What If Everything Really Is a Relationship? (Ep #30 Relationship Series)

When I started this Relationship Series, I believed everything was a relationship.

Our relationship with ourselves, our body, our thoughts, money, time, trust, work, other people... and the list goes on and on.  

Thirty conversations later, that belief feels even more true.

In this episode, I'm reflecting on what's surprised me most so far throughout this series and why the surface issue is rarely the real issue. Whether it's resentment, perfectionism, people pleasing, fear, or even the stories we create in our own minds, so much of it eventually leads back to one question:

What's happening inside of me?

I also share a recent experience while traveling after foot surgery and how quickly my mind created a story about what other people might be thinking. It's a reminder that while we don't get to choose every thought that pops into our mind, we do get to choose what we do with it.

This week's practice is simple:

 ✨ Pause.
 ✨ Notice your thoughts.
 ✨ Notice how your body responds.
 ✨ Reconnect with yourself through curiosity instead of judgment. 

Because awareness isn't the transformation.  It's the first step towards it.  

If this episode resonates with you, I'd love for you to share it with someone who might need to hear it.

Transcript

Everything Is A Relationship

Shannon 0:54

You're listening to the Pure Possibilities podcast. This is a space to pause, notice, reconnect, and explore what's possible. I am your host, Shannon. When I started the relationship series, it was based on one simple belief. Everything is a relationship. And at the time, I thought mostly about our relationships with other people, but I was also planning to incorporate our relationships with our body, with food, with money, with work, with time, with our partners, really with every part of our lives. And what I didn't expect was how much recording these episodes would actually deepen that belief that I have. And we are 30 episodes into the relationship series and these conversations together. And I don't just think that everything is a relationship. I absolutely know it. We are always in relationship. And today I wanted to share what I've learned and maybe a little bit of what we've learned together. One of the biggest things that I realized, and I knew this in the beginning, but this has also deepened for me, is that every single relationship points back to our relationship with ourselves. We are the foundation of every single relationship that we have. For example, if I'm frustrated with someone else, if I'm avoiding someone, if I am struggling to make a decision, if I'm people pleasing, if I'm putting my happiness on hold, waiting for someone else, eventually it all comes back to the same question. What's happening inside of me? What's going on with me right now? Not because everything is my fault, but because the one relationship that I always have the ability to influence is the relationship that I have with myself. And here's what's been fascinating is that almost every single episode has revealed

The Deeper Thing Under Conflict

Shannon 3:02

exactly the same thing. It is very rarely about what we think it is. The casino wasn't really about the casino. The dishes, the resentment in the relationships was never about the dishes. The crutches weren't about the crutches. The gifts weren't really about our gifts. There is always something deeper within us that is asking for our attention or trying to get our attention. A core foundation of the work that I do and that I do with my clients is learning how to tap into how your body is communicating with you and the wisdom within your body. And our bodies often notice something before our mind has the ability to understand exactly what's going on. Have you ever walked into a room and you instantly felt super uncomfortable, agitated, maybe a yucky feeling in your stomach that you just like you just know something isn't right and nobody's even said anything. You just didn't feel good, or you had a decision that maybe looked perfect on paper, but something inside you felt unsettled. It didn't feel good, it didn't feel right. Our minds are absolutely incredible, but they also love certainty. They want proof, they want evidence, they want a guarantee, they want to know that everything is going to work out. And our bodies actually communicate with us very differently, not through words, but through sensations, through tension, through expansion, relief, tightness, curiosity, discomfort. And the more I've learned to pay attention to those feelings and those sensations, and also caring about how those feelings are making me feel. And the more I have realized that my body has always been trying to communicate with me, and I just wasn't always listening. And when you are able to make that shift and start paying attention to how you're feeling and caring about how you feel, that changes how you experience your life. What's

