Beyond Your Limits with Dr. Christine Jehu

135. BIG MAGIC & BIG GROWTH

• Dr. Christine Jehu

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I'm doing structure research for writing the book and the first book I turned back to was BIG MAGIC. This episode took a TURN to sharing some of what I've been experiencing the last few years and how this book hit me DIFFERENTLY this go around.

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Speaker 1:

What does it look like to live a life beyond your limits? Hi, I'm Dr CJ, a copy obsessed psychologist coach and your personal virtual mentor. Too many of us are holding ourselves back, placing limits on what's possible and believing the false stories in our head that say we can't accomplish a goal or a dream. Together, we will rewrite the stories holding us back, tackle barriers and limits and build an incredible foundation for going after our goals and dreams. I'm here to support you, to challenge you and to coach you through and beyond your limits. And a quick caveat while I am a psychologist, this show is not therapy or a substitute for mental health treatment. Please connect with a licensed mental health provider for those needs. Alright, are you ready to live a life beyond your limits? Let's get after it. Hey, hey, everyone, welcome back to another episode of Beyond your Limits. I am your host, dr CJ, and I'm so excited to be here with you. As always, y'all like seriously the book announcement. I cannot, I can't get over how incredible this has been. You, I hope you're going to hear me say this time and time and time again over the next few months as we keep writing we. I keep saying we because I just think about this as our community and everything that's going to come in the ways that we're going to be able to connect and grow and continue working together beyond the podcast, beyond the book. There's so much coming. So I really say we because I this is a project that is near and dear to my heart and I know it's going to make an impact on your life, and so that's why I say we when we're writing. But really it's me. It's me, I'm writing this book. I'm so excited and I have a link in the show notes where you can sign up to get all of the behind the scenes information. Get information on merch. That's coming. We're going to make merch. I have this sick logo. You'll see it when you go to the link. Like I'm just, I'm so excited and that's where you're going to get the behind the scenes, all that. I promise you I'm not going to spam you. I'm not about that life. I'm writing a book. I don't have time to write 600 emails. So those are going to be the places where you can get the information of pre-orders and all of the good stuff, be able to be part of this book. And let me tell you, a lot of people have been like. What do you mean to be a part of this book? There are going to be opportunities where you can provide feedback and literally have your name your first name, last initial in the book, with your ideas and your contribution to what this is all about.

Speaker 1:

And I almost oh my gosh, I almost just spilled the beans on the title of the book. I'm going to spill the beans about the title of the book in an email coming soon. So make sure that you get on that list so you can have all of the juicy details and before it's out everywhere, I'm just so excited I'm just feel like I'm going to spill all the beans. I'm a professional secret keeper. I should be able to keep these secrets. Anyhow, go into the show notes and if you don't know how to access the show notes they're in different places depending on the platform you can always reach out to me on Instagram, message me, I can send you the link. If you know me in real life and you have my phone number, text me and I will send it to you, dropping it on social media every few days. So it's also in the link in the bio. So all those good things.

Speaker 1:

Okay, what are we going to talk about today. I have been reading a handful of books this year since we've we've here we go again because I started the writing project. I also say we because I'm in here with accountability with Megan, and so sometimes when I'm thinking about writing, I'm thinking about being on zoom with her, and so I say this we, even though, again, I'm the one writing the book. So, anyhow, I have been reading and rereading a handful of books that have been impactful to me and books that I find myself regularly recommending to other people, and I posted on my Instagram the other day that I was doing some research because I started reading again you are a badass by Jensen Charo, great book, see you next week. And somebody was like, oh, what are you taking from that book? And I realized that I wasn't quite clear about what I was researching. I'm not actually researching the pups in here with me today, researching content. I have all the content that I'm sharing in this book. It's my method. It's things that I teach all the time and share with clients.

Speaker 1:

What I'm doing research on is how these authors create their book right. So structure the tone, formatting even down to like how long are the chapters? What does it look like? What is the experience, actual experience, reading the books. And so the first book that I dug into is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I have read this book. This is probably now the third or fourth time that I read this book and I'm not going to share with you like the structural things that I learned about it, although it was helpful just in terms of how she writes and it's very conversational this balance of storytelling and listen, I'm just sitting here doing what I told you I wasn't going to do she has this balance of storytelling.

