How can you know if you are persuading yourself or encouraging yourself?
Today I want to talk about something so subtle but decisive.
Something many people experience but rarely have a language for it.
The difference between persuading yourself and encouraging yourself.
This is not about meaning of the words,
But about trauma responses and survival distinction.
I am Anna Mael,
Somatic Experiencing Therapist for PTSD & Trauma Recovery,
Founder of Somatic Trauma Recovery Center.
This is Excel in Rising.
Let's begin.
What persuading yourself really is?
It is the moment when what you are sensing,
And you somehow know this is the truth,
So your deep knowing is dismissed and placed into categories like not yet,
Or not good enough,
Maybe this time he will or she will,
Or I didn't give them enough chances,
Or I should think differently,
There is nothing I can contribute,
I am too old,
I am too young.
Persuading yourself,
And it truly feels as something which is in our innate self,
What we want,
What we feel,
What we have right,
What we earned,
Is abandoned.
And persuading yourself is diminishing of deep wisdom,
Your ancestral knowledge,
Your earned knowledge.
How many people with so many diplomas still persuading themselves they need one more,
And that it's not enough.
Persuading yourself is the diminishing of your somatic knowledge,
What your body feels,
Your intuition,
All the cues your nervous system is sending to you,
And it's very quiet abandonment of everything in you that is already saying go for it or don't do it depending on the context.
And when you persuade yourself,
You're not choosing what's right between you and you,
You're overriding your truth,
Your experience.
And very important distinction,
Persuading yourself is not the same as encouraging yourself.
This is what we need to learn,
To assess and to know the difference.
Persuasion is not encouragement,
It is not a gentle pep talk.
Persuasion carries an underlying tone of fear and worry.
And it can be very,
Very subtle,
Often is paired with confusion or unsettledness.
You just might feel unsettled.
So that's underlying tone in your nervous system.
And what it does when we pursue ourself,
It borrows the language of reason,
Of logic,
Of data,
Justification,
Positivity,
Quote,
Unquote,
Patience,
Which is not patience,
But it's inhibition and taming of yourself to silence what your body already knows.
Encouragement,
Encouragement has a different tone.
It feels different.
It has a tone of warmth.
It holds hope.
And somehow,
Your body wants to move upward,
Outward,
And forward.
And there may still be fear.
You may still want to kind of,
I want to hide,
Or I want to pause.
But something in you wants to expand,
To step towards life,
Even with the fear.
It has a quality of curiosity.
It's almost like you want to peek and look what's behind.
That's encouragement.
When you're persuading yourself,
On somatic level,
It feels very different.
It feels like your heels wants to be stuck in the same place.
There is no curiosity.
It has a quality of pressure.
So your body responds very clearly here.
The feet and heels want to move backward and inward when we persuade ourselves.
Or the body wants,
As I said,
To stay exactly where it is.
And if movement happens at all,
It is filled with unrest.
It feels what people are describing as,
It's just off,
Or I just knew it.
You can feel nauseous.
There is no glimmer of excitement or curiosity alongside the fear.
The fear is coupled with dread.
And your body,
On a soma level,
Knows this.
It speaks very clearly,
Don't go,
Don't do it.
So these are somatic lens you want to track,
You want to track,
Assess inside of you.
Encouragement may include fear,
But fear paired with curiosity,
Forward motion,
Energy.
So fear alone is not the problem.
Fear is normal.
Dread,
If you feel,
That's the problem.
If there is no spark,
No upward movement,
No sense of life,
Your body is not consenting.
And this is not resistance.
This is pure intelligence.
And persuasion is often mistaken for wisdom,
For discipline,
For growth.
But persuasion is usually a fear-based strategy,
And it arises from fear of loss,
Fear of rupture,
Fear of being alone,
Fear of standing alone.
And many people are not confused.
They are overriding clarity to stay safe.
It's intelligent response.
And that is especially true for people who have been conditioned to endure.
To endure,
To take over responsibility.
Trauma survivors,
Caregivers,
High-functioning adults,
Women,
People pleasers.
Pursuing yourself can be praised as,
Oh,
You are very mature,
But it's frequently self-abandonment of what is right in this moment for your body,
For your feelings.
