Listening to Your Gut — Episode 155

Why do I second guess myself at every move? Today I’m exploring why and how I can listen to myself.

In this episode

My other episode on how I make money

The things in my background that make me second guess myself.

The questions I now ask myself when I’m making decisions.

Producer: Drew Erickson

Transcript

[00:00:00.130] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys, welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on episode 155, we were talking about listening to your gut and it’s not about probiotics. Let’s untangle it.

[00:00:21.570] – Hilary Erickson

Hi. I’m Hilary Erickson, the curly head behind the Pulling Curls Podcast: pregnancy and parenting untangled. There’s no right answer for every family, but on this show, we hope to give you some ideas to make life simpler at your house. Life’s tangled, just like my hair.

[00:00:44.470] – Hilary Erickson

Before we get started, I wanted to read a recent review. She says, so far my favorite. And of course, give us five stars. She says, “I have such a hard time getting into these topics when podcasting, but I love, love, love this one. I share it with all my mom friends. Thank you for being awesome.” Thank you. You guys know that reviews are what keep podcasts alive. So when you guys leave a review on Apple podcast, it just means the world to me. Thank you so much.

[00:01:08.900] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, so in my episode on how I make money, which I’ll link in the show notes, it was at the end of season three. So, episode 150, I talked about listening to my gut and how that was a really big goal of mine this year and I just thought maybe I would expand on that because it’s not just in business.

[00:01:25.730] – Hilary Erickson

I questioned myself in everything and I’ve been thinking a lot about why I am so hard on myself and growing up, I grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, still a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latte rday Saints, also known as our nickname Mormons. Not a real name, but in there there’s a scripture that says the natural man is an enemy to God. And I remember being taught, basically, that we are just lazy. I’m sure I’m simplifying this and it is sent through several filters. We are lazy, money loving grubs who, if we just make choices based on what we want to do, our life will turn out miserable. I’m sure that’s not what I was taught, but that is how Hilary boiled it down to her in her life. So I thought that I was inherently lazy, which I actually disagree with. I love to get up and get started on work. I don’t love to garden when it’s 115 in the summer, but ultimately I do like to garden. So I don’t know. I also got the feeling that money was bad and that’s something that we’ve discussed on this podcast before.

[00:02:27.580] – Hilary Erickson

But money is not bad. Like making money your most important thing. Probably not smart, but money makes the world go round and it’s really important, in our society, it is not bad. It’s not bad to want money. And ultimately all of this brought me to a feeling early in my blogging career was that working online was just fake, that I wasn’t doing a real job right. I had worked as a nurse forever. And I felt like that was how a real job is done. Blood, sweat, and tears, literally mucus and other oral fluids. And ultimately, because of all of this, me thinking that I was inherently I couldn’t make smart choices on my own, I was paralyzed by even the smallest decisions. I felt like there was a right choice and that I probably wouldn’t be able to make it because I didn’t have any redeeming qualities. And I looked at other people, and I was like, how are you all making choices? Because this is really difficult. It’s not that hard. And I felt like there was one right choice which, side note, there isn’t. I would just be at Costco, like, two different types of cookies, and I’d be like, I can’t make up my mind which cookie is best, right?

[00:03:30.810] – Hilary Erickson

Try one now and try one next time. Gah, Hilary. All of these was ultimately paralyzing me. I felt like I couldn’t make decisions on my own, or I needed to take a class or look for someone smarter. Ask people at the store which cookie they like better, rather than just making a decision. And this year, I said, no more of that. No more. Hilary is ready to listen to herself. I can make good choices on my own, and so it’s changed what I am doing. So I have made the choice that I am listening to myself in every area. And this includes food. Yes, Hilary does want cheetos most often, but I know when I really listen to myself, that cheetos don’t make me feel all that awesome, and so I can only have them every once in a while. But you have to listen to all of yourself, not just that little whiny part of yourself, right? That’s something that I’ve noticed. I’m listening to myself in business. I have stopped looking for somebody who knows more than me. Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t have a group of friends that I run things by or I obviously have a tech guy that I ask questions, too.

[00:04:28.420] – Hilary Erickson

Right?

[00:04:28.670] – Hilary Erickson

There are people that are better at things than me that I talk to them about. But in the big questions, it’s Hilary that’s making the choices. I’m listening to myself and my kids, right? So often, I am driven 100% by what they’re whining about or what they’re doing, or their whining drives me to be an insane parent because I’m so bothered by what they’re doing to me. And so now I’m making the choice to maybe sometimes separate myself from them at their whining and make a choice. I could be a better parent if I didn’t have to listen to you complaining to me about your choices. Every once in a while, I’m listening to myself in marriage. Like, what does our marriage need? I’m not looking at books or other things like that. I’m really sitting down and thinking about what this marriage needs. Right. Of course we did therapy and obviously making choices with my husband, but I’m listening to what really needs to happen in that area and I’m listening to myself and what I want to do with my free time. If you follow me. On Instagram, I went to Disneyland, like, every month in the last year.

