Episode 82:They say "No one is coming to save you" but I think you can! It's just going to take some work!
Unlocking the Power of Self-Advocacy: Embrace Your Inner Strength
In this episode of 'Conversations with Kimen,' host Kimen Petersen delves into the importance of self-belief and internal motivation to live a soulful and fulfilling life. Highlighting lessons from his morning run and a favorite song that inspired him to take action, Kimen discusses the inner critic and the necessity of fostering an inner advocate. He emphasizes the need to fight for oneself by reframing negative thoughts and consistently practicing self-encouragement. Through personal anecdotes, including his struggles with self-loathing and insights from his journey, Kimen encourages listeners to develop resilience, embrace growth through pain, and continually strive towards their dreams.
00:00 Introduction to Conversations with Kimen
00:28 A Morning Run and Personal Reflections
00:58 The Power of Self-Belief
02:37 Fighting for Peace, Not Against War
04:20 Understanding the Inner Critic
09:23 Developing the Inner Advocate
17:09 Embracing Pain and Growth
21:43 The Path to Self-Salvation
27:07 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
I was out on a 18 K run this morning, kindof a run workout with some really hard
work, and I was at about 17 kilometersand for some reason, well, I guess
(00:45):
partially my favorite song came on.
Um, I'm not giving up.
And every time I hear this song,it like inspires me to do another
episode, um, which is beautiful.
I love it.
I love this song.
This is gonna be my theme song fora very long time, and I hope it will
keep on helping me reframe how, howimportant I am to me, like how important
(01:11):
it is for me to like to fight for me.
To believe in me.
'cause there's only one path toget into where, where I need,
I want to go in this lifetime.
And that is to bring all the piecesof me back together and embracing
(01:35):
everything I've learned and thenfinding a way to articulate it and
share it with the world and withany, any hope it will help people.
And as I'm running, I'mthinking, and literally I'm
almost in tears thinking this.
'cause I heard this quote and it said, noone, like, no one's coming to save you.
(01:59):
And as soon as you understandthat, then your life can start.
And I'm like, I'm, I'm gonnaargue with that right now.
There is one person and one persononly who can come and save you.
And that's yourself,
(02:24):
but it's gonna take work.
You know, I think about, I think I,I released an episode recently and
it was like, you gotta fight for you.
And the idea is like, you don't fightagainst the things you don't want
because Mother Teresa said it best.
(02:45):
What somebody asked her, wouldyou, would you come and march
in our March against the war?
And she was like, no, dear.
I'll never march in your Marchagainst the war, but if you hold
a March for peace, I will lead it.
And this is literally something youneed to get into your head and get into
your life, is the fact that if you fightagainst the things that are going on,
(03:09):
the things your, your negative selfbeliefs, your negative things in your
life, if you fight against things, you arejust giving those things power, energy.
You're giving your attention.
And you might say, oh, well then how do I.Unwind something you gotta start by, not
(03:32):
by fighting against what you don't want.
I mean, there's a simplequestion you can ask yourself.
If I could magically pull thisoutta my life, what or who would
I be if I no longer had thatthing that's holding me back?
What or who would I be?
(03:55):
And then if you can get the idea ofthat, see, that's what you fight for.
That's what you work towards.
That's what you move.
Because like literally,nobody's gonna do this for you.
And nobody can.
And that's the thing.
That's why nobody's coming tosave you is because there's no
way they can know what you need.
(04:17):
Only you can know what you need.
And I'm gonna go back a little bitbecause like when I was young, I
created such this negative, um, selfimage, self, like almost loathing.
It's like, and for me, this is all aboutthe inner critic, the inner dialogue.
(04:38):
You know, that little conversation that'sgoing on your head that tells you you're,
you're not good enough or you can't do it.
That, that thing in the background.
And through many, many years of indulgingit and literally almost encouraging
it, even though I didn't realize, thefact is that inner critic is not you.
(05:02):
It's not who you are.
It's an aspect of the greater picture ofyourself, and it's incredibly designed
to protect you from getting hurt.
But the way it does itis by keeping you small
(05:24):
and do you really wanna have a smalllife, be confined in a box, never able to
up break through, never be able to bringnew things, because the truth is as soon
as you break out of that safe box that.
(05:45):
That perception of self, there isa chance and almost a guarantee
that at times you're gonna fail.
But if you stay in a box your wholelife, what kind of life is that?
(06:05):
What about the dreams?
'cause even though we have an innercritic, there are some things in
the background, some thoughts.
I know you have them.
I have them.
I mean, literally even when Iwas completely self-loathing and
completely like brutal to myself,beating myself down in my head.
And it, the fact is that innerdialogue got so loud sometimes it
(06:27):
broke out of my, like into audible.
