Overcoming the “Why Me?” Mindset
Episode 236
In this episode of Integrative You Radio , Dr. Nicole and Dr. Nick explore the concept of overcoming the "why me?" mindset that many of us encounter during life's challenges. Inspired by one of Dr. Nick's meditative experiences, they dive deep into how we perceive problems and how they are, in fact, opportunities for growth. Dr. Nick discusses how meditation can help increase awareness and shift our perspective, revealing that challenges are part of the journey toward our true authentic selves. Dr. Nicole emphasizes that the biggest opportunities lie within our biggest challenges and encourages listeners to embrace the idea that "rejection is redirection." They explain how we often make decisions out of desperation when we're stuck in a wired, fight-or-flight state, but through reflection and self-awareness, we can begin making decisions out of inspiration that aligns with our values. This empowering episode offers tools to shift your mindset and embrace the redirection life offers. Tune in to learn more! What you’ll learn: Rejection is Redirection: Challenges and setbacks are opportunities that redirect us to a path more aligned with our true purpose and values. Mindset Shift: Overcoming the "why me?" mindset can transform problems into growth opportunities, helping us become our most authentic selves. Inspiration vs. Desperation: Making decisions out of inspiration, rather than desperation, leads to choices that align with our values and bring long-term fulfillment. Quotes: "Our biggest opportunities lie in our biggest challenges." - Dr. Nicole "When we can see things more playful, more joyful, more light, it’s just a game, and we can redirect."- Dr. Nick Curious about Integrative You? Dive into Integrative You Radio with Dr. Nicole Rivera, where she explores the intersections of holistic health, personal growth, and living in alignment with your core values. Each episode provides insights and practical advice to help you achieve a more fulfilling and energized li
Topics: mindset, unknown, nick, challenges, integrative, values, overcoming, nicole
Key takeaways from this episode
- ## Integrative You Radio: Overcoming the “Why Me?” Mindset
- Challenges are not roadblocks, but rather redirection towards our true purpose.
- Embracing the concept of "rejection is redirection" can transform setbacks into powerful growth moments.
- Developing self-awareness allows us to move from making decisions out of desperation to choices rooted in inspiration and aligned with our core values.
- Mindset shifts and reframing challenges
Pull quotes
This is the place where you become limitless. **Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course, in a disruptive fashion, around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior.
We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs, so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare.
If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place. **Unknown:** But buckle up, because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive.
Transcript
**Unknown:** Welcome to Integrative U Radio, hosted by Dr. Nick Carruthers and yours truly, Dr. Nicole Rivera. This is the place where you become limitless.
**Unknown:** We are covering the latest and greatest topics, of course, in a disruptive fashion, around integrative medicine, mental health, and human behavior. We are also covering how those topics affect the human and family dynamics. We will be sprinkling in some truth bombs for our healthpreneurs, so they can join us in our mission to evolve healthcare. If you are health curious and growth focused, you are in the right place.
**Unknown:** But buckle up, because this is real, this is raw, and this is disruptive. This is Integrative U Radio. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Integrative U Radio.
**Unknown:** So you have both of us today. It is Dr. Nick and Dr. Nicole, and we are talking about a topic that was inspired by one of Dr.
**Unknown:** Nick's most recent, uh, deep dive meditations. And I think it's relatable to many of us, and it's really all about overcoming the why me mindset. And of course, there are some of us that are in that why me mindset more often than others. But I think that a lot of us hit a point in our lives that there is some type of circumstance, challenge, event that we can sit back and say, "Why me?" And really from speaking with Dr.
**Unknown:** Nick, he, he found that there was a lot of insight in, in that moment of asking yourself, "Why me?" So I'm gonna let him share a little bit more about the, his thought process as we take a deeper dive into this topic. So yes, I was inspired, uh, this morning around 2:30 AM. I did a, a night hike down to what's called a Crapola, which has 750 steps to get down to the ocean. And I did a night hike to spend the majority of the night meditating.
**Unknown:** I might have fallen asleep a couple times. Um, but in one of those, uh, meditations, I was, uh, connecting with, um, problems, I guess you could say. Just connecting with problems in general, and one of the big things that popped up in my mind was, it's like, you know, we hear all the time like, "God, why me? Why do I have to deal with this?" It's just over and over and over.
**Unknown:** It's this cycle, like why do I... Again, why do I have to do it again and again? And realized that ... So meditation, if you haven't done it, I encourage you to try it, because it is one of the best tools to increase awareness, and that's primarily what we use it for.
