138: Hidden Vulnerabilities

It’s become pervasive in our modern culture to feel like we’re not good enough. We’re constantly questioning our abilities and second-guessing our value. The four concepts at the core are self-confidence, self-worth, self-care, and self-love. Sundae delivers an insecurity reality check with her fun, nostalgic analogy about all the surprising things revealed under a black light.

The post 138: Hidden Vulnerabilities appeared first on Sundae Schneider-Bean, LLC..

Can you hear it? The crackle and buzz of electricity flowing through its fluorescent tube. That’s my black light, and I’m putting you under it.

But unlike those black lights from your college party days, I’m not looking for glowing teeth, lint, and unrinsed detergent marks. I’m using it to uncover hidden insecurities, just like I do in my private coaching sessions.

I’m privileged to work with successful leaders, exemplary parents, humanitarians, innovators, and intellectuals. Regardless of competency or markers of success, like you and me, they all have hidden vulnerabilities holding them back from living life with more purpose. (And lint on their clothes.)

This hidden but present never “good enough” sabotages even the best of intentions. It’s time we shed a new light on our falsely fragilized self-confidence.

Get ready, because we’re about to make what’s unseen phosphorescent, and pick it off, so you can finally stand in your value.

What You’ll Discover in this Episode:

The 4 concepts hiding at the core of your gnawing self-doubt
How to break down vulnerability through 3 statements
The insecurity-dissolving power of reframing
The power of taking inventory and catching up to the evidence
And much more!

Let’s get back to basics and start rebuilding your belief in yourself.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

Year of Transformation – Sundae’s proven program to take back control of your life, including a tailor-made 52-week coaching plan, 20 one-to-one sessions, and access to her BRAND NEW MASTERMIND!
Sundae’s battle cry for being more on purpose: Expats on Purpose Manifesto
Facebook Business Page – Sundae Schneider-Bean LLC
Facebook Group – Expats on Purpose

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Full Episode Transcript:

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Hello, it is 10am in New York, 4pm in Johannesburg and 9pm in Bangkok.  Welcome to the Expat Happy Hour. This is Sundae Schneider-Bean from www.sundaebean.com. I’m a solution oriented coach and intercultural strategist for individuals and organizations and I am on a mission to help you adapt and succeed when living abroad and get you through any life transition.

Okay, admit it, who remembers black lights from college parties?

I’m totally outing myself here, but if you were around college parties in my era there were some where you would go, and they would have black lights and that’s cool because everything looks different. Sheds light on things in a new way, you see it in a different color and it’s fun. But the thing about black lights is it also reveals things you didn’t even know we’re there, and I remember on my jeans you would see where I had thrown in the detergent, so it would be like this blob or drips that would be going down, and I kind of was like, “Oh my God, I had no idea that was there.” Or if you remember it, sorry if I’m the only one who went to these good parties, but get to know me, or if you were at these parties and you saw all the lint that was suddenly visible, it’s been there the whole time but we didn’t see it.

That is what I’m going to talk about today on Expat Happy Hour. When we’re looking at purpose, I’m going to flash open the black light on what I see in my coaching sessions. Especially with my clients who are doing the Year of Transformation, we’re working on going from getting unstuck and standing on the sidelines of your life to truly living with more purpose and meaning, prioritizing yourself and taking action on the things that are most important to you. 

So today’s episode of Expat Happy Hour looks at four aspects, brightly under the black light. This is all part of our four part series called the expat quicksand where we look at connection, getting unstuck, purpose and direction and this episode rounds out our focus on purpose.

If you’ve missed it and want to catch up go to Episode 127 where we started talking about expat quicksand, Episodes, 128 and 129 or about reconnection with yourself and others 130 to 133 is how to get unstuck and since 134 and through today 138, we are focusing on purpose. If you are addicted to these topics like I am you can go back to my episodes that took place in the 70s and 80s of Expat Happy Hour for more. You’ve got to go directly to my website https://sundaebean.com/expat-happy-hour/ to find those.

Stay tuned because our next episode we’ll begin our fourth part of the series on direction. 

Okay, so we’re going to dive in, into purpose and today is truly a deep dive and I want to share with you four simple things in a new way, so you can look at purpose under the black light. 

