Finding the Hidden Doors to Freedom When Life Feels Boxed In

Wecome to episode 2, season 6 of the Woman Uncaged Podcast! Agency is not a personality trait you either have or don’t. It’s a practice, and it starts the moment you notice that you’re “shoulding” all over yourself. Laura inspires this discussion with a quote she can’t stop thinking about from Cate Hall’s You Can Just Do Things.

In this episode, we talk about the everyday ways women lose power without realizing it: aging stories that shrink possibility, family customs that reward “being normal,” and career scripts that insist forward is the only safe direction. We also question the modern obsession with “finding your purpose,” especially how it can keep women stuck, searching externally, and afraid to make any move that isn’t perfect. 

If this conversation sparks something, we'd love to have you subscribe to Woman Uncaged, share it with a friend who’s trapped in a “should,” and/or leave a review so more women can find the hidden doors in their lives.

Resources: 

Laura's Mastermind: https://www.carriebradley.com/mastermind

Book: You Can Just Do Things: How High-Agency People Get What They Want Out of Life by Cate Hall

Transcript

Welcome And Where To Find Us

Linda 0:01

Hello, hello. Welcome everyone to episode two, season six of the Woman Uncaged Podcast. My name is Linda Katz, and I'm here with my beloved and dear friend and feminist co-conspirator and wonderful coach, all around wonderful human and amazing writer, Miss Laura Gates-Lupton, who is managing multiple technologies today because her main one is having a little bit of a breakdown. But if you don't know Laura, you need to get on her Substack because that is where Laura can be found most easily, I would say, in the world of the Great Wide Web, unless you happen to live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. And that Substack is the Good With Money Substack. Right? Yes. Okay. All of a sudden, I was like, I got that right, right? Rain fog happens sometimes. And you need to get on there and make sure that you are aware of all of the amazing things Laura has to offer. Right now, I believe that she is in the process of or will be running or co-running a mastermind with another coach that she can share a little bit more about. I'd love to hear more about that. And um, if if you had the chance to work with Laura and you're looking for someone who can help you grow into the most authentic, full, joyous, whole version of yourself, of which money making is one facet, but there's so much more, as I am aware, that goes into working with Laura. And just if you're feeling that call to really step into this next iteration of who you're becoming, please check her out. Please check out her Substack. Please check out her mastermind. It is such a joy to be here with you today, Laura, as you navigate the Zoom on the phone and the Zoom on the computer and the Zoom in the cloud. Just kidding. I added that last one. Oh, God knows what I'm navigating right now. It's not been an easy few days. Anyway, I am so happy to be here with you, Linda. And for those of you who don't know, Linda, where have you been? But also, I would highly recommend that you check out her book. And if you don't know, her name is Linda Katz, and she is my beloved business bestie, among other things. But she has a fabulous book called Homecoming, and it's just it's so wonderful. And I think it's especially lovely to read in the summertime. There's something about it that has a summer feel to it. Um, but also it's just a beautiful book for any time. You'll want to take your time with it. It's so well written, and it just goes into this lovely deep dive about Linda's life and who she is and where she's come from and her points of view around all kinds of wonderful issues, but especially for women at midlife who are wanting to break out of cages, especially those pesky inner cages, which are way harder than the outer ones, as we've talked about many times here. But yeah, as you probably know, if you've been listening, Linda was my coach for quite a while. And the reason I have so much freedom in my life today is from working with Linda. So she's not coaching right now. So your two options, well, three really is her Substack, which is Wild Woman in the Burbs, her book Homecoming, which is on Amazon, and of course, this wonderful podcast, which is always so fun to be here with you, lovely Linda.

The Wealthy Woman Collective Mastermind

unknown 3:32

Woo!

Linda 3:33

Would you like to share some before we dive into the topic a little bit about your mastermind, or do you want to save it to the end or the middle? What feels best for you? Um I can talk about it briefly. We'll put it in the show notes too. But it's called the Wealthy Woman Collective. I am co-leading it with Carrie Bradley, who is wonderful. She's um a six-figure coach. Um, she's just an amazing person. She's also been my coach and I love working with her. We have a few spots left. We start August 19th, weekly 90-minute meetings that Carrie and I will take turns facilitating. And I'll link to the sales page so that you can read all about it. But it's gonna be great. And the women who have signed up for it are amazing, just incredibly inspiring women. So it's gonna be a fun room to be in. It's gonna be very inspiring. And the theme of the mastermind is about helping us all be more deeply resourced so that we can make more impact in the world. I love that theme. Love that theme. Thanks. I do too. It's six months long, I should mention that. And we kept purposely kept the costs low for this round. It's our first time running it. It will never be this low again. But we just wanted an easy lift for people who are interested this first time around. Also, we know people are struggling right now, um, especially women. So we just wanted to fill the room with great people and didn't want price to be a barrier. Amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for asking. And now

