Episode 6 - The Truth About Absolutes: Why Your Brain Is Stopping You From Winning

Ever catch yourself saying, “No one likes me” or “I’ll never be good at that”? What if I told you those exact thoughts are quietly sabotaging your life?

In this episode, we dive deep into the toxic power of absolutes—those sneaky, rigid thoughts that slam the door on growth, connection, and healing. Learn how the words you use shape your reality and discover practical, empowering ways to reframe your inner dialogue.

From real-life stories of relabeling trauma to unlocking your power through mindset shifts, this episode gives you the tools to start winning again—one thought at a time.

If you’re tired of feeling stuck, hopeless, or weighed down by your past, this is the episode that will help you drop the baggage and pick up your power.

Transcript

Coming at you with some thoughts.

00:11

Absolutes.

00:13

When we talk in absolutes, it can sound like, I will never have a clean house.

00:20

I will never have enough money.

00:22

No one likes me.

00:24

Everyone thinks I'm horrible.

00:27

I've never been good at anything.

00:29

It makes our brain stop right there, right?

00:33

I'm never going to find somebody that loves me.

00:37

So what you're telling your brain is, why even try?

00:40

I'm never going to find it.

00:42

Instead of saying something like, oh, I haven't found my person that I want to be with yet.

00:47

That leaves it wide open.

00:49

Nobody likes me.

00:51

Oh really, nobody likes you?

00:53

So your own mother doesn't like you?

00:54

Okay, I know that can happen in some situations, but you don't like you?

00:59

No, but you can't find one person on this planet that doesn't, that likes you.

01:05

So when you hear those absolutes, when you're talking or someone else is talking, that's part of the process of learning to change it so that you're not talking in absolutes.

01:16

I feel like the absolutes is the way of our brain trying to get the last word in, right?

It's like, oh, I'm never going to be good at math. So that kind of stops the conversation, right? Because what else are you going to say after that?

If I'm never going to be good at math, okay, then, done.

You're never going to be good at math.

There's no conversation of, why don't you try this? Why don't you try that?

You've literally shut down your brain of, you're never going to be good at math, so just stop.

It's having the last word, but it doesn't actually make you win, right?

01:47

So it's shutting down the help and getting your brain to a different place to help you actually and move forward. Absolutes, are not our friend. Absolutes will not get you anywhere. They will not help you win.

02:01

Changing an absolute into something that is real and tangible that allows your brain room to wiggle and go, Oh, wait.

So if you say, Nobody likes me, Why go to a party? Why go out? Why try talking to people?

I'm gonna die alone.

Like, think of all the things your brain's gonna go to with, nobody's ever gonna like me.

02:21

As opposed to saying, right now I feel like there's some people that might not like me, but I know I have people out there that do like me.

I mean, find find something that works for you, or you know what, it's nobody's business what people think of me.

I know I'm likable and I'll keep trying 'til I find people that I like to be around and that like to be around me.

That leaves it open instead of, Nobody likes me.

Or, Let's be real, I had a day where I just felt like people's responses weren't that great to me, but I'll try again tomorrow.

So finding a different thing that works for you is gonna be better than labeling in an absolute, because an absolute was like, Give up, lay down, roll over and die.

And we just don't do that because that doesn't help us win.

You can do that, but that gets you in bed eating a bag of chips all day, right?

Or a carton of ice cream and feeling hopeless.

03:15

Our whole job, my whole job, is to help my brain to think better, pick out the bad thoughts, and relabel things and say things in a better way to get me the results I want so I can win.

Saying nobody likes me is not gonna help me win.

Saying, Oh, I'm not good at anything is not gonna help me win.

Saying, oh, I haven't tried that yet is better than saying, I'm not good at that.

Are you really not good at that? Or, oh yeah, I tried that once and it didn't work out so great. Don't know if I wanna try it again.

That leaves you more open than, oh, I'm not good at that, right?

So there are better ways to say things, but absolutes are not your friend.

03:56

Kick 'em to the curb, and as you start to try and catch 'em,You'll catch them more and more, and you'll get really good at relabeling and reframing the things that you can say instead.

At first it might be a little tricky because you'll be like, well that just sounds so like Pollyanna, so rose colored, glass is half full kind of thing.

I don't wanna be fake, I don't wanna just act all happy and make it sound rosy. You're not, you're really not. Because if you think about it, your brain is already glass half empty type. Your brain will point out negative a lot easier than the positive until it gets trained to do better, right?

And even then, it'll pop up from time to time with some patterns and habits, and you'll be like, wait a second, that is not what I wanna think about that.

So we are definitely going to take control of those thoughts.

We're gonna recognize that a thought doesn't have to be something that you keep.

A thought doesn't have to be anything that means it's true.

