Podcast #532

 

RESISTING A VICTIM MINDSET IN NEGATIVE SEASONS OF LIFE

When life feels like it’s happening to you, and everything that could go wrong is going wrong, it can feel hard to stay positive. You want to be strong, but the negativity feels overwhelming and the bad news just keeps coming. In this podcast episode you’ll learn how to talk back to the victim mindset, how to not get sucked into the sinking sand of a pity party, and how to keep yourself encouraged through the season of suck so you get through it stronger because of your mindset. Get the full show notes at www.trishblackwell.com/532

In this episode of The Confidence Podcast, we’re chatting about:

  • Shifting your mindset from problematic to powerful
  • How to see the good in the bad things happening
  • Reflective questions to ask yourself in seasons of struggle

ANNOUNCEMENT:

February 6th ENTREPRENEURSHIP WEBINAR 
Monday, February 6th at 12PM EST

“How to Sell Without Being Salesy”

www.trishblackwell.com/entrepreneur

If you want to Create Demand for Your Business 
-Confident marketing
-Confident selling
-Differentiating factor

Sign up for FREE at www.trishblackwell.com/entrepreneur

REVIEW OF THE WEEK

Resisting a Victim Mindset in Negative Seasons of Life

DECIDE THAT LIFE IS HAPPENING FOR YOU, NOT TO YOU.

Slight shift changes everything.
“Get to” versus “Have to”

MAKE SPACE TO FEEL YOUR FEELINGS ON PURPOSE

Don’t pretend they aren’t happening – or that your life is easy. Acknowledge the suck.
Have an intentional pity party – or intentional sulking session – and then tell yourself that it’s time to move on. 

GRATITUDE ABOVE ALL THINGS.

No matter what, be someone who can always find gratitude. 

REFUSE TO BE A VICTIM

Identify as victorious. 
Double down on your strengths.
Look at the bigger story.
Don’t get sucked into the vacuum of overwhelm.
De-dramatize the awfulness. 
Feed the story you want to grow. 

GET CURIOUS 

  • What’s here for me to learn?
  • What can I take from this season that will be a gift?
  • How is God using this for my good?
  • What would “peace” look like for me here?
  • Is there anything I can do to show up better?
  • What emotion do I want to create intentionally? (Make a list)
  • How will my life be better in the future because of these trials?
  • Is there anyone I can help right now? (Get your focus off yourself and onto others – out of gas, set up a service station)

ANNOUNCEMENT

Struggling with motivation, and want to make sure you stay motivated, no matter what this year? Get INSTANT and FREE access to my most recent masterclass now.

Go to www.trishblackwell.com/motivatedreplay

LISTENER OF THE EPISODE:

“Can’t believe how much you have been the light at the end of my tunnel. Thank you, I’m going to be okay through this dark patch of my life because of you.”

-Kathy

0:01

You're listening to the confidence podcast, your favorite coaching podcast oozing with motivation, inspiration, and confidence to help you boldly take action on your dreams. I'm your host, Trish Blackwell, internationally recognized Confidence Coach, Best Selling Author and founder of the College of Confidence, the most encouraging place on the internet. I teach go getters in life, how to take your thoughts captive, how to step out of the shadows of self doubt, and how to courageously step into their purpose. With competence. It's time to pump our competence muscles and train our thoughts, y'all. Let's get started. Well, hey, there. It's Trish Blackwell, and

