Ep 95: Compassionate Unlearning

If you have never had a life coach before, you might think most of what I do is teach you new concepts to help you learn new ways of dealing with the inevitable ups and downs of life.

In the past 4 years of being a coach, I have found that what I am actually doing is helping you to become aware of patterns that may have served you well in the past, but that simply don’t make sense for you any longer.

I created the concept of “Compassionate Unlearning” because it’s important to change your mindset about unhelpful habits, and it’s equally important to be kind to yourself while you're on that journey.

The more we give ourselves compassion and grace as we try to unravel these old patterns, the more likely we are to create lasting change in our lives.

Click HERE to get the full show notes.

Transcript

Hey, this is Melissa Parsons, and you are listening to the Your Favorite You Podcast. I'm a certified life coach with an advanced certification in deep dive coaching. The purpose of this podcast is to help brilliant women like you with beautiful brains create the life you've been dreaming of with intentions. My goal is to help you find your favorite version of you by teaching you how to treat yourself as your own best friend.

If this sounds incredible to you and you want practical tips on changing up how you treat yourself, then you're in the right place. Just so you know, I'm a huge fan of using all of the words available to me in the English language, so please proceed with caution if young ears are around.

Hello everybody - Welcome back to Your Favorite You

Today I am sharing a concept I created called Compassionate Unlearning.

If you have never had a life coach before, you might think that the majority of the time we are working together as coach and client that I am teaching you new concepts and that you are learning new ways of dealing with the inevitable ups and downs of life.

In the past 4 years of being a coach, I have found that what I am actually doing is helping you to become aware of patterns that may have served you well in the past, and that typically made sense to abide by at some earlier point in your life, but that simply don’t make sense for you any longer. 

So much of what I am doing is helping you see and UNLEARN many of your older conscious and subconscious patterns that are keeping you stuck thinking and behaving in ways that no longer make sense for you. 

Once you see this pattern in yourself and consciously attempt to change your way of thinking, feeling, and behaving, you cannot UNSEE it - and you will start to see how these patterns play out in multiple areas of your life. 

As humans, without the benefit of coaching (that is, having another human who sees the best in us and wants to help us become aware of what we want, and wants to help us stay on track toward that end) –how we do one thing is typically how we do everything. 

Why do I call it compassionate unlearning? Again, without the benefit of a coach or a counselor or a mentor or a therapist - any guide, if you will - most of us have been socialized to be hard on ourselves when we see these things about how we are thinking and feeling and acting holding us back from our greatest good and intention. We believe that the harder we are on ourselves, the more likely we are to change.

Again, after receiving coaching for the past 6 years and being a coach myself for the past 4 years, in most cases the exact opposite is true. The kinder and gentler we are with ourselves… the more we give ourselves compassion and grace as we try to unravel these old patterns, the more likely we are to create lasting change in our lives. 

As your coach, I will help you see that nearly everything you have done in the past makes complete sense. As humans, we are wired for safety. Our motivational triad from our primitive brain wants us to always seek pleasure and comfort, avoid pain, and exert the least amount of effort possible. 

Before knowing about compassionate unlearning, most of the time we are going along in our daily lives, just trying to keep ourselves safe. 

As women, we are further socialized to be caretakers… (And of course men are caretakers too, but women are definitely the more socialized of the gender binary to be caretakers) So not only do we need to keep ourselves safe, but we need to keep everyone we care about safe, as well. 

We can have compassion for ourselves as we go through this process of unlearning. We can know that in the past we were doing the best that we could with the tools, resources, and support that we had at the time. We can have compassion for ourselves in the present as we learn this new way of being in the world. We are going to screw it up at least a time or two as we embark on this new path. We can have compassion for our future selves as she continues to figure this out and unravel all the old patterns as new and different situations come up. 

If we choose to, we can have compassion for the people who taught us these old patterns, either through express teaching or by the example that they were setting for us in the past. They likely were trying to keep themselves safe and they also were likely doing the best that they could with the tools, resources, and support that THEY had at the time. I am not suggesting that we condone any behavior that was or is physically or emotionally abusive. Understanding why someone acted in an abusive manner is not the same as condoning the behavior. It makes sense that these types of traumas are generational - and that normally only people who have been harmed themselves consciously or subconsciously seek to harm others. I can have compassion for my ancestors AND I can be the one who chooses deliberately not to continue to pass this down to the next generation of people. You don’t HAVE to take this step of having compassion for those who came before you, but many of my clients find this step particularly healing.

I have the ability to provide you with support, tools, and guidance as you embark upon compassionate unlearning. 

Here are some things that I have been able to unlearn - and that I have helped my clients to unlearn:

Perfectionism -we think we need to be perfect in order to stay safe, but it is actually much ‘safer’, in most cases, to allow yourself some grace and space to do things in a less than perfect way.

Control enthusiasm - we think we need to control other people in order to keep ourselves safe, when again, in most cases, allowing other humans, with their own sovereignty, to make their own choices and decisions is most safe for you and for them.

People pleasing - we think we need to live our lives for others, we think we need to pretzel ourselves and change our thoughts and beliefs to fit other people’s in order to keep ourselves safe, when in reality, they don’t get to have the realest version of us, which often keeps us safer than constantly having to be a chameleon.

