30. A Self-Talk Pep Talk/Sneaky Unhelpful Thoughts

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 30. stay tuned welcome to Beyond The High Road a podcast dedicated to Healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation I'm your host Shelby Milford a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic growth if you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal then this show is my love letter G stay tuned as I'm recording this it is Parental alienation awareness day it is Tuesday the 25th I wanted to record this today because I wanted you to have something that you could come back to sort of like the alienated parents Bill of Rights

that I have there for you episode nine I want it to be the same way for you just like some encouraging thoughts and ideas for you to chew on and consider when you are wanting to feel better about you and about who you are you are perfect exactly how you are so I think I can comfortably speak for all of us when I say that we have been sent the message that we are not good enough and that we are defective as parents as humans we are selfish irresponsible all of the things that the alienator and maybe even your childhood children might be saying to you and if you were ever given the message that you weren't good enough or that you were anything that you aren't comfortable

with thinking about yourself maybe it doesn't sound negative to somebody else but you don't love feeling like you are defined by it you identify with it even though you don't want to this will help you with that I hope self-love and being kind to yourself these are skills that take practice and take diligence to develop and to get really good at so it's not something that it could have been instilled in you as a child but most of us even the ones that aren't alienated I've been coaching for a little while out and started coaching the general public before alienated parents like me and you and you'd be surprised on how many people carry the desire to have had a more supportive

upbringing okay yes it can be instilled from a young age but it doesn't have to be you can learn the skill now of loving yourself and actually as much diligence as it takes which is just you being persistent and wanting it enough it's very simple the steps are easy to do easy to explain easy to carry out when you want it so I'm gonna go through today I just took a walk and came back I've already recorded the episode what you're getting ready to listen to is some of the common thoughts or kinds of thoughts that we tend to think are super helpful and sound like very compassionate loving encouraging ways to talk to ourselves but maybe aren't so much and you'll notice when you try the

different thoughts on see for yourself what works best for you so don't always trust what I have to say but um maybe what I have to say coming up will resonate with you and you'll be able to use some of it okay so enjoy I hope you enjoy you guys I forgot to mention last week too that I have just had two spots open up in my private one-on-one coaching so if that is something that is of interest to you they're probably not going to last okay so just want to let you guys know that I never actually even talk about my one-on-one availability but that's usually because I don't have it and so now I do okay I'm continuing on with the episode hey y'all recording this on PA

Awareness Day on the 25th in light of the fact that today is today I thought that it would be a good time to give you guys a little bit of a pep talk or record this for you so that you could utilize this at the times when you do need it's a pep talk slash mindset self-talk awareness talk a self-talk talk I want to give you my thoughts about some of the helpful ways that we can talk to ourselves and then also some of the ways that kind of seem to be they're like masked as helpful we think they sound helpful and they sound Noble but they're in fact not helpful at all so that is what we're going to be talking about today because the end result I want for you after listening to

this is for you to be aware of the areas where you're maybe not being as kind to yourself is that you could be and yeah learn to identify those areas and learn what you can replace that not so helpful talk with okay being alienated parents most of us have some form of dysfunction in our history it's not uncommon for us to have been told that we were not good right or that we weren't good enough and if we weren't told this vocally we were given the message in some way shape or form right and as a result we end up adopting that message without even realizing it and so in order to heal so that you can be productive and feel good about yourself and therefore about your

life and what you're creating in it you need to reprogram yourself you need to sort of brainwash your own self to start believing the things that you want to believe and here's some things that I want to tell you so that you can repeat them to yourself if they resonate okay so there is nothing nothing wrong with you right now you were not faulty you were not a work in progress this is something that I hear people saying and I've said it in my past too you know a lot more work in progress and it sounds good but it's really implying that you're not yet good that you're a work in progress that there's faulty areas in you there's nothing faulty about you there was nothing faulty about you

before in your past you are amazing and whole and beautiful right here right now and you always have been okay I mean that from the very bottom of my in my being I believe that and I mean that and I want you to believe it too about your own self okay A lot of times we will beat ourselves up replay old scenarios like back to ourselves about like how I should have handled this you know I should have done this better uh I should have done that better I should have known and those the I should have and then I could have and I wish I would have they're all super unhelpful because you can't focusing on what happened and how you could have and wished you would

have handled it there's no purpose to it it's the opposite of productive because there's nothing that you can do about your past what how you handled it of course hindsight's always 20 20 right and of course now you see things differently than you did back then we rarely can see the full picture when we're really in it and especially when we're in the middle of an abusive situation okay so what you did back then does not define you it never did Define you okay you decide what defines you not what anybody else says that's their own thoughts what happened in the past it's whatever don't Define Yourself by that another one that I hear my clients say a lot is well I'm so much better now than

