February 11, 2025 • 22 mins
This episode idea started as a joke.
But the more I talked about it, the more I realized I do actually want to take a break from self-improvement — a journey I’ve been on for nearly 20 years.
Before you judge me, or dismiss me, hear me out.
In today’s episode I’ll talk about what happens when we stop trying to become “better” than we already are.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
Follow Ally on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allyfallon/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it sound to let them out and
write them down and cold it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story. Hi, and welcome back
to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Ali Fallon. I'm
your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk
about why I'm giving up on self improvement. And I
know that sounds kind of weird, so let me tell
you about where this idea came from and where it
all started. Essentially, this started as a joke with my
(00:46):
friend and with my husband. I was telling them how
I've been on this self improvement train for so long now.
I think I started when I was I don't know,
maybe like twenty four to twenty five, twenty six. This
would have been like in the early two thousands somewhere.
I at that time in my life had a lot
of undealt with trauma from my past that I hadn't faced,
(01:07):
I hadn't dealt with, I hadn't talked about, I hadn't
gotten any help on and it was coming out sideways
in my life. I was making choices that really were
not in my own best interest. I was having a
lot of relationship difficulties. One of the main symptoms, one
of the main ways that this was coming out in
my life was with dishonesty. So I had a really
hard time telling the truth. And most of the time
that I was lying, it was about really small stuff,
(01:28):
but sometimes I would lie about bigger things too, and
it was causing problems because people in my life couldn't
tell when I was telling the truth and when I
was lying. And my family likes to joke. You know,
my name is Alison, which means little truthful when my
parents named me that name thinking about the meaning of
the word, and my brother used to call me little
bender of the truth because I would tell stories and
(01:50):
like exaggerate the details or make the outcome sound more
exciting than it actually was. And so yeah, people in
my life were like, hey, we never know, you know,
when Ally's telling the truth and when she's exaggerating a detail.
And that was causing a lot of problems for me,
and so I got myself in therapy. I started, you know,
ordering all the books and buying all the books and
(02:12):
reading them. I was already a really avid reader at
that time, so it seemed like a perfect fit for
me to, you know, learn about all of these self
help practices and spiritual practices through reading. When blogs became
really popular in the early two thousand, I was subscribed
to all these different blogs that were designed to help
me kind of improve myself and learn to be a
(02:33):
better person. And I really committed myself to that over
the long haul, and it paid off in so many
different ways. I mean, I saw so many different therapists,
I went through so many different modalities. I started seeing
massive improvements in my life, and especially you know, after
my first marriage ended, I saw a dramatic jump. I
was in a toxic relationship with this person, and I
(02:55):
think I felt a lot of guilt because I hadn't
always been honest and that was kind of used against
me in this relationship, like, well, I never know where
you stand, I never know what's true and what's not true,
and then like these horrible things were happening inside of
the relationship, and so when I would try to tell
people about it, it was like my words were not clear,
my story was not clear. No one could ever really
(03:18):
know what I was saying, whether it was true or not,
and so things got extremely muddled in that relationship. But
once I finally came to my own clarity and used
my voice and ended that relationship and stood on my
own two feet, then I started seeing like this massive
jump in just all around improvement of my life, like
feeling more confident in myself, feeling more alive, feeling more
(03:40):
in touch with who I was, feeling like the path
in front of me was clear. More opportunities started coming
to me, My business was growing, I was doing better financially.
So all these different things, like the clear benefits that
came into my life from self improvement, were absolutely impossible
to deny. And in fact, a couple years ago, on
my forty birthday, I invited a group of friends to
(04:02):
come to New York and we spent the weekend in
New York, and then my husband hosted this dinner at
a beautiful restaurant in New York and invited all of
my friends to say something about me that was memorable
or stood out to them. And as we went around
the table, every single person at the table said something
about my commitment to my own growth, my commitment to
personal development, my commitment to improving myself. So I mean
(04:25):
this has become almost like a part of my identity.
It's a part of how people know me and think
about me and recognize me and whatever. So it's a
funny thing for my husband and my friend to hear
me say like, yeah, I'm I'm done. I'm not doing
this self improvement thing anymore. And I was just joking saying, like,
I'm tired. I have improved myself so dramatically. I am
a very different person than I was fifteen years ago
(04:47):
when I started this journey, and I was joking that
I'm like, you know what, I kind of feel ready
to move out of the line light. I feel like
there are some other people who could probably use some
self improvement, not naming any names or anything, but like,
I don't want to just be buying all that self
help books, you know, when these other people who are
like in need of some self help books, we should just,
you know, maybe buy some books and send them to
(05:08):
them so that they can get some self help. And
then my plan for a while is to just kind
of chill and enjoy the fact that, like I'm already
a pretty good person and obviously, like hopefully you can
sense the humor that was in this, But essentially what
happened in this conversation as I was making this joke
is I started to feel like I'm actually kind of
onto something here. In other words, there's a period of time,
(05:32):
I think in all of our development where there has
to be some more almost like rigidity around the development.
