Show notes:

151.How to Cultivate the Relationship With the Person You Spend the Most Amount of Time With

Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to the Empowered brain, the only podcast using science, psychology and coaching to help you rewire your brain and create a life you love with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Harvard grad physician, master coach, and mother of two.

Hello, sweet friends, welcome back to the podcast, I as always am thrilled to be here with you. Because, for me, it is such a joy to be able to connect with you in really such a personal and intimate way. And think I realized how intimate This podcast was gonna get and how much of my own personal story I would be sharing and my ups and downs and all those types of things. And, you know, I met somebody recently who has only known me through my podcast. And she was asking me these like really beautiful in depth intimate questions. And they were follow up questions to what she had learned about me in the podcast. And it's so interesting, because I just felt like, so close to her already, even though I'd never met her. And it was just so lovely.

So again, thank you all for giving me the space to be here with all of you and for creating this time, so that you could be here with me too. All right. So I want to talk today about how we cultivate the relationship with the most important person in our life. But before I jump into that, I want to celebrate my students, all of my students and my clients that are inside of my program, that journey, they are doing such incredible work. They're these really incredible women, really smart women, many of them women of color, who have decided that, you know, their life is too short to play small. And so they've decided that they want to get out of their shell, they want to get over their issues of insecurity, their confidence issues, their imposter syndrome issues, they want to stop procrastinating on their dreams. And they want to finally live a life that they can be proud of. And I they're in doing incredible things. You know, I have two musicians who are sort of musicians as a second career.

One of them is a physician, another one's an engineer. And they are just really talented creative souls and our singer songwriters. And it is just so beautiful to watch them flourish and blossom and so many other stories of women that are following their heart and really going out there and doing the things that they had been called to do on this Earth really living their purpose. So listen, friends, if you are ready to do that same thing, if you are ready to stop being stuck to finally let go of the things that are holding you back to live a life that you can be proud of, where you create more time, where you create more money, where you create more abundance, more fulfillment, so that you ultimately have more freedom in the world, you know, and are living a life of true, honest liberation and freedom. I want to help you do that. And I can work with you inside of my program, the journey. So check it out, Vanessa Calderon, md.com, you can click on the journey there. And you can read all about it. And I really hope you join us join this incredible movement of brilliant women doing amazing things in the world.

Okay, so let's talk about how we cultivate the relationship with the person we spend the most amount of time with. So this topic came up for me because I was reading this study that was recently published in a bunch of like public places like NPR and a bunch of other places. And the study was talking about who is it that we spend the most amount of time with, and how we can really make sure we're optimizing those relationships. So what the study talked about the most was are siblings, because we spend a lot of time with them, you know, between zero and 18. And if you continue to harness that relationship, you continue to spend time with them during your adult stages. And the other person they talked about, not surprisingly, is a spouse or partner if you choose to create a spouse or a partner in your life. And I thought, you know how fascinating and how interesting that that is what the study talked about. Because when I was finished reading it, I was like, Wait a second.

This study is leaving out the actual person you spend the most time with the person you speak with the most the person you spend most of your downtime with the person who's there with you through the super hard stuff in life and the really good stuff too. And the person who will literally be with you the day you die, why did they leave this person out? And who is this person? So if you haven't already guessed it, this person sweet friends, is you. That's right. The person you are going to spend the most amount of time with for your entire life, the person that you want to create that intentional relationship with is you. And I talk a lot about creating this beautiful relationship with yourself from a space of love and self compassion. Because in my experience, the relationship you have with yourself is the jumping off point for everything else you create in the world, for everything you create in the world, for example, you want a really beautiful loving marriage or romantic partnership, you have to love yourself first. Because people will treat you the way you think you deserve to be treated the way you treat yourself.

So if you think you deserve to be adored and cherished, that's how your partner is going to treat you. And if they don't treat you like that, you're not going to waste your time there, you're just going to move on. In fact, I remember when I was in high school, I had, you know, normal amounts of insecurity of self doubt always wanting to fit in. But I also remember that, you know, I had this one boyfriend, I can't even remember his name. But I just remember this one thing he did once when we were supposed to go on a date, and we were old enough that he was driving his own car. And he was supposed to come pick me up, and he showed up an hour late. So there I am dressed ready to go. And he shows up an hour late. And when he got there, he thought it wasn't a big deal. He kind of just laughed it off. And I was like, Wait a second. No, thank you. This is so disrespectful. So of course, that was the end of that relationship.

