Coaching Through iPEC’s COR.E Dynamics: Acceptance

This episode includes our interpretations of copyrighted works done by the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching or iPEC. 

Cristina Amigoni: I am just as responsible. 50% of this is me. Can I accept that as not a flaw in who I am, but is just the is, the reality of things? 

Alex Cullimore: Welcome to Uncover the Human, where every conversation revolves around enhancing all the connections in our lives. 

Cristina Amigoni: Whether that’s with our families, co-workers, or even ourselves. 

Alex Cullimore: When we can be our authentic selves, magic happens. 

Cristina Amigoni: This is Cristina Amigoni. 

Alex Cullimore: And this is Alex Cullimore. 

HOSTS: Let's dive in. 

“Authenticity means freedom.” 

“Authenticity means going with your gut.” 

“Authenticity is bringing a 100% of yourself. Not just the parts you think people want to see, but all of you.” 

“Being authentic means that you have integrity to yourself.” 

“It's the way our intuition is whispering something deep-rooted and true.” 

“Authenticity is when you truly know yourself. You remember and connect to who you were before others told you who you should be.” 

“It's transparency, relatability, no frills, no makeup, just being.” 

[EPISODE] 

Alex Cullimore: Hello and welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Human. We are going to continue our series today on iPEC’s COR.E Dynamics series. We have gotten into the disciplines now, the actual practices that help put our COR.E Dynamics into action. We did awareness before. That one’s a super powerful one, and it builds really well into this one, the second discipline, which is probably the hardest one to actually accomplish and the one that will unlock so many things if you could get to a good state of acceptance. Acceptance is the second discipline. Cristina, where do you want to start on acceptance? There are so many things we can say about this. 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, I think we should probably start on how now managed to procrastinate on actually starting this recording for an hour, which it's a good demonstration of how hard the acceptance disciplines it is. Even accepting to talk about it. It's a good reason to look at all the shiny objects and not do it. Yeah. I say, it's the hardest one for me, at least. It was the hardest one to understand. Well, actually, I would take that back. It's easy to understand. It's the hardest one to feel the understanding deep enough, where you can actually do it and understanding it logically, yes, it's there, of course. Yes, accept. 

There's some back and forth. There's some internal turmoil on some of the parts of it, but the actual true acceptance of accepting that it is a crucial discipline to increase performance, to reach mastery, to even move to the next disciplines, at least for me, it's taken years. It's a true discipline. It's a true practice. It's a true reminder that when a new situation comes up, you have to start all over again on the acceptance journey. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Allowing yourself to do that is a huge portion of it. I think before we dive into some of what makes it difficult, I do want to define this as we are thinking about acceptance. Acceptance can sound easy after everybody has an interpretation of it, but we want to really clarify that what we're talking about when we discuss acceptance today is getting into that very non-judgmental space and accepting what is. When we say judgments, this is what it becomes difficult and wide, because judgment is anything from feeling like it's good or bad, or feeling like we should do something else, or wishing that facts were different, that the past experiences were different, or that some outcome was different, some process was different. 

Those are all judgments that things should be different, things are better, things are worse. Acceptance is whether you're looking at something that you feel good about, or you feel bad about, accepting what is and getting into the facts of it and accepting just the brutal, true reality of things and without judgments. That is why it is so hard to get to, because we are so tied to the judgments that we feel, and that's why we have to give ourselves some grace in re-entering that acceptance pipeline every time something new comes up, because we do have to get to there, and that takes that practice of really letting go of judgment. That means knowing our own assumptions, knowing our own judgments, knowing where we might be falling into something that is no longer helpful for us and not really accepting the situation. 

It's so easy to accept an emotion, and believe it as the truth of a situation, or our reaction is the truth of a situation, where it's really just, it's not the same as the actual facts of the situation that we need to work with. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Also, accepting that even calling it brutal reality is a judgment, so it's just reality. 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, yeah. I regret that word choice immediately. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's just reality. It's not brutal, it just is. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes, yes, yes. That's a good clarification. Yeah, I'm already now practicing self-acceptance. This is difficult. That is a really important clarification, because it is about the reality and knowing that it doesn't actually come with judgment. The reality is the reality. When I say brutal, that's when I feel like I'm automatically putting in my own interpretation on that. I'm interpreting this as difficult, and some things are difficult, but that's – or something difficult to accept. The acceptance is still about the truth beyond the difficulty. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. One piece that is part of understanding the definition of acceptances is when you stop looking for blame. Part of the accepting the past, probably the past, even the present, but mostly the past of something that has happened, is when you realize that it's not about who to blame, or what to blame, that's when you realize that you're closer to acceptance. What if there is – it's not about blame? It's just about this is what happened, and this is who I was, and this is who the other people were, and that's it. 

It's not, I was wrong, they were right. They are to blame for something that they did, or I am to blame for something I didn't do, or vice versa. There's just no blame. That's just the fact. That's just who we are, and then we can move on. At that point, that's why the next one is conscious choice, which we'll speak to in a different episode, and why it's easier to get the conscious choice when we can finally just sit in the acceptance of what is, or what was. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, I remember going through the training, and they talked about one of the foundation principles in iPEC is there are no mistakes. You can't make a mistake. I can’t remember which one it is, but there are no mistakes. 

