Who Told You That? — How to Catch the Silent Rules Running Your Life

In this episode, I get honest about the rules we’re all living by — the ones nobody ever said out loud, that we never agreed to, that somehow still run our whole lives.

I take you into my closet (the skirt-and-makeup rule I obeyed for thirty years without knowing it), into a bathroom in Houston where my dad re-caulked my tub before our move (and the completely wrong story my brain wrote about it), and into a practice I’m a little too excited about: writing your own personal commandments. 

If you’ve ever paused and thought wait — where did that rule even come from? — this one’s for you. We're taking back the pen.

In this episode:

•  Why the rules we never questioned (some written when we were five) quietly steer our whole adult lives

•  “Good girl ghosting in rulebook form” — the slow self-betrayal of obeying a code you never wrote

•  The two-part question that cracks a rule open: Who told me that? and Is this Jesus or judgment?

•  The Rule Breaker List — a 3-move practice you can do on the back of a receipt

•  A handful of my own personal commandments (own my magic, run toward the roar, everything is information, act with integrity)

•  The bathtub-caulk story: how my storyteller wrote the wrong script about my dad — and how I got to rewrite it on the spot

•  Your pinkie-toe step and this week’s permission slips

A few lines worth remembering:

•  “A rule that you never said out loud can still run your whole life. So name it and write a better one.”

•  “Same caulk, same muttering, completely different story. Only one of them was true.”

•  “You’re allowed to ask, who told me that?”

•  “I get to be soft and bright and feminine because I’m alive, not because I earned it.”

•  "Your story isn’t prophecy unless you keep living it.”

Resources:

- Free Play: REBEL JOY Card Deck — Romanticize your life and reclaim your light — one tiny rebellion at a time. Seven print-and-keep cards, each with one brave, joyful prompt. Pick a card, set a 60-second timer, and play. Start Playing Again! https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/72c327f4a4 

- For the exact scripts for the next time you go blank or catch yourself saying an automatic yes, grab the Rebel Response Mini Kit here: https://rachelharrisonline.com/product-details/product/the-rebel-response-mini-kit

- FREE: Are YOU a Good Girl Ghost? Free Guide: 5 Moments You're Abandoning Yourself (Without Even Realizing It) https://rachel-harris-online.kit.com/e6b737ec08

- Work with me on the Good Girl Ghost Reset — a single Rebel Hour, or the full Reset Mentorship: https://rachelharrisonline.com/work-with-me

