The Pattern You Can't Escape (Until Now)

Have you ever wondered, why does this keep happening?

Does it sometimes feel like you keep falling into the same hole?

This week, Stephanie and Maren get real about what it means to lead from a higher place when life (or the people in it) comes at you hard.

Using the powerful Buddhist parable of the "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters," they unpack why high-functioning people so often ‘fall into the same holes’ (destructive patterns) in life - and why it’s not a character flaw, it's actually just an unexamined habit. 

You'll walk away with a fresh lens on shame, confidence, surprise, and what it actually means to build true wealth from the inside out.

If you've ever held it together on the outside while quietly unraveling on the inside, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways

• SHAME = Should Have Already Mastered Everything. The moment you start with "I should have..." you've entered the shame cycle — and it keeps you stuck in the hole.
• Swap "need to" for "get to." This one word shift moves you from hard, contracted energy into curiosity and possibility — and it changes everything.
• Falling in the hole isn't punishment — it's an invitation. Each time you fall, you're being offered the next level of growth. The hole is the reward, not the consequence.
• Your reticular activating system is always listening. What you focus on, you find more of. Deliberately training your brain toward delight, gratitude, and possibility is a practice — and it works.
• True wealth is what you have when the money's gone. Your character, your gifts, your relationships — that's the foundation that holds when everything else shakes.

If this episode stirred something in you, we'd love to hear about it. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts — it helps more soulful leaders find their way to this conversation.

And if you're ready to stop white-knuckling your way through life and start working with it instead of against it, get on the waitlist for our Co-Creation Circle at tslp.life/co-creation-circle.

Content note: This episode includes a candid discussion about family conflict, shame cycles, and navigating serious life challenges (illness, loss, grief). Shared with care and compassion.

TRANSCRIPT

YouTube Video

REFERENCES:

2:50  "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters" — a Buddhist parable link

14:26 Daniel Goodenough TheHuPersonProject.com

17:22 Roger Hamilton/Wealth Dynamics https://www.wealthdynamics.com/

19:24 Truck quote: if you lose your money, you've lost nothing. If you lose your health, you've lost something. If you lose your character, you've lost everything

24:50 Reticular Activating System Ep 103: Success: Straight Line or Meandering Road

28:24 Book of Delights by Ross Gay  amazon link (affiliate)

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Have a question or topic suggestion? We'd love to hear from you. Reach out through our website or social media.

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Transcript

Stephanie 0:03

In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering: is this really it?

Maren 0:10

Deep inside, you know there's more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you.

Stephanie 0:19

That's what we invite you to explore with us. We're your hosts, Stephanie Allen

Maren 0:24

and Maren Oslac.

Stephanie and Maren 0:26

And this is The Soulful Leader Podcast.

Stephanie 0:30

Yay!

When Someone Trashes What Matters

Maren 0:31

What do you do when someone trashes something that's important to you? Whether it's a physical thing, you know, like something you own, or maybe it's something you've created, or maybe it's something inside of you. I have a client and that's happening to her. Family members are like going after her, and it's traumatic. And so I know from a leadership perspective, there's there's lots of should've, would have, could've, and ought-tos. And I really have this curiosity about what that looks like from a Soulful Leader perspective of how... to how to really address that from a higher place.

Stephanie 1:27

Yeah, it's such a great question because as leaders, we "should" have it all figured out.

Maren 1:35

Ahhhh....

Stephanie 1:35

Y ou know, I find myself in that position where in a role of leadership and believing that I should have this mastered already. So like if I don't, you know, well, how, what and will that mean? You know.

Maren 1:52

So like if you get triggered and you get angry about something, or you know, it's like somebody trashes and you're like- I'm gonna strangle the person, like there's the shame that comes up. Oh, I shouldn't....

Stephanie 2:03

... we trash, we trash ourselves.

