The hard stuff is ok!

Oh, there we are. Hey.

All right.

Hi, anybody who's watching. Hi, Mr. Shawn. Good to see you.

Hey, Miss Sherri, good to see you too.

We're being very formal today. Mr., Mr. Shawn, Miss Sherri. Um, here we are talking about the hard stuff again. I love that we do this, Shawn. I do. Yeah, let's give a quick little— how did we end up doing these conversations every couple weeks? Is that Um, a while. You— I think you said 2 years. I'm gonna go with 2 years ago or so. We were both, uh, we were meeting for a cup of coffee because we live in the Bay Area together and we're both coaches. And we realized we were reading Susan Cain's book, uh, Bittersweet. And someday I think Susan Cain is going to come on and talk to us on this conversation. But for now, I have that intention too. For now, just a big thank you to her because she really opened my eyes um, and yours as well, right? Um, to how important it is to make space for stuff that's hard and to really acknowledge it and feel things and not just try to rush on past it.

Yeah, I have found it very helpful to have this community where we're not expected to put on a happy face or a sad face either. You just exist and share where you are right in the moment that we're all meeting. And it's really beautiful what comes out and the lessons that we find unexpectedly or sometimes expectedly. And yeah, I just absolutely adore the group and I'm glad that we get to do this, Sheri.

Yeah, me too. And I know we're gonna talk about something not the, not the content for you, but something, uh, the personal process. But first I wanted to say, so I don't forget, that I love that the idea of boundaries came up today. I found that to be super important, this idea that, um, often— I'm not sure if it's always, but at least often— going through hard things, there might come a point where we need to create a boundary, either within ourselves or with somebody else.

Yeah, and we talked a little bit about how emotions are called to actions a lot of the time. And so being sad or being angry or feeling hurt could be a call to action to do something. And sometimes that something is to put the ball in somebody else's court and say, this is where I am in love and it aligned with myself, and if we want to continue working through this, I'll leave it to you to reach out, as someone was talking about in the group.

Yeah, I like, I like that a lot, that it's like, I like you said emotions are calls, are a call to action. Yeah, I mean, that's yours, right? That's a Shawn quote.

Yeah, I think so. I don't think that's a poet. It's not the moment to say.

I like that because we were also talking about, and we do often say this, that it's like The call to action might be, you know what, I need to take a little bit of a timeout for myself and just go lie down and maybe have a good cry or beat the pillow if I'm angry. That it's like the call to action could be simply with ourselves. Or like I was saying in our previous meeting, um, the call to action might be a boundary being set of, you know, I noticed that my monkey mind is telling me the same sad story over and over just to simply entangle me in feeling bad, I think I need to have a boundary right now that it's like to put the kibosh on that when I see that same story coming up that isn't really about processing anything. It's more just designed, I think, to, to pull me into the pit.

Mm-hmm. And that's always kind of a balance I think we're talking about in the Hard Stuff's Okay is we want to acknowledge and voice things, but we also don't want it to be the rallying cry to like join the fight again. You know?

Yes!

And that fight could be endless and tireless, especially when you're dealing with emotions. Like, a lot of times, if it's an open loop, I think— I was thinking about this, we didn't talk about this before, but like, you know, there's a time when I was young and didn't know anything about the world or relationships and dated someone and then it ended and I didn't understand why, right? Right?

Yeah.

And I remember logically going over and over, like, what did I do wrong? What can I do better next time? And there wasn't an answer. It just didn't, you know, connect, right? There wasn't a connection there. And I didn't know what real connection was to know that that was it. And so the logical brain spun and spun and spun and spun and spun. And like, that's where misery and depression for me, like, lived is like, trying to explain this in a way that you can't explain it through— like, you can't explain emotions through logic, but just like you can't explain logic through emotions, right? Like, they're separate currencies that we have in us to, like, make sense of the world, and, like, they can inform each other, but you can't rely on one to explain the other wholly.

That's really good, Shawn. That was a really good explanation and also a good example of Right, like, and I think what we come back to over and over again is it's like, there's no one rule, right? And I think that can be frustrating as human beings, we just want to rule, like, okay, do this. But actually, we have to look at it within ourselves, you know, and when we just did the previous group, you know, somebody was talking about that, like, for a long time, this was fine, you know, I was going along with this. Now all of a sudden, it's a different time, and something new needs to be done. And I think we have got to be the This is where that be present now, be here in the moment really comes in, right? To check in and say, okay, is this— for me, I'm often asking, like, is this authentic pain that wants to move through me? Or is this a story that is being told to make me feel bad?

Yeah. To have you stick in the feeling versus move through it. Yeah.

Yes. Oh, I'm so glad you said that.

Yeah.

Um, let's talk for a minute, if you will, about— like, we're not going to talk about the content of it, but I appreciated so much that you were talking today about frustration.

