10. Epic Confidence

0:00 Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s Jennie, the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number nine, three parts to a relationship. I’m Jennie, the LDS mission coach and whether you are preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a return missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things than let’s go? I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next. Hello, everybody. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am so excited to be hanging out with you. There’s lots of fun stuff going on around here. I’m in the middle of a little update on my website. Thanks to the help of my web designer, I am super excited that my website for the longest time has reflected just the work I do for return missionaries. I love working with returning missionaries, I think it’s super important that they figure out how to overcome anxiety, I think it’s super important that they rediscover their purpose. I also found that confidence is a big one for return missionaries. And so I help them get that back through one of the programs that I offer. But now I do a lot more than I used to do I work with preparing missionaries, and currently serving missionaries to I have some programs available for them. So I’m super excited to have my website reflect what I actually am, which is the LDS mission coach, I don’t on purpose, I don’t call myself the missionary coach, I call myself the mission coach, because I want to be there for you during every part of the mission experience. So I’m way excited about that can’t wait to show you guys what I’ve been working on. In that area. I also am super pumped about this new free video course that I have coming out, which is three tools for RMS to help in their transition home. I have been wanting for a while now, to have just a few videos that you can get. That will give you three useful tips that you can use right when you get home. So you can watch these videos just in the days after you get home or in the weeks after you get home. And hopefully they will give you a good jumping off point to maneuver the transition because it can be challenging, you’re actually like a different person when you come home. So I talked about this a little bit on the videos. But that is going to be released here shortly. And I can’t wait to share that with you. Also. In other news, my son comes home from his mission here in two weeks from today. He served in the Australia Melbourne mission for seven months. And then because of COVID came home, like many missionaries did. And now he since last August has been serving in the New Hampshire Manchester mission and has just loved loved his time out there. It’s been an amazing experience for him. And now he’s coming home i The time has gone really pretty quickly. So that’s a bonus. Today I want to talk to you about three parts of a relationship. One of the things I hear most often from currently serving missionaries is struggles that they have with their companions. Now, this episode is not going to be just for you if you have been struggling with a companion. These tools, three parts of a relationship will apply to you. If you’re dating, if you have a boss, if you have a professor, if you have a family. These tools are useful in any relationship. So we’re not just talking about romantic relationships here. We’re not just talking about companion relationships here. We’re talking about any sort of interaction or relationship you have with other people. The reason these tools are so effective is because it teaches us how to have the relationship that we want, regardless of how other people behave.

4:55 Many times I talk to return missionaries and other missionaries, who put a lot of their own self confidence in the way that the person their training behaves, or in the way that other people behave. They kind of need that validation from other people so that they can feel good and happy about the relationship. But what I’m going to teach you today, you will need other people, like hanging out with other people will be super fun. And you’ll want to, but not because you need other people to feel good. With these tools, you will learn how to feel good on your own, which is so powerful think about how amazing it would be to be the kind of friend that wasn’t the needy friend, that constantly didn’t need other people to build them up or to help them feel good about themselves. You could be an amazing friend, you can have any relationship that you want. And I’m going to tell you how most of the world thinks that our relationship is based on how we do in fact, sometimes we like to group relationships into this is a good relationship. This is a bad relationship. And many this is based on many factors, it might be based on the amount of time that we spend with someone, it might be based on whether someone reciprocates like, let’s say we send a text, and then that person goes to us or doesn’t text us back. We might also base this on some external like traditions that we put in place for friendships, like friends go to lunch, or friends buy each other a crumble cookie on their birthday, we have all these kind of unsaid rules that we’ve made up about what a relationship should look like, or if you’re in a romantic relationship. In those relationships, we buy flowers on our anniversary. Okay, so we have a lot of ideas about what we think our relationship is, and whether it’s a good or a bad relationship. But what I want to offer you today, and this one, this tool, and this idea is a tough one for many people to wrap their brain around. So I want you to stick with me. But the idea is that our relationship is not about what we do. Our relationship is about what we think. So we have thoughts that create our feelings about someone. And someone else have their thoughts which create their feelings about us or about anything else. What’s kind of interesting to think about is you may have relationships or connection or feel some connection towards people that you haven’t seen in years. Like I might even say that I feel a connection and a relationship and have a relationship with even some of my ancestors that have passed away, and that I’ve gone on before me a connection with some of my just grandparents that have passed away recently. And how is this possible? If they can’t text me back? Or if we can’t go to lunch? Or if they can’t send me a birthday card. The reason this is possible is because I think thoughts about my grandparents, thoughts, like I respect them, they were amazing. They did so much good in the world. And those thoughts make me feel love for them and make me feel connection to them. So I have our relationship with them. Whether they’re here or not, maybe you know someone also a friend or something, someone close to you that’s passed away. And even though they’re not here, you still can have a relationship with them because it’s your thoughts about them. That cause the love that you feel inside yourself. That creates that relationship. So my definition for a relationship is a relationship is simply your thoughts about another person. Now the other thing that we want to think about here is other people can’t make us feel love.

