[ENCORE] Clean Pain vs Dirty Pain

As humans, we've got a lot of emotions and big feelings about things, and they aren't always good. It's painful to feel uncomfortable, angry, resentful, guilty. But there's something even worse: adding shame on top of it all.

In today's episode, Lara talks about clean pain vs. dirty pain, and how we can choose which one to deal with. It comes down to the negative thoughts and whether you're going to let yourself talk to you that way anymore.

If you think you're not enough, too slow, too much, need to get better, then Lara's three steps will help you clarify whether those thoughts are true or not.

This Episode is For You If:

• You ever have the thought you should be doing more or you should be doing something better, or you should be further along
• You think, "Why can't I just be better, do better, act better…"
•  You're holding back from your goals because you have a fear of failure, of rejection, of feeling bad

Click HERE to watch this video to learn The 3 Things to Avoid When Reading Self-Help Books

How to Connect with Lara:

Web: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com

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Work with Lara: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com/work-with-me/

Transcript

Welcome to the Mom on Purpose Podcast. I'm Lara Johnson, and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, claim more with your kids. Manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose with my proven method. This is possible for you, and I'll show you how. You're not alone anymore.

We're in this together.

Hello, welcome to the Mom on Purpose Podcast. Thank you for joining me again today. I hope you've been enjoying the last couple episodes. Today we are talking about something that I've been seeing in my own brain a lot, but also that I'm seeing in my client's brain a lot as well. And that's because we are human.

And as much as I don't like to admit that, and I wish that I were superhero, and I didn't have these human traits, that's very much not the case. And so even as I was, I was laughing with my husband about this morning. I could easily title this "the dumpster fire of my life." This is where we are at right now, so I'll explain a little bit more about that in just a second.

But what we are talking about today is layering emotions with shame. And in the coaching world, we call this the difference between clean pain and dirty pain. And I'll explain more of that in just a second. So you'll just know that this episode is for you as if you ever have the thought you should be doing more or you should be doing something better, or you should be further along. And that'll show up in different ways.

Oftentimes it's not as straightforward. Sometimes, like looking at your to-do list, thinking "should have more done on that to-do list." Or you're going along, and you see somebody else that seems to be parenting better and you think, "oh, well I'm not doing it well enough. Look at this person," kind of thing.

Another thing that you'll know this episode is for you is if you think, why can't I just, you know… why can't I get my act together? Why can't I just be better at planning? Why can't I, you know, all of those kinds of things? Another example is if you feel like you're holding back from reaching your goals because you have a fear of, we always say fear of failure, but really, it's just a fear of like rejection, feeling bad.

Like you're not going to make it. And that in the past when that's happened, there's, like, an underlying story that you've created that you're just not good enough, you're not talented enough, you're not smart enough, you're not organized enough, whatever that is. So, I want to come back to this clean pain versus dirty pain and explain a little bit about what that is as we start this episode.

So, I'm going to illustrate it by sharing a story of something that happened recently. You know, this was a few weeks ago. All the kids, you know, in the morning getting breakfast, getting dressed so that we could get them out to school. I had the baby; I think my husband was out of town, and I had the baby like in his little bouncy seat in the kitchen, and I had come, I had walked over to the table and as I was walking back into the kitchen, my toe caught the bottom of his bouncy chair.

And just snapped my toe sideways. Of course. Like I hit the ground. I'm rolling in pain. My kids are running over. Mom, are you okay? Are you okay? And it's so painful. So, in that moment, I had a couple different options. And I could, I was with it enough to be able to slow my mind down to really look at these options as my kids were coming over and they're asking me, are you okay?

Are you okay? I knew in that moment I wanted to; I wanted to say, I can't believe I just did that. This is so stupid. I don't have time for this. Like what? I should have been watching where I was going. Like all of these additional languages. But instead, what I did, and this just comes from practicing, is that as they were asking, are you okay?

Are you okay? I just paused because I was having a hard time reathing because I was in so much pain. But I said I'm not okay right now. But I will be soon. I'm just going to sit here in pain for a few minutes. And I was glad that I could communicate that to them because it settled them down without being the example of like what it means to shame ourselves when we have some kind of accident like that.

It's been like six weeks. I did have to be in a, in a boot for a while because I did break my foot. So that's a story for another day. I don't recommend breaking your foot while you have a baby. But that's fine. It, it, everything is fine. But what I really wanted to illustrate in this point is that in that moment, I knew I needed to sit with the pain, and I didn't need to start adding or layering the shame on top of it.

So when we're looking at our emotions, and this is just a human thing that we'll all do, and when we feel an emotion, that's like what we call like the clean pain. Where something happens and we feel that sting within our body. But when that thing happens and then we make a story about ourselves with it, some kind of negative story, that's dirty pain. That's where you really start to suffer. That's where you're telling yourself negative things about who you are as an individual. And this is really easy to do because, one, it's human nature, and two, it can be really subtle for the most part. My clients don't really have the story of like, "Oh, you're stupid. You'll never amount to anything."

You know, that kind of like really heavy language. It's very much like a whisper that happens in their brain where it's almost like, just get up and keep going. Like, you don't have time for this. You know, even things like, my husband and I always laugh, like, you start to question all your life's decisions.

Like, why did I even become a mom, anyway? This is miserable. You know? And all of a sudden, like, there's this whole additional story that you're starting to play out in your mind on how you're not good enough in some way, instead of just sitting with the original emotion of sadness, of rejection, of disappointment.

