DTBA Podcast - Ep 4 - Fully Surrendered To The Situation

What if the peace you’re seeking isn’t on the other side of doing more—but in letting go?

In this episode, I talk about perfectionism, presence, and the radical freedom found in surrendering to life exactly as it is. I explore what it feels like to trust in the underlying intelligence of life, rather than believing that the answer lies in pushing, pulling, controlling, strategizing.

In This Episode:
-Why surrender can feel safer and more powerful than control
- Sovereignty and internal validation
- Letting go of needing to be liked or approved of
- Embracing your individuality in a world that prefers conformity

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you. Subscribe and leave a review, or submit a question or reflection for a future episode.

🎧 Produced by Chase Coughlin

🎵 Music by Chase Coughlin

🌟 With support from Maia Young

You are not alone. You are not broken. You are designed to be awake.

Transcript

You are listening to Designed to be Awake with Mick Kubiak Welcome to episode four of Designed to be Awake.

This episode it's about internal validation as opposed to external validation.

Practicing awareness when you catch yourself imagining that someone or something outside yourself is going to let you know that you're okay or you deserve to be here.

You are valid.

So I hope this episode gives you a chance to kind of practice not looking outside yourself for validation.

I am recording this podcast from a place of personal duress.

What I mean by that is I can be a bit of a perfectionist and it causes me to procrastinate,

Hesitate,

Wait until the perfect moment,

Until I know exactly what I'm going to say,

Until I'm in a specific state of mind,

Or I'll decide,

Oh,

This is the time of the day where I really do well at this.

And I'm really insisting with myself that I let that shit go.

And so that's what I'm going to do.

It is a Wednesday.

A typical Wednesday for me,

I see clients,

Usually somewhere between,

Let's say,

Four and six clients.

And I love my job.

I love talking to people.

I think human beings are absolutely fascinating.

I believe that every person,

Everyone I've ever met,

Has an awakened aspect of being inside themselves that is awake,

That is tapped in.

I have met people,

And I even have friends who are like,

Nope,

Don't know what you're talking about.

I don't feel that.

I don't have any of that.

They're,

You know,

Hardened atheists,

Godless heathens.

And even with them,

I know it's there.

They just aren't ready yet.

So patronizing,

Right?

But there it is.

There it is.

That's how I feel.

And this is why I just really love my work.

When I really decided I am going to do this,

I'm going to get my master's in clinical psychology.

I'm going to see clients.

I was already somebody who would always attract people who are going through deep and intense things.

No small talk,

Just right away,

Like into the depths in conversation.

One way I would put it is that I was always the person at the party who was in the corner with someone whose dad just died,

For example,

Or someone who just came back from being a reporter in a war zone or something like that.

Human beings are so fascinating when they are not,

I don't want to say when they're not functioning well,

But I think what I mean is when they're not effectively masking who they really are,

What it really feels like to be alive in this world.

And those kind of people can also be scary sometimes,

Right?

I have been in relationship with people where you're like,

Okay,

Actually,

Actually,

Let's do put the mask on because we're in public right now and you're scaring people.

I've probably been that person actually in public scaring people.

I would say there were decades of my life where I was less pulled together than I am now.

And I'm not really pulled together now.

I'm just fully surrendered to the situation.

And it feels really good.

It feels really magical and beautiful and safe,

Actually,

Which is not what I was feeling when I was younger and,

You know,

Doing kind of crazy things.

And as intriguing as it would be to go into what all that was,

And maybe one day I will,

Tonight is not that night because tonight I want to talk about how thrilled I am every day that I get to get up and sit with a person or two people who are showing up to life open.

And often that starts with showing up confused,

Showing up heartbroken,

Showing up angry,

Disappointed,

Lost.

These are just beautiful,

Beautiful states of consciousness for human beings.

There is an openness and a vulnerability and possibility that does not exist when we have the mask on.

And I'm curious about all the different ways humans show up.

And it's a pleasure and an honor to show up in my work every day and get to hear the stories of people,

The deep stories.

So in those deep stories,

Sometimes there's discovery of that awakened being at the center of every person.

And sometimes there's not.

For me,

I always am seeing that,

Feeling that,

Hoping that it will come out.

And I think that that's why I am reorienting my focus as a therapist.

And I'm probably going to be shifting away from psychotherapy and more into coaching,

Really focusing just on awakening,

Because I genuinely sense that we are at a moment in time where,

Yes,

Many,

Many scary things are happening.

And I use the word scary,

Knowing that that's a relative subjective word.

There's always been scary things happening.

There is a sense right now,

I think,

That things that have seemed like they were always going to last,

Establishments,

Established ways of doing things,

Those things are not lasting,

Apparently,

Right?

They're going through huge transformation.

Some of that transformation involves what looks like destruction.

I genuinely believe things are transforming into something else.

And I genuinely believe we're going to make it.

I'm not doomy and gloomy,

But I do also believe that part of us making it is that this massive awakening is happening in individuals.

And it's really meant to be that way.

It's not this kind of like group community thing.

I think it is an individual thing.

We have to emerge from the collective identity and become fully our individual selves.

And a lot of people who have been highly individualistic in the past have been loners and have been outcasts,

Outsiders,

And they still are,

Right?

I still feel like that much of the time,

Even though I also feel really deeply connected to all of humanity.

It's kind of like those two things for me,

The in-between part where I have to like belong to a community,

That's hard.