Speaker 1:

But then also from that story, what's the message, right? What's the lesson that was learned through that experience, through that story? And so I'm thinking about that balance as I'm writing my book. You know, I want to teach you things. I have some nuggets from my life. I have some questions and ways that people have embraced the method and have asked me questions as I've been teaching it in the various workshops and things that I do.

Speaker 1:

And so having that balance and honestly, that is what I like to read that's a type of book that I like to read. I don't like. I'm an academic, I guess, right, I have a PhD and I love science and learning, science and theory and all of that, but I learn through story and I learn the easiest through story and I comprehend the easiest through story. So I'm thinking how can I use that approach with this book and even through the podcast, right? So those are some of the things that I'm looking for as I'm rereading these books and choosing books that I love, that I have experienced, that I've shared with others, because then it's not a, it doesn't feel like a chore, right, it feels less like research and a little bit easier to look for the tidbits that I want to take away because I know the content. But the really cool thing that has been happening in this process is I have recognized more and more how I am growing and how I'm healing, and I think I'm just going to go completely off script here because I'm feeling really inspired to share a bit more with you.

Speaker 1:

My plan was to talk about some of the takeaways in Big Magic, and so I think what I'm gonna do is go where my heart is taking me and then in the next episode we can talk about the takeaways from Big Magic, because I think it is a really incredible story. Not an incredible story, but an incredible book. There's lots to take away from it that can apply to us when we are striving to grow, when we are striving to be a high performer and when we're looking at taking on a creative pursuit. And so what has been fascinating and I can't remember when I first read this book I'm looking at when it was published, Good grief. Okay, so copyright 2015,. Yeah, so I must have picked this up. I feel like this was a book that I picked up in an airport when I was doing a lot of traveling, and so if it was written in 2015, I probably picked it up around 2016-ish, which means I was fresh out of my doctoral program. My father had recently died and I was making that transition to my professional career and coming off of grad school having that high and feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm finally out, I did this and also having that weight and the grief of losing my dad, and so I remember being really moved the first time I read this book and also feeling like, mm, it doesn't fully apply to me.

Speaker 1:

She talks a lot about creativity and I just wasn't in a space in my life where I was creating. I was still completing, if you will you know, finishing, having finished grad school, studying for my licensing exam as a psychologist and really stepping into this phase of my professional career and I'm a super creative person I minored in studio art and was focused in photography. I freaking, loved, loved, loved, loved, still do, loved being behind the camera, but had gotten away from that. Had gotten away from it because I was in school, I was trained on film and so a digital camera is not second nature to me, whereas you put a film camera in my hand and I'm in control of everything, and I know that there's ways on a digital camera that you can recreate that, but the ones that I have, I have one, but some of the features, just like, I feel like it's hijacked. I feel like it's hijacked and I can't. Anyways, I'm derealing.

Speaker 1:

So I was reading this book and, yes, completely moved by the content, loved the stories, loved the takeaways. Yet it, while it inspired me and it moved me, it didn't necessarily move me to action. It moved my soul, right, it felt good. And then I picked it up a couple of years later and I used to. I started at one point writing in my books the years that I read them, but I really only started that around like 2019, 2020. And so I don't have. One of the reasons why I do this is because I like to see and be able to look back at the seasons that I was in. So, let's say, if I had been doing this, if I read it in 2016 and maybe I was highlighting or underlining in blue, I would write 2016 on one of the inside pages in the color pen. So then the next time that I read through it, maybe I would use pink, and so, let's say, it was 2019 when I read it again. Then I would be able to see where I was in 2016 when I read it and what stood out to me then and then what stood out to me this next time that I read it, and on and on.