That's how strong it was.
And I literally encouraged it.
To what end?
I don't know.
And I think the reason I encouraged it,'cause I believed that that was me because
it was, it was a voice from the inside.
(06:50):
So it's rational tothink that is who you are
and.
Yeah, maybe it is an aspectof us, but it's a critic.
It's trying to hold you back
(07:10):
and for a long time I didn'tknow what to do with it and.
Like I said, I just indulged itinto the point where I indulged
it so loud that it came out intothe, out into the real world.
It wasn't just a, you know, you seepeople talking to themselves, you know, I
almost thought I was crazy at one point,'cause I was talking to myself so much,
but I think most of us do on the inside.
(07:33):
But my talking to myself came intothe outside and it wasn't until
I learned that that inner critic,that inner voice is actually not.
Who I am and it is designedfor a great purpose.
Like there's nothing wrong with somethingtrying to protect you from being hurt.
(07:53):
The only problem is it protectsyou by keeping you small.
It protects you by never changing,like trying to live in this box.
And I don't know, to me that just like.
I feel tight in the chest when I thinkabout like being confined and never
having an opportunity to break out, andmy breath gets tight when I think about
(08:15):
this, it's like that's not who I am.
That's not who I want to be.
That's not why I came to this planet.
That's not what I'm about.
See,
I'm not also not full of myself thinking.
Thinking that I can do great things andI'm gonna be the best, and I'm gonna be
(08:35):
talk like I dream about these things.
And my inner critic goes, yeah, sure.
Like, look, you're not gettingany downloads or like, you're not
getting any likes and all this stuff.
And then I, I gotta remind myselfall the time that there was a
point when I thought, I reallywant to do something in this world.
I said, if I can helpone person, it's enough.
(09:00):
And anything past that is gravy.
And I just gotta keep onreminding myself that.
And when you start out,
you're not gonna be perfect.
You're not gonna be the best.
But like, like anything, youget back up and you do it again.
And this is the thing aboutno one's coming to save you.
(09:21):
You need to start encouraging.
So I've been talking aboutthe, the inner critic.
And it's interesting, one of theathletes I work with, sometimes we
talk about the inner critic or the,like I say, the inner dialogue or,
or the sense of identity or the ego.
(09:41):
I fi figure like just many,many names, the same thing.
And, and how it's, it's designedto keep you safe by not stepping
out of who it knows you to be.
But like if you want to do anything,if you wanna break free, if you
(10:03):
want to be extraordinary in thislife, you can't stay in a box.
So she was saying, she was talking tomentor performance people, and they
were talk, they were talking aboutthe inner advocate, and I'm like, woo.
Tell me more about the inner advocate.
And as she's telling me, it's like youdo have this critical voice inside,
(10:26):
but there's also the possibility ofthis advocate, this person who, who's
like, who will probably argue withthe inner critic or tell the other
critic, no, thank you for sharing, butI'm gonna do what I gotta do anyway.
And I realized that thiswas something I learned.
I, I did a course and they saidlike, you know, when that inner.
(10:50):
Dialogue comes out, just tell herthank, thank you for sharing, and
then go do what you have to do anyway.
Because it literally, it has no power.
It only has a voice.
And yeah.
Um, understandably, it soundslike it might be connected to the
sympathetic nervous system system.
So not only does it like, itdoesn't have any absolute power,
(11:14):
but it can take you down into thesympathetic nervous system your.
You're, this is why when you getafraid or anxious, your pulse goes up.
Bu bubu, bubu, bubu, bubu, yourbreathing rate increases the con, the
contraction of your heart gets stronger.
So you can feel it, youcan feel the pulsating.
(11:35):
Yeah, my chest is like, it'stightening up, just talking about it.
It's kind of cool.
Um, your cognition goes down.
Adrenaline normal adrenaline aredrops, so you sweat and you shake.
So, although it has no absolutepower over you, it can change your
physiology when you challenge itenough or when it's afraid enough or
(11:59):
when you're going to make a big move.
And this is, this is more soyou understand what's going on.
But what I learned back whenI took this course is this.
You gotta tell it.
Thank you for sharing.
Go do it anyway.
And you're not gonna beperfect at this, okay?
(12:21):
Because if you've indulged thatinner dialogue for a very long time,
it's gonna be like habitualwhen it starts talking a lot.
There'll be a time when you startlistening to it, and there'll be a
time when you unconsciously startagreeing with it and maybe changing
what you're doing because of it.
(12:43):
Like, oh yeah, you're right.
I can't do this.
Or you're getting soscared you want to quit.
And this is where,
this is the time to startdeveloping the inner advocate.
And this is the time when the inneradvocate goes, thank you for sharing,
(13:07):
but I'm gonna do this anyway.
