jessicakuznick: Kinds of
jessicakuznick: borders, and like what became clear to me is, there are some places where I
jessicakuznick: I do set boundaries.
jessicakuznick: But I feel like I do it in a really unskillful way.
jessicakuznick: like
jessicakuznick: I. And that's I think the big thing for me is sometimes I know that I want to set a boundary, and I am I am setting a boundary, but like it, it feels like it comes out all wrong like it doesn't end up meeting my needs that well, and it pisses everybody off.
jessicakuznick: so yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And some of that is, I don't like some of that might be actual technical skill.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but a big piece of that is back to the energetics right? We can set
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the right boundary, but if we are not setting it from the aligned energy, it will come out sideways.
jessicakuznick: ed.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Kelly.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): Just a quick thought that I I realized as I did mine oops, fuzzy
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): I realize as I did my, I was getting a little confused about the arrows to be honest, but I had, like the collective ones and the individual ones in my mind, but, like social justice and my care for the world were on the list, and.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): like my parents and my kids and friends, I love the money addition. So I just plug that in. But I, what I'm realizing is like with tech and with my work and business and clients
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): and my kid like a lot of it. Actually, as I was trying to conceptualize it felt like
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): time.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): and I was just recognizing that it was around time, and then also energetic or thought output like how much of my energy am I putting in? So I was.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): That was like an easier way for me to conceptualize it than
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): the Boundaries piece. I was getting a little lost on, but but just in terms of what I'm giving in terms of my available time and energy resources. What it was feeling like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah. And that is boundary, right? The time and the energy. And I think it's also the other reason I'm I'm glad you're bringing this into the conversation is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): sometimes we're crossing a boundary inside of ourselves when we're ruminating on something, and we're worrying about, you know. And and we're we're not setting. Maybe we haven't to the outside. It doesn't look like we've expended anything. We haven't given anything, but it's that internal boundary. And allowing our minds to come back to the rumination that's been crossed.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Does anybody wanna
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): share anything
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): from a practitioner point of view on what we've been doing so far today
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what you are
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): maybe learning around creating the skill of creating awareness
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): through some of these exercises that we're looking at? Or is there anything from practitioner point of view. Here
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in ball.
Inbal Sansani: I? I mainly have a question. I think the
Inbal Sansani: the question is like.
Inbal Sansani: How do we like best, you know, like fit this into a session, you know, just kind of like as it comes up versus like. And we're gonna do this thing. So for the next one like, bring this
Inbal Sansani: because what I'm really seeing it's like
Inbal Sansani: it's so helpful to to put it down, to get into the body
Inbal Sansani: and then to have them mirrored back.
Inbal Sansani: And it can't be simple. So like also, how do you do it like in the moment, but also like without all the background.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, such great question. So you know, I always have, like 3 answers to every question, single layout, a couple of things
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): depending on your work and how you work with clients, and what's relevant for clients. First, just look at. Let's look at this, as
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): this is one of those great like holistic 360 coaching exercises, but especially the last one. We just did right that you might for some of you it might fit into your work, especially if you know that your ideal client tends to have issues with boundaries, that in your, if you have a longer first session that might be an exercise you do together
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to just to get more information, to set set, set up context and start to look at deeper into the areas of their lives that they they want to be working on or the areas of their business. If you work just with business or the areas of their health or right whatever it is. So this is this, especially. This last piece can be a great 360
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): overall assessment or assessment of the slice of life that you work on with your clients. I don't think it needs that much
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): context, right? You can say, you know, one of the things that we're gonna be working on over these months just cause it plays into every goal that you have is, you know, looking at boundaries. And you know Boundary, you know. It can just be a 2, 3 min spiel on what happens when boundaries are misaligned. It's always helpful with a drawing type exercise to show an example.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Ha! You know, and letting the client know you can do this, however, you want in any ways, but usually with drawings. Having a visual is is super helpful
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to start to spark things right? So that's one way that you can can use this. The other way that you can use. This is is like on the spot coaching you're working with a client. It keeps on coming up that they are spending way too much time on work. They're working all hours of the day. They're constantly checking email. They're exhausted.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You could
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): do this last exercise. We just did with those areas where the the boundaries are weak. You could go to what we looked at more this morning, and to, and ask them to feel what it feels like when they have those week boundaries with
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): work, and then draw just a representation of that you could put them into the aligned place right? So there it's kind of like, mix and match whatever is, gonna make sense, time wise and context wise
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for the client.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Is that helpful?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay? Good.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Anything else, practitioner, wise questions, or what you're seeing or learning or noticing.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): One thing that I hope you're seeing. Noticing is that just some simple drawings can create a lot
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): of awareness.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And this is a different way of creating. Oh, you know, it's it's asking questions in a different way.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Wendy.
Wendy: Yeah, I
Wendy: I think this exercise. I see that I really resonate with exercises where we're going
Wendy: to the extremes.
Wendy: Which we did in the shadow, the retreat, and then, doing this, I think it really
Wendy: to feel into the feelings of each end, and then to bring it to the middle is just I. I find them very powerful.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, it is I. I mean, yes to that, and also just to to pull even more.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It it helps activate more than one level of learning when we're feeling in first and then drawing and then looking at the drawing, which is a visual of the feeling, and then it's reinforce at least giving us more awareness on the feeling right with the extremes, or even the one that we just did. The one that we just did is about that, too, but it also goes back to our retreat.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I told you this retreat is bringing everything together. This also goes back to our retreat, where we looked at archetypal images. Right? We're we're creating right? Cause you can then take this and
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): have a client write a story about it, a fairy tale about it. Do a dialog with the symbols that come through to get more information like there. There's so much richness that can come
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): from these images.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Kim.
Kim Davies: I find that I'm thinking a lot about my daughter and boundaries, and she is wanting to transfer to a 4 year college, and that there's this constant
Kim Davies: back and forth between what her friends are saying about the place she chooses. She wants to go versus what she wants.
Kim Davies: and she doesn't trust herself to make good decisions based on a bad college choice, you know. Bad whatever college choice before.
Kim Davies: And so what I was thinking with the drawing. I just drew this where
Kim Davies: I wrote others, opinions, my values, my dreams, what I need to feel loved. And how do I want to feel.
Kim Davies: And just kind of go through those things with her to have her, you know. Come up with.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, to list in each of those areas.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I love that so much. And then again, that could be fine, just like making lists. But that visual representation, it brings it to a whole other level with that E, even if it's a stick fit figure our minds are put. We're we're putting our bodies in our hearts.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Into that stick figure. And then we feel this. And then the feeling of those categories around us all around and like these are the the things right.
Kim Davies: Yes.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And it just. It brings a whole other level of awareness and feeling in an embodiment that creates more awareness to that. So I I love that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you could.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Kelly.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): I was thinking a couple of things. One is. It's taking the things that are inside that might be in thought form, but could be more jumbled, and putting them outside, and then allowing them to be seen. So in that way it reminds me a little bit of alter work, just like giving people the space to like have a thing that represents this emotion or this relationship, and so like just having space to put it out there and then that to be the platform from which we talk about things is really helpful.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): And then in that I was thinking you mentioned the architect piece, and I was thinking of it both as
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): archetypes, but also parts.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): And so, you know, if I look at my drawing like I am a different
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): person, or there are different parts of me to get enhanced from relationship with my child. There are different parts of me to get enhanced. My relationship with friends, different parts of me with clients, and like, yes, there's this common core. But these other parts, then, are allowed to be seen in a different way, and it just allows them to kind of be brought into the light in a way that's really really helpful. And for us to be able to speak to things that
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): might not be as visible, or
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): takes me as practitioner out of the seat of like, identifying all the things like it allows them to see it, which is so much more empowering.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yes, yes, to all of that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and also again the slowing it down piece.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It takes a little longer to draw something than to just give the answer, and sometimes that can be so helpful. Because when we just give the answer, it's like, Yeah, I've been there done that. I know it already, but just that extra few moments of feeling it in our body, slowing it down and being with it.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we understand. Do we take that understanding.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): Yeah, 2.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Per level.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Good.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay. So we're gonna keep on going a little bit. We'll we'll break in at about 4 30 Eastern. But one more piece
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): before our break. We're gonna toe. Dip into this now
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and kind of leave it for a little bit and come back to it tomorrow.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But it's already been in the air. It's already been brought up a few times.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And so let's just start to look at it directly, which is, it's one thing to know that we want to set a boundary in something. It's a whole other thing to actually set it
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right. And
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I have this quote, which is a quote my quote, anybody famous. I'm gonna put it out there as a quote for you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): doing the aligned thing can often feel incredibly wrong. At first
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we usually think like we're gonna hit on the aligned thing, and then it's gonna feel so good. Right?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But that's not always the case it can be so hard
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to set
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): aligned boundaries. Sometimes they feel wrong
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): at first.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and that is, as all of us here know, because of all of the old stories, and the old narratives, and the old fears, and the old rules, and the old family commitments, and the like. Right? It's it's we've already started speaking to some of this, and so we'll start to look a little bit more right now.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it, it's important to say, though, as we start to look at this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): sometimes.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): when we don't uphold aligned boundaries, it is not because of a fear or an old story or a narrative.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but rather because life has handed us a shit sandwich.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and we are doing the best that we can with it
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right? And we need to know this for ourselves. And we need to know this as practitioners with our clients. It's it's there's no myth, never a myth of perfection like sometimes that ideal boundary
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for that situation. It's not ideal, because it's impossible.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and we have to give ourselves grace, and we have to help our our clients
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): give themselves grace. We have to honor, shit, sandwich situations or impossible situations, whatever it is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and honor, what are the things that are out of my control?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): How am I doing the best that I can.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And then what are the things that are within my control? And do we need to look at old stories, myths, narratives, fears, etc. on those
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to start to shift things.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Does that land.
