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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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.

1. You are made of peace and calm and a good feeling. That’s who you are at your core. Your desire to learn and grow by listening to courses like this and being here on Insight Timer proves this. We are always wanting to connect with the innate love that we are made of.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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 & Courses.

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…

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