How "IDK" Is Keeping You Stuck As An Alienated Parent

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 74 welcome to Beyond The High Road hey guys so before I get started I just wanted to say that I'm going to try something I'm over the next few months I'm going to be trying some new things not only for the business but also for the podcast I do want to start adding a more interactive aspect to it and so if if you have a question if you have a request of any kind I'm put a link down below to leave a voice message and your question or whatever it is that you want to say can be featured without divulging your name if you don't want to like your first last name keep you Anonymous if

you want I'll bleep out those parts but that way I can just answer your questions directly eventually what I would like to do is have conversation um with you guys doing live podcast episodes but that is not yet because I'd have to it's a whole thing because I'm going to have to change providers and all the things so for right now let's start by if you want if you have any questions if you have any requests if there's a specific situation that's going on in your life that you really want help with that you feel stumped in this area like the information that I'm giving doesn't seem to you can't figure out how to apply it in one area or the next leave me a message so the link is

going to be below in the show notes and what I think I'm going to do is continue to provide that link in upcoming you know subsequent shows from here on out or episodes from here on out that way you always have access to that okay it's just on the Spotify homepage on the whatever but it's not always so easy to find so I'll leave that below leave your voice message you can in that voice message let me know or followed up with an email if you prefer me not to play your voice over the air totally fine I'll do I'll respect whatever you choose whatever you want okay so messaging your questions or your thoughts or whatever is going on with you and I will be happy

to address the stuff directly okay and I'm still doing the um Friday noon p.m. live events in private Facebook group so if you're not a private Facebook group member yet come on over that link is below as well lastly then I'll shut up and get on to the episode is listen if you haven't already hit subscribe or follow I think is what they do nowadays please pretty please please do that also I would love if you would review a leave the the link to the Apple podcast cuz Spotify doesn't allow you to write any reviews but but the more people that review the more exposure that we have and the more parents like you and I can come and listen okay and I'll make you a

deal the way that I will reciprocate if you the more people that make the reviews the more the bigger this show can get and in turn the more I can do for you and the better I can make the show as far as in production in the editing in all of the things that go on behind the scenes that I'm a One Man Band doing at the moment the more exposure that we get the more that I can justify hiring out for people to do those things so that I can concentrate on serving you guys and providing you guys with the best content possible okay so that is my promise to you that is my payback for your review and for your follow okay all right then now we get on to the episode hey guys how's everybody

doing today I am recording on the day that I am releasing this because I'm going to have to edit and do all the things because my exfinity which is my internet provider has been every day saying that they're working to enhance the network and every day they say it's only going to be one day and it started last Wednesday so now I'm working on day eight of them being the last day of working this is my [ __ ] session here you guys it has interfered with all of my daytime appointments I mean I have lost so much time with my clients and of course as a business money as well and opportunity to connect with those who want to connect you know so it's been crazy but I began recording actually

twice earlier this week and both times I got cut out you know of the my software so because of internet problems so hopefully third times charm going to work today that's a theme for me last week on Friday I was doing a Facebook live and it was time number three of reconnecting that it finally worked so I'm going to trust that it it does the same for this so today I'm actually recording two episodes um back to back and today we're going to be talking about the power of knowing and basically I haven't really titled it yet but the power of knowing and how I don't know the the the term the when we say I don't know how it blocks you blocks us from our wisdom from taking any action in your life

saying I don't know is a habit that I think so many of us have gotten ourselves into and don't even realize how often we say it and thus how often we're blocking ourselves from our own resourcefulness so first I'm going to start with just a brief overview of what knowing is when we know something when you know something how do you know that you know it think about that like how do you know that whatever it is that you know is true I can look at these cabinets right now I know that the cabinets are white my bottom cabinets are gray I've got plants propagating on the window S I know that I'm a coach how do I know these things though because I've had practice in believing them so

we know because we believe and we're confident in our belief there are things that we know that we sometimes feel obligated to continue knowing in that way but maybe they don't serve us so well right with the things that do serve us like I know that I like to help people that is something that I know about myself that I believe about myself and that does serve me right and subsequently it serves all the people that I do help so it's a good idea to develop a skill set or mindset of questioning all of the things you know things that serve you this is a good time to sort of renew your commitment and your certainty about them things that don't serve you maybe you've been

given like thoughts you think that they're facts about you who you are like for me my mom told me from a very young age before I was way before I was old enough to have a drink or or do drugs that I inherited an addictive personality from my grandfather her father and her brothers and sisters some of them had acted addictions and so I was through my DNA bound to become an alcoholic and an addict I know that my mom was saying that to me in order to help me to deter me from ever drinking she didn't want me to ever touch a drink and that was how well intention she was trying to protect me but what that did I know for me in the short term was the opposite ultimately I chose to have it