0:43

you're listening to the confidence Podcast, episode 532. We're talking today about resisting a victim mindset, especially in negative seasons of life, when you feel like life is just happening. Because let's be honest, we can't avoid the human experience, I would love to tell you that it is going to be easy. You won't have problems, but we were promised trouble in this world. And so when life feels like it's happening to you, and everything that could go wrong is going wrong. I want you to know that I know that it's hard to stay positive. You want to stay strong, but the negativity feels overwhelming. The bad news just keeps coming in wave after wave. You're feeling beaten down, you're tired of getting back up. You're tired of trying to stay positive and, and put that smile on the face. And it feels like it's never going to end and you look around at those around you and everyone else seems to have it easier than you. I've been there. I get it. But I want you to know that season ends. In this podcast episode, you're going to learn how to talk back to that victim mindset how to not get sucked into the sinking sand of a pity party, and how to keep yourself encouraged through the season of suck so that you get through it stronger because of your mindset so that you know how to look at life and say this happened for me, not to me how to get hold of your brain when the world feels like it's collapsing. And you're so mentally and emotionally and physically physically exhausted that you don't know how to move forward. Like I realized I can't believe I it's been such a long time since we've done an episode on this. It happened to be someone reached out in my messaging on Facebook and said, Hey, Trish, I needed a podcast episode on blank and blank and I said well what's going on in your life. And they just kind of listed out all of these awful things happening. And how defeated and burnt down they were and beaten up and discouraged. And I realized that I don't have a podcast that walks you through the steps to take a season like that a season where it's very easy, very natural to feel like a victim and make yourself victorious. The victim mindset is one that's natural, we we very easily start to feel sorry for ourselves especially when it's wave after wave after wave of bad news, whether it's financial struggles or medical diagnosis or heartbreak or things are happening or just the news. It's easy to feel discouraged My prayer is that this episodes gives your heart courage that you know that you don't have to be blanketed by the the by the emotion of defeat. And that that victim mindset where you feel helpless when you are a victim you have no power. You will take your power back when you start to talk back to the victim mindset cannot wait to go into that we're gonna be talking about that all today. Hey, if you don't know the podcast yet, if this is your first time listening, I just want to introduce myself. My name is Trish. I help men and women who put too much pressure on themselves learn how to stop stop self sabotaging, stop overthinking, stop comparing and start thriving. My clients and students learn how to lose confidence and create unwavering belief in their wildest dreams all while having more fun, living with more joy and creating the impact in the world they were created to make so we have some good stuff going on before we dive into today's coaching. A quick announcement. If you are an entrepreneur and you want to have more confidence in your sales and your ability to create demand for your business to grow your business, how to be salesy, but not how to sell your face off without being salesy. If you want to have confidence in in marketing and selling yourself and your differentiating factor, confidence in the actual process of making money and how you're marketing yourself. It's all about confidence. I want you to come and join me for my free masterclass that I'm doing on Monday, February 6, it's in the middle of the day. Is it new an Eastern Standard Time. It's absolutely free. I'm going 30 minutes into selling with confidence. You might not know this but I have about 10 years of sales experience where in the fitness industry in a low income area I helped a team sell millions and millions of dollars of personal training where they said that no one could afford personal training. I want to teach you the skills that I learned how to sell with confidence. In fact sales is my jam. Sales is what got me interested in competence anyways, because I realized it's all about confidence, but you probably have an amazing product, amazing business an amazing idea, but if you can't convey it with competence, it will not sell and then you'll lose your confidence in yourself all because of a sales skill. So if you want to sharpen your sales skills, just sign up for this coming masterclass, go to Trish blackwell.com forward slash entrepreneur. Again, that's happening February 6, at noon, Eastern but grab your spot, grab your spot you will want if you want to make more money in your business, you need to be at this masterclass. Okay, hey, are you the week is from it's Nikki B. She says that simply amazing. 2020 was a wild year for me which left me searching for a happier sense of self and just overall life. I listened to a few other self help podcast before finding Tricia has the confidence podcast and she's had me completely locked in since then. I look forward to new episodes every Tuesday, and I absolutely love that she's still built such a massive vault of fantabulous episodes, even episodes, I think this probably isn't gonna apply to me I'm able to find something to learn or connect with Trish is rawness with her own stories. I feel what truly sets her apart and made me fall in love with this podcast. She's been she's been broken too. But dang, is she shining. Now Trish helps you know, you can always shine too. Thanks, Trish, I look forward to continuing to hear your podcasts you are appreciated Nikki, one. Thank you for calling them fantabulous episodes and to thank you for connecting with my rawness and my vulnerability in my my openness and transparency. And you guys are going to hear what Nikki has learned is I am I have been broken, but I did not break. And that is what I want you to see from today's episode I'm going to be sharing some of the things that have that almost broke me almost sucked me into that, that that mindset that I didn't believe it would get better. I didn't believe happiness was for me. I believe that these things were happening to me, and I'm gonna tell you how I turned it around. So that's all in the coaching, I want you to know, I always coach from a place of experience, because it's it doesn't serve you if I'm like, hey, just be happy, Hey, have a good attitude, hey, that's just not real. We want to talk about real things here in a way that applies to your real life to the to the thoughts in your mind that you didn't even realize that you're having, but the ones that are holding you back. And that's what we're gonna going into today. Let's talk about it. Let's go from victim to victorious on our mindset. No matter where you are in life, no matter what the season looks like. You get to name the season what it is, you get to decide what you're taking from the season. We can't just wish seasons of our lives away, every season of our life happens for us. It's up to us to believe that and to find the truth in it.

