E37 | Enough Already! Say The "Thing" and Change Your Story.

We all have stories we tell ourselves—about our abilities, our worth, our relationships. But what happens when these stories start to hold us back?

In today's episode of GETTING TO UNSTUCK, we ask the critical question: What are the stories you're telling yourself?

And more importantly, how can you recognize and acknowledge the ones that aren't serving you?

Because, the truth is that the stories we tell ourselves affect how we show up for ourselves and the world we all share. Join us as we unpack the psychology behind these self-told stories and share  practical steps to interrupt and transform them.

Getting to Unstuck is a live podcast recorded with Christal Duncan, Colin Kingsmill,  and Carol Vickers from Whole Human Coaching. Find out more about our work and resources at https://wholehumancoaching.com

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Transcript

Christal Duncan: [00:00:00] Good morning. Good morning. Sorry, I was stuck on the banners here. I was stuck on the banners. What day is it again? Well, that's right, it's Tuesday. It's the day. It is the day. Oh, man. Watch out, Crystal. Well, what a pleasure to be here. If you are joining us live or even wherever you are, and whenever you're coming in on this today, we are just so glad you're here because we strongly feel and believe that this is going to be a fantastic conversation, number one, a fantastic conversation for us, because we have been talking about this, and this is something that we're living and [00:01:00] walking through, and we're going to share a little bit more with you about that very quickly.

But we also believe that this is going to be, this is one of the keys. of life. Isn't it fascinating? Stories that we tell ourselves. So today we're talking about enough already. We're going to say the thing and we're going to change the story, change our story, change your story. So here's the thing. We all have stories that we tell ourselves.

We, the stories are about our abilities, our worth, our relationships. They're never ending. The stories are always. There. We can't be separated from them because we are storytelling beings. This is how we relate. This is how we make sense of our world is through the power of story. But what happens when those stories start to hold us back?

First of all, we may not realize that those stories are holding us back. But there are ways and we're going to help give some insight into how those stories can be holding us back. 

Carol Vickers: Yeah. 

Christal Duncan: So we're asking today, what are the stories that you're telling yourself [00:02:00] and more importantly, how can you recognize and acknowledge the ones that aren't serving you?

Because those stories affect how we show up for ourselves and the world that we all share. So this is, and this is that, that right there is the important thing that we, that is the thing is that the stories that you tell yourself. Are, they do affect you, but you, we are connected, we're all connected.

We cannot disconnect ourselves from the bigger world. And those stories are a part of it. So let's, let's go there. Let's talk about this this morning. Yeah. 

Colin Kingsmill: Yes, please. 

Carol Vickers: Well, and stories are where we begin. You know, they're the first things that we remember, they're the first things that we, that we share together, you know, there is such a, an elemental memory of being at your mom, your mom's or dad's, your grandma or grandpa's knee, listening to stories.

And then we begin to pick up those [00:03:00] stories and share them and tell them. You know, some of them are fun. Some of them are silly and I remember learning the, the, all about the three bears and my dad, I wanted him to tell me that story over and over and over again. And it was, there was elements that we absorb.

Many of them are very positive, but also that what happens when you're sitting at your mom or dad's knee is you get the message about who you are. And that's the story that can be impactful because we learn that there are limits to who we are based on what we hear from the people around us. And Because we are storytelling human beings, we start to tell others those stories about ourselves, and we start to look for evidence of those stories to be true.

And then all of a sudden, there's this background which we no longer recognize. It's just the story of who we are. And one of the things that we have been challenging ourselves in our [00:04:00] conversations is to look at what are those stories. and how are we limited by them? How do they hold us back 

Christal Duncan: in our 

Carol Vickers: personal and professional lives?

You know, I'm not tall enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not educated enough. For many, many years, I carried around the story that I only had a high school diploma and I couldn't be recognized or, or move ahead in a professional realm unless I had a university degree. I didn't start university until I was, you know, Almost 60.

So I carried that story for a long time in my professional life. 

Colin Kingsmill: It's interesting. So, sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, please. I, I just wanted to add a couple things to, to what you guys had both said. When, when, when we speak about stories holding us back, I think also stories hold us in place 

Christal Duncan: because 

Colin Kingsmill: there's a lot, we've seen a lot of leadership conversations recently where the leaders or the team leaders have [00:05:00] been I think stuck in their way is a very sort of pedestrian way of saying it, but sort of deciding that they're a leader and then ticking all the boxes in terms of old school leadership styles and not moving from that.