Speaker 1:

I really wish that I had done that, because the last 10 years of my life have been had highs and lows. Right, my dad passed. I was in a relationship that wasn't fulfilling. I got divorced in the last year. I was like, has it been a year? We're coming up on the year anniversary of the divorce being finalized? And I was in a job that was really challenging me. Challenging me because I was unhappy. I loved the work I was doing. The clinical work I was doing was incredible, but the environment and the setting wasn't right for me, so it was really struggling. What do I wanna do? What's going on? I was feeling this pull for a creative outlet and if you've been here for the last few episodes, you know that I have always wanted to write a book. And Elizabeth Gilbert, the author she talks about the writing process in here and talks about the experience of creativity and sticking with creativity and following the thread, being curious and the highs and lows of that process.

Speaker 1:

And while I've always wanted to write a book, I was getting in my own damn way. Quite honestly, I was getting in my own damn way and I couldn't see what I see now. I truly couldn't see what I see now because I was in survival mode. I was very much blocked. Yes, I was high performing in my career in that thing that I had been in for the last seven years, that piece that I had been training for. The blinders were up and so I knew how to operate and I knew how to function in that space. But, honestly, everything on the outside of it became such a challenge and I wasn't as fully connected to myself, because, over time, the grief had settled in and I hadn't processed it.

Speaker 1:

I made the choice, when my father died, to put the grief on the shelf, and because I know myself well enough that I knew I had to persist in completing my degree or I would have gotten stuck. I believed I would have gotten stuck in a really hard space in some depression and not be able to pull myself out. And so I chose to keep moving, and I have language for it now that I was moving in a way of over functioning. And it felt normal, because graduate school teaches you to over function. You are rewarded for over functioning. And what do I mean by over functioning? Not holding boundaries. Now, granted, I recognized and started holding some really firm boundaries for myself, but we were asked to produce at a really high rate, to show up to class on time, fully prepared to take care of our minds, body, spirit, all of the things, and to care for other people. And so grad school did this thing where it was like it made it hard to relax, because there was always something A professor once described it as always feeling like you're chasing the cart.

Speaker 1:

So there's like a horse and buggy, I guess, in front of you and you're chasing the cart. You're chasing the cart and it's like you finally get close, the semester finishes, you turn in that paper and you're about to jump on this cart and then all of a sudden it takes off and you're like shit, I'm still chasing the cart, I'm still chasing the cart, and so it's that feeling like there's always something to be doing, there's always a pull to be on and to go above and beyond. And I think, as women in this society, how we are explicitly and like what's the word I'm trying to look for, it's like very clear, why can I not think of this word? Explicit, inexplicit, whatever. Very conscious or subconscious, it's told to you directly or indirectly that you are meant to take care of all of the things and always be put together and show up on time and be seen but not heard, but then use your voice and stand your ground and like all these things, that it's that go, go, go, go, go.

Speaker 1:

And so there would be times where I would be sitting on the couch just trying to relax, and I couldn't because my mind was going to all of the places and that became the norm. And so to pause on the weekend and relax became really, really, really hard. And so again, while I was really succeeding in my career, there were pieces of me that were getting chipped away, because while the door closed and I was doing the clinical work, I felt completely on. But then, when the door would open at work and I was in this environment that was eating and eating and eating away from me, and then I was in a relationship that became less and less and less fulfilling and in a lot of ways, I felt like I wasn't seen.

Speaker 1:

And so to have this dream and this idea to write a book and I'm reading Big Magic, this incredible book I keep wanting to call it a story, but this incredible work that is talking about finding your creativity and following it and honoring the curiosity and the inspiration that comes, and all of these pieces that just felt at the time that I was reading it, completely unattainable for me, and content, content that are so, so durable. I'm smiling so big because now I read this book and I'm like, oh, hell yeah, hell yeah, like I can feel the difference in my body. I read the words in this book and I relax, my shoulders drop. There's like a warmth in my stomach of excitement. My brain just starts going and, going and going and the creativity I mean.

