You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode 409.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Welcome back. Ryan and I are going to go deep in this one. We’re going to talk about feelings and failure, and feeling your feelings, and some rough stuff that he went through and how he came out the other side way more confident and way more ready to fail again. Please enjoy this conversation with Ryan Moran.
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Ryan: What about in other areas of life that are not business related?
Brooke: What do you mean?
Ryan: How do you determine what’s worth going after in those that don’t have that same tangible result?
Brooke: I do. I set tangible results, but I always try to have one main focus in the year. Like for me, last year it was much more my personal life. I didn’t focus as much on my business.
I had a CEO who was basically running it and I was very focused on my own personal relationship life. Dating life, traveling life, all of that. I had some excruciatingly tough times personally and also some amazing times.
But I do try and have one focus at a time. And because that last year was focused on something different, now I’m really excited to get refocused on my business, and I think that’s important. Because I think sometimes people are like, “I’m going to lose 100 pounds and I’m going to make $15 million, and I’m going to get married.” It’s too much to focus on at one time. So I like the idea of focusing on one at a time.
Ryan: Is it usually a business goal?
Brooke: Well, it wasn’t last year. Last year, it was much more my personal life and I was much less focused on my - I still had a goal, but it wasn’t like, this hunger and this drive that I have this year, and I think that’s important. What about you?
Ryan: I set process goals. So for example, that’s I’m going to ride 1500 miles on the Peloton this year. So what does that mean? It means I need to ride two times a week for 45 minutes. It’s 15 miles twice a week.
Brooke: Sounds awful.
Ryan: No big deal. We have a Peloton in the room.
Brooke: I mean, I don’t.
Ryan: Did you - you got rid of it?
Brooke: I got rid of my Peloton because I have one in my gym two floors up.
Ryan: Fair enough. So I set those types of goals. I’m going to go on 25 daddy-daughter dates this year. Because I used to say the result is I’m going to be a great dad, or I’m going to focus on being a dad, or I’m going to lose this much body fat, or I’m going to gain this much muscle. But setting a process goal allows me to measure if I’m on track.
Brooke: I like it.
Ryan: And that’s how I can have multiple goals. I might have one primary goal that I don’t know how I’m going to get to, but everything else is more process. I’m going to eat 200 salads this year.
Brooke: I actually think this is so interesting because I have this for my working out. I went to the doctor last year and they told me I needed to gain eight pounds of muscle. And so I…
Ryan: You said eight. Not 80, right?
Brooke: Eight pounds of muscle. They said I was too skinny, that I needed more muscle on my body. And so I just set up this program that I was going to do to put on the muscle and I did. And so that was kind of the acute solution.
Well, turns out Ryan Moran, when you put muscle on your body, you have to continue - nobody told me that okay, once you do that, then in order to keep that, you have to keep lifting all those weights and you have to keep eating all that food and you have to keep doing that.
And I find that excruciatingly boring and awful. And so it’s the same thing. Every other day, I work out. I go up there and I just did it this morning. I drug my ass up to the gym; I do the same leg workout and the same upper body workout and I just grind out. And I would call that a process goal.
And I just don’t ever miss, and it’s just non-negotiable. And so it’s not like, well, I don’t feel like it today. It’s kind of like I don’t feel like brushing my teeth today. Well, that’s too bad darling because we’re brushing our teeth today and that’s what we do. And so I think sometimes those goals, like what you’re talking about, create the foundation for you to do something extraordinary.
Ryan: And if you wanted to grow in that area, and it could be more of a primary goal where you are trying new things…
Brooke: Maybe riding a triathlon or doing biking in whatever…
Ryan: The process goal is like, I’m going to maintain this, I’m going to hit my goals, but I’m not going to stress about them because a process goal makes it easy for me to do that.
Brooke: This is so interesting. I just was hearing - one of my girlfriends was reading out of a book that she was reading and the quote was something like your success will be determined based on how well you can obey yourself. And I was like, what? That’s amazing.
And I was thinking about how good I am at doing that. The reason I thought of that is I was thinking about Esther, your daughter, and if you tell her to brush her teeth, she may be like, “Well, I just don’t feel like it, I’m just not feeling inspired today, today’s not one of those days.” Like, just brush your teeth.