9:50 Like for the longest time I thought it was my husband’s job to make me feel loved before I understood these tools. And he tried and he He tried and he tried everything that he could think of, to make me feel loved. But now I no different. Now I know that love is created in my body, when I think loving thoughts. And for him, love is created in his body, the emotion of love is created when he thinks loving thoughts. I don’t need him anymore to make me feel love. I choose love every day by thinking loving thoughts. And then I get to benefit from feeling that love. Sometimes my kids even will be really frustrated with me, if I’m like, Okay, it’s chore time, or homework time, or whatever it is. And I still, even if they’re mad at me, even if they’re feeling the emotion of anger in their body, because of their thoughts, like I don’t want to do this, or mom can’t make me do this. Even though they’re feeling the emotion of anger, I can still feel love, and I do for my kids. Because of my thoughts that I have about them. I just choose to love people love is one of the best emotions, to feel. There are three parts to a relationship. And when we understand that, our thoughts there’s actually three parts to a relationship. And when we understand that a relationship is just our thoughts. This all makes total sense. So these three parts are number one, what other people think about me. Number two, what I think about other people. And number three, what I think about myself, these are the three parts. And I want to kind of dive in to each one of these just a little bit and give you a couple examples. So you know what I mean? Part number one of a relationship, what other people think about me, our brains, in middle school, especially think that this is the most important part of our relationship. Our caveman brains want to make sure that we are on good terms with all of the people around us. It’s this same sort of nervous feeling that you might have when you walk into a new social situation, or into a new companionship. And you have this thought like, what are they going to think about me? Our brains do this just kind of on default. They like to compare ourselves to other people. And so we’re very, our brains are very preoccupied with what other people think about us. But what other people think about us, is none of our business. Because it can’t affect us anyway. Their feelings, other people’s feelings about me come from their thoughts. And my feelings come from my thoughts. And that brings us to the second part of the relationship is what I think about other people. This is a way that quite regularly I redirect my brain to when I walk into a new social situation and my brain tries to tell me, no one is going to like you here. That’s when I tell myself. That’s okay. Because I like them. I go into a social situation. And when my brain tries to tell me, we should be really worried about what everyone thinks. I’m just like, No, no, no. What they think is none of my business. What do I think about them? And I get to work, finding out what I love about them. And it’s sort of like with my kids, like I mentioned before, they might be frustrated with me even and I can what I think about them is no, you can be frustrated, you totally are allowed to be frustrated and I just love you. So the third part of a relationship is what do I think about me?

14:31 And this is so important. Our brains tell us the most important is what what other people think about us. What’s pretty important is what other people think about me but what’s the most important is what do I think about myself? It’s really tough to find the good in other people. When we can’t find it in ourselves. It’s also really Tough to stop judging people, when we can’t stop judging ourselves. When we love ourselves first, when we like ourselves first, it makes it a very natural and easy thing for us to like and love other people too. I want you to kind of think about, if you’ve ever tried to give someone else a compliment, and you’re like, I don’t know, maybe it’s a piano solo or something, and you’re like, that was amazing, you did such a great job. And instead, they’re like, that wasn’t amazing, that wasn’t my best work, I’d made a mistake here. What’s true is a must, that person believes in themselves already, unless they already have decided they did an amazing job. Even the compliment you try to give them won’t land. And that’s why it’s a very difficult, never ending quest, my friends, to need validation from other people. What happens and what our brains tell us is if someone else tells me I do a good job, or I’ve done a good job, or I’m a good human or a good person, then I will give myself permission to believe that about me. But what I want to offer to hear is the most powerful way to show up in a relationship is you got to think those things about you first. Like what do you want other people to say to you that you’re a really good friend, that you’re an amazing photographer, that you’re a very hard working companion. Whatever you want other people to say to you, you gotta say to you, first, how much better Could your relationships be? If you really genuinely could redirect your brain away from what other people think about you to what you think about them. And what you think about yourself. Now we’re still going to write we have that caveman brain that its first instinct is gonna want to know what other people think our brains are really concerned with that. But how would your relationships look different? If that didn’t matter, now, it’s always gonna matter to your brain a little bit. But what if you could redirect your brain to focus on the parts of the relationship that you actually have influence over, you have the ability to change your thoughts, which create your emotions, even about someone who’s not behaving in the way that you want them to. Even for a roommate, who never does their dishes, or leaves their dirty laundry all over the apartment, or for your companion who doesn’t want to work, we can still choose thoughts that create love. And they’re allowed to think whatever they want. But we can always choose thoughts that create love, regardless of how they’re behaving, isn’t that so empowering? You can have loving relationships, regardless of the way other people are behaving. Just choose to love people choose thoughts that create love. This applies so well, in an instance with a difficult companion. Our brains want to change them. Our brains want to change the way that they’re behaving. And that if they were just behave in a certain way, then we would get to feel content or happy. But you can feel content and happy now. Because your contentment and happiness comes from your thoughts. And if they want to be upset, or whatever they’re doing, it’s fine. And so when you go into a social setting, and your brain comes online, and starts freaking out and thinking, oh my gosh, what do all these people think about me? Just redirect your brain, get intentional.

19:33 Think on purpose, talk back to your brain even and say no, no, no. It doesn’t matter what they think about me. What matters is what I think about them and what I think about myself, because honestly, what they think about you doesn’t actually matter, because it can’t have an effect on you. Your thoughts create your feelings. That’s an amazing place to be. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. If you want to learn more about what I do, you can go to Jennie dildine.com. Or just come hang out with me on Instagram at Jennie dot the LDS mission coach and Jenny is spelled with an I E and remember, no matter which part of the mission experience that you are involved in, just know that Jennie the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day.