I can totally feel the deep connection to every person through that underlying intelligence that is so palpable to me.

I feel it very deeply.

I don't feel separate from other people.

And then there's kind of like this sense that I have and have always had that each one of us is meant to be highly individualistic.

And that gets interpreted as problematic a lot.

It's not about the individual.

It's about all of us.

What about this person?

We got to think about everyone.

There's a relative truth to that.

I personally find that if an individual is healthily individuated and individualized,

They naturally care for others.

It's not something you have to like bang everybody over the head with.

And in the process,

Often of banging everybody over the head with thinking about others,

Especially women,

By the way,

You know,

Certain members of society have been asked to bear the weight of that more fully than others.

And it's this idea like you've got to be looking outside yourself all the time for a couple of things.

One,

What to do.

So there's an authority out there who's going to tell you what the thing to do is.

And they're going to meet your needs.

Like if you do the thing,

They'll meet your needs.

If you go to work,

You will get paid.

If you pay your taxes,

You can live here.

All of these things.

And I think that again,

There's a basic functionality to that.

That's fine.

However,

I think so many of us are programmed to believe we need validation from outside.

We need permission from outside.

We can't trust ourselves.

That's kind of like the message.

You don't really know what you're doing.

Look outside yourself.

Get some instructions.

Then be thinking of others all the time.

It's not all about you.

You know,

This kind of hazing that goes on.

And I would say,

Yeah,

No,

It's not all about you,

But it is about you.

Like you're not anybody else.

You're you.

So aren't you curious?

Don't you want to know?

Like,

Who are you?

Really separate from other people telling you who and what you are.

Because I'm really interested to know.

I'm really interested to know about that experience for humans.

And a word that I like a lot,

And it seems to be like one of those words that I thought I came up with,

Not came up with the word,

But I was like,

Oh,

No one's talking about sovereignty.

And then as soon as I started being like,

Maybe that's what I'll write about.

I'll write about sovereignty.

It was suddenly everywhere.

There were books and TED talks.

I mean,

I'm being extreme,

But there was one book with a TED talk.

And then there were like a few Instagram accounts referencing it.

But I think it's such a beautiful word,

Sovereignty.

And it is like a self-sustaining vibe.

And it's also,

I guess,

A regalness associated with it,

The sovereign.

And to me,

It's just about being sovereign over myself.

I don't wish to be sovereign over anybody else or over a country.

I only wish to be sovereign over myself.

I rule myself.

I choose,

I decide.

And that's my sense of the direction that a lot of people need to go to really move into relationship with their sovereignty,

Their distinctiveness from being validated externally and needing and believing that they need to be in order to survive,

In order to live,

In order to matter.

Not matter,

But like,

Actually,

Yeah,

Be valid.

Like,

That's just not true.

You do not need that.

Actually,

What's needed,

I believe,

Right now and in this next phase of human development is internal validation and really cultivating a sense of who one is and to give oneself the affirmation,

The validation that you need and really let go of needing it from outside.

That's the really big thing.

Forget about cultivating it from within because once you let go of your perceived need of external validation,

The internal validation is just,

It's who you are.

It's not even a thing.

You don't have to cultivate it.

It's just,

You relax.

You begin to realize that you exist.

And you know what?

That's the validation.

That's all the cosmic validation you need.

You are here.

Congratulations.

You're here.

You are supported in being here because if you weren't,

You wouldn't be here.

And you are.

But really,

Again,

Like I just said,

It's more about really questioning this idea that there's something out there or someone out there who needs to approve of you,

Love you,

Validate you.

It's just not true.

It's a perceived need.

And I think it is an addiction,

Actually.

I know for myself,

Once I let that go,

It was total freedom.

I feel so free.

And then when I experience a little like resurgence here and there of like,

Does he like me?

Do they think I'm nice?

Or like whatever,

I catch myself doing it,

Right?

Every once in a while.

And then it's just a little blip.

And I'm like,

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

We are not doing that.

We are not doing that.

We don't need that.

Remember?

It does feel like freedom from an addiction.

And it's wonderful.

It's wonderful.

And I highly recommend it.

So this is just a kind of meandering way of sharing with you this concept and inviting you to explore it for yourself.

Where are you looking outside yourself for validation,

Approval,

Love?

And in what ways is that a trap,

A prison?

And if you could get what you think you're going to get because that person likes you or like whatever you're doing,

Imagine that's just how you feel all the time.

And it's unrelated to other people liking you or approving of you.

Can you picture it?

I hope so.

And I hope this has been interesting for you to consider.

And this is just sort of part of the work that I'm doing right now with other people,

With myself always.

And I'm excited to have this vehicle through which I can share more broadly and through which people can tune in and listen for free on their own time and start to kind of play with some of these concepts.

No,

They're not concepts.

They are realities attained through practice,

Experimentation.

It's all an experiment.

So experiment with it.

Experiment with noticing when you feel like you really need someone to approve of you,

Give you a gold star.

That's all I got for today.

So be well and tune in for the next episode.

I will speak to you then.

Thank you so much for listening today.

This episode and every episode would be impossible without my amazing team,

The brilliant Chase Coughlin,

Who not only edits every episode,

But also composed the music for the show,

As well as Maya Young.

If you enjoyed listening,

Please leave us a review.

Thank you so much for listening,

And I will see you next time.