Let go of self-judgment and embrace your empathetic leadership

How good are you at letting go? Most of us are terrible at it.

Letting go is hard to do.

So, how do we put down all of those rocks we keep stuffing into our backpacks?

In this episode, I peel back the layers on what it really means to shed the emotional burdens we carry. In Tuesday's conversation with Holly Jean Jackson, she shared her expertise on why letting go of things we don't need to be responsible for is akin to setting down a heavy load we've been shouldering for far too long. 

I take you through a revealing exercise, showing you how to physically cast away tension and embrace the liberating sensation that follows. You'll learn why this act of release is essential, not just for personal wellbeing but for propelling yourself forward in our careers and life missions.

Feeling judged, by ourselves or others, is a familiar tether for most of us. What if we could let it go? I recount an eye-opening personal epiphany and invite you to join me on the path from self-criticism to self-love—an essential journey for fostering leadership and empathy. 

By tuning into our gentler, empathetic voice, we empower ourselves to become not just better leaders, but also more understanding human beings. 

We dissect the notion of first voice and second voice, uncovering how being mindful of which one we listen to can significantly enrich our personal lives and professional interactions. This isn't just an intellectual exercise; it's a practical guide to nurturing a more fulfilled existence.

We end this Thursday Thread episode with a breathwork session to support you in releasing judgment, and any stress, tension or anxiety that came with it – through the window of loving curiosity.

Transcript

Jen Liss: 0:11

I am your host, jen, and in this episode we're going to talk about the art of letting go. Let's dive in. Hey there, unicorn, it's Jen. Welcome back to the podcast, today's Thursday thread. It's a Thursday thread. Today's Thursday thread.

Jen Liss: 0:43

We're pulling a little nugget out of the episode with Holly Jackson on Tuesday. Totally cool. If you haven't listened to that episode, if you did, this is just one little thing that we talked about in that episode. Holly is somebody who helps entrepreneurs business owners to really help to streamline their business, how to help them to sell more, make more money, do it in a way that's fun, help them to really go big so that they can give big. That's what she cares about. She's really here to support people in healing the world. She cares about people with big missions on their hearts and she helps them to expand them.

Jen Liss: 1:17

In this conversation we talked about all of the things that she has come up against as she has expanded her own business. Then we also talked about the things that entrepreneurs regularly face. If that's fascinating to you, if that feels like a conversation you need to hear, if you're an entrepreneur and a business owner, go listen to that conversation. Lots of value, honestly, she is going to make you think. She made me think a lot.

Jen Liss: 1:42

One of the things that we talked about, that, one of the things that she has struggled with the most, that many of us it doesn't matter if you're an entrepreneur, it doesn't matter who you are we struggle with this concept, that is, the concept of letting go, letting things go. Why is it so freaking hard to let something go, whether it be a grudge, whether it be guilt, whether it be your worries, whether it be a judgment, a wishing, a wanting, a desire? We hold so many things. Our backpacks are fucking stuffed with rocks, all of these rocks. I mean, what human is walking around on this planet and is not carrying around things that they don't need to be carrying anymore? Things from all of the categories that I just said. We hold so much and we hold it so tightly. Not only that, we have all these rocks in our backpack, but we're always pulling them out and trying to make things out of them, trying to build them up with things that we don't even need to be holding. It's like let's just release them, let them go into the universe.

Jen Liss: 2:52

Here's the paradox it feels so good, it feels so good to let things go. I hold release breathwork. It's actually some of my favorite breathwork. I think as a facilitator, I know I'm most skilled in release work. That's really where I really shine is supporting people and letting go of things. It's because I understand how good it feels to let go. When we let go, the catharsis that happens. I mean. Just even do this with me right now.

Jen Liss: 3:21

Tighten up your hands into fists. Tighten your arm muscles. Tighten your shoulders. Tighten your face. Squeeze your face so tight. Squeeze your eyes. Squeeze your mouth. Squeeze your jaw. Squeeze every muscle. Move down to your belly, squeeze your belly.