**Unknown:** You can use it for other things of course, but it is one of the best tools to increase awareness. And when I allowed myself to tap into, you know, uh, why me, why other people, why do people have problems, what are the issues behind it, and got a big download. And the, the download was there, there is no problem. It's, we perceive things as problems, and it's actually a part of the perfection.
**Unknown:** And what I really got clear on was realizing that everything that happens to us is actually just a part of our journey that's efficiently trying its hardest to get us to be our true, authentic, highest version of ourself. And when we can realize that, we don't have to continue the cycle of avoiding this problem and not ... I, I mean, even seeing it as a problem is creating a lot of disturbances. You can get into the health aspect of, you know, adrenal burnout and all this, and just like constantly putting out fires.
**Unknown:** Um, but I, I definitely wanna dive deeper into the perfection of the problems, but before I do that, I figured I saw Dr. Nicole's face over there and, uh, I think she has some thoughts. Well, when we were talking behind the scenes, getting prepared for our recording today, you know, there was a couple of thoughts that came into my mind which honestly, especially these days, I find myself on repeat with a lot of the individuals that we work with from the concierge medicine perspective or the coaching perspective. Because no matter how you're working with us in, in whatever capacity, we're all humans, and we're all navigating this thing we call life, and we are dealing with problems or challenges.
**Unknown:** And I always say that our biggest opportunities lie in our biggest challenges. And I always will preface with, you know, just sit with this b- for a moment when I say it before you say, "No, this is a big problem, and I don't wanna deal with it." Because it goes back to this other phrase that I absolutely love, and it is rejection is redirection. And if we can keep this in the top of our minds, we can understand that when big things happen that can create a significant emotional charge, that we always have that ability to take a step back and say, "OkayHow or why is this redirecting me? You know, people will get fired from a job or get laid off from a job.
**Unknown:** People will go through the loss of a lot of money. People will go through a major health obstacle, and we can go to that mindset, why me? But this rejection, your, you know, your immune system rejecting your body through an autoimmune condition, your rejection through losing a partner in a, a romantic partner in your life, losing a friend, losing a home through a foreclosure, losing a job, this is all something to redirect you to a different path that's actually more aligned. And I always joke, especially with our clients, because we work with so many people from New Jersey, New York area, and we're very tough, and, you know, we've, we've seen some shit in our lives, and we are stubborn as hell .
**Unknown:** And I always say that sometimes when you're of that very strong mental mindset, you have to be knocked down pretty hard through a high magnitude event in order to redirect. Because we can take it. We can take those little micro traumas, aggressions, obstacles, challenges, and sometimes something big has to happen that you can't get out of bed or you're, you get fired totally out of nowhere from your job, and these are things saying enough's enough. It's time to redirect.
**Unknown:** Yeah, I think one of the things that stuck out for me when you were talking right there is, you know, talking about big problems. And what always lights me up in working with clients is, and myself, is that when, you know, there's always that equal and opposite reaction. And so there's, the bigger the problem, there's the bigger the solution. So I'm always, not right away with, like, newer clients, but, you know, the clients that have used us for a while, I was joking with them.
**Unknown:** I was like, "Okay, perfect. That's an awesome problem." And then we'll get into, you know, this problem has been created so that you can up level your life, and let's stop focusing on the problem, but let's start focusing on the solution. And, you know, that really takes... The problem is the rejection, and if we get caught up and focus on the problem, and, you know, go out to eat.
**Unknown:** You know, listen to the table next to you. The majority of them are talking about their problems. Mm-hmm. People are attached to their problems, and the problem keeps them in that rejection instead of allowing them to redirect, and that's focusing on the solution.
**Unknown:** And it's, it's not the solution that everything's all good. It's that you're, you're bringing the, the body and the mind back into that homeostasis. So homeostasis is the optimal product when you think about it because it's balanced. You know, anytime that we're redirecting, it's because we got outside of that homeostasis.
**Unknown:** We got outside of that balance. We had too much or too little. Um, you think about it with health, you have sympathetic and the parasympathetic. Too much of either one, your body's nervous system's gonna have to redirect to get you back into that state of resilience, vibrant homeostasis.
**Unknown:** Well, it's interesting that you just talked about the nervous system because this was actually... H- honestly, if you're listening, this is probably the most important part, so don't tune out, um, because this is another phrase, term, conversation that's happening a lot, and this is between each other. This is with our friends. This is with our clients.
**Unknown:** And what we-- Going back to this idea of making, um, or having a redirection, so many people are living in a state of, of a wired nervous system. Their, their nervous system is in this fight or flight, what we call it. It literally thinks it's about to fight a tiger or needs to run for survival purposes. And we're in this state because of constant stimulation, because of high-stress jobs, never-ending to-do lists, um, trying to be a superhuman with juggling, trying to have every part of life look perfect and give everything to everyone while not giving anything to ourselves.