Cristina Amigoni: You cannot make a mistake. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. They were like, “This is our simplest and most difficult one to go.” Then, so they went around the room and asked people like, “What's a mistake you feel like you made?” People would offer things like, all over the map, but either some that are as easy as, or as simple to look at as like, “Oh, I was in a high school football game, and then I threw an interception, and then we ended up costing us the championship, or something like that.” Yeah, it feels like a mistake. But they kept asking like, “Well, when did you know it was a mistake? When did you know it was a mistake?” It's always after and looking back. It's a reminder that at the time, you're doing what you can, you're doing what – and getting to that acceptance can be very challenging process. 

But acceptance is knowing that that's what was true at the time. All of those things were true. This is who I was. This is what happened. These were all the influencers that were on me at the time, and that's the reaction, the choice, the response that ended up coming out of that. Whether we know after the fact or before, there is peace to be found in acceptance, but only by really fighting to the reality of acceptance. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That did not sound complicated at all. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, that was really convoluted. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, I like how you brought up the mistake principle, because that also took me a long time to accept as a principle and understand it. It really comes down to how you described it. We can only judge something as a mistake after it happened, and when if things don't work out. Because if things do work out, then it was a mistake. That's when you know at that moment, when things are happening, when we are doing something, given the tools, the knowledge, the influencers who we are at that moment, we cannot make a mistake, because the judgment is always afterwards, if things don't work out. Then we judge it as a mistake. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. The things that get really difficult to parse in acceptance is that sometimes it feels like, we have to endorse something to accept it. That's, again, a judgment, like saying, it's good that this happened. That's not the same thing as saying it happened. It happened as acceptance. It's good that this happened is at best a reframe at worst. I don't know, it's a judgment. It's a delusion into what could, or would have been. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it's not an endorsement. It's not a condoning what happened. It’s just not trying to change it and accepting it as it was, as it is, because then we can move on. Otherwise, we're stuck. That could be especially hard in moments like grief and whatever kind of loss you're feeling, whether it's an actual loss of life, or just loss of a job, an identity, a friendship, a relationship, an item that was precious to you, whatever it is, acceptance is really the reality that it has happened. That's not the same thing as being okay with it. It's just knowing that – or liking that it happened, or being, again, condoning it. It's just accepting that it is. This is what is and these are the choices that I have. 

Cristina Amigoni: Should we coach? 

Alex Cullimore: Sure. Yes. One thing I do want to specify also, just a couple of different ways to cut acceptance. There's things like self-acceptance, knowing yourself, there's past acceptance, and there's also a little delineation between process and outcome acceptance, where you can accept that there's a process going on and that you're in the middle of that and what are the choices being made along the way, and also acceptance of outcome, which tends to be harder when we aren't necessarily happy with the outcome, but it's still an acceptance thing. This is what the outcome was, and that's our set of facts moving forward. 

It's also okay to accept that we can have emotional reactions and influencers throughout these. Accepting that we do have a reaction is part of this whole process. I just want to add those little bits of color into when we talk about acceptance, and we're going to see how close we can get to acceptance, since I've already stepped about, put my foot in the judgment pile three times on the way to explaining this. Let's try this with coaching. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Those are very good clarification, especially for the process, which is really important when you think about the fact that just because we have this discipline and we have the tools to move through it, it doesn't mean that the process is not important. It doesn't mean that the process is now a shortcut of thinking like, well, just move to acceptance and not go through what you're feeling. I'm like, no. Part of that is accepting that the process of accepting the feelings and going through them is going to be there. The judgment is going to be there. The pain is going to be there. That is fully acceptance. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. That's a really important point. Because otherwise, it feels like, “Well, I'm not accepting it, because I'm still feeling something about it.” Accept that you're feeling something about it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: That's what you have to accept now. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Accept that that's the normal way to do things. The process is the process. There's no right or wrong. There's no normal or abnormal. I did it, too. It's just the process. However long it takes. 

Alex Cullimore: Trust the process. There's another one we'll get to eventually, but I think that's why acceptance is so easy to sometimes logically understand and hard to get to emotionally. When you do viscerally feel that acceptance, I definitely fell for this. I had a couple hard situations where I got to acceptance and I was like, “Oh, this is what they mean by acceptance.” I really understood it more viscerally. Then the next trap I fell into was the next time something hard came along, I was like, “Ah, I'll just get to acceptance.” I did the exact thing we just described of trying to shortcut this process and trying to – knowing about this is super helpful. Also, knowing that it's still a process every single time is really helpful to remind yourself, because it's not just about knowing this and jumping to the front of the line. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Indeed. All right, back to coaching. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. The infamous question. I feel like, whatever way it's answered, it’s always, ah, who's going to start? 

Cristina Amigoni: I'm going to be not in acceptance, but in complete judgment, that's going to be painful either way. 

Alex Cullimore: Phenomenal. I can't wait. We're just going to acceptance and awareness all at the same time, that this is – we've done this, sometimes we know it's about to happen. 

Cristina Amigoni: I will leave the choice to you. I think I made a choice the last time. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Classic punt. 

Cristina Amigoni: Never had it. 

Alex Cullimore: All right. I will volunteer as coachie. 

Cristina Amigoni: All right. Probably should have made that decision on my own 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. See, every time. Every time, it's the wrong one. 

Cristina Amigoni: I do not accept your choice. I do accept the fact that I asked you to choose. No, I'm not happy with it. 

Alex Cullimore: Acceptance of a little intuitive hit. 

Cristina Amigoni: All right, so you're the coachy. Ooh, okay. Then I get to bring out the big guns. 

Alex Cullimore: Here we go. 

