The Shadow Diaries
Real women - slightly unhinged - get real about the daily chaos of motherhood, business, relationships and everything that comes from life. From airing out the dirty laundry to actually washing it, we dive into the messy, beautiful, and hilarious reality of navigating life.
The Shadow Diaries
Your Obsession with Shortcuts Is Sabotaging You: Why Real Change Takes Time
What if the fastest way to real change is the slow and steady path no one celebrates?
In this episode, we explore why shortcuts feel so seductive, how they quietly sabotage long term growth, and what it really takes to build systems that last. From 28 day challenges and “million in a year” promises to quick fixes in relationships, we talk about the difference between information and integration and why your nervous system needs steadiness more than sprints.
You’ll learn how neural pathways shape habits, why old patterns resurface even when new ones work, and how identity plays a bigger role than willpower. We unpack the common archetypes that keep people stuck such as the strong one, the hot mess, the lifelong dieter, and the chaos chaser in love. We also explore how fear, dopamine, and comparison loops reward speed but punish consistency.
Then we move into what actually works. Align your routines with the seasons of your life, whether that’s school holidays, end of year chaos, or new chapters. Choose one proven approach and commit to it for six to twelve months. Build nervous system capacity, create sustainable habits, and learn to tolerate boredom without abandoning yourself.
You’ll walk away with grounded and realistic steps to break the yo yo cycle, reduce burnout, and build a life that feels steady and fulfilling. If you’ve ever lost the same weight four times, posted for months with barely any engagement, or avoided a hard conversation until resentment built up, this episode will feel like an exhale.
If you’re ready to trade hacks for foundations and build a life that fits, one that feels calm, consistent, and resilient, this conversation is for you.
Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who’s ready to stop chasing shortcuts and start creating real lasting change.
Journal Prompts: Slowing Down to Build Real Change
- Where in my life do I keep searching for the quickest or easiest path?
- What emotions come up when I imagine slowing down or taking the long way?
- When I don’t see results fast enough, what story do I tell myself about who I am?
- How does my body feel when I’m in “rush” mode versus when I allow things to unfold naturally
- What part of me believes that being fast, productive, or efficient makes me worthy?
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Steph is here and Lurinda is here.
There is no need to hide. This can be a space where you learn everything with real women, real stories, and real shadows.
SPEAKER_00:This is a shadow diaries and your stories.
SPEAKER_02:Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of the Shadow Diaries. And I think today might be a little bit spicy because we were talking about it before, and Steph, you guys should have seen the activation within Steph. It was hilarious. So today is all about how your shortcuts are actually sabotaging you. Because we live in a life where it's like the quicker you achieve a goal, the better you are. So Steph, I'd actually love to know what was that moment where you're like, we actually need to talk about this.
SPEAKER_00:So there's honestly, there's many moments because I see this obviously in our line of work. The further that I get into it, the more I realize that it is not a quick fix. And the more people that I speak to, it's just it's everywhere. You see coaches all the time posting five days to completely eliminate X problem from your life. You know, come and learn this entire skill in three days. And it's like, cool, you can get the knowledge, but the integration is what's important. And that's what we're missing. Where we go, I'm super aware of all of these things. I've read all of the books, I've listened to the podcasts, I've done the courses, I've downloaded 50 different freebies on whatever your issue is, but never actually done anything with them. And because you're so focused on the tips and the tricks and the in the moment things that will work, two years later you're in the exact same situation. Because even the knowledge isn't enough. If we don't have the integration and the embodiment of that thing, we will never get anywhere. And even if you do do something, so for an example, because we know that the fitness industry is ripe for this, things like lose 10 kilos in 28 days. If you lose 10 kilos in 28 days, you're putting that back on again. Because it's just not enough time to form a habit. I think they say it does take 28 days actually to form a habit. I would completely disagree with that, to be deadly honest. Because yes, you may form a habit, but what happens when we choose differently with our brains because we've only got so many neural pathways. We've got sort of like as many neurons as you need, but so many neural pathways. So our brain is constantly pruning the neural pathways that we no longer need. So, say for example, we you know do absolutely no exercise, make a lot of excuses, you know, I've got too much on, I'm too busy, I'd prefer to sit on the couch, I'd prefer to scroll. Then all of a sudden you start this challenge and you start walking every single day. And you do that for 28 days. Then your neural pathways have changed and they've gone from the neurons that were like, yeah, let's just sit on the couch, this is fun, or like I'm feeling stressed, I'm gonna go and eat, whatever, and it's like, oh, I'm feeling stressed, I'm gonna go and exercise. But the other neuron is still sitting there. Yeah. I like to explain this like highways, right? So like we're building a new highway, but the old highway is still there, the infrastructure is still there, and you could still use it if you wanted to. And sometimes you will because it is familiar. And this is the thing, right? Is that when we change things like that, when we go from not really exercising to exercising, when we go from, you know, yelling at the kids to not yelling at the kids, when we go from, you know, feeling really crappy about ourselves to trying to improve our self-talk, whatever your issue is, yes, you may be able to create a new habit in 28 days, but systems.