Like picture someone who is an addict, and I use
this term really with a lot of humility, thinking like,
in many ways, that's kind of where I was when
I was twenty six. I was addicted to telling untruths.
(05:53):
So I had to get sober, you know, I had
to like really get sober with myself and figure out
where was this coming from? Why would I tell these untruths.
It didn't disappear overnight, slowly, over time, I started to
become more trustworthy, both to myself and to people around me.
And so any kind of addiction that we're facing in
the beginning, it does require some structure. It requires a mentor,
(06:15):
a coach, a therapist, a sponsor, people accountability, friends, you know,
to sort of check in with you and go like, hey,
what's the progress on this, How is it working, and
then I think over time as that structure has been
in place for a while. In addition to structure, in
order to grow, we also need space, We also need flow,
(06:39):
We also need gentleness, We also need compassion. It's almost like,
I know everyone right now in culture is talking about
the masculine and the feminine stuff, and some of that
stuff kind of rubs me the wrong way. But I
instead of masculine and feminine, I almost want you to
think about it as like yin and yang. This is
how I'm thinking about it. This is what we talk
about in yoga a lot. That yang energy would be
(06:59):
the masculine energy. This is but just taking the sting
out of it by not thinking like a man woman
thinking of it as yin yang is helpful for me
because the yang energy is the efforting. The yang energy
is external. The yang energy is like think of like
the sun. It's during the day. It's it's active, it's energetic,
(07:23):
it's you know, very boundaried. It's disciplined, it's you know,
going out there to get it. The yin energy. Think
of it like the moon, the night, the evening, the
darkness is equally as important. It's but it's more receptive.
It's more soft, it's more compassionate, gentle allowing, and it's
(07:43):
less energetic. It's less likely to you know, go out
there and and track something down in order to chase
it to get to achieve something. It's more receiving something.
So if Yang is achieved, then yin is received. And
we actually need both of these energies to exist in
every single body, in every human body, whether it's a
male body or a female body, however you identify, we
(08:05):
need both yin and yang to exist in every body.
And so that I think this is why the masculine
masculine feminine energy stuff kind of rubs me the wrong
way sometimes, because you'll hear a lot of teachers talk
about like how men need to act this kind of
masculine way and women need to act this feminine way.
And that stuff was really prevalent in the nineties in
(08:25):
the church when I grew up, and now it's found
its way into broader culture, into other spiritual communities. And
I'm not saying that there's no value to the conversation
at all of polarity in our relationship. I do think
that there's value to that, But I think sometimes at
least for me, the way that this is taught, it
just doesn't land in a way that makes me feel
(08:45):
like I can also be self contained, that like Yin
energy and Yang energy is allowed to exist both in
my own body, which I think is very true. So
back to the Yin and Yang. I think I've had
so much Yang energy for so long around self improvement,
self help, become a better person, get your shit together
(09:05):
kind of thing, that what I'm feeling now is I'm
feeling a pull toward the more Yang energy. And in
my partnership with Matt, this is interesting because you know,
Matt has had both Yin and Yang energy. He has
that both in his body, and he's had a lot
of Yin energy in the last five years, in particular
(09:25):
since we've been married, because he has sold his business,
stepped out of that position where he was really like
driving forward, pushing, trying to meet these goals, and he's
been chasing this dream instead, which is much more yin energy.
It's much more like allow, allow, Allow. These miracles are
happening in the darkness and you kind of can't even
see it. And so he and I in our relationship
(09:47):
are practicing almost like the back and forth between yin
and yang, and I'm feeling in my self improvement journey
like I'm needing more yin energy. I'm just like I
think I'm done and pushing forward trying to meet these
self improvement goals. Not saying there's not a space and
time for that. There absolutely is, But I'm wondering if
(10:07):
maybe you're feeling something similar where it's like, been there,
done that I'm so exhausted from pushing forward to meet
these self improvement goals that now I'm ready to allow.
