#44 The Stories We Tell Matter: Gate 13 = Lessons in Power, Deep Listening, and Empathy

Enjoy the "talk" portion of this week's EFT Tap & Talk Session that happens inside the BE*INWARD membership. 

This week we're talking about Gate 13 in Human Design and Quantum Human Design - The Gate of The Listener or The Gate of Narrative. 

The stories we tell ourselves can completely transform our lives. What stories are you telling? What stories from others are you holding? And what stories no longer serve you?

Chapters

• 0:02 Exploring the Energy of Gate 13
• 12:45 The Power of Narrative in Energy
• 21:22 The Power of Storytelling and Empathy
• 36:28 Tools for Storytelling and Empathy
• 47:18 Embracing Individuality Through Personal Stories

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello, hello and welcome to this week's EFT Tap and Talk. I'm Corinne and today is August 7th and we are going to be talking about the energy of Gate 13. And for our EFT Tap and Talks in case you're new we move along with the energy of the Earthgates, so as the Sun moves through. A lot of people talk about the Sun energy, because 70% of our energy comes from the sun every day, because it's where all of our light and it takes up all of that space. But while the sun is moved into a gate, we are opposite it and so we are in a different gate, and in order for us to access and really embody and get the benefits of all that juicy sun energy, we have to ground into the energy of the earth gates. And so that's the reason why I followed the earth gates through our tapping, because if we're struggling with the energy of the earth gates, we can use EFT tapping to shift that energy and change the way that we're showing up. And so today we are on the earth and we are sitting in gate 13. So gate 13 is, in human design, is called the gate of the listener, and in the I Ching it's called fellowship with men or unite with men, and in the gene keys it's called listening through empathy. And the gift. We have the shadow and the gift and the city and the gift is what we're trying to accomplish, and the shadow is called discord.

Speaker 1: 1:39

And in quantum human design, this is called the gate of narrative. And all of these things have to do with story and storytelling. And if we start with human design, this is a collective energy and it is part of the um, the sensing circuit, but it's the abstract side, because it's on the side of the emotional solar plexus, and it's all about feeling. There's a lot of feeling that goes on with this gate. And what do you mean, feeling when we're talking about narrative and story? But what it is is about understanding. It's the gate of the listener being deeply connected to the themes of hearing and also understanding, listening deeply, knowing the stories that other people are telling us and also listening to and embodying our own story. So it's really important you know what stories are we telling ourselves, about ourselves, but also what stories are we carrying from the past. So this has to do with memory, right and understanding and empathy and people with gate 13.

Speaker 1: 2:51

And I am one of those people, if you have the gate 13 defined in your chart and right now all of us do because we are. The earth is in that gate. So, through the benefit of the transit, you have access to the energy of gate 13. This is the energy of the natural listener. This is the person to whom people tell stories. This is the person to whom people share secrets and I can't tell you my whole life has been this and it's been actually a point of pride that in my life I've been a person who can hold other people's stories. I can hold other people's secrets, I can be trusted in confidence, and so you know that's a positive thing as far as being a friend and having empathy and understanding and awareness, but it can also be a burden, right. So the challenge for people with Gate 13 and for all of us while we're sitting in the energy of Gate 13, is to be discerning about which stories are worth holding on to, which ones we need to let go of, because we can become really overwhelmed by the weight of either the volume of stories that we're hearing or the heaviness of the story that someone has just told us, or the weight of the story that we're sitting in. Right, and how many times have you been stuck in a story where limiting beliefs are the thing that you're sitting in for your own self? Hello, I think we all are really intimately connected to the energy of that.

Speaker 1: 4:29

And so the I Ching, the interesting thing. So all of this is based on the I Ching. And when you look at the I Ching, it's those six lines, right, and those six lines make up that hexagram shape which is on my wall behind me. But there's two trigrams, there's three lines on top and three lines on bottom, and the position of these different things explains the energy of the gate. And for this one, it's heaven over fire. And you know, when you think about heaven, right, this is something that is overarching and it is up there and it's like it's everywhere and it's for the benefit of man, right. And then you think about fire, which is also for the benefit of man, but it is something that rises up and it is something that ascends and expands and spreads, and so it represents story in that way, and it represents the power of story.

