Ep 58. Stop Outsourcing Your Happiness

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 58: Stop Outsourcing Your Happiness.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own wellbeing and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s gonna be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, guys, welcome back to Reinvented After 40, my podcast. I love doing this so much. I just feel like you’re sitting here with me in my beautiful room staring at the ocean and we are having a chat and I love it. I hope you’re having the best day. So, it’s Friday morning. I just got home from working out with my trainer and swimming. And I decided to do this episode number 58. And then I’m going to go upstairs and make my green juice, and just take the day off. I’m taking this Friday off.

It is beach, full blown beach weather here. It’s grey, and misty, and it’s just our favorite. It’s so fun. So, wherever you are, happy Friday. And I wanted to talk to you about outsourcing your happiness, and what that means, and what I’ve made that mean for me, and how powerful that’s been since I decided to own my own happiness. And I want you to start doing the same thing, by just noticing how and when you are actually outsourcing it. So, you’re counting on people and situations, circumstances outside of you to make you feel positive emotions.

And when you do that you’re actually giving your power away and counting on maybe your husband, or your children, or your friends, or your mom to act a certain way and to say certain words to you. To give you validation, to give you credit, to be grateful for you. And when they don’t do that, when they don’t show up in a way that you are hoping they would, that you’re needing them to, then you can’t feel happy. You can’t feel safe. You can’t feel secure. You can’t feel validated, or approved of, or grateful for. Maybe you feel unappreciated because they’re not giving you what you need.

So, what I’m here to assure you of today that you can change all of that by learning to give yourself what you need. I want you to start paying attention to this. I think this has probably made the most difference in my life. Because I went from the best people pleaser in the world with so many people in my life because I was so good at it, to not a whole lot of people in my life anymore but a self-concept that I’m so proud of. And I do not outsource my happiness to anyone, and it feels so much better, so much more peaceful, so much more grounded.

I get so much more accomplished in my life. I’m creating so much more value, not only for myself but for the world. Because my brain is not in overdrive trying to manipulate people and trying to get people to include me or validate me. I just don’t do any of that anymore. I’m not thinking about that.

So, a couple of examples I want to share with you this week, well, in the last month or so, you know my husband Jeff is a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch. And so, we’ve been married for 38 years, and he’s been a financial adviser for 38 years. And so, we’re pretty much hyper aware of the economy because it affects him. It affects his clients. So, it’s kind of a big deal when the market drops, when the market’s low, when inflation’s up, when interest rates rise. So right now, is a very typical stressful circumstance for my husband and for most of his clients.

I’m going to call it the rollercoaster ride of the economy because in the past I have ridden this rollercoaster ride with him, depending on what the market’s doing. Right now, the market’s just – I mean it’s just bottomed out. So, the market’s dropped, inflation is up. I’m sure you guys are pretty aware of it but not as aware of it as I am. And definitely not as aware of it as my husband is. He handles things brilliantly, he’s like a phenom in my eyes to have been so successful at what he does, to be so steady, so sure.

He has a very strong self-concept. I definitely have a lot of admiration for him. And he’s always thinking about his clients. He is just the best financial adviser that I know for sure on the planet. He just cares about the right things. He’s pretty conservative. He’s very steady. He never misses a day of work. He cares a lot. And he is extremely smart, and he makes his clients a lot of money. But a lot these things are out his control. So, what’s going on in his life with his business used to affect me so much. I would worry about him

When 2008/2009 happened, I don’t know how affected you guys were during 2008/2009 but that was an extremely stressful time for most people invested in the economy generally. So that kind of changed both of us for good. I was really stressed for him. I did not feel comfortable with his amount of stress. My brain was just like, he’s going to die. He is just not going to make it through this time. but my brain was wrong, he did not die. He made it through that time and actually came out even better for it.

And I think a lot of us did, I think we all got to choose what was most important to us after all, and we resettled ourselves, and kind of headed in a different direction and thought differently about everything. Well, so here we are right now in 2022, at the end of 2022, and the economy is a little stressful right now for my husband. So, what happened though was kind of cool for me is this thought work and just how far I have come with the way that I think and the way that I do not outsource my feelings anymore.

I know that my circumstances do not create my feelings. I know that my husband’s stress does not create stress in me unless I choose it. So, he was kind of telling me about the economy and exactly what’s happening. And I just said, “I am so sorry, I know this is stressful for you.” Buy you guys, I do not feel stressed about it because I have a different way of looking at it. And I don’t want to be stressed about his stress. I’m going to let him be stressed and know that it’s all okay.

