Breaking Away From Negative Self-Talk: You Do It Bird By Bird

Psst. In this episode, Jessica lets you in on a little secret:

No one is f**king okay right now.

Okay? 

So let's just make it okay to not be okay.  For our own self-care and self-compassion, as well as how we model that for those in our lives who we love.

Whether you believe it or not, we're all connected on this planet, and we're all suffering, more or less.  Even if your problems are of the first-world kind, you're still experiencing the pain, grief, and general mind-f**kery that the last two years have presented for us.  And if you're sensitive, you are really gonna be feeling allllll the feels.

Yes, there is a continuum.  If you're not getting out of bed or your social/occupational functioning is taking a hit, then if you're not already seeing a counselor or psychotherapist, it's likely time to start.  But no one's mind, heart, or nervous system can escape the consequences of living the past two years in a global pandemic, and we need to give ourselves, and others when possible, as much grace as we can.

Jessica also discusses how to find the "utter, utter okayness" under the "not okayness", and how a shared embodiment practice with other living beings, LIKE TREES, can help us reconnect with the basic goodness of our beings, and ground in times of groundlessness. 

 
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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.   She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence.com

After taking a break from the pod for the last month of 2021, Jessica is back with the first episode of 2022, just in time to attempt to spare us all the external/internal expectations around making resolutions for the new year.

What if we broke away from that practice entirely, or at least, what it's meant before now.

Could we resolve to do less? Could we rest more? To be still and listen for what our bodies want to do next? Can we ask ourselves that question and then have the patience to wait for the answer. And then to listen to that answer, by following the guidance it offers us?

We're constantly changing. You've heard it before, and it's probably corny by now, but it is true: change is the only constant. So how can we possibly expect ourselves to feel the same way tomorrow as we do today when everything inside us out in the outside world is constantly in flux?

Jessica gets curious about this and the necessity of quiet practices during the darkest season, so we may metabolize what we have digested and for gestating what is to come. And for the sustainability of our inner and outer world.

Jessica also shares that her foray into podcasting, book writing, and social media has been a humbling experience and the dangers of pushing ourselves to be resolute when it is human to waver. She reminds us (and herself) that we need not shame ourselves for changing our pace or minds.

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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.   She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence

This is the last episode of 2021 before some time away to clarify the next steps for the podcast and book writing. While all of these projects have been exciting, Jessica is coming clean about how when we push the river, we run the risk of that excitement starting to feel like too much, too fast, and too soon. 

When we want things to turn out a certain way (and who doesn't?!), we can find ourselves pushing for a particular outcome instead of letting ourselves float down the river's current and letting things unfold naturally. Being available for that natural unfolding informs our bodies of what feels good and what doesn't.  But if we're pushing too hard to get it the way we want it,  we inadvertently muddy the waters and be rendered unable to get clarity on the way forward.

Jessica also talks about the need for readiness as we embark on new journeys and the need to titrate the amount, the speed, and the intensity of our experiences to get the most success (in our own eyes) from our endeavors. 

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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence

The fall and winter holidays are upon us, which can be a mixed bag for many of us.  There might be much holly, jolly, and there might be a great deal of stress. Perhaps both.

In this episode, Jessica reminds us that whether we're traveling to see family or popping over to a friend's house for holiday festivities, our true home is in our bodies, and we can rely on them to tell us whether something feels like welcome or warning, safety or danger, yum or yuck.

We just have to take the time and space to listen. 

If you're feeling pure delight about the upcoming holiday season, that is marvelous, and this episode might not resonate.  But if 'tis the season for feeling a whole host of feels that aren't so festive, you might find the offerings here will resource you when you're having a hard time.

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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence.com

We're all so fatigued by living in this world in the current state of affairs. Yet, we still have our to-do lists, waiting and constantly beckoning, despite having little energy to complete the tasks. A couple of episodes back, Jessica talked about getting that sh*t done.  Today, we're looking at the possibility and the practice of not getting that sh*t done. 

We're human beings, not human doings. But, we live in a society that's all about productivity. Goddess forbid we sit down for a moment to feel our emotions and bodily sensations because we might decide not to buy something or to take our vacation days. But, we're so used to running around that we have a hard time stepping back, letting ourselves off the hook for not ticking task boxes, and instead, carving out time and space to sit and be, rather than do.

This episode is twofold.  First, Jessica offers some tips for stepping away from "should"-ing on ourselves, looking instead at our to-do lists through the lens of "could,"  and remembering that we have a choice, in many situations, about what we do with our time. 

The second part of the episode is a guided practice that you can come back to again and again as a way to carve out a little bit of space for yourself to be.  With that regular practice, we can refuel ourselves for the necessary doings.


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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence.com

Remembering that courage means to take one's heart in their hands and fearlessness means you might be afraid but are doing it anyway, we can stay true to ourselves, despite the potential consequences. 

Sometimes those consequences involve being burned at the stake.  Sometimes we need to take that risk, showing up as our full, complete, witchy selves.