Speaker 1: 5:19

When you think about the thing you know, think about an inspirational story, think about like a really powerful movie, like Rudy is one of those stories or um, I'm trying to think I just saw a meme about Rudy, which is why that came to mind. But when somebody has a really powerful story of transformation, of, of, of overcoming adversity and and thriving and, you know, changing their world, changing the larger world, changing the collective, that's really inspirational. We can carry that energy, we can hear that story and be so moved to change how we show up in the world, to change the way we're living our lives. And so we can't underestimate or understate or overstate I'm backward and forward on this one you can't overstate the power and the value of a good story. And so the way that this connects to the collective is that, you know, the hexagrams of heaven and fire are all about unity. The hexagrams of heaven and fire are all about unity. They're all about community and coming together in fellowship for the mutual support of the collective collaborate right.

Speaker 1: 6:41

It uses story as a way to exemplify, to embody the power of communication and to, like, open the doors to hey, everybody is able to share their story. But it also comes in the form of strength, like we come together in an alliance because we are all moved by a story. Like you know, we're right now in a very huge political cycle in this country and you know, when you hear a fabulous story, that's like whoa and all the energy and everyone's like yay behind it, like that's it causes togetherness, it causes us to move in a unified way toward something that we all believe in, because that story has moved us. And so you know, that's where the link to storytelling comes from, with this gate. And so in the gene keys I really did like the learning about the gene key interpretation of this energy.

Speaker 1: 7:42

So, as I said before, the shadow of this energy is called discord and it's the low frequency of this because it's about miscommunication and misunderstanding. And this comes from not truly listening right, and there's two sides to the shadow In the gene keys. There's the passive and the active, and the passive one is this permissive, you know, mistaking hearing for listening and, as a result, you're just pretending to listen to somebody and, like, take in what they're saying and it's in one ear, not the other, so that you can, like you know, not rock the boat, because they need somebody to hear their story. But you don't take that on and use it to do anything with. Like you become a doormat, you let people just talk over you and talk, you know, at you, and you're not actually becoming an active participant. You don't do anything with the stories that you hear, with the things that you learn.

Speaker 1: 8:49

And then the opposite side of that is the reactive part of that, that is the aggressive narrow-mindedness, where you can't take in anybody's story, you are impervious to other opinions and you will disagree with everything that is being said because you just can't, you won't, and it isn't necessarily. You know, it's kind of important to understand that like it's not an all or nothing kind of a thing, like there's, there's degrees of all of these things, and so if you find yourself being really rigid with an opinion and not being open to hearing somebody else's opinion, that's a shadow, that's the shadow of discord with this energy. So it's kind of interesting again not to get political, but like we see it all the time on social media, especially in the news, with all the stuff that's going on in politics right now, there are people who will not hear, and you know, on all sides of the aisle and there are people who are just listening for the sake of listening, because they just they want you to think that they're hearing you and all they really want to do is get it over with right. They're not going to do anything with what you're sharing. And so there's a lot of storytelling, there's a lot of shadow on the storytelling side with what we do with those stories. And you know, when you look at the gene keys, the way that you move through them is from the shadow into the gift and into the city. And the only way you can get into the city, which is S-I-D-D-H-I, which is like that Buddha, that high enlightenment state, the only way to get here is through the others. It's a road, it's not three separate locations. So you can't get to the highest expression without having gone through the shadow and the mid-level. And so the mid-level, which is called the gift, which is where we probably can spend most of our time, is called discernment.

