Thyroid Basics

There’s a version of being “easy to be around” that can look a lot like being a good person. You’re flexible. You don’t make a big deal out of things. You can see everyone else’s side. You’re willing to help. You don’t want to create unnecessary conflict. You can adapt. And you may be very good at it! The problem comes when being easy for everyone means that finding YOU becomes harder and harder. You say, “Whatever works for you,” when you actually do have a preference. You say yes before you’ve checked whether you have the capacity. You explain yourself three different ways because you’re worried someone might be upset. Then one day you realize you’re irritated, exhausted, or resentful, and you don’t know why. Sometimes the issue isn’t that you’re giving too much; it’s that you’ve been leaving *yourself* out of the equation. Caring about other people doesn’t require you to disappear. There is a difference between being easy to be around and being at ease with yourself. And learning to notice that difference can start with something very small: before you automatically say yes, agree, accommodate, explain, or smooth something over, do this: Give yourself a moment to find out what you actually think before letting the autopilot take over as it’s always done. You might still choose the same thing. But this time, you chose it. It didn’t make the choice *for* you. That’s one of the ideas I explore in my latest episode on Beyond the Type podcast: How Your Enneagram Type Runs Your Life: The “Job” You Never Signed Up For. I look at the invisible roles we can fall into, why we take them on, what they can cost us, and what happens when we stop letting them make every decision for us. Link in my bio, or find wherever you listen to podcasts. #podcast #peoplepleasing #selftrust #conflictavoidance #communicationskills

Spent three days at the Wisconsin State Fair @wistatefair - as I have for the past several years - helping sister with her horticulture exhibits. 16,000 steps a day some days! 🥴 Boy am I pooped. 💩 Anyone going to or looking forward to county/state fairs this summer? #WiStateFair #MnStateFair #blueribbon #cheese #dairystate

Stop trying to solve gravity? Yeah, that’s maybe a strange thing to say. I recently came across an idea from Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, the authors of Designing Your Life. They talk about the difference between a problem and what they call a "gravity problem." Basically, a problem is something you can solve. A gravity problem is simply part of reality. You can’t solve it. Think about the engineers who sent astronauts to the moon. They didn't spend years trying to eliminate or “solve” the problem of gravity. They accepted it as a fact of life on Earth and asked a much better question: "Given that gravity exists, what do we need to do to get this rocket off the ground?" I think many of us spend our lives trying to solve gravity: We replay conversations that have already happened, we wonder if someone misunderstood our email, we imagine every possible outcome of a conversation that hasn't happened yet, we try to control what another person thinks of us. None of those things are problems. They're circumstances. No amount of overthinking or worry can change circumstances. No amount of analyzing can make another person think, feel, or behave the way we'd like them to. So the next time you catch yourself spiraling, pause for a moment and ask yourself one simple question: Am I solving a real problem...or am I trying to solve gravity? If it's a problem, take one small step. If it's gravity, maybe your energy is better spent accepting what's true and deciding what you want to do next. I explore this idea, along with two other practices that have helped many of my coaching clients (and me) in the latest episode of Beyond the Type. 🎙️ Listen wherever you get your podcasts. #overthinking #overthinker #lifeskills #problemsolving #beyondthetype #podcast #swansoncoaching

Why do some comments roll right off of us, and others stick around for days? Why do some of us just... take things personally?? I used to think it came down to being thick-skinned versus being sensitive. After years of coaching, I don't believe that anymore. I think it comes down to the story we tell ourselves in the moment something happens, and most of us are telling that story so fast we don't even realize we're doing it. A short email, a certain look during a meeting, a friend who takes a little too long to text back, blah blah blah. None of these things are inherently bad, and yet our minds fill in the blanks almost instantly (and usually with a story that isn't true). There's a reason for us wanting to cling to the negative: Our brains are wired to hold onto potential threats far more tightly than they hold onto good moments, and it helped keep our ancestors safe. However, it’s a bit less useful when the "threat" is a two-word text message or a weird look across the conference room table. In this week's episode of Beyond The Type, I share a simple practice for catching that story before you mistake it for fact, along with how this shows up differently depending on your personality type. If you've ever spent an afternoon spiraling over something small, I invite you to give this one a listen. Link in bio, or find Beyond The Type wherever you listen to podcasts. #takingthingspersonally #sensitive #overlysensitive #podcast #swansoncoaching #lifeskills

Our brains evolved to notice danger before it became fatal. And that wiring was a good thing, as it kept our ancestors alive. Unfortunately, it hasn't updated much since then, even though most of what we're facing today isn't exactly life-threatening. An email that gets us spinning, a conversation we replay for the tenth time, a to-do list that follows us into the shower or keeps us awake until 2am. None of these are saber-toothed tigers, and yet that same ancient, protective machinery treats them like one anyway. So the mind reaches for the only tool it really trusts in a moment like that: control. It says: If I think about it enough, prepare for every angle, understand it completely, I can keep myself safe. The good part is that nothing is wrong with you - that's your brain doing exactly what it was built to do! /hat tip to the brain The hard part is that it’s still using that outdated hardware in a world that doesn't quite match the one it was designed for. I go deeper into this in the newest episode of Beyond the Type. I talk about: - why we overthink - what's actually running the show underneath it - what I believe is the real antidote (hint: it's not more thinking). Link in bio if you want the full conversation.

Do you find yourself overthinking or spiraling in your head? Whether a colleague was annoyed with you in a meeting, whether an email landed exactly the way you meant it, whether a decision that's already out of your hands goes the way you're hoping. None of that is solvable with more thinking. It's the professional equivalent of gravity. You can’t argue or fix gravity. I heard about this framing of problems as gravity from Dave Evans, co-author of Designing Your Life; he offered that rocket scientists working on the Apollo missions never tried to fix gravity. They asked a better question: Given gravity, exactly as it is, how much thrust do we need to get off the ground? The next time you catch yourself replaying a conversation or spiraling on something you can't control, try asking the same thing. Is this a problem I can act on? Or is this gravity? I just released two new episodes of Beyond the Type, all about WHY we overthink, and what to do about it. Link in bio, or find Beyond the Type wherever you listen to podcasts. #overthinking #overthinker #spiral #headcenter #swansoncoaching #lifeskills