Personal Responsibility with Jamie Lerner

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what’s up? This is George G. And the time is right. welcome today’s guest strong and powerful. Jaime Lerner, Jamie, are you ready to do this? I am. All right, let’s go. Jamie is a psychotherapist take an integrative approach to well being she’s explored the world in search of spiritual healing modalities. She has an insatiable appetite for pleasure, beauty and joy. Jamie, so excited to have you back on the show. Tell us a little about your personal life some more about your work and why you do what you do. I don’t do psychotherapy anymore. I’m a wealthy therapist. So now I just assist people in assisting themselves to getting to where they are in this moment or where they want to be. And

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my personal life is all about horses. That’s my passion riding jumping, I have four grandchildren. That’s a lot of fun as well. And yeah, life is good. Excellent. Well, I was kind of before we started that I went back and re listen to our episode, from a year or so ago. And I enjoyed it so much. There’s so many of the of the ideas that you shared, that I still think and talk about all the time, the number one one was that we need to stop arguing for our limitations. And when he told me that I was like, That is such a profound thing that we all felt sort of victim and prey to. So thank you for that.

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Welcome managers. So true. We spent a lot of time during that. Yeah.

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And the other thing, well, I fancy myself a thinker. But something that’s been on my mind a lot lately, is this idea of Am I a human being? Or am I a human doing. And I told you that I oftentimes think of myself more as a human doing, because I have a hard time narrowing down just exactly who I am. Because I’m a lot of different things. So it’s hard for me to articulate that I wanted to get your thoughts and opinions on that.

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I think that’s interesting. And I also think that a lot of us do not look beyond what we do, and explore who we are. Because for many people, I think they define themselves as what they do, which is not necessarily who they are. So it’s an interesting conversation that I think we could begin to have with ourselves. Because when we,

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with a loving curiosity, explore different

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ideas and thoughts and feelings that we have about ourselves. And I think that changes every single moment, then we become so much more than what we do.

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But I think what we do is interesting, and hopefully what we do is something that we enjoy doing. And it’s something that we’re in alignment with, so that we are actually leading by example. Yeah.

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questionable, but

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that would be though, right?

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So I,

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I am a, I am always doing my best. I am working hard. I’m trying to be a great husband, a great dad a great

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example to other people, the way that I live my life and discipline, my dedication. So I don’t know if I can, how, how do you? How do you think about who who you are?

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Well, who I am is more about me and less about their perception of me by outcomes. And so that’s very different, because I don’t really care what other people think about me, because I’m so comfortable with who I am in my own skin, kind of being a I’m very inner directed. And because that feels so good to me. I feel like I move about the world as a as an authentic human being.

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And I think that often we get tripped up in expectation of what we’re supposed to be, which might be very different from how we’re actually feeling

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Hmm, being a father, a husband or wife, you’re taking on all these different roles. And then I think we become unhappy. And we’re not sure why. Because we’re so grateful that we have a wonderful family and a great job and but

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what we’re projecting out to the world, about all of these roles we’ve taken on is very different than how we’re feeling about being in these roles.

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And that would make sense to me that people would not be happy, even though nobody would understand that from the outside, because they would look in and see this perfect life, which is not happening.

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Right, so.

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So when we kind of step back and reevaluate like the roles that we assigned to ourselves and taken on, and then how do we authentically feel about those roles. And

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then that

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would be a good time to like, take a deep breath. And

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I don’t know, maybe reframe some of those things, so that they feel that they maybe they can still look good, but now they’re gonna look good and feel good.

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So that’s one of the I mean, that, to me, is really a failure. That would really be pretty awful, if I were it but but it makes all the sense in the world, that I was raised in a certain family and their expectations on me that I was going to go to this kind of school, I was going to play this kind of sport, I was going to marry this kind of woman, I was going to have this kind of job. And I was going to go to this country club and live in this home and didn’t die. So if I’m doing those things moving along the expected path, but if I think that they all suck, and I dislike it immensely, then you might think that I’m a happy person. But I’m actually just feel like I’m trapped.

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And I think sometimes it’s not just pressure from family expectations, I think that we look outside of ourselves so much that our perception is that the world is asking us to be something that we’re

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and then we take that on, and if we’re not in alignment with it just doesn’t feel. So I think that’s kind of how we can lose our way.

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And then also, we can find our way back to ourselves.

