From Survival to a Life You Love (How To) For Alienated Parents

Not wanting, doing the opposite of protecting, it's punishing. It's keeping you disconnected from the life that you were brought here on this earth born to lead. You are listening to the Beyond the High Road podcast with Shelby Milford, episode number 197. Stay tuned. >> Welcome to Beyond the High Road, a podcast dedicated [music] to healing your heart and life following the grief of alienation. I'm your host, [music] Shelby Milford, a twice certified life coach specializing in post-traumatic [music] growth. If you're experiencing the effects of alienation and you're ready to heal, then this show [music] is my love letter to you. Stay tuned. >> Hey y'all. How we doing today? A couple

of weeks ago we started naming your old limiting beliefs, the ones running in the background in your of your mind like old code, right? The I don't matter belief, the people always leave belief, money is hard maybe, my child's silence means that I failed, this alienation means that I'm erased forever, or that I'm behind, I missed my shot, it's too late for me, sort of beliefs. If you did the exercise from that week, you probably saw that some of those beliefs are not new. They didn't show up yesterday. They didn't show up with the last court order probably or the last unanswered text or the last bank statement. These beliefs have roots. They came from somewhere. They were

likely learned, modeled, repeated, and practiced. And today, I want to give you a new way to think about those beliefs. I want you to think of them as cave thoughts. Not because they're bad, not because you're bad for having them, not because they mean that you're weak or that you're broken or spiritually behind. They're cave thoughts because they were born in survival, right? They were formed in the dark. They helped you make sense of your pain, they helped you stay alert, and they even helped you brace, prepare, protect, scan, explay. Manage, survive, and listen. I understand. I have so much compassion for that, but I also love you too much to help you decorate and hang twinkly

lights in your cave of despair. The cave of despair. We are not moving furniture into the cave. We're not making it cozy, or building a little breakfast nook, and calling it healing. Instead, we are noticing, "Oh, this is just a cave thought." And then, we're going to be building the bridge out. Because a limiting belief or thought by itself, it's harmless, right? It's words. It's a sentence. It's a little string of language that your subconscious mind has practiced over and over and over again, because that's what the subconscious loves. It loves repetition, y'all. It loves what's familiar. I'm sure you guys have heard me talk about this. It loves the pattern that it already knows. So,

the problem is not that the cave thought appears. Many many maybe lots of them appear, right? It doesn't That's not the problem. The problem is when we keep believing it, when we keep feeding it, obeying it, rehearsing it, and building our future around it. That's where it becomes restrictive. So, today, when one of those thoughts shows up, and it will, I don't want you to panic. I don't want you to shame yourself, or make it mean that you're failing. I want you to call it out for what it is. You can even name that part of you if you want. I did that before. I had a Helga for a long time, and then I had a Magda, I think too. Yeah, I did. I had a Magda, too. And I had a Eugene.

For the Helgas and Magdas out there, I'm not targeting you. It's just what came to me at the time. I think it started because The Magda started because of that movie Something About Mary. But anyway, and then I just moved on from there, and then the next name sounded kind of like that. Anyway, the those parts of me that I decided to name, those were the shamey, the judgmental, and the unworthy parts that showed up right on cue always. I used to think that they were my flaws. I thought that they were telling the truth. I truly believed whatever came to my mind. Now, I can see them with for what they are, you know, what they were. Old programming, survival, repetition, not

my identity. And that is where the freedom starts, y'all. So, I want to give you a quick recap of where we were 2 weeks ago. Okay? So, we started the series 2 weeks ago, and then I had an interim one, and then today. So, we covered steps one through four 2 weeks ago. I'm going to Step one was radical acceptance of your path, right? Not what happened was okay, not excusing it, not The alienation is fine, too. No. Radical acceptance just means This is my path. It's mine. Including all the beautiful moments, all the beautiful seasons, right? And also all of the grueling challenges and the raw materials I was given. And today, I am done wasting my life arguing that I

should have been handed somebody else's or something else for my life. Step two was tracing the core beliefs back to its earlier roots. So, you picked one area. If you followed along with me, you picked one area, money, relationships, alienation, capability, destiny, whatever felt the loudest to you at the time. And then I had you ask, "Where did I first learn this?" Right? "What did I decide about myself in that moment whenever I first learned it?" Right? "What did I decide about other people? About how the world worked for me?" All of that. Step three then was noticing the belief in your daily life without fighting. For that next week to follow, the only

my homework to you, your only job was to catch it in the wild. In your body, in your texts, in your bank account, maybe the evidence of it. Um in your avoidance, in your spiralings, in your reactions, in your relationships, in the way that you brace when you message your child maybe or the other parent or the attorney, in the way that you interpret silence, in the way that you expect rejection even before anything ever even happens. Like new happens. And instead of going to war with yourself, the practice that I offered was that you just say, "Oh, there you are. That's all. Just there's that habit again." Not I shouldn't think this or I should be past this or why am

