← Decoded | Unlock The Secrets of Human Behavior, Emotion and Motivation
Decoded | Unlock The Secrets of Human Behavior, Emotion and Motivation
Healing Isn’t Pretty: How to Know You’re Actually Changing
00:34:47
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Looking back at the different iterations or versions of yourself, is there evidence of personal evolution? Is there evidence that you're becoming more empathetic, that you're understanding the consequences of your actions more? Are you able to be more patient? Are you able to choose peace if you weren't able to choose peace before? If you were before a people pleaser that couldn't speak up for yourself, are you able to be a little bit more direct and assertive, even if that ruffles people's feathers? Those are all signs of change, but we have to keep in mind that these are going to happen seasonally. Your brain is wired for deception, but here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen? Welcome to another episode of Decoded. I'm busygold and today is going to be something just a little bit different over the season so far. And gosh, I can't believe how many episodes we are in. When you really commit to filming weekly, it's unbelievable how much content you can pull through. So today's going to be a little bit different, more off the cuff, free flowing, based on things that I've been thinking about over the last few weeks. So today we're having a conversation around what it looks like to both healing, right, to be in that healing space, and what it looks like to be healed. Because I think there's some misconceptions here and I see this lead to a lot of conflict. I see this lead to a lot of arguments. I also see it lead to a lot of faulty assumptions about who's doing the work and if they're doing the work. So I'd like to jump in here and try to shed a little bit of light on what a human being looks like when they are in the space of healing and what a human being should like, look like when they are in fact healed. Right? And if you're listening to the audio version of that, I just put healed in air quotes. Because the human experience is really complex. If you look at it, for example, from a biblical paradigm, human beings, as a result of the fall in Genesis, are essentially cast down into the world losing their spiritual sight and they're essentially able to be tested and tricked and deceived, etc. And we're being called biblically, for example, to learn to see with our spiritual eyes and not be afraid and controlled by fear and anxiety by what it looks like is happening in front of Us in the three dimensional space. Another way to look at this would be we're called to walk by faith, not by sight. So you're called to understand the spiritual inner workings of things, not just what it looks like right in front of your eyes. For those of you that may have struggled with anxiety, this can be incredibly challenging. Right. Anxiety shows up. One part psychic, one part superhero, and it tries to give you this running list of all the things you could or should do to try to prevent danger. If you flip it and look at it from again that more spiritual perspective, you're often being asked to surrender, trust the process, not actually try to control every little thing. And to try to have that moment of straddling two worlds, believing that some future reality is possible, while potentially also not immediately stepping in and taking these of the world human steps right now in break method, I call this process controlled surrender. I'll fill in some of these gaps and help you get a working definition of controlled surrender, because I think this is definitely a key concept to really bring to life what healing and being healed looks like one day. When I was my early 20s, and for context, I grew up having panic attacks all day long every day from roughly 9 to 19, I was, and frankly still am, claustrophobic. I really don't like tight and closed faces. My one Achilles heel, even at the age of 40, is I am hate elevators. We'll get to that in another episode. So I don't like enclosed spaces. And my brain is definitely inclined toward seeing too far into the future and calculating too many what ifs and really desiring to try to, you know, prevent danger at all costs. I had a radical experience when I was 19 that helped me drop out of my perpetual state of panic attacks, thank God. But this claustrophobia thing still remained. And in my early 20s, I had an opportunity to participate in a sweat lodge. During this sweat lodge was the very first time that I became actively aware and able to listen to the inner monologue that was trying to prevent me from doing things that I actually consciously wanted to do. So if you think about a time that you set a goal for something, you were really sure that you want to do something, but then as soon as you were actually faced with committing and taking that step, all of a sudden that negative self talk starts to flow like ticker tape, and all of a sudden you're backing down on your commitment, you're finding excuses to not commit, you're blaming it on somebody else, why you're not going to commit. Nonetheless, something is happening. Functionally with language in your mind that is trying to alter your trajectory. And oftentimes it's altering a trajectory that also makes it so that you can't actually get to the goal that you want. So as I'm lined up outside of this sweat lodge and I'm looking at all the people that are about to funnel into this tiny little homemade dome with sticks and twigs and branches and blankets, I just remember looking at it being like, what have I gotten myself into? Because I'm so claustrophobic. And I can see how many people are about to funnel into this tiny space. And I remember going to stand on the line and immediately hearing a voice. Make sure you're the last in so that you're closest to the door. And I remember hearing it and thinking, well, geez, if I do that, then I'm for sure going to like hit the eject button and get myself out of here because I'm making it too easy for myself. So this is my very first experience of both that negative self talk directive, but also with my very first attempt at pattern opposition where I pushed back and I said, no, but I want to do this sweat lodge. I want to conquer this fear. I want to get over my claustrophobia. And if I listen to what my brain is telling me to do, I will be closest to the door and surely I'll make it too easy for myself to just get out. So what did I do? I opposed my pattern. I made sure to be the first one in because both the lines kind of funnel from the side. So if you're the first one in, you're like all the way at the back and there's kind of two half circles and there's only one door. So I get myself all the way to the furthest back spot that I can go. And at the time I was sitting next to my then mother in law and my mother in law was a very tough Japanese woman. Definitely like a fafo sort of parent archetype. And I remember thinking like, okay, you know, when in doubt, I'll just look over to Mayumi. Her presence will be somewhat calming. No, no. I realized very quickly, sweat lodges, and surely this is part of the point, they challenge a lot of people. Even the may not actually have fears of claustrophobia explicitly. And I was watching people around me start to kind of melt down and panic. So I realized very quickly, like, this is going to be a me and God thing, a me and me thing. And I really can't look to anybody else for any sort of calm this is going to have to be an inside job. And I remember listening to some of the chanting. I'm feeling it get hotter. I can feel that intense rising of anxiety. And at this point, I'm kind of trying my best to meet all of this very clear language of inner dialogue, of like, save yourself. Get out of here now. What if everybody dies? What if, you know, and I think up at this point, there are a bunch of news stories of people dying in a sweat lodge because somebody wouldn't let them out. So, of course, like, all these news stories and things that feel very logical and practical are running through my head. And I remember just being like, let's cut the bleep. You chose to be here. You want to do this. We are going to conquer this today. And I took my hand and I pressed it onto the cold dirt right underneath where the blankets were so I could feel the distinction between the hot internal environment and I could feel the cold dirt that was just outside of the blanket. And I remember in that moment putting my hand there and saying to myself, busygold, you are strong enough right now that in an emergency situation you could stand up and tear this entire sweat lodge apart. Like, this is made out of sticks and branches and blankets. Like, you got this. This is not a concrete structure. But you are choosing to submit and surrender to this experience and not do that. You know that you could, but you're choosing not to. And I was able to stay in for every single round and do it honestly, pretty flawlessly, without problem. When I got out, people that knew me, they were like, I did not think you were going to make it. I'm so impressed. I thought you were going to be the first out because people were tapping out. But I didn't tap out. So I'm sharing this to kind of frame up here that the way I had established myself in the world was as somebody who very clearly everyone thought would be the first out. So I broke that paradigm because I was opposing my pattern. Controlled surrender has to be a part of the process of healing. But before you can do that, you have to be really honest with yourself about what patterns of self deception are generating this negative self talk. And you have to get good at learning to listen to it without twisting it or trying to put it on somebody else, but actually face it head on, even if it makes you feel a personal disgust, even if it makes you feel embarrassed, even if it makes you feel less than or hopeless. That is a part of the process. We have to confront all of these things first, which I Had to do. And for years leading up to this, my life had been so overcome by fear and anxiety that even if I thought about what I wanted to do with my life as an adult, it would always be piggybacked with. But you can't because of X, Y, Z. Like, but then you're gonna have to fly on an airplane. Then you're gonna have to go in an elevator. So I just, literally, little by little, I just limited what I thought I could do with myself. And at this point, I frankly wasn't doing a lot with myself. I was living on the big island of Hawaii. I tried my hardest to stop my brain from atrophying by doing the New York Times crossword puzzle every morning. But often I was laying on the beach watching my life just kind of drift by, playing it safe, knowing full well that I was way outside of the destiny that I was called to in my life, but also couldn't get past my own fear enough to just take some action, take some bold chances to put myself right into the face of danger. Eventually, as you know, obviously, by the fact that I do what I do now, and I am where I am