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To get into the right frame of mind, it is important to understand the fundamentals about "blame" and "accountability". Blame happens when we are in a state of victimhood; we cannot face the pain of an experience so we blame something inside and/or outside ourselves. We create a narrative around the pain to justify it, e.g. they make me so angry because..., it's my personality that comes from..., etc. When we see ourselves as victims of our environment and/or circumstances we cannot but direct the cause for how we feel to sources other than ourselves. In this state we strive to control our experiences by exerting control in our external environment. We also strive to control our emotions, which leads to simply supressing them. Accountability on the other hand comes from empowerment. When we are in a higher vibrational state we realise that we cannot control our external environment by force, we can only control our thoughts, our words and our actions. These in turn will shift our patterns, habits and energy to attract different experiences. Shifting into accountability is also a shift in perception of our experiences; things are no longer happening to us, they happen for us.

These are the premises that start off our conversation as we have a special guest with us. Hulya Erdal is a fellow coach who focuses on supporting women in their process of transformation. We then delve into the the concept of Blameless Accountability and invite our audience members to share their perspectives and experiences.

www.thealchemyexperience.co.uk

About Hulya Erdal

Hulya Erdal is a Certified Transformation Coach specialising in the mastery of self-discovery. She is also a qualified and experienced chef and teacher, writer, REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy) Practitioner and well known radio personality. Hulya uses her own personal experiences and challenges in life as a vital component of her self-discovery coaching programmes.

Hulya has been guiding women globally for over 20 years. Her heart and soul is to guide midlife women through a journey of self-discovery, “crushing old beliefs that no longer serve you, changing the way you see yourself to realise your true potential, and creating exciting new dreams and actions that become your recipe for life!”

Hulya teaches "Change the way you think, Choose the life you live."

Contact:

Email: [email protected]

https://calendly.com/recipeforlife/30min

Instagram: @madebythechef & @therecipeforlife_

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hulyaerdal

Online: www.therecipeforlife.com

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/therecipeforlife

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The Oxford Dictionary definition of resilience is, “The capacity to withstand or recover quickly from difficulties.”. I would like to offer an additional definition, “the measurement between victimhood where you lack resilience, and empowerment, where you are resilient”, i.e. how resilient are you? As you slide from victimhood up towards empowerment you become more resilient. This is the gradual process where you develop tools to deal with the world around you and the experiences you have within.

There are a lot of reasons why we lack the tools to be resilient. When we find ourselves in a state of victimhood, we are essentially in a state of low-energy vibration. This is where we can’t let go of the narrative that we’ve created to define our identity within our story and our lives. We externalise our entire spectrum of experiences removing our ability to realise our roles in our experiences. Putting a distance between ourselves and our experiences causes us to blame external factors for our circumstances; we can’t realise accountability if we don’t realise we have a hand in our reality. In this process, we externalise control of our circumstances. The tools we develop are all focused on protecting ourselves from the external factors that are a threat to us, i.e. we compound the problem and perpetuate the victimhood while tricking ourselves into believing we are getting stronger.

Evidently, we have choices as to what path we take embarking on this journey towards resilience and empowerment. One path, as described above, will be a reflection of our shadow or ego aspect of ourselves where we find strength in our anger, shame, guilt, apathy, etc., but they’re all in the lower spectrum of vibration. The idea of resiliency at these levels is to control your experiences with force expressed outwards. Anybody who gets in our way is a threat and we are separate from them, so they become “collateral damage” in our pursuit of resiliency. This, like the reality construct that we think is our experience, is an illusion and we get stuck in a loop; empowerment is not available at these lower levels, only enforcement, which creates lower vibrations, resulting in more forcefulness. The alternative is to become consciously aware of our experiences and what they are. On this path, we don’t see the reality construct outside of ourselves as the experience but rather just as a reflection of the internal emotions and feelings that are building blocks of the real experience. When we choose to become consciously aware of our own experiences we become aware of our role in our own experiences. We can start building resiliency tools to control that which we can control; our thoughts, our words and our actions. This perspective brings with it accountability, not blame, without shame and guilt. It allows us to become accepting of ourselves and everything around us in our reality construct. We accept the external and connect with it, without attachment or judgement. Choosing this path is to choose growth and evolution.

