The Power Of Journaling: Self-Reflection And Identifying Self-Worth

 

Every day is a learning opportunity to rediscover yourself and assess the changes that have happened to you over the years. Listen to Whitney Lauritsen as she shares in-depth insights on the power of journaling in identifying self-worth. An old journal is an excellent way to reflect on what you have become and what your thoughts were. Live a life that is true to you and not the life that is expected from you. In this episode, Whitney explains the importance of assessing your patterns and deep desires. Tune in to learn how to overcome the fear of not fitting in and not being perfect.

Get a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs of AG1 (episode sponsor) at athleticgreens.com/WELLEVATR.

—

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Power Of Journaling: Self-Reflection And Identifying Self-Worth

This is one of those episodes that I’m recording in advance of a trip. That has been a big pattern in the last few months. This is my third big trip since May. I was texting in this group chat who was trying to coordinate either an in-person gathering or a Zoom online video chat. I said, “I’m going to need to do it through Zoom because I’ll be driving around the country for the next few months.”

After I sent that message, I thought that was cool that I’m doing that. It’s not like a pat on my back or my ego, but I’m still a bit blown away at how much traveling I’ve done mostly in 2022. That shocks me. For those that haven’t heard the episodes where I talked about going on a road trip in May. I went to Colorado, Utah and Arizona. That feels like a lifetime ago. I also went to Costa Rica, Singapore and Fiji.

That also feels like it couldn’t have possibly just been a week and a half that I got back. This next trip is my annual cross-country trip. I started doing this at the end of summer and early fall of 2020. I did an episode on that. I did that trip with my friend, Leanne. Ever since then, I developed this confidence. I only drove one way with Leanne. I drove back to Los Angeles from the East Coast by myself and that’s what gave me a lot of courage. On that trip, we visited a few national parks. Somebody she knew at the time let us use their national park pass.

I hadn’t maybe even thought about getting that pass and then in 2021, I decided to get it. I forget what the official name is. It’s like an inter-agency pass that allows you to go to all of the national parks, the national forest, the national monuments, and basically any of the government-run parks and landmarks. I don’t know if you could go to the Statue of Liberty, for example. I’m not sure it includes Mount Rushmore, but major places in the US for about $80 a year. At least, that’s how much I paid for it in 2021. Mine expires at the end of August 2022. I thought, “It’s perfect timing. I’m going to schedule this next road trip to incorporate as many more national parks as possible.”

It has been a lot of work to get this off the ground. I found myself procrastinating a lot and feeling overwhelmed because I had been planning that trip very casually, and then I got invited to go to Costa Rica and Singapore and put all this cross-country travel aside. When I got back, I had to start planning this trip. I’m still recovering from this previous trip. It takes me so much time to get back into that flow of life after travel. It has been a big challenge to make this happen. Part of the delight that I’m experiencing with this is so far, things are coming together and some are in very surprising ways.

One is from what I’ve seen, there are still plenty of spots available at campgrounds. That has been a challenge and a concern of mine in 2022, as well as in 2021. Maybe it’s because the gas prices have gone up so much. I don’t know statistically how much that impacted road trips, but I’ve heard anecdotal conversations about how people decided not to go on big summer road trips because of gas. For me, that’s not a concern because my car is fully electric. I wonder if it might be easier to find campground spots at the last minute. Not so long after doing this episode, I’m departing for this trip. I don’t feel like I have a ton of leeway.

Journals are so powerful. If you take the time to look back through them, you can see your growth, patterns, and deep desires. You’ll be surprised how much you've changed. Share on X

I have a little bit of anxiety, but some of that got relieved once I looked at options and found out that I should be fine. The other cool thing that I’m thrilled about is that everybody I’ve reached out to thus far has been available to meet up with me including someone I’ve only met once in real life. I will hold off on their name until after I visited them to protect privacy timelines or any further info as a safety mechanism.

