We feel it is important to make our podcast transcripts available for accessibility. We use quality artificial intelligence tools to make it possible for us to provide this resource to our audience. We do have human eyes reviewing this, but they will rarely be 100% accurate. We appreciate your patience with the occasional errors you will find in our transcriptions. If you find an error in our transcription, or if you would like to use a quote, or verify what was said, please feel free to reach out to us at connect@37by27.com.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:00:00

Do you claim to be a pessimist? Or are you more of an optimist? More of a glass half full or glass half empty kind of person? Or maybe you classify things entirely differently as I do. The real question is, have you noticed how you approach things? How you view things and look at things might actually taint how you feel about them? How you see them and what you walk away with after you experience something? We're all human, and walking to situations often means that we come up with stories in our head about what we're experiencing and fill in the gaps when we don't have all the information. It's kind of part and parcel with being human. What we do with that information is what actually counts and that is what we are going to explore more in todays conversation. Welcome to the Grit show growth on purpose. Im your host Shawna Rodrigues, and im happy to be here with you as your guide for all of us growing together as seekers and thrivers. If you follow me on social media at Shauna podcast on Instagram specifically, you might be aware that I got married recently. That's been pretty clear.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:01:35

On Facebook probably, too. And I've also mentioned my fiance more than once on this podcast. I often refer to him as the love of my life, which was smart because now he is my husband and I can still call him the love of my life. It's a little bit more of a transition to go from fiance to husband. That's taking me some time. I don't always get it right, so be patient with me. It's the same guy. You'll get used to it.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:02:01

I'll get used to it. I'm the one that has to work on it. Right. Interestingly, today we're going to use weddings and my wedding perhaps, and what's happened over the last month related to that as our way of looking at things, as our conversation starter for how we view things and how optimism, pessimism and the stories we tell ourselves kind of paint pictures a little bit. I had the most wonderful experience on my wedding day. It was better than I ever could have imagined, than I did imagine, actually. I was very fortunate for that. We do have a list, and we did actually list it on this very cool notebook that one of my friends made me as a gift.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:02:47

Shout out to Vicki, thank you so much. I need to post about that on social media because she put a lot of thought into that wonderful gift that arrived just before I left town. We actually noted in there the things that didn't go quite as planned because those are the things we will assuredly forget unless they come up in stories, which some of them will make for good stories. One of them was that we made these jenga blocks. So Jenga, the game where you stack blocks, right, is a game we like to play and had this fun idea of using that for our guest book so that we would have guests sign blocks. And for Christmas, probably two years ago, we've been engaged a while. I gave my fiance at the time, now my husband. See, I'm practicing.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:03:37

I gave him an engraved box of blocks that were jenga blocks, essentially, that had our names and our wedding date, and it was always you, because that was what he said to me when we got back together. We have quite an epic story. The New York Times actually wrote it up. So you can actually just Google Shawna and Robert Rom.com, and it will bring up the New York Times article, actually. Or if you go to my Facebook or Instagram, you can pull up the actual article that they wrote about us. But we have quite a story, so it was always you. Was the thing that he told me when we got back together this last round as part of our story. So that was actually engraved in the box.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:17

So we had this box of blocks, and the vision was for everyone to sign with the blocks. And then anytime we played Jenga in years to come, we'd be able to, like, reflect on who was at our wedding. And we had friends who came over months ago and helped us paint the blocks. So they were actually different shades of blue because that was one of our wedding colors. And they're these beautiful blocks. And when we're getting ready at the wedding, people kept coming in saying, oh, we found them. Oh, we can't find them. We don't know where they are.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:46

Where the blocks. No one's signing up, so we didn't actually have a sign in, so there was no backup guest book. It wasn't figured out and resolved. And when we got home weeks later, we found the missing box of items from. From dessert spoons to prizes for one of the events and miscellaneous things, including the Jenga blocks in our garage that I hadn't packed. And two other people had left my house, sunset, and never noticed the box. So that didn't make it. That was one of the 35 things.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:17

