Most of us have dabbled a little (or a lot) in self-help. We have read the books and tried the techniques and made real efforts to find a balance within the huge loads of responsibility that we carry every single day.

You WANT to change; you WANT to rest but you can’t quite figure out the magic formula.

What if I told you that something very real is preventing you from living the way that you know you want to live and implementing the changes you know you want to implement?

Grab a notebook and roll up your sleeves – this video will help you uncover EXACTLY what is getting in the way of your best life:

Video transcript below.

If you want to continue the journey, download this free guide to dive a little deeper into what you uncovered today and what to do about it.

Good luck my brave and busy friend. You got this!

Kristina Coderre is a busy mom of 4 who is passionate about helping parents build a lifestyle that includes joy and fulfillment WHILE tending to the chaotic grind of raising a family. You can join the conversation in the Blissfully Busy Facebook group or chat directly with Kristina to have a heart to heart about your personal circumstances.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to self-care Sunday where we explore what it means to fill our own cups!

Say hello in the chat so I know you are here, whether you are watching live or watching the replay! And grab your piece of paper or open your doc if you haven’t already. This one’s gonna be juicy!

Last week I introduced the BIGGEST thing that gets in the way of us filling our own cups.

Anyone remember what it is?

Old programming.

Most of us, especially if you are in your 40s like me, have dabbled in self help. Like maybe you said I want to have more free time to do some of the things I love to do so you got a book about creating new habits, or you’ve taken some time management training or a course on boundary setting. And they were all great! Techniques totally made sense and you could see how they would be helpful and you wanted to implement them into your life.

But you didn’t.  Why not?

The answer again is old programming.

That’s right, your old programming is preventing you from living the way that you know you want to live and implementing the changes you know you want to implement.

So we’re going to start uncovering some of it today so you can decide what to do with it.

Let’s back up for as second. I need to explain something. As humans, we are a social species and being able to maintain our status as part of a group is super important to the human brain.

Back in the day, like way back when our brain was evolving, if we were cast out of our group that pretty much meant certain death.

So it was to our benefit as an individual to figure out super fast how to be liked and accepted and included. And different groups had different norms, so our mind evolved to take in this data and figure out how to fit in, wherever we are, and be in the least danger possible.

These are our programs.

And our programs drive our behaviour.

This is what is causing you to be overwhelmed, and stuck, and frustrated because once your mind finds a program that works, it never gets rid of it.

So today we are going to explore WHY some of our programs were created, and how they served us in the past. And how they are showing up in your life today.

We are going to stick to the theme of being busy and overwhelmed for now because that’s a big issue for many of us.

Got your piece of paper or doc open?

Ok. First, let’s take a breath. We are going to roll back time and start by thinking about your earliest memory of being busy or doing things for others. Take a moment to think back… How old were you, what were you doing and who were you doing it for?

I first remember being busy helping my mom look after my siblings, keeping them entertained and happy.

I’ll give you 30 seconds to write it down and put it in the chat when you are done.

Ok now think about why were you doing that? What were you hoping to get out of it?

I was hoping to get out of it maybe some attention and praise, because I was much lower needs than my siblings and I think I felt overlooked a lot of the time. And I also wanted to make my mom happy. Our household was much nicer when she was happy.

Now write down what would have happened if you DIDN’T do those things?

My mom would have been mad. She probably would have yelled at me to help, so instead I tried to anticipate her needs. Or it could be that my mom would be sad. I hated when she cried and I felt like I had disappointed her. If I didn’t help, our household would have been way more chaotic with siblings screaming and mom screaming. Everyone was upset. Not a great place to be. I helped so that our house was calm and happy.

So our mind thinks in terms of risk and reward. Looking back at what you just wrote, what do you think what the biggest reward for being busy and the biggest risk if you weren’t?

My biggest reward was being noticed and praised.

My biggest risk if I didn’t was a house full of chaos and screams and tears.

Take a moment to figure it out and then share your risks and rewards in the chat. These are critical.

Ok. Now it’s time for me to push your buttons, activate your programs, and it’s your job to notice what happens when I do.

Ready.

Just stop. Stop being busy. Take your to do list for today and let it fly out the window as you drive to the spa and maybe even spend the night there. Leave it all behind.

What is your body doing right now? Are you feeling a little bit of panic? A little bit of longing, desperation, rage? Maybe you are already out the door!

Good. I hope you are feeling those feelings because that means the button push successful. Now write down why you can’t do that! Why can’t you leave? What would happen if you stopped.

Put it in the chat.

What I hear most often is something like, if I stop, everything will fall apart.

Holy hell that’s a lot of pressure.

If I stop, everything will fall apart.

And so if I think back to the younger me, maybe 6 years old, making sure that my two little siblings were happy and didn’t bother my single mother, I created a program that if I stop, everything will fall apart. Because I witnessed it. Babies crying, mom crying, and then me crying.

That’s my risk program. And that’s paired with my reward program of being noticed and praised. So if everything is falling apart, I’m obviously not good enough. Not able to cut it. Not able to keep everyone happy. Not worthy of being noticed or praised.

So what do I do then?

I try harder. Work harder. Notice the needs, tend to them before they erupt, make sure everyone is happy, for then I will be praised. For then I may get a hug instead of a disparaging comment. Which leads to a new program of:

If I can keep everyone happy, then I will be worthy and lovable.

Or phrased another way, I am ONLY worthy and lovable if I can keep everyone happy.

Can you see your programs in what you uncovered today? What is your risk and reward telling you?

Can you link your reasons to being unable to stop to what your mind took in as a child?

And these programs, running in the background of my mind, continue to affect how I show up every single day. These are the root of my people pleasing tendencies, wanting to say yes to everything and help everyone.

For if I can keep them all happy, then I will be worthy of their love, respect, and praise.

For me, this shows up at work as taking on way too much. This shows up at home as a busy little bee tending to all the details, big and small of our busy household with 4 kids and a dog.

This shows up as me not being able to rest, and feeling guilty and inadequate if I am not performing at my best all the time, and feeling resentful of the people around me who are not working as hard as I am to keep everything together.

My old programs, created almost 40 years ago, are still driving my behaviour today.

So you can see how, addressing these old programs, IS THE SOLUTION to anxiety, overwhelm, people pleasing, over giving, and being unable to rest.

And you can see how hard or impossible it is to change these behaviours without addressing the old programming rooted deep in your psyche.

So the first step in doing something about it is uncovering what these programs are, like we just did today.

The next step is to figure out what really matters to us, because we may never have asked ourselves that, and then systematically take steps to rewrite the programs so that the messages underpinning our behaviour are actually true and relevant to our lives today.

These are the steps I teach in my program Bridge to your Best Life, which I’m opening up again in July so that by Christmas you could be running new, better programs that allow you to breathe and open up the space for joy, fulfillment, and relaxation.

Today we uncovered a handful of programs in the millions that your mind is running. If you’d like to continue this work, I have a free guide for you. If you want it, write FREE GUIDE in the chat and I will send it to you. It does a deeper dive into some of the exercises we did today and also includes an exercise on what to do about it, which we did not yet touch on.

Today you showed up for yourself, despite old programming that may tell you that showing up here today is not as important as the other things on your to do list, and so I celebrate you for breaking the patterns and modeling self love.

You are doing way better than you think you are! I hope you have an amazing day!

Bye!