SPEAKER_02:And even as you were talking in your lifetime, you know, doing the highways, it's kind of like, well, there's a reason that particular highway was built though. Right? There is a reason that that highway was always there or had been built over time. So it's kind of like with shadow work, we're not here to like you can't get rid of that highway, okay? But when those activations and those triggers come up, you're like, well, this highway is familiar. I know what happens on this highway, I can control what happens on this highway, which is why I'm gonna go this way. And like I was a PT for a few years there, and I used to like I worked at this gym and we always had challenges, and it used to like at the time I didn't understand why I was so like just frustrated, and now I'm like, it's because it's not my value, because I'm like, let's look at like long term instead of short term, right? We're constantly like it's like nervous system regulation and band-aiding it, right? Like these shortcuts at the moment are just big old band-aids, really. Those band-aids have to come off though. There's something underneath that band-aid, and we've spoken about like your your wound analogy of like there is a wound after that, and I think that we've gone into like the conditioning like with society and this industry of just like the quicker that you get something done, the better it is. And I've even like spoken to so many of my own clients around like reminding them that there's no timeline for healing, and also I hear a lot of like, oh, do the work. Why are we making our healing journey such a career? Like it's a career to go into like personal development of like I must heal, I must heal, I must heal. And so I'm gonna do all of these things. I am gonna sign up to 50 masterclasses, I'm gonna do all the nervous system regulation that they've told me. I'm gonna try and do things as quick as possible so I am quote unquote healed. But that's not what healing is. While there's not a timeline with healing, it does come with time as well. And by integrating and experiencing, I'm not saying you gotta do the work and you know it's all gonna be fine, but it's like understanding what's happening and then integrating that into your life. And I think this is where the shortcuts aren't working because they don't match your life, they don't match your alignment, right? Like a lot of us mums, those 10 weeks while they're at school, we get shit done, and then all of our little shortcuts or our little routines go out the window as soon as school holidays come because it no longer aligns with our life. There is no routine, it is different. So these shortcuts that we've created don't actually work because they're not aligned with who we are. We're actually, I feel like we're looking at social media too much these days of being like with that person, it works for that person and it works for that person, and what's that creating? They're not good enough. The I'm incapable, and so then we're starting to obsess about like, well, why is everyone else able to do these things? Why can somebody lose weight in 28 days and I can't? Or if I lose weight, why do I keep putting it back on? It's because it's not sustainable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, there's like you're so right, there's so many accolades to doing things quickly, and it's so impressive. You see it in the business world all the time. Like I made a million dollars in my first year of business, this is how I did it, and everybody's like, wow, that's so incredible. That is incredible, it's an incredible achievement. But I'm more interested in can you make a million dollars a year for five years? Because that tells me that you can stay consistent, you didn't just kind of lock out on something. It's the same deal with you know people who lose weight slowly and then keep it off. It's the people who did live in really cluttered homes and now don't. It's the people who used to completely lose their shit with their kids all the time and have managed to move past that, and the people who manage to consistently keep that up, and this is the thing, I think that we are looking for that pat on the head that you're a good girl, you've done really well here, because saying this might take you a year, two years, five years to really get the hang of, you're gonna have setbacks, there are gonna be days where you feel like shit, and the motivation is not gonna be there. That dopamine hit of achieving, of winning, of completing is not there, and that's really hard for us to manage, and so we go, Oh, I don't want to do that. There must be a quicker way. There must be a quicker way, and meanwhile, you're taking years off of your life being fucking miserable with whatever the issue is instead of going with what works, and this is the secret, because everybody will tell you that their way works, they're not right or wrong. It works for some people, it won't work for others, but I can tell you what doesn't fucking work, trying 10 different shortcuts from 10 different people and then going, none of it works, because that is like the equivalent of what what's an analogy I can use here of like trying to buy plates from 10 different shops and getting them to all match up. It won't. You need to buy 10 plates from the same fucking shop for them to all match. Like, end of. So if you stick to something for long enough from something that is tried and and tested, absolutely, don't just go trying whatever and be like, I'm gonna make this up. Why reinvent the fucking wheel? You want to lose weight, you want to do shadow work, you want to heal your fucking nervous system, you want to do any of that. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people have done that before you're gonna do it. Go find someone else who has done it and copy them, right?
SPEAKER_02:You've now created but you just hit it on the head, like we're so dopamine driven of like, well, this thing of losing I did lose 10 kilos in 28 days from this challenge, right? So, okay, of course I'm gonna go do another 28-day challenge. And the thing is, but now there's evidence, and the other thing that I I find it really funny as well is you'd lose 10 kilos for your 28 days, you have three months off because they tend to be three month blocks, you put it back on, you do another 28 days, and you lose the same 10 kilos. So you're actually not moving forward, you're now creating a pattern of like put on weight, lose weight, put on weight, lose weight, and there is evidence, right? Because you're doing it, but it's like you're literally stuck in the mud and you're like swimming in the mud. You're like, Yeah, I can get further, not realizing that you're not moving. And we also create that pattern of like, okay, cool. It's I actually spoke to a client this morning about the fear. Sometimes fear is a bigger driver than anything else, which is why you will see people not fix their health until it's nearly too late. You will not see business owners, and I've seen it time and time again, and I even felt this in my own journey of like, I'm not gonna do anything about it until I have no fucking choice. So these shortcuts are helping us to build fire under our ass to make movement and we feel good because we are creating movement, but it's not creating long-term movement. We're not building long-term success in our nervous systems, in our business, in our relationships. It's like you see the people, I don't know if you've seen this, but uh the Facebook couples, where you go behind the scenes that they're constantly fucking fighting, and then they'll go away for a weekend, or they'll have a birthday party or a celebration because that's the way they they put the band-aid on it, and then they're like, Oh baby, I love you so much, and like you're the one for me. It's not creating any healing in that relationship though, it's temporary. We like temporary things, we can control the temporary because the other thing that comes to mind is if you tried a goal for multiple years and it doesn't work instantly, you're like, I fucking failed. I failed at that, that fucking sucks. I put so much effort into it. I can feel my own like goosebumps of like I know we both love our businesses so much, and we're like, we're putting everything in to make it work. Imagine five years down the track, we're like, this didn't work. Where if you do something for a month and it didn't work, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't have the same weight, which is why people will create short-term goals and create shortcuts to try and get to somewhere quicker because it doesn't hold the same weight.