Clarity About What You Want

Marty: Welcome to the True You Podcast. happy to be back on air with my dear colleague, bill Tierney. And my name is Martin Kettelhut, and today's topic is getting clarity on what you want. I think one place to start, if, if you're open to it on this question um, what, to investigate a little of this question, like how could it be that we wouldn't have clarity on what we want? Like

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: why would it become a cloudy about how does that happen?

Bill: that's a, that's a great place to start, I think.

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah, and I, I wanna mention that what's inspiring this is that I'm having some clients renewing right now. And what that means is that the initial, our initial contract, our initial agreement for the work that we would do together has come to an end in terms of how much time we've spent on it. Our original agreement was we'd spend x number of sessions focused on this specific clear objective, and now it's time to complete with that objective and then state a new one because that's what coaching is all about. I would say, I mean, there's a lot more to coaching than that, but, but without a, an agreement and clarity about what does the client want when they come to coaching in the first place. It's kind of a hodgepodge, and, and every week is a different topic and it's hard to make a whole lot of progress. In fact, it's almost impossible to make much progress towards a, any kind of specific name to goal. I live in, uh, Spokane, Washington, 280 miles from Seattle. And if we left my home, actually I lived in Liberty Lake, so it's about 300 miles. But if we left my home and just hit the road. Then stopped for gas and then went on to a different direction. We, if we didn't have a destination, if it's not Seattle and, and around here, maybe it's Tri-Cities or Walla Walla or Wenatchee or some of these other places, without a destination, we, we would just be shotgunning, shotgunning it all over the place. And never really arrive at, at any place that we had intended to. So it's important to know where we're gonna go. And, and, and to do that, we need to establish a very clear objective about what the client wants coaching to help them to accomplish.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: To do that, the client needs to know what they want. So 99 out of times out of a hundred, when I ask the client, what do you want coaching to help you accomplish, I hear a whole lot of what they don't want anymore.

Marty: Would the, okay. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Bill: so clients come to coaching. They, they come to coaching because they're having an experience that they aren't happy with or they're not having the experience that they, that they want. But most of the time what they come to coaching with regarding clarity is what they don't want. And so when I first start meeting with clients, my question is, what do you want coaching to help you with?

Marty: Yep.

Bill: If coaching worked for you, how would you know? So let's just kind of play with that a little bit today, maybe.

Marty: The way I put it lately, this changes, but the way I put it lately is like if this were to be successful for you, what would you be do and half in six months?

Bill: Yeah, that's a great way to ask it. And how does that go? Do people struggle with being able to imagine and visualize what they would do ?

Marty: I don't know if this has to do with personality types or upbringing or, you know, education or what. But, um, some people have a hard time and that's why I think this is a great topic. Some people, they have clarity about what they want right away, and other people, it's like, gosh, I

Bill: yeah.

Marty: You know, it's, it's, some people see a correlation with the people who are successful, by the way. 'cause the, the clearer you are on your vision of where you want to go, like that, you could taste it almost the more likely you are to get there. You know, if it's, if it's, I don't know. I just wanna improve this situation. So that's not gonna, that's gonna be hard to work with.

Bill: And some, um, some lines of metaphysical thinking would say that if the focus is on what you don't want, you're actually just attracting more of this, of, of the same.

Marty: I agree with that.

Bill: Yeah. I don't, I wanna, I don't wanna be broke all the time. And the way it was explained to me is broke all the time. That's what the universe here is broke all the time. Broke all the time, all the.

Marty: yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, and it more importantly, that's what you are hearing. If you're saying that to yourself, that's what you are hearing.

Bill: Oh, well I'm, I'm a narcissist, so I am the universe, so that's not true. That's my attempt to be funny.

Marty: so what is it that makes it difficult? Why is it, why is this challenging to be clear about what we want?

Bill: I believe it's because many of us are so focused on, on the suffering we're trying to manage,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: really oriented to what we don't want and, and it seems like a luxury and an indulgence to consider what we might want.

Marty: Yeah, no, that seems so obvious and s and profoundly obvious. and yet I don't think we realize, I think I just wanna underline what you're, the premise here is that we are mostly thinking about negative things, things we don't want,

Bill: Right.