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So the world expects, and that’s just something that that that I’ve that I’ve built up in my head. It’s not just the people that I went to school with, or my family. It’s actually that that the world thinks that I’m supposed to be doing this, so I better keep doing it.

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I think a lot of social media, and it’s our perceptions of

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external

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everything. We spent a lot of time looking outside of ourselves to be direct.

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And I think we, we often get what we’re expected to get, but how do we actually feel about what we have?

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That’s kind of the question.

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We get what we’re expected to get. But how do we feel about what we have?

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So

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many people ask that question. I mean, it’s not asked of us. And we don’t ask ourselves.

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Enough.

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So

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and I think that that’s 100%. Right. So how do I feel about what I actually have? And when I start peeling back, those layers are just I just start asking the quite, I asked the question, how do I actually feel about that, and I give myself the space to be able to explore that honestly, and with love. Not super critically, I’m not beating myself up like, Okay, how do I really feel about this?

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And from from a professional standpoint, well, we can talk about from from whatever perspective that you’re interested in.

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I can work to reframe how I’m thinking about it and feeling about it.

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Yes, but first, you have to identify how you’re feeling about it. And that is a conversation you have with yourself about yourself. So it’s not something you discuss with your spouse or your friends. This is a very personal calm and honest conversation that you’re having that maybe it changes every minute or every hour or every day. And it’s not necessarily even peeling back. It’s just exploring. You know, what does this look

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But how could it look? How could it feel? How does it feel?

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Those kinds of things, and then based on Learn asking yourself, what do I want? And that’s the big question. So I think we prioritize our life based on what we’re wanting. But many people do not stop and ask themselves what they want. And that’s a big question. They spend a lot of time avoiding that question.

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And living a life that

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they can justify avoiding the question.

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So

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yeah, I could justify avoiding the question. Yes. Because your life is complete. What? Children have a job, you have a home, you have a car, you going on vacation? You can?

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Like, it’s awesome. What am I? What am I thinking, everything I have is so great. I am such a happy person.

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And possibly you all right. And there are people that are in complete alignment with what they’ve created, and they have consciously created their life. And those people are authentic, genuine, comfortable in their own skin, amazing manifest errs, that make other people feel comfortable, because they are so comfortable with themselves. And then there’s another part of the population that have a lot of great stuff, but they’re stuck, and they’re just not feeling.

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And then they feel guilty, because they should be feeling it. Because look how great their life is. It just doesn’t feel good. So

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yeah, that’s a, that’s a bit of a pickle right there. If I’m having that conversation, and what I have, it’s by most people’s standards is pretty awesome. But I just it’s not, it’s not really what I truly want. So how do I how do I move forward? How do I change my situation?

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Well, often it’s not the situation. It’s how we feel about the situation that is created.

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So the first question is, what is it?

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You have to start? And it doesn’t have to be the whole answer. You know, once again, every hour, it could be different, make it look different, it can feel different. It’s a, it’s just a way to become a little more curious and honest with yourself about yourself.

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giving yourself permission to do that kind of exploration.

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And people get afraid. They’re like, Oh, my God, if I discover what I want, I won’t want what I have. That’s not even true. You’ll want what you have. But there’ll be in alignment with it, because you’ll learn to self to feel differently about what you have.

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So it’s not what we have, it’s how we feel about what we have.

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That creates

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the unhappy.

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Okay.

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So the fear is, if I do go down this path, I will discover that I, I’m happy with what I have, but it’s not what I have. It’s, it’s what I feel about what I have. So the fear is that if I go down this path, and I discovered that I don’t feel good about the things that I have, even though I feel like I should.

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Yes, and so for a lot of people, they’ll say well, I’m afraid I’ll discover I don’t feel happy in my relationship. But it’s not about the other person. We’re so used to pointing our finger at the other person and thinking it is the other person but it’s never about the other person. It’s about ourselves. So when you start to have that conversation about yourself with yourself and you know, it’s about yourself and with yourself, it’s you are able to excuse another person, step into a place of amazing power take personal responsibility for where you are in the song, who you are in this moment. And where you would like to be

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how you would like to shift into a better feeling place within your relationships

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within your job within your whatever

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complete ownership that I have control it’s it’s not my wife’s fault. It’s not my kids fault. It’s not has nothing. It’s very little.

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No, it’s nobody’s fault, but it has nothing to do with the other person ever. We project how we feel about ourselves on to everything and every

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Every one. So when our relationship with ourselves becomes really good, then all we see from the inside out is really good stuff.