Speaker 1: 10:45

And what this is about is the ability to listen deeply and understand the core essence of what's being shared beyond the words right To be present emotionally, to be listening to what's happening beyond the actual words that are being verbalized. And it requires emotional awareness because you need to be able to feel what is being shared and actually bear witness to the person who's telling you the story, and you can then understand what's going on, you know, behind the curtain there, and the highest expression like the Buddha expression of this energy is empathy, and that's the highest frequency. It's all about connecting so deeply with other people by being able to put yourself in their shoes without making it about you. You right, it's in support of their story and it's actually in support of being present for their story and it actually that is something that fosters healing in the world and unity. And you know unity, because what is more powerful than being seen when you share a story with someone, especially if it's a story of strife or struggle or where something like really bad has happened or something that you're really trying to overcome or that you have overcome, and you feel witnessed and you feel seen and validated by the person who's on the receiving end of that, because they are actually like, so in touch with their ability to be, to empathize, there's you can't fake that, that that's not something that can be. You know you can't pretend your way through that. That's like that's the opposite of what that is Like. You can't fake empathy. You can try to fake empathy, but true empathy is not something that you can mistake like for something else. I guess that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1: 12:45

So when we look at quantum human design, it's called the gate of narrative and this, um, I think, is the most easily accessible explanation for what this energy is. And basically what it's about is what are the stories that you're telling yourself? What are the stories that you're using other people's stories that you're using in the world? What is the purpose of the way that you're telling your stories? Are your stories high vibe stories? Are they empowering stories? Are they stories that are going to open up the potential? Are they big enough stories to hold all the things that we are trying to achieve? So that's the big question. It's all about how the stories that we choose to tell shape the way the world is moving. And you know, when we talk about energy, like, we want to be in the high energy place because, as a collective, the higher all of our energy is, the higher the collective energy is, the higher the energy on the earth is. And you know, for a lot of people, when you hear that, like some people are like, you know, I don't know, that's a little bit like one molecule too far, but it's actually the truth. We, everything is frequency and the more we can use higher frequency language, to tell higher frequency stories, to share stories with the purpose of expanding and empowering and building a world that's large enough to fulfill the story of our potential.

Speaker 1: 14:22

I'm trying to keep my hands in frame here. That's what our job should be at all times. And when we get stuck in negative self-talk, when we get stuck in limiting beliefs, we know why this is so dangerous. Because there's a funky thing that happens in our brain, right, our reticular activating system. It's on 100% of the time and at all times it is hearing the story that we're telling ourselves about ourselves and it is focusing on the things in the world that are evidence that are proving our story true. So if we are telling ourselves a negative story, our brain is going to be seeking out things that prove it right. The answer is always yes. The answer is always yes energetically.

Speaker 1: 15:12

So if you're telling yourself, oh my gosh, you know I'm a terrible person, I'm a loser, I'm never going to have success, well, you know I'm a terrible person, I'm a loser, I'm never going to have success. Well, guess, guess what proof you're going to keep on finding, because your brain is always out there trying to reinforce your beliefs. So when you think about it in terms of that. It's like, well, holy cow, the stories that I'm telling myself are super powerful, but it's not just about your own stories, it's, it can be about sharing somebody else's really powerful story, like you know, how many times have you do you hear stories like, oh my gosh, I heard this story about this guy who, you know, climbed, you know, mount Everest when he, you know, after becoming a quadriplegic and all these amazing things, and, holy cow, if he could do that, what is the world, what is available to all of us?

Speaker 1: 15:56

Like, we get to pick the stories that we hold and the narrative that we are holding on to really does speak to empowerment. And you know, we have to not only invite ourselves to choose those higher vibe stories, we also have to listen to the stories of the people who are telling their stories to us. And when we identify that they're stuck, that this is a story that's old, where they're a victim, this is a story that is actually a limiting belief, which is really just like, hey, that's a story that's not even true, we have to use our ability as empathetic receivers of their story to say, hey, have you considered looking at this through a different lens, because when we help other people through a victim story or through a disempowerment story whether or not that thing is true like things happen and people do things to us and we have become a victim of this event. This event happened. I was a victim, that is a fact, but that doesn't mean that I am forever a victim in the story that I continue to tell. Because, number one, I don't believe what they said about me. What they said isn't true or that's who I was when that was going on. I am a different person. I have chosen to move beyond this and I'm going to carry this and I'm going to use this as fuel. We get to turn truth into empowerment in any way that we choose to, and we get to do it every single day.

