Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang

This episode covers everything you need to know about forgiveness. What truly is forgiveness, how to forgive using one powerful and free tool you already have, whether anything and everything is forgivable, how to forgive yourself and conundrums and quarrels that come up when forgiving.  

You are listening to episode 6: Forgiveness

[Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

[Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

[Episode 06 – Forgiveness: Begins]

Hello hello beautiful soul, so happy you’re here! Another week, another new episode. How are you all feeling as it gets closer to Christmas? How fast has the year flown!? What a year it has been.

Today’s episode is all about forgiveness. Thank you to Bee who submitted his thoughts on what he wanted to see on the podcast on my instagram – if you too have something you’d love for me to speak about please get in touch via my DMs or on my website. 

If you didn’t know I had an Instagram – yes I do, I share on my instagram daily inspiration and motivation to live your best life and a behind the scenes of my coaching – juicy insights from sessions with my clients and of course the amazing results my clients have.

I always get so excited to share this at it shows you what you can achieve when you work on yourself and when you invest in yourself.

One of my clients absolutely aced her internship and was offered a job role after it! The real clincher? Her supervisors said what made her stand out was her mindset. Boom!

Another one of my clients has let go of a relationship despite her fears and past coming out. We really worked through past trauma from previous relationships that showed up.

Another client is a stunning model using her online platform after being bullied to help others and speak out against bullying – which is not okay at all.

Another beautiful soul is moving past her fears of being judged and imposter syndrome to showing up on her Instagram community of 80,000 and building her business empire.

So, so magical. I am so proud of them, there are many more wins but I could talk for a whole episode on that. If you’re interested in coaching, let’s chat as I would love to be here someday soon speaking about your wins!

So back to forgiveness, Bee said that he wanted to know more about forgiveness that allows for growth but is stunned by conundrums or quarrels with friends, family and strangers.

So let’s dive into forgiveness. It’s a big topic. I want to flag in no way is forgiveness easy but it’s an important mental muscle to work on for your emotional health and wellbeing – more on that later in the podcast.

There are many definitions but out of reading and researching several definitions, the main common thread between definitions is that forgiveness is a voluntary and internal process of letting go of negative feelings such as anger, resentment and bitterness and in turn the potential desire for revenge.

Let’s break it down: voluntary – you have to decide, no one else can for you and the internal process of letting go – yes you have to use your thoughts to get to the destination: letting go.

It’s a process – again it won’t just suddenly happen, you have to work through your thoughts and in turn your feelings to get there. Forgiveness is a journey to which you commit to.

Forgiveness is actually quite stealthy. Forgiveness happens when you’re sleeping, when you’re brushing your teeth, when you’re journaling, when you’re making a cup of tea, when you’re making lunch, when you’re working… it’s happening not only on a conscious level but on a subconscious level too.

Forgiveness isn’t easy or instant, like taking a pill or pushing a button. In fact forgiveness is like pushing a boulder up a hill – it will take work and it’s going to be hard. As Robert Muller says “Only the brave know how to forgive. A coward never forgives. It’s not in his nature.”

Addressing the potential desire for revenge: your thoughts create your feelings so when you work on letting go of these negative feelings, the actions you wanted to take previously also change.

That’s it. Simple but our brains make forgiveness complicated.

Forgiveness is just as our earlier definition – a voluntary internals process of letting go of negative feelings. That’s all it is.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean anything else but our brains create thought stories that say otherwise.

All this other stuff is thoughts you are creating, stories you are creating.

Summing it up forgiveness is for YOU, no one else by you, As Louis B Smedes say “to forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

It’s all through your thoughts because your thoughts create your reality. They impact how you feel and in turn what actions you take or do not take that lead to a result.

When you are in a position to be either thinking about forgiving someone, wanting to forgive someone or not forgiving someone you are in a state of negative thoughts and feelings right? Because if you weren’t feeling negative, you wouldn’t need to forgive someone.

When it comes to other humans things are bound to be emotional as we are emotional beings. For example if you trip over a rock, you wouldn’t even be asking the rock for forgiveness would you? But let’s change the scenario what if someone you knew accidentally tripped you over?

Given that your thoughts are linked to your feelings, I want to state the obvious.
Forgiveness isn’t created through holding onto your negative feelings.

When you feel angry and resentful towards someone, they don’t experience it as you do. In fact all they do is experience the result of your behaviour because you feel angry and resentful. Maybe you are giving them the silent treatment, ignoring them or maybe you are shouting at them and being short with them. Remember: resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

Further on this, particularly on the feeling of resentment, it keeps you stuck in the past as you are constantly reliving the scenario, the thoughts and the feelings. Remember the past is a construct in your head, your mind and body doesn’t know. So when you keep reliving the thoughts and feelings, you are making your brain go through the experience over and over again. Right now in this moment, the past has no power over you unless you choose to let it. The events that happened in the past, are in the past. They are only present now, if you make it present.

It is important to have at the forefront of your mind the purpose of forgiveness. Ultimately forgiveness is for you. You not them. You. I mean, the person you are forgiving doesn’t even need to know you are forgiving them really, forgiveness is for YOU.

As established earlier the path to forgiveness starts with your thoughts.

Let’s go back to the definition of forgiveness, it is a voluntary process emphasis on that again voluntary process. Going back to episode 4 where I speak about mental fitness and taking your brain to the gym, think of forgiveness as an important muscle that is needed to keep your emotional self healthy and strong.

First question is to ask yourself why do you feel angry, why do you feel resentful. Remember everything in life is circumstances and its your thoughts the create reality. So whilst you can say they did this to me or didn’t do this… really it’s your thoughts about the situation which create your feelings and behaviour.

So what thoughts are you having about why you feel angry and resentful. In order to forgive someone, you have to change your thoughts. So figure out why you feel the way you do. The number one question I like to get my clients to ask themselves is “so what?”. That’s the magic question to delve deeper into your thoughts and feelings.

Your ex cheated on you. So what? Now you feel like you’re not good enough and perhaps you are not good looking enough for them. Your thoughts are creating a story about someone else’s actions even though you can’t mind read! Since you can’t mind read, you are creating a story that you are self perpetuating. You will never truly know why someone does something but you are creating meaning through your thoughts.

Your friend gaslit you. So what? You don’t know what’s real and what’s not. You are in a state of shock and you can’t believe it happened to me. How did you let this happen? As a result of your thoughts on their behaviour, you feel like you don’t trust yourself and you don’t feel confident about the decisions you are making. You question yourself a lot.

Your business partner took all of your money. So what? Now you feel unstable and insecure. You don’t have enough money to buy that car you want and you may be struggling to pay for rent and groceries. You feel anxious and worried about money. Again the story here is it’s because your thoughts are blaming that person for taking all your money and putting you into negative feelings through feeling stressed about money.

Your dad abandoned you when you were 8. So what? You feel unlovable and unworthy, you feel that it is your fault that he left. Now you are older and wiser, have you ever had the thought that the way your dad is has nothing to do with you. Maybe he left because of his own fears of being a terrible dad. Maybe he left because he had a horrible gambling addiction and didn’t want you in the mix.

It’s all about being aware of how your thoughts are creating your feelings about this person. Your thoughts are making you suffer and feel wronged. If you think different thoughts, you will have a different outcome.

Let’s take the cheating scenario as it is a common one and I have been cheated on through my own life experiences.

You can choose to have the thoughts oh this says something about me, I’m not loveable enough, I wasn’t a good partner, I am not good enough and blame your partner, they ruined your life and so forth. That makes you feel tired, angry, resentful, awful to be honest or you can choose to have the thoughts oh this says nothing about me and everything about them.

The relationship has unfolded the way it was meant to, nothing lasts forever, this chapter is closed and I’m ready to move forward and have a partner who values commitment and loyalty. You don’t feel angry anymore. You don’t feel resentful anymore. No more bitterness. Initially it will likely be working through sadness and betrayal but then feeling so hopeful and excited to move forward with your life.

It’s all in the thoughts.

It can also help to seperate the actions from the person who did what they did. For example good people do bad things – it’s not black and white. We have all made mistakes or done things we aren’t proud of but that doesn’t mean we are bad people overall. In fact there are more good people who make mistakes and do “bad things” vs bad people overall.

