The 3 Lies Which Hold Us Back

[00:00:00] Rachel: Have you ever made a decision and then come back on it almost immediately because you’re so worried about what other people might think, what they might say about you? You just feel so guilty, you feel like you’re not doing your job properly, you’re worried you might dump on colleagues. We’ve all been there.

[00:00:15] Now many people think that the main threat to our resilience and wellbeing is our workload and our lack of time. And maybe sometimes I lack of knowledge about what to do. But I think people have got this wrong. Because I think that the real threats to our resilience and our wellbeing and our thriving in life is not lack of funding, overwhelming demand, or just too much work to do. It’s the three fundamental lies that we tell ourselves. So in this quick dip episode, I want to talk about Henri Nouwen’s three lies that we tell ourselves.

[00:00:47] This is a You Are Not a Frog quick dip, a tiny taster of the kinds of things we talk about on our full podcast episodes. I’ve chosen today’s topic to give you a helpful boost in the time it takes to have a cup of tea so you can return to whatever else you’re up to. Feeling energized and inspired for more tools, tips, and insights to help you thrive at work. Don’t forget to subscribe to you are not a frog wherever you get your podcasts.

[00:01:15] A couple of months ago, I was delivering a course down in Cornwall. I was staying in chair at Epiphany Pouse. Now Epiphany Pouse, I think is an old convent. And I’d gone up there and say Allie, cause I wanted to take some time and reflect and have a real think. And I took a little bit with me called The Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. Now Henry was a Dutch priest, professor and writer, and a theologian. And he wrote a lot about these stories and the lies that we tell ourselves that hold us back from being who we really are. He wrote about identity. And love.

[00:01:48] Now whether you’re religious or not, I think some of his writing. He runs really deep. And for me, they struck a real chord. And it wasn’t a coincidence, I think that I was staying at the Epiphany Pouse cause I was always reading this book. I felt that it had a real epiphany.You see, ever since I did the interview with Dr. Sandy Miles about shame and about guilt, I’ve been really considering about how we get over these stories that hold us back from making the changes that we want to.

[00:02:17] I remember being in a chaining fashion. I would spend a lot of time. Thinking about self care or as I’d like to call it now necessary care, and everyone in the room. Had written down the actions that they wanted to do the way they begin to prioritize it. And then we gave them a case scenario. And in this case scenario, we said, okay, you’re just about to go for a swim. It’s the only time you can go this week, you know, you really need it and a colleague bang on the door, pops their head in and says, can I have a quick word with you? It’s about a job that I want to take. I’m not sure if I should leave here or go or what.

[00:02:47] Now you’ve had numerous conversations with them. It’s not news to you. How many of you would say that you were going to go, and how many of you would stay and have that conversation that you could have at any point? And over half of the people said, well, I know I need to go for the swim. And I know the swimming pool is about to shut, but I would stay and have that conversation because I want to appear caring. I don’t want to let that person down. I want to be there for them.

[00:03:09] And it’s so interesting, isn’t it? How, even though we know what we need to do to look after ourselves, to be resilient, and make sure that we are performing as well as we can, sometimes it’s just too hard, too difficult. And I think this is because of the stories that we tell ourselves. And the three lies have become deeply, deeply ingrained in our psyche.

[00:03:29] Now, if we don’t pay attention to this, then what happens is that we’re just at the beck and call of these stories. We end up bending ourselves into shapes that we don’t fit. We end up losing our only opportunities to do the things that we need to do to perform well, and we end up overwhelmed and burned out. I don’t even though we know the changes we think we might need to make. We end up just not making them and staying stuck.

[00:03:57] If we understand how these things are holding us back, then we have a toolkit in which we can begin to find some freedom and begin to. Let these lines loose. But in my mind, the first step is actually being aware of what we’re thinking and what lies we’re telling ourselves in the first place.

[00:04:15] As soon as I read this book, I started doing a little internet trawling to see if I could find anything more by Henri. And I found a video of a talk that he was doing. To a group of Catholics on a retreat, I think. And it was all about the three lies that we tell ourselves. And as I had in talking about that, I thought to myself, Oh, my goodness. That is so true. It doesn’t matter if you’re religious or not. It doesn’t matter if you have a faith or not. What he was saying just then. I think rang true for human beings in general.

[00:04:43] And it makes so much sense for how we’ve evolved and how we get hijacked by amygdala and the stories that we tell ourselves, which I talked about a lot on the podcast. So let’s have a look at these three lies, and I’m going to talk a little bit about how you can start to escape them. But what I’m going to do is in future quick dips, I’m going to go deep into each one and think about what we can do to start to just lessen the hold that they have on us, and lessen that influence in our lives.

