Part 2: I can’t do this

Episode 10: Dr Marion Piper on I Can’t Do This

What Doesn't Kill Us by Dr Marion Piper | Mar 2023 | 16:21

This series is all about the 5 life areas of post-traumatic growth (PTG) and part 2 deals with cultivating personal strength. I'm not talking about physical strength, but about building and amplifying the positive and good personality traits and characteristics you have. What does this look like on the day-to-day? How can you pinpoint what traits to nurture? That's what we'll dive into today. And if you haven't already done so, make sure you subscribe to my newsletter ⁠The Creative Urge⁠ (it's where I'm my most unhinged). 

Transcript

0:01

What doesn't kill us. Doesn't make us stronger, it makes us more creative. Wait, how? Let's find out together.

I'm Dr Marion Piper and I'm on a mission to uncover what it means to lead a truly creative life.

0:17

So if you're feeling uninspired, blocked or just plain lost, welcome home.

Hey Legend. And welcome to yet another spicy episode of what doesn't kill us.

0:33

The podcast with me, your friendly neighborhood Marion. I have been a little lakse.

And, you know what I said this in the last episode that I released that having a bad podcast of it.

I'm not going to beat myself up because I've been a living breathing embodiment of my work and have been in full creation mode.

0:55

For a really long time now, and living through some really huge Each life transitions over the past couple of months as I've crash-landed back into life in Melbourne.

So I'm going to continue this five-part series all about the post-traumatic growth five life areas because I think it's really important that you understand and recognize when these things pop up and that you have some tools to help you navigate.

1:29

Eight living a creative life in a more authentic way.

That prioritises not what you're going to make, but it prioritizes yourself expression which is ultimately what creativity is all about.

So let's dive in our second life area of post-traumatic growth is call is all around personal strength but it's not what you think, our personal strength from a post-traumatic growth perspective, Is all about that.

2:01

Our good and positive personality traits, characteristics and behaviors.

So, for example, you're a good, you might be really great at being creative.

You might be really great at brainstorming.

2:17

You might be awesome at recognizing, the feelings of the people around.

You might be quite empathetic.

These are all really positive personality traits.

And oftentimes what happens when we experience a lot?

2:33

Really huge life-changing event or trauma, is that we forget how good we are often times.

Our brains are go into that survival mode into fight, or flight.

And we lose touch with the person that we are.

So this is why this is a really important pillar of post-traumatic growth is cultivating your personal strengths.

2:54

Now, on the one hand, when you don't, Have a strong connection to your personal strengths.

You might find yourself saying phrases.

Like I can't do this.

You know, this is too much.

I'm so overwhelmed.

3:11

I don't have the skills.

Another favorite of mine is.

Who am I to be talking about this?

Who am I to be going after this opportunity?

You know, it's so so easy for us in the face of loss, to also lose parts of ourselves and to forget All the amazing things that we've done, all the amazing things that we are and our contribution to the world.

3:34

So, I really want to focus on how we build personal strength outside of those times when we are facing challenges or traumas, you know, this is something that you can start doing today.

3:50

You can start amplifying the qualities within yourself that you really love, you know, and this is how we bolster ourselves against East life's challenges and adversities, you know, it's not by putting up a shield and fighting against it and raging against it.

4:06

No, it's about coming into it as a as, a fully firm formed person who understands, who they are and the self-awareness piece here is absolutely huge.

And for me personal strength, manifests in a whole range of different ways, you know and for me it's a lot of it is around the feeling, you know, When I feel I look for moments when I feel strong and this is what you can do right now, you know, as a first entry point into into understanding, this pillar of post-traumatic growth, look back at your life and look for evidence of the times.

4:40

When you felt like you were on fire like you were in the zone, you felt indestructible Unstoppable, you felt like you, you felt like the most beautiful expression of who you are.

And one example that I have was really the last year speaking at the no BS conference, the second that event kicked off, I felt so tapped in, I felt fully aligned and it was because I had had actually worked on.