Speaker 1: 17:44

If you wake up today, like I woke up today, and I was telling myself a rather not fabulous story about the effort that I'm putting in to my business, and I'm thinking like, well, you know, putting in to my business. And I'm thinking like, well, you know, right now it's really difficult to do X, so why am I bothering? And I'm never going to be successful. And then it turned into well, look at all these other times that you did these things that weren't success. And I'm ignoring all the ways in which I have had actual, tangible, provable, measurable success, because my brain is just trying to say, yes, it's reinforcing the story. Like you know, corinne woke up on the wrong side of the bed today, so we're going to make today a bad, bad day? No, so we get to choose and we get to embrace a narrative that uplifts right, not only empowering ourselves, but empowering the collective and facilitating healing in a way that supports us and is creating a world that is sustainable for us.

Speaker 1: 18:47

And it's really a matter of changing the way that we're talking to ourselves. And so it asks you know, where are you stuck? In old stories? What are those limiting beliefs that you keep actually saying to yourself and you know, sharing with other people about yourself, or just talking to yourself negatively, like, oh God, you're so stupid. Or, oh my gosh, you look horrible in those jeans, or you know, whatever, whatever it is that you're doing, identify those and stop it and find a way to turn it around, if you can, into something that's actually more powerful, empowering, and then use that as fuel to prove to yourself that you know.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Pay attention to what comes into your awareness once you shift the story, because it is so easy for us to hold on to stories where we are the victim. And you know, and all of us like I'm going to raise my hand again for all of these things I think that we, all of us as human beings, have gone through some stuff right, and the older you are, the more stuff you've seen and we get to choose if the things that have happened are going to keep us held back or if we're going to move through them. And you know I talk about. This is something that I talk about a lot like daily with my nonprofit work. So I work in supporting bereaved families after the death of a child, and one of the tenets of my organization is we help you.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Our mission is to help you learn how to live with your grief not in your grief, because there's a difference between making something that happened to you your identity and making it part of your story. And it's interesting because not to keep using this as an example but there are people who meet me and spend lots and lots of time with me and it'll be quite some time before they ever learn about my nonprofit or about this about losing my daughter or about what happened, and you know how that changed our lives and you lives and who I am and everything that we have in the world, in my family, shifted because that happened. And yet it is only one piece of my story, even though it is a gigantic, pivot point in my life. And the reason why is because there's a way to tell that story where there's the what was me? Oh my gosh, this is what happened.

Speaker 1: 21:22

And then there's the story where it's like look who I became because this happened and that's, it's the same story. It's, it doesn't. None of the facts have changed, it's just a matter of perspective, and this is not shining sunshine on something. That perspective, and this is not shining sunshine on something that you know we're not. We're not making stuff up. We're choosing to tell an empowering story and like using that bereavement story as an example. I can't think of a more powerful example or a more powerful proof of the power of that, because nothing changes the facts of that story except the way that we choose to view it.

Speaker 1: 22:09

And so I use that story of my loss and my life since my loss and all the things that have happened as a result and, in the midst of all of those things, to support people who are going through it new, and it is a powerful thing. It is a powerful thing to be able to use story for good, to use story to uplift, to use story to empower, and every single story can do this. It doesn't need to be a tragic story that you can turn into a powerful story. It can be the story of losing your keys that turns into a powerful story. It can be the story of having a fight with your spouse that turns into a really empowering story. So the magnitude of the event does not dictate the power of the story, ever. I mean it really. It is just about how we can use story to better the world. And so, oh, wow, okay, I didn't mean to go into that, that was not included in my notes today, but I can't talk about story without talking about that, because it's really such a stark example of the choice that you can make to to make a story powerful, empowering or disempowering for myself and for other people.