Even though episodes don’t come out in sync with real-time based on the recording and editing process, still, I can’t wait to tell you about this person. You may or may not know them but this person is someone I met through veganism, tech and entrepreneurship. This person has also been on the show. We hadn’t spent that much time in person together. I think of only one time. That was years ago before COVID. When I was planning out my trip, one of the specific destinations, this person lives in that area. I thought, “I should reach out to them and see if they’re available to get together.” As it was coming up so quickly, I thought, “It’s probably not going to work out.”

I think COVID has shifted a lot of this. This is something I noticed in the past two years of doing these trips. Most people have been available because most people aren’t traveling that much. When I say most, I don’t know the statistics so maybe I’m wrong about it. In terms of the people I know, they’ve all tended to be available. I’m excited to see this person. I’m excited to see some family again, friends and as usual, I’ll share more about it afterward.

If you have specific questions or things that you’re interested in or less interested in, I would love to know about them because I want to make sure I am not too repetitive because I’ve been talking about road trips for years, and if there are any gaps in which I’m not covering or things that you’ve heard of enough of. I would love that feedback. I usually say, “You can reach out to me via email, via social media or direct message either on the Wellevatr accounts or under my @WhitLauritsen accounts. It’s fairly easy to get in touch with me. Hearing from you is such a wonderful feeling and getting feedback on things, which is a big challenge as a podcaster.

Let me know because I’ll be recording an episode sometime in the future sharing how these trips have gone. That’s not what this episode is about. I want to get into something that came up as I was brainstorming what this topic would be. I was thinking, I would just share a bit of an update on life because these Monday episodes are a bigger opportunity for that, but then I started reflecting on things that I’ve been learning lately.

Digital Journal

I don’t want to just share all the time. I want to support. I want to give inspiration and motivation. I want you to find value, not just connection, here on the show. I picked up my coaching psychology manual, which I’m using for my well-being coaching training. That has been awesome. There’s a ton of content in there that I’m going to be sprinkling throughout the show. It then reminded me of something else I’ve been meaning to do, which is to go through this digital journal that I started working on in 2017.

 

I believe I started this right around the time I was also traveling. I was visiting New Orleans for my friend’s wedding. I remember writing in here. It’s possible I didn’t start it there, but it feels like it was. It’s so fascinating to go through old journals, isn’t it? I’ve been wanting to dig through this because I have therapy coming up. I mentioned in a previous episode how I’m finally going back to therapy to work on some things, process some tough things, continue to get some answers to various things I have been looking for, and also build upon the coaching training that I’m receiving.

I also want to be clear about how I feel about life and how I’m growing. This journal has been a place where I’ve documented so much. I thought that I would go through some things. I started highlighting it at one point. I also hope that I haven’t shared this stuff already because I feel like maybe I’ve touched upon this journal in the past. I hope that I haven’t and if I have, it’s probably been at least a year because I have no recollection of it.

One of my favorite things about this journal is the very first line. Because I’ve been working on it for years, I don’t recall if this was the first line I wrote in this journal or if I copied and pasted and put it at the very top. It’s such a profound statement that sums up so much of my desire in life which is, “Live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me.”

That statement is fascinating because I have struggled a lot with perfectionism and being a people pleaser. I remember reflecting on that on my road trip with Leanne in 2020. I was listening to a book that I forget the name of it. It’s something about being perfect. I was thinking about how much I was identifying as a perfectionist and as a people pleaser. In the late summer of 2022, almost two exact almost exactly two years later. I don’t identify with that and that’s amazing.

This is why journals are so powerful. If you take the time to look back through them, you can see your growth, patterns and deep desires. I’m so relieved that I don’t fully align with that people-pleaser mentality anymore. It’s still there, but a lot less. That has been a subtle process and journey. I don’t think I would have recognized it had I not gone back to this journal and seen those words because it’s just not coming up for me a lot.

This is one of those things. That has been such a big part of my life for so long that I took it as part of who I am, but I didn’t want it to be who I am. I don’t want to live a life based on fitting other people’s expectations or as I’ve said a lot, desiring to color outside the lines, and I’m someone who naturally colors outside the lines. I think all of the research and reflection I’ve done on ADHD, autism and other forms of neurodivergence has brought this to the surface.

