Season Three Episode 3 - You've done everything so why are you still stuck?

You know exactly who you are becoming, yet you are still lying awake at night replaying every moment you promised yourself today would be different

That specific shame and frustration that cuts to the bone for a woman as aware and as invested as you, it carries its own brand of breakthrough burnout and nobody is talking about it

In this episode, I name exactly why the gap between the woman in your head and the one who keeps showing up in real life has nothing to do with how much you know, how hard you try or how badly you want it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode on the Fearless Femme podcast with your host, Becky Jane Stevenson. So this week I really want to dig into the frustration that women feel. I mean, we're not just talking everyday frustration, but this the bone deep level frustration that women can feel when the version of herself that she thought she would be, the version of herself she has in her mind, you know, the absolute body with the confidence, just strutting through life and owning every room that she walks into, that frustration when she's implementing everything and she's doing everything the right way, but yet she is really struggling to step into that version of herself, like something keeps pulling her back. And I want to talk about that gap, I want to talk about why it's there, I want to talk about how that kind of keeps showing up. And like before we dive into the meat and bones of this podcast, you know, if you've ever finished an investment or say a coaching program, maybe you've been to a retreat, tuned into a masterclass, maybe scrolled a thousand TikTok videos, feeling completely fired up and absolutely certain that this was gonna be the one that was gonna change everything. Where you're like, fuck yes, bitches are gonna change everything. Everything's gonna change in my life, I'm gonna have stronger boundaries, I'm gonna raise my standards, I'm not settling for this. This is this is mine, I'm claiming it, I'm owning it. But then found yourself a few weeks later making the exact same choices that you've always made. And if you are nodding right now, then this episode is for you. Like, no judgment, I've been such a woman, and I am sure I will find myself doing the same thing and having to really work on things because as we know, new level, new devil. So this episode is for you, in fact, it is you. So let's get into it. So I was speaking about this on socials, and this is something that doesn't really get named or talked about how I'm going to, especially in the personal development world, and it's it's not spoken about openly. So we don't become stuck as who we are because you haven't done enough work. You probably have. In fact, I I would probably bet 50 quid. You have done a lot of work on yourself, you've maybe done a lot of healing, been in therapy, taken the courses, had a coach or a mentor or somebody that's provided you some guidance, you aren't stuck where you are because those haven't worked, and you're not stuck where you are because you aren't having those breakthroughs because that work isn't landing, and you're not stuck because you lack confidence, although there are so many women out there that would believe they just don't have the confidence. I mean, that's a whole other topic for another day. Or some women may believe that they're stuck because they lack awareness, or they lack kind of dreaming big for themselves, or they don't have the desire or the discipline to go after what they want. Like you've done the things, you've done multiple things, you've done the sitting in rooms, you've had the breakthroughs and the clarity, you've got the vision, you've got the version of you that you want to be living in your mind, you've invested in yourself at levels that so many around you won't even understand, might not even scratch the surface of how deep you have gone, and maybe some quietly judge you for too. You know, we all always have the types. If we are confident, then we're arrogant, if we want more for ourselves, then we're selfish. You know the drill. But let's bring it back to you. You know your patterns, you know the things that you are doing, the decisions and the choices, and you can name them before they've even finished forming in your mind. I bet you can think of some things right now, some things that you do that looking back, you'd probably kick your own butt for. You understand exactly what you're doing in the moment that you're doing it, and one of the bigger ones is actually bending your boundaries. It's oh I really was gonna get a hot bath and and chill and have a queen bath and the candles lit, but uh, somebody wants something. Oh well, it'll just take five minutes or ten minutes bending a boundary, and we'll do it so often it won't feel like we're baking a boundary, it won't feel like we're deprioritizing ourselves, but we still do it, even I do, we're human, so these are moments where we say yes when we're getting those nudges from the inside that are saying, no, you really shouldn't be agreeing to this, you don't need to be saying yes to this thing, or you walk out of a meeting or a conversation having said something way safer than what you actually meant. Maybe there was something top of mind. Now I don't mean insulting people, okay, but there'll have been something formed in your mind, and if you're a lovely, spicy-brained ADHD like me, you'll have had that conversation in your brain exactly how you wanted to say it, only it didn't come out that way. It came out softer, it