Inbal Sansani: I get what you're saying. It would be great to have an example of like the
Inbal Sansani: yeah, I feel like I get it. But.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I I mean, I can give an example from my own life. And when my mother is in the hospital and in an emergency situation. My ideal boundaries shift in that situation right? It's a it is
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): an emergency. I mean, it happens often, unfortunately, right? But it's like I'm doing the best I can with what I can.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): An example on that of an internal thing is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I can keep my technology like with my phone, I can keep
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): pretty good boundaries
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on that. But right now, with everything going on in the world.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I'm scrolling more than I should be.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but I'm also doing it for like, without getting into my psychology like, it's a survival mechanism for me, right? But it's like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I don't say all bets are off, and I probably could be a little bit better with myself on it, but I also have my reasons for having kind of crappy boundaries on it at the moment?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Does that make sense.
Inbal Sansani: Sort of like, oh, like
Inbal Sansani: I feel like it's like.
Inbal Sansani: in a way you're coming from an aligned place because you're conscious of what's happening and why you're doing it.
Inbal Sansani: And so it's not like reactive. There is.
Inbal Sansani: There is a choice around it, even if, like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Right that ho! Hopefully in the best of all worlds. You're right like it's
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's still aligned, responding to the shitty situation.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Sometimes another person is dictating our boundary, too, though, right?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And so we have even less control
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): there.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what are some reasons?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You can put them in the chat. You can just take yourself off mute, and share. What are some reasons why we don't uphold our boundaries.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): why we get too weak or too rigid on our boundaries.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Competing priorities.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what else?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Past experiences? Trauma, survival.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): fear of disconnection, fear of not belonging.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): fear of being ostracized.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We haven't put in the supports. We need to do it well
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): about
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): fear of letting others down or hurting others.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): If we put a boundary in place.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what else? What other fears fear of not belonging being isolated? Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Fear of others becoming angry.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): fear of not being loved.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Guilt
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right? If
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): guilt is a a big one that runs through us. That can be a reason, right? Which is related to I'm gonna harm somebody else.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): or it means I'm a bad person. If I
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): uphold this boundary
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): sense of duty. Jessica saying, Yeah, it's my responsibility. I will be irresponsible and not in my duty.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): If I have pulled this boundary
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): choosing shit sandwiches.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): not wanting to be selfish, or whatever that right, whatever the shadow is inside of it.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Sometimes rigid boundaries come from not trusting other people.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Well, weak boundaries can come from not trusting other people either. Right? So if that's big inside of us, a lack of trust
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): wanting to be the best, the most giving, the most awesome. Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what else comes to mind?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Why is it hard to uphold boundaries?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Not being connected to our core values makes it hard to set boundaries. Yes, I love that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): feeling like we need to earn our place.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's tied to our sense of purpose and value in the world.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): wanting to be accepted and love.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So I bring these up lightly now to say.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and you all know how to do this right. You can go into a befriend your fear or rewiring, unhelpful thought patterns
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): around this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You can go into a choose your own journey right memory. Think of a time when you weren't loved and accepted
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): because you set a boundary, and then you do that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): process right? We have. You have
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): a whole treasure trove
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): of processes that you can use as you start to get
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): under the hood
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on this for some clients you're not going to have to, because just the creating awareness part alone. However, you do it, whether it's through drawing or discussion, or whatever they're gonna be ready to set the boundary for others. You're gonna want to go a little bit deeper under the hood.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Maria saying, old habits.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): yes, setting a boundary, whether it's with someone else or inside of ourselves, like
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): social media use email going to bed on time food, you know. Whatever it is, some of it is, it's different. And anything different, or change in status takes effort.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): The neural pathways die hard, right? And old habits require effort
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to change.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): whether it is
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): because of the way that you relate to your sister, and talk every day. And the way that right, you're whatever like. That's an old habit that sometimes it's it's it's it's usually it takes effort.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): or it's the go on to bed by a certain time
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in terms of boundaries with ourselves.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We'll get even more into that this afternoon. I just wanna name a couple of other things that can sometimes hold us back. I think this one came up already. Fear of missing out Fomo. Not gonna go to bed early because I need to like, go to that party or watch that show or check that email or right, whatever whatever it is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I I wanna also. And we could do a full week on just this. But I'm just gonna kind of note it for us is I just got gonna call technology addiction
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): its own thing as well, and really putting in the effort
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on a on on a like chemical, you know, so that chemically, we're not so addicted to the dopamine dopamine of the checking right? But sometimes that's really just what it's become is that we need that release of dopamine.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's similar to what Maria's saying on habits.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then, you know, I always have to blame the patriarchy for a moment.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Patriarchy and some of the myths of perfection and hustle culture.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): hierarchy, like all of those cultural patriarchal values, can make it hard
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for folks
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to uphold boundaries.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): What is this sparking for you? What what other ideas, or what more wants to be said? What is this all bringing up for you?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah. And Tina saying, where it concerns siblings and parents, we become used to the role we have in the family. And then when we evolve, we let go of the role. But the problem is, the others still see you in that role, and that can also be in jobs that can be in friendships
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): as well.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): What else wants to be spoken on this
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right now?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Thought other thoughts or ideas.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, go ahead.
Inbal Sansani: You know, when you were sharing about like with
Inbal Sansani: yeah, I mean, it's interesting, like,
Inbal Sansani: and also scary, right? Because I'm thinking about like racism and oppression and capitalism. And
Inbal Sansani: but I think for a lot of us
Inbal Sansani: oh, I mean definitely, for myself.
Inbal Sansani: there's a constant tum around like
Inbal Sansani: survival.
Inbal Sansani: or like, even if it's not
Inbal Sansani: even if it's not like, you know.
Inbal Sansani: staying alive or or being killed, even if it's not like becoming houseless.
Inbal Sansani: that, you know, whatever it is, can feel like.
Inbal Sansani: you know, can feel like survival. And like.
Inbal Sansani: yeah, I feel like a lot of these can fall under that and like, really or like, if not survival, then, like our basic primal, fundamental, needs love.
Inbal Sansani: safety. So like, no wonder it's so fucking hard.
Inbal Sansani: cause it's like the smallest thing like, do I go to game night.
