wait, then it’s going to be a worse situation for me. So I take care of it right then and there. I think that’s a good habit that I formed out of this whole idea of just being able to flow with the energy as it comes to me.
Soul: Good example. Here’s another example that is poignant. There are two people on this call tonight that are living in flux because of certain dynamics. There’s one person on the call tonight that learned of something that really was quite jarring. The second person, I’ll own up to it, it’s me. How many people remember what it’s like to literally pull up stakes and move from one location to another location in a location that you really have no clue?
You’ve flown in and out of it. I have flown in and out of Honolulu for years, decades. But I’ve never lived in Honolulu. And so I did what I asked people to do. I put the call out for help. And there’s been some angels that have shown up in my life. But there’s still this, there’s no routine yet. And then I realized, you know what? A healthy, exciting life for myself is being really mindful of just what kind of routine I want to get in because, like David said, it’s easy to fall back asleep, if that makes any sense.
David: Makes perfect sense.
Rik: That makes sense. I remember when I was struck by lightning. We basically got rid of our home and everything that we owned. We moved to Costa Rica, and we didn’t really speak the language that well.
Cheryl: We had no idea what we were getting into.
Rik: And the only thing I let them take was two suitcases. I got to take more because I have a guitar and a surfboard. Yeah.
Cheryl: I had to give him a half a suitcase.
Rik: But, many times in my life I’ve moved around. Not so much Cheryl, but I’ve been on the street. I lived in Venice Beach for a summer and played my guitar to feed myself. I’ve been homeless before. And I never thought to ask my friends to help me. That just never occurred to me at any time in my particular life, nor did it ever occur to me to ask my family. They would probably help. I’ve always depended on myself. And nothing else. And it works out so far.
Marsha: I know for myself I have moved so many times. Gone through so many transitions in my life every time I move. I just never know what to expect. It takes a lot to move. There’s money involved. There’s major decisions that I also had to make. But I’ve moved so many times that I literally, I have a suitcase packed, just in case. It’s never unpacked. I never know. I might be going on a trip. I got a suitcase ready to
Rik: I didn’t realize there was money involved. I went to Costa Rica. I didn’t have any money, Marcia. We didn’t have any money. We had a one way ticket. And we had a place to live. We didn’t have any food. And I had about $200 or $300 a month. That’s all I had to live for my family. I was thinking like when I moved to Hawaii in 1979, I had five dollars. I thought I was going to live on the beach and eat coconuts. Oh, man. Because when she said, “Oh, you need money to move and lots of planning.” I was like, damn, I wish somebody would have told me that crap.
David: Wow.
Soul: Leaps of faith.
David: One of the things that just popped up, Marsha, with what Marsha was talking about there, Marsha, you have a suitcase packed. How connected is that to your timeline?
Marsha: I am serious. When every time I moved, I was… so tired of moving. I decided I’m going to have a suitcase and it’s just going to stay that way because I’ll be ready whenever for whatever happens.
David: That dates back to growing up with a with a family that moved from country, not from state to state, from country to country.
Marsha: Yeah.
David: It’s wow. I remember the most recent big move in my life was moving away from day to day. Always in contact with my kids because my marriage ended. And it was time to move. Coming into a new space and seeing the habits and the rituals that didn’t serve me or anybody else. And getting a chance to change those. I remember the great feeling I had in coming up with my own habits. And rituals. And traditions in my own home. That was really interesting. It was fun to do that because it was empowering. But it’s also really fun to, without doubt, guilt, shame, and worry, to continue to take a look at those. How many suitcases do I have that are packed? There’s a certain box of books I’m still hanging on to that I was supposed to have purged back in Chapter 2. Or was it Chapter 1?
Soul: I don’t know what he’s talking about. I just… David, you make up these things about this alleged journey we go on. [Sarcasm and laughter!]
As always, I am blessed to hear your stories and to hear your shifts. And for those, if this is the very first time you’ve been hearing David and Cheryl and Rik. I encourage you to check out their Soul University’s Pay Me What I’m Worth journey. As you go through the journey with them, step by step all 52 weeks, ladies and gentlemen, as we begin to wrap up, have you noticed that as you listen to some of your former classes, how much you really have shifted stress out of your life?
Cheryl: I feel it.
David: Night and day. Yeah.
Rik: Heck yeah. I don’t give a crap about any of that stuff anymore that I used to. I just let it go. And it relieved a lot of stress in me. And I figured out to be more introspective and just, basically to a point. Cheryl was laughing at me the other day because I didn’t shave my beard for a couple weeks, right? And it looks like I’m Santa Claus. It’s a big, puffy beard. I didn’t cut my hair because the razor was broke, right? So I keep going to the store and guys are hitting on me. And I’m like, oh no, I’m shaving my beard off now. And Cheryl thinks it’s funny, right?
So I can’t really be myself in the community. So I have to go incognito again and shave that crap off. Because when I’m all clean shaving and all like that, I never get that attention or activity.
Cheryl: He doesn’t get hit on, but now that he’s grown his beard out.
Rik: Yeah, now I’m all scruffy and raggedy again. Then I get all the attention. Unwanted attention, so no.
Soul: Alright, all the Puna men listening, now that Rik’s all shaved, make sure you tweak him!
Rik: I’m not shaved yet. I still have the damn beard. She has to buy a new razor.
Soul: Oh, I love it. All right. Let’s do our traditional wrap up. Anything in particular in our journey you want to share with the folks? Something popped for you. Something was… Aha! The light bulb turned on. Anything in particular? They’re like, “Soul, we’ve done this so many times. Our light bulbs are just always on. Okay?”
Cheryl: Pretty much. Just for people to let it go. Learn to let it go. Be like what do they say? A duck water off a duck’s back. If you’re gonna stress about everything, that’s what kind of life you’re gonna have. If you can somehow change perspectives, that works wonders. It did for me.
Rik: Yeah, I got mad when that’s all the only thing that, that was offered. That’s what you want me to do? Change perspective? Crap! That’s it? Oh, damn! Come on! You can do better than that! But, I realized, holy shit! That’s the only thing you can do, really. And as I, got off my high horse and started to watch other people, David H. Paul, Soul, Marsha change their perspectives on things, then I think that I was able to go, oh yeah, those guys can do it, I should be able to. . .
Soul: David a round of applause for you for co-piloting in tonight’s journey. Thank you for adding your wisdom in.
David: You’re more than welcome. I always appreciate the opportunity to be able to share and give a little something back. Hopefully folks are going to leave this call with my aha, which is? I’ve got nothing better to give you than my peace.
Marsha: Awesome job, David. Thank you.
Cheryl: Yep, thank you for sharing your wisdom with us.
Soul: All right, everybody, that concludes segment 9 of our 13 part episode. We’ve just got a few more to go. We’ll be actually wrapping up on Valentine’s Day. We’re just gonna hold a live call where anybody can dial in. It’s a day to profess your love to whoever you want to profess. Or, come in and get some lovin from the rest of the team. So speaking of which, I do dearly enjoy and love everybody that’s on the call today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Marsha: Thank you.
Cheryl: Thank you, Soul.
Rik: Thank you.
Soul: My pleasure. We’ll see you next week.
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Aloha!