73. The 2-Step Practice That Helps You Stop Being So Hard on Yourself

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: There's a version of you that's been white knuckling through something, role you've outgrown, a friendship that needs tending, conversation that you keep avoiding. Not because you can't see it, but because some part of you is terrified of what happens if you let go. Today on the authentic path, why self-compassion isn't soft? Instead, it's neurologic. And the two-part practice that helps your nervous system finally feel safe enough to let go and change. Welcome to The Authentic Path. I'm your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, Harvard-trained physician and healer. I integrate science and ancestral wisdom to support you in creating the success you desire in all areas of your life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. If you are new to us, welcome. We have had this podcast running for many years. the first part was called The Empowered Brain, and there's about 180 episodes of that podcast that is still live on all podcast streaming channels. And I sometimes refer back to that podcast. So if you are looking for more content, You can search for the empowered brain. You'll find my podcast there, 180 episodes. Look at the titles. The titles are very clear as to what I'm covering in case there's something there that serves you. So I'm a Harvard-trained board-certified physician. I'm also a master coach and a neuroplasticity trainer. And over the last 20 years, I've worked alongside physicians, entrepreneurs, department heads, and coached Fortune 500 leaders as they've tried to grow And create better outcomes for themselves and for their teams. And before any of that, I come from a long lineage of indigenous healers from Mexico and El Salvador. I'm a first-generation Latina, a mom of two. And one thing that I realized is before I had ever heard the word nervous system regulation, before I'd ever heard that, I had already understood that deep in my body, deep in my bones. Safety was something that we had to create. It didn't just arrive to us. It wasn't just something that we received. that's exactly where I'm taking you today. And I want to say that again because nervous system regulation seems to be a very hot topic, especially over the last couple of years. Everybody's talking about it. We've seen a pop-up of wellness influencers, wellness entrepreneurs, and everyone on all social media platforms are talking about how to regulate your nervous system. And I'm honestly thrilled and really happy that people are talking about it because I do think it's incredibly important and we all need to be doing it. I also want to make sure that you have really great tools, techniques that are evidence-based to support you when you are working through your own growth because it does require nervous system regulation. So again, what we're talking about today is a practice of self-compassion that's going to support you in regulating your nervous system. I'm not talking about self-compassion in the way people talk about the greeting card version or I'm talking about it through the lens of your actual nervous system. So I'm talking about it in a way that will actually determine whether you grow through the hard parts of your life or if you spend years sort of white knuckling your way around everything that feels hard. here's the truth I want to offer you that when your soul comes into this life, it didn't come here for a life. of only sweetness because the truth is growth requires friction. It requires hard stuff. And so the roles you've outgrown but keep holding on to, friendships or the marriage that really needs tending to, the versions of yourself that you know you're ready to become but haven't stepped into yet. What's happening is your nervous system may be working overtime right now to keep you exactly where you are. Because some part of you has quietly decided that staying stuck is safer than change or than growth. So today we're gonna talk about why that happens in the body, not just in the mind, but in the body. And then I'm gonna walk you through what I call compassionate redirection, compassionate awareness. It's a simple two-step practice you can start using today to help your nervous system feel safe enough. To let you let go of things that no longer serve you so that you can grow. right, let's get started. Okay, so one thing that I think is just important to name from the top is this: that when our soul chooses to incarnate, to come into this human life form, the reason why it's choosing to incarnate is to evolve. And evolution requires growth. So growth means that you have to sometimes face things that are hard. You think about your kids that are growing up and they have what's called growing pains because they're literally their bones are kind of stretching out as they grow. That's called growing pains for a reason. Growth, a girlfriend of mine says the the ouch in the middle of growth is because growth requires having sometimes painful experiences. And I think it's also really important to name that life is not supposed to be all rainbows and unicorns all the time. We're not always supposed to be experiencing Happiness, that's really what's considered toxic positivity. It's like if you like the taste of something sweet, amazing. You like sweet stuff. But if all you ever ate was sweet stuff, you'd forget how good it was. You'd forget what sweet tasted like. Because you're meant to have all of life experiences, not just the good stuff. There are parts that are gonna feel good. And parts that don't feel that good. So I want you to imagine the image of the ancient Chinese yan yang symbol, which is a circle. Half of the circle is black and half of the circle is white. that is essentially what life is. Half of it is