now, that's all changed for me. And change is going to be seasonal, and change is relative. Am I the same person today that I was two years ago? Am I the same person today that I was six months ago? Am I the same person today that I was 10 years ago? So one of the first steps I want you to think about as you're listening to this is looking back at the different iterations or versions of yourself. Is there evidence of personal evolution? Is there evidence that you're becoming more empathetic, that you're understanding the consequences of your actions more? Are you able to be more patient? Are you able to choose peace if you weren't able to choose peace before? If you were before a people pleaser that couldn't speak up for yourself, are you able now to maybe be a little bit more direct and assertive, even if that ruffles people's feathers? Those are all signs of change. But we have to keep in mind that these are going to happen seasonally. I was having a conversation with somebody, and this is what honestly sparked a lot of this conversation, because it's a conversation that I've thought about having multiple times. I have it with clients every single day when they're graduating. Like, what? What does the path ahead look like? And I think the most simple way to set the stage for this is healing. Looks like becoming more aware of the Areas that you are potentially acting out, dysregulated behaviors or coping mechanisms that aren't serving, or you're allowing that sort of negative self talk ticker tape to run the show and direct your actions that you're not doing the things that could actually be exactly the pattern opposition. You need to do the things that you want to do. So are you able to look back and reflect over some period of time and see that you're not just aware of those things, but you're taking action on those things? Are you taking increasing actions on those things? Are you seeing the evidence of, of the changes that you're making in your life through your relationships, through your career, through your body image, through your internal dialogue? Those are the main things that you want to be looking at first and foremost. Because if you look back, arguably if we look from kind of childhood to at a minimum, like mid to late 20s, you could pretty much describe if I was like, give me a 10 point summary of who you are as a person in those ages and what your biggest strongholds or areas of setback were. Most people can write those things down. I was fearful. I was really quiet and would placate everybody and then eventually would just completely fly off the handle and snap. In high school, I had been in physical altercations, sometimes even with boys. But more than anything else, there was a hierarchy. I was so afraid of everything. I kept my life so limited. I couldn't think about all these big things I wanted to do in my life because there was always a but afterward. If I look at my life now and most people see how I live my life, how I engage, most people would never think that I ever was like that. I wouldn't. I didn't go on an airplane for six years, you guys. I got stuck on the big island of Hawaii because I got so in my head about fear of flying that I just couldn't even get on a plane. Now I fly like every other week for work earlier in my life. Looking back seasonally, I used to, once I was finally able to fly, then I couldn't fly without drinking alcohol. Now I fly sober all the time. In fact, I was completely sober for six years. So there are seasons. And does me drinking to fly mean that I'm not in the process of healing? Because before I couldn't fly at all. I was so stuck that I literally couldn't even do it. No, I. That was a step in my healing journey. And would it be something that I should be dependent on for the rest of my life? No, but healing happens in season. So now I can fly without drinking then even if I go back a few years ago, then I could fly without drinking. But if there was any turbulence, all of a sudden, heart rate through the roof, I'm gripping the sides, I'm freaking out, I'm trying to distract myself with something. And I had this really amazing experience on my way to Arizona this last week. Your brain isn't broken, it's running. An old code break method is a system that maps your neurological patterns, decodes your emotional distortions and rewires your behavior fast. No talk therapy spiral, no getting stuck in your feelings, Just logic based rewiring. In 20 weeks or less, head to BreakMethod.com and see what your brain is really up to. So I'm on the plane and I'm just feeling so relaxed and at peace on the plane, which nowadays often happens, but certainly still not with turbulence. And all of a sudden, you know, the pilot gets on and he's like, hey, you know, there's this like big tropical storm coming. We're probably in for a pretty rough ride. I'm not going to have the, you know, the airline or flight attendants come through with the drink service because it's just, it's going to be too bumpy. So you know, we're going to be landing in about 45 minutes. Just kind of stay buckled. And he even explicitly said, do not go in the lavatory. Like, just don't. So I remember hearing this and thinking to myself, I could like hear the negative self talk start. And then I was just like, no. I was like, this is gonna be great. And I literally opposed my pattern so hard that I put away my laptop, I put away all the stuff that I was working on. Any distraction that typically I would dip into, no, slammed it shut, put my computer in the seat back and I literally just