#123. How to Stop Viewing Your Life Through A Distorted Lens

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Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

Hi. It’s Marissa Lee here. And I’m so excited to be sharing today solo round episode with you. Whether you’re a member of the voice community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift. And my mission, which has been inspired by my own personal and professional journey is to empower you to share your gift with others. Now is the time for you to discover your voice in life, develop a positive mindset, and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, and you can become the director of your own life. It’s time for you to live your best live. It’s time now, for a voice and beyond. So, without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  01:09

Today, I’d like to talk about all those aspects in your life that create a distorted lens and prevent you from finding the joy and the contentment you deserve. In fact, we all deserve it. It’s crazy how easily we can be seduced by thoughts and beliefs that don’t serve us. And we end up succumbing to terrible negative ideas around things such as inadequacy, and lack, we feel we are never enough, and that we don’t have enough. We don’t deserve enough. And our sense of value is so messed up. Or you may be someone who lives in the future tense. And you tell yourself, once I have this, or once I have that, or once I do this very thing, everything will be just fine. The stories we tell ourselves about our lives suggest that we’re living our lives as though we’re always missing something or there’s an incomplete piece of the puzzle, keeping us from true happiness. It’s natural to have goals. I love goal setting, it keeps me motivated. It’s awesome to want to grow and evolve and challenge ourselves but it can become unhealthy when we base our happiness on achieving external goals. This means we are living life through a distorted lens of scarcity or lack. So what is keeping you from achieving complete acceptance and contentment in your life? Why are you not satisfied with who you are right now? Why are you not accepting and appreciating what you have and who you already are? And then moving forward from that foundation of contentment. It’s that feeling of there never been enough. It’s a feeling that you are not enough. What is your distorted lens? It might be an extrinsic thing like a promotion or relationship or a financial goal. When we rely on external factors as the key to our own happiness, we only perpetuate our discontentment. Once we buy that new house, or lose that 20 pounds, I’m sorry to tell you but there’s always going to be a new desire on the horizon. In this episode, we’re going to do some reflecting on the narrative that you tell yourself about you and the way you view your own life and where this distortion may be coming from. So you can remove that awful lens and start to move forward with clarity. This is an opportunity to remove those things you’ve built up in your mind as being the key to your future happiness. It is time to remove those shackles. Take Charge, own your future success and win back Your life.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  05:09

we have to address the narrative we tell ourselves, it’s time to check in on that self talk. You know, we are often our own worst enemy. So stop talking negatively about yourself to yourself, stop minimizing yourself. Did you know that we have about 50 to 60,000 thoughts every day, and about 80% of those are negative. And of those, another 80% of those are on repeat. It’s such a shame because negative thinking is really unproductive. And it distracts you from the positives in life and adds to this distorted view of your life. Negative thoughts can play your mind with self sabotaging thoughts, and quite often deny you your right to live a happy life, the life that you want to live the life you truly deserve. What I learned is just because we think those thoughts, it doesn’t mean to say they’re true. We as humans, we are perpetual liars. In fact, we’re pathological liars. And the stories we fill our heads with are often terrible lies. Just because you think something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s true. And you know what happens with those thoughts? They become our reality. Wow. And I mean, wow, what a shocking way to live. And I believe that is why most people don’t feel their life is meaningful, or their sense of fulfillment is not as high as it could be, or should be. This is because their connection with themselves is poisoned by this self talk. They are constantly berating themselves, speaking negatively to themselves, saying awful things to themselves over and over and over again. They’re judging themselves based on past events, or things. Others have told them, such as things that were said to them in their childhoods, and they end up 100% Believing they are unworthy, incompetent, stupid, and ugly. Trust me, I’ve been there. My head was full of all that crappy self talk that I had built up from my own childhood. It’s fair to say the things that I was saying to myself, I would never have dreamt of saying to any other human being friend, or foe. All these things were on repeat. Again, most of this came from the past. And when these thoughts are not intersected with personal development, or therapy earlier in life, you don’t have the tools to take control of that self talk. Fortunately, for me, I’ve done the work. And I continue to do the work. Because if I don’t, I do fall off the wagon. I’m human, and I’m always a work in progress. I am forever evolving. It doesn’t matter. You can be the greatest caregiver, why? Mother, teacher, leader and the most amazing human with a generous spirit. But if you dislike yourself, you will never feel fulfilled. And you won’t see the joy and beauty in your life. You won’t have meaningful relationships, and you will never achieve the greatness you so aspire to have and deserve. What a terrible way to live with this kind of negative self talk. It’s usually unconscious. So many people who speak negatively about themselves allow it to happen, because they’re totally unaware that it’s going on. But then you do have those who are very aware of their negative self talk, but just decide to do nothing about it. They turn a blind eye to it. So this is you. I have to tell you that there are going to be consequences for this behavior. And until you come to realize what’s triggering this behavior, your life will keep spiraling downwards. Your thoughts, those thoughts are guaranteed to manifest. And it might not happen right away. But I promise you, it is going to happen. So we’ve got to learn to feel life and live life in a positive and most authentic way. You can begin with a practice of saying amazing things to yourself, have an affirmation, perhaps things such as I am competent, I am capable, I am caring, kind, compassionate. I am a learner, a giver, a leader, a role model, whatever it is that works for you. It’s about elevating yourself, to elevate your life. And ultimately, that will lead to you elevating those around you too. And I do understand that for many, this is something that you may not be able to deal with, on your own, especially if there’s been some kind of trauma or some major event in the past that continues to make you struggle emotionally, and continues to shape your behaviors in ways that are causing you to have a distorted lens of your life. But you can choose a more casual approach to dealing with it if you wish. This could be by picking up any personal development, or self help book, a workshop or a class that dealing with this topic. Once again, you can replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. And you can start having those positive results you truly desire in your life right now.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  12:23

