EPI 58 - What If the Way You’ve Been Trying to Grow is Actually Keeping You Stuck?

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It's that something that shows up in those quiet moments because I feel like there are two sides to personal development. One is positive and one is negative. Welcome to The Habit Within.

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This podcast is for high-achieving women, 35 and older, who seem to have it all together but feel like they're constantly running on fumes, struggling to balance it all and losing sight of the woman they used to be. I'm Camille Kinsler, a former physician assistant turned transformational coach, blending science, positive psychology, and a metaphysical approach to habits, health, and vitality. If you've ever asked yourself, why am I so exhausted even after a full night's sleep? Or, I feel like I'm juggling so much but I'm just barely keeping my head above water, you are in the right place.

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Each week, we'll explore the real reasons behind feeling overwhelmed, trapped in the cycle of overworking, and constantly running low on energy, and how to break free from the patterns keeping you stuck in survival mode. It's time to stop living on autopilot and to start feeling like yourself again. Let's dive in.

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Welcome back. I just want to say how much I love doing this podcast and thank you so much for showing up week after week and yeah, my intention is to share things that are most beneficial to you, to me, to the world at large and that I hope that these conversations really help you live a life that is filled with more intention and more purpose and that it has this massive ripple effect on everyone around you. So if you haven't already, please follow this podcast and leave a review because that helps this podcast get in front of more people.

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So without further ado, today, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the conversation around personal development. It's that something that shows up in those quiet moments because I feel like there are two sides to personal development. One is positive and one is negative.

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And we'll go through that in today's podcast and I'll share a personal story about why I decided to bring this up because again, this is stuff that is in my constant awareness as well. It's what I teach and this is what I practice as well. So what I actually teach, I practice.

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And so these are moments for me to share with you so you can recognize like, okay, this is how she actually applies what she is sharing in these podcasts. The way I want to approach this is that there's this little voice inside of you that little voice that shows up in those quiet moments. When you're in the shower, when you're driving, when you're in front of the mirror, in the early morning thought loops, in the click of the next self-help book or podcast episode.

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It's that subtle whisper that says, if I can just fix this one thing, maybe then I'll be okay. But babe, what if you don't need fixing? What if the real path to wholeness isn't about becoming someone new, but shedding the beliefs that told you you weren't already good enough and having and raising two littles. I see it happening in real time where they had this belief about themselves and it's slowly being chiseled away because their belief is now being implanted or imprinted by the friends that they have or the teachers they have at school or from me and their dad without even knowing it.

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We're implanting these different beliefs about who they are and those beliefs unfortunately have to do with their enoughness. There are times where correction is needed and then times where it can be nitpicky and that chisels away at who they really are. So this is something that happens to all of us.

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And so as adults, we get to choose. We get to choose which of these beliefs that we want to continue to believe and which ones we want to shed. So y'all welcome back to the habit within.

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If you don't know me, I'm Camille Kinsler, the host of this podcast. I also offer one-on-one wellness and vitality coaching for women 40 and older who want to feel like themselves again. My approach is holistic mind, body, and spirit.

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I am a physician assistant with over 10 plus years experience. So I really incorporate what I like to call bridge medicine where we really look and see if your body is being supported the way it needs to be. Then we look at the mind and these habits of the mind that I like to call them and then move into the spirit.

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Are you living a life fully aligned with who you are, who you want to be? And it's not about fixing yourself. It's about finding those spaces within you that already exist and illuminating them. Because I think for every woman here who's ever read a self-help book, who's ever followed an influencer on Instagram, that you felt this, that you felt this tension growing between growth as liberation and growth as self-rejection.

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You know, all of the posts about how to look and feel younger and be more fit and have the best spot of your life when you're in your forties and fifties and sixties. And I don't know how forties is the new twenties, like, geez, I don't want to be 20 again, but how to be happier and wealthier. And I get it.

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So my content can speak the same way too, because it's human nature to move away from pain way more quickly than it is towards pleasure. And so all of the marketing talks about that, but I want to switch this paradigm. And I believe we can with awareness.

