How To Feeling More Like Yourself

In today’s episode, Coach Chris explores the deeper meaning behind the desire to feel better, not just as a relief from pain, but as a journey back to our truest selves.

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• 00:00 Welcome to the Soulfully You Podcast
• 00:44 Creating the 'Feeling Good in My Body' Experience
• 01:38 Understanding the Desire to Feel Better
• 02:05 Lessons from Mamba: Pain and Personality
• 05:45 Practices for Feeling More Like Yourself
• 07:51 The Role of Relationships in Self-Identity
• 10:00 Finding Home in Your Environment
• 11:23 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Coach Chris: 0:05

Hey friend. Welcome to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. I'm a movement and mindset coach, and I believe in a deeper way of living, a more soulful way of being. Join me each week for conversations about how to put a little more soul. Into our work, our relationships in our everyday lives. So I've been thinking about this idea, me and two of my friends and colleagues. We created this local wellness event, a mini retreat, and it's called the feeling good in my body experience. we basically designed this experience around helping folks go from feeling bad to feeling good in their body through reconnecting with their body in the context of community. So there was mindful movement, there was sensory exploration, a little body work. I a piano sound bath and affirmations. It was food. It was a great event. We're going to do more of them, in the San Francisco Bay Area. But this idea has stayed in my mind of feeling good, feeling better, and feeling more like yourself. So I've talked about this in previous episodes, how there's a lot of shame associated. with pleasure and feeling good. And that's a relationship that we need to heal to explore pleasure. But there's another aspect of feeling good that needs to be explored and that's feeling a little better. We usually talk about this. In regards to pain, whether it's physical pain, emotional pain, hurt, distress, there's a longing to feel better. And I want to offer some language to help us change our paradigm a little bit. The desire to feel better is really the desire to feel more like yourself. Let me break that down. If you've been with me for a while, you know, I got a pit bull named Mamba. He's usually sleeping next to me when I record all these episodes. And we didn't know when we first got him that pit bulls were prone to certain illnesses, certain allergies. And on top of that, he's a rescue. So that comes with a whole other set of things. That you don't really know until they get home, There's a separation anxiety. There's the Protectiveness reactiveness but there's also similar to people The illnesses that come from trauma like abandonment So when we took him into the vet for the first time We were just getting his Checkups and everything and we found all these problems. So the first one is allergies and in dogs allergies can be in three different ways You can have wax build up in the ears. You can have a stomach allergy Sensitive stomach or you can have a skin allergy Licking kind of like how cats do to clean themselves, but dogs don't clean themselves. So it's something in the environment is making their skin itch. our dog has all three. He's on a special diet. He eats cleaner than us. His vet bills are more than our medical bills. But we love him. So we deal with it. But, last year, there was this crazy thing that happened. He was just kind of getting these rashes and we thought it was just allergies. He'd also have these stomach bugs that will come up. whenever we would board him, he'd get this anxiety and he'd have diarrhea and constipation and vomiting. And it would turn into like an intestine infection. Anyway, we have to put him on antibiotics. And the combination of him being on antibiotics and a certain type of allergy pill kind of made him prone to this reaction. And he had this mite infection. And He would just itch and itch and itch It was horrible to see just his skin just being patchy. So we had to put him on some intense treatment. But during that whole process, and I'm getting to the point, y'all throughout that whole process, what was happening was he was being really like his aggression went up because he was being touched by doctors. He was going in for shots. He was going in for checkups. His skin was in so much pain. His stomach was in so much pain that he just got to a point where he wouldn't let us touch him. He was snapping, at us. He just didn't want us to get near anything. We couldn't, address his wounds. It was hard to give him his medication. And there was a lot of time where we just had to separate ourselves from him. We have a newborn child at the time. So we're like, what in the world is going on? Like, are we going to have to rehome this dog or put him down? Because he's not working with our family. After a bunch of treatment, he finally got better. And then he began to snuggle. And this is after months, he began to snuggle and cuddle and. Play with our son, and play with us, and lay down calm like he is right now next to me. And it taught me a very important lesson that Pain can change you. Pain can change your personality. Pain can make you feel like a totally different person and act like someone you don't know. So when we say, I want to feel better. We're saying I don't want to feel like somebody else. I don't want to feel like a stranger to myself. I don't want to act in ways that don't feel like me. So then we put practices and hopefully relationships in our life that are going to help us to feel better and feel more like ourselves. I'll share with you some of the practices I have, some of the relationships I