Inbal Sansani: you know? Do I go to this gathering tomorrow? And so like that just creates a ton of more space. For, like
Inbal Sansani: empathy and Compa, like toward myself, of like, okay, this is actually about this and not about Darren's party.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Exactly a hundred percent like we've already kind of
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): this has come up a few times today. And again, like this is where we started in advance with befriend. Your fear. Right is like, is this a response to the moment or reaction from the past
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): is, what's Ca, is what's coming up now about what is actually in front of me?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Or is this an old fear or survival strategy that is actually not aligned with the present moment.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and you're so right. It's like the littlest, smallest thing like, should I go to game? Night tonight?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Can bring up all of those old
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): survival worries
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then strategies
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): dead.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Alright, let's take 15 min.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We're gonna come back at 4, 40, and we are going to look at
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): procrastination and some
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): probably some different ways. Then you have looked at it in the past.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We're gonna have some fun.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so I'll hang out if anybody needs anything for a minute. If not. I will see everybody at 4, 40 Eastern
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): K.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Let's before we keep on going, just so that we kind of have
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): energy for the rest of the day, if it's in your ability.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Well, if you're able to, let's stand up for a moment
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): do arm. I don't know what are these called arm rotations
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to get the energy moving.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Maybe you can even feel
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that energy and then switch directions.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay, good. And then maybe just twist the wrists
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): a little bit.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, like what Kelly's doing, kinda you know. Smooth them in any way that you need to. If you're able to stand on one foot, and you can use a desk or whatever. If you need balance, pick up one leg and just kind of move the ankles, move one leg around the other leg
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): around
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then kind of just shake it out through your booty a little bit
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): alright.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): hopefully. That helps
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): alright.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We are. Gonna look at
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): procrastination from a couple of different angles.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I'll start here
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we can kind of understand one way that we can understand. Procrastination
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): is weak boundaries on the personal front.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and of course
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we already know from all of our work
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and our work with procrastination in other ways.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that it is often an expression of resistance
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and resistance is often a symptom of fear.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Craig put in. Chat procrastination, that term sounds familiar. What do I?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Alright. So the first lens that I want us to look at at procrastination through
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): is through what's called the self worth
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): theory, the cell force theory. Some of you may have heard of it before it was developed in the 19 seventies, and
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I think it still holds a lot of
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): water today.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So the self worth theory posits
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): anyone, any individual's main priority in life after getting basic needs met of food and shelter.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that an individual's main priority in life is to find self acceptance
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and so forth.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): this is important
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that self acceptance is often found
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): through achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): self acceptance, and self worth are often found through achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So another way of saying this is that a a main need of most humans is to be seen as capable, able, and competent.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And this is the key
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to our cell for
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that make sense so far.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you would think that this would motivate us to take a lot, a consistent action and not ever procrastinate right? Because it's a way of feeling the self worth and self acceptance right? That was all of those needs.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But there are a couple of snags
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in the picture.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): number one.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Theoretically at least, we actually don't want our self worth
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to be reliant on achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We deserve to feel worthy because we simply are worthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): regardless of achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Here's another snag research shows that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): contrary to popular belief.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): people who procrastinate
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): are not under motivated. They are actually over
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): motivated.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I'm gonna say that again.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): research shows that people who procrastinate aren't under motivated.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): They are over motivated.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): In other words, that need for self acceptance and self worth through achievement is is bigger than someone who doesn't procrastinate.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and because they're over motivated, and because their desire for self worth through achievement is so big
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): their fear
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): a failure
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): is equally as big.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and it's that tension between the desire to achieve in order to get self worth and the fear of failure. If I don't achieve
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that creates the procrastination.
Deva Munay, Big Sur: Yes.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Hold on. I'm hearing an echo. Okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but there's a third piece that goes along with all of this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): The self worth theory found
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that not only
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): is self worth
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): derived for most human beings through achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but that achievement, as we know.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): gets created through performance.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): perform, and then you achieve.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But here's the thing in this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in order to perform well.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you need 2 ingredients.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): ability
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and effort.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay, so if I had a visual, it would look like this ability. The combination of ability and effort
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): determines our performance.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and our performance
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): determines whether or not we achieve
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and achievement
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): impacts our self worth.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Are you with me so far on this?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay, ability is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I am really good at that, or I am really smart, or I'm really brilliant at that. And so, therefore
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I'm able to perform
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): well, and then I can achieve well, right? I have this ability, so I can perform well, and therefore I can achieve well.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): effort is
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in order to perform and then achieve.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I need to add
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): effort to my ability.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I need to work at it.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I need to take action steps
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I need when I put the effort in
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that combination of that with the ability creates, the performance creates the achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then I will. Everybody will know, including myself, that I am worthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Are you with me so far?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So what does this have to do with procrastination?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Well, when we take this whole trajectory
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and add to it that fear of failure
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): which is the fear that will prove that we're not worthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): A beautiful self-protection. Mechanism is born, which is procrastination.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Procrastination is the effort part.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Remember, we need effort and ability
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to perform.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to achieve.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then prove that we're worthy. If we are so scared that we will be proven not worthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): All we have to do is take effort out of the equation.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then we can say, Well, you know I had the ability, but it's just that I didn't put the effort in, and that's why I haven't proven yet that I'm worth it.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I call it the high school, the high school student syndrome.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the kid that doesn't study for the test.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then, when they don't do well, they say. But it's not cause I wasn't smart. It's because I didn't study
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right? So that the self worth is protected
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So it's not that I didn't perform because I don't have the ability right? I am worthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I didn't perform, or I performed poorly because I didn't put the effort in.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then through that procrastination becomes a perfect strategy again, to protect self worth.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And then, if we happen to perform well or succeed without the effort.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): then even more so. See? Like I really am. I mean, I really am worthy. I was able to achieve without putting
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the effort in that ability is so big.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Let me pause.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I wanna make sure you're all with me, and also what this is sparking for. You.
Inbal Sansani: Do. I like you having your notes
Inbal Sansani: when you transition to say
Inbal Sansani: so? If we take this trajectory, what was the next thing you said.
Inbal Sansani: and how you set it up, that what you said before you said procrastination is the effort, part.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I don't know. Let me see, hold on
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so I'll just say what I think. I said so again, if we just like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Think! I wish I would have created a visual, but we've got. We need ability and effort
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in order to perform
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): or perform well when we perform or perform well, we achieve.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And then we, when we achieve, we have this false sense of then. Oh, my gosh! I'm worth goodness.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I'm worthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): if there is doubt around our worthiness
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for some people. It's just going to make them effort even more
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to prove it to get here. But for other people they're gonna take the effort out completely. And that's where procrastination happens, so that if they don't get to the performance and the achievement part.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it has nothing to do with who they are, with their with their self worth. It has to do with the effort that they've put in.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Is that helpful in ball.
Inbal Sansani: Yes.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Greg.
Gregg Berman: And when it brings up
Gregg Berman: oh.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You're on mute.
Gregg Berman: Yeah, hit it off and then hit back on again.
Gregg Berman: What? One of the things that brings up for me, and this might not be true for everybody, but certainly is common in the Adhd world is that it's not simply
Gregg Berman: effort or lack of effort, but
Gregg Berman: where?
Gregg Berman: How? You direct that effort because it can take a huge amount of effort to to procrastinate or to avoid or to do something else, and
Gregg Berman: sometimes even more effort. In fact.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Absolutely.
Gregg Berman: Certainly more energy. And that sense is where we're placing that effort.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Absolutely. I'm so glad you're bringing that in. It's not like there was no effort because it can take up all the things. And also. This is not the only
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): way to understand procrastination. It's kind of like one. It it will apply sometimes, but not all times, and for all people.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Good. Nicole.
TELEPHONE_USER: Really interesting, because it hit hits upon something that I actually talked with my therapist this morning about. There's this moment
TELEPHONE_USER: in my past where I used to be able to kind of effort through things and push, push, push, and I could create things. And then there was this time when
TELEPHONE_USER: all of that kind of stopped. And I
TELEPHONE_USER: I haven't been able to kind of reach that place again. And and I'm just putting it together that
TELEPHONE_USER: those are both
TELEPHONE_USER: those. Potentially, I think it resonates with me to say that they
TELEPHONE_USER: we're both.
TELEPHONE_USER: you know, seeking self worth one was efforting towards the self worth, and the other one is more like, you know, resign resigning myself resignation towards
TELEPHONE_USER: you know, there's like, kind of a procrastination.
TELEPHONE_USER: Stance. So I'm just, I'm yeah
TELEPHONE_USER: making connections for me. So thank you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I love that. And it's true, like over effort or under effort can both be related to that. I need to prove that I am worthy piece.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Good
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Jessica.
jessicakuznick: What I was gonna add, I mean, this dynamic is, I think, right on. And
jessicakuznick: I'm very familiar with it. I think
jessicakuznick: one thing that I've started to notice, though, is that there are a lot of situations where
jessicakuznick: I want to put in effort, and I don't actually know what effort really looks like.
jessicakuznick: And then, if I do some effort, and it feels sort of
jessicakuznick: unclear, whether it's.
jessicakuznick: you know, like sometimes it's almost a lack of knowledge, or what I find is, you know.
jessicakuznick: like, for instance, dancing, which I'm now loving to do, and putting in tons of effort on, you know. Once I found a place where
jessicakuznick: there were really clear steps to take. Now I'm really excited to take the steps, but when it was just sort of this big, amorphous like, Oh, gosh! I should practice dancing! I'm like, what do I do? Just like wake up in the you know.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I love that point like sometimes, if I don't know that, what what effort to take
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): writing
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and that can create procrastination.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): beautiful, good
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Monique.