Empowerment is all about shifting perspectives and understanding what our true experience is. To shift perspectives we need to open up to the possibility that there are more than one truth and that we can allow ourselves to look at the reality construct from different angles. Consider, for example, you have a body as opposed to you are a body. We simply move some words around and our idea of self suddenly shifts 180 degrees. We allow ourselves to be taken away from the identification in the physical reality to perceive ourselves from our consciousness. Once we start looking at ourselves and our existence from this perspective, we can then start to understand the multi-dimensionality that we are. From this aspect I can now consider from what perspective we experience life:

• Mind
• Heart
• Observer
• Past experiences
• External locus of evaluation
• Any other intangible aspects of ourselves

When we experience ourselves from our mind we take the analytical approach and judge our experiences by our external senses and set those as our experience. In the heart-centred approach, we use our capacity for love and compassion to explore our internal experience as a reflection of the external. Depending on our progress in healing from this perspective we might put ourselves in a place of victimhood where others easily take advantage of us, but through empowerment, this can become a source of strength. When we become the observer we have an overview of all the other aspects of ourselves and can engage with our experiences without judgement or attachment. The perspective of our past experiences is our karmic energy and stems from our traumas. Triggers will invite us to react to our current external experiences from these past experiences. Often we revert to the individual we are at that time with the toolset we had and act out that perspective in the present moment, which often has some very chaotic effects on our circumstances. When we judge ourselves and our experiences from the perspective of others around us, using the external locus of evaluation, we make assumptions about how others see us and we experience ourselves from that judgement. Ultimately, it is helpful to always observe our experiences to bring purity to them and remove suffering through judgement. However, as part of our healing journey, it is critical to be aware of from what perspective we are experiencing ourselves will give us an understanding of the aspects of ourselves that need to be healed.

Questioning our motives and reality and thus shifting our perspective starts the process to understand what reality is and who we truly are. The journey towards empowerment isn’t about using brute force to elbow our way through life, but rather to shift into empowerment that attracts the world to us. A difficult, but very useful exercise I learned through a deep dive is to view your life from the perspective of your deathbed and ask yourself the question, “what am I willing to sacrifice to be right?”, when you’re ready, your value “being right” will change. To keep on the path and to check in so that we don’t veer off course, I like to use doctor David Hawkins’ map of consciousness. His map, in my opinion, directly correlates to the journey from victimhood towards empowerment and resilience. The lower parts are more resonant with anger, guilt, shame, etc., and the higher levels are where love, acceptance, compassion, forgiveness and gratitude exist. As we are triggered by external experiences activating the defence mechanisms that we’ve learned from our traumas in our lives there is another very useful tool that Nicholas Janni has taught us which is to “drop the narrative”. The “narrative” is the domain of the mind the shadow of the ego where we create an external story for our internal experiences. It attaches us to the notion that our internal experiences are controlled by external forces. When you have an emotion rising and it activates the mental process of explaining why this emotion exists or placing blame for it on external forces, tell yourself to drop the narrative and stay with the emotion. Once there, we can observe the emotion and allow it to communicate its message to us. Without attachment through judgement, nothing is holding the emotion in the body and it can now be released. When we understand that the external experience is merely a mirror of our internal reaction we can then drop the narrative and show gratitude for the experience. Separating the memory of an experience from the emotion is the resolving moment of healing. Once the narrative ceases to have power over us we can freely release the emotion.