In this episode, Jessica offers an example of speaking her truth, even though she risked her reputation with a professional organization. She also shares the story of a client who took a significant leap of faith, hoping that she would find a place that welcomed her fully at their table.


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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence.com

   

The word compassion means to "suffer with" another, but that is often not what we're doing when we think we're offering compassion to someone who is behaving badly. In this culture of enabling and codependency,  in our attempts to be loving, we instead indulge people in that suffering (and create our own), instead of offering them motivation for change that could ease it.

Women and folx have been taught to "be nice", to not "rock the boat", to avoid conflict at all costs. We've come by that honestly in this patriarchal society, where cishet white men get to stir all the pots they want without the risk of being labeled as aggressive or b*tchy. 

Yes, compassion is "suffering with" when there is no solution for the suffering.  We can sit together and lovingly hold a container for what cannot be solved. For what needs time, patience, and an opportunity to be healed without intervention. But when harm is being done, and solutions abound, it is idiot compassion that keeps us in a pattern of enabling someone to misbehave, rather than letting them know that they can't keep doing what they're doing on our watch.

True compassion is fierce. True compassion is Kali the Hindu Goddess, with her many arms. One holds her warrior sword, another the head of a man. She destroys what is harmful and cuts away the nonsense.

In order to make the jump from idiot compassion to that which is true, we must first prepare our own sacred ground with tender and fierce self-compassion. Only then will we have the strength to cut through the BS with the sword of courage and wisdom.

In this episode, Jessica shares a personal story about an attempt to bring true compassion to a community that was allowing a sexual predator to target young women, and a story of a client who offered her man true compassion when he wouldn't cease his harmful behavior.
 
Also, Jessica experiences a moment of semantic satiation and forgets whether the word regality exists or if she was being "grammagical."  Yes, indeed, regality is a real word.

As promised, here are the books on self-compassion by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. mentioned in this episode:

Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive (2021)

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself  (2012)

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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence.com

Earlier in the week, Jessica saw a post of Sheryl Sandberg's quote: "Done is better than perfect," and it got her thinking about how we risk getting stuck and even shutting down if we keep picking at a thing endlessly in search of the mystical PERFECT.

Perfect doesn't exist, y'all.

Just get the thing done.

With the extra space that you have created by not tweaking and re-tweaking and tweaking some more., you can unpack and compost your internalization of how society and family have made you question your value and worth. 

And that is work worth spending some time on.

In this episode, Jessica shares a personal situation from this week where she found the application of Sandberg's quote to be tremendously helpful, in addition to the story of a client who was finally able to finish her dissertation and get her Ph.D. when she quit searching for perfect. 


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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

In episodes where Jessica discusses cases, they are composites of her clients from over the past 20 years.  She has changed names, situations, and circumstances to protect client confidentiality.

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com
Email: jessica@deepestpresence.com 

Our families and our patriarchal society have taught us to have extremely high expectations of ourselves and others. And yet, both can lead to deep disappointment.

What if the expectations we set for ourselves are so high that we must eventually fall from the pedestal we set ourselves upon?

Could it be that we're actually moving along the current of life, doing just fine, and it's not that we're doing a poor job, but the lens we see ourselves through is the problem?

Is it possible that when we get bent out of shape about how others don't do unto us as we would do unto them. . .  it's because the standards we hold ourselves to are too high?

And crucially, if we let ourselves off the hook, might we be able to do the same for others more easily?

In this episode, Jessica looks at these questions and the possible answers, along with a couple of important practices. One for empowerment around lowering expectations of yourself and another for increasing self-compassion as you work this growing edge.

P.S. A big thanks to Ecuador for putting me in position 26 for mental health podcasts. Es muy especial para mí, especialmente  porque el podcast no está en español.  Tal vez algún día haga algunos episodios en español. ¡Muchas gracias! 


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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

Connect with Jessica:


 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com

I love the Rumi quote, "Try something different. Surrender." 

I'm applying it here to this week's non-episode. Instead, you're just getting a little announcement.

Mercury is retrograde.

Everything electronic in my house is fucked.

My laptop is not recognizing my USB microphone. I even bought another, thinking the mic might have been the problem.  It wasn't.

I can't spend more than 5 minutes hunched over my laptop screaming into the internal microphone. I did it last week, but my neck and shoulders are no longer available for that activity.

Let's cross our fingers that Mercury complies with my IT guy next week so that I can get back to our usually scheduled programming!

Until then, here's a takeaway. If Mercury is fucking with your electronics, do the best you can do, surrender, and walk away.  I mean, you're powerful, but you can't beat a planet.

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The One Day You Finally Knew: For Folx Breaking Away podcast is produced and edited by Jessica Chasnoff, a recovering perfectionist who is always on a learning curve. While she is a psychologist, this podcast is not a substitute for mental health services. If you're struggling with mental health concerns, please reach out to a professional near you.

Connect with Jessica:


 Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/your_deepest_presence/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100070192401240
Website: https://www.DeepestPresence.com