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 Giving ourselves permission to create the lives we want Noticing what is alive within us that wants to guide us Following the nudge to make a big life change How we create our worlds based on Thought How the pressures we feel have nothing to do with what’s going on in our lives and everything to do with what’s going on in our heads How discomfort is created when our thoughts look real Paying attention to what we’re listening to How you being you is enough Resources Mentioned in this Episode The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer Transcript of Interview with Stephanie Benedetto 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. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. 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.  In my prior career, it looked more like consulting, marketing strategy. 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.  As I’ve gone deeper into my journey with the Three Principles have gone from Oh, this is a cool thing to add to all the other spiritual stuff. 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.  How does it look different, trusting our own wisdom, trusting the intelligence that’s flowing through us versus trying to do it all ourselves. 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 wasn’t until I was, I think, maybe 38 years old that I asked myself, What do I want to create in my life?  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.  That’s available anywhere, including inside of our business. 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.  On your website, there’s some detail about how you followed your wisdom out of that way of being. Can you tell us a little bit about what that looked like for you? 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 knowing dropped in that it’s time for you to leave your marriage. And I was like, why? 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.  That was my real experience. Surrender is I don’t know where I’m going to end up. 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.  Along the way, I just showed up in the moment as best I could. 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. Could you talk about that resistance a little bit? 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.  I built my personality on that. I built these habits and behaviors, and some of them served me at least some of the time, but many of them didn’t. 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.  It used to look like it meant something. It used to look like it was life and death to me. 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.  Are there other ways that you experience feeling wisdom or feeling being guided? 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.  But the pressure I feel has nothing to do with how much is on my calendar and everything to do with how much is in my head.  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?  This is a fresh journey for me. But there’s always something that occurs from there. 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. Let’s talk about what the awakened business looks like. 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. This way, you’re creating it, because it feels right for you. 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.  Alexandra: Do you find that either yourself or your clients when they’re starting to learn about doing things this way? Is there a discomfort that comes up for them? 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. It is a little bit uncomfortable to break it, to know that there’s something else there that’s going to catch us and support us. 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. The discomfort that we feel about taking it all on ourselves is the thing that lets us know that that thought is a lie. I love that built in feedback system. 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. Alexandra: You mentioned that you were at the listening seminar recently. Tell us about that experience. Do you have a highlight from it? 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. Listening isn’t about hearing. It’s an openness, it’s a receptivity, it’s what happens when I’m really present. 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.  I love that distinction. Because it’s not just about our ears. 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. Alexandra: As we’re coming to the end of our time today, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share with our listeners? 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.  Where can we find out more about you and your work? 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’ Following the breadcrumbs of insight, interest, and synchronicities How the Three Principles explain what is before other philosophies and traditions Having the courage to leap into the unknown based on inner knowing The importance of coming back to the present moment Getting really familiar with how wisdom speaks to you Resources Mentioned in this Episode 3PGC Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode Bonnie and Azul’s monthly free webinar, What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately? Bonnie and Azul’s The Heart of Service program Transcript of Interview with Bonnie Jarvis 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. Tell us about your background and how you discovered the Three Principles. 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 think that experience made me a secret seeker. 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. It turned out to be the best thing ever, because one of the facilitators introduced a little video of someone talking about insight.  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. Looking back, it was so much following that little voice that said, yeah, do this next, do this next. 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. I think that’s when I started working for them full time for 3PGC full time and started suggesting online programs and that wasn’t really a well known thing at the time.  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.  You said that you felt like the principles explained what was before all the other things that you had been seeking? Could you say more about that? That intrigues me so much.  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 Alexandra: Did that you said you were raised Catholic, so he was Catholic at the time this happened? 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 think that’s one of the things he gave me is that I have never had a fear of dying either. 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.  What a fascinating experience your dad went through, and just that idea that he must have thought he was alone in that for so long. 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.  It sounds like you didn’t fight that too much there wasn’t too much fight in you. Is that true? 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. Alexandra: It led you in seems to be anyway in such a nice direction, to something that you needed. 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.  Alexandra: Speaking of which, how did you know that it was time to leave that experience? 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.  That’s the part that can be really scary. It’s the part of leaping into the unknown. 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. One of the things I did was I met Azul Leguizamon. 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. Alexandra: I’m thinking that it really doesn’t surprise me that that’s the way things unfolded after your job with the 3PGC. Because that’s how they happened going into it.  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.  Why don’t you share that quote with us? And then tell us what you’re seeing in it lately? 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.  Why don’t I ask you what has wisdom shown you lately? 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. Because I thought those were truths, not beliefs that I could see through.  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.  Since then, I’ve morphed it into this, this ocean of liquid love. 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.  Could you share an example with us? 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.  That was touching me when you spoke about that. There’s two ways to approach this.  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.  Where can we find out more about you and your work? 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 A reminder about the purpose an unwanted habit is serving How the feeling that comes with the inner critic alerts us to its falsehood On the possibility of having a different experience at any moment The beautiful feeling that’s always available to us How our thinking can be like the grooves in a record Resources Mentioned in this Episode Mind Magic by Dr. James Doty Transcript of episode 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.  The habit itself lets off a bit of the pressure of what’s in the 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: The thinking that we have going on in our minds is not the truth with a capital T.  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.  What can be more helpful to seeing that there’s all kinds of other things that might be true in that moment, as well.  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.  The second tip is that the feeling that you have, when that negative or critical thinking is going on, is telling you that it’s not the truth.  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.  Our design is built so that it lets us know when our thinking is critical.  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.  It becomes automatic to notice what’s going on.  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.  If we’re thinking it, we’re feeling it.  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.  Tip number three has to do with the awareness of the possibility of a different experience.  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.  So that’s tip number three, being open to the idea that there is always the possibility to have a different experience in any given moment.  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.  That’s the key really, isn’t it, for all of us; we don’t want to suffer. We want to suffer less.  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.  That points to exactly what I just said, when we relax, we allow the wisdom of the universe to step in and to flow much more freely through us.  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.  There’s a beautiful, or a good, feeling available to us at all times.  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.  There’s a way to do this without monitoring our thoughts and adding a lot more work to be done.  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 Noticing how health improves when our nervous system is downregulated Ellen’s personal discoveries experiencing chronic fatigue How mental busyness affects our physical health How fatigue can be a signal that there is pressure on our mental system Are you the source of your energy? How our feelings are a barometer for what’s going on within us Resources Mentioned in this Episode Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple Mavis Karn’s Unbroken podcast episode Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode Transcript of Interview with Ellen Friedman 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.  Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got interested in the three principles. 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. Alexandra: Moving forward from there was it difficult to get your head around the idea of no tools and techniques? 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.  You had an interest in healing, and helping people. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And where that began to if you know. 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.  Can you talk about rest and its importance, and why you recommend it to your clients. 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. Alexandra: Do you meet resistance when you suggest this now to clients? 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. Alexandra: Say more about what that looks like. 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. Alexandra: So in other words, on a scale of one to 10, this is how tired I am. 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.  Can you tell us a little bit about that journey and what you saw? 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.  And as I say that I’m aware that I also at one time in my life had a fairly rigid meditation practice. 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. I want to ask you, if you had a client who recognized that their busy mind was affecting their levels of energy, how would you approach that with them? 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. I can almost see myself telling myself that story. 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? Alexandra: Nice. Oh, I love that. And then you said you had a story?  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. Ellen: What happened to you when you heard that? I’m just curious, because I felt a shift within you. 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. Ellen: Is that true that you need to hear it 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. Alexandra: It was serious work. 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.  On your website, you have a mention of healing the beyond dis-ease. Can you tell us what that is and what that looks like to you? 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. Alexandra: Right and so holding that lightly, like you talked about a minute ago 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? Alexandra: I think peace is the one that resonates the greatest the most with me personally. 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.  I might choose to stay in the tense place for a moment, but I know, it won’t stay. I know it’s temporary. So if it serves me in that moment to stay there, so be it.  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. Alexandra: An indicator letting you know. 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.  Noticing the difference between knowing that we are peace, versus searching for it is so powerful. 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.  So tell us what you’re working on. 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.  Is there anything that we haven’t touched on today that you’d like to share with our listeners? 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.  Why don’t you let everyone know where they can find out more about you and your work? 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 The false messages business owners receive about having to be ‘on’ and ‘up’ all the time How motivation ebbs and flows naturally and there’s nothing wrong when we’re at a low ebb On the cyclical nature of levels of personal energy How some of our best ideas come during down or quiet times How we believe we need to be busy all the time and that resting is ‘lazy’ How we so often try to be in a different feeling state than the one we’re naturally in On overwhelm and its one cause How being in the present moment starves stress of the oxygen it needs Resources Mentioned in this Episode Insight Timer Transcript of Interview with Clare Downham Alexandra: Clare Downham, welcome to Unbroken. Clare: Hello. Lovely to be here. Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. It’s lovely to see you.  Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. 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.”  I literally did walk out of work. 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.  Then I got a random email 10 days afterwards which invited me to train to be a hypnotherapist. 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.  What I  picked up from that, and wrongly held maybe, the business world seems to think this is right was that motivation wise I was supposed to be a straight line. 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 went to his office. He doesn’t live far from me. I cried through the entire first session. 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. Then my business began to be more about that. 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. Alexandra: Looking back at your experience in the primary school, what do you see now about why you burned out? 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 also was going out a lot more, doing a lot of salsa dancing, I was going out partying with my friend. 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.  I’m sure seeing that for you was such a lightbulb moment. 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.  I look at my fiance and he just is the same every day. 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. Alexandra: In your work, do you find that female entrepreneurs struggle with burnout? And if so, how does that look for them? 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.  I see that so clearly, as you’re speaking the connection between, of course people have a hard time relaxing, because that looks antithetical to what they’re trying to do.  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. Alexandra: One of the other things I wanted to ask you about is you mentioned this on your website about how managing our feelings isn’t the answer.  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.  The feeling is coming from how you’re thinking about the 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.  What is overwhelm then, as you see it? Is it tied into having too much to do or is it something else? 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.  Tied into that, is when we’re calm and when we’re present, I think it’s easier to say no. And sometimes we have to say no, or we have to ask for help.  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.  When someone is experiencing that stress, or a different stress, what do you see about dealing with that in a way that’s fresh and new? 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.  It feels really sad to me when a teacher expresses feelings of burning out, because this is the thing they felt called to do. And yet they can’t manage the stress of it. 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. Alexandra: Could you tell us about Insight Timer: what that’s like for you and maybe a little bit about that part of your business? 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.  Can you tell our listeners a little bit about where they can find out more about you and your work? 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. Show Notes The five reasons an unwanted habit has nothing to do with replacing love Does it matter where our painful thoughts about food originate? On the fluidity of thought and how it can change, morph and disappear How the feeling connected to a thought is going to tell us if it’s the truth or a lie How it’s not on us to change, manage or control our thoughts How we are not in control of the timeline of when things change Transcript of episode 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.  So in other words, as it said on the title card for this episode, is food really love? Or is that a myth? I’m going to tell you why I think it’s a myth. 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. Before we get into that, I want to quickly have a reminder here, that if you haven’t done so already, you can sign up for the waitlist for the Unbroken community. 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. Are we are using something like food and overeating to replace love that we believe is missing within us? 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.  The first thing that I want to share is that connected to what I’ve just explained about this idea that we’re substituting food and love is that where that thought and feeling originated doesn’t really matter.  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.  We’re going to talk about the truth; where you can see that what that thought is bringing is not 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. It’s creating feelings within you that thought; we can always tell what we’re thinking by the feelings that we’re having. 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.  I invite you to notice in a situation like that, that what you’re experiencing is thought.  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.  What I saw today, which was really fascinating was that, since that habit has dropped away, I don’t feel any less loved. 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.  That also points to the idea that that habit was created by thought. 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.  Those feelings are telling me that that thought is not the truth.  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.  That’s your barometer, that’s the compass, pointing to whether something is the truth or not.  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.  This thought that we’re having, that we’re struggling with, that we’re equating food with love is going to fall away because we see its nature. 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.  What works better than that, in my experience, is just understanding their nature that they move, and change and flow.  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… …we can get really concerned and knotted up at times about how things aren’t changing in a time frame that we would like to see them change. 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.  What happens is that the more we see the true nature of thought, in all these points that I’ve talked about today, then what happens is that thinking can change on its own. 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 change has come about because I’ve been exploring the nature of thought, and the nature of these Three Principles of mind, consciousness, and thought.  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 Being willing to sit in paradox and wait for clarity On the innate intelligence that flows through every living thing Our human ability to resist that intelligence with our thinking Manifesting: Allowing ourselves to perceive what already exists Following a good feeling toward what wants to be Your wisdom is always in a beautiful feeling How our feelings are always indicating what we’re thinking Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Neill’s TedX Talk Why aren’t we awesomer? Transcript of Interview with Dominic Scaffidi 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.  Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. 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.  Do you remember how you came across the Three Principles?  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: Are there any places where you see that the Law of Attraction and the Principles don’t agree? Have you ever encountered that? 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. Alexandra: When that happens, what do you do or what have you done? 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.”  It sounds like you were pointing toward that when you mentioned earlier about starting your business. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, please? 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.  We have freedom of thought, we are free thinkers.  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.  Unlike a bird or an animal, I can literally resist that guidance, intuition and wisdom that comes.  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.  I’d love to know your favorite lessons from that experience. And maybe tell the audience a little bit of the background, as much as you are willing to share. 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.  When you manifest something, you’re simply tuning or focusing toward what you want, or what the desire is.  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 can’t allow expansion from a place of dissatisfaction or discontentment.  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.  Every statement you make or every thought just distancing between your desire and its experience. 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.  We just knew this is our house.  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?  How would you do this? The stresses of all that stuff come crashing in.  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?  Because what this is about is the feeling is so beautiful.  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.  If I could just be committed to the feeling more than I am to that house, that’s the key. 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.  The journey was how do you keep being guided by the feeling?  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?  Alexandra: That’s amazing. I’m sure you can unpack that for weeks.  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.  Your wisdom is only in a beautiful feeling. Why is that?  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.  That’s the highest energy within you, that’s the highest truth of you. You express that uniquely.  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.  Within you, there’s a knowing of all that you are. It’s the most beautiful design.  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.  The all that is, is an eternal becoming, expansion, expressing more of itself.  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.  Is there anything you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on yet today? 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.  The way it all works is your own life is actually the only teacher you can have.  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, where can we find out more about you in your work? 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 The good feeling our habits point us toward How we are designed to return to a state of calm and quiet How understanding the nature of thought resolves habits The gift of knowing where our experience is coming from Transcript of Episode 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? What if your unwanted habit is a solution, not a problem? 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 Drinking too much An excess of online shopping Overeating  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. Looking back now I appreciate my relentless efforts to help myself. I was trying to find a solution to something that looked a problem. 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. Of course all of this seems like a problem. Especially if, like me, you end up on that quitting and then relapsing roundabout for years, if not decades.  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. Lesson 2: Home Base 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.  That home base feeling is your birthright. It is what you are made of. 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? It’s because we’re searching for the good feeling we hope we’ll get from the vacation. 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. Nobody wants to be miserable. 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. Lesson 3: A Quiet Mind 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.  In this way, an overeating habit or other unwanted habit is actually a solution not a problem.  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. A craving – for food or for a cigarette or for a new pair of shoes when you’ve already got dozens of pairs – is a feedback system that tells us about the atmospheric pressure within ourselves. 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. A food craving is doing exactly the same thing. It is pointing toward the ‘weather’ inside you. “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. Lesson 4: The Nature of Thinking 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.  So if we’re not in control of our thinking – which I know is a radical concept – what is? 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. Lesson 5: Life Inside Out 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. 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. Your unwanted habit is not a broken part of yourself. There’s nothing you need to fix about it. It is, in fact, part of the universal intelligence that includes your beautiful and brilliant human design. Your unwanted habit is both a solution and a barometer. It is a solution because it is a way to release some of the pressure inside you that results from a busy, overactive mind. And it is a barometer because when you feel an urge to indulge in your habit, that urge alerts you to your state of mind. Your brilliant and innate design knows how to settle down that busy, overactive mind. You don’t need to do anything to make that happen. 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 Trusting a good feeling that comes with an unusual experience Following that good feeling Listening to nudges from the universe Listening to the feeling behind the words someone is sharing Learning to relax as a spiritual practice Noting the miracles and synchronicities that happen to us Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Singer’s books are The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment Dominic Scafidi and Grace Kelly’s Living Miraculously course Transcript of Episode 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. The light metaphor that I used, really just explains a feeling. 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. Maybe you feel the feeling somewhere else in your body. 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 want to tell you a really great story about something that happened to me just three days ago. 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. Right away, I just had the strongest feeling that I needed to pick him up. 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. But that little struggle continued within me for longer than what might have been typical; it really kept going. 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. I say out loud in the car by myself. I say, “If I see that guy, between here and Ucluelet I’m going to pick him 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. So we chatted and I peppered him with questions because I was just so fascinated by what he was doing. 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? The reason I said that to the universe was because it just felt so magical. 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 curious what’s going to happen? What is this situation? What am I going to discover or see or learn or? 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. So I specifically asked him a question about that. 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. He just trusted that another car would pick him up when he was ready to leave that area, which was true, it did happen. 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. But it was as Sydney Banks always says, It was the feeling behind the words. 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. The first was that I really gave myself permission to trust the feeling to pick him up. 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. I really enjoyed feeling that feeling and following it and not letting my head talk me out of it. 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. One of the things that I do struggle with is feeling safe and supported by the universe. 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. The second thing that felt so cool, that I’ve been reflecting on ever since, is specifically the message that came through that this guy had about trusting the universe. 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. I felt very protected, or really, really cared for in that moment by the universe. 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. My friend on this mastermind call last week said, “Michael Singer says that really, there’s only one practice. And it is to relax.” 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. When we relax we become more deeply connected to the flow, essentially, of the universe. 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. The way that we see this in tiny, tiny ways, and in big ones, is through what they call miracles and synchronicities. 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 The post The Hitchhiker and the Podcaster appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Our bodies are the vehicles in which we move through life. Our thinking can be the fog that sometimes fills up the windshield we are looking through. Thankfully, we all have factory installed GPS to help guide our way. 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. Transcript of Episode Hello, explorers, and welcome to episode 58 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the windshield of life. I’ll get into that in just a moment. And it is really the one thing I think that when we see it about life, when we understand this idea, this metaphor, it really does change everything, including our ability to deal with things like anxiety, or depression, or unwanted habits like overeating. So we’ll get into that in just a second.  I do want to mention again about the Unbroken Community that I’m starting up. So if you’re interested in joining a group of like minded people, having some one-on-one coaching from me, meeting regularly, twice a month to do that, and learning from the coaching that other people receive as well, go to alexandraamorcom/community. You can learn all about what I’m thinking of for this community. And learn more about the details, including the 10% off that you’ll receive for all my books and courses, and a library of videos that will be available, all that kind of stuff, Alexandraamor.com/community. And there, you can sign up to join the waiting list.  The community hasn’t started yet, if you’re listening to this, as I’m recording in early April 2024. But I want to gauge the level of interest and just see if there’s enough interest in having a group like that. So that’s where you can go to learn more about that and sign up if you would like further information when the group comes together, and when it will be meeting and all that kind of stuff. All right, let’s get on to this metaphor that I’ve got for you today about the windscreen of life. This came to me the other day, and I jotted it down, probably more than a week ago. And I’ve been sort of contemplating it ever since. I really like it, I think it really explains a lot about what we’re trying to get our heads around when we’re exploring this inside out understanding. So it looks like this.  Picture a car, for me, any kind of car doesn’t matter what kind of car it is, could be your car could be your fantasy car, whatever it is. And that car is going to be a metaphor for us for the way that we move through life. And in every car nowadays, anyway, there’s always a windscreen protecting the driver and the passengers, the interior of the car from what’s on the outside. And so like I said, yeah, the car is a metaphor for you for your body. It’s the vehicle that you are using to move through life.  The windscreen is our ability to see. It’s as clear as possible. We want it to be clean and clear so that we can see what’s happening outside of the vehicle, outside of the car. And then what happens?  Have you ever gotten into your car and this happens here in the environment in the geographic area where I live in the fall and winter. And the atmospheric conditions are such that if the car has been sitting outside for a little while and I get in it, it has that thin film of fog on the inside of the windscreen. It’s not frost or anything on the outside, it’s on the inside. And that is going to be what we’re going to use for a metaphor for our thinking. So to a lesser or greater degree.  As we’re moving through life in this vehicle, there’s always like I say to a lesser or greater degree, there’s always a layer of that thin fog or mist inside the vehicle. And in the old paradigm of psychology, and in the self help world that so many of us are so used to being a part of, the strategy that we had for dealing with that fog on the inside of the windscreen was first of all, we were kind of oblivious that it was on the inside. Seems to me, we almost treated it as though Well, I guess the best way to say it is we, we treated it as though it was something we could control. And that it wasn’t something that was created. Just by the very nature of being in this vehicle of having a vehicle to move through life.  We treat that fog as though it’s a problem, like I say and and like something we can control. But the thing is that that fog is always there. And it’s not something we can control. And like I say it can be thinner or thicker at different times, depending on atmospheric conditions, nothing to do with us. That fog represents our thinking, it represents Thought.  And the reason I say that this is such a powerful thing to see. And that once we see this, it really does change everything. That’s because in the past, in the old paradigm of psychology, what we would do is really wrestle with that fog that’s on the inside of the windscreen. And that wrestling is exhausting, because the fog is there. It is its own energy. It’s there of its own volition. And like I say it’s thicker. Sometimes it’s thinner at other times, at times, sometimes it seems like it can go away entirely.  But other times, it seems like it’s just really thick. And we’ve got the defogger on, and we’re blowing air at it. And maybe we’ve got one of those little sponge things or a rag. And we’re trying to wipe on the inside of the windscreen to get the fog to go away. And maybe it does for a little while on one area. But then when we’re focused on another area, it comes back on the first area that we were working on. And that wrestling match that we’re having that energy that we’re expending trying to control the depth and the thickness of the fog on the inside of the windscreen really does take up a lot of our energy a lot of our time.  And it’s fruitless in a way. Because that fog is going to show up now and again. In the case of a human being, it’s kind of with us all the time, our thinking. And it’s really not a problem. So let’s imagine that it’s a kind of fog that is on the inside of the windscreen, and it’s irritating. But it’s not preventing us from driving the vehicle, we can still drive, we can see the road, it’s safe to do so. And we can move forward in our lives. When we recognize that the fog for what it is, that it’s just there. It’s not something we need to control or maneuver or manage in any way that and that actually, and this is the one of the magic points about it.  When we leave the fog completely alone, it tends to get thinner on its own.  So it will almost disappear. And our view through the windscreen becomes as clear as it can ever possibly be. But like I said when we wrestle with it when we try to control it and manage it, that’s when it fights back in a way and gets thicker and heavier and makes it more difficult for us to move through life. What happens when we recognize that the fog is just going to be there and we relax about that? First of all, there’s a couple things going on. One is that we can see or understand that the vehicle that we’re in, is perfectly fine as it is, it works. It’s in great working order. And the fact that the fog is there is not a problem. It’s in this kind of magical metaphorical fog, it’s not impeding our view of the world. And our battle with it, in the past, was the thing that was causing us the most stress and discomfort, and believing that the fog is an impediment to us, living our lives and moving our vehicle through the world, is the thing that really got in our way the most.  When we see the fog for what it is, for its ever presentness, it’s a gift, this is where the metaphor kind of breaks down a little bit. But, you know, our thinking is a gift, it’s a creative gift. And without it, we wouldn’t be able to have the experience of life that we have. So recognizing that, and recognizing that we don’t need to fight with the fog on the inside of the windscreen are two really big steps toward finding peace of mind.  Recognizing that this experience of life is on the inside of us, just like the little fog is on the inside of the vehicle. So the world out there beyond the windscreen is simply being itself and doing itself, our experience of that world is affected by the thickness or thinness, the placement of the fog on the inside of the windscreen, and we can’t have an experience of life without that windscreen being there. It’s the thing that enables us to see the road to see where we’re traveling, and that kind of thing. So without it, we can’t have this experience of life. That’s why the fog and the thinking are gifts. All of this might sound fairly simple, this metaphor about the vehicle and the fog and the wind and the windshield. But it really is that simple. And the more and more that that we begin to see where our experience of life is coming from, that it’s coming from within us and that and that it’s always coloring what we see. Like I say that’s when we stop wrestling with the fog, that’s when it can. I guess we could say that things become lighter in the vehicle. There’s not so much stress and anxiety and a lack of peace of mind. Because we understand that we’re not having to wrestle with the outside world and make things different.  I wonder where the metaphor is for the wisdom that’s carrying us through life? That’s the operation of the vehicle. So this vehicle that we’re in, which is the thing that is taking us through life has a magic GPS, it has an inner compass that’s installed into the vehicle. For every single person, there isn’t anyone who is without that inner compass or GPS. And it can guide us on the road, when we stop thinking that our job is to wrestle with the fog, and make the fog go away, and be upset about the thickness of the fog. And the placement of the fog, when we relax and understand that this GPS is on board. And it’s always there.  All we have to do is listen for it, it will guide us. That is the universal wisdom that is installed with every single person who’s ever been and whoever will be, that is our connection to two universal wisdom to the innate well being that is within us. I think that’s a really important part of this metaphor is to see that there’s an alternative to being upset about the fog that’s on the inside of the windscreen, that what we can do instead is turn our attention to the inner GPS that’s within us. And it will guide us along the road.  How do we do that? Well, it’s innate within you.  So the way that you pay attention to your GPS is going to be unique to you as well. And I could give you some examples of the way that I pay attention to my GPS, and maybe I’ll give you one quick one just for fun.  I think it was Jack Pransky who I first heard talking about the traffic light metaphor, about letting our innate wisdom guide us. So the metaphor is that within us, there’s this red, yellow, green light system kind of indicators, I guess would be a better word. And when we’re making decisions, and when we are trying to find our way in life, we can feel within us when our body reacts to something with either a red, yellow, or green light.  I really enjoy playing with and paying attention to this part of the inner GPS, in big ways and small. In big ways, when we have really big decisions to make, it can be a little bit harder, especially at the beginning, to be able to discern what kind of a light am I getting? Is my body giving me a red light saying no, that I shouldn’t take this next step? Or is it giving me a green light? Or is it somewhere in the middle?  What I do, or what I try to do in my day to day life, is really pay attention to that traffic light system, even when it comes to small things. Like if I’m out and about and I’m wanting to run an errand, and I’ll all wonder about, will a certain store, do they have the thing in stock that I’m looking for? Maybe they were out of it last week. And they said they were going to get it back in. And so as I’m walking along the street, I think oh, I could pop into that store and pick up that thing. And then I wonder is it there? Have they received it yet?  I’ll just play with my inner compass, my inner traffic light and see what kind of a light I get; red, yellow or green. And then I’ll probably go into the store and just see what happens. See if it matches the feeling that I got about the traffic light. And what I’m finding is happening is the more that I play with that, the more that I rely on my inner GPS/Traffic Light and the more that I use it in small instances, as they can be as small as we want, the more I’m getting a real attunement for those the feelings in my body, the red, yellow and green feelings.  I’m becoming much more clear when I get one of those certain lights, and what that feels like within me. So that’s been really fun to play with.  Then what happens is, when I have bigger decisions to make, things that feel like there’s more at stake, and maybe there’s just more risk involved more, I’m a little more fraught, I’ve got more thinking about whatever the decision is, or the circumstance. Because I’ve practiced, I’m practicing, and I’m building up my connection to that inner GPS / traffic light, it’s easier to find that feeling when I have a bigger decision that’s going on.  I wouldn’t necessarily start out practicing this on things like a decision about a house purchase, or a humongous job change.  Practicing it on smaller things, really builds up that muscle, that connection that we have to this inner GPS that’s built in that factory installed in all of us in all of our vehicles. One of the nice things that I find about really being attuned to our inner GPS, is that I can be so much more relaxed about decision making.  In the past, when I had to make decisions about anything, the only place I had to go to was into my mind into my thinking.  I would think about pros and cons. And if I make this decision, maybe this will happen. But if I make it, maybe that will happen. So that’s something to consider. And my thinking would just become more and more and more sped up, especially if the decision was large. I would find myself circling around and changing my mind, making a decision, and then my mind would get chatty, so then I would change it and do and decide the opposite thing, or something like that.  Whereas now, when I feel that green light go on, I trust it, I know exactly what’s happening.  Even if I get a red light, or perhaps I should say, especially if I get a red light, about something, and it’s something I really want to do, it’s a decision that mentally I would have agreed to. But then I get the feeling in my body of a red light. I’ve really learned to trust that to not second guess it.  Of course, at the beginning, I did. I would second guess it. I had many instances where I did that. But that taught me as well. So I would make a decision going against the feeling I had in my body of a red light. And then down the road, I would realize, Oh, of course my inner GPS was right. I shouldn’t I shouldn’t have done this, or this was not quite the right choice. I should have chosen the other thing, whatever it was. So it’s all a learning experience.  I really appreciate that, about this little traffic light metaphor. And as I’ve been recording this episode, I’ve realized that it really fit in nicely with the windscreen metaphor that I that I that came into my mind a week or so ago. So I hope that’s been helpful for you.  If you have any questions, please let me know if anything hasn’t been clear. Alexandraamore.com/questions. You can fill out the form there and I will answer your question on a future episode you can be anonymous if you’d like that’s fine too. I think that’s it for me right now. I hope you’re having a great day and I will talk to you again soon. Take care. Bye. Featured image photo by Cole Freeman on Unsplash The post The Windshield of Life appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Life has an unerring knack for presenting us with challenges and opportunities for change. Dr. Linda Pettit explores our innate intuitive nature and how we can use that to help us navigate the curves that life brings to us. Dr. Linda Sandel Pettit is a distinguished author known for her insightful work, including her acclaimed memoir, Leaning into Cuves: Trusting the Wild, Intuitive Way of Love. With over five decades dedicated to writing, four decades immersed in counseling psychology, and two decades serving as a spiritual mentor, Dr. Linda brings a wealth of experience and expertise to her practice as a speaker, writer and mentor. Unafraid to delve into divine wisdom, deep feminine knowing, and intuition, Dr. Linda empowers her clients to tap into their innermost truths. Through her guidance, she inspires and facilitates the release of pure love, allowing individuals to express their authentic selves fully. You can find Linda Pettit at LindaSandelPettit.com and on Instagram at lindasandelpettit. Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Discovering that anxiety is thought created  What if being calm and in a good feeling is how we’re meant to exist? The only thing that ever gets in the way of love is our thinking Using self-reporting instruments to gauge how clients were being helped by the Three Principles understanding How our intuitive knowing is a life raft for us How mystical experiences are the norm or all of us Examples of listening to intuitive knowing and letting it guide us Why waiting for the moving parts of life to align is important Resources Mentioned in this Episode Linda’s book Leaning Into Curves Book: The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews Transcript of Interview with Dr. Linda Pettit Alexandra: Dr. Linda Sandel Pettit, welcome to Unbroken. Linda: Thank you. Good to be here. Alexandra: It’s lovely to have you here. So why don’t we begin with a bit of your background?  Why don’t you tell us who you are and when you came across the Three Principles? Linda: I have kind of an interesting background. I started out in journalism and public relations. And then I found my way into the helping professions. I was a counseling psychologist for 30 some, 35 years. And now I do speaking, and writing and mentoring.  I came across the Three Principles about what was exactly 21 years ago. So when I met my husband, who many know in the Three Principles world, Dr. Bill Pettit, he’s a psychiatrist. And he had been mentored by Sydney Banks, the man who shared the principles originally. Or boy, even at that point, I think it had been close to 20 years. And so I got introduced through Bill.  Syd was still alive then so he would call our home just about every other weekend. And we would put him on speakerphone and he would teach, share with us. He was very interested in mentoring both of us; Bill as a psychiatrist to me as a psychologist in the understanding. I will say, it wasn’t an easy immediate sell for me. Alexandra: That was my next question. Tell us about that. Linda: Bill should be the one that it was a pretty, I believe, at one point, as I recall it, it was actually in an airport. We were waiting for a flight and I got so triggered that I said to him, “If you ever mentioned Sydney Banks, again, we are getting a divorce.”  Just to give your listeners, in case they struggle with the understanding, I certainly know that. And in a way, interestingly, it was kind of incremental. Sometimes I would struggle with it. And sometimes I wouldn’t. Because I knew right from the start that there was something there. And I could see that it was settling me so that I was having less and less anxiety.  Then as I began to see that anxiety was entirely thought created. That was really beautiful. It wasn’t something that just parked on me, sat on my head, and I was completely powerless over it. That was my, my primary struggle, I would say, was with being anxious. I’d been pretty anxious all my life. From the time of being a small child, even to the point of having some degree of obsessive compulsive behaviors, but not a full blown disorder where I had rituals and things. Although I was a counter; I used counting to calm myself, but more just a general, anxious approach to the world and a tendency to worry.  I could see that that was settling down. Although I don’t know that I could have told you exactly why. But it was kind of like, I used to think of it this way that I lived from a place of anxiety. And occasionally, maybe 20% of the time, I would stretch into these areas where I wouldn’t feel anxious, or I wouldn’t feel worried. And I would wonder about that. Where to go? How did that happen? I’m feeling pretty good right now.  Then I would snap back into that place of being anxious. As I started to get insight to how powerful thought was, and how thought was creating the experience of being anxious what I gradually felt over a number of years was that it was like, it wasn’t that I didn’t never get anxious again. But the positions reversed. So 80% of the time, I was pretty calm. And 20% of the time, I might stretch into those zones again, where I felt really anxious or worried.  But I knew what was happening. I knew I was innocently using the power of thought to create this experience that was manifesting in my body in the state that I called anxiety. And so gradually I was less and less worried and less and less anxious to the point now where I just really don’t experience it very much more. If I do it’s a momentary fleeting thing and then I come back to myself. Alexandra: As a psychologist, did you have times when you were helping others about anxiety? Linda: Yes, really my whole practice was about people who were having a lot of anxiety or depression. I’d always done a lot of work with people in transition who had had some kind of something happen in their lives that interrupted life as they knew it. And they were transitioning to some new understanding and, and along with that was coming this experience of feeling lost or anxious or depressed.  But I was committed to a thought that I had. And the thought was that I was not going to share this understanding professionally, until I really saw it personally. And so I didn’t, even though I was very aware of it and was studying it and learning about it from Bill and from Syd and others in the Three Principles world, I didn’t share it professionally for several years. And then I had an experience, which I actually talked about in my new book.  It was really one of those funny synchronistic experiences where I was kind of ticked off at bill, we, you know, we were newlyweds, and we were struggling a little bit with adjustment. We’re very different people. He’s very extroverted and outgoing. And I just tend to be by my nature, really more quiet, slower tempo. And so we were having some struggles, and I stomped downstairs to my office in a full blown, you know, like, what a jerky is kind of moment, and sat down at my desk.  I reached in for a financial file to do some work on on our finances, because I manage those and I opened the file. And I don’t know how this got there. But on the top of this particular file was an excerpt from the book, The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. And I remember thinking, how did that get there? Because I don’t like that book. I had read it. And I didn’t think much of it, which is really in itself pretty interesting. But I read the excerpt and it said, there was a conversation between two of the Pooh characters.  One of them is saying, “Oh, that Winnie the Pooh, he’s just the sweetest, kindest, most loving, tender wise knowing being.”  And the other one says, “Oh, yeah, he is all of that. And it’s just too bad that he’s the exception to the rule.”  And the other one says, “You know, that might be, but what if he’s the rule in action?”  I had this moment, Alexandra, where it was like an insight. And I just thought, what if Bill, because he’s so calm, and he’s so compassionate, and he just rolls with things, and he doesn’t get really upset with me, just kind of stays with me when I’m in these little snippets.  What if he’s not the exception to the rule? What if he’s the rule in action? What if that’s the way we’re all meant to be?  In that moment, I became a student. I thought, you know, what if? What if I don’t have to live with the level of anxiety that I do? What if I don’t have to live with a level of reactivity and drama that I sometimes do? I wasn’t out of control and we never yelled, we never had big, awful arguments or anything. But I walked around more than I wanted to in a feeling of being very stirred up inside.  He had been trying to share the Three Principles. And he will tell you now that he realizes that he was probably trying to be a teacher to someone who wasn’t a student. And so he had a role and what happened, but when I had said to him, finally, you just need to back off, he did back off. And I think when he backed off, and I had the ability to just sort of observe a little bit more without feeling pressured to be different or to change. I just created a space.  And then I found that that excerpt from Hoff’s book and it just became real clear to me that this could be the answer I’ve actually been searching for. The other thing that I think was a factor is that at the time, so this was 22. We’ve got married in 2003 so this was 21 years ago, or 20 to 21 years ago, I think the understanding was being taught primarily as a psychological understanding. And as a psychologist, I was struggling to see: How is this different from other cognitive therapies?  I was already a student of cognitive therapies and used them in my practice. And I truly didn’t see, I saw glimmers, but not the whole picture, how this was very much different. And what happened for me is that as the spiritual understanding of them fully unfolded, and I began to see, oh, this is the answer to love. This is the answer to how I can stay connected to love.  The only thing that ever gets in the way of love is my thinking. I’m never severed from it. All of the prior spiritual understandings, and my psychological understanding came together. And that’s when I really started progressing in understanding and began to share it in my practice. And in case there are other helping professionals who might listen to this, when I started sharing it in my practice, I talked with Syd and I said, “I think I want to do this. But I’m not sure that I know how to do it.”  And that is kind of a whole story to what he said, but what he came to was, well, if you’re gonna give this a go and share it purely, don’t try to mix it with other things, just share it purely and see what happens. But, Alexandra, I was so fearful that I wouldn’t be doing my job. Because it was so much less directive than other things. There were no rituals, there were no things people had to do that I decided I would measure every client so that I had proof that they were getting better or not. And I had done that somewhat. But I really started to do it.  I started to do some very high quality instruments, self report instruments, but still well researched, and had every client fill them out every third session. And somewhere that data is buried somewhere, it may have been destroyed, because it was so long ago.  I actually started to get very good data that people were getting better, significantly faster. I could sense that I could see it anecdotally. But I also had the data to back it up to the point that actually I had insurance companies, because mostly in mental health then and I think still now a lot of payment comes through third party payers in the United States. I would have insurance companies call me up and say, How are you producing these results? Alexandra: Wow. That’s amazing. Linda: So the results sort of hooked me it was kind of like, Oh, okay. Alexandra: There’s someone here.  Linda: And I never looked back from that point. I ran a solely Three Principles based practice for a very long time. Alexandra: I love hearing that. That’s great. I didn’t know any of that. That’s lovely.  Along those lines, I wanted to talk about transformative change today. And one of the things on this is one of the topics that you speak about and on your speakers page. In the section for mastering transformative change you talk about intuitive knowing and I love this phrase being our life raft.  Could you talk about intuitive knowing being a life raft? Linda: Yes. So where the principles point is, is that we are all sourced in this formless energy. You could call it many names; I like to call it love, or wisdom or intuitive knowing. It’s a source that as I see it is evolving. It’s creating. It’s conscious, it’s aware, it’s moving through us. We are made of it. We are one of the forms of it.  One of the forms that it takes in us is thought. So I literally see myself as being pulsed through with thought. But I also see myself as been having been given the gift of thought to use, however I choose to. I have this incredible power with thought to create anything out of any experience or circumstance that’s in front of me. And yet I also see that there is a divine aspect to it, that of always moving in the direction of love, always moving in the direction of higher evolution, higher consciousness, more common sense, more peace, more joy, more brilliance.  If we’re aligned with that, if our thinking and divine thinking is aligned, then life is beautiful, even the most difficult experiences in life, and have their own beauty. And so I think about now, and so many of us feel so adrift, I was talking to a woman yesterday who is a developmental psychologist, and she was saying to me parents, she’s a young woman, and she’s got young children. She said, parents right now are feeling very adrift. They don’t know how to a parent.  We’re coming out of this generation where, and in this therapeutic environment that says that what parents did many years ago was was terribly traumatic. And most of us were raised with a lot of trauma and a lot of challenge and we’re all in therapy dealing with that. And now, as parents, we’re all wondering, okay, how do we do it? We don’t want to do what was done to us. We don’t know what to do want to do it our parents to do us. But how do you do this? How do you do it when you’re dealing with behavior. And you’re dealing with a world that feels so chaotic. And you’re dealing with circumstances that our parents didn’t have to deal with.  I have a daughter who’s going to be 40 this year, who has two young children. And not long ago, she had her little little guys were locked down in their school, because there was an active shooter near the campus. Now, it wasn’t, thankfully was not a terribly dangerous situation. But the children did go through an event where they were locked in a room and knew that someone was outside the school with a gun. And so my daughter had to had to process that with her kids, and she has to process safety issues with her kids that I didn’t have to deal with. That’s just one example, people feel right now very adrift and very uncertain. And it feels like a lot of structures that held held my generation or the generation in front of me, and maybe the one right after me into place have crumbled. And they’re looking for answers. And what if the answers are always inside of us? What if the answers are always in our intuitive knowing?  What if all we have to do is go inside and look beyond our fearful thinking and our egoic thinking, and we will always find an answer there?  I trust that. I absolutely trust that in my life. But part of why I trusted is because I tested it. As I wrote my book, Leaning Into Curves, as I look back on a lot of experiences, I really saw that what at the time, I thought were sort of mystical experiences that were special to me. Especially because I’m a woman. Women are supposed to be more intuitive. I now look at that and I just laugh. It’s like no, no, wasn’t anything special about that. That’s how life works. That’s how love works.  I document in the book that when I met both of my husbands it actually happened both times. The moment I met them, something clicked inside of me. And I knew in both situations that I was meant to have long term relationships with both men.  Now with my first husband that was really interesting because he was a Roman Catholic priest. And was actively practicing at the time and he was also going into alcoholism treatment the next morning, the night I met him. He was 20 years older than I so he was an unlikely soulmate Believe me. But I knew because of what I say is that the eyes of love flew wide open and in that instant, and I saw possibility. I saw something that could be created and I knew it.  Same thing with Bill my my current husband. The day I met him there was something that happened, and also a couple synchronicities that happen that I won’t go into right at this moment. But that made me pay attention. And I thought, there’s something here. I remember the thought, which I describe in the book, I am meant to have a personal or professional relationship with this man, I just don’t know which, but that we are going to be connected going forward was really clear to me.  Along the way, in both situations there’s always been this sense that if I just get quiet, and if I can find my way to a quiet feeling of lovingness. If I ask, I will get all the information I need to know what to do next. I know that that’s absolutely 100% true for all of us that we are sourced in love, are made of love, love is intuitively guiding us. And if we can remember that more and more and more and little, little by little by little, and look for that, then all these things that look so big and so problematic, and so complex and conflicted. We’ll find our way through them was one of the things that actually motivated me to write the book, I was already writing it.  I had a number of reasons for writing it. But one of the things that really caused my own motivation to leave for leap forward was that I ran across two articles. One was in The New York Times, and one was in The Washington Post. So these are pretty big newspapers in the United States. And one of them was an article about therapists, and how therapists were being asked to integrate the intuitive arts into their therapy practices. So this there, this reporter was interviewing therapists who were saying, Oh, my gosh, I’m being asked to to help people figure out oracle cards and shamanistic practices and psychic visits. And I don’t know anything about those things. Or, or I do know a lot about those things. I’m really excited about the fact that my clients are bringing these things up. Because what I read was, Oh, my clients are wanting to know about the spiritual dimension of life.  The part of life that that unfortunately and dangerously, we have dismissed as woowoo or as unscientific and impractical. And so people were at least going into their therapists and saying, You know what, I think there’s something here. I think there’s something in the spiritual stuff. I think there’s something in this intuitive stuff for me; we need to talk about this. So it was coming from the ground up that therapists were being asked to address the spiritual and the intuitive, which I see is one in the same thing.  The other article, which was even more fascinating, I’m not sure which paper was in but someone had decided had somehow gotten wind of the fact that psychics across the country during the pandemic were busier than ever. And so they sent a team of reporters out and sure enough all across the country. They’re they’re dealing with psychics of all kinds; clairvoyance, clairaudience, card readers, crystal ball gazers, everything, and they’re all saying the same thing. Oh, my gosh, we can barely take more clientele, because we are so busy. I read that and thought, oh, isn’t that interesting that if you don’t, and I’m not discrediting those arts, there’s no doubt. Can we all have access to intuition? And there are many spiritually evolved people who have very special gifts in that area, who can be really helpful to us. But the reality is, the truth is, the deep absolute truth is that that psychic knowing, that intuitive knowing that wisdom is inside all of us.  That was a beautiful thing that I had seen with the Three Principles understanding that yes, we are guided, yes, there is Mind behind life. It is coming through us through the divine thought system. And all we have to do is turn our attention to it and it’s right there. It’s just right there. And it always has the next right answer.  All I can say is that’s why I wrote my book is because my life has been proof of that. And the book is a set of stories about how that came through to me and how that affected my life decisions, including some really, really big difficult experiences. So that’s why I see coming back to your question. That’s why I see. intuitive knowing is a life raft is it’s, it’s cheap. It’s inside. It just takes getting a little quiet. Just takes getting into a little bit of a beautiful feeling. Takes trusting it, asking for it. And it’s right there. Alexandra: Could you give us an example from the story when intuition was your life raft?  Linda: Actually, I thought of one that wasn’t from the book. Let me see which one from the book that I would want to talk about. Oh, I there’s one that comes to mind.  When my first husband, my late husband and I, we had been married a number of years, and we wanted to go live in West Virginia. A pathway opened up for me to go to doctoral school in West Virginia. We had no money. How many times do people come to me and they say, I want to do XYZ. But I have no money. I hate my job. I want to do something different. But I have no money. You hear that a lot.  One of the questions people hear out there in the coaching world is if you weren’t worried about money, what would you do? And people will have these ideas. But money is the obstacle or money is the block. And we didn’t have any money and doctoral school was expensive.  I talked to my mentor, and this is described in the book, his name was Bob and I said, Bob I, and how I even got to him. I did not go in with a question about my life. I actually went in with a question about my daughter and are having some struggles. She has temper tantrums. And I’m not exactly sure how to deal with it. Bob had said to me, I don’t really think this is about Laura’s temper tantrums, I think this is about you not paying attention to something that’s coming up in you that wants to assert its independence, that wants you to assert your independence.  I thought about that, and I came back to him. And I said, Yeah, I really want to do something new with my life. I want to go to doctoral school in psychology. I said, Well, we don’t have the money. And he said, what’s the first step? And I said, Well, the first step is to take the Graduate Record Exam. So how much does that cost? So I don’t know 75 bucks. Have you got 75 bucks? Yeah. Then you got money to go to got doctoral school, then go take the first step. So I did.  But then I got admitted. And my late husband, Jim and I needed to move to West Virginia to where I’d gotten admitted, didn’t have any money. We went looking for housing, and couldn’t find housing, finally did find housing, put a security deposit on it. But really didn’t have money to pay for anything beyond the security deposit or to pay for school.  The training director where I had gotten admitted said, I’ll find you a teaching job. And then Jim started looking for jobs down in West Virginia. We started to do what made sense to do. But the moment came for us to take the apartment that we had found. And we still didn’t have funding for my doctoral program, Jim still didn’t have a job. We were facing a moment of decision. And we both went inside intuitively, kind of sat together and said, Let’s just really consider this because this is our make or break moment. Either we choose it, or we don’t. We have to we have to choose.  We both came out of that and said, Well, what came to you? And we said to each other, we got green lights. We got to go ahead. But how? Well, we’d paid for the security deposit and the first month’s rent, we had that covered. And a plan clicked into place where Jim would stay at his job up in Toledo, Ohio, and I would go down to West Virginia and occupy the new space. So we found a way to get through the next couple of months. I was living down there. He was living up in Ohio, commuting back and forth. So we got those two months covered.  But then we came to the second point. I’m supposed to start school on Monday. It’s Wednesday, the week before I still don’t have a job, the university still hasn’t been able to find me a teaching position. Jim still doesn’t have a job. So we’re on the phone together. What do we do? Do we abort? Do we say we’ve got to stop? And again, we listened within and, and both of us just said green light, clear green light. Jim went into his employer and said, Okay, I am following through my two weeks notice is up on Friday, I will be leaving and going down to West Virginia. He came down to West Virginia on Friday.  Friday morning, I got a call from the director of training at West Virginia University and he said, I think I found you a job. I want you to go talk to this woman who’s in another department, ed psych. And I went and talked to her and bottom line, I got a teaching job that paid my entire way through doctoral school. I ended up with not a dime of debt. I taught my butt off. I worked really hard.  What was really interesting is: Jim came down, and the following Monday, back to back, it was almost like because he had made the decision. And we had committed back to back three calls that offered him jobs in West Virginia. And by the end of that first week, he was gainfully employed. There’s a movie, it’s one of the Crocodile Dundee movies, there’s a place where Harrison Ford is being chased by the bad guys. And he comes to a big crevasse, a huge canyon. And his spiritual teacher is on the other side.Hecan’t figure out how to get to the other side. And the spiritual teacher says jump. As soon as you jump, the bridge will appear.  That’s what happens. He jumps and the bridge shows up and he gets across and then the bridge disappears. And the bad guys can’t chase him. That’s what happened was that it took jumping. And then the bridge appeared. And it took trusting that intuitive knowing and and the life raft just showed up. And we were off on an entirely new chapter of life.  I’ll tell you a really little story about that. This is not in the book. After my first husband died, suddenly in an automobile accident on Christmas Eve, about two weeks later, I was in a really bad state as anyone who’s known a sudden bereavement that comes really shocking. It’s a big challenge to the system. And I was beside myself with anxiety; I was agitated, and I was walking around the house just not able to sit still. I couldn’t think straight, and having a really difficult time. I I remember being so overwhelmed, I thought I’m going to crawl out of my skin, this is going to kill me, my heart is going to explode, I’m in such a bad place.  I asked for help. I said, God, you gotta help me because I don’t know how to get through this. And all of a sudden, I heard this voice in my head, like a very gentle patient, I don’t even know androgynous sort of voice that said, “Linda, go write your thank you notes.” And I thought, “Go write my thank you notes?” And I thought, well, that is a task that I have to get done.  So I went over and I sat and and my late husband had been a missionary priest for 20 years and he had connections all around the world. And I had gotten scores of emails from people this was when email was brand new, who had known him saying what a wonderful man he was. While going through all those notes, going through all the bereavement cards I’d gotten my heart just kept getting filled up over and over and over again. I realized as I was sitting there, wow, I’m calm again. I’ve come back to myself.  Now if I wrote a book on grief, and I said, here’s a to do. When you feel really anxious and overwhelmed in your bereavement, write your thank you notes. I think I would highly discredit myself. But that was a common sense, intuitive knowing that came in that moment that saved me. It spared me tremendous pain and tremendous difficulty and brought me back to myself.  I could document dozens of moments where my journey through grief was all about that, that in the moment, there would just be an insight that got me through the next thing, and I began to really trust that. Alexandra: Oh, that’s lovely. So beautiful. Thank you for sharing those stories. I really enjoyed that.  Just before we start to wrap up, I’d love to ask you about what about when things go wrong? We trust a feeling I guess is what I mean. Have you encountered that at all? What about if we trust something, and it doesn’t turn out?  Linda: Absolutely. I think that there are lots of different ways I could come at explaining what I see about that. But one of them is that sometimes, something that originally looks like, oh, that didn’t turn out the way I expected it to, or I thought it should or could, in the long run proves to be the better choice. And we see with the value of elapsed time. Oh, that was perfect.  There’s a beautiful book out right now that people are talking about called The Butterfly Effect. It’s very simple little book that really talks about that beautifully that we just don’t know how in the grand scheme of things. That certain answers that we get that seem counterintuitive, actually are intuitively right. And then sometimes I think there’s a timing delay. I’ve had many times when I’ve asked for help, and it seems like nothing happened. And I once heard, a woman named Mary Webb Martin, she was actually presenting alongside Sydney Banks at the last, I think it was the last event I heard Syd speak at, she shared this metaphor. And she said, sometimes I think life is like your she said, I’m a sailor, I’ll get out on the water. And my sails have caught the wind. I’m just skating along enjoying it. Then the wind dies down. And there’s nothing, and I don’t have a motor. And so I can’t go anywhere, I’m just really feeling stuck. But all I have to do is have faith that the winds will pick up and when the winds pick up, I’ll be able to move again in in a certain direction. And Syd said that’s a really beautiful metaphor. Because there are a lot of moving parts to life. There are a lot of moving parts to life. And there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes that we don’t always know about.  We don’t appreciate the mystery of that. But sometimes we just have to wait for the moving parts to align. And there’s a quote. He says, When you accept the mystery, you join the mystery. And so when I have moments like that, that it feels like something that I thought I was being intuitively guided toward, didn’t work doesn’t work out, or it doesn’t work out on a timetable that I expect it. I’ve just come to know that there’s something bigger afoot and to trust the mystery of that. Alexandra: That sailing metaphor, that’s one I’ve used on myself as well that I remember reading a book about a fellow sailing from here, Vancouver Island, to Hawaii, and how inevitably, you usually get to a space in the Pacific Ocean where the wind completely goes and you can’t turn on the motor because you don’t have enough petrol to get to Hawaii. So you just have to wait it out. And, of course, just like you said, inevitably, the wind does pick up again. So yeah, I love that. Linda: Sometimes it takes you in a new, better direction. Just because you’ve been committed to a change in direction. The change happens. Alexandra: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this has been such a pleasure, Linda, thank you so much for talking to me today. Your new book is called Leaning Into Curves. And it’s available everywhere, I’m assuming online. Linda: Ebook, paperback and hardback. And the audio book is forthcoming. I’m going to be recording that myself. So it should be available pretty soon. Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes so that people can can find that as well. Is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share today before we wrap up? Linda: I think we started to talk about transformative change. I love working with people who are going through transformative change and transformative change is not the kind of change that most of us go through, we change our hairstyle. It’s usually some life event critically disrupts the path we’ve been on; could be a job, change a job loss or loss of someone in our life, business disruption could be anything.  I love working with people who are going through transformative change, big change. And in the therapeutic community right now, there’s a lot of focus on trauma informed therapy. But one of the things that’s not being talked about enough is, I think, is that many, many people experience huge amounts of post traumatic growth. They actually not only return to their baseline functioning, they exceed it.  The transformative experience becomes a spiritual portal for transcendent spiritual growth. So what I found in working with people is that one of the things that we need to do is allow space for grief. We need to allow space to mourn and embrace the embodiment you talked about being in a body, being in a physical life and having to deal with sometimes the big context sport of life.  And then I think a big step in that is forgiving life, that we got handed tough circumstances to deal with forgiving life and forgiving ourselves in thinking that we weren’t big enough to rise to the challenge. Because the spiritual nature that we have is always capable of rising to that challenge. And then if we ask for help, and listen, there will always be the intuitive knowing the desires that point us in new directions. And then from that point, it’s just about embracing the desire and consciously creating from that desire. Alexandra: Lovely, beautiful, thank you.  Where can we find out more about you and your work? Linda: Probably the easiest place and thank you for asking. You’ve been such a wonderful, thoughtful, gentle podcast host. My website. LindaSandelPettit.com Alexandra: I will put a link to that as well in the show notes. Well, thank you so much, Linda. It’s been such a pleasure. Linda: It has been. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. Take care. Bye bye bye. Featured image photo by Jesse Bowser on Unsplash The post Leaning Into Curves with Dr. Linda Pettit appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When we strive for perfection are we doing ourselves a favour or adding unwanted stress into our lives? When it comes to eating well and resolving an overeating habit, I think embracing the beautiful messiness of life is much more helpful. Click the image below to learn more about the Unbroken Community. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes: The top 3 ways perfection is a mistake How needing to be perfect increases the amount of thinking we’re dealing with Why perfection is boring How important the messiness of life is On the unkindness of perfection Transcript of Episode Hello explorers and welcome to episode 56 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about perfection, and how it’s a mistake.  Before I jump into that I wanted to mention, in case you didn’t hear me last week, that I’ve put together a page of information about a community I’m starting, called the Unbroken Community. You can join a join up for the waitlist for that community at: AlexandraAmor.com/community I want to find out if there’s interest in this sort of thing. So there’s a whole bunch of information on that page that I just mentioned, about what the community will look like, when the group coaching calls that we’ll have, the pricing and all the other details about what’s involved, whether it’s a good fit for you, there’s information there about that, and whether it isn’t. I think it’s always really important in these situations to make it clear what the offering is, and one of the ways to do that is to make it clear that this might not be a good fit for you. If so, you’ll see a little list of bullet points about that as well. So lots of information there. Check it out: AlexandraAmor.com/community if you’re interested in connecting with me, connecting with others who are wanting to resolve unwanted habits, like overeating, but it could be any kind of unwanted habit as well. Because as I said last week, they all have the same root cause. So yeah, check that out. All right, so now let’s talk about perfection. In the last few weeks, since I had my coaching call with Tanya Elfersy \that you can listen to on episode 53. As I said, a couple of weeks ago, my eating habits have been way better.  I’m so grateful for that. And I’m really happy because it feels like I turned a corner. I had had more insights, learned some more stuff as we do. It’s an ongoing journey. It’s never over is it really? I think as long as we’re alive, we’re going to be continuing to learn.  Since then, since that corner that I turned, I’ve noticed some more some thinking and more thinking that I’m comfortable with about perfection about holding myself to a standard when it comes to eating that feels a little bit perfectionist. It feels a little bit like holding an elastic really tight, you know that feeling? I know from personal experience that when I hold that elastic really tight, and really hold myself to a standard of perfection, that eventually the elastic snaps and I dive into eating badly.  So what I wanted to do today was explore that a little bit, explore that feeling of wanting to be perfect, and how it can become a bit toxic in and of itself. And that’s why the title of this episode is perfection is a mistake.  What I’m going to outline is three ways that I thought of that perfection is a mistake, ways that it can become toxic. I’m sure there are many more than this. But these are the three that came top of mind as I was preparing for this episode. So here we go. Number one, perfection really gets us into our thinking. This was the first sign for me that I was leaning towards wanting to be perfect was that my thinking becomes a bit revved up. In other words, I noticed that I’m having lots of thinking about food and about what I’m eating and how I’m doing. On both ends of the spectrum notice that actually to kind of congratulating myself on one end, and feeling good about how I’m eating, which is not the end of the world, that’s not terrible.  But the problem is that then the pendulum does tend to swing to the other side as well. And it any kind of little, not any kind, actually. But there are some foods that I might want to eat that where my thinking gets more revved up than with other foods. So for example, I had a couple of glasses of wine on the weekend that just passed. That’s something that can really trigger my perfectionistic thinking. What happens, I think, when we get into having a lot of thinking about things like this, and about trying to be perfect, is that it can be a little bit like a dog chasing its tail. There’s no way to be perfect. And this is why aiming for perfection is a mistake. And if we feel or maybe I should say, if our thinking believes that we should be perfect, that we are obligated to be perfect all the time about whatever the issue is, in this case, it’s food, then that can become its own kind of problem. And it can contribute to or add itself to all the other thinking that we have about these kinds of issues. Now, I do want to do a little sidebar here and say that, as someone who’s had this unwanted overeating habit for 30 years, and has tried so hard to fix it prior to finding the Three Principles, with self help and willpower and rules and all that things.And maybe you are too. I’m just inclined to have a lot of thinking about food.  I can observe friends when we’re out for dinner, or when I’m in situations where I’m meeting with other people. And maybe, you know, maybe it’s not true, I can’t tell what other people are thinking. But it often seems like other people who have not had an overeating habit, have a lot less thinking about food. And that makes sense to me.  When we have some sort of habit that we’re trying to resolve, our thinking does get really revved up about it.  And of course in previous episodes, I’ve talked about the pressure cooker, and how the habit is a solution to all that thinking that’s going on. So what else do I want to say about that? I guess the main point is just that holding ourselves to a standard of perfection, when it comes to an unwanted habit. And this is what diets really encouraged us to do, right? You’re either on the wagon or off the wagon. And I think that’s kind of a toxic way to look at things. So what I’m realizing lately is that I’m living my life, I’m doing the very best I can. And adding a whole bunch of thinking to myself, to my world, to my life about being perfect, and having the perfect diet and eating perfectly all the time, is going to end up creating more problems than it solves. So that’s the first way that perfection is a mistake. The second way that perfection is a mistake is that perfection is really boring.  When you meet somebody who seems perfectly perfect and has it all together, I really can’t think of anything more boring. It’s the messiness of life that’s really interesting, right? We don’t like it a lot of the time. But that’s where we really connect with our fellow human beings and perhaps even more importantly, that’s where we learn. I really fell on my face at the end of 2023 and early 2024 with falling back into some overeating habits that I didn’t like.  That whole time, while it was frustrating and confounding, and I was not feeling great about myself. It created suffering for sure. I’ve mentioned that before it was a really great learning experience. It taught me a whole bunch of things, some of which I mentioned on Episode 54. It was a really good learning experience. I learned so many things.  I think I may have said this in one of the episodes, when things get tough, that’s when we learn. So if we were perfect all the time – and I know that’s our natural inclination, and we do want things to be resolved. If we were perfect all the time, we wouldn’t learn a thing, we wouldn’t have any of the experiences that lead to insight, and that lead to learning, and that help us to connect, and have empathy for others who might be going through a similar situation.  So that’s the flip side of perfection, the messy, sticky, untidy part of life, is really full of lessons and beauty and connection. And so that’s why I think being perfect is boring. And it’s not necessarily something we need to aim for, at all. The third reason I think that perfection is a mistake, is that it’s unkind. This connects back to the previous point, we are messy human beings fumbling our way through life, divine beings, as that quote from Sydney Banks that I talked about in the episode with Tania, and then the follow up episode, we are divine beings walking through this world, trying to find ourselves and that’s messy, unpredictable journey. And while we’re doing that life is throwing us curveballs all the time. And we’re just stumbling forward trying to do our best. In that circumstance of being a spiritual being having this very dense human experience it seems to me it’s really unkind to expect perfection from that human being, from that experience. And it’s interesting, because we don’t expect it of anyone else, do we? But we really do expect it of ourselves, which is such a shame. I always try to anyway, in my life, I fall back on what is the kindest thing that can happen in this moment? What is the kindest way that I can be with this person, whether it’s myself or someone else? That’s about all I have to say about kindness and perfection. So those are my three. That’s my top three list, about how perfection can be a mistake, it can get in our way.  I also want to say too, as we’re wrapping up here, that it can be our default position to expect perfection of ourselves. And that’s how our culture is set up. We’re graded in school, we are assessed for our performance at work. We, especially in the whole Instagram of it all we see other people’s perfectly curated lives, and expect that for ourselves. And our life, of course, doesn’t look like that; the toilet has flooded and the dishes aren’t done and the dog is just thrown up on the carpet or whatever it is.  I think there’s just such an expectation and we have this disease of comparisonitis comparing our insides to other people’s outsides. And that can get really toxic and add to the problem of unwanted habits. So hopefully, we can all learn to be a little kinder to ourselves, to not hold ourselves to such a high standard and to cut ourselves a bit of slack as we’re walking through this world, finding our way learning and growing and connecting with one another.  I hope that is helpful for you today. I hope that you are doing well and taking good care. And I will talk to you again next week. See you then. Bye. Featured image photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash The post Perfection Is A Mistake appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When was the last time you felt deeply heard? Nurse and Three Principles practitioner Wendy Williams shares the impact deep listening has on both the listener and those being listened to. We also discuss the priceless benefits that understanding every human’s innate resilience can have for nurses and other healers. As a nurse educator and clinician for over 25 years, Wendy Williams helps people facing extraordinary (and ordinary) challenges to move forward with grace and ease. She is an experienced mental well-being educator. As Wendy sees it (and teaches it), we are meant to thrive in this world, but sometimes we get stuck. Whether it’s being swept up in the whirlwind of everyday life or struggling to overcome a major life hurdle, getting back on track, and moving forward can, and will, happen quite naturally. Wendy’s deep experience mixed with her practical and kind-hearted teaching & education point the way forward. You can find Wendy Williams at ForwardWithWendy.com and on Facebook at Find Your Way Forward. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Paying attention to work we’re naturally drawn to Recognizing an awareness of our innate well-being How in any circumstance in life we can react in any number of ways depending on our thinking On the universal intelligence that flows through everything, including us The benefits for healers like nurses of knowing about our innate resilience The difference between deep listening and active listening Resources Mentioned in this Episode Wendy’s Deep Listening class with Lori Carpenos, April 5 to 7, 2024 Sydney Banks’ book The Missing Link Beyond Recovery Jacqueline Hollows’ book Wings of an Angel Transcript of Interview with Wendy Williams Alexandra: Wendy Williams, welcome to Unbroken.  Wendy: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here with you.  Alexandra: Oh, I’m excited, you’re here as well. So let’s begin with a little bit of your background. Tell us about yourself and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Wendy: Sure thing. Well, I live in the northeastern part of the United States near Boston, Massachusetts, I have been a nurse for more years. I got married at the ancient age of 38 to a guy that I just adore, even as we speak, I adore him.  I have been a nurse, like I say, for a very long time, specializing for years in conditions like HIV AIDS, cancer, hospice, so I’m a real pro at the bedside when people are saying goodbye. And, a lot of what I do happens to do with ongoing or chronic pain.  I’m still practicing as a nurse in that regard. But I’m also having a real focus on bringing the Three Principles to a wider community in health care, because a lot of my sisters and brothers in health care are kind of tired and burning out a little bit, especially after the pandemic. So I’m excited to extend the ripples, as I say, for the awakening, that certainly the Three Principles is brought to my life and many people that I know.  Alexandra: Wow. You’re not just dealing with giving people flu shots, and mending broken fingers.  Those are some pretty deep human experiences that people are having when you encounter them. Wendy: Absolutely. It was an interesting thing, when I was a brand new nurse I worked on what we call a medical surgical floor, which is a catch all phrase, meaning somebody broke a leg, somebody’s got appendicitis and but just kind of general routine things that you need to be in a hospital for for a bit. There were a lot of orthopedic problems on that floor, broken hips, broken, knees, whatever.  There was this one lady in there who had cancer in her bones. And so a lot of what we had to do for her was find a way to make her comfortable, we knew that the cancer wasn’t going to ever leave that was going to be, , part of her last days. And so that is what we call the report in the morning.  The new nursing staff for the day arrives at 6:30 in the morning, and gets the report from the night nurses who says this is what’s going on, this is what people need. And it was interesting to me, I said, huh, this is kind of interesting to notice that all the other nurses were like, Oh, that lady in seventh with the bone cancer. And I was like, bring the lady with the bone.  I was a young woman, I was 20 to 23. And so that was a clue. I said, Hmm, I’m drawn to that. I feel interested in that. And it became very, very clear to me that every loved one that was standing around her bed, wringing their hands, or holding their hands or crying, was also my patient. It wasn’t just the person in the bed.  As I look back, I feel very blessed that that was a gift that was given to me. A clear path was said, “You’re good at this, what you’re doing.” You’re not afraid. I used to say to other nurses, when nurses were trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. To your point, some people are very well suited to bandages and broken fingers and flu shots. And some of us are drawn to other things.  I said, if you feel like when you go and buy a house, and it’s up in flames, and you feel like you want to run in and get people, you might be a cancer nurse or an oncology nurse, or a nurse who likes to work with death and dying. But if you want to run away and go call the cops or call the fire department and say I’ll be right here when they come out, but I’m not going. I said but I was one of those people said I gotta get in there and get somebody. I think it just was just kind of the way I’m built. I’m designed. Alexandra: Oh, that’s so interesting. You noticed it at such a young age. I mean, 22 that’s really young. Wendy: It was my first job. It was this general medical surgical floor and then as a result of working with that lady I found my next job at a very well established cancer center here in Boston called Dana Farber Cancer Institute. That was the next job and so I built my career on a foundation of getting to know people well at very difficult times.  Now, lots of cancer patients do very well, and go on. And I so I hope this is interesting to you. But anyway, so some nurses, again, , if they say, All right, what’s wrong? Oh, you need a flu shot? Got it. Let’s give you the flu shot. Okay, next. Okay. What do you need? You need a new bandage. Okay, got it. Next.  I was the one that said, Oh, you need chemotherapy this week? How’s it going? Did you have a good rough time last week? Oh, yeah. Okay, well, we’ll fix it this week. And then I would see them the next week, and then the next week, and then the next week. And then I might say yeah, you don’t need more chemotherapy, we’ll see when five months with your checkup. And I’ll make sure I’m there.  So there are some nurses, some healthcare providers that love that kind of longer path of relationship and building on that. And then there are some people who say, I just want to go in, take care of you and move on. Like a labor and delivery nurse. Let’s get that baby. Okay. Next, let’s get that baby next. Whereas an oncology nurse, or, , other chronic illnesses, really enjoy that longer term association with people. Alexandra: When in your career did you run into the Three Principles? And what struck you about it? Wendy: Quite late. I’ve no problem telling you, I’m almost 66 years old, and I’ve been a nurse since I was 22 or 23. But I discovered the principles, let’s see, if I had to do the math right now, I’d say like eight years ago. So when I was 57 or 58.  And it was a really interesting little rabbit hole of YouTube videos,  what I’m talking about? Alexandra: Yes. Wendy: I was working on another avenue of deep interest to me, which is relationship health, how marriages can be a soft place to land. There’s a lot of medical literature out there about people who do better after a heart attack, or do better after chemotherapy, or their symptoms aren’t as bad if they have a soft place to land at home with a really solid relationship. So that intrigued me, that kind of marriage of relationship health with physical health. That was intriguing to me.  So I was looking in the direction of developing a coaching business regarding marriage health, or relationship health, a lot of evidence bases out there for that sort of stuff. And so there was this guy, Steve Chandler, he’s really smart. He knows what he’s talking about. I was like, okay, like, as a coach, like, okay, Steve Chandler, and Steve Chandler said, the best or the smartest, or the most accomplished psychologist of the 20th century, George Pransky.  And I said, George Pransky? Never heard of that name. Now, I wasn’t always in psychological realm of nursing care. But I was like, George Pransky, I would think I would heard of him. I’ve heard a few is the best psychologist of the 20th century. So of course, I rabbit hole my way over there.  One of the videos was of George Pransky and Steve Chandler talking to each other. And if  anything, about George Pransky, and Steve Chandler,  that they talk very much like this: very articulate, very slow, very deliberate. And this was in the days before I knew that you could speed up a YouTube video. So I felt myself going, please, I’m begging you wrap it up. I know what you’re gonna say next. Could you just speak more quickly?  And the funny thing was that in the beginning of that particular video, as I recall it, Steve Chandler said to George, he said, George, have you heard that if you and I ever run out of clients, we can have another job making videos or audios for people who want to go to sleep? Isn’t that great? So the two of them just laughed and whatever. And I was like, Yeah, ha, that’s funny.  I heard something. It was like a Lego piece just went and just fell into place. There was something in the talk about the Three Principles. I don’t know the words. I don’t know what was said. But it was that feeling and a recognition. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word until this moment. It was a recognition of, Oh, I’ve always known who I am. I’ve always known that every patient I’ve ever come across, every person I’ve ever dealt with in my life, I’ve always known that they were made of good stuff, and good stock. And I’ve always known that we are ideally suited to live in this world that we’ve been put in.  But there was something that said, See, I wanted to show other people there was nobody in the room but me, I’m like, see, this is what I’ve been talking about. And I couldn’t put words to it. But it was this recognition of, yes, yes, this is how we work. This is what we’re made to work like, and all the bumps and valleys of life and chemo this day, and my kids are coming to visit tomorrow. And, all the peaks and valleys of life. We can do it.  We know how to ride the waves.  But somehow we’ve been told waves are bad, you got to figure out why you have waves, you got to whack the mole, I call it whack a mole, you got to manage your stress, manage life, . And I said, I just knew, I just knew, and from I’ve just been a very happy woman to be hanging around with these people and learning from some of the teachers who knew Syd Banks personally. I’m in a Three Principles practitioner in a program now to kind of put a stamp of approval on that. And so anyway, it’s been a wonderful, a wonderful I, like I say recognition and waking up to, I always knew this was the way it was. Alexandra: You mentioned the word stress there. One of the things I noticed on your website was you said that it is possible to live beyond stress. So tell us what that means to you. Wendy: Fill in the blank, beyond stress, beyond burnout, beyond anxiety, beyond depression, fill in the blank. Again, I think that there are circumstances and things that come up. Nobody really wants to have a cancer diagnosis. But not every person that has a cancer diagnosis, falls into a funk and just sits there night after night, wringing their hands and in anxiety. Some people just say, alright, well, I guess I better cut back on some work hours, and I’ve got to make room for chemotherapy. I’ve always wondered when I’d like look like when I was bald. There are some people, they get light hearted about it. And then there are other people going, I can’t lose my hair. Oh my gosh, what are they going to do with this?  I’m not judging any of that. I’m just saying there’s a variety of experiences, a variety of ways that people can take their circumstances and so far beyond stress. Words are so inadequate as we’ve heard in the three principles, it’s so inadequate, is it literally beyond? Is it underneath? Is it beside? Is it imbued? Beyond sounds good to me.  There’s a group in the UK, Beyond Recovery. There’s a place of inner resilience, quietness, the stuff that makes the same power that just gave me enough oxygen when I just took my last breath right now, right now, and a breathing out the same power that is able to filter in the oxygen, take out any of the germs that might be floating around in here and expel them and create the right amount of carbon dioxide to breathe out to keep me oxygenated, healthy. That same power that I don’t think about except what I am right now is at work in me to bring my mind and my heart.  Okay, you got cancer. Okay. But you also have three children that you love. Okay. You also have, I don’t have three children. I just made that up. But, it can filter things out and bring me back to a steady state. In nursing, we call that homeostasis. So there’s a place beyond what’s going on. And it’s not to say to ignore what’s going on, or to think positively about it. Positive psychology? No, I’m just saying that whatever is coming our way we do have the ability, capacity. It’s part of the design. Our friend Mavis Karn calls it divine design.  And so beyond stress, beyond burnout, there’s a place sort of like somewhere over the rainbow. Again, I haven’t thought of that before today, either. But we’re bluebirds, we fly beyond the rainbow. And there’s a place and it’s always, always always there. Just like it’s always always always working to make my oxygen levels work.  I mean, right now, I’m digesting food that I ate two or three hours ago. I’m not sitting there going, gee, I hope, I hope my gut’s working. I wonder if I’m taking out enough carbohydrates from my food? I hope so. Do you think, gee, I really hope that I’m getting enough, my kidneys are clearing out my urine. Gee, I hope I don’t have to think about that.  And we have been, I have been, maybe you have been, enculturated through growing up in the 20/21st century, that I have to worry about every time I have an anxious or a difficult thought, oh, what does that mean? What do I have to do about that? Oh, there’s something to be done. All this, I need to follow that rabbit trail, as opposed to saying they come. And they go.  One thing I say to my clients is, if you could look back over the next the last six months or your whole life and add up the number of things that have actually worked out the way you dreaded that they would, how many hours have any of us spent going oh, gosh, I can’t believe it. , like, right now I have a I literally have a relative that’s in some legal trouble. So how many hours? I literally haven’t spent that money in the last six months, because I now know. Had this happened years ago, before the Principles, I would have been wringing my hands, calling up 10 different lawyers. What do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Calling up friends who’ve had other friends that have been involved with law law problems? I would have been asking my whole church to pray, we need a prayer service. Not to say that I haven’t I literally asked people to pray for our situation. And I literally have said, I wonder what could happen. But it’s been such a small amount of time.  When I look back over the last six months, what it looked like six months ago was very, very dark. It has not been resolved. Where are we? March of 2024, the situation has not been resolved. And it isn’t anywhere looking as dark as it did six months ago, I could have spent hours. And I would have spent hours, days months of my life wringing my hands. But things come and they go, and just because I look at something and size it up, doesn’t mean I’ve sized it up accurately, or that things can’t change.  There’s just always something beyond and what I have thought about worried about in the last number of months, or anybody anyone has if you feel like answering it, but how many things have you worried about that have actually materialized the the way you worried about them? I mean, when you look back and go, what a waste of time. What a wast of time. I could have had those hours back. And so today, I’ve got them.  Do I get caught up and anxious? Sure I do if I’m in a lower state of of mood or whatever. Do things look really real and solid and like, oh boy, this is trouble come in. Sure. And there’s also thank goodness, like an eighth of an inch of awareness. A little bit that says, Oh, you’re having a rough time right now. Look at you having a rough time. And it’s not like I talk myself out of it. Sometimes I say, Yeah, I’m having a rough time, and I’m gonna go get a chocolate bar, and I’m gonna get really mad, and I’m gonna call 10 friends. Sometimes I’m aware but there’s a little bit of space that I cherish from knowing the principles. It’s just the awareness that this too, shall pass. It always has it always will. Every wisdom book in the world that we have access to says the same thing. And, it’s thanks to Syd Banks and the Three Principles that it’s worded in such a way that it that Lego piece just kind of dropped in. Alexandra: I imagine for nurses, especially, and doctors, healers, knowing that the patient is as resilient as anybody else, must be such helpful information. Wendy: Yes. Helpful information in terms of me as a nurse going, you got this. You may not be able to see it right now. But you do. You’re absolutely right. It’s absolutely wonderful to be able to sit there and not be pulled in, if you will. And it’s also wonderful, as a healer. I love that word. Thank you. Not that I am the healer. A healing presence is to create an environment or a special a space, where allowing that person to verbalize cry, wring their hands, uninterrupted, deeply listening to them. In some circles in health care, they call it generous listening. It’s been unbelievably wonderful to really hear people reach their own conclusions. Or say, Oh, maybe I should move to my sister’s because she’s got a house all on one floor. I’ve got a broken hip. Maybe I’ll just ask my sister. That’s a good idea. Now, do I know anything about her sister’s house? No.  