This is when you intentionally.
Engage that conversation, thatpositive inner conversation.
And you say, you got this.
You know, I've learned lately whenI'm running, I used to like this.
I'm so tired.
I'm so tired.
This is so hard.
This is so hard.
And I'm like, now, every once in a whileI'll go, you got this a little faster.
(13:27):
Let's go.
You got, you're doing great.
That's the ever inner advocate.
Anything really positive that'staking you forward in a positive,
that's your inner advocate.
And honestly, okay, you'regonna fail and you're gonna.
You, you're gonna fall asleep and you'regonna forget who you are and you're
(13:49):
going to indulge that inner dialogue.
But as soon as you wake back upand realize you, you're doing
that correct It like, no, no, no.
That's not who I am.
This is who I'm, and it doesn't matter.
You could be stuck in that inner dialoguefor a week, a month, whatever, as soon
as you're aware and conscious of it.
Correct it.
(14:11):
Just say, no, no, no, no, no.
That's not who I'm, I amthis, I am going for this.
And like when you're standing on the lineof that race and you're, you're scared
and you're nervous and you're anxious,that engage, that inner, inner advocate.
And if you, you have trouble rememberingit, write it on your hand and remember
(14:32):
to look, you got this like, just simple.
You got this.
Put that on your hand.
You know, one of the runners wastelling me when, when it gets really
hard and their mind's startingto pick on them, they have this
beautiful, simple thing they say, andit's just simply, is this helping?
(14:57):
Can you imagine if you're justlike, oh man, this is so hard.
I don't know if I can do, I can't,I can't do this, I can't do this.
And you're like, is this helping?
I think that could shutdown the inner critic.
So the truth is, what you need todo is you need to start working
(15:18):
and, and remember, you gotta alsogive your space yourself some space.
Like literally, you're not gonnabe a pro at this the first day.
You're not gonna be a pro atsaving yourself right here and now.
It's just like when you startrunning, it's really hard to run.
You can't like, oh man, the cardio sucksand this feels terrible the whole time.
(15:40):
And your body hurts andyour body hurts after.
But as you start practicing getting backout there again and again and again and
again, and one day you don't suck so much.
You know?
So you're, you're mo movingalong and you're falling
into the negative self-talk.
I. And then suddenly you realize,oh wow, no, that's not who I am.
(16:03):
I'm this, I'm going for this.
And then a little whilelater you fall into it.
No, no.
I Every time you correct.
Every time you intentionally correct.
Every time you intentionally engage
the inner advocate,
it's you're, you're working on amuscle, you're strengthening it.
(16:27):
You're becoming that person.
Who can save you,
and it's literally you'rejust saving yourself from
yourself, which is interesting.
Or from a piece of you, which is designedto protect you by keeping you small.
But honestly, I don't know.
I don't know many people whoreally want to stay small.
(16:50):
You know?
I know people have given up.
I know people who had dreams.
You know, imagine for a momentimagine how it would feel to
give up on all your dreams
and just exist.
'cause literally that's whereI was at one point in my life.
(17:11):
I was basically, I was, I don't know.
I felt like, you know,I had nothing to offer.
I had nothing to give.
I would never be anything.
And literally, at best in thisworld, I was displacing a certain
amount of air until I die.
And yet, somewhere insideme, there was this dream,
(17:34):
this dream that one day I could dosomething that would make a difference in
the world, that I could help people that
and I, I had nothing to provethat that was a truer possibility.
Besides the fact that I wanted it,
(17:55):
and I do believe that
over, over, over my lifetime, I startedlooking at the things I've been through.
There's a saying, change theway you look at things and
the things you look at change.
And I, I learned to reframe things.
I learned to understand that like.
(18:16):
The tough things I went through justcreated such compassion in me and
the only reason I really cared aboutpeople when they were somebody was
in my presence having a hard time.
I was like a hundred percent thereand I just wanted help and I didn't,
I might not know how to help,
but I wanted to help and Iunderstood because when, when I
(18:40):
was in pain, I knew no one could.
Take away my pain.
Nobody could save me from my pain.
But the one thing people cando, really great people, really
compassionate, empathetic people,
is they can make sure you don'tfeel alone when you're in pain.
(19:04):
And I think if you are fortunate to havesomebody in your life who's like that.
At the very least, uh, like somebodywho like accepts you where you are at,
understands that like one of my friendswould say, I remember she was having
(19:25):
this tough time and I was like, oh God,I wish I could just take this pain away.
I don't like see you hurting.
And she looked at me through tears in hereyes and she says, don't take my pain.
I need my pain.
It makes me grow.
And I was like, wow.
Because I think she was 19 atthe time, and I was like, how
can a human being understandthat at that level, at that age?