Speaker 1: 23:36

And so the shadows of gate 13,. As we've gone through all of these things, discord right At its lowest frequency. Gate 13, the energy of this gate is discord. This is lack of understanding. This is lack of communication. This is mercury. Retrograde in all of its forms. Right? This is when things go sideways and the voicemail didn't get delivered. This is when you left a sticky note on someone's door but the breeze blew it down and they never got the message.

Speaker 1: 24:10

It can be also when you become intransigent and you are not listening. You're just sitting there and you're letting people talk at you because that's the best way to get through this without fighting, and then you walk away and it had no impact and it's not going to do anything, and that's not even good for you, even if you didn't ruffle the feather. It's all about avoiding conflict in that way, and the thing that is so sad about that is that you're using this passiveness as a way to get through the moment, and typically that happens because we don't feel connected. But the fact of that act is actually perpetuating that lack of connectivity. Like you're, you're not accessing empathy, for whatever reason. Like you don't have it in you, like you don't have a cup full of anything to give or you don't care, or you've lost touch with being able to access that, that that well of empathy, because you've been wounded by people who have not been able to be there for you, like it's there's.

Speaker 1: 25:17

There's a thousand different ways that that can show up, but if you find that you're there, if discord is, you know that miscommunication, that conflict is showing up for you. You know, that's one of those things to look at and that's why we talk about these things in our EFT Tap and Talks, because you don't have to be living in this 24 seven to experience it. And if you're experiencing it, it's an opportunity to say, hey, I see that and I would like to change that, and so we're going to try to move that energy right. Overwhelm so if you are someone to whom people tell their stories and tell their secrets, you can very easily become overwhelmed by the magnitude of that, by the weight of that and by dropping empathetically into people's stuff. That's a lot, that's a lot of energy to hold and also there's a lot of pressure there, because you know a lot can go wrong if you're not able to really hold that story. Yeah, and also if somebody is sharing a really heavy-duty negative story with you, that can bring you out of your high-vibe state because it's like, oh my gosh, and it could change the way that you think about the world, right?

Speaker 1: 26:47

I'll give you another example from my life. For a really long time I watched crime shows and I listened to true crime podcasts and I listened to a lot of dark, dark, dark, dark stuff. And I don't know what happened. But one day I was listening to this podcast and it was seriously like I don't know if it was because of the people that were telling the story were actually part of the family that it was related to, or what it was, but it got so dark and it hit me all the way in my body Like, oh my God, I can't live in a world where this is actually possible. And I haven't listened to anything like that since I used to watch Criminal Minds and I was into the darker the better it was better watch Criminal Minds. And like I was into the darker the better it was better, like everything was great. And now I can't go there and it's because I think that I cracked open the empathy thing, like stepping into someone else's shoes, a little bit, like I can't close that door anymore. And now it's like, oh, I like this isn't entertaining to me. This is actually really, really hard for me to hold, so we can really get overwhelmed if we're not careful with the way that we pick up on the stories that we're receiving that we're allowing in Right. So we need to make sure that we become more discerning when it comes to that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 28:04

The next shadow of this is the judgment piece. That's when you show up and you're just listening. You're not listening. You're actually just letting them. You're hearing it but you're not listening. And that can be because you lack the ability or the energy to give empathy, or you don't care, or it's so far beyond your ability to comprehend what happened that you can't connect and you're not willing to connect because you're judging that person's story and you know there's a lot of, there's a lot of that that goes on in the world and I think that you know it's it's hard to shine the light back on ourselves and say, wow, am I being judgmental in listening to this story? Or can I be empathetic and carry this story? Or even if I can't carry the story, can I be empathetic enough to listen to this story with my heart and be the receiver of this person's story, even if I don't actually ever really do anything with it except hold it for them, because that energy exchange is really important. And that's the thing when I was talking about empathy that you can't really fake. The person who's telling you the story will know if you're able to hold that.