Cristina Amigoni: With the question that I really was looking forward to writing down to ask somebody else. Not to be on the receiving end of. Think about one or two of the most disappointing experiences you've had in your life and tell us what happened. Why was so disappointing to you and what made it so difficult to accept the outcome? 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, Christ. Okay. 

Cristina Amigoni: We can show you that easier one, if you want. 

Alex Cullimore: I mean, we're in it now. Two of the most disappointing experiences you've had. What am I willing to talk about in public? 

Cristina Amigoni: We can start with an easier one. 

Alex Cullimore: Here's my internal dialogue that's going on right now. There's many options that come up. The difficult part about having done enough coaching at this point, both on the coaching and receiving end is that I know there's value to be had in diving into the particularly painful ones, and like every scenario where you actually have to go deeper, it's more painful to go do that. 

I'm going to go with actually one that has a lot to do with some feelings I have. A lot of different things. I was getting into – applying for colleges. I was applying for colleges at the end of high school. I had gotten straight As through high school and done a ton of AP classes. I had some extracurriculars. I did all the things that I thought you were intended to do when you want to go to a good school and you're supposed to be able to apply to great programs and you've put yourself up for success. 

I was trying to do all the things that people were saying are important to get into good colleges, and especially well-known, or prestigious, I guess, colleges. I have a lot less feelings now of I caring whether that had happened, just to be clear. But at the time, it was really difficult to accept when I had gotten through all this, done all of this work and I was not accepted to any of the top colleges that I had applied to. I got into good programs in a few places, but the ones that I'd really hoped for, like Stanford I'd really hoped for, especially because my aunt had worked there for a little bit. My dad had gone there for graduate school and I thought maybe legacy would help, since I was supposed to help. 

Turns out, that's not what really helps and then also getting good grades was not what helps. Getting good test course was not what helped. None of it was enough to get through that. The acceptance of that was an entirely different shift in identity, I think of, “No, this is who I thought I was.” This is who I'd really focused a ton on academics and tried to fill out a college resume, essentially, and find out that whatever you do, up that point, I'd always been able to work a little harder, do a little more, get a better grade, do whatever I needed to do to get to some kind of goal. That was the goal that it all felt like it had been moving towards and it was not to be. 

It was hard to accept like, oh, what was the point of doing all that? Then trying to understand what was actually important about that, and what does this mean. They put so much pressure on colleges and they did, especially at the time I was applying that it was basically a defining point of your life. You get into a good college, you’re set for life. You get into other colleges and best of luck. I guess, you'll hopefully get through somewhere, somehow. At least, that's how it felt and that was the interpretation I had and that was the – there were so many judgments flying from all directions, particularly from schools and people you look to, to trust at that time to tell you what's important. 

Only to find out that they're entirely wrong and they have no idea what they're talking about. All of those were difficult lessons, I think, to come into that level of acceptance of like – and it was really hard to accept, I think, for me. Yeah, I didn't feel enough at that point. I had done so much and it wasn't enough. It didn't pay off. I wasn't good enough. All of the gremlins that – it was just an absolute gremlin feeding party after midnight on that one of like, here's everything that I did and it wasn't enough and you're not enough and you can't do this and you thought you were different, or able to do something else and turns out, you're not. 

That was, I think, what was really difficult to accept at the time. It was a huge identity shift. I'd been top, or next top of my class for so long and I assumed that was enough and I assumed that doing all these things was – that I'd been told were important was enough and yeah, it turns out I'd done just not enough of, I guess, the right things, or whatever else, and there was just too many people, and I just didn't have whatever competitive edge needed to be had. It was hard to accept that on his face and as an identity shift. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. That's totally understandable. That's a big identity attachment, especially how the societal norm and how much pressure is put on that, the attachment to all the work that you've done that you did to get there and having it impact the very core of any of our gremlins, which is not good enough that has a huge impact on just full identity and what happens afterwards. In hindsight, how true is it that you are not good enough? 

Alex Cullimore: In most ways, not really true. In some ways, I don't think I was thinking about the world in quite the right way. There happened a few indications in recent months even of like, there's all the college admissions scandals and how – when I say I had legacy, I had some people who attended these schools in my past. Turns out, legacy means the people who are continually donating millions of dollars to these institutions and have all kinds of sway. It's not just somebody who also happened to attend. That was one. All those scandals breaking are like, “Oh, okay. I was entirely wrong about my interpretation of what, A, that meant.” 

Then things like, now colleges are like, “Oh, we're not going to worry about SAT and ACT scores.” Which was, I mean, the antithesis of everything we were told when I was going through. Those were almost the most important thing and hopefully, you have a fill that resume beyond that, but your GPA and your test scores better be up there. I knew at the time, even as a high school student, I was like, “This isn't a measure of who a person is, or what they're capable of doing. This is just a test. This is clearly not applicable to anything else in life.” 

Over the next decade, there were lots of research going out that was like, this is not an indicator of actual success. Then now, colleges are like, “We don't even need some of those test scores.” In retrospect, there's been a lot of external validation for the – it's not really true that you weren't good enough, or that these things weren't. It's measured on something else. I also came to realize like, what wasn't good enough I was really looking for? I mean, what does that mean to be good enough? I don't know that I have. There's not an answer for that, because we're taught for so long, it's like something almost universal, some weird formula of all of the numbers that they've put on you to measure you for so long and then that either passes muster, or it doesn't. 

