In today’s episode we discuss creating new mindset and behavior habits that keep you out of stuck and moving forward.
In This Episode You'll Learn
- What productive vs toxic positivity looks like.
- How to stop getting emotionally derailed
- A process for finding the next step to move you forward
Valerie's Free Resources
Free resources page: https://valeriefriedlander.com/resources
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Transcript
Meg Brunson
Hey.Hey. FamilyPreneurs. Thank you so much for joining us on another episode. Today, where are going to ask the question, what if you couldn't fail? I've got Valerie Friedlander with me today. And Valerie is a multipassionate creative, life business alignment coach and host of the podcast Unlimited. She has over 20 years of leadership and personal development study including coaching, certifications, mediation training, business management and more. Spirituality and scientifically based, Valerie's work holistically supports her clients to develop a present and joyful life in harmony with their powerful work in the world. When she's not working with clients, you'll find her hanging with her husband and two sons, working on an art project, or nerding out with Sci-Fi movies. Valerie, I'm so excited to have you here with us today.
Valerie Friedlander
Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here.
Meg Brunson
Oh, I am glad to have you. So we are going to talk about creating new mindset and behavior habits to keep you out of that stuck feeling and moving forward. And the first topic I'm really excited to dive into is talking about toxic Positivity. What exactly is toxic Positivity? And what is the opposite of that? Productive positivity. What's the difference? And how can we make sure we're in the productive area and not the toxic area?
Valerie Friedlander
Yeah. So toxic Positivity is what we are most typically familiar with when it comes to Positivity. Like the power positivity, Power of positive thinking, all that fun stuff is what we often hear. Law of attraction, all of that and what it is, what makes it toxic. Because positivity- I should caveat on that. I am always cautious about anything that creates a binary. Positivity-Negativity... Like anything that creates a binary. I generally have red flags kind of go up because usually it's way more limiting than the actual experience of life. And we tend to put things into boxes. So when we think of Positivity, oftentimes we think of emotions that are happy and fun and that we want, and joy, and all of that stuff. And we are told, oh, well, if you think positive, you'll attract positive. If you're not thinking positive, if you're thinking negative and you're going to attract negative. And it's this idea that we should kind of push aside the not so fun feelings that we need to avoid. And that's what it creates. Oftentimes I have people come to me because they've learned enough to be dangerous. Basically, they've learned enough about themselves, about the personal development mindset, all of that sort of stuff, that they beat themselves up with that knowledge.
Valerie Friedlander
And that's essentially what I noticed. What happens with the idea of positive thinking is that they know enough about mindset to think that, oh, I'm not doing it right and I must be sabotaging myself and I must be doing this wrong. And instead of having it be helpful to them, it actually holds them back even more because it's used as like a self flagellation of, like, I'm not mind setting well enough. That must be why this is wrong. That must be why these things aren't working. And so it goes hand in hand with that idea of spiritual bypassing, which is basically just avoiding the things that are not fun, the things that are uncomfortable, the things that are unpleasant, and trying to just kind of push them to the side. So the reason I like to identify the difference between those two is when we talk about using Positivity productively, I actually think of it more like a mathematical equation. And that is that when you add, like, as in a positive number versus a negative number, it is about knowing what numbers you're looking for. To be productively positive, you need to know what is the number that you're looking for?
Valerie Friedlander
What is the thing that you want versus I don't like negative three. So I'm just going to pretend that I'm a ten instead of a negative three or that I'm at a ten and instead of a negative three, pretending doesn't work. Whereas if you go, okay, I have a negative three right now.
Valerie Friedlander
Yes. This is the number that I am experiencing. This is the number that exists for me. What do I need to add to negative three to get to the ten that I want? And actually, as I say, ten, I have issues with that one because that one is loaded with all kinds of societal stories, especially for women. But regardless, I use that number. But you have to know the number that you want. You have to know what is it that you want? A lot of times people are like, oh, I want to be less stressed. I don't want to be angry. I don't want to. Whatever. Okay, well, if you weren't that, what would you be? I would be more present. I would be more excited. I would be more fun. I would be, okay, what is it that you want instead of what do you want to avoid? And once you know that, then you can go, okay, that's what I want. This is where I'm at. What do I need to do to honor where I'm at and move towards what I want? So that's the idea of being productively positive. It's about adding - math.