So I think they hold us back, but I think they hold people also stuck in, in, in a position. I also wanted to kind of sprinkle a little fairy dust on the fact that we added enough already to the title of what we're doing, because it is going to be a recurring theme moving forward, because we are with the way coaching and leadership development has evolved until today.

So that what Crystal was saying at the beginning, there's a nugget of of the future of what of what we're doing with enough already. And I think Carol too. Sometimes the stories we don't even hear them, but we feel them and we sense them and we pick them up and we, we so they don't have to be necessarily articulated right around the dinner table, but they [00:06:00] can be felt.

You know, I know certainly for my, my, the story that I carried with me for decades as well was this sense of unworthiness because I grew up in a family of artists and hippies in the forest. And I just wanted to be like everybody else with the suburban house and the two cars in the garage and, you know, eating, what, a Kraft dinner or whatever, cheese with, you know, those things.

So I felt like the weirdo for until I was in my 30s and my, that whole, that whole existence until then was a compensation for exactly that. Totally. 

Christal Duncan: And isn't it interesting that those stories Cause I have a similar thing. Not not artists and hippies in the forest. But grew up not really not financially advantaged in the least.

And as I'm a Metis. woman. All those years, no one told me. I didn't know. Even though I was taking part in all these things that were cultural, I used to joke that I [00:07:00] said I wore moccasins, I took bannock to school in my lunch all the time, and we would go to these like all time dances, and I would be out in Indigenous communities, and I was, but I didn't know.

Nobody told me. P. S. You're indigenous. So, and in the school, I remember in school, and this is part of what we were going to talk about too, for me, is that when they, I remember when they talked about the Rial Rebellion, and I grew up just down the road from Batoche, in my grade five class, and I remember thinking, I think that's me.

And then the teacher said, but he was hung as a traitor. And he was found in Canada and I remember thinking, okay, that's not a safe thing. So then, so then you spend all and nobody talked about it at home. So there's this, this weird sense of shame around things that you develop that you start to tell a story.

There's a little tiny piece of data that is. It's not attached to anything, the data point calling that you lived in the forest, [00:08:00] but that there was, do you know what I mean? Like, but there's that ladder of inference that we start to draw meaning from and it starts to shape the story. So we start to tell it and it quickly flips about, not just about, it is about the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, but those continue to be the lens that we look at what we're capable of doing or how we're capable of making.

Being even doing anything significant. Yes. To change things. 

Carol Vickers: And then we get, and then we get really fearful. And that's the thing that we were talking about earlier is that if we get to a point and something happens, and usually it's something critical in our lives, some crisis of some kind where it hits us in the face and we go, Ooh, okay.

Enough already, as you said. And we start to look. And the deeper we look, the more we get afraid. Especially if we've established something that feels really solid and stable and is, is how we thought we [00:09:00] wanted to be. Then when you open that door and you begin to look, well, what if this isn't the life that I want?

What if this isn't the profession? What I want to be? What if this isn't the partner? What if this isn't the home? Then all of a sudden now all the balls are up in the air. And as human beings, we were really, we get really, really antsy about that. Tension, right? 

Colin Kingsmill: Go ahead. And. So, so we're not also we're also not islands, right?

So we have all these external factors that are coming at us every day, right? Of course, me, I'm the list person, right? So I've done the little list of things. We have societal expectations and norms. We have all sorts of cultural influences. We have media and social media, which in the last 15 years has gotten insane economic and educational systems that are telling us stories.

Family and upbringing that are telling us stories, psychological factors you know, role models and mentorship. I mean, the list can go on, but those are the, [00:10:00] those are kind of the few that I wanted to highlight as, and we've talked about this before, this need almost for a personal protection system to, to, to kind of re evaluate how you sit in a within all of that influence impacting you every single day.

Carol Vickers: But does the personal protection system also keep you stuck? Or can it? I mean, not necessarily it does, but could it? Yeah. 

Colin Kingsmill: Yeah. I guess it can. I guess I, I suppose the personal protection system needs to be accompanied with some kind of awareness or self awareness exercise or, or even the desire to, to, to find yourself.

to change the story. I don't know. 

