Show Notes:
Change isn’t a flip of a switch, but rather a process, and often, a messy one. In this episode of Positively Powerful, host Scott Fitzgerald and transformational coach Stacey Steinmiller dive into what Stacey calls The Messy Middle: the space between who you were and who you’re becoming.
If you’ve ever felt frustrated because you “should know better” but keep slipping into old habits, this conversation will help you see that’s not failure, it’s evolution.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
* Why The Messy Middle is proof of your growth, not your failure
* How self-criticism actually reinforces the patterns you’re trying to change
* The power of self-compassion to create momentum and calm your nervous system
* What’s really happening in your brain when you rewire old habits
* Simple daily practices (like setting intentions) to help you embody the person you’re becoming
🪞Key Quotes:
“The messy middle isn’t where your growth stops — it’s where integration happens.”“Shame stops progress. Compassion creates momentum.”“You can’t gaslight yourself into change — you have to understand what’s really going on beneath the surface.”
🔥 Takeaway:You’re not stuck, you’re integrating. Stay present, stay patient, and keep showing up with compassion. That’s where transformation turns into embodiment.
📍Connect with Stacey:👉 radicallifecoach.com | @theradicalevolution
📍Connect with Scott:👉 rocvox.com | @rocvoxrecording
Transcript
Positively powerful. It’s Wednesday, just moments after the 10 o’clock hour, and I am once again with Stacey Steinmiller. We’re gonna talk about stuff. As long as my voice holds out, it’s it’s going, it’s been going in and out, so we’ll see. Yeah, no, I don’t know why. It’s just that lately it’s been a thing.
Today we’re talking about the messy middle and the messy middle case. You were wondering what the heck is the messy middle? It’s like that part where you’re the person who you’re becoming and the person who you were. That’s not a switch that just gets flipped. It’s a process, and when you’re. Doing that process.
It’s the messy middle. So there’s things that, like your brain is still doing the old way, but you’re cognizant of it and you wanna do it the new way. And you get caught into this like quagmire. And a lot of people mistake that as failure. And it’s not. You just have to stick it out. And that’s what Stacey is going to school us on today.
The messy middle. Yeah. Yeah. I started using that phrase, I don’t know, a while ago. And I don’t know if it came from somewhere or just outta my mouth like most things. But yeah, I guess that’s like the process that, the part where I talk about with my clients of, they’re like, okay, I am aware. I know what I’m doing well, and I became really aware of this myself, right?
Like I. I knew exactly what not to say, for example. And it’s don’t say it, don’t react like this. And then I, it just ends up coming out. And I’m like this is really annoying. And so yeah, so it took us like a lot of working through that and it’s frustrating. It’s a really frustrating process too.
No yeah, the right thing to say, the right thing to do, the, what your higher self would do, but then you just notice those immediate reactions just coming out. And yeah, it’s something that requires a lot of patience and this is where I bring in a lot of like patience and self compassion into the mix, because that, I would say, is.
Helps us with that bridge to get to the other side where we do start responding in the way that we wish to
Compassion. Yeah. Compassion for yourself. Again, that’s a, that, that’s a tough there’s most people who are on that kind of journey of transformation. Are laser focused on it and they don’t have time to give themselves a break, they, they see that as weakness or like we said as failure. And it’s yeah, slowing down and taking an inventory of all these things and thinking about them one at a time is like a necessary part of the process.
I mean in anything that we do when there’s a transformation involved, it’s not just a switch, sometimes it is, but not usually. Especially when you’re talking about your own personal like character and your existence for lack of a, for lack of a smaller descriptor. Your whole existence is changing.
So you think it’s just gonna change overnight, it’s not, yeah. It takes a lot of Yeah. Practice and repetition and but the interesting thing is then when it does shift it, then it feels like it, it happens right away, in that moment. So it’s but to get to that moment, it requires a lot of practice.
Just like anything, when you think about learning an instrument or a score or something like that, there’s a lot of repetition involved, but then all of a sudden when it does click, then it’s there and it’s almost like you. We were like, wow, I can’t believe I couldn’t do this before. Or why was this so hard before?
