Janna Holterman 0:10
Today we're going to be talking about a symptom versus a root cause when it comes to being extremely self-critical, right? Like when you're being a toxic bitch to yourself, is that a root cause or symptom? And what is the difference, basically, so that we can understand why our brain is doing what it's doing, and how to start shifting the way that we are seeing ourselves, the way that we are interacting with ourselves. So, a symptom is you beating the crap out of yourself. So you're nitpicking everything that you do. You're second guessing. You're doubting. You had a conversation with somebody and it didn't go the way that you want. And then you're like, "Oh my God, what do they think about me now? Like, are they? You know, are they gonna hate me? Are they gonna like go tell everybody about how horrible I am? Are you know, or maybe you're replaying the situation and like what you should have said differently, and if they came back and talked to you, like your 87 different scenarios and how you'd handle them and all of those things, right? Like the spirals that your brain goes on is a symptom, so it is a symptom that is caused by something else, a root issue. Right. So if you went and you know had scraped your knee. You fell. You scraped your knee. Your knee is bleeding, and it hurts. So, is the bleeding and the pain the root cause, or is it the symptom? The root cause, so the true cause of the pain and the bleeding is the wound that is open on your knee, right? The wound that is open on your knee caused the blood to happen because your your vasculature is compromised and now it's bleeding. The pain is because of that, like compromised, like wound, and your nerve endings that were affected in that falling and scraping your knee. So what ends up happening is we tend to focus on the symptoms. We focus on wow, I'm beating the crap out of myself, and it feels like trash, and then you're like, you know, like I wish I was nicer to myself. I should just be nicer to myself. I should, I should just be nicer to myself. And you could literally just be like, oh, just be nicer to myself, right? It's gonna, yeah, of course, of course, I'm like the best. Like I love me. I'm so amazing, right? And then your brain is like, that's bullshit. That's bullshit. I have decades worth of evidence to support that that is not true. But this is what we want to recognize. We are generally seeing the symptom, the beating ourselves up. We are seeing it and going, I should fix that. But when we try to just put a bandaid over it, it's not necessarily going to stop the bleeding of the the scraped knee or stop the pain, but you might not see the bleeding. You might not like pay as much of pain attention to the pain because you're like, well, I did something about it, but is it actually solving the issue? Does the band aid solve the issue? No, your body solves the issue over time, and like with the clotting factors, we stop bleeding and all these things, right? So we aren't actually solving the issue when we're putting a band-aid over it. So when we just tell ourselves, "Oh, I should be nicer. I should just be kinder to myself, or somebody else is like, "Oh my God, you're so hard on yourself. Like, don't think that way. Thanks. I never thought of that. Right? Like, this is what happens. We're like, "Oh, we're we're trying to solve the symptom. And then when we're like, "Oh, well, I did stuff. I did stuff for myself. I prioritize myself, like, but I'm still beating the crap out of myself. I'm still being super negative, Nancy, and finding all of the ways that I'm not good enough, or that I don't have what it takes, or that you know it's never worked before. So why would it work this time? All of those things are still playing out in the background because we didn't fix the root issues. So this is something that I really want you to start thinking of. Like, okay, things are coming up in your life.
Janna Holterman 4:52
You're like, all right, I noticed in this moment I'm really hard on myself. Okay, so is your you know, your boss brought you into the office, and he gave you a couple of, couple of compliments of like things that you've done really well, and then he gave you one constructive criticism or feedback thing, like, um, you know, a client situation, and they're like, oh, they didn't feel that you listened and supported them, and you're like oh my god like I listen and support everybody like what are you talking about like why would I like of course I listened and supported them like it's clearly their problem they don't see me they don't understand me they're clearly like not seeing what I'm bringing to the table because like I you know do I go above and beyond my other coworkers wouldn't listen to them but I listen to them right like we fucking spiral this is how our brains work. So, your brain is spiraling out about like this customer who said such and such, and that you didn't they didn't feel that you listened to them, and and they didn't feel validated or heard. And so our brains are spiraling out, and you are beating the crap out of yourself. You're like, oh my god, this is like so. This is bullshit. Like nobody sees me, nobody gets me. Like maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I can't. I don't have what it takes. Like maybe, maybe like you know that this will affect everything, and then this is going to change how my boss views me, and then I'm not going to be up for that promotion that I thought I was working towards, and all these things. Right? Like brain goes a million miles an hour to the worst case scenario. Like diving into the volcano of doom. This is where our brains naturally go, and if you're kind of like, okay, well, why did my brain naturally go there? That is what we went through in episode, kind of like 87 and 88. So those were the the steps one and two of this