5:14

I think I'd spent about 70 hours working on that, talk to get it right and to make sure that I understood it.

So, I was already going into it feeling quite confident, but then when I started talking to people, and I was talking about, Work.

And what I was passionate about and how I spent my time, that's when I really started to build that strength, you know, because I would consider myself obviously naturally quite creative.

5:40

However, it is also, there's also an Underside to that, that I, that I do often.

I am at the mercy of quite a lot of self-doubt and overwhelmed because I am one of those multi passionate creatives, who I'm interested in so many things like so many things.

5:57

Tickle My Fancy that often times, I have trouble pinpointing.

What is the next thing that I want to work on or even amongst the the ten things that I've got on my plate which is the most important, you know.

So having a conscious awareness of that, I know, I need to spend a little bit more time, planning things out, and rehearsing things, and also, coming back to things over and over and over again, to remind myself why I'm doing them.

6:26

So, if you Also a multi passionate creative and you love having a couple of, you know, bunch of things.

I'm not going to say a couple because we all know it's like 5 or 10 things, if you love having a lot on the go, this is a practice that you can start to do and it can actually become a strength rather than a weakness.

6:42

And so looking back at that event, looking back at no BS conference.

One of the things that I pride myself in, is my ability to communicate clearly, and one of the ways that I can build that strength is to It it out in different situations.

7:00

This podcast is a great example of that.

Speaking at events even working with clients one-on-one, it's a really good opportunity for me to get crystal clear and make sure that I know what I want to talk about that.

I know what I want people to understand about me, and the way that I've done that or become more or the way that it's come more easily to me over time.

7:27

Is through journaling.

I spend a lot of time in my journal working through, my own ideas, working through articulating, how things feel getting really up close and personal with my emotions inner emotional landscape.

7:43

Because for me, that's really the barometer for how strong I'm going to feel out in everyday life.

And so one of the other things going into that particular conference is like, yes, I know I'm a clear communicator.

ER, I want to amplify that.

7:59

So I challenged myself by getting up on a stage and communicating my passion, my work to a new group of people.

Right.

So I hadn't been in front of this group of people before.

So there was some work I had to do behind the scenes to really hone that message and to really rein it in and make it applicable to people who work in digital.

8:22

And on top of that, one of the other characteristics I love about myself is is my ability to really, really feel the emotions of people around me.

Like, I mentioned at the start, I hinted at empathy and, you know, thanks childhood trauma for giving me the ability to pick things up often before people even realize what's going on.

8:47

And this is something that I actually really value about myself, you know.

And in situations that are really challenging.

It's what allows me to to ground down and to become a bit of an anchor for other people.

Like I am a really quite an anxious person in general, but if you put me into a chaotic environment, I become really calm because that's kind of how I was raised and that's my default mode, you know?

9:15

And I'm not saying that, that is a great thing or something to Aspire to, but I've recognized that actually in a time of Crisis, I'm a great person.

Person to have around because I get really calm.

And so, my challenge then is, like, if I love that, I am a person who can be calm in the face of a crisis.

9:33

How do I then translate that to be car?

A person who is calm in the face of a, not crisis, like, in everyday life.

So that is something that I've been working on building.

That's that's a personal strength.

I want to cultivate and it's been really challenging.

9:50

So I want to actually Pause here for a moment and just say that, none of this work is super easy.

You know, a lot of it will come quite naturally to us, but if we want to change something about ourselves, it requires a whole lot of work.

10:08

You know, it's not easy.

But I guarantee that it's worth it, particularly if you are wanting to feel more creative, if you're wanting to really own, you know, the really uncomfortable parts of yourself, but But also the really challenging parts of your life story building, your personal strength is one way to pull your brain away from focusing on all the things that you don't have you know?

10:36

And I don't know about you.

I really struggle with the word gratitude.

I really struggle with just being thankful in when I'm not in a situation where I'm necessarily receiving something directly.