Now I'm ready to kind of sit in the dark
and let magic do its work. Like I'm still okay
with becoming better, but I'm not going to be the
(10:30):
one who's working at it anymore. I'm going to just
let those lessons come to me. I'm going to let
that transformation take place in its own time and in
its own way, and it's going to be a more
receptive experience rather than a chasing down. So I don't
know if that resonates with you at all or where
it lands in terms of how you personally feel right
(10:52):
now in this moment, but I wanted to offer it
in case it's helpful. I wanted to just offer this
option for us, for those of us, many of you here,
I feel, are in this same boat who have worked
really hard to improve ourselves over the course of the
last decade or two decades or five decades or whatever
it's been, and we're moving into this period of time
(11:13):
that is going to be really challenging in a lot
of ways. We're not going to have to invite challenges
into our lives. The challenges are going to be right
in front of us. I really feel that already. I
believe it. I'm seeing it take place. And one of
the things that's happening for me as I feel that
shift is my world's becoming a lot smaller. I'm just
(11:40):
instead of going out there to try to chase down
the best version of myself, which there is a time
and place for that. More power to you if you're
in that place. But instead of going to chase down
the best version of myself, I really am wanting to
nurture where I'm at. I'm really wanting to just take
really good care of myself I am. I'm wanting to
(12:01):
reach for things that feel really nourishing to me. So
by take care of myself, I don't mean numb out,
although there is also a place for numbing out. We
could do a whole podcast on that. I don't mean
numb out, I don't mean, you know, just kind of
eat whatever tastes good, do whatever feels good. There's a
place for pleasure, there's a place for numbing out, there's
a place for all of it. But what I mean
(12:23):
is that during this time, what I'm wanting to do
is to take deep care of myself. Instead of trying
to become better and better and better and better and
better and climbing the ladder and getting out there and
trying to do as many things as possible and become
the best kind of person I can be and really
invite my best self, it's very yang. Instead, what I'm
wanting to do is just nurture, nurture, nurture, just take
really good care, like compassion, grace, receptivity, openness to whatever
(12:49):
it is that life wants to bring me and for me.
One of the things that that has looked like is
my world becoming pretty small. It means scheduling fewer things.
It means because I'm really content with laying on the
couch and reading a book at night or watching a
show sometimes when that feels nice, or taking a bath,
or you know, sitting on the floor and playing with
(13:10):
my kids, which is not something that I saw myself
spending a lot of time doing. And I would have
said to you even a year ago, I would have said,
it's not something I get that excited about. But now
I'm feeling like, Okay, if I can sit on the
floor and just play with my kids, Like if I
can just sit there and play with them and just
take in the absolute beauty of this moment, that is
(13:33):
really nourishing for me. It's really really nurturing for me.
And I've been just accepting that and receiving it and
feeling like I don't need to go out there and
try to chase down this goal that I have or
try to like, you know, make as much money as possible,
or achieve all these things that I wanted to achieve
or whatever. Instead, I feel like I'm moving into this
(13:53):
season where it's just about nurture. Nurture, nurture, take care,
take care, take care, to fill up so that I
can give back. I do want there to be a
give back, which is kind of yang. I do want
there to be a give back, but I want it
to come from a much more grounded place than it
has come from in the past. Seeing your job as
(14:14):
to receive over achieve, so receive instead of achieve really
changes your orientation to every single aspect of your life.
So when you think about your work, for example, what
if your orientation towards your work was what am I
here to receive? Rather than what am I here to achieve?
This is so countercultural, and it's one of the reasons
(14:37):
I think why learning this yin energy is so important
for every single one of us, and again why the
whole masculinity femininity thing just falls flat for me. Because
the men in our culture also need to learn this
yin energy. We're so used to Yang energy. We all
get it. Like, we're all fully on board with the
Yang energy. None of us have any issue. And especially
if you're listening to this podcast, if you're on any
(14:59):
kind of self improved journey, you understand Yang energy. You're like,
I see the goal, I know what to do, I've
got the plan in place, I will go achieve it.
That's all Yang energy. But every single person in our culture,
because our culture does not teach us this and does
not celebrate this type of energy. It's so countercultural that
every single one of us need to practice what it
(15:19):
would be like to show up to receive, and receptivity
is equally as important as a willingness to give, a
willingness to receive. A willingness to give doesn't even matter
without a willingness to receive. If you want to give,
but you don't have anyone to receive it, then your
giving falls flat. And so each of us have to
(15:40):
be able. We have to cultivate an ability to go
back and forth between this receptive energy and this achievement energy.
There are two opposites, but there are two sides of
the exact same coin. So imagine for a moment, what
it would be like for you to show up to
your work with a willingness to receive. Ask yourself for
(16:02):
a minute, when you go to your job, what are
you here to receive? You've probably never asked yourself that question,
other than maybe a paycheck. You know, when it comes
to your relationships, your friendships, or even your romantic partnership,
ask yourself, just for a minute, think about this, what
would I like to receive from these relationships? It's an
(16:23):
uncomfortable question to even consider, isn't it. It's kind of bizarre.