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If we focus more on the pleasure that we seek than the pain we're running from, then we can truly have a good time as we're trying to evolve into this next iteration of ourselves. So this isn't about self-improvement to improve ourselves. It's about why we are doing it.

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Because underneath every course you buy, every journal prompt, every habit tracker is a belief. And the question is, is that belief rooted in love or is it rooted in lack? So let's start here. Let's look at the two paths of personal development, two paths of personal development that people take.

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One path is it's the fix myself path. And this one is super sneaky because it sounds like if I lose this weight, then maybe he'll love me. Or if I lose this weight, then I'll have more fun on vacation.

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If I lose this weight, then I can finally find a partner. If I can finally stay calm all the time, then I'll be a better mom. If I post the right content, then maybe I'll finally feel successful.

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It looks like hustle. It looks like shame. It's personal development rooted in the belief that there is something wrong with you.

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It's when you're standing in front of the mirror with a magnifying glass, you're hunting for flaws. You're obsessing over the before just so you can justify the after. And this type of personal development feels exhausting.

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It's never enough. It's never good enough. And it's rooted in fear.

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And then there is the other path. And this path is what I like to call the coming home path. And these two paths, I'm constantly aware of where I fall.

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And I am learning to be more consistent in walking the path of coming home. And this sounds more like I want to move my body so I can feel more alive and present with my kids. I want to communicate better because my relationships matter to me.

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I want to create because it's who I am, not because it earns me any love. And this version of personal development does not come from fixing a problem. It comes from amplifying our life.

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From shedding layers that were never yours to begin with. From remembering who you were before the world told you who you should be. This kind of growth is rooted in self-honoring, not self-loathing.

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I think that when I have always thought about personal development, I think of it as this ladder, right? We're always trying to reach and climb and hustle. But here is what I've learned. True personal development really is more like this spiral.

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And this spiral invites you deeper into yourself again and again and again, but from a new perspective every time. And if you're using growth as a mask or performative or as a distraction from the truth of who you are, then that's when we get to pause, right? That's our invitation to pause. That's our warning sign or our alarm bells telling us to take a step back.

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Because this isn't about shaming ourselves for wanting to feel better. If we could shame ourselves into change and into feeling better, then therapists would be out of work because we're really good at shaming ourselves. And look, I get it.

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We all want to feel more vibrant and joyful and energized. And of course, some of us want to release weight that doesn't serve us or break patterns that keep us stuck. But the why we want it matters the most.

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So are you doing it so you can finally feel worthy of love? Or because you already are. You already are loved. And you want your life to reflect the truth of how you feel inside, which is the best way to do it, because that means that you're coming from this identity of somebody who is truly vibrant, joyful, and energized.

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There just might need to be some adjustments so that you can fully express that to the world. So the reason why this podcast came into my awareness is because I had a morning on Monday where I woke up and I was full of the thoughts of I'm not reaching enough people in my work. I'm not doing enough.

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What is my purpose? Should I just go back to my clinical job and get a paycheck? Get their structure there. Somebody can tell me what to do. I'll come home and I'll feel fulfilled because I'm still helping and serving people.

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And there it was. That old familiar story. If I'm not enough, so I need somebody to save me.

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Or I need to become someone entirely different. That thought loop pulled me towards a past solution. One that doesn't align with me now, but it was familiar.

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We get stuck in these automations, these automations of thought. And this is my automation of thought. That structure, certainty, somebody telling me what to do would make me worthy.

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Because when we feel unworthy, we outsource our power. It becomes easier to outsource our power than to reclaim it. But I caught myself, and with much resistance, because again, we are addicted to these familiar patterns.

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It makes us feel safe. It doesn't care about the quality of our life when we're in them. It just cares about the consistency that we're in.

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So I had to do the thing I really, really didn't want to do. I had to sit and I had to breathe. It's what I recommend to all of my clients, to you on here.

