doing your life’s work, not just taking care of other people

Are you always choosing other people over your own life’s work? Whether it’s art or entrepreneurship or simply doing whatever you damn well please for a day, how often do you refuse yourself and honor other people, instead? 

Do you actually need to neglect somebody else to get your real life's work done?? 

Is co-dependence a spiritual or energetic imbalance that once you correct it, you can tend to your life's dreams and also be respectful of other people's needs?

Riffing on this idea, after a bad week of giving myself away, and then reading an article by Claire Dederer in The Paris Review, “What Do We Do With the Art of Monstrous Men?”, we go a bit into rant mode about putting yourself first. (I mispronounce "Dederer" in the podcast, please forgive me, Claire, I'm a huge fan and I have learned!)

How do we find our way back to ourselves? Are you ready to do whatever it takes?

More about Maia at maiawilde.com.

Orig. Aired 5/30/2019 on 91.3 FM  WIOX 

Note: The point of views of guests on this podcast are not always the view of the podcaster. And the podcaster is only expressing her own opinions. This is the disclaimer portion where we remind listeners to do their own due diligence, and that Maia is not a doctor or therapist and that you are a responsible adult, who is capable of knowing when to stop listening and when to seek professional support and help.

Transcript

Maia Wilde: 0:03

This is Dirt Road Less Travelled, where we talk about life with a capital L and take on the big questions such as Who am I really? And why are we even here? I believe we're here to express the hell out of our true selves freely and unapologetically. So this is the show where we talk about how to do just that. I'm Maia Wilde, welcome to Dirt Road Less Travelled. And today, our theme is going to be the art of committing those beautiful little savageries, where you actually get your life mission done. Where do they get the steam? And why is that title so long, I got the title from a an article that I read in the Paris Review about art and the making of art and the creating of a life that it feels worth living to you. And the author. And I'll be quoting her throughout the show today, she called those moments where you have to choose to sacrifice, whether it's your role as a nurturer, or as a sociable human being, or even just being socially acceptable, you have to sacrifice that you make the choice to sacrifice the social nicety instead of sacrificing yourself. And whatever your art or your creation or your life's mission is. And she called that you're the little savageries that we have to, we have to commit them in order to get done what we're here to get done. And so we're going to be talking about that the art, the art of committing little savageries and service to living a life that you don't wind up at the end of it, having regrets. And that sounds maybe like a tall order. But I am here a little fierce today actually might go into rant road for a minute, a rant mode, rant road, actually like that slip of the tongue here on dirt road, less traveled rant mode, because, you know, I find myself in a studio today. Really, this is one of those, this, this getting to be in the studio and talk to you about what brings life meaning to you and how to find fulfillment, you know, when life throws all sorts of things at us, is just it's a real passion of mine. And in order to get here, I need to commit some little savageries. And this week I didn't. And it felt like a near miss when I was in the middle of rehearsing a solo show that I'm co writing and directing this morning. That goes up in the Montreal Fringe Festival next week. So there's a deadline, presenting a guest expert interview for a private group that I'm leading, which is ending this week. So it was on the books at noon deadline. And the internet went out in the middle so that it when you know over what are those moments for you where you're committed outside yourself where you're committed outside what gay Hendricks calls your zone of genius. If you're not familiar with the book, the big leap, and you're looking to live if you're if you're attracted to that phrase, the zone of genius, like could you even have genius? Is there a zone where it resides? Could I go live there if you're feeling like I want that gay Hendricks writes this great book. It's a it's a book that I know it's not a very big book, great stories in it. He's a very clear, humorous, incisive writer who's worked as an executive coach with people in companies for decades. And there's this idea that, you know, you need to take a big leap, right. And in order to do that, you're gonna have to overcome the inner barriers. You know, we always like to look at the world right outside of us and say, Oh, the world is holding me back if I had more money, if I'd been born earlier, if my husband would let me though, we always look at the external barriers. But what I've been seeing is that the barriers to living a life, that you're crazy for that you're madly in love with, that you arrive on your deathbed, 100 years from now, and you go, I did I did it, I did it versus you arrive on your deathbed. And you'd go kind of weekly, like, oh, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't do it. That, for me is the crux of what I like to talk about on this show. Because we might think that it's this you know, distant time, but life happens in moments, right? It happens in increments that happens in tiny decisions that we make little decisions if you're going to choose you and your vision, or you're going to choose taking care of somebody else. And I was faced with that big time this week, big time. And of course, whatever makes it on the calendar and whatever has a deadline is what you get to. Is it also true that whatever you commit to outside of yourself, you get to, but you're maybe a little bit soft on the inner commitment. I don't know what it is for you. I have noticed that for me, I always seem to this is where I'm so angry at myself about it right now. I always seem to put other people first. And so what we're going to be looking at under road less traveled today is not only what are those places like what's the vision that you have that you want to be committing to and you want to be spending your time and your your life blood on, versus what are those small commits. mints that seemed completely separate, but yet you find yourself doing all the time. And we're here today you're here in your life right now as it is you're living it right now. Like, where are you? Where are you thinking that you're spending your time, but you're really spending your time and energy on something completely different. And that when you get to the end, you go, I missed it, I missed the mark. You know, I was raised atheist. And I was always fascinated by the Christian method of Jesus died for your sins, right? And then I started to have these mystical experiences. And I was like, No, no, no, I don't want to go there. I don't want to I don't want to go there. And I just kept getting this feeling of, I need to go to church. And I thought, how am I going to reconcile this within myself like that? what felt like this very weird, like, Well, Jesus died for your sins. So you need to be grateful. It just didn't make any sense to me. And it honestly felt creepy and weird. And I just, I couldn't get on board with the fairytale right. And then I heard the definition or the etymology of sin. And the idea is that sin means to miss the mark. If you're thinking archery, right, you're aiming your arrow at the bull's eye, and you miss the idea that that is sin, that you are here on a mission God, given whatever you want to call it, I don't what your belief system is about life. Mine is that we choose to incarnate, we're souls here, we're in the game of life. And we're just we want to live full out for a purpose that is ours and ours alone, individually, like on an individual soul basis, and that we can miss the mark, we can get pulled off by life circumstances by things that people say to us, things that we believe from childhood, about life about ourselves. And that I feel like to get clear on this is it this is my life. What's my mission? What's my gift? What do I want? What just on a very basic elemental level, what do I like to do? Like, what do you like to do not in a spoiled, entitled way, but in a soulful, soul filled? Like I'm seeking to get the most meaning out of life and to bring the most meaning to this world? What were my gifts? What am I supposed to be doing? And that a great perspective to have is the deathbed perspective. So I brought into the studio with me today, the top five regrets of the dying. So we're going to be talking about where are you on that scale of like, living up to your potential maybe is a phrase that you like, maybe you hate it, you know, of living a life, that's true to you, because that's really what the show is all about. Right? You know, we wind up I, you know, you can take a little self assessment here, which I've been doing all week long, you know, we get lost up up the road. We get, we're up the creek without a paddle. We're like you, there you are, you wake up, you're in the middle of your life, how did I get here, sometimes we're not only lost, we're wounded. We've collected even more negative beliefs and bad experiences, and you know, some good memories. But maybe also we tried and we failed. And we're carrying around a lot of disappointment. So if you're there you're in, you're like, at a dead end, you don't know how you got there, you're living in a house you don't like you don't like the people you're living with whatever it is for you. Or maybe you like everybody just fine. looks really pretty on the outside, and you're bored out of your mind on the inside, you know, so wherever you find yourself, and maybe you're doing great right now. But you're getting the sense that you could like, crank it up a notch, like, okay, I've been doing great, great, great. And then we get to this point, don't we, where you've been doing