8:21

Okay, so the first thing is to decide that life is happening for you, not to you. That's such a simple but profound shift. And I want to remind you that slight slight shifts in your brain can change everything about how you're experiencing something. But simply saying out loud to yourself, This is happening for me. Not to me, can change everything. And it's hard to believe. When things are crappy. It's hard to believe when your hearts been broken. It's harder to believe when you feel like you're taking one step forward and two steps back, I assure you try the sentence on I like to think about new thoughts, new sentences, new ideas, like clothes that I'm trying on. They're gonna feel a little weird or a new style you're like, I'm not sure but where it, put it on, walk around in it, try the phone on wear it for the day, and just see that it will change how you feel about it. The thing that you're fighting against whatever you're walking through in the season, whether it's grief, heartbreak, sickness, discouragement, overwhelm, I want you to know, but when you that you realize and you decide I am not a victim here, this is to strengthen me. God is going to use this for me to to grow me to help others to for something good even if you're not sure what here's the thing you don't need to know or you don't need it to make sense. But you do need your faith to believe that this is for me. That all of this this challenge this heartbreak this all of this will make sense in the longer term. And right now I choose to walk in faith and believe this is for me, not against me and others way to do this to is even in, that would encourage you to practice this in a less serious ways. Watch your brain, when you feel like you have to do things, this shift in your thought of even going from, I have to do this to I get to, I have to do my taxes, feels heavy, feels hard feels, makes me already feel sorry for myself, right, as a business owner, there is a lot of prep required for me to get all of my books to my accountant the right way, oh, I have to do this, or I get to do my taxes, I get to be a woman who creates an incredible business, I get to work on my own schedule, I get to, to have the responsibility of having to organize my taxes and look at my deductions and categorize things, I get to not just be handed a W two. And instead I get the privilege of being and have no cap on my income, and do all the extra hours required. But I get to do that, because it's the life I chose. And part of that is i i It's the process of technically I have to turn my taxes and but when I say that I dread it, it feels heavier, it we often make life in the little ways harder than it needs to be. And then on top of that all these other bigger things of life compound, whether it's a sickness, a heartbreak, an illness, a concern and anxiety, a struggle. But we've layered that all under this the generalities of our daily life of saying well, I have to do this and I have to go to work and I have to get the groceries and I have to fold the clothes. And two, we lose sight of the privilege it is to live in the life that we have, we lose sight of our gratitude for the things that we have, even if you're saying I have to go to the gym, it's very different than I get to go to the gym. And this is the time I have to go. It's okay. If you say this is I have to go at noon. Totally okay with that thought. But I get to move my body, I get to move my body. And I can have all the thoughts of not feeling like in fact, today, I did an incredible eight mile pace run. But I gotta tell you the first five minutes I had these, I had those feel sorry for myself thoughts. I thought we shouldn't have to do this today. Oh, I wish I would have felt like it. And here's here's where we just learned to talk back to ourselves. Just Do It Anyway, I have learned to know that I'm going to sulk mentally about what I have to do sometimes. But I do it anyway. And when you decide that I can push through the dread and the resistance, and I can talk back to my brain when it starts to feel sorry for myself and make things harder than they need to be. I go and reframe and say I get to be here I get to be moving my body I get to have access to a gym, that's got a beautiful treadmill for me to run I get to listen to an inspiring podcast while I exercise I get to to be surrounded by other people doing the same thing. And that's it that is by proxy motivated. There's so many privileges within that we've got to train our brains see the privilege we have the things that we can be grateful