Episode #21: You're Stronger Than This

Not gonna lie! This week was rough. Nothing crazy terrible happened but you wouldn’t know that by the drama happening in my head!

Today I’m sharing my experiences along with the victim story that my brain was creating to demonstrate that you really DO have so much power over your life than you think! There’s no point in making things worse by creating EXTRA drama in our own mind.

If you need to break up with your own Inner Drama Queen or Victim Story, this is the episode for you! Tune in now.

In This Episode:

Find out how Mercury Retrograde has been going for me
Listen in on how I pulled myself out of having a little pity party
Get inspired to remember YOUR power even in sh*t situations
Much more!

Listen Here:

You’re Stronger Than This | Episode #21 Transcript

Hello, Gorgeous and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. It’s your girl, Jenn. I’m oh so excited to be here with you today. We have technical difficulties over the last week. But that leads me into what today’s episode is going to be about.

Today we are talking about how to just let things go, to not let your mind make a big drama about things, and to just remind yourself of your overall power in any given situation. So I will tell you the story now of how my last week or so has gone, which is kind of funny, honestly. You know I’m an astrology girl, but even so, sometimes I’m like, “Oh, Mercury Retrograde doesn’t mean that much to me, but I’m telling you this time, whether it’s Mercury Retrograde or the Eclipse season, I don’t know, but shit has been hitting the fan over here, and I’m going to explain all of that and turn that into a little lesson for you. Because it’s been a big lesson for me, quite frankly.

Okay, so last week we started off, I think it was Friday morning, I woke up, and I have this new website, which is where I’m hosting this very podcast, and I went to log in, and it was just gone. And I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what is happening?” And then I looked at my email, and I realized that my hosting company had sent me an email saying, “Oh, we have processed your refund.” And my first thought is like, “Okay, but I didn’t ask you for a refund.” So it was really crappy timing though, of course, because it was already Easter weekend, by the time I was speaking to somebody about this, so over the weekend I’d had a few conversations with the people at Bluehost, and I still have no idea how this happened, and they can’t explain it to me, but the situation got rectified, but it did take a few days. So my whole website was down, and I was spending time in customer service, talking to these people. And I feel bad for the people in the customer service area, because they clearly don’t really know what happened. No one can give me an explanation as to how this happened. They’re very apologetic, and they’re trying to fix it, but as of now, it is still not 100% fixed. The website is up, but there’s some back-end stuff that didn’t happen, so that is an ongoing situation. So that was already stressing me out, and like, honestly, I have multiple websites, and if that had happened to my aligned life website, I would have really been upset.

So this is just the newer website, and we’re just starting out, so there’s not that much traffic, so it’s like, “Okay, in the grander scheme of things, if it goes down for a few days, it’s not going to matter that much.” But I have literally hundreds of people visiting my other site, so I want to make sure that it is up and running, and this whole situation has made me really question my hosting provider in the first place, although that’s not what the lesson was about. Okay, so we have that. We have that situation where I woke up to a refund apparently a website down, and I had to spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what was going on, and again, we still don’t really know, but we are making progress on that one. So I was already kind of laughing about it because Mercury, retrograde is known for techno-logical problems, and this is very much a tech problem. A tech problem that no one can explain, and that always makes me feel uneasy because if you can’t explain how it happened, how are you going to tell me you’re going to prevent it from happening in the future, right?

So that was problem number one. Like I said, still ongoing. Problem number two happened yesterday morning. I woke up really early, actually, it was my cat that woke me up. She meows at me when her little heat of blanket turns off because she wants me to turn it back on. And when I rolled over to turn on the blanket, the light came on and then it turned off. And then I tried again, the light came on and it turned off. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I guess the blanket is broken. So then I rolled over and bad and tried to turn the light on because I thought, okay, this is broken. I have to go get the other one. And the light turned on and then it turned off. And then I’m like, oh no, and then I tried my other light and that wouldn’t even turn on at all. At that point, I realized that the power in my flat was out. And because this was like five or five, 30 in the morning, I told myself, I’m just going to go back to sleep and deal with this in a few hours. But of course, I couldn’t actually fall asleep.

