Welcome to Trust Yourself Thursday, Sweet Spotter. You did it. You got into Thursday with me here on the Sweet Spot, and we're in a wonderful series called Break the Barrier. Break the Barrier. We've been breaking barriers all week long here on the Sweet Spot. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a board certified psychiatrist. I work in high performance. But more than that, I enjoy speaking with you every day here on the Sweet Spot where we talk about this mystery we call life. So, Sweet Spotter, we're in episode four of the seven episodes we're doing here on Break the Barrier. I hope you've been enjoying the insights and revelations we've been exploring thus far as we break through barriers. Are you enjoying yourself? I know I am. Today. Today we're calling it Trust Yourself the Barrier of Self-Doubt. Imagine that that's a barrier.

Wow.

Yeah, earlier this week, remember we talked about turbulence, that surge that rises when something meaningful is in front of you. Then we examined the internal narrator that quietly writes your story without permission. That was Tuesday. Take action Tuesday. Now, yesterday, when it all Wednesday, we stepped inside of resistance and we learned that composure under fire isn't weakness, it's strategy, it's how you win. We looked at Jackie Robinson as the epitome of composure under fire. And we find ourselves today, right in the middle of trusting ourselves. They're facing the quiet barrier. Yeah, and I want you to pay attention here because this one is quite sneaky. It doesn't scream at you, it whispers. It sounds more like hesitation, it's quiet overthinking. Like the voice at 2 a.m. that says, I wonder if I'm right, I wonder if I'm wrong, I wonder what's gonna happen. Let me ask you something, and I want you to be honest with yourself. Have you ever known the right move, felt it clearly deep in your chest, and then talked yourself out of it? Not because you lacked any intelligence or you lacked any skill, but because somewhere between your instinct and the action, doubt got in. Doubt walked in the room, pulled up a chair, and sat down with you and started talking to you like it was your best friend. And before you know it, you got frozen. You're no longer doing the thing you thought you were gonna do. Doubt sneaky like that. Doubt is sneaky. So that gap between knowing and moving is the barrier we're gonna talk about today. And it might even be the most common barrier of all. Real talk. So let me take you back to 1979. A molecular biologist named John Kabat Zinn did something that most of his colleagues thought was absolutely nuts. He started bringing mindfulness, meditation, you know, like breathing and awareness practices into traditional Western medicine. And he built a program called Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, MBSR. And at the time, the medical establishment wanted nothing to do with this. Breathing and and sort of meditating and being in the moment, they wanted nothing to do with it. Hospitals were skeptical, physicians were skeptical, researchers called it BS, soft, it was unscientific, it was fringe medicine. They thought he might have been a little bit of a nut job, but yet Kabat Zinn trusted something he had observed over and over again: that attention can change your physiology, and that awareness can alter suffering. That slowing down doesn't make you weaker, it makes your perception sharper. Now, here's what I want you to notice about his story. He wasn't operating from a blind belief, he wasn't guessing, he was operating from disciplined observation, he had seen this work, this meditative mindfulness approach work. He had felt it in his own body, he had seen it transform the patients he worked with. But in a world where it's all about medications and pills and interactions with scalpels and other things that made more sense and were more immediate, he didn't cut it. They didn't think this mindful approach, this meditative approach, this breathing approach, this getting into awareness and moment-to-moment approach had anything to do with real science. But he didn't back down, he trusted what he knew, and that distinction matters today on Trust Yourself Thursday. Because when we talk about trusting yourself, we're not talking about ego and we're not talking about arrogance, we're we're not even talking about ignoring data or anything like that, we're talking about awareness, we're talking about not even just awareness, trained awareness. We're talking about learning to hear the signal through the noise and to trust that signal, especially when it comes from within. Now, let's bring this into the brain because there's a real reason self-doubt feels so convincing, it's very real. When we experience self-doubt, it has nothing to do with whether you are actually capable. There's actually a region in your cortex called the insula. We've talked about this before, right? A brain region called the insula, and the insula, I-N-S-U-L-A, plays a critical role in your ability to sense what's happening inside your own body. This insula, remember we talked about this last week? This insula is like an internal monitor that's looking at what your body feels and is experiencing in the moment. It's it's