This week we’re joined by philosopher/brand coach, Jean Mandel, to unravel the trap of the inner critic and pour ourselves into the possibility of trust and confidence.
This week we’re joined by philosopher/brand coach, Jean Mandel, to unravel the trap of the inner critic and pour ourselves into the possibility of trust and confidence.
Jean Mandel
@jean.herself
jeanmandel.com
jeanmandel.com/tarot
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[00:00:00]
Kyley: Welcome back, everybody. Happy New Year. It's Kyley, and I am here at this moment without Eva. Uh, she will return shortly, but we're doing something a little bit different for the month of January, because Eva has a whole bunch of big, important, and time consuming life things happening. And so, uh, I kicked her off the show for the month.
Kyley: With great love to say, uh, you take care of. your family and, uh, I'll hold down the fort at the show. Um, and then we will see her in a couple of weeks. [00:01:00] But in the meantime, I have the most delicious treat for you. We are going to have some of my other nearest and dearest brilliant wise woman friends on the show each week for the month of January to help me unpack some thing that they've been chewing on, just like Eva and I do on the show.
Kyley: And today's guest is my dear friend. And confidant, and coach, and client, and beloved, Jean Mandel. Welcome
Jean: to the show, Jean! Thank you, Kyley. It's so nice to be here.
Kyley: I'm so happy to have you here. Um, so, just briefly to make you blush before we get into today's topic. Um, we normally do intros separately so that I don't have to embarrass you with how great you are.
Kyley: But, you know, we're doing something a little different this week. So, I have known Jean for, I don't know, a couple of years, but also probably a hundred lifetimes. And, um, Jean, for the past couple of months in particular, Jean has [00:02:00] been helping me and coaching me on My own story of the work that I do and helping me unearth his guests on the show.
Kyley: No, I have this Pre existing hang up of like I'm too material to be spiritual and too spiritual to be material and Gene is helping me Like crack that, crack that walnut. Um, and, um, so when, and we've had lots and lots of really rich conversations about a whole bunch of different things in the past couple of years.
Kyley: And so when I knew I needed to bring wise, curious women on the show tag, you're it.
Jean: Thank you. I am blushing. So that's a thing.
Kyley: Great. Uh, perfect. Uh, mission accomplished. So, Jean, I'm going to ask you the question that we ask everybody that I think will segue into, uh, the topic, which is, [00:03:00] what is life teaching you right now?
Jean: Oh my goodness. Thank you for asking. Um, here's the answer. On Sunday.
Jean: This is the most recent lesson. Sunday was the epiphany. If you keep score, or if you like a Zoroastrian, and let's face it, who doesn't? On Sunday, I went to church, and um, which is across the street from my home, and it's just this beautiful community of people who care about the same things. I do.
Kyley: And
Jean: that, that I love.
Jean: Uh, during mass, we, um, went up to get, uh, what is called our star word for the year because you, the, the Magi followed a star to Bethlehem.
Kyley: They
Jean: had squeeze balls, uh, or little gold glitter stars, and you know, I went for the gold glitter star.[00:04:00]
Jean: And it had our star word for the year. My star word for the year is confident. Um, and here's where the lesson gets really interesting. So I'm such a nerd. I sit back down, go up, get my, take communion, get my star words, sit back down, whip out my phone because I want to read the etymology for confident, which I know what the word means, but I want to go deeper.
Jean: Confident, um, has, uh, basically, con is not with, but completely, and fidere is the Latin for trusting, which is different, I think, than I had been thinking about confidence. I mean, it is, I mean, confidence has all these variations. But this [00:05:00] notion of trusting and trusting in oneself and trusting in the universe and trusting in time and all of that, you know what I mean?
Jean: I think we think of confidence is like ponying up some kind of energy and like, and which it is absolutely. But that really floored me. I had to sit for a while. I had to sit all the way through the end of mass. Listen to the guy play the organ and just think about trusting because I think, and this is where the topic is going to come in, I think trusting oneself
Jean: is, is. It's like 90, it's 90, I think it's 90, I do think of confidence as like the energetics and the get shit done piece, but I think
Kyley: it,
Jean: for me, life is teaching me this as I, it's now been a whole two days churning this and I see it more and more even as I'm having this conversation with you.
Kyley: Yeah. I [00:06:00] love you bringing etymology in right at the top of the show.
Kyley: Did you say the etymology, the con meant completely? Is that what you said? So not just, I'm really struck by that. It's not just trust, complete trust. Amen. Which makes me think on the show, we talk, we have talked a lot about surrender and you know, I had my surrender magic course last year. I went cooking and surrender over and over and again.
Kyley: And one of the things that I think about a lot is how in order to surrender, like part of surrender, part of being able to surrender is to trust, right? If you're going to let go, you got to trust that you're going to be caught. And also deeper trust allows us deeper sooner, right? There's like a feedback loop between trust and surrender.
Kyley: And I'm in this moment struck by this idea that like confidence almost as the natural, as the natural byproduct, right? If you get in that, if you, if you just live in [00:07:00] that cycle of like surrender and trust, surrender and trust, you don't have to create confidence. You don't have to effort, right? The best kind of confidence is like.
Kyley: Like do the one that's effortless. There's no there's just the person just existing and
Jean: you're
Kyley: like,
Jean: what are they doing? Well, right, right. And that, um, lack of confidence we perceive in so many different ways and experience in all these different ways. But if confidence is a fundamental. We'll get, and this is, I'm getting ahead of myself, but if there is, that's what we do here.
Jean: There's no linear. Okay. We're getting ahead.
Kyley: We immediately skip out of linear. I'm gonna pick
Jean: the needle up on the record and we'll just go back and forth. But, um, I think this is the, the life lesson piece for me and just reviewing so much of my experience of my own life, which is that imagining confidence.
Jean: as disrupted trust in self, like a lack of confidence, right? My lack of confidence [00:08:00] isn't about my intelligence. I think increasingly it's not about my some kind of, um, uh, worthiness in a really brute sort of sense, but the confidence that I struggle with is that there is a disrupted, that's the only word I have for it, is that there was a trust that I have, was scared off of very early, that my, my judgment or my understanding was not reliable.
Kyley: I am really loving this word disrupted. Okay, so apparently everybody buckle in, this is the Word Nerd edition of Halloween Nerds. Oh, yeah. Because I'm like, we just both have that in common. But the thing that I'm loving about Disrupted is, um, [00:09:00] Disrupted isn't broken, right? And Disrupted isn't an absence.
Kyley: It's just, it's an, it's interrupted and there's something about that word. So, okay. If we're from weaving this web around confidence and what underpins it and, and what it asks of us, I really love, there's something very generous in the idea that, A lack of confidence or those moments of insecurity or that, like those repeating experiences of insecurity, it's not a flaw, it's not a fundamental fracture, it's just that something got disrupted, which means we can just return to it, right?
Kyley: If I'm reading my book and I get disrupted and I put it down and I lose the book for a week, well, a week goes by and I just pick the book back up and I, and I pick it back up where I left off and there's something that feels like a lot of. Um, permission that's living in this definition you're giving us.
Jean: Well, right. It reminds me of something my [00:10:00] dad said about one of my sisters, which is that she just didn't seem to have enough self confidence. And what I realized, and I don't think I said aloud to him, was I don't think confidence is something we are born with. or without. I think it's something that can get taken away from us or get disrupted.