Defining Agency And Hidden Doors

Linda 5:02

let's talk. What are we gonna talk about today? So this was inspired by a book that Laura's reading. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna pop that out there and a quote that she sent me that I was like, this sounds like it would make a wonderful podcast topic. Yes, and it would be so great if I remembered the title of the book right now. Um not the only one who suffers from a little brain fog. All of a sudden I was like, good with money? Wait, why am I having like a complete brain part of my brain has been hijacked by this ridiculous camera issue that I'm having on my computer. But anyway, I will look it up later when Linda's talking. I will look it. It was one of those things where I pre-ordered it months ago and forgot about it, and then it showed up. And I was like, oh, this is so cool. Um, but it's about agency. And I'm gonna I'll read the quote that I sent to Linda. Um the author says, I think of agency as the capacity to see, both see and act on degrees of freedom that other people overlook. It's being able to see choices where others only see constraints, the hidden doors and the walls of life. It's also the courage to walk through those doors to defy the forces keeping us normal, the pressures imposed by our inner script, and by the boxes other people put us in. And I just loved that definition of agency. And so I sent it to Linda because I thought, man, this would be fun to talk about. Um and I really to the the author's interesting. She's had she's made several career, big, big, big career changes. She was about to become a pot partner in a law firm and she decided to leave it to become a professional gambler. So she was like she was basically she was um the number one woman poker player in the US for a year or two. Um, and so you know, she's just done some really interesting things. And from there, she went to be the CEO of a company that was um trying, was like racing to make the first COVID vaccine. And they didn't succeed, but they did establish a process for getting vaccines approved more quickly that then they were able to sell to other companies. So it did they didn't succeed on their original mission, but they succeeded in that way. And then from there, she was invited to to captain another company. Um, so she's just made these leaps, and she has no background in medicine, like no background in any of this stuff. She's just done some really interesting things. And so I was curious to read her book because of her background. Um, but I really I think a lot of us get so caught up in, and this is what I see with the women that I work with, uh in thinking we have barriers even when we don't necessarily and usually the barriers look like a giant should. You know, the constraints that other people put on us, or the boxes that we feel like we have to stay in, or we'll be rocking the boat in a huge way that we won't man be able to manage. Um, yeah, what would you what do you say about all this, Linda?

Playing The Cards You Have

Linda 7:57

I mean, for I did not know that she had once been the number one poker player in the United States. I'm like, oh, Eric probably knows who she is. I was wondering if Eric knew. Female, female, female poker player, female poker player, big difference. He probably still would know. He gets so excited. Last year was like the first year in many years where a woman had made the final table of the main event, which is coming up here in just a I think a week or two. Uh, so I've been hearing a lot about it recently. So I'm like, oh, Eric's gonna love this. It gives me more, even more reason to read the book. And it says something really interesting to me because I loved um I loved that definition. And I might actually ask you to read it again because it was so good if you have it pulled up. Um but I do even even that sense of like, oh, I left what I was doing and I became a professional gambler, I became a professional poker player, like that would be a constraint that most people would see, myself included. You know, my husband will lightly throw it out there. Part of me is like, oh and so it's it's really interesting. I just love that there was a the way that she worded, like being able to see the freedom and to see choice where other people see constraint, I think is um it's really another way to talk about agency in terms of the both the inner and the outer cages, and really questioning like, oh, what are these are constraints? And what are these are just choices that I'm making, maybe unconsciously or consciously, that are keeping me small or keeping me in certain boxes that I maybe don't want to be in. And it's really interesting to me too, because you know, Eric and I will talk about poker a lot, and just I can see how that mentality and how having that agency can really impact how you show up to the game. I'm always better at playing poker if I've had a glass of wine or two, because I relax, I get more into it. I I'm not so tight, I'm not taking it so seriously. I start to see my choices where I before would see constraints because I'm like, if we were to talk about poker like Texas Hold'em as a metaphor, you have two cards. So you could see that your two cards are a constraint, right? And based upon how the flop comes and how you know the turn and the river card come, those could be constraints. But your choice is how you play those cards. Your choice is whether you bluff or not. Your choice, there's so many choices that can be made in the game, which is why I think it shows up in Eric's dreams a lot as a wonderful dream metaphor, too. Um, but I think it's it it really can um be this wonderful metaphor for remembering the choices that we have and not seeing the cards that we've been dealt, right? Even that, I mean, we even say that, like, well, these are the cards I've been dealt. So these are the cards, like, yes, we have to play the cards we've been dealt, but there's more than one way to play the cards.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Yeah.