But if somebody’s going, Oh, my gosh, how am I going to I live alone? What am I going to do? My hip’s broken, I’m not gonna be able to climb my stairs, I’ll have to hire somebody. By listening to them. It’s a great idea. Sounds good to me. I might be able to add my two cents worth, which is when you get to your sister’s house, make sure there are no scatter rugs, because those can really trip you up when you’re on your crutches or on your walker. So get rid of the scatter rugs when your sisters might be able to add two cents. But that’s just a really easy example. But yes, to answer your question, it is a wonderful thing for health care providers to be able to know that. Alexandra: You mentioned deep listening there. And we talked about this before we pressed record. There’s a difference between deep listening and active listening. Wendy: Health care providers worldwide are taught to active listen. Which is to do exactly what you’re doing. Oh, good. I hear you without necessarily saying the words. I hear you. Or there’s something called mirroring. Like if somebody’s sad and crying and just go right. So let me get this right. You said that you’re worried about your stairs at your house with your broken hip? Because you live on the second your if I’ve got that right. Oh, I do have a right okay. And did I hear it right that you said that you have a sister who has a Oh, okay.  Active listening is literally remembering, recalling, mirroring. It’s a wonderful tool. And what seems to be the golden ticket when it comes to listening is clearing my mind and as the listener to say, I want to see the world as this person sees it. I want to feel the world as this person feels it. So I’m just going to literally just listen. And it doesn’t mean it hurts. But I don’t have to remember what they’re saying. I don’t have to, I just have this sense of interest, and curiosity, and patience. And let the person just go.  It really levels the playing field. A wonderful person in the world called Rachel Naomi Remen. She’s a physician, and she’s in her mid to late 80s now, but she’s written some wonderful books, and she’s written some really stellar bits about the boat helping and fixing while they come from a good place. And that’s what doctors and nurses, and health and social workers and psychologists do, we want to help and we want to fix. There’s a little bit of a power imbalance there. I’m a helper, I’m a fixer. I’m in a good place, you’re in a very upsetting place, and you need my help. I want to go in there and fix it.  When you do some generous listening or some deep listening just to human beings it’s just so much more therapeutic, kind, trusting and the resilience of everybody. When we listen from that place of no judgment. And I don’t mean judgment, like, oh, you’re a bad person, but judgment meaning Oh, I know what you mean. Oh, I’m adding one plus one equals two. I know. I know. Yeah. The broken hip. Yeah. Just listen, just listen. It’s very, very different than active listening. It’s like 180 degrees different than active listening. Alexandra: I love that description. That’s great. I had an experience recently of listening to someone. I was trying, honestly trying to practice just having a calm, quiet mind. And this person had a tiny little problem. I don’t even remember what it was. And as I sat and listened, she worked her way around to the solution. She had come to me with a question, and I just stayed quiet and calm.  She figured it out herself. It was so beautiful to see. Wendy: And did she say Oh, thank you so much. You help me so much. But yet, we do do something because it’s vastly different. Can you think of the last time that somebody listened to you? And just and they didn’t leave?  We know what it feels like when somebody’s present with us whether they’re talking or not talking, nodding or not nodding. We know what it feels like. Everybody knows what it feels like to really have somebody listening to them. And we know what it’s like to have somebody distracted. Like they go look at their phone. Oh, what? I’m sorry, what did you say? We know what that feels like. And so you can say, I didn’t do anything. You arrived at this conclusion yourself. Very true.  That’s why I have a program with a colleague, Laurie Carpenos. I think she’s been on your podcast before. The Gift of Deep Listening. It is a gift to give. And when you’ve given it and you’re the listener, there is something magical that does happen in that space, that third space, that interplay between two human beings, that you walk away feeling there’s something really special in it.  So yeah, there is a big difference between the two. That’s a great example that your client or whatever, had that experience with you and and you look back and you go, I didn’t really say anything. You figure that out yourself. How many coaches would have done that not said, All right. This is what we need to do. You need to meditate, take two deep breaths and call me in the morning or whatever. Right? Give them a list. Things like, okay, let’s make a checklist, the good column and a bad column. And there’s lots of tricks and tools that have their place sometimes and have worked in the past. But there’s something really valuable about the Three Principles. Knowing that we’re already uniquely able to live in this world that we live in. And when some other person is able to listen to us and hear us. We get to realize that again, ourselves and pick up our mat and walk. Alexandra: With our busy lives, and how distracted we all are, when you’re teaching about deep listening do you ever get pushback about oh, I don’t have time to do that? Especially I guess I’m thinking of nurses. Wendy: I haven’t worked with a group of nurses yet. The people that have taken the class deep listening, read the description, and go, Oh, I’m interested in that. So they’re already coming prepared with an interest in learning more about that. What I can say, that I have seen over time, is that people are a bit gobsmacked and how simple it is, and how much they gained from it on both sides. When you’re in a class or in a workshop, go off and listen to another person for five minutes and let them listen to you for five minutes. And the subject is your favorite book, it’s something a bit contrived. But even in that, as opposed to like, I’m in a muddle, something’s really upsetting, I’m going to call my best friend, I’m just going to ask her if she can just listen to me. I’m recalling my own stepson who’s 35 years old now. But I remember when he was 17, he was sitting in my dining room saying, I can’t even hear myself think, I can’t even hear myself think. I didn’t know the Principles then. But I’m like, That makes a lot of sense. And I remember my heart going up to him, I wish I could help you quiet your mind so that you could hear yourself, because he was just full of all these different voices, teachers and mom and dad and stepmom. If he’s 17, and he knew the inside was the direction. So the pushback is not really because again, people kind of self select in here. I’m curious when we introduce these things to versus and so forth. And there’s a number of health care providers in the Three Principles world who are on board and they get it. They know what it’s like to listen to their patients or listen at work, listen to their colleagues. Listen to their boss. A beautiful Northstar to follow. I’m looking forward to figure out how much pushback but I can imagine with anybody you think you don’t have the time? And I don’t know how much time do you really need to listen to somebody before they can reach a conclusion? Hours? Days?  I was just reading The Missing Link before we got on the call. And one thought, you don’t have to be in therapy 42 years to get well, or to release yourself from mental strain or difficulty. It’s just one thought. I remember in my early days of the Principles, my issue was, what is the one thought? What is the thought? I didn’t realize it was counting. I thought he was giving content. Like it’s just one thought, and I’m not telling you what it is you’re gonna have to figure it out. And I was like, oh that’s what they mean. My one thought, Okay, I got it. Alexandra: It occurs to me, too, that when we know that that place of peace exists within us, we don’t need 15 minutes to quiet our mind down in order to listen. We hopefully can just drop in. Wendy: And then it’s sort of like, wow, it’s always been there. You mean I don’t have to count all my oxygen molecules? Oh, it’s always been there. My lungs have always operated this way. Ever since I was born, I’m 65. Now, I didn’t realize, Wow, what a relief, I have a lot more time in my day now that I know what I have to kind of oxygen molecules. I mean, to me, it’s very similar to that, like, we really don’t have to be quite so revved up, whack a mole, managing stress, scanning the horizon, counting the beans, we can literally just kind of sit back and go. My mind and my heart and my body and my soul know how to recalibrate. But I keep overriding the system. I’ve been taught since I was little to override the system. Western cultures have been taught to override the system. I think that there are probably a lot of I don’t know, what’s the right term these days developing nations or whatever. People who don’t? I don’t know, people who live differently than I do. Who are like, yeah, yeah, don’t worry. They don’t worry about a lot of these things. The internet stuff. What people all over the world. Just don’t? Don’t think like this. Don’t worry about these kinds of things, don’t get wrapped up by these kinds of things. Alexandra: Exactly. We’re coming close to the end of our time together. Is there anything you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on yet? Wendy: That’s a really good question. I don’t think so I really have loved the way this conversation was very organic. I really appreciate that when people share their experiences with one another, like you shared your experience with coaching somebody else, I shared my experience I’ve got as a nurse, there’s something really restorative and connecting. About coming from that place, sharing life in life, person and in person.  Versus let me tell you about the last five courses that I’ve taken in the last eight books I’ve read about Three Principles. And I want to share some data points with you and some studies. And so I guess that would be something I would want to share with people is to really take full advantage every time you can of being with another human being in the grocery store line, at the bank. In your home. Online. There’s so such tremendous beauty in all human beings. I’m reading the book by Jacqueline hollows called… Alexandra: Wings of an Angel. She’s been on the show as well. Wendy: So good. So good. We’re talking about hardcore, locked up. For many, many years, criminals in the United Kingdom. Jacqueline Hollows is able to just go, aren’t they just lovely? Aren’t they just the yummiest person? Can’t you just see how tender hearted and sweet they are?  I don’t know if everybody could see that. It’s just an extreme example. So I’m not walking around with people who are in prison uniforms and carrying billy clubs. But sometimes I can say I am from the United States of America. I’ll let that just sit there like that. Just like that.  We’re in weird weird times. And I well, actually in Canada, too. I know that there’s a little bit of interesting, trying to stay balanced as a citizen in Canada and United States. I’m 65. I don’t remember being mad at people before. And I feel you shouldn’t think like that. You shouldn’t vote like that. Where did that come from?  If I can apply that. Remember, wings of an angel. Prisoners, like everyone is a beautiful example of divine engineering. You just sit with people and be with people and sharing just real stuff. And I mean, we didn’t go deep like when I say real stuff, I don’t mean, like the most deeply personal things, we just shared our experience of living as women wherever we lived.  It doesn’t take much. I encourage people to really trust that human beings are pretty amazing and cool. And have a listen. And trust that they’re beautifully made from the inside out. Alexandra: Wow, that’s beautiful. Thank you, Wendy. That’s lovely.  Where we can find out more about you and your work and about your class that you’re putting on with Lori? Wendy: The next one is actually going to be a weekend one, we’re calling it Five Hours for the Gift of Deep Listening. So it’s a weekend coming up – April 5 through 7, 2024. Which again, we’re going to be watching this a year from now it won’t be but that’s okay.  A great place to find me is on my website. It’s forwardwithwendy.com. And Lori and I do and you’ll see on the page different programs that we have. I think that’s probably the best place Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes as well, to those things. Thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Wendy: It was lovely. Take care. Featured image photo by Juan Davila on Unsplash The post Deep Listening with Wendy Williams appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Last week, on episode 53 of Unbroken, Tania Elfersy coached me around my overeating habit and the return of that habit after months of having it resolved. This week I share the moments that had the most meaning for me and also expand on some of the highlights to offer greater clarity and understanding for those who are dealing with an unwanted habit like overeating. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes How the words we use in this exploration are pointing to a feeling Why did I forget what I know about the drive to overeat? How wrestling with ‘problems’ makes them sticky How we can use even healthy food to quell the drive to overeat How our feelings are always an accurate barometer about our state of mind and/or connection to our well-being Why awareness is enough to change an unwanted habit Resources Mentioned in this Episode Episode 53, It’s Not All On You with Coach Tania Elfersy Tania’s website My new course on Insight Timer is called How To Tell If A Group Has Cult-Like Tendencies Sydney Banks’ YouTube Channel Book: It’s Not About The Food Podcast: Psychology Has It Backwards with Christine Heath and Judith Sedgeman Transcript of Episode Hello explorers and welcome to episode 54 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m back with a follow up to last week’s episode 53 with Tania Elfersy where she coached me. So I’m going to go through, as I mentioned, and pull out the things that really stuck out for me, the highlights, and talk about what resonated with me, maybe provide some clarity if things weren’t clear. Tania and I are quite good friends, we’ve known each other for over four years, we are in a mastermind group together. So I suspect that we were able to shorthand some things. So I just want to pull a couple of those things out, and make sure that it was clear to you the listening audience. Before we begin, a couple of pieces of information I wanted to share. One is that because of Tania’s coaching session with me, my eating is back on track, I’m eating in a way that really works for me that feels good. And that feels healthy. And it doesn’t feel disordered, for lack of a better word. I don’t feel that drive to overeat anymore. I just feel really good about the way I’m eating. So yay, that’s a victory. The second thing is that if you’re listening to this when it comes out, I have a new course that’s coming out on Insight Timer. And it has absolutely nothing to do with food or eating, but I thought I’d mention it anyway. If you’re familiar with Insight Timer, it’s an app that you can download to your phone, obviously. And it started out literally as a as a timer for people who wanted to meditate. And they’ve expanded the scope of their services quite a bit. I’m on there as a teacher, sharing things about unwanted habits and eating and all that kind of stuff. The way it works is that if you download the app you can access a whole ton of stuff for free. So you don’t need a membership to access a number of different files there. It’s all audio. I have two tracks on there that you can listen to. So if you just search for my name, Alexandra Amor on Insight Timer, you’ll find those two tracks. They’re very similar to what I talked about here on the podcast. And then the new course that I released. Courses, which are more than one audio track, are behind a paywall. So if you happen to be a subscriber to Insight Timer, then you’ll have access to that course. And it’s called How To Tell If A Group Has Cult-Like Tendencies. So obviously, this is based on my background, having been in a cult for 10 years in the 1990s. It’s something I’m passionate about sharing information about helping people to understand what cults are, and specifically how they work and how we can notice when we’re getting into a situation which, you know, doesn’t feel comfortable. And we can gauge or analyze whether or not it’s actually a cult. If you have a paid subscription to Insight Timer, give it a listen and give it a review if you have a moment, that would be great. It’s always helpful to have reviews and other people’s opinions about how the course is. It’s not long, it’s roughly five, five-minute audio lessons. The other thing I wanted to do was give a shout out to a couple people who reached out to me after my podcast from two weeks ago, where I was talking about how I was struggling and that kind of thing. A big shout out to Pam H who reached out to me and we have a lovely conversation and a little chat about our journeys with food and with all the things. It was really nice to connect to you Pam and I just really appreciate the kindness and the care that people exhibited by doing that. It was really really sweet to see I mean obviously that’s not why I did it, but then for that to be the reaction, the response. That was really really nice. Okay, so on to today’s call. If you haven’t listened to Episode 53, I recommend that you go back and do that first. Because pretty much everything I’m going to talk about now is related to things that come up during that conversation with Tania, where she coaches me about my relapse, as it were. I hate using that word, it sounds so serious. And I don’t know, very kind of clinical, there’s something about it, that just really bothers me. It sounds dangerous, having a relapse. need to find a different word for that. All it was that my habit came back after months of being away. I really fell on my face in terms of trying to sort it out. And then Tania helped me get myself up on my feet again. So that was great. So the first thing I want to talk about is that she, the thing that really resonated for me or one of the things was that partway through the conversation: Tania talks about how the feeling of the drive to overeat that I was experiencing was a message. Like I always say these things are feedback. We’re not broken. They’re not letting us know that there’s anything wrong with us their feedback. And she just said it’s so simply that feeling was letting me know that I had fallen off the path of truth. That’s what she had. That’s how she described it. So I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Because when she said the path of truth, I knew exactly what she meant. And the words, those words, specifically “the path of truth” aren’t what’s important in what she was saying. So that’s the phrase that worked for her and that she used, but we could say that we had become the feeling was letting us know that we’re we had become disconnected from our divinity. We could say they had pointed out that we were forgetting about our own well-being. We could say they were feedback about our thinking and our state of mind. When we get caught up in our state of mind, that’s when we forget about our innate well-being and divinity. So, if those words didn’t really ring true, or not ring true, if they were if they didn’t resonate for you exactly the path of truth. That’s okay. It’s what they’re pointing at that’s really important. The only tool we have to point to our divinity is language, is these words that we use, especially when we’re on it on a podcast format. It’s important to remember that it’s not the words themselves that matter. It’s what they’re pointing to. I’ve been listening to some Sydney Banks recorded conversations lately on his YouTube channel, and I noticed in one how much he was saying that it’s not the words that matter. It’s the feeling behind them. That’s how he phrases it. And so the feeling is what we’re pointing to. There’s another… see, it’s so hard with language, there’s something else beyond just our human experience, and, and our experience of thought. That’s what we’re trying to point to, that there’s an experience beyond, that there’s a part of us that is not limited by those things. And so that’s what Tania was pointing to, and I really got it right away. I’ve been reflecting since then, of course on why did I forget about that? Because I was saying things to myself, this is feedback. It’s telling me that I’m caught up in my thinking. And the answer is probably not perfectly clear to me. I think sometimes we just need help, sometimes we just need someone to remind us of what the truth of ourselves is. And as I talk about later in the call, and I’m trying to remember do I bring that up here? Maybe so maybe I’ll talk about this now, but later in the call. I talked about how I realized through that conversation with Tania, that I had been really wrestling with the feeling of the drive to overeat, the feeling of that, wanting to eat more than his, wanting to eat in a way that wasn’t comfortable for me. I got caught up in wrestling with that feeling and what happens when we, as I talked about all the time, when we wrestle with something, it gets sticky. That’s the thing that makes it sticky. Because we believe it’s real, we believe it’s a problem. So even though I was saying to myself, this isn’t a problem, I know it’s feedback, I still was looking at it as a problem. I guess that’s the simplest way to say it. In some part of myself, an unconscious part perhaps, I was seeing this as a problem. And what Tania was able to remind me of and bring to light is that these things aren’t a problem. They are a message from the wiser parts of ourselves. One thing, actually, in my conversation with Pam, who I spoke to after the episode two weeks ago, that I wonder if I haven’t made clear enough is that during that relapse, or whatever we’re gonna call it. I talked about being drawn to rice and potatoes. And I don’t think I spent enough time explaining that I wasn’t demonizing rice and potatoes. There’s nothing wrong with rice and potatoes. They are a healthy part of any diet, or almost any diet. And by diet, I mean, just a way of eating not a way to lose weight. The reason they were bothering me was specifically because I had been trying to avoid starchy foods. Starchy foods have started to give me as I age, a little bit of acid reflux. So I was trying to avoid them for that reason. And I could tell that I was eating them as comfort food. And I think one of the reasons for that is that I don’t eat anything sweet, really anymore. I’m allergic to wheat. So I never ever eat cake, or cookies or anything like that, simply because I can’t. And the stuff that is gluten free that you get in the grocery store just doesn’t taste great. I’m just not interested at all. My focus on rice and potatoes was just my way of my body expressing the drive to overeat, and then trying to get a message to me. That’s all it was. So I hope that’s clear. If it’s not, let me know. You can always send a question to AlexandraAmor.com/questions. This is an edit that I’m inserting, something I’ve never done before. But after I stopped the previous record, or stopped the recording of this episode, I went to the grocery store where we have the best ideas. And I realized there were two things I wanted to say that I neglected to say about this rice and potatoes issue that might help to explain or explore what I’m pointing to. The first thing is that it’s not about the food, as the title of my book says. It’s never about the food. The self-help industry and the diet industry don’t understand this. And this is why you and I have experienced so much failure when it comes to diets and self-help and all that stuff. Because it’s not about the food that we’re eating. It’s about the feeling that’s inside us that’s trying to wake us up. And when so when I talk about eating rice and potatoes, I’m just talking about the thing that happens to scratch that itch for me in the moment. It’s not about the rice and the potatoes. They are not a problem. Where I want to be looking is at the feeling that’s within me and understanding what that feeling is trying to say to me, and as we’re exploring, what that feeling is trying to tell me is, I’ve fallen asleep to my own innate well being, or I’ve forgotten my own divinity, however you want to say it. So just an important thing to remember. It’s never about the food. It’s not about the food. And a great example of this – and this is why I’m adding this edit in mostly, that I thought of while I was at the grocery store – is a story from Christine Heath. So Christine Heath is, I think, one of the founders of the Hawaii Counseling and Education Center, which is a mental health facility that is Three Principles based. She studied with Sydney Banks. And she has a podcast with Judy Sedgman. And the podcast is called Psychology Has It Backwards. Christine tells a story on the podcast, and I’m sorry, I don’t remember what episode it is. Because it was quite a while ago, now that I listened to it. But she tells a story about her own drive to overeat. She doesn’t call it that: those are my words. But she talks about a period where and I can’t remember what was going on, but where she really felt strong urges to overeat. And the interesting thing was that she was and, and forgive me, I may be messing up some of the details. But she was intended to be a really, really healthy eater, really focused on healthy food. The way that she dealt with that drive to overeat, was to cook and then eat an entire head of cauliflower. This is just such a perfect example because it points out a couple of different things which are really important to see. One is that the drive that we’re feeling, the urge that we’re feeling to overeat can be satisfied in a way by anything as long as it has meaning for us. So just as I was satisfying that feeling temporarily with rice and potatoes, Christine was able to do it with a completely healthy food. I mean, if you said to somebody, Hey, I’m eating too much cauliflower, they’d go what’s the problem. That’s not an issue. But she knew, probably because she could feel the feeling inside her. That desperation, the drive to overeat, the urges to have too much food in her stomach, those feelings were within her. She knew it was disordered what she was doing. And also, an entire head of cauliflower is too much food for anyone you know, that’s too much cauliflower. She knew it was that she was experiencing something that needed resolution. And that was the way that her drive to overeat was expressing itself. So I want to point that out, because it’s so important to see that we can experience these feelings, these urges to eat and we typically think about them around food that might be labeled as unhealthy; chocolate, or potato chips, or candy or sugar, cake, all that kind of stuff. But it’s not about the food. Because we can have this feeling about anything. We can have it about cauliflower. Right? And that was what Christine experienced. So I wanted to share that. I thought it was really important to point out and I had forgotten about that story. I haven’t probably thought about it in 18 months or two years or something, but needed to share it. So Okay, now we’ll carry on. The second thing I want to point out and it’s related to that first thing about the path of truth is a reminder that: Our feelings are always, always letting us know whether we’re connected to the path of truth or not. And again, fill in that phrase with whatever you want. They’re telling us whether we’re connected to our divinity or not. They’re telling us whether we’re connected and remembering our well-being or not, whatever phrase you want to use. They’re a barometer. And they’re such a good gauge of whether or not that’s happening is the best way to describe it. You can always trust the feelings that you have in your body, they are the perfect gauge for whatever’s going on with you. Let’s take an example of being in a relationship, as opposed to something having to do with food. If you’re in a relationship with someone, and you’re having a disagreement with that person, and you suddenly feel all stirred up inside and angry, perhaps, and frustrated, and really tense and wanting to get your point across or victimized or whatever it is, that feeling is letting you know this is probably not the moment to have a conversation with your spouse or loved one. And if you if you step away, your mental state will return to one of calm and quiet and peace, because that’s the way it’s designed. Tania talked about that as well about how this awareness is everything. This is a really good moment to talk about that. So what’s happening when we feel the drive to overeat, or we feel like shouting at our spouse, or whatever it is, that when we become aware of that is this is another thing that Tania was really pointing to about how important that is. And really, it’s just the awareness that we need. So when we become aware of what’s happening, that we have a feeling in our inside ourselves, that’s not good. That’s not just doesn’t feel like a good feeling. And we all know the difference always all the time. Then it becomes the responsibility of our divine engineering to adjust that situation, to shift it, to resolve things. That’s where insight might step in. So what one thing that was really important that I hadn’t seen before that Tania said was that we we can really rely, I guess I just I saw it at a new level. I shouldn’t say I saw it for the first time. But I definitely saw it at a deeper level is that awareness is what we need. And then we can rely on our divine engineering. So a few episodes ago, I talked about, I think it might have been episode 52. I talked about is there a way to cultivate insight? I had started to go down that rabbit hole with myself, maybe looking for practices to cultivate insight. And after the call with Tania, I realized, actually, there isn’t really a need for that, because awareness is everything. And once we’re aware, and we’re aware that our divine engineering will take over and shift things for us that we will have insights, then that’s enough. That’s all we need to do. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you creating a practice if you want to, to see if it would create more insight, but I can really see that, that where I want to look now is in the direction of simply being aware of how I feel. And as soon as I’m aware of how I feel, and I know that’s a message. If I’m having a bad feeling or if I’m having a feeling that bothers me, that’s not comfortable. That feels yucky. The awareness of that is 99% of the battle. And then I just need to remember that’s a message. Like I said earlier, that’s a barometric reading, letting me know where I’m at. When we have those yucky feelings where we’re at is we’re disconnected from our own sense of well being or our own sense of divinity or our own path of truth, however you want to phrase it. So that was the next point I wanted to make. And then what else have I got written down here? Oh, geez, I think I’ve covered most of what I had made notes about. I think looking back serendipitously, that quote that I brought to Tania, right at the beginning of the episode was really interesting because it reflected exact exactly what we talked about on the call. You are a divine being walking through this life trying to find yourself. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. We are spiritual beings, divine beings, you might say, aspects of the Divine, walking through a human world, having a human experience, and trying to remember our own divinity. I’m sure millions and millions of people have walked through their entire lives without realizing that without recognizing, and I would have if I hadn’t stumbled across this understanding, without recognizing that we have this engineering that’s in place, that we don’t need to do anything about that. As soon as we’re aware of how we’re feeling, it takes over. And it will bring us back automatically and naturally, every time to our center, or our sense of well being or our connection with our divinity. So you Yeah, I thought it was really cool that I had just heard that quote the night before. And then, like I say, it pointed to everything that Tania and I talked about on that episode. And the one other thing I thought of. Or I guess that’s, well, let’s connect it to that, actually, to our divine engineering. I thought of this little analogy, if you’ve seen the movie, Finding Nemo. And it’s an animated movie by Pixar. And there’s there, the characters are little fish, there’s a blue fish, who’s looking for his son, Nemo. And there’s an orange fish, of course, and you’re probably all familiar with this, but just in case, you’re not named Dory. And she’s on the journey with the dad fish trying to help him find his son. And Dory has short term memory loss. And related to this idea of our divine engineering and to the fact that we don’t need to do anything to once we’re aware of what’s going on that we’ve fallen off the path of truth that our that our engineering, Tania call that our system then kicks in, and it supports us and it creates the insights and the changes and all the things that we need to carry on and return to a really good feeling. So it’s like being Dory in in that ocean. In other words, so Dory loses her memory and people keep reminding her about things that she’s forgotten. When we’re walking in this world, we’re doing the same thing. We are constantly forgetting and then waking up to it, forgetting and then waking up to it. And asking ourselves how can I fix this? How can I make this different? How can I change my unwanted habit? What sort of willpower tools can I use to do that? What sort of regimen or structure or that sort of thing can I use to stop myself from eating the thing that I you know that I really crave but that I don’t want to be eating. People ask what can I do to return to being connected with my well-being? That would be just like Dory saying, What can I do to return to the water? What can I do to return to be in the ocean. And of course, she’s never left the ocean. And it’s the same with us, we’ve never left our divinity. It’s always there. So just like Dory is swimming through the ocean and forgetting things, and then being reminded of them again, she is always, always in her natural state, in her state of being a fish in the ocean. And there’s nothing she needs to do to return to that state of being in the water and being a fish. It’s the same with us. And when we I know, it can be a little bit hard to get our heads around that a little bit. Because we can feel so separated from, from the Divine parts of ourselves from our well being, especially if we’ve been caught up in the self help world like I was for 30+ years where everything is focused on the problems that we have, and fixing those. I wanted to bring that up as a reminder, and I thought that was a good visual, because so many people have seen that film. And I have heard it brought up before as a metaphor about our divine engineering and who we are, that it is like a fish asking about what’s water. So yeah, I thought that little analogy might be helpful. I think that’s about all I have to share on this episode. I mean, there was so much that I appreciated about that coaching call with Tania and just a big shout out to her because it was so special for me, especially to be able to speak to somebody who I’m friends with, and who I trust. And who knows me. She knows me really well. I just really appreciate you, Tania Elfersy. It was so good, having you coach me. And of course, the intention of releasing that coaching call was to be helpful to others. So I really hope it was helpful for you. And that thing, some things stood out to you or resonated with you. If you have any follow up questions about the call, or anything that I’ve said here today, you can leave a comment on the blog post if you go to unbroken podcast.com and then scroll down. This is number 54. And if you click on that, you’ll go to the blog post. And then if you scroll down to the bottom of the blog post, you can leave a comment. I would love to hear if something resonated with you or if you are puzzled by anything. And like I said at the beginning, you can also go to if you want to be more private, you can go to AlexandraAmor.com/questions and submit a question there as well. I think that’s about it for me today. I hope you are doing well and taking good care and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye. Featured image photo by Sebastien Gabriel on Unsplash The post Follow-up To Last Week’s Coaching Call appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

You’ve heard me struggle for the past few months because I’ve had a relapse into my overeating habit. I finally wised up and called in my friend Tania Elfersy to coach me. In this episode, Tania shares so much wisdom and teaches me many things including that awareness of what is truth and what isn’t is so important and that once we’re aware our divine design will take things from there. Tania Elfersy has a passion for revealing rarely discussed truths about women’s life-cycle events. She is a transformative coach, speaker, writer and educator. Since 2015, Tania has been supporting women through perimenopause and menopause, allowing them to reach natural symptom relief, and a greater sense of well-being. You can find Tania Elfersy at TheWiserWoman.com and on Facebook @TheWiserWoman. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes The truth is always in clarity, never in a bad feeling What is an unwanted habit telling us about? What happens when we fall off the path of truth? The importance of being aware of our experience in the moment How wrestling with what we’re feeling makes it ‘sticky’ How it’s not on us to fix how we feel – it will fix on it’s own once we’re aware of having fallen off the path of truth When we are calm solutions arise Transcript of Interview with Coach Tania Elfersy Alexandra: Thank you for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. And here’s the funny thing. I had a couple of insights in the last couple of days that have felt like they’ve been quite helpful. I was listening to some Sydney Banks stuff while I was cooking the other night. And I guess it doesn’t really matter what was said, but he said, “You are a divine being walking through this life trying to find yourself.” I really resonated with that. It really encapsulated everything we do, and just shifted something for me. But let’s talk about the stuff that’s tricky. Because that’s where the juice is. My main question is if you felt stuck, what do you do in that situation? Tania: That’s why I often feel stuck. Because I’m such a human. I don’t fly on my little enlightenment cushion. And sometimes, it just occurs to me that the feeling is telling me what’s true. So I fall back into the feeling. And ponder on that. I’ve checked this out now for about six, seven years. Because it’s not enough that I’ll tell you, the feeling is pointing to what’s true. And in that sense, as I’m sure you know, that is the feeling of clarity. And everything else is not true. So, again, I could tell you this, but until you’ve really experienced it. I’m still surprised when I get that. And I’ll give you an example, really, it’s not, I guess it’s not like a stuck example, but it’s an example of that. I was trying to go to sleep, I’d almost fallen asleep or I just about falling asleep. And all of a sudden there was a huge bang. I mean, boom. And so I’m going through my mind and I’m like, okay, it doesn’t sound like it with a missile. Unfortunately, I know what that sounds like. It doesn’t sound like there’s a bomb. I know that. But there was definitely something. I was just lying there. I wasn’t moving. And I suspected my husband might have heard it, but I thought maybe it was asleep. I didn’t want to wake him up. And so I was going through what maybe it’s a new kind of bomb that I haven’t heard before. And it’s a new kind of weapon and a new kind of thing. And then I was like listening for would there be sirens. Because we’re still in the war. There will be sirens and I’m not hearing any sirens or maybe it was further away but it was still quiet out there. Hang on. I got up and I checked the news and there was nothing in the news. Maybe they’re hiding it from us. Maybe it’s so bad they’re hiding. Right? So this is all going through my mind. And it is 2am. So it’s like, by the time I got up, it was 2am. I think it was like kind of falling asleep that one time. So that whole time, I was just like, lying there, having all these emotions. And then I came back to bed and I woke up my husband. “Did you hear that?” And he’s like, “It’s thunder.” I don’t know why I didn’t catch it as thunder, but I didn’t. So then I had this whole hour. And of course, if I had tuned in before, I would know. Because it’s always true. It’s always true, even if the truth we can say, is something that we would classify as uncomfortable. The truth is always in the clarity, and it’s never in the uncomfortable feeling. It’s so profound. Right? And like I said, you have to test it to believe it. Because we’re always going to say, Well, surely this this one, this one is, you know, this one is not, it’s not going to be this one isn’t. But it is and, and even if, like I said, even if there’s a situation where we think, Well, this, this is terrible, like in any sense, like, it’s not even that it’s the story we attach to the situation that’s making us feel uncomfortable. Alexandra: Okay, so applying that to myself, when I felt like I was having a relapse, that’s what I’m calling it, but holding that term lightly, in October, which is sort of when it started. I get the feeling of the drive to over eat. And what you’re saying, putting that in personal terms, is that the truth isn’t there in that feeling. It’s in clarity. When I feel that feeling, knowing that it’s not true, is one place to look. Tania: I’m sure there are a number of thoughts that are coming through at that time for you. Like what happens? Alexandra: I feel disappointed right away. I hope it’s very temporary, a day or two, which this time it wasn’t. And then I kind of went into a passive mode of just waiting for insight about it. And that eventually led to frustration. So that was my process. Does that help? Tania: Can we go back a little bit more. What happens you’re talking about, how you feel yourself. So what happens in that? You just said, I have the feeling to overeat? I can’t remember the words used or something. But what what’s that? Alexandra: The drive to overeat is what I call it. It’s this specific feeling. How can I describe it? It’s a feeling of being gripped by a drive, like I said, to eat in a way that I don’t want to eat, to engage in a behavior that I don’t want to do. And it feels so compelling that if I tried to just use willpower to not do it, which I have done in the past, it’s futile. It’s like holding a beach ball under the water. It’s just you’re fighting against Mother Nature, and it’s just going to pop up eventually. Tania: And what’s going on? Like it seems like there’s something underneath that there’s something before that. Alexandra: I don’t think so. Can you give me an example? Tania: What’s the thought there? Alexandra: It doesn’t really come as a thought initially. It’s a feeling – that’s why I call it a drive. It feels kind of desperate, and compulsive. But until that moment, I had been doing just fine. So it doesn’t feel like it’s triggered by thinking. With your example with the bombs, of course, or the thunder, that noise was the trigger that created a lot of thinking, is what you’re saying. And in this case, there isn’t really something like that. A trigger like that. Tania: But then it’s like, I want a piece of cake, or I want the whole cake. Alexandra: In this case, I want rice with my dinner, and which I’ve been trying to avoid, and wine. And, there’s a bit of, one glass of wine isn’t enough. It has to be more than that. Two or three. Tania: Okay. So, I want wine with my dinner. And then what happens? Alexandra: And then I have it, and so there’s food on my plate, and it’s too much food. I can see that it’s more food than I actually need. But I feel that feeling of desperation. And I eat it, and I feel some sense of pleasure while I’m doing that, and then afterwards, I feel sort of disgusted with myself disappointed. Unhappy. Tania: So I don’t even know if this is the right place to live. But it feels like it might be like to go back, like so you make yourself the rice. And you know that you don’t want to be eating rice. So what happens back then, that you say, I’m going to make myself rice because Alexandra: Oh, because it will come this feeling of desperation, this drive to overeat, it will make it go away temporarily. Tania: Hmm. Okay. And the feeling that away then. There’s something back there. That seems to me that’s the start. And it’s kind of a snowball, right of everything else that we can just try and excuse or say okay, or whatever, but there seems to be like something at the beginning. That’s rising up. And saying, if you’re calling it desperation with desperation for what, Alexandra: I know it’s funny now. I just react to the feeling I don’t really examine it. In a way I could say it’s desperation to just make the feeling itself go away. I feel the feeling and then I feel compelled to make it go away. And I know the thing that will make it go away, which is a large meal. And then what else what else? Tania: How can you say the feeling that will make it go away? Alexandra: Practice. I mean, it works. You know, it does work. Tania: There’s something behind the desperate like, a tiger I’m desperate to eat. I’m hungry, or I’m desperate to eat because I’m sad, lonely. What was that? Alexandra: That’s really interesting. Consciously no, there’s not that feeling there. And I know what you’re pointing to. That has been the case in the past, where before I knew about the principles, I would have a bad day or have a feel angry or upset and I would eat the thing in order to soothe myself from that experience. Now I know that my moods go up and down and I’m not trying to solve a feeling or a mood are a thought at all. It’s habitual, it happens at the same time every day. For the rest of the day, I eat just fine. And I’m happy with the way I eat. And then it just happens that right now, at this time at supper time, I feel this drive to eat compulsively. Tania: Because again, I wonder what’s there? Right under what’s there? Because there must be something that’s there. And there’s no judgment about what’s there. Just I wonder what’s there? I wonder why I’m then having to create this decision. I wonder why I decided that was something terrible with the thunder, see what I mean. And so I can say, well, because I was feeling a bit sensitive about the war stuff and stuff like that. But I wonder what’s there? And it’s like, there’s no, I guess, there’s no answer. But like, I would wonder, what’s there? Because it seems like there’s some something going on there that then says, I must eat. And then there must be something afterwards, because there’s some feeling that you’re getting, and I know, talking to other women who have challenges with eating that’s a wide range. And they will say I had these cookies today. And I thought, well, I have cookies, too. But I saw them thinking about it. So was it possible that you could have the rice and then do like, Okay, I just had the rice. Full stop. Alexandra: Theoretically, I think what I noticed is that I’m responding mindlessly to that to that feeling of…it’s really good to talk about this, because it’s making me break it down into smaller pieces. I feel that feeling. And I know from experience that willpower doesn’t work. So fighting against it won’t accomplish anything. So I don’t do that. So I kind of take that off the out of the equation. Do I have a lot of thinking about it afterwards? Yes, definitely. Because it feels like a problem, for sure. And there’s definitely a lot of thinking about it while it’s happening and afterwards. The way that I’ve seen it over these years of exploring this is that the feeling of the drive to overeat is letting me know that there’s more to see about my state of mind. The feeling is always letting me know where my thinking is. But in this case, my thinking isn’t somewhere specific. It’s not that I’ve been thinking about having a bad day, and I’m trying to solve that problem. So the best way I can find to say it is the feeling is letting me know that there’s more to see about my true nature. That’s why that quote from Sydney Banks at the beginning touched me so deeply. That there’s something in between me and my understanding of my divinity. So that’s as that’s as the best way I can describe it. Tania: Might it be simpler than I think? Perhaps you’re describing it because you’re saying the feeling allows me to see that there’s something more to see. How about if it’s simpler than that? And it’s just showing you that you’ve fallen off the path of truth. That’s it. It’s okay to hire another brain, but it’s just not your truth. Yeah. And then, we don’t have to, of course, go in and analyze. What’s the thought? What’s taking me off this path of truth? We can just know I’ve fallen off the path of truth. Now, what do I want to do? No judgment, I can fall off the path of truth. A similar example that comes to mind: sometimes if I shout at my kids, and then I realize all kind of half sentence there really is a better way to do this. So I explain to them what you want, but I might keep on showing them just because I’m on a roll. And then I may apologize if you know, it’s gone too far. Or I’ll come to them. I was like, Okay, well, what I really wanted to tell you was this. Sorry, I shouted. But it’s okay. That I shouted. So it’s okay to say or, or not, this isn’t true for me. But here I am off the path of truth. Alexandra: I like that. It’s so simple. As you say, it’s so simple. I’ve fallen off the path of truth. Hmm. That’s really profound. I love that. Is there anything you do to get to get back on the path of truth? Tania: No because as soon as you see that, that’s awareness rising up. You don’t need to control it. I don’t need to Okay, come up faster. You know, come on faster. So I’ll stop shouting and it’s rising, okay. Which means that naturally, I’ll start maybe taking a dip between challenging my kids or something, because there’s a slowing down. That happens naturally. I don’t need to manage that because the awareness is the only thing we ever need. I’ve fallen on off the path of truth. Where’s the truth in this moment? No idea. Alexandra: So you don’t go consciously looking for the truth at that moment, or insight? Tania: No, because since I’ve fallen off the path of truth, I’ll be in a great state of mind. So whatever is true isn’t necessarily going to come to me in that moment. But just the awareness, start slowing things down. So it seems that in this thing that must happen before desperation that we don’t know what it is yet, right? There could be a time when there’s just an awareness that comes the foreground, and you say, Oh, I know this isn’t the path of truth. No judgement. Right? I could also go down the path of I’m such a bad mom. What the kids are going to think? I’m traumatizing my kids. I’m not setting a good example. That’s very unhelpful. So I wouldn’t do that. But I can totally be in the awareness if I fall off the path of truth and still doubting it. And it’s okay. Because I’m human. I’m not machine. Alexandra: And so in a way, it seems like there’s trust there that you’ll get back on the path. Tania: At some point, yeah. That is a good point. And you have the center. Alexandra: And then also, there’s something in there about knowing that what’s happening isn’t the truth. Maybe we’ve already said that. But I see it a new way. Just now. That’s the awareness. I guess. That yeah, that whatever’s happening. isn’t real in a way. Isn’t the truth. Tania: Yeah, right. Alexandra: Yeah, that is so simple. I love that. Tania: And it can keep on because we can see at any moment, right from that moment that you feel like there’s some desperation, okay, I’ve fallen off the path of truth. And maybe you’ll see it a bit. And then you’ll see a bit more, and then you’ll see a bit more. And then it doesn’t matter when you when it really lands because it will land. And maybe it’s when you’ve cooked the rice, but you haven’t eaten, maybe it’s after you’ve eaten the rice, but it will land and then there’ll be a gentler experience of it all. And then maybe you’ll eat the rice. And maybe you’ll have a glass of wine. And it’s just like, and then you’ll see it completely. So there’s no judgment. But it’s there. We say don’t practice but it’s almost like the practice helps it. Because once you’ve seen it so many times, you know that’s all I need. All I need is that first glimpse of awareness. That’s all I need to see. And then I don’t need to worry about it anymore. Because right then I’ve moved into remembering what’s true, which is not this, and I know it’s not this because then I know it’s a feeling. But like I said, you can hang out doesn’t matter. Alexandra: And so you just repeated again: at the beginning you said the feeling is telling me what’s true. And so that drive to overeat it’s the same thing but reversed. The feeling is telling me what’s not true. It’s a yucky feeling. You feel gripped by this habit. And it’s yucky. And so that’s telling me it’s not true. This is not the path of truth. Tania: This is the reason why I think I need to eat this. That’s making me feel yucky is not true. Alexandra: Okay, I’m writing this down. Tania: I guess it doesn’t matter but it’s worth remembering. We really don’t need to then but where’s the truth then? What is the truth? It’s about the one no we don’t need that tool that comes by itself that just rises to the surface. And that will appear in perfect time for us to see it. Because, of course, if you’re in an insecure thinking state, and, and truth comes to mind, you’re not going to hear it anyway. So don’t worry about that. But once you see the awareness, open up, that’s the bit, then you’re in a better position to hear something that’s true, which may be like, Oh, maybe I’m not desperate. Maybe I don’t need that. Alexandra: Say that again? Do you remember what you said? Tania: You may, through the opening of awareness, there’ll be a shift. Then you can say, well, maybe I’m not desperate. Maybe I don’t need to eat that. But that will come in gentler. But you don’t have to bring it in. Like what I said before that was like, if you’re worrying about when you’re going to hear the truth, you’re not going to hear it because you’re in an insecure thinking. You don’t need to worry about it. Because even if it’s like, hearing the truth of what’s going on right now, you’re not going to hear it. So you just do the awareness, things slow down, and then there’s opening, and then all the light can come in, and then maybe the truth will appear. And maybe it won’t even appear that maybe it will pick the next morning. And it doesn’t matter. Alexandra: Yes, because of the awareness. I think where I tripped up these last five months is I knew I needed awareness. I knew I needed an insight to shift me out of what was happening. But somehow I went about looking for it in the wrong way. I think what it was was, I believed that feeling – the drive to overeat – was real. I believed it was real. And I believed it needed a solution. That’s what it feels like inside me now. And instead of what you’re describing feels so much lighter, holding it in a much lighter way. And just knowing this isn’t real, this isn’t the truth. And knowing that is enough. And then as you say, I love that you say, “The truth will rise to the surface.” I can see to that. That it was just a habitual battle. I just didn’t know any better at the time not to engage. I was gripped with it. I was fighting with it, wrestling with it that whole time. Even when I was saying I’m trying to just let it go and let it be what it is. I can tell now looking back that yeah, that I was really wrestling with it. And what you’re describing, as you, as we said, is so much simpler. Just knowing this is not the truth. And I’ll say it again. I just felt like it was something I had to fix. And so when we’re in that mindset, I’m sure that just makes it grip tighter. Tania: Yeah, yeah. And there’s a lot of responsibility on us. Alexandra: Yes, I was taking it up completely on myself. Say more about that. Tania: The best thing that I can do in any moment is just have the awareness. This isn’t true. Right. And that’s actually about sort of presence. I don’t know whatever would make sense to you, is it like pulling into presence? Oh, in this moment, Oh, I get that feeling not uncomfortable, calm richer. That’s it, that’s all that’s needed, right? And then the system then just falls into place, it’s going to fall into place anyway because it could be longer after you’ve eaten the meal and the wine and the wine and it will fall into place. Or it could be quicker. And it’s just like as you spend more time in with this understanding, we fall back quicker into wellbeing into a sense of ease. So if I can just remember, oh, what’s my awareness? Okay, that isn’t true right now. That’s it. The system takes care of itself. I’m not responsible for it. I don’t need to find out what’s true. I don’t need to work out whether I need to eat the rice or not eat the rice. I’m just going to do whatever comes to mind anyway. Great. So it’s not on me. And it’s not spiritual bypassing? No, it’s not it’s because the system there. I can trust that it works. Because it really works. It works for you every single time. You’re not responsible. You can use your understanding to be an awareness to remember that that’s it. That’s all it takes. It’s that quote from Sydney Banks, right, “You’re always thought away from a different feeling.” And that dropping into presence or remembering the feeling or seeing it’s not true, whatever it is, that’s going to just one switch and the rest is taken care of. Alexandra: Wow, yeah. Oh, that’s huge. I guess I’ve been thinking it was on me. I know that insight, and I’ve known that insight isn’t on me but I feel like I’ve been responsible for everything else. Now I see you’re saying there’s a lot less for me to do, as we say. I loved what you said about the system will take care of everything else. You’re saying the way that we are designed will take care of everything else. Tania: It’s so loving. Alexandra: Nice. Wow. That’s so big. Thank you. I just see this at a whole new level now this whole thing about how the feeling we’re having is always telling us whether we’re on the path of truth or not. And yeah, just always, always getting that feedback and then if we’re not just being aware of that is enough. This isn’t a good feeling. Therefore it’s not the truth. Ah wow that’s amazing. Tania: I wonder if now if you read the Sydney Banks quote if it means anything different for you. Alexandra: “You are a divine being walking through this life trying to find yourself.” I think it reads the same way. The metaphor that occurred to me about that is that it was like we look through a windscreen on a car. And you know how windscreens can be foggy sometimes. And that fog is created by our thinking, and our lack of trust and how we work and all those things. And the more we see about that, the more the fog just starts to melt away. What’s left then is our divinity we can see it clearly. Which is what we’ve been taught talking about this morning. Tania: Because that all in you. I call it divinity in your pocket. It’s always there with you. It can never leave. There’s this divine system, beautifully designed. And it’s always working in our favor. And that’s the divine in us. And then there’s this tiny surface of freewill that we can create all this stuff with. And then we can just let it go. And remember, and then we’re back. Right, and then divine essence. Alexandra: So beautiful. So brilliant. Tania: Simple, simple. Alexandra: I wish I’d asked you to help me four months ago, four and a half. Tania: I’d said it must be perfect. Because how could it be anything else? Because you may have heard it and then and then we could have had a conversation and you wouldn’t have heard it. Alexandra: I can see that. I can just really see how despite all that I’ve learned or had learned up until now there was still an element there of battling with this feeling. Battling with that drive to overeat, wrestling with it. And as soon as we start wrestling with something, it just grips even tighter. So it’s really clear to me now, I didn’t realize of course, that I was doing that. But that’s what I was doing. Thank you. That was really, really incredible. Very, very helpful. Tania: Another story comes to mind. I don’t know if I shared yesterday on the call about for the Insight Timer lives we made 10 megabytes per second for the insight time alive? I was using with the spiritual team. Immediately from the spiritual team, I heard, be in touch with your ISP. And I was in touch with the ISP. But they couldn’t solve it for me, because they told me be in touch with the infrastructure provider. And then when I talked to the infrastructure provider, they’re telling us, we with a cat running around with my energy. I’m screaming at them, the infrastructure people. And I remember as I’m screaming at them, I’m like, this isn’t the way. I don’t know why I’m doing this. But I’m screaming at them. What can I do, I was really even some foul. And I’m not very foul, but there’s some context. And, and then in the end, I got it, I couldn’t even work it out what to do, because they were like, You need to connect to the fiber. And the ISP was also like, trying to get me on to the fiber with them. And it was just like, the next one hour, I’m like, I don’t need that fiber right now. I just need the ISP to be both provide. So the thing is that I’d heard that at the beginning. But I needed somehow goes through this whole thing. And me being aware, like sitting in their conversation, shouting, screaming at them. And being aware, this is definitely not the way. And then the ISP said their thing and I realizes, Oh, I just need you to give me the infrastructure that we’ve got right now and give me the upgrade. Do you see I could have got caught up in that screaming? I’m so terrible. Why didn’t I just listen to that? I knew the answer was at the ISP. Why did I have to go to that whole thing? But it doesn’t matter. I don’t do that anymore. I used to though. I used to if I was in the situation of having night sweats or whatever it was. I teach this stuff woman doing having all these symptoms again. I’d have the whole story running. And I could also just in that conversation and me screaming at these poor folks. The truth is they’ve been into my house and caused damage and whatever it is just like not really appropriate. But it’s just, I just don’t go there. I don’t mess around in that because it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good. And maybe I just needed to have the conversation and remember how awful their service is. And then I can just feel completely fine just dropping them and going over to the ISP. And like, whatever. But at any stage that could have been a much bigger fear for stress inducing something. And even in that shouting stuff, which could be like you trying to battle with the rice or with the wine or whatever it is. It could be that and then you can be like, Oh, but it’s just like it happens. It’s finished. And then you just calm down. Right, and so I just calm down the next morning. Oh, that’s what you need to give them a call. Alexandra: It’s an important point, when you calm down, that’s when the solution came. It had come earlier, but that’s when you kind of figured it out. Tania:  Right, right. But then like, it’s the same with you. And these five months, you could say, Well, why not? Why not? What if you had to just go through it? And then you can be in the place where you see something that’s going to be transformative. Alexandra: Definitely. And there’s no sense regretting it now because it’s over. So dwelling on it is not going to help. Tania: The family will tell you that. Alexandra: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you, Tanya. This has been monumental. Tania: I’m so happy. Alexandra: I really, really appreciate it. Tania: We have more than 10 minutes. Alexandra: Yeah, but I’m fixed. You fixed me. Tania: Okay, can I get that as a testimonial? Featured image photo © Alexandra Amor The post It’s Not All On You with Tania Elfersy appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Insight creates change. This I know for sure. Not willpower. Not restriction. Not even information. Insight. But what happens when we get tired of waiting for insight? What if we want to change and just…aren’t? Can we cultivate insight? Is there a way to seek out insight without layering more thinking onto a situation? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Struggling with being in the back of the spiral for 5 months Looking for answers in universal intelligence in an active way Are spirit guides the same as universal intelligence? Is there a way to access guidance when we need it? Not wanting to share what I’m not embodying Is unresolved trauma causing what I’m experiencing? Resources Mentioned in this Episode George Pransky’s new book The Secret to Mental Health Episode 22 of Unbroken with Maryse Godet Copans Transcript of episode Hello, explorers, and welcome to episode 52 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m happy to have you here today with me. Thank you for joining me. I’ve got a couple of housekeeping items before we launch in here. The first is – and probably no one cares about this but me – I’m going to change the numbering system of the podcasts. Again, I’m sure nobody cares. I used to number them like q&a Number five, and then regular number five for the interview episodes. But now that there’s just one episode per week going out, I’m just going to number them sequentially. I’m not going to break them out, like they were being broken out before. So if you’re wondering about that, and I’m sure you weren’t, there you go. Now you have an answer. The second little bit of housekeeping I wanted to mention is: George Pransky has a new book out, it’s called The Secret to Mental Health. I haven’t read it yet. So this isn’t a review or anything. But I wanted to mention it in case you were interested in picking that up. George Pransky has been around this understanding for a very long time. He was one of the very first students who worked with Sidney banks. He and Roger Mills and Elsie Spittle were people right at the very beginning hearing from Mr. Banks, way before he started calling it the Three Principles. It wasn’t really called anything then. He has specialized in relationships, he has a really good book called The Relationship Handbook. That’s one of his earlier works. And so this one new one is called The Secret to Mental Health. I’ve downloaded the sample to my Kindle app on my iPad. So I’ll be starting in on that very soon. When I get finished with the mystery novel that I’m reading, that I’m really enjoying, that I couldn’t put down last night. I just realized as I hit record, I haven’t figured out what the title of this episode is officially going to be when I put the little illustration up, and the blog post and everything. What I want to talk about is universal intelligence and universal wisdom and whether or not there’s a better way, a more active way, to access that. And here’s why. As I mentioned, for the last few months, I have felt like I’ve been in the back of the spiral. And if you don’t know what I mean by that, if you go back a few q&a episodes, I talk about what that means. How our learning and growth is like a spiral, like a corkscrew shape, like a corkscrew lying on its side. And it’s always moving forward. But we have these times where we’re in the back of the of that curve. And it can seem harder, and things get tougher. And yet, when we know that when we know that that’s just a natural part of growth, and learning and change and life and our progression through life, then it’s a lot easier to deal with, because we don’t think it’s a problem, or a something to fix or that we’re broken. It’s just part of the way stuff works just like winter is part of one of the seasons. We might not like it, some people love winter. But some people don’t but that doesn’t mean that winter is a problem or that it’s a broken part of mother nature or anything like that. I’ve been wanting to explore or I’ve sort of very recently come to touch on this idea of exploring different ways to connect with universal wisdom because I’ve been in the back of the spiral for really for about five months. I think it started in October 2023. And this is Leap Day 2024 as I record this and put it up. I’m late recording and I’m late recording because there’s because of being in the back of the spiral. I just feel like I’ve lost a lot of momentum in my exploration of this understanding. I don’t feel very motivated. I feel kind of like depressed except not quite as deep and dark as I’ve been depressed in the past. I just feel a little blech. And normally, I really enjoy my work and enjoy everything I do. And feeling that way has really got my attention and it’s got my attention, then it’s been going on for quite a while. The other thing that’s been going on for quite a while is that my eating habits. They were so great last year but they have slightly gotten worse since October. And I’ve been doing and I’m going to give you an analogy about that in just a second. But I’ve been doing all the things I talked about on this podcast in order to sort of manage that or deal with it. I’ve been approaching it is that the right word? Receiving it, receiving that unwanted drive to overeat as feedback, not as a problem. It’s feedback, it’s universal wisdom, and the wisdom in my body, trying to get my attention. It’s telling me about my state of mind. I’ve been looking upstream rather than downstream about that. Trying to as much as I can to look toward the nature of our experience as human beings. Look toward the nature of thought, rather than downstream, which is looking at how can I control this? How can I change my habits with willpower and structure and lots and lots of rules about what I can eat and candied? Because my experience tells me that that way madness lies. There’s just no relief in that. I’ve tried that for 30 years, it didn’t work. It just made me unhappy and feel even more broken than I already did. So I don’t want to have anything to do with that. That’s just not where I’m going to look. So I’ve been doing all the things that I talk about. And really, it hasn’t shifted, it’s been five months. And that’s too long. According to me, according to this right now, it’s just been too long. I’m suffering, and I don’t like that of course, none of us do. And so here’s what I’m also doing, which is something a little wacky, and you can decide whether you want to stay on board with me or not. A friend of mine got interested in mediumship recently. I was into all those sorts of things when I was in the cult. We talked about all that kind of stuff, channeling and spirit guides, and all those things. I had really shut that part of myself away because of the associations that I have with the cult. But when my friend started exploring, and I got interested as well, and was listening to some podcasts and it was a good distraction, actually, from the suffering that I was experiencing, about overeating. I started to think and this is very recently, like, within the last week, we talk about and I talk about universal wisdom, and universal intelligence, and the intelligence of the universe that is within all of us and within everything all the time. And it’s never separate from any of us. And so that got me thinking, well, the other thing I often talk about is that insight has its own timing. In my personal embodied experience, insight has been the thing that has created change in my life. And yet I felt at the mercy of when it would arrive. And it has done a lot. And it has created tremendous change in my life, which is fantastic. What if there was a more conscious, more mindful, more active way of tapping into insight of tapping into that universal intelligence? So then, when I started to think about the subject of spirit guides and the way that mediums talk about spirit guides. And it’s always struck me as kind of this magical mystical thing that maybe some people have access to, and some people don’t, or some people have a talent for, and some people don’t. And or some people rely on that guidance and others don’t. I started to think given that we are all one, we are all made of stardust, and the trees and the flowers and the earth, everything we are made of stardust with, the universe is made of stardust, and we are as well. And that’s a physical representation. Or way to say that we are all connected, we are all aspects of the universe that has come to this world to have this experience. And we’re all connected in that way, inside that Universal Intelligence. And we’re all connected by things like love. What if this opened a doorway, this idea of spirit guides, and I’m using finger quotes, Not to disparage them at all. But just to point out that, this new idea that I’ve it’s not a new idea, it’s an old idea, but it’s something new that I’ve stumbled across. What if there was a way to access our guidance, and to initiate insight or receive insight, be more open to it when we need it? In a more active way than I’ve learned about with the three principles. So that’s what I’m exploring lately. I don’t know if that’s if this is going to be a thing, if it’s going to help or if it’s a distraction. I suspect there’s a way to go into this in a very head like way, with a lot of thinking about it, and trying to force things to happen. And then there must be a way to go about it, which is what I’m trying to do, in a very heartfelt way. In a very calm, quiet, not needing to add more thinking to a situation, but listening. And that that idea of listening, came about via one of the mediumship podcasts that I was listening to. The host talks about how there’s that in meditation, this is her approach her practice, that it’s meditation is really about listening. And of course, she’s talking about listening to her guides, or angels or whatever. And so I translated that into what if it was a practice for listening to universal intelligence, especially around when we’re having a challenge with something like an unwanted habit. I don’t have any answers to those questions today, or to all those what ifs, but I’m here to tell you that that’s what I’m exploring. I’m doing it out of a bit of a sense of frustration with this, spending so much time in the back of the spiral at this point in my life. Because I felt like, I really felt like last year, the my overeating habit was gone. And now it’s back, it’s back in a very small way. And it’s very specific, in that at supper time, I’m just eating a little too much. I’m eating, as I’ve talked about rice and potatoes, and I’m having wine with those things. And again, not that there’s anything wrong with any of those things with any of those foods. We don’t want to look in that direction and demonize wine or rice. But I very clearly know the difference between when I’m eating in a way that’s healthy. That’s not a response to the drive to overeat. And right now at supper time that’s not happening. I am eating in response to the drive to overeat. There’s a real need in me at that time of day to comfort myself with those types of foods and again; not a problem. And I know that and those things are the valve right on the pressure cooker, they are a solution, they are letting pressure off. So my question becomes, okay, then tell me what, where that pressure exists, tell me not so much what I can do about it, but provide me the shift in consciousness that I need, in order to see things differently. Sitting around waiting for that shift in consciousness, that insight just stopped has stopped working for me. So this is what I’m exploring. Can I turn on that tap? Can I listen for insight and promote it in my life, and in my quest for peace and, and resolution of an overeating habit. And then related to this, too, so there are a couple of other things I wanted to say about that. One of them is that I think one of the reasons that the passion has gone out of me about what I’m talking about, and sharing on this podcast and elsewhere, and teaching about these three principles, is because for these last five months, I feel like a bit of a fraud. I feel like I had it handled, and then the problem came back in a big way. It doesn’t feel like I can be someone who can talk about resolving an overeating habit. At this point in my career, if I haven’t done that. Up until now I’ve been sharing everything I’m learning and the habit was shrinking. It was just gradually getting smaller and smaller, and these different habits that I’ve talked about were falling away, which is fantastic. I think it was great that I talked about it as that was happening. And then and this is probably just a mental construct, but and then I was in a place last year where it felt like it was resolved. And now it feels like it’s back again, just in that very specific time of day. But still, I don’t think I can be talking about having resolved and overeating habit when I haven’t done it, when it’s come back in that way. So that makes me sad. I can’t share what I’m not embodying. That’s not fair to talk about that kind of stuff. Have the principles made a huge positive impact in my life? Absolutely. And they’ve practically eliminated so many other issues that I had, one of them being anxiety disguised as urgency. So I could definitely talk about that. This overheating issue is kind of been the core thing that I’ve been wanting to resolve. And on that note, then also, the other thing I can say, too, is that I’m really exploring feedback, because it feels to me this idea that our habits are providing feedback about our state of mind, because it really feels to me and I mentioned this a couple of episodes ago, like I’m down to this sludgy part in the bottom of the cup. And so that maybe there are some really core issues there that need to be resolved. I just don’t know, I don’t know if that’s the truth. I know that some practitioners of the three principals talk about how, and I shouldn’t maybe I shouldn’t even really say this, because I’m not really familiar with all their work. But a couple of people who have been on the show, I’ve seen them on social media talking about how the principles don’t help resolve absolutely everything and that our lives are not all made up of thought. We don’t entirely live in the world of our thinking, not in the world of our experiences. And that’s fine. I mean, if that’s what they want to explore, I’m not judging them at all. We all have to do our own thing and explore what’s the truth for us. It has occurred to me to wonder, is there some trauma left in my body that needs to be healed in some other way? Is that’s why the habit is there? It’s trying to alert me to it’s trying to give me feedback about that. That’s that when I refer to the sludge in the bottom of the coffee cup, that’s what I’m referring to. I went down a trauma rabbit hole last year, at some point, meaning that I looked into somatic therapy quite a bit. And then it just felt like I was layering more thinking into a situation, and that was unnecessary. I didn’t need to do that. So I stopped looking in that direction. All I have right now is questions. I don’t have answers. Which is fine. I mean, that’s what life is about, right? And these are the times in life when things get tough. This is when we learn, when I I’m frustrated and flailing and failing. This is the good stuff, this is when I will really learn and hopefully have insights. And I have been having some, they just haven’t been enough to really shift that problem. And so actually, now that I’m saying this, I realized too, this is a really beautiful, important time. Maybe I shouldn’t say important, but this is a really beautiful time. If I can find some clarity about this, then being able to offer that to the world would be would be a gift. I saw a little movie trailer recently, where one of the characters says, “We don’t save ourselves, we save each other.” And that really struck me in the heart, I love that, and I’ve always felt, it’s always been so important to me, to try to share whatever I learned whatever it is, and I’ve always been that way. Even when I was a self-help junkie, trying to share books and stuff that I learned with other friends who were suffering. So that was one thing I wanted to say. And then the other thing is that the principles aren’t a well… here’s how I’ll say this: There ain’t no cure for life. That’s a motto I should have up on my wall, because it’s something that I returned to again and again. Life for anyone is never ever going to be perfect and completely smooth and happy and joyful in every single minute. I don’t even think that should be our objective. I find that because of the principles now that I can really ride out the really difficult times with so much more peace and ease. But that doesn’t mean that the principles have eliminated any kind of struggle or difficulty from my life. I still have challenges. And that’s not the principles’ objective. They’re simply describing what is happening with our experience. There is an element of that when we understand that description it really does ease our suffering because as our thinking slows down and settles down and there’s less and less and less of it, then a were just so much calmer and quieter. And we’re more open to insight. I was reflecting back on, for example, Episode 22 of Unbroken when I talked to Maryse Godet Copans. She has been a person who has always really struggled with anxiety and symptoms of anxiety. And for a long time those symptoms because of her understanding of the principles really reduced or went away. And then in the episode we talked about how she had a period where they came back. And so does that mean that that they failed that the principles failed her? No it doesn’t seem to me and she didn’t seem to feel that way either. Life was just happening. And she says that in the episode, life is just lifing. And it really it seemed that the return of her symptoms really deepened her understanding of what her experience is made of, and what her suffering is made of, and how that suffering can be alleviated by understanding where her experience is coming from. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I highly recommend it. So in other words, she can be a person who can talk about reducing anxiety symptoms, I think, completely fairly and a completely authentically. So is it the same? Is it the same for me? Can I talk about reducing an overeating habit without having completely resolved it? Here’s the analogy that I talked about earlier in the episode that came to me that I want to use. First of all, I’m going to interrupt myself, and say that so many unwanted habits are things that we can let go of entirely, and there’s a real bright line there. That’s a legal term. But you’re either doing the habit or you’re not. So for example, binge eating; you’re either binge eating or you’re not, and then you know the difference. You’re either smoking or you’re not. If you’re had problems with alcoholism, you’re either drinking, or you’re not. And there’s a real black and white essence to that. Overeating isn’t quite the same. But I would say, for any, maybe you can relate to this, if you have an overeating habit. I know the difference when I’m eating just for even for pleasure, or I’m just having breakfast so that I can get on the road or do whatever it is, I’m going to do. I know the difference between that feeling versus when I’m eating because of this drive to overeat that I feel within me that feels compulsive, it feels a little bit out of control. I feel like a bit of a bottomless pit. Alcoholics sometimes say one drink was too many. But 10,000 was not enough. It’s that kind of a feeling like there’s not enough food in the world to soothe this feeling that I’m having. So in a way with an overeating habit, there is a bright line. But at the same time, eating is not a habit that we can give up. We can’t just stop eating the way that someone can stop smoking. So there is that element to it. And along so along with all of this sort of thinking, I had this analogy the other day, and imagine that someone is a smoker, and that they smoke three packs of cigarettes a day. And they’ve tried for 30 years to quit. And the smoking problem really drives them crazy. And then imagine that they discovered the Three Principles. And over a period of years, it really changes so much about themselves and about their anxiety, which is one of the things they were using the smoking to deal with. They end up going from smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, to just smoking three cigarettes a day. So at the end of the day, before supper they have a cigarette, after separate they have a cigarette, and then before bed, and that’s it. And whereas before they were smoking all day, every day, all the time. That is a huge change that that person has gone through. It is so much better for their health. You know what they’ve done all that change that they’ve made, they’ve clearly had huge shifts inside to be able to make such a dramatic difference to their smoking habit. And throughout the rest of the day. They don’t care about smoking at all. They don’t think about it. They don’t crave it. It just doesn’t matter to them at all. Is that person entitled to say that they’ve resolved their smoking habit? So that’s the analogy I’m using about myself. And in my mind, I don’t think so. Is that person still a smoker? Like I say, have they experienced huge change? And is our thing so, so much better? Yes, of course. Absolutely. Can they say that they’ve resolved that habit? No, they can’t. So that’s kind of where I’m at. I can’t, at the moment really say that I’ve resolved this habit. And with symptoms, like I talked about with Maryse in episode 22. I don’t know, this is something I’m wrestling with lately. Is that different? Are symptoms of anxiety different than the drive to overeat? And I want to say, no, they’re not. That’s life coming to life in both cases, inside that person. And it’s a thing that can make the person feel broken, or like there’s something wrong. Hmm, this would be a good topic, maybe for a future episode, just comparing and contrasting those two things. So in other words, let me say, I think that Maryse is perfectly entitled to talk about her anxiety that she used to have, and the fact that it came back isn’t a failing on her part. I think she’s still entitled to teach and share about the principles. But for somehow, somehow, for myself, I’m not giving myself that grace, which is interesting. It’s been good to talk this through with you today. Thank you. I knew some of what I wanted to say today, but not all of it. So that’s really helpful. This is all just such a mystery, isn’t it? Life can be so mysterious, and so simple yet at the same time, and I guess I’m just feeling at the moment, like I don’t have any answers. And I’m feeling you know, in the soup, myself, and in the back of the spiral. But as I say, this is the place for learning. So anyway, that’s, that’s all I have for today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. This has been really good for me to share. I hope that of course, as always, I hope that you have found it helpful. And if you have any questions or comments or anything about anything I’ve said, Do you want me to clarify anything? If you want to add anything, please do so you can go to go to AlexandraAmor.com/questions. And fill out the form there and I will answer happily for you. Until next time, take care. I hope you’re doing well. And I will see you next week. Bye. Featured image photo by Tengyart on Unsplash The post Can we cultivate insight? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Author, therapist and coach Lori Carpenos has seen that what affects our relationships the most is our state of mind. When the couples she works with see that ‘working on’ their relationship is not the answer to a loving relationship, that’s when everything changes. Lori Carpenos opened a private individual, couples and family counseling practice, in 1994, to pass along something she had stumbled upon in 1985, when she was privileged to meet the late Sydney Banks. As a result, her life changed in ways she could never have imagined at that time. She maintains a private practice in West Hartford, CT as a therapist, life coach, business consultant, facilitator, and writer. You can find Lori Carpenos at 3PrinciplesTherapy.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 Starting out as an art teacher Resonating with Sydney Banks’ exploration of innate mental health On recognizing that ‘working’ on a relationship only makes things harder How we all fall back into love when our minds are quiet Getting on the wrong bus with our thinking but knowing we can choose a different ride How we all always have all the love we need within us How arguments originate from our state of mind On being single and our relationship to thought about that How we are all in relationship with our thinking Transcript of Interview with Lori Carpenos Alexandra: Lori Carpenos, welcome to Unbroken. Lori: Oh, thank you, Alexandra. It’s nice to be with you. Alexandra: It’s great to have you here. I’m so happy to meet you. Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to find the Three Principles. Lori: Well, they actually found me. It was quite by happenstance. I’d never heard of Sydney Banks, never heard of the three principles. I was an art teacher in Massachusetts, and I got a master’s in expressive arts therapy. I had this idea I wanted to do art therapy. And the place for that was California. So I was 25 years old, and I decided to quit my tenured art teacher job. Much to the dismay of my parents. They tried to stop me. But I felt called in retrospect, when I realized it was not to be an art therapist, because I’m driving across the country. Because California was known as the land of New Thought and new things. And art therapy was supposedly really big. I get halfway across. And I’m listening to a program, NPR, where they’re talking about a bill that had just passed in California, eliminating art, music, all the extra curricular activities in hospitals, schools, and I couldn’t believe it. It was like I was hearing something that was not true. And I’m thinking well, I’m halfway there. I already quit my job. I don’t have a job back on the east coast. So what do I do? I decided to keep going. I didn’t have a job. I knew one person in Northern California where I was headed to. No job, a cocktail waitress with my master’s degree my pocket. And one thing led to another. Well it’s a long story not to get into. But the crux of the matter was, I got into a relationship with a boyfriend, who had gotten the degree from California trans personal psychology, and he was heading to Florida, to the Advanced Human Studies Institute, which you probably heard was the first training place in, in, in the world, actually, at that time. So I thought, well I’ll go with him, of course, I’ll go with him, I’ll be closer to my family, then. I went out to California and this is now three years later. I did get a few part time jobs as an art therapist in the VA hospital, and also in Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. And both of those were really interesting situations. So I landed at the Advanced Human Studies Institute, and I’m going to a talk by this unknown person to me, Sydney Banks, and it was like somebody turned a light on in my head, is the only way I could explain it. I suddenly realize that the trajectory of my life is not completely up to me. That there’s some flow that is beyond me. And what I realized later, is how else to describe something like that, but I was drawn, I was driven to drive all that distance, by myself alone in my car with whatever belongings I had at the time. I realized later that it was really was a calling to be part of this understanding the which now we know is the whole paradigm shift in psychology. Alexandra: And what happened next? Where did where did this road take you? Lori: At the Advanced Human Studies Institute, and I wasn’t a student, but my boyfriend was a student for a year, and I saw that he was calmer, more settled down. And so I decided to take the year training. And that’s where I met so many people from that are familiar to you and some of the listeners. I learned from them as much as I did from Syd Banks because they would have insights. And I would realize, yeah, I see that true. When you hear truth, everybody knows that. It resonates, it makes perfect sense. You can’t debate it. Alexandra: I’m just curious, was he there all the time, or was he coming and going? Lori: He would come and go, yeah, he would come and go. Roger Mills was there all the time. I know you did an interview with Jack about Modelo, the project that Roger did in the in these projects. And I wish there at that time, but I did not meet the people who were involved in Modelo until a conference many years later. And just the stories were so incredible, incredible how people’s lives changed. What was called in there was a newscast about it and they called it the wild wild west. That’s what modelo was like the Wild Wild West with drug dealers and shootings and all kinds of things. And to see these women, they were mostly women who were heads of the household, to the children. And at this conference, one of the women said that we all thought that we were third generation welfare recipients. That’s who we thought we were. So that’s how we behaved in the world. We behave according to how we think of ourselves. And then she said, one of them discovered that they were had a had a program nearby that they could get a GED. A high school certificate, and one by one, they did that. Some of them actually became social workers. Some of them to this day, you can see them on YouTube that they are providing services to other people who are troubled and don’t know who they really are. Alexandra: Wow. Oh, I didn’t realize that. That’s really interesting. Where did your professional life take you? Lori: Ah, good question. Well, there was a very good friend of mine, Hazel Fosse, and people will recognize her name, she’s no longer with us. But Hazel suggested that I get a license as a marriage and family therapist, because that was a way that I could share what I had learned and what was helping me so much, and all of my relationships. And so I did that. I followed her suggestion, how to get some extra courses and, and do an internship. I spent a year at the Advanced Human Studies Institute after my year training as a counselor. And I got a license as a marriage and family therapist. And that’s pretty much where you know what I’ve been doing ever since. Alexandra: Let’s back up a little bit. Tell me a little bit about what your life was like before you learned about this understanding, before you met Sydney Banks. And then what it was like after. Lori: Well, that’s another great question, because I didn’t realize that I was depressed. I had a lot of fun, being an art teacher and being in Boston at the time, and I had friends and boyfriends. But in my master’s program, it was recommended that we all get into therapy. So I did that. I got a diagnosis. I got a diagnosis. They sent me to the Jung Institute in San Francisco. I took a battery of tests, and they came out with dysthymia and long term depression. So that explained to me that everybody’s life was not difficult. Right, I guess so then I started to think, Oh, I really have a problem. And so you can imagine what a relief it was to be around other people who were learning from Syd, learning that there’s no such thing. There’s no such thing as mental health disorders. There’s a wonderful book coming out about that and when I was entering this world of therapy, in order for people’s insurance to pay therapists, you have to give them a diagnosis. I was so against that. But I discovered I could use a diagnosis called the adjustment disorder. And I tell people, that’s the diagnosis I use because we all go through adjustments in life. I’ll never forget what Syd said. He said that, in the future there will be one diagnosis to us. And it will be the misuse of the ability to think. And that made perfect sense to me because I did not go from having a label as depressed to going to having a pretty carefree life. I can’t say some of it was overnight, but over the years, it just keeps getting better. Because I see when I get tangled up in my personal thinking, and I let it go it’s like, why would you hold onto a hot rock? Can you drop it, you’d let it go? Because you don’t want it to burn your hand? It’s the same thing with thinking that there’s something wrong with you and thinking about all the things you don’t like, and all the judgments and expectations we take on about how life is supposed to be. And to find out that it’s all coming from me. The outside world is not telling me that I’m not good enough, or there’s something wrong with well, so I’m for people diagnose if somebody else is telling me there’s something wrong with me. So it was me telling myself a lot of hogwash, and believing it. I sometimes get these thoughts, well, you could do better but then I don’t have to believe it. I don’t have to act as though that’s who I am. It’s not who I am. And that’s really what I came to see is that we all, everybody has, in essence, a spiritual essence that goes far beyond what we concoct with our brain with our ability to think. We have this amazing ability to think. I couldn’t be here with you if I couldn’t think my way here. But boy, do we use it against ourselves unnecessarily and, and to wake up to that, and there’s not a person in this world, no matter what their circumstances have been. Because I’ve worked with people with the most unbelievable traumatic events in their past. And they see through it, that that’s over. And, in fact, they wake up to the fact that they have what it took to get to go beyond it, to get past it to leave it behind them. Alexandra: You mentioned going into marriage and family therapy, and I saw this mentioned on your website that one of the things you want couples to learn is that they don’t need to work on their relationship. And so tell us about that. It sounds so contrary to the standard way that people go when they are having trouble in their relationship. Lori: Oh, yeah. It’s the standard way, right? Couples come in, and will write to me or they’ll contact me we have to work on our relationship. And when I get to talk to them, I can explain to them that the idea of working on anything, is typically not very pleasant. That you have to do something that you don’t really want to do. So, when anybody learns that, it just takes getting back into a quiet mind. A quiet state of mind that’s not judging their partner, that’s not blaming the other person. Because the judgment and blame is coming from us, from the thinker. It doesn’t come from out there. It doesn’t come from another person doesn’t even come from an event. I mean, bad things happen. But it’s how we think about it. And how long we choose to think about something that we can’t fix. Alexandra: Does this idea really surprise couples at first? Lori: Some but some it lands on them like it makes perfect sense, yeah, we’ve been thinking that we’re really in trouble. And we have to do something that’s going to be awful and time consuming and expensive. And so they build up this aversion to him even talking to me. And an aversion to talking to each other. Leave that, in, that’s just really something now, people will be show afraid to talk to their partner. And there is not anything that a person has to be afraid to share when they’re in a loving, peaceful state of mind. Alexandra: I imagine if you’re seeing that the relationship is a problem and then going in and talking about it, of course, that would feel yucky. It wouldn’t feel like a good thing to do. I imagine when people see the difference of going into something with a calm, quiet, state of mind must be quite revelatory. Lori: When you think about it, that, like you say, a problem. If people think that they have a problem, it’s just going to get them all worked up and get them thinking about whatever they think the problem is. But people can relate to this, because they know that they have had moments where they weren’t thinking problems. And it was like, they fell back in love with their partner. Yeah, out of the blue, that their head clears, their mind clears and they get a feeling of falling back in love. This love is always there. We’ve all heard not just in the Three Principles community, but in so many spiritual communities that that’s where we are. And we can witness that. When you look at children and babies. They go right back into love. Alexandra: Yes. Right. Lori: They go right back. They cry, they need their diaper changed. They’re hungry. That’s taken care of. And then they’re just smiling. Nobody teaches babies to smile. Where does that come from? Alexandra: And you know what it occurs to me, there’s that famous couples therapist, and the name is escaping me right now, who had the Love Lab in Seattle? Do you know who I’m talking about? Well, I shouldn’t have brought it up. Anyway. They said that they could observe people in couples, and they could tell if the couple would last, or if they wouldn’t, just by observing them for a while, a day or two. And the premise was that the people would kind of come to the relationship from a loving place, is what I’m seeing now. But what came out of it was they created a system for kind of doing that artificially. I think what I’m seeing is that they had seen what we’re talking about, and sort of we’re just framing it slightly differently. Lori: I do you know what you’re referring to, okay and they were observing couples who were angry at each other. And then they would say, well, this couple isn’t going to last not realizing that it’s a temporary condition. And when they observed couples who loved each other, even though they were mad at each other, they would say, Well, I love him to death, but he really upsets me. And they had the idea that that would last and like you said, they started to try to create that artificially. Like we call that outside-in in the Three Principles community because it’s trying to use a technique or create something that’s not coming from them. That’s why it’s such a paradigm shift in psychology that recognizing that everything, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, is coming from us. Whatever thinking we’re in, yes, you can’t get away from your thinking, but you can realize that it’s like you just got on the wrong thought wave. Like getting on the wrong bus. You get on a better bus that’s going to take you to a better part of town, where you want to be? Alexandra: That’s such a good analogy. I love that. One of the things that you also mentioned on your website is that we are expressions of universal love. You’ve touched on this with the analogy about babies. And how when we know this, it can ease our suffering. Could you talk about that a little bit? Lori: I love that question. When you realize that you already are – you could call that universal love. – you’re not looking for somebody else to complete you. To give you love. You already have all the love you ever need. Is it wonderful to be in a loving relationship, exchanging the feelings of love? Sharing the feelings of love? Absolutely. But it’s not necessary to have a beautiful life, because you we already have everything we need. So it’s impossible to blame somebody if I’m not feeling good. Makes no sense. Who am I going to blame about that? Now I could look at the person and who’s saying nasty things to me. And I could say, well, of course, I feel bad because he or she is saying something really nasty. But it doesn’t tell me that anymore. What it tells me is the state of mind that that person is in. I know you’ve seen this, too, that you could still love somebody who’s saying something nasty to you, because it doesn’t say anything about you. It just tells you the state of mind of the speaker. And you want to love them more than because you feel bad for them that they’re a bad state. Alexandra: I love that and I love that you said we always have all the love we need. That’s such an important point. Coming to a relationship with that awareness, I imagine, it’s like having a completely full cup, as coaches say. You’re completely filled up yourself. And I just imagine that that changes the dynamics of a relationship so much. People wouldn’t be looking for the other person to be all the things they need them to be. Lori: Right. I hear a lot from couples about how one feels controlled by the other. And when that person labeled as controlling, realizes that they don’t need their partner to be a certain way in order to live a nice life. Then they can let their partner live their life the way they should live in. They’re not dependent on how their partner lives their life. Alexandra: It’s just lovely. I’m assuming you see transformation in relationships when people start to get this. Lori: Yes, especially I would have to say the old therapy model is one hour a week. And what happens with couples that they’ll wake up during a session if they come one hour a week. And then they go about their lives. And they’re sucked back into the prevalent thinking in society, which is, before this paradigm shift, which is out there, we have to fix what’s out there, we have to fix the other person. So it’s almost like a rubber band. But when people come for longer stretches of time, that makes the big difference. And when they come to like for an intensive, it’s called different things, retreat. I like that. I like that term. So they’ll come for even just three, four days, sometimes longer, but three, four days in a row, and I will work specifically with them. That makes the biggest difference, then they go back and the world is still the way it is, but they don’t get sucked into it. Because they’ve really seen what a difference it makes to just really be in the best state of mind that they can find in any given moment. And nobody’s there 100% of the time but when we’re not there, we know to not take ourselves so seriously. Alexandra: I was going to say over the course of three or four days, there would be that natural ebb and flow of our state of mind. And I imagine you can point out to them, though, this is what’s happening. Lori: Exactly. Even in an hour session, there’s an ebb and flow. And I can point out to them, you see how the differences right now, are you feeling? Yeah, that’s a good point. Because people don’t realize, when they go into the lower stage, or into a higher state of mind, they don’t realize it until it’s pointed out to them. It’s like riding an elevator of life. Alexandra: What do you think is our biggest misunderstanding about being in a relationship? Lori: I think that people don’t realize how much they want a connection. Everybody wants a connection. As they felt connected in the beginning where they wouldn’t still be together. And then they lose the connection because of expectations and dissatisfactions and judgments and criticisms. And then show connection is what people are looking for. And they don’t realize that they’re the ones that are creating the disconnect. Again, so now it’s coming from them. And another thing I’ll mention too, which was fun, it’s in the book that I co-authored with Christine, The Secret of Love, that we both laughed, because we’re both marriage and family therapists. And people always come to us saying that we have to work on our communication skills, that’s been the catchphrase in society for so long. And it’s erroneous, it’s wrong. It’s not communication. It’s listening. People don’t have a problem communicating, they communicate when they’re angry. And it’s a whole different thing when you communicate when you’re in a nice state of mind. Alexandra: Yes, I can see that when we’re in a low state of mind. We tend to get really chatty, I know, I do. I go on and on and on and I can feel my mind circling back around to the beginning of an argument when it gets to the end. And you’re right, it’s the listening, though, that makes the big difference. One other question, I want to ask you about relationships. Do you think it’s possible to create positive change if only one person in the couple is interested in this understanding? Lori: Another great question. Absolutely.  Yeah, absolutely. And the perfect example of that is the very first chapter in The Secret of Love. And it’s on Chip and Jan, the couple and from Saltspring. They talk about this on YouTube videos. So it’s it publicly known that Chip was very resistant. Jan just saw something so deep when she heard talks by Syd Banks, it just kept getting reinforced more and more for her that her state of mind was everything. Even when he was out of sorts, that she might get into an argument for a moment and quickly say that’s it. I’m not doing this with you. So let’s talk later, when we’re both feeling better, and she go off she do her thing and, and come back and over a period of time, and it wasn’t right away. Chip himself said that he was very stubborn. He would say, I don’t want to know about this thought business. I don’t want to hear about it. But something clicked somewhere along the way. Alexandra: Oh, that’s so great. And because it’s inside out, it has to do with ourselves and our thinking that even if the other person never came on board, it would still make a huge difference to the to the one person who is exploring this. Lori: Absolutely. So that’s also part of expectation, not expecting the other person to have a higher state of mind to be in a nice, loving, calm, peaceful state. You’d be where you want to be without needing the other person to be anywhere other than where they are in the moment. Alexandra: I imagine that has an effect too, on the other partner. Someone I interviewed recently on the podcast, referred to it as a tuning fork. If my vibration has changed, and it’s peaceful and calm, that probably has an effect on the other person in the relationship. Lori: Right. And then every so often, you’ll hear well, I want some of that. Show me what you’re learning. That’s what happened to me when I saw my boyfriend’s state of mind. And that’s when I got involved. And I said, Okay, I’m going to do a year – and it doesn’t take a year anymore. Back then we had no resources, there was no videos there. Today, there’s just so much. People don’t have to move from West Coast to East Coast. And the group of us would travel to hear said, wherever he was speaking, and now you could just sit in your living room and turn on YouTube. A whole different world. Alexandra: I’m so grateful for technology, the way that it can share everywhere all over the world. It’s lovely. You have you potentially have a new podcast coming up for single people. Tell us about that. Lori: Somebody else came up with the name and I love it. It’s called Taking the BS out of Being Single. And that was an outgrowth from a course that I do called Finding Deep Connections. And that’s for single people as well. Single people have a lot of thinking about why they need to be single, why they don’t want to be single, why they shouldn’t be single. There’s a lot of thinking going on in that world. As a marriage and family therapist, and just a person living in life, to see that it’s always a relationship with our own thinking. Whether we’re single partner married, married for 40 years, it’s always the relationship we have with our own thinking. The person is next to us, or a 100 miles away. It’s so simple. So maybe it’ll just be one episode of the podcast. That’d be it. It’s your relationship with your thinking. There you go. Alexandra: As we begin to wrap up here, is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you would like to share? Lori: I don’t think so. You really covered so much. Maybe just if I could tie it together. Everything we talked about is in relationship with their own thinking, the state of which is the state of mind we live in. And it’s understanding how that works, how we work as thinking beings, given an amazing gift to think. And the free will to think up, down or sideways. We have the free will when I’ve had clients who say sometimes I just want to be bummed out, and I hang out there for a while. And I say, Great, as long as you know that it’s you’re choosing that. There’s no judgment. No judgment. But the trick is knowing that somebody is not bummed out because of what somebody said to them, or a situation or an event. We’ve seen people rise above situations that are beyond imagination. Alexandra: Thank you for pulling that all together. That’s great. Where can we find out more about you in your work? Lori: Well, my website is under construction right now. It’s going through a lift since it’s been around for a long time. And I kept adding things to it. And now it’s all over the place. So we’re pulling it all together. But it is 3principlestherapy.com. Alexandra: Perfect, okay. And I will put links in the show notes. And so people will be able to find it there. And your book is called The Secret of Love. Lori: Unlock the Mystery, Unleash the Magic. There’s another book on Amazon called The Secret of Love, and it’s a romance novel. Alexandra: Thank you so much, Laurie. It’s been so great chatting with you today. Lori: I really enjoyed it, too. Thank you for inviting me. Alexandra: My pleasure. All right. Take care. Bye. Bye. Lori: Bye bye. Thank you. Featured image photo by Daniel Mirlea on Unsplash The post Loving Relationships with Lori Carpenos appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