Maren 2:07

Yeah, I shouldn't feel like that. I should do it differently. You know what I found about that is the minute my brain goes into what I should be doing, it actually contracts and doesn't allow me to open up to what's possible that I could be doing.

The Shame Game

Stephanie 2:31

Well, yeah, I think sometimes we get in it and it's like we've fallen in a hole and we're being buried alive and we can't see the light of day to get out. And instead of like asking for help, we stand inside and we start screaming and digging and hollering, and or we lie down and cry and bury our head instead of going, oh okay, I'm in a hole. Sometimes it's necessary just to sit down and go, okay, what did I learn? How did I fall into this? Sometimes we don't know that we don't know. Meaning, I didn't know that. There's a Buddhist saying... I like this, it's called the autobiography in five short chapters. Chapter one. I walk down a street, I fall in the hole. It's not my fault. It takes me a long time to get out. I walk down the same street, I fall in the hole. It's not my fault. Why is this happening to me? It still takes a long time to get out. I walk down the street, I fall in the hole. Okay. This is a habit. It is my fault. I stop, I reflect. It takes me a little longer, but I eventually get out. I walk down the same street, I fall in a hole. I ask for help immediately, I get out. I learned a lesson. I walk down the same street. So number five, I walk down the same street. There's a hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. Chapter six, I walk down a new street. It's interesting, you know. It took like five or six times to actually integrate that. And yet, if we make a mistake, it's like the first time we make a mistake, it's like we have to be perfect. I have the acronym of shame, which is "Should Have Already Mastered Everything." Like you started off with the shoulds, shoulda. Shoulda, coulda, woulda, ought to's. Well, if you're already starting off with that, that's the beginning of the shame cycle.

Maren 4:38

Yeah, that keeps you in the hole.

Stephanie 4:40

Keeps you in the hole. Yeah, I should have done this. I should have done that. If only. Oh my god, I've done that with myself and my mind. It just won't leave me alone, and that mind then affects my body. So then my neck gets tight. I end up with a headache. I end up with like I want to like pounce on everybody. When my shoulder hurts, I'm like, oh, and there's no relationship between our body and what goes on in our in our itty bitty shitty committee inside. Hell yeah, there is. Hell yeah. So that's the first, yeah, that's the first level of it, right?

You're Stuck

Maren 5:14

It is. And I wanna... I wonder how, how do we help people to recognize that they're walking down the street and they're gonna fall in the hole. Or maybe a better question is how do we know we're in the hole? Because I think a lot of times we don't even know we're in the hole. We're so busy blaming somebody else.

Stephanie 5:39

And sometimes we're in the hole because it's so familiar. Like we've been here before. Oh, I recognize this hole. Oh, yeah, I know this. I know this. I know how long it takes for me to get out. I know what I have to do to, you know, instead of looking at it's like, well, what if there's another street that doesn't have a hole?

Maren 5:57

Or how do I ask for help?

Stephanie 5:59

Because I like that, you know, it's like the process of moving beyond that hole instead of just avoiding it, like it's kind of like you're just gonna find a hole in another street, the same hole, but it it's like, how did the same hole get here? I just left that street. What there's a hole here, too, and we do that. We think leaving a relationship that, oh well, there, I've left the relationship now. I'm gonna have the perfect relationship.

Maren 6:25

That's what I mean by blaming somebody else. Like it's that other, it's something outside of me, or I stick my fingers in my ears and I go, la la la la la la, I can't hear you to myself, to the other person, to like the situation, whatever it is. Like I'm just gonna, you know, like the what is the the three monkeys?

Stephanie 6:42

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Right, exactly.