help me but I I kept this idea in my head that I was an alcoholic and it haunted me it affected my self-esteem it affected my selfworth like how I saw myself and who I was worthy of dating what group of people I was worthy of hanging out with associating with as a teenager it really really affected me because I felt that starting from the get-go that I was different I am not in a victim mentality at all about it today and again I know that what my mom was doing she was doing it all for the right reasons but I did I adopt did that knowing about myself and I believed it and it didn't work and so whatever you have that maybe has been passed down to you maybe you got it from your past

relationship maybe abusive and you inherited uh via exposure you heard over and over again that you were not worthy you were not fit to be with anybody else even though with your prefrontal cortex you know that is not true your subconscious may quote unquote know that about you another one is I'm a slow learner I hear this a lot from people oh I'm just a slow learner most people don't just develop that thought about themselves that is usually handed down to them something they overheard a teacher and and the parent talking about or the parent has told them question that first off no matter what it is that we're talking about even if it does serve you do you like how this feels to

say does it feel good does it cause you to move yourself in the direction you want to go okay this is a good one for an example because what is slow even where is there any empirical evidence or any sort of standardized testing to decide whether you are a slow learner or a quick learner what does that even mean I believe that there are learning styles and maybe for you in reading comprehension let's say or for whoever we're talking about here you may do better comprehend what you're reading more accurately by reading it through twice and so if you read a book you can't just read one page maybe your eyes skip all over the place this happens to me I do Skip and my mind will wander it

usually honestly takes me three times to read it one page each page not always I can get an approve but it does happen with me instead of calling myself a slow learner I would say I do better when I take my time I like to read a page two or three times over in order to get the most out of it in order to retain the information that is more accurate and feels better to me than saying I'm a slow learner reading takes forever for me because if I say that I'm not going to want to read I'm going to want to always do audible now I do do audible quite a bit but I for a long time sh away from reading at all anything longer than a paragraph or two because I was believing this about me that I was a

slow learner that reading is too hard for me that I can't do it all of those things are so not true this is just having to do with the basics about ourselves but you can apply what I'm saying here to your situation with your kiddos anything that you believe about yourself for instance you may not truly believe that you're a bad parent but because it's been questioned your ability to parent has been questioned by all of the quote unquote powers that be this could be a subconscious belief for you a knowing that you don't even know that you know you know what I'm saying so it's imperative if you want to move past this and start creating the life that you want to live for you to

question all of the thoughts that are in your head you hear me say this like a broken record but I'm at it from a place of curiosity if an insatiable desire to learn about what is happening up in between your ears another one is they don't like me right how do you know that they don't like you I know because they didn't invite me to so and so's birthday party I know because they didn't look at me when I passed them in the hallway they rolled their eyes they said something to me about me to the neighbor right that's how I know that they don't like me you don't actually know that they don't like you because they didn't come to you and say I don't like you you

have ideas you have the evidence that you've collected to make you come to that conclusion and that's fine but if that truth that knowing does not work for you they don't like me question it poke some holes in it how do you know it's true with all of these the stuff that feels good how do you know it's true so that you can reinforce that belief and carry yourself further and renew your confidence in that thing right and the things that don't serve you that don't feel good that don't seem to be helping you get to your ultimate goal then this is where you say okay what else could be true besides this and what is an alternate thought ultimately an alternate thought okay so now I'm

going to move to the unknown the things that we don't know you've heard me I'm probably say this over and over that our brains like to live in the area of familiarity and efficiency it wants to keep you watching Netflix snacking on things that aren't good for you having drinks at lunch in the middle of a work day it wants to keep you doing the things that immed cause immediate gratification and stay away from unfamiliar things you have to overcome that portion of your brain you have to overcome the urge or the desire to stay comfortable to stay stuck really and so many of as alienated parents have experienced so much trauma that it definitely feels so much safer to say no

just do what you know that way you're not sticking your neck out your lawyer will tell you that your parents will tell you that all the people that truly love you will try to convince you along with your survival brain to stay in the comfortable and what you know don't stick your neck out don't do anything that might get you hurt don't exert any more energy than you have to the problem with that is longterm the amount of energy that you spend staying in survival brain nervous system activation is far more than going out and learning a new skill or setting and completing goals yes it is exhausting to grow especially in the beginning when you're learning something new but that is for a

