Turning Mental Showdowns into Forward Movement: Mastering Self-Talk with "Yes, AND"

Ever found yourself locked in a relentless debate with your own mind, circling around decisions that leave you stranded in place? That's the conundrum we're dissecting on today's Authentic Life Connection Podcast. I’m Seth Lusk, here to guide you through transforming those self-sabotaging mental showdowns into empowering dialogues. We'll break away from the trap of right and wrong and wade into the nuanced waters where authentic change takes root. Get ready to reframe your inner narratives and embrace the complex choreography of personal growth.

Did you know that your brain's incessant storytelling could be the stealthy culprit sabotaging your success? This episode peels back the layers on the internal narratives that shape our reality, and I'll show you how to wield the potent "yes, and" philosophy to reshape them. By acknowledging the grains of truth within these stories, we can evolve our self-talk from a place of resistance to one of collaborative growth. Journey with me as I share anecdotal wisdom and practical strategies to transform these stories, nudging you closer to the life you envision.

Finally, we'll reveal how a curious and accepting mindset can be your secret weapon in personal development. I’ll share insights from my own experiences as a master certified life coach, demonstrating how pivoting our approach from confrontation to collaboration unlocks a world of possibilities. By affirming our past while building new narratives, we create an unshakable foundation for action, aligning our goals and dreams with the unstoppable momentum of authenticity. Don't miss this transformative conversation that could very well be the catalyst you need to step into a life of unstoppable action toward your dreams.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You're listening to the Authentic Life Connection Podcast, episode number 176. Welcome to the Authentic Life Connection Podcast. I'm your host, seth Lusk. I'm a master certified life coach, author, personal trainer and nutrition specialist. For over a decade I've been helping people with their dreams and goals for their life and health. I spent many years watching people get frustrated with their journey in life and giving up on taking actions towards their goals, so I dug in deep to find answers to why so many of us face this same frustration and struggle in life. So in this podcast, we're going to dive in deep on topics surrounding what it means to consistently live a fulfilling and authentic life where you are unstoppable in taking action towards your dreams and goals. So the only question is are you ready to start living your most authentic and fulfilling life once and for all? Then let's get started. Shall we? Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. For those of you listening in for the first time, welcome, welcome.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Whether this is your 176th time listening to this podcast or your first time, I think you're going to get something out of what I have to say today. Most of you out there that are listening in are interested in personal development. Some of you may be brand new in personal development. Some of you may have been doing this for years, but I think that this lesson that I want to talk about today is going to be something that everyone can grasp and it's something that I know most of you all listening or all of you all listening can identify with as being a struggle, as being something that I think not a lot of people are talking about or offering solutions for very passionate about. When I work with people as a coach, and even with my friends, when they're talking to me about the things that they're struggling with and the ways that they're trying to deal with what their brain is doing as they're struggling with these things, there is a sort of knee-jerk reaction that occurs within so many of us that there's actually quite a simple solution. For once, we start putting it into practice, and that's what I want to talk about today. And this reaction, this urge, this sort of way that we go about our personal development that I see so many people, see so many people staying stuck in, is this arguing with our brain, and when I see people doing this, I know what's going on.

Speaker 1: 2:53

We've all been socially programmed that when we want to create change. What we need to do is prove the argument for what we want to change as being wrong so that we can create the change. We've got to prove that what's going on that we don't like is wrong in order for us to prove that what the change that we want, is right, so that we can create the change. And I've told you all this many, many times Right and wrong are so subjective and when we fight for right or wrong, we end up, as humanity, bouncing back and forth between this black and white, black and white, black and white.

Speaker 1: 3:33

And most of the area where we can move forward and create real, sustainable, lifelong change lies in the gray area in between. And I've also told you all before that the decisions that we make, the actions that we take, when we look at them as either being right or wrong, we kind of miss the point, we miss the mark, and that the things that we do, the things that we say, the choices we make are usually a combination of both. And what we need to focus on is not whether it is right or wrong. It's both right and wrong. But is it producing results in the changes that we want to see? Because, no matter what we look at, what argument we look at, we can find something right or wrong with it. We can find something right or wrong in something that someone says, and so this trap right here is what keeps us stuck in reproducing the same results over and over again, in a reheated form, in a black or white form. And I think most of us are beginning to notice this pattern where, when we bounce back and forth between right and wrong, we end up creating the same results anyways, just in a different way in the future.

