S3 E11 - Is it safe to be happy?

In this conversation, Sophia Hyde explores the complex relationship between happiness and fear, particularly the concept of 'foreboding joy'—the fear that joy may be fleeting or lead to loss. She discusses self-sabotaging behaviors that prevent individuals from fully embracing joy and shares personal anecdotes and client experiences to illustrate these themes. The conversation emphasizes the importance of expanding one's capacity for joy, recognizing and overcoming fears, and practical steps to embrace happiness in life.

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Transcript

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Sophia Hyde (00:00.878)
Hello friends, I hope you are having a beautiful day today. Our conversation that we're going to have is so good and we're going to address a topic that comes up with every single human and this has to do with our capacity for feeling the emotion of joy and our tendency to self-sabotage when we feel it.

So let's dive in. The question I want you to think about first is, is it safe to be happy? Is it safe to be happy? Now, many people will say, I've heard a lot of things about happiness, things like we shouldn't try to be happy. Happy is a fleeting emotion, right? Like what are we really looking for in life? Is it satisfaction?

I've always said like feeling joy because you can find joy even in the midst of grief or sadness. There's like something to be or gratitude. that, I've heard people criticize trying to be happy because it's a pointless pursuit because it's just a fleeting emotion. That's what I've heard about it. But I've really been thinking about this more and more and more and.

I'm gonna share with you guys what I'm currently going through and some of the self-sabotaging behaviors I caught myself doing. Some of the problems I found myself create. I started creating problems for myself and we're gonna talk through that, why it happened, where it came from, what I was doing, what the solutions are. I'm gonna share all that with you today. But I want you to think about this concept of is it safe to be happy? Think back, if you listened to a few episodes ago.

I shared an episode on the five common reasons that people are not living their favorite lives. One of them was something that I have seen over and over again, which is people may not even give themselves permission to dream it's possible for themselves that a full life, like 10 out 10 life, isn't possible for them. So they're only setting their eyes

Sophia Hyde (02:24.512)
and their goals on a good enough life, a seven out of 10 and eight out of 10. Because to live a 10 out of 10 life, I think a lot of people, I had said then, I think it's from a fear place, but because of what I've recently been going through, I actually think it is connected to fear, but I think it's a fear of the loss of our safety. Hear me out.

On this theory I'm working through I think people are scared to actually want to live a maximized life Because of foreboding joy and that's what we're gonna talk about today. What is foreboding joy? What is the joy like the upper limit? Concept I'm gonna talk I'm gonna talk all about what that means What is you know, the glass ceiling that you may be putting on yourself for your joy? I'm gonna we're dive into this conversation. Okay, but

What if the reason that we're not pursuing a 10 out of 10 life is because of that foreboding joy, which means we're so scared that if we actually had it all, if we actually had everything that we wanted in life, it could then be taken from us. It's a fear of loss. What if I actually achieved it?

How long could it last for? It would be fleeting, it would be temporary, because life can't be that good. Think of these phrases we use, it's too good to be true, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

These are directly connected to foreboding joy, which we will dive into. But I think it's not just about, when I originally mapped out this episode, I planned to just talk about those concepts, what they are, how I started doing it to myself and self-sabotaging, I caught myself in the middle of doing. But then the more I thought about it, I realized that it begins oftentimes before like,

Sophia Hyde (04:37.888)
My story I'm going to share with you and in a client example I'm going to give you are both self-sabotaging behaviors that happened in the moment in real time. Like as you're expanding and reaching your next level of this life and of your joy how you try to like pull it back down. But the more I thought about this I realized most of the time it begins before you've even gotten there because you're so scared.

to even want that much or dream that big because then if you actually achieved that, it might hurt if you lost it. I want you to think about that. I want you to think about that fear inside of you because I think it is for a lot of people. Okay. So let me give credit where credit's due. What are these concepts I'm talking about? Let's kick it off with the upper limit problem.

highly recommend a book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendrix. I read it like almost 10 years ago and it was life-changing for me. I still remember the moment that I was driving down the highway 60, all my way from Plant City to Brandon, Florida. It was pouring down rain. One of those rainfalls where it's like you can barely see the car in front of you.

and I'm listening to this audio book on the big leap because a mentor at the time had recommended it to me. And as I'm driving down the road, I'm listening to him talk. He talks about the upper limit problem, which is this idea that we all have an upper limit of our own, that we put on ourselves of how much joy we feel we are worthy of or that it's safe to feel. And when we hit our upper limit, we will begin to self-sabotage to bring us down to the level that we're comfortable with.

And he goes into his book, he goes into different reasons why this happens and all these concepts and ideas that are in there. But he talks about the four main fears. And for me personally, there's four different ones that usually if you are limiting your joy or you feel like it's not safe to experience more joy than you currently do, it's usually for one of four reasons.