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, 100%. And the thing as well is that if they've hit that goal already, they've got the accolades that they need. They've got the ad admiration from other people, they've got the well done, you did a great job, they've got the dopamine hit of seeing that thing come to fruition, and then they go, sweet, I don't have to do it anymore. And the thing as well, like fire is definitely a huge, like fear, definitely a huge, huge driver for many, many people, and they don't realize it. This is a big piece, like is this coming from fear. It's where the saying feel the fear and do it anyway comes from. From that space. It's like it may feel scary to do it. But the other thing that human beings will tend to avoid at all costs is being uncomfortable in any way. So this includes being angry, being sad, it also includes being bored. Yeah. And you know what? Consistency is fucking boring. It is so fucking boring when you are, again, taking a business scenario, when you are posting and posting and posting and posting and posting, and two people fucking like it. And nothing happens. Because again, all of these coaches have come in being like, host and you'll earn like$20,000 off of a post-that is not fucking reality. It's not. It's the same with what we do. And I am always very, very clear when I say this this person came in, did one session, and it completely changed the game for them. This is not normal results. Normally it takes longer than that, which is why we do long-term containers. I don't know about you, Lorinda, but I'm pretty sure I can speak for the both of us here. I'm not really interested in doing a one-off session here, a one-off session there, you just dipping in and out whenever you feel like it. Like if you're kind of at a maintenance space and that's all that you need, that's so fine. That's a different story. But if you're at the beginning of your journey and you're like, I just want to do a one-off session, and you're only coming back in every, you know, three to six months, that's not the commitment that I'm interested in. Because I don't care how well you can do when you are either at rock bottom or at your peak. I'm interested in in between that. Can you be consistent on your average days? Can you be consistent when there is no fucking proof that it is working? Can you stick the course? Can you keep going when there is no visible reward? And that is hard. That's the bit that we want to avoid. Because there's no reward. There's nobody saying, wow, you've done really well. People might be talking about you, going, Oh my god, like she's she's doing these things, and this is the other thing, what you were saying about social media before, where we compare ourselves to everybody without knowing the full context of their lives. I mean, I know from my work that I've worked with friends and they've told me things, and I'm like, I didn't know that that was fucking happening in your life. Holy crap! No idea, would not have guessed that, but we're comparing ourselves to what people choose to share, and then going, why can't I do that? Why doesn't that work for me? I must be shit. I need to be better, I need to be better, I need to do more, I need to fucking sign up for something.
SPEAKER_02:And we were never designed to be connected to this many people. So my partner, honestly, is actually like so like poetic, okay, in so many ways. This one is not a poetic one. I will share with you more. I actually have like on his like poetry, like that he just says randomly. But this he always says to me, comparison is a thief of joy. If you Yeah, and I asked a client this morning, if you didn't compare, what would you be doing? And she was like, I don't know. And I'm like, exactly. Because we look to others, but and I and I understand like why we do look to others. This is the thing. We look to others because we're like, I don't know the path to take. What which way can I go? And if you're coming from a place of like, oh I could try that, not fuck. Like an example, I'm just thinking you personally because it's coming up. I run retreats, I see people with sold-out retreats all the fucking time. Okay. My beautiful partner once again made a joke the other day that I'm gonna be niching to two people retreats. Okay, because I still run my retreats, whether there's two, four, six, whatever. Because those women chose to be there, and I have two for the next one. And I'm like, if I was only looking at retreats on my social media that sold out, and I did that for the last retreat, I felt like shit. Like absolute shit. That's not the reason I run retreats though. I don't run retreats because I feel like it was the next move in my business. I actually really fucking love them, and they bring me so much joy. The one priority from my retreats is joy. And I came home last retreat after me feeling like shit before retreat, and I came home and I said to my partner, I received so much from it. Because I didn't look at social media right before I went away. I stopped looking at retreat pages, and I was just like, what do I want to feel? I don't care if I don't have another sold-out retreat. Okay? Would I like to? Yeah, as a business wise, it'd be great. But it's not gonna take away that that priority for me. My priority from retreats is joy. And I think coming back, this is also not just in business but in relationships, and this can look like not having the fucking hard conversations in your relationships. And you talk about like that middle of like where it's rock bottom and when it's like not at the top, sitting in that phase in the middle where you're like, we're not about to break up, but we're not like fucking on top of the world. There's gotta be some hard conversations to be had. If you avoid them, you're just trying to sit and hope for the best, but then while you're hoping for the best, you're now building resentment because it's not going anywhere. You do need to have the hard conversation, so it's like these shortcuts can also be a way of avoiding what conversations are you not wanting to have, right? What emotions are you not wanting to feel? I fucking hate sitting in conflict. Like, I want to fix it, I'm a fixer. Okay, I want to know the end goal of this conversation, I want to have a tangible outcome, I want to see change straight away, but then sometimes it's having that hard conversation and having to sit in that emotion of like, well, this feels like shit. And while sitting in that, well, this feels like shit, you're building trust in your relationship. Trust in yourself that whatever happens, you will be okay.