Shifting our perspective away from the old paradigm narrative and understanding that resilience is not to be equated with toughness will bring calm to societal chaos. The tools we collect are with us to help us heal our past experiences and to deal with present and future experiences. When we have moved through our process of empowerment, healed all there is to heal and we’re fully in observance of our own experiences where we’re not judging anything good or bad, black or white, hot or cold etc., we find ourselves in a state of enlightenment, or for the purpose of this discussion, absolute empowerment. Be mindful that on this journey towards empowerment, we oftentimes encounter impatience because we intellectually know where we’re going and want to get there as soon as possible. For these times it is important to return to trusting the process and knowing that the practice you put in is what going to get you the results. Resilience is not something that comes by itself; it’s something we work on with the tools and skills and practises that would develop. However, at the end of the day it is our choice are we approach and pursue resilience, so choose wisely.

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In our complex world, every interaction we have is an intricate dance between our internal selves and the external world. How we perceive others, their conditioned perspectives, and the labels we apply all play a significant role in shaping these interactions. It’s crucial to recognize the interplay between our internal and external worlds to foster authentic connections. We’ll explore the concept of conscious interactions by delving into both the external and internal aspects that influence them.

Our external world is shaped by conditioned perspectives and labels that have been introduced to us and we accepted them as “fact”. We position ourselves in relations to others as either, superior, equal, or subordinate by judgement filtered through our conditioned perspectives. Others will put us in those categories in relation to their perspectives as well, which often is the source of conflict when the “placements” don’t align. Societal archetypes influence the roles we adopt and play, most often a the behest of those that influence us. The question that arises here is: What motivates these conditioned perspectives? Are they born out of fear, societal norms, or genuine understanding? The distance between the authentic expressions of our true selves and the conditioning is a relatively good measure of the malady disconnectedness we experience.

When we start to reflect on our internal experiences, it’s essential to recognize which aspects of ourselves show up in interactions. Tools from Parts Therapy can be very useful here, where we explore what “part” of ourselves that show up in different situations. For example, I would get triggered when something wasn’t done to my exacting specification, and then I would react to that experience from the perspective of the child who was taught that he wasn’t good enough and needed to compete to be valued and loved. This is the part that showed up when the trigger is activated and I would then assume the part and the expression would be based on the limitations that I held as that child, i.e. the response would have been expected from a 7 year old, but quite unreasonable coming from an adult. We all carry within us wounded parts, often stemming from past traumas. These wounded parts can significantly impact our interactions, leading to behaviours that may not align with our true selves. Authenticity requires us to be aware of these parts and heal them.

To have conscious interactions, it’s vital to compare our internal and external worlds. Are they aligning? Do they “come from the same place”? If not, what are the similarities, and where do they diverge? Understanding where our internal and external perspectives come from is the first step in bridging the gap. My daily objective is to become the optimal version of myself, which is the authentic version of myself. The distance between my external experience vis a vis my authenticity is the space of healing I need to traverse to reach that goal. My choice in any experience is how I think, express and act in response to that experience. I cannot control how other show up in interactions with me, but I can choose how I respond to the experience. I always try to use the “Four Agreements” when comparing the external and internal experiences; never assume anything about anybody, don’t take anything personally, always express myself impeccably and always to my best. These agreements allow me to allow anybody to show up how they choose to without me mirroring their expressions. They also allow me to show up with as much authenticity as I can muster in the particular situation.

It is important to recognize that conscious interactions does not equate to letting anybody trample all over us. In every experience we have three options:

• leave the experience.
• change our perception of the experience.
• change the perception of others in the experience.

However, while we keep ourselves in the experience, we constantly measure our external and internal experiences against each other.

To truly navigate conscious interactions, we must measure how we show up against authenticity. Authenticity is marked by qualities like compassion, empathy, passion, and resonance with others. By healing and reintegrating the wounded parts we put ourselves on a path to realise our core authenticity. When we release preconceived notions and allow ourselves to observe and process our thoughts and feelings from that authenticity we reveal our inner connectedness and compassion.

