Hard Times No More Relationship Podcast

Rewiring Your Brain for Worthiness & Joy -Ep. 42

August 23, 2024 • Allesanda Tolomei-Hard • Season 1 • Episode 42

Share episode

Join Allesanda Tolomei-Hard, a.k.a. Mrs. Hard, as she explores the transformative power of embracing your worthiness and living a life of joy. If you’ve ever struggled with self-worth or found yourself waiting for external circumstances to change before you allow yourself to experience happiness, this episode is for you. 

Mrs. Hard shares her personal stories, practical insights, and powerful techniques to help you rewire your brain and cultivate a deep sense of worthiness and joy in your life, regardless of external situations.


Episode Highlights:
>> The Power of Worthiness:
   - We’ll discusses the concept of inherent worthiness as a birthright.

   - How believing in your worthiness can completely transform your life and relationships.

>> Identifying Limiting Beliefs:
   - Explore how subconscious agreements formed during childhood influence your self-worth.

   - Mrs. Hard shares personal experiences of how her upbringing and societal expectations shaped her self-worth and how she overcame these limiting beliefs.

>> The Journey to Joy and Worthiness:
  - The process of shifting from external validation to internal fulfillment.

   - Understanding the "seesaw" analogy: balancing discomfort and fear of change to move toward a more fulfilling life.

   - Practical steps to break free from old patterns and embrace joy in everyday life.

>> Rewiring the Brain for Joy:
   - Introduction to the Recticular Activating System (RAS) and how it influences focus and perception.

   - Techniques for tuning your RAS into joy, gratitude, and worthiness through daily practices.

   - The importance of falling in love with the process of personal growth and self-discovery.

>> Upcoming Workshops and Events:
   - Announcement of the "How to Be Your Own Best Friend" workshop on Sunday, September 8th, focusing on releasing perfectionism and people-pleasing.
Register HERE!

   - Invitation to the "Movement and Meditation" event on Sunday, August 25th at The Garden Brewery in downtown Napa, featuring a bodyweight workout and guided meditation.
Sign Up HERE!


Key Takeaways:
- Embrace the belief that you are inherently worthy, just as you are.
- Understand the impact of limiting beliefs on your self-worth and learn how to shift them.
- Rewire your brain to focus on joy and worthiness through consistent, daily practices.
- Stop waiting for external circumstances to bring you happiness—start cultivating joy and fulfillment now.


Let’s connect!
-1:1 Stress Relief Coaching Session:

Let’s talk about how I can help you support your specific situation to receive anxiety and create peace in challenging relationships.
Schedule Your Free Session HERE!


Share the Love:
-If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might benefit. Your support helps empower others on their journey to worthiness and joy.


Contact:
-Have questions or want to share your story? Email Mrs. Hard at HardTimesNoMoreCoach@gmail.com
-Follow Mrs. Hard on social media for more insights and updates:
Instagram: Mrs.Hard_TimesNoMore

Don't let anxiety control you any longer. Take the first step towards a joyful life without fear. Sign up for my free 3-day coaching series—Stepping Off The Chaos Roller Coaster: 3 Simple Steps For Anxiety Relief

Speaker 1:

Hi, I'm Alessandra Tolome Hard, aka Mrs Hard, and this is Hard Times no More, a podcast for people who are tired of struggling with boundaries, people-pleasing and relationship problems. I have overcome some hard times. Within three years, I stopped drinking, my mom died of cancer and my house burnt down in a California wildfire, and those are just the highlights. I have a lot of reasons to be miserable, but I'm not. The truth is, life was more challenging before these events happened. If you are tired of waiting for your circumstances to change to find happiness and peace of mind, you are in the right place. Join me as I share the tools I use in love to transform challenges into assets and interview others about their relationship journeys. Together, let's learn how to have a happy life full of healthy, meaningful relationships and say goodbye to hard times for good. Hey everyone, welcome to the Hard Times no More Relationship Podcast.