We’re going to start with a simple concept, the concept is simply self-confidence. And as I said, just like going to this party, where I don’t know what I’m going to see, self-confidence is one of those things that my people come to like lint on their shirt, that they don’t know is there but as we throw on the light, we suddenly see that there’s something going on with self-confidence.

Let me say more, when we look at self-confidence, I’m going to break it down, all of the things I talked about today, I’m going to break it down into three statements. 

I am, I have, I deserve.

And I want you to listen today, to think whether you can say these with your whole heart and body, because if not maybe it’s going to bring something to your attention using the black light that you didn’t know was there.

So self-confidence by definition, at least how I see it is; I am capable, I have skills, I have capabilities and I deserve a chance to demonstrate them. 

So the clients that I work with are people you would think are confident. I mean some of them are award-winning leaders, some of them are leaders of amazing organizations, others are just fantastic parents or people who are serving their community. Everyone from the outside would think that they are completely self-confident, but when you shine the black light of a coaching situation and you dive deep into what’s holding you back, like the lint or the detergent that shows up on my jeans under a black light, there’s a surprise. 

So listen for yourself, when you think about yourself, can you stand strong and say without wavering internally, “I am capable,  I have skills, I deserve a chance to demonstrate them.”

What’s funny what happens is people who think they’re confident in something end up discovering that they’re less confident than they thought, and when we stumble on that in coaching, I make them come back to the reality of what their real skills are. And one of my clients I can think of was doubting her skills as a designer and as we dug in, I found out she actually won first place in a design school for her work. Another client of mine was doubting her language abilities, after we have to off the call, she took an assessment and scored at proficiency level. It is crazy, self-confidence is like that detergent on my jeans where I’m like “What I didn’t know I was struggling with self-confidence?” But once you throw that black light on it, I see it. 

This is something I see every day with my clients and I’ll tell you the truth, I discover these things in my own life, when I’m working with my coach, shit comes up I didn’t know it was even there, and I’m like, “I thought I resolved this?” And it will come back. So I want you to know that you’re not alone, if this issue of self-confidence is hiding from you. Because we all have moments or areas of our life or we start to doubt, and the reality is we have the evidence to suggest to be confident, but our bodies haven’t caught up with reality. Okay, and that’s why I send my clients off an assignment to say “Oh it’s true? You’re not good enough at that language? Well go take an assessment and see what your results are.” “So it’s not true that you’re a good designer? Okay, tell me evidence of what would suggest you are?” “Whoops we found you won an award.” When you put yourself to the test your body then catches up with reality. 

So self-confidence as I define it, is the acceptance of your capabilities. Notice that it’s not getting better at what you already like to do, it’s accepting your capabilities.

I work with a lot of top performers, I work with a lot of successful individuals and people who are successful that society might not recognize, but when we look at the reality of their life, we realize just how successful they are. So self-confidence is the acceptance of your capabilities.

So my challenge to you is to say, “I am capable, I have skills and I deserve a chance to demonstrate them.” And if you’re wavering, your assignment is to list your skills and what reality is, what evidence is there to suggest that you are capable. I guarantee you it will surprise you, like the black light reveals surprises.

So that self-confidence, but that’s the easy one folks. We’re going to move on to the next one, and this one is self-worth. Now not one of my clients has ever approached me and use the word self-worth. I’ve never had someone say it, I’ve never had someone contact me to build it. But guess what? It is like the inevitable lint on everybody’s t-shirts at this black light party. I see that all the time, people struggling with so forth, it’s the conclusion I came to after over a decade of coaching, not what people say in coaching or what they need or when they want to work together. 

But I’m going to tell you about it more, and I want you to see it from this perspective. Self-worth if we look at the statements, I am, I have, I deserve, it’s making the statement “I am valuable.” or even better “I am enough.” 

Can you say with your whole heart and body? “I am enough, I have value, I deserve respect.”

