Ep 178: Own Your Past, Own Your Present, Own Your Future

In this episode, Marie goes straight to the part most people skip when they're trying to make an idea real — that moment when the voices in your head start telling you it's not realistic, you don't see anyone else doing it, and you're not sure if you have what it takes.

She breaks down exactly why your brain does this (threat scan, negativity bias, a regenerative thought loop you didn't sign up for), why every single person you admire had to generate belief from scratch, and the three-part practice that turns that belief into rocket fuel: own your past, own your present, own your future. 

Marie shares her own story — how finding her moxie the first time saved her life, and how finding it again completely rebuilt it — and invites you to do the same.

What You'll Learn

• What "making an idea real" actually means — any change you're making or vision you're bringing to life
• Why your brain threat-scans every new idea and how negativity bias quietly stacks "evidence" against you
• The truth that you won't see external evidence for what's possible yet — and why that gap is the perfect opening for you
• Why social definitions of worth (beauty, affluence, power) are a moving target across cultures and centuries — and why letting them define you is a trap
• A three-step ownership practice that turns the story or your past into the engine for what's next
• How a hero’s journey format can help you hijack negative thinking about the past and help you accept the circumstances of what you’ve lived through 
• How to frame your mindset around the present so that it fuels your motivation every day 
• The practice of using our narrative of the past and present to supercharge our belief in the future
• How internally articulating our stories of the past, present and future sets us up for creating buy-in externally as we share our ideas 
• How claiming the things you think you’re supposed to hide about yourself create more freedom, authenticity and connection 
• How becoming obsessed with the life you’ve built sets you free to love and live

The Practice: Own Your Past, Present, and Future

1. Own your past. Write your own story of it. Say the thing you think you're not supposed to say out loud. Claim the wildness, the weirdness, the part you think you're supposed to be embarrassed about. When you say it, other people get to say theirs too.

2. Own your present. What are you up to now? Why do you love it? Why are you proud of it? What part are you in right now, and why are you obsessed with it? Take responsibility for where you are and what you're up to — instead of getting pulled into imposter syndrome, comparison, and not-enoughness.

3. Own your future. The possibility you're standing up for. The work you love to do and be about in the world. Write it, share it, own it. Let it fuel you.

This Week's Invitation

Sit down and write your own story — past, present, and future — in your own words. Say the thing you think you're not supposed to say. Become obsessed with the part you're in right now. Stand up for the possibility you're walking toward. Then share it. Because the world needs you, and that starts with falling in love with yourself, your story, who you are right now, and where you're going next.

Memorable Quotes

• "Your job is to believe in yourself and your vision more than you believe the thoughts in your mind telling you not to."
• "Both are equally true. You won't pull this off. It's inevitable that you'll pull this off. Choose the one that's more helpful to you."
• "If you don't see people that look just like you doing what you want to do, in the way you want to do it — that's not proof it's not realistic. That's the perfect gap in the world for you."
• "Finding my moxie saved my life the first time. The second time, it completely changed it."
• "I'm obsessed with your story. Are you?"
• “The world needs you. That starts with falling in love with yourself, your story, who you are right now, and where you're going next.” 

How to connect with Marie:

• On the Web | The Local Bloom
• Instagram: @the.bloom.coach
• All Things Marie on LinkTree