amazing. And in fact, this is something that gay Hendricks talks about in the big league, he talks about something he has termed the upper limit problem. And this is that place where you've like capped off your capacity for joy, or fulfillment, or money or love. Whatever it is, what are you looking for in your life? What do you want? You know, where are you feeling a little edgy, a little bored. A little like, this is not enough for me. And again, I'm not talking entitled or spoiled. I'm talking living life to the fullest. So for you, and for everybody around you and for the world at large. Because we got a lot of asleep people, a lot of people just kind of like slumbering, lumbering around through life, right? That's not you and me. That's not us. So what do we need to do to shake ourselves out of our own reverie, and when something was great for years, and now it's boring, or it's just not fulfilling in the same way or you can do with your eyes closed? And it doesn't make you feel alive the way that you like to feel alive, or it doesn't bring you the same level of peace and satisfaction? You know, don't let me tell you how you want to feel right? You know how you want to feel. So where are those places where maybe you've just maxed out on your capacity and it's time for you to uplevel maybe you've just now slipped into like this is what gay Hendricks calls the zone of excellence. Maybe you want to get back into that zone of genius where it feels like yeah, this is what I'm meant to be doing. So wherever you are right now, in this moment, on the road of life, you know There's more, whatever level you're at, maybe you're in misery and you want to get to like, I feel okay. Maybe you feel okay. And you want to feel phenomenal? Maybe you feel great. And you're like, Yeah, but I'm not contributing enough, or Yeah, but there's that, that feeling that I keep getting that my art needs to shift. I had that with a client once she was doing these beautiful auto but not they're not autobiographical. That's writing, what is it? Self Portrait style, very evocative paintings. And they were selling, she had a gallery, and she was getting bored. And she had this image of sort of, you know, I never saw them because she wasn't doing them like animal prints something with a little more, a more vivid a whole new vein of brand new direction, she had a gallery, she really wanted to go show it and she was faced with she's at that crossroads, right? Maybe you you're facing one of those in your life right now. Or maybe you faced one and you took a wrong turn. Maybe you took the right turn, but now you're bored you know where whatever it is. She was faced with? Do I stay with the safety with a small gallery, they sell my paintings? I'm sick to death of doing this representational stuff with myself again and again? Or do I take this huge leap this big risk, and attempt to make art that who knows if it's going to sell even though I've got this real gut instinct that I want to move in this direction of this other gallery? So how do we wherever you are? How do we find our way back to ourselves? Let's boil it down a little bit, shall we? What are the top five regrets of the dying? I brought them in because I had them memorized at a certain point. But I wanted to make sure that I nailed them. The first regret of people who are dying is they say this, they say, I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life. Others expected of me. Where do you fall scale of one to 10? How good are you there? your deathbed arrives? Can you say I had the courage to live a life that was true to myself, and not a life that other people expected of me? Because this is the place where it's we need to start to commit these little savageries. Right? Are you I this, I think is what I confronted this week that I was waiting for somebody else to give me permission to take care of what's important to me. And they they people don't do that? Do they? Maybe maybe a super codependent person like me would be very concerned about another person, are you getting what you need? Are you getting what you need? Is there something I can do to support you at a conversation the other day with a friend who she was supporting her first husband, she was working, and not just financially supporting, but really helping him get his art was the focus of his of his life. And she was really focused in that marriage on let me help him make art, I'm going to make it easy for him to make art and put it out in the world. And I want to be a support to this man who's making this great art and help him put it out in the world. The marriage dissolve, she winds up married a second time. And the second man is a writer, and she's like, I am going to help this man write this book, I can see the potential in it, it's gonna be phenomenal. 20 years go by the book finally gets self published. And he's that marriage is now over. And she said to me, I just had 220 year marriages. One artist, I did my best. He never put himself out there really made a lot of great art didn't put himself out there. second guy wrote a book but never really put it out there again. She said, I'm not doing that anymore. I've got some projects I want to work on for myself, specifically a book idea that she wants to start writing. She's like, I'm done with that. I want to be focusing on me and my vision for the world or for my world for my life. And I thought that was phenomenal. And I I think that we can learn right from the people who've gone ahead, or maybe they're at the same place as we are, you know, age wise. This woman was older than me. And I feel like Wow, you look at somebody who's done life. And you go, what are your regrets? What you know, what worked? What do you wish you'd done more of or less of? And of course, you probably know this. And I know I've said it on previous shows. People do not regret the things that they did. We don't regret the stuff we did we regret the stuff that we never had the nerve to actually do. So that's why they say the top five regrets of the dying, right, the number one, you got to have courage, you have to have courage. And I noticed this week that I did not have courage. So you have to have courage in order to live a life. That's true to yourself. So you got to find your true self. Yeah, like that. I like that. That's actually what I do in my coaching practice. Yeah, cuz How do you find out who the true you is, you know, as I started doing a lot of personal growth work about 910 years ago, and I'd always been into yoga and meditation and, you know, Buddhist monasteries on weekends in my 20s I you know, but But seriously, like sincerely started looking at this stuff about nine years ago when I got fired from a job and I was on unemployment and just felt like a total loser. And somebody at my unemployment workshop one day at the Department of Labor, she said, let me take you to this workshop, and I had nothing going on. So I went with a personal growth workshop. And it started to reveal to me, I started to see myself differently, like the old me, like the promise of the program, they had a big, like a banner, at the front of the room, when you go in for the workshop was like something like, you're going to shift your paradigm. And I knew what that word meant, basically, but I didn't understand how, or like, what would that look like, I'm gonna still be me, right? You know that adage. Wherever you go. We're there you are. Which on the one hand is true. If you keep changing stuff in your life, like I have certainly tried, go get a new boyfriend get a different job, move, I'll go on a trip, right? You keep moving around the pieces outside of yourself. That's change. And you start wondering, you wonder like, Well, no, I guess it's just wherever I go, there I am. No, no, it doesn't have to be that way. transformation is where you change your inner terrain. You change the lens through which you see and experience life, the lens through which you express yourself. I was gonna say experience yourself, which I think is actually true, too, right. So I'm still me, but you know what it feels like? It feels like we're born free. I don't know, maybe you believe in past lives. And we bring some karma in with us. You know, but how, how much space is there? What's that real gap? Right? Like you're born free? Are you really a clean slate? You come in with a personality? What is it brain wiring? Did some tracks get laid down when you were in the womb? I think so. Right? But then the life experience starts to accrue, and we'd get buried, our true self gets buried. You know, when I started doing this work, I remember, I was like, I'm gonna do anything it takes. I'm gonna do whatever it takes. Have you had that kind of a moment? Maybe you're having one now. You know what? It's true. She's right. I don't want to live a life where I have regret. I want to get to the end, I want to know that I was bold, I had courage. I was true to myself, and just like kowtow to anybody else's expectations, because it was easier to sacrifice myself and to sacrifice, you know, them or like, deal with their disappointment in me. Right? Like, maybe you're having that moment of That's it, I'm done. I want something different. So I got to that point, when I got fired, and I was doing some personal growth. And I started to see like, I feel different. I'm relating to people differently. And I was getting a lot of feedback from people in my family. Actually, I one point had some relatives come to me, like, hey, so that personal development stuff that you've been doing, that we've been mocking you for, if you get someone else in the family to go, we'll pay for them to do it. I had that from multiple people in my family, hey, you know, we'll pay, I had multiple people in my family say, You're so different, that if you get another relative to do the program will pay for that relative to do the program. Nobody else ever did the program. Because really, and what was my response in that moment, you know, to try to convince somebody else to do it. Like, you know, you could use a little help. There's something a little wrong with