Valerie Friedlander
Okay.
Meg Brunson
But the numbers you're using, this isn't like a number line. How do you feel when you go to the hospital and you're one if you're sad or a ten when you're happy, right?
Valerie Friedlander
Yes, absolutely.
Meg Brunson
Okay.
Valerie Friedlander
I mean, you could even say I want negative five, and I'm at negative three right now. So what do I need to add to negative three to get to negative five? Who cares? The number itself doesn't matter. That's up to you. It's an idea of addition.
Meg Brunson
Sure.
Valerie Friedlander
It's about building instead of avoiding, so that's-
Meg Brunson
With toxic positivity, you're ignoring the negative stuff to only focus on the positive stuff. Now, I'm curious how this works with things like affirmations. Like, that's something I work on with my kids. So where does that fall in this discussion?
Valerie Friedlander
Yeah. So I actually love affirmations, but I'm not a big fan of them as like a blanket sort of thing. Again, just think positive. It's about what are you affirming in your life? Are you focusing on where- it's very nuanced. So it can't be like, any of this is not a blanket statement. It's like, gratitude, for example, can be really helpful in helping you see a bigger picture. It's not about feeling grateful. It's about looking for the things that you can be grateful for to expand what you perceive. Because our brains have a negative bias. They tend to look for the potential danger. They tend to look, this is a survival thing, right? Like, you need that. That's important. And it can also block our ability to see beyond that. So using gratitude, for example, it helps your brain expand what you perceive. Now, if you're using that to tolerate things that are really not okay, just like, oh, well, just count your blessings. Just be grateful that you have what you have oftentimes that gets used when we're comparing to other people. Well, at least I'm not where they are. Be grateful for what you have.
Valerie Friedlander
It's like, well, no, that's not helpful. Why are we even looking at that? What is it that is leading us to look at that in the first place? So looking at okay, what are you affirming? I affirm that I am strong. I affirm that I am able to have fun, that I am a fun person. What are you affirming? Well, if I was actually a fun person, if I believed I was a fun person, what would I be doing? Okay, I would be present right now and I would paint or I would, you know, it's very subjective to the person. But when you think about the affirmation, it's not about just say it until it's true. It's about how would I behave if I were that. If I was affirming, that not just with my thoughts, but with my actions. So affirmations are beyond just the thinking. It's the actions that affirm. It's a way of being in the world that affirms. And so that's how I think of affirmations is like, how are you affirming?
Meg Brunson
Sure. Now, what do you do if you find yourself kind of getting sucked into the toxic positivity vortex?
Valerie Friedlander
Well, I mean, it can be helpful if you just think about, like, what are you avoiding? And I would even say, okay, toxic positivity is about avoidance. That's what makes it toxic. It's not actually dealing with what is real and what is present. There are certain things you can't just think away. Now, I did want to say, actually, there have been times in my life where I have been so overwhelmed or caught up in toxic thinking, where I'm trying to fix and control things that are not in my own control. That saying some sort of mantra or something to pull me back, to stay in my own space has been really helpful. So that's a little bit different than toxic positivity. It's really like I would say the serenity prayer over and over and over again just to help my brain remember what I have. Like, okay, stop trying to play the chess game with other people. Like, let's get back here where you have power, which is in what you are focused on. And I totally just sidetracked myself.
Valerie Friedlander
I was like, I realized I wanted. To mention that because I think that sometimes again, it's own nuance. It's not like a blanket statement. It has to be meeting yourself where you're at.
Meg Brunson
So you basically have to be able to be self aware enough to know if you're avoiding versus actually addressing whatever it is that's negative that's bothering you.
