Unbroken

Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 68 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor.

I’m here today with a little announcement. As you possibly saw in the title of this episode, I’ve called it pausing and stepping into quiet. I’m feeling a really strong urge lately to do just that, to pause things, step into the silence, spend a lot of time in quiet.

We’re coming into summertime, here on the west coast of Vancouver Island, as I record this, and the days are getting longer and sunnier. And it’s not so much that I want to spend more time in the sun because I’m not really that type of person. But I do just want to spend time in quiet right now. And slow down a little bit and listen for wisdom, really.

This episode is a little announcement letting you know that that’s what’s happening. I will keep you posted on any future directions or things that go on. Hopefully I’ll be back in a few weeks or a couple of months or whatever it is however long it lasts. I really feel drawn to just listening to wisdom, listening to my intuition, that kind of thing and following those nudges. So that’s what’s pulling me at this moment.

For the next few weeks, I hope you are doing great, doing really well taking good care of yourself.

Please remember that we are all always unbroken.

Take care, bye.

Featured image photo by Jack Church on Unsplash

The post Pausing and Stepping Into Quiet appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

As we discuss so often on Unbroken, there is an intelligence and wisdom that, if we allow it to, can guide our lives to interesting and fulfilling places. As with most of us, it took Stephanie Benedetto some time to really listen to this wisdom and to trust that it would support her. When she did, she unlocked a life and a business that flow with ease, even in the challenging moments.

Stephanie Benedetto is a transformational business coach, storyteller and (Un)Marketer at The Awakened Business, where she helps transformative coaches, healers and entrepreneurs unleash their heart’s message to create soulmate clients with playful (Un)Marketing — no hustle, or hype of endless social media required.

You can find Stephanie Benedetto at TheAwakenedBusiness.com.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• Business as a vehicle of creation

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer

Alexandra: Stephanie Benedetto, welcome to Unbroken.

Stephanie: Thank you for having me, Alexandra, this is a great pleasure.

Alexandra: I’m so pleased to have you here.

Stephanie: I have been a pretty much a lifelong entrepreneur. Definitely in my adult life. But as I reflected on my childhood, I used to play games like Office and sell at Mr. Dobbs candy shop. And I used to sell cards and things. I was actually interested in entrepreneurship, even when I was quite young. So I’ve had multiple businesses. 

The most notable and successful were we’re a business as a wedding DJ, with my now ex husband for 15 years. And then we transitioned into a digital marketing business, basically, internet marketing. So I used to create courses and a membership online, for other wedding professionals to teach them about business. I’ve been in love with business for a long time. 

But my first love is really people. And I love business as a vehicle of creation. It’s a way that people can create the change they’d love to see in the world, they can be of service. That’s what I see business as. And so over the years, I wanted to have deeper impact with people. And that drew me more and more into coaching. 

And I realized that there was something missing from that, for me, that we talked about these great ideas and people that didn’t do them, because they were scared, or they felt insecure. And I saw this also in myself, because in parallel, I was on my own personal development and spiritual journey. I wanted to go deeper for me. 

So I hired my first business coach. And then I wanted to do what they were doing. And it took me on this whole journey until I realized, Oh, my goodness. 

The business I currently have, which is called The Awakened Business is really meant to support entrepreneurs, who want to share the truth they’ve seen, and the gifts that they have with the world.

And do it in a way that really feels good. Because there’s a lot that I was taught when I was studying internet marketing inside of business that maybe we could say is unethical or feels a little weird. And certainly people who are helpers and want to be of service often have a lot of what I could call head trash about selling and marketing. None of that has to be painful or icky, like it can actually be complete joy and totally enjoyable. And so that’s what I help people do now. 

This was like years ago, I saw no contradiction with neuro linguistic programming and Practical Magic and Access Consciousness and EFT and all the other things that I was doing. I was like, Oh, the Three Principles fits great into this mix. I really care about understanding those principles. I don’t care about explaining it to others. I’d say this to myself until I realized I started talking about three principles with other people. 

Then I was like, I want to be a transformative coach. I’m interested in that until I find myself in Michael Neal’s super coach Academy and becoming a certified transformative coach. So I actually think there was a wisdom in it that I was trying not to take it seriously not to try to do it right. I just let the process unfold. 

As time has gone on that is more and more, it’s really the foundation of everything that I do, not just in my business, not just with the clients I work with, but to help people to really enjoy their lives and whatever it is they’re creating, through the recognition of what they really are, who they really are, and, and how we work. How we create our experience. And when we’re really at our best, and that we can trust this intelligence that enlivens us. And when that happens, man, building a business is a piece of cake.

Alexandra: Oh, that’s great, good news for all the entrepreneurs out there. 

Stephanie: Oh, my God, it is so different. I’ve been on this journey myself, for years. And of course, it’s quite natural that I also guide other people on that journey. People don’t see me this way. So often, when I say that, I used to be a total rule follower. They’re like, really? Because such a big part of my message is that you get to do it your way, you get to play the game of business the way you want to play it. 

I was really devoted to doing things right. And being a good student and a good girl for much of my life. 

I brought that with me into what I learned about business. And so it was doing things the way they were taught to me following the rules, and a lot of that I learned a lot from it. And some of it worked. And some of it didn’t. But at some point, the things that I was supposed to do just didn’t feel quite right. But this was, of course, mirroring what was happening inside of me. 

It just hadn’t really occurred to me. Asking that question sent me inward. And I began to discover, like, how do I even know what I want? That was a journey for me in itself. And then I discovered the difference between creating from my intellect, creating from the rules that somebody else gave me or the way I’ve always done it, and how limited it felt, versus those moments when I got quiet. And something would just tell me, and I would just know, to do something. So I don’t think I jumped in all at once. 

I read a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, I think about maybe eight or nine years ago now. With it came alive my own surrender experiment, an exploration of what does that mean to surrender? What does that mean to let life show me? What I found and how this looks so different is that I don’t need to figure it out, which is a great relief, because I don’t think I was really that good at it. I mean, I coped well, but I can’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. And I don’t know what’s going to work and what won’t. 

I’m not very good at thinking about all things that need to happen. It’s overwhelming, and it’s very stressful. And I’ve realized that I don’t have to. Everyone has an area of their life where they know this, by the way, it might be the one place where they feel like, oh, I can just relax and I’m in flow. So for some people, it’s at work, for some people it’s with their kids. For some people, it’s when they’re out in nature, maybe they do a sport. 

I am still discovering this, by the way, I’m still going deeper on this, that I can go to the source of wisdom inside of me for anything and everything. And in fact, that’s what I’m looking for is what I’m really looking for is there, including the answers about how to grow my business, how to market it, how to move past things that look like they’re stopping me. And of course, the feelings, the well-being and the peace and the happiness that I’m looking for. So that’s how it looks different. I hope I have answered that question. 

Alexandra: You have Thank you. I love your analogy about how it does show up for everyone in some area of their life. And sometimes we take that a little bit for granted, I think we think oh well that it’s that one specific thing that I’m good at or relaxed about. And then we don’t realize that we can feel that way, in so many other areas, if not everywhere in our lives. 

Before we hit record, we were talking about our intentions for the call. And one of the things I said was that I was interested in your personal story, and you touched on it a little bit already about being a good girl. And following the rules. 

Stephanie: When I started asking myself, what do I want, I realized that I had been making my choices, based on a role that I thought I needed to fill, I had a lot of people pleasing behaviors going on, which made sense, because it was how I knew myself. I discovered that some of the things I was doing were part of the reason why maybe I didn’t like them after a while or became resentful or was because it really wasn’t something that I wanted. I didn’t even know I was allowed to ask that. 

And as I did, as that was alive in me, I was listening. This is how I see it. Now, I don’t think I knew quite what I was doing then. But I was listening for guidance. I was always on a spiritual journey of some type. And as I got quieter in the moments when I did get quiet, which were few and far between, but I was finding them more. I was hearing things, I was getting a sense of things. 

I was actually at a yoga retreat. Yoga was one of the many things that I pursued on this growth path. I had been married for I think, at that time, at least 16 years.

This is not the first time I would get a message from the universe like that and be like, right, but I felt lots of things. It wasn’t just no, but see, I just knew there was a knowing in that. I took my time, which I think was also wisdom, because I loved my husband.

This is another thing was like How can I leave there’s nothing wrong here. If there was abuse, if I was unhappy, if we didn’t like each other even, that will be a good reason. But I thought I needed a reason to make a choice. I didn’t know that because I want to, it’s a good enough reason. I waited about a year of just dropping expectations and letting go of the mess that I had and working with coaches and the mess that I had in my head. I had so much thinking about it. And until finally I felt clear, I knew that I knew it wasn’t. 

I said to myself, if I’m going to leave this marriage, it’s not going to be because I’m trying to escape. That’s something I tried to do before I tried to implode our marriage earlier. Or because I’m avoiding something, but I’m going to do it from a place of peace. If I’m doing it. That’s how I’m doing it. And that is how it happened. I’m still friends with my ex husband and and I think we both…we could have done better of course, looking back I see so much more now than I did then. But we did really well navigating that. 

My husband and I owned a business together. We owned two houses together, we had animals that we owned together. I left all of that. I had to close it off. It wasn’t an impulsive thing. We still worked in our business for I think almost two years before we sold it together. And I started traveling and pet sitting because I love pets, I love animals. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I didn’t know where I wanted to live and I didn’t just want to do what I’d always done and stay in New York, which is where I was. 

And it’s continued. And it’s deepened. And it was almost two years ago that a similar big knowing dropped in where it was like, okay, I’m going to Portugal, go to Portugal. And there was a new relationship for me there. I had a very strong sense about what was going to happen. And I had to drop all my expectations about what that meant. 

What I’ve come to learn about this wisdom is that it is in real time, it is for right now. And when it says go to Portugal, it means go to that direction now, like whatever that means, start the process. It doesn’t mean what I necessarily think it’s going to mean. So I had all kinds of thinking about Alexandria, again, like I was like, No, you’re doing this, I like my life. I’m happy here. But I also know to follow that, because that’s how I want to live. 

There’s a delight and a depth to living from that place that I am surprised at what I find myself choosing and what comes my way. And it doesn’t lead me wrong. It doesn’t mean that everything works out the way I think it will, though. So that’s why it was like surrendering, surrendering my expectations about what this would mean. And if it would mean what I thought I just knew to follow those directions, just do that. And I did. And it actually went the way that I had sensed. 

It’s opened up a whole new world for me yet again, I didn’t realize the fear that had been driving me. It helped me see that. The world is bigger and possibilities that I never thought were available for myself. I can see them now. And I couldn’t before; they were invisible to me. And it’s not because I moved to Portugal, but that was a part of the journey. 

Alexandra: Wow, there’s so much in there, I got goosebumps when you talked about being at a yoga retreat and feeling that knowing that it was time to leave your marriage. That’s extraordinary. And you touched on the good girl aspect of your personality earlier.

I imagine that there was some resistance from that part of your personality when you started going in this direction more of following wisdom rather than pleasing other people.

Stephanie: What was interesting, Alexandra, was it wasn’t just a good girl living in my personality, there was also a rebel. So it was kind of like both were going on at the same time. And you can imagine that’s quite a war to have, when I don’t know that what’s really happening is conflicting thoughts. I thought that was part of me. My identity, right. 

That started when I was a kid. I remember the first time I seriously rocked the boat in my family. I think I was about 15 years old. And I had my first existential crisis like, No, I am the good girl. Everybody loves me. I don’t do things that upset people and like, cause conflict and division and my family. That’s not me. Well, yeah, apparently it was. Because that too, was an experience that I have. 

What I saw, and I’ve actually seen this recently, that the people pleasing behavior and the nice girl persona, the need to be that person came from this false belief I had built my world on, that for my own survival, I needed to never be a burden to anyone. And I made up what that was, right? Like, what does that even mean? Well, it’s definitely made it up. I made it up. So I could never be a burden to others, which meant I’ve really had to know what other people wanted and try to anticipate it and a whole world was created on that faulty premise that if I was a burden to others, I would be abandoned, and I would die. So that felt really scary and really important. 

As I grew and I would see these behaviors come up, like asking people for help used to seem impossible, then it felt uncomfortable, and then I’m like, this is trivial and silly. Why am I feeling fear? I saw that it made perfect sense based on the world I was living in and seeing the world I had created out of fear. 

Seeing that we create it, seeing the fact that we create a world with thought. And then we call it my beliefs and my values and my identity. And this is the way the world works, meant that I didn’t have to create it that way anymore. And so now, sure,  maybe those habits of thought, those habits of behavior may come up. But I see them in a way I couldn’t see them before. They were invisible to me, they looked real before. 

I don’t feel the resistance of it anymore. I don’t care, honestly, it’s like, I just went to the market today. And I feel nervous. Sometimes I freaked myself out. I’m learning Portuguese, and I don’t understand the numbers they’re saying when I’m paying for things sometimes. And so the nerves are so bad, I feel nervous. It’s really okay, I get over it really fast. And it doesn’t mean anything. 

And I didn’t see that. And now it doesn’t. Now I know, it’s just another experience like any other. So it’s not that all those things disappear instantly. But they don’t have the same hold over me. And actually, a lot of them have kind of disappeared. I notice things slowly just dropping away.

 Alexandra: I want to ask specifically, we touched on it a little bit, but how the messages from your life pointed you toward another way to show up. So you talked about at the yoga retreat and you just had a knowing. 

Stephanie: Those are my first big examples of it. But now, it’s every day. Now, I see it everywhere. So for example, I wake up and I can just like kind of tune in like, what will be good for my body to eat today. I take supplements, but I don’t take them every day. I kind of just check in. Okay, not today. Just interesting. I don’t always do this, by the way. And it’s not a practice. It’s just something that started happening. 

As I’ve been on my business journey, I’ll weave it into my business a little bit. So in business, I was taught a lot of different things. First, I was taught that you’re supposed to schedule all the important activities in your business to make sure that you do them. And so then I would like time block my calendar and I felt all this pressure. So I was like, I don’t want that anymore. So I stopped because somebody else told me that you should only have appointments on your calendar, and you should have space so you can see the spaciousness of your account. Neither one of those things are true, by the way. They’re just someone’s opinion. 

So I did that for a while. And I realized I was kind of drifting. So I started going how do I want to experience this? Like what experiment can I do? So I started experimenting with adding some structure back in. The way I’ve kind of settled my days are often quite full. 

I know that now, I didn’t know that when I wanted my calendar spacious and free. But what I do is I do sometimes is time block activities to set aside time to work on writing this thing or editing these videos. But I give myself full permission to show up fresh with it. So that if it doesn’t feel right, or something else is occurring to me like wisdom like go now you really need a nap right now. That’s what I’ll do. 

Because how could the me from a week ago know what would be perfect for me right now. So that’s kind of an example of how wisdom shows up in small ways. And even recently, I’m seeing oh wow, I can go there for everything and anything. I didn’t realize how much I was still going to my intellect, which is great. You know, it’s served me so well, if I want something really fresh, if I want to grow my business, if I want to create money, why am I going to my intellect, which is only aware of these certain ways to do it? Why am I not going to the source? And asking there what occurs to me? 

And sometimes it’s surprising. Sometimes it’s common sense. Just the fact that I can look there is amazing. Just the fact that something’s there for me. It almost doesn’t matter what it is.

Alexandra: I love that. And I love that you use the word fresh, because that’s a word that I’ve been using more and more lately. We have this wisdom that’s within us and comes to life moment to moment is so fresh, and creative. And wise, of course. But yeah, that word fresh is just so important to me these days. 

You may have already addressed this in some of what you’ve said, but tell us a little bit about your ideas about that.

Stephanie: That’s funny, I really don’t think of it in those terms of like, there is an awakened business and one that is unawakened. I really wanted to call my business the awakened entrepreneur, honestly, but I couldn’t get the domain at the time. But what that means to me is coming fully alive, inside of your business, inside of your life, really, because they’re not separate. 

Your business is a part of your life and when a person comes alive, and by that I mean begins to feel life, moving through them. Whatever way they might experience that begins to really be in their experience, give themselves permission to create what they want and enjoy. What’s happening now. Because aliveness is enjoyable. 

The feeling of aliveness is, I mean, even when something crappy is happening. The aliveness that flows beneath and in all of it is amazing. And when that starts to happen, not as a state to achieve at every moment, but when it begins to happen, even in tiny moments, throughout your day, and you create a business, that way, you have a business that feels alive, you’re up to cool things. It’s easier to communicate what it is that you’re up to so that the people you’re here to help and serve understand that. You’re no longer creating it, because somebody said you should.

And you get to do it wrong. I’m putting that in air quotes, I don’t think you can do it wrong.

You get to make mistakes, and change your mind and make shit up. I do that all the time. I’m constantly making things up. Things don’t work. And I know I’m okay. I know that something new will occur, that something fresh will occur. So that’s what it looks like to have a business that’s alive for me. 

Stephanie: Oh, yes.

Alexandra: Is it uncomfortable?

Stephanie: Yes. It often is. Because the first time like, I’m allowed to do that. Yeah, you’re making up your business. Because if you go into the typical business training world, people and I’m going to assume that most of them are well intentioned. I know they all are on some level. Ultimately, they all are. They want to help people. But what they do is they’re training people. They’re giving people their wisdom. And that’s not going to be the right fit for me or you, in parts of it might, it might inspire something for me. But that’s not the source. And it’s not going to be the perfect fit. 

We’re taught that there’s a certain way to do things, you have to have a website, and on your website, you need to have this thing called the lead magnet, and you have to an email list and you need to do social media and the answer to those things. Is that true? No, no, no. And no. Or maybe yes, yes, yes. And yes. Only you would know. 

It’s really weird for people at first, when I’m asking them like, well, what’s the current view? What do you know? So the people who do find me are kind of onto that, already a little bit like, they might describe it as I want to have a soul led business, or I want to follow more of my intuition or do things my way, because they’ve been around the block, and they haven’t been enjoying the way it feels. 

But they still run up against that old thinking of there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way, and I better figure it out, because bad stuff’s gonna happen if I don’t. So yeah, that is uncomfortable. And I think, actually, something I’m seeing that is a bigger discomfort for people is letting go of the pressure, and the trying, and the doing and making ourselves figure it out. It’s all on me that many of us have used to drive our actions and our behavior, especially in our business, like actually going, I don’t have to figure it out. You mean I could listen to my wisdom, and that wisdom tells me seriously, that even seems like more of an uncomfortable thing for people.

Alexandra: I’m so glad you said that. Because that’s something that I struggle with as well. I go along for a while and then I noticed myself drifting off, and feeling like it’s all on me, and feeling a lot of pressure. And then I remember, and I bring myself back. But it’s a habit.

Stephanie: At first it’s uncomfortable, but it’s only uncomfortable because I have a thought that looks real, that says something like, If I don’t do it, nothing will happen. I have to be the one to do it. I just feel the discomfort of that thought if without that thought it’s amazing to know I don’t have to do it. It’s a miracle that I don’t have to do it. My job is simply to be me. And to do what occurs to me. That’s it. Can it be that simple? Yeah. And it’s a great relief.

Alexandra: That’s so true. The discomfort, the way that it feels is the clue.

Stephanie: It is becoming more and more black and white to me. As I am like, oh my really anytime I don’t feel good, peaceful, calm, I’m caught up in my thinking. That’s all it means. I don’t even need to know the content of that thinking. That’s what’s happening. 

I know in that from that place, I am not seeing the world clearly. If I feel crappy, I am not seeing clearly, period, every time. It’s incredible to see that because it keeps pointing me back to look within. This is where I find what I’m looking for. And I start to settle down. If I’m not settled down, I know it’s just going to be a little while until it passes. It always does.

Stephanie: There were so many little moments. It was amazing to be there. The first day we really just talked about and listened to people talking about listening. Some of my favorite mentors from inside the Three Principles, Michael Neill was there. Mavis Karn was there. I got to meet people in person who I’d never met in person before. And so we are all in a really lovely state. 

This is a highlight I’ll share with you because it was unusual for me. Stephanie’s personality and my past, even though I like hugging people, I’ve always been a little weird with people in my personal space. Unless I know you, don’t come too close. 

I was just in a really beautiful feeling listening to this presentation, I think it was on the first day. And I just look at this woman. And she just was so cute. She had a little bow, she had like a little flower in her hair, and this cute little dress on. And I looked at her and I see her look at me. And I’m like, it felt like we knew each other. I look away and I look back, and she’s smiling at me. And I’m smiling at her. I just went up to her and hugged her without saying a word. Without a thought. And as I hugged her, I was like, you have such a beautiful smile. And she was from the Czech Republic, I could tell by her accent as she responded. 

She said, I was just thinking you’re such a beautiful woman. And that was it. We hugged, we spoke those words, we might have smiled and waved at each other at another point during that conference. But that was all. And it was such a perfect moment. I think this is what’s possible when we’re listening. When we’re just being.

Again, anytime I’m not feeling present, I’m not listening. And that’s what’s available, little miracles like that happen. nd I don’t even think about them, they just happen. Things move me. I don’t know why I hugged that woman. It just was the thing to do.

Alexandra: It occurs to me that when it comes to listening, it feels like it’s pointing toward the opposite of where we normally live, which is a lot of chatter in our heads about ourselves, about other people, about things that are going on, about life, about whatever. And as you said, listening is more like an openness, or receptivity. 

Stephanie: My dear friend says, we’re always listening. Our listening is always perfect. What are we listening to? Most of the time, we’re listening to the chatter in our heads. And it’s not particularly productive. Sometimes it’s great fun, but other times, not so much. And we know by how it feels right. 

When I’m listening within, it’s different. And things drop in, instead of me being caught up in them. It’s like they rise up or they drop in. That’s kind of a funny way to express it. But that’s how it feels. And it’s very different than when I’m listening to the contents of my intellect and my endlessly churning mind.

Stephanie: What I’d like to share is that you being you is not only enough, it’s amazing. I didn’t know that for a very long time. And it feels so good. That’s how you know you’re being you. It feels easy. It feels effortless. And I’m most myself when I’m not thinking about myself at all. And it’s a gift. It’s a gift for us, but it’s a gift for the world. And I would love for people to know that or know it a little more deeply.

Alexandra: Nice. Oh, thank you. 

Stephanie: The best place would be TheAwakenedBusiness.com. That’s my website. I’m not active on social media. I’ve been doing some YouTube and a bit of LinkedIn, but I’m allergic to the rest for right now. 

I do have an email list. If people would like to follow my adventures in life and business. I share a lot of my personal experiences and experiments, they can hop on my email list and learn more.

Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes to your website. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I really appreciate it. It’s been really nice to meet you.

Stephanie: You too, Alexandra. Thanks for having me.

Alexandra: All right. Take care. Bye bye.

Featured image photo by Natalia Slastnikova on Unsplash

The post We Don’t Need To Figure It Out with Stephanie Benedetto appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

We all have a built-in GPS, a guidance system that never lies and that always has our best interests at heart. We can call that guidance whatever we want – wisdom, intuition, insight, knowing; the name isn’t as important as learning to listen to it. And, as Bonnie Jarvis points out, figuring out how your guiding wisdom speaks to you makes life so much easier.