We also had one of my friends of honor, which is what I called my bridesmaids. Instead of calling them bridesmaids, my friends of honor had COVID and wasn't able to come to the wedding. So we had a wonderful stand in. And if you were at my wedding and you didn't even know who the stand in was because all of the individuals were so amazing. And I could have actually had at least two other, if not more folks stand in because there's such amazing people in my world. I'm so grateful for that. So we had all sorts of little, little things that didn't go as planned like that, and it's kind of fun to have those little stories. But overall, the day was amazing.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:55

If you saw my reel that I made on Instagram, I talked about being called out by another podcast regarding the weather and not worrying about the weather, and I was worried about the rain. I did not have a good backup plan, and you should not worry about the weather. You should set a plan and forget it. Was the advice from that podcast. Great advice. I recommend that advice. But I did not have a good backup plan that I was happy with. And I did turn that over to someone else to worry about so that I could focus on other things, and they came up with a backup plan that would have worked, but miraculously.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:06:30

And I attribute this to my mother, who's no longer with us, but she was doing her part from the other side, in my opinion. And it rained while we were on the way to go do the first look and the initial photos. And by the time we got there, the rain stopped, and it did not rain the rest of the evening. We had clouds. I had soaking wet shoes the whole night. It was a little chilly. However, it was magical and amazing. We had a wonderful, wonderful evening with everything that I could have hoped for.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:07:02

It was better than I would have imagined. And something you should know about me is that I've lived a life that has allowed me to find humor in the absurd, because things have happened in my life that I would have deemed unimaginable before they actually happened. And sometimes the only way to cope is to find the humor and the absurd and the things you never imagined might happen. So I have that ability, and I have some wonderful friends who can also do that. So you need to have friends that can also do that if you're somebody who finds humor in the absurd and in the crazy way things might happen. So I did joke before my wedding that somebody might end up in the river or that there might be some crazy arguments that might creep up. And I would practice with some of those friends who could get my humor and understand who I am, that we just say, just look the other way. They know how to swim back to the party.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:08:04

So he would practice that back to the party response when those things might happen. And partially that was drawing boundaries, right? That if people were going to be, how they were going to be outside my control, we would just redirect back to the party. And amusingly, there was no need for that. But it definitely does paint me a bit as a pessimist, right? That leading up to my wedding, instead of thinking everything's going to be perfect, everything's going to go well, that I talked about how there was going to be good stories, and I talked about how these things might happen and how we would redirect and draw boundaries and be amused by them instead of having them weigh down the evening or change the beautiful things that I wanted to get out of our wedding. And that time with these incredible people who traveled so far to be with us and share this day and the very select group, we had a very small wedding so that we could actually spend time and connect with people. And at the brunch, the day after, someone specifically remarked that they had never been at a wedding where everyone had so much fun, no one fought, and everyone got along so well. And part of that could be the small size. And I joked that we weren't allowed to have hard alcohol at the venue, maybe that was part of it, but I don't think they realized what a huge compliment that was and how easily things could have been different, and how many amusing stories I have from other family events or gatherings of how things have gone different directions.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:09:34

I love storytelling. You know that. That's the thing about me. And it's true that I put a lot of time and intention into making sure that I savored my wedding. And that when I allocated money and effort and focus, it went into things that would create connection, that would take stress off, so that that could be the focus. And we had a theme of fun and frivolity, and fun, frivolity, connection and savoring was what prevailed, which is amazing. So that attention and focus went a long way, even with the 35 things plus. 35 things plus, we thought of things.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:10:13