you. Why don't you go do that personal growth program? Because it isn't my so much better. Like that never works. Who wants to hear that? Right? You know, nobody. That's terrible. And so I said, Why don't you guys do the program, and then these other people in the family, they'll be outnumbered, we will have all done it. And we'll be so great that they'll have no choice, you know, right. And they're like, Oh, no, no, I'm fine. Actually, I don't need to do it. Right. heard that from multiple family members. So I was determined, I was like, I don't care what it takes, I'm going to do it. Because I started to see results. I felt lighter, old wounds healed, like all of the stuff. You know, when I was three years old, I stopped calling my father, dad, and I started calling him by his name. And it's probably a whole other show at some point. But he hated it, you know, of course. And when I started doing this personal growth work at 37, I thought that's something that I could do to really change the nature of my relationship with my father, which was contentious. were incredibly similar. And I feel like he gave me a lot of my ability to talk about freedom and take the road less traveled. For sure. He was a rule breaker big time. So I got a lot of great stuff from him. But our intimate relationship was contentious. It was a rough dynamic. And I thought I remember when I was an actress, and I'd see a script I had this perpetual fear that in the script, they were going to ask me to say the name dad or daddy to someone in the script, like acting like pretending that somebody was my father, and to call him dad or daddy and I would get this like, you know, that feeling like that. No hot stove, can't touch it electric. Don't go there like that PTSD, trauma response or reaction is probably a better word. I'm like, I can't, I can't do it, I thought I would not be able to take that role. After I started doing this personal growth work. I thought if I could start calling him Dad, that would be huge for him. And it would be a breakthrough for me, because I mean, I've lived 30 something years not being able to utter the word dad. And through the process of doing this for a few months of this personal growth program, I was able to start calling Dad I called him up had a conversation with him about it. And he was like, Yeah, of course. Like, he was very uncomfortable in the conversation, just a heads up. When you're doing stuff like this. It's so awkward. And the people around you are like, please don't talk to me about it. I feel very weird right now. So we had an awkward, slightly horrible conversation. I was calling from a payphone on like 33rd Street in Manhattan, late at night after getting out of this workshop. Still remember back in the day payphones. They're probably not there anymore, right? A decade ago. And so I started calling him dad, and then he got diagnosed with cancer and he died like within a year and a half. Do you know how grateful I am? It had nothing to do even with my relationship with him, which, you know, we ended kind of unhealed, like he died. And I felt like I was grieving, not even the loss of him as much as the loss of the possibility of having the relationship that I'd always wanted. But you know what, I can feel it right now. I feel like I did it. I made that shift inside myself. I brought it out into the world. I started calling him dad. And that matters. Like, that's the stuff that really matters. It doesn't have to be family. But it's that internal sense of I got it. I was true to myself. I had courage. I was scared. I had courage. It was weird and awkward. And I didn't do it to live up to somebody else's expectations, but my expectation of myself. So what are some of your expectations of yourself? Today, we are talking about the art of committing little savageries to get your work done in the world. And I stole that phrase from an article that I'm going to read from now by Claude. Sorry, Claire Dederer. On the Paris way. You know what I moved. I'm sorry, I moved and I can't see what I'm talking about. From the Paris Review. In 2017. Claire Dederer wrote an article about the monstrousness of making art. And the first half of the article is about something a little bit different. But this is the what I want to talk about today. Because we're talking about how do you Who are the people who commit to getting things done? What do they need to neglect? Do you need to neglect something in order to be working on your work in the world? I found that yes, I have found that when I'm in my own work mode. I can't play nice, I can't play nice, but that often I will choose to play nice and, and sacrifice my own work in service to playing nice to the people in my house. Instead of just saying like, buzz off, like go away, I have work to do. And I'm not talking about like, busy work. I'm talking about your work in the world, your life's work. Today, we're looking at what the top five regrets of the dying are. And the first is people wish they'd have the courage to live a life that was true to them, and not somebody else's expectations. So what's a life that's true to you, if you're an artist, if you're a you know, a meditator, if I don't know what it would be? Where are the places where you love to spend your time? And what is taking you away from that? Is it social niceties. I had a friend whose mother when she was growing up, would say to her Go to your room, you can come back down and join the rest of the family when you are behaving in a more socially acceptable way. And I know for myself, I was trained to be nice. I don't know, is this a gender difference? I don't know. Maybe I don't think that it's probably a clear cut thing along gender lines, what is but the article that I'm going to read to you from now is about that place where this woman who's a writer and her friends other female writers find themselves stuck between this desire to this like soul call to write and produce art work, right writing their work, the real work in the world. And all of those social niceties and the things that they're meant to do or they're supposed to be doing. You know, that's a bad slip of the tongue I just made they're the things that they are supposed to be doing or told they should quote unquote be doing versus the feeling that they have. This is what I'm meant to be doing. So let me read to you from that article. Claire Dederer Paris Review. She says "maybe as a female writer, you don't kill yourself or abandon your children, but you abandon something, some nurturing part of yourself When you finish a book, what lies littered on the ground are small broken things, broken dates, broken promises broken engagements. Also other more important for getting's and failures. Children's homework left unchecked, parents left on telephone spousal sex on had, those things have to get broken for the book to get written. Sure I possess the ordinary monstrousness of a real life person, the unknowable depths, the suppressed hide, but I also have a more visible, quantifiable kind of monstrousness, that of the artist who completes her work, finishers are always monsters. For me, the particular monstrousness of completing my work has always closely resembled loneliness, leaving behind a family posting up in a borrowed cabin or a cheaply bought motel room. If I can't detach myself entirely, then I'm hiding in my chilly office, wrapped in scarves and fingerless gloves for hat plopped upon my head, going hell for leather just trying to finish, because the finishing is the part that makes the artist, the monster, the artist must be monster enough, not just to start the work, but to complete it. And to commit all the little savageries that lie in between the little savageries that lie in between", that was Clair Dederer from the Paris Review in 2017. We're talking about the art of committing the little savageries that you need to commit, in order to get your life's work accomplished, in service, ultimately, to the sense of you arrive at the end of your life, and you go, I got it, I did it. And also, I really believe that if we were all living these like soul fulfilling lives, we'd be so much better off as a society and as a world, the world. We're gonna run through the rest of the like top five regrets just so that you have a sense of what they are. So that first one again, courage to live a life true to yourself, not up to anybody else's expectations. This might seem a little bit like what you just talked about working and committing these little savageries, this doesn't line up. Let's talk about it. The second regret is I wish I hadn't worked so much. Here's the deal with that. If you're always working just to completely get ahead and you are constantly leaving behind missed connections, right? Not connecting with the people in your life. Not following through all of that just sort of living in this compartmentalised state where it's only work, that's different people who commit to their life's work and have fulfilling meaningful lives. It's a different kind of work. Do you get the nuance, do you get the distinction? I actually think that would be an interesting survey to do. Very interesting survey, you know, my dad was an artist. And when he came to the end of his life, he felt like he hadn't quite gotten the amount of work done that he wanted to. I know for myself, I you know, I have historically not worked all that much. Neither at my life's work nor at a job. I've always just sort of gotten through like wait tables, teach them ESL, take the trip, come home, read Allah, you know, that's, I like the experience of being in the moment. So that's been my style. So actually, right now, me I've had to have the courage lately, in order to live a life. That's really true. For me that's fulfilling to my mission, I have had to work more, which is interesting. So again, this might be a very individual assessment, right of where you find yourself on the spectrum. Okay, those are the top two regrets of the dying, what do we have next? I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. That's interesting, because it's courage is