Bonnie Jarvis has a BA in Graphic Design, MS in Computer Science, MA in Spiritual Psychology and has completed several coaching programs. Using the skills she learned over the years, she’s helped many coaches with the technical details of building successful and thriving online businesses.

For 9 years, Bonnie worked for 3PGC, a non-profit organization with a mission to share the simplicity of The Three Principles as uncovered by Sydney Banks. She developed all areas needed for their online business to thrive and significantly expand the understanding globally.

You can find Bonnie Jarvis at BonnieJarvis.com.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• On being a ‘secret seeker’

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• 3PGC

Alexandra: Bonnie Jarvis, welcome to Unbroken.

Bonnie: Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me, Alexandra, I really appreciate being here.

Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. I’m so thrilled to talk to you one on one. We’ve been in events together. I think I was trying to recall when that was. I think it was a class with Cathy Casey. That was last year, I think. But anyway, so it’s lovely to talk to you one on one. 

Bonnie: I keep seeing your name around the community. So I’m glad that we’re getting this opportunity.

Alexandra: Me too.

Bonnie: Well, like so many people who have come across the Three Principles, I was looking around for a very long time. I know people come to this understanding, or the understanding finds them maybe as a better way of saying it, when people are looking for very different things. For me, my seeking, if you will, started when I was really young. 

My dad was in a really horrendous accident when I was four. And this was 1960, giving away my age. I won’t into the details, but he was electrocuted to the point where two silver dollars melted in his pocket and then he fell three stories. And he obviously was given his last rites, no one thought he was going to survive back then. But he did. 

And I don’t know, maybe when I was around six or seven, he shared his experience of what happened to him. Now we know of what people call near death experiences. But that term wasn’t even around back then. And I don’t really know what it was he said that impacted me so deeply. But I think the quality of what he was sharing just touched me so deeply, that I knew this physical reality was not all there was, but I didn’t know what else was out there. 

I was really young then, I was going to Catholic school, and I learned really quickly to not talk about it in Catholic school, because it was not approved of, and it wasn’t a well known thing.

I looked at so many different things, I dipped my toes into so many different things once I got out of high school, different religions. I sought out channelers, I did different self help programs that were spiritually oriented. I did a spiritual psychology master’s degree. This was over a period of like, maybe 40 ish years. 

In the spiritual psychology program, the organization about 10 years after I graduated from there, they were doing a coaching program. I should say, my other parallel life was that I got a master’s degree in computer science and worked in many corporations. And definitely was a secret seeker through that because it was okay to be in a religion, but everything else was very woowoo. So I really didn’t talk about anything. But I would pop in and out of corporate America jobs at that time in the 80s and 90s. And even early 2000s, it was very easy to leave one job and find another because not a whole lot of people knew a whole lot about technology then.

In 2013, I decided that was it. I was leaving corporate America for the last time. It was not where I wanted to be. And one of my very, very close friends became the admissions director of the organization that ran the spiritual psychology program. And she called and said, Well, if you don’t have any plans, which I didn’t, I just knew I didn’t want to continue on the path that I was in Corporate America why don’t you take this coaching program? I was like, okay, I have the time, I have the money, I’ll do it.

At the time, I had to go research everything. So again, it was 2013, there wasn’t a whole lot on the web at the time. But I did manage to track down what the Three Principles were, and it was on a Wikipedia page of all things that I was reading it and, and it just hit me. Like, oh, this is what is before all of those other things that I was looking at, all of those paths that I took, I couldn’t get to the beginning of them, because there was usually a lot of things to do. 

And, and so I’d follow something for a year or two and then look for the next thing. I can’t say I understood anything that I was reading, but I just had a knowing. So would you like me to keep going?

Alexandra: Yes, please.

Bonnie: I was following breadcrumbs really. I kept looking and looking. In 2013, there were some videos, but there wasn’t a whole lot out there. I finally came across that there was a conference going on in St. Paul, Minnesota, like a month later. So I hopped on a plane, and I went to that. And then that led me to meeting the woman who would organize the 3PGC conference. And the woman that was organizing them lived near me. So we got to be friends.

Then at the conference, I believe it was there, I learned that Christine Heath, who was one of the original board members for 3PGC and still is on the board, was doing a workshop in Hawaii. And I was like, Oh, I can I can go there. I’m not working now. So I went. I think it was like September, October was the conference. And then November was this workshop. And then I learned about the Pranskys doing the first practitioner retreat in February 2014. Went to that then went to Salt Spring Island. 

Then I volunteered to help with the next in person conference that 3PGC was doing and got to know Chris a little bit more.

But I think when it was happening, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, that’s what I was doing. 

I think it was Chris that asked me, maybe this was 2015, they were trying to start a free webinar program. And it was sort of a start and stop. She asked if I’d be interested in volunteering to do that. So I did and and then it went from one a month to two a month and that program is still running. And then the the woman who originally did their newsletters and updated the first website was leaving and and that’s when I actually went to work for 3PGC very part time and learn more about the organization and then had a ton of ideas about what we could do online because that was my background

I started to talk with Chris a lot more and with the then president about what else we could do. And finally I think it was 2018 they they said yeah, go ahead and let’s build the new website. And they needed it done by the current for the in person conference in 2019.  I’m kind of telling the story because looking back I feel like my finding the Three Principles and 3PGC when I did was incredible synchronicity. Because once the new website was done and we could we could create a membership site.

The board was a bit hesitant because getting the feeling in person was something they just weren’t sure of, if that could be sort of transmitted or really felt across the internet, but we finally said, Yeah, let’s do it. And we were originally shooting for a 48 hour conference, but it turned into like 54 hours of continuously running sessions, which was a lot of work to put together but it turned out to be incredible. People loved it, we had something like three or 400 people participating, people who couldn’t travel to the in person. It truly was a global event, and it was run at time periods where anybody could watch it. 

And here’s the synchronicity of it. We ran it the last two days of February and the first day of March of 2020. And then the pandemic. And so we were set, we were all set up the board could see this was a great platform to do things and so we were able to build a practitioner program through and we had maybe four or five incredible programs. Not full on conferences, but programs where people could really participate in. And we were able to to really keep sharing this understanding when everybody had stay at home, basically. 

So it was again, looking back, like, while I was in it, I didn’t see the beauty of following the breadcrumbs and the timing of it. But looking back, it’s like, wow, that was perfect timing for somebody like me to come in, and do it, because I just happen to have the right skills to help them out. And yeah, so that’s how I got involved with the three principles and 3PGC.

Alexandra: Wow, that’s so great. I have a few follow-up questions then. 

For our listeners, 3PGC stands for Three Principles Global Community. So it’s sort of like the governing body, for lack of a better word, for the Three Principles. 

Bonnie: At the time, I didn’t know what I meant by that. I just knew this was underneath. I dippd my toes in Buddhism and Sikhism, and all sorts of all sorts of self help. And I knew there was something more to all of those things I was looking at. I just couldn’t get to it for whatever reason.

Now the words that I would put on it, and now what I understand of it is that the Three Principles truly are the formless principles that explain the human experience. So those are the words I would have put on it now. But at the time, I didn’t have those words. 

Even in talking about my Dad’s experience, in looking back at that, what I think now, the quality that I felt, I think was when he talked about the light – a lot of Near Death Experiences talk about seeing the light and he was drawn to this light. And he felt that it was warm and loving and he did not want to come back. He wanted to go through. But in his words, he was told to come back. I think that feeling that he shared when he was talking about that was probably what what drew me into looking for what that was

Bonnie: I was four when his accident happened. So I don’t really remember whether he was a churchgoer before then. I don’t think he ever went. I don’t remember him ever going to church after that, and possibly because of what he felt in that experience, I don’t know. I never talked to him about that. 

I remember when Raymond Moody came out with his book Life After Life he coined the term near death experience. We were like, oh my god, other people have this and we talked about it. And this is the thing you didn’t make this. Because I don’t know this for sure, but I’m going to guess, that if he shared this with any doctors or nurses at the time, they probably thought, Oh, you were in a coma, and whatever. 

We talked about it a lot, I would say the last six months of his life, and what it really brought for him that I got was, and he lived, this happened to him in 1960. He passed away in ‘98. So he lived a long time after that. What it really gave him was that he did not fear death. I remember talking to him and he said something like, No, I know where I’m going next. I’ve already felt that. So that was I think beautiful. 

I’m not really crazy about having to go through what you might have to go through before that. There can be a lot of suffering in that, but with this understanding of the Three Principles that might even give me a different perspective of that statement. That off the tip of my tongue, but in reality, this understanding and and constantly looking and seeing things more deeply. Seeing new insights. You come back with a different perspective on the same thing.

Alexandra: Yes, absolutely. I’ve been thinking about this a little bit lately as well. I feel the same way that the idea of death doesn’t bother me at all. I’m interested in what that looks like. And the steps leading up to it, I hope they’re not too painful or terrible. 

And then because our experience does come from the inside out, I realized that it is possible to experience peace, no matter what we’re going through. And yeah, so all of that is just so interesting. I could talk about that for hours for sure. 

And I imagine coming from a Catholic background too he was probably very anxious about ever bringing that up with anybody. Any adults, I guess I should say? Fascinating. Really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. And it makes me wonder, too, about any conflict that he felt? Betrayed. But you know about that experience? Anyway, fascinating.

Bonnie: I can look back and say, I wish I would have been in this place where I am now to ask him more questions. But I’m glad I got the opportunity to talk to him about it at the end of his life. 

I also just want to say this, a near death experience is not what happened with Sydney Banks. I remember sharing this with some one of Sydney Banks’ original students, and I kind of got corrected. It’s like, this is not what happened. I was like, No, I didn’t mean to suggest that. It’s like he my dad just happened to leave his body and see that there was something else but the experience that Sydney Banks’ had was completely different and deeper and amazing. 

Alexandra: That’s a great clarification. Thank you. It’s important for people to see the difference. 

So you worked for the three PGC for a while. And I want to ask you two questions about that. I think you’ve already addressed the first one actually, I was going to ask you what did the job teach you and you’ve already talked about looking back and seeing the way that life was leading you in a direction. 

Bonnie: That is true.Before listening to your wisdom, I would call it intuition. I’ve always had a strong sense of intuition. I didn’t always follow it. So following the breadcrumbs and just listening to what was coming next, which was not a huge jump for me. But there were certainly plenty of times when I could have said, I don’t want to follow these breadcrumbs anymore. But I didn’t. Something else was saying that keep following these keep doing this.

Bonnie: I think that’s true. Whenever we really listened to our inner guidance, if there was anything that I would want to share with people, it’s that learning what that feels like or sounds like, or however you you get your guidance from wisdom or your intuition, whatever you want to call it, really get really cozy and familiar with how that feels different than what’s coming from your intellect or your personal wants and desires. Because it really does seem to me it really looks to me, like, that’s the way to go to have a happier life. 

Bonnie: That was a knowing too, I that about mid 2022, I started to get nudges. You’ve done what you’ve come here to do, and it’s time to move on. I did give notice. I think it was the beginning of December of 2022 for two months. I’m kind of a jack of all trades, master of none, when it comes to the online business. So I could do a whole wide variety of things. But in replacing me, it took a little longer because because they ended up having to bring on a number of people. 

So I didn’t leave in the beginning of 2023, I waited until everything was completely set up. And then I left at the end of it, I think was September 2023. But again, that was an urge and I didn’t have anything planned next. 

I guess that’s what that looked like to me. But I had done that so many times in my life, left jobs without really knowing what was going to be next and everything worked out. So I felt okay doing that. 

It’s been incredible what’s unfolded since then. I was pretty busy minded when I was working for 3PGC because I was doing a broad range of things behind the scenes; I was taking care of just a lot of detailed things for the online business to keep running and it kept my mind really busy. I feel like I’ve had this massive download of understanding coming. But I was so busy with details that I didn’t really see what I was, what I was what I could see, because I had so many details on my mind all the time.

After I left, it was like this, because I really didn’t have the next thing lined up. There was this vast opening of space. And that was a wonderful opportunity also, to really I let things unfold.

She and I became friends maybe a couple years ago. I kept hearing her name, but I never met her. So I reached out to her one day, and we just really hit it off, and we started talking regularly. 

She’s so wonderful. And we would share insights. What we found was, I mean, that’s one of the things we did, we talked about a lot of things. But what was so wonderful about that is that we started to notice how sharing our insight was helping, we were helping each other see more of how we were being guided. It was like hearing what we saw, what was helping the other to look more to see how we were being guided. 

One of the things that came out of that, I think we started in November, we decided to offer a free webinar series where once a month we offer an open call to anybody. And we call it What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately. It’s an open discussion where everybody can share or just come and listen. 

Then what grew out of that, which I honestly did not really expect at all – I guess I really thought whatever I did next was going to be a technical thing again, because that’s what my background is. But we started talking about what would we do if we did a program to teach this understanding or point people in the direction and help people to learn to share it? And help people start up a business of some kind. 

I’m going to say it came through us, we ended up writing a year long program that we called The Heart of Service in like a week or two. And then we put together the webpage. And I think we only sent out three emails and we filled our program. It’s very small, we didn’t want to have a big group. And that’s been incredible. And again, following those breadcrumbs, those nudges. Right? It was just the next thing to do. 

It’s been really great. We have guest speakers in it. And it’s just been a phenomenal program so far, and the participants seem to really be enjoying it as well. And we’re in the third month of a year long program.

Bonnie: When I first learned about the Three Principles I had a handful or two of practitioners as clients, and I did their online website, membership site, etc. So I really saw myself more as a background person. So I think that’s why it surprised me. Oh, I’m facilitating co facilitating with us all. 

Alexandra: That makes sense. I love that. 

Shifting gears slightly, one of the things that we corresponded about as we were setting up this time to talk was you said you were really interested in one of the more famous quotes from Sydney Banks. 

Bonnie: I’m going to read it because, okay, terrible with remembering quotes.

If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.

Alexandra: That’s right. 

Bonnie: That quote has so many levels to it. You can read it at first and say, oh, yeah I can unless a gun’s being pointed to my head, I probably don’t really have to be afraid of my experience. 

And then as you start to look deep, burrowed into the principles and start to understand like, alright, we really create our experience. Our experience is truly an inside out experience. And there is nothing to be afraid of. And it just goes deeper from there. 

So I do that, that is one of my very favorite quotes from Syd Banks. I do have another favorite quote right now, that’s not a Sydney Banks, quote. It’s a quote by Rumi that I probably first learned about 30 years ago. It just has taken on such new meaning for me in the last six months. 

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. 

That’s another one with so many layers, but that has such deep meanings. Like, yes, when you really start to look down this path, when you really start to look at the three principles as truly being principles in the formless, that create everything. And that we are part of and we are people people say and I guess Syd said this as well – I think he would use the words divine mind, thought, and consciousness as opposed to personal mind, thought and consciousness, but it’s really one thing. We have the opportunity to share in that and to listen to the wisdom that comes through that. And, and so we truly are the entire ocean in a drop. That’s just so delicious.

Alexandra: There’s so much there isn’t there? And when I heard you say that quote, I felt that thing that happens when something makes the leap beyond my logical brain and it resonates within you. I love that feeling.

You mentioned the webinar series that you did with Azul and I will link to her episodes, she has been on the show. So I will link in the show notes to her episode. 

Bonnie: That is a great question. Let’s see how to describe this. What I’ve really been seeing is that we all have so much that we can see if we listen to our inner guidance, to wisdom. We also have conditioning; beliefs that are hidden, that we don’t even realize they’re there, until a light is is shone upon them.

As my mind got really quiet all the learning that I was absorbing, but not really realizing how much I really saw brought this, I’m going to call it a bubble of additional thinking that sort of unraveled itself. Some of the things I don’t even really know what they were, but I knew I felt so much lighter. 

The latest image I have of it was like if you have a ball of yarn, and you hold one end, and you just push it and it’ll just keep going until it reaches the end. It’s like that. That’s what the experience felt like. It’s like just all these beliefs that were so deeply ingrained, that I wasn’t aware of how they were sort of controlling my life, because I would make decisions.

So as that all came to the surface, it was years of weights lifted, and some of it, I didn’t really know what they were in particular, but I knew something was opening. And some were very painful. When I’d see them, because I could see how it drove actions or reactions in my life, that I thought, because I believed it needed a reaction. All of that opening up has been phenomenal. 

Around two or three months ago, I feel it’s because I let go of this whole bundle of condition thinking that what I’ve been noticing is that the nudges that I keep getting now, it’s like when we all seem to feel our feelings in different ways. Some people have very specific things in their body, that they feel about their emotions, and I don’t really, but what I do notice is sort of a wave of energy. Like nothing really specific. But what I’ve been noticing is that I’m getting nudges more quickly. As that wave of energy comes in it’s the same nudge, very often, it’s come back to the moment, come back to the moment. 

And I’ve got to tell you it’s been the most incredible experience, to keep getting reminded to come back to the moment. I get them when I’m starting to have some kind of judgment or something going on. Because in the moment, that doesn’t exist. When I first started to get this, I was calling it, it’s been pushing me into my puddle of kindness. I could feel so much kindness toward whatever I was judging, especially judgments that were coming against myself. 

That’s what it feels like, it’s like I can nudge back into just taking a dive into it. And even if it’s just for a nano second, and then I pick up that thinking again, I come out of it with such a different perspective; the feeling changes. That’s been luxurious. 

And every once in a while, I get to stay in it more than a nanosecond. People will call it being in the flow.  I can be there for a little while longer before thinking takes me back into whatever I’ve decided to make up. And everybody can do that. That’s what everybody can do. 

We were taught a lot that now is the only moment there is like, now is as the only thing there is, and it’s so true, it’s like because all our thinking is either thoughts from the past or thinking about the future. And so when you come into that moment, even if it’s just for a nanosecond, it’s no attachment to thoughts. And it’s so beautiful. 

So I would say that, that to me, at this time the most significant thing that I would really say that wisdom has been showing me lately, to just keep coming back to the present moment.

Alexandra: Oh, that’s beautiful. And I want to pull out one thing you said a little bit earlier in that, which was, you talked about how when some of your beliefs were unravelling, that could be a little bit painful. 

Bonnie: You know, nothing is really coming to mind now. But what I can tell you is that I’m not a big crier. But man, I would sit and sob. All the things are coming to light. I’m not even sure if I always knew what it was when I would start. But what I did know is not to try to stop it, not to do anything about it. 

When people who talk about the three principles say there’s nothing you have to do, that’s where I think that applies. It’s something that was coming through me. It was coming out of me, it was energy moving through. And there was nothing that I had to do about it.

I didn’t have to look for better thoughts. I didn’t have to make myself do something else. I could just sit there with it, and wait for wisdom to tell me what to do next. So to me that’s one of the misunderstandings I think a lot of people have when they come into this understanding. 

There’s nothing to do. That’s where I think that applies. It doesn’t mean you’re going to sit on the sofa for the rest of your life and do nothing. There’s nothing you have to do. 

Alexandra: I loved your wool analogy, your ball of wool analogy, because it reminded me when I was a kid, my grandmother used to knit a lot, or was it crochet anyway, one or the other. She taught me that when you have a skein of wool, if you pull one, there’s two ends, right? If you pull one of them, it can kind of become a bit of a tangled mess, but if you find the other end, it just comes out effortlessly. It doesn’t get all knotted up in itself, and it almost just sort of falls apart. And it’s all very easy. 

Bonnie: I love that you just said that, because that’s so true. It’s like they’re some of the memory, the condition thinking that what’s coming up. I saw it before, but I was probably pulling the wrong end. I love that. Thank you. I was pulling the wrong end and making the ball even tighter. But yeah, so I got a hold of the right end. It all flowed out.

Alexandra: Yes.

Bonnie: That’s beautiful.

Alexandra: We created that together. That felt really good. That’s great. 

As we come towards the end of our time together, I want to ask you, is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share with our listeners today?

Bonnie: I think I already said this, but this would be what I would share. And that is if there’s anything that you set an intention to do, it’s to really get cozy and familiar with how you hear wisdom or see wisdom. I’m sure it comes to everybody in different ways. 

Even when I think about how I connect with that, sometimes it’s just a knowing and there’s no words, I just know what to do next. But I’ve also had times where it’s yelled at me, because I wasn’t following it. So I heard words.  

I’m sure it probably comes to people in feeling, too. However that is, if you can get familiar with that, with listening to that, hearing that and distinguishing it from your personal wants and desires it just helps life unfold in a magical way. 

There’s no techniques and you can’t make it happen. I think you can set an intention or create an environment with being open. But as far as I’m aware, there’s nothing you can do to make that happen. Other than being open to listening to hearing it.

Alexandra: That’s lovely. Thank you, Bonnie. That’s great. 

Bonnie: I do have a very succinct one page website. BonnieJarvis.com 

I had a website years ago, but once I started working for 3PGC full time I closed it down and recently rebuilt. 

I have a couple of things coming up: there’s the What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately is something that Azul and I do for free every month.

And there’s also the year long program that we call The Heart of service that we are talking about doing again, because we are just loving the program. So we set up a waitlist or a notify me list for that. 

And then I’m also fortunate enough to be doing another program with Cathy Casey and Mike Heard and that is called, Stress and anxiety are just an illusion. It’s not what you think, or is it? I don’t have all the details of that. I believe we’re going to start in July and it will be for four sessions over four weeks. But more details will come out of that soon.

That’s what I do. I have been doing one on one sessions. I’ve been calling them Heart to Heart conversations. That’s all and there is a way to contact me on that website as well.

Alexandra: I will put a link in the show notes to your website and BonnieJarvis.com.

Bonnie: Thank you.

Alexandra: Thank you so much for being with me here today. Bonnie. It’s been just lovely chatting with you.

Bonnie: Thank you so much. I’ve always considered myself somebody who was more like, numbers, math and coding oriented and not very eloquent with words. So I hope I was able to share in a way that at least one person is touched by it. If just one person sees something I’d be really, really deeply grateful. So thank you so much.

Alexandra: You’re so welcome. And I would bet that way more than one person is going to be touched by what you’ve said, you did a great job.

Bonnie: Oh, thank you.

Alexandra: All right. Take care. Bye bye.

Featured image photo by Matti Johnson on Unsplash

The post Listening for Guiding Wisdom with Bonnie Jarvis appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

We all have one: an inner critic. That voice inside our heads that is critical of so much that we do. That voice can become debilitating, if we let it. But when we apply what we know about the Three Principles of innate health, we can teach that voice to take a back seat, where it belongs. And, on a positive note, hearing the inner critic can even become an ally in helping us to practice stepping into a better feeling.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• A neurosurgeon’s explanation for the inner critic

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Mind Magic by Dr. James Doty

Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 65 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the inner critic or that negative voice that can dog us all the time. And this is a subject, particularly close to my heart. I feel like it’s something that I’ve wrestled with for a long time and for a long time, couldn’t see it. 