Linda 11:02

And that's what that quote tells me is like the remembrance that there's more than one way to play the cards. Like, yeah, yes, life hands out very different cards. If you get like a two eight offsuit, like you're gonna have a little bit of a harder time than if you're dealt pocket aces. Hopefully, other people are understanding what you're saying more than I am. That's true. For those who don't have a uh we'll we'll end the poker metaphor there. I love it, but it's like another language, you know. It's like, I don't know what you're talking about. Well, just stick with the playing the cards you're dealt. And I think that it's the cards oftentimes if we think of that as a metaphor, it can be uh it can be a constraint, and there can also be choices within that. Like it might not be just one or the other, it can also be both. And I think that it's so much more empowering and so much more courageous, as she said, to see where our choices lie and to be able to make them and open those doors and walk through those doors. Um, which is it's not the easiest. It's not the easiest. I am not a gambler by life. That's why like I would not play in these poker things because I get too nervous. And I wish that I had a little bit more of that. Like, fuck it, let's just see what happens. Walk through the door. Yeah, I I love that too. So I did find the name of the book. It's called You Can Just Do Things, how How High Agency People Get What They Want Out of Life. And it's by Kate Hall, and that's Kate with a C. Um, and the way how I found her was she had written a viral Substack piece about uh basically like how to create your own luck. It was really good, it was really well written, and I really liked it. And then in there she mentioned she was writing a book, and so I pre-ordered the book, um, which it was months ago, so I totally forgot. So it was like Christmas when it arrived.

unknown 13:00

I love that.

Linda 13:01

I love that too. I know a new book that I was really excited about and completely forgot about. A present to myself. I know, I know.

Age Stories That Shrink Possibility

Linda 13:11

Um, but yeah, I think like thinking about the times when we hold ourselves back because we have either limiting beliefs that we've inherited from other people, or usually we've kind of made them our own at this stage of life. Um, just ideas, all kinds of ideas that we have about life that aren't necessarily true that we don't question. You know, age being one of them, that's one of the ones that comes to mind, especially at this phase of life, because so many of my clients will tell me, Oh, well, I would do this, but I'm too old now. And I've had clients in their 40s tell me that, which it's so hard not to laugh, you know. It's just like, what? Just quietly sipping your tape in my hand. You know, it's like I had a client years ago who she had a BSW, she was a clinical social worker, but at a bachelor's level, and just really seasoned. And she she lives in a state where she had more ability to practice than she would have if she were like in New York State, where you can't do much with a BSW, but she was doing a lot. But she really wanted to get the MSW so that she could be in private practice. And and every time we talk about it, she would say, Oh, I'm just too old, I'm just too old. And I'm like, Well, how old are you gonna be if you don't get it? And she's like, Oh well. So anyway, she did finally go and get it. And now she's 63, I think. And she's had all these great years of practice. Now she's winding down a little bit, but and she's you know, never looked back, never regretted it. But it took her years to decide. Yeah, to just and to give herself the permission to want what she wanted and to actually take a step towards that. I mean, luckily, I don't know anything about that with great sarcasm. I mean, yeah, it I would definitely see that our perception of age can be a hurdle. And it reminds me of something I had a session with my old coach Leanne, um, who I used to work with old, not in terms of age, but in terms of Leanne. Um, in terms of what I did work with her much more frequently years ago. And one of the things she had said was, you know, there was all of these things that had happened, dreams that I had in my life after having gone to my nephew's graduation in Sweden and you know, kind of reconnecting to this energy of 19 and high school graduation, you know, that sense of potential. And she was like, Well, when you're 19, you're pretty much only potential, like you don't have a lot of experience, like you're just full of potential. Like that's basically what you're full of. And, you know, now I'm 43. And she's like, Yeah, the potential that you have now is not the same as it was when you were 19, but there's still so much potential of being 43 or being 59 or even being 74. You know, there's there is this potential that we're constantly growing into. And I think we do such a disservice by how we portray aging. It's like it's just this, it's like a a cessation of potentiality and growth and deepening, which is just not the case at all. It might look different. I would sure hope it looks different at age 19 than it does at age 70. Um, but it's still this constant state of growth and development and evolution driven by potentiality. I totally agree. The other thing is that we get these fixed ideas about age, but they're not necessarily uh taking into account present circumstances, you know. Like when my grandmother died, she was 76, and I thought that was so old. And it kind of was at that time, you know. I was 20. So that was like what 39 years ago? And even then, people just didn't live as long as they do now. And I and I'm not talking about averages either. Lifespan averages are confusing, and and I don't think I think they mask something, which is that plenty of people are living longer. I know several people who live to be over a hundred and in recent years and were in great health up until like the last couple of years. I can think of four of them right off the top of my head, all women. You know, so our lifespans are so much longer, but we get these really fixed ideas. Like my mom, for whatever reason, after all three of her kids were in their 50s, she kept saying, You guys shouldn't be lifting heavy things. You're in your 50s now, you shouldn't be lifting heavy things. And I'm like, I want to maintain my strength, I'm gonna continue to lift things. It's just this bizarre idea that she had, and I'm sure it's based on something that happened in her family, yeah. That she's just generalized to everybody else, but that's what we do, you know. It's like when I was a kid, my dad always said his dad died at 60, and so he always said, Well, I'll die before I'm 60. And I thought 60 was really old, you know. Thank God that came and went for my dad because he just turned 90 and I'm about to turn 60. But you know, it's the we have these really fixed mindsets around age, and that's part of it. So we're not actually looking up and around and be seeing, is this true? Is this true? Because a lot of it isn't. Yeah, it's in in terms of like physicality, like lifting heavy things, which is it's funny, especially given like the the current science, which as we know changes quite frequently, but is that we should be lifting heavy as women as we age, that it's actually really important part of being able to maintain our health and our strength and the ability to be um independent into older age. Um, and I know I remember seeing a woman that I follow on social media who's a dog trainer, and one of the things that she said really stuck with me because we're the same age, and I would find myself kind of being like, oh, this hurts, like, oh, this kind of like, you know, and I'm like, I'm not that old yet. Like, stop pitching, Linda. Um, but she was like, I'm in the best shape of my life. Like, I feel the best that I ever have. And I was like, how freaking refreshing to hear someone say that, that that's a possibility. That, like, yes, sometimes certain things, yeah, though there might be an ache or a pain, but in a lot of ways, I do feel better than I did when I was in my 20s because I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't sleeping well, I was drinking too much from a physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, all the things, right? It's like, oh, but sometimes we need to hear people say that and to be able to witness it in another person to realize that that is a constraint that we may have picked up that doesn't actually come from within ourselves, but is just kind of internalized from society at large. And then we think that there are so many more things that we're not capable of than what we really are. Yeah, that makes total sense. I think there are so many things that we pick up about the shoulds and the and the quote unquote the way things are that we don't often stop to question. We just internalize them and make them law.