In instances where our bodies and our innate wisdom are speaking to us, it can be tempting to see those messages as problems. But when we see them for the wisdom they carry and stay open to the messages these ‘problems’ have for us, we begin to see that they are always trying to help us on our paths as human beings. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes When a good sleeper encounters a bout of insomnia Discovering insightfully that is people pleasing tendencies keeping me awake How insomnia does not mean that I’m broken or that my ability to sleep is broken How insomnia, like overeating, is feedback about our mental state What is insight and how does it arrive? On the universal intelligence that is always flowing through all of us Transcript of episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A episode 50 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. Before we get started today, I want to have a little mini celebration with you. Because this is q&a Episode 50. That means there are 100 episodes have Unbroken now. 50 episodes like this q&a one and 50 interview episodes. I’m pretty happy and proud of that milestone and I thank you for being with me here along for the ride, however long you’ve been joining me. It’s a real pleasure for me to be here to do this every week, and to share what I see with the aim of helping others, of supporting and uplifting and sharing what has made such a big huge difference in my life. So here’s to another 100 episodes. I aim to be around for the next year as well. February 14, 2024 will be the one year anniversary of the current website and the Freedom From Overeating course and Unbroken podcast. So we’ll celebrate that as well. Today’s q&a episode is going to involve a bit of a story. I’m also going to give you some background to give some context for what I’m about to share. And this story today has to do with insight, it has to do with our unbrokenness, which is really nice given that this is the 100th episode. So let’s get started. I’ll begin by telling you that about towards the end of 2023, October or November, there came a situation. I should back up a little further. I’m on the board or I was on the board of a little nonprofit that exists here in the town where I live. It’s a nonprofit housing society, independent living for seniors in the Ucluelet area. I’ve been on the board for a couple of years. And there’s one paid position in this organization. And the building is just a small, like, it looks like an apartment building. It has 10 apartments, all for seniors. And it’s independent living, like I said, so everybody is independent. They really don’t need any kind of assistance with mental health or physical chores or that kind of thing. Some of them can get care workers to come in, but 80% 90% of them don’t. It’s like an apartment building. And there’s one paid position. And it’s an administrative position that is 15 hours a week in the building. The woman who had been doing it was of retirement age. And also, she had been with the organization for five years and had brought the people, the tenants through the pandemic. And so she was feeling a little bit burnt out. So at the end of 2023, the board kind of came to a little bit of a crisis point in that this woman wanted to retire. And we had done some interviews looking for someone to take the position and couldn’t really find anybody who we felt would be a really good fit either because they weren’t available at the times we needed them to be or that kind of thing. And in the end, I actually had an insight. I was in the shower one day, and it suddenly occurred to me, “Well, what if I did that work? What if I committed to doing it for a year?” Like I say it’s just two or three hours a day. So I could do it in addition to doing this work here that I do for Unbroken and Freedom From Overeating. And it would help with the board that I was on that was in a bit of a pickle. And it would also give this business, AlexandraAmor.com, a bit of it, it felt like it just needed some space and some time to grow and to find its feet. With any self-employment venture you know they say when you start a new business it takes three to five years before it really comes into its own and has a lot of momentum and is earning its keep so to speak, that that the finances go into the black. And so I thought, well, this job with the seniors housing is doable in terms of it’s just a couple of hours a day. And I would be earning a little bit of income on the side from that, which would give this business, a little bit of space, a little bit of space and time to evolve and to find its feet. So it seemed like a really good fit. And because the idea came to me insightfully it felt good. I sat with it for a while and then I put the idea forward, and it was accepted. So fast forward, it’s now February 2024. And the job is going really well. And I’m encountering real problems sleeping. I’ve always been a really good sleeper. I’ve never had any sort of serious bouts of insomnia. I always fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. And in fact, I need quite a lot of sleep. I tend to be somebody who needs eight or nine hours a night. And I come from a family of nappers, so I’m also good at napping. So when these problems with sleeping started to crop up, it became a little bit worrisome. The way it’s showing up for me is that I go to sleep okay but then I wake up in the middle of the night, sort of 1, 2, 3 o’clock, and I can’t get back to sleep. I can feel my mind just really revving up, really super revved up, I guess that’s the only word I can use with thinking. And it is about the job that I have. Sometimes it’s so churned up and so speedy, my thinking, that I can feel it in my body as well. My body has this electrical feeling. It’s not physical, a physical feeling. It’s more like, energetic. So that started happening at probably at the end of the year, end of December, and then it’s carried on through January, and into February. It’s not every single night, but I would say it’s probably four nights a week, which is not great. And what it means is that it’s interfering with my daytime routine. It’s interfering with this job, with my Freedom From Overeating stuff, my website and the podcast and everything. Because the time that I do have here at home to work on those things, I often have to have a nap. That cuts into the amount of time that I’m able to devote here. It’s been bothering me, and it’s been on my mind. And then it happened again last night. I woke up at probably about 3:30. I was awake for a couple of hours, lots and lots and lots of thinking about this job. And the challenges that we have there. What happens is that the person in my position, I’m the person that everybody brings their problems and their grievances and their questions and their concerns and to. There’s 10 tenants, so I’m the recipient of all that stuff from every tenant. And not that every tenant is complaining all the time. That’s not the case. But if there’s a challenge or a problem, I’m the logical place that the person comes to talk to. I’m also the point of contact for the board. So if they have any questions or challenges or problems, I’m also the point of contact for the contractors. So we have, so the tenants are provided with one meal a day they get their evening meal provided by the building, as it were. And so there are two chefs that are on staff that split the days between them the days of the week. And there’s a maintenance guy, and it’s just, it’s a lot. So last night, I was lying in bed, once again, awake in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling and flopping around trying to find a comfortable position so that I could fall back asleep. And it wasn’t happening. And thinking about we have a meeting today actually, as I record this, that’s going to be a bit fraught. I was thinking about all these things. And then I had a little insight, which was so nice. I was thinking about why is this challenging? I know that we live in the world of our thinking, not in the world of our experiences, I know that for sure. And I know not to be too concerned, like when my mind is really stirred up at night, and I’m lying there in the middle of the night worried about things. I know not to take it too seriously. So I really take it with a grain of salt. And just let it happen, like a thunderstorm. I just let it roll by. And don’t try not to grab on to any one of the thoughts in the middle of the night and turn them into a bigger problem. I felt like I was managing all that stuff really well. And given my understanding of the principles, too. So what I was thinking about last night was, like I said, Why? Why is my mind so sped up? I’m really familiar with this kind of administrative work, I’ve done it my entire adult life. And I’ve been self-employed basically since 1999. And the job itself, like the paperwork, and the all the things that go on is not that challenging. It’s pretty quiet, actually. Which is probably why the job is only funded for 15 hours, a weak and totally manageable. And so this is all the stuff that I was thinking about in the middle of the night. Then it struck me – this was the insight – the people pleaser in me is really struggling with pleasing all these people. And like I said, there’s a lot of them, there’s 10 tenants, there’s seven or eight board members, there’s five or six contractors. That’s a lot of people to please when you’re a people pleaser. So that struck me and was really incredibly helpful. I’ll go back into my background now a little bit and share where this people pleasing tendency came from. And then I’m going to go forward and talk about what I see about what’s going on, and also what I can do about what’s happening now that I know what’s going on. So going into my background a little bit and how I became a great a people pleaser. I’ve mentioned before, my dad, sadly, was a rage filled alcoholic the entire time that I knew him while he was on this planet. He passed away a couple of years ago. But as a little child, a tiny little girl, I just remember being afraid all the time. And so as children, of course, one way that we deal with something like that, is to become a people pleaser, to really turn ourselves into a pretzel, to try to make the person happy. As children, that’s really a survival mechanism. Because we need our caregivers to like us, to be pleased with us, to be happy with us. That keeps us alive. Really, when we think about it, in terms of the primitive parts of our brain, our caregivers being connected to us, and protective of us and all that kind of stuff, pleased with us, is to the primitive parts of our brain, what keeps us alive. So I totally get where that comes from. And my poor old dad, I have so much compassion for him now. And for his life. He never really had a chance to be anything other than a rage filled alcoholic. He was raised by a woman, my grandmother, who was so she got married probably in the mid 1930s, to my grandfather. And she was incredibly intelligent, probably the smartest person I’ve ever met, and ambitious and driven and loved to work. And unfortunately, her husband, my grandfather, refused to let her work because it was the 1930s and husbands had that kind of control over their wives. And that makes me incredibly sad. She would have been an amazing business woman, slash employee, whatever she chose to do, she would have been amazing at it. That makes me feel really emotional. I feel really sad for. So what ended up happening was that she stayed home, she was a homemaker. And she had a child just by default, because that’s what you do at that time, and so she had my dad and wasn’t into it at all. I don’t think treated him very well at all. As a result, he became an adult who was filled with rage, and the way that he chose to soothe himself was with alcohol. It makes total sense. I talk about all the time how our unwanted habits are a solution, they’re not a problem. And that’s exactly what his alcoholism was, it was a solution. His head was just must have been full of razor blades. That’s the way I describe it, like just angry, unhappy, self judgmental, horrible thinking all the time. No sense of self appreciation or self esteem, I don’t think or gentleness with himself or compassion for himself. I mean, if I had ever you use the word compassion with him, he would have said, define compassion, I have no idea what that means. So naturally, he became an alcoholic. Of course, he did. And was one until the end of his days. And that makes me really sad as well. So anyway, this was the person that I was raised by. And that’s where the people pleasing comes in. I thought about it a little bit over the years and noticed it in myself, of course, off and on. And when, in the old days, when Oprah had her TV show, I would really relate to when she had people pleasing episodes of the show. But I don’t give it a lot of thought on a day to day basis. I probably haven’t thought about it in years. And it’s not the way I define myself, certainly. But I do have these people pleasing tendencies. I want everyone around me to be happy and calm. When people get angry and upset, I really take it personally. I feel like I need to fix whatever’s going on, it’s my responsibility to fix everyone around me, which is not a great personality characteristic. But there it is, here we are. So, in the middle of the night, last night, these were the connections that I made that this is what’s causing the stress and the busy mind that’s waking me up in the middle of the night. I notice it at other times of day too. I notice when I’m walking home from the little job, I can often be thinking a lot about whatever happened that day or what needs to happen the next day or the troubles that people have brought and laid at my doorstep. And I can also notice, sometimes when I’m wanting to be doing other stuff, like when I’m wanting to be working on things for my website, I’ve mentioned I want have a lot of creative projects that I want to be working on that instead, my mind will be preoccupied with the stuff that’s going on, at the seniors housing. So this occurred to me last night about the people pleasing, and that it was a big relief, and very shortly after that, I was able to roll over and go back to sleep. So that was a really big deal after probably, I don’t know, six weeks, seven weeks to see what was actually happening. I knew that the busy mind stuff was related to the job. I just hadn’t connected the dots closely enough about the people pleasing stuff. So that was a really helpful insight last night. Now we come to the point of this episode. That’s all the backstory. I bring this up because I think it’s really helpful to see all this stuff for a number of reasons. These are things that I talk about on this podcast and in my work all the time. So I’m going to outline them now and I hope that they are helpful for you. The first thing I know is that I’m not broken. I am unbroken. There’s nothing wrong with my ability to sleep. There’s nothing wrong with my circadian rhythms, there’s nothing wrong with even with my mental state. None of that stuff is broken or needs fixing at all. So that’s the first point. It’s important to note that, because I can take that worry off my plate. I don’t need to go down a rabbit hole of brokenness. Is this a problem? Am I broken? Is this never going to fix itself? All that kind of stuff. Any kind of thinking like that is not even on my plate. It’s just gone. I don’t even worry about it at all. Which brings us to the second point. This busy mind stuff that’s happening for me in the middle of the night is feedback. This is what I talk about all the time: we’re always feeling our thinking. And it’s always giving us feedback about our state of mind. And so in this case, I feel it in the way that I wake up, it’s so strong, obviously, that it wakes me up in the middle of the night. I guess maybe it’s adrenaline, and that’s what wakes me up, because my mind is going so fast. And that is feedback about my state of mind that my thinking is really stirred up. Building on the first point, this situation that’s happening with my sleep in the middle of the night, is not a problem. It’s information, it’s feedback, it’s letting me know. And eventually, I was able to connect the dots, it’s or I guess I was able to connect those insightfully. It’s letting me know that I have this people pleasing tendency, and that there’s a way to do this job that I have without feeling responsible for every person who crosses my path. And now, of course, logically, I do know that every single person here lives in the world of their thinking, and that if someone is upset about something, I don’t really have any agency over that. I can’t change their mind about what they’re seeing and what they’re thinking. In the middle of the night, I remembered, Byron Katie has this expression or thing that she says about how we’re only ever there’s only three kinds of business: there’s my business; there’s your business; and there’s God’s business. Very often, when our thinking gets stirred up, we are not in our own business, we are in somebody else’s business, or we’re in God’s business. I can really see that. That’s a really concise way of saying where my thinking is going. As a people pleaser, I’m in other people’s business all the time. I’m wanting to make them happy. I’m wanting to please them to change their mood, to make them be calm, if they’re upset, to make them stop being angry if they’re angry. That’s what’s going on when I’m people pleasing. At least that’s how I define it. So the second point is that this waking up in the middle of the night is not a problem. It’s feedback, it’s information. It’s was letting me know, that this was going on. And so I really appreciate that. And building again on the first point, because I know I’m not broken, my sleep habits are not broken. I do know how to sleep, I don’t need to go down any kind of a rabbit hole about medicating myself. I found myself a few days ago getting a little bit tense before I started to go through my little bedtime routine. Thinking I would of course naturally think, oh, no, am I going to have more problems tonight? I can see that there’s a way to go down a rabbit hole with that, that on to this original situation we would build another layer of busy thinking. Anticipatory worry about how I’m going to sleep on any given night. I noticed that I haven’t been too caught up in it. And I hope that that It really slips away entirely now that I see what’s going on. Then the third thing I want to say is that probably my first question in the middle of the night to myself was how do I not do this? How do I not be a people pleaser? What do I do? Give me three tasks to make this go away and I’ll do them. Absolutely. And of course, as I talked about all the time, the route to change doesn’t lie there. It doesn’t lie in finding logical solutions to being a people pleaser. At least this is what I see. And this is how I live my life now. And what really works for me. What creates change is insight. And we can see this already, because the thing that created the change in me, the deeper understanding about what was going on with my sleep was insight. I didn’t come to this people pleasing conclusion, logically. I felt it land with me last night as I was mulling all this stuff over. There’s no real specific way to define insight. It’s going to be different for everyone. And it’s going to be different for everyone at anygiven time. I’ve talked in the past about how sometimes it feels like insights are almost invisible. They happen sometimes without us even noticing. I’ll just notice a behavior that’s changed or a concern that has slipped away. And that seems to me has happened insightfully. My brain hasn’t decided to have that happen. It just happens because of a shift in my own consciousness encouraged by, supported by having these kinds of conversations and staying in this conversation about our innate health and well being. So how do I stop being a people pleaser? I stay open to insight. And it may happen noticeably. I may notice a big insight about pleasing people, or how not to do it. Or it may happen invisibly. But I know that that’s the way to change. And I would also bet that having had that insight last night, that that was a big step towards resolving this situation that my mind might now be able to settle down. Because there’s been this shift in my consciousness, and I know what’s happening. I’ll even consciously say to myself, I can tell moving forward that I’ll say things like, if I’m chatting with someone at the office, I’m not responsible for this person’s feelings. Not I’m not going to say that out loud, of course. I’ll just say it internally, just reminding myself this person is entitled to however they feel, that’s their business. And it’s not my business to fix them, or change them or make them feel any different. Of course, I’m going to do my job and address their concerns and all that kind of stuff. But the extra added layer of unnecessary responsibility is the one that I want to let go of. The layer that says I’m responsible for everybody, and how everybody feels. That’s a huge weight. No wonder my mind was going crazy in the middle of the night! That’s a lot of stuff to be carrying around. So I think that’s about all I have to say about that particular situation. I wanted to share it specifically because it’s unrelated to food and even unrelated to unwanted habits. Although I suppose you could say people pleasing is an unwanted habit, but I just thought it would be useful to see that something so disconnected from an unwanted overeating habit. And yet the same principles apply as to how I’m dealing with it. Not getting tangled up in the content of whatever was going on. Remembering that whatever’s happening universal intelligence is always working for me, it’s not working against me. So that was something I probably should have mentioned earlier in the feedback section, that our bodies are so wise, there’s always this wisdom and universal intelligence flowing through us. And it’s always speaking to us all the time. This was one way that it was speaking to me trying to get my attention. To let me know that there’s a way to do this job that I’ve taken on that doesn’t destroy my sleep, that doesn’t diminish my enjoyment of being there at the apartment building with the tenants who are just extremely lovely. I really enjoy connecting with them. It’s a real pleasure and an honor honestly, to be there, and to be in service to the elders in some of the elders in this small community. So there’s lots that’s great about this job. It did cross my mind a couple of nights ago, I wondered whether I needed to let it go, to resign. I didn’t want to do that because I made a commitment for this year to be in the job until at least November 2024. But my sleep was so disturbed that I thought I don’t know if I can go on like this any longer. That’s probably enough talking for me. I hope you’re doing well. I hope this has been helpful. I hope you can see that, like I say, everything that I talk about applies to this situation, as well as to an unwanted habit. I am sending you lots of love and hoping that at some moment today, you are able to connect with your innate well-being and resilience and resourcefulness and to the wisdom that flows through you always. And I will see you again in a couple of weeks. Take care. Bye. Featured image photo by Johny Goerend on Unsplash The post Q&A 50 – The Wisdom in Insomnia appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Nikon Gormley had achieved success as a top-level athlete, but he was still searching for answers. He wanted to feel calm during his taekwondo matches so he began looking in all the usual places. It wasn’t until he discovered the Three Principles that things began to click into place for him. Now he coaches others about the innate resilience and well-being that we all possess. Nikon Gormley is passionate about guiding people to unleash their true, full potential so that they can experience greater levels of success, purpose, and well-being in their lives. He helps people understand and experience the beauty of how their minds work, harness the power of insight to navigate life with more clarity and ease and achieve more with less struggle, less anxiety, and less pressure. Nikon is also passionate about Taekwondo. He have been practising Taekwondo for 25+ years and has a 5th Dan Black Belt. He has trained and competed around the world as an elite athlete. You can find Nikon Gormley at NikonGormley.com and on YouTube @nikongormley. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Training as an Olympic taekwondo athlete Searching for ways to be a better athlete Growing a business at its own pace, rather than out of insecurity When the habit of being discontented stops being interesting How our feelings are always guiding us home How ‘nobody gets stupid when they’re peaceful’ On the nature of worry and its origin in thought Choosing what we pay attention to How ambition can be insecurity in disguise Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Neill’s book The Inside Out Revolution Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple Listen to my interview with Mavis Transcript of Interview with Nikon Gormley Alexandra: Nikon Gormley, welcome to Unbroken. Nikon: Thank you for having me, Alexandra. It’s pleasure to be here. Alexandra: It’s so nice to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you discovered the Three Principles. Nikon: My background started as a taekwondo athlete, as a young boy, as a martial art taken as a Korean martial art. And being called the athlete side of it, right, there’s a martial art side of it. And there’s an athlete side of it, because it was the Olympic sport in Thailand, it’s just very popular, we have it in our national Olympics, or we can get University scholarship scholarships for it. I started when I was 12. And I played for about 20 years. And being in a sport, you develop this thing where you just want to be better, you get obsessed with yourself not being good enough, and you get obsessed with wanting to be better. And apart from doing everything I physically could to be better and training, I knew I had to work on my mind. I wanted to be calm during competitions. It’s a combat sport. So there’s a lot going on, there’s people yelling at you, there’s someone trying to kick you and you got to kick them have a good story about that after so. I really went around all the houses, I studied everything I could from the law of attraction, or affirmations or like NLP, anything, in hopes that would make me a better athlete. And nothing really worked. I always thought it was my fault. Like, maybe I didn’t visualize the right details, or maybe I didn’t say the right affirmations in the right order. Maybe I didn’t write script it good enough, and then I got fed up. But it wasn’t great. And then finally, I read the Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neal. I didn’t understand it. But something clicked. There was something inside of me like this makes sense. I was like, Oh my god. Finally, finally. And then something funny happened. I was competing at the Thai National Olympics, I was competing for a province who had hired me to compete for them at the games. And I didn’t care anymore. I stopped caring about what was on my mind, I stopped caring about not being confident and just want to enjoy the game. So it’s probably one of my last Thai National Olympics. And I was like, honestly, go enjoy myself. And sure enough, everything just was flowed. I had the best time ever. I got to compete against the number one seed who I lost to, but I really enjoyed that match with him. So much so that after I lost him, I was like, Hey, that was a great match. Thank you so much for your time and energy. And how’d you do this? How’d you do that? And I’m watching myself. This guy just kicked your ass. Why are we so friendly to him? Because it didn’t make sense not to be. And then from there that was like, Okay, I need to know everything I need to know everything I can about this. And similar to you. I read all the books, talked to all the people. I hunted down all the teachers that I could find and just sit with them and talk with them and learn from them. And since then, my life has bloomed in incredible ways. In our conversation, we talk about the magic carpet ride. Dr. Joe Bailey talks about that where you get on the magic carpet ride. And it just takes you to places. From there, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just been an incredible journey where I noticed more of the time I stopped finding myself in the right place at the right time. And being more noticeable when I was off track. That’s a big thing. Being more noticeable. Like this doesn’t feel right. I’m off track or my mind. My mind is out to lunch. I’m insecure about this. I’m done. And it just kept getting better and better and better. And what to me it’s like an evergreen renewable energy source right as keep seeing more. I was telling talking to a mentor last night in a group and saying like, I think I see you about this much. But that much is enough to have a beautiful life. Alexandra: That’s such a good way to put it. Nikon: That comes from a joke. You want to hear it? The joke is Adam Sandler was receiving his Mark Twain prize, and had all his comedian friends come and share stories and send up bits for Adam. David Spade got up and he said, “Adam Sandler. $8 billion in movies. This much talent.” So if you’re listening this much is not a lot. I thought about it like, yeah, it’s kind of like us like we see this much, but that’s enough to have a beautiful life. Alexandra: Yes, that’s so well said, I love that. Nikon: And now we’re here, you know? Alexandra: Carry on, tell us about what you what you do. Nikon: So some of the things as a result was like, Okay, well, what happened? How did your life bloom and to think more, I got to work with all my favorite teachers. I got to build a beautiful taekwondo business. We have 12 branches around Thailand, we teach 400 kids a week, we have 15 staff. We recently hit like our new revenue highs. But the best part is, we didn’t really feel like we were working that hard. We’re just enjoyed doing what we’re doing. I have a coaching business that I love. I get to work with corporates and people around the world and doesn’t feel like work at all. I have a national radio show, under the Ministry of Education by Thailand, and I’m sitting here going, I don’t know how this happened. I just kept showing up. Whereas before this conversation would have been, oh, yeah, I hustled my butt. I grinded my way to this, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. And that’s how we’re here. Alexandra: Do you fold any of the ideas from the principles into when you’re teaching kids about taekwondo? Nikon: Sure, that’s a good question. I would say the thing that folds into that is sheer presence of just showing up, and really being with the kids. I’ll tell you our secret sauce for anybody listening for wondering how Super Seven Taekwondo does what we do, we only have one strategy with the kids. And our one strategy is to simply be really happy to see them. Really, really glad to see the kids. That’s all we do. Anybody can teach taekwondo but having the presence to really be with kids and be genuinely happy to see these little human beings. Alexandra: That’s so great. That makes me emotional. That’s a beautiful approach. Nikon: I think the other part of the more technical is not technical is, it’s how we build business in the taekwondo business, because it grew from like one branch to 12, from 10 kids to 400, over 10 years. That was very much the principles, because for the longest time, it was hovering around five. Once I got into the principles, it like it, like 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, like really fast. And I was wondering about it. I realized the way myself and my team approach the business changed. We stop worrying about it so much. We held it lightly. And we slowed down a lot. And we let the business grow at a pace that the business wanted to grow, not when our insecurities wanted to grow. Alexandra: That’s amazing. One of the things that I read on your website was that you were an overachiever in the past. Can you talk about that a little bit? You mentioned on your website that you were probably overachieving to escape how you were feeling. Nikon: Oh, yeah, absolutely. For anybody else’s who has ever felt not good enough. So interesting. So a lot of people feel that my reaction to that thought was if I could just achieve enough I could feel good about myself. If I could just achieve enough people would give me the time and attention that I wanted. And that was my response for most of my life. I just kept like, it was nothing interesting happens. Interesting thing happens when you have that reaction to that thought is nothing is ever good enough, either. I don’t know what the cartoon is, but something who like there’s probably a word for it. Like when you when you keep trying to feed yourself things you don’t really need so it’s never enough. Alexandra: Dr. Gabor Mate talks about the realm of hungry ghosts. They have big bellies and tiny mouths. Nikon: That’s one that one. Where no matter how much success or money or accolades, it just didn’t do it. I remember winning gold medals in taekwondo and looking at it and then being happy for like a day and then okay, I guess I need to get some more. It’s just never enough. It was never enough. And of course you feel really bad about yourself because you’re trying to you’re trying to feed this ghost that never, never stops. I wouldn’t I really stopped once I got into the principles and I saw it once I saw it. I was like, well that’s weird. Why would I need to achieve these things to feel good about myself like I’m okay. In Mavis Karn’s beautiful book, It’s That Simple, she talks about you’re okay. For me it was Michael Neill, Mavis Karn, and Dr. Bill Pettit, who really drove that noticing home until I saw it in myself like, oh, yeah, I’m actually okay. That’s the beautiful thing about this conversation, is that we don’t see how much of our life are operating from these reactions to our thinking to our thoughts. Like, given that I’m not good enough, I’m going to overwork myself, I’m going to pedal to the metal to try and achieve things. And, I’m grateful for it. Because in a very roundabout way, now that I’m working with corporates, and the teams are young, they’re like, 23 to 25, they’re fresh out of college. I see it in them. I had a beautiful conversation with a young AI engineer – that’s a weird thing to say: they’re are AI engineers now. He said, What’s something you think I can improve upon? And I said, Well, there’s nothing you can improve upon. But this is what I would give you, for you to not need to prove anything to me or anybody here and for you to slow down and just really enjoy the work. There was dead silence for a good 30 seconds that felt like forever. And I said, Well, that was a good career for me. And he said to me, how did you know that? How did you know that I don’t feel like I’m good enough? And I said, Because me too. I thought it was like when the penny drops, like, oh, that’s why I had to do that. So I could do this. Alexandra: One of the things that occurs to me is that when we’re over achieving, what we’re searching for is a good feeling. But we’re searching for it out there, in the accomplishments and in the gold medals and that kind of stuff. When really, it’s here. Nikon: Yeah, and it really, it’s like pollution. I’m gonna call it pollution, because it doesn’t just affect the feeling it affects everything else, because it becomes a habit of being discontent. I got that from my teacher, Mavis Karn. And I was like, Whoa, you have a habit of being discontent with where you are. And it keeps you from really enjoying, and being grateful for the life you have. Because you’re not good enough. Not good enough. Not good enough. Alexandra: That’s so well said. I love that. How did you resolve that habit? Nikon: It was one of those things where in this conversation, it was one day I saw it. And it stopped looking interesting to me, being discontent with my life. One day it just stopped looking like a good idea. And just like that it dissolved, which I’m still discovering, and I’m sure you are too, in this conversation at all, like how that works. You don’t have to change it and have to replace it with a new belief or a new habit of thought. It just didn’t make sense. It really doesn’t make sense. Why would I do that to myself? And to my surprise,  once I stopped being discontent with life, my life got even better. It was as if the habit of being discontent took up space in my bandwidth that kept me from really seeing things or experiencing things. And when I stopped doing it, there was more space in my life for prosperity, for abundance, for good things and clarity, but I didn’t know it. I just kept filling my bandwidth with you’re not good enough, you’re not good enough. And nothing is good enough, even though how nice it looked. And then also in that journey, is Oh, you didn’t tell you in that journey. I would like Well, let me go to the other side. Let me talk to like some Olympic athletes and world champions and unlike people who are super wealthy, they probably solve this problem. When I started spending time with them, I realized that they too didn’t know how to solve this problem. I remember I hung out with before the Rio Olympic Games a Spanish athlete. I’m not gonna say his name. He had a gold medal from the London Olympic Games. He had come to visit the Thai team and I had friends who knew him and we went out to the bar for drinks And he’s like, you want to come like, of course, I want to go meet this guy. And I’ll never forget it because I met this guy and I was so disappointed at how normal he was, and how he was just normal human being. I was like, that’s not right. An Olympic gold medalist cannot be normal human being. I talked to him and I watched him and I noticed like you two had insecurities. And I was like, Do you want an Olympic gold medal? He should be like, God, you know, and he wasn’t. And then I think all these things were pointing me to look deeper. Like, well, it’s not the Olympic medal. It’s not the gazillion dollars. Like, it wasn’t that so I made it. It helped me to look in a different way. I’m really grateful that life pointed me here. And I saw it. Alexandra: What a great lesson. For any of us, for all of us. Nikon: Have you ever experienced things like that for yourself? Like, in not feeling good enough? Alexandra: Absolutely. And in fact, in the present moment, I’m wrestling with a feeling of wanting to be a secret. So I’m looking at that and, and contemplating it and seeing where it might lead me. I don’t know yet. We shall see. You have a YouTube station. And I was watching a few of your YouTube videos. And you’ve mentioned Mavis Karn, who I’ve had on the program. The lesson that she taught you about how our emotions work to bring us home to ourselves. Could you talk about that a little bit? Nikon: Sure. So credit to Mavis Karn, who shares this with anybody who will listen. All emotion is really designed to guide us home, and our feelings are barometers of what’s going on in our minds. And the idea is that whatever you’re feeling, you put your put your hand or whatever you’re feeling, and you let it take you somewhere. I think our habitual reaction is to not to follow it. And the idea is, you follow it, and as with all emotion, it takes you home. It’s taking you somewhere inward to a place of calm. It’s like a light in the storm. That’s what it looks like to me. And the feeling of home is that that’s our default setting of home. As I’m saying that fresh now, it occurs to me how cool it is that that is built in. In most of my life, and most people I reckon, where we’re taught to deal with our emotions, like we need to change it, it’s not good enough, you need to go do something about it. If you’re sad, should go for a walk. If you’re happy, then like you should do more of the stuff that makes you happy, to keep to keep being happy. I think what Mavis is pointing to, or I’m seeing more of is, is you have built if something built into your system that has always taking you to okayness and we do really well when we’re okay, when we’re calm and clear. Mavis says nobody gets stupid when they’re peaceful. When we’re calm and clear, we’re cognizant, we’re aware, we’re awake. We are more gentle with ourselves and other people. Just takes us home. I know you could do that I like I too thought, Oh, happy, good, sad, bad. I’m still discovering how that works. How our divine engineering works, that you could just feel what you’re feeling no matter what it is and let it take you home. Alexandra: I love the feedback aspect of that awareness that our feelings are always letting us know what our state of mind is like in a given moment. That built in divine engineering, as you say, as Mavis says. Nikon: What I’m curious about is I think most people will do that exercise when they’re not feeling good, anxious or sad or overwhelmed. I’m curious to see what happens when we do it when we’re really happy to see where does the feeling take us. What occurs to me is I’ve been surface happy for most of my life and achieving things where like, I’m really happy because I achieved this. And it was, it was a very quick come and go it was like a hit of dopamine, achievement. I wonder if this points to a deeper place of well being where it’s like, I don’t want to say happy but you’re well from the inside out. That has to have some kind of effect. Alexandra: For sure that calm, peaceful, contentment. Nikon: That’s what I love about this conversation that we can explore and see fresh. Alexandra: Me too. It feels bottomless. We can just keep going, keep seeing things. I love that about it. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about was worry. You have a video on your channel and you talk about how we can become afraid of certain thoughts. And which can create worry or add on to worry. But that actually, our mind is trying to help us with those thoughts. Can you talk about that a little bit? Nikon: Sure. The nature of worry is it’s made out of thought that we have a very strong reaction to and I think we have a lot of premises about that thought. In my work, and I’ve seen for myself, okay, as an athlete, I thought if I didn’t worry about competing, I wasn’t going to prepare hard enough, or I was going to make a mistake. The more I worried, the more prepared I would be to compete, not knowing that that worry was taking my attention away from being really present in the mat in the ring. I look at it fresh now and I really see it as a misunderstanding, where it wasn’t meant to help me over prepare. I used it the wrong way. All it was trying to tell me that my mind was going a little too fast. That was the first when I first saw about it. Now, looking at it at a deeper level is I didn’t know that you could not be interested in it. I didn’t know that. You could not be interested in worry. Like you can see it, you could feel it and go you know what? Not today, I have stuff to do. I didn’t know you could do that. I didn’t know you could choose what to pay attention to. I thought you could feel it and then okay, worry. Okay, I know what that is premise done. I didn’t know you could say not today. I’m gonna focus on being right here right now. And it looks different to me now. There’s being worried about something and knowing that you have to do something. The knowing has a very different taste to it, where you just know you need to double check something or your friend. It might feel like worry, but you just know in your heart like, oh, I need check on my friend, I think something’s there. Or I need to maybe not be in this situation right now. Because it looks like something’s off. And it’s a very intuitive feeling. I found that once I stopped paying attention to worry, those things became stronger. It’s almost like less noise, more signal. And what looks different to me now is because the signals are more clear, I’m more able to navigate my life. Previously, I would call it worry. But now I’m like, I think no, not this way. That way. Alexandra: So the worry was pointing you want to go in a different direction? Nikon: Correct. And instead of what I think I think we worry about being worried. Yes, we do. And all life says I was trying to go that way. I didn’t you know all this other stuff that you’re putting on it, dwell on it. That not helpful. Something Michael Neill said about it that I found really helpful is that we are made really well to deal with what’s on our plate. We are not made so well to deal with everything else that’s in our mind. I think when we react to worry, the thought of worry, when we don’t catch it and we don’t see it. We like I should really be worried about being smart. And then we create these thunderstorms in our heads. And it takes our attention away from the directional sign that said Turn left here. That what it looks to me. I have a national radio show under the Ministry of Education of Thailand. I think it’s my third episode, it’s a two hour show. And people can call in and get coaching live and ask questions. So this lady calls in and I asked her like, Hi, welcome to the show. Do you have a question? She says, “No, I don’t have a question. I just wanted to tell you that you’re not rolling your r’s in Thai correctly. And I thought you needed to know that given that you’re on the radio.” And she said it just like that, and I’m going. A funny thing happened because I saw that I’m not gonna be on the radio anymore. You can’t speak properly. But I don’t think that’s a good idea to go that way. I’m just going to thank this lady for correcting my Thai speaking on national radio, bless her and say good luck. And that was it. And then this was, I think, in the first 15 minutes of this two hour show, so I had an hour and 45 minutes to go. The worry did occur me like, I wonder if this is going to throw me off. And it didn’t, because it wasn’t that interesting to me, in my head. I saw the worry. And I’m like, You know what, nobody else called and told me my Thai sucked. But I think that’s what’s on offer here for everybody listening. When you really spend time to really notice your thinking and really see what we’re pointing to, you get to do stuff like that, where things just roll off your back. Alexandra: The other thing that occurs to me too about worry is that there’s this universal intelligence that I was not aware of. Nobody had talked about until I was 50 years old, or whatever it was. And we can rely on it. It’s always there, the wisdom and the intelligence that holds us up. So we don’t have to be so over prepared and worried about what’s going to happen and thinking of all the different scenarios, and how will I deal with it? If this happens, how will I deal with that? If somebody corrects the way I roll my rs. We don’t have to do that? There’s an intelligence that will guide the way in the moment. Nikon: Absolutely. I remember as a taekwondo athlete studying really high level athletes, because it’s been so curious; how do they do what they do? And what are they doing that I’m not doing? I remember one interview with Jade Jones and Jade Jones is a double Olympic gold medalist. And when like the legends, and she’s from the UK, and they asked like Jade, “how do you prepare for your matches? Do you watch tapes? Do you know how do you do this?” And she said, “I don’t do any of that. I just show up and respond to what happens in her own way. Because I really don’t know what that person is going to do.” And the way it was she articulated more because she doesn’t. She’s not in this conversation, understanding she said, because if I watched her videos, they’re probably not going to do exactly what they did in that video. I need to be really present with the person in front of me. Another athlete in Thailand, who is also an Olympic gold minister. Funny, Her nickname is Tennis, but she’s really great at taekwondo. Go figure. Before her match, she’ll sit and watch her opponent in fighting other people like before she fights them. Tennis will come and sit down and just sit and watch. I looked in her eyes like in when I was when she was doing this on video and I realized she wasn’t analyzing she was just absorbing and getting a feel for her opponent before she before she fought her opponent. I thought that was the coolest thing. But you could tell she was just absorbing like a sponge. She wasn’t like okay, this one that one. Remember that he uses his left leg. That blew my mind looking back at it now. And that’s what we’re talking about being on offer because she’s not worried about it. She’s able to really be present and see information at a much higher level, which we I’ll have that ability we all do is don’t know it. Alexandra: Speaking of which: for our listeners, what I tend to do when I prepare for a show is send my guests the questions in advance and you specifically wrote to me and said, Do not send me the questions in advance, which I loved. I thought that was so cool. So tell me about that. Why did you ask not to have the questions in advance? Nikon: Michael Neill did that to me. I was like, What do you mean, he’s like, You didn’t even want to look at like, Nope, don’t look at I want to show up fresh. And I’m like, I didn’t get it. Then because that was like, a few years ago I didn’t get why he did that. But now I do. I realized, credit to him, he is more interested in fresh than stale thought, so stale thought like stale bread, old thought that’s kind of been there. While general reactions, he’s had to similar questions like, he’s far more interested than seeing from the edge. And me and my word, but we were too worried. Do you understand at the edge. And now, I too, am more curious about seeing from the edge. I’m so curious about seeing with the edge with you. That’s what I love these conversations. So we get to see from the edge together and see things we’ve never seen before. I’m having a great time seeing more about worry. I’m seeing more about old premises and thought like this is this is the best morning ever. Alexandra: Oh, that’s great. I’m glad to hear that. Well, thank you for that. Because it’s interesting doing this show, some people appreciate the questions and others say I glanced at them, but I’m not really all that interested. And no matter what everyone still shows up in the present moment. They don’t have a choice, do they? Nikon: How cool is that? That’s a really good thing to point out. There’s no right way. You always have to see from the edge like, No, you don’t do what occurs to you. Someone’s divine engineering or signals might be like, there’s a question in there that you’re reading to look at, that’s going to be helpful for you. And you should look at that question. And they’ll say, please send me the questions. And for me, it was I really want to see fresh with Alexandra, I want to stand at the edge with her and see what we see. Alexandra: I remember Michael saying he spent a year one year and every presentation he gave, he decided not to prepare at all. And he said, I think what he said was, a third of them were fantastic. A third of them were really not great at all. And a third we’re sort of mediocre. So just like you say, sometimes preparation is required, but sometimes not. Nikon: I’m really grateful for Michael testing this out on behalf of all of us. Thank you, Michael. Now we can learn from your like, okay, need to prepare a little bit. Alexandra: We’re just about out of time. So I wanted to wrap up with a couple of things. You have a program going on now with Mavis. It has started already as we’re recording this, correct? Nikon: Yes. And it’s starting, but you can still join. It’s four weeks. I guess I can tell; it’s four weeks and Azul and I, we decided that we wanted to create two more bonus sessions, group sessions, because people were joining from all around the world. And not everybody can make it in the timezone. It’s 10pm Bangkok time, and it’s 1am Australian time, and we wanted to give those people a chance to connect. And it’s one of those conversations where that’s what’s cool about this conversation is it’s not a conversation where it’s linear, where you have to join the first one to make sense of the rest is you can step you can step in at any at any one of the four weeks and have just a good time. And you’ll get the recordings for the whole thing. Alexandra: What’s it called? Nikon: The Divine Engineering of Us. And it’s based on a chapter in Mavis’ book, It’s That Simple. And it’s about learning how well we’re made. So we can be in life at a higher level of consciousness. And for me it’s clarity because you’re not spending time trying to deal with stuff your head, like I’m not good enough, I need to be good enough. Can I share one thing about that? Alexandra: Yes. Nikon: Since seeing that, and uncovering it, I saw so many things. Like for example, I saw that my ambition was really insecurity, that if I didn’t achieve enough, I wasn’t going to be good enough. And now I don’t care anymore about those things, about what I wanted. Or like earlier in my life, now, I really appreciate simplicity. And how I’m so grateful that I don’t need a lot at all, to be really well. I think that was the biggest insight from seeing that, that I don’t need a lot at all, to have a good life. And I was listening to a podcast with Katt Williams. A brilliant conversation has like, so like millions and millions of views. It’s like two and a half hours long, but people watched it. Katt Williams said something to the effect of if you didn’t go to bed at night, and if you knew that that was your last day on earth, like that wasn’t a bad day. Like, that’s pretty good. And that’s how I feel now. Like, if today was my last day, and I had I got to talk to you and just do what I was going to do anyways, like, that was a pretty good day. I couldn’t say that before. So I can’t I need to, I have so much I need to achieve and then legacy. And now my slow, good. Alexandra: Oh, that’s beautiful. I love it. The other thing I wanted to touch on is that you have First Free Tuesdays. Tell us about that. Nikon: When I was coming up in this conversation, the only way to access really great teachers like Joe Bailey and Mavis Karn. And my company would be to join their programs. And that was like, like, I don’t think they meant to do that. I just think they didn’t know how to make themselves available. So I promised myself, because I’ve been really blessed, I think, in my life, and I want to give it back. So I thought, Okay, I’m going to dedicate an hour a month, I’m going to open my door, and anybody, anybody who wants to come and just have a conversation, or hang out with a group of like-minded people to come. It’s called first three Tuesdays, and it’s open office hours with me. And it’s not one of those things where I only give you 20% of what I have. You get 100% of Nikon and my curiosity and my questions and this this type of conversation. And it’s what I really wanted, when I first started this in this conversation, to somewhere I could go and just hang out and just be like, I think that that’s part of I want to pay it forward. Alexandra: People can find out about that on your website. Nikon: Yes, on my website, on my Instagram, on my LinkedIn, I share a lot about that. And it’s always there. It’s always if you type in my name, and you’re looking around, you’re always finding the first free Tuesday. It’s my it’s my gift for all the things I’ve been given. Alexandra: Is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share before we wrap up? Nikon: I reckon I want to give gratitude to you for all the work you’re doing and, and just bringing people in having these insightful conversations because you don’t know who this is articulated the right way. You don’t know where this conversation is needed. In the places it will bring light to in which rooms it will bring light to we don’t we never know. And we’ll probably never know. But I have a hunch that because these conversations exist, the universe, God will bring them to the right people who really need them. And I think that’s so cool. That that you’re doing this and the people you’re interviewing, and the rooms at this conversation will light up. But we’ll never know about so much gratitude, respect and admiration for you and the work you’re doing. Alexandra: Thank you so much. That’s so lovely. I’m happy to hear that. I’m so grateful for technology. Yeah, that feels so special to me that we can have this conversation and then share it with the world. I love that. Where can we find out more about you in your work? Nikon: We have Instagram at Nikon.Gormley. We have LinkedIn I’m pretty sassy on linkedin.com. My Website, NikonGormley.com. And there’s a YouTube channel @ Nikon Gormley. And that’s about it. I’m still learning how to create stuff and there’s gonna be a lot more content coming out. I got a camera, so I’m going to learn how to use that for YouTube. And for people who speak Thai, there’s a radio show every Sunday from four to 6pm on 92 FM. If you speak Thai, there’s that. We’re doing multi language. We got to light up all the rooms we can. Alexandra: Yes, that’s right. I will put links in the show notes as ever. Nikon: Thank you. And if you if you listen to the radio show and you have ideas about how I speak Thai, please send me an email. That would be much appreciated. Don’t call in and tell me. I can do that. It’s okay. But I prefer the email. Alexandra: That’s great. Well, Nikon, thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Nikon: Thank you, Alexandra. Absolute pleasure. Featured image photo by Panuson Norkaew on Unsplash The post Resolving the Habit of Discontent with Nikon Gormley appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When we’re looking to change an overeating habit we can innocently get caught up in the noise in our heads that talks about diet plans and strategies for mastering new habits and willpower. Alternatively, what creates real change – including dropping an unwanted habit – is learning to pay attention to the ‘signal’ that is available to all of us. That signal is universal intelligence and it’s built into us and it’s also built into our unwanted habits themselves. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Looking in a different place for answers to things like an unwanted habit Paying less attention to the noise of our personal thinking Relying on universal intelligence, wisdom and insight to help us change Practising learning to listen to signal rather than noise How our unwanted habits are feedback about the noise we’re listening to Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Neil Book: It’s Not About The Food Q&A Episode 44 Transcript of Episode Hello explorers, and welcome to Q&A Episode 49 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today with some comments, a discussion, an exploration about the signals that we receive versus the noise that’s going on within us, and how that this can affect an overeating habit and resolving that habit and weight loss and all those yummy things. I’ve been thinking about change a lot lately in my personal life, and I do, of course, all the time. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about change, because I’ve been feeling a little bit stuck. I think I might talk about that in more detail on a future Q&A episode. But it’s just this feeling of having resolved sort of 98% of my overeating habit. And the residue that’s left the sticky stuff at the bottom of a cup when you’re having – I don’t drink coffee, but I think sometimes if you’re drinking coffee, the sort of the sludge at the bottom is thicker than what you’ve been drinking. That happens for me when I drink hot chocolate. So the chocolate at the bottom of the cup is always a little thicker than everything else. I’ve been contemplating that. And because of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to share on today’s episode. This came up during a conversation with Nikon Gormley, and he’s going to be on the show next week, February 7, I think, or 8th or whatever the Thursday is. And he brought up this metaphor that Michael Neill talks about, which is a metaphor for change. It’s a metaphor for what’s happening within us. It’s a metaphor for paying attention to the spiritual nature of ourselves, rather than just paying attention to our personal thinking, all that kind of thing. I wanted to talk about this because I think it’s really important to see the differentiation between what we’re looking toward in this understanding, the landscape where we are going to for answers, versus the landscape, the places that we’re used to going for answers. When I say that, what I mean is, we’re used to looking for answers to things like a ton of effort. We’re used to looking to create change with effort, and willpower, and structure the programs that we follow, and those sorts of things. In this Three Principles understanding where we’re looking for answers is really quite different than that. You’ve heard me talk about upstream and downstream. So this is the same sort of subject, it’s the same subject, essentially. And I’m going to use different words to describe what I talked about when I talk about upstream and downstream. I like the consistency, that pretty much all the metaphors we talked about in this understanding are always pointing to the same thing. And when it starts to come together for us, it’s it can seem so simple. And when it hasn’t kind of clicked yet, then it can seem a little bit complicated, but please rest assured that it isn’t. So we tend to think of change as requiring a lot of effort. And this, of course, comes up at the beginning of any year because people are talking about things like dry January, and developing new eating habits for the new year. And taking 90 days to change a habit and that kind of thing. What I see now is that change happens in a really different way than we, with our personal thinking, tend to think it does. That actually is really reassuring when we come to these places of stickiness of where we feel a little bit stuck, or it feels like there hasn’t been any change or movement in quite a lot of time. That’s what I’m feeling lately. I’m just dealing with this last stuck 2%. It feels like to me that that may not be the case, maybe it’s something different. But that’s what it feels like, to me, just in my personal experience at this moment. Let’s now talk about this signal versus noise metaphor. What Michael Neill means when he’s referring to more signal, less noise, that’s how he tends to phrase it, is that when we’re looking for change, and even when we’re looking for guidance, or help with making a decision, or anything like that, what we want to turn toward is the signal in our life, we want more signal. We want to pay less attention to the noise in our heads. And what those two things are, the signal is that Universal Intelligence that I always talk about. The innate wisdom that is within each of us, that is signal. It is clear and clean, and universally intelligent, just as the name implies, and there’s so much potential in it, and creativity. And it’s accessible to everybody all the time. And that’s where insight comes from. Insight comes to us via that signal. Noise, on the other hand, is our personal thinking. I’ve talked in previous episodes about how our personal thinking, our minds are like a closed loop system. Our minds know what they know. And there isn’t really any new information coming in from just our little personal minds, our personal thinking, anything new and creative, and unexpected. And all that good stuff is coming from Universal Intelligence, via insight. I’ve talked about how our personal thinking is more like artificial intelligence. There’s a lot of information there, I’m not denying that at all, a lot of information there. It’s limited in scope. The artificial intelligence only knows what we’ve fed it, the information that we’ve given it. And our personal thinking is a bit the same in that way that it only knows what it knows. And it only knows what it’s been taught and what it’s understood up to this point. Anything fresh, and new and unexpected, or creative is going to come from another place, it’s going to come from Universal Intelligence, and wisdom. Whatever word you want to use to describe that. We’re always going to have noise. There’s always going to be personal thinking that we’ve got, and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s how we are designed. And the challenge becomes learning to hear it, to hear the personal noise, of course, we’re going to be aware of it, but not listen to it, if you see the difference. In the past, for example, I would have listened to all that noise. And I’ll just give you an example that just occurs to me now. I’ve talked about how I think I talked about it in It’s Not About the Food, how I tried so many different systems and plans and self-help approaches for weight loss and for resolving an overeating habit that I ended up, over the years, circling back to ones that I had tried before and trying them again and failing at them again. So that’s an example of responding to the noise. I was innocently, innocently looking for a solution, of course, as we all are, to something that was causing me suffering. And because I didn’t know that I could access universal wisdom, Universal Intelligence, then the only place I could go was to the noisy place, to the place where my personal thinking would come up with new plans and new or old ideas for how to manage an overeating habit and control it. And really get it under wraps, and all that kind of stuff. I brought up my personal struggle at the moment, specifically, so that I could say that, at this time, while that struggle is going on, while I seem to be dealing with the sludge in the bottom of the cup, I’ve noticed how easy it is to get to get pulled away by my personal thinking, and for my personal thinking to imagine that it has the answers. And what I prefer to do, and what I’m learning to do more and more all the time, is instead, to listen to the signal. I want more signal less noise, when it comes to resolving the last little bit of this overeating habit. And that can be tricky to do, because our personal thinking is so loud and persuasive. And if we’re at the very beginning of this journey, like I was a few years ago, and we don’t have the experience of listening to the signal, and waiting for the signal to tell us to bring us insight, so that we have a higher or a shifted level of consciousness, when we’re not sure that that’s going to show up for us. And we haven’t yet experienced what it’s like to be able to trust that that’s there, then of course, it’s harder. It’s harder to trust it when we’re not practised at that. When you’re learning to swim, it’s sometimes can be hard to trust that the water will hold you up. But eventually, we all begin to realize that that’s the case. And it’s universally true. There isn’t anyone who couldn’t go into a body of water and float. It’s the same for every single person. And when we begin to see that and begin to trust that the signal is there, then that’s when we can we begin to see more change for sure. If I haven’t said this already, it can be easy, even now in my personal experience, to be pulled into the noise. What I’m doing at this time is just remembering that the signal is there, and that it will guide me out of this place. And that listening to the noise, paying attention being distracted, trying to dive into what would we call it the particulars of the overeating problem, like the particular bits of the habit that are that are torturing me right now. And trying to figure out how to fix those things, kind of manually, like making rules about not eating this kind of food on that kind of a day that kind of thing. That’s where the noise lies. That’s noise for sure. And and what we’re looking for is signal. One of the ways that we can do that, one of my favorite ways, is to remember that any kind of unwanted habit is information. It’s not a problem. It’s not something that’s broken about us. It’s not something that we need to fix about ourselves. It’s information. It’s feedback. That overeating habit itself is letting us know letting me know at this time that I’m paying too much attention to the noise or that there is noise there. There’s some noise, some personal thinking that’s going on that I’m paying attention to, and that I’m perhaps blind to that I can’t really see something that’s not true but that I believe is true. The habit itself is what alerts us to the fact that this is going on. It’s saying there’s a better way, there’s a calmer, quieter, more connected to source version of yourself. And if you manage to not get caught up in the noise, then that connection to Source will show you answers about what’s going on with you in the moment. And what that noise is specifically about like, it’s, it’s usually something like, at least this has been my experience. It’s usually something like unsupportive beliefs. Thinking that doesn’t serve us and of course, a belief is just a thought that we’ve thought a whole bunch of times. And it’s kind of been ground into our neural pathways. But there’s thinking there that isn’t serving us. And it isn’t one specific variety. Whatever it is for you, in any given time, is going to be different than what it is the next time or what it is for me at this moment. But that signal that you’re getting, that dashboard light, as some people put it, is the habit itself, your habit. Your unwanted habit is letting you know that you are listening to the noise, and that there’s an opportunity now to instead turn toward the signal. Back in Q&A episode 44 I talked about the iceberg metaphor, if you remember. The iceberg metaphor is that in this understanding, if you picture an iceberg in a body of water, what we’ve done in the past, what the noise has got us to do when it comes to changing an unwanted habit is climbing to the top of that iceberg, and chipping away with our ice pick and trying to change the iceberg that way. And that’s what the noise gets us to do. It gets us to take that kind of action, like I talked about at the very beginning of this episode. Whereas in this understanding, what we refer to is that if we raise the temperature of the water, the iceberg melts all on its own. So when I talk about raising the temperature of the water, what I’m talking about is listening for signal and having insights. And then the temperature of the water does rise and the iceberg melts all on its own. I’ve shared examples of this in my book, It’s Not About the Food, where I talk about my soda habit that fell away all by itself. I’ve had so many other habits like that just fall by the wayside and not even know nudge me or bother me anymore at all, without any effort on my part other than learning about this understanding and learning to listen for the signal instead of listening to the noise in my head. I was thinking about this the other day; I happened to be walking down the aisle in the grocery store with the potato chips and cookies and soda and all that kind of stuff. And I couldn’t remember the last time I had a craving for something like that. I used to have potato chips nearly every day. In the evening that was my evening snacky food and that just never happens anymore. I struggled with that for a long time, and then it just it just fell away. The more that I listened to people talk about this understanding, and the more that I grasped that we benefit so much from leaning toward connecting to universal wisdom, and Universal Intelligence and insight, and that, in that place, I wish it was a place I could actually physically point you to. But by paying attention to that, that is where change comes from. That’s the landscape that creates change. So what we’re doing in this understanding and on this podcast, is we’re exploring a way to have more signal in our lives and less noise. And I think that’s about all I have to say about that. I hope it makes sense. I hope it’s been helpful for you. If you’d like to hear more, or if you have a follow up question about this subject, you can go to AlexandraAmor.com/question. There’s a form you can fill out. And I will answer your question on a future episode. It can be anonymous. I would love to know, what trips you up. What doesn’t make sense about exploring this understanding? Where do you feel stuck in your exploration? Is there anything that that just isn’t resonating for you or isn’t quite making sense? And having that information for me is really helpful, because then I can answer that question. I can create an episode that answers that question. And because if you’ve got that question, no doubt more people do as well. So that’s it from me. I hope you’re doing well and I will talk to you again next time. Bye. Featured image photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash The post Q&A 49 – Noise Vs. Signal In Weight Loss appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Psychologist and author, Dr. Gail Brenner, shares about the healing power of being present and compassionate with whatever is going on within us. And how when we begin to recognize that there is no ‘out there’ in our lives – there is only our perception – that we begin to suffer less. Gail Brenner’s interest in suffering and the end of suffering is long standing. Like you, she just wanted to be happy. She put together a functional life of work and friends, but was continually plagued by anxiety, confusion, and relationship troubles. In her search for peace, she came across spiritual teachings about the nature of happiness. And she made some life-changing discoveries including that the more she became disinterested in thoughts—any thoughts—the happier she was. You can find Dr. Gail Brenner at GailBrenner.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 How meditation can teach us to be with our experience Having compassion for everything that arises within us How believing what the mind tells us can be a source of suffering Welcoming and relating to all the different parts of ourselves with out judging them How we can get stuck on the path of healing How happiness is our natural state How peace never leaves us, we simply place our attention on other things that we believe cause us suffering The feeling of separation that is at the root of trauma How there is no life ‘out there’; there is only what we perceive Resources Mentioned in this Episode Rumi poem: The Guest House Transcript of Interview with Dr. Gail Brenner Alexandra: Dr. Gail Brenner, welcome to Unbroken. Gail: Thank you. Very happy to be here. Alexandra: I’m happy to have you here. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you came to realize you didn’t need self-help? Gail: My background, how far back should I go? I’ll just start professionally. I’m a psychologist, and I’ve been a psychologist for a long time. It’s a profession that drew me many years ago. We heal ourselves as therapists or practitioners, and as much as we help other people. So I think that was part of my motivation early on. My training was pretty conventional. And then things started really moving and shifting and changing for me, when I started meditating. This was about a little over 20 years ago at this point. I had been in therapy myself for a very long time, and didn’t at this point, I can say, I didn’t get a lot of change from that, that I was looking for. So I kept looking. I had this spirit in me of like, well, there’s got to be something else out there to help with the way that I my version of suffering. I started meditating. And that really started changing everything, because of the way meditation teaches us to be with our experience. So to be aware of what’s arising in us; sensations, emotions, whatever it is. And when I first started meditating, I was shocked at how many different energies I found in my body and different emotions that I didn’t even know were there. And the fact that I was suffering started to make sense, like, oh, there’s a whole lot going on in here that I didn’t realize, and that is probably something I should pay attention to. That was the beginning of a spiritual path for me. So combining my psychology background with my interest in spirituality, really supported my quest to find happiness and discover how to be happy. And whereas happiness I knew it was possible, there was some spirit in me that no matter what happened, it, the flame didn’t go out. And then when I started realizing the possibility that maybe there was the possibility of not suffering so much, I was really on fire about that and wanted to know. I went to number of spiritual teachers and had different insights and realizations along the way. And led me to the point where it’s, it’s an ongoing path. Now it’s nothing’s finished. And there’s always something alive for me like right now, what’s alive, for me is just compassion for everything that arises in us, like every single nuance of our experience, and really turning toward that and welcoming that and loving that. You’re probably referring to the title of my book, The End of Self-Help. What I mean by that is, there’s no self here that needs help. It’s the title of your podcast, Unbroken. There’s nothing here that’s broken. There’s nothing that needs to be fixed. There’s just different energies and emotions and experiences arising and learning how to relate to all of those in a way that feels aligned and supports our essential wholeness. Alexandra: Thank you for that answer. One of the things that I was really struck with in The End of Self-Help, was you talk about having been on several spiritual retreats and your journey with psychology, and then it was a lunch, I think, with Rupert Spira that you had, where he pointed out well, what’s the consistent thing that’s there? So your feelings and your thoughts, our thoughts, change. What’s constant? And you realized it was this observer presence. Those are my words. So that was the consistent thing. Could you talk about that a little bit for us? Gail: Well, what he showed me is that it was really about time. And he was he pointed out how it takes time to suffer. These are my words, not exactly his. But it takes time to have stories, it’s takes time to have a personal identity. There’s a past, present and a future and now and then, and even to say this statement, I am unworthy, or, I feel inadequate, to have language takes time. So if we believe anything that the mind tells us, because the mind is only exists in time, then that can be the source of our suffering. And when there’s the realization that time is not ultimately real, there’s a certain reality to it, but it’s not the ultimate reality. Everything just collapses and into this infinite presence. And it’s not capable of suffering at that point. Alexandra: Related to that, there’s this quote that I love from the book that says: “When you know, you are presence, the simplicity of being aware, rather than the complexity and confusion of what you’re aware of problems lose their impact.” I just love that. I wonder if you could expand on that a little bit for us? Gail: When we go into the mind and believe the stories that are there. When we look at our histories, or we want a better future, there’s a limited personal identity that’s at the center of that that thinks that there’s something missing. And that that’s a myth. I’ve come to discover that there’s nothing missing. But if there’s a felt sense that there’s something missing, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, that can be a beautiful inspiration for a deeper inner investigation of knowing. This happened to me a lot; teachers would say something to me like, well, there is a possibility for an end of suffering. And I didn’t know that in my own experience. So that made me curious, oh, well, they know that. And somehow, I believed that. It made me look at my own experience, and keep coming back and coming back and coming back, because that’s what we need to do. We need to look within and not wait for the insight or go to the right teacher or read the right book or whatever. It’s an ongoing, endless, really beautiful investigation of what’s here, what’s true, what’s real, and getting a deeper understanding around that. Alexandra: I like hearing that you say it’s ongoing, that there is no bottom to it. And so obviously, you’re still discovering things. Is that true? Gail: Very much. Alexandra: There’s no destination that we should be aiming for. Gail: There isn’t. And it’s the opposite of a destination because we think a destination is out there or in the future. Or if only this, or if only that, if only I got it, if only I knew what he knows. Then if there’s an if then then there’s time. And then there’s a projection into the future. And what that means is there’s something missing here and now. And if there’s something built to be missing here, and now there’s something to be investigated. Alexandra: If any of our listeners are self-help junkies, like I was, how do you suggest that we take the first few steps of getting off that roundabout, as I’m calling it. Thinking that there are things that are wrong that we need to fix? Gail: It’s a journey. There’s nothing wrong with self-help and an interest in that, and if it helps, which I think in some ways it can. Some of it can help some people some of the time, and that’s wonderful. But if there’s a keep looking, keep looking, keep looking and not finding then there’s something else that’s needed in that. If you keep doing the same thing over and over and it’s not really getting you what you desire, what your heart is wishing for and speaking to you, then there’s something else to be done. And that something else is to look inward to recognize that that need for self-help is based on a sense of brokenness, or inadequacy. What we really talk about here is a complete 180 on that. There’s nothing wrong with any part that arises, any emotion, any anything, and discovering how to relate to those different parts. But I’m really hearing your question like, how do you inspire people to get off the path of self-help? I think these journeys happen in their own time in their own way. And the questioning, always inquiring not taking anything for granted, not leaving one stone unturned. So, for example, when someone says to me, I’m depressed, I don’t take that at face value. To me, that’s the beginning. I’m getting super curious about what is actually happening in their experience that they’re labeling as depression, because depression isn’t direct experience. Depression is a word that we have some commonality in what it means. But it’s a label for something. So we need to know very specifically what is arising here now. Alexandra: Do you think at different times, in a person’s life, a word like depression can mean different things? Gail: Yes, absolutely. I’m not sure if people know what it means, which is that’s the curiosity about it. Like, what is it that and these words get thrown around, and they’re common in our culture? And, so if we get if we really come down to the present moment, if just like what is happening right here, right now, turning the attention into that. The turn from our minds into our bodies is helpful and our direct experience, like what is actually happening now. And then we find there’s a contraction in the chest or there’s a fluttery feeling in the belly, or there’s a story running over and over and over in a loop that you didn’t even realize was there. And then then we can start opening up learning how to be with those different experiences that we notice. Alexandra: Do you see an intelligence and in that? Gail: Yes, absolutely. There’s sometimes we need guidance, I think for lots of people it’s not a path we can go alone. My offering weaves together this path of awakening and understanding the truth about reality, with the investigation into early trauma patterns, which I find fascinating. And by early trauma patterns, I mean, what happened to us when we were young, in our families that didn’t get resolved, those very sticky places, and how we bring them into adulthood, and we take them to be our identity, when they’re actually not because there are a limited identity. And looking at that, from the perspective of wondering like, who am I what is the truth of by being? What is the truth about reality in the here and now? And to do that we need to untangle those early trauma patterns, those places, tender places in us where we’ve been stuck for a long time. Alexandra: This is one of the things I wanted to ask you about, because I know you have an interest in this and I saw several blog posts on your website. You’re saying that trauma can live in our bodies. What happens when we begin to in investigate that or be present with it? Gail: So what happens when we begin to investigate it, we start to become aware of the actual pattern and even pattern is a vague word. So I’m interested in the body, the attention and attunement into the body is super useful. And I would think important in this investigation, what’s happening in the body, what young parts are being activated? What emotions are present, what are the stories and beliefs and expectations that are running? The starting place might be suffering here and now in our daily lives. Like if there’s a struggle in a relationship, or, in general, people have struggles with relationships, which was the case for me, a long time ago, I just had trouble with all relationships. And so the questioning is then like, Oh, what am I bringing into that situation? What is arising in me? And then that’s the beginning. What are the feelings that I feel? What’s the urge? What are the tendencies that I’m bringing in, and then bringing that back inside, into our own experience to understand like, oh, that happened because of whatever was going on in my family when I was three, or five or even earlier than that. And we get an understanding of why these patterns are here in us. Then we begin to be able to turn toward them with kindness and care and love and unconditional, welcoming and acceptance. And that begins to soften them. So if we’re caught in a some kind of condition pattern, it’s like we’re in love one lane going back and forth, back and forth, for, you know, decades, many of us. And so what we do is bring our attention there and begin to have a great and bring everything together. Because there’s division there, there’s separation, like, oh, there’s a feeling I had to submerge many years ago, and I can’t bring that out into the light, it’s too scary or unsafe. But we bring about a sense of safety so that we can investigate those deep inner parts, the long-standing patterns and feelings that we have. And with that sense of safety and holding and loving, which is what we always wanted anyway, and maybe didn’t get as much as we needed. There’s a softening that happens. And when there’s a softening, they’re not so much in charge, and then there’s more space, and then we have more options. And then we can be more present. And then we get to look at things in a fresh way, rather than with that veil that’s been over our eyes, maybe for decades. That’s how this focus and investigation on our early patterns that developed how that plays a very usual a common role in how people get stuck on this path of awakening, but also where the freedom can be there. Alexandra: Oh, say more about that. That’s curious for me, how people get stuck on the path. Gail: If these patterns are unknown to us, I always tell people become an expert in how you suffer. Really get to know what it is that happens in here. Why? So that you can see it. That’s one reason so that you can, if you’re completely absorbed into some kind of pattern, like say, you’re a people pleaser, and your attention is out there. And all you’re doing is pleasing, pleasing, pleasing, there’s no space to learn how to be with yourself. So we slow things down, and we turn inward. We take the time to do this very sometimes subtle and precise investigation about what’s happening in the body and what young parts have been activated and all of what’s arising in the present moment, and turning toward those parts with our loving attention and then that creates the space for something new or a new way of being. Alexandra: There’s an exercise, talking about the flip side of this, that you mentioned in The End of Self-Help about thinking of something that brings us joy, and then dropping our focus on the thing and just feeling the joy. Can you tell our listeners about that? Gail: We often, in a common way of being, we want to seek out something to give us joy, or fulfillment or satisfaction. And there’s an ‘if only’ mindset around that; if only I had that thing, that good relationship, that promotion, whatever it is, then I will feel happy or joyful. But happiness is our natural state, actually, when we stop the looking outward for it, assuming that we don’t have it. And we start to bring our attention in toward our experience. And then we notice what’s there, and we’re lovingly, with all the different parts, being with all of those parts. And then we look beyond that even to what’s outside of all forms. There’s a field, an energetic field, of aliveness. And we can learn to recognize that it’s always here and always has been here, but it’s just been covered over by our attachment to positive states or finding and not finding the end of our suffering out there. But we look deeper than the emotions, deeper than our personalities. And we go into the bare bones of the present moment and open to the energetic field that’s here. And as everything falls away, and this is what I was describing, time just collapses, we’re just here and alive and aware, and there’s a tremendous feeling of well-being that comes there. That’s possible for all of us to discover, at any point in time. It’s not for special people. It’s not special, it’s the nature of how things are all the time. So, there’s always the possibility of discovering that, that happiness or we can use different words of peace or ease or well-being or a sense of fulfillment of not missing something, sometimes it comes as stillness or quiet. This is our, our natural state from which everything arises. Alexandra: Do you have a practice yourself about touching that space daily? Gail: I have many practices. I love practices, and I actually feel that practices or some kind of regularity or intention along this path is helpful, I even want to say necessary. Very few people have a lot of insights or go further with their desires without a commitment to it. And it’s a hard commitment. And we can put out a prayer for it, but not just a prayer, there has to be action behind it. I love practices. I love practices around understanding our trauma patterns. Really, for me, the main one is meditation; just getting quiet and opening and being and then just knowing that and having that be a very familiar, known place, even though it’s fresh, always it’s still the capacity, that we have to find that over and over and over. And then the possibility of bringing that knowing into our daily lives, which I find fascinating. When somebody cuts me off in traffic or something disappointing happens, then all of a sudden, we’ve left that peace and happiness, but it hasn’t gone anywhere. Our attention has just moved onto something else that we believe to be the source of our suffering in that moment. So how to work with that to release our attachment to the objects and the thoughts the expectations the emotions they need. And coming back winding it back to the stillness that’s always here. The fulfilled infinite empty energy of life, resting here, then we know it as the source of peace. Alexandra: You mentioned meditation as practice. If someone doesn’t have an affinity for meditation or has tried it and it didn’t work, is there something else another a different kind of practice they could try? Gail: There’s a lot of things. First of all, if someone’s having trouble meditating or can’t or whatever, a guided meditation. Choose that and maybe start one minute a day, because for some people it’s just really, really hard to sit still and be. Start small, that would be one thing. Another is a practice of attention into the body, which I love, which is just sitting and paying attention to, you could do it as a scan or as whatever sensations are prominent and appearing. But just getting curious about sensation. And that in and of itself is a huge practice in presence. Because we get to notice more and more the subtle sensations. Ssome people aren’t very comfortable by their habit of being of paying attention to the body. So we can start by just putting the fingertips together and feeling the pressure there. And just getting curious like closing your eyes like, Oh, what is that? So we close our eyes, we take away the fingers and the forms that are in front of us. And we just feel the sensation there. And just like, oh, just getting curious, what is that? What is that like? Putting our attention right on that sensation. And getting intimate with it and knowing it and making space for it to do whatever it wants to do expand or contract or dissolve or whatever, it doesn’t matter. But opening our attention into sensations in the body or energies. Some people feel frozenness or a sense of numbness in a body that it’s hard to access. But even that can be a fascinating experience to turn toward and get curious about. Alexandra: You mentioned guided meditations there at the top. And you have quite a few on your website. Am I right about that? Gail: Yes, I have some meditations. Alexandra: We’ll mention your website address at the end of the show. But yeah, if people are looking for something, they can definitely find them at your website. I should have asked this question earlier when we were talking about trauma. But we you mentioned in again, in The End of Self-Help about the feeling of separation, that is at the root of trauma. Could you expand on that and share with our listeners about what you mean by that? Gail: At a feeling level, I think we all kind of know what that means. We just feel separate from the world from life. We’re in our heads trying to figure things out. Say you have a conflict in a relationship, blaming the other person or, we’re in our head. And there’s not a sense of unity there. There’s a sense of a me and the other person, a me and even separate from other parts of myself, there are parts of myself that are too shameful to go toward or too, too difficult, too challenging. I don’t know how to feel the feelings that I know are buried in me somehow. And there’s that fragmentation. There’s a sense of different energies and ideas and parts and emotions. It feels chaotic and sometimes challenging for us to be with. And when isn’t a sense of separation, when that’s been healed, or we realize the wholeness that is the essence of who we are. There’s a sense of well-being there’s always in a little kind of anxiety or discomfort in set and separation, that something isn’t right. There’s something wrong with me. There’s something wrong with the world, there’s something wrong with life. And then we go into our heads trying to figure it out. But when we can give our attention to that separation, we can get really interesting, especially in the body like, Okay, I don’t feel comfortable in myself or my life. Why is that? And go in and discover what is it in our bodies or maybe our emotions that’s bringing about that sense of dis-ease and bringing our attention to that so that we can see what that really is which is just a sensation arising in awareness. Alexandra: It strikes me that that sense of separation could almost be described as an absence of love or compassion. Would you agree with that? Gail: Yeah, I would agree with that actually. Alexandra: I think of traumatic experiences in my childhood. And that feels like the root of the whole thing; that I felt there was an absence of love, or connection, I guess, compassion. Gail: Split off. That’s a really good example, just to be very concrete. Say that something upsetting happens to you, as a five year old, and there isn’t the environment. And this is not in any way to judge parents, because they’re always doing their best. I encourage people to really get that as much as they can, because the blame just keeps the victimization going. When we stop blaming, then we can soften and start to look at like, oh, compassion for the other, eventually, but also compassion for ourselves, we were just in a difficult situation. Say that something upsetting happens. And we don’t get the attention to the emotions that we need and the care and the support. And the knowing that it’s okay to feel that way. And it’s okay to express an emotion if we don’t get that. Especially chronically over and over and over for some of us for years, what do we do with that emotion, it gets stuck in the body, it can’t get resolved and freed up. So it gets stuck in the body, and we feel tense in our bellies, and then we push it away. And we try to make sense of it. But we can’t, because we’re not looking at the full picture of it. We don’t have the skills to do that. And we don’t have the safety, which is another key factor, it doesn’t feel safe for us to be ourselves with our own experience. And we’re going to split something off. And that’s the sense of separation that we can’t open to and include everything because it just feels too difficult. And then it becomes a habit. And then we build strategies around that of avoidance or being outside of ourselves and high achieving. Lots of strategies that we can create in our lives. And then, that the source of all of that is that sense of having split off something so that we can’t feel whole. And then of course, the medicine is to bring all the parts the energies welcome it all. And this takes time. It’s not like magic, like I just welcome everything. No, because some of these parts are very shocked and traumatized and scared to come out into the open. We just take the time, little by little to create this safe space for these cut off parts to come back into awareness. Alexandra: Makes me think of that Rumi poem about welcoming every visitor. Gail: The Guest House. Alexandra: Yes. I love that. One of the final things I want to ask you is how is our experience of life a projection of our inner state? Gail: There’s actually no life out there. There’s only what we perceive. So if our perception is veiled by negativity, low self-esteem, fear, a sense of lack, that something’s missing. That’s how we see the world. So and that’s how we can I want to say miss-perceive situations. We assume that someone did something because they don’t like us. Somebody didn’t call you and they said they would. And then if you’re behind that veil of unworthiness, you might conclude, oh, that’s because that person doesn’t like me, or they weren’t thinking about me or they don’t pay attention to me. When the reality is if we take away all the veils, they were busy, whatever was going on in that other person’s world, but we project what’s here in ourselves. So if we are believing that the world is unsafe, that other people aren’t going to be there for us that we fail. This is the energy that we show up in situations in our life with. And this is what we project out onto whatever is happening. So the world is a projection of our inner state. But if our inner state is clear, if it’s open, if there’s not attachment to the suffering, if there’s the sense of wholeness and not the sense of separation, then we’re way more set up to see through the eyes of love, and not fear, love, and not separation, love and not lack. And we can we have compassion, and we see things tenderly, we just melt. That’s another practice I like. Go into a busy place a cafe or something and just see things, everything you’re seeing through the eyes of love. And just get curious, like, how is that to see without the veil of separation? Very illuminating. Alexandra: As we’re starting to wind up today, when it comes to The End of Self-Help, and the end of suffering, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you would like to share with our listeners? Gail: The biggest support is to be very kind with yourself during the process. So if you’re struggling to get an insight, or struggling to feel better, and skip over suffering, which is normal, and I have compassion for that we all want to, none of us really wants to suffer. There’s this human tendency to want to skip over the hard places in us. But what this path really asks of us is that a growing capacity in ourselves like more and more expansion into the possibility of including everything, which means the really hard places, the tender places, the rejection, the abandonment, the fears, the terror, the rage, all of it. And little by little, like letting that come in. I want to add in a way that that feels doable. So we don’t want to overwhelm ourselves, either. I’m a big fan of doing this kind of work, of inner investigation, in a group setting that’s led by a leader that has a sense of how to be with these kinds of practices and paths. And we can’t do it alone. Actually, there’s a saying that trauma happens in relationship. And it happens, because we’ve had inadequacies, let’s say in our relationships, and it heals in safe relationship. So we don’t really know how to bring a sense of safety to ourselves, which is what we need, ultimately. And we can do it, it just takes some time to learn it and get the experience with being a safe anchor for ourselves. It helps to get the exposure and experience in a group or with other people who can offer that safe space. I want to emphasize kindness to ourselves, and the willingness to stay with it. And trusting yourself. So a lot of us in when we have struggles we learn not to trust ourselves and not to trust life, and it just doesn’t feel very good to be in life with that mistrust. And to find spaces, people where you can begin to trust again, because that trust is our natural state, actually. Alexandra: Thank you for all of that. Gail, where can we find out more about you and your work? Gail: My website. GailBrenner.com. And there’s a lot of content on there; blog posts and interviews and guided meditations. There’s different tabs; an audio tab for the meditations and there’s some video on there as well. I do pretty much weekly groups, so and they’re open for everybody, everybody’s welcome to come. So you can find out about them there or sign up for my newsletter and I send out an article every week because I like to write and I hope it’s a support for people. Alexandra: Great. I will put links in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com for that. Thank you again for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Gail: Thank you I appreciate you inviting me. Kindness is my message. Alexandra: That really shines through. Thank you. Take care. Gail: Thank you. Bye. Featured image photo by Cristian Negraia on Unsplash The post The End of Self-Help with Gail Brenner appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

In this excerpt from It’s Not About the Food I share a story about the surprising thing I learned at an Equus training and how it impacts the drive to overeat. Learn more about the book here. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Transcript of this episode It is early autumn 2014 and I’m standing in a covered outdoor riding arena. Beyond the open walls I can see the California sunshine warming the desert landscape. Here inside, it’s a bit chilly in the early morning, and I’m wishing I’d worn a light jacket.
 The arena is huge, probably nearly the length of a football field and almost as wide. The ground is covered in brown dirt, and where the sun comes past the walls into the building, I can see dust motes floating in the beams. Within the larger arena, there’s a temporary round pen that’s about 40 feet in diameter. I’m inside that pen and I’m not alone. With me is a brown and white horse, whose name I didn’t catch, and we’re going to spend the next few minutes bonding. 
I’m here at ‘horsey camp,’ as I call it, in my latest attempt to try to heal the drive to overeat. I’ve flown from Vancouver, British Columbia, to very Southern California and spent money I don’t have in order to spend two days doing what’s called Equus training.
 I love horses and grew up around them. My dad started me taking riding lessons when I was about four years old. So this is a comfortable and happy place for me. However, we’re not doing any riding this weekend. I and the other ten or so women in the class will all be doing our work from the ground. Which is why I’m standing in the round pen with a paint horse.
 Over the next two days, we all take turns in the round pen with a variety of horses. The premise of the training is that we’re going to learn about ourselves by being in the pen with a horse, both by seeing how we react to different situations and also by seeing how the horses react to us. Horses are highly intuitive and sensitive creatures. Though they are large, they are prey animals, not predators, so they’ve evolved to be keenly sensitive to their environments and to changes in the energy around them. As such, they give immediate feedback about a person’s state of being, often pointing out patterns of behavior that we aren’t aware of.
 The objective of the first exercise we do is to get the horse to trot, or canter, around the outside edge of the round pen. Individual trainees like me stand in the very center of the pen and encourage the horse to move without shouting or running at it. You might have a coiled lead rope in one hand that you can gently slap against your leg, but that’s all the guidance you can give to the large animal looking at you with wary eyes. You’re essentially moving the horse with your energy. Letting it know what you want it to do by holding the intention in your mind and being clear and calm. (We’ll get to why calmness matters in a minute.) 
I’ve traveled to this foreign land, crossed an international boundary, rented a car, and booked a hotel with the hope that this silent, brown and white animal with pointy ears and a soft muzzle will show me what’s wrong with me. I want to know why I feel so broken inside and why, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to conquer the drive to overeat.
 The horse and I look at one another for a few moments while I receive instruction from the workshop trainer. Outside the round pen, my fellow workshop participants are watching, which is really uncomfortable for me. I hate being the center of attention.
 The workshop leader, Jill (not her real name), lets me know I can start anytime. I picture in my mind what I want to happen, gently flap the lead rope against my jeans, and make a clucking sound with my tongue. The horse starts to move, trotting counterclockwise around the pen.
 After a few moments, Jill says, “Get her to canter,” so I hold that intention in my mind and, miraculously, the horse starts to canter.
 I can feel the connection between me and the horse. My self-consciousness about being watched disappears and my attention is entirely focused on the present moment, here, in this round pen with this brown and white horse.
 “Now make her turn around so she’s going in the other direction,” Jill says.
 I keep my energy at the center of myself (I’m not sure how else to describe this), step ever so slightly to my left, and imagine the horse turning around and running in the other direction.
 And it does.
 I’m elated.
 “Now slow her down.” 
I calm my energy down, sort of like pulling a blind down over a sunny window, and the horse slows down from its canter to a trot, then a walk.
 “Excellent,” Jill says. “How was that for you?” 
I turn my back on the horse and look through the bars of the round pen at Jill and the others who are standing in the dirt outside it. I can hear the horse coming up behind me and eventually it comes to stand beside my right shoulder as I describe what the experience was like for me. I turn slightly and place my hand on the horse’s withers while I speak. Someone in the group takes a photo of me and the paint horse, and to this day, I have that image pinned to my fridge.
 As I said, I grew up around horses, but this experience was entirely different than saddling and unsaddling, walking, trotting, and cantering (heels down!), and jumping over little rails. There was more connection between me and that brown and white gelding in those 20 minutes than there had ever been with any of the horses I’d ridden as a child and teenager.
 And yet, I leave the weekend disappointed.
 I get to spend a couple more sessions in the round pen with different horses over the course of the weekend and each time it is as effortless and powerful as the first time. Others in the group have different experiences, and several have big, cathartic moments that are akin to a breakthrough in therapy, except they do it standing on a dirt floor and sobbing into the neck of a doe-eyed gelding or mare. I don’t experience this. I don’t come any closer to understanding why I feel the drive to overeat, and I leave the weekend grateful for the experience but very sad. I had wanted to be fixed. Surely spending all that money and traveling all that way would have resulted in some sort of healing awareness. But it didn’t. 
I do learn one thing, though, that sticks with me from then on, and it is this. Every wild horse herd has a lead mare. It is her responsibility to guide the herd to good grazing areas and to sources of water. She will also alert the herd to signs of danger. And the most interesting thing about a lead mare is that she is not necessarily the toughest animal in the herd; she’s not necessarily the strongest, fastest, or biggest. She’s the calmest.
 Now, if you’re an equine biologist you might dispute the veracity of this claim, but I love this as a metaphor. It points to the idea that being calm serves us.
 This little nugget of information stays with me in the years leading away from that workshop, popping into my head every once in a while. And once I discover the inside-out understanding, I will see how it is a helpful metaphor for our human experience and for healing the drive to overeat.