(19:50):
And then I realized you gottago through a lot of hell to
get to that level of wisdom.
I don't know if you've heard me saythis before, but I truly 100% believe.
That all my light, all the good about me,all the care, all the strength, all the
(20:14):
resilience, all the compassion, all theempathy was given to me by my darkness.
Yet it wasn't automatic.
It didn't just happen.
I had to stop and I had tolike, I had to save myself.
I had to take a look at all these things.
I. Went through and stopped sayingthat it's because I'm a bad person or
(20:37):
I'm wrong or I'm a loser or I suck.
And I had to say, no, no, it,it has nothing to do with that.
It was just teaching me.
'cause we're here on this planet.
It's a place to learn.
And one of the biggest learnlearning things that you need
to find a way to, to see.
(21:00):
Is that all this stuff you gothrough is actually developing you.
It's developing strength, allthe things that don't work out.
It's like helping you find a wayto be patient, to be strong, to be
resilient, all the pain you go through.
And I went through some pain likeyou would not believe, and there
was a number of times that I didn'tknow that I wanted to be here.
(21:23):
And there was a few times thatI tried to make that happen.
And I honestly wouldn't changeanything because I know what it
feels like to hurt at that level.
And the truth is I had to save myself.
Even in those moment, I had to pickmyself back up and get moving again,
(21:48):
because sometimes that's all you can do.
Honestly, if it's so tough and you don'tthink you can make it through the next
day, save yourself and make it throughthe next hour, and then make it through
the next hour and the next hour and thenext hour until you can make it through
a day and then make it through the nextday and a week and a month and a year.
(22:13):
Just doing that will save yourself.
But I learned that like all this painthat I felt to this deep level gave me
this incredible understanding of whatit feels like to hurt, like hurt so bad.
I, and yet that was actually a gift
(22:38):
in a sense.
It.
I mean, it didn't feel like it at thetime, and I had to work my way through
it and I had to feel my way through it.
But I recognize pain.
I'm familiar, like helloDarkness, my old friend I,
and yet when I see somebody elsein this moment, what awakens at me
(23:03):
is that I know what that feels likeand I. Don't want anyone else to
ever have to go through that alone.
I also know that all that pain, whatit did for me, what it taught me,
what it brought me to, like the lifeI have right now is it was impossible.
(23:24):
Like there was no waythis could ever happen.
Nothing like, I don't know how I got here.
Like, yeah, it's like I don't believeI'm just taking up error anymore.
I think I'm actually making like atangible difference in the world.
(23:44):
And like I said, I'll keep on steppingup the bat over and over again because
the, nobody's gonna come and save me.
Nobody's gonna make mymessage get out there.
The only one who can do that is me.
And the only one I. The only waythat can happen is keep on getting
up and ch like doing it again.
(24:05):
See, no matter what you're doing, nomatter what you're going through in this
life, no matter how bad it seems to begoing, no matter, no matter what, the only
path to success, the only path to beingextraordinary is get up one more time.
It's like.
When you're lying on the groundand you want to give up, that's
(24:28):
when only you can save you.
You pick yourself back up andyou get back out there and maybe,
maybe it's for that future selfwho you can be, who you could be.
Keep on developing the strength.
(24:49):
Keep on getting up one more time.
Developing the resilience.
Reframing all the things, like yourbrain's gonna tell you something is
one way, and if that doesn't work foryou, you look at it a different way.
And if that doesn't look at a differentway and keep on looking at it a
different way until it makes sense andit propels you forward, and this is
hard work and it's not easy and youhave to do it over and over again,
(25:13):
and you have to discipline yourself.
But I promise you, if you take on thiswork, if you realize that you can and
will save yourself, as long as youjust keep moving forward, you keep
doing, you keep picking yourself up.
You keep on giving yourself a pep talk.
(25:34):
You keep on saying you got this.
You write it on your hands,you write it on the walls.
You surround yourself withpositive quotes that inspire
you every single day you feed.
You feed that one and you don'tfeed the other one anymore.
You starve it.
You starve it
(25:55):
because like my inner critic, everyonce in a while I get, I, I, I
get dragged into it a little tinybit, but for the most part it's
like wah wah WW in the background.
And I just keep on gettingback up and doing it again.
'cause I know honestly, the only path,the only way you're gonna make it through
(26:20):
this, the only way to get to the topof that mountain is just keep going
and keep being your own advocate andstrengthening the inner advocate.
I pray for one day that likemy in inner advocate just
(26:42):
starts jumping in every time.
And I don't know if that's possible,but hey, I'm gonna work on that.
But for now, what I'll do is whenI recognize that I am trying to
pull myself back or limit myself orkeep myself small, I will bring out
the inner advocate and I will say,that's not what I'm committed to.
