2. Welcome to Better Thinking Better Living. A Life Transitions Podcast

You've done the work, the therapy, the books, the routines and something still feels slightly out of reach. This first episode is an invitation to anyone who is self-aware enough to know they're capable of more, and honest enough to admit they're not quite there yet. Host Tonya Shankle introduces the show through two personal stories about what happens when you stop making everything about you.

New episodes drop every other week on Wednesdays, some solo, some conversations with guests.  Usually ten to twenty minutes, something you can finish on a walk. Follow Better Thinking Better Living so you don't miss an episode.

Learn more at https://www.betterthinking-betterliving.com and follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/betterthinking.betterliving

Better Thinking Better Living.  A Life Transitions Podcast, hosted by Tonya Shankle. Follow the show so you don't miss what's next. 

Transcript

Speaker 0:04

Hello and welcome to Better Thinking, Better Living, the show for people navigating life transitions who want more clarity, more courage, and more of themselves. I'm your host, Tonya Shankle. How much time have you spent replaying something you said? Going over it, cringing at it, convinced everyone in the room is still thinking about it. I spent a whole night doing exactly that. And what happened the next day changed the way I think about almost everything. So I had been at an event, I had said something. Honestly, I can't tell you what to this day because it was so long ago. But I remember the moment I said it and it came out of my mouth. I felt it immediately. That flush in my face, and if you know me, you know I have rosacea, so there's no hiding what in my face and what happens. My face just tells on me every time. But it wasn't just the flush, it was the feeling of, oh no, did I just really say that? And then the mental replay that started. So I got home and it was still going. That loop just running in the background while I tried to get things done. By the time it was time to go to bed, it was still there. And then of course I woke up with it in the morning. So I called my friend. I picked up the phone and called her. Now, I want to be honest, I'm not so sure that I was apologizing or if I was just trying to explain myself, trying to expand, you know, explain what I meant, trying to somehow fix it after the fact. But I felt this urgent need to address it, to say something, because in my mind it was like a whole thing. I needed to be deal, yeah, I needed to deal with it. And then she didn't even remember at all. There was this pause, and then she was like, wait, what? And then, oh, I wasn't even paying attention to that. And then before I could even exhale, she launched into her own thing. Something she had said at the event that had been bothering her. She had her own replague reel going, her own flush moment, her own thing she'd been carrying around since the night before. I remember feeling this wave of relief and then honestly laughing at myself a little. I had been up most of the night, and this had carried on until the morning over something that she didn't even remember. And there she was worrying about her own thing. And that's when it hit me. Most of the time people are so caught up in their own inner world, their own worries, their own replay reel, that they're barely registering ours. But here's the thing, most people never make the call. They just carry it around, assuming everyone is still thinking about what they said or what they did. Brene Brown calls it a shame spiral, and the only way out of it is to say it out loud to someone, because the moment you do, it loses its power. So I was fortunate that I even thought to make the call, and what came back to me was the most freeing realization. You are not the center of everyone else's universe. And that is not a painful thing. That is actually a gift. But that was in my twenties, and life has a way of giving you the same lesson again in a completely different package, when you need it most. So in my 30s, decade later, I got a much harder version of that same truth. So I had a friend, a close friend. Her business was located right behind mine in the same building. We were connected professionally and personally. I relied on her, and then one day, without a word, without an explanation, she moved her business and stopped talking to me completely. To this day, I have no idea why. I want you to sit with that for a second, because if you've ever had someone just disappear from your life without explaining, you know what that does to you. Your mind goes everywhere. What did I do? What did I say? Was there something I didn't do or didn't say? You replay every interaction, looking for the moment it went wrong. And I was doing all of that when my father was ill. So I was carrying a lot, grief that hadn't finished yet, and a wound I couldn't explain because I didn't have enough information to even understand it. One day I was sitting in a parking lot, waiting for my husband. I had a book with me, because I always have a book with me, The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. And I was reading, just trying to find a few quiet moments in the middle of everything that was happening. And I came across the part, and I'm paraphrasing here, where in the book he talks about how people leave our lives, and how sometimes that leaving isn't about us at all, how people are living out their own story, their own agreements, their own wounds, and sometimes the most powerful thing they can do for both of you is go. And I sat in that parking lot and just stopped. Something in me was went quiet, because what I had been doing for months was making her leaving about me, turning it over and over, looking for what I had done wrong, what I had missed, what I could have done differently. And this book was telling me, gently, but clearly, that it might not have been about me at all, that her leaving might have actually been the kindest thing she could do, even if it didn't feel that way. So I won't tell you it stopped hurting immediately. It didn't. But it changed the way I was carrying it. Don Miguel Ruiz calls it don't take anything personally. And I know that sounds simple, maybe even dismissive if you're in the middle of something, but what it actually means is this other people's actions are a reflection on their own reality, not yours. When someone leaves without explanation, when someone pulls away, when someone says something that cuts, it is almost always coming from their own story, their own fear, their own unfinished business. You just happen to be there. This doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, and it doesn't mean there aren't things in the relationship that have played out that might have an impact, but it means you don't have to carry it as evidence of your own unworthiness. So two stories, two different decades of my life, and the same core truth running through both of them. You're not the center of everyone else's universe, and that is freedom, not rejection. People are living with their own inner lives, fighting their own battles, carrying their own shame spirals, and their own wounds. Most of the time that feels like it's about you, but it isn't. And when you can start to really internalize that, not just know it intellectually, but actually feel it, it changes how you move through the world. It changes how you recover from hard moments, and it changes how you show up. That's what this show is about. Not toxic positivity, not pretending the hard stuff isn't hard, but finding the shifts in thinking, sometimes small, sometimes seismic, that that changes everything about how you live. So I'm a therapist, a coach, and I like to call myself a therapist with a journal and a passport. I've done my own work, I'm still doing it, and I'm glad you're here to do some of yours. We're going to talk about self-awareness, life transitions, emotional resilience, and purpose with real stories, real honesty, and no shortcuts. This is Better Thinking, Better Living, and it starts right here. Thanks for listening. Be sure to follow Better Thinking, Better Living on your favorite podcast player so you don't miss any future episodes. Until next time, keep thinking better and keep living better.