short period of time that you're exerting that energy once you begin to know and Gain confidence in it your energy exertion is much less than the ongoing everyday while you're awake and while you're sleeping energy that you put out by staying in survival brain and it literally causes you long-term terminal sickness to stay in that's nervous system activation okay disregulation so in order to grow and more importantly not even just grow but in order to get out of stuckness create a better life for yourself stop under earning to get out of the toxic relationships that you might be in to whatever it is that you really want to do that you want to depart from now you must be willing to

explore the unknown as I was saying in the beginning I don't even think that we all of us I'm including myself in this realize just how habitually unwilling to explore the unknown that we are I believe it's become such a and I'm not just saying this about you and I but I think as a community as a society that we have accepted the term I don't know as a way to excuse ourselves but we don't question ourselves or hold each other accountable for that I don't know you ever notice when you're like when you say I don't know to somebody they just leave it alone most of the time are you going to go to the party I'm not sure yet I don't know what are you going to write the book about I don't know

people are just like oh okay well let me know when you do know we just accept it from each other when we feel stagnant it's most of the time because we're telling ourselves somewhere in our brains that we don't know we don't know how to do it we don't know the right people we don't know which class to take if you're wanting to change your career right do something more meaningful with your life what kind of business are you going to build I don't know do you have a business plan I don't know how to do one I want to do service work oh that's great but I don't know where to start this one is one of my pet peeves I don't know how to do it and I say this with all the love in my heart

if that's you okay with all of the love in my heart I think we again we all do it at some point and I think that it's for sure unconscious because your higher thinking would never say I don't know this is a like one of those kneejerk reaction thoughts it is more more a fear like and it's sometimes used as an excuse when we say I don't know how to do it that is the subconscious brain putting their arms behind their head kicking the feet up reclining the chair and saying I don't know how to do it I don't know I'm not really sure I don't I don't know what the next step is and so we I I think we often especially us as alienated parents we feel so blocked in many of the other areas of our life

because decisions were made for us we didn't choose to not be actively parenting our children we didn't choose to be paying to go see the forensic psychologist to get psych evals done have a supervisor custody evaluator pay for the private gardian ad lium whatever it is that's going on for you you didn't choose any of this stuff really it it happened the alienating party did some things that caused us to take these steps right and as such most of us we're still suffering the repercussions of that maybe financially emotionally however physically we end up eating it right we feel very limited in our options and so I think that this is just my hypothesis because we've been like

cut off every chance we try to advance or do anything we end up just taking this like sort of [ __ ] it attitude and this more like I just don't know I don't know what to do the brain gets a little bit lazy back there out of protection for ourselves it's all for the right reasons again it's your survival brain that's like listen we don't want to know I don't want to know how I don't want to have to do anything more I'm exerting so much energy as it is to my point just a little bit ago and so it becomes much more of a sure thing to stay and where you know but the second that you say I don't know you cut yourself off from your own wisdom you cut yourself off from your own

resourcefulness this is where it it's so helpful and I think it's imperative if you want to grow to become acutely aware each and every time there is a hint of I don't know going on in your brain If you are in a period of inaction or something is holding you back from doing the thing and you're not sure why start questioning and I guarantee you there's an I don't know behind it somewhere maybe you set a goal to start the gym back in January and you still haven't gone you may have joined the gym online and you put it off for the future version of you days or weeks later you're like I'll want to go to the gym up then so I'll start you know next week we have so much conf confidence this is

off topic but we have so much confidence in the future versions of oursel right we're like oh yeah I'll be fine I'll do it next week I'll do it next week we put it all off for that version of us but then if we haven't done any work between now and whenever we scheduled our day of action how in the heck do you think that that version of you is going to be any more equipped than today's version of you do you know what I'm saying so when you get to that day that you've scheduled for you to go to the gym and you feel resistance which you will ask yourself why why am I not going to the gym apply this to whatever it is going on in your life it doesn't have to be the gym but ask yourself why I'm

thinking of some of the excuses that have been provided to me over the years I worked in a gym chances are there's an I don't know like I don't know how to use the equipment I don't know what I'm doing I don't know anybody there and I don't know if I'm going to be wandering around I don't know the exercises I don't know whatever there's going to be all of these I don't know is because it is the unknown you've never done that thing or it's been years since you've done it so it's it is it's like the do of the not knowing your brain is going to like hold on to the door jams with your arms and legs like we're not going in we are not going unless you address the itol no

