Season 3 Episode 3 Believe in Change
In this episode, we explore how entrenched beliefs can keep us from change.
In honor of Self Loyalty School, this season we are looking at how to make change. In this episode, Nancy talks to an expert in creativity, who had to reevaluate her whole life and career when everything fell apart, then re-learn what she valued as she rebuilt her life from the ashes. But first, she tells us a story that illustrates some entrenched beliefs she had about herself for a long time, that she had to let go of in order to move forward.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- Nancy's personal experiences with shaking off entrenched beliefs.
- Tips and advice from Melissa Dinwiddie, Founder and CEO of Creative Sandbox Solutions.
- How to learn more about Self Loyalty School.
Learn more about Melissa Dinwiddie.
- Visit Melissa's website: https://melissadinwiddie.com/
- Order Melissa's book: https://www.amazon.com/Creative-Sandbox-Way-Your-Full-Color/dp/0997962615
Learn more about Self Loyalty School:
- Go to https://selfloyaltyschool.com
+ Read the Transcript
Nancy Jane Smith: Hey guys, it's me. Nancy Jane Smith. Welcome back to the happier approach. The show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed hustle at achieve at the price of our inner peace in relationships. In our last episode, we learned that it's really easy for our brains to get stuck in a rut we're biologically conditioned to fall into patterns and then stay in them.
And when the world around us reinforces. I think we've always known about ourselves. Like I'm the kind of person who exercises every day or, oh, I'm not a creative person or I'm the kind of person who will have kids someday. It can be really hard to stop all of that outside noise and actually listen to what we really want instead of following a script and staying in that rut, even though it doesn't feel right anymore.
So today we'll talk to an expert in creativity who had to reevaluate her whole life and career. When everything fell apart, then relearn what she valued as she rebuilt her life from the. But first, let me tell you about a belief. I held about myself for a really long time. One that you may be pretty familiar with yourself.
Well, if you have this procedure, you won't be able to have children. It's just too risky. My gynecologist said with a sad look on her face. Oh, I replied a little numb from the news. Okay. Well, let me think about it and I'll let you. I totally understand. It's a big decision. My gynecologist said I had just turned 35 and was in a new relationship with my now husband Doug, because our relationship was so new.
We hadn't yet ventured into that. Do you want to have kids to. I was not one of those people who always dreamed of being a mother. It was something I thought I wanted mostly because it was something I was supposed to want. But for the most part, I never gave it much thought. I'd always been more focused on my career and enjoy the freedom of not having kids, being able to travel and have adventures anytime I wanted.
But in my mid thirties, when my gynecologist told me they were going to have to do a procedure that would prevent me from having. I was suddenly struck with an overwhelming loss. All of a sudden, knowing it wasn't an option made me want kids more culturally and biologically the messaging around getting married and having children is strong.
I was always told what a great mom I would be. I'm a natural born caregiver. It is something I love to do. And yet caregiving is also something that drains. Plus, I love my life. A freedom, freedom to travel, eat out and be spontaneous that night over dinner. I shared with Doug that this procedure would mean kids were off the table.
I was nervous. I didn't think he wanted to have kids, but shutting the door completely is a different level all together. As soon as the words came out of my mouth. So I can't have kids. Doug said, great. I don't want kids. And not having to worry about that right out of the gate is awesome. It's your body, but I'm a hundred percent supportive of no kids.
He was so sure, but I was less sure. I kept jumping back and forth between the two thoughts. You never longed for. But you would make a great mom. Kids would be all consuming because you're such a good caregiver. You would be overwhelmed by caring for them, but to bring a tiny human into the world and help them grow, that would be amazing.
Kids would dramatically change your life, but everyone wants kids. You should want kids. Doug doesn't want kids. And I think [00:04:00] he's my life. But if you want kids, you should decide that now, maybe Doug isn't the one for something that I never really wanted. It was suddenly all I could think. Part of the reason I was so confused came from the fact that I couldn't figure out if having kids was something I wanted or something I was supposed to want.