I was oh I've gotten so much better that's one I've gotten so much better blah blah blah those are implying that you are once not better but you were once bad or that you were once not whole okay instead of defining Yourself by what has happened it's already done look to Define Yourself by your future defining Yourself by who you are becoming instead of saying I'm trying it feels the most productive and the most powerful empowering when you whatever it is that you want to create in your life when you talk about it as if you've already created it you're creating you are you're there you've done it okay so I am the person that does ABC I am the person that blah blah blah blah state it

as if it is happening has happened you are already the person you are looking to step into does that make sense another thing that I hear people say and I used to do this a lot too was that oh that's just who I am I'm just I'm a procrastinator I'm just a late person those things are not helpful and yes it is one thing to own how you act yeah but I think it can be very limiting to say that you are just this kind of person oh I'm just the kind of person who sleeps in I'm just the kind of person that puts myself last I'm just the kind of person that is running late always just who I am can't change it yes you can if you want to change it you can so don't make

that your persona right make don't make that Define you okay you are a person that in the past has been late to some things how are you the person that you want to become how are you now already that person find all the evidence to support that as opposed to the limiting belief do you know what I'm saying so yeah don't Define Yourself by your past I need to work on myself I need to work on myself I need to work on this area it's going to take time I need to set time aside to work on and to process this whole era of my life it's not helpful it seems like a huge step towards self-care and towards self-love but actually the deeper thought is that you need to work on yourself because

you're broken right and you're not broken we've already established that it's going to take time for this to happen yes things do take time but we don't need to set aside and stop our lives in order to focus on the what's happened in the past you don't telling you you can move forward and as the feelings I think I mentioned this in last week's podcast as the feelings or events come up for us we can process and move through them as we're still moving forward okay so there's nothing there's no time that you need to take instead aside and this is going to take eons or you know months or years even that isn't helpful because what that will do is keep you stuck in that old pattern right

looking for all the ways in which you suck and you don't suck you don't suck you are beautiful and you are already whole okay yes again I think it's so helpful and responsible and full of self-love when you want to look at some of the stuff that you've been denying and putting away and wanting to ignore right absolutely one thousand percent and you can do it while you're still living into your future yeah into who you're becoming okay so I think these things will be really helpful for you moving forward because we are so awful to ourselves sometimes right and we already have we're already in a situation where other people are doubting who we are and I think that is

why it is even more important for us to be for you to be diligent about your own self-love actively fiercely being your own champion and loving you for everything that you are right in a productive and positive and encouraging way so yeah you are perfect and beautiful just how you are and any mistakes that you have made in your past you only made those mistakes because you were thinking a thought that is it you didn't make the mistakes because you were bad or you are selfish or you are you know any of the things that you've been called by the alienator or maybe even your children okay that is not why you did what you did you did those things whatever those things are one

because you were trying to protect yourself and or your child yeah and because you were thinking a thought that's it you were thinking a thought that made it feel like the right thing to do in the moment even if you say well I was being careless I wasn't thinking about I wasn't taking all things into consideration that's okay still you did every choice that you've made is because I thought that you were thinking it does not mean anything about you and it does not mean that you're bad or that you're irresponsible or that you're any of the things that they're trying to call you okay I think this is so important for you to remember and tell yourself every single time you try to go back and say I

should have done it this way why didn't I think about this how come I didn't know any better oh that's because I was thinking a thought right I was thinking a thought that led me to believe that this was the right thing to do at the time that's it that's all okay and just don't limit yourself you're just that kind of person you decide what kind of person you are you decide who you want to become okay and you be that person now even if you haven't accomplished the things I actually was considering this week I was going to do an episode on money and money fears and all of the things especially because us as alienated parents you know many of us are ordered to pay child support even

though the other one has the money to do go through all the litigation and all the other stuff usually so it's it's us that are paying the child support and often we have there's a lot of Hang-Ups regarding this so I will go into that in a very near future episode I will visit that but I thought today that this might be more useful given that it's parental alienation awareness day that we you know just be kind to ourselves right being kind to yourself in this way this is the fundamental this is this is how you build from the in outward right and every time you hear yourself with the negative self-talk oh I just can't do that I'm not that kind of person here's