came out safer. Maybe you lie awake at night and instead of replaying where something went wrong, but actually replaying every small moment where you promised yourself today was going to be different. I kind of feel called out, calling myself out there too, because I have also been there laid awake, berating myself for doing things that I said I wasn't going to do. Yeah, I still did it. It's almost like, and it's so funny, side quest here. I've been re-watching the originals, and when I just said that, it's it's almost like we're being compelled to do something that we really don't want to do. But anyway, I digress. So we're literally getting so frustrated with ourselves because it's almost like we just can't help ourselves. When we promise ourselves today was gonna be different, we were gonna approach it differently, we were gonna make decisions differently, yet we don't. Maybe I don't know enough, maybe I haven't gone deep enough yet, maybe I haven't had that big, massive breakthrough. The next thing that finally is your tower moment or tips you over into actually living as the woman that you want to be. Because surely if you just found that right thing, learning from the right framework and getting it from the right coach, that gap between who you are and who you want to be will finally close. But babe, I am gonna stop you right there. Cause I I know some of you listening are gonna think, yeah, that's that's that's my pattern, that's what I do. The gap isn't where you think it is. And I'm gonna uh blow your mind right now in helping you to see that the gap is not the breakthrough. So I want you to imagine something for a second with me. So imagine that you're running. I know, I don't do running either, but let's just imagine, or maybe just a quick jog. So I want you to imagine that you're running, and you're running with all of your might, with all of that you've got towards the version of yourself that you've been working towards for years, maybe decades, and you can see her, she is right there, right in front of you, close enough for you to almost touch, and then snap, you're back where you started, and it isn't because you haven't tried hard enough, or that you're weak or fundamentally incapable of change, it's not because there is something wrong with you, or that there's some block, but it's because something keeps pulling you back, like a rubber band, like a bungee, like you are attached to a bungee cord, it's caught on the back of your t-shirt, and it snaps you back every single time, no matter how fast, or how much you build up your strength, or how hard you try, or how much you know, you're gonna get pulled back by that bungee cord. And the thing about that bungee cord is it doesn't matter how much momentum you build, it doesn't matter how fired up you are after the last investment, it doesn't matter how big that breakthrough was or how clear you feel after that breakthrough, the bungee cord does not give a shit about any of that because the bungee cord that's attached to you is not between your ears, it is not in your mind, it is in your body, your nervous system, what feels safe, what keeps you safe. So I just want you to stay with me for a sec because this isn't as woo-woo as it might be sounding right now, or I may be just sounding completely off my trolley, and none of this is making sense, but we're gonna go with it. Your nervous system will always reach for what it knows, for what feels familiar, habits, and habits aren't always physical ones, they are thinking habits, they are behaving habits, there's so many. But your nervous system is going to reach for what feels familiar, the thing that you have done over and over and over again, so that it's now automatic, and what it knows is the woman that you've always been. Every familiar choice reinforces the version of you, every choice you make up till this moment listening to this now is coming from the version of you that is sat listening because they're familiar. So every yes that should have been no, every time you soften what you actually meant to say, every moment that you choose safety over what stretches you, even if it's uncomfortable, even better that it's uncomfortable, the woman that you've always been will keep being stronger than the woman you want to be. So I'm gonna say that again. Every choice, every decision, even the micro choices that you don't even think are that important, everyday choices, every time you make those from safety, because they are what you've always done, instead of changing it up and thinking, how does the woman I want to be, how is she gonna what how does she decide? How is she gonna move? The woman you've always been will stay stronger, while the woman you want to become stays exactly where she is in your head, fully formed, she exists, but she's left waiting, and that gap that you feel between the two starts to feel less like something that you could potentially close, and you are at risk of believing that it is a permanent truth about who you are, and it's not, it's not a truth, but I certainly understand why it feels that way because I've been there too. So I want to dig into why this is the case and why all of the work that you have done so far isn't enough to get you where you want to be to close that gap. So I want to be really clear about something because I am not going to tell you that the therapy didn't work or that the coaching was a waste of money or all of that self-led inner work that you've done hasn't changed you. It has. It probably has to a profound level. If you look back to maybe who you used to be before you had