Befriending Your Inner Critic – Who the Hell is Deja?

Tanya Gill: 00:00:08

Hi friend, I'm Tanya Gill Welcome to Lighten Pp and unstuck your What the fuck. Together we explore the ways through life's stickiest moments, and how to live with more peace, joy, love and gratitude. We're going to talk honestly about what isn't easy so you can discover the light within you that will carry you forward. My friend, this podcast is about you in real life, your body, mind and soul, and the opportunity to not only live your best, but shine and doing it.

Tanya Gill: 00:00:41

Hi, friends, I am so glad you are here today. Welcome, welcome. I know that you could be spending your time anywhere else. So thank you for being here. If you're tuning in, I have a feeling that this is a episode that's just probably meant for your soul. Today, I want to talk to you a little bit about Deja Now, if you are wondering who the hell Deja is, she is my the name that I actually give my automatic negative thoughts or my limiting beliefs. Now, why data? Well, actually, the story behind data is pretty awesome. We've all heard of deja vu, as in I've seen this before. Well, for me, it's Deja Puiu. Actually, her full name is Deja. Here we go again, that's her middle name. Poor, as in, I have seen this shit before. So automatic negative thoughts and limiting beliefs are what Deja thrives on. And in my world, I needed to concretely give a name and a persona and really truly embody who Deja is, in order to be able to separate her from me. See, here's the thing, our automatic negative thoughts and our limiting beliefs, they actually are derived in our history. Right, I call that a cultural stew. We're going to talk a little bit about cultural stew more in a future episode. But basically your cultural stew is this, you my friend grew up being offered so much information. You were born as pure light, or in this case, if we want to talk stew water, a beautiful pot of water. And over time, people added to that water. They added values, they added beliefs, they added all of the beautiful things that make who you are right now. And they also added some stuff that you may have adopted, but maybe have outgrown and just haven't taken the time to really recognize as outgrown. Those are the limiting beliefs. And it may be a limiting belief imprinted from in my case, a kid on the bus when I was, I don't know, 1314 for example, or a parent or something on social media, or it can be anything and anywhere. And so what happens is all of that stuff gets dumped into your cultural stew. And in my world Deja if you will, is a five star Michelin maitre d at a beautiful restaurant. And she is Coif. And she is sleek, and she is so beautiful. And she's a judgy bitch.

Tanya Gill: 00:04:21

And so often Deja shows up. And historically it was actually around food but now not so much around food and more in different realms. But wherever she shows up, it actually doesn't matter. Because the thing about Deja is that she wants to feed me shit sandwiches, a big old heaping of stew, but sometimes she wants to emphasize the things in the stew that I have actually outgrown. So for example, The rutabaga of criticism or the potatoes of body image, or the mushrooms of self worth. We all have these stories that possibly others have added to our cultural stew, or we've chosen ourselves to add to our stew without recognizing that we've outgrown them. So when Deja shows up, sometimes she shows up, telling me bullshit stories about myself, telling me how I'm not good enough, not smart enough, not capable enough, and going to fall on my face doing these podcasts because I'm boring. And so if you're listening, hopefully, I'm not boring. And if I'm boring to you, maybe I'm not boring to the next person, this is going to land with the people it's intended to land with, and I can't expect anything more of it. It is simply meant for you. But Deja, she wants to step in and tell me that I'm nothing special. And therefore, for me to put this out to the world, maybe falling on deaf ears, or who the hell am I to you probably have a Deja or some other internal voice. Now. Total swear alert. I don't often use the word See you next Tuesday. But I have a client who has named her Deja, cunt face because for her that is the only way she can distinguish between herself. And those limiting beliefs that come in and seem to want to run the show. I know of other people who have named their internal voice, those automatic negative thoughts, or those limiting beliefs, in realms of emotional and logical or in realms of having I know someone who has named theirs Bev. And Bev is the person who tells the stories of the past and tries to discourage risk taking opportunity seeking, dreaming. Acknowledging open doors, because here's the thing. Deja, my Deja, she really often doesn't have as much perspective as the real me. She thinks there's a lot of safety and playing small. She thinks that we should always do what we've always done. And so she's very much like a fly at the window. She prefers that I continue to hit that window, hit that window, hit that window, basically do the exact same thing that I've always done. Because it's what we've always done. And it hasn't worked that badly. So she likes things to stay the same.