Jean: That trusting piece, I don't look at, I mean, you've hung out, you've hung out with babies, couple, couple, right? I'm the oldest of five children. I like spent my life in really close proximity, you know, with these Good old beings growing up and I would not say that they, you know, one, one newborn was confident and the other wasn't, they come at different volumes and different temperaments, but I really believe that confidence, if we're looking at it too, as this like idea [00:11:00] of trust and trust in ourselves and trust in our, in our desires, trust in our impulses.
Jean: Trust in our assessment of a situation, whatever it is.
Kyley: And trust in life too, I think. And trust in life, sure. Confidence is like, I can, I can take this step. I'm seeing the like fool card, right? I can take this step off of the cliff into thin air because I am confident in my ability to actually like walk on the air.
Kyley: And in that, I am also trusting that life, that the, the fabric of the air is going to cushion my foot. So there's a, There's a, there's a cyclicality of the trust, which if we keep with this baby metaphor you're giving us too, like the newborn baby doesn't differentiate between life and self, right? The baby and the mother, for the baby's perspective, baby and mother are actually the exact same unit.
Kyley: And so trust in self and trust in life. Is actually, if we go all the way down, the exact same thing.
Kyley: How about that? Okay, I like that. Tucking that [00:12:00] in.
Kyley: So, okay, so the phrase that we haven't used on the show yet, but we have tossed around many times before I invited you on the show, is, dun da da da, introducing the inner critic. Every good adventure needs a villain. And if our hero is confidence and trust in self and life, then the hero's adversary is the inner critic.
Kyley: And you and I both know well the dance and battle and romance with the inner critic. And I'm curious to know, what's the question that I want to ask you?
Kyley: Well, how do you know the inner critic? How has it shown up for you and your life? How has it been a partner that you recognize?
Jean: How much time do we have?
Kyley: Oh, not that brief on the show. So [00:13:00]
Jean: have the
Kyley: floor.
Jean: No, I was sitting here thinking how, um, more than once you've complimented me on all my knowledge about the inner critic. And it's like telling somebody they're really good at crime scene cleanup. You're not good at that unless you have really seen some gore.
Jean: Hey, that's how you get good at it. You I and and I also feel like it's crime scene cleanup in that with in terms of the inner critic. I'm getting away from your question, but we'll come back. Okay, in terms of the inner critic, it's like the way it functions to like It's very much like crime scene cleanup, because we actually weren't there for the crime.
Jean: There was, something did happen. And it did happen. We have no recall of it. We've got, you know, inferent traces of it that we are cleaning up. But this thing happened, and here we are. With it.
Kyley: And yes, I think that's very true. And also like, [00:14:00] I don't, I personally don't trust people to hold me on the things that are hard for me if they haven't been in the fire, right?
Kyley: There are some people for whom let's pick confidence, for example, there are some people from that it's just, it's this, this trust in self, this kind of natural magnetism, this quiet, it's not, it's not a, there are some people for whom certain topics are not complicated and.
Kyley: I love that for them. And I love the way those people can teach certain things. But I want to learn from someone who has been down in the muck in the mud and understands intimately the thing that I am also currently in the muck in the mud on. So, um, yeah, I, I, I, I, I value your crime scene cleanup expertise.
Kyley: Thanks.
Jean: Me, I've got a hazmat suit, got my gloves, and I am ready to roll. So, so to loop back to your question, I think the first step [00:15:00] for me was even understanding that I had an inner critic.
Jean: And, uh, it goes so far beyond, like, over a lifetime, having people who care about me observe things aloud, like, wow, you're so hard on yourself. But that doesn't even, like, if it's something that somebody else is noticing, they're not even seeing the full strength version of it.
Jean: But recognizing that the inner critic isn't, uh, to me, it was so, only over years, and I was, have been very fortunate. In, um, having spent a long time working with a therapist who, among her, other beautiful qualities, and she's a Jungian, so we get to talk about everything. We get to talk about [00:16:00] my favorite Peanuts characters, um, which are Linus and Lucy, because they are the, um, Okay, we
Kyley: have to come back to the peanuts.
Kyley: I'm putting peanuts. I have peanuts related thoughts, but okay,
Jean: I have peanuts. Really? I have peanuts. Really? I have a Linus watch that I should have worn anyhow. Um, uh, but. Among my therapist's wonderful qualities and we have known each other since 2010. So this is a lot of time together She has no poker face, you know, and she really busts into that idea that the therapist is sitting there in her Mount Rushmore like and She is, um, has no poker face.
Jean: She curses readily. She was the first one to drop an F bomb in the room, which I really loved. And she, um, gets tears in her eyes. Which is another thing, and there were, uh, and she has a very [00:17:00] visceral, she has had very visceral responses, not just like, wow, that sounds like you're being hard on yourself, but like really visceral, like responses, like big bug eyes or like fuck or, you know, and that really, I have to say having somebody in that setting really respond that viscerally to that.
Jean: To, to what for me were just normal thoughts, stuff that I'd completely normalized.
Kyley: Yes, because this, this, this disrupted, uh, trust in self that you're speaking to that kind of births the inner, births the inner critic. We. I think those of us who struggle with perfectionism, perfectionism is the inner critic, y'all.
Kyley: So those of us who struggle with that, in particular, about being hard on yourself, having too high expectations, that kind of relentless, not good enough, too much chatter, I think a lot of us go through many years of completely [00:18:00] identifying with The voice of the inner critic. So if you think about it, we are made up of all these different parts, right?
Kyley: There's all sorts of interesting, funky, weird bits inside all of us. But I think for those of us that this is a big struggle, we go through at least a phase in our life where I know my inner monologue largely was the voice of the inner critic. And I didn't even recognize that that wasn't truth, that that wasn't me, that that was just a.
Kyley: Fast. So I was having these experiences, right? There was like a rich experience. All the parts of me were existing. But the narrator, like the narrator of the book, which I thought was me, I thought I was the narrator, was just this really relentless inner critic. And I think I really love that you're pointing out that the that the starting point is even recognizing that It's just that it's a voice and that it isn't actually your true authentic voice.[00:19:00]
Kyley: It's one you've absorbed and then like, perhaps enmeshed with, um, but you, it does feel completely normal. And one of the things that I'm struck by as someone who's been, you know, I think pretty intensely unraveling from this for a long time is how relentless it still is. You know, like, I'm kind of obsessive about lovingly unravelling the inner critic and perfectionism of people losing, and I constantly am like, Bitch, you're still running that program, too?
Jean: Oh, right? And there are, um, I think with my experience of the inner critic, too, is that there are, it covers a very wide spectrum. There is the perfectionism piece, but then there is also the way in which it is, the inner critic is the voice of supreme authority.
Kyley: Ooh, can you say more about that?
Jean: Yes, I can.
Jean: [00:20:00] Um, so my, I'm going to bring in my meditation teacher, Priya Glickman, who has a model she calls the mindset. And that, you know, we are, although there's millions of parts of us, but you know, ourselves in her framework, our, we have our center, which is our, our highest self, our intuition, who we truly are. We have.