unknown 20:31

Yeah.

Linda 20:32

What are some other things? Are there other things that come up for you that are common that we internalize?

Divorce Myths And A Cheaper Path

Linda 20:38

I can think of one that's very personal right now, um, which is you know, I'm getting divorced, it's we've been separated for more than two years, and finally the divorce is underway and it's been stalled up for a lot of reasons. Um, but one of them was that in New York State, there's a do-it-yourself option, but they say it's the easy do-it-yourself option option, but it's so complicated. And my former spouse is a lawyer. Um, so he's like, Well, I'll take care of it. And it would have been pretty easy for him to do, but he didn't do it. So for like a year I've been waiting and he hasn't done it. He was not motivated, let's put it that way. Yeah, no. Um, and so I was trying to figure out what to do about it. And what everybody, everybody I've talked to has pretty much said the same thing. You're just gonna have to hire attorneys, you're just gonna have to cave and hire attorneys, which just made no sense to me because it's uncontested. It's we're amicable, we don't have much to divide. Everything that could be divided already has been. So there's we don't have minor children, we don't own a house. You know, there's just like hiring attorneys would be throwing money down a drain.

unknown 21:47

Yeah.

Linda 21:48

You know, literally, I might as well just put it in a fireplace and burn it. It would be that useful. And so it's been so frustrating to me to try to figure out what to do, also knowing that I probably couldn't. Easily file on my own looking at these easy instructions. And one of the things I've heard from people is if you make even one tiny mistake, it your paperwork just gets held up and they don't tell you what the problem is. So it felt so hugely frustrating to me. But then I was on a plane actually flying when suddenly it occurred to me like I wonder if there's a paralegal in New York who could file this divorce. And so when I landed, I did a search and I found somebody. And he's been amazing. And and we had so the things we have about divorce, one, you gotta hire attorneys. Two, divorce is really expensive, right? Three, it's always contentious. These are not true in my case. This divorce, I figured it out this morning, is gonna cost me $634. Amazing. And that's and that's if I pay for it all myself. If we end up splitting it, I'll pay half of that. Yeah. It's like a fraction of what you would have paid for attorney fees. That probably isn't even two meetings. You know, it's like the last attorney I hired would charge $350 an hour.

unknown 23:05

Yeah.

Linda 23:06

You know, and that was a real estate attorney, but still. So yeah, I think that and and a part of me is like kicking myself I didn't think of this sooner, but also nobody has mentioned this to me. I've talked to so many people, I've Googled, I've gone in women's groups, I've gone in divorce groups and asked people like what other options are there? And everyone says the same thing, you have to hire an attorney. So interesting. It's so interesting too when it's like, I love that you were like, no, there's something I don't want to do. That like I don't want to burn this money for no reason. So I'm gonna see. And then a third option appeared. It reminds me of that idea of like the holding of two opposites, the paradox of do it yourself, kind of muscle through it, hope that you don't have any minor issues that would hold it up or pay an exorbitant amount, and you waited, and then a third option came to you to Google. And it's like it you see it too. And it I think that's the hard part too, is when our constraints are mirrored back to us by the people, by the culture that we live in, it makes it really hard to see them as constraints rather than just seeing them, you know, as reality. Like that's just the reality of the situation. And people try to be helpful, but it's like that's really how it's oftentimes framed. It's like, well, that's just how it is. Yeah, you're gonna have to do this, suck it up and do it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I heard that about school with my kids, you know, it's like there are so many shoulds around people attending school and you know, that I obviously don't agree with because I homeschool my kids. Um, but yeah, it's you're right, it's really hard when it's mirrored back to you. If it feels like all you're seeing is the same obstacle over and over and over again.

unknown 24:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Yeah.