We’re not having a conversation about it, this isn’t a negotiation, you don’t need to be inspired. We’re just brushing our teeth. And she just would obey you, I would imagine, very easily. And so how well do we obey ourselves?
When it comes to me working out, brushing my teeth, taking a shower, getting up, doing things I don’t want to do, I’m just really good at listening to myself because I trust myself that I have my own best interests. And it feels good to be disciplined and to have that foundation.
Ryan: Did you have to work at that?
Brooke: Absolutely. But I got to the point where I realized that all the negotiation, and when I really figured this out was with food. Where I would write down what I was going to eat. By the way, it’s one of the secrets to weight loss, my friends, if you’re feeling chubby.
Just write down what you’re going to eat and eat only that. Everything else is just drama. So when you realize I decided with my prefrontal cortex yesterday what would be a good idea for me to eat today, today, I’m not thinking with my prefrontal cortex. I’m thinking with “I want…”
And so all of that is not thoughtful, it’s all instant, impulse, candy is what I want right now. So when I decide ahead of time for myself, I always make better decisions.
And so that’s when I say this is how we’re going to work out, this is what we’re going to eat, and then I just listen to myself, my life is so much better. And the only reason you won’t listen to yourself or obey yourself is because you don't want to feel what you feel.
Ryan: I was going to wrap up but I need you to unpack. This has been so much of my work recently is learning how to feel my feelings. Because I thought that I was good. To a dude, this sounds so dumb.
Brooke: But talk about what you thought feeling your feelings was.
Ryan: I will. But I just want to asterisk here. To a dude, this sounds so stupid. To feel your feelings? Come on, grow up. Grow a pair, don’t feel your feelings.
Brooke: Pro tip. Pro tip, feeling your feelings makes you rich.
Ryan: This is true.
Brooke: This is how I get dudes to listen to me. They’re like, wait, that chick’s rich. What did she say about feelings?
Ryan: And I have discovered that not feeling my feelings is why I don’t do the things that make me rich.
Brooke: Amen.
Ryan: I have to feel my feelings in order to clear the resistance to do the things that lead to money and abs and all of the things. Because when I’m not feeling my feelings, I am avoiding them. And avoiding looks like eating or distracting or running away or not doing the work. Any of those things.
Brooke: Procrastinating. Netflix, all of it.
Ryan: Those are all ways to not feel feelings. And I thought feeling my feelings was understanding my feelings, thinking about my feelings. So I would feel a feeling, be like, “Oh, that’s interesting, I wonder why I feel that. It’s probably because of what happened to me when I was seven. I’m glad I had that insight.”
And then move on. Whereas I have now learned that feeling my feelings is just feeling the sensation, tuning into the sensation in my body without trying to change it. And just letting it be there and almost being the vessel for it to exist.
Brooke: For it to vibrate. That’s the way I describe it. Just let it vibrate.
Ryan: And not thinking about it. Not trying to change it. Not trying to understand it. Just letting it be there. And I discovered this, I was laying on the couch and literally, I have a friend of mine who has helped me integrate some work from an MBMA protocol where I was working through some things.
And a lot of feelings were coming up, and he asked me about it, and I told him what was going on. And he said, “You are talking about it. You are not telling me how you’re feeling about it.” And so I have done this work.
When I have something going on, I will just sit and feel whatever I need to feel. And I was lying on the couch, feeling some of those feelings, and they didn’t feel good. And my brain’s processing, and I reach for my phone, and I caught it. I was like, oh, I just understood it and went to distract from feeling. What would it be like if I just laid here…
Brooke: And just felt it.
Ryan: And felt it. And it was awful, Brooke. It felt terrible. It was way worse than I expected. And I release through crying. So I cried it out. I think other people process differently; I don’t know.
Brooke: Well, it depends on the emotion.
Ryan: Mine is always tears. I cry a lot, Brooke. But so I cried it out and then amazingly, it was gone. And just to be fully transparent, I was processing a lot of shame over this business failure. I’m ashamed that I lost this money, I’m ashamed that I help other people with their business while I have this big failure.
Of course, I’m not looking at any of the businesses that have made millions of dollars, or any of my customers’ that have made millions of dollars. I’m thinking about the loss of this one business. But processing all this shame that is in me, and it felt terrible.
