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Episode 22: Dealing with the Unexpected
32 Plays4 months ago
On Episode 22, Lenise and Allie talk about dealing with unexpected. This convo stemmed from a text that Allie sent Lenise when she was faced with a disappointment/unexpected outcome. Once again, they discovered they deal with the unexpected in different ways, but helped each other see the beauty in each method. Take a listen!
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Transcript
Finding Stability Amid Life's Waves
00:00:04
Speaker
One of the best feelings in life is feeling anchored. When the waves of life come, you stay confident, stable, and secure. So how do we stay connected in a world full of distractions? We think honest conversations can
Meet the Hosts and Podcast Introduction
00:00:19
Speaker
help. I'm Allie. And I'm Linise. Two friends who just want to chat about how to be our best selves. Thanks for joining us. This is Anchored in Life.
00:00:35
Speaker
What's up? How is everything? Oh, don't even ask. How is everything? Everything is not good. What a loaded question. Right. And we're talking about the unexpected.
Handling the Unexpected: Stories and Strategies
00:00:49
Speaker
There's been a lot of unexpected.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm trying to remember what I was texting you about to where you were like, this is a topic for our podcast. I think we were talking about a position that you were interviewing for. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, full disclosure. So I was ah trying to be on a board here in the city that I live in.
00:01:15
Speaker
And I was naively not expecting to be rejected. And I talked to my mentor about this after because I texted you to, why the heck does this hurt so much? And then my mentor said, which this kind of isn't the topic, but it is also my mentor said, well,
00:01:36
Speaker
Give me some examples where you've faced rejection lately. Thinking and thinking. And she said, your last jobs before the news reporter won, were you asked to come to the company?
Understanding and Reframing Rejection
00:01:50
Speaker
You didn't really have to even apply or interview? I said I had to interview, but yes, I was invited. The last two jobs and this job that I'm about to take in the new year, I also got invited. I got asked to do it. And the job was created for me.
00:02:04
Speaker
She said, Okay, well, there's that. And you know, you've been with your husband for 15 years. So there's that. And you just you don't really deal with rejection much, do you? And she wasn't saying that, like, you little spoiled brat. No, she was saying, this is an odd feeling to you because you feeling Yeah, because you think it's gonna go one way and then unexpectedly you get rejected. And I felt like I was going to be a good addition to this board. And So, you know what she told me that I should do? Our last episode was about feedback. yeah ah She told me to ask for feedback about how I could be, ah so she told me to email the city council people that I was on the interview with, there were about five of them, and ask what I could have done better or what they were looking for that maybe I didn't have.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I didn't like that idea because that seemed really vulnerable. It it was very vulnerable around people that I didn't know. I don't like to be vulnerable around strangers.
00:03:08
Speaker
So I said, you know, it's just an email, whatever, maybe they'll just ignore it. And then I got a call from one of the city councilmen on the call. And he said, it wasn't you. It just came down to two really qualified candidates. But unfortunately, the one who also applied came from the world of which this board is about. So it was about transit. And they were working in that space and had been for a while.
00:03:37
Speaker
So all of a sudden, you know, oh, was it wasn't me. I would have taken that person over me, too. Do I know anything about transit? No. So it made sense, you know, and he said, you know, your name's in my head. You've applied for other boards. It'll come. You know, I i was in the same position you were when I was ah you know around your age.
00:03:56
Speaker
Anyway, so I had texted you though, right after the email came. And it was unexpected. I saw the email in my inbox and thought, okay, cool, let me see what they want me to do next. And then she said, we went with someone else. You know, we've talked about rejection too. And it's just a redirection. It's not a no, it's a not now. And I really believe that I, you know, I want people to soak that in.
00:04:24
Speaker
listening right now whenever you hear a no it's just oh gosh and i heard tyler perry talk about this and i was like yes yes that's it it's not a no it's not even a roadblock it's just another part of a maze it's redirecting you to take another path and there are so many reasons why you need to take that path to better prepare you for what's next you know among other things, but I have learned in the latter part of my life that the rejection isn't necessarily a slant against me. Most of the time it's not in my experience.