Speaker 1:

I'm Alessandra Ptolemy-Hard, aka Mrs Hard, your host Today. I want to talk about your level of worthiness. I've been on a kick lately in which I've been contemplating what worthiness means and how worthy do I feel like I am and how I see worthiness playing out in other people's lives, because we came into this world and through our experiences in watching others. We have made subconscious agreements that relate to our self-worth and our ability to love ourselves and our ability to give ourselves permission to experience joy. And lately I have been holding the belief and the intention that it is my inherent birthright to be worthy, not because of what I do or what I provide, but just because of who I am. And that is a very powerful thought, a very powerful belief, a very powerful idea, and I believe that this is the same for everyone. Everyone is worthy just as they are right now. But how can we bridge the gap between where you feel like you are now and feeling that worthiness? You like you are now and feeling that worthiness, accepting that worthiness, because believing you are worthy can completely change your life, and so often we get caught up in wanting external circumstances to change. You know people, places and things the level of success we have in our business, the level of security that we feel in our daily life, the quality of relationships we have. Our mind tells us that once those change, then we will feel happy, successful, secure. And, as I've talked about before, healing often is a little bit backwards in the sense that it is an internal job when you change how you feel internally, then your external life reflects that. How you feel internally than your external life reflects that, and I want to talk about what life would look like for you if you felt worthy.

Speaker 1:

You would feel empowered by your decisions. You would trust your instincts and you wouldn't second guess yourself, and you wouldn't rely on external validation to move forward with whatever project or adventure that brings joy to your life. Setting healthy boundaries would be so much easier because you would be able to say no without guilt and you'd easily be able to recognize that your well-being and your time is just as important as anyone else's. You would find yourself in more balanced relationships and it would be easy to just let the relationships go that are draining you and not spend time around people that aren't filling your cup. You would feel a strong sense of inner peace and resilience. You would see that challenges aren't setbacks shaking your self-esteem. Instead, they are opportunities for growth and you would trust that you have resilience to handle whatever life throws your way. Your life purpose would feel clear. It would align with your true values and passions, and you would be able to follow goals that resonate with who you truly are rather than what you think you should be doing, and your full acceptance of worthiness would inspire others around you, and it would encourage others to recognize their own worthiness and to make positive changes in their own lives.

Speaker 1:

This is very powerful stuff, and the journey to worthiness doesn't happen overnight. It's a step-by-step process, but today I want to have an open, free-flowing conversation about what that process looks like and what's holding you back. So let's talk about the beginning, of how this lack of worthiness got started. As you were growing up, you subconsciously started to believe in certain rules about life, and this was from your own experience and what was modeled to you. And you are not the only one who has accepted certain agreements around self-worth. Everyone has done this, and it looks a little bit different for everyone.

Speaker 1:

For some people, their worth is derived from their financial success or their social recognition, and if you're a caregiver, you may draw your worth from your ability to serve others and be the ideal parent or the perfect daughter. The mom that makes every meal from scratch, has a super clean house, signs their kid up for every activity, brings cookies to those activities, sacrifices her own needs and makes it look effortless because she has full makeup and perfectly done hair at 7 am in the morning. Even if you haven't tried to strive to be this mom, if you have been a mom, I'm sure that you felt pressure to do so. And for me, this played out as being a good daughter quote unquote good daughter and having a bit more of like a martyr mentality, because I was raised Catholic and my mom God bless her soul she had more of like a martyr mentality because I was raised Catholic and my mom God bless her soul. She had more of a martyr mentality of like this is our cross to bear and that life is hard and everyone has a cross and this is just how it's going to be. And so what this physically looked like was me caring for my father and feeling like a martyr in doing so and then becoming increasingly resentful because I wasn't putting my needs first. I was prioritizing his needs and wellbeing.

Speaker 1:

And then this also played out for me in relationships where I would date people who were having a hard time in life, like they either didn't have a job, a car or both, and I really liked those fixer uppers and I would end up paying their rent, I would pay for meals and I wanted to save them and help them. I believed I saw their highest potential within them and if only they had me to help boost them up then they would reach this potential. But I had a sort of martyr mentality while I was doing it, like look how much I'm doing for you. But looking back I see the behaviors that really weren't serving me and were perpetuating the unhealthy, chaotic, stress-filled, anxiety-provoking relationships I had in my life. But at the time I thought life was supposed to be hard, it was always going to be hard, and that I didn't really have a choice in these situations. Because of my role caring for others and because that's where I got my validation, that's where I got my self-worth and I didn't know how to be worthy for a long time or sit in worthiness without needing to be needed by somebody else. And it wasn't until I was extremely uncomfortable that I was willing to make a change.