And then those are the times that it feels like an instant. So it’s really interesting. So when you hear people talk about it being in an instant, it’s because, yeah, it, that changeover happens in an instant, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t doing anything or you weren’t like working on it or being mindful about it, up until that point.
If that makes Right. And how, we’re talking about this self-compassion idea. How do people replace that feeling of self-criticism with that compassion? Like how do they make that switch to, ‘cause they don’t wanna give themselves like a break, letting themselves off the hook or getting away with something, right?
Yeah. So you have to. Believe or admit that being hard on yourself, like that actually isn’t working right. And in fact it perpetuates the problem. So say if you’re trying to not react negatively to your spouse or your employees or your children, or and you want to foster. Love and growth and so forth.
And if you accidentally yell or judge or something and then inside you beat yourself up, you are just like feeding that negative energy, right? And that actually makes you more likely to respond in a negative energy versus it. So it’s like admitting that that’s not working at least at the level that you want it to work.
Maybe that worked from getting your homework in on time or something when you were a kid. But it’s not working in the role of a leader or parent or something like that. So you have to really, yeah, admit that that’s not working for you anymore and that compassion is the solution. So it’s like you have, and it will almost feel like defeat if you believe that being nice to yourself is a form of weakness.
Then it will almost feel like defeat. When you accept that truth. And, but, so it’s like accepting that and being like, okay, the only way through this is to be nice to myself right now. And then you do that even if it is feeling a little diff. Like defeat. As soon as you do that, you’ll take some deep breaths, you’ll calm your system being like, wow, I am undoing decades of conditioning and decades of being like you’re saying, like your whole existence.
Wow. So this is really hardwired in me. So this is quite the process. And just by doing that, like something small like that, you’ll feel your whole body soften. And when your body softens, how do you think you’re going to then interact in the world? Softer, right? So now it’s a lot easier to then sit down to the person that maybe you just yelled at or snapped at and be like, oh wow, sorry, I’m, I really was getting frustrated there for a second.
And now you’re suddenly able to just sit, be. Own your mistake and move forward. It’s a wrong answer. Yeah. And there’s like a physiological component to all of this when you’re talking about these changes, because you’re, you have, there’s a lot of muscle memory and like your nervous system has this attachment to how things are going.
Yeah. And then you’ve gotta change it. So a lot of times it won’t, it doesn’t catch up right away. And there’s some disconnect. Like what’s happening in the nervous system when you’re trying to make these changes? Yeah. I always call ‘em like information pathways. That neuron to neuron it, they connect, right?
And then the more you use the same circuit, the stronger and faster it goes. And so if we’re trying to undo an existing circuit and recreate a new one, I always described it as it’s like we’re gonna not take the expressway anymore and we’re gonna take the back roads. And when you take the back roads, there’s a lot of lights, there’s a lot of traffic, right?
There is, people walking on the streets, there’s a lot more going on, so it’s going to be slower. But I’m gonna, I’m gonna disagree with you on that one because when I take the back roads through Mendon and lower pit sport, it’s a lot faster. And there are very few people on the road and you just have to watch out for deer.
Yeah. Okay, so I’m thinking city, right? City. Yeah. I, yeah. I’m just breaking your balls. Yeah. Just whatever. I hear you. But just stay with the analogy for me. But but the thing is, so then also pretend that. As you’re taking the back roads that first have lights and all these things, is that you have the ability to turn it into a highway. If you go over it over and over and over again then that becomes your new highway and the other one starts to become abandoned.
But it’s still there, which is why did you ever not do anything for months? Then suddenly you do it again for some reason, and then now you’re doing it all the time and you’re like, wait a minute. I stopped this habit forever ago and now I just realize I picked that back up. Like for me it might be like eating chips or something.
Like I won’t eat it for like months and then all of a sudden I eat chips and then, and now they’re like in my grocery chart car. This happened, right? Because I like went back to the old highway. The old habit. Yeah. And that they’re so easy to pick back up, especially if you’ve been doing them for a long time.
That’s why you have to be extra vigilant with your decisions on that stuff, because I, that happens to me I really got into this habit of having a couple of ice cream cones after. After dinner. I was like, I gotta stop doing that. Like I just have to stop. And and then one time I was like, I found myself eating an ice cream cone again.
