In today’s episode it’s time to explore the power we all possess to re-shape our future by exploring the impact of our beliefs about the past. Many of us can be negatively impacted by things that happened many years ago. It’s time to talk about how we can begin to make changes that provide more freedom and possibility.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back friends to the daily podcast.
Speaker:Great to be having some time with you.
Speaker:First I'm pleased to report a massive victory in my own life.
Speaker:It's simply that my wife has been away for 24 hours and none of
Speaker:the children have gone missing.
Speaker:Uh, I can't comment on the quality of nutritional content that's been
Speaker:served out on my watch, but, uh,
Speaker:It's just good that they're all doing.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Of, uh, looking forward to the, getting back those so
Speaker:good to be in the studio today.
Speaker:Got some good stuff for you.
Speaker:I've uh, The last sort of three days, I've gone deep down the Jordan.
Speaker:Uh, Peterson rabbit hole.
Speaker:I got his new book beyond order, and they've been working through that
Speaker:quite forensically and also on some of my, uh, training, uh, runs and hikes.
Speaker:I've been.
Speaker:Listening to some interesting interviews with him and.
Speaker:Reading his book last night, there was an excellent chapter really around.
Speaker:Dealing with difficult memories.
Speaker:And dealing with difficult circumstances that we've been through in life.
Speaker:And if you get a chance to read it, the new book called beyond order.
Speaker:It's a really excellent chapter because.
Speaker:He goes deep into the way that our experiences and our memories can
Speaker:really shape our current experiences.
Speaker:Now I know a whole bunch of you are like, well, duh, we know that.
Speaker:Uh, but it's, it's, it's quite profound.
Speaker:The meanings that we give to what happens to us.
Speaker:And I've been saying this for years on the podcast.
Speaker:You know, this goes way back to many years ago.
Speaker:Tony Robbins used to say that, uh, you know, nothing in life has
Speaker:any meaning except the meaning.
Speaker:You give it.
Speaker:Now, I don't quite agree with that.
Speaker:I'm not quite sure an exact what context he meant it, because my reply
Speaker:was always, well, I think Hiroshima had a particular meaning and, you know,
Speaker:If you experienced that you didn't get to necessarily construct a different one.
Speaker:So I don't believe that reality is just utterly fluid.
Speaker:There were real things.
Speaker:There were real concrete things that happen.
Speaker:But I think the nuance here that, uh, both Robbins and then as we're going to talk
Speaker:about now, Jordan Peterson and getting at.
Speaker:Is that.
Speaker:Objective things happen to us.
Speaker:We, we, we lose friends, people die, we get sick.
Speaker:All sorts of things happen.
Speaker:But it is, I believe important to understand.
Speaker:That we are capable of choosing and creating empowering meanings around
Speaker:what has happened in our lives.
Speaker:So I want to give you a quote on that from, um, Alfred Adler.
Speaker:I really love his stuff.
Speaker:I've sort of got to get into him more.
Speaker:He's.
Speaker:Brilliant.
Speaker:Psychotherapist psychologist.
Speaker:Um, Who.
Speaker:Really pioneered some interesting stuff.
Speaker:So I want to go further into, into his work, but.
Speaker:I want to give you this great quote here, based on this idea about what's happened
Speaker:to us in life because haven't, we all got experiences of things that happen that
Speaker:still weigh us down many years later.
Speaker:And you'll notice that we don't struggle with the great things that happen.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We don't struggle with, uh, the great memories.
Speaker:It's not as if they cause problems for us, is that if you look back at
Speaker:the times in life where you triumphed, where things went well, Where you
Speaker:got great memories, those things aren't keeping you up at night.
Speaker:Are they.
Speaker:It's the experiences of anxiety or trauma that really affect us.
Speaker:So let me read you this quote from Adler, and then we'll just, uh,
Speaker:we'll just unpack it a little bit.
Speaker:He says we are not determined by our experiences.
Speaker:But our self determined.
Speaker:By the meaning we give to them.
Speaker:And when we take particular experiences as the basis for our future life.
Speaker:We are almost certain to be misguided to some degree.
Speaker:Meanings are not determined by situations.
Speaker:We determine ourselves.
Speaker:By the meanings we ascribe to situations.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:I'll give you an example of how that plays out.
Speaker:One of the interviews that I listened to was Jordan Peterson,
Speaker:talking to Lewis, Howes, and Lewis.
Speaker:Howes is, um, Runs a thing called a school for greatness, which
Speaker:has been around for a long time.
Speaker:So he's sort of a.
Speaker:I don't quite know, Hey, describe Lewis house, but, um, you know, pretty
Speaker:significant internet influencer and he's done a podcast and a whole bunch of stuff.
Speaker:But Peterson was talking to him about this idea of, you know, the meaning of negative
Speaker:experiences and how they can change us.
Speaker:And he gave an example of, you know, When you're, uh, you know,
Speaker:that experience, many of us have had maybe at school when we're very
Speaker:young of not being picked for a team.
Speaker:And he was talking to Louis House because Louis has actually went to the Olympics.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, he kind of did that because he had experiences
Speaker:of failure and rejection and the conversation was along the lines of.
