Break Free From Assumptions & Misaligned Rules

Breaking free from assumptions and misaligned rules is a multi-layered process. We all have rules for how we believe we are supposed to do life. They are tied to our values, to societal norms, and the stories we’ve been told about who we are and the way the world is. Since we do not exist outside of a societal context, we must acknowledge the influence of societal stories as we engage our own programing. First, looking at the rules for the roles that we occupy and whether they fit who you are or who you want to be. Then looking at where they feed the assumptions you make about yourself and others and how those assumptions influence your actions. You don’t have to know exactly where you started making assumptions or changed who you are to fit in. You only need a process to step out of those assumptions and reclaim who you want to be. 

In this episode of Unlimited, I acknowledge the layers of stories influencing us and explore how we as individuals unpack our own assumptions and misaligned rules.

Some of what I talk about in this episode includes:

• Who do you think you are?
• The relationship between self and society
• Why we make assumptions
• Ways to stop making assumptions
• The importance of intentional, diverse community

 
BOOKS REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:
Fearing The Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia
How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America
The Four Agreements

PREVIOUS EPISODES REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE
A Roundtable to Improve Your Perception with Aleia Walker
What’s Killing My Motivation?
No, You're Not Crazy
You're More Than Your Personality Test
Girl, Learn to Apologize
Stop Being Nice and Start Being Resilient
How to Stop Reacting and Start Responding

If you found this episode helpful, please share it!
You can tag me on social: @unlimitedcoachval

Want to share your thoughts or have questions? Send me a message! I love to hear from you.
You can email me at valerie@valeriefriedlander.com or DM me on Instagram

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Transcript

Valerie Friedlander: 0:00

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another episode of unlimited today we are talking about breaking free of assumptions and misaligned rules. And this is quite a topic as I was putting this one together, I just, I can't even tell you, my brain is a little explodey, because I was pulling in a lot of things and kind of exploring some beliefs and ideas and how I wanted to talk about this because there's real importance in engaging, not just the individual rules, like the internalized rules, but also the societal rules, because they impact each other, we don't exist separate from society. So a lot of the rules that we have for ourselves and the beliefs that we have about the way that we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to show up are created from the societal rules and the things that we're either pushing back against, or that we have taken in or that were impacted by and just all of that. So I started to dig into that. And how I wanted to approach this because as I've mentioned, the way that I'm setting up each of these months for this season two is based in my Create Your Flow course. And so this month, we're talking about rules and assumptions and stories. And the section is literally called Creating New Stories. So it's engaging the way that we perceive ourselves the beliefs that we have, and creating new beliefs. So like understanding what are those places where we're stopping ourselves because we've created these, for example I am statements are a powerful way that we tell the story of who we are to ourselves. And that influences how we show up and how we engage. But again, you can't divorce that from the societal stories. Now, I recognize that this is going to have to be at least two separate podcast episodes. And as I was digging into it, I realized that it actually might have to be like a whole thing. I don't know, maybe it's like a next season thing where that's what we're focusing on, because there's just oh my gosh, there is so much. There's so much there's I mean, I knew there were so much but like there's more than there's more than I knew as I started digging in. So anyway, this episode in particular, well, I am going to tie in, because I can't, not the societal stuff, this particular episode is focused in you and your own role. So it's focused in that process of creating new stories for yourself. So what we're going to be looking at is like, Who are you who made these rules, where we're tying in again, some of the societal stuff, but where does it come from? Why we make assumptions, undoing your assumptions. And I got to pull this in the importance of intentional community, because that is really a core piece, I believe in not only shifting your own individual assumptions and stories, but also how that relates and how you relate and how your identity relates to the broader world and the stories in our society. And we did talk a little bit about this. I actually feel like it segues nicely from the last episode where I was chatting with Alia Walker on the roundtable, and changing some of those ways that we perceive the world allowing ourselves to take in new information about the world and about ourselves in relation to it and how important that is, and it ties exactly directly into the rulemaking and assumption following and making or whatever. Anyway, there's a lot here so we're gonna get started and dig in. If you want support with any of the things that we talked about in this episode, grab a free spot on my calendar. I love to connect with people. I love to chat about these things. I think it's really important if we can even break through one assumption one rule that you have for yourself