It's like, Oh, I'm used to being like, Okay, how
can I serve? How can I show up? How can
I give to this person? How can I take care
of this person? Most of us are not used to
to asking the question how could I receive? What do
I want to receive from these relationships? What about as
it relates to your creative practice. If you're working on
(16:45):
a book or you're working on some other kind of
piece of art, what do you want to receive from
your creative practice? We are so indoctrinated by our culture
that is about yang energy, that all we know is
what we want to achieve with our creative work. And
if all you ever do with your creativity is achieve
and you never receive, you've never really done creativity. Because
(17:09):
creativity requires both. This is a weird analogy, but let
me share this analogy as it relates to why you
need both. Think for a minute about how a baby
is created with both the energy of the masculine and
the energy of the feminine. No matter whether a baby
is created through intercourse or whether it's created through IVF,
(17:30):
it's created with both egg and sperm. Required, one from masculine,
one from feminine. They come together and they create the embryo.
That creation, that something out of nothing, only can come
when the masculine and feminine come together, when the yin
and the yang come together, and so creating anything new
(17:54):
in your life, creating something out of nothing, can only
take place when you have both the energy of the
masculine and the energy of the feminine. And sometimes in partnership,
the masculine energy can come from one partner and the
feminine energy can come from one another, and there's a
polarity there, and that polarity, like a magnet, pulls the
two of you together, and there's absolute magic that can happen.
(18:15):
I do believe that. But if you're not partnered up,
or if you are partnered up and you don't feel
like your partner and your partner are really in sync
in that kind of a way, you can actually practice
this within your own self in a more contained way
with yin and yang energy. Ask yourself which one comes
more naturally to you. Do you have an easier time
with giving or with receiving? Do you have an easier
(18:37):
time with achieving or with allowing? Do you have an
easier time with chasing down or with inviting in, And
almost every single one of us will answer the first,
because we live in a world that has indoctrinated us
and trained us in this way of being, and so
no surprise at all that we not only don't have
(18:58):
practice with what we call and an energy, not only
do we not have practice with that, let's just be honest,
we also have a strong bias against it. We have
a very strong biased against femininity in our culture, against waiting,
against being patient, against being gentle, against being you know,
(19:18):
the grace, gentleness, kindness, compassion, softness, sweetness. We have a
very strong bias against that kind of energy. You might
even sort of feel your system kind of revolt, or
feel your stomach turn or something like that when I
say those words, because our entire culture degrades, downgrades, has
(19:41):
almost like a hatred for the more feminine nature. And
I say feminine, But if that word doesn't fit for you,
just think yin, just think the opposite side of the
same coin. These two energies can only coexist together when
you have one that's stronger than the other. There's an
balance there, and that imbalance will create illness. It will
(20:04):
create discord, it will create frustration, it creates blockages, and
for many of us in our creative work, this is
really where I'm going with this. In our creative work,
for many of us, these blockages are created from an
imbalance of yen and yang, from more yang than yin.
In most cases, now, in some cases there's more yen
than yang. And in those cases, if I'm working with
(20:25):
a client who I can tell has more of the
sort of like let's wait and see attitude and has
a really hard time hitting publish, well, then we can
practice by just hit and send on the thing you
know they get in the manuscript written and getting it
out there. So ask yourself, which one of these comes
more naturally for you, which one of them is easier
for you, which one feels more like home to you,
(20:48):
And how might you cultivate the other energy so that
you can create more balance and more flow in your life.
For me, it's one percent clear that the Yang energy
is much easier for me. And I'm I'm really wanting
to create more Ian energy. I'm wanting to invite more yin,
I'm wanting to allow more Ian energy. I'm wanting to
really nurture myself and take care of myself and make
(21:09):
my world small and just kind of receive all the
good benefits that have come from my hard work over
the last ten plus years. I'm not saying that I
won't ever pick up a self help book again, or
that I won't ever have a goal and try to
achieve it, or that I'm not even saying that I'm
not trying to become the best version of myself. I
think I'm just saying, like, Okay, I surrender. I have
(21:31):
done it. I've done a lot of really good hard work,
and I'm ready for I'm ready to lay on my
back in the middle of the room and breathe and
receive the goodness that comes when you put in the effort.
