#213: When Things Change

It’s easy to feel helpless when big changes come into your life.

When we fight these big changes we waste a lot of energy, and we create a lot of suffering for ourselves.

We also block ourselves from becoming the most powerful version of ourselves.

We prevent ourselves from being open to possibilities and how we can effect the outcome we want to see.

This topic was brought on by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

I wanted to create an episode that looked at change in a broad sense so that no matter what you believe, you will get something out of this episode.

Before we start, I will be completely up front with you about what I believe. I believe that women are autonomous beings who can be trusted to make their own decisions. I consciously chose not to have children, and I’m grateful that I have that choice. Not everyone does. I also want to offer that if women can be told they have to carry a child to term that the government can just as easily make the decision that women they don’t deem fit to have a child will have to terminate that birth. Dobbs has set precedent that works both ways.

With that, I want to have a heartfelt conversation with you.

One thing that’s certain in life is that things change.

Overnight we can learn that we have new health concerns, a new boss, a divorce or breakup that wasn’t our choice, or a law repealed.

When these things happen, we can feel powerless.

We can feel like life is uncertain.

I’ll offer to you life is always uncertain.

We just notice it more when things change.

We’re paying attention to what we don’t have control of versus what we do have control of.

To me, the opposite of feeling powerless isn’t powerful. It’s self-trust.

Most of us aren’t taught how to trust ourselves.

We’re taught to look outside of ourselves for the answer. 

We want people to tell us what to do.

We ask of others, “What’s the next step we should take?” 

We learn to trust others to know what to do.

This is all socialized. I still do it. No matter how long you’ve been doing this work, it’s so nice when someone can just tell us, “Do X,Y,Z, and you’ll be successful.” Then we don’t have to build self-trust or think.

Unfortunately, no one can tell us exactly what’s right for us. Only we know that.

And because 99% of us didn’t learn self-trust as a child, we need to build it. That’s part of the work I do with my clients.

A personal example of this to show you the stark difference between what it means to have self-trust and not having self-trust is my experience with breast cancer.

In 2009 — at 29 years old — I was diagnosed with breast cancer. In 2022 — at 42 years old — I was diagnosed with breast cancer again.

At 29, without the tools I learned in coaching, I felt helpless. I scoured the internet for an answer, I bought cookbooks, I looked of people who’d gone through what I had to feel like I wasn’t alone, I was scared. I spent a lot of time feeling miserable and in my own thoughts. On the outside I probably came across as strong, but on the inside I felt like a hot mess. I felt insecure about my appearance, I felt sorry for myself. You name it, I felt it. I just wanted the doctors to tell me what to do, and I’d do it. Basically I had zero self-trust even though I had lots of evidence that I could just myself, but I wasn’t looking at that.

At 42, I had more life experience and coaching tools. You could say that it was easier because I’d gone through it before. But I know better. The biggest key to me handling that with grace was that I had so much self-trust. 

I sat with my thoughts and feelings about the diagnosis, and I knew exactly what I wanted. I told my friends about the diagnosis and told them what I needed. 

It’s so interesting to hear people’s responses to your diagnosis. Some people get very nervous about how to respond, so I told them exactly how I wanted them to respond to help them out. 

Another interesting thing is that a couple friends asked me how I was doing “really.” I told them how I was doing, but I noted that they had a thought that I wasn’t okay. That I was in denial of how bad my situation really was.

What was really happening was that I had built tremendous self-trust over the years of working on my beliefs about myself. I knew I could handle anything. 

That’s how I was able to leave my legal job and it was how I was able to handle the news of another breast cancer diagnosis with grace.

My actions were deliberate. Did I feel powerful too? There were times I did, but there were times I didn’t. When I was making health care decisions for myself I felt powerful. I knew that the doctors couldn’t tell me what was right for me. They could give me options and I could ask questions, and I would ultimately make the decision I wanted.

