139: How Living Out of Alignment Causes Anxiety & Depression

As I've come to explore this concept of priorities and to look at the role of values, I have really been able to appreciate how much in the spectrum of human suffering is a result of living priorities that are not actually aligned with your inner values. We allow ourselves, particularly as women, to be colonized by the values and the priorities of others, of those around us, of our parents, and we self-abandon. When you are gaslighting yourself around what is actually going to be the source of your fulfillment at a given stage in your life, and you are prioritizing something that is never going to lead you to that which you ultimately value most. You may come to describe your experience as one defined by so-called anxiety and so-called depression. If you're an overachieving, under-receiving woman, you may already know that the sleep, energy, weight, skin, hair, and digestive struggles you're chronically trying to hack are somehow related to the bitterness, overwhelm, resentment, and exhaustion you struggle with in your work, mothering, and relationship. I couldn't be more thrilled to announce that after 15 years in the clinical and digital trenches as a holistic psychiatrist and coach, I have packaged the heroine's journey home to ease soft power and the capacity to handle more of the challenges life brings and to hold more of the abundance. It's called the Relaxed Woman System, and it includes my history-making 44-day nervous system reset. It's the only one available with published proof of its efficacy, as well as the path to truly embodying your femininity so that you can experience the specific pleasure of who you are, as well as access to the insider resources for living the relaxed woman lifestyle that I'm known for curating. It's a six-month tailored journey, all for less than $2,000, and is designed to be the very last self-improvement program you ever invest in. Head over to kellybroganmd.com forward slash rws. Hi, and welcome back to Reclamation Radio. I am Dr. Kelly Brogan. And today I would love to talk about the power of priorities. So when I was in my clinical psychiatric practice, I put a bit of a moratorium on terms like anxiety and depression. And I invited my patients to explore other ways to communicate what it is that they were experiencing. And what we found pretty much together is that the pattern of experience that so often is called depression can be characterized in many ways by the futility of stated priorities. And what I mean by that is that when you are living a life and you have demonstrated behaviorally, maybe you've articulated, maybe you are in a community or a family structure that prizes certain priorities, you have aligned with priorities that are ultimately at odds with your fulfillment. What happens is called depression. and that experience of a dimension of your soul that knows it will never be fully expressed in these conditions I believe is meant to be an invitation to step on to a different path and begin to integrate and recollect these rejected and dismissed and ignored parts of ourselves. So as I've come to explore this concept of priorities and to look at the role of values, I have really been able to appreciate how much in the spectrum of human suffering is a result of living priorities that are not actually aligned with your inner values. right so if you are prioritizing as so many of us do as women achievement and your career and you are prioritizing your external validation your success your ability to earn a certain amount of revenue and that's your number one priority but your values are actually more aligned with connection and your human relationships and perhaps your experience of intimacy with your own children or your husband or the women in your community, there will be a way that you express to yourself So a symptom is just you telling you about you that this is not actually working right And that moment becomes a choice point where we dig in and try harder to extract fulfillment out of our current priority structure or we allow the identity that has formed around this false premise of prioritizing this will make me happy. We allow that to die. We allow that to extinguish and we begin to align more with our inherent values. This is much easier said than done and often requires that we be able to hold that part of ourselves that has been seeking the impossible fulfillment from the place it never was available. Like that breadcrummy loving part is really habituated in that way of being and will need to be held in her fears and her protests and her very valid refusal to do things a different way and to prioritize things differently. When you prioritize getting things done or productivity or getting to the place where your to-do lists are, you know, wiped clean as a mother, let's say, and your actual values are more aligned with play and pleasure and fun and creativity, the resentment and the bitterness and the disappointment and the frustration that surfaces will ultimately be that invitation to examine whether or not your values and your priorities are in sync. I think that we allow ourselves, particularly as women, to be colonized by the values and the priorities of others, of those around us, of our parents. And we self-abandon when we begin to imagine that we can play that part, we can act that part, when we suppress awareness of our heart's true yearning and we go after that which we've been told to value. So a couple of years ago, I was shopping for my first car lease as a single woman. And I remember I was talking to my mom about it just kind of casually. And we're talking about different car brands because I got like a very quick education and different car brands and terminology and trims and whatever. And she told me the brand of car that she thinks is the most safe. And then she paused and she said, well, I'm not sure that's the most important thing to you. And it was such a profound moment because she acknowledged that my values might not be exactly what hers are. Like maybe the paint color, the beauty of the car is more important to me than the safety. And maybe we don't actually share values and therefore prioritize the same things. And that was something that felt a lot like love. And I felt very seen and I felt very free to explore what actually are my priorities without the pressure and expectation that I share hers, for example. And we do this to our children. We do this to our friends. And it's actually a source of a tremendous amount of judgment, which of course is the projection of our own rejected parts. You know, where we imagine that others who, you know, like let's say somebody is prioritizing relief from distress, right, over being a productive and useful part of society, which is itself relief from distress and a strategy to cope with the inherent disconnection of intrinsic worthlessness. And if we imagine that we're doing it a better way than somebody else, we might fall into the trap of an absolutist value system, like as if everybody should have the same values and everybody should have the same priorities. And there's a right way to prioritize and there's a wrong way to prioritize. And most of our values shift over the course of our lives as different needs are met and as different experiences yield different you know, results, and we begin to mature in our capacity to express ourselves, these values shift and change. And so the source of struggle and suffering seems to be when our prioritization and our values are misaligned. And I think that this is something that is now endemic to the experience of womanhood, because we have allowed ourselves to be colonized by