00:05:07
Speaker
You it's never most of the time for me. But you know we're talking about dealing with the unexpected and these are things that happen that yeah they throw a monkey wrench in our plans. We love to talk about the things that we're going to do and some of us have these vision boards that we chart everything out and we get really good at coming up with pictures and and what we're going to do and the timeline of when we're going to do it. And when something comes up, you're stuck. You're much more of a visionary than me when it comes to planning out your life and things, I would say. So when you experience something unexpected, what do you think is the number one emotional response you have?
Emotional Responses to Life's Surprises
00:06:00
Speaker
You know, I'm tempted to say anger, but I know that anger is just a mask for another emotion. And I think frustration would probably be the proper response. I'm frustrated because I've got a lot vested in this.
00:06:20
Speaker
You know, there are lofty big goals here. And that frustration quickly turns to anger because it feels like a setback. But I think that, you know, goes back to, and I can't remember who said this, but I just read this the other day. Oh, it was Demi Moore. Hello. So it just got finished reading her book.
00:06:41
Speaker
And she said, no one is going to give you an award for working the hardest, for running yourself into the ground. At the end of the day, no one cares about, yes, I was the super mom. And yes, I also went to work. And yes, i no one cares about all that. No one cares.
00:06:59
Speaker
I needed to hear that. I'm so competitive, and I probably always will be, but I am so big on, yes, I work a full-time job. Yes, I do a podcast. Yes, I have two children. Yes, I'm a wife. Yes, I have, you know, and I i look at all of that. It's like a badge of honor. No one cares, Lynise. No one cares.
00:07:23
Speaker
I totally get what you're saying. You don't get a reward at the end of the day. What you get to make our memories or ah relationships or be a mentor, you have to live in people's minds as a role model, but otherwise, no. And so you're frustrated that you ultimately could not control it, whatever went wrong. Right.
00:07:48
Speaker
It was not part of the plan. And I have worked so hard. Yeah. So then you get frustrated. And then ah from zero to 60, you get angry. Yeah. I'm the same way. But I think, and I don't know, Allie, in reading, trying to find some tangible words of encouragement for people, you know they talked about the importance of setting small goals.
Setting Manageable Goals in Chaos
00:08:16
Speaker
But who wants to think small? I don't like the word small, but I like attainable or like stepping stone goals. You know, you got to take stairs. You can't just jump 30 feet. That's kind of how I see it. They're up there in the sky for a reason. If you could just get there quickly, then it wouldn't be called a goal. So it's it's like micro goals before the goal. I don't know. You tell me I don't really set goals.
00:08:44
Speaker
Now that, so then what unexpected do you have to deal with? That's a really good question, actually. Are there any moments when you are forced to pivot? And I ah i use that word with a lot of disgust because of the pandemic.
00:09:03
Speaker
This is one way that we're very different. So you've you've always had a plan, you've talked about that with me privately, but also on here, there was always a plan, yada, yada, and you're still like that. I have never been like that. I have always been go with the flow. But where I get caught up in the unexpected is I have expectations of people.
00:09:28
Speaker
And then they go and do the complete opposite of what I expected them to do. And then the same feeling that you said you have, I get frustrated and I get angry because how dare they?
00:09:45
Speaker
So with my example, that was somebody else making a decision about me that I didn't agree with. It wasn't necessarily that I had this plan that I was going to, you know, be on City Council by the time I'm 32. And I didn't have a plan. It was just that the opportunity was there. I had applied for it two years ago. That's how long it takes.
00:10:08
Speaker
I got an email. I did an interview. I interview very well. I'm not being cocky. I just have that kind of personality. I could talk to a brick wall. It's one of the reasons I was a news reporter. I can get any story out of anyone. And I interview well. I know that. And so I didn't think anything different. I didn't think that there would be another person that was more qualified than me. It just didn't even occur to me, which I should be more humble for sure.