Not to say that I'm not grateful.

10:54

I am very, very, like, happy and, you know, thankful for all the things I've received.

But if it's not tangible, I really struggled to get into the experience of it.

So, what building my personal strength does is it allows me to keep my brain Autumn anagen, my manage, my thoughts in a way that keeps them in line with who I the best version of myself that I want to be while still also acknowledging that there is a shadow part of myself that will always be there.

11:22

There and that what I've been through, you know, while I can reframe that and paint that in any way that I like it can still be can still come back and it can still be really painful, you know.

So this is something that, you know, I'll continue to talk about in Greater depth in future episodes but you know, we can actually start to use our pain and turn it into something purposeful and Powerful over time.

11:49

Once, once we once we understand, Not just ourselves but what happened and our role in creating our reality, you know, that sounds like super fluffy and I apologize for going down a bit of a personal development Rabbit Hole just now, but building personal strength is something.

12:07

I'm I've put a lot of energy and attention to and I got to tell you it is so much.

It's much nicer experience to say, you know, to pinpoint maybe two or three traits that I want to cultivate Wait, like I want to be more creative.

12:24

I want to be more accepting and, you know, I want to be more motivated.

You know, and looking at the ways that you can really bring that to life in your in small ways every single day rather than you know, sacrificing different parts of yourself to bring those things in.

12:44

So, a really easy example of that is I every day I spend, I mentioned, the jerk did the journaling before.

For every day, when I wake up, I spend those first moments writing and journaling because to me, that is the gateway to so many of my other creative practices.

13:04

And its really, I have to have that ongoing conversation with myself.

Otherwise, I get so easily distracted in the day-to-day, so it really allows me to begin my day from a place of grounding, and from a place of Prioritizing myself, you know, and as multi passionate creatives and you know, even if you are like a single Focus creative so often, we will put everything else before us including our work, including our clients, including our ideas.

13:34

But we, you know, when we put ourselves last, it is often the most draining experience for us and we can't sustain our creative practice, you know?

And that's the goal, like, we want to get in my goal for you is not to conquer yourself.

If all the creative process, my goal for you is to experience more opportunities in flow where time doesn't exist, where you're not distracted, where you're fully focused on what you're doing, that's the goal of creativity in my eyes and that's what, I'm nudging us toward.

14:03

So, when we are aware of our personal strengths, when we're aware of the parts of ourselves that we love and we amplify them.

We give ourselves a greater opportunity to find flow because we know when we feel good, when we feel safe, when we feel supported and empowered, We're more able to drop down the defenses.

14:21

That protect our hearts and our our self expression, and then we feel it, our best.

We will do our best work.

So that's really the equation that we're working on particular, with post traumatic growth, but also with creativity more broadly.

Okay, so that is post-traumatic growth Second, Life area, personal strengths.

14:46

And now I mentioned at the start to To that, you know, it might sound like you might find yourself saying, when you, when you are have lost touch with your personal strengths, you might find yourself saying I can't do this.

Well, on the flip side of that, when you do tap into your personal strengths, the opposite of that is I can do this.

15:06

And I will, you know, and wow, that's such a simple switch.

But you really do have the capacity to speak And to Coal that in from your strengths and not from the things that you think you need that you're lacking.

15:25

So I just wanted to plant that thought in your head today.

Let me know how you're feeling.

When you know, I'd love for you to share with me, what?

What makes you feel strong, and I'm not talking just physically strong.

15:41

I'm talking mentally strong because I'd love to share that with everyone so that we can all start to see what's possible because again, that's what creativity does.

It allows us to see what's possible.

So thanks for listening.

Make sure if you're not already subscribed to jump on my sub stack, the creative urge.

15:59

You can find it via my website or my social channels because that's really where I am completely unhinged and let loose.

But until next time, do you where you can join me for part three of this little five-part series.

Hope you have an amazingly creative day and we'll talk soon.