Inner Peace Unleashed: Letting Go of Others’ Opinions

You're listening to the empowering working moms podcast episode number 75. Well, hello there. I am so grateful to have you here today with me on this podcast empowering working moms. My name is Dr. Prianca Naik, I'm a board certified internal medicine physician as well as a certified life coach. But most importantly, I am a mother of two little ones.

And I do this work because I know that as we work on ourselves, as we heal ourselves, as we heal our own wounds, and do the work to energize ourselves, practice some mindfulness. That really is the key to our better life, ditching burnout, and exhaustion for good.

But also, the most important thing, and I think this is something that really hits home is that the work we do here, that's the work that has a ripple effect on our kids, because it makes us better mothers. And when we can be better moms, then these kids are going to be their best selves. And imagine the effect that that has on this world. It's truly a ripple effect. And it has such an incredible impact on the world as we know it. And it all starts with us.

So I was thinking how so many of us worry about what other people think and worrying about what other people think, having a good opinion of us really might not be the best way to find work life balance and happiness. But considering other people's opinions and feelings, that's what's made you the kind, caring person that you are today. And it's okay to think this way, because it's what we've been taught for years since we were young.

But if you've blindly believed this, I am willing to bet that you have found yourself mentally exhausted, waking up at least three times a week, dreading going to work or even facing the day. Look at what Brene Brown says, what's the greater risk? Letting go of what people think or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am.

She has done a ton of research on vulnerability, she emphasizes the importance of coming home to ourselves, creating boundaries, and going after what we want. She highlights that we cannot look after ourselves and our own feelings if we put others thoughts and feelings above our own. That basing our actions on what other people think of us will only lead to dissatisfaction.

Therefore learning to let go of what other people think of us is a key component of cultivating inner peace and happiness. And if this is you, do not worry. I have helped so many moms in demanding careers fix this problem with my coaching program. DM me to see if you're someone I can help too. You can find me on Instagram at Doctor Prianca D o c t o r p r i a n ca. That'll be in the show notes and find out if you are someone I can help too.

So today I'm going to talk about something super personal. It's my own narrative and my own story. And I'm going to talk about this because when it comes to our own narratives and our own stories, we really have to consider how much that they are in the background. They have been formed in early childhood or maybe even later childhood. And they are so deeply ingrained, those neural pathways, that they're there.

And often we don't realize that we see these stories as facts. And what happens is we get triggered, and then we have a response. And often it is because of our stories and our narratives that we have a specific response. And these cause a lot of suffering at times, the negative stories.

So today I'm going to get in the weeds about my own negative story about myself, how it came about. Because these last, I would say about four days of the beginning of this week, I was definitely having some inner turbulence, and it prompted me to investigate what was going on.

And as I do this work, I'm going to give you what I discovered about my story, and then that hopefully will prompt you to think about your own story. And I'll give you the steps of what to do next, like how you too can get some distance from your negative stories to really decrease suffering and increase peace of mind. And that's how we energize ourselves. That's how we did burnout and exhaustion once and for all.

So here we go. This is pretty vulnerable for me, but I know that this will help you. So I'm going to go ahead and tell you because you're not alone in your journey. You're not alone in your suffering. And this is, yes, I'm a little, I'm kind of like stumbling on my words because I'm a little nervous to talk about my own stuff, because it was so raw, actually a few days ago, but here we go.

So when you have a visceral reaction, or a really strong reaction that's out of proportional to maybe what the trigger is, or if you have a trigger where you've got the same negative response again, and again, these are opportunities for investigation, reflection and growth. Something that has come up for me a lot is, this is my story. So my story. It's kind of a sad story.

My story is that nothing I do is good enough. I'm not good enough. And nothing I do is good enough and it doesn't matter. And it's not like I feel like the story is in the forefront every single day. It's not like that. It's a deep seated story from my own childhood. And I've mentioned this before, but as you can imagine, when you're told that like a 98%, where are the other two points, it's always a mantra of, it's not enough. And it should be better.

Everything has to be better and improving. And though I will say that the goal for me of always improving myself and bettering myself, it's a great thing. So it's a positive thing. But the negative aspect of that is the not enoughness. So nothing I ever do is ever good enough. And I started realizing this in my marriage, which now I'm in the middle of a divorce. But that was really raw for me, because it always felt like my efforts were in vain.

And then recently, my older child, I do a lot with him, connecting with him, lots of rituals with him, and he will want more and more from me. And I think that that's just how kids are. But instead, when he does that, I create a story of oh, I'm not good enough, mom, it's not good enough, taking time off on your off school days is not enough for you, doing gratitude practice at nights, that's not enough for you, going to your school field trip, that's not enough for you.

And I realized that's not what he's saying at all. But that is how I'm perceiving it. So that was my recent realization of my not enough story coming into play yet again. So I'm going to tell you what I've been doing about that.

But now I'm gonna get into the next pretty raw story that has to do with this not good enough story line. So I have a very wonderful au pair. And she came into my life last spring. And she came in at a time when I really needed her I had been having issues with childcare. And she was truly like a gift from the universe. And she is what I would call a unicorn au pair. And we grew very close, I grew very attached to her, we had a special connection.

And over time, what happens with a lot of the au pairs is they talk to each other, and then they grow more entitled. And so I will also say that on my end, I was extremely generous with her giving her a ton of time off, I would give her cash bonuses. But the problem was, in doing all that I expected that she would stay with me.

And we came to a time when we had to reassess whether she was extending with me or not. And so she brought up a bunch of asks and demands, which I thought they were reasonable. So I pretty much said yes to all of her asks, and we move forward. And then we were deciding, she said, okay, I'm gonna stay with you. And I said, great, I don't have to look for somebody else.