Marty: that's important to grasp at the outset.

Bill: I think so too. And, and so as coaches, you know, we come up against that. That's, that's what many of our clients bring into coaching, uh, initially with when we first, uh, engage the, the client in the coaching agreement and also ongoing, no matter what's happened initially, that's gonna come up over and over and over again. I don't want this, I don't want that. Help me not to have this anymore.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: And, and,

Marty: tell you how many times a day somebody, I have to flip it around and say, okay, well if you weren't getting that, then what would you get? You know?

Bill: right, right. Exactly. And the,

Marty: I never thought of it that way. You know? That's the typical answer.

Bill: and I, that was me. And, and that still could be me at, at any point in time if I, if I go unconscious for a while and find myself just grinding through whatever the next challenge is. And then one day wake up and notice, oh gosh, I don't feel content or happy or joyous anymore. What happened to that? I used to be the happiest guy I knew, and that happens.

Marty: I also think, I also think that there are some in, in between stages between just thinking about what you don't want and thinking about what you do want. We don't realize we're on this slippery slope to thinking what we don't want, like managing. Other people's approval of what we want right now. That's not necessarily thinking about what you don't want, but it's managing a situation that you don't want and you think that be by managing it, that you're gonna get what, what you want, but still just managing around what you don't want.

Bill: That's what burdened protectors. If we think in, in terms of the internal family systems model, that's what burdened protectors do is they, they, the, the managers, there's two cabinets of protectors, managers and firefighters. The managers are really devoted. Their motto is never again, to never allowing that bad, painful, hurtful, scary thing to happen again, ever. So that's their entire focus. And so if I have a manager led system, a system that's led by burdened managers, meaning that they're still tethered to an unresolved past, then they're gonna be reacting to my, my present life. Uh, with a lens that's, that's fine tuned to is there any danger that what happened in the past is about to happen again, whatever we need to do to prevent that from happening, that's what I'm gonna do. So if the predominance of the influence in, in, in my internal family comes from managers that are burdened,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that's gonna be my orientation. I'm not gonna be thinking about what I want. I don't have room for that. I'm too busy trying to avoid what I don't want.

Marty: I was speaking to a client last week who has a protector, I think that's the correct word. Um. He, he's protecting him. This protector is about seven years old. Um, protecting him from having a bad influence on people. Something, it's, it was in relationship to a family member that he asserted himself and offered a solution as a 7-year-old, and it turned out to be to go poorly for the other person. And so now he has a protector that will keep him from having too much influence on other people.

Bill: That's a great example, and depending on how dominant that protector is and how often it shows up and influences him, it may rob him of the ability to even begin to, uh, consider what, what could be possible for him.

Marty: that's, that's how I discovered this protector is because we're working on what he's wants. Right. This, this invention that he wants the world to get to know, right. And sell and, and change people's lives with. But he, his protector won't quite let him. And, and we just kept bumping up against this protector and I was like, wait a minute. There's a part of you that's resisting this. Let's talk, let's talk with it.

Bill: How'd that go?

Marty: Very well,

Bill: Yeah, it's amazing when you actually go to the source of the concern, and that's what it is too. By the way, any burdened part is reacting from a concern, a worry, or a fear.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, well, every, let me restate that. Every burden protector is reacting from a worry, a fear, or a concern. There's other burden parts, the, the exiles that are actually holding the original unresolved pain and meaning making from any circumstance that that stayed inside as a wound and that didn't get healed and resolved. Those exiles don't really have a job and they're not really especially fearful or, or concerned or worried. They're just holding the energy of the unresolved. Event, whatever that was

Marty: This, this in this client. Um, the session ended with that part, that 7-year-old part now being updated. I don't need to go into all the details, but the, but and now has a new job, which is to integrate. My client's needs and wants with others, needs and wants. That's his new job.

Bill: nice. Nice. And, and, and sometimes that that can work by just having a conversation with that one part.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, other times it, it requires getting the rest of the team involved. And that's usually the case is there's team of parts that are all kind of domino, ripple affecting each other.

Marty: Yeah, some other parts definitely appeared in that conversation.

Bill: sure. I'm sure they did. Yeah. So back to your question, why are we so oriented to what we don't want? That's my understanding. I believe that that explains it maybe a hundred percent of the time.

