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Madison Mindset the Podcast
320 ~ Beyond Fear: Brianna Wiest on Transforming Self-Sabotage
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Hello Magical Human & welcome back to Madison Mindset the Podcast 🪞🪬
Join me in welcoming Brianna Wiest to the Podcast 🙏🏼
Bestselling author Brianna Wiest shares profound insights on overcoming self-sabotage and creating self-mastery through understanding our unconscious need for safety and taking consistent micro steps toward growth.
episode overview:
• Self-sabotage is meeting needs you don't know you have, with safety being the core underlying need
• When conscious desires conflict with unconscious needs, they create an internal "mountain"
• Self-mastery is not controlling emotions but controlling what you do with them
• Micro shifts (tiny daily actions) create more sustainable change than attempting breakthroughs
• Showing up consistently rebuilds your identity around positive behaviors
• Journal writing increases self-awareness by helping you recognize patterns
• Opening yourself to possibility allows you to see opportunities that were always there
Check out Brianna's books and social links on her website - https://www.briannawiest.com/
Look for Brianna's upcoming book "Great Callings" coming this October.
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Hello Magical Human and welcome back to Madison Mindset, the podcast In this episode.
Speaker 1:I feel so blessed to welcome Brianna Wiest to the podcast. This is an absolutely incredible interview. I, like so many of you, am such a fan of Brianna's work and her books, including the Mountain Is you, so I'm so excited to be able to share this interview with you. It was an amazing interview where we get to go a little bit deeper into Brianna's world and who she is as a person that get to hear her speak and teach. It was a phenomenal experience for me and I hope that you enjoy listening to the conversation.
Speaker 1:Brianna is the best-selling author of the books 101 Essays that Will Change the Way you Think, the Mountain Is you, the Pivot Year and more. Her books have sold millions of copies, regularly appear on global bestseller lists and are currently being translated into 40 plus languages. She has a BA in English and an honorary doctorate in literature, both from Elizabethtown College. I have put the link to Brianna's website below. I highly recommend you go and check out her work and her books. She is a phenomenal light in this world and I'm so grateful to bring you this interview. Let's jump in.
Speaker 1:Hello Magical Human. Welcome back to Madison Mindset the podcast. I am here with someone I'm so excited to have on the podcast. I'm so happy to welcome Brianna to the podcast. Welcome, brianna. I hope you are having a beautiful day and thank you for taking the time to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Amazing, amazing. I just want to say first, I'm so honored to have you as a guest on the podcast because I have been reading your books and referring back to your books for so long, so it feels kind of strange to give the voice. You know the words of voice, so it's amazing. I'm absolutely fangirling right now. So thank you so much for being here. That's so sweet. That makes me smile.
Speaker 2:That really makes me happy. I'm happy to hear that.
Speaker 1:Thank you, amazing Thank you. Thank you for the work you put out into the world because it has really helped me and I know many people even close to me who has helped them immensely as well. So I can imagine, on a worldwide scale, there's been so much support for people and that's everything. Wide scale, there's been so much support for people and that's everything. So I'd love to start by getting to know you a little bit more. I'm always curious about the people who are behind the teachings you know. So I'd love to know and I'm sure the listeners would love to know a little bit more about who you are, how you ended up doing this work and how you ended up writing. I'd love to know a bit about your story.
Speaker 2:It's a wild story and it's really to me. It really illustrates, you know, the power of being called to something and for me, you know, if I could like sum up my life it's like every road that I took to avoid this ended up being the path that led me right to it. And it was. You know, when I was a kid I was never one of those children that was like, oh, I want to be an author, like that was not like the aspiration. I loved to read. That was like my, like, favorite hobby in pastime. So there was definitely a seed there, but it was never the dream. So, to make a very long story short, I'm from Long Island, New York. Most people don't know that I'm from Long Island. I don't have an accent, so I think that confuses them.
Speaker 2:I live in California now with my fiance and I've been writing for 13 or 14 years and when I got started I wanted to work in news writing or be a journalist or an editor. A newspaper, like a magazine. That was kind of my, that's kind of my dream, um, but coinciding with, you know, wanting that to be my profession in life, um, was that I was really having a kind of, and I you know, I hesitate to use this word, cause I think we use it so much that sometimes it becomes more of a platitude and it can kind of like have less meaning. But really an awakening I don't have another phrase or way to put it. And you know, it was just kind of this moment where I think some people have a rock bottom moment, like there's one thing that happens in their life that it kind of clicks. I had a valley. It was kind of like everything was going wrong, nothing was going right. I was really sick, I was really unwell, I was really really struggling mentally, like to put it lightly, and eventually, like after having and it wasn't, it was like a, it was like a prolonged creative time I started to realize that the answers that I was seeking, I couldn't find them and nothing was helping. And that was a mix of both hopelessness for me and also profound frustration, where I was like nothing is working. It's like I'm doing all the right things, I'm going to therapy, I'm getting like the medical support that I need, and it's like I'm just circling the drain.
