I'm Effie, a life coach who profoundly gives a fuck about
you feeling better for good. I teach people how to cut the
crap and live according to their own rules.
It's a crime we don't learn this stuff in school, but it's
simpler than you think to break the pattern and start living the
life you want. Listen on to find out how.
Ah, this is the place. Cannot wait to share with you
what I have to share today. And when I was preparing for
this podcast, I was thinking about that line in the opener.
Oh, hold on, I have your sneeze. Oh no, Oh no.
Oh, I'm not sure if I'll edit that out or not.
It was kind of cute. Anyway, when I was preparing for
this episode, I was thinking of that part in the opening where I
say I teach people how to cut the crap and live according to
their own rules. That's what we're talking about
today. What that means.
First of all, what's the crap we're cutting?
And then second of all, what does it look like to actually
create my own rules and live by them?
So I started my dating adventure a couple months back.
I've shared about this a couple times, I think, on the podcast.
It is going exceedingly well. I am learning so much, so much
about myself and honesty and ethics and the value of
investing in relationship and conversation and connection with
other people. I've met so many amazing people.
I've had lots of special connections, some of which are
developing in surprising ways, most of which, you know, go the
way of the dinosaur. And it's like, yeah, that's
normal. But the whole thing has been a
delight, at times mystifying and also deeply challenging.
And one of the things that stood out to me so starkly being on
this app and looking through profiles and matching and having
conversations and spending time with new people is how many
rules there are going on under the surface.
All of these unwritten rules, and many of them are collective
delusions. Like dating sucks, it's really
hard, it's really hard to find someone.
There's no good guys out there, women, whatever, fill in the
blank. And then there's more specific
delusions that are actually fostered by like the help
industry. They kind of have to create a
problem to help you solve it. So things like you have to be
with a man who puts you in your feminine and this is how to move
and laugh and act to attract a guy.
And then this is how to keep a guy around.
And they're all so manipulative, you know, these delusions that
were sold. And then there are some more
customized illusions that we hold personally.
Like I can't be with anyone under 6, two, for example, or
anyone that's bald or if we don't meet or see each other
within a week of talking, the momentum dies.
It's just never going to happen. Or if I don't feel fireworks or
at least aggressive sparks on the first date, There's no
chemistry, it'll never work. It's dead in the water.
And one of the favorite talking points on the app that just
delights me to no end is what are your love languages?
Which is just so silly and safe because all of them are the
right answer, right? That's oh, I love giving gifts
or I love, I love being of service and I love physical
affection. It's like no matter what you
say, you're like, Oh yeah, that's great.
There's no risk in having a conversation about love
languages. Nobody says I don't like to do
any of that shit. I just want you to do it for me.
And nobody says my love language is don't be an asshole.
But I feel like that's what we're all screening for, right,
Right. So every day on this app, I am
acutely aware of how we all come with these built in manuals,
these operation manuals for how we cope with the world and other
people and what we expect, what we need and desire and prefer.
And unfortunately, these manuals are not in the public Commons.
There are definitely some clues in these profiles, but you
really have to find out the hard way what's a person like?
What are their expectations for what a partner should behave
like and all of that? What are their expectations for
themselves? Of course, you would hope that
whatever their expectations are for a partner, that they would
hold themselves to that line. But you know, it's not always
the case. And all too often as women, we
don't even know what it is we need or expect.
And if we do know what those things are, we're either way too
discreet about it, meaning we don't even tell our partners
what they are, we just think they should be able to read our
minds. Or we're so overt about it that
we demand they meet those needs and expectations simply because
we have expressed them to them and because we have them.
It's crazy making on both sides. We never stopped to examine the
actual crap in our manual. Whether or not it's good
information to carry around anymore.
It's all too often we are working with operations manuals
from previous versions of ourselves and the old rules no
longer really apply to who we are or who we're becoming.
Like we really can't take them with us, but we act like they're
law without questioning. And that gets us into a whole
world of trouble. It keeps us small and sad and
stuck, repeating the same cycles, creating the same
results, and trying to change things that were never under our
control. And I'll give you an example.
I was in a relationship once with someone who didn't really
celebrate birthdays. I, I don't really know why we
talked about it. I tried to grill them on it.
He said it wasn't really a big thing in his household, but he
wasn't Jehovah's Witness or anything like that.
It just wasn't a thing. So anyway, for context, to me,
your birthday is the most important day of the year.
It is a high holy day as far as I'm concerned, and you ought to
be at the very least low key worshipped and allowed to run
amok on your special day. I don't care who you are.
So the first year we were together, he flunked.