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It’s like a human superpower is our human superpower, no doubt. And most people don’t want it.

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No, thank you

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keep that one.

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And get I mean, it’s, there’s so much freedom. If you think about it, you know, you let everybody else off the hook, and you get to create a, consciously the life that you want. And include all those wonderful people in it or not. That’s a choice. But it’s not about the average.

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When did you figure this out?

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You know, I think I was born nurse by with those knowing. And so I was impossible. As a child as a young adult is a big adult. I’m very difficult to influence. I’m not impressed by anything or anyone. I just been so entered or and, and it feels really good. And my kids are exasperated with me all the time. Because

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like, you’re just like, everyone off the hook. I’m like, I know, isn’t it great? They’re like, No, that’s not.

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But it feels so much better. Because I only have control over how I’m choosing to feel and how what I’m choosing to think.

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No control over me. And neither do you.

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I sure don’t

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what are your kids asking for, or they want you to be more judgmental on people to hold people accountable. Be yes, they want me to hold people accountable. And I only hold myself accountable, because people are who they are. And I get to make choices. But all day long.

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In the hold someone accountable, you’re not going to change

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it, there’s you know, an it’s, it’s interesting, when you allow people to be who they are, and you allow yourself to be who you are, then you just kind of flow through life in a very lovely one, no resistance, no judgment. And you get to make choices, all kinds of choices. So choices to be with people not be with people, but there doesn’t need to be around, you don’t have to have a judgment about who they are is a reason. Not wanting to be with them. Just excuse yourself. And that’s it. So it frees you up to really step into this personal power and manifest of pretty amazing life for yourself. And some of that life has material things and some of it doesn’t.

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It all feels good.

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We are very powerful. What we think about this, what we create, and most people all day long, think about what they don’t want. And all day long. They have what they don’t want. So when you ask them to start thinking about what they want, and they actually do it, they start creating life that is that they’re just blown away by how far

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that easy.

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It is that easy. If you’re consciously choosing to create your life, absolutely.

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The operative word is conscious choice.

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How How,

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how do you do that? Are you sitting down and just thinking about it? Are you meditating? Just

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um, I think it becomes like a mindset. Because I think you just get so comfortable with who you are. When you are comfortable with who you are. You don’t care who anybody else tells. You just don’t. It doesn’t matter who anybody else’s has nothing to do with nothing.

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So it’s just a it becomes a state of being. It’s who you are. I think so this idea of allowing, just allow people to be where they are, you’re not going to change anything. You don’t need to be a source of influence. They don’t have to be who you are. They don’t even have to want to be happy. They can just be miserable. And you don’t need to have a point of view. You don’t have to have a quite a few about any

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commentary.

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Just think about how freed up we would be in our minds to focus on other things like pepper

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associations enjoy. And, yeah, just

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so how do I begin to break the habit of, of doing all the things that we’ve been talking about? I ought not do when I’m, how do I stop? Or go ahead?

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What do you do that you ought not to do?

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Like judging people try to influence others when we are judgmental.

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Okay, well, we’re judgmental, that is a cue that we’re disconnected from ourselves. Because we’re connected to ourselves, we don’t judge anyone. And in that moment of disconnection, we’re probably judging ourselves. So we laugh about it. And we say, Oh, my God, girl again. And we figure out how to hook ourselves back up with ourselves. Why are we looking outside of ourselves,

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and having commentary about someone else, I mean, there must be a moment of discomfort within ourselves, or we would not be doing.

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So it’s not an opportunity to beat yourself up. It’s just a little reminder. It’s like if you lose signal on your cell phone, and you can hear someone

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you know that you’re out of range, but it’s the same thing. We get disconnected all day long. And we’re just not awake. But when we become aware, and it’s a little reminder and it’s not a big deal, we can get back to ourselves. What do I need to do for myself in this moment, to be

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to mean if you’re irritated and you’re annoying, you’re just connect what are you irritated, annoyed about? It’s not someone else.

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It’s never the other

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that is my only notice only my

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point of view. One of them

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and I think it’s wonderful. I love it.

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Jimmy, thank you so much for coming back on. What can people where can people learn more about you? How can they how can they engage with you?

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I have a website. It’s www dot j am i e dash l er en er.com?

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Excellent. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show Jamie your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Jamie dash lerner.com J am i e dash l e r n e r.com and learn more about what Jamie is working on and to find out if there’s an opportunity to connect. Thanks again, Jamie. Thank you, and until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai