And What Else?

Cultivating Connection & Building Trust

• Wendy O'Beirne (The Completion Coach)

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This episode explores the vital relationship between self-development and genuine connection, urging listeners to prioritise the inner work that fosters deeper connections with themselves, others, and the world. The discussion highlights the importance of emotional agility, vulnerability, and reshaping our perspectives on relationships to cultivate more meaningful interactions.

• Redefining self-development as a journey toward authentic connection 
• Understanding disconnection in modern society 
• Emphasising the importance of emotional agility in relationships 
• Sharing personal experiences of prioritising meaningful connections 
• Recognising the negative impact of neglecting close relationships 
• Exploring the role of vulnerability in fostering deeper connections 
• Encouraging reflection on attention and energy allocation toward relationships 
• Building connections not just with others but with the world around us

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.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to, and what Else, the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and today I'm going to talk about something that I think I bang on about quite a lot, but obviously I don't, so I just want to come on and talk about self-development, the development of more self, and what that actually means, what the impact of that is in your life and why it's so important to do it. Whatever your age, whatever your view on life, the development of self and really getting clear on what that means. Getting clear on what that means sometimes gets really lost in translation, and so what I'm going to bring it into here is this the point of self-development is not to become obsessed with just you and absolutely digging into every single thing that happens and trying to make it about something. It's not about witnessing everybody else and wondering what their issue is and why they won't do it. It's not saving the world per se in, you know, getting everybody to do their work. I know it's very tempting to want everybody to do their work. I am with you. There are many people I would love to do the inner work that won't, but it is about developing such a sense of self, which is a sense of trust, which is a clarity of thinking, which is a revival of your creativity, which is how you can access calm, which is how you can become more loving. It is how you can feel more connected, Connected primarily to yourself, because we become very disconnected without noticing that it has happened to us, connected back into your body, happened to us, connected back into your body, which is holding the body mind, which I call the subconscious, because to me the subconscious is within this body, but it is also the home of the nervous system, the home of our intuition.

Speaker 1:

And it is the connection back to the body, to the nervous system, to that intuition and to that subconscious mind that we're processing, that we're understanding ourselves as this full human. And it's then our connection to everybody else, understanding that the more disconnected we are from ourselves, even though we may feel connected to others through the abandonment of ourselves, we are disconnected as a society. We're disconnected from the people who live next door. We're disconnected in so many ways, even from our own friends, because we will watch their Instagram stories and decide we know what's happening in their life. We will send a text message in a group without checking in on people one-to-one. We're more likely to voice note someone than call them. We are more likely to believe that we're in groups, that we have this connection, while still filtering ourselves with backing out when we don't feel great and showing up again when we feel a bit better, by being able to double tap something rather than actually say something.

Speaker 1:

And we're at a time where that disconnection has built it out into the larger world and we feel really disconnected from what's going on. In all of these tragedies that we're seeing in the news every day. We are feeling disconnected even from reality some days. But through these devices, through this vast amount of information, through this trying to keep up with everything, doing everything, through even bear with me on this, I know it would upset some but through even working remotely and being more isolated in working outside of teams at home, through fear of opening up fully to people, in that vulnerability, even in the idea of dating apps and how we present how we connect, how we present how we connect. The world has changed dramatically and we view connection now so instantly. We will judge everything a little bit too quickly and we will make decisions without actually giving anything much of a chance. We go into things and, when they aren't instant in success. We can withdraw, we can go into things and if it isn't love at first sight or we don't get complete and utter green flags from a situation, we'll run a mile.

Speaker 1:

Because we have set ourselves up through this life of being a watcher, an observer, an intake of information, a bombardment of our senses that have stopped us from slowing down, from connecting with what is true for us, from critical thinking, from conversation and opening ourselves up to bigger points of views, to slowing down long enough to have time to talk to somebody, from slowing down enough to notice more of our immediate surroundings and the things that are going on that we just don't have time for. And you know, the people that have done a lot of inner work might think that they've got this sorted Right. And the point of doing our inner work, our self-development, our development of self, the point of that is not to have a problem-free, rose-tinted, unicorn-breeding life throw at us for the curveballs, for watching huge instances from afar and from watching and handling the things in our very real, tangible lives that we're touching and feeling and dealing with as well. It's to improve our capacity to handle all of our emotions. It's to build agility in how we're thinking so that we become flexible thinkers and stop being so rigid. It's to improve our emotional agility so that we stop getting stuck in emotions for so long and then creating a reinforcement of beliefs and patterns.