Maren 6:46

Yeah, right. So often I find that for myself, where I'm like, oh my God, can you believe that person did that? And I'm starting to recognize this is the, I guess maybe the answer to my question from before of how do we recognize we're in the hole? When I start to have that conversation, can you believe that person did that? That's a hole that I'm in because I have not walked in that person's shoes. I have no idea. I'm putting my value system and what I know from my lifetime on somebody else. And that's not fair. And it's it literally... I know... here's the deal. You might not understand, I know, I don't know that I would have understood why that's a hole for me, why that puts me in a stuck place in my life. And here's the reason is because if I'm in that place where I can't, oh my God, can you believe that about that person? Blah, blah, blah. First of all, I'm not seeing the mirror that is offering for me of there's something in me. The reason that I saw it in them is there's something in me that's being called forth, whether it's compassion for that person or compassion for myself, or something I need to look, you know, like there's all these levels.

Stephanie 8:18

There's a lesson or something that maybe I need to communicate better, have a better boundary, more self-love, more compassion. It's like just because you see it in another person doesn't mean that that's what you do to someone else as well.

Maren 8:32

Right.

Stephanie 8:32

Or it can, sometimes it can, and you just haven't been aware of it, but it can also be calling you up to another level of like, what do I need to learn here? And if we can do it with, instead of shame and blame, if we can do it with love and compassion, it's like, oh, fascinating creation. I fell down in the hole again. Okay, what am I learning here? What is this? What what's what... who do I need to become that I can recognize that there's a hole here and instead of falling in it, walk around it. You know what needs to change within myself? Because that's the only power I do have is to be able to change me, not them. I can't change them.

"Need To" or "Get To"

Maren 9:13

I'm going to switch a word out. I'm gonna switch 'need' to 'get to'. So when I hear that in myself of, oh, what do I need to learn? It puts me right back into that darn shame. Should, I should have, I should have learned it. What do I need to get? That like it's that hard energy, right? When I say to myself, what do I get to learn? What's being offered to me here?

Stephanie 9:42

I like that better.

Maren 9:44

I get to be in a journey and it's engaging, and now I want to to like go, oh, oh, something's being offered instead of it's something I should have known already, and it's hard, and I like all the pain and the ugly, right? Right, it's the up-leveling of it. And gosh, who doesn't? I know for this is another judgment. I'm like, who doesn't want to be up-leveled? That's my value system.

Stephanie 10:11

Anyway, it's weird to be up-leveled because then there's that another level of accountability that has to happen. And so I love what you said, changing it from a need to I get to, because if we are in that neediness and we think, oh, I need to up level, I need to up level versus I get to up level, it's harder to hold that new station if it's coming from a neediness versus from an empowering place. So thank you for that correction. That's a really great insight, Maren.

Next Floor Please

Maren 10:45

I love what you just said about like moving from a new level. I was just on a mastermind call. And we were talking about that from a business perspective. You know, like I've spent three months, I've invested three months of my life and money into this mastermind, a business mastermind. And the question at the end of this three months was okay, so how do we integrate the things that we've changed over the last three months so that it becomes a new floor from which we're moving forward? Instead of, okay, I've been there, done that, and now I just drop back to who I was, right? So when I think about that term 'get to' and what you just said about when we come from that place of I get to, it does create a new floor, it creates a new operating system. Okay, from there, now I get to move to the next level and the next level. And you're right, there is accountability, a different accountability at each of those levels. And when we own the floor that we, you know, it's like when you when you walk up a set of stairs, the ceiling of the floor below is now the floor, right? Your new floor that you're standing on, and when you own that, you don't fall through it, you're standing on it. You don't have to do anything more about that.

Stephanie 12:15

You can that's another way of saying raising your standards, yeah. What is the floor you're standing on? Is it aligned with your values and your priorities, or is it you know, maybe tugging at you to fall in a hole again? Like, what are the new standards that will raise you up to the new level?

Maren 12:37

And there will be another hole that you fall in. It's a different one, though. It'll be a different one.

