Welcome to The Renew Your Mind podcast. This is Episode 100 Loving the Mess.
DIANA: Hey. Hey, everybody. Episode 100. This is where the firecrackers go off and the I don’t know, the parade streamers are falling from the sky. Episode 100. You know, I thought I’d think it was awesome when I got to 100, and I do. But I also feel like I’ve got to get to like 300, 400, 500 and keep helping people. So this is just the beginning. This is the first big milestone of many to come. And I’m glad to hang out with you. For episode 100, I decided I’m just going to keep it real. I thought maybe I’d put together like, uh, best clips from the first 100 podcast, but that’s a little more work than I thought it would be. So I’m going to recap some highlights from the first 99 episodes and just keep it real because I’m a regular person.
Uh, I know when I first started listening to other podcasts, every time I listened, I thought, oh, my gosh, these people have it totally figured out. And I’ve realized over the time that none of these other podcasters have it figured out. They’re kind of all just like me. They’ve got some things figured out that I haven’t figured out yet. And they’re just people like me navigating life and sharing what they’ve learned. And that’s what this podcast is all about. So. Episode 100 loving the Mess I mean, life’s kind of like a mess, so I’m going to talk about loving it. I’ve been doing this podcast for two years now, and I’ve learned so much about all of you that are listening. I’ve learned a lot about me. I’ve learned a lot about being a real human, but also being a more healthy human. It makes it easier to navigate life. So I thought I’d just talk about that.
I’m nobody special here. I’m just a real human. But I have learned how to be more healthy and how to navigate things better than I used to. I don’t have a lot of notes I’m going to follow today. I’m going to be winging it just a little bit. I’m just showing up. Like I said, it’s just me. I’m going to talk about it all. We’ll see where it goes. So here we go. When I started this podcast, I felt a lot of pressure. I thought, hundreds of people are going to be listening to me. And now thousands of people are listening to me every week. And so what I say needs to be right. I thought I had to be right. Never make a mistake. Never share something that anyone else might disagree with or that could be not helpful or cause a problem for someone. But I have really let go of that. And I’ve decided over the years, I’ve just got to be real. It’s more important to be real. It’s more important to admit I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have it all figured out, because nobody does. And I don’t want to pretend otherwise. So what this podcast is, is a place where I share things that have helped things that have helped me, and things that have helped the hundreds of women that I’ve had the privilege to coach on how to feel better. Things that have helped all of us feel more joy and more hope and more peace, even when life is messy. Because life is, uh, always going to have messy stuff in it. And you know why? It’s because we can’t control the people. All the people in the world, what they do, what they say, we have no control over it. World leaders, local leaders, bosses, teachers, friends, relatives, spouses, children, all the people, they do what they do. And it does change things that are happening around us. And it can be messy. That’s life. And we can love life or, uh, we can hate it.
We can hate the mess, or we can choose to love it all. We can love the mess because the mess is the refining fire. So if we’re hating the mess, it’d kind of be like hating our opportunity to grow. And we do do that sometimes. I mean, I did. I used to be like, I don’t want to change. I don’t want to grow. I just want to hide in my little safe house under a blanket and have everything be fine. Always have enough money, no arguments. I told one of my friends once, I’m like, I just don’t want any more conflict anymore. She’s like, Well, Diana, it’s going to be kind of hard to avoid conflict. I’m like, oh, shoot, she’s right. So the other option is to embrace it all. And that’s what this work has done for me. It’s allowed me to embrace it and not be afraid of it. Uh, it’s okay. I can love the mess. I can embrace the growth that comes with it. I can embrace the refinement, which, by the way, is a fire. It’s a refining fire.
So there’s going to be heat and discomfort and flames. The mess gives us that, and the refinement occurs in the mess. It doesn’t occur when we’re under a blanket, sipping tea, watching Hallmark, and all the bills are paid and everything’s fine. We don’t get refined in those moments. We get refined in the fire, in the mess. So what I’ve learned, more than ever over the years doing this podcast is to embrace all of it. So I look back on the episodes that I have recorded, I look back on some that were the most listened to, but also, I mean, more than that, I was looking at which ones are foundational for the work that I teach on how we can practically renew our minds and live in that hopeful, um, place that God promises us. So I’m going to touch on just a few from the first 99 episodes.
