15: Capacity - Ours, Theirs & Triggers

Hello, friends, and welcome to Grief Guts and Green Smoothies. I am your host, Melissa Dugalecki, and.

I am so excited to be here with you all to chat about ways.

In which we can all get through.

Different adversities, challenges and loss, and how getting outside of our comfort zone and maybe having a green smoothie or two can help us do so. We will cover different topics, ranging from interviews to recipes, to sharing my own stories of my grief journey and the.

Loss of my daughter, Layden.

Honor to be able to share her light in hopes of helping you spread yours. Now, let's dive in. Before we dive into the idea of capacities and the different ways that we.

Can use them to identify our triggers.

The triggers of others, it's really important.

To just take a minute and recognize that capacities are constantly fluctuating for ourselves and for others. And it's interesting because if you look up the definition of capacity, it says the maximum amount that something can contain and the maximum amount that something can produce. And those are two very different acts, right? Containing and producing. But both really hold true in the realm of what I'll be discussing today.

What we're going to dive into, which.

Is getting into capacities and the different ways they're going to impact our lives, especially in grief. And so recognizing that our capacities are going to be impacted by what's going on in our life based on the work that we're doing, our personal development stressors in our life and honoring them is really the key to reducing overwhelm, to reducing breakdown. So always say this.

It starts with awareness.

And so being aware of where your capacity is and being aware of where somebody else's capacity is. Now, we don't want this to be a permanent label. It's fluid, like a container, like our own kind of energy vessel.

When we really work on it, we're.

Going to build that capacity. When we're in times of chaos and stress, that capacity is going to be stretched. So recognizing it is so incredibly important. For me, my capacity early on in my grief journey was so incredibly limited relative to where it is now. I couldn't take on a lot. And that meant noise, like stimulation, crowds. And honoring that and being okay with that and choosing what was in alignment with where I was at was really important for me to be able to heal. And at the same time, we need to take action steps to build our capacity, because otherwise I would still be in that space. And so two things before we actually dive in to the nitty gritty of what we can learn from capacities of ourselves and of others is to recognize capacities are a real thing. It's going to involve both how much we can contain, like what can we take on and what can we produce, what can we give? And these are all energy exchanges. So it's going to be our time, our thoughts, our ability to listen, to be present. And so we have to recognize that they're always fluid, they're always changing. We want to have awareness of them, we want to honor them for ourselves and the closest people in our life, especially our life teammates and being a teammate for them. We want to recognize where everyone's capacity is at and we want to take steps, create space, right? Hold space within our capacity to build our capacity. And that is absolutely key. Now let's dive in.

Hi, friends, and welcome back to Grief, Guts and Green Smoothies.

Melissa.

