Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
Gurus and Gratitude diaries. Do they help? Pt.1
You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land in which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello, smart women, and welcome to episode 25, yes, 25 episodes already of the why Smart Women podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm Annie McCubbin and I'm sorry about the sound of my voice. It's been extremely windy here in Sydney, like strange and cyclonic, and I think something on the wind has irritated my nose, so I sound a bit like a three-year-old. Anyway, sorry about that if it comes and goes. Anyway, it is now the 20th of January, and I'm wondering how many of you, come New Year's Eve, had some New Year's Eve? Oh my God, they I've forgotten what they're called harry. What do you have? A new year's eve? You have a promise, a oh my god, thank you. Oh, thank you. Sorry, the allergies got to my brain. Okay, I'm wondering how many of you had New Year's Eve resolutions and how many of them involved you improving as a human being.
Speaker 1:So, just after New Year's Eve, I had my list of things that I put up I put up on my Facebook page, et cetera and these were my top 10 hints for women come the new year, and the first one was you don't actually have to improve. So what do I mean by that? Well, I think there's a lot of pressure on women to be the ones that do the above, and I think more pressure is put on women than is put on men, and I think this conditioning continues as we get older. So we're in this constant state of um, I have to improve. So I guess the big question is who are you improving for? Are you improving because you're in a relationship and there is pressure on you to improve, be better, be fitter, be thinner. I know being thinner is often something that women, especially at the beginning of the new year, think right, this is the year. This is the year I'm going to get super fit and I'm going to be super thin and I'm going to be super healthy and I'm just going to really improve myself on every level. And who are you doing it for? Also, as we know, if you do well, there's the new. In my opinion, the whole strong is just the new thin. So you really have to question who it is that you're doing it for. Are you doing it for yourself, so that you will feel better, or are you doing it because of a societal expectation? That that's the way that you should look, and it really crystallized for me when I was talking to some of my female friends and they were all talking about the idea of upping their gratitude.
Speaker 1:Now, gratitude, as we know, is, you know, in terms of psychology. Gratitude actually is really, really important. If you can actually spend some time thinking about what you're grateful for, it really does often improve mood. However, I think women spend a lot of time. Okay, think about this before I go on. How many men do you know keeping a gratitude journal? How many now I don't know a single male that is keeping a gratitude journal.
Speaker 1:Now, why is this so? Why are women keeping gratitude journals and why are men not keeping gratitude journals? And what's the problem with that? Well, there's gratitude and there's gratitude. You know, if you are the sort of person that tends to see life through the half glass, empty perspective, then sure do some rejigging of your thinking and maybe do look at the fact that you have running water and you have electricity and you get to go to bed in a bed at night. That you're not in a war zone, absolutely true. There are people in this world that are having the most appalling time Now, if you're listening to this podcast, in terms of your safety and your capacity to get food, that's probably not you.
Speaker 1:However, if you are the sort of person who is in a relationship with somebody who treats you with contempt, who demeans you, who is controlling, who is not kind to you, who never puts your needs first, what are you doing? Keeping a gratitude journal? What you need to be doing is doing something about the fact that you are in the wrong relationship, and I think it sort of comes back to this idea of women being conditioned right from childhood that they need to improve, that they need to improve, that they need to do better. Now, if you are in a relationship and I know in my own circle there have been women that have been in really crappy relationships with awful, awful controlling men, unkind men, lazy men, men that treated them with contempt and these women now this is not a scientific study, but these women in my own circle so okay, this is anecdotal, but tended to be the ones that spent the most time meditating, working on their spiritual lives and keeping gratitude journals. You know, every five seconds these women would be posting about how grateful they were. Now I know the men that they are in relationship with and there wasn't a balanced approach from the men. The men were not trying to improve themselves, they were not keeping gratitude journals, they were just treating the women with contempt.
Speaker 1:So I think what's happened is something that is as sort of beneficial beneficial as gratitude has now been co-opted and used to paper over problems, so that you don't have to actually look at the reality of your life and the fact that you are perhaps in a relationship that doesn't add anything to your life, and instead what you're doing, instead of looking at that and making decisions about what to do about it. Often, what women do is they paper over it with this idea of no, no, what am I grateful for? And it's just a matter. I can fix this if I can just change my perspective. And it's just not right.
Speaker 1:And too many women, I think, are stuck in this awful situation. And then they layer into it the idea that you know relationships, they have manifested their relationship because the relationship has something to teach them. So there's this idea that's currently out in the zeitgeist. It's actually not even a new idea and it's really really irritating that if you meditate enough and work on it, on your thinking enough, you can manifest whatever you want by raising your vibration. And, of course, it's absolute nonsense and all it does, in my opinion, is make women paranoid about the way they think, because if you think a negative thought, what if? That means you're going to manifest it? So you're not going to manifest something by just thinking about it. Don't worry about it, have the thought, let the thought go um.