One thing to also keep in mind is hurt people, hurt people. There is often a reason as to why someone has done something.

The person that cheats on someone is because they feel lonely and insecure. It doesn’t make cheating right, but we can see why they did it and we are separating the action from the person.

The person that scams people out of money because they needed to feed their family and keep a roof over their head. Again, not right but we can see why they did it and have some empathy.

Empathy is a useful aid in forgiving someone. Can you put yourself in their shoes to understand why they did it?  Can you image the other as an innocent child needing love and support? How would you like to be treated if you made a mistake?

One important thing to remember is that forgiveness is truly about your feelings and not your actions. You aren’t really forgiving someone if you are taking actions to say that you are for example saying “it’s okay now, I forgive you” and then you are still harbouring feelings of anger and resentment deep down inside. Telling someone you forgive them not akin to being forgiving unless its truly about the feeling.

Sometimes we don’t forgive someone because you want to hold onto anger and resentment, thinking that you are punishing them. Like I said earlier, no you holding onto the feelings of anger and resentment is like taking poison and waiting for them to die. The only person you are hurting is yourself. You are giving this person or people too much power over your life.

Not only that you can forgive and move on. Forgiving doesn’t automatically mean your feelings shift from anger and resentment to forgiveness and then it’s like nothing happened and you continue to see the person or interact with them. It’s your life and its your boundaries and what you feel comfortable with.

The answer is yes because going back to the definition of forgiveness at the beginning of this episode it’s a voluntary process. You choose. You decide. There are instances of people forgiving those who have wronged them such as murdering a loved one or killing their family. It’s up to you.

Another common theme that comes up with my coaching clients is what about if the person I am trying to forgive is myself?

It’s the same process as outlined earlier with they key being:
1) You are not your actions
2) Empathy for yourself – you are human. We all make mistakes. We have all done things we aren’t proud of. It’s a part of being human.

Self forgiveness is hard as the mistakes you make often become attached to underlying beliefs you have. Your brain uses it as evidence for a self fulfilling prophecy. If your brain thinks your bad with money guess what? It’ll interpret every action you do with money as bad. 

You could invest $2,000 in coaching to transform your life, get unstuck and move forward with your life but since you think you’re bad with money, your brain will weave a story that you’re bad with money – it’s not an investment, you’re just frivolously spending when you’re not.

Also ask yourself what does hating yourself and punishing yourself do? Not much. It would be more productive to take actions to improve and learn from the experience right?

That’s why it’s great to work with someone to delve deep into these beliefs you may not be aware of – it’s something I do often with my clients. Most of the time my clients aren’t conscious of it but when I listen, I guide them to piece all their jigsaw pieces together so they become aware of it.

Diving into Bee’s question, who initially asked what about conundrums and quarrels when it comes to forgiveness. What I can tell you is that you learn a lot about yourself and others when you disagree on something. Are you being constructive, coming from a place of love and understanding or is it destructive? Resorting to actions like shouting and criticising someone?

I want everyone to remember, not every one thinks like you. We live lives from our prospective, we are the frame of reference in the same way everyone else does to them. Other people have their frame of reference. You are the way you are because of your values, your family, your beliefs, the way you were raised, your life experiences – no one person has the exact identical experiences therefore we all see the world differently. 

Whenever I get frustrated that people can’t see my point of view I remember that. For example I get frustrated when people don’t make the most out of life and they just stay in a rut and that’s because I experienced my dad passing away at a young age which made me realise life is fragile there is no guarantee. So I don’t like to waste my time, especially being stuck.

Before that YOLO (you only live once) was just a phrase to me and a concept I understood theoretically but until I truly experienced it through a life event – that’s when my perspective shifted. 

So when someone is stuck, I can help them and I can say and do all these things but ultimately its up to that person to decide to get unstuck and to get help. Very much like my clients, I can guide them, give them the tools but ultimately they are the ones who will get themselves unstuck.

When you quarrel or argue without someone, ask yourself, what is my true intention here. Are you trying to get a message across to help or are you trying to be right? Is your ego inflating itself being like “I have to be right, I have to have the last say?”.

I would also ask yourself is the quarrelling worth it? Quarrelling can be very draining and toxic to your energy and you can also lose a relationship over it. Is what you are fighting about worth it? Ask yourself what is worth more to you, inner peace or being right?

I love these quotes to further reinforce my point. Firstly by Amit Kalantri, “Ultimately all kinds of fights end at forgiveness.” Secondly by Byron Katie, ““Peace doesn’t require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.”

Speaking of Byron Katie, she is a is huge pioneer in the field of forgiveness.

In fact she says “Forgiveness is the discovery that what you thought happened, didn’t.”

This is a radical thought to drop in your mind.

In short what she is saying is that we create conditions for how life should be and unfold so when these conditions are broken by someone else we demand forgiveness.

Mind blowing but so true. Simple. There are no rules, there are no set ways to behave – we create this in our mind through our thoughts. Thoughts are truly so powerful.

What a way to end this episode, a true journey on all things forgiveness. Summing it up forgiveness starts in your thoughts, your mindset.

Are you are you struggling with forgiving in your life whether it’s with others or yourself? Want help learning step by step how to change your thoughts? Change your thoughts and change your life.

I have limited 1:1 coaching spots left. With 2021 on the horizon, get help and improve your life now. Not in 2021. Now! Links in the show notes on how to contact me and work together.

Thank you so much for listening beautiful soul. The next two episodes of the podcast I’ve decided will be about our feelings towards Christmas and coping with the holiday season and of course reviewing and reflecting about your year as we gear up for a brand new year, 2021!

Wishing you inner peace always. Chat to you next Tuesday. Love and Positivity.

[Episode 06 – Forgiveness: Ends]

Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

This episode is all about the river of misery. A deeply uncomfortable place between where you start and where you want to be. I talk about different scenarios where the river of misery happens such as in dating, relationships, ex partners, health, weight and fitness. I share practical tips on overcoming the river of misery too.

(01:32) Why I am talking about the river of misery

(02:00) How you feel in the river of misery

(02:26) What is the river of misery?

(02:51) The pond of misery (ain’t just a river of misery!)

(03:43) Example of river of misery (e.g. dating a commitment phobe, someone who won’t commit to you, an ex partner)

(06:59) A willing river of misery, my battle with my weight and fitness 
(09:47) My river of misery when I got myself got stuck (relationships related)
(12:40) Dealing with feelings of shame, embarrassment and disappointment
(13:23) Falling into old habits and ways of thinking

(13:42) The hardest part of being in the river of misery

(14:27) Truth bomb on the river of misery

(15:42) The brain and the river of misery

(17:39) Getting out of the river of misery

You are listening to episode 5: River of Misery.

[Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

[Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

[Episode 05 – River of Misery: Begins]

Hi beautiful soul, are you feeling stuck and frustrated right now? Perhaps overwhelmed by everything going on in your life. If not, can you think back to a time when you were?

Why am I asking you these questions? Well this podcast episode is all about the river of misery. Oh yes, the river of misery.

When I first started to think about this episode I didn’t know where to begin or if I had enough material. Turns out I have a lot of information, practical examples and juicy insights to share so this episode may be on the longer side to manage your expectations.

The reason I’m talking to you about the river of misery today is that it continually pops up in my life coaching, when I talk to my clients and loved ones. At one point or the other whether they come to me as they are in the river of misery or experience it on the journey to making their goals and dreams happen, the river of misery is something we can all relate to at some point in our lives and it is not enjoyable.

When I think of the river of misery, I feel as if there is a lot going on against me and I feel overwhelmed. It feels like a river full of rapids coming at full force towards me and I’m struggling to stay afloat. The whole time I just feel just so damn uncomfortable. I feel tired and I just want it to end.

It’s a horrible place to be because you feel so frustrated, trapped and annoyed.

The river of misery is place where you feel deeply uncomfortable and overwhelmed by everything that’s happening in your life.

How you end up in the river of misery may be by choice or not, but whether you continue to stay in the river of misery and end up stuck there… that’s a choice.