I'm your host, Melissa Dugalecki. And today we are chatting about capacity. And capacity is something that we've touched on in other episodes when we talk about understanding other people and their capacities. But today we're going to look inwards and talk a little bit more about cultivating and understanding what our own capacities are. Something that I always say in my coaching, with my one on one clients and in the mindset work we do in MOVE and really just in regular conversations I'll have with friends or family, is a reminder that we can't sustainably give something to others that we haven't cultivated within ourselves. I'll say that again, we can't sustainably give to others what we haven't cultivated in ourselves. And in previous episodes, I talked about understanding this from the perspective that if people in your lives, your support team, your teammates, whoever it may be, co workers, colleagues, anyone, if they're unable to meet an expectation first, we really want to be evaluating what expectations we set. But if they're unable to give something or maybe meet an expectation that they had set or hoped to be able to meet, it's truly just because they haven't cultivated the capacity to meet that. Now, in the sense of relationships with other people, it's then up to decide what role somebody plays in our life and being okay with whatever their capacity is, right? We don't want to constantly beat somebody up for not having the capacity to offer something that it's just not within their wheelhouse. So our job is to then decide what role somebody's able to play in our lives, what role we want to give them based on their capacity and position them to succeed. We want people to succeed. People innately want to feel good and then position us to feel good so we're not constantly upset, people aren't meeting expectations. But going a little bit deeper in this is understanding that this is something we do internally, constantly, and we're not always aware of. But quite often, you know, we're all looking. We're all looking to grow. We're all looking to feel our best. We're all looking to experience pleasant feelings, pleasant things. And most times we're taught and trained and brought up to look externally for all of these things. We're taught to look for a food or a drink or a program or a Netflix or. Or a shopping spree or whatever it may be. We're taught to look to all of these different things, to be able to find externally what we're seeking internally, whether it's reassurance, whether it's courage, whether it's comfort. And the truth is that we've really got to learn to cultivate these things within ourselves. And so we can think about it as, you know, I love athletics and sports. We can think about it in the sense of if we're not cultivating a skill set athletically, we're not going to be able to perform that skill set athletically. If we're not working on our strength, we're not going to be able to sustainably complete strength workout. If we're not working our endurance, we're not going to be able to sustainably go out and do a long run. It's the same thing with our emotional capacity. And you know, I've had a lot of people say to me that they would like a lot, this might be a new business venture that they would love for me to be able to have their difficult conversations, right for me to do a recording when I'm practicing or working with them on how to navigate difficult conversations. And there's really no trick. Difficult conversations are still difficult for me. They become less difficult when you're clear. But when you really cultivate calmness and clarity, it becomes easier to have these difficult conversations. So my advice to anybody who's really seeking to improve their strength in having difficult conversations is to really cultivate that calmness, that clarity. And, you know, there are all sorts of different things we can cultivate. But I encourage everybody right now, and this is mindset work we do in our program and I do with people, one on one is really stepping back and looking at what do I want to invite into my life. And instead of looking for it to just magically appear, what we do is we take action steps every day in like a four or five minute mindset sheet to align our energy with whatever that is so that we're actually cultivating it within ourselves and then building on the Law of Attraction. When we're cultivating something within ourselves, we're going to see it much more often. And some of the big mistakes that are often made in this is that we focus on what we don't want in our lives. So instead of saying what we do, aren't we focus what we don't want? And the Law of Attraction doesn't know negative. So if we say I don't want to feel tired, we're putting our energy to feeling tired. So we are attracting back feelings of fatigue. So really using that law of Attraction to build momentum in the opposite direction. So focusing on I want to feel energized and now focusing on cultivating the feeling of energized within ourselves. Right? And taking steps and skills. And so there's no way, you know, whether you're having difficult conversations, whether you're working on your fitness, it's truly just, we talk about this all the time. It's truly just showing up each and every day. But we're not trained to practice showing up in our own energy, in our own emotions. But that's where the massive change really begins. Taking these small steps, these small shifts every single day to begin showing up for ourselves so we can then show up for others. Because remember, we cannot sustainably give to anyone else what we don't have within ourselves. And I say sustainably because we can get by, we can be scrappy, we can piecemeal it together. But long term sustainability, it's got to be reliant about us having ourselves. Otherwise we burn out, we become overwhelmed or it's not authentic, right? And authenticity wins. And so when we're trying to authentically do something and we're seeking to authentically do something, we really have to have that within ourselves. Otherwise by definition, it's not going to be authentic. And I think anyone here can agree that, that we tend to align and gravitate towards authenticity. Whatever somebody may be putting out there. I know for me, I just love