I discover through coaching with my individuals that when someone is being disrespected in a relationship by their partner, by their employer, by their team or by their kids even. When they struggle with feeling not good enough, when they don’t see the value that they bring to their family, to their organization, to the relationship, then Bingo we’re looking at issues of self-worth. They are so deep, they run so deep, in fact in coach training years and years and years and years ago, I remember talking with one of the master coaches about this prevalence of self-worth and she basically said “Well if you boil it down every issue is about self-worth, so stop talking about self-worth and start addressing the issue that’s from it because you can’t talk about self-worth every session.” I want you to know, if you’re struggling with standing behind the statement with your whole heart and body “I am enough, I have value and I deserve respect.” 

You Are Not Alone.

Self-worth is about the acceptance of your inherent value, and if you remember from one of my previous episodes, we talked to Melanie and how she struggled with valuing herself. And her choice was to chase money to feel like she was valued, that for her to value herself. 

You are not alone if you’re struggling with self-worth. 

But I think it’s important to just name it, to put it out there and to know you’re not alone. This is not a secret, because I see it over and over and over again and I want to stop the crap that people think that everybody else is okay and you’re the only one who’s struggling or that you hide crap from yourself, because you don’t see indicators from other people that they’re dealing with it. That’s where it stops right now, that’s why I’m talking about it. 

This is pervasive in our culture; I don’t know why we all walk around thinking we’re not good enough. It is ridiculous, ridiculous. I see this even more pronounced in the women that I work with, I’m not saying the men don’t feel this, I just see it more pronounced in the women that I work with. And it is epidemic, it is sick, if we struggle with accepting our inherent value, and you’re going to hear about this probably in several podcasts because it’s affected me so deeply, but I just lost one of my dear friends to a horrible brain cancer, and in her last days we talked about her journey and what she’s learned from battling cancer for years. And I tell you what, accepting your inherent value is one of them and that is why it’s so important and that’s why I am bringing it up to you today because I don’t want you to come to the end of your life and have to battle that with whatever else you’re battling. 

I want you to work on accepting yourself and your value now so that you can have a positive impact on others, because this is how it’s connected to purpose. When we are feeling self-confident and when we are accepting our self-worth, we have got access to so much more energy and focus to serve, to create what is important to us and to serve others, that is important.

Okay, the next one is self-care and I want you to put in bubbles in your head, self-confidence is in one little bubble, self-worth is in the other, next is self-care.

self-care is simply when we look at; “I am, I have, and I deserve.” I Define it like this self-care, “I am taking care of myself.” But it’s more specific than that, “I am taking care of my mind, body and spirit, I have practices in place to take care of myself, I deserve care.” 

Okay, this one I can share my own example. I’ve been transparent on Expat Happy Hour about my own journey to take better care of myself. And I’ll tell you what, I remember journaling 10, 15, maybe even 20 years ago, where the, I am statement, I’m taking care of myself, it was only taking care of my mind. I’m a nerdy academic, I love to learn, I love science, I love social sciences, I love communication, I just love learning and starving for new growth and development. 

So I am really taking care of my mind and it was like I lived from my chin up, because I ignored my body. “Oh, I have got that thing to write that paper to write, I’ll just stay up later, who cares if I’m tired, I’ll just drink coffee, I’ll just have a chocolate muffin at 1:00 in the morning so I can correct these University papers until three in the morning and then I’ll get up at 6:00 so I can teach at seven.” This is an example of someone taking care of her mind but not her body, that was me, that was me late 20s early 30s.

Are you taking care of your mind, your body and your spirit? Do a quick inventory for yourself.

My clients who are struggling with self-care might not even know that they’re not taking care of themselves until they start. And it’s really connected to the I have statement, “I have practices in place to take care of myself.” I didn’t even need a practice for my mind because I’m so starving for learning and development and new things, I take care of that just inherently. But practices to take care of my body, I’ve worked for years to develop that. And I’ve admitted this before, the beginning when I thought I was taking care of myself is I basically just stopped abusing my body. 

But really taking care of my body has only truly happened in the last couple years, where it wasn’t like the token take care but deep true prioritizing my body and naturally then comes your spirit. 

I do personally want to work more on my practices to take care of my spirit and that might be just five minutes of quiet, it might be more journaling, it might be more spiritual practices. I know where I can up level how I take care of myself.