a term called interoception. The ability to sense what's happening inside your own body, like your heartbeat, your breath, the tension in your gut, even subtle emotional shifts that most people never consciously notice. And you know what's fascinating? Elite performers, top athletes, experienced doctors, attorneys, great leaders, they often have heightened interceptive awareness. These kinds of individuals feel the micro changes before others do. The gut feeling that people talk about, it's not magic, it's the insula doing its job. And you and I have one. Isn't that good news? It's good news you have an insula. But here's the problem: when stress rises and when you're anxious, you're overwhelmed, or you're overstimulated, your PFC, the brain's CEO, the prefrontal cortex, gets overloaded with analysis. Analysis paralysis, right? And your DMN, remember our good old friend, the DMN, the default mode network, right? It starts replaying past mistakes or projecting worst-case futures. What if monsters start showing up? And of course, the amygdala is definitely gonna get in on that kind of party. The amygdala is your threat detection center, it's supposed to be on in this party. So your amygdala, your default mode network, uh, you know, your ACC, everything starts kicking in. And the insula, which has the ability to have really relaxed signals, it gets drowned out. So self-doubt, if you have self-doubt and it's telling you that what you're doubting is true, that's the issue, that's your insula, and it's really a kind of signal interference. You're disconnected from the deeper knowing, and you're over-amplifying the noise, and that's okay, it's just good to know. This is how your brain is constructed to help you survive, so it's gonna put a little few doubts in there. But the thing is, you have to know what to trust. Do you trust the doubt or do you trust something else? You do you believe in the doubt or do you believe in you? Do you believe in the doubt or do you believe in your higher power? Do you believe then in the fear or do you believe in the faith? Both of them require you to believe in something. Think about it like this. If you don't pay attention to what you're believing, if you don't pay attention to the thoughts that you're having, well then the automatic fears, the automatic response, which is a survival response, is going to run the show most of the time because that's how we're wired as human beings. We're wired to never go down the dark alley, ever. You know what it takes? Courage, you know what it takes, your PFC to override it, you know what it takes? Some reasoning. Yeah. And forget it if you're sleep deprived, or if you're emotionally flooded, or if you're running on caffeine, or if your cortisol is up, or you're scrolling at midnight and you're tired. Oh, forget it. Your brain is definitely in amygdala mode, it's definitely in sort of threat mode, it's it's it's overstimulated, and these are all barriers. Yeah, and you can't hear the truth when those kinds of things are just coming at you. And slowly but surely your confidence starts to go down because the noises around you are interrupting the deeper signal within. So the barrier isn't that you don't know, the barrier is that your system isn't set up to let you hear what you do know. And that's not a confidence problem, that's a systems problem, and systems can be fixed, which is the good news today. If you want to restore your trust, a lot of times it's not you, it's all of the stuff around you that's sort of crowding out your ability to get back to you. Marcus Aurelius, and yeah, we're gonna keep coming back to these stoics, we're gonna keep coming back to these stoics because the man understood barriers. Marcus Aurelius, the Stoic, wrote, Look within. Within is the fountain of good. You know, he he was saying that if your inner world is looked at and really examined, you will find what you're looking for, you will find a deeper peace. Your inner world is steady, it is stable, but it can become rocky shaky and distorted by all the various stories that are running at the same time. And these are barriers. You have a barrier to seeing how deep your piece is. Your mind is a sacred enclosure. I remember this is another quote, I don't remember who said it, into what you into into which nothing can enter but by your permission. You see, when you can't trust your own judgment, every barrier begins to look bigger than it is, every obstacle starts to feel like a wall instead of a door, every decision feels like a trap instead of a step forward. And that's what you have to guard against. How did we get here? And a lot of it is in the thought life. A lot of it is in the choice to listen to things externally, the choice to allow things in that we know don't serve us. That's why stillness and sitting quietly and having prayer and having mindfulness and having awareness is so important. That is why you've got to take a minute to step back, to take the deep breath, to reset your nervous system, so that the brain doesn't just go only into survival mode. Because when your inner world is clear, when you have done the work of slowing down, getting still, letting the noise settle, you know what? Suddenly the right move isn't