And I realized I don’t have a relationship with shame. I’ve never felt this before. And so after crying it out and processing it, it was gone. To the point where I can have this conversation with you publicly, knowing thousands of people are going to hear me talking about what a few weeks ago I considered very shameful. And it doesn’t bother me. It’s gone.
And as a result of that being gone, I now feel like I show up differently. It’s like, someone that I know once compared it to a crapper tank. Where you just have - have you ever seen Joe Dirt?
Brooke: No.
Ryan: You need to see Joe Dirt.
Brooke: I do not need to see Joe Dirt.
Ryan: You absolutely need to see Joe Dirt. So Joe Dirt finds an atom bomb. He finds it buried and he straps it to his back and he walks into the city and says, “I’m going to blow up this city if you don’t give me $100,000,” or something like that.
And one of the guys in the city is like, this isn’t an atom bomb, it’s a crapper tank. And he pops off the top and all this crap comes out of the top and covers up Joe Dirt. And that’s how a friend of mine described emotions.
Most of us carry around on our backs this crapper tank of emotions because we’re afraid to pop off the top and be covered in crap. But it is the being covered in crap that clears out the tank so we have the capacity for positive emotions, or positive growth, for making decisions that are in alignment with what you want to create.
And I felt like I was carrying around this crapper tank of shame and fear or grief that I would justify, that I would make normal based on this experience and this experience. And when I was crying that out, I was thinking about this failure and every failure I’d ever had about anything.
And I realized, that experience helped me realize that when you don’t process that emotion, you don’t feel that feeling, it’s like your brain and your body are collecting more evidence for that and pushing it down further and further into the crapper tank.
And the more it’s pushed down in that crapper tank, the more you’re afraid of that being triggered and having the crap come out and cover you. So anything that could trigger shame, I’ll now avoid. And so what does that look like? It means not going after that business goal because I’m afraid I would fail…
Brooke: And I couldn’t handle it.
Ryan: And thus feel all my shame from past experiences that I haven’t processed. Or I will eat the house, I’ll eat everything in the fridge in order to cover up that feeling. I used to have a ton of stomach problems.
Brooke: No part of the feeling can be present because you’ll afraid it will - like you were saying, all of it will come. So even if it’s just a little subtle thing, you have to tuck it away.
Ryan: That’s right. And I used to have a bunch of stomach problems in my 20s. They’re completely gone now and what I believe is that my stomach problems were from eating my feelings away. So if I felt an emotion I didn’t want to feel, I would reach for food because it would do two things.
One, it would distract me in the moment, and second, it would give me a stomach ache, and I could focus on the physical pain rather than the emotional pain. I could blame how I was feeling on having an upset stomach.
Brooke: On the physical pain, yeah.
Ryan: This would have sounded woo-woo, crazy, absurd nonsense to me five years ago. But on the other side of it, of processing it, and I might only be halfway through. I might have more junk to process. But as a result of processing some of it, I now feel like I can go after that business goal, or I can try that new thing, or I can go after whatever because I don’t have that gunk holding me back.
Brooke: And you don’t have the fear of feeling emotion. That’s what I always say courage is, right? It’s like, the worst that could ever happen is an emotion, and discomfort is the currency to your dreams. So, if you’re willing, I’m like, “Bring it on.” Think of it, the only reason people don’t go after goals is feelings. They don’t want to feel humiliated. They don’t want to feel shame. They don’t want to feel scared. They don’t want to feel burdened.
So, if you’re like, “It doesn’t matter what the emotion is, especially shame. If you can do shame, you can do pretty much any emotion. Bring it. I’m open to it, bring it.” Then your goals get bigger. Then your life gets bigger because the only reason you’re hiding is because you don’t want to have an emotion.
So, to circle back to the original question, which is, “Why don’t we obey ourselves?” think about your life if you did everything you told yourself to do. It’d be extraordinary. The only reason we don’t do everything we tell ourselves to do is because of an emotion.
For example, we don’t want to feel bored, so we’re going to eat. We don’t want to feel deprived, so we’re going to eat. We don’t want to feel stressed out. Or for me, I don’t want to go work out because it just feels boring and stressful and hard. And if I live my life avoiding boring, stressful, and hard, my life’s going to suck.