And I call that holding space for him to feel however he’s feeling and not make it mean that anything has gone wrong, because this is what I know. Everything that goes up, which means when the economy is strong, when the market is high, when everyone’s investments are making a lot of money, and everyone’s kind of feeling good. Everything that goes up comes down at some point. So, it’s a general overall view that I have now of life. I expect this, nothing has gone wrong. We just hold tight, we keep walking our path.

I keep doing my work, I am not interrupted by my husband’s stress. I hold space for it, and I let him be stressed without making it mean that I have to be stressed too. And this is so possible for you. I can actually be happy right now. I know that sounds crazy. And I’ve actually been coached on this quite a bit in the past because I used to mirror my husband’s emotions. I used to make it mean if he was upset that maybe I had done something wrong. So, I know that you guys do that too. And I just don’t do that anymore.

I let him feel all of his feelings whenever he feels them. And if he is upset with me I trust he’s going to tell me otherwise I do not make it mean that he’s upset with me or that I have to feel the way he feels. I get to keep feeling the exact way that I want to feel, and I do. And it’s been to my benefit, the way that I think about it I think it’s been to his benefit too. So, I am not mirroring his emotions. I am not outsourcing my happiness to him, or to the stock market, or to the economy, or to any circumstances outside of my control.

What I have control of I’m very clear about. I get to think, and feel, and act however I decide to every single day. I’m extremely focused. I have a ton of confidence in the way that I design my everyday life. I have a lot of confidence in my future. So, I keep creating the exact life I want and it’s not dependent on anything outside of me. And your happiness, your future, the things that you are doing every day is not dependent on anything outside of you. That’s what I’m talking about when I say I stopped outsourcing my happiness.

It is not dependent on how other people are thinking about me, any of their thoughts about me. Really I don’t think that much anymore about what people are thinking about me. And that has given me so much spaciousness in my brain to concentrate on what is my business to take care of every day. It is a deliberate focus, and it’s a deliberate training of my thoughts. Just like I’ve always told you in the past.

It’s like you’re training your brain is like training a little puppy dog. You just keep bringing it back to the thoughts that it needs to think on purpose. Like when you’re training a puppy to pee outside, even if it pees inside, you take it outside and you show it where it’s supposed to pee. And you keep, every hour taking it outside to the place that it needs to stand and pee on. So, I know that’s a silly example but it’s true. This is and what we’re doing with our little brain.

Our brain so wants to jump into everyone else’s business and into everybody else’s thought, feel, act cycle. But what we do with our brain is we bring it back to own business and into our own thought, feel, act cycle, so that we’re taking care of what is ours to create. And that is such an exciting life, we get so much accomplished in our day when we’re not derailed by other people’s emotions and other people’s dramas and stress. We are not obligated to feel what they feel. We get to choose how we want to feel.

And we can be the example of that for the people in our life. And it is the most empowering way to live. So that is my example for you, and I know that you probably have lots of examples for me of how many days that were derailed from your schedule, your plans because you got a phone call from someone, or your mom’s upset with you, or your kids are upset with you, or someone needs you to do something for them and it’s an emergency. But I’m telling you, few things are emergencies. I just don’t buy into it anymore.

And I even think, I think I told you this maybe last episode, but it is so evident, and I coach so much on this, our people want us to get upset when they’re upset. They want to convince us that this thing in their life is a true real problem. And I don’t want to take it away from them, they can think that. But I literally let it be okay, that’s my favorite go to thought. And I know a lot of my clients use that go to thought too. I just let it be okay and I let it not be a problem.

So, another thing that used to really bother me, I used to have the thought that I had been left out. And I know a lot of you have that thought, well, they left me out. Because I had a friend ask me recently, she said, “Well, what do you do when you’re not invited, and a lot of other people in your life have been invited to a party? And what do you do when you’re not invited? How do you get over that?” So, I know this is a super relatable circumstance for all of us because we’ve all had this feeling of not being included or being uninvited.

And I can tell you for sure, that because I’ve been working so much on my self-concept, and my self-confidence, and I’ve been so focused on not outsourcing my happiness. We outsource our happiness when we let, if we haven’t been invited to a party someone else is throwing, we make that mean something about us. We have the thought that isn’t useful, well, she didn’t invite me, or she didn’t include me, or I was excluded. We make it mean they did something to us.