Marty: And would, do you subscribe to the view that the reason why that's our orientation is because, It goes back, before we had the luxury of being able to create a reality to when we were living in, you know, in the fear that we were gonna be stomped on or eaten.

Bill: Oh, I see. It's going, you're, you're suggesting that this goes back what IFS would call a legacy burden that goes back all the way back to our earlier evolution. Maybe. Maybe it gets

Marty: even,

Bill: into the DNA.

Marty: yeah, this is, and you know, we come from. The animal kingdom, and I'm not suggesting this, but I've heard this said quite often and I just wondered what you think

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: because of that, you know, that first we were, we learned fight or flight, you know, just, just to stay alive. And now we've got this luxury of having survived and be able to create a reality not, our parts haven't caught up our deepest parts like our

Bill: Yeah. Right. And I, that goes beyond my understanding, but I, I am absolutely open to how in, in instinct, survival instinct gets kind of cooked in. And, and that's not a part with a job that is, I'm not sure how it's, how it's cooking, but it's.

Marty: context of life.

Bill: It's like if I, you know, some people have fear of heights, some people have fear of spiders. There's all these phobias. Um, and then, and then there's just, um, what, what everybody has when like, we're gonna all react when a, when a bear stands up on his hind legs and, and growls and shows his teeth and then cloths. We're gonna be scared, we're gonna wanna run. Not, not too many of us are want to, gonna want to go run toward the bear. We're gonna wanna run away from it.

Marty: Exactly.

Bill: That's instinct, survival, instinct. Yeah.

Marty: So if I was just sitting down with my journal, you know, and a life and it's pretty good, but I want to think about what I want, how do I begin to create that? If I've got all these other tugs away, you know, that, that, that are making me unclear about what I want.

Bill: I wanna suggest that you do it in the easiest possible way and that you don't have to do a whole lot of work and try real hard,

Marty: Okay.

Bill: um, 'cause I don't know about you, but I don't like trying very hard. I, I don't, and most people I, I know don't really have, have a great, uh, love for that either. Plus, we have a limited capacity to how much effort trying we can put into any given day. Um, and so what's easy is to focus for most students to focus on what we don't want. So here, let me just give you, uh, an example from my, my life. About three years before I met my current wife Kathy, um, I made a list. Inspired by the teachings of Abraham Esther and Jerry Hicks and one of, one of their books, uh, ask And it is given, I'm looking at it right now, one of my favorite books of all time and in the back of that book are several different exercises. And I, I grabbed the exercise and I'm, I don't do it exactly the way that, that Esther and, uh, described to do, but essentially it is, uh, go ahead and list everything that you don't want in, in any, any particular area. Like if, if it was money, it might be, I don't ever wanna be broke again. I don't wanna have to be worrying about the next paycheck. I don't wanna have a bank account overdrawn, all that stuff. But for me, what it was was, um, I was. Scared to death that I was going to attract another really toxic, dysfunctional relationship, and I was convinced that there was something about me that acted as a magnet for them.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And so after my second marriage, I made a deep vow that I wouldn't let myself get involved in a relationship again unless I was convinced that I had transformed from the inside out to become the kind of man that would attract a healthy relationship rather than a toxic one. So about three years before I met Kathy, I'd done a ton of work by then. Um, I'd been doing this work for probably nine years by then. This work, meaning healing my past, challenging my thinking, uh, redoing my belief system. And, um, so I, I made this list of everything that I didn't want in, in a relationship, and it was so easy to do. This is, I never wanna experience these things with, with a woman. I never wanna experience these things in a relationship again. And in less than 20 minutes, I listed 65 or so different things that I didn't want. It was so easy. The hardest thing about it was to breathe because my pen was just flying on the page.

Marty: Wow.

