42: The Myth of Finally Arriving

For years, I thought personal growth would eventually lead to certainty. Maybe even a mystical place.

That one day I'd finally heal.
Finally figure it out.
Finally become the person I was working so hard to become.

But life keeps teaching me something different.

Every time I think I've reached the bottom of something...

Another layer appears.

This week's episode is a reflection on Newsletter #100, motherhood, identity shifts, subconscious programming, nervous system regulation, relationships, and the many versions of ourselves we leave behind as we grow.

One of my favorite lines from the episode:
"We are constantly saying goodbye to old versions of ourselves while learning to embrace the new versions that are emerging."

If you've ever felt like you should be further along by now, this conversation is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Reparenting Radio. I'm Lisa Watson, architect of human transformation. This is a space for leaders, parents, and anyone ready to break old patterns, regulate their nervous system, and show up in their life with clarity and self-trust. If you're ready to change the way you lead, love, and live, you're in the right place. Let's begin. Hello and welcome back to Reparenting Radio. First, before we jump in today, I just want to say that if you're not already on my newsletter list, I'd really like to invite you to join because this week marks my 100th newsletter, which is actually what has inspired today's episode. And every week in my newsletter, I share insights, reflections, observations, and lessons about relationships, parenting, nervous system regulation, subconscious programming, and of course, reparenting yourself. So if you would like to receive my newsletter directly into your mailbox every Tuesday morning, you will find the link in the show notes. And along with signing up, there's also some different PDFs you can download, such as Conscious Parenting Guide, Quick Start Guide to Reparenting Yourself, or a Leadership Guide as to what to do before you scale. So for those of you that are already my subscribers, thank you. And woohoo! 100 newsletters. I'm so excited just at my ability to maintain consistency over the past couple of years, and I'm really enjoying sharing these insights and stories with you. Some of you have been reading my newsletter since the beginning, and this episode is really a reflection on what these last 100 weeks have taught me. Because the woman who wrote newsletter number one back in 2024, she's not here anymore. And obviously, I don't mean physically, because here I am. I'm still me and I'm still here, and I still love personal development, my family, I love asking questions, I still love understanding why human beings do what we do, as well as I still love taking long walks and deep conversations and trying to make sense of this very strange and challenging experience that we call life. But I have changed, and how could I not? We all change. That's part of this lifetime and evolving. And 100 weeks is a long time. It's a long time to have the opportunity to observe your own patterns, it's a long time to challenge your assumptions, it's a long time to keep peeling back the layers and discovering that there's more underneath than you realized. And strangely enough, thinking about layers, the layers that we need to peel back to our own selves and our own evolution and our own healing journey, it reminded me of one of my favorite movie scenes from Shrek, where Shrek is trying to explain to Donkey that ogres are like onions because they have layers. And Donkey responds with something like, You know what else has layers? Parfaise. Which honestly is still one of my favorite lines, and my husband also says it all the time. But the more I think about it, the more I realize the deeper truth that Shrek was really pointing to, which seems to be the case in a lot of movies. People have layers too. And besides parfaits, you know what else has layers? Awareness has layers, healing has layers, relationships have layers. Life has layers. And every time I think that I've figured something out, life shows me another layer. When I was younger, like in my twenties, I thought that my challenges existed outside of me, outside of my relationship, my circumstances, outside of my own timing, my money, outside the people around me. Like life felt like something was happening to me, even though I was aware from a very young age that everything was happening for me. The trick was to play in this pre playground long enough with this belief that life was happening for me in order to develop the perspective and the lens that allowed me to see where life is actually happening for me. But back then I believed that if I could just get the right circumstances, the right opportunities, the right people, everything would fall into place. And that was one layer. That was a layer that I was working on and working through. And I started noticing patterns. I started noticing my patterns. Not necessarily everyone else's patterns, although I did notice a lot of those too. But I noticed that I had the same types of reactions, the same fears, the same emotional experiences showing up in different forms. Dug deeper and was able to shift my perspective. I got through a layer and started, once I saw the patterns, I got through this other layer deeper into this understanding that it is happening for me. I see now. I see now that I'm participating in it. But how am I participating in it was the question that really changed everything because awareness, you know, once you start looking at your own patterns, you can't unsee them. Or even the patterns of the world, once you start to see them, you can't unsee them. And when you do that, boom, another layer is seen. And for me, that is when I started learning about subconscious programming. Okay, if all of this is happening for me, if I'm the creator of this reality, how does that work? That led me to Bruce Lipton and understanding subconscious patterning and subconscious programming and the beliefs we absorb, the stories that we inherit, the survival strategies that we learn as children. The invisible programs that are running beneath conscious awareness. And when I got to that layer, I realized that many of the things that I thought were personality traits were actually adaptations. Things that I thought were just who I am were often just protective strategies that I had learned long ago. That layer of understanding kept me busy for years. And honestly, it still does. I'm still working through understanding and seeing that as the years and the circumstances continue to roll by. And recently, life handed me another layer. And I talked about it in last week's episode, another layer of understanding, the body, the nervous system, the biological reality that we live inside. I have spent years teaching that we're not broken, we're not patterned, and I still believe that. But my recent experience with my deeper understanding, more layers into menopause, sleep deprivation, THC, caffeine, and the nervous system, which I talked about on the episode last week, it reminded me that we're also biological, and that the body matters, and that sleep matters, and that stress matters, and that hormones matter. And that the same life can feel completely different depending on the state of the nervous system that's experiencing it. And that realization helped to bring me to even a newer layer