Sophia Hyde (06:58.318)
And mine personally was the fear about shining that I had developed a fear that if you're too successful, you lose all your friends. And a lot of times these beliefs are, you know, happened in our childhood. Mine was when I was 14. But I've talked about that on this podcast before. This is not a new, if you're a regular listener, this is not a new idea. I've talked about that before from my past. But that was the book that helped me realize it was initially ever even a problem. I didn't think about that.

from age 14 to age 30, I didn't even have that memory on my radar. I was going through life. wasn't even, mean, occasionally if I like think about it or like my memory like every few years or something, but it wasn't something I realized was still affecting me. And I realized it had created my upper limit that I had this belief inside of me. If you're too successful, you lose all your friends. And so I purposefully at a subconscious level,

was making sure that I didn't get too successful. was keeping myself in second place at good enough, just right under whatever goal I would set. I could always get to right under it, but never hit it or surpass it because it wasn't safe to be successful anymore. I've since worked on that. And that's not the purpose of today's topic. What I want to dive into is just the concept that we do this.

Okay, we all do this in some way, shape or form. And I also love somebody else who talks about this in a similar way, but different is Brene Brown, who talks about foreboding joy. And she describes it as joy is actually the most vulnerable emotion. You might think that the most vulnerable emotion might be to like, let somebody see you in your sadness or see you in your grief, but actually joy is the most vulnerable emotion.

Because when you feel it, you're simultaneously afraid of losing it. Think about the easiest examples to think of are if you're a parent, you've probably experienced looking at your peaceful child in their sleep who is totally safe and nothing's wrong with them. But suddenly you look at how beautiful they are.

Sophia Hyde (09:21.206)
And you want to be filled with joy, gratitude, or something. And instead, your brain starts thinking about the terrible things that could happen to them. Maybe they're gonna stop breathing in the middle of the night or something could happen to them, right? That fear creeps in immediately. And it's because your nervous system, your body is scared to feel all the joy swelling inside of you right now because it's outside your comfort zone.

And so it's trying to bring you back down to a level you're comfortable with because as humans, have spent thousands of years in survival. We've never actually had the abilities that we do now to experience the level of just pleasure and joy. Don't get me wrong. We know throughout all of history, have felt joy, people have felt happiness, but there was always so much.

much struggle, that the struggle is so normalized that when we actually feel a huge amount of joy, we will sometimes create our own struggle just so we can feel normal again. Isn't that wild? And I just did this recently, so I'm going to get there. I'm to get to that story. And so that's the concept of foreboding joy. I think of it for me, one of the most common places that it comes up for me that I can just think so clearly is

One of my favorite views in all of Tampa Bay is driving over the Howard Franklin or the Courtney Campbell Bridge. These are the two bridges that will take you from Tampa to St. Pete and vice versa. But if you get lucky enough that you have a reason to drive from Tampa to St. Pete around sunset, you can catch one of my favorite views. I know a great, like people love a good beach sunset.

But I'm telling you, driving over that bridge, there is nothing but water all around you and you're driving in the direction of the sunset and Tampa Bay gets some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen in my life because the way that the weather works and the storm patterns, there's usually an afternoon shower that comes through every day and that leaves behind these clouds. And as the sun is setting after the showers have passed, it leaves behind these clouds that catch the rays in the

Sophia Hyde (11:46.516)
most gorgeous, beautiful way. And I know lots of other places around the world to get beautiful sunsets, but sunsets will always be one of my favorite parts about Tampa Bay. And so if you're crossing the bridge at sunset, the level of joy that my body wants to feel in that beauty is it's like, want to burst. Okay. But then, but you know what ends up happening? I see the water. I see that and

If my, can just think of multiple times that I had my daughter in the car seat behind me. And instead of soaking up the calm, peaceful water and this gorgeous sunset, my brain is too busy problem solving the hypothetical scenario. What would happen if the car flew off the bridge and how I would get her out of her rear facing car seat with the five point harness. And we both come out of the situation alive. In the 30 years I lived in Tampa Bay.

I don't have a memory of somebody flying off the Courtney Gamble or the Howard Franklin. There are car accidents for sure that happen on those bridges, but the edges, whatever, forget what those are called, but my brain is skipping the vocabulary word for it. the barriers that they have to protect you, like they're really strong. They keep the cars in. And yet that's the foreboding joy.

My body is so uncomfortable at the level of beauty and joy that it fills that it has to immediately come up with something negative to pull the temperature back down. Think of it like a thermometer, right? I'm used to going through the world at 70 degrees. This is my comfort zone. This is where it feels good. This is the right temperature. And actually I'm used to it going down. We've been through the struggle. We can handle the

the cool, we can handle the cold. Like we know how to get it back up. That's cool. We can go from those like lower temperatures up to 70. Like if that's my temperature, right? We can go up and down that whole area. Totally fine. But if it gets too high, we start climbing those 70s or hitting an 80 or a 90 degree experience. Our body is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, too much heat. Cool this down. Whoa. This is outside of our comfort zone. We cannot feel this much joy.