Jean: a thinking, restless, critical, disruptive mind. And that voice actually is a very frightened child mimicking the voice of an adult and wearing the mask of an adult. So you don't even, you can't even, you may not even register that actually this is all, this is all some little freaked out kid. Um, and then on the other hand, there is the heart, which is the inner [00:21:00] child, which basically wants freedom and wants to be loved and wants to express joy.
Jean: And so in that, you know, in that framework, like, yes, the inner critic, that's what I mean, it ratchets up to this supreme authority, right? And in my case, certainly it's very easy to trace There is that inner critic, not good enough, fine tuning, damn you, out, spot out kind of thing. But then there's also a That was a Lady
Kyley: Macbeth reference
Jean: for anybody who's keeping track at home.
Jean: Well, you know, when two English lit nerds get together, it's really Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just have
Kyley: to, I just have to make sure that the nerdiness is like, clearly no one misses it. Oh, yeah.
Jean: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, but that it ratchets up to question one's, my, one's, I say one, my very [00:22:00] existence. And I want to share with you as an example of that, a quote from a psychologist, she's a Canadian psychologist named Hilary McBride.
Jean: And she says, spiritual trauma is someone handing you an inner critic and telling you it's the voice of God. Oh,
Kyley: holy shit. I need you to read that again.
Jean: My heart is pounding really hard. Just reading it out loud. Like it's, it's so toxic. It's such lava to me. Spiritual trauma is someone handing you an inner critic and telling you that it's the voice of God.
Kyley: I feel that in my whole body.
Jean: That is my experience of the inner critic. Sorry, I interrupted you. No, that's my experience. That's my experience of the inner critic. Like, yeah, there's details, right? There's, there's stuff. I'm, you know, there's the 10 pounds I didn't lose. There's all that litany of things that are [00:23:00] always not going to be right.
Jean: But really at the end of the day, in, in my experience of my life, the inner critic, is operating at that level. And that's where the trust piece comes in, because it's so much, it's so much bigger. It's very similar to what your friend Brene Brown, you know, says about shame. Shame is who you are, right? Not what you do.
Jean: And that kind of inner critic is voice of God, you know, and that's why I, for me, in periods of, and this is a huge, as you know, I've been working in a very focused way over the past couple of years, and it's part of a longer growth phase, but I have been trying to knock, knock down obstacles. expand in all the [00:24:00] ways, which of course the inner critic hates.
Jean: And it goes for the, it goes for the jugular though. It's not telling me that my, I mean, yes, it tells me that my website copy isn't good enough that other people have the, whatever. It tells me all that, but really what it specializes in is taking my, my purest impulses and desires and particularly my desire to be of service.
Jean: And it just rips it to shreds. It just like holds it up like a piece of paper and tears it in two and drops it at my feet.
Kyley: Yes. A thousand percent. Yes. I'm, this will stay with me. This, this voice of God piece. Um, and I, one of the, so I have shared frequently on the show how one of the places where my inner critic, and you and I've talked about this also, one of the places where my inner critic loves to show off is the like, you're [00:25:00] not a good friend thing, right?
Kyley: For whatever combination of reasons, that's one of the like fixation points, specifically since I had kids and the way that I could show up in friendships started to shift. And essentially she's just relentless about like, not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough. And I'm really cognizant of how that is the very thing that keeps me from showing up.
Kyley: Right? I can feel it's like the inner critic and shame are in a dance, right? And the inner critics constant, like data points of not enough, not enough, not enough are the thing that makes it feel completely emotionally overwhelming to engage. Because essentially every time you, I, to go do the thing, whether it's post on social media, if this is where your inner critic shows up or call my friend or whatever, you've got to You gotta, like, climb this Herculean mountain of inner critic shame noise, and sometimes you have the bandwidth for that, and sometimes you don't.
Kyley: And I, I'm struck by this Voice of God piece because I think you point to something that's [00:26:00] really profound and true. There's a way in which the inner critic is just Absolute truth, right? When it shows up and says, you're not enough, your program's shit, people are disappointed in you, whatever, it doesn't matter what the story is, the story and the data is actually entirely irrelevant, but it is this Reverberation of like the voice of God.
Kyley: There's no arguing with this, right? Like you are inherently, you are not enough. The question is not, can you, you can't engage with this. You can't argue with this. You can't renegotiate. You could just maybe meet the standard of the inner critic, which of course is an impossible task to do because the inner critic is designed to be dissatisfied.
Kyley: Right?
Jean: Right. And here's where the trauma piece comes in, too, because in my experience, at its worst, you know, that Voice of God piece doesn't even have to use words, because it is a physical response [00:27:00] that is absolutely chilling. It's like I've entered, I have entered officially. into a windowless dungeon.
Kyley: Yes.
Jean: Yes. And it doesn't, it's not even, it's not, it may be accompanied by some language, by some narrative, but really it is an overwhelming feeling of, um, of that. And actually, I actually call it that feeling. I don't call it the dungeon. I call that feeling actually, Um, is the executioner I use the, and I actually use the, cause I'm a nerd, the, um, and, and I'm fluent, I'm fluent in French and I use the French word, which is, and that is the executioner.
Jean: And it looks like one of those. you know, heavyset, sweaty, bald, filthy guys in a bloody leather apron.
Kyley: Oh, that is for the record. Every time we've talked about the executioner, I [00:28:00] 1000 percent see like Reign of Terror style French executioner. So I'm glad I got that. We are so in
Jean: it. And this is the other nice thing.
Jean: Sidebar. Great thing about having a Jungian therapist is that you can You get to, to do all the imagery, like all the imagery matters and we need, um, and not that you need a Jungian, you don't need a Jungian therapist, you don't even need a therapist. But I think dimension, giving dimension and, and detail to all these, these voices and feel like we are, we are all of us.
Jean: So many different parts. Yeah. And experiencing it, especially if you are by chance a thinky. A thinky, agitated. You know, verbal person, which if you're
Kyley: listening to a 90 minute weekly podcast about how to be a human in a spiritual experience, you probably are.
Jean: [00:29:00] Exactly.
Kyley: You know what? I really appreciate what you're pointing to is, you know, the first step.
Kyley: The first part of this process is like you and recognizing that the inner critic isn't you and then constantly having to re recognize that the inner critic isn't you. That's not a one and done thing, but then I think you're speaking to something that I also have found many times, which is so when you're in that And this is, I'm going to say this as if it's linear, but of course it's all actually happening at the same time, but the, the, the phase of watching that you are not the inner critic, I think is a kind of mind thing where you're like, wait a minute, I like that narration.
Kyley: Oh, wait, I'm going to give myself a new story. Oh, wait, you know, Eva's beautiful question every time of, is that true? Right? You hold up a belief and you, or a story that you're saying, like, is that true? And. That can do a lot around the process of unhooking and loosening the vice grip that the inner critic has, but you're pointing to something else that I find very true and sometimes really fucking annoying, which is if this, [00:30:00] this wound, this tenderness, this fracture, this disruption, as you put it, pre exists language in many ways.
Kyley: It lives beneath the surface of language. And, and so the critics voice. Is the loudest symptom, but it's also still a symptom. And I have been watching in particular, these past, these past couple of months, as you have also been haunting me, uh, I have been watching that my mind is not that loud, it still is, but it's not that loud.