**Unknown:** So there's, there's a multitude of reasons why most of the population is living in this fight or flight state, and this is also not really our opinion. I think a lot of people can relate to what I just said, but we're seeing it through data because of the testing that we do with clients. And most people that we work with, they're not coming to us saying, "Oh my God, I'm so stressed," but they're like, "Yeah, I'm a busy professional. I'm an entrepreneur.
**Unknown:** I'm juggling a lot. I'm trying to take care of my family," and their nervous system is in that state just because of that. And so let's say you're in that state, and now you do get laid off or lose your job as one example. Now you're faced with, are you going to redirect and make decisions out of inspiration, or are you gonna make them out of desperation?
**Unknown:** And just as a default, if you're already in this wired state, this fight or flight state, there's a probability that you're not going to have the ability to take enough time or a big enough pause or reflect inward enough to make a decision moving forward that's more aligned with inspiration. Inspiration means it's more aligned with your values. Most people don't even know their values, who they are at their core. What are the things that light them up, energize them, satisfy them, fulfill them?So we make these decisions out of desperation, which if you wanna break it down, what that actually means is you're making decisions that are based off of what you're supposed to do, what you should do, what your analytical mind told you to do, but your analytical mind has been programmed by society of you should work hard, and you have to make money, and you have to do this, and you're a bad parent if you don't do this, or you're not successful if you do or you don't do this.
**Unknown:** So we have all of these injected belief systems or these injected thoughts that are running in the back of our brains, what we call running in the subconscious, and it leads us down a road of making a shitty decision out of desperation, and now what happens? We perpetuate the cycle of stress. We perpetuate the cycle of why me. We perpetuate the cycle of, of the same pain points happening over and over and over again.
**Unknown:** And then that brings us to what I call the hamster on the wheel. "Oh, I can't get ahead in my job.” "Oh, I feel like my family's good, and then we're not good." "Oh, I can't make enough money." Like, "If I get ahead, I get-- I go back." And it's because so many of us are making these decisions out of desperation, and we don't even know where to begin to make decisions out of inspiration. Well, it's-- The sad part about it is it's impossible to make an inspiring decision when you're desperate. Impossible.
**Unknown:** Yeah. So you have to have somebody or a process that you're following to guide you outside of that desperation because everything works based on vol- voltage. And you told me not to go deep, but I'm gonna go to go a little deep. So when you pick up a weight, you know, and you go to lift that weight, you have to enough, have enough voltage within those muscle cells to go through and activate a part of the brain that says, "Yep, we're gonna do this," and it has to cross that threshold.
**Unknown:** So with a mind, the mind's literally the same thing. It has to cross a threshold to reach, and then it's gonna reach something, and if it's a threshold of doom and gloom, guess what? We're gonna go and activate that sympathetic response, and everything's shit. I can't see the good.
**Unknown:** I can't-- It's actually impossible to see the good. So you have to have somebody asking intelligent questions, and it's always coming back to intelligent questions because questions drives the brain out of that fight or flight limbic system in the hindbrain back to the front brain, and the front's known as your executive center, just like the executive team of a company. They're asking quality questions. Why?
**Unknown:** To get the business to lead in the right direction. So we need an executive team, a coach, a process to be able to ask quality questions to get the person, the mind, out of this doom and gloom, everything's shit, into, "Oh, there are some benefits here. How else can I use this drawback to actually make some change, to redirect, to put me in alignment with what's most important to me, what's most important to my business, what's most important to my family?" You get to start asking really good quality questions, and the more and more questions you do, the more data you're gonna gain, and then guess what? You're not doom and gloom.
**Unknown:** Everything's not all shit. You start to see that, oh, there is bad, and there is good. There's drawbacks, and there's benefits. I wanna live in the middle where I'm not being pulled from one side to the other, and I just wanna live congruent to what's most important to me.
**Unknown:** How can I use whatever it is, whether it's amazing, whether it's doom and gloom shit, how can I use it to serve me to allow myself to be more productive, more efficient, more loving? Well, it was interesting that what you were saying in the beginning, I was thinking about, um, you know, this idea of having someone help you see what you can't see. And I know personally, I, um, am-- was very guilty of this in my younger years, is I felt like talking about things really helped me process. And really at the end of the day, what I realize now is talking about things, it was an energetic release.