when I see people standing in their truth, standing in who they are, owning themselves, their stories, their goals, their missteps, their triumphs, whatever it may be, but just really standing boldly and courageously in their authentic self. And so again, really, each and every day, what steps can we take? And I encourage you to every day, and this is what I do with a daily manifestation, a mindset workout, if you will. In the individuals that I work with. And it can be customized and tailored. So somebody who's seeking to cultivate more clarity is going to be a little bit different than somebody who's seeking to cultivate a stronger sense of calm or a stronger sense of confidence. And so working individually in a way that's going to help you create, cultivate in yourself what you want to feel. Because the biggest challenge we face, in my opinion is that pressure and the messages to look externally to other people, relationships, whatever the external source of the day is to feel what we're seeking. And the power is being able to feel what we're seeking within ourselves. And I, I did not know this until after losing Layden. And I had to practice it with Layden. I mean, she really taught me to understand this at a deeper level because I needed to cultivate courage. I mean, that last month of Layden's life was beyond scary. I mean, every single day we were just surrounded by beeps and noises and it was a roller coaster of getting a lot of fluid off her body and there was hope. And then all of a sudden there's more increased fluid retention. One procedure and another procedure, round after round after round with doctors and having life threatening, life impacting conversations multiple times a day about whether or not my daughter was going to live for a month. I mean, it was draining. And Layden taught me every day to cultivate courage, right? To cultivate a calmness in the chaos and to cultivate vulnerability. And my friend Samantha tells me vulnerability is my superpower. And I attribute that to Leiden. And these were things that I had to practice every single day. And I think for me, and I don't think I'm alone in this, it was easier to practice and to do when it was for somebody else. You don't have a choice. I had to cultivate these things for Laden. The thing is, after Layden died, I had to cultivate them for myself. And that's where with support and coaching, I really learned that I couldn't look to a magical solution to grief. I couldn't look to a one year end date. I couldn't look to the pain of grief going away to cultivate courage or ability to be vulnerable or the ability to be calm in chaos, like I was living in chaos. I couldn't wait for grief to go away, to feel calm. And so I had to look within. And so I started to learn these things when I had to do them for Laden, but I really learned these things when I had to do them for myself. And Again, it starts with slowly, one step at a time, cultivating in ourselves what we want to experience in our lives. And so, again, everybody listening. What you want to experience, what you want to feel in your life. Write it down. Go write it down. And don't use the negative. I just threw a negative in there. But focus on what you want to invite in rather than what you don't want to have in. Because what we don't want to have in, if we say, I do not want this, we're still putting our energy to that thing. And what we put our energy to is going to present. So really start putting your energy towards what you want and what you want to feel, and know that it's a process. It's an absolute process. Have I cultivated in a much greater capacity certain things now than, you know, almost five years ago? Absolutely, 100%. Do I hope that I am cultivating it more strongly and boldly in future? Absolutely. I hope. I'm constantly growing, I'm constantly learning. I'm taking steps and trying different things and maybe risks, and whatever it may be, I'm learning. Right. And sometimes we learn from what works, and sometimes we learn from what doesn't work. And honestly, quite often we learn more from what doesn't work. So think about for you what you want to cultivate in yourself and how you're going to do that. And then again, just like we've talked about in previous episodes, allow it to be a reminder that if other people are struggling to maybe meet an expectation, or on the flip side, if somebody's exuding hate, venom, anger. When I see that now, I really feel compassion because that person is only able to exude hate, anger, criticism because they have so much of it within themselves. I'll say that again, that's not an easy one, but. And we can look in the mirror on this, too. If we're exuding hate, anger, criticism, that's because it's been cultivated within us. And it could be a number of things. It could be our experiences, it could be hurts, it could be traumas, it could be resentments. I had to work very hard to not allow resentment to thrive in an environment that was really conducive to resentment. I mean, my daughter's case was termed a catastrophe. And to walk away without resentment or to not allow resentment to grow is probably the more accurate way to put it. And to work on balancing it out with gratitude and learning and curiosity, I mean, that took intention. And so whether you're feeling these things in yourself or you see them in somebody else. Like, think about how we can navigate differently. How can we focus on other energies? How can we have compassion for that other person? Sahara Rose just did a great podcast, actually, on how she deals with haters and critics, and she actually separates haters and critics into two different categories. Haters just want the drama and the attention, and critics actually care about your growth. But either one, both of them, you know, have that criticism and kind of maybe that anger within them. And truly, I couldn't agree more. It's just like we said in the beginning, we cannot sustainably give something to somebody that we don't have within ourselves. So if you are feeling something from somebody else or experiencing something or exuding something that maybe you don't love from yourself, really thinking about where that comes from, right? The emotional fitness work, it's not easy, right? We got to look ourselves