Speaker 1: 4:53

And I see people doing this in their personal development too, and when I work with my clients, a lot of the work that I'm doing with them is around what's going on in their brain, and that is a tricky space. It's a tricky space because what's going on in our brain? If we don't learn the tools to sort of extract what's going on in our brain in a way that we can look at it with some distance between us and it, then what's going on in our brain just feels like facts and reality. So what I mean by that is our brain produces stories about life. It takes in this massive amount of data that is going on around us at all points in time and it runs it through previous stories, scenarios, situations that we've been through and what happened and how we felt about it and how we experienced it. And it runs what we're currently experiencing through the lens of those stories and then produces ideas, urges actions within us based on what it thinks is the best way to survive, based on how it associates it with what's happened in the past.

Speaker 1: 6:15

And oftentimes, when I'm working with my clients well, not all the times when I'm working with my clients they have these very powerful stories that are keeping them trapped, that are keeping them redoing the same actions in different forms and creating the same results in different forms, and they feel stuck, they feel hopeless, they feel helpless, they feel confused, they feel lost. And when I point out to them, you know this is a story going on in your brain here. And here's how we know it's a story, because these are the facts and this is what you're telling yourself and they can see it so clearly. They can see it so clearly that the story that their brain is producing is what's keeping them stuck and that it is not, in fact, 100% reality. They're able to see this. Sometimes it takes a little while to get them there.

Speaker 1: 7:12

But inevitably what happens when they see that this story that their brain is producing is not 100% reality, then what they start doing is arguing with their brain. And inevitably, when they start arguing with their brain, their brain wins. Their brain wins every time, every, every time. And the reason why is because when we argue with our brain especially since most of the people I'm working with have been alive for 20, 30, 40, 50 years the stories that that brain is shoveling out as being this is the truth. This is what you have to react to, this is what you need to do to keep yourself safe and survive. Those stories have over decades, decades, and those stories are associated with so many interpreted circumstances that the brain perceives as those interpretations are facts about life that when you begin arguing with your brain, or when they begin arguing with their brain, their brain basically just buries them, buries them in stories and emotions about those stories that feel debilitating, like they're not getting anywhere.

Speaker 1: 8:37

And I try to tell my clients and this is the struggle point here I try to tell them you know, we need to understand the stories that are going on in our brain, not just shove them away. And when we argue with our brain. That's what we're doing. We're shoving those stories away, we're telling them that they are wrong, we're telling them that they are stupid, that they are stupid. And when we do this, what we're actually doing is arguing and dismissing and judging an identity within ourselves that our brain has created. And when we do that, we produce so much resistance, so much tension, so much negativity within ourselves that it feels impossible to continue moving forward.

Speaker 1: 9:33

The brain is an expert at throwing the biggest emotional temper tantrums that it can when it feels like you aren't listening to it, because remember that your brain is designed to keep you safe, so that you survive. It has evolved over thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years to keep you safe, keep you surviving. And when you just tell your brain that a story that it has spent decades creating and crafting to try and keep you safe, that it's just wrong and you're not going to listen to it, the brain throws an all-out temper tantrum. So when I work with my clients on this and I talk with them okay, so what's going on in your brain? They tell me the story that's going on in their brain and then they go into and I know it's so dumb and, oh my god, I'm just so stupid and I believed the story again and it's just so stupid and I can't believe I'm never going to change. I'm not strong enough, I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm blah, blah, blah and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1: 10:54

Now we're producing a whole new story that's keeping you trapped. We're basically trying to dismantle a story that's keeping you trapped with another story that's going to keep you trapped, and that new story is that you're powerless against what's going on in your brain. So I started thinking about a way that we can work through this with the brain and a lot of the tactics that I use. I started noticing they have this association with improv comedy, and I wanted to bring this to you today because I know you all are familiar with this. Well, a lot of you are probably familiar with this. You see, in improv comedy, there is a rule, a rule that improv comedians live by, and it's the rule of yes and.

Speaker 1: 11:42

And I want to get you all in the practice of, instead of arguing with your brain, when you recognize that there is a story that you have created about yourself in life that's not allowing you to move forward as long as you believe that story and follow that story. And so your knee-jerk reaction is to argue with that story, try and prove it wrong. And when you try to prove it wrong, your brain buries you in evidence that that story is right, and it will try and find new evidence to be like see told you it's right, see told you it's right, see told you it's right, see told you it's right, see told you it's right. And you will never win at that game. You will never win at the game of no, you're wrong, I'm right.