Valerie Friedlander
Yes. And I honestly think that it starts with- self awareness is really key, but it's also honoring yourself. I'm really big on that. It's like knowing that whatever you're feeling and whatever you're experiencing, there's a reason that you are having those feelings. There's a reason that those are there. And too often I see people beat themselves up for what they're feeling. And there are so many stories out there in the personal development spaces that are like, we'll just don't feel that way. The reason you're not successful is because you're not feeling this way. You're not thinking. We conflate all of those things. We conflate the thinking and the feeling and the action and think that somehow by thinking differently, we're going to feel differently. And most of the thinking that creates the feeling isn't in our conscious space. It's happening way before we even have any kind of awareness about it.
Meg Brunson
Sure.
Valerie Friedlander
So to be able to shift that, taking different action. But I don't believe in just acting as if, I believe in the holistic experience of it and knowing that there's a reason why you have the feelings that you have. And whether the feelings are information about you, they're not necessarily information about reality. The way you're experiencing something. And that's not. And saying, like, feelings aren't facts isn't about saying that something that's happening is okay. Sometimes people say that, like, feelings aren't facts. It's like, well, then, so you're just being overly emotional or whatever, which is total BS. It's not about that at all. Anything that means that you're beating yourself up for how you're feeling or experiencing life, I think, is problematic. Personally, I think it's really important to honor where you are and what you're experiencing. Know that it came from a place. There's a reason it's happening. And that's really the start of that self awareness is to be able to then go, okay, what is going on? What is happening that I'm having this feeling? What are the beliefs that are happening what is the- noticing the patterns. It's the start for noticing the patterns that play in your life.
Valerie Friedlander
Maybe it's an interpretation, but maybe it's that you need a boundary. All of these things are really hard to do on your own. The main thing that you can do on your own is to honor yourself and what you're experiencing and to know that you deserve to be taken care of by yourself and by the people around you and anyone who is telling you not to feel how you're feeling and playing the toxic positivity instead of going, okay, you feel this way, what's going on? How can I support you or force helping you by telling you that this is how you fix that? And it's like, well, no, that's not necessarily helpful either. But like, how, how can I support you?
Meg Brunson
And that could be coming from a spouse, a parent, a coach. We can get that toxic positivity feedback, and we have to be able to-
Valerie Friedlander
We're surrounded by it. Our society wants us to work harder and not slow down enough to honor ourselves. And where we're at, we have so many messages that tell us to not stop and not slow down. Stop. Don't stop consuming. How dare you?
Meg Brunson
It's the hustle. And even looking at what our traditional nine to five, Monday through Friday. I've been out of the corporate world long enough, but you get like, what, ten days off the whole year- when it comes- so it's like nobody gives you time to rest. You can't get sick. There's not enough sick time.
Valerie Friedlander
Yes. So that is actually why I say even beyond giving yourself space, having space to rest is a luxury for a lot of people. So at the very least, what we all can do is to just acknowledge ourselves. Don't tell ourselves that we should be anything else. Ask yourself, what do you want? Sometimes we don't have the ability to make a choice that we want to make in that moment.
Valerie Friedlander
This is something that Mia Birdsong, speaks to this so eloquently in her book How We Show Up. But it's acknowledging that. If you can even notice that you have a choice, even if it's not a choice that you feel like you can access yet knowing that there is a choice to be had allows you to then build towards that choice. So maybe it's leaving your job. You wouldn't choose to leave your job yet because you need an income. I know a lot of people who go into coaching who want to. They've been fed all this, like start your six figure coaching practice and all of that. There's a lot of stories about the ability to do that. And that sounds lovely. The reality is that the experience of it is very stressful to start a business. And so not all of us have a stress response that is conducive to just jumping ship and starting a business. We need to take more, smaller, stair steps towards that. So maybe it's having a job that has reduced hours, finding something that takes less energy so that you can have more energy to build into the business that you want to create, making those connections, whatever it is, or finding another job that has the connections that will support you building the business that you want to have, or whatever. Knowing again, this is that idea of positivity.
