And What Else?
Welcome to 'And What Else?', your source for thoughtful and meaningful conversations about personal and professional growth. Host Wendy O'Beirne is an internationally recognised coach and consultant with a passion for exploring the layers of topics surrounding self-development. Together, we'll dig beneath the surface of subjects, stories, and possible solutions to uncover new perspectives we may not have seen before. With curiosity and open minds, let's embark on an adventure of self-discovery and uncover the possibilities of 'and what else'. Stay Curious!
And What Else?
Moving Beyond Resilience to True Strength
Think resilience is the ultimate strength? Think again. Discover why clinging to rigid behaviors in the name of control might be stunting your personal growth and limiting your emotional experiences. Join me as I challenge the glorification of resilience and guide you towards embracing emotional agility. We'll reframe your understanding of emotions—from perceived threats to mere data—and help you identify where rigidity is holding you back.
Reflect on your own life: Are your repetitive actions a shield against uncomfortable emotions? Through this episode, you'll learn to shift from a rigid mindset to one of adaptability, feeling, and true strength. Stop focusing on fixing perceived flaws and start accepting the full spectrum of your humanity, both messy and joyful. Tune in to uncover how emotional flexibility can lead to genuine transformation, and don't hesitate to reach out with your thoughts or share this episode with someone who might need it.
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.
Welcome to, and what Else, the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and today we're talking about something that so many people struggle with but rarely recognize, and that's their getting stuck in rigid behaviors and patterns, but all in an effort to avoid their emotions. It's a really familiar feeling of doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome whether it's work, relationships and your personal growth and when things aren't changing, instead of looking at the behaviours or decisions you're making, you end up thinking I must need more healing, I must have more blocks, there must be something wrong with me. I'm the only one. This isn't going to work, for. What I want to talk about here is that it's not that you need to do more. It's that you've got into a pattern, and that pattern is to try to avoid the discomfort of your emotions by sticking to really familiar roots, even when those routes don't work. So we're going to explore how rigid behavior keeps you stuck and why doing the same thing doesn't lead to the outcomes that you want, and we're going to discuss that term of resilience because it's used as such a badge of honor, but it might be the very thing holding you back from what you actually need, which is emotional agility.
Speaker 1:So if we start with the rigid behaviors, the ones that look like you're trying that, look like you're doing something different, but they're actually just avoidance tactics in disguise. Maybe it's doing the same thing but in a different place, maybe it's overgiving, but you're communicating at the same time. So it looks like you've made a difference, but in reality you're still over pouring and over giving. It's just now you're being a tiny bit more vocal and communicating a little bit more with it. What we've got to give ourselves credit for is these behaviors are giving you a sense of control. They're also kind of whispering if I keep doing this, something will eventually change. But in reality it's not the circumstances that need to change, it's the behaviors and decisions that you've got locked into in an attempt to avoid pain, to avoid your own discomfort of your own emotions.
Speaker 1:So wherever we're rigid, we're really fixed. We're not budging In one way or another. We've got really rigid thinking on something and that area is something we're afraid of feeling uncomfortable in the classics of fear of failure, fear of rejection. But even deeper, even deeper will be the fear of confronting your own emotions. So what we tend to do is build routines and behaviors that keep us away from that discomfort. Overplan, overwork, avoid tough conversations, cling to what's familiar.
Speaker 1:We stick our fingernails in, clinging on to things that aren't working for us, aren't serving us, aren't helping us, and when it doesn't work out, when it doesn't work out, we will tell ourselves that we were too much. We will declare there's something wrong with me. We will declare there's more work that we need to go back and do on ourselves, which creates a trap where you are still the problem, when in reality, your behavior is the problem. Not you. You are not your behavior. They're just the tactics and the sequences and the habits you have formed to try to keep yourself safe from these feelings.
Speaker 1:What I see all of the time is this gets people stuck, stuck in this idea and this reinforcement there's something wrong with you but also stuck because they don't make new decisions, they don't make change, they're not getting the progress that they want, and it's reinforcing the story again that I'm the one that can't do this. You end up going to even more things the next book, the next thing that you've got to work on, but it's kind of you're working on it in silence for it to never be used. What really needs change is your actions. When we dig into the idea of doing the same thing and expecting different results I know you've heard of this, I know you've heard it's the definition of insanity but we tend to just like the quote. We don't actually think have I fallen into this trap? Am I keeping the same strategy, hoping that this time it'll work out? Am I approaching things the same way, hoping this time, this time it will be different? And when it doesn't, we think well, maybe I'm broken, maybe I need to do more work.