showing up again, courage is showing up again. So courage is clear. Like if we don't have courage, we're gonna wind up regretful, it's just guaranteed. It's just like written in. So let's know that. Next regret, I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Interesting. Are there people you're wanting to stay in touch with? I wonder about that? And I wonder because of course, as I'm sharing with you today, like everybody go away, I don't want friends right now. I have writing to do I have, you know, a business to launch. I want to think about my radio show. I have what I'm looking to put this radio show out as a podcast that requires editing, it requires marketing, understanding all the different platforms, right, figuring all of that out. That's work. I am a speaker, I'm working on talks, I want to be able to give them places. There's a lot that I'm working on. Now that feels really really important to me. It's the stuff that keeps me awake at night. That's another great way to look at it right? Like what's the stuff that wakes you up in the middle of the night and you go Oh, God, I just I have my life is passing me by now. It can't be something ego based. Right? It has to be from the depths of your soul. Or it's just like a neurosis. Let's, let's call it what it is right? I mean, right? Truthfully, if you want to get to know the true you, it can't be the neurotic monkey mind ego self. Okay, courage expressed my feelings wish I'd stayed in touch with my friends. And again, this is where like, you need to weigh in with yourself, right? Like, no, I'm in touch with my friends, but I'm not in touch with my soul. You are you need to balance it out the other direction. And then I love this one. This one's like simplistic and crazy making at the same time. Here's the final regret of the dying. I wish that I had let myself be happier. And I will say this, this this, these top five regrets did not come out of the United States of America. Just in case you're thinking us so superficial. This is not the place where we talk superficial. All right, this is Dirt Road Less tTavelled. This is where we talk about going off road doing life your way. Because, you know, this leads me back to the question that I brought to the show today, which is why would I and this is me personally, this is what I've been faced with and tormented by this week. Why would I rather sacrifice myself, then another person and I don't mean a violent sacrifice. I mean, being over committed. And helping a show friend write a show right now she's doing a solo show. She's going to Montreal to the Fringe Festival, then she's going to be in Winnipeg for the Fringe Festival there. And then she's going to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. And I'm her director. We've been working on solo shows together for a decade now. And she's had some great success. But this is the first time she's going to Edinburgh. And if you know about Fringe Festivals, you know that's, that's the mother lode right. So there's a deadline. It's this epic thing. And I just, I started feeling bitter and resentful, bitter and resentful about I have this work to do with and for other people, not just her stuff in my family stuff with my boyfriend's family. This show for her having guests at my house being nice to the guests, you know, and I started to recognize my father and myself because like I mentioned, he was a painter, and we'd have people over for the weekend. And he'd be really, his mood would just be decaying. hour by hour right. And I would say to him What is the matter with you like, I just need to get into the studio. He had a big painting studio upstairs at the back where he blast opera and just paint for hours smoke cigars, drink Corona, no sip whiskey, make these huge abstract canvas paintings, oil paintings. And I'd say you know what, get the to the studio. Nobody wants you around, you're miserable, that you're not pleasant to be I need to cook dinner he always cooked he was made these epic Czech dinners have like potato dumplings and pork roast and sauerkraut with caraway seeds and prunes and some beer in it. He was a great cook, host of fantastic dinner parties. But there was this place in the middle where he always was so resentful. So angry and resentful, storming around, moody everybody wanting to get out of his way. He was the monster, right? Because he was not committing those little savageries. And I noticed that's been me this week. I've just been like bitter and barely holding it together. The other night, everybody wanted to hang out and I chose to hang out with everybody. Like, let me just make everybody happy. We'll hang out, we'll all cook dinner. It'll be really nice. We'll sit down, have dinner together, everybody will be really happy. And I could feel inside myself that I was getting restless, physically restless, because I hadn't gotten any exercise because I'd been in meetings all day. And then also just aware of the time that I hadn't meditated. I do Transcendental Meditation twice a day for 20 minutes. And like nine o'clock when we sat down to dinner. So at 10 o'clock, what did I do? I went to my boyfriend and I just like hissed at him. He's like, what did I do? Like he's just having a really enjoyable night at home with company and I'm furious. How could you let this happen? People are here all the time. It's not his fault. Well, this also leads me to the next Okay, let me finish one thought though. I recognized my father in me. Like why did I agree to host these people and cook dinner when I'm this angry about it? When I'm my my poll is elsewhere. So what I want up doing everybody went to bed at 10 and I got in my car and I you know I said it to my boyfriend like accusing like Oh man, I go to town and walk around the middle of the night right? So I drive down to the little village. I live near here in the central Catskills and I parked my car at the general store and I just walked around for 45 minutes in the dark. Just breathing taking in the night and hearing myself think because you know i think that's One thing that we sacrifice, when we don't get alone time is hearing ourselves think, how do you even know what you want to be doing? How do you even know what you're into or what? You know, I was like, okay, it's Tuesday night, I've got a radio show on Thursday. I haven't even given it any thought. I have multiple group coaching calls for my Phoenix Rising program, I need to sit down with and write some ideas down there haven't given any of that anytime. And so I was seething and frustrated, and agitated and edgy and restless. And I walked it out. I didn't listen to music. I just walked with myself and heard myself got the stress out of my system got the tension, all that pent up stuff out of my system. And then I got in my car and I drove back to that not to the house, we have a very long driveway, a nice dirt road. dirt road less traveled, you know, for sure. And I parked on the flat section of the driveway, shut off the lights, you know, turned off the engine, windows open peepers in the background, moonlit dark clouds overhead. You know, there's a swamp and a beaver pond and the bald eagle sit there not infrequently. And I closed my eyes to do my final meditation of the day just knowing that I was surrounded by this beautiful land, I wouldn't hear another person. I wouldn't see another person. There was no pole outside of myself to the social niceties. And from that walk in that meditation, I had an understanding of what I needed to do for my final group coaching call for that program. What I wanted to talk about on the radio show what music I wanted to play for you today. And just a sense of peace and clarity. And I went home and everybody was asleep. puttered around, took a shower made a little noise passive aggressively trying to wake my boyfriend up. He told me later he said, I tried to stay awake that night. He was not awake. I made myself some tea, took a shower, went to bed and just slept. the sleep of the just wasn't awake in the middle of the night because I had handled the things that I needed to handle. But the big question that came up for me on that walk that restless, agitated walk was why do I sacrifice myself instead of sacrificing the social niceties? Where do we learn that? Where do we learn now? I'm not talking to be mean and rude and a bully? And not you know, non communicative? No, you need to communicate with people. You know, you know, it was really interesting today. So this friend whose show I'm directing, we had a rehearsal this morning. And then I ran a guest expert call for my group program at noon, had some internet issues was on for longer than I thought I was going to be. And then I said to my friend, you know, so we will rehearse. We'll do a final rehearsal tonight, because she's leaving for Montreal in the morning. And I'm gonna go do my radio show now. And she said, You have Wait, you have a radio show today? She said to me. You know, that's how that's how deep in I was with like, the self denial. Like, I'm not even going to talk to anybody about what I have going on. I'm going to tend to you people, I'm going to bitterly resent it. And, you know, I said, I said to her at one point, I was like, okay, and now I'm done, no more talking. Because now I need to focus on getting my head straight. I meditated before coming out here to the station, like what are your priorities? Like? What are the things that kills you that you're sacrificing? What are those things that are the learned behaviors? Yeah, I realized now I started to tell the story A while ago, like a, you know, half an hour ago about when I got fired, and I started doing personal development work. And I decided I'm going to do whatever it takes to switch my paradigm, to feel different inside myself to heal my old wounds, to discover what my life's work is, what are my gifts, because we all have them, you have soul gifts, I promise you. And it could be an element of your personality. It could be how you cook. It doesn't have to be big or glamorous or artistic. It will be creative. You will wind up in the flow when you