Valerie Friedlander
It's not about we'll just think success and you'll have success. It's about recognizing that. I wouldn't make the choice. I don't feel like it's a choice to not have an income. And it isn't for a lot of people. It's not a choice to not have an income. So I need to do this. And it is a choice that I want to be able to make. So I am going to do this next step to creating space for that choice for myself.
Meg Brunson
And that's going to help you take the baby steps incrementally move forward towards your ultimate goals, what you ultimately want.
Valerie Friedlander
Yeah. And it meets you where you're at without shaming you for being where you're at.
Meg Brunson
Right.
Valerie Friedlander
And that's the biggest issue is like that whole thing about shaming yourself, whether it's about where you're at mentally or financially or physically or whatever it is, anything that is shaming you for being where you're at is going to be toxic.
Meg Brunson
Right. And with that, I've heard a lot about comparison brings on that shame. Right. Because you can see people who you perceive to have it worse than you or have it harder than you. And again, I'm air quoting for anybody listening who are doing better than you. And then you, you shame yourself for not being able to go through those things, but we need to be just worried about ourselves and not worried about other people.
Valerie Friedlander
Yeah. Well, and a lot of the things that we have been taught to measure success by are things that are toxic themselves, breaking free of those molds to what is- I mean, most success is defined by that whole, at least here in the US. Like self made man, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Don't need anybody. Like have an accumulation of stuff. It's another thing that Birdsong speaks so well to is acknowledging that a lot of those stories, a lot of those norms are actually toxic for our society. So allowing yourself to step out of those things instead of looking at and that can be really helpful piece to have self awareness of. What are you comparing to? Like, what are those things that you're looking at and noticing and judging yourself by? I mean, judgment is a two Way Street. It's not just about judging negative, it's about judging positive. Again, we're in that binary again, but what are you saying is good? What are you saying is bad? And what about that is good? What about that is bad? What makes those labels the labels? Because oftentimes they're learned labels. They're not actually even things that necessarily resonate for you.
Valerie Friedlander
The Book of Joy, which was written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, is a book that's just amazing. One of the things that they speak to is that whole idea of suffering in comparison and suffering and how we tend to be, well, at least I'm not as bad off as this person. And that not being helpful. What is helpful is acknowledging that we all have suffering and not comparing who has more suffering than someone else, but acknowledging that we are connected and knowing that we're not alone when we're going through stuff. And in this society, we have such high amounts of individualism to what I would also call a toxic level. Not to overuse the word toxic.
But, we have this excessive individualism going on that we are taught to compare, which actually creates more of that separate feeling, instead of acknowledging that we can recognize suffering because we have suffering and it's about supporting each other versus comparing and also taking care of ourselves and honoring where we are with our own self and what we need to be able to show up the way we want to show up.
Meg Brunson
And when you were talking about comparison and the standards, I feel like in the entrepreneurial space where most of our listeners are, we have been hit with this message that no matter who you are, success is having a seven to eight figure business period. That's it. You got to hit six figures, then you got to hit seven figures, then you got to hit eight figures, and it just goes up from there. It's all money based. And I was on that train until a couple of years ago when I realized I don't need to build a six or seven figure business. I realized what my life ideally, what I want it to look like. And how much do I need to make that happen? I don't need seven figures a year. I don't yeah, I don't even think I want it.
Valerie Friedlander
This is the question. So often we chase the question, success, like, what will make me successful? And we live in an economy that is based in accumulation that is always focused on growth to our detriment, collectively as much as individually. We can only accumulate so much, we can only process so much. But yet we're on this trajectory of, like, more - more - more. I like to ask the question, what is enough? Because we don't define that. We just kind of autopilot that we make all kinds of assumptions that are part of those comparisons that we make. You can tell that happiness and safety, security are not synonymous with the amount of money that you have. If you look at the people who have a lot of money and the way that they behave, there are so many of them clearly insecure and unhappy, they're not the same thing. So it's a radical idea to look at what is enough, what is enough money, what is enough time, anything-everything. Looking at, if you can actually create a definition for yourself, create the container for yourself. I talk about being unlimited. Sometimes the sky is the limit. The realm of all possibilities is overwhelming.
