>> Brianne: Quality takes time and effort. And so when people say, I did all this work, where's my prize? Where's my gold star? It's like that again, is an unrealistic expectation of self, that you do all this work and then you should have a prize. The prize is you healing you sh. >> Speaker B: Welcome to the Secret Life podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. >> Brianne: That's what I did. >> Speaker B: After twelve yea
rs of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood sex and love addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. >> Brianne: Welcome to Secret Life podcast. I'm Brianne Davis Gantt. Today I'm pulling back curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, th
ose deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave, or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Join me each week as we take a deep dive into this subject, exploring the how, what, when, where, and why of it all. Get ready for a more focused and revealing journey of the human experience. This is a new chapter of secret life and I'm excited for you to join me on the ride. Today we are talking about dun dun dun. Unrealistic expectations of self. Oh my God, if I
hear about this anymore, I am just going to scream. Because especially when you're on a mental health journey, especially when you are doing work, I do a lot of inner child work, shadow work, trauma work, sex and love work, all of that good stuff. After getting on the other side of the pain and the withdrawal and the addictive tendencies and the toxic relationships, everybody then has this unrealistic expectations of where they're supposed to be. And today I was just dealing with it with a clien
t and I was like, oh my God, the unrealistic expectations you have on self. And she's like, I've been doing this for eight months and I'm like, how old are you? So, we'll say she's 27. We'll give you a number. She's in her twenty s. And I said, how long do you think you've been on the trauma toxicity, old behaviors, old patterns? How long have you been, what? 27 years? Just kidding. No, I said, okay, so major loss as a child. We'll just say, we'll give you 22 years. 22 years. You've been in your
racket. I call it your racket. Your loop, right? Your toxic loop that you go to. All those things to numb out, to get through life on life's terms, to deal. And she said, yes. And I said, so you think in eight months you should be some magical fairy land that all is going to lay out in front of you perfectly because you've done this work for eight months after doing this shit for 22 years. Okay, that's not how it works. So today I really wanted to talk about all these unrealistic expectations o
f self. me too. When I did this work, I thought it was going to be easy to have intimacy. I did this work and I thought everything was going to unfold beautifully. And it's like, that's not how this works. It's layer by layer by layer. And things happen when they're meant to happen. And sometimes we think we've hit our healing threshold and there's more underneath. But these unrealistic, expectations of self keep us from connecting to others and then having unrealistic expectations of others. So
here's some of the quotes I hear all the fucking time. Life should be fair. Opportunities should just fall into my lap. Everyone should like me. People should agree with me. People should know that I'm trying. People should understand me. I'm just going to fail. things need to make me happy all the time. I can change him, her, or they. It's just those things I hear all the time, or nobody gets me. I hear that one a lot. And it's like all that is unrealistic. Expectations of yourself that connec
t you to thinking everybody else should see you a certain way because you've done this work. Or, you're on your journey. And I always want to stop people and say, why does it matter? Why does all that life should be fair? Where does it say life should be fair? That's an unrealistic expectations of life and of you dealing with life. There's no such thing as fair life. Life is not fair. Everybody dies. Death happens, disease happens, shit happens. that's life. Life on life's terms, right? We learn
to live life on life's terms. And people are like, well, they have that. And it's like, again, that's you having unrealistic expectations of self, that you should have their life. And who said their life is any easier? Another thing, opportunities should fall into my laps. I should have a boyfriend, girlfriend, person already. And it's like what you just learned, these new tools, you just understood your behaviors and how toxic relationships have happened over and over again in your life. And n
ow you think you should magically have this person that's supposed to just fall into your lap. No, quality takes time. Quality is effort has to be put in. Yes, it will organically unfold into not much drama when something is healthy, but quality takes time and effort. And so when people say, I did all this work, where's my prize? Where's my gold star? It's like that, again, is an unrealistic expectation of self, that you do all this work, and then you should have a prize. The prize is you healin
g. People should agree with me or understand me, or, get me. It's like, this one drives me crazy. Usually the people that they're surrounded in are old people still. So, they should understand my journey or what I've been through, or I feel misunderstood. And it's like, because the people you still surround yourself with are those people you lived your life with before. So the reason I'm pushing you out into the world and to have new experiences is to meet new people and connect with new people,