Speaker:When you have that experience of not being picked or rejection?
Speaker:Well, you can apply all sorts of meanings to it.
Speaker:So one person will apply the meaning of.
Speaker:I'm scrawny or I'm no good at this and no one likes me and I'm
Speaker:always going to be inadequate.
Speaker:Then everybody kind of writes that down and says the two themselves, but we
Speaker:definitely can take that kind of idea away and bury it deeply in our psyche.
Speaker:Another person can go, well, I'm going to get better.
Speaker:I'm going to get physically stronger.
Speaker:I'm going to try and I'm going to work out.
Speaker:So, and this is an opportunity.
Speaker:It's so easy to say this, and I know some of you are listening, going really.
Speaker:It's just that straightforward.
Speaker:I think it is.
Speaker:I think that, you know, we go through different experiences and we are very.
Speaker:You know, capable.
Speaker:Of allocating, meaning.
Speaker:So, if it's helpful, the way that he talks about doing it, Peterson talks about doing
Speaker:it is, is really a lot around writing.
Speaker:Um, I think the chapter's called something.
Speaker:Like if you can't let go of painful memories, write them down.
Speaker:So it goes through a process of how we can often journal.
Speaker:I've been talking about journaling forever.
Speaker:Writing down what happened to us and trying to find different
Speaker:meanings in it, you know?
Speaker:And once you get those different meanings really dialed in.
Speaker:It can be quite extraordinary.
Speaker:You know, there are people who suffer terrible abuse and for the rest
Speaker:of their life, they, they struggle terribly with that experience.
Speaker:Understandably.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:They kind of never transcended and other people can go through a very similar
Speaker:experience and they see themselves as strong survivors who are going
Speaker:to make something of their lives.
Speaker:So can you see that all these experiences are happening to us, but it has a lot to
Speaker:do with the meaning that we give them.
Speaker:So we're not, we're not passive victims, right?
Speaker:We're not just people who things happen to us and we're like, well, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Um, I'm, I'm just, this is the best I can expect in life where
Speaker:people who can respond, we are responsible response, able.
Speaker:To respond to the things that happen to us in life.
Speaker:So as a wrap up.
Speaker:Maybe, you know, think about something in your life that, you
Speaker:know, You feel could be holding you back and experience a relationship.
Speaker:And begin to ask yourself, you know, and you got to do this in a quiet time.
Speaker:I find I have, uh, we've got, uh, we get beautiful sun in the part of our house.
Speaker:And sometimes I'll sit at the table and.
Speaker:It'll be quiet and I'll read and I'll write something and I'll think,
Speaker:and I'll just find myself staring out into the, into the trees and
Speaker:thinking about it, you know, thinking about these sorts of questions.
Speaker:So try and do that.
Speaker:Look at an experience and ask yourself what meaning have you given it?
Speaker:What meaning, honestly, I'm incredibly honest with yourself.
Speaker:And then the question is, you know, the, the, the, the obvious question
Speaker:is, well, what else could this mean?
Speaker:You know, what else could this mean?
Speaker:What else could a possible meaning be.
Speaker:And can you find an empowering meaning?
Speaker:So I've, that's useful if you to start thinking about.
Speaker:Because if you're feeling held back in some area by something
Speaker:that's happened to you.
Speaker:You know, you're not really going to outgrow it.
Speaker:These things that are in our psyche can be incredibly deep and they
Speaker:don't just suddenly vanish overnight.
Speaker:They've vanished because we become conscious.
Speaker:We become deliberate.
Speaker:We become response able and we become.
Speaker:Really active participants in our own lives.
Speaker:So get out that journal, get out that keyboard and maybe pick
Speaker:something, um, you know, and you might need some support with this.
Speaker:You might want to go and see a counselor or clinical psychologist and
Speaker:say, Hey, I've got this experience.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:I really want to work on this with someone because these
Speaker:things can be quite disturbing.
Speaker:So don't put yourself under unnecessary or difficult pressure, just.
Speaker:Do it in a way that serves you and that you're comfortable with.
Speaker:And if you need to get some extra support with that, then go do it.
Speaker:Because on the other side of, this is what we would call integration.
Speaker:Is an integrated self is that we, we take our paths.
Speaker:We understand it.
Speaker:We, we, it shapes who we are in the present, and we can see who we're going
Speaker:to become in the future by aligning all of this stuff and not having these.
Speaker:You know, I think Jordan Peterson said that like, they're like ghosts
Speaker:rattling around in the basement.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:You know, knocking into each other.
Speaker:So being encouraged people can and do transcend really difficult experiences.
Speaker:And, uh, I just want to give you that encouragement.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:That's it for me today.
Speaker:Uh, I am taking some coaching clients.
Speaker:If you want to reach out, you can email me jonathan@jonathandoyle.co.
Speaker:Uh, otherwise everything on the website, Jonathan doyle.co.
Speaker:Please make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:Please share this with a few friends.
Speaker:I hope it's a blessing to you.
Speaker:My name's Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:This has been the daily podcast.
Speaker:And i'll have another message for you tomorrow