Worrying about things that are out of our control - it’s pretending, remember - we think it keeps us safe to play out all of the worst case scenarios in our brains, while most of the time, all that does is leads us to living an overly anxious life.

Selflessness is held up as such a huge virtue for most of us - we think it keeps us safe because we have been taught that it is the way to be… but it is actually much safer to live our lives according to what we want, most of the time…

Beating yourself up for things you have done in your past - again this speaks to the compassionate part of compassionate unlearning - you definitely don’t learn any better by beating yourself up - this tends to keep you in a downward spiral instead of an upward one!

Not enoughness or too muchness! - many of us received this message early in life - we were either ‘not enough’ or we were ‘too much’ to handle - so we either become arrogant to make up for the not enoughness - or we belittle ourselves and make ourselves smaller in order to stay safe - we can unlearn this for sure, and stay safe as we try a new way of living!

Needing to be friends for life - somehow we have been socialized to think that once we are friends with someone, each of these people should be a friend for life - no. There are friends for life - you are lucky to have one, two, or a few of these - and there are friends for a reason or a season - you don’t have to have a big blowup with someone in order for you not to be friends anymore. So many of my clients come to me feeling so much shame about no longer being friends with certain people… there is no shame in having friends for a reason or a season and then moving on without needing to have a major reason for doing so…

Sexual shame -  I am often coaching my clients on either having too few or too many partners over the course of your lifetime. As long as you are both consenting and practicing safe sex, who cares about the number? Almost no one, I promise. Compassionate unlearning can help you if you are struggling with this, for sure.

Not leaving something or someone soon enough - or giving up ‘too soon’ - you very likely stayed for longer than you should have to keep yourself or someone else safe - and you very likely left as soon as shit got bad to keep yourself or someone you loved safe - again, we have been socialized to believe that there is a perfect time to do everything or ‘the worst’ time to do anything - simply not true… the more I can show people to have compassion for themselves and their past decision-making, the more I can show them there is no right or wrong decision… there is just the decision you made at the time… 

OK - I think that is enough examples for the time being… 

At this point, you might be wondering, what are the steps to compassionately unlearn something?

#1 Recognize that you are in a pattern that you don’t like or love and that you want to make a change

#2 Make sense of why the old pattern that you are trying to change served you well in the past

#3 Feel any of the feelings that need to be felt regarding past you and the decisions she made - maybe you want to feel sad, mad, furious, curious, understanding, concerned, regretful… You get the idea - Plug in any emotion there

#4 After you have felt all the other feelings, offer yourself compassion for doing the best you could with the tools, skills, and resources you had at the time

#5 Question how your favorite version of you might handle this today? How might she handle it in the future? 

#6 Go out and try that new way that you came up with

#7 If you are successful, celebrate this new pattern and this new version of you that you are creating

#8 If it doesn't work for whatever reason, evaluate- what DID work, what didn’t work, what would you do differently next time

#9 Again offer yourself compassion for trying and not succeeding - or trying and failing spectacularly

#10 When the old pattern comes up again, instead of getting mad at yourself, get curious… why do I think I ended up in this old pattern again? Get curious instead of furious! One reason might be that you have been doing it the old way for decades - it will likely take time to unlearn some things - some things you will get right away… it’s ok to offer yourself as much grace as possible as you unlearn the old way and practice the new way

#11 In light of that, offer yourself compassion again - repeat the whole process without making yourself ‘wrong’ for fucking it up

#12 As you unlearn things, resist the urge to tell yourself you are ‘back to square 1’ - you are never back to square one - you are always in an upward spiral if you allow yourself to see yourself that way! 

So, this is your introduction to compassionate unlearning. I promise I am going to have so much more to say on this subject in the future, so please stay tuned!

And if you have any questions or challenges for me, or if you’re like “Melissa, this makes no sense, I don’t see how this is gonna work,” I want to hear from you! So let me know.

Alright - See you next week, friends!

Hey. It's still me. If you're listening to this podcast you might have followed all the rules and ticked off all the boxes, but you still feel like something is missing. 

If you're ready to learn the skills and gain the tools you need to put yourself first –without guilt or apology–and treat yourself as your own best friend, I’m here to support you. 

As a certified life coach, I provide a safe space, compassionate guidance, and practical tools to help you navigate life's challenges and embrace your authentic self. 

In our coaching sessions, whether one-on-one or in a group setting, we’ll work together to develop a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. You’ll learn effective communication strategies, boundary setting techniques, and self-care practices that will help you cultivate a more loving and supportive relationship with yourself and others.

While, of course, I can’t guarantee specific outcomes as everyone's journey is unique, what I can promise is my unwavering commitment to providing you with the skills, tools, support and guidance you need to create lasting changes in your life. 

With more than a sprinkle of humor, and a lot of compassion, I’ll be available to mentor you as you do the work to become a favorite version of yourself.

If you're ready to invest in yourself and embark on this journey, head over to melissaparsonscoaching.com. Go to the Work with Me page and book a consultation call. We can chat about your challenges and how I can support you.

I am welcoming one-on-one coaching clients at this time, and I am also going to be offering the next round of group coaching starting in late August. 

Thanks for tuning in, and remember: You’re fucking amazing just as you are.