I believing this? What's wrong with me, right? Just oh, there's that belief in action again. And then step four was poking holes in the belief and finding alternative truths. Not by gaslighting yourself or pretending nothing happened. Instead, by turning the spotlight back to you and your own patterns and then asking, "How have I been relating to myself because I believed this?" So basically, we named the old story. That's what we did that week. This week, we stopped structuring our lives around it. This is really that action week. But in order to do that, we need to visit steps five, six, and seven that I promised back then. In case you didn't watch or listen to

that episode, though, I'm going to give you another quick way to do this. We're all going to do this at the same time. Cuz it's kind of fun, too, and it kind of If you did listen to that episode, then it'll help solidify it now and maybe just give you a different angle of it. But um and if you didn't, then you can do this and you get me. The reason this is so important though before I we get to the exercise is because this is where people usually want to ignore the old beliefs and teleport straight to the great beautiful new belief so that they can have the plan the new plan and then the new life. Like forget everything else. Let's just work on this new shiny

stuff, right? And I get it. I actually respect and love the momentum, the drive for that momentum. But if we do not deconstruct what we're working with right now, you're going to end up trying to slap a shiny new affirmation over this mammoth belief system called your subconscious and it will spit it right back out. So, I'm going to show you another way to do this, right? Like I said, cleanly. And because before we move, y'all, we need to get to neutral. Okay? And then from neutral, we can start having some fun. Okay? That's the sequence. So, I want you to grab a sheet of paper right now. I want you to draw and if you're in your car listening, whatever, you can imagine

it in your mind, although I do think it helps a lot especially if you're a visual visual learner or if you retain things better visually, then it might be helpful for you to draw it out. But either way, grab a sheet of paper. I want you to draw two stick figures on the far edge of each side of that page. So, you use it like landscape, right? On the left figure, the left stick figure is imagine that as your today. You could even, if you want, draw a little like semicircle and then a another semicircle inside of it like signifying a cave like in a dark center door, you know what I'm saying? Signifying a cave and then you standing right beside it or possibly even in it,

however you want to do it, okay? So, that's your today. And then the right guy, the guy on the right, all the way over there on the page, is future you, okay? Under future you, we're going to start there, I want you to write the life outcome that you desire right now. The one the outcome, like broad outcome, of the life that you really, truly want. We're going to elaborate on this a little later in the episode, but for right now, what's the general picture of the life that you wish that you had? Now, how it should look right now is you've got the two stick figures, maybe the kids. Now, on the right-hand side, under the right-hand figure, you've got your desired general big life outcome.

That's all that should be there. Now, if while you're looking at that, ask yourself the question I want you to pose is "What is keeping this version of me, current version of me, from getting to future version of me?" You're going to come up, your brain is going to come up with all these arguments, guaranteed. Even while you were trying to come up with the future version of you, like the big life outcome, guaranteed your brain was already coming up with tons of objections about why that's not realistic and blah blah blah blah blah. Ignore that. Ignore everything it's saying. If you can think it, you can make it happen. I'm serious. You can. It's just a matter of you dialing down

and not quitting ahead of time, okay? Now, on a separate sheet of paper, brainstorm all of the reasons that your brain comes up with for why you don't have it yet, why you don't have that life. Everything. Write down all of the excuses, all of the roadblocks, all the reasons slowing your momentum, or keeping you from creating that. So, that should take you maybe, uh, you know, some 5 minutes or so, writing down all the roadblocks. There's somebody trying to ruin my life and blah blah blah blah. Write it all down. Then, I want you to scan that little thought download that you did on that separate sheet of paper and find the statement that seems to be driving the rest of the statements. It's

usually the most painful thought or sentence there, usually. You want to take that thought, that one summary of all the other summaries that you're our sentences that you wrote down, and write that one, and if it seems you want to correlate for sure, like this is definitely the the belief that's hindering me from having this life. Like this thought sums up all the other negative thoughts, uh limiting beliefs, whatever. Write that thought, the master big daddy >> [laughter] >> limiting belief, write that under the left guy, under your current version of you. So, now you've got two realities, right? The one that you're living currently and the one that's waiting for you to join the party. Okay?

You with me? All right. Now, look at the desired outcome. It might very well feel completely out of reach, but that's okay. This is where we test it. Say it out loud like we're say verbatim with those words say underneath that future you. Once you say it, how true does it feel to you? Not just intellectually, not just because it sounds good in your journal, not just because it would look cute on a quote graphic or something. I want you to ask on a scale of 1 to 10, how believable is this new thought right now, this desired outcome for me? If your caged thought is I don't matter, or people always leave, I'm pulling back from a couple weeks ago, money is hard was another one we

talked about, my child's silence means that I failed is another one, this alienation proves that I'm erased, I'm erased forever, I'm behind, I'll never catch up, I'm not where I wanted to be. I'll always have to struggle. Thoughts like that. And your alternative truth is everything is perfect. I'm completely free to frolic and play. Maybe it's my bond with my child is unbreakable. Okay, maybe you believe that, maybe you don't. I don't know. Money flows easily might be another one. I can trust life to support me or something similar to that or I'm abundant. Your conscious mind may love the future outcome part. Your higher self might be like, yes, absolutely. Print it on a mug. Print it on a

t-shirt. I need that, right? But if the deeper subconscious part of you doesn't believe it yet, it's going to start pulling receipts. It'll say, nope, not true. Remember this? Remember that? Remember the court order? What about the silence, this deafening silence going on? Remember that bill that we have to pay? What about the betrayal? Remember what happened last time? Remember how much it hurt to hope? We don't want to hope anymore. Hope sucks. None of those are actually, if that's coming up for you, if those objections are coming up for you, none of those are actually signs of failure, y'all. They're just cave thoughts doing what cave thoughts do. They repeat. They echo. They try to

bring you back to what is familiar. The subconscious mind loves repetition. Loves repetition. And it does not care whether the sentence is useful. It cares whether the sentence is familiar. So, if you've spent years thinking, I don't matter, then your subconscious doesn't hear that as a some sort of an opinion. It hears it as the code, the operating system. That's why the cave thought can feel so true. And I want to stress feel so true. So, when it shows up, your first move is not to fight it, okay? Not to shame it, not to panic, not to go, "Oh my gosh, I'm still here. I'm never going to heal. I'm never going to get there." Whatever. No. Your first move is to name it. Oh,