 Featured image photo by Daniel Krueger on Unsplash The post Q&A 48 – What does being calm have to do with weight-loss? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When coach, speaker and author Jack Pransky first heard about the changes happening in the community of Modello, Florida, he knew he had to find out more. Pretty quickly he ended up writing a book about Roger Mills’ work using the Three Principles in that community, which was radically changing lives. Since then he’s written several books about the understanding, including its history, and he continues to be passionate about sharing its simplicity and impact. Dr. Jack Pransky is a Three Principles Author, Trainer and Practitioner: a Coach of Coaches and a Counselor of Counselors. Jack is a national and international consultant, speaker, and author who has worked in the field of prevention and community organizing since 1968. You can find Jack Pransky at InsideOutUnderstanding.com and on Facebook at Jack Pransky. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Jack’s book Modello about a housing project near Miami and its turnaround via the Three Principles The challenge of changing minds in the world of prevention and traditional outside-in psychology How using our intellect to get through life isn’t as easy as relying on our innate wisdom How we can only think ourselves away from wisdom On consciousness as its role in making our thinking look vividly real Transcript of Interview with Jack Pransky Alexandra: Jack Pransky, welcome to Unbroken. Jack: I’m very happy to be here. Alexandra: So nice to meet you. Jack: Nice to meet you too. It’s a pleasure. Alexandra: Thank you. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you became interested in the Three Principles. Jack: So many people have heard this story that I have a hard time recreating. I was involved in the field of prevention for many, many years; prevention of problem behaviors, alcohol and drug abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, delinquency, or things like that. I got to the point where I sort of knew what I was doing. And, decided to write a book about it, called Prevention, The Critical Need. Just before that book was about to go to press, I was invited to a Prevention Conference. Roger Mills was speaking. And I was suspicious, because I just spent three years of my life trying to find out what worked, and I’d never heard of this guy. But when he brought a couple of people with him from the housing project that he worked in, he was talking about how the housing projects, which is a horrible place, had gotten completely turned around. I could tell from listening to these people that their lives would never be the same, like something deeply had happened with them that we were not used to seeing and prevention. So that’s what got me hooked. I ended up asking Roger Mills if I could write a book about happened in Modello. And so I did that. And then I had to find the source. And the source was Syd Banks. And the rest is history. Alexandra: As they say. Well, that was one of my questions. Tell us a bit more about that book and about the community of Modello. Jack: Modello was known to be one of the most difficult places near Miami, Florida. It was really kind of a horrible community to have to live in. Because there was violence everywhere. Drug gangs were in every corner. There were shootings, tremendous domestic violence, tremendous abusing kids, crack addiction, it was just horrible. Roger Mills, thought this would be the place to test out whether Syd Banks’ ideas, what he had uncovered, would work in a place of that magnitude, as opposed to the individual people who were hovering around him at the time. And so he went in there, armed with only his knowledge and understanding of the Three Principles. It might not have even been called Three Principles then. And hope, and being able to see through the presenting behavior to the core of health and beauty inside people. He also never gave up, even though a lot of them wanted him out of there and did everything they could to get him out of there. A few people at first started catching on. And then they got together as a as a group that served as both a kind of like a parenting course and PTA and also doubled as a tenant’s counsel for the area. Little by little people started catching on more, and even though maybe 10 or 12 people really caught on to it, and their lives changed completely. It had a ripple effect throughout the whole rest of the housing project and the whole housing project changed. And it took two and a half years. Alexandra: When you wrote the book about this experience, so you mentioned that you wanted to get back to the source of where this idea had come from. Did you at that point track down Sydney Banks and talk to him? Jack: I did. I heard that my cousin George Pransky was doing a seminar with him in Vancouver. And I was supposed to be doing a prevention training in Atlanta, I believe. They were paying for me to get to Atlanta and back. So I bargained with them to ship me over to Vancouver and back. At that time, staying over Saturday night made it much, much cheaper. And so I bumped into Syd Banks. At that time, at first he said he couldn’t see me and couldn’t talk because he had people coming in from all over the world. But then somehow, I ended up at a lunch with him and bunch of other people. And that’s where he literally blew my mind apart. I wrote that story up in Seduced by Consciousness. It’s an amazing story to me. But that’s only because what happened to be is indescribable, so it’s in my head, my own head. Alexandra: You mentioned your work in prevention. So this must have affected that tremendously. Jack: I tried to then convince the field of prevention that going in the Inside Out direction was more efficacious than going outside in. And I was basically met with deaf ears. I mean, some people caught on, and that was beautiful. And their lives were changed. And they were able to help others even better. But as far as the entire field goes, No. Because at that time, interestingly, this whole notion of what first was called research, proven programs, and then was called evidence-based programs and came in and so they started only paying attention to the program’s prevention programs that had a lot of research behind them, that showed that they were good, and they put all of their money into that. There was no room for innovation. Anyone in the Three Principles world or health realization, as it was called, at the time, didn’t have big money for research. All the little research that we did was showing great effects, but we couldn’t show it on like a peer reviewed kind of level that we can do today. Alexandra: Wow. And did it end up changing the field of prevention? Jack: No. Alexandra: Oh, still to this day. Jack: To this day. I’m not totally giving up on it. But it’s harder to do from a retired or semi-retired perspective. Alexandra: Yeah, I imagine. Jack: I am apparently doing a keynote speech for the New Zealand and Australian Mental Health Association in May, and talking to a bunch of traditional psychologists. And we’ll see how that goes. Alexandra: Oh nice. Have you been to Australia before? Jack: I did a keynote for their organization, many, many years ago when I was first getting into the principles, but I was doing it on prevention at the time, but didn’t know enough about the three principles then to speak with it with great authority. Alexandra: One of the things I wanted to talk to you about today was you had mentioned in a blog post recently about the wisdom of waiting for clarity, and especially in a crisis. And this is one of the first things that I really learned from the Three Principles. And it may have been from your, your book, actually, that where I first saw that mentioned just that. There’s no need to rush into making a decision that waiting for clarity is such a valuable tool. I’d love for you to talk about that a little bit. Jack: Well, first of all, if it’s really an emergency, and you have to do something right away, then you have to do something right away. You do whatever you can do in that situation right away. But more often than not, we tend to react to crises and emergencies through our typical knee jerk reaction kind of thinking. And if we do that, it’s not going to come out that way. Our wisdom is embedded in us, in our spiritual essence. And we can only hear it when our mind quiets, and clears. It’s always speaking to us. But we can only hear when our mind quiets or clears. And that’s what we want to be guided by in life, with crises or pretty much anything. When I learned to do that, instead of plowing ahead with my typical thinking, it really changed everything. Now I really take a step back, wait for my mind to clear. It doesn’t always happen right away. And I know that when I hear wisdom, speak to me, it has a like a knowing and a certainty about it. That feel that sounds different, and it feels different. And so that’s what I am guided by. And that’s what I hope to be got. Alexandra: Me too. I noticed when I was first learning about this understanding, because preparing the questions for you, I was sort of reflecting on this. And when I was first exploring this understanding, I noticed that if I was in a situation, and I felt like I had two choices, and neither of them felt quite right, and I hadn’t had that moment of clarity, I would get impatient after a day or two, and I would just pick one, and carry on that way. Inevitably, it wouldn’t work out as well. I learned that sometimes clarity takes a minute to arrive. And there was never any pressure. I wasn’t in an emergency situation. I just had to learn to wait for that feeling. As you say, it’s a very specific feeling when the right answer comes along with clarity. Jack: It also doesn’t always sound logical. The wise thing to do doesn’t always sound logical. Sometimes it sounds really weird. And I’ve learned to trust it anyway. It’s hard at first. Alexandra: I was so used to trusting my brain. And I still slip up sometimes. And that’s okay. It was a new muscle that I had to develop. Jack: It’s actually not even a new muscle. It’s like a releasing of all muscle. The wisdom can come up to us, through or through us, from God knows where. Alexandra: The first book that I read of yours was Somebody Should Have Told Us. That book introduced me to the idea of not thinking our way out of problems, which was really new to me, and a little disorienting at first. Can you talk about not thinking our way out of problems? Jack: Well, in a way, it’s just what we were just talking about, because we all have intellects some are stronger than others. And for the most part, we have tried to use our intellect to get through life. And it hasn’t always worked because the place of wisdom and insight comes from a completely different realm. It’s something that really does come through us and not is manufactured by us. But the intellect is kind of manufactured by us. With wisdom, we’re releasing all the stuff that we know. And we go into I don’t know mode. And I don’t know mode is a really beautiful because it clears the decks. And it allows for things to bump up to us, to come into us. And it’s such a beautiful thing when that happens. I was talking to, I think I put this in Seduced by Consciousness, I was talking to a medical doctor one time, doing some coaching with him. He applies his intellect, to everything. And so I said to him, if somebody comes to you, and you’ve gone through all your intellect, and something isn’t quite right, and you don’t know what it is, do you bear down and apply your intellect more? Or do you take a step back? And wait for clarity. He said, I take a step back, and I wait for clarity. Now, he was not doing it with his primary relationship at home. So I said, Well, if it works there, why wouldn’t it work there. But he couldn’t, perhaps, couldn’t handle that idea, for some reason. Because he had different thinking about what a relationship with dealing with the relationship was like, and what dealing with at work, medical practice was slow. So, that was a very interesting conversation. I’ll never forget it. Alexandra: Is there anything you could say more about when we’re learning to trust this wisdom that already exists within us? Anything you can point people toward about that? Jack: Well, yeah, what’s worked for them? In the past, they didn’t know what was going on. In my trainings, I used to ask people all the time, what are you doing when you get your best ideas? People would come up with things like taking a walk, which is before I’m going to sleep, just when I’m waking up, when I’m in the shower, doing the dishes. The common denominator and all of those things is the mind relaxes. That’s what we want to happen if we want to really see our way through things, we want our mind to relax. And the tendency is to do the opposite. The tendency is to bear down so that we can get it right because sometimes stepping back and waiting for clarity feels too passive or something. But it really isn’t. We could bear down and really make something happened. But as you described at the beginning, it doesn’t always work out. Alexandra: So many big decisions in my life, I find every time I’ve gotten 10 miles down a road and then realized I didn’t want to be on that road it was because I forced a decision and didn’t wait for clarity. Every time. Jack: And the other part of what is built into our spiritual essence, is pure peace, and pure love. And that’s what exists or resides in everyone. Even people, like the people in Modello who were having all of those horrible problems, everyone. And when we can first see that, well first find ourselves, then see that and other people and then help people see that in themselves. That’s what really makes a difference. And to know that we can only think our way away from it. That’s the most humbling thing to me of all. We’ve got all this beautiful stuff inside us, which is there already. We’re looking for it, but it’s there already. And yet, we can only get in our own way. There’s nothing about the three principles that is more amazing to me and humbling than that. And when people catch on to that their lives change. Alexandra: That’s so great. We touched on prevention earlier in your work, both before and after you found discovered the Three Principles. What is the spirituality of prevention? Jack: Well, the spirituality of prevention was something I actually got into before I found the Three Principles. Very few people in the prevention field were looking in that direction. But I was on a spiritual search before I bumped into the Three Principles which then screeched to a halt. Before that I was going all over the place. I was reading all kinds of spiritual books, I was listening to spiritual talks. And I was trying to grasp what about those things could be applied to the prevention field. And so that’s what spirituality prevention was about, essentially. There were practices like meditation, and yoga, and all those kinds of things. And it was all over the place. And myself and a couple of partners of mine, we had formed a group called prevention unlimited. And we put on the first spirituality of prevention conference in the in the country. And that was right about the time when I was starting to first get into the Three Principles. I gave a workshop there on that, on that day, and now, I really see the principles as the only real way to get a grasp on spirituality and prevention. I may be prejudiced, but it really has worked for me. I’ve seen so many lives change as a result that most people who work in prevention don’t see. And so you couldn’t knock me off the step. Alexandra: And so often, when it comes to things like addiction, people are talking about recovery. With prevention, what sort of communities or groups or you’re dealing with people who are vulnerable to those kinds of things? Jack: Anybody really, but particularly communities that what we used to do in outside in prevention, is you we would we would give people information. We would teach skills, we would build supports, we would create healthy environments, in the hope that those things would help people’s minds to change and they and they would experience healthy self-perceptions. Which would in turn help people have a sense of health and well-being about themselves. And that was, that was the idea. Prevention from the inside out, changes that completely around. It starts with the premise, as I was saying before, that we all have health and well-being inside us already. It’s just covered up with by our own thinking, and when we can point people in that direction, then they start to see that in themselves. They start gaining healthy self-perceptions. They work to change the conditions in their environment. They make things better for themselves around themselves. And that’s how prevention starts from the inside and goes out. And then when a critical mass of people and a community like Modello catches on, it can change entire communities. Alexandra: Does Modello still exist? Jack: I hear that it’s been completely turned into a different kind of housing. But even at the time, Hurricane Andrew came by and wiped out the entire community. I went down there a month after that. And the place has been blown apart, literally. Half of everybody’s house is gone. And so you couldn’t really tell whether it would have had lasting effect over the years. Except if you trace the lives of the people, which is what I did. And their lives continued to be healthy and change even in the face of that. Alexandra: Wow. What a testament, given that, everything they’ve been through. That’s amazing. Jack: Yeah. And it is the model for how this can be so helpful to humanity. I personally wish that more people involved in the Three Principles were taking it into communities. Once Roger Mills died that emphasis fizzled. Alexandra: I remember from your book about Modello, that it did take some time for him to get a toehold in there. And it seemed like a real challenge for him. Jack: Well, he had a really good attitude about it, it would be a challenge for most people. It was a little for him. People did everything in their power to get you out of there. Which you can totally understand. But his attitude was, of course, they’re going to be acting this way toward me, given the way that they’re thinking, force attitude to it. But that’s not the way they really are. So yeah, it’s more difficult than coaching people one on one. It’s more difficult than going to businesses. It’s more difficult than working in groups with people to go into communities like that. But it’s the biggest bang for the buck, you could say. Syd Banks always had this feeling that the Three Principles were meant to be helpful to humanity. And that we are to be of service to people. And that, to me, needs to be and continue to be the primary emphasis. Alexandra: I love that. That’s great. Speaking of which, you mentioned you’re sort of semi-retired now. I noticed on your blog – we’re recording this in very early January 2024 – you thought of December 31 as kind of the retirement day of last year. Jack: Oh, it didn’t work out that way. It’s kind of a joke, really. But I consider myself semi-retired to being fully retired. I pretty much wait for people to find me if they do and if they don’t, I’m happy. I have worked to keep me going. Alexandra: You mentioned the word service and I love that. When something has a feeling like that I imagine it’s impossible to just set it down and walk away. Jack: It is. I’m afraid to say that it is. I really do still I have this. I don’t know whether you’d call it an urge or desire or something to be helpful to humanity as much as I can. So even though right now, most of my focus is on writing a book about my hobby, music, I still cannot. When people contact me about doing something like yourself, I can’t turn away from it. Alexandra: I love that. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. So we’re getting sort of towards the end of our time together. Is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share? Jack: Well, I want to re-emphasize something. The principles really, at its essence, only means two things: That we have this pure spiritual essence, embedded in our pure consciousness, connected to the purest part of Universal Mind, which gives us everything we need, and we can’t get away from it, even if we try. And then we have thoughts. And we can, in our thoughts get picked up by our consciousness, and consciousness, its job is to make it look real. So it sends it through our senses. And it makes it look very, very real to us. Which is why we get deluded into thinking that it’s reality, as opposed to just an illusion of our own thinking. When we’re able to see our problems as illusions of our own thinking, we are free. And those two things, to me, are all we need to know about the three principles. And it’s only a question of going deeper into what those two things really mean. People make it very complicated. Syd Banks was always telling us, we make it much too complicated, just beginning to grasp a tiny bit of what he was talking. Took me years to get there. Alexandra: I would say that the title of your book Seduced by Consciousness is a really simple encapsulation of that idea. Jack: It makes people scratch their heads at first, which is good. But whatever we think and believe, with more thinking, we’re going to get seduced by as reality. Very tricky. Because it’s almost like the ego’s job to make us believe it. Because it doesn’t want to relinquish itself. It’s like holding onto itself, dear life. It will do everything in its power so that we don’t realize this. Alexandra: So true. That’s so great. Where can we find out more about you and your work, Jack? Jack: My website is not really that active, but it is InsideOutUnderstanding.com. People can look me up on Facebook, /Jack Pransky. I posted a couple of things that I’m doing in my semi retirement one thing I’m excited about is when I go to Australia, I’m working with a couple of people to do a training now in Bali, which is on my bucket list. So things like that, or keep me going. Alexandra: Nice. I will put links in the show notes to your website. And we’ve mentioned your books a couple of times. So let’s just talk about that. So your books are mentioned on your website as well. They are. Jack: Somebody Should Have Told Us is probably my most popular book. It’s the one that people look to for an entry into the three principles a lot. And Seduced by Consciousness is the advanced version of that. Modello is just an incredible story. And I’m not saying that because I wrote it because it was incredible story before I wrote it down of how step by step and the story of how this horrible community was completely changed around. Parenting From The Heart is based on the Three Principles. One called Hope for All, which is interviews, extensive interviews with people whose lives have turned around but Three Principles and then are going off and working with others. Paradigm Shift is about the history of the Three Principles. I’ve co-written a couple of books for kids, little kids, and one curriculum for middle school students. So I’ve been involved in writing. Plus, I’ve co-authored a bunch of research articles, peer reviewed research articles with Tom Kelly. So that’s what I that’s what I do mostly, and I’m a writer. Alexandra: I’m so glad that you captured the story of Modello and also the history of the Three Principles in Paradigm Shift. It feels so important that those things don’t get lost. And I love that you did that. They must have been enormous projects. Jack: They were much bigger than I thought they were going to be. Alexandra: I think it’s so important historically to see to see how that have those things happened. Well, thank you so much, Jack Pransky, for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Jack: My pleasure. It was fun. Alexandra: Bye. Featured image photo by Olivier Miche on Unsplash The post Problems as Illusions of Thinking with Jack Pransky appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

It can be so easy to get caught up in the drama of life and experience suffering because of this. But when we begin to explore the nature of our thinking and see that it is a spiritual energy coming to life within us, our suffering eases. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes New schedule for Unbroken podcast – Thursday’s only for the next while Coming up in a Thursday episode I’ll talk about coming out of the back of the spiral How thinking works like a television What we experience is only every going on inside us When we see this it makes resolving an overeating habit so much easier Resources Mentioned in this Episode Dr. Bruce Greyson Waking the Wild podcast Transcript of this episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A Episode 47 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. Thank you for being here with me today. I appreciate it. Before we kick off today’s subject, which is how is our thinking like television, I wanted to do a couple of quick housekeeping items. The first one is that we’re coming up to a year of Unbroken podcast, which is very exciting. I started on February 14 to 2023. And this episode that I’m recording now will go out on January 8 2024. So almost a year of episodes. 47 Q&A episodes and 47 interview episodes. I’m really proud of everything that I accomplished in this past almost year. And as we do, I’ve been contemplating things over the holiday time when I had to had a few days off. What I realized is that I have some projects that I’d really like to work on in this coming year. And that releasing two podcast episodes a week is a bit of an impediment to that. It’s a lot of work, recording two episodes per week. So what I’m going to do is change the schedule up a little bit, and switch to one episode per week. Starting the week of January 15 there will just be one episode of Unbroken each week on Thursday. And I’m going to alternate between interview episodes and these this type of solo shows that I do, where I talk about what I’m seeing, and what the insights that I’ve had and what I’m observing, and that kind of thing. So yeah, like I say, that’ll start the week of January 15. January 18 will be the first of that kind of episodes. And it’ll actually be an interview with I think it will be with Gail, Dr. Gail Brenner. So you can keep your eyes and ears open for that. And then what else? What other housekeeping did I have? Oh, yes. I’ve talked a little bit lately about being in the back of the spiral. If you’ve listened to previous episodes, I’ve mentioned that a couple of times. I’ve come out of the back of the spiral. So that’s exciting news. And I’m really thrilled about it. So I think what I’ll do is I’ll talk about that on the first solo episode after I make this schedule change. So that’ll be later in January, maybe the 18th or something like that, I think. I’m not quite sure. I’ll talk about what that was like, for me the insights that I had the things I’ve seen. And I’ll go over again, what it meant to me to be going through the back of the spiral, and how even on the darkest days, it was nice to know that it was just a natural part of the learning and growing process like I talked about on a previous episode, so stay tuned for that. Okay, so today, I want to get into this metaphor that I heard recently, and how I think it relates to the Inside Out understanding. And this was a metaphor that I heard from a man called Bruce Greyson. He’s a scientist who specializes in near-death experiences, if you can believe it. This had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the Three Principles or the Inside Out understanding. I heard him on Lian Brook-Tyler’s podcast, called Waking the Wild. And then I also heard him on another podcast and I can’t remember whose it was but he is a really interesting guy. Really fascinating studies that he’s done about near-death experiences, and what people experience when they have that kind of a situation that goes on. But none of that matters for this episode of Unbroken. What does matter is, he used this really great metaphor, so I’m going to borrow that metaphor from him. I can’t even remember what he was talking about this or what it meant to him, but he had this great metaphor about television, and how when we watch a television – and these days, of course, we watch a lot of things on our laptops to TV shows and stuff like that movies – we know that whatever’s going on on the show isn’t happening inside the TV set, or inside the computer. We know for sure, from probably a pretty young age, maybe not super young. But eventually we figure it out that those aren’t little tiny people walking around inside the TV set. They don’t live in there. The show is actually being broadcast from somewhere else. It’s coming into the television set from somewhere else. And when Bruce Greyson shared this metaphor, I thought, Oh, that’s really close to, or a really good description of our experience of thinking as well. And the reason I say that is because our experience of thinking is coming to life within us. But it is coming to life from somewhere else. Thought is a spiritual energy that’s coming to life, coming into us, and then creating our experience via consciousness. That’s how we’re experiencing the world. And one of the things I thought of that was parallel to this metaphor that he was using, was that everything that so for example, I was watching over the holidays, the show Slow Horses, which is based on a series of books, it’s a show on Apple TV. And it’s entirely set in the UK, mostly set in London. And what I reflected on was that, when I’m watching that show, and it’s based in a place like London, in a way, I know that I’m not experiencing London, as it really is. I’m experiencing what the television show is showing me about London. But I don’t think that that’s all that London is, is just what they’re showing me. When it comes to our thinking, there’s a real similarity in that we are only ever experiencing what we’re thinking. And we can, it’s kind of a paradox, but we can never really be experiencing what’s going on outside of us. Everything that’s happening, whether it’s our boss, or our co-worker, or our flat tire on our car, or our experience of food, we’re only ever experiencing what’s going on in our thinking. So the parallel to this television metaphor would be like, if you were never able to visit London, and the only way that you were ever able to experience London was through a screen. So through a television screen or through a computer screen, if you were using looking at Google Maps, or Google Earth. If that’s the only way you could experience London, that’s similar to what’s going on when we are experiencing anything in the world. Because we experience it via our thinking. And when we’re new to this understanding, it can be a little bit challenging to get our heads around how that might work. But pretty quickly, we can see that that’s actually the truth. One of the easiest ways that we can see that this is true, is that you can just simply go to a movie with a friend or a group of friends and ask them all at the end what they thought of the movie, and you’ll get several different opinions right about that. We can do that about a meal or about a day out in in a city or about a conversation with somebody. If I’m having a conversation with somebody in there somebody there with me, listening, their experience of what happened can be completely different than my experience. And what that points to is what’s going on with our thinking and where our experience of life is coming from. It’s coming from Thought, it’s coming from the thinking that we have about that situation. And like I say, it can take a bit to get our heads around this. And the thing that I found, I find still find too, a little bit perplexing is that, so there’s no real reality. There’s no absolute truth about anything, because we are only ever experiencing our thinking about that thing. I bring this up, because when it comes to resolving an unwanted habit, like overeating, when we begin to see the impact that our thinking is having on us, especially when we’re unaware of where it’s coming from, and we begin to notice the natural movement and rhythm of our thinking that it can get stirred up, but that it is designed to settle down again, automatically. And that as Dicken Bettinger said on last week’s Thursday episode, we tend to be in in one of two states were either really caught up in our thinking, or we’re not. We’re in a more peaceful place. And of course, that exists on a spectrum. And he was simplifying it for us so we could see what was really going on. We could say the television screen, in this television metaphor, is either on or it’s off. And when it’s on, it has the power to create all kinds of experiences in us. And this is just like a television or a movie screen as well. We can be sitting on a couch, eating popcorn, very comfortable in our pajamas. We can be terrified, or we can be crying our eyes out, or laughing. All those are things being generated, not from people who are in the room with us, or ‘real experiences’ that we’re having, but from what’s happening on the screen. And that’s exactly the same as our thinking. Consciousness makes our experience so vivid. And that’s its job. It’s designed, we are designed, to experience life this way, of course, otherwise, it would be a lot less fun. And just like that TV screen, it can create all kinds of experiences within us, everything on the emotional spectrum. So I just thought I would mention that metaphor it, it really caught my interest when I was listening to Bruce Greyson on that on those podcasts. And I thought it was a really good one to help if you are at the beginning, or even the middle of getting your head around this inside out understanding. I hope that was helpful for you today and that you were doing well and taking care. And I will see you …so I would there won’t be another short episode next Monday. Just a reminder, and we will go to a Thursday only schedule from now on, alternating between interviews, and then episodes like this where I share what I’ve been seeing. So take care and I will see you next time. Bye. Featured image photo by Stephen Monterroso on Unsplash The post Q&A 47 – How our thinking is like a television appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Coach and author Dicken Bettinger has spent most of his adult life sharing the simple, yet not generally understood, simplicity of human psychology that he first learned from Sydney Banks. Dicken’s message is simple: at any given moment, we are all either caught up in our thinking, or we are connected to the well-being and peace that is within every one of us. Dicken Bettinger, Ed.D., received his undergraduate degree from St. Lawrence University and began his career teaching high school students. He received his Master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and his Doctoral degree in counseling psychology from Boston University. Thirty-three years ago he met Sydney Banks who had an enlightenment experience where he realized the Three Principles that underlie all human experience. Dicken had finally found universal principles that he could teach anyone.  You can find Dicken Bettinger at 3PriniciplesMentoring.com and on YouTube @dickenbettinger. 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 early quest to help people ease their suffering How when our thoughts clear we experience the well-being that we are made of How we feel what we think How our state of mind affects things like productivity and success On the quiet that is always available when you’re not listening to the noise How parenting is positively affected when we see our thinking for what it is What meaning do our dreams have? How we all have access to universal wisdom Resources Mentioned in this Episode Dicken’s book with Natasha Swerdloff is Coming Home: Uncovering the Foundations of Psychological Well-being Sydney Banks Dr. Roger Mills Transcript of Interview with Dicken Bettinger Alexandra: Dicken Bettinger, welcome to Unbroken. Dicken: It’s great to be here with you, Alexandra. Thanks for inviting me. Alexandra: My pleasure. So why don’t you give us a little bit of your background and tell us how you came to discover the three principles? Dicken: I’d be glad to. I started my career as a high school English teacher. And I was very young and I looked younger than the high school students I was teaching. Pretty soon I had more kids coming to me to talk about their problems than the guidance counselor’s. The guidance counselors came and talked to me. What are you doing? And so it started my passion and curiosity about what can I learn that I can share with people that would help them have an easier time in life and began many, many year long year quest to explore what people are teaching about well-being. I taught for six years, and then I left to get my doctorate in counseling psychology and I became a licensed psychologist. And I had been working for 10 years, focusing my whole career on well-being, rather than the medical model which proclaimed people as having illnesses. And in education, that’s my degrees were in education, even my doctorate, counseling psychology and education department. The philosophy is very kind, any human being is struggling and having difficulty: Number one, it’s not their fault. Number two, they just haven’t learned what they need to learn to have an easier time of things. So it put us all – everybody in the world – in the category of being students. And there’s no end to what we can learn. And there’s no end to what we can learn about being happier and healthier psychologically. I studied people that were interested in that, and I had been a psychologist for 10 years working, very successful, private group practice in Vermont when I came across the book. It was the very first book published that was trying to apply the work of a man named Sydney Banks who had an enlightenment experience, and discovered the foundational principles that could explain all human psychological experience. What creates them, the forces in life that are creative, and he experienced those directly in his enlightenment experience. Dr. Roger Mills, who was had been an astrophysicist and spoke Chinese and was working in public health began to do a research study on what can help people become healthy. And where did they learn it? If people have become healthy, where did they learn it? Somebody told them all about Syd Banks, and he went to listen to him and meet him, and he was deeply affected and changed as a result of learning what Syd Banks called the three fundamental principles, Mind, Consciousness and Thought. And so he wrote a book, trying his best to bring it into the field of psychology and I found the book in a bookstore and got halfway through it and I was affected just reading it. I looked at the end of the book, and there was a phone number and I called and found out about their programs. I went from my first training and started hearing about these principles. I had maybe three insights during a week of training that changed my whole way of understanding my own experience. Parenting went from a challenging, complicated issue to being really fun and simple, and more effective. And I was hooked. I was hooked Alexandria. So that’s, that’s how I got into this. Alexandra: So many things in there that are so interesting to me. One is that you were interested in well-being out of the gate, it sounds like. Even when you were pursuing psychological degrees without this specific understanding. Dicken: I was teaching. I was, as a young boy, I came across meditation, and played around with it. And then, as I grew older, I started reading meditation teachers’ writings, and then spiritual teachers. And they’re always talking about well-being. And then I started finding people in the field of psychology, all of my first teachers were friends of Carl Rogers, who spoke about well-being. Abraham Maslow. So there were people in psychology that were getting interested in well-being and studying. They became my teachers. Alexandra: And if the kids, this is the other thing that struck me, if the kids you were teaching were coming to you for advice, before you even started on your journey of psychological education. There must have been something back then even when you were a young teacher. Dicken: I would teach communication skills. I studied them and enjoyed them. And it was very helpful for kids to learn some skills that could help them communicate more effectively with whoever they were having difficulty with, whether it was a parent or girlfriend or a boyfriend or a brother or a sister. And so then I just started reading voraciously. Anybody anywhere that said, I’ve learned some things that can help people have an easier time. And that became my, my ongoing passion. Alexandra: What was the name of the Roger Mills book, before I forget? Dicken: It’s out of print. It was the very first attempt to even talk about these principles. And Roger talked about four principles, and only one of them was one of the three principles. But even still, there was something in there about the way he talked about. We’re thinkers. Very few people know that. We think up our experience of life. Whatever we think, we will feel. Anyone can become aware of since we’re conscious beings, we can become aware of the fact that we think and if we become aware of the fact that it’s our own thoughts, if you think sad, you feel sad, if you think stress, you feel stress, if you think angry, of feeling angry, if your head clears of everything you’re thinking is built into us to feel good. So Roger, by emphasizing those two things in the book, we’re thinkers and we think our own experience and can wake up out of thinking and drop thinking that’s not helpful. And when our head clears, every human being started to experience well-being and as built into us. No one in psychology was saying those two things, knowing that 100% of our experience comes from our own thinking. There were 450 different theories in psychology when I met Syd and he said, This is not a theory, this is actual truth. There’s a power that creates our thinking and whatever we think will feel on that scientific, as truthful, it’s always true. It’s always been true. And nobody knows it. Because if you ask people, What are you feeling? You’ll hear all kinds of feelings, that’s normal. And then you say, Well, where do you think that feeling is coming from? They won’t point toward the creative power of thought. They will point towards something in the world they think is causing them to feel that way. My past, my personality, this person, that person is making me upset. This situation is stressing me out. And the whole field of psychology was buying into the outside in way of looking at life, the world causes us to feel the way we do. And so Syd said that’s not true. It’s not scientific. And oh my gosh, when I started seeing my anxiety is not caused by my biochemistry, or by my personality, or by my genetics, or from my upbringing. It is created in this moment. I’m caught up in my own anxious thinking. That was my very first insight. I dropped what I was thinking completely, and the anxiety went away. And then he says, Any human being, when they completely fall out of their thinking will feel better, because it’s built into us to feel good. I said, I’m not taking your word for it, I’ve got to see if that’s true. And I let go of everything I was thinking just like when I meditate, when my mind quieted down, I just felt more alive, more connected. And I’m going it can’t be this easy. And that’s why I went to my first training because I was a skeptic and I had so many questions. They all got answered in the first day. If I’m feeling tension, stress or upset, it’s thought so let it go. And when my mind quiets down, I feel good. And we all have all that common sense. I need to deal with whatever’s going on in my life. That’s all I know. That’s all I taught for the first two years after I learned as I had to start all over again and with my clients. But people loved it, because it was helping them immediately. And it was simple. And it was, it was true. It’s not fantasy. It’s not free. It’s not there. Everybody is walking around feeling whatever they’re thinking and most people don’t know that. And everybody already has innate well-being but people haven’t been taught that. We’re spiritual beings, which means formless energy. And now the scientists are saying 96% of our universe, our universe is formless energy. So 96% of who we really are, is formless, and only 4% is the content of what we’re thinking and feeling. Syd would say, “Pay no attention to the content of your thinking, feeling or behavior. It’s too late. It’s already been created. Quiet down and look toward or in the direction of what’s doing the creating. Out of that quiet out of which everything arises. That’s where you’ll find your well-being.” This I can tell you it was for me a revolution. I could then share this with any human being, and it would be helpful. So I worked with homeless people, I worked with people in jails, I spent 16 years working in multibillion dollar companies doing executive trainings, leadership trainings, and I could tell them we now have a science that helps us understand states of mind. And we can show you how the state of mind is the most important determinant on how productive you are. How well you think, how wisely you’re using your mind. How well you get along with other people, how well you communicate, how well you make decisions. It’s all 100% tied into the state of mind, you run at the time. If you learn things that help you to have less stress and less thought clutter, and you have more clarity, guaranteed, you’re going to enjoy work more, you’re going to be more creative, more productive, better able to solve problems. And we got results working in businesses. I had colleagues all over the country working in jails, and in low-income housing communities and people facing all kinds of life challenges and was helpful, simple and true and helpful. Alexandra: When you talk about looking toward that, which is creating our experience, or you said it so beautifully, but looking away from the content of our thinking, and looking more toward what’s doing the creating. In other words, dropping our thinking, Do you have practices that you do to do that? it probably comes pretty naturally to you now. Dicken: I’ve taught hundreds of kids how to ride bikes. There’s no practice. But they have to learn how to find balance. And they could go to the library and read every book on balance and they wouldn’t understand that better. An intellectual understanding does not help people do what is so normal and so natural. For example, every night, at some point, with some exceptions, but people fall asleep at some point, and in order to fall asleep, you have to let go of everything you’re thinking. There are no techniques. There are techniques, but you don’t need any techniques to fall asleep. You just let go of it even you don’t even have to be able to explain that. I tried to explain to somebody how I fall asleep. I couldn’t. My doctor didn’t help me and even if I told them scientific facts that wouldn’t help them, necessarily. If they had an insight, it would help them. Syd would give us hints, he wouldn’t give us techniques. He’d say, you can’t think your way to the present moment. No one can. It’s impossible. It’s only in the present moment that you can find access well-being. You won’t find it while you’re thinking about yourself or about life. Most people spend their day looking at things in their life and thinking about him or looking at people and thinking about them, or looking at ourselves and thinking about ourselves. He says only in the present moment. Now when people are present worth, how far away are we ever from the present moment. It’s all that exists is just waking up to it. There is no future. That’s imagination. That’s thinking, that’s imagining something that no one can figure out the future. The past is just memory. What’s memory? That’s thought. There is no past. It’s just memory. At times it gets played out. And people’s memories can be different and can change and can evolve can. They’re flexible. That scientific. How far away is the present moment? We’re one thought away from being present. I’ve worked with people who say, “I can’t be present.” I say Okay, listen to me. And I’ll tell you the secret and they go okay. And they become immediately present. I say you just did it. I thought you said it was really hard. How did you do it? If I follow any person around, any person, I could point out to them hundreds of times during the day when they get present. Because you can’t walk across the room without getting present. You can drive a car without getting present. You can’t say hello to a person without getting present. If you’re continually thinking you’re not there to live your life, but very few adults that I’ve met and that’s it innocent, very innocent. They just haven’t learned that what we’re feeling in the moment is created by thoughts. We’re caught up in in thinking, and that we’re the thinker. Very few adults know that every bit of their attention, stress and upset comes from one thing and one thing only: believing what you’re thinking, paying attention to it, not being present and caught up in your thinking. So Syd would say, you’ll only find this in the now. You’re a thought away from the now. So it’s no big deal. It is not something you can do. It’s something that you are when you stop doing. Searching won’t get you there because searching is thinking. Trying won’t get you there because trying is thinking. That creates stress. I’m trying, I’m trying. I used to try to not think, try to be present to all my thought which was just more thinking. And the paradox is, I can’t think my way there. Then all of a sudden, I had an insight: I don’t have to think to get there. And being present is just natural, it’s normal. We’re born that way. I can at any moment by being present, no longer pay attention to anything I’m thinking. I could have the thought I don’t know how to do something, or I hate this person. And if I’m present, I’m not paying attention to those thoughts. They’re just flowing through me. So it doesn’t matter if I have 10,000 thoughts, I’m present. I can have no thoughts: present. I can have one thought and think about it and not be present. So we give hints like this, or he’d say, drop everything you’re thinking that’s creating your tension, stress or upset, just be here. And there’s a quiet that’s always here when you’re not listening to the noise. You’re thinking makes bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, talk to my hand. That was just present. And now I’m looking out the window. My wife could tell when I was thinking, and when I was present. And you can’t love people when you’re thinking. You can’t be happy while you’re thinking. You can’t have peace of mind while you’re thinking. It’s only when we’re present, can we find peace of mind. Can we find deeper feelings of well-being that we can then extend to other people. That happiness is free. You can’t buy it, you can’t buy it with money, you can’t buy it by buying toys and cars and things. Because it’s already there within us. In a quiet mind, people feel more alive, more present more connected, our senses come alive, that’s what happiness is. So then the if you have a deeper feeling of well-being and you bring it to another person, that’s what love is. So we have built into us everything we need to live a peaceful, happy, loving life. I still get stressed, I still get upset. But if it is an invitation to become present, it doesn’t mean anything. I don’t have to think about it. It’s just an opportunity. It’s like an alarm clock going off all day long to wake me back up to being present. So then I can think about things if it’s helpful. But as soon as it’s creating any degree of tension, which you get very sensitive to it’s time to let wisdom take over. We get out of balance. If we overthink and try to use our computer mind for everything. It’s like a teenager who’s constantly on their phone. We know that their mental health is going to go down and any human being that’s constantly thinking, thinking, thinking is going to go down to anxiety, depression, worry, upset. Problems, all kinds of that’s gives birth to all kinds of psychological problems. There’s really only one problem: by holding thought we block the natural flow of love and wisdom. And anybody can wake up to the now and begin to be open channel for the flow of life energy flowing through us feels good. Alexandra: When we were preparing for this call, I sent you a mention of a story I heard you tell years ago about your daughter. Do you know what I’m referring to? Dicken: I do. I haven’t thought of that for a long time. It was so fun remembering that story. I’m learning the principles. My daughter was a teenager. I think she was, maybe by that time, she was 14, just turning 14 when I started learning these. So she was like a sophomore in high school. And this is maybe the beginning of her senior year. I was becoming more sensitive to when I lost a good feeling that had had to do with my thinking rather than my kids. And that my feelings of getting annoyed, irritated, frustrated, impatient didn’t have to do with my kids. They were created by my thinking. But sometimes I wouldn’t see it, like anybody. And I get upset. And I think it did have to do with her. I’d get annoyed with her and it would come out in my tone of voice. One day, I was just so feeling so irritated. I thought it was because of how she was acting. When I was feeling good, no matter what I was saying to her, she was coming back. upset and critical. And then I got caught up in my thinking and I became upset and critical. So I’m doing the same thing she’s done. But I didn’t see it. I didn’t catch it. I didn’t realize in that moment, all my thinking has changed. So I was upset with her. So she goes upstairs in a little bit, I quieted down. And then it came back to me what I knew to be true. I realized I had just gotten caught up in my own thinking, and was blaming her for what I was feeling no matter how she was acting. That’s what I was doing. So I said, Well, I’ll go upstairs. And we’ll say something really helpful. I thought, and I went upstairs and she’s on her bed doing her homework. I’m in a good feeling. And I’m waiting for something to occur to me to say but nothing occurred to me to say. I couldn’t think of anything that I didn’t think would make it worse. So I just sat down in the chair next to her, and she’s working. Kids can read state of mind very easily in your eyes because your eyes are the windows to your soul. If you’re upset, your eyes look different than when you’re loving. And your tone of voice is completely different. You can’t hide it. You can hide tension in your voice. So she looks up and she looks in my eyes. She’s checking me out. People don’t even realize they were constantly checking other people’s state of mind. And then she saw me sitting there quietly and I looked pretty safe. She said Dad, are you meditating? And I said, Well, I’m not really sweetie. I’m just sitting here and now she hears. She’s got a sample. No, I’m not really, I’m just sitting here. You can’t fake it. And then she writes and she keeps looking up at me. Keeps look keep checking and I passed the state of mind test I guess. Kids can tell when a parent is safe to talk to and when they’re going to jump on you because of their state of mind. And she said, Dad, I’m sorry, I’ve been really upset with you lately. It doesn’t really have to do with you, I’ve been struggling and having arguments with my boyfriend. And you and mom just never seem to argue. And I thought I would be that way. I thought when I learned these principles, I would always be calm. And then we had the absolute best talk about Listen, we’re not always calm. And sometimes we say stuff, but we’re much more forgiving. Now that we know it’s just thought and it’s easier to take responsibility for it. But relationships is where we learn about this. I just lost it with you, Nina. And then it became a learning opportunity. And that’ll be true for you too. And we just had this really nice, really nice sharing. Most of what I learned in the early years were in the context of my kids. Because that’s where I would become impatient, stressed, upset. Why do we have to be that way? I started just catching myself as a thinker. Remembering that I have well-being. All I have to do is relax into it. There’s no technique. It’s already there. It’s built in. It’s just relaxing or showing up. It’s like, then I fell in love with the metaphor. We can get caught up in our thoughts, storm clouds. And when we fall back from our thoughts, Storm thinking, there’s blue sky, which is present moment. And then we can feel the warmth and nourishment coming from the sun, our innate well-being. It for a long time was my favorite metaphor. Because then I could go, I’m just having a thought storm. If I leave it alone, I’ll get over it. When I get over it, I’ll have clarity. When I have clarity on what to do. That light will shine through my eyes and voice again, I can bring a nice feeling to people. Alexandra: What really stands out to me in that story now, as you tell it, is that when you were in that good feeling with your daughter, she and you may have said that she no doubt, began to feel safe enough to be vulnerable then to say what was really going on with her. Before that, if you weren’t in that good feeling she didn’t feel safe. Dicken: That’s right. Yeah. Initially, I was doing low mood parenting, and I didn’t know parenting, and my parents. And most parents wait until they’re upset to try. Yes, innocently, innocently. And therefore kids don’t feel safe sharing what they’re really thinking and feeling. Especially if they think it would get them into trouble. Which in other words, you would get really upset with them and dumping on him. What I found is when I did was more consistent, coming from a nice feeling, my kids would drop their defenses much quicker. And pretty soon they felt safe sharing anything with me. And as my daughter told me at one point, I feel like I can say anything to you and you won’t judge me. And if you get upset you just walk away and come back later when you’re not. We can have a good talk and it works out great. That’s what I always wanted. I just didn’t know that was even possible. wasn’t a part of my world, growing up and the first 14 years of parenting my daughter and then my son. So this was a belief that that was another one of my very, very first Insights is if I’m if I take responsibility for my feeling and take responsibility for what feeling I bring to my kids. If I just wait until I’m in a better feeling and bring that to my kids, no matter how I was parented and no matter how I was raised and no matter what my background is, no matter what my kids are like, I can be a really good parent. That blew me away. All I have to do is pay attention to my feelings and to when I’m at my best rather than when I’m at my worst. I’ll be a good parent and I throw away all my books. I didn’t need books on parenting anymore. I parent from a good feeling more consistently, not all the time. I’m human. And then I go to my kids and apologize. See, I lost it. It’s not about you. It’s me. That’s a lesson. And it helped them. And then even when I lost it, they cut me a lot of slack because they knew I was just caught up at that point. They’d say, Dad, you’re just kind of okay, what’s my son came and said, Dad, I gotta talk to you. But you gotta go take a chill pill, because this is important. That’s great. Isn’t that great? Alexandra: That’s lovely. My fried who let’s call her, Laura, she introduced me to the three principles. And so when I knew I was going to be talking to you, I asked her if she had any questions for you. She asked the question about dreams, and what role you think dreams play for us now. Dicken: Before I met Syd Banks, I was very interested in what people said you need to learn to be healthy. And a lot of people said the dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. So if you work on your dreams and work on your dreams, it’s like working on your thinking to make it more positive or working on your behavior to curb unwanted behaviors and behave better. All of psychology was focusing on working on thought content, feeling content or behavioral content that had already been created. Dreams was one way of working on yourself, focusing on the 4% that was created, not learning about that 96% and beautiful, healthy life-giving creative energy that’s all surrounding us. So I ran dream groups, and people would record their dreams. I trained myself to wake up at the end of REM sleep. So I would write by flashlight every night, five full length dreams during the night. And then the next day, now I have five very long dreams to work on. I would dialogue with the parts and work on and draw and do art and act out and talk about. Then I meet Syd Banks, and he said that every moment we’re experiencing the thoughts that are created in our head in them in this moment. That’s true during the day. And it’s true during the night. When I started feeling stressed during the day, I no longer had to analyze the content, it was just an invitation to come back to the present. And then that thinking instead of being held and made true in our experience, would fade away, as it always has noise well. When you start thinking about something, the feelings that thinking is creating is no longer being created. And I said well, I don’t have to work on my thought content during the day. Why would I think I would need to work on the thoughts I have at night? I got invited to teach at a class at the University of Vermont and I had been coming for years to talk with the class about dreams. And this time I came in and talked about waking up to the fact of thought and our well-being and at the end of the class the teacher said this has been fascinating. I can see the students are really liking this. But what about dreams? And I said oh yeah dreams. That’s just a thinking you do at night. All I know is that I can have a nightmare during the day. And when we have a nightmare at night and we wake up we go, Oh, thank God, it was just a dream. It’s not real. Now, when I get upset is just a dream. And when I wake up to the present moment, it’s just thought it’s not truth. It’s not reality. Just bunch of ideas. Yeah, like, they don’t even exist. So they’re an illusion. They’re like a dream. So now, I’m interested in waking up from bad dreams, whether it’s during the night or during the day. And coming back to the now which is the doorway to our spiritual well-being. A doorway that everything human beings are looking for is the doorway to peace, joy, love. It’s a doorway to insights, doorway to inspiration, doorway to motivation, aspiration, clarity, perspective, common sense, solutions to problems, creativity, new and fresh thinking. Syd, would say, this quiet space within is full of beautiful feeling. And that’s where we’ll find the answer to any difficulty problem or question that we have. He says, don’t take my word for it. Don’t take anybody’s word for it. You find out next time you have a problem. If you come back home to this quiet, peaceful, loving center, and you bring those feelings into the world, tell me what happens to your problem. Find out this is not intellectual, this is has to be experienced directly. And then you have to intuit the beauty of pure thought pure consciousness, pure mind as a space within us that’s full of creative, loving, wise potential. Don’t take anybody’s word, find out, write down, drop everything you’re thinking and see if you can find a more peaceful space inside. Instead of looking out thinking about how bad everything is. Drop into this peaceful center that’s always there. I call it our drop-in center. It’s open 24/7. There’s no bouncer, there’s no admission fee, and you drop into this quiet center. And you get free nourishment. soulful. Alexandra: That’s great. I love that. Dicken: When I feel upset, is an invitation to drop in, drop into this quiet place before the content of my thinking. Don’t worry about the content, it’s too late. Come to what’s before that, that presence. If you let go of everything, find out what’s still here that doesn’t go away. It’s not a personality. It is presence. It’s awareness. It’s a sensing. So always here. No matter what your feeling is there underneath. Drop into that. Be aware of that quiet that feeling. Those are hints he would give all the time. Look within, which means drop everything you’re thinking, drop within, enter this quiet. Be aware of that presence. Rest in it. Be aware of the feeling of presence when you’re not thinking and then bring that feeling into the world giveaway. There’s only one problem human beings have psychologically. We hold on to thought and block love and wisdom. One cure one solution. Wake up. Drop in is a nice feeling and bringing into the world. That’s the one solution to everything. And again, don’t take anybody’s word for it. You see, I had to experiment for years before I have the absolute confidence and certainty that no matter what problem a human being has, even being in a war zone thinking you’re going to die. I would not recommend thinking yourself into an anxious frenzy. You’ll scare yourself to death. That’s how you’re going to survive. I’d say jump in as best as you can. Come back, be present, and be open to where it makes sense to go without thinking about it. Trust your own wisdom, trust your own common sense. I’ve done trainings for people in the Ukraine, calling in from bomb shelters, people in Israel being bombed. And this Sunday, I talked for three hours with Africans escaping the Congo or in refugee camps. Same message, same message, everything you’re looking for you already have, and you’re not broken and damaged. It’s spiritual. And you drop into that space, it’s always there. It’s energy. It’s pure energy, it’s spirit. And it’s full of energy that uplifts and full of unknowing that’s intuitive knowing that’s not of the intellect. And it’s ordinary. So ordinary bits always available to human beings. Everyone has access to universal wisdom. No exceptions. No exceptions. You can be smarter than someone but not wiser. We all have access to the sun. Every morning, it’s the same sun for everybody. It’s not a different sun, same sun, same blue sky, same weather, other weather comes and goes. That’s how it’s the same as the variability of our thinking, is our weather. Alexandra: As we wrap up today, I wanted to point out to people that your book Coming Home with Natasha Swerdloff is now available on audiobook. Dicken: Yes, I’m very excited and several different kinds of audio. It’s on Amazon, it’s on Audible. It’s on. It’s in the library where you can take out books. It’s not listed in that. Yeah, we’re very excited. And it’s been translated into 10 languages. So it’s, it’s getting out there. Alexandra: Oh, I didn’t realize that about the translations. That’s amazing. Dicken: Two more coming. So 12 different translations of it. Alexandra: That’s great. Well, Dicken this has just been such a delight. Thank you so much for speaking to me today. Tell us where our listeners can find out more about you. Dicken: Well, I want everybody to learn these two things. That’s all that’s my life mission. We’re free thinkers. And when we rest in the now we have access to well-being that’s innate, it’s always there waiting to come out like the sun, waiting for the clouds depart. And that’s what I told my daughter when she was 16. To this day when I travel around that’s what I want people to know. So I talk about that a lot in my talk. I have a YouTube channel. So if people want to learn more, that’s one way I would suggest listening to my teachers, Sydney Banks. He has a YouTube channel where all of the a lot of the talks that he gave are available. And he’s talking about all of this from a very deep, pure place of just saying, you’re a thinker, look within. Find a quiet feeling and in that feeling is all the guidance you will need to live a good life. He says it so simply and powerfully and we’re spiritual beings, so we can’t be damaged. It’s not religious, It’s spiritual. It’s trying to talk about the dynamic energy which is the foundation of the universe, all life, the source of all life. I have a Facebook page if you want to follow me there. I have a have a website, 3principlesmentoring.com. But I think the YouTube channel gets right to the heart of the message. Alexandra: Okay, I will put links to all those things in the show notes at unbroken podcast.com. Dicken: Thank you, Alexandra. Alexandra: Thank you so much, Dicken. It’s been a delight. Dicken: I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being with you. Alexandra: All right. Take care. Bye bye. Featured image photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash The post The Surprising Simplicity of Life with Dicken Bettinger appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When we expect change to happen as a result of will-power naturally it looks like a good idea to choose a day on the calendar to begin making that change. But, really, change happens via insight, and that can happen any day of the year. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Welcome to 2024 The admirable motivation behind New Year’s Resolutions The two things we can do instead of setting New Year’s Resolutions What actually creates lasting change Transcript of this episode Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 46 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. If you’re listening to this on the day it goes out, it’s going out on New Year’s Day 2024. So welcome to a new year. I don’t know about you, but at this point, I’m usually ready for the holidays to be over, I have to say. I just really like getting back to some sort of semblance of normalcy. I do kind of enjoy the holidays. There’s a bit of baggage there that I won’t talk about now. But you know, it’s different. I travel a little bit and I go and see friends. And it’s nice to be doing some different things and going out for meals and doing whatever it is we do. For some of you that will be getting together with family and that kind of thing. And then I’m kind of glad when the chaos is over. Today, it’ll be New Year’s Day as you’re listening to this, and I’m probably going to have a pretty quiet day, I like to have a quiet New Year’s Day. So I hope you’re doing whatever makes you happy as well. Let’s talk about why New Year’s resolutions are BS. Before I jump into that, I just want to give a quick caveat. And say that there’s nothing wrong with goal setting. There’s nothing wrong with dreams and goals and all that kind of stuff. I personally am someone who loves lists. I always have lists on my desk of things I like to accomplish. And I feel really good when I’m able to highlight them that they’re done. That’s my method of dealing with lists of to dos. And it’s good to have goals and didn’t have things that we want to accomplish in life. So everything I’m about to say is not to disparage that kind of dreaming and goal setting and all that kind of stuff. There’s a reason that New Year’s resolutions are BS, according to me. And it’s because of the way that we go about them. When we make a New Year’s resolution, and let’s be honest, they’re so often around weight loss and exercise, aren’t they? Those are the articles that we see in the media that we see on the television, morning programs and all that kind of thing. It’s about making a newer, better you and that you can start that on New Year’s Day. I’m going to go back to the iceberg metaphor in order to illustrate this. I shared that metaphor in Episode 44, which was a couple of weeks ago. New Year’s resolutions are like the ice pick on that iceberg. The way that we go about making new year’s resolutions and trying to change has that real ice pick kind of approach. And it’s that that we’re mistaken about. That the ice pick is what creates change, that we can choose this arbitrary day on a calendar. And really it is quite arbitrary. And decide that on that day, everything is going to change and somehow things will be completely different. And of course, it doesn’t work. And that’s why the media has the articles every year at the end of December, about making new year’s resolutions and changing our lives for the better. If New Year’s resolutions really worked, then they would work, we wouldn’t have to go through the same sort of repetition about strategies and ways to make your resolution stick if they actually worked. I want to say that I love what is motivating New Year’s resolutions. And that is that we’re trying to do better, of course, and we’re trying to feel better about ourselves. And we’re trying to change ourselves in ways that we feel and very often are about our health and our well being. We’re trying to take better care of ourselves. So that of course is really positive. I love what’s behind the New Year’s resolutions. It’s just that the resolutions themselves are what is BS. So rather than setting ourselves up for failure, this New Year’s Day 2024, what if we approached change in a slightly different way? So what I’d like us to do is two things. One, is look in a slightly different direction. And that’s what you’re doing by listening to this podcast. You are exploring and exposing yourself to this inside out understanding, and you’re wanting to see the impact that insight can have on change, rather than the ice pick method. You are wanting to understand how you can raise the temperature of the water around the iceberg, rather than getting up there with your ice pick. I love that for you. The second thing that I want to give us space to do is to trust. This is a little woowoo, which is fine, I’m comfortable with it, I hope you are, is to trust that the universe has our backs. The reason I say this is that when we’re taking this inside out approach to change, we’re not in control of the speed with which that happens. If you’ve listened to previous Q&A episodes, on Mondays, you’ve heard me talking about being in the back of the spiral. And remembering and taking this inside out approach at the beginning of a new year, when everyone else around you maybe not everyone, but people around you could be taking the ice pick approach and setting out rules and structure for themselves about joining the gym or starting a new diet or cutting out certain foods as of January 1, or whatever it is. It can take some courage to instead, stick with an approach that is a little less obvious, a little less overt, a little less measurable. I don’t have control over that. It takes courage for all of us to really commit to this approach – if it feels like the right thing for you to do – and to lean into the fact that the universe is a kind one, and that it wants us to be at peace. It wants us to connect with our innate well being, and resilience and wholeness. And the love and peace that we are made of that is our natural state of being. If someone has started a new diet or cut out certain foods, it’s so easy to see that it’s so delineated. And what you might be doing instead is trusting the wisdom that’s within you at all times, and knowing that it will lead you forward, even if someone from the outside can’t measure it, or track it, or write it down on a chart and show you that things are changing, and that you’re making progress. So given all of that, what I wanted to share is that and I hope this is encouraging that in New Year’s days in the past, of course, I’ve taken the ice pick approach and have made up new rules for myself to follow. And, and throughout the year, not just on New Year’s Day, taking the outside-in approach and starting a new diet or whatever. What I can tell you for sure is that they never worked. And the only time in my life when I’ve seen actual change when I’ve become more peaceful within myself. And when things got easier and when I’ve seen habits of mine over eating habits of mine actually fall away. Because that iceberg is melting is when I have been exploring this understanding. For 30 years, I tried the outside in approach, it didn’t work, I kept going back to it as we do innocently, because we’re doing the very best we can, with what we know at the time. But to encourage you, and to explore and learn to trust that the universe has your back, what I can tell you is that from my own personal experience, this is the understanding that has created change in my life. And it’s less measurable, it’s less standard, I guess you could say, it’s less obvious, it’s less culturally accepted, or understood. But this is what has created change for me. Exploring this understanding, seeing that insight is what creates real change, understanding my perfect design, and learning that my cravings are actually feedback. They’re not a part of me that’s broken, they’re a part of me that is in perfect working order. That has been the thing that has created change. So on this New Year’s Day, 2024, I just want to wish you an incredibly happy year, I hope that things go really well for you, and that you have so many moments of peace, and joy, and connection, and all those yummy things. I will be here throughout the year, twice a week as ever, exploring this understanding with you. And I just want to say thank you, thank you for being here. I started the podcast in February 2023. So I’m very close to moving into the second year of the show. And I’ve enjoyed it so much. I just love it. I couldn’t do it unless you were there with me listening. So I appreciate you very much. Happy New Year to you. Here’s hoping 2024 is just delightful for you. And I will be here again next week talking to you so I will see you then take care. Bye. Featured image photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash The post Q&A 46 – New Year’s Resolutions Are BS appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

After rapid success in her own coaching business, coach Grace Kelly now helps others wanting to do the same. She has learned the value of trusting our own innate wisdom, and also the importance of taking care of ourselves before we can help others. Grace Kelly is a transformational coach.She left her job as a school teacher in London and traveled the world coaching clients. Her work has been recognised by Forbes. Today she writes about lessons in love and loss and hosts clients on retreats in Italy where she currently resides. You can find Grace Kelly at GracefulCoaching.net and on Instagram @gracefulcoaching. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Recognizing the symptoms of burn out as a signal asking for change How our wisdom is always speaking to us, even when we can’t hear it Tips for paying attention to your own wisdom What we can learn from doing less How urgency is a habit of thought How money loves a purpose Resources Mentioned in this Episode Living Miraculously, Grace’s course with Dominic Scaffidi Create Your Thriving Coaching Business, Grace’s small group mastermind for coaches Dr. John Demartini Michael Neill Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way Transcript of Interview with Grace Kelly Alexandra: Grace Kelly, welcome to Unbroken. Grace: Thank you, Alexandra. It’s lovely to be here. Love your title. Alexandra: Thank you so much. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Grace: My background is as a school teacher. I spent six years in the classroom teaching, ruling unruly teenage boys in a London suburb. I loved the kids, I loved the experience of being with the children, but I really was not lit up by my environment, it was very bleak and dreary. It was in a small, just a very small suburb in North London. And it didn’t even have a decent coffee shop. That might sound like a strange thing for people. But I was moving to the big city. And I wanted city life and it just didn’t yield that, that location. Now the people were fabulous, the children were amazing, the school was fantastic. But over time, I kept getting this tapping, like, there’s something else for me to do. I had a turning point, Alexandra, when it occurred to me, is this it? Is this where I’m going to stay and is this what I’m going to commit my life to. And at the same time, I had been so burned out at work, because I really didn’t enjoy what I was what I was doing. Many teachers listening will know that you have a passion for teaching, but you end up doing a lot of paperwork and a lot of a lot of heavy lifting around bureaucracy and around paperwork. But anyway, it was a good grinding for me because I knew I was a teacher’s from a young age I used to pretend to teach classroom when I was when I was very young. I would pretend I had a set of students in front of me. So I knew that that was my, my path. I didn’t realize there was another way to teach. I didn’t realize there was something beyond a school teacher, as a teacher, until I was fortunate enough to come across my first mentor. His name was Dr. John Demartini. And he really opened my eyes and those years when I was a school teacher of just what was possible. He was just the most incredible teacher, he was an amazing mentor. And he was a coach really traveling the world doing what he loved writing books, teaching, running his breakthrough experience. I noticed in my career as a teacher, I was equipping myself. The school bell would ring and I’d be out the door and off into the city of London, and equipping myself with personal development and being around the circles that were interested in coaching. I’d never considered myself as a coach. Interestingly, and all that time I was doing that it never really came to me that I could coach. But at some point, I made the leap. I left my day job and my fiancee at the time and myself, we moved to Italy to figure out our lives. He was from here. In our figuring out of our lives it was really clear to me that I didn’t want to leave Italy. And it was also clear to me that I had a deep interest in helping people, not just teaching people. So I started to get curious about this whole world called coaching that I had been around but hadn’t really been invested in personally as a coach. So my career really shifted. I started my own coaching business, I hired my own coach. That was the first step. I invested in a coach who supported me around my own ideas for coaching and what I could offer the world. It was transformative for me, our work together, and it led to a pretty rapid success in the space of six months. I was very fortunate to be finding myself traveling the world much like my former mentor and seeing clients and beautiful locations and hosting retreats in all sorts of places and just doing very, very well. But a nudge came to me a couple of years into that, Alexandra, where I just noticed that I was burnt out, again, similar to my day job. And I kind of started thinking, but hold on I, I got on to my job, so I could do my own thing and feeling well, what’s going on. So the symptoms in the body began to get my attention again, and I really listened. I really listened and right at the time, when I was about to sign a contract that would support me and moving to a seven figure year, I did the impossible and I retracted my signature, if you’d like, or my agreement to that potential. I took myself back to Italy, out of the rat race, and into just being. Retreating, being quiet, being at home. In that time at home, I heard my wisdom more and more and more clearly and the more settled I was, the clearer my answers were. It was during that period of time that I started noticing what was calling me and one of the things that caught me was an event that Michael Neill from the Three Principles community was doing in London. And I went to that event expecting something else. But when I got there, I heard what he was saying. It was really challenging everything that I had learned as a as a coach in a coaching business. And it just piqued my curiosity. It just really spoke to me. He was my introduction to the Three Principles. And he went on to invite me to be his apprentice and 2016. And that’s where I got this full immersion of the Principles. I had no idea that that’s what was going to occur. But it was, it’s the background to my career, and it’s when it was my introduction to the principles to answer your question. Alexandra: Thank you for that. One of the things you mentioned on your website is that in your initial coaching business, although it was very successful, you felt like you were getting further and further away from your own wisdom. I love that you framed it that way. And then, when you discovered the Three Principles, it seems like you’ve you have connected again with that. Can you tell us a little bit about what it looked like to be disconnected from your wisdom and then getting reconnected with it again? Grace: The disconnect was I just felt like I was spinning the whole time. Some of my colleagues even said it to me, Grace, you’re just spinning. So much confusion, so much not knowing what to do. I remember being in Australia, in Sydney at the time, and I was attending these chiropractic appointments, there were all sorts of symptoms going on for me. I just couldn’t think straight. If I were to know what I know now, I had a very, very busy mind. And even though I had a very busy mind, I do want to point out, because sometimes people think they have to have a quiet mind to hear their wisdom. I could hear my wisdom at the time, really saying no to any more of this way of working. And again, even though I was primed for the seven figure year, I still said no. Because I literally woke up that morning that I was supposed to sign on the dotted line and, and wisdom said no, go home. So I took myself off of that merry go round, much to the disappointment of the coach and the group because she was right. If I had kept going the way it was going it was going to be very much a seven figure a year but my well being was has just always been the most important thing to me. I just knew I was disconnected at times because of the own groundedness, the confusion, the inability to make a decision, the lack. Even the way I would eat, compared to now was unconscious. Everything I was doing was rushed and unconscious. Being connected to my wisdom was it’s just a very different feeling. There’s just a sense of balance and harmony. I recognize the innocence of my journey as a new coach, and feel very blessed to have had such a level of success so quickly. But still very clear that well being, for me, is the ultimate success. And when I wasn’t having that, neither mentally or physically, I knew something’s off. And it’s time to slow down, it’s time to come away from this and really come back inside, which is what I did by going home and then eventually ended up leading into the principals and going on that coaching journey with Michael Neill for a year. Alexandra: I love that you point out that wisdom was there the whole time. It was always speaking to you. And it’s just that we tend to sometimes ignore those signals. I think that’s a really important point for our listeners to hear is that wisdom is always there. It can be a matter of whether we pay attention or not. I love that. Thank you. So now that you’ve shifted and work in a slightly different way, what this is kind of going to contradict what I just said, but what keeps you connected to your wisdom? How do you pay attention to your wisdom? Grace: That’s a great question. I really notice nowadays when my mind is busy. That version of me didn’t know she was spinning, didn’t know she had a really busy mind. Didn’t know there was another way. And nowadays, I really notice that busyness when it’s arising. And what keeps me grounded, I think, is in the noticing of that I begin to speed up, I begin to get impatient. The enjoyment of life falls away, and I begin to be rushed around everything and like there’s not enough time. I know now, Grace, this is an invitation to settle down. And the thing that helps me settle down is receiving coaching from my coach in the area of the Principles, listening to Sydney Banks – that’s a daily requirement of mine – and doing meditation, getting a siesta. Most recently, learning to really say no to people’s requests from me. Really noticing where I’m pushing myself, where I feel obligated, rather than honoring the fact that the business we’re in as coaches requires an incredible amount of well-being. I talk to my clients about being energetically open for business, not just open for business online. Being energetically open for business means that you’re in a state where you are centered and you are grounded, and you have enough capacity with your well-being to be of service to others in the world. I think this is an area that really gets looked over Alexandra, in favor of just pay attention to your marketing. Just pay attention to your what you’re offering or just like just even deepen your understanding further. I’m not saying those things aren’t helpful but there is an energetic component to drawing clients to you, drawing opportunities to you. Divine mind wants to work through us. And so for me nowadays my work is not getting on a tube and going to a day job and going through that. My work now is a much nicer work. I can tell you is prioritizing listening to truth. Prioritizing taking care of self prioritizing, getting my coaching from my coach, prioritizing taking care of risk of that Capital G. There’s a level of, quote unquote, work. That just helps me personally. Hear wisdom deeply. Now, again listen, these aren’t things you have to do in order to hear your wisdom, I remember being 11 years old, and I grew up in Northern Ireland. I found myself in a very difficult situation between two adults. And what happened was I heard my wisdom, even though I was in a great deal of fear of what could just unfold in front of me, I heard my wisdom. And I said, the words that came to me, and it diffused the potential for violence. So, we don’t need to be a certain way to hear our wisdom. And for those of us that are in the business of coaching, it’s helpful to do whatever it takes to quiet down a little bit if you are in a busy state of mind, and to connect deeply with divine mind with that wisdom within. And that’s really fueled me through my own coaching business, and my life in recent years, just following wisdoms guidance. Alexandra: It’s such a, an easy trap to fall into, isn’t it? Listening to all the busyness that’s going on. And following that. I just noticed personally for myself, it can be a learned skill to remember that there’s another place we can go to for answers and guidance. Our busy mind is so compelling. And yet, trusting the quiet and the wisdom that comes through is, is for me, anyway, always the better choice. Grace: Always. That’s why I’m a fan of do what it takes to the – I know you don’t need to do anything, but I have find that when our schedules are over-scheduled, when our when we’re busy, busy, busy in life, or with work or whatever, there’s no room. There’s nothing wrong with engaging in whatever works for you to settle down. Sydney Banks spoke many a time about the power in meditation and I find even just listening to him meditative just that beautiful state. So whatever it takes and I just, that’s my quote unquote, work nowadays. Alexandra Alexandra: I love that. That’s a great way to frame it. Connected to that you mentioned on your website that often when we get lost or confused, we tend to work harder and try more. What can we learn from doing less? Grace: A lot. I remember hearing that quote like when an animal in the wild gets lost they stop and center themselves and sense the direction before taking any more action or any more movement. We on the other hand, when we get lost, we speed up. We start going 1000 miles in the wrong direction. It’s innocent. But I think we want to just notice those feelings of lostness, insecurity, worry, fear and use them as friends that are letting us know, settle down, stop, still get centered. Don’t make any decisions right now. The animal senses the direction before he takes a direction. So we can just begin to learn to do that. And that is doing less. Honestly, one of the most helpful questions one of my coaches gave to me was, Do I need to do this today? Because I would be convinced I had to do all those things, but they have to happen today. And how often are we in that innocent habit of doing, doing, doing, rushing, rushing, rushing, busy, busy, busy. My fiance at the time, he would be so generous with his bringing me back home, if you like, inside. So he would say, “My babe’s being a busy bee.” What he meant by that was I was just running left, right and center, I was just a busy bee all over the place. And to me, it was just like the norm. But again, there’s no room there. There’s no spaciousness. And for those of us, in particular, in this business we energetically shut down when we’re that busy. There’s just no capacity for supporting others or calling in new people to work with so we can do more for our business by doing less than anything else, any marketing plan, anything, just giving to ourselves first, and really questioning, getting suspicious of this thought that that you need to do it now. And it has to be you that does it. And it has to be done today. Alexandra: I love that. I personally remember years ago, before I understood this idea of listening to the quiet and to our own wisdom, I remember, as an entrepreneur countless times getting 10 miles down the road, working really hard, and then realizing, Oh, actually, I don’t want to be here. I don’t like this. And that wasn’t the right choice. So then I’d have to backtrack. But I made the same mistake over and over again. Until I didn’t. Until I learned the value of listening to the quiet. I love that about it doesn’t have to be done today. That’s such a good reminder. Grace: Because we live in these habits of thought that create urgency. Urgency is a habit of thought, and when you don’t know you’re up against urgency you live in that world of everything needing to be done right now. You are overwhelmed. You feel overwhelmed, and you don’t realize that you’ve just sped up. You’ve just become urgent. That’s what overwhelm really is a super busy mind. That’s just become very urgent. Alexandra: Yep, absolutely, totally. On your website, you refer to money as ‘God in action’. That really got my attention. Tell us about that. Grace: I first heard that when I read Julia Cameron’s book The Artists Way. Over the years, I’ve seen how money shows up for a purpose and what it’s needed for and it’s a form of God in action. It’s a form of Spirit working through us. It’s an energy, it’s a currency. And I’ve come to really respect it as part of Divine Mind’s supply. It’s just so curious how we all have learned to keep it away from ourselves. This incredible divine channel we’ve been taught is dirty is bad, keep it away. It’s wrong. We’ve got all this thinking about money. I saw over the years all the times and I’m sure you know yourself being in your own business, all the ups and downs and the roller coasters of you never know where it’s coming from, if it’s coming at all. But over the years, I just saw how it could be flowing to me. Of course, through and about idea to give a service like coaching, of course, through other ideas. I remember when my fiance died three years ago, I really was like, oh, gosh, I couldn’t work for quite a while and I really needed to take care of myself. And at the same time, I had financial demands and was so interesting to me that my prayer for divine mind to send money, an opportunity to sell a house came to me. I just knew Grace, take it. This is for you. I’m not an estate agent, by the way. But some friends of mine wanted to sell a house. They had a holiday home that they had here. And they were adamant that they wanted me to do it. I just knew, this is divine mind working. God in action here. Let’s see where this goes. I cannot tell you, it was the easiest, most blissful. I think for 4% of the sale that I like that I’d ever come across. I just walked in there, showed a couple around the house and came out. They accepted the offer. And they contacted the owners, and the owners contacted me and said, Oh, Grace you sold that house. I almost felt like, Oh, God, I can’t take any money because it was too easy. It was great. But it was an example of God in action. Money is God and action and we never know where the channel is going to come from, we just want to be open to the possibility. And so my thinking about money has really changed over the years. I’ve really come to see now that life wants to help and supply us. And this thing called money is divine mind circulating. It’s an incredible way for a divine mind to circulate. Because it’s so tangible. And it’s so rewarding. Why do we want to pinch ourselves off from it? But for our silly beliefs about it? I’d first heard that expression through Julia Cameron, but my embodied experience all of it, it just is. It’s just a lot truer for me and I given what I’ve seen over the years about how it flows to us. We just did a money workshop recently for our Living Miraculously course. And we shared three truths about money. One of the truths that I shared was money loves a purpose. Sometimes people are busy trying to get money, a certain amount of money, and there’s just no purpose behind it. It’s just for the sake of feeling more secure or paying some bills or whatever. But see, money loves a purpose really means that when you tap into that true desire of yours, rather than X amount of money, when you tap into that purpose for it, that true desire, and you’re actually lit up by that or you’re motivated by that. That’s where money can just so easily and gracefully flow. Again, spirit divine mind and action. Alexandra: When you first heard that from Julia Cameron, and began to explore this idea that money loves a purpose and wants to flow toward us. Did you have any mental blocks about that or anything new that you needed to see about it? Grace: From Julia Cameron, I heard go money is God in action. Money loves a purpose has been my experience. I just kept getting to the point where I had hardly anything in my bank account. And it’s almost like I tested the universe. And I had some pretty big demands coming. For example, the year I did my apprenticeship with Michael Neill that was a costly year and my business dropped during that year. He warned me. He told me it might because I was about to go through a shift. But I wanted to show up for the retreats, the events that everything. On one of the occasions, one of the events was in New York. And I remember, I had spoken to a client a couple of days earlier, and she had agreed she’d like to work with me on her coaching business. And I was happy to do that. And I left it with her that she would make the payment. I knew the payment was going to have to come because there was a purpose, I was off to New York. But as I was waking up that morning, there wasn’t a payment in my account. Now, what is the normal individual, maybe they don’t get on the plane, maybe they don’t, maybe they call someone and borrow the money first. I just got myself on the plane, knowing it’s going to be there, or it’s not. Let’s see how this works. There was a level of trust, there was a level of keep in mind, it had a purpose. So I was kind of confident it was going to be there. By the time I got on the other side of the world, the money was in my account. I’ve done a number of those kind of risky things in my coaching career, enough times to trust deeply that divine mind always shows up on time, the right time. I didn’t need money in that moment on the plane, but I did sure as hell needed in New York. I wanted to have a good time, I wanted to have a nice time, I wanted to stay somewhere nice. I’m always a fan of sharing with people just take the first step, if all you can do is book the flight, just book the flight. If there’s a purpose there for that money, be it a holiday, be it a business investment, be it desire for a beautiful car, be it for food for your family, it doesn’t matter. If there’s a purpose and a desire there, then that money has got to come, it’s got to flow. Often the way money flows is we get a divine idea, which is why we’re back to the beauty of the principles because the principles support us in a quieter state of mind. And in that quieter state of mind, we get ideas, and they are usually ideas that lead to money when acted upon. I’m not sure that answers the question, but I’m just giving you a taste of how, why I know this works. I’ve tested it, and tested it, and tested it. And in some cases, just been absolutely flabbergasted at what can happen and the thing I love about it too, and it’s like losing weight that can take days or weeks or months receiving money, just within hours or overnight. There’s no timeline, we’re like, how Divine is that? There is no timeline when it comes to money. Now we all carry a lot of thinking about it. It’s curious to get like get beyond our silly beliefs about it. But over time, I’ve just seen it more and more as a as divine mind and action. Or as Julia Cameron said, God in action. Alexandra: I love that and you’re so right. It has such a concrete way of being. It’s either there or it isn’t. So we can see what’s working or what isn’t right away. As we get just about toward the end of our time together, is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share with us today? Grace: I just probably could share the whole the whole afternoon. It’s one of my favorite things is to be interviewed like this, to be in conversation together. It’s a real joy. For me, it’s back in my teaching role. I think the only thing that I would encourage or invite the audience to consider is taking care of self. It’s an essential. I think it’s something that we underestimate, especially if we’re running our own business. Or if we’re busy playing wife or mum or caretaker to others, there’s something about really prioritizing that quiet for yourself. Really dropping into that beautiful feeling that arises from that quieter mind. It moves, it awakens all sorts of opportunity and possibility not just deep well being within us that, frankly the world can’t help but notice. I like to share that when we are up against a lot of thinking about life or business or relationships, or really is a beautiful invite, to come back to self with a capital S. To prioritize that. To quiet the mind and to let your feelings be your guide. I didn’t know in the early days that my feelings weren’t telling me anything about my circumstances. I was convinced my feelings meant something about my bank account in the future. My feelings meant something about my relationship. My feelings meant something about my health. I just see more and more, Oh, the feelings of friend. Oh, it’s just letting me know I’ve got a really busy mind. Time to quiet the stress, tension, upset, insecurity. All of it just come back home quiet mind. So that’s what I’d like to share. Alexandra: Thank you. Beautiful. Where can we find out more about you and your work? And please do tell us about the two programs that you’ve got coming up in early 2024. Grace: I have two: one is a collaboration with my friend and colleague, Dominic Scaffidi. And that is an eight week program called Living Miraculously. I think you probably have a link for that Alexandra somewhere. And that’s our fastest selling, biggest, most impactful group program that came from a divine download that I had walking around the streets of London over a year ago, and the program has just continued to grow and grow and grow. It’s really pointing people back to the miracle of who they really are. And it’s really stirring possibility. We have over 200 participants that have gone through the program, 20 different countries, the testimonials are just miracle after miracle, as you’ll see on the on the page if you visit. And so that’s a way to work with us within a group format, if you’re interested in living a more miraculous life. The second program I have is a program that I have created for those that are coaches. And it’s a small group mastermind, Create Your Thriving Coaching Business. And that’s really going to be pointing people to a graceful, effortless way of growing your coaching business and enjoying your life and the process. So I think you have a link for that too. Alexandra: I will put links to both of those in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com. Tell us your website address as well. Grace: The website is gracefulcoaching.net. Alexandra: Perfect. I’ll add a link to that in there as well. Well, thank you so much, Grace. This has been so lovely. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation and it’s been great to meet you too. Grace: Thank you. I feel the same, lovely to meet you Alexandra. Alexandra: Take care. Bye bye. Featured image photo by James Lee on Unsplash The post Life Helping Us with Grace Kelly appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Take a moment and extend yourself a little kindness today. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Transcript of episode Hello Explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 45 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. As this goes out, it’s Christmas Day, 2023. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, what I wanted to do today is just encourage you to give yourself a bit of a break. So no matter when you’re listening to this, here’s what I would love. I would love for you to take a moment today and give yourself a tiny bit of kindness. Extend some compassion toward yourself. Even if it’s just for a minute. You could just put your hand on your heart and remember that being a human being is really, really hard. This is a hard thing you’re doing. It is a challenge. And you’re doing a great job. No matter what’s going on in your life, no matter maybe how caught up you are in your feelings today. And in your thoughts. Especially if you’re doing great, you’re really trying hard to be the best human being you can be. And no matter what’s going on, no matter even when we fail at that. Even when we innocently fall down and get bruised and maybe do some things that upset some people or whatever it is, whatever way it is that we feel like we failed. Even then, we deserve our own grace, and compassion, and kindness. I would love for you today, if you just extended that to yourself. If you took a moment – you could pause this podcast right now – and just whatever way it feels good for you to do that give yourself the tiniest bit of kindness that you are able to give. And remember that the person that you are, is no matter what the circumstances is doing the very best you can. Even when we feel like we fall down at that, at reaching for that goal, even when we do things we regret, we’re still always trying our very best. And we’re always trying to connect always at every moment to the peace and the love and the kindness that we are. That we’re made of. The building blocks, the material that we are made of is peace and love, and well-being and resilience. And we’re always trying to connect to that. So that’s all I really have to say for today. This is a shorter episode. But I just wanted to pop in and encourage you to try to give yourself a little bit of kindness today because you deserve it. I trust that you are well and taking good care and I hope that whatever is happening for you today, whenever you’re listening to this, that you were able to do this to yourself, extend yourself some grace, even if things are really hard, even if things are going badly. I’m sending you lots of love as always, and I will talk to you again next week. Take care. Featured image photo by ben van ‘t ende on Unsplash The post Q&A 45 – A moment of kindness appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Alex Linares describes herself as a lifelong seeker. She has always been curious about how life works and what it means. When she stumbled across the Three Principles she realized that there was no more need for seeking, or even for self-help. Alex Linares is a scientist and lifelong seeker; curious to understand life, purpose and meaning. After decades of searching for behavior modification methods to rid herself of unwanted habits, three insights changed the trajectory of her life. This opened up a vast space of possibility and wonder in Alex’s life and a resolute drive to help others find the space in themselves that is free of those things we have misunderstood as our identity. You can find Alex Linares at CanaimaCoaching.com and on Instagram @alexcanaimacoaching. 