Speaker 1:So this, this all gets into, I think, a melange of difficult, unhelpful thinking for women that they're going to manifest something. They've manifested this relationship because it has something to teach them. Secondly, they need to buy into some 21-day program by some shyster that's going to help them to raise their vibration and send them positive affirmations every day. Then they will be able to manifest the relationship that they want. And thirdly, that they should be grateful for whatever it is that they've got. So, as I said at the beginning of this rant about gratitude I'm not saying that gratitude especially if you're the sort of person that sees things in a sort of a pessimistic light that gratitude isn't helpful. Yes, it is. But if you're using the idea of gratitude and the idea of the universe has provided you with this relationship so that you can learn something from it, then you've got to toss those ideas out quick, smart, get out of the relationship. Stop waiting for him to change. He doesn't want to change. So you know, very, very, we're very good at overriding those early red flags by saying no, no, no, it's just this, it's just that he's just tired, he's just working really hard. He was angry yesterday because he's got all this pressure on him. No, that is the way he is. So if you want a relationship with him, stop waiting for him to change. Stop writing gratitude journals. Accept the fact. This is the way it is and is.
Speaker 1:Ask yourself the question is this the sort of person that I want to live my life with? And I think that this sort of practical thinking, this critical thinking, is really missing at the moment from our discourse. I mean all I say because I've I follow all the gurus, so I sort of know what they're offering. And a guru, someone that you can follow in your spiritual existence, is that actually helping you? Are the tenets that this person is teaching you? Are they helping you to make better decisions, to build a better life, or are they just teaching you magical thinking? Because if you're sitting somewhere and you're meditating and you're being told that you created this life and you're, the universe chose your parents for you and everything is rolling out the exactly the way it should and you just need to learn the lesson, well, do you? Is there really a lesson to be learned? Because all that means to me is that you're just going to cherry pick the current environment and decide what the lesson is and then do that, as opposed to this is the situation I'm in now. Is this improving my life? Am I a happier person? Am I a more productive person for being in this relationship, or am I just having a big old lend of myself?
Speaker 1:Now, let's remember that our desire to be loved and to be in a relationship is absolutely normal. Yeah, we all want it. We all want to be loved. We all want to have that companion. So I think what happens is women especially, we take second or third best, because at least it's somebody, at least you can say I have a husband or I have a boyfriend. Now, many of the needs that we have can actually be met by our friends without the emotional baggage that goes with a crappy relationship. So that's pretty much what I wanted to say about gurus and gratitude.
Speaker 1:So I guess that sort of ends my rant on gratitude and on gurus, and I think my point is this at the end of it if anybody is charging you money to help you manifest something, to help you visualize something, to help you raise your vibration, if anybody is charging you money to go on a retreat in order to help you alter your mindset, keep the money in your pocket. Keep the money in your pocket If you actually want to learn about life, read really good literature, and then that you go to a library. It doesn't cost you a cent. So lately I've been reading really, really fantastic Irish writers Kevin Barry and John Banville are the last two I read Now. Writers, of course, have been analysing the human condition really, really good writers forever. In my opinion, you'll get better insights on life, how to lead a better life, how to understand your own psychology from good writers than you will by following someone online that wants to charge you money or following a guru.
Speaker 1:Be very, very, very careful of gurus, because nobody has the answer and invariably these gurus end up in some sort of lawsuit because we've found out that what they're actually doing is being inappropriate with their acolytes. So be very, very careful before you sign up to something. And I guess that is the same, really, for in my first book why smart women make bad decisions. Um, the character cat was in a relationship with someone. I won't tell you what happens, just in case you want to read it. Uh, in a relationship with someone who purported to be deeply spiritual, and I'm always very, very, very wary of people who tell me that they're very, very spiritual, because I think if you are spiritual, then go for it. You can knock yourself out being as spiritual as you like, but I don't think you actually have to make a big fat point about it, because then I think it's just another element of being narcissistic. So just watch out.
Speaker 1:If someone comes to you and they've got a sort of a spiritual feel about them, and especially if they expect you, expect you to also join them on their spiritual quest, or if they criticize you to also join them on their spiritual quest, or if they criticise you for not being spiritual enough, at the end of the day, the only way us women are going to get ahead is by understanding our own value, by being purposeful instead of chasing happiness, and understanding that, unless somebody comes into your life and they're actually in addition to what you already have, why are we bothering? Why are we bothering with this? And yet so many women I know so many women currently that are on the apps and they're so miserable and they tell me that they often message me at the beginning, going this is I love this guy. I've only known him for 20 minutes, but he's just awesome and we've got such a good connection. And, of course, you have no idea who anybody is.