Years ago, it was invisible to me, even though it was going on. And then gradually, I became more and more aware of it, but didn’t know what to do about it. And then I came into this understanding, and I put it off to the side. But it’s come up in my awareness lately. And I’ll tell you a bit more about that in just a moment.

I was reading a book recently about brain science, called I think it’s either called Mind Magic or Magic Mind by Dr. James Doty. And one of the things he mentioned in there was, how his approach to our inner critical voice or his understanding of it was really interesting. And it was about the evolutionary process that we’ve gone through, and how our brains are wired to look for danger.

Given the society that we live in now and how generally safe we are – I hope I can say that about you – that the part of our brain that’s looking out for danger, even looks out for it in our own behavior. So it’s able to be critical of us, or it believes it’s being critical of us, in order to serve a purpose in order to keep us safe. 

I probably haven’t explained that, as well as he did in the book. But it got me thinking about the negative voice, the inner critic, that so many of us hear, and maybe don’t hear, that’s maybe silent. I find it at times just kind of running behind whatever else is going on, in my mind, and I’ll talk about in a minute how that doesn’t actually matter if we can’t specifically hear what it’s saying. So that’s some of the good news. 

Let’s jump in and talk about this. The reason I wanted to bring it up was that, in the past, we’ve talked about how unwanted habits are working in our favor, even though it might not look like they are. They are a solution, not a problem. And one of the metaphors I use is that unwanted habits are like the valve on the top of a pressure cooker. 

So this got me thinking about how that inner critic, that negative voice is contributing to the load of what’s in the pressure cooker, it’s contributing to all the stirred up thinking that’s in there, and not in a good way. It’s adding to the pressure that’s in the pressure cooker. And so that means that in a way I think it would help for all of us to look at that kind of negative thinking specifically, and learn how to deal with it, learn how to resolve it. And so that’s what we’re talking about. 

Today, I’ve got three tips for helping you to deal with your inner critic. I’ve been experimenting with the tips I’m going to share for the last couple of weeks, and it really feels good. I’m really really enjoying it. It has opened up a space of a good feeling within me. It has taught me at a new level to not take my thinking so seriously, which I really really appreciate. And like I say I just feel this a greater sense of tenderness or compassion, kindness for myself since I’ve been practicing these things, and so of course, that feels really good. So let’s talk about the first tip that I’ve got for dealing with your inner critic. 

The first one is pretty easy, and it’s something you’ve probably been looking at a little bit already. And that is to know that:

Thought, of course is like energy, and it’s moving through us all the time. And it is not the absolute truth, even when it looks like it is. So let’s take an example of you are walking along one day and you trip and fall. And there are so many ways that you can react to that situation. In the past, one of the ways that I’ve reacted to any kind of accidental thing that I do – I drop a bottle and it breaks or I trip and fall or the other day, I bumped my hand on a kitchen cabinet knob, and it’s quite sore – my inner critic really flares up in situations like that. So it really takes a hold, and beats me up and it takes the opportunity at that time to tell me that I’m clumsy, or I should have watched more carefully what I was doing, it really does beat me up a little bit in situations like that. And that’s been a historical pattern. 

What I found is that as I’ve been using these three tips that I’m going to talk about, it’s actually been fairly easy to break that habit, given what I see now and what I hope to share with you. So we trip and fall, there’s a lot of negative talk in our heads and whatever that looks like. And so the first thing we can realize is that all that thinking that’s going on, it feels so real. And it feels so true. And it’s so easy for us to live in, in the illusion that everything we think is true, and real. And it isn’t. 

How our thinking reacts to a situation like that, when we’re being hard on ourselves, is probably based on historically the way we’ve treated ourselves, and probably the way that we’ve heard other people treat us or treat themselves as well, growing up. What we can recognize, and we’re going to dive into this more in a future tip is that whatever the inner critic is saying in that moment, there are so many other possibilities for what could be true. 

So to stay with this example, if I tripped and fell on the inner critic told me, or was beating me up, because it was saying I should have been paying more attention. And that’s kind of the one note that it’s playing on, just by understanding that that thinking isn’t that the truth with a capital T is really helpful. 

Maybe there was a little uneven spot in the sidewalk and that’s why I fell. Maybe I was getting out of the way, I tried to be kind to someone and just kind of caught my foot. Maybe my shoes are too big. There’s all kinds of reasons that that particular circumstance that could have happened, which simply points out to us that whatever the noise is, the critical, negative noise that’s going on in our heads that’s not the absolute truth with a capital T. 

And again, I say, Yes, it does feel like that. And yes, it’s so easy for us to be completely wedded to that thinking and to imagine that everything we think is true. But looking in this direction, about what other possibilities are available to us, is really helpful, especially in this case of dealing with our negative thinking. So that’s tip number one. Remember, you know as often as you can, that the critical noisy thinking in your head isn’t necessarily the truth with a capital T. 

So, in other words, we don’t need to turn this into a situation where we’re monitoring our thoughts all the time, and trying to catch them all. Because that actually will take us in the wrong direction. We will add more thought, more pressure into the pressure cooker. So we can let that go. We don’t need to manage and monitor every thought that’s happening. 

The way that we feel when that happens is the alarm bell, or the barometric reading, however you want to call it, it’s the thing that’s going to let us know. And sometimes we can skate past that, especially if we’re used to a lot of critical thinking, and used to the inner critic. And yet, what we can do, as we gradually begin to notice this happening, the feeling that we’re having, and the fact that the feeling is alerting us to the fact that we’re having some negative thinking, it becomes a habit it becomes it becomes a habit in itself. 

I’ll give you one specific example. I experience a lot of urgency when my inner critic is really flared up. I notice that urgency pretty quickly. So I feel that in my body, I feel it in my solar plexus, like there’s a tightness, there’s a clenched feeling. And then I kind of feel it in my I would say, my chest and my shoulders that I need to, yeah, there’s just this impulse inside me, it’s almost like it’s telling me to run. And what it’s telling me is to go faster, to do more. 

I know that that comes from a habit that I picked up. So as soon as I feel that feeling I can be sure that I’ve got some thinking going on, that’s not serving me that the inner critic has flared up. And those feelings in my body will always tell me the truth about what’s going on in my head. 

When that happens, I can go back to tip number one, and think to myself consciously, that there’s another experience to be had here. 

I had this happen this morning, actually, when I was having a conversation with somebody. And I felt that urgent feeling, come upon me for absolutely no reason. I wasn’t in any kind of a time crunch. So I just did a little bit of silent talking to myself, and reminded myself that that feeling was letting me know that my thinking was not the truth, that I was feeling like there, I was thinking that I needed to move quickly, I needed to get out of the conversation that I was in and move on. And that wasn’t true at all. 

Through that little inner process, I was able to relax into the conversation. That didn’t resolve the feelings, all of them, immediately. But I was able to step into a much more peaceful place in that moment by remembering that my body was alerting me to what was going on in my mind. 

This brings us to tip number three. 

In that situation that I just mentioned about the conversation I was having, I simply became aware that there was the possibility to have another experience in this conversation with this person I was talking to. Now, we don’t need to get too attached to what that experience is going to be. 

For example, let’s go back to the trip and fall example. So you trip and fall, having a lot of negative thinking about it, you notice, first of all, you remember that your thinking is not the truth with a capital T. That’s tip number one. 

Then Tip number two, you, again, you’re noticing the feelings in your body, and how maybe you’re having a physical reaction to the thoughts that you’re having, or they just don’t feel good, they just make you feel kind of yucky. So that’s tip number two, you’ve noticed that the feeling the feedback that you’re getting, is that the thinking that you’re having isn’t the truth, and your body is alerting you to that or your experience is alerting you to that. 

And then you remember that there could be another possibility. There’s another way to think about this tripping experience. And again, what’s important to know is, you don’t have to know what that alternative is that the universe is there with its wisdom, with its intelligence, and its creativity, its infinite infinite creativity. When we feel like we’re in the grip of a bunch of negative thinking, and this is the reason why this tip is so important, is that there’s always a possibility of another experience to be had. And when we know that it softens things and, and opens them up a little bit. 

What I was picturing when I was preparing to do this episode was a tight little ball of string, and it’s all tangled in knots. And when we’re aware that there’s a possibility, for another experience, I just see that tight little ball of string kind of loosen. So you know when you see a ball of wool that’s quite loosely wound, that’s the difference between the tight little ball of string and the availability of possibilities. 

We like to feel of course, and our minds like to feel that we’re in control, and that we know the outcome of everything, and we know how things are going to go. But when we can soften a little bit and open up to the idea that there are infinite possibilities available. That, to me, anyway,  creates a much better experience of life. My grip isn’t so tight on it, and it it can flow much more easily through me.

That sounds kind of wishy washy, but I guess I mean, it just does, it feels like to me, like, the more open I am to the idea that I’m not in charge, that life is flowing through me, and that it is wise, even when things are going wrong, even when things are not going the way I would like them to go. 

I had a different conversation this morning that was difficult and things are not going the way I would like them to go in that situation. And by remembering that there’s a greater intelligence involved and that it is flowing through both myself and the other person I was having in the conversation with and that there are, as I said earlier, infinite possibilities available that could you know, come to light, could occur to someone or could change the situation, that allows me to let life flow to a greater degree within me and just seems to make things honestly so much easier. It lessons my suffering about what’s going on. 

Relying on that universal intelligence, that wisdom that’s always available to us is, to me, it seems one way to be able to do that. 

The final thing I want to wrap up with is reminding you I’ve said this before, but I want to say it again, because it’s so connected to what we’re talking about today. A few episodes back, I think I talked about how Michael Singer who’s a spiritual teacher, talks about how there’s really only one practice. And that practice is to relax. That’s the one thing we can do, that will ease our suffering. 

And my friend, Tania Elfersy, who’s been on this show a couple of times, she phrases that slightly differently. She refers back to Sydney Banks who said, over and over again, to look for a beautiful feeling. And that, again, really ties into when we’re talking about this inner critic, that inner critic doesn’t feel good. And when we notice it, when it gives us those signals in our body, another way to say that we can look for the other possibilities are that are available, is to say, look for a good feeling. 

It is the thing that will loosen us up, that will change the thinking that’s going on in our heads. When I have a lot of critical thinking, I go through these steps, remember them, I tend to imagine myself stepping into a good feeling, a beautiful feeling. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I can feel it all the time. But it does mean that I’m open to the fact that it does exist, that there’s a good feeling to be had. 

Even if the needle inside me just moves one little notch toward a good feeling, you know, one little notch away from the yucky feelings that my critical thinking have been giving me that my body’s been giving me that feedback, that’s a victory to me. 

Circling back to the brain book I was talking about, I imagine that there is a physical result from doing this. So in other words, we are physical beings, of course, as well as spiritual beings. And we have those physical, neural pathways in our brain. And they can be like the grooves in a record. So when something happens, when we’re triggered, like, your spouse doesn’t load the dishwasher properly, and they never do it the way that you want them to do it. The needle inside ourselves can fall into that groove and just go running with all the usual things that we say about the dishwasher and our spouse and how they never listen and all that kind of stuff. 

But by practicing the tips that I’ve talked about today, what’s going to happen is new neural pathways are going to be built. So that needle falling into that old groove is going to happen less and less. And that path is going to be built somewhere else. 

In other words, it feels like this is both a spiritual practice and it’s going to have some physical results in our brain. Now I’m not a neurosurgeon, and I’m not mapping my brain at this time. But I suspect that that will be happening as well, as we practice these three tips. 

I hope that’s been helpful for you. If you’re someone who struggles with a lot of negative self talk, the thing we often call the inner critic, what I’m realizing is it’s not as complicated to change my relationship to that kind of noise, that kind of negative thinking, as I used to think it was. And like I said earlier, there’s a balance. 

And that’s the balance that I would love to see you strike. And so like I said earlier, this isn’t about monitoring your thoughts. It’s not about managing what you’re thinking, because your design is perfect. And it will always let you know when you’re thinking. And when it alerts you to that with the feelings in your body, then you can do something about it, but until then, you don’t need to worry about it. And when that happens, it’s just very simple. Knowing that there are other possibilities and stepping toward a better feeling, knowing that it’s possible to have a better feeling in that moment. I hope that’s been helpful. 

I look forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. And I will talk to you on the next episode. Bye.

Featured image photo by Uwe Conrad on Unsplash

The post 3 Tips For Dealing With The Inner Critic appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When it comes to our mental well-being and our physical health it can be so easy to look outspide ourselves for answers. Ellen Friedman takes a different approach; she guides her clients inward to connect with the innate wisdom and wellness that is already there.

Ellen Friedman guides people home to the sacred space within, where they shift their relationship with themselves, their health, and others. She partners with people who are curious to explore a simple path to wholeness through the inside out nature of life.

In addition to having a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology with an emphasis in Consciousness Health and Healing, Ellen has a Certificate in Soul-Centered Professional Coaching, and she shares the Three Principles understanding. Her journey has been blessed coaching nearly 1000 divine beings using a human experience to remember who they truly are.

You can find Ellen Friedman at HealingHouseCalls.com.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• Seeing the whole person when it comes to healing

• Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple

Alexandra: Ellen Friedman, welcome to Unbroken.

Ellen: I’m so happy to be here with you, Alexandra.

Alexandra: I’m so happy to have you here. 

Ellen: I’m always amused where that story begins every time. I was happily minding my own business, enjoying my career as a physical therapist, when the knock on the door to coach came in 2011. And I was like but I love what I do. I thought you had to be miserable to do something else. 

Then I started feeling miserable by not following that. I got in my car one day after seeing a patient and I was like, almost without logic, and I said, Okay, I heard you, I’m coming back. So I began coaching in 2011. 

Then, in 2013, in a coach training program, one of the instructors introduced a video on the inside out understanding of stress. At that time, it was a really old video. And I remember the feeling inside me, I can like, remember the chair I was sitting in. I remember the feeling. And then I also remember my personal mind going, Oh, but we’ve got techniques and tools and things to do with people.

Ellen: I’m not sure because what was more difficult was trying to intellectually figure out what this understanding was. I spent a long time reasoning with what I was learning, comparing it to what I had already known. Seeing where it fit in, seeing where things didn’t fit in. And at that time, at that time, there were so many free opportunities to learn. I mean, there are today, but there were so many opportunities, and you and I could participate in almost all of them. And, there were also many wonderful paid opportunities and workshops and trainings. And, and you didn’t have to choose because there weren’t the abundance that there is today.

Alexandra: So this was around 2011 or 2012?

Ellen: 2013 was when I first heard that, and then it stayed on the back burner until 2016. But Alexandra, I am so clear that it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been looking in this direction or exploring the principles because we we all see what we see when we see it. And don’t you love it with when clients just see something that you don’t see? I mean, it’s so fun.

Alexandra: Absolutely. Insight doesn’t really have a timeline, does it? I mean, it can happen anytime. 

You mentioned being a physiotherapist. 

Ellen: Where was the interest in physical therapy health?

Alexandra: Well, yeah, healing and those kinds of things.

Ellen: I didn’t have any exposure to physical therapy, personally or for family members. So I don’t remember exactly how I landed on it other than healthcare seemed kind of interesting. But nursing didn’t and going to medical school I had no drawn to.

The allied health professions sounded fun and interesting and had a couple of opportunities to work as an aide and, and I was like, Okay, I’m going to do this. And so I went to physical therapy school. And different circumstances in school led me down the path of wanting to work with people who had chronic neurologic or new neurologic conditions. So that was a specialty for me right out right out the gates. 

What I really loved about that is, you kind of had to look at the whole person; when someone has an injured back or an injured wrist or an injured knee or have had surgery, it can be very easy to be focused on the body part or the joint. But looking back, I was interested in the whole person. And I remember right out of physical therapy school, I had two patients, both of them had very similar strokes, their MRIs looked similar. And they had completely different outcomes. And I was so fascinated by that.

Alexandra: Oh, that is really interesting. Wow, that is so cool. So transitioning then, I noticed on your blog, you have a post about rest and its importance. I think our culture is so not wired that way. Rest is almost a four letter word. 

Ellen: I recommend it because it works. Well, there’s so many different things that come to come to mind now. I literally was witnessing miracles or what looked like miracles in the people that I was working with, who had multiple sclerosis, ALS, stroke, brain injury, I worked with a lot of people who survived traumatic brain injury. 

When their nervous system was downregulated, they did better, they had less pain, they had less more mobility. And so it just began to make sense to explore that with people and let them figure out what works for them. I worked with a lot of people with MS because I actually trained in a hospital where every patient in the hospital had multiple sclerosis; it was wild that that even existed. 

This was before there were any medications to help people with their symptoms. I would notice that almost every one of my patients would be busy doing everything they could before they hit the wall of fatigue, and then they say things like, that’s all I can do for the day or, or I’m okay till noon around them okay till two o’clock. 

I won’t get into the details of story, but I’m happy to share it with anyone who who inquires, a patient suddenly went from requiring rest at four hours after she woke up to eight hours. Increasing endurance from four to eight hours seemed impossible. People were taking medications to try and do that. And that wasn’t happening to them while helping. 

I noticed that she and what a big part of her treatment program was, was relaxation exercises, and what I call down regulating the nervous system. Rest is the simplest form. Well, maybe not this one of the simple forms of of down regulating the nervous system. I think taking a long, deep exhale is also a very simple way and learning to rest before full exhaustion is so important for all of us neurologic condition or not.

Ellen: Well, I’m just going to explore your question a little bit more because I don’t really think that I suggest it to people. I explore with them what happens when they do. What happens when they don’t? I share stories and then they kind of come up with Well, maybe I could try that. 

Now, as a physical therapist, I did recall having resistance. No, I can’t, I have to get everything done before noon, because I’m not good after that. And this other clients, she was like, Oh, I’m good to one now. Oh, I’m good till a couple of weeks later, oh, I’m good till two o’clock, oh, I’m good till three o’clock. 

She goes, oh, I never have energy after four. And I said, Really, even after what’s happened? Oh, I can’t. Because if I have energy after four o’clock, then I have to make dinner and I don’t ever want to make dinner for the rest of my life. And I said, I can’t help you with, I can’t help you have energy after four, if that’s what it means to you. But maybe it could mean something else. That’s what I said, maybe it means something else. So the suggestion would come in the form of stories and explorations and experiments I love. I love the idea of experimenting. Because you can’t get it wrong in an experiment.

Ellen: It could look like we’ll just experiment with resting and not sleeping, or just experiment with tuning into your body. What would it look like to go to the gas station and fill your car before the red lights going put more fuel in me? If you fill up a gas tank in a car, when it’s half full, or half empty, whichever, whichever you see it, then it takes less time to fill up the tank. And so when you rest, you are down regulating the nervous system. And there’s so many different ways to do that. It takes less time.

We can even experiment in a session with you know, I have a lot of people that used to measure their fatigue, and I’m like, Let’s measure energy instead.

Ellen: Yes. But I would say, on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the most energy you’ve ever had, how much energy do you have?

Alexandra: I’m going to ask this question from a very personal place. What do you see as some of the causes or some of the primary causes of fatigue? You’re obviously dealing with people with physical issues. 

Ellen: Not always. There’s lots of things that create fatigue, and trying to figure them out is no longer necessary for me, for myself, or for my clients. In fact, I’m on the other side of three autoimmune conditions, one of them being chronic fatigue syndrome. 

In the past, I would see fatigue as an indicator or as a marker of illness or disease or a reminder that I have something and it doesn’t even enter my mind anymore to be anything other than an indicator of my body saying, Please give me a little bit of rest.

Alexandra: That’s really fascinating to me, that chronic fatigue. And so that was something that you experienced yourself. 

Ellen: I was masterful at avoiding discomfort. I have to be honest, I’ve never really shared with many of my practitioners that I had it because there was nothing you could do. It came at the top many, many, many years ago. It came with a lot of ideas around mental health and emotional health. 

But then I had a client I was working with a client that had chronic fatigue and Lyme disease. And she started telling me some of her chronic fatigue symptoms. And it was like, oh, like, she’s waking up with a sore throat, waking up more tired than when you went to bed. I was like, Oh, I guess I guess that I do have chronic fatigue. I thought it was just chronic stress. So back to your question again, I’m sorry.

Alexandra: I’m just interested in your experience of chronic fatigue, and how you might see it now, with your understanding of the principles.

Ellen: Well, I have to say, it’s really hard to tap into how I felt, because it was for such a long time, and I can’t even say like it started here. But the understanding that I have now is, whether it’s chronic fatigue syndrome, or any fatigue, I think the mental busyness is a huge component to it. 

I wouldn’t say that I was feeling any better. My fatigue symptoms were not better when I was meditating, they’re probably better now that I’m living into a meditative life rather than having a daily sit practice. 

I think there’s so many mental, emotional, and physical contributions to fatigue. Food, environmental toxins, but mental busyness mental stress is a huge contributor for all disease and illness processes. A huge contributor.

Alexandra: I find that so fascinating. Because one thing I know about myself is how busy my mind has been. And it’s gradually slowing down over the years, now that I understand the role that thought plays in our lives, and I still find myself quite fatigued. I described myself as having no stamina. I have very little stamina. I know that that comes from a busy mind. That just seems to be what’s been the constant in my life.

Ellen: I don’t know. There’s so many different ways. But let’s talk since you brought it up. Let’s talk about you.

Alexandra: Okay, sure.

Ellen: I know this identification with or stamina, low activity tolerance, I had that script running for a long time and not too long ago. And one day, I was somewhere and I hiked six miles. I haven’t hiked six miles in years. And I felt so good doing it and I was like, Oh, I guess I don’t have poor stamina. I guess I don’t have poor endurance. I just thought I did. 

I just experiment with what would you like to do more up and do it? I remember the days when I would like okay, I can do this much of a walk or I can exercise and I just see how masterful my personal mind, my ego, was trying to control and manage my life rather than let’s just see, let’s just see, let’s just walk out the door. 

What if we just know when we turn around? And what if we push too hard and then we have to take a longer than normal rest? From my PT days, I do remember that telling people if you need more than a 10 minute rest, when you get back then you’ve probably done a little too much. So what? So you rest a little bit more. But the background noise of poor stamina, low energy is, can be louder than we think.

Alexandra: Yes, absolutely. And it’s interesting to see that attachment to my identity of that idea of not having a lot of stamina or energy.

Ellen: For sure. An experiment would be what do you love to do? Where do you love to walk or move? 

A couple of months ago, we were at a friend’s house and I said, what is that? And she said, it’s a water rower and I said, I’ve never heard of a water rower. It’s a rowing machine that uses water as resistance. I love the sound of water, no matter how it comes; waterfall, ocean, streams. And my husband’s like, I can’t believe how committed you are to the rower every day. Commitment doesn’t come from here. It comes from I just love being on the rower and I love feeling my entire body working.

Alexandra: Oh, isn’t that amazing? I love that. As we’re touching on this, it occurs to me as well, that it feels like it’s all on me to manage my energy and kind of parse it out in ways so that I don’t run out of gas. 

Ellen: I’ve got a great story for that. Before I go to the story of whose energy is that, the other thing back to just fatigue in general, there’s so many contributing factors. I investigated all of them heavily, especially food and where this food was sourced, and all sorts of stuff around food. 

And what did that do? It just added more mental pressure, more mental energy to it. And so sometimes, sometimes not. So now, when I have any kind of symptoms that are I just think, Oh, I’ve got pressure on the system. Just got pressure on the system. What does my body want right now? Does it want some breathing? Does it want to sit down and relax back in a chair or lie down?

Ellen: I was blessed with the opportunity to speak at the London conference in 2019. The conference was Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. My talk was Monday at 1pm and Saturday night, I was committed to officiating a wedding on the east coast of the United States. And I’m closer on the East Coast than I am on the southwest of the US so I landed and officiated the wedding. The next day, got on a plane to Heathrow landed at the airport landed. 

As we’re landing, I’m thinking, Hmm, how many hours sleep did I get? Because I was trying. I was like working hard to sleep on the plane. I couldn’t calculate if I had a total of two hours. I remember feeling this oh my gosh, two hours of sleep. How are you going to do this? And I heard and felt, “You are not the source of your energy.”

Alexandra: Wow. That is so cool.

Ellen: I had so much fun at that talk. The whole day was great. And the whole night, I didn’t have any jetlag, I didn’t have any pressure on the system. I didn’t have any fatigue. I loved how I showed up for myself and for the people that were present. That really stayed with me for everything. We’re not the source. Source is the source, right?

Alexandra: Yes. Wow, that’s so great.

Alexandra: It’s so easy for me to fall into, it’s all on me. Whatever ‘it’ is. So it can be manifesting something, or it can be in a relationship. It’s all on me. Figuring everything out. So I need to keep hearing this message over and over and over again.

Alexandra: I guess every time it clicks with me again, it feels good, feels like a new, deeper awareness that it’s not all on me.

Ellen: And the other thing that has helped me and the clients that I’ve worked with along that journey is, not only is it not all on me. But I’m always going to have some variation of thinking that it’s on me. And that’s what I love most. That’s one of the things I really love about this understanding is that understanding has helped me to really deepen my acceptance of the human condition, and of me as a human. 

And that even though I know something, and even if it’s not just an intellectual knowing but a knowing that I’m not the source of my energy, there’s still going to be personal mind ego tendencies to forget it, or to want to grasp a hold of control, because I see that the personal mind, my personal mind, is masterful for me. 

Knowing how to maintain the illusion of safety, security, and control and some insight many years back, had me see the perfection and the mastery of my ego doing that. And since then, I’ve had so much humor when I see it, it’s like oh, you again. You’re trying to pull me into thinking that you’re the source of my energy. Hmm, what a clever way you do that. And it was never light hearted with my relationship with myself before. Like I was serious.

Ellen: It was serious. 

Alexandra: Something you said there made me want to go a bit deeper. It was around I’ve lost it now. Maybe it’ll come back. Probably it will. We’ll see. 

Ellen: Well, first of all, just the word dis-ease I’ve come to know as lack of ease. When I feel a lack of ease and any part of my life it’s a little tap on the shoulder to move into ease, to move into instead of swimming across the current or upstream to flow downstream with ease. 

I’ve been blessed to witness so many people who have chronic illness and I hate to say it this way and I’ve been blessed to have so many winners, so many people have deep, emotional, spiritual, mental healings, deep forgiveness for themselves and others in spite of their physical illness not shifting. Because again, for me just like, source is the source of energy. Source is also the source of physical healing.

Alexandra: Right, so it’s in other words, it’s not all on them for the healing, right? I feel personally challenged by living in ease. I guess that’s partly habit. And part maybe partly ego, like you just reflected on; my ego wants to be in control, it wants to manage everything.

Ellen: So that’s the way it works. It no longer makes sense for me to try and make it do anything different other than to recognize and become aware that it’s masterful for me and your ego is masterful for you.

Ellen: Yes. I think the other thing that can be really helpful is no matter what it is, is like what is it that you really want? 

I hear you don’t want the low stamina, the low energy but what is it that you do want? And how would you feel if you had that and 90 percent of the time, it’s the same thing. I mean, that was different people. I’m saying like, take 100 people or 1000 people that I’ve worked with now, it’s all some variation of peace or being in a state of loving and so coming close if that is there something like is that true for you? 

Was there another word for you or for your clients that you think that they that people are really seeking?

Ellen: I did the doing on almost anything that was possible to find peace, literally on my hands and knees before I believed in anything to preach toward. I meditated for peace 360 days a year. I medicated for peace. I learned lots of skills and tools and techniques to try and calm down. 

I’m laughing because it just makes no sense to try and calm down my human and I think one thing that all that effort did was show me how committed I was to it. When I’m moving away from that peaceful feeling I’m just more sensitive to it now. 

It was the habit. I was always back here in some variation of chaos or stress or tension. But now I’m sensitive to moving toward or away from it and I can catch myself so instead of in the past, it would have been like what do we do to not be in this tension place? Not possible. But having this sensitivity of you know that I’m moving more in the direction of peace or away from peace has been really a helpful guide.

Alexandra: I want to ask a follow up question. For our listeners, you talked about all the things you were doing to try to achieve peace. What do you do differently now? What’s the alternative to that? You talked about that a little bit about that sensitivity.

Ellen: I want to be aware that I want to share that, it sounds like I’m not happy with the things I did in the past. They all made sense at the time, they looked like good ideas. They were helpful, for sure. But I didn’t know what was possible. 

And I would say, I still don’t know what’s possible, I think that that experience of living in peace is ever expansive, that I’ll really, really never know the edges of that. 

Now, I don’t have to fix or change or do anything when there’s tension. I feel like tension is just kind of like a divine tap on the shoulder waking me up. 

And I would say this, this leads me into this. This other thing, this other area that’s really shifted for me is I’ve become more and more aware of how somehow I mastered feeling when I wanted to feel when I wanted to feel it and how I wanted to feel it. So it was very controlling about my feeling experience of life. I thought that because I could feel and because I could cry and because I could get angry that I felt all the feelings. But I really wasn’t not to the level I’m am now. 

I’ve become so attuned or sensitive to my feeling state. So I think of like, my anxiety that I was medicated for. And the continuum of anxiety now, I could literally sometimes feel just a very shift, very brief shift in my breath, where it’s more shallow. And I’m like, oh, that anxiety train is driving by. I don’t have to get on it. The wakeup is that I don’t have to get on it. 

At the other extreme, maybe there’s some heart palpitations. But maybe that’s when I wake up to there’s anxiety stirring. Or just a pressure and uneasiness. There’s just this continuum and I just love that I’ve become so sensitive to it, that I don’t spend a lot of time outside of a peaceful state. We never really went into this quiet mind, quiet body, but the peaceful mind, peaceful body really makes a difference. I know that’s what has helped me reverse three autoimmune conditions and other things that are currently healing in my body.

Alexandra: I want to point out for listeners to that what you’re pointing to, is that the feeling that comes always lets us know the truth of what we’re thinking, it’s always there giving us feedback. So that tension that you described, you use that word, is not bad or wrong or something to be managed or fixed. It’s simply a message.

Ellen: An indicator.

Ellen: I love the metaphor of a barometer, because what a barometer does is it measures pressure on the system. Sometimes I feel it with a shift of a breath. And sometimes I feel it with a shift in my heart rate, it doesn’t matter. Before the understanding that I have now it would have been like, what do I do to avoid the more severe ones? I’m laughing because it didn’t work. And now it’s like, oh, I caught it when it was here. And sometimes I catch it when it’s here. And ad that’s just the way it works.

Alexandra: I love that barometer metaphor. It’s such a good one. And when we think about it, if we spent a lot of time looking at the barometer that’s on the wall and saying, Well, you know, a movement of the needle within this zone is okay. But if you go outside that I won’t be okay. None of that is true, either.

Ellen: I love that expansion, too. It’s not true.

Alexandra: And I love hearing that, for you being able to rest in peace has helped you with these autoimmune conditions. That’s so extraordinary. And so often with guests on the show, too. And I love hearing this. We’ve tried so many things. And again, innocently, like you pointed out, and those things looks like the right thing to do at the time. 

Ellen: And for me, it was also a period of time that the knowing that I was peace was way more intellectual than the experience of I am peace. I was really, really kind of, Oh, I know, peace, because I was comparing it to the massive anxiety that I used to write. I’m not saying that I and as I said before, I don’t know, the boundaries, the depths of what peace is available, but I have unknowing that it’s way more than I could ever imagine. 

Alexandra: We’re coming toward the end of our time together, I want to ask you to tell us about your project around Mavis Karn’s book, It’s That Simple. Mavis has been on the show, and for the listeners, I’ll link to Mavis’s episode in the show notes. 

Ellen: Please do because I’ve had so many amazing mentors. But something happened with Mavis and this book. 

She wrote a book called It’s That Simple: A User’s Manual for Human Beings. It’s a series of 15 letters. I read one, two, and three, and I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, I’ve got to talk to Mavis about this. This must be a program. 

Something said don’t email her, because it could be a short conversation. So let’s do it. Let’s have a conversation with her. So I set up a time to talk to her and I said, Mavis, I woke up at three in the morning and this book needs to be a program. And she said, Well, what does that look like? So we talked about it and she asked me if I would do it with her. 

Then a few minutes later, she said, Oh, you know, just an hour ago, someone asked me the same thing. I think the two of you should go off and do it together. So I ran five programs with her virtual assistant Azul, which was lovely. It was our first time working together. We just jumped into doing it. 

We had small groups where we invited people to have the book or not, it wasn’t a book club. And in each session I would read a letter and we would have a shared experience of what people heard, where it made sense, where it didn’t make sense, where the exceptions were.

I just want to say stay tuned to how it’s gonna come out in the world. I am on a new venture to put it out where it’s more accessible to people, anytime a day or night and not just by enrolling in a program. So we’ll see how that unfolds. It feels like a big, well, I could make a good idea that it’s a big project, and let’s let it but when I remember this feeling that said, there’s something else that you can do with this. And it’s easy.

Alexandra: Nice. Touching back in with that feeling. That’s great. 

Ellen: I love that you asked me that. I want people to know that I’m also really committed to educating and informing people on End of Life Options. And in each state, and each country has different laws and rules. But there are some end of life options that are universal, they can happen and that you can do anywhere. 

Knowing what you want at end of life and sharing that with people is so important, because in my health care, working days I saw so many families struggle over thinking that they knew what their loved when their loved one couldn’t speak anymore, or share what they wanted, that they that they knew. And we might know now we can always change our mind.

I’m really committed to educating as many people as I can on that. And I love that conversation as well.

Alexandra: Wow, that’s so fascinating. I love that too. That’s a subject that’s dear to my heart as well, just based on personal experiences. And various other things. So I love hearing you say that. 

Ellen: Thanks for having another conversation about that.

Alexandra: Ellen, this has been awesome. 

Ellen: I’m always open to an email [email protected]. My website is healinghousecalls. And I also have a healthcare-coaching.com website where I support health care providers, doctors, nurses and others to know that stress and burnout is optional. Even in the workplace, even in that workplace. 

Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes to those things.

Ellen: Thank you so much for a fun conversation, and more than fun, meaningful, deeply meaningful conversation. I’m always open to inviting people into a conversation. I don’t buy a pair of jeans without trying them on. So I don’t want to hire someone or think about working with someone before I try them on.

Alexandra: Oh, that’s a great way to put it. Thanks so much, Ellen. Take care. 

Ellen: Bye for now. 

Featured image photo by Alessio Soggetti on Unsplash

The post We Are The Peace We Seek with Ellen Friedman appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

We usually think of stress as coming from the circumstances that surround us: busy jobs, busy lives, difficult bosses or clients. But what if stress has another origin? What if it comes from the thinking we have in any given situation?

Clare Downham is the dedicated mentor you need on your unique journey to unlock your innate potential and cultivate a thriving business aligned with your true purpose. As a certified ILM Success Mentor, she specialises in guiding emerging and established female entrepreneurs to embrace their innate mindfulness and harness it as a powerful tool for success.

With a deep understanding of the inside-out nature of our human experience, Clare expertly navigates the complexities of the entrepreneurial journey, helping women to silence the inner critic, dissolve self-doubt and cultivate a strong sense of intuition and self-trust.

You can find Clare Downham at ClareDownham.com and on Insight Timer at claredownham.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• On what happens when we ignore warning signs from our bodies

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Insight Timer

Alexandra: Clare Downham, welcome to Unbroken.

Clare: Hello. Lovely to be here.

Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. It’s lovely to see you. 

Clare: I was a primary school head teacher. So our primary school in the UK is aged three to 11. I was in primary education for 20 years. And the last five or so I was a head teacher to two different schools. And I became very stressed, although I didn’t know I was stressed at all, I didn’t have a clue. 

I knew there were things wrong with me. But I thought those things were what was wrong with me rather than stress as the underlying cause. One day I went into work, fully intending to start my working day and I took one look at my computer. And it was like, it was like I was frozen. It was like, my body just finally went, “No, no more, let’s go, let’s leave.” 

And I never went back in the end. Didn’t know I wasn’t going to go back. I thought it was going to have a nap, and have a little rest for a couple of weeks and then go back. But that’s not what happened. 

I was initially diagnosed with depression, because I was burnt out. And it looks very similar. Because all your motivation is gone. You can’t get out of bed, you can’t really do anything. But all the way through they were saying it was depression, I kept thinking I don’t feel depressed, I’m not really in a low mood, I’ve just got no energy, it was like it had been syringed out of me. 

It was a messy year. I didn’t work for a year, I was off sick for a year. And through a vast part of that it was all depression, depression, it’s depression. So obviously I was taking tablets, I was trying all sorts of things to cure myself with depression. And it was only really much later on in that journey that I realized that I burnt out and realized actually how stressed I’d been and how, as I learned about stress, how my body had been screaming the warning signs at me. But I had just ignored them or not known they were there. 

I didn’t deliberately ignore them, I just didn’t know they were there. I didn’t know that’s what they were telling me. So a year went by, and eventually my governing body and the people I was working for needed to know when I was going to come back. And I just didn’t know. I couldn’t give them an answer because I was still not brilliant. And so in the end, I had to resign. 

I resigned on the first of April. April fool. I think it’s quite funny that I resigned the first of April, and then didn’t know what I was going to do. Obviously at that point, apart from just, it felt like a massive, I actually got a lot better once that weight had been almost like my thinking. Now I know my thinking about going back to work was really not helping my recovery. So I didn’t know what I was going to do. 

This is in 2016 I resigned. And so I thought, well, I’m interested in that  thing. I had had a bit of hypnotherapy, and it helped a bit. And I thought, You know what, I’m going to go and I’m going to go and do hypnotherapy. So that’s what I did. Not really with the intention of starting a business just, well, it’s something to do you know, something to learn, something new, I’m always interested in learning new things. And it was only like partway through the course. Well, near the end of the course, when they started to say they started talking about clients, they started talking about business, started talking about marketing, Facebook, all these things and only think about in terms of business. 

It seemed I was starting a business completely by accident. That’s my first accidental business. I didn’t say it was a first accidental business. So I started this business and I guess it was probably about the autumn of 2016 when I started going networking and things like that. I started to go to these networking events where they would have somebody do a little 20 minute presentation. And a lot of them were  self development and there was a lot of messaging around, “You have to have all these big goals and you’ve got to have a plan. You got to have like a 12 week year plan, you got to have a three year massive or a five year plan and you’ve got to stick to these plans.” She was scheduling your day and there was all this stuff about time management about managing tasks. 

Never fluctuating, never changing, just be motivated all the time supposed to get up every day and just smash through everything, and hustle and if I didn’t do that I was going to be a failure as a business owner. 

As a result of that, I get into all these different self development things. So I’m reading books and listen to podcasts, I’m going on endless courses. And then I’m doing all the therapeutic look into the past. What’s wrong with Clare? When did she become broken? Was it as a child and those sorts of things? Counseling more, obviously, that was a hypnotherapist plenty hypnotherapist I could tap into, I was just trying so hard. Oh, Miracle Morning, every day, get up, do this  ritual in order to make yourself be okay. 

That went on for about three and a half years. Now when I say that to a lot of people to go, Oh, God, I was like, for 20 years or whatever. So actually, I think three and a half years, I was very fortunate. It was only three and a half years I was like that. Then in January 2020 I can only say a miracle happened really. And again, I don’t know miracles, accidents, luck, whatever you want to call it. So a friend of mine, Peter, had just finished his training with Michael Neill. He had just done the Super Coach Academy. And he just put a post on Facebook saying, I just need some people to sort of practice on to finish my qualification off. And I was like, Oh, you can fix me then. Come on, put my hand up. Like, come on. Let me come. 

I can’t even remember what he said to me. Only I remember him drawing a stick person. We’d like a lot of squiggles above its head. And I’ve seen Michael Neill and other teachers draw that picture since. I remember that but I don’t remember much else other than I cried and cried and cried. There was so much frustration that I’d done all this stuff. I’ve done everything the blinking gurus have told me to do and I still wasn’t motivated all the time. 

That was the starting point. I had some coaching with him. I then started to really listen to Michael Neill’s stuff first of all, I guess. He was my route in. Then lockdown came along. And my in person hypnotherapy business went poof. There it was gone, literally overnight. But actually, that was really fortuitous in the end, because I didn’t really want to do hypnotherapy anymore, anyway. 

That opened up quite a lot of space for me to look in this direction. And trained then with Jules and Rudy Kennard. My fiance and I were in the last cohort of people doing pure Three Principles stuff, they’ve moved on to something a bit more multi dimensional, shall we say since then. Everything changed.

Nothing looks the same as how it did, particularly other people. They used to be really annoying. There are a lot of synonyms. That’s really good. My main thing was ranting about other people in their behavior and wanting other people to be different. Yeah, that’s gone. And life just looks a lot more easy. 

So that’s how I came across it. And since then I’ve stayed in the conversation, is what they say, don’t they? I’ve explored lots of different teachers, done bits and pieces of all sorts of different things. Listen to a lot of podcasts. And at the moment, Amy Johnson and Clare Dimond seem to be my main people that I’m  connecting to. I’ve loved it. It’s been amazing, really. And I’m so grateful that those little accidents happened along the way. There’s way more bits of luck or bits of miracles, I guess, to get me to now.

Clare: Well, first of all, not because of teaching. The first thing when I say I was a primary school head teacher and I burn out people just Oh yeah, it’s such a hard job. Actually, my working life was the bit that was okay. I always felt good at work. I never really felt stressed out about work or anything related to work, although I had taken on a new headship in the autumn of 2014, and obviously I burned out in March 2015. I think it might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back that it was a new headship.

There’s a lot to see very quickly when you’re in your second headship because in your first headship you don’t know that much. So you can’t really see the problems. Whereas when you go into second headship, and you’ve left your lovely school that you’ve just made, all nice and pretty and wonderful, you go into this new place, and you’re like, ah everything’s wrong. There’s a bit more speed to it. And yet, there’s a lot coming in. But really, it wasn’t really that. I also separated from my husband in the autumn of 2013. 

And then just, the only thing I can describe it is, now I look at it, and I know, I was trying to control the world out there in order to make myself feel okay. I was doing a lot of online dating. That’s not a great place to be, if you’re a control freak, let me tell you, because they don’t behave Alexandra and they behave appallingly. So many of them. So that wasn’t good. 

I had a friend who was also a head teacher and also split from her husband. You can just imagine what those nights were like; they involved a lot of wine, and blurry memories. But you know, there was a lot of that there’s a lot of doing doing a lot, and trying to find it out there. 

So I was tired all the time. And my mind was very busy with what can I do next to make myself feel better? So it was really all the outside world stuff. That was the problem. And how I was trying to control all of that, to make myself feel okay.

Alexandra: I loved what you said about motivation. And you work with a lot of female entrepreneurs. I had a little bit of an aha moment when you said that; of course, our motivation goes up and down. It ebbs and flows. In the entrepreneurial world, there’s so much information brainwashing  about jumping out of bed and achieving your goals and always feeling 150%. And of course, that’s not the way it works. 

Clare: Massive. I think there’s the word acceptance or surrender or something like that comes to mind. 

I’m 53. So I don’t have a cycle of my own, over 28 days now, but I  have been looking at like, How does my energy change? Because it still does seem to have these kinds of patterns to it and looking a bit around the moon. There was a new moon last week and I just noticed that I was very much hunkering down and I was writing things. I do stuff on Insight Timer, and I didn’t want to record anything. It wasn’t in that energy to record and then at the beginning of this week, I’m ready to record again. I’ve woken up, I’m ready. I’m energized to do that now. 

And like last week, if I went to a networking event in person yesterday, if I tried, I couldn’t have done that last week. I just wasn’t in that energetic space. But I think that one of the things especially for female entrepreneurs, is that you have to remember that the world of business has been – and this is nothing against men – but it’s been created by men, for men by men, just because that’s the nature of how it’s been. The world of work was a man’s world up until not even 100 years ago to be fair, you know, it’s not even been 100 years that women have been in the workplace properly. 

He just gets up and he just like yeah, I’m doing this thing and I’m just singing. I’m like that some days and then other days I just want to cry and sit in a coma. And he doesn’t seem to get that. He’ll ask, “What’s wrong?” Nothing’s really wrong. I’m just crying and just feel a bit flat and I’m just not in the mood. I’m this undulating energetic thing.

I’m not a man and I’m sure men fluctuate as well, but Bruce just doesn’t seem to. I speak to a lot of women who say, Oh, no, my partner just gets up. He’s just the same every day. He doesn’t seem to really half this cycle thing going on. So I think there’s there’s something about self compassion, knowing that and also realizing that sometimes in those quiet times is actually when I’m still around, I’m slower. Some really cool ideas come through, because I’m not dashing about doing everything and trying to do everything. 

Some of my really cool things that have felt like downloads or channeling or whatever you might want to call it have come in those moments when I have been like, oh, I don’t really want to do anything. I just want to sit about and read a book, or whatever. That’s when that stuff comes through.

Alexandra: Absolutely. In fact, just last week, I had a day where I was wanting to be working, had some stuff that I wanted to do and just couldn’t do it. I spent the afternoon just lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. Because that felt like the thing that I really wanted to do. 

Where I tend to go with that is, oh, no, I’ve lost all my motivation. That’s what starts to happen in my head. I’ll never get it back. I’ll be lying on the couch staring at the ceiling for the rest of my life. 

Instead, what happened is when I got up to go and do and make supper, I had two ideas for new programs. So I completely agree about that. The quiet time is often the most fertile time for sure.

Clare: I think it’s not uncommon. I think there’s something around how many different things, women, whether they’re entrepreneurs, or they’re in work, are managing, there’s still there’s still, like, we’ve moved full on into the workplace full on into entrepreneurialship. But we’ve not dropped any of the stuff in the house. We’ve kept it all. So we can’t do it all. 