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We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the money podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Maria McDonald. Let's get into it. Hello everybody, and welcome to episode 178 of the Bloom Your Mind Podcast. How is it going out there? How y'all doing? I have had one of those weeks where I have so many things I want to talk to you about. I have like five podcast episodes in my brain that I want to give to you all at once. So I'm going to not do that. And I'm going to give them to you one by one. But I just have some exciting stuff coming to you because I've had the most rich experiences with different people in my life, my personal life, with uh some. I went out and taught a meditation seminar and some of the conversations out there about self-criticism that came up were just so huge and how it stops us. And then just reading that I've been doing, I have so much I want to talk to you about. So get ready for some good podcasts. And also, my daughter wants me to interview her on the podcast. And I was like, oh my gosh, why didn't I think of this before? Or at least recently. I haven't thought of it long ago. I was like, oh yeah, someday I'll interview her. And I just realized how many people ask about her and about our relationship and, you know, being women together, um, multi-generational women and kind of lifting each other up and communicating. So she wants to come on the podcast and have me interview her. And uh, she also wants to be guest podcaster once and kind of talk about her love of herself and her body image and kind of the differences she sees between her own mindset and her peers. And I thought that was cool that she wants to talk about that. So that's all coming. And this week has been really wonderful. My daughter is at Junior Lifeguards for the first time, and I've just seen her take that on in such an incredible way. This brand new experience that she's been having. And my son, well, my daughter was at junior lifeguards. I yesterday took my son to the beach and I watched him surf for six hours, just really throwing his body into the waves with this board, trying, falling, trying again, falling again, trying again, catching it, getting barreled in these little waves, and then falling off, trying it again. And just from the observation of their indomitable spirits, I am really excited to talk to you about today's podcast topic, which is related to that. So today I'm gonna share a three-part series of questions that you can ask yourself to really own where you've been in the past, where you are right now in your present life and where you're going in the future to support you turning your ideas into reality. So back to that in just a minute. But I also wanted to share that I spent the last week hanging out with my parents in Ramona, and my dad has been having some health issues on and off, in and out of the hospital, which was really yucky to experience. And it was just really wonderful to be with them there in the place where I grew up in Ramona. We traveled back to the childhood home where I grew up, the house that burned down twice, and my dad has rebuilt it three times from the ground up, built it the first time and then rebuilt it twice. And we walked around that space, and I got to show it to my kids. And we played cards and we took hikes, and I just spent this week with them. And anytime that we're with our parents, with our kids, and also with anyone else, with friends that are close to us, with home environments that are special to us, and communities and groups that are special to us, I highly recommend the practice of nostalgia for now. I used it all week long just to help me wrap my full senses, my whole mind, my whole heart, my whole presence around each moment that I was in with my parents sitting there with coffee, out looking over the valley of Ramona. They have this beautiful adobe house with this huge view of the valley, and just being there with them, swimming with my kids and seeing them underwater, floating in the water, going on these walks with the sunshine, the evening sunshine, hitting my daughter and my dad walking side by side together on the trail, just bringing my mind back over and over and over again to presence, using nostalgia for now, which there's a podcast episode about, but I'll just briefly say when we can have that feeling of nostalgia, that sweet, rose-colored, soft, glowy feeling of longing for the present moment when we can want with such a deep feeling in our heart, the actual moment that we're living in now. It is such a beautiful way to step into the present and be where you are. Be present in your life, be present with your people. My mom actually commented on it at the end of the week. She said, You felt so present all week long with us, just right there next to me in every moment. I felt that way for the whole week. And she felt it on me, which allowed us to connect to each other so deeply. So just an invitation to practice that. And here's a fun way to practice it. If you have kids, this is something I practice all the time, where I will have picked up, I'm like, I wouldn't say a minimalist, but kind of close to it. Like our house is very orderly all the time because I really experience peace in my brain when the environment around me is beautiful and clean and orderly. Same thing as when my calendar is planned and I am organized with my goals, my brain just feels peaceful and spontaneous and silly and happy and free. So I like to have all of my systems really organized and clean so that my brain can be a playground. And in order to have an orderly, clean, beautiful house with two kids that are yard sailing their shit all over the house all the time. Which I used to do. I