A thought is just something up in our head, and if it's just a thought, which is just a story based on things that your brain thinks it knows, it can always be changed.

It can always be re-looked at, to maybe see a different perspective.

05:10

And what I mean by that, and I think one of the biggest things that helped me learn this, was listening to my mentor work with somebody that had had a hard childhood and a parent that was not a good parent.

In fact, kind of an abusive parent and was not kind in their words. And this person that was like, hey, I had a rough childhood, and I did not have a nice parent. In working with that, that can be very true when you look at it, right?

And to have that resentment, oh, I wish I had a better childhood. I wish I had a better parent. It's an unfair situation for me. Those are all things that we can choose to think and go down that road, and that's perfectly okay if we choose that.

Now, here's where this skill and tool comes in, is anything that you're thinking and looking at, you can choose what story and label gets put on that.

06:04

So, if you wanna label, I had a horrible childhood, I had a horrible parent, it was unfair. I wish it was better. I hate my childhood.

I have so much trauma from my childhood. That's not a bad thing to have if you want to believe that.

Now, I personally feel that something like that can feel very heavy, very negative, and can put you in a place that doesn't help serve you the best.

06:29

So, I started offering myself another alternative to looking at that. Now, that wasn't my childhood. This was somebody that I saw my mentor working with that was teaching this concept. Now, in talking to that person, he had said, now do you have children? And that person was like, yes, I do have children.

Well, do you treat your children how your parent treated you? Well, no, I don't.

I actually try and make sure I tell them I love them and I speak kindly to them and I make sure I support them.

And, you know, there was all this evidence of different ways that this person had changed how they were parenting as opposed to their parent.

07:07

And this is the part that changed my way of thinking forever of how you can look at things differently.

07:14

So, in a very weird way, that person's parent gave them the best gift of showing them how to be a parent in a very weird way.

Right?

So instead of getting the parent that did the things of like, hey, this is how you should parent, their parents showed them the opposite so that when they became a parent, they know exactly what not to do.

So in in our minds, then that person can shift to, wow.

What a weird way of looking at it, never thought about it, but I'm actually blessed that I went through that so that my kids don't have to go through that.

07:54

So you know maybe in a kind of weird, twisted way, I can be grateful that I had the parent I did that made me the person that I am.

And guess what?

I'm strong and I can be there for my kids and my kids don't have to go through that.

How empowering did that just sound to you?

08:12

That makes me feel like I could move mountains for my children, right?

I don't have to sit there and play the victim and say, oh, I wish it was different.

Oh I'm not even recognizing my own power, my own gift I gave to my kids.

If I sit in the past and sit in it, it's like sitting in a dirty diaper, right?

Something stunk back then, but I'm gonna change it and get it out.

And I'm actually gonna find a way to show a little bit of gratitude that I had that experience, even though it sucked, so that my kids will never experience that.

08:45

Now, keep in mind, that wasn't my childhood. That isn't what I did.

But that person in that room, I watched their face change.

I watched them be empowered and emboldened to be like, Oh my gosh, I never thought of that. I always felt sad. I was angry. I wanted to, you know, I wished it could change so much.

We can't change the past. We can't change how that parent showed up.

But we sure as heck can change the way we label it and changing it so we're not sitting in their dirty diaper they've created and we create something better for our children.

09:15

And then if we can turn back and be so grateful that whatever it was, no matter if it was horrible that got us to be this person, that can fight for our kids, that can have better conversations, that can truly change how our family and how our kids treat their kids, that's empowering, that's amazing.

And that's the gift you can give yourself when you reframe, when you reshape and you relabel things from the past. An example of this that I used, 

I had a friend helping me with this concept and this skill.

I look back, I would say, oh, I stayed home with my kids when they were little.

From the time my daughter was six months old and I had two other kids until my oldest was 10 years old and my youngest was like five, I went back to work part-time. That timeframe, I was at home with my kids, but guess what I labeled it?

I was stuck at home with my kids and I had depression.

So all that time I got to spend with my kids, nurture them, but yes, had depressive thoughts at that time.

I had labeled the word, what did I say? I was stuck at home.

And the second I learned, Does that serve me to think, wow, I was stuck at home with my kids being a depressed woman for those years?

Or did I choose to stay home with my children, and I did experience some depressive and anxious thoughts that I was dealing with during that time, but I was able to be there for my children, and I'm so grateful for that.

Grateful that I get to be their mom and that I have them in my life.

That felt so more empowering than saying, oh, I was stuck at home with my kids being depressed for all those years.

That just sucks me down into this pit of despair.

When I say the other way of relabeling it, I got to be at home.

I chose, I chose to be there for my children.And I was very blessed that I got to be there instead of being at work.

11:13

Yeah, there were some hard times in there, but there's some great times in there too, and I'm so glad I got that time with my kids.

