415. Coaching Hotline: Confusion About Purpose & Accepting v Giving Up

UnF*ck Your Brain: Feminist Self-Help for Everyone

Kara Loewentheil

Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Education, Self-improvement, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.6 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this Coaching Hotline episode, I tackle two powerful questions about self-acceptance and purpose. The first caller is a mom grappling with balancing acceptance of her son's Autism and advocating for his needs. The second is struggling with perfectionism, confusion about her work, and quitting projects before they gain traction.

Tune in to hear how to stop tying your identity to external outcomes and why emotional resistance isn’t helping you. I break down how to navigate self-doubt and frustration, and why your true work is learning to love and accept yourself first—no matter what’s going on around you.

Submit your own question here and it might get answered on a future episode: unfuckyourbrain.com/coachinghotline

Get full show notes, transcript, and more information here: https://schoolofnewfeministthought.com/415

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to unfuck your brain. I'm your host Kara Lowentile, master-certified coach, and founder of the School of New Feminist Thought. I'm here to help you turn down your anxiety, turn up your confidence, and create a life on your own terms, one that you're truly excited to live.
0:21.3	Let's go.
0:24.8	Welcome to this week's coaching hotline episode where I answer real questions from real listeners
0:31.2	and coach you from afar.
0:33.6	If you want to submit your question for consideration, go to unfuck your brain.com forward slash
0:39.5	coaching hotline, all one word, or text your email to plus one 347-997-1784.
0:48.0	And when you get prompted for the code word, it's coaching hotline, all one word.
0:52.6	Let's get into this week's questions. So here is the first
0:57.6	question. My son is on the autism spectrum and I think I'm such a good mom, but every now and then
1:04.3	I encounter sadness and lose hope. Accepting what is gives me strength, but at other times not
1:10.2	accepting what is gives me power. but at other times not accepting what is gives me power.
1:12.7	How do I navigate the world, a school that doesn't operate for my manual, for my son to raise him so that he can thrive and create a bright future?
1:21.3	So I think that what's really interesting about this question, the reason I wanted to answer it, is this question of like, when should I accept what is and when should I not accept what is? And I don't think that
1:32.8	that's the right frame for the question. Right? When we talk about accepting what is,
1:37.5	we don't mean, I don't mean at least, I accept that this is and I'm not going to do anything
1:43.6	to change it. That's not what acceptance is.
1:47.2	Acceptance is not emotional resistance. So acceptance is not saying, well, my son is on the autism
1:54.8	spectrum and so that means, you know, just only certain things are possible and I'm not going to
2:00.2	try to, you know, advocate for him and I'm not going to try to, you know,
2:02.2	advocate for him and I'm not going to try to get him the best education I can and accepting it
2:07.7	would just means being like, well, that's the case. And so things will just have to be the
2:11.4	certain way, right? It's almost like in that case, you're not accepting what is. You're accepting
	...

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