Sophia Hyde (14:10.978)
This is too vulnerable. Are you kidding me? Too much of that steak. There's too much to lose here. And so we pull it back down. You're like, right. Yes. I must think of negative thoughts because that was too good. That was just way too good. Let me bring it back down. Check yourself, Sophia. You cannot have that much joy. Are you insane? And the only way that we can grow those numbers is to expand our comfort zone. So bit by bit, it doesn't happen overnight.

definitely don't jump from 70 to 100. It's like degree by degree by degree. We expand that comfort zone of how much joy we can hold. And it's not an overnight process, but you can do it. Now the trick is to recognize when you're over the number.

What often happens is we are not even aware of what we're doing. We don't even realize that we are self-sabotaging. So something might happen where could, we either are experiencing a lot of joy or could be experiencing a lot of joy, but we are not allowing it. So struggles arise that either somehow we attracted it into our life or we've created for ourselves and we just think of it as so normal.

that we're focused on solving the problems or fixing the problems that we don't even recognize, that we brought them on ourselves and that the actual answer, the actual solution is not to solve the problem itself, but to just stop everything we're doing. Sit down and feel the emotion of joy to grow that capacity to show our body it's actually safe and okay.

Let's dive into some of the examples. Because I know examples, stories, visuals, that's gonna be the most memorable way for you guys to learn this concept. the first one I wanna give is, and really what inspired this episode is I recently had a coaching call with one of my clients who I've been working with for like a year and a half. And she has been achieving.

Sophia Hyde (16:31.45)
So many goals. mean, I think within the first month that I was working with her, I encouraged her to read The Big Leap and she actually read it with her husband. They co-own the business together and she was doing so much self-sabotaging. Like it was crazy. She would come to the calls with all this negativity and when I got into her world, I realized she had a really stable, successful business with her husband and her kids were like all healthy and doing well in adulthood and there weren't real problems. Like the more I dove in, I was like,

this woman lives a really beautiful life. And yet there was a lot of fear and worry and not, and she wasn't like a negative Nancy at all, but just she had these like negative emotions from a result of fear and worry. And so I very quickly had to read the book and she was, you know, realized how much she was self-sabotaging her ability to feel the joy. And so we've been working for a year and a half on expanding her capacity for joy.

and she's doing so well. Like she has grown so much. if I had, I don't record my sessions with clients, but if I had recorded them, if you guys could see the way she used to show up to a session a year and half ago and how she shows up now, like she just is always smiling. She's in contentment and gratitude. Like she just moves to the world at a higher vibration.

Like think of somebody who their thermometer was at like 50 or 60 when I met them and now they're moving to the world at like 80, 85 or something like that. Like that's the level of growth she's had. And this is like her new normal. She has bit by bit expanded her capacity for joy and is just moving to the world under just a much higher vibration than when I initially met her. Well, one of the things that came up several months ago was that

They had had a dream as a family, so she has several adult children, and they had a dream as a family to take a trip to Yellowstone National Park. But for different reasons, the trip had been canceled several times. They had attempted to take it many years ago, like multiple times over the last five years, and it's never happened. And so I encouraged her, this is probably around January, February that I found out about this.

Sophia Hyde (18:49.182)
And I was like, this summer, you gotta go right now. No putting it off. You have a lot of adult children. Somebody's gonna be popping out of Grandbaby soon. Because I think all of them, or almost all of them are married. And I was like, you're going to enter into a completely different phase. They won't be able to take an infant on a hike. This dream that you guys have as a family, you need to do it right now. Right now, before the opportunity passes by.

And she ended up doing it. She booked it by the time that she was ready to pull the trigger. was like, I feel like it was maybe April, maybe even May. And she pulled off a trip for July. Like they just did it. And I was so proud of her stepping into this big goal they've had for a family and everybody that wanted to go can go. And it's just this huge milestone for them, right? And so I'm coaching her on the.

Two days before they're supposed to leave for this trip. We had a coaching call scheduled and I'm just so ready to celebrate her and she tells me Sophia gotta be honest with you. Yes, this trip is like really exciting and I am excited for it But I gotta tell you all I can think about is I just I just keep fixating on this thought that My whole family is gonna be on that plane together

And if that plane goes down, my whole family's gone. That's where her mind was at. That ladies and gentlemen, is classic foreboding joy. And it's funny because it's so much easier for me to recognize it in somebody else rather than myself. So I start coaching her through the foreboding joy. Now this is somebody who's already familiar with the concept and has been working through it. And so I bring it to her awareness that this is actually what's happening and how

It's not surprising because she has, you know, raising so many kids. She stayed at home for a long time and her husband, the business they own for many years, he was a one man show and financially they just barely got by for a very long time. There wasn't a lot of discretionary income. And this idea that she is like that, that broke mom is still inside of her, right? She is.