SPEAKER_00:But can we also just normalize that we do spend a huge amount of time in the middle? Your relationship is not supposed to always feel like walking through fucking daffodil fields. I've seen a lot of content around this recently, and I actually really love it. It's like, is your relationship boring or is it safe? And you're used to chaos. So then you create arguments because you need to fix something. You need to get back to that I'm on top of the world, or we're at rock bottom. Because your nervous system doesn't feel okay with just sitting in, yeah, we're just going about our lives. Like there's nothing good, nothing bad. Like we just are at the moment. You're like, we're we're fine. It's it's it's fine. It's just it's coasting, and that's okay. It doesn't always you don't always have to be fucking tinkering with it. Where it's like, yeah, we're connected, we talk, you know, maybe not as much as what we'd like to, but there's no sort of either, you know, crazy butterflies or insane conflict going on. So it's like, oh, there's something wrong. No, that's actually part of a normal relationship. It's the same in anything, it's the same in business. Like sometimes you will do launches and you do really, really well, and sometimes you don't. Sometimes, like, I definitely know that I get influxes of clients where I won't get too many for a little while, and then I'll get like five or six at once. And yeah, like the dopamine hit is that oh my god, it's huge. And I wouldn't get those if I could not sit in the moment Lorinda and I last year, both of us, for like three months. We had three months where we did not sign a single fucking client, and we were sitting there like, what is going on? This is so hard, this is so uncomfortable, what do we do? And we looked at what we were doing, we did hold the vision, we brought some strategy in, we looked at at our parts that we were playing, and I and things got better.
SPEAKER_02:That phase was like the slowness wasn't what fucked me, it was just sitting there and being like, what am I gonna do? And even like I'm coming up to like an intentional slow period. Well, this is the vision, everybody, like an intentional slow period. So, like after like mid-November, I really don't have too much going on until like January, and that's because I'd like to take some time off. I've said it, it's out in the universe, you all can hold me accountable. But there was this quote that I heard the other day, and it was if you knew success was on the other side, what would you be doing now? And to me that went, cool. I would rather my 2026 be busy, which means that while I have some slowness, what can I be doing? I could be hanging out with my kids, I can be going on more dates, I can be building more things in my business, I can be in creation, I don't have to be in a launch. That's because there's a long-term goal with that. Right? I'm looking at it long term. Right now, yeah, I have things going on, I have a stable income. I wouldn't say that I am swimming in it, but that's not right now, and I actually have no fear around that because I'm looking at the long term and going, cool, I'm actually good for a while now. All my bills are paid, all my extras are paid, I have paid off my debt. I get to sit in this middle part and go, cool, so what do I actually want to do? What goals do I actually want and how am I gonna do them? Knowing that if I try and shortcut one of them, because I've done this many times, it's probably gonna blow up in my face. Right? There's been many times, like let's go even with like mini courses, sometimes I'm like, why did I not just buy the fucking thing? Right, why did I not just go into that certification? Instead of like diving it around, because I actually end up spending more money and losing more time and losing some fucking sanity trying to figure it out. Right. So in regards to like shortcuts and like sabotaging, I want you to look at how many times you have created these short-term goals, how many times you've actually hit them, how many times you've been like, yeah, whatever, just fallen off the wagon and it hasn't actually bothered you. If you had done three or four short-term goals, let's say of three months, that's one year. Right? Where you could have actually gone, I'm gonna commit 12 months to this thing. Right? I'm gonna commit 12 months because let's go back to weight loss because it's so much easier to talk about. That's three 28-day challenges. You've now lost the same 10 kilos four times. Knowing that it's probably gonna come back on because now you've created fear around, well, I'm probably gonna lose the weight and a belief system of it's just gonna come back on. We know that you're gonna sign up for more challenges next year. Where you could have gone actually for this year, can I focus on whole foods, foods, water, walking, ensuring that I go and be in my maintenance. Maybe you know, you spend the year hiring a personal trainer. Say they're$75 a week. You do that for one year. You've now not only lost weight, you know how to lose weight. You don't have to buy those challenges anymore. You also know what works for your body, you know what your maintenance calories are, you know what your deficit calories are, you know how to train. So you've hired a personal trainer for a year. You may keep him keep him or her on because you like having somebody there. That's why we have personal trainers. It's super easy to find a training plan online. We have personal trainers because one, they know shit, and two, it's accountability. Or you can go actually, I'm gonna spend a year doing it by myself. So now you've done a whole year with a personal trainer, you've lost the weight, you have all this knowledge, you have the skill set, you have more connection to who you are. Next year you don't need to. Now you know how not to put on the weight again. I don't know about you, but I'd rather do that than a 28-day challenge where I have to cut away my carbs. Don't take my donuts. I know how to lose weight and eat the food that I like.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I think it's also around, you know, we need to talk about the dopamine hit of losing 10 kilos in 28 days that that cycle continues to go four times a year, where yeah, you've lost 40 kilos in a year. You haven't actually lost 40 kilos because you're still at zero. Because you've bounced up and down. You're still at the exact same weight, but it's oh yeah, no, but I know that I can lose it again. Because you've proven that with a 28-day thing. If I just do that, then it doesn't matter. So it gives you that excuse almost to continue bouncing, because it's like, oh yeah, no, I know I know how to do it. I just do a 28-day challenge. You know how to lose the weight, but you don't know how to actually keep it off, you don't know how to maintain it, you don't know how what you're doing, you're just in this constant cycle where it's I will push really hard for a very short period and then I can relax and do whatever I want. So what we're building there is that pain for pleasure. If I just do this for 28 days and I'm really strict with myself, then I can enjoy myself for the next three months until I put it back on again, and then I need to go hard again. Or we could just be a little bit more boring.