Speaker 1: 29:24

The other thing that happens here is isolation. When you are feeling burdened by the weight of the stories or overburdened by the magnitude of secrets that you're holding for other people, you might start to distance yourself from the people around you, and this is a protective mechanism. Right, we're doing this out of self-preservation, but you know that defeats the purpose of being, you know, part of the world, like we want to be part of the world. So if you're finding yourself pulling away because you're feeling overwhelmed, maybe it's time to do some work where you're letting yourself release some of these stories, not by sharing people's confidences, but maybe by journaling or by doing some EFT tapping to release yourself from the burden of having to be the holder of the story anymore. Right, maybe your job here is done and you don't have to hold on to it anymore. When you get into the place where you're having judgment and you're isolating, you might have resentment, and that is one of those things where it's like you feel like you're listening so much to everybody else's stories, that your stories have nowhere to be heard, nobody is available to listen to you, and you might feel that that is the case because now you're isolating, you're not accessing the people that are in your circle, or maybe you don't have enough people in that circle, or maybe there's so much going on with the people in your circle that reciprocity is not possible. So that's another place to look if you're feeling like you're out of whack with your ability to share and receive story.

Speaker 1: 31:06

The other thing that can happen, especially when you're dealing with somebody who's living in a victim consciousness, is the story becomes distorted by their worldview, by their view of what happened, by their interpretation or through that game of telephone, how things just don't look the same at the other side when they as they did when they start. But what can happen there is, that's when stories become trite and they become, they lose their meaning and they lose the weight of their, of their essence. And I think that our job, I think, when we hear those kinds of stories, is actually to just try to sit with them for a moment and say like, okay, I'm not sure how I feel about this a hundred percent, but I can listen to it and be here in this moment, whether or not, again, I choose to carry that story going forward. And then there's the two victim pieces. Number one is the inability to let go of past experiences. Like this is living in your thing versus with your thing right?

Speaker 1: 32:13

If you find that you are holding on to a story from your past so tightly that it becomes your identity, that is not actually something that is desirable, because you are not the story and you are not that thing that happened to you. And I was actually just talking about this with my son yesterday. My son is my youngest, is actually moving into the dorms for his freshman year for the very first time and he has these new roommates and he's never met them and he's so worried about like, what if I show up and they're, you know, not good people or they're you know whatever bullies or you show up as and that's going to? That is by letting go. You can't hold too tightly to any one story, because you are not one story. We are not. I wish I had my diamond. We are diamonds.

Speaker 1: 33:38

There are so many facets on our being and every single story that we have is just one more facet in that diamond excuse me, the underlying gemstone, you know, that has its facets cut onto its top is not any one of these things. We can turn it and look through and be able to empathize with somebody because this facet matches up with the thing that they're sharing, because we have that experience. But it is not our whole identity. It shouldn't be. And if you find that you're unable to let go of a story and this is especially something that comes up with relationships, like when I think about that person oh, this is who I am in this relationship you don't have to be that person, especially if that's costing you to hold on to that.

Speaker 1: 34:32

And then, finally, the last one is victim mentality. If you see yourself as the victim rather than the empowered person, that is going to keep you in that place and it's going to become part of your identity because it's going to be something that you can't let go of, but it's going to be the way that you show up in the world and, as we know, our reticular activating system is going to say yes in all the ways. So if you find that every time I share my story, no one ever listens, for example, your brain is going to continue to show you and remind you of all the different times that that happened to you. And if you try to share a story with someone who is distracted in the moment, you might not give them the benefit of the doubt by saying, hey, are you able to, you know, are you able to listen to my story right now? Instead, you'll see that they're distracted like nobody has time for me and my stories. You will make it true.

Speaker 1: 35:30

And so we really need to be mindful of the ways that we live in shadow, and we all live in the shadow, and that was a little Lord of the Rings there, like Corinne's, gone into the shadow. I haven't. I'm still here, I'm among the living, but we have more access to the shadow energies of all of the gates at all the times, because we're people, and so that's why I choose to focus so much on them, because it's so relatable, it's. It's like I don't think anybody can really get through this without really, you know, living in the shadow at one point or another. And so, whether or not you actually are experiencing any of these shadows, it's still important to tap through them. There's still a benefit. You get that side effect, that beautiful side effect that comes because your subconscious mind is doing all kinds of things that we're not aware of, right, it's subconscious, and so tapping on these things might help us release some things that we didn't even know we were thinking about.