Sophia Hyde (21:13.248)
Even though she has aged 20 years, she is still that person. It's still inside of her. And so now she's having to identify as this person with a successful growing business with discretionary income. And this idea that she could take her whole family on a vacation to Yellowstone is like a huge deal. And I said,

this is probably outside your comfort zone. You've never done this, you've never moved through the world this way, you've never been able to have these kinds of experiences. It's really new and so it's probably scary. And instead of thinking about your family and a plane crash, I want you to think about the gratitude and the joy of looking around and seeing everybody on the airplane together, having this experience and feel into the joy, allow yourself to feel the joy.

And she said, you know, I was totally right. And I gave her a comparison. was like, when you were raising all those kids, were there not many, many, many days that you put the whole family in? I'm sure you had some sort of a mini van, a van of some sort. And I am sure that there are plenty of times you loaded the whole family up and drove them around and you were not petrified and weary in fear that driving to the grocery store was going to cost everybody their lives, right? Because that was so normal to you.

But statistically speaking, you loading your family in that van 20 years ago was a much higher risk than the airplane ride that you're about to take. If there was going to be a tragic accident, statistically speaking, you're so much more likely to have that happen in a And so logically, you're not unsafe. Statistically speaking, you're not unsafe. But emotionally, you are, because this is a

brand new territory. And then I immediately said to her, I was like, hold on, I had to pause this session. Because I just need to soak in for a second that I'm saying all of this to you. And I am realizing that it's actually my own medicine I to hear right now. And I just held up a giant mirror for myself. And I just got to pause and take in this epiphany.

Sophia Hyde (23:36.148)
I just had in real time while I was coaching you. And she was great. She actually loved, loved, and I shared with her like what was coming up. I'm about to share with you guys. she was so great. She actually thanked me for sharing it with her because she was like, my gosh, hearing that my coach is going through this right now and has crazy thoughts too.

makes me realize that I'm not broken, that like something's not wrong with me that I do this to myself. I was like, no girl, of course I do this. And I fully expect that I will continue to do this for the rest of my life as I continue to reach new upper levels. I continue to push past whatever comforts that I'm currently living in. I just accept this as a repeating

challenge or obstacle that I will have to recognize and overcome as I push past each new normal that I arrive at. And so if you're doing this, you're not broken, there's nothing wrong with you, welcome to being human, okay? And so here is how this showed up in my life really recently. I would say so recently that I'm still, I wouldn't even say like I have a ride and I'm on the other side. I'm like.

crossing the bridge and I've crossed most of it, but I feel like I still have a little more work to do to get to full safety and integration. The way I worded it, I put it in my Insta stories recently, and I worded it as recalibrating. It's that, in using, let's go with that temperature example, I'm adjusting to a new level. And when I say recalibrating, I also think of it as.

because I think of the world a lot as vibrations because everything is just everything in the world is just energy moving all around us. And so we're all vibrating at different levels. And I like leapt to a completely different vibration and it knocked me out. And I didn't realize that, but energetically it knocked me out. And so what happened was you guys have been, if you've been listening to the podcast since, you know, over the last month or so, I've shared with you that we moved from Florida to North Carolina. I've recorded.

Sophia Hyde (25:52.984)
very specific episodes about it, brought my coach on. And I've also shared with you guys how fucking fantastic all of it is. I don't know, there is just not another vocabulary word for it. It's so good. Everything is so good. I am obsessed with my house. It's a home that in our heads, we imagined that our price range that we would buy what we called phase one house. We call it like the bandit house or a phase one house and then a phase two house.

which was we didn't think that we would be able to afford a house with enough square footage for all the ways we wanted to our kids and a gorgeous view. We thought we were gonna have to compromise on by the view or by the square footage, but we weren't gonna be able to have the level of house or have to get a fixer-upper and have to put tons of work into it, right? But we didn't actually believe that we could just have a beautiful home and a beautiful view at the same time.

in this price range. So we were like, we'll have the bandit house and then we'll buy the dream house. And so like we move here and just I've already shared the story the way that things unfolded and we ended up with our dream house with our dream view. My husband and I don't I mean life can be unpredictable so I can't promise you that I'm going to spend the rest of my life in this house but I don't want for anything else. This is my 10 out of 10. I can see myself in this house with like my

children bringing grandkids to come visit me here. Like I genuinely could see this like settling down and being my forever home. And again, like I said, life can unexpected things can happen, but I, this is my dream house. I don't desire more. I'm so content. And I wasn't expecting that. it just kind of rolled out like a red carpet for us. And then, and then it just kept getting better. So then I got this.

cool ass office that I'm renting 10 minutes from my house where I can either three windows and outside of each and every one of them I either see the mountains or a forest that is just and all that greenery oh it just feels so good in the body you know and then my kids schools like I'm literally obsessed and I know you can't pick a school based on a view that's ridiculous