have, and ways to just kind of re evaluate some of those things. So Practices and relationships need to make you feel more like yourself. So, a movement practice. A lot of us, as we're getting older, we're getting certain pains, we're getting certain injuries. A lot of them in the lower back, knees and shoulders. We hold a lot of stress. We hold a lot of load. So moving more and strengthening our bodies, right, can help relieve some of that pain. But when I have this pain, The goal is not to just be pain free. The goal is to Be able to live my life. When I'm in pain, I don't want to live. When I'm in pain, I don't want to pick up my son. When I'm stressed or distressed, I don't want to interact with my wife. When I have a headache, I don't want to talk to people. I don't want to engage. So we move to give ourself agency in our body to do the things we want to do and live. Mindfulness. I talk a lot about mindfulness. I'm A certified breathing coach and yoga teacher. Mindfulness is valuable in every area of your life The way I've approached mindfulness in the past is I just don't want to think about all the problems I just want to be calm and I just want to have peace And though not dwelling on problems is a good thing, avoiding problems is bad. And sometimes the peace that I've looked for, It's pretty chaotic and superficial. So I had to change the intention around my mindfulness practices to not just feel better, But deciding to choose mindfulness as a way for me to engage, to engage the people in my life with enough mental energy to engage the responsibilities at work with mental clarity. And to engage with my son and all the people I love with presence. So movement, mindfulness, relationships. If you are in a relationship because you want to feel better about yourself, whether that's romantic relationships, whether that's platonic relationships, you are never going to feel like yourself in those relationships. Because the people that are going to come around you, or the people that are going to stay around you, they're going to be yes men, they're going to be yes women. They're not going to be authentic, they're not going to be genuine. You're going to root out all the people that say things you don't like, do things you don't like, because you want to feel better about yourself. Romantically, same thing. If I just want the validation from my partner, To feel better about myself. I will lose my sense of identity. In that relationship. In that partnership. I should feel better about myself. Being in relationships with all the folks in my life. At times. I Also should feel a sense of grading. Against me, when these people that I've invited into my life, challenge me to grow, challenge me to take off the mask, to take off all the stuff I put on to perform and be whatever I am for other people. My wife, she is the one that checks me on that. I, am, By vocation, by training, I am an entertainer and sometimes we'll go places. My wife would go with me to an event. There's a bunch of people. And she'll put me aside and she'll say, Hey, I don't know that guy. And she's talking about me because I put on the show, I'm cracking jokes and, I'm working the show, you know. In the social settings and she's like, yeah, I just can't relate to that guy. Can you come back? Feeling more like yourself Can in some ways be uncovering the layers. A question that grounds me and my self reflection and even some of the practices I teach. Or who were you before you felt the need to fit in? Who were you before you felt like you have to perform? When you're at home on your favorite couch, on your favorite chair, drinking your favorite drink, who's that guy? Who's that girl? So movement, mindfulness, relationships, environment. Let's talk about that. Moving from a place of I go to this place to feel better to more of a perspective of I go here to feel more at home. Okay. Home is home, but there's other places that make you come alive for me and historically for people and cultures that's out in nature. There's certain social environments where you might feel that. For a lot of folks, they find that in religious community. Other folks, they find that in affinity groups, dance teams, movement classes, to feel more like yourself, you have to be intentional about the environments you put yourself in, making those places home. To say that a place is home, it means like, you know, I'm there a lot. I visit these places a lot. But also you have to find a way to be at home in you, in your body with the person you are. And sometimes there are places that you don't want to be, but you have to be there. How can you find home in you? How can you find home in that one person that It's also in that place that you don't want to be at, but you got to be at that hostile work environment that, you know, you need to leave eventually, but like right now it's not the move. who's the ally? Who's the friend? Who's the support system? That's gonna help you stay grounded and be at home and at peace within yourself. So my encouragement for you is this, the best stuff for you is not always out there somewhere else. The best things for you many times exist within you. Feel better every day by engaging with the essence and the soulful parts of who you are every day. Thank you for listening to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. If you like the show, help others find me by subscribing and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at Coach underscore Chris Rodriguez. For more episodes along with all of my coaching programs, visit me@www.coach chris rodriguez.com. Special thanks to my team behind the scenes music by Dan Smith. And remember, whatever you do, wherever you find yourself today, make sure you put some soul in it.