Jen Liss: 3:39

Do this safely, don't go too tight, but go to your belly, your thighs, everything tight, all the way to your calves, to your feet, everything tightened. You can still breathe, but tighten, tighten, tighten, hold. And now let it go. Let it go and breathe, Breathe and let it go. What do you feel? What do you feel in your actual muscles, in your visceral tissue? For most people, that feels really freaking good to let it go, opening up, releasing, letting those muscles relax.

Jen Liss: 4:23

After that tension, after that holding, after that tightness, now imagine that everything that you desire success in your business, financial success, a relationship, travel, amazing experiences, a brilliant life you are holding it and you've been holding it for days, weeks, months, years, decades. You've been holding it like you were just holding your muscles, that tension that you were holding in your muscles. You've been holding onto those things that tightly for years. How exhausting and how painful does that eventually get. And after you've been holding, imagine you were just holding and holding, and holding, and holding and holding for that long. How hard would it be if you'd been holding it for that long? How stuck would those muscles get? How hard would it be to actually unclench those fingers In the middle of the night.

Jen Liss: 5:30

I woke up last night and for some reason, my left fist was really tight and my hand was actually numb. It had gone numb. I woke up in the middle of the night. I was like oh my gosh, and I was trying to shake it out. But it actually hurts to open up my hand and then, as the blood flow went back into it, it actually started to hurt. The relief took a couple of minutes. It took a couple of minutes to eventually get to the relief. So think about that with letting go and how difficult it is sometimes to let go, because when you've been holding something, when you've just been holding it here for a couple of minutes or for 30 seconds with me when you tightened up that fist, tighten up your fist again, tighten it up, tighten it up, tighten it up, tighten your face, tighten it all up again and then let it go.

Jen Liss: 6:18

Generally, we feel relief. You haven't been holding it that long. There's instant relief. The relief comes as fast as the tension came. But when you've been holding on to something for years, the relief is not instant. It actually might hurt a little bit, it might be a little bit painful, it might be numb. We might need to shake the hands a little bit and bring some blood flow and some feeling back into those areas.

Jen Liss: 6:47

Because we've been so freaking tense, we've been trying to control it. We've been grabbing it and grappling it and taking the rocks and trying to do things with them, even though they don't fit together. That's one of my biggest things. I always think that things need to fit together when they don't fit together, because I've been holding all of these rocks and I'm trying to make it into a masterpiece, but they're not meant to go together. That's one of my personal things that I do.

Jen Liss: 7:11

But it hurts. It hurts, it's painful. It's painful. We've been holding it for so long. Of course it's going to be painful.

Jen Liss: 7:17

The body is going to say no, no, no, no, no. You still need to be hanging on to that, the thought. The brain is going to tell you no, no, no. That's really scary, that's going to hurt. You can't let that go. You can't let that relationship go. That relationship has served you. It's so good, don't you feel it's great? It's great exactly where it is.

Jen Liss: 7:37

Our body eventually tells us no, you need to keep it, you need to hold it. But things can't evolve like that. Things can't change and shift when we're hanging onto it so tight. All they can do is stay and that tightens a little ball that we're holding them. But that's not where you're going to be happy, right? Would you be happy if you just curled yourself in so tight? You'd eventually be miserable, right? If you couldn't un-flex your muscles. Can you imagine it? So how do we do it? How do we invite ourselves to let go, to bless and release, to offer it into the universe so that things can unfold as they are meant to? How do we actively do that in our daily lives? Well, it begins with trust. And do we know what the actual visceral sensation of trust feels like in our bodies. Many of us don't.

Jen Liss: 8:35

Trust was my word of the year several years ago. I had no idea, I didn't even know I was choosing that word. I was like this word means nothing to me, like I get the concept of it, but it didn't really fully understand why that word even came to me. And then as I explored what that word meant, I began to explore what that word felt like and it became. I had a new level of understanding of how much I was controlling things in my life, because control and trust, those are two different sides of the coin.