Speaker 1: 36:28

So some of the ways that we can mitigate these shadows is by practicing discernment right, be discerning which stories and experiences we're holding and who we're sharing our stuff with and who we're receiving things from. Right, developing healthy boundaries to protect our emotional wellbeing, but also to prevent overwhelm and also to protect us from sharing our stories out of habit, like we don't have to share our stories with everyone. We can foster self-reflection, right, reflecting on our own experiences and emotions to ensure that we're not carrying unnecessary burdens, and we can do that through tapping, we can do that through sharing, we can do that through journaling, by meditating, just by sitting with what we're feeling after we carried a story for a little while. We can seek reciprocity. We can actually consciously choose to embark on relationship time with hey, I want to talk to you about something that's been on my mind. I want to hear what you have to say, but can I also share what I have to share and make that an actual thing that you do with your people, seeking reciprocity as opposed to trying to prove that no one's listening, is a challenge that I, you know, I I challenged myself to do and I challenge you to do Practicing empathy. It's I think that we're all moving so quickly that we forget that we're connected, like we are all connected. We're all in this together, and when we can practice empathy by putting ourselves in the shoes of the other person and trying to understand their perspective and trying to understand their emotions without judgment, trying to really understand how they could be coming to this from here, the power of that really does so much to help us connect with our people, with everyone around us.

Speaker 1: 38:24

Practice letting go rituals. There's one that I learned a million years ago. It has to do with water. You can do it when you're washing your hands. You can do it when you're showering. You can do it. You could go in to a sink and run the water with the purpose of doing this. But anytime I feel like I'm carrying a lot of stuff that doesn't belong to me, I will, while I'm washing my hands, or I'll go put the water on so that I can run my hands under it, but it's something that I actually do when I'm in the shower. I'm pretty sure I do it every day. I'm going to have to think about that.

Speaker 1: 39:01

I think I'm being honest when I say that, if not 90% of the time, when I'm in the shower, as the water is running over me, I take a moment and I close my eyes and I think about where am I? What am I thinking about? What am I holding on to? Where's the stress in my body? And I say this is not for me to carry. I let this wash through me. I'm going to let this run down the drain. I don't have to hold this energy anymore and I use the water as this physical sensation of actually pulling something away, washing it off of me, washing it out of my hands. It's a powerful exercise, but if you can come up with some letting go rituals you know some people like to write things down and then burn them. Some people like to write things down and then bury them, give them back to the earth. You know things that no longer serve can be released, and so if you get into the practice of doing releasing, you'll find that there's just that much more energy available for you to show up in the ways that you want to show up in the world.

Speaker 1: 40:06

Cultivate a deep listening practice. Like practice active listening when it comes to other people, right, focusing on truly hearing what they're saying, without trying to form a response to what they're saying, without waiting for them to take a breath so that you can interject your statement. Like try to really listen. And when I was doing my coaching training, learning how to be a life coach that was a huge part of that curriculum was really learning to just listen. And it's funny because I've always been somebody to whom people tell stories, always to whom people tell stories. Always I used to be an active participant in the conversation of listening to their stories. I'd be interjecting things, I'd be like oh my gosh, and giving my opinions and just responding real time.