the hegemony of male values. And those are not our values, right? Things like freedom, you know things like success and this chase and capture energetic Female values I would argue are quite different right They are more aligned with connection and love and intimacy and perhaps play and pleasure and creativity. and when we prioritize that which is misaligned with our values and it's not to say that all women have those values that's the point you may value different things you may value beauty you may value achievement you may value integrity or truth or you know you may value self-expression and creativity. But when you are gaslighting yourself around what is actually going to be the source of your fulfillment at a given stage in your life, and you are prioritizing something that is never going to lead you to that which you ultimately value most, to that which you ultimately have the greatest chance of experiencing fulfillment through, you may come to describe your experience as one defined by so-called anxiety and so-called depression. And when we move through the eternal ground of reprioritizing and aligning with our expressed values, there can be a resolution of that split of these two sides of yourself that are, This is the definition of neurosis. It's like that conflict that is not offered the light of awareness. So the resolution of that split has tremendous yield. I mean, there is extraordinary life force that you get back and you get relieved and dismissed from the churn of unmet expectations and disappointment and resentment and suffering and struggle. And there's a bit of a tariff, right? There is a reason that we often allow for society or others to dictate what it is that we should prioritize. There is a certain kind of approval and seeming security that we derive from prioritizing, you know, having it all together instead of prioritizing our authentic expression. And resolving that requires holding, again, this part that insists that happiness is not to be found through following our heart. It's to be found through what we were told it can be found in, you know, by society, by feminist programming, by our parents. I believe that movement is medicine. And even though I prioritize exercise and dance, I'm definitely not walking five miles a day barefoot to get the micro impact that my biology is expecting. Unlike vibration plates, though, Juvent's micro-impact platform is an expertly calibrated and personalized technology with data behind their claims around enhancing athletic performance, musculoskeletal support, and a host of benefits related to lymphatics and fascia. When you invest in one of these for your family, you can put it in the living room and hop on it for 10 to 20 minutes a day, knowing that you're supporting your longevity and youthful body in ways that are actually proven. So it's juvent.com forward slash Kelly Brogan. The code is Kelly 300 to get $300 off at checkout and your future body will thank you. If you don't completely love it after six weeks, you can return it for a full refund. No questions asked. Enjoy. I would also say that this conflict in behavioral priorities and inner values often leads to the hungry ghost experience of these false priorities, right? Where you never actually can get to the place where all the things are done or where your business is successful enough or where you have enough money or where you finally have, you know, the number of Instagram followers or where you, you know, are even beautiful enough, whatever it is that is the false priority is usually capitalizing on learned strategies from childhood to secure approval and to survive often at the expense of inner allegiance and alignment. So sometimes we meet these false priorities when we have been at it for a long enough time and we start to feel the exhaustion and the burnout inherent in that pursuit. Because if a priority is fully aligned, then you will just be fed by what it is to prioritize that, right? If you choose to get married and that's your behavioral expression and your inner alignment is also saying this connection with this man is my priority then you won allow without self your career or even your connection to your children or your connection to your girlfriends or your connection to your family of origin to take precedence over that. You won't allow for the disorganization of that hierarchy of values. And the same thing goes for if you choose to have a child, it means that that's actually a behaviorally expressed priority. And you can align your values, you know, for feminine expression through the mother archetype for intimacy that is uniquely available through this mother child dyad. And if you don't, then we experience something we call guilt, right? And then it's normalized and you shouldn't feel guilty. And it's like, okay, and normal to feel guilty. But what if that is actually the call to align with our choices and to organize our priorities appropriately, and to experience the fulfillment of our values, such that the continued alignment only feeds us more and more and more, rather than engendering that split and that tension and all of the resentment and bitterness that comes from choosing one thing and acting as if you didn't choose the thing, right? Acting as if something else is actually more important. So obviously this is complex work and I would, if I were to advise my past self about this concept, I might look at anywhere in my life that I feel didn't or that I feel frustrated or that I feel trapped or that I feel bitterness. And I might ask myself, is there some way that I am deprioritizing this aspect of my life that I am saying is unfulfilling and full of problems that may be leading to this experience that may be causally related to my complaints? And is there some way that I could get right with my priorities that I could actually allow to rise in the hierarchical rungs of my priorities, exactly that which is the source of my frustration or sense of inadequacy or unfulfilling experience. Like if I am a new mom and I'm finding it really overwhelming and frustrating to be with my little baby and I start to feel like I really could use some adult connection and it'd really be nice to get back to work and focus some more time on my career. What if I can turn towards that upset and I can see what it would be like to actually prioritize that, right? So in this case, to prioritize my role as mother and to see what happens if I put second, third, fourth, and fifth to that, everything else. Might it be that I discover the value that I have, which is succinctly described as love, attachment, intimacy, and the fulfillment of human relationships is just wanting to offer me fulfillment, if prioritized, if given the attention and presence that I have to offer. So that's sort of how I like to think about things these days when I have an experience of some sort of unresolvable dilemma, you know, like the modern woman, I default to reconsidering what my priorities might be and how it is that I might reshuffle them and see what comes up. Even if I just try it on as like a thought experiment, see what comes up and see if I can make contact with what are actually my deeper values, often as expressed by and through the choices that I've already made and I'm now struggling to align with. Often it's because there is a part of myself that has allowed me to prioritize something other than that which I have chosen. So how can I choose to get into it? and see what is there for me to access. It will often represent a pretty major pattern disrupt to a habitual way of fomenting victim energy and the kink of attempting to buy eggs from the hardware store. I'll talk to you soon. I feel alive.