But if I embrace it, I’m like, “Yes, it’s going to be boring. Yes, it’s going to be stressful. And yes, it’s going to be hard. And I’m 100% in.” That is not a reason not to do something. When people say, “I’m afraid.” I’m like, “You think that’s a reason not to do it? That’s the reason to do it.” And people make excuses, they’re always emotions, “I didn’t do that thing.” And if you get to the bottom of it, it’s always an emotion.
It's, “I didn’t feel like it.” And so, now it’s like, this is what’s so interesting about your example. You bought this business. It wasn’t the business that you’d hoped it would be. And now, you have to pay it off. And if you had hidden that from yourself and buffered – I call it buffering – like buffered away…
Ryan: Oh, I did, Brooke. I hid that from a long time…
Brooke: Yeah, hiding it from yourself and having shame about it and putting it away. The chances of you buying another business, zero. So, your life all of a sudden collapses onto itself and you start hiding and it becomes smaller.
And now you’re like, “I’ve taken the L, I’m experiencing the shame.” The chances of you buying another business now are higher and better because you know the worst that can happen is shame and you’ve already done it.
Ryan: I’m considering one right now.
Brooke: Exactly. So, when the worst that can happen happens and you survive it, then your life expands. It doesn’t contract. But we’re afraid that failure will make us contract because we won’t acknowledge it and feel it.
Ryan: And check this out, Brooke. So, I am considering a business acquisition right now. I’m really excited about it. My genuine concern is I might not have the capacity for it right now. It may not be my primary focus. But I really like this business and I’m uniquely qualified to help this business.
So, they need me more than I need them. So, I’m considering it. And I would raise capital in order to do it. And until a few weeks ago, I had this subtle fear that investors wouldn’t trust me to invest in this business because I bought a business before and it failed.
Brooke: But it makes me trust you more, which is so interesting…
Ryan: If I own it, if I processed it. A couple weeks ago, I show up to you and I’m subconsciously feeling shame and I’m talking to you, you can feel that because I’m hiding something and I don’t really believe it. I’m now afraid that it’s going to repeat.
But now that I’ve had my L and I’ve processed it and I’ve just taken the loss, I can do an investor presentation and say, “And good news, everybody. I bought a business in the past and failed, and so I know what not to do now. What I’d do differently…”
Brooke: Let me offer you, like, that’s interesting and cool and I agree that gets you more leverage. But also, there is an amount of courage, there’s an amount of confidence that comes – I think confidence comes from not being able to feel anything.
And when you’ve gone through something as painful as you just went through in terms of the shame and experiencing that emotion, and you’re on the other side of it, the level of confidence you have moving forward is unsurpassed in your own life.
Ryan: I completely agree.
Brooke: And so, it’s like, confidence doesn’t come from winning. I don’t think confidence comes from always winning. Confidence comes from winning and surviving a loss. So, you’re not like going out onto the field as Tom Brady and being like, “Shit, I hope I don’t lose. I’ve never lost before.”
He’s like, “I can handle a loss and I can handle a win. Let’s effing go.” And so, for me, seeing you even talk about this, the level of confidence I have in you – I know that if something goes wrong or you’re struggling with this business, you will face your own fear around it instead of hiding. And that makes me have confidence in you.
Ryan: And I could not have seen that as recently as a few weeks ago when I was still trying to avoid feeling that and I was still trying to avoid dealing with that. But now that I have dealt with it, or at least started to deal with it – I don’t know if there’s more in there.
Brooke: Well, the thing is, of course there will always be different layers of it. And that’s why say, “I put myself in harm’s way.” I put myself in bigger potential, scarier, harder situations where I could experience feelings on a bigger level on purpose.
The goal isn’t to avoid shame and humiliation. The goal is to slay it, to be able to experience it in a way that it no longer scares you. Because if you’re not afraid of failing, what won’t you do?
Ryan: Right. I’ve discovered that external circumstances serve as those triggers for all of the emotions that I have not processed yet. So, just this past week, I’m very heavily exposed to tech stocks, like growth stocks, like companies like Square and PayPal. And they just got crushed.