for. Because when you notice what you want to give thanks for when you live a life of praise, you have more power. When you're living a life of praise, it's hard to be a victim. But, but on the bigger issues. I don't, I don't want you to say to yourself, I get to go through cancer, I get to have heartbreak right now, I'm not suggesting that I'm suggesting on the little areas of your life, your daily comings and goings, that one of the layers you can look at, to take off some of the weight and burden that's making your life feel so heavy, on the bigger issues is to change your perspective and the little issues, find gratitude for the little things that you get to do versus have to do. And then what we're going to do on the bigger issues, the ones that you don't want to have, there are so many things in my life I did not want to have happened to me. And if you've listened to Episode 444, I have the competence podcast you get a lot more or if you've read my most recent book, you get a lot more background on what I've had in my life and the struggles and the things that almost broke me. So if you want to hear how I turned my trauma into triumph, and some of the process of therapy and what changed me go back and listen to episode 444 But I do want you to know that for me it was it was walking through you know a child of a financial struggle and then a broken dreams and you know, just disillusionment about my purpose in life and thought my life was washed up in my early 20s. To falling in love with a wrong person, an abusive person, a toxic person, a person who, who's who, in many ways brainwashed me and sucked me dry. Who created a life that was a lie and left me broken Not wanting to live to healing from that, and then having a very, very traumatic assault that I looked back and I shared this in the book and I shared this on the podcast that episode. It's a miracle I'm living and breathing. Right. And, and that was that moment that assault that being gasping for the for breath in my life. When I survived that. I decided I won't. That was evil, what happened to me and I would not let the evil steal more than one night of my life than it already had. It was in that moment that even though I was a victim, and I was a victim of section of sexual assault, I was a victim of rape, I was a victim of this violence, I would not claim the identity of victimhood, I decided to be victorious, I decided through the very long healing process, that it didn't need to feel it is okay to grieve, but it was okay to still have to process it. But that didn't make me a victim that I made a decision that that was that what happened, could not be changed. Can't argue with reality. But it did not happen to me, it did not happen. And define me. It happened for my good that, that that God took it and turned my life around. And he absolutely did. And again, I go into that my book, I go into that in that episode, but the shift and so I just want to when I'm talking to you about seasons of struggle, please know I've been there. I know what it feels like to feel numb. I know what it feels like to be scared financially. I know what it feels like to have your heart absolutely shattered so much that you never want to trust another human again. I know what it feels like to think that your life has no purpose and that it's too late for you. And I and I'm so grateful for all of that pain, because it gives me so much joy now, and I and I and I want to encourage you that if you're in this season of that if you're in a season of struggle, if you're in a season where things just keep happening, and you're you're wondering when you're going to catch a break, please know that it's just a season, please know that that you won't you are not a victim, please know that this you can make a decision that this is happening for you. That to strengthen you, to give you insight that there's something here to learn. Now, it's really important to also well to make space to feel your feelings on purpose. Don't pretend that things aren't that that what's happening isn't happening or that your life is easy. Right now this person who had reached out had a lot of heartbreak and multiple surgeries and things that went wrong and, and I get that. So I think it's also important to acknowledge the SOC, acknowledge the pain, have an intentional pity party or an intentional sulking session, but then put a timer on it. And then tell yourself okay, like, feel your feelings, feel your disappointment, feel your sadness, feel your fear, talk to God about it, wrestle with it?