Speaker 1:The pattern is the thing not getting results. It's not you, it's the inner pattern, it's the behaviors, the choices, your rigidity to holding on to these beliefs, these thoughts, these actions, these behaviors, this holding back, that's what's keeping you stuck. When you're locked in, when you're locked into the same decision internally, it doesn't matter how much healing you do, you're not going to change your actions. And that's where emotional agility comes in. We resist change because it feels uncomfortable, unpredictable or even scary, and a lot of the times, the resistance to change is really about just avoiding the emotions you don't want to feel, even though here's the kicker even though you are feeling those feelings anyway because you're disappointed, hurt, feel like you're not enough. You're entering those emotions. You're just not doing it at the risk of a new scenario. Not doing it at the risk of a new scenario. What you didn't learn at some point is that your emotions are just data, they're just information. They are not signs of weakness. They are not going to create these life or death scenarios.
Speaker 1:And the more we avoid feeling certain emotions, the more rigid we become in trying to be in. The non-feeling is what I'm gonna call it. Ah, most people then call this resilience, and the world loves and praises and looks up to these resilient people. I want you to think about resilient people and whose things to mind, like they're so strong, nothing can knock them down. Blah, blah, blah. It's all well and good. All well and good, but here's my issue. Resilience has become such a badge of honor to prove we can withstand anything with taking it as strength, that you can take any hit and we'll keep going. But actually, that resilience is the way that you've shut down. It's shut down. It's where you're rigid. It's where you're stuck in a survival mode, gritting your teeth, getting through whatever life throws at you. In reality, in reality, everything feels like it's crashing against you or that you're having to withstand these storms, that being under pressure all of the time is normal and it's not True strength, much like honesty, is vulnerability.
Speaker 1:True strength is agility, being able to move within the challenge rather than bracing yourself for it. It's the ability to adapt, to feel your feelings, to flow with what life brings instead of fighting it. It's about being able to access all of yourself, including all of the messy parts, the fear, the joy, the uncertainty, letting yourself quite possibly receive love all of those things that you are usually avoiding. Because resilience without that emotional agility, without going through all of the emotions, without opening up our flexibility, like what can we change? What else? What else? What else that creative part of you that goes okay? Maybe this doesn't even mean what I'm making it mean. Maybe this isn't the story that I'm making in my head, maybe this isn't true, even though I feel sad, even though I just entered another failed relationship, even though nobody brought that thing. Maybe the stories I'm making up still aren't true.
Speaker 1:And so what I'd like to say is resilience without agility is just rigidity in disguise. So if you're constantly bracing for impact, waiting for the next thing to go wrong whilst staying strong, then you're missing out on the true strength that comes with going with the full range, full range of emotions, a full range of thoughts. You know, let's talk about that, that element of agility as well, the mental agility, the cognitive agility to go. Yeah, that thought's not the only thought, that outcome is not the only outcome, that belief is not the only belief. So we want it within our emotions and we want it within our thoughts and we want it within our beliefs. We want to be able to move through things. That's what surrender is.
Speaker 1:I was looking for the words, but that's the surrender. Like we be able to move through things. That's what surrender is. I was looking for the words, but that's the surrender. Like we're going to move through them all. You're going to have days, but you're riding through all of those things moments, conversations, experiences, things, even that are going well.
Speaker 1:We will always be going through a different range of emotions, but we need to be able to move through them and not get stuck in any of them or hold ourselves back from experiencing some of them out of fear. We are completely capable of feeling all of our range of emotions and we are all completely capable of stretching our range of thoughts and stretching our range of beliefs, because the more agility we build, the less rigid we are on. No, this is true and that's it. You know, I have proof. This is it. This is all that's destined for me.
Speaker 1:That's just rigid, it's your inability to explore other parts of your mind and it's making your world so much smaller. So if you find yourself stuck in rigid behaviors, thinking you know, the next answer is to go and fix something else that is wrong with you. I'm asking you to instead ask yourself am I being really rigid in an attempt to avoid my emotions? Am I afraid to try something different because I'm afraid of the emotions it might bring up? And when you're thinking about strength, don't just think about resilience. Think about agility, the ability to adapt, to feel and to move through the feelings, to move through the situations, to move through the thoughts, to move through, to create this sense of flow over rigidity. I find it really hard to say that word, and I've used it a lot.
Speaker 1:Strength is not gritting your teeth and surviving every tough moment without speaking, without feeling, without addressing. It's about embracing everything your strength, your intelligence, your humanity, your messiness, the joy, the ugliness, the brilliance of being human. You're not here to withstand a storm. Trying new things is scary only because we are scared of what it might bring up in us, but the things that bring up our shit are our growth arenas, areas, whatever you want to call it. They're an opportunity to grow, and if you want to take the opportunity, what you need to do is become agile, because we grow with our agility. We do not grow by getting really stuck and rigid.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask you to once again think about where you have rigid thinking. Think about where you have rigid solutions, think about where you've become really rigid in your behavior, and think about where you are really rigid in expressing your emotions. Oof, oof. That's one to think about. As always, I'm going to ask you to feel free to send me an email, wendy, at thecompletioncoachcouk. You can always DM me. When you listen to this, I will be on retreat in Norfolk, coming back out around the 11th, 12th, I believe, so I will respond to all messages then. If you think this would be handy, please forward it to somebody that might need to listen, and if you want to leave a review, please do. Please do sending all my love.