And then about a week ago, there were a couple of things that happened. And she had a problem with like, one of my rules, and I basically had my boundary. And I said, you know, no, that's not a rule, I can bend on, I've bent on everything else. And it's still not enough for you. And so we both mutually agreed for, I'm going to look for another au pair and she's gonna look for another family for when she's done. And that's fine. And this happens.

But I had such a visceral response to this, I was so upset, I made it really personal, which if you've read The Four Agreements, which I haven't, but one of the Four Agreements is not to take things personally. And I know this, but I had intertwined myself with my au pair, because she lives with me and boy oh boy I was having a lot of grief about this.

And I think it was a multiple layered grief, it was the grief of I'm going to lose my au pair who's been a stable factor in all of our lives, grieving her. Grieving what I thought was going to be, that she was going to continue with us. And so when I was having this visceral reaction and I was crying, and I had other really stressful things going on. So it was compounding with all that. And I knew that it was just at baseline, I was already really stressed with some other stuff. But it all really came to a head.

And when I had such a strong response, I thought to myself, alright, this is a time to investigate. So for you too, when you find yourself having a strong response, probably out of proportion to the stimulus. It's a moment to really stop and say, Alright, what is really happening here. So I did some investigation, and I realized it was two things.

One was back to the story of it's not good enough for you. So in my mind, I thought I've bent over backwards. I've tried to make your schedule good. I've tried to give you more money, you know, cash bonuses, this and that. And also make you feel cared for like a part of the family. And it's not enough for you. And now you want more from me. When really, I don't think it's that deep. Like, I don't know what she thinks. But I'm just saying on her end, she wants to experience America, she wants a different experience, she wants a little bit more freedom than what I'm offering and that's fine.

Like it's not personal. And so the point is my own story about myself is what created my own suffering. My story is what had me having a really big response to something that wasn't that serious. And I was thinking to myself, why am I having so much upset like I've been through so much worse, and that's what got me to have this realization.

So I just want you to think about a time recently or in your life when there was a stimulus and your emotional response was way too deep for probably what it was, even if you felt like things were unfair. And think about what's the story behind that, like, what's really going on here? That's something to ask ourselves when we're experiencing suffering. Because remember, we are creating our own suffering.

So here are the lessons I learned with my child and with the au pair situation. So with my kid, I realized I have to give myself compassion and grace, I'm doing the best I can. And honestly, it's a lot better than my parents did. So I gotta give myself grace for that, and know that my kids are really happy. And that is a reflection of the ambiance I've created. That's a reflection of the work I do, coaching myself, for example, so I get to give myself grace.

So you too get to give yourself grace for whatever turbulence or whatever is imperfect. With my au pair, my lessons learned were, well, first of all, it really got me realizing my story of the not enoughness, but also loving detachment, I think I've forgotten that concept. And that's something I learned in Al Anon and to detach with love is to really care for somebody, but to release and detach from the expectation. So kind of loving them from afar.

And so I was way too attached to her. And I've learned that and I'm going to try my best not to be attached to my next au pair. Also, the expectations, those always set us up for failure, like we cannot expect things of people. We have to be able to give and expect nothing in return. So that's something to reflect on for myself as I move forward.

The other thing is, as I said, not to take things personally. So it wasn't that personal. And I get to release that. So as you move forward, I want you to really identify what are some of your wounds, and the way you're going to figure that out is two things.

One, something that keeps triggering you over and over and over again, and start thinking about why is it triggering you? Why is it wounding you?

What is your feeling? And what is the story behind that feeling? The other situation is when you have a response that's way larger than the stimulus.

So like overreacting in your own mind, like why am I reacting this way? Why am I having a bigger response than I should be having? So those are your signals to do your investigation. And when you do this investigation, think about how are you feeling? Where is it in your body? Why are you feeling this way? What are the thoughts that are creating these feelings? What is the story that you're telling yourself, that creates this feeling for you.

And step number one is you get to be present with that story, acknowledge it, give yourself compassion for the story. And a lot of times these stories have been with us for 30 something years. So I don't think that these are things we can actually get rid of, we can't get rid of these stories completely. But when we are aware of the story, we get to make sure that it doesn't wound us as much, that we don't play into it as much, we get distance from the story.

And as we do that, we decrease our own suffering. So notice your story, be aware of it, and watch out for it. And the next time you have a similar trigger, you can say to yourself, oh, that's just my story. Like for me, I would say oh, that's just my story that I'm not good enough, that nothing I ever do is good enough.

And it hurts but I don't need to take it so seriously. It's not a fact. And then the next step to that is really creating a new story. And that I think is a little bit beyond the scope of this podcast episode, like getting into that, that's probably more work we would do inside my program.

But if you even just start investigating the triggers and the stories, you truly will decrease your suffering, increase your peace of mind, have more balance, really feel more energized, not allow yourself to get drained as much, and be out of exhaustion and burnout.

If you find yourself at least twice a day, you're yelling at your kids to get out the door, to brush their teeth in the morning or even at night, and you've tried practicing more self care like mani pedis and massages in order to feel exhausted but it's not working and you're still mentally exhausted.

You're still feeling burned out, book a call with me to really heal yourself from the inside out and have that ripple effect on you and your family and therefore the world. And I know that sounds really like yeah, right. But trust me, it's so true and it's possible. Book a call with me to find out PriancaNaikMDcoaching.as.me. Thank you so much for tuning in. Have a happy Thanksgiving and I will talk to you next week.