Sophia Hyde (28:14.712)
But I've met with the staff and I've talked to people in the community and everybody just raves about how wonderful these schools are because it's a very tight knit close community. And we're gonna get to like be part of this. I'm just really looking forward to raising my kids at these schools with these teachers and these people. I just hear so many good things about. And we decided to do public school. So it was really like, I couldn't really guarantee.

which school they would get, but they got the one I wanted for both of them. That was my first choice of all of the districts we could have been in. We got the first choice of the district I wanted my kids to go to. And then everything just keeps getting better. Stuff like the view to and from my home, just flabbergasted. I'm in awe every day. And then the people I'm meeting, I am meeting the coolest people. I mean, this is kind of why I picked this community, because I said like, this is where my people are.

but then I'm just proving to myself that this is where my people are. Like I'm just meaning the neatest, coolest people. It's a great community. I just can't wait to immerse myself in it and build relationships. And it's for the first month I rode the high. It was like, this is so great. my God, this is stellar. This is incredible. High levels of joy. Life is amazing. I can't believe this. I'm in shock. I'm in awe. Like I rode that for a month. And then,

Couple weeks ago, I started having these fears and worries creep up. All of a sudden it was like, wait a second, I'm the sole income provider for my family. And I started looking at numbers and I started running it and said, we're okay, but we've been a two income family.

very long time. I'm just trying to think the last time we were a one-income family. Like I had dabbled with trying to save him from my daughter and so yeah there were some periods of time that we were one-income family but not intentionally. I was always growing a business where he was growing a business. So we there were periods where one of us was starting a new business so the other one was supporting the family financially while the other one got something off of the ground. But we have never in the history of our marriage had a period of time

Sophia Hyde (30:36.234)
where we were like, you're gonna stay at home. Like I didn't do the stay at home mom card. Even when I did, I was working a business from home. And so I just didn't have childcare, which was the dumbest thing ever. Do not recommend having no childcare and trying to run a business from home. It is like the worst decision I ever made in my life. Do not recommend that. Childcare is a huge gift and blessing. But anyways, I digress. That was not on today's agenda. We've never been a one-year income family.

And so suddenly I took my eyes off of all of the joy and everything and I started looking at the numbers and we're fine. Like we are okay. I, there isn't, there's not actually something on paper to be stressed about, but then I started scaling everything and being like, we're just making enough right now. There's not ones to hit all of our other financial goals, right? I need to grow my business. If we're going to grow our savings, grow our investments.

pay we want to like change our vehicles so switching from the Prius in the van to a Subaru and a truck because of like the terrain we're in but that's gonna cost because of like the kind of one we want like we don't want to do like a lateral trade so anyways there are gonna be more expensive vehicles and so we need more money for that and there's different things i want to invest in my business like i'm always down for new certification guys

You just know I'm constantly learning and growing. And the next one I have my eyes on is like a $4,500 certification that is just really cool stuff I want to learn about. And so I'm like, I want to buy this and I want to do this and we want to go on vacation. So we want to have a camper so that we can go explore all these different states and take a road trip next summer. It's just like money, money, money, money, money, money, money, these things I want to do. Right. And all of a sudden the pressure of the world is on my shoulders. And all I can think about is I don't have enough money.

And then these other fears and worries popped in my head. And it was like, what if I start losing clients? Like what happens if I'm not bringing in more clients? Which is crazy because in the history of the five years of my business, I have always had new clients pop in from the different ways that clients come to me. And Mike, I've not had a client cancel their program at any point. And almost all my clients are on six to 12 month agreements right now.

Sophia Hyde (33:00.408)
They're with me. think everybody I'm with right now is with me till at least the end of the year, if not well into next year. I have a very stable business model. And yet my brain was like, what if they start canceling? What if they start losing them? Which I've not had any clients say, I'm not going to fulfill my agreement with you and leave. It's like, it's not happening in five years. And yet suddenly I was like worrying about it, which was crazy. And at the time when those fears started popping up,

what I started doing was I was trying to coach myself through it logically. was doing what I teach all my clients to do, to look at your thoughts. Are they true or are they not? I was mentally running thought wheels on myself. And so it's like, okay, this is not a fact, this is not true, you're not being logical whatsoever, this is a story you're telling yourself, reframe it. And so I'm doing all this mental work to reframe my thoughts, realize they're not serving me. then I started because I was like,

from this place of fear and worry, I was like, need, I have this idea, I need to put a new product out there. And I started working on the beginning steps of this idea that came to me and this product I was gonna launch. And so then I started moving into, I wasn't overworking or overextending myself, but a little bit of that hustle culture energy, like I need to go, go, do, do, do. It started that.

just that way of feeling. hadn't actually moved towards like long days or things that would lead to burnout, but just the feeling inside my body. was that kind of like, no, I gotta do, I gotta create, I gotta go. Right? And it's like, my gosh, I shouldn't stop doing this. I need to work on this. I started feeling that in my body and then therefore taking actions from that feeling, which is not a good place to operate from by the way. And that's where I was. So on the day I had that call with my client, I was like,

brainstorming this new product and working on some foundational pieces of it and like coaching myself. I had like three or four days of this weird energy I was in and then when I called out her for her joy capacity it was a mirror for me and I was like my gosh Sophia you don't have a money problem you don't have a product and services problem you don't need to be launching something new right now you have a joy capacity issue.