I also think it’s where we’re trying to get to the pushing and the forcing, and the keeping going, when really, we should be resting and really tuning out from our bodies completely and utterly. When I was burning out, my body did a little tap on the shoulder and then it gave a little light tap on the cheek, and then it was literally punching me around their head going, when you’re going to listen to me, I’m dying here. And you’re not doing anything about it.

We just don’t listen. So this busyness, we’ve got loads going on, there’s home, there’s business, there’s all the stuff. There’s also this sense that we’re supposed to be energetically on all the time. So we’re not resting, we’re not taking care of ourselves. And eventually that you can’t, so sleep starts to go around. I mean, that for me, it was massive. 

My sleep went completely to pot. And then we go treat the sleep as if it’s the sleep that’s the problem. It’s not really the sleep. That’s not the problem at all. It’s the underlying stress and moving towards burnout. And so eventually, it’s running on this level of adrenaline, it’s just not sustainable for the body. 

One of the things I often talk about is, are we going slowly enough and quietly enough to hear the body saying? When our eyes start to feel tired and we’ve got a bit of a headache because we’ve been in front of his screen too long. I don’t imagine many people are even listening to that. I can sit here, I’m middle of doing something and I don’t even go to the loo. I don’t really need the loo, I’m just going to finish this little thing that I’m doing. 

No, go to the toilet. Start there. Just start there by listening to the very fundamental signal from your body that is saying go to the toilet. Eeven that we’re not doing, we’re not listening. But we have to be able to go slow enough to do that. And we have to be willing for things to change, and I’m not sure with the drive for money and things and just this concept of success, which is made up anyway. Whether we feel that we can afford to stop or slow down that feels like it’s too much of a sacrifice, I think really, so people keep going and keep going until it’s too late.

Alexandra: Right, and especially when we feel like, the only thing that’s going to get us to where we want to go is that drive forward. We don’t understand the value in resting and taking care of ourselves. 

Clare: I’m just thinking then that The L Word, the lazy word comes up, doesn’t it? I’ve just been on a call earlier with a group of women and one of the women said that on Sunday, I mean, not even on a normal working day, on Sunday, she actually just laid on the sofa and put Netflix on. And it took her a big leap to do that. Because a big pushing through some discomfort, because it was like, Oh, I shouldn’t be doing this. “I should be out doing something. I should be in the garden. I should be busy all the time.” 

She had headache, and then the headache went away. And she felt so much better and so much energized, because she just had rested. Sometimes you watch something on Netflix, it just  washes out for you a bit, doesn’t it? And it’s just what you need. She was saying how difficult that was to just lean into that and allow that to just happen. Instead of fighting it and having a story about what else we should be doing.

Clare: I guess fundamentally, when I was in the thick of all that self-development stuff, that’s what I was trying to do was trying to manage my feelings. I was trying to just all the time be in a different feeling state than the one I was in. 

What I see about that now, and it’s that it’s still like developing is that that takes quite a lot of energy. And also, it’s fundamentally impossible to manage your feelings. You can’t do it. So that’s the underlying premises, actually, you can’t do that, it doesn’t really work that way. 

But when we are very focused on an emotion that we don’t want to have, then we’re spending a lot of energy thinking about that emotion and trying to fix it, it just makes it worse. It just makes it more unpleasant. And actually, I’m seeing it now as fighting against the present moment. If what is present now is a feeling of anxiety, then, if I sit with that, then I’m really in the present moment, because I’m with this feeling of anxiety. 

What I’ve noticed when I do this, I feel like it’s almost like when you pump a balloon up till it’s like really, really full. And then instead of knotting it, you let it go, and it goes whizzing around the room. And so it’s got all this energy and then it just goes up and it just sort of falls to the ground, no energy left. 

When you watch these emotions, and you do that non judgmentally, that’s about how long they last. They whiz round and they move around and then they just disappear. I think that’s because you’ve fallen into the present moment, you’ve surrendered, you’ve accepted whatever word you want to use. And it’s just there. 

What I see often as well in the female entrepreneurial community is that there’s always work going on to try and feel differently. And it’s taking a lot of time so nothing’s getting done. Like a fraction of the thing if they do because the whole idea is they want to get more done but they’re spending so much time and energy on managing feelings, they’re getting less done. 

Whereas actually what happens when we just sit with the feeling and allow it to be there it passes anyway. And then what I find comes very quickly after that is a feeling of lightness, a bit of clarity, often the next step often like, Oh, do you know what, that’s what I need to do next. And then almost like this inbuilt motivation or energy to go do that thing just sort of comes with that energy built in. 

Whereas if we’ve spent all that energy, even if we did get rid of the feeling, by the end of all that manipulation, and trying to get rid of it, and whatever we might be doing to get rid of the feeling. By the time we’ve done all of that we’re tired, then we’ve got nothing left to go do the thing that we might have wanted to do. 

And the other thing is, as well as that in business, you’re often going to compete against things that feel uncomfortable, like putting yourself out there, let’s just call it that marketing speak. But putting yourself out there is going to sometimes mean that you’re going to butt up against some  growing edge of yours. And actually, you could spend hours trying to get rid of this awful feeling so that you can then go do the thing. 

But actually, the most potent way to get rid of that is to do the thing. That’s the most powerful thing that just allows that whole limitation to fall away. So instead of going round the houses trying to get rid of the feeling, trying to manage the feeling, just do the thing, like not from a place of hustle. Because those feelings aren’t telling you about the thing anyway. The feeling doesn’t come from that thing. 

And when you do the thing, that thinking  falls away. So when you see it in that light, it just gets easier. Once you know that that feeling isn’t information about the thing you’re about to do, you can then do it. And that’s got to be quicker and more efficient than going round and round, is trying to chase the feeling away before you can do anything.

Alexandra: Absolutely. For our audience, I’m in a class with you at the moment about Insight Timer. And there have been a couple of things that I’ve bumped up against in that exact way, and I noticed myself, I might spend a bit of time backing away from whatever the thing is, and thinking about it a lot and, and worrying about it a bit. 

And then eventually when I did it, it’s never as hard as we think it’s going to be. And all the thinking that I had about that just drops away. So now I’m not carrying the weight of all that thinking that I had about whatever the thing is.

Clare: Absolutely.

Alexandra: We touched a little bit on how women have entered the workforce, but they haven’t let go of the things they were already doing. Raising children, taking care of the house and that  thing. 

Clare: I don’t think it’s helped by having too much to do. However, I do think there’s one thing about being overwhelmed and that’s thinking you’ve got to do it all now. It’s as simple as that. 

If you’ve got a list of things to do, you only think about one of them and you go do that one thing to completion, and you cross it off, and then you go do the next thing, then you may not get it all done. But you will just be very present. And you’ll just be very focused on one thing. 

I think tied into that is seeing how much thinking we might have about completing the tasks on a list. I mean, there’s that thing, isn’t it? I’m sure it’s absolutely true for most people, you’ve got a list of 10 things, you do eight of them and you mega focus on the two that you didn’t do. 

So there’s noticing if we tend to not be very compassionate to ourselves or beat ourselves up about not doing whatever things we’ve not done. Realizing we’re not superhuman. 

I was rubbish at asking for help. I was drowning in my life. And nobody knew. Nobody knew how ill I was getting, because I hid it very, very well. I didn’t ask for help. So there’s all the stuff that is about us needing to keep up some  facade of being okay all the time. Because we don’t want to be a burden, and we don’t want to get in the way, or we don’t want to seem to be a problem in some way. But fundamentally overwhelmed is thinking you’ve got to do it all now.

Alexandra: I love that. It’s such a simple definition. And it resonates with me so much. I think of times when I felt overwhelmed and I had so much thinking about whatever was going on. And it really does feel like that pressure. Oh, it all has to happen in the next five minutes. And that was all made up, of course, by me. Such a good point. I love that. 

Clare: The first thing is just that phrase, dealing with it, as if it’s something to do, rather than something to be seen in a different way. Because I mean, I’ve got a workshop stashed away somewhere, it’s available if you want it. It’s called The Truth About Stress. And it just takes people through the difference between pressure and stress. 

Absolutely, in this crazy bonkers world that we live in, where everything’s too fast, and we’re wired into [our phones] all the time. And it’s harder to switch off and all these other things are going on, then there’s pressure but that’s not the same as stress. That’s our relationship with the pressure. 

Let’s say we’ve got a busy job or a busy business. And yeah, we could literally go into that business, work our socks off all day. And if we can just, like, close the office door at five o’clock, and go chill out with our family, and have a lovely evening, be really focused on that when we’re doing that, then we won’t experience stress. It just won’t work like that. 

In this workshop, I talk about the fact that on a Sunday night, loads of people don’t sleep because they’re already in the working week. And they’re already thinking about what’s to come and how much they’ve got to do and everything. 

And equally on a Friday afternoon. Everything goes really well, everybody’s really light hearted, and it’s all cool, because actually, already they’re thinking, oh, I’m going to the beach that weekend, or I’m going to do this with my kids. The thinking is already thinking not even the job is like, Oh, it’s just really easy to do exactly the same, the same things that they were on Wednesday afternoon, or Monday morning. But all of a sudden, it all feels a lot lighter, because their mind’s already traveling forward in time. 

As I’m saying that I’m just thinking, if you really in the present moment stress can’t survive, it can’t be there. That would almost be like starving of oxygen, it just wouldn’t be able to take hold. And what’s really interesting about that, from my teaching background, is that obviously teaching is seen as a very stressful profession. I think that is because teachers are not very good at being in the present moment. They are when they’re in the classroom. So a lot of teachers will say I love being in the classroom. 

But the rest of the time is really stressful. And that is because in the classroom, when you’ve got 30 kids to manage, you can’t not be in the present moment, because they’ll eat you. They will actually eat you if you’re not properly on it. So when you’re in the classroom, even if you’re dealing with quite a difficult group of children, you’re actually very, very present. 

Whereas the rest of the time teachers are fast forwarding through their lives all the time. So in primary schools in this country, the day is broken down into little chunks, obviously, the terms and then there’s a holiday and so all the time teachers are counting down counting down, when’s the next holiday, when’s the next holiday? And then when they get into the holiday, like, Oh, I’ve only got three more days and that’s working. And so they’re always like they’re always out of the present moment. 

I think that’s a massive factor in how stressed people are in not just in teaching them sure but in other jobs. But if if we are 100% in the present moment, all we notice when we’re not, and therefore fall back into the present moment, I don’t think stress can get a foothold. It’s like it trying to get up a greasy pole, it can’t do that. If we are in the present moment. I think that’s a quote: the present moment is a greasy pole to stress. Profound.

Alexandra: That’s great. I can really see what you’re saying, because I’m thinking back to my corporate life, the brief moments I’ve had in corporate Canada, and sitting in a meeting was always really stressful for me. And it wasn’t because the meeting was stressful. It was because I was thinking of the three other meetings I had to go through that day. And I was thinking about the emails that were piling up in my inbox while I was sitting in the meeting. It’s such a good point. 

And teachers too, especially it feels like a calling. 

Clare: Definitely is. I don’t know what it’s like over there. But over here I think it’s like 30% of left within the first three years or something. They graduate and go into teaching. Dropping like flies. It is a shame.

Alexandra: As we start to wind up here a little bit, I just wanted to ask if there’s anything we haven’t touched on today that you’d like to share?

Clare: Nothing that I can think of off the top of my head.

Clare: That’s been just such a wonderful journey. When I first found the platform, I didn’t really engage with it fully. I didn’t really know how useful it could be in my business. But it was this time last year, so may 2023, that I really started to get active on the platform, and it’s just so much fun. I have a lot of fun. 

This afternoon, I’ve just been  pondering my thoughts on what new courses I might make and what are the content I want to create and that sort of thing. I do find that the creative juices for it really, really flow. I think that’s because I used to create a lot of content for social media. 

I was very, very active on LinkedIn. I mean, very, very active, ridiculously. So to be fair. And it never felt like creating a link for insight time. And I think that’s because that you can see your impact. I go on every day, and there’s all these beautiful reviews, and there’s people on my courses saying thank you, this has completely changed my general perspective.

Or on my lives, people saying this is just what I needed to hear today. And that sort of thing. So you know that you’re having an impact on the thing in our  work. You know, actually, we do want to earn a living, it’s lovely that you get paid on Insight Timer as well. But it’s just seeing that impact, just getting that feedback to know that what I’m saying is changing people’s lives. And it’s giving people a nicer, happier, more peaceful experience of life. 

That is, is huge, really, and you don’t get that from posting on social media, you might get the occasional nice comment, but everybody’s too busy on there. Whereas on Insight Timer, people are really going to find help. So they really are appreciative when they find something that is helpful to them.

Alexandra: So true, and it’s such a different atmosphere than your typical social media platform. Not that it is social media, but just the fact that for someone like you or myself, who feels called to teach and share and try to help people, it’s such a better fit than just shouting into the void on Instagram, or whatever it is. 

Clare: Spitting in the wind. I often say nothing’s seems to be landing energetically, it feels more  aligned as well you know that, that we are being rewarded financially for the content that we’re sharing and the help that we’re giving people. That feels quite significant as well. 

Because I mean, on social media, there’s only one group of people benefiting financially. They own the platform. That’s right. It’s very aligned.

Alexandra: Lovely. That’s great. Well, thank you so much, Clare, for being with me here today. 

Clare: Yes, so I have a website called claredownham.com. And I do have a nice little gift that people might want to check out. It’s called the Letter to the Inner Critic. 

It was one of those things that came to me and one of those quieter periods that I just allowed to happen. It’s quite fun, but it’s also quite poignant in terms of my own changing relationship with that voice in my head, that seems to twitter away nonsense at me. I think it’s really helpful to people. 

So it’s claredownham.com/letter. That’s my website. And people can download that letter there and hopefully enjoy reading it.

Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes so people can find that at unbrokenpodcast.com. Well, thank you so much, Clare. I really appreciate you being here with me today.

Clare: Thank you. It’s been an absolute pleasure. 

Alexandra: Bye bye.

Featured image photo by Jackie Tsang on Unsplash

The post Stress Relief for Female Entrepreneurs with Clare Downham appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Old-paradigm psychology can try to convince us that unwanted habits are caused by a need to feel loved or safe or cared for. It can feel like we’re using food, or other substances, to soothe or comfort ourselves. In this podcast episode we bust this myth and look toward the true origin of unwanted habits.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Are you interested in connecting with others who are exploring this understanding? Would you like some coaching and ongoing support with an eye toward resolving an unwanted habit? Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist.

• The five reasons an unwanted habit has nothing to do with replacing love

Hello Explorers and welcome to episode 62 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the really common myth that when we have an unwanted habit where we’re using that habit to replace love that we might feel that we are missing. 

Before I say that, I should say that I think it makes sense that we came to that conclusion. And I know for me, I spent years and years trying to love myself in a way that would cause my unwanted overeating habit to disappear. And none of what I tried worked. I tried things like journaling, affirmations, radical self-compassion. What else was in that arena of loving ourselves? Cognitive behavioral therapy. I took a course I’ve talked about this before. And it was all about creating a loving feeling within ourselves. In order that our overeating habit would drop away. And none of that worked. 

I’m going to talk about that today and about what I see now, when we have the thought that we’re using a substance like food to try to replace love within ourselves.

The address for that is AlexandraAmor.com/community. And there’s lots of information there on that page. 

The community will be launching later this year in 2024. And we will be having some live coaching in the community, we’ll have an online group, we’ll have a couple calls a month live with me. And as I say, all the details are there on that page, AlexandraAmor.com/community. 

Okay, so let’s get into this subject of whether or not food is love.

The reason I’m talking about this today is that I had another coaching session with Tania Elfersy recently, and you may have listened to the episode, number 53, where Tania coached me. And so we’ve gotten together another couple of times since then. 

Today, we had a conversation about this thought and feeling that I have when I’m putting food on my plate, specifically at supper time. And the thought that I have is, there’s not enough. We talked about that, and what that meant, what that thought means for me. It felt as I explained to Tania, it felt like it was saying to me that I wasn’t loved enough, that that feeling of there’s never enough I’m sort of transferring it to food, but the food represents love that might be absent in my life or had been in the past. 

We talked about where that thought might have originated. And I can see that there was a time in my life when that thought probably came into being and how we innocently can assume or conclude that because of the circumstances that we’ve experienced in the past, and that we now have an unwanted habit like overeating that we are substituting one thing for another. That’s where the myth comes in that we are using food as a substitute for love. 

I want to share the five things that Tania and I talked about, and explore this a little bit more and hopefully help you see what Tania has helped me to see. And what I’ve seen, during my exploration of the, the understanding that we’re exploring here are the three principles. 

What really matters in this exploration is that we see it as thought. So that’s what seems to really create change, at least, it has done in my experience. And what I mean by that is, in the old paradigm of psychology, the outside in paradigm, if I had been coaching with Tania today, in that old paradigm, what we would have done is gone back to potentially where that thought originated. And then we would have dived into the feelings around when that thought originated, and the circumstances and the places perhaps where I felt an absence of love. 

And we would have dug up a lot of the painful emotions around that, and all that kind of thing. And Sydney Banks often talked about how digging into the past to him didn’t make a lot of sense. And it was for that exact reason that digging into the past brings up all these feelings within us. 

Now having said that, what I’m not implying is that we need to just bypass our past experience at all. That’s not the intention here. But what I do want to encourage you to see or to try to see is that when we’re having a thought about overeating or about a certain food, I really want you to notice that it is a thought. It’s not something written in stone, it’s not a pronouncement that’s come from someone that you can trust and believe that it’s the absolute truth. 

I’ll talk about how you can tell that a thought like that isn’t true, that’s coming up in one of the points I want to make later.

Initially, I invite you to see when you have a feeling or a thought that’s similar to the one that I’ve described, the first step really would be to see it simply as a thought.

And for me, this situation happens at the same time, this thought and feeling so the thought is there’s not enough food on my plate. And the feeling is one of a little bit of fear, a little bit of desperation, a little bit of panic, that kind of thing. Very light. It’s not huge, but it’s definitely there. 

The second thing I want to talk about is an experience from the past. And what I really was able to see today in my conversation with Tania. If you’ve read one of my books, the one called It’s Not About The Food, in that book, I talk about the soda habit that I had, that I’d had for like 30 years, and how when I began to explore this understanding, that habit fell away. And what I saw today was that in the past, before that habit fell away, I felt a very similar feeling about that soda that I would have every day at lunchtime.

That feeling was I need this thing, it’s a treat for me, I’m giving myself a lot of care and love by having this treat every day at lunchtime. And before I started exploring the principles, anytime I tried to let go of that habit, those feelings would rear their heads and become really tricky for me to navigate. And I was not able to do it until I came to this understanding. I quit that habit probably hundreds of times in those 30 years. But I always picked it up again, because those strong feelings of that need for love that I had projected onto the can of soda would overtake me, and I would fall back into the habit. 

In other words, the love that I feel in my life, from family, from friends from the universe, from myself, hasn’t changed at all. It hasn’t diminished at all, because I don’t have that soda habit any longer. And when I realized that as I was having the conversation with Tania, what I saw was that the nature of that thought was not true. Therefore it wasn’t telling me any bit of truth. 

Now, it felt true. In the moment, for those all those years that I had that habit, absolutely, it felt true. It felt like if I don’t have this thing, I won’t feel as nurtured, I won’t feel like I’m having a treat, I will feel bereft, I will feel a sense of loss. And I would feel deprived those kinds of feelings. And so like I say, what I saw today was that that wasn’t true, because that didn’t happen when the habit fell away. I feel just as loved now as I did when I was experiencing that habit. 

And it wasn’t a truth at all. It felt like a truth, but it wasn’t. So that was the second thing that I want to share. 

One other thing as well about that, that Tania pointed out was, what this also points to is the fluid nature of our thinking of thought, and our attachment to things and how fluid that can be as well. When we think of our thinking as being much more solid and real, and therefore dangerous in that way, of course it can be really hard to shift these habits that we have, these unwanted habits because the thinking that surrounds them feels so real. And what this example pointed out to both Tania and I, this soda habit example, was just how fluid thought really is. 

It was attached to this can of soda that I had every day. And then it was so fluid though that it was able to to shift and move and change and the connection that I had between those two things, between soda and love, which felt really, they felt really sticky and glued together. What I see now is that as the habit fell away that they weren’t stuck. They felt like they were stuck together in me. 

The truth is, they weren’t an equation, like one plus one equals two. Soda plus lunchtime equals love. That seemed like a real equation to me in the past. And now I see that it’s not that things are much more fluid than that. I’m not sure what other word to use. 

The third thing I want to talk about when we talk about the myth of unwanted habits and food being love is that – and I touched on this a little earlier – the feeling that happens when we have a thought about food, the feeling that comes up within us is what is going to point out to us that thought is a lie. 

Here’s what I mean by that. When I have the feeling and the thought, when I’m putting food on a plate, that there’s never enough, there’s not enough, that comes with, as I said earlier, feelings of fear, and panic. And it’s a real clench up feeling. 

The truth always feels peaceful. The truth is only ever going to feel like a good feeling, like a beautiful feeling. So when I’m having the thought of putting too much food on my plate, and how that’s necessary because there’s never enough, and I feel the feelings associated with that thought that information is so valuable about the fact that that thought is a lie. 

It’s not the truth, because it doesn’t feel peaceful, it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t make my shoulders drop. It doesn’t make me feel relaxed. I feel like I said earlier, fearful, panicked, worried, a real clenchy concern about that. So that’s another thing to look out for, and observe. There’s nothing to be done when you feel that feeling. But noticing it is really important and noticing the difference between a feeling that brings you peace, and a good feeling, and a feeling and a thought that doesn’t bring those things, a thought that makes you clench up and feel fearful. 

And then the fourth thing that I really want to point out in this exploration, and something that Tania I really specifically talked about this morning for quite a while, is that it’s not up to us to manage our thoughts. 

She brought this up, probably just via her experience and wisdom around working with people on these things. And as human beings, when we begin to see the nature of our thinking, probably the next that question out of my mouth or question that someone might have is okay, I see that this thought isn’t true, I see that the feelings that I have with it are pointing away from the truth. They’re pointing toward a lie. So what do I do about that thought? How do I manage that thought? How do I make that thought go away? How do I change that thought, which is something that as people with long term unwanted habits, we’re probably very familiar with that feeling, wanting to change what’s going on. 

Tania’s point was that there’s no need to do any of that. 

So the only thing we really need to do is be open to the observation of what’s going on. And that’s a tricky thing to do. And it’s a tricky thing to understand, because our human minds are designed to solve problems. 

The mind anticipates. It says, “Okay, I get it, this thought is pointing toward a lie. So now what can I do about that?” That’s natural and innocent. There’s nothing wrong if that happens. I just wanted to bring this up as an important point related to this subject. It can be a little bit challenging to get our heads around this, that we see this thing that maybe we would label as a problem and then you’re asking me not to do anything about it. That seems a little weird.