October of self-criticism and understanding our brains and why we are so self-critical. So, if you're kind of like you need a backstory, right? Go back and watch, listen to '87 and '88. Those are going to help put all the dots together and make it make sense for your brain. But again, let's go back to the symptoms, right? So, was the way that you felt after your boss saying those things a symptom or a root cause? Here's the thing with our brains: we cannot feel any way that our brain is not already predispositioned to feel. So it is next to impossible to have a true, unique thought experience when your brain is just working with itself. So your brain has thought the way that it thinks 1000s of times. It works on autopilot. It goes through its like arsenal of thoughts of ways of handling situations. So a new situation arises. It is going back into its like filing cabinet of thoughts and looking at it, being like, okay, this situation came up. How do I handle it? All right, great. I handled a situation like this in the past. Like here it is, or this situation is kind of similar. Like your brain is almost never thinking new ways unless you are actively doing some of this work where you're like, oh, there is new ways of thinking. Otherwise, your brain, unconscious on autopilot, it is taking what it's done in the past and applying it to this situation. So, what does that mean? That actually means that other people never create you feeling a certain way, and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What about this bitch who said this thing? Doesn't matter. The you would not have responded in the way that you did if you had not been already predispositioned to think that way about yourself in some capacity, right? So I always use the example with my clients, like if I were to insult your blue hair, and you don't have blue hair. What would you think, right? I'm like, oh my god, I hate your blue hair, and you're like, ma'am, I don't, I don't have blue hair, and you're, and you're, but so what do you?
Janna Holterman 9:12
You're like, okay, this bitch is crazy, like she, she's clear, clearly colorblind. I don't have blue hair, so like, why would she tell me that she hates her blue hair, you're gonna be like, okay, like that's strange, and then you're gonna move on with your life. But what if you just dyed your hair blue? What if you are just like, you know what? I just like gotta feel into myself a little more. Like I feel like it would be really fun to have blue hair, and you go and you dye your hair blue, and then you're like, well, like I don't know, is this too extreme? What are people are gonna think of me? Like, are people gonna accept me with blue hair? And then I come up to you and I'm like, I hate your blue hair. Like, why would you do that? So gross. Like, and then what happens? Your brain is spirals, right? Because like, oh my God, she hates my blue hair. Like, like, why would I ever do this to myself? Clearly, I like can never make a good decision for the life of me. Like, this always happens, like everything, right? Like you, you've been there. We've all been there. I don't even go into it further, but so this is what happens, right? But if you don't have the blue hair and I insult your blue hair, you feel nothing other than this lady is weird and crazy, and why would she say that? And then you move on. But if you were insecure about that blue hair, you're going to spiral, and the same is true for every other area of life. So, if your somebody says something to you and it sets you off, it is because your brain is already thinking that way about yourself in some capacity. So, you want to be fucking invincible. We need to work on neuroplasticity to change your brain, change the way that your brain is seeing you, change the way that you are being seen. So, if you change your neural connections, your brain will change its self-concept, the way that it is seeing itself. So, you can change that over time, and again, this is not toxic positivity where we're just like I am the worst to I am the motherfucking best, right? Like if you try to do that, if you go from zero to 100, your brain is gonna be like everything that I've spent decades building towards says otherwise. So I can't. I can't get on board with I'm the motherfucking best because I have decades that say that I'm not good enough, that I don't have what it takes, that other people are smarter than me, better than me, right? And so we have to use those bridge thoughts. We have to find something in between to say, okay, what's something more neutral. Well, I don't know if I'm the motherfucking bass, but I did this shit yesterday, and it was kind of cool. I kind of appreciated it, and I thought it made me feel good, so I'm gonna focus on it. And so we can find something in the in between stage that helps us feel better along the reprogramming our brain neuroplasticity train, because if our brain can find evidence, then our brain can reinforce and believe it to be true. But if you go from one extreme to the other, your brain is going to be like, "That's bullshit! I cannot believe that, and it throws it away. And this is what happens to you, right? So you try to be like, "Oh, I'll just be nice to myself. That's what happened. Your brain was like, I can't go from zero to 100. I can't go from I hate myself to I love myself. Right? It's too far for your brain. Like we have to take these baby baby steps. We have to go 1% closer to our goal. And you're like, I just want instantaneous results. But I'm I'm I'm sorry, honey. This this ain't this ain't it, right? This is not instantaneous results. What is this? This is lifelong neural changes that actually get you feeling the way that you want to, seeing yourself in the way that you want to, so that you can really feel the way that you want to while building the life that you want to live.