So basically, I leave there for like an hour and a half. And then I finally got up. And because I couldn’t have electricity, I had to go out, I had to go get cash, I had to go buy myself a coffee, come back, try to deal with this. And I won’t go into the whole long details of the story. But it turns out it was an issue in the apartment building. But when we were contacting the apartment building at first, they were not dealing with it. So I ended up having no electricity for like almost 12 hours, which is really not fun. One of the things about living abroad is that my, my German is still not good. It is definitely not good enough to have a phone call about something technical, like electricity being out. So I was trying to call people and it was frustrating. And it’s just another layer of stress on top of something, right? Like in North America, this would be stressful, but I could communicate properly here. I’ve created my own communication issue. So there’s that level of stress.

And then there’s also the level of stress that like here, there’s no customer service, basically in Germany. Like they are not going to try to take responsibility for your problem. They’re going to tell you is your problem. And that is exactly what happened until a certain point. They finally realized it was not our problem. It was up to the building to fix. And we got it resolved. Because yesterday was Wednesday. That is usually the day I do my wisdom Wednesday on my Instagram, which if you don’t know, I do a tarot card reading on there. So I didn’t do that because I had no lights. And anyway, we just ended up spending the whole day basically trying to do work, but mostly answering the door, talking to my neighbors and dealing with electricians and that kind of thing.

So I have to tell you yesterday when the power first went out, I was on the edge. I was on the edge. And as you can tell, I’ve had a kind of stressful week, but I was on the edge and I was feeling myself emotionally go over the edge. Like I really, really wanted to give into like having a little mini B. I wanted to have the little breakdown. I wanted to cry. I wanted to rage. I wanted to feel hopeless and helpless. And I kept pulling myself out of this. And that is the part that I want to talk about today. When things go, quote, unquote, wrong, there is so much drama that happens inside of your mind. Like part of my mind is telling myself it is still is this should not be happening.

So when my website went down, like, this should not be happening. What like, what is this? What is the purpose of this? Like, what is what is going on? And the same thing was happening when my power went out. Like, why is this happening to me? Like, this should not be a problem. Why is this happening to me? And when I ask that question, why is this happening to me? It’s really a disempowering question because there is no answer to that question that is going to make you feel good. It is so important to understand that your brain really wants to freak out. Like we live in a high drama society.

We turn on the TV, we watch people fighting and screaming and, you know, the reality TV is largely based on this stuff. And everything that we watch, even though you think that’s just a TV show, you are taking it in. And your brain is kind of looking at that is like, this is how I should behave.

So we idolize drama in a way. And I really don’t think that serves us because situations like this come up and it’s like, oh my god, it’s the end of the world, even though it still wasn’t, right? So I found myself in this place of like really wanting to go to that story of, oh my god, like, this shouldn’t be happening. Why do I have to deal with this? blah blah blah blah blah. And the one thing that I kept coming back to and telling myself that really, really helped, especially yesterday, was, I guess, two things. This is not a big deal. I had to keep reminding myself, this is not a big deal.

And really, it isn’t, right? The power is out and that kind of sucks. And I was making plans in my mind for what I was going to do in the evening if I had to stay or with no power. But even if I had to spend one night without power in my house, like, I would have been worried for the food in my refrigerator and all of that, but it would not be the end of the world. It would be like camping for one day, but camping in your own place. And it’s not winter. And it would have been uncomfortable, but it would have been fine, right?

But I still have this story playing out my mind, like, I cannot lose power. Like, this should not be happening. And just really resisting what the situation was. So when you are resisting what the situation is, you were giving your power away because you were automatically putting yourself in that place of this should not be happening to me. It is happening to me. And I’m helpless to do anything about it. And poor me, basically, victim storyline. And when you were feeling like a victim in life around anything, you are going to feel worse because you’ve forgotten your own power. One of the things that makes the drives people towards depression is feeling helpless. When we feel like there is nothing we can do to change our situation, that makes us give up. It makes you have that really inward, downward feeling. And it is a really depressing place to be.

Yet, the victim mentality is something that we all tend to latch on to. Like I said, we love drama, we love watching. I mean, I personally watch the Real Housewives, but like any kind of reality show, we see so many victim storylines. We see so many poor me. Why do you do this? Why is he acting this way? Why is this happening to me? We see this all the time. So no wonder that if we spend too much time in that state of being, we start to feel a little bit powerless. We start to feel like we don’t have control over our own life. And that in turn makes us feel depressed.