And maybe for you, that's where you are too, and
I will offer that same release for you. Maybe you've
put in plenty of effort. Maybe it's time to take
(21:52):
a break. Maybe it's time to lay on your back
and receive all the goodness, all the benefits that come
from I'm putting in the effort. Wherever you are. I
hope this provide some clarity for you. I will be
back here next week. I'm gonna write your story podcast,
I'll see you the
Pick up the pieces of your life, put them back
together with the words you write, all the beauty and
peace and the magic that you'll start too fun when
you write your story. You got the words and said,
don't you think it sound to let them out and
write them down and cold it's all about and write
(00:24):
your story. Write, write your story. Hi, and welcome back
to the Write Your Story Podcast. I'm Ali Fallon. I'm
your host, and on today's episode, I want to talk
about why I'm giving up on self improvement. And I
know that sounds kind of weird, so let me tell
you about where this idea came from and where it
all started. Essentially, this started as a joke with my
(00:46):
friend and with my husband. I was telling them how
I've been on this self improvement train for so long now.
I think I started when I was I don't know,
maybe like twenty four to twenty five, twenty six. This
would have been like in the early two thousands somewhere.
I at that time in my life had a lot
of undealt with trauma from my past that I hadn't faced,
(01:07):
I hadn't dealt with, I hadn't talked about, I hadn't
gotten any help on and it was coming out sideways
in my life. I was making choices that really were
not in my own best interest. I was having a
lot of relationship difficulties. One of the main symptoms, one
of the main ways that this was coming out in
my life was with dishonesty. So I had a really
hard time telling the truth. And most of the time
that I was lying, it was about really small stuff,
(01:28):
but sometimes I would lie about bigger things too, and
it was causing problems because people in my life couldn't
tell when I was telling the truth and when I
was lying. And my family likes to joke. You know,
my name is Alison, which means little truthful when my
parents named me that name thinking about the meaning of
the word, and my brother used to call me little
bender of the truth because I would tell stories and
(01:50):
like exaggerate the details or make the outcome sound more
exciting than it actually was. And so yeah, people in
my life were like, hey, we never know, you know,
when Ally's telling the truth and when she's exaggerating a detail.
And that was causing a lot of problems for me,
and so I got myself in therapy. I started, you know,
ordering all the books and buying all the books and
(02:12):
reading them. I was already a really avid reader at
that time, so it seemed like a perfect fit for
me to, you know, learn about all of these self
help practices and spiritual practices through reading. When blogs became
really popular in the early two thousand, I was subscribed
to all these different blogs that were designed to help
me kind of improve myself and learn to be a
(02:33):
better person. And I really committed myself to that over
the long haul, and it paid off in so many
different ways. I mean, I saw so many different therapists,
I went through so many different modalities. I started seeing
massive improvements in my life, and especially you know, after
my first marriage ended, I saw a dramatic jump. I
was in a toxic relationship with this person, and I
(02:55):
think I felt a lot of guilt because I hadn't
always been honest and that was kind of used against
me in this relationship, like, well, I never know where
you stand, I never know what's true and what's not true,
and then like these horrible things were happening inside of
the relationship, and so when I would try to tell
people about it, it was like my words were not clear,
my story was not clear. No one could ever really
(03:18):
know what I was saying, whether it was true or not,
and so things got extremely muddled in that relationship. But
once I finally came to my own clarity and used
my voice and ended that relationship and stood on my
own two feet, then I started seeing like this massive
jump in just all around improvement of my life, like
feeling more confident in myself, feeling more alive, feeling more
(03:40):
in touch with who I was, feeling like the path
in front of me was clear. More opportunities started coming
to me, My business was growing, I was doing better financially.
So all these different things, like the clear benefits that
came into my life from self improvement, were absolutely impossible
to deny. And in fact, a couple years ago, on
my forty birthday, I invited a group of friends to
(04:02):
come to New York and we spent the weekend in
New York, and then my husband hosted this dinner at
a beautiful restaurant in New York and invited all of
my friends to say something about me that was memorable
or stood out to them. And as we went around
the table, every single person at the table said something
about my commitment to my own growth, my commitment to
personal development, my commitment to improving myself. So I mean
(04:25):
this has become almost like a part of my identity.
It's a part of how people know me and think
about me and recognize me and whatever. So it's a
funny thing for my husband and my friend to hear
me say like, yeah, I'm I'm done. I'm not doing
this self improvement thing anymore. And I was just joking saying, like,
I'm tired. I have improved myself so dramatically. I am
a very different person than I was fifteen years ago
(04:47):
when I started this journey, and I was joking that
I'm like, you know what, I kind of feel ready
to move out of the line light. I feel like
there are some other people who could probably use some
self improvement, not naming any names or anything, but like,
I don't want to just be buying all that self
help books, you know, when these other people who are
like in need of some self help books, we should just,
you know, maybe buy some books and send them to
(05:08):
them so that they can get some self help. And
then my plan for a while is to just kind
of chill and enjoy the fact that, like I'm already
a pretty good person and obviously, like hopefully you can
sense the humor that was in this, But essentially what
happened in this conversation as I was making this joke
is I started to feel like I'm actually kind of
onto something here. In other words, there's a period of time,
(05:32):
I think in all of our development where there has
to be some more almost like rigidity around the development.