Speaker 2:And I really started turning to books. Actually, I started reading a lot, and you know some of these authors that, I think, kind of stirred. You know this kind of blossoming inside of me, if I could call it that. It's almost like I learned to think the way that they wrote and I didn't even know, I think, when I was younger, that nonfiction writing existed like this, like I didn't know there were.
Speaker 2:You know Cheryl Strays in the world, you know that could write so poignantly but also like speak to you like you're a friend, and it affected me and impacted me so much and really set me on this journey which is another overused word and I'm sorry but really is what it is to change my life in every single way mentally, physically, emotionally, financially. And you know, because this was and really in spiritually I can't, I can't leave that out because it was really a deep kind of communion I had and nature is really what has inspired me so much over the years and healed me. So that's kind of my, you know, that's kind of my. As Mary Oliver says, the door to the woods is the door to the temple and that is very true for me and I've lived in remote areas of California for years now and that's really been important to me in my journey, but anyway, so it was kind of this concurrent thing where I'm learning these skills, I would say, at a youngish age, about writing and about writing articles and writing SEO headlines.
Speaker 2:But I'm also having these really deeply personal experiences when I'm not, you know, working like I'm, I'm I'm journaling, I'm reading like I'm, I'm really doing the work. And it kind of just started bleeding out into what I was sharing and I started writing essays and I started writing like reflections and meditations and you know, at the beginning I think no one really read it, but I didn't even really care. Honestly, it wasn't about that. It was like this is just really, really important to me and it took years, years and years and years before it kind of started to pick up in a way that I don't think I could have anticipated at the beginning, like I don't think I ever could have imagined it would have gone to where it did. But I think that part of the reason why so many people have resonated with it is because I didn't like when I was writing 101 essays.
Speaker 2:I didn't set out to write a book. I didn't even know I was writing a book.
Speaker 2:You know, I didn't even really know I was writing essays, I was just really having an experience with myself and it's taught me a lot about creativity. It's taught me a lot about process. It's taught me a lot about flow, which is, you know, you are the first litmus test and it has to be so real to you. And that's when it registers as real to you, know the audience, and as so many people I think you know began their own journeys, their own processing, I think it kind of felt like a friend that met them on the path, and it's been the joy and like honor of my life to, you know, have connected with so many people over things that are so personal and that maybe you wouldn't, maybe wouldn't even share with the people that are, you know, right next to you in your life, but some stranger across the world, and it's like, hey, you know me too. That was such a long answer.
Speaker 1:That was amazing. I've been talking for way too long. No, I love it. I'm just like keep going. I forgot I was even I thought I was just listening to a podcast. This is great. There's so much, there's so much beauty in there. I love the way you put things. In the beginning you said something about you know. Everything you were trying to avoid kind of led you to where you are now. That is such a beautiful way to put that. I don't think I've ever heard it put that way, but it is so true, isn't it? You often go, no, I don't want that, or no, that's too hard, or that's no, that's not for me, and then it just ends up being the door to you have no idea where, until you are forced through it. A lot of the time you push through.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and really it was almost like it felt so uncomfortable. It was almost like I couldn't I can't even explain it any other way. It was like when I I had a really specific experience riding the mountain, as you I was. I couldn't even tell you what I was connected to in that moment, but I was like hellbent. And I remember telling my team this is in 2019, I was like it has to come out by this month of next year and if it doesn't, we've missed the boat and they don't even know what I'm talking about. But because I seem so sure, they're all like, okay, all right, they're so sure, then it's got to come out.
Speaker 2:And then the timing of when that book entered the world and what people were going through. It's such another really great example. And the moment when it all came together, I thought, oh my gosh, I couldn't have messed this up more. This is terrible, terrible timing. We canceled my whole book tour. It's the middle of 2020. I was like, oh my gosh, I couldn't have messed this up more. This is terrible, terrible timing. We canceled my whole book tour. It's the middle of 2020. I was like, oh my gosh, I completely screwed up, not at all.