Bill: And the way the, in the instructions read, as I recall, was to list these, like in one or two words at a time. The not sentence, it's just one or two words. I don't ever wanna be resented. I don't ever wanna be criticized, I don't wanna be judged. I don't wanna be taken for granted. I don't wanna be disrespected all the things that I'd experienced in my second marriage and many other relationships as well. I don't, I don't wanna be ignored. Just all kinds of, uh, of things that just are painful to experience in a relationship. Once I finally ran out of ideas of things that I didn't want, now it was time to go back to the very top of the list. And on the other side of the page with a labeled want, the left side was labeled, don't Want. The right side was labeled Want. I looked at the very first word on the list and asked myself If I don't want to be disrespected, I believe that's the first thing I listed. Then do I want to be respected? Well, yes, of course. That's so I want respect. I wanna feel respected in a relationship. What's the next thing? I don't wanna be criticized. Okay, well what's the opposite of criticized? Do I Wanna be praised? No, that's not quite it. I'm not looking to be praised. I just don't wanna be criticized. So what do I want? It's back to respect again. So respect again. I want, I wanna, I wanna be respected and on and on and on. Now that took a little longer 'cause there was a little bit of work in thinking about, I mean now you can use the, the thes and I used the dictionary and I Googled and I looked at, well, what would be the opposite of this word? And do I want that?

Marty: And sometimes it might not be the opposite, but just very different.

Bill: Exactly opposite help though, it would kind of get me in the ballpark. And, and sometimes I'll, I, I would take that opposite and realize, well, that doesn't quite hit the mark, but it's, it's close. So let me, what are the synonyms for this word? And then I, and within those cinon synonyms, I would find a word that described what it was that I want. So in the end, I ended up with something like 60, 65 different, clear, clear descriptions of what I wanted in a woman and what I wanted in a relationship. Folded it up, put it in an envelope, put it in a box, put it in my closet, and forgot about it.

Marty: Huh.

Bill: Never looked at it again until about three months after I met Kathy and we knew that we were an item. By this time. I mean, I was serious about her. She was serious about me, and I found the box, opened it up. What's this? Oh, this envelope. This is what I want on the outside. I opened it up, I looked at the list, oh, here it is. And I went through of, let's say there were 65 things. There were only three things on that list that I couldn't put a check mark honestly next to, to say, that's what I've got in this relationship.

Marty: Marvelous. Marvelous.

Bill: It was amazing. It's, and it wasn't really magic, but it felt magical because I was so clear about what I wanted. That clear intention, that clarity combined with intention and willingness to do whatever was necessary to become the man that I needed to be, to attract that. All of that combined, apparently to be manifested.

Marty: I think that, uh, that's a moment. I just wanna. Dilate to speak on, on. That's another thing that I think is really important in this conversation about why would it be that we don't have clarity, Believability, uh, that we can, you know, the, the willingness, you, you used a couple of words there. Like, you've got to believe or be willing to have what you want. you, you know, if, if there's an in, you know, just like crusted over with, I can't have what I want, then that's gonna be difficult. Or, or, or, what good does it do for me to think up what I want when the world's just gonna bulldoze me into

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: that's, if that's seriously in your bones, then

Bill: Well then that's gotta be challenged.

Marty: that's gotta be

Bill: That is, that's the thing that's in the way and that's what's gotta be challenged. And I used the word challenge because that's the way I view the work of Byron Katie, which is what I had been using for those 10 years or so by the time I made that list. I think it was nine years at that point, I'd been using the work of Byron Katie, uh, in this way. When I was suffering, I became convinced that my suffering was associated with thinking that didn't match reality

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: because that's what Byron Katie teaches. And so I used my suffering to identify the thinking. That that was causing that suffering. Used her method to challenge that thinking and, and in that way began to change my beliefs. And one of the beliefs was, I don't deserve to be happy,

Marty: What, what do you do with, um, people who on this issue? They would say Esther Hicks or whoever, like, how do you get the, there I, how do you get from thinking it up to having what you want? Like that, that's, I think to a lot of people that's, that's the internal thing that, that would need work. And they don't think that there's anything to work on there. Like it, that's the way it is. You know, you don't, it's not like in the secret where you just say what you want and it appears like, come.

Bill: Correct. That's not been my experience and I wanted it to be my experience 'cause that sounds a lot easier.

Marty: Doesn't.

