77: “Must Be Nice” No More

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Welcome to Grief and Guts. I'm your host, Melissa Dugulecki. It is my honor and privilege to serve you by sharing stories, tools, interviews, and strategies that will help you transition from what do I do now? How do I get through this? Those feelings of overwhelm and uncertainty to truly standing in your power. From my grief journey in losing my daughter laden in 2014, that I learned.

Practiced, was exposed to all these tools.

But they are not grief specific. In fact, they apply universally to all of our unique situations. You've already done the hard part by showing up, by opening up to something new. So without any further ado, let's get to the good stuff that's going to help you in your journey.

Let's dive in.

All right, guys, we are diving into.

Understanding why three words that I really don't like. You guys know I love words. I think they're super powerful. You know, it's how we communicate, essentially, our energy and how we're feeling, right? So give. It's how we receive with that. We want to make sure we have integrity, right? With the words that we choose and how we align our energy. Three words I hear all the time. I've heard a lot more since I've been out in California. And I just. I want to educate and empower you to understand how to respond, first of all, if they're said to you, and then also why to remove them from your vocabulary. And those words are. Must be nice, right? Must be nice. Now, myself included, we've all had them in our repertoire at some point, I'm sure, right? You know, I don't want to make any total assumptions, but I'm sure at some point we've all used them in our repertoire. And after using Leyden, I had to really recognize, like, what was I achieving? Because it was easy to say, like, oh, must be nice to have healthy child, right? It must be nice to not have this pain of grief. It must be nice to be excited when you hear music. It must be nice to shower and remember if you actually washed your hair, right? But what was that really achieving? What was that really achieving? I was putting myself in a position of victim, right? I was putting myself in this powerless victim position. And so if you are using these words, right, I'm gonna talk to you. I'm gonna give you a little behind the scenes of what really goes into this, you know, must be nice. And I'm doing this to encourage and inspire and motivate you to step into your power, right? To not rely on these words as a way that keeps us stuck because it's like, oh, must be nice. They've got that. Guess I can't do anything about it. And I had to call myself out, and I did so with love. And I'm doing the same. There's no judgment, there's no criticism. There's no shame coming from me. This is solely education. Can't take the teacher out of me. But the way we use must be nice has to change. And I'm getting it a lot while I'm out here. It's fresh my mind, and I think it's a beautiful, teachable moment. So just to give you an idea, somebody, you know, I'll use myself for as an example, and then I'll share some examples that you guys have sent to me since I brought this topic up. You know, must be nice to, you know, go for runs on the beach. It must be nice to, you know, be able to travel wherever you want. It must be nice to do this or that. And I just one hand, you know, it's like, I hear and I think, oh, I feel so badly for that person who's sitting in this place of, you know, victimization. Because if they're doing it with me, they're doing it elsewhere, right? Because how we do anything is how we do everything. So if somebody comes at me with must be nice, I know that I am not the only place in their life where they look around and say, must be nice. Guess I can't have that. And I feel bad for them.

Right.

Because that's not true.

Right.

This is an abundant world with a lot of possibility. There is not just one way of living. There's not.

Right?

And so if you see somebody doing something that inspires you or that you feel called to, right. Maybe that's an opportunity to be feedback. Like a trigger. Right? Just like a trigger. Must be nice as a response to a trigger. And as you know, triggers are teachers. And I want to encourage you to learn from it and not to just, like, step back and say, this must be nice. And a little glimpse of, like, what went into my must be nice now my life where it is, is not where I envisioned it. I thought. When I was pregnant with Layden, I was a high school athletic director. I thought that was going to be the job I retired from. I thought it was going to be my dream job. All I wanted to do is teach and to coach. It is stable. 300 people applied for it. I mean, it was a big deal, right? So I thought, got my dream job having my baby you know, we're gonna. We're gonna raise Layden. And, you know, she was enrolled in the daycare right, right underneath my office. Like, that was it. So, you know, this life that I have, I'm so grateful for, but it's not at all that I envision. Right? And I know I'm not alone with that. So that's why we've got to stop with the must be nice because we don't know what anyone else is carrying. For me, must be nice meant choosing to take responsibility for my grief and then choosing to say, I'm going to own this and take responsibility for it. And it's the thing I hate the most. It's the thing that's caused me the most pain. It's the thing that I feel like, why do I have this? Because we know, did I deserve this? Is this karma? Like, no, it was none of that. Karma works anyways. It was truly just my life circumstance. Whatever your beliefs are around that they are, but that's irrelevant. This was the circumstance I was in. So my must be nice started with the choice to take responsibility for my grief. And that meant getting a grief coach. That meant going to parent groups. That meant working with a counselor. That meant reading books. It meant traveling out of the country twice to see world renowned grief speaker Dr. Raymond Moody. Check him out, he's on another podcast episode. Hear him speak. It meant learning. It meant researching. It meant healing. It meant understanding concepts that I never understood before.

Right.

It meant expansion. Right? And then from there, as I began to change, things in my world began to change how I saw things change. Right. It meant evaluating. If teaching and coaching was only able to be done in the role that I was in, or was this more, you know, political? And does that align? It meant, you know, investing in a mastermind. With Angie Lee. Shout out. Love Angie. But I didn't even know her at the time. I literally heard like three podcast episodes of hers and thought, like, something is calling to me. Something is calling to me. And it wasn't the right time. I was on administrative leave. I was wondering if I was gonna have to file for unemployment. I was $60,000 in debt. I didn't even get on a phone call with Angie to learn more. I just felt called and I threw it on my credit card and thought, oh, we got to go with this. You've got to go with this. And you got to do the work and you got to keep digging. You've got to keep digging. Like, this is where you're going to start to Dig your way out. And then it meant sitting with 70 people. 70 and asking them, what are you doing for work? Are you running the studio? How is that going? You're life coaching. How is that working? You're a holistic health coach. How is that? You're a full time yoga instructor. How does that work? Looking into all these different ways of coaching and teaching, I went meant studying holistic health, then mooch one of those 70 people I sat with when I felt that call, heard that like voice of like something's there. It meant saying to her without knowing what she was going to say. I had this idea, I'm building my work. I feel like we could collab, like what do you think?