Valerie Friedlander
We actually do need limits. But I believe in creating your own limits, creating the container that you want to function out of so that you are making choices that work for you and your container and what's important to you. And for a lot of us who are socially minded and aware of the impact that we have both in our own lives, but also in the world, we recognize that, one, it is not possible for us to all have seven figure businesses. It is absolutely not economically possible. So how do you ethically have a business? And I believe in sustainability. Not just individual sustainability, but social sustainability, environmental sustainability. If you're looking at those things and how we all fit together, it's not just me. It's all of us. Now, I can't be responsible for everyone, but I can show up responsibly in what is enough for me so that I'm not taking more than what I need. And my focus isn't just on growing, it's on being the person that I want to be in the world.
Meg Brunson
I can't even imagine if everybody operated that way...
Valerie Friedlander
Would be a very different place.
Meg Brunson
Like, it's mind blowing. Like, especially if you can't see my head right now. I feel like it's on the verge of explosion- because I don't think I've ever- like, I've figured out how much money we need monthly, right? To feel okay, but I haven't thought about that enough. That top limit not to show my age and get all 90s rap on you, but mo money, mo problems. There is that element of, like, once you grow, there's more things you have to consider when it comes to taxes, when it comes to your team. Because if you grow past a certain point, you're going to surpass what you have the physical opportunity to output. And it brings more problems or more issues or more things to consider. So I love that suggestion to not only define your goals as far as minimally, what you need to be comfortable, but also what is enough. And I know that I've gone over that. And it's not a good feeling, because you end up feeling like you're drowning, like you've bitten off more than you can chew. And it's not a good feeling either. So figuring out what those two boundary lines are so that you can stay in that sweet spot and it's different for everyone.
Valerie Friedlander
And to emphasize it's not just about money.
Meg Brunson
Sure.
Valerie Friedlander
Like you said, it has to do with how are you being like, what do you want to hold? What do you have the capacity to hold? If you want to have a business that needs a team to support it, then that factors into what's enough. What is enough to be able to engage with my business in a way where I am working with my team ethically versus taking advantage of and building my own self off of the backs of other people. Right. That's what our society typically does.
Meg Brunson
Right.
Valerie Friedlander
Which we still if I want to break that cycle, then what do I need? I mean, I may need more to be able to not exploit the people that I am working with. Right. So what is enough when it comes to the size of the business that you have, the team that you need to be able to do that, the resources that you are using to do what you do, all of those factors come into play when you're thinking about what is enough. But if you're not asking that question and you're not creating that definition for yourself, then you are going to autopilot because that's what our brain does. Our brain simplifies things for us by putting things into buckets automatically to go, okay, this means this, this means that, and it just creates it for you if you don't intentionally create it.
Meg Brunson
Sure. And all of this going back to the title of this episode, what if you couldn't fail- it's the mindset, right. That keeps pushing us towards, oh, this is dangerous. Oh, this isn't going to work. And these are the strategies for ensuring that we're moving forward and not succumbing to that. Is there a word for it- like your brains...
Valerie Friedlander
I would say succumbing to the internalized messaging, the internalized stories. We don't exist separate from society.
Meg Brunson
Sure.
Valerie Friedlander
So what we believe and what our automatic conditioning is, is based in the society around us, our family dynamics and the experiences that we've had in relation to all of those things. We have to acknowledge that we exist in a societal context. So those things impact us. We are constantly being impacted by those things. So self awareness, giving yourself that space and that support, like asking, what do you need? What would be supportive for you right now? That's a core thing that you can do for yourself. What do you need to meet yourself where you're at to be kind to yourself and then being able to go, okay. And this is just to simplify that structure of like, what if you couldn't fail? You can't fail, you can learn. Doesn't mean that it doesn't feel ucky. Just to be clear, it doesn't mean that you don't have the feelings of disappointment when things don't go as expected. There are lots of, again, lots of nuances in that. But to be able to go what do I want? What is that vision? Not just of what you want out here, somewhere outside, like in the future, which is what we've been trained.