My Substack Page, Goodbye, Good Girl: https://joyfulrebel.substack.com/

Are YOU A Joyful Rebel? https://rachelharrisonline.com/joyful-rebel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you've been quietly living by a set of rules that you never actually said out loud, that you never agreed to, stay with me. Today we take back the pen and we rewrite them as our own. Something I've become fascinated by over the last few years, especially as an author, is the idea of the stories and the rules that we live by, and we don't even realize it. Every single day we tell ourselves stories about other people's intentions, their expectations and motivations, and we assign meaning to moments that are completely opposite of reality. Even more foundational than that are the rules that we all live by every single moment of every single day. Rules that we aren't even aware of, rules that we created when we were five, 10, 13 years old, rules that we didn't choose but were assigned to us or handed over by people, family, friends, churches, society as a whole. And even when we do realize that we're living by those rules, we never bother to pause long enough to ask: where did this rule come from? Do I agree with it? Does it still fit my life? Both the life that I have now and the life that I want to create. We're all living by rules, self-created or handed over, conscious, unconscious. Current belief, old belief, never even questioned. And we've been living by some of them our entire adult lives. For me, it all started in the closet. I know. I've mentioned the closet before, but stay with me, because this is where the thread starts. When I did my personality deep dive and I went down this delightful rabbit trail into clothing styles, Pinterest boards. Ooh, I like that. Ooh, I love that. And I realized I was being pulled towards skirts and dresses, which made me start remembering the little girl that I was. Every single picture of me as a little girl, I'm in a dress. Usually mid-man spread, pretty pink panties on full display. A lady from the start. But somewhere along the way, I stopped. I gained weight in those years, fifth, sixth, seventh grade, and I learned that dark colors were more slimming. So I traded bright, pretty, feminine for black. And skirts, that was way too dainty. I didn't feel dainty in that body. And then all of it just hardened into a rule. You should only wear the pretty things, the skirts, the dresses, if you're also wearing makeup, because that's the put together version. And if you don't feel like wearing makeup, then you don't get the pretty clothes. Nobody ever told me that out loud. I never said it out loud. I didn't even know I believed it, but I lived by it for over 30 years. Living by rules that you never actually chose has a name, good girl ghosting, in rule book form. It's the slow, quiet self-betrayal of following a code that you didn't write, never agree to, until you can't remember which rules are yours and which ones just moved on in. And here's the question that started breaking all those rules open for me. As I've gotten deeper into reading the Bible for myself, not the stories I was handed every week, but the actual text, I kept reflecting and landing on four words. Who told you that? It's practically the first question in the whole book, back in the garden. Because so much of what we think we believe was never God. It was man-made, a lie, a rule inherited, absorbed. And the radical, joyfully rebellious truth is? You're allowed to ask, who told me that? So I started breaking that first rule. I wore the skirt without the makeup. And I felt good. I felt pretty. And then when perimenopause hormonal symptoms arrived, let me tell you, a forgiving skirt is a gift from the Lord. In fact, I read a study recently in Psychology Today about women in their 30s and 40s rediscovering the color pink, not for any trendy reason, not because it fit their color season, but it was because they were finally letting their guard down enough to let themselves be soft and bright and feminine again. That resonated so hard. And let me tell you, once one rule cracked open, I got curious about all of them. What rules am I actually living by? And that's when I stumbled upon an idea of writing your own personal commandments. Now I'm not touching the ten commandments we all know. Those stand, gods are gods, and I'm not him. I agree with and live by those ten. But at the heart of it, commandments are rules that you live by. So I asked myself, if someone had to write the rule book of Rachel, if I were starting my own little country, what are the guidelines? So here's your rebel move to claim this week. I call this tool the rule breaker list, which as a people pleaser in recovery, I just have to tell you, it sends a little fun tingle of excitement. Be a rule breaker for once. Totally sanctioned. The rule breaker list is essentially three moves, and you can do it on the back of a target receipt. Move one, catch a rule. Think about your day, how you move through it, what you allow yourself, what you don't, and name one rule that you live by that nobody ever actually told you out loud or that you ever even admitted. Move two, ask it the question, who told me that? I like to add the question, is this Jesus or judgment? Take it or leave it. But I like that addition because so many of my own rules sounded a whole lot like me trying to earn grace and also being my own worst critic. Move three, rewrite that rule as your own commandment. Here's my example, worked all the way through. The rule was I only get to feel pretty if I've earned it with makeup and maybe a smaller body. Well, Rachel, is that Jesus or is that judgment? Yeah, that's not Jesus. So my new commandment, I get to be soft and bright and feminine because I'm alive, not because I earned it. Join nugget number one, I get to feel pretty and be radiantly me because I'm alive, not because I earned it. And if you want the exact words, here's your sentence stem. I was taught blank. Who told me that? Is that Jesus or judgment? My new rule instead is blank. Let me give you a handful of my own personal commandments. The rules of Rachel. Not so you'll copy them, but so you can hear what a few real ones sound like. Rule number one, own my magic. See, I've come to believe that the things that we've spent a whole lifetime trying to shove into a box or train away are the very things that is our divine magic, our sacred fingerprints. And growth happens when we stop trying to change it and instead own it and embrace it. Joy nugget number two, our quirks are our