Linda 25:01

Now I want to sing it from the rooftops because I want everybody to know like there's this other option. It's much easier and it's way cheaper. And this morning, every day he sends me something to do. Like, okay, here's your next step. Here's your next step. This morning he sent me something and I did it, and I thought if I had to do this on my own, I would have screwed it up. Because they don't tell you, it's you put your name in on this specific thing in the the on the website for the courts, and they don't tell you put your name in all caps. But he said if you don't put it in all caps, it won't match the summons, and if it doesn't match the summons, they won't send the summons and it just gets held up. Who would ever do that? Like you would ever know that. Whoever writes anything in all caps, except for the president of the United States. So already it's like it's been worth it, you know, because I would have I would have screwed that up. I wouldn't have known.

unknown 25:56

Yeah.

Linda 25:57

How would you? Like, how would you? I know, and it almost makes you wonder if some bureaucrat who doesn't want people to get divorced is like, haha. We're gonna make this extra difficult. We're just gonna hold this up, or it's just bad system design, more likely. Well, just yeah, I guess I'm a little paranoid because most divorces are initiated by women and a lot of guys don't want us to be able to do it. So that is also very true, and that is something that is currently happening and being uh now thrown up in the court of public opinion. So I don't think it's paranoia so much as uh just keeping your eyes open. So how

Career Scripts And Retirement Promises

Linda 26:34

about you? Where do you see other constraints that are these shoulds that we just I mean I feel like there's the I think there's a lot around career, around money making, around um, you know, like the climbing up the corporate ladder that you should always be like moving ahead in your career, that it's like a one-directional kind of thing. And like that taking a step back, that's always met with great worry, usually even laterally. Oh, even laterally, because it's this whole idea that if you're not growing, like if it's not moving forward, it's it's dying. And it's like for me, it's really an unhealthy way of seeing things because obviously it never gives us a chance to slow down, it never gives us a chance to to reflect or reassess if the path that we're on is the one that we want to be on. But I think that that is you know, one of them, the uh another one, which we've talked about before on the podcast, like retirement, that you work really hard now. And so that that way when you retire, that's when you can go and like have whatever life you want to live. And um, you know, and not everyone makes it to retirement and not everyone makes it healthy to retirement. Right. Um, but it's still always sold to us that it's like, well, you work if if you work hard, then you know at some point in the future, you'll get to again take your your foot off the your foot off the gas pedal and and coast for a little bit or find things that are really light up your heart and that you enjoy. Um and it can be hard because obviously I think when we're for myself, I can say being raised in that kind of culture and um having family that also has some of those beliefs. It's like when you make a different move, it's like I've already internalized some of those things. I've already internalized some of the fears and the anxieties and the insecurities around what that means to have taken a even the way I'm gonna say it, taken a detour, right? Let's I think the the metaphor betrays the idea that it's like, oh, this is the detour as opposed to this is my life, and I got off the highest. This is your path. Yeah, exactly. It's not a detour, it's just my path. Um, but that it can come with this feeling of it being a detour. And then when you have those things mirrored back, of like, oh, but what about this? And what about your retirement savings? And like, what about you know, all of the concern that is supposed to be the a form of care that can be showered upon you, it can make it really hard to really see the choices that are in front of us, you know. I mean, I come back to this, like sometimes it feels like a very intense constraint of, oh, I can either make money or I can do something that I really care about. Because that's been in my experience. I'm like, oh, I can choose one or the other. And I'm like, I know that that's not the case, but I have not found the third option yet. I have not, it has not made itself known what form that could take. And it's very easy for me to try to grasp or figure out like what is this form that this thing could be. And I think for me right now, it's like, no, just knowing that there is like that is those are not the only two choices.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yep.

Linda 30:01

That there is, there are other options that are available, even though I may not see them. I think one of my favorite phrases in the quote is the the part about it's also the courage to walk through those doors to defy the forces keeping us normal.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Yes.

unknown 30:19

Yeah.