Listening To Body Signals

Shannon 5:28

really interesting is that for the longest time I used to believe that awareness, specifically conscious awareness, was ultimately the goal. If I could just become aware of my patterns, that would change everything, that would fix everything. And now I'm seeing the awareness differently. The awareness is opening the door, but isn't where the transformation happens. The transformation happens with the practicing of noticing, pausing, reconnecting, and responding. Those four words and the actions of doing those practices every day are a massive component to changing your life. When we allow ourselves to pause, we interrupt the autopilot that's happening from past experiences, from what might be happening in the future, the worry, all of the things that are happening. So you're pausing and you're stopping yourself. And then you're noticing and becoming aware of what's actually happening right here, right now, in this moment. Not from the past, not from the future, but where you're at right now. And when you notice, it gives you that opportunity to respond from the present moment. And when you reconnect and you're paying attention to how you feel, you are aware if you have a feeling that needs to be processed and expressed rather than shoving it down and suppressing it. And it's keeping you connected to right now and

Pause Notice Reconnect Respond

Shannon 7:02

remembering who you are right now in this moment and staying present with yourself and what actually matters right now. And then instead of automatically reacting from an old story, an old habit, an old pattern, you get the opportunity to then respond differently.

Airport Help And Self Judgment

Shannon 7:22

Another part of this that I feel is important to talk about is your thoughts and your beliefs because you don't have to believe every thought that you have. And I do want to start by saying that we don't, we don't get to choose every single thought that pops into our mind. The thoughts just happen. And I want to give you an example because I have a very fresh example of choosing our thoughts or choosing what we want to believe. I went on a girl's trip this weekend and it was in another state. So I needed to fly to get there. And as many of you know, I'm recovering from foot surgery. And I just recently started walking a couple of weeks ago. And it became very clear to me that I needed to ask for help at the airport because it was very important that I save my walking strength and my energy for things other than walking through a gigantic airport. And as I was being wheeled through the airport, I noticed how people were looking at me. Because being wheeled through an airport by an employee, I got to skip the line in the TSA pre-check and go straight to the front in front of other people who had been waiting longer than I had. And it was the perception that I thought they were looking at me. And they were judging me because I got to go ahead of them. I certainly didn't choose the thoughts that people were judging me for accepting help, that they were judging me for being ahead of them in line. I was actually ultimately judging myself because I have no idea what those people were thinking because I certainly didn't ask them. I was just making up a story in my mind about what I was believing to be true. I didn't choose to have the thought that I should be able to do everything on my own. I shouldn't have to ask for help. I want to be able to walk on my own. And I didn't choose the thought that it was incredibly difficult for me to ask for help. And also knowing what was best for my body was to ask for the assistance. Those thoughts just appeared. They just appeared, but I noticed them and then I had a choice. I could continue believing that I'm completely incapable, that I should be able to do this on my own, that everybody's judging me, or I could get curious. Is that actually true? Where did that belief come from? Is this the lens that I want to continue viewing my current circumstances from? And do I want to keep honestly putting the judgment on myself? Because all of those thoughts were completely unkind and unsupportive. And the thoughts that we repeatedly have become the stories that we tell ourselves. Those stories become our beliefs. And a belief is just a thought that you keep having, right? And so those beliefs then shape how we experience our lives, which is why paying attention and noticing the thoughts that we're having is so incredibly important. Because when you notice how your body's responding, when you notice the thoughts that you're having, that you keep having over and over and over again, that is creating the lived experience that you're having in your life. And are those thoughts that turned into beliefs that are the stories that you're telling yourself, are they supportive or unsupportive to the life that you're wanting to live? And as I've been reflecting on the series, I realized that maybe the conversations that we're having aren't just about relationships. Maybe they are more about awareness, about remembering, about reconnecting and becoming more conscious of the way that we're choosing to experience our lives. And when we practice the awareness and the pause and the reconnection, you get into a state of pure possibility, right? All of the possibilities open, not because your circumstances have just suddenly changed, but because we begin to respond from who we are today, right now, in this moment, instead of who we were in the past, who we thought we had to be, who we had to be yesterday. And maybe this series is inviting us not to become someone different, but to remember who we've been, who we are underneath the stories, underneath the patterns, underneath