Where we’re really wanting to put our attention, rather than digging in, and getting concerned about that thought and its presence in our lives, and getting bogged down in that problem solving, what we’re wanting to do is look in a different direction. We’re looking toward the nature of thought itself; that it is fluid, that it will change on its own, there’s nothing we need to do to make that happen. 

Our thoughts are changeable, they are using that old metaphor, they are like the weather. They are flowing through the space that we hold for them. We are the sky. And the thoughts are the weather. Trying to control them and change them is like trying to control the sky trying to control the weather in the sky. That’s impossible. What creates change more easily than digging into trying to get rid of the thoughts we don’t like, push them away, manage them, control them, replace them with different kinds of thoughts. 

And that that is how they are. They are energy flowing. Thought is energy flowing through us. And we can no more control that than we can control the weather. So that’s point number four. 

And finally, point number five. Tania brought up the timeline and how…

I do experience that myself, especially because I’m here in public talking about these things. And there is part of me that wishes that some of these habits would fall away faster than they have. But going back to what I said in the previous point, worrying about the timeline of how these things shift is like trying to control the weather. It is like shouting at the sea, was the example that Tania gave, being angry at the ocean. 

Thought is a force of nature that we’re dealing with. And it’s big, it’s huge. And it’s really not on us to control it. It’s going back, as I say to the previous point, it would be like trying to control the weather. And putting energy and effort into doing that really is just a waste of effort. Honestly, it’s just a waste of energy. 

Imagine how frustrated you would be if you thought it was your responsibility to change the weather. If you had given that task to yourself, and it’s raining, let’s say, and you have decided that well, it’s my responsibility to change that rain to make it go away, to turn it into sunshine. Imagine how frustrated you would be. 

So this final point is about a little bit of allowing, a little bit of surrendering to what’s happening. And again, being the observer in what’s happening and noticing the fluid nature of thought, of your thinking, but not necessarily being tangled up in trying to change that. 

I’ve experienced that during these years that I’ve been exploring this understanding and so many of my unwanted habits have fallen In a way, almost I would say, almost all of them. I feel like I’m down to the last, I don’t know, 4 or 5%. And that happens, not because I put a lot of effort into controlling my thinking, replacing my thoughts with other thoughts, saying lots of affirmations or trying to use willpower to change my habits. 

The more we look in that direction, what I’ve seen is the more change can occur. So I hope that’s been helpful for you today. 

If you have any questions, please always let me know if there’s anything I haven’t explained clearly. I would love to hear about it so that I can take another run at it. You can do that at AlexandraAmor.com/questions. That’s it for today. I hope you are doing well and taking good care. And I will talk to you again next week. Bye.

Featured image photo by Jamez Picard on Unsplash

The post Exploding The Myth That We’re Using Food To Replace Love appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

As a long-time coach, and before that an HR professional, Dominic Scaffidi points his clients back toward an awareness of their innate wisdom and ability to thrive effortlessly. He reminds us that we are always more than our human minds can grasp.

As a Master Certified Coach (MCC) credentialed with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Dominic works with leaders, teams, entrepreneurs and individuals to achieve professional and personal aspirations. He points clients to a realization of who they really are as they focus on creating what they most desire in life.

Dominic is a Registered 3 Principles Practitioner who is grounded in the teaching of Sydney Banks.

You can find Dominic at DominicScaffidi.com and on Facebook.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• On the overlap between the Law of Attraction and the Three Principles

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Michael Neill’s TedX Talk Why aren’t we awesomer?

Alexandra: Dominick Scaffidi, welcome to Unbroken.

Dominic: Thank you, thanks for the invitation. I’m really looking forward to our conversation.

Alexandra: Me too. I’ve never spoken to you one on one. So this will be fun. 

Dominic: I’ve been self-employed as a coach, executive coach, mostly. I deal with leaders and organizations like that. And I’ve been self-employed for about 15 years. Prior to that, tt was a corporate career that I had in very large organizations. The last corporate role that I held was a VP of HR position. And so that’s kind of a bit of that. 

My career has continually moved to more and more reflection of what I’m interested in, my passion. So that kind of relates to the Three Principles, in that my purpose in life, I say, is to awaken greatness. Maybe you could say it as to reveal greatness, to reveal what’s within us. And so that’s a link to what appealed to me about the Three Principles. 

Maybe seven or eight years ago, I came across the Principles and the teachings of Sydney banks, and they immediately resonated as this is true, this is pure truth. What he was pointing to, it was just obvious, it was obvious that this is just true. And so I became really interested in delving into that into that understanding, which is a deeper understanding of who I really am, my true nature and the nature of reality. 

And of course, in my coaching, when I’m working with people it’s really about helping us to look more deeply into who we really are, our true nature and the nature of reality. The more we come to see and understand that, the more I’m going to say, all problems disappear. I mean, that’s just the way it is.

Alexandra: Oh, I love that. And so a follow up question, then. 

Dominic: I’m a student of many teachings. And one teaching in particular are the teachings of Abraham Hicks. I was follower for many years. And that teaching focuses very similarly on we are consciousness and energy, like so it’s very similar. 

I like to say that from that teaching, and teachers, the Law of Attraction, I say that I attracted the Three Principles. And so this and why I attracted them was because it was necessary to my misunderstanding of the teachings of Abraham Hicks. It had been incredibly useful for me. Much of my understanding had contributed enormously to my own thriving professionally, to my business. 

I built my business following a corporate career in a way that I would say is effortless. I’ve never participated in business development and trying to get business. Because around the beginning of my self employment, I had come across Abraham Hicks. And I realized, wow, this is, I mean, it would be crazy if it worked. But if you could simply be in that state that is resonant with what you want, what you want, must come to you. And that just didn’t sound very corporate or real. But it works. 

It actually works. It’s actually what happens, because it’s an accurate description of how everything we experience comes to us. So it was very impactful. And then there came some point where I needed to go further than this, to see it more deeply. And there were many misunderstandings I had of what was being taught. And the thing about the Three Principles, you’ll agree is it is so rigorous. It is so rigorous. 

Even simple things like, well, you don’t need any practices. It’s so rigorous, right? It’s like, well, there’s nothing to do. It’s all about an understanding. And that part I didn’t understand or hear as clearly with Abraham Hicks. Although after I come across the principles, I would go back and say, Oh, my God, they were saying the same thing, that they’ve been saying the same thing. I couldn’t hear it, I was interpreted in my own way. 

Following the Principles, it sort of cleared up, where I was a bit off around all this. And it just took it much deeper. So I say I attracted it. And the way I attracted it is I think I was on YouTube, I was listening to some Abraham Hicks stuff. And then what pops up is Michael Neill, and his TED talk, Why Aren’t We Awesome? 

I’m like, Who is this guy? What is this? And then I just became intrigued on what’s he talking about. I’ve never heard of Sydney Banks. And that, of course, is the rabbit hole. Once you get a bit of a taste of that, it’s clearly it’s like, wow, this is true. This is powerful. Yeah.

Alexandra: A couple of things I want to ask then is:

Dominic: They disagree or are in conflict in my misunderstanding of one or the other teacher, not one or the other teaching. I misunderstand what Syd was saying, I will see a conflict with Abraham Hicks. And anywhere I misunderstand what Abraham Hicks is saying, is conflicting with my understanding of Sydney Banks, just as it does with teachings of non duality, just as it does with any other teaching. 

All conflict is not inherent in what the teaching is pointing to. Every conflict reveals my own misunderstanding of one teaching or the other. So where you see a conflict, it’s a beautiful thing and look in the mirror and see what it is that you misunderstand these teachings, what they point to, are not to what is right or wrong about anything, because what they teach is beyond what is right or wrong is to the essence of what is expressed. They are expressed in words and words are interpreted, and where you interpret incorrectly, then you will arise in conflict. And then you will see wow, that one is wrong. Well, it is wrong according to your misunderstanding. Absolutely. It is. So you might want to clear that up.

Dominic: What I’ve learned to do, because it was interesting, because when I came across the Principles, I wanted to talk about what I saw was the same. I wanted to talk about different ways that and quite frankly, in Three Principles communities it was more of a reaction of, oh, no, you don’t need all that. Well, I’m not looking for what I need, I’m looking to understand something. But you don’t need that, this is all you need. But I don’t need any of it. What each of them will do is deepen my understanding. All teachings are simply a story, right?

What’s valuable about them is what’s actually true that the essence from which they come. So most people were because eventually I came across lots of people in the Three Principles communities, who had been following Abraham Hicks or followed other teachings. And in almost every case, every one of them had said, Oh, I used to follow them until I discovered this. This is right, that’s wrong. I noticed this as a pattern with most people within Three P. “Oh, I used to do NLP. Then I realized that was all wrong. And now I do this. I used to follow this other thing. And now I follow this.” 

I’m like, wait a minute. So you come across this thing and you take a vote and you say this one is better, and that one’s obviously wrong and I toss it aside and I now go forward with this. I almost went that way. And I almost did because I’m kinda like wait a minute, but this one so obviously true. And I’m not sure why. But somewhere in the middle of it, I’m like, but I keep going back to listen here. I keep going. What’s that about? Because why would you go back and listen, if it doesn’t resonate as true? 

I keep going back to listen, and the more I listened, the more I’m like, Yeah, this is true. And then I noticed something curious. I noticed. Wow. In fact, this is saying the same thing as what Syd is saying. I never heard that in this teaching before. I always thought this was saying this other thing, right? 

What I discovered out of this is that if you can sit in a paradox, or a bit of a dilemma of this seems contradictory to me. Oh, well, I guess I’m missing something. And just leave it alone. Right. Over time, what happened is I’d suddenly go, Oh, my God, I think I know what they’re saying. 

And all of a sudden, something would pop up and you’d go, oh, that’s what this means. And so you would see something deeper. But if you’re there, and you kind of go, oh, well, that’s obviously wrong and this is right. You walk away with more reinforcement of your own thinking, and no insight. So somehow, by luck, I ended up more doing that, than I went the other way in terms of you know, who’s right, who’s wrong?

Alexandra: I love that because for me and I was in your Living Miraculously course earlier this year. Folding the two together is such an interesting way to explore these things, these truths about us. And it did  bring more questions to mind. But as you add more opportunity for exploration, as well as what I enjoy about it, for sure that confluence.

I want to circle back to when you talked about starting your self-employment journey. In a recent newsletter, you had this quote, “Thriving does not depend on action and effort. It relies on allowing.” 

Dominic: There is no plant, no tree, no animal, no human being that grows, comes alive, blossoms or thrives by their effort. Their energy is not required. So there’s something about that. And if you quiet down and notice, you’re not growing yourself, no child is growing themselves. To look at a plant doesn’t clock in work all day, and then clock out and rest for a while, using its own effort to try to keep getting bigger, taller, bring fruit out, flowers, whatever. 

So the truth is that your thriving is effortless. It’s effortless. It’s by grace. There’s a difference though between a human being and an animal and a plant. An animal is only allowing mostly allowing. A plant is certainly completely allowing, but an animal is pretty much allowing and what happens is just like us that consciousness is an expression of all that is, a unique expression of all that is expressing blossoming into this expression, unique expression of itself. 

The thing with that is this consciousness which is an infinite intelligence, all knowing basically expresses through any form, expressing more of itself uniquely than the animal. There’s no resistance. Take an animal like a bird. And what a bird will do is as the weather changes, it will fly south. And the thing is it flies with no map with no one teaching it. No Google to learn, this is what you’re supposed to do. It’s an nudging, that moves it. 

And not one of these birds turns around and says, Why the hell should I fly south, when you look at these bears that just sleep and Hibernate all year like that, and I’m expected to go 1000s of miles. And not one of them says that. There’s no resistance to it. They simply allow this intelligence, which is only for their own wellbeing, only for their thriving to move them. And anything else, like you look like, they’ll be building a nest, they’ll come back, then they’ll build a nest, and again, not with schools that teach them how to do this, just an infinite intelligence, that is knowing, knowing of what’s needed and how it is. And somehow they find what they need.

It’s different in different environments. But none of that matters, because they’re guided. Now, what we call that with animals is they’re following an instinct. It’s an instinct, that instinct is wisdom, that instinct is intelligence. And it’s an intelligence that brings their well being a shortness and thriving, human beings have the same thing. We’re just a bit of a different imagined creature. And us as an imagined creature, I’m not being religious here, just from a more spiritual perspective is, we are made in the image, imagination, we are an image a reflection of the Creator. And I’m going to say is we are a truer reflection of the Creator. And a truer reflection is we are made as creators. 

Now that’s a bit of a difference. Because although a bird or you take a beaver, who builds a dam or something, and like that a bird building a nest, see, the thing with them is they’ve been building the same nest 1000s of years, the same damn 1000s of years. But you and I live in homes that look nothing like a home that we would have built 1000s of years ago, looks nothing like it. And what that is, is we were given a different gift of freedom of thought. 

And the minute you bring that about, you bring about enormous possibility. And that enormous possibility is for the possibility of greater expansion and creation. You literally can bring what never was before, made in the image of the creator, and a further expression, and we are as creators. And so that beautiful possibility is our greatest trouble. Freedom of thought, I can think anything, right? Including, I’m able to think against myself. 

I don’t need to listen to that. That’s not the boss of me. I make my own decisions. And I am free to move as I wish, including against myself. That is pure freedom. You are so free you can choose bondage. That’s what freedom is complete pure freedom. There is nothing off limits to us. We can be or do or have anything. We are limited by our own thinking.

Alexandra: What a great explanation. Thank you. I really appreciate that. So speaking of being or doing or having anything, let’s segue into you recently made a new purchase of a home. 

Dominic: This whole thing was one of the greatest lessons. We can be all theoretical about you can be or do or have anything, you can create what you want and blah, blah, blah, until the reality hits. 

We’ve been in a home for 28 years, we’d love it. And eventually, it came a point where you say, are we living here forever? Or do we buy something else? Are we gonna live somewhere else? But for many, many years, we had all kinds of like, you know, I was in a home office. And if you look out the window, there’s a brick wall. I’d always dreamed that it would be so nice to look out and then there’ll be nature. And just a view and light and all of that kind of stuff. 

So anyway, it’s all dreams for a while. And, but then there came a point where my, it was really my wife said, Are we just going to just talk about this all the time? Or is that something we’re interested in? So that kind of kicked off something. And by the Law of Attraction, we move to a more open and allowing state. 

There are many, many reasons why well, no, not now. And that takes a while. And it’s hard to find something and all the thinking that it poses, because, by the way, to manifest anything. And just to be clear, what is manifestation? You’re not manifesting anything, you are allowing yourself to perceive what already exists. So when you say that you manifest something, a more accurate description is you’re not manifesting something out of thin air. All that is already is. So what you’re doing is, by your own focus, that you experience anything. So all possibilities are available, they’re there. 

You’re not bringing something in out of thin air, you are allowing the energy in the direction of the desire to form into the desire not would be manifestation. It’s nothing you’re doing. It’s you’re allowing that instead of right, it kind of look at not by will or determination. I could only notice that my mind was wanting or desiring something. Something that felt better than this. Now, some people would say to you, you shouldn’t go in that direction. You should just be content where you are. But I think I started this by saying we loved our home of 28 years beautiful home, raised a family and it loved everything about it. That was a dream home for us. We were so lucky to have had the home we were in very content in the home and from a place of contentment, it is a very allowing state. 

You are in a resistance state. You are pushing against what’s wrong with the damn place that I can’t stand living here anymore. And if anything were to come out of that state, it would be another place you would hate because it would just match. So when you’re somewhere and the desire coming through, then really, when I look back what I was doing was resisting, but we’re really good here and things are all okay. And yeah, but that’s gonna take a while. It’s not easy to find what we’re looking for. 

Abraham Hicks says when you desire something, and you expect it, is when you want something in you expected it is. So it’s instant. This is kind of how God, you look at the Creator we’re made in the image of the creator. This is how God creates, let there be light. And light is in the instant it is thought. So it’s manifested in the instant it is thought. 

Sydney Banks points to divine thought. I used to think divine thought was reserved, like us, like a big deal. That’s divine thought, right. Until I thought about it a little more divine thought it is pure thought when it occurred to me was divine thought is unopposed thought. God thinks a thought and doesn’t oppose it in the next thought. God doesn’t oppose its own thinking. 

We’re a little different. I would love that. But that’s going to take a while to have. The very next thought becomes an opposition to it. This whole thing was like that, and kind of stretched out. 

Anyway, at some point. And it was months ago, we started the search, there was a bit of the disappointment in everything we were seeing. And so we were feeling terrible. At some point, my wife and I agreed, and we said, you know, look, let’s just promise each other that we will not move unless we feel the way we felt when we bought this house. So when we know what that feeling is, and if we feel that feeling. Just after that agreement, which followed a huge disappointment of you know, searching and kind of thinking, I think this is a mistake, what are we doing? We’re gonna end up paying, right? So just after that, suddenly, this house shows up. 

We were in Hawaii, actually. And it was beautiful and suddenly we get this agent send us a video and they say, You know what? We know this is over budget, but it has so much of what you’re asking for. My wife and I were waiting to check in to the hotel, and we’re by the pool and we watched this video. And we were silent. We watched this video. 

And we’re like wow, I can’t believe that exists right now. I can’t believe it exists where it is, which is just a few kilometers from where we’re living now. And we have family here and stuff. And we really wanted to sort of stick around. But there was so much to it. That was a challenge to my beliefs including the money. This was not the plan. The plan was different. It was downsizing. It was like it was a whole other plan. This is not what I was thinking. This is not what was comfortable. This is not what was predictable. 

But here’s the conflict I ran into, I was like I cannot deny the feeling. I mean, how do you deny the feeling? So anyway, we were there and we were like, are common to each other was like, gosh, I hope we get a chance to see it. Because we might not by the time we get back, it’s gonna be like 10 days or whatever the place could sell. Hope we get a chance to see it. 

We write the agents and we say we would like to see it. And so we come back and within a day we’d like to get a sneak peek. I want to see it. The minute we walk onto the property it was like that. We’re not even inside the house, but it was like, oh my god, this is our place. This is our property, this is our home. And then all the problems, the beliefs, almost, wow, how is that supposed to work? 

In that moment, I was just I don’t know, there was a lot that I learned, like, a lot that I questioned, I thought, how could it be that this feeling is so clear and true? And yet, it’s not? How can it possibly be like, how could you have this feeling? And yet it’s not the right place? It’s out of reach? It’s not correct. I was a bit disappointed. 

Also, from a law of attraction perspective, to get a perfect match, except you made a mistake on part of it. Like, what kind of law is this? How could this be? You can’t bring something and have it be a match? And then have it be off like that? 

So then I thought, Well, maybe it’s not the Law of Attraction that’s off. It could be something else is off here. And that’s when I kind of look more to me. And so in that journey, I started to see it was obvious. Yeah, I’m off in so many ways. And all of them are my own thinking. And the question is, do I want to insist on my thinking? Do I want to insist on what I know, do I want to insist on how it’s supposed to be, how things are, and not be open to new thinking and new seeing? And all of that was interesting to me. 

Now, I love that I understood from my understanding of Three P because this was the most important thing from what Sydney Banks said, it was clear to me. And my wife was very clear to me that life is going to be great with or without this house. I’m not making that up? I know for sure. So I see this home. And it’s a beautiful match. And honestly, and frankly, whether or not we ever live in it, life is going to be great. Because life is not dependent on any of this. 

So that part was a relief. That is right. So now there was zero attachment. It’s not needed for anything. I don’t need this in order to live a great life. That’s not it. But now though, I was curious,  how can you be a match to that? How can you be a match to that? 

And I knew this too, from Syd’s teaching, it says your wisdom is in a beautiful feeling. Well, I got one, fine, got one right here. So your wisdom is in a beautiful feeling. So I thought this feeling will guide. This feeling will guide all the way there. If I can be more committed to the feeling than I am to that damn house. 

Because that feeling will lead. Here’s the deal, whether it’s this house or another house, if it’s this feeling, this is the feeling that will manifest. I don’t know if I got it right, as far as this had to be the house. Or maybe this house was just trying to show me what this feeling is. So who cares. The point is, if it’s this feeling, I know I’m going to be it’s going to be an expression of something beautiful. So that was then the journey. 

It was interesting because the way I composed myself, the words, the actions, the way I’m going to say I lead. It was a journey to allow that feeling. That thought to become a thing. And so what I mean by that are things like, you know, we indicate to our agents, we’re very interested the whole bit. And then, this conversation going, but we’ll go at them like this, and then we’ll show the market value is not whatever. And I could feel like, hang on a second. We’re not doing that. 

This house is beautiful. I was saying crazy things like, honestly, who is saying crazy things like they built this house and renovated this house for us. They are not our enemy. They are not an opponent here. I was so clear. This was all put together for me. So weird to even say it. But it was just the truth. 

Because some changes that were made and how it was done, not everything. I mean, there’s things you gotta fix. But some things you go, Oh, my gosh, like, Who would do this in this way? It must have been done for me. I was very sensitive to No, we don’t talk about them like that. And, and I don’t want to be stealing the house. You know, how can I get it? That’s not a beautiful feeling. 

I’ll tell you what inspired me more. I want to be one who could just pay for that house. I want to be one who could overpay for that house. Now, that’s interesting to me. No idea what it looks like. But I would like that. So then, the feeling was better one way than another way? How do I give that more airtime? And be open to what does that mean? To sit in that feeling? And that would lead to thriving and expansion. 

So this is a bit of how this journey went. And there was all kinds of stuff in between and drama and all kinds of interesting things. Because, we would be bored if we just thought of something and had it, so it was instead of learning and my greatest learning around, practically speaking, what does all this? What do all these teachings actually mean? 

Dominic: There’s a lot in it.

Alexandra: I want our listeners to really hear what you’re saying about following the beautiful feeling. And what I really heard was that was your guide post. That was the thing that you made sure to check in with regularly and make sure that it was leading you down the right path.

Dominic: Yes. The feeling is indicating what you’re thinking. So the feeling is indicating the degree of wisdom in your thinking or nonsense in your thinking. That’s what the feeling is indicating. What you’re feeling is either in harmony with something I’ll say in a minute, or disharmony with it. That’s what you’re feeling. 

What the feeling is, is your extent of harmony or disharmony with something. What are we saying the something is, the something is who you really are, your true nature and the nature of reality. That is really truth. There is who you really are, your true nature and the nature of reality. When you think, in a way, that’s true, it will feel good. When you think in a way that’s harmony with the truth of who you are. 

It will feel good when you think in a way that isn’t true. It’s less true, you will feel less good. Sydney Banks said your wisdom is only he didn’t say a little bit of it, he said your wisdom is only in a positive feeling. 

The Source within you, the creator, of which you are an expression, this consciousness, this energy of all things of which you are an expression. That energy is a very high frequency, high vibrational energy. Human beings would refer to this energy as love, peace, joy, bliss, abundance, empowerment, clarity. They would use words like this to describe what this pure source energy essence, that expresses all things. 