18:06

And then make a decision? Do I want to stay here and let these be the dominating motions of my life? Or do I want to do something with this? Do I want to be victorious? Do I want to be an example of somebody who's going to have hope, in a situation that looks hopeless? I'm not talking about toxic positivity, that pretending that everything's okay, I'm talking about real life application of being positive. And for those of you don't know, one of the other things that I have had to have had to walk through in my life as a parent as my son was born, we had a very traumatic birth, a premature birth that I had a condition that was life threatening to both myself and to him. It was very horrible, scary, traumatic, life changing birth story. And he was also burned was born with some, some complications. And so we got past the NICU. And then we had a series of surgeries, multiple reconstructive surgeries on him. And that was scary. And I know there are parents out there who are listening you have you know what it's like to leave your baby on the operating table. It's really, really hard. It's really hard. So bigger is five now but in his first three and a half years of life, we had I lose track. It's, it was I think it was five maybe six surgeries, which is nothing compared to some children who have 27 surgeries about that time. But in comparison to my daughter who has had zero, it was hard. And and so to give yourself space to acknowledge that this is okay that I'm scared. It's okay that I I wish he didn't have these things that I took Lau myself to say man and you know we had these were pretty extensive reconstructive surgeries and his first surgery failed. And then we had to redo it. I had to go through the whole process again, you know, we're seeing the best in the country. And the reason I share that is because the thing that has helped helped me as a parent, when you feel helpless, it's one thing for surgeries to be done to you. And there's all this unknown and fear, but your baby, right? You're like that it was such a humbling experience that really gave me this ability to lock into a victorious mindset, and to grow my faith. And really what I want to share with you, if you're in a season of struggle, a season of a pain, a season of unknown of torment, turmoil, where it's easy to feel sorry for yourself, it's easy to look around and look at everyone else who, who who don't have sick children, or a financial struggle, or whatever it is that you're where you're struggling with. And that's consuming your mind. Gratitude, above all things. Because in the surgeries, and in all that, and the prep, and the hours on the phone with Johns Hopkins and all of the details on the distraction, while also trying to run a business while also having a two year old write to older sister that I was trying to mentor and love and parent and still give her my full attention. Find the gratitude. And that's what I did. I thought through that with a place of power, and a place of gratitude. By all by literally that is when I started gratitude journaling and intentional daily gratitude, like it was a full time job. And you guys, it gave me power. It gave me power of so grateful that I was only a three hour drive to one of the best facilities in the world for the specialists that he needed. What a privilege. We're so grateful for the gift of my husband's insurance that that gave us hundreds of 1000s of dollars worth of surgeries. I think our copay was a few $100. Like I have the gratitude for every little part of the process gave me victory when I was walking through fear, gave me perspective, when I felt powerless. Because what happens when you feel like you're a victim and things are happening to you, you feel powerless, what we want to do at all costs and what we what we can do is fine, where our power is, I've got to make the decision, that I still have power here, these things are happening, there are things that are out of my control, but what is it within my control? Are my thoughts, what is within control are my actions, how I show up and my faith? What am I willing to believe, and remember, faith is as is believing something that you have no evidence of is actually going to happen, but you believe with faith and confidence will work itself out. So we're going to refuse to be a victim I refuse to identify in victimhood and fear. And that's gratitude will help you bridge that gap. And then it's gonna feel scary. And that's okay. You keep refreshing your mindset, refreshing your mindset. And deciding that this is happening for you deciding that God is in control, simply proclaiming that you are not alone. Now, here are a few things that have been helpful for me