Don’t live a life based on fitting other people's expectations. Share on X

I started to take more ownership of myself and the reason they’re connected, this self-agency and autonomy are that I believe that my neurodivergence has been there my whole life. From what I understand, it’s not something that you develop. It’s something that you’re born with. I’m not an expert on this but that’s my understanding. It’s that a lot of people go undiagnosed or get misdiagnosed. Women, in particular, tend to cover it up well. I had addressed this in a previous episode probably a few months ago on how I read this book called the Divergent Mind. It’s fantastic. It’s mostly, if not entirely, about women and how most studies have been on men.

Because of behavioral, biological and social manifestations of things, the studies were not focused on how ADHD, autism, and other neurodivergent show up in women. That’s a big reason apparently why women go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. It’s this unfolding now that I’m in and I’m currently identifying as neurodivergent. There’s still part of me that feels uncomfortable identifying that way. My sister said something to me a few weeks ago about it. She’s like, “You haven’t been officially diagnosed yet so how can you call yourself that?” That brought up some insecurities in me. I’m afraid that I am wrong. I’m afraid that what I suspect might not be true. I’m afraid of being judged for identifying that way.

However, the reason I continue is that it is helping me understand myself more. I’m not committed or attached to that diagnosis. I know I don’t even need it because there’s no reason and pressure. There are very few experiences aside from me getting accommodations. Nobody is asking for proof. If I feel like I need something and if I feel like that’s because I think I’m ADHD and/or autistic, then that to me feels like reason enough to identify that way.

As long as I’m not taking away from anybody else who has a formal diagnosis. I’m not trying to monetize and capitalize on it. I’m not trying to get sympathy. What I’m trying to do is support and understand myself. The reason this ties into this statement about living a life true to myself is that reflecting on how I may have masked a lot and on how I may have felt like I put myself into a box that didn’t fit in, that is very common. What I’ve learned along this way is that trying to be a people-pleaser was almost like a coping mechanism and a survival mechanism.

I felt so different and learned that to get what I thought I wanted, I needed to adapt to how other people were acting and follow their expectations. That got me in sync with me in a lot of ways, and that’s not what I want. When I look back also to that time in 2017 when I remember writing some of these journal entries, I was going through a lot of sadness. In New Orleans, for example. I was at one of my really good friend’s weddings. I was at the wedding. It was wonderful.

I remember it being challenging for me because I went by myself. I was dating someone at the time who either couldn’t or decided not to go with me, not for many negative reasons, but because of whatever circumstances. It was tough for me at that time in a very unexpected way to travel and go to this wedding by myself. I also remember at the wedding feeling a lot of anxiety come up. I felt like I didn’t fit in. I felt excluded. There was no main reason for it so it was very confusing.

 

After the wedding and it was the last day I was in New Orleans, I was going to head home later that day. I felt this deep sadness and I was perplexed by it. I didn’t know why it was happening and that was part of the reason I was writing in this journal. I was at this coffee shop alone and feeling grateful to be in this cool city. This was a great coffee shop, I remember. I felt simultaneously happy and sad at the same time.

Looking back, I can identify a lot of those emotions now more clearly. Some of those came up for me while I was on the retreat in Costa Rica. Very similar feelings came up for the first time, even though I was in this magical place. I was in a place that felt safe, but I went alone and I didn’t feel like I fit in. I wanted to experience unmasking on that retreat. That was part of my goal. I’m going to go on this retreat and I’m going to live this life true to myself. I’m going to get clarity. I’m going to let go, feel free, be proud of myself, confident and all of this.