But no one can really do anything to us until we make it mean something about us. So, we know that the circumstance of someone having a party and we didn’t get an invitation, we can think of that however we want to. But most of us go to the land of we have been excluded on purpose, or we have been uninvited. When we make it mean that we’ve been excluded we feel left out, we feel unimportant, we feel unseen, we feel like we don’t belong. That’s a terrible feeling and our brain can get stuck in that loop over, and over, and over.

And that is not a useful thought. So, I do not think that thought anymore. No one can exclude me unless I exclude myself. I have to do the work to know that no one can and uninvite me to anything or not invite me. And it isn’t about me. If someone is having a party and I don’t get an invitation I do not make that mean anything about me. I just stay the course. I do not get derailed by that. I’m really not even paying that much attention to what other people are doing or not doing because I really am so involved in the life that I am deliberately creating for myself.

And I know that if I want to be included in a party I will be included in a party because I can throw my own parties and include myself. And I do get invited to a lot of things and I love getting invited. But to make it mean that someone deliberately didn’t love me, that’s what we kind of make it mean, or we feel jealous, or envious of the people that did get included. Well, we’re kind of just doing that to ourselves.

When we validate ourselves, and love ourselves, and give ourselves the care, and the appreciation, and the compassion, and the validation that we’re longing for, we’re not needing it from outside of us. We’re not outsourcing it. We do not need to be ‘included’ in other people’s lives or in other people’s business. It’s just good information. So, once we can loosen up the thought, they didn’t invite me or they didn’t include me, and we can start dropping that and actually pick up the more useful thought like good for them for having a party.

This is good information. This means that I’m kind of not on their radar. So, they don’t need to be on my radar either. That’s kind of how I think about it. I just think about the people that I feel connected the most to. So, I don’t have any drama when I do have a party. I’m very clear about the people that I want at my party. So that’s what I’m thinking about. These are the people I’m thinking about. I’m not thinking about the people that aren’t thinking about me. So, I don’t make it mean anything.

But if you do get hurt, if you do feel excluded, it’s okay. I want you to show yourself so much love and so much compassion but also awareness like this is what I can work on. Treat yourself with kindness. You haven’t done anything wrong. But this is an area where you can work on yourself, love your self-concept, your self-confidence. This is an area where you can work and where the next time that someone has a party and you find out and you didn’t receive an invitation, you don’t get stuck in that for very long. You’re, like, yeah, remember, I wasn’t left out.

I can’t be left out. They’re just having a party, it doesn’t have anything to do with me. Now, how can I take care of myself? How can I give myself what I need? How can I feel validated, and loved, and included in my own life any time I want to? I have all the power to do that. I am intentionally designing a life where I feel validated, and loved, and included every single day on purpose. I know it’s possible because I’m living it. So, I want to offer that to you today.

I want you to know for sure if you’re constantly waiting on something outside of you to make you feel included, and loved, and validated, and important, and all the things that we love to feel. I want you to stop outsourcing that to people and circumstances outside of you and know for sure that that’s your work to give yourself especially in the second half of life. You can have such a strong self-concept that when everybody else gets an invitation and you do not you’re okay with that.

You wish them well, but you love yourself and your life so much that you do not need to get an invitation in the mail, it’s perfectly fine. And also, you can feel so focused and so sure of yourself that when other people are stressed you do not have to get on that rollercoaster with them. You can hold space for them to be stressed. You do not make them wrong or you wrong. It’s just their experience right now but you do not have to mirror that emotion. And you can still felt connected to them, you can hold space and have compassion for them.

And know that of course at some point you are going to feel stressed too, but it will be because that’s what you choose to do, and it’s not because you feel obligated, or you have to be stressed because someone you love is stressed. So that’s what I want to teach you today. I hope this is useful and helpful. I want you to know for sure that your thoughts create your feelings. Your circumstances do not create your feelings. And this is very empowering for you to know.

Also, I want to remind you right now my next group has one spot left in it. It filled up pretty quick. It starts on Tuesday morning at 9 o’clock, November 1st. So, I want you to come grab that spot. We’ll get to work on building a strong self-concept for you so that you do not outsource your happiness ever again. You’re so self-aware, you’re so self-confident and you’re very consistent in the way that you show up for your life every single day.

And then don’t forget about my AirPod giveaway, go to my – well, you’re probably on it right now, my Apple iTunes, follow, rate, and review my show, Reinvented After 40, give me five stars. Give me a few words of why you’re listening to this and how helpful this is for you. And then your name is going to go into a hat for these beautiful brand new Apple AirPods and I’ll get those in the mail. Alright, I love you all so much for showing up, share this episode with you family and friends. Have the best week ever and I will see you next Thursday.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.