the therapy, before you invested in the coaching and the inner work and all that jazz. I know you can look back on a past version of you and see just how much you have evolved and shifted, but the work will only change the mind, it will only change what you logically and think about. It's only going to change what's in there, and that matters, absolutely, that is real, the work you've done is real and it is necessary, and I will never tell you otherwise. But here is you know, here's the personal development industry is exceptional, and for how great the personal development industry is, like it's in so many different areas across so many different topics and teachings and and everything, it's silent on this particular thing at the same time. So personal development is exceptional at creating those moments of transformation, of painting that picture, of shifting something, the breakthroughs in the session, the clarity that you get maybe on a retreat, the shifts that happen when something finally clicks into place, and you think this is it, this is the missing piece. Things now finally make sense, and it's right, it really can be that powerful, but then you go home, or your investment finishes, you start working with that coach, and real life moves back in, you come off the Zoom call, the podcast finishes, and real life is there. All of those ordinary moments resume. Nobody's watching, nobody's holding you accountable, you don't have a coach in your ear, you don't go into Telegram and voice note your coach and say, I'm about like I've got this decision, which one do I make? Can you imagine? Can you imagine if we did that? In the fraction of a second before you make a choice, your nervous system has already decided faster than your conscious mind can catch up, faster than all of that beautiful awareness that you've built can intervene. And we're at risk of defaulting, we're at risk of sticking with what's familiar and what's safe, and it isn't because you're forgetting what you've learned, it landed, of course it did. I know it did. I've made so many different investments over the years, and they all mostly land. It is in there, but landing in the mind and inspiring you and being in the lived lived in the body and embodied are two very different things. So think about it this way: how many times have you known exactly what you needed to do and not done it? How many times have you felt, for example, a no rising up into your throat about to say the word no before you've said yes? Like you've felt the no, and then the yes has left your mouth. How many times have you watched yourself make a choice and already known what that cost was gonna be before it was even over? That's the bone deep frustration that I'm talking about because we know before we've even made that choice and it's come out of our mouth, we know what it's gonna cost. It is not a knowledge problem. That gap is not a willpower problem, it's that the transformation is living in the mind and not yet fully being lived in your body, and nobody, I mean, nobody so far is talking about what happens in that gap. But I will, and I know it because I've lived this so many different times in different situations, different scenarios, different goals I've set myself, different things I've had to lead myself through. So for years I did the work, I understand myself at a level most people around me, even people close to me, couldn't comprehend. Like I could name, and I can still name a lot of my patterns, new patterns, and trace them back to the root and have a full explanation on exactly why I did what I did. Yet I still often found myself making the same. Choices, and I was finding myself operating from the version of me that I was trying to move beyond, but still choosing what was familiar over what stretched me. Some people call this self-sabotage. I was still watching myself do it, like I was standing outside of my own body, going, Becky, what the fuck? Why are you doing this again? And the shame of that for someone as aware and as invested as I was kind of carries its own very specific brand of shame and frustration and just feeling really angry at herself. And it wasn't until I stumbled into something completely unexpected that I understood what I'd actually been missing and what I was doing. And it started to build the very foundations of everything I worked towards over the last few years. So in 2020, during the lockdown of all things, everybody was on TikTok. It was fun. This is where you know kids' parents didn't mind that they were on TikTok, you know, um, didn't mind they were on TikTok, didn't didn't see it as embarrassing. And I'm like, you know, I was on that app way before lockdown. People say, ah, it's embarrassing, it's for kids, it's cringe, meh, and jump jump forward two years and they're all on it. But again, story for another day. I started seeing a lot of cosplaying TikToks, and I was a bit of a makeup enthusiast and very creative and expressive, so I absolutely loved it. And I thought, I want to dabble in that. So I started cosplaying on TikTok, and before you click off this podcast, like stay with me because this is where it's gonna get really interesting. So every character that I chose was a villain, like a full-on villain, like Catwoman, Viking, Valkyrie, Mystique from X-Men. Like I just loved how provocative and sassy they were. Like women who took up space without apology, who were bold and commanding and just completely unapologetic about who they were. And something happened when I put those costumes on. Now I've spoken about this years ago, about the alter ego