and level of compassion for myself and others, because it it gives you just this deeper insight into human behavior, and allows you to be less judgmental. People make so much more sense when you understand their layers the angry person, the controlling one, the anxious, the perfectionist, the people pleaser, the avoidant or overwhelmed partner or parent, the struggling child. Most behavior makes sense once you understand what lives underneath it. And that's probably the biggest lesson that these last one hundred newsletters has taught me. People are not broken. They're patterned, they're adapted, they're responding to experiences, environments, beliefs, wounds, nervous system regulation, and stories that often began long before they were old enough to understand what was happening. And children, they're developing. They're not to be judged. They don't even have the full capacity of their brain. They're not fully developed yet. So the compassion that I'm able to feel for children in their developmental phases and understanding that, you know, they don't have to talk well at two, three, or four. Maybe this child that wants to talk at five, or maybe they're neurodivergent or autistic or sensitive to energy, and just really trying to walk in the shoes of the being in front of me. Because underneath it all, we're all just human trying to navigate life the best that we can. And looking back, I realized over the past 100 weeks, I haven't just been writing newsletters about relationships, parenting, and nervous system regulation and personal growth. I was also living and experiencing it too, and sharing my experiences. Some lessons have come through my clients, some through my marriage, some through parenting my adult children and nannying for my little ones, through writing children's books and adult books and moving across countries, starting over and taking risks and changing directions. Basically, I question everything. I have questioned everything that I thought that I knew. And every one of those experiences revealed another layer. And I was reminded of this today in a text exchange with one of my nieces. She recently became a mother for the very first time. In fact, she welcomed in our first great grandchild into our family. And she shared something with me that I think many women are afraid to say out loud. She said that she realized she wasn't just adjusting to having a baby, she was grieving the version of herself that existed before motherhood. Not because she didn't love her son, she absolutely adores him. But in a very short period of time it was an unexpected pregnancy. Everything changed. Her identity changed, her routines changed, her freedom, her priorities, her body, and suddenly she realized she would never be that pre-motherhood version of herself, which I have heard from numerous women that feeling. And when she said that I thought, wow that's just such a human experience. Because life keeps asking us to do that, not just in motherhood, but but in relationships, marriage, divorce, career changes, parenting, aging, healing. In every season of life we are constantly saying goodbye to the old versions of ourselves while learning to embrace the new version that's emerging. And that's another layer that most people don't really have awareness over, or at least they don't talk about it. The baby that she knows today, my great nephew, um he won't be the same baby that she's gonna know six months from now or a year from now. As a parent to 30-year-old boys, I have been watching this unfold for a long time. Every stage brings something beautiful, and every stage asks us to let go of something too. That's part of what growth really is not becoming someone else, but continually releasing who we were so we can meet who we are becoming. A few weeks ago, my sons ran in a race together here in San Diego, and my youngest came out from Scottsdale. It was a beautiful weekend, and my husband was here from Mexico. We all had a beautiful weekend together, and one of my sons introduced my husband, Brian, as his stepdad for the first time ever. And for a moment, I just sat with it. And yet it represented years of relationship building. We've been married for nine years, and that's the first I've ever heard him say that. It was one of those moments where I realized another layer had quietly changed. Not overnight, not through force, through conversation, through time, through shared experiences, through trust, through growth. A year ago, heck, six months ago, if you had asked me if that moment would ever arrive, I honestly don't know. I probably would have said, eh, maybe not, I don't know. But there it was. A simple introduction, a simple word, stepdad. And yet it represented years of relationship building that happened one small moment at a time. Another reminder that some of the most meaningful changes in our lives happen so gradually that we barely notice them until one day we do. It's kind of like our health. You know, consistency compounds upon itself. Daily life and every choice that we make, every action that we take, every thought that we have also compounds upon itself. And by the time we notice, another layer has already formed. So as I sit here recording this episode number forty-two, I don't feel finished, and I certainly don't feel like I've arrived. I I know I haven't figured it all out. If anything, I've become more comfortable not having all the answers, more curious, more compassionate, more willing to sit with uncertainty, more willing to change my mind when new awareness arrives. So the woman that wrote newsletter number one thought growth would eventually lead to certainty. The woman recording this episode right now knows that growth leads to deeper questions. And surprisingly, that's even better. Because I don't think the goal should be to finally arrive. The expectation absolutely should not be that. One of my favorite mantras is I expect nothing and I appreciate everything. And I certainly don't think that the goal should be to be perfect or do everything right. Having this expectation that we're going to reach some sort of magical place where all the work is done. Because the goal really is just awareness. Awareness creates choice and choice changes lives. So if you have discovered another layer lately, a new pattern, a new awareness, a new truth about yourself, a new way of seeing someone you love, congratulations. Or a new way of seeing someone that you really don't like so much. Congratulations. You're not going backwards, you're growing. And if Shrek taught us anything, it's that there's always another layer. And before we wrap up, if you're enjoying these conversations, I want to remind you, the best place to connect with me is my newsletter. So go ahead and connect there and let's continue this conversation. Remember, you're not broken. You're simply pattern. Thank you for listening to Reparenting Radio. If today's conversation supported you, take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who knows they were made for more than the patterns that they inherited. If you're ready for serious inner work and real transformation, personally or professionally, you can explore my leadership pathways at Lisa-Watson.com. And if you're raising little ones alongside your own healing, you'll find my children's books at awakentheone.org. Until next time, stay grounded, stay open, and keep reparenting the parts of you that are ready to come home to their authenticity.