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But I have found, since taking my coaching certification, the power of really just receiving and hearing what they're saying and then waiting until they're done telling their story. And it's actually beautiful because it's very calming to just know that all I have to do is receive this and then, while I'm listening and receiving, I'm hearing a lot of other things that are happening underneath the words that are being spoken, and so there's a clarity that comes with being truly present in listening, without trying to process, and I took that skill that I learned to just be present and listen to reading books and watching movies. And now, when I'm watching movies with my husband, for example, and he starts talking about solving the clues and telling me what he's thinking, I lose my mind because I'm like I am not processing, I'm just receiving. I don't want to think about it, I want to be taken on the ride because, as somebody who writes novels, I'm thinking about storytelling all the time. I'm just receiving. I don't want to think about it. I want to be taken on the ride because, as somebody who writes novels, I'm thinking about storytelling all the time. I'm thinking about story craft, I'm thinking about tropes and genres and like I used to have very low enjoyment with reading books and watching movies because I was like, oh, I know how this is going to end. I've turned that off because I've learned this active listening. I've turned that off because I've learned this active listening. It's like blinders, and so I encourage you to try that. It's been a wonderful gift to me. And when I think about how it feels in my body, it feels expansive, it feels like I'm becoming a vessel to receive and hold a story right, whether that be fiction or somebody's actual story that they're telling me like across a table. So that's a beautiful thing.

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And then, once you're actively listening and you have the story, reflect on the story right, spend time thinking about it. Think about how your own experiences might have been similar to the thing that you just received. Consider how it is empowering or disempowering the way the story was told. Can you help the person who just shared the story that was disempowering, help them shift it to a more empowering story? Can you find a way to use this as fuel to lift right, to expand, to open the world, so that the world can hold the potential of what's possible? And then, finally, the last thing when it comes to holding people's stories is share wisely right. It is really important that we retell stories right. This is the gate of narrative. This is about telling stories. This is not about sharing confidences, but it's about you can tell someone else's story to someone in a way that's really empowering, or you can tell that story in a way that is disempowering or is in conflict to the confidence that you held the story in when you received it. So all of these different things are the toolkit that we can bring to what we do when we hear, hear story.

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And the gate 13 is, um, it's one of my favorite gates. It's, it's such a, it's such a powerful energy because, because it's story and it's interesting, it's, it's in, it appears in my chart as my north node, which is the north node, is like your north star. It's like what you're here to do and be and like storytelling. That's kind of cool because, as a coach, I'm helping. As a quantum human design coach, I'm helping you craft a new story and as an author, I'm using stories and I think that it's I don't know, I just thought that was a cool thing to have discovered.

Speaker 1: 45:01

But the gate of narrative, the gate of the listener, it's a wonderful, wonderful energy to focus on and do the work in. And whether or not you have it defined, you still have access to this energy. Human design tells us that if you don't have it defined, you then have wisdom when it comes to this because when you have it defined, you access that energy at all times. When you have it open, you experience it in all the different flavors that it can, as it transits in your pie when you're in a crowd, when you're at work with other people, when you're in your home, when you're at the store, anybody with gate 13 is going to reflect that. You're going to receive that in you, and so you have a lot of wisdom when it comes to the way that gate 13 can become expressed. And so it's just really juicy, and I think that you know, because story has such a pivotal part in who we are right. This is energy of the G center, this is the identity center. This is energy of the G center. This is the identity center. That's where gate 13 lives.

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It's vitally important that we are aware of the stories that we're telling ourselves, but ask yourself the question, you know are you holding on to stories from your past? Are you clinging to the identity of victimhood in a way that maybe is no longer true? Do you feel overburdened by the stories that you're holding from other people? Can you release them? Can you use the water ritual to wash your hands of these things that are not for you to carry any longer? Can you forgive yourself for your role in the stories of the past and move forward in a way that is powerful and standing in your value?

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And I want to read the affirmation that was written about Gate 13 by my mentor, karen Curry Parker, and it says the story that I tell myself and the one I tell the world sets the tone and the direction for my life.

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I am the artist and creator of my story. I have the power to rewrite my story every day. The true story I tell from my heart allows me to serve my right place in the cosmic plan, and I think that you know, when we talk about human design in particular, it's the science of differentiation. You are meant to be who you are at all times, and we can use stories to differentiate and to stand in our power and to understand like I am me. This is my story, this is my experience. These are the things that I have lived and other people have not. So how could we all be telling the same story? Right? It's a powerful thing, and I think that you know we need more inroads into differentiation, into making it normal for us to be completely ourselves, without a care for what other people think or believe about us. So that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for watching and I will catch you next time.