Speaker 1:

So before we make a change, usually things have to get really out of balance, and I'm going to use the analogy of a seesaw. Imagine on one side of the seesaw is the pain and discomfort you feel, either in your relationships or your work life or with your anxiety, and then on the other side of the seesaw is the fear that you have about making a change, because when you decide to make a change, everything becomes different, and I've talked about this before. But when we make big changes in our life, our internal system kind of freaks out and is afraid because even though things have been uncomfortable, they've been somewhat predictable, like our system, our emotions. We kind of know what to expect in our day-to-day life. And that keeps us stuck in our discomfort, because when we make a change, new patterns play out and we have fear about what's new because it's not reliable, it's not as stable in some ways, even if it's leading you towards a better life and better and more peace of mind.

Speaker 1:

So in my experience the seesaw has had to tilt where the discomfort I was feeling became greater than the fear of change. And then that's when I've made big changes. And what that's looked like is when my life has felt overwhelmingly chaotic, where I've tried over and over again to fix or improve a situation in my life and I keep on ending up in the same place. For example, with my relationship with my father. I kept trying to quote, unquote help him and fix him and he wouldn't change because he wasn't interested in changing and I felt more and more insane and I felt more and more angry and resentful. And it wasn't until I just really couldn't stand to be around him that I was willing to make a change, because I didn't want my relationship with him to be that way in my life.

Speaker 1:

So sometimes getting into a lot of discomfort can be a good thing, because it can be this launch pad to launch you into an entirely new direction. Because you need that awareness, that clarity of you can't keep doing things the same way you have, because you keep on ending up in the same place. And that awareness is the most important thing for change, because if you're not aware of what is going wrong or what you want to change, you can't even begin to change it. And then the second most important thing is willingness, because once you get an understanding of what you want to change, you don't have to know how that's going to play out, how the change is going to happen, what that's going to look like. You really just need willingness and an open mind. You need to ask for help. You need to get help from other people, or podcasts, or mentors, or coaches, someone who's going to bring something new into your environment so that you can look at your situation differently and then implement tools and practices to change your behavior and have insights about yourself so that you can create lasting change.

Speaker 1:

And if you feel like yes, mrs Hart, this totally resonates with me and I would love to work with you through one-on-one coaching. I'm going to put a link in the show notes for that. I start clients with a free 30-minute coaching session it's actually called a stress relief session in which we will talk about your specific situation and the practices and tools that I can show you how to implement into your life to make the changes in your relationships, to make the changes with your anxiety, so that you can have peace of mind and really start sinking into that worthiness, that good, good self-love, self-care feeling that we are talking about today. And so this awareness, this anger that I felt with my father, brought me to the understanding that I was looking for validation from other people in my life to validate my worthiness, to affirm my worthiness, and, through the help of mentors and different practices, I learned how to rely less on people, places and things to make me feel safe, to make me feel secure, and I had to shift my reliance from people, places and things to myself and my higher power, because you can't take something away and then just expect it to get better. You have to replace it with something.

Speaker 1:

And then another layer of the internal journey onion opened itself up a couple of months ago, where I found this kind of frustration and anger around my experience of joy. It's like, yes, I knew that I couldn't rely on external people, places and things for me to feel stable, secure and fulfilled, but now it was even deeper than that. It was like I'm not gonna wait to have a certain amount of success in my job, for my husband's work schedule to become stable, for my health to look a certain way to experience joy, that I am going to experience joy and happiness right now. And for me, this aha moment came about because I was being very outcome oriented in my life, Like I had an expectation that if I ate a certain way and I followed these rules, then my blood work would be better or perfect or how I wanted it to be.