And it's different because it's being ready is coming from your own biology,
From your own history,
From your own experiences.
And pursuing yourself often means I should be ready by now.
Everyone is doing it.
I have to do it now.
Again,
Pure survival strategy to feel safe,
To be part of the belonging or to be loved.
When we pursue ourselves over and over again by giving that someone second chances,
Encouragement only arises when your body has integrated enough safety,
Enough information and time.
And this is what many trauma survivors are overriding.
They're not giving themselves enough safety,
Enough information so confusion can move to the clarity and enough time.
See this in the healing communities,
In spiritual communities where people are pushed to do rituals,
Workshops,
Plant medicine,
Where their biology needed more safety,
More time,
More information so it feels fully safe to integrate the process,
What is offered and what they signed up.
So in a nutshell,
They didn't give their consent,
But they are pursuing themselves because everyone around is doing it.
And you cannot rush this with positive thinking.
You cannot fool your nervous system.
You cannot fool survival intelligence in your DNA.
You cannot fool your biology.
And that doesn't mean you will never do the thing.
You will never get there.
It means you will do it on your own terms.
And this is big learning here.
I will do on my own pace,
Respecting my own biology,
Respecting the time I need,
Respecting the safety I need,
And respecting your body and knowing the difference between this is who I am and that person next to me feels encouraged,
But I'm not yet there because I'm pursuing myself and we are not the same.
And also it means that sometimes you will not do it because that intelligent system in your body,
Your nervous system,
Is saying,
Don't do it.
This is not right.
That's radar we need to have on to assess.
Is this going to be safe for me or not?
Do I need to run away?
Am I going to be betrayed again?
So we need to learn this distinction because it can help you in very practical ways and it removes shame from hesitation or pressure to do it,
Especially in spiritual communities.
There is so much spiritual abuse happening nowadays in a quote-unquote healing cultures where literally people are shamed if they hesitate,
If they need more time.
Why is this important?
You will know,
Are you betraying yourself?
You will know,
Am I saying no before clarity,
Before readiness,
Or am I pursuing myself?
And you're learning to say no before you gain clarity,
Before you're ready,
Before your confidence appears.
You can clearly say,
No,
I don't feel confident about this.
It's known from my biology,
But I'm very glad you are so encouraged.
You are just in a different phase than I am.
Your nervous system is clearly in a different phase than mine is,
And I will respect that.
So we are learning here to return authority to your body,
Not to external timelines,
Not to external expectations,
Not to external pressure,
But to your own internal timeline.
So learning to read your own somatic cues over cognitive override is very important because it gives you cautiousness against premature action,
And your indecision,
Unreadiness,
Doubting yourself is a big information and you want to respect that something is not clear.
And what we need to learn when persuasion becomes a socially reinforced mechanism that keeps you or groups of people inside very harmful dynamics while they're calling this growth,
This is a big red flag.
So now I'm moving to power over dynamics.
Cults are based on this.
Quote,
Unquote,
The gurus would use this where they will praise your endurance and their discomfort is normalized.
And as a woman,
We are so trained to persuade ourselves to stay.
Not to question,
To endure,
To be quote,
Unquote,
Patient,
But it's a big imprisonment what you're doing to ourselves.
So the practice is very simple.
Instead of what should I do?
Am I brave enough?
Am I healed enough?
Your inquiry is very simple.
Am I persuading myself?
Or am I encouraging myself?
And then listen to the body.
Your body knows.
Read somatic cues.
Because persuasion is not encouragement between you and you.
And your body has been telling the truth all along.
We know those lines.
If I just listen myself,
Or I knew it,
I knew it.
And when we persuade ourselves,
Outcome of this is regret.
When we encourage ourselves,
We don't feel regret.
Two different things.
So as I close this today,
Take this slowly.
This is not about forcing clarity.
It is about learning how to stop overriding your body,
Your intelligence.
And sometimes the smallest distinctions change the way we choose,
Protect ourselves,
And live.
How to fine-tune what's okay and what's not okay.
To read those cues is the fastest way to the healing.
And to get there,
We need to take slow to go fast.
I am Anamael.
This is Exiled and Rising.
Until next time,
Much care.
Much care.