Carol Vickers: So, Crystal, what gave you the freedom to begin to explore who you were? 

Christal Duncan: So, I think a couple things well, a lot of things. One of the things I feel is really important is, Even in the title of what we saw, it [00:11:00] said, say the thing, say the thing. So there is this fear of us.

And we know this because we see this with our clients. We, I know it in myself that there's a fear that if I say it out loud, it's going to make it more real. And I have, I have identified with it being a certain way. I know how to navigate being that way in the world. I know, I know how to navigate that kind of story.

Yes. So changing the story is is the thing that can be the scariest simply by, but, but it's kind of like, you know, when they say like admitting you have a problem is the first step, it's like actually saying that maybe this isn't, maybe there's more to the story than what I have assigned to it. So I know that for myself around issues of identity, this is me speaking completely honest as as a, As someone who is coming back home [00:12:00] to my, to my, who I am as an Indigenous and settler, mixed Indigenous and settler woman.

It opened up my eyes to so many things. That we're like, oh, I started to see different things. First of all, it opened me up to compassion and I started to realize that like solid what solidarity is like, and that I am not separated from other people, but it also gave me the ability to be able to. Give myself permission to be like, I didn't, you didn't know, you didn't know now, you know, so you, you can do better and you can align, give myself permission to change my mind about how I saw things.

And I think that's a really important. aspect about the stories that we tell ourselves is we we live in a world that keeps on pushing us to be perfect and to always prove ourselves. And [00:13:00] so the idea of changing the story can be so scary because we're not sure we deserve to change the story that we're telling ourselves.

Carol Vickers: Yes. So the power that I'm hearing is in saying the thing, finding a space where you can say it out loud. And then what happens after that? 

Christal Duncan: Yeah. What do you think, 

Carol Vickers: Colin? When you stood up and said, I'm worthy, what, I mean, it wasn't all, it didn't all happen at once, but there was a moment when you said something out loud and things began to shift.

Colin Kingsmill: Oh, I crashed into a wall. I don't think I was aware at all. Mine, mine was a total car crash and it was actually a literal car crash. I remember the day I was speeding up into the mountains in an SUV and I spun, I did three sixties and spun off the road and I could have spun into the lake, but I spun into a ditch [00:14:00] and that was the, it was the perfect.

Metaphor for my life, you know, speeding along completely unaware in the winter, in the snow. I mean, what an idiot. And I got stopped in my 

Carol Vickers: tracks. And that was, 

Colin Kingsmill: I needed, unlike Crystal, who came to it more naturally, I needed, I needed a train wreck or a car wreck, literally. And the the ensuing years have been all about reading about other people's stories and I call it shelf development, though, because I just, I read a lot and I didn't embody it.

Yes. Oh, really? Now like you, you know, later later in my maturity have started to embody it, and now beyond embodiment, I'm I'm saying to myself, Oh, well, there's not only stories, but beyond the stories, there's energy and there is something [00:15:00] greater than us and the stories we tell ourselves. There's something beyond that.

So what about a different conversation with everything that we don't know about? And that's really how I've kind of gotten to this point 

Carol Vickers: of, 

Colin Kingsmill: of where we're 

Carol Vickers: Two pieces there. One is to be gentle. Because we're all, we all have stories that we didn't necessarily take responsibility for earlier. And that's okay.

Because when we do, we do. And the other piece is to begin to see the possibility that a different story could create. I think I may have shared with you, there's a woman in my yoga class and she, my yoga teacher said something about, Oh, we don't want to look like this when we're in our eighties. And she went, hello.

I'm, I'm going to be 84 this year and I looked at her and thought, no way. In the dressing room afterwards, I said, I want to see your driver's license. I don't believe you. Because she took on yoga very late in her [00:16:00] life, and she's amazing. So, I mean, the stories that we hold about who we are physically, not just cognitively, but emotionally.

But what can we do with this flesh bag that we own and walk around in? The differences are available to us. And that's the inspiring piece about it. Yeah, 

Christal Duncan: I think a certain, I think a big thing that makes that, how would I say this? I think a thing about stories that is where we get caught in the stories that don't serve us is that it's, It feels easier to believe and lean on a bigger story that you can't change it.