Speaker 2:Not at all. It couldn't have been better timing really. So I think there's also a big lesson here and also having a little bit of faith, and that very often, when we are creatively contributing, I believe that we are instruments and we're kind of volunteering to play a song that the world needs to hear, and maybe it's only two people that need to hear it, maybe it's only you that needs to hear it, or maybe it's a lot of people that need to hear it, and when you are volunteering as that instrument, there's a moment that it needs to be played and a moment when it needs to reach people. And I have a lot of reverence and surrender to that process and I know that it's coming through me. But I feel that that's true for so many creative people that I've either I mean, either read or listened to or even know personally where it's like when you get in that flow state. You're like it was me, but it was like I was connected to something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I've heard people explain things like that before. You know that you are being guided by something and so connected to, whether you know we want to call it life, or you know some people use the word the universe or something. You know something that's guiding or creating through you. It's such a beautiful thing and it really is the core of creativity, isn't it being connected to something bigger?
Speaker 2:than you yeah's amazing.
Speaker 1:I didn't find the Mountain is you in 2020, but I can imagine for the people who did, it would have been so helpful, because that was really the period of time where we were, you know, locked into what we had created and then the things that we thought we had, but we didn't yes, yes. So it would have saved a lot, I would say, because I was reading book after book. There's nothing else to do in that time. There was a read books and study or do nothing, go crazy, you know. So, yes, yeah. But when I found it, it really helped me because I've been on a journey.
Speaker 1:I love helping people. I'm a yoga teacher and I love teaching mindset shifts and helping people see things a different way. So when I found your book, I was really struggling to get out of my own way and actually do the thing that I wanted to do. I was like I want to start a podcast. Why can't I just start the podcast? Why don't I? I just do it? And I was so frustrated with myself because I was like I can do it, but I don't feel like I just can't get myself to actually do it. So when I saw, I saw the book the Mountain is you in a bookshop and I went. Well, I know that's true it's definitely me.
Speaker 1:I'm the problem. I knew it's like I need to find. I think this book might have some answers and it helps so much so, so much so. I thank you for that.
Speaker 2:And look, here we are on that podcast now.
Speaker 1:So good for you, exactly, amazing, amazing. It's life is an incredible thing. You have no idea where the twists and turns are going to take you. But I would love to talk to you a bit about self-sabotage, because it's something you speak about a lot in your book, and I have read many books about self-sabotage because I feel like I thought personally that I was just destroying everything in my life.
Speaker 1:I was like the problem is always me. You know I try and go to the gym in the morning but I just won't. Or you know I try and have a relationship and I and I stuff it up. Or you know I'm trying to create something and I get in my own head and I can't get out of my own nonsense to actually just do the thing that I want to do or to love the way I want to love or to feel the way I want to feel. So I really liked the way you explain self-sabotage. So I know a lot of listeners of this podcast are also very interested about getting out of their own way in terms of their own habits in life and what they're trying to create. So I'd love you to tell us a little bit about self-sabotage and what that means for you, and if there's anything you can shine a light on for us that we may not have thought of yet.
Speaker 2:I would love to. This is one of my favorite topics Beautiful, excellent. So self-sabotage is you meeting needs that you do not know you have. That's the simplest way to put it. And when we think about self-sabotage as being a lack of willpower or a lack of strength or not being good enough or self-hatred, the most powerful reframe that we can do is to turn that on its head and realize that it is a profound act of self-love. But it's coming from a part of us that does not know a better way to give us that feeling of really safety. And I really wish I had actually written this in the book.
Speaker 2:This clearly, I kind of rounded about to it, but in so many years of talking about this topic, I think there's a more succinct way to express this. Which is a mountain is you comes from? If you think of like a mountain, like two tectonic plates that like ride up against one another and create what seems kind of like this insurmountable challenge in front of you. It was kind of a metaphor that I was using for your conscious and unconscious needs. So there's like something you know you want and then also unconsciously, something you don't realize you want or need, and when those two things are in conflict with one another, but you're only aware of half of it. It creates these really like disruptive and tense and stressful experiences in your life and it creates a lot of inner friction. And it's really a moment to stop and ask yourself what need is being met through the self-sabotaging behavior.
Speaker 2:And the thing that I wish I would have written more clearly is you know, we could talk about a hundred different needs that are beneath people's self-sabotaging behavior, but if you distill all of them down to one core essential want, it's safety, it's just safety. It's wanting the comfort of familiarity, it's wanting certainty. And a lot of the time self-sabotage crops up when we're facing unknowns. So what do we know about the unknown? Is it scary? Sure, it's also the realm of infinite possibility. But when we don't have a great relationship A with ourselves and by that I mean we don't have enough confidence in ourselves that wherever this road may take me, I can handle it, I can rise to the occasion, if we don't have that confidence built, it's going to be extremely intimidating. And also, if we don't have the experience in the past that life has met us where we are, where we felt kind of abandoned by life, where we felt unseen by life, not taken care of.