So turning that on to my own situation, it’s not that I could change the circumstances by changing my thoughts. It’s not that I could be like, okay, this isn’t happening when it actually was, but it’s reminding myself that this thing is not a big deal. It is not the end of the world. This is just a minor bump in the road. And like six months from now, even a month from now, I’m not going to remember these 10, 12 hours that I was without power.

I’m not going to remember those couple of days that I was without my website. These are tiny little dots in the road. They’re like not even anything. And I’m letting my brain take me to the bad place. I’m letting my brain take me to the drama. I’m letting my brain take me to the victim story. I’m letting myself give my own power away to the situation. It’s like I’m saying, I cannot be happy because this thing is happening to me. But guess what, my friend, if that is your story, if you have to live in a perfect existence before you let yourself be happy, then guess what happens.

You never get to be happy. Happiness in so many ways is a decision. And I’m not going to tell you, I was really happy yesterday because I wasn’t, but I was making a step towards the happy place, bringing back my power, reminding myself, this is not the end of the world. This one situation with the website or with the power in my flat, this is not the end. This is not going to get me down.

This will not be the end of my story, even though at the moment in my brain, that is very much what part of my brain wanted to believe. Like I cannot be happy because my website got taken down. I cannot be happy because my power went out. And I know the zoomed out on the outside, it looks like, well, that’s just stupid and dramatic.

But when you were in the middle of it, when it is happening to you, and it’s all unexpected and you had no idea that these were problems you’re going to deal with this week, your brain can really be convincing. It can really make you feel like, no, there’s no possible way, I can be happy today because this is happening to me, right? This is happening to me. Therefore, I have to be angry and upset and resisted. Instead of being like, okay, this is happening, this isn’t fun, but I am strong. In the end, I am stronger than this. In the end, I’m going to be here when the power comes back on and my website comes back up. In the end, these things are going to be minor, minor events. So I just kept coming back to that thought, like this is not that big of a deal.

I am stronger than this. This is not the do all and be all in my story because, oh my god, of course, it is not. I’ve been through so much worse than this. But when you were in that state of feeling down, if you’re feeling like the world is attacking, if you’re feeling like this is just one more thing added to the list of other things in your life that are problematic, these things can really take you over the edge, especially when you’re listening to the drama monster in your head, especially when you’re going to the woe is me victim mindset story.

So I wanted to share this today because I want it well. I wanted for one thing to tell you why. I was on the podcast last week and you’re explaining a little bit about my bumpy beginning to Mercury retrograde knock on wood. Hopefully that’s the end of the chaos for me.

But I also wanted to show you this as an example. I’ve done so much work over the last few years and even still there are bad days. There are days when the chaos drama monkey part of my brain wants to take over and drive the ship. When it is telling me give up now, just start crying.

There’s nothing you can do. Life is horrible. Everything sucks. Your brain is basically over
dramatic and it also lies to you. Come back to your power. Come back to reminding yourself of what is
actually important.

And I can tell you dealing with little things like parking tickets, someone cutting you off in traffic, your power going out. I don’t know whatever. Dealing with all those things. Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, this is not fun. And yes, this stuff happens to everybody, literally everybody. We all deal with some of those garbage in life and it does not mean anything about you.

So do not give your power to it. Do not dare tell yourself that you have to feel bad because this is happening to you. That is when you decide it is bigger than you. You get your power back when you decide to take a perspective shift. And when you decide that I, my desire to feel good is going to away the uncomfortableness of this situation. I am going to choose myself in the long run. And like I said, it’s not like I chose that in the moment and automatically felt completely happy. But I did not let myself break down. I did not let myself go to the whole of darkness. Y’all know what I mean by that.

We moved away from the victim’s story. We reminded ourselves that we are so much bigger and brighter than this. And even though this sucks in the moment, we’re going to get past it. And I just want you to take that lesson with you through whatever mercury retrograde or life is throwing at you this week. You are always in control. This moment will also pass. And you do not have to be a victim and give up your power to anything.

Okay, that is it my beautiful friend. Thank you so much for listening and sorry about the delayed episode. And I will catch you back here in the next one.