He flunked out of the school, which hurt, but I thought, OK,
he definitely learned his lesson this year.
I kept reminding him it was coming up the next year and
like, trash fire. OK, marginally less worse than
the year before, but like, no. And I had an existential crisis
in the relationship. I thought, if he can't meet this
need, I'm never gonna be able to enjoy my birthdays.
I will never feel special because he is refusing to meet
my stated need that I have that's valid that I have
expressed to him and he is not complying.
So he must not care about me, he must not really love me.
And that thought, that belief was causing so much turmoil
inside of me and in our relationship.
And it was only when I started deciding exactly what I wanted
to do for my birthday and took the reins that those old
thoughts could die. That old rule book of like, oh,
your partner's supposed to do something big for your birthday
and make you feel really special.
So now whether I'm with someone or not, like I take that role
on, I take the role of my primary partner.
I'm like, it's my job to make me feel special.
And if anybody else swoops in and does something like, that's
just icing on the cake. So when it's my birthday time,
it's fucking celebration time. And I don't just take the day, I
take like the whole week. In fact, in my family we have
like birth months. So this year I'm taking myself
on retreat to Big Sur and I'm gonna have the most incredible
time. I'm planning a dinner with my
loved ones. I'm just gonna do it up 'cause
it's my fucking birthday and I gotta take care of my Boo.
My rules, I play by them, but I cannot require anyone else to.
So liberating. Our operating manuals show up in
absolutely every area of our lives, and so much of the stuff
inside our manuals we adopted through osmosis from society and
authority figures and even random people and influences.
But if we're going to get what we really want in life, if
you're going to be the person you want to be, living the life
you want to live, you cannot take this shit with you.
You're going to have to learn how to overwrite your manuals,
period. Because I promise you, most of
the baggage you've been fighting to take with you because it
feels so valuable and so familiar, and you have had it
with you because it's always been there.
Those bags have been stinking up the place for a long time.
And when you realize that, and you actually take the time to
open them and see what, OK, this is heavy, so it feels like there
should be gold inside. But you, you open them up and
you realize they're full of like rocks and rotting meat.
You don't need to take that with you.
And the rule that you cultivated, that you were led to
believe is just the way things are, that you've been
reflexively believing this is the way they're supposed to be,
is all made-up. It's made-up like love
languages. What is that something someone
made-up? Same with male female dynamics
and marriage and 401 KS and religion and our goals or even
needing to have goals, but also the specific goals that we set
for ourselves. Even the scientific method.
We treat all these things so preciously, like they're the end
all be all, and we put so much pressure on ourselves to comply
to them. But really we just made them up
to try and cope with reality and the fact that we will never
understand the way things are and why they happen the way they
do. And this is what I tell myself
when I start feeling that pressure or when I start getting
worked up about something because it is always, always a
result of me believing some presumptive made-up head trash
that isn't helpful. That's where the pressure comes
from. Like oh, because the person I
was talking to stopped responding to me like I blew it,
I must have said or done the wrong thing.
Nope, my brain made that up so at least it could feel right
about something and then go obsess about it and try to solve
a problem that's not there instead of just sitting with my
discomfort and powerlessness over not knowing.
Or because she checked that box in her profile that says doesn't
want kids, that means she hates kids and she'll never accept
mine. made-up. made-up why? Well, it saves me the risk of
putting myself out there and asking.
Or because a relationship ends badly.
The whole thing was a lie. Nope, I just made that up.
Survival brain strikes again. She's just trying to make me
feel better. Which may work temporarily, but
then it backfires big time by creating more of the exact thing
you don't want. Think about it, the more you
reinforce your story that your last relationship was a waste
because they betrayed you and they never really loved you
anyway, that cements into your body the underlying belief that
I can't trust my own judgement with people if I was wrong about
him or I could be wrong about anybody, right?
And what are you going to do when a great guy comes around?
You're going to be suspicious. You're going to haze him, You're
going to be hard on him. You're going to throw him out
maybe because of a misperception or try to manipulate him into
making you a guarantee that he'll never do wrong, which is
an impossible promise. And these kind of behaviors can
make us feel powerful. But empowerment does not
initially make you feel powerful.
That comes later. And most often, the moment of
empowerment feels terrible because you've finally given up
all your antics and your attempts at manipulating the
situation, and your real role has come into focus.
You know what the right thing is.
You know what you have to do. And a lot of times it sucks.
It's going to hurt. You know it's going to hurt, but
you got to do it. And that's what most people
don't realize. They want to feel powerful
without the fear. They want confidence and
certainty and vision without the risk.
But powerlessness is the price of empowerment.
