The Unpatterned Podcast

What if the behavior you're trying to change is something you don't actually want to stop doing? What happens when responding differently leads to an outcome you weren't prepared for? And how do you learn to trust yourself when you're still figuring things out?

The results of the State of Self-Awareness & Change survey are in, and some of the most interesting discoveries came from the questions people answered in their own words.

In this episode, Deb shares what she learned from the survey, including how the results challenged some of her own uncertainty as a business owner. Then, inspired by three responses that caught her attention, she invites you into a different kind of conversation about the complexities of being human.

In this episode, we explore:

There aren't always neat and tidy answers when it comes to human behavior. Sometimes the most interesting discoveries begin with a question we haven't considered before.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Front Porch

The State of Self-Awareness & Change Report

A question to take with you:

Stay curious, friend.

You know you say yes too quickly. You know you overthink. You know you shut down or start explaining yourself when you feel misunderstood.

You might even know exactly why you do those things.

And still...there you are doing them.

There's a difference between knowing your patterns and recognizing them while they're happening. And sometimes we spend so much time trying to understand ourselves better that we miss what's happening right before the familiar response takes over.

In this episode, a rainy drive through Dallas-Fort Worth and a memory of navigating with Mapsco lead to a different way of thinking about self-awareness. Because knowing the roads isn't the same as knowing what's happening on them right now.

In this episode:

A question to take with you: What happens two miles before you do the thing you always do?

Got a question about your own patterns? Submit it at https://www.mrscoachwatson.com/askdeb

Resources mentioned:

You know what you want to say. You just don’t say it.

Maybe you decide it isn’t worth the conflict. Maybe you pull back because keeping the peace feels safer than letting more of yourself into the room. Maybe you’ve gotten so used to being easy, agreeable, or low-maintenance that disappearing a little barely registers anymore.

Sometimes shutting down looks like nothing is happening.

But sometimes shutting down is the protection strategy.

This episode looks at what may be happening underneath the urge to get quieter, smaller, or less visible, and why a pattern that once helped protect peace can eventually keep other people from fully knowing you.

In this episode:

Got a question about your own patterns? Submit it at https://www.mrscoachwatson.com/askdeb 

Resources mentioned:

You already know you're doing it. That's what makes it so frustrating.

You can see the loop running. You know you've been in this thought for an hour. You know the 2am staff meeting isn't solving anything. And yet the committee keeps meeting, and you can't figure out how to adjourn it.

This episode is about why. Not as a character flaw. As a nervous system pattern that made complete sense when it started, and has been running ever since.

In this episode:

Got a question about your own patterns? Submit it at mrscoachwatson.com/askdeb

Resources mentioned:

Most people think people pleasing is an act of kindness. It's not.

It's what happens when we learn, somewhere along the way, that keeping other people comfortable keeps us safe. And once that protection strategy is running, it doesn't matter how much inner work you've done. In the moment, your nervous system is already responding before you've made a decision. And your body is signaling it, if you know how to listen.

This episode is about what it's actually protecting you from, and how to catch it before it runs.

In this episode:

Got a question about your own patterns? Submit it at https://www.mrscoachwatson.com/askdeb 

Resources mentioned:

Burnout isn't what you think it is.

It's not just happening to people in high pressure corporate jobs. It's happening to the mom who can't remember the last time she did something just for herself. The caregiver who keeps going because someone has to. The solopreneur who hasn't taken a full day off since they started.

And your body has been trying to tell you about it way longer than you realize.

In this episode:

Resources mentioned:

Learning Your Body's Language: mrscoachwatson.com/body-scan (use code FEEDBACK27 for $20 off)

Submit an Ask Deb question: mrscoachwatson.com/askdeb

A few weeks ago, I came across a video of a man named Sebastian from Germany who had flown to the United States for the World Cup. He'd heard about the crime, the shootings, that it wasn't safe. And then a group of strangers from Boston offered him a ride to his hotel. By the time he left, he was teary eyed. 

Not because someone argued him out of his assumptions. Because actual humans showed up and didn't match the story his nervous system had been carrying.

That's what nervous system protection looks like on a global scale. And it's exactly what this work looks like at a personal level.

In this episode, I'm sharing what Sebastian's story reveals about how nervous systems actually update, what I finally understood about years of interactions with my own kids that I had completely misread, and why I recorded this episode twice.

In this episode:

Resources mentioned:

Beyond Awareness: How Patterns Actually Shift: mrscoachwatson.com/beyond-awareness 

Everyone talks about the breakthrough. The dramatic before and after you can point to and say, that's when everything changed. I want to talk about the moment that almost doesn't make the story. The one so quiet you almost don't believe it counts.

That quiet moment? That's where patterns actually start to shift.

In this episode, I'm sharing the Tuesday moment that cracked something open for me, why I said no to someone and then stood there with all this braced energy and nowhere to put it, and what that experience taught me about the way our nervous systems collect evidence.

Because that's what changes patterns. Not insight. Not understanding. Repeated small moments of: I noticed, I paused, I tried something different, and I survived.

I also walk through what the signal looks like for three different protection strategies, perfectionism, peacekeeping, and moving forward, and why the experience on the other side is surprisingly consistent no matter which one runs your nervous system.

If you've been doing this work and still wondering why you keep ending up in the same place, this episode is for you.

In this episode:

Resources mentioned:

Beyond Awareness: How Patterns Actually Shift waitlist -  mrscoachwatson.com/beyond-awareness

There's a quote from Viktor Frankl that I love: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response."

In this episode, I add something to what he said. Because in my experience, there are actually two spaces at play. And the beautiful thing about both of them is that neither one is fixed. You can move them.

We're talking about the moment before the moment, the pause at the stop sign before your protection strategy takes the wheel. How to find it sooner. How to widen the space where conscious choice actually lives. And why this work eventually has to move out of your head and into your body.

I also share a story about my oldest daughter, and what I said to her when she called me with quiet shame in her voice to tell me her protection strategy had taken over again.

If you've been listening to this podcast and feeling something click but not quite knowing what to do with it yet, this is the episode where it gets practical.

In this episode:

Resources mentioned:

You've done the work. You know your patterns. You can see them coming.

And you still find yourself reacting the same way in the moments that matter most.

Most people assume they're not trying hard enough. Or not self-aware enough. But the reason the pattern keeps showing up has nothing to do with effort. It lives somewhere awareness alone can't reach.

In this episode, I share two moments from the same day that brought this into focus for me in a completely new way. One happened in a coaching session with a retired physician - someone who understands the human body better than most of us ever will, and who still couldn't hear what his own was telling him. The other happened on a neighborhood Facebook page, in a four-comment thread about a pool.

Same truth. Two completely different moments.

You'll learn:

If you've ever thought "I know better, so why do I keep doing this", this episode is for you.

Have a question about a pattern you keep seeing in yourself, a reaction you don't understand, or a season of life that feels confusing? Submit it at mrscoachwatson.com/askdeb. I read every one and many of them shape future episodes.