And here’s where a lot of people get stuck and you can see how these things are connected. It’s that I deserve, I deserve care.

If you’re like most people that I work with you’re probably worried of taking care of yourself because you don’t want to be selfish. But the problem is you’re so selfless that you meet everybody else’s needs and there’s no time or energy left to take care of yourself. You are the furthest thing away from selfish. And if you are selfish, there’s no judgment. I have podcasts how I can talk about bringing you more to center to take care of your needs, but also meet other’s needs. But most of the people that listen to Expat Happy Hour are so selfless that they forget themselves. Prioritizing them to say, “You know what I deserve care, so I am going to take care of my mind body and spirit.” 

And guess what? Everybody else benefits when you do.

So self-care is not the acceptance of anything, it is the daily practice of taking care of yourself, your mind, your body and spirit. 

So I want to ask you right now, I’m shedding the black light right now on the detergent on your jeans and the lint and your teeth, whatever is shining up on this black light. I want you to get really honest with yourself, are you taking care of your mind, your body and your spirit? And if the answer is no to any one of those, what is one small daily practice you can start to start taking care.

That’s self-care.

All right, you guys, you can tell I’m on fire about this because these are so fundamental, and I want you to see them. I want you to see them in yourself so that you can live with more purpose, stand in your value and your confidence and your self-worth and your care of yourself, so that you can go forward with more purpose in your life for the ones you love and for the things that are most important to you.

The fourth one is self-love. 

Self-love, remember I am, I have I deserve. Self-love as I’m defining it is “I am loving myself.” And notice it’s not “I love myself.” “I am loving myself.” It is active.

“I have an appreciation of my own value, I have practices in place because I love myself.”

“I have practices in place because I love myself, I have an appreciation of my own value and I deserve to be happy and have well-being.” 

Self-love is a practice.

I used to think it was like a result, but it’s actually a practice of choosing ways to appreciate your value and to practice caring for yourself, to loving for yourself. 

It is the daily practice of self-worth.

So you get to self-love by having practices which remind you that you’re enough, which remind you of your value, which remind you and teach yourself and others that you deserve respect.

That’s what self-love is, it’s “I am loving myself, I have an appreciation of my own value, I have practices in place because I love myself and I deserve to be happy.” 

It’s not selfish, “I deserve to be happy, I deserve to have well-being.” And this is where people get tripped up on self-care. 

Do you see how they’re so connected? Essentially self-love is, if you nurture your self-confidence by looking at reality and valuing your skills. If you are practicing self-worth by acknowledging your value and respecting yourself and demanding that others respect you. And if you practice self-care, self-love emerges.

That’s my philosophy. 

It’s not looking in the mirror and going “I love myself, I’m good enough, I’m strong enough and gosh darn it, people like me.” So quote some Saturday Night Live skit I used to watch in the 80s.

Self-love emerges when you practice those other three things that we started talking about. That has been my biggest “aha” moment, and you want to know how I came to that? I came to that by living it, I came to that by nurturing my clients so they live it and it’s like the biggest “aha” moment at the end. Like “What do you know, guess what happens if I do these things over and over?”

Self-love, the daily practice of self-worth, actively loving yourself and appreciating your own value and having practices in place so you’re happy and have wellbeing.

So there you have it, that’s my deep dive today.

It’s not as much fun as a frat party with a black light, I admit that, but you know what, it is so deeply important. And I share this with you because I know where you’re at right now, you’re listening and you’ve got chills up your arm, and you’re like “Crap, I’m not there yet.” If you’re honest with yourself, you’re like “My self-confidence waivers, I struggle to stand my self-worth and I’m doing a half-assed job at self-care, self-love feels kind of far away.”

I’m sharing this with you because I want you to know you’re not alone and I want you to know that this is a starting point and on the other side of that when you’re able to develop these practices, you can stand in self-confidence and self-worth and create excellent practices to take care of you. And this is what I’m on fire about and this is what I do with my clients, because this is all what is happening behind the scenes.

I don’t even talk about these things with these words with my clients. If you’re one of my clients, you’re going to be like, “Oh Sundae interesting.” Because we haven’t really talked about it like this before. I just shared this for the first time in my Facebook group Expats on Purpose. I guarantee you that my clients are going to be in there going “Oh, yeah this resonates, we haven’t talked about this yet in those words.” This is what’s happening as I support others, I see the lint before they see the lint, I see the detergent before they see the detergent. And over time these things become clearer and this is exactly the deep stuff that we work on to get off of the sidelines of your life.

You can hear more about it, for example on Episode 86: Get Off The Sidelines Of Your Life: Secrets From Three Real Life Cases. You can hear about the benefits from doing this work, and actually it’s not as hard as it seems, we have a ton of fun and it gets light and playful and silly and we do hard work. But at the end all of these things start to emerge if you stick with a practice. So check out Episode 86 if you want to hear about how my clients are able to work with these and start living with more purpose. Because these four ideas that I just shared our core themes that run through it all, whether it’s explicit or not. 

So if anything resonated, you know you’re not alone.

And if you’re hungry for more, I invite you to join me in my upcoming webinar just around the corner. It is: Hungry for More Purpose and Meaning – five practical ways to get you started. It’s a purpose detector, so you can find more purpose and meaning in your own life.

Don’t underestimate the power of this free workshop that I’m doing, because one of my participants jumped in on the group and she said, so sweet, she said I’m quoting her “Just want to say that you’ve saved me, I’ve spent the last two years feeling lost then I watched the first two of your summer workshop series and I felt better in the past two days than I have in two years.” So don’t underestimate the power of what can happen when you just pop into one of my free workshops and check it out. I’d love to see you there.

So today’s been a deep dive, I’ve blasted the black light on some things that are always there but not always seen. And it’s a big day for me because these are the days where someone will listen and have a shift, and you’re like “I got it now I know where to work.” But there’s other people out there who are listening, and they are thinking “You know what Sundae. I get it, I see this, I see myself, but if it were so easy, I would have figured this out by now?” I totally get it and that’s why I’m here to help you figure it out. 

So today is one of my favorite days of the year, I am announcing something that’s coming out once a year. The whole reason I’ve shared these big four areas that I work with, my clients, is I want you to know that you can take action. And I’m pointing my finger at my desk and I’m pounding on it because I’m so serious that you take action and show up in your life with purpose and meaning and get things back on track just like my clients do. 

It’s time to get off the sidelines of your life. 

And I know that after nearly 10 years, over 10 years of working with expats, that a sense of purpose is critical in the face of the ups and downs that you face in your International life.

So this week is exciting for me because this is the week where I open up once a year the opportunity to work with me. You and I in-depth on purpose making a life upgrade, getting clear on your sense of direction. Everything I’ve been talking about since June with the expect quicksand, we hammer on.

So as a thank you for being a faithful listener of Expat Happy Hour, being part of the sundaebean.com community; you are the first to learn about your transformation. As the doors are opening, Year of Transformation is this high-touch personalized coaching experience, which is designed to take you from feeling stuck, maybe happy but unsatisfied, to really living in the center of your life with purpose and meaning. To feeling back in control of your life and spending your time and energy in ways that are meaningful.

To get early access you can head on over to https://sundaebean.lpages.co/year-of-transformation/ right now. Check it out and applying does not oblige you to commit

For those of you who apply you’ll be invited for 30 minute coaching session with me where you can share where you’re stuck and learn more about Year of Transformation. Because it’s time to get off the sidelines of your life and start living a more purposeful, meaningful life and Year of Transformation will get you there.

You’ve been listening to Expat Happy Hour with Sundae Bean. Thank you for listening. 

We know that those with a strong sense of purpose thrive, live longer or happier and even have better sex. Lack of purpose or not taking action, that purpose can be a threat to your health, happiness and relationships. It is time to get serious about your life. 

So contact me about your transformations, we can hop on the phone and you can learn now and how you can take back control of your life, boost your happiness and finally find your thing.

I’ll leave you with the thoughts of Will Durant as he reflects on the work of Aristotle. “We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act but a habit.”

So you and I together in Year of Transformation creating new habits, so you can show up for yourself in excellent ways and do the same for others.

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The post 138: Hidden Vulnerabilities appeared first on Sundae Schneider-Bean, LLC..