this is just a cave thought. That's all. There's Hilda or there's Magda. Eugene. Or whatever you want to call that part of you. Naming is not about mocking yourself, y'all. It is making light, but it's also creating separation between you and those thoughts. It's about reminding yourself, this is a part of me that learned to survive this way. This is not the truth of me. It is not the leader of me. Any of that. You don't have to be mean to that part. You don't have to throw it off a cliff. You don't have to argue with it for 3 hours. Please do not argue with it. Okay? You just a- also don't have to hand it the keys. Because remember, the cave thought by itself is not dangerous. It's just a

sentence. It becomes limiting when you keep believing it. When you're recursing it and you're letting it decide your next move and form your decisions moving forward. So this is where we look back at that first sheet of paper with the two stick figures. Okay? Now if you're visual, you can draw a simple little bridge in between them if you like. And now we're going to build a thought or a series of them if needed from current you to the you that's waiting ahead. All right? So a bridge thought in simple terms is just the it's the next thought the deeper part of you can actually stand on. That's what it is. It's not the final truth. It's not the whole your whole future, right? It's not

the apex, the mountain top, right? It's just the next believable thought on your way to the goal that you want to get to, right? The one that gets you from I'm trapped in this cave, there's no way out, right? To perhaps there's a way out, sparking some curiosity. And maybe the next step is I see a glimmer of light. I can take a step towards the opening. The bridge thought might not feel amazing the second that you try it on. It might not feel powerful yet. It might not make you want to throw your journal in the air and run through fields of flowers, right? At all. It just needs to be believable enough that your subconscious doesn't immediately reject it. And when your

subconscious stops rejecting it, then your body can start to soften, too, right? That's the sequence. That's why we don't We don't want to skip the bridge thoughts because if you go from I'm erased, forever erased, straight to my relationship with my child is perfect and everything's working out exactly as it was supposed to. And you believe that at a two out of a 10, you're probably would going to create more friction inside of you, you know? And that's why so many people give up on their goals and on their aspirations, all of it. Not because the thought or the idea is bad because it's not. The ideas are great. Desire is great, but because it's too far away.

So, that's why we bridge. We move from this is hopeless to this may not be the whole story. Maybe this thought is familiar, but it's not factual. Or maybe you don't have to make my next move from this belief. That's neutral. Neutral matters because neutral is where your choice starts to come back online. Cuz when you are deep in shame and panic, resentment, or like the proving yourself sort of energy, you're not really choosing from that spot. You're reacting, coming from the old script. You're surviving. You're managing the pain. But neutral gives you a a bit more space, a little bit more room. Not full-blown certainty or capacity, not instant peace, not fake gratitude,

right? It's space. And sometimes space in itself is a miracle. So, here I'm going give you some examples. Oh, a first thought in a bridge sequence, okay? So, it might start by recognizing the unhelpful thought right now, like this is a cave thought, not a command. Okay, another one is this thought was designed for survival, not for the future that I'm building. It worked for me one point, not anymore. I can thank this thought for trying to protect me without letting it lead. Right? These are all separate ones that you can use. Or you can use them together if you want to. This is old programming, not my identity. I can notice this thought without moving back

in, moving all my stuff back into the cave. It's just a thought. This thought feels familiar because I've practiced it, not because it's the truth. That's what so many of us will be like, "It's my intuition. I know, I have a feeling, I see there's a sign." Whatever it is. Most of the time, that's the cave thoughts trying to pull you real you back in because of the unfamiliarity that you might be experiencing. Again, this is why even like small business owners will quit so early on in in the game because of this same thing. They're doing it most of them anyway, many of them are doing it with less trauma, unprocessed trauma, but it it's still the same. It's a human tendency is what

I'm trying to articulate here. So, don't quit ahead of time, as I always say. Another idea is or another thought that you could say is "I don't have to evict this thought today. I just don't have to decorate like remodel around it. I can hear the cave echo and still walk towards the opening. Just because I hear the bats up there doesn't mean that I there's not a way out." Another one is this thought helped me to survive, but it's not qualified to build my future. It's very matter-of-fact, but it's 100% true. Perhaps my child silence is not the full truth of our bonds. I don't fully believe the news story yet, but I can stop treating the old one like law. I can experience grief and still stay

connected to myself and others. I can be in pain and still be available to create my future. I'm open to the idea that my future is not obligated to match my past. This is what bridge work is, right? It's not fake positivity. It's not spiritual bypassing, not fighting the old thought at all. Do not fight the old thought. It's creating enough inner room to choose your next direction or your to go on your path, right? And this matters because we're not using bridge thoughts so you can set up camp in neutral zone forever, okay? Neutral is not the destination. I want to repeat that. Neutral is your launching pad. We're using bridge thoughts to get you out of the cave just enough, long

enough, and far enough out to see that there is an opening, a big bright future. And from there, that's where we move, okay? So, once you've named the cave thought and build the bridge, bridge thought or series of bridge thoughts believable enough to get you to neutral, that's all we need for this exercise. Now, we're going to let ourselves want again. This is where I want you to imagine walking in to what I call the future store. And in this store, there are shelves that are lined This is the fun part, you guys. You This is a great time to if you If your imagination itself is a little dusty, it's time to brush it off and get it out and use it today, okay? Cuz it can be really fun.