Let me run you by some scenarios of how this comes to be.

The pond of misery is well, safe. You know what to expect in the pond. Nothing drastic is happening, nothing is going to harm you. It’s not terribly uncomfortable like a river of misery but it’s unsatisfactory. Things could be better than being in the pond at all.

To get to where you want to be, now that’s a river of misery.

The river of misery involves being uncomfortable and doing hard things to get the result you want.

All these thoughts push against you going into this river for your safety, after all your brain has evolved to protect you. Your brain is always looking for danger.

“It is going be a lot of hard work”

“It is going to take a lot of investment. Time, energy, effort, money”

“What if I do all this stuff and it doesn’t work out, what if it is not worth it?”

“The pond is not that bad is it…? It’s not that bad… it’s not that bad you try to convince yourself.”

Let’s apply this example to a real life scenario such as getting stuck in and involved in an entanglement with someone you are seeing who won’t commit to being in a relationship with you or an ex partner even.

You’re not happy with the situation, this person you’re seeing is also dating other people and you’re probably fifth priority after their work, family, friends and other people they are dating.

I mean at least you get the occasional cuddle, probably the non strings attached intimacy (lets be real there are a lot of strings!!!), hey maybe they’ll even reply back to a text quickly once in a while.

It’s miserable to do a degree, but you’re some what used to it and familiar with it even though you are craving a fulfilling and committed relationship where you are a priority, when they make time for you, when you feel so loved and secure.

So in this pond of misery, no one is putting a gun to your head saying you have to keep seeing this person. Can you see the only person who got you in this pond of misery and is keeping you there is you?

So how do you get out of this pond of misery? Jumping into the river of misery to get to the other side: land.

The river of misery kicks it up a notch, you’re not dealing with a pond anymore, you’re dealing with a rapid river.

The river of misery for this scenario means letting go and cutting off the person you are dating. It means being alone for the time being. It means working on yourself and reflecting on how you got into this situation. Why you are in this situation. It means eventually having to start meeting people and going on dates again. It means opening up with new people as you date.

Your brain in this scenario starts panicking. This is hard! This is a lot of work! Let me go back to the pond! I wasn’t happy there but at least I was comfortable. I accepted it, I got used to it.

The river of misery won’t be comfortable or cruisy. I won’t lie to you, it’s called the river of misery for a reason. But what if you knew that going through the river of misery was worth it? That on the other side on the land, is a loving person who is ready to commit and have a beautiful relationship with you.

Are you willing to swim the river of misery and go through temporary discomfort and pain to get what you want? Like I mentioned in the previous episode number 4 on mental fitness and taking your brain to the gym, discomfort is the currency of your success just like working out at the gym to get fitter, leaner and stronger.

So back to the river of misery. It won’t last forever.

Eventually it gets easier as you get used to it. But in order to get to this place, you have to start in the deep end of the river of misery and swim towards land. You have to be willing to endure the river and to keep swimming until you get to the land. If you swim back to the pond, you’ll lose progress, battle the river and have to start again.

The brain likes security and comfort, that is how it’s hardwired. Can you reassure your brain that you are going through the river of misery for a purpose?

Can you put your purpose at the forefront of your mind? Can you feel and visualise how amazing it is going to be when you make your dreams come true?

I’ve been in this type of river of misery lately.

My pond was being unhappy with my body and fitness levels.

To be completely transparent with you since COVID-19 hit, I stopped going to the gym 4 times a week where I used to weight train and do cardio based classes and now I don’t do any any exercise at all except walking and swimming.

I started eating a lot more because I was either bored or wanted comfort during hard times. I gained weight, in fact I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life. And not it’s definitely muscle, it’s definitely fat I think.

Some of the clothes I own, I can no longer fit into or I have to really suck in my belly the whole time I’m wearing them – not fun and super uncomfortable.

Sure, a quick fix is to buy bigger clothing sizes but that doesn’t address the core issue.

Addressing the core issue is working on my mindset and getting fit – jumping into the river of misery by choice. The land is being happy, healthy and fit. So what does this river involve?

Waking up earlier to do some exercise before work. Making time to do grocery shopping on the weekend so I can prepare healthy meals instead of turning to instant food or processed food I can reheat. I’m embarrassed to admit this to you but I always have cans of chicken noodle soup at home for when I am too busy to cook! Let’s not forget the frugal favourite Mi Goreng too – 2 minute noodles. Can you tell I really like noodles? 

Anyway back to it.

That in itself is a river of misery, adapting to changing tastes (because I wish salads tasted as good as instant noodles or frozen pizza for lunch especially on a really busy day when it’s so comforting). 

There is a river of misery working on my mindset, why I can’t be happy now at my body is and why it has to be when certain criteria is met. 

This whole situation is a river of misery but its worth it knowing my end result, happy, healthy and fit!

Now there’s also another river of misery which is when you are just stuck because you are so miserable with how you are, your thoughts and the world around you.

I’ve seen this with my clients who are stuck in their past and finding it hard to get over someone because they thought they were the one. I’ve seen this in clients who think that they can’t be positive because they just have so many negative thoughts all the time and they think they are powerless to change it. I’ve seen this with my clients who continually compare themselves to other people and end up feeling insecure and jealous all the time.

I remember being in this type of river of misery because well I got myself there and I was keeping myself stuck (even though it took me a while to consciously and truly realise what I was doing!).

At one point in my life when I was single, I was so frustrated and sick of dating because nothing seemed to be working out for me. At the time I felt I just kept dating people who weren’t looking for a relationship time and time again. This really sucked for me. It was made harder by the fact I had been single for long stretches of time, years!

To get to the other side where I was happy dating and enjoying dating I needed to do the hard work to figure out why this was happening to me. After all the common denominator in all the scenarios was well… me!

It was easy to just blame anything and everything outside of me, to be honest.

“Oh there’s no good people to do date out there, they are all taken”

“Everyone is a commitment phobe these days, everyone always thinks that the grass is greener on the other side”

“It’s so hard to find a relationship these days”

“Are there any decent and respectful people out there dating anymore?”

Do you know what was hard, really hard?

Realising it wasn’t any of these things at all.

That in fact, it was in fact my thoughts.

That was a bitter pill to swallow but do you know what was even harder than this realisation?

Jumping into the river of misery.

Doing the work to get to a place where I was in a good mindset, enjoying dating and seeing it as a fun journey.

Doing the work meant confronting myself. Being honest with myself. Not pretending or saying the right things. Pure honesty.

What was I really looking for?

Why did I want a relationship?

Was I looking for love outside myself before being getting to be in love with who I was and who I am?

Did I know my worth? Did I actually think I was worthy of happy, loving and healthy relationship?

Why was I dating people who weren’t looking for a relationship?

Why was I choosing these people?

I had to start moving and swimming in the river of misery instead of just staying put in the same spot of the river of misery.

I had to be intentional with dating. I had to consciously vet out people who weren’t in alignment with what I wanted and who I wanted to be with no matter what. I had to stop settling for less then I deserved. I had to stop making excuses for people. I had to put myself out there and be vulnerable. I had to make an effort to go on dates again and get to know someone. I had to open up to people. I had to walk the walk and talk the talk.

At first moving in the river of misery was hard. I had admit things to myself that I didn’t want to because I was ashamed of myself, I was embarrassed about my situation, I felt disappointed in myself for making mistakes and being in this situation longer than I wanted to.

And it’s okay to feel this way, we are only human after all. Always be kind to yourself. Always do things out of love to yourself. Even though I wasn’t in my ideal situation I was and am still loveable and so are you whatever scenario you are in. Lead with love not hate.

I had to swim through those hard emotions. At times moving in the river meant I would go backwards and fall into old habits and ways of thinking. But that’s okay, you catch yourself or make a mistake and keep moving forward. Sometimes you drift backwards a bit and then make up for it and move even more towards the land.

One thing is for sure the hardest part is just getting started, once I got started doing the work it got easier. An analogy of this is that it’s hard to go on your first date after you haven’t been on one in a long time. Once you’ve got on that first date, going on more dates doesn’t seem as hard as that first date.

Another example is that it’s hard to get motivation to start going to the gym once you’ve had a long time off but it’s easier to add weights to your fitness routine or run a longer distance once you are already exercising.

Back to the river of misery in this scenario, I’m going to drop a truth bomb.

Do we stay stuck in the river of misery well because we enjoy being in misery?

Hear me out. If you have been miserable for a while, misery starts to get comfortable. After all you are used to being miserable to the point where it becomes a part of your identity. 



Poor me, I’m miserable. I’m miserable all the time. Misery is who I am.



When you’re in misery it gives your brain a reason as to why you are in misery. You can them blame all of the circumstances for causing your misery. Have you ever considered if you are a source of your misery? Have you ever tried to turn the focus from everything happening to you and turn it inward? What is happening inside you to keep the misery going on?

Can I offer you a radical thought? What if you chose to step away from the identity of being miserable. You radically actually chose to not be miserable. You choose to stop making excuses and blaming external factors and turn inwards. Take responsibility for your happiness, you aren’t stuck. Get out of the river of misery by swimming!

Getting out of the river will feel uncomfortable but it will be worth it.

Remember, the brain likes to be efficient. It likes routines. It likes easy. So when you break routine, when you challenge ways of thinking your brain doesn’t like it. Your brain will probably say to you “Hey you know what, you don’t have to be uncomfortable if you just stay stuck. Stop wanting more or different. Let’s continue with this current way of thinking, after all you have thought like this for ages and let’s stay comfortable doing nothing different.”

Moreover your brain has confirmation bias, it wants to prove itself right. So if you keep on believing your thoughts keeping you stuck, your brain will continue to find evidence of your limiting beliefs and as a result you stay stuck.

Let’s add in the fact as mentioned earlier that your brain is trying to protect you from danger too and guess what? Doing new things, having new thoughts, new actions is perceived as dangerous to your primitive mind. The cave man mind. The cave man mind was always on alert, there was always threats around without modern technology and evolution!

You have to understand that if you want change, it means doing something different. Whatever you are doing right now is keeping you in the river of misery.

There is no circumstance which means you can’t get out of the river of misery, as I always tell me clients – you can always do something. If you can’t change whatever is happening, you CAN change your mind.

It means changing your thoughts intentionally. It means taking action. It means hard work. It means getting out of your comfort zone. Trust in yourself, you can do hard things. Do this for future you. Do it for you!

If you’re in a river of misery, you can get out of there. I promise you, you can.

Do the hard work and you get get out of there.

If you’re struggling let’s chat, I’d love to connect with you this is what coaches do. A life coach helps you cross the river. A life coach shows you how you are stuck in a pond of misery. A life coach helps you master your thoughts to get across the river easier. A life coach will throw in the emergency buoy and help you.

I am a life coach and I can help you. I have helped many people from the river of misery to land. Now? They thrive and conquer anything including rivers of misery.

Whatever you do, just keep swimming! You’ve got this.

I’ll see you in the river of misery and I’ll see you on the land!

Chat to you next Tuesday for the next episode of The Grow Through it Podcast with Phi Dang.

Thanks for listening, speak soon.

Love and Positivity.

[Episode 05 – River of Misery: Ends]

Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

You go the gym to work on your body and get fit. Why wouldn’t you take your brain to the gym? This episode is all about your mental health and fitness. Learn how to work out your brain. A powerful exploration of your mindset.

(01:32): How coaching is like going to to the gym for your brain
(02:56): Discomfort is the currency of your success
(06:14): Why we focus on physical health and not mental health
(06:52): How to workout your brain
(07:57): Highlight – Neuroplasticity 

You are listening to episode 4: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym.

[Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

[Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

[Episode 04: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym: Begins]

Hello beautiful souls you’re listening to Episode #4 of the Growth Through It Podcast. This episode is all about mental fitness and how you can take your brain to the gym. I will share with you a practical 4 step mental fitness workout you can implement in your daily life.

Before I do, I wanted to give a huge shout out to one of my beautiful clients Fiona who inspired today’s episode.

Fiona is a huge gym goer. We had a big breakthrough session on Wednesday night and an analogy I had, really hit home for her which I would love to share with you.

Getting life coaching is the equivalent of taking your brain to the gym.

It’s not the only way but it’s one of the greatest ways you can take your brain to the gym. I’ll dive into this a little later into the podcast but this episode is all about.

It is in the same way that a professional athlete has a coach to improve their performance. It doesn’t matter how good they get, they will always have a coach.

So apply that to your own circumstances, do you have a coach for your life? Athletes need the experience, support, outside perspective and insight of their coach. This is just as true for everyone. Life is hard, it’s not a walk in the park.

In fact some of the most well known, successful personalities in this world vouch for coaching.

There is such power in getting life coaching. You have someone there holding space for you where you can talk about anything and everything in your life (with no need to feel bad, that’s the purpose). As a life coach I work with my clients to discover what is holding them back and support them in taking action over overcome their perceived limits so they can conquer anything.

Bringing it back to the analogy that getting life coaching is the equivalent of taking your brain to the gym, In the same vein of the analogy, discomfort is a part of your growth and success. Really discomfort is the currency of success.

You know when you have a big session at the gym, you feel absolutely sore and exhausted but in a good way? That’s when you know you’ve had a good proper workout. Then DOMS kicks in and your arms and legs are sore for days after, maybe you’re even wobbling and it hurts to laugh because you’re that sore but you tolerate it because the pain means that your body is changing.

Well the equivalent of this is feeling uncomfortable and emotional during and after a life coaching session. You won’t always be emotional but you’ll most certainly be uncomfortable. It’s through discomfort we grow. Discomfort is the price we pay to grow, as they said ‘no pain, no gain.’ Will it always be this way? No. But reflect on your own life, is not when you go through the hardest, the heaviest, the most painful of times that the most growth occurs? Getting out of your comfort zone is where the most growth occurs.

Moving further into this analogy, I find when I speak to clients and they start crying or feeling down they start to apologise. and I’m like what for!?! You’re having a huge brain workout. Just like the gym, yes it’s uncomfortable, yes you might be in pain but you’re growing! 

Can you tolerate being uncomfortable and emotional because you are are transforming? Because you are shedding old ways of thinking and patterns? Because you are having new thoughts and creating new neural pathways in your brain? Not only that discomfort, is a part of being human – the full spectrum of it.

As humans, we are generally willing to feel discomfort because of something. For a purpose. We don’t like going through difficult emotions unless it’s for a purpose, otherwise you’ll see it as just meaningless discomfort for you. 

Always remember your why, your purpose. Just like gym, keeping your “why” front and center and always available to you, will help you find your strength on those dark days when motivation’s light is nowhere to be found. Take note of this affirmation: I can do hard things (it’s true because you can).

I mean this doesn’t even just apply to coaching, it applies to your personal development. When you are working on your mindset. When you are working on your self love. When you are working on energetic principles. When you are hitting your goals, your purpose. 

You have to be willing to feel the discomfort of growth and risk in order to achieve what you want. The more uncomfortable you are willing to be, the closer your life will align to what you want it to be. There’s a whole lot of amazing waiting for you outside of your comfort zone.

Speaking of fitness, we have such a huge emphasis on getting fit – especially in Australia we have a huge health and fitness scene here. In fact Australians spend an average of almost $1,000 – $900 on average per year at the gym according to Canstar Blue. Why is that we are prepared to spend that much at the gym but bulk at the thought of investing in ourselves mentally whether that’s through life coaching or therapy?

Why is it that we focus on the physical but forget about the mental? My belief is that when you work out because you can physically see it, that motivates you to keep going. Developing yourself mentally, you can’t physically see it so it can be harder to keep being inspired and motivated but I want you to know, just because you can’t see it – doesn’t mean it’s not happening. You are growing every time you work on yourself so keep going!

It’s important to be physically fit but equally it is so important to be mentally fit too. So I want to dive in and share some practical ways that you can boost your mental fitness. So let’s dive into this 4 stage mental fitness work out example.

So at the gym you would do stretches or a few exercises to kickstart your workout like push ups? You can also do the same to take a few minutes to get your mind warmed up.