To truly empower ourselves, we have to be willing to feel
powerless over the things we legitimately cannot control and
get our hands out of that shit. Because if we're in true
acceptance of that powerlessness, that appropriate
powerlessness, we stop vying for control in arenas we don't
belong, which frees up all this energy for the few arenas we do
belong in. But it's super uncomfortable to
a admit and then B sit with I have no control over whether I
ever hear from this person again.
I don't know why she gave that answer.
I'm so hurt, and this will hurt for a while, but I can hold
this, and I can also hold my head up knowing I gave it my
all. Any partner I ever have is free
to make a different choice at any time, with or without me.
It sucks, it's terrible. But no one said dignity didn't
smart, no one said doing the right thing didn't hurt.
But the rewards on the other side.
We're talking true, divine, deep, profound reserves of
personal power and effectiveness and focus and intention and an
ability to create miracles. So I want to give you some
questions for discernment to help you make better decisions
with your headspace by starting to call out the shit that's
causing you to spin out in harmful narratives and burn up
your energy on things that aren't your business.
And my love never were. Because the world needs you,
Queenie. We've got work to do.
And you're going to need to have your wits about you to show up
big in your own life to be able to lead the way and to inspire
others to do the same. Because that's really what it's
about, isn't it? The other side of empowerment
where you get to walk this earth knowing who you are and what you
stand for and having a profound positive impact on others, being
an example of what's possible. So you ready?
Here you go, questions for discernment.
First one, super simple, what am I thinking?
What am I believing? I teach a tool in my containers
called the brain dump or the brain barf that just gets all
the content of what you're really thinking out of your
brain and onto paper. It's so vital to see it in front
of you so that you can actually deal with it.
So the first step is just to identify what is it that I'm
actually thinking and believing in this moment.
And that creates the beginning of a separation between you and
your thoughts. Next you want to ask why?
Why am I thinking this? And we're, we're not asking
where did this come from? Like we're not looking for
origin. There's been months and months,
years on origin stories, but we actually don't need to know that
in order to shift it. What we're asking is why am I
having this thought? Meaning, what's the positive
intention of this thought or this belief?
What is this thought trying to do for me?
And most often a thought like this was brought to us by
survival brain and it's just trying to keep us safe, safe and
familiar and in some sense of certainty and control.
Next you want to ask, is it useful for me to believe this?
Is it in service to me and where I'm going?
Does believing this thing empower me or is it just there
to make me feel better temporarily?
And an advanced question you can ask yourself to really get
clarity on this is, does this thought inspire me to lead
through my own spiritual power and wisdom, or does it inspire
me to outsource that leadership to something outside of me?
When you do that, you dilute your power every single time.
And here's the exciting thing about knowing this, about
knowing it's all made-up, is because you get to rebuild and
make up rules for your own life that relieve all the unnecessary
pressure and keep you pointed to your own true north.
If it's diluting your power, it's on the fucking chopping
block. As far as I'm concerned, life is
an ideas marketplace. It's sell or be sold, always.
So they're either being sold to. You're buying a bill of goods
based on another person's thought.
And there's so many shitty thoughts out there.
So many bad ones. Or you're selling yourself on
great thoughts that empower you. The most useful thoughts for
where you're headed. And there are only two types of
thoughts, two types of decisions you can ever make.
The kind that bring you closer to the person you want to be and
the way you want to live. And the ones that take you
further away. The ones that cleave you from
that person. And of course, you have to have
a working hypothesis for who that is, who you want to be, the
values of your future self, your higher self, how she feels and
operates and moves the world. How does she love?
How does she treat herself and others?
How does she handle fear and disappointment and failure?
You have to grow the habit of making conscious, constant
contact with her, so you consult her as your most trusted advisor
and empower your transitional self to grow into her.
For more on this specifically, I recommend listening to episode
65, which is called Master Your Three Most Important
Relationships, and I will link those in the show notes.
All right, I hope this podcast was so valuable for you.
If so, please leave us a five star rating and review on Apple
Podcasts or Spotify right now. When you leave a review for the
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Every bit of feedback counts and helps this podcast grow and
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It means more than you know. Thank you.
So glad you were here today with me.
February is relationship month at Effie Lavor Coaching.
So if you're listening to this in real time, February 2020
sixth, I'm cooking up some really exciting things for you.
So be sure to meet me right back here next week and take
excellent care of yourself until then.
If you're ready to do the work to move forward on what you want
and actually get it, I can help you.
I'm offering my podcast listeners a free consultation
with me to talk about what coaching can do for you this
year. Just visit effielavor.com to get
started.