Tanya Gill: 00:08:40

And I can hit that window over and over and over again. Or I have the option of pivoting and going, oh look, an open door, an open window, another way forward. Another way out. Another opportunity and another choice. But she's not always a fan of that. She often starts to get uncomfortable when we change things up. And when she gets uncomfortable, she likes to step in and basically spew shit sandwiches or shits do or whatever it is at me to try and discourage me from moving forward. And your limiting beliefs and your automatic negative thoughts and your Deja does the same thing. She holds on steadfast to a story of your past. Perhaps it's carrots around your relationship with money. She dumps the carrots into the stew and then she wants to stir serve the carrots to you and the carrots, say so many things that are old stories about your relationship with money. And it might be money doesn't grow on trees. Or it might be we always say for a rainy day, or it might be you always share what you can. Whatever your relationship with money is, data will have an opinion, based on the stew that she wants to serve you based on the stories that you've learned growing up about money. So it's like that in every realm of your life, whether it is body image, or career, or gender roles, or possibly even, it can go as far as political and religious beliefs, and even our relationship with sex. Dejah has all kinds of stories based on our past, and you know, what you haven't got to hear without a past. But Deja holds on to some of the stuff that historically may not have served you well, but still served you to some degree, or told you a story about yourself that you really know not to be the truth. But haven't challenged it. So here's the thing, though. When data comes up, this is not the place to fight. When you have automatic negative thoughts, and you have this experience of catching them, you may be compelled to want to fight them, like a motherfucker. You may be like, holy back off pitch, we're not doing this, right. And you can get quite angry potentially with yourself for having these thoughts. And you can experience quite a bit of emotion around it when it arrives. But you know what? Deja is not someone that you have to hate. She's just someone you have to invite to come around less. I don't know if it's possible to eliminate automatic negative thoughts or limiting beliefs. I don't believe it is perhaps these amazing monks. And maybe even the Dalai Lama doesn't have any automatic negative negative thoughts. Maybe Buddha did not have automatic negative thoughts, but I sure do. And I'm guessing you probably do. And I don't think we're ever going to be free of them in this lifetime. So let's do what we can with them. So they work for us, instead of against us. So Deja comes waltzing in and tells you a story about how you suck at communicating.

Tanya Gill: 00:13:17

She says you shouldn't have opened your mouth at that meeting. Because look at you, you looked like a fool and nobody takes you seriously and you dominate a conversation and, and, and and, and she runs you into the ground about how that meeting went, how it could have gone, what you shouldn't have done what was so wrong about it. And then she even goes so far, because you're open to listening to it. And you're listening quite intently to the story she's telling you she then goes so far as to tell you what she thinks other people are now thinking about you. And you might as well just belly up with a bowl of popcorn because you're in for the long haul. You start to get into that hamster wheel if you will, or that cycle of she's telling the story. You are totally buying the story you're feeling like shit, she keeps telling the story and she just keeps going on and on about the other people in the meeting and you know and what you should have done and what you could have done and how this and and and and that's the story she wants to tell you. How do you invite her to stop? First of all you have to recognize the first piece is the awareness. You have to actually recognize that that is a piece of your past potentially that that is your limiting beliefs that that is not who you are right now. That that is a shot Self, if you will, who wants to invite you into a cycle of unworthiness. When you notice, when you actually have the awareness that this is happening, you have the ability to invite a place of peace with it, to hear it and say, I hear it. I know that I'm having this conversation with myself and starting to believe that all of the ideas I had at this meeting, and the reason I called this meeting and my presentation for the meeting, and the communication of the meeting is all wrong and all my fault. I'm actually believing that. But that is not what I know to be the truth. And actually acknowledging the feeling that you have in your being, is it anxious? Is it sad? Is it overwhelmed? Is it disappointed? Whatever that feeling is, and then saying, I recognize that these are the thoughts that I'm having. And I can forgive myself for having these thoughts, because they're probably more from the stew. What I've done is done. If there are choices I need to make moving forward, I have the ability to make those for the highest of my good and the highest good of everyone else. It is done. And therefore I can let it go. And I can take the next best step. And in taking the next best step, it can be also recognizing what the truth of the situation is. If it's the meeting, the truth is maybe it was people were late, maybe it was you were tired and didn't have your A game or even your be game at the meeting. You are a human being. It's okay to acknowledge those things too. And then it can be a plethora of a million things that are the truth of that meeting. But it's the facts, not the stories that create the truth. And it's the decision you make from that point forward. That matters the most. I call it befriending your inner critic. Because when you get to know Deja, you get to have own awareness around her. And she only really likes to play the game if you're going to show up and really play the game with her too. So when you acknowledge her and then move on, she doesn't come around as often.

Tanya Gill: 00:17:59

Seriously, it's like she lurks in the curtains of the restaurant now, and waits for an opening to arrive. And sometimes she'll even start hustling it to the table before I noticed her and go no, no, no, not today. We're not playing the body image game today. No, no, no, I'm not interested in financial stress do I'm not interested in the artichokes of silence and I'm not interested in the potatoes of pick something inadequate parenting. And it can be as simple as that. But like everything like absolutely everything my friend, it's a practice. It really is. And so my invitation to you is to start noticing your automatic negative thoughts name the person who delivers your automatic negative thoughts and if you want to call her Deja by all means she can be your Deja here we go again poor to here we go. Deja, here we go again, poo to Whoa, okay. She can know and, and don't be afraid of her. befriend her. Because the more you know about her and the more you know about her story, and the more open you are to her and what she's been through too, the easier it is to move forward with more grace, joy, love, gratitude. Holy shit, awareness. And goodness. My friend, thank you so so much for listening today. I know again, you can listen anywhere Were so that you would give me your ears your attention, your time and your heart is an honor for me. I hope you have a truly beautiful day. And thank you for simply being amazing. You