Speaker 1:

I've been reading these books with another notebook my writing notebook next to me and like every few pages, I'm putting the book down to pick up the journal and write these ideas that are coming, because they're just not stopping. I'm unblocked and it's because I've been doing the really important work to heal and wow, I was not expecting to talk about this at all, but I'm so glad I am, because for so long, for so long, I hid my story and if you've been here for a while, you know that I truly believe that stories can save lives and stories can change our lives. And there is a lot that I can share from the last 10 years and I haven't. I haven't shared it partly because I lost myself and so much of what I was feeling. I was second guessing, I was wondering was something wrong with me? Did I experience this in a way that wasn't reality? Do I actually know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 1:

I began to doubt everything that I know to be true about myself and I was hiding because it wasn't safe. It wasn't safe to be me anymore. I was hiding and I was searching. I was searching for answers. I was searching for something that would help me see a light at a tunnel that I felt like I was never gonna get out of, and I made the decision a while ago. To a while ago, it was gosh. Time feels so weird. It was about a year and a half ago now.

Speaker 1:

I asked my ex-wife for a divorce and two months after that I was living on my own again, and then, a handful of months after that, six months or so after that, the divorce was finalized, and so it has been over a year, this process and healing and shedding of pain. And let me tell you, the process, the process of divorce, is not fun. It's not fun. Mine wasn't even that messy, to be honest, but it drug on far, far too long. It did not take that long. It was just because other lawyers were not fucking answering the phone, and so it's been this piece that I haven't been able to fully release or fully feel safe emotionally on the other side of this massive life change until recently. And when my lawyer called me and said, hey, the final thing was signed, the money was transferred like I'm gonna wrap up your case, and that was just within the last few weeks and I have felt this incredible shift happen inside me, where I'm like you're safe, you're okay, the thoughts that you have are real, they're true, you have something to offer this world and it wasn't just like a flip, a switch flipped.

Speaker 1:

I've been doing the work, I've been doing a lot of healing. I'm in a really healthy relationship now that, honestly, has helped me process right. It has. I talked about it in a couple episodes ago. It's been this corrective emotional experience. Now neither of us are using that relationship as a healing mechanism, and the relationship has been a healing mechanism because we have both been able to start showing up as our true selves and the results have been nothing but beautiful.

Speaker 1:

And so, as I'm reading this book and as I'm writing my own book, this openness, this freedom, this connection to self, this clarity of mind has just been so incredible that the nuggets and the pieces in here are ringing, so true and I feel like all of the things that you know, these self-help books and professional development books, personal development books, are like you can do it the rah-rah pieces and the pump up. It finally really feels true. It finally really feels true and I'm coming to this place of cognitively knowing that I am worthy. We are all worthy of anything and everything that we desire and we are worthy and we have worth simply by being here. And I know that cognitively and I've told clients that the entirety of my career and deep inside and especially over these last few years but you know, seven to 10 years I lost sight of that for myself and I'm coming back to it, and I think that's one of the reasons why I get so excited when I'm sharing with you all that this book is coming out and that I'm writing a book and all the things that I'm learning is because I feel like this vault has been unlocked and this version of me is coming through so strong and I just wanna scream it from the rooftops and I wanna share with you all of the things and all of the insights that I'm getting, because it's so powerful and so powerful, and so I hope that you will stay along this journey, this book writing journey, and can take something out of it. You may not be wanting to write a book, but maybe you're thinking about a career change, or maybe you are in a relationship that isn't serving you, or maybe you just want to do something that kind of makes you wanna poop your pants because you're afraid, whatever it is. I hope that you can hear something in my story that relates to you and that you can take some encouragement, some of the excitement and transfer some of these insights to your own situation.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that is absolutely not what I had intended to talk about today. I will come back and share a little bit more from the book Big Magic, because there are some really juicy nuggets in here. It might be in about two weeks we'll see what happens over the next few days. I'm getting ready to head to a conference and so if I have time in the next few nights, as I'm getting ready to head out of town, to jump on and share with you what I was planning to share with you today, I will do that. So if we have a bit of a pause, my apologies. I'm trying to balance right, like the podcast and writing this book and having my job and going on going to this conference where I'm presenting with some colleagues and I'm really excited about that. So don't forget to hit up the link in the show notes to get on the list to get all of the goodness for the book that is coming out. Thank you so much for being here. I love you and we will talk soon.