Who Told You That?

One of the most necessary exercises to truly step into being our own authority is to question the beliefs we have inherited from outside of us. This simple, effective tool of asking yourself, "who told me that" is a game changer in challenging the origin of these thougths, which is the first step to changing them.       

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Transcript

Welcome to " You need a coach bitch with Chris Hale. I'm your host Chris Hale. I'm a certified life coach that helps queer creatives. Take their passion, turn it into a purpose and get paid. If you are looking to make an impact on the world with your work by dismantling internalized, oppressive thought systems by using coaching spirituality and a lot of cursing, you are in the right place.

So let's get to work.

 Hi friends. Oh my God, how are you? I have so much that I want to talk to you about, and we're just gonna dive right in with all the things. And we're basically just gonna have gab sesh. So I hope that you're totally fine with like sitting down, grabbing a cup of coffee and just having a little girl talk.

First things first. Abigail Breslin got married. Do you remember who that is? If you don't remember who that is, why are we even friends? But anyway, most people probably remember her from Little Miss Sunshine. Amazing movie, but two of my favorite roles of hers as a child, cuz essentially that's what she was a child actor are.

There was an episode of Grey's Anatomy, and if you don't know, my husband and I are huge Grey's Anatomy fans. We used to rewatch every single season every year before the new season dropped, which has become impossible with like 19 seasons. But I did actually just finish a, a rewatch that probably took me, mm, six or eight months.

Anyway, she played a little girl who was in the foster system and she just had like new foster parents and she came in with injuries and she couldn't feel pain. And so she thought she was a superhero because she couldn't feel pain and that was like the whole storyline. And she basically acted op opposite Alex Carve the whole time.

Um, Justin Chambers, great episode. The other one. , she starred opposite Katherine Zeta Jones in No Reservations, which is just the sweetest movie. Actually, I will tell you, if we ever meet in person, maybe about the dinner that I had with Katherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas at a dance banquet for the studio that I used to work with where we were talking about that movie and she was like, oh, such a sweet little film.

Um, Catherine Zeta Jones icon, love her. And then actually one of the best performances I saw her give was um, actually up on Broadway in the Miracle Worker. So she played Helen Keller and The Miracle Worker, and she was absolutely brilliant. And then of course, the obvious like pinnacle of everything was her playing Chanel number five on Scream Queens.

Obviously that first season of that show was pure brilliance. . I was sad that it kind of declined after that, but. So she got married, and I know this first from Dylan Mulvaney, who is a trans influencer on like socials, right? It's TikTok and Instagram, um, who has been documenting her transition. Um, online with this like, um, days of girlhood sort of tag or theme.

And she was talking about being a bridesmaid for the first time and she was so excited about it and she was gonna be in her friend Abby's wedding. And then she like goes to this scene where she's like, giving Abby this gift. And I'm like, wait a minute. Is that Abigail? Abigail Breslin? Fucking Dylan's friend who's she's in her wedding is Abigail Breslin.

Oh my God.  and it's just weird when people grow up and get married. And now like I have a sister who's 12 years younger than me, so she's actually gonna be 30 this year, which is crazy. So I'm like, it's fine with the getting older, right? I'm like used to that. But it's just so weird when like young actors who like you, watch them grow up like in front of your eyes are like actually adults and getting married.

Anyway, so that was the first thing. I'm just sharing that with you. The second thing is my best friend just shared with me. Gossip about Glennon Doyle and like her podcast, um, where in November there was a guest who was rude to. , someone on their staff, um, or her husband was rude to someone on their staff.

Like, I'm not in 100% sure of the story, but like they decided to not do the interview with this person because of the way that their staff was being treated, and they just really weren't into it. And I'm just like, whoa, who is this? Like, I just spent 20 minutes researching this. I'm three months behind and there is this like article on Jezebel, which I know Jezebel.

Um, The girl who wrote it clearly is not a Glennon fan, and it comes off in the article, but this is the only thing that I could find online about it. And then in the comments, obviously, and don't ever, don't read the comments, guys. Don't read the comments. I said this in an Instagram story. Don't read the comments, but I always read the comments and then I get mad.