do it. You're going to be like that's not a gift. That's just what I do. Right now. It's been a lot of fun in my group program, Phoenix Rising lately, we've been talking about like we did a whole module on what are your soul gifts? What's your zone of genius? And to help people find that out for themselves? And everyone always goes into denial about it. Like No, I can't be that, you know, because that's easy for me. Yeah, that's where it's gonna be. It's gonna be easy for you, you know, so that I was at this place 10 years ago, like, could I really have some purpose in my life? Like, could I have a calling, I just seemed so grand and thrilling and unbelievable. We've been talking about the little savageries that you need to commit in order to get your life's work accomplished, and how to arrive at the end of your life. No regrets having lived full out We've talked about the places where you get cut down and your childhood or you get given a paradigm, a worldview and your childhood. And we're living that out now, and it often isn't serving us. So if you're sacrificing yourself instead of listening to what's your what's my soul mission? What are my gifts? What's my genius? What am I meant to be doing with my life and living your life that way? And again, I feel like I need to make this caveat. Like, I'm not talking entitlement. I'm not talking spoiled brat. I'm talking like living from soul, like, committing the savageries. And by that, I mean, not agreeing to all of the social niceties. I'm not saying being a rude person. No, no, no, you're going to be a kind communicative person. But if you're sacrificing yourself, like, I mean, I just I just saw this pattern in myself this week. It made me crazy. Like, if you're living according to somebody else's expectations that you be a nice person, and you're not being true to yourself, you don't have the courage to change it, you're gonna wind up at the end of your life full of regret. That's what the top five regrets of the dying has to teach us. I think, I know I need this. I need to remember this. And so where does all that like bad paradigm stuff come from? We're talking today about the little savageries that I want to give you permission to commit in service to living your fullest most meaningful life. And that's what we talk about here on dirt road less traveled is where where are you on the road of life? Are you bored? Are you feeling a little left behind? Like it's too late? Are you feeling like you've got more in you left to give where it was? Who said that? You know, to die with? What is that expression to die with? No music left inside of you. There it's I'm totally butchering it, you know, the one I'm talking about. But it's that idea of using yourself up now again, this doesn't mean you have to go be a rock star, right? You don't have to go do something out in the world, like in a big way means like quietly inside of yourself. Are you living the life that is right for you? I think it's such a big deal and I just this week have been faced with the all the ways in which I would rather sacrifice myself to please other people. Oh, God, you know, this is leading us into right now I'm gonna say this word that I don't even like to say. codependence. Isn't that just the worst? You know? In Okay, I actually think of codependence is like an energetic or even a spiritual imbalance. Because we're not getting fueled from inside ourselves. We're looking to outsource our sense of self worth, value, love. Meaning all of that with empathy. This is part of you know, listening to rat race was partly because we've been talking about what's the world that you were born into? What's the belief system, or the paradigm, what's the lens through which you're living and experiencing and seeing life, we've all been given, like a raw deal in a lot of ways. Like, there are some very poor rules and beliefs that we are all living according to stuff that's not good for us. It's not healthy for anyone or the world. It could be around money, it could be about self expression, you know, around self expression, how to do a marriage. You know, I think about as a life coach, what people come to me for I had a client this week, who it's our This was our fifth session. So we've been working together just like two and a half months. And she said, I have a bomb to drop. She's been all over the map just in these five sessions, because she's been looking to find her true self, right. She's been trying to really listen to what does she want to be doing in her life? She's turning 55 this year, and she's ready. And she invested in a life coach me and she's like, Alright, put some money down. I made a commitment. Let's do this. And then every week, she'd be very in a different direction. So she shows up that what is it going to be now? And you know, do you know that feeling when you can tell that somebody is telling the truth when you're like it's like that game? Hot cold, right? Like you're getting hotter you're getting an up colder, cooler, cooler cold, right? When you're you've hidden something in the room and people are looking for the object. So that's a lot of what working with clients is like we're trying to get a you know, that's my job to get people connected to the true self right. So we have to sit through all of the childhood wounds and you know, all of the the accruing of life experience and the disappointments and the partial victories right, and the partial manifestations. So she shows up on this call, and I'm thinking, Okay, she's gonna drop another bomb. She's been all over the place the past couple of months. Let's see what it is. And she says, you know, she describes the weekend that she had with her husband. They've been living separately for a while the marriage has been on but he's been working in another state so they see each other on weekend. And the last time he visited, it was not a good weekend. And she was boiling over with anger and just not even wanting to talk about it. She said, Listen, I didn't hire a life coach to talk about my husband, I hired you to talk about me. And to figure out what I want to be doing with my life. Like she's really at the place of what is my life's work? And am I going to be starting a business? So she comes to this call. And she's like, she describes the most recent weekend she spent with her husband. And by Monday, she knew the marriage was over. And I had that feeling when people tell the truth, do you have this play around with this, the feeling that what she said was true that it was right. This wasn't an impulsive decision. It wasn't a decision she wanted to reach would want to retract later. And the more we kept talking, the more she said, you know, her sons who are grown, were saying like, Alright, Mom, we'll give it a week, you know, you guys have been a little on again off again. And then within a couple of days, they were saying things to her like, No, you seem different. And they were saying, I'm glad because you've really been stuck in a pattern with him, there's been a cycle that we've been witnessing, and it hasn't been good. And we miss the playful, lively version of you. That has been not you just haven't been here in the same way. And she started to talk about how she felt like she's been dimming herself down. Like she's not that she feels like she is literally actually been, he's been saying things like I work so much. And you do all these fun things without me, you know. So she said, instead of having him feel left out, she just stopped doing the fun things would wait for him to come home on the weekends. And then he just wanted to sit on the couch and hang out and relax. So she went up doing absolutely no fun things. And we started see how in order because she wants a partnership. That's the kind of marriage she's dreaming of. So she wants to be in a, you know, like a match, right? You know, that feeling when you've met your match whether romantically or in a colleague or in a new friend, and you you just get each other and you're equivalent your your equal partners. And in order to try to get that experience happening in her current marriage, she was dimming herself down, being less exciting, being less of the extrovert that she is being less of like the fun loving woman, the entrepreneur, the adventurer, in order to attempt to dim herself down to his level. And these are the very subtle ways that we've been taught to be in relationships, or be in work, or be a parent, you know, I see this with parents a lot. where it's like, I'm in parent role, but you're not bringing your full the full breadth and depth of your personality. Now, obviously, if you're hanging out with a two year old or a six year old, you're going to be a slightly different version of yourself. But there's this way, I almost want to call it American. And do you want to do you want to send me hate mail now, but there's this like, superficial, everybody has a cheerful look on our face. But it's kind of empty quality that I feel like our mass marketed culture has, and which is dangerous for those of us who are from the United States that we can fall into that trap, and just fake it, just fake it, which is what I've been discovering that I've been doing and what my client was discovering that she'd been doing. But what do you do if you want more? Like in the secret moments of you with yourself? What do you do with that information? When you start sensing that maybe you want more? Do you get busy and ignore it? Do you know? Do you just deny it? Do you take a sleeping pill? So you sleep through the middle of the night wake up call, which might actually give you some truthful information? What do you do when you want more? But everyone around you is saying no, no. Look at like, please me, right? We'll talk a little more about codependence in a minute. Today we're talking about what do you got to do, to do your life's work to make your life a beautiful place that you feel like you've just lived full out and it's all yours. It's true to you that you've got the courage to actually follow through on some of your dreams and your desires. And again, I just