We need to add that list. But none of them prevented that outcome, which is amazing. And I really feel that, even though you might say that I was pessimistic, that I was playing out worst case scenarios in my brain of what could not go well and what could happen, that the mindset does come into play, even though there was this pessimist, right? So in the beginning, we asked, like, are you an optimist or a pessimist? And really what really matters is what we do with that. Information and those stories that we tell and the way we fill in the gaps and what could possibly happen, what we do with that. And I chose to use that energy just to focus on the outcomes I wanted and use that information of that potential pessimism, if we want to say, to find how I would overcome those situations. And they never arose, but if they arose, how to draw the boundaries and make the best and still have the outcomes that I wanted from that situation. So regardless of being an optimist or a pessimist or walking into that, I think of me as a realist, right? That not necessarily pessimistic. I didn't expect those, but I definitely saw the possibilities.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:11:27

But the mindset that I had and the way that I framed those things was how I could fully immerse myself and enjoy that day and let go of those things and not get hung up on whether or not we found the Django blocks or whatever else that arose. It didn't go perfectly to plan. So it can be very powerful to be able to have that and to just use your mindset in those cases that happens. And if you do tell yourself stories, to know that whatever those stories are is what you do with those stories. And our wedding had a fabulous results. But that's what I want to talk a little more about today is the stories that we tell ourselves and the fact that it's very human for us to tell ourselves stories and for us to fill in the gap when we don't have information and for us to imagine potential outcomes and to imagine how things are going to go, and for us to potentially have worst case scenarios that we play out sometimes in our head, and that our brains fill in the voids. They make up the stories, and that's something that we just accept about ourselves and that we work with. It's one reason why when I work with organizations and that when we talk about gossip culture, that we do try to give more information.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:12:57

Because when there is a void for information, that's when we fill it in however we can. And humans are creative with their storytelling, right? And they can come up with some pretty creative things that might be happening, the reasons why behind things, and what potentially could be the outcome, right? So it's important for us to recognize how we are and the way we walk into things to understand that's just natural, right? I made jokes about having empathy for the future partners of some of the young kids that were at our wedding, or even the teens that were at our wedding. And this was their first wedding, that they attended. And our wedding was not necessarily how most weddings are. There was interactive games. There was, instead of everyone just getting a standard favor, you got a golden ticket and you spun a prize will. Then you got to get a prize that might be as big as a stadium blanket or it might be as simple as a jar of candy, and you got to choose based on what you won from spinning the prize at all. Right? So that's not a typical wedding.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:14:05

I've never been at a wedding where they had any of the things that we had, but my focus was on fun, frivolity, connection, and there was a bunch of games, and you won prizes for the games. And so when these kids who, this is the first wedding they ever attended, when they go to plan their wedding, they're going to have a total different concept about what weddings are. Right. They're going to have a story about what weddings are and what their expectations are for a wedding based on this first wedding they went to or maybe the only wedding they go to before they themselves get engaged or get married. Right. And so it's going to kind of skew because of that story. So they're going to have to recognize that this is one experience, telling one story, or when they go to the next wedding, they have these expectations. It's like, no, this is one experience.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:14:47

Doesn't define them all. I grew up going to cake and punch receptions, no dancing, no hors d'oeuvres, no food, no anything, no favors, no bubbles. There might have been birdseed. Occasionally there's bird seed. I do remember that much. And rice before there's bird seed. So there was like. But that was, like, the limit to traditions.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:15:09

And normally the bride and groom would open gifts in front of everybody, and you'd be there for forever opening gifts a lot. But those were the weddings I grew up with. And when I went to college, I went to my first wedding in Louisiana, and I remember being told there was going to be two pigs and three kegs. And I did the two pigs reference just, like, confused me. Like, I was like, is there going to be, like, a pig with an apple in its mouth out on the table? Is that like, what exactly is the two pigs reference? Because I had actually heard of a couchandelet, because I was Louisiana. I'd heard of a couchandle but hadn't just like, okay, you're roasting two pigs and we're going to just eat them. And so when I went to the wedding, I'm like, oh, okay. There's just like, normal serving of pork at the wedding.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:15:56