I never really thought that was a great way of evaluating people, but I was playing the game, because that's what you're asked to do. I never thought it was an okay way to do it, but there's no way around it and that's how they're going to judge you at the time. In retrospect, I was always still the same person before and after, and I still had much more capability to grow. It was such a defining moment of feeling like, this is everything you've worked for and either – this is like a – it'll put you in one line, or another. Either you're going to go on and be successful, or you're going to go on and struggle. That was a false dichotomy. That was all not true and it wasn't about being good enough and it wasn't – 

Then later, I found out that my college year was the highest level of application for all colleges. That was the beginning of the end, I think, for colleges being able to hold on to the idea that you do this based on merit. It was a big learning experience that the system that will tell you a thousand times over that it is a meritocracy and about how hard you work is not. It's about a dozen different things and a lot of those are out of your control and all you get to do is control the things you can control and back to acceptance, accept the things that you can't and accept what the realities of that are. 

That's always a hard line to find in retrospect. It was hard to know what was true and what you should reject for how people are judging you and not. It led to the beginning of a very long process of starting to figure out, what is a framework to actually judge yourself on and when do you feel you're living up to what your values are and what's good enough for you and when are you enough? Of course, the answer ultimately is that you're enough regardless. You are always going to be enough, even if it's hard to see, and it has to be down to you to find and believe that. 

That's a very long-winded answer to say it's not true, and it was difficult internally and externally to get to feeling that wasn't true. Also, it was not well defined for me at the time looking back. I didn't have an idea of what good enough was. It was good enough, it felt like you get accepted to a college or you don't. I guess, in that way, it wasn't enough to get accepted and it wasn't the same thing as not being good enough as a person, or as my capabilities that I've been trying to build that whole time. 

Cristina Amigoni: Makes sense. There's a lot there. The external validation in a way, or the external events to debunk that and the internal journey. When you think about your internal journey to accept one that you didn't get accepted and you're still good enough, when do you believe that started and how did it start? 

Alex Cullimore: There are a few different pieces. I met Rachel in college and she'd been through a very similar experience. She really excelled at academics and did honestly a lot more than in retrospect. If I looked at our resumes, I would have been much more impressed by her resume than mine. She still had a hard time getting into colleges. We ended up at a college, we were both like, we thought we would be somewhere else. Meeting someone else like that made me realize that there's more of the world out there. I wasn't either just an exception and just for lack of a better term, special than wasn't, and then wasn't alone in that. 

Then, I also just started to realize that I still had choice. This choice seems to have been made for me that I could be – I could go here, couldn't go here. I felt like that was like, “Okay. Well, here's your options,” and somebody else made that choice for you. In that way, they did. Somebody else does make that choice. The college board or the acceptance committee, or whatever at these colleges makes that choice. 

It wasn't the same as like, that's the end of the story. I still had choices I could make for what I could do. That ended up being, in retrospect, on a long enough timeline, this became an understanding that you had to create your own meaning and I appreciate now what it did for me to have that shaking up early in life of like, you can do what everybody will tell you is the thing to do to move forward and not only is it not going to be your definition of moving forward, it's not always going to be enough. 

I mean, we see this in corporations all the time, right? Here's all the things you should do on your performance evaluation. You could blow it, knock it out of the park, just blow it away and be great at that. If the budget cycle is not right, or other people were in line for that promotion, or whatever it is, whatever that step is, it still might not work out for you the way that you're hoping in terms of an immediate external validation. 

I learned a lot about not attaching to those structures, but it was such a defining feature of education up to that point that you're supposed to be on those structures and listening to what all the things you should do and all the ways you're going to be ranked by other people and that's what matters is what other people say about you and where they put you in the rank and file. It was so not that. Life isn't about that. 

The more you can let go of that, the more you get to end up choosing your own path, which is always going to be more satisfying than figuring out what other people are asking of you and trying to fit that and wondering why you're not happy, even if you do get the chance to fit that mold. 

Cristina Amigoni: It only makes sense. That's a long journey and there's a lot in that path to go through to get to that. It's very common as well. I mean, there's so much pressure into doing what others think you should be doing and not breaking free from that. Then when you get to the point where you feel like you have broken free, then you have to go through it again and then go through it again and then go through it again for many different things. If you think about the journey you've gone through and the process of freeing yourself from doing things, because that's what others think you should be doing, accepting that you have the choice ultimately to accept who you are and do what you want to do and accept what those journeys are, what is the impact of being on this side of acceptance? 

Alex Cullimore: It's so much more freedom. The thing that I got hooked up on, or really didn't do and caught up on. I’m just mixing phrases all over the place today. I got hooked into the idea that there is some structure you're supposed to abide by and that you can basically walk up that structure and it will be well defined for you and you can get to some type of, in my mind, undefined success that I was trying to chase, or thought that was the thing to do. 

The impact of being on the other side is realizing that that's not true and it gives you so much more freedom just to do what you think is the right thing to do, rather than what you think – I'm not saying I do this all the time. It's just easier to now remember it. It's not what other people are saying you should do, when you feel there's something that you should be doing, and I don't mean that in the obligation sense, where you're just going to have that inner voice that says, yeah, everybody's telling me I go get a certification, or something, but I don't know if that's necessary, or I'm going to try doing this another way. 

It gave me over time, a lot more trust in that intuition. I think that's been endlessly valuable, because there's for as helpful and as good intentioned as a lot of the structures are to try and help people see their own growth and picture it and have some tangible structure scaffolding to pursue it, it can never really capture each individual person. Until you can get in touch with that for yourself, until I got in touch with that, I didn't have the freedom to let go of all of that expectation and just know that all the voices – I mean, it was so many voices, parents, teachers, administrators, college applications, going to the things that are telling you how to apply for college, everything was geared towards that as some type of external validation and they're trying to help you get to those. 