Bill: My, I had a buddy still, he's a good friend, Chris and I, he was a real estate agent, uh, and I was a mortgage broker and we would get together for lunch at least once a week or so, and we'd talk about the law of attraction and that's, that's, you know, Esther and Jerry Hicks and the teachings of Abraham, that they're right at the core of that. And of course the movie The Secret, and Rhonda Burns, I think is, was her name and, and all that. And Chris and I. Oh, we wanted so badly to believe that we could just think up a feather and it would show up at the door. Um, we start with the feather and then we build up to a million dollars. And, and, and the, our complaint, you know, after several months of getting together and studying the law of attraction and trying to get it nailed down so that we could, we could get the magic just right and get our lives to manifest what we wanted. Um, when it wasn't working, the, the common complaint that we had between ourselves was, where's my shit? I've been doing all the stuff. I've been doing what they say to do. Well now all these years later, I can look back at the very same stuff that I thought they were telling us to do and I was missing the part where it said, take action. Believe that the action that you take will will bring about positive results and it will, but there's action in there that's gotta be taken. It's not magic. It's not a trick. We can't fool the universe into manifesting the life that we want. We need to recognize what it is inside that puts, that we are putting in the way of getting what we want.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: recognize that often what we want or think we want is just what one of our parts wants. Thinking that if we have that, then, then everything would be okay.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And that can be, that can send us down the wrong dirt road for a while too. If I only had the most beautiful woman in the world. On my arm. If I only had a million dollars, if I could drive a Mercedes, a brand new Mercedes, if I could win the lottery, then I'd be happy. Well, so if we, depending on how, how much we put into going down that road to pursue that woman or to, to win the lottery or whatever that might be. If, if it works out and we get that woman, we get that Mercedes, we win that lottery and we're still not happy. Now what? Ooh, now what?

Marty: right, right, right. That, I mean that. I know that that played a big role. At the beginning of my career with me, like I can, I know that I had thoughts about like, oh my gosh, I, I, I can't imagine running a business. yet I was embarking on the process of building a business, you know? And I. I had to, part of it was a sense of wonder and, and that was okay. Like I wonder how this could happen. But part of it was, uh, I just couldn't see it yet, you know? But I kept going and it came about.

Bill: You kept going. It came about probably because you had more and more and more clarity about what you did and did not want, oh, I don't, I don't wanna work with that kind of client anymore. That was painful.

Marty: That's right. That's right. Exactly. You're exactly right. You know, like, yes. But

Bill: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Marty: thank you uni. Uh, you know, I'm, I took that step and I got some of what I want, but I now I see more clearly is your point that I need to do it in this way or

Bill: Right,

Marty: people, or

Bill: right.

Marty: time of day, what you know.

Bill: Book Yourself Solid is the name of a book that my first co coach recommended that I get and follow in order to fill up my coaching practice and be a successful coach. I couldn't get Pat's page 19 or 20 of a, of a like 150 page manual because Michael was the author. I, I wanna honor him by finding his name before we get done here, but. Um, 'cause it's a great book. It really is great. Uh, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't answer his questions. His questions were things like, who do you wanna serve? Who's your target client? Who's your perfect client, and where do you find that client? And how old are they and where do they live? And what, who do they talk to and what do they do and what do they want? And all these questions. I didn't have any of that clarity until I'd been coaching people for about five or six years.

Marty: I see. Yeah. So get in the water, wade into whatever it is you're dealing with, and start to be action. Be in the stuff of it that will help you get clarity. a really important piece of

Bill: I, yeah, you know, there may be another way, uh, to get there, but Michael Port, but I wasn't able to do. I, I actually had to have the experience. PORT. Yeah, Michael, port yourself Solid. And it looks like there's some new additions of it that, that have been written since I, Michael Port, since I attempted to, to use the process. And interestingly, uh, you've heard me talk about my, my marketing, um, consultant Meredith, who has helped me so much in my business. Guess what she wanted me to know? The very first question she asked me, who do you want, who do you work with? What do they need? How do you help them? Where do you find them? What do they eat? Where do they hang out? Who do they talk to? And it surprised me that when she asked those questions, I started pushing back and I realized, oh, I have some of these answers now. I didn't know that I, I didn't know that I did.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah. Good. And, and since then I've gotten really clear, of course, learning about how to use the internal family systems model really has helped with that as well. Because the, my ideal client is someone who, number one is, is willing to be helped to get clear about what they want. And number two is willing to go inside and recognize that whatever it is that's stopping them from having that is that's where they're gonna find it not out there.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And that's kind of challenging. It's kind of challenging to, challenging to find a client who doesn't want me to help, help them fix what's broken out there.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: They, they, they, it's, it's a little harder to, to take that focus inside.

