Episode 138: The Catch-22 Of "I Got This"
In today’s episode, I talk about “I got this” a behavior that we engage in when our monger is chatting at us and we’re stressed and anxious.
My Monger is always in my ear, saying: You got this.
And while, to some, “I got this” might sound like empowered thinking, when it’s coming from my Monger, it certainly is not.
Instead, it’s a clue that I’m on auto-pilot mode.
Here’s what I mean:
Recently, after a full day of work, I was making dinner for my husband and doing a load of laundry at the same time. Telling my husband to plate up, I rushed downstairs to “flip a load,” as I call it.
This is when my Monger started chiming in. “Hurry up!” it said. “You told your husband dinner was ready and now you’re downstairs messing with the laundry!”
And it struck me: I’d worked all day, cooked dinner, and now I was doing laundry—and my Monger was STILL going to shame me for not doing it fast enough?!
Good grief!
But stories like this are common for me. For years, I lived in that message. I call this the catch-22 of “I got this.”
Listen to the full episode to find out:
3 ways to avoid this endless spiral of “I got this” thinking
Why operating on autopilot is harmful—especially with high functioning anxiety
How our Monger distorts our perspective
And how that can affect our relationship with ourselves and with others
Resources mentioned:
+ Read the Transcript
Nancy: Last week after a full day of work, as I was making dinner, I decided to throw a load of laundry in the washer. I finished dinner and told my husband to dish up his plate. And then I would be right back. I wanted to run down to the basement and put the laundry in the dryer. As I was in the basement, flipping the laundry as I call it, my Monger was chiming in.
“You told your husband dinner was ready and now you're downstairs, messing around with the laundry?!?” and it struck me. Are you kidding me? I worked all day cook dinner, and now I'm doing laundry and you're going to shame me for not doing it fast enough. Good grief.
You're listening to the happier approach the show that pulls back the curtain on the new to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. I'm your host, Nancy Jane Smith.
This story is a common one. Four years. I lived in that message minus the realization at the end of that story, I call this the catch 22 of I got this. All this month we're talking about things that keep you stuck in one of those things. It's the myth our Monger constantly tell us I got this. So let me back up a bit and explain what I mean by I got this. I got, this is a behavior that we engage in when our monger is chatting at us and we're stressed and anxious. The more stressed we get, the more control we seek, and it is like the perfect match.
I want to unpack the laundry example a little bit, because it is such a common example and honestly, feels pretty benign, but can have some nasty side effects. That day had been stressful. I had a lot going on and my brain had been jumping from thing to thing all day long in squirrel like fashion.
So by the end of the day, my Monger was chiming in about everything. I ran down the stairs from my office, like the Tasmanian devil and started cooking. While I was cooking dinner. I'm sure my monger was there, to be honest, I didn't even notice her because even after years of doing this work, she still plays in my head largely unconsciously I'm familiar with my Monger chatting. I'm not saying it's pleasant or comfortable, but it is familiar. And that is something we forget, like any abusive relationship my line of what is normal or acceptable is skewed while someone else who hasn't lived much of their life with a very loud monger would be ah-gassed at what my monger says to me, for me, eh it's just another day at. The office.
So there I am cooking dinner and my Monger is beating me up because I was supposed to do laundry earlier in the day. I actually needed to do laundry the day before and I had officially run out of clean underwear that morning. This is where our monger get even more hard to shake because she had a point.
I was out of underwear. I needed to do laundry. And because I have an abusive relationship with my monger in my mind, I deserved her shame because I had dropped the ball and not done the laundry. And this is where it gets even stickier because I have a husband, a kind caring, super capable husband who could cook dinner or do laundry.
He would be willing to do anything I asked him to do. In fact, he had even offered to do the laundry earlier that day because he knew I was busy and also out of underwear. But did I ask him to help and actually put the laundry in the washing machine? No way I got this. My monger tells me you can't ask for help. That would be weak, or he wouldn't do it right.
So don't bother asking him anyways, I got this, our monger winds us up so much that we become consumed with being in control. As I said, it had been a stressful day, so I was already full of anxiety. One of the challenges of high functioning anxiety is the more anxious you get the more you push yourself.
When I came downstairs from my office and started manically making dinner and thinking about the laundry, I was primed for my Monger to jump all over me. At that point to the idea of taking a break or taking a breather was out of the question. It was perfect. We needed to eat, I need an underwear and I am the only one who can solve all these major problems.