It could be taking a minute to think about what you are grateful for (which has tremendous positive benefits on your wellbeing) or taking a minute to be mindful, to be fully present in the moment. 

Taking in a deep breath, observing what is going on around you. What can you see? What can you hear? What can you feel?

Did you know your brain has neuroplasticity? Dr Celeste Campbell refers to neuroplasticity as the physiological changes in the brain that happen as the result of our interactions with our environment. From the time the brain begins to develop in utero until the day we die, the connections among the cells in our brains reorganize in response to our changing needs. This dynamic process allows us to learn from and adapt to different experiences.

How incredible is that? From the moment we are born to the moment we die, this plasticity allows your mind to adapt and change, even as you grow older. As you learn new things, you can create and strengthen neural pathways and networks. 

This helps make your brain stronger, but it can also help make it more flexible and adaptable to change. Remember this when you think you can’t change your thoughts, you most definitely can, even as you get older.

Let’s dive into ways you can exercise your mind.

My personal favourite and recommendation for clients is journaling. No excuses it can be simply done on a piece of paper or any writing book you deem your journal. Journaling is a great way to check in with yourself and to get to know yourself better.

It helps you focus on yourself and actually reduce your stress as you get everything our of your head and onto paper. When you start it could be as simple as reflecting on what you did, how you felt and what thoughts came up for you each day.

With clients I love to prepare personalised prompts based on what they are working through. If you aren’t working with a coach you can journal to work through something that you’re going through. Perhaps its what scares you and holds you back or is there a relationship in your life you’d like to work on?

In addition to journaling I’m going to run you through additional ways to exercise your mind.

The obvious one that comes to mind is to learn something new.

Learning something new keeps your mind on its toe because it’s going through obstacles and challenges it hasn’t experienced before.

In one study done on older adults in 2013, researchers had a group learn a variety of new skills such as digital photography and quilting. They then did memory tests and compared this group to another group engaged in fun non social activities but weren’t mentally challenging like listening to the radio.

The researchers found that only those in the experiment who had learned a new skill experienced improvement on the memory tests.

They also discovered that these memory improvements were still present when tested again a year later.

Not only that research shows any kind of a new skill can create more dopamine neurotransmitters to be released in parts of the brain that control our reward and learning responses. A natural high ensues as nature intended. You just have to find something unique that stimulates your mind in new and exciting ways.

Use your non dominant hand to switch it up. So for example if you are right handed, try using your left hand to brush your teeth, or use it to eat your meals or write. It will be difficult but that is the point.

The reason that is, is because most of us live lour life as a series of fixed routines which makes sense as its less stressful – we have less choices to make, we perform complex tasks like driving a car with little mental effort. 

Routines are run by our subconscious mind and require little energy. Once in a while you want to shake that up just like you do with exercise. If you keep doing the same exercises over and over again eventually they become less effective as your body has adapted.

In addition to switching your hand to break your routine you can do it as simply as taking a different route to get to work or can you try do mundane safe household chores with your eyes closed. Closing your eyes adds difficulty to folding your clothes or washing your hair. Maybe it’s doing something upside down or backwards instead for a change!

With clients I love to prepare personalised prompts based on what they are working through. If you aren’t working with a coach you can journal to work through something that you’re going through. Perhaps its what scares you and holds you back or is there a relationship in your life you’d like to work on?

The next few ideas are to do with food because well I love food!

Do some cooking! Particularly new recipes you haven’t done before. Cooking uses all your senses — smell, touch, sight, sound and taste — which involve different parts of the brain to keep them active. 

When you throw in eating unfamiliar foods that truly drives your mind into overdrive exercising to figure out what it thinks of it and gives you a new experience in life. New experiences in life can be hard to come by as we get older as we get more accustomed to wanting comfort in life. 

Remember when you were a kid? Your mind used to get so blown by the simplest things. Try looking at the world from the eyes of a child – have curiosity, wonder and awe of what is going on around you.

Think of activities that engage your physical and emotional senses like “Neurobic” exercises that are like cross-training for your brain.

Challenge your taste buds. When eating, try to identify individual ingredients in your meal, including subtle herbs and spices. Sounds very Masterchefy right?

Lastly one of the most simple in theory to do but hardest in practice. Meditation.

Simply put meditation is being in the present moment. The majority of us like to close our eyes, focus on our breathing and let the mind do its thing. To let thoughts pass like clouds, they’re going to come and go and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

When you catch yourself thinking about something return your focus to your breath.

That’s it!

There’s all sorts of ways to meditate from staring at a candle to listening to a guided medtiation. There are so many apps out there that can help you. Some of personal favourite apps are insight timer, calm and one giant mind.

Research continually comes out in regards to the benefits of meditation and how it actually changes your brain.

One of the most interesting studies in the last few years was done at Yale University. Researchers found that mindfulness meditation decreases activity in the default mode network (DMN). 

This network in your brain is responsible for monkey mind which is when your mind is wandering. This network is on when you’re not thinking about anything in particular, when your mind is bouncing from thought to thought.

Monkey mind is typically associated with being less happy as you are ruminating or worrying about about the past and future.

Studies showed that meditation had quieting effecting on the DMN.

It’s impossible to completely eradicate monkey mind but if you’re a regular meditator you’ll find it’s easier to snap out of it.

Cooling down after a workout is important as it allows your body temperature, bloody pressure and heart rate to return to their normal levels. Stretching helps relieve cramps and stiffness. When we are working on our mindset, it can get heavy depending how deeply we delve into our personal development.

So our equivalent for cooling down mentally is to change your state. To bring yourself out of the mental zone and relieve any mental intensity.

To do this, for example if you’re currently sitting down, stand up and I want you to physically shake as if you are dancing. Or it can be as simple as changing your posture or smiling. Perhaps you even want to change your environment and go to a different room – as long as you change your current state!

Just like athletes, your mind also needs a rest. Self care is so important. Resting could be in the form of naps or taking things off your plate when you are overloaded with things to do. The best rest is of course sleep at least 7 hours for adults — if you ever want to know why do yourself a favour and read “Why do we Sleep” by Matthew Walker.

So our equivalent for cooling down mentally is to change your state. To bring yourself out of the mental zone and relieve any mental intensity.

To do this, for example if you’re currently sitting down, stand up and I want you to physically shake as if you are dancing. Or it can be as simple as changing your posture or smiling. Perhaps you even want to change your environment and go to a different room – as long as you change your current state!

Having your own mental fitness routine takes time to establish. Like exercises, be open to trying new ways and finding what works best for you. 

Thank you for joining me on this episode on mental fitness and taking your brain to the gym. 

I’ll chat to you next Tuesday and if you’re looking for a coach and to take your brain to the gym check out the show notes. I currently have 1:1 coaching spots open and available – I would love to work with you.

[Episode 04: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym: Ends]

Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

You go the gym to work on your body and get fit. Why wouldn’t you take your brain to the gym? This episode is all about your mental health and fitness. Learn how to work out your brain. A powerful exploration of your mindset. Understand that discomfort is the currency of your success.

⇢ Show notes and transcript - http://phidang.com/04-mental-fitness-take-your-brain-to-the-gym

⇢ Phi’s Instagram - http://instagram.com/thephidang

⇢ Work with Phi (1:1 Coaching) - http://phidang.com/work-with-phi-dang

⇢ Phi’s Website - http://phidang.com

In this episode I explain the 12 universal laws of the Universe. I cover how they impact your life and how you can use them in your daily life through practical examples. It goes beyond the Law of Attraction and covers ones you may have never heard of such as the Law of Correspondence and the Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy.

(01:40) – What are the Universal Laws?
(03:15) – The Universal Laws

[Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

[Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

[Episode 03 – Beyond the Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws: Begins]

Hi Beautiful Souls, it’s great to connect with you again! I’m sure most of you listening have heard of the Law of Attraction? Distilled simply the law of attraction is that like attracts like. It is often brought up in relation to your thoughts. Positive thoughts attract positive outcomes, negative thoughts attract negative outcomes. 