The first thing I want to talk about is control here’s, where I totally have no notes. I’m going off the cuff here, you guys, but I talk about this so much. So what I want to say about control, which is the first lesson in my coaching program, is we don’t control anything outside of us at all. The only things we control. And I’ll just say it for me, what I control, I control what I think when I want to. I don’t always, but I have the ability to control what I think. I have the ability to control my emotions. I have the ability to control what I do. M. What you think, what you feel, what you do, that is what you have control over. Everything else, what the world does or what the weather is on Earth, like nature and what all the people and animals do on the Earth, what they think, what they feel, what they say and do, that’s. What they have control over, we don’t. If someone decides to pick up a pile of mud and throw it at you, you have no control over that. If somebody decides to speed and runs into your car, you have no control over that. If somebody in your life decides to call you a mean name, you have no control over that. If your boss decides to dump a bunch of projects on your desk, you have no control over that. All the stuff outside of us, we have no control over. And the biggest frustration we have with it all is when we think it shouldn’t be the way it is. Boss shouldn’t put things on my desk, uh, that are too much, too many projects. Person shouldn’t call me a name or say something mean. People shouldn’t fling mud at me.
They shouldn’t do this stuff whenever we think they shouldn’t do this stuff. All this stuff that’s out of our control. All we’re doing is creating internal conflict for ourself and feeling frustrated. So to get peace, we get to let go of everything that’s out of our control. And if you want to get all, like, deep into philosophy and spirituality about it, you can just decide it’s all okay, it’s okay when people do whatever they do. So my sister would say, let them, just let them let them be them. It’s their job to be them. It’s your job to be you. You can only control what you’re going to think when those things happen, what you’re going to feel when those happen. Those things happen and what you’re going to do. M all right, that is foundational in loving the mess of life and being willing to be refined is letting go of what you have no control over. And if you’re ready to go ahead and be at peace with it, because the other option is to not be at peace with it. And you’re the only one who suffers with not having peace. Another foundational thing I talked about on the podcast before is not all thoughts are true. In fact, most thoughts are not true. Most thoughts are perceptions. Opinions, ideas, concepts, preferences, and things that are not factual. One thing you can do if you want to just see how much of what we think is not true and it’s only a perception, is try to have a conversation with somebody where you don’t share any opinions or perceptions or anything that cannot be proven true in a court of law. All you can do is talk about facts and you’re going to see that there’s really not that much to talk about. I have slippers on fact, my slippers are cozy. That is not a true thought. It is only a perception.
My daughter could put these slippers on and say, these things aren’t cozy at all. In fact, they don’t even stand my feet because I have big feet. She wears a size three shoe and I wear, uh, a twelve. Yes, you heard me right, uh, a twelve. I have huge feet and my slippers are not cozy at all. And she thinks that’s very true. Her slippers are cozy, mine are not. I disagree. All the things that we’re thinking, that person shouldn’t do it that way. That’s not true. It’s not true at all. Maybe they should do it that way. How would you know? Who are you to decide? Are you the judge and jury? No. It’s just a perception. When we are willing to question our thoughts, we can get a lot of leverage on feeling better. I just coached someone yesterday and on my free coaching call, which was awesome, we made so much progress. We got to a, ah, core thought of hers, which is, I’m failing. And she thought it was true. She had lots of evidence to prove that it was true that she was failing.
But when we spent enough time being courageous to question that thought, if she was really failing, it wasn’t true at all. What was more true is that she was succeeding on what she set out to do. She set out on a plan to help people. Well, she had some idea that she would help a certain number of people, and she didn’t. But she succeeded on helping a smaller number of people. So was she failing on helping people? No, she wasn’t failing at all. She was succeeding. She was helping people. The number had nothing to do with the truth. It was just a perception on it would be better to help more people than less people? Is that true? Is it better to help more people than less? Then what’s the number? How many people do you need to help for it to be a success? 1000. Who decides 1000 is the number of people you need to help for it to be a success? Why can’t it be a success if you help ten people? Who’s the judge and jury on that? We can be courageous and question whether our thoughts are true. And in doing that, just loosening up that thought that she had I’m failing and realizing it’s possible I’m not failing. She had relief, and instead of feeling discouraged, she had a glimmer of hope. All right.