People have such big opinions, and the reason why I wanted to even mention this, like I, I just went off on a full go moment, but I, the reason I even wanted to talk about it, like stay on track, Chris, is because of the comments, because of like, even this, the, the writer, this woman, her, her take. Like being sort of judgmental about the fact that like Glennon shares her life in the way that she does and, you know, profits off of that.

And the people who judgmental of the fact that they, they recorded an episode surrounding the topic. And here's the thing. People, they wanted to shed light on something that's really important for. I think any marginalized group to think about, but especially women, and that's the way that they're often made to second guess like.

Their reality, their opinion, what feels right for them, whether or not right. The, the, the person on their staff was not sure if she was overreacting or not. And this is so common and it needs to stop. And so I think it was really important that they actually did record this episode. And now it's also given my brain something to want to figure out because I love a like hot piece of juicy.

The third thing that I just wanted to talk to you about today is, is surrounding the hiring of a coach. So I did an episode that kind of detailed what coaching is, and you can go back and listen to that if you're kind of interested in like maybe working with me or hiring someone else to be your coach.

But what I thought was interesting is that I was having a conversation with a. Who we reached the end of our six months together and we were just discussing whether or not she was gonna resign. And she wants to resign, but she wants to figure out like financially how she can make it work for her. And I'm super open to that.

So I just wanna preface this with saying like, I'm open to people figuring out their finances. I'm open to taking payment plans. Um, I want people to have access to coaching and I want them to be able to make it work and I want it to feel good for them. And. I think this is so important. Hear me. When you are looking to hire somebody, if they're pressuring you.

Or they're trying to, this happened to me once where I didn't wanna sign up for something I was being sold and I didn't wanna sign up for it. And the person was basically like, why are you not willing to make this investment in yourself? Like as if it was my fault, right? Like it was a flaw in me that I didn't wanna spend that money because obviously like, you know, I should be investing in myself.

And it was a problem if I didn't want to. And there was some like, Issue or problem where I didn't believe in myself or whatever. And that could be true, but like I didn't like the way it felt. And you wanna work with someone that trusts you to be able to make decisions for yourself, especially as it pertains to your finances.

Now the caveat here is as a coach, we o we do often know, right? Sometimes the objection that the client or the would-be client is giving is not actually the real objection, and that sometimes it's just easier to say like, oh, I can't afford it than it is to say like, I'm not sure I'm capable of doing the work that it will take to get the result that I want.

So very often that might be underneath that money objection, but it's not for me to decide. , it's for me to ask the person, right, if they are having a desire to do it, and money is an obstacle, if they wanna be coached around that, in my case, with this client figuring out a way that she could make it work, that would feel good for her, right?

Because like if she paid it up front, That might make the situation really pressurized for her because she might be feeling like, you know, I've gotta get the mo, like there could just be so much mind drama that's not necessary that like, I don't wanna spend my time coaching her on her mind drama about the pressure because she spent all her money on coaching.

That's just not the container that I wanna hold. I don't wanna hold space for that in the container with her. So if it was. My boundary. If it was my policy that people pay in full upfront and the client had resistance to that and paying upfront would pressurize that relationship, I would not take them as a client.

And that's what feels right for. . So again, if you're out there in the world and you're looking for a coach, if you wanna work with me or somebody else, like, just think about these things, right? We are here to help you and you are the expert in your own life. You know what's best for you. And if there's a a place around.

hiring a coach and spending the money and making the investment that you're curious about investigating, by all means, I wanna do that with you, but not from a place where I'm believing that there's something flawed all in, in your reasoning or in your.  decision making process. So those are all the things I wanted to share that I just wanted to get off my chest that are just like little blips, right?

I feel like you usually get like a two for one here. There's always like a mini lesson and then the main lesson, but today you got so much so hopefully you just felt like you were kicking back and drinking a coffee with me, cuz I sure am. And so now onto that main lesson. So one of the primary things I work on with my clients is fully becoming their own authority.

And one of the steps may be the most important step, but definitely like one of the first steps is challenging and unlearning these like oppressive, patriarchal, misogynistic white supremacist capitalist like thought patterns.  that are stealing their power from them. We need to challenge them so that we can potentially dismantle them, so we can move them out of the way and have a a slightly more clear path forward.