Kyley: Like it doesn't, I don't necessarily have a constant loud list of things, of faults and flaws and, you know, And, and yet I can feel where my body itself is holding the, uh, uh, don't go there. Don't do that thing. That's not right. And like, for example, I'll share transparently show in this incredible new group program.
Kyley: It's called Thrive. I've mentioned a bit on the [00:31:00] show. of the things that I find often is this piece about how the inner critic lives under the surface in our bodies and the mind is symptom, right? And I've been watching a bunch over these past couple of months in particular, how my mind is not that loud when it comes to the inner critic. She has stories, but it's not, You know, mid 20s, Kyley, that was that was the narrator of the story, right?
Kyley: She's just in it. She's more of an occasional. She's like a special friend on the guest episode kind of voice. Right? Um, but. My body holds the energy of, I've been watching the inner critic as self censure, we haven't talked about this in particular, but for me it's been a lot of like self censure, and I've been watching where that censorship actually just lives in my body, and I'll go to like, say [00:32:00] something, whether it's to someone I love, or to, um, You know, put online or do something that I enjoy or whatever.
Kyley: And I'll just feel that like censorship energy that doesn't have language and it might pop up language, but that's a, that's sticky and, and unpleasant. And, and I like your executioner doesn't feel quite accurate for my experience of it, because it feels more, I don't know what care, what characteristic I would give it, but it feels.
Kyley: Yeah, like a lot of like, muzzling, censoring, kidnap, like, bag over the head, kidnap style. Um, and, and it's, it's interesting because I will feel like, lit up and inspired and excited to do something. And then I will watch how fucking hard doing [00:33:00] the thing becomes. Because of this, what we're calling inner critic.
Kyley: Energy, not narration, but energy.
Jean: Exactly. Okay. I have another quote for you
Jean: just on, on this very thing. It's this feeling. And I think why that the executioner for what it's worth for me is that imagine for me, it's like that, that sensation of being in the presence of something. I'm nightgown and there's this giant man. In a leather apron. I can't win.
Kyley: I
Jean: know what's coming. And what's coming is my fault.
Jean: Right? So that is,
Kyley: yeah.
Kyley: I mean, I'm pausing because that's the real pain, right? We get so frustrated with the inner critic because we can intellectual adult us can see how it's like all of this would be easier if you [00:34:00] just like chill. And It's so fucked up because it's the, it's the voice, it's the energy that causes so much suffering and also it's obsessed with trying to keep us safe.
Kyley: That's the twisted up irony, right? Because, underneath all of that, we're the little kid in the nightgown who's like, This is gonna, this is gonna fucking hurt and it's gonna be my fault.
Jean: So, this quote is from, a Bay Area psychologist named Pete Walker. I've not read any of his books. I've done a really good job of skimming his website after I don't even know where I, where this quote crossed my path, but it was one of those things that stopped me in my tracks.
Jean: And I had to lay my first, lay my head down on the table and then move forward. But Pete Walker says the inner critic is a silent partner in the creation of an emotional flatback.
Jean: So I have a quote for you from Pete Walker, who is [00:35:00] a Bay Area psychologist, and he does a lot of work around complex PTSD. And the inner critic, and this was one of those things that I stumbled across and literally I had to lay my head down on the desk before I could move forward. Pete Walker says, the inner critic is a silent partner in the creation of an emotional flashback.
Jean: And once a person's fight, flight, freeze, fawn becomes triggered, it causes intense internal message tapes to play. The
Kyley: Yeah,
Kyley: I think the disruption that you spoke about in the beginning, what we're disrupted from that causes the births. And then feeds this inner critic, which is a protector part, right? Let's be clear about that. Uh, I think it's a disconnection from love, [00:36:00] the experience of being disrupted, right? The connection to love is disrupted.
Kyley: We experienced that the connection to love is disrupted and shame pours in and then shames, big, scary, burly protector. Is the inner is the inner critic and then we're in this like vicious spin cycle of inner critic shame, inner critic shame, inner critic shame.
Jean: Well, and you just anticipated something else he says, which is that, you know, the inner critic's job is to rid us of our perceived imperfections.
Jean: So people will love us. Yeah. So it really is. I think. You know, it's the, it is giant. And the only word I have is existential because it's, it is constantly, it is, it is a constant threat of [00:37:00] death. Although I don't think as children, we don't think of it as the threat being death, but the threat is abandonment, abandonment, rejection, ostracism, exile.
Jean: That is my experience of that. And there's nothing. In that scenario, the little girl in the nightgown, there's nothing I can do about that.
Kyley: Eva uses the phrase a lot, cast out of love. And I think that sums it up really well, right? The fear or the experience is like, if, if this, if X happens, whatever X is going to be, and I will be cast out of love.
Kyley: If I'm find out if I'm imperfect, if you know, whatever the inner critic has conjured as our current failing, then I will be cast out of love. And the consequences of being cast out of love are, you know, abandonment, pain, suffering, death. Et cetera, exactly. One of the things that I think about a lot about the inner critic, you know, and it's noteworthy that I think the inner critic is very loud, you know, [00:38:00] for ambitious, generous.
Kyley: big hearted women who want to take care of the world, you know, like we're a type. There's, and I think, I think the inner critic is pervasive for lots of people, but there is a particular strength, which it shows up in the like an eldest daughter archetype. You don't have to be an eldest daughter, you and I both are, but the eldest daughter archetype is a good, you know, um, Uh, example of it.
Kyley: And, and I think, you know, that, that song, what is it from? I forget what, what musical it's from, but it's like any, Oh, any, uh, anything you can do, I can do better. And I think the inner critics, basically the, it is hate myself. Right. So the basically the inner critic is saying the threat from the world is that I'll be hated the inner critics like I'll raise the bar.
Kyley: Anything outside world can do hate me. I'll just do better. I'll do it faster. I'll do it deeper. I'll do it better. I will help my [00:39:00] hate myself more thoroughly than any of you ever could. And therefore, I'll be safe.
Jean: That's one. Well, it is. And I think there's another I think that's one. There's so many forms.
Jean: I mean, we could do the taxonomy of the inner critic is just exhausting. But I also think that certainly when I look at my own experience, um, and basically, and back to the disrupted trust piece is that I think over, if over time repeatedly, if, if my impulses, my actions, my impulses, my judgments, all of these things.
Jean: Are not met with acceptance and in fact, not just not accepted, but if I am rejected, if I'm rejected, pilloried, Hector, vilified, all of the called out for all of these things that are just pure impulses. [00:40:00] Right, just instinctive responses to the world and often very joyful, right? With no, no intent. It's not even like the impulse to shoplift, which I've also done as a child.
Jean: And that's a very different, that's a very different thing. But the inner critic goes, I think this is back to the disrupted trust piece is that really the inner critic is trying to, over and over again, get me to understand my, I don't listen. My impulses are the problem. The problem is that I forget the rules, right?
Jean: You know the rules and you keep forgetting and here you are again. You know the rules or you're not supposed to do this. Do not, don't, and whatever it is, and I could, I, I can't even really tell you because some of this, I think, A lot of this emerges, as you said, before language. [00:41:00] But I think that we don't, um, I think that's where it gets to what you're talking about is that censure piece.