Whilst the Law of Attraction is well known due to its popularity in the media through books and documentaries such as The Secret, in this episode we go beyond the Law of Attraction and cover all 12 Laws of the Universe. Yes there are 12 laws of the universe! The Law of attraction co exists and works with these 11 other Laws.

So what are the universal laws? You can think of them as the law of nature, how life is ‘set up’ in a way. They are a roadmap on how to live your best life. The laws work in our favour, we work with them – they are not here as punishments and they are not here to stop us from living our best life. We co create with them. You co create with the universe your reality. Note it can be said the universe is interchangeable with terms such as the source, creation, God, divinity and so forth.

This is a quote from the ancient text The Kybalion, where the origins of the 12 universal laws stem from amongst other ancient teachings across time.

For the most part of the laws, the basic principle revolves around energy because everything in the universe is energy.

To many it sounds like ‘woo’ – vibrations, frequency however I promise you I will explain everything in clear and practical terms so you can truly understand the 12 universal laws.

As you gain a fuller understanding of the laws, you will see how they are all related, they overlap each other and govern the world we live in.

Another perspective you can have on the universal laws is that we can call it the game of life or we can call it the Matrix! Just like the movie. You can think of it as that we are living in the Matrix! And just like the Matrix, there are rules in how you play the game. Your purpose in this game is to be your best self, to grow and evolve.

So let’s dive into the 12 Universal Laws.

The first and most foundational law of the universe is the Law of Divine Oneness, which highlights how everything is interconnected. For us humans it goes beyond perception of physicality (what we can see and touch), into our senses and extends to every thought, action, belief you have too. Think of it as a ripple effect.

This is further extended in the notion we all come from one source origin which I alluded to earlier at the beginning of the podcast by saying ‘The Universe’ is an interchangeable term, it is also known as ‘the source’, divinity, consciousness, God etc.

As a result, the law of divine oneness can be distilled as “what you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself”

When you hurt someone, you are hurting yourself.

You know how when you go to a yoga class they always say namaste? Namaste encapsulates this concept.

Originally a Sanskrit word (the ancient language in Hinduism) namaste is composed of two parts—“namas” which means “bend to,” “bow to” or “honour to,” and “te” means “to you.” So Namaste means “I bow to you.” This phrase when said is often accompanied by the gesture of joining two palms together, placing them at the heart level and bowing one’s head while saying namaste.

The spiritual meaning of namaste conveys that “the divine in me respectfully recognizes the divine in you.” Namaste invokes the feeling of spiritual oneness of heart and mind, with the person one is greeting.

So in practical terms how does the law of Divine Oneness apply to your daily life?

It really speaks to the power of working together in cooperation with others and to be of help and services to others. I have an analogy to showcase this for you.

When you have a single brick, what can you do with it? Not much right, perhaps as a door stop or a very heavy paper weight.

However if you have over a million bricks, you have so many possibilities. These bricks can be used to build a house, a hospital, a school, a business, a fireplace, driveways, a chimney and so forth. In order for this to happen all the bricks work together to create something incredible, something a single brick could never do. 

Each individual brick is useful and important in itself but it becomes even more important and useful together with all the other bricks. Individual bricks become the support for another brick.

So in your life, are you working alone and for your own interest? Can you help others to become greater than you are alone? Are you truly unlocking your full potential alone? Imagine you could share your skills and knowledge with others, what incredible things would happen, not only for yourself but everyone around you and connected with you?

Vibrations used to be one of those things that was relegated to new age thinking, hippies, ‘woo’ along with healing crystals and so forth.

Today, quantum physics, science backs the fact that vibrations exist. In fact they exist everywhere and in everything, in the chair you may be sitting on, on the ground you are running on, in your forks and plates.

Everything in the universe is energy and in turn everything has a vibration.

Even Einstein himself said this:

What Einstein says has heavy weight, after all he is the physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics.

How this applies to you in your daily life is realizing every thought, feeling, emotion has a vibrational frequency.

Have you heard of these sayings? They embody the Law of Vibration.

Speaking of frequency a real life example of this is your emotions. Emotions are energy in motion. Each emotion has a different frequency for example love is a high frequency whereas shame is a low frequency.

How do you raise your vibrational frequency? 

There are various ways to do this in your life including being conscious of your thoughts, meditating, practicing kindness and gratitude, swim in the ocean, do not saying yes to something unless you really want to, dance, decluttering, earthing (when you walk barefoot on the grass, check out my blog on my website phidang.com where I discuss this in an article 7 Unexpected Life-Changing Things I learnt on a Silent Retreat in Bali. I’ll drop the link in the show notes.

This law of correspondence is all about patterns that repeat throughout the universe, and on a personal level, our reality is a mirror of what’s happening inside us at that moment.

Therefore everything is a reflection of your internal state. If you want to change what is happening in your external reality, you have to change inside first. That’s why people love to say ‘change from the inside out’ or think of it in these terms “As above, so below. As within, so without.”

So if your current external reality is sad, chaotic or unfulfilling it is a direct result of what is happening inside you according to the law of correspondence. If you have low self-esteem, feel badly about yourself or feel hate, anger and loathing all the time then your outer world will be a place of chaos, just to show you what you are projecting.

Now if you’re currently feeling under attacked or offended, it’s okay. Let me explain this through the concept of law and effect which is regularly used in coaching in the field of neuro linguistic programming (NLP) which is a tool I used with my clients. 

NLP uses perceptual, behavioral, and communication techniques to make it easier for people to change their thoughts and actions.

The concept of cause and effect is this. We ask are you on the cause side of the equation or the effect side. If you are on the cause side you know that everything is happening in your life because of a conscious or subconscious decision you have made. It is a view of personal power whereas if you are on the effect side, life is happening to you and you are the victim, you have no control.

Now what that means in your everyday life is that if you are on the cause side and responsible for your life guess what? You have power you can change your life whereas if you are on the effect side because it is external things causing everything you have no control or ability to change your life.

See the difference? If you’re interested in learning more about cause and effect I have it on my free ‘mini trainings’ highlight on my Instagram @thephidang (i’ll drop my handle in the show notes if we haven’t already connected).

Therefore the law of correspondence puts you in the drivers seat of your life, you are not a victim of your life.

Remember: Life is happening for you, not to you. How can you grow through your experiences? What do they teach you?

One of my favourite quotes is from Wayne Dyer is:

One of the most known and talked about laws of the universe as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.

Simply distilled the law of attraction explains why certain things, people, events happen in our lives.

Like attracts like. 

There is a common misconception that this is a scary bad thing where you are punished for your bad thoughts – think of it more as a mirror.

Let’s bring this example into real life.

I want you to stand in front of mirror and I want you to think about what you see, what you think and what you feel when you see yourself in the mirror.

Whatever it is, the very nature of a mirror is that it reflects back to us what we see just like the law of attraction. Think of the mirror as an amplifier of the energy that you are already embodying.

When you look back at your reflection, you are taking in more of the same energy, whether this be positive or negative or whatever it may be. If you see flaws, you’ll continue to focus and fixate them which makes it worse OR you can choose to use that focus and energy into improving yourself as an as an example.

How the law of attraction plays out in your real life is to be aware and conscious of the thoughts you are having. Your thoughts have an energy and are a self fulfilling prophecy. Further to that, the law of attraction is the main tenet in manifestation.

Manifestation is bringing something tangible into your life through attraction and belief, i.e. if you think it, it will come. However, there is more to manifestation than willpower and positive thinking, it involves focus and inspired action too.

If you want to learn more about manifestation, I have a free guide available worth $77 called the A-Z of manifestation. It’s yours free, just jump onto my website phidang.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter. 

When you sign up you’ll immediately receive a download link for the guide. It teaches you basic concepts of manifestation and what you need to know to get started or further advance your current ways. I find i always get spammed with irrelevant and annoying newsletters so I promise i won’t do the same to you – it will be exclusive offers as well as tips and tricks on mindset, self love, energy and purpose not available in this podcast, my website or my instagram.

The Law of Attraction was all about aligning your energy – your vibration, your frequency created from your thoughts. This is the first step in creating all that you desire, manifesting.