Speaker 2:It's very difficult in those moments to find that faith and to find that trust of okay, it's safe to move forward, that faith and to find that trust of, okay, it's safe to move forward, but ultimately, all we're really trying to find is not safety out there, but rather inside, and really to me, that is a regulated nervous system, and another thing I really wish I would have put in the book and, by the way, I haven't ever talked about these specific things I'm saying right now. So here you guys go. The two things that I think are the most impactful, especially when you are growing, shifting, pivoting, trying to, you know, find some stability in your life, are routine and connecting with other people. Those two things and tandem, staying connected to other people and then also keeping a routine. And I think that for a lot of people who find my books, that's usually because they're in a process of taking a step back and saying, well, who do I want those people to be that I'm connecting with in my life? In the first place, I'm trying to actually engineer a new routine and so you're kind of in that place of deciding what your life is going to look like.
Speaker 2:But the reason why I think these simple things are so important is because you know there's a saying and it's not mine and I can't recall the author in this moment, but I can't take credit for it, which is that we don't see the world as it is. We see the world through the state of our nervous system. So as safe as we are is as safe as we think it is, and what that really, I think, ends up looking like is us. I think it's the differentiating factor about whether we raise our hand, whether we speak up, whether we show up, whether we try again, whether we start dating again, whether we start the podcast again, all of these things in our lives that are so withheld.
Speaker 2:The foundation is trust. Do I trust myself? And through trusting myself, do I trust that life will show up? But TLDR, self-sabotage is just meeting an unconscious need, and no matter what the unconscious need is, usually I think really almost always it really boils down to desiring or even needing a sense of familiarity and safety and comfort, and that's a very kind of like primal need, I think, and I think it's in every single one of us yeah, yeah, and it makes complete sense, because that would be our brain's first priority is that we are safe.
Speaker 1:Yes, and your brain doesn't know whether you're being chased by something or whether you are trying to start a podcast. It's the same, right, right and so your your job.
Speaker 2:When your job is to show yourself, and then also, by proxy, you show the world. It's safe to have a podcast, it's safe to try again. It's safe to open my heart to love after I've been heartbroken. It's safe to fill in the blank. But that's really what growth is ultimately it's building a new comfort zone around the things that really move you forward.
Speaker 2:But if I could just take it one more step back really quickly, because I think where a lot of people get lost is that they feel confused by their own emotions, so they're not organizing their own feelings. They just kind of have influxes and swells of sensation in their body and they have these kind of like rudimentary labels for it. So it's like every time my chest is tight and my heart is raised, I have anxiety, and then it becomes a spiral. It's even more stressful. So like, how do I manage this? What does this mean? And then we also start thinking is this cuing me? That, like you said, I'm being chased by a bear in the wild or whatever modern day equivalent that would be? And so a lot of it is being able to take a step back and observe how we feel and reflect on it and organize it, which is okay.
Speaker 2:Am I scared because this is unsafe? Or am I scared because this is unfamiliar and this matters to me and this is vulnerable? Because if that's the case, then it's really. You know, it's well in both cases. Really, it's like healthy to feel fear and there's nothing wrong with you. But you also have to know, if you want to not be controlled by it, you have to kind of act in spite of yourself sometimes, which is, look, I have to do this with my legs shaking. I have to do like I have to, you know, keep taking action in the direction that I know is healthiest for me or most aligned with, ultimately, my goals or what I want, and that willingness to see the feeling and that willingness to see the feeling acknowledge it, but continue acting in the way that you want and need to be and not letting the feeling control you. It's huge and it's a long journey to get there.
Speaker 1:It's not an easy thing to do? Yeah, definitely. So you would say that if you're feeling scared about stepping forward in whatever thing that it is, would you say. It's like that teaching of again. I don't remember where this came from either, but you know the feel, the fear and do it anyway and step forward and just try.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because a lot of the feelings that you experience in the moment are like the strongest patterning of the past, kind of like cohering together and like telling you what now or the future is going to be, what the now or the future is going to be. And if you keep letting that control how you behave right now, you're going to keep rebuilding those past experiences into the now and you're going to start pulling it into the future. So it's kind of that pause moment where you're like okay, I'm witnessing this feeling. It might be very acute, but I'm just witnessing this feeling. I understand that I'm afraid and this is my body wanting to keep me safe. This is my body facing the unknown and then really evaluating okay, am I actually unsafe? And if the answer is no, this is okay, learning to do it scared, and understanding that it won't feel that way forever.