So, imagine that in this store, only for you, it's your name Imagine on the outside as before you even walk in, it's your store. It's your future. Everything inside of it relates to possible outcomes for you. Okay? The good, the bad, the ugly, everything. Any possibility that you can come up with in your mind is sitting on a box and a shelf in the the future store. Okay? So, let's start from the entrance. I want you to imagine what this building looks like. See the sparkly, shiny, beautifulness of this store before you even walk in. Presentation is everything. And in the store, as I said, are the shelves that are lined with all of the yummy details of the big

picture future that you've been too afraid to want out loud. Peace, money, lots of it maybe, reconnection, purpose, a body that no longer lives on constant alert maybe, a home that feels safe, a thriving business maybe, love in all the areas, leadership, inspiration, creative expression, a relationship with your child that is not defined by this chapter, a life maybe that no longer orbits alienation, your situation of alienation, the version of you who trust themselves more than trust themselves, right? The version of you who stopped abandoning themselves for fake peace, for people pleasing. A version of you who doesn't need the world to understand the entire world to

understand you in order to know who you are. And your only job in this step, you guys, is to walk through that store, envision all of the shelves, and have some fun while fully honoring your own truth. Okay? Just play with me for a little bit here, you guys, cuz it can be a really fun, inspirational experience. And many of you, I know listening, are going to want to own that's silly. There's no store like that. Just play with me. There I don't know that there is a downside. So, what are you taking off the shelves? Write it all down. All of it. Do not shrink what is up on that shelf to make it sound realistic for you. Please. Do not edit it so that nobody judges you.

Don't pretend that you don't want what you actually want. Because wanting is not the problem. I promise you that. Wanting, your desire, go back to my desires episode that we just did. Wanting is information. Wanting gives you direction. A lot of you stopped wanting because it started to feel dangerous. Because when you want something and it doesn't happen or it gets taken or it gets delayed, the disappointment can feel unbearable. I know. I know this well because I didn't I didn't let myself have dreams, entertain any sort of dreams or desires for myself for so long. So, I was so disconnected to this part of me, the desire part of me. I didn't even know where to start. So, if

that's you, too, I get it. Keep coming back to this exercise nightly, like or few times a week, whenever you think about it. So, I do know that the disappointment can can feel unbearable. Somewhere along the way, you started calling it acceptance, maybe, when it really it was self-protection. Right? It was a coping mechanism to feel like I'm not going to want anything. And listen, like I said, it makes so much sense. But, y'all, not wanting does not protect you. It just keeps you loyal to the lost part of your life. Not wanting is doing the opposite of protecting. It's punishing. You know? It's keeping you disconnected from the life that you were brought here

on this earth, born to lead. So, in step six, we're not demanding I'm not demanding that life hand you everything. You're not demanding that life hand you everything by Friday, right? Or next week. You're simply acknowledging what your soul is searching for. That's what the point of this part of the exercise is this if exercise itself. Step six is just acknowledging what your truest desires really are. That's all. No action plan yet, no forcing, no proving, you know? Just desire at its core. Direction. On paper, put it on paper. Because if you don't let yourself name what it is that you want, you'll keep building a life around what you're afraid of. And we're not going to do that anymore.

At least I'm not going to I'll say that I can't do that anymore. Okay? So, once you've written all of the yummy, beautiful details of the future life that you desire, play around in your store. Let me take some time to do this, to develop this, you guys. Um you're not meant to follow along and get this all down right away. You know, you can take a couple days or however long you need to really come up with an amazing cart, you know? And by the way, there's no checkout fee. There's no You're not paying for this. You just walk straight through, but you do have to pick out your honest desires. Hold yourself to that. Now, we're just going to assume that you finished that part. You've gone

through the future store, and you can take a couple trips through if you want to. Come back the next day and the next day if you're thinking, you know? But now that you've named what you want, I want you to interview the version of you who already lives there. Who already lives in the destination that you're there wanting. Where the beginning how we started off with the stick figure, I want you to interview that glamorous moribund version of you, okay? But you may not be glamorous in it, but you know what I'm saying. Sparkly. It seems far away and so much different than where you are right now. I want to stress, even though I'm kind of having fun with it, I'm thinking about this right now.

This is not just a cute visualization, you guys. Yes, it is a visualization. And we did have fun with the future store, but this truly I'm not and asking future you for vague inspirational quotes and lovely yummy Instagram ready sort of steps. I'm I'm asking you you are asking your future version of you for a path. You're asking, "How did you get here?" And I want you to write everything down that you get from this future version of you, too. Okay? All of it. Not just the safe things, just like I was talking about in the future store, not just the safe things, not just the easy things, not the things that don't require you to be seen, heard, paid, honest, consistent, or uncomfortable.

Okay? Everything. Write it all down. It doesn't mean that you're signing some contract. Here are some of the questions that you can ask future you. "What did you have to start doing?" is one question. Another one is, "What did you have to stop doing? What skills did the future me need to develop? What did you have to practice daily, weekly, monthly, whatever it is? What did you have to get better at? What did you have to learn? What schedule did future does future you follow today? How did they get here? Like, did they wake up early? Did they go to bed early? What was the deal? I'm not not that's not always a make or break cuz some people, very successful

people, work at all different times of the day. So, that's not a That used to trip me up all the time. Like, "I'm not living up to my potential because I woke up at 7:30 instead of 5:00 this morning." So, it doesn't matter. It matters that you're focused throughout the day and whether you have your own back and do what you say you're going to do for yourself. But we're not even there yet, so I'm just I'm just interrupting myself. Um so, what did you have to invest in? That could be emotionally, mentally, monetarily, whatever. What conversations were necessary or beneficial for your future you to have? What decisions did you have to stop delaying? What did you