I say that tongue in cheek, because that is what our monger does. She simultaneously punishes us for doing it wrong. Also convincing us we are the only ones who can do it. It's an abusive power trip. I'm an awful person for not being able to do it all. And I'm the only one who could do it. I ran downstairs to switch the laundry.
And my monger starts shaming me and here is where things changed here is where my biggest fan stepped in to say, wait a minute, what is happening here? Why are you shaming yourself when you're doing the laundry for your family? Now, before I go down the road of the biggest fan, I want to share what happens frequently in relationships I'm downstairs.
And my monger starts telling me to hurry up and rather than my biggest fan, who is the voice of kindness and wisdom, my BFF steps in that voice of false self-compassion. And she says where is your husband? And all this, it must be nice that he could just relax on the couch while you run around like a chicken with your head cut off.
So then my BFF gets me all fired up. I head upstairs and I start yelling at my husband about how the power dynamic is off and I do everything and he's too lazy on and on. See what happened there. My Monger was chatting so much. I couldn't take it anymore. So my BFF stepped in to protect me and put the blame on my husband, just in this simple benign example, you can see how the monger and the BFF can run a muck and really wreck havoc in our lives.
But this time, my BFF didn't step in before my biggest fan reminded me that this was a storm of my creating. Interestingly, as this insight was happening to me, my husband came downstairs and I shared it with him and he said, how can you think that I would be mad at you because you were downstairs doing laundry instead of being upstairs with me, that is so hurtful that you think of me as that much of a monster. I stood there, stunned. He was right. My husband is the most laid back kind, forgiving, gentle guy. And my monger can make him out to be a cruel judgmental jerk. I said to him, it has nothing to do with you because when my monger is talking to me and saying, hurry up, you told your husband dinner was ready.
And now you're downstairs messing around with the laundry. My mind is not picturing my husband yelling at me. My mind is picturing some distorted version of my husband yelling. So it isn't about him, which goes to the insidiousness of all this work. It is not a victimless crime. Now I have spread my self hatred onto him and he certainly doesn't deserve it.
In fact, he finds it downright hurtful that I would think of him as a monster. Okay. So how do you avoid this endless spiral of I got this thinking. The very first thing to realize is that I got this thinking creeps up most often when we're running on autopilot, this whole laundry dinner husband situation is a perfect example.
Functioning on autopilot. I had been pushing all day and I'd gone on to autopilot. Autopilot means my Monger is running the show. My to-do list is king and my worthiness is all tied up in my productivity. I let my monger go unchecked. And by the end of the day, she was in full. Control. If we want to stop, I got this thinking in its tracks we need to prevent this autopilot behavior. So here are three ways you can do just that.
Number one, put in regular stop gaps in the day. Taking regular breaks, going for a walk dancing in the office. Generally checking in with yourself and slowing down.
Number two, Acknowledging your feelings. This is important, especially right now, we have a lot going on both on a micro level in our day-to-day lives and on a macro level in the world at large, we are being challenged in our everyday lives, by a pandemic that is largely unknown and on a larger scale, our assumptions and biases around race and privilege are being challenged. We are seeing the world shift right before our eyes. This is anxiety provoking. And because of those of us with high functioning, anxiety are masters at avoiding our feelings.
It is easy to tell ourselves that what is happening in the larger world doesn't affect us or more so shouldn't affect us. It does. I have been reminding all my clients that even if you aren't actively engaging in what is happening in the world, it is still affecting you and your emotions.
Number three, be kind as you can see by the laundry example, these voices are insidious wily and persistent. We have to be kind to ourselves. I will regularly repeat to myself. You don't have all the answers and that's okay to borrow from the movie Frozen II “what's the next right thing to do now?”. So how could I have done that laundry day differently? I could have paused more during the day. I could have taken five minutes to mark the end of my workday and the start of my cooking dinner.
I could have acknowledged that my anxiety was high earlier in the day. And pause to see what was going on. I could have taken my husband up on his offer earlier in the day to start the laundry, I could have reminded myself that I didn't have to rush to move the laundry. I could have eaten dinner and then moved it.
Those are just a few ways I could have done it differently. Regular breaks, acknowledging feelings, and being kind notice your tendency to take over control to say to yourself, I got this. Our monger is insidious and it is challenging, but she doesn't have to win.