Valerie Friedlander
Again, this is that programming. The programming is, once I have this, then I will be this person. And so when I say, what do you want? What is the vision that you have? It's about who do you want to be? How do you want to show up to life? And then what do you need to be able to show up that way? That's what boundaries are. Boundaries are about what do you need to be able to show up that way? But once you know what that is how you want to show up, how you want to impact the experience that you want to have on your life as it exists in the now, then you can build that strategy. What are those things that you're creating? Like, okay, right now I want to be able to show up with hope. I want to be able to show up with fun. I want to be able to make this choice, to build this thing. The impact that I want to have is this. And right now, I don't have access to that. So what is the strategy that helps me build towards that? What are those stair steps?
Valerie Friedlander
And then it's taking action, and then it's assessing. That's honestly, the biggest part of it is then assessing. And I actually created a whole flow chart because I'm a nerd where it's like, okay, did you take action? Yes. Then, all right, how did that fit? Does it fit with the vision that you have of who you want to be building from a place of you'ness versus what you think you should be like, but you'ness is going to be easier. It's going to feel better when you're doing it. It's your gifts, your skills, you'ness? Does it fit that okay, yes or no? Maybe it doesn't. I don't want to do that. Maybe it was successful. Maybe it did the thing that you wanted it to do, but it didn't fit with you. It's like, oh, I did this, and it felt yucky. Okay, well, how can I get the same result doing it more, me? Sure. Like, you can do that. Or maybe you didn't take the action. Then what stopped you? Was it your inner critic? Was it all the messages that you've internalized about not being good enough? Was it whatever?
Valerie Friedlander
Or was it that this action actually didn't fit? Maybe it's not actually aligned and you have resistance and conflict of values, and something needs to be reconfigured in the strategy that you've built. And then. So it's just going around and checking in what's going on here. It's not about beating yourself up. Again, that's where the toxic positive. Oh, I just didn't think it well enough. Like, I didn't. I must. It didn't work because I didn't think positive. Enough about it. I didn't believe it would work and it didn't work. Right. Well, maybe you didn't believe it would work, so you didn't do the thing.
Meg Brunson
I didn't manifest it enough.
Valerie Friedlander
I didn't manifest it well enough. No, something else is there there's something else that's not it.
Meg Brunson
Well, before we go, I want to give you an opportunity where can our listeners continue to connect with you? I know you've got some free resources out there, too.
Valerie Friedlander
Yes. So I actually just created a whole new resource page on my website at valeriefreelander.com/resources. It has all the things I've created. I love creating stuff and, like, basically little workbooks or little processes. I have the flow chart that I mentioned is on there. I have a stress release quiz and little workbook sort of thing that helps you identify Because we all process stress differently, so sometimes that can create communication difficulties, kind of like love languages, but with stress. So I just have all these things. You don't actually have to sign up. Not everybody likes emails. Some people get stressed out by emails, so there's no need to sign up. But if you want to get updates from me, Then you can sign up on the same page. I'm really leaning more into, like at choice.
Meg Brunson
Sure.
Valerie Friedlander
Get what you need, not what you don't need. Because I said you needed to do this. Because I need to. Whatever.
Meg Brunson
It's a delicate line. Marketing is, it's difficult to do equitably.
Valerie Friedlander
yeah, well, there's so much so this is a new thing Where you don't have to do anything. If you don't want emails from me, that's fine. If you're a podcast person, I do have a podcast. You can catch me on my podcast Unlimited, it releases twice a month, so that's the other good place to follow me and then, of course, on social media for now at least, I do a lot. I think you see most on Instagram but I'm also on Facebook.
Meg Brunson
I will put all of those links in the show notes. I want to thank you so much. I feel like this is a power packed episode and thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here with us today.
Valerie Friedlander
It was my pleasure. I'm glad to be here.