Stephanie 12:45

Yeah, that's a great insight too, because I think we think it's gonna be... if I do it all correct, if I do it right, I'm gonna go back to the acronym of the shame, should have already mastered everything. So when you think of already mastered, like, are you kidding me? How can you already master everything? What are you like like a god or something? Like seriously, like we are perfectly imperfect for a reason. Yeah, we're meant to come into relationship with ourselves, with each other, with the planet, with so that we can up-level together. If we just do it by ourselves, it's going to take a long time and be painful. Yes, that's what you want. Go for it. You know, personally, I don't want to. I really would love it to be more enjoyable and more uplifting and more celebratory. So that means I'm gonna need to ask for help and I'm gonna have to put myself around other people. And guess what? I'm gonna have to grow. And I you know, I'll be honest with you, I freaking hate being uncomfortable. I really don't like it. Who wants to be uncomfortable? I mean, we don't. It's ewwww. And yet, that's really my lower self that doesn't want to change, and is often the one that's making me fall in the same old hole. So when I look at it from a place of like what you said earlier, I get to. We're here because we get to. Then there's this joy and inspiration that happens, and I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I... if it's going to get better, isn't it worth getting a little uncomfortable for it to get really good? And I know one of our teachers, Daniel Goodenough, who says, you know, people get really itchy sometimes when you say, like, how good can you handle it? And as it keeps getting better, more better, way better, all those different parts. When do you start to get a little itchy about like, okay, when's the shoe gonna drop? And we don't

Maren 14:43

That's a great exercise.

Surprise And Delight Versus Danger

Maren 14:44

Yeah, I love that. You know, like having that as a practice, so noticing, noticing when you get itchy, when things get quote unquote too good. Oh, that's too good. Something's gonna happen, something's gonna break. That's a whole that's like a pattern that that you don't have to have. We make this assumption that everybody experiences challenge the same way, and it's hard, and being uncomfortable is hard. And there are people, and you and I are becoming those people, and we have mentors in our lives that are these people, that, change for them, being uncomfortable is actually a get-to. They look forward to, they cultivate that, and so here's two ways that you can start to cultivate that. One is asking that question, finding yourself of like, okay, you know what, reticular activating system... I would like to notice when I start to get itchy as things get better, right? So that's one. The second one is cultivating surprise. We tend to not like surprises in our lives, they make us talk about itchy, a little uncomfortable.

Stephanie 16:13

Well, I find that fascinating because I often will say to people, why don't you want a surprise? Why do you have to figure everything out, whether it's the birth of your child or what's going to happen when you retire, or like why do you like why can't you be surprised? And if I unpack it with them, it's often because they have a belief system that surprise equals danger. Yes, like getting the rug ripped out from underneath you. Danger, danger, danger.

Maren 16:42

See the relationship between those two,

Stephanie 16:44

and what if we rewired it instead of danger, that it's like celebration, it's like my gosh, delight. And allow yourself to be surprised and delighted. But that is a practice. You have to, it's like here's my have-to's. I want to take back my have-to's. You don't have to, you don't have to. I would say it would be greatly exciting if one opens to the possibility of being surprised and delighted that your life actually can unfold better and better.

Real Wealth

Stephanie 17:20

One of our other coaches, Roger Hamilton with Wealth Dynamics years ago, when Maren and I were working with him, he said to me one time because I was really fighting him about growing my business. And he said, Stephanie, what do you believe right now? I said, I believe that if I have more people on my team, it's gonna cost me more money and time and energy. And I am barely getting by now. I'm barely breathing out of this hole. And he said, That's the problem. Change that belief system because it doesn't have to be that way.

Maren 17:58

I love that.

Stephanie 17:59

I t was such an insight. I'm like, what do you mean? Like it was kind of a WTF moment. Like, what are you talking about? He said, actually, the more you up level, the more beautiful and extraordinary your life gets. And I'm not talking about wealth, and I do love his definition of Roger Hamilton's definition of wealth. Wealth is not your money, wealth actually is what you have when your money's all gone. So that's another insight to look at, too, on this. It's like if for something, God forbid, because you're already going there, you may as well put yourself in the hole and experience it so that you're not afraid of it when you do fall in the hole. If you do, you might not. But if for some reason money disappeared and you didn't have any, what is it that would get you through? Who do you know? What are your gifts? What are your strengths? Because if you can practice this without falling the hole, then if something happens like that, you will just go, fantastic. I get to use my gifts and strengths. I get to ask the people in my neighborhood to help me. That's true wealth.

