47: A practical way to understand yourself instead of fixing yourself
If you've ever caught yourself wondering why you keep repeating the same patterns, why you shut down emotionally when things get hard or why you keep self-sabotaging even when you know better, this episode is for you.
Rick explores the difference between fixing or shaming yourself and actually understanding yourself and why that distinction changes everything about how we relate to our own repeating patterns.
Using his own tendency to withdraw and go quiet under pressure as a live example, he walks through five questions that help make sense of the behaviours that feel stuck or automatic, without needing to force change or beat yourself up in the process.
The five questions covered in this episode:
What's the benefit? What do you get from doing this thing, even if it doesn't look like a benefit on the surface?
What's the cost? What does this pattern actually cost you, including the quieter internal cost of how it makes you feel about yourself?
Where did it come from? What's the origin or the ongoing story that keeps this pattern alive?
What's the fear underneath it? What are you actually trying to avoid by doing this?
What's the superpower? What skill or strength has this pattern given you, even as it's caused you trouble?
This one's for anyone who feels stuck even though life looks fine on paper, who overthinks everything, or who's tired of trying to white-knuckle their way into being a different person.
It's a conversation about getting to know yourself gently, without the pressure of having to arrive anywhere.