It's not that intentioned. It's just that they could be totally wrong for what's actually helpful for you and none of it is designed to understand who you are and what might be important to you. It's easier now to identify the voices of like, “Oh, this is clearly like, I'm feeling a push to do this because of other people.” Then you have a chance to evaluate whether you want to agree with those people, or whether you just don't feel that applies for you. That's been the biggest impact is being able to let go in more scenarios and it's an endless work in progress, but being able to let go in more scenarios of what other people are expecting and trying to trust that voice. It's like, yeah, but I think this is the thing that I need to do, even if other people would do it differently. 

Cristina Amigoni: That's very powerful to be able to recognize that. What helps you when you get to those moments, that journey, that start all over again and accepting and silencing the voices, what helps you move through the acceptance journey and just the internal piece of not letting outside expectations influence what you do? 

Alex Cullimore: There's a couple things that come to mind. First, journaling is almost always my answer to so many of these, is because I have to process for myself where it is. What I'm getting better at and what it took me forever to get more comfortable with – I mean, this is something really within the last year getting a little bit more commonly comfortable with is reaching out to people and talking it through and being able to share that, because part of the reason that I think it was so slow to recover from this feeling of rejection after the college applications was that I felt alone in that I felt like, and I wasn't going to share it with people. I was ashamed of the fact that it hadn't worked out the way I'd wanted it to. I felt like, people had had expectations that I could do something, I could get into some fancy college or something. 

I was living in those expectations. I felt like, I'd let them down, I'd let myself down and I was unwilling to ask for any support. That was another part of not feeling good enough. Why bother asking them to go give more time and effort, or have other expectations when I couldn't deliver on this? Now, this is also a very much a work in progress, but I can see in retrospect how much easier it is to process and get through these things if I'm willing to share that for one, because it just puts some light on it. It's like putting a spotlight on your gremlin, putting light on your shame. It can dramatically reduce the volume and the impact of that circling in your head just by itself, just by speaking it out loud and we have somebody else. 

When you can find that team of supportive people that you can turn to and that can take well, too, that makes a huge difference in getting through some of that and that's why I know like, I'm not falling into this. I'm starting to feel like, other people's expectations are sliding in, or I don't feel like I have control, or choice over this. That's when it's very necessary and very difficult. Same with all of acceptance. It's always the most difficult when it's the most necessary. 

But I'm seeing in retrospect, the times that has become much easier when I'm willing to share that, when I'm willing to open up about that and connect with other people and just ask. I didn’t even asked for help. It's just stating it and just having somebody to listen. It makes a tremendous difference. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's very your self-awareness, and accepting that that's the journey to go through. What can help you in the future to recognize when you're slipping out of acceptance, or slipping into letting others the external opinions chime in? 

Alex Cullimore: It's actually similar to when we were talking about awareness. I think, outside of acceptance, first of all, I guess, there's the awareness portion. When there's fewer voices in my head, when there's just one reacting voice and those are the voices where it's –when something is starting to take over, that it's just clearly reacting, not responding, but just it's a voice that's upset, or angry, or just a voice that's telling me to go not talk to people. 

When that starts to be the only voice I'm really listening to and I'm not even consciously aware of the other voices, I know I'm in a more of a tunnel at that point. If I can notice that, that’s step one, and step two would be knowing when the other thing that helps is when I noticed all the judgment words appearing in that stream of conscious. When I'm telling myself about should, or nobody else is going to let me, or when I have those feelings of oh, there's some gatekeeper here that may or may not let me do whatever this is. When I'm stuck in that rut and I’m in so much judgment about like, it’s really bad that this happened, or I really should have done this, or here's the things that I could have done better, that's when I know that I'm way off the acceptance train and I'm way down judgment. 

Harder to get out of that in the moment, but that's why the journaling helps and talking it out helps a lot, because even just saying it out loud, or putting it down on paper in stream of conscious way, it's pretty easy to see when those should show up, because you're literally typing them out, or writing them out on your journal and you see them and you're like, “Oh, my God. Here it is. Why am I saying should? It's like little freeway exits, where you can have a chance to step back, get onto a curiosity avenue, instead of judgment highway. 

Cristina Amigoni: New monopoly pieces. Let's all get a Monopoly with curiosity avenue and not build anything on judgment space. What else could help you process acceptance? 

Alex Cullimore: It's about reminding myself that you have to lean into the things that you don't want to accept and the things that are difficult are true. There's as much as the things that aren't difficult and/or don't feel difficult. They are not inherently difficult. That's the whole point of acceptance. They're not inherently difficult. I'm treating them as difficult. I'm interpreting them as difficult. 

Knowing when I'm stepping away from that is the huge portion of it, when I'm down the rabbit hole of all the interpretations, that's when I know I'm not in acceptance. I need to be more aware of, that I'm getting into a tunnel vision. I'm not seeing that there are choices. I'm starting to believe that things are predetermined. It's all very level one energy when that gets into it, and with occasional spike of a level two. I can't believe this is the way this is, but still – some victim energy of there's something that can be done and I can see it that way. I can try and find better choices. 

Cristina Amigoni: How can you turn that need to want to, to choose to? 