Sophia Hyde (35:29.966)
was like, you need to get to the root cause here. You were treating the symptoms the wrong way. So I realized my root cause. And immediately, I stopped creating a new product. Because for those of who are entrepreneurs or do any sort of creation, you always want to make sure you're creating from the right energy. Because if you try to put things out into the world from a place of scarcity or fear, it's not going to land because whatever you say or do or write,

However you're feeling in your body and the thoughts that you're thinking, they somehow will translate into what you're writing or doing or creating. Your thoughts and your feelings, they energetically can be felt by other people, even in what you create. And so I don't want to create a product for anybody if I'm not creating it from a really high level, because how I am feeling the day that I speak those words into a microphone or a video or written product, people are going to be able to absorb that.

It's just the way that the world works. And that's not a good place to create from. It probably would have bombed anyways if I was creating from that space, let's be honest. And so I just immediately stopped that. That was a pushing, that was a hustle, closed the door on that. Not that I'm not gonna launch new products, I'm just gonna launch them in the right time from the right space. And then the next thing that I did was I laid down in bed and I just started meditating and reflecting.

on what were the fears, what were the worries, and I started intentionally feeling joy and then reflecting and asking myself, what is making me afraid of the joy? What am I fearing? And then I did some of the work I do with my clients sometimes to go into the subconscious. have different techniques to be able to go into the subconscious, bring some thoughts up to the surface, and then

re-rewire them so that we don't continue to move through the world that way. And it's like subconscious reprogramming. I did some of that on myself to get to the root of what was underneath the surface. And the more that I meditated on it and I thought about it and I sat in the joy and I did the reprogramming on myself, the clearer and clearer and clearer it became that my actual medicine was rest.

Sophia Hyde (37:58.126)
It was rest. And I needed to give myself permission to rest. And so my to-do list changed from trying to launch a new course to finish unpacking the boxes. So then I started working on things like the bookshelves. know those things when you initially, when you unpack, you need to get to functional. It's the silverware. It's the kitchen. It's where the things that we use every day. I can't find what I'm looking for, but we still have boxes that are the things that you hardly ever need. The things that sit on the bookshelves, the

things that hang on the walls, they're not required to function. So our house, we're fully moved in in a very functional way, but we still have all of those extra boxes of the things that, know, they're pieces of us, but they're not like necessary, you know what I'm saying? And so I just felt that what I needed was to rest more.

I needed to sit on my porch and just soak in the view and sit in my backyard and on top of the hill where I can see like the best range view and just remind my body this is safe. So I started doing that. I started just sitting in my front porch or my backyard and just saying like, this is safe. It's okay to be here. This is good. It's okay for everything to be good. You're allowed to feel good. That was the phrase I kept using. You're allowed to feel this good.

It's allowed to feel this good. It's allowed to feel this good. That's what I kept saying to myself. It's allowed to feel this good. I'd be on the front porch watching the sunrise. It's allowed to feel this good. It is safe to feel this good. Because I realized in the episode that we did with Imani where she came on, we talked about how a lot of the work I did with her was that energetically, brought myself, Mount Sophia on the mountain, right? We brought me to Sophia on the mountain before I ever.

even knew what house I was going to buy, right? Like we did this, we worked on this for two and half years to become Sophia on the mountain. It's like, and then I talked in my goals and so when I share with you guys how I did this, I shared with you that mentally I moved before I physically moved and I did. I like lived up here for three years in my brain before I physically lived up here. And so I did, I energetically and mentally moved before I physically did. But here's what happened. Everything was better than I expected.

Sophia Hyde (40:26.55)
And so I had, let's go back to that thermometer example. I had been living, like Florida wasn't the right alignment for me. It's not where I belonged. never, felt like a fish out of water. It just wasn't, it wasn't where my nervous system felt at home. I just, I just didn't, even though I lived there for 30 years, my parents didn't move to Florida because they wanted to. My dad's job was there. Like it just wasn't ever really my home. And so let's say that the Florida life kept me at a 60.

And energetically, I moved myself thinking that like this life in Waynesville would be a 70. So I like brought myself to 70 before I actually moved. And so then it was like, ah, this feels right. I'm in alignment. But what actually happened was it was better than I imagined. So then it was like, oh, shit, this is an 80 life. isn't this isn't this. This is an 80. And I used to be a 60. I was prepared for this to be 70. But that gap.