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 dawning realization that we are not our thoughts If we are not our thoughts, feelings, or behaviours what are we? On the sense of loss we can experience as we explore this Thought as a function of memory How liberating it is to know we can’t get life ‘right’ What does life need us to be? Playing with letting go in places where the stakes are low Resources Mentioned in this Episode Alex’s podcast with Amanda Jones, The Wonder Land, available wherever you get your podcasts Transcript of Interview with Alex Linares Alexandra: Alex Linares. Welcome to Unbroken. Alex: Thank you. So happy to be here. Alexandra: Thank you, thank you for being here with me. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background? And how you heard about the three principles? Alex: I love reflecting on this question, because it changes every time that I kind of look back there. And see, how did how did I get here. I am a scientist professionally, been in research for a very long time. And just have always been a really curious person. Since my earliest memories was always around just finding out how things worked, and where things came from, and just really trying to understand. I think that kind of translated into my professional life looking into the scientific world moving in that direction, but also into this seeking side that started really early on for me from the earliest years of being in Sunday school. That religious learning, it wasn’t a passive thing. For me, it was a very active interaction that I had with that knowledge and the information that was being provided and really questioning what was coming my way and kind of looking around and realizing that not a lot of people that were six, seven years old, were doing that. So yeah, it was just really interesting that it became a really big identity for me really early on that I feel like I need to know more. I feel like others are okay with a certain threshold and of knowing, and they’re happy with that. I never really felt like I reached that. So I think it’s kind of permeated my whole my whole history. And in that same kind of path I went through the religious and path and looking at different types of religions. Kind of comparing and contrasting that we do a lot when we look at the Western religions, or the Eastern religions, and through that a lot of the philosophies and a lot of the things that kept coming up, the same themes were so interesting to me. It seemed like we were all pointing at the same thing. And we had different life experiences and words and histories. As the beauty of seeing the similarities across all of that just became something really fascinating and very unifying for me. To the point where I didn’t feel the need to find the one dogma or the one method that would work for me, just because I felt that it was all pointing in the same direction. Which I think fits right into the Three Principles that part of your question, which is, the Three Principles really brought that all together in a very secular way, which was really interesting. But in a very deep spiritual felt sense, which I was very unique. I think psychology has tried to do that. A lot of the Buddhist meditation psychology has tried to do it. But the Three Ps just had a different spin to it and it really resonated, it came to me at the right time in my life, which was actually through Amy Johnson. I read her book at the end of 2020 all the things were happening, not just a pandemic, I was moving out of state and reestablishing my life in a completely different place. And it really felt like a different planet, late 2020 In terms of what life looked like, and what the world I thought I was moving into versus what it was. It just really resonated for me to see the simplicity of experience as mind and thought and just really being able to have a tangible word for experience in the manifestation of experience. So that’s how I came to find the Three Principles. It’s mentioned in Dr. Amy Johnson’s book, The Little Book of Big Change in passing. It’s not really a three principles book, but then I of course, I started looking into it and then I started reading a lot of the Sydney Banks work and a lot of the other Three Principles practitioners. So it really opened up a whole world of speaking again, about the same thing, the same kind of unknowable experience. But the language really resonated with me. Alexandra: Many people who are guests on the show were searching for a specific answer to a question or trying to heal themselves from something when they went on that search. Was that the same for you? Alex: Yeah, it definitely was. It’s very specifically to Amy, like how I found Amy Johnson. And the Three Principles was around eating. There was this kind of big, heavy eating thing that seemed like an issue, and I needed to find solutions. And so that was definitely the portal there. But when I reflect back, and I really look at what preceded a lot of the issues that I was trying to fix, it was always this more generic emptiness, like a missing something. There was this very early on, I just had this sense of like, there’s something more here that I’m missing. And I think that kind of longing, that that emptiness, then turned into, oh, I need to fix my food issues, or I need to be more disciplined, or I need to be a better parent. I’ve seen how it’s changed, but because I think it’s because it was so early for me as a child, I remember that there was this, like, non-content longing, that that then obviously, the mind filled with plenty of content for me to chase and fix. Alexandra: Speaking of this, you mention on your website that you had three big insights that changed the trajectory of your life. Could you share those with us, please? Alex: I have a big smile on my face when I think about that, because it’s just been such a beautiful experience to have a sense of expansion. And sometimes that expansion feels like progression. Because I want to give it a direction. And I want to feel like I’m getting somewhere. But what it’s been, it’s just this kind of clarifying of orientation, the way I will put it. So when I first started searching, it really felt like whatever words and images were in my head, that’s where I was. I’m this thinking. I’m these words, I’m these images. And then, for those first kind of years, realizing, Oh, I’m not my thoughts. When we think of someone like Byron Katie, which was The Work was one of those big portals for me. And just realizing like how obvious that I wasn’t my thoughts there’s some activity up here seemingly around my head, and then I’ve identified with it interesting. And then then moving into like, well, then what is this body that feels without language? What is his body that that goes towards and away and then realizing that I was then identifying with that as his body that was solid and it was moving and reacting to the world. When I looked at that closer, realizing that that wasn’t that either. I wasn’t the thinking and then almost like, I’m thinking with my body like that’s kind of an extension of food. Which is kind of, of huge opening for a lot of people. And then I was left with who am I in the world. I’m obviously acting and it feels like I’m affecting other people. And then I must be my behaviors. I must be the activity of being out in the world. And then realizing how arbitrary that is, what I who I am out in the world is through the filter of who I think I am through the thoughts, through the feelings and then just having all that collapse like wow, if I’m not what I’m thinking, and I’m not what I’m feeling and I’m not what I’m doing, what am I? And there’s not a lot that comes back from that and I think that’s the point. I feel like when we really shed a lot of that, then there’s not a lot of questions left, I guess, when those things are kind of obvious and self evident. Alexandra: Was there an experience of grief when you realize you weren’t your thoughts? You weren’t your feelings? You weren’t your behavior out in the world? Was there a sense of loss? Alex: That’s huge. I think we don’t talk about that enough, not as coaches and not in this, because there was a huge, huge wave of grief. And there still are every time that I realized that something that I identified with is not it, whatever it is, there is grief. And it’s a sadness of, there’s a little bit of like, I’ve spent so much time doing that, and thinking that and yeah, like all of that, but it’s almost this vacuum, of like, oh, life on like something, it wants to be filled with something with more information. If I’m not this, I’m that and Whoa, look at that you should have done this earlier. But then there’s just this vacuum. I think that is what for me is the grief is that open space that sometimes just wants to remain empty. And we have so much momentum into not having that emptiness be that has this going back to that word, that longing, that that sadness that there’s a little bit of a tinge of sadness to it for a bit, sometimes for a long bit. I love that you bring that up, because I have coached quite a few people that feel like something’s gone wrong with that, because they’re like, Well, I thought this was going to be unicorns and rainbows. I’ve been investing money and time and my entire life, and then all of a sudden, it’s lighter. Life is lighter, things feel clearer, perhaps. And I’m sad, or I miss it. I think if we point to like, yes, and you’re going to feel that because that’s the full experience of being alive. I think it can really help. I can really help. Alexandra: Thank you for saying that. I appreciate hearing your take on that very much. You have a blog post on your site, where you say that all we ever are is memory. Alex: That’s like a fresh one for me. I was down one of those YouTube rabbit holes that one can get into and I was cleaning or doing something and it was Krishna J. Krishnamurti was just having one of his big talks and he said thought is a function of memory. It slowed me down a little bit and I was like thought is a function of memory, okay, I can follow that. In order to have a thought that is known there has to be information somewhere. That then is a thought have a coherent thoughts. I was like, I can follow that. And then he said, everything that we can know is memory. I had to really slow down with that. And then my mind went to Okay, I’m going to find the exception. What is in memory? You can try it yourself. I actually highly encourage that you try it yourself. You cannot find anything that can be known, that is not memory, because everything has been learned. The shapes, the colors, the just even the sense of knowing that the idea of this is site versus this is touch, all that has been learned and not like actively, like sit down in a classroom learned. But it has been how we’ve learned to be human and how we’ve learned to be people that move in this material world. It was so tangible like, because when we can say it out loud and say, Oh, everything’s memory. It sounds a bit like I don’t know about that like, but really sit with it. What you’re holding in your hands right now, this pen that I’m holding, is only memory because I remember what a pen feels like. What it looks like the shape of it, the colors of it, what I do with it, like I can’t hold the pen. In its raw experience. I don’t know how to anymore because I’ve learned how to re experience my memory as thought. Alexandra: It’s such a profound idea. And it has me thinking about things like when people lose their memory if they have amnesia, or Alzheimer’s or something like that. What’s left there is there is an essence, of course of the person that still there. Alex: That essence. When I think of remembering who we are we have to remember who we are. And we know that when we see those cases where someone loses either part of their function of their brain, or there’s some kind of malfunction, they will lose their personality, some essential things and that’s a huge grief process for the families like where did that person go? And that to me is fascinating. And it points to that who we are this continuous person is based on memory, which is very fragile, as we as we know. Because it seems to be contained in this brain. And then there is this essence. And that essence, tends to be very immediate. It doesn’t reference back a lot. And I think that’s what we’re always kind of searching for, is that, Oh, what am I, when I don’t have to remember who I am? Or who I need to be? Alexandra: I even think about when we have thoughts about the future. If there are things that are not memories, and I’m specifically thinking about anxiety, it still really is a memory, because we’re getting anxious about something that happened in the past. And we often think we’re worried about something that could happen in the future. But really, we’re worried about something we think could happen again, in the future. That’s where we go with our thoughts about anxiety. Alex: That’s huge, like see in the future is memory. It can’t be anything else. That’s why when you look at it, it’s fun, because what else would it be? If it’s not memory, I wouldn’t be able to know it. I think we’ve all had that experience; you’re going about your day, and someone says something, and it wasn’t in your universe to worry about. And you’re like, Oh, now I get to worry about that. And it’s interesting, because all of a sudden, that becomes part of your memory, but a second before, that was nowhere in your universe to be projected as a worry into the future. So it’s just kind of interesting to see that our past, our present as in a tangible, this is where I am right now. And the future is all just kind of a function of memory. Alexandra: I’m going to be playing with that for a little while, for sure, I can tell. You also have mentioned on your website about how liberating it is to know that we can’t get it right. Alex: This is one that I’ve been playing around with a lot. And actually, we had a wonderful call today with a small group and this came up. And it’s this little sneaky story that that we learn early on, that there is a kind of rubric or some kind of Master Plan, or some kind of endpoint that makes our life right or worthwhile. It was really interesting to see how subtle it is. It shows up in really small ways where you make a decision and then there’s doubt: I should have done that. Why? Why would you? Where does that come from? it comes from this discomfort of not knowing what the right way to do life is because we won’t know. We’ll never know. But having the story that there is a right way to do it somewhere and it’s not active, and it doesn’t play out in every single part of our lives, but I think it does. And most of the things that we do in life, that we do have this really, this outline far off in the distance of what it should look like and how it looks like to move towards it and realizing that that is there. More than I think what, what the big insight for me was that if I got it I wouldn’t know it. Because I don’t know what right looks like. It’s so far away. It’s so nebulous, it changes so much. It’s so dependent on my mood and who’s around and what stage of my life? I wouldn’t know a right, good life if it hit me over the head. And just knowing that was really freeing, like, Oh, I’m hustling towards this perfection. But I don’t even know what that perfection looks like. And never will. Alexandra: We can see that that’s the case, because we move the goalposts all the time. We can even have a moment where we feel like, Oh, I did it, right. And yet, there’s still that chasing feeling there, that yearning to get it right. So obviously, it’s not actually a thing we can do. Because if it was, and we did something we would feel that. Alex: For me, what flipped it for me was, I think in the self-help world, we hear a lot of you can’t get it wrong. Do what you got to do, and life doesn’t get it wrong. For me, there was this connotation, my mind would finish the sentence and say, well, then everything is right. If I can’t get it wrong, then anything that happens is right. And there was movement away from the concepts of right and wrong. Its totality. Because my mind was always going to get the other half of it right. It was going to try to complete that sentence, and when I was like, Well, I can’t get it wrong. Sure. But I also can’t get it right. Because there’s no such thing. And that just kind of collapsed both concepts for me. And there was just this freedom that I hadn’t found before in that kind of disappearance of that as a concept that I wanted that felt like I was striving towards. Alexandra: I’m glad you shared that. That’s such a good distinction to make, that the whole thing collapses when we realize there isn’t there is no wrong or right. Neither one exists. And who’s keeping score? I wish I had discovered this years ago, because in my I guess, 30s, especially I really struggled to accept that I didn’t want to fit into a mold. I felt like there was this mold, especially around work that I was supposed to fit into, and I didn’t and so then I felt like I was doing it wrong all the time. The permission to just be myself would have been so helpful. Alex: For me, actually, this insight came to me around parenting and how there was this like, Okay, well, what if I can’t get it right? Most people who have older kids, I have smaller children who still love me and adore me. We haven’t hit the teenage years with a resistance yet. I know some amazing parents who their kids are like, Nope, no, you did it all wrong. I just remember playing with that. What if I can never get it right? When it comes to parenting, it’s always going to be through the lens of them and their freedom to interpret regardless of my motives, my motivation, my anything, they’re going to conclude whatever they’re going to conclude about these interactions. So if I hustle and try to get it right, then that’s kind of a losing battle. And I was like, what if I never can? Or how do I show up as a parent, as a mother, day in and day out? Not trying to get it right, but trying to just be with what’s showing up in that moment, and just really tracking true to the experience that’s showing up without that need for continuity. How do I become the kind of parent that does it? Alexandra: Oh, wow, that’s really great. As you say, liberating was the word you used. Wow, amazing. So now, I would like to quote you back to yourself. This is a quote from one of your blog posts. “All life needs as me is here now.” Can you talk about that a little bit? And what you mean? Alex: I think what that means for me listening back to it, is really about the wisdom of the immediate moment, however it’s showing up. And you get a second behind it or a second ahead of it, and you’re judging it, and you’re like, No, this is wrong should have been different. The moment that’s showing up for us right now is the culmination of everything that’s happened before, what we remember, what we understand, what our bodies have felt, and really leaning into the fact that this mind will never know everything that came together to culminate in this moment. But I have the best proof that it is exactly what life needed it to be. Because it’s what’s showing up. To me, it can be a mental analysis of like, okay, yeah, things were meant to be. And it can be this kind of unsettling. That’s very humbling. Because it’s really a complete surrender. It’s a complete surrender to what’s showing up The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly, what we want to change the next moment what we’re going to regret when we come to, but there’s just this liminal space. Before all that shows up. That I think we know, just that perfection. Alexandra: Given that a lot of our listeners are dealing with an over eating habit, then could you put what you’ve just said in the context of having a craving and a desire to over eat? Alex: This is funny, because this actually came up yesterday for me around cravings, and I had a good laugh about it after it came. I was fighting a craving, I should know that all the noise. And in the immediate moment of giving into the craving, all I said was, this feels so good. And it was the most honest thing I had said to myself in such a long time. That giving into that craving felt good. And of course, I’m going to do it if it feels good. That was the part where I was like, the right like, I’m trying to make a big deal out of like, Oh, what do I still want this? And it’s it was so simple for me in that moment. Why did I have it? Because I wanted it and I liked it when I had it. And then the next moment, a lot more information came to me. Interesting, why do I like this so much. But it was coming. I was like driving and all of a sudden; you know when you drive and you just kind of look at the other parts of the map and then you kind of lose where you are and your GPS is still going. But you don’t know where you are, you’re like, where’s the dot? And then you recalibrate, you press that button that centers a whole GPS. That’s what it did, all of a sudden, being honest in the moment with what was showing up for me, regardless of whether I liked it or not, it reoriented me into, oh, I’m here, I’m here. And then I felt a wave of openness into Okay, now you’re here. Where are we going? Where do we go next? Where do we go next with what you’ve known not mentally, not through my judgment, but fully physically embodied? Knowing in that moment that that craving and giving into it felt good. Does that make sense? It does is really this just happened like 12 hours ago? So I’m processing it as we’re talking through it. Alexandra: I think it’s such a good point to be reminded about is that we’re always well, this is one thing I got from what you say is that we’re always wanting a good feeling. We’re always wanting to connect with a good feeling. So it’s perfectly natural, that we treat ourselves to some sort of food because it does feel good. I get so much out of the fact that demonizing that takes us way away from what’s actually happening. Alex: Demonizing it, interrupts what’s happening. I think a lot of us have this experience, which I find that bizarre, but it’s so common for a lot of us, which is, as you’re eating it, as you’re eating something, you’re like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m eating this, I shouldn’t be eating this, and still the action is happening. It’s almost like this out of body experience. I’m not liking it. And there’s this conflict, right. I feel like in the conflict, and when we’re so in our heads about the conflict of worry, they’re in the conflict of doing it, or in the planning of how we’re not going to do it again. We’re in either of those cases, we’re not present with the information that that we’re getting in that moment as to why that action is taking place. That to me is going back and pointing to the immediacy of the moment where all the wisdom is, it’s not in the plan that comes out of it. It’s not in the regret, it’s in that moment. What is showing up fully, including the judgment and all of that, that may come later. Alexandra: And given that we just talked about presence and what life needs from us, I’m trying to connect the dots with those with those two things and the awareness that’s within us. We’re not our thoughts, like we talked about at the beginning, we’re not our thoughts, we’re not our feelings, we’re not our behaviors. I don’t have a question, but I can just feel myself bringing those things together. Alex: I think it’s about that seamlessness of life, when we can be in the immediacy of the moment without the need for the memory of who we are, we should be a need to be and we can be in the immediacy of the body as it seems to move through this environment. Then all of it kind of comes together: the thinking the feeling. There aren’t all those separations to me. I think it we are always that seamless movement of life. That is in itself the culmination of life, moment to moment, not toward something, not because it has an agenda, not because it’s moving towards that perfect next but just the aliveness. The arising of aliveness. Exactly as it shows up. Alexandra: I guess with my brain, I spend so much time trying to control that rather than just letting it happen. I’m sure I’m not alone. Alex: We all go back and forth, like sometimes we’re like, oh we’re I’m really trying to control this. And then you realize, can I control it? And that’s the question that when I was like, Well, what if I just let go? I was like, No, I wasn’t doing much in the first place. So how about you then you start being more willing to try it? When in small ways, you see, like, oh, I wasn’t driving this bus anyway. Little by little, you’re like, oh, okay, what else can I let go? What can I be softer around? What else is none of my business here that I could just kind of be easier around? And it’s easier to do in certain parts of our lives, I think when it comes to our big issues it’s hard to do that, but playing around with it, where the stakes feel low. I love starting there. Because then it’s, it becomes a felt sense, then then you don’t need to know it. Or, or kind of point to it or have a method for it is more of a way that that your body, your system, wants to show up around the experiences. Alexandra: That’s such a good reminder to play with this where the stakes feel low. For someone who’s struggling with overeating, that might not be the place to begin but there are other places in our life where we can just play with this and see, see what happens. Alex: There’s something so incredible about eating and food being what brings us to this conversation. Sometimes, for some people, it feels trivial, like, I’ll relate to food for me some people have relationship issues or, and, and then on the other side, it’s in our face day in and day out. Food is so integral to life itself. And I am just always in awe of the people who come to this conversation through the portal of food and eating and eating disorders, because it takes over our lives in such an amazing way. I think there is a beautiful opportunity. And how all-encompassing coming to this through food can be in a whole lot of compassion. That is where it feels like we’re fighting nature or survival or there’s so many ways that that we come to the table when we’re expanding through this lens of food. Alexandra: Thank you for saying that. That was really beautifully said. I appreciate that. As we get closer to the end of our time together, is there anything you’d like to share that we haven’t talked about yet today? Alex: I think what I would share is that really there’s going to be this battleground for this expansion in this conversation. Like we’re talking about food for some people, money for others and that’s going to have its tightness and its resistance and a lot of these qualities. There could be a playground next to that battleground, where we can explore in a playful way. Some of these things that we are learning right through our experiences and just being able to say hi, let me just play, let me see what I see because it doesn’t matter Let me be curious. Let me be the child who takes this thing apart because it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to break it. Holding those two things. Like yes, some things are going to feel like a battleground. But then be curious about where is that playground? Where you can expand in in that’s more softer, supported way. Making a conscious effort to bring that compassion and that softness into a lot of things. Alexandra: Lovely. Thank you for that. So Alex, where can we find out more about you and your work? Alex: You can find me on Instagram. You can find me on my website. CanaimaCoaching.com. We’d love to hear from you. Alexandra: Perfect. And you also have a podcast with Amanda Jones. Alex: The Wonder Land comes out every Wednesday at 3:14am. Amanda Jones and I have been recorded our 45th episode today for The Wonder Land. Just a lot more of this exploration. Very dreamy, open format. I hope people who join and listen to us get to daydream along with us. So yeah, give it a listen. Alexandra: Nice. Okay, great. Thank you so much for being here with me. I really appreciate it. Alex: Thank you for having me, Alexandra. Featured image photo by Jason Ortego on Unsplash The post The Wisdom of the Moment with Alex Linares appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When we’re trying to change something like an overeating habit, it can feel good to take lots of action. But how many times have we failed when approaching it that way? And what if there’s another way? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes How the iceberg metaphor of change works The surprising way change actually works Why explorers of this understanding are like tuning forks Continuing our conversation about the back of the spiral How insight is what raises the temperature of the water around the iceberg Resources Mentioned in this Episode Dr. Amy Johnson Ian Watson’s episode of Unbroken Transcript of episode Hello explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 44 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. Today I want to do a follow up episode to episode 41. In that episode I talked about the natural shape of change, which is like a spiraling shape. And the way that our growth or change or learning happens in that kind of a spiral motion. And we want it to be a straight line, but it isn’t. Sometimes we can get into the back of the spiral, which can be a little more challenging. So this is a bit of a follow up to that I wanted to share a metaphor that Dr. Amy Johnson, I heard her share it years ago. It’s the iceberg metaphor. And then I might go into a little bit of a mash up of these two metaphors. Let me share the iceberg metaphor first. This is a metaphor of change. If you picture an iceberg sitting in the water, in the North Atlantic near Newfoundland or down in the Antarctic. They’re really big. I was actually reading online today, there’s an iceberg down in the Antarctic, now that is broken away from some place, some ice sheet or something that it was near. And it’s the size of Oahu, the island in Hawaii, if you can imagine. It dwarfs the island of Manhattan by four or five times. It’s absolutely enormous. Icebergs are really big. And that’s what an overeating habit can feel like, right? What we’re what I’m talking about on Unbroken, and in my work, is a model of change that’s very different from the traditional model of change. And the traditional model of change looks like if you imagine that that iceberg is your overeating habit, what we tend to do, because we don’t know any better, we’re innocently we’re trying to change something, right? If it’s this big, bulky thing, it feels like a problem, it feels like we need to get rid of it. We get up there on the iceberg and we chip away with our ice pick, which of course is a ton of work, especially if you’ve got an iceberg that’s the size of a Oahu. So again, we do this because we don’t know any other way. It’s just the way that we’ve been taught that change works. Imagine how much effort it would take and how long it would take to chip away at an iceberg. Even if it’s not the size of Oahu. It’s almost an impossible task. And of course to because given where icebergs exist, if you made a little bit of progress, and chipped away at some of that iceberg and then moved over to another section it could snow, it could rain, and that place where you were chipping away, could just fill in with ice again. So it’s hard work. And it we really don’t make much progress. I will say now too, though, it looks like the only way. So this model of using the ice pick on the iceberg is the diet model. This is the self-help model that we innocently, innocently take in order to create change in our lives and resolve an overeating habit. What that looks like is controlling our food intake, it looks like using willpower, it looks like assigning ourselves certain foods we can eat and certain foods we can’t eat. It looks like holding ourselves to a really strict standard of behavior. And that feeling of being on a really tight leash when it comes to food, like there are forbidden foods over there. And I can only eat these ones over here. And I can only eat certain amounts of them. Of course, we all know we can only do that for so long. It’s just exhausting. And given that our design is trying to give us information about what’s going on with our insecure thinking the force of nature that we’re up against, is not movable by us and our little attempts to chip away at that iceberg, if that makes sense. We’re dealing with universal forces here. No wonder it feels like incredibly hard work to try to control this thing that’s happening within us, this force of nature. And no wonder we fail all the time. So that’s the first part of the iceberg metaphor. The second part is that in this understanding the three principles understanding that I’m exploring on this podcast and in my work, the inside out understanding: What we’re doing to create change in this understanding, is we’re raising the temperature of the water. We’re looking somewhere entirely different. We’re not really tackling the iceberg at all, with our brute strength, we are coming at it from a completely different direction. And like I say, trying to raise the temperature of the water. And when we do that, what happens is that the iceberg itself naturally melts, it has no choice, because that’s how ice and water work. That’s, that’s science. That’s physics. How do we do that? How do we raise the temperature of the water? What does that look like? The first thing I want to say is that it is a model that looks like we have so much less control, or even there is so much less for us to control. I think one of the reasons that we have so often reached for the ice pick method, the diet and managing control method is that it’s satisfying, in that it feels like we’re doing something. We’re taking action, we are making a plan and trying to stick with it. And that kind of action, that kind of structure and just that feeling that we’re getting something done, temporarily, that can feel really satisfying. We feel like we’ve got control over it. And therefore, things are going to be okay. Now I can speak for myself personally and say I tried that hundreds, hundreds of times over 30 years, probably thousands, and it never worked. But in the beginning, I always felt that feeling of satisfaction, okay, I’ve got a handle on this. I’m really holding on to this tightly. And I can do this, I can do these things. And of course, they never lasted. But I think it’s that feeling of satisfaction and control that we keep going back to over and over and over again. Instead, in this understanding, we were searching for insight. The way that we do that is by listening to podcasts like this and listening to people talk about this understanding and reading books and that kind of thing. I had Ian Watson on the show a couple of episodes ago, on the Thursday interview show, I can’t remember what episode it was, what number, but he talked about how when we begin to explore this understanding and really get our heads around it we become almost like a tuning fork for others. I loved that metaphor that he used because I can feel that when I’m having an interview when I’m talking to someone on a Thursday episode, and they share what they can see. And I can feel that when I’m listening to someone speak on a podcast like Dicken Bettinger or whoever it is, Dr. Bill Pettit. Any number of people, Michael Neill, Sydney Banks. There’s that real tuning fork feeling and what happens with a tuning fork here I go into another metaphor, but sorry about that, but it’s just occurring to me now. I think that the way tuning forks work, if you tap a tuning fork on something and get it vibrating, that the thing near it will begin to vibrate at that same frequency. That’s how this understanding works is that we come close to someone else who’s vibrating at this frequency, not to get all woowoo about it, but metaphorically. And we begin to vibrate at that same frequency. So in that, there’s really nothing for us to do other than listen, and pay attention to our own wisdom and our own experience. And that can be a tricky thing to do. This is where we circle back around to the conversation we had an episode 41, about the back of the spiral. Because when we’re in the back of the spiral, like I am right now – I looked it up, I have a little spreadsheet and I’ve been here now as of this recording, for about two months. And that’s tricky. It’s frustrating, and it’s challenging. I can feel that what my mind wants to do is get the ice pick out. My mind starts thinking, “There’s got to be something I can do to chip away at this iceberg.” Instead, I’m just floating here, waiting for the temperature of the water to rise. Now, fortunately, I’ve been exploring this understanding for long enough that I trust what’s happening. I’m sure from the outside, it looks like I’m doing nothing to raise the temperature of the water, to create the next bit of change in my life and to have insights. Insights are what raise the temperature of the water, they are the thing that creates change. I’m sure from the outside, if someone was watching really closely, it would seem like I’m doing nothing to make that happen. I’m sure that that person, whoever was watching, would tell me to get the ice pick out again, to start weighing and measuring my food. I’ve talked about my affection for rice and potatoes, to cut those foods out of my life and just make them go away and use willpower to make that happen. And that kind of thing. Thankfully, I know now enough to know that that’s not the answer. But it does take a bit of faith. And I have had some days recently where I’ve felt frustrated. Being in the back of the spiral is frustrating. But as I mentioned last time on episode 41, this is where the learning happens. This is where the insights happen. So I’m not getting the ice pick out. I’m letting the iceberg be what it is for right now. It can seem like it’s growing, or it’s this big looming thing. And it feels much better. Of course, when we’re on the front of the spiral, when things are going great. When I personally feel like I’m eating in a way that really is aligned with my values and what I’m trying to accomplish. And of course, that always feels so good. And then when we come into the back of the spiral, it’s it feels less good. It’s can be frustrating. So I just wanted to do that little metaphor mash up for you. And talk about the back of the spiral, a little bit more. I don’t think I had ever mentioned that iceberg metaphor before. So I thought this would be a good way to, to share something that might help you to see something new, and also to illustrate how change really works. What we can do to create change is stay in the conversation. Listen to what’s what other people are saying. Bring your tuning fork up close to somebody else’s tuning fork. And know and trust that insight will find you and then it’s just as close as your next thought. I hope that’s been helpful for you and that you are doing well and taking good care. I will talk to you again next week. Bye for now. Featured image photo by Derek Oyen on Unsplash The post Q&A 44 – How are weight-loss strategies like an ice pick? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Coach and author Amanda Jones explores the simplicity behind our human experience and how understanding this can free us from suffering with things like bulimia, anxiety, depression, binge eating and more. Amanda Jones is the author of Uncovery: A New Understanding Behind Radical Freedom from Eating Disorders and Depression and explores with clients their true nature and the understanding that what has been believed to be true about the self can be seen as a simple misunderstanding. This exploration uncovers the freedom that we have been seeking for so long. You can find Amanda Jones at UncoverySpace.com and on Instagram @amandajonesuncovery. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes The discovery that all of life is made of thought On the dissolving of the identity with a self How we were feeling beings for millennia before the thinking mind got involved How our suffering is the thing that wakes us up How the diet system contributes to our problems with food Resources Mentioned in this Episode Dr. Amy Johnson’s Little School of Big Change No Self, No Problem by Chris Niebauer Transcript of Interview with Amanda Jones Alexandra: Amanda Jones, welcome to Unbroken. Amanda: I’m so happy to be here. So exciting. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so looking forward to this conversation. Alexandra: Me too. It’s been ages since we’ve had a conversation. So I’m really looking forward to it as well. Why don’t you tell us about your background? How you got involved in this work? Amanda: I was a professional dancer for 25 years. And then, through that time, developed various eating disorders and depression. And I had to retire because of those struggles. I came across Dr. Amy Johnson and Michael Neill and that catapulted me into the understanding of Three Principles and blew my world upside down. I had been a spiritual seeker from very, very, very young, I mean, just like, having this sense that something’s off here. People around me adults around me are telling me how the world is and how I am and it just felt off like something’s not right here. As a child very suspicious about how does anybody know what’s going on here? And come to find out nobody does. And that’s the freedom right. That’s the peace that passes understanding is that is that nobody knows what’s going on. And even more than that, I really think started to change in a big way for me when I woke up to Thought. So just like a fish waking up to water, that I had no idea of course, I didn’t, until I did. Everything is thought. All of it is thought. All of it is thought in a way that is nebulous and pliable and changing and fluid and seamless, that there’s nothing to pin down and hold and grasp. I think, for me, the trying to pin down and grasp and hold my identity in one place for long enough to feel okay, the failure of doing that and being able to do that got so painful that when I started to learn about this and learn about thought, and the deeper experience of us, I really came to see that that nothing is as I think it is. My failure to pin down an identity or a feeling or a self was a success. This whole time, I was succeeding and doing what is impossible and unnecessary. And the pain that it caused was showing me this is not supposed to. But I of course the conditioned mind interpreted that failure as well. Let me just try again. Let me just find the right thing, the right diet, the right book, the right way of thinking. And then I’ll succeed. But it was all on a false premise. The false premise was that any ideas about myself and the world are completely made up. Mostly inherited and questioned. And it was just huge for me. And so to go forward in time I just really woke up and continued to do so. And then I started coaching myself. I went through some training and I’m now a colleague with Amy in her Little School of Big change, and I have my own clients and I wrote a book, and I have a podcast. And then things just things just unfold in ways that I had no idea about. It’s really beautiful to come to see that everything we think is wrong with ourselves that we can’t seem to change is what’s perfect. The inability to succeed at changing something that is not how you think it is, that does not actually really exist in that way is a success. So I’ll pause there and see if what you’ve that was a lot. Alexandra: What I’m curious about is you talked about it being a painful time trying to find an identity. So can you say a bit more about that? Were you looking for the bumpers on the side? And to try to sort of stay in your lane? What did that look like? Amanda: Yes, well, first of all, as a child, we are given an identity. Oh, she’s like that, oh, she’s always like that, or he’s like that. And so that starts to build and fill in this beautiful emptiness that we really are at core with ideas. And then as that self idea develops, it takes these little pieces and learns what is safe, what is okay, what is not okay, what is acceptable to feel what this means, what that feeling means. And so it’s like a holographic kaleidoscope that melds into this sense of me. And feel solid feels real and feels worthy of being relevant. Protecting, defending, trying to make better because you’re never all the way there. There’s always a little bit more, you could do better. So yeah, so the bumper thing came as the unquestioned amount of ideas that we’re building upon each other, started to become invisible. So it would be like, I need to look a certain way or feel a certain way or else everything would come crashing down. And the irony is, that’s what you want. We’ve got to have it all come crashing down. Because it’s not solid in the first place. It was just invisible. And all of the signs and information was there through all the suffering and the pain and just suffering that believing in an imaginary character in engenders Alexandra: I love that phrase, an imaginary character. That’s so great. Amanda: Everything is thought do if thought is written in disappearing ink, so are you. There’s a lot of times during the day that the self isn’t even there. And then it comes back online and says, Oh, I was distracted. Oh, I was in the zone. No, you weren’t, you weren’t there. It’s really fun to start to poke holes in the narrative that keeps trying to rebuild the sandcastle of the dream character. And that’s natural and nothing wrong with it. It’s beautiful. But to live in that sand castle as if the tide isn’t coming in, as it does is to suffer a lot. And really, to allow the tide to come in and wash it all away, and then watch the phenomenon of being rebuilt and then washed away and rebuilt and washed away. It’s a very beautiful experience that loosens the grip that the mind has on its most prized possession, which is its story about me. Alexandra: Did you find it scary at the beginning to lean into the washing away and the rebuilding? Amanda: I don’t think I understood that that’s what was happening. And so the scariness was more in the realm of good grieving an identity that I tried so hard to create and make whole and solid it, but that was very temporary. So I wouldn’t say it was scary for me. I know for some of my clients it’s very scary but that’s such a temporary place. It’s like the unweaving at the beginning feels very unstable and very what’s going on here. And there’s searching for handholds and purchase and that’s fine. But we come to see that those handholds are falling with us. But they were never giving us what we needed, but they’re fine. They’re there. They’re like a handhold, in terms of something that’s helpful, like a book, or exploration into this whole thing. And so that it makes it really, it makes the fear of really come back into perspective. When you understand that you can’t lose anything you never had. Alexandra: I’m harkening back to a feeling at the beginning of my exploration of this understanding, which was that feeling of sand slipping through my fingers. And I guess I realized that eventually, I just got used to that, the end that you’re tied metaphor is so great. Because it does build back up again. Of course, we always have thoughts about ourselves. And then sometimes they break down and wash away. Amanda: It’s fun to be the perspective of the ocean rather than the sandcastle. Yeah, it was, because I would say that is a little bit more accurate. It’s a metaphor, so we can’t really push too far. But I had for years built a sandcastle and kept adding on a little bit more packed in sand, a little bit more higher turret, some flags over here, like it’s an unending urban development project, only to be washed away, and you have to start over again. And it’s that tension between the washing away and the building. That releases when we see the whole phenomenon. Alexandra: That’s so well said. Thank you. At some point, we do realize we’re the ocean, not the sand. One of the questions I wanted to ask you today was what you think gets in between us and our healthy relationship with food, if anything? Amanda: I think the number one thing is a misunderstanding about feelings. The way I see it is that, well, Chris Niebauer, who wrote No Self No Problem, shared that we were feeling beings 600 million years before conscious thought. So we are feeling organisms. When the brain evolved, suddenly conceptual thought came in and said, Okay, I’ve got a hold on things. What’s this feeling? And it starts to add meaning and judgment and characteristics on to what was already naturally flowing through for 600 million years. So in that way, we have been conditioned to relegate certain feelings to being unacceptable, scary, some of them need help. Some of them are completely fine. I think it’s that little confusion that brings us looking for relief, in terms of in the form of anything, food, anything. So I think it’s conceptual thought that has adopted the role of manager over feelings. Does that make sense? Alexandra: Yes, I totally can understand that and agree. And it’s so easy for our big problem solving brains to get in there and want to, as you say, be the manager, sort everything out. Put it into categories, rather than just letting it be what it is. Amanda: It’s weird because the thinking mind is a beautiful machine of logic and reason. But when it comes to the realm of the imaginary meaning who I think I am and who the world is, and my worthiness, my love, all of that, that whole imaginary reason and logic have no place. And that’s confusing for the conceptual mind. And sos confusion is also taken to be something unbearable to feel. And so well, I’m just going to not feel this. Because I have been taught and my mind is telling me that there’s danger here. And it’s perfect that the food stuff is a is a symptom of forgetting, misunderstanding being confused. And taking that seriously. Alexandra: Right, yeah. Yeah, assigning it a lot of meaning. Amanda: Whereas confusion can become a curious traveling partner. Alexandra: True. I don’t know what’s happening here. And that’s okay. Amanda: Because if I know what’s happening, then I know what should be happening. And it’s not this. That’s where we get a little bit lost, the mind gets a little bit lost, because this desperation to know what can’t be known, is running the show in terms of what I believe is right and wrong for me, and the world, my body, whatever. And it’s interesting, because trying to figure out reality. The very reality in that way is defined by the inability to know what it is to figure it out. So you’d like the walls were trying to break through or being built by our attempt to break through them? It’s all a fantastically brilliant. I don’t know what magic show. Alexandra: I love that. Yeah. It’s such a paradox, isn’t it? Someone I was speaking to recently, and I unfortunately, I can’t remember who it was said that. When we get into that feeling of paradox of where our circuits feel like they’re frying and we can’t quite get it that’s a really great place to be. You’re closer to the truth in that feeling. Amanda: I call it getting your eggs scrambled. It’s like we come into this conversation in hopes of getting popped out of our orbit for long enough to be completely confused enough. That the mind regroups itself in a more expansive and curious landscape. People are listening right now going I have no idea what she’s talking about. Good. Exactly. Alexandra: I was just going to say when your clients get confused, you must get excited. Amanda: I do. I love it. I love it. And it’s so beautiful to watch those knots untie that the mind has believed are necessary for our existence, and to be alive. It’s really beautiful to watch that release happen. That is our birthright. We’re designed to wake up just like we wake up from a nighttime dream. We’re designed during the day to wake up from the daytime dream. It’s all the same dream. But the degree of perspective is a little bit different. And we’re designed to wake up. Everybody I know even if they won’t admit it, knows there’s something wonky going on here. You ask anybody can tell you a story of when I was little I would think about weird things and daydream and wander. That gets conditioned out of a lot of us. But it never goes anywhere. I mean, we are the wonder, there’s this beautiful quote that says, “Many sit and wonder. Few sit in wonder.” Alexandra: Yeah, that’s so true. I love that. One of the things I wanted to ask you is if you’re working with someone who’s struggling to change an eating habit or some disordered eating, it’s a difficult question, but where do you begin with them? Amanda: Generally, I want to see what reality looks like them. Who do they think they are? And what the world is. What are the premises that are being lived from that we can start to question and start to rattle apart? Because I don’t see any other way. Starting from the food thing just doesn’t work. If that was the key, then there wouldn’t be 5 million gazillion books about diets and food. That’d be one. It’s really about going into starting to allow people to wake up to what this self identity is what it’s made of what it isn’t. Because really, it’s the self identity that dictates what’s believed about the body. So as that loosens up that grip on the identity and who I think I am loosens up, the beliefs also fall away about the body and what’s good and bad, right and wrong. And all of that stuff. Alexandra: Is there something specific that you can point to that you see your clients struggling with around eating? Is there a commonality? Amanda: Yes, I would say the overload of information, and rules, and what other people have shared, gets to be very obscuring in the face of simplicity. I wrote about that in my book, when we’re young, we look to our parents and caregivers to show us how to be, how do you cross the street and not get hit by a car. But the whole system, the whole system is always learning. But with this, again, with this, who I am self identity, the self, the self idea, to look outside is a disaster. I would say it’s the overload of information regarding food and diet and bodies, the overload of information that has been absorbed, can really make this much more complicated than it is. Rules, even science, even nutrition science, they all have their utility, all of these things have their utility, but they don’t address the underlying beliefs, the underlying illusions that are happening. So I think that would be the first thing that would come to mind that I hear a lot of rules and regulations. And then those are woven into the identities own rules and regulations. Alexandra: I know, for me, it was scary, too. I had gotten into the habit of absorbing so much information about how to eat and what to eat and when to eat it. And I just kept searching for that structure. And it was so absurd, because it never worked. And yet, I would keep going back to that place and thinking well, either I’m the problem and I just can’t figure this out. It didn’t actually ever occur to me that the system was broken. The diet system was only adding to the problem. Amanda: Right? Again, you were successful that whole time in your failure, right? How to eat, when to eat, what to eat is really absurd in the light of realizing that the conceptual mind is an amalgam of have learned ideas and concepts. Like the conceptual mind isn’t beating your heart. It’s not reviving your cells. It has nothing to do with that yet it is the thing that is front and center on center stage. But backstage, there’s a whole unknown Wonderland, that that is working with no problem. I really advocate for curiosity and tuning into whatever is being felt right now in real time you get information, and it’s simple. Alexandra: I’m just recalling the confusion again, that that caused me because our culture is just not set up that way. Amanda: It’s especially because one of the things the self identity can do is tell you to look point you to look everywhere else but it. So that failed, must be my problem. I’ll try again. Something’s wrong with me. I’m broken. So what we want to do is really turn the spotlight on that self identity? What is it? Bring it in close? What is it? What is it created from? Is it really there? Can you find it? All of those inquiries really help everything to come back into a more aligned experience. That that calms everything down. I don’t like this phrase, but it brings the power back to something that’s not in the realm of imagination gone off the rails. Alexandra: Let me back up and just say in your book Uncovery you talk about your personal journey and your times of disordered eating. Since then, do you find that your relationship with food has changed since you started to see what was really going on? Amanda: Absolutely. It’s really interesting, because the relationship with food is receding on the horizon. There is no more relationship with food, I would say. There’s a body walking towards the fridge, there’s a body eating, there’s thoughts about food, but there isn’t a captain at the helm barking orders at the ocean anymore. I wouldn’t even say there’s a relationship with food. I know what you mean. But it’s very much a distant horizon thing. It’s more dream, like, as I recall what it used to feel like. Alexandra: Right, and I love that you said earlier that the suffering that we experience is pointing toward the different existence or relationship that we can have. It’s pointing toward the fact that we don’t understand something that’s really going on. Amanda: It’s big, big flag saying stop. There’s hallucination happening. Complete hallucination. There’s nothing happening, that there’s no failure. There’s no success. There’s no backtracking. There’s no progress. There’s just a hallucination right now, in suffering is the only way the system has to wake itself up. It’s not going to be able to do that with any other feeling. Alexandra: We’ve been listening to our minds for so long. And that’s not the place to go to for the messages. The suffering is the thing that wakes us up. Amanda: It’s so intelligent, but it’s been interpreted backwards. And that takes a while, maybe or not to reorganize and re-orient. And then once that is helped along a little bit through the conversations like these, then people just come back alive to where they’ve never left. Except in thought. Alexandra: That actually really connects well to I had a question about the wisdom of our bodies, and how that connects to eating. I’d love for you to say anything more you can think of about that wisdom, because that’s a place that I fall asleep to, and then wake up to again, quite often. Amanda: So the way I see it is that we don’t fall asleep. We’re not the ones falling asleep and waking up, that’s thought identified. So I’ll just say that first. Secondly, I no longer see that the body has wisdom. I don’t think wisdom is possessed by a body. It is the mystery about the source of it, and then the manifestation of it, and then the outcome of it. So  saying that I think that’s why we sometimes feel that I forgot, and then I wake up to it. If we think that it’s coming from a source, then that sets up this stage where I could forget. And then remember source. So the wisdom of the body at the same time, yes, there does seem to be something beyond conceptual ideas that’s going on. And that we can call that wisdom. But it’s not ours. There’s nobody that that holds it and obtains it and possesses it. I don’t see that anymore at all. Because the one who would have wisdom I have seen to not be what I thought it was. Alexandra: So what do you think wisdom is? Amanda: It’s a concept? It’s a word. It’s a concept. We live in a word world. We have a consensus overlay of words and descriptions and concepts that are mistaken to be reality, actual reflections of something actual. And it’s not the case. I have seen that’s not the case. There’s my experience. So the words like wisdom and awareness and consciousness are beautiful source, beautiful benchmark symbols for something we have no idea what it is. And again, once we lean into that, and really see how that is the case for us, then we can come back to the concepts and use them playfully. Use them for their utility, being able to have a conversation, for example. I don’t know what wisdom is beyond the fact that it’s a word in a concept. Alexandra: There’s a great quote. The finger that points at the moon is not the moon. Is that what you’re alluding to? Amanda: And to push that further, the moon and the finger are the same thought construct. The moon is an illusionary aspect of the finger, they are inseparable, there’s no moon without the finger in that metaphor, right? There’s no finger without the moon. So that’s just a little way of saying, I really encourage people to explore this idea that there’s something hidden from you. There’s something out there that you just have to discover or uncover, or there’s a puzzle piece that’s out there for you that’s missing. And I’m going to point you to it. That keeps us focused away from the magic right here. The wonder of being able to even point to a moon that there is nothing wrong with you, there is nothing you lack, there is nothing you need. And yet we can have this experience of lack and want and need and fulfillment, and let it wash away with the tie that comes in next. Alexandra: Right, having that the experience of those things? So as we’re starting to wrap up here, I wanted to mention a couple of things. One was your book, which we’ve talked about, it’s called Uncovery. Tell us a little bit about that, and where people can find it. Amanda: It is on Amazon worldwide. I wrote it in 2017. And it goes a lot into the Three Principles. So if people are curious about that, it just tells my story. And then it goes into my journey, it’s not very personal at all, it’s really just laid out in a way that helps one to wake up out of the dream of thought, or wake up into the dream of thoughts to see what it really is and how it how it’s really everything. How it’s really the missing puzzle piece that you didn’t even know was missing. Contrary to what I just said, right? It’s all paradox. So that it’s due for updated edition. But, I have found that it’s really been helpful for people just really starting to get interested in this conversation. Alexandra: Definitely. It was one of the first books that I read, and I found it incredibly helpful. And isn’t it funny how those of us who have written about this stuff as we evolve, it does feel like this impulse to go back and revise what we’ve written before? Amanda: Definitely. I know that that’s just a function of this idea that there’s a right way that will stay the right way. And there is that whatever came through in that book is just as right and wrong now as it will be in 50 years. And it’s for the reader to wake up to what they hear. And it’s got nothing to do with me. Or if I you know, if I need to change anything. Alexandra: I always remind myself that we can never know what’s going how things are going to land with people. I remember I have a friend who recorded a podcast actually with someone and thought it was terrible. She just didn’t think that she articulated herself well, and she was really concerned about it. She almost asked the host not to release it. And it’s the most popular podcast episode that she’s ever recorded. People are constantly going to her and saying, I love it got so much out of that. I’ve listened to it four times. So we just never know. Amanda: That’s exactly it. And that’s illustrating what I said before. Nobody knows what’s going on. Literally, nobody knows and to pretend to know what’s going on is painful. It’s just like the podcast that I have with my colleague is we do episodes, and then we’re like, I have no idea what I just said, no idea if it’s good or bad. And let’s just find out. One of the things that I have found is the seriousness of whatever this is, has really faded away and it can be it can be conjured up when appropriate, I suppose. But it’s no longer a driving force towards front behind behavior or action, or anything like that. Alexandra: Your podcast is The Wonder Land. Amanda: the Wonder Land, three words. And it’s with my colleague, Alex Linares. And it’s a dramatic, magical, fun exploration. Alexandra: Cool. And people can find that wherever they get podcasts. Amanda: That’s right. Alexandra: Is there anything you’d like to share before we wrap up that we haven’t touched on yet today? Amanda: I would just love if one thing they want to take away from this conversation, is to maybe see how it’s true rather than how it isn’t true that there’s nothing wrong with you. And there never has been. Alexandra: I love that. Thank you. Where can we find out more about you and your work? Amanda: My website is uncoveryspace.com. All my words are on there. All the words of all the things are there. Contact me through that. Alexandra: Great. Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much, Amanda. I will put links to the podcast and to your website in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com Amanda: Thank you, darling. It’s been an honour. Alexandra: Thank you so much. Lovely to connect with you again. Take care. Amanda: Bye bye Featured image photo by Mark McGregor on Unsplash The post The Fluid Nature of You with Amanda Jones appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

The holiday/end-of-year season can be fraught with so much, including extra temptation for those of us with an unwanted overeating habit. Here then are three tips for navigating this time of year, including remembering your innate peace and how it is always with you. 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 remembering that you are never broken, even when overeating Remembering that whatever you’re experiencing is temporary How peace is always available in any moment On our feelings, including cravings, being a perfect feedback system Transcript of episode Hello explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 43 of Unbroken. The subject today is, how can I be at peace with food during the holidays? As I record this, it’s early December, and this will be going out on December 11. And of course, we’re moving into holiday season and whatever way you celebrate – and maybe you don’t, and that can sometimes be a challenge as well – what I wanted to talk about, what I wanted to give you today is three tips for being at peace with food during the holidays. The first tip is to remember that you are not broken. So even when you’re feeling an urge to reach for that second piece of pie, or second helping of mashed potatoes, or whatever it is, whatever your favorite food is, if you’re feeling tempted by things or challenged by having a lot of food around, the best thing you can do for yourself in those moments, if you can, is to remember that you’re not broken, that there’s nothing wrong with you. The urge that you’re feeling to overindulge is pointing directly toward your innate well-being and your perfect design, and perfectly kind design. And the reason for that is, is that the desire to reach for food, or whatever it is, it can be anything to comfort ourselves is, is pointing directly at the fact that we’re always searching for a good feeling. Because that’s what we’re made of. Because that’s our baseline way of being, that’s our innate state. When we’re not feeling that way, the desire to get back there to what Amy Johnson calls home base is, is really strong. And the way that we do that, and it’s an artificial way but it’s the best way we know in the moment is to reach for things that give us that feeling. So the desire that you might have, at the holiday time to have a second piece of pie, or to have a few too many chocolates or whatever it is, the best thing you can do for yourself is to remember that that’s not pointing toward some sort of brokenness within you. You’re not flawed. There’s nothing wrong with you at all. It’s actually pointing out that you are perfectly well and perfectly whole, it’s a sign of your well-being that you’re doing that. So that’s the first thing to remember you are made of a good feeling. And you are made of well being and peace. And any time we reach for some sort of substance, and it feels like we’re over indulging in that that means that we’re trying to have that good feeling. So that’s the first tip to remember that you are not broken. In fact, you are working in perfectly well you are in perfect working order. The second tip I want to give you is that every storm runs out of rain. That’s a quote from Maya Angelou and it’s one of my favorites. As we move into this holiday season, and emotions are running high, sometimes there can be a lot of pressure, there can be more activity in your life, more people, maybe more stuff going on. And if you get caught up in indulging your overeating habit, it can feel like it’s never going to end. And so the second tip I have is just to remind yourself, if you can, every once in a while, it is going to end everything is temporary. That’s true in a macro sense, in the sense that of course the holiday seasons will end we will come into the new year and it will be it will be different. Things will go back to normal, whatever that means for you and this season will come to an end. It’s also true on a micro sense. Whatever we’re feeling, whatever we’re experiencing, whatever emotion and thinking that sort of combination is moving through us, in any given moment, that too, will end. So if you’re feeling stressed in any given moment that feeling will rise up within you and it too, will move on. When we understand that, that’s the nature of our thinking, and our experience of life, that these things rise up within us, and then they move on, that it’s a continually flowing river, of experience of life coming to life within us, then we don’t have to hold on so tightly, to anything that’s happened happening in a given moment. Because that given moment, that experience in that moment, isn’t the whole truth about you, it isn’t the whole truth about life or about the world. It’s a moment, and it will move on. And like I say, the less we hold tightly onto those things and make them turn them into a big problem, the more easily they can move on, and the river can continue flowing through us. And along with this, too, I want to say that if things are feeling stormy, within you, I just want you to remember, this is kind of a bonus tip, I guess for tip number two is: Peace is available in any given moment. We can be feeling really stormy and churned up and having a lot of feelings about whatever’s going on and being grumpy or unhappy, or whatever it is. And peace is always available in any given moment. Knowing that isn’t necessarily enough to make it happen. But knowing that that’s available to us, and is an option, that peace of mind is as close as the next thought, or the next insight that you have, it helps us to relax into the moment whatever’s happening. Because we know that it’s not the entire truth. So that’s tip number two, just if you can to remember that every storm runs out of rain, every feeling will move on through us in the river of life and the river of feelings that we’re experiencing. Tip number three is that if you can just remember that our feelings are always giving us feedback about our state of thinking. And this is true, no matter what we’re feeling, and no matter what we’re thinking, and especially at the holidays. They it can be a really charged time. Like I said a little earlier, there can just be so much going on. And there can be a lot of pressure. And I think too, we have a lot of thinking about this holiday season. And it’s in the media all the time. There are articles about people feeling pressure, and all that kind of thing. And we can also have a lot of associations from the past. It’s just one of those times of yearthat seems to have a lot of connection to it, in terms of our emotional experience of what’s going on. And we tend to give it a lot of meaning when we think about it, really, Christmas Day is just another day. Whatever way that you celebrate in your spiritual tradition, Hanukkah is just another few days. These days have been marked off in the calendar. I tend to think of when I’m feeling a little fraught about the holidays, I tend to think about animals actually, in the wild. We have where I live there are sea lions in the inlet. And there are deer around town and bears occasionally and cougars and stuff. To them one day is just the same as the other. It’s really our human thinking or human construct that has given meaning to any given day, during the year. And now of course there’s an upside to that. There’s the nice parts of the holidays, the celebrations and the getting together with family and seeing people maybe that you haven’t seen in quite a while and doing special things. So there is there is a real positive aspect to the holidays. And also like I’ve said they can have a bit of pressure attached to them, they can have some emotional charge because of things that have happened in the past. I just want you to remember that, if you’re reaching for food at this time of year, that’s perfectly natural. That desire is giving you feedback about your thinking in the moment. So if you notice yourself, feeling like you’re reaching for food a lot, rather than beating yourself up about that, or thinking that it’s a problem, one thing you could do is just remember that that’s the natural feedback system that is in place within you. It’s part of your perfect design, like we talked about earlier, it’s letting you know that your thinking is really busy and churned up. And that kind of insecure, busy thinking is taking you away from your natural state of peace and calm. When you see that, I hope that remembering that just allows you to ease up on yourself a little bit. And maybe not lean into the tendency to beat yourself up about what you’re eating, and what’s going on with you around food, that it is always this perfect system that gives you feedback, and lets you know what’s really going on with you. So that’s tip number three, your feelings are always giving you feedback about your state of mind. I want to give a little bonus tip about this as well. Simply understanding these things isn’t necessarily going to shift anything right in that very moment. But staying in this conversation, and continuing to explore, as I always say, what this Three Principles understanding is pointing toward, that is the thing that is going to create change in your life. And it’s important to know, so the metaphor I want to use is that if you go outside and you start getting wet, and after a second you realize, oh, it’s raining. Just knowing that it’s raining in that moment doesn’t make the rain stop. So given that I’ve given you these tips, these three tips for helping you to understand what’s going on with you during the holidays and feel more peace with food. Just knowing them isn’t enough usually, to create a whole bunch of dramatic change in the next 10 days. I’m not saying this to try to be discouraging. What I’m actually doing is saying it so that you don’t create an expectation. People come to me and say well, I know it’s my thinking, so why can’t I stop? Knowing it’s our thinking isn’t enough to create that kind of change. Change always comes via insight. And like I said, you might have a big insight during the holidays, and see something new and fresh in what’s going on and deepen your awareness of how these things work, which is fantastic. And I’m thrilled for you if that’s the case. And like I said, we can always know that we’re just one moment away from a new insight, from seeing something in a fresh way. And this may not be the time of year to expect yourself to, to encounter a big shift or a big change. You’re doing the very best you can. And just by listening to this podcast, you’re doing something for yourself to expand your understanding. And I think that’s great. So those are my three tips and a bonus tip about finding peace with food during the holidays. I hope you found that helpful. And of course these tips are helpful at any time of year, so if you’re not listening to this in December 2023, if you’re listening to it some other time, that’s fine too. It always applies. So that’s it for me here 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 freestocks on Unsplash The post Q&A 43 – How can I be at peace with food during the holidays? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

A small business can be a really accurate reflection of that’s business’s owner. So when an entrepreneur is fraught with insecurity that is going to show up in the business. Marlene Cameron helps business owners and entrepreneurs to connect with their innate wisdom and resilience and to see that their moment-to-moment thinking doesn’t need to derail them when they have times of insecurity or doubt. Marlene Cameron has been training, coaching and mentoring business owners, leaders and mental health professionals since 2002. Former successful careers as a commercial interior designer, business owner/manager, management consultant and financial analyst have garnered her extensive experience and expertise in business leadership and strategy, unlocking human potential and enhancing resiliency and well-being. One of Marlene’s clients won the 2006 International Coach Federation (ICF) sanctioned Prism Award for “Business Excellence Achieved Through Coaching” and Marlene was part of a team of coaches working with executives at Chevron Resources Canada, winner of the Large Business Prism Award in 2010. You can find Marlene Cameron at MarleneCameron.com and on Instagram @marlenelcameron. 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 our mistaken impression that going into the past helps heal us When we’re not grounded in our own capabilities, we’re at the mercy of whatever thought is going through us in a given moment How we continue to seek validation to solve the insecurity Learning to not get caught up in the insecure thinking that’s coming up in a moment What our self-doubt may be an indicator of How state of mind is so often the culprit when a business fails Transcript of Interview with Marlene Cameron Alexandra: Marlene Cameron, welcome to Unbroken. Marlene: Thanks, Alexandra. Alexandra: Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles? Marlene: I’ll give you the short version of a long history of career transition. I actually started off as a commercial interior designer, and I think I was 30 years old when I decided that I wanted to work for myself and started a small consulting practice. I did commercial interior design, some mostly office interiors, and some institutional work. And then I moved to the United States and thought I’d go back to school. And thought, initially, I would  do a master’s in architecture, but ended up doing an MBA, and then  found the whole world of finance. So then I became a chartered financial analyst and, and thought I’d work in that world. But I realized that they wanted me to work as hard for their businesses as I had worked in my own business, and I didn’t want to do that anymore. I had the opportunity to take a coaching program. I worked initially with entrepreneurs and executives, and then segued over to the field of energy psychology. I taught a technique for many years to coaches, counselors, mental health professional psychologists, as a way for them to help their clients to regulate their emotional state. I did that for many, many years. But what I started noticing with observing my students working with their clients was that people were imagining things like worst case scenarios, or, what if this happens and becoming very emotionally distraught about that. My question I kept asking my colleagues, in my supervision classes was that, how do you help the client differentiate between something that’s factual, and something that we call fictional? Like, he  made it up or dreamed it up? I kept asking that question over and over again, until a colleague of mine actually in Vancouver said you might be interested in understanding called the Three Principles because it speaks to this. The idea of the role of thought in our experience. So I started watching YouTube videos every day. I think when people come to this understanding, it’s like even though you don’t know what it is, something draws you in. And maybe that’s that deeper part of us that we speak to in this understanding that said, Oh, here it is, oh, this is what it is. And so that’s how I got drawn into it. Alexandra: And then, it must have looked to you like it provided an answer to that question that you had about fact versus fiction. Marlene: Yes, because especially with this technique, we did a lot about going back to the past and trying to resolve somebody’s emotional memory. I remember working with a young client one time, and she said to me, this is really painful. And I’m thinking like, she’s right. It is painful. But, I was of the understanding, then, well, that’s cathartic, or, you’ve got to go through that to get through to the other side. And maybe without knowing that, I wondered if that was true, because I had my own experience of feeling very anxious. I felt like an imposter. In spite of all of my academic and business achievement. I still felt inadequate, I still felt very insecure. And the thought I’ve been working with his technique for 15 years, and that really hasn’t shifted for me. So I suspect there was something in that curiosity for me. It’s like, without really knowing, we don’t know these things. We’re just drawn to them. Alexandra: That brings us around to one of the things I wanted to talk to you about which is self-doubt in entrepreneurs and business owners. It sounds like you were drawn to that area because of your own experience. Would you say that’s true? Marlene: Yes, one of the – I call it a symptom or a sign – of what we what we understand to be imposter syndrome, which is the label for something we experience is that in spite of all of somebody’s obvious talent, achievement success, they externalize the reason why they’re successful, like they were lucky, or it was a fluke, or they just work way harder than the other people or even that you’re just  nice and likable. And somebody chose you because of that. If we don’t have that grounding in the understanding of our own capabilities or our own talents, our own value, then we’re at the mercy of whatever thought is going through our minds in the moment, and not understanding where that’s coming from. Because I remember my experience, I found that very confusing, because at one hand, I knew I was accomplished, I’ve got all kinds of degrees and diplomas and grateful clients. It’s like, just what is the matter? Some days I recognize that and other days, I don’t. What is that all about? And that was the thing no amount of counseling, or coaching or more techniques really, really helped me to understand what was really going on. I could come up with a great idea. And then the next day, it’s like, oh, I don’t know, maybe that’s not so good. Or, maybe I don’t have what it takes to bring that about. Or thinking that, because they didn’t recognize my own deeper intelligence, I was constantly going to other people taking courses, taking more workshops, taking super extensive programs for from people who I thought had the answer. I would learn their system, their process, and then magically, I could replicate that and have my own successful business. And, you think after how many courses I took, like, I would figure that out, that didn’t really work. On top of that, I felt like a failure. It’s like, what’s the matter with me? Like, they’ve got this process or the system, and that works brilliantly for them. But I’m worse off to tell you the truth. Alexandra: In a situation like that, I can see that. I’m relating it to diet, and trying to resolve an overeating habit, because the same thing happens, we chase the answer, and we apply the technique. And, and when it doesn’t work, we think, Oh, I’m the failure. I’m the problem here. What do you see is the difference now, if you have feelings of self-doubt? Marlene: I started to be able to see myself in action. My entry level was starting to recognize that I was experiencing my thinking in the moment, even if I didn’t know what those thoughts were. And so I started experimenting. I might wake up in the morning and feel  anxious, it’s like, Ooh, another day got to figure out this, how to do this. And I thought what if I did nothing? What if I trusted that we indeed do have this innate, well-being, this innate mental health? I was surprised how quickly I came around. I said, Oh, okay. That was, that was good. Because normally I would have had to do my technique. And keep doing it until I saw some sort of shift in how I felt in the moment. And then, when I started to see that I was experiencing my thinking, then I started more and more and more when I started to feel anxious or overwhelmed or less than because I was comparing myself with a colleague or somebody else who I saw successful in business. I could see more and more that that was just instinct to cure thinking coming in in the moment and not get too caught up in it or too embroiled in it. So I think it’s I think it’s the power to recognize first appreciating where that feeling is coming from me recognizing like, Oh, I’ve just fallen into an old pattern of insecure thinking, doubting myself, dismissing my accomplishments and putting other people on a pedestal. That comparison thing. People say, when you compare you despair, and I’ve certainly found that to be the case. I think it was just really more self awareness. So they could see where I was innocently, often unknowingly taking myself back to that old habit of old patterns of thinking, old ways of seeing myself. And understanding that that was the thoughts in the moment. Alexandra: I like hearing that. I had a recent experience that I wanted to ask you about; I recognize that sometimes when I have judgmental thinking or critical thinking about somebody else, I’ve had an insight the other day that it might be that I’m feeling vulnerable. And that judgmental or critical thinking is letting me know what’s happening, that I’m feeling a little bit vulnerable in whatever the situation is. It’s giving me feedback about my state of mind, those judgments or criticisms, because they feel they feel yucky inside me when I’m thinking them. I’m wondering about self-doubt, and the information that it carries. Can you address that a little bit? Marlene: I came to see about this whole self-doubt thing. It’s almost like we’re not more closely connected to a deeper part of ourselves that has that natural confidence, that has that natural knowing. We’ve been led astray, or led down the path away from that. And we know that the ego mind is, some people, some people believe I really don’t understand ego, some people believe that it tends to be more fearful, more wanting to protect its own personal identity, vulnerable to feeling threatened than that type of stuff. So I think that’s what comes up when, when I know, for me, when I started to compare myself to others, it’s like they’re not good enough or not, I used to go through this whole scenario, not good enough, don’t know enough, not doing the right things at the right time, and don’t have the right connections. I could see that pattern floating up there. And every once in a while I would start to believe it. And so it’s that disconnection from that deeper, wiser part of ourselves that knows that that’s just, I call it fabrication. Alexandra: You talked about those four or five things that you noticed a pattern in yourself. And that obviously creates a feeling inside you that you you’re able to pick up. And notice, oh, okay, I’m in this old pattern. Marlene: Yes, I start to feel very anxious, very discouraged, I would say even fearful, it’s like, Oh, my God, like, Am I ever going to figure out life out? Like, how am I going to navigate life from this perspective? Alexandra: And so now, do those feelings come up in you still and if so what do you do with them then? Marlene: When this came up, the other day, I saw a colleague of mine had posted something about how successful her business was on LinkedIn or something and I had that little response. And I’m thinking like, okay, Marlene, what’s going on here, right? Just give us some space, check in with yourself, and then I just came to peace about it. We’re completely different. We’re on different paths, we’re both doing our thing. And say, there’s no better or worse, there’s no more or less successful. I think in our culture, we’re  conditioned into this comparison thing, because how many times do we hear about people posting about their the best of something that they got the highest award. I think that even started in school, the grades and the comparison. I was encouraged to be a high achiever, so I thought that that’s who I was, and that the value I brought to the world, like I could be a high achiever. And so, though it was my actions, and my accomplishment had more value than who I was as a human being. Alexandra: And in this day and age, too, with social media, this is an entirely new ballgame. And of course, we all do it. We post about the good stuff if that’s happening. It must be so easy for business owners to fall into comparison-itis and feeling like they’re not measuring up. Marlene: One of my clients right now is a very successful designer. She has all the business she wants she has happy clients, she’s thriving, and yet she can still fall into the am I doing it right? Am I doing enough else. What do people really think of me? It really is crazy making. The thing I realized, that really landed with me when I was speaking with her, she said the thing that gets squashed the first is my creativity. That’s the thing that gets like tamped down when I really get into this overthinking about how am I doing? Alexandra: That’s such a good point. In a business like hers, she needs her creativity, of course. Marlene: Even if it’s not a creative service like design or something like that, every entrepreneur has to be creative, because you’re the business, you’re always going to be faced with situations you didn’t anticipate or even opportunities. Can I really take on this project? And that capacity within this gets overridden or we can really struggle. There’s so many statistics now about why small businesses fail, and they’re always sort of in the material world. So you know lack of cashflow, lack of funding, lack of recognized, recognized in their competitive advantage sheet like all the lack lack lack, but when I really see it, it’s a state of mind. That’s the culprit. Alexandra: That’s what you help entrepreneurs with, I’m assuming. When we see our natural resilience as entrepreneurs, and our resourcefulness that’s innate, and we don’t have to make it up or fake it till we make it. Marlene: Because then the low state of mind, your low mood, we know that people see the world differently and respond differently. And so if you’re if you’re feeling stressed, or overwhelmed, or for whatever reason, not being able to fully operate in the present moment, you misread situations, you make decisions that are not beneficial. You avoid things that feel uncomfortable, you just can’t face them right now. I think it’s the result of of that. I’ll just go back to the result of that, the implications of a lower state or lower understanding, that really is the saboteur. Alexandra: Yes. And it’s such a good point. Self-employed people, entrepreneurs, they’re everything; they’re the accountant in their own business and the creative person, and the customer service and all of it. When we don’t understand that it’s our state of mind that affects all those things. That a low mood is temporary, it’s not a comment on our ability to do our job. Powerful stuff. Marlene: It’s a paradox, too, because in our culture, we really value the over busy stress. We’ve labeled it like, Oh, you must be busy profitable important you’ve got a going concern here, and not seeing how that state of high stress or over commitment or overwhelm is the culprit. It’s really debilitating people’s ability to be effective to be productive, and bring a light hearted state of mind that helps them to be more creative more, as you say, more resilient, more resourceful. Alexandra: We’re recording this on a Wednesday and I on Monday this week I hit a bit of a wall and needed a nap and a rest and to read my book for the afternoon. I saw how busy my mind got about resisting that. “No, no, it’s Monday, you need to be productive. You need to keep going and do all this stuff.” But my experience has been that listening to that wisdom that is saying “slow down for a minute, just take a breath and have some have a rest” is the thing that keeps me going in a way if I don’t rest, I burn out. So that wisdom is always there for all of us, but specifically for entrepreneurs. I love this quote that I pulled off of your website on a blog post, that, “It is our inability to love and accept ourselves, that gives us the opportunity to find fault with others.” Can you talk about that a little bit and how that affects entrepreneurs. Marlene: I think it goes back to that level of understanding about who we are. Our spiritual psychological nature, if you will, or how our mind operates. So if we can’t see ourselves in a good light if we struggle to see our own talents, gifts, generally, generosity, kindness. It’s almost like the that that inability to see that in ourselves is mirrored back in the world. So we start to see issues with other individuals and judge other individuals, but it’s just like that, how we perceive her of herself as being mirrored back through how we see others. And thinking it’s about them and not understanding it’s really our own perception, just  circling back and, and becoming our own experience of ourselves and, and others. Business owners say, Oh, I just can’t find any good people or people don’t want to work, or they just make up all kinds of stuff about above their fellow human beings, and that really can hurt people’s businesses. Because if they don’t create an environment for people to be acknowledged and appreciated for who they are as a human being, you’re not going to provide an opportunity for those people to really show up at their best. Alexandra: That’s such a good point. Have you ever noticed that shift? If someone’s able to come to a more loving place with themselves? Have you observed a shift in what they see outside themselves? Marlene: Well, first of all, I think what they come to appreciate is that everybody’s sort of living in their own personal reality. And so they’re going to have their opinions and their beliefs and their ideas about things. But they also bring their own wisdom, their own insight, their own creativity, and so it’s being able to  see both sides of the equation. We have this innate capacity for all this brilliance. And we’re human beings who have we deal with our stuff. So I think there’s just more compassion. I think people feel more connected. I really emphasize listening with my clients and students, because if you’re over here and your own mind judging, comparing, whatever you do, you’re not really hearing that person deeply. And because of that, they don’t feel seen. They don’t feel heard. They don’t feel appreciated. And if I think as a human being we like to feel that we’re valued, that we’re appreciated. Even loved. Alexandra: Yes. Even or maybe especially in the workplace. Well, not especially, I guess, everywhere. But yeah, when we’re doing a job we want, we all want to feel appreciated. I guess one of the things I also wanted to ask you about was you mentioned this phrase calm self-assurance on your website. Tell us about that, where that phrase came from and what it means to you. Marlene: It was really my experience of having these impostor feelings in because I could project that I was confident, self-assured, knowledgeable trustworthy, like I could project all of that. But that’s not how I felt on the inside. So there was that lack of congruence that lack of that connection with that call that deeper, wiser part of myself. When I talk about that calm self-assurance that’s coming from inside of you, you’re not more confident because you got the right makeup or the right clothes, or you’ve punched the air before you’ve gone into the meeting. It almost comes more from your beingness rather than you did something to feel confident, right. It’s more innate, it’s more integral to you know, just how you how you show up in the world. It’s not put on, it’s not fake. It’s not contrived. That’s just you in it. I think that’s what people were looking for. I think they have to work for it. Something they have to do. And I probably took a few of those courses myself. Alexandra: We all have. Yes. I think it’s interesting that you don’t just say self-assurance, you say calm self-assurance. So that word must have meaning for you as well. A big part of the equation. Marlene: I think the calm comes from that groundedness or that presence, that deeper understanding. It comes from a knowingness. I think we talk about how our true nature is joy and contentment and calm and happy. It comes from that place of us that’s already there, it’s already present. Alexandra: When you described earlier about how we can try to make it about the way we look or our clothes or our makeup and our hair and punching the air before we go into a meeting or whatever it is. And to me, there’s an acting element to that, a presentational element. And then also, I noticed to that person who feels that or when we feel like we’re made up of all these different pieces that we’ve put together, is really scrambling. I’m picturing the little duck with their feet just going like crazy under the water. Whereas when we really connect with a sense of calm, it doesn’t have that frantic presentational quality. Would you agree? Marlene: Absolutely. That’s a great way to put it, actually. Because there’s so much doing this in being calm. We’ve been led to believe is like doing this and being calm, right? Alexandra: Yes, that’s so true. Tell us a little bit about the types of clients that you work with, and the sorts of things that you help them with. Marlene: I really like working with entrepreneurs. I would say I have more women on clients than men, but I often have men referred to me by women who said you need to go talk to somebody. The thing I love about working with entrepreneurs is everything’s at stake. Their career, their reputation, their financial well-being there. It’s like the business is a reflection of them. And so when the business is struggling, of course, that’s an indication that the business owner or leader is struggling. I find that they’re keen to know. They can be even a little bit more interested, more invested. Like, I gotta figure this out. Everything is on them. Alexandra: And are your clients mostly in the interior design world? Marlene: Not necessarily. That was my first career and I circled back to that field to see who would be interested in there’s a few, I’m talking to a few designers now. And people I’m meeting in the world of small business and entrepreneurship. I’ve always understood that I’m not coaching the business. It’s the business owner. And with however the business owner evolves, the business will naturally evolve. I’m not there to help them run their business. And I know, there’s lots of business coaches out there who have real expertise in helping people with systems and processes. And I could, that’s I have education than that. But that’s not where the really interesting stuff lies. It’s like, what’s in the mind, of the business owner or the leader? Alexandra: I loved what you said about when their understanding shifts, the business reflects that. That’s really cool. As we’re just about coming to the end of our time together, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share today? Marlene: One of the premises of this understanding is that over time, you just seem to have a better experience of life. And that’s been my experience. I’m finding that I’m just a little bit more settled, don’t get quite so caught up in things. I seem to give people more space, have more compassion for people who were struggling for whatever reason. It gives you a nicer experience of life and lets the joy and the beauty of life show up more often, rather than the concern or stress or whatever. So, that’s what I would say about this understanding it. And of course, that’s going to impact every aspect of your life. Your work, your relationships, your friendships, and yeah, it just shows up all over. Alexandra: I think it’s really an interesting doorway that you’ve got in for people you’re talking to them about their business. But really, that is the gateway and then it’s going to affect every area of their life. That’s really cool. It’s like a gateway drug or something. Marlene, where can we find out more about you and your work? Marlene: My website is MarleneCameron.com. So that’s a great place to start. And if anybody wants to contact me directly, it’s Marlene @ Marlene cameron.com. I’d be delighted to have this conversation with anybody who’s interested in exploring how this understanding could have a positive impact on their business or in their lives in general. Alexandra: Oh, lovely. I’ll put a link in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com to your website so people can find you there. Well, this has been lovely. Marlene, thank you so much for chatting with me. Marlene: Thank you very much. It’s been a real pleasure. Alexandra: Take care. Featured image photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash The post Calm Self-assurance In Business with Marlene Cameron appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Are diets the right tool when we want to lose weight? They tend to be the only one we use, but what if there’s an alternative? What if diets are actually contributing to the suffering we experience about food? And what if there were an alternative way to approach resolving an overeating habit? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes What is the cause of our suffering when we want to lose weight? How our thoughts are at the root of so much trouble for us Why diets are like putting gasoline on a fire when it comes to weight loss What if food cravings come from a wise place within us? Transcript of episode Hello Explorers, and welcome to Unbroken Q&A episode 42. I’m Alexandra Amor. Today I’m here with just a quick introduction to an audio that I’m going to attach to the back of this introduction. This is an audio track that I recorded recently for Insight Timer. I’m going to be teaching some classes over on that app. It’s a really great, great app, if you haven’t heard of it, I haven’t had that much exposure to it. I’ve been having a lot of fun creating, just recently creating some material for it some classes and some audio tracks. It’s all audio based. And you can listen anywhere, of course, anywhere as long as you’ve got your phone, and an internet connection. The audio track is called: Why do diets fail us? And it’s about why diets don’t work and the psychology behind them and the reason that that is. I hope that if you’re a regular listener to this podcast, or if you’ve read some of my books, that you’ve started to see that diets are trying to answer a problem that doesn’t exist. And they’re the wrong tool for the job, which is something I bring up in this audio track. If you have been around for a while, and you’ve listened to the podcast for a bit, or you’ve read some of my books, I think this will be a really nice overview or kind of review for you of the things that I talk about all the time. And it’s always good to listen and to stay in the conversation, as we say, as much as we can, as much as it is fun and interesting for us. Insights can happen at any moment. I often found and I still find as I’m exploring this understanding, I can listen to something more than once and get something different out of it each time and maybe have some new insights no matter what’s going on. So I hope that’s the case for you. And yeah, I hope you enjoy this audio track and that you were doing well and taking good care. I will talk to you again next week. Please enjoy. Why do diets fail us? Hello and welcome, I’m Alexandra Amor, coach, podcaster, and author of several books, including The Secret Language of Cravings. Let me ask you a question: have you had a diet fail you? In other words, have you had a diet make promises it didn’t keep? Given that you’re listening to this, you may have answered yes to that question and I’ll say me too! Over and over again. And it wasn’t for lack of trying on my part. Perhaps you can relate to that as well.So…what’s happening when a diet fails us? Is it that we lack will power or stick-to-it-iveness? Our culture seems to tell us that this is the cause, doesn’t it? What if the reason diets fail us because they’re the wrong tool for the job? When we are using a diet or wanting to use a diet, what is causing that impulse?The obvious answer you might offer is because we want to lose weight. That’s not rocket science. Given that this is the case for most of us, what’s happening is that we’re suffering, correct? What is the cause of our suffering? Your first impulse might be to say that it is your body that is causing your suffering. It is the “wrong” shape or size and you want to change that.But what if we looked in a slightly different direction? What if it’s the thoughts about your body and the thoughts about food that are the root cause of your suffering, not your body itself? As surprising as this is going to sound, your body – no matter how it looks or what size it is – cannot actually cause you to suffer. Your body is just doing its job; pumping blood and growing new cells and taking in oxygen and letting out carbon dioxide and, yes, using the food you eat for fuel and/or reserving stores of that fuel. Our bodies are doing all this and more, but they cannot directly create suffering. Now our thoughts about our bodies – they can create real sufferingIn order to explain this, I’m going to use a couple of examples. Here’s the first one: Think about how it’s possible to hear someone make a really judgmental statement about their own body, or a part of it, and to find yourself thinking, “That person’s body is perfect.” Or, “Their weight is absolutely fine.” Yet the person who made the comment is really suffering about how they look.If it was that person’s body that was the direct cause of the negative thoughts then we would have those same thoughts about that body. But we don’t. One person might see that person’s body as beautiful, another might be completely indifferent to it. So the body itself cannot be the cause of the negative or judgmental thinking. The math just doesn’t add up. Here’s another example to illustrate my point: Have you ever had the experience of feeling good about your body one day and then not feeling good about it the next. If our suffering was coming from our bodies themselves, how could this happen? It’s not possible. Objectively, can you see that if the thoughts that cause suffering came directly from a person’s body – the way that orange juice comes from an orange, or the way sunlight comes from the sun – then we would feel the same way about our bodies at every given moment. And of course, that isn’t true. So if the thoughts that are causing our suffering are not coming from our bodies, where are they coming from? What I’m going to propose is that our thinking is like the weather. It is energy flowing through us, rather than something coming into us from the outside, like oxygen. And that when we understand this it brings us closer to our innate state of well-being and calm, and this in turn can melt away our food cravings. No will power required.Innocently it looks to us as though life works like the oxygen coming into our lungs – that is, from the outside in. We see a body – perhaps our own – and we have a thought about it.But if our thinking worked that way, then, as I illustrated in the examples above, how is it possible to have one type of thought about something on one day and a very different type of thought about the same thing on another day? If life worked from the outside in, then we would have the same thoughts about that thing every single time we saw it. This is the first point that I want to propose – that our thinking comes from the inside-out, not the other way around. Now, let’s discuss the specifics of what’s going on with our thinking when we have an overeating habit. When we feel we are not the “right” body size, and we have an overeating habit, it’s easy to observe that we have a LOT of thinking about that situation.  