Monique: I'm loving this topic of conversation. Something inside. I'm I'm here and I'm present, and I'm receiving. But there's something else inside of me that's like, we need more. So my question is, do you have a reference of a book of something where I can do a deeper dive into this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Not a book. But there's a great Ted Talk by a Princeton can't remember his name, and I don't. Ha! But I'll I'll make sure you get
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the link to the I make a note of the Ted Talk by this Princeton, and it's great cause he's talking to like a bunch of grad students procrastinating. So I'll make sure. For tomorrow. I'll have that link.
Monique: Thanks.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): In ball.
Inbal Sansani: There's a couple of things I think, like
Inbal Sansani: this could be like, I mean.
Inbal Sansani: partly like my, maybe my righteous one. But I right, it's like we don't want to assume that like
Inbal Sansani: self worth or achievement is like the driving thing, because
Inbal Sansani: I don't know that feels it is for me, you know, is for me like I totally relate to this. But like
Inbal Sansani: I don't know that, like, you know, for a lot of people it could be, you know, like being in community, or like
Inbal Sansani: keeping that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Things on that. Well, 3 things always 3 things. One, yeah. Like, I said, this is just one entry point and number 2 when we're working with a client. We always wanna write.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): create, like, ask and quote and see. But number 3, it's called self worth theory. But I said it earlier. It's part of it is, it's self worth or self acceptance
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): or acceptance, which is what the community piece that you're talking about. So achievement is related to self worth and also being accepted.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But absolutely we don't ever want with. As with all of our coaching, we don't want to make assumptions. This is just one
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): like one way in for some clients.
Inbal Sansani: Thank you. I just had a question, but I forgot.
Inbal Sansani: Thank you. Bye.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Kelly.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): This is a little bit related to what Jessica was saying about knowing the steps. But I have found that
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): that just recently working. I have these 2 big presentations I'm doing in June. 1 one is a keynote, and one is like a full day retreat I'm leading, and I like my perfectionist, is totally trying to get in the room.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): And and I'm
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): I am working on this like massive day long thing, and really trying to incorporate all the curriculum lab principles, and all all the things to really like, amp it up and make it better from what it was before, and it's double the time.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): But what I'm realizing is I have had moment, like big moments of procrastination, like I am working on it, but I can feel because it is such a time suck. And it's this thing that I don't know.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): like I know, on the other side, it's gonna it's gonna go. Well, like. I'm really clear on that. But I know that every time I prepare for one of these, my perfectionists like takes up so much time and space that I that this place of I I end up procrastinating because I don't know where the limits are like. Even this last time I was like, Okay, let's really break it down and see what we're working on in this like one and a half hour time. Block
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): and I just couldn't get through all the things I wanted to get through. And I was like, how long is this gonna take? When is it ever gonna end? And I I love working on it. But I don't wanna spend this much time. So then I'm like, I'm checking out. So I checked out for a couple of weeks. And so it's not exactly the same. But I'm just aware that sometimes, not knowing
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): it's like my way of setting boundaries, and then even that
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): it's making me think about people who procrastinate. Wait till last minutes like then you're time limited like you don't have that much time to pour into it. So anyway, I'm
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): just reflecting on this one.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I love. I love all of that. And it it's I don't know if this resonates, but it's making me also think of how this functions for you like related to the to the weak and rigid boundaries, and the bopping back and forth
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): from this morning, right when
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): when you
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we can call them. I don't know if you want to call which side is weak and which side is rigid, but when you go extreme in one direction
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): because of perfection, like need to be perfect and worthiness like related to that. And then you do so much, and then you're like this, and then you procrastinate. It's like a rigid procrastination right of like I'm not doing any
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): was too much. And then you go to. That's like the whole other extreme until you're like, Oh, shit! Something's gotta get done right, and then and maybe you'll align out it, or you could just bot back and forth, but it it kind of reminds me of some of that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): as well.
Kelly Lubeck (she/her): Yeah, that's a great observation. Thanks.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Involve.
Inbal Sansani: I remember my question. It's a little bit like.
Inbal Sansani: based on like, what Jessica said, is that
Inbal Sansani: yeah, like, what do you do if like it's like you feel like you've put in all like.
Inbal Sansani: you know, there's not like totally relevant. But just what's coming up for me is what if you're like, Okay, I put in all this effort.
Inbal Sansani: and I don't get so now, like my self worth is shitty
Inbal Sansani: and like, I'm hella tired and broke.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Completely. So that's why I said. The first point is, we have to divorce achievement from self worth and self accepted, whether we achieve or not, right or perform or not like that's that's one big piece inside of this is because I, just simply because I am.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I am worthy and I deserve acceptance.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I accept myself
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): at the bare minimum
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): again, not to blame everything on culture. But th. This is very much about
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): capitalism
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Greg.
Gregg Berman: It just makes me thinking. I don't know that this is fully thought out, but that
Gregg Berman: also
Gregg Berman: redefining our definition of achievement. Like, is it
Gregg Berman: the achievement? You know that the patriarchal version of achievement that is, you know, money? Whatever versus
Gregg Berman: I made an attempt at this thing, and I feel good about myself because of the effort, and what I learned through the process, and that is, can be achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yes.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): absolutely absolutely. And again, everything that comes up in these conversations.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Everybody. Put it in your toolbox for your client work, because that might be a place where you co-create awareness with a particular client. Right? Feeling good because of the effort that was put in.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I love it, cause it. This always brings up so much discussion and like and resistance and and all the things it's it's such a
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it's so rich!
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so just a little bit
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): a little bit more
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on the self worth
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): theory.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): another way that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we can kind of.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But with this understanding that we can kind of start
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to work with. It
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): is so when the fear of failure right like that, I'm gonna fail to achieve, I'm gonna fail to perform. And then I'm gonna fail to achieve. And then I'm not gonna be worthy
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): when that becomes
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): bigger than any other motivation, to achieve anything. That's when all of this in the procrastination is likely to happen.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So can we put
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): emphasis
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): more on a different Y
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): when it comes to achievement than self work?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Can we put emphasis on a different why or motivation
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): when it comes to achievement, one that is different than self worth or self acceptance? So, for example.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): maybe the the motivation to achieve the emphasis we can support ourselves, or a client to energetically put more emphasis on this is part of my mission. I want to achieve this because this is the impact that I want to make in the world.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Or maybe we put the emphasis, maybe for a particular client or for ourselves. The why or the motivation is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it's fun to do this, or this fascinates me, or I get to use this ability that I have, as I as I work towards the achievement.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So sometimes
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): yes, we we wanna work on decoupling achievement from
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): self worth and acceptance. And one way also that we can do that is, look at what's a different motivation to perform and achieve something other than
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): worth an acceptance.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Does that make sense
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): anything that wants to be shared or spoken
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on, that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we can also, of course, work with the fear of not being worthy if we don't
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): achieve and do a. By F on that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Michelle.
Michelle Cohen: I just this is just making me think about one of my clients who is
Michelle Cohen: He's basically a genius.
Michelle Cohen: I mean, within, you know, a certain
Michelle Cohen: and
Michelle Cohen: and he is.
Michelle Cohen: but he also has other, just like we all have our ratios of what we have.
Michelle Cohen: his! He he had this like. Because of how precocious he was and where he was. He was pushed, or the expectations were such that because you're so
Michelle Cohen: smart enable you
Michelle Cohen: sh should be achieving, or or that you know that self worth or not the self worth, but the the expectation. Well, you're so this. So this will automatically happen. And so just seeing him as through this discussion, to seeing like how I can help
Michelle Cohen: him cause. Then he spirals into deep depression.