Alex Cullimore: That's a good question. I guess, when I say I need to, I don't feel that the should as much as I used to. I need to, in that I know that it's the way forward. I know that This is what I want to have happen, that I want to be able to be in that conscious choice and acceptance more often that I don't want to just turn away from the things that are difficult. Then every time I do that, it ends up – it's like the mental weight accrues interest rapidly. Just the weight of not addressing it, I'm not turning into it. It'll only build. And so, I want to have the energy to do other things. I want to address those hard portions head on and I want to be that person who does that. I want to be in that state of more conscious choice in power. 

When I think about that person, it's much more aspirational. It's the vision that you want to be part of. It's the hope that you're there for, not the one that you feel like you need to be, but the one that you want to be. 

Cristina Amigoni: Good way to turn into a want to. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. 

Cristina Amigoni: How complete do you feel with this mini-coaching session? 

Alex Cullimore: Very complete. Again, this is a great example of just voicing some of these things out loud, because this is like voicing some of the abstract patterns out loud, which is really helpful, I find. One of the things I love about doing and being coached, I know that and in specific instances I need to open up and I don't have one I need to open up about right now, that is weighing on me. But recognizing this and being able to say this out loud that it just say the out loud that oh, it does help to reach out. I do want to be in better acceptance and practicing that better is just – it's good reflection on what I want the process to become. 

Cristina Amigoni: Very good reflection and awareness and acceptance of the process. 

Alex Cullimore: Appreciate it. Only stepped in it a couple times. 

Cristina Amigoni: Come full circle. All right. How do you feel about switching? 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, let's go for it. How do you feel about switching? 

Cristina Amigoni: Not good at all. 

Alex Cullimore: Let's unpack that a little bit. We’ve got resistance coming up. We're just diving right in now. We’ve got resistance coming up on the switch. 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, just that a lot of what you've mentioned, which is, I'm honestly concerned about the questions you're going to ask, and in the darkness I'm going to have to face if I actually want to go through the process as intended and truly accept whatever it's going to come up. 

Alex Cullimore: That is entirely understandable. That was exactly what I was feeling stepping into this and I know that's it's difficult to have to face that. I know that you've done so much coaching work. You know some of your own processes and you know that stepping into the darkness is often the way forward and what needs to be done and is excruciatingly painful to do sometimes, or can feel incredibly scary to step into. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. 

Alex Cullimore: Let's start with some awareness of acceptance then. What do you believe is your biggest obstacle in learning to accept everything you are and do? 

Cristina Amigoni: That it means I'm not right. 

Alex Cullimore: Hmm. Say more about that. 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say, accepting without judging is extremely difficult. Looking for ways to validate our existence, my existence as good or bad is enough or not enough, is right or wrong. It's so ingrained almost in the way we look at things, the way we look at the world, that we look at our lives that accepting that that's judgment and accepting that it holds me back, and it's not reality, because reality just is reality, and it's a different perspective, it really puts everything on its head and then it makes it unknown. 

I'm trying to not use the word difficult, but it increases the amount of unknown. If I'm not good enough, because that's a judgment, or I'm not right, or I'm not capable in the sense of inner ratings in some sort of outside voting, or inside voting, then who am I? 

Alex Cullimore: It feels like, there's almost some tie-in between the self-identity, and/or what you identify as and feeling that has to be enough. Then that who you are is enough, but then if you're stuck in some judgment, then you're maybe losing who you are, or losing that concept of who you are. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, indeed. The other big piece that acceptance is hard for – it was hard and it still is, but it's a constant journey to accept. The value of it is the fact that there's a part that's almost missing in that journey. It's missing from my head, too, because I can’t remember what I want to say. It's deep. It's the part of admitting that we are responsible for what happens to us. Especially, when a difficult situation happens, when we feel pain, when we suffer through certain situations, big traumatic traumas, notwithstanding caveat, but more daily manageable situations, that we had a part in it, that it wasn't just somebody else doing something to us. 

It wasn't just somebody else treating us poorly. Yes, they have their part in it and our part in it is also holding on to that pain. Our part in that is maybe we didn't show up as well as we could have. Maybe we were in our best selves and in mastering at that point or afterwards, that how long we hold on to that wrongdoing, it's entirely our choice and that's probably been one of the reasons why my acceptance journey as in the discipline itself has taken years. Not days, not weeks, not a few coaching session, but years to finally get to that and say like, “Yes, I have a part in this.” I am just as responsible. 50% of this is me. Can I accept that as not a flaw in who I am, but in just the is, the reality of things? 

Alex Cullimore: That's really well-put. It sounds like, it's tying into what you were talking about the not enough is almost an identity judgments that I have to be enough, and then knowing that accepting comes without judgment. It's hard to know your own responsibility in situations where you may feel that either the outcome wasn't what you wanted, or you didn't show up how you wanted, or it wasn't something that, for lack of a better term and this is obviously going to be a bit of a judgment word. It's not the desirable outcome. It's not the desired outcome, which is our own judgment that we put on that, and it's something we do all the time, and it's something we as humans, we are such socially driven creatures. It's so easy to rank ourselves and we do it to others, we do it to ourselves and we worry where we are and what that will mean for us. 

What story comes up for you when you are telling yourself that you are responsible for something that you are partially responsible for something that you may either have a hard time accepting, I guess, it's really that you are responsible? 

Cristina Amigoni: Well, I would say, the beginning of the story is very much just gremlin 3D feast of chicken after midnight in diving in a pool of Niagara Falls water. The multiplication of the power of the gremlin is just, it feels infinite, because it really feeds into the not good enough, the being excluded that not having a place anywhere really in the world, the being alone, so it's just the complete fireworks of all those feelings that as humans are very difficult, because we are hardwired for acceptance of being accepted into group, so that we're not alone, so that we can combat all the threats that are outside of us and inside of us. 