Holy cow, that's so empowering, you guys, so I want you to think about some areas in your lifethat maybe you've labeled a certain way that brings you down more than serves you and what you can label it instead.

There's so many different ways. think this is huge to do for being burned out with things that you're helping with, being burnt out in a job, to look at it differently.

I'm so blessed to have this job right now because if I didn't have this job and I was out of work, I'd be grateful if I had this job.

Or being able to relabel how you've labeled somebody at your job.

Oh, my boss is impossible. He's always getting onto me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know what, my boss is probably really stressed. I don't really love his communication style. I wonder if there's a way that I can communicate better to help him communicate better with me. Or maybe I just need to communicate better with myself so that I'm in a good mindset when I have to have those conversations with him that aren't fun.

12:20

So there's a lot of shifts we can do. When I get spiraled down into like despair or things feel dark or I'm starting to feel burned out or hopeless and stuff, I usually will stop and try and see what I've labeled things, what I'm telling myself about situations that are happening in my life right then.

And then write it out, do it in your head, a spouse or a friend help you that are trying to work on this too, and think of other ways to say it.

Is there another way to look at this?And yeah, it can feel like a Pollyanna spin, but the other way is just a negative spin.

So it's whichever way you choose, either one can be true.

It just depends on which one you believe in, which one you want to put into your head and move forward with.

And I choose the ones that help me win more often than not. And if I'm not winning with one, kick it out, get another one.

So that is, you guys, that's a huge, huge thing that can shift so much in your life.

13:16

And as you start to do it, you'll notice so many areas you can use it in.

But I encourage you to take a look at your timeline in your life.

Those big moments that happen to you and maybe see how you labeled them and then do that shift.

Shift is something that works better for you, that feels better for you, that you can move forward with and feel empowered with and hold on to.

13:41

Instead of dragging that weight of like baggage with you, think of it more like shifting it to something that gets to come along with you that you don't have to drag, just with you and it helps you, right?

So instead of carrying a big heavy, heavy bag, maybe it's giving you a tool, right?

A flashlight so that you're more capable of doing more things because now it's not weighing you down anymore. It's actually a tool to help you.

14:08

So I'm empowered now that I'm a mom that got to be be at home with my kids and nurture and strengthen them and grow with them to where today we have a great relationship.

No baggage there, we don't need baggage, we don't want baggage.

So our job, our goal should be to look in that baggage, shift what that baggage is into something that serves us.

And if it's not serving us, then we need to get rid of it, stop dragging it along.

I think one of my least favorite words that I hear a lot of people say is trauma.

Trauma.

14:42

Oh, the trauma from my childhood, the trauma for my past, the trauma for my relationship, the trauma from What my parents said to me, the trauma from being in this organization, the trauma from whatever.

It's a good label, right?

Trauma sounds deep, hard, and trauma sounds like something that's going to take me years to get over, right?

I need to really dig into this trauma.

15:13

And it's so traumatic and so big that I get triggered, and it pulls the trauma up again. Guys, I am telling you, do not label anything trauma if you want to move forward in your life.

Find a different word.

Was it traumatic and trauma from your past, or was it hard situations and things you didn't know how to deal with? Was it somebody treating you in a bad way because they didn't know how to do any better, and you're not going to allow that to control you anymore?

I'm just offering it to you. If you wanna keep your word trauma and you like that and you like being triggered, by all means, keep it.

But as soon as you relabel and take out the trauma word and start to relabel the past and make it serve you, the triggers go away because you've actually healed yourself through the words that you say.

16:08

Words are so powerful and meaningfulin the hardest ways that can hurt us and hold us back, or in the best ways that can empower us and move us forward.

So if you are struggling, take a look at your words. What did you label from the past? What can you shift it to to help you for the future?

That is where you're gonna win every time, my friends.

This is not rocket science. It's not years of therapy.

It is literally changing your words to change your thoughts, to change your emotions and your reactions.

You are living in a pattern of what you've thought about it and how you react to it.

16:51

If you want to get past it and heal, change the pattern of the way you labeled it and think about it, to change the emotion, to change the action you take around it.

17:01

It will change your life and change your world. I will help you.

It has totally shifted my life, and I use this skill all the time.

This is one of the main secret skills you can use to empower yourself and move forward in so many areas in your life, make your relationships better, show up as a stronger person, not have to hash into the past or go to therapy over and over again, and I'm not saying therapy is bad.

Go to therapy, do your thing, but this is also a piece you can use along with it that will help you shift in leaps and bounds in ways you never thought possible.

But you have to be willing to let go of how you thought of something and shift it to something else in a way that serves you, that still resonates with you.

You guys, you can do this, you've got this, I've got you.

17:59

Let's do it together, keep going, I'll talk to you soon.