Maren 19:05

We, this past weekend, my husband and I were down at our cabin in Missouri, and on the way home, we were driving behind this truck, and on the back of the truck it said, if you lose your wealth, you've lost nothing. Or if you've lost, if you lose your money, you've lost nothing. If you lose your health, you've lost something. If you lose your character, you've lost everything. And when you mentioned Roger's definition of, you know, it's like wealth is what you have left when your money's all gone. That that is, it's who are who are you? What's your essence? What's your character? And that kind of takes us back to the beginning of all of this is who do you want to be when something comes up in your life, up in your face? Do you want to be angry and hurt and lashing out, or do you want to be able to stand in your own power and be respectful of the other person wherever they are without expectation of them? Like, so an example is if somebody has done something to me, right? And I want to lash back out at them because they deserve it. According to who? According to my value system, according to their value system, and maybe they did something to me because they don't know any better. That's what they were raised as.

Stephanie 20:56

That old saying of you know, they don't know what they don't know or...

Maren 21:03

And where do I not know what I don't know...there are so many places I don't know it... the arrogance that we cultivate in our society is definitely problematic especially for leaders. Confidence and arrogance are two very different things. When you are truly confident you don't need to put somebody else down. You don't need to lash out. You can listen. You can put yourself in their shoes.

Stephanie 21:40

Yeah, and you have a faith in the unknown as well, with confidence. There's a higher, higher faith or a deeper faith in some sort of higher power or the the universe unfolding in a way that is actually going to surprise and delight you. That's what confidence is, and you do need to practice it. It doesn't just go poof, there it is. You're confident now. It's like how you're going to become confident is to actually fall in the holes and be able to get out and recognize what was it that that you fell in the hole for. And it doesn't mean that, you know, it's not because you're stupid or bad or wrong. Sometimes that hole was actually meant to be there so that you would develop the strength and the skills to be able to ask for help or to be able to recognize what your gifts and strengths are so that you can own them. It can actually be a confidence builder.

Maren 22:33

I love that. And if we start to look at falling in the hole as again, 'I get to', it's like it's something that was offered to me. It's because I was good enough to get to that place to get the next lesson, to get the next input, to get the next thing. Now it completely changes the paradigm and says instead of I did something wrong and this is some sort of punishment, I did something right, and this is my reward. I'm rewarded by being in a hole.

Stephanie 23:12

Yeah, you know, I was speaking with one of my girlfriends last night. Oh my god, God love her. She is, anything you can imagine that has happened, like it sounds like a really bad country song. You know, her car broke down, her husband got diagnosed with cancer, her mom fell, broke her hip, and then went into the hospital, and the hip replacement is not fitting well, and now she has to put in the home, which she was fully able before. Her ex-husband just passed away, so there's a funeral, and her kids are coming home with all of their... and they're having to come into the house. She has like literally everything is up for her. And I just, you know, my compassion for her is like, oh, and this is the other thing. She's also been scheduled to jury duty, which is a heinous crime of with children, that she's like, she is having to come home afterwards and just like cry. And she's like, I can't believe why am I on this? Why is this all that's happening at all at once?

Maren 24:12

Right.

Stephanie 24:13

And I said, you know, there's a prayer that I use, I was just offering this to her. First of all, I said, I just said, what courage that her soul must have to go through all of this. And that to remind us that we don't go through it alone. That there is, I believe there is such a higher power that's there for us to lift us up if we can tune into it.

Maren 24:35

Yeah.