Michelle Cohen: because the effort is just so hard.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I love that, and it feels like there can be a lot of gold for him in this. And somehow, when you were just sharing Michelle. It. It sparked a short little personal example for me.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that I want to share with everyone in case it's helpful. So you all know. I finally, this last year wrote this book
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that I've been
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): wanting to write for a really long time, and had been procrastinating on, and part of it was not procrastination, part of it like it wasn't the right time, and it wasn't ready yet.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but also a hundred percent. The reason why I put off writing
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): this first book for so long is because ever since I've been a little girl
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in my heart, I've been like, I'm a writer. I'm a really good writer.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I didn't want to prove that wrong like, what if I write this book?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And it's shitty.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): then I can't have that self worth piece of. I'm a good writer.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so I'm putting off writing the book until the right time, right? And this went on
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for so long
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): until
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I finally got to a point a year ago where I was like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I will be okay. If it turns out that I'm a shitty writer like I. I am resilient enough that if I if that is ha! It ends up being a fact.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I can be okay with that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And that's what allowed me to finally put the effort, stop procrastinating, and put the effort in
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Jessica.
jessicakuznick: Yeah, I I have. I think writing is one of the areas that I
jessicakuznick: can relate to this very much and pretty much anything creative. And
jessicakuznick: what always
jessicakuznick: the thought that helps me the most is when I realize that, you know, when I meet somebody who is spending their time and energy, writing or drawing, or painting, or dancing, or whatever, and they're not
jessicakuznick: at all famous, and
jessicakuznick: they continue to do that. I always realize how much I admire them, and how courageous I think they are.
jessicakuznick: And
jessicakuznick: so then I
jessicakuznick: you know, I think that thought really helps me that like it's about
jessicakuznick: the courage to
jessicakuznick: express yourself.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, or it could be the. It's about the courage to express yourself, or it's it's about expressing yourself.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Right versus. It means this, this, that name.
jessicakuznick: Right? Right? Absolutely. I think it's all of those.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Good Tina.
Tina Dowdy: Would you say most of us are hardwired to feel unworthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Oh, that's such a good question, I mean, I can't answer from any research. I can only answer from experience plus again, like cultural messaging. But probably yes, right? I mean, the unfortunately, the way our society is set up is you are not worthy unless you're this. This, like this whole impossible set of things, which is what causes people to.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's part of the capitalism machine. Right? Then we have to work more and we have to do more. So we can prove. Or this this, this and this. So I mean hardwired, I guess, is different than nurtured into it through society.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): yeah, I don't know about the hard wire, but I feel like I can say yes about the nurtured into it.
Tina Dowdy: So if somebody is hardwired like like they were neglected
Tina Dowdy: as a child, and hardwired not to be as nurturing to themselves as they should be
Tina Dowdy: I mean, I know there's all these techniques and all this stuff. But
Tina Dowdy: as far as like self healing goes, what would be like
Tina Dowdy: one of the best techniques you would recommend somebody to do on their own constantly.
Tina Dowdy: to help
Tina Dowdy: get get them through that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I mean.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): there's so many. But just to look at, advanced, I mean, nobody's gonna believe me, until you do it regularly. But do a short befriend your fear every day, like, what if you decided for 30 days I am going to sit for 5 min a day with the fear that I am unworth with the part of me that is scared, that I am unworthy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and hold space for it and parent it
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right not make not so that it goes away.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but so that it it takes its rightful place like it's. I think it's less about
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what technique
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and more about
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): can we be consistent with something so that we can really
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): create
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): some change?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So that's one
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but another. I mean, it can be anything right like self care can activate. You need to feel worthy in order to do some self care. But the more self care that you do if you're doing it with intention and presence
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it it does contribute to self worth right. So
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what if it is?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I am really taking excellent care of myself, because I know I am worthy
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right. I am worthy of this space. I am worthy of this care. I am worthy of holding myself in this way.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I can't say for certain. But there's no way that something isn't gonna shift.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): If you do that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): over time.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): family
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Suzanne.
Suzanne Culberg: This whole conversation has me thinking about.
Suzanne Culberg: So
Suzanne Culberg: when I did my day, my year of daily podcasts, I had a goal like, you know, would have been lovely to be
Suzanne Culberg: sold out or booked out, or fully booked, or you know whatever.
Suzanne Culberg: and then
Suzanne Culberg: ups and downs have happened
Suzanne Culberg: throughout the year like it also happened to coincide with one of the toughest personal years of my life.
Suzanne Culberg: And then people are asking me now, well, how much did your list grow by, and how many clients did you get? And you know, like, you know, what was the
Suzanne Culberg: the value of it and everything. And it's meaningful, because one just because one person had a result doing something one way doesn't mean somebody else will.
Suzanne Culberg: and 2. You don't know the knock on effect of the things that you've put in place like people could still be coming across it. It's still there.
Suzanne Culberg: and it makes me think, Greg put in the chat box worthy by Jamie Lynn Kermer, or whatever her name is. And another book I read recently, making it so by Patrick Stewart. When we read a memoir or a part memoir part book, like the worthy one is.
Suzanne Culberg: we're reading it from somebody who's already already successful, like she has a billion dollar business that she sold to Esti Lauda, and whatever.
Suzanne Culberg: and it's kinda like when you read her. And then I got another. No, and then I got another. No like, yeah, you've heartfilt. But you know, in the end she becomes a billionaire.
Suzanne Culberg: But when you're actually in it and going through it day to day, you don't know what's going to happen at the end, so the wherewithal to stay with it
Suzanne Culberg: regardless. I don't know if it's making any sense, but it's just a lot of things are lining up there.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Right and and again, and then it's like, Yes, of course we can have the goals of more clients, and this and that and that patience, but also
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): going back to we need another Y if we're gonna stay in it
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in the long game.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And then I know I don't think this is what you meant, but I have to say it just sparks another like I have to throw culture under the bus one more time. So one of my like big complaints. I love to listen. I won't name their podcast but all these like heartfelt.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You know, like these people, that like they're all about. It's okay to be messy. And you know all like whatever the things are in the world. But every single person that they interview is famous has achieved. Tons have written 10 books, and I'm always like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): can you interview the everyday person who doesn't have all of these outer world achievements on wisdom that they're bringing forward, or their inner life, or whatever cause it's just reinforcing. Otherwise it's just reinforcing for all of us that like it needs to happen now. And it's and we're not good enough. And maybe this is because I want to be interviewed.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): This, podcast I'll, just be honest. But I hope I'm being articulate in what I'm saying. Like, we need other exit, not just that billionaire example, right of self worth. Like, I want the person that didn't become the billionaire to write the book on being worthy or whatever it is. I don't know if if any, if that made sense to anybody and it's helpful. Take it, if not.
Suzanne Culberg: And also makes me think, Joanna, when you have that friend who's like sorry about the mess, and they've got like one cup in the sink.
Suzanne Culberg: And you're thinking it. You wanna see a mess. But do you? I mean, it's like, it's yeah. Thank you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Absolutely all the things right.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Vlada.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you there, Vlada.
Vlada Tomova: Yeah. So having a hard time, gentlemen, for yourself.
Vlada Tomova: This is hitting so many so many pieces for me.
Vlada Tomova: because procrastination is such a huge piece for me and
Vlada Tomova: I do come from a background of me, being named one after I am that precautious child, and my father was considered an extremely gifted person who was considered so talented that he was left to his own devices by his Phd.
Vlada Tomova: mentor, and he failed miserably.
Vlada Tomova: Talking about life. Transformation, he! He! He! It turned his entire life completely upside down. Which he prop. He kind of never was able to fully deal with. So when you were talking Joanna about like
Vlada Tomova: like caring for yourself, being like such an expression of self worth
Vlada Tomova: like one of the the pieces that is reinforced for me as somebody. I think I think, Caroline wrote, and the chat is about like, Oh, but I work really well under pressure. And not only do I work really well under pressure, but it's
Vlada Tomova: it's some of my best ideas come like that. Which perhaps could have some truth.
Vlada Tomova: It's just such a jumble of of of beliefs and and
Vlada Tomova: bad modeling.
Vlada Tomova: We've I've observed. But yeah, the the self worth piece is just like so deeply buried under under it. It
Vlada Tomova: always amazes me.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, it's so true. It's so often it comes back to the worth or the acceptance. Right? Like, really.
Vlada Tomova: And there.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Probably be good enough.
Vlada Tomova: Yeah.
Vlada Tomova: yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Good
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): good, and I love that. You're poking holes into this belief that my best ideas can only come when I'm under pressure.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It might be that. That's true, like you said, but it might be that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you've been trained for your nervous system to be activated, and for you like that, not not taking care of self piece. That that's the only way the good ideas have
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so far right that there could possibly be a whole other reality.
Vlada Tomova: Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Suited in that belief.
Vlada Tomova: Exactly. And and the activation part that you just mentioned
Vlada Tomova: just like because of the final moment pressure, it does give that activation that actually starts
Vlada Tomova: turning the wheels. But it's a form of not taking care of yourself.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Absolutely. And it's a way that we've trained our nervous systems to ask
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): right to be able to perform.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you know. Yes, good.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Alright, Carlita and inval. And then I wanna before we wrap today, I wanna kind of get another perspective in on procrastination.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Carlita.