my journey as I change how I think, in refusing to be a victim. And I, you know, it's really important with this topic that you don't judge yourself. If you have a human brain, you're gonna have a natural propensity to have a victim mindset, we feel sorry for ourselves, we have all kinds of emotions, and they span run the gamut. And it's normal to feel these things. It's normal to think these things. But it's our job when you get mastery of your mind. And you can choose on purpose to change how you think, to take ownership and ask yourself and get curious about your thoughts to say does this thought help me, but I do want to reassure you that it's really important, you know, that some of these thoughts, the natural thought process of feeling sorry for yourself or thinking things are really hard of, of it's because here's the deal. It's hard until it's easy. But no, that's normal. In fact, I was walking Baker to school this morning, and he was talking about how he was feeling sad. And I said to him, Hey, buddy, I feel saddle often. Anyway, why? And I said, Yeah. And sometimes I feel really lonely too. And sometimes I'm really happy. I said, I feel all of the things. And his eyes lit up with wonder. When he felt camaraderie and his emotion when he knew that it was okay to feel what he was feeling. It's okay to feel discouraged, friend, I've been there. It's okay to feel sorry for yourself. It's okay to sulk. But it's not okay to camp out there. Feel the emotion process what you're feeling, get angry, let yourself be human. And then decide, do you want to stay there? Or do you want to move on? So we're going to start identifying in the power that we have and you have the most powerful machine that is known literally will ever exist? And that is the human brain. The power of your thoughts are so so so tremendous. You And we barely scratched the surface of what we can use. So the first thing we can do to tap into this power is to identify as somebody who's victorious, refused to be a victim refused even identify yourself as someone who is struggling as someone who was having the the carp pulled out from under them. I grew up in a household where it was very often talked about, well, when it rains, it pours home what was us, and that was just because that was the narrative that was passed down and it was light hearted, but it was still a victim mindset. Two steps forward. Once you know two steps forward, three steps back, big joke. Let's don't joke about these things. This side on victorious decide that you're a doer, decide that you have victory decide that God is with you and for you. Decide that you have more available to you than you think you do. Decide that you've already won. Decide that you are bigger than the monsters that you feel like you're fighting decide that your brain has the ability to keep on keeping on decide that you are not alone. Decide that you are victorious. Decide that you believe in miracles, decide that you can be healed. Decide that you believe in what God can do in your life. Decide that the struggles are going to be your setups for greatness, that they are your greatest they will give you your greatest strength. So double down on your strengths double down, we can refuse to be a victim by saying I My strength is my mind. And I may not have mastered it just yet, but I have more than I have in the past more than most people. double down on your strength. Go back and remind yourself of how optimistic you've been in the past. Hey, when you're feeling overwhelmed by by too many things that are requiring your attention. double down on the strength that you've had, maybe you were a division one collegiate athlete and a boss at managing your time. Stop being intimidated by your current schedule, your strength, you have it in spades, you know how to manage your time you know how to do these things, remind yourself of who you are. Remind yourself that you for me when I was coming through this massive shock with PTSD in the dark season it was the to be to be attacked by a stranger to feel my life taken for me to feel rescued witness to a miracle that should not have happened. But I'm so grateful that did there was still a distance I had a shock that I had. But what I did know for a fact was my strength was that I have light inside of me. And what that that had happened to me that attack that person's selfish desire that person's desire to be overpower me that target he targeted me. He told me later that I was targeted that that for me, I simply said that is darkness. And I am light in this world. My strength is my light. My strength is my belief. My strength is that I am not alone, I will believe that my light makes darkness flee.