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I always even you as you were talking about that, coming from the emotional regulation side, like all I can think of is like, cool, you have stuck to 28 days. I don't I've been in challenges, like, and I've been a personal trainer in challenges. People are fucking cranky by the end of that challenge, right? They are fucking cranky. Okay, because normally challenges they take away their carbs, right? They've taken away their sacrifices, there's more hustle, like they're burnt out. So now we've created a burnt-out cycle as well. So like you're in a state of like dysregulation, right? And then what tends to happen is because no one talks about the mental health side of these short-term things, is that when you don't have it anymore, there is also like depends on how long it is, but like also a loss of like identity for those 28 days or say six-week challenges, that's who you were, right? That routine is now gone, that stability is now gone. So then you're like, cool, there's an open field of things to do, but now I'm tired, I'm burnt out, I hustled really fucking hard for this short-term thing, and now I'm one, either probably disassociated, flighty as fuck, or in fight mode. And what happens if you're in those? You might eat, you might burn out, this is why women stop losing weight because they're in a state of dysregulation, their body is fucking holding on. They're like, I can't do this. This is why when you see when people go into uh more regulated states, they lose weight quicker. So it's kind of like now you've now created this like almost like a roller coaster of like cool, now I'm regulated, dysregulated, disassociative. Now I'm eating my feelings, now I put on more weight, which makes me feel like a failure because I just spent all this money and I'm now not good enough because like I was meant to like maybe you won the challenge, maybe you didn't, or if you've done a challenge, this is why women and challenges don't go right because. We have so many hormonal spikes during it, creates more of a story of like, okay, well, why can't I fucking do it? How come I can see people who do challenges? Like, and this is not even in regards to weight loss, like business relationships. When you start creating shortcuts, you start creating ebbs and flows. Well, even more like a roller coaster of your emotional state. Because it's not stable. There's no stability.
SPEAKER_00:I wouldn't even call them ebbs and flows. They're like fucking tidal waves versus before the tidal wave. Like it's not a natural, it's not a natural ebb and flow where sometimes things are good, sometimes things are not so good. It's either you're on top of the world or you're rock bottom. And you're cycling between those two. And that's extremely dysregulating. Because it's like when you're on top of the world, you know that you're about to go down again, because that's what always happens. So you can't even enjoy it. And I think it's really important to talk through that like that loss of identity of changing habits like this, because that is one of the biggest reasons that people fail them. They or fail them so I don't like to use the word fail, but they they struggle to stick to them. Is because there is a part of their identity that they are losing by changing that habit. Weight loss. Maybe they were the the funny fat kid in school. That's what they were known as. They became funny because they, you know, they weren't as skinny as the other girls, or whatever. Maybe you are that person who's constantly joking about how much of a hot mess you are. You can't get organized, you're a hot mess. You've created your entire identity around that. People laugh at you, people connect with you about that. What happens if you don't? It's the same like I see people quite a lot, quite a few of my clients will come through and say, I'm really struggling to relate to things that I see on the internet because like I don't hate being around my kids anymore. And that's not that's not the normal for motherhood. We're always talking about how difficult our kids are and how they're assholes and how they're jerks, and people are constantly talking about things like that, and we see it, we go, I don't fit in anymore. I don't even know what this should look like. So then we bounce back because our nervous system is going, danger, danger, danger. You're about to get ejected from the fucking tribe because you don't fit here anymore. And you're never gonna find anybody. So you bounce back, you go back into the old habits, and that's how we slip back. We slip back to it's what's what's that saying? It's you will never rise to the level of your habits, you will this is I'm botching this, but like you will drop back to the strength of your systems, or something along those lines. Where it's like I I also think something it's something like that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think also as you were saying, that's like also why relationships who have gone from like very chaotic to a lot of safety, there's like this, and I can explain this from my own. Like, Matt and I were in a very like chaotic relationship, and then we went into a relationship of safety and security, like because we had to do our own work and then together, and the loss of like control of like cool, like in that chaotic relationship, I know there's probably gonna be a fight this week. I know that there might be something that's gonna hurt my feelings, or I'm gonna hurt his feelings when you're in a secure and stable relationship. You're like, I don't know when the penny's gonna drop. Where's that fucking penny? And then there's that loss of like talking about identity of like, oh, I'm allowed to be a safe and secure person, I'm allowed to put my entire trust into this person, I'm allowed to believe that we're gonna grow old together, and that past version of me is like, no, no, no, don't be codependent, like you know, we went through all of this, this is chaotic as shit. Don't lose like your independence, like, don't rely on him. And I'm like, but I can now, but it's very jarring when you're so used to that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And when you identify as somebody who is in toxic relationships, who is constantly battling to lose weight, who really dislikes motherhood, who is a that business owner who's constantly changing whatever, the thing as well is that you will tend to attract other people in the same situation because birds of a feather flock together. It's why when you start getting into the personal development world, you you tend to make new friends who are also on that path because they understand you. You're talking about the same things, you're going through the same things, and that can be both a blessing and a fucking curse. Because I see this a lot where people are in these sorts of situations, which is incredibly damaging for them, and they say, I don't want to do this anymore. But as a result of changing and growing, you will lose people in your life who no longer can relate to you, and they'll make it, especially people who are sitting in that everything's so hard, it always happens to me, you know, my life is so shit, and you start saying, Well, actually, you know, I kind of I've I'm changing some things and I'm taking a bit of ownership. People aren't gonna fucking like that. They're not gonna like it, and they're gonna blame you, they're gonna make you wrong. You've changed, you used to be cool, you used to be so much better, and now you're never