Jean: Not just that it's censoring the idea itself, but like, who are you to have ideas?
Kyley: Yeah, well, and I think the point about the rules is interesting because to the point of the way in which we like in mesh our identity with the inner critic. I think we don't see that the rules that we seem trapped by are just the rules of the inner critic.
Kyley: My kids, you know, five and eight, now he's eight, um, are interested in rules in a particular kind of way, right? Because there's school, there's people not following the rules, there's wanting to break the rules, there's the whole thing, right? And one of the conversations I've had to have with each of my kids separately is like, there's some rules that you do have to follow.
Kyley: This is an example about our relationship to rules. One, there's some rules that you have to follow because if, you know, You [00:42:00] don't want someone to get hurt, right? Like, not running in the hallway is the rule because someone's going to get hurt. Versus, don't share your snack. Well, if, you know, Bobby and Sue are sharing a snack, if no one's getting hurt by it, like, mind your own business.
Kyley: It doesn't matter. Right? And trying to help them differentiate between the rules that are worth caring about because they're about someone getting hurt, either emotionally or physically, and the rules that are like, emotionally. Right? Don't, like, don't be a snitch, kind of, or, like, don't get all, like, up and twisted up about someone else breaking this rule that's actually not important.
Kyley: And the reason I use that example is because for both of them, it's been, like, kind of this, like, light bulb moment. They were actually very confused by, at first, the idea that, Running in the halls and not sharing your snack were somehow not the exact same rule, right? They didn't actually understand that because our little kid brains are very black and white And so we are now walking around as these like flushed out very [00:43:00] intelligent adults And we still have the sense that the inner critics rules are to your point the voice of God the rules So one of the ones for me has been if someone needs something from me, it's my job to do it And if I don't want to do it, then I'm bad.
Kyley: And that has been something I bump up to against again and again, in sneaky and surprising ways. Like, the rule is, if someone has a desire, your job is to do it. And if you're not meeting that, then you're bad. And the inner critic has a whole, like, you know, performative thing about that. And also that's a bonkers rule.
Kyley: Like no one, that's not actually the rule. It's only her rule. Right. I'm struck by your idea that the inner critic is telling you like, you're not following the rules here. You are again, not following the rules. And part of the, I think the way that we get out from under the weight of it is to start to actually see what are these rules that I think are absolute [00:44:00] and actually There, there's no way they're absolute.
Kyley: And how can I reinterpret them? Right.
Jean: Well, and, and talk about, and talk about a rule. If the rule is you're, you are not to act on your desires, Because you will be cast out of love, otherwise. And imagine that that's not even an articulated, imagine that that's not even articulated at the level of language.
Jean: And you only know that you've broken the rule when you get that feeling. Imagine only knowing that you have broken a rule when you realize that the executioner has entered the room. And I still experience this. Um, and I do think, I don't, I, I would hate for anybody to, I mean, this is, there is the trauma piece, which is the terrible news and the good news, because if it is [00:45:00] at the level of trauma, then there's all these things that we can do with it.
Jean: And it's not just, not just, I don't want to minimize it, but it's not us reprogramming, right? It's not as reprogramming our language, although that is a. Yeah. Part of it, but recognizing that that is what is going on. And then, so to the rules part, if the rule is my desires are going to end up with my being cast out of love, this is where, uh, we are really beautifully positioned.
Jean: So in that framework of rule breaking and what the consequences of breaking the rules are. So if I understand, even before I have language, if I have a fundamental understanding that breaking the rules, and if the rule is I'm not to act on my desires or my impulses.
Jean: If that [00:46:00] is going to get me cast out of love, that is a really serious consequence. And then on top of that, not even knowing, imagine not even knowing that you've broken the rule until the executioner enters the room and you've, and it's always too late. Right. And this is where the trauma piece comes in.
Jean: But the good news, once you identify it as trauma, that, that gives you a whole set of There's a whole other set of, of actions and understanding that comes into play, but also we have a really great opportunity to take on the inner critic in a different way. Once we realize that it is kind of a oversimplified or overly simple, uh, machine, it doesn't understand certain things.
Jean: It doesn't know what I know. I
Kyley: [00:47:00] know,
Jean: I know that I belong here. I know that I belong here on this earth. And so does everybody. I know that I am a beloved child. of the universe. I know that God doesn't hate me.
Kyley: I'm tearing up as you're saying this because what I'm feeling is we experience inner critic like we're the little kid in the nightgown and inner critic is this big scary executioner but the truth is the inner critic is a terrified little
Jean: kid,
Kyley: right? The inner critic is very much the little kid in the nightgown who doesn't know what to do to make safety happen and is just reaching for the tools that are available.
Kyley: And I love. What you're speaking to because I'm feeling the energy of like, you know Sometimes my kids are shitty cuz they're human, right? and they have a temper tantrum or they're mean or to each other or me or whatever and Like you just scoop them up and you just [00:48:00] hold them until they kind of soften it to you you know because they're scared and angry and I think you anticipated a question that I was going to ask, which is kind of what are the ways that we, what are the paradigm shifts that we can use to shift this dynamic?
Kyley: And I'm really struck by this, this energy of like, I know we belong, even though the inner critic, you are terrified that we don't belong in some level. You think we never will, but bigger me, God, me, adult, me, mama, me, however you want to imagine it. I know we belong. And I will scoop you up. Despite the fact that you're being a little shit right now, I love you.
Jean: Oh, that's really beautiful. Well, and it can be really hard to break the spell when you are in thrall to the inner [00:49:00] critic. And especially when that whole physical response has kicked in. And certainly for me, it's, it's prickly. It's terror. It's terror. Yeah. You know. Everything is, everything is tense and it's very hard to find room for anything else there and sometimes, I wish I could say I'm really great that I can just, I can just look at, I can just look at my altar or whatever and magically remember, but I also think that's a huge tell.
Jean: If we are in that state, right? This state also, by the way, this physical state of terror, which over decades and decades and decades, I've just become accustomed to, but also recognizing that that's not normal. That's not normal. Maybe normal. If I'm facing off with a cobra or yes, if there's a man with a rusty knife.
Jean: With a rusty axe coming at me. There's [00:50:00] all these, I'm home. What did, what did I do? I'm at home laying in bed. Yeah. Contemplating getting up in the morning and doing something, taking a big bold step. And why would, why would I feel that way? And like recognizing.
Kyley: One of the things I know you mentioned, like, you know, I wish I could say I just look at my altar and the calm washes over me, but one of the things I really like, love and admire about you and is like, I watch you.
Kyley: I watch you go to bat, you know, like the, the, the, the swell I'm going to mix my metaphors now I don't know it's an ocean baseball game I don't know, but like this. The moment rises. And. And I watch how you turn towards it in all of its terror, you know, and I, you know, David and Goliath feeling perhaps, but I watch how over and over and [00:51:00] over again, you turn towards it.
Kyley: And what's interesting is I also watch how your inner critic is like, see, you're still having to battle Goliath like you're, you're not doing this right. And yet I watched you, I watched you get right back in there every time. And it's really. And it's really beautiful to watch. It's really beautiful.
Jean: Well, thank you.