And so, I got upset about a number on a screen because the number on the screen was less than the previous week’s number on the screen…
Brooke: Which ultimately means that you’re a failure.
Ryan: That’s exactly what I thought. So, it triggered all of that fear and shame of lost money and, in my mind, I thought about the business, I thought about that thing five years ago. And so, that external circumstance, which in isolation is not a big deal, but it triggers a chain of thoughts that I have not resolved, that I have not allowed to come to the surface, it feels like I’m going to fucking die.
So, that was the time that I was like, “I am going to feel this. I am going to let myself feel this.” And so, I felt it and it sucked. And now that I have felt it, I’m not avoiding the thoughts that are triggering it, I can more proactively work on those thoughts and look at things like, “Square is down 40%. How much more of this can I buy?” Which is a much more powerful thought than, “Oh, my Square stock is down 40%. I’m such a loser.”
Brooke: Right, and to bring it all the way back home, back to where we started where I talked about, I’m learning the sales process. And I know that someone believes in something and is committed to something when they actually take action to prove it to themselves to do the thing – if you are someone that is willing to experience any kind of emotion, you are going to make so many more decisions and take so much more action because you won’t be afraid of the consequences of that.
And it doesn’t mean that you’re not thoughtful. It doesn’t mean that you’re not careful. It doesn’t mean you don’t think things through. You just don’t let your own brain stop you from fulfilling your own potential. And all of your power comes from the decisions that you make in your life.
Ryan: I don’t know how to answer the question, “How does someone start processing that?” Like, how does someone just start feeling it? I don’t know how to tell somebody that. What would you say to somebody?
Brooke: Well, I think the way that I teach this – first of all, join Self-Coaching Scholars. But the way that I teach this is, if you don’t feel something, like if I say to you, “What are you feeling?” and you don’t know, your goals aren’t big enough. Set bigger goals. You’ll feel something right away.
If you really believe it and you’re willing to say it publicly, like, “I’m going to go make a million dollars,” all of a sudden, all your stuff will come up. Now, the way to feel a feeling in a different way than conceptualizing a feeling is to actually be experiencing the feeling, is you have to watch yourself and observe yourself.
And what I like to do is take notes. Where are you feeling it in your body? Locate it. What exactly does it feel like? Does it feel fast? Does it feel slow? Especially for men who feel numb a lot of the time, one of the things that I tell them is, “I want you to imagine that I’m injecting you with a syringe of an emotion.”
You know how sometimes you get an injection of something and then all of a sudden you can feel it overtaking you. I mean, some of us do that legally. Some of us do that illegally. But it’s like all of a sudden you feel it and you’re like, “Whoa, okay, I feel that drink kicking in,” or whatever, it’s kind of like that. And to be able to just experience it.
And what is crazy about that is, if you think about this emotion that you just experienced – shame – and you imagine that I’m like an alien coming to you and I would say, “So, what exactly did that feel like? Where did you feel it in your body?” You’re going to tell me, “Well, there was a tightness and there was a little vibration. And it made me short of breath.”
And I’m going to be like, “Yo, you spend your whole life avoiding your life because of that?” And even though it feels terrible, it’s not that bad. And at the other side of it, on the way through it, you can see the worst part about it was all the avoiding of it, was all the fear of it.
When you actually experience, “Yeah, it feels terrible,” and then it’s over. So, I do think just observing yourself feeling and knowing that it’s a vibration in your body and it's not in your brain, it’s in your body, you’ll probably feel it in your chest, you’ll feel it in your stomach. And if you breathe it in, you’ll be able to experience it as a vibration in your body that will then dissipate.
Ryan: I have to get myself to the point of feeling it to where it will release somehow. I have to cry it out or poop it out. It has to leave my body. Do you experience the same thing?
Brooke: I do on intense acute emotions, like that one, when something super significant happens and you process it and let it go. But there are a lot of times where I’m feeling it and it’s not releasing. And the way that I describe it is I just carry it around with me like I have a purse for the day.
But I’m aware of it. It’s an emotion. It’s processing through my body. I actually had this very similar experience with shame. And I’ve talked about this a lot on my podcast. But I haven’t talked about it here.
