We all have this little voice in the back of our mind that likes to keep us nice and safe and comfortable - and whilst at some point in the history of mankind, this was necessary to stop us being eaten by a sabra-tooth-tiger or something, NOW it really just gets in the way of us achieving the things we say we want!

Join me this week for a deep dive into our "bitch voice" and learn what you can do to overcome it to live the life you LOVE👌

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Every story starts with a dream. A dream of someone wanting more. A dream of a life that might feel so unrealistic right now yet you know deep down in your soul you're destined for. My name is Claire Markwick. Accountant, business coach, affiliate marketer, mom, wife and woman with a dream. A fierce dream rising up within me. A dream that fires my soul and a dream I am committed to making a reality. Based woman rising is a podcast that celebrates those with a dream. Those courageous enough to think outside their current reality and make what's in your heart come true. If I've learned one thing over the years, is that the only surefire way of staying stuck in a stale mediocre life is believing that's all you're capable of. Believing your own bullshit excuses and not finding the strength to stretch beyond them. I held myself back. I played safe I stayed where I was for far too long. But not anymore. I want a life of passion. Have fun adventure, laughter love. I want deep conversations belly laughs health, strength, balance. I want confidence, sexiness, fulfillment and the money to do as we please without limitation. I want the life of my dreams. So I'm here creating it. And I want that for you too. So welcome my friend, to fierce woman rising. The show that awakens your mind and kickstarts your action to creating the life you love. Hey, hey, how are you? Welcome to another episode of the fierce woman rising podcast. And today I want to talk about your bitch voice. Your bitch voice this was a term that I heard recently on a podcast, I was listening to a podcast about 75 hard. And it's something that is coming up in my awareness a lot lately. I'm seeing lots of people doing 75 hard I'm seeing what's the people talking about 75 hard. And I'm like, Well, what the hell was this 75 hard and someone shared a podcast with me that explained all about it, what it was, what it is, what it what, how it came about and all that kind of thing. And in that

podcast, this guy referred to our ego as our bitch voice. And I just thought that was amazing because I talk about ego a lot. And it made me think that perhaps, when I use the term ego, I think it's really easily misconstrued. It's something that is really misunderstood. Because when I think back to what I thought ego was, you know, it's something that I think a lot of us could kind of switch off and not listen to because it's like, well, I don't have an ego. So this basically isn't relevant to me. So, back before I kind of entered this world of deep personal development, I saw ego as the thing that you know, imagine like a real buff,

shaven, tanned, oiled, ripped, like a gym junkie, who, like, you know, looked at himself in the mirror and thought he was like, God's gift to the planet. And, you know, that that to me was ego that was, that was someone who had an ego, you know, they thought they were better than other people put themselves on a pedestal, put them raise themselves up higher than they should have. And that was what I thought that ego was. That's not what ego is, every single one of us has an ego. And how I look at ego now is, it's like the little voice in our head that keeps us safe. And there was a there was a purpose to ego like back in the day, back in the day when we lived in the times where they were, you know, sort of saber toothed tigers and life and death situations. Our ego was that thing that kept her safe. It was that little voice that said knee? Do we really want to be doing this? You know, have you really thought this through. And in those kinds of situations, our ego is really, really helpful because it keeps us physically safe. The fact is, civilization and the world we live in now is very different. And we haven't evolved at the same rate. So we still have this mechanism, this kind of fight or flight mechanism, this little voice in our head that keeps us safe and keeps us comfortable and keeps us in this place. Where where we know where we understand. We're where we feel that we're in control. The thing is, the situations and the experiences that our ego is protecting us from now, they're not life and death situations. They're situations where, you know, we're challenging ourselves, we're stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zone, or at least we're trying to, but then that little voice kicks in, it's like, yeah, if you really thought this through, do you really think you're capable of that? What's, what's it? What's your dad gonna think about that? What's your partner gonna think about that? What's your mate down the road? And your neighbor gonna say,