Yeah, I've, um, high level, there's been some professional things where I've been feeling kind of stuck and coming out in different ways. But like, you know, being present and really listening to that call to action, you know, uh, of setting a boundary. Um, you know, sometimes you work so hard on something, on a relationship or on a project or on an idea you have for your business or personally, that when you're not seeing the breakthrough that you want, like, kind of like, what gives? Like, that's the question of like, what's going on here, right? And oftentimes the common thread through all of that is you. And I firmly believe that, like, okay, like, how am I acting in each of these different areas? And maybe this is again the logic versus emotional thing kind of coming up. It's kind of funny, like, talking about that. But like, what am I doing wrong here that I— there's something I need to learn to get to that next level and I'm not getting it. And so listening to that frustration and like What can I control? What can't I control? And the call to action is, what do you do for the things you can't control? Yeah, that's usually a boundary, and that's a boundary that I won't go do this anymore, you know.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, I— and it's really sinking into me, and I'm glad you sort of repeated that again, like the call to action. Like, I think that's a really helpful thing to understand for ourselves, like The hard stuff's okay is not just about like, let me just stay in this, stay in this, stay in this, stay in this, you know. Although, as we say, like, that's okay. But at some point, I think we do want to ask ourselves, what's the call to action? It sounds like that's where you got with, with this, like, work frustration. Yep.

And that's exactly it. And so it's like, what am I doing differently. Like, I got frustrated going through some of the same loops today on, okay, what am I working on today? And I'm like, this is what I did last week, and last week didn't change the thing. Like, what's going on here, Shawn? You know, kind of frustration. So that's a little bit different than what we talked about. I know I'm being vague, but—

No, no, no, no, but that's okay, because I think, you know, I mean, when we talk about the hard stuff, obviously we're talking about all sorts of things, right? We're talking about big things, little things, work stuff, death, loss of this or loss of that, fusion. People, you know, earlier talking about different frustrations in relationships that can happen. You know, it's a pretty broad topic, right? Just like joy is a pretty broad topic. So I like that. I like that we could just jump around a lot and just kind of— well, so without revealing, you know, it's like we never want to reveal any confidentiality, whether it's you know, someone who's in our group or even with our own situations sometimes, right? Trying to talk about it in terms of process, not the content. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I find that helpful too, because it can distance you talking about it from as a process versus this is the exact thoughts going in my head that are repeating every time I encounter this problem or this issue or this feeling, you know. I think that goes back a little bit to what you're saying, you know, getting caught in it.

I love that. I love that, Shawn. You just helped me see something too, right? Because it is when we're talking about something as a process rather than the exact content, it does, it does provide a little distance. And for me, it also enables me to see like, oh, oh, I've done this before. This and this and this and this and this and this. It's not actually— this isn't a unique situation that I'm feeling. Stuck in. And that's hard in its own way, but, but good to see.

Yeah, that self-understanding helps you plan a different course of action. At least you get the opportunity to try, and that's sometimes more than enough, I think.

Oh, I love that. I love that. I'm just gonna glance down at my notes and see if there was anything else that I— how about you? Was there anything else from today? We have about 2 more minutes if you have anything.

Yeah, I think when we were talking in the group, it was really interesting to hear both of the other folks that were in there were like, okay, I'm at this place where I need to— this needs to change. And it's not out of frustration or anger. It's just like, this just needs to change. And here's what I can do about it. It was very effortless and not like charged. And like, I wonder maybe at the next call we can explore like, when do you make that choice to do the change? 'Cause I think when you're in it, it can be, that's when you kind of get like, you know, quit my job and like burn all the bridges, burn the ships and there's no going back, there's only forward, which can be fun, but is also scary. Impactful. And maybe with a cooler head, you'd be like, we don't need to burn the bridges. We can maybe explore a different area and then come back if that's okay, you know.

Yeah, I love that. And what a great— yeah, we'll put a little, um, reminder to ourselves somewhere because I think that would be something great to come back to. Yeah, how do we know, um, along the process when it is time to to make that, make that move. Yeah, but I also like what you said, and maybe this is a good place for us to end today, which was I heard you say like, like not out of, not out of anger or not out of like being triggered or being charged, but more from a kind of a centered place of like, you know what, I've looked at this from all the angles, I was upset about it, but now I'm not. I'm just— this is— but this is still the This is what I need to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That sense of secure decision-making of like, okay, like this is what needs to happen for this to change for me. And that's cool.

You know, I love that. I love that. This has been great as always, Shawn. I love, I love for anyone who's just joining us today or who's listening later, we just, we have a The Hard Stuff Is Okay group meeting and then Shawn and I hop on a Facebook Live and just sort of get a chance to process together. And it's a really wonderful thing, Shawn, because I love that we just hop on and we trust ourselves and we trust whatever arises. And that itself is such a beneficial practice for me. So I thank you for that.

Likewise. So as someone that likes to plan, this was scary 2 years ago when we started this, and now it's a very exciting exercise in working together. So thank you.

I love it, I love it. All right, well, we'll see you in a couple weeks.

You got it.

Thank you. Bye everyone, thanks for being here.