going to be feeling the good stuff, but half of it is gonna be feeling the hard stuff. And that hard stuff is what allows us to grow, what allows us to evolve evolve. And so the purpose of life is not to avoid the hard stuff, but it's learn, it's to learn how do we create safety, how do we regulate our nervous system when we are experiencing the hard stuff? This is how we create a sense of peace in life because it's not about avoiding the hard stuff, it's finding peace in all parts of life. So, how is it that we can create a sense of peace or equanimity in life? I talk to so many leaders and I coach so many folks who are really at the top of their game. And everyone is is asking for equanimity. I just want to feel equanimity in life. So I'm gonna talk a little bit more about that at the end of this podcast, so stay tuned. But I wanna just stay here for a little bit because when we're able to create that sense of peace, what we are actually doing is creating a sense of safety for our nervous system. Again, regulating our nervous system. I'm gonna use the terms regulating our nervous system and creating safety in our nervous system interchangeably because they do go hand in hand. They are sort of the same thing. So one way to do that is to practice self compassion. So I'm gonna explain to you why self compassion plays a role in this part here. what ends up happening in our lives when we are living a life that is not in alignment with who we are meant to be. Or what we are meant to be doing when we are making choices or decisions that are essentially out of integrity with who we are, our nervous system tightens up. It sort of braces up because we think we are not safe. For example, let's say you're in a leadership role and you've grown out of the role. It's time to move on. And that requires that you step down from the role. However, you continue to hold on even though you know the role isn't serving you anymore. You catch yourself creating these timelines and pushing the timeline out further and further and further from when you step down. And if I were to ask you why, you might say things like, Well, there's no one else that can do the role right now. Or you may have a thought that if you step down, you're gonna let People down, other people are depending on you, you're gonna let them down. Or you may think that you should just be able to do it all. Like, why can't I just do everything? What's wrong with me? I should be able to do this role and everything else that I'm doing. So if you notice all of those thoughts and you ask yourself what feelings are behind those thoughts, you'll notice that those thoughts tend to all be fear-based thoughts. So fear-based thoughts are thoughts that don't feel good in our body. For example, one of these is fear of disappointing someone. I'm afraid I'm gonna let people down. One is fear of inadequacy. I should be able to do all these things. Why can't I do them all? And when we have fear-based thoughts, they create a contraction in our body. They create a contraction in our nervous system. Because if you remember, your nervous system is incredibly hardwired, and it's essentially here to keep you alive and do it as efficiently as possible. So it is so hardwired that it is acting autonomically. It's an automatic system in your body. So autonomic is what we use, the term we use. It's working so fast that before you've even had a chance to pause and understand what's happening, your nervous system is already acting. So your body has sensed fear because you have a fear-based thought. So your nervous system reacts and you think the way to protect yourself is to stay in the role longer. So this is just one example, but the same thing is true for so many other areas of our life when we're holding on to things when it's really time to let go. It could be a friendship that, you know, it's time to close the chapter on this friendship, but we hold on. Or a relationship, maybe it's your marriage that needs tending to, but even the thought of marriage therapy creates a sense of fear in your body. What if we start this and it doesn't work? And You let that go all the way down, then that might mean that we get divorced and that can be very terrifying. So, what do we do about it? Okay, so this is where this two-step practice of self-compassion comes in. The practice of compassionate awareness and gentle compassionate redirection. So, how do we do it? So, first, when you notice that your body has tensed up, braced, you've noticed, I I usually call it for my clients, just a sense of restriction in your body. So, there's there's two ways your bodies can react to something. It can react in a sense of expansiveness, that is knowing That you are in integrity, you are in alignment. That is what some people call a full body, yes. Or your body can tense up and feel like, whoa, this does not feel safe. It could be restriction, it could be tensing, it could be a discomfort in your chest or your stomach. So when you're when you notice that your body has tensed up, when you notice you're going through life doing things that don't bring you joy, or worse, maybe they're bringing you dread. So for example, Let me go back to this leadership example. Let's say everything about this leadership role is now just annoying you and frustrating you. Somebody sends you an email or a text and you immediately get triggered. You think it's all just so annoying. Or let's say that it's time to end a relationship, it's time to close a chapter on a relationship. The way you might know is that every time you're going to go meet with this friend, you catch yourself complaining about them. Or after you hang out with them, you just don't feel good in your body. You're like, why do I keep hanging out with this person? They're always complaining, they're always bringing me down. So