Speaker 2:So many of the things that once terrified me. You know, terrence McKenna has a beautiful quote where he's like that's kind of what the sages and the mystics all know. You know, you're terrified of the void, but you leap and find that it's a feather bed. And that's a phrase that comes to me all of the time, because I found it to be incredibly true. It was a feather bed. The hardest time I had with it was like in anticipation, I thought it would be Um, but if I had let that control me or stop me, I never would have. I never would have gotten to feel the softness that was actually waiting for me on the other side. Um, because I wouldn't have ever gotten out of my own way long enough to even try.
Speaker 1:Wow, isn't it? It's so interesting how all these big things that we want to do and everything you have is listening whatever you're scared of, you know that it's just could be as simple as going yes, I'm scared, but I'm going to try anyway, I'm going to step forward anyway, and how that can be the very moment that changes your life anyway, and how that can be the very moment that changes your life, and we just get so trapped in our own story of I can't because of this, I can't because of that, I'm scared of this, and it literally is. Could be as simple, because it's not simple, it's not easy to do, but it is a simple idea to go. How about? I just do it even though I'm scared?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and most people can't do it.
Speaker 2:And then you, you rebuild your comfort zone around that and in that, and then you know, not only are you not afraid of it, but you almost alchemize the experience, where you transform it to where it's like, if you keep showing up and make that your kind of default, you make that your comfort zone, you rewire yourself where that's your normal, you're not only going to like it, you're going to crave it. You know, I used to have so much anxiety about I don't even know everything, but you know, showing up to write and create what, if this is writing a book, whatever it was, and now it feels weird, but I'm not doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, would you say. This is a cycle that never ends in your life. You're just constantly growing and expanding and trying something new.
Speaker 2:I think that it's healthy. I don't I don't think that we should ever aspire to like I don't know kind of plateau, especially too young. You know what I mean. You had a. I mean you had a lot of life to live, so I don't think we should give up, but I will say that I think that a lot of this inner work gets a lot easier, and I always equate it to cleaning your house. So if you've lived in your home for all your life and you've never cleaned it, that first pass-through is going to be brutal okay.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of dust on the floor, like the sweep is going to be intense, like it's going to be a lot, but then, as you continue living in that home, you're going to have to clean it up every night, you know regularly, not even every now and again. Regularly, because that's what it is to live in there, but it doesn't mean anything is wrong. And also, when you have the tools to check in and keep up with it, metaphorically speaking, it's a lot easier to never get to that overwhelm point. Another way to say it is like the universe or your own body will whisper until it screams. And I think that a lot of the inner work is how do we get still enough to listen to the whispers and understand? You know how we're going to have a relationship with our inner guidance and with our emotions, rather than it just controlling us. So we're getting back in the driver's seat and we're, you know, our feelings. Our feelings are not deciding where we go or how. We're the ones in charge.
Speaker 1:I love that and is this the basis of? You use the term self-mastery and you say from self-sabotage, which is this? Walking around in a circle, never actually doing the thing because of fear or that lack of safety within the body? Is self-mastery learning that you can step forward even if you're feeling scared or anxious or unsure, whatever the emotion is. Is that the basis?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think to me, if self-sabotage is I'm controlled by my emotion, then self-mastery is I control the emotion, and by control I don't mean I decide you know how it feels or when it's. I decide what I do with myself and my life in spite of it yeah, oh, that is so powerful.
Speaker 1:and so, for anyone who's listening, and they are in a some form of what you might call a self-sabotaging spiral, or they're just, they've been trying to do something, but they keep going around and around and they're hearing, yep, do it anyway, and they're thinking, nope, still can't do it. What advice would you give them? Is there some kind of technique that helps you? Is there what helps you do that and step?
Speaker 2:forward, even though you are so scared that you just feel paralyzed. Yeah, it's that you are looking for a breakthrough and what you need is a micro shift. And what a micro shift is is you doing something very minor but different than you even did yesterday. So, if you know, if you're wanting to write a book, it's about showing up one day to write a sentence, every day, to write one sentence. Is a sentence a day going to write your book? Yeah, eventually, if you keep showing up and doing it.
Speaker 2:But it's so overwhelming to you know, think about these changes that we want and maybe sometimes even need to make. And what's overwhelming about it is that, when it's so unfamiliar to our nervous systems, it's almost like we have to introduce it slowly and let ourselves kind of re-regulate to the new normal, rather than trying to wake up tomorrow and be like okay, I'm a completely different person, this is my new schedule, this is everything I'm doing now. I'm never going to be afraid again Tomorrow. I eat healthy. Everything's different.