But because it was referenced way, I was a little confused. And my biggest memory from that wedding that was so different than all of the cake and punch reception weddings I'd gone to growing up was that at that wedding, there was this little old grandma with short curly gray hair standing on top of a chair, pouring shots straight out of the bottle into people's mouths as they danced under her in this, like, train that was just so iconic for me and so different from any marriage wedding I'd ever been to. And it was like 02:00 in the morning and we had afternoon and morning cake and punch receptions that I gone to. So it was such a difference. And since then I've been to weddings of probably ten different states in two different countries and seen so many different traditions and ways of doing weddings. So I've definitely had a more well rounded experience. But going to that wedding after probably, I don't know, 15 to 20 to 30 cake and punch receptions growing up, it was definitely eye opening to the fact things could be done differently. So anytime we've had experience with something, we have kind of a story or an experience and what we expect, and then we tell ourselves, this is what I'm going into, this is what I expect to have happen, and yet it can be totally something different.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:17:18

Even if we've been to it 20 to 30 times, there's still a whole different way of doing things that we might be walking into. And the question is like, how much do we limit our openness to new experiences based on the story we have or the blueprint we already have of what it might be? And do we walk in being pessimistic about it? Like, oh, this is going to be another cake and punch thing. Like I was sitting watching, opening gifts and I so tired of doing this. And then we see something different and we snap into finding what we enjoy about it and we can be open to it. Or are we optimistic about our experience walking in and then we're disappointed when it's something different. Like it's not so much how you walk into the situation, but what you do when the situation evolves and what you do with that story, when you get more information, does that make sense to kind of look at it in that way? Because it can be applied to everything in life, right? About how you start your day, how you walk into a new situation at work, how you walk into a new situation with your kids, with a new classroom, with a new school year, how you end the school year, what your expectations are for a playdate what your expectations are for a meeting at work, for the first coffee date with somebody, if somebody else pays or not. Like these stories, these ways of expectations we have, like, whether you're optimistic or pessimistic, it's really about what you do with that information. If you remain curious and pay attention to how it makes you feel and what you do with the gaps in the information.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:19:01

Right. So my story about the wedding, I didn't know how things would go, and I played out the scenarios to turn them into a comedy and see how I could fit them into the outcomes I wanted. So I use the stories that may have seemed pessimistic to help with my own visioning to make it have the outcomes I wanted. So my realism is, I like to see it came out that way. I have a very different story, though, of somebody whose outlook was more optimistic. Right. So after we came back from our mini moon, I had 24, 40 hours of things just going kind of rough, like credit cards stolen. There was challenges with some stuff with work.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:19:46

A client I really love was taking their focus elsewhere. So that was transitioning and some other things just getting back on track. Long days, a lot going on. And our landlord sent me a message about wanting to meet with us, and I didn't get clarity over why. And my husband. See, I called on my husband. I'm gonna get it. I had asked why, and I had thoughts about why he might be meeting with us, and none of them were good about us needing to fix or change or do something we weren't doing right.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:20:19

Or maybe he was gonna sell that house and we were gonna have to be moving or something along those lines. And my adorable husband, who I love to call it this marriage glow he has, which is fabulous that he actually said, well, maybe. Maybe he wants to give us a wedding gift. Like, maybe he's coming over, wants to meet us together to give us a wedding gift, which my mind, again, maybe it's because I'm a realist, pessimist, whatever you want to call it, never would have crossed my mind. Definitely not something that would have entered, especially with the things that were each conversation. Things were not according to plan, and things weren't falling into place for me. And, you know, credit card, you know, call from the credit card company, my credit card sold, you know, all those things like, oh, this is definitely not the story that I would have told myself with this lack of information about why we're mating. Right.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:21:13

And so he's not someone that I think most of his friends would say is optimistic. I think when I knew him when he was younger, there'd be much more room for that when things were going well, going positive. But he and I have both had enough experience in life with things not always going well. That's not usually his default setting. So I loved that we come back from our wedding, our mini moon, and his default setting is, let's be optimistic. Let's have this positive potential of why our landlord wants to meet with us. The punchline is the landlord is selling the house. So that wasn't, you know, the gift, which would have been a lovely outcome.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:21:58