in the eye a lot. We got to look in the mirror. We got to be able to do that and to know that we're all doing the best we can and that by continuing to choose growth, we're really honoring our stories, our past, setting ourselves up for the most productive, beautiful future possible for ourselves and for other people. And just one tip on that, it's the same thing on being triggered. So if there are things that other people are triggering inside of us, certain reactions, they can't trigger those reactions if we don't have it within ourselves. There are three layers here. One, recognizing we can't give something to somebody else we don't have. Two, nobody else can give something that they don't have within them. And three, we can't be triggered to feel a certain way if that feeling, that energy, isn't living within us. Most people are just holding up mirrors for what's inside. So I like to think of it as feedback if you're having a trigger of feeling a certain way, feeling whatever it may be. You know, I think a lot of us, it could be criticism or judgment or pressure or abandon. A lot of these are going to be from difficult experiences. But that means those energies are still living inside of us somewhere. And let it be feedback from that other person, like that person who's triggering something. Let it be really powerful feedback in that mirror to look within and see what's inside of us. That's being brought out, right? That's being brought to the surface. And let them bring it to the surface so that we can process it and then release it. Because so often we run and avoid the processing it portion that it becomes impossible to release it. Brene Brown does a lot of work around this, around shame and guilt. I mean, quite often those are those kind of deep, those hide deep within us. Shame, guilt, fear. I actually talked about it in a post this week. Those are things that have to be really aware of, myself included. So when somebody is using words or actions that bring those energies to the surface, let it be a mirror, let it be a gift for us to learn to find that feedback and to process what is pulling that to the surface. And can we take it from the surface, process it at surface level and then release it? Because that's where the magic and the growth happens. So I hope this was helpful. These lessons I learned through my grief journey, but I believe take a lot of guts. I think this one takes a lot of guts to be able to live and to practice. And we talk about this a lot. I talk about this in my one on one work. We talk about it a lot together and move is that it doesn't have to be all or nothing, right? If we're able to work on this 40% of the time, that's better than 0% of the time. And then maybe in a week or two it's 50% and then 70%, maybe we drop down, we have a tough week and we're at 30%. But let's really try and break free from the shackles of we're either living this all the time or none of the time and just kind of build those little percentages. I always say, who wouldn't take 20% more in their bank account? So if we can take 20% more in our integrity with our energy and the management of our energy, that's a huge win as we move forward. Thinking about capacity, just to recap, we cannot sustainably give to anyone else what we haven't cultivated within ourselves. So taking that at three different levels, we'll be a little three dimensional here. One is the things that you are seeking that you want to feel, think about those and then think of how you can use your energy every single day to embody it, to practice it, to feel that and use that law of attraction to bring it back into your life. Not leading with the things that you don't want because then you're still giving your energy to that, but really focusing on the things that you do want, allowing this to help you not take things personally. We talk a lot about that in here for agreements. Probably my favorite one, not taking anything personally because other people also don't have the capacity to give something that they haven't cultivated within themselves so that they're not able to give something to us or meet an expectation or to be a certain type of support or teammate. We've broken down those four types of teammates in previous episodes. It's not because they don't love you or care about you, and not even because they don't want to. Just means they don't have the capacity at that time. Now we have to choose based on how long this goes on and what role they play in our life, what boundary we want to set and how they can serve us.

Well.

We don't want to beat them up and we also don't want to compromise what we need in our lives. So finding that balance, that's the tricky part, right? And then the last is that recognizing if somebody is triggering something in us, whether it's an ad social media post, whether it's a friend, family, co worker, someone's triggering a strong response, let that be feedback. Open up to it. Don't hunch those shoulders. Open your heart. Get really brave and uncomfortable. I know it's not easy. Sit in that space of curiosity and try and figure out what is being triggered. Is this a pattern? Has this been triggered elsewhere in other relationships, in other maybe social media posts that you see? Whatever forms of communication you see, I just use those because they're two of the most present forms of communication in our current world. But let it be feedback that there's something that's living within us that's being pulled to the surface. So can we thank that person for pulling it to the surface and us get a little bit dirty, do the work, process what it is, and then release what we don't need. Because it's in the release that we truly, truly grow. Thank you so much for letting me share these stories, these lessons, lessons from Layden, ones that I first started learning in this particular episode when we were living in the hospital. Like I said, it was easier to do when I was doing it for Layden, but the real strength was being able to do it for myself. And so with support, something that I learned to do and continue to learn to do every single day as we are all just on this journey, constantly growing, learning and doing our best. And I thank you for choosing to share bits of your time with me. Talk soon.