Speaker 2:The reason why that never works and is often not sustainable and people honestly very often end up reverting back to whatever they were before is because it shocks the system. It shocks the system in a way that it starts craving that sense of safety and familiarity even more strongly than it did before. So rather than shocking the system into change, we kind of gradually ease it into change, and I've used this example a lot. It sounds silly, but just try it. It's just like if you want to drink more water, start with one sip a day. I remember it. I was just talking about this this morning, actually, when I was. My ambition years ago was to go to the gym again, and I found it so incredibly difficult and so I kind of made this pact with myself that I would just go for five minutes.
Speaker 1:And I did.
Speaker 2:That's exactly. I did that for weeks. I was like five minutes and then it was funny because after enough times doing that, I was like all right, I can stay for more than five minutes. I drove all the way here and I noticed that I was even wanting to stay longer and longer, but I kind of kept to it. I was like no, no, you said five minutes. I was like all right. And then I upped it Can you do 10? Can you do 15? And I remember the day that I left, having like ran a mile on the treadmill for the first time and I was like amazed at something that felt absolutely impossible that by taking it in the, you know the smallest steps imaginable to showing up. You know.
Speaker 2:And I think that also, if you're a creative person too, it's like show up and create anything. It doesn't even have to be good, Just show up and do it. I think that sometimes we also part of this is we expect perfection, like a perfect outcome, anytime we try anything. And we have I don't know, maybe, maybe it's just me, but I feel like it's a lot of people like a low tolerance for, like an import, like any kind of imperfection, um, and I think that we can have a little more grace around that with ourselves by knowing that look like any there were were I can use myself like I wrote the Mountain, is you like three or four times before I wrote the book that is out now and you would never hear about or know all those times that I didn't get it right and you would never really hear unless I'm telling you now or know all of the days for years that I showed up, you know, working on myself, working on this writing. You would just kind of see the finished product. And so then if you're from the outside looking in and you're like, well, I want to write a book like that, and it's like it's the anxiety of, well, I'm showing up, Okay, I have the idea, but you know it's not, it's not coming out, it becomes discouraging.
Speaker 2:I think, and I think if you could break it down and understand that it's about showing up in the very tiny ways, every single day, consistently. Consistency is the big thing and the reason why it is is because it's reorienting and completely re-regulating your nervous system to create a new comfort zone, and whatever you create that comfort zone around is going to be ultimately what you crave and start to default to and prefer, and when that's happening, you know you're almost redefining yourself. You know, if we define ourselves by our consistencies and our patterns, I am the kind of person who I always do this. It's like you've, you know, you've rerouted yourself to, to prefer this, you know, familiar sensation of showing up, even to write a few lines every day. Over time you will just start naturally feeling like I'm a writer, I do this every day. And once the identity piece is in, like I'm a writer, I do this every day. And once the identity piece is in, oh, forget it and you're really off to the races. Then it's really, then you're forget it, it's great.
Speaker 2:But the point is, you know, it's not about. It's not about showing up for the breakthrough. It's about showing up for the micro shift. And so if there's anyone listening right now and they feel like you know they're looking at this pile in their lives of you know, all this stuff that they want to change, and I think sometimes the most powerful thing that you could do today is ask yourself what is one little thing I'm going to do differently tomorrow? One tiny thing that's so easy. I can definitely commit to it and follow through. It's really important to build confidence and trust with yourself. Follow through what's one tiny thing I can do for myself or for my future self, and I think what you'll find is that the momentum will start to build. It really will. You'll want to keep going and want to do more and more and that kind of hump of getting out of your own way it's not scaling the whole mountain, it's actually the courage just to take the first step.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is so incredible. And as you were speaking, I was just kind of laughing to myself because I've, you know, I'm definitely one of those people who is like, if it's not perfect, I'm not doing it. Yeah, I'm definitely. When you said that, I was like, uh, me, yep.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting that you say that you know the small steps, because I, like I work with so many clients on. You know mindset shifts and things like that and something I hear so often, and from my own self as well. This has come from myself and that's why I always giggle when someone mentions it, because I'm like, we're all like this, but those small steps, they seem not big enough to do anything. So what I do is just not do it, because if I'm not going to take one massive run up this mountain, then I'm not going to bother with the small step, you know. So I feel like the small step's not going to get anywhere, but you're right, you know. So I feel like the small step's not going to get anywhere, but you're right, you know, if I do a small step every single day, I'm going to be much further along than if I just sit down at the bottom of the mountain and go. No, I'm not doing it.
Speaker 2:No, that that that resonates with me too. And you're like, well, I'm just not going to do it. I'm like, yes, that's me, I promise you, because I'm like, well, I'm just not going to do anything. But then, also to your point, there's something that happens and you've probably experienced this and when listening, you've probably experienced this. Where do you know, when you're falling asleep, you close your eyes and you kind of almost pretend you're sleeping and then it happens all at once. It's like slowly and then all at once.
