Episode 253
Title: Overcoming the “Why Me?” Mindset
Hosts: Dr. Nicole Rivera & Dr. Nick Carruthers
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Transcription:
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Integrative U Radio. 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. Nick's most recent 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. Nick, he found that there was
A lot of insight in, that moment of asking yourself, me? So I'm going to let him share a little bit more about the, his thought process as we take a deeper dive into this topic. yes, I was inspired, this morning around 2:30 AM. I did a night hike down to what's called a crapola, has 750 steps to get down to the ocean. And I did a night hike.
to spend the majority of the night meditating. I've fell asleep a couple times. But in one of those meditations, I was connecting with...
Dr. Nicole Rivera (01:40.91)
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. It's a cycle. Like, why do I, again, why do I have to do it again and again? And realized that, 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. 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, why me, why other people, why do people have problems? What are the issues behind it? And got a big download and the download was there is no problem. It's we perceive things as problems.
And it's actually a part of the perfection. 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 mean, even seen it as a problem.
is creating a lot of disturbances. You can get into the health aspect of, you know, adrenal burnout and all of this and it's like conflict putting out fires. But I definitely want to dive deeper into the perfection of the problems. But before I do that, I figured I saw Dr. Nicole's face over there and 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 whatever capacity, we're all humans and we're all navigating this thing we call life and we are dealing with problems or challenges and
Dr. Nicole Rivera (04:06.43)
I always say that our biggest opportunities lie in our biggest challenges. And I always will preface with, you know, just sit with this for a moment when I say it before you say, no, this is a big problem and I don't want to 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, okay, how or why is this redirecting me? know, people will get fired from a job or get laid off from a job. 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 immune system rejecting your body through an autoimmune condition, your rejection through losing a partner, 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, the New York area, and we're very tough. And, you know, we've seen some shit in our lives, and we are stubborn as hell. 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 get fired totally out of nowhere from your job.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (06:22.77)
And these are things saying enough's enough, it's time to redirect. Yeah, I think one of the things that stuck out for me when you're talking about there's, you know, talking about big problems and what always lights me up and 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, just joking with them. It's 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 uplevel 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 go out to eat, listen to the table next to you. The majority of them are talking about their problems. 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. And it's not the solution that everything's all good. It's that you're bringing 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. We got outside of that balance. We had too much or too little. you think about it with health, you have sympathetic and parasympathetic too much of either one, your body's nervous system is going to have to redirect to get you back into that state of resilience, and vibrant.
homeostasis. Well, it's interesting that you just talked about the nervous system because this was actually honestly, if you're listening, this is probably the most important part. So don't tune out 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. And what we going back to this idea of making
Dr. Nicole Rivera (08:46.25)
or having a redirection. So many people are living in a state of a wired nervous system. 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, 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. So 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. 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, my God, I'm so stressed. But they're like, yeah, I'm a busy professional. I'm an entrepreneur. 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 going to make them out of desperation. 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, and fulfill them?
Dr. Nicole Rivera (10:54.126)
We make these decisions out of desperation, which if you want to 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. So we have all of these injected belief systems, 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. And then that brings us to what I call the hamster on the wheel. I can't get ahead of my job. I feel like my family is good and then we're not good. 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. 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 voltage. You told me not to go deep, but I'm going to go a little deep. So when you pick up a weight, you know, and you go to lift that weight, you have to have enough voltage within those muscle cells.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (13:01.122)
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. 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. 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-fight limbic system and the hindbrain back to the front brain and the fronts known as your executive center, just like the executive team of a company. They're asking quality questions. Why? 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 shit, into, 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, and 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. Everything's not all shit. You start to see that, there is bad and there is good. There's drawbacks and there's benefits. I want to live in the middle where I'm not being pulled from one side to the other. And I just want to live congruent to what's most important to me. 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, you know, this idea of having someone help you see what you can't see. And I know personally, I 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. It was allowing me to verbalize something kind of like
Dr. Nicole Rivera (15:25.646)
It's almost like 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. 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 people- Yeah, fuck that guy. Yeah. Well, of course, we always love when people agree with us and they empathize with us and they validate us. But that's OK. But that's not always what's actually going to move you forward.