Linda 30:20

There's a lot around that. You know, a lot of the things that we're talking about are just norms. Like everybody goes to school. I heard that so many times. Everybody goes to school. Your kids have to go to school. Um, everybody gets circumcised. You have to get circumcised. You know, we've had arguments with people about my child's health. It's like, what? Uh, you know, all those kinds of things. Like everybody does this, everybody goes to college at 18. You know, everybody graduates high school in 12 years, you know, or grade after grade 12, which I didn't do. I went, I left early. You know, there's so many things where it's it's just like everybody this, everybody that. These are the norms. I love that. Oh, I just oh my god, that sense of the everybody with the should. Yes. Like that, those are two things that are can be indicative of the constraints. Okay, sorry, keep going. No, that's okay. I was just gonna say that one of my kids, my youngest, said sometime, have you ever noticed how excited Mimi and Grampy did do get whenever we do anything normal? And normal was an air quotes. And I was like, I actually have noticed that. And it's I'm interested that you've noticed it too. That's very interesting. Yeah. So, like when my middle child decided to go to high school, my parents were so excited. You know, it's like any of those, you know, norms, it's like they breathe a sigh of relief. Oh, thank goodness. It's uh it's like people, man, we all live so afraid. Like that's what I hear is that if we break like the cost, what is the perceived cost of breaking the norm? That we're gonna be outcasted, that we're somehow not gonna be a part of the society or whatever, you know, like those things can be so deeply ingrained, so deeply ingrained and come with so much fear that it's like, oh, it's this, it's the same impulse as like I'm gonna keep you protected by keeping you small. It's like I'm gonna keep you protected by making sure you're just like everyone else.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Yeah.

Linda 32:26

Because the one that, you know, what's that saying about the nail? The nail that sticks out gets hammered out. But the one okay, nailed it. Pun intended. Yeah. There's another one that I've been

How Purpose Talk Can Trap You

Linda 32:39

thinking about lately. I hadn't quite seen it in this light until this conversation. But um, you know how people talk about, I just saw an inspirational quote the other day that reminded me of this about purpose, you know, like everyone's put on this planet to find their purpose, and that should be your focus, and that's what you do. And and I I don't I'd be interested interested to know if this is true for you. But a lot of the women who come to me, this is something they're hung up on is I don't know what my purpose is. Mostly, you know, they've spent so much time raising kids and they've you know been doing all these other things and they hit midlife and they have some time now, and they're like, I just don't know what my purpose is, and I don't have a lot of time to figure it out. And I've come to see and come to believe for myself that purpose isn't a thing you do, it's who you are, that it's about our individual uniqueness and about expressing that and being unapologetically ourselves. I believe that is our purpose that each one of us have. But when you're focused, yeah, but when you're focused on it, it's like, oh, it's something I've have to do. Like my purpose is to be a podiatrist, you know, or whatever. Yes. People get really hung up on that. I don't, I'm curious to know how that lands with you and what you have seen about that. Oh my gosh. I mean, I feel like I will get hung up on that occasionally, and then I come back to the same conclusion that it's like, oh, purpose isn't just something that we're doing, it's who we are, it's who we're being. That your per like your purpose can be to be a wonderful friend or to be, you know, like a perpetual student. Like it doesn't have to be in this thing that you're yeah, it's not in this kind of external way of what you're doing. It can just be like, oh, how can I just be more of myself? And what is that? What how is that might be living my purpose? Even that word now, though, I've kind of gotten like a little bit of like an ugh me too. It gives me the ick. Me too. In part just from seeing so many people stalled out in life over it. Yeah, like absolutely stalled because they can't make a choice because it's like, but it doesn't feel like my purpose. It's and it also is like there's this, it comes back to our singular thing, our singular focus, that there's only one purpose that's out there, and that our that our role in life is to find that one thing, and then to do that one thing for the rest of our lives, and then we can have made sure that we made good use of our time here on this planet. Um, I feel like a much more interesting question, and especially as we're navigating life transitions, is like, okay, what what makes me feel alive and what is meaningful to me?

unknown 35:21

Yeah.