available, and blah blah blah being just like what about it's gonna make you feel like cruel toxic positive, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like, I had people in my life that were like, but this is a gift, and you know, there's no point of being angry or like you know, you it's just you know, the universe is way, and I'm like, I'm also allowed to have a feeling, and like as you go, I feel like there's such a journey of person development where you're like, Cool, I get to be really grateful, and I don't sit in this victim anymore, and then you get to that point where you're like, Oh, all of my emotions are welcome. Like, so it's just it's so interesting, like talking about this because it's like you I think it coming back to like the shortcuts and the short-term goals, you really have to look at your own fucking life, you have to look at your own values and like what you actually want. Is it beneficial because we're talking about weight loss, is it beneficial for me right now to go on a journey of losing weight? I know people are gonna be like, isn't it always no no no? Sometimes you need to focus on your mental health, sometimes you need to focus on your kids, sometimes you need to focus on your relationship, and sometimes naturally, like in my own journey of doing that, the weight has come on because as you start to take care of yourself, so like maybe the question is is my goal to lose weight? And it's always great to have tangibles, or do I want to start taking care of myself? And what are the steps that I need to do? Yes, it is eat more whole foods, exercise, play with my kids more, go on family outings instead of being in the house all of the time. It's you know, doing the meditation, it's like finding my shit and actually dealing with it. Because coming from the PT background to now, I'm like, oh, everything changed for every one of my clients when they fucking learned how to take care of themselves. Because as mothers, you would think that we would be really great at taking care of ourselves. We're actually probably worse people.
SPEAKER_00:Thousand percent. A thousand percent. Absolutely. Yeah, we're terrible at it. We we think we think that we have to look after everybody else before ourselves, and then we that's where we need those shortcuts because we've hit rock bottom so bad and things are so bad that we need a quick fix. And I think this is my other gripe with it, is that because they are there, these you know, shiny packages of things that might give you some of what you need in a very short time frame, it means that people are waiting way longer when they realize that there's a problem. I can't tell you how many clients I've had come knock on my door. Even with sleep, when I was doing sleep, I had people message me and they're like, I'm having another baby next week. I need to get this sleep sorted. I'm like, oh babe, you should have come to me three months ago. Yeah. It's too late. I can't do anything for you now. Like I can I can give you some tips, but it is not gonna work because that child is gonna regress when their sibling comes along. You are gonna be too tired, it is not gonna work. And I think this is the thing, is like if we're taking, if we're constantly taking shortcuts, you are allowing things to get that bad. Because there's always a way out. You'll be fine, it'll be fine, I can just push, I can hustle, I can work my ass off to get to where I need to go, and you're building proof that that's how you how you do it. That you don't move, you don't try to fix things or change things until you absolutely fucking have to. And like I've been guilty of doing this in the past, absolutely. Absolutely. Sometimes I still find myself in this situation where I will ignore a problem until it slaps me in the face, and I'm like, oh yes, yes, I knew that that was an issue. Like, we all do it. So please don't feel like we're sitting up here on our fucking thrones holier than thou, being like, no, no, we never ever do it. We absolutely do it. We're human because we want to avoid the uncomfortable. But the thing is, is that then if we shortcut that, we are gonna find ourselves in the same situation six months, a year, two years, five years down the track. It's just gonna keep on coming back around and biting us in the arse until we do the long-term identity work, the reason that that pattern is there in the first place, the change in mindset, the change in beliefs around that thing, so that you can stop running the same old pattern and actually get to a point where you were feeling they had like two drops.
SPEAKER_02:And it's not even for you, Steph, but it's for everyone who's listening of like you're talking about like allowing things to be the problem, allowing things until it's smacking you in the face and that pain. My question for everyone listening is like, why are you allowing your own suffering? Because there can be yeah, and it can be that unconscious like well, like people uh connect through pain, they relate through pain, and also like that unconscious belief of like I like especially I see it a lot with mums of like I'm not deserving of this. So, what we're doing is actually creating more and more pain for ourselves without even realizing they're like, okay, well, yeah, this is something that I can control.
unknown:Right?
SPEAKER_02:I can control that this is probably gonna slap me in the face. I can control that there's gonna be a shit outcome from that, and that's okay because at least it's me and whatever, like I'm not worthy of like, and I and I that worthy piece is really big and I don't even really like using that word, but like sometimes it's like even booking a doctor's appointment. I'm like, no no no, I'm last. Alright, I'm last, I'm last, I'm last, I'm last. Whether you're a mum or not, I see it in a lot of women of like, okay, I'm just gonna put my needs last because that's not selfish. And like, you know, of course it would have to happen to me. What's that word? It's like what's it called? Oh, it's gonna annoy me now. Uh self-fulfilling prophecy. Gonna have to give me of like you're now creating your own story of pain. Oh yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Mmm.
SPEAKER_00:Another one I see, and I've seen this in a couple of clients recently, that when I've pulled it out of them, they're like, holy shit. Is it's do you identify as the strong one? As the one who's constantly having to be resilient, as the one who constantly does put themselves last because that's just what I do, and I'm just strong. I'm resilient, I beat the odds, I hit rock bottom, and I just keep on going because I'm so so strong. So, is it that you have to be the strong one and you don't know how to actually receive to be happy for things to just be okay or even good? And also, there's always secondary gain to every single thing that you do. And I ask my I ask my clients all the time when they're doing something that is pissing them off. I'm like, what's the gain here? They're like, nothing, there's nothing good about this. I'm like, there fucking is or you wouldn't be doing it. End of. And it may seem weird, but another one that I see, and this was me, by the way. When I spotted this, I was like, that's I don't like that, but it definitely helped. I I enjoyed people saying to me, I couldn't do what you do. How do you manage all of that? Again, probably that strong piece, but also the like that, what is it?