feel like I hate to keep saying like, this is not about being a spoiled brat or living from entitlement. This is about living from soul. And you know, we have to just keep talking about the ways in which we're all programmed. We're programmed, you know, we are living our lives that are programmed by rules, experiences, decisions that were made for us before we were born. Does that make you angry that that's been making me so angry recently. And listen, this is where I need to take a little personal responsibility and say, You know I have fallen a little bit into sort of the victim mindset. It's a little bit easier. I don't love being on company behavior. So normally what I do is I avoid other people. You know, I just, I remember in a therapy session years ago saying, Okay, so I've got my stepmother over here, who wants me up this weekend, and the next weekend, my sister in law wants us over there. And these are two people that I just feel like I can't be myself with. And so I'm just going to spend two weekends in a row on company behavior, you know, what I'm talking about, where you're being socially acceptable, and, you know, observing all the social niceties, and it just wears that your soul and exhausts you. So again, I'm not talking about being mean, or abrupt or rude or anything, but I'm talking about where's that place? Like? Where can we push back? artfully? Respectfully, soulfully, in a way that gives us and those around us more room to maneuver and to discover like, Who is your true self, if the top regret of people who are dying is that people wish they'd had the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not the life that others expected? We have to start in that very intimate space of is this true to me? Or is it somebody else's expectation for how I behave? And if it is not true to me, and it feels easier to live up to somebody's expectation? And like, it will take real courage to be true to myself? Why is that? Why is it that so many of us are raised in a culture and then our culture at large, perhaps your family was different, but our culture at large, is a proponent of sameness, of conformity? of following the rules? And then we wonder why when people are depressed, people are depressed. ie that might be you. Are you aware how depressed people are, how anxious people are? I mean, I just look at as a life coach, people come to me for Yeah, people want to pursue their life's work. But you know, you start to scratch the surface and what happens, people's demons come out, everybody's got these wounds that we're walking around with faking, that we're healed, and we're not actually healed, right? We've all had experiences, little or big, that cut us down. I had another family member, when I was a kid, not a kid, I would have been a teenager say to me, I was like, again, my dad had all these talk about rules, you know, no curling irons or never went to the salon, he would cut my hair. I did not look great for a lot of years and not by choice. Right? And so he was just not a fan of well, he was also Czech. So he came from another country in another culture. And he felt like, there were he could see, and I mean, this is interesting, right? Because if you're looking at your own paradigm, or your own family culture, it's so close to you, it's hard to see it. That's why I'm able to see it for other people. I need people to see mine for me, right? You know, because it's just it's like the water that you're swimming around in. But so he, you know, he was able to see American culture, and he saw some superficiality and commercialism in it, which I actually really appreciate from, like an artistic stance, you know, I feel like that was a good perspective given to me. And there was a limit on self expression for me as a girl growing up, because I wasn't allowed to play with makeup, or do my nails or just play whatever that and I was not a girly girl by any by any means. That's, but you know, I did when I remember being five and wanting to paint my nails, you know, and like, that was a no, you know, and little boys want to paint their nails too, right? Because it's fun. It's something different. It's like it's, it's, it's a want to say expressive and experiential, right. And it's also experimental. And there are all of these ways where our experience and our experimenting of who we are and finding ourselves or uncovering new facets of ourselves gets capped off cut off early in life before we've even discovered or implemented. And so just to share some personal experiences with you to give examples of what I'm talking about when I talk about programming. So my father was very adamant about not looking like a girly girl like you just we're not we're not superficial like that. And then when I was so when I was a teenager, I certainly was not wearing makeup, or I had a perm, it was the 80s. But it wasn't like a an attractive perm back in the early 1980s. And I had to do that on the down low, he couldn't know that I had gotten a perm. So I was not a super girly girl, right? Both by my own personal choice and who I was, but also by the way that I was being raised. And then there was a time when I had some zits. And I was going to be going out with some friends and an older woman, a family member was there. And she said, Oh my you're not going to go Who are you meeting? I said, Oh, a bunch of boys from the Unitarian Universalist youth groups, some friends of mine. Yeah, that and she's like, there's going to be boys there. I said, Yeah, there's going to be boys there. And she said, Well, but I mean, maybe you want to put on a little bit of meat. up, and I was like makeup. What? Why? Like, I wasn't even I wasn't interested in attracting these boys. We're just gonna go hang out in my from my perspective as friends. And she said, What do you mean? Why I mean, please your audience, please your audience, she said to me. And it's one of those moments that we all experience where we are taught to live life from how we're being perceived and seen and who our audiences versus what our true self our true nature is attempting to express through us. It's this intentional forced imposition of the worst kind of self consciousness on all of us. Not a beautiful self reflective sort of interior self awareness, but a self consciousness. And so that's another example of like, how are we taught? Why do we become codependent? Why do we sacrifice ourselves and our life's work and like, help raise other people up? Why? Because we've been taught to, that's how we've been trained. That's how we've been trained. And so my work, right, and all of our work on ourselves, is to shake off the stuff that isn't serving us reparent ourselves, you know, and break the old patterns. And I did a whole module in my group program recently, in phoenix rising, it's a whole week that we devote to talking about boundaries, because everybody comes in, like, I need more boundaries, I need more boundaries. And we all think it's something external. But what I have seen through teaching this work now for years, and working with so many people from so many walks of life, men, women, people in their 70s people in their 20s. Is that the place that we think we need boundaries, the most is outside, because we're looking outside of ourselves and seeing like, I don't know how to have a boundary with my boyfriend, or oh, I don't know how to boundaries with my kids and money, right? But self reflecting, you know, where it all begins? We all need internal firmer boundaries. That places where it's a definite yes, or it's a definite No, but we've been taught to overrun our own internal truth mechanism, right, our self trust or self knowing mechanism. From the time we were born, we've been taught to override that. So you wonder why we get to adulthood and we don't know what we want to do with our lives. And we spend time instead of writing our, you know, masterpiece, or painting or masterpiece, or creating a new organization that does something brilliant and amazing for other people in the world. We stay home and we take care of the social niceties, or we do the things that pull us off our center. Right that that pull us off our mark. And I mean, I just the outer, of course, with boundaries, right, the outer will follow. And you have to set outer boundaries, too. And it takes courage as well, but the inner boundaries where you look inside yourself, and you can actually look and see where you're letting yourself down. Because that's the place that I came to this week when I saw, I'm giving everything away to other people. Why am I so willing to sacrifice myself? for other people? I had to look that I'm the one who said Yes, come over to dinner. I'm the one who said yes, I will do all of these things to help you in your projects. I'm the one who said to my boyfriend, yes, I will sit on the couch and watch a movie with you. When I don't want to sit on the couch and watch a movie and eat a snack. I have stuff to do. I'm on Facebook in the evenings, I love to do live streams on Facebook, because that's where I can have this kind of a conversation of back and forth with people. I'm the one so I noticed that I did not have the inner boundary. So my anger, bitterness and resentment. And my resentment was actually directed at myself. It was actually directed at myself. That's a bitter pill to swallow, isn't it? We're talking today about those places where we're all willing to sacrifice ourselves before. And like let other people have what they want more. What is that we're talking about what the root cause of that is, and how actually to give ourselves permission to commit those little savageries that we need to commit in order to be following our path, you know, for to us a vague sort of a term right? And I don't want it to be vague at all. I wanted to really feel like okay, I can pin this down like you can nail this down. What is it that you're meant to be doing with your time in this life so that you come to the end of it and you feel like you played full out? And you know, there was some we looked at the top five regrets of people who are dying earlier. And there