Linda 35:23

And that's gonna be seasonal. It's not gonna not gonna be one thing through your whole life. No, and it just sounds so much like oh, different than like, what is your purpose? Like, even just the word purpose, I'm like, oh, I don't like it anymore. I don't, I don't either anymore. I used to I used to be one of those people that was like constantly looking for it. But now I I just see it as so limiting, and I also the whole single focus idea is totally limiting as well, as we've discussed before. Yeah. And I think that it can, of course, when we do subscribe to those beliefs, even that, you know, that constraint that there is one purpose out there for us, and we have to find it, or something bad is gonna happen. We're gonna have missed the boat, we're gonna get to the end of our lives and have be filled with regret, or you know, whatever it is that the belief is what happens when you don't live your purpose. This thing that we alone could contribute to the world isn't gonna happen. You know, it's like, yeah. Talk about putting a lot of pressure on ourselves. Like, it's no wonder we can't like make a choice from that place. Like it's like making choice from a place of of panic and urgency and uncertainty. And it can lead to the phenomenon that I've no, I've experienced in my life where it's the are you my mother? Are you my mother? That energy, like, are you my purpose? No, okay, are you my purpose? No, and then feeling so dejected every time that you're like, Oh, that wasn't it. No, it wasn't that wasn't quite it. And it's like, oh, maybe it was just it for a time. Maybe there are pieces in there that you're gonna come back and and re-weave into your life. Like, it doesn't have to take the one form of the one thing that you're doing. Yeah, I can't help but think that it's designed to keep us distracted. You know, because it does distract so many women, women more than men, from what I see, but my sample probably is skewed because I mostly work with women. But yeah, you know, it's just it keeps us really hung up and distracted and and not focused on just being more fully ourselves, yeah, whatever that means. And I have a sense too that it probably hamstrings our agency and our sense of power. Like we actually, in the face of that question and in the face of this like urgent search, become more powerless. We see, you know, like there's something about that that feels like it's even though it can come disguised as a form of agency, right? As like, but it's not so much a choice, it's like a searching for something that we think already exists that we just have to locate, which is it's not really coming from within ourselves. It's like it's something that's out there. It's hard for me to even articulate, but it doesn't, it feels like in this conversation around agency, it can be disguised as that, as this ability to live a purposeful life and make choices about, you know, like living your purpose or living your bliss, as they used to say in like 2020 or whatever, 2019. Um, that has since gone by the wayside. Um, but yeah, it's just what how do you see those things relating? Like, what do you feel like is the relationship between purpose and this search for purpose and agency? I feel like I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I feel like this search for purpose is an external thing. It does not relate to agency necessarily because it means we're not acting on possibilities. If we're measuring everything by is it worth it because is this my purpose or not? Whereas if we have inspiration to try something, you know, then I think that begets agency. You know, but if if everything is is measured through this lens of purpose, it seems to me like very few things will be acted upon. Yeah. Because we also get locked up in the in in the largeness of that quest. You know, like it's we we miss the choices that are right here, right now. And we it's like we almost project agency into the future. Like we project our ability to choose things into the future. Like once I find my purpose, then I will be able to do these things, right? It's uh yeah, it's very interesting. Yeah, whereas to me, agency and power are very linked. It's but that's what power is about. It's the to the ability to make things happen, the ability to choose, the ability to see possibilities to you know, and then to act upon them. Yeah, that's very much what power is. Um, you know, if we all we can do is see possibilities, but we have no possibility of acting on them, that's not power. No, that's just that's imagination, that's maybe some creative thinking, but if you can't act on it, what good is it? Yeah, yeah. Interesting. It's very interesting. And I think it's fascinating what you said, that it's because I agree. I mean, so much of the self-help world, I wonder what's percentage. I've never actually looked it up, is geared towards women. And how much of that is geared towards this idea of finding your purpose. And so it's really it is really interesting, like what you were saying, that it can be a big distraction from from where we actually do have power and what are the things that make us do come alive. It's um it can oftentimes mean looking for meaning or yeah, like a raison d'etra, if you will, like a reason for being that exists outside of us, which can only be of what we're offering to other people too. Right. You know, it's like what we're doing and what we're doing for others. Right. Yeah, if you think about the way boys are typically raised and the way girls are typically raised, you know, boys are raised to be more selfish, more in pursuit of their own interests, ideas, you know, whatever. Um, whereas girls are taught to be more caring and selfless and looking at everybody else and trying to take their feelings into account before making decisions and not stepping on other people's toes and all of that kind of thing. And boys are taught to be much more assertive and it's about the self and the self-propelling forward in whatever way is you know meaningful to that kid. I think it all fits, you know. It's if if women are distracted by we've got to find your purpose, and then you've got to find a way to live your purpose and to to do the thing, and but at the same time, though, it's gotta be in the context of taking care of everybody else. Of course, yes. Your purpose can't, it's it's purpose to me, it's like there's always like intertwined with this like life of service, which is not a bad thing necessarily. It's not like oh, being of service is bad, but it is interesting how genderified it is. Yes, yeah. For a woman, her purpose is really to be selfless, is to meet the needs of everybody around her, and to that's how she'll meet her neat her own needs. Like they'll come last, but her need her need is to serve, essentially, is what we're what we're told. Yeah, you know, and it very much fits what we were talking about last week around the hero's journey and the you know, the quest and the I've got I know we just had a baby, but I'm off. I've gotta go, I've gotta go. Yeah, gotta go, you know. Um, yeah, so I I really do think it fits, and I do wonder how much of it's a distraction. Well, for one thing, you wouldn't sell more self-help books if the one you just wrote solved all the problems, right? So if it was really about developing a full, fully expressed self who has agency and is happy and in touch with her power, why would you need another one? Right. You're like, no, no, we need constant improvement, people. We need constant improvement. We got to get on the hamster wheel and we do not get off that hamster wheel. There's always a new area that's available. It's true. It's true. The second you think like you've made some progress, there'd be some new thing out there. You're like, oh I should be doing that. Yeah. Everybody's doing that now. There's such sort, I should be doing that. Everybody's doing that. I just love those as two little like signs that we've stepped out of our agency. Is the when we shoot ourselves, we should all over ourselves, and we find that either interior or exterior monologue that says, well, everyone is doing it. Everybody does that. That's just what you do. Like that's the unspoken rule that in this case is spoken. Um so maybe it's also a spoken rule, it's been made explicit. You know, I I personally think the key to an authentic life is questioning all of that. I would never say it's always do the opposite of what everybody does, because then, like you've said many times, that's just being the rebel and it's still letting it define what you're doing. Um, but really it's to question and what of this do I want? What of it do I not want? What is a fit for me? What is not? Which path actually feels me?