I couldn't separate this belief I had about myself. You're a great caregiver. You would be a great mom from what I possibly, maybe actually. So when I talked to Melissa Dinwiddie recently about her path toward accepting her own creativity, even though her questions about herself were different than mine.
A lot of what we talked about sounded pretty familiar.
Melissa Dinwiddie: The path has been very long and windy. I thought I was a non-creative person. Quite honestly.
Nancy Jane Smith: That's Melissa Dinwiddie. She's the founder and CEO of creative sandbox solutions, a creative consultant. But before she founded her company, her life looked very different.
Melissa Dinwiddie: I thought I wanted to be a writer and started making art to arts and crafts to procrastinate. And then discovered I loved this thing calligraphy.
Nancy Jane Smith: She ended up turning her calligraphy hobby into a business.
Melissa Dinwiddie: My main business was Jewish marriage contracts. Uh, it's called the katuba, which is a traditional part of every Jewish wedding.
Nancy Jane Smith: For those of you not familiar, uh katuba is like a really elaborately, beautiful prenuptial agreement. And it's a really important part of a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony.
Melissa Dinwiddie: It's been a part of the Jewish wedding ceremony for over 2000 years. And because in Judaism, there's a precept that says that if there's an object that is required for ritual purposes. It's a really good thing for that object to be as beautiful as possible.
Nancy Jane Smith: Melissa was on track to make six figures with her business, but then we all know what happened
Melissa Dinwiddie:. 2008 happened and the economy tanked. And for the first time, my business tanked as well. My business had just grown and grown and grown and grown, and I assumed it would just continue to grow, not realizing that no, actually it doesn't always work that way.
Nancy Jane Smith: This disruption turned Melissa's life upside down. She desperately tried to drum up business, but to no avail,
Melissa Dinwiddie: I threw money at the problem. And the only thing I succeeded in doing was getting myself deeply in debt.
So now cut to 2010. I'm deeply in debt, extremely stressed out. Melissa Dinwiddie: The universe basically walloped me upside the head with a two-by-four, which is what the universe will do if you don't figure it out on your own.
Nancy Jane Smith: Right. That's when she had a revelation
Melissa Dinwiddie: after so many years of being up so-called professional artists, making my living as such as it was as a professional artist, I was actually living a highly non-creative life.And I was extremely, extremely unhappy and I wanted to change that. I felt like I was in the gutter. And the beautiful thing about that is there, the only place to go is up and it stripped the blinders off of my head.
Nancy Jane Smith: Melissa had been stuck in the groove of her tuba business for so long that she didn't even realize how unhappy she was, but in this down and out moment, she realized she had other options. She shook off her entrenched belief about what she could accomplish.
Melissa Dinwiddie: When I retired my katuba business, I had to let go of that identity. And suddenly here I was at the, in the gutter and I realized that's a bunch of bull. That is not the only thing that's possible for me. So what do I want? Well, the thing that I knew that I wanted was to live a creative life.
Nancy Jane Smith: So she started. To help her figure out what she wanted from a new creative life. And that set the scene for her new business, a creative consultancy.
Melissa Dinwiddie: And I just started writing and writing and writing and writing and writing and writing. It's sort of been an ongoing journey since then,
Nancy Jane Smith: But even now that she's shaken off this old belief about herself, Melissa's ideas about her creativity and how they relate to her work are still. I think change Melissa Dinwiddie: is really hard for many years. What I did was help people get creatively unstuck. Why? Because we teach what we need to learn. That is the thing that I was passionate about and wanted to help people with, because that is the thing that I needed the most help with myself. I solve that problem for myself back in 2010, 2011. And. I had to keep solving that problem for myself over the years. It's very, very easy.
Nancy Jane Smith: To get stuck.
Melissa Dinwiddie: Okay. So here's the process.
First you have to get past inertia, which is a matter of just starting. It just often takes a while to find your groove and it's painful, but eventually if you keep at it often, it doesn't take as long as you think it's going to, to find a groove. And once you find that groove, oh my God. So good. And then you're grooving along.