like sat forward like I was gonna go on a roller coaster ride. I sat forward and I look at the guy next to me and I was like, this is gonna be fun. And he was in the military and he's like, hell yeah. And I was like, hell yeah. So I step forward and I'm just looking out the window and I'm like watching everything. We're just bumping all over the place. And I had the biggest smile on my face. You guys, this was a moment for me that I've been waiting for literally for years. And I've finally arrived. I can now be at a place where I'm so at peace and I'm so Accustomed to that process of surrender that any of even my kind of like the echoes in my nervous system of what I used to be afraid of gone. I enjoyed the whole thing. I think I actually smiled and treated it like a roller coaster. So I share this with you because this is how we have to look at healing, that there are signs of change and progress. This doesn't mean that I didn't heal. If I didn't go immediately from I'm so afraid to fly that now I can be excited about turbulence in a very short gap. Healing takes time. Healing is a process and it's called going to happen in layers. And often when you get to that new layer, there are new levels of awareness that actually pop up. And now there's just like a video game. It's like you don't necessarily know how many levels there are, but every time you get to a new level, all of a sudden you're confronted with this new stuff and you're like, ooh, opportunity for refinement here. So healing is a process of refinement and it is a process of refinement that can be really challenging. And I share this because it's very easy for somebody on the outside looking in to maybe judge your process or to not understand your process. I think more often than not the misunderstanding the process precedes the judgment. People judge what they don't understand. And often people judge without taking the time to roll up sleeves and ask questions and actually put themselves in your shoes. And I think that is really important for us as human beings, especially those of us that are in a heal healing capacity where we show up to help others heal both in a support structure but also in a bearing witness structure. You have to be able to believe in that person, believe what they are capable of, and also very much hold space for their humanity. In break method, for example, you see clients who in a span of three to four months radically change like so much that it can be absolutely mind boggling. Does that mean that they are going to land the plane perfectly 100% of the time? Absolutely not. I mean, I think kind of the whole point of this is not only is that that answer absolutely not. But the question which is somewhat rhetorical, is is that actually what we're going for? Because I don't actually think that it is. I'm. I believe that being healed, for example, to contrast, being healed means that you understand your patterns of self deception. You're able to take ownership if you do something wrong. You're able to in the moment that Something's breaking down, Stop yourself and be like, whoop, okay, I see what's happening here. Let me fix this, let me redo this. And your desire is either to stop it midway, prevent it entirely, or at a minimum, clean it up after it's done. All three of those are still a sign that you have actually done the work. Because someone who has not done the work and is not doing the work, that they're incapable of doing all three of those things, they can't stop themselves. They can't see the self deception in the moment and hit the pause button and fix it. And they certainly don't do it and then seek to clean it up. They point more fingers, they split, they project, they deflect, and they can actually sit there and reason through the process with you. So when I look at what healed looks like, healed is gonna be evidenced by looking at stuff, seasons of your life and seeing progress, evolution, change. And not just awareness, but actual change in behavior. Example, when I look back at different iterations of other companies that I've owned, I've been through pendulum swings of. In the earliest years of some of my earlier companies, sort of in like the 2012-2015 16 timeframe, I was like just really scratching the surface of my work with break. And while so many parts of that were working in my marriage, I hadn't yet gotten to the place where I was able to embody that in my workplace. In the workplace was like my most patterned, original OG form of busy possible. So things would happen like this where I would have to fire an employee. And everyone in the staff was clear that this had to happen. A lot of them were like, busy, you have to do this. And I would try to pump myself up and I would go to fire the person and then I'd come back and they're like, so did you do it? And I'd look at them, I'm like, I think I accidentally gave them a raise. Like, oh. And they were like, bezzie gold. Why would you do this? I could not just be direct and honest and give the feedback. I just felt too much for people. I would start people pleasing and placating, I would cover up, I would even take on more myself just to not hurt the person. Now, 2025, busy is getting the opposite feedback, right? Sometimes my accountability, my directness is received as too harsh, aggressive. Right? And I certainly don't think that that's 100% of the time, but it can certainly be the case when you're in the process of healing. Sometimes that looks like a pendulum swing. But I also want to draw attention here to one of the signs of both