whatever it is, those are the cues that you may be doing something that is not aligned with your integrity or with your highest self. And the beauty about this is that the reason we're having these cues, the reason why our body is sending us these cues, is because there is a lesson to be learned here. So when we go through growth, growth always always gives us a gift and the gift is a lesson to be learned to support your soul in evolving so you don't have to have that lesson again. So you learn the lesson of maybe I'm holding on to this because I've been so afraid to disappoint others. Huh where else in your life does disappointing others keep you stuck or essentially like a prisoner of your thoughts? Or maybe I'm holding on to this friendship because I'm afraid to hurt their feelings. Where else have you been so attuned to other people's feelings and so afraid to hurt other people's feelings That you abandon what it is that you know you need for yourself. So there is a lesson to be learned and to support your soul in evolving. And again, this is where compassionate awareness comes in. So the practice of compassionate awareness, which again is just a practice of self-compassion, comes in by you practicing something called noting. Noting, okay, so noting is a practice where you essentially say, I notice that I'm thinking. Or I notice that I'm feeling, or I notice that every time I think about this job, I get really annoyed or really frustrated. Or every time I'm about to hang out with this person, I start complaining. I notice that. So that's what noting is. it's a mindfulness practice of compassionate awareness. It's called noting. And I say compassionate because I want you when you're practicing this to be objective and compassionate to what you are noticing. You don't want to judge what you're noticing, you just want to notice it. Okay, without assigning any meaning to it. Just notice. When you practice noting, it allows you to create some distance between your soul self, what I call your highest self, and this part of you that is making these decisions. We can call it the thinking brain, we can call it the wounded self, all the same thing. I'm gonna call it the wounded self for the rest of this episode. So it creates distance between your soul self, your highest self, and your wounded self. And why that's important is because when you can create distance, then you can look down at what the wound itself is doing, acting, the thoughts, the feelings without judgment, with just like, okay, I see what we're doing here. I notice. Because when you can do that, then you can practice what I call compassionate redirection. So compassionate redirection is noticing what you're doing and then offering yourself safety by redirecting the thoughts. By interrupting that pattern and redirecting the thoughts. the way you do it is first you know. Second, you let yourself know that it's okay. It's okay that I'm noticing that my job is frustrating me. okay that I notice every time I get an email about this role, I get so annoyed. okay. It's okay that there's frustration. It's okay. It's okay. That term, just that sentence, it's okay, period, is a signal to your nervous system that you're safe. It's okay, again, is a signal to your nervous system that you're safe. I want you to think of it like this really gentle love note from your highest self to your wounded self. It's like what you would tell your six-year-old who had a really hard day and then comes home and they're like in tears, and all they need is to be held and someone to tell them that it's okay. Hey, it's okay. It's okay, we all make mistakes. It's okay, we all have tough days. It's okay, we all outgrow positions. It's part of the human experience. It's okay. Again, sit telling yourself that it's okay is a very simple practice of self-compassion that allows you to compassionately redirect what you have been experiencing and interrupt that pattern. It signals safety and allows your nervous system to relax or what we call regulate. It allows your nervous system to regulate. And a relaxed nervous system or a regulated nervous system is a nervous system whose parasympathetic parts have been turned on. The parasympathetic parts are a relaxation response in our body. And that's what we want. We want to be relaxed. And when you're in the state of relaxation or the state of safety, there is so much that's available to you. This is where you can access the wisdom of your highest self. You tell yourself, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay. You allow yourself to regulate, to relax, to feel safe, to feel the safety that's available to you. And from that place, then you can ask: if I knew what the right next step was to take. What would it be? And that is where you allow the wisdom of your highest self to come through. It's a really powerful practice. This is also where you can call in peace or equanimity. So I talked about equanimity at the beginning of this episode. So what I have noticed in everyone that I've worked with, especially the most like high-achieving folks, is everybody wants to create a a sense of equanimity or peace. And they think the way to do it is by always being stoic. By being unemotional all the time, always being stoic. They think that that's equanimity. And always like being stoic and not having any emotions, that's actually not what equanimity is. That's not peace. That's you attempting to transcend the human experience. And that is not what our soul is here to do. We're not AI robots, we're not robots walking around that we're never gonna have an emotion. Emotions are healthy, emotions are beautiful, emotions are signals, they're lessons for us to pay attention to, to listen, to grow from. And we are here to have the human experience, which means we're here to connect with other people, to