because these old people no longer serve you, and you can't connect to them in the way that you need to connect to them in this new sense of self. So it's all of that unrealistic expectations of your environment and the people around you. And then my last favorite one is, I should be able to change, dot, dot, dot, because I did this work. And, it's like, just because we change doesn't mean they will change. Yes, they will change how they deal with us, because we will change the patterns of whic
h we communicate. But you have to show up and hold that boundary, say what you need to say, show up in this new way. But if you keep showing up and playing into the old patterns, they're not going to have to do anything different. So that's, again, unrealistic expectations of you doing this work and not moving into a new way of being. So here's the question I asked her today when we got off. Do you struggle with showing compassion to yourself? And how do you show compassion to yourself? And how
does that make you feel? Because I want to go through how we deal with these unrealistic expectations. And one of the main things is how we practice compassion. So I have them work on compassion. That's a shadow question. Do you show compassion and how do you show it? So, do you give yourself patience, openness, gentleness? Do you treat yourself as a child like, okay, I just learned this skill. Can I give myself compassion and patience, and not have unrealistic expectations of myself, just like
I would do for a know. I'm working with Davis now on his, sight words, these, words to read. And I'm not going to expect him even in a month or two months or three months to know all his sight words. And so why would I, when I'm working on my second book and doing the edit, be hard on myself when I'm dyslexic or have ADHD, have not have compassion for myself. So I have to have compassion for myself, compassion for my child, and then teach that to the people I work with to have compassion for the
mselves. When you're learning something new or doing something new or putting yourself out there in a new way or using new skills. So, practicing compassion. So if you feel you have unrealistic expectations, the question I have for you, this shadow question to do today, is, do you struggle with showing yourself compassion? And how does showing yourself compassion make you feel? Do you hate it? Do you like it? Is it hard for you? Does it make you ick? One person I gave this to, he said, it, gives
me the ick. I don't want to have compassion. I just want to do it. I just want to know how to do it. All right. The second one I have is reflecting on the expectation. Reflecting on it. Okay, so here's some questions. Does the expectation help me be who I want to be? Does it help me where I want to go? Is it in service of what I care about? Does it make me better at relationships of my career, my goals, et cetera? I usually don't like talking about goals, but if you want to look at. If I want t
o be in healthier relationships and I just learn these healthy tools, am I having unrealistic expectations of myself when I don't know completely how to use these tools yet, and I'm forcing even a kind of toxic relationship and not using my tools properly? Right. So that is something where it's not in service, that, hard on myself is not in service to what I want to produce. Is a good relationship, a healthy relationship, a career. I like safety and self. Right? All of those things. Is this who
I want to be? Do I want to be a person that is hard on myself? Is that teaching to anybody, anything? No. So that is another way I would have them look at it. And then I always do the double standard technique. Would you say this to a, loved one in the same situation? Switch it. Would you say this to me? So I said, if I was your client, would you say this to me? And most of the time they're like, no, I would never say that to you. So, and then I say, why would you say it to yourself? Be more rea
sonable and realistic with yourself. You are wanting this magical thing to happen when it's impossible and you are being too hard on yourself. And lastly, allow yourself flexibility. It's a learning process. You need to be sensitive. You got to allow yourself grace. So I gave this other question today to that same client, allowing herself grace. When was the last time you truly gave yourself grace and forgave yourself for a mistake? And what was that mistake? So that's another really good shadow
question to look at. Do you allow yourself to make mistakes? Do you give yourself grace and name that mistake and how you process it and how you could have done it different? So those are the things that I really helped people with today that I'm thinking, if you are being hard on yourself and you learn something new, or it's the old things that are coming up and you have unrealistic expectations of yourself, how are you treating yourself today? Because that will then translate into the rest of
the world and how they treat you. Thank you for listening to Secret Life podcast. I hope that helped. I'd love to know your thoughts on the subject this week. Or if you have something you want to talk about, please shoot it over to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time. >> Speaker B: Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe, rate, share or send me a note@secretlifepodcast.com. And if you'd like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a
copy for. >> Brianne: Yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon. Close.
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