The Question That Unlocks Action

Linda 44:57

Sometimes it'll be the same path everybody else is taking, maybe with your own twists, but other times it will not. Yeah. Like that's where like the juice of life is, you know, like it's I feel like there's oh, I know we're coming up at the end of our time here, but it's just such a juicy conversation with so many potential tendrils in my mind, too, of how how like questioning how this could show up in my life, like where am I seeing constraint instead of choice? Where am I seeing the choice, but I'm not taking it, right? I'm not actually opening or walking through the door. Um, what would that look like? Yeah, there was a another great quote in the book, and I don't have it in front of me, so this would not be exact, but it was something like ask yourself what perceived consequence you're trying to avoid. It made me stop. I was reading along, I got that to there. I was like, oh, I had to get a walk around and think about it a little bit because I'm like, what am I trying to prevent? What am I? But I think it's such a great question because so much of what holds us back, we're not even aware that that's what it is, that we have an idea of what the potential consequence could be, and we don't even want to go there. So it's the thing that's holding us back from seeing that third choice or enacting a choice we know we want to make. Yes, yes. It's like moving, it keeps us moving away from certain things rather than moving towards what we really want.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Yes.

Linda 46:33

Because we move away, obviously, if there's a perceived consequence we don't want, we tend to want to move away from those things. Puts us into that fear and that backwards pedaling, right? Rather than this is something that I really want and I'm gonna move towards it. I'm gonna walk through that door, trusting in my capacity to deal with the consequences as they come, which I can never foresee entirely. Right. I mean, or consequences, some consequences you can. If you're if your desire is to fly and you want to leap off of a 40-story building with nothing, you know, you're just leaping with nothing to aid you, then we we know the consequences. The perceived consequences are legit. Your perceived consequences are the actual consequences. Yeah, gravity is a thing, and you you'll be you'll be subject to the force of gravity. But in so many other areas of life, we think we know what the outcome is gonna be, and we're completely wrong.

unknown 47:29

Yeah.

Linda 47:30

And often the perceived consequences are not in our favor. Yeah, very rarely do we've perceived them to be in our favor. And even sometimes when they're not exactly what we had hoped for, there's a part of me that also knows, if I could just remember, that it's like, but part of it is that who we become through the process of doing those things. Yes. It's like it's not about just the external outcome, good or bad, or getting what we want or not, what we want. It's like who do we become by taking that courageous step and going on that journey and trusting in our capacity to navigate the unknown future, which, unless you're jumping off a 40-story building with no aid, most of the time it's it's pretty unknown. Right. Right. And even when we have think we like I, you know, when I left my marriage, I had pretty clear vision of what my life was gonna be like for a while. And nope, it's been way better. But it's it's different than what I thought it would be. I just thought I was gonna be single for a really long time and you know, live in my own little apartment and be totally happy. And that is not how it went. Yeah, huge. Yeah, you keep looking at that path. I'm gonna take you on this. Yeah, exactly. We're gonna go on a wild ride. Come on now. I know, and it's been great. I'm glad that I wasn't so wedded to my path, but I didn't miss this one.

unknown 49:04

Yeah.

Final Takeaways And Stay In Touch

Linda 49:07

Oh, um, I can't wait. That can that be like next week's uh podcast topic. I'm so glad I wasn't how and how that relates, right? Holy moly, we have agency, we have surrender, we have these like two little forces that come together and intertwine. And I'm what I just love ending with what you said too, in terms of it feels like it opens a whole new door of I'm glad I wasn't so wedded to the path I thought I was gonna go down, that I missed the one that was before me. Paraphrased. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, all right, all right, my dear listeners or our dear listeners. My dear missus, thank you for coming to my dear lord. It went well in the middle, started poorly and ended poorly. It's been a day here, it's been a day here, but we're so glad to be with you. Thank you for listening, and please let us know what you think or what your thoughts are about agency or paths or any of this that we've talked about today. Yeah, we'd love to hear from you. We would. We would. All right. Wish us luck for next week, friends. Yes, please. Until next time. Until next time.