healing and being healed is looking at frequency of something. So example, if when you were 25, the majority of your relationships would have been marked by like X, Y and Z behavior and they were happening all the time. So like frequency of like 75% and higher. If you're now 40 and you've been working, you've been doing work like break method, you've been actively trying to oppose your patterns to try to bring through that healing process. Change your behavior, become more empathetic, seek to understand people more instead of just assume what they're doing or why they're doing it. Or even worse, let your own self deception fill in those gaps. If you're looking at it from that perspective and you can say, I do this 20% less, I do this 30% less. This only happens to me 10% of the time when I'm really tired. Guess what? You should still give yourself a pat on the back because you are a human being and part of the human experience is pain and suffering and stress, right? Being a human being on planet earth, it's hard. Being an entrepreneur is hard. Being a parent and an entrepreneur is hard. Being in a relationship is hard. Being single is hard. Not knowing what your spiritual or existential framework is is hard. All of these things are hard. What is not acceptable is for people to from the outside looking in, not acknowledge progress. My entire job role is to help people acknowledge progress. And just because that progress is not 100% of the time does not mean that that person is a fraud. It doesn't mean that they're not doing the work. It means that they're a human being. And in my work I would way rather and I tell this to clients all the time when we're gonna typically break method takes about four months when we're kind of in month three and people are sharing all these huge wins and their relationships transforming. And maybe a kid who is presenting as oppositionally defiant is suddenly like now a part of the family fabric and now they're getting positive feedback from their teachers. These are the wins that you celebrate. That doesn't mean that fights don't happen at home still. That doesn't mean that there aren't going to be moments where a kid who's actually started to become more compliant suddenly one day doesn't want to do the dishes. This is a part of life and we can't let these experiences somehow invalidate or flip on us. All of the work that many of you and myself have been doing, that is a part of healing and growth, that is a part of the human experience. I think another great sign of healing is, is being able to take full responsibility and ownership of some of your absolute worst behaviors and also things that may still sneak attack you. One of the things that I tell my students all the time in break, when they inevitably look at their nine markers and they're like, so am I going to be like this forever? I always tell them that your brain pattern and the nine markers that we have actually described for you, they are a constitutional pattern. The way this plays out functionally is you can take the steps to heal, to rewire, to create new neural pathways to change these behaviors, and you could land the plane. Most of the time when this is going to sneak attack you is when life throws you a curveball, when your stress is at the max, when you're sleep deprived, when a perfect storm happens and 10 things go wrong. When those things happen. The way our brain pattern works is it's like a default setting. All of the work that you've done, all of the new understanding that you have about the world, all of this newfound patience and empathy and understanding that can fly out the window in about 1.5 seconds. That is why you have to understand the warning signs of when that has happened. So you can double back down and be like, whew, I'm sorry everybody. That was awful. I didn't mean for that to happen. And guess what? Another part of being healed is to understand other people and give them grace and space to be a human example. My husband and I have an awesome relationship and he just like, I am always actively doing the work when I travel, when I have to fly for work and he is stuck at home with four kids and of course, yes, there are our kids. But being home by yourself for four days, no matter what, whether you're the man or the woman, is hard, especially if you're used to co parenting and role differentiation and all that, which we very much are. It's hard. That would put strain on most relationships and it certainly does on mine. There have been trips where that strain is high and it impacts my ability to show up at work. There are times that I'm sure that impacts my husband's ability to, to be calm and regulated around my kids. But you know what? You get home, you sit down, you regroup, you reaffirm your love and your commitment for each other, and you try to learn the lesson and do better the next time you don't bury your heads in the sand. You don't go pointing fingers at the other person. Well, you did this and you did that. No, you're committed to the marriage and you understand what went wrong. You have the framework to look at check marks. Okay, I didn't do this. I didn't do this. That made this happen with you. And then you didn't do this and you didn't do this. How are we going to fix this? So another sign of being healed is being solutions focused. Right. You have to be able to actually run back the tape and figure out what went wrong. I was a competitive skier my whole life. One of the things that you have to do over and over and over again on a big screen TV is have your run