That so like, like a fixed Carol Dweck calls it a fixed mindset. That's another, another maybe way to say it, but when we are fixed on the fact that it's not going to change. So like, think about our health, my health, this is my, this is my lot in life or our financial status or a career [00:17:00] or the world that we're living in right now and all the things that are going on.

If we stay in the story that says I can't, it's out of my control, I can't do anything to change it, then that is that we're just going to perpetuate that story. Like, this is why the beautiful thing about free will, it's about the power that we all hold. Everybody is given the exact. Same ability to decide the stories that they're going to believe about themselves.

Circumstantially, it may look very different and different times in our lives, but the more that we acquiesce to those stories that are, that are, because those, even the stories that don't help us are still serving something. There's serving the part of us that's fearful, that does fearful of change part of us.

That is it's easier to believe that someone else is going to take care of me. That doesn't want to take responsibility. They're all connected. But the minute we decide we want to, we can, we [00:18:00] want to be able to recognize them is really where literally the rubber is going to meet the road in our lives.

Colin Kingsmill: So I'm, can I be provocative for a second? Just, just playing on what you guys were saying. I always say to everybody that I work with, Be gentle to yourself. These are very complex times, right? And I completely agree with what you were just saying, Crystal. At the same time though, it's, it's, I feel, and I think we all feel as though it's, it's like enough already with just the sort of the self reflection and the awareness and the, you know, the inclusivity and embracing everybody.

It feels as though we are at a moment in time where we need systemic change. You know, it's, it's, and, and, and one of the reasons we've, we're talking about enough already is so often the profession of coaching and professional development and everything around it and associated feels as [00:19:00] though is, it feels as though we're in an, in an emergency room doing triage.

And then when you leave the room. So much isn't working that it just feels like a bit of a band aid. 

Christal Duncan: Yes, 

Colin Kingsmill: and so so I'm kind of calling out here Recognize your stories. Yeah, and and embrace them and change them and find that inner flame in in you to To be be the change that we need 

Christal Duncan: Yeah. Okay. So can I just bounce off that?

Sorry. I can see everything. I want to weigh in and I'm looking at the time. I'm like, oh, hell, there is not enough time to cover this topic, but let's just, but you know, 

Colin Kingsmill: nobody's telling us when we have to stop. So let's keep 

Christal Duncan: going.

So I would like to ask another question then, or, or just kind of in align with [00:20:00] that. So when we say recognize the stories. Okay. We also have an internal understanding. I'm going to tell you that recognizing the story and disrupting the story are two totally different things. Oh, yes. So one of the things is I'm a meditator, which as you, I know you guys both are too.

One of the first meditations I ever did was with Dr. Joe Dispenza and it was about breaking the habit of being yourself. And part of the meditation is he, his voice is kind of walking you through. He's like, I want you to imagine you're in the shower and that old thought comes back to you. And so I'm going to use the example.

I mean, I'm in, I'm in debt. Okay. Let's just, that's the thought I'm in debt. I'm never going to get out of this debt cycle. That old thought comes back to you. And I want you to say this word out loud in the middle of meditation. I want you to say change. That's it. That's all I say. And you get in the habit of saying the word change to yourself and recognizing that you interrupt.

So it's like if you've ever had have a kid have a meltdown parents on this, right? It's [00:21:00] just like you, when you do something to interrupt the pattern, that's ourselves. I want to know. What are pattern disruptors that you have used for yourself in your own stories? 

Colin Kingsmill: Right. I, I certainly rely on, on, on authors and books and, and learning.

I, I, I, I'm devouring knowledge all the time on that front. And long format podcasting again. 

Carol Vickers: Right. Learning that way. Yeah. I find that it works for me when I begin to share it. 

Christal Duncan: Yeah. 

Carol Vickers: When I'm sharing it with a client or I'm, I'm sharing it with a, with a group of students. When I've learned something, when I can repeat it and reiterate it and get more input from other people, then it starts to resonate and feels like I own it.

Christal Duncan: Yeah. Because 

Carol Vickers: like both of you, I've done a lot of reading [00:22:00] and learning and there's Things that I come upon now that I think, Ooh, this sounds really familiar. And if I look back, there's a book on my shelf or there's a conversation that I've had. It's like, I should know that by now. . Yeah. There's, that's so 

Colin Kingsmill: I tion

Mm-Hmm. that's so important. Be, be the idea of community and not doing it alone. Mm. And, and reaching out. I'm working with somebody right now who we're working through a, a, a workbook on change and, and, Mm-Hmm. . He do he wouldn't do it by himself, and I probably wouldn't have either if he hadn't mentioned it.