I know for me, one of the recurring thoughts I had about my overeating habit was why does it seem like this is not an issue for other people? And yet, it feels like such a huge issue for me. In other words, why have I spent all this time and energy and effort trying to fix this situation, and I’ve completely failed for 10, then 20, then 30 years. My thoughts also went to things like: why can’t I even manage something simple like portion control why am I so hopeless at trying to eat properly. why am I sabotaging myself if losing weight is something I want? And of course with all the visually focused social media apps and all the messages that we get from the media, I had lots of thinking about how my body wasn’t “right” and how I didn’t measure up and how I wasn’t perfect. There was lots of suffering going on, because of my thinking. Perhaps you can relate to all of this as well. Now let’s look at what diets bring to this situation Of course diets and self-help programs that teach us how to eat, and apply rules and structure that strive to help us to change our eating habits, seem like a solution. If we’ve got a situation where we’re overeating, and then someone proposes a way to eat less, and we are promised that we would be changing the situation that feels like it’s a problem, then, of course that looks like a solution. And absolutely it did for me as well, all those years ago, and up until just a few years ago.  However what I see now is that diets contribute to the thinking we’ve already got about food and weight and body image. In other words, they add more thinking into that mix. What I mean by this is that we’ve got all the thinking about our overeating habit that I mentioned earlier. And then when a diet or a new eating plan comes along what we end up doing is layering more thinking onto the thinking that’s already there. The metaphor I use to describe this is that our thinking becomes like a snowball rolling downhill. The original snowball is all our thinking about ourselves and our bodies and our unwanted overeating habit. Then we start to diet or we find a new eating plan and we think it’s a solution. And we may even feel some relief for the first few days. But what we’re actually doing is rolling that snowball downhill, and adding more and more thinking to that situation. The diet adds new thoughts like what can I eat and what can’t I eat? And if I slip up what does that mean about me? If my cravings return, what does that mean? We have fearful thoughts about staying on the diet. And of course, in my case, and maybe yours too, eventually (or quickly) I would fail with the eating plan. And that just added more and more thinking to what was already there: Why can’t I figure this out? Why is this so hard? What’s wrong with me that I can’t do this? Why don’t I have any will power? So that snowball of thought is rolling downhill, adding more and more snow to the original ball. Now, it does need to be said that we do this because it’s all we know. It’s the way that our culture is focused. When we don’t see any other way of doing things, of course we innocently try to find a solution to our overeating habit and diets are the one that are most popular. Naturally, we are trying to ease our suffering. We want to feel better. Here’s where things get interesting. Now that we’ve explored what it is that is causing us to suffer when we have an overeating habit we’re going to go back to the original question posed by the title of this track: why do we fail so often at diets? What if we looked at our thinking about food and our unwanted overeating habits as though they weren’t a problem. I know that can sound like a ridiculous proposal but let’s explore it. What if we considered that our food cravings are actually coming from a very wise place within us? Diets tend to demonize cravings. We think of food cravings and an overeating habit as something we need to control, manage, eradicate. Which is where that snowball rolling downhill comes into effect. But what if our cravings are trying to get our attention? What if they are actually pointing us toward or alerting us to the quality of our thinking? If our thinking is NOT coming from outside ourselves, as I outlined earlier, then we are living in the world of our thinking, not in the world of our circumstances. Therefore our internal experience of life isn’t coming from outside of ourselves, it is coming to life within ourselves. From this what we can see is that the feelings that we have – like food cravings – can be seen as a reflection of our thinking in that moment. If I’m feeling a really deep, urgent craving for some kind of food, what that’s telling me is that my thinking is insecure and stirred up. You already know the way the feelings in your body reflect what’s going on in your mind; when you’re excited about something you might have a feeling like butterflies in your stomach. When you’re scared you might have a tight chest or throat. The only way that our innate wisdom has to get our attention about the state of our thinking is by offering us these feelings.  Our natural state is one of peace and calm. We are designed, it seems to me, to return to that state naturally. We return to it without effort or force of will.When we see this, we can also see that our feelings – including our food cravings – are like little mindfulness bells that go off, that let us know about the state of our thinking in any given moment. They let us know when we have stepped away from our natural state of calm. The desire in us to go on a diet is actually proof of this. What do we think will happen when we go on a diet and lose weight? Consider that for a moment. You might respond with thoughts like: I will feel better about myself. I will stop worrying about what I’m eating. I will accept myself and others will accept me too. Imagining those things feels good doesn’t it? That good feeling is the one we’re always looking for. It is the calm and quiet state that is our innate design. Unfortunately, diets take us further away from that feeling because they add to the whirl of busy thinking that we’re already living within. So when it comes to resolving an overeating habit, I’d love you to consider this: what if it wasn’t that you have failed at following a diet in the past. What if you’ve been sold the wrong tool for the job? We do we fail at diets? It is not because we lack will power. We fail at diets because they compound the busy, insecure thinking within us. Diets are like adding gasoline to a fire. This is why they don’t work for most of us. The alternative to diets is looking upstream, toward the nature of thought and how it moves through us, from the inside out. And how, when we see our thoughts for what they are, we connect to our innate well-being and return to our the state of peace and calm that already exists within us. Thanks so much for listening today. Bye for now. Featured image photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash The post Q&A 42 – Why do diets fail us? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Bill and Connie DeKramer have long worked in the field of offering solutions about healthy eating and healthy living. But they found that there was a piece missing when it came to helping their clients find lasting results. Then they discovered the 3 Principles of innate health and everything fell into place, for them and for their clients. Bill and Connie DeKramer love sharing a program that has helped more than a thousand people restore their health, lose weight naturally and create a healthy relationship with food. All this happens through a simple understanding of our true nature and our innate intelligence that effortlessly guides us to the food and lifestyle choices that return us to balance and thriving. You can find Bill and Connie at AmazingHealthEffortlessly.com and on Instagram @amazing.health.effortlessly. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes The end of spiritual seeking as we discover it’s all within us How we can’t use our minds to change our minds How we are always feeling our thinking How eating changes when we see our thinking for what it is On the wisdom in cravings Transcript of Interview with Bill and Connie DeKramer Alexandra: Bill and Connie DeKramer Welcome to Unbroken. Bill: Thanks, Alexandra. We’re delighted to be here. Connie: And your title, Unbroken. It’s so true. We all are. Alexandra: Exactly. Thank you. I chose that very consciously, of course. So this is the first interview I’ve done with two people, as opposed to one. So this will be kind of fun. Why don’t you start and tell us each about how you came across the principles. Connie, why don’t we start with you? Why don’t you tell us about that. Connie: We’ve been spiritual seekers forever. And all of a sudden, I realized no more of this. I know it’s all within me. And that’s where I’m going to look from here on out. I had an experience thinking Bill and I might separate where I was devastated. In that sadness, I saw that I would be fine no matter what happened. And my mind went quiet. It has stayed that way since then, actually. Then we moved to Kelowna. And that’s how we found the principles. And for me, everything that Syd was saying, confirmed my experience. So I knew this was something really true and worthwhile. Alexandra: And Bill, what about you? Bill: We discovered them at the same time. And then what actually introduced us to the first person that was talking about this understanding of the principles was – Connie had an career in weight loss, she opened salons in Australia big deal. And so she would tap in every now and then to see what was going on in the weight loss industry. And we had been helping people restore their health with whole foods for 30 years, and had great success with that. But we would find that when people – even if they had great results – sometimes we would see a client six months, 12 months later, and put the weight back on their conditions were back and say, Hey, what happened, it was always the same story, something had happened in their lives, that created a lot of pressure. And they turned back to their old habits of using foods to come through. So we knew there was a mental emotional piece to tied into being healthy. Just giving the body what it needs, the body will be healthy if we give it what it needs. But we’ve got to give it what it needs and our emotions, how we feel, can have a big bearing on our relationship with food, and we’re reaching for food that’s not serving us to deal with something other than our health. So, we were listening to this webinar, and Dr. Amy Johnson came on and was talking about weight loss. But she was putting it in their context of it’s about our relationship with life, that we can really find lasting change in establishing weight loss. And it didn’t make any sense. But something resonated. It’s like I’ve learned more about what she’s talking about. So one thing led to another and we studied with Amy and became change coaches through Amy’s Change Coach Program. And that took care of that mental emotional piece that we’ve been looking for, to help our clients be able to make the lasting change in terms of diet and lifestyle without getting thrown off the tracks if something happened in their lives. Alexandra: Connie, were there other things you had tried, in terms of that emotional piece that hadn’t worked? Connie: Oh yeah. We tried HeartMath. We tried Byron Katie’s work, we tried meditation. We tried everything that seemed like it might really support people, but nothing worked. Everything made sense that people would do their positive thinking with us for a while. But nothing would stick. What we see now is that all of these techniques and strategies, people were using them like they wanted the what do I do; they use their mind to change their mind? We can’t use your mind to change your mind. We have that insight about how we work, how life really works about this well being that we all really come from. And then experience. Alexandra: Did you begin to see changes with your clients when you introduced that idea? Connie: Yes, we did. And they experienced freedom in a lot of other areas. By seeing more clearly, instead of being lost in thought they began to have major life change. It’s so rewarding and fulfilling for them and for us. Bill: It helped us deal with the issue of cravings. Because if we’ve established a habit to reach for food, when we’re looking for relief, then whenever a little bit of tension comes up, we have a craving for that food. Now, that’s our wisdom actually helping us navigate resolution. When we begin to understand that we’re feeling our thinking, it’s not really that our bodies want this food, and understand how the Principles, we’re going to apply that. Now we’re helping people restore health and lose weight naturally. And to deal with those cravings that come up. They’re no longer trying to use that willpower to resist this craving. I don’t know, I just get through it for five minutes that will go well, that stuff that people try to do. So that’s how helped us deal with the whole craving piece. So that was a big shift for people to find that more effortless transition. Not having to work so hard. Alexandra: Exactly. And you guys, I think I read on your website, you, Connie was it you that ran a sort of a health food restaurant years ago. Bill: We both did okay. Alexandra: My thought was that you had both, or for a very long time been very healthy. Have you personally dealt with cravings yourself? Connie: Yes. I would use potato chips. Or whatever. And that would be the thing that would come up for me every so often. And a friend asked me one day, are you giving your well-being to potato chips? I realized, ah, yeah. I decided that I would meet whatever was there. And I got just quiet. The next time the craving arose, and in that quietness, I saw the source of what was driving me toward potato chips. And it was a feeling as a young kid and feeling safe. One of the few times when I felt really safe there were always potato chips at those events. The minute I saw that, then the I’ve never had another craving. Never and really for nothing. That was kind of the final one. Alexandra: And what about you, Bill? Bill: I like sweets, that kind of stuff. We were talking to a client earlier this morning, actually, I was sharing his story how there was a store in the mall called Death by Chocolate. There’s a glass case right out front, everybody’s walking by right. So every time I’d walk by it would start bringing those feelings up because like Connie, I didn’t see this at the time. But we make associations between experience in our lives and food. When we’re starting to feel tense, and we remember we had potato chips, and everything was so calm. We had a potato chip, and we find that space again, the potato chip and break the space, but the association in our mind, and so I had associations with chocolate. I began to understand more about how we’re always feeling our thinking and exploring that more and that relationship with food was changing. It was the strangest thing one day, I didn’t even see it coming but I’m walking by Death by Chocolate, I look into case expecting the usual high because isn’t that part of the whole process? You love even that first thought of having a bite, you don’t even have to have the bite. I’m waiting for this to come. I might as well have been looking at cardboard. Like, wait, wait, what’s happened? So the association just broke. That was such a beautiful demonstration to myself about how our experience really works. Feeling our thinking. If I’m no longer associating chocolate with this wonderful feeling, then chocolate is just neutral. It might as well be …well, for some reason. I thought cardboard at the time, but it could be spinach or anything else. Alexandra: That’s such an interesting point about the associations, because when we just naturally don’t have an association with something, like I’m trying to think of a food that some people might crave that, that we personally don’t. It just holds no energy at all. There’s no thinking about it. It’s yeah, so interesting. Bill: If you’re a nonsmoker, and a smoker saying, God, I’m trying to quit smoking. You say, well just stop. See the inner dynamic, that association that’s driving it? And so it just doesn’t make sense if we’re not experiencing it, but it’s that way for everyone. Alexandra: Which really points to that we live in the world of our thinking. So clearly, that’s so great. When you guys are working with someone who’s wanting to change their habits, and eat better and lose weight, where do you begin with them? Connie: What I keep finding more and more often is the best place to begin is with that thinking piece. They see the association, they have that some true, real. And as they see that, then making changes in the food world is very easy. And we can then just focus on food, and make change and have helped that’s amazing beyond what we even thought we could have, without pushback from old habits, old thinking. Bill: Around the food piece we’re a hybrid business, we deal with food. Because the body has a say it’s been designed to function best with certain foods in the same way that if our car works well, on gasoline, we don’t put diesel in, right. And so we have guidelines, because both of us resolved health challenges with a whole food plant based diet, science that supports it. And so this is our approach around the food. That seems to be a good fuel for the body. And we’ve had great results, I can say for 30 years, people are getting out for high blood pressure medicine, diabetes, meds are having energy, their aches and pains are guiding it seems to work. But the key is the lasting change. So that’s the emotional piece. So we’ve got the two things. It’s easy to tell them, this is what we found worked really well give it a try, see how you like it, and that kind of evolves on its own. It’s the challenge with emotional pieces were caused, saying, We can show them the associations that they have around, usually unhealthy food habits. Because we’re often drawn to things that make us feel good because it kicks in a very natural process in the body, this pleasure center, we have a treat, the body is designed to give us a hit of dopamine, if we have high calories come into the blood, which is sugar and fat and you know, give me a pizza. How does that feel? There’s dopamine going on. So it’s good to understand these associations that make us feel good. That’s not the real feel good we’re looking for. There’s a difference between the satisfaction of the dopamine hit and the satisfaction of really being grounded really touching into this innate well-being. So, when I see chocolate looks like cardboard, that’s not the kind of hit I used to get from chocolate. But I’ll tell you, it is it is the satisfaction I was always looking for in chocolate. Alexandra: Right. And it occurs to me too, that when we when we understand how our thinking works, the mechanics, if that’s the right word, of eating well become a lot easier because there’s a lot less suffering there and worrying about every little mouthful and all that kind of stuff. You guys are both nodding. Connie: One thing I’ve found recently is I will tell people, there are two ways to go about the food piece. One is slowly put the toe in the water. And the other is jump in with both feet right away and see what happens. And people who really favor animal products often will take a slower route. And they don’t have to totally get off all their animal products to find the health level they want. So we keep learning. Alexandra: I’d love to find out more about this. This is kind of like asking the same question I’ve asked already. But from a different angle. What do you notice that your clients struggle with if they come into this understanding without any previous awareness of it? Where do they struggle? Connie: I think the main struggle is just that false belief that often is unconscious that we carry with us that drives us to use food for something it isn’t designed for, in supporting people to see that very clearly from beginning to end. Often it’s dissolved like my potato chip story. Bill: I think what creates the struggle for them is because they come into this with the classic societal approach, select that life works outside in. So if there’s a problem with my weight or with my health, with an eating disorder, then it has to do with the food. So they want to deal with the food. And we’re saying it’s not about the food, and they’re going well, it is about the food, because it’s what I eat. And so there’s just that turnaround for them to begin to understand the Inside Out nature of life versus the outside in. As they keep believing it’s outside in, there’s going to be this wanting to control and restrict. And this is the answer by managing my life outside instead of recognizing it’s all inside. Alexandra: Such a good point. Go ahead, Connie. Connie: Many people have the false belief, because that’s all they’ve known that following a diet is the answer where there’s a lot of restriction. And that actually is totally not the answer. That won’t lead you anywhere except where you’ve already been, which lose some weight and then gained it all back plus, usually They see where is truth really with food. With anything in life? It isn’t in restriction and willpower, right. Alexandra: One thing that occurs to me too, is, in my experience was that anytime talking about restriction and diets and that kind of thing, anytime I tried something like that, that was new, and failed, I felt that I was the problem. And so 30 years of feeling you’re a failure weighs on you. I imagine your clients must find some relief from that kind of thinking. Bill: For sure, some clients they’re 50 years old, and they’re telling us their story. They started dieting when they were 10. They lost 100 pounds, and they’ve gained 120 back. That kind of stuff. What’s that do to your psychology when you think it’s all about your ability to manage life? After control life? That’s way too much work. Alexandra: What a relief when we realize that there’s another answer. That’s for sure. And so, you guys have given a couple of examples of your personal relationships with food. Is there anything that you’ve noticed because you were running the restaurant and running weight loss clinics for years and years and years? Since you found the Principles have you noticed other shifts around your feelings about food? Connie: That’s a good question. Yeah, I have to tell you, we’ve always eat really clean for many years, as we’ve said, but I used to use some homemade ghee and my beans and I use salty vinegars from my macrobiotic days, and all of a sudden I had a very minor stroke. Well, that was a wake up call. Me the picture of perfect health supposedly having this physical condition. So then I learned about salt, oil and sugar free and change my blood pressure changed everything that in the good direction. And now I just love food more than I ever have in terms of its taste. Once the taste buds change, food, wow, what we have to eat every day, I’m so deeply grateful more than ever for what it offers. So salt, oil and sugar free. I know that at one end of the extreme spectrum, but it makes such a difference, especially as we get older, in terms of our health. So that’s my, my take on it. Bill: For me, I’m learning the Principles and learning this inside out perspective of life that really, this is how life works. And it’s so obvious once I see it, the awarenesses about how life works keep opening more and more, there’s more and more insight all the time. And so how food has changed with these greater insights, I think, is that I become more and more sensitive to the feedback from my body. Eating something you know. So this is happening all the time, I believe this is happening all the time, our bodies, they pick up on information, so much more information than we’re conscious of, I think we’re supposed to get maybe between one and 5% of the information that the body’s registering and storing consciously. And so as I learn more and relax more into my relationship with life, I’m much more sensitive to everything that I experienced. But as I eat, when I used to have the chocolate or whatever I say it’s like I was eating here up this experience. And when I started to really calm down and really get grounded in eating really healthy I was like eating from here down. I’ll eat something and I can tell, is this just giving me some pleasure? And I enjoy it for that reason? Or is my body really saying, Wow, thank you for that. Your relationship with our body, isn’t it? It’s designed to do what it can do with working men to thrive. W’e have an innate wisdom we that this body is designed to thrive. But we’re responsible to give it what it needs. So it can just like take care of our car. Now that I’ve become more and more sensitive to and I love this relationship, it’s made a much more of an interesting, more intimate relationship between me and my body and my food and we’re one happy family. Alexandra: There’s four of you in that relationship. Oh, that’s wonderful. And that, actually, and that was one of my questions on the sheet that I sent you was about the wisdom of our bodies and what we see about that. Tell us what you see about the wisdom and cravings? Connie: Oh, I love that question. Because, one thing I love to share with clients is the problem that the cravings have initiated that say, is really where all the gold is. We create these, quote, difficulties to really come back to unlearn and live in who we really are. So it’s only in creating these perceived problems that the time is now we’re ready. To go further in our evolution, it’s beautiful. Bill: On the idea of the wisdom of the body. There’s more and more research these days about the vagus nerve. And for longevity, we’re talking about having a second brain in the gut and that kind of thing. And so there really is so much feedback that’s always available, if we hear it. But our conditioning and using food for reward and for celebration or for social events, we are very settled in terms of that. My experience and what we see in others, expanding and exploring in their own lives too, is this ability to listen to our bodies, its ability to, to pick up on the wisdom. There’s all kinds of little aphorisms always going on in the way of little nudges. And in terms of the thank yous that we get for when we really provide something that our bodies thrive for. I think there’s a lot of wisdom, intelligence, or bodies reflect the intelligence of nature, the intelligence of the universe, we, in our conscious awareness can actually begin to relate and have a relationship with that wisdom. That’s really sweet. Alexandra: It goes back to that famous Sydney Banks quote, doesn’t it? If the only thing people learned was to not be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world. You mentioned celebration there, Bill. And it’s such a good point. What role now does food play in in your celebrations? Connie: When Thanksgiving comes around, we make the most amazing Thanksgiving meal, whole food plant based, but we love and enjoy even more than the old traditional meal with turkey. We’re discovering new realms of taste and enjoyment. Recreating recipes that were favorite so far. So that’s really fun. And we don’t do a lot of using food to celebrate, like maybe many families do. But when we do it, we love it. Bill: We both have birthdays, there’s just a couple of days apart. And so Connie loves this black bean brownie recipe we have. So I thought, well, I’ll make these brownies for but in the shape of a cake, and we’ll have a birthday cake. So we’ve had his cake for a few days. And what’s been interesting is that it’s kind of like my Death by Chocolate experience. I still have associated my mind, birthday cakes going to make me feel good. And we’re going to have a fun night. And it goes so far beyond the food because of the association. So I have this piece of chocolate cake. And it’s like, where’s the fun? Where’s the fun? So synergy has kind of been on Wow. So like I said we’re the food we eat. And if it’s around what we would call a celebration, a birthday or a holiday or whatever. It’s really great. But it’s no wonder the afterglow of my association of it’s the food that makes me feel so good. Being with all these people being at a holiday having a birthday. What makes me feel good about birthdays and holidays and everything? Is the birthday, the holidays, the people. It’s no longer has that association, the food playing such an important role in what I think is they can be filled with it. Alexandra: While you were speaking, I was see it like we’re food used to play the central role in a circle. Now, it’s somewhere on the periphery. And there’s other things. I don’t know how to phrase this question. You guys seem to be a retirement age. And yet, I can tell from our conversation you’re so passionate about this and about what you do. And you’ve clearly been doing it for such a long time. Talk to me about that and about the joy that you find in in sharing your work. Connie, why don’t you start? Connie: I’m’ just reflecting. Bill: She just turned 80. Connie: Yeah, I just turned 80. I don’t know why but I think it’s a great anyway. Say your question again. Alexandra: What I’m searching for is you both just seem so passionate about what you’re doing. And so it seems to me like you haven’t felt a need to set that down. And retire, quote unquote. I would just love you to talk about that a little bit. Connie: Where I’m at right now, I just want to reach people who want to feel better, and be healthier. So we’re looking at maybe bringing one of the whole food plant based in these to Kelowna to really reach out to a wider audience of people here, and I’m exploring, is it possible? How can we do it? But the drive behind it is, I would just love to introduce this way of living meeting more people who have an interest. Because I think there’s so much value in it, so much value in it. And then when we add the piece of the mental emotional work. We just did a conference in Dallas and shared this work in relationship to food. It’s so rewarding when you have an audience of people who really want to learn more and get healthy and be free of the old of the old problems, perceived problems. Bill: I love the question too, because it, it sets up the contrast to the conditional thinking that really aren’t we just here to work hard, so we can retire, and just do whatever we want. We’ll do whatever they want us to do. So I can get this money together retirement, I can do what I want. And it’s like, No. Fortunately, we’ve always followed our hearts in terms of what do we do. So like you say, you see the passions, we’ve always loved what we do. But as we’ve understood more about the Inside Out nature of life, and that, in reality, life is living us. It’s not for me to decide where my happiness will be found. I will find happiness, by listening to my heart to this current of life that’s moving through me, to direct me. As opposed to, let’s see, when I’m 65 will have this much money in the bank, and I can play golf Monday, Wednesday, that kind of an idea, which there’s nothing wrong with those kinds of ideas about retirement, being the golden years, and all the rest of it. It is all based on that outside in thinking, that is my secret that are going to provide guarantees I’m looking for. As we’ve understood more and more about the principles and open more and more to listening, and allowing the wisdom of life to move through us and responding to that we engage in life, from these nudges, as opposed to try to figure out where’s my happiness next? Retirement, just as a concept doesn’t live in that world. Alexandra: I saw somebody the other day who said the only reason one would retire would be if you didn’t like what you were doing. I can just see how much joy you guys get from what you’re doing. And that’s such a good point, Bill about it being an outside-in construct. I think this is way off topic, but I’ll just say it anyway. When I see people struggle when they retire, and It’s because I bet they’ve put all the somehow this magic date occurs, and then I’ll be happy, right? I’ll leave my job. And of course it doesn’t work that way. Interesting. As we start to wrap up, is there anything you guys would like to share that we haven’t touched on yet today? Bill: One thing that comes to me is, and maybe we’ve said this in different ways, but just to kind of summarize it, the healthy relationship with food rests on the same foundation as a healthy relationship with life. So if we’re if we’re having an issue with food, it’s the same answer there as it is to deal with if I have a difficulty in my marriage. If I have difficulty my marriage is because I’m using the marriage. I’m using that person to try and satisfy something in me that I don’t feel is complete. And so I need to look inside and really see how it is that I’m relating to that person. And if it’s not providing what I think I want, is it that she needs to change? Or is it that I need to change, and it’s the same thing with food. If I’ve got a health condition, it’s not because something’s broken. When a hurricane blows over Florida, doing all this devastation, it’s not because the weather system broke, is because the meteorological conditions were just such that it created a hurricane. And when there are hurricanes, these things happen. So if I have high blood pressure, it’s not because my body broke. And so I need medication to fix it. It’s because there’s an environmental condition created, usually by what I’m eating, by my lifestyle, that’s creating an inflammation that the body’s responding to perfectly. It’s laying down fat and cholesterol in the arteries to deal with the inflammation. Unfortunately, like the high winds of a hurricane, those have negative side effects over time. So it’s looking at that relationship from the standpoint of how am I if things are going right, am I using that for me? Or am I relating to it in the way that it’s really designed to create a thriving relationship? Alexandra: You’re saying that our bodies are giving us feedback. It’s not that we’re broken. It’s that there’s feedback. There’s information there. And what about you, Connie, anything you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on? Connie: With the principles, and even before, when my mind went quiet, I realized that I could use my love of food and good health to support people to know who they really are more deeply. And I love that so much. My blood just gets very active when I get a chance to talk about it, and sure. And, yeah, aren’t we lucky. I keep learning and growing. And, oh, I just love live. Seeing more and more beauty wherever you look. And even in the midst of the perceived difficulty now I’m at the place where [I say] come in my darling, whatever you have to show me I want to see it. I am here with full attention. I just respond to life has said arises and it doesn’t have to look any particular way ever. In the past. That was not the case, believe me. Alexandra: That’s so well said. I love this idea that the challenges that we have are actually doorways and opportunities for us to see ourselves in our full magnificence and well being and our innate resilience and all that stuff. Where can we find out more about you guys and your work? Bill: We have a website, amazinghealtheffortlessly.com. And that’s probably the best place to read a little bit more about us and easy to contact us through that. Connie: And we have lots of wonderful recipes for free on the website. So go on and explore. And, if you want to have any questions or connect with us, we’re always open. Connie: We always provide a free 30 minute consultation. People want to learn more about how what they’re dealing with might be addressed between us. Alexandra: Great, I will put links to the website in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com. All right, well, thank you guys so much. It’s been so lovely chatting with you. Connie: I love the depth of your questions. And now insightful they are. Alexandra: Thank you. All right. Take care you guys. Bye bye. Featured image photo by Anna Pelzer on Unsplash The post Healthy Relationships With Food And Life with Bill and Connie DeKramer appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

What should we do when an unwanted habit that has been getting better suddenly rears its head again? Contrary to what we might believe, when this occurs it’s good news. It means there’s more for us to see about our innate well-being. It’s also a very natural part of the learning and growing process. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes How there’s always forward momentum with our growth and healing, even when it doesn’t feel like it How the ‘back of the spiral’ is where change and learning occur What to do when we’re at the back of the spiral How resisting what we’re feeling can backfire What we’re looking for when we’re in the back of the spiral How our unwanted habits like overeating always alert us to busy insecure thinking Resources mentioned in this episode Freedom From Overeating online course Transcript of episode Hello, explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 41 of Unbroken. I’m your host, Alexandra Amor. I’m here today with the question, why is it good news when we backslide? By backslide I mean when we feel like we were making progress, and maybe our unwanted habit was a little bit less pressing than it used to be, or where, in the case of overeating, we’re eating a little bit better than we were and we feel like we’ve been making a little bit of progress. And then what happens when things start to feel like we’re slipping backwards, we’re not where we were a few days or a few weeks ago. Things seem to be getting worse instead of better, or worse than they were anyway, when we had improved. So that’s what I mean by backslide. Today’s episode might be a little bit longer than these episodes typically are because I want to delve into two separate things in order to explore this. And then it’s also going to be a little more personal than the episodes usually are, because this is something that I’m encountering right at this moment. So let’s get into it. The first thing I want to talk about is the way that change happens, and the way that we evolve and grow. When we have a situation like the one I just described, where we feel like we were maybe doing better, a habit was beginning to resolve itself and then it isn’t anymore, it isn’t getting better, it feels like it’s getting worse, or we’ve slid back a little bit – we have that expression, two steps forward one step back – it can feel like that. It can feel like we’re going backwards. Or maybe we’re going in a circle, we’ve circled back around to a place that we were before. And it can feel like the progress that we made, that maybe we’ve negated that somehow, or that it’s slipped out of our grasp, that it’s gone away. And we can get down on ourselves about that, of course. So the first thing I want to explain is how it seems to me that growth and healing – and this has definitely been my experience – are more like a corkscrew shape. For those of you on YouTube, I’m holding up a corkscrew. So a corkscrew, of course has this spiraling motion, as you can see, and this is a really great metaphor for learning and growth and change. And resolving something like an overeating habit. Because no matter what’s going on, even if we feel like we made some progress and now we’ve fallen back, we’re still moving forward. And that’s why the corkscrew shape is such a helpful metaphor, because if you lay it on its side, and it’s making that motion, it’s still you’re curling, one way and then the other. But it’s still a forward momentum. There’s a lesson in the Freedom From Overeating course that I have that goes into this in more detail. But I just I love that metaphor. The second thing that I want to explore with regard to this metaphor, is that if you think of that shape of the corkscrew, there’s a part of it where you’re coming around the top of the spiraling motion. And if this was a roller coaster, you’d then tip over the top and then be going downhill. Those are the moments when things feel easy. And they’re flowing. This is what happens after insights occur to us and we have a shift. It can be small or it can be large. Either way, there’s that forward momentum and it’s downhill. It’s easy, or we’re being pulled by gravity, as it were, and it can feel smooth and easy. And it’s just a good feeling when we’re in that part of the spiral. But then there’s the back of the spiral that occurs; the spiral goes down, and now it’s curving forward, still moving forward, but you’re in the back of it, and this is an is an uphill slope. So the roller coaster would be curving that way if it was going upwards. This is what’s happening when we feel like we’re sliding backwards. We’ve taken some steps forward that we’re now going back. But the thing to remember is that with that spiraling motion, or one of the things to remember, is that it’s, as I say, it’s still moving forward, you haven’t circled back around to where you were, you are still moving forward with that motion of the corkscrew or the spiral. The second thing to remember about the back of the spiral is that that’s where the really juicy stuff occurs. This is where we learn, this is where change happens. And this is the place where we start looking for insight, because things have gotten tough. We’re on this uphill slope, it feels like a grind, we feel like maybe we lost the momentum, perhaps of where we were before. And it’s less smooth, less easy. But again, that’s where the learning occurs. This is when you’re in the back of the spiral. That’s where you’re going to have insights. And you’re going to see more about your own well being and your innate resilience, and resourcefulness and all that good stuff. So the other thing I want to say too, about the back of the spiral is that it’s human nature, and it’s so easy, to have a knee jerk reaction when that’s happening. So we’ve taken two steps forward, we’re feeling great about how we’re eating. And then suddenly, things shift. And it’s not going as smoothly and we suddenly have cravings that we haven’t experienced in a while. Perhaps we noticed that our overeating habit seems to have flared up, it’s gotten a little worse, instead of getting better, that kind of thing. The knee jerk reaction in that moment is to panic. It is to resist what’s happening. And that’s perfectly natural, and normal and human. And we all do it. I just want to say here today that instead what we can do is I guess a few different things. One of those things is to know that we’re simply in the back of the spiral. This isn’t the end of the world, it’s not going to be like this forever. And this spiraling motion that we’re always in, as we’re learning and growing it’s a natural part of our growth and our learning. Growth and learning is never just straight like an arrow. There’s that cartoon, that meme that people put up on Facebook or Instagram every once in a while, what they think success looks like and it’s just a 45 degree angle in a in a graph. And then what it really looks like and the line is going in the same direction, but it’s all squiggly and squirrely, and all that kind of stuff. The same principle applies here. As we’re exploring this understanding and learning more about it, it’s never just going to be a straight arrow shot from here to having all the insights and all the change that we want to see. It’s going to have this spiraling motion. And like I say, the back of the spiral is really where the juicy stuff starts to happen. This has been happening for me lately, and I’ll talk about that a little more in a minute. That’s the second part that I want wanted to share for this Q&A episode. And like I say that the automatic reaction can be to resist that. And for the chatter in our thinking to be quite negative about ourselves and to worry about what’s happening. We can sort of bear down and kind of get more restrictive with ourselves which is an old habit. That’s how we knew in the past how to deal with an overeating habit. So applying the strategies that worked in the past and maybe creating more rules in our head, about the foods that we can or can’t eat, and that kind of thing. So all of that resistance, action or activity, especially in our minds, is the place that we might turn to immediately when we feel ourselves go into the back of the spiral. What I want to share is that that’s counterproductive. It’s not going to help us smoothly navigate the back of the spiral to, to apply those kinds of solutions that I just mentioned. And it can be quite difficult to do. But what is more helpful is to just relax, which is easier said than done, into what’s happening and let it happen. And trust that insight will come in its own time about whatever learning it is that we’re going through in the back of this spiral. That can be one of the frustrating things is that insight comes on its own time. We don’t have control really over when that occurs. So sitting in that place of being in the back of the spiral, can be scary and frustrating. I’m not saying that it isn’t, what I am saying is that if we can try as much as possible to not judge ourselves. And to lean into the idea that this is where the learning takes place. I often find that the biggest learnings take place immediately after a period of frustration. Very often the greater the frustration, the greater the learning. So when we remember those kinds of things, it does get easier. And also, when we know that we’re in the back of the spiral, we can beat ourselves up less about what’s happening about the lack of progress that we see. And that in itself – not beating ourselves up about what’s going on – helps because it reduces the amount of thinking that we’ve got going on about the situation and that’s what we want. Our habit, as I talk about over and over again, is alerting us to the state of our thinking. This is another thing I want to touch on. When we get into the back of the spiral, what I try to remind myself about is that there’s more for me to see about my own innate well-being. And the only way that my wisdom, my being, the greater intelligence that flows through me has to get my attention that there’s more for me to see about those things about my well-being is by speaking to me via my overeating habit. When that happens, when I notice cravings come up that haven’t come up for a while, that gets my attention. Now I’m noticing and what I tried to do is right away, say to myself, Oh, there’s more for me to see here. There’s more insight available to me, there’s more wisdom available to me about my innate well-being, and my resourcefulness and resilience and my connection to universal intelligence. I’ll segue now into the personal story of what I’ve been going through lately, which is the second part of what I wanted to share. For months and months, I’ve been eating differently than I used to. And of course, this has been a gradual process. I learned about the Inside Out understanding, the Three Principles in mid 2017. And there’s been a real gradual shift and change. And I guess that’s that spiraling motion, right? It hasn’t been a straight arrow. There have been times when things have really shifted and changed and then times when they get harder, when I get into the back of the spiral. I really see that now I didn’t see it at the time. I thought I was just a slow learner. As I’m recording this now it’s November 27 2023. Sorry. And, for months and months, I’ve been eating really well, and my weight has been dropping, which is what I want. For me that’s one thing that’s important. I know that I’m carrying extra weight. That may not be one of your goals, but it certainly is one of mine. And then I don’t know exactly when, maybe two weeks ago, I came in to the back of the spiral. And there are some specific feelings that I have around food that come up for me that and I know when I’m in the back of the spiral, like specific cravings, and they tend to be around supper time, they tend to be I’ve talked about this, I think on a previous episode, I have cravings for rice and potatoes, that kind of thing. So I include those with my meals. Again, not the end of the world. I mean, really, this is not life threatening stuff. But for someone who’s trying to lose weight, rice and potatoes do not help that situation. So I noticed those cravings come up. I just want to walk you through what’s been happening for me while that’s been going on. It’s a lot of what I’ve already shared. But this is just a more personal look at how I’ve been dealing with this. So the first thing that happens is the cravings come up. And I do resist them right away. I’ll notice myself going, Oh, no, this is not good. I was doing so well. And now I’m not. And then pretty quickly, the same day, I’ll remember Oh, right. Okay, I’m in the back of the spiral, these cravings are communicating with me, they’re letting me know that there’s more for me to see about my will own innate well-being. Then I really try to relax into them. The way to make something sticky is to resist it. So I really try not to do that. If I feel like having rice, potatoes and or potatoes, I have them not both in the same meal. And I let myself have that experience. And I’ve said this already, but I try not to take it really seriously and punish myself about that. Because that’s not definitely not the objective. So I really try to relax into what’s happening, and not be so judgmental. And, I go in and out of that, of course, there are moments when I feel quite judgmental about myself, especially because I’m teaching these things, and we tend to hold ourselves to a different standard, when we’re teaching, which is not really fair, because I’m experiencing exactly what you’re going to experience. It’s better if I’m able to share from the back of the spiral than to just pretend it doesn’t exist. Because pretending it doesn’t exist isn’t going to help you. Because you’re just going to feel bad about yourself when that’s happening for you. So I lean into what’s happening, I just let it happen. And try not to be too judgmental. Then another big part of it is I’ve learned over these years that I’ve been exploring the Three Principles that I can really trust insight. I know it’s coming. I know the universe hasn’t abandoned me. It hasn’t turned its back on me. I can rely on the fact that insight will be coming. And it will be a real shift in consciousness for me. I’ll be able to see something that I haven’t been able to see before. The reason I’m recording this today is because last night I had an insight about this, about the back of the spiral that I’m in. It hasn’t solved the problem but I definitely feel that forward sense of momentum. And so I’ll explain to you what the Insight was for me, but with the caveat that you’re not looking for this specific insight. The insight that I have is very specific to me. Insights are interesting in that I feel like I’m getting the sense that they are universal. Every insight is universal in that insights always point toward our, as I’ve said a bazillion times on this podcast so far, they point to our innate well-being, to our resourcefulness to our resilience to the fact that we are always well, that we always return to a state of calm, and peace. So that’s their universality. Another a real shorthand way of saying what insights are, is that they’re always pointing towards love, always. We seem to get a greater and greater grasp of how that works, how we are made of love, how we are all connected by love, we are all connected to the universal intelligence that is loving. So to me, that’s the universality of insight. Then the specificity of it is that the way that each insight speaks to us is going to be very specific to whatever it is we’re wrestling with at the moment. And this is kind of the funny thing about insight; we can share with people what we’ve seen the insights that we have, they’re not going to impact another person in the same way that they impact us in the moment. I’ve been really been contemplating about how our unwanted habits always, always are pointing to the fact that we have insecure, busy thinking that’s going on in our minds. I’ve been aware of that, of course, for quite some time. And I’ve noticed over the years, since exploring this understanding that just by looking in this direction, the busy thinking in my head has really dropped away. I’ve shared to on this podcast about how I used to experience a lot of anxiety disguised as urgency. And that’s a great example of something that I didn’t have to do anything to fix that feeling of urgency. I didn’t say positive affirmations to it, or any of those kinds of techniques. I didn’t meditate on it or anything like that. Simply by turning my head in this direction, and learning about the Three Principles and the way that our life works from the inside out, has made that anxiety, that urgency, just drop away. And, of course, it does come up every once in a while, if I’m under a lot of pressure. But now I notice it, and I know what it is, and I just say to it, well, that’s okay. I know that you will flow through me and eventually all settled down all on my own, there’s nothing that I need to do. So that’s been really, really helpful in that realm of things. So grasping this idea that our busy insecure thinking is what our habits are trying to alert us to their feedback that that is going on. When I came into this moment of being in the back of the spiral, that’s where my attention went. Attention is not quite the right word, but I just was how or have been considering that our habits are always alerting us to our busy, insecure thinking. So there must be something more here for me to see about that. And then last night, as I say, this insight came up and it was that my busy insecure mind doesn’t feel safe not being busy. In other words, if I think of doing something relaxing, like if I’m getting a pedicure or a manicure Well, I hardly ever get manicures, but having a massage. That’s a great example actually, every once in a while I go and have a massage on my shoulders because working at computers my shoulders get really tight. I have a really hard time just relaxing and letting the massage therapist do what she needs to do. I just feel I don’t feel safe, I guess that’s the bottom line, I don’t feel safe. Just lying on the massage table and letting things happen. And not being busy and active and on top of things. It makes me uncomfortable to even think of being on a vacation where I could lie on a sun lounger for most of the day, and read a book. I just couldn’t do that. I would feel that would feel threatening, that kind of deep relaxation. So all that is to say, that’s what this insight that I had last night was pointing me toward. Now, the next thing that happens is that my mind goes, Okay, I know what’s happening now, what can I do about it? How can I be more relaxed? What can I do to be more relaxed and be okay with my mind being quiet? And of course, that’s not the path to take. And so the tricky thing is, in this case, sometimes the insight comes along, and it just shifts everything. And suddenly, you’re in the front of the spiral again. But this feels like an insight that where I’m kind of partway up the back of the spiral. I’ve seen a little bit more about what’s going on with me. But I can tell it didn’t shift things in a way that’s going to enable me to get on to the front of the spiral for the next little while. Given that that’s the case, then what I can do is actually nothing. So again, we come back to, I’ve seen something new, there’s been a shift in consciousness, but getting in there and trying to figure out how to make my mind more quiet, and make my mind feel safe in certain circumstances, like lying on a sun chair and reading a book all day, is not what’s going to make that happen at all. What I need to do now is, again, what I’ve done up until now, just trust that insight will be there for me. And I trust too, that sometimes change is really incremental. We may not even notice it. But I may notice in a few days or a few weeks that my that craving for potatoes and rice has just fallen away and I don’t care about them anymore. That’s happened to me many, many, many times on this journey. So I trust that that can happen as well. Sometimes it seems to me that insight is conscious. And we feel it land. I felt that insight last night, land with me. It was like a sentence in my head. But it had a resonance that our normal thoughts don’t have. I heard it in my head, but I feel it all over my body at the same time. It just has this real landing kind of feeling sometimes. And not always. It can be extremely subtle. But last night for sure I felt it and I felt myself pause what I was doing. I had that awestruck look on my face, I could tell. I thought to myself, Oh, that this is big, I can feel that. And that really helped me to understand what was going on with me. Now what I’m doing is I’m just trusting that I will have more insights about this situation. I’m not resisting being in the back of the spiral because like I said, this is the place where learning occurs. And we of course, we want everything to be perfect and smooth, especially when we’re on a weight loss journey. We want we just want that to continue. We want that curve to be going down. But that’s not what’s happening right now. And being hard on myself or upset about that is not going to help the situation. So I’m grateful that I know enough about the back of the spiral to just ease off the gas and let whatever happens. Whatever needs to happen, let that happen. Things will evolve. I wanted to say to remember there was a few weeks ago, I mentioned in a Q&A episode that I was wanting to exercise more. And I was feeling a resistance to that, that I think is all part of this. So that resistance that I felt was speaking to me as well. That’s like an unwanted habit in. There’s that tension there that I talked about. And I still feel that and I think that’s part of this insight that I’m having about my busy mind. The feedback that I’m getting from wisdom about that, or that there is more for me to see now about my well-being and my innately loving and wise self, just like yours. So that’s it for me today. That’s quite a lot of talking for one person for one moment. So I hope that that’s been helpful for you. And that it maybe has guided you toward seeing something new about your journey. I really hope that now that you’ve heard this metaphor about the back of the spiral, that the next time you feel like maybe you’ve taken a couple of steps backward, that you realize that that’s not true, that you’re simply at the back of the spiral, you’re going uphill. So it’s a little harder, things get harder. But as I said, this is where the learning happens. This is where the insights come, and where we see things in a new way that supports change. And coming home to who we really are. So that’s it for today. I need a glass of water after all that talking. I hope you are well and I will talk to you again next week. Take care. Featured image photo by Dana Ward on Unsplash The post Q&A 41 – Why is it good news when we backslide? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When we have a challenge or problem in our lives it can seem obvious to focus on that problem in order to solve it. But what if finding the solutions to problems – like an overeating habit – didn’t involve this kind of approach at all? Ian Watson’s work as an educator is to provide education and training that doesn’t just inform, but which empowers, heals and transforms. For it is only through your own insightful realisation that deep and lasting positive change occurs. He works mainly with groups, and sometimes with individuals. His intention is always the same – to remind you of what you already know to be true deep inside, but may have temporarily forgotten. To help you reconnect with the source of your own wisdom, wellbeing and innate self-healing capacity. To come home to your true Self. You can find Ian Watson at TheInsightSpace.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 Observing in patients that healing seemed to come from somewhere mysterious How feeling better can become an ongoing pursuit when we don’t understand the source of peace How we don’t need to work on our issues How insight is the only catalyst for change How we live in a thought created experience Why working on our issues is counterproductive How our symptoms are never a nuisance or something to get rid of Transcript of Interview with Ian Watson Alexandra: Ian Watson, welcome to Unbroken. Ian: Very nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. So why don’t you give us a little background? Tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to came across the Three Principles. Ian: I really have followed my own interests, which took me initially into alternative healing. As a teenager, I started with Bach flower remedies. And that led me into herbs and homeopathy. Homeopathy became my career for at least 15 years, I was a practitioner. Also, I became interested in the training side. So I started running a homeopathy training school, wrote some books became reasonably well known, I suppose, in that field, and assumed that would be my life’s work really. I love homeopathy still do. To my surprise, working with a lot of clients over time, I started to see that sometimes people come with a physical health problem. But it turns out to be the entry ticket. And there’s other things going on which once you get to know the person, as you will know, they start to reveal more about what their internal struggles are the other things going on with that in their life. I started to feel that there were other ways that I’d like to help people but I didn’t know what they were. I sometimes felt that the purely homeopathic approach that I knew, wasn’t addressing everything that could be addressed. And just in general terms, to say what I mean by that, sometimes I would work with people it felt like we were both pushing a rock up a hill, and not getting very far. Like they were working really hard. They were doing all the right things, I was doing my best to find the remedies that will help them. And my inner sense was nothing much is really changing on a deep level. We were moving things around. Contrasting that I would see some people who literally first interview or very in a relatively short period of working together, something would seem to shift for them quite quickly. And they’d be on their way. They might still come to me for occasional support, but it’s very different experience. I got curious about that. You know what, there’s something invisible here. I don’t know what it is, that seems to be like the secret sauce that determines what people’s experiences. I saw exactly the same thing when I was running homeopathy school for about 10 years. People would go through the training, we were on a three year program, some people would come out, they’d already be practitioners, they’d already have a plant base, it all seemed to just grow and flow naturally. There’d be other people who’ve done exactly the same training would tell me this is really hard. It’s really complicated. I don’t know enough. Maybe there’s not enough sick people where I live, I don’t know. They’d come up with all kinds of reasons why didn’t seem to be working out. Again, I was scratching my head thinking it can’t be why they think it is there’s something else. So that became my pursuit for about the next nine or 10 years. The other thing that I noticed, and I obviously this was also looking at my own experience, as well as the people I was working with, when we’re struggling, essentially, were struggling with how we feeling on the inside. In very simple terms, that’s what it comes down to. We notice that we’re feeling a particular way that’s not comfortable. We know that we could be feeling different, which is interesting. Everybody knows when they when they don’t feel right. Everybody knows they could feel better. And then we do whatever occurs to us, whatever makes sense to us to try to make that happen. And sometimes with success, but often not often, it just becomes an ongoing pursuit for people as it did for me, trying one thing trying another. But I knew that it was something around that, that there was something important about helping people to reconnect to how they really knew that they could feel on the inside. And that became my pursuit for about another nine years or so. I re-trained in a number of things. I trained with Brandon Bays in Journey process work. I started to learn Jungian psychology, I was looking at dream analysis, I was doing belief change work. The essence of it, I call it emotional release work, because I saw that that was a big part of what people were struggling with. I had my own hybrid way of working with people. The homeopathy side just gradually fell away. And I became more focused on that. And then in beginning of 2011, someone who I knew who I hadn’t been in touch with for a while said that his work had been transformed by this understanding called Three Principles. I was like, what’s that? If that’s any good, I would have heard about it by now. But I haven’t, and it was something that was still under the radar of most people. I think at that time, it wasn’t widely known at all. There were very few resources and materials available. I went and listened to a talk. Something spoke to me and I knew that that was the missing piece. So I immersed myself in that. I found myself on a training with two wonderful trainers. And that’s been the foundation of my work ever since. And what it did really It helped me to make sense of everything else that I’d done. That had been helpful. And it also helped me to understand that puzzle; why do some people shift very quickly and have a profound and lasting change? Why do other people to continue to struggle no matter what they do, no matter what you do, all of that suddenly made sense, it became really clear, so I knew I was onto it. Alexandra: What led you as a teenager to look into homeopathy? Ian: That was very strange. There was no one in my family that was doing anything like that. So it was my secret hobby. I spent a lot of time in nature, I did grow up in a small town on the edge of a wild area where as young kids, we just used to spend a lot of time in nature. Certainly I did. So I felt very easy the natural world. I think at some point, I just discovered or heard or read that these trees and plants that were everywhere, were also medicines. I was just fascinated by that idea. It was something just catches you. That was just like an eye opener to me that and I wanted to know what they were and what they could do basically. So wherever I go out in the woods that was getting to know, not just the trees and the plants and the funghi, and so on, but what kind of herbal uses they had. And then I learned that some of them were Bach flower remedies, which was really amazing. And then I stumbled into homeopathy after I bought a book, which this was when I was about 15 or 16. I found this book, which was an A to Zed of alternative therapies. So it began with acupuncture. I don’t know what was at the end, but somewhere in the middle was homeopathy. I read this book cover to cover I was completely fascinated by and when I reached the homeopathy section, that was it. I was done. I was like, Oh, this is what I’ve got to do. It just spoke to me in such a deep way. I started finding whatever materials I could find, because there was no internet in those days. So I was literally going down the library. I was finding secondhand books in antique book shops. Most of them were antiques. Books from 100 years ago, or stuff like those, but they were just amazing. I had that feeling that I’d found my thing. It just felt so familiar to me. I felt like I already knew this material somehow. And then some years later, I discovered you could actually train in this damn thing. I mean, I had no idea. But by a series of amazing synchronicities, I bumped into someone who was wearing a college of homeopathy sweatshirt, I was like, there’s a college? You’ve probably no idea. So where is it? It’s in London. And okay, I’m moving to London. I grew up in the north of England. But that was it. There was no question in my mind that I was going to do anything else. So Alexandra: That clarity is always so interesting to me that at such a young age, we can have that kind of experience. It speaks to something. Ian: I know, it’s not like that for everyone. But I think often people do have hints or clues. But we’re not always encouraged to pay attention to them or to listen to them. And certainly not to turn them into a career that they will have a particular leaning towards. Something and then the parents or careers advice personal. Yeah, well, that’s nice, but you’ll never make a living out of it. And I’m sure my parents had those kinds of thoughts. But I think where I got lucky was not stumbling upon my interest. I think it was giving myself the freedom to follow it. Alexandra: And then what year was it that you connected with the three principals? Ian: That was beginning of 2011. Alexandra: Okay, yeah. Wow. Interesting. Relatively recently. Ian:I trained in homeopathy in 1985. Alexandra: Oh, wow. Okay. Ian: It’s been quite a long journey, the whole thing. Alexandra: One of the things that you mentioned on your website is that there’s no reason to work on our issues. Can you talk about that a little bit? And what you see in that? Ian: Yeah, and that’s a bit of a head twist, isn’t it? For most of us, we’ve at least looked into some kinds of self-help or psychology, because it’s all about working on your issues. And most of the things that I had learned post homeopathy, which were in in that realm, it was all about different ways and tools and techniques and processes for doing just that, working on your issues. But what I really enjoy and what I came to see for myself was what I already explained to you: I was seeing as a homeopath you could read some people, you could work really hard, and they were working really hard and they still the fundamental shift is still not happening. While with someone else you did almost nothing, we just have a preliminary chat, and the person who got oh my god, I don’t know what you just said. But thank you very much. I’m good to go. I’m scratching my head thinking what’s going on here. So one of the things that I heard at Sydney Banks was the originator of the three principles, understanding who lived in Canada, as you probably know, but he actually grew up in Scotland, early part of his life, still had a Scottish accent. Although he lived all his adult life in West Coast, Canada, I started to listen to some of the recordings that he made before he died, he died in 2009. And read his published books. And one of the things the first thing that jumped out at me from what he was saying was: “The only thing that will really make a difference in a person’s life like a true deep lasting change is when they have their own insight.” So it has nothing to do with what I say or anybody else says. It’s not to do with what they read or what they practice. Insight, he said, is a shift in the level of consciousness, shifting the level of understanding. When that happens, your world changes. Until that happens, nothing changes. Really. When I heard that, I was like, Oh, my God, that’s it, that and I suddenly I look back at all these thousands of clients that I’d worked with and I could see that that was true in every single case. So that was the first thing that puts paid to the idea that it’s all about working on your issue. You can work on issues till the cows come home. But if you don’t have an insight shift won’t happen. You won’t feel that fundamentally different. And vice versa, you could actually do no work on your issues. If someone creates a space for you, or you just get fortunate as Sydney Banks did, it just happened for him spontaneously. He just had a spontaneous realization, which completely transformed his life in a way that was visible to other people. They’re like, what the hell’s happened to Syd? It was amazing that people were absolutely gobsmacked by what happened. He said that’s why he came to that conclusion. He said, It can’t be anything that I training, because I didn’t train anything. It can’t be any practices I was doing because I wasn’t doing any good. It can’t be any teacher, because I wasn’t studying with a teacher. The only thing he could account for it was this internal insight shift that he had experienced. So that was the first piece that was very helpful to me to understand. Then, through the Principles understanding what I’ve come to appreciate is that we’re living in a thought created experience. What that really means is that our experience is being created on the inside 100%, even though it looks like a lot of it’s coming at us from the outside. Most people if you ask them, do you get upset or you feel stressed? Yes. What do you think is causing that? Oh, my husband, my wife, my kids, my work, the commute to work, my finances. If you’re a homeopath, my patients will all point the fingers typically to something or combination of factors. And so we know when this isn’t going well or isn’t going the way I think it should, it causes me to feel stressed in some way overwhelmed or frustrated or whatever. It looks like there’s a direct cause and effect relationship between circumstances and other people. And how are we feeling? What Syd Banks realized that’s just an illusion, it’s not actually true. In fact, it can’t be true. Because if you put six people in the same situation, are they going to feel the same way? No, there has to be a hidden factor. And even the same person on different occasions in the same environment will not feel the same way? Why not? What’s the hidden variable? Thought. So that’s what’s really creating what the person’s felt experiences. It’s just that it’s invisible. It’s happening behind the scenes. So we attribute our feeling state to things that are visible, and it’s so very understandable that we will do that. The reason I’m explaining this this way to one is in order to answer your question properly why does it why is it not helpful to work on issues? Once Syd Banks realized we were living in a thought created experience. And essentially, whatever we give our thoughts attention to increases in our experience, we get to experience more of it, whatever we think more most about, that’s what dominates our experience. So what happens supposing I have a little problem in my life, and if I just leave it alone, chances are it’ll go away, if it’s no big deal. But if I start thinking about it, day and night, and then I enroll a therapist to help me think about it, and they start delving into my past and try to discover all the reasons why it’s happening. And then I join a support club or group. So I’m now in a community where we all talk and think about it all the time, guess what happens? It becomes bigger, in my experience, which is innocent, it’s not deliberate. Obviously, it’s just a misunderstanding of how the mind works. But that’s the main reason why it’s not helpful. It’s actually counterproductive. What we end up with is a is a bigger seeming problem than what we started out with and is endless, we can just keep adding more and more story to it. It never goes away. And that, to me, that is exactly what happened in my own experience. And I saw that happen over and over again with clients. Once I understood that didn’t make sense to me to do that kind of work anymore. All those wonderful techniques that I spent 1000s of pounds learning. Yeah, I fell away pretty quickly once I realized that. Alexandra: If someone comes to you with an issue that they want to work on, what do you recommend doing instead? Ian: There isn’t anything I recommend them doing. So the first thing to say about this, the Three Principles is an understanding. It’s not a doing. It’s not another technique. It’s not another process. But a lot of people come in and ask exactly that question. You have tried all these other things I hear you’re doing so what do I do? What do you think I should do? It’s natural that people would start at that point. But your sense is we’re starting from a false premise, the false premise being that there’s something I need to do to solve this problem, I’ve got this problem, how do I solve it? A better starting place would be, how can I change my relationship to what looks like a problem so that it’s no longer a problem? That’s really what we’re up to in this work. Because actually truly that’s how problems get solved. I don’t know if you know, you probably have heard the famous quote that’s attributed to Einstein, we cannot solve the problem at the same level of consciousness that created it. I heard that I didn’t know 30 odd years ago. And I was like, Whoa, that’s true. And I thought I knew what he meant. I assumed that what he meant by that was, if I’ve got a problem, and I try and solve it with the same kind of thinking that created it, I’m just gonna get lost, I’m gonna get bogged down, I’m probably not going to find the answer. But if I can have a shift in my consciousness, so I got like an elevated perspective, then I can find solutions, which are not visible to me at that lower level of understanding. So that’s how I understood it. I thought, yeah, that makes sense. Fast forward. 20 years or so I came into the three principles, understanding what I realized, from my own experience, that that’s not actually what happens, that’s not actually how problems get solved. What happens is, I’m at this level of, I’ve got a problem. And I’m going around in circles, I’m not getting anywhere. If I look away from the problem, rather than focusing on it, right, and we all know, this, we all know this is this is actually what works, right? You lose your keys, where’s my keys, where’s my keys, they could be in front of your nose, you’ll never see them. If you just go and do something else, and forget about peace for a while, that certain moment, it’ll come to you. That’s usually what happens when you find yourself putting your hand in a jacket pocket or there. So we’ve all had experiences like that many, many, many times, what actually happens is, when you have a shift in consciousness, at this new level of consciousness, the problem doesn’t exist. It’s not that you find the solution. They only existed at this level. You actually move to a new level where it’s a non problem. So there’s nothing to be done. Alexandra: That’s such a good explanation. I totally had the same experience with that Einstein quote, like the initial understanding of it, yeah, that you would just go up on a level and see it differently. But what you’ve described is so true. Makes sense, right? I love that. You do mention on your website that you combine your Three Principles work with homeopathy. So tell us how you circled back around. Ian: I don’t want to give the impression that I combined the two as a practitioner, because that’s not true. I don’t practice as a homeopathic practitioner anymore. If people want that I refer them to colleagues who are still doing that work. So my work as a practitioner moved on out of that field. But my homeopathic understanding stays with me. Now, as you will know, once you start to look at look at health and disease through the lens of homeopathy, there’s something about that to me is fundamentally true. Homeopathy has principles behind it, which is why it’s been around 200 plus years is never going away. No matter what anybody throws at it. Or everybody tries to dismiss it as just placebo. It won’t go away. Why? Because it’s based on something that’s fundamentally true principle of nature behind. So we don’t need to worry about that. I’ve never been concerned about homeopathy being shut down. Or that nonsense. It’s never been a worry of mine at all because I understood that the principle of homeopathy is a principle of nature, which is why it pops up all over the place. Hippocrates talked about it. Paracelsus talked about it, when a principle is a principle is true, people will get glimpses of it throughout time and space all over the place. And then it just took for Hanuman to actually have a deeper insight into it and assemble a system of healing around it. But he didn’t invent the principle of cure by homeopathy, he just uncovered it, and created a healing system around it. That’s the way I think about it. Sydney Banks did the same thing. But not within the homeopathic field. You could say, within the psychological and spiritual field, what Syd Banks did was really brought a unity to the field of psychology and spirituality that we didn’t have before. And what he uncovered was that there’s actually principles behind how that works, too. Which is so cool. So for me, there’s wonderful parallels between the two. And, for example, one of Sydney Banks’s three principles is what he calls universal mind. Where he basically talks about how our experience gets created. He said, the first ingredient you need is universal mind intelligence, which is, he says, it’s the intelligence of all things, and it’s in all things. So it’s that which is doing the creating, but everything is also infused with that intelligence. What does that sound like to homeopathy? Vital force, right? It’s just using a different language, talking about the same thing. So in homeopathy, we talk about this invisible dynamic playing the vital force. And that’s what actually does the healing. And all we’re doing with remedies is to catalyze that. And then the healing happens, because it the intelligence is built into the system all healing is self healing. The remedies don’t do it, people don’t do it. It’s a self regulating system, physiologically speaking. Well, guess what? So is the mind. That’s the bit that Syd Banks uncovered. The human mind is also self-regulating. Why? Because it has the same down intelligence behind it, how could it not? It’s so funny to me that even homeopaths will often think that that exists in the body but they won’t necessarily think it exists to the same extent with the human mind. That we have the idea that maybe there’s some exceptions, some mental health problems, needs some different kinds of intervention, or something like that. What Syd Banks came to see was that everyone actually has mental health on the inside. And he said as much. He said, every human being is sitting in the middle of mental health, they just don’t know it. They’re innocently using the gift of the mind against themselves to create suffering. That’s essentially what the three principles reveals. So I just started to see parallels like this all over the place. And then, of course, we had the COVID, situation, lock downs, and all of that I was unable to do the work that I’ve normally been doing, which is working with groups, trainings, programs, and so on. So I’d stay home for a while. And it occurred to me it was interesting, because I saw that some of the people that I knew in the three principles world who were doing amazing work in the mental health field and so on. They were getting freaked out about COVID, because they don’t have the holistic understanding that I had as a homeopath. I thought, well, that’s interesting. I wasn’t getting freaked out. And then we’ve got homeopathy, what are you guys worried about? But of course, they didn’t know about that medically speaking, they were still quite calm thinking in conventional terms. And then I looked at the other side of the coin, I started to speak with homeopathic colleagues who were doing amazing work, of course, during COVID, time and after. And what I realized was that, oh, they don’t have the principal’s understanding, it will be so helpful. If they knew this piece, it would take all the stress out of the equation of their work all the overwhelm all the burnout. I mean, honestly, you can deal with that so quickly, once you have the three principles understanding, and it gives you something you can share with your clients, which will enhance the self healing work that you’re already doing for them. Because I came to see that, I would say that one of the main obstacles to cure in 21st century is what I would call chronic mental stress. And we know physiologically, now, if someone’s living in a state of chronic mental stress, doesn’t matter what they do, they can eat the right foods, they can take the supplements, they can even take remedies, they can do yoga every morning, if that chronic mental stress continues, it actually inhibits all the self healing mechanisms of the body. So it’s not a little thing. It’s a really crucial factor. And not only that, it makes the homeopathic picture very complicated. Because you’ve got the original symptom picture, and then you’ve got a whole fog of what the person thinks is causing it and all the reasons why they think they are the way they are. And this is when all of that’s in the way that makes for a complicated case. This is why homeopaths often go to places like India or Africa and they take cases that wow, homeopathy is easy here. It seems a lot easier. Why? Because people have not got as much on their mind, they’re not adding so much story to it, because we live in much more psychologize kind of atmosphere in the West. That’s really not helping us that’s working against us, not just as practitioners, but as individuals. So there’s so many ways in which I see these things dovetailing and helping each other out and working well together. Alexandra: During COVID, you began to share the principles with homeopaths. Ian: Yes, when I could get the chance. One of the reasons that happened was I did a couple of homeopathy programs, which I hadn’t taught for years. But I thought I’ll just do it for fun. So if anyone’s interested, I got hundreds of people. So that was first I did a couple of online programs, which were actually homeopathy programs, but and some of the people from the three principles world got interested in that. So I thought, well, that’s great. That worked. Then it started going the other way around, I started getting invited again, because people saw I was doing something homeopathic, which I hadn’t done for years, I got invited to go and speak at some of the homeopathy colleges and give talks and so on. So the kind of cross fertilization started to happen, which I was really happy with. And it continues. Alexandra: That’s great to hear. One of the other things I wanted to ask you about was burnout, which you mentioned and stress, and this mental activity that’s going on. Overwhelm is another word we often use. On your website, you have a blog post that talks about how these things are signals. About how we are imposing our agenda on life. Ian: Again, that’s one of the gifts of the principles understanding just like when have you learned homeopathy, Alexandra? Is that part of your background? No, I was making the false assumption, I just realized that you would understand the homeopathic references I was making. And I saw actually, I don’t think that’s true. So sorry about that. In homeopathy, when people go through a journey, like I did, learning something like homeopathy in a deep way, and it could be acupuncture, or it could be one of many holistic things, it doesn’t just give you a new tool to treat illness, what it gives you is a new way of thinking about health and disease. It changes your perspective. So you actually have a different homeopaths have a different relationship to symptoms than the average Joe. We don’t see symptoms in anything like the same way. We see as the language of the vital force, of the intelligence that’s at work behind the scenes. It’s like the symbol language of that intelligence, showing us what’s going on and what’s needed in order to help and support that healing process. So it’s like a signal system to homeopathy it’s really valuable information. Because most people see symptoms as a nuisance to be gotten rid of. They think that that is the disease. I’ve got a headache, give me a pill, make it go away. And end of story. So just as that happens for if you’re training in something like homeopathy, when you learn the principles, what that does, it changes your relationship to feelings, to emotions, particularly what we would call the negative ones or stressful ones, feelings or anything that a person would call stress, anxiety or depression overwhelm, something of that kind. How does it do that what you start to learn is that, again, the body mind is just giving feedback. When we have a feeling that’s a feeling of constriction or tightness or discomfort, which is why we would call it stressful. What is it signaling? Well, if you understand that thought creates feeling, not circumstances, then what it’s signaling is that feeling is giving you feedback about the state of mind, essentially, it’s not giving you a detail thought by thought breakdown of because thoughts moving really quick, but it’s giving you a flavor, these giving you the flavor of it. If you’re in an anxious state of mind, you’re going to feel anxious in your body. If you’ve got thoughts about this should be happening and it isn’t, you’re going to feel frustrated in your body. And it’s a watertight system. For all of us. You can’t think one kind of thoughts and feel something different. So once you know that, what we would normally think of as negative emotions or stressful feelings, now they become really useful indicators. Because they’re making visible the thinking patterns that would otherwise be invisible to so it’s bringing it’s like the warning. It’s like the dashboard warning. It’s alerting you to something that’s good to know. And that doesn’t mean that there’s anything that you have to do about that. This is a piece that people find challenging. It’s like okay, I know. I know it’s my thinking and I know it’s the wrong kind of thinking. How do I get rid of it and change it? It’s actually enough to understand that it’s thought. Once you see that, it’s thought and you understand something about the nature of thought. What’s the nature of thought? It’s temporary. And it’s pure energy. It’s not made of anything solid. It’s just energy taking form momentarily, creating an experience, which then cascades through our physiology. And then it moves back into the formless from where it came. It’s followed by another thought. It’s like a continuous stream that we’re living in. So once you understand that, the only thing that we need to do is to notice when we if we’re feeling something that’s not pleasant. Okay. So I must be in some kind of a state of mind. Without realizing it, I’m creating this feeling of worry, and anxiety. Oh, well, that’s good to know that. So I may as well ignore that thinking. That’s actually all we need to do is just pay no attention to it. Because it’s a self-correcting system, it’s self-regulating, if we don’t give it any attention, it just leaves us. And then fresh thought comes in. And we feel different. That’s how if you look at young children and babies, that’s how they process emotion. Something comes to them, they feel it. It’s very intense, but it’s momentary. And they get over themselves very quickly. And we think that’s amazing. What are they doing to recover so quickly? Well, they give us the wrong question is actually what are they not doing? What they’re not doing is adding a story to what they’re experiencing. So it’s because we’ve learned to do that as we’ve gotten a bit older. So we’re actually interfering with the self regulating process that we were born with. We feel something it’s momentarily unpleasant. It’s just about to leave us and we go, Wait a minute, I’m not done with you. Come back here, I need to analyze you and fix you. I need to find out where you come from, and how long you’ve been, and how long are you going to bother me fall under. All of that extra attention just amplifies it in our experience. And then we have the experience of being stuck in a certain feeling stuck. But again, that’s self created. And it’s instantly done. Alexandra: I love that explanation. That was great. Thank you so much. So just before we hit record, we talked about how you were just at the Viva event in Spain. So as we’re wrapping up here, I wondered if as you’ve been involved in this understanding for a few years now. Do you continue to have insights to see things in a fresh way? Ian: It’s the gift that keeps on giving, which is just amazing. Once you have an orientation, and you know what direction is helpful to look in? It just keeps opening up more and more. And that to me is one of the amazing things about it. My colleagues who are people that I trained with, they’ve been in this field for two years, some of them and they still say the same thing. They’re like beginners in that sense that they still having insights, it’s still getting deeper and but also simpler, the deeper he gets, the simpler he gets. Yeah, that’s quite interesting. As people move further along that journey, what they report pretty much universally is that they realize there’s even less to do than they thought. So it’s more like an unlearning, though, it’s like a shedding and unlearning, rather than an acquisition type learning. And that’s an important thing for people to realize, If anyone looks into it. And if you start coming at it with your intellect, trying to learn it, like you might learn another a book oriented subject, you’ll miss it, because you really learn it that way. It’s learned through insight, through your own realization. It’s not memory based. Because once you have a shift in understanding through insight, you don’t have to remember it, you’ve already had the shift. I would call it embodied learning. When you really embody what you know, you don’t have to go through life thinking about it, or remembering it or looking it up. Because you’re living out of your understanding now. And actually, we’re always living out of our understanding. It just makes that conscious and visible a bit more than it was before. But I would say that the main thing for me that I suppose I’ve paid most attention to, and it’s partly reflecting my own background interest is an aspect of the principles that we call innate well being. So this is one of the things that Sydney Banks uncovered is that everyone’s actually Okay, on the inside. No one’s broken. Psychologically speaking, no one is broken. Now a lot of people have the experience that they’re broken, or they have the belief that they’re broken, but that’s been created in thought. And then it gets reinforced by health professionals usually, and whatever they read, and they look up on Google and so on, and then they put a label on it, it starts to appear as if it’s more real than it than it did before. Have more solid, more tangible, but actually, it’s still being created in thought. Underneath all of that person’s still 100% okay. Everybody has innate well being. So that’s a piece of the understanding that to me just keeps opening up, I keep seeing it deeper and deeper. And it’s so profound, and it’s so powerful. No matter what modality you’re working from, if you’re working with other people in helping role, if you if you sit with the person that you’re helping with the certainty with absolute certainty that they’re okay, on the inside. They might not know that, but if you know that on their behalf, so to speak, they acts as a kind of tuning fork, they start to pick it up from you, they start to remember, because it’s true. You’re reflecting back to them a deeper truth than what they currently believe about themselves. And at a certain point, it hits somebody, oh, my God. And they once they realize it for themselves, they’re good to go. Alexandra: It’s so remarkable how that happens. And I love your tuning fork analogy. That’s awesome. Ian: It looks like a resonance, like a resonance phenomenon. Alexandra: As we’re winding up here today, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share? Ian: I think the only the other piece that I would perhaps just mentioned, because again, to me, it’s a significant piece of the understanding is really think what we’re doing as we come to understand ourselves better, is learning to listen in to our own wisdom, more and more. This is, again, something that Sydney Banks talked about a lot was he had a lovely definition of wisdom, which really struck me when I heard it. For him wisdom was he said, That’s the intelligence of life, the universal mind intelligence. He said, Whenever it comes through us, and it’s not contaminated by our personal thinking, by what we’ve picked up habits of thought, and so on, if it’s not contaminated, he says, it comes through as wisdom, we experience it as wisdom. Now, it might come out of your mouth as wisdom, I said, often, you just know what to do. You find yourself doing the right thing, and you don’t really think about it too much. And it’s funny how we often do that in emergency situations, people often do things that would never have occurred to them in daily life. And they get asked afterwards how did you not to do that, though I didn’t have time to think. That reveals the truth of what Sydney Banks is pointed to is that when our minds not cluttered, we can actually live in a much more wisdom led way more instinctual, which is how animals live. And it’s how we’re designed because we still we are physiologically speaking animals, as well. We have all of this instinct and energetic knowing within us, most of which is under utilized now, because we’ve been taught to rely on the intellect for everything. So over time, what this what I see this understanding does, it helps to correct that imbalance. So we start to let go of the need to use the intellect to overuse the intellect. And then we could fall back on this other system that we’ve got, which is actually way better. And it and it doesn’t take effort. I was doing a retreat recently, I call it the path of ease. That’s what starts to unfold. If you if you just learned to listen into your own wisdom, your life will be relatively straightforward. There’ll be twists and turns and lots of things that you can’t predict, but your experience of it will be relatively stress free. And that’s available to anyone. Alexandra: Oh, beautifully sad. I love that. Thank you so much. Where can we find out more about you and your work? Ian: I have a website, which is called The Insight Space as written as if it’s one word. So it’s TheInsightSpace.com. There’s quite a good body of resources there, most of which are freely available. And also there’ll be pages for any events and so on that come up. But there’s plenty of recordings and things that I’ve already made that people can enjoy. So yeah, that’s the main place people can also find me on Facebook from time to time. Alexandra: I will put links to the to your website in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com Thank you so much in this has been lovely, lovely to connect with you. Ian: My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Featured image photo by Leo on Unsplash The post Changing Our Relationship To Problems with Ian Watson appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Today’s episode is an excerpt from my book, The Secret Language of Cravings. We suffer with an overeating habit when we misunderstand the message our cravings are trying to give us. In this book, author Alexandra Amor explores how to understand what cravings and the drive to overeat are telling us and therefore how to resolve an overeating habit. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes How it’s possible to misunderstand what our food cravings are saying to us What is it that helps resolve an overeating habit? What is the ‘home’ within us and how do we get there? Resources Mentioned in this Episode The Secret Language of Cravings – available now in ebook, paperback, hardback, large print and audiobook Transcript of this episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A episode 40 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today with a second book excerpt from my new book called The Secret Language of Cravings. The book is available now, as I record this, and it will be available when you listen, obviously, in ebook, paperback, large print, hardback and audiobook. And I just want to show you the cover here, if you’re watching on YouTube, oops, there it is there. I still don’t have my print copies. So I can’t show you a copy of the paperback or the hardback. But it is available. If you’re listening to this exactly when it goes out, which is in the middle of November 2023 it’s slowly making its way to the stores in all those different formats. So if you can’t find it in the store that you prefer, in the format that you prefer, just wait maybe a few days, and it’ll eventually show up there. Audible is notoriously slow at getting the audiobooks into their store. It’s actually kind of frustrating. But right now, as you’re listening to this, the audiobook is available in the Kobo store, for example, it’s also available on Kobo plus, which is their subscription service. You’ll be able to ask for all of those formats at your local public library. Remember, I’m always on about how valuable libraries are and how we can access books there. And the other formats are available in all the usual places. Today, the excerpt is going to be chapter 16, which is called The Call Toward Home, which is about our innate well-being that I talk about so often on this podcast. If you’re watching on YouTube, once again, you won’t see me reading the excerpt, there’s just going to be a placeholder image there. So I hope you enjoy the book if you happen to pick it up. If you have any questions about it, I’m always wanting to hear from readers and listeners like you. So please let me know, you can email me at support (at) AlexandraAmor.com. I’d love to hear your questions or your thoughts. If you happen to read the book, and you enjoyed it, I’d love it if you could leave a review wherever you happen to buy it or get it from, including the library. Libraries take reviews as well. Reviews are super important for authors, for us to get the word out to other readers like you who want to understand and resolve their unwanted overeating habit. And I’ll say this too, about reviews, the length of the review doesn’t really matter. Like you don’t have to leave five paragraphs like a PhD thesis. Literally one sentence is enough, because what’s happening is that the algorithm is weighing the number of reviews that a book gets more than it’s weighing the length and depth of each individual review. So if you just leave a five star review and say, I really liked this book, it’s one sentence, that’s totally fine. And every author, not just myself, but every author always appreciates our efforts to do that to leave our feedback, and let other readers know what we thought of a book. And always be honest, of course, I always am in my reviews, and I try to leave as many as I can. So thank you if you’ve left a review in the past or if you leave one in the future, I really appreciate it. That’s it for today. And we’re going to go in now to chapter 16 from my new book, The Secret Language of Cravings. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you are well. And I will talk to you next week. Take care. Bye. Chapter 16: The Call Toward Home For decades I believed that what my food cravings were pointing toward or alerting me to was brokenness within me. I innocently thought that cravings were pointing toward things like unresolved childhood traumas or emotional injuries from the past. I thought they were pointing toward ‘issues’ I needed to resolve.
 We believe this because that’s what our most well-understood psychological paradigm tells us.
 Perhaps, like me, you’ve spent years or decades trying to resolve those issues so that your cravings would go away. We innocently believe a) that we can be wounded, b) that those wounds will continue to torment us for as long as we’re alive, and c) that we can then use substances like food to comfort ourselves from that torment.
 But what if we misunderstand the way that events from the past affect us? What if that old psychological paradigm is pointing us in the wrong direction? What if that’s why none of the strategies and tactics we’ve tried in order to stop overeating have worked? It’s not that we were doing it wrong or were beyond repair, it’s that we misunderstood the assignment, as the kids these days say.
 We sometimes think that food cravings are alerting us to wounds from the past and problems within our psychological or emotional being that need to be healed. In fact, cravings are trying to point out to us that we were never wounded in the first place. They are calling us home to our true nature, to the fact that we are infinitely resourceful, resilient, and whole. They are letting us know that we are in a temporary misunderstanding about how our thinking works.
 Our experience of life comes not from life itself, but from how we think about it.
 Now, please understand, I’m not saying that your traumas and wounds and experiences in the past don’t exist or that they don’t matter. Not at all. These things have contributed toward making us who we are, just as our happy, fulfilling experiences have. What I am saying is that looking in the direction of our innate resilience and the well-being that exists within us is what resolves unwanted habits. Seeing the true nature of thought is what brings peace.
 Dr. Bill Pettit, who was board-certified in adult, adolescent, and geriatric psychiatry, and in psycho-somatic (mind-body) medicine, learned about the ideas that I’m sharing in this book from the man who first articulated them, Sydney Banks. The logo on Dr. Pettit’s website is a cork floating in water, which symbolizes that our human design is one that, without effort and without interference from our minds, will always return to its natural state of rested well-being. We don’t need help getting to a calm, quiet state; we naturally go there, even when we’re stressed out or unhappy.
 We’ve all experienced moments of this: a hearty laugh in the midst of a deep depression; a few moments during a very stressful period where our mind falls quiet, and we lose track of time; a peaceful feeling amid chaos; a loving or compassionate feeling toward someone who is ‘difficult.’ These experiences, momentary though they might be, point us toward the true nature of our design.
 But what about illness, you might ask. What about disease and physical and mental challenges? How can I say that we are well and whole when we experience things like cancer and epilepsy? 
Let’s use an example to illustrate what I’m pointing toward. Have you ever been in a bad mood? If so, did that mood encompass all of who you are? Would you define yourself by that mood?
 Or was it temporary? Did it exist in the context of your larger personality? Was it something that you experienced but not all of who you are?
 Without trying to be too reductive, that bad mood is an illustration of what all of our life experiences are like, whether they are insignificant or enormous. They exist in the greater context of who we are, which is spiritual beings having a human experience. Even when we are gravely ill, we are part of something greater than just the momentary human experience we are having. There is something more to us than our skin and bones and arthritic knees. There is a part of us that is always well and whole.
 Your food cravings are calling you home to that ‘something more.’ They are a part of the same universal intelligence that brings the blossoming trees to life in the spring and guides the gray whales from Alaska to Hawaii and back again. They are asking you to stop and reflect about who you really are. Are you an amalgamation of all your thoughts and experiences? Or do those things exist within the context of something greater? 
Remember, this is not dogma. I promise I’m not trying to sell you a religion. What is resonating with you about what I’m saying (if anything)? That’s the place to explore.