I felt more of the opposite. I felt so uncomfortable, unsure of myself, and insecure. I’m constantly wondering if people liked me there. Was I annoying them? Do they want me around? I was feeling lonely but also feeling grateful and happy. I look back and think there has been so much of that in my life. Having experimented with anxiety medication prescribed by a psychiatrist, that didn’t go away. I think it created a very subtle numbing effect sometimes. At times, it made me feel more balanced even in my emotions. I remember tracking it because I wanted to see if that medication would help, but it didn’t solve anything. It was just a medication. It was a little bandage.

As I look through all of these and try to recognize, “What’s the thread through? What are the triggers?” It’s generally in these social situations where I feel like I don’t fit in. That brings up this desire to mask what I want, mask how I feel, change my behavior, and fall into more of a performance. I wrote down the phrase, “There’s a deep sadness that I still can’t shake.” The whole paragraph is interesting. I believe I wrote this in October 2017. For the past few days, I have had a lump in my throat. I felt on the verge of crying. I finally cried. I got triggered and all came pouring out a deep sadness that I still can’t shake. It’s so deep that I’m unsure of its origin. It feels like a deep loss and simultaneously mourning, perhaps yearning for something I’ve never had. It’s almost a feeling of being lonely and unfulfilled or feeling that things are off track.

Being A People Pleaser

The other interesting thing is I wrote a little bit more that’s a bit private. Following that, I then wrote how I love soothing people and helping them solve problems. I want people to feel better. I don’t want people to suffer unconditionally. I don’t want people to be afraid. I want to help them find their truth and clear obstacles. That sounds nice but what if that’s all people-pleasing? What if that’s all me putting other people’s needs ahead of mine?

What if I have been doing that almost as a defense mechanism as running away from my emotions? What if I learn to feel comforted by helping others or by distracting myself by helping others? That’s something I am trying to process as I go through coaching training. Why is it that I want to be a well-being coach? Why is it that I had been drawn to psychology for so much of my life? I think that’s very common that therapists tend to be drawn to things that they want to work on themselves and help other people.

When you love soothing people and helping them solve problems and clear obstacles, you’re putting everyone else’s needs first before yourself. Share on X

That’s why I’m trying to do the deep work and look inwards and figure this out. Back then, I also was clear that I didn’t want any more superficial ego-based relationships. That’s a trait of autism too. Some of my research is people who are on the autism spectrum tend to detest small talk. They don’t want superficial things because that makes them uncomfortable, I believe. From my understanding, autistic people also tend to be very literal. I’ve noticed that in myself too the more that I’ve reflected on it. If I don’t have clarity or if someone isn’t clear with me in their communication, I struggle. I feel disconnected from them. I don’t understand them or something feels off and weird to me.

That’s probably part of the reason that I have felt these experiences at the wedding or the retreat of feeling like I don’t fit in. A lot of times, in those social situations, when you’re with the same group of people for a few days, there’s some bonding that happens, but it doesn’t feel like deep bonding to me. It feels like other people are bonding and I’m not bonding with them, and I don’t fully understand why.

It’s also especially weird to have these feelings as an adult who generally feels secure in who I am and what I’m doing and saying. I have confidence, but it comes up to these feelings of wondering if anybody likes me. As I said, part of that is because if I don’t have deep and clear conversations with people and signals of psychological safety, I don’t feel secure. I feel confused. I feel unsure.

Huge Motivation

The other thing I wrote down is not wanting to feel less than or better than anybody, but wanting equality. That has been a huge thread-through clearly in my life for the last few years, and a huge motivation for starting my private community Beyond Measure. These are all the clarifying stages. I’m sure I have had these thoughts for a long time. As I was writing this journal, desiring inspiration and motivation instead of competition, being in it together, not making it exclusive, and not being about influence, but about connection.

What started to drive me out of working in social media as a content creator is that I was so frustrated with the superficial, the ego, the influence, the exclusivity, the gossip and the complaining. I wanted transparency and acceptance, but now I’m starting to see more about why I felt this way for as long as I can remember. When I was in film school, I remember this coming up for me a ton because creative types, whether they’re in front or behind the camera, there tends to be a lot of ego and competition. It rubbed me the wrong way. I went to film school because I loved art. I love the expression. I love making things for myself and others, but it was tough for me in a lot of social factors.

