Show Notes: Change isn’t a flip of a switch, but rather a process, and often, a messy one. In this episode of Positively Powerful, host Scott Fitzgerald and transformational coach Stacey Steinmiller dive into what Stacey calls The Messy Middle: the space between who you were and who you’re becoming. If you’ve ever felt frustrated because you “should know better” but keep slipping into old habits, this conversation will help you see that’s not failure, it’s evolution. In this episode, you’ll discover: * Why The Messy Middle is proof of your growth, not your failure * How self-criticism actually reinforces the patterns you’re trying to change * The power of self-compassion to create momentum and calm your nervous system * What’s really happening in your brain when you rewire old habits * Simple daily practices (like setting intentions) to help you embody the person you’re becoming 🪞Key Quotes: “The messy middle isn’t where your growth stops — it’s where integration happens.”“Shame stops progress. Compassion creates momentum.”“You can’t gaslight yourself into change — you have to understand what’s really going on beneath the surface.” 🔥 Takeaway:You’re not stuck, you’re integrating. Stay present, stay patient, and keep showing up with compassion. That’s where transformation turns into embodiment. 📍Connect with Stacey:👉 radicallifecoach.com | @theradicalevolution 📍Connect with Scott:👉 rocvox.com | @rocvoxrecording Transcript Positively powerful. It’s Wednesday, just moments after the 10 o’clock hour, and I am once again with Stacey Steinmiller. We’re gonna talk about stuff. As long as my voice holds out, it’s it’s going, it’s been going in and out, so we’ll see. Yeah, no, I don’t know why. It’s just that lately it’s been a thing. Today we’re talking about the messy middle and the messy middle case. You were wondering what the heck is the messy middle? It’s like that part where you’re the person who you’re becoming and the person who you were. That’s not a switch that just gets flipped. It’s a process, and when you’re. Doing that process. It’s the messy middle. So there’s things that, like your brain is still doing the old way, but you’re cognizant of it and you wanna do it the new way. And you get caught into this like quagmire. And a lot of people mistake that as failure. And it’s not. You just have to stick it out. And that’s what Stacey is going to school us on today. The messy middle. Yeah. Yeah. I started using that phrase, I don’t know, a while ago. And I don’t know if it came from somewhere or just outta my mouth like most things. But yeah, I guess that’s like the process that, the part where I talk about with my clients of, they’re like, okay, I am aware. I know what I’m doing well, and I became really aware of this myself, right? Like I. I knew exactly what not to say, for example. And it’s don’t say it, don’t react like this. And then I, it just ends up coming out. And I’m like this is really annoying. And so yeah, so it took us like a lot of working through that and it’s frustrating. It’s a really frustrating process too. No yeah, the right thing to say, the right thing to do, the, what your higher self would do, but then you just notice those immediate reactions just coming out. And yeah, it’s something that requires a lot of patience and this is where I bring in a lot of like patience and self compassion into the mix, because that, I would say, is. Helps us with that bridge to get to the other side where we do start responding in the way that we wish to Compassion. Yeah. Compassion for yourself. Again, that’s a, that, that’s a tough there’s most people who are on that kind of journey of transformation. Are laser focused on it and they don’t have time to give themselves a break, they, they see that as weakness or like we said as failure. And it’s yeah, slowing down and taking an inventory of all these things and thinking about them one at a time is like a necessary part of the process. I mean in anything that we do when there’s a transformation involved, it’s not just a switch, sometimes it is, but not usually. Especially when you’re talking about your own personal like character and your existence for lack of a, for lack of a smaller descriptor. Your whole existence is changing. So you think it’s just gonna change overnight, it’s not, yeah. It takes a lot of Yeah. Practice and repetition and but the interesting thing is then when it does shift it, then it feels like it, it happens right away, in that moment. So it’s but to get to that moment, it requires a lot of practice. Just like anything, when you think about learning an instrument or a score or something like that, there’s a lot of repetition involved, but then all of a sudden when it does click, then it’s there and it’s almost like you. We were like, wow, I can’t believe I couldn’t do this before. Or why was