Speaker 1: 12:34

Because here's the thing these stories we helped the brain create. We've believed them for so long that when we try to argue with them, there is still that part of us, that identity within us, that relates to some of the truth that is in that story, and there's a part of us that will always, anytime we argue with the story from, the brain, is going to scream in the background but what about this, but what about that? And the only way, the only way that I have found that we can get the brain on board with hey, I get it, I get it, I get it what you're saying, I get where this came from and we can dialogue with the brain in a way where it starts getting curious about what we're saying is with this yes and tactic. And I want to get you all speaking to yourselves, speaking to your brain, in this way, because this is where the secret sauce is. It is not in resisting the powerful emotions that the brain throws out when it doesn't believe that what we're about to do is safe or that we're able to do it or that we have a clear way through, because we don't yet. We haven't done it yet. We're still learning the why and the how, or we're still learning the how, so we don't know yet how to get through. And the only way that we're going to get the brain on board with continuing to move forward, with curiosity and growth is with yes and tactics.

Speaker 1: 14:13

And what I mean by that is this when you recognize that there is a story that is keeping you trapped, to argue with that story and try and prove it wrong is judgment, and it's doing you and your experience of life a huge injustice. Because with every story that we have about life that is keeping us trapped, there is an element of truth within it, just like our actions and words and things. There's good and bad, there's right and wrong. All of it is in there the stories that your brain has about life. They're not wrong. They're just keeping you stuck in an identity, in a story, in a set of actions that aren't producing the results you want in life.

Speaker 1: 15:01

So when we dialogue with our brain, with no, you're wrong or but that's not true, because then what we end up doing is dismissing the truth within that story and our brain is not going to let us get away with that. It's not going to. Let us get away with that. It's not going to let you get away with that. And if you spend your time trying to just resist that story, then your brain is going to exhaust you to the point where you have no creative energy left to produce any action in your life that's going to create new results, because all of your energy is going into arguing with your brain and the evidence that it has that this new story about life that you're wanting to live by is not true, it's not going to work, it's going to be too hard, you don't know how, you won't make it, you'll fail and you'll be miserable.

Speaker 1: 15:50

So what I try to teach my clients and what I want you to start doing today is when the brain throws out a story that you know, if I believe that story 100% and follow it, it's going to keep producing these same results in my life. Instead of arguing with the story, let's try yes, and Can you be with that story enough to find the elements of truth within it that say, yeah, I get that, I get how that can feel true, I get how we could see life that way. And what about my friends? This is right here. Where your power lies is in being able to see how we arrived at the stories that we have within our brain now because of the elements of truth within it, and then using those elements of truth to take that dialogue and, instead of proving it wrong, evolve it, yes, evolve it. Yes and Not yes, but Not no. What about this, or? But what about that?

Speaker 1: 17:00

No yes, and I can see the truth in this story. I can see why we've arrived at this. I can see all of the ways in which the story was trying to protect me. And what about this over here? What if we did this too? This, right here, my friends, is a game changer when we can get our brain out of that state of fight or flight and get our brain to see hey, listen, I'm on board with you. I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not trying to tell you you're stupid or wrong. I'm not trying to judge you. I'm not trying to tell you that everything you've been doing up until now is wrong and bad. I'm here to listen and I'm here to take the parts of this story that are true and carry them on and evolve them into a new story that is also true.

Speaker 1: 18:02

This tactic doesn't just work with our brain. It works also when we are talking with other people, when we are in a disagreement with other people, when we can have compassion in that conversation and show the other person that we understand their story. We understand the truth that lies within that story. We understand how someone can arrive at that conclusion. Yes, and what about? We add onto it? Yes. And what about? We add onto it. And what I found about stories is that when we add to them, when we add to them instead of dismissing them, what ends up happening is that, because everything wants to balance out, in the end what ends up happening is some of the evidence that we carry with us that make the other story 100%, completely true ends up falling off in a way. We don't have to throw it away, we don't have to dismiss it, we don't have to judge it and tell it that it's wrong. But it's like, as we slowly start focusing on the possibility of this new story, adding on to our current story, some of the old evidence that seemed so true, that seemed so real, starts to lose some of its blackness, some of its starkness, some of its strength, and it becomes a little bit more fluid and able to evolve into new evidence. And this, my friends, is the power of yes, and Because when we go about saying yes and we produce curiosity, and with curiosity we produce growth. Because what ends up happening when we become curious is we open up our vision to being able to see more than what we were seeing before. And as we open up our vision to see more. Instead of trying to hone in the narrow vision that we have to look in a completely different direction and dismiss all of the evidence that's within the narrow vision where we're looking. What we allow to happen is that evidence it's still there, but it goes into the side of the field of vision and we find new evidence, and that new evidence starts to form new associations with the old evidence, and that old evidence evolves. Yes, and One of the most powerful ways that we can get our brain into a yes and dialogue is by reminding ourselves of how things feel versus how they are.