And so that's where I want you to really get clear. That and what your behavior is and what that looks like for you when you start to feel that subtle shame start to creep in. And I'll tell you that, like, I've noticed this happening quite a bit in myself lately. Just a little bit of background of, you know, the dumpster fire of my life that I mentioned.

There's just a lot going on circumstance-wise in my life, and I can feel that I have, I'm expecting of myself to be in the exact same spot that I was when I had three kids and my youngest was four years old. My circumstances have since drastically changed. I do have a baby now. He's almost four months old.

I did have a broken foot through all of this. One of my kids I've had to pull out of school and is currently homeschooling. But in order to homeschool him, I have his teacher teaching me. And then I go and teach him, because I'm not a teacher by, by trade. I don't really know the sixth-grade curriculum right now.

So, I'm looking at all of these circumstances and I'm, and you know, with my husband traveling and, you know, all of those things, and I'm realizing that I'm holding myself to the exact same expectation that I was when I had three kids and the youngest was four. And this is like that emotional layering that I'm talking about is that it's been so subtle in my brain.

It's like this background noise of like, why are you struggling right now? Like, get your act together. Trying to just push and push and push. So, I've been able to slow down over the last, you know, couple of weeks where I'm able to start to see and recognize the suffering, the additional suffering, the optional suffering that I'm putting myself in instead of giving myself that grace and space to just grow my capacity in a way that I never have before.

And that's uncomfortable. And so that's, you know, when you're dealing with this clean pain. It really is painful, but it is less painful than adding in all those additional layers of negative self-talk. And as you, as you go back to that clean pain, when you really process those emotions, when you get down to that nitty gritty of what are you feeling?

And you just stay there. It's painful, but oh my gosh, there's such a deeper release that starts to happen. So, it begs the question of how can you be really aware of when you've shifted and where you're at right now? And so, I wanted to give you three simple steps on how you can really get clear on this for yourself.

So I want you to grab a paper and again, when in the past, I've mentioned this as moms, sometimes papers are paper towels and a crayon that you find on the floor. Okay? The whole purpose of this is just to get whatever's happening in your brain and in your body out of you. Okay? Grab a paper that might be a paper towel, that might be an app on your phone.

I don't really care. Whatever is accessible to you. So, I want you to take and just draw, you know, like a T. You know, across, like, at the top. You're going to have two columns. On the left side, you're going to write clean pain. On the right side, you're going to write dirty pain. So, I want you—the first step is I want you to ask, how am I feeling right now?

And just sit for a minute. Okay. Whatever you are feeling right now, in this moment, that goes into your clean pain. So that might be disappointed, that might be overwhelmed, that might be anxious, that might be joyful, that might be content. Whatever that is, I want you to write it on clean pain. So, then the next is the next question, the second step.

What am I making this mean about myself? So oftentimes when we're having an emotion, like disappointment, for example, then in that dirty pain, what are you making that mean about yourself? It might be that I'm never going to reach this goal. It might be I'm not doing right by my kids, and it's very much like an "I statement."

Okay? That's some kind of story that you're telling about who you are on a very fundamental level. So, the third step, and this is the most important, is to really decide to no longer talk to yourself in that way. And this is, this takes a lot of practice. I'm going to be honest. Because these thoughts are so subtle, and they do creep in very regularly.

This will be not like a onetime thing that will never come up again. It will be a continual decision to go back to. And I think the first time I really did this for myself it was, I was having a lot of like negative body thoughts, and I realized that so much of my brain was occupied by these subtle negative body thoughts that I had.

I just decided, okay, I'm not going to talk to myself like that anymore. I know exactly how this plays out. I'm going to feel like crap for the rest of the day when I talk to myself this way, and then I get irritated with all the people that I love. I'm just not going to do that anymore. And so, it was like I had to, like, draw a line in the sand and step over that line.

I'm like, that's just not who I am anymore. Now those negative thoughts still come up. I'm a human and they're still there sometimes, but not to the extent that they once were. With regards to my body, same thing. With mothering. Like I no longer tell myself I'm a bad mom. Yeah. There's ways I want to improve.

And that's going to happen over time as I set goals and I'm working toward that, but at no point am I shaming myself or telling myself I'm not good enough or I'm bad in some way for not being where I want to be right now. And so, when you think about this, I want you to think about it in terms of like creating a healthy lifestyle.

Oftentimes people will cut sugar or cut flour. Like we're more willing to cut things out of our regular food diet than we are to cut negative language out of our brain. And I want you to really consider that for yourself. Like when you're looking at like this clean pain versus dirty pain. It is optional.

The dirty pain is optional. You do not have to talk to yourself in that way, and it will be making that decision that you're just going to stop every single time that you notice it. Now, I will add, you know, just a small caveat on that is that most of the time when I'm coaching my clients around this, there is a deep underlying fear that if you let go of those "I should be doing better" that you feel like you won't improve. And I want to just tell you that that's just a thought. And a really simple example to think about this is Jesus never shamed anyone into change. He just didn't. Okay. And neither should you. Okay? Shame is not an effective tool of motivation.

Even if it has worked for you in the past. There are better ways to motivate yourself going forward. Really get down to love and support and do things out of the joy of doing them instead of the shame that you are not good enough in. So, I hope that really helps explain a lot of the emotions that you could be feeling.

Again, you know, go back to those three steps. Well, the first you know, before you start the three steps, is making that list on your piece of paper. You got clean paint on one column, dirty pain on the other column, and then go back to those three steps. How am I feeling? Write that in the clean pain.

What am I making this mean about myself? Write that in the dirty pain. And that the third is, make that decision to no longer talk to yourself in that way and to really give that back over to God. Have a wonderful day, friend.

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