gotta be honest, when I was a kid, it's you gotta be picking stuff up all the time. Like I definitely have them pick up their own stuff, but it also just requires me to pick things up. And so sometimes I will have been picking things up all morning, and then there'll be a stack of Legos, and I step on a Lego. There'll be like lightsabers and you know, Mandalorian helmets and all my daughter's drawing stuff. And it's just like there's a constant pile somewhere. And so when my brain starts to go, oh my god, just pick this up, the nostalgia for now kicks in, and I say, girl, you're gonna miss this someday when there aren't Legos on your counter, you're gonna miss the little Mandalorian blasters in your fruit bowl. You're gonna miss the drawings that each of the kids want to show me. Mom, mom, look at this, mom, check out what I'm doing. When that little voice isn't interrupting me cooking or whatever it is that I'm doing, I'm gonna miss it. How can I be nostalgic for right now and set down everything that I think I have to get done and be here for this moment with this person that I love practicing that nostalgia for now with my kids, with my parents, with my husband, and with myself, with the amount of functionality I have in my body right now, with the age that I am right now, with the way my brain functions right now, practicing nostalgia for now allows us to not wait until it's all over to miss it, to love it, to be in it, to be grateful for it. On Friday, I had so many things that I had to do, and my son was at a play date, and I was like, I'm gonna get through this stack of stuff in my office that has been waiting for me to sort it from the retreats that I have held and all the like series of adventures. I've I have this stack that needs to be finished, and it's been on my calendar and I keep moving it because I have been prioritizing other things, but it's okay, it's this little stack, right? And so I was gonna get through that stack on that Friday morning. And I went and picked up my daughter, who's 13, going on 14 from a friend's house, and I was like, okay, we're gonna head home. We've got about like three or four hours, and I'm gonna work on this stuff in my office. What are you gonna work on? And she said, Mom, can we just go get lattes first? And I just look at her 13-year-old face and think, how many times am I gonna be picking her up from a friend's house when she asked me to go get lattes? She wants to hang with me. How can I practice nostalgia for now? And so we went and got lattes, and then we brought them home to the house and we listened to our playlist and we chatted, and then she said, Mom, can we chat? And we lay on my bed and we just talked for like an hour and a half. Instead of getting all of those things done, I was there with her. And you know, I am not mad about that. Every single time I make a decision like that with someone I love, I'm so grateful that I made it. So, this is the longest intro ever because I just feel so passionate about all of us remembering to be present for these moments before they're gone. So, how might you practice some nostalgia for now? All right, y'all. So, on to the real meat of this episode. When we are trying to make an idea real in the world, and let's define this for our new listeners. I've seen a bunch of new listeners here welcome. It is such a deep honor to have you spending moments of your life here with me, listening to what I'm offering. And it's such a beautiful thing for us to be doing this work together to clear out everything that's blocking you from making the ideas that only you can make real in the world, whether that's in your own life, in your own body, in your own relationships, or whether that's out one layer into the communities you're a part of, or whether these are ideas that impact the world at large. We are so grateful you are here with us. So when we talk about making an idea real, that idea could be on any of those layers. It could be an idea you're making real for your own life, a change you're making to your habits or your relationships. It could be an idea that you're making real that's more of a capital I idea that's a book you're writing, a business you're starting, a business you're scaling, a house you're building, whatever that is. We use that I, that word, idea, for anything that you're focused on. We always want to be focusing our time and our energy intentionally in our lives. They are our most precious resources. So we're always trying to make some idea real, right? We're always doing something with our time and our energy. So the idea here is that we want to decide on purpose what we're putting our time and our energy into because our time and our energy are the most finite, precious resource we have, the moments of this one precious life. So when we are making an idea real, a lot of things are gonna happen. We are gonna have voices in our head telling us why it's not possible or realistic to make an idea real if it's an idea we're making real for the first time, if it's a habit that we're trying to change that we haven't changed before, if it's a new way of being in relationships that we haven't done before, if it's an idea that, like writing a book and we've never written a book before, or starting a company or starting a business or whatever it is that is new, we're gonna have a lot of voices telling us why it's not possible or realistic. The reason those voices exist is because our brain is a threat scanning machine. And it's scary to try something new. So it comes across to our brain like a threat. If we're trying something new, our brain is going to tell us why it's probably not a good idea for us to do it. We also have a huge negativity bias in our brain. It's our brain's job to believe the information that comes