Like picture someone who is an addict, and I use
this term really with a lot of humility, thinking like,
in many ways, that's kind of where I was when
I was twenty six. I was addicted to telling untruths.
(05:53):
So I had to get sober, you know, I had
to like really get sober with myself and figure out
where was this coming from? Why would I tell these untruths.
It didn't disappear overnight, slowly, over time, I started to
become more trustworthy, both to myself and to people around me.
And so any kind of addiction that we're facing in
the beginning, it does require some structure. It requires a mentor,
(06:15):
a coach, a therapist, a sponsor, people accountability, friends, you know,
to sort of check in with you and go like, hey,
what's the progress on this, How is it working, and
then I think over time as that structure has been
in place for a while. In addition to structure, in
order to grow, we also need space, We also need flow,
(06:39):
We also need gentleness, We also need compassion. It's almost like,
I know everyone right now in culture is talking about
the masculine and the feminine stuff, and some of that
stuff kind of rubs me the wrong way. But I
instead of masculine and feminine, I almost want you to
think about it as like yin and yang. This is
how I'm thinking about it. This is what we talk
about in yoga a lot. That yang energy would be
(06:59):
the masculine energy. This is but just taking the sting
out of it by not thinking like a man woman
thinking of it as yin yang is helpful for me
because the yang energy is the efforting. The yang energy
is external. The yang energy is like think of like
the sun. It's during the day. It's it's active, it's energetic,
(07:23):
it's you know, very boundaried. It's disciplined, it's you know,
going out there to get it. The yin energy. Think
of it like the moon, the night, the evening, the
darkness is equally as important. It's but it's more receptive.
It's more soft, it's more compassionate, gentle allowing, and it's
(07:43):
less energetic. It's less likely to you know, go out
there and and track something down in order to chase
it to get to achieve something. It's more receiving something.
So if Yang is achieved, then yin is received. And
we actually need both of these energies to exist in
every single body, in every human body, whether it's a
male body or a female body, however you identify, we
(08:05):
need both yin and yang to exist in every body.
And so that I think this is why the masculine
masculine feminine energy stuff kind of rubs me the wrong
way sometimes, because you'll hear a lot of teachers talk
about like how men need to act this kind of
masculine way and women need to act this feminine way.
And that stuff was really prevalent in the nineties in
(08:25):
the church when I grew up, and now it's found
its way into broader culture, into other spiritual communities. And
I'm not saying that there's no value to the conversation
at all of polarity in our relationship. I do think
that there's value to that, But I think sometimes at
least for me, the way that this is taught, it
just doesn't land in a way that makes me feel
(08:45):
like I can also be self contained, that like Yin
energy and Yang energy is allowed to exist both in
my own body, which I think is very true. So
back to the Yin and Yang. I think I've had
so much Yang energy for so long around self improvement,
self help, become a better person, get your shit together
(09:05):
kind of thing, that what I'm feeling now is I'm
feeling a pull toward the more Yang energy. And in
my partnership with Matt, this is interesting because you know,
Matt has had both Yin and Yang energy. He has
that both in his body, and he's had a lot
of Yin energy in the last five years, in particular
(09:25):
since we've been married, because he has sold his business,
stepped out of that position where he was really like
driving forward, pushing, trying to meet these goals, and he's
been chasing this dream instead, which is much more yin energy.
It's much more like allow, allow, Allow. These miracles are
happening in the darkness and you kind of can't even
see it. And so he and I in our relationship
(09:47):
are practicing almost like the back and forth between yin
and yang, and I'm feeling in my self improvement journey
like I'm needing more yin energy. I'm just like I
think I'm done and pushing forward trying to meet these
self improvement goals. Not saying there's not a space and
time for that. There absolutely is, But I'm wondering if
(10:07):
maybe you're feeling something similar where it's like, been there,
done that I'm so exhausted from pushing forward to meet
these self improvement goals that now I'm ready to allow.