(27:03):
Thank for sharing, but I'm gonna do this.
I so hope you can find thispath to have a great day.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
(27:24):
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
Please share this podcast withanyone you feel would be inspired
and benefit from this content.
Conversations with Kimen is aboutinspiration, life lessons, and wisdom.
Your host, Kimen Petersen shareshis stories to inspire you to live
a more soulful and illuminated life.
The topics covered in this podcastare as personal opinions inspired by
life, experience, and conversationsshared with amazing people.
Kimen hopes to encourage you tobe guided by life in the flow.
(00:23):
So the whole journey is moremanageable and joyful and fulfilling.
I was out on a 18 K run this morning, kindof a run workout with some really hard
work, and I was at about 17 kilometersand for some reason, well, I guess
(00:45):
partially my favorite song came on.
Um, I'm not giving up.
And every time I hear this song,it like inspires me to do another
episode, um, which is beautiful.
I love it.
I love this song.
This is gonna be my theme song fora very long time, and I hope it will
keep on helping me reframe how, howimportant I am to me, like how important
(01:11):
it is for me to like to fight for me.
To believe in me.
'cause there's only one path toget into where, where I need,
I want to go in this lifetime.
And that is to bring all the piecesof me back together and embracing
(01:35):
everything I've learned and thenfinding a way to articulate it and
share it with the world and withany, any hope it will help people.
And as I'm running, I'mthinking, and literally I'm
almost in tears thinking this.
'cause I heard this quote and it said, noone, like, no one's coming to save you.
(01:59):
And as soon as you understandthat, then your life can start.
And I'm like, I'm, I'm gonnaargue with that right now.
There is one person and one persononly who can come and save you.
And that's yourself,
(02:24):
but it's gonna take work.
You know, I think about, I think I,I released an episode recently and
it was like, you gotta fight for you.
And the idea is like, you don't fightagainst the things you don't want
because Mother Teresa said it best.
(02:45):
What somebody asked her, wouldyou, would you come and march
in our March against the war?
And she was like, no, dear.
I'll never march in your Marchagainst the war, but if you hold
a March for peace, I will lead it.
And this is literally something youneed to get into your head and get into
your life, is the fact that if you fightagainst the things that are going on,
(03:09):
the things your, your negative selfbeliefs, your negative things in your
life, if you fight against things, you arejust giving those things power, energy.
You're giving your attention.
And you might say, oh, well then how do I.Unwind something you gotta start by, not
(03:32):
by fighting against what you don't want.
I mean, there's a simplequestion you can ask yourself.
If I could magically pull thisoutta my life, what or who would
I be if I no longer had thatthing that's holding me back?
What or who would I be?
(03:55):
And then if you can get the idea ofthat, see, that's what you fight for.
That's what you work towards.
That's what you move.
Because like literally,nobody's gonna do this for you.
And nobody can.
And that's the thing.
That's why nobody's coming tosave you is because there's no
way they can know what you need.
(04:17):
Only you can know what you need.
And I'm gonna go back a little bitbecause like when I was young, I
created such this negative, um, selfimage, self, like almost loathing.
It's like, and for me, this is all aboutthe inner critic, the inner dialogue.
(04:38):
You know, that little conversation that'sgoing on your head that tells you you're,
you're not good enough or you can't do it.
That, that thing in the background.
And through many, many years of indulgingit and literally almost encouraging
it, even though I didn't realize, thefact is that inner critic is not you.
(05:02):
It's not who you are.
It's an aspect of the greater picture ofyourself, and it's incredibly designed
to protect you from getting hurt.
But the way it does itis by keeping you small
(05:24):
and do you really wanna have a smalllife, be confined in a box, never able to
up break through, never be able to bringnew things, because the truth is as soon
as you break out of that safe box that.
(05:45):
That perception of self, there isa chance and almost a guarantee
that at times you're gonna fail.
But if you stay in a box your wholelife, what kind of life is that?
(06:05):
What about the dreams?
'cause even though we have an innercritic, there are some things in
the background, some thoughts.
I know you have them.
I have them.
I mean, literally even when Iwas completely self-loathing and
completely like brutal to myself,beating myself down in my head.
And it, the fact is that innerdialogue got so loud sometimes it
(06:27):
broke out of my, like into audible.
That's how strong it was.
And I literally encouraged it.
To what end?
I don't know.
And I think the reason I encouraged it,'cause I believed that that was me because
it was, it was a voice from the inside.
(06:50):
So it's rational tothink that is who you are
and.
Yeah, maybe it is an aspectof us, but it's a critic.
It's trying to hold you back
(07:10):
and for a long time I didn'tknow what to do with it and.