Janna Holterman 13:03
Because can you feel the way you want to when you created what you want through beating the shit out of yourself? If you beat the crap out of yourself all the way there, there is no like magic milestone that you cross the finish line and then you feel happiness and joy. Your brain has been programmed and designed to feel like trash because you've been treating yourself like trash. And so when you get to the milestone, it's gonna still feel like trash because you've been treating yourself like trash. And your brain is just going to find more evidence to reinforce what it knows to be true, what it has done for the past decades, right? And so, understanding why your brain does what it does-that was episode 87-and then we kind of went into mirror neurons. So it's a deeper understanding of neuroplasticity in our brains, and like why everything around us influences and added to us getting this level of self-criticism that we're at, and then this episode is really looking at: okay, am I like where's the work? Am I focusing on the actual issue, or am I focusing on the symptom? And so, what are the actual issues, the actual root issues that we want to focus on to like cure it at the core, right? If we had that a magic healing potion that could help you heal at a faster rate, and we put that on that scraped knee. We can use that and we can heal the root issue. What do we do? How do we heal the root issue? The root issues come from our brain. So the subconscious, these deep belief systems that are running the show. I want you to think of like your brain, when you are like zero to seven, you're you're a sponge. You're absorbing everything around you, and your brain is looking at things and saying, "Okay, this situation happened. This is how I handle that situation. File that away. This situation happened over here. That's how I handled the situation. And so you made certain things mean certain things about you at that very young sponge age, right? And then we're we're reinforcing that. So our brains are always proving themselves right. Your reticulating activating system is always looking for things that reinforces what it believes to be true. So you're only seeing what is actually relevant to your brain, and what's relevant to your brain is what it already believes. And so your brain then gets to work and finds evidence. It is gathering evidence throughout your life, and it says, "Hey, that reinforces this belief I already have. Oh my God, this other situation reinforces that belief I already have. This other situation reinforces that belief I had. So what you've done is you've taken a belief system that a child interpreted a situation, made it into a belief system, and then you've spent decades taking evidence of what's happening in your life to reinforce those belief systems, and so at this point in your life, those belief systems are self-concepts. Those are rule books by which your brain is living. So it's saying any situation. This is where this is how I see myself. This is how I show up. This is who I am. This is how I think about myself, and it's saying these are the rules that I live by. This is how I show up. This is what's going to happen. And so we have to, in order to change the behaviors of you being a toxic bitch to yourself, in order to shift that, in order to change that, we have to get to those roots. We have to figure out, okay, what is the belief system? What are you ultimately believing about yourself? And start to shift those. How do we do that? We do that through brain reprogramming exercises. We do that through emotional processing and nervous system regulation. Because if your nervous system doesn't feel safe with a new way of thinking, it's going to go back to the old way of thinking. It's like an elastic band getting stretched and stretched and stretched. If you don't move the the marker, and that is your nervous system safety, you can only go so far with that elastic band before it's going to snap you back to where your nervous system feels safe.
Janna Holterman 17:37
So all of these components are things that we are really cultivating and learning and growing together with, and I have learned all of this the fucking hard way. Like I've learned this from so many different teachers, but I've taken and applied it and actually figured out, like, okay, like does this actually work? How does this work? Had so many conversations with higher self and source God of like, how does this work? And I have taken that and created a program called "How to Stop Being a Toxic Bitch to Yourself. And over these six plus weeks, we're gonna dive into this at a deeper level with so many tools and resources for you to actually do that brain reprogramming, the emotional processing, the nervous system work, and start developing this kinder, more compassionate relationship with yourself, so that you can create things from that place. Which means when you get to where you want to be, you can actually feel gratitude, appreciation, happiness, fulfillment-all those things that we desperately want to feel is actually part of the possibility. So, if that sounds like something you're interested in, you can directly watch that, or you can watch the free replay of the masterclass, the cost of the inner mean girl, which is going to dive into really like our brain. Even if you're telling yourself, I should be nicer to myself. Your brain is still thinking that being mean to yourself is a safety thing. It is keeping you safe. It is protecting you in some shape, form, capacity. And so, in order to start shifting our brains, we have to actually fully understand the problem. And that masterclass really dives into how do you understand what the problem truly is, so you can start making informed decisions for your brain. Of like, okay, what is the next best step for me? How do I move forward with this in mind? And starting to shift the way I'm seeing myself, the way I'm seeing how I show up in situations and handle them. So both of those will be available in the show notes, and I look forward to seeing you there.