The problem is grooves are temporary. They're finite, but we keep going at them. We keep going along that groove because it feels so good and we want it to last and the grooves are not designed to last, but we want them to last. So we keep going. And what happens when we keep going in a groove, it turns into a rut and that's suddenly we find that we're stuck.
And then we can't figure out how to get out because now we were in this nice groove, which felt all comfy and cool and was like stretching us just the right amount. And now we're in this 10 feet deep rut and we can't get out. Because the sides are like too, you know, high and smooth and like, ah, so that's one of the ways that we can get ourselves stuck.
Nancy Jane Smith: But Melissa says the important thing to do when you're stuck in that groove is to treat yourself with compassion until you find a way out,
Melissa Dinwiddie: Because here's the thing we're all gonna stumble. We're all gonna get derailed. We're all gonna find ourselves in a, in a rut, whatever. And. Nobody any good to beat ourselves up about it.
We are going to beat ourselves up about it. So guess what we get to have self-compassionate about that? Oh, it's okay. You beat yourself up about it. You know, you get to [00:11:00] love yourself up for the fact that, oh, well you beat yourself up again.
Nancy Jane Smith: Just like Melissa said, it's so hard to shake up a belief about yourself and identity that seems built into the fabric of who you are.
I was having the same problem, deciding if I really did want to have kids or if I could let go of that part of my identity, if it was ever really a part of my identity at all.
Where we last left off, I was modeling all of this over and over the next few days, as I kept thinking all of the negatives, but you'd be such a good mom, but don't you like kids were soon overturned by the positive. Doug doesn't want kids. It is never really been a life goal for me. Kids would be all consuming and maybe I could find other outlets for my caring, getting pregnant and giving birth would be tricky and challenging with my health concerns.
So I called my gynecologist and told her I was ready. We scheduled the appointment for the procedure and I hung up the phone. It was so confusing to be sad about something. I didn't even think I want it out of the blue. I surprised myself by grabbing a piece of paper and pen writing a letter to my child that I would never see a little Doug and Nancy who would never be brought into this world.
Tears streamed down my face. As I wrote a letter to this human, I would never meet. It was a strange feeling, grieving, something that didn't exist. Grieving my biology. Grieving a healthy, well thought out choice. And then I took the letter and a lighter, and I walked to the back corner of the yard. I took the trout and dug a hole and then took the lighter and held it to the paper and burned it.
I watched the words and paper turned to ash and I felt a surprising sense of closure. My normal pattern would be to tell myself I was overreacting hammer myself for being. You didn't want kids anyway, why are you so sad? But this time I just allowed the messy unexplained feelings. I allowed the belief that I should have kids bump up against the reality.
Aren't the right choice for me, giving myself permission to feel sad, disappointed, relieved, and hopeful was healing. It also allowed me to own the decision. I could have blamed it on Doug or my health, but in reality, it was Doug, my health and my personal choice. It was all three. It has been almost 15 years since I decided not to have kids.
And it was the right decision for me. I still wonder what our child would look like or be like, I still wonder what type of mom I would be or what my child would be doing right now. And when those thoughts come up, I acknowledge them and allow them. And inevitably, I come back to relief. I made the right choice, expectations, be damned.
That's it for this week. In our next episode, we're going to talk about the change and emotions. How allowing yourself to feel too many or too few emotions can make it difficult to sustain change in our. I'll speak to a psychologist, an expert on emotion, moral thinking, and self-conscious emotions to dive into why it can be so hard to make a change when emotions get involved.
That's next time on the happier approach. The happier approach is produced by Nicki Stein and me Nancy Jane Smith music provided by pod five and epidemic. For more episodes to get in touch or to learn more about sup loyalty school, you can visit Nancy Jane smith.com. And if you like the show, leave us a review.
It actually helps us out a lot special. Thanks to Melissa Dinwiddie for speaking with us today, the happier approach we'll be back with another episode in two weeks. Take care until then.