And of course, your expression of that is not all that you are, your expression of this allness is less than it. So there’s a deviation to begin with, right? You are not who you think you are. Who you think you are is but a fraction of the truth of you. 

I like to say in Living Miraculously, you may have heard in my programs, I’ll often say you are far more than you think. And forever shall be far more than you think. You cannot think all that you are, it’s not possible. So who you really are is beyond your thinking, beyond anything you can believe. But the fact is, you are thinking, and all that means is you are limiting. Of course you are. You have to, because if you were all that is you would disappear into nothing. All you are is thinking, which is limiting, but that’s not a bad thing. That’s what experience and existence and creation is. An aspect and expression of the art.

So that’s what you are here, we’re one big walking limitation, that’s fine. It’s not a problem. We can enjoy all kinds of aspects of all that we are. So you do that. But as you think, part of what you’re doing is you are expressing all that is uniquely, but as a result that there is a desire within you a feeling a desire, an impulse to be who you really are. Now, look at the dilemma in this. You’re a speck of all. 

So within you is an impulse to be who you really are. How do you be who you really are? Number one, you’re already that, but from the perspective of course, that’s the only thing that’s actually conscious, but from a person’s focus perspective as the speck that is you. Sydney Banks called it a microscopic aspect of the energy of all things from a focus as that the desire is to be what you are through that. 

This is such a paradox because you say, well, all that is is all that is so how would you say it’s expanding? Only one way it can expand and that is to express more of itself, from within itself. From within itself from every aspect of itself like you and I. As you and I expand and thrive and become and be more of who we really are. All that is, is more of all that it is not the most beautiful thing. That’s the impulse you feel. 

This is where Sydney Banks said, he said there is only one will, and that is the will of God. So he spoke of free will, and we have free will and whatever. And he said that too. Everything’s a paradox. So he goes, you have free will, you can think for yourself. It’s all free will. And then he says, but there is only one will. And that is the will of God. 

What are you saying? You’re confusing? What’s this mean? Well, it means is the only force in the universe, in Star Wars, that called the force, the only will in the universe is the will have the all the of consciousness to know and experience itself. In all the ways that it can. So that is, the only will there is, which is why we also if you’ve heard, we, of course, we’ve all heard, know thyself. Because that’s all there is, we’re here, the only thing driving the only thing wanting is to know thyself. 

And that know thyself is from all that is to know itself. I mean, consciousness is aware and aware of what – aware of itself. There’s nothing else to be aware of. So it’s an energy of all things that means there are no things other than it. That is one principal conscious. And so, it is aware of itself. And then what that implies, it is aware of itself, and every aspect of itself.

The whole energy or movement is into a greater and greater and greater knowing of itself, you could say a deeper and deeper and deeper knowing of itself, or you could say it the other way, and an expansion into more and more knowing of what it is and the knowing is expressed and experienced. So it only knows what it experiences and experiences through you and me and through a billion others and plants, animals, trees, minerals, and other planets and all that like so. It’s all consciousness. Almost a bit out there.

Alexandra: It’s lovely. Thank you so much. My eggs feel a little scrambled. I had a guest who used that expression the other day. I love it. That was amazing. 

Dominic: We all make too much of all of this. Life is supposed to be fun. The purpose of life is joy. Syd got to that when he said, we just stop talking about all this stuff and go live life. So you don’t need to study this. You don’t need to take courses in this. 

Abraham Hicks says that they say words don’t teach. It’s odd. We use so many things. They say words don’t teach only your own life experience can teach you. The reason words don’t teach is people have listened to this podcast and I’ve used a lot of words. Well, the only thing you can do with that is believe me or don’t believe me. None of it makes a difference. Whether you believe me or don’t believe me, it makes no difference. These words don’t teach anyone. These words point to something, but they don’t teach anything. 

Your own life, though, will show you the laws of the universe. Your own life will demonstrate to you by your own direct experience, who you really are, your true nature, and the nature of reality. And you’ll know that that’s true. How you’ll know that you’ve discovered is you know, what happens in this as I say a bunch of stuff and you listen, but there’s some things that I say. And someone listening goes oh yeah, that’s true. and all that. So it’s not what I said. What?

Syd said, I can’t share this with you, you would have to see it from within you. So, I chatter away, I say a bunch of stuff. And then someone goes, Yeah, that’s true. Well, what that means is that you heard something there. A better way of saying it. You interpreted something, you thought something. And that thought resonated within you as true. That’s your wisdom. Don’t blame me. That’s your wisdom that you just heard. And you know, it’s true. It’s like what’s clear to you? So that’s what, you know, that I’d leave people with. 

Relax, there’s nothing serious going on. And you’re fine on your own. Just live your life. It’ll teach you everything. As an eternal being what difference does it make? Have fun with this? It never ends.

Alexandra: That’s a great thought to wind up with.

Dominic: DominicScaffidi.com. That’s the website that will link you everywhere. It’ll give you a link to my Facebook group, which is called Ask And It Is Given: How Thoughts Become Things. It’s a very great Facebook group and it’s where I spend the most time on Facebook is in that Facebook group. I invite you to join at my website, you’ll see a ton of resources of free webinars and all kinds of recordings and stuff that are available. I share lots of stuff, more is coming, you can tell I have a lot to say. You can check YouTube channel, again with my name. So those places and again, from my website, they’ll link all over to those. 

Once you get to know me, I always recommend, check out that stuff that’s free, you’ll know whether you resonate or don’t. And once you do, you may consider it they’re not necessary or needed. You may consider group programs.

I do offer group programs like Living Miraculously, which I do with Grace Kelly, a colleague of mine, and other ones that I do as well. And so those group programs are ways that I do, and then a few people I work with one to one and that kind of coaching. 

Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes, for sure. Dominic, thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it.

Dominic: I’ve enjoyed our conversation and this exploration. Thank you for the invitation.

Alexandra: My pleasure. Take care.

Dominic: Yeah, Alexandra. Bye bye.

Featured image photo by Chris Abney on Unsplash

The post Thriving Is Effortless with Dominic Scaffidi appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

So often we demonize our bad habits. But what if those habits are working to bring us messages about our perfect human design?

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist.

Show Notes

• Your unwanted habit is not a problem

When we have an unwanted habit like overeating it can feel like there’s something broken about us. Our culture tends to shame those with unwanted habits and it is widely assumed that there is something wrong with anyone who struggles with them. Judgments, including self-judgments, are made about a perceived lack of discipline or lack of self-care. 

But what if an unwanted habit like overeating was a sign of all that’s right with you, not with something that’s wrong?

For decades, we’ve been approaching unwanted habits as though they are the enemy. How’s that working for us? Not well, I’d say. We only have to look at the rising statistics about obesity or drug and alcohol addiction to see that this seems to be a battle we’re losing. Badly.

In this course, I’d like to explore turning our attitude toward unwanted habits on its head. It’s so easy to misunderstand what an unwanted habit is trying to tell us, so we’ll explore the messages habits are trying to send us and how our unwanted habits are actually a perfect part of our innate design.

If that sounds absurd or ridiculous, consider that until very recently we thought we had only five senses. Scientists now identify more than 20. Things look true until we are presented with an alternative.

I’m Alexandra Amor and I’m an author, a podcaster, and someone who’s searched for answers about my own unwanted overeating habit for the past three decades. Name a strategy for resolving a habit and I’ve tried it. Nothing worked.

Then in 2017 I discovered a field of spiritual psychology that had me doubting my perceived brokenness and instead awakening to the innate well-being that is within all of us. This change in understanding has me looking toward my wholeness, rather than perceived brokenness, and has helped me to resolve so much of what I had been suffering with for years. It has led me back to my natural state of calm resilience. No will power required.

If you are someone who has an unresolved and unwanted habit that’s what I want to share with you in this course.

Lesson 1: Your habit is not a problem

Hello and welcome,

Have you ever found yourself engaged in a behaviour while simultaneously berating yourself for that behaviour? I’m guessing you answered yes to that question because the truth is almost all humans have this experience at one time or another. This is an unwanted habit.

• Smoking

And it’s possible, if you’re listening to this, that you’ve tried to stop an unwanted behaviour at one time or another. Our tried and not-so-true techniques to stop such habits often involve things like will power, or distracting ourselves, or tricking ourselves into avoiding the habitual behaviour. We can work really hard to try to force or convince an unwanted habit to go away and leave us alone. Unwanted habits can feel like a monkey on our back, one who is clingy and relentless when it comes to needing our attention.

I personally struggled with an overeating habit for 30+ years. That habit felt like a character flaw, a failing, and a personal weakness. It was also something I was deeply ashamed of. So I traveled the self-help road for all those decades, trying to ‘fix’ myself. I focused mightily on the problematic nature of the habit; that’s where all my attention went – innocently thinking of the habit as a problem.

Among the fixes I tried were talk therapy, EMDR, mindfulness, counting food points, extremely restrictive diets, hypnosis, emotional freedom technique, rational recovery, cognitive behavioural therapy….I could go on. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what i tried.

None of it worked. In fact, my overeating habit got worse over the years.

But what if our unwanted habits are actually an expression of the innate Intelligence that is within all of us? What if they are a sign of our mental health, not a psychological failing? What if they are a sign that we are in perfect working order?

Earlier I touched on the fact that unwanted habits are universal. They cross cultural and geographic boundaries. Why is that? Why are habits and addictions such universal human experiences? 

Conventional psychological theory says that when we have an unwanted habit that we are trying to bury uncomfortable feelings or soothe ourselves, cope with trauma and the bumps and bruises that occur in every life.

In this course, I’m going to turn your understanding of unwanted habits on its head. I’ll explain how all unwanted habits and addictions have the same origin and how their universality actually points toward their wise nature. We’ll talk about how addictions and unwanted habits are not about the substance that’s being consumed; in other words, contrary to what the diet industry tells us, overeating is not about the food. We’ll explore the feedback and messages that your unwanted habit is trying to communicate to you and how wise these messages are. And I’ll share how easy it is to misunderstand these messages and how innocently we can get caught up in that misinterpretation. We’ll also explore alternatives to the ways we have historically dealt with an unwanted habit.

Let’s begin by talking about the way that we’ve viewed unwanted habits like overeating up to now. It’s easy to experience these habits as problems, isn’t it? We have cravings and unwanted urges that seem to force us into behaviours that we don’t want to be engaging in. We find ourselves eating too much or eating foods that aren’t good for us. Or we consume vast quantities of food only to spend days punishing ourselves in response. These things can become cyclical; we engage in the overeating behaviour, only to regret it afterwards and swear we’ll never do it again. But then we do.

If you’re listening to this then no doubt in an effort to help yourself get off the roundabout you’ve tried many things to break your habit: will power being a very common approach. White knuckling it through days of tuna fish and steamed vegetables. Or maybe tracking what you’re eating, writing down everything that goes into your mouth. Perhaps creating a list of forbidden foods and swearing you’ll never eat them again. Or tricking yourself into different behaviours by emptying cupboards and the fridge and starting fresh.

We’ve all had experiences similar to this when it comes to trying to break a habit. So one very important thing I’d love you to hear from me today is that while you – and I – were doing all those things we were doing them because they made sense at the time. These are the tools we had access to for dealing with unwanted habits. 

Restriction. Will power. Wrestling our cravings into submission.

Or trying to.

If you can, in this moment, I’d love for you to offer yourself some compassion around this. It might feel heavy; all the effort and subsequent lack of success that you experienced. But I’ll repeat myself and say you were doing what you knew to do at the time. It was the best solution you had to offer yourself.

In this course I’d like to offer you an alternative. I’d like to show you how your unwanted habit is actually a sign of your mental health. And then explore how when we see habits through this lens our battle with them can slow down and then eventually stop entirely.

Let’s begin with the next lesson where we’ll explore the intelligence behind your cravings.

If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like you to close your eyes (if it’s safe to do so) and settle into yourself. Feel your breath going into and out of your lungs. Feel it filling up your chest like a balloon and then releasing and relaxing.

Now I’d love for you to call to mind a time when you felt content and peaceful. That time might be recently or it might be long ago. Doesn’t really matter when it was. What I’d like you to bring to the front of your mind is a time when you felt a really good feeling. You might have been having a laugh with a friend, or sitting quietly in the sun, or enjoying a concert or sporting event that makes you happy. Maybe you’re creative and can recall a time when you felt particularly fulfilled by a project or the process of making something beautiful.

I’ll give you a moment to bring something to mind.

That feeling, however you may describe it – genuine contentment, happiness, relaxation, fulfillment – for the purposes of this lesson let’s call that good feeling home base. 

Let’s do another little exercise. Think about the ideal vacation for you. Imagine for a moment what that would be. There’s no need to overthink it; you’ll know when the idea for what would look to you like an ideal vacation pops into your head.

Now, let me ask you this: If I asked a group of 10 people to imagine their ideal vacation do you think everyone in that group would picture the same thing? Of course not. Some people would picture white sandy beaches and lying in the sun. Someone else might imagine racing down snowy slopes on skis. A third person might picture visiting museums and art galleries in foreign cities. Someone else might imagine spending time at home with their family.

What we can see from this exercise is that idea of ‘vacation’ isn’t a specific place or experience, it’s a feeling.

In our fast paced Western culture how much time do we spend thinking about vacations, planning them, dreaming about getting away from our regular lives?

Why is that?

Now, what does all this talk about good feelings have to do with resolving an unwanted habit, you might ask.
Well, it points to the idea that we’re so often searching – mentally or physically – for a good feeling. Imagined lottery wins, fantasy romance scenarios, dream jobs, a super fancy car, greater financial security. A desire for love, connection, peace of mind. Vacations. All these things are pointing toward our innate wish to connect with and experience good feelings.

We are all wired to want to feel good, to have that ‘home base’ feeling. And, more to the point, not just to have it, but to embody it. To experience it deep in our cells.

Ask yourself, would anyone accuse us of being mentally unhealthy for wanting to experience a good feeling?

No, probably not.

It may sound obvious, but one way that humans attempt to get that home base feeling is by doing things that make us feel good. Things that give us a ‘rush’ so to speak of the good feeling that we are searching for and that we are made of. These things can be shopping, smoking, drinking, sex, drugs, and yes, eating. All these things, and so many more, are things we do to try to manufacture a good feeling.

Think of how you feel when you first indulge in your unwanted habit – before the guilt and recrimination set in. It feels good, right? The first pull on a cigarette or the first bite of a favourite food. There’s a good feeling there, if only for an instant.

That’s one reason why we do it. That’s why we indulge in our unwanted habit over and over again. We are trying to feel that good feeling.

You might say, “Thank you Captain Obvious. Of course habits are trying to simulate a good feeling. Have you eaten a piece of chocolate cake lately? It’s heaven in every bite.”

The reason I bring up this obvious idea, is that it points out that unwanted habits are a sign of our mental health, not of mental weakness or a lack of will power or an addictive personality. Unwanted habits are a way for us to create a simulated good feeling. Unfortunately, they come with baggage attached; guilt, shame, self-recrimination, not to mention their adverse affects on our health. But their origin is innocent. We are always searching for a good feeling and we will do so even when that search causes problems.

We are searching for a good, calm, peaceful, soothing feeling because that feeling – that home base – is our most natural state. And we know this, instinctively, even when we’re far away from that feeling. 

Think about babies for a moment. As long as their needs are met – their diaper is clean, they are fed and have had enough sleep – they live in that calm, peaceful place. This is who we are, and this is what our unwanted habits like overeating are trying to achieve.

The good news is that when we begin to see our unwanted habits for what they are – a wise part of our innate intelligence, an indicator of our well-being – then we can let go of some of the baggage that comes along with those habits. And when we stop beating ourselves up for having the habit, that itself is one important step to resolving an unwanted habit.

In the next lesson we’re going to build on this idea of our home base feeling and talk about what unwanted habits are trying to accomplish in addition to creating a good feeling.

Do you own an Instantpot? They were all the rage a few years ago. (I love mine.) Instantpots are a brand name for what my grandmother called a pressure cooker, which is a pot that cooks its contents with pressure rather than with heat. The pot is sealed and pressure builds up and that’s what cooks whatever’s inside.

If you own either an Instantpot or a pressure cooker you know that there’s a valve that allows you to release some of the pressure in the pot. When you do so it makes a whooshing sound and you can see steam escaping the pot.

In my work I very often use the following metaphor for unwanted habits: our minds are like pressure cookers and our behaviour – our unwanted habit – is the release valve on that pressure cooker. The pressure inside the metaphorical Instantpot is created by our busy thinking. So in other words, our unwanted habit releases the pressure that builds up in our minds from our thinking.

The thinking you experience in life is like the contents of that pressure cooker. It can build and build until it feels like too much to cope with, swirling around inside your noggin, keeping you awake at night, interfering with the concentration required for other things. The solution for the build-up of this pressure is the release valve. That release valve shows up as behaviours that can run the gamut from lashing out in anger, to over shopping, to yelling in traffic, to overeating, smoking, drinking too much, and hoarding, just to give a few examples.

The release valve gets us back to a better feeling, to the home base feeling we talked about in the previous lesson. Even if the change is only incremental, we still feel a bit better. Some of the pressure within us has been released and we are slightly more calm, more peaceful. 

I’m going to say that again so you don’t miss it. Our unwanted habits are solutions, not problems.

A habit releases some of the pressure within you that is created by busy thinking. In this way, a habit is a necessary and natural part of your perfect design. Without the release valve the pressure cooker would explode. 

This is another reason why your unwanted habit is a sign of your mental health and a sign that you are in perfect working order. That release valve behaviour is evidence that you are looking for a better feeling, that you are wired to search for and crave a good feeling. What that tells us is that you are made of peace and well-being and your habit is evidence of that. Just like a fish will always need water, humans will always need what they are made of; peace, love, well-being. Your habit is a truth about who you are at your core.

We tend to think about unwanted habits and cravings as though they’re a broken part of ourselves, like they’re a flat tire on a car or an app on our phone that is on the fritz and keeps sending us unwelcome alerts. However, let me challenge that by adding another metaphor into the mix: What I would like you to consider is that cravings are actually a barometer. And that barometer is always in perfect working order.

A barometer is a device that tells us about the atmospheric pressure in our geographic area.

Barometers measure the layers of air that wrap around the earth that are affected by gravity. We call this the earth’s atmosphere. Changes in the atmosphere affect the earth’s weather systems. The way that a barometer reflects atmospheric pressure is typically with hands (like a clock’s hands) on a dial pointing toward numbers.

“Duh,” you might say. “If I feel super stressed I crave a piece of cake. That’s not breaking news.”

You’re right. It’s not. But what I’m suggesting is that the craving itself is not an indication that there is anything wrong with you, even when you’re feeling stressed or triggered by life. There is wisdom behind the cravings we feel that is deeper than a feeling that we want to use a substance in order to try to soothe and comfort ourselves when we’ve had a hard day. What I’m saying is that there is a beautiful and perfect mechanism within us (food craving, or any kind of craving) that lets us know what the ‘weather’ inside us is doing at any given moment. We need that signal (the craving) to remind us of our innate, peaceful nature.

So what’s the alternative to will power and tricking ourselves into stopping an unwanted habit? We all live with thinking in our heads, how can we release the pressure that builds up without turning toward our unwanted overeating habit? Well, here’s where things get really interesting. Unlike other self-help tools I’m not going to direct you toward replacing the pressure value release with some other sort of behaviour. Instead, using a different metaphor, we’re going to look at the nature of what’s in the pot itself.

At this point in our exploration you might be thinking that the solution to the pressure cooker metaphor in the previous lesson would be to change our thoughts so that they don’t build up in the pressure cooker.

And perhaps you’ve even tried to do that in the past. Using mantras or positive reinforcement to change your thinking around your habit.

However, we’re going to look in an entirely different direction. We’re going to look away from positive thinking and monitoring or calming our thoughts, and instead look at the nature of thought itself. When we understand what Thought is and how it works, our unwanted habits can become unnecessary. 

In order to do that, let me switch metaphors from the one in the previous lesson. Imagine you lived in a world where no one had explained to you how a bathtub drain works. Every time you took a bath, afterwards you’d have to find a way to empty the water out of the tub. You might take a bucket and scoop out the water and carry it through your house to the front door, and then take it outside and dump it somewhere. Then you’d have to go back to the tub and scoop out some more water and carry that outside, repeating that process until all the water was out of the tub. Emptying the tub would require a lot of effort on your part, and create a lot of extra stress for you. Plus there would be mess to clean up afterward, drips of water on the floor of your home.

Not knowing any other way to empty a tub, you’d go through this laborious process until the day someone explained to you how drains work. They’d show you that there is a drain on the bottom of the tub where, when open, allows the water to flow away on its own. There’s nothing else for you to do. Once you see this you’ll never empty the tub with a bucket again.

The understanding that I’m exploring in this course is like that information about the drain. I’m pointing out to you how tubs, drains, and water work. If it’s not clear, the water represents your thinking. As you begin to understand this, and as your understanding deepens, you’ll see there’s less and less for you to do with your thinking.

Our thinking flows into us from a source other than ourselves, stays with us for a time, and then moves on without us having to do anything about it. Sometimes the water is crystal clear, sometimes it is murky, but the thing that never changes is that it flows, it moves of its own accord. That is its nature.

We can see this in action in the following examples. If I asked you to think exclusively about pink elephants for the next 10 minutes, and told you i’d give you a million dollars if you could do that, would you be able to do it? 

As much as we’d like to think the answer to this challenge would be yes, we know it’s not possible, right? Especially if you’ve ever tried meditating. Thoughts pop into our minds, sometimes at random, often rapidly, one after the other. No doubt you’re familiar with the expression ‘monkey mind’. 

Are you the master of all that thinking? Can you control every thought that comes into your mind?

No, of course not. 

Continuing with the bathtub metaphor from earlier, if we took a ‘positive thinking’ approach, we would be trying to control the clarity of the water that comes into the tub. That’s a ton of work, and it’s fruitless because the nature of water is that some days it’s clear, and some days it’s not. (Where I live, when we have big rain storms, the water can get very murky indeed.) Being concerned with the quality of the water in the tub at any given moment (positive thinking) is a waste of energy because in the next moment there will be different water in the tub. And then again in the moment after that.

Instead when we focus on understanding the nature of water, knowing it will continue to flow no matter what, we can relax about what the tub is holding at any given moment.

In other words, when we begin to see that thought is flowing through us, like water, like energy, we can rest in the understanding that battling with a craving is like trying to manage or organize the water in a stream. By seeing our thinking for what it is, we can relax knowing that any given thought, including a craving, will be followed soon by another thought. And then another. We don’t need to latch onto the craving thought and manage it.

The other important thing to mention in this discussion of the nature of our thinking is that just like the water in the bathtub, our thinking is designed to settle down all on its own. You could have a toddler in that metaphorical tub, splashing around, having a grand old time with toys and stirring the water up until it slops over the edge of the tub. But the nature of that water is that if you leave it alone, if the toddler stops splashing, the water will settle. There’s nothing you need to do to make it do that. In fact, getting involved while the water is settling will likely only stir it up a bit more.