Speaker 1:

And I also had been stuck waiting for my husband's life to become stable so that then we could make certain decisions about what we want to do in the future and trips we want to take and trips I wanted to take, and I had this awakening moment this was back in February where I realized that he has become a different person than when we first met. There are a lot of pros to this different person Like he is very clean, very organized. When I met him, he was very messy. I was the clean one. Now he is the clean one and I am the messy one and my level of messiness has not changed. His level of cleanliness and organization has changed thanks to the fire service. Thank you, fire service, because my husband's a firefighter and he went through paramedic school and then he had to do this five month training academy, which just ended two weeks ago, which is amazing, but it was from March until essentially August and it was like back in February. You know, it was like one training thing after another. You know, like one big schooling push after another.

Speaker 1:

That was like totally consuming his life because it was taking him to where he wanted to go in terms of his goals. And I remember looking at him being like oh my gosh, you're a different person, and like this isn't a phase and like I'm okay that this isn't a phase, but I just need to know that this isn't a phase so that I can move on and just be like, okay, this is just how things are going to go. And he was like, well, things shouldn't always be this intense. And I was like, let's not like talk about the future, of how things are going to be someday, like let me just accept that this is the reality, and if it becomes less intense, that's great. But I'm no longer going to wait for it to change to find my happiness.

Speaker 1:

And then I decided to go to Ireland with my family last May and then take a road trip with my friend and my sister-in-law in August. And he was laughing with one of his firefighter friends because I think they were talking about me. And his firefighter friend is like oh yeah, what's your wife up to? And he's like, oh, she's going to Ireland. And his friend's like what are you going? He's like no, I can't go because I'm in this academy. And he's like she's just going without you. And he's like, yeah, she told me she's no longer waiting for me to make the choices that bring her joy, and so she's just going to go do them herself.

Speaker 1:

And for us this was like a very joyful, positive conversation. It is not something that is filled with any resentment or any expectations, because him and I have very clear communication, and then we also support each other's independence. I totally love my husband for pursuing the goals that he wants to pursue, and I'm so grateful that he allows me to do the same, whether they're in my work life or traveling life, and I can't wait to go back to Ireland with my husband at some point when he's available. But I was just tired of putting things on hold, waiting for these things to work out. To feel happy and I had already learned this lesson a couple of times over to feel happy and I had already learned this lesson a couple of times over, but it became so clear last spring, and that is what I want to share about today is like not waiting for something external in your life to help you feel worthy or to allow you to feel worthy, to recognize that this is your birthright, and then this feeling of worthiness can launch you into allowing more joy into your life.

Speaker 1:

Because lately I've been practicing allowing more joy into my life and it is making this huge difference in my energy level, in my expectations of the flow of the day, in what I am paying attention to throughout the day, and it works like a magnet. The more I practice methods that help me tap into joy, the more joy I feel, the more abundance I feel in my life, the more opportunities just seem to flow and land in my lap, instead of me needing to work hard to receive these opportunities and burn myself out. And if you resonate, you know that this is like years and years of programming that you're having to unwind. But I want to just hold a little light of hope of like this is working for me. It can work for you too, and it's about what you pay attention to and it's about the beliefs you have about yourself and your life.

Speaker 1:

And when I was first working on really embracing joy because I feel like you kind of get out of the muck, like you're in this deep, dark, sticky, yucky area. So you get out of there and then like things are going well, you know, like you're not in fight or flight anymore, You're not anxious anymore, and then you get to this another level of like oh like I'm caring for myself more, I'm taking more time to put my needs first. I feel good doing this. I don't feel guilt about it anymore, I'm not waiting for the other shoe to drop. And then you get to this next phase of I'm increasing the joy in my life. I'm going for that adventure that I want to take to Ireland. I am saying yes to the retreat I want to participate in in Mexico. You know like it's another layer of like being able to receive and being able to align with what you really want in your life and giving yourself permission to say yes and do the things that light you up, without needing external validation from others or permission from others to do what your heart is calling you to do. You're just following your happy little heart, and so I believe that this feeling of joy is a stream that you can just tap into. And it's like a muscle, because in our brain we have neuro pathways and whatever pathways we practice get stronger.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to segue into a little bit of science here. So there's a part of the brain called the RAS and that stands for the Recticular Activating System, and this system helps you focus on specific stimuli in your environment, and it is a goal-oriented system and its goal is dependent on what you want or what you are focusing on. So there's a saying like where your focus goes energy flows. So if you're feeling really anxious, it's going to tune in to threats in your environment that prove why you should feel anxious and stressed. And this system is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If every time, right before you go on vacation, there seems to be some huge emergency, your system is going to look for that and whatever hiccups or challenges present themselves all of the sudden will turn into a huge emergency where, on your average know, your average Wednesday, it would just be a little bump in the road because you're expecting this and I know your brain may try to validate no, but look, this is what is actually happening.