another thing is there's so many hurdles there's some form of that sentence the odds are stacked against me there's too many things in my way I don't have enough money I don't have the resources I don't have the support right instead of thinking about what you don't have I mean of course it's always good to be realistic but I tell you that's a slippery slope okay instead of focusing on everything you don't have because when you focus on what you don't have you're going to create more of what you don't have okay this is very very very important to know this is actually why I wanted to do this today when you focus on that not having the resources not having the money not having the support

you're going to create more evidence for that okay okay so instead of focusing on what you don't have turn like do the full 180 tell yourself oh look what I'm doing again this is not interesting I'm focusing on what I don't have again this is a habit at my brain I'm so used to doing that but we're going to change that so every time you just had I've said this before it's like correcting a toddler in the most loving way like hey love we're not doing that anymore nope we're going to focus on what we do have what we can create what we are creating right this is the way out to dig out right and up into the light focus on what you are creating and finding the evidence to support that okay if you

feel stuck this is huge look for all the evidence even sometimes I like to do like wacky turnarounds where I'm like well I don't have the resources for that I do have the resources for that how do I have the resources for that well I'm creating the resources for that how am I creating the resources for that well yeah I guess depends on what we're talking about I just think of the wackiest most outlandish ways like try to open up my mind to look at all the ways in which I could create the resources right doesn't mean I'm gonna follow and do the wackiest most outlandish but it's always good to push the limits of your mind to consider what might be possible for somebody right if

they were in my position that's another thing is like I like to take it out of me okay if I was not me what if I was the person over there what would they do how would they get out of this how would they work towards creating the person that you want to become right how would they go about doing it and then you put that on for you right so yeah I think that's what I have for you so just be look at the way that you're talking to yourself become aware and really commit to being kind to yourself right and look at the tricky ways where you're telling yourself that that you're not enough even though it's masked in you what we think is productive right I'm trying to

do this oh I'm trying to be better right I need to get better at blah blah blah I'm just that kind of person I'm so much better than I used to be I need to work on myself it's going to take time all of those things right they seem super productive but in the end all of those are pointing back to this belief underlying belief that we're not enough already and you are okay so and you can be enough right now you were enough before and you also know that who you want to become if you intentionally start to create that for yourself cultivate that for yourself what do you want to create who do you want to become what uh am I intentionally going to do in order to be there right and then once

you have gotten that image if you don't already have it then you start talking and living in that now before you've even created it for yourself talk about it like it's already happened talk about it like you've already created whatever it is like for instance an easy way to do this if you want to get a raise at work ask yourself who you would have to become in order to be the person that makes x amount of money how would that version of you act how would they dress how would they show up to work would they show up on time would they be early how would they complete projects right and then when you go in for that review with your boss then you've already become the person that is adding this

value and so it should be an easy sell right look I'm I'm already creating this for you now you just need for them to say okay and if not let's just say this I had a client say to me well yeah but what if I do all that work for nothing but is it for nothing or will you have become the person that is capable of earning that amount of money you will have bettered yourself and pushed yourself to the place where you are now capable of earning whatever amount of money that you've decided on does that make sense so believe it about yourself ahead of time how would he or she be thinking especially if it's like a big jump in Pay who would they be hanging out with what kind of people would I be

hanging out with if I were making x amount of dollars so like that and like I said if for whatever reason they uh deny you then maybe that's not the kind of company you want to be working for anyway but you can make decisions when you get there you can decide where do you want to provide value because maybe right now you're settling for somewhere because you think there's nothing else but if you start taking the initiative and becoming the person that creates more value and creates more money then who knows what's out there for you when you get that momentum rolling of course our self-esteem lifts and we start seeing opportunities that we're always there that we didn't know were there

okay so there's it's there's no downside to becoming the person ahead of time and another thing too is that don't sell yourself short a lot of times we'll make excuses for why we have what we do and we're not giving ourselves credit for the steps that we've already taken oh well that person helped me that's okay so what if somebody helped you you created that you were the one that actually made that happen even though you asked for help we all have help right but you created that result for yourself and that I think is something that you should always take credit for okay okay so love yourself fiercely always and when you notice that you're not being as loving to yourself as you

have already decided you're going to be just lovingly redirect yourself like you're redirecting your toddler okay so all right guys that's what I have for you have a lovely lovely week and I'll see you next week thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where we take the concepts that you hear about here and using a logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to beyondthehighroad.com see you soon