00:10:34
Speaker
So it's about people for me. I get hurt when I expect someone to continue our relationship after a big event, and they don't. When they don't show up to something that I think they should be at for me or a family member. like Everything for me is about people. And I never think that I can control people. i just think I put expectations on people that I never told them about. And so that's where the the unexpected for me comes from. I actually think that that's harder to deal with. It is. I can get over a thing.
00:11:19
Speaker
um you know, but dealing with the disappointment that comes from a close friend, a family member, or just an associate. yeah You have, I have to think about that because we're the one putting them in that box or on that pedestal.
00:11:36
Speaker
hu We are the ones you know categorizing them as such. So does the blame lie with them for being who they are or with us for visualizing them in such a way? Yeah, it's hard. I think I've run into situations where I think I know someone and then I feel like their decision showed me who they really were.
00:12:02
Speaker
And so that was just kind of what that needed to be. That was just the revelation that I had. I can totally be wrong about that and inferring things that aren that shouldn't be inferred, but that's what's going on in my brain. And I think that is much different than a health issue. So I think let's take an example where you and I will part ways on how we react, I think.
00:12:29
Speaker
So, I'm not jinxing you, okay? Look, I'm knocking on wood. You can't hear it, but I am, okay? But say you broke your ankle, okay? You're doing something super athletic like you do. And you broke your ankle. How would you react, do you think? Have you ever broken your ankle before now? I've never broken anything. Okay, me neither. I'm also knocking on wood again.
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah. last know it was three weeks now ago i bumped my head oh and i had a ah concussion Okay, please don't use the word bump to your head if it gave you a concussion. So you hit your head.
00:13:12
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i
00:13:15
Speaker
And it was um excruciatingly painful. And that pain did not go away up until maybe three days ago. And there were other side effects that came with it. And so to answer your question, how did I handle it? Not well.
00:13:36
Speaker
I did not seek medical attention, even reach out to my doctor until I started having other symptoms um because of the concussion and what it was doing. there's so It's weird, and I did not know this, the things that a concussion can cause, in addition to splitting headaches and you know dizziness.
00:14:00
Speaker
um I had a tingling sensation in in the left side of my arm, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, what is this all about? Oh my gosh, that's scary. It was very scary, but what did I do? I just said, you know, suck it up, you hit your head. What are they going to tell you to do anyway? They're going to tell you not to look at bright lights or monitors and to rest and not drive, and I won't be doing those things. So why bother wasting my time in the in the doctor's room? Now could you exercise?
00:14:31
Speaker
What I did do was meditate more and I got into my red light therapy. I i did not run because I just i couldn't. My head was hurting so much. I couldn't take anything because i did you know I didn't know if I had a ah bleed.
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You you know, i make that worse. um So what I would do if I broke my ankle, I would probably hobble along, no crutches, no rap, because it's what I did with the concussion. I hobbled along until it was just too bad. And then of course, you know, Dylan, oh my gosh, Dylan, I swear, I said, if you say one more thing to me about this thing,
00:15:15
Speaker
Dylan, he's such a caretaker that that is so probably just so frustrating for him to watch you do that. It was frustrating for me. Would you agree, since you can say this rationally, since you're not actually going through it with the ankle thing, would you agree that you are prolonging the injury by not resting?
00:15:41
Speaker
You know, someone said that to me today. and About your head? Yeah. They said, don't you think you probably made it worse by not getting checked out? And I said, well, that's a hypothetical. I don't know.
00:15:54
Speaker
Well, we will never know, will we? We just we can't know that. So it's not true.
00:16:00
Speaker
You know, there are ways that you handle things well when speed bumps come up. um And then there are ways that you don't handle them, right? Yeah. Should I, could I have possibly seen someone sooner? Probably perhaps, I guess. What was the motivation for just the keep going? This just just go just keep going. I'm weird.
00:16:28
Speaker
I think you're driven. I'm so weird. So weird. And it doesn't make any sense, Allie. Because again, I go back, no one is going to care. Because if you're making mistakes when you're speaking, no one's going to say, oh, you know, she probably should not be talking right now because she ah suffered a mild head injury. Yeah. No, no, no. I know that because I'm not telling you and because I'm not taking the break that I should.