However, I loved for the 28 hours between when we got the message and when we met the landlord that my husband had planted the seed that it might be something positive. So even though that wasn't the story I came up with, I value so much that he offered that story and I could work it in because that story that he had as a potential felt so much better than the stories I had. And honestly, my brain was not in a place to come up with those more positive stories. It just wasn't. It just could not file through and think of potential positive outcomes. It was definitely stuck in, all right, things are not going well. What else can not go well, right? So as much as my default is more realistic, whatever else, I have such an affinity for those positive stories, for filling in the gaps, for those beautiful things and to leave room for that because of the way it makes you feel. And when we got the actual news from the landlord and it was that outcome, like, we handled it, we're handling it, we got it.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:23:16

No problem. We're good like that. But that 24, 28 hours when my plate was already full and I could just file away is maybe it's a good thing. It was lovely to have it in that category for that time. And so it's nice to have that option. So when you have that, what was your thought? Like when I told you our landlord wanted to meet with us, did you fill in a gap? Did you have a thought about why? I probably didn't give you enough time, did I? What was your default? And if you were in that situation, if it was your lender for your home loan, if it was your landlord, if you have a landlord, what would be your default? If they're like, can I set up a time to talk with you? The next couple of days, I need to meet with you in person and talk to you and the other person on the lease or the other owner. How would your mind fill that in and how would you feel if it was that outcome in the end. For me, the outcome in the end still had the same response.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:24:19

But I really like the 24, 28 hours of getting to think it might be something positive for me. That was nice. What is your thought when somebody cuts you off or pulls in front of you? Too sharp? I tend to be the person that thinks that they are disrespectful and just blatantly don't care about human life and are just a colossal jerk. That's kind of my response, my default response. If I am being more mindful and in the mindset I want to be in, I tell myself, maybe they really need to get to where they're going and they, they have somebody who needs them and they're just in a hurry, and that's why that happened. Or they really didn't see me because they were distracted by something and they have something really important heavy on their mind, and they didn't see me, and that's why they cut me off. And honestly, any of those could be true. I will probably never know the truth in that circumstance.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:25:28

Right? Never know the truth. But the ones that feel better are the ones that say maybe they really need to get somebody to somebody. Maybe they have something important going on and they need to get there. Those are the ones that feel better. And really, in the end, how I feel, the ways that I'm directing my brain and processing information, the way that I look at the world and how that sits with me is more important to me than whether or not they're colossal jerk like me thinking, they're colossal jerk that doesn't help or serve or do anything for anyone. Me being able to think, oh, maybe there is a possibility that they really didn't intend that. And they had a moment of, oh, I can't believe I did that as soon as they saw my vehicle. I need to be more present.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:26:18

And it helped them be more present so that when they had their kid in the car, they. They were more present and were safer driver and prevented an accident because they caught themselves when they almost cut me off. Right. Like I choose to believe and see that. Like, that's what I want to choose. I don't do it 100% of the time, but that's what I want to choose. That's what I want to see. I want to see the way that my husband saw that.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:26:43

Maybe we're going to get a beautiful gift. Maybe this is going to be a positive. And in the end, if it isn't, if it doesn't, that's okay. We'll figure it out. We'll get to the other side. 24 hours of having positive brain chemicals versus that extra 24 hours of not didn't make a difference. It just meant I had more positive brain chemicals. Right.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:27:06

It's just about being curious about how you approach things and how it makes you feel and no judgment. I feel like my approach to my wedding, even though it might have seemed to some as pessimistic, even though I think it was realistic that what I did with that information works for me to help me be in a good place. And I still got to have the outcomes that I wanted and the feelings. I wanted to have an experience that I wanted to have. So you knowing the feeling and experience you want to have, like, there's no judgment. You can be pessimistic. You can be optimistic. You can be realistic.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:27:47