what do you what do you think they're gonna, they're gonna, how are you think they're gonna judge you and, and that little voice that just spawns that seed of doubt in our mind as to whether that thing that we say we want to do, is actually worth doing or not. And, and when I heard on this podcast that he refers to ego as our bitch voice, I was like, bar out. That's brilliant. That is just that just encapsulates it that just takes away any misconceptions of what people think ego is, and it in it, you we can think about it as that little voice, that little nagging bitch voice in our head, that keeps us mediocre, keeps us safe. And what I have learned is that in order to, in order to progress in order to break out of the sort of mediocrity that we find ourselves in, we have to learn to quieten the rich voice or we have to learn to overrule the bitch voice. And that can be really, really hard. And so it's it's like, it's like building any muscle, you can't just join a gym, and expect to suddenly be strong expect to suddenly grow those big biceps and all that, like it doesn't work like that. You can't just join a gym, like you can't just pay for a program or pay a coach and expect results. You have to go to the gym, you have to work those muscles, you have to start small and build up. And it's consistent repetition and building and stretching and challenging and resting. And letting things integrate letting things settle, and then pushing and going and going again. And it's it's over time, this consistent repetition, this consistent, building this consistent, challenging this consistent leaning into something different. That is what starts to grow those muscles, that is what starts to grow those biceps, those those quads, whatever it might be. And that's what starts to build strength. And that's what allows us to then use that strength to, to do whatever challenging thing it was that we were trying to do. And our brain, our bitch voice, our ego is no

different. We can't, we can't just expect to listen to a podcast, join a program, pay a coach and expect everything to be different. We have to start exercising, we have to start flexing that muscle, we have to start using it differently, we have to start thinking differently, we have to start talking to ourselves differently, consistently, every day, repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, even when it feels uncomfortable even when we don't want to, even when we feel like it would just be far simpler to go back to how things were, if we want to have the strength to step up to that next level to be able to start that business, leave that job, enter that relationship, exit that relationship, whatever it might be, if we want the strength to be able to move into the having the confidence to do that thing, we've got to be starting to build that muscle, we've got to be starting to quieten that bitch voice and learn to trust ourselves enough to know that we're going to be okay on the other side. And what I really loved about listening to the concept behind 75 hard is that it's a mental toughness program. It's not a fitness program. And this isn't a podcast where I'm speaking about 75 heart, I'm just using it as an example to illustrate what I'm talking about here. And that he he talks about a society where we've gone soft, quite frankly, we have and I really resonated with this when I was listening to it when I first read about all the different components of what you have to do and 75 hard I was like, sheesh, that's hard. And if you fail on day 74 Shit, you gotta go right back to day one. Oh my god, you know, and I kind of started to poopoo it off. And I was like, yeah, no, no, whatever. But when I really thought about the concept behind it, I couldn't agree more in as much As we are now a society of big breaking softies, and we will let ourselves off the hook at the slightest opportunity. And when we find something hard, or challenging, there's enough conversation

in the world of personal development and things like that for us to throw excuses in the way as to why we don't need to do them. For example, if you if you enter the world of human design, and understand all the different designs, I'm a projector, and projectors aren't meant to do doo, doo, doo doo all the time. And I'm very, very early in my journey and exploration of, of human design and Gene keys. And so if there's anyone listening to this, that is more, more versed in it, and can can pick me up on any of this. And please do so it might just be part of my journey. But I think it is very, very easy for someone with a very limited knowledge of human design, say, and has learned that they're a projector and has learned that they're not supposed to be on undoing all the time, for there to be an opportunity where they're supposed to do something. And they just go, oh, yeah, but I'm not going to do it today, because I'm a projector and I'm supposed to rest. And we can let ourselves off the hook. Now, that's just one example. But there'll be plenty of other examples where we let ourselves off the hook for doing the work that we need to do in order to achieve the outcome that we say we want to achieve. And whilst some of those reasons might be valid, I think we have become far too used to creating excuses, and being able to talk ourselves out of things and being able to justify life being easy. And I honestly believe, and this could be a little bit controversial, but I honestly believe this is why we've got so much, or why I see a seemingly increase amount of anxiety and depression. And people who don't have confidence in themselves. People who talk themselves down, don't feel worthy, don't feel like they're enough, are always anxious, or socially anxious, are, you know, feeling really down on themselves, and I'm not negating medical conditions, don't get me wrong, don't don't start getting what I'm saying confused. I'm not denying that there are

medical conditions where people suffer from anxiety and depression and things like that, but what I'm getting at is that, as a general population, I think we have lost our ability to handle hard situations to handle challenge. And we, we give in to that bitch voice. And as soon as that little bitch voice starts to go,