00:16:55
Speaker
And you're at work doing your job, which is reading on television. So people just expect you to be able to do that well, because you do do that well. What's going on with this girl? You know, it's just it is a strength and a weakness, the amount of competitiveness that I have. And and you can say that it's it's drive. But I don't know. Lately, I've been really trying to evaluate what that is and why it's so important. And I just like, I can't i can't get to the root. yeah But I know that it bothers me. Would you say you were suppressing some emotions st during all of that? No, I was in too much pain. yeah And when you were meditating, where you do you feel like you were dealing with the emotions of what was happening?
00:17:52
Speaker
So it was a sound meditation hu and it was specifically for injuries and this could be the the concussion but I don't really remember. It's often when you're meditating you you come out of it and you're able to write and to reflect and that's also one of the benefits of it but I I could not, I did not do that. It was really just a moment for me to sit still and to just let this sound wash over me. And it was really helpful. And it could have just been that I needed to sit down because normally before I go into work, as you are multitasking to Ally with, you know, your, your little one now, um, I'm getting the household ready. yeah You know, I take my daughter to school, I come back home, I straighten up a little bed, I make sure the house is tidy, and then I cook dinner, I make the dinner plates, and then I exercise. And then and but when I'm exercising, I am checking emails and making phone calls for my work day. yeah um And then I meditate for like maybe, you know, 10, 15 minutes, and then I get in the shower and I rush out the door.
00:19:09
Speaker
no There's no stopping. The only thing that happened this time was I took Phoenix to school and then I came back and I was in that sound meditation for 30 minutes.
00:19:21
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it's a long time. And so it it could have just been my body saying thank you. Going back to what you said about when things are chaotic, that can be like we're talking about a health related thing. You just think everything's just so out of control. What the heck am I going
Navigating Health Challenges and Support Systems
00:19:39
Speaker
to do? It could be a lot of things. But the ability to maintain focus you had mentioned the small manageable goals earlier, that's a strategy to maintain the focus and what can I do rather than focusing on what I can't. So I don't think it would have really been a great meditation if you had just sat there for 30 minutes and thought about the fact that you can't run right now. I mean, that wasn't a bit helpful.
00:20:10
Speaker
no yeah did Were you really just brain off listening to the sound? I was. And you know, sometimes I will have my earbuds in so that if I get a phone call, I can answer that call, which is you're not supposed to do that.
00:20:32
Speaker
you're youre That's like sleeping with one eye open. mean you're not yeah You're not locked in. This time I had it on speaker and my phone was in private mode.
00:20:46
Speaker
so there were no interruptions. And with it being on speaker, the sound just seemed to vibrate more as opposed to just, you know, going straight to my eardrum. Yeah, I could literally feel it. So yeah Sometimes, even if you are not equipped, if you don't think that you are, your body ultimately will give you the tools that you need to deal with those unexpected moments because they happen for a reason, either to teach us patience, either to help us grow and stretch more in the areas that we need to.
00:21:28
Speaker
They're just frustrating at the time. They are. And what you do so well is you program it into your day to listen to your body and your mind. Whereas I don't have that quite programmed just yet and you know, having a almost seven month old, it's very hard to do a routine, because hers changes so much. And so I'm trying to be even more go with the flow than I've ever been. Because it really is pointless to be like, we're gonna wake up at seven, get out the door at 745. Because you know, like the other day, like we do I got a dress this morning, and and she spits up all over her shirt. And I'm like,
00:22:07
Speaker
Okay, guess we're taking five more minutes to change your entire outfit. And then we'll get you back in the car seat, which is a whole ordeal. you know And it's like then the dog wants to come to drop off, take care. And I'm like, okay, so now here we go. So it's just, it's it's not good for my mental health to have a plan ever but right now season I'm in. And one day when she's 15 and in seven sports, I will have to set a routine. And I look forward to that day. But right now, so I guess a divergence from me and you is the way that you react. I think that's that's really positive with the 30 minute meditation that you did. If that was not right away, Ali, that was like on that was probably day four, and I needed to do something.