Stop trying to please everyone, because your lens is being clouded by the views of others. We’re all different, were all unique, and what makes me happy. And what is important to me, who I choose to show up as what my core values are, may not align with yours. We’re all different. Look, I’m here to tell you that the opinions of other people don’t matter. Unless it’s coming from someone you highly respect or someone you are being mentored by, or someone who is achieving the very things you absolutely want to achieve in your future. Why would you listen to those who live in the cheap seats of life, and a constantly mudslinging from the sidelines. Those people are the village idiots, you don’t want them in your tribe. Please don’t pay attention to these types of people. And don’t even try to prove them wrong when they are being judgmental of you. Or they’re minimizing you. This is nothing more than horrible negative energy. And as we know, time and energy. They’re in limited supply in life. So don’t waste either on these village idiots. You don’t let anyone tell you what is realistic and achievable in your life or not. If anyone tells you that you can’t do something, you must run as fast as you can in the opposite direction from them. You can’t let the people you share your goals with tell you what is realistic or not. If this was the case, I would never have become a professional singer. I would never have undertaken a PhD or written a book. And I certainly wouldn’t be here talking to you on my own podcast or created a coaching program. So don’t you waste your life with these time wasters either? This is a great reminder for all that it’s simply not possible to please everybody. Honestly it’s hard enough to please our selves, let alone everyone else. You’re never going to be able to do this because no matter how many people you help in the world, no matter how kind and generous you are to others, there’s always going to be someone who is going to have an issue with you. It’s not your issue, it’s theirs. It’s their stuff. It’s their baggage, not yours. So surround yourself with the village elders, who will champion you and those who uplift you. And not only stop trying to live to the standards of others, but stop comparing yourself to others to sometimes these comparisons, yes, they can be helpful, and they can be a perfect roadmap for improvement, and they can inspire you to make positive changes in your life. But then, there are other times this comparison leads you to tearing every aspect of your life apart, and focusing on everything that you believe is wrong with yourself and distort your lens even further. This can be especially true when we’re scrolling through social media, where everyone is sharing that Instagram picture perfect version of themselves and their lives. We see our friends sharing their successes. And we see the influencer, who is living their dream life traveling around the world on a superyacht while we’re struggling with the day to day grind of a full time job that we hate. Well, I don’t hate but some of us do hate. We begin to compare ourselves, our lives and our achievements. And they all seem to fade away to insignificant by comparison, our heads become full of all our perceived inadequacies. And we feel we could never measure up no matter how hard we try. It can destroy our spirit on a daily basis, because everything in our life seems lesser than we feel less than others when we compare ourselves to them. It’s fair to say that in life, there will always be someone who’s prettier, more talented, more intelligent, bubbly, and more outgoing, the new. But the trick is, knowing your unique value. And what you bring to this life is unique. Also, stop comparing yourself to others, and stop putting others before you and return your focus inward. We have to become disciplined in what we truly want. And stay focused on our own mission, our own happiness, and what we want deep down inside, we can begin by taking off that distorted lens and recognize and acknowledge the beauty and the value of our own uniqueness. And we can start that by valuing ourselves.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  18:38