And for me, I have noticed this really beautiful healthy pattern in the romantic relationships I have had in my life, every romantic relationship I've had, if I've ever noticed that there's a sense of, you know, disrespect or not holding me Hi, I just don't spend my time there. In fact, I think it's kind of silly, I would never spend my time in a relationship like that. And so that's how it sort of shows up for you in romantic relationships. Once you love yourself, and you give yourself what it is that you need. And you treat yourself with that respect. With that adoration with that sense of being shared, cherished. That's how other people will treat you. And, you know, if you want to achieve big things in your life, like you have big goals that you want to create in your life, no matter what they are, you've got to know that no matter what you which will be your biggest cheerleader, if you treat yourself in the right way. You will always cheer yourself on and you will always love yourself no matter what. Here's one more example of that. So and that the gym running, and I'm running intervals. So listen, I love working out. I love exercising, I grew up as an athlete, and I still love to train. I love training my body. I love the endorphin highs that I get. So I love figuring out like what's new, what's different? How much stronger can I get? How much faster can I get?

So I'm at the gym, and I'm running intervals, you know, speed intervals, so really, really fast. And then I slow down and really fast. And then I slow down. And I'm on like my fourth speed interval, and I am beat I'm feeling so tired. And I feel the exhaustion in my body. And the old me would have felt the exhaustion just not listened, I would have kept pushing myself and told myself that I have to keep going no matter what I can't quit. And as I have learned to really develop this relationship with myself, where I love myself and listen to myself. What I did instead was I like paid attention to my body. And I asked myself, What is it that you need right now? What is it that you need at this moment? And the answer that I got back in that moment was I really just need a break. I just need a short break. And I actually, in that moment, I questioned myself, I was like, hold on a second. I don't want to quit, this is what I do. But I was like, what if it's not quitting, but if it's just listening to what I need. And so I slowed down, I was on the treadmill, I slowed the treadmill down for 30 seconds and I just took a walking break. And when I was done with those 30 seconds when I went into run the last 90 seconds of my interval, the last minute and a half. I ran it so fast. I ran it faster than any other interval I've ever run. And honestly, when I was running it, I was like killing it at the end. I thought to myself, Oh my gosh, I'm so proud of you, Vanessa, I'm so proud that you checked in and that you listened and that you honored what it was that you needed. You know, the funny thing about this is that what I was actually afraid of

Vanessa 09:47
I was afraid of listening to myself because what I was afraid of is I was afraid that I was going to be disappointed that I was going to be disappointed in myself for not pushing through. But what I learned is that when I add truly listen to my body. And I gave it what it was that it was asking for. And I actually honored it, that I was able to run so much faster than I've ever run before. And instead of being disappointed in myself, I just felt a tremendous amount of gratitude. I still like think back and so grateful that I was able to hold myself that way, and just give myself what it was that I needed. So I've given you an example of how you know the relationships with yourself, and how that's sort of the jumping off point for any other relationship you're going to have how that shows up for you and relationships, how it shows up for you when you want to achieve big things. And the way for me, it shows up when I'm trying to, you know, create, like a career or a business goal. So the way this translates for me, and my business, is something that is so fascinating for me, which is I'll give you one example. It's the feeling of disappointment.

So listen, friends, if you are doing big things in life, especially if you're an entrepreneur and trying to start a business out there, you've got to get comfortable feeling disappointed, because that shit comes up all of the time. I'm sorry for saying the Shi T word. If you weren't expecting that, my apologies when it comes up all of the time. And I used to think when I felt the disappointment that something had gone wrong, and that I should quit. But after doing a lot of my own work in this space, I have realized that Hello, disappointment is part of the process, you're gonna feel it sometimes. And what I do now is I give myself the space to feel the disappointment with so much kindness and so much love. My plan, whenever the disappointment comes up. My plan is to hold myself high. So here's what I tell myself when the disappointment comes up. I tell myself, man, Vanessa, disappointment really sucks, it really stinks. But it's normal. And I know that disappointment is sending a signal to our brain telling us to quit. But look at how much we've accomplished because we never let disappointment stop us. Look at what we've created. Because we've never let disappointment get in our way. So take your time, take the time that you need.