in that call, it is totally worth it. In my opinion, so don't hesitate. I do have spots open so as long as they're there you are welcome to take one and without further ado, let's get started. Hey there, I'm Valerie Friedlaender Certified Life business alignment coach and this is unlimited. This podcast bridges the individual and the societal, scientific and spiritual, positive and negative, nerdy and no, there's just a lot of nerdy. Come on board and let's unlock a life that's as badass. As you are. Who are you? That age old question, nature, nurture, and all of that. And I actually would invite you to release some of that questioning unless that's something that you are studying. And learning more about when it comes to your individual living out your life that isn't necessarily important. I had this come up with a client a while ago, where she was like, I used to be like this, I used to be this kind of person, this person who didn't care about the rules, who would just do what I wanted to do, and be the person that I want it to be. And I was confident, and I would show up in places where it maybe females weren't really invited, and I would play the sports and I would do the things and I didn't care. And at some point, I lost being that person. At some point, I stopped being her and I started being this person who worried and stressed about what other people thought and experienced anxiety around dressing, right and showing up right and all of this. And I don't know where I put that down. And my response to that is, while we can dig into that, while we can unpack that, and uncover that, and it can be helpful for healing to identify it to do something different. And to become that person. Again, you don't need to know where you put it down, it helps to know that you had it to begin with, you don't have to go look for it. Like it was a last purse, though, you can just pick it up and start doing it. Now. I saw someone followed me on Instagram. And I like to look and see who is this person who's following me and their headline on their profile said, trying to remember who I was before the world told me who to be. And it could be a reference to Danielle Laporte, I'm not sure I actually haven't really read any of her stuff. So I just research quotes because I want to know who they are from sometimes are attributed to the wrong people and all that. So the only thing that I saw pop up was something a question that she had asked in a book, I assume it showed up on Goodreads, I don't know. Anyway, but it was an interesting question to think about, especially in relation to this is like, who was I before the world told me who to be. And again, it goes back to that there are all these influences that we have. But we don't exist outside of the societal context, part of who we are, is in the relationship that we have to the world that we live in. And so I don't really think you can separate those two. Now, I do think that it is important to be an active participant in that story of who we are. And that's where I think it is important to look is okay, well, you can't be someone separate from that relationship. But you can be involved in that relationship. You don't have to be a passive participant, I encourage you not to be a passive participant. And if you're listening to this, that you're probably down with that too, because that's the whole point of this podcast. So you know, if if you're not, you might be listening to the wrong podcast. Anyway, being an active participant means exploring ourselves and our relationship to our society, being cognizant of the rules that are impacting us the history of the rules that are impacting us, the places where we've internalized those rules, and we're playing out those rules and understanding the way we're expected to play and are we playing the way we're expected to play? And where are we not playing the way we're expected to play? And where can we conform in ways that maybe are harmful to us or harmful to other people, oftentimes, in the society that's very stratified and has this ladder mentality, it is common that if we are conforming to the rules, we are likely doing so to the detriment of other people. So being aware of that now, that's not to say that a certain amount of conforming is problematic either it's normal for us to do so because a core need that we have is to belong. So I also advocate when you do notice that you are conforming, whether it is in a way that is harmful or not to yourself or to others to be gentle with yourself in that because it is very normal to do so in a subconscious way, which again is where it is important to have that space for yourself and also with other people will come more to that later. But like that intentional community of support to be able to shift out of that in a way where you're not shaming and guilt tripping, you're acknowledging, and you're doing better, which is something that we talked about in the last episode in my conversation with Alia. So go check that out if you haven't yet that way, when you're aware of the rules, when you're aware of the way you're expected to play and how that feels for you how that feels in your body, how that relates to the relationships that you have with the world, then you can decide how you show up to that. And you can engage that as I was writing this down, one of the things that came to mind was the line from Mimi in rent, she says, I have a habit of breaking rules once I learned the game. And that is that is a key piece, you do have to understand the game that you're playing in order to change it, you can't break chains you can't see. So to do the learning and awareness piece of understanding that relationship between you and society that then allows you to understand what those chains are, what those rules are, and engage them. So who made the rules, rules have a history. And so that