28:04

And it feels very intimidating. Sometimes in the world that I that I work in and there's so many people to help it can feel intimidating. There's so many people struggling. But I will not be intimidated by the numbers by the need. And the same thing. One of my favorite charities to give to say that we my family and I give generously to is the a 21 campaign which is anti human trafficking and anti human slavery. There's more slavery now in the world than there ever was. And that can feel very dark and very intimidating. And I can feel victim victimized by that and discouraged by that. And and I can toss the towel in on what's the point or I can say here's our strength. Let's give financially Let's educate. Let's support the campaigns that are in airports at the Super Bowl to educate people that human trafficking doesn't look how everyone thinks that it looks. That we double down on our strengths to stand in victory. We claim the victory even when it thinks when it seems insurmountable even when it's a billion dollar industry you're going against you do not let numbers or size intimidate you. Because that's not the full story. We live in a world where what we see is not everything. So we've got to really look at the bigger story refused to be a victim and when I when I came out of that, that that that sexual assault and attack and was just resetting myself one of the things and the way I was in pain and the way I felt very far from God at the time. I didn't make this decision. I said I know there's something bigger going on here. I know that this happened for me and it will be good. God will take this tragedy this pain this horror and do something good I will be able to help others I will be able to relate. I will understand what it feels like to heal I will have to rely on God I needed to keep in my faith. It did so much for me and it's not that I needed to say it's okay I'm so happy this happened to me. No. But I did decide even when I felt victimized even when I was still physically healing when I had lacerations in my throat. I said, this is not the end of the story. This is a page of the chapter of one chapter of an amazing book that God is writing in my life. This is not the end of the story, there's a bigger story. And sometimes that's all I could get to you don't have to have this rosy sunshine, rainbows and unicorns vision of what the story is going to be, but you do have victory and simply saying, this is not the full story. I can't wait to see what God does next. And that might be all that your faith can do at the moment. But that is a proclamation of faith. That is a proclamation of victory. Another thing you can do is don't get sucked into the vacuum of overwhelm my gosh, overwhelm and confusion really sucks us in. And when you're a victim, and you feel like man, nothing's working out for you, and you got rejected. And then they said no, and then your friend stole money from you. And then you found out your parents did something behind your back, and people are keeping something from you. And then you, you know, you get a diagnosis, and then your iPhone broke down, and then something else then you know, tech issues, all compounds, and it overwhelms you, and then it's defeating. And so when it feels like it's crashing in over you, I want you to simply say this is just a wave. And with all tides with all storms, they pass, they change. This is not the narrative, my light, this will not be the narrative, my story, right now I will stand firm. And I will under I will get through this. We have to start speaking to ourselves powerfully, you want to be victorious, start speaking powerfully, hey, I don't know where I'll get the string for tomorrow. But I know that God will bring it that might be all that you need to say, to get out of the vacuum of I don't think I can get through tomorrow. We got to also de dramatize the awfulness, whatever the season is. And I'm not just I'm not saying it's not, I'm not discounting it. I'm not saying any of it's okay. What you're going through or what you've been through his heart, it's painful. But it's not too big for you. It's not too big for you when you have God on your side. But it's important that we de dramatize I find myself when I can really low, dramatize I catastrophize I want it to be a really, really big deal. I used to do this in the beginning of my marriage, when I was building my business and my husband had very set hours, and he would come back and I wanted to list out to him all the things I did just to justify how hard I worked in to justify and give myself permission to be tired. I overdramatized how hard my day was as if it was a competition of who had a harder day. I was trying to be like, look look like I'm working hard to and it was so interesting that I was victimizing my own day, even though I was creating a life that I loved. So I just want to get you to get curious about where am I creating more drama that doesn't need to be there. When can something just be tough, and I can just allow it to be tough. I don't need to make it mean anything about me or my luck or what's happening my life. Just pay I'm gonna get through this season. It's tough. And then the final thing I want to before I close out with some questions that are reflective for you is really want to encourage you to feed the story that you want to grow. You feed the story you want to grow. If you want to feed a story that life is against you, nothing works out for you. No one likes you. It's a struggle you if only this and this and this and you've always been a step behind the cube, keep feeding that story with your thoughts, you will grow that story. And that's what's going to be the narrative of your story of your life. Or you could feed a story that this is your reset. That there was a day that you learned that you can change the way you think there was a day that you just you found out that you could simply put put your flag down and claim victory over something that feels insurmountable that you before the battles won, you say this is my victory. This eating for me it was my eating disorder, this eating disorder that has consumed a decade of my life. I remember the day when I said no more. Now it was still months and years of undoing some patterns and really digging in and getting the breakthrough work. But I decided it would not be my story my whole life. I decided that I was victorious for what felt bigger than me would no longer be I would no longer allow myself to be intimidated. And the more you grow that story, the more you feed the story that's powerful, the more powerful you will show up and also the things that overpowered you will simply be little duels, there'll be little battles and you win the battle the battle is already won. You just have to decide that you can show up for it. So the one I want you to get curious when you're in a season of struggle and you want to get feel sorry for yourself and get sucked into the victim mindset. Get curious ask yourself what's here for me to learn.

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What can I take from this season that will be a gift? How is God using this for my good Another question I like to ask myself is, what would peace look like for me here?