Curiosity Creates New Choices

Shannon 11:46

the judgment, the perceived judgment from others, the judgment of ourselves, our past experiences, our past conditioning, but who we are right now in this moment. And when I am present and I am aware and I consciously choose how I'm going to respond to something by paying attention to what my body is asking of me, is it asking me to pause? Is it asking me to take a moment, just a moment, to reconnect with myself? What is my body asking of me in this moment? Now I'm in a space where I can choose to respond differently than maybe I had in the past, but I'm interrupting it to allow myself that space, the space to choose from where I'm at right now in this moment, not from who I was in the past. So this week, I would like to invite you to do something incredibly simple. I didn't say it was easy, I said it was simple. I want you to notice, notice your thoughts, notice your body's responses, notice the stories that your mind creates throughout the day. We're not fixing anything right now. We're not judging. You don't have to change every single thought that you're having. I just want you to notice. And also if you notice one particular thought keeps showing up, get curious about it and check in with yourself. Is this a thought that I want to continue believing? Maybe it's I'm not good enough. Maybe it's I never have enough money. Maybe it's this is never gonna work out. Whatever the thought might be, are those thoughts that you want to attach yourself to and create a belief to anchor yourself into and keep viewing your experience and your life through that lens. Is this a thought I want to continue believing? And also you can get curious like, is that actually true? Am I able to find some evidence at some point in my life that that may not even be true? Or is this just something I keep telling myself and now I believe it? Sometimes the awareness is the first step that opens us up to a space of curiosity into the state of pure possibility. If you recall, when you're in a state of pure possibility, you can choose to go up, you can choose to go down. The choice is always yours.

Choosing How You Want To Feel

Shannon 14:15

Okay, I am going to pull a card from The Magic of What If Card Deck, Volume 2. So this is episode 30 of the relationship series, and it's episode 142 of the show. Isn't that wild? That is wild. If I had believed the thought that I have no idea how to host a podcast, I would not be here doing something that I absolutely love. Okay. Magic of What If Card Deck Volume 2, available on my website, purepossibilitiespodcast.com. What if I allow myself to choose how I want to feel today? I love this card. What if I allow myself to choose how I want to feel today? We, like I said, don't always get to choose our thoughts. However, when you're paying attention to how you are feeling, how you want to feel, you have an opportunity to respond differently. When I wake up and I feel like crap, and I know that that's not how I want to feel because maybe I was having some unsupportive thoughts before I went to sleep, and then I woke up and it just stayed with me through the night. I know that I have the opportunity to do something to shift how I'm feeling. I can put on music and shake my booty. I could connect with a friend. I could do some intentional breathing. There are all kinds of things that I can do to shift how I'm feeling. If you are going through your day and you start to not feel very good, give yourself a break. Go take a walk. Go do something that's going to, whatever fills your cup or overflows your cup is going to be different than what works for me. But allow yourself to pay attention and notice how you're feeling and care about giving yourself the opportunity to shift that feeling. Again, we're not bypassing how we're feeling. Allow yourself to feel what you're feeling. And also sometimes when you step away, sometimes we've just gotten in our head. And sometimes we just need that step away. And then we come back and we've regrouped, we're more centered, we're more balanced, we feel more grounded, and then we're able to move through whatever it is that was maybe making us feel so icky.

Share It And Close

Shannon 16:42

Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. Whether you have listened to every episode of the show, every episode in this series, or if this is your very first one, I'm so grateful that you're here. And as always, if this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with someone who might need to hear it. And until next time, pause, notice, reconnect, and respond. And remember, there are always pure possibilities. I hope you have a beautiful, beautiful day and an amazing week. Much love.