61. (S2E25) Tolerations

Hey my friend, welcome to FINE is a 4-Letter Word. My name is Lori Saitz. I’m an entrepreneur, mentor, founder of Zen Rabbit, and your instigator in saying F*ck Being Fine.

This show is for those of you who are done living with the dumpster fire and are ready to find the tools and courage to transform. To step into more success and fulfillment in both your personal and business life.

You’re in the right place for stories of self-discovery, gratitude, and connection. And to help you strengthen that connection to your own inner guidance, you’ll find many of the episodes have an accompanying meditation. Now let’s get into it.

Going solo for today’s episode to talk about tolerations. One definition of toleration is the allowing, permitting, or accepting of an action, idea, object, or person you dislike or disagree with.

I’m talking about the things that irritate you, but you put up with them anyway. Maybe because you don’t see a way around them. Or maybe because they’re irritating, but not enough to do something.

It’s like the scratchy tag on a shirt. It irritates you every time you wear it, but you just haven’t gotten around to cutting it out. And when you get home and take the shirt off, you forget about it until next time you put it on.

Or the light bulb that’s burned out in the kitchen. But you haven’t replaced it because you have to pull out the ladder to get up there and see what the wattage is so you can go buy a new one. Then you have to remember to stop at Home Depot or Lowes or wherever to get it. In the meantime, the other three are working, so it’s ok. Months go by and every time you flip the switch, you remember you need to replace that one bulb. It’s irritating, but not urgent.

Those two examples are annoying for sure. And still, they’re relatively minor compared to the bigger, more important issues you’re tolerating. Regardless of size or significance, they’re ALL slowly draining your energy. They are getting in the way of you living the joyous life you deserve.

We touched on this topic back in Season 1, Episode 17 with Trista Polo. She told the story of being in school and sitting on a tack. The other kids had put a tack on her chair to be mean. She sat on it and felt it but didn’t want to cause a disturbance by getting up to remove it. So she sat there and was uncomfortable for the entire length of the class.

This is not ok! This is not how to go through life.

First I’m going to share some places in your life where you might be tolerating. Then I’ll talk a bit about why you’re allowing yourself to live with them. And then of course, what you can do to improve your situation.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Zen Rabbit. If you’d like to move away from living in a state of constant anxiousness and instead find peace of mind no matter what’s going on around you, get on a complimentary call with me. In less than 30 minutes, you’ll get insight on any issue you’d like to bring to the table. And you’ll leave the conversation with clarity and renewed energy. Find the booking link in the show notes. Or text me at 571.317.1463

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Quick warning – once you see what you’re tolerating, you can’t unsee.

Is it easier to start with what you’re putting up with from others or from yourself?

Let’s start with others.

Who in your life is crossing boundaries that make you uncomfortable, but you allow them to do it anyway? It’s often the people closest to us.

What about the boss or client who always asks “can you just do this one thing real quick? It won’t take you long.” Or who expects you to respond to emails or texts at 11:00 at night. And every time you hear their ask or see their message, you cringe. But you respond anyway.

How about the contractor who keeps missing deadlines, but you don’t have anyone else to do the work and haven’t made the time to look for someone to replace them, so you put up with it.

Do you have a friend who’s always cancelling plans at the last minute? Or the one who invites you to dinner, orders appetizers, expensive wine, and dessert on top of their entrée while you get a salad and then wants to split the bill equally?

How about the friends who aren’t true friends? You know the energy vampires who suck up your time, cause more stress than relief and drag you into their ongoing drama. Complaining all the time and never doing anything to change.

I’ll throw in here there’s a difference between venting and constant complaining. We all need to vent once in a while. It’s when you’re hearing the same thing over and over and over without any effort to make it different.

What demands are you tolerating from your parents? Yeah, you might say you’ll miss those things when they’re gone. But I gotta say, I don’t miss hearing comments from my mom about my hair or arguing with her over politics at all.

What are your siblings doing that annoys the crap out of you, but you never say anything?

What behavior are you tolerating from your kids? Or your partner? Constant arguments over the trash, weekend plans or landscaping the yard, anyone?

Looking at these tolerations isn’t an open invitation to lose your mind and tell everyone to go to hell. Although that IS tempting!

Because none of this is about THEM. It’s about YOU putting up with and not saying anything about the constant irritations. It’s entirely possible they don’t even KNOW these things annoy you. Or maybe they do and they don’t care. In which case, you gotta ask yourself why you’re ok with their disregard for your preferences.

Let’s move on to the even more insidious tolerations – those we tolerate from ourselves.

How about your health? That’s an easy one to start with. Are you out of shape? Making poor food choices? A lot of times this is a result of stress in other areas of your life. You go into the kitchen after a long day of work and decide that because you don’t have the energy to cut up vegetables and grill a salmon burger, you’ll just have a bag of pita chips with red pepper hummus. And because that one client was a jerk, you need a glass of wine too.