When I was in the hospital recovering from surgery, I didn’t feel powerful. That’s why self-trust is even more powerful that what we call “powerful.” Because no matter what we feel – powerful or disempowered, we can handle anything. It doesn’t matter how powerful we feel in the moment. We can remind ourselves that we have authority over ourselves and how we show up in the world when we trust ourselves.

If you’ve ever been on the other side of a divorce or break-up that wasn’t your choice, you may have experienced something similar.

You may have felt blind-sided, angry, confused. You maybe fought reality wanting things to go back to the way they were.

Fighting reality is different than accepting reality and creating your new reality.

When we fight reality, we stay angry and confused. That’s okay to spend some time there. Feel every one of those emotions. Each emotion we receive in our body is a gift. It doesn’t feel like it at the time. I see them as gifts because they remind me to take a closer look at what I’m focused on.

If I’m stuck in worry about the future, then that means I’m not focused on my present or how I can positively impact my future.

In the divorce example, once you accept what is, then you can ask yourself questions like, “What do I want?” “How do I want to show up during this experience?” “What can make my life easier?” “Who can help me get what I want?” “What the most important thing I want to focus on first, second, third?”

When we go there, we’re coming from a place of self-trust. We’re asking ourselves for the answers instead of looking outside of ourselves of the answers.

If you take a moment to focus your attention on all the hard things you’ve done in your life, you can buildup your self-trust.

Think about it. You went through law school. Maybe you’ve handled tough breakups. Maybe you’ve dealt with the grief after a loved one’s passing. Maybe you’ve built your business from nothing. Maybe you’ve dealt with drug and alcohol abuse either yourself or a loved one. You have handled so much in your life. When you remind yourself of that, you begin rooting down into self-trust.

I did that, and that’s why my second bout with breast cancer was so much easier for me even though the surgery I had on my lung to remove the cancer was so more invasive. It sounds funny to say that out loud, but it was. Even though I could have gone down another path and believed it was sad, I knew ultimately it would be a gift. I didn’t know how, but I knew it would be. Maybe you hearing this is the gift, I don’t know. Maybe it’s that I’m building even more self-trust as I share this with you.

Think about this in terms of a new boss that you have that changes everything that you’ve become used to.

You can stay in frustration and resentment, or you can ask yourself what you want. How do you want to show up at your workplace? What might make your life easier? Who might be able to help you get what you want? What’s the most important thing you want to focus on right now?

These questions will remind you that you have more power than you think to shape your experience.

I teach radical self-trust when I coach my clients.

That self-trust is deeply rooted in a sense of knowing that is beyond what society teaches us to believe we’re capable of.

It’s deeply rooted in self-love and compassion.

Each of us has the ability to trust our knowing about what is right for ourselves. We have no way of knowing what is right for someone else because we’re not them.

That’s why I do not believe we can make decisions for each other.

You have the ability to trust yourself more than you know. This is work I’m doing on myself constantly. We never have perfect self-trust, but we can aspire to it daily with the decisions we make for ourselves.

Building a deeply rooted sense of self-trust is the work I do with my clients.

Book a call with me, and we can get started.

You can book a call at https//dinacataldo.com/strategysession

And one more thing. Through the month of July 2022, I’m offering 1 hour coaching sessions to anyone who needs coaching around what’s coming up for them around the Dobbs v. Jackson decision. I’m donating every penny received from those sessions to Planned Parenthood. Here’s how to take advantage of this. Go to dinacataldo.com/strategysession and pick a time that works for you. Then enter the words “Roe v. Wade” in the notes section. Then I’ll send you a link to your email to pay for the session. It’s $250. I chose Planned Parenthood because I used their services as a young adult when I couldn’t afford health care, and they help families in need in low-income neighborhoods. I remember seeing women who had multiple children receiving healthcare for themselves and their children, and it touched my heart. They do really good work for whole families.

Alright my friend. I hope you’re taking care of yourself, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Bye.