Karlita Nabours-Palermo: I like that. We're talking about this because there's a lot of the focus in our industry on these like outer achievements. I've been really duking this out in the love coach industry in the last year, where it's just like I'm pressured to do this bullshit. Promise your partner in 90 days. I don't have my partner and doesn't do does not invalidate my journey at all. It does not invalidate anybody else's journey. If they haven't achieved the thing. I have my own
Karlita Nabours-Palermo: dharma in addition to my karma. Is that how I see it? Or I wouldn't be fucking teaching this shit right? I mean, I wouldn't be teaching it if I hadn't had my unique journey. That is exactly what it has been. So I've been really trying to find how. And obviously I've had clients who like haven't required that re that that promise for me. But like, how do we speak to this stuff about? This really is about your unique inner journey and creating your your unique life and and applying this to your unique life. And it's not about.
Karlita Nabours-Palermo: do you? Yeah. And same with, like the stuff that we apply like in our in our industry, I might know that somebody with a certain lifestyle or career is not gonna mesh with my lifestyle. It's not about their worthiness. That same person is a great fit for my best friend, you know. I mean, like there's all these things that that we mix up with this
Karlita Nabours-Palermo: crap around worthiness and like achievement of certain external photographable, you know, results so rant over.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You. But and then that's but that's also what excites me about.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Like everybody here, and everybody that goes through sacred depths and like what I get to teach cause I feel like it's
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): culture making instead of like culture following. You know, it's like creating a new world through these ideas and creating these awarenesses
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): involve.
Inbal Sansani: This may, this may be a tiny bit. I just
Inbal Sansani: screenshot something earlier today
Inbal Sansani: that there's a book called Privilege. And
Inbal Sansani: the author talks about how the educated elite learn like elite mannerisms and cultural habits.
Inbal Sansani: and one of them is learning how to mine nonchalance
Inbal Sansani: about runs accomplishments, so that those accomplishments seem to be a product of naturally endowed gifts.
Inbal Sansani: and that this is the bedrock of elite education. Right? So it's like, Oh, like cause I'm so like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yes, I was just right, and you don't see all of like the effort slash privilege that goes into that. Yeah, it's it's another.
Inbal Sansani: The hierarchy.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, chills.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So true.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we could keep on talking about self worth theory for a lot longer. But I wanna give us a little bit
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): more to stir the pot
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): with.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Give me 1 s to set this up.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Are you constantly sorry? Look at this schedule, perfectly organized and managed with every task.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Did you all hear that? By the way.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): okay, I'm gonna show a video. That's why, hold on.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): can you believe it? I'm showing a video. I've never for all of you that have been through so many of my things. I never show videos. But
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we're gonna look at this. Can you all see the screen?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yep.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So in college
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I was a government major, which means I had to write a lot of papers.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now when a normal student writes a paper. They might spread the work out a little like this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but, you know.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): get started, maybe a little slowly, but you get enough done in the first week that some heavier days later on
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): everything gets done, things stay civil.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I would want to do that like that. That would be the plan. I would I would have it all ready to go. But then then, then, actually, the paper would come along, and then I would kind of do this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and that would happen every single paper.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But then came my 90 page, senior thesis
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): paper you're supposed to spend a year on.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I knew for a paper like that. My normal workflow was not an option. It was way too big a project. So I plan things out. And I decided it kinda had to go something like this.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): This is how the year we go, so I'd start off light.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I bump it up in the middle months.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then at the end I would kick it up into high gears. A little staircase. How hard could we just walk up the stairs?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): No big deal right?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But then funniest thing happened those first few months.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): They came and went, and I I couldn't quite do stuff. So we had an awesome new revised plan.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And then
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): then those middle months actually went by.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I didn't really write words. And so we were here.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And then 2 months turned into one month, turned into 2 weeks, and one day I woke up
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): with 3 days, until the deadline
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): still not having written a word, and so I did the only thing I could.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I wrote 90 pages over 72 h, pulling not one, but 2. All nighters. Humans are not supposed to pull 2. All nighters
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): sprinted across campus dove in slow motion and got it in just at the deadline.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I thought that was the end of everything, but a week later I get a call
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it's school.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And they say, Is this Tim urban? And I say, Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I say, we need to talk about your thesis. I say, okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And they say
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it's the best one we've ever seen.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): That did not happen
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): was a very, very bad thesis.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought this guy is amazing.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): No, no, it was very, very bad.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Anyway. Today I'm a writer blogger guy. I write the blog weight. But why, and a couple of years ago I decided to write about procrastination. My behavior is always perplexed. The non procrastinators around me, and I wanted to explain to the non procrastinators of the world
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what goes on in the heads of procrastinators, and why we are the way we are now. I had a hypothesis that the the brains of procrastinators were actually different than the brains of other people.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and to test this I found an MRI lab that actually let me scan both my brain and the brain of a proven non procrastinator. And I. And so I could compare them. And I actually brought them here to show you today, and I want you to take a look carefully to see if you can notice a difference. And I know that if you're not a trained brain expert. It's not that obvious, but just take a look. Okay, so here's the brain of a non procrastinator.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): here's my brain.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): There is a difference.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Both brains have a rational decision maker in them. But the procrastinator's brain also has an instant gratification. Monkey. Now, what does this mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything's fine until this happened.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So the rational decision Maker will make the rational decision to do something productive. But the monkey doesn't like that plan. So he actually takes the wheel, and he says, actually, let's read the entire Wikipedia page of the Nancy Kerrigan. Tanya Harding scandal, because I just remember that that happened.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Then we
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): then we're gonna go over to the fridge. We're gonna see if there's anything new in there since 10 min ago.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): After that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we're going to go on a Youtube spiral that starts with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets and ends much, much later with us, watching interviews with Justin Bieber's mom.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): All of that's going to take a while. So we're not going to really have room on the schedule for any work today. Sorry
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): now, what is going on here
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the instant gratification monkey does not seem like a guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely. In the present moment he has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future, and he only cares about 2 things easy and fun.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now in the animal world
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that works fine. If you're a dog and you spend your whole life doing nothing other than easy and fun things, you're a huge success.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to the monkey.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): humans are just another animal species you have to keep well slept, well fed, and propagating into the next generation.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): which in tribal times might have worked. Okay. But if you haven't noticed. Now, we're not in tribal times. We're in an advanced civilization, and the monkey does not know what that is, which is why we have another guy in our brain the rational decision Maker
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): who give us the ability to do things no other animal can do. We can visualize the future. We can see the big picture.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We can make long-term plans, and he wants to take all of that into account.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and he wants to just have us do whatever makes sense to be doing right now. Now, sometimes it makes sense to be doing things that are easy and fun like when you're having dinner or going to bed or enjoying well or in leisure time. That's why there's an overlap. Sometimes they agree.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but other times it makes much more sense to be doing things that are harder and less pleasant for the sake of the big picture. That's when we have a conflict.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and for the procrastinator that conflict tends to end a certain way every time leaving him spending a lot of time in this orange zone.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): An easy and fun place that's entirely out of the makes sense circle. I call it the Dark Playground.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the dark playground is a place that all of you procrastinators out there know very well
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it's where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): The fun you have in the dark playground isn't actually fun, because it's completely unearned, and the era is filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred all those good procrastinator feelings.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And the question is, in this situation with the monkey behind the wheel. How does the procrastinator ever get himself over here to this blue zone? A less pleasant place? But where really important things happen?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Well.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): turns out that the procrastinator has a guardian angel, someone who's always looking down on him and watching over him. In his darkest moments someone called the Panic Monster
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): out
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the panic monster is dormant most of the time.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but he suddenly wakes up.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Anytime a deadline gets too close, or there's danger of public embarrassment, a career, disaster, or some other scary consequence. And importantly, he's the only thing that the monkey is terrified of now.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): He became very relevant in my life