grow through relationships, to have a community of people around us that loves us, that supports us, that sometimes trigger us to show us where our souls can evolve. So the triggers, those frustrations, they're part of the human experience. that's how we grow, that's how we evolve. Trying to avoid them or pretending that they don't exist or trying to never have an emotion, that's transhumanism. And that's not what we're here to do. And our job is here to essentially do our best to get to know ourselves at the deepest, highest level, love ourselves, love all those parts of us that we're getting to know, to see, because we're all part of our divine self. We are all part of our divine self and we get to love all those parts of us. There are no bad parts that exist within us. There are afraid parts, and there are parts that always try to control, and there are parts that are always trying to be the manager. Let me make sure you're okay. there are parts that show up as firefighters sometime, yelling and screaming when we think we've been hurt. That's okay. Those are all parts of our divine self. That's okay. Sometimes they'll show up. We get to love all those parts of us. And when we get to know and love all those parts of us, we create space to love all of those around us. When we can have compassion for ourselves, That is when we can create compassion for other people around us. So many of the leaders I work with want to create a sense of human-centered leadership, a compassionate leadership. And they think the way to do that is focus out, focus out on those people, focus out on those people. What is it that they need? But the first step has to be focusing in. What is it that you need? What parts of you need tending to? What parts of you need to be seen, witnessed, loved? And from that place, that that place, when you get to know yourself deeply. love yourself deeply, that is where you access your deep, authentic, sacred, divine power. The more you know yourself, the more you love yourself, the more you feel safe in who you are, the more access you have to what I call divine, sacred, authentic power. And that is the place that we are all walking ourselves home to. We know that in ourselves, we see that in other people. We see their power in them and we get to walk them home to that. So I am sharing all of this with you today because it has come up in multiple coaching sessions with different people that I've been coaching recently. And I also just led a huge professional development workshop, which I'm gonna talk more about in a different podcast episode and share some lesson learned with you there. But what I noticed I kept coming up over and over again is this lack of safety, a lack of self-compassion of being okay with where we are we're in our journey of life because there is a false belief that life is linear that we are trying to get to this place where we never have pain or suffering and the truth is that's not what life is life is circular life is like this beautiful I want you to imagine like this parallel staircase where you are constantly moving through this parallel staircase. You learn lessons you evolve your consciousness has more awareness to it But you're going to continue to evolve. There's going to continue to be pain in life. And the more you can create peace with that, the more you can access these tools that I've been teaching you on this podcast, the more you will allow yourself to grow with love, with safety, with compassion without assuming there's gonna come a day, a place where you never have pain again. That's just not the human experience. Part of the human experience is pain. But the question is, how long do I choose to stay in the pain? Because the sooner you can notice the pain and offer yourself compassion, the sooner you can shift out of it. So I'm sharing this with all of you today. Again, because if any of this resonates with you, then this message today is for you specifically. It's an invitation to know that you deserve to live a life of peace. You deserve to live a life of joy. Not one where we're constantly repeating old wounds, old patterns that we've either inherited from our ancestors, from our parents, our grandparents. Or that we've just inherited through social programming, which is what most of us are doing. We're just reliving old wounds over and over again. All of the areas of your life can be a 12 out of 10. They don't have to be a, they don't even have to be a two out of 10 or an eight out of 10. They can be 12s out of 10. Your marriage can do that, your career, your friendships, your relationships, your relationship with money, with your personal health. Nothing has to feel off. So if you've told yourself, It just is what it is. Like in this area of my life, it just is what it is. Like my marriage is always going to be like this. Or, you know, my relationship with food is always going to be like this, whatever it is. I want you to just notice that and ask yourself, is this really how I want to be living this one incredible short life that I have? Is this really how I want to approach my life? And if the answer is no, and you actually want to elevate above those patterns, you don't want to lift those patterns anymore, then I'm here to help you. That's exactly the work I do. So reach out to me. You can schedule a coaching consult with me. The link to the consults is in the show notes. Schedule a coaching consult with me. That's the work I do. And I'd love to help you do that work. Okay, sweet friends. I just have so much admiration, so much love for all of you for the work that you're doing on yourselves to make this world a better place. The world, the work you're doing out in the world. I just want to acknowledge you for doing that work. Keep doing the work, sweet friends, and I will see you all next week. Adios.