I would say, what's helped me move through that and not get overwhelmed by the riots of all the gremlins is recognizing that's really interesting, because also as I say, it's still very externally validated, or as I think about, it's still very externally validated. I would say, it's a little bit connected to what you have mentioned is when I can dig deeper enough into my own intuition and trust that at the core before the logic of the mind comes in and does its own peanut gallery conversations on that. That's when I know. 

When I can say I know and it's beyond data improve and information and comparison to the past, or comparison to others, when it's just something that deep of just knowledge and belief and trust. I've experienced it enough to know that that's where I have to go to. I can't get there if I don't accept that I am responsible for what happens to me and the choices I make. 

Alex Cullimore: Makes sense. It's important to have that acceptance to get into the feeling that you are who you are. You can access that intuition better, which makes sense that it would also be maybe harder to do that, if you don't have the acceptance, especially if the acceptance then starts to change your concept, or hide the concept, I suppose, of who you know you are at other times. If that starts to be hidden away, it's much harder to access that intuition. 

I do want to tap on something you're talking about, you feel like, the worry about belonging that maybe I don't belong in this group, or I'm going to be excluded, or this is – which is viscerally attached to our survival instincts as a human. We need people, and so that sense of belonging is as threatening as feeling like we are staring down a saber-toothed tiger that is physically going to eat us. That belonging is viscerally tied to survival. 

Belonging is such a core portion of it. You mentioned that if you realize that parts of that are externally validated. I’m curious for you, what parts of belonging are internal? What do you need internally? 

Cristina Amigoni: I would say, it helps to go back to how Brene Brown talks about belonging and how we can't really belong anywhere, if we don't belong to ourselves first. That's a good mantra and reminder, because it feels the way belonging to ourselves first feels like is it's truly accepting who we are and knowing that we're not going to do things perfectly all the time, because that's also judgment. But it's not about being perfect and it's not about being unapologetic. 

Actually, I would say, it is about being apologetic and being comfortable with that and recognizing that we go through situations and we go through to interacting with others and interacting with ourselves. When it thinks don't work out well, that's not final. We can still improve. We can still learn. We can still connect, and we can still recognize when the belonging, the external belonging, it's more of a trying to fit in than actually belonging. I would say, in being very clear and I would say, in the journey of the last few years in understanding acceptance, I've also found that when we belong to ourselves first and we show that self, it shines enough to attract the people will also accept you as you are. It almost burns. It's almost too much of a power, too much of a sun burning the ones that don't. 

You no longer look for that. You no longer looked for fitting in, because you know what it feels to actually belong and you know what it feels to belong as your full self, no matter what it is at the moment. Really embrace the things that well, that conversation didn't go, or that thought as I expressed, it didn't go well, or that action caused pain when it wasn't intended. It's not final. I can still do something about it. Maybe not with the other person if there's no openness there, but for myself, I can still learn and accept that it's not a prediction of the rest of my life. It's not a sentence. It's just something that happened. 

Alex Cullimore: Those are all really great reflections. That's just well said on how you – what belonging feels like, and can be and it sounds like, there's a huge portion of accepting self, and who we are, as well as understanding that. That means the times where we feel imperfect, knowing that we can't always be what we are going to judge as perfect, or right, or not, and knowing that there's also a thread in there that you mentioned in a couple different ways that it's important to know that things can change, that there is growth to be had. 

It sounds like, an acceptance that there's hope in some direction of change that's with another person with yourself. I suppose always, it relates back to being part of yourself. I'm curious, knowing all of these things that you've well elaborated about, what belonging can feel like, what helps you get into belonging into yourself, what practices can you use? 

Cristina Amigoni: To sound like a broken record, previous recording, meditation. Meditation is absolutely a must for me to be able to get there. I actually physically feel when I haven’t meditated, because I meditate in the morning as almost as soon as I wake up, or a few minutes after I wake up. When I don't, let's say, Friday, when we were flying back and since we had airplane time, I skipped a meditation to try and sleep longer, even though that didn't happen. I could feel by noon, was something was off. 

I was actually getting more judgmental. I could feel the judgment. I could feel the lack of acceptance of the world around me, or even my own sensations, headache and not feeling great and not really knowing how to feel my best self, until the meditation happened. Once I meditated on the plane, it was a huge shift. I would say, meditation is a big one. Non-judgment. Reducing, it's impossible to not judge ourselves and others, but recognizing when I do. Recognizing some of the shoulds, some of the wanting to be right, some of the stubbornness, and recognizing and starting to unpack what's my part in this, again, without the judgment, without like, “Oh, how could you do that? I can't believe you said that.” 

What do you expect to happen when you react that way? But just looking at it and be like, “Was that my best self? Was there conscious choice in that?” No, there wasn't. What can I do next time? What's a conscious choice that I can make now? Really moving on. The lack of acceptance, I find, it's a huge determinant of being able to move forward. It can create a lot of getting stuck. If we're stuck in proving right or wrong, good or bad, then we're not moving forward, because we're stuck there. 

Recognizing when I'm getting stuck and also thinking about, what is this costing me to be stuck here? What are the benefits? What am I benefiting from blaming, or finding right and wrong? Those helps. It’s like an internal journaling and questioning of my own process. 

Alex Cullimore: That makes sense. That's a lot of knowing yourself and knowing where that's at. It sounds like, you have at times gotten some of that awareness of when you're in more judgmental space, you establish some of the next steps that you take when you're in that, what are ways that you can be aware of that when you're slipping into that judgment space? What helps you know that? 