Like I said, I just indulged itinto the point where I indulged
it so loud that it came out intothe, out into the real world.
It wasn't just a, you know, you seepeople talking to themselves, you know, I
almost thought I was crazy at one point,'cause I was talking to myself so much,
but I think most of us do on the inside.
(07:33):
But my talking to myself came intothe outside and it wasn't until
I learned that that inner critic,that inner voice is actually not.
Who I am and it is designedfor a great purpose.
Like there's nothing wrong with somethingtrying to protect you from being hurt.
(07:53):
The only problem is it protectsyou by keeping you small.
It protects you by never changing,like trying to live in this box.
And I don't know, to me that just like.
I feel tight in the chest when I thinkabout like being confined and never
having an opportunity to break out, andmy breath gets tight when I think about
(08:15):
this, it's like that's not who I am.
That's not who I want to be.
That's not why I came to this planet.
That's not what I'm about.
See,
I'm not also not full of myself thinking.
Thinking that I can do great things andI'm gonna be the best, and I'm gonna be
(08:35):
talk like I dream about these things.
And my inner critic goes, yeah, sure.
Like, look, you're not gettingany downloads or like, you're not
getting any likes and all this stuff.
And then I, I gotta remind myselfall the time that there was a
point when I thought, I reallywant to do something in this world.
I said, if I can helpone person, it's enough.
(09:00):
And anything past that is gravy.
And I just gotta keep onreminding myself that.
And when you start out,
you're not gonna be perfect.
You're not gonna be the best.
But like, like anything, youget back up and you do it again.
And this is the thing aboutno one's coming to save you.
(09:21):
You need to start encouraging.
So I've been talking aboutthe, the inner critic.
And it's interesting, one of theathletes I work with, sometimes we
talk about the inner critic or the,like I say, the inner dialogue or,
or the sense of identity or the ego.
(09:41):
I fi figure like just many,many names, the same thing.
And, and how it's, it's designedto keep you safe by not stepping
out of who it knows you to be.
But like if you want to do anything,if you wanna break free, if you
(10:03):
want to be extraordinary in thislife, you can't stay in a box.
So she was saying, she was talking tomentor performance people, and they
were talk, they were talking aboutthe inner advocate, and I'm like, woo.
Tell me more about the inner advocate.
And as she's telling me, it's like youdo have this critical voice inside,
(10:26):
but there's also the possibility ofthis advocate, this person who, who's
like, who will probably argue withthe inner critic or tell the other
critic, no, thank you for sharing, butI'm gonna do what I gotta do anyway.
And I realized that thiswas something I learned.
I, I did a course and they saidlike, you know, when that inner.
(10:50):
Dialogue comes out, just tell herthank, thank you for sharing, and
then go do what you have to do anyway.
Because it literally, it has no power.
It only has a voice.
And yeah.
Um, understandably, it soundslike it might be connected to the
sympathetic nervous system system.
So not only does it like, itdoesn't have any absolute power,
(11:14):
but it can take you down into thesympathetic nervous system your.
You're, this is why when you getafraid or anxious, your pulse goes up.
Bu bubu, bubu, bubu, bubu, yourbreathing rate increases the con, the
contraction of your heart gets stronger.
So you can feel it, youcan feel the pulsating.
(11:35):
Yeah, my chest is like, it'stightening up, just talking about it.
It's kind of cool.
Um, your cognition goes down.
Adrenaline normal adrenaline aredrops, so you sweat and you shake.
So, although it has no absolutepower over you, it can change your
physiology when you challenge itenough or when it's afraid enough or
(11:59):
when you're going to make a big move.
And this is, this is more soyou understand what's going on.
But what I learned back whenI took this course is this.
You gotta tell it.
Thank you for sharing.
Go do it anyway.
And you're not gonna beperfect at this, okay?
(12:21):
Because if you've indulged thatinner dialogue for a very long time,
it's gonna be like habitualwhen it starts talking a lot.
There'll be a time when you startlistening to it, and there'll be a
time when you unconsciously startagreeing with it and maybe changing
what you're doing because of it.
(12:43):
Like, oh yeah, you're right.
I can't do this.
Or you're getting soscared you want to quit.
And this is where,
this is the time to startdeveloping the inner advocate.
And this is the time when the inneradvocate goes, thank you for sharing,
(13:07):
but I'm gonna do this anyway.
This is when you intentionally.
Engage that conversation, thatpositive inner conversation.
And you say, you got this.
You know, I've learned lately whenI'm running, I used to like this.
I'm so tired.
I'm so tired.
This is so hard.
This is so hard.
And I'm like, now, every once in a whileI'll go, you got this a little faster.
(13:27):
Let's go.