 The post Q&A 40 – Book excerpt: The Call Toward Home appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

The wisdom of the feelings in our bodies is so misunderstood. Today coach Sarie Taylor and I discuss how we can see the signals we feel for what they are and how they can help us navigate life. We don’t need to be afraid of being afraid. Many years ago Sarie Taylor found herself very unexpectedly going from studying at university and travelling the world, to being unable to leave the house, ultimately ending up being hospitalised with generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder as well as depression. However, once she stumbled across the three principles her relationship with anxiety was transformed. You can find Sarie Taylor at WorldWideWellBeing.co.uk and on Instagram @sarietaylorcoaching. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes From travelling the world to not being able to leave the house How we fight the experience of being human How aiming to be average is more than enough How we are always feeling our thoughts Being in our heads or in our lives On anxiety being the fear of being anxious On future thinking and how it can be worse than the anxiety we expeirence How intrusive thoughts can be a signal that we need more sleep or we’re just in a low mood Resources Mentioned in this Episode Dr. Bill Pettit Transcript of Interview with Sarie Taylor Alexandra: Sarie Taylor, welcome to Unbroken. Sarie: Thank you for having me. Alexandra: It’s lovely to have you here. Give us a little bit about your background and how you found the Three Principles. Sarie: Okay, so have to dig deep for this because it feels like all of the lifetime ago. When I was in my early 20s, I didn’t realize I was anxious, but I was very anxious. And I’d kind of been ignoring it. If people would have met me in my 20s, I would have said, Oh, you’re super confident, like more confident than most. But actually, deep down, I really wasn’t. But I pretended to be a lot. It eventually caught up with me in my early 20s, and I ended up going from having been to university, traveled the world with my now husband and ending up within a space of two weeks not being able to actually physically leave the house with such severe anxiety. That then escalated from me not being able to leave the house to me not allowing my mom to leave the house, because I needed her there. It regressed massively, to the point where she’d go to the local shops for a loaf of bread, and I’d have to go with her in the car. And I’d just cry the whole time in a panic when she was in the local store. And this is like I say, I had traveled the world at this point was a big shock out and I had no idea what was happening. Eventually, I pretty much begged the doctor to send me somewhere. I think my main driver for wanting to go into a mental hospital, or whatever you want to call it is because I wanted my mom to get some respite because I was very aware that she was a prisoner in her own home too. And I didn’t know how I was going to get out of it or change it. So I spent a month in hospital, I was very heavily medicated. There was not really a medication that I wasn’t on. I was on a concoction of many, many different things. I came out of there after a month feeling, to be fair, quite chilled, but I would defy anybody who’s on not on beta blockers, diazepam and antidepressants all at once on the highest possible doses not to feel quite cheerful. But I was still frightened underneath and thinking what on earth do I do now? How do I get off these? I was younger and wanting to have children, I knew that at some point, I’d have to try and come off them so. So I then went into exploring how to fix myself, which I know a lot of people who end up finding the Three Principles start off trying to fix themselves. And part of that was training to be a psychotherapist. Because to be honest with you, I was quite embarrassed about where I’d ended up at the time, there was a lot of shame attached to it for me. So I didn’t still didn’t want to admit when I left there that was there was anything wrong with me. So in the UK, you actually have to be in therapy every week in order to train as a therapist. So that was much more palatable for me to say, I’m training as a therapist, so I’m in weekly therapy, but that’s because I feel like I’m broken and not because I want to a therapist. So that took me on to all sorts of things. As you can imagine it helped a bit but it didn’t get rid of my anxiety. So then I tried NLP, DBT, CBT hypnotherapy, I’m trained in most of them as well. Got a lot of certificates, but I was still burning out every 18 months to the point where I would, again, not want to leave the house. Then, nearly 10 years ago now, I came across a podcast, which talked about three principles. And first, I don’t know what it was, to be honest, that made me want to explore more. I know a lot of the time I would explore things out of desperation because it’s like, maybe this will be the answer. But I think the first podcast I heard it was like I really resonated with what the person was saying around them feeling anxious and trying to fix themselves. So I thought I’m going to look into this a little bit more. And it was then eventually when it really sort of hit me. I was listening to a podcast by the wonderful Dr. Bill Pettit. And he just said something and I don’t know what he said, but something in that moment, I just realized, oh, wow, this is way simpler than I’d ever realized. And I burst into tears actually. Then I was hooked from that on it. I went from not wanting to leave the house with panic attacks every day, every hour on the hour to in this conversation, my first panic attack was when I found out at age 45 that I was pregnant. Which I think that was quite understandable. But interestingly, even that panic attack after 10 years was very different, like, well, of course, I’m feeling panicked. Of course, my body’s responding in this way, because I’ve just been in my head for three days thinking, How on earth am I going to manage this? So it was still a very different experience, but I have never ever looked back. And yeah, so it’s a way of life for me now. I’m also fortunate enough that I get to share it with other people as well. Alexandra: You mentioned there that when you heard Dr. Pettit speak that it occurred to you how simple it things were. Can you talk a little bit more about that, and what you began to see about the simplicity of it? Sarie: Ironically, at the time I was listening to the podcast, I was going through one of my episodes of severe anxiety, and I’ll never forget, and I laugh about it now. But at the time, I was on an exercise bike in the house, whilst listening to a podcast, whilst eating an apple, because I was trying to eat better exercise and do some self-development, because that’s what I needed to do to fix myself. So it was like, I’m doing it all, and all at once, and I’m giving it full throttle. I will fix myself at all costs. There was something in what he said, and again, to this day, I don’t know what he said, but it’s something that he said, I realized, I’m trying too hard to be something other than human. Right now, I am fighting and resisting this experience that I’m having that actually, I’m now starting to see very quickly is a really innocent misunderstanding of the human system. When I look back now, at my periods of anxiety, I now see actually, that they were very simply my body and defense mechanisms weighing in, it was almost like it was a story that I had. And it was almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy where I do too much, I put too much pressure on myself, I’d have really high expectations. And then at some point, my body in my mind would just stop me completely in my tracks, because it was the only way I was going to stop. And it was that sort of the simplicity of it. Well, yeah, that makes sense. That’s the only way I get any respite is when I am confined to the house, because I can’t physically get myself out because I am frightened of what’s behind that front door. I started to see it for what it really truly was. And to be honest, what that led to, which was a big, big change for me, was starting to see myself with a bit more compassion of how much I was on myself and what a full-time job trying to fix myself and how inadequate and broken I saw myself for many, many years. Then that cycle then became, well, if I’m inadequate and broken every 18 months, then I need to make sure those months in between that I am overcompensating and making sure that I am the best version of myself I can ever be as opposed to … one thing I always teach, particularly to young people, and I love is to say, let’s just aim to be average, because average is great. And the irony is the more average, I was okay with becoming it was like things in my life, were just getting better and better. I’m like, Oh, hang on a minute. This is a little secret that I’ve missed. We aim to be average, often we saw because we’re taking so much pressure away rather than having to be something that sometimes we can’t and don’t need to be. Alexandra: Were you are really high achieving student when you were in your teens? Sarie: I didn’t do bad. In fact, no, I did. That was the sort of the dialogue I would have had is that my friends, some of my friends did better. And I could have done better but I was, you know, A’s and B’s. I did well, but where a lot of the stress and the overthinking for me came from was taking responsibility for everybody else. I can remember it for years and years and years. I’m one of five siblings. I’m the eldest. And I would literally and now I just think how did this even make sense to me to do this, but I used to lie in bed at night before I go to sleep, before I had a child of my own. And I’d go through every sibling, are they okay? Do they need anything? What can I do to help them do but and I would literally see it as my responsibility to worry systematically about every sibling. I still get the knocks on the door or the message can I borrow 20 quid or can I do this. I was more like a high achiever in a sense of making sure everyone was okay and being seeing myself as the more responsible one. And again, funnily enough, now I see how disempowering that was to my siblings, and that I wasn’t any better than them, I wasn’t in a better place to make sure they’re okay, and that it is quite disempowering. It’s very freeing to realize I don’t have to do that anymore. Alexandra: For our listeners, if they’re experiencing anxiety at the moment, where would you say that comes from? Sarie: We are only ever feeling our thoughts. There is there is no exception to that we are we are only ever in the feeling of our thinking. And so if you are feeling anxious, then you have a lot of anxious thoughts going around. It might not even be that you notice. It might be so habitual and so second nature, but if you’re feeling anxious, that is a surefire way to say that you are anxious. You’re having  anxious thinking about the future, what’s coming next. All the what ifs, what if this happens, what if that happens? And so even though you might not even know what those thoughts are, if you’re feeling anxious that for me now, that is just an invite from your mind and your body to just get present. And get back in your life. I was just doing a little reel earlier, just sharing that for me there’s two places I am in my life. And that’s either in my head or in my life. I can’t do both very well at the same time. And so if I’m feeling anxious, or on edge, or overwhelmed, or tired or anything, when I used to feel like that, I’d go into my head: I need to get rid of this anxiety and I need to make sure it doesn’t get worse and why is it there? And I’d overanalyze. Whereas now, again, the simplicity is it’s like, Oh, I feel anxious. I’m being invited to get in my life and out of my head. Alexandra: How does one do that, get in your life? Sarie: It’s an interesting one, because it’s our default to be in the moment. It’s like gravity. It’s like, I know, if I dropped something, it’s going to fall because of gravity. And so I know, if I get out of my head and stop holding on to thoughts, and analyzing and pre-empting and predicting, just like gravity, I’m going to fall into that present space. So rather than thinking how do I get more present, I always encourage people just to reflect and notice when you’re not and what’s happening there. You’ll see that if you’re not present, chances are you are in your head to deal with something that isn’t here yet. That hasn’t happened yet. I love the saying of anything that follows the words ‘what if’ is an illusion. We spend time creating illusions. The thing about stories and illusions so you can get so elaborate and there’s no limitations and therefore we can get really frightened and scared and anxious. Alexandra: We’re such imaginative creative creatures, we can make anything up. Sarie: And we do, all of the time. But what we can’t make up what’s right now. We’re in something we’re in and actually we’re always being guided. When I look back to what my panic was about, it eventually ended up and was quite common for a lot of people who experienced severe anxiety is my anxiety was actually only ever really about getting anxious in the end. So I feared that uncomfortable feeling that anxiety brought and spent so much of my waking day avoiding that feeling but therefore, indirectly, taking myself to it. I think it’s that getting comfortable with the discomfort that sometimes that brings, but seeing it for what it is. Out of every single panic attack I ever experienced not one of them was I ever faced with imminent danger. Not one. I have 1000s. Not one of them where I was faced with imminent danger. And so we’re practicing and preparing for perceived or made up danger. That’s what’s creating the anxiety and the  panic because our bodies then over producing adrenaline that we don’t need. We do feel it physically because the body’s getting you ready now to fight this scary thing that you’re telling yourself about. And so it gets the body ready. And the body’s like, what do I do with this? Because we’re not going anywhere. We’re just watching TV. Alexandra: And that’s where the discomfort comes from in our bodies. Sarie: Absolutely. And then that can lead to then more overthinking. I think one of the things that was helpful for me, and I think it was Dr. Bill Pettit that I heard talk about this originally, and I won’t do it as good just as him. But when adrenaline is pumped into the body, because we are sending a message to our lizard brain that we are in some sort of danger, that part of the brain is not sophisticated enough to go “Oh, Sarie’s catastrophizing, let’s not bother with the adrenaline, she’s just worrying in advance.” It just assumes that what you’re telling it is true. Now that adrenaline actually only lasts in the body for around, don’t quote me on this, but around eight minutes. And in actual fact, after about four minutes, it halves. And so the discomfort that comes with that adrenaline surge doesn’t last that long. But then people will say it lasts all day for me, and I get that because it would for me, but the reason for that is as soon as we then get physical symptoms of palpitations or pins and needles or feeling a bit dizzy. It’s then re injecting ourselves with more and more adrenaline, adding layers and layers to the worry of why do I now feel like this? What’s happening? Will it get worse? When in actual fact, the more we can sit with the discomfort through understanding and being a bit more able to see it for what it really is, it doesn’t stay around for very long. Alexandra: If someone’s experiencing that all day, or for hours and hours, what they’re doing is continually firing up that adrenaline in their body. It’s a new dump of adrenaline. Sarie: Yeah. And then if we do that for a certain amount of time, then the body starts to produce cortisol stress hormone, because it’s like, oh, this adrenaline isn’t quite working. So we need something bigger and better. And then we get stress hormone. And that lasts for longer. So that’s then can make it more difficult, if you like, in that moment for us to settle that down quicker. One of the things that I’m really passionate about, and we’ll say this now, whilst we’re talking about this, I was told by a therapist many years ago, that because I lived a lot of my life in fight or flight, which I did from a very young age, I produced a lot of adrenaline for a long time and had this habit of producing it and creating dramas out of everything. I was told that I would just have to learn to manage that. What I can say is that now I have a very different experience of life. My adrenaline levels are not through the roof all the time anymore, so they can settle and will settle once we start to understand enough that we’re not constantly setting off that internal alarm to keep producing the adrenaline. And the other thing with cortisol in the body is because it’s the hormone that the body prioritizes over any other it will then mess with your hormonal imbalance, which is why a lot of women who are anxious end up going to the doctor because they believe they have some kind of hormonal imbalance. And they probably would have in that moment if they were tested. But it’s not because there’s a problem with their hormones. It’s because they’re stressed. Alexandra: And it’s skewing things. Sarie: Yes. Because the body’s saying, Well, we can’t worry about that hormone and that hormone right now, because we’re just having to keep this person alive. And they’ve got a lot of problems and danger, and it’s stressful. And that’s what we need to focus on. Alexandra: Once again, the brilliance of the body is amazing. One of the questions I had prepared for you was what can we do when we feel anxious about being anxious? I love this exploring this. Sarie: When we feel anxious about getting anxious, what we’re really talking about is that we’re scared of the discomfort or the feeling that we have defined as bad. I think with understanding and exploring the principles and in whichever way people want to do that, like listen to podcasts, like yourself, It’s for you to start to see that you are safe and you’re okay. I always remember my youngest brother, he was an MMA fighter. So he would go into the ring and he’d have fights. Now I couldn’t sit and watch him because it would just make me so physically sick and scared. I just couldn’t do it. But he said, he used to love that feeling. He said his ears would be ringing, his sight would go [narrow]. The sheer amount of adrenaline that would go into his body going into that room sounds extreme. And yet, that’s why he did it. Because he loved that feeling. He’s got three children and when his wife went into labor with one of the kids, I remember him bringing me afterwards he said, Yeah, it’s all fine. He said, I had to go out the room. They were had awful. No, didn’t say awful. He said, I had a panic attack, quite a bad panic attack. So here’s me going, Oh, my goodness, that’s all for what happened? Oh, no, it was fine. It was all right. I actually. And then he said, it was like I was in a tunnel in my head. So I just went out of the room. And then I sort of came out of it. And here’s me feeling terrible for him. And he made me laugh, he said I actually quite like that feeling. And he’d said that to me before the past with that he likes that feeling of, he said something along the lines of it’s just me and the universe and nobody or nothing else. It’s he goes into this in his head. And for some people, that could be a really scary experience. But because he knows what’s happening it and that’s the feeling that he was going for when he was stepping into the ring every time. There’s people who do extreme sports and extreme things for that adrenaline rush. They don’t see it as bad. It just is an adrenaline rush. Alexandra: That’s such a great explanation of that. It’s a feeling. It’s a thing that’s happening. When we demonize that kind of thing, and then become afraid of it, that’s what creates problems. Sarie: Because we’re instantly saying, if that happens, it’s really bad. I always feel a little bit hesitant when I’m talking about this, because I know if somebody had said to me when I was in the throes of panic attacks every single day, oh, it’s just an experience. It’s not, I would have wanted to honestly just punch them in the face. You clearly don’t understand because this is not just an adrenaline rush. But actually, it is. The more we understand that, okay, so when we’re in that state of mind, when we’re in that, in our heads, and we’re overthinking and the body surge of adrenaline, to be able to understand then that we’re not going to make sense of that, we’re not going to rationalize that in the moment. So that we don’t need to try and do that. And just understanding that if we just sit with it, it’s going to pass. Something I used to find myself when I was in the beginning of the conversation of the Three Principles asking myself quietly in times of when I was starting to feel panic build up, say, right in this very moment, am I okay? Right now? And it was always yes. Because what was making me not okay or feeling like I wasn’t okay wasn’t even the panic attack I was having in that moment, it was how much worse will this get? Will this ever stop? It was still future thinking. I could actually deal with the panic. I know it’s different for everybody. But for me would end up with me going to the toilet feeling sick and retching and then I would just cry and then it would go. It was the same every time. And so I managed and dealt with that as and when it showed up. But the actual feeling of dread and adrenaline and panic was coming from Will it go away? What if it gets worse? What if this and what if that? I hear it so often with people what if I pass out? What if this? What if people see me? What if I throw up? Alexandra: Do you now ever experience symptoms of anxiety? Sarie: Not really, very rarely I do. I’d now describe it as being on it. So having a one year old baby I am sleep deprived, there is no doubt about that I am lacking in sleep. Sleep was always a massive trigger for me with anxiety because it was at the end of a two week stint of barely sleeping that I ended up in hospital. So it was always I need my sleep, otherwise I won’t be okay. And so even that now is a different experience. I know that I’m tired. I know that when I’m tired, I can have intrusive or anxious thoughts. But I also know that they don’t mean anything, and I don’t need to pay attention to them. And again, they’re just a sign for me to need more sleep, or to get the rest if I can, or the support. It’s interesting, because I’ve got a 16 year old and a one year old. And that’s a whole other podcast episode. When I had my 16 year old, I wasn’t in the conversation of the Three Principles. That’s when I was I had not been out of hospital, probably only about a year or so. No, it would have been a few years actually. And I was really postnatally anxious when I laid awake at night with really intrusive, awful thoughts, I thought I was the worst mom in the world, it was a really difficult time. And now, this time, I had a couple of intrusive thoughts in the beginning, where I was stood on we’ve got like a mezzanine in our home that we’ve got, and there’s like a glass thing, and a thought just pops in my head and thought, imagine if you tripped and threw her, or imagined if you just threw her. And then the next minute my head’s imagining a pool of blood on the floor. Now I just laugh to myself, because my thoughts don’t scare me. And I laugh to myself because I thought, God, you need sleep. Whereas when I had my other daughter, thoughts like that escalated into weeks of torture and suffering because I thought there was something wrong with me and that people didn’t have these thoughts unless they were terrible people. I didn’t want to tell anyone in case they thought I was completely mental. Up until the point where then I had to tell people because I didn’t want to be on my own. I can see how just an innocent intrusive thought that just pops in because you’re tired or in a lower state of mind or a lower mood can be just seen as that as a sign, an alarm to go try and get more sleep if you can, or whatever it was telling me just listen to your body. Or that could escalate, which it did, to not wanting to be on my own again, going to the doctors to get antidepressants and feeling like I was the worst mom in the world for many, many months. Alexandra: So this snowball effect that tiny little thing comes through, and then it grows and grows and grows and we feed it. Such a good point. One of the things I wanted to ask you about too, speaking of anxiety, is learned fears and phobias. You have a post on your website about the spider in the bath. Can you talk to us about that, please? Sarie: One thing about having a baby and being in this conversation at the same time, it’s been an absolute wonderful gift really, because I am seeing human nature in all its beauty and glory right from day one, again, with fresh eyes. Seeing that my daughter is present by default. And I am seeing that she doesn’t judge herself. She cries one minute, she laughs the net, she gets angry that actually gets she’s not bothered. She’s not judging herself. She’s just loving on herself every day regardless of how she’s showing up. And it’s amazing to see. I was in the bathroom with her. Probably any parents listen to this with young children. I think I was on the toilet. So then the 16 year old comes in, asking me a question and then the then the baby toddles in. So then we’re all in the bathroom at this point. And my teenager instantly said to me, “There’s a spider in the bath. Oh my god, oh my god, don’t move! A spider! Get the baby. Get the baby.” And my instant reaction was to go. Oh, yeah, let’s see. And then my wisdom in that second just went no. I looked at her and she was so curious and excited to see this spider in the bath. And it was in that moment I just said to my older daughter. Let’s not do this. We’re just about to instill a belief, a conditioned belief, on her that that spider is scary. Right now she doesn’t see that. And so she was trying to get in the bath. There was no water in the bath and this spider’s just around the tub. So I lifted her up, put her in the tub and for about five minutes. The joy on her face trying to catch that spider with her hands. She was so happy to the point now if we see a spider, she’s so excited. And it really hit home to me in that moment. It’s like she learned she could very quickly learn in that moment from us spiders are scary. And you know what was funny? I went into the lounge five minutes after and her children’s TV was on in the background. And there was a program and it had a spider in it. I laugh because even the program they were like, Oh, this scary spider. And it’s like, it’s everywhere. He’s like, Oh, let’s all be scared of spiders where people have tarantulas as pets. It’s not a given that we’re scared of anything. I always bring any fear down to three things. And I always call it the three Us: Uncertainty, Unknown, and; Unpredictability. My mom has a fear of a phobia of frogs. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t remember why. But I can remember as kids, when we thought it was a bit of a joke, or mom’s a bit scared of frogs. We didn’t realize how scared she was. And so we’d bring them to the house. Until this one day we brought one to the door and she locked us out. And it was hours before she would let us back in the house. Like literally like, Come on, mom. This is enough. Now she’s like, No, she’s so petrified. If she saw one now you can see the very instant physical reaction, the color drops out of her face. She shakes, she panics. It’s instant. And when I say to her, what is it that you’re thinking about this frog? She’s says I don’t know, it could jump up at me. I don’t like the idea that it’s slimy or what it feels like. I said, Have you ever touched one? No, but I just think it feels like this. It’s the uncertainty of the unknown and the unpredictability of the frog that she’s afraid of. And it’s the same with anxious about getting anxious. We’re anxious about the uncertainty, the unknown and the unpredictability. Alexandra: That’s so true. We feel like we can’t control it. It’s out of our control. That’s the unpredictability and that yeah, the uncertainty, how long will it last? Will it get worse? And what’s the third one? Sarie: The unknown. Not being able to predict or know for sure. I think they say that we’re born with only two natural, inbuilt fears. One is a fear of falling. And another is fear of loud noises. So when you hear a bang, you see a baby might jump like that. Other than that, everything is learned. Alexandra: That’s such a good point. I experienced a lot of urgency – anxiety in the form of urgency – for years. And I can see too, that one of the ways that I dealt with the uncertainty about that, like trying to control it was just by going faster and doing more. Sarie: And then it’s over with. Alexandra: Yes. And the crazy thing is, it never went away. I used that coping strategy and it didn’t work, but I kept doing it anyway. Sarie: That’s a definite way to get more adrenaline into your system as well, by going faster. Alexandra: That was the thing. I think I was just flooded so much of the time. By trying to go faster. We touched on hormonal imbalance, which was one of the things we I wanted to talk about, and I think we’ve kind of covered that. And about how that adrenaline flooding can affect the natural balance that’s there. Anything else you can say about that? Sarie: I suppose I’ve recently done some a little bit of work with an endocrinologist who and she’s a wonderful hormone specialist. And, ultimately what it comes back to every time we’ve spoken about, any sort of hormones, even people talk about menopause as being hormonal imbalance, perimenopause, it’s not an imbalanced, in a way, our hormones are imbalanced, because they’re imbalanced, if that makes sense. They’ve got to balance each other out and they work together. There’s so much going on behind the scenes where it’s all working in our favor. And for the greater good of us in our bodies. But when we throw something else into the mix, like something we’ve predicted and particularly menopause and hormones get such a bad reputation in that people dread it 10 years before they hit perimenopause, because they’ve been told a million times how awful it’s going to be. And, and yet, that doesn’t have to be the experience. I’ve spoken to many people within the Three Principles community who had awful perimenopausal symptoms yet with the understanding they went away. Because, again, if our body’s having to work twice as hard to do what it’s doing. Menopause, is the body getting ready for the next phase of our life. Well, if it’s trying to do that, and yet we’re not respectful of that, and we don’t slow down and we don’t take care of ourselves as best we can. And we don’t stop getting too caught up in the ‘What if?’ then the body’s got to work twice as hard to get where it needs to be. It almost comes down to the less we interfere with nature and what’s intended, the easier everything is. Alexandra: So well put. That’s exactly that’s how I see it as well. Sarie: People look to hormonal imbalance for a reason. Because a reason for anxiety because I know, again, having been in that situation, I mean, the amount of times I went to the doctors with my anxiety, assuming there was some kind of hormonal imbalance. Was it my thyroid? Was I low in vitamin D? I was always looking for a reason because I didn’t understand or couldn’t see how something that felt so awful, could just come from my thinking. It was almost too simple to believe, if you like, and yet my experience of even having throughout my own menstrual cycle, my hormones, really struggling with lots of symptoms. That again, in the last 10 years, I’ve been in this understanding, I don’t have that same experience every month anymore. It’s not a coincidence. Alexandra: That’s right. We don’t appreciate how powerful our thinking is. As we come to the end of our time together, is there anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on today? Sarie: For anyone that’s new to the Principles, or this might even be the first podcast ever come across, keep exploring is all I can say. I came into this conversation to fix my anxiety and here I am, 10 years later, and it is brought me and given me so much more than just changing my relationship with anxiety. So keep going, I would say. Stay curious. Even when we start to doubt the Principles, is this really too good to be true? That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with that. Getting curious is good. So just keep listening. Keep getting curious because all it can do is enrich your experience of life. Alexandra: Oh, that’s great. Thank you. So where can we find out more about you and your work? Sarie: I run an organization called Worldwide Wellbeing Limited. So you can find me at worldwidewellbeing.co.uk or SarieTaylorCoaching. You can find me all over social media. Everywhere on social media. I’m one of you people of my age that quite like social media, so you can find me there too. Alexandra: Great. Oh, that’s awesome. I’ll put links in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com. Sarie, it’s been a great pleasure. Thank you so much for being with me today. Sarie: Thanks for having me. Alexandra: Take care. Featured image photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash The post The Wisdom of Anxiety with Sarie Taylor appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Universally, human beings are always searching for a better feeling. We are wired to connect with the peace and love that we are made of. And when we have feelings like victimhood, they are pointing toward exactly this innate drive within us. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Examples of how we might feel like a victim What the feeling of being a victim is pointing toward How we can recognize our innate well-being when feelings like this come up in ourselves and others How understanding the innate drive to feel good can increase our compassion for others Transcript of episode Hello explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 39 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today with kind of an odd question, it may look like it has nothing to do with resolving an unwanted habit, but it actually does. The question is why does being a victim feel good? This came up for me, because there are a couple of situations going on in my life. So the first was that I experienced someone in my life, not in my immediate circles, but kind of someone I know very occasionally and casually, who I could tell really feels like a victim a lot of the time, and almost tends to create situations in her life where she’s victimized. And then that reinforces that she feels like a victim. I was reflecting on that, and reflecting on the wisdom in that feeling like a victim, and we’ll talk about that in just a second. Then I had a situation where I had a moment of feeling like a victim. I was planning to get together with a friend, and it wasn’t coming together. And I hadn’t heard from this friend. I noticed some feelings of victimhood, not in a huge way, but just in a tiny way, like, geez, this person isn’t getting back to me, I’m feeling a little ignored. That kind of feeling. And maybe she doesn’t like me, that kind of thing. I noticed this little frisson of pleasure in that feeling of victimhood. And so I thought to myself, well, now, isn’t that interesting? What’s that about? So because these two things that happened quite close to one another in terms of time, I just started reflecting on this. What I realized was that that feeling of being a victim, whether it’s in a small way, or a large way, really points to everything that we talked about in the three principles, understanding and our innate health. And it may seem like those examples, don’t point to that toward that at all. But I’m going to explain why they do. What’s happening when we’re feeling like a victim? That’s what that was where I started, with that question about myself and about this other person in my life. And what I realized is that there was that little bit of pleasure that I felt was because it felt like a bit of nurturing. So feeling like a victim in that moment, for me felt like a little bit of nurturing. I was taking care of myself. ‘And there’s the element of protecting myself against the big bad world. There’s that part of it. And then there’s just this kind of folding in feeling of protection, of protecting myself from whatever’s going on. And it seems to me that that’s where the little feeling of pleasure came from. For the woman who’s peripherally in my life, I can only imagine that that that she gets a similar feeling from that, and I can sort of tell that she’s a person who feels unnurtured, who feels victimized, who feels on the outside and other people are on the inside. And so I can only imagine that feeling inside herself and setting up situations where she feels like a victim is one way that she is able to nurture herself. What that points two is that we, as human beings are always, always searching for a better feeling. We’re searching for that home base feeling, that is our innate wisdom and well being, and the true source of our experience of life, the light that we are, the love that we are. And so feeling like a victim is a misguided way to connect to that feeling of our true nature, our true essence. But it’s, in a way, it’s not misguided, because it’s serving that purpose. It’s connecting us. We’re coming at it from a weird, funny angle. But it really is ourselves making an attempt to connect to  that to a good feeling to a feeling of safety, and warmth. And all those things are the essence of who we are. It all comes back to love, doesn’t it? We are made of love and the source of where we come from is love. And so we’re always trying, it seems to me to connect to that feeling. And as human beings, it’s difficult. Our journey in this life is full of complication. And it’s a real challenge. And there’s no end of challenging circumstances and difficult circumstances that we get ourselves into, and feelings that are challenging as well. And we do whatever we can, it seems to me to, to connect to a good feeling to connect to love at all times. So though it looks like someone who’s feeling like a victim is troubled or misguided, what I can really see in myself in that moment that I had, and in this other person who’s in my life, what I can see is that that instinct, or that impulse, really points to the source of who we are. And when I reflected on that, and thought about this for a little while, it, it created a greater sense of compassion in me for both myself, and for the other person in my life who I noticed is feeling like a victim. I noticed too, that she’s caught in a cycle of creating situations where she becomes the victim. So again, that can look kind of irritating and annoying, and it can be frustrating when you’re on the outside looking into that. But me being able to see that what she’s searching for is a good feeling. She’s searching for home base, she’s searching for a connection to the love that she is, that hopefully will enable me to feel much more compassionate toward her. And that gives me a good feeling. Instead of pushing up against what’s going on for her and feeling judgy about it, or impatient or whatever it is. I can sit in the feeling of oh, she’s searching for love, essentially. And rather than meeting her with judgment and criticism, even just mentally, not that I would say anything out loud, but just mentally being in a place of judgment and criticism, she’s going to feel that. Instead, I can just see that she’s doing what comes naturally. It may be a little bit unskilled, but still it’s natural what she’s doing. It’s instinctive. She wants to feel a good feeling. Knowing that about her, I’m just curious what if anything will happen? If I If at anytime I happen to be with her, if I sit in that good feeling, knowing that that’s what she’s searching for, and knowing that that’s what we all have access to all the time. And knowing how natural it is for us to want to connect with that feeling. I’m just curious. I wonder. I don’t have any expectations about the outcome, but it’ll certainly feel better to me, too, to be in that good feeling rather than judging her. Same when I’m dealing with myself. It always feels better to understand that there is wisdom in everything that we’re doing. And we’re always trying to connect to home base, which is our natural state of being. I hope that’s been helpful. And that it helps you to be a little more patient with yourself, no matter what’s going on. I hope you’re doing well and taking good care and I will talk to you again next week. Bye. Featured image photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash The post Q&A 39 – Why does being a victim feel good? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

After riding a roller coaster of a profound spiritual experience followed by post-trauma flashbacks, Carol Boroughs had questions about the root cause of suffering. This practised healer began a search and stumbled across the work of Sydney Banks, which highlights Thought as a central, powerful force that affects our experience of life. Carol Boroughs brings together the skills and experience she has accumulated over four decades in the field of human development and transformation, in the early years as a human resources consultant and for the last 25 years as a holistic therapist, healer and teacher. She also draws directly on intrinsic knowledge and personal experience of awakenings which began in childhood and led to a transformational realisation in 2011. She has chosen to use the Three Principles as the basis of her work as she recognises it to be a powerful teaching for our time. You can find Carol Boroughs at ThreePrinciples.co.uk and on Facebook @Signposts1. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Following the path of the wounded healer On having a powerful spiritual experience where reality dropped away How we innocently re-traumatize ourselves with our thoughts Changing our relationship to trauma by seeing what it is made of How we don’t need techniques to bring us back to the present moment Why we try to transcend our humanness On the wise nature of our search for peace How our own experience is the best teacher Resources Mentioned in this Episode Sydney Banks website Sydney Banks book mentioned, The Missing Link My memoir about my cult experience, Cult, A Love Story My book about resolving an overeating habit, It’s Not About the Food Transcript of Interview with Carol Boroughs Alexandra: Carol Burrows, welcome to unbroken. Carol: Thank you very much, Alexandra, it’s a pleasure to be here. Alexandra: It’s lovely to meet you. And to be having this chat this morning. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Carol: My professional background is a career in two halves really, I started out in human resource management, did that for about 20 years. And then when I had my children in my late 30s, something woke up in me, and I just took a completely different direction. That partly came about because I was seeking to heal myself from some early trauma, and the after effects of that. I started exploring, I’d already started exploring, but I went much more deeply into lots of different healing modalities. And the ones that I found really helpful, I studied them, and I learned to help other people with them. So I had a practice helping other people through lots of different holistic therapies, primarily homeopathy, but also specialized schools of counseling. And because of my own background, I guess I attracted people who needed help with trauma, but many, many other things as well physical, physical, health, mental and emotional health. I was very identified with being the wounded healer. And I also had all always been interested in spirituality. Ever since I was a child. I was the child of a long line of maternal healers in my family. And so an awareness of spirit had always been in my life. But because of things that happen to me, and in the family, it was very much something that I put away for a long time, it never really went away. But it wasn’t something I explored thoroughly. And then when I had my children, and I had this kind of wake up call about my own healing, I got interested in spirituality again. So there was a lot going on. I explored all sorts of different avenues. And in about 2011, so about 12 years ago, I was on a spiritual retreat. And I had a very, very powerful experience. Ordinary reality just dropped away. I knew myself to be part of the indivisible whole, there was oneness, love, it was just the most powerful experience that shifted my being, at every level, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. And that experience, I won’t go into all the detail of that it lasted for several days. And then the bliss bubble that I lived in for the following weeks was extraordinary. And I was in that state, when all of a sudden it changed. And I was back into post traumatic flashback, spiraling down, terror arose. But this time, I was looking at it from a different place because of that shifting in consciousness. And I didn’t spiral all the way down, I recovered relatively quickly. And in the reflection after that, this powerful question arose? The question was, how can a human being know themselves to be one with the energy of all life and still suffer like this? As I reflected on that question, it was a powerful, luminous question. There is a spiritual answer to this. And what occurred to me was that I needed to find a spiritual teacher, a living breathing teacher, not books or anything else. I had to find a living breathing teacher. I went on an internet search and I thought, well, what’s out there? Who can I find I’d studied lots of different things. I’d had lots of different teachers along the way. I chanced across Sydney Banks original website, and on their little clips, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, there’s some little video clips you probably I’ve seen them all. And what I saw in those clips resonated so deeply with that experience I’d had, I recognize truth. And I thought, This is my teacher, only to discover that he had died the previous year. So I thought, Okay, well look, the teachers, other people must be teaching this, this is, this is powerful. This is truth, this is what I need to explore. So I started looking around for teachers who were sharing the principles. And but there was nobody near me, I think Aaron Turner had just recently moved back from the states to the UK. And he was doing a professional training, actually not very far away from me. But that didn’t seem appropriate. I just chanced upon this understanding. So it’s kind of a bit deflated, and thought, oh, what next? And then into my inbox dropped an email from the teacher who I’ve been on the retreat with, when I’d had this experience. And that person was Ian Watson. He’d been my teacher, or many different things. He’d done all of those disciplines that I was exploring and teaching myself and working with people with. And in this email, he said, I’m not doing any of my old stuff anymore, I found this thing called the Three Principles. And I really want to explore that. So I’m going to set up a group in London. It’s going be called Truth at the moment, if you’re interested. So it was a no brainer. For me, it was just one of those synchronicities, that was just perfect. So I spent six weekends with this beautiful group of people, and even exploring the principles. And the insights just came with her come fast. And for me, it was this missing link between the spiritual and the psychological. And he answered that question for me. That question that had arisen of how a human being can feel bliss and despair in the same day. What happened was that the insight that I got was, or the beginning of the insights was something I’d heard in words over and over again: The past doesn’t exist. You can’t change the past, it can’t do anything to you. It’s just memory carried through time. Now, I had heard that over and over again. But now I saw it insightfully. And I saw how I had innocently been re-traumatizing myself over and over again with my own thoughts. When I saw that, at that deep, insightful level, this reflex action away from all of that thought happened. And it was just like the past, literally falling away. I didn’t have another flashback for another three years. And it was like night and day. For me, it was just profound. And as I saw the way that I had innocently been re traumatizing myself with my thinking. I saw the universality of that. I saw that that’s what everybody is doing all the time. A whole experience has been created from that we can’t respond to anything that isn’t thought passing through our mind. In the moment, I saw the universality of that, and the innocence of it, this great forgiveness, and compassion arose. And that was this this second level of radical transformation. It was beyond anything I could have imagined was possible. So that’s how I came to the principles. And just a little piece of what it’s done for me personally. And of course, very rapidly, it was a question of, oh, I have to share this. I can see it so clearly, it makes sense of everything that I had learned, spiritually, and everything that I’d seen in my own psychology and that of the clients that I’ve been helping So that’s how I came to be doing what I do now. Alexandra: That’s beautiful. Thank you so much. I have some follow up questions if that’s okay. I love that you said that the past can’t hurt us. And I would love for our listeners, if you could compare a little bit about your strategy for dealing with the past before you saw this. And what you see now about how we can deal with traumas from the past. Carol: That’s a brilliant question, Alexandra. Because what happened in my work was it shifted completely because I saw something that was so much more helpful than what I had been doing before, both in terms of my own healing, and how I was working with clients. Many of the techniques that we use to try to deal with trauma, depend on us, or encourage us, to go back and understand the trauma and see it from a different place. And while it can be helpful sometimes to go back and understand why certain things trigger you in this moment, and why certain behaviors keep repeating themselves, it doesn’t really get to the root of the truth of why you’re suffering. The actual event of going back and thinking about what happened in the past and exploring that, in itself can be incredibly difficult and painful and re traumatizing. So what I came to see through learning about the principles is that we do not need to go back, we just have to change our relationship to it by understanding that it no longer exists, except in our own thinking, in this moment, only this moment is real. Everything else is a trick of our mind and our thinking. All healing happens in this moment. That was one of the types of approaches to dealing with trauma that changed for me. The other things that can be incredibly helpful when we’re traumatized, particularly when we’re in the midst of a flashback, or in the midst of extreme terror, or anxiety or panic are techniques that bring us into the present moment. So things like mindfulness meditation, anchoring techniques, visualization techniques, where we visualize perhaps a safe space or something like that. So those were the types of things that I would reach for either myself or with my clients teach my clients about to help them in an acute episode. From time to time, I will still do that, if it’s helpful in the moment. Because until someone is in a quieter, calmer space, it’s not impossible, but it’s unlikely that they’re going to hear something helpful in what I’m sharing in those moments, because they’re in a thought storm. But the difficulty with those techniques as they only last as long as you’re doing them. And you can very quickly if you do experience, things like post traumatic flashbacks, or panic attacks, you can very quickly get hijacked, and things very quickly snowball. So sometimes a technique like that will work, and sometimes it won’t. And again, it still doesn’t get to the root cause of the issue. And really, the root cause of the issue is a simple misunderstanding about where that experience is coming from. And when we know that it’s coming from thought in this moment, just from memory, giving us this full on sensory painful experience. When we truly know that we don’t need to learn a technique for it to stop. There’s this reflex action away from that thinking when we really see the truth of what Sydney Banks was pointing to about where our experience is coming from. It’s like pulling your hand away from the hot stove because it hurts. I love Dicken Bettinger’s metaphor for this. He says when you see that the headache you have is being caused by the hammer that you’re hitting yourself with, you don’t need to learn a technique to drop the hammer. There’s this reflex away from it. Now, it has to be said that I had a very big insight, and so much fell away all in one go. For other people, it’s no less powerful, but it’s more incremental. They get smaller insights or shifts in consciousness. And gradually what they find is there’s a gradual move away from that thinking. And, it’s almost imperceptible, and then they look back and they think, oh, oh, something’s changed. When I was reading your book, I think you describe a beautiful example, where you’re in the supermarket, and you find that you haven’t reached for the soda. It wasn’t something you did in your mind or with your thinking. It was just a natural shift, wasn’t it? That’s, that’s the same kind of experience that people can have. With this type of insight. Alexandra: Oh, wow. So many things strike me and what you said, and one was, how powerful thought can be. That it can bring on not just thinking, but physical sensations and responses from our body and all that kind of stuff. It strikes me how real that can look, and how, if someone is having – I’ve never had a flashback like that – but if someone is experiencing that, it’s so easy to see how we can get caught up in that kind of a physical experience, and want to try to control it or make it go away somehow. And then I loved what you said about this incremental shifting. And it’s something I haven’t actually been able to find the right words for but it’s so true, what you said that we, as we explore this understanding, we can then look back and just see Oh, things have really shifted, but it has been so subtle. I didn’t notice in the moment, but I notice now, looking back, and I love that. In your work now, you have this great quote on your website, which I’m going to quote back at you. Which is that “presence is surrendering to each moment, without seeking to avoid any event, thought or emotion. And by remaining present, we can deepen into the inner peace that is the core of our true self.” So I wondered if you could expand on that a little bit for us? Carol: What I’m pointing to there is about being in the now, about being present with whatever’s going on now. And as you just beautifully articulated, if we have something scary going on, whether that’s an actual event, whether it’s a thought storm, or very, very strong emotion, painful emotion, we don’t want to be present. We don’t want to stay in that we want to get away from it. But that’s natural, of course. That’s what we do. And then we there’s so many things that we do to get away from that. And we take ourselves out of the present. We are no longer present in our life. We’re in our life and we’re trying to manage it. We’re reaching for food, we’re reaching for a drink. We’re reaching for the next technique. We’re seeking a therapy. Whatever it is we’re doing to get to a back to a better feeling. What that does is it puts more thought in the system. It takes us further away from peace. It might be helpful temporarily, it might bring us temporarily some relief, because we stop struggling to get away from it. Then we stop the activity of our mind. If we can learn as Sydney Banks said to not be afraid of our present moment experience, because we know it’s an illusion. It’s the play of mind, thought and consciousness in that our relationship with that shifts, we’re not scared. And so we don’t struggle away from it. We don’t struggle away from it, and we stay still. And we stay present. That difficulty, that strong emotion, those thoughts will pass through. What’s left is space of no thought. We settled down into the quiet mind, and we reconnect with the truth of who we are. And when we touch that space, and is just in a peace, stillness, love, a sense of okayness it’s the better feeling that we were seeking all along. Only we looked in the wrong place. Alexandra: Could you explain for the listener how that’s different from mindfulness, or what the difference might be? Carol: There are many beautiful mindfulness practices. And in some ways, the principles describe why mindfulness is helpful. It’s because it takes us into the present moment. But there’s a way in which, remember, we were just talking about how we organically learn. If our experience isn’t scary, we don’t need to get rid of it. We don’t need a technique to bring us back into the present moment. We just naturally go there. That, to me, is the main difference. There’s a natural learning that takes place where we don’t have to do any sort of technique. Unless we want to, or unless we can’t find our way back there. And sometimes the technique just helps us short, temporarily, until we get a deeper understanding. Alexandra: That was beautifully put. Thank you. Shifting gears slightly, one of the other things that I loved you mentioned on your website that you’re quite passionate about the subject of spiritual bypassing. Some of our listeners may know that I was in a cult in the 1990s for 10 years. And it was all about spiritual bypassing. And really negating our experience and using spiritual terms and techniques to do that. You have this great quote about trying to rise above our humaneness before we have fully understand or understood and made peace with it. That sentence resonated with me so much, because that just put a pin right on what I had experienced. What do you see about why we may be trying to transcend our humaneness? Carol: I think it really relates to what we were just talking about, around us. Wanting to get away from difficult feelings and emotions and experiences, to a better feeling. That drives all human beings. We just have different ways of going about that. And, as I said, some of us will reach for a drink, or food or whatever that is. And spirituality can be one of those, exploring spirituality and using spirituality to make sense of our world and take us to a better feeling. In many respects, that seeking to transcend our humaneness, the messier painful part of our humaneness is very, a very natural part of our experience in our physical form. I’m smiling a little bit because that blog that you read about spiritual bypassing has is literally the blog that has been most read and most discussed, and the one most people ask me about. I think at the time I wrote it, it just touched, touched something for people because they could recognize in themselves or others, that we have this tendency to use spiritual terms and language and techniques and teachings to make ourselves feel better. But of course, while a true spiritual understanding can be profoundly helpful, we can use it without understanding it. And we can apply it to cover up the cracks and to try to transcend that pain. And of course, it’s a false spirituality in a way. And ultimately, eventually the wheels will fall off. I think I use the example that if you don’t address your interpersonal issues in your life, you’re not going to maintain a relationship, however spiritual. The other thing that made me so interested in it is it’s something that I see in my work a lot. I think I was trying to sort of raise a flag to say that even the Three Principles community isn’t immune from that, because many people find their way to me having been around the Principles for a really long time, heard something of truth in it. So they know that their thinking has something to do with their experience, and therefore they’re uncomfortable experience. So they feel like they’ve got to manage their thinking. And of course, that proves incredibly difficult. That’s not what we’re talking about, or pointing to at all. And they hear those terms of it’s just your thinking. And then they either get about trying to manage their thinking, or they tell themselves Oh, it’s just my thinking. It’s not real. It’s okay, really. And then they bypass what’s really going on for them, and then they get stuck. So it’s my job to unpack a little bit of that and have people take an honest look at where they might be bypassing. Alexandra: It struck me as you were speaking, I could just suddenly see for the first time, the innocence of doing something like that, and you connected it with food and alcohol and the other things we use, and I hadn’t made that connection before. It’s the same thing. Carol: Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s that search for a better feeling. Or we can use spirituality in a way that we use anything else. But you know, there’s that original question you asked me about what I see about why we try to transcend there’s a deeper understanding that I’ve come to around that which is the West seeking better feeling, because we know it exists. We all have within us. That spiritual essence, that’s perfect. It gets shrouded with thought. And we forget. But we still know, we still know it’s there. We still know it’s possible. And the very movement towards wanting to feel better. That is that spiritual essence that wisdom, as Sydney Banks would call it, speaking to us. So yes, that desire to move into spirituality, that desire to eat something to make ourselves feel better, or to drink or whatever it is. That very desire is the clue that that is possible. And that’s beautiful, isn’t it? What we take to be our wrongness or our brokenness, this is not that at all. It’s wisdom, speaking to us in every moment, moving us in the direction of thriving, moving us in the direction of truth of uncovering the fact that we’re really unbroken and perfect. Alexandra: I’m so glad you brought that up. It’s something that I’ve been exploring a little bit lately. I’m writing a new book about this understanding. I just love that it’s slightly paradoxical but I love coming back to that. The very the search proves that we are unbroken. We know it instinctively. And we’re looking for it. Carol: That’s beautiful. And you kind of know that you’re getting closer and closer to truth when you really see the paradox. I love what Michael Neill says, about pointing to fire with ice. The closer you get to it, the less you’ve got to point with. And when we get into something that appears paradoxical, that’s because we’re getting much closer. Alexandra: I hadn’t thought about it that way. Yeah, that feeling of paradox. You’re right. It is a big clue that we’re getting closer. Carol: It’s harder and harder to explain. So it must have been quite a tricky for them to write. I look forward to reading it. Alexandra: It’s always hard to put this stuff into words in a peaceful way without getting all tangled up in my own confusion. What would you say to someone about trusting our own wisdom and our own guidance, while at the same time learning from others? Because there is a delicate balance there. Carol: Yes, there is. And I think there’s some, I think Sydney Banks is quite helpful on this, isn’t he, when he talks about selecting a teacher in several places, including in The Missing Link, he talks about selecting a teacher who shows the qualities that you’re looking for, not somebody who tells you how to think or what to do. You have to use your discernment. You have to trust your own wisdom in teaching in selecting a teacher. But really, what he pointed to is that the teacher is within. We have what he calls spiritual wisdom, we’re all connected to it. Sometimes it feels like we’re disconnected. But that wisdom is always speaking to us. And the best that a teacher can really do is point you back to that and help you to tune into that or to discern wisdom from your personal thinking. I think if the teacher doesn’t do that, then that’s perhaps the time to find another teacher. Really, teachers can be incredibly helpful, but they can only signpost, the way they can only point us towards wisdom. The most powerful insights come from within my own experience, I’d listen to dozens of teachers saying past doesn’t exist, your thoughts can’t help you. Let them go. But it wasn’t until I saw that from deep within myself through insight that it had any impact. So I’d love to know what your take is on that because your experience in the cult must have been very instructional now you’re on this side of it as to following your own guidance. Alexandra: I think you hit the nail right on the head that that our own wisdom is the is the greatest teacher and that those who point at keep pointing us toward that is where my best learning has come from. And to me learning to rely on my own experience to teach me has been such a good lesson. Whatever I hear now, and whatever I hear somebody else say, I always try to take it away and just fold it in and see if my experience reflects what the person has said. Carol: That’s beautiful. And sometimes we have the experience of listening to a teacher. And we take it away. And we think, no, that’s not my experience. And having the confidence to say no, that’s for me now is really powerful. And maybe some, at some point, will come back to the same teaching. And we will resonate with it. Because our wisdom is not only unique to us, but it can change over time. So something that’s right for us one day won’t necessarily be right. The following day. Alexandra: Yeah, that’s so true. There are elements in there, I can see of, of being ready. Sometimes, we’re just not at a place where we can understand something and I really think that’s okay. Waiting until, for me, this process has been a lot about learning not to force things, not to force myself to swallow things whole. And just like you were saying a minute ago, there have been times when I’ve walked away and said, well, that hasn’t really been my experience. And then down the road, I do find that, that it is, something has shifted. It’s required a little bit of patience on my behalf sometimes. I always go back to nature metaphors, because you can’t force a flower to come up out of the ground. It’s going to come up at its own pace. And when it’s ready. And for me, my learning has felt like that. I can’t talk it up. It will come as I let it. Carol: That’s wonderful. There’s patience required. It’s easy to get insight and be honestly, that. So I love what you’re saying there about everything has its own time. Everything unfolds perfectly, even when we don’t feel like it is. Alexandra: Absolutely. So we’re getting close to the end of our time together. Is there anything you would like to share that we haven’t touched on yet today? Carol: I don’t think so. That there’s so much we could continue to share. I think we’ve touched on some really beautiful things. I hope your listeners have found it helpful. Alexandra: I’m sure they have. Where can we find out more about you and your work, Carol? Carol: Okay, well, the the best place to go is my website, which is ThreePrinciples.co.uk. And you can find out about me and what I’m up to in the world on there. Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com so people can find you. And thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Carol: It was an absolute pleasure. I enjoyed our conversation. It’s really lovely to meet you. Alexandra: Thanks, Carol. Featured image photo by Angela Loria on Unsplash The post The Past Can’t Hurt You with Carol Boroughs appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Cravings can be scary. And when they happen we can automatically brace ourselves against them. But what if there was another way to deal with cravings that encouraged them to dissolve on their own? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes How are food cravings similar to riding a horse? What to do when a craving shows up inside you How are cravings part of our innate wisdom? Resources Mentioned in this Episode Sydney Banks Transcript of episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A episode 38 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. Today our question is, what if we weren’t afraid of our cravings? I’ve been mulling this over for a few days. And this question in this q&a episode is inspired by the famous Sydney Banks quote: If the only thing people learned was to not be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world. Now, of course, this is a really deep quote, and we could explore it for days and weeks. And of course, Sydney Banks isn’t here to expand on what he meant by that, and all the different areas or threads that might come from that quote. It is really, really deep. I think one of the nice things about it is that it probably has different meaning for all of us, and our own interpretation, and some universality about it, which is what, all great quotes, that’s what they speak to in us, I think. So what I’m going to explore today is one example, or possible interpretation of that quote, and I’m going to use a personal story from my personal life. And then we’re going to go into talking about cravings. When I was a little kid, my dad got me started riding horses when I was pretty young, I think four years old or something like that. And along the way, we were mostly learning to ride in a riding arena. So an enclosed arena, quite big. And so a very pretty controlled environment. It’s not like we were out in the wilderness or anything. Every once in a while, one of the horses would get spooked by something that happened. And it could be the horse that I was on, it could be somebody else’s horse, and there tended to be a chain reaction to with horses. When one of them get spooked, they all tend to get a bit spooked, because they’re herd animals, and they communicate so clearly with one another. And being part of the herd is what keeps them safe. When a horse spooks, it can do a number of things; bucking with its back end, their legs can get kind of stiff, and they can do that sort of sideways bounce. Like you’ll often see kittens do when they’re feeling kind of frisky horses can do that, too. They’ll throw their head up and down. I’m sure you’ve seen bucking bronco videos from rodeos. And it wouldn’t necessarily be that dramatic, but it could be sometimes it would just be a little bit of jumping up and down. Initially, when I was learning to ride, the reflexive action that I would take, the automatic response that I would take to if my horse was spooking, and jumping up and down, would be to stiffen up. So it’s frightening, you’re scared. And there you are five feet off the ground. I could be six years old or whatever. This horse is spazzing out and you don’t have any control over it. The automatic response to that, when that happens, is to is to get really stiff, to brace yourself against what is happening. And I learned pretty quickly that that doesn’t work. So what happens is, when I get really stiff in the saddle, and my back gets really stiff and my arms get stiff on the reins and my legs are kind of braced against what’s happening, it’s like then that two hard forces meet each other. And what automatically would happen was that I would just get bounced out of the saddle and land on my back or my head on the floor of the writing arena. So I learned that that didn’t work. I don’t remember if someone instructed me to do this, or if I just figured it out, that the better response when a horse is having a little spooky moment, is to actually get really soft. So the horse could be bouncing up and down, throwing its head around kicking its back legs out, whatever it’s doing, and it’s counterintuitive but the thing that worked better than bracing myself was to, like I say, get really soft. What I mean by that is I would sit even deeper in the saddle, and get really kind of marshmallowy – I don’t know what word to use to describe it – in my pelvic area, in my bum, in my thighs, and in my back, and almost melt into the saddle. Riders tend to call that sitting really deep in your seat. And what that would mean was that as the horses jumping around and spazzing out, I would be melted into the horse’s back and would just ride the waves. Like you would ride a wave on the ocean, if you were on a surfboard, or on a river, or whatever it is. And, like I say, that response, it was a learned response. It’s something that took time and practice. And of course, I don’t remember how long it took me to figure this out. Or, like I say, if somebody explained it to me, and then it took some practice, once that happened, because when, especially when you’re a kid, when a horse is having a little spooky moment, it’s scary. That horse is really big, and I wasn’t very big. And it takes a leap of faith. Or it took a leap of faith in me, a willingness to try something different, to really do that to sit really deep in my saddle, to not brace myself against what was happening. I bring that up today, because the question is, what if we weren’t afraid of our cravings? When it comes to an overeating habit, and dealing with some cravings, the same is actually true. And here’s what that looks like. What we’re usually taught, when we experience a craving for anything, doesn’t have to be food. But in our case, it probably is. The natural response, the automatic, innocent response to that craving, is to brace yourself against it, to try to get away from it, to try to manage it, control it, tamp it down, and really push back against it, I guess, is a good way to say that. What my experience has been, since coming into this understanding has been that if instead, I do the counterintuitive thing, if instead, I don’t brace myself against cravings, that has been what has started the process of clearing them up of them falling away. What that looks like is that when we tend to brace ourselves against a craving, innocently, what’s happening is we’re adding a whole bunch of thinking to what’s already there. The craving is trying to communicate something to us, it’s trying to let us know that we have a lot of insecure and sped up thinking not just about food, but in general. And then we brace ourselves against that craving. And now we add a whole bunch more thought to what’s already there in our heads. So thinking like, why is this happening? Why do I have so little willpower? Why can’t I control myself more? This is going to make me really fat. I’ve already gained 10 pounds and I don’t want to gain anymore so This craving is only going to make that situation worse. I mean, you know, all that kind of thinking now gets layered on top of what was already there in the first place, what the craving was trying to alert us to in the first place. So resisting a craving, just like with the example from the horse riding stuff actually makes the situation worse. And like I say, when I did that, when I was on the horse, I would automatically just get bounced out of the saddle, and land on the dirt floor of the arena. When it comes to cravings, it becomes this vicious cycle, because we’re experiencing a lot of insecure, sped up thinking the craving is trying to alert us to that, then we add a whole bunch more thinking to it. Now the craving gets louder and stronger, because again, it’s trying to alert us to all this thinking that’s going on. And we add more thinking to that and get more upset about what’s happening and down on ourselves. And being really critical. And whatever it is, the thoughts that you have about when you experience a craving. So that cycle is what we ended up getting caught in. I know I was caught in it for decades, and it and trying to suppress those cravings, manage them, control them, make them go away, wasn’t the thing that that worked. It didn’t work it, it just kept me caught in that cycle. I will say to that, just like with the horse riding example, doing the counterintuitive thing of not bracing yourself against a craving takes a bit of a leap of faith. It’s scary. And we talked about courage last week on the q&a episode. And it definitely takes some courage to not have that kind of knee jerk reaction to our cravings, especially given that culturally, there are so many messages about how cravings are bad and wrong, and how overeating is a problem. And that it’s something that we need to fix and change and all that stuff. So it does take courage to try to remember to relax and to notice the craving and to not add any more thinking to the situation than what is already there. Now, I don’t know what it’s going to look like, if you try this approach. And I don’t have any recommendations really about what specifically to do in order to…I don’t want to say lean into the craving, but to not brace yourself against it. That experience, of course is yours alone. And your wisdom will guide you about what that might look like how it might feel within your body. But I will give you a quick example of something that’s going on with me right now. And some cravings that I’m experiencing. About a week ago or something, I felt some cravings rise up in me that had been gone for a very long time. And again, automatically, my initial reaction was going to be to panic, to push them away and do all those regular things. And instead, I remembered that I don’t have to do that, that I can sit deep in my saddle and really lean into what’s going on. For me the craving has to do specifically with potatoes, which are something that I tend to avoid lately because I think I’ve mentioned this before, I have arthritis in my knees and in in my in one of my index fingers. And when I avoid potatoes and rice that inflammation goes away and it’s great and I don’t have the same kind of pain and discomfort that I have when I eat them. But lately my craving has been for potatoes and rice. So what I’ve been doing is noticing that, and having those foods anyway, even though my finger is quite sore, my knees aren’t quite as simple as they have been. I’m really making a practice of not beating myself about what’s going on. Not being hard on myself about eating those foods, not judging my you know, quote, unquote, progress or lack of progress, just letting the situation be what it is. What I know for sure, is that those cravings are wisdom, and they are information. And therefore there will be an insight at some point about my true nature, our true nature, and it will then reduce the amount of insecure thinking that I tend to walk around with. There will be a shift in my consciousness, and that craving will drop away. And the thing not to do is to fight what’s happening right now when I’m feeling those cravings, to brace myself against them. Because that just makes the whole situation so much messier. If I get in there with my thinking, and start beating myself up about potatoes and rice, and giving myself a really hard time and worrying about my weight, and freaking out about my progress, quote, unquote, that really, really muddies the waters of what the craving is trying to move me toward. And so yeah, so that’s what’s been going on with me lately, in terms of cravings. I thought that this was a really good couple of things I wanted to share, and that story about relaxing into the saddle, because I think it’s just the perfect analogy when it comes to dealing with our cravings, particularly because it is counterintuitive. It’s not the thing that we automatically want to do. And that doing that does take some courage. I hope that’s been helpful for you. If you have any follow up questions about that or if anything I’ve said hasn’t made sense, please let me know. You can go to Alexandraamor.com/question and fill out the little form there and I’ll be happy to answer your question on a future show. So that’s it for today. I hope you are well and taking care and I will talk to you soon. Bye. Featured image photo by RoonZ nl on Unsplash The post Q&A 38 – What if we weren’t afraid of our cravings? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

In intimate partner relationships, we can often believe that change needs to happen in the other person in order for us to be happy. Rohini Ross, and her husband Angus, work with couples and individuals to help them see that our experience of everyone in our lives is coming not from them, but from within us. Rohini Ross loves supporting others with deep healing as they wake up to their true nature. She is sought out for her specialization in Spiritual Psychology. You can listen to her podcast Rewilding Love where she and her husband Angus help a couple on the brink of divorce. You can find Rohini Ross at TheRewilders.org. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Discovering spiritual psychology after several career starts Burning out as a therapist while still becoming licensed On stress coming from our patterns of throught Resolving the internal pressure to be worthy of love and acceptance How the Principles are ‘time release learning’ Whatever we are looking for is within us On not taking a partner’s anger personally Dealing with an autism spectrum diagnosis in a child Resources Mentioned in this Episode George Pransky’s book The Relationship Handbook Transcript of Interview with Rohini Ross Alexandra: Rohini Ross, welcome to Unbroken. Rohini: Thank you so much for having me lovely to speak with you. Alexandra: Lovely to see you again too.  Tell us a little bit about your background and how you came across the Three Principles. Rohini: Oh, my goodness, where would you like me to start? I originally got a master’s in cultural geography. And that was a switch in my major, I was going to school to be a doctor. And when I got to the pre med classes, second year of them, the science classes, I had a bit of a meltdown. I wasn’t able to do them. And so the dean at that time, because my first year, I got straight A’s. And so it was kind of shocking for me, I’d never struggled academically before. And there was a lot of other things going on as well that were challenging.  When I went to the dean, he says, Well, it seems like you’re capable, but maybe you just need to switch to something you enjoy more. That sounds like a good idea. And so I switched to cultural geography, which I’m really grateful for, because it’s very closely aligned with anthropology. And it gave me more global context for understanding things. And it was very inter disciplinary. And so it gave me a lot of freedom.  Then, when I was finishing my master’s, I realized that I missed the intention of being in a healing profession. So as much as I enjoyed the academics going on and doing a PhD was appealing. But there was something deeper within me that wanted to continue to look at healing, even if I wasn’t a medical doctor. And so I stopped my studies at that point.  I had just decided to move back to England. I was born in England, but raised in Canada. And my father left when I was two and a half. And we hadn’t been reconnected. I knew that he was or I thought he was in England. And so when I was doing my research in Guatemala, for my master’s, I met a woman who lived in London, she ran a Guatemalan Textile Museum in London. And she said, you can come and work in the museum, and I’ll trade. I have a flat that you can stay in. And I thought, well, that sounds like a great idea. And so that was all set up.  Then I met Angus. He was flying in and out literally, from Toronto, where I was living at the time. And we met, and it was one of those recognitions in that time. And so there was some real motivation for me. So when I went to England, I just decided to focus on finding my dad, and then just giving myself some space to really explore what is it that I want to do. I was looking at Chinese medicine, naturopathy, homeopathy, and I didn’t really think about psychology. But as I was, as things unfolded, the museum didn’t work out. Well, the textiles had a lot of chemicals in them. I’m very sensitive to chemicals. And so I’m like, I can’t work in this environment, because I’m getting headaches, and I’m feeling well, and the trade with living in the basement flat with a woman wasn’t feeling so great, either. And so I said to Angus, I don’t know what to do, I don’t think I can do this job anymore. But I don’t have another job.  He was a photographer at the time, let me just introduce you to modeling agency and see if they have any work they can help you out with in the meantime. And I was 24, turning 25 at the time, which is very old to start a modeling career. Most people start when they’re 15. And but for whatever reason, I was fortunate in that they had work and I ended up doing that for about 10 years, till we had our first child. And that allowed me to really have the space to just explore what I wanted to explore.  And then part of the reason we came to the US was through that work. When I got here to Los Angeles, there was a school, it’s no longer in place, but at the University of Santa Monica, they no longer offer master’s programs. The university is still there, but they don’t offer degree programs anymore. But they had a counseling psychology program, but the foundation was in spiritual psychology. As soon as I saw it, I’m like, that’s it. That’s what I want to do.  I went to the open evening. And I just knew, it’s one of those things where like, Okay, I’m signing up for this program. And then I’m like, Oh, my goodness, what’s happened. Sure, check this out with somebody So I talked to Angus about and he’s like, Well, if you think it’s right, like he was absolutely fine with it. But it was just one of those moments where the inner directive was so clear. I was shocked by that level of clarity. And so I did that program. I did end up finishing the Counseling Psychology program, I did it over a long period of time, because we had our two children within that period of time. And so it was an extended study program.  Then I ended up becoming faculty at the University, which is really fun. I became a licensed psychotherapist through that program. And then, probably, shortly after I get licensed, because what happens is you start working as a therapist a long time before you actually get your license, because you have to get 3000 hours before you can actually write your licensing exam. And so by the time I got licensed, I was starting to feel burnt out.  And I’m like, oh, no, because that was the one thing he said, if we’re going to invest in this, you better do it. I said, I would, but maybe I can’t. I started to look at what else can I do at the time I was working with a fabulous company, it was it was I just loved the company. And we worked with families that had adolescents or young adults that were really struggling. What was beautiful about the work that we did is we worked with the entire family system.  There would be a clinician that would work with parents, there’d be a clinician that would work with the young person. And they would work in a way where they would go out, they would do activities, they really focused on rapport relationship building, there was a strong Buddhist spiritual orientation within the company. It felt quite aligned on many levels.  But I think as a new therapist, and also some of the policies of how we had things set up at the time, there was a lot of emergency situations, a lot of on call, like, we were pretty much available 24/7 to the families to support them, because there was some really high risk situations going on. And, and I think that I was also as a fairly new clinician, it was difficult for me to understand how to navigate all of that. Often with new clinicians, you get thrown in the deep end, and have to sink or swim. I started to think, well, I can’t do this job.  And then what happened is that the company leadership, invested money in a way that was not wise. And they basically lost it in a project. And so they decided to leave the company. And they thought that we would just go bankrupt when they left the company. We had about 100 families that were working with the time several teams working with them. And there were three of us. Clinicians, one of them, one was one of the original founders and two other clinicians. We were like, what do we do with these people? Like we can’t just say sorry, she’s closing our doors.  We decided to take over the leadership of this company. And so for me, I thought, well, maybe that is going to be a change. But then taking on the leadership of a company, this was not very easy either. So then I’m doing more of supervision. But also I took on the operations and also the public speaking, which was like the PR for the company to try and really build business because I was the one that was kind of like, Tag you’re it. It brought up so much anxiety inside of me because I was very insecure and very self conscious. My inner critic would just go crazy. I would be nervous.  Before doing a talk I would be nervous. During the talk I would be dissociated, and then afterwards where you would hope there would be some reprieve from that. It was just self judgment, self criticism, shame. It was awful. So I got into this really negative spiral with that. I’m like, can I even do this?  So I started looking at what else can I do? And that’s where I came across Michael Neill’s Super Coach Academy at the time in 2011, which was not a Three Principles training. But I met George and Linda one of the weekends there.  I should mention, I had read The Relationship Handbook, George’s book, back in probably 2004, recommended to me by Steve Chandler, my coach at the time. Angus and I were on the outs at that point; we were briefly separated, we didn’t think we were going to be able to make it in our relationship. And it’s not like oh, I read the book and then it worked out but we both read the book at that time and we were both able to come back together and work things out. So I would say it was very instrumental in supporting in that in that process.  But I didn’t understand that there was a deeper spiritual understanding behind it. I’m sure I was impacted by that. It didn’t, I think, really say anything about it in the early edition of the book. Now it does. And so I didn’t know to look like Oh, there’s more. There’s a Sydney Banks. I grew up, I’d spent my teenage years on Vancouver Island, and I never knew there was a Sydney Banks on Saltspring when I was 30 minutes away. Meeting George and Linda, at Michael’s training, I understood that oh, there’s something much deeper. And in that first weekend with them, I was I was deeply impacted. As I was saying, I was dealing with a lot of anxiety at that time. I think also, at that weekend, specifically, we had Angus and I had put an offer on our home, like we’ve never owned a home before we put in an offer. And innocently, I thought, Oh, you put an offer in on a home, it gets accepted, you get the home. But what we didn’t know is that there’s all these little things that can go along the way where this doesn’t meet the criteria for the mortgage. And so because where we live, it’s a very kind of unique setup, there were all kinds of quirky things that the bank was really not happy with. It was unusual for them. It wasn’t just cookie cutter.  Every week there was something new, like, can we get this approved by the bank can we get and so I was just in this massive state of overwhelm, because I was taking it so personally, I couldn’t help it. I knew on an intellectual level that my worth is not dependent on buying a home, that if the bank says no, you can’t have this home, or where you can have the money, that it would be fine. It’s not like we weren’t okay.  But it was really, on some level touching this, this place inside of me a feeling completely unworthy, and not good enough. I talked to George on one of the breaks about this situation, and he was talking to me, and I could really get from him that it wasn’t a big deal, not out of a lack of compassion. But for him, it really was not a big deal when I was going through. And he said something like, oh, just you know, you’re stuck on one channel of the TV. I’m paraphrasing, I’m sure he said it much more eloquently. But something along the lines of you’re stuck on one channel of the TV. Don’t worry, the channel is going to shift, it will shift naturally, you don’t need to worry about it.  And I’m like, but I’m not sleeping. I’ve never not slept and I’m waking up with anxiety, which channels by itself. So it was a real interesting paradox, because I wasn’t understanding what was being said to me. But after that weekend, I felt so much better. Like on a physiological level on an emotional level, I was impacted in a really beautiful way. And in spiritual circles, they would talk about that as transmission, there’s a transmission that comes from the teacher. And so I mean, that’s how I can explain it. Because in a sense, there’s no intellectual understanding. But there was a transmission that I received, that deeply impacted me.  Again, it was one of the moments just like with the University of Santa Monica, this is the direction I’m going. We had other teachers, different weekends coming but I want to know more about this. And so that’s what had me look into their apprenticeship program. And I ended up doing that program with the Pranskys. And it changed my life. It changed my life in so many ways.  One of the most beautiful ways is that the job that I thought I could no longer do, all of a sudden, I realized that the stress wasn’t coming from my job. And all of a sudden, I realized, oh, I have this pattern of thinking, these patterns of thought that I identify with, and that’s where the stress comes from.  It wasn’t like that was a new concept to me, I understood that my feelings were related to my thoughts. That was something that I had learned for quite some time, but I had interpreted as that means I then need to change my thoughts. And there’s something wrong with me for having these thoughts. So it was very antithetical to what the Three Principles understanding points to and so it was a real misunderstanding on my part, and what the biggest shift happened to me when I saw that there was nothing wrong with me for having the thinking that I had, or for even identifying with the thinking that I was having. So it wasn’t really not identifying with the thought.  So of course that shifted once I realized But it was not a problem with the thoughts, it was not a problem with identifying with the thoughts. The problem was me making it mean something about me that that was what was going on. And that changed everything because it took the pressure off of me.  I had lived my life under such internal pressure to live up to standards that I made up to improve myself to be better. I’m not saying there’s none of that there. But it has significantly, significantly decreased. And without that same level of internal pressure. Another way you could talk about that there’s just naturally a self-acceptance and a self… It’s not even a self love. It’s the connection with the love. That is who we are, with the depth of feeling of oh, oh, that’s what I’ve been looking for.  I’ve been looking for it through perfectionism. I’ve been looking for it through workaholism, I’ve been working at trying to get there and all of these ways because I was suffering based on that misunderstanding, of feeling unworthy and shameful, not good enough. And yet, as soon as that illusion falls away, this is what I met with an experience of being filled up. There was a very big experience of that, in terms of the shift was quite dramatic. And then I think what unfolded is just an integration of that into day to day life. And then it continued deepening.  I think I’ve heard Bill Pettit talk about the principles as a time release learning. I’ve got that time release capsule that continues to release over time. And so that changed my whole practice.  I went from thinking I couldn’t do my job and needed to change and become a coach to actually falling back in love with being a therapist. I was quite busy at the time. When I look back at what I was doing at the time, no wonder I was a little anxious. I was on faculty at the University of Santa Monica, I was on a leadership team for the company that was working with families. And I asked to go to three quarters times, so that I could also have my own practice outside of that. So I was seeing people in my practice, and also the lead clinician of the Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center in Malibu. But it was, again, I didn’t need to change those things, those things did change. I didn’t keep that pace up.  They didn’t change first, I changed first.  And then my life started to shift in the organic way that it did, but I had it set up that oh, I need to fix something out there so that I have less stress and anxiety in my life. And then all of a sudden, I have this greater sense of spaciousness, because I’m not putting that same pressure on myself and I have exactly the same lineup of things to do. And yet, I’m feeling okay. And I’m actually enjoying what I’m doing. I’m not feeling burnt out as a therapist anymore. I’m actually feeling inspired.  At that point, when I was doing the apprenticeship, I was learning about working with corporations, and like, wow, I can even work with companies doing this, this is amazing. And so over that period of time, it became clear to me that I was going to leave many of these jobs and go out on my own and create my own practice. And the thing that was a little tricky was that I was so certain about that. And because I was so certain about that, I thought it should happen right away, like, Okay, I know, this is what needs to happen. I guess I need to leave. I even gave in my notice to the company that I was working with. And it just they just didn’t accept it. I accepted, except it was like, Okay, I guess that’s not happening now. And then about 18 months later, we did a great job of getting it back on its feet, we got the company ready to be sold, it was being sold. And my eldest daughter went to high school, and she started struggling. I realized with her needing more of me, I needed to let some things go and it was literally again one of those decisions where I just knew Okay, I need to get my notice and let that go. And this time I did it and not only did they accept it, it was so much better for the company because that meant my salary was not needed to be included in the sale. So it just made everything work so much more smoothly and everybody was happy.  It was a big lesson in the organic unfolding and that my time, my ideas of timing are not always what’s meant to be. But it’s again, that inner peace, recognizing for myself that what I was looking for was always inside. And that as I respected that more connected with it more deeply, things naturally started to evolve in my life. So my work life changed.  My relationship with Angus, at that point, we weren’t on the brink of divorce as we were in 2004. But I had resigned myself to okay, this is good enough, right? This is good enough, I don’t want to leave him I don’t want to be with someone else. But I guess this is what our relationship is going to be. And then all of a sudden, there’s this reignition in our relationship of love, desire of connection.  Of course, he saw the shift in me. And as he will say, I dragged him to many a workshop and many a therapy session saying you need to do this, or else you know, it’s not going to work. But just seeing that shift in me got him curious about what is it that you’re actually doing because I hadn’t talked about it. I knew that I turned him off of so many things. I’m like, I don’t need to bring him into this. This can be just for me. And he can do whatever he wants.  He saw how I was living life and said what is this? He got curious and wanted to learn more. So then he ended up doing the apprenticeship with the Pranskys and so forth. And as you know, we now work together.  My practice evolved from then going into more of my own private practice doing some more corporate work. And then really getting inspired and offering the soul centered series. I can’t remember exactly when that was, but a few years back before the pandemic, and letting go of a lot of my private practice to look at more training programs. And then the Rewilders community, and training program came out of that. And then the couple’s intensives Angus, and I focus a lot on couples intensives, and I’m doing more and more, one on one intensives, too. So it’s just been this natural evolution that’s happened with my business.  Alexandra: I love that. So much juicy stuff in there. You anticipated my question about how Angus got folded into the whole thing.  That’s really cool that he saw something happening with you, without you having to bring it to him. Rohini: His internal curiosity. It was not me, saying I don’t even think I talk because it’s so hard to talk about as well with someone. I just didn’t really need to talk about it. Alexandra: Maybe talk about that a little, a little bit more your relationship with Angus. And maybe your children too, and how things have changed with this understanding? Rohini: With Angus, because of my sensitivity, through my conditioning to anger, I had a lot of judgment. Because Angus is somebody who wears his heart on his sleeve, you know where he’s at. And if he’s mad, he might say something. Whereas I’m much more internal. And it’s not like either one really is right or wrong, but we’re just very different.  I had a lot of judgment on him over the years, about his expression of anger, because I took it very personally. What would happen is, there would be times where he’d get overwhelmed, and then the overwhelm would come out with an expression of anger. I really believe that he needed to change in order for me to be happier. It was a very arrogant position. I was it was very blind to my arrogance. I just thought it was so crazy to say now and it’s like it was I was right.  I didn’t see my own judgment criticism as a problem. Really, you’re the one with a gigantic change. It wasn’t even it’s not like he had tons of anger. There were times especially when there was a low mood or extra stress, it might not be great. So anyway, when I came back from one of the intensives with the Pranskys and had a really profound, dropping into a deeper space of well being within myself, really, probably the most profound of my life up to that that point where I just knew, without a question of a doubt that I was okay. I just felt the expansion of that.  So I come home, and I’d been gone for a week. Can’t remember exactly how old the kids were at that point. But 10 or 12, maybe 14. Anyway, in that age, so he’s got the kids for a week by himself. I come home, all blissed out. He’s not a happy camper. And it’s not like he was intentionally mad, I don’t even know, I can’t remember what the situation was. But my mood was up here, his mood was not fabulous. And when couples get together, when moods are like that, there can be a clash that happens.  He was angry about something, maybe completely legitimate, I can’t even remember what it was. But he expressed his anger. And for the first time, I think, ever, in our relationship, he acted in that way. And it didn’t hurt. I didn’t even realize that the hurt was coming from inside of me until that point, really, because it just really felt true that he behaves this way and I hurt, therefore the hurt is coming from that behavior must be.  I have this experience where it’s like nothing fazed me. I still felt love for him, I felt compassion for him. And so whatever he said, I’m still looking through the eyes of compassion, I’m still in a really beautiful feeling within myself. And so I don’t respond in the way that I would normally respond, which might be to return with anger, or to cry or get out. I don’t respond in that way. And then he says something else, which is we talk about it now. He’s like, it was definitely way across the line. Again, we don’t remember what it was. But it was something that was probably meant to really bait me. And I still didn’t respond. Because again, it wasn’t like I was doing anything, I genuinely was not feeling hurt.  I wasn’t responding from hurt. I was responding with compassion and empathy. And then he looked at me and it wasn’t computing to him. And then he said, Are you not going to respond, or you’re not going to say anything? I could see his suffering.  Again, it’s not the words, because that could be seen as kind of an arrogant, condescending expression. And that wasn’t coming from that place. I genuinely could see, oh, it’s not personal. I didn’t say all this, but looking back I see, I wasn’t taking it personally, I could really see that he wasn’t himself in that moment. It was a temporary outburst of frustration that what he was happening was nothing to do with me, it wasn’t my fault. And the storm would pass. I knew it would it was not who he is.  I didn’t need to get worked up about it. But when I said that, I can see your suffering. He said, You know, for him, maybe the first time in our relationship, when he’s in that state of suffering, he felt compassion for me. I don’t think I’d ever been compassionate with him. And he was angry. Because I would always take it personally. And so I wasn’t able to feel compassion, because I was taking it personally. And so when I said that, and again, it’s not the words, it was where I was really coming from inside of myself, he felt that compassion.  He said that it was like a mirror was being held up to him. I wasn’t intending to do that, but his own conscience kicked it. So normally, what would happen is I would react to his reaction, he would react to my reaction, and then it would go wherever I go. But in this situation, I wasn’t impacted in a negative way. I’m feeling compassionate towards him, he starts to feel his own conscience and realize what a jerk he’s been. He started to reel it back in himself. Like, whoa, whoa, wait a second here.  That was a real defining moment in our relationship where we could never go back from that. I could never make him responsible for how I felt after that experience. It doesn’t mean that I don’t take things personally here and there. Still, occasionally I will. But I know that I’m doing it. I know that maybe I can’t help doing it, but it’s not really what’s going on. And so that that really shifted our relationship where there was room for both of our humanity, and I hadn’t had room for Angus’s humanity.  I hadn’t had an open heart for when he was suffering in that way. Again, it wasn’t intentional, but my own conditioning would just come in, you could call it a trauma, I just would come in so quickly. And then I would react from that rather than being present. That has grown and deepened over time.  I would say that it’s a similar response with the kids, although I was always much more able to be compassionate with the kids. And he could see that. So that was the other thing that would annoy him is, I was capable. For him, what I will say for a couple of things regarding the kids is, when my, especially my elder daughter, who’s more fiery, when she hit her teen years, and things would spark one of the other things that happened during this time is it with the kids, I would tend to mask. I would put on what I thought the good mother would do, and not be as transparent as honest in certain ways.  And then after [discovering] the Principles and getting deeply impacted, one day, my daughter is not happy with me. I don’t remember the content, but there was a lot coming at me. And again, I’m not advocating for this, I’m not saying this is the right thing, this is part of my growth. But I, I lashed out, and it was painful, because I felt shame. And that’s not how I want to be as a mom.  But I realized that the other way of being frozen, and not really being honest, was not healthy, either. And we were able to repair it afterwards. And it was then a learning journey of how do we be truthful with each other? And how do we show up human to human with each other. And that was not a one time thing. But it helped her realize I am human. And I do have my limits.  But also, where I erred because I didn’t ever want to do that again. I would walk away so that I didn’t do that again. And she said to me at one point, you leave me when I need you the most. I’m like, but I’m leaving you because I don’t want to lose my cool with you. But she says, but I need you. So I thought, Oh, I have to dig deeper, I have to dig deeper so that I don’t take her lashing out when she’s really again, losing her when her nervous system would get dysregulated. And to really again, see that it’s not personal, and how do I not take that personally so that I can show up for her when she needs me.  That was really good learning. And it was really powerful to be asked to do that. And realize the value in that. She wasn’t saying that she was behaving well at the time. But that would be the best that she could do. And knowing what I know about teenage brains, it’s like, yeah, of course, it’s hard to regulate yourself as a teenager. And the fact that she wanted me as her mom to help her even though she was very prickly and speaking at the time, so Okay, well, that’s, that’s a good thing.  So that was a big learning curve. And each child is different. Our younger daughter, it’s a whole other experience with her. She was diagnosed and I think, is the 19 as a young adult with being on the spectrum, that we didn’t really know that, and again, like, wow, how did I notice that? It’s very subtle. But then when you put all of the dots together, you realize that oh, yeah, I can see that now.  There were different sensitivities and different learning curve as to how to connect and support her with navigating that and for someone who was not into labels, I can get dogmatic about my approaches to things and for her to tell me having the diagnosis is really helpful for me, it helps me to understand myself better. And it’s really useful and like, oh, yeah, there it can be helpful. I understand that. So, and as long as it’s not pathologizing the person which she wasn’t experiencing that which was good. And so we just last week, dropped her off at college. So fingers crossed so far, so good. Alexandra: Could you say a little bit more about that.  Given that this is a paradigm of wellness and health how do you integrate a diagnosis like that with someone? Rohini: The DSM really is about helping people understand and communicate about things. So it it’s a language that allows you to speak in a shorthand, basically. So it’s descriptive. It’s not prescriptive. For her to realize that she wasn’t the only person feeling some of the things that she was feeling was actually Oh, this is my brain processes things in this way. Oh, this is why I’m overstimulated by certain situations, or like, my nervous system doesn’t like that.  Or, she would stuff a lot with the ruminating thoughts, OCD thinking, and just see oh, this fits into this experience that many other people have, and I’m not alone in it. And yes, it does mean that I might want to do things differently and make some accommodations, but it doesn’t mean anything about my value, who I am.  It’s much more of a support to help her advocate from herself. In a sense, it’s funny to say, because it’s all about neurodiversity, but normalize herself within that continuum. So and helpful, even for me to read some of the literature to understand more of her internal experience better than I did previously. Alexandra: Oh, fascinating. So the diagnosis doesn’t mean that that she’s broken in any given way. It’s a descriptor. Rohini: Yeah. And what was beautiful about the testing is the psychologist was really clear that these are gifts. There’s incredible gifts that come with this. There’s areas that are challenging, that it’s helpful to understand so that you can look to how to better take care of yourself rather than judging yourself because they’re challenging, or try to fix it in a way where it’s not helpful, but just to accept, and work around areas and then really lean into your strengths and gifts. Because there’s so many. Alexandra: I love that. That’s so great.  You touched on dealing with Angus’s anger, and how that affected you. Before the principles and after I have a similar reaction, when I’m in relationships, anger really freaks me out. And I’m very internal as well. I don’t I don’t express my anger, I tend to walk away and process it and that kind of thing.  So I’m really curious about this idea of the two separate realities that we live in. And it just struck me the other day that we’re all walking around, I almost pictured it like we all have a goldfish bowl on our head. And that’s the world we live in. It’s astounding that any of us can get along at any given time given that what we’re experiencing is all here in the goldfish bowl.  I wondered if we could explore a little bit when we’re in these separate realities, what it’s like to relate to somebody else in a healthy way. In a spousal relationship, let’s say. Rohini: There’s something emerging, we’ll see if it will make sense. But it’s like there’s a continuum. This is what’s kind of occurring to me around this is that there’s our individual, separate reality with all of the details of that. And then the more we drop into what is universal, the more that kind of falls away.  The more our separate reality becomes more rigid, the more fearful we are, the more contracted we are, the more stressed we are. And so I would say that the more we’re able to be in that softening, of the perception of separate realities, because there’s really only one reality, but we have these perceptions of different realities. So the more that we recognize that they look real, but they’re not, and that there is the capacity to drop into a deeper, more universal feeling within ourselves and live day to day in a more flexible reality than a rigid one.  And, you know, thinking about Angus and myself, I didn’t realize I was living in a rigid reality. Like I said, I didn’t realize that my anger came out in the form of arrogance and judgment. It didn’t come out as a firework. But from Angus’s perspective, it was actually worse because it was it was almost like a gas that you couldn’t smell but it was pervading. It’s not that one is better or worse than the other, both were challenging. When he got rigid, it looked a certain way, when I got rigid, it looked a certain way. And our relationship did not work. When that was happening, or it looked like it would didn’t work.  Now what we can see is  – and it doesn’t really get that way that much now –  but if it even were, we would understand that’s temporary, that’s when we’re polarized, that’s when we’re really caught up. And this is what we behave like when we’re really freaked out. But thank goodness, we don’t live really freaked out every day. So we have room for that to happen. We live much more now in a more flexible, open hearted space, where there’s less feeling of separate realities and more of a felt sense of universality, oneness. Like for me, the way that I experience it is through the feeling of an open heart, through the feeling of love, through the feeling of compassion, through the feeling of empathy. That’s what my felt experience is of what I’m pointing to in terms of that universality. And that’s how it shows up.  So if I’m feeling that way, and I’m intentional about feeling I’m not manipulative and feeling that way. But I respect feeling that way. It’s something that is important to me. And it’s something that if there was an issue that was getting in the way of that I would want to address that, whether it’s within myself, whether it’s talking things through with Angus. So it’s like my preference is to live in that state more rather than less. And then this issue is separate realities doesn’t really come up. Alexandra: Interesting. I really learned a lot from, from what you just said, amazing. Thank you so much. So we’re coming close to the end of our time here.  Where can we find out more about you and your work? Rohini: Our website probably is the best place: TheRewilders.org. And right now, we’re not spending time on social media, because we’re taking time to focus on writing a book. I’m always very hesitant to say that, but it feels supportive, but it’s like, is it ever going to appear? Is it going to happen? I don’t know. But we’re going to do our best to see what we can do on that level. So we realized that we needed to focus our energies in that direction. Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes to TheRewilders.org so people can go and find you there. And you do you have you have some training and coaching that goes on, you have a membership as well. Rohini: Well, there’s been some changes. Angus and I are really focusing on writing and our one on one practices. So for him, he does the one on one coaching and the couples intensives. And I do individual coaching packages and the couples work with him.  The membership community is no longer in place, because we decided to put that on pause for now while we’re doing the writing and the training program as well. So those are not happening at this point in time. Alexandra: I love that you’re navigating this in a way that that feels right for you at the time. That’s great. Rohini: We realized that to focus on the training, the community and our private practices like that was full and to really carve out extra time, we weren’t able to do that. So we made some choices that are feeling good. Alexandra: Good. Oh, that’s great. Well, thank you so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Rohini: Thank you. Featured image photo by Nikhita Singhal on Unsplash The post Connection With The Love We Are with Rohini Ross appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