Now I'm ready to kind of sit in the dark
and let magic do its work. Like I'm still okay
with becoming better, but I'm not going to be the
(10:30):
one who's working at it anymore. I'm going to just
let those lessons come to me. I'm going to let
that transformation take place in its own time and in
its own way, and it's going to be a more
receptive experience rather than a chasing down. So I don't
know if that resonates with you at all or where
it lands in terms of how you personally feel right
(10:52):
now in this moment, but I wanted to offer it
in case it's helpful. I wanted to just offer this
option for us, for those of us, many of you here,
I feel, are in this same boat who have worked
really hard to improve ourselves over the course of the
last decade or two decades or five decades or whatever
it's been, and we're moving into this period of time
(11:13):
that is going to be really challenging in a lot
of ways. We're not going to have to invite challenges
into our lives. The challenges are going to be right
in front of us. I really feel that already. I
believe it. I'm seeing it take place. And one of
the things that's happening for me as I feel that
shift is my world's becoming a lot smaller. I'm just
(11:40):
instead of going out there to try to chase down
the best version of myself, which there is a time
and place for that. More power to you if you're
in that place. But instead of going to chase down
the best version of myself, I really am wanting to
nurture where I'm at. I'm really wanting to just take
really good care of myself I am. I'm wanting to
(12:01):
reach for things that feel really nourishing to me. So
by take care of myself, I don't mean numb out,
although there is also a place for numbing out. We
could do a whole podcast on that. I don't mean
numb out, I don't mean, you know, just kind of
eat whatever tastes good, do whatever feels good. There's a
place for pleasure, there's a place for numbing out, there's
a place for all of it. But what I mean
(12:23):
is that during this time, what I'm wanting to do
is to take deep care of myself. Instead of trying
to become better and better and better and better and
better and climbing the ladder and getting out there and
trying to do as many things as possible and become
the best kind of person I can be and really
invite my best self, it's very yang. Instead, what I'm
wanting to do is just nurture, nurture, nurture, just take
really good care, like compassion, grace, receptivity, openness to whatever
(12:49):
it is that life wants to bring me and for me.
One of the things that that has looked like is
my world becoming pretty small. It means scheduling fewer things.
It means because I'm really content with laying on the
couch and reading a book at night or watching a
show sometimes when that feels nice, or taking a bath,
or you know, sitting on the floor and playing with
(13:10):
my kids, which is not something that I saw myself
spending a lot of time doing. And I would have
said to you even a year ago, I would have said,
it's not something I get that excited about. But now
I'm feeling like, Okay, if I can sit on the
floor and just play with my kids, Like if I
can just sit there and play with them and just
take in the absolute beauty of this moment, that is
(13:33):
really nourishing for me. It's really really nurturing for me.
And I've been just accepting that and receiving it and
feeling like I don't need to go out there and
try to chase down this goal that I have or
try to like, you know, make as much money as possible,
or achieve all these things that I wanted to achieve
or whatever. Instead, I feel like I'm moving into this
(13:53):
season where it's just about nurture. Nurture, nurture, take care,
take care, take care, to fill up so that I
can give back. I do want there to be a
give back, which is kind of yang. I do want
there to be a give back, but I want it
to come from a much more grounded place than it
has come from in the past. Seeing your job as
(14:14):
to receive over achieve, so receive instead of achieve really
changes your orientation to every single aspect of your life.
So when you think about your work, for example, what
if your orientation towards your work was what am I
here to receive? Rather than what am I here to achieve?
This is so countercultural, and it's one of the reasons
(14:37):
I think why learning this yin energy is so important
for every single one of us, and again why the
whole masculinity femininity thing just falls flat for me. Because
the men in our culture also need to learn this
yin energy. We're so used to Yang energy. We all
get it. Like, we're all fully on board with the
Yang energy. None of us have any issue. And especially
if you're listening to this podcast, if you're on any
(14:59):
kind of self improved journey, you understand Yang energy. You're like,
I see the goal, I know what to do, I've
got the plan in place, I will go achieve it.
That's all Yang energy. But every single person in our culture,
because our culture does not teach us this and does
not celebrate this type of energy. It's so countercultural that
every single one of us need to practice what it
(15:19):
would be like to show up to receive, and receptivity
is equally as important as a willingness to give, a
willingness to receive. A willingness to give doesn't even matter
without a willingness to receive. If you want to give,
but you don't have anyone to receive it, then your
giving falls flat. And so each of us have to
(15:40):
be able. We have to cultivate an ability to go
back and forth between this receptive energy and this achievement energy.
There are two opposites, but there are two sides of
the exact same coin. So imagine for a moment, what
it would be like for you to show up to
your work with a willingness to receive. Ask yourself for
(16:02):
a minute, when you go to your job, what are
you here to receive? You've probably never asked yourself that question,
other than maybe a paycheck. You know, when it comes
to your relationships, your friendships, or even your romantic partnership,
ask yourself, just for a minute, think about this, what
would I like to receive from these relationships? It's an
(16:23):
uncomfortable question to even consider, isn't it. It's kind of bizarre.