Jen Liss: 9:12

Trust is an open, is freeing, is love. It is in the love bucket. Control is in the fear bucket and I believe there's two buckets there's fear and there's love. We can either be in fear and we can be in love. When we get in an argument, when we want to be right, when we stand on that side and we want to be right, we are standing in the fear side. When we're willing to open up and be compassionate and be curious about the other person. We're on the love side when we want to make sure that everything is right in our business and be super perfect. That is on the fear side. We're afraid of what might happen, we're afraid of what people might think, we're afraid of putting our truth out there in some way. So we're trying to perfect it. If we go to the loving side, we are willing to put a message out there that we know might improve somebody's life. We're putting a message out there that we know that sharing it honestly is going to feel so good to us and serve us and perhaps serve somebody else. That's love, there's fear and there's love in every situation.

Jen Liss: 10:24

The art of letting go is realizing this, is realizing that shift between fear and the shift between love. And what is required in that space is the trust of the actual letting go. That, even though this might be painful for me, even though there's numbness in my hand and it's going to require me about two weeks to shake it out metaphorical hand I hope your hand doesn't require two weeks for blood flow to get back into it. There's something wrong with you. Go get that checked out. Trust is right in the middle and sometimes we find that trust in ourselves. What I do in my work is help people to viscerally find the trust in themselves, to find it in the physical, to find what it feels like in my body to trust myself again. What does that feel like to know that the feelings in my body are telling me something? To listen to those feelings in your body, that is. But sometimes it could be working with somebody like Holly, who can support your business. Sometimes it's talking to a friend, sometimes it's opening the door to a conversation. That is that window of trust. It lives right between that line of trust. Am I willing to trust myself enough to loosen the grip a little bit? That's how we let go that.

Jen Liss: 11:43

The art, the artistry of it. It's a constant dance. It's not like we're just going to live our entire lives in love. You know that mother Teresa got annoyed with people. You know that sometimes she got defensive about things. You know that sometimes she felt like she had to defend the fact that she was a good person. You know, sometimes she felt like she was a terrible person. She lived in fear just as much as every single human being has. Oprah. Steve Jobs, like every successful person, has lived in both fear and love. Nobody does it perfectly. We're constantly playing this dance. We're constantly getting to learn what it means to trust, what it means to open up. I'm living this dance all day, every day. Let me tell you.

Jen Liss: 12:28

Let me tell you at the time of recording this, I just had an experience with my dog and something that I did with Dear Alfred T-dog, atd one of the people in my community called him ATD, christina, alfred the dog. I did something that caused us to have a multi-thousand dollar vet bill and for this poor dog to have to go into surgery. I left a sock laying around and Alfred ate the sock. Alfred ate the sock and when I realized what had happened, I went into a full loan meltdown judging myself, judging Joey, who had done nothing, judging myself for not trusting myself, being afraid of all of the things that we were going to have to go through, just criticizing everything. Fear, so much fear. And my controller was saying you should have done it right, you did it wrong, you did it wrong. And that part of me taking over me in that moment caused Joey and I to have so many fights. We got in so many arguments, we got in so much irritability with one another because I was judging myself.

Jen Liss: 13:56

And last night I sat down and I said okay, I fully recognize that we have had all of these arguments today, I recognize that I'm judging myself, like I'm to this point of like I can see it. It all happened, it's. I was even seeing it as it was happening in my body and it felt like I couldn't stop it. Have you ever had that Like? You feel like it can't stop, even though you know? And so I sat down with my journal and I said, okay, what is here for me, what can I trust that I am learning through this experience, what can I trust that is literally being handed to me right now? And as I asked that question, all of a sudden I moved out of the fear and I can even feel the tears pricking my eyes right now, because I moved over into the love bucket. That opportunity to even ask what is here for me, what is here for me to learn, that is a window of trust, that is a tiny window that allowed me to let go of some of the judgment, because, as I asked that question, it said now you know, further down the road, this might not happen to him when Alfred is older. This won't happen to him. When he's less healthy, this won't happen to him. It happened to him when he's young. Now you know, now you know, and it won't happen to one of your guests who comes over and he accidentally eats their sock, and then the guest feels horrible. How horrible would it feel for that person to have to feel that way. But they won't have to, because now you know, now you know how to care for him, now you know what he needs. And so I moved over into caring for Alfred, into caring for other people who may be guests at our house, and out of this judgment of myself Now, this is not a business-based experience or a career-based experience, but this can happen in so many scenarios.