Speaker 1: 21:04

When we say something is something is hard, something is scary, something is bad, then it's stated as if it's a fact that you have to prove wrong in order to change the story. One of the best ways to get your brain into a yes and dialogue is saying something like I completely see how that feels that way. Yes, it feels very scary. Yes, it feels this way. And what if? What if? There's more to it? This has been one of the biggest game changers for me in my evolution as a coach.

Speaker 1: 21:49

When I first started out as an entrepreneur, I had this idea in my head of how it was going to help people and I had this way of seeing what was holding people back, and I went out there and I started producing content on social media, started producing my podcast, started arguing about how, how the way we're living is not true. The way we're living is wrong, and inevitably, what ended up happening was I found very few clients, I found very few people willing to listen to me, and I would get frustrated. I would go into this angry rage of I'm going to beat this, I'm going to beat this, I'm going to prove to these people that I'm right. And all this did was cause people to put their guards up even more and resist what it was that I was saying even more, because the idea of their truth being wrong, that idea that everything that they believed is just wrong, produced such a resistant emotion, such a resistant state of mind, that nobody was listening and I, within myself, was also very resistant. I was resistant to hearing what the other people were saying. That was the reason why they weren't jumping in and saying, oh my God, yes, yes, yes. This is what I need help with. This is something that's going to be a game changer for me in my life, and it led to me spinning in these circles of resistance over and over and over and producing the same results over and over and over within myself and my business and my coaching practice.

Speaker 1: 23:42

And it wasn't until I started looking at what other people are saying, what other people are doing, and, instead of trying to prove them wrong, instead of trying to prove that old story about life that I had been believing for so long wrong, so that I could produce change, I started saying yes and I started looking for the truth in what people were doing and saying and trying to understand it more so that I could say yes and to them. And it was when I learned the practice of doing this, learned the practice of being able to talk to my clients and people on consultation calls and speak to them in a way where it wasn't like no, no, no, no, no. That's not right, that's not right. Here's, here are the facts over here. What you're believing that's wrong. Here's the truth.

Speaker 1: 24:40

It was when I could hop onto calls with people and I could relate to the truth in what they were saying. I could tell them yes, yes, of course that's going to feel that way. Of course that's the results that you're producing. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's not what you want, is it? That's not what you want. So, while this is true, what you want is that over there. So, if the story that you're currently living in doesn't allow you to go there, what else is also true that's going to help you get there?

Speaker 1: 25:15

And when I could get people to start thinking in this way about their stories in life, instead of slipping into this judgmental, self-rejecting, judgmental space and trying to prove how that identity within them, that story within them, was wrong, and helping them to see, let's find the truth in this. And what else? What else? What if this too?

Speaker 1: 25:47

And I found that it's only in people learning how to do this that they're willing to dive into the work, that they're willing to say yes, I'm ready to commit to this change, because, instead of producing this resistance between me and my clients, instead of me producing this resistant relationship between me and humanity like humanity is just wrong and it's so screwed up and I've got to change it I've got to prove it wrong. Instead, what I did is I opened up a space of curiosity between me and my client. I became more curious about how the brain would arrive at these conclusions, I became more curious about how to use those same urges from the brain to look at other evidence and add it on to the current story in a way that the mounds of evidence that proved that what they were going after was impossible was now a possibility. And the reason it starts to feel more like a possibility is because what I see people suffering in in personal development is that they wake up every day with this heavy burden, this heavy weight of needing to battle, needing to prove something wrong, needing to get something to stop and go away in their brain, and seeing their faces light up when they could hear me dialogue back to them their own story without saying it's wrong, without judging it, without rejecting it, without dismissing it, and say yes and and say yes, and what people begin to realize is evolving, changing and growing.

Speaker 1: 27:44

Is not this resistant fighting process. It's simply about harmonizing with the current story in a way that evolves the melody to shift directions. There's not this waking up every day and trudging through the mile-high pound of evidence, the mile-high mound of evidence that keeps them stuck. We don't need to lift all of that up and throw it away. We don't have to throw it away. We don't have to resist it. We don't have to make it go away. We can simply yes, and with it that can all still be there.