have to build? What did you have to sell, maybe? What did you have to publish? What did you have to ask for help with? Ask for in general. What did you have to stop pretending that you didn't want? What did you have to stop using as an excuse? What did you have to do after the excitement wore off? You ADHDers out there, with me included. This was a big one. It still is a lot. I famously talk about this maybe it's been some time now, but I used to always talk about the fact that I stop projects or I'll just move on to the next project after the project current project is like 85% done. My results, my outcomes reflected that. And I didn't love that, you know,

and I don't want to be a perfectionist either, but at least finish all the steps. So, what did you have to keep doing after the excitement wore off? There's a lot of building your dream life, you guys, telling you from experience, is the boring stuff. And I know most of you listening to this, you're all adults, you know, I know that you know that, but I'm I know that I do need to reiterate it because it's something that we forget. It's easy to lose momentum and motivation when we're doing something new because it feels clucky. So, I think it's important for you to know what objections you're going to run into throughout this whole project so that you can be prepared with

responses to those objections. So, what did you do while the alienation was still unresolved? That's a big one, for me anyway. What was I waiting for permission for? I cannot tell you how many alienated parents I talk to that are like "Oh yeah, I'll do that when I mean I'm thinking of three different people right now, three different situations just off the top of my head where I'll start that once things settle down, once the case is over, or once I get to the place where I feel healed, or feel like an authority in the area, or get more education, whatever." That is just an excuse and a you're never going to feel ready. And then the last question I have

written here is what did you do when the case thought reoccurred, came back up for you? Because it will. That's just inevitable that you're going to come up I'll objections are going to be popping up especially in the beginning, but really all the way through. Objections, when you get to the action spot of this, right now we're just brainstorming and interviewing, right? Future you. Which by the way, in my opinion I got some comments this week about being new age and all that stuff from last week and the week before. I don't really care cuz I know what I believe in and I know what has really made a huge difference in my life as result of believing that stuff, and I don't care

what people label it as. But anyway, what I was just getting ready to say and I stopped myself because of that is that I believe that that version of you that you already wrote down on your paper and all of your true desires, that they already exist. That version of you is already in action up there. We're just going to get there, right? But we have to take the steps so that we follow that path. That's my new belief, how you want. But either way, I mean I don't see how that would harm me to believe that. There's no downside to believing that the future you that is living the life that you want to be living it's already in the bag, it's happened. It's happening right now. There's no

downside to that. In my opinion. But anyway, when the answers do come, okay, do not edit them down, right? To make your current self comfortable. You don't want to water them down. Write everything down exactly as it comes to you or even make it bigger if it's sounding all too safe and bland and boring. Because when we're dreaming like doing this part of it, I want you to think bigger than you ever would. That's the whole point is to push. You've been living in survival. So, you're just choosing the safe likely, depending on where you're at, but choosing the safe actions or mostly not actions probably. So, this exercise is to start teasing your brain out and

go big. Show that you shock your mind into a different state, okay? That's >> Yeah. I'll leave it at that. What I've got written here and what I've just kind of said is because your current self will almost always opt for safety. It's not a character flaw. There's nothing wrong with you. It's what the subconscious does, especially coming from trauma, right? It repeats, as I was saying earlier, it repeats what it knows. It steers you toward anything familiar even if it's just the devil that you know, which is not actually helpful and is the most dangerous thing. So, if anything else, if you're not sure about what I offer as far as your future you and future you being alive and well right as

we're speaking, that's fine. You don't have to jump on and take that any of my beliefs, you know that. But at least think about you can use what I just said to fuel you as far as like what's going to cause me more harm here. For me to go from a negative angle, is it more dangerous to stay here in hanging out with the devil that I know, where nothing's really gotten done, you're not there's a gap, or is it more dangerous to go after that life that I want to be living. Like, what's worth it to you? Most parents that I speak with feel rudderless. They feel without direction, purposeless. Living a life without meaning or like not even knowing where to go, feeling

vague and blah in the brain because of the echo, constant droning echo of the trauma that you experienced. And sometimes there still is active drama and blowing up, you know, in your situation. But sometimes the drama has been in years in the past, but you're still living the echoes of it. Like you're living in the wake of all of that. And so, to me, the most dangerous thing is to stay in that place. That version of you says, "Let's do the version that doesn't risk too much, right?" That's how it'll talk you into like, "Oh, we don't want to risk anything. Let's do the ideas that we've written here that nobody can judge us for." That's what I used to say, too. "Let me just tiptoe

around and try to do everything I'm doing underground so that I'm taking action, but when I'm tiptoeing around my own actions for my own life, asking for permission in a way, nothing really changed because I was tamping everything down. And my main goal was to stay out of like be act as a wallflower and stay out of the spotlight so that they didn't judge me or come back to attack me and do all those things. I'm talking When I say they, you know I'm talking about the alienating parent, the stepmom, right? Um and far be from I will never tell you guys what's right for you in your world. You can always, if you haven't had a clarity call with me, I can help you develop a plan that

feels safe as far as their attacks on you, um but also moves you in the direction you want to go. But I know for me when my goal was to my main goal, even though I didn't want it to be my main goal. That's another thing is I was I was allowing them to rule my life, which is every alienated parent's problem is that they feel like the other parent is literally surveilling them and controlling them. That's how I felt, too. Like I I have nowhere to turn. Everywhere I look, it's like it's them. They're just always there. And they're always trying to cut me off. They did. I mean, I can tell you story after story after story where they were stalking. They were you know, uh reporting me to