when we threat scan. So we're looking for threats, and what we look for, we find. Another way to think about that is when we ask ourselves a question, our brain goes to work answering it. So if we ask ourselves what could go wrong here, our brain's gonna give us all of the answers for what could go wrong. And then we believe that the evidence that we're finding for that question is neutral evidence. Like it's just factual instead of understanding that the reason that we're getting negative feedback is because we asked a negative question. We threat scanned, so our brain showed us all the threats. It's a regenerative thought loop. We think something like, well, this is probably not realistic, and our brain gathers evidence for why it's probably not realistic. And then our negative bias tells us that that is the thing we should focus on. That it's probably not realistic. We should probably not keep trying to make this idea real. So if you are serious about any change that you want to make, any idea that you want to make real, you can't be tricked by that negativity loop that I just described. The threat scanning, your brain asking yourself the question, where's the threat? And then your brain answering the question, here's the threat, and seeing it as facts. You can't be tricked by that. You got to know that's your brain's job is to generate negativity. And so your job is to counterbalance that survival instinct and generate positive beliefs from scratch. Like every single successful person that you love thinking about, how amazing they are. Walt Disney, Alicia Keyes, Stephen King, Maya Angelou, Teek Nathan, whoever your heroes are, just like they did when all of the negative voices came into their own minds, they overrode them. They share that. Great thinkers, great achievers share how grit is what causes us to really persevere, get through a challenge, and show up again and again and again until our idea is real. So our job is to believe in ourselves just like they did, believe in our vision just like they did, and believe in it so much that we believe in it more than the thoughts that are coming into our minds telling us it's not realistic. Okay. Because when we think about that, that buffet of options of how to think, the options of thinking this is not realistic, I shouldn't do it, and the option of thinking this is inevitable, it's definitely gonna happen. I've decided to do it, it's definitely happening. Those are both just as true. It's not happening, it is happening. Either one is possible. So why would we choose to go with the negative belief that will keep us stuck instead of the positive belief that's more helpful to moving us towards where we want to go? So when we're trying to make an idea real, we're gonna have both of the voices in our heads, predominantly the negative ones, and it's our job to generate belief on purpose from scratch. Now, the next thing that's gonna happen when you're trying to make an idea real is you won't see evidence of that idea in the external world. You're gonna think this isn't possible because there's no evidence that it's possible. I really want you to think about this for a minute. Why would evidence exist in the world outside before your idea is real? It's so wild and upside down. Let me show you why. Okay, let's say you want to do something new. You want to become an incredible chef. But historically, you've never been a good cook. You can your recipes kind of come out flat, you've made a couple mistakes at parties and you fed everybody some gross food, and all of a sudden you have decided you want to be an incredible chef. If you go with your brain's natural instinct, you're gonna find all of the evidence for why it's not possible for you to be a great chef. Why would I believe that I'm a great chef? The only evidence that I have is that people do not like my food. Of course, that's the evidence that you have because you haven't put your time and energy into figuring out how to cook in a different way. All of the evidence is gonna refute the possibility that you're trying to live into, and you have to know that that is the case. So we've talked about a negativity bias in your brain. And second, we're talking about how the evidence in the world around you is directly gonna contradict the idea of your possibility being real because you haven't made it real yet. You're not gonna have evidence that you're a great chef until you change the way that you cook and you start researching recipes and you iterate, and all of a sudden you start to experience some success, and then you're gonna have a little bit of positive feedback. But we have to know that whenever we're trying to make a change, whenever we're trying to put an idea out there, we have to both counteract our brain's negativity bias, giving us all kinds of self-doubt and reasons we should stop by knowing that it's our job to generate good feelings on purpose and belief on purpose. And number two, we cannot go to the past to get evidence. We have to go to the future to get evidence. Once I'm a great chef, I'm gonna have all kinds of great feedback. People are gonna love eating my food once I cook good food, right? You have to not base your belief on the world that exists right now because your idea isn't real yet. You also may be looking at the world around you and you don't see people that look just like you doing what you want to do and the way that you want to do it. So you decide it's not realistic. I hear people do this all the time. Well, I don't see anybody else doing exactly what I want to do yet, so I probably shouldn't do it. Can you hear the fallacy in that? If you turn that around 180 degrees, that's the perfect situation for you to make your idea real because it hasn't been done yet. There's a gap