So this quick little tool is a question that you can use in a moment where maybe a thought comes up or a belief comes up that feels a little bit out of alignment with your actual. So if one of your beliefs about yourself, like a value that you hold true to is that you have full autonomy, that you are a full, complete human being, but then you have a thought that comes up that like is incongruent with that belief, right?

So if even if we go back to the example of.  wanting to do coaching and your brain offers you some kind of Bs thought about like, well, what will other people think? Or what if my partner doesn't like it? Whatever, any of those things. Right? And it's, that's really like incongruent with this idea that like you are an autonomous human being that gets to decide what's right for you.

The, the simple question is like, who told me?  and I actually first heard this question, um, and it was phrased like who told you? Who told you that? From my friend Gina. She was the first person I know actually to become a life coach back in like 2010, I think. And we had her work with our students at our summer dance intensives and with our professional training program dancers and I sat in and participated in a lot of those workshops and classes.

She talked a lot about the thoughts and stories in our heads that we inherited from others. And at the time I very much related that to my parents and teachers. And now I see it in much more of like a systemic way, right? Where like, like they got things imprinted onto them and surprise, it's all rooted in like, you know, patriarchal, like misogynistic white, supremacist, delusional, like thinking, right?

That was imprinted on them and then they imprinted it on me. So, you know, I can kind of see that a little bit more, right. As how it's like this societal, um, conditioning. And that's really helpful to kind of, regardless of, I'm like, if it came from my parents or if it came from socialization, that question of who told me that is Es essentially saying like, where did that come from?

Who does that belong to?  because it doesn't feel like it belongs to me. But there's another piece of this that is sort of becoming, even like coming more into focus, the more that I do this work and help others, there is a base of Christian ideology. At the core of all of this, thinking, our country, this country, the United States, if you're, if you're in the States with me, but any country that's been colonized, really Christianity is at the core of it.

And this definitely impacts us all in ways that we're probably not even aware of. So for me, it came up while I was riding my bike the other day. So like I woke up and I had this desire to do an entire demi lavato ride because like obviously. So I'm like on my bike and I'm like, so I'm like so in it, like I'm just like killing it, having the best time of my life.

And one of the things that my brain is chewing on right now is like my preferences for moving and eating and relaxing. And I'm really trying to kind of figure out what works for me because I've spent so much of my time with like a terrible relationship with my body, a terrible relationship with food.

Um, so I'm trying to stay curious about what I desire. But my brain was sort of starting to like make this like exercise schedule, like as I was riding, like I started doing this whole like, okay, now mind. . I don't know if I talked about this last week, but like I just started moving again because I was really sick and I started with doing strength training and I was originally only gonna do three days a week of strength training and then add in like some maybe Gyrotonic or stretching and maybe a bike ride if I felt up to it.

But it was never gonna be like on the menu. It was gonna be like, let's spend a couple of weeks building strength. Three days in, I'm on my bike and my brain is like, okay, yeah, like let's make this schedule. Okay. So it's like Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm gonna do the strength training, and then if I can get two bike rides in, and I just, I just watched my brain, right?

I just watched it because my goal is to be doing things that feel good to me. And as I'm starting to lean into that, my brain was like, well, you can't just do what feels. You're not gonna get results if you do what feels good. You've gotta keep this like rigid schedule and kind of this idea that like there aren't gonna be good enough health benefits to doing what feels good.

And so then I was like, but wait, why ? Why, why, why would like doing what feels good like not be good enough? And that's when it really. And here it is. It's because we're all brainwashed through the lens of Christianity and like original sin, et cetera, et cetera. We've all been taught that we are already flawed by nature and that we cannot be trusted to make choices for ourselves that are good for us.

So we have to constantly force ourselves to do things that are good for us, because otherwise we'd be like lazy slovenly, like perverted savages. Cue the origins of racism, right? Like if left to our own devices, we're these like heathens. And that's at the core of all this, like that's what we're trying to fix.

or that's why we're, we are so attached or buy into all of these, the messaging around new diets, new exercise plans, new like schedules, calendars, planners, systems, like how crazy is that? That really is the messaging for me, right? Like I was brought up Catholic, so it. . We do all these amoral things that we then need to go and confess to like some superior white guy so that we can be absolved of these sins, like these hierarchies.