The second step is the law of inspired action – to take action. Nothing changes, if nothing changes. You can’t sit back want, wish and hope that what you want will come to you. You have to take inspired action for it to happen.

That old saying ‘Actions speak louder than words’ has never been truer. Are your actions supporting your desires? Are your actions supporting your dreams and supporting the life you are working so tirelessly to create for yourself? Reflect and assess.

For example if you are single and wanting a relationship, to find a partner – are you going out and meeting people. Are you going on dates? That you’re not just at home watching Netflix and eating ice cream hoping that your perfect partner will waltz through the door?

The subtle secret here is ‘inspired’ – it can’t feel forced like a ‘hustle’ when you are taking inspired action it feels good (it might not be easy) but it feels good e.g. in most cases you are driven by your purpose, your why

Where most of us fall down or mistakes on this one is not taking any action at all. Action is better than no action. When you take action you get a result it either works out the way you want or you learn. A win, a win in my eyes.

Most of us know what we want and can figure out how to get what we want but we fail to take action because we are either skeptical, feel unworthy, and not capable of achieving our dreams. At times we may even not take action because we don’t want to get out of our comfort zone. 

Remember you don’t really grow from the comfort zone. For example you could just lie in bed all day, relax, watch TV everyday or you can choose to get up, go to the gym, work on yourself etc. It’s much easier to stay in bed but nothing really comes of that.

Remember even a small action still counts as action. It doesn’t have to be a grand action. In fact it’s better to have consistent inspired action towards your goals and dreams as opposed to big action once in every while. Consistency moves you closer to the needle. 

This law is a mouthful but such a great one as it truly affirms how much personal power you have.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, all the universal laws relate to each other and overlap in ways. The law of perpetual transmutation of energy ties in threads from the previous universal laws we spoke about – the law of vibration, the law of correspondence, the law of attraction.

Particularly, the law of vibration: Nothing is static and everything is always transforming because everything is in constant motion and energy. You are energy therefore you have the power to change any condition in your life.

Therefore you can transmutate everything – negative to positive energy, nothing to something… hence The law of perpetual transmutation of energy.

Change is the only constant in life.

Applying this to your life, producing a higher vibration consumes and transforms lower ones. Positive energy is more powerful than negative energy.  So you don’t have to worry about other people’s energy, stay focused and in your energy.

Further to this an example is the transformation of energetic thoughts into physical reality.

1. Your reality are circumstances, they are neutral

2. Your thoughts create create emotion which you feel in your head and throughout your body.

3. How you feel dictates what action or inaction you take which then leads to a result.

Another example is the transmutation of your emotions.

For example, anxious energy can be turned into excitement. Anger can become passion, sexual energy can become creativity.

Note the law of cause and effect is different to cause and effect which I mentioned earlier when explaining the law of correspondence. This is the universal law of cause and effect, not the NLP concept although they do interplay and have the same foundations.

You can think of the law of cause and effect as the principle of karma – what you put out, you will get back.

How this comes to life – ask yourself about the intention of your actions.

Are you truly doing something out of love? Are you truly doing something for nothing in return because you want to give? Are you truly being genuine?

If you are motivated by hate and greed, you plant the seed of suffering; when you are motivated by love and generosity then you create abundance and happiness.

I want to take this analogy further into reality to clearly explain it to you.

If you plant an apple seed, that seed will become a tree that has apples. Even if you really want coconuts, nothing you can do will make the apple tree grow coconuts. The only way to grow coconuts is to plant a coconut seed.

Simply said, ”You reap what you sow.”

Trust that you will be compensated for what you do as long as you are open to receiving in the many ways the universe can deliver.

E.g. when I work with clients and they would like to manifest money – whilst it can happen more often than not it won’t just be a huge lump sum in your bank account. Perhaps it will come in the form of a discount off something you buy, perhaps it will come in a reimbursement or bonus you were not expecting.

Whilst money comes to mind, this does not just apply to money.

Spread more love, and more love will be returned to you.

Spread more happiness, and happiness will be returned to you.

Spread more hate, and more hate will be returned to you.

Spread more wealth, and more wealth will be returned to you.

Be encouraged that with every act, thought, and emotion, you are perpetuating the law of compensation.

Simply distilled, everything is a matter of perception.

Inherently a fundamental principle to understanding this and a core aspect of my coaching is there is nothing ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Everything is circumstances and neutral. As humans we create the meaning and labelling of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ This is extended into something that is deemed ‘small’ vs ‘big’ and so forth.

For example, if you are feeling ungrateful for your living situation, it could be because you are comparing to someone else’s life. Maybe you don’t like where you live, or your relationship isn’t as great as someone else’s, maybe someone else has so much more money than you and so forth.

Instead, we’d be better off appreciating what we have without needing to compare it to something else and just remember in your everyday life, you are creating the meaning of everything. You choose whether it’s positive or negative.

Everything in life has an opposite. There is duality in everything.

Light and Dark.
Hot and Cold.
Happy and Sad.
The North and the South Pole
On a battery positive and negative terminals.
Feminine and Masculine.

Newton’s Third Law of motion sums it up nicely, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It means that energetic forces come in pairs.

How this plays out in everyday life is well

1) The polarities give us perspective and help us appreciate what we have. E.g. you can’t have happiness without sadness, if you were happy all the time, you wouldn’t know how special it is to be happy all the time or if you had Summer all year round you would take it for granted and miss Winter.

2) You can use the law of polarity to draw other energies to you – like a magnet.

A practical example for you.

If you’re stuck in the negative state of mind, ask yourself: “What am I learning from this negative situation and what might be the positives out of this situation I can take?”

For example: A difficult situation and thoughts to move away from might be:

“I made a mistake and I don’t think I can bounce back from this.

The positive polarity would be:

“I made a mistake and that is how I learn. Next time this happens, I will know what to do”

From that positive polarity you are more likely to feel inner peace and acceptance which in turn compels you to continue taking action to improve instead of staying in the negative polarity.

In the negative polarity you feel sad and disappointed in yourself, so the action you take is you keep beating yourself up about it and take no action at all. This ties in closely with the law of inspired action which I spoke about earlier. 

The law of rhythm is how nothing every stays the same, the universe is continually flowing. Think of it like a pendulum that swings from left to right always continually, perpetually.

Rhythm, Cycles are a natural part of the universe. Look at the ocean tides, weather seasons, moon phases, mating and migration patterns of animals. For women, specifically you can think about your time of the month and menstrual cycle.

As a whole think of it like a year in your life. It won’t be 365 days of summer and it won’t be 365 days of winter. Summer is when we are active, we are doing things whereas Winter gives us a chance to have a break, to rest, to recuperate.

The practicality of this to your life is practice patience, go with the flow of your internal seasons.

We see this unfold as masculine and feminine energies. The masculine as ‘yang’ and the feminine as ‘ying’. Often people think of gender as opposing forces but truly they are complementary. We all hold masculine and feminine energies.

Masculine energy is all about taking action, fixing things, direction, purpose, logic, independence and freedom.

Feminine is the counter balance, it’s all about flow, creativity, inspiration, feeling, intuition and connection.

Distilled down life is a dance of patience (feminine energy) and persistence (masculine energy).

Where I regularly see the law of gender play out with clients in their everyday life is in relationships.

Humans need polarity for attraction. Think of it like a magnet. Intimate connection and sexual attraction will thrive in a relationship where there is a distinct polarity between the energies of the people involved.

The more opposed the individual energies are, the stronger the attraction will be in the relationship.

Most conflicts arise when both partners demonstrate dominant masculine energies in a relationship…This creates a constant power struggle between the two partners.

Both want to be in charge, both want to be the decision-makers, and both want to have things their way!

I see this in women who are very career oriented and successful. The masculine energy helps them succeed through hustling and control in their work but when it comes to their personal life, masculine energy men can find them controlling or competitive whereas feminine energy men let them do their own thing as they are comfortable with their partner leading, being the bread winner concept etc.

The most stagnant relationship comes from two feminine dominant energies partners where neither takes charge or makes decisions. It is when relationships gets stale – it feels boring, it feels lifeless it feels like it’s lacking fun, adventure and excitement. 

