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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Bite-Sized Brilliance Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. April Darley, and I wanna know today, do you believe in happy ever after? I wish I could get your responses in real time because I'm so curious. I'm willing to bet that most of you are like, no happy ever after doesn't really exist, But yet there's a piece of us inside that really yearns for that, That childishly or optimistically believes, what if? What if that could be true? And that's the same piece of us that is looking for a hero to rescue us, something external to save us, the winning lottery ticket. It all ties into the, if I just had this. then I would feel that. So this is why the happily ever after concept can be [00:01:00] so interesting, but also so sabotaging.
This episode was actually inspired by another podcast, it was Denise Duffield Thomas, and she recently had a podcast episode where she is selling her rose farm. And if you follow her, or you don't know who she is. She's a money mindset mentor and creator of the money bootcamp. I'm not an affiliate, but I just wanted to share the inspiration for this episode.
And just to give you a little bit of background, she and her family, they purchased this rose farm. They spent a couple of million renovating it and owning it throughout the years. And she's recently decided to sell it. So the whole point of the episode was talking you through her mindset Why is she selling this goal, this wish, this dream, this thing that was going to be a legacy for her family?
It really got me thinking about how much weight do we give Happily Ever After and why? [00:02:00] So as you may know, if you're listening to me, I do something called the bespoke brain system. Unlike other practitioners, I don't just work with subconscious. When I do mindset work, I work with three levels of consciousness, the unconscious or survival, the subconscious or emotion and the conscious or logical.
When you work with these three brains together, you're going to understand that it's like having three people in your head, like an executive board in your head. And they all have their own reasons and their motivations for why they are advocating for a decision, but it is not your subconscious that's actually in charge.
It is your unconscious or your survival brain that will hijack the other two brains and take over because it's the security system. If you think about it, it's your brain's bodyguard and it can be overreactive. So if you've heard about an overreactive [00:03:00] nervous system, sympathetic nervous system, to try to control your nervous system, calm your nervous system down, what they're really telling you to do is to work with that survival brain All right, and your survival brain does this thing that's all or nothing. It's a cognitive distortion, which means it's a trick of your brain that there's no in between. There's either this or that, dark or light, right or wrong.
And if you have any kind of perfectionist tendency, then your brain's gonna double down on the threat assessment of that. Not only is there only two choices, right or wrong, good or bad, that only one of them is right for you. So it puts a lot of external pressure on you to do the Air quote, right thing, but when we have this all or nothing approach, it really kind of ties into this conditioning that you may have heard or been exposed to is you make your bed and now you have to lie in it, [00:04:00] meaning once you make a choice, it's irreversible. You're stuck with it. And the fear of that, the subconscious fear, that loss of freedom, is feeding that data down to your unconscious, to the security team. And the security team is reacting to the thought and the feeling that you are about to lose freedom. Then this feeling of all or nothing, Once I choose, I'll be irreversibly locked into a course.
I'll be stuck. It's enough to shut you down, because that security team, that survival brain, will fight, flight, freeze. And it shuts some people down. The pressure to choose and choose correctly, and that you could only choose one time. is so painful, that this is why some people end up in a procrastination state.
Or they're overwhelmed, or they get stuck in [00:05:00] analysis paralysis. , one thing you want to be aware of, is that there are very few choices in life that are irreversible. Right? Very few. There are a few. but mostly, if we make a choice, we can walk it back at some point. And it's only your emotions or your subconscious that is making you feel like a failure if it didn't work out or stuck when you choose.
But the reality is, ultimate freedom, which is what you want, is about being flexible. And just because you spend a lot of time working toward a goal, Doesn't mean that that's the only thing you can have for the rest of your life. Just like Denise Duffield Thomas in this episode realized, if you reach a goal at one point, you've got the goal, but maintaining the goal has become more painful than it is pleasurable.
You're allowed to let [00:06:00] the thing go. You're allowed to quit the job, sell the farm, move on, vacation in another area, whatever it is for you. But if something in your life is no longer bringing you pleasure, then you have another choice to make. Just because you spent a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy pouring into that goal, you might be in a different chapter of your life where the person who set the goal is not the person who's living the goal.
And it's okay to pivot. To choose another path or to just walk away entirely. None of that's a failure and none of that is wrong. So happily ever after, your logical brain knows that that is mostly a myth. Your emotional brain has this idealism that you want it to be true so bad and your survival brain would also like it to be true.