Stephanie 24:35

And this is what I do to tune into that. I always say, Okay, God, I know you love me. Therefore, I know you put everything in front of me right now as a way for me to up level. Help me. I always say, help me through this, show me the way through it, help me become who I need to become to overcome. And those are usually my prayers that I will say. And then I absolutely have to trust it. I have to have confidence. We talk about confidence that okay, I've put my I put my order out to the universe. Now I need to pay attention because it's gonna come in ways that I had no idea. Surprise and delight. It's gonna come in ways that surprise and delight me if I'm actually paying attention. And that's that that's mine to do is to pay attention, not out of anxiety, but out of absolute confidence that I know that I know that I know there must be something good coming. So I'm gonna look for it. You mentioned earlier about the reticular activating system as one of the practices, and that's the part that you know, we train that part of our brain to say, this is my reality, and therefore everything that I am going to live for is going to match that reality. So if things are a hot mess or aren't going the way you want, you might tune into what is your reality and go in and adjust that reality, play with it, create a wild, wonderful reality that would almost make you go, Oh my god, that would be amazing if that happened, and then practice like living into it. What would that be like? It's a great practice.

Finding The Proof

Maren 25:32

We have a couple of podcasts about that, about asking your reticular. So the reticular activating system is literally a part of your brain that sorts out what's important and what's not. So we get something like 11 billion bytes of information, and we consciously can handle about 4,000 bits of that information. So you have this huge amount of data that comes in every second. And there's a part of your brain that is its job is to filter out what's not important. And one of the best ways for us to change what it filters out is to look at the questions that we ask. And so we do we do have several podcasts about that. And what I'll do before this gets published, by the time y'all are hearing this, you could go to the show notes and click on those and find those other podcasts that we have that go deeper into that because it is really powerful. What you pay attention to is what keeps showing up in your life. So changing that changes what shows up in your life, meaning that if I believe that shit always happens to me, then I'm going to attract that. My brain says, oh, shit always happens. I'll show you how shit always happens to you.

Stephanie 27:43

It loves to be right. So question what you want to be right about.

Maren 27:48

Your brain, this part of your brain, its entire job is to say, you're right, and I'll show you how you're right. So, what do you want to be right about? Do you want to be right about life is is shit, or do you want to be right about the fact that like life is a gift?

Stephanie 28:06

And surprises and delights me.

Maren 28:07

And it surprises and delights you.

The Book Of Delights

Maren 28:11

There is a just before we go, because I know we're winding up here, there's a wonderful book. It's called... I just had it... it's by Ross Gay and it's The Book of Delights. And he did an experiment where he decided that he was going to track his delights for a year. And one of the things that he found was that as he tracked them, he got more of them. So every day he wrote down the things that were delightful, that he found delightful in his life. He said by like week three, he was having to say to the delights that were showing up in his life, I can't fit you all into my book. And thank you for showing up. And that's beautiful.

Stephanie 29:08

And it kind of reminds me of the gratitude practices too, like what you're grateful for. The more you're grateful for, the more you get.

Maren 29:15

And this is a perfect example,

Stephanie 29:17

yes, more please

Maren 29:18

of the reticular activating system at work, because he told his brain, I want to see the delights in my life. And so his brain went, oh, well, that's easy. Because your brain's job is to say, you're right, let me find you evidence of that. There are delights in your life, you're right. Let me find you evidence of that. And it was abundant.

Stephanie 29:43

I love that. I love that.

Maren 29:46

So play with that.

Where To Find Us Next

Maren 29:49

And we'd love to hear how that goes for you. So you can find us at www.TheSoulfulLeader Podcast.com. We're here every other week. And you can find us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Soulful Leaders and on YouTube at Soulful Leaders. So we'll look forward to seeing you there. Thanks for joining us.

Stephanie 30:17

And that wraps up another episode of the Soulful Leader Podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac. Thank you for listening.

Maren 30:26

If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at www.thesoulleaderpodcast.com.

Stephanie 30:34

Until next time...