It's not just coming down from God. It's also coming down from these old white guys that are placed like at the top of this ladder. Telling us that we need to listen to them and follow their interpretation of God's word, because like they know what's better for us than we do. Right? So it just, it's always this message that we cannot be trusted to be the authority on our of our own lives.

So this simple question of who told me that is so powerful because it stops the pattern in its tracks. And so we wanna put like maybe a little bit of structure around. Just so that we can really utilize the tool effectively. So the first thing I would say to do is like, take one of the things that you wanna do, like one of the results you wanna create and really get clear on your why.

And I talk about this so often, but it's like, you know, like for me with this exercising, like why do I wanna move my body? . At the end of the day, I wanna feel good in my body and feeling good in my body, and my body looking good, like quote unquote looking good based on like Eurocentric beauty standards are two completely different things because I'll be honest with you, when I was, you know, a teenager, Or in my early twenties and I was like skinny and hot.

I definitely didn't feel good in my body. My body looked good, but I didn't necessarily feel good in it cuz I wasn't treating it very nicely. So if at the end of the day what I want to do is feel good in my body. So we start there and then we look at like trusting myself to. Create the plan that's gonna help me feel good in my body, and then I wanna be on the lookout for the unconscious conditioning that is gonna come up like it did when I was on the bike.

That voice that was like, this isn't gonna be enough. . Well, why? Why isn't it gonna be enough? Enough for what? So that's the first question, right? I'm gonna just interact with my brain that way. And then secondly, if I come up against an answer, right? So like let's say, you know, it's not gonna be enough.

Enough for what to lose weight. Well, who told me that? , right? And that's where we can then throw in that question and it's like, well actually I'm telling myself that right now, but like, how do I know? I don't actually know. So that's kind of an example of how you can start to use that question in real time and you can do it with anything.

It works in so many areas of our life. So I even think about like imposter syndrome is something that a lot of people have problems with. There's like this underlying story of like, I'm not qualified. Well, who told you that? Who told you you're not qualified? And it's essentially like, where did that come from?

And it's like, is the voice, your voice is the voice? A professor's voice is the voice. The c e o of the company is the voice, your mother's voice like. Where did you hear that message? Does it belong to you? Because nine times outta 10, I'm gonna guarantee you the answer is gonna be, that was someone else's message that they gave to me that I inherited, and now I'm ready to get rid of.

And I really think this piece of that unconscious underlying. Christian ideology that a lot of our culture is based around, even if you aren't Christian, right, it's like written into like our constitution, the laws. There's an ideology, there's a, it's just a cultural thing where we're always looking to be better, right?

Goodness is prioritized. In our minds as something that we are trying to work toward. And it's because we are inherently not good. We're inherently evil, and we need to constantly be atoning for the things that don't align with goodness. And if we don't work really, really, really hard, We're gonna slip into that bad territory.

So we need to constantly be on the lookout for it. And this was just something that hit me really hard while I was working out that like if I want to actually deprogram some of this stuff, right, I really need to start there. I really need to start with like that basic idea that there's something that I was born with this original sin that makes.

incapable of knowing what the best path is for myself. That is going to be one of the most important things to kind of shift if I really ever want to fully claim my authority over myself, and I want you to be able to do that for you. If you notice that this is coming up in your life as well. So try this out this week.

Try this tool of like, who told me that? With this underlying like knowledge now that like so many of these things are coming from outside of you, and then you really get to decide which ones of them are in line with your actual values that you chose on purpose, and what ones have been thrust upon you that are based in this sort of moralistic, binary, good, bad way of thinking.

that has you always losing because you're never gonna be quite good enough. That's what I have for you today, my friends. I hope you have an amazing week. I'll talk to you soon.

If you are loving what you're hearing here on, you need a coach, bitch, please subscribe like and share with your friends. And if you want more information on how you can work with me, one on one. Go to theonlychrishale.com where you can find me on Instagram, theonlychrishale.