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Seeking Irrelevance > Toxic Gratitude

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♟️ MY TURN:

First of all - today is a day for gratitude and I wouldn’t be where I am today without all of you.

So thank you for reading this newsletter every week and being in my orbit.

I appreciate you.

Today’s newsletter is going a bit deeper.

Many of us have gone through tough times (or are currently going through them).

Perhaps you need to spend this day with some people who've actually contributed to those tough seasons.

Perhaps you are going through a dark chapter and being told all the ways to be grateful.

I remember during a particularly dark time in my life someone said “one day you will look back and be grateful for all the things you learned and gained during this time”.

That may be true and hindsight bias may allow me to structure that narrative neatly with a bow.

But let me challenge this….

Gratitude may not always be the goal.

(yup, she said it…..on thanksgiving)

Instead, you might actually need to seek irrelevance.

Irrelevance means that the person or event no longer carries any meaning or weight in your life.

The person or event no longer triggers any emotion - positive or negative.

I’m not thankful - I just am.

It just is.

So how does one seek irrelevance?

Keep reading.

♟️YOUR TURN

Here are three ways I train my brain to seek irrelevance.

#1: Watch it like a movie

If you are around a person or group of people who trigger a past version of you (or even a current version) pretend you're actually just watching them like a movie.

Remove yourself from the scene and start to look at their characters like an actor would.

• What is their origin story?
• Why are they the way they are?

Once you create an “other-ness” to a person or situation, it extracts your emotions from it. You can float above it and just exist - watching the scene unfold.

No longer allowing it to pull you in.

#2: Just the facts

Sometimes you have to interact with someone who triggers you (either in person or via text).

As you seek irrelevance - you will release the need to get anything from them beyond facts.

Stop seeking love, care or attention from someone who can’t give it.

Facts > Emotion.......leads to irrelevance.

#3: Choose a moment

Sometimes you need to mark the end of the emotional pull something has on your life.

From this point forward, you are deciding it won’t trigger you.

And whenever your brain or body tries to allow it, you say “nope! We are done with that”.

There is a scene in Taylor Swift's Miss Americana documentary. She's talking about looking at paparazzi photos of herself and recovering from an unhealthy relationship with her body.

She said:

“So this would cause me to go into a real shame, like, hate spiral [Taylor pulls up a picture of herself on her phone]. This. And like I caught myself yesterday start to do it, and I was like: Nope. We don’t do that anymore. We do not do that anymore… We’re changing the channel in our brain, and we’re not doing that anymore. That didn’t end us up in a good place.” - Taylor Swift

That's the power you have as well.

When you finally decide it's time to change the channel and create new pathways in your brain - the only person who can stop it is you.

It’s kind of like making a relationship exclusive. Nothing actually happens in that moment but you both are agreeing to not act in the way you did before (dating other people).

You choose to control your emotional reactions.

My therapist made me do a ceremony 6 years after my divorce to acknowledge the end of my emotional connections and reactions. I wrote a letter about all the things I have grieved from that experience. And then I burned it. From this point forward I am no longer allowing that pull - those emotions.

Irrelevance is powerful.

And perhaps a better choice than gratitude in some situations.

I am grateful for you.

♟️ Let's Win Together.

I currently have 2 spots open for 1:1 coaching. If you'd like to learn more, please reply to this email!

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113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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