Jean: I think that's, I think that's, I mean, that's always been there, right? That's, that's me. I didn't learn that. I love having an, I love that, honored that you called it, called it out and recognizing that as somebody who's always been there. And I have suffered for that as well, but,
Kyley: but she's the, you, she's the, you, who trusts Right?
Kyley: So there's a part of you, there's all these parts of you who have been disrupted, whose, whose, whose, you know, connection to [00:52:00] trust has been disrupted, but there remain, there remains this you who is not, has never been, who refuses to have that connection disrupted. And so despite the evidence of the inner critic, despite the like mortal terror that the activated parts of you feel, she trusts.
Kyley: And so she turns into the fire, she turns into the flame, she turns into the darkness, and she's like, okay, we're up for another round. Um, and I think every single person who's listening to this show, I feel confident, is the kind of person who also does that, and does not give themselves enough credit for it, because you wouldn't be this far into an episode of The Inner Critic.
Jean: Well, right, it's what I think you and I, I have called, and you and I have talked about this before, it's like this rage to live, like, no, I'm alive, you cannot kill me. That's not, you know what I mean? There is, it is survival. And I also shared with you a couple of weeks ago, how, you know, winged victory is me, she's 10 feet tall.
Jean: She's 2000 [00:53:00] years old. She's 10 feet tall. She has no head and no arms and she's beautiful. If she had her head in her arms, she'd just be another big statue. You know, she's not going anywhere. And she's been through shit back to crime scene cleanup, really. But yeah, everybody does have that
Kyley: here between the executioner, the crime.
Jean: But it is, I, I, I, in the spiritual world, I think we want it to be cleaner. Darkness and light, darkness and light are powerful, powerful forces, powerful truths, powerful metaphors, but there is a visceral. Blood and guts bodily piece to this. And I think the very fact that we are all here, you and you and I and everybody hearing this and that we are upright still.
Jean: And that [00:54:00] is total survivor. That is not just survival of the fittest. misfortune, but it's more the survivor rage to live energy was there all along. What is the first thing we do when we come out? We come out screaming. That's how they know we're okay.
Kyley: You know, this reminds me of something that that I had recently.
Kyley: So I recorded a couple episodes not that long ago about overwhelm. And you and I know this cause you've taught, we've talked about it offline too, that one of the things that is tricky for me and where my inner critic gets loud, gets especially loud is that I get overwhelmed. I have 8, 000 million ideas.
Kyley: They're all brilliant. Uh, there I have this intense desire to be as present as possible with my kids. I have a very rich social life and like, or a very rich, like, I have this huge family, I have this incredible friends, and I want to be able to do it all, all of the time, and I [00:55:00] really fucking like to be alone.
Kyley: So, all of that is complicated because it doesn't fit easily. And so, I get overwhelmed a lot. Um, and part of that is, like, ADHD is primed for overwhelm, and part of it is like, I'm trying to fit in. It's a lot into the five pound bag and I had this complete, I heard a line that like blew my mind the other day and led to this whole realization that overwhelm and overflow are the same energy.
Kyley: It's just a matter of how you're experiencing it in the same way that, and then I started to see how like, excitement and fear, you know, are the same energy, it's just a matter of what, what your lens is, what your narration is, and I have been playing, this is new, this is fresh material everybody, but I've been playing with overwhelm as evidence that I'm a lot.
Kyley: Right? The [00:56:00] overwhelming. There is too much. There actually is too much. I am so insanely, I mean I have tears in my eyes. I am so lucky that I have so many friends that I love, that I have such an incredible family that I love, that I have a million and one ideas that want to exist in the world, that I have the world's greatest children and the sweetest husband, and I am so lucky that I have more.
Kyley: Right? What is the definition of abundance is like more than enough. I have more than fits. And the inner critic sees that as, like, as problem to fix, because the inner critic sees that it's my job to manage it all, right? There's a million reasons why. But your Rage to Live piece feels connected for me in this moment to this idea that the overwhelm, which is where my inner critic gets loudest, is actually the very antidote to the inner critic, because it's the evidence.
Kyley: I'm doing the thing that I'm here. What more evidence is there that I have an overabundance of love than the fact that [00:57:00] I can't, I can't get to it all.
Kyley: It feels stretchy because the inner critic is like, yes, but we still have to do it right.
Jean: Right. And it's like, why haven't you done it? of these things off the list. You've, um, intuited magically one of my two new year's resolutions. And, uh, the really important one is that, uh, I not this year, not ever. I never want to say, Oh, I'm so busy. I'm so busy. Busy to me is, is. Either abdication or some badge of honor, like some inflation of self, you know, I'm so in demand and I want to say, I want to be able to say every day, I'm so excited about what I'm doing.
Jean: Right. It's to your point about over what [00:58:00] overwhelm and overflow. Right, or over anything or X excess excess of good opportunities and even demands. I also think the thing about, you know, I'm so busy means that somehow you don't get agency in this and that we're not choosing what we do. And I think, and I understand why people feel overwhelmed and busy is really great protection, right?
Jean: Because it's a, it's like, culturally, we're supposed to be busy. We're supposed to be hyper productive. I. I'm a double Taurus. I have deep inertia in my body.
Kyley: This is the podcast of two nerdy Taurus queens, like we do not move fast. I have the Aries moon that wants to run a thousand miles an hour, so there's a little bit of conflict there, but yeah, we are, we are intentional,
Jean: deliciously slow moving creatures.
Jean: Right. And that, and I have a body that supports it. Really deep, [00:59:00] deep. Can I tell
Kyley: you a funny story? So my husband and my best friend, my childhood best friend and I were all chatting about, uh, and I was telling them a story about a dear friend of mine who's currently on kind of bed rest. And Megan, my childhood best friend who like runs marathons, right, and has a job where she's like sprinting through school hallway buildings.
Kyley: You know, changing students lives. She was like, I would lose my ever loving mind on bedrest. Like that is the worst thing in the world. And my husband who is like, has 8, 000 planets in Capricorn was like, yeah, no, that sounds really, really terrible. And I was like, yeah, me too. And they both. Looked at me and they go, actually, I'm pretty sure you would have loved that and then they were like doing this whole thing They were like, I've got my stack of books.
Kyley: I've got my tea. I have a thousand craft projects I never have to go anywhere and I was like, oh my god, actually you're a thousand percent correct If my [01:00:00] bedrest could occasionally move to the outside, uh, then yeah, actually. Um, and I felt so, uh, seen in that moment. And, uh, And it was interesting because I've had this story for so long of someone who likes to be busy and industrious.
Kyley: And to a point, to a point that's true. But anyway, to the point of the Taurus energy, I was just laughing so much. Oh, yes. Two people who know me best in the whole world can see that actually Kyley and her prime is just lounging about reading books all day.
Jean: You know, there's really nothing that is one of the most beautiful feelings ever of being called so lovingly on your shit. You know, this is why this is why our This is why, yeah, old friends, old friends are [01:01:00] gold.
Kyley: Okay, I, we could have this conversation for 800 hours. Oh my god,
Jean: how many more hours do we
Kyley: have?
Jean: I'm so
Kyley: ready. And this is basically just, this is what we do all the time. So, to be continued, perhaps offline for listeners, but, I have, I have a question for you before we get to our round of joy. Um, which is, What has become possible for you as you have learned to soften, love, let go, dance with your inner critic?