Live in the present, I hate to tell you that your past is gone, my friend, and don’t try to predict the future either. Or man, I have been so guilty of this all what I have held on to my past way too many times. And it has never served me. And I assure you, it’s not going to serve you either. You can’t do anything about the past. You can’t change it. So you can choose to hold on to it. But all that does is cause you to feel hurt. What we don’t realize is that we have a choice, and we can choose to let it go. It really hurts to have built up feelings of regret, anger or resentment about those past experiences. We have the power to let these feelings go. If we want to discover true happiness in our lives. We can take off that lens. I’ve done it and it feels incredible. It’s so liberating. It’s Like taking the shackles off, it’s the greatest sense of peace you can ever truly experience. The only time you need to look back to the past is to see how far you’ve come in your life, you can check in to see what has worked well for you, and what hasn’t worked well. So you don’t make those same mistakes. Again, there’s a saying the definition of foolishness is to repeat a behavior and to expect a different outcome. So use the past or reflection, just don’t obsess over it. And don’t hold on to it. And believe that is who you are, right now. Don’t repeat those behaviors that don’t serve you. Look, you’re never going to discover your true happiness in life, if you’re being dragged down and weighed down by the baggage from your past. And that includes emotional baggage too, that you’re carrying around from your childhood, your high school years, what your first boss said to you in your first job, or even things that have happened to you over more recent years. Think of your life as a book, and every chapter represents a part of your life. As you finish one chapter, you proceed to the next, you’ve been through that chapter, you finished it, you flip the page, and you start a new chapter, you have to have the courage to allow yourself to honor the past. And to move on. You also need the courage to forgive those who need to be forgiven, including yourself, and to acknowledge that everything that has happened to you has led you to this point where you’re at right now. You wouldn’t be the person you are right now, if it wasn’t for your past, you can’t find true happiness in your present, and your future if you allow the past to hold you to ransom. And then you also need to stop stressing about the future. I know we all do this. And it’s a terrible way to live. Because we can’t predict the future. And you absolutely can’t either. And COVID-19 has proven that to all of us. There are so many things that will happen to us in our lifetime, that are out of our control. Who could have predicted all the craziness that happened in 2020. As a result of the pandemic, no one had a clue this was all going to happen. It was all so surreal. So stop worrying about the future. And all those things that haven’t happened yet. Because they may never happen. You can prepare for the future. But don’t stress about it. This is not going to bring you joy in the present moment. Focus on what is going on in your life right now. Allow yourself to feel those feelings of happiness by living in the moment, doing all the things that make you happy in the now. Focus on becoming your best self in the present moment. So you will be equipped to take on whatever challenges are going to be thrown at you in the future. Be prepared by building yourself up for these challenges. Be sure that no matter what that you cherish, and preserve the present moment, because you’re never ever going to get it back. Tomorrow is not guaranteed by any of us. If you are always stressing about the future, you’re never going to give yourself the gift and the opportunity to experience the joys of now. Every time we use the present to stress about the future. We’re choosing to put on a lens that causes us to sacrifice the joy of today to mourn the joy we might not experience tomorrow. It may seem like we’re creating solutions, or somehow may be protecting ourselves from pain or loss or grief or failure. But in all reality, we’re just is causing more hurt for ourselves. You know, when I look back at the most fulfilling parts of my life, I realize most of them took me completely. And I mean completely by surprise. I may not have gotten everything that I wanted at the time. But I’ve always gotten what was right for me at the time. So I’ve learned to trust in the future. Life can be like a roller coaster. But whatever you do, enjoy the ride and see where you end up landing. My life has been a roller coaster, but I would not change a single thing.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  25:54

It is time, we set ourselves free from this internal dialogue and some of these external attachments that are distorting the lens from which we look at life. We need to address these things that stop us from going full throttle in our lives. Those beliefs that keep us small and afraid. I know that I had a recording of limiting beliefs playing non stop in my head every single day. We all have these distorted ideas around, I’m not good enough. I have no support, I’m stuck where I am, I don’t have enough money. I have no luck. And on and on and on, you get my drift. This is all self sabotage. And when you wear that lens, you believe this is the reality in your life. But it’s time to take back the power of your thoughts. Once you shed that distorted lens, and that self doubt and those beliefs, there’s a good chance you’re going to discover that you’re already pretty amazing, just as you are. Not only that, but you’ll discover that the light burning within you is a far more accurate reflection of who you are than the stories you’ve been telling yourself. All those lies, all those limiting beliefs, they’re not true. Remember, I always say what we think is not always the truth. And it’s time to stop lying to ourselves. Our beliefs are just thoughts that we think over and over and over again. They are like the engine in a car. They either propel us forward, or they hold us back. Beliefs shape our reality, because we give energy to them. And we act in accordance to them. What we think is what we become. So it’s time to enable your empowering beliefs that are factual, realistic, positive, and they propel you forward. They will offer you a life that is full of possibility. You need to believe in you. The world needs you to believe in yourself because no one has the same qualities and characteristics as you despite what you might think. You are unique and it’s time for you to step out and step up and share your unique gifts with others. It’s time to take off your distorted lens and tell yourself that you are enough and you have enough and that you are worthy and you are worth the effort. Always have been and always will be.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  29:16

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of a voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond. I promise you I am committed to bringing you more more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you would like to help me, please rate and review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Please take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode have a voice and beyond