You don't have to rush through this, don't rush through the feeling. And when you're ready to skip, start to start again, when you're ready to keep going, I'll be here waiting for you. It's the sweetest and the silliest way for me like really talk to myself with so much love and kindness. And the funny thing is that I used to think that giving myself time and space to feel hard things like sadness, or disappointment, I used to think that that was going to slow me down, that that was going to stunt my progress or lead to my failure. And I used to have these fears that if I didn't push myself that if I wasn't always constantly pushing myself forward, that I wouldn't get to where I wanted to be. And what I have learned and I am continuing to learn over and over again, is that every time I give myself permission to surrender to whatever it is that I'm feeling, whether that sadness or disappointment, whatever it is that I'm feeling when I give myself the space to surrender to that, it allows me to move through it so much faster, that allows me to process those feelings so much faster. Because why is that? Well, we all know, as Carl Zhang says that what you resist will persist.

So when you are consistently resisting those hard emotions like anxiety, disappointment, sadness, you can't push the emotions away, because the energy cannot be created, it cannot be destroyed, energy will always be around. And it will just get heavier and stronger if you resist it. So one thing that I invite you all to try doing next time, is allow yourself in, allow yourself to let go and allow yourself to process the emotion without resistance. Don't put a timeline on it. Don't tell yourself that if I let myself feel that it will move through faster, because then you're going to be upset that it's not moving too fast enough. Just say, can I allow myself to feel these emotions and learn whatever lessons that they're trying to teach me. That's one way that you can do it. That's what I do. And for me, it has just been such a beautiful, liberating way to move through the difficult stuff. Because I love myself through it. I literally like to hold loving energy for myself so I can move through those emotions. And it helps me move through them so much faster, so much kinder. And as a bonus, I get to learn whatever law sends the emotions there to teach me. And you know what other really nice thing about surrendering, I was talking to one of my students about this today.

One of the beautiful things about surrendering is that when you surrender, it supports you in creating this beautiful life of inner peace. And I think at the end of the day, that's what we all want. We all want to create a life of inner peace, where we feel like we're flowing through life without resistance. And the key to that is really surrendering, is really letting go of the thought error that we are in control. And a way to practice that is by allowing yourself to surrender to whatever difficult emotions are coming up with so much love and kindness. Alright, friends. So to wrap up today's episode, I want to remind you that again, the person you are going to have the most conversations within the world, the person that you will spend the most time with, who is literally there with you from the second that you open your eyes in this world and take your first breath, till the second you take your last breath.

16:06
Is you why Oh, you,

Vanessa 16:10
it's you. So really, my invitation to all of you is to take some time to cultivate the relationship you have with yourself, with love, with kindness, with appreciation, get to know the things that you like, get to know the things you don't like, get to know what it is that you want to create in the world. What is it that you desire? And ask yourself, you know, when you're not feeling great, what is it that you need? What is it that you want in that moment, and take a second to listen. And whatever comes up for you practice honoring your needs. Maybe you need to binge on Netflix, maybe you need to just take a break away from the computer, maybe you need to go outside for a walk, whatever it is, honor your needs. And lastly, remember that it's so important to speak to yourself with kindness and with love. Speak to yourself in the same way that you'd speak to your young daughter or your young son that you'd love so much.

Speak to yourself with that same kind of love and reverence and give yourself permission to surrender to the hard stuff. Alright, sweet friends, I love you all so much. And I will see you next week. And by the way, if you haven't already liked this podcast or given us a review, I am just here asking kindly from a space of gratitude to please like the podcast and give us a review because it helps others find the podcast that's the way the algorithm works. Alright, so your friends, I love you all and I will see you next week.

Vanessa 17:52
Hey, sweet friends, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to join us in the journey. It's my all inclusive program and the best community out there giving you the education you never knew you needed to help you create a life you love. Join us at Vanessa Calderon md.com forward slash join. I'll see you there.