I’m like, wait a second. So now I have yogurt. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Having a replacement is helpful, but yeah, so basically I describe it as in you need to stop getting on the highway, take the back roads. It’s gonna feel foreign, weird, slow, and so forth. But eventually you build a new habit, you build a new, information pathway where this neuron is now connected to that one, now connected to that one, and you you start something new. So yeah, it’s like paving a new path in the forest, right? It’s, there’s gonna be a lot of brush and a lot of this, but the more you walk on it, the more you do it.
It gets packed down and now there’s trail there that wasn’t there before. So that’s what’s happening inside. Yeah. So that means that you have to, you’ve, you have to develop daily practices to, to remind yourself and to do those things. Yeah. What are some things that you can, that people can do? I, obviously it depends on what the habit is.
Habit is, right? Yeah. Would you say something like journaling or? Some kind of a gratitude moment to where you’re taking an inventory of what you’re supposed to do or like how would people do that? I’m, I really like setting intentions. For the day. I think that’s probably, you get most bang for your buck.
So say you are like, get back to the compassion thing. So since you’ve accepted, okay, compassion is the way, even though I hate it and I don’t wanna do it and I’m throwing a temper tantrum about it, whatever might be going on, if you set an intention in the morning, that compassion is that you want to show up compassionately.
And setting an intention isn’t just saying it, it’s not just writing the goal down. It’s also an energy of getting in that energy of how it feels to be in a state of compassion, whether it’s compassion to self or others or so forth. So just taking a few minutes to set that intention.
That’s your like, top priority for the day is to be in an energy of compassion and you take a minute to sit in that energy of compassion. I would say that’s probably your most like simplest and impactful, powerful thing you could do. I like that. Yeah, I, and that’s, I think that’s something that I’ve been missing.
I’m gonna try to incorporate that is setting intentions for the day, I think deep down I always have this intention of I’m gonna do the best I can, which is vague, but it’s still there. Yeah. It’s like the driving force behind. Most people don’t get up and say I’m gonna do just enough to get by.
And some people might, or some people might do that, and they don’t think about that. That’s what they’re doing. ‘Cause it’s become a habit and they’re used to just it’s our default. Yeah. Doing just enough to get by. But I like that. I like that the idea of of setting an intention early on in the day.
Yeah. And so how specific do you get when you set intentions? Do you set overall, like intention about your attitude or do you set intentions about specific goals? How crazy into it do you get. I think it’s best to set ‘em on how we’re gonna show up in the energy that we want to bring to the world so that we set ourselves up as like the creator of your reality for the day.
And so maybe whatever. It is that might be testing that for you. So maybe where in your life are you showing up as a victim and we want to undo that. And how can you show up as a creator in that area? And and that’s probably gonna be in energy around you knowing that like how it, it all falls on you, so that you’re not, getting into excuses around why things aren’t going the way that you want them to go. Yeah. That’s interesting. We always come back to the energy concept. And one of the things that I started to really be mindful of is the energy that one has going into a situation.
So I had a friend who’s been outta work and it was like, oh, I’m gonna go back to work and everything’s gonna be crazy because I’m da and da. And I’m like you’re already setting yourself up for a bad time because you’re setting your energy in a negative way. You’re setting a negative energy to get into there.
You should be thinking about, and sometimes I don’t know. I can’t remember what we said about this, but that kind of lying to yourself, like psyching yourself up or like you think things are gonna be bad, but you tell yourself that they’re not gonna be bad and you try to convince yourself that they’re not gonna be bad.
That’s the hard part, I think. But going into something with negative energy, I believe is just setting yourself up for failure. I’ve seen it recently, and I identified it by saying. This didn’t work out because I knew the two people involved in this relationship both went into it with severe skepticism and weren’t thinking that anything was gonna come of it and had a, just a negative outlook.
And I’m like no wonder why that didn’t work. Both of you were going into it like this isn’t gonna work. Exactly. Yeah. And the thing is, yeah, you don’t. You can’t gaslight or convince yourself otherwise. So it’s more of looking as to why do I believe this to be true, or why am I going forward with this if I don’t want it?