I that was the work I had to do and that's why the self-sabotage happened. Those fears and those worries were creeping in and I started hyper fixating on things I didn't need to be hyper fixating on because I was so scared to feel that life really could be this good. I don't have anything to complain about right now and I know that there's bad shit happening in the world. I also think that that's part of what is going on too when people are afraid for life to be that good because it's like

Can my life be good while other people in the world are suffering? And then I want to ask you if that's a thought that you have, how is your suffering going to help them get out of their suffering? Like if you are going to hold yourself back from being happy and feeling joy because somebody else in another part of this country or in another country in this world is suffering, how the hell are you going to help them if you are sitting in your own suffering too?

The best thing you can do is pull yourself out of all of any and all ditches that you're in because the stronger you are, the more helpful you are to go pull people out of their other ditches. Like we have to pull ourselves up and then pull other people up along the way. But like going and getting in the ditch with people and sitting with them in there doesn't fucking help them.

Sophia Hyde (42:41.55)
You need to get out of the ditch so you have the ability to go find a ladder somewhere or go get a rope and pull it down. But you're not good to other people suffering because they're suffering. That doesn't make any sense. But we a lot of us do it. It's that whole thing like in the 90s when so many of us were told, you know, to eat all of our food because there were children starving in Africa. How is us like?

not finishing our plates and putting scraps in a trash can going to help them. It's not. That's such an illogical thing that we were told, right? Yeah, that was just really dumb. On so many levels, there was so much more wrong about that than we're even going to get to on this podcast episode today. But anyways, doesn't help other people. And so if part of why you're scared to live your 10 out of 10 life is because somebody else somewhere isn't or can't or whatever,

You're not helping them. The best thing you can do is live a big, bright and beautiful life so you have the capacity and the resources and the energy to help other people and lift them up with you and help them figure out how to go where you have gone. Yeah, sorry, a little soap box hit me just then. Okay, last couple of things in my notes. All right, so I gave you some examples of my self-sabotaging behavior and like what came up with my client, but here's some other ways that that self-sabotaging can show up.

It can look like procrastinating on your business goals. So it's like, I've achieved this over here and this over there. Life is so great. There's all this joy. And then suddenly that thing that you were supposed to do tomorrow, you're like, I'll it in two days. I'll it in three days. I'll do it in four days. And maybe it's not a business goal. Maybe it's like your health. Your career is doing better or your family life is getting so much better or you have the joy of this brand new baby at home or something.

Which by the way, like the infant stage personally is the least amount of for me. But I know lots of other people find lots of joy in babies to each their own. So give me a cute three year old, four year old all day long. Oh my God. Oh my God. Two years old, three years old, four years old. That joy is ridiculous. yeah, infants are not my jam. Gosh man, and my rabbit trails. Okay. So it's like, you've got this joy over here in this area of your life. And then suddenly

Sophia Hyde (44:59.008)
you're self-sabotaging like on your health goals. Suddenly you went from working out three to four times a week to these other areas of your life are doing so well. So now you've slacked on your health goals that you had, right? And that's the crazy thing, but we do this to ourselves. It can also show up as like picking fights with loved ones. A thing that didn't irritate you yesterday suddenly is irritating you today. Or you hyper fixate and obsess over minor problems, something that

shouldn't irk you like the way somebody loaded a dishwasher suddenly pisses you off today. You that's just, you're trying to bring down the joy. Everything is so good. So you have to look for something to complain about. We create problems where there wasn't one, like me. I don't actually have a financial problem, but I was obsessing that I might have one. And yes, I have goals. So I shouldn't say I don't have any problem. Like don't, I need to like save up money for my car purchases and.

You know, like there are things I need and I want more savings. I need to grow my business at these goals because we've gone down to a one income family and I have to adjust. You know, I'm not like lush and overflowing, but we're fine. Like we're fine. And so I started creating problems where I didn't actually have one. Think about this is a great thing. Think about the wheel of life, right? So on the wheel.

And a couple of episodes when I talked about how people are scared to go to the 10 out of 10 life, I said, imagine each spoke on the wheel of life, on your favorite life wheel. You know, rank, there's 10 areas that you rank 10 out of 10. So if all 10 areas were actually at a level 10, you would have a score of 100. And most people don't even believe that they could ever achieve that. They don't believe they can even get to 100. I am pursuing the 100, not there, but I'm pretty damn close.

All right, I am on my way to 100 because I finally have the belief that I can. And that's where I'm going. I'm going to 100. But let's say that for the last few years, if you were to total up all your numbers, you've got some fives and sixes. I see a lot of people just in the mid zones. A lot of people who come to coaching, they've got fives, sixes and sevens. Sometimes they'll have like an area of their life crashing and a one or two, but most of the time,

Sophia Hyde (47:18.238)
I see people in the middle, lots of five, six, sevens, maybe an eight or nine here or there in one area. And so hypothetically speaking, let's just say their score is like a 75 out of 100. If you were to total up each of these areas, they would maybe come to a sum total of 75. Okay. Hypothetically speaking, it's almost like you put all this work into your...