I remember very distinctly being so frustrated with things that felt superficial, not just communication and socializing, but screenwriting. Whenever I would write my scripts for short films, they would always be based on the deeper reality or deeper subject matters. Some of them are a little too deep. There was one short film of mine in particular that didn’t quite turn out the way that I intended, but it was an interesting project.

 

I was also thinking about this one short film that I did when I was starting to study film. I went to this summer program. It was in July 2022 that I’m recording this and thinking back to how I spent one of my Julys in my life. I spent a whole month in New York City learning about how to make movies. At the end of the program, each of us had to make a short film. It’s technically a short video. It wasn’t on film, but I made it and it was all about my emotions. I was in it and acting in it. It was about my stream of consciousness.

I think I just wrote down journal-style all these feelings I was having. That month was one of the most impactful months. I mentioned this on the show before because I met a guy with whom I had massive feelings for about ten years. He’s the reason that I ended up going vegan. I remember experiencing heartache in one of the most intense ways I had ever had before because of him. It brought up these crazy feelings and it was so much a confusing dynamic the two of us had. I needed to get it out.

I wrote it all down in a stream of consciousness. I can’t remember if I recorded the voiceovers and then did the visuals or vice versa, but I came up with this whole shot list and recorded myself. I based it all on what I was going through. It’s so interesting to look back on that because that is me. That is what I’ve been doing for so long. I’ve been journaling both written but also visually, and here I am on the show doing a lot of the same things that have been my form of expression for so long. That short film got selected to be on HBO for a compilation of short films by young people. I was thinking about that the other day. I was like, “That was nice. I got paid for it. I got to say, ‘I was on HBO.’”

The other crazy thing is that sometime in the past year I was going through things and scanning old papers into my computer to digitize them. I came across the communication with this guy at HBO and looked him up. He has a distinct name. I was curious. I’m like, “What is this guy doing now?” He’s now an actor who has been on some big television shows. Not someone I think you would know by name. I’m probably not going to mention it, but he’s someone who has had success but in a completely different way than you might’ve thought because he was running this student filmmakers project at HBO. It’s so fascinating to see how things evolve over time.

I don’t know fully where I was going with that. What’s also cool when I look at this journal is that I started to use this digital journal as a Commonplace Book. That’s what I titled it. I don’t know where I found that term. I haven’t heard it much, but I used it for any sorts of notes. I’m so glad that I did because I have so much in here. One of the sections towards the top is a list of things I wanted to do.

Top of that list is to go on road trips. I sat in a camper van. I believe I’ve mentioned how I had been dreaming of going on road trips in a trailer or a van or something for the past years. I remember starting to get interested and curious about it in 2012. I pictured it in a van. I remember seeing literal pictures of teardrop trailers, which you can hook up to the back of your car. I wanted one of those so bad. I thought they were so cool because they had been featured in Sunset Magazine and I still have the picture. I found it probably around the same time it was going through and found the HBO paper in that same stack of papers I had.

Learning the facts isn't enough. You must also consciously alter the structure of the brain on a neuronal level. Share on X

It’s also interesting because that might have been in July. I remember many years ago, I did my first cross-country road trip. Part of the inspiration was seeing this magazine with the teardrop trailer. I have it somewhere. I will include it for this episode if you want to see what I’m referring to. It’s amazing how much that impacted me. I probably also shared in the show how around that same time, I had seen pictures of Horseshoe Bend, where I ended up going for the first time, and almost ten years later after seeing that. Here I am in this Commonplace Book writing about it again.

Underneath that desire or these bullet points, I said I wanted to listen to audiobooks too. I’m sure I was already listening to them, but I wanted to go on roadshows and listen to audiobooks. That’s exactly what I’m about to do shortly. I wrote down things like how I wanted to lead conferences and training. It’s interesting. I don’t quite have that desire. I like the idea of doing the one-on-one well-being coaching like I’m working on right now. This is crazy too. Also on that list is to start another podcast.