effect, but it wasn't until I really started exploring deeper than that. So there were parts of me that had been sitting below the surface, parts of me that had been kept under lock and key, not fully claimed, and kind of parts of myself that I'd rejected and shoved to the back. And whether that be through comments in childhood, bullying, whatever, I was suppressing those parts of myself. And when I put those costumes on and I was doing those TikToks and picking the music and dancing around, and just you know, generally having a good time, there were parts of me that started shining through the confidence, the boldness, and a presence that I'd never really seen in myself before. And I thought I was just playing characters, playing dress-up with makeup. Only I wasn't. Parts of myself I hadn't yet given permission to exist. And the costume became the physical thing, the anchor, the the key to unlocking all of that was giving my body the anchor it needed to access what I already had. Because you can't fake confidence. I don't care how many people out there say fake it till you make it and you become confident. It doesn't work like that. To be able to show up as confidence, you've got to be able to have the ability to be confident. So I found myself like the more that I wore the costumes, the more that I was doing cosplay, the less I was needing it. Um, because my body had kind of worn that often enough, and I was stepping into that without having to cosplay, and I this was now beautifully rippling out into my everyday life. That I didn't need to be in costume, I didn't need to call upon those personas, it became the new familiar, and I didn't think my way into that version of myself. Like I literally wore myself there, and that was the realization that transformation isn't just a thinking process, it's not just a thinking thing, it's not just a spiritual or emotional thing either, it is a physical one, and they became the foundation of what I create. So, as we get into the last part of this podcast, is you're probably asking right now, do I have to go and and dress up in cosplay? The answer is no, that's just the way that I had done it, how I'd come to my philosophy around identity. So you are probably asking, what is it that actually changes things then? Like, give us the answer, give us the clue. So, what this means for you practically is the gap that you have been trying to close through more knowledge, more awareness, more investment is not gonna close that way. Not fully, not because those things don't matter, like keep investing, keep keep leveling up on that, keep exploring yourself deeper, but knowing that they're not gonna close the gap on their own because the gap is not living in your mind. It is in the body, it is in all of those micro decisions that are happening maybe hundreds of times a day without really being registered as being significant or important decisions to you. Like I said, with the bath, when you say, Oh, I'm gonna have a bath, I'm gonna light the candles, get my bath oils, my lush bath bombs, and just soak for an hour. And somebody asks something of you and you set that bath aside, that is a micro moment decision. We don't realize that we're doing it because they don't feel like choices in the moment, they don't feel like anything until it's already passed. So the transformation that you're wanting isn't not working out because of the big decisions that we're making. It isn't working out in the small ones, and that's often what we're missing, like the smaller ordinary choices and moments, the ones where nobody is watching you, nobody is counting on you, and your nervous system has already decided before you've even registered that you had a choice. So, what changes in those moments is not going to be moral knowledge. What you need is a pattern interrupt, something that is something physical, something that can exist outside of your brain and your mind, but something that can exist in that fraction of a second before you default to a familiar choice, something that is going to hand the choice back to you, and it's in that moment the one moment that has up until now defeated you. If you can give yourself that choice back and that fraction of a second, that is where the gap is gonna start closing, and that is where everything actually starts to change. So I'm gonna leave you with this because I really want this to really land properly before I say anything else. But I will say this: I have been quietly building something, something that is rooted in everything that I've just shared with you, and something that came not just from an idea that had me lit up and all that jazz for a couple of weeks, hyper focusing and then fizzling out, but this has come from three months of stillness, of doing nothing, like I mean nothing, beyond being parent and being human, and sitting with myself long enough to know exactly what was needed, why it was needed, and when it was the right time, where all of these dots started connecting, and it isn't a course, it's not a coaching container or a program or another thing to add to the list of investments that you've already made. This is something else entirely, and when it's ready, you'll be the first to know because oh, like chef's kiss. So until then, take what landed today, sit with it, not in your head, but in your body. Like, no start noticing where those gaps are showing up. Notice the moment before you make that default familiar choice, and just notice that awareness alone is the beginning of everything. Well, I will see you all in the next episode on the Fearless Femme podcast.