is where I'm saying that we probably need to like a whole nother podcast series of podcasts, engaging the history around the rules. There are a lot of powerful books, some of which I've referenced in previous episodes, one that I have found really impactful, both as a woman and as a white woman is fearing the black body the racial origins of fat phobia by Sabrina strings. Also recently, I've been reading how the word is past a reckoning with the history of slavery across America by Clint Smith. And so digging into some of the historical dynamics, and especially how the word is past, looking at the stories and how we tell stories and how we retell stories, and how do we retell retold stories is a core component of that exploration. So understanding our stories is key. Because we are creatures of story. That's how we understand the world is telling stories. I mean, even going back to the tradition of telling history, through oral traditions, before we wrote things down, I mean, so much of what we understand and reference is who wrote it down first, who put it into writing so that everybody's reading, it doesn't mean that it is more true than anything else, it just means that somebody wrote it down. So again, this is a whole other exploration, but it's related. So looking at how do we conceptualize these rules, these stories that tell us what our relationship is to our history, to our genealogy to our family, to our environment, to our society to ourselves, again, we don't exist outside of a societal context. So understanding those things is really key. The other thing that I will say before we move on to the individual components, when we think about understanding the rules of society and recognizing that there is a responsibility and changing the game one of the things that comes to mind, for me is the philosophy of Transcendentalism, that I was introduced to in high school, if you don't recognize the philosophy, you might recognize the names Henry David Thoreau, who wrote the book civil disobedience and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote the book self reliance. Transcendental ism is a philosophy that started in the late 18th century and stressed equality, tapping into your intuition, communing with nature, self reliance, social responsibility, and so standing up to the injust things in the world and the power of the individual to do that. I bring this philosophy up, because as it ties into what we're talking about, about being aware of our own rules and the impact of the society's rules and the impact of us on society's rules in the macro micro relationship, as it were when we talk about that this is a philosophy that speaks to that or seemingly speaks to fat. It was recently brought to my attention. However, in reading, fearing the black body that Emerson was eugenicist, I used to think Emerson's philosophies were admirable, and was inspired by a lot of these ideas about intuition and nature and civil disobedience and all of that. But obviously, given this new information, he was looking through an incredibly distorted lens, at least in some respects, which some respects influence other respects, so it can't be taken separate from the whole. So because I thought of it and civil disobedience when I was putting this podcast together, I briefly looked back Got it. And it stuck out to me the aspect of individualism, and how much I talk about the issues with how over individualized our society is. And I recognized that there are roots of that in this philosophy as well. It just emphasizes why when I talk about individual and teach individual tools, to discernment to awareness, it is so important that we factor in the need for other lenses besides our own, to unpack the underlying assumptions that we make about the world, and about ourselves in relation to it, and why we need community to effectively seek truth and it needs to be a diverse community, people who are outside of our own experiences and understandings to be able to see a holistic picture. And then when we're just talking to people who look the same as us believe the same as us experience the world the same as us, we just affirm to ourselves what we already believe, or we end up missing the problematic assumptions in our beliefs. And while some ideas may have import to them in creating change, because they're missing those core assumptions, because they're just feeding those assumptions are all feeding on themselves, we end up creating a foundation that is flawed, that is damaged, that has rot as it were in it. So anyway, more on that I know, coming soon. So stay tuned, I do touch on some of where that comes in, in the episode that I talked about what's killing my motivation, where I talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and the Blackfoot origins of that concept and how he distorted it into more of an individual perspective. So there's a lot there pulling from the sociological, if you want to go further with some of those dynamics to there's the episode No, you're not crazy, that I would recommend taking a listen to so with this acknowledgement with this awareness that we are creatures of story that we learn rules through stories, especially through social stories in the context that we exist in, we figure out who we are through these stories, knowing that let's move into why we make assumptions in the first place. And some of the brain dynamics of that an assumption is something that you accept as true, or as certain to happen without proof. Now, when I say without proof, what I mean is that it's a subconscious thing. It's something that somehow your brain made a connection, or maybe society fed you a connection, your media fed you a connection, your family fed you a connection that you understood as truth, probably because you didn't know any differently. And it came from a trusted source, or it came