I was in Mexico and I had an incident happen that made me just crushed with shame, the emotion of shame, similar to your L that you had, it was an L for me. I look back on it now and it’s hilarious what was so shameful for me at the time. But at the time it was, like, crushing.
And I remember just going through the day saying, “This is shame. This is what shame feels like. Shame is in my stomach. Shame is in my chest. This is what it feels like.” And it was so powerful and so vivid that I was on a jet ski, I was looking at dolphins, “This is shame. This is what shame feels like.”
It was just there and it was just present and it was just heavy. And so, for me to observe myself experiencing an emotion, I think, is the purest way of actually experiencing and letting it go.
Ryan: I’ve had a lot come up just from my own personal work, processing a lot of that, and I’ll feel like it gets stuck in my body. So, I just watch say YouTube videos until I cry it out. And it’s like the access point for me to be like, “Oh. And now the emotion is flowing and I can actually process it.”
Brooke: But there may come a time where you’re trying to release it and it won’t release. And I just want to offer that that’s no big deal. Sometimes it takes a couple days. Sometimes it takes a week. But if you’re aware of it and you’re willing to let it be there and you’re not trying to escape it or resist it or whatever, it will process through.
And sometimes it takes longer and sometimes you just notice that it’s gone, and sometimes it’s a huge balling fit, or a temper tantrum, or whatever. But you don’t always have to act it out in order for it to flow through and be done. And so, I like knowing that because then I feel authority over it.
Ryan: It makes sense. I’d say – I’ve heard you say this on the podcast – that feeling your feelings is one of the most valuable skills that you can do. Which mentally doesn’t make sense if you haven’t done it. But now that I started to empty the crapper tank, I have so much more capacity. I have access to a different level of being that I did not have before.
I have access to new thoughts and new capabilities that were in there, but I could not access them. And for me, I realize that when I have felt in the past like I was not achieving my potential or I was not fulfilling all of my capacity, it’s because I was blocking it with fears of triggering those past feelings. And I think that is so true for so many people, where that low-level dissatisfaction with their life is because they have created meaning around certain events and stored that as emotion, that they have not allowed themselves to process.
And so, they eat it away or they drink it away or they social media it away, or they fight with other people to distract themselves…
Brooke: And avoid experiencing anything new that could add to it. That’s the difference. And we’re asking everyone listening to not only not avoid negative emotion, but to go get it. Put yourself in harm’s way. Make your goals big. Make your life huge.
The reason why your life is small is because you’re hiding from your own self. The worst that can happen is emotion, so it’s like, even for you, are you willing to experience shame again? Let’s go. It’s not pleasant, but if it’s the price that I have to pay to live the biggest life I can, I’m all in.
Ryan: Yes, and it will eb an inevitable part of that process. So, if I’m not willing to feel it, then I will inevitably not pursue anything.
Brooke: It’s so true. And so many, especially dudes, are trying to make the money so they don’t feel the way that they feel. And listen, you’re going to make that money. You’re still going to be human. You’re still going to feel those emotions. And that’s it. The money won’t take that away. And the money can buy stuff that will take it away temporarily. But if you allow yourself to feel all the negative emotion, then the money is way more fun because you can feel the positive emotion too.
Ryan: I think it will come a lot faster too.
Brooke: 100%.
Ryan: And you will make it in a more authentic way to yourself than following somebody else’s plan.
Brooke: That’s so true because if you’re trying to use money to avoid feeling, you’re always going to be fueling your progress with stress, and that’s how you’re going to be burnt out.
Ryan: I’ve had mostly dudes ask, “Well I’m afraid that if I process through all that, then I won’t have the motivation in order to accomplish everything that I’m setting out to do.” And what I say is, “No, you’ll have more motivation. It will just be from a different emotion.” You can succeed from love just like you can succeed from pain.
Brooke: But men will be like, “I don’t want to be a little bitch. I don’t want to be feeling all my feelings all the time and crying in meetings,” and all this stuff like that. And it’s like, no, you think the most courage you can have is a warrior going into battle, a warrior going in willing to experience the worst of the worst on purpose, having the fear. You know it’s going to be there, and opening yourself up to it versus closing yourself down to it.