Marty: Right, right. Well, and I've, I've had clients too who they think they want it, it is, you know, a new boat then. Once they're up against what it will take, they decide, you know what, I don't want that after all.

Bill: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Marty: And, and, and sometimes I think it's right. So, you know, like, yeah, the, you know, you didn't realize all that this entails and that it doesn't align with you. Um, where did that idea come from? Why did you, but, but in the other cases, it's about the challenge, like. I think you want this challenge. I think you want this challenge, you know, um, not only because it's gonna give you that result, but because you're gonna discover stuff about yourself that it'd be better to leave behind

Bill: There's so much there. I want this boat. Ooh. Now that I realize I'm gonna have to pay taxes and get insurance and find mortgage and, and you know, boat.

Marty: barnacles off the bottom every spring.

Bill: I guess I don't want it. And, and so there's the opportunity to recognize that again is an example of there's something inside that's, that's not willing to do. What it takes to have that

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: another direction to go is you want that boat so that what, what, what is it that, what need gets met? Met If you have that boat,

Marty: Right.

Bill: and if we can look at matters of the heart like needs, I have a need for. Here's an example that I heard from Marshall Rosenberg this morning as I'm listening to his book, speak, speak, peace. Um, a woman's yelling at her son and she's just so mad at herself for it, and Marshall asks her, you know, how did, how, how did you educate yourself after you yelled at your son? What do you mean? How, what did you tell yourself? I told myself I'm a, a horrible mother. That's a, that's a shaming way. It's a violent way to treat yourself. Um, and how effective is that? Well, I just, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, it makes it even harder to be a good mother because now I have so much shame. Alright, so what,

Marty: You know.

Bill: right. What if instead you asked yourself, what was the need that I, that, that, that wasn't met, that had me yelling at my son? Or what's the need that, that wasn't met when you yelled at your son? That's the way it went. And he helped her to see that the need that she had was, she needed. To respect other people. And when she yelled at her son, that need wasn't being met and she felt bad.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and, and then he asked her. And now, how do you feel when you, when you tell yourself that you're a bad mom, how does that feel? It feels horrible. I'm ashamed of myself. How's it feel when you, when you recognize that the need to respect other people wasn't met by yelling at your son? Well, now I just feel sad. And he pointed out, isn't that a sweet sadness? Because that informs, that informs you. That's true. That's a true sadness.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that's like regret. And it's there to, to teach you. Now here's a way to teach yourself.

Marty: Where I, I, you're saying so many valuable things today, whereas most of the time if there's sadness there, we, uh, go away from that.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: No, that's a sweet sadness. It's telling you something very important.

Bill: Right, right, right, right.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So Marshall in, in nonviolent communication, Rosenberg, he talks about, um. Moving away from evaluation, recognizing that when, when we're judging and evaluating, we're not really aligning with reality at all. We are living in a world of the violent world of should, would've, could've, should've, and, uh, and shaming. Uh, whereas if we can just report what we are observing and, and that begins with just doing it in ourselves, I'm noticing that, for example, I'm not feeling good about this, this. Let's say a relationship that I'm, that I'm in right now, and, um, I, I'm noticing that the, that I'm wanting to go in the direction of judging or evaluating the other part person and blaming them for why I'm unhappy. And of course, there's no place to go there that, that there's, we're not gonna get anywhere there except in end of that relationship at the beginning of another where, where we're gonna repeat the same thing again.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Whereas if I can go inside and say, okay, what is it, what's going on here that, that has me being unhappy, what, what thinking do I have? You know, what expectations do I have? What beliefs are am I holding? What, what am I withholding? Uh, what's, what's, what is, so here, let's look at just the actual circumstances.

Marty: So what. One of just macro level, one of the things that I, you're making very clear in this explanation, in your examples that to, to get clarity about what you want, you gotta kind of have a relationship with yourself. You gotta. And question that guy, interrogate that woman. You know, get to know her. Get to know what she doesn't want as well as what she wants.