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What would peace look like? Is there anything I can do to show up better right now? For me it was often Yeah, you can adjust your how to do Trish. Or yeah, you can stop drinking so much wine and I get to bed early and honor yourself and not start behind the next day. Is there anything I can do to show up better? What emotion do I want to create? On purpose? What What emotions do I want to create intentionally with my life? Make a list of those emotions and then identify what thoughts you can think that will create those emotions. Remember, our thoughts create our emotions. But What emotions do I want right now the season, the season of struggle? I wanted the emotion of encouragement. And what the emotion of faith I want the emotion of belief. I want the emotion of a powerful feeling powerful. What thoughts do I need to think? And write down the thoughts do the work this a lot of the work we do in the College of competence if you want help with this, of course come join us college competence.com I want to teach you how to think differently. We have a lot of tools and strategies and systems that will help you do just that. Because when you change your thoughts you change your life. To more questions for you, how will my life be better in the future because of these trials because of this? I look back at my own family's financial struggle, my own struggle with myself my own struggle with my thoughts and my anxiety my struggle with my abusive relationship my struggle with the near death sexual assault, my struggle with another story I did not in was a bike accident that I was on a bicycle and I got hit by a by a sounds ridiculous but a mulch struck a multi struck where all the mulch dumped out hundreds of pounds of mulch bags, dumped out this this I was just training for my Ironman, right? Skid across the road on my head. All of those things, all of those trials made my life better made me better gave me growth that I was never had the opportunity to go through. I can say from personal experience. God is faithful. And he takes what was meant for evil and he turns it into good. Another question, this is a question that I take from my mom. And I hated as a kid. Because anytime I was feeling sorry for myself, where I was discouraged, she would say this to me. And I was like Yeah, yeah, blah, okay, hated it. And she would say, when you're out of gas, set up a service station. And I was like, Mom, I don't I don't know what that means. Right? Well, 20 years later, I know what it means. Now. Ask yourself this question. If you're feeling really low, I want you to ask yourself this. Is there anyone I can help right now. We've got to get our focus off ourselves and onto others. Essentially, to my mom's credit, hey, when you're out of gas, go open up a gas station, open up a service station, start putting gas in other people's tanks, and you'll find by doing that, it will come back to your gas tank will be filled. Before we share our listeners episode, I just want to remind you the replay of the how to stay motivated. masterclass is incredible. And I'm giving you instant access to it. There's limited availability, go to www.trishblackwell.com/motivatedreplay that's www.trishblackwell.com/motivatedreplay. It's so good. You guys like so good. That's it. I gotta tell you that that's it. And there's two workbooks associated with it. You just even just sign up get your hands on those. They will help you think better change the way you think. And even if you feel like no trust you don't get it my brain is a hot mess. That I can I promise you your brain is no messier than mine was. If I can do it, you can do it. Here's our listener that episodes I'll see you there. I hope you get access to that. Listen to the episode is Kathy. She says I can't believe she reached out on Instagram. And if you're not connected with me on Instagram, reach out trish_blackwell. She says this can't believe how much you've been the light at the end of my tunnel. Thank you going to be okay through this dark patch in my life because of you. Hey, Kathy, I hope that this coaching session gave you some great tools to continue to see as profound strong statements just like you did, I'm going to be okay through this dark patch. That's it. Because that's a simple statement. It's powerful. It's victorious, I'm going to be okay. And really, I think when we need to comfort ourselves, that's what we need to remind ourselves I'm going to be okay. So, I want to say thank you for being with me today. Thank you for being brave enough to talk back to your own thoughts. brave enough to have the faith that your brain can be transformed. brave enough to be a bright light in this world. Next week don't miss next week we are starting the month of February off with an episode on relationship. We've got an episode on relationship anxiety, and how to reduce it, how to not overthink your relationships. We're going to be talking also the next week, a whole episode on how to love food and love your body. We are living it up in the month of February all about love and all the good things so make sure you're subscribed. And if you haven't yet shared the show with a friend please hit that forward buttons, share it with a friend. And I will see you soon on the competence podcast. In the meantime, I hope I see you in the College of confidence. Go out there today go be more of who God created you to be. Be you. Be free. If you loved today's episode of The confidence podcast, I invite you to check out the College of Confidence at www.collegeofconfidence.com. The COC is where your next step is. In the COC we cultivate confidence create courage and spark change. It takes everything we do here on the podcast to the next level and our members get crazy life changing results. I'm so confident that you will find that the COC is the most encouraging place on the internet and that it will so wildly exceed your expectations that it comes with a money back guarantee hate joining is completely risk free you owe it to your future self to take your growth to the next level by coaching with me in the COC. Join me today at www.collegeofconfidence.com

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