Speaker 2:That's what happens with the compounding momentum of your life.
Speaker 2:It's like you are showing up and writing one line every day, and it's painstaking at the beginning, it feels pointless and useless at the beginning, and then you really do ultimately have that tipping point where you realize that you're sitting down and it's free, flowing, and you almost couldn't have predicted or anticipated that this exact moment is when it would happen.
Speaker 2:But you kept putting yourself in the way of it. You kept putting yourself in the way of the serendipity, keep putting yourself in the way of luck, keep putting yourself in the way of meeting the right people, being in the right places, and then it does happen one day, like it's, something opens, but right. It's like you think well, if I can't run five miles today, well then, I'm not even going to take one step, and that's actually what's holding you back from running ever. But also to know that sometimes the path can seem like well, if I just take one step every day, eventually I will run five miles. And what I'm saying is, if you just learn to start taking one step every day, before you know it you will be sprinting and you won't even realize that you have started.
Speaker 1:This is so inspiring. I love this. I'm just thinking about all the small steps I'm going to start taking now. I love it. I think one recent thing I started doing I have a very similar journey to you with the gym, with going to the gym actually showing up, and I had in my head that if I don't go for an hour, there's no point. There's no point If you're not there for an hour, then what's the point? And I've just started doing 10 minutes a day and I felt so much better and, like my friends are like oh, how do you like? How do you find time for it? I was like just 10 minutes. It really helps.
Speaker 2:You know, years ago I had a trainer and my workouts were, you know, 20 minutes like three times a week and I was like I seriously I never felt better and I almost couldn't believe we're doing a lot of strength training at the time. I almost couldn't believe that I could feel that good and healthy with what seemed to me like such a small period of time. I was like there's no way that could be. I thought to feel that good, I would have to be there for like two hours every day and it's just not the case.
Speaker 2:But I think that we do that with a lot of things where we like overestimate, like I think this about like little tasks we put off to. It's like I just need to call about that one thing and like we overestimate how much energy it's going to take. And then we do it and it's like that was so simple. It was almost like that hanging over my head for so long was more draining of my energy than the you know, I don't know 30 seconds to three minutes it took to complete it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we spend so much energy thinking about the actual thing when we could just do it and be done with it with less energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. I'd love to know your perspective on self-awareness, because for me, this is a term again I think, what you were talking about in the beginning, with overused words. I think this is one of the this phrase of self-awareness, but for me, it, before I started working on myself and learning a lot of this, I really like I really did feel like I was walking around in circles with all these different walls and then, once I learned to break through them and go hang on a minute. There, I feel like there are walls around me, but I put them there. I could put them down or I could open the door through the wall. No one's keeping me here. I'm doing that to myself.
Speaker 1:That moment of oh, it was me has helped me so much. When it happens again, I can look at it and go hang on a minute. Am I doing this to myself? Oh, yep, that's me. So what do you think about self-awareness and do you think that's a big key for people? I just love to hear your perspective on that.
Speaker 2:I think it's like everything, and I think that most people have very little of it, honestly, and you know what. That's fair. I mean, we were never taught anything in this realm ever. You know what I mean, we're all just, you know, finding this like on our own, like as adults, like this wasn't you know something that was? You know we were well, I mean, maybe some people were, but you know, in my experience, I don't know anybody, you know who you know, grew up or spent any meaningful part of their lives other than, you know, becoming an adult and finding it on their own, you know, really working with this.
Speaker 2:But self-awareness, you know, to me is what happens when I write in a journal and that's really why it had been such, you know, a, you know, powerful and transformative practice for me was because I was kind of looking at a reflection of myself. I think when I started at the beginning, it was kind of just like notating, like how I felt and what I was thinking, and like when and why, and looking back and starting to see the patterns. I was like, oh, you know, I didn't realize that. I think that when you know, you're coming from behind your own eyes at everything I don't know. I think a lot of the time it's, sometimes it's hard to see your patterns, but it's also very hard to see how far you've come, how well you're doing, like, I think we just, I think most people have a hard time seeing themselves period, and that's why I think it's really important to take time and foster gratitude, note your wins, note the things you're proud of and really take a minute to feel it, and then also note and be aware of your frustrations and things that aren't going quite the way you hope for them to or would want them to, and know that this is all part of what makes you human we are all experiencing these things always but that you do have a shaping hand in what happens.