[00:05:25.940] – Hilary Erickson

I think there’s one that I skipped, but I loved it. I’m not saying that I didn’t love it. I went with amazing people. But Disneyland visits don’t actually move my business that much forward. I have a small section of my business that’s Disney relevant, but actually going to Disneyland doesn’t do too much for it. It does give me some insight. So I still plan to go to Disneyland two to three times a year, but monthly was probably too much. And so I’m listening to myself. And ultimately I’ve had to skip some conversations, stop following some certain people on Instagram because I knew that Hilary knows best in this situation. And I don’t need to be persuaded by other people who disney is their business. It’s just not for me and FOMO. I’m not letting FOMO lead my life. Right. Hilary is in the driver’s seat, not FOMO, because very easily FOMO can throw me out of their driver’s seat and drive me right to Amazon if anybody else is like me. So listening to myself, though, is harder than I think. I am not good at sitting still. I am not good at sticking my brain to one topic.

[00:06:27.330] – Hilary Erickson

My brain likes to be like, dinner, kids, business. And that was in like a three second thing. I’m just like, constantly rotating between things, but I am having to consciously, like, sit down or stand still if I’m at costco and think which of these choices really makes the most sense to me. Instead of I think I was just filling all this time with research and looking at social media and letting FOMO take the reins instead of just taking that time to be quiet, listen to what Hilary really thinks and then just making a decision and also remembering that no decision is permanent. Right? Let’s pretend like I miss going to Disneyland monthly. This doesn’t mean that I couldn’t end up going monthly next year.

[00:07:05.790] – Hilary Erickson

Right?

[00:07:06.210] – Hilary Erickson

And I have noticed that there are so many choices being made by the wrong voices, right? Things I learned in church growing up. Sometimes it’s not Hilary that I’m listening to, it’s some crazy seminary teacher I had or crazy fireside I went to as a kid. That that voice, like the whole natural man is the enemy to God, is still talking to me and telling me what to do, even though Hilary knows that voice isn’t true.

[00:07:28.610] – Hilary Erickson

Right.

[00:07:29.010] – Hilary Erickson

I know that I’m not lazy, but I still hear that voice every once in a while. That’s just like, you’re lazy liar. Cultural norms, right? Sometimes I still feel guilty for not participating in all the things at school or our house is probably not as fancy as other people’s. I have the same dresser as I’ve had since I was born. Sometimes there are cultural norms that were and I think I should get a new dresser. Like, people don’t have the same dresser from when they were born that are 46. But I like it. It works for me. I don’t need to let a cultural norm make my choices for me. And of course, we’ve also said FOMO is in my driver’s seat way too often and it has made me take a break from social media. Definitely listening to that voice in the back of my head where I’m like, what is driving this decision? Is it a deep desire to go to Disney or is it a desire to not see other people at Disney while I’m not with them?

[00:08:18.120] – Hilary Erickson

Right.

[00:08:18.510] – Hilary Erickson

If that makes sense. So I’m just trying to ask myself at almost every single question what I think I should do. Am I hungry right now and I have to sit and sometimes even just like 5 seconds, just be quiet, quiet my brain and be like, Nope, not hungry. And then I can move on. But it’s kind of embarrassing that I’m 46 years old and I literally have to just, like, sit for a second, ask myself the question and quiet all those voices. Seminary Teacher of 1992 no, I’m not hungry. Okay, moving on. So I don’t know if any of this makes sense or any of you guys have had this problem. I would love to hear if this is something you’ve had an issue with over on Instagram. I’ll have a post associated with this podcast talking about listening to your gut, but I just think it’s harder than maybe I’m only the only one. Maybe it’s not hard for other people, but it’s really hard for me to quiet all those other voices and to find out what Hilary really wants. And I think it’s also hard being a mom because for so long, for years, my only thought was what I want to sleep, and that was not in my future.

[00:09:22.050] – Hilary Erickson

You have to quiet those voices for a while, but wouldn’t have been bad if I had told my husband, “I need a solid 8 hours tonight. How can we make that happen? If it’s not tonight, it’s Friday night or Saturday night. I need solid sleep.” And instead, I just kind of glossed over it and acted like what I was getting was fine when I probably could have made that a priority and I probably should have made that a priority for him as well. But I think we gloss over what we really need too frequently, and we don’t take the time to really listen about what we want. And a lot of times we end up filling those spots with ice cream. Amazon, Target, Disneyland. Why are we getting what we really need? I guess is what it’s ultimately boiling down to for me.

[00:10:01.850] – Hilary Erickson

So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. It was kind of a weird and a different one, but it’s something that I wanted to talk about and I’d love to have further conversation with you guys about it. So meet me over on Instagram where we can chitty chat about it more.

[00:10:12.990] – Hilary Erickson

Stay tuned for our next upcoming episodes. Next week we are talking about inductions. I have a midwife coming on to talk about why you might want an induction. And I have to tell you, I have so many students that are like, never. I’ll never want an induction. And they get to 39 weeks. They’re like, turns out anyway, it’s a fun episode. I hope you guys will listen. And then we are talking about what is the hardest age to parent. I think that will be fun. So we will see you in those episodes.

[00:10:37.110] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks so much for joining us on today’s episode. The Pulling Curls Podcast grows when you share us on social media or leave a review. If you do, please tag us so that we can share and send you a virtual hug, which frankly, is my favorite kind of hugging. Until next time, we hope you have a tangle free day.