Right.

And then taking action. Mutch was thinking the same thing, right? Choosing and that meant us together, investing in a mastermind, showing up to every single coaching call, rearranging our schedules, be there creating lists of things to do each week and getting them done no matter what. Getting it done, right. That was our must be nice. Right? That's how our must be nice came about. And then it meant investing in another mastermind and other coaching and other things of leveling up. It's meant for us getting a business partnership coach. I mean, it has meant so much work. It meant doing all of this, not knowing if it was going to work. It meant starting a business, having no idea if it was going to work. It meant doing it and being afraid.

Right.

It meant letting go of what critics were going to say. It meant ignoring people who were taunting about, you know, celery juice, this and this and that and just trusting on what we wanted to do.

Right?

That is how you create your must be nice.

Right?

It's one day at a time letting go of those other voices, taking the chances, investing your energy in what really aligns with you. This doesn't have to be massive things. These can be on a smaller scale. It could be getting up 15 minutes earlier to create some you time. It could be getting up 15 minutes earlier to work on your mindset. It could be drawing a boundary at work to get in a workout. Whatever it may be, you are in control of doing it. And that is what I spent the last two years doing professionally and the last six years doing personally. I have been doing this work for so long, so hard, exhausted, in tears. And it doesn't mean that I waited for things to get better. Because if I waited for things to get better, I would still be waiting. My daughter is still dead. Things are not better. But I chose to take responsibility for My grief and then take responsibility for my growth, professional and personal, and create this must be nice, right? It meant getting uncomfortable financially. It meant getting super uncomfortable emotionally. It meant detaching from outcome. It meant not worrying about what might go wrong and thinking about what might go right. And anytime something went wrong, learning from it and letting it be feedback to just grow, right? This must be nice meant a lot of scary moments, a lot of uncomfortable moments. Again, it meant tuning out other people's voice and the critics and putting up the post and not knowing if anyone's going to like it and that's okay. And hearing no on calls, discovery calls for people who would have been a great fit for our program and saying no to people who weren't a great fit for our program. And then all of these things that I see so many people get caught with, and then they're like, well, I want to get there. That must be nice, right? You've got a business now. You can do this. No, I had to go through the process personally and professionally. It has meant a lot of tears, a lot of releasing, a lot of purging. I still sleep every single night with my daughter's stuffed animal, right? My deceased daughter stuffed animal. I am still in pain, right? But I have chosen to create, one day at a time, the most powerfully I could, the best version of me on any given day. And for some days, that meant just showering and maybe getting some delivery, right? And then other days I meant really crushing it, but you just keep going. So when you feel tempted or called to say, must be nice, I want you to let that be a damn powerful trigger where you think about, like, what is it that I am envious of and how can I own that and take responsibility for it? And sometimes there are things that people are going to have that maybe we don't have access to, right? There might be. I mean, it must be nice, right, to not have to have a paralyzing fear about having a sick child, right? It's a paralyzing fear. But that's not for anyone else to feel shame or guilt over if they have a healthy child. That's for me to carry, right? That's for me to work on. And so this is where, again, I've talked a lot about personal responsibility. And this actually ties right in. That's for me to not project on them. And for me to be like, what work do I need to do to work through this paralyzing fear, right? Because it's real. I'm just keeping it real with you. Guys and being vulnerable, you know? And if you're on the receiving end of it, you know, if you're on the receiving end of it, first of all, be proud because you are doing something that is inspiring other people, right? Second, be compassionate. For somebody to be projecting that on you, that means they have something unresolved within them. It has nothing to do with you.

Right?

Four agreements. Don't take anything personally. It's hard to not take things personally when it's actually personal. But it's really never actually personal, right? It can be. I mean, you're triggering it, you're pulling it out. It feels very personal. It's not about you. It's their reaction, right? So one, lead with compassion, right? Lead with compassion. Two.

Right.

Don't take it personally, right? Oh, be proud. Don't forget that. That's like numero. That's like baseline, right? Be proud, right? And then just let it be a reminder to keep doing what you're doing to create the life that you love. You don't know what anyone else is carrying. And perhaps you extend your hand with grace to take that person along with you and say, hey, you can create your must be nice too. Because you know what? Anyone who said it to me, anyone I've said it to, I just want you to know you can create it too, whatever it is. And all of our nice are going to look really different. And that's a beautiful thing because we're not meant to cope. We're not meant to create in this world all the same way, Right? We're meant to exist uniquely and authentically, right? So that's a beautiful thing. So let it be inspiration. Let your trigger be your teacher. Step out of that place of victimization and step into your power because you are too damn powerful to stand behind those three words of must be nice. There is more for you. I believe in you. Go get it.

Thank you all so much for being here at Grief and Guts as Layden's mom. Being able to spread the stories, the strategies, the lessons I have learned through Layden and from Laden is the thing that means the most to me in this world and allowing my daughter's short life to have long and lasting impact by shining her light. Truly, nothing means more if you align with and believe in the work that we're doing here in these messages. The best way to give back and to spread this out into the world is to rate and review on Spotify and on itunes. Thank you for taking just a moment to do that. Feel free to shoot me a message. Let me know what you want to hear more of, what you want to see more of. I am here to serve. I'm grateful to do so. And I'm cheering you on in your journeys, always.