By another podcast, I was referencing the podcast I had in 2015 called Real Influencers. That was the very first podcast of my own. It only lasted a few months and then fell off. I still have all the recordings and I’ve thought about putting them out somewhere. I did that podcast with a former friend of mine and I don’t have their permission. I don’t feel super comfortable with it, but maybe privately. Maybe in Beyond Measure, I’ll share it so it’s not a public-facing thing.

Looking back on things we write down, especially a to-do list if you can find any of them in stacks of paper or on your computer or in journals, I find that deeply interesting to look back on. I use this to write down projects I was working on. The other thing that’s super fascinating to me is that I was trying to do so much and I still naturally do a lot, but I’m not forcing it as much as I used to. I think the reason that I was trying to do so much was based on expectations. I had all of these things and I thought if I do this, it will lead to that.

Now, I don’t operate that way. As long as my bills are covered and as long as I feel like I can do the things I love like traveling and taking road trips, that’s a success to me. I don’t need accolades. They’re nice but they don’t matter to me like the way that they did a few years ago when I was writing these things down. I feel it’s so much better to be doing less and going more with the flow.

That reminds me of this person I mentioned earlier who I’m excited to see on this trip. They mentioned to me how they believe they don’t have a presence anywhere on the web anymore except for their main project, which I’ll tell you about and reference their podcast episode. In a few weeks or so, I will share more details about this person and their amazing business. If you haven’t read the episode yet, you can go check that out because this person is fascinating.

 

When they mentioned that they’re no longer on social media. They don’t have a newsletter anymore. I don’t even know if they have a website anymore as they used to. I used to love this person’s Twitter account. Their newsletters were some of the best I’ve ever read. Their website was so great, but I could put aside my feeling of nostalgia and missing what they used to do. That felt nothing compared to a bit of envy I experienced hearing about them not doing much online. That person’s style has influenced me in a lot of subtle ways. My website WhitneyLauritsen.com is very simple. There are a few pages on it that are fancier.

Being Validated

I have used a template on them because I wanted to, but the main page might have been completely inspired by this person. I’m not sure. This is a while ago that I made it, but I desired that simplicity. I thought, “I don’t need this fancy or flashy website that a lot of people have.” It’s not important to me to spend money on things like that. It’s not important to me to feel validated by how attractive something is just like I don’t want to feel validated by being an attractive person. I’m not going to put effort right now into my hair, my makeup, my clothes and my weight. I just want to go with the flow. If I’m living my life true to myself, then going with the flow is bringing me closer to that.

I keep thinking that reading through this journal out loud feels so familiar. I feel like perhaps I did do an episode on it. It would be fascinating if I already covered some of these things. It’s interesting to see the fact that I still want to talk about it. What are we continuously drawn to? What do we want to go back and reflect on over and over again? Also, what has changed since that? What has evolved? A lot of the examples I’m giving are brand new or things I’m piecing together. That is such an interesting practice to do. I hope that this is inspiring you in some ways if you feel drawn to it.

In this Commonplace Book, I would write down all sorts of quotes. I’m so grateful I did that too. Here’s one related to it. It’s so weird all these little clues of who we are in our past. I don’t know who said this quote, but it’s in quotations. I don’t know where this came from. It’s not attributed to anybody, but what’s in quotes is, “Self-deprecation is your comfort zone.” I wish I knew what that means. Why did I put that there? Was I feeling like I was being self-deprecating? Was I noticing that in someone else?

It’s fascinating to think about something that I perceive to be negative as also being comforting. These patterns that we have was my desire to soothe people and help them solve problems. Considering that I still feel drawn to coaching people, is that a comfort zone for me? I think it’s a couple of things, which is you learn so much about yourself by helping others. There’s also the natural good feeling that we get from doing things for other people.