Remember there are masculine energy women and feminine energy men.

There are lot of universal laws to be mindful of. Understanding the universal laws that govern life can give us clarity and perspective on our lives. How you can conceptualise it and integrate it into your life is unique. Everyone is different. 

Thank you for listening to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang. I hope you’ve learnt something new and I’ll speak to you next week. Catch you soon.

[Episode 03 – Beyond the Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws: Ends]

Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

Did you know there are 12 universal laws? The law of attraction being only one of them! How do the universal laws impact your life. What are practical ways to use the universal laws in your daily life? This episode covers it all comprehensively, learn about was you may have never heard of such as the Law of Correspondence and the Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy.

⇢ Show notes and transcript - http://phidang.com/03-beyond-the-law-of-attraction-the-12-universal-laws

⇢ Phi’s Instagram- http://instagram.com/thephidang

⇢ Work with Phi (1:1 Coaching) - http://phidang.com/work-with-phi-dang

⇢ Phi’s Website - http://phidang.com

This episode explains how your life is like a book and you are the author. There are prompts and considerations which will shift how you think about your life and your personal power. This episode also includes journal prompts for your reflection.

(05:50) Life is Like a Book and You are The Author Set Up

You are listening to episode 2: Life is like a Book and You are the Author

[Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

[Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

[Episode 02 – Life is like a Book and You are the Author: Begins]

Hi Beautiful Soul, I’m glad you’re here! As you probably gathered from the title, today’s podcast is all about how life is like a book and you are the author.

Books are so magical. There is something so incredible about them. We are transported to new worlds, they let our minds run wild with imagination and guess what, your life is like a book! You are the author of this book. So many things can be said about books, amongst my favourite quotes are:

So why books you ask? I’d love to jump into why I wanted to do an episode today about how life is like a book and you are the author.

In early November, my amazing boyfriend surprised me with a weekend away to Stanwell Tops.

Stanwell Tops is a beautiful coastal town in New South Wales, Australia halfway between Sydney and Wollongong with cliff views surrounded by thick bush, in fact the royal national park. In fact Stanwell Tops is an internationally famous area for hang-gliding and paragliding. It’s so incredible looking up into the blue sky and seeing so many people flying – how majestic, it truly takes your breath away.

As it was my birthday, my boyfriend booked a very fancy restaurant in town. You know they boast using native ingredients, fresh local produce.

We got there and we were waiting over 10 minutes just to get a drinks menu!

So we bailed (such a thrill for a non adrenaline junkie like me) and went to this cute lovely Thai place – Raya Thai huge shout out.

So we get there it’s beautiful fairy lights, warm vibrant atmosphere, groups of people catching up laughing, smiling, catching up, the smell of deep fried spring rolls then a song comes on.

“And now, the end is near

[Phi interrupts “Now I’m not the best singer, so I am not going to sing it for you but I will read out a few of the lyrics of the song]

And so I face the final curtain

My friends, I’ll say it clear.”

If you don’t recognise the song, it’s “I Did it my way” by Frank Sinatra.

When I heard this, I immediately got chills up my spine and tears started to roll down my face because that’s the song they played at my dads funeral.

I started to have a breakdown in the middle of the restaurant.

The timing seemed so eerie given that the day before I had just told my boyfriend that I was really missing my dad. This felt like a sign that he was trying to communicate with me. It is after all coming up to the 7th anniversary since my dad passed away in 2013.

How this ties back into books is that english, literature, language and reading is dear to my heart because my dad was an English teacher before he fled Vietnam.

My dad became a teacher because at the time there was a war in Vietnam and my grandpa did not want my dad to be enlisted and sent off to war. So my dad became an english teacher.

So when you’re a teacher, a doctor, a person in a position of an important role they consider they don’t send you off to be enlisted and in the army.

So my dad, he ended up working for the government here in Australia as when he fled the war his university qualifications weren’t accepted here at the time. I’m also glad he fled because that’s how I came to be in existence. 

My dad met my mum on the boat to Australia in a twist of fate I guess you could say. He wanted to go to America, the United States but there was no room on the boat so he ended up on the boat to Australia which my mum was on. 

A fun story there but really it was quite an ordeal for my parents who were boat people in a rickety boat and I’m sure one day I’ll share the story further one day.

Growing up I read a lot. I vividly remember my dad reading me books such as beauty and the beast and spot (does everyone remember the iconic yellow puppy?)

So there it is a combination of factors reminiscing about my dad and my love for books and reading. Further to that my clients know that when it comes to coaching I love analogies.

I love analogies because they give you the lightbulb moments the aha as you just get it straight away.

So let’s jump into it.

Life is like a book and you are the author.

You are the author of your life. The duration of your book, we don’t know but it doesn’t matter whether its short or long, it’s more how good the book is, how impactful the book is.

You are the main character. Throughout a book we see the main character change and grow. We root for main character. We root for characters that are real and human – they aren’t perfect and they aren’t happy all the time. Characters go through challenges, testing events and we love them all the more for it.

The main character cannot control everything that happens to them but the main character does choose how to react to what happens to them. The main character doesn’t become great in the story by being a passive participant or us seeing the character through a powerless filter, the main character becomes great through intentional actions and thoughts.

The main character interacts with a supporting cast, the people in your life. Characters in books are just like the people we meet for the first time.

We get to know these characters as time goes on as we spend quality time with these characters. We learn more about them, we analyse them, we make judgements… and not every character introduced on the first page will be there in the last page.

Characters come and go and the story will always go on. Just like life and the people in our lives whether that’s by choice or the circumstances of life. Friends, family, loved ones, relationships…

Often in the story of life, there are villains or antagonists that make life difficult. That is natural and to be expected. How the main character deals with it speaks volumes and sometimes that villain or antagonist in the story is the main character too…

Further to that whilst you are the main character of your book, other people are the main characters of their book. Sometimes you play a supporting role in someone else’s book. Sometimes you play a minor role in someone’s book. Never forget the impact of your character in other people’s books.

The book of your life is a mixture of genres such as drama, romance, comedy, tragedy. The overarching genre that will always exist alongside everything else is suspense. We don’t know what will happen in life , we just keep turning the page.

Your life truly is like a book not a movie where the ending stays the same. Your book is in progress and you choose how your story is shared, you can add plot twists, you can edit and change the script.

Speaking of editing, when you have rose-tinted glasses on that is the same as any editor who cuts out certain parts of the story to make the book better.

Running with this analogy that life is a book and you are the author some considerations and musings for you:

And remember you don’t overcome writers block by staying stuck and doing nothing. Or even waiting for the right moment.  You don’t overcome it wallowing in self pity or procrastinating or even just looking up ways to overcome writer’s block… you overcome it through writing, through taking action just like your life.

And remember it’s better to write than not write at all. Eventually the rhythm and flow of your words will return.

I hope this episode gave you some food for thought. Remember your life is like a book and you are the author. I’d love to end this episode with some journaling prompts for your reflection.

Thank you for listening to The Growth Through It Podcast With Phi Dang. I will catch you guys next Tuesday with another brand new episode on the 12 Universal Laws, Beyond The Law of Attraction. A very juicy episode indeed and yes there’s more than just the law of attraction. Speak soon and have a beautiful week, love and positivity.

[Episode 02 – Life is like a Book and You are the Author: Ends]

Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

Books are so magical. You are transported to new worlds, they let your mind run wild with imagination and guess what, your life is like a book! You are the author of this book. You are the author of your life. The duration of your book, we don’t know but it doesn’t matter whether it is short or long, it’s more how good the book is, how impactful the book is.

You are the main character. Throughout a book we see the main character change and grow. We root for main character. We root for characters that are real and human - they aren’t perfect and they aren’t happy all the time. Characters go through challenges, testing events and we love them all the more for it.

Listen to more insights into how your life is like a book and you are the author in this episode.

⇢ Show notes and transcript - http://phidang.com/life-is-like-a-book-and-you-are-the-author"

⇢ Phi’s Instagram - http://instagram.com/thephidang

⇢ Work with Phi (1:1 Coaching) - http://phidang.com/work-with-phi-dang

⇢ Phi’s Website - http://phidang.com