To be safe and comfortable forever, that just sounds yummy. We want to try to [00:07:00] think about what this is bringing up in our life. What kind of pattern are you seeing? What kind of sabotage are you seeing with this unconscious, subconscious belief of happily ever after? One Way in Business I've occasionally had the client mention to me, when they're confused about their life purpose, that if they choose the right thing, if they choose the thing for work that makes them the happiest, then they'll never work a day in their lives.
But that is terrible advice. I mean, that's a terrible saying. I've had to coach many a client out of it. It's another example of how that sounds beautiful. It sounds a very happily ever after, but in reality, you could hit this point that the pain of it is greater than your pleasure. And if you've ever monetized a hobby, then suddenly you may hit this point where all the day [00:08:00] to day activities of running the business takes you out of this creative space where suddenly you're not having fun anymore. And that's exactly what happened to Denise Duffield Thomas in this Rose Farm. Is that the day to day running of it was sucking away her joy, her pleasure, her creativity.
And then suddenly she hit that point where pain has overwhelmed her pleasure. And then she had to make a hard choice to walk away and sell. Some people do that with their businesses. They tried to monetize their hobby because they loved doing the hobby so much. But, the day to day sucked the joy and the creativity.
So, I have a podcast episode about this, but it is about your why. Understanding your why. Because not every idea you have, if you're a really creative person, should be monetized. Or it's in your best interest to be monetized. Because you want to leave yourself these pockets of joy. And [00:09:00] if you don't, where's your refuge? Not everything in your life is meant to sustain you for business or money. Some things are for pleasure, some things are for business. And it's up to you to determine when, where, and how much, or if, those things ever mix at all. Is happily ever after, myth or reality?
I think that we can have happy for a while and happiness is an inside job just like safety and you want to really get honest with yourself what would make you happy and to also be realistic that we're not stuck in that old paradigm of once you make a choice you've made your bed and now you have to lie in it.
That's not real. That's just emotional programming that someone else gave you, and you are free to reject that programming. You are free to make a goal, refine a goal, leave a goal, and so [00:10:00] on. This is your life, so what do you want to do with it? What kind of impact do you want to make in the world? And that will really depend on what chapter in your life that you're in right now. Sometimes a goal sounds so amazing on paper, and then you realize in the pursuit of that goal, that you don't really like the work of getting there, and it's okay to reevaluate that goal and go, you know, I'm just not in the place where I even want this thing anymore. Then to find that inner peace that it's okay.
That's an okay decision. No decision is forever. You're free to choose because that's what you really want. It's freedom. You want the freedom and the happiness to pursue things that do make you happy. And when it comes to happily ever after, if you notice, if you're into fairy tales, that's where the story ends.
They don't come [00:11:00] back and do an epilogue, like, five years later and show you what Cinderella's life was like after she became the queen. And maybe it would have shown us that the day to day living of being a queen was very boring. And she might wish that she had some adventure and excitement again. We don't know.
That's kind of how human life works. But for some reason, we think that we're able to achieve this fantasy. and sustain it. But in reality, we can have chapters of Happily Ever After, but life doesn't stop lifing just because we achieved a goal or got what we wanted. Because one of the major themes of life is change and growth.
So I really want to impress upon you that it's okay to change. It's okay to grow. It's okay to completely walk away from something you've outgrown [00:12:00] without guilt, without shame, without fear, without embarrassment, because we have all done it. But if you are struggling with any of those emotions, fear, guilt, shame, embarrassment, and you're seeking a change in your life, but you're caught up in this swirl of, what will people think?
I'm afraid of what my life will be like. I don't know what's next, Then I do this process with my clients that simplifes, stabilize, strategize. So we're going to look at these decisions or these areas of your life that's causing this churn and this swirl and then we're going to help you do just that.
Simplify, stabilize your emotions, and then strategize on getting you where you want to be, that's the closest, truest, most authentic expression of yourself. If you'd like to find out more about how to simplify, stabilize, and strategize your next steps, then please set [00:13:00] up a free consultation call with me, and learn how the Bespoke Brain System is going to take you through these different levels of your mind.
And to show you why you're feeling something, why you're sabotaging things in some way, why certain things just feel hard, and how we can get you as close as we can to the next happily ever after chapter of your life. You can set up that call over at aprildarley. com and I hope to hear from you soon.
Have a great week my friends. Goodbye.