analyzed in front of all of your competitors. So all of your competitors are sitting right here. There's a huge big screen tv and. And frame by frame, your coach is like, pause. Do you see how right here you drop that knee and you drop and there's just picking you apart in front of all of your competitors, which you know most of which based on your age, you're going to be competing against these people. What it does functionally, number one, it helps you see where the mistake is mechanically so that you can correct. Also toughens you up. Doing that in front of your peers, rapid fire all the time for years. It makes it easier for you to look at these things and look at them formulaically. Instead of this why did I do it in this sort of like kind of spiritual, broad feelings based approach. Instead look at what did I do and what happened in my life that created a scenario that allowed me somehow to justify that or not see, I was doing it until too late. That is a massive sign of healing when you can hit the pause button and be like, okay, without us both getting in our feelings right now, what could we have done differently? Another thing that I want to dig into that I think is super, super important. And we're going to do this in a part two, so we're going to do two shorter ones. Just because of the way my schedule is, I'm going to leave you on a bit of a cliffhanger. Another thing that I want to focus on here is when you're in a partnership or example, you're in a business partnership no matter what. Something where you are around a person all the time and both parties are actively trying to do the work, you have to be able to see progress, celebrate the progress, and not actually try to weaponize these momentary lapses. In judgment against the person. So example would be this last weekend, going back to this idea of having to travel. I had to travel for four days. It was a long trip. And on my way home, I was telling my husband, hey, I'm on my way home. How's everything going? And he responded to me, I'm really burnt out, but let's catch up when you're home. I love you. And I said, honey, I love you so much. I'm gonna make it up to you. Thank you for holding down the fort. And he said, babe, you're on mission. That is a positive sign. And just because maybe two trips ago, everything descended into total chaos and we had to clean it up at the end, doesn't mean that my husband isn't doing the work. Just like, if I have a momentary lapse where everything is on my shoulders and I f bomb for like an hour, and then I'm like, all right, that was uncalled for. My stress is at a maximum. Clearly, I need to take a self care day. That doesn't mean that I'm a fraud. Just like he is not a fraud and you are not a fraud. Nobody, and I hope you really hear me when I say this, nobody expects you to be 100% perfect all the time. That is not what healed looks like. Being healed doesn't mean that you have to not be a human being. Being a human being is a messy, flawed experience. Every day brings something completely brand new, and we have to have empathy and grace and patience for people. And we can't just negate all of the good because of some of the bad, because that is part of the human experience. In our next episode, we're going to be taking this into a parenting container. We're also going to be taking this into a work container, and we're going to continue to expand on this concept in the context of relationships. I hope that this is helping you because I do think that our understanding of these processes can absolutely get weaponized. And as an example, I have met many people in kind of like the spiritual woo community that are so clear that they're healed, but they can't do any of the things that I just described. Therefore, by the definition that I'm trying to pull out for you guys today. What does that mean? It means potentially that they're highly aware, but they're not actually taking any action. There's no evidence that they are changing. They're just weaponizing language. We need to be able to see evidence of change, and that evidence of change can happen. In seasons, it can happen little by little, and sometimes you have to look at it with ratios. So the message I want to leave you with today is hold yourself accountable. Also give yourself grace. Remember that you are a human being that has a spirit and a soul, and you're having a incredibly challenging human experience. And to have people try to judge or blame you for things when you're actively trying to do the work, that's not helpful. And I hope that I've never shown up that way to my clients. And I will continue to try to hold that space of what they are capable of and keep trying to meet them in that place to do that job, because it's work that needs to be done. People need grace, empathy, understanding. And then a lot of times, people also need a swift kick in the ass, which I have needed before, too. So you've gotta wrap all that up with a bow and of course, be in spiritual integrity as you're doing it. So lots of love to you all today. Next week's episode is going to be a part two to this conversation. I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to share this with somebody who might need a little bit of a reminder about what healing or healed looks like, or even just some encouragement, go ahead and send it. I'll see you guys soon. Your brain is wired for deception. But here's the truth. Patterns can be broken. The code can be rewritten. Once you hear the truth, you can't go back. So the only question is, are you ready to listen?