[00:05:08] So the first lie is I am what I have. And of course we know that this isn’t true. But everything in our world is telling us that we are what we have. In fact, the whole of advertising is based on making you feel that you need that thing that you haven’t got. That’s how we sell things. And so. Just in a normal day’s work, we aren’t bombarded with images from the internet images on the bus, things that we haven’t got that make us think we’re in some way, deficient. And we start comparing ourselves to other people. And when we compare ourselves to other people, It never really goes well, because believe me, there’s always going to be somebody smarter, prettier, happier, fitter than you are.

[00:05:49] And what comparison does it just starts off that niggle that, well, there might be something wrong in my life if I haven’t got that or I’m not like that. And gosh, if only I did have that, I might be quite a lot happier. Now deep down, we obviously know that things don’t make us happy. But when it’s a little bit nearer to our physical survival, like having a house, having a job, having an income, this is where it gets tricky.

[00:06:15] And this is one of the reasons we fear complaints so much because our livelihood might be threatened. What if they take away my job? I don’t earn any money, I can’t feed myself, feed my family, I might starve to death. I mean, logically that isn’t going to happen, is it? But our brains go there. And so this lie of, I am what I have gives the way to fear. It gives way to fear of loneliness, of losing my friends. Gives fear of losing my possessions and not being able to exist in this world in a comfortable way, and can actually turn. Into the physical threats. And we all know if we are threatened physically, we go into our fight flight or freeze response. Our inner chimp will come out and we don’t behave very well. do we And we tell ourselves all sorts of very difficult stories. So the lie I am what I have just leads to a lack of contentment, a striving for more, a fear of loss, a fear of complaints, and keeps the stuck, doesn’t it? And so when we operate out of a fear of losing things, that’s when we don’t listen to what we really, really need.

[00:07:20] One way out of this is to think about what we’re grateful for. Because I’ve had it said that the opposite of anxiety is not peace. It’s gratitude. And it’s very difficult to be anxious about things about losing stuff. If you’re also focusing on being grateful for things that those two can’t take up the space in your brain. That’s why people say that keeping a basic gratitude journal can be really, really helpful. So writing down three things every day, that you’re grateful for, it literally starts to rewire your brain.

[00:07:49] And side note, they did a study. Uh, they put some students in a room and made them play Tetris all day, which I guess isn’t, isn’t that much different from what law students do anyway. Uh, anyway, after a week or so, they let the students out into the world. And all that the students could see was blocks falling from the sky. And if they were in a city, they were starting to think about, well, how did the skyscrapers tessellate with the other buildings? And. They would just think things in blocks because that is what they had been focusing on. So if you start to focus on what you’re grateful for, then you’ll be moving away from focusing on what you haven’t got or what you might lose and the anxiety that goes with that.

[00:08:25] How many times have you made a decision because you’re worried about losing something. If I don’t then actually in the future, this might happen when you don’t actually want to do it? When you run your own organization like me, I worry about tending things down because I think, well, what if they never asked me again because I’ve said no? What if I lose this or I lose that, or I don’t have enough funds to run the business and pay for the podcast editing and be able to produce this stuff?

[00:08:50] And don’t get me wrong, these are real concerns. But when that is, what’s motivating our decision, it never ends well. So I am what I have is one of the lies that leads to fear, and that leads us to holding on to stuff, making bad decisions. The way out is gratitude, which will lead to contentment. And as I said before, I’m going to be looking at this in more detail. I just wanted to get to grips with these three lines to start off with.

[00:09:16] Now the second lie that Henri Nouwen said that we say to ourselves, I am what people say about me. And in fact, I did hear on a recent podcast, there was somebody talking about this and he said He caught this a little bit wrong. I don’t believe that I am what you say about me. I believe that I am what I think you say about me. And that’s right, isn’t it? Because mostly we don’t hear what people say about us. Mostly it’s behind our backs, it’s to other people, we don’t ever hear it. So we have to make it up.

[00:09:46] I was talking to one of my kids and that mucked up on an arrangement, and they were really worried and they said, Mum, I’m really worried that the others are going to be talking about me. And getting upset with me and feeding cross and gossiping about me. And I said to them, darling, A, that’s out of your control. But B, you’ve really made that up. You know, if one of your friends had done that, you’d have said Oh, that’s a bit annoying, but you wouldn’t be slagging them off left, right and center. Course not.

[00:10:13] Often we go to the worst, don’t we? And we know that our amygdala makes us go and believe the worst things, because when you’re trying to detect a threat, it’s much better to think that there’s a tiger hiding behind every pillar and every tree than there isn’t, cause that will keep you safe, but it won’t keep you happy. So we make up these stories about what we think people are saying about us.

[00:10:31] And sometimes we do hear things that people say about us. I remember when I’d first started doing this sort of training, I did some training with a group of leaders locally. And there was somebody in the group that I knew quite well. And at the end of the session, they will filling in feedback forms about the session, and I saw that they’d written a particular feedback form.