Are you tolerating feeling guilty over conversations you had or how a situation went down? You can’t go back and change them. You can’t change anything that’s happened in the past. You know that. But you continue to beat yourself up, saying the meanest, most hurtful things possible to yourself. Comments that you’d never say to a friend. This is where I now remember what my friend Christine says to me when I’m doing this. She say, “Be nice to my friend!”

I also think of Peter Crone’s quote – he’s known as the mind architect – and one of his quotes is “What happened, happened. And couldn’t have happened any other way. Because it didn’t.”

What about other people’s definition of you? I know people and have had clients who survived childhoods where they were told they’d never amount to anything. They were good for nothing. They were stupid and worthless. Today, they’re still tolerating these beliefs and watching them play out in their lives.

Another big one is your financial situation. Tolerating lack, accepting less than you’re worth, living in debt and denying yourself what you deserve. Here’s what that sounds like. I can’t charge more because people won’t pay that much. I won’t be able to get a job that pays more; I’m already at the top of the pay scale. I can’t afford it. And besides… the economy. It’s ok, I don’t really need a massage, new tires, or to go to the dentist.

Listen, the list of things you just put up with and call it life is a very long one.

From a disorganized desk or a messy house to weeds in the garden or a dirty car.

From your weight or habit of biting your nails to silently critiquing others’ sad fashion choices (oh, wait, is that last one just me?)

From letting someone talk to you that way to living with someone you don’t like all that much.

I’ve been guilty of many of these tolerations myself. In fact, as I’m saying this, this whole episode might be a result of me needing to hear all this stuff myself!

So WHY? Why do you do this? Why do you tolerate all these annoyances?

For one thing, they’re often small. Or they start out small and you don’t notice them growing. It’s like when you get a little sand in your shoes. At first it’s kind of annoying, but bearable. It’s FINE. The further you walk, the more it annoys you. But you’re almost to where you’re going and you don’t want to take the time to stop and untie and empty your shoes. By the time you get there though, now you’ve got a painful blister.

The older you get, the more tolerations you add to your life. And each one drains some of your precious energy. Again, at first you might not notice because it’s not that much. But every day, you’re losing more and more energy to these irritations.

You may have heard that time is the most precious thing in life. What about your energy? If you don’t have the energy to do the things, having the time to do them won’t matter.

Again, why do you allow these energy drains to occur?

One, you’re not aware of them. Now that you’re hearing this episode, you can’t claim that as an excuse. You’re starting to think about what they might be now. Go all the way and get a sheet of paper and a pen. Or a crayon. Your choice.

Then write down ALL the tolerations you have in your life. Break them down into categories if you’d like.

Work, Health, Money, Relationships, Personal.

Once you see your list, don’t make yourself feel badly about putting up with them. That’s not the point. And don’t make excuses for any of them either. What you do want to do is ask yourself, “What do I need to do to eliminate them?” Take ‘em one at a time.

Two rules here. You’re not allowed to say I can’t, nor are you allowed to say “win the lottery.”

Removing these tolerations IS possible. You’re talking about your life here. Your growth. Your happiness. Your joy. Believe that you’re worthy of better.

Oh wait, now I just opened a whole different can of worms. Because DO YOU believe you’re worthy of having better? Or do you believe you’re only deserving of the current circumstances you have? This is your lot in life and how it’s always going to be.

C’mon now. Stay with me! I guarantee this is worth it.

Ok, back up. Let’s take this one step at a time. First, do the exercise of writing down all the tolerations in your life. Simply making the list and coming up with ways to eliminate, fix, or change them will help you cross a bunch off your list right away.

You don’t need a whole lot of examination in the belief in your worthiness to change a lightbulb.

The more challenging ones might take a little longer. This is where bringing in some AFFORMATIONS can help.

AfFORmations are different than afFIRmations. Affirmations are positive statements you make to yourself about a goal you have or a belief you want to change. So we’re talking about believing you’re worthy enough to have a joyful life.

You might repeat to yourself a 100 times a day, “I’m worthy of happiness. I’m worthy of a joyous life.”

The problem with them is you’re repeating these statements to yourself, through the filter of your conscious mind. And your mind hears them and immediately thinks, but that’s not true.

An afformation is an empowering question. When your mind hears the question, it changes your subconscious thought pattern. It’s like setting a GPS for your mind. Now it’s out there looking for ways to bring back answers to the question.

An afformation would be “Why am I worthy of bliss and happiness in my life?”

I gotta get back on track here. This episode was supposed to be about making you are aware of tolerations in your life so you can eliminate them. What are you putting up with that’s slowly and surely draining your energy?

Make your list and figure out what you can do to fix them.

The afformations are something I work with clients on in the F*ck Being Fine program. If you’d like to learn more about them, or if you need help figuring out how to change your tolerations, set up a complimentary call with me.

In less than 30 minutes, you’ll get the insight you’re looking for. And you’ll leave the conversation with clarity and renewed energy. Find the booking link in the show notes. Or text me at 571.317.1463.

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Before you go, remember to take a moment to think about what you’re grateful for today.

And if no one’s told you this week, I’m proud of you. Take good care!