are a couple where they say like people wish they hadn't worked so hard. So this isn't about like being a workhorse. It's about feeling like you have the choice to work on your your life's work and also if you want to have certain personal experiences or whatever experiences to make sure that you add those in, right. I mean, I don't love the term balanced life, but let's use it in this case. Because, you know, you want to have, there's actually an assessment tool that I give my clients when we start working together, which is it's like a pie, right? You know, so you print it out, it's got different categories, different pie slices are like, you know, work, finances, love, relationships, spirituality, fun, you know, the different categories of what, what life is made up of, and you draw a little dot, sort of, you know, toward the center of the pyre out toward the edges of the pie, to do a visual on what your level of satisfaction is in each of those categories. And then you connect the dots between all the categories. And the idea is to get a circle, right, so that you feel fulfilled, and a high level like to get an open circle, like a bigger circle. So to see the map of your life and go, alright, I'm doing okay, I'm pretty fulfilled. In many areas of my life, I'm paying attention to my spiritual connection, I'm paying attention to friendships, and, you know, creative work and money, I'm handling my health, right, all of these different areas of life. But what usually happens, of course, is you, you do the honest assessment on this sort of circle on this circular pie chart. And then you connect the dots. And it's like, you just like these jagged edges, you know, you've got a few places where you're going to be satisfied and feel like you're great. And then some places in your life that you are just completely ignoring. And that is, or maybe, you know, sometimes it's like, yeah, I'm pretty, okay. And most areas, right, it's kind of a bland assessment that you wind up coming back with. But it's a great visual representation, so that we can see, like, I can see where a client is at, and they can see, and then I always say to date it. And then at the end of our time working together, do another one, and see if things have shifted, hopefully, in all areas for the better. So you know, but this is one of those places where it's almost like, we're not, I don't know, let's get back to talking about codependence for a minute, right, because we're not taught to self orient. We're taught to orient others, so that they don't get unhappy with us, or disappointed in us. And that's, there's something wrong with that. Do you agree with me, because maybe you have a completely different experience than me, maybe you completely disagree. Although what I tell my clients is this, you know, when we're doing the work, especially in a group program, where there's like modules, and I'm teaching a lot, I'll say to people, here's how you know what to focus on, you don't have to this is not about being a good little girl, or boy and doing your homework. That is not how I run things in my programs, this is about self assessing, and checking in with your own gut, right, checking in with your own intuition and going, I really need to look at the module on boundaries, right, or, like, you know what, I think I'm actually pretty fine with my goals. You know, I feel like my goals are pretty inspired, I've set nice intentions, I'm all set there, I don't need to spend too much time. It's not about checking the boxes that you got all the homework done. But I'll say to people, here's how you know how you start to listen to your intuition on where you need to be focusing your attention on like a personal development program, which is either you feel really attracted to one of the modules, right? If I'm talking about rewiring your negative beliefs, and you're like, Oh, that's something I need. Great. Spend time, like, set aside time focus there, that's a module that's important for you to really spend some time with because you're drawn to it. So you want to trust that if you get a neutral, like, Alright, I, you know, goals, I mean, I have goals, I feel pretty good with them, like neutral. You know, don't even bother with it. It's fine. If you feel angry at me, or the very fact that we're doing a whole week about, say, intuition, or joy. And you're like, oh, what a waste of time. And this is such a waste of time. I can't believe I paid for this program. And mine is going to walk us through joy for a whole week. I have bigger things to do with my time. And you're really that triggered by the topic? Yeah, gotta go there. Yeah, have to go there. Because we think you know, like, follow your bliss, right? You know, listen to your intuition. We think it's all gonna be this sweet, light, you know, nice stuff. It's not it's going to be dark. It's gonna be messy. That's why when we look at these top regrets of the dying, they keep talking about you have to have courage. If you want to live a life where you don't wind up on your deathbed, full of regrets, you have to have courage. So how do you cultivate courage you start doing the things that freak you out a little bit, you do the things that like make you uncomfortable, or you set some boundaries. commit some little savageries that makes somebody else uncomfortable. I had a coach say this to me once. My first coach, she said, I think it's time for you to start are getting comfortable with other people's discomfort. And I just remember like feeling the bile rise, you know, like, how I can't do it, just being around some of the manipulative people who are in my life at that time, 910 years ago, and just being able to sit with their sometimes fury, sometimes mockery, sometimes insulting words, like I was around some aggressive people at that point in time that I was sort of thrown together with because of family or because of work. And she was saying, if you want to set a boundary, I was like, Yeah, but then this person is going to just be awful. It's just going to be horrible. And she said, Well, I think you're going to have to start practicing, getting comfortable with other people's discomfort. One of the hardest things that I have ever done, absolutely, almost impossible to do is to get comfortable with other people's discomfort, but it's a huge inner strength. That's a huge inner skill, right? This is what I'm talking about when I'm talking about inner boundaries. Because the reason that we've been programmed like to orient ourselves towards other people more than our own inner compass is because it's they like it. Other people like it, when you are oriented towards them. People really appreciate it when you're concerned with their welfare, their well being their projects, their life work, like who doesn't want a whole crew of people backing them up. Everybody wants that right. And so when you're constantly giving that to other people, that's where this like codependent starts to come in. But we've been like, trained in steeped in taught how to be codependent. Like how not to have our own personal energy, sacrosanct. Right? To not to not have other people say, Go commit the savagery don't sit down to dinner with us, right? Then fact, they maybe will give us a hard time if we go to like, say, I'm going to take care of what I need to take care of somebody who's probably going to give you a hard time, or maybe, maybe you're the one who's given somebody else a hard time, right. But this place of deciding, determining, deciding choosing, I am going to set this boundary inside myself. And again, not to be not to be amino, this is not about being mean and aggressive. Although sometimes, like I've shared earlier, you know, sometimes it's awkward and weird when you're first starting to like lay down a new boundary or like break an old rule that everybody in your world has lived according to for years and years. But this is where you can start to get a little playful, right? It's like, you don't even have to tell people what you're up to, you can just start to get a little bit playful, like this is a game, I'm going to practice getting comfortable with other people's discomfort. And like you have a confident to turn to when things get rough. Right? You know what I mean? You don't have to be on your own with this. But like what starts to happen when you stop trying to live up to other people's expectations. And you start to develop this kind of courage. And really listen to your own inner desires, your inner compass, what starts to happen, or to have the courage to express your feelings, like again, going back to these top regrets of the dying, what starts to happen, you start to feel happier. And what do we talk about here on Dirt aRoad Less Travelled we talk about this is the search for happiness, not the superficial kind, but like the deep the bone deep, the like in your cells. I'm good with my life feeling. Today we're talking about all the little savageriesthat I think we all need to just claim permission, that we're going to commit them in service to our higher purpose, whatever that is, do you have a calling in this lifetime? Do you feel like you're meant to be doing something and you're letting other people kind of steal your life force your life blood. This week, I felt like I'm pouring out my life blood to everybody else. And then I had to take the step back and look at myself and go, I let that happen. I actually encourage that to happen. The person I'm angry at here is not these other people who are getting what they want, which is my attention on their projects. Great. Good for them. There's a lucky, you know, but like, I I'm the one I'm the one who I betrayed myself. And if we sit around waiting for other people to give us the time and the space to go after our big dreams like it just when does that happen? it you know, and it No, we have to claim it for ourselves. I'm also thinking about so many of my friends and clients who are moms. And there's been so much resentment where they're like, you know, my husband, he just like he's just golfing or he just said I'm stopping for a beer after