Speaker 1:

But I also just want to bring it back to this because I spoke of it online and I've spoken to people one-to-one on it, but I'm going to bring it here. We can do all of that work and we can live with somebody and that person can be the person that gets the most disconnected part of us in their presence. We may have within our personal relationships, a disconnect where people actually receive the least of our attention because we're so busy outwardly doing so much. You know that might be for a lot of people that listen to this podcast that your work receives the best version of you, that what you do as a passion or what has got the most reward for you, that feels the safest in receiving that reward, gets the most of your attention. So your priorities in life will be to connect to those things, to commit to those things, to invest your time, your energy, your emotion, all of that into those things and let's just say that is work for the sake of this podcast and the people most likely to be listening.

Speaker 1:

And I did a home experiment recently where I decided, 10 years into my relationship, to invest more time and energy and prioritization to the person that probably receives the least investment from me and that's my personal relationship. And just by shifting that, by giving it priority, by giving it more space and attention, by giving it more time, by giving it as much as I would give work, the relationship has shifted in a really positive way and it's just really nice to notice that we can become so disconnected, even in our own homes, in our friendship circles, in any ongoing relationship that we have, they may well start to receive the worst of us, and by that what I'm saying is they will receive the language and the voice and the words that we usually associate with our inner critic. So it might be really easy to judge them as quickly as you would judge yourself. It might be really easy to take the piss out of them the way that you do yourself. It might be really easy to stop listening and to start jumping in the way that you often cut yourself short. So they will start to receive the worst part of you because they're the closest to you, and so they receive the harshness of the inner critic, which is normally silent.

Speaker 1:

They may receive a little bit of that and we won't notice, and it may well just be causing a disconnect, even in the places we are meant to feel the most connected, and I'd love you to think about that. It might just be you've got a real disconnect with your business, with your job, with somebody you used to be really close to, with a partner, with something that you said you were going to do. It might be that you've got a real disconnect with your bank balance, with the idea of what you can and can't hold, with what your capacity for something is. And the point of this is again that the point of self-development is to increase your capacity for life, to increase your capacity for handling things in your life. But it is also about finding connection. Connection to yourself, yes, but it's then about finding connection. Connection to yourself, yes, but it's then also connection to nature, connection to your body, connection to other people and connection to the world at large.

Speaker 1:

There's going to be an instant order that you put those into and there's going to be things that you prioritize within this work, but what I would love you to do is break the pattern, whatever natural order you would put it in. Try shifting it wherever usually gets your priority and focus, try moving it and just see what impact that has when you put something in the same priority list. Now, I know I work often takes up most of the day, so I'm not asking you to then spend eight hours on a relationship a day, but I'm asking you to put the priority and the investment into that other thing. So what about money becoming a priority and something that you're really connected to, that you feel connected to? How could you do that? What kind of visualization, what kind of connection to what you do have? What kind of gratitude, what kind of priority in how you spend and what you spend and what that looks like?

Speaker 1:

If it's in friendships, where in your friendships do you offer priority? Is it mainly to the people that need you the most? Is it mainly to the people that do the same thing as you? Is it mainly to the people who have the same interests outside of work as you? What about friendship? That gets a priority and how do you prioritize the connection? How can you give that more of you if you are feeling a loneliness within your friendship circles. If you had a connection to a dream or a hobby or an idea that you have discarded, how could you bring that back onto a priority list, how could you look to connect to it again and offer it an investment of your time, energy, and how could you make space for it in your life to see if there's room for it? And how could you make space for it in your life to see if there's room for it?

Speaker 1:

Because a lot of people I speak to, who have done a lot of work on themselves, that are feeling that a particular area of their life is not quite where they would like it to be. Quite frequently they are giving it the worst of themselves. They have deprioritized it, knowingly or unknowingly, and they have disconnected from it in some way, and so it's almost as if they have decided an outcome already, and in that decision that they have made internally, their behavior is backing that. So there's a disconnect. So I'm just going to put here the point of self-development, or the development of self is to create that connection to yourself, to your nervous system, to your subconscious, to your beliefs, your words, your behaviors, the life force, the energy in your own life. Yes, it is then to see how connected you are to other people, how connected you are to nature, how connected you are to the world at large and what connection really means.

Speaker 1:

Because if we think connection is the community of just people that sound and look like us or agree with us or are interested in what we're interested in, then we are saying we will only find connection in almost echo chambers or we will only find connection with people that we believe will not disrupt our peace, and that comes back to fragility, the idea that something having tough times, something being challenging, something being or needing more time and space, something needing more commitment is something to walk away from. And I don't think we have to find everything as challenging as we find it when we build our capacity to connection, to holding things lovingly, to really digging into what we are giving, prioritizing and connecting to and what we are expecting that to give back to us, because in a world of connection, it is not give to receive, but it is certainly how we treat things, is how they will be nurtured and it's how they will grow, much like all the experiments with water, and if you talk badly to water, you can see the impact it has on it under the microscopes. Much like if you've got plants and you don't water them and they're in the shade and you talk badly and there's really negative energy they're least likely to thrive. Much like if you have animals, the way that you would treat them. Much like, much like, much like.