Another foundational thing I want to talk about that we’ve talked on the podcast before is we have choices. This really goes to feeling stuck. So many people just, uh I’m stuck. I felt stuck for years. I’m stuck, stuck, stuck. I can’t do anything about it. This is my life. I hate my life. I’m stuck. I limited myself from choices. I thought I did not have choices. I have to stay friends with this person. I have to, uh, talk with this family member even though it stresses me out because we’re family. I have to volunteer at school because that’s what good moms do. And I had all these stories about the things I thought I had to do, but maybe I was wrong about all that. Maybe I don’t have to do anything. Maybe I have choices. What are they? Let’s think of all the choices. Do I have to volunteer at school? No, I don’t. Do I want to volunteer at school? What do I want to do? I could volunteer every day. I could volunteer only for field trips. I could volunteer only in this way. I could volunteer only for a month. I could volunteer one time a year for an hour. I could never volunteer. And none of it has to mean anything about me. I have a bazillion choices in how I want to volunteer or be active at the school or not. Maybe I want to help kids in a totally different way. Maybe I want to help them at a nonprofit. Maybe I want to help the neighbor. Maybe I want to help them at church. Maybe I don’t because I don’t like kids. I have choices all the time.
The reason we think we don’t have choices is because we have, uh, some belief that we have to do something and that if we don’t, it’s going to mean something bad about us or it’s going to harm other people in some way. But maybe you’re wrong about that. If you’re willing to think maybe that’s not true, that I have to do it, maybe it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person if I don’t do it. You can open yourself up to see so many other choices. That’s where you feel freedom. That’s where you can find more hope. There’s hope in choices and opportunities. There’s joy in making a choice that’s congruent with who you are, what you want, what you’re passionate about, how God you feel like God’s leading you. And you’ll find peace in resting, in making a choice that aligns with your being instead of trying to please everyone else. Okay, next concept I’m going to talk about is painful emotions. We don’t want to feel them. They’re icky. And I want to tell you, painful emotions are just as important to feel as the pleasurable ones. Go ahead and Google that emotional wheel if you haven’t yet. If you’ve heard me talk about it and you haven’t Googled it. Google the wheel of emotions God gave us. Not all the emotions are on there.
Even he gave us all of those, plus many, many more nuances between all these different emotions. Because what our bodies need to do with how we process life around us has all these emotions that are valuable to us. They help us take our thoughts and our values and our experiences and let them move through our being. It’s a part of being human. It’s a part of being alive. We love that feeling of joy or, um, exuberation or pleasure or peace. It feels good, and we let it move through our body, and that’s a good thing to do. And then we feel disappointed. And we’re like, no, I don’t want to feel disappointed. I just need to feel okay with this. If everything’s fine, I’ll feel okay with this. It’s fine. I coached another person last night who, um, was denied the ability to interview for a promotion at work. They said, no, you’re too valuable in the job where you’re at. And she’s like, I just want to be then I just want to be. Help me feel at peace with them, um, not allowing me the promotion or the ability to even interview for it. I’m like, do you really want to feel peace up for that? Or do you want to feel disappointed? Or do you even want to feel irritated? I would kind of want to feel irritated and disappointed. And then let yourself feel that emotion. It’s good for you. It lets you again be who you are and that authentic self. It does feel icky to not be allowed to interview for that job. I want I feel disappointed. It feels unjust. I might even feel a little self pity. Here I am. It’s not fair and let myself feel it. Not wallow in it. Not stay in there for days. Not take it out on other people.
Like my daughter says, it’s okay if you’re angry. Just don’t take it out on other people. Right? We process those feelings that we have. Let yourself feel the disappointment. Where do you feel it in your body? Do you feel it in your chest? Do you feel it in your gut? Do you feel it in, uh, your legs and arms? Is it mostly in your head or your face? Where do you feel it? Do you feel it a lot? Do you feel it a little? Does it feel hard? Does it feel soft? If you gave it a color, what does it look like? Let yourself feel it. God wants us to experience that. It’s m part of emotional maturity, identifying what’s really happening in us and allowing it some space to live and breathe and process. Then you don’t have to wallow in it. When you allow yourself the space to feel it and let it move through you, don’t wallow in it. It’s beautiful. And you can learn to love that part of the mess, the uncomfortable emotions. All right, last one. I’m going to oh, no.