So then it’s if I think this is gonna be bad, why is that? Why do I think that? What is that about? This is where the digging and, the actual, having a questions and back and forth to figure that out is really helpful. What is that about? Is it because, oh I failed at that before, so I’ve decided to accept defeat.
Why are you deciding to accept defeat? Because I don’t want to psych myself up and be disappointed. Why can’t I handle disappointment? ‘cause then I will feel like a failure. What happens if you feel like a failure? I won’t wanna get outta bed in the morning. What happens if you don’t get outta bed in the, you have to like really dig deep and see what’s going on for you.
And that’s where the real work is. And the change can happen when you have a deeper level of awareness of what’s actually going on. Yeah. That’s been the key for me, that level of awareness and trying to understand what I’m feeling and why I’m feeling it, and how I can reframe what’s happening.
Yeah. Reframing the journey. Do you have any tips for that? On reframe. Yeah. So yeah, you have to, allow yourself to get to those deep, dark places, of usually. It’ll end like being unlovable com alone, right? Homeless. Oh, if I’m homeless. What does that mean? You get, you gotta get like really deep as to what those core, what that core fear is.
But like I said it’s probably on some sort of unlovable and alone is usually where most people end. Then. Then it’s saying, so then now we have some place to work. Now this is where the creation happens of, of seeing I’m looking outside of myself for love, whether that’s in my accomplishments at work, whether it’s in my relationship, whether it’s whatever that is.
And then starting to change the concept of who you are, what you are. That we are not out here just trying to earn love, but that this is something that we are, this is something that is within us. And then now we start the inner journey of. Of tapping into, to our life force, energy to that which is alive and awake within us.
And then we become more aware of that and build that up, which is, it’s not, it’s already there. Learn how to feed that, learn how to use that, learn how to relate to that, and building yourself forward from there. Yeah. But yeah, I would recommend hiring support in that process.
Yeah. Not that you can’t do it alone, but it’s really hard because you’ll just keep it, it getting in your own way. And I know my mind’s really good at that. So if it wasn’t for a lot of my mentors and things like that, that, and they’d point things out, then I would still argue with them, about it.
Yeah. It’s really hard to get outta your own head. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, I’m proof positive about that. All right, so the messy middle as we wrap up. Woo. Look at that. We got all kinds of technology going on. What are what do we got? Some three core takeaways from today. Some people might just skip to the end, but no, you should see the whole thing first.
The messy middle is not failure. That’s where a lot of people stop, right? There. They’re like, oh, I screw up. I can’t do it. No, you’re still doing it. You’re still right in there. Give yourself a chance. Get through that part, and you’ll see. Number two, shame slows stops progress right when you get down on yourself.
But compassion creates momentum, and that’s huge. Give yourself a break, give yourself some grace. Gosh. I think that’s probably the biggest thing for me is always like beating myself up over stuff. And then I, you stop. Just step back, right? Because yeah, if you beat yourself up, if you feel shame, you stop.
But that’s where the compassion, it softens you enough. To try again. Basically. Yeah. It gives you enough humbleness to keep going. Embodiment takes repetition, which isn’t sexy. Yeah. Nobody likes repetition. Right? Why do I have to do 15 of these squats? Can I just do two? Yeah. Yeah. What they say about like now.
Serious, are really good at doing boring things. You know exactly over and over and over again. And that’s, then it becomes easy, and then you don’t have to think about it. Muscle memory, right? Yep. All right. Here’s your final quote. The messy middle isn’t where your growth stops. It’s where integration happens.
The work isn’t to rush through it, but to stay present enough to witness yourself becoming that’s huge. Pretty cool. Yeah hopefully some people get some value out of this little live stream that we do. We’re trying to make it so that you can hop on and maybe get a little bit of a boost for your day, right?
That’s the plan. Radical life coach.com. If you want to work with Stacey, which I highly recommend. And if you’d like to work with us on podcasting or any kind of technology that deals with live streaming and content creation, rock v.com is our website, and we hope to we hope to see you soon.
We’ll see you next Wednesday on Positively Powerful Chow.
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