Whatever sits best with you is what's important. You need to be in alignment with you. You need what feels comfortable for you, and that can change. Right? At the same time, you need to be nonjudgmental of others who are optimistic or pessimistic or realistic and let them be in their space with their view on things. And if anything, maybe give them some reflections back about how that makes them feel and what they do with that. Because what you do with that, that curiosity and what you do with that, the curiosity that goes all the way back to our wonderful internal family systems conversation with will back at episode 32 around being curious. Right? So it's not to be judgmental about how you approach things from the start. It's how you want to feel about it.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:28:43

And if that gets you there, if being optimistic gives you the feeling you want, borrowing somebody else's optimism and those stories get you there, because the stories are going to happen, right? We're human. And maybe I'm more human than most. I do couch myself as a storyteller, so I do like having those stories and me coming up with them as part of my creativity, right? So maybe I'm really good at coming up with negative, creative stories, but it feeds my creativity. It's what you do with that and how it makes you feel in the end. If it made me feel better about my wedding, that I took my negative stories and I figured out how I'd handle them and draw boundaries, so I felt more empowered to have the wedding that I wanted to hold at center and be in alignment with the fun and frivolity and the connection and savoring it, I made sure that if those things I could imagine that might happen would not get in the way of that. It served me my pessimism, realism served me. And later on, somebody else's optimism, I was able to borrow, served me as well and gave me the emotions that I needed to help me cope when other things were being very realistic that I needed to cope with as well. And there wasn't as much space for that and I didn't want to go down those other paths.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:30:05

So it really is about what you need and what serves you. So maybe it's not serving you to start with the negative stories and maybe you want to work on changing your stories, but that's up to you. Right. We're going to get into that a little bit with your grit wit for today and how to apply this before we go there. You know, you know what's next? We have to do our self maintenance minute, right. And reflect on, on how we're taking care of ourselves. So how are you taking care of yourself? What have you done in the last week to prioritize you and to really take care of you to meet your needs so you can better show up as your best self? I'm asking you now, you to reflect on that. What are you doing for you? What have you done to put yourself first and give yourself the energy and ability to show up for others because you had to show up for yourself first, right? We talked about that.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:31:17

We've been talking about that. Huh? I worked some long days, and when I came back from being away, I took the time off. Yay. But I came back and it was some long days. And by Friday I was feeling it. I wasn't focusing well, I wasn't getting things done. My brain and body was like, you already put in way too many hours. You need to stop.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:31:43

And I was not accomplishing as much. So I very intentionally took the weekend off and I spent time with my husband. See, I'm getting the hang of it. My husband and I actually did planting because I love gardening and planting, as you know. Now, since we are not as permanently in this home as we thought we might be, we planted in planters. So bought some planters and bought the plants. But everything from hydrangeas to annuals, like petunias. I do love my petunias, even though I hate planting annuals, since you have to do every year, right.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:32:19

To Lantana, which is his favorite, to things like tomatoes and zucchini and the little baby watermelons, because I like those, too. So we do that. I'm actually not all done with planting because I bought too much, because I love planting things so I get a little over ambitious. So I still need to finish doing all the planting. However, we definitely got this stuff to do that and it was time outside the sandwich my husband loves and it was good for me to hands in the dirt, creating things in beautiful flower. I love all that stuff. So it was lovely. And we have lilacs and stuff too that we planted the year that we got married.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:32:57

So hopefully they'll continue on with us on our adventures and be from this year, which would be kind of special, which was fun. That's what I did. What are you doing? What are you going to do now? If you don't have, if you didn't come up with an answer immediately, you need to now come up with an answer of what you're going to do because you're caring for yourself, you putting yourself first, you do what you need to do for you is hugely important and it's a huge important piece of you being able to trust yourself and honor yourself and remember how worthy you are of that time and attention. And you need to be the first person to give that to you and to do that. And sometimes we all need a reminder of that. So that's first, then far greater at wit. I really want you to take that curiosity piece and think about and look further at our conversation around the stories that you're telling yourself. And to notice these stories as you go about your day, as you're going to the next meeting, as you're going to spend time with your kids, as you're going about chores or going about planning for something, what is the story that comes up for you and to notice? Is it more optimistic, is it more pessimistic and not judged that the more realist, don't judge that.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:34:32