It's like, Oh, I'm used to being like, Okay, how
can I serve? How can I show up? How can
I give to this person? How can I take care
of this person? Most of us are not used to
to asking the question how could I receive? What do
I want to receive from these relationships? What about as
it relates to your creative practice. If you're working on
(16:45):
a book or you're working on some other kind of
piece of art, what do you want to receive from
your creative practice? We are so indoctrinated by our culture
that is about yang energy, that all we know is
what we want to achieve with our creative work. And
if all you ever do with your creativity is achieve
and you never receive, you've never really done creativity. Because
(17:09):
creativity requires both. This is a weird analogy, but let
me share this analogy as it relates to why you
need both. Think for a minute about how a baby
is created with both the energy of the masculine and
the energy of the feminine. No matter whether a baby
is created through intercourse or whether it's created through IVF,
(17:30):
it's created with both egg and sperm. Required, one from masculine,
one from feminine. They come together and they create the embryo.
That creation, that something out of nothing, only can come
when the masculine and feminine come together, when the yin
and the yang come together, and so creating anything new
(17:54):
in your life, creating something out of nothing, can only
take place when you have both the energy of the
masculine and the energy of the feminine. And sometimes in partnership,
the masculine energy can come from one partner and the
feminine energy can come from one another, and there's a
polarity there, and that polarity, like a magnet, pulls the
two of you together, and there's absolute magic that can happen.
(18:15):
I do believe that. But if you're not partnered up,
or if you are partnered up and you don't feel
like your partner and your partner are really in sync
in that kind of a way, you can actually practice
this within your own self in a more contained way
with yin and yang energy. Ask yourself which one comes
more naturally to you. Do you have an easier time
with giving or with receiving? Do you have an easier
(18:37):
time with achieving or with allowing? Do you have an
easier time with chasing down or with inviting in, And
almost every single one of us will answer the first,
because we live in a world that has indoctrinated us
and trained us in this way of being, and so
no surprise at all that we not only don't have
(18:58):
practice with what we call and an energy, not only
do we not have practice with that, let's just be honest,
we also have a strong bias against it. We have
a very strong biased against femininity in our culture, against waiting,
against being patient, against being gentle, against being you know,
(19:18):
the grace, gentleness, kindness, compassion, softness, sweetness. We have a
very strong bias against that kind of energy. You might
even sort of feel your system kind of revolt, or
feel your stomach turn or something like that when I
say those words, because our entire culture degrades, downgrades, has
(19:41):
almost like a hatred for the more feminine nature. And
I say feminine, But if that word doesn't fit for you,
just think yin, just think the opposite side of the
same coin. These two energies can only coexist together when
you have one that's stronger than the other. There's an
balance there, and that imbalance will create illness. It will
(20:04):
create discord, it will create frustration, it creates blockages, and
for many of us in our creative work, this is
really where I'm going with this. In our creative work,
for many of us, these blockages are created from an
imbalance of yen and yang, from more yang than yin.
In most cases, now, in some cases there's more yen
than yang. And in those cases, if I'm working with
(20:25):
a client who I can tell has more of the
sort of like let's wait and see attitude and has
a really hard time hitting publish, well, then we can
practice by just hit and send on the thing you
know they get in the manuscript written and getting it
out there. So ask yourself, which one of these comes
more naturally for you, which one of them is easier
for you, which one feels more like home to you,
(20:48):
And how might you cultivate the other energy so that
you can create more balance and more flow in your life.
For me, it's one percent clear that the Yang energy
is much easier for me. And I'm I'm really wanting
to create more Ian energy. I'm wanting to invite more yin,
I'm wanting to allow more Ian energy. I'm wanting to
really nurture myself and take care of myself and make
(21:09):
my world small and just kind of receive all the
good benefits that have come from my hard work over
the last ten plus years. I'm not saying that I
won't ever pick up a self help book again, or
that I won't ever have a goal and try to
achieve it, or that I'm not even saying that I'm
not trying to become the best version of myself. I
think I'm just saying, like, Okay, I surrender. I have
(21:31):
done it. I've done a lot of really good hard work,
and I'm ready for I'm ready to lay on my
back in the middle of the room and breathe and
receive the goodness that comes when you put in the effort.
And maybe for you, that's where you are too, and
I will offer that same release for you. Maybe you've
put in plenty of effort. Maybe it's time to take
(21:52):
a break. Maybe it's time to lay on your back
and receive all the goodness, all the benefits that come
from I'm putting in the effort. Wherever you are. I
hope this provide some clarity for you. I will be
back here next week. I'm gonna write your story podcast,
I'll see you the
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