It feels good to me. It feels comforting and there doesn’t seem to be any harm in helping other people unless it’s truly taking you away from yourself and helping yourself. That’s the most important thing there. I also wrote a quote and I have no idea where this is from, “Learning the facts isn’t enough. You must also consciously alter the structure of the brain on a neuronal level.” That is also something I have been drawn to for so long. It’s like, “I don’t just want to learn something. I want it to be deeply embedded in me.”

Let go and see what happens. That release could be a great lesson. Share on X

At this time in my life, I was into studying entrepreneurship. I was working towards it, striving, hustling, and noticing so much. Something has come up a lot and I can’t remember if this came up in my coaching program. I feel like it was in the coaching program and one of our group discussions. I also feel like it came up in the show or something. They all jumbled together sometimes, but it was around how if we focus too much on improving, that in itself, we can get addicted to.

Improvement

It was actually during the retreat. We were discussing as a group, me and the other participants, how it can be counterproductive if we’re always trying to improve ourselves. If we’re always noticing room for improvement and if we are focusing on what we could get better at, that’s also focusing on what we’re not doing well. We don’t feel good enough about that. If we can get more into a place of flow, acceptance and gratitude, and focus on what we are doing well and what we love, that may better serve us.

When I look back over these journal entries, I see myself pushing so hard. I remember around that time feeling like, “I got to make all this money and these are the ways I’m going to do it. I’m going to study all these entrepreneurs.” I was obsessed with it. Now, I don’t pay any attention to that stuff. I feel so turned off by hearing business strategies and social media strategies. I love podcast strategy because that’s a huge part of my work and my income, but in more of a softer way. It’s not like, “I’m going to look at the biggest podcasters and find out what’s working well for them.”

I’m not drawn to that because I’m not guaranteed success by following their path. What I’m drawn to is staying consistent and coming out with my show regularly. How do I record it? What do I talk about? How do I notice what things people seem to be drawn to? That feels better and that feels more in the flow and alignment with myself. In my documentation, I’m writing about how I wanted to spend more time alone.

I wanted to spend more time being quiet and reflecting, reducing things, organizing and focusing less on what other people are saying and doing. I also spend more time reading and sleeping. Less time on the phone and more time appreciating life. It was interesting to see that. I was writing that out, but I wasn’t doing it. I think I was considering it. When we look back on journals like this, we can see how we want something but we don’t know how to get there yet.

Taking road trips was not something that made sense to me. It wasn’t something that I could easily do and plan. It still doesn’t feel easy to me, but it’s easy for me to make the decision to do it. I have confidence because they already have done it. That is a huge lesson too. It’s not about it being easy per se. I think it is more about confidence. As I was saying, socializing does not feel easy to me, but I have more confidence and more clarity around myself. Even if I’m feeling uncomfortable, I can still manage it.

 

I feel so relieved looking through a lot of these business notes I had in here. I have multiple pages in this document of how I was going to structure some things. I remember this specific element of my business at the time felt so hard and unpleasant. Now that I look back and see that, I’ve virtually abandoned doing this specific type of work. I feel so much better. I’m relieved that I’m not doing it. It was a lot. Noticing the relief I felt and hearing my friend share how they’re not doing all this stuff anymore that I was writing about back then, I’m like, “I could see that. It was very appealing.”

Following Other People’s Strategies

I don’t know if I did want it. As I was saying before, was it because I felt like that’s the way I should do business?” This is the problem with following other people’s strategies and formulas. It starts to take you away from yourself in a lot of cases, but not always. I suppose some people feel in alignment with it. Back then, it probably did. If I reflect on what I was feeling, it did feel right to me. It felt exciting and desirable, but it also felt hard and it wasn’t working no matter how hard I tried. That in itself is a big signal that when something is not working and you’re putting in all this effort, maybe it’s never going to work because it’s not meant for you. What if you can let go and just see what it feels like to not even try anymore?

That has been a big lesson. Releasing that grip and just being. This is something that I majorly feel when I’m traveling because traveling forces you to do that, even if it’s vacation. I noticed myself pulsing in and out of that when I was in Costa Rica for the retreat. There would be moments when I wasn’t thinking about anything else beyond what I was doing. Surfing, for example. At the time, I did not have any mental room to focus on anything else other than surfing.