that you need to fill. A perfect opportunity waiting for you to step into it. No one's doing it yet. So it's really funny how our brains go into this negativity bias where we will see that no one is doing what we want to do, and we'll say, Well, that means I shouldn't do it either. It must not work. The brain will also look at the world around you, see other people doing exactly what you want to do, and say, well, the market's saturated, or that's been done before, so I can't do it. Do you see how the brain's negativity bias works? It will find all of the reasons everywhere that you should stay stuck, stay still, and not risk anything. So we just have to know that that's what's gonna happen. And we have to generate belief in ourselves and our ideas on purpose in advance and just know that that's our job and that's how it has to work. Okay, before I go on to these three questions, I want to also say that the voices in our head will not only share the negativity bias, the reasons we should stay stuck, the reason why there's no evidence in the world that our idea is realistic, the reasons that uh, you know, we don't see other people doing it yet, or people are doing it too much, so we shouldn't do it. These are all gonna happen. So we got to generate these beliefs in our idea on purpose, but also we will have the tribal negativity bias come into our brain, where we automatically look for ways that we might be socially rejected because of our idea. So we're gonna have the voices in our head that tell us that we don't look right, that we're not affluent enough, that we don't have enough power in a social dynamic, that people won't like us, that people will laugh at us, we will be cringe. And I really just want us to think about how hilarious these ideas of being the right social mold are, because they change with every different culture. So when we're trying to fit into what our societal norms are right now, we are being so random because those norms are just invented by whatever the trends are of the current situation socially. So if we're trying to fit our beautiful natural selves, the once ever happening selves, into whatever right now's social norm is, we are watering down all of the unique beauty that we have to offer the world. And it's hilarious because I just think have you ever seen those movies where the British guys are in like heels with giant white waists? Wigs on with curlers and fake moles and lipstick and white, white makeup on their skin with big round bellies. Because at the time, that's what was beautiful and a sign of affluence. Like these giant white wigs with all the curls. Have you ever seen movies or shows where that is what they're wearing? And you're like, what were they thinking? That is exactly what people are going to be thinking about us. They're going to see whatever weird styles of flared jeans, the skinny jeans, the tattooed on eyebrows, the hairstyles, the whatever. And they are just going to be like, what was wrong with them? So why would we try so hard to fit into those norms and tell ourselves that we should stay stuck? We are not enough. We should not move because our brains are believing all the little voices that are telling us how we are not exactly right now. Okay, to counteract all of this, that pressure our brains give us to tell us that we're not right. We're not, we don't look right, we don't act right, we we're not enough socially. The negativity bias, the evidence bias, all of these ways that our brain is going to keep us from moving forward with our idea. Here are three questions to get around it. We have to define our own self. We have to define our own success. And here are three ways to do it. First, we have to own our past. We have to generate enough confidence inside our own system so that we know that we are defining our own success. We are standing on our own unique two feet. We are building our own belief in ourselves. We are generating enough self-love where we are not comparing ourselves with the world outside, with social norms, with what people expect of us because we have generated enough love and belief and confidence inside ourselves to get us past all of that. So the first one is we have to own our past. We have to own the story that we're telling about our past and what our past has created in us. We got to say the thing that we think we're not supposed to say. Say it out loud, claim whatever we've lived through, the part that we think we're supposed to be embarrassed about. And when we can claim openly our past and say it out loud, others feel safe to be themselves with us. Others feel like they can be real with us too. So when we can look back at our history and create a hero's journey out of it, talk about what was hard and talk about how it made us who we are and own how we're proud of it. Even if there are parts of our past that we're not proud of, we can reorient ourselves to understand how every single thing that we've lived has been a part of making us who we are. And that is how we own the story of our past. So I have my clients in the Moxie write in a couple of sentences what is the story of your past from a hero's journey perspective. So I want all of you to do that. For me, I grew up in an environment where I was taught to meet everybody's expectations, to not speak out about things that were wrong done by people around me. I grew up in an environment where I was taught to serve everybody, to be nice and smart and successful and pretty, and feel ashamed for not being pretty enough or having the body that I was supposed to have, to feel shame for being too much and not enough all at once. And I was so harmed by that culture that I grew up in and the things I saw happen around me that I almost lost my life. I got so sick from keeping silent