30 - Check Your Motivation

TRANSCRIPT

 

Thanks for joining us again on Like Driving in Fog: an emotional healing podcast I’m Mary Young, and the topic for this episode is “check your motivation.” You know, we all have reasons for everything we do, but we don’t always know what those reasons are. And sometimes, even though we don’t know it, reasons are buried in our past. So we need to check our motivation. We need to ask ourselves why. Why could be the second most important question you ask yourself. I said in an earlier episode that the most important question is “what does a healthier me look like?” the second most important question is why?

• Why am I doing this?
• Why am I feeling this?
• Why am I acting this way?

Check your motivation. This has been my mantra for my entire healing journey. Why am I behaving the way I am? Why am I reacting the way I am? This ties in perfectly with the last episode when we talked about the chameleon effect.

If you remember, the chameleon effect is when you bury yourself and try to be what somebody else wants you to be, so that you can be liked or loved or fit in or whatever. I was talking to somebody this past week and they said that chameleon thing is so confusing, because sometimes you just go along with people because you’re being polite. That’s true. I personally am not a big fan of the TV show Survivor, but I used to watch it with a friend of mine because she liked it and I was being friendly. But the motivation is the important part.

 Why was I watching Survivor? To be friendly. On the other hand, why did I say Nicholas Sparks and Pat Conroy were my favorite authors when they really weren’t?  That was the chameleon effect. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be liked by this other person.

If you are staying true to yourself, then you can’t possibly be a chameleon. But if you are surrendering your own identity, then something is wrong. So check your motivation. Now, I’m not saying go be an asshole. I will still go to somebody else’s choice for a dinner restaurant. You know, I’ll offer my suggestions, but if they want someplace else and it’s a place where I like the food, I’ll go. That’s not being a chameleon. That’s being polite.

On the other hand, if I started saying “oh no, I hate this restaurant because this other person hated the restaurant, or if I started treating my friends differently because the other person didn’t like my friends, that could be being a chameleon. That’s what you want to watch out for, and that’s why it’s so important to check your motivation.

Checking your motivation is so much more than just “are you being a chameleon,” or “are you being polite.” My therapist and I have this particular conversation on a regular basis.

She’ll say: “Mary, why are you reacting so strongly to that? Because honestly, it doesn’t warrant the reaction you’re giving it.”

And I’m all “but...yeah...yeah, it does!”

And she’s like “no, really, it doesn’t.”

We have that conversation because there are still times when I will react strongly to something happening right now, that’s actually triggering feelings from my childhood. And so my therapist has taught me to check my motivation. To ask myself why.

 When I am reacting really strongly to something, and Tracy doesn’t think it even deserves a reaction, that will be her question. What’s really going on with this? What is it linked to in your childhood or your past? And usually if I take the time to sit down and ponder, I will find a linkage.

• it hit my hot button of feeling ignored
• it hit my hot button of you can’t do that because you’re a woman
• it hit my hot button of we changed the rules midstream
• it hit my hot button of I never fit in,
• Or nobody ever listened to anything I had to say.

But the only way you will ever be able to find out any of that kind of stuff is if you take the time to know yourself.

And I’ve got to tell you...as survivors, it is so much easier not to do that. I was talking to my grandma one time after my grandpa died. I actually asked her: “how do you get through something like this? You guys were married 50 years.” Her answer was: “you just keep busy. You keep busy, and you don’t give yourself time to think about it”. Well folks, that is a very good description of how to cope, but it is not how you heal.

You heal because you deal.

You heal because you process.

You heal because you don’t just bury it under a rock.

Even though it’s easier to bury it under the rug, and hope it never comes back. So check your motivation.

• Check your motivation for being in a relationship.
• Check your motivation for leaving that relationship.
• Check your motivation for taking a job, or for leaving a job.
• For building a friendship, and leaving a friendship.
• Why are you reacting to something the way you are?
• Why do you get angry over something that somebody says?
• What was it about that comment that made you angry?
• What is it about this particular person that makes you want to spend all your time with them?
• What’s going on that makes that pint of ice cream seems so desirable right now?

If you take the time to look, you’re gonna find a reason. And the reason may not be what you expected.

It’s amazing how powerful our motivation is, and a lot of times we’re not even aware of it.

I had a situation last week. I overreacted to something and my therapist said: “Mary, what’s going on? What’s really underneath that?” And I was like “I don’t know.”

Well, five days later, while I was soaking in the tub, it finally worked its way up through my subconscious. It had felt like somebody changed the rules in the middle of the game. And that goes right back to growing up in an alcoholic family, where you’re doing what somebody told you to do, and suddenly that’s not the right thing. And I was like oh! And when I could take that out of the picture, that emotional, that trigger, then I could go back and look at the incident and say: you know what? Tracy was right. I totally overreacted to that, and now I know why.

It is really amazing how powerful our motivation is, and how so many times we’re not even aware of it.  But part of being self-aware is understanding why you’re doing something. Part of healing is understanding why you’re doing something. Because if you’re doing it for unhealthy reasons, guess what? You are not getting healthier. But if you’re doing it for healthy reasons, then you will get healthier. And as you start understanding your motivation, as you start understanding yourself, then it becomes easier to see the less healthy habits, and it becomes easier to address them.

I am not just talking about habits like emotional eating, or drinking. I’m talking about the less healthy habits of being a chameleon, of letting other people be in control of my happiness. You know what? Nobody else should ever be in control of my happiness but me, so why would I let somebody else do that? Another less healthy habit could be isolating. Choosing to stay in your own house, in your own room, in your own apartment, instead of going out into the world, going out with friends, going out and doing something.

Those are the kind of things you want think about when you’re checking motivation. It’s challenging at first. It could even be painful at first, but if you do it enough you’re going to do it without even noticing. It’s just going to become part of you.

And I don’t think I even have the words to express how important it is, especially if you’re a chameleon who doesn’t want to be one anymore.

 

Thanks so much for listening. We’ll see you next time on Like Driving in Fog: an emotional healing podcast. Until then, go make it a great week.