[00:10:53] Now, when we collected the feedback forms in, I knew which one it was. And they had written some really hurtful things. Actually. Interestingly, when I look back on it, it wasn’t anything about the training wasn’t any good. It was all about, well, I’m not sure that this person has enough experience to be teaching us or, you know, it was very personal, but it didn’t say anything about the training.

[00:11:17] Now when you start training, when you start doing stuff, you’re not going to be that good stuff with, because you’ve got to practice. I expected to be perfect straight away. But this feedback, it made me feel awful. It may feel absolutely awful. And I still remember. I still remember how I feel and I’m sure you can all think of times when you got feedback, it made you feel awful. And you said, actually hear what people said about you.

[00:11:40] You know, I’m not what that person writes about me. I’m not what they think about me. A, I’ve changed a lot since then. That was like 20 Rachels ago. But B, it doesn’t actually matter. It doesn’t actually matter. They had one small experience of me in one small situation, and actually that was clouded by their preconceived ideas about their own importance. Which led them to, to write that feedback and say, that’s about me. So often what people say, what people think is based on their own perception of themselves. Nothing to do with you.

[00:12:14] Now am I saying that never take feedback? No, definitely not. And. I took a bit of the constructive feedback that, that, that were worthwhile and were helpful. Absolutely. But if you base your identity on what you know people are saying about you or more likely what you think other people are saying about you, then you’re going to be in real problems when you have to make a decision that you know somebody isn’t going to like. Because it is likely that they will say something bad about you to somebody else. It’s more likely to be to somebody else. And we hate that idea, don’t we? We hate the thought that people are talking badly of us behind our backs.

[00:12:51] I’m one of the reasons for that is secretly. We doubt ourselves as well. And we’ve been believing this other story that says you’ve got to prove yourself, and then you can earn our love.

[00:13:02] So the way out of this one is thinking about, rather than what are they going to say about me, and focusing it being all about me, it’s focusing on them. How do I want them to feel? I might have to be clear. I might have to be firm. I might say something they don’t like, but at the end of the day, how am I going to behave so that they feel heard and listened to? As Maya Angelou said, people don’t remember what you do or what you say, but they remember how you made them feel.

[00:13:29] Rachel: And if I’m honest, when I think about people that have said. Negative things to me, giving me negative feedback, said no to me, if they’ve done it in a nice way and make me feel valued as a person, then actually looking back at it, I don’t think badly of them. I don’t say bad stuff about them. I actually really respect the fact that they did that. And people that have just said yes, all the time or just caved in ‘ cause they said worried about what people are going to say about them. But then they just not done it, well, believe me, I felt much worse about those people. So recognize some of those stories that you have in your head. When you believe that second lie that I am what I think other people are saying about me.

[00:14:08] Now the final lie is the one I think that is the most toxic. And that is, I am what I do. And this is the most toxic because it can lead, as Henri Nouwen says, to self rejection. Why? Because if I do something wrong, if I muck up or if I’m not up to scratch, I blame myself, not for what I do or what I’ve done, but for who I am. And they’ve gone from I did a bad thing to I am bad or. what I did wasn’t good enough to I am not good enough. And that very quickly goes to I am not enough.

[00:14:41] And I think in healthcare and particularly doctors were particularly susceptible to this lie. Because all our lives, we’ve just been judged by what we do. People happy if we do stuff for them. They’re not, if we don’t. They’re happy if we achieve all we need to achieve. If we pass our exams and we get the grades that we need and we win the prizes, but if we don’t, mm, maybe we’re not so great. We’ve always been judged by our output. And people come to us for what we can do for them.

[00:15:10] Consequently, we end up wearing our pants outside our trousers and being a little bit of a superhero and denying our own neath, denying our own human limits. We find ourselves in perfectionism, that everything has to be totally perfect and we’re never allowed to fail at anything. Because if what I do, isn’t quite good enough, that means I’m not quite good enough.

[00:15:31] And if. I fail, then I have failed myself, me. It’s my identity. That’s completely caught up in what I do. Now, I haven’t worked clinically for a few years, since COVID in fact. And I gave up my license to practice recently because it was difficult to keep up with all the stuff you need to learn to be a GP. And when I told one of my relatives that I had given up my license to practice, they said to me, oh, Rachel, so what do I call you now? Mrs. Morris? And at the time that felt like a knife stabbed in my gut. It really did. Very very upsetting. But I’m okay now, I’ve got overhead. But at the time, I hadn’t realized how my identity was so wrapped up in what I did and being a doctor.