**Unknown:** It was allowing me to verbalize something kind of like i- it's almost like, uh, taking a little weight off my shoulders. But what I found is that when I would open the dialogue about a specific problem or challenge that I was having, I was essentially bringing it to a person that had their own ideas of what was right, what was wrong. They had their own value system. They had their own belief systems.
**Unknown:** And that would solicit sometimes really bad feedback or really bad advice that would direct me in a way that was further out of alignment. And so I say this because peop- Yeah, fuck that guy. Yeah. Well, of course, we always love when people agree with us, and they empathize with us, and, you know, they validate us, but that's okay, but that's not always what's actually gonna move you forward.
**Unknown:** So if you're to the point that you're just sick and tired of being on this hamster wheel and sick and tired of feeling like, "I'm not living the life that I wanna live," you need to start having dialogue with individuals that are going to help inspire a higher level of thinking and not just agree with you because that's actually a huge detriment if you're just being validated because sometimes the way you're thinking is skewed because there's an emotional charge behind it and a variety of other things. So we have to be really careful with who we're speaking to because they could be potentially steering the direction of our life that's further away from what we want and further out of alignment.And, and I think that when we're always seeking outside of ourselves, we're, we're further diminishing our ability to tap into what feels right for us. And I've talked about this at other times, but I'm always helping people to try to understand the difference between using your analytical mind and using your intuition, and how it's really about a beautiful balance of the two. Because I know sure as hell I only used my analytical mind for majority of my life because I didn't trust my intuition.
**Unknown:** I was taught not to trust my intuition. Don't make decisions based off feelings. Feelings are bullshit, feelings are woo woo, et cetera. And it was more about weigh out the pros and cons of the decision that you're going to make.
**Unknown:** And that could be a valuable tool, but if something inside of you is saying, "Hell no, don't date that guy. Hell no, this job doesn't feel right," or, "No, this friend, like, maybe I can't put my finger on it, but so- something feels really off." Like, those are not, uh, irrelevant. Though, that is equally as important as understanding the pros and cons. Because very often we can get into a relationship and even embark on marriage, and it's because, you know, we're, we're in the desperation mode.
**Unknown:** This is a perfect example, is we're starting to get into making decisions out of desperation. We say ... I hear this all the time with women. "I'm getting old.
**Unknown:** I'm getting older." And they're, like, 30 . "I'm getting older, I wanna have a family, time is running out, my fertility is ending ." You know, all the things they tell themselves. And okay, this guy, it's, you know, he, he has the house, he's got a job, he's nice, my parents like him, and they have all the reasons why, you know, it, it, it's a good decision. But intuitively they're like, "Mm, I don't know, man.
**Unknown:** I'm not really that in love with him," and there's this and there's that. But they go against that intuition and make a decision out of desperation because they think that, you know, they're not gonna be able to have the family that they want because, quote unquote, "Time is running out." And what happens? They either stay in a miserable marriage, they get divorced, they have a kid and then get divorced, which creates a whole nother added level of forever life stress . And, and this example can apply to taking the wrong job, to continuing to hang out with the wrong friend.
**Unknown:** Like, it can apply to all of these different avenues of life. So it's really, really important for us to be, to be very conscious of listening to our intuition. Of course, still using our analytical mind and taking some time to come up with your own thoughts and decisions before seeking guidance from others that are not necessarily experts at that specific topic . Well, yeah, and when ...
**Unknown:** And you don't even always have to be an expert at the topic, uh, you just need to- Or has wisdom ... you just need to be an expert in guiding people to receive clarity. Um, yeah, 'cause I've guided people on things that I literally had, I was very ignorant on. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** But I didn't need to 'cause I, I know the mind. I don't need to know, you know, everything about everything else. So to recap a little bit, just to kind of fill in some nitty-gritty details for some more stuff for our listeners. Um, feelings.
**Unknown:** Analytical mind. Love that. Too much of anything is a bad thing. Mm-hmm.
**Unknown:** So if you're all analytical it's gonna be bad, if you're all feeling, it's gonna be bad. But if you have a combo of both, well, then you're gonna have the max- maximum amount of data to be able to make the best decision for you. So understanding that is you need to figure out techniques that's going to work best for you to be able to either allow you to tap in just to the analytical, get that information, tap in just to the feeling, get that information. Um, but really they're, they're interconnected.
**Unknown:** So when you can maximize the information that's coming from both simultaneously in that moment, you're really gonna get the maximum amount of data to be able to provide you to make the best decisions for you, for your family, for your company, et cetera. And that really comes down to not being reactive. So one of the easiest things that Nicole said was, you know, give yourself some space. You know, space allows you to disconnect from whatever that entity is that's controlling you.