you know, that that's a lot of work. And, and that's going to put, that's going to mean a lot of effort. And that's going to mean, that's going to mean time away from your family. And that's going to mean money that you could be putting into something else. And, and that's going to mean that you're probably not going to be able to go to that, that party or do that thing, or whatever it is, and, and we listen, we we go, yeah, you're probably right. And we don't do it. And then we stay where we are. And then the kind of the cycle continues. And it's sort of self perpetuates. Because the longer we stay where we are, the longer we, the longer it seems to take us to get to where we want to be, the worse we feel. And then the worse we feel, the louder our pitched voice gets. And the harder it is to turn that volume down and to step forward regardless. So it it becomes even more challenging to confront that bitch voice and go, You know what, no, thank you. Thank you for keeping me safe, and for getting me to this point where I am right now. But from here, I've got it from here, I'm going to do X, Y and Zed. And I understand what you're saying. But I'm going to do it regardless because I can see my goal on the other side of it, the longer it takes us to have the courage and the strength to do that. The louder that bitch boy scouts, and therefore the longer it's going to take us to be able to turn it down. It's making sense. So it's a self fulfilling prophecy where we just get stuck on this hamster wheel of mediocrity. We get it we our excitement gets picked about something we start to feel that little that bubble of excitement raise up from our bellies and we're like yeah, yeah, this is this is it, this is it. And if we don't act straight away, bitch voice comes in and starts throwing in those seeds of doubt. And have you thought about this and what if this happens and what if that happens and yada yada and if we haven't built that muscle, if we haven't built that

mental toughness to be able to block that voice out, turn the volume down and act regardless, then we're going to listen, we're going to succumb to it. Now, I'm not saying that every single one of us out there has to go out and do 75 hard. And I'm not saying that that's the only way that we're going to build mental toughness. But what we need to do in order to elevate into the person who feels worthy to actually receive, and remember, this is what we were talking about a little bit last time. If we're not where we are yet, if we're not able to feel worthy enough to receive, then we're going to push it away, we're going to, we're going to block it, and we're going to sabotage it at every opportunity. And this is all part of the same situation. It's all part of letting that bitch voice win. So how do we how do we start to build that muscle? How do we start to turn down the volume of the bitch voice so that in a situation where we're facing challenge, where we're facing something that we haven't done before, where we're facing something that really calls on our inner grit and determination and resolve? How do we build that muscle? Now, what I'm choosing to do is not 75 hard at this stage, but it's to do hard things. I'm challenging myself to do hard things to do things that I haven't done before to stretch into my comfort zone. And this can be something really, really small like I remember a mentor said to me once, you know, like, if you're, say going to the supermarket, where you go every week or your car park at work, do you park in the same parking spot every day? And at that time, I was like, Well, yeah, I do. You like wall parks? And we're different. And, yes, I'm so stupid, but I was like, I can't do that. I'm like that, that would just be weird. Exactly. It's just tiny little things that start to retrain your brain to make you realize that you can do things different, you can step outside of that comfort zone, and you'll kind of be okay, like, you're not

going to catch fire and like spontaneously combust. Like it's going to be okay, if you park on the left hand side of the car park instead of the right hand side of the car park, it's going to be okay, if you drive out the in exit, it's going to be okay, if you buy a different brand of something. Now, these things might sound so tiny and insignificant. But just think about what we're doing. We're actually reprogramming our brain to step out of our comfort zone step out of what we do automatically to pay conscious attention to what we're doing. Because when you park in a different parking space, your conscious brain kicks into gear again, if you just park in the same spot you park in all the time, you kind of get there unconsciously and you don't really think about it and you get out of the car and you know, it might work or I'm at the supermarket, right? But when you park somewhere different your conscious brain is taking over again. Oh, I'm doing something new. Am I okay? bitch boy starts to come in is everything. Okay? What's going on here? Let me survive this situation. And then then then you can start to come and go, no, no, no, it's all good. All right, I'm in the same car park, I'm just in a different spot. And those tiny little things done consistently over time, it's like doing the weight training on your biceps Is that is that constant stretching of your muscle to get uncomfortable, and then realize that you're okay being uncomfortable. And if you can do it with the small things, then you can start to amp it up to bigger things, and bigger things and bigger things. Like just recently I've done my first ice bath. And you know, people have said to me, what are you doing that for? You know, it's not like you're sort of hugely sporty or anything like that, and you need it for the muscle recovery. Like what what's the point? And the point to me, is to prove that I can do hard things that I can do uncomfortable things is the same with my water fasting