this goes for anything any goal that you have any any area of your life where you feel stuck in it like stuck in the mud and you can't get out you're like I don't know why I'm stuck that's another one I don't know why I'm stuck I just don't know why I'm stuck but I'm stuck I just can't seem to move from here the second way you can deal with this is when you're saying you don't know and you truly believe you don't know which sometimes I do believe that you can not know something but that's I'll explain that in a second if you believe that you don't know why you're stuck ask yourself what if you did know what if you actually knew like think of future version of you wiser

version of you what would they say to you maybe you have a a relative that you talk to that's passed away and you know that they're watching over you right and you have this connection and ongoing conversation relationship with them even though they've passed right what would they say to you about why you're stuck so if you did know what would it be because when we buy into that we don't know whatever it is we're saying we don't know we end up losing energy but we also then we confirmation bias right we find more evidence to support what it is we're saying we want to believe and if you really want to believe that you don't know how to do something you bet your bottom dollar that part of your

brain will find all of the reasons that support why you don't know it and it will sound really convincing until usually when you start saying those reasons out loud and then that's usually when you can call [ __ ] on yourself so talk it out loud with somebody too when I'm indulging in I don't know I find that my body is so taxed I feel exhausted at the end of an i don't no day you know those days where you feel stuck and you just don't know what to do and you kind of feel like you're spinning and two steps forward one step back and you're telling yourself that you don't know something you don't have the resources you don't have this you don't have that whatever it is and so by

the end of the day you're [ __ ] exhausted right almost emotionally drained and then the days that you decide to believe that you do know and you're feeling confident in yourself and you do so many things you think that those are the days that you would be exhausted but most of the time the days that you have the confidence and you are getting [ __ ] done you have so much more energy even after a long day of doing way more things than you did on the day that you indulged in the I don't know I don't know is taxing it drain the life out of you and the more that you entertain the I don't know the more that you will entertain it on a regular basis also another way you can do this is

instead of saying I don't know is to say this is what I do know I know a b and c I know let's keep with the gym example I know that I am an adult and I'm capable and I'm resourceful and I'm sure if I don't know the the exercises that there is somebody at the front Des who can point me to the best starting place I'm confident in my ability to ask for help you'll be amazed at when you start saying here's what I do know how much more information that you access within you it's like unlocking watch it start to flow each time you say you know something that it'll bring up another memory of what else you do know and then more and then more and then more and so

that multiplies your knowing your wisdom starts to multiply you would be a amazed at how much wisdom you have inside you that you're blocking by saying I don't know the second that you say I don't know how to do something the wall goes down and nothing gets done at that moment you feel stuck like it is a fact the second that you are willing to say here's what I do know if I knew I might do blink blank blink then you start accessing your wisdom the last thing that you can do so right now we've got if you did know what would you say right the second thing is here are the things that I do know and flush that out flush out all of the things that you do know about whatever you're saying you don't

know about and then the last thing this is the one that I think really applies to us is ask yourself what it is that you're afraid of knowing so let's say you want to start a blog and you haven't gotten anywhere you've done some roundabout research but you seem to be doing a lot more busy work than actually getting things done ask yourself what you're afraid of knowing and usually it'll be like I don't know where to start I don't know where to begin I don't know who I want to help like I don't know what I want to write the blog about I don't know what I want to specialize in I don't know if I have the education or The credibility or the experience when you answer what am I

afraid of knowing this will give you your protocol each answer will give you steps that you need to take in order to get to the very thing that you want to do that you want to actually know more about what are you afraid of knowing I'm going to fail okay so what is a fail in your book and what do failing mean to you what does it mean about you if you do fail and this is one for sure where I think honestly then you should probably question your beliefs about what failing really is because failing to me I think is a good thing because that gets you one step closer to the ultimate goal of succeeding in that thing failure is actually part of the process you must

have lots of fails in order to get to the ultimate success that's worth the effort that you're putting forth so those are the three ways that you can get past your I don't know your stuckness really anytime that you're stuck it's almost guaranteed because there's this element of not knowing that you're indulging in and that you're hiding behind the second that you say I don't know your brain shuts off and it's it is it's a mental block this is why people have writer block they don't know what they want to write about they don't know what the reader wants they can't they don't just make the decision and it is a decision getting to the no to the wisdom is a decision the wisdom is within you

nobody else needs to tell you unless of course it is that you truly don't know about something and you need to know or you like I don't know if I have the education okay well now you know what you need to do now you know that you need to go get the education or I don't know what the reader wants okay well why don't you go put out a test landing page and see what people want those questions themselves are the clues to what you need to do next those are your map of how to find out so don't just settle for the I don't know why don't you know what are you afraid of what if you did know what do you know already here's what I do know so yeah that's that's what I have to

say 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 be on the high road.com see you

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