Speaker 1:

But remember the way we approach and view and relate to situations. You know that magnifies emotion and makes it way more chaotic if we're expecting it to be this big, bad, awful thing, versus if we're just more neutral and observing it like, oh, this is happening, there's in, then feeling optimistic, like, oh, there's a solution for this, I can ask for help, I can figure this out, I can find solutions, things are working out for me. You know how you approach a problem and relate to it is going to affect how big of a deal it is in your life and then like a really like simple core way. I can understand the RAS system is like if you've ever been shopping for a new car and you decide on a make and model that you want and then, all of a sudden, you see this make and model everywhere. That's because your RAS system is filtering out information, like the other cars that you're not shopping for, and it's really honing in on that one car that you want to buy. And so, even though the system can focus on the negative, it can also focus on the positive and it can help you tap into joy.

Speaker 1:

And so how I've been doing this daily in my life this is actually a practice I've been practicing probably like five days a week recently is meditation and appreciation rampage, which is like an extended gratitude list. And so what I've been doing is I start my morning with like 10 to 15 minutes of meditation and then I sit down and I write about what I am grateful for, but how it's different than a gratitude list. It's like an extended gratitude list. I write I appreciate how much family and love I have in my life. I appreciate that I am able to accept love and feel safe and connected deeply with others. I appreciate the I am able to accept love and feel safe and connected deeply with others. I appreciate the reflections others show me that inspire love in my life. I appreciate the journey of learning to be compassionate. So like that is a section around family.

Speaker 1:

And then I'll do the same around money. I'll write I appreciate the joy that money brings into my life and the financial security I feel. I'll write I appreciate the joy that money brings into my life and the financial security I feel. And I'll go on and on about the ways that I appreciate how money is improving my life. And then I'll talk about my health. I'll write I appreciate my health and my body's ability to heal. I appreciate its resilience. I appreciate the tools I have that support my body's healing process. I appreciate my fitness level and my relationship I have with exercise.

Speaker 1:

And you can do this with any topic in your life. You can do this with your relationship, even if it's challenging. Write about the things that you appreciate about that person, that you appreciate about your relationship. If you are feeling some tension in your workplace or some resistance at your job, write about the things that you appreciate about your work. Maybe it's your schedule, maybe it's your boss, maybe it's something your co-worker does. Maybe you have one co-worker who's like a really good friend there and you just appreciate so many things about this coworker. Write about that and then that's going to help your RAS system tune into joy, tune into security, tune into your worthiness, tune into your resilience, and then that is going to highlight the evidence of all of those things in your environment. And the more that you practice that over and over again like a muscle, your brain is going to go in those directions instead of anxiety, stress, fear.

Speaker 1:

And then the one thing I need to say because I am not an ideal human and what happened for me was when I started doing this, I would get really frustrated when I wasn't able to stay in joy and appreciation, because life has hills and valleys and instead of wanting it to be perfect and like I'm only going to stay in joy because I can honestly get into this idealistic control state sometimes which is funny but I started to say instead, like I appreciate that these challenges are presenting themselves and that things will work themselves out, and I appreciate how things work themselves out and that I'm supported and that it's not up to me to fix everything, to control everything. I appreciate what I'm learning from this situation. I appreciate the compassion I'm cultivating for myself in this situation, you know, and so you don't have to be perfect at staying in that space. And then when things get a little rocky in that space, it doesn't mean that you're failing or you're not doing it right. You're making a shift and it becomes easier and easier the more you practice it Just like going to the gym building new muscles. Your gym routine becomes easier the more often you do it. Your walking routine becomes easier the more often you do it. Your meditation routine becomes easier the more often you do it.