Jen Liss: 15:50

You go into a meeting, you go into a Zoom call, you go into something and you're sharing a presentation and something doesn't go right. Maybe you say something wrong, maybe you freeze, maybe you stood up to say something and it all fumbled out all silly, or nobody understood what you were trying to say, it didn't come across right, you didn't communicate it well, and so your judge comes in and it starts saying that you did everything wrong. You have these voices in your head. You're so stupid. Why did you open your mouth? Why did you even volunteer to talk? Why did you even think that you deserve to be in that room. That's what it thinks. Those are the things that our brain will say to us, right, like, we've all been there, we've all had those thoughts. Nobody doesn't have those thoughts. Everybody has those kinds of thoughts.

Jen Liss: 16:37

But if you had that experience and instead of carrying those well, if you did, if you walked out and you carried that with you all day, your other interactions go all day long. Right, you're going to have some tough interactions the rest of the day with a voice in your head that is talking like that to you, because it doesn't stop If we let it go unchecked. It just keeps going, it just keeps chattering, it just keeps saying it. But if we can pause and we can say, okay, okay, I hear you, yep, I said some things. I said some things, or I froze, or it didn't go right, yep, that happened. But what is here for me? What did I learn? What did I gain? What do I know? Now that I didn't know before, you're opening a window to trusting that there was something here for you, that there was something more, that you gained something, that it wasn't all for naught, that you aren't just stupid and did something terrible, and now everybody thinks you're a fraud.

Jen Liss: 17:37

All of those thoughts that are happening. It's like, oh wait, that all of a sudden they quiet down and it's like, hmm, is there something for me to learn here? Did I actually gain in this scenario? You move over into curiosity, curiosity as a loving emotion, curiosity as a loving state. You move into curiosity and then, as you move over into that space, you yeah, that voice, those voices, those loud voices, quiet down and there's another voice that you start to hear, but my friend, misty Springer, she calls it first voice, second voice, and I've taken it on, thinking about it and taking it in that way and sharing it with others that way, because it is as though it's almost like second voice is full of voices, there's a whole chorus, but then there's this one voice that says Next time you go into a presentation and somebody else has this experience, you're going to know how it feels and you're going to be kind to them, because you know what it's like to open your mouth and accidentally say the wrong thing or to not communicate clearly. And so next time that happens for somebody else, you're going to ask them a really kind question that's going to help guide them back to where they were.

Jen Liss: 18:52

And now look at what happens. As we learn our own experiences, we learn how to be more empathetic for other human beings, and that will make you a great leader. That will make you just a person that people want to be around because you quieted down your judge. When you quiet down your judge, that is the same judge that judges other people. So when you quiet your judge, you're opening up this loving window not just for yourself, but for other people too. Your interactions all improve as we quiet down the judge.

Jen Liss: 19:24

Now would I pretend to be perfect at this? No, I have a really loud judge. You guys, really loud. What sent me down the journey that I have been on is that when I was in college and I was an adult in college, I was 30 years old we did a strengths finder test and my number one strength was judgment. And although strengths finder was telling me that this was a good thing and it is in many ways having a strong sense of judgment can make you can be really supportive in a number of careers and it still does support me I knew in my heart and in my gut that that judge was out of control In a way that was not serving me. So it has been a long untethering with me and my judge. It's still very loud, but I've learned to work with it with the tools that I have Breath work, breath work, breath work. Not just breath work. I use other tools too. I combine a lot of tools together and what I do in my breath work sessions and in my coaching, I combine lots of tools together. In fact, one of my friends and I were going through another coaching program together, and it's one I've done in the past, and she's like, oh, you actually incorporate a lot of these things in your breath work sessions. Like, yes, because all of these things help quiet down the judge.

