Nothing Changes Until You Do: A Guide to Self-Compassion and Getting Out of Your Own Way by Mike Robbins Page A
Authors: Mike Robbins
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it was a risk and I felt scared, I chose to trust my gut and it paid off—not just for me, but for Bob and the entire group. Bob thanked me briefly that day and followed up with a heartfelt e-mail after the meeting. In his note, he talked about how important the message, meeting, and moment were to him personally and to his leadership group. I continue to work with this organization quite a bit and whenever I see Bob, he lovingly refers to me as “the guy who made me cry.”
For most of us, myself included, trusting our gut can be challenging at times. We have a tendency to second-guess ourselves, to not listen to our intuition, to value the opinions of others over our own, or to hang on to negative memories from the past when we’ve made mistakes or “bad” decisions. These things make it difficult for us to trust ourselves and thus create issues in our relationships with others, our work, our lives, and, most specifically, in our relationships to ourselves.
How many times have you gotten an intuitive hit about something—positively or negatively—and not acted on it, and then regretted it afterward? This happens all the time in both small and big ways. We see an opportunity and want to step into it, but we hesitate, stop ourselves, or talk ourselves out of it—only to wish we would have been willing to take the risk, after it’s too late. Or, we get a bad vibe about a person, situation, or project, and we don’t do or say anything about it because we’re afraid we might upset or offend someone, and then as things unfold, it ends up being a difficult or damaging situation for us and those around us. Again, in hindsight, we realize it wasn’t a surprise at all; we just didn’t trust our gut enough to speak up or do something early on. While this lack of self-trust is quite common and we don’t want to judge ourselves for it in a harsh way, it’s important for us to pay attention to it, as it can have a significant and often negative impact on our lives.
Trusting our gut is about choosing to listen to our intuition, taking risks, and letting go of always having to do things “right.” When we trust our gut, we give ourselves permission to be guided by our inner wisdom. My tenth-grade physiology teacher, Mr. Young, used to always say to us while we were taking tests, “You think long , you think wrong .” He would constantly remind us to trust our gut and go with our first answer, which was usually correct. We are often more aware, wise, and in touch with a deeper knowing than we give ourselves credit for. As we practice trusting ourselves at this level even more, our lives and everything important to us become easier, more abundant, and much more fun.
CHAPTER 17
Remember that It’s Not the Circumstances, It’s You
We took Samantha and Rosie to Disneyland for the first time a few years ago. Michelle and I hadn’t been there for a long time and being back was a wonderful experience, reminding each of us of our childhood and lots of great memories. The girls loved it and we all had a blast—it was so much fun for us to experience the magic through their eyes.
I was struck, however, by the nature of many of the conversations that I overheard (mostly from other adults) during our trip. There were three primary themes of these conversations. First, people talked about how hot it was. We were there in August and it gets pretty warm in Anaheim, California, at that time of year. Second, people talked about how long the lines were. Again, the crowds tend to be pretty big in summertime at Disneyland. And third, people talked about how expensive it was. It’s true; Disneyland is not cheap.
And this is called “the happiest place on earth”!
While none of these complaints seemed completely ridiculous to me, you would think that in the midst of a “fun” and “exciting” place like Disneyland, people would be happy. But I quickly realized that this wasn’t necessarily the case, and it brought back to
For most of us, myself included, trusting our gut can be challenging at times. We have a tendency to second-guess ourselves, to not listen to our intuition, to value the opinions of others over our own, or to hang on to negative memories from the past when we’ve made mistakes or “bad” decisions. These things make it difficult for us to trust ourselves and thus create issues in our relationships with others, our work, our lives, and, most specifically, in our relationships to ourselves.
How many times have you gotten an intuitive hit about something—positively or negatively—and not acted on it, and then regretted it afterward? This happens all the time in both small and big ways. We see an opportunity and want to step into it, but we hesitate, stop ourselves, or talk ourselves out of it—only to wish we would have been willing to take the risk, after it’s too late. Or, we get a bad vibe about a person, situation, or project, and we don’t do or say anything about it because we’re afraid we might upset or offend someone, and then as things unfold, it ends up being a difficult or damaging situation for us and those around us. Again, in hindsight, we realize it wasn’t a surprise at all; we just didn’t trust our gut enough to speak up or do something early on. While this lack of self-trust is quite common and we don’t want to judge ourselves for it in a harsh way, it’s important for us to pay attention to it, as it can have a significant and often negative impact on our lives.
Trusting our gut is about choosing to listen to our intuition, taking risks, and letting go of always having to do things “right.” When we trust our gut, we give ourselves permission to be guided by our inner wisdom. My tenth-grade physiology teacher, Mr. Young, used to always say to us while we were taking tests, “You think long , you think wrong .” He would constantly remind us to trust our gut and go with our first answer, which was usually correct. We are often more aware, wise, and in touch with a deeper knowing than we give ourselves credit for. As we practice trusting ourselves at this level even more, our lives and everything important to us become easier, more abundant, and much more fun.
CHAPTER 17
Remember that It’s Not the Circumstances, It’s You
We took Samantha and Rosie to Disneyland for the first time a few years ago. Michelle and I hadn’t been there for a long time and being back was a wonderful experience, reminding each of us of our childhood and lots of great memories. The girls loved it and we all had a blast—it was so much fun for us to experience the magic through their eyes.
I was struck, however, by the nature of many of the conversations that I overheard (mostly from other adults) during our trip. There were three primary themes of these conversations. First, people talked about how hot it was. We were there in August and it gets pretty warm in Anaheim, California, at that time of year. Second, people talked about how long the lines were. Again, the crowds tend to be pretty big in summertime at Disneyland. And third, people talked about how expensive it was. It’s true; Disneyland is not cheap.
And this is called “the happiest place on earth”!
While none of these complaints seemed completely ridiculous to me, you would think that in the midst of a “fun” and “exciting” place like Disneyland, people would be happy. But I quickly realized that this wasn’t necessarily the case, and it brought back to
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