SPEAKER_02:Like it's not the savior, the yeah, maybe but it's just like when you when you're talking about it's like oh, resilient. That's a fucking great compliment. But as you're saying it, like I've been looking a lot around resilience. Resilience is not avoidance though, right? Resilience isn't that you're in like this dark depth and like you're just alive afterwards. That's not resilience, that's not being strong, it's being avoided. Like, like why like why it's just so frustrating sometimes being in this industry and being like, why are we allowing ourselves to be in so much pain in order to have the title of the strong one and the resilient one and like the super mum? I'm like, a super mum to me now is I'm like, holy shit, you actually can go and do all of these things for yourself and still fucking shop for your kids. And I get jealous of those ones because I'm like, oh, you probably have more fucking capacity. It's like a very backwards thing of like the mums who put themselves last are the ones that don't have a lot of capacity left, but they're still fucking chugging along. Versus the ones who do put themselves first and have more capacity for their kids. I feel like in regard Yeah. Oh I can just see.
SPEAKER_00:And they're the ones that sorry what I was I was just I was just gonna say, like they're the ones that get the accolades, right? Like, oh you're such a good mum, look at how much you're sacrificing. I can guarantee you, because I work with these mums, they're the ones that are shouting at their kids. They're the ones that have no fucking capacity at the end of the day, they're the ones whose relationships are in the toilet because they have no capacity, they feel so shit all the time. They may look good on Instagram because they're posting the fucking highlight reel of hey, look, I've just done XYZ, I've put myself last again, I'm struggling, I'm struggling, I'm struggling.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But it's like, what is our definition of a good parent?
SPEAKER_02:Like, we always kind of like even with good parent, I'm like, cool. I grew up with the the story of like when you become a parent, that's who you are. Right? Because that was handed down from my nan, and so many lines. Like, you become a mum, and that is your entire being. And I say to that, I'm gonna rewrite my own story. I'm gonna rewrite my own conditioning because it's not selfish for me to put my myself first and things first, because I'm also teaching my kids to do that, and I'm like, we are always and I especially if you do a lot of personal development, you're like, I'm like this because of XYZ, of this conditioning. And I say to that, well, why aren't you writing your rewriting your own conditioning then? Like your kids' conditioning. Why are you not rewriting?
SPEAKER_00:I actually somebody commented on one of my posts on TikTok the other day, and I fucking loved it. Um, it was something like you know, the trauma like the generational trauma is like a wave, and I am gonna be the rock that it breaks against. It stops with me, and I was like, that is fucking powerful. I love that. I was just like, I I fucking love that. Because yeah, you can choose, you get to choose different. You don't have to keep doing it, and it's like finding that gain, finding that benefit, because there is a benefit somewhere. Maybe the other one is that like maybe you only get attention when you're struggling. Maybe the people around Yeah, yeah. Maybe the people around you are only like the is it the fair weather friends that are only there during good times but not bad times. I can't remember. But I certainly see people who really struggle to be be there for you when you're in good times, but they fucking pop up out of the woodworks whenever the chips are down. They're happy to relate to you in pain, but they can't relate to the to the happiness. They can't relate to the good times. And so then we put ourselves purposefully into this pain because it's like I can I can keep people around and I get attention and people want to be around me, people are helping me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and then I think about also like uh that's something that I did a lot earlier on in my early 20s of like how many friends are constantly in the pits and you get to help them. Like, there's so much duality with this conversation of like are you the person that who is struggling and only knows how to struggle, or are you the person that only stays around people who struggle? So you can be the fixer, the savior.
SPEAKER_01:That one is a hard fucking little squallow. Probably. I feel like we should do an episode around that.
SPEAKER_02:Or both happening Lorinda's trend like you can flip-flop, because even like talking about that, I'm like, I've definitely been in both positions, right? Of like, cool, I know what it's like to fucking struggle. Yeah, I get more fucking attention from it. Let's be fucking real. But I also know what it's like to be a runner. Do you know this okay? This is really like shadowy. Do you know how much I fucking froth? I can't believe I'm gonna say this out. Do you know how much I fucking froth when I see people like relationships be a little rocky? Do you ever like do you ever yeah? This is like this, welcome to like shadow work. Like when you leave somebody's house and you've just seen them have like a little argument and you walk out and you look at your partner and you're like, I just love you so much, and I just love our relationship and how much respect we have for one another.
SPEAKER_00:I love I I had a client drop in yesterday with like she was having a bit of a morning and she was telling me about it, and then she came in later and she's like, Oh my god, I saw this thing at work today, and I'm just so grateful for him. And I'm like, that's that exact thing where you go, Oh, but we're not that bad, so it's fine. Look at like out where superior, you would never do that to me. I would never do that to you. Like, we're just look at us, we're just like, we're the example couple totally okay.