when I was doing um Well, it doesn't matter right now, but like I was I did art for a lot of the breweries and people in Austin. And did I did hand-painted logos. And sometimes those people, whoever it was, was asked me to do like sports teams or whatever. I was a really small business and I would. And then every time that they would find those pieces of artwork that I did, they meaning the alienating parents or the stepmom, they would go report me to whatever boards, you know, for using logos. So, I get it. And there was a lot of other stuff. That was just the first thing that came to my mind. So, I 100% get it. But I promise you that the negative consequences that I felt as a result

of doing, you know, trying to live my life and do what I knew that I was meant to do in the world, not the art. I mean, that was fun, but like for with coaching and stuff, the negative consequences I felt, which by the way, funny that when I got on my path to do what I knew that I was meant to do, I never had any There was nothing that came back on me. There was no backlash. It only happened when I was not on my path. Isn't that interesting? But um the damage was in me not following my truest desires, right? My my calling, if you will, or my path that I knew that was right for me. That's where the damage happened. So, you you don't want to choose the version that's telling you that let's do

the universe where nobody can judge us, right? Or let's do all of that steps that feel very productive, but don't actually require you becoming somebody new. That's the safe choice. Don't do that here. Not after all this work that you guys have done. Okay? Step seven is where you honor your plan. Stay with whatever you've got there, your truest desires for yourself. Like the deep desires for yourself, if you have them. Some people are like, you know, wanted to write the book or wanting to start a business. Whatever it is. If that is truly what is on your heart, then please inspect a little further. Explore all your options. So, once you have the full brainstorm,

you've interviewed your future you, right? You've got all of your lists. Now, we're going to reverse engineer, obviously starting at the desired outcome, right? Like your end goal, like the figure on the right-hand side. Oh, and what I didn't say is so like the end goal on the in the beginning that I was talking to you about, that's your the general goal. And in the future store is all of the yummy things that happen inside of that world. Now, I want you to pick as many group them, the things that you got in the future store, pick as many that will fit into that wide view, you, future you, that you chose in the beginning. Okay? Group them together and get as many I mean, I would say

between 10 and 20 of those things that you want. And we're going to fit them in by reverse engineering, right? Working backwards from your desired outcome, backwards. So, if your future outcome, hopefully that just made sense. Maybe the future outcome is that you want to write the book. I didn't say publish the book, let's just go with writing it. You want to ask yourself what happened right before you finished the book. And maybe that's I finished the final draft. What happened right before that? It's that maybe you revised the messy first draft or the second draft. What happened before that? I had a complete mess of a first draft. What happened before that?

I wrote consistently until chapters existed, maybe, okay? And before that, maybe you created an outline, a chapter outline, with all of the points that you wanted to hit. Before that is I decided what the book is actually about. What happened before that? I let myself admit that I wanted to write this book, cuz many of you have these desires and you won't even admit it out loud to anybody, but even to yourself, because you don't let Like I was talking about earlier, you don't want to let yourself want it because you don't want to be disappointed. So, then you just fail ahead of time, and then you don't have your own back. In fact, you betray yourself by not following through on

these desires, and then you're disappointed for the rest of your life on the long term, as opposed to let's say you Um the only way that you couldn't ever get this goal of writing a book, finishing a book, is if you decide not to finish or decide not to start, right? Or the first of the last thing we'd mention, which would be your first step, admit to yourself that you want to write the book. This is a goal for you. That's your first step. You also write one sentence about what it's really about. Like, what's this book going to be about? That's where you start. Not because it's tiny and cute, not because it's safe, but because it's the first link in the chain to your future. You do

not get You guys, and I'm saying this with love, I'm not trying to tell you what you get to do and you don't get to do, but for this, tell yourself that you don't get to skip this step and go organize your desk for 3 hours because it feels safer, okay? Organize your kitchen cabinets. Don't. Also, you don't get to research publishing for 6 months because that's what feels productive. Research why self-publishing is the right thing. Don't worry about that right now. Get yourself writing. I was One of my clients, this has been an ongoing thing. And she wanted to This is so common. She wanted to start a blog. And so, there's more to that. She actually wants to um help other parents,

help other moms, and do some stuff, right? We I won't go into all the details. But one of those actions that we decided, like the bigger actions, is This is good that I'm sharing this with you because then maybe it'll make sense. So, like her stick figure, we didn't do this exercise this way, but her stick figure would on the right-hand side would have been being a coach to moms who've been abused. And then inside of that, in her future store, would have been Well, obviously, helping other moms, right? And having a blog, starting a blog, a successful blog. Now, success can be defined by so many different things, but let's just say she's an active participating audience, the kind

of audience that she really is wanting to find. So, she has that. And there's probably so many other things that she can add in her future store, but just for this one section. So, for her, she for so long, instead of actually starting the blog, she wanted to go This is so common for coaches and people in general. She wanted to go get the website. She wanted to purchase the exact site name, you know? She wanted to make sure that she had all of like the do-daddy stuff organized, all this other stuff, busy work that didn't actually matter if she didn't have the content to put on the site. She hadn't written anything yet. You know, she's written in the past, but not pertaining

to this blog, this project. So, she wanted to go do all this other busy work, which actually is getting her somewhere, but it's diverting her attention from what the project was. And that's what I'm asking that you don't do, okay? >> [laughter] >> You also don't want to tell yourself that you'll start when you know the whole structure. Your reverse-engineered plan already showed you the first move. Follow the plan, okay? That is That is the goal. So, another example is maybe you Your goal is to have a life, like your right stick figure is to have a life that no longer orbits alienation, okay? So, from there, you want to work backwards, right? What happened right