Jen Liss: 20:45

That judgey McJudge, it is fear. That voice in your head is all fear, it's all fear, it's all fear and it's okay. We don't judge the judge. If you judge the judge, then it's just more fear. We say, oh, I hear you, thank you, thanks. Thanks for pointing that out. Yeah, I maybe could have done a better job at that. How could I have done a better job at that? Oh, we're moving over into trust. There's something for me to learn here Acknowledge, acknowledge that voice, Acknowledge those fears. They're there to help you, they're here to keep you safe, they're here to support you. They're here so that you're aware they don't want you to get eaten by a tiger. Spoiler alert there's no tigers in your corporate office. Maybe some metaphorical tigers. They could probably move over into some love and curiosity too, right, but you can model that through taking that window of trust. So now this is like the tiniest thread that was pulled out of Holly's episode, but I think it's such an important one that letting go we move into letting go.

Jen Liss: 21:48

When we move into love, we can let go of things, the things that we are holding on to so hard. I want to do well in this presentation. I want to be a great dog mom, I want to have an amazing life, I want to earn millions of dollars. We can hold on to that so hard that we move into the space of fear and we're trying to control it, and it won't ever happen there. Flow doesn't happen there. Serendipity doesn't happen over there. Serendipity happens when we take the curious, trusting path. So more often we can move through the space of curiosity and into love and watch the beauty that unfolds for us. So give that a try for yourself today Now, as we do at the end of every Thursday session, I'm going to offer you a moment of breath work and a moment to shift, something that you might be experiencing that is fear-based We'll keep it very light today Something that you might be experiencing that feels like it might be in that judgy fear space, and let's see if we can move it over into love.

Jen Liss: 22:54

So, if you're capable and able, taking a seat, taking a big inhale into your nose and exhaling out through the mouth, closing down your eyes, if you're able, you can always come back to this recording at a time that it feels like it is possible for you to do it, bringing your awareness, if you are able to be with us here and close down your eyes, bringing your awareness to your sit bones on the seat beneath you On your next exhale, seeing if you can let yourself release into that surface beneath you a little bit more, being yourself, beheld by the chair, by the couch, by that support. There you go, when you're ready, we're going to begin what's called the halo breath breathing into the nose, out through the mouth, into the nose, out through the mouth. There you go, as you continue to breathe, remembering a moment today where you might have judged yourself or someone else, a moment today that maybe didn't go as planned, where you felt like you didn't show up or someone else didn't show up in the way that you had intended. Things didn't go right. Letting yourself it is safe to feel those sensations that are arising. Letting yourself let them arise. There you go, you can keep your attention on the very edge of them. We don't have to go all the way in and feel the full depth of the sensation, but just noticing what that sensation feels like as you breathe into the nose and out through the mouth.

Jen Liss: 25:26

Now, inviting that loving, curious question. What might I have learned in this moment? Is there something that I learned? Letting your mind, letting your body answer. It could come in the form of a word or a phrase or a sensation. What have I learned? Continuing to breathe, letting it arise Now, shifting the breath, the attention into your heart space, opening up the heart with that loving curiosity.

Jen Liss: 26:20

What have I learned? Breathing it in, breathing out, relaxing the muscles, relaxing the tension of the judgment, inviting all that is here, the judgment and the loving curiosity, inviting it to all be here, but allowing yourself, if it feels good, to shift more into the curiosity, into that learning, into what is here for you Banking those judging feelings, for sharing with you that there is something for you to notice, while simultaneously recognizing that there was something magical here for you. When you're ready, taking one last big inhale, holding at the top, feeling your heart space, feeling the openness there and, on your exhale, letting go, placing a hand on your heart and thanking yourself for being willing to let go of judgment and shift into loving curiosity, bringing yourself or taking in this practice, even if it feels silly, even if it's hard, bringing your awareness back to your body, meeting that seat beneath you when you're ready, fluttering your eyes open, coming back into the here and the now. Thank you so much for doing this tiny practice in the art of letting go, blessing and releasing that judgment, recognizing that it is here to help you and to support you, while simultaneously recognizing that you can lean into more loving sensations and thoughts. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. It means the absolute world to me that you would listen, that you would give this a try. These are the tiny things that change the world.

Jen Liss: 29:05

If you did enjoy something in this episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend who could enjoy it too. You can also share it with all of your friends by taking a screenshot of this episode and sharing it on social media. If you tag me, I'm Untetheredjen on Instagram. I'll always reshare your posts. Thank you so much Once again. You just keep shining your magical unicorn light out there for all to see. See you next time, bye.