brand. The very things we're sure are too weird are usually the things that make us us. They're the very things that we were given to shine, especially for a spotlight adjacent girl like me. I had to learn to own my light instead of trying to borrow everyone else's. Rachel rule number two, run towards the roar. Fear doesn't get the final say, and it definitely doesn't get the driver's seat. The older I get, the more I see that the things that scare me are thresholds. When I cross them, I meet a deeper version of me. And that's usually right where my gifts are hiding. Rachel rule number three, everything is information, not a verdict, not a judgment, just information. And I get to decide what to do with that information. React, change something, or simply notice it. It's my choice. Rachel rule number four, take chances, make mistakes, get messy. Yep, that's Mrs. Frizzle. And yep, she raised me a little, even though I found her in my late 20s and early 30s as a mom. Imperfection, though, is where growth lives, where energy is created. If we came out perfect, there'd be nothing to grow into. How boring is that? Rachel rule number five act with integrity, live in alignment. Say what I mean, mean what I say, and my whole body is in agreement when I say it. After spending years ignoring, second-guessing, overexplaining, and outsourcing my own knowing, this Rachel rule is my alignment drop in a single line. In this moment, do I respect myself or do I betray myself? Another one of my personal commandments is voice your storyteller. Because as I've shared before, your story isn't prophecy unless you keep living it. And I want to tell you about a recent example of how the story caught me when I should have known better. We were doing this lightning fast move from Houston to Phoenix earlier this spring. My husband was already out here, and I was staying at my parents' house while I was prepping our house to be sold. My dad came over one day to help me with a few last-minute fixes, the biggest one being re-cocking the master bathtub. But between the early Houston heat and the brand of caul that I must have bought, it all mixed together to make a mess. Now my dad is my hero. He's funny and he's sensitive and he's outgoing, and he's also this huge fitness guy. Like he's a beast, seriously. And he recently overcame a big health challenge and he'd been eager to get back to his routine at the gym. So that day at the tub, I could hear him in the bathroom, muttering to himself. It's a little angry sounding under his breath. And my storyteller grabbed that microphone. He's frustrated. This is taking too long. I'm messing with his workout. But every time I walked in, he'd smile, make a joke, and I just let it go. Said nothing, but felt bad. About 30 minutes or an hour later, he left. And about 45 minutes after that, I was wrapping things up and about to head to their house, and I got a text, a photo of the dinner he'd made me, all of my favorite childhood foods. And in the caption, he told me that he'd had tears in his eyes when he drove away because he realized that that was probably the last time he'd get to help me with something like that. Because now I'd be in Arizona and he'd be in Houston, which if you haven't looked at a map lately, is a bit of a drive. Y'all, my dad is my hero, and that's his heart. And right then, in that moment, I got to rewrite the script on the spot. He hadn't been frustrated with me. He wasn't mad about the gym. He'd been upset that it wasn't going perfectly because he wanted our last time together, with him helping me like that, like he always has, to go well. He'd been being hard on himself out of love, out of love for me and our relationship, and the hidden significance of an otherwise mundane moment of caulking your bathtub. Same cock, same muttering, completely different story. Only one of them was true. And that's the practice. Catch the story, ask, is this fact, fiction, or a possibility? Now I have other Rachel rules and commandments, and in a future episode, we're gonna get into beliefs and credos and the difference between them. But for today, your rebel minute that I want you to remember and keep is also Joy Nugget number three. A rule that you never said out loud can still run your whole life. So name it and write a better one. Here are your permission slips for this week. You're allowed to ask. Who told me that? You're allowed to break a rule that someone else chose for you. You're allowed to rewrite rules that you created for yourself and toss out rules only meant for your elementary school self. You're allowed to be soft and strong, bright and grounded, pretty and unbothered by makeup. You're allowed to write your own commandments, not to replace God's, but to know what you stand for. Here's this week's pinky toe step. One rule. You don't have to jump off the high dive like me and do 10. You can do just one. Catch a single rule that you've been living by, that you've never recognized or agreed to out loud. Run it through the three moves, name it, ask who told me this, and if you like, you can say, is this Jesus or judgment? And then rewrite it. Use the stem if you want it. I was taught blank. Is this Jesus or is it judgment? Yeah. Instead, my rule is blank. Rewrite that new commandment. Once you have that rule, write it on a post-it note and stick it somewhere you'll see it. That's it. One line of your own rule book in your own hand, chosen on purpose. And listen, you can absolutely write your entire rule book all on your own, but doing it in a room full of women, asking, who told you that? At the same time, helping you even spot the silent rules that run your life. That's a different kind of brave. And that's what we're building in the good girl ghosting reset. For just a couple more weeks, I'm opening it to a small founding group of sisters. My founding sisters. Head to the link in the show notes, my website, rachelharrisonline.com, or find me on Instagram and DM me reset, and I'll send you all the details. Looking for an easy on-ramp? Grab my free guide in the show notes. Five moments you're abandoning yourself without even realizing it. Friend, your commandments are the rules that you live by. Next rebel practice session, we're gonna go one layer deeper. Not the rules, but the beliefs. Your personal credo. The things you believe so deeply that they hold you up when everything else is loud. This week, catch your rule. Ask the hard question, and then reclaim the pen, becoming one step closer to the radiant woman that you were created to be. I'll meet you back here.