this so hard before? And then those are the times that it feels like an instant. So it’s really interesting. So when you hear people talk about it being in an instant, it’s because, yeah, it, that changeover happens in an instant, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t doing anything or you weren’t like working on it or being mindful about it, up until that point. If that makes Right. And how, we’re talking about this self-compassion idea. How do people replace that feeling of self-criticism with that compassion? Like how do they make that switch to, ‘cause they don’t wanna give themselves like a break, letting themselves off the hook or getting away with something, right? Yeah. So you have to. Believe or admit that being hard on yourself, like that actually isn’t working right. And in fact it perpetuates the problem. So say if you’re trying to not react negatively to your spouse or your employees or your children, or and you want to foster. Love and growth and so forth. And if you accidentally yell or judge or something and then inside you beat yourself up, you are just like feeding that negative energy, right? And that actually makes you more likely to respond in a negative energy versus it. So it’s like admitting that that’s not working at least at the level that you want it to work. Maybe that worked from getting your homework in on time or something when you were a kid. But it’s not working in the role of a leader or parent or something like that. So you have to really, yeah, admit that that’s not working for you anymore and that compassion is the solution. So it’s like you have, and it will almost feel like defeat if you believe that being nice to yourself is a form of weakness. Then it will almost feel like defeat. When you accept that truth. And, but, so it’s like accepting that and being like, okay, the only way through this is to be nice to myself right now. And then you do that even if it is feeling a little diff. Like defeat. As soon as you do that, you’ll take some deep breaths, you’ll calm your system being like, wow, I am undoing decades of conditioning and decades of being like you’re saying, like your whole existence. Wow. So this is really hardwired in me. So this is quite the process. And just by doing that, like something small like that, you’ll feel your whole body soften. And when your body softens, how do you think you’re going to then interact in the world? Softer, right? So now it’s a lot easier to then sit down to the person that maybe you just yelled at or snapped at and be like, oh wow, sorry, I’m, I really was getting frustrated there for a second. And now you’re suddenly able to just sit, be. Own your mistake and move forward. It’s a wrong answer. Yeah. And there’s like a physiological component to all of this when you’re talking about these changes, because you’re, you have, there’s a lot of muscle memory and like your nervous system has this attachment to how things are going. Yeah. And then you’ve gotta change it. So a lot of times it won’t, it doesn’t catch up right away. And there’s some disconnect. Like what’s happening in the nervous system when you’re trying to make these changes? Yeah. I always call ‘em like information pathways. That neuron to neuron it, they connect, right? And then the more you use the same circuit, the stronger and faster it goes. And so if we’re trying to undo an existing circuit and recreate a new one, I always described it as it’s like we’re gonna not take the expressway anymore and we’re gonna take the back roads. And when you take the back roads, there’s a lot of lights, there’s a lot of traffic, right? There is, people walking on the streets, there’s a lot more going on, so it’s going to be slower. But I’m gonna, I’m gonna disagree with you on that one because when I take the back roads through Mendon and lower pit sport, it’s a lot faster. And there are very few people on the road and you just have to watch out for deer. Yeah. Okay, so I’m thinking city, right? City. Yeah. I, yeah. I’m just breaking your balls. Yeah. Just whatever. I hear you. But just stay with the analogy for me. But but the thing is, so then also pretend that. As you’re taking the back roads that first have lights and all these things, is that you have the ability to turn it into a highway. If you go over it over and over and over again then that becomes your new highway and the other one starts to become abandoned. But it’s still there, which is why did you ever not do anything for months? Then suddenly you do it again for some reason, and then now you’re doing it all the time and you’re like, wait a minute. I stopped this habit forever ago and now I just realize I picked that back up. Like for me it might be like eating chips or something. Like I won’t eat it for like months and then all of a sudden I eat chips and then,