Bill: That woman being the woman that's, that is in a relationship with herself to, to understand herself, is that what.

Marty: yourself objectively, like as much as you can. Like, well, why am What was the need that, that, that of me wanted to get fulfilled? Why would I do that? Like to have this kind of. Ability to look at yourself, not just, not just to be your reactions to life, to, to be able to look at myself and say, wow, what is going on? Why am I this reaction? And, and that's a very important part of just like a, a prerequisite to what we're talking about today.

Bill: Absolutely self-awareness and that that is the, i, I believe the first step in, in personal development, in, in transformation and in growth is being aware of self. What, what is, what's actually going on in here with me? We all, you know, I, I'll just speak for myself. I was trained to focus on the external world.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: What is it about, what, what is it about what's going on out there that has me feeling this way in here, and if I can just get what's going on out there to change I, so that I can feel better, then that's what life's all about. That's the pursuit of happiness right there.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: that doesn't work. It absolutely doesn't work. Number one, because we don't have any power over most of what, what's going on out there. And we have, we, but we have plenty of power about over what's going on in here, if we'll bring our attention to it and, and approach it with compassion

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: approach. What's, you know, treat ourselves with compassion and. Uh, and begin there. So we put less emphasis and dependency on what's happening out, out there. So if, if on my list, uh, my, the words that I listed for what I wanted in a relationship pointed to what she needed to do, and who she needed to be. Then I'm screwed as by, and Katie would say that's, that's hopeless. But if the, it focuses on, I am in this relationship, I'm, I am content, I'm happy, I'm assertive, I'm proactive, I'm clear about what I want, I'm, I communicate honestly and clearly if those things on the list now, now I can get some traction and guess. And, and my guess was that if I, if I could become that person. And that's why I say it this way. I did the work that I needed to do to become the person that I needed to be, to attract the woman that I wanted to be with and have the relationship that I wanted to have. And by the way, that's an ongoing thing. We've been together, well, it'll be thir 12 years married, uh, next month, and, and it's an ongoing process.

Marty: Yeah, just, just to, add to this particular part of our conversation. I think that it's worth saying it's in those moments when we're most triggered, that we have the hardest time being a objective with ourself

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: love ourselves.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: And so it would be, you know, if you're, if you can see that you're having a reaction, something has start you, you know, like, um, a client of mine, um, I spoke to yesterday, um. He said, I just wanna vent about this other person and how I got treated by that person. So I let him do that, you know, and, and then because I knew that he couldn't see him, his own contribution to the problem until he was able to do that. He was in, he was gonna be triggered.

Bill: Yep.

Marty: And, and so once he did that, then I, you know, I eased into saying, aren't these. Thing that that person, you know, said that upset you, aren't they things that you've said about yourself and asked me to coach you on?

Bill: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Marty: And he was like, oh,

Bill: I guess,

Marty: oh. And so,

Bill: yeah.

Marty: we spent the rest of half hour working on him. Of course, you know, not on this other person.

Bill: Yes, yes. Where there's no power. One of my, I don't have it memorized, but, but one of the things I heard years ago that I just love so much is that it's easier, what's easier to carpet the world or get yourself a nice, comfortable pair of sandals.

Marty: That's beautiful. Yeah.

Bill: What else do we wanna say about this? I, there's, there's been something that's been wanting to be said here. Oh, it's this. I began to recognize that I've got an internal guidance system. Probably 15 years ago I started noticing that.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I'd been doing this, this depth of work for about eight or nine years, and then I got real curious about, well, how does it work? Because it sure seems to be it's, it's not return to the route, but it kind of is. It's not take a left at the next light, but it's pretty close. There's something inside that I can actually feel. And sometimes it's it. It seems like an even here that says, Nope, not, not this, not this Often. That's the routing s system. That's the way the routing system is announced. Like return to the route, not this, not this. And other times it is, wow, look how much we love this. Look at, look at how great this is. An example, this is a simple example that I walked outside this morning. I can't remember why I walked outside. I'm usually stuck in my office on Tuesday through Thursday doing sessions, but I'll, I'll take a break and I'll walk outside and it's a beautiful day outside. And I looked at, I looked around and looked at all the, all the work that my wife has been doing in the garden. She loves gardening. She loves, loves plants. And I don't love gardening. I don't hate plants. I love, I love the plants, but I don't, apparently, I, I just don't really enjoy the gardening she does. So. And she doesn't do it for me. You do too. I know. She doesn't do it for me. She does it for herself. Yet I walked outside and I just saw the beauty of what the, of what she had done. And it was gorgeous. And I just took it in for a bit. that my internal guidance system is saying yes, yes, yes, yes. And I'm wondering, okay, what is, what, what's this saying to me that, that I, that I need to do more plants or something. And it's almost like my guidance had since said. No, go, go tell her how much you appreciate what she's done. Go tell her about the beauty that you see that, that she, that she's made manifest in, in, in your, in your lawn, in your, at your home.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So, so