SPEAKER_02:Let's like a thousand percent like really wound this up coming back into like shortcuts, uh short-term goals, long-term goals. For somebody who is like just realizing their pattern of like, oh, I am the person that keeps doing these fucking challenges. What would you what tips would you give them?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, unfollow all of the people that are fucking spitting them. I would say pick something and stick to it. But you also need to work out why you are doing them. Does that thing even matter to you? Do you even want to lose the weight, or is it, oh, that sounds like fun. Then I'd have a bikini bot. You don't even care about the bikini bot. You don't give a shit. It doesn't bother you. Like it bothers other people and they think about that, but you don't care. Is it that you're you know you're you're doing these challenges to avoid a real problem? Yeah, I can lose 10 kilos in 28 days, but my fucking relationship's cooked. Yeah, I don't know what to do about that, so I'm gonna go and focus over here. Because I know I can do that, I know I can achieve that, I can I don't know how to fix that. It are you trying to avoid something else by doing these things? You really need to get very, very honest, and we can come up with some like some prompts, maybe some journaling prompts that you can kind of go through that. We can put them into the show notes of like why, what's what's the pattern here? Have you done this a lot? When you look back, do you tend to do this a lot? Is it always in the same area? Is it in multiple different areas? Because if it's running across different areas of your life, that's a bigger pattern. If it's just yo-yoing with your like with your weight loss or whatever, that's one thing. But if it's also within your parenting, is it within your career, is it within your relationship, do you constantly yo-yo, put a little bit of effort in and then back off, why? What what's going on there? Because that's gonna kind of give us the bigger picture of like this. Is the thing is that you're not going to fix this until you fix the reason why you're doing it. You don't even necessarily need to know the ins and outs of it. You don't need to sit there and go, I do this because when I was five, I did a half-ass job cleaning my bedroom, and my mother told me that I always half-ass everything, and now that's what I believe about myself. You don't need to fucking know that. That's the cool thing about shadow work, is you can come in and say, hey, like to Lorinda or I, hey, I've got this pattern, hey, I keep doing this thing, I'm not really too sure why I do it. We go phenomenal. We'll go in on the behavior. And we can go in, we can have a look at what's there. Sometimes we'll uncover it, sometimes we just manage to shift enough that you don't feel the need to do it. But once you've spotted it, your brain is gonna continue to tell you to do that. Oh, you should do that. No, this one will be different. You'll definitely have the motivation to finish this one. This one's gonna be the like once once we lose that weight or once we do that thing, we're definitely gonna keep doing it. We'll absolutely like that'll definitely happen this time. Yeah. No, it won't. It won't. So, what could you do differently? If your brain is telling you or your nervous system is telling you, continue to do these short challenges, go and sign up for something that's longer. Find like a six-month thing, find a 12-month thing. Go and commit yourself to something long term, the way your body's going, like, I don't want to do that, that's so much time, that's so much money. Like, we've got a holiday booked in in January, and like I just don't know if I can commit to that. Like, yeah, what's coming up for you when you go to do those longer terms?
SPEAKER_02:I think even like something that I have done with clients, even for myself, is like pick that long term, but still have like the short-term goals within that that like pushes you to do the long term, right? Absolutely, yeah. We are very dopamine driven right now. So, like have your short-term goals, but inside of a longer-term goal, and then something that I also like to do is write down the roadblocks. What are the potential roadblocks here that are gonna stop me? Yes, I have a holiday out of 12 months and it's gonna be two weeks. Cool. So I don't plan a short-term goal around that that period there. Let's be real, and like be really realistic with your roadblocks as well. Christmas time. This time I've been really realistic. I don't work at full capacity at Christmas time. I am a different human. I feel like most of us are a different human around Christmas time. Don't plan those goals around Christmas time. Go cool. Actually, let's be really transparent here. I have 3,000 different Christmases. I have Christmas shopping. For me, I have like I think there's like four birthdays within December in my family. So, what I'm gonna do is like, why don't I why don't I have like just a really slow period where there's nothing that no goals that are gonna require a lot of capacity from me, but I can have the habits, right? So it's still why don't I exercise once or twice a week that week in December? And then once it comes into like school time, you're kind of like, yeah, I always have more routine during school time. So plan those goals around that stable routine. That can be like the really simple things. We don't have to make it hard. It is really fucking simple. Plan your short term, plan your long term, look at all of the roadblocks, and be honest with yourself. Be like, hey, around week eight, I tend to fall off the fucking wagon. So, what is something that I can do that helps me during week eight? And for me, it's probably about week eight. Where I'm like, eh, now I'm bored. So, what is something in that week there I'm like, you know what, this is a great time for me to reset.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, for sure. I think also just that piece that, oh, I'm bored. Maybe you just need to get better at being bored. You know, like maybe you just go, okay, cool, I know that I tend to be bored. How can I sit with this? Instead of trying to avoid it, instead of going, I'm just gonna go and do something else, I'm sick of this, it's not working, blah blah blah. How can you just sit in that boredom? Just go, yeah, this is really boring, and I don't actually want to go and do my workout, but come on, let's do it. You can do hard things. Just like we do with our toddlers when they don't want to do something like put their shoes on. You can do hard things, I believe in you. I know you don't want to do it, I know it feels really hard to find out, but like gentle parent yourself. I know this feels really hard, but we said that we were gonna do this. So common hope just gone.
SPEAKER_02:We went on many different tangents. I think it was all very much intertwined and needed. Make it super simple, be transparent with yourself, and also stop comparing and unfollow those those accounts that you are comparing yourself to because you this is where I think the identity piece comes in as well. Find you, not other people. This is about you and your goals in your life. So if you are comparing a lot, it is time to just look back in the mirror and go, what do I want? So, hope you love this episode. Leave us a review, send us a message, share it with your friends, and we will see you on the next episode.
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