work. I'll be home late and he just does that stuff and I'm home with the kids and it's making me crazy. And I remember seeing that with friends of mine who had kids in their early 20s already years ago. And there's I do think that there is something in the way that we are Raise the genders that's different, where men are really I think, and again, argue with me if you want, send me your complete disagreement, but I've seen that men, are they wired, I don't know. But they seem to certainly be raised to self orient, and go after their dreams. I see myself as a little girl. Even though I wasn't raised in a very feminine way, we were back to the landers, bohemian, I was trained to, you know, I used to get my, my dad used to get very angry, he was kind of a rageaholic. And he would yell, and then I was this fierce child. So I would yell back, I wasn't crying in a corner. I mean, I cried plenty. I also did that. I don't have I don't have the doubt, waiting for me or the regret waiting for me of the top five regrets, like, I wish I had had the courage to express my feelings. That has not been an issue for me. But so even as a little girl, when my dad would yell and storm around the house, as a defensive mechanism and a survival mechanism, I would get angry back and yell back, like, you know, if you ever seen like a little animal like a little kitten hissing at a big dog, right? They're like, gonna stand their ground. And usually the big dog backs off. I've seen that happen many times. But in this case, with my dad, when I was little, he'd yell, and then I'd yell back, he would stop. And it was like, he got some kind of satisfaction, the minute that I lost it, the minute that I got angry back, he calmed down. And then he'd look at me and he'd say, Be careful, Maya, if you get angry like that, you won't ever get a husband. And so what I wound up becoming a total rageaholic. And like taking it out on boyfriends later, so I didn't go the little mouse like route there, you know. So we all have different responses to these things that happened to us in childhood, depending on our personality, right. But I was that traumatized me that that programmed me to see anger in a certain way to see myself as a female who was angry in a certain way to see how that would affect I was told I was trained, I was indoctrinated from a very, very young age with this belief that no one will love me if I'm angry, even if I'm angry when it is incredibly justified and in total self defense. Right? So what were the messages that you were getting when you were growing up? But I do see that men have been raised to be a little more independent, or a lot more independent. And girls have been raised to babysit, right? And not 100% of the time. But I remember my friend who had a baby very young, you know, in like, 21. And when her boyfriend, he'd be like, yeah, I stopped for a beer after work. It was before cell phones. So I don't know if he would call her or not. She was so frustrated. And I remember even at that age, saying, like, you need to do the same thing. Like he comes home one night, you hand him the baby, and you're like, cool. I'm going out for margaritas with Maia, I'll be back in a few hours. Not quite sure when? I don't know even that. I mean, some I've heard some men resent that. But I think sometimes they're just happy that you're taking care of yourself, right? Like, great that you you know, because they expect you to write because they've been trained to. But I see how as a woman I was really taught to be others oriented. And that it's actual, it's an actual, I don't know is that a value is that the right word, but it's almost a value, or it makes me more valuable if I'm willing to sacrifice myself for other people. But if one of the top regrets of the dying is people wish that they let themselves be happy and lived a life that was true to them, then we have to set these boundaries, right inner and outer. And we have to like push back against all of this weird programming that we got, which is also why I wanted to play that Bob Marley positive vibration song because it's like, what if we could just let ourselves be happy, right. And of course, it's not like simplistic or even easy. But like, I see this with Phoenix Rising my group program, it's nine weeks, we just had our final call last night. And it's a video call. And you know, I run people through these modules on boundary setting on inspired intention setting on connecting to your joy, your intuition, rewiring your negative beliefs, creating a vision, like how do you set a vision for your life? And so and we have a weekly coaching call, and people come to the first call, like, you know, because they show up in a program like that, why would you join a program called Phoenix Rising? Because you feel like you need to burn off the old and you want to call in the new and people come beaten down because life at this point, if you've not done any paradigm shifting or personal development work and like life has just been throwing stuff at you for 4050 years. You show up in your first personal development, you're like, Okay, I'm just putting a lot of money to this or what feels like a lot of money, but I don't even know if it's gonna work. Maybe I can manage my symptoms, right? I mean, isn't that sort of our culture, cultural beliefs, like yeah, maybe you can manage your symptoms. Worse, it's so depressing, right? The way that we culturally think about this stuff, and so people show up like brokenhearted, a lot of depression and anxiety, worried about things in their lives, whether it's a living situation or feeling just bored and like is this it for my Life, I feel like I have so much more to give. And I don't know what it could be. And maybe I'm over exaggerating this desire. But if the top five regrets of the dying are telling us, you have to have the courage to live a life, that's true to you, not according to other people's expectations. You, you can just be happy right now, you can find the courage to express your feelings and stay in touch with friends, right? Like, how do we get there? Well, you have to like there's got to be a protocol. So that's what I've been doing in phoenix rising. And I saw last night on this final call nine weeks later, this one woman showed up like she looks like she's been I've been watching her change over the weeks. But she looked like a different person. She was wearing her hair differently. She was wearing jewelry. She had this funky hat on, she was just really relaxed. I'm like, how are you doing? She's like, I'm great. I said, you seem lighter, you seem happier. She's like, oh, no, this experience exceeded my wildest dreams, I had no idea. She didn't even know that she could set the goal so high that she could actually be happy. And that's what that regret is telling us that people wish they'd let themselves be happier people don't, we don't realize that we can just be happy. Now, of course, to get there, you got to heal some of the old stuff, you got to find some courage, right? set some boundaries, communicate some things to people get comfortable with your own discomfort or other people's discomfort. And you have to find the inner, the inner grit, to do all that and the inner grit just initially to decide, right without even knowing how it's all going to pan out to decide I want this to decide that you want it without even knowing how you're going to get it. Are you committing the necessary little savageries to live a fulfilling, satisfying, joy inducing life? Or are you letting yourself down? And you could maybe be waking up in the middle of the night feeling like is this it just feeling like in the grips of some kind of like wrestling demons? Because you're not happy? You want more? You don't know what it is? Where are you at with this? Because this is the real question we've been covering today. Like we get lost on the road of life, right? We're following somebody else's directions. Somebody else's rules. What if there are no rules? I'm not talking about traffic signs. I'm talking about rules for you personally to find fulfillment, satisfaction, some joy? What if there aren't? What if somebody else's rules are right, the right rules for you? So sometimes we get lost? Sometimes we're actually injured, right? Sometimes we've been in an accident on the road of life. So how do we find our way back to ourselves? Well, that's the conversation that we cover here on Dirt Road Less Travelled. I'm so glad you were able to join me. Hey, it's Maia. Just wanted to say, hey, and if you like this episode, hit share on it with a friend with all your friends, why not spread this message that we have persmission to do life our way, right? This is our one and only beautiful life. And if you would be interested in me coming to give a talk at your organization and by organization. I mean, it could be a group of friends. It could be an entrepreneur group. Itcould be your company as a staff development day. I am ready to hear from you. I have talks prepared. I've been delivering them for years, and I would love to share with you what I have on offer. So you can hit me up at maiawilde.com or email me directly at hello@maiawilde.com. What's the Dirt Road Less Travelled? It's owning the unexpected adventure of your life. Yeah, you're covered in mud, no map in hand, but you feel so alive. Like your life has real meaning, and you're absolutely on the right path. You've been listening to Dirt Road Less Travelled. If you like what you hear, share an episode with a friend or share many episodes with several of your friends and make sure that you hit subscribe. And if you want to find out how to connect what we talked about on the show to your own life. Check out what's happening at MaiaWilde.com, the conversation over there is all about how to live like you're on a mission and what's that mission? Doing life is the real you living on purpose, healing all the old being able to envision the new and of course expressing the hell out of yourself. That's MaiaWilde.com. I'm Maia Wilde. This is Dirt Road Less Travelled. Until next time, stay true to yourself out there.