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I did.

Marty: That's great. Yeah. So. So you're pointing to two things. What, what it feels like to not be clear and what it feels like to be clear, this is what I

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: And, um, I think that's really important. It's gonna feel right, it's gonna go Chen as they say. You know,

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: it's gonna just, ah,

Bill: Yep.

Marty: that's it.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: like that.

Bill: That's right. That's right. And we don't have to wait for all, that's it to happen. Is is another point I think that we wanna have a takeaway from this conversation is that we can get clear about. B before it actually manifests. We can get clear about what the, in the internal guidance system will help us to get clear about what it, what it is that we want, or at least get into that ballpark. And often what it takes is not that, not that, not that I don't wanna be disrespected, I don't wanna be criticized, I don't want, I don't wanna be controlled, I don't wanna be taken advantage of all those things that I put on that list. That I didn't want that. Some, that all those not, thats, that was coming from my internal guidance system, which could, is a combination I believe of my past, my unresolved, and as well as resolved past as well as my self led parts. The parts of me that are, are, are in, I enhanced and imbued by my true, authentic self.

Marty: And I just wanna say also, you know, the i there sometimes it, it there, it helps a lot to have a professional coach help you complete with all those entanglements so that you can get clarity. that's one of the. Ways that you notice that you, you are not, and you know, being run by those old conversations, is that what shows up? Is that, yeah, there's something, there's something else that I could go for. I don't have to keep fighting this battle, but, but sometimes it helps to have another person in there to guide that conversation.

Bill: Absolutely. It's like, uh, if it would be, it would be like hiring Bob Barker to go ahead and show you what's behind door number one, two, or three before you have to choose.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Well said.

Bill: I dunno why I thought of just that, just now. Door number one, two, or three. Oh, geez. Yeah. Gosh. One could be a, like a rotten tomato. One could be a, a brand new car. A brand new car. Or you have, well, let's, let's open up the doors and see, oh, there's a car, there's a rotten tomato. And then, and then there's a scooter, I think,

Marty: I'm clear. I definitely want that scooter.

Bill: or nor did I want the rotten tomato. Yeah. Now I want the car. So we can wait and, and hope that we recognize it when we see it. I'll know it when I see it. Or we can be intent in advance by, by using what we know we don't want, looking at the opposite, finding somewhere around that that lands and we can feel it. Then all we have to do is even imagine what we want

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and we will feel it.

Marty: Ah, yes. yes. That's it.

Bill: And that's what Esther Hicks was trying to teach Chris and I years ago, that we missed. She kept saying, it's in the feeling. It's in the feeling, and that's what we were missing. What does she mean? It's in the feeling. It's once you get clear about what you want, you can feel it inside

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: and your internal guidance system is saying, yes, that's it. Now go get it.

Marty: Mm-hmm. And you know, that's, that's another really important point that we've been a culture to, I think, to discredit those feelings. It's more about what's, what's convenient? What's effective, what's gonna get me money, what's gonna get me approval? All of those

Bill: Security, safety.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: safe? What's gonna bring security? I heard just this morning from a client, I'm too big. I'm. I I, I have this voice in my head that says I'm getting too big for my britches. When I, when I celebrate my successes, it's wants me to tone it down and, you know, that'll, that'll kill the ambition of, of pursuing what, what you want. Very quickly.

Marty: Yep.

Bill: Till next time.