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And sometimes it's like pulling teeth. What I did is I put on music that I know cracks my heart open every single time and told myself that this is necessary. That it is my job.

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Not somebody else's job. It is my job to figure out what I need. And so slowly I moved.

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And I didn't journal the attitudes of gratitudes. I journaled all of the messy, honest, nastiest stuff that I was thinking. And I put it on paper.

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And I let the heaviness pour out so I could see it clearly. And from that space, I asked myself, not the world, I asked myself what I needed. And I use journaling less of a diary and more like a Q&A.

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I'm asking my inner highest self, what is the next step? What do I need to learn from this? And I get a response. And the answer was I needed to walk. I needed to get dressed.

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I needed to move my body. And I needed to show the F up. And it was that simple.

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That it was everything. And I mentioned that it's that simple only when I was able to hear the answer. But that whole process took me about 30 to 45 minutes where I had to get out of the loop.

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Get out of the thought loop. Put it on paper. See what the answer was coming through.

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And then I needed to take the next step action. If I would have sat there any longer, then I would have sat there all day. I would have been in that thought loop all day.

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So you have to take action after you hear what you need to do. Because here's the truth. Suffering absolutely loves company.

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And so that means that you'll jump on social media or you'll look on the news or something to keep you in that discomfort. And maybe if it's not looking on and scrolling social media, it's digging up the past. And you're thinking about all of these things that happened in the past that can keep you stuck in your patterns.

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And those patterns are saying, let's stay here. And this really familiar discomfort, instead of actually having to push through and do something that could make us vulnerable or that could change our state, change our mood and make us happier, stay here in this discomfort with me. But really what you need to choose if you are open to it is the habit of choosing strength or whatever it is for you to disrupt that thought loop with presence, with softness, with a return.

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And in that space, when you allow yourself the opportunity to sit in that discomfort and move through the discomfort, then you will hear it. So let me just say this very plainly, that if your growth journey feels like this endless checklist of things to fix, then that is where you need to pause. Please pause.

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Because you're not a project, my dear friend. You're a person. You're not broken, my dear friend.

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You're becoming. So the next time you find yourself in that loop, scrolling for the next answer, grabbing the next fix, just stop. Just place your hand on your heart and ask, is this coming from a place of fear or from love? Because wanting to change from a place of fear will only keep you chasing.

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But wanting to change from a place of love, that is where the freedom lies. So some more questions to gently and lovingly ask yourself is, am I trying to change so someone else will finally love me? Or so that I'll finally feel happy or valuable or worthy? Or are you trying to change and evolve because you already love who you are and you know you're capable of more? Coming from that place of knowing that you're capable of more is where the sacred walk towards expansion is. The only one that will save you.

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The other one is only sprinted and fueled by fear. Here's what healthy personal development actually looks like. Healthy growth has a ripple effect.

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It feels expansive and not urgent. It's rooted in curiosity and not criticism, and it creates this massive ripple effect. You feel better, and so your relationship shifts, your finances shift, and your energy shift.

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This is growth, not a desperate attempt to be loved, but a conscious choice to embody the love you already are. And when you make changes from that place, woman, they last. They integrate.

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They feel like coming home and not climbing a ladder. So today, maybe just get dressed, or maybe you're just going to go for a walk, or maybe you're going to ride it out, or maybe you're going to do all of those things. And let the shift come from the smallest act of self-connection.

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You don't have to escape the pattern by force. Please don't. That will not work.

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You just have to interrupt it with the truth. The truth of who you really are. You already have the answers.

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You already have the answers within. You always have. And this right here is your permission slip to stop fixing and start listening.

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I am sending you so much love as always, and until next time, remember to pause and say, is this desire coming from fear or love? Am I chasing a solution to finally feel enough, or am I expanding because I know I already am? And remember to breathe. You're not a problem to solve. You are a presence to come home to.

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The world needs the vibrance and wisdom of a woman's intuition to help heal the world. When we learn to trust ourselves through leaning into and through discomfort, we learn to trust ourselves, and in that space is our power and clarity.