from enough sources that it just affirmed itself. Our brains like to categorize things, it simplifies processing. So it's much easier to function, it takes less energy to function, when we can put things into buckets. And I've talked about this before in terms of perception, and understanding the lens that we perceive the world through, I talked about this more in the episode, you are more than your personality. Oftentimes, these assumptions come to us through stories, through stories about relationships, they come to us through stories that we tell about the past experiences that we've had the things that people have told us about ourselves. And of course, as I've mentioned, society's indoctrination, and they build these rules about who we're allowed to be. And they get internalized as these assumptions about who we are and the way we relate. And so when we see something, we feed it through that filter, our brain automatically feeds it through that filter, again, because it makes it easier to process and then we react accordingly. We take action accordingly. So oftentimes, even when we think we're acting consciously, we're still acting out of these rules out of these assumptions that we have, because we haven't unpacked the rule. Maybe we've unpacked one rule, but usually they're like layered on each other. So like when you find one, there's like another one underneath. For example, I had a client who came to me who said that she knew she had a block, but she wasn't sure what it was. Her mom never did the things that she wanted to do. So Maybe it's this learned, I can't have the things I want. So that's where we started. And the thing is with assumptions with stories, there are layers to them. So knowing where it started can be helpful. As I mentioned with the other client, knowing that it was one way, and then it changed can be helpful, but you don't actually have to know where it changed. The thing to know about assumptions is that they build on themselves. So while it may have initially come from seeing her mother, not allowing herself to have what she wanted, somewhere along the line, she was looking at life through that lens to prove that, oh, she can't have what she wanted, or to create obstacles to having what she wanted. Given that I asked her, What would she to know or to have to feel able to take the next step toward what she wanted? And what she said was to build a bunch of things and create a bunch of stuff in this new area that she wanted to be of service. My question from there is, what difference would that make for you, she said that it would help her feel more confident to have all of these things because then when somebody wanted to know how she could be of service, she could send them to this resource. And I asked her what would be different about what she wanted to do now than what she was doing before. And it was all about the information. And all of the trappings of what she had been told that she needed what she had perceived from other people in the online entrepreneurial world, showing her that this is what you have to have in order to be able to be successful. And it was blocking her from seeing that she was actually just doing the same thing that she had done in a different space. And so yes, all of those things can be very nice. But were they really the next step to exploring something new, exploring a new space. And so this idea of like, oh, maybe I have imposter syndrome. And that's what's stopping me? Well, imposter syndrome is something that we internalize from stories around us, typically, it sometimes has to do with not having as much information as we'd like to have. But oftentimes, it's because of messaging that we've received from spaces that we've occupied, telling us and affirming to us that we don't actually belong, or we have to do certain things or be a certain way in order to belong. So when we can engage that and release that, because that's that societal story, right? That's the internalized societal story. And then there's the familial story around not being able to have what you want. And then there is the personal experience of interacting with online business coaches and the online business space that said, Oh, well, you have to build these things. And I'll teach you how sort of thing that was blocking her from the training that she had and the knowledge that she had about how she actually can serve. So from there, we're able to build a next step, instead of this mountain that had been created from all of these assumptions that she had taken. And so you see all these layers of stories to cut through. And you'll note that how we cut through those stories, was through questioning them, through engaging them through getting curious about them. So that is the core piece, it is acknowledging that there is an assumption or acknowledging that there's a judgment, sometimes we don't even see it as an assumption. We just see it as a judgment. Well, this is the way it is, this is what it is. It's one of the reasons why I'm such a word nerd, and you hear me dig into words, all the time on this podcast is because one of the big assumptions that we tend to make is around what a word means. And our words are powerful. They're symbols they articulate into the world, our beliefs about things doesn't mean they receive the same way by other people, because other people may have a different relationship to those symbols. Again, that's why I unpack what do I mean when I use this word? What does this word actually mean? Because sometimes I'm using a word and I'm thinking, Oh, I think it means like this, but actually, it means this other thing, which opens up a whole nother world of understanding what's going on both in terms of my relationship to that word, and what other people was relationships to that word might be? And so how do I want to utilize that word in a way that actually supports what I'm trying to convey the agreements that I'm making when I use that word and my understanding of what you mean, when you use that word? It might sound complicated. That's okay. It's actually not as complicated as it might sound when I like break it down like that. Sometimes things like this can trigger overthinking. And why does it trigger overthinking? Well, usually, it's because there is a fear of doing it wrong. This is where that whole idea of growth mindset comes into play is, this is an ongoing process, relationships aren't fixed, relationships aren't static, they're dynamic. So if you think of everything as a relationship, words are a relationship, and they influence and engage the relationship that we have to the people that we are communicating to, through our words. And by communicating what we are, what our story is. And when I say what we are, it's, again, it's an evolution. It's not fixed, you're not fixed, you're constantly evolving. So this is where when we talk about rules, and we talk about assumptions, they are malleable, because we are malleable, because we evolve, we change, we have new understandings. And when we acknowledge that, then we can be more open to that information coming in and going, Oh, that was not what I intended, oh, I use this word, I made an assumption that you would be on the same page as me, but you're not, you're on a different page. So my intention did not have the impact that I thought it would. And by listening to you, then I can receive what you are telling me as what that impact was, and I can adjust accordingly, I can acknowledge, oh, this opened up something new that I hadn't realized before. It's also where emotional intelligence comes in, where we can notice what is our emotion, saying, What is it telling us about the rules that we might be breaking, or the rules that we might be affirming? It goes back to values, what do we value, it goes back to the idea of tact. I mean, I have so many episodes, all of these play together, around being tactful, around, apologizing. So many of these components play together. And they all have to do with the rules that we live by. And that we make assumptions about others through what happens when we're not open to realizing that or receiving that kind of information to it being a relationship versus a telling ship a delivering ship, I don't know what you would call that. When you're open to that information coming in, what we tend to do is we tend to just reaffirm what we believe we tend to reaffirm the rules that we live by. And it doesn't mean that it's always comfortable. It's not like oh, I'm following the rules, it feels good. Sometimes at like aspects of that can be there, we can be chasing rules we can be chasing and trying to conform trying to fit in so that we get the rewards because it's a game. I mean, these are like rules to a game. If you play the game, right? Then you get the reward. But that's not true either. Because the game is rigged, which is a whole nother facet of the societal dynamic, yay. Anyway, we'll go there. But so back to the individual, I have a really hard time like when I'm working with clients, we're definitely working on the individual. But when I'm talking about these things, and I'm teaching about them, it really it's so important because my field is so full of just individualizing everything. And like I said, I even come from that background of admiring the Transcendentalism, that is probably a core part of the problem around the over individualization of things. I just think it's so important to acknowledge how these things Interplay when I'm talking about rules. So going back to the individual and his reconditioning cycle that we tend to be, and it's easier to recondition things that are also affirmed by the society around us. So like I talked about in the values episode. It's simpler to do that. But that reconditioning cycle is what will hold you back from engaging with something that doesn't fit or trying to make something fit the way that you expect it to. Because you're used to the dynamics of these relationships. So what are those rules? So I'll give you an example. Because I know this can be a little amorphous. I had a client who had a story that she was selfish, and this is a very common mom's story, right? We talked about like, oh, self care isn't selfish will Okay. Here's an example of that. She had a story around being selfish. And this is a story that came through growing up being raised is being told that she was selfish. A lot of times women in the society get told that doing things for ourselves is selfish mom's like, what does it mean to be a good mom? What does it mean to be a good child? What does it mean to be a good spouse, all of those things, these are like, if you want to sit down and then do the work around this, I encourage you write down some of those things. I touched on it again, in the values episode, because rules and values often get kind of muddled up together, it's much easier to do this, like when we're actually working together on this, because it's so individual, even though there's a societal piece of it with the layers and how it's layered in your life is super personal. So anyway, going back to she had the story about being selfish, she started telling the story internally about herself. Because sometimes we have these rules that are imposed upon us, right? The, the less we can conform to the rules, the more they are imposed upon us that they're harming us, because we can't ever actually achieve it, we can't even imagine and pretend that we achieve that nor layers of marginalization in the society impact how much you can achieve these things. So there's that. And then there's also the internalization component, where we actually buy in and perpetuate it ourselves, both in our own lives and on other people. So she's telling the story that she's selfish, and any situation that would come up, if she had an opinion about it, or a desire around it, she would do the opposite, because she had this assumption that if it's something she wanted, it must be selfish and therefore bad. So it actually felt safer to not do what she wanted. And she would affirm that what she wanted would be selfish, because you know, if she wanted, it must be selfish. Therefore, she would do the opposite, which actually ended up creating the cycles of doing things that were harmful for her, and didn't actually create a healthy relationship with the people around her and would then hurt. And so it would just be proof that well, of course, it hurts because she's selfish. So this wasn't a conscious cycle. She was not doing this intentionally, it was just kind of like feeding evidence of, well, I'm selfish. So anything that I want, or anything that I choose is going to hurt. So I just, eventually, it's just, I just won't make choices, because I make the wrong ones. And I'll let other people decide. This is different, of course, then feeling the mental overload of all the decisions and the fatigue of making decisions and actually choosing not to make decisions or creating spaces to not make decisions. This is different. This is like that unconscious avoidance. So very key key difference between avoidance and choice. And it's essentially the root of everything that I do is accessing choice, where do you have choices. So this belief about I am selfish was the unconscious basis for her discernment process. So she wasn't listening to herself and her natural intuition, it was creating this destructive cycle that was affirming that she was selfish and a bad person. Once she saw those chains. Once that was brought to awareness through the exploration process and seeing how these things were playing together, then she could engage the story of I am selfish, noticing the emotion tied to it was fear. So she could notice, oh, when is the emotion showing up? What is the thought behind it? How is this affirming this belief? What is this assumption? And then she could explore what she really wanted? Well, if I wasn't afraid that I'd be selfish if I knew that I wasn't selfish if I knew that I was generous, or compassionate, or I don't remember exactly what her retelling was. But when she could look at it that way, and then intentionally explore other options, she made room to make other decisions and test what would be different, what would it feel like to do what felt Loving versus telling the story of being selfish? And then we were able to set up little experiments of like, okay, well, you know, what's, what's something that you want? And what would make it feel safe to go after it? What would you need to know? What way could we create an experiment? And but the first part is like seeing that there are other options. Because when you can't see that that's the pattern. There aren't other options. You just do what you do, because that's what you do. That's the rule. That's what that's what you do. So being able to see it, she could explore what she really wanted. She could actually listen to herself and start listening to other people and being able to set loving boundaries through that communication and understanding of what's loving for me, and how do we work together instead of constantly feeling like life was happening to her, she could engage in an intentional way and start creating a new cycle. And this is the thing, this is the difference between doing something because somebody told you to do it, like, oh, we'll just do loving things for yourself, oh, just do this self care stuff. If it doesn't connect, and if there isn't a conscious process behind it, it won't actually create a shift, there needs to be a conscious process behind it, you need to understand the rules and the assumptions and the agreements that you're making. And I use the term agreements, particularly because I love the book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, it says, we make the assumption that everyone sees life the way we do, we assume that others think the way we think feel the way we feel judged the way we judge and abuse the way we abuse. This is the biggest assumption that humans make. And this is why we have a fear of being ourselves around others, because we think everyone else will judge us victimize us abusers and blame us as we do ourselves. So even before others have a chance to reject us, we have already rejected ourselves. That is the way the human mind works. And I think it's interesting because there are patterns, we do this, and it is done to us, we make these assumptions that what we think is the way other people will think that our filters the way other people's filter is. And so one of the most powerful phrases, and I'm sure I've used it before in this podcast is that understanding of what someone says is about them, what you hear is about you, and what you say is about you and what they hear is about them, because we all have these filters for processing information. We all have stories, we have stories about who we are and who we are in relation to the world. So a big part of the personal work around these assumptions and unpacking these things is to look at what are those stories? What are those places where we assume on other people assume on ourselves, judge ourselves and judge other people judgment is a great way to notice some of those assumptions and some of those rules and start to engage, how they fit and where they fit and why they fit. I was having a conversation after our podcast with Alia Walker. And one of the things that she said that just struck me I was like this has to be a quote is that you're in charge of your own representation. And I would add to that, that other people will see you and your story through the lens of their own story. And you can't control that. But what you can control is how you tell your story to yourself. And that story influences the way that you show up to the rest of the world, the way you show up to the relationships that you have, personally, professionally and societally. It allows you to make choices that create the kind of relationships that you want to have and the difference that you want to make in the world. So how you align with the vision that you have of who you are, and also how you unpack that vision where it may not fit the what you want, and the way you want to be as you learn more. And as you allow that relationship to be dynamic. So back to what do you do as an individual to engage those assumptions. And as I've mentioned, it comes down to getting curious, noticing, and also having other people to help you see things more clearly than you will see them on your own. There's all kinds of things that you can accomplish on your own. But unlike Thoreau, and Emerson, and that idea of self reliance, I really truly believe that we can't see things clearly in a holistic way including ourselves without that reflection from another person. But to do some of that work on your own takes asking those questions. So a couple exercises that you can do from here would be keep a judgment journal write down all the places where you identify things as being good and being bad. And notice what does that look like what comes up do you see any patterns in there patterns are really great way to notice rules to notice values to notice assumptions all of that. I love looking at patterns that's that's the thing. And then exploring those I am statements, what are the statements that you tell yourself notice when you say I am this I am that like I am selfish? I am lazy I am logical. I am a nerd I am whatever I just noticed first and foremost, what are you saying? What are those I am statements and then look at it like, what does it mean to be that really explore it? What am I saying? What am I actually saying about myself? Where's that serving me, because we say things, because they serve us in some way, somehow, maybe it's protective. Maybe it's keeping you in your place, whatever that place is, again, it can be a great indication of some of those societal norms. Where's that holding me back, starting to explore the meaning getting curious about it, rather than just believing it to be true, even if you do still believe it's true, even if it's still playing in your life, just asking that question allows you space it accesses the potential for space recognizes that there is space that exists outside of the boundaries of those I am statements that box that you've learned to fit yourself in. And when you can expand the world beyond the box, even if you're still in the box, you can know that there's more outside of that box, instead of just assuming this is the box that I exist in and it is all there is then you have the potential to start shifting the box itself. So your homework should you take it is to notice. And I don't listen to this, it might be a lot, there's so complicated. Just notice, just notice little bits at a time this work is big work, it is deep work, and you can hit on some things that are really hard to walk through that bring up emotions, noticing is the most important thing that you can do. And following that, being kind to yourself, and engaging it rather than beating yourself up over it, which just makes you want to run away and usually is where you're forming patterns. Fun. It's hard to do this on your own, it just truly is, it makes a huge difference when you have the space to do the processing. So finding an intentional community, or working with someone who is trained to support you with this, who resonates with you, in a way that is non judgmental and supportive, is important. This is what I'm trained to do. This is what I love to do, helping people access their possibilities. And engaging in a compassionate way. This space is where growth is needed. Because growth, let's be honest, is not very comfortable most of the time. So. So if you'd like support to engage this, as I mentioned at the beginning, please grab a spot on my calendar. And let's talk it is free. And what is most important to me is that you get the support that you are looking for whether it is for me or not. And I do have a value around accessibility. So we will find a way to make it work to get you what you are looking for, again, whether it was with me or with someone else, or whether we work something out so that it is accessible for you. That's what's most important, because this is how we change. This is how we change the world. And that's what I'm here for so. So I really appreciative that you are here that you are even engaging this work in the fact of listening to this podcast. If you're like No, I'm good. But I'd like to support the podcast, I do have a buy me a coffee page setup. So if you want to buy me a coffee, that would be awesome. I love coffee. And I have a free resource page setup, too. That just happened. It is my website, Valeriefriedlander.com/resources. I haven't figured out where to put that on my page yet on my website. So it's easy to just click and find but I'll have it in the show notes. So if you want to go check out my freebies, I invite you to do that. And I will talk to you all next time. Thanks for listening. I so appreciate you being here. If you got something out of today's episode, please share it leave me a review. Take a screenshot and post it on social with a shout out to me, send it to a friend or you know all of the above. Want to hang out more join me on Instagram, or better yet, get on my mailing list to make sure you don't miss out on anything. And remember, your possibilities are as unlimited as you are. Allow yourself to shine my friend. The world needs your light. See you next time.