00:22:55
Speaker
We've got to give ourselves grace to process. Okay, I'll take that. ah Yeah, three days. That's not long. period Yeah, you have a three day grace period. Perfect. If I got in a concussion or broke my ankle and I did experience debilitating nausea when I was pregnant.
00:23:14
Speaker
who I don't know where this comes from. and ah You were saying you know you've got to get to the root of something. I start sinking into a victim mentality. like Almost like woe is me. Why is this happening to me?
00:23:33
Speaker
And I think it's because I don't know what else to do because I feel very helpless because if you take away something physical, it's just something that I haven't experienced a lot in my life. I've always just been physically okay and physically fit and athletic and able to just you know, go out and play and do whatever I want. So when that happened to me, it lasted three months. And it just got to the point where I felt like I had no fight left because physically, I wasn't being fueled, but literally.
00:24:06
Speaker
So that's what that's what I'm learning from this conversation is the the practicality of knowing that I need to stay focused, that there is something positive I can latch on to, even if it's one small thing.
00:24:22
Speaker
I have to keep thinking about it. I have to meditate on it. I have to ground myself in who I am. And that means that I have to carve that into my day. And I have to set small manageable goals. There's no way around doing any of that. When you're going through something chaotic, you can try I did not do a good job in in the first trimester because it was so unexpected that that would happen to me. And then I learned that it happens to 5% of women. That's what's recorded. I think a lot more women have it, but that's the number. And then I'm going, Oh, of course I have the thing that 5% of women have. Like, of course.
00:25:00
Speaker
What else? And then I kind of get into that. Yeah. Then I get into that negative spiral, which this is something that I've always struggled with. But then what else is going to happen? You know, and if I would just stop and create a routine, be mindful. I don't think those thoughts would even originate or if they did, I would know what to do with them.
00:25:20
Speaker
But that negativity in my mind, I think it prolonged my illness, I guess you'd call it. I think it made it worse. I think I was making myself sicker.
00:25:32
Speaker
Oh, I'm sure. i Mine yeah it has a lot to do with anything that that you're facing. But you can't create these things and do these things when you're in the chaos. And I think that's my problem a lot of times is I don't have the discipline down pat. So then the unexpected hits me in the face.
00:25:53
Speaker
And then you say this is what I'm supposed to do now. Yeah, I'm like, okay, all right. I'm gonna become like all organized. It's like now is not the time to try to be superhuman. Like if you couldn't do it when things were good. There's really no reason in trying to think that you can do it when you're not at your best. So that's what I learned from you because you do that through all phases of life. that That's just part of your routine. And that's why I think you were able to manage doing that when you had a concussion, which is insane to me.
00:26:23
Speaker
Because I would just lay in bed and be like, oh, I have a concussion. Someone help me. We all look for comfort and for similarities. you know Who else is going through
Processing Emotions and Finding Light
00:26:32
Speaker
this? and and And to be honest with you, Allie, that is also a way of processing the emotions, which you have to do. You can't suppress them, which is what I do. um you know So it's funny. You've got one part of it down.
00:26:51
Speaker
And I've got the opposite end of it that I need to work on. You know, whether it's a health issue, a relationship change, you do need to allow yourself to process those emotions. And it's okay to try to look for stories that might be similar because it can help you to understand, you know, I am not alone in this. You know, I know 5% or whatever the number you said it was seems small. And you're like, of course I hit the lottery on this one. But somewhere, it's got to be comforting to know, okay, I'm not alone in this. And other people have done it. And they have been okay.
00:27:28
Speaker
Yeah, it does help. I remember reading blogs about women who were talking about it and and really had it way worse than I did. I just listened to one of Brene Brown's podcast episodes. She's interviewing authors of a book about burnout. And oh, yeah, I think you'd like it. I'll send it to you.