when I do when I do water fasting. I before 12 months ago, you if someone said to me, you know intermittent fasting, Claire, that's good. That's going to be a game changer for you. That's something that you should do. I would have laughed in their face. I was like there's there's no way in hell, I can miss breakfast or, you know, miss any other meal. I like my food too much. But again, that's bad choice. I decided no, actually, let's look into this. And I started I started intermittent fasting. And I was able to get out of the habit of having breakfast every morning like I'm not hungry in the morning. It was just automatic that I just ate breakfast. It was just something that I did. And then as a progression on from there when that became the norm I was like okay, now that Let's take this up to the next level, you know, this is like, you know, moving up to the next weight on your on your bicep exercises like alright, well, I can do that really easily. Now, what's the next challenge? What can I do next. And that was where the the three day water fasting came in. And whilst there were other health benefits, and whilst there were other reasons behind my decision to start doing three day water fasts, a big part of it was training my brain to be okay with doing something uncomfortable with doing something out of the norm. And mentally, I was building strength, I was building this capacity within me to know that I can handle hard situations. And that's not to say, I'm going to find myself in a survival situation where I can't, where I have no food. And I'll be like, well, thank God, I practice by doing a water fast. I know I can go three days without eating food. It's not that it's about being able to apply the mental toughness, being able to learn the lessons experience the discomfort, let the emotions process, know that I can get through the other side, then I can apply that resilience, that skill to the next situation. I can quiet the Beach Boys

because I can say no, I know I can handle this, I know that in a challenging situation, you're going to throw all this stuff at me and I know that I can get through it. And it's so it's by doing small things like that small challenges, small things that we say we're going to do. And then we commit to them. Each time we do that. We are building muscle, we're building strength, we're building resilience, we're building our capacity, to elevate to stretch and to grow. And the more we do that, the more consistently the more we up level that the more we build on that day after day after day after day, the more confident we're going to feel that we can handle whatever is on the other side of whatever decision it is that we want to make.

So I want to throw this out to you as a challenge. If you are someone who maybe finds it hard to do different things, if you find it a lot easier to go, oh yeah, no, I can never do that. I can never do that. I can never do that. If you find you're saying that over and over and over and over again. If you're 100% happy with everything about your life and where you're at, and you're 10 out of 10 on your on your wheel of life from our previous episode, and everything's dandy, then fine. But if if you're someone who finds that your bitch voice takes over a lot, and that you really struggle to turn that volume down, and you really struggle to move forward. Regardless, you know, you listen to that bitch voice you you sort of succumb to it, you're like, Yeah, you surrender to it. If that's you, and there are other areas of your life that you want to elevate your results. And then I am putting you to the challenge of working out your brain, start working out your brain, start doing things differently, start challenging yourself, start doing things a little bit against the grain. And like I said, you can start really freaking small. You can wear different clothes, you can, you can do something you usually do on a Tuesday on a Wednesday, you can shop at a different supermarket, you can park in a different parking spot, start to do things that challenges your status quo. And notice what comes up, feel into that discomfort feel into those emotions, listen to what the bitch voice is saying. And then decide to act anyway. Do it anyway and come out the other side realizing that you're going to be okay because every time you do that you're building muscle, you're building strength, you're building capacity to elevate all the different areas of your life that you want to. So I'm gonna leave it there I trust that has been helpful to anyone who needs to hear it. And I'm gonna also extend an invitation if you want a if you want to be part of a collective of women who are all

on this journey, people who are who are challenging that bitch voice and elevating themselves and awakening themselves from this kind of slumber of monotony thing come and join us in the first woman rising collective over on Facebook. It's my Facebook community that I have started as a result of this podcast. It's growing all the time. And it is full of women just like you who are ready to break through that break through that mediocrity break through that sort of ceiling of where you've found yourself at and are ready to elevate and are ready to really come into the next version of you. We focus unhealth wealth and self and it is a safe space for you to grow. It is a safe space for you to ask questions. It is a safe space for you to vent. It is a safe space for you to celebrate amongst a collective of women who get it who know where you're at, and who can support and understand and nurture. So if that sounds like the kind of place you want to hang out, come check out the first woman rising Collective on Facebook and I will put the link in the show notes to this episode as well. In the meantime, share this conversation with anyone in your network who you think needs to hear it. Give us a like a comment or tag on Facebook or Instagram and I will be back in your ears next week. Until then, bye bye