So that idea of sharing and community and creation, creation of sort of accountability, right? Is really, really important. 

Christal Duncan: Yeah. 

Colin Kingsmill: Don't go alone. 

Christal Duncan: Don't go alone. I also believe, and I, when I look back and I realize that I made those, so I did the thing. I did the thing. I said the thing. Literally, I said the thing, change, change, change.

And sometimes I still years later in my [00:23:00] shower, if those thoughts, cause I, we always have those random thoughts in the shower or whatever, I will say the word out loud, change. I will say that. So one of the things about stories that I find that the stories that we tell ourselves that is so important to remember is that big doors turn on small hinges.

Carol Vickers: Okay. 

Christal Duncan: So you change when you start to change one, like even one thing, because someone could leave this, this conversation right now, this podcast, and they could be like, well, oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start. I feel like I'm such, my life is such a train wreck or I'm, I'm, I'm held captive. I don't even know.

Am I believing like, we're not trying to make people like more neurotic, like about their stories. What we're saying is. There are things within your control that you can change and those things are, we start with the stories that we tell ourselves because we can't, we want to, we want to skip the process.

We want to be, we want to lose the weight. We want to be financially free. We want to have the career that we want. We want, [00:24:00] we want all these things that are important and that are ours to have. We want to change the world. We want to make a difference. But we're unwilling to do those. In the moment things that will change and interrupt our patterns.

Yes, that's the difference. 

Colin Kingsmill: Yeah It's also it's also crystal changing the stories you listen to I think as well Yeah, 

Christal Duncan: of course asking yourself that question. I I heard brendan brendan, brendan, brendan In in his book, high performance habits One of the things he talks about is when he goes through a door in a building You He tells himself, bring the joy, bring the joy.

And even if he's moving into a different meeting or whatever, bring the joy. And it's not like saying it's all dependent on me. It's saying that I don't need this circumstance to feel the joy. The joy already exists. Yes. That's like a story, right? Changing. That's, I think that's a really great [00:25:00] example, but at the core, yes, we should all be doing the deep internal work and we should be.

We deserve it, right? Like we've done that work, but on the way, I invite people. To think about what's one thing that you know is not, is a story that's, and, and as soon as I say that, whoever hears this, you already know, you will already know what that, that's one in, cause it's the first thing, it's the top of mind thing.

It is. So what's one thing that you can do to interrupt that pattern over and over again and build a new habit around the story that you're telling. Yes. 

Carol Vickers: And gain that flexibility. Because when you describe it, it's like the improv game. When somebody new comes into the scene and all of a sudden it's changed.

Christal Duncan: Yes. Yes. 

Carol Vickers: And that we can have that kind of resilience and flexibility in ourselves to be able to embrace it and just switch in that moment for that little second, whatever [00:26:00] that is. Change the thought. 

Christal Duncan: Yes. Love 

Carol Vickers: it.

Okay. 

Christal Duncan: Friends, thank you. This was a good conversation. And it's the beginning of something because I we are in a world of stories all the time. We're immersed in them. And this is an exciting, it's an exciting time to be alive because, because it's our time. This is because this is the moment that fate has offered us to be able to be alive in this world, and this is what's available for us.

So on that on that massive note, thank you for joining us today, . Don't forget to if you've enjoyed this episode to share it and to subscribe. And also we have a free workshop coming up in the next in the next couple of weeks. And so you're going to be wanting to join that. So be stay tuned for that because we're going to be offering every month.

We, we do free workshops where we offer people to come in and join and learn how they [00:27:00] can use coaching. for themselves and in their leadership. And this month we have a really exciting one coming up. And so stay tuned for more of that. And in the 

Colin Kingsmill: meantime, Oh, but, and, and we're going to continue this disruptive enough already conversation on Thursdays, and we're not going to stop because we are on a mission to Yeah, to change the world, to bring 

Carol Vickers: disruptors into the focus and and bring interesting guests and continue this wonderful dialogue.

Christal Duncan: Yeah. All right. Take care, everybody. Have a great Tuesday. Thank you. Thanks for joining.