Speaker 2:From this moment out, and the more that you strengthen, you know the role that you are choosing to play in your life, I think you will find a level of power that you couldn't have fathomed before, but even beyond power, a level of connection, a level of creativity, a level of presence that was otherwise inaccessible. I think that stillness and self-reflection, self-awareness, are very much the entryways into moving through the world and moving through life in a way that you know when you get to the end of it you'll be really proud of, you'll be really proud of yourself.
Speaker 1:That was amazing. Before we get towards the end, where I want to hear a little bit more about what's coming up for you, I'd like to ask you if there's someone listening to this because I feel like there might be who has never heard of this work before, who's never heard of the term self-awareness or self-sabotage, and they're just hearing it and they're going what? What do you mean, you know? And they're feeling maybe a little bit overwhelmed of like have I been making this harder on myself, or can I can change my life, and it's not about where I've been or what I'm good at or what I feel I'm bad at or any failures that I've had. I could actually do something. And they're starting to have that expansion and their mind's going hang on a minute, their heart's opening a little bit to it. What advice would you give them? What would you say to someone who's going wait, I can make a difference in my life. I do have some power here. What would you say to them?
Speaker 2:I would say that not only is that true, but life can surprise you beyond your wildest dreams. But you have to be open to it and you know. If you're at those beginning stages and you're thinking, you know where do I begin or you know how do I continue if you already have begun. The thing that I have done that has been so powerful to me is either go to a bookstore, go online If reading isn't your thing, an audio book, and it does not have to be my book, seriously, just anything.
Speaker 2:And you know, listen and absorb and allow the wisdom of others to kind of infiltrate into you, because it will be like a remembrance and for me, like poets and poetry, like read a Mary Oliver book, read Jack Kerouac's the Scripture of the Golden Eternity, but more than that, read whatever speaks to you, and a lot of it, I think, is just opening your mind to possibility, the invisible third door. What do I not know that I not know? And when you start priming yourself to see possibility everywhere, it will be overflowing from every corner of your life constantly and you realize that it was never not. It was there the whole time. It was that you didn't realize it was there. And when you realize it's there, you can reach toward it and you can act on it, and it can open doors that you really can't even fathom from where you're at probably right at this moment.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, thank you so much for sharing that. I'm just feeling so warm in my heart hearing that, yes, this is beautiful. I would love to know, as my last question to you, what are you working on right now, either personally or professionally? Is there anything you're overcoming or any exciting projects you have that you're working on right now? I'd love to know.
Speaker 2:I would love to tell you because this just happens to align literally this week I mean like today I'm finishing the edits on a book that I have coming out this fall.
Speaker 2:It's called Great Callings and it's a book about purpose and it's something that I had been working on for a while, and I had released a book called the Life that's Waiting earlier this year, and I didn't actually plan to do a double release in one year, but I felt I just I couldn't shake the feeling like really now was the time, and it just kind of came through me so, almost effortlessly.
Speaker 2:It just felt like this was the moment, and it was also after having so many conversations with people that I had met on my book tour, about feeling lost and struggling with meaning and struggling with finding purpose, and so what Great Callings is about is that purpose is not to be found, it's inherent to life itself.
Speaker 2:So if you are alive, you are purpose, and so that's why it feels like when you're seeking it out or reaching for it, you can't ever quite land on it. It's like, well, because it's not to be sought or discovered, it just is. But then also, at the same time, if you have a sense that there is something that you are wanting to do with your life. There's a blueprint inside of you that would just kind of naturally act on it if you didn't have unconscious interference standing in your way. And so this is a book it's seven chapters about kind of not kind of about rewriting and completely shifting all of those unconscious reasons that you are holding yourself back from doing what you already know you want and need to do and who you know you want and need to be. And so it'll be out this October.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I cannot wait for that. I think purpose is such an interesting topic and I think one of the hardest parts of my life was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I just knew that everything in front of me I didn't want to do, but there was something I was like what is that something? What is it? And I can't wait to to read that and absorb it. It sounds amazing. So you said October, october, october, right, amazing, all right. Well, thank you so so much for spending part of your day on the podcast with me. I've had the best time and I feel like I've learned so much. I feel so warm from this conversation. You really have a beautiful energy, even over the phone. It's just beautiful. So thank you so much for sharing your light with the world and I hope everyone listening really enjoyed it and everyone goes and checks out all the amazing books. I'll put links below and everything else, but thank you so, so much for being here. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thank you for having me it. Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for listening to this episode, magical Human. I hope you enjoyed it. Please share this episode with someone you love. Leave a rating or a review on the platform that you listen to this podcast through. It truly helps me reach new hearts and new minds, and I'm forever grateful for that. Thank you, and I'll chat to you in the next one. Love you.