Speaker 1:

We could bring this to so many things that you're not going to become a baker by never switching on the oven. You're not going to become somebody who finds joy in reading. If you refuse to read a book when our energy goes, where our attention is most focused we will find returns in those areas. We will find returns in those areas. It will give us more. It will give us more If we find joy in walking in nature. The more we give attention to the joy that we receive in nature, the more that we will receive that joy. If we find difficulty in certain areas of our life and we really focus on the difficulty that is there, it will return to us more of those difficulties.

Speaker 1:

So I'm not talking about be positive and positive vibes. I'm not doing that at all. I'm asking you to become really aware of where you find yourself feeling, really aware of where you find yourself feeling really connected and where you find yourself feeling really disconnected and just looking to see what value you might be giving those things, what connection you might be offering those things, and seeing if you shift that, what might shift with you externally, what might shift with you externally and, if they are not, what you could do to create more connection in that area, which may be if it's in friendships, for example, and you shift your attention, your investment and your value and there is still difficulty with a friendship friendship would you be willing to have the difficult conversations? Would you be willing to go through challenges to see what happens and what the outcome would be? Whatever we are avoiding in life in any way, we are delaying and when we delay things, we again give it more focus because we're adding to the delay, we're adding to the frustration, adding in some way or another, we are adding our attention and investment into the delay, even if we sat talking about something that's frustrating rather than dealing with it, which may require difficult conversations, which may require us to do things that we can't be bothered to do, but we know we need to. It may require us to be vulnerable. So I'd love for you to just spend some time thinking about this, thinking about what it stirs in you, what it's brought for you, what you would love to shift your attention, your investment, your connection to and then let me know how that goes with curiosity, what that increases your capacity for. And again, I just want to reiterate this is not about just positive vibes, adding joy, ignoring your feelings. It's not that at all. It's about oh, if there's conflict here, rather than delay it, would I be willing to have a really loving conversation about that? Would I be willing to advocate for myself? Would I be willing to listen to this person's point of view? Would I be willing to navigate ending a relationship if necessary? Would I be willing to look at my own role in my finances? Would I be willing to look at this repeating pattern in my work cycles? And if I were willing to do that, that, would I be willing to have conversations that make me uncomfortable? Would I be willing to speak to people that I haven't spoke to on this level in this way before? And if I offered that priority, how would that change things for me? And I can still experience annoyance. I can experience anger. I can experience and I can still experience annoyance. I can experience anger. I can experience rage, I can experience sadness, I can experience grief.

Speaker 1:

We're holding everything with emotional agility. The more capacity we have and more trust in ourselves because of the relationship with self, the more trust we build with others because of the connection with others, the more we create safety. The more safety we have in ourselves, the more that we trust we can navigate things. The more we trust we can navigate things, the less we hold ourselves back through lack of trust. And this is how we break cycles of repeating behavior and how we create cognitive flexibility, flexible thinking, which is a growth mindset, whichever way you want to label it, and how we create emotional agility, which is also how we have a really healthy nervous system, which is also how we're really connected to our intuition. And this agility, this absolute knowing in ourselves that we have what it takes to handle our lives and the challenges it will present to us. The hardships we will experience, the losses that we will experience, the endings that we might not want. All of those things would have more capacity to not just go through but to process and to overcome, because we're not meant to get stuck anywhere, and that is why this work is so important, especially if you then want to go on to advocate for others, especially if you then are somebody that wants to connect out and help in different ways, different people.

Speaker 1:

That whole. Put your seatbelt on first, whatever it is. Put your life jacket on first. Her analogies are not her analogies here, but the whole thing of that. It's a mask, isn't it? It's the air mask.

Speaker 1:

Pulling yours on first just means when you have dealt with your own capacity, when you are able to look at your own agility, then the things that you handle, the things that you take on as challenges, the things that you then increase your capability for, allow you to go for more in life, allow you to give more in life, allow you to connect more in life.

Speaker 1:

More in life, allow you to connect more in life, and in doing that, we actually get this delicious feeling because we are growing, we trust ourselves, we are willing to help others in ways that we probably didn't have the capacity or the time or the attention for previously. We will find meaning, far more meaning, in the things that we are doing, rather than making things mean something about us, and I think that life having meaning, which is this idea of connection, is the thing we've been chasing under the word purpose, which we have cleverly made into a job, and, as always, I would just like to shred that idea that your life has meaning. Your job is to go out and connect to the feeling of meaningfulness. When you have faith and trust in yourself, faith and trust in other people, there is faith and trust in a society that we might not have right now. This went on longer than I intended, as always. Thank you for listening. Any questions whatsoever, drop me a DM or send me an email and I'll speak to you again next week.