When I was riding ATVs around the jungle, I don’t remember focusing on anything else. Since I was in the group of people, I noticed socializing and the anxiety that comes up with that. That continuous feeling of not fitting in for me lingers a lot in those situations and the times when I felt anxious about being on the ATV because it was hard. I didn’t even know, but mostly because the ATV that I was riding was having some issues. It kept stopping.

Multiple times, I was going up steep hills and the ATV stopped working. There’s someone in front of me and behind me. I’m super nervous that I’m going to crash into somebody or they’re going to crash into me. It was hard and uncomfortable. I’m wondering, “Do I look like an idiot? Do people think I was weak or stupid? How do I not know how to ride an ATV?” All those little judgments and concerns can come up for me.

Aside from that, most of the time I was so focused on writing that ATV and making sure that I was able to get it working again and that I didn’t go off the path. It kept me focused and present and I loved that. There were other times in the retreat when I started thinking about life outside of the retreat and what work I wanted to get done and what my clients needed. Sometimes ruminating too much about my insecurity and anxiety, and thinking about all these things that I didn’t need to because everything was taken care of at the retreat.

I didn’t need to do anything other than be there and that was such a gift. It was challenging because perhaps, going back to that one quote about self-deprecation, it’s like being a glutton for punishment. Perhaps, I do find comfort in my anxiety. Maybe I feel comforted by not fitting in. These habitual ways of thinking, I believe can be addictive and perhaps that’s the natural path to get us into a different state of being, raising that awareness, noticing, wondering, and being curious about our patterns.

With that said, I’m going to pause here and maybe this is to be continued because I want to go through more of this journal. I can’t remember what inspired it. There’s a reason I opened it up to look at. Perhaps it was getting more in tune with myself before I start therapy. As I go through the coaching training, using my old journal as an opportunity to reflect and notice myself. It gives me something to share and talk about with you.

I love the idea of you doing the same things. If you decided to look back or if you decide to start journaling and start your own Commonplace Book, you can do that however you would like. I would love to know what that feels like for you. I also love any thoughts you have from these episodes in which I talk about travel, hardships and lessons. Hearing from you is so lovely. If you want to join the Beyond Measure community, we meet once a week virtually. We have been doing that on weekdays. We used to do it on Saturdays, but it’s worked for most people’s schedules on a weekday, which surprised me.

I’m also planning to integrate my coaching into Beyond Measure. If you want to experience some of that as I’m learning or perhaps you want to check out my old episodes, I will consider putting them in Beyond Measure, especially if you ask for it. It’s free. I believe as I start to work on this coaching practice myself and the consideration of integrating that into Beyond Measure that the fees that I’ve been planning to do for Beyond Measure will come into play.

I don’t know when that will be and I do plan to have a free trial for anyone who wants to try it out, even when I do start charging. Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope to hear from you and I’ll be back again on Friday with a special guest episode. I say this every time. I feel like every episode that I do becomes one of my favorites. I recorded one episode with my guest. It blows me away what some guests bring. I’m continuously surprised by the people that show up to be on this show for you and for me.

I hope you check that out and I’ve got a bunch of other amazing people lined up for you and tons of incredible people in the past. Once I announced who the person I mentioned several times in this episode is, I will link to their episode too, for those that are curious. If you go onto the Wellevatr website, in the menu bar is a section just for guests if you find yourself wanting to listen to more of those. If you’ve never listened to them for some reason, you might want to check it out, see who’s on that list, and let me know what you think. Bye for now.

 

Important Links

• episode – previous episode
• @WhitLauritsen – Instagram
• Divergent Mind
• WhitneyLauritsen.com
• https://WhitneyLauritsen.com/beyond-measure

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

Join the This Might Get Uncomfortable community today:

• wellevatr.com
• Wellevatr Facebook
• Wellevatr Twitter
• Wellevatr Instagram