You got, you're doing great.
That's the ever inner advocate.
Anything really positive that'staking you forward in a positive,
that's your inner advocate.
And honestly, okay, you'regonna fail and you're gonna.
You, you're gonna fall asleep and you'regonna forget who you are and you're
(13:49):
going to indulge that inner dialogue.
But as soon as you wake back upand realize you, you're doing
that correct It like, no, no, no.
That's not who I am.
This is who I'm, and it doesn't matter.
You could be stuck in that inner dialoguefor a week, a month, whatever, as soon
as you're aware and conscious of it.
Correct it.
(14:11):
Just say, no, no, no, no, no.
That's not who I'm, I amthis, I am going for this.
And like when you're standing on the lineof that race and you're, you're scared
and you're nervous and you're anxious,that engage, that inner, inner advocate.
And if you, you have trouble rememberingit, write it on your hand and remember
(14:32):
to look, you got this like, just simple.
You got this.
Put that on your hand.
You know, one of the runners wastelling me when, when it gets really
hard and their mind's startingto pick on them, they have this
beautiful, simple thing they say, andit's just simply, is this helping?
(14:57):
Can you imagine if you're justlike, oh man, this is so hard.
I don't know if I can do, I can't,I can't do this, I can't do this.
And you're like, is this helping?
I think that could shutdown the inner critic.
So the truth is, what you need todo is you need to start working
(15:18):
and, and remember, you gotta alsogive your space yourself some space.
Like literally, you're not gonnabe a pro at this the first day.
You're not gonna be a pro atsaving yourself right here and now.
It's just like when you startrunning, it's really hard to run.
You can't like, oh man, the cardio sucksand this feels terrible the whole time.
(15:40):
And your body hurts andyour body hurts after.
But as you start practicing getting backout there again and again and again and
again, and one day you don't suck so much.
You know?
So you're, you're mo movingalong and you're falling
into the negative self-talk.
I. And then suddenly you realize,oh wow, no, that's not who I am.
(16:03):
I'm this, I'm going for this.
And then a little whilelater you fall into it.
No, no.
I Every time you correct.
Every time you intentionally correct.
Every time you intentionally engage
the inner advocate,
it's you're, you're working on amuscle, you're strengthening it.
(16:27):
You're becoming that person.
Who can save you,
and it's literally you'rejust saving yourself from
yourself, which is interesting.
Or from a piece of you, which is designedto protect you by keeping you small.
But honestly, I don't know.
I don't know many people whoreally want to stay small.
(16:50):
You know?
I know people have given up.
I know people who had dreams.
You know, imagine for a momentimagine how it would feel to
give up on all your dreams
and just exist.
'cause literally that's whereI was at one point in my life.
(17:11):
I was basically, I was, I don't know.
I felt like, you know,I had nothing to offer.
I had nothing to give.
I would never be anything.
And literally, at best in thisworld, I was displacing a certain
amount of air until I die.
And yet, somewhere insideme, there was this dream,
(17:34):
this dream that one day I could dosomething that would make a difference in
the world, that I could help people that
and I, I had nothing to provethat that was a truer possibility.
Besides the fact that I wanted it,
(17:55):
and I do believe that
over, over, over my lifetime, I startedlooking at the things I've been through.
There's a saying, change theway you look at things and
the things you look at change.
And I, I learned to reframe things.
I learned to understand that like.
(18:16):
The tough things I went through justcreated such compassion in me and
the only reason I really cared aboutpeople when they were somebody was
in my presence having a hard time.
I was like a hundred percent thereand I just wanted help and I didn't,
I might not know how to help,
but I wanted to help and Iunderstood because when, when I
(18:40):
was in pain, I knew no one could.
Take away my pain.
Nobody could save me from my pain.
But the one thing people cando, really great people, really
compassionate, empathetic people,
is they can make sure you don'tfeel alone when you're in pain.
(19:04):
And I think if you are fortunate to havesomebody in your life who's like that.
At the very least, uh, like somebodywho like accepts you where you are at,
understands that like one of my friendswould say, I remember she was having
(19:25):
this tough time and I was like, oh God,I wish I could just take this pain away.
I don't like see you hurting.
And she looked at me through tears in hereyes and she says, don't take my pain.
I need my pain.
It makes me grow.
And I was like, wow.
Because I think she was 19 atthe time, and I was like, how
can a human being understandthat at that level, at that age?
(19:50):
And then I realized you gottago through a lot of hell to
get to that level of wisdom.
I don't know if you've heard me saythis before, but I truly 100% believe.
That all my light, all the good about me,all the care, all the strength, all the
(20:14):
resilience, all the compassion, all theempathy was given to me by my darkness.
Yet it wasn't automatic.