[00:16:14] And if you think about what adult is supposed to do, always supposed to be that always supposed to help, can never get it wrong, always has to be a very upstanding pillar of society. Can’t say anything outrageous. You know, is there a black and white in the duties of a doctor? Now I’m not saying don’t do these things. But we need to have a bit of self-compassion and when we fall short of our own. Internal standards, let’s just look at where we failed and learn from it, rather than going into the toxic shame spiral that we can go into. And I’ve done a podcast on that so, so check that out. We’ll put the link in the show notes.

[00:16:46] So this lie I am what I do is the most toxic one and it will keep us the most stuck. Because we are our own worst enemy in this. The stories that we tell ourselves, I always have to be perfect, will stop us from limiting our work. It will stop us from saying no to opportunities that. We don’t want to do. It will stop us from saying no to helping people or over helping people, it will cause us to get into the hero mode and rescue people and try and fix it, even when we can’t fix it. And it’s never gonna work. And it will cause this to be over responsible, and just take all that responsibility for stuff we cannot control and we have no hope of changing. And that. It’s a very anxiety-inducing place to be. And at the end of the day, we end up feeling shame. We ended up feeling ashamed because we just think I’m just not good enough.

[00:17:37] Now what’s the way out of I am what I do? And this is a tricky one. And if you’ve got any ideas, please let me know. A few things I’ve picked up along the way. It’s number one. Don’t have all your identity in what you do for job. Because then if something goes wrong, if you get complaint, if you have to leave, if you get unwell, and what’s your identity, then you’ve got all your eggs in one basket. So this idea of having multiple identities I’ve talked about this before is really helpful. So I’m a mum, I am a former GP, I’m a podcaster, I’m a trainer, I’m a friend, I’m an allotment person, flower grower. I’m what else? I’m a dancer very badly. Um, you know, all these different things. What do I love doing? The multiple identities can be really, really helpful.

[00:18:22] And getting into your opposite world, and Nick Petrie was talking about the opposite world, which the really, really good antidotes of burnout by the way. But I think you’d have an opposite world that is nothing to do with what you do as a day job. That could be really, really helpful.

[00:18:35] So I have really enjoyed learning how to grow flowers. And I’ve been just started doing it. I had no idea how to do it, and most of them have died, have been eaten by slugs, but pottering around in the garden is so different to what I do during the day. But it really helps me just think, well, I have more identity than just what I do as a podcaster, a trainer, a doctor.

[00:18:56] And there are some truths that we need to start to imbibe, which might help loosen the roots of the lie of I am what I do. And the first truth that I found helps as a bit of an antidote is your life is more precious to other people than what you do. If you stopped working, they would replace you, believe me, very quickly. But you are irreplaceable as a friend. As a parent. As a sister or brother, as a partner. You know, you’re irreplaceable. You as a human being. You are valuable as a human being, not just for what you do. I’m going to say a cliche now, apologies, you’re a human being, not a human doing. And you don’t need to earn your wellbeing or your rest by being a good girl or being a good boy. You don’t need to earn it. You deserve it, because you are human and humans deserve to thrive on this planet.

[00:19:53] I really believe that. You don’t need to earn your wellbeing. That is a prerequisite of performing well. You don’t need to earn your rest. You need to rest to be a decent human being. Do you get this? Some of you need to hear this. Because we’ve got into this habit that I don’t really deserve a, an evening off. I don’t just have a lunch break. I haven’t worked hard enough to take an afternoon off. Rubbish. Rubbish. You don’t need to earn your wellbeing, your rest or your brakes. You’re here to enjoy life and, and you are loved. You are loved by people. You were loved by the universe. And if you have a faith, you are loved by the divine presence in the universe.

[00:20:33] And I believe that if we let these truths marinate within us, then we can start to escape these three toxic lies of. I am I have, which leads to fear and anxiety, I am what I think people say about me, which just leaves the guilt. If I can’t please everybody all the time, and the final, most toxic one of I am what I do, which leads to shame, well, I’m not good enough, and leads me to thinking I am not enough.

[00:21:03] So believe me. And some of you, if you need to hear this, maybe write this down, you are enough as a human being, even if you didn’t do another day’s work in your life. Now, not saying that would wouldn’t cause problems. But that’s enough. I know not everybody’s seen Barbie, but my favorite point is when Ken is in his new sweatshirt, I am Kenough. I am Kenough makes me laugh. It’s also very good sweatshirt.

[00:21:29] So next time you’re facing a dilemna, you’re feeling bad, you think you need to reverse a decision, you don’t wanna let people down, ask yourself am I basing this decision on what I really know I want and I need and is the best thing to do, or am I basing it on one of those three lies? And just note. How often that comes up for you in the next week.

[00:21:52] Now I would love to have your thoughts, your ideas about how we escape these total doctor identity, these toxic lies, and these things that have built up in us over the years. And if you’ve got any suggestions for guests or avenues that I could explore, then please let me know. And do write in. I love to hear from you. It’s hello@youarenotafrog.com. So go well, and remember that you are loved.