Speaker 1: 28:27

I don't need this impossible task, or seemingly impossible task, of rejecting this constantly, silencing it constantly, muting it constantly. I don't have to spend all of this mental energy trying to get that voice to shut up and go away. I can actually listen to it, find the pieces of truth within it and then add on to that truth in a way that evolves towards the goal that I'm heading towards. This, my friends, is what produces that energy within you of yes, I can, I can do this. I don't have to. I don't have to wake up every day and fight with my brain over who is right and wrong. I can allow it to have its voices. I can allow it to have its voices. I can allow it to have its dialogues. I can allow it to have its identities and find the pieces of truth within there and say yes, and and this over here that we want and that over there that we want.

Speaker 1: 29:29

But we never arrive at this space of curiosity if we go about our personal development with the approach of needing for that old identity, needing for that old story needing for that old mound of evidence to be gone before we're allowed to produce change. We don't need for that to happen anymore. We don't have to wait around for the brain to believe that the possibility of what we're going towards is true. We can get it on board, we can get it to move, we can create movement while that story still exists. And this is what gets you unstuck, my friends, so many of you out there. I see you waiting and waiting, and waiting and waiting to produce the change in your life. Because every time you go out there and you try and take an action, every time you go out there and you try and do something new, that old story comes up and then you're like, oh God, it's still there. It's still there, I failed.

Speaker 1: 30:31

No, no, no, no, no no no, yeah, of course, the old story is still there. Yes, the old story is still there. Yes, the old story is still there. And and it doesn't mean that the new story can't be true too. Yes, and.

Speaker 1: 30:49

Yes, and my friends, this is the game changer. What I want you all to do for me this week, after listening to this episode, is to start looking in your own journey to change, and I want you to find all of the places that you find yourself judging your brain, judging your thoughts, dismissing your thoughts, telling them no, that's wrong, no, that's stupid, that's not true. And I want you to try to yes and with it a little bit yes. I can see how that feels that way. I can see how that could seem to be the truth, the fact. And what about this right here? How do we add that on as a possibility to the current story? Let's remove that heavy burden of needing that old story to be gone, needing it to not have any truth to it whatsoever before we're allowed to move forward, and let's begin a yes and dialogue. Take a look in your own dialogues going on within your brain, your dialogues going on within yourself throughout the day when you're trying to produce change. Find the urge to argue with the old story. Find the urge to argue and dismiss the old truth and try yes-anding with it. I promise you it's a game changer For those of you out there who think you know what this sounds like the way forward for me and you're not sure where to begin with that.

Speaker 1: 32:19

You're not sure even where you might be arguing with the story and keeping yourself trapped. You're not even sure where you might be dismissing yourself, dismissing truths that you want to carry forward and evolve in your change, and that that's keeping you trapped. I'm here to help you out with that. This is one of my specialties as a coach is being able to hear when someone talks to me within their dialogue. Okay, right here, right here. Here's the arguing. This is where the arguing is going on. This is where you're never going to win with your brain. This is where you are giving yourself a task that is going to keep you stuck until you can prove that story wrong. And here's how we can take that story and we can evolve it forward, not get rid of it. We can.

Speaker 1: 33:06

Yes, and with it. I'm here for you if you want to learn the process of being able to do this how to really sit down and listen to that internal dialogue and find the pieces of truth. And, yes, and with it, I promise you it's a game changer. I love you all. That's all I've got for you all this week and until I see you here again next week, let's yes. And with ourselves. Let's yes. And with our old stories and our old dialogues. Ciao, thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed the content of this podcast. If you did, please subscribe so that you're one of the first people to know when I release a new episode each week.

Speaker 1: 33:43

If you have any questions, or if you have interest in learning more about the coaching that I do with my clients one-on-one, then just head over to my website at wwwlifecoachsethcom. That's wwwlifecoachsethcom. There you're going to have the ability to reach out to me for questions that you might have or to book your free discovery call with me to discuss what one-on-one coaching with me might be like for you. You can also check out and order your copy of my book to get a taste of what I'm all about as a person and as a coach. I'm so happy that you joined us today and I hope to have you here again next week.

Speaker 2: 35:03

So, until then, let authenticity be the guide to your most unstoppable and fulfilling journey of life. Thank you.