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): recently.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): because people of Ted reached out to me about 6 months ago and invited me to do a Ted Talk.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now, of course, I said, yes, it's always been a dream of mine to have done a Ted Talk in the past.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But in the middle of all this excitement the rational Decision Maker seemed to have something else on his mind, he was saying.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): clear on what we just accepted. Do we? Do we get what's going to be now happening one day in the future. We need to sit down and work on this right now, the monkey said, totally agree. But also, let's just open Google Earth, and let's zoom into the bottom of India like 200 feet above the ground, and we're gonna scroll up 2 and a half hours till we get to the top of the country, so we can get a better feel for India.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So that's what we did that day.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): as 6 months turned into 4, and then 2, and then one. The people of Ted decided to release the speakers, and I opened up the website, and there was my face staring right back at me and guess who woke up.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So the panic monster starts losing his mind, and a few seconds later the whole system's in mayhem.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And the monkey, who remember he's terrified of the panic. Monster. Boom! He's up the tree.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And finally, finally the rational decision Maker can take the wheel and I can start working on the talk. Now
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the Panic Monster explains all kinds of
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): pretty, insane, procrastinating behavior, like how someone like me could spend 2 weeks unable to start the opening sentence of a paper.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then miraculously find the unbelievable work work Ethic. So up all night and write 8 pages.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And this entire situation with the 3 characters this is the procrastinator's system.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's not pretty, but in the end
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it works. And this is what I decided to write about on the blog just a couple of years ago. Now, when I did.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I was amazed by the response. Literally, thousands of emails came in
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): from all different kinds of people from all over the world doing all different kinds of things. These are people who are nurses and bankers and painters and engineers, and lots and lots of Phd. Students.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and they were all writing, saying the same thing. I have this problem, too. But what struck me was the contrast between the light tone of the post
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and the heaviness of these email.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): These people were writing with intense frustration about what procrastination had done to their lives, about what this monkey had done to them.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I thought about this, and I said, Well, the procrastinator system works, then what's going on?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Why are all these people in such a dark place? Well, turns out that there's 2 kinds of procrastination.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Everything I've talked about today, the examples I've given. They all have deadlines. When there's deadlines. The effects of procrastination are contained
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the short term, because the panic monster gets involved. But there's a second kind of procrastination that happens in situations when there is no deadline.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So if you wanted to have a career where you want to be a self starter, something in the arts, something entrepreneurial. There's no deadlines on those things at first, because nothing's happening at first, not until you've gone out and done the hard work to get some momentum to get things going. There's also all kinds of important things outside of your career that don't involve any deadlines like seeing your family or exercising and taking care of your health.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): working on your relationship or getting out of a relationship that isn't working.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now, if procrastinator's only mechanism
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): of doing these hard things is the panic monster, that's a problem. Because in all of these non deadline situations.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Panic monster doesn't show up. You have nothing to wake up for. So the effects of procrastination they're not contained. They just extend outward forever.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And it's this long term kind of procrastination that's much less visible and much less talked about than the funnier short term deadline based kind. It's usually suffered quietly and privately.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and it can be the source of a huge amount of long-term unhappiness and regrets.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And I thought, you know, that's why these people are emailing, and that's why they're in such a bad place.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's not that they're cramming for some
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): project. It's that long-term procrastination has made them feel like a spectator at times in their own lives.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You know the frustration. Not that they couldn't achieve their dreams, that they weren't even able to start chasing them.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So I
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): read these emails, and I had a little bit of an epiphany
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that I don't think non procrastinators exist.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): That's right. I think all of you are procrastinators
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): now, you might not all be a mess like some of us.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and some of you may have a healthy relationship with deadlines. But remember, the monkey's sneakiest trick is when the deadlines aren't there.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Now I want to show you one last thing
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I call this a life calendar.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): That's one box for every week
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): of a 90 year life.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): It's not that many boxes, especially since
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we've already used a bunch of those.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So I think we need to all take a long, hard look, that calendar.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We need to think about what we're really procrastinating on, because everyone is procrastinating on something in life.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): We need to stay aware of the instant gratification monkey.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that's a job for all of us.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and because there's not that many boxes on there, it's a job that should probably start today.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): maybe not today. But
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you know
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): sometime soon.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Thank you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Okay.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): so
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what did that spark
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for you?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Would you resonate with?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah, I'll put the link in the chat right now.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Who'd like to share
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what? What did that spark for you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Jessica?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Are you there, Jessica?
jessicakuznick: I'm sorry I had. I unfooted myself, but not unmuted. Yeah, I just totally relate to that. And I think that you know, when I
jessicakuznick: like a lot of times.
jessicakuznick: Achievement in one area is procrastination in another, like I think it's very easy for me to
jessicakuznick: achieve in like work and volunteer work, and then procrastinate on things like
jessicakuznick: doing creative self-expression for myself, which has no deadline.
jessicakuznick: and almost the better I am with.
jessicakuznick: you know, deadlines and work, and like like it's, it's easy to fill up your time with all of those things that make you look really productive.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yes, absolutely
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and it's not that. It's bad to do those things. Those things are wonderful, but it it it can be really meaningful and even life changing sometimes to ask.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Am I actually using these things to procrastinate
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): on other things?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Kemp.
Kim Davies: I really like that
Kim Davies: video. And the whole dark playground concept.
Kim Davies: was really interesting.
Kim Davies: but the and I don't have deadlines in my life, and I think that's one of my
Kim Davies: big problems. But I felt like
Kim Davies: at the end.
Kim Davies: I mean, what? What was you just saying that you got a lot of weeks and do I? I was like kinda like.
Kim Davies: well, what's what do I do
Kim Davies: when I don't have these deadlines? Felt like it just kinda ended.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Well, so this is. This is where is great. I I'll ask you, and you know we have more shares, and and we'll also think about this more with all the tools that we have we've picked up in advance, right? And some of you are seeing he's using archetypes and drawings right? So pack putting your practitioner hat on.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): If this
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): kind of archetypal model that he is presenting, it is one that resonates for you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): what can you do next with it?
Kim Davies: I am.
Kim Davies: My first thing pops in the head is like, establish my own deadlines, but that I know that that doesn't really work. I mean, there's resistance going into the resistance
Kim Davies: archetypes and
Kim Davies: I don't know. I think part of me is really
Kim Davies: wanting to go into what I will get out of it when I do the things
Kim Davies: I mean. There's even like creativity. Set a lot of creativity stuff that I just, you know, choose to do something else instead.
Kim Davies: And one of my methods like for practicing music.
Kim Davies: Starting, I think, is the hardest part.
Kim Davies: So if I'll say, Okay, I'm going to practice for 5 min.
Kim Davies: Then I'll practice for longer than 5 min. But it's always the starting.
Kim Davies: That's the hardest.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah. So there's already a few things in there on what you can do. Right? So I heard focus on the Y on the deeper.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Shit
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): number one.
Kim Davies: I mean.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Right, and if we put it into his, it, this may or may not resonate, but if you want to put that into his model that could be also the rational decision maker. Right? So are there ways to build up that archetype inside of you? Can you dial? Can you? Right.
Kim Davies: Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You saying? Can you connect into that? Maybe it's about having a conversation with the I forget what the monkey is called right, whatever the.
Kim Davies: Student gratification.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): She has an instant gratification monkey, right? Like, maybe that one is an archetype and energy that doesn't get enough attention loving and compassionate attention from you. So it's wreaking havoc in those shadow ways, and and you don't have control over it. So what if you were to consciously give the instant gratification. Monkey, it's container
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): of like, whatever it wants to do, you know, so that the playground doesn't have to be the dark playground filled with guilt, and I I deserve right? And and then it can start to back off. What if there can be a dialog between these parts? Right? So
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): yeah, he kind of just like ends. It is like, Oh, well, and then on a joke. But we the reason I mean, I show the video cause. I. It is fun. But also, I think he actually brings up some models that we can follow through on on the the Co. With the coaching tools
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that we have.
Kim Davies: Yeah, I love that dialogue. That's a great idea. Thank you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Michelle.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: I'm going to see if I can articulate this.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: So when
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: you know I have a a certain amount of work in my life, and then I have the rest of my time, and I'm in this sort of
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: push, pull, existential thing around.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: Is this really procrastination? Because I'm not
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: doing something.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: or am I?