Cristina Amigoni: Language. Listening to the language in my head, what conversations am I having with myself? What conversation am I imagining I'm having with others, even though they're. How often are those conversations coming back? How are they not getting result? Why do they even exist? Really being aware of what's happening with the voices in my head. Just feeling. Physical feeling. Am I at peace? Do my shoulders hurt? Can I sleep at night? All the physical sensations. 

Also, interestingly enough, I know that talking to others is part of the journey of acceptance, is part of the putting all those demons out in the light and having others help me diffuse them. When I am judging myself, or wanting to talk to somebody about it and opening up, or when I'm holding back, that's when I know it's even deeper. The lack of acceptance is even deeper than other ways. I think I just blurt things out that I'm very close to that, if I can't, because of the self-consciousness, because of the becoming defensive, because of just the self-judgment and the worry. There's something much deeper that actually does need to be shared even more, regardless of the fear of causing rejection. 

Alex Cullimore: Rejection is a big one that you've mentioned in a few different ways about feeling there's worry about rejection, which is entirely normal and it makes sense to be worried about that. What's a mantra, or a way you can help yourself face down that fear of rejection? 

Cristina Amigoni: What's a mantra? It’s a good question. I don't know that I have a mantra. I probably should. 

Alex Cullimore: There's a judgment word. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It's judging myself or not having a mantra. Maybe I do have a mantra. I just can't think of it. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, if you don't want one. Yeah. I'm just curious what it might look like if you had something. Or, it doesn't have to be a mantra, but what might help you face that fear of rejection. It's a powerful one. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. I would say, remembering what it actually feels to belong and knowing that it can't happen if I armor up and put masks on. I have a mantra. I'm too old for this. That's my mantra. Yes. That is truly something that I've hold on to and I use quite a lot as a mantra. It's like, “I'm too old. I'm too old to waste my life this way.” Go out there be, and that's it. Be. How many more years can I waste trying to fit in? How many more years can I waste hiding what's actually going on? Done. There's no more time. 

Alex Cullimore: Immediately tying in that cost. That's great. It sounds like a very disarming one. You can feel very true, but it also ties to that old movie quote. “I'm getting too old for this shit.” 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. That's my mantra. I'm getting too old for this shit. I don’t want to waste energy. I don't want to waste time. I don't want to waste any of it. Focus. I want to have the conversations with all the unseen parties in the shower. No, it's not worth it. 

Alex Cullimore: It's great awareness and tying into all your previous experiences and tying into what you know brings you out of that. You also mentioned that it helps to know to think about what belonging feels like if you were to put a few words to that and clarify for yourself what belonging feels like, what would you say? 

Cristina Amigoni: Authenticity, freedom, peace, laughter. Just really true whole-hearted being, without the mind creating stories. 

Alex Cullimore: It’s important that we experience absolutely none of that at Siamo. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. You feel belonging. You don't think belonging. You feel when it's not there. 

Alex Cullimore: When it's not there, you're getting too old for that shit. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Getting too old for that shit. Yeah. It's a minute, fine. A day, mm. Already wasting too much time. Not worth it. 

Alex Cullimore: You've got great awareness always about all of these things. You have a lot of practices that help you get there. Are there any pieces as we wind down on this portion of it, are there are any pieces that feel unresolved, or things you'd want to explore in the future as we discuss acceptance? 

Cristina Amigoni: Oh, I would say, the acceptance is always unresolved. We don't have time for all the unresolved pieces. No. I think I'm good for this. 

Alex Cullimore: Well, thank you very much for just being open and sharing that. Those are all great observations and all very relatable. 

Cristina Amigoni: I hope they are. Again, acceptance looks definitely for every person. 

Alex Cullimore: This one is, I think, one of the most powerful disciplines. I think, it opens the door to so much. Because it is so powerful, it is sometimes an absolute uphill journey to get to. 

Cristina Amigoni: It is. I'm glad we're done talking about it. 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, fine. Easy to accept that one. Easy to accept that it's over. 

Cristina Amigoni: Let’s accept that it’s over and we can move on to conscious choice in the next recording. 

Alex Cullimore: Conscious choice. That's the next one coming up. That's an exciting one. That one's where really start to hit – rubber hits the road. To leave you guys with one last thought, we were just discussing this. There's a framework called adaptive action that's just goes with the questions, so what? Now what? That feels very much to us, the first three disciplines here. We've got awareness. What is going on? Acceptance. What does that mean? What's the full range of the actual facts and what we're maybe hoping to do, and then now what's conscious choice? What do we do now, knowing and accepting all the things that are? Look forward to – 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. It’s a great framework. Yes. We're in the now what. 

Alex Cullimore: We’re in the now what next. 

Cristina Amigoni: Thanks for listening. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you. 

[OUTRO] 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you for listening to Uncover the Human, a Siamo Podcast. 

Alex Cullimore: Special thanks to our podcast operations wizard, Jake Laura, and our score creator, Rachel Sherwood. 

Cristina Amigoni: If you have enjoyed this episode, please share, review and subscribe. You can find our episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Alex Cullimore: We would love to hear from you with feedback, topic ideas, or questions. You can reach us at podcast@wearesiamo.com, or on our website, wearesiamo.com, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. WeAreSiamo is spelled W-E-A-R-E-S-I-A-M-O. 

Cristina Amigoni: Until next time, listen to yourself, listen to others and always uncover the human. 

[END]