When your brain is telling you the wrong story

Confession: I spent almost ten days in January wallowing in a sea of self-pity. 

Which, if you know me at all, is wildly out of character.

Because I'm the girl who always has a plan. Who prioritizes her to-do list. Who sets big goals and crushes them. Who gets up at 4am everyday without an alarm clock, ready to tackle the world. 

But for almost two weeks straight, I had zero motivation to do anything. 

I didn't want to work. Or cook dinner. Or talk to anyone.

I laid on the couch. I doom-scrolled. I read Harry Potter fan fiction.

It all started with what I thought would be a pretty straightforward behind-the-scenes business project—getting clear on my overarching Ruth Soukup brand and messaging. I wanted to update my website and make it easier for my clients & prospective clients to find my programs and products. (There are a lot of them!)

Because for the past six months, I've been spending a lot more of my time connecting directly with clients across all our different programs. I’ve done more live teaching and coaching than ever before, which I love.

But what I’ve noticed is how much overlap there actually is. My clients aren't neatly divided by brand the way I always assumed they were. They're there because they like how I think. How I teach. How my brain works.

Which sounds like a good thing, right?

It is.

But somewhere along the way, as I started pulling on that thread, I realized that despite having done this work for 16 years, despite creating all of these different brands, I’ve never really sat down and defined my personal brand in a clear, intentional way. 

Because those are big, hard questions. 

Who am I? What do I do, really? Why am I here? And how do I want to show up? What do I want people to know me for?

And once I opened that door, my brain went absolutely feral.

Suddenly I was questioning everything I’ve ever done. The decisions I've made. The pivots. The fact that I've built multiple brands instead of just one. The fact that I’ve focused on building a business, rather than being a stay-at-home mom. Am I just scattered? Or flaky? Would be "further along" if I had just focused harder, sooner, better?

You get the drift.

And once that spiral started, it didn't stop. 

Because the story my brain kept playing on repeat was brutal. You should be further along. You screwed this up. Maybe it's too late. Maybe none of it even mattered.

So what finally pulled me out of my doom loop?

Ironically enough, it was one of my own  tools that finally broke me out of my funk.

It’s called the Resistance Repair, and it helped me to take a step back and actually examine my thoughts, and to actually listen to the story my brain was telling me.

 I realized how much power I'd handed over to a narrative that wasn't serving me at all.

Because those stories weren't facts. They were just thoughts. Loud ones. Convincing ones. 

But not necessarily true.

So I chose some new thoughts to practice instead.

I get to choose how I show up today.

I am not the sum of my mistakes.

My story isn’t over yet. This is just a hard chapter.

And one phrase I kept coming back to, over and over again, was something my sister told me many years ago.

It was right after I had my first baby. We were living in this tiny furnished apartment in Jupiter, Florida, far away from everyone we knew. My husband was working insane hours as a contractor—six days a week, twelve to fifteen hours a day. I was alone all day with a colicky newborn, wearing the same sweatpants, hating my body, counting down time in a place that didn't feel like home and didn't feel permanent.

I was miserable. And I felt completely stuck.

My sister flew out to visit because she could hear it in my voice when we talked on the phone. And one day, right in the middle of all my complaining, she looked at me and said, "Ruth, you have to bloom where you are."

Not when things get easier.

Not when the baby finally sleeps through the night.

Not when you feel like yourself again.

Bloom where you are.

Those simple words of advice changed everything for me back then. 

I stopped waiting for the circumstances to improve and started making the best of what I had . We went shopping and she helped me find clothes that made me feel good (even if they weren't in the size I wanted to be wearing forever). I got a gym membership. I took long walks on the  beach every day.

Shakespeare once wrote, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." And along the same lines, Viktor Frankl said, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response."

In other words? We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can control how we choose to think about those circumstances.

We get to choose how we show up.

And I realized, in the middle of this recent spiral, that I needed that same reminder now.

Bloom where you are.

Even when it's messy.

Even when it's uncomfortable.

Even when you're questioning yourself and wondering if you've screwed it all up.

Because waiting for perfect conditions to show up as yourself is just another way we give our power away.

And I guess that’s my challenge for you this week. To take a step back and ask yourself where you are letting your imperfect circumstances dictate your thoughts, or hold you back from blooming where you are right now. What story is your brain telling you that might not actually be true?

And then–and this is the hard part–change the script. Find a new story. 

Bloom where you are.

Live with purpose, friend, and have an amazing week.

xoxo, Ruth

P.S. If this one hit home, I'd love to hear about it. Hit reply and tell me where you're trying to bloom right now, even if it feels messy.

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