Jean: First of all, thank you for asking, because that's
Kyley: Also, can we just acknowledge that everyone's inner critic right now is like, but I haven't done any of that, because if I'd done it properly, then
Jean: Well, right? Or their inner critics are like, My inner critic doesn't sound like that at all. Right. That only applies to them. You're still a piece of shit. Oh, your mileage [01:02:00] may vary.
Jean: I don't, I don't have a, I do, there's, the first thing you hadn't even finished asking me and the word came to mind, which was service, and I think that is a trend. This is a bridge that I crossed since confinement, so it's been almost five years. Since lockdown, and I, the accordion, the accordion ing, is that a verb?
Jean: Of time. But I really, and, and my inner critic has erased. Very conveniently, so much of the work that I did, speaking to the inertia piece, you know, I, I live on my own. I work for myself. Um, I love being home. I'm actually kind of a cat. Like you can leave me at home on the back of the couch and I will just stare out the window all day.
Jean: I don't care. I'm really happy. I'm also like a little five year old girl who could play with dolls all day. So, uh, but since this has really come into focus for me since. [01:03:00] confinement is the service piece. And what, when the inner critic got out of the way, when it gets out of the way, I've been able to really dial into my deep desire just to be of service.
Jean: And that is only possible, really, it's, it's such the, it's the opposite of perfectionism, people pleasing, showing up, Being the help helpful, big sister, good team player, camp counselor, all of that. And that certainly all of those energies are beautiful and wonderful and helpful and whatever. But what it has really laid bare in me is that.
Jean: I have a deep desire to be of service and that I am here. We are all of us here to share what we have with the world and that the world needs what we have. I think the problem when the inner critic is shutting you down at the [01:04:00] existential level, it's basically saying the world doesn't, not only are you, not only are you being cast out of love, but the world doesn't need what you have anyways.
Jean: Who do you think that you are? And
Jean: so that I would say for me. It's so funny because there's all these other answers that like, my mind is like, well, too bad you didn't think of this, that, or the other, but like, that's, for me, that's all there is. I mean, I have certainly, I have, I have dreams, I have dreams and a wish list and all that stuff, but what this has really done for, for me at its, at the most core, and this will never, they can't take this away from me anymore.
Jean: Like there's some things that like have been snatched out of my hands that I've had to fight back to, to, you know, snatch back, but I'm here to be of service. And it also allowed me [01:05:00] to, I've show up once a week at the most beautiful volunteer opportunity ever and not just serve, but also realize the, the rest of the whole reciprocal piece of it, that service is giving love.
Jean: And receiving love and it fixed my receiver in a huge way because if
Kyley: yes, a thousand percent, I love service as an answer because, uh, what, what I hear underneath that is generosity, right? Service that isn't trying to prove that you're good or not good service that isn't like a response to the inner critic, right?
Kyley: That it's, it's. It's deeper than that. And it's this inherently generous thing. Um, that's like, yeah, I have love. I have love to give [01:06:00] and therefore automatically then there's a feedback loop. And so I have love to receive. Um, it makes me think about how every time before I start working with a new client.
Kyley: I say a little prayer that essentially rounds up to help me get the hell out of the way. Because I understand that whatever comes through in our container has nothing to do with me. Like, it is me. So, you know, it is, it is me. And so this isn't a, there's like a, a self love and self respect in this, but also it's not about me.
Kyley: And it's not proving anything about me. And it's, and it is like deeply each one on one container that I hold is like so incredibly mind blowingly nourishing in all of the ways. And also it has nothing to do with me. And it is a thing that just flows through. And my prayer is always just like, help me get out of the way so that whatever wants to come through can come through.
Kyley: So that I can, and I don't tend to use that word [01:07:00] service, but that's the energy of it. Right. And I, and, and in my, actually in one on one call, particularly when it, when it shows up, uh, in one on one calls, I will occasionally hear this little voice that's like, are you doing a good job? Right. It's, it's happens less and less over time, but every, you know, but it's still there.
Kyley: She just pops in and she's like, is this actually good enough? You know, do they like this? Are they getting what they need? And. One sacred place where I can consistently do this. I have, I can't do this everywhere. Although that's one of the invitations I've said to myself is that it's so clear to me when she shows up the inner critic to be like, this is actually good.
Kyley: This isn't very good. Um, how the only person who really suffers it from that. Well, it's me, but it's my client. If I listen, if I'm in a one on one call and the inner critic tries to take over, the number one person who suffers is my client. And so, it feels like my, like, number one obligation in that moment to just be like, You gotta, you gotta chill your jets.
Kyley: I hear you. I see you. I'll deal with you later. You got, you know, we have 90 [01:08:00] minutes. Until it's your turn. Because this person who's trusted me deserves all of me and you, to your point, you, you, you, you, you, you remove, you know, you're a, you're, you're a subtraction, no offense, uh, inner critic. And, um, and it feels like a, it feels like a sacred obligation because real service, real magic, more good shit shows up when we can lovingly put the, let the inner critic chill.
Jean: Well, you're in my head because every morning when I open my eyes, I say thank you, and then, um, I do my own little version, I'm, and I, this is, this is me, this is me, first, first thing in the morning, and it's, and it's all that Saint Francis thing, make me a channel, [01:09:00] make me a channel, send it through me, send it through me, I'll do my best.
Jean: There are some days where I am a shit channel, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what I want. And it's the same thing with my best ideas. And I'm not saying, and this is not unique to me. We're all, every one of us, this is all of us, you know, to your point about service being generosity, nature is the ultimate model of that.
Jean: Nature is that, nature is, is generous and generative and fully everything, everything is connected. It's all woven together. There's no, nothing in nature that walls itself off from other things. It's, it's, it's, we're the ones that do that. Our culture does that.
Kyley: You know what else? And then we'll, we'll, we can shift to Joy.
Kyley: The other thing I think the inner [01:10:00] critic really does is she cuts off possibility. Absolutely. Absolutely, like it's it's like it's like you're having a birthday party and you think of 20 people you want to invite and then your inner critic is like none of them want to come and you just start slashing names off the list.
Kyley: And all of a sudden you're sitting there saying, I guess I have no one to invite to my birthday party. And it's again to the protectionist because she doesn't want you to get hurt by the rejection. And that's where I think our shame resilience can be such a beautiful gift because it's like, you know what, all 20 people might say no.
Kyley: But I'm going to do it anyway, um, because I deserve, I just, I deserve to buy the rage to live. That's to your point of the rage to live.
Jean: Right? Okay. Only I'm just going to say one thing that might be helpful, which is that the, um, there are some, I have studied a little bit of improv, not a ton, but I know a couple of the rules.
Jean: One is that you always [01:11:00] say yes,
Kyley: the idea
Jean: comes and you say yes, whatever your partner gives you. You say yes.
Jean: Um, and the second thing is first idea, best idea.
Jean: This is why improv, improv, like good improvisers are unreal, crazy great. Not because they're, they're perfectionists, quite the opposite. You lean in and I'm not saying, I think at the, Those giant existential face off moments with our inner critics. I'm not saying that's going to help, but I do think in a, in those micro circumstances, sometimes you've just got to say, Nope, first idea, best idea.