Speaker 1:

It's all about practice and sometimes our brains will tell us that we need to get to a goal or a destination. And what makes the ride even better is that when we're able to fall in love with the process, the process of learning, the process of understanding yourself on a deeper level, the process of learning to care for yourself and what that looks like, and the new experiences that brings into your life. You have to fall in love with the process because every time people reach a goal, they're fulfilled for maybe five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes a day, and it's great if you can sink into gratitude and appreciation for the achievement of whatever goal that you're experiencing, but it's so fleeting. But the process is the juice, the meat and potatoes that is never ending. You're never going to complete the process. You're never going to be a completely whole human. That's going to stay that way forever. You're never going to just stay in one spot. That's not what life is about.

Speaker 1:

It's about this process, and so surrendering to the process, accepting the process and then enjoying the process, being curious about the process, is a much more fulfilling way to live, and so that's what I'm encouraging you to do is to see how much worthiness you can tap into, see how much joy you can tap into and really start to play with that. You know, give yourself permission to have fun in your life without waiting until you retire, have a certain level of stability or financial security, whatever it is. Stop waiting, just do it now. Start committing to this joy, this process of worthiness, now today. Committing to this joy, this process of worthiness, now today.

Speaker 1:

And so, like I said, one of the things that holds us back from our joy and our worthiness is limiting beliefs. So I have an upcoming workshop called how to Be your Own Best Friend, where I'm going to show you how to release perfectionism and people-pleasing while calling in peace of mind. And the meat and potatoes of this work is all about quieting your inner critic. That mean negative Nancy that talks to you and tells you that joy is frivolous. If you follow your joy or follow your bliss, you won't get things done. You'll just become a blob or lay on a hammock eating bonbons all day. We're gonna address those limiting beliefs that come up, that are shaping your relationships, that are contributing to your anxiety and your stress. We're going to talk about how changing that inner self-talk is going to deepen your connection with yourself and with others, and effective techniques you can use to cultivate peace of mind regardless of what is happening around you.

Speaker 1:

So again, join me Sunday, september 8th, at 3 PM. It's going to be at my office in downtown Napa. There's going to be a link in the show notes to click and sign up, and then I also have links on my website at mrs-hardcom and if you're looking to connect a little sooner and if you're listening to this podcast close to when it comes out, leisha and I are hosting Movement and Meditation Sunday, august 25th, at 8.15am at the Garden Brewery in downtown Napa. This is a one-hour workout class like no other, because the lovely Leysha is gonna guide us through about a 40-minute body weight workout and what that means is that you just bring a yoga mat and there'll be different moves that will get your heart rate up and also help you cultivate strength and balance.

Speaker 1:

And then she is amazing. She has modifications for any age, any fitness level. People have had injuries do really well in her class and she's really good at just catering to you where you're at, because the number one rule is that we're here to have fun during movement and meditation and to move safely, so that you leave your workout class feeling energized, with pep in your step, not injured. And then, after her 40 minute ish body weight workout, I'm going to calm things down with a guided meditation and a short talk that will help you bring tools into your meditation practice and your life that will allow you to have more peaceful relationships, less anxiety and really just live a more fulfilling, connected life. So again, join us August 25th.

Speaker 1:

That's a Sunday, sunday, funday, 8.15 in the morning, so that you can do it before you do your errands and get yourself ready for the week.

Speaker 1:

It's the perfect way to start your Sunday and kick off the week ahead, and so that'll be at the Garden Brewery in downtown Napa, and you can find a link in the show notes to sign up.

Speaker 1:

You can also find that on my Instagram page and the bio, and we look forward to seeing you there. And then, last but not least, if this episode resonates with you and if you thought of somebody who might enjoy it as well, send it to them. Share it with them, because my mission is to help empower others, and when you share my podcast episodes with other people, you're helping them on their life journey without you really having to do much work at all or get too much into their stuff. You can just like send it to them and then let go of the outcome, like, hey, maybe they'll benefit, you know, maybe they'll listen to it, maybe not, doesn't matter, you did your part, you sent it to them, but thank you so much for being a part of this community and for listening in today. I am so grateful to have you here and I look forward to connecting with you again soon. Until next time, take care.