Conscious interactions are about finding harmony between your internal and external worlds. It’s recognizing that the labels and roles society imposes on us might not define our true essences. Instead, we have the power to redefine who we are in each interaction. When we align our internal and external realities, we become more authentic in our interactions. We don’t achieve the equilibrium by sacrificing our integrity and boundaries, but to accept that which we can’t control as belonging to someone else and that we have a choice in our perspective and what action we take. When we understand the possible sources of why others are the way they are we can understand their journeys and connect with their true essence and have compassion for their suffering and challenges, without the need for ourselves to feel threatened.

Consider a scenario where we’re meeting someone for the first time. The external world might label them as a stranger, but our internal world can choose to approach them with an open heart and mind, free from preconceived notions. This alignment between our internal essence and external perception can lead to a more genuine connection.

On the contrary, if our internal world is clouded by past wounds or societal conditioning, we may project biases onto this stranger, hindering the potential for a meaningful interaction. To overcome this, we must engage in introspection, identify these inner obstacles, and work towards healing and reintegrating those parts of ourselves.

Conscious interactions require us to be acutely aware of both our internal and external realities. By bridging the gap between these worlds, we can foster more authentic connections with others. This process involves recognizing the conditioned perspectives that shape our external interactions, understanding our internal dynamics, and constantly striving to align our true selves with the way we show up in the world. Ultimately, conscious interactions lead to more profound empathy, compassion, and resonance in our relationships, creating a more harmonious and authentic existence.

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You may experience imposter syndrome in a variety of situations, mainly professional ones, but also in your personal life. This can cause you to feel inadequate, doubt yourself, and fear being exposed as a fraud despite evidence to the contrary. You may believe that you do not deserve your accomplishments and that you are not as capable as others perceive you to be, leading to anxiety, stress, and a lack of confidence in your abilities.

Imposter syndrome can stem from internal factors such as low self-esteem, perfectionism, and a fear of failure. You may judge yourself based on external standards and internalize this judgment, leading to a feeling of fraudulence. People who rely heavily on external validation and are prone to comparing themselves to others are more likely to experience imposter syndrome.

If you experience imposter syndrome, it can manifest in various ways, including anxiety, depression, and a lack of confidence in your abilities. You may be afraid to take risks or try new things because you feel like you will fail or be exposed as a fraud, leading to missed opportunities and a lack of personal and professional growth.

To shift your mindset out of imposter syndrome, you can take various steps. One key strategy is to recognize and challenge negative thoughts and beliefs. For instance, if you believe that you are a fraud, you can challenge this belief by listing evidence that supports your accomplishments and successes. Additionally, you can focus on your strengths and celebrate your achievements, no matter how small. You need to pay close attention to how you think, speak, and act, especially in relation to how you speak to yourself and how you react when given accolades.

Another strategy is to cultivate a growth mindset, which involves embracing challenges and viewing failures as opportunities to learn and grow. You can shift your mindset by reframing your thoughts and beliefs about failure and success. Rather than seeing failure as a personal reflection of your abilities, you can view it as a necessary step towards growth and development. When you observe your own judgement, you need to ask yourself, “what other perspectives could I have on this judgment of myself?”. Writing down a list of other perspectives can then give alternative viewpoints that carry equal validity, and the original judgement can be replaced with one that has a “higher” vibration.

Recognizing that you may be experiencing imposter syndrome is half the battle. The next step is to start shifting your mindset and belief system by convincing yourself of another reality that is equally viable as the “lower” vibrational one. This process is not about lying to yourself but rather finding alternative judgments that carry equal weight and validate your success or position. Additionally, you may need to overcome loss aversion, which is a cognitive bias that tells you to avoid taking up a challenge because it is in unknown territory and staying in the status quo is the safe option, even though it is worse than the possible outcome of the unknown.

What we believe about ourselves stems from our past experiences, programming, and conditioning. Taking the next step when having identified your current trigger is to link them back to the source experience where you created the belief that no longer serves you. Once you’ve realised the source you can now address it and heal it by changing your perception of it using the techniques above. Heal your traumas and your wounds and you will alleviate your imposter syndrome.

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