Ryan: You don’t think a warrior feels fear? Of course…
Brooke: Exactly, it’s the opposite. It’s like, “I’m willing to feel shame. I’m willing to feel humiliation. I’m willing to feel fear. I’m willing to feel all of it.” That is your most manly – if you’re going to think about it that way – your most courageous stance.
Ryan: Yeah, a person who is unwilling to feel fear doesn’t go into battle. They go and they build a brick wall and they yell about how the other side are bad people. Because they’re afraid to feel fear. But a warrior is like, “Let’s go fight these mother…”
Brooke: But I would say that shame is harder to feel than fear. And it’s like dishonor almost. It’s like, you went to the place as bad as it can get, and you survived it.
Ryan: I had a therapist tell me once, there are four core negative emotions; pain, also grief, fear, shame, and guilt. And the processing that I’ve been doing in my personal work, grief came up first, just pure grief, for no reason, just grief. Then fear. And then just recently, I’ve been processing shame. I really hope guilt isn’t next.
Brooke: Well, shame is harder than guilt. So, the difference between shame and guilt, if you ask – Brené Brown, I think, as a beautiful way of saying it – is, “Guilt is I did something wrong. Shame is there’s something wrong with me.”
So, guilt is, “I did this thing and I shouldn’t have done it and I feel bad about this thing.” You’re going to be able to handle that, no problem. Shame is, “I did this thing and it’s because there’s something intrinsically wrong with me and bad with me, and therefore, I am shameful.” So, I think shame is the worst, shame and humiliation, for me, have been the hardest emotions to process, the most painful.
Ryan: Well, I didn’t think I had any – I was like, “I don’t have any shame. I put my whole life on my podcast.” Oh, there was some in there. I found some.
Brooke: So, we would like to encourage you all to access and feel your shame. It’s Tuesday, my friends… It will make you so much freaking money.
Ryan: I kid you not, Brooke. The day after, I had this low where I cried all night, literally all night, did not sleep, just cried. The next day, I thought bigger than I’ve ever thought. And the strange thing is, for the first time, I genuinely believed in my ambition.
Brooke: That is amazing. I love it.
Ryan: For the first time, there was a belief and an, “Oh, that’s so obvious.” And part of the reason, Brooke, is because I could see the action steps that I needed to take and I had no resistance to taking them…
Brooke: Ah, because the fear of the failing, right?
Ryan: Yes…
Brooke: It’s so good.
Ryan: Or even the fear of the feeling, the, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to go through this. I don’t want to hire that person. I don’t want to fail. I just want it to happen.” So, I had the plan and the goal, but I had all this underlying emotion where, if I wanted to go do the work, like, I can’t.
And then, after feeling all of this, I have the ambition and, “This seems so obvious. My action steps are right in front of me. This is going to be fun.”
Brooke: And if it’s not fun, if you don’t want to do it, that doesn’t mean you don’t do it. You do it anyway, even though it doesn’t feel great. And I think that’s the other thing, the misconception that people have, especially for me because I seem so happy all of the time, that they don’t think I do bunch of stuff that I don’t want to do. And I do so much stuff I don’t want to do. I ultimately want to do it. I’m obeying myself. I just don’t want to do it in the moment.
Ryan: Yeah. Brooke, every podcast we do is the best podcast ever…
Brooke: I feel like this might be three podcasts that we just did. This is a really good one for your listeners though. I’m super proud of you for bringing all of this to them. And I love the way you talked about it being like, “I don’t want to deal with feelings, I want to deal with Facebook Ads.” And it’s like, listen. If you deal with your feelings, Facebook Ads are nothing.
Ryan: That’s right. I can’t think of how many times I’ve resisted learning something new because I don’t want to go through the period where I feel like, “I suck at this,” because that’s shame, “I suck at this,” is shame. “I don’t want to learn Facebook Ads. I should hire someone to do it. I don’t want to understand this because I’m not good at it.”
Brooke: “I’m inadequate,” yeah, so good.
Ryan: Or copy or sales or anything that makes money.
Brooke: Yes, so the more willing you are to feel inadequate, I call it the more willing you are to suck at it, the more money you’re going to make in the long run if you stay with it and you have the resolve to get through it, keep taking action. Feel your feelings, my friends.
Ryan: I love you, Brooke.
Brooke: I love you too.
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