**Unknown:** And I'm saying entity as it's an emotion, because it wants to live. I was joking around with a client the other day, and I was like, "Well, yeah, anxiety is winning. You're losing. The goal is for you to win and for anxiety to lose." And through that process, you know, we gotta, gotta giggle, but then it, after the, the session, it really allowed me to see is that, you know, when we can giggle and make things lighter, life is really just a big game.
**Unknown:** Mm-hmm. 'Cause we're not gonna get out alive. We're, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, quote unquote, "Win life." It ends. And if we can s- just see things more playful, more joyful, more lightful, and be like, "Ah, fucking I made this decision and it did not turn out like I want it to be," you could feel crushed, you could feel like a failure, you could feel all these different things.
**Unknown:** But- Redirect ... that, that's all it is. It's just a game. It's not that serious.
**Unknown:** Just redirect, take some time, maybe talk to somebody that can help ask you better quality decisions so that you can see a bigger picture, have more data points.But then redirect. And that redirection better be in alignment with what's most important to you. And if it is- That's actually- ... that problem isn't a problem, it was a gift to catapult you further ahead in life.
**Unknown:** And that's really the last plug that I wanted to bring to the table for wrapping this up is this idea of analytical mind, you know, intuition, feeling, it's not black and white. And, and that really comes back to what you just said about your values and what's aligned to you. So again, I always work with examples 'cause I think it helps people. But if you are in this, you know, you went through a challenge, you lost your job, now you're seeking the new job, but you're, you know, you might be in this desperation mode because you need to make money.
**Unknown:** You wanna make money. And you are sitting there and you're looking at the position and there's this gut feeling of like, "I don't know, this doesn't fully align," but you're playing the game of, "But I really should take advantage of it because all of these other boxes are checked off." Well, when it comes to trying to marry the, okay, well, there's pros to the, to the feeling, to the in- intuitive response is what about going back and, and speaking to, you know, the, the HR department or the recruiter of, hey, if, if you know your values, you know what's important to you, you know what lights you up, you know if creativity is one of the things that you want out of a job, you know that if you don't wanna work from home, you want to work with a comm- you wanna have a team, you wanna talk to people, you're a connector. Like, that's what values do. They help you understand more about yourself so you can make better decisions.
**Unknown:** So if the position was supposed to be remote, and that's what that intuitive feeling is that doesn't align, is like, "Oh, the pay is good, and this is good, and that is good, but like, gosh, am I gonna really just sit home by myself and like work behind a computer forever? Like, is that really what I want?" It's a matter of like, I know that I'm gonna thrive better in an environment where I can be around people, and I want to come into a physical office, even if it's two days a week. You can go back and open a dialogue with that HR department or the recruiter or whomever you were in contact with in the first place. But in- instead, people don't usually know enough about themselves and their values and how they thrive in order to know how to go into the gray, essentially.
**Unknown:** To go into the gray and say, "Let's open a dialogue around how this can better serve me." And so recapping all of this, the key things is please, please, please get more familiar with your values. Uh, we have a values course that you can do on your own. This is something we also take people through, uh, when they embark on working with us one-on-one, and obviously there's a way deeper dive when we do that. Um, but this is just, this is really step one, and it's going to empower you in the other things that we talked about with being able to make decisions more out of inspiration opposed to desperation.
**Unknown:** Inspiration, inspirational decisions are decisions that are in alignment with your values. And w- always remember that rejection is redirection. I know that it can feel very emotionally overwhelming, especially when it's a high magnitude event, but, you know, as silly as some people might think it is, that idea that everything happens for a reason, it really does, and it, it really synergizes with what we're saying, that this is a redirection, and if you are a tough human , especially my New Jersey New Yorkers, sometimes you gotta get knocked down pretty damn hard for you to make that redirection . So, uh, so just take it as a compliment that the universe knows how tough you are .
**Unknown:** I'm good. I'm good. All right, guys. Until next time.
**Unknown:** We thank you so much for being an avid listener of Integrative U Radio, formerly known as Integrative Wellness Radio. We appreciate all of your support. We love your comments. Please visit us on social media as well as our website to see all of the fun things happening behind the scenes and the new amazing content and courses that is being rolled out on a monthly basis.
**Unknown:** We hope to see you there.
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About Integrative You Radio
Integrative You Radio is a root cause medicine and integrative medicine podcast hosted by Dr. Nicole Rivera and Dr. Nick Carruthers — two integrative doctors who build personalized wellness protocols from your DNA, minerals, hormones, gut, and nervous system rather than from a population template. Looking for an integrative doctor who reads your labs together instead of in isolation? This is the show.
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