before you realized all of a sudden, you were in a world's in this full life that no longer orbited alienation, right? Over the course of 3 to 6 months, you cultivated and invested in relationships with like-minded people who are actively pouring into their own lives, right? From a place of abundance. Maybe that was one of the steps. What happened before that? It was maybe that you created daily structure, right? Purpose. And beauty that surrounds you, you know? By committing to a live weekly rhythm, entirely separate from court, from your ex, from your child silence, whatever it is. Completely separate from that. You have this beautiful flourishing life because you created the structure, the

container for it, okay? Maybe what happened before that? Maybe you stopped checking things that reopened the wound every morning, right? And began 5 minutes of meditation, getting centered. Really, I'm just pulling random things that I thought would fit in sequence for here, but actually much of what you shopped for at in the future store can actually get uh filtered and put into these some of these steps, okay? Sometimes you'll have future stores, but some of the stuff that you got at the future store, it's okay if it doesn't fit here. It's good to bring your mind out into light and start bringing your attention to possibility because that's the problem when we're in the case, especially

coming from what we have, there is no possibility. Like I you know, my the one thing that I used to always talk about is that I was at the bottom of the pit with no answer doors, no ladder, no nothing, no windows, no light. It felt so dark and so dead inside. There were no possibilities there. I couldn't even think, fathom a world outside of this case that are this uh hole that I was living in, you know, in my mind. So, the future store it's what basically I'm saying is is if all the things that you shopped for in the future store don't filter into this little plan that you have, that's okay. You can do this again for the things that you still want that you haven't created yet, okay? So, um

what happened before that? You stopped checking things in uh that reopened the wound every morning. What happened before that? Maybe you decided what your mornings were for because before that you admitted that you'd been handing the first hour of your day to a series of unproductive cave thoughts, which is that your energy, right? Maybe that's what you had to had to acknowledge to yourself first before you could ever take the next step, which is then to decide what your mornings are for and incorporate a meditation practice, okay? Then the last item, of course, is where you begin. It's not the sixth item, it's the first item in the sequence and in this case it was is

the acknowledgement, okay? And the last example I'm going to give you, maybe the future outcome is that you have a money savings goal, right? Maybe it's that you have I'm smiling when I say this for those of you who are just listening, that you have $50,000 in your savings account, okay? Or whatever your number is, 5,000, 10,000, 100,000, a million. Whatever your number is, do not be shy to put that down because you're telling yourself it's out of real you know, your reality. It's not possible for you. It's only not possible when you tell yourself it's not possible. That's a start, okay? And even if you don't Okay, not that I want to train you to think about well, I I probably won't get it.

I mean, I kind of don't mind that if you're going shooting for the stars. Like if you want a million dollars in your bank account, it's okay that you don't get it because you guys have heard me say this if you've been listening for a long time, but it's who you become in the process of trying. There's never a letdown except for the letdown of you stopping before you even start by shooting your ideas or your desires down. That's the real loss, y'all, the real failure. So, whatever it is, do not shrink the number just to make your current self comfortable. Write the actual number that comes What comes to your brain immediately? If this is a If this is your goal, you know? Then you want to

work backwards again. What happened right before you got the million dollars or the 10 Whatever it is, right? Right before that, it's it's probably that you realized that you consistently had money left over and that you would move it into savings, right? What happened before that? You created so much value for those who are willing to pay for it, and you released that value to the world so they could pay for it, right? If you're working for yourself. I mean, you got to you're going to have to make this for yourself. What happened before that? Maybe you opened yourself up to several streams of income from places you didn't know possible. Like you just decided, I know that I can

not only work my full-time job in the corporate world or whatever it is, I can also on the side be open to other streams of income. What might those be? Because when you tell yourself, I don't know that any other streams of income, then your brain is going to be like, okay, we don't know any we don't know what to do. But if you say, I am open, this is another bridge thought, right? This is another curiosity-invoking opening sort of thought is I'm open to the possibility of money coming in from several different places, and that maybe I just don't know about. So, what are those places? Then you start asking yourself questions, and you're train your brain to start looking for those

opportunities. But when you say you don't know, forget it. It's a dream stealer. Okay. So, what happened before that? Maybe it's that you devised a budget and you stuck to it, right? That you had you became intimately aware of what was coming in and out of your bank account. And maybe before that, you opened up a bank account app on I don't know if it has to be every day, but Monday, Wednesday, Friday, a few days a week, set those days, right? In the mornings or whatever, to help solidify the neutral thought that every responsible money action strengthens my identity. That's one of them. Okay? Another one you could think is money is something This is what I used

to use. Money is something that I learn, manage, circulate, and grow. Okay? So, it's like I'm in constant connection and in an energy exchange with money, not because I care so much and I'm obsessed about money and it's pressury, but because I use it, it's in my hands, and I use it to buy things of value, and it comes back, that there's a flow, you know? Okay. So, I have so many money belief um bridge thoughts for you, but I'm not going to do it cuz we're I'm going to run out of time, but if you do want them, maybe um make a comment if you're watching on YouTube or also on Spotify and I can send you um money I'm not going to say affirmations because because but bridge thoughts to help you

get there and just practice those thoughts coming to a more neutral space about it. Because again, this whole episode is about that. Once you neutralize it, then you take the negative charge away from it. And the block from it between you and it removes and there's a passage way through. Hopefully, that makes sense. >> Okay. What happened before that? You admitted This is the first step it becomes your first step. I admitted the amount that I actually want to have. I even maybe wrote it down on a piece of paper and told somebody else about it. This is the amount of money that I want to have in my bank account. Because when you say it, it makes it >> more real, you know? You don't have to

