A childhood conflict over a Tonka truck created a core belief: "who I am is not acceptable." This belief drives people-pleasing across work, relationships, and friendships. The speaker shows how to spot the physical cues—chest tightness, rapid breathing—that trigger the pattern, and why acceptance keeps it running.
So if the situation isn't the problem, what is? You have probably changed jobs, changed relationships, changed communities, environments. So if the situation isn't the problem, I'm going to walk you through ways to figure out, well, what is the thing that we are trying to solve for? Let's look at the first thing. So it's not about the situation because it doesn't matter where you are. And so what this looks like, I have shared with you what my default sentence was for a very, very long time. And this started when, for as long as I can remember, it was when I was 6. And what happened was I had this, this, I wanted this Tonka truck. Short, very short version of it is my mother thought it was better for me to have a baby doll at 6. Because I think she saw I was becoming a tomboy. I wanted to be like my brother. We have all these stories, we have these reasons and things that we make it mean. For a 6-year-old, in order to get love, keep love, I made it mean that who I am at my core is not acceptable. And if that was not acceptable to a 6-year-old, imagine how that default sentence played out in all the areas of my life. And so what happens is, because it's not about where you are, the rule follows you. It comes with you, and it, it, it shows up in lots of different ways. The main important thing about this is that the pattern, the rule, disguises itself. It shows up differently at work. It shows up differently in relationships. It shows up differently, like, when you're hanging with your friends, when you are at play. And so what happens is we try to fix one area and we go, okay, we saw that, solved that area, but then what about the other areas? So what this looks like is going back to my thought, my default sentence, my pattern that who I am at my core is not acceptable. The way that showed up was I was always trying to protect myself. I was always trying to figure out how to get someone's love because I automatically assumed that I wasn't being accepted by that person. I would go into the situations and go, okay, when I was a high school teacher, how can I be accepted? Because the kids are not gonna accept me. Then maybe I need to dress a certain kind of way. Maybe I need to talk. I need to be probably a little more feminine. That's the way it looked like at work. In my relationship, the way it came up was who I am at my core is not acceptable. That took on a whole nother level because it kept a wall up between me and my partner because I was always seeking a way to get love, to get acceptance, to, to, to feel like I was needed, I mattered. And at play, it looked like I was just always becoming the person that I thought other people needed me to be. And so I would just become that person, whoever, whoever I thought they needed me to be. The important part that I really want you to understand today is because it disguises itself in the mood, the rule comes with you. It's not the situation, it's inside you because of what happens the second your brain turns on and says, oh, I need to protect myself from this threat. I need to do this certain thing. So there is a trigger, you know, it's a cue that basically says, hey, we're about to run that pattern because this cue went off and this is what I need your nervous system to do. I need your nervous system to get tight. I need your chest to get tight. I need you to breathe real fast and hard. And I need it to be like, like back in the day, it felt like, you know, there was like a lion or something coming after us. But this is just made-up stories, and it's a default pattern that's just running inside in our core. It's kind of like that iceberg demonstration, the metaphor of the things that are coming out of our mouths, like in language, that's just a tip of the iceberg that's actually sticking up above the water. When it's embedded in your subconscious, it's embedded inside of your nervous system, inside of your body. And we don't know how far that iceberg actually goes down into the depths of the water. That's what this pattern is like. That's what this pattern is like. It's so embedded. The work here is to figure out what is the cue, what triggers this pattern to start its cycle, because we are always getting a reward or we would not be getting— we wouldn't be doing this. The reward I was getting, I'm accepted, I'm feeling loved, I feel like I belong. Because there's always a reward, this happens like clockwork. The key in this video is figuring out what triggers it, what is the cue, recognizing what happens in your body, because what shows up in your mind as a thought, it's already shown up in your body. It shows up in the tightness of your chest. It shows up like in the pit in your stomach. It shows up in your nervous energy. It shows up in a way that you have taught yourself to recognize when there is a threat. So it's not the situation, it's inside you. So in the next video, we are going to talk about if this is actually your voice or is it a voice from someone else. See you in the next video.
Remember the YOU Who Didn't Overthink Everything #personalgroth #mindset #selfdoubt