Just notice how you would classify it. And if you're comfortable with that classification, right. No judgment, just noticing. And then after you notice that, after you notice how you start that, like, how does that make you feel for that story? Are you able to take it to a place that's still in alignment with how you want to have that experience? Can you start from that place? And it makes it easier to keep going with that. So can you start with, you know, more pessimistic view of how things are going to go at the parent teacher conference? You have a more pessimistic view of how it's going to turn out. And that's okay because when you go into the meeting, you're in that place and then you get really excited when you find out things are going better than you imagined. Or if you go in there and things are a little more challenging than you expected, it's okay because you were kind of ready for it. And that's great because your experience and how you experience that is most important.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:35:36

So it's okay like how you walk into it. It's just noticing those things. How you experience the event based on those stories is what is important and your ability to pivot from that starting point and your ability to accept others. So if you walk in with that pessimistic perspective, but your partner's all optimistic and you let them be optimistic and that's okay, if that's where they need to start from, and then they're able to walk in there, whatever the outcome is, they're still okay with that. Right? So it can be okay to walk into the meeting optimistic and then have it not work out. Okay, that's fine. They're okay walking in with that perspective and then adjusting based on what actually happens, that's okay. But it's how you feel in the end with based on what really happens with those stories.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:36:31

Because our minds naturally tell those stories. Maybe it feels better to be more optimistic in the meantime as long as you don't, like, crash and burn once the actual truth comes into place. Pretty pessimistic. As long as we don't deny the positives once they actually happen. Right? Or we don't keep seeking for the negative. Because if I was going into my wedding with that pessimistic perspective of thinking somebody was going to end up in the river and all night I just kept egging on somebody to be the one to get in an argument, to be the one end of the river. And the whole time I'm just looking out for who was going to be in the river instead of being present and enjoying the beautiful toasts and the fun games and the amazing individuals that came so far to be part of it, and instead of being present and enjoying that, I'm too busy looking for this negative outcome that I predicted and egging it on somehow and painting it over the rest of the night, that would have been very different. Right? So you can start from whichever point is, what you do with that information is how much you let it dictate the outcome, how much you let it paint over the top of things.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:37:53

And just to notice that how you feel afterwards based on where you started and how that painted into things and if it did or didn't make a difference, if you went into that conference and it changed how things felt or how things went or if you went to that event and it was different because of that, or that coffee or whatever else. Because you get to choose the stories that you tell yourself. You do, and it takes some work, obviously. Like I said, I never would have thought of that. Positive, beautiful. Us getting a wedding gift from our landlord, which I love that. That my partner thought that was a possibility. Right? It's beautiful that that was the case.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:38:36

And with enough training, I can cope with that idea, too. I can get my brain to cope with that. Some days would be harder. Like that day. It wouldn't be very hard. But I can get my brain there. You can get your brain there. If that's what you want to think of, you have options.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:38:53

You just need to be thoughtful about the stories that you're telling yourself because you are listening. You don't have to accept any of the stories you tell yourself, but you are listening. You can change the stories you tell yourself. You can change the stories you listen to you tell yourself. And you always have a choice about listening to them. How they make you feel and how they paint the picture of what's in front of you. Thanks for being here. Thank you for joining us today.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:39:29

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to jump on over to Instagram and follow us @TheGritShow. And if you aren't already following Authentic Connections Podcast Network @37x27, you should definitely be doing that as well. Don't forget, you are are the only one of you that this world has got, and that means something. I'll be here next Tuesday. I hope you are too.