Your thinking is exactly like the water in that tub. Leave it alone and it will settle down all by itself. No doubt you’ve experienced this, probably on more than one occasion. We’ve all had moments where we were upset about something or angry and then we got distracted. For a moment our anger is entirely gone and we’re focused on something else. Of course, that anger or upset can return, but in that instance did we make it go away? No, it settled down, like the water in the tub, when we weren’t agitating it.

Our unwanted habits, like overeating, are an innocent way that we try to manage the water in the tub when it’s stirred up. Engaging in the habit is a distraction, like I mentioned a moment ago. We become distracted from our busy thinking, if even just for a moment.

But when we understand the nature of thought, the need for the unwanted habit lessens. We begin to rely on our innate design, knowing that if we leave our thinking alone it will settle on its own.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this lesson, resolving a habit like overeating doesn’t come from forcing behavioural change, it comes from understanding the nature of thought. And from understanding your beautiful, innate design that is always pointing you back toward the peace and calm.

I’ve thrown a number of metaphors and new ideas at you in these lessons. If what I’ve said feels like it has scrambled your eggs a bit, that’s okay. That reaction is common when we’re learning something entirely new that contradicts so much of what we’ve believed about ourselves for years, if not decades. Especially if you’re someone like myself who is a natural seeker and has long wanted to find an answer to an unwanted habit.

So as we wrap up, let me briefly go over what we’ve discussed.

1. You are made of peace and calm and a good feeling. That’s who you are at your core. Your desire to learn and grow by listening to courses like this and being here on Insight Timer proves this. We are always wanting to connect with the innate love that we are made of.

These lessons are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring this new field of spiritual psychology commonly called the Three Principles or the Inside Out Understanding. These principles were first articulated by a man named Sydney Banks and it is to him and other teachers who follow him that I must credit for everything I’ve shared here.

It’s so easy, especially for seekers like us, to get caught up in what can feel like a perpetual race to fix ourselves. I admire that impulse in others, and in myself, – it comes from a very pure place – but it can become exhausting. Until I came across this understanding, I felt like I was on an endless self-help treadmill, always running but never reaching a goal. There was always something else to fix or change about myself.

However what I love about the understanding I’ve shared with you today is that it is always, always pointing us back to our innate well-being. There’s nothing we need to fix or change or improve. It’s all there within us, and it always has been.

Exploring this understanding is like having the clouds in an overcast sky gradually part. The blue sky was always there, we just couldn’t see it. The more I am reminded to focus on the sky – the eternal, infinite, entirely whole sky – and not on the clouds, the more the clouds thin and move out of my line of sight.

If it’s not obvious yet, the understanding you’ve just explored in this course is about more than food, more than eating, and more than resolving an unwanted habit. It’s about your true nature and how brilliant and beautiful that is. It’s about the perfection behind our human design and how that design is always working for us, not against us. It’s about how we are always healthy, always whole even when we are struggling with something like an overeating problem, and how that ‘problem’ is itself pointing us back to our innate wholeness and well-being.

Unwanted habits are, surprisingly, a language of love and of wisdom. When we see them for what they are every aspect of our life is changed and sweetened. Life becomes a joyful, gentle exploration rather than a journey filled with disheartening trails and challenges. Trials and challenges are part of life, of course, but they have less weight when we view them knowing we are all infinitely resilient and that we can rely on the well of peace that is always at our core, and always available to us.

My wish for you is that this course is the beginning of your exploration into all that you are. And also that you remember, as often as possible, that your food cravings, or shopping habit, or video game addiction, are not a problem. When we see them for what they really are, we begin to see that they are a gift. And that they are whispering, “You are well. You are whole. You are love.”

I thank you so much for exploring with me. And I wish you all the very best on your journey.

Featured image photo by Laurent Beique on Unsplash

The post Why Your Habit Proves You’re In Perfect Working Order appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

One Sunday afternoon in April a traveller and a podcaster meet and share a drive through the mountains of Vancouver Island. As a result, the podcaster is deeply moved by the message the traveller, and the universe, had for her.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.

Show Notes

• Clarification about the traffic light metaphor

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Michael Singer’s books are The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment

Hello explorers and welcome to Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. This is episode 59. Thank you for being here with me today.

I want to remind you that if you’re interested in joining the Unbroken Community, or at least getting on the waitlist there, you can do that at AlexandraAmor.com/community. That’s going to be an interactive twice monthly group call, lots of interaction with me, lots of support, lots of community, as the name implies, and connection with your fellow explorers. And all the details are on that webpage. As I said, AlexandraAmor.com/community.

Second thing. Last week in Episode 58, partway through, I talked about the red, yellow, green light of truth of tuning into or leaning into connecting with our intuition about moving forward, which is going to connect to today’s show, actually. My friend who listens to this episode pointed out to me, she said, “When you’re talking about the red, green, yellow light, are you seeing that visually?” which made me realize, Oh, I didn’t really explain that properly, then.

So when I say I would get a green light in my body, what I mean is, I feel it somewhere inside me. Now I specifically feel that feeling in my solar plexus, that’s the place where I always feel everything. You know how we talk about it, we have a gut feeling, I think that’s where that expression must come from. Because I always feel those things in the area of my solar plexus. Sort of behind my belly button. That part of my body.

When I feel green light feeling it’s there. I don’t see a green light or anything. Same with red, and then yellow. The yellow light’s kind of interesting, because it’s either it’s a little bit binary, you know, it’s a yes or no, very often. And I guess sometimes it feels like a well, you know, maybe maybe not, there’s a bit of hesitation there, it’s less, perhaps less dramatic than a full a no, full stop. So that maybe we could classify that as yellow light.

In your own experience, you might, if you give the traffic light metaphor a try, if you’re practicing it, your experience might be different.

Or maybe it’s more of a knowing than a than a than a physical feeling. Mine has a little bit of physicality to it, it’s a knowing for sure. But it’s there’s also definitely a feeling going on, in like I say in my solar plexus. So I wanted to be clear about that. And clarify. Thank you to my friend for asking that question. I appreciate it.

When I’m recording these episodes, where I it’s just me talking, I’m just staring at the computer screen and talking into the microphone. And it’s easy to get rolling along and forget to explain things as clearly maybe as I should. If someone’s not there to ask questions. It can be easy to just sort of barrel along. So if you ever have a question, same thing, and something like that, where something’s not clear, that I’ve talked about, I hope you’ll submit that and let me know.

You can do that at AlexandraAmor.com/question.

Okay, so on to today’s episode, which I haven’t as I’m recording this, I realize I haven’t got a title for it yet. But that’ll come next.

I wanted to share this for a number of reasons, which will become clearer and I’ll explain more about that as we get to the end of the actual story itself.

A few days ago, I was driving home from visiting my friend, the same friend who asked the question about the traffic light. And it’s a quite a long drive. It’s three hours, I live in pretty remote area. So I was coming along through this area of Vancouver Island, it’s actually quite well known. It’s called Cathedral Grove. And you can stop and park your car. And there’s all these enormous cedar trees. It’s kind of like the redwood forest in California, these just gigantic trees. And there are trails through the trees. And it’s a really popular tourist area in the summer.

The speed limit goes from 80 down to 50. You have to really slow down because there’s people crossing the road. So I was just toodling along, on my way to the last town before I get onto the highway, which is really just a two lane road, to come to my town where I live on the coast. And as I drove through this Cathedral Grove area, there was a young fellow standing on the side of the road, and he had a backpack. He had one of those cardboard signs, when you’re a hitchhiker just sort of a rectangle. And he’d written on there in sharpie, the nickname for the town where I live.

The town is called Ucluelet but the nickname is Ukee. He had this sign that said Ukee.

And then, for a couple of reasons, my brain got involved, and I didn’t pick him up.

The first reason was that I needed to go to the next town, the last town before I came over to the west coast of the island, I needed to run a bunch of errands. And so in just a split second when I saw him and I got that knowing feeling, a green light, we could say, I need to pick this guy up. I thought I can’t do that, because I have these errands to run. And when I’m running the errands in Port Alberni, which is the name of the town, I’m not going to leave a stranger in my car while I do that, and, or make them get out of the car, and then lock the car while I’m in the store.

I also didn’t want him sort of trailing around. My mind did all these calculations in like I say, a nanosecond. So that was the first thing.

The second thing was that I’m a woman travelling alone. And he’s a man. And it’s not the safest thing to do in those circumstances for a woman to pick up a hitchhiker. It’s not something I do. It’s not something I had actually ever done until I moved here to the coast. I won’t go into all the details about why it happens sometimes here on the coast, but it does. But I’ve never picked up someone outside of town, let alone two hours away from where I live.

And my brain also said, you don’t have to be responsible for this guy, just because he’s going to the same place that you are. So all this is racing through my mind. And simultaneously, well, the wiser part of myself just knew not only that I should pick him up, or could pick him up, but that it was meant to be that I would pick him up.

I keep driving. And because of this little battle now that’s going on between my head and my and the wiser parts of myself, I start thinking, “Should I turn around, should I pull a U turn?” I’m looking for spaces on the road where I can do that. Then if I did that, I’d have to do another U turn back where he was. And then another part of me is saying, you’re not responsible for everybody. You don’t have to pick this guy up, just because he’s going where you’re going. And so I just carried on.

And there’s this big hill that you climb, so I’m driving up the hill thinking oh, geez, you know, I really should have picked that guy up. And then yeah, but I couldn’t I have these errands, blah, blah, blah. So around in circles I went. I come to the town Port Alberni and I go and run my errands. And it probably took me, maybe half an hour, maybe 45 minutes. Trying to remember what I did. Yeah, it probably wasn’t any longer than that I had to drive to a few different places, run these errands might have been close to an hour, but I don’t know.

I go to my final stop, I do the errand. I walk back out to my car, I get in my car. And I’m sort of mentally saying to myself, Okay, is there anything else? Sort of checking my list. Is there anything else I need to do now? Or is that it? I talked to myself about it. And I say no, I think that’s it. I think I’ve done everything I needed to do. So I go to put my seatbelt on and start the car up.

So off I go. And sure enough, about five or seven minutes into the drive there he is on the side of the road with his little Ukee sign near a gas station coming towards the outskirts of town. So I pull over and I unlock the doors and he climbs in, puts his stuff in the back seat. And off we go. So right away, I could tell he was just the loveliest guy. He’s traveling around the world.

He’s originally from France. And he’s probably 25 or 27, something like that. And this is something that he’d always he’s always wanted to do. He’s going to take about three years and really trying to a whole bunch of different places. Some places he’s going to work. Here in Canada, he doesn’t have a work visa so he was doing something called I think it’s called work away. It’s an app. And the reason he was coming to Ucluelet was some people had connected with him on the app. And he was coming to help them build a deck or something. In exchange for that, because he didn’t have a work visa, you get room and board basically.

And this is the information that came out. And few other things about how when he was 10 years old, his family, it’s him, his mom and dad. And then him and his three brothers traveled around the world for a year. So that was maybe where the seed got planted about his love for travel. And he shared the other places that he was going to go. And the different countries and the reasons that he was going there.

He told me a little bit about where he’d been so far and the things he’d done and that kind of stuff. And at one point, while he was talking, I had asked him a question he was answering. I silently in my head just said to the universe, okay, you know, this is really fun. And he’s a nice guy. This is really interesting. And I’m really curious about the reason that he’s here. Like, what’s the message here?

What happened and that magic wasn’t like you see in the movies where there’s a big booming voice like in Field of Dreams, where there’s a voice that says you need to do this thing, you need to pick up this hitchhiker. I didn’t have any visions or anything. It was just a really strong, like I say, knowing I needed to pick this guy up and bring him with me to our town.

I was really kind of excited as we drove along and curious, like I say really nice feeling of curiosity and enjoyment. His English was impeccable. I was so embarrassed. English is the only language I speak and here he was, he grew up speaking French and then he was speaking English impeccably, like I say. I think there were two words he couldn’t think of; one was hail. He described it as like snow, but little hard balls. And then there was one other phrase, oh, it was a sailing phrase. To get to North America, he had sailed from Italy to the Caribbean with a guy, same sort of thing, a work exchange thing. No sailing experience, by the way, and he just did this.

So, I had posed my question to the universe. And if nothing had happened, if it was just a nice journey with this young fellow, that would have been fine, too. But we’re partway along the drive for maybe, I don’t know, 45 minutes in. I could really tell that it based on the stories that he was sharing, and his attitude and the experiences that he was talking about, that there was just this deep trust in him of the universe that he would be, and I don’t know, if he would use that phrase of life, maybe he might say, I don’t know that he could just go along, and everything would work out.

I asked him if he had had any difficult experiences. And he did describe a couple, specifically with the captain of the ship that he had sailed over from Italy on. So it wasn’t a naive attitude that he had or a Pollyanna ish about it. He was very grounded. And intelligent, I could tell well educated, but also just really felt I could just feel him resting in the trust that he had in life, and that it would guide him and lead him and show him the way.

I reflected back and said, “Gee, it really seems like you trust that things will work out. Here you are all by yourself, traveling all around the world.” And I guess the reason that that question came up for me was because of where I had seen him the first time by the side of the road.

He had explained at some point in our conversation that he had got a ride earlier. He had come all the way from Victoria. I think he said I was his seventh vehicle that had been in that day. And so that really struck me; the unpredictability of that really struck me and how much trust you have to have that things will work out. It’s about five and a half or six hour drive if you just drive straight through from Victoria to where I picked him up. And so that’s a long way.

Anyway, so what was I saying? So he had a ride from another part of the island, and that person said that they would take him all the way through to Port Alberni, which is the town where I picked him up. But he knew they were going to come up to this Cathedral Grove area that I talked about with the big trees. And he really wanted to see that. It is really spectacular. He didn’t want to just pass it by. So he said to the guy that he was with, could you drop me there? Because I’d like to explore and they guy said of course. So that’s where they stopped, and he dropped this fellow off.

What struck me about that was that here this fellow was in a vehicle that would take him much further, but he let it go. Because he wanted or he felt compelled or interested to go to Cathedral Grove and have this little walk around. It was something that interested him and felt good to him. There was a good feeling about that. So he did it.

And then that another car would pick them up after that, and he would get all the way to where he needed to go. So the question that I asked him was about that was about trusting the way things are unfolding. He went on to explain. And as Sydney Banks always says it wasn’t the words that were really intriguing to me. He did talk about not having expectations. And that when you don’t have really strong expectations about things, things do just tend to unfold in a nice way.

The feeling just was that he really trusted that he would be okay. He embarked on this big adventure. And he talked about how every day, every moment. I don’t remember the exact words, but just about trusting what was happening and letting things unfold.

And like I say, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t ever think there are challenges in life. He certainly did. And he had had some. But the sense I got was how deeply relaxed and grounded he was in his home, in the world, and in the universe, and he knew that it would take care of him. It makes me emotional, actually, as I say that, as I connect with that feeling.

When that happened, when he said that, it was it was like somebody rang a bell in my head. It was like ding, ding, ding. This is why this guy is here. So I’ll talk about that a little bit more now, about my reflections about this experience, and what I think or what it meant to me.

And then I’m going to ask at the end of the show for you to share anything, any experiences like this that you’ve had, if you have something that really reflected back to you how we can trust the world and the universe, I guess the universe is maybe a better way to say that. So, reflections, a couple of things were going on for me.

I really appreciated that I did that. I do think it was the right thing to do to not pick him up in Cathedral Grove. I think maybe that was just where the seed was planted by the universe. Because it would have been super awkward with me running errands in in the town and I guess maybe I could have dropped him off somewhere and then picked him up later. I don’t know. But if I had done that, we wouldn’t have had such a deep conversation because it’s an hour and a half from where I picked him up to Ukee. So that was really a good amount of time for a really good deep conversation. Whereas if we had only done the shorter run from Cathedral Grove to Port Alberni, it’s only about 15 or 20 minutes and it just wouldn’t have been the same. I trusted the feeling that I got about picking him up.

As a woman traveling alone, of course, there were a dozen reasons why I shouldn’t have picked up a man traveling by himself. What I’m not saying is you should pick up all hitchhikers. That’s not at all what I’m saying. It’s just that in that moment, in that circumstance, I felt a sense of rightness and safety. Or maybe not safety so much but just rightness and clarity about the nudges that I was getting from the universe.

I appreciated that I listened to that. I didn’t ignore it. I stayed calm and I guess passing him by the first time gave me a little bit of time to adjust to the idea because I did think about it a tiny bit when I was running my errands, not a whole ton, but he would pop into my head every once in a while. So I could sort of reconnect with that feeling and, and feel the rightness of it again.

It’s something I think about a lot. I think about it, where to find that feeling of safety. And of course, it will come it does come insightfully and I think gradually over the years, the last few years, it has definitely grown in me that feeling of trust, and safety. But just personally, I tend to have such a, or have had such a strong grip on life, and really being an overachiever and controlling things and feeling a sense of hyper responsibility about everything.

I know where it comes from; it comes from how I was raised. All these things come from somewhere. And this is the way that my mind reacted to a lot of instability, a lot of fear as a child, a lot of not feeling safe, not feeling protected by my family, but the opposite feeling afraid of the people in my home who were supposed to protect me. So it’s something that I explore a lot of the time is how to get from where I am to where this traveler was mentally, spiritually.

I’d love to be more like him. To just put a backpack on and go travel around the world for three years would terrify me, although I’m twice his age, but still, I couldn’t. He was so relaxed, he was just so deeply relaxed. It was amazing. That was the first lesson that trusting of myself trusting of this nudge I felt like I was getting from the universe. Not talking myself out of it, or letting myself feel afraid. And instead, leaning into the good feeling that was there.

So this is very meta, it’s like two layers of the same thing. I trusted myself to pick him up. And then the message that he had was, trust the universe. Trust that you’re going to be okay, that the universe has your back. I nearly laughed out loud when when he started talking about his approach to things and how he trusted what was unfolding because it was just so perfect. Like I say, it was just so meta. This whole experience.

Because I thought, here’s the universe working really hard to get me a message that I am safe, that we are all safe, even when we’re in difficult, challenging circumstances. We are safe. We are more than just our physical bodies, of course. Even when we’re ill, even when we’re in really not great circumstances, we can never be disconnected from the essence of ourselves. And that is the thing that we can trust that is made of the universe. It is that connection to universal wisdom, universal insight, to our well-being. It is so innate.

It’s the fabric that we’re made of, we can never be separated from it.

So this was such a nice reminder about that. And yeah, like I say, it meant so much to me that the universe was working hard to get that message through to me. I don’t take that lightly. I really, really appreciated it on that day. I’m still kind of high from it, it was just really a nice experience.

And so what else have I got to say about that? Well, a couple things.

One is that I belong to a as we’re wrapping up here, I belong to a mastermind group that meets on Tuesday mornings. And last week, one of the ladies in the group mentioned that Michael Singer has said – and I don’t know where and I don’t know when he said this. He’s an author and a spiritual teacher. He wrote The Untethered Soul. And The Surrender Experiment. He surrenders to what’s happening in his life and says yes to everything. It’s been a while since I’ve read it.

And man, when she said that I resonated so much with it. Because relaxing, this is what I took from what she said, relaxing, means that we trust, we trust that we are held, and that we’re safe, and that it’s okay to not be hypersensitive, like I am, at time at times hypervigilant. We’re safe. And we can relax.

And it’s a paradox too, the more we relax, it feels like the easier things get, because we can respond to those cosmic nudges, and follow our wisdom, our instinct or our intuition much, easily more easily than when our mind is in overdrive. And it’s trying to figure everything out and control everything and make sure everything’s happening in the right way. And all that kind of stuff.

That’s what I’m aiming to learn to do more of. That’s my growing edge. And we all have them all the time. But this is the one that I’m particularly interested in, at this moment. Michael singer said the only practice we need is to relax. And so what Sydney Banks would say, he would use slightly different language, he would talk about following a good feeling. But those two sentences, phrases are pointing to the same thing.

It’s the same thing that that those two men are talking about. They are talking about tapping into Universal Wisdom, and intuition and wellbeing, and all those things that bring a good feeling and which is an important point to make. Throughout this whole thing, this experience with the hitchhiker it was mostly green lights, all along the way. The only time I hesitated, like I say, it was there in Cathedral Grove when I didn’t pick him up.

And yet, at the same time, that that was his own green light in a way it felt that felt like the right thing to do in that moment.

And then the moment changed and it felt like the right thing to do to pick him up the next time I saw him. So, yeah, a little example of following our own wisdom.

And then the final thing I want to say is I just want to reflect back. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this on the show or not; I took Dominique Scaffidi and Grace Kelly’s class at the beginning of the year, we started in January, called Living Miraculously. One of the things that Dominic and Grace suggest is keeping a list somewhere of miracles and synchronicities that happen to us. And the purpose of this is to do exactly what I’m talking about; it is to teach us that the universe is there for us, that it is supporting us and loving us. And we are connected to safety at all times.

That could be anything from some people really feel a sense of that connection when they see certain numbers, let’s say when they happen to look at the clock. And very often it has a certain set of numbers that a digital clock, or here’s a funny example that I wrote down today, actually. In the last 24 hours I’ve seen heard two mentions of a play, based on the SE Hinten book The outsiders. Now, I didn’t know it was a play. Of course, I read the book as a child, because you do and saw the movie then when it came out later, but hadn’t thought about The Outsiders in a million years. And then twice in 24 hours, somebody mentioned that it’s a play.

It’s like little love letters from the universe. They call them synchronicities, which is so perfect. These things that are just little nudges, little winks from the universe saying, Hey, we’re here, and you are loved, and you are cared for, and you are always, always loved and safe. And all those all those good feelings.

I keep them in an app on my phone. And what can happen is then, as we remember to write these things down or make a note of them, is you can go back and look. And suddenly you’ve got a list…right now I’ve it’s only been what January, March, like three and a half months, and I’ve got a list of dozens of these synchronicities. So for me, it’s been a really fun practice noticing that, and then given my desire to really learn about how it feels to connect to that kind of safe feeling that my hitchhiker friend had. This is one way to remind myself, it seems that that exists. So that’s why I do it. And if that sounds like fun to you, it’s something you could try as well.

I think my throat is getting dry. That’s probably enough talking for today, I would really like to hear if you have any reflections on this idea of safety in the universe and feeling confident enough to let things unfold and flow and how that makes you feel. Maybe you’re great at it already. Maybe it’s something that like me you’d like to develop, maybe you think it’s hogwash, and that there’s no way that we should follow that kind of impulse.

Whatever it is, I would love to hear your thoughts and reflections and like I said early earlier at the top of the show, you can send those to AlexandraAmor.com/question.

I think that’s it for today. I hope you are doing well and taking care and I look forward to talking to you again next week. See you then. Bye.

Featured image photo by Ruben Mishchuk on Unsplash

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