Let me think of just like one of the spokes. I mean, I just gave some of these examples, right? The whole like family self-care thing. Let's just say you put a lot of work into your friendship spoke. It was at a six and you wanted it to get to 10. And so you're doing all these things and you're investing in your friendships and they're rising and it gets from a six to a seven to an eight. And so now, oh my gosh, my friendships feel so much more fulfilling that you went from a six to an eight. It's almost like, okay, but.

I can't be at 77 and I improved this spoke by two points. I can't get to a 77. My comfort zone is 75. So then over here, you're like, well, my friendships are doing great, but I'm gonna stop getting enough sleep at night. And then your health deteriorates a little bit. And you're like, oh, but my health spoke was at a six and now it's at a four. But on average.

If I drop the health, the body spoke down to a four and the friendships was eight, I'm still at 75. So everything's equal. Here's my comfort zone. This is the shit we do. Like instead of just continuing to rise those numbers, it's like when one area is doing well, we have to create some suffering in the other one to balance it all out. That's the pattern you want to break. That is the thing that you want to recognize you're doing and put an end to it. All right. So how do we end it? What do we do? You recognize, okay, Sophia, this is great.

I'm doing the foreboding joy thing and I'm self-sabotaging and I've reached my upper limit and I'm creating problems for myself. Now tell me what to do. Okay, you know what? The first thing to do is, it's actually so simple. Literally feel joy. That's it, that's it. Just start practicing feeling the joy in your body. Let the emotions, our energy in motion, E, motion, energy in motion. It's just energy. It's just a feeling. It's just a vibration. That's all it is.

Sophia Hyde (49:35.69)
going through your body. Practice just sitting there and allowing yourself to feel the joy and then telling yourself it's safe to feel joy. I can feel this much joy. I've worked on this with clients over a long period of time and a lot of times I tell them to just try it for longer periods of time. Can you sit and enjoy your children and instead of looking for something to worry about that they're gonna get hurt or that they're gonna fight or that they did something wrong, like can you just watch them play and just approve?

Appreciate the gratitude that they're healthy and safe and you guys are doing well Like can you just feel that emotion for five minutes? Can you just feel joy while you look at your kids for five? Minutes before you come up with something to complain or nitpick. Can you do it? And then after you can do for a five can you do it for ten? Can you do it for fifteen? It's just a muscle. So the number one thing is literally as simple as practicing feeling it.

driving down the Howard Franklin Bridge.

Tampa to St. Pete and recognizing that the second that thought pops in your head that you might drive off the edge of the bridge you just think to yourself nope that's fear that's foreboding joy and redirecting your thoughts to the sunset and the water and think I'm safe we are safe on this bridge and I'm just gonna appreciate the beauty I'm gonna feel the joy that looking at this beauty creates in my life

That's the literally the best thing you can do is show your body it is safe to feel joy. then beyond that, some other things you can do is breath work. So it's just like taking deep breaths. When you catch that fear coming in, five minutes of deep breathing can just change everything. And sometimes I'll just focus on like inhale joy and exhale whatever the hell I'm onto my body, right?

Sophia Hyde (51:37.166)
you can try some affirmations. I share with you guys that that's what I started doing, right? Sitting on the front porch and saying, it's okay for life to be this good. It's okay to be this good. Other things are, I've written down a couple of notes. It's like, it's safe to feel this good. I don't have to earn my joy. Sometimes we think that like we have to do something to have earned this. No, can just be, it can just exist. I can let go or I can, I can, I can.

I can let this in, I can let this joy in without fearing it'll go away. You don't have to think about the other shoe is going to drop. You don't have to think about, you know, but what's the catch? No, it just is. It just is. It's allowed to be. It's just allowed to be this good. Two journal prompts I want to encourage you to do. Write down these questions and reflect on this.

What would I do if I trusted this joy would last? And also write down, what if this is just the beginning? That's my favorite one. Okay, journal that one. That's my favorite one because so often it's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Like if things are actually this good, then it's downhill from here. But what if it's actually uphill from here?

Journal that. What if this is just the beginning? What if it's only uphill from here? my God, journal that. Okay. That's what I've got for you guys. So just like a closing note, if you feel like you're hitting a ceiling on your joy, it doesn't mean that you're broken. Welcome to being human. It means you're expanding and this is the work we're rewiring.

ourselves to believe that we are allowed to feel this much joy. Life is allowed to be this good. And as the late Andrea Gibson would say, may our hearts have stretch marks. May we have lived and loved the people in our lives and may we have loved our lives so much that it continued to stretch and expand.

Sophia Hyde (53:52.984)
Banned our hearts to levels so big that when we die, our hearts have stretch marks on them because we pushed them as far as they could go.

Sending you guys light and love and abundance. And as always, of course, obviously, if you want this for yourself, if you're ready to expand and reach your next level and push past your limits and live your most favorite life, that's what I am here for. Let's jump on a call, talk to me, let's figure out where you are, where you wanna go and help you create the beautiful life you desire. I'm here for you guys and I am sending you my love. Bye bye.