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 want to 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 I think that when we're always seeking outside of ourselves, 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 the majority of my life because I didn't trust my intuition. I was taught not to trust my intuition. Don't make decisions based off feelings. Feelings are bullshit. Feelings are woo woo, et cetera.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (17:48.652)
And it was more about way out the pros and cons of the decision that you're going to make. 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 something feels really off.
Those are not irrelevant. 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 we're in the desperation mode. 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. I'm getting older. And they're like 30.
I'm getting older. I want to have a family. Time is running out. My fertility is ending. You know, all the things they tell themselves. And OK, this guy, it's you know, 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's a good decision. But intuitively, they're like, I don't know, man, 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 they're not going to be able to have the family that they want because quote-unquote time is running out. And what happens? They're 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 this example can apply to taking the wrong job, to
continuing to hang out with the wrong friend, it can apply to all of these different avenues of life. So it's really, really important for us 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.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (20:03.192)
from others that are not necessarily experts at that specific topic. Well, yeah. And you don't even always have to be an expert at the topic. just need to be an expert in guiding people to receive clarity. Yeah, because I've guided people on things that I literally had. I was very ignorant on, but I didn't need to because 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 listeners. mind, too much of anything is a bad thing. So if you're all analytical, it's going to be bad. If you're all feeling, it's going to be bad. But if you have a combo of both, well, then you're going to 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, but really they're interconnected. So when you can maximize the information that's coming from both simultaneously in that moment.
you're really going to 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 says, you know, give yourself some space. Space allows you to disconnect from whatever that entity is that's controlling you.
And I'm saying entity as it's an emotion because it wants to live. I was joking around with the client the other day and I was like, well, yeah, anxiety is winning. You're losing the goals for you to win and for anxiety to lose. And through that process, you know, we got to, got to giggle. then after the session, it really allowed me to see is that when we can giggle and make things lighter.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (22:28.532)
life is really just a big game. Because we're not going to get out alive. We're not going to we're not going to quote-unquote win life. It ends. And if we can just see things more playful, more joyful, more lightful and be like 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. But redirect that. That's all it is. It's just a game.
It's not that serious. Just redirect, take some time, and maybe talk to somebody that can help ask you better quality decisions so that you can see a bigger picture, and 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 problem isn't a problem. It was a gift to catapult you further ahead in life. 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, intuition, and feeling, it's not black and white. 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 because I think it helps people. But if you are in this, you went through a challenge, you lost your job, and now you're seeking the new job, but you're
You might be in this desperation mode because you need to make money. You want to 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, the intuitive responses, what about going back and speaking to the HR department or the recruiter of, 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 want to work from home, you want to work with a community, you want to have a team, you want to talk to people, you're a connector.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (24:50.828)
That's what values do. They help you understand more about yourself so you can make better decisions. So if the position was supposed to be remote and that's what that intuitive feeling is that doesn't align is like, the pay is good and this is good and that is good. But like, gosh, am I going to 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 going to 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 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. To go into the gray and say, let's open a dialogue around how this can be better.
Serve me. And so recapping all of this, the key things is please, please, please get more familiar with your values. We have a values course that you can do on your own. This is something we also take people through when they embark on working with us one-on-one. And obviously, there's a way deeper dive when we do that. But this is really step one. And it's going to empower you.
and the other things that we talked about with being able to make decisions more out of inspiration, opposed to desperation. Inspiration, inspirational decisions are decisions that are in alignment with your values. And 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 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 got to get knocked down pretty damn hard for you to make that redirection. So just take it as a compliment that the universe knows how tough you are.
Dr. Nicole Rivera (27:12.684)
Hahaha!
I'm good. All right guys, until next time.