It didn't just happen.
I had to stop and I had tolike, I had to save myself.
I had to take a look at all these things.
I. Went through and stopped sayingthat it's because I'm a bad person or
(20:37):
I'm wrong or I'm a loser or I suck.
And I had to say, no, no, it,it has nothing to do with that.
It was just teaching me.
'cause we're here on this planet.
It's a place to learn.
And one of the biggest learnlearning things that you need
to find a way to, to see.
(21:00):
Is that all this stuff you gothrough is actually developing you.
It's developing strength, allthe things that don't work out.
It's like helping you find a wayto be patient, to be strong, to be
resilient, all the pain you go through.
And I went through some pain likeyou would not believe, and there
was a number of times that I didn'tknow that I wanted to be here.
(21:23):
And there was a few times thatI tried to make that happen.
And I honestly wouldn't changeanything because I know what it
feels like to hurt at that level.
And the truth is I had to save myself.
Even in those moment, I had to pickmyself back up and get moving again,
(21:48):
because sometimes that's all you can do.
Honestly, if it's so tough and you don'tthink you can make it through the next
day, save yourself and make it throughthe next hour, and then make it through
the next hour and the next hour and thenext hour until you can make it through
a day and then make it through the nextday and a week and a month and a year.
(22:13):
Just doing that will save yourself.
But I learned that like all this painthat I felt to this deep level gave me
this incredible understanding of whatit feels like to hurt, like hurt so bad.
I, and yet that was actually a gift
(22:38):
in a sense.
It.
I mean, it didn't feel like it at thetime, and I had to work my way through
it and I had to feel my way through it.
But I recognize pain.
I'm familiar, like helloDarkness, my old friend I,
and yet when I see somebody elsein this moment, what awakens at me
(23:03):
is that I know what that feels likeand I. Don't want anyone else to
ever have to go through that alone.
I also know that all that pain, whatit did for me, what it taught me,
what it brought me to, like the lifeI have right now is it was impossible.
(23:24):
Like there was no waythis could ever happen.
Nothing like, I don't know how I got here.
Like, yeah, it's like I don't believeI'm just taking up error anymore.
I think I'm actually making like atangible difference in the world.
(23:44):
And like I said, I'll keep on steppingup the bat over and over again because
the, nobody's gonna come and save me.
Nobody's gonna make mymessage get out there.
The only one who can do that is me.
And the only one I. The only waythat can happen is keep on getting
up and ch like doing it again.
(24:05):
See, no matter what you're doing, nomatter what you're going through in this
life, no matter how bad it seems to begoing, no matter, no matter what, the only
path to success, the only path to beingextraordinary is get up one more time.
It's like.
When you're lying on the groundand you want to give up, that's
(24:28):
when only you can save you.
You pick yourself back up andyou get back out there and maybe,
maybe it's for that future selfwho you can be, who you could be.
Keep on developing the strength.
(24:49):
Keep on getting up one more time.
Developing the resilience.
Reframing all the things, like yourbrain's gonna tell you something is
one way, and if that doesn't work foryou, you look at it a different way.
And if that doesn't look at a differentway and keep on looking at it a
different way until it makes sense andit propels you forward, and this is
hard work and it's not easy and youhave to do it over and over again,
(25:13):
and you have to discipline yourself.
But I promise you, if you take on thiswork, if you realize that you can and
will save yourself, as long as youjust keep moving forward, you keep
doing, you keep picking yourself up.
You keep on giving yourself a pep talk.
(25:34):
You keep on saying you got this.
You write it on your hands,you write it on the walls.
You surround yourself withpositive quotes that inspire
you every single day you feed.
You feed that one and you don'tfeed the other one anymore.
You starve it.
You starve it
(25:55):
because like my inner critic, everyonce in a while I get, I, I, I
get dragged into it a little tinybit, but for the most part it's
like wah wah WW in the background.
And I just keep on gettingback up and doing it again.
'cause I know honestly, the only path,the only way you're gonna make it through
(26:20):
this, the only way to get to the topof that mountain is just keep going
and keep being your own advocate andstrengthening the inner advocate.
I pray for one day that likemy in inner advocate just
(26:42):
starts jumping in every time.
And I don't know if that's possible,but hey, I'm gonna work on that.
But for now, what I'll do is whenI recognize that I am trying to
pull myself back or limit myself orkeep myself small, I will bring out
the inner advocate and I will say,that's not what I'm committed to.
(27:03):
Thank for sharing, but I'm gonna do this.
I so hope you can find thispath to have a great day.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Conversations with Kimen.
Please remember to follow andlike this podcast on Instagram,
(27:24):
Spotify, apple Podcast, Pod Beanor wherever you find this episode.
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and benefit from this content.
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