Jean: Well, in the micro circumstances, I think build some, they,
Kyley: they, they rebuild a trust, right? They build a muscle. They, they, they reweave that it is safe to trust so that when we have the big existential moments, we're going in. That's it. We've been strength training,
Jean: essentially. Well, we've been microdosing on confidence.
Kyley: Yeah. [01:12:00] Without even realizing
Jean: it. Okay.
Kyley: Yes. Okay. Jean, how, speaking of service, how can people find you? so much. And. work with you and receive the delicious, delicious experience of being held in your care. Um,
Jean: two things come to mind. Um, one is I work with people very much in the way that I work with you, uh, which is unearthing a story.
Jean: This is something I do for people actually, and for organizations. You have heard an earful already from me about, uh, the ways in which our desire to get our storytelling right. Belong to fit in to show that, you know, we should be on the consideration list really hampers our [01:13:00] ability, not just to tell the story, but to even see ourselves.
Jean: And so my, my work, whether I am sitting across from you, or I'm going into, uh, into work with a client. A design firm, a nonprofit, some forward thinking organization that has got to break, break the grip of storytelling as usual. That's always the same thing. Um, and I work in a really structured way. Those are, those are containers.
Jean: Those are containers. We have, as you know, we have homework. We have
Kyley: guys, my inner critic through the ultimate like temper tantrum, and I refuse to do my homework for gene for like an embarrassingly long amount of time. So that's why she's laughing about homework.
Jean: Right. So the thing I'm so the work that Kyley and I are doing together usually gets done over a with the deliver the way that I and I've, [01:14:00] it's very structured.
Jean: The way I framed it up and it's modeled on everything I know about branding and storytelling and how we build something that doesn't just sound good, but that we know is true. And that takes about 12 weeks. That is one flavor, uh, 12 weeks for an individual. The other thing that I can offer is, um, using The tarot for one on one conversations.
Jean: So if you don't have 12 weeks, you might have an hour. You might have an hour once a month, whatever that is. But I find that the tarot is a really great tool, since I'm not assigning people homework there. But the tarot is a great shortcut. Into being forced to answer questions that Kyley did not want to answer and that our thinking brains.
Jean: The part of us. I mean, Tara was a great tool for getting past the gatekeepers in our [01:15:00] brains that are keep trying to grab the steering wheel and tell us, tell us how it is our inner critic who's telling us how it is. And it's a great tool for giving those. Very deep,
Jean: closely held, silent partners that we have, giving them space to make their presence known.
Kyley: Ooh,
Jean: yeah, the unearthing of, the unearthing of the quiet voices. Right? Because that, that's everything. If we can do that, that's where all the, that's where all the, that's where all the good stuff is. I mean, we can, we can, here's, you know, I'm, I am, we can like, we can life hack and problem solve and whatever till the cows come home, but the real gold is unearthing that if you know, and you [01:16:00] can't, if you know that it's once, you know, that it's there, like, you can't be, it's very hard to live from that place all the time.
Jean: Right to
Kyley: the point of the inner critic is most painful when we can't even see that it's the inner critic when we identify it as the voice of God as the voice of self. If you, listener, want to unearth some of the quiet, silent voices that are running, running, running the show, trust Jean with, I mean, I trust you with my life, trust her with your heart.
Kyley: And if you are either part of a nonprofit organization, artistic company, or an entrepreneur like myself, and your story feels muddled. I mean, the reason I went to Jean was because I felt people at parties would say, what do you do? And I would, I would hate that question because I mean, I would laughingly say like, Oh, I'm a professional witch on the internet or [01:17:00] whatever felt fun in that moment.
Kyley: But I could feel how much I couldn't answer the question without a paragraph. And even that felt like, I just wanted to be seen, and I wanted to let myself be seen, and I didn't know what the story to tell was, I didn't know what the words were, I didn't, and I could feel that there was a fracture, but I could also feel like I didn't, I didn't know what I even wanted to be saying, or what I wanted to be known for, so there was some, like, gremlins under, silent, silent partners running the show, and there was just this hunger to Um, let myself be seen so that I can be of service right so that I can say this is the sacred work if and if because if you can say your story cleanly, then people can know if it's for you or not.
Kyley: So, if any of that is your particular struggle, either organization, company, or individual human, there is no greater person for this process than Jean in my experience. So run, don't, don't walk, [01:18:00] uh, because she's best. Oh, you're really nice. Thank you. What? Oh, and where? It's jeanmandel. com is your website?
Kyley: That's where it happens? Yes, that's where it happens. Okay, the link will be in the show notes. Um, what, my dear friend, is bringing you joy right now?
Jean: You're a mom, you're not gonna, I think you're gonna, you're gonna be excited about this for different reasons than I am. Um, School is back in session. I don't have children, but I live in a neighborhood where there are at least six schools and how many preschools and daycares. And there's a primary school directly across the street from my home.
Jean: And we've had, you know, it was two weeks over the holiday where school was closed. And that was lovely because the parking was a lot easier, but there's something, the kids brought the life back to my neighborhood. [01:19:00] I love, I, I didn't even know until they came back yesterday that I missed hearing them on the playground.
Jean: Hmm.
Kyley: Yeah, I really love that answer. I have to think for a second of what my joy is. I had one and it flitted away.
Kyley: I have fallen back in love with yoga. Oh, the first time I walked into the yoga class studio, I just thought, what was I doing all that? How did I forget? What? Um, I went all I, yoga has been a huge part of my like spiritual evolution as a human and then I was in yoga teacher training when my daughter was born and then right around the one year mark when I would have kind of gotten back into the swing of things, COVID hit and life has happened and I just have not had a regular practice at all.
Kyley: I can walk to a really delightful studio. [01:20:00] And despite that, I have not. I just haven't been and I walked in and within minutes just felt this overwhelming energy of home, which I think is home of studio, but also home of body, right? Um, and that it is a thousand percent the practice for me. Um, and yeah, I've had this kind of like laughing energy ever since that was like, and I could feel it in that first practice of like, Oh my Lord, I have been making this.
Kyley: Yeah. So much harder on myself. Like I've been sleeping on my superpower, which is that I don't have to do this. I can just go to a yoga class and the teacher will hold me and spirit will pour its magic down on me and my body will release what needs to be released. And like, I don't actually have to brain so hard about this.
Kyley: I could just go to yoga. So, um, I am. I am delighted to have returned and um, really pouring some intentional devotional energy into [01:21:00] getting that habit on lock, um, so that it can sustain me more than I let it for a couple of years.
Jean: Okay. You've completely inspired me. I'm the same way. No, I've been, I've been braining it.
Jean: I've been Ah! Cough!
Kyley: Yeah, and ultimately, perhaps that's the, like, final moment of the show, is that how, ultimately, at the end of the day, how do you get out from under the shadow of the inner critic? You just get out of your head. Because the body doesn't have an inner critic.
Jean: That's a t shirt. Yeah. Yeah.
Kyley: Okay. We solved the problem! Woo! Thank you, Kyley. Well, goodbye, my friends. We will see you next week with more. This whole month is a really delicious run of brilliant women, much like Jean. Um, so, send Eva some love from your heart. And, uh, in the meantime, I've got, I've got more delicious humans lined up for [01:22:00] you.
Kyley: Thank you so much, Jean. You're the best. Thank you.