There’s two more here on my list I was going to talk about good. I didn’t want to end with this one because my next one is, hey, by the way, we all deal with shame. I did three episodes on Shame, and I did episodes on Loving Yourself and episodes on thinking, uh, you’re not enough or not worthy. Because this is the thing I hear all the time. Like, of all the feedback people give me about their most troubling thoughts, 33% of people say it has to do with a thought of I’m not enough or I’m not worthy. And then the next most common thought is a thought I only hear, like, two or 3% of the time. So hugely at the core of our pain in life is a sneaky little thought underneath everything that I’m not enough. And so I want to let you know if you think that ever if you feel that ever welcome to being a human. You’re normal. We all feel that. That’s just how it goes. That’s it. You’re going to think you’re not enough sometimes, all right? That’s what we all do. If we all have that come up for us, is it a problem or is it just a normal human experience? We tend to think it’s a problem. I’m not enough. Everyone else is. Everyone else is figuring it out. Everyone else has their ducks in a row. Everyone else is getting the grace and mercy they deserve. And I don’t deserve it because I’m that bad. Except we all think that. So we’re just having a normal human experience. And sometimes we might feel a little bit of shame.
Just because we manage our thoughts doesn’t mean we never feel shame. I do. Sometimes I think I’m doing it wrong, and if I was a better person, I’d be doing it differently. And then I’m like, all right, I guess I’m going to think I’m totally screwing it up right now and there’s something wrong with me and I’m not good enough. If I was good enough, I’d do it different. That’s what I think right now. All right, just like I talked about processing painful emotions shame is the one we all try to avoid the most because it feels the most vulnerable and it feels the most, uh we feel it most in the depth of our being and the very core of who we are. And that feels a little scary, which is why we need to be vulnerable and brave and as Brene Brown would say, be courageous. Daring Greatly is her book all about being vulnerable and feeling shame because it takes courage. But I’m telling you, it’s nothing special about you having to deal with this. This is your normal human experience, and I think that makes it less scary. We don’t want to wallow in it, but we can acknowledge it and we can feel it and we can learn from it. And if you need some help, get some help, talk to someone, talk to a mentor, talk to a friend, talk to a counselor, talk to a coach, send me an email, talk to me.
You don’t have to go through it alone, and you’re not going through it alone. So let’s band together and let’s figure out our shame and be vulnerable. We can do it. All right? The last thing I’m going to talk about is you don’t need to change anything. Have you guys noticed in all the podcast episodes, I’ve never told you how to go out and change someone else? Change your circumstance, change your situation, change your job, change the people in your life. I haven’t told you to do any of that at all because you don’t need to do any of that at all to feel better. You don’t need to do that to have more joy, to have more hope, to have more peace. Because feeling joy is feeling emotion. Feeling hope is feeling emotion. Feeling peace is feeling emotion.
The reason God says we can have these is because he gives us all the beliefs to think in our brain in order to have these emotions be real in our life. The truth he gives us of who he is and the promises he has, um, for us now, today, and in the future. That kind of thinking in our mind can transform our experience of life. We get to feel the joy without changing a thing. We get to feel hope because of who he is and what he promises for us in every moment without changing a thing. We can feel at peace with the way things are because he is in control and he promises good things for us. And guess what? Remember the refinement, the mass of life. Can we have some joy? That God is refining us in the fire? I am joyful that he’s refining me. His refinement gives me hope and I can find peace in the fire because it’s goodness happening in me. The mess, the struggle. This is where I grow. This is where I become more Christlike. I’m going to love it all. I’m going to love it all. I’m going to love it all. Pain and good, mess and order. Disappointment and hope. Shame and self love. Everything on the journey, I take it all.
Thank you, God, for refining me. Thank you for giving me the hard stuff. Thank you for giving me the mess. I accept it all. So if the Renew Your Mind podcast is offering that to you as I go through my mess of life, if I can share this with you and it helps you embrace your mess of life and grow and have more joy, more hope, more peace oh, my gosh, thank you. I’m so glad. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life journey and your mess. Let’s do this all together.
And here’s to the next 100 episodes. I wonder what it’s going to bring. All right, y’all, I promise you boot camp in April. The dates are sneaking up on me and I’m going to whip it together. I mean, I have the content that I’m going to teach prepared. Um, what I don’t have prepared is getting you out the sign up sheet or the sign up page. I’m going to have that coming out. You guys watch for it, make sure you’re on the email list, and you’ll be the first to be invited until we talk again next week. That’s it for today, so take care of you.
As an advanced certified life coach, I help Christian women trying to live their best lives, but they still feel unsatisfied and stuck. I teach thought management skills that work so you can enjoy life again and step into who God has created you to be. Don’t forget to head on over to Rympodcast.com to get my free resources or a free coaching call.