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: I've been really wanting to to live my life, not
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: striving for accomplishment, to find my work. So then, at the end of a week.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: and I've done whatever or not done. Whatever can I consider that a, you know, can I tick off my box of well lived week, you know. And so it's this kind of you know I they're definite things that are not additive to my life.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: And then it's like
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: when I'm trying to find those things that are additive. I really don't want them to be things that
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: are considered accomplishments in our culture to define my worth.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: I don't know if that made sense. But that's where I am.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Makes so much sense, so much sense, and
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it relates a little bit to what I was just sharing with Kim. So like for me, I think, because I'm so Virgo, or whatever I don't have, and so much of an instant gratification monkey. But what I do have instead is arrest monkey right? And so
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): when I am honoring the rest monkey and giving it its time and space and honor cause I know that is important to me. Then I'm making the time to lay on the couch to do nothing
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): for me doing the New York Times crossword puzzle is like a form of that right, whatever it is.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then it doesn't have to like creep into when this is what I'm getting done right because I've honored the non accomplishment. I've honored the rest, and there's a rightful place for that.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): And I've honored also the accomplishment things. So I think it's it's a little similar to what you're saying, and you're also saying some other things, too, which are important, right? But it's like.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): How how can we honor the impulses inside of us and not make everything about the achievement. Bring those other pieces out of shadow because culture has told us right, the non additive things or shadow right? They're not shameful you shouldn't. Whether it's rest, whether it's instant gratification, whether, like whatever it is. So, how can we actually
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): honor those impulses, those archetypal desires or energies, and make right space for them, so that they don't have to
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): like. Take over. And we have more control of the whole situation.
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking, as you were saying, that I'm like, Oh, there's some shadow there around, like
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: is play allowed is rest allowed, you know, and and in my
Michelle Ritter-Taylor: formative years, not so much so. Yeah.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yeah. So that would be like a possibly a good next place for you to work on, too, is is working with that shadow with the play.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): good
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): blata.
Vlada Tomova: Got it.
Vlada Tomova: This hit home so hard because
Vlada Tomova: I am that person that is the self starter that, you know is completely
Vlada Tomova: dependent on
Vlada Tomova: what was it? The monster that comes out.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Static monster!
Vlada Tomova: The one concert, and those those pieces that are the deepest desire
Vlada Tomova: they it's like such a dance between like am I worthy to even go there.
Vlada Tomova: So I actually.
Vlada Tomova: I actually
Vlada Tomova: yeah, convince myself that this other work that is also still wonderful and gratifying.
Vlada Tomova: Is important. And it's good, and I've gotten much better at doing it and running it. But
Vlada Tomova: in the end it actually is not.
Vlada Tomova: is not fully fulfilling.
Vlada Tomova: And so this dance between. Like.
Vlada Tomova: how? How does yeah?
Vlada Tomova: Finding
Vlada Tomova: finding the ways to trick my, you know, whatever needs to be like
Vlada Tomova: tricked in me to let me like step out, little by little, out of that zone of
Vlada Tomova: the loop of of
Vlada Tomova: of like the worthiness and all the.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Yes, I think.
Vlada Tomova: Like that in person.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Piece in that what we were saying at the end of the self worth theory around.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): with the the things that aren't meaningful for you like. Somehow, they're still holding the worthiness and acceptance piece.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Right? But what are other things that
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): can you, that you can, other projects that motivate you not for the worthiness or the acceptance right? And can we lean more into that?
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): So it's not an O, it's not overnight work, but it's a direct.
Vlada Tomova: I am.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): To go in right and to to start to hold space
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): 4.
Vlada Tomova: Hmm.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I know this stuff is really hard, and also like I always say, sorry, not sorry, like I'm I'm happy
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that it's coming.
Vlada Tomova: Yep.
Vlada Tomova: Yeah, thank you.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Jessica.
jessicakuznick: Yeah, I know that all like I think all the inner pieces that you've been talking about are really important. But for me, I think.
jessicakuznick: One thing I realized about myself is I just I do need the deadline. And so I'll just create like for me.
jessicakuznick: I finally just thought, I'm socially motivated like, I know. I will show up to walk. If I'm walking with a friend, I know I'll show up to write if I'm part of a writing group.
jessicakuznick: and if I'm not, I just don't know that I will, and
jessicakuznick: part of it is just accepting that. And then like looking like I think I I sign up for a lot of classes, because I know that the class will give me a deadline, that I won't give myself.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Absolutely. I think it's so important and relevant.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): but we can sign up for classes and then not pay attention to them. If the inner right. We're not working some of the inner pieces. But absolutely, this is why people hire coaches. This is why we go into programs. This is why we have get it done times with accountability partners. This is why we join groups or have calendars, or right like W. Whatever it is, those outer tactical pieces, and we'll look
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): more of those tomorrow. Those are really important. It's almost like a combination of the inner pieces around boundary. And then the outer accountability strategies and how they can work finding the right ones.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and then how they can work
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): together.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Michelle.
Michelle Cohen: I'm just sharing some reflection. I I may not make any sense. But I appreciated the seeing that his
Michelle Cohen: quantified view of life.
Michelle Cohen: These are my days. And and so that was kind of interesting. I sort of sat with, well, hmm!
Michelle Cohen: Like that pondering life, the big big life question. So
Michelle Cohen: And then at the same time. So it's sort of activated like my deep life. Why? But and then, on the flip side, it activated, it could activate fear like, well, I'm just gonna die. So why bother with all of this? So it just kind of holding space for that continuum? And then
Michelle Cohen: kind of cycling back to like. Well, what would if he was my client like? How would I work with him? But I just wanna go back to something that you shared with your personal example, with your book and
Michelle Cohen: and
Michelle Cohen: and I just wrote down like I am resourced enough to fail
Michelle Cohen: like that was so powerful like.
Michelle Cohen: why can't we just do something
Michelle Cohen: like I'm I'm going to be
Michelle Cohen: lead like when I led people you can remember in drawing a labyrinth
Michelle Cohen: which which now so but you know or I'm gonna be soon teaching just doing some drumming with people.
Michelle Cohen: I have never done that
Michelle Cohen: before, but I will be doing that. But and then there's something about also like rewiring, like self worth
Michelle Cohen: and self-acceptance. So to take it out of the achievement, even though it is important, like it is
Michelle Cohen: like creating and following through and seeing something like from creation.
Michelle Cohen: And so that also just just wanna tie in the other thing that you said about like with your the work that you're teaching and and and about culture changing, not culture following. And so I just wanna also just name one important paradigm that
Michelle Cohen: that you'll see. That comes from the semantic movement world from Liz Koch. She's the one who I'm referencing. Is the and Martha Eddie, the embrew embryological model of we are a a processing body all the time, like everything.
Michelle Cohen: How we see, feel spirit. It. It's all there at all times, but it's our culture, the paradigm of institution programming.
Michelle Cohen: This is the paradigm my school knows better than me. They're you're gonna set my deadlines. You're you're gonna regulate me. But when we can start to figure out like
Michelle Cohen: are in her
Michelle Cohen: interior, and what you know, you've helped me come in contact like what is my unique rhythm like, I am a deep processor. And how am I gonna be met by the outside world, but
Michelle Cohen: and so just creating that really, you know, it's relational. And so.
Michelle Cohen: anyway, there's more to be said. But but supporting people to to, you know, to find what that is, you know. But and I do have hope that maybe not in my lifetime, but in some lifetimes like the work that we're doing can really change. And so, you know, can we walk in that embryological model
Michelle Cohen: in places? Not probably yet in mainstream. But we'll see.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I love that so much richness there, and
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): just one more point on the like
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the resilience to fail.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): you know I'll remember. Back to sacred depth. When we look at the book, that core fear of failing
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): one of the things we look at is that way too often
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): we connect
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): the fear of this attempt or this project
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): not failing failing with equating that with, I am a failure.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and it plugs into the self worth piece right and having the resilience to fail. If if we are attaching the story
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): that I am a failure, if this thing doesn't work out.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): then
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): it's it makes everything so much harder. Right? Then, of course, we're not gonna have the resilience
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to fail to try to put the effort in and fail.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): But if we can divorce
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): again those 2 things, the achievement from the self worth, the possible fail of a project
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): from the fail as a human being or the failure of my life.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Then we're granted so much more space and freedom
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): to try
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): in earnest ways
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): or to decide not to try, because we're like. I don't care if people like, if that fails, or that I don't want to do it, and then move on to the next thing. That's more of a priority that has a much more profound why to it! Motivation to it!
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Alright! Such rich discussion! We have 1 min before before 6.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): I want everybody. I wanna invite you to write down. What's I hope I have a sense we're taking so much from today.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): What is one important thing that you're really taking from our time together today
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): something you really want to hold on to in an embodied way.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): You want to share it in the chat, please do. We've got a lot more tomorrow. Take good care of yourself tonight. Sleep well, pay attention to your dreams.
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): Take good care
Joanna Lindenbaum (she/her): and I'll hang on for a few minutes. If anybody has any questions. If not, I'll see you at 11 Eastern tomorrow.