When we explore the inside-out nature of life, especially as it relates to resolving an overeating habit, it can take some courage to be looking in this direction for answers. In this episode, we explore three instances where that courage may be required. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes What I mean by looking for ‘different’ answers Three instances where courage may be required in this exploration Personal examples of courage Transcript of episode Hello explorers, and welcome to Q&A episode 37 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor.  Today I wanted to talk about something that’s not so much a question, but it is an observation about the courage it takes to look in a different direction for answers. And in our case, of course, it’s specifically about an unwanted habit.  I’ve been mulling this over for a few days, and thought it would be a good thing to explore, It might help us to be a little bit more gentle with ourselves as we’re going on this exploration. So that’s definitely the intention.  So, why do I say courage?  I’m going to be the nerd that talks about the root or the origin of the word courage, and it has to do with heart actually. So the word cor I think, is the Latin spelling of heart. And cour I think is the French word for heart.  Courage really has to do with, it seems to me, pursuing a heartfelt desire or following our hearts.  And, for me, that’s definitely what this exploration of the Inside-Out understanding has been, especially as it relates to overcoming an over eating habit. So that’s why I chose that word courage.  And then when I talk about looking in a different direction, what do I mean by different? This is why it takes some courage. And that’s because I feel like our culture is not oriented in a way that supports this kind of exploration. Through no one’s fault, that’s the way that we live our lives, and the way our lives appear, is as though they work from the outside in, as though our experiences have an effect on, like chip away at our well-being or our resilience and that kind of thing. And that we have to be in order to be resilient, or well, we have to do that in spite of what’s going on.  When, instead, we look at things from an inside out perspective, we’re always coming from the foundational understanding that we are whole and well and resilient.  Not in spite of life, but innately that those qualities are always there. With no exceptions, every single person has this foundation, this core, the center of themselves, the essence of themselves, which is always well and whole. That spark of light, we could say in each person never goes away, no matter what has gone on in their lives.  But because in a mainstream way, we don’t look at life that way, when we are exploring this understanding and beginning to see how life works from the inside out it can be. So I guess there were three ways that I saw that it can require courage.  The first way is that that approach really flies in the face of how most people believe that life works.  I’ll give you a quick example. I’ve talked before on this show about the condo that I live in being for sale. And I had a neighbor who when this first came up and I told her the news and she kind of almost had a little panic and started to ask me, “Well, what are you going to do and what’s going to happen? And are you going to look for somewhere else to live?” This conversation happened more than once, it happened two or three times and I kept saying no, I’m just going to let things unfold. I trust that if there’s some action for me to take that that will occur to me, I really trust my inner compass to let me know if there’s something I need to do.  Until I feel a nudge, a guidance, a little idea popped into my head about that, I’m not going to do anything. In the present moment, there’s nothing to be done. Because nothing has happened yet. Yes, the condo is on the open market. But there’s nothing else that’s going on.  I could see that this answer perplexed her a little bit. And, I tried not to go all woowoo on her and bang her over the head with what I felt was the right direction for me, or the right choice at that moment. But I could see that what I said confused her a little bit. And each time we spoke about it, that confusion was still there.  At the time I realized that made me a little bit uncomfortable, I felt a little bit exposed for sharing the approach that I was taking. I guess that’s what I mean when I say things fly in the face and that’s a very simple example.  I felt a tiny bit of pushback from her not in anything she said, but just in the confusion that I saw in her face. And, of course, when we take on more serious examples, if we had something that had higher stakes, for, let’s say, we were in partnership with somebody, and that person wanted to take action in that specific situation. And I wasn’t feeling like we needed to do that, the stakes would be a little higher. And, we might have to, I don’t know, stand by what felt right at the time, a little more than I did in the example of talking to my neighbor.  But yeah, I thought that that’s one way that we need to show a little bit of courage in exploring life this way.  And then if it came to explaining to somebody else about the approach that we were taking about an unwanted habit, the things we were doing, like not adding more thinking to the mix, allowing our moods and feelings to flow through us without attaching to them, trying to look upstream at the nature of thought rather than downstream, and controlling our behavior or trying to change our behavior that way. That too, could feel a little bit like we’re flying in the face of the general knowledge and consensus about how one would go about changing and overeating habit or losing weight.  Other than with you guys, and with my work and with the podcast, I haven’t had to do too much of that. People just out in the general public haven’t really asked me, it just doesn’t come up. And it’s something that I’m interested to see how I would approach having that conversation with somebody who is completely unaware of the three principles. And again, I wouldn’t bash them over the head with it. But beginning at a very kind of gentle and beginning at a place that’s very simple, I think, and not filled with a lot of three principles lingo, but just maybe describing my experience in a very simple way. That seems like that would be the best approach in that moment.  The second way that it feels like we might need to display some courage when it comes to exploring this inside-out understanding has to do with patience.  This has to do with the way that insight works, and how insight doesn’t happen on demand.  There can be times and I’m going through one right now where we can be looking for insight about something. And insight shows up on its own time. It shows up when it’s ready, it seems to me. And, I’ve maybe talked before about how there might be conditions that we can create that might encourage insight. And I’m not even sure that that’s true.  I’ve had lots of insights when I’ve when my mind has been relatively quiet. But I’ve had lots of insights when it’s been relatively stirred up as well.  So perhaps, looking in this direction is the thing that enables insight that’s not 100% true, either. Because people have insights when they know nothing about the principles and in facts, I think that’s how change always occurs. People may not label it that way. But I genuinely believe that it is always insight that enables us to change.  When we’re wanting to change and looking to make a change in our lives, to how we’re eating, they can require some patience to wait for insight to allow insight to come through, because it doesn’t come through on demand. So that’s the second reason why I think we sometimes have to show courage in this exploration.  And then the third thing that I’ll talk about today is that we show courage when we really accept what’s going on in the moment.  And I mean that in really big ways, and really tiny, small ways as well. So it takes courage to accept our feelings in the moment to accept our thinking when it’s super stirred up and we’re having a real thought storm, accepting that and seeing it for what it is and not fighting it, or trying to change it by adding a whole bunch more thinking on top of what’s already there, allowing whatever’s there to happen to just be the way it is whether that’s something we’re feeling something we’re thinking, something that’s going on with somebody else.  There’s a lot of patience that goes on there too. But it’s courageous to just accept who we are, what’s happening in the moment and to accept and embrace other people for the same reasons for who they are. And see the light in them, the resilience in them, the resourcefulness, the brilliance in their design as well, even when there’s stuff going on, that we don’t necessarily like in within ourselves or within somebody else.  So those are the three reasons why I think it can take courage to look in this slightly different direction when it comes to resolving an unwanted habit or resolving anything in our lives just exploring the Inside Out nature of life. I’m sure there are others, but those were the ones that occurred to me this morning as I was preparing to record the podcast.  So that’s it for me today. I hope all is well with you and I will see you again next week. Featured image photo by Claudel Rheault on Unsplash The post Q&A 37 – The courage to look for different answers appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Sometimes the most powerful lessons we learn come from the darkest places. It was when Rachel Singleton’s physical health took a dark turn that she was able to see the love and kindness in her body’s design and how it had been trying to speak to her for years. For over 20 years, Rachel Singleton has worked in the field of wellbeing. She trained initially in homeopathy, energy healing and flower essences – profound but gentle therapies that work with the innate wellbeing of the body and our ‘vital force’ to help restore flow in the body-being. Now, Rachel is a Three Principles coach and teacher. It is her joy to work with individuals and groups, to explore and deepen into the innate wisdom that sits in the centre of our being, and live a life more luminous from here.  You can find Rachel Singleton at RachelSingleton.com and on Instagram @rachel.a.singleton. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes Reaching rock bottom with physical health Exploring what health actually is Giving ourselves permission to look in a beautiful direction Seeing the wisdom in physical symptoms The body as the feedback system when we step out of love On the courage it takes to listen to our wise selves How the messages from our bodies and lives get louder if we don’t listen How unreliable, insecure thinking never comes with a good feeling Resources Mentioned in this Episode Rachel’s podcast The Beautiful Feeling Transcript of Interview with Rachel Singleton Alexandra: Rachel Singleton, welcome to Unbroken. Rachel: Hi, thank you. It’s lovely to be here. Alexandra: It’s lovely to have you here and to meet you, Rachel. So why don’t we start at the beginning?  Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you found the Three Principles. Rachel: I’m a transformative wellbeing coach, and an artist. And I’ve been working in the field of wellbeing for about 25 years now.  My journey has taken a few wiggles. I started out as a homeopath. Well, I started as an English teacher got very unwell very quickly, found homeopathy amazing, started to learn about it, and then dived into this whole world of natural ways of helping and supporting the body. And in the midst of that, I stumbled across something called flower remedies.  Most people know the flower Rescue Remedy as one of those flower remedies. And I was really amazed that flowers could be medicine, but it made sense. And so I spent the next 20 years learning about exploring, listening to the flowers, and had some amazing and mystical experiences that seemed to guide my path. I was learning with people from all over the world and branching out into plant spirit medicine and shamanism and all sorts of interesting things. And at the same time, seeing clients, so I kind of feel like I was listening to the people who were coming to me, and being trained by them in terms of what they needed. And listening to plants and nature and hearing what was on offer in our natural world. There was also another journey going on, which was that for 20 years, I was very unwell for that whole 20 years, I was unwell and was in chronic pain. And that was every day. I was desperately searching, really desperately searching. I know a little of your journey from listening to your podcast. And many of the people you’ve interviewed so many of us have had such a similar experience of like trying everything.  Nevertheless 20 years in to that journey, I ended up in hospital, my body was rejecting any food that was coming in. I’d had severe IBS for years, but then that started to get kind of I guess, eating to the tissues more there was just so much inflammation going on, that it started to become much more serious. And suddenly my body couldn’t hold food in, I was losing weight rapidly. And I had this surreal kind of I think it was about 36 hours in hospital, I couldn’t take him on that and discharge myself afterwards. I was put in a ward where most of the people there were probably 50 or 60 years older than me. And I was nothing that they were giving me to eat, could I eat and none of the tests they were doing were relevant to what was going on. They were testing my lungs when it was my digestive tract.  The whole place well was very shouty and noisy and clinical and cold. That’s nothing against hospitals, hospitals are amazing places. But that at that time, in my experience in my world at that time, it wasn’t where I needed to be. And it felt the antithesis of healing.  And I’d had this question for most of my life up until that point, what is healthy?  What is happening and what did that look like? And it just really struck me they don’t look like this. And so I started to just quietly reflect on or what does it look like? What does it feel like? And I thought that too what the plants had been whispering to me for 20 years and what my own connection to spirit had been whispering to me for 20 years and it just felt softer and kinder and more gentle.  I saw that I’d been looking outside, endlessly, endlessly looking outside thinking that someone else had the answer or some therapy had the answer. Beautiful, gorgeous therapies, wise, intelligent systems of medicine, but for some reason they weren’t breaking through, and they weren’t touching what was going on in me.  I think I paused in that hospital bed in that night there to think well, why I just really wondered why. And, and I started to get an inkling that I needed to listen to something inside me that had been trying to speak to me for a very, very long time. I kind of came out of there and began to turn in that direction.  Within three weeks, my symptoms when and that, to go from that pain to was just, how is this possible? How did I not know that all I needed to do was to listen to my own wisdom, listen to my own inner innate kindness. And it was not long after that, that I I’d heard of the Three Principles. I knew a little bit about it. But it had not registered with me and not kind of landed with me at that point.  Not long after that, I circled back to it again, or it circled back to me. However, these things work. And, and it was like, everything lined up, everything suddenly made sense. It’s the way that it shows us how things work, they just cleared up. So much of the confusion, so much of the gray areas, I could see how I had had so many pieces of the puzzle. But it was like something about the Three Principles understanding brought those pieces together in a really comprehensive way.  And that’s about it’s probably about five years ago, now that I properly started to take notice of the Three Principles, but that that journey of healing has been going on for maybe eight years now. And each year I get to experience more well-being. It’s like this being symptom free happened quite quickly. But then I’d had a body that had been mal-absorbing food for 20 years, that was very weak, that needed building and strengthening and regrow.  Just two weeks ago, I was in Scotland, and cycled 300 kilometers in that week. I’ve never done anything like that from cycled every day, I was just getting up in the morning feeling ready to go again and thinking who is this woman? And how did this happen? I think the Three Principles has been this deep confirmation that what was happening in my body was actually the natural way of things. It wasn’t a fluke, it wasn’t just a lucky thing that I broke through my symptoms, there was actually something very real and understandable going on here. And I wasn’t going to lose that health, that health can continue to grow and flourish.  But it’s not just been about health. It’s been about feeling that I have permission to look in a beautiful direction. I have permission to notice and reach into and lean into beautiful feelings and wise thoughts and good sense and that I’ve actually been dismissing so much of that before that I’ve been so focused on what’s wrong and I wasn’t looking at what’s right. And the three P’s keeps inviting me to look at what’s right. And that journey. Oh goodness, that journey is just so delicious. Alexandra: To follow up on that, do you see any wisdom in the physical symptoms that you were experiencing? Rachel: Yeah. At the time, I was banging my head against the wall trying to understand that I got that they meant something. I remember reading these books about if you have this symptom, it means that and if you have this going on, it means this and that wasn’t really helpful for me.  I think now, largely, I would say that the symptom is my body through the means that it can communicate, communicating with me and showing that there’s some distress or some unease going on in the system. And what that means to me, every single time I haven’t found an exception is that I have stepped out of love.  The distress of that, of moving away from what is our essential nature, the body is the feedback system. It’s this beautiful, loyal feedback system, which immediately, lets us know that, hey, this doesn’t feel good. This isn’t how you want to be, this isn’t how you want to see things. This isn’t real, this isn’t true to you, in your essence.  We’re just letting you know that by creating a bit of friction here, by showing up in whatever way the body has available, whether it’s through symptoms, whether it’s through emotion, whether it’s through the mental state that we go into, there’s all these kinds of ways that the body flags up, there’s a distress going on, there’s a discord going on here.  And really I mean, we, I think we all in the Three Ps, community quote Bill Pettit when he talks about love letters from the body, but they are love letters. And I think to me, more recently, I’ve come to see that they’re not, maybe so much just love letters from the body, but from spirit. That it’s a really deep invitation to come back into accord with our spiritual essence, which is love. Alexandra: And you had, you said, lots of really good experiences when you were exploring nature and the flower remedies and that kind of thing.  What place do flower remedies play in your life now? Rachel: The reason I stepped away from working with any remedy based modality was because my understanding of them was that the flowers were telling me this, I guess, as I was in communication with them and making essences from them over the years, I always felt like there was a conversation.  So when I talk about the plant speaking to me, I’m not do.ally it’s just my sense from them was that when we’re not seeing our own capacity to flower and blossom, they act as a reminder. So where we see ourselves as weak or faulty or not capable in some way, we can take an essence to strengthen that part of us we’re not seeing to kind of whisper to it, give it a bouquet of flowers, bring it back into our awareness.  That feels like not a corrective medicine but an enhancement, an amplifying of our essence. And what I found time and time again, which is just human nature, and was just because of, again, how therapy is often set up people were coming saying, I’ve got this going on and feeling this can you give me a remedy to take it away? I felt like it was very hard to not treat it that way, because of the whole way that it’s all set up.  I started to experience how much that was bringing my energy down, trying to work in a way that didn’t feel authentic anymore when I was seeing something else. And so I stopped. And by that time, I was already starting to coach in the Three Principles.  At this point, I don’t offer essences and I don’t use them for treatment. But what I do is, I am also an artist, a painter, I put essences in my water when I’m painting and I paint the essences into the picture so that those pictures can go on people’s walls, and that lovely energy is just sitting there in their room, invoking their beauty. That’s my dream.  They feel like a really precious part of my life and my development, and they feel like they’ve been my teachers, and they’re not going anywhere in terms of my life. They’re staying there. But in terms of what they’re doing in the world, it feels like through me, and through the way that I’m teaching, they’re kind of coming out in a different way. Alexandra: Oh, that’s fascinating about the way that you paint. Now. That’s really, really cool. I love hearing that.  Shifting gears slightly; on your website, I was reviewing the other day, and I noticed that you often mention this innate knowing and you use the word sovereignty, about our relationship with ourselves.  Could you talk about sovereignty a little bit? And why that’s important to you. Rachel: Yes. Just recapping on that journey that I was just talking about, I guess the thing that started to lead me back into the experience of wellbeing was realizing that I’d been outsourcing the authority for that in the world, and really, deeply had been denying that I had anything to do with that, or could in any way, know anything about myself that might be helpful or useful.  It astonishes me now how utterly I disregarded my own knowing and began to see that as I was moving out of it, particularly in that three week period, where my symptoms were falling away, I was starting to really clearly see when just the gentleness of our own innate well-being is telling us. Are you a bit tired now? Or are you a bit cold now this doesn’t feel comfortable.  I was watching myself just carry on regardless. And then it would be like something out of a cartoon and screeched to a halt, turn around and look back and go, Wow, I just totally ignored that. I am in the process of completely walking away from, ignoring, pushing away my well-being. And why would I? Why would I do that? And what happens if I don’t? What happens if I’m not dismissing me? What happens if that and I didn’t put it in these terms at that time, but now I see that as my well of being.  One of the things that I find myself working with in people over and over is that dismissal of the self’s wisdom, or they’re just not quite recognizing what it is, or maybe thinking it’s something else, maybe thinking it’s like this bolt of lightning that comes through in a god voice. And that’s what it’s going to be like some amazing insight.  What I was finding was it’s really intimate, really, every day. It’s in our own voice, and it’s in our own head. And that that is extraordinary. It’s extraordinary how ordinary that is. And we have got that automatically happening in us all the time. Should we choose the rest.  So, sovereignty, I guess, to me means listening to that. And letting that be our guide and seeing what happens. And let’s be clear, that’s not just listening to every voice that’s going on inside because that would be mayhem. We all try and do that. And we’ve been there before work. What are we listening for? We’re listening for that which is kind, which is loving, which is good sense, which is inclusive of us in our world, which puts us first which we may not be comfortable with. But we have to get used to it.  Alexandra: You said there that the wisdom puts us first that was, I felt a shift in myself when you said that. And the example I can think of is every once in a while, in the middle of a weekday, I’ll be a little bit tired. And it feels like wisdom often says to me, have a nap. Just lie down for 45 minutes.  Right away, my brain doesn’t like that idea at all. And often it goes on for five or 10 minutes, I’ll have this little battle. And then finally, I’ll realize that that wisdom is so important, and I will eventually lie down.  It’s ridiculous how often that battle has to go on. And how I have to convince myself to listen to that wise part of me that is putting me first. Rachel: That’s the perfect example. Really correlates for me with so many of those kind of everyday examples that I think we all experience. And I know I was really consistently trained by the zeitgeist that we’re in that you don’t put yourself first, you just don’t. It’s like religion tells us not to, school that does not to our parents tell us not to our culture tells us not to. And to start to peer under the hood of that and say is that true? That takes courage.  I often see with clients, they’ll come at a time when they’re at this make or break point, which is like, am I going to start to really choose myself am I going to really start to understand that I cannot be a loving force in this world if I’m not in the field of that love myself. If I myself am not actually listening to that, then I have no foundation.  To start to turn oneself over to love is such a radical, radical choice. I know that when I started to do that, and started to listen to the voice that wasn’t criticizing me, that wasn’t judging me, that wasn’t tearing me to shreds, highly effectively, and with plenty of evidence to back it up when I started to just begin to see through that and begin to consider the possibility that that was not real and was not true. And that there was something else that were seeking to be heard in me. I felt so irresponsible. I felt so like I was just luxuriating in this. You know lala land I was.  I just thought oh my god, this is nice. I mustn’t tell anyone about this. I was ashamed to listen to love. And that’s something I hear in people over and over. And that saddens me. That’s a rare old state for us all to be. And when we really look at it, it doesn’t make sense. It does not make sense. How did we get here? And this is why I constantly feel it takes courage to turn back towards and give oneself back to Alexandra: So true. How did we get here? That’s such a such a good question.  If someone that’s listening doesn’t feel like they have a sense of that voice of love within them, what could you share that might help point them in that direction? Rachel: I think it’s the little examples. I think your example of the tussle inside when do I take a nap or not? That’s a great one. For me, the big breakthrough was when I was standing at my desk, I’d been working for a couple of hours, and a little voice inside me said you’re cold, you’re hungry, it’s time to go and take a break. And I just carried on through, and then went, oh, oh, what am I just doing here?  And then I suddenly saw, I do that 100 times a day. I’m constantly doing that. How did I ever think I could be well, if I’m constantly ignoring that gentle, good advice that I know is real and true in myself that says, look after yourself? So I would say just listen for that.  Listen for your good sense, coming in and looking out for you. And watch what you do with it, without judgment, just watch what you do with it. And notice, if you tend to brush that under the carpet and think I can’t, I’m too busy. There’s other things that are more important. And all the reasons that we put in the way and bit by bit, softly, a little bit here, a little bit there, you can just take a gamble and start listening and start heating it. You don’t have to turn your whole world over all at once just start to become aware of the possibility that there is something in you that’s got your back. Alexandra: Yes, being aware that there’s even that possibility feels so important and like such a big first step.  Rachel: It’s 100%. There’s nobody for whom that isn’t there. There’s nobody who is broken. Who doesn’t have that. So you may have forgotten how to listen for it, and recognize it. But that will quickly come back the moment you start looking in that direction, because it’s waiting to be seen. Alexandra: I loved what you said about courage. That it takes a little bit of courage to, to listen to that. We’re so used to, it seems to me, having our intellectual minds override that impulse.  Going back to my nap example it’s a tiny bit of courage, but it that willingness to step outside what my intellectual mind is trying to instruct me to do. “This is for the best.” I’m glad you pointed that out. Yes, it’s so compelling and right.  Rachel: Yes, it sounds like that’s the responsible thing to listen to, that noise. It’s backed up by everybody else, and what they would say. We really should be doing that. And yet, something inside you is saying, “Go and take a nap.” That is deeply responsive to inclusive of and caring of you.  That is an amazing thing to start to explore. Because the human intellect can only take us so far. But that knowing, that kind regenerative giving wisdom, oh my god, where can that take us? Alexandra: Exactly. On this subject, you have a program available via your website called The Journey to Love and I’m sure it’s connected to everything we’ve touched on so far.  Could you maybe tell us a little bit more about that? Rachel: This is a coaching package. I offer more normal coaching packages where people can just come in with whatever’s going on. But what I found over time is that there are certain people who are coming in and because invariably every conversation seems to end up being about kindness and love and the mystical power of that and the practical power of that. There are those who were wanting to naturally wanting to explore that further.  Some of my longer term clients knew that I’d been, I call it kind of apprenticing myself to love just really wanting to listen, and let love be in the driving seat. And I was wanting to share that at a deeper level. So there’s this marrying of need in people who’ve been working with me for a while, and my own wish to really work with others in that realm of Okay, so what if we say that it’s all love?  What if it’s all love, that there is nothing coming our way that isn’t there, that there’s nothing happening within our being that isn’t there. And that we come from that premise. And we look through those eyes, and we see what happens. And we go on that journey together. So it’s not a program, it’s just a six months of one to one coaching. And the program, if there is one is that we are aligning to love and we’re listening for love. And we’re deepening that person’s ability to recognize it and see the love at play in themselves and in their life. And to wrest back into the arms of that.  So it feels as it would very close to my heart, and a very, very joyful, but powerful thing to go on. And, and it’s like it isn’t. It isn’t all just roses and, and beauty, it’s like there is something uncompromising about it as well. But if we’re saying that it’s all love, then we’re saying that we can’t be a victim, we’re saying that we can’t be blaming other people or blaming ourselves or being critical. We’re saying that actually that those things don’t make sense.  We’re really exploring the possibility of moving out to very old habits of ways of seeing and be and letting go of the security / insecurity of the familiar. Alexandra: I love that you pointed that out that it’s not all roses and butterflies. That there’s this slightly, almost, I want to say confrontational, but I don’t know if that’s quite the right word. But it is it’s such a different way to look at the world and look at ourselves.  Speaking from my own personal experience, exploring this understanding, once we open that door it can raise a lot of questions and requires some reflection and exploration.  Rachel: Definitely. And some celebrating and witnessing and sharing and all of that as well just that wonderment of what happens when we if there’s, I don’t know if this stages to, from, say, health to the well of being, like ill health to the well-being, then if we’re saying that the symptoms arise as expressions of a disconnect between us and love. And then, if we don’t hear them, they intensify and solidify and become more vocal in our being and more dramatic in their expression, and more able to claim our attention.  And then, if there’s a transition that comes where we start to go, Okay, I really need to pay attention here, there’s something not right and, and maybe we have a little bit of a detail where we just try and get rid of all that and stop the expression of that and suppress that. But then it pops up in some other ways. So we still have to listen, ultimately.  And then we start to see, okay, these are signs of distress, and how can I care for myself and how can I listen and how can I understand when I’m in distress, and really begin to be more see that as a call to the gentle and loving in that. I kind of feel like over the last few years, I was really learning to recognize in myself and others, okay, this is just distress, this is you being vulnerable at this moment. So let’s do as you would with a small child or an animal that’s in distress, we come in, we make the place safe.  We tend when we listen, we help, how about we do that with ourselves? I think that what I started to see just recently is that then there’s another development on from that, that if I’m training myself to recognize distress, I don’t want to train myself too well in that so that I only listen to from distress. I want to start to transition into listening to well, what if it never had to come through as a symptom? What if we complete the circle? What if I heard it before it was underneath? What if I heard it, as it came to was just clear knowing?  Maybe that comes through in lovely ways, like dreams and visions and insights, and knowing and nudges and synchronicities? And all of that juicy stuff? And is it possible to hang out there? More and more? And what would that be like? So that when my knowing, comes up with something, and I hear that I’m not then immediately going into questioning and fretting and worrying and debating that. I’m just saying, okay, got it. And I go, I take the knowing and I move, I take the knowing and I move, and I am responsive.  I think that’s what the journey of love is ultimately about is that how do we get really tuned into the loving message that’s coming through when it’s in a loving form, and lighter form a more palatable form than symptoms and distress? Alexandra: Such a good question. I want to ask what people see, as they begin to explore that, that’s probably a hard thing for you to pinpoint, it’s probably different for everyone. Rachel: I think people begin to see themselves in our eyes, they start to really get into relationship with their own beautiful essence. And I think what I see is them putting themselves down less, judging things in the wild less, being less conflicted, being less in conflict with others, being lighter, being freer, having a sense of permission.  With one of my clients, we joke about insane permissiveness in the sense of the more you’re listening to love, the more the permission to just be who on what you are. The freedom to trust what you are. And let yourself be let yourself express not have to be constantly guarding worrying about controlling, limiting that out of fear, but just to trust and be and watch yourself, unfold the situation unfold. Let it let it come let it do its thing. So a sense of lightness and playfulness and exploration. Joy. Alexandra: I really got a sense there as you were speaking about returning to who we really are, that’s what it felt like as you were speaking, that there’s a truth there about our true nature. And it’s kind of slipping away now. The more I talk about it, but yeah, that it’s always there.  It’s not something we have to create or make up. It’s coming through as if you’re washing a dirty window.  Rachel: Sydney Banks talked about that so much. The Missing Link is all about that he was constantly saying it’s not in me, it’s not in my words, it’s in you or within. Feel for the beauty, the beautiful feeling and just it’ll guide you just this lovely. Directing us back to something that’s right here in the very core of who we are and what we Alexandra: Yes, that just gets covered up innocently. I was going to touch on your podcast. So let’s just quickly mention that before we wrap up. You have a podcast called The Beautiful Feeling. And you had 12 guests.  Is there anything you can point to that you learned while hosting that? Rachel: In a nutshell, and the truth that’s like really anchored in my essence or another person’s essence, always come through with a beautiful feeling with a good feeling. And that unreliable, habitual, insecure thinking, never does, never, ever does. At the very simplest level, that is hugely practical information.  For me in my daily life that guides me all the time. So if I hear my voice in my head coming up with all manner of crazy stuff, that’s making me feel uneasy, distressed, anxious, then at some point, and it’s getting quicker and quicker now, I just suddenly realize, Oh, this isn’t, this isn’t a good feeling. So I don’t need to indulge that thinking, I’m going to let that clear out. Wait and see what else comes through. Because this isn’t what truth feels like. And this isn’t what Love feels like. I’m not really that interested and in any more in not listening to. So I think over those 12 conversations with those 12 amazing people that really clarified for me. Alexandra: I love that. That’s beautiful. Thank you.  As we wrap up, is there anything you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on today? Rachel: I think we’ve about covered it. Alexandra: I think so too. Tell us where we can find out more about you and your work. Rachel: So probably the best place is my website. And that’s RachelSingleton.com. That’s my coaching website. So that gives people the chance to kind of hear some of the podcast episodes or look at articles, my blogs and just kind of go in there and find out more. There’s a lot that I’ve written and shared on there about some of the things that we’ve touched on today.  I’m also on Instagram as Rachel dot A dot Singleton. And then if you’re interested in the art side of things, then it’s Rachel singleton.com. And again, I’m on Instagram as Rachel Singleton. So any of those and please feel free to reach out, get in touch if there’s any questions from today. Alexandra: Great, lovely. Thank you so much for being here with me, Rachel. I’ve really enjoyed our conversation. Rachel:Thank you. It’s been lovely. Take care. Featured image photo by Ronald Cuyan on Unsplash The post The Practical Power of Love with Rachel Singleton appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Today’s episode is an excerpt from my book, The Secret Language of Cravings. We suffer with an overeating habit when we misunderstand the message our cravings are trying to give us. In this book, author Alexandra Amor explores how to understand what cravings and the drive to overeat are telling us and therefore how to resolve an overeating habit. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes How our thinking can be awfully bossy When we’re unaware that thinking is not the boss of us it can run the show On the changeable nature of thought Resources Mentioned in this Episode Book: The Secret Language of Cravings Transcript of this episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A episode 36 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor I’m here today with something slightly different. I’ve been working on recording the audiobook today for the book that I have coming out. So I wanted to give you a little bit more information about that. And what you’re going to hear today is also an excerpt from the book.  For those of you watching on YouTube, you can probably see there behind me, I’ve got my little recording booth set up. It’s a Friday afternoon in October 2023 and my shoulders are sore from standing and then bending over my computer and recording the audiobook chapters. But it’s been fun.  I always love recording audiobooks, because it adds, I don’t know, there’s something about me narrating my own books in my own voice, that I feel like I can bring the words alive, they come to life in the same way that I hear them when I’m writing the book. I hope that for audiobook listeners that comes through as well. The words aren’t just black and white on the page, you can hear the emotion in my voice or the excitement or the emphasis or whatever it is. So I’m enjoying that. And that will continue for the next few days.  So I’m going to attach an excerpt from the book, it’s going to be chapter nine. And oh, and I guess I should tell you the title of the book.  The book is called The Secret Language of Cravings. And the subtitle is really long. Hang on, let me go and get that for you. Uncover the intelligence behind food cravings and end your battle with overeating forever.  That title, The Secret Language of Cravings, came to me as I was working on this a few months ago, thinking about what it is that we really struggle with when it comes to any kind of overeating habit or any kind of unwanted habit? And what do we misunderstand?  What is the key issue that we misunderstand about what’s going on when we have an unwanted habit? And what I narrowed it down to for me at that moment, was that we experience these feelings, these cravings – I call it the drive to overeat – and we think that that’s a problem, as I talk about so often on this podcast. We try to manage that feeling and control it and get rid of it and make it go away. When really what it’s trying to do is help us. It’s trying to give us information about the state of our thinking. About the way that our thinking can get really stirred up and insecure. So again, as I talk about so often on this podcast, that feeling of craving isn’t a problem. It’s not something that’s broken about us. It’s something that’s trying to deliver a message.  So that’s where the title came from. I’ll give you an address if you want to go and see the cover of the book, which I’m really excited about and happy about. So if you go to AlexandraAmor.com/secretlanguage, all one word, you’ll be able to see the cover there and a description of the book as well. If that interests you.  It will be available in ebook, paperback, hardback, large print and audiobook coming up pretty quickly. I don’t have an exact date yet, but probably early November 2023. And so yeah, as I say, now I’m working on the audiobook. And then there’s a bunch of other stuff that has to happen before it gets published. But I’m thinking before the middle of November 2023, the book will be released.  I’ll also put an image of the cover in the show notes for this episode. So you can always find those at unbrokenpodcast.com and then click on Q&A number 36 and you’ll be able to see the cover there as well.  So that’s it for me. For those of you watching on YouTube, normally you would continue to see my face as I talked about the podcast, but today that’s not going to be the case. I’m just going to put a still image there and attach the recording of chapter number nine.  I hope you are doing well and that you enjoy this excerpt from my upcoming book, The Secret Language of Cravings.  Have a great week and I’ll talk to you next Monday. Bye. Excerpt from The Secret Language of Cravings: Chapter 9 When you were a child, did you use the expression ‘You’re not the boss of me’? I did. It was mostly aimed at other kids in the playground or schoolyard, letting them know I wanted to think and act independently. There is a force, a weather system, within you that can seem as though it’s the boss of you, but it isn’t. That force is your thinking. Your thoughts. We tend to move through life obeying our thinking, without even realizing we are doing so. We all have an incessantly chattering, opinionated, sometimes pushy voice within us that tries to run the show—and often succeeds. The voice in our head that sounds like us can be helpful: “I think I’ll turn left at this corner,” or “Don’t bang your face on that open cupboard door.” It can be neutral: “I think I’ll make some tea,” or “My flowers need to be watered.” And it can also be critical and judgmental, either about you or others: “Gee, that guy has weird hair,” or “Why did I turn left at that corner? That was dumb.” As adults, we live with this running dialogue nearly all the time. It can vary in volume and intensity, but it’s nearly always there, like the slightly annoying but also oddly comforting narrator of a nature documentary. Let’s call that narrator Nancy. Very often, the comments Narrator Nancy makes are about the circumstances in our lives and whether she approves of them or not. She says things along the lines of, “I should have got that promotion. If I had, my life would be so much better.” Or, “The toe fungus I had when I was eight years old is the reason I can’t wear running shoes.” Narrator Nancy is very persuasive. We tend to believe what she says, even when she contradicts herself ten minutes later. What we innocently fail to see is that Nancy is just a part of the documentary that she’s narrating. She’s not the whole story. She’s not the boss, although we sometimes forget this. Additionally, Nancy can be entirely out of sync with what’s going on in front of our faces. You (or I) could be at a lovely event on a beautiful day consisting of the perfect circumstances. (Picture whatever that is for you: a garden, an outdoor musical event, a Civil War battle re-enactment.) The temperature is perfect. You’re either surrounded by friends or alone (whichever your preference is). Yet Nancy can be narrating an entirely different experience than this. “That potato salad that Aunt Jenny served yesterday was atrocious. Why doesn’t she ever listen to me about salting the potatoes while they’re cooking? It’s because my sister Mary has always been her favorite. Jenny has never liked me. It started the moment she saw me with that terrible haircut I got when I was six. That hairdresser was clueless, and Mum wasn’t paying attention. Man, I hated those bangs so much. It took me a year to grow them out. Which reminds me, I need to make an appointment for a pedicure soon. Where’s my phone?” Sure, Nancy is often narrating about what’s going on in front of us, but just as often she’s not. She can go on wild tangents about things that happened years ago. She can also jump to conclusions that aren’t based on anything logical, have fierce imaginary arguments with people (the root causes of which are entirely made up), change her point of view on a subject in the blink of an eye, and create fears that turn out to be entirely unfounded. Oh, that Nancy! What a loon. She has moments when she acts like a barrel full of monkeys doing tequila shots. And yet, we tend to believe she’s the boss of us, don’t we? We take her at her word about almost anything. Somehow, years ago, without realizing what we were doing, we gave her the keys to the corner office, made her the chairperson of the board, and gave her the unilateral power to make all decisions on our behalf. No wonder she’s drunk with power. However, there is good news. There’s a reason Nancy can seem so crazed and yet is also so powerful at times: She is not the boss sitting at the head of the table; she is more like the weather outside your window. Weather that is at times calm, at times violent, and everything in between. A powerful force that is constantly shifting and changing. Take a look outside right now and make a note of what’s happening. For me, it is an extremely pleasant September day as I write this. The sun is shining and it’s about 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 degrees Fahrenheit) outside. There’s a slight breeze causing the leaves on the trees across the street from me to wave gently. Like I said, extremely pleasant. Fast forward eight hours—or even one hour—from now, though, and we could be in the midst of one of the wild storms that blows in off the Pacific Ocean, bringing with it horizontal rain and wind that buffets and batters everything in its path. Narrator Nancy, the voice in your head, a.k.a. your thinking, is just like the weather. She is utterly changeable. In fact, change is the main part of her nature. “So what?” you might be thinking. “My moods and thoughts change. Big whoop. What does that have to do with cravings and overeating?” The answer lies in two surprising, yet woefully neglected, aspects of the human condition: 1. Where the weather moves. 2. Where your experience of that weather comes from. So, let’s talk about these things and why they can help you to peacefully resolve an unwanted overeating habit. The Secret Language of Cravings: Uncover the Intelligence Behind Cravings And End Your Battle With Overeating Forever Learn more about The Secret Language of Cravings here. The post Q&A 36 – The Secret Language of Cravings book excerpt appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

In 2015 Jacqueline Hollows founded Beyond Recovery which brings the understanding of innate health and well-being to incarcerated people. Now, she’s launching a book about her experiences, called Wing of an Angel, so that this understanding can be shared in prisons all over the UK.   A social and digital entrepreneur, author, mentor and professional speaker, Jacqueline Hollows has lived experience of trauma and addiction. She founded Beyond Recovery in 2015 and has impacted hundreds of lives. Jacqueline also trains and mentors facilitators and those who wish to have more peace and success in their lives. You can find Jacqueline Hollows at beyond-recovery.co.uk and at JBHollows.co.uk 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 first-hand the impact the 3 Principles had on drug users On starting to work in prisons Starting one of the first research projects about innate health On the changes observed in prisoners when they begin to see their innate well-being The experience of being seen and heard for the first time How we can do seemingly impossible things, if we take it one step at a time Resources Mentioned in this Episode Find Jacqueline Hollows’ Kickstarter campaign here Jack Pransky’s book Somebody Should Have Told Us Jules Swales, writing and creativity coach Dicken Bettinger’s website Transcript of Interview with Jacqueline Hollows Alexandra: Jacqueline Hollows, welcome to Unbroken. Jacqueline: Thank you. So nice to be here. Alexandra: Nice to see you. Great to have you here.  Give us a little bit about your background and how you came across the three principles. Jacqueline: Okay, so I was in IT customer services for many, many years. And a number of things collided as they do. I realized that I didn’t like it. And, but I did like people. So I retrained, I did live coaching, counseling NLP, EFT, anything with a three-letter acronym.  I came across a paradigm called the three principles or also known as innate health. And I became very interested in that. I actually didn’t like it personally, actually. I hope it’s okay to say this, but I actually thought it was a cult. I was very, very suspicious of it.  But I’d met someone just accidentally, who was in recovery from a heroin addiction for the for the whole of his life. And he’d got three years recovery under his belt when I met him. And he’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. I just hung out with him, I volunteered on his social enterprise. And I met a lot of other people from that background. And I thought they were amazing.  I started to talk to them about this Inside Out nature of life and stuff. And it was having an impact. And it was in the kitchen, I was making a cup of coffee in the kitchen with them. And he used to do home detoxes where a nurse comes in and does the meds. And he would look after people while they’re going through the detox. I would talk to them and then they would get jobs, and they would make up new relationships.  And they decided to write books and, and I’d be thinking, wow, this really works on them. And then, over time, I thought that was so amazing, and so inspiring and determined, I really felt like I came home to my people. And over time, I eventually thought, well, if they’re all amazing, I must be amazing, too.  So that started me really then going, I’ll give this another look and looking in this direction. Actually, that led me to meeting someone who worked in a prison and a substance misuse team, and then delivering our programs in prison and evidence in them and so on. So that’s where I what I’ve been doing for the last eight years. Alexandra: Wow.  What was it about working in prisons that attracted you? Jacqueline: You know what, it didn’t? It didn’t, it didn’t it was just that. On one day, I’d been an associate coach for somebody who was running a program in a hotel, a very plush hotel, sort of where I imagined myself to be once I built my coaching practice up and I was like the assistant and I helped her and went around the tables, and I really had a good time. And then the following day, I got this meeting with this guy, this substance misuse manager in the prison, and I was just doing anything at that point I’ll go along and I’ll speak to anybody.  I was in the gatehouse as they call it, of this prison. I felt absolutely petrified my stomach was turning over. It was grubby, and pre COVID. Things have improved a little since COVID. But pre COVID It was stinking grubby, and wasn’t a very nice even at the reception gate. And I thought, I want to work here. I had no idea why.  Then the guy came through and he collected us. And we went through all these gates. And it was scary. And I mean, it’s about a five minute walk from the gatehouse to where we were meeting. And I remember feeling like, what about if I meet a prisoner? What about if someone asked me something, am I allowed to speak, I’m allowed to talk to the guy had had no idea.  I know we’re going to talk about my book later. But one of the reasons why I’ve written my book is because I want other people to know people in prison, they’re just people, or who have happened to done something naughty, sometimes something really bad, and they’re in prison, but they’re still people. All I knew about prison was what I’d seen on the TV, and whatever I’d seen in the media, and so it felt like a very scary place.  But for whatever reason, I just felt like that’s where I was meant to do. And so sometimes people say, oh, I want to work in prison, but I never actually wanted to work, but it just happened.  And that’s another thing is like, things occur to you. Whether you like it or not, and you should just follow those threads. I had this meeting with this guy didn’t go very well. He’s married to a forensic psychologist. So he kept saying, You ever heard of people change? Yeah. And I kept saying, I don’t know, I just, I don’t really know how it works. And he was the lead of the NHS, which is our national health system. So she was there, like these two really important people with all this knowledge and background, and I was I don’t know, I just talked to them.  But something about what I said, I eventually said, it’s not going very well, can we have a break? And we went and made a drink. And then I just started chatting to him about what I’d been seeing with these amazing people in the community. And that I really didn’t understand the gubbins. And he said, “You know what, I think we should give him a go.”  Actually, he said, “This sounds very similar to something I’ve got on my wall.” He had read, Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson. Got a sign on his wall, stop thinking start living. And I said, yeah, yeah, absolutely is the same thing. And he said, Oh, he said, Sydney Banks must have got it from him. It was the other way around.  Anyway, so yeah, he got really interested. And he said, Do you know what, we’ll give it a go? And so put together a proposal. And then he said, How much would it be? Well, I hadn’t even thought about price. So I said, Oh, I don’t know, 50 quid. And he snapped my hand up, and he said, Write me a proposal. And afterwards, when I left, I realized I lived 40 Odd miles away. So it’s an 80 miles round trip. I was so keen, and then I had to write a proposal. I wrote a proposal that went to the committee. And then they said, actually, the mental health team like it, the psychologists not so much can you put together a proper business case, including what evidence there is, etc. We have to look after our population, and could you do it for 12 months instead of 12 weeks? So I ended up writing a business case for a 12 month project didn’t know what a business case was either. And I ended up writing a business case for a 12 month project. I I was friends or I’m friends with Jack Pransky who wrote Somebody Should Have Told Us and I told him about it and he said Jacqueline, do you want to put yourself on the map? And I said, I don’t know what you mean. But yeah, that sounds great. And he said, make it a research project. So I was one of the first people to do research in the innate health arena. Alexandra: Amazing. Tell us about the work now. It’s quite a few years later, you started in 2015? Jacqueline: That’s right. Yeah. I started in 2015. And did several years at that prison, worked in the prison next door, which was for high risk offenders, sex offenders, and so on. And then we went to Nottingham, and the violence reduction unit got hold of us. And so we started working with people with knife crime, and so on. And we were spreading.  Then we were meant to do a presentation to the southwest, and roll out the program to 11 Southwest prisons by now. I had nearly three research papers under my belt. So people were starting to take notice. That was in February 2020. I was meant to have this new presentation, and COVID happened, and so that it literally wiped the business. The prisons closed, people were locked up for 23 hours a day, they’re still in some places locked up for 20 hours a day. It’s not good. And, and they just stopped everybody going in.  I went in for a little while to see the vulnerable clients. But we couldn’t run groups anymore. And when we did, eventually, were able to get in, you could only have three people and you get a lot of drop out in groups in prison. And so well, we were allowed five and out of the five, three would turn up. So it wasn’t really good. And so we pivoted the business.  During COVID, we wrote a curriculum with some partners. And we deliver that curriculum to professionals. We also created a distance learning program. I still write for the Inside Times, which is the prison newspaper here. And then they write and say, Can we have a pack and we have a wonderful team of buddies, who write to the guys and girls and talk to them about a night how often insights and so on in a very light touch.  Actually, we might need some more buddies. So if any of the listeners feel like doing this, then they could should just get in touch. Yeah, so we’re always sort of on the lookout for people who want to communicate, and they get a pack, they write back. And it’s quite amazing what you see in those packs that people having realizations and so on.  We work with an addiction, charity, and deal with gambling related problems and harms. I started a mentoring business. So obviously, I trained a lot of people during my time working in prison, because I always felt like I wanted other people to come on that journey with me. And then everyone kept saying, why don’t you run a mentoring practice? Ah, I don’t really do that. The amount of times I’ve said, I don’t really do that. And then I end up doing it.  I run a mentoring business. So I work with clients, I’m particularly attracted to clients who want to change the world who, who want to do social good, and working hard to reach areas. So I do supervision and I do some training. And I write, and yeah, I just have fun.  Alexandra: Very quickly, before we jump into talking about the book, which is the focus of our conversation today;  I want to ask what sort of changes you see in the prisoners that you work with when you introduce the principles to them? Jacqueline: One of the visitors that I had sitting group with us when we were working in prison, said to him it seemed like he was in a room of philosophers. He forgot that he was in prison. And when you talk to people about the deeper nature of life, and whether that’s the three principles or other spiritual practices or other philosophical practices, when you look at people, and you see their health, and not their crime or their behavior, something magical happens.  There have been transformations, i.e., people who have left prison and completely changed their lives, and so on. And they’re amazing stories, but I just wanted to touch on these, these just very gentle, beautiful things that happen to people that maybe didn’t transform their lives, but they just changed enough to come out and get a job, go straight come out and be with their families.  We talked to people who are from all ends of the spectrum, and people who have done white collar crime and just got caught. Or, people at the other end of the spectrum who have been in a violence, trauma filled life for forever, and everybody get something. And just thinking about that guy, for instance, the trauma, one, John will call him, he was in in that prison, the whole of his time, he had a lot of trauma, and he was attacked one time, and he’d wake up every night and imagine this person with the knife attacking him. He had scars and all sorts.  He used to get himself into trouble in prison, so that he could be put into the segregation unit. And then he could kick off, and he wouldn’t be able to have all the officers calm, and then he would fight all the officers. And they would fight him and that’s how he felt alive when he was in a fracas like that. And that would help him to feel like awake and alive and the rest of time, he just didn’t want to be alive. And you’re in a group with him, and 15 other hairy, scary man, as I like to say. And he’s there saying, I never imagined I could find love in prison.  The men would talk about love. And they would talk and they would cry. And they would talk about, and you’re not allowed to do that in prison. That’s not a good, it’s not a good look, right. But they were talking about their feelings, and they would talk about that they would have been looking at the sunset. It was just amazing to see regardless to what went on afterwards, what they did afterwards, with their lives.  It’s so important for the listeners to know that that’s in everyone. I’ve sat across from really hardcore sex offenders, pedophiles and seeing that light in there and been amazed myself had judgments myself and been amazed at seeing that light come on, and having a person say, I’m never going to get out of prison, but I can make my life worthwhile in prison by helping other people.  And and then of course, there are lovely people who have come out and there’s many of them, Derrick Mason and Omar and Chris and all of those people that I’ve spent spoken at conferences and so and, and I love them to bits. But I feel like sometimes the normal people get forgotten that. The ones that actually, at the heart of the day, they showed their spiritual essence and it was beautiful. Alexandra: Oh, that’s so lovely. Thank you for sharing that. I think that’s such an important point that success can look so different. There’s so many ways that that can look.  Jacqueline: I remember walking around the prison and meeting someone on his forklift and most of the guys used to want to do it again. Going to come back again this and they wanted to do the program’s a lot. And parts of why they were so transformed and so enjoying it is because they felt the unconditional love. And they felt you listening to them?  That’s what they would say they would say, I’ve never been looked at the way that you guys the whole team, not just me, everybody was involved, the way that we all looked at them they’ve never been seen. And just that enough is enough to give people hope, and a glimpse of their own true essence.  I was walking through the grounds and there was someone on a forklift, and I invited him back to group. I said, we’re running another group and he said, You know what, I’m good. I’m good. I’m getting my forklift license. I realize it’s me. I realize I’ve been doing this to myself my whole life. So I don’t need anything else. So there were those people they got it. Got it. And they went on with their lives. And, and they’re just as important. Alexandra: That’s so great. I’m so pleased to hear that.  Okay. So let’s do a little pivot. Same subject, though. You’ve just launched a Kickstarter about to support the release of your new book, which is called Wing of an Angel.  Tell us about writing the book and what motivated you. Jacqueline: It is a book of my heart. I never considered myself a writer, there’s another thing on my list of things I thought I’d never do. So I never considered myself a writer. In fact, I thought I was rubbish at writing. I never planned to write a book. Never even wanted to; it wasn’t on my bucket list.  But in prison, the technology’s non-existant basically. And so when I came home, I used to write my notes. I ended up with boxes and boxes of notes, because first of all, I was doing a research project. So I wanted to capture all the essence of what the people have been saying. And second of all, it just relived it for me, so I would write notes. I would draw the pictures of what we put on the board and just for my own pleasure, really, and potentially, to use in the research.  I’ve been very lucky, pre COVID I’ve spoken at many conferences around the world, on this subject, and, and people kept saying, when are you going to write your book? I was like, never. But I have a friend who’s an author, and she said, You really should write your book.  Eventually, there is a great serendipity. I don’t know if you know about the Jewish faith, but in the Jewish faith, there’s a word called Hashkafa. And it means divine intervention. So we tell our hashkafa story, it’s about divine intervention. So this author friend kept saying you should write a book, write a book. Ah, yeah. And yeah, maybe one day and she came to visit us in December 18. And said I am going on a retreat, a writer’s retreat on a barge close by to you. Would you like to come?  It sounded like the worst thing in the world. I was like, There’s no way I am going to be on a barge. We have loads of strangers writing and then you have to read writing that. But of course, what kept happening was writing retreats kept occurring, coming up on Facebook, or in a newsletter. I was saying what on earth is going on? A friend wrote to me and said, This person called Jules Swales, she’s starting writing classes. And I think you’d like her. I don’t know. I’m not I’m not a writer.  So then someone else said to me, oh, have you heard of Jules Swales? And then, I discovered that Jules Swales had done Dicken Bettinger’s Heal the World program. So she was in the 3 principles. And she also had been at a conference where I had spoken and I’d read a letter from one of the men in prison, who is Angel from the book. And she had been at that conference.  So I thought, well, that’s interesting, because she’ll get me. And then also turned out that her ex-partner had been incarcerated. So she knew about being so I was like, Okay universe, I hear you. I’m good. I’m on it. I jumped on her writing class, and we’ve become good friends. And she came along to my home. She was on a visit over from the States, she lives in states, and she came back, and now she lives here. But anyway, she came, and I said, people kept telling me to write a book, and I have these boxes of notes like, is that a book?  She was very kind, and said, turn that into a book. She didn’t tell me what it would be like. This was in January, December 2020. And that’s how long it’s taken me to write the book. Because it was just a box of notes. So then there’s a whole load of stuff to be done, create the story, the arc of the story, learn how to write properly, etc.  Wing of an Angel was written over four years, sometimes not at all, sometimes just, I can’t do it anymore. It’s going in the drawer. It’s had many revisions, it’s had many titles. And eventually, in 2020, the end of 2020. So that’s a couple of years of having a little go at it. I thought it was for a day. And then one of the protagonists said I don’t want to be in it. And I just thought, Okay, well, I have to publish it when I’m dead. Because I can’t take him out. So it went back in the drawer for a few months.  And then I was in a supermarket. And Angel, who is the protagonist in the book, spoke to me and said, You have to tell my story. And it was so loud. I just put my shopping down and went home and wrote a story from when he was five years old. It gives me shivers. I wrote Angel’s story, and then it just kept coming. And then angel would just tell me, oh, I need a chapter there. I need a chapter there. And so on. So I rewrote the thing. I took out everybody. I mentioned other people, but very vaguely. And that was the last revision.  But that just took me a little while. And I do sometimes say when I write on my blog that I’m the 10 Minute author, because I wrote for 10 minutes every day sometimes, and sometimes half an hour. And I mean right. Sometimes you just haven’t got the time to write but you got to keep the practice. Alexandra: Exactly. Can you tell us a little bit about the story?  Jacqueline: Yes. So one of the things that Jules Swales persuaded me when she read maybe the second revision, she said, it’s great. It’s a story of the people that you’ve worked with, and working in the prison system. So one of the readers has said, I never knew that went on in prison. So there’s lots of juicy stuff. And being part of a grassroots organization, and the challenges and the ups and downs and the highs and lows.  She said, but the problem is, you’re not in it. And you need to write yourself into this story. So then I wrote my own story, which is a trauma filled background, I’ve lots of trauma I had complex, PTSD, etc. I didn’t really want to do that. But I realized it was important. So it was important for me to tell my story. Because one of the messages of this book is that anybody can do anything. It doesn’t matter what we’ve been through, and I’ve been through it. And it doesn’t matter, I’m a normal person, I’ve been through a lot of stuff.  I’ve had a lot of struggles, I’m a bit crazy, but I can still do anything. And so can anybody else. And those fears that hold us back, they’re not real. They’re just thought, and they’re just things that we keep. We keep their barriers, but they’re not real barriers. I couldn’t spell. I had lots of difficulties with writing, and you just find ways around it all.  I know men who’ve taught themselves to read in prison with a dictionary so like, we can all do anything. And, and so, so I revised it, I put myself into it. So the story is, it follows the arc of the hero’s journey. So, there’s the story of me and how I got to come to this place, this portal of working in prison, the story of Beyond Recovery, which is the social enterprise that I started, and then the story of the boys and girls that I met and, and the transformations that I saw, and then what happened during COVID. And then what’s happening now.  The hero’s journey never ends. Because as we as we finish one arc we get invited into another, another initiation, don’t we? So it is my story, and Angel’s story, but I feel like there’s an angel in everybody. It’s everybody’s story. And I invite the reader to come with me and be part of the movement that we can do anything. Alexandra: Yes, I love that. And that ties back into what you said earlier about working with the prisoners that in every single one of us there is that spiritual light, that innate health that never ever, ever goes away. That’s tied so beautifully together.  So you’re launching this on Kickstarter. Tell us about that, if people aren’t familiar. When a project is launched on Kickstarter, there are different rewards. That’s what they call them.  You can support the project at different levels. So tell us about those levels for the listeners.  Jacqueline: A lot of people don’t know about Kickstarter, which I didn’t realize, but one of the reasons I’m doing it this way is to try and cover publishing costs, because they’re rather big. The book is going to be launched anyway. But it would be it would be good if we could cover the publishing costs.  I also have a vision of getting the book into every prison library in the UK, because I think the boys would really enjoy it and the girls and so I love to do that and see if that’s possible.  So when you launch a book on Kickstarter, you have different levels of rewards. The paperback for instance, which is available on Kickstarter now isn’t available to the public. So the only way you can get the book right now is through the Kickstarter project. The paperback is 20 pounds so you pay the 20 pounds and if you pay a little bit more to support the Creator, which is me. And the rewards are there’s and you can just pledge just for fun because you think I’m amazing and so that that’d be great.  There’s also an ebook and then the next level is a paperback then the next level is a hardback now, the hardback isn’t going to be for sale anywhere else in the future. The Kickstarter people; that’s what the hardback is for.  I’m going to a place down the road they’re going to print the hardback. This is a special one. And I’m going to number every one and sign every one. They get a signed version of the hardback. I’m really excited about the hardback. And so there’s that one.  And then there’s a couple of other things like there’s a consultancy with me, where you get hardback, and the consultancy. And I’ll do a consultancy, on anything; on starting working in prison and starting a social enterprise writing whatever running it running a YouTube channel, whatever it is that they want to talk about. The three principles, anything they like. And then there’s a lush reward, which is, this is a this is a retreat, this cottage, here is our retreat. We can’t see that when you’re on podcast, but Alexandra: On YouTube, yeah, your background. Jacqueline: Yeah. We’re in the middle of the countryside. And it’s a one floor retreat that is self-contained with a kitchen and a bedroom and everything. And that’s one of the Kickstarter rewards. So people could have two nights here. And if they tied that in with a consultancy, then we would have a walk and talk and so on. So that’s quite an exciting one.  We haven’t quite got there, but I’ll be releasing the stretch goals. And the stretch goals too, when you get to a certain level is to get the book in every prison library. And I would like to create the audio version, as well. So one stretch goal is the to create the audio version. But again there’s a lot of finances to go with that.  It’s been very, a lot of learning. Yeah, I could probably consult on how to do a Kickstarter now as well. Alexandra: I was just going to say, goodness, me. Wow. Okay. And so if people want to support the project, I love this idea of getting the book into every prison library in the country. That is so great. And I mean, imagine the difference that would make because of course, you and even Beyond Recovery, your enterprise, your reach can only go so far. It’s limited by the number of hours in the day and the number of people who are working with you, but with a book, it could go everywhere. Yeah, that’s so great.  So folks can go to kickstarter.com. Jacqueline: Yes, yes. And I guess they look for my name. JB hollows, Alexandra: Or the name of the book: Wing of an Angel. If you search for that, it comes up.  Jacqueline: Yeah. Brilliant. And then if they didn’t want to do that, and they just want to buy the book, and they want to wait, then the book will be released later this year. And it will be on Amazon, on the different countries. And so that’s also a possibility. But I love you to support me on Kickstarter. Alexandra: And if people aren’t aware, it is really expensive to publish a book. I mean, you’ve got editing costs, and then the production costs and marketing and all that kind of stuff. Cover design. Jacqueline: Developmental review. It’s a lot.  Alexandra: And then when you bring the audiobook into it, that’s really expensive because of course, narrators are so talented, and they do such good work, but it costs to hire a narrator and that kind of stuff.  For the listeners again, it’s kickstarter.com and then they can just search for Wing of an Angel and they will they will be able to find the project. It’s live right now as this goes out. So this is going out October 18, 2023. And for anyone listening and they can go and have a look. Jacqueline, it’s been so lovely talking to you. As we come towards the end of our time together anything that we haven’t touched on yet that you’d like to share? It could be about your work or about the book. Jacqueline: I just want to leave people with a message really, if people want to find out about my work, they can just google me and all my all my stuff comes up. But I’d love to leave people with a message which is it always seems like Well, that’s okay for you. It always seems like people do those things, that’s okay for them people, right? People do this, people do that. And it’s different for me, because I’ve got all these things and reasons why.  One of those problems is manifesting, I couldn’t go and volunteer in a homeless shelter, or I couldn’t go in to my local refugee hostel, and help the women there. But who am I?  I want the listeners to know, we all think that. It, we all think and a lady said to me recently, she wanted to go and have a drumming circle for women in the refugee hostel down the road. They’re kept in terrible conditions. And she just wanted to go and be nice and be helpful. And she actually, and she’s an amazing person. And she actually thought, well who am I to do that.  Obviously, I encouraged her to do that. And she is going to do that. But she thought to herself, and the reason why she came to me is, if Mama J had thought that, then she wouldn’t have gone into prison. And it’s true. I did think it but I did it anyway.  I just want everyone to know that. You don’t have to do something. But if you if it occurs to you, and if you keep getting your heart tugged, then please go do it. Because everybody else is thinking someone else will do it. And they need your life. They need your life. And that’s what you’re being called to do. And it doesn’t have to take over your life, like it took over my life. It can be voluntary, it can be a few hours it can be it can be just being nice to someone who’s on the streets, right? And if you feel called to do it, and you get that to just go do it, and you figure out the rest. Alexandra: Lovely. Oh, I love that. Thank you for saying that. That’s beautiful. So we’ve mentioned the Kickstarter address. And then Beyond Recovery is the social enterprise that you have. What’s the what’s the web address? There’s beyondrecovery.co.uk. Jacqueline: Yes. And the mentoring website is JBHollows.co.uk. Like I say, if you Google my name, I’m usually like on the first lesson things I’m famous. Alexandra: Oh, good. All right. Well, thank you again, so much, Jacqueline. It’s been a real pleasure. Jacqueline: Thank you. Alexandra: Take care. Bye bye.  Featured image photo by Patrick on Unsplash The post Hope and Resilience in Prison with Jacqueline Hollows appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Intrusive thoughts can seem like a problem. Just by their nature, they can seem scary and as though they are a sign of something that is wrong with us. But what if this isn’t true? And what if dealing with them is simply a matter of understanding their nature? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes What intrusive thoughts can look like The feelings that can come with intrusive thoughts How our thoughts are NOT a reflection of our mental health How we don’t need to do anything about any kind of thought Resources Mentioned in this Episode Stay informed about receiving an advanced copy of my next book by signing up for my newsletter at AlexandraAmor.com/insight Transcript of episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A episode 35 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. Today our question is how do I deal with intrusive thoughts about food?  I’ll get to answering that question in just a moment. But first, a little public service announcement. If you’re listening to this around the time it goes out, which will be the middle of October, I can’t remember the date exactly, always on a Monday. If you’re listening to that around that time, and you would like to receive an advanced copy before anybody else gets it of the new book that I’ve got coming out about food and resolving our relationship with an unwanted overeating habit, make sure that you’re subscribed to my newsletter.  You can do that at AlexandraAmor.com/insight. You’ll receive a notice from me when I’m going to send out requests and offers for anyone who would like an advanced copy of the book.  If you’re already subscribed, then there’s nothing you need to do, you will receive that notice as well. But if you’re not subscribed, yet, I thought I’d mention it. And so you can sign up and you’ll receive as a bonus, perhaps, the little video course that I’ve put together called how to hack your thinking and resolve unwanted habits. That’s five videos that you receive. And it’s all self-paced, you can watch it at your own speed. And hopefully that will help you well, as you’re exploring this understanding as it relates to resolving and overeating habit. So there we go. That’s the public service announcement.  Now, let’s get back to the question. So how should I deal with intrusive thoughts about food? This popped into my head the other day, because I used to have this recurring intrusive thought, and it went like this. I’ll give you this personal example.  Very often if I was dishing out some food, and especially if it was something that I really liked anything to do with potatoes, particularly, or anything to do with sugar, the thought would come to me, “There’s never enough.” It would be a thought and a feeling at the same time. A very visceral sense, and almost like a little bit of panic. So whatever was there in front of me on my plate, or that I was dishing out, there was just this feeling that there was never enough that there could never be enough.  And I think that feeling had two edges. There were two edges to that sword.  One was about the amount of food, that it just it felt like it wasn’t going to satisfy me or make me feel better, whatever it was.  And then the other edge to that feeling that I felt was a bit of panic about the feeling itself. Like if I’m feeling that, then there must be something really wrong with me.  It frightened me that I could feel such a powerful feeling about food. When it was the one thing that I was trying to resolve. It was the problem that I was trying to fix. And that no matter what I did, I would have that intrusive thought and it was unbidden. It was a thought I didn’t want to be having and it came about so often. I had it, I would say nearly every day and, and there were those two elements, like I said, to the fear around it.  What can we do when we have a thought like that? How can we make it go away, or resolve it or manage it, so that it doesn’t bother us anymore?  And here, this really points to the paradoxical nature of this understanding, in that what we need to do about that thought is absolutely nothing. So even though it felt to me like I urgently needed to get rid of that thought, like if I didn’t have that thought, then my relationship with food would be so much better. And I would be fixed, and my overeating habit would go away.  There was pressure within me to get rid of that thought, and to do something about it.  And to notice, if it had gone away, that would be something that I could feel like I had achieved, that I had made a step forward toward resolving that unwanted habit.  What I see now about thoughts like this is, well, I guess it’s a few different things. But paradoxically, there’s nothing we need to do about thoughts like that, and even about the yucky feelings that they come with. So that feeling that I had of fear about not having enough food, and then fear about the thought itself. And the, yeah, just the visceral feelings that I had within me about that.  First of all, none of that means anything about you, or about your unwanted habit or about your mental health at all.  Having a thought like that is not a problem. And it can be a little bit difficult to get our heads around something like that, because it feels like a problem in the moment. It feels that that’s something we shouldn’t be thinking about. And if we didn’t, that things would be better.  But when we examine and explore the nature of thought itself, what we see is that it’s fluid. And it’s moving all the time. And there are a number of metaphors that we use to look at this; thought is like the weather in the sky, always changing, always moving. And we don’t need to manage it at all, the same way we don’t manage the weather.  Or we could look at it like thought is a river. always moving, always changing, sometimes turbulent, sometimes quiet. And when we see that, that it is in thought and thinking is very nature to just keep moving, keep flowing through us. When we look in that direction of understanding what thought is that’s the thing that, surprisingly, resolves any intrusive thoughts that we’re having about anything but also about food.  Because when we see the nature of what is really happening within us, when we see that insightfully when we try to understand it with our logical minds, which is fine, that’s the first step. And then we’ll often see things more deeply more insightfully as we continue to explore. Then when the thought occurs to us, it doesn’t have any real impact. And somehow, and I can’t describe why, but that is what dissolves those kinds of thoughts. Is looking upstream, as I’ve talked about in the past, understanding the nature of thought as a whole is the thing that will resolve what we would label as intrusive thoughts.  When they do happen to come up again, in the future maybe months or years after they’ve seemed to have resolved themselves, that’s okay too. When we understand the nature of thought and if these thoughts come back to us, we have so much less attachment to them and worry about them and concern about why they’re showing up. We understand that, like a stick floating down the river, they’re just there momentarily, and they will move on. And there’s nothing that we need to do about it.  And as I said a little bit earlier, the fact that this thought is showing up is not a reflection of our mental health or anything that’s broken about us. It’s simply a reflection of the way that thought works. So just like if there’s a thunderstorm that moves through, you wouldn’t consider that to be a reflection of your brokenness or your fault in any way. It’s just a thunderstorm, it’s moving through, it’s happening in this moment, and then it will move on, and the next bit of weather will show up.  So the short answer to the question, “What can we do about intrusive thoughts?” is absolutely nothing.  The longer answer is that exploring the nature of how thought moves, is what helps us to understand what’s happening when we have that kind of an intrusive thought.  And that insight and understanding is what helps those kinds of thoughts to resolve. I’ve used a specific example from my life, but of course, that’s not the only thought that’s going to occur to us about food. And you may have your own specific ones, perhaps you do, and they could have to do with the cravings that you experience or anything like that.  In your life, and in your experience of food, those thoughts are going to be different, but their nature is exactly the same.  That’s the thing that’s common. That’s identical, really, between you and me, is the nature of the energy of thought that is moving through us.  I hope that’s been helpful for you, and that you were doing well. And I will leave you there for now and talk to you again next week. Take care. Bye. Featured image photo by Raychel Sanner on Unsplash The post Q&A 35 – What should I do with intrusive thoughts about food? appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Coach, speaker, and author Del Adey-Jones grew up in Wales in very difficult and unusual circumstances. We discuss how that upbringing affected her adult life, including the realization that she was married to a narcissist, and how she recovered from this. Del Adey-Jones is a coach, guide, instructor, and podcaster. She is dedicated to helping people attract strong, healthy, respectful, and loving relationships, both in their personal and professional lives – starting with the one you have with yourself! Her happy ending is the result of years of searching, introspection, honesty, and courage. She’s had years of conventional therapy and has studied everything from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Kabbalah to Kundalini Yoga. She also has a masters in spiritual psychology. You can find Del Adey-Jones at DelAdeyJones.com and on Instagram @deladeyjones. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.  Show Notes The impact of being raised without acknowledgement from one parent How knowing what we don’t want can help us find what we do want How knowing ourselves can help create healthy boundaries Learning to listen and trust our wisdom again Healing the wound of taking on too much responsibility How our perception of reality is always based on our thinking Resources Mentioned in this Episode Del’s podcast, Relationship Mastery Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson Transcript of Interview with Del Adey-Jones Alexandra: Del Adey-Jones, welcome to Unbroken. Del: Thank you so much. It’s lovely to be here. Alexandra: Lovely to see you.  Tell us a little bit about yourself your background and how you found the three principles. Del: I grew up in Wales, I now live in California. I had a very unusual childhood, in many ways, what we would classically call dysfunctional, which I basically carried into my adulthood, all the way up until I think I was about almost 50, if I’m honest.  I was the product of a relationship between my mother and my father. He was a married man who lived down the road with his wife and two children. And I was his daughter, but I never met him, even though their relationship lasted for about eight years, I never met my father, and I would pass him in the street, and then that really his avoiding my leave, looking my direction, never mind exchanging words with me was really soul destroying. For me, I have to say, I really took that as I wasn’t good enough to be loved. I thought if I was just pretty enough, clever enough, skinny enough anything a five year old normally thinks about when they want their parents love.  But I just blamed myself, I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with me that he didn’t. I had this illusion that all fathers must love their daughters or children anyway, and that it was my fault that he didn’t love me. And also growing up in my household was very hard as well. My mother, having to make money for us, converted a rambling old mansion into a residential home for people with mental disabilities and disorders. So that was also challenging. So I grew up with a lot of issues, let’s put it that way.  I think in an attempt to escape the shame, I had debilitating shame, we were ashamed in the community. My mother sent us to a Catholic school because even though she was an atheist, she wanted us to have a good education and between the nuns and the community, and the shaming, I just wanted to get the hell out of Wales as fast as I could.  So I spent about a year in Spain. And then I came to the US when I was about 21. And I really felt like I could have a new beginning. I could escape my shame. Unfortunately, it found a way to sneak in the suitcase with me and find me all the way here. That’s when I first discovered spirituality. And I was on a spiritual path for many, many years: self help, workshops. The first workshop I ever went to was called Healing the Shame That Binds by John Bradshaw. And that was amazing. I did a lot of the inner child work and tons of stuff.  I also did a master’s in spiritual psychology, which I loved because I really love the combination of spirituality and psychology; that is my sweet spot. But I still managed to get myself in dysfunctional relationship after a dysfunctional relationship. And it was really the last dysfunctional relationship I got out of which was my marriage. That was in 2008, that I came across the principles. And there was something in the simplicity of what Syd Banks said that just hit at a deeper level, even though it’s it was nothing new. I’d heard about it for years, as I say, Kundalini Yoga, Buddhism, Kabbalah, I mean, everything I was just studying I, I’d heard of it before I knew the essence of what he was saying, but it just was in my head and it wasn’t really dropping in. As hard as I tried, I realized you can’t fry it that it’s just it lands when it lands. And as I said, it was principles that literally knocked me on the head.  I was in a book store and this book came sliding out of the bookcase that was called Stop Thinking, Start Living by Richard Carlson. And it was at a time when I was really probably one of the lowest points of my life, actually, besides when I was a teenager. With all the abuse that went on then but it was the end of my marriage and if it wasn’t for my two beautiful sons, I was really probably at my lowest point. And I think that’s when the opening was there that crack open. And I heard something and I, I just delved into it.  That was in 2009. Ever since then just keep deepening and deepening my understanding. But as again, as I say, I don’t throw all the other stuff out either. It all has served me and I love seeing the commonality in different traditions, rather than the differences. Alexandra: In your practice, then leaping to the present day, and on your podcast, you tend to focus on relationships.  What draws you to that focus on relationships? Del: I think sometimes when people say, I don’t know what I want, I always say to them, what don’t you want? Let’s start there. And when they start there, it’s really easy as well. And then you just want the opposite. We tend to really know what we don’t want. And growing up in the environment in which I grew up, it was so painful.  I love my mother dearly. She did the best she could. I absolutely know that. But she also made some really, as a mother myself, I’m like, How could you? What were you thinking, but I realized that I’ve had the benefit of a lot of therapy and being on my spiritual path. I could see how I can do things differently.  It was knowing what I didn’t want to continue and knowing what I didn’t want to put my children through. And again, as I say even with all of this, knowing what I wanted, I still was acting out from some habitual behavior that I didn’t understand. I still was attracted to the narcissistic rejecting abandoning type man that my father had been.  My mother actually also was also a narcissist; that’s how they came together, so I knew how to please the person like that, how to keep a person like that. And I think as I always say, children want to redo, if they’ve had a bad experience, the first time round, we keep drawing in that same type of scenario, to redo it to have a different outcome. I think even though there was that little girl in me that still kept totally not in my consciousness, but in my subconsciousness I attracted men like my father to have a different outcome. I was attracted to men that were, as I say, narcissistic, and rejecting and cruel and punishing. And I wanted to win them over. I wanted them to see me and to love me this time. And fortunately, as I say, took me a long time. But I got to the point where I really realized that everything I was looking at for validation from the outside in was all within me, and I was just looking in the wrong direction. Once I saw that, I stopped doing what I was doing. Alexandra: As someone who was familiar with narcissism, as well, myself and being raised by people with that kind of personality disorder, I noticed too, that there’s a familiarity in the feeling of rejection.  Without really knowing it, I think we can repeat that pattern, simply because it’s what we know. Would you agree with that? Del: Yes, I do. There’s a there’s a familiarity to it. But I really think above and beyond that, there’s that need, as I say to right the wrong. To get what we didn’t get as a child. And to also, I think a lot of people think that only the broken wounded – women get together with narcissistic men or broken wounded men get together with narcissistic woman. It’s not just men on women, it tends to be more men, unfortunately. In this culture, where we are actually seeing more and more women displaying narcissistic behaviors used to be more men. Often too, it’s the striving to prove yourself if you’ve had a parent that that expected perfection, you to never give up. I know for myself, I wanted to prove myself. Now if you loved me, I have no time for you. It’s like, well number one, you’ve got bad taste if you love me. It was like that’s Groucho Marx saying, if anybody want me in their club, I wouldn’t want to belong to that club.  The other thing was to win over a somebody that was difficult or challenging or had tons of women. And I’m embarrassed to admit it, there was that thing in me that thought, Well, God, if I can win over somebody like that, then I’ve really proved my worth. Other than just the average Joe. I’ve won over somebody that nobody else can win over. That must mean I’m special. Alexandra: Were you conscious of that thought or that belief? Del: No. That’s why I can laugh when I look back on it. But no, absolutely not. I mean, that it was just this drive and I think many women have it. I mean, they say, Why are women attracted to the bad boy, it’s the challenge. And you only seek a challenge when you actually don’t really appreciate your worth, when you’re having to validate yourself by an outside challenge.  That’s really sad so I say it with compassion and love myself, and I laughed at because I can look back on it now and go, Oh, my God, you poor thing, but at the time now, it was just a drive. I see now what I was doing. The types of people I was attracted to, now I see them from a mile off, and I’d be like, Oh, no, no, why on earth? Would I be attracted to that? On any level? So it’s almost repulsive to me. But when I was younger, it was attractive to me. Alexandra: Oh, that’s interesting. One of the things I’m really intrigued about in the exploration of the three principles is of course, the idea that our experience is coming from the inside out. We live in the world of our thinking, not in the world of our circumstances. And there are people out there who can do us harm who can behave in a way that is not healthy.  I’d love to explore with you what I would call a dividing line, that place of being where we take responsibility for the thinking that’s going on within us and we have clear boundaries. So could you talk to us about that a little bit? Del: This is a fascinating one for me. I probably half my clients come through me through the three principles, the world of the three principles, and the other half don’t. And I actually find that the people that have an understanding of the principles are often more challenging to work with, than with the people that don’t.  The reason I say that is because they keep going. And it’s ironic, because they keep saying, they keep going into their intellect. Sydney Banks said, “Follow the feeling,” but they keep popping into their intellect and trying to intellectualize their situation and say, well, it’s just my thinking. And I’m just making more of this. I see the psychological innocence and, and it’s fine. And just to try and have somebody appreciate that. We are both spiritual and human rolled into one, we’re not separate. We are a spiritual being having a human experience. And there’s a reason we came onto this earth, to experience our humanity. And I am not into the spiritual bypass at all.  What I always say is, know yourself, really know yourself. Because I can look at my behavior now, rather than my feelings, and I can separate out from my wisdom and my feelings. What’s an old habitual pattern that I have from childhood that developed out of a need to protect myself? I can recognize that when that’s happening separate from I know myself, like I say, I understand what’s going on within me and I got all this is just some old stuff happening.  This is not the other person. This is just me, creating a story because maybe I’m fearful or I’m feeling vulnerable right now so I’m seeing this person as a threat. And I know it inside me.  But there’s times when I really do know, oh, this person, as much as I can see their psychological innocence and we’re all connected and all that stuff, their behavior in the world of form is not healthy, and it’s having a negative impact on me. And I can lovingly separate from them.  I don’t have to hate them. I don’t have to judge them. I don’t have to belittle them or beat them up, I can just remove myself and say this is not a healthy environment to be in. It’s very different. And I will say to people truly trust your wisdom, your wisdom will guide you, it’ll let you know when you, as I say, are in that habitual pattern. I can see in some of my previous relationships, where I really did blame the other person for things that were going on in my head. And I apologize to you out there that I did that too.  In the world of psychology, we call it a disorganized attachment style. So I can be a little push me pull me: I want to be close, and then I panic, and I pull away, what’s the easiest way to pull away is to find fault with the other person. But what I’m doing is actually just giving myself some breathing space. I know that about myself.  So instead of being hypercritical, and finding a reason why I need to pull back, I go this is just who I am. And every now and again, I just need a bit of distance. I can articulate that to my partner of the last 13 and a half years and in a wonderfully mature way. As opposed to you did this, and this is why I’m rejecting you right now. But if there were behaviors, thank goodness, he doesn’t he’s incredible, beautiful human being. But if there was some behaviors that were unhealthy, I would be able to say that’s not a behavior that that works in my relationship and address it. I don’t know if that answered your question or not? Alexandra: Yeah, it did. And it’s brought up a couple more follow up questions. So this is great.  One of the things you said was that you’ve learned to discern between old patterns of thinking and behavior and, and wisdom, your internal wisdom.  Could you tell us how you learned to do that? Del: Trusting, that’s the other thing I want to talk about when we grow up in a dysfunctional environment. I don’t know about you, but for me my wisdom would tell me something which I would then share with my mother. And she would say, don’t be ridiculous. That’s not true.  Why isn’t my father coming and visiting me? Well, your father loves you. Well, why isn’t he come visit me? Why didn’t he come earlier? When I’m awake? Or why didn’t he look at me when I passed him in the street. He loves you, he just can’t be with you.  I was getting mixed messages, because my wisdom was telling me, that’s not love. That’s not love. But then if an adult behaved inappropriately with me, which they did, I would say to my mother, this doesn’t feel right, this has happened. And she’d say, Don’t be silly, he doesn’t mean it that way. Let him touch you, or stroke you or whatever it was. And, again, it’s that shoving down of your wisdom, your intuition, that voice inside that says this is not okay, so you can never get disconnected from it. You end up not listening to anymore.  Because as a small child who are you’re going to believe more? I’m going to believe my wisdom over my mother, who I depend on for my life? You’re going to believe the parent. So you start listening to your wisdom. And that is one of the hardest things I find with my clients is helping them to hear their wisdom again. It never went anywhere. It’s always there. But we’ve just been ignored.  We were listening to the thoughts which were often the repeating of what I parents said is that dialogue, still, we often listening to that overall wisdom. So things as a small child: if we know something’s icky, it’s icky. Well, as an adult, if you’ve been abused as a child, and you’ve learned to squish that down. Your head will come in and say, Oh, that’s not abusive behavior. That’s fine. We are like this head making decisions for us. And we’re not connected to our body. We’re not connected to it our wisdom not connected to our feelings that are telling us this is not right.  One thing is to really start to and again, as I said, if we’re listening to the thinking, and I had the personal thinking it’s often overrides or tries to override what our intuition is telling us. And if we can recognize how in a minute that’s my mother’s voice in my head or my whoever’s voice in my head doesn’t that’s not the truth. That wasn’t the truth. I felt. What did I feel when that happened?  Learn to differentiate between that chatter, that noise in the head that’s always trying to rationalize and make sense of things and make things you know, all right. Our head wants to keep things as they are, we don’t rock the boat. So we’re, we minimize and rationalize things. Whereas our wisdom is guiding us to say this isn’t right, trust us be brave, walk away, life will be better. Alexandra: You bring up such an important point that wisdom is always there and will always be there, it’ll never leave us. That’s so important to remember.  For me, that looked like a bit of slowing down. I have experienced a lot of urgency or anxiety in the form of urgency. And so that would make me hear the chatter in my head, and then just kind of obey it automatically.  For me, one of the elements of learning to trust wisdom was slowing down a little bit, and saying, wait a second, I can take a minute, and feel things and see where I’m at. Del: Absolutely. There is no urgency. Wisdom is not in a hurry. It’s not on the clock. Yeah, take the time.  I don’t necessarily practice meditation as much as I used to, but it is taking that time that dropping in that really, the letting things get quiet, and sometimes it’s really loud. Sometimes it’s as I shared recently, on this talk I just gave my wisdom to get out of my marriage it was on Valentine’s Day. Last thing I thought I wanted to do was get a divorce on Valentine’s Day. I mean, my heart was broken, I discovered some really painful truths about my marriage. But I was sitting meditating, and I had this voice inside me that said, Get out now before he kills you.  I was like, where did that voice come from? Because my head was codependent, I was looking at all the reasons why I should stay, how I didn’t want to break up my family. I felt that I had given my children what I hadn’t had, as a child, I didn’t want to repeat my childhood and have a broken home. But it was not a healthy relationship. And I needed to get out. It wasn’t physically abusive, I will definitely say that. But the emotional abuse can be equally damaging.  I work with people who have sworn off ever being in a relationship again after being in a narcissistic relationship. And that, to me is such a such a shame. We are these beautiful, loving creatures that are meant to love and have open hearts and be with other humans and to be shaken to the core that you would never take that risk again, is sad to me.  Fortunately, people I work with, they are armed with enough information that they’re not afraid to do that, again. They will not make that same mistake again. That wisdom, they’ll know how to recognize those red flags. And they will go into the overdrive of the personal mind rationalizing and minimizing because they want what they want. Alexandra: One of the things that occurred to me when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about was that when we’re raised in dysfunctional households, like you and I both were, I noticed a sense in myself of taking a lot of responsibility for stuff that isn’t mine.  I want to explore that a little bit with you and see what you had to say about that aspect of relationships. Del: I totally recognize that one. Sometimes it’s again, it’s like training. It’s like, if I just say sorry, everything will calm down and be nice. So I’ll just say sorry to make everything nice. Again, sometimes it’s that people pleaser coming out of us. And sometimes it really is unhealthy boundaries that we grew up in a dysfunctional environment, healthy boundaries were not modeled for us. And there’s all that in measurement and you made me do it. And all of that stuff that goes on.  One of the things I learned about the principles was that separate realities. I always use my little my snowglobe by just saying that we are all it’s my little border, that’s my center, my spiritual center, but just know that we all live in these little globes of our thinking. And there isn’t that, as you mentioned earlier, there’s not that reality out there that we’re all looking at are all. Our perceptions of reality are different depending upon our thinking.  When somebody is say upset, and angry, and hostile, or whatever, because I couldn’t deal with their upset, I would try and calm them down and control it and everything. And the only reason I was doing that it looked like I was doing it for their sake. And I wasn’t, I was doing it for my own sake, because I was uncomfortable with that aggression, that whatever it was, and instead of having the sense to remove myself and say, Hey, I don’t have to put up with this, I thought I could control it, and behave in a certain way to manipulate it.  Recognizing that we’re not God. And they’re going through their experience, because that’s what they need to go through, for whatever reason. And we can just stand back. And again, if it’s not an abusive relationship, it’s simply that some of these other sorts, the more that we can stay centered and grounded, and let them have their experience, not react to it, not control it, the quicker they calm down, and they’re back to their beautiful loving normal self.  But when we are in a dysfunctional relationship, again, instead of just standing here and being contained, and saying, Oh, this is too much for me, I’m removing myself, we again, as I say, try and control it, and that’s not healthy. We have to respect that that person has everything inside of themselves to bring themselves back down to that, that well-being that’s within all of us. And if they don’t, then again, remove yourself. We don’t need to fix anybody.  Our job is to be the best guardian of our own lives. I always say when we give our heart to another person and make them responsible for our heart, and then we’re like, What do you mean, you shouldn’t, that hurt me, you shouldn’t have done that. We’re setting the other people up.  We are the best guardians of our lives and our hearts.  That doesn’t mean we don’t share our hearts openly and willingly with another person, but we don’t make the other person responsible for us. And vice versa. We’re not responsible for the other person. I know that sounds harsh, does not mean it’s just I mean, we obviously I’m a mother, I mean, I care dearly for my children. If I’m really honest, they always come first.  I have to remind myself I’m responsible for me. Nobody will take care of take as good care of me as I will. I know my needs and my wounds. It’s not up to somebody else to guess what I want need, and then the wrong bad for if they don’t get it right so we have to take care of ourselves communicate clearly and honestly, and as you said, take care of our side of the street. Water finds its own level. And the healthier that you are, the more that you will attract healthy partners. I always say that if you’re attracting a narcissist into your life, it’s because narcissists have all that entitlement and self and everything. And then when we’re codependent, we’re all the way down here. And we’ve got no sense of self and no entitlement. So we’re obviously the absolute perfect fit for them because they want everything their way.  Raise our level of entitlement and are healthy, the narcissist is going to go through and we’re going to, I can have a fight with this person, I can bypass them and go for somebody that’s got low self esteem will always put me first and I can manipulate and control. So the best way is to just raise your healthy level of I call it entitlement entitled to be treated with dignity and respect. So just raise that and then you will get a partner that will match you on that level. Alexandra: That’s really nice.  One of the things we mentioned briefly was your podcast, which is called Relationship Mastery. Tell us a little bit about that about your host co-host and what you talk about on that show. Del: My co-host is Barry Selby, and he is a dating coach, primarily relationship dating coach. I did all my insightful conversations and interviewed fabulous 3P people such as yourself. And all the other amazing three P people and I started to find that I was running out of people to interview and it had run its course. I think I’d got about 120 episodes. And it was great and I really loved it.  But I wanted to focus more on what I do, which is work with people around relationships, especially overcoming dysfunctional childhood trauma, codependency and narcissistic abuse and shame. Those are my categories. I wanted to focus more on that. I also really honestly, didn’t want to have to go through all the gathering guests again and organizing that. And I felt that it’s more interesting to have two different perspectives about things.  Barry and I both went to the University of Santa Monica, we both got our masters in spiritual psychology, but he is a single man, never been married, doesn’t have children, and isn’t in a relationship right now. So we were really different. I thought this could be interesting. We bring two different perspectives. There’s moments on the show where I can just feel myself go, No, Barry, I do not agree with you.  He can sometimes talk about the male role and the feminine. And I’m very much into that we both have feminine masculine within us. And there’s depending on who I’m interacting with, and I can be incredibly feminine. And I can also be incredibly masculine, I see both in me very, very clearly.  We cover all different topics. Anything to do with any type of relationship, not just not just I mean parenting, how to deal with your co-workers, your boss, boundaries, apologies, taking responsibility, and life in general. I really like to come from the spiritual perspective and share my spiritual understanding as it is, which as I say, is an amalgamation of many different disciplines that I’ve studied over the years. Alexandra: That show is available on all the usual podcast apps and people can find it. Del: Yeah. Apple, everything, all the platforms. We have YouTube and a private Facebook group as well that people can join and see all the episodes on there on YouTube, as well, because it does, it’s either visual, or I like to watch rather than just listen personally. Yes, people like to do their podcasts in the car on their walks. But I actually like to watch YouTube and see see the interaction between people. Alexandra: Surprising. Yeah, this show goes out on YouTube as well. And I’m always surprised how many views it gets. But that’s clearly our preference for some people.  As we’re getting close to the end of our time together, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share today? Del: I think we touched on it, but I would like to go back over it because I think it’s so important. And again, as I said, I firmly believe that there is no real healing unless we look at both our spiritual essence and humanity. I think they dovetail beautifully together. I think that, as I said we’ve got plenty of time to be spiritual. We are we’re human. And we have very predictable ways of behaving. Our psychology is quite predictable. And I find it fascinating.  I think that when we some people say, Oh, I I don’t want to go and look at my childhood, but to me, it’s like being a surgeon. Sometimes we just have to see where the old habitual thinking or the dysfunction is. So we can pluck it out and start to heal and the healing is when we don’t just identify with our humanity, when we see who we are as this incredible spiritual beings, that our infinite potential, we’re not the stories that our psychology has told us about ourselves that we really have the power to be anything that we set our minds to.  I do think it’s very important to understand where the thinking originated, because it’s easier than to say, Oh, I’m on to you. Whereas, as a small child, I thought you were going to help me. And you did maybe helped me back then. But you’re not serving me any longer. But thank you, thank you for popping up again and thinking that you’re doing a good job. But now I’m an adult, and I don’t need to protect myself with this way of thinking or behaving, serve me back then, but not no longer.  We can let it go with a sense of humor and, and with an ease. I still I catch myself throughout the day slipping into that old thinking, and that doesn’t serve me. But I hear it and I got you back again. It’s like, a familiar friend, you just keep showing up. But it’s the getting it and the seeing, I’m never frustrated. I never think Why are you still here, you should have gone by now I have none of that thinking. I’m just like, I just recognize you sooner, I got you. And then I get back to being who I really am. At my essence, which is, as I say anything I really want to put my mind to.  That’s probably the most important thing. And again, it’s just one without the other. I think psychology without spirituality can only take you so far. And it took me so far. And I loved my time in therapy. It helped me to make sense of my chaotic childhood and some of the patterns I was in and my studying of psychology. But without that spiritual component, to know that we are these so much more than just a psychology. I just don’t think we can really heal me. It’s both. Alexandra: Lovely.  Where can we find out more about you and your work, Del? Del: You can find me everywhere. You can find me on that podcast, Relationship Mastery. You can find me at deladeyjones.com, which is my website. And you can find me on YouTube. I’m starting to do a lot more speaking engagements, though. Yeah, everything is on the website.  If you go to the website, it directs you to me and everything. I do some old blogs of mine, and the old shows the old, anybody still interested in really listening to some of the most incredible teachers we have in the three principals from you know, Dicken Bettinger, the Pranskys, just amazing people. I’ve interviewed them more so that all the all the old episodes of insightful conversations are available on my website, too. Alexandra: That’s good to know. I’ll put links in the show notes at unbrokenpodcast.com so people can find that. Thank you again, so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Del: Oh, it’s been such a pleasure. And it’s great to be on the other side, because that’s right. So anybody listening that wants to listen to my amazing interview with Alexandra, then please go and listen to it. It was fascinating. I think we definitely had some interesting commonalities between those in our in our life. Alexandra: For sure. I think we mostly talked about my cult memoir on that show. Del: Yeah. I remember saying, oh my goodness, this being in a cult is like being in a relationship with a narcissist. Most cult leaders are narcissistic, not psychopaths. But it has very similar you know, it’s that over time, nobody puts their hand up and says, Hey, I want to be in an abusive relationship or I want to be in a cult. It’s that over time that seduction and pulling you in gradually. The love bombing. Alexandra: Exactly. Such a good point. All right. Well, thanks so much, Del. Take care. Featured image photo by Kalen Emsley on Unsplash The post Surviving a Narcissist with Del Adey-Jones appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.