00:27:49
Speaker
And they were saying that the way that stress affects your body is undeniable, and it can affect us in different ways. So so for some people, it's more like digestion GI tract stuff. And for other people, it's more depression, anxiety, those kind of things, the heart, the heart rate or your blood pressure. And they're talking about how if you don't control your stress level, that's a problem. And it's going to be a problem physically. But also that emotions are obviously at the root of stress. And that in order for
00:28:21
Speaker
you they use the metaphor of a tunnel that you have to go through a tunnel to get to the light at the end of it. And a lot of people stop in the middle of an emotional tunnel and just stay there and are kind of asking themselves why is so dark in here, right?
00:28:36
Speaker
How much farther? What the heck happened? yeah But that it's it's it's it's a keep moving mentality. like You have to let the emotion keep moving. And I learned that at a young age, unfortunately, because I learned that in grief counseling, that I wasn't dealing with grief very well. And when I went to a counselor, she said, OK, so when you get sad about your dad, what do you do? And it was a lot of suppression.
00:29:03
Speaker
And she said, Well, what happened if what happens if you just told yourself that you could cry for 10 minutes, tell yourself you could be sad for 10 minutes. And that stuck with me. And I do that with all my emotions. Like if I'm frustrated, I stay frustrated until it goes away. But I've learned that about myself that if if you need to go take a walk and be frustrated and have a ah a one sided frustrated frustrating conversation with yourself pretending like you're talking to someone else. Go do that. Because that's what you need to do. So good example, even visualize the person.
00:29:38
Speaker
I do that all the time. The things I wanna say to people, I just pretend they're in front of me and I say everything I wanna say. So hurtful, oh so mean, oh but then I never say it to them. Cause none of it's fair. None of it's fair and most of it's not true. You wanna be friends with people that help you get to the other side.
00:30:04
Speaker
And that's another thing that Brene Brown uses as an example. You want friends who protect your flame instead of blow it out.
Friendships that Nurture Energy and Passion
00:30:11
Speaker
Like if you're a flame, you want friends who are going to put their hands around your flame and say, I'm going to protect this with you versus people who topic when her daughter was young, that's how she would teach her daughter how to how to make friends. Does your friend blow out your flame or do they help you protect it and make it bigger?
00:30:31
Speaker
And that's how she would decide who she's friends with. Wow. Yeah, that's inventory. Yeah, isn't that good? She said that a while ago, maybe years ago, and I've just always remembered that like, I want to be the friend that makes other people's flames bigger. You are. Well, thank you. I hope so. Because who likes a flame blow outer?
00:30:56
Speaker
Yeah, but you don't even know it at the time. you don't and And I call them dreamtillers. You don't even know it. you know You think of them as being your practical friend. you know They're just in making sure I'm staying grounded and you know pointing out you know the the obstacles that might be along the way. Or are they?
00:31:16
Speaker
It's to an extent until they're not helping. To our listeners, think about something unexpected, maybe think about in the past, but also something recent and how you coped. And we would love to hear how you cope positively or negatively. I think we've shared our own experiences. didn't work Yeah, every situation is different. But at the end of the day, it's about this discipline that you've already set for yourself.
00:31:43
Speaker
Oh, the unexpected. But you know what?
Reflecting on Personal Coping Strategies
00:31:49
Speaker
It's a guarantee. There is no point in thinking that that's not going to happen to you because it will. When you least expect it to, you're like, oh, great. I want you guys to sit with this topic and and think about the unexpected and and how you you handle it um because that will teach you a lot about yourself. And going forward, it will help you to addressing those bang ups and hang ups when they happen to you, quoting Dr. Seuss there. Mm-hmm. I've been reading Dr. Seuss a lot, obviously. And for those people who are more prone to be anxious, I totally understand how this topic, if you were to think about the unexpected, that makes some people anxious. I encourage you to also feel the anxiety all the way through, because suppressed anxiety, as we learned from Inside Out 2.
00:32:44
Speaker
You know, that's never good. Very good movie. Everyone should watch it. But it's never good to suppress our anxiety. That'll cause a lot more problems and physical ailments as well. Thanks for listening to yet another episode of Anchored in Life. We'll see you next time.