and not saying my truth and not saying, speaking up about things that were wrong that were happening, that I almost died from it. But finding my moxie early in my life actually saved my life. I started speaking out, started saying no, started calling people out for causing harm. And it quite literally is the reason I'm here today still. I almost died from it. So remember everything we talked about in the beginning. When you're telling your hero's journey, the couple of sentences that tell your story from a hero's journey perspective, just notice your brain wanting to pull you into shame or not saying things out loud. I can say that I hit bottom in my early 20s. I got so sick from the culture I grew up in that I hit bottom. And only because of that bottom have I become who I am today. So the second question is how can we own our present? How can we own the story we're telling about where we are right now? So for me, when I ask these questions of you, what are you up to now? Why do you love it? Why are you proud of it? What's the part you're in right now? And why are you obsessed with this part about who you are right now and how it is a culmination of everything you've lived through? For me, I would answer that question by saying, finding Moxie the first time saved my life. And the second time, it completely changed and bloomed my life. The second time I found Moxie, I was leading and scaling companies and burning out. That's when I found my Moxie again. I started seeing the internalized capitalism in me, the hustle, the burnout, the expectations I was meeting, the people pleasing. And I immediately decided when I saw it to quit all of it. I stopped overworking myself and I built a vision that sounded ridiculous at first for the career I was building. And I'm living it now, the exact vision I described five years ago. I teach finding Moxie to women around me. I teach my own, the thing that saved my life to the women around me who are struggling. I do it through my podcast and my classes, my group programs, my retreats, my mixers that connect women to one another, that normalize our challenges, that bring women into a place where they can love themselves first and say the truth. And stop meeting expectations and stop people pleasing and stop apologizing and start creating rad shit that makes the world a better place. And then the third question to ask is why does it matter? What's the possibility that you're working towards for the future? And why does it matter? For me, I'm building this community of women who are making their ideas into real things because it is what the world needs most. Because I'm on a mission to support the women around me to find their moxie and use it to become obsessed with themselves, their people, their lives, and what they're contributing to this precious world from their one precious life. And that's the good medicine that I think the world needs. And that's how I've turned my pain in my history into a life that I am so passionate about and present for and proud of in the work that I'm doing. So, my friends, those are three questions. First, owning the story that you're telling about the past, owning the present and how you're talking about yourself in the present, the story you're telling about the life that you're in right now, and owning your vision for the future and the possibility that you're working towards, including why it matters. So you can use this practice to own your past, to write your own story of the past, to own your present and become obsessed with it. Not following our brain's weird focus on shame and not enoughness, imposter syndrome in comparison with others, the not enough time and not doing enough that comes in all of our brains. Instead, taking responsibility for where you are right now, what you love about it, and what you're up to. And lastly, to own your future, the possibility you're standing up for, the work you love to do and to be about in the world. Start speaking that future out loud. That's the first step to living into it. So write your answers to these questions down, share them with me or with others, and start to own it. Let it fuel you because the world needs you. And that starts with falling in love with yourself, your story, where you've been, who you are right now, and where you're going next. I'm already obsessed with your story. So join me there. And if you need help wrapping your mind and your heart around this, get into the moxie where we're all owning our past, our present, and using it to rocket fuel our future, our joy in our current lives and where we are going in the present. We're all saying the thing we think we're not supposed to say, and most importantly, chasing the joy and the passion and the work and the love that comes from living from your moxie, owning your past, your present, and your future, and coming up with a possibility for what you're creating with your one precious life that lights you up and turns you on. And doing it in the company of women. So that's what I've got for you. We've got a mixer event that I'm putting on in two nights. I'm so excited. A Moxie mixer, getting all the Moxie ladies together. This is part of my vision is having every couple of months an in-person event to just keep us all connected. And then our next mastermind round starts in September. So come visit me on Instagram at the.bloom.coach and get in touch with me if you're interested in any of this stuff. And otherwise, answer your three questions and send over what comes up for you. I can't wait to hear about it. That's what I've got for you this week. And I will see you next week. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's facts and we bring up the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real. One idea at a time.