so hard for you to see. It was always there. You just couldn't hear it, you just weren't even getting enough sleep. You know, my mom, I say this all the time, she has a great saying, and I say it almost every other day here on the sweet spot. She says, Let me sleep on it, and I'll get back to you in the morning. And by golly, the woman always has an answer in the morning, and a good one too. Mom, that sleep, that's a great thing you're showing me. You're showing the world. Yeah, you sleep and you rest, you give yourself a chance to connect to the inner you. There's a thing called in the ancient wisdom, there's a saying, be still and know. Be still and know I am God. That's about presence. That's about higher connecting to higher purpose, that's about connecting to something bigger than yourself. So let me ask you: when was the last time your inner world was actually still enough to trust? Or are you so busy you've never had a chance to sit for five minutes without your phone, ten minutes without your iPad or your computer, 30 minutes outside of the computer? When was the last time your inner world was still enough so that it can hear the deeper you? Proverbs 3 verse 5 says, Trust in the Most High with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. When was the last time you had a chance to and and maybe it's not about the trust in the Lord for you, maybe it's about trusting in your higher purpose, trusting in what brings you peace. Have you had the time to sit and give yourself the chance to connect? That is what mindfulness is about, being in the present moment, right here, right now. So a lot of people hear this verse, they hear, oh, trust in uh in God with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. And they they think that it means don't think. It means they think they think we're saying turn your brain off, just have faith and stop asking questions. But that's not what it's saying. It's a warning against fraction thinking, it's a warning against reasoning that's driven by fear or pride or panic, where your mind is pulling in six different directions at once. Ever been there? And none of them are rooted in anything solid. This is about alignment when we say trust and and don't lean to your own understanding. Um, it's inviting you to align your heart, your mind, and your belief moving in the same direction. Is your heart, your mind, and is your belief are they moving in the same direction today? Or are they kind of competing with each other? Or worse, are things competing for your heart, your mind, and your beliefs? Have you thought about that? And have you sat long enough to align yourself? Heart, mind, and belief. Because, sweet spotter, when your internal systems are aligned, when what you believe, what you feel, and what you know are all pointing the same way, you got trust. And that's not reckless, it's super coherent. That's coherence. And coherent trust is the kind that breaks barriers. You're not second-guessing every step anymore, you're not frozen at the threshold, you're not interpreting the threshold as a barrier anymore. You're moving with clarity that comes from being internally aligned. And that kind of alignment and that kind of movement is unstoppable. And that's what Kabat Zinn was talking about when he talks about this mindfulness thing. He said, you know, his heart, his heart actually said, This works. His observations confirmed that mindfulness worked and meditation worked, and he faced a lot of skepticism. But you know what? His heart-mind belief system was aligned, and that alignment carried him through a barrier that could have stopped anyone from moving forward. And now in hospitals and ORs and all over the world, now mindfulness is a thing, meditation is a thing, awareness is a thing, being in the moment is a thing. It's huge now, but it didn't start that way. It did not start that way. Remember, he faced a lot of criticism back in 1979 as a molecular biologist trying to convince people about breathing and relaxation and being aware, being in the moment. That was like BS to a lot of people. But now they use it everywhere because you know what? They realize that meditating and mindfulness can lower your blood pressure, can lower your heart rate, can quiet your mind, can restore your confidence. Athletes do it all the time. You see it all the time. When you look at the Olympic athletes, you look at athletes pregame, they're practicing their breathing, they're getting into their focus, they're being in the moment, entertainers and performers do it too. Doctors, lawyers, business people are all into this. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, mindfulness teaches us that you can sit with the obstacles. You can sit and do nothing and accomplish everything. So when they say the obstacle is the way, and today that's hitting differently, because the obstacle might not be an external resistance. We always think of the obstacle as something outside, but it might be your discomfort with sitting still. That might be the obstacle. You're running around all the time, you're not focused. Maybe you're not you maybe the obstacle is your impatience with not having answers, not knowing. You can't tolerate an uncertainty. But if you sit long enough, you observe long enough, you breathe long enough, you're able to withstand that kind of internal fear. The noise fades. And what's left is the truest version of who you really are. So let me ask you something diagnostic right now. Are you doubting yourself because you lack information or because you lack quiet? Are you hesitating because your the move is wrong or because the noise is loud? What exactly is going on? Have you given it thought? Have you meditated on it? Have you slept on it? Because the barrier between you and your own convictions is often just over stimulation. You're just over stimulated. You just haven't had a chance to really check in with you. And the breakthrough, the breakthrough for this barrier is simpler than you think. It's silence. Yeah. It's silence. Just get quiet. Check in with you. Trust me, you have answers. You have amazing answers inside of you. So here's your trust yourself Thursday assignment. Three things. First, create five minutes of deliberate stillness today. I beg you. I plead with you. Doctor's orders. Five minutes of deliberate stillness. Not five minutes of scrolling in bed. Okay? I speak to myself. Not five minutes of um listening to the podcast in your ears. That's not it. Five minutes of nothing. No phone, no input, no nothing. Just your breath and observation. This is mindfulness. This is awareness training. Let the initial noise rise to the surface because it will. Let your mind go over the way wherever it needs to go. And just try to figure out what is the signal underneath all the noise, all the thoughts. That's the first thing. The second is to write down the decision you've been wrestling with. Have you been wrestling or thinking about something or something you want to do, something you're wrestling, something you want to stop, something you want to initiate? Write it down. Write down the decision you've been wrestling with. Then underneath it, write what fear is saying. And write what clarity is saying. Because sometimes it's a dialogue going on, a debate. Separate those two voices on paper because here's what I've learned. When they're both swimming around in your head, they sound the same. But the minute you put them on paper, sweet spotter, you see them clearly. And they are almost never saying the same thing. And third, ask yourself this honestly. Is my system regulated enough right now to trust my own intuition? Because if you're sleep deprived, if you're emotionally flooded or running on fumes, or just distracted. This might not be the best day for an irreversible decision. Don't make that decision. That's not even weakness, that's just wisdom on your part. Regulation precedes your reliable intuition. Take care of that your system first. Get rest, get clarity, spend some time with yourself in silence. Check in with you. You're wiser than you know, you're smarter than you know. And the clarity will come to you. John Kabatzin trusted what he observed because he trained his perception. Over time, the science validated everything he said and knew. What started as a fringe thing became mainstream medicine now. That's what happens when your quiet convictions outlasts the loud skepticism around you. And that's the kind of trust I'm talking about today. Not the loud, performative kind of trust, the quiet, steady kind, the kind that doesn't need a crowd to confirm it, the kind that says, Hey, I have gotten still enough to hear the signal, and I am going to follow this signal. That's how you break the barrier of self-doubt. Not by shouting it down, but by getting quiet enough that it has nothing left to feed on. Not putting all these thoughts into it, not feeding it negative thoughts. So I'll leave you with these questions. Don't rush past them, sit with them today. What do I actually know that's happening underneath all the noise around me? What would I do if I trusted what I know? And what's one step I can take today to prove to myself that I'm worth believing in? That what I believe in matters. You're listening to the sweet spot. It is Trust Yourself Thursday. And if this helped you see that self-doubt might not be truth, it might just be noise. Share this with someone who's been stuck at the threshold of a decision they already know the answer to. And subscribe if you haven't already. It's free, I promise you. And it might be the five minutes that changes someone else's direction. Listen, tomorrow we are closing out this week that we've been doing here on Breaking Barriers. We're getting there. Tomorrow is what? Tomorrow is Finish Strong Friday. Yeah, because knowing is one thing, but executing under pressure in the last minutes. Oh, that's where the rubber meets the road. When the week is wearing you down and you're at the finish line, or you feel like you're at the finish line, but it still feels so far away. That's another barrier entirely. And we're gonna deal with that. I promise you, we're gonna unlock it, unpack it, and figure it out tomorrow. We're gonna figure out how do we be strong finishers tomorrow. We're not gonna fade. We don't fade. There's no fade in our game tomorrow. Finish strong Friday. For science, for soul, for success. Let's keep breaking barriers, and I'll see you tomorrow.