do that part. Depends on how you work. Sometimes that helps. Other people work better if they keep it under wraps. It's up to you. Whatever. But say it out loud even if you're in your house by yourself. Saying it kind of releases it into the universe and helps to Anyway, you get me. Okay. So, again, I'm saying this with love, but you don't get to light a candle and journal about abundance while refusing to write the number. It's all going to be great and I feel abundant. Don't. Because it's so vague. Write the number down. Get real about what you want. Like level with you, the universe, your whatever God you believe in, your friends, whoever, and be specific. Also, you don't get to say

that I want more money and just keep it that vague. Vague enough that your subconscious never has to receive actual instruction. No. Write the number. Say the number. That's the first link in the chain to the future you that has the money, okay? That keeps the money. Then the next link, of course, becomes visible after you do that. Don't worry about the whole sequence. Oh my gosh, this looks like so much to get to where I And I was very general with these because because But like you're going to have a lot of I said 10 to 20 these that are going to be actions that you take and that you build on, right? And doing that builds a system for you. I'm going to talk about that in a second

because I just went off my my notes. So, you aren't choosing the safest action or the action your cave thought approves of. You are choosing the first action in the sequence, not because it's small, not because it feels safe, but because it's where your path to your future begins. This is it. This is where I start. Okay? It's your starting line. And this is where I want you to watch yourself, too, because your old operating system will try to negotiate, as I've kind of been saying off script. It'll say, "Let's do this easier thing instead. Let's cherry-pick the safe ones. Let's start with more research. Let's wait till Monday, right? Let's make it more realistic." And even if you already

start and let's say you miss a couple days somewhere in there, you're going to be like, "Oh, well, I need to wait until a new week to start everything all over and do it again." Don't do that. Any time that you recognize that you've missed a step, then that's that now. Just when As soon as you can, that's when you can start. You don't have to wait for some new week or some new year or whatever it is. It's just a way for your brain to push David off, right? So, you don't have to be uncomfortable in the now. And like I always say, we don't want to trade short-term comfort, choose that, and then have long-term discomfort. You would rather be in discomfort now in

exchange for long-term comfort, you know? Okay, another thing you say is let's make it more realistic, right? When we're talking about the future store and stuff. Don't go crazy there. That's your time to have fun. So, that's the cave thought trying to get back in charge. Name it. Bridge it. Return to neutral. And then follow the plan. If you've been following through this, you worked too hard in steps one through six to abandon the path right now at step seven because the first move asked you to become somebody new. Okay, you guys? This is where you stop opting for safety and start practicing devotion, your devotion to your future you. To the future that you want. Not frantic

action. Not reckless action. Not proving something. Sequenced action. The action that's next in line. Okay? That's step seven. So, if you take nothing else from this episode, y'all, take this. You are not your cave thoughts. You were not the sentence that showed up when you were surviving. You were not the belief that helped you brace for disappointment, for rejection, for loss, for court, for silence, chaos, whatever. Those thoughts may have come to you in the cave, right? While you were there. They may have kept you company, Wilson. Um they may even helped you survive there, right? They probably I know that they served you, but they're not the voice of your future. I promise you

that. If they're limiting, if they're trying to keep you in your space, keep you safe, keep you small, they're not the voice of your future. Not if you want a big future, a different future. But like I said in the beginning, we are not hanging twinkly lights in that cave and calling it home. Please do not. We're not dressing up survival mode in comfy digs. We're building the bridge to your desires, to your truest desires, one aligned moles at a time. When you've got yourself finally gotten yourself to and through working step seven, each one of those aligned actions will begin to build momentum. Those actions, those aligned actions will become the moving parts of your machine.

That's what I was talking about that I was going to get to in a second. And within that system, those aligned actions actually work in reverse and in forward to become their own bridge thoughts and evidence of your own evolution. Do you know what I'm saying? Like each act will create more evidence that becomes the bridge thought for the cave thought that's going to try and bring you back in. You know, you're building a well-oiled machine of evidence and action on top of action and thought on top of You know what I'm saying? It's all going to be working for you. You're becoming a different you, that different that future you that you drew in the beginning. So, it's all going to work to your

benefit. You just have to trust and put one foot in front of the other and follow this. I I promise you. And the goal in the end, you guys, as I kind of touched on in the money example, it's okay if it doesn't look exactly in the end like you were saying in the beginning. It usually doesn't. I'm going to be real honest with you. It does. Sometimes it's even better than that. But the biggest change is the fact that for me that I'm no longer in the place I was. I'm I'm unrecognizable physically, mentally, emotionally, all of the ways. I'm unrecognizable from to the person that I was back in the house on the hill. Seriously. And your life will look completely different if you just stay

with it and continue to have your own back and not betray yourself by shutting yourself down your desires down. Just keep moving. Just keep swimming. >> [laughter] >> It's true though. You will build a system, a whole intricate, well-oiled machine without even realizing it just because you followed this structure. That's it. That's how it all changes. Not by shaming the old part of you, not by forcing yourself to believe something that your subconscious clearly rejects, not by waiting until your life finally gets easy enough to begin, but by naming the cave thought, building the bridge, walking through the future store, not loitering outside in the parking lot. >> [laughter]

>> And choosing one move today that belongs to the life you are here to create. One move at a time. Okay? You do not have to see the whole path today. You just have to stop mistaking the current cave for your permanent home. Okay? I love you guys, and I'll see you next week. Okay.