Speaker 1:Our instincts, or so-called intuitions, can be way off piste when it comes to gauging how good or not a person is your first intuitive response, which I've always said, unless you recognise or you sense danger, in which case 100% trust your intuitive response, because if you're wrong it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. But if you're wrong it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. But if you're right, then you need to take action. So if your intuitive response tells you that you're in danger for this person, trust it. The rest of it is up for grads. Intuition is just a fancy word for memory, your intuitive response that they're so keen on telling women that you know you feel in your gut it must be right, it's absolutely incorrect. Sometimes it's right and sometimes it's wrong. Your intuition is just a fancy word for your for memory, which is your.
Speaker 1:You meet somebody. Your brain goes through your database, pulls out a file that's similar to someone you've met before and makes an assessment on that person. Now the assessment might be the person is really nice, or maybe the assessment your brain makes is the person is not nice. You have no idea what the person's actually like. You know we meet people all the time and we're constantly making judgments on what they're like. The chance of us being right is remote.
Speaker 1:So just remember that when you first meet someone you know, especially if you, if you meet a potential partner and you think, oh my god, this is just so great, we had so much to talk to talk about, well up till three in the morning, it was amazing. It means absolutely nothing. You don't know a person until you are in need and they are under pressure. If you are in need and they are under pressure simultaneously, that's when you know the measure of the person that you're with. Everything else is just candy. It doesn't really particularly mean anything. So that's my little lecture on gurus and on gratitude. I hope that made sense Back in a minute.
Speaker 1:So I'm just going to play a little clip from my first book why Smart Women Make Bad Decisions, where Kat, the central character, describes first meeting her boyfriend, who is only ever referred to in the book as the hipster. It's just a very short clip, but you'll notice that she talks about him encouraging her to do a gratitude meditation and that when they very, very first meet on the very first night, he said to her he says to her we will grow old together. So he's got that absolute over-promising of a narcissist, remembering that a lot of narcissists are very, very charming and we are an absolute sucker for charm. In fact, we do know that our critical thinking is suspended in the face of a charming individual. So he comes into her life, he makes this promise, he encourages her to do this gratitude meditation, and then she talks about the way she has just she's managed to manifest this perfect life. And also there's the magical thinking in there as well, where she talks about three good things in a row, which is this idea that three good things in a row or three bad things in a row. Once you've had three bad things in a row, then that's the end of it. So our brain likes to group things together. It makes us feel safe. Anyway, have a little listen.
Speaker 1:You'd had a strong feeling this relationship was meant to be. The first time you looked into his eyes we will grow old together, he'd said. The night you'd met he moved into your flat a month later, accepting the cup of tea. You recalled the real estate agent, rebecca, saying how beautifully you kept your flat and what a lovely man your partner was. You drained your cup and lay on your side looking at him across the room doing inefficient, downward-facing dog in the slanting sunlight. It's true, you thought he is lovely. He stretched luxuriously, took your empty cup from you, ran his hand through your hair and strolled towards the kitchen. Perhaps you thought wondrously to unpack the dishwasher. It seemed anything was possible that morning.
Speaker 1:The hipster had been encouraging you to do a gratitude meditation every day, saying it opened channels to receiving all the things you deserve from the universe. You'd been applying yourself assiduously to the task, sitting compliantly with the hipster on the floor on a special gratitude meditation cushion. Apparently the cushion was important. It helped with alignment of the spine. You were unsure why spinal alignment was important. Early on you'd ask the hipster what if somebody disabled meditates and they can't sit on a cushion or keep their spine straight? The hipster had said, stroking the inside of your wrist how about you just try and quiet down that brain of yours and sit in some stillness for a bit? The hipster's beard gave him a Jesus look, which you knew wasn't congruent with meditation and veganism but nevertheless you found it reassuring. Wasn't congruent with meditation and veganism, but nevertheless you found it reassuring.
Speaker 1:Admittedly, during each meditation you struggled not to think about how many calories you consumed that day, juxtaposed against the amount of exercise you'd done. Still, the hipster delivering your tea that morning was so close to your vision of him being the domestically vigilant, sexy, affectionate partner you'd always dreamt of that. You felt yourself to be a sorceress of universal magic. Or was it sorcerer? Perhaps sorceress was redundant like actress it might be a mistake to use gender-specific terminology in the universal realm. You leant back on the pillows and ran your own fingers through your hair which, unassailed by humidity, was organised attractively on the pillow. You wished the hipster would return to see you displayed so enticingly, but you comforted yourself with the thought that his absence may indicate domestic engagement.
Speaker 1:Seconds later, you heard the first affirming noise of a glass being returned to the cupboard. Your life was complete Tidy, flat, the hipster, attentive, with increasing levels of domestic awareness, hair fantastic Three good things in a row. It was definitely going to be a good day. Yeah, so that's the tone of the very first book that I wrote. I tried to keep it light and amusing, but I'm sure many, many women will relate to this idea of being caught up in this sort of thinking with those sort of men. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it and hope you enjoyed today's chat and have a lovely, lovely week and I will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to why Smart Women with me, annie McCubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that.
Speaker 1:And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women. See you later. This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
