How to Finally Do the Thing That Matters Most (Starting Today)

How to Finally Do the Thing That Matters Most (Starting Today)

Why are you stuck? Why can't you do the thing you know you're meant to do? It's not fear of failure, lack of strategy, or discipline, it's something much quieter, and it lives in your body, not your head.

In this episode, Dr. Amen Kaur reveals what neuroscience, psychology, and the oldest spiritual traditions all agree on, from completely different starting points. You'll hear how Neville Goddard's "feeling is the secret," Carl Rogers' work on acceptance and congruence, Paul Gilbert's research on self-compassion, and Stephen Porges' polyvagal theory point to the same mechanism the Bible, Buddha, Rumi, Guru Nanak, and the Quran have been teaching for centuries.

In this episode:

• The real reason high-achieving women stay stuck for years
• Why your nervous system has to feel safe before your brain can do its best work
• The hidden block underneath procrastination, overthinking, and self-sabotage (hint: it's not what you fear, it's what you can't receive)
• How self-criticism activates the same threat response as an external attack
• The one shift you can make this week to come back to yourself

Perfect for you if: you're a capable, driven woman who has done all the inner work, therapy, mindset, manifestation, strategy and still feels stuck, overwhelmed, or like you're performing a life instead of living it.

This isn't a 10-step plan. It's a return to yourself.

🎧 Free masterclass: amenkaur/masterclass a felt experience, not a theory.

If this lands in your body, send it to the woman you're already thinking of.

Free Masterclass: The Human Intelligence Framework

A walkthrough of the five stage method Dr Amen Kaur uses with high achieving women who have lost themselves inside a career, role or identity that no longer fits.

Watch it free at amenkaur.com/masterclass

About Dr Amen Kaur

Starting Over, Being You with Dr. Amen Kaur is the podcast for high-achieving women who have been quietly losing themselves inside the life they built. Dr. Amen Kaur, PhD, is a former scientist and former Partner at a FTSE 250 company with 20+ years of corporate experience. She teaches the Human Intelligence Framework, the Five Intelligences that orbit Your Self, and how to bring the integrator back online when it has stepped away from the seat.

Learn more at amenkaur.com/about

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not medical, psychological, or financial advice. Please consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation.

Transcript

The Thing You Keep Delaying

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's something that's important for you to do. Something you know you're meant to do, but you just can't seem to get the time to do it. There's always something else, always another reason why it's not the right moment. Today that's gonna change. I was the woman that had the career capability in the drive, and then life hit in a way I did not see coming. And everything I built, my identity on stopped working. So I did what I do, which is how studied. Not just the psychology, the neuroscience, but the patterns underneath the patterns. And what I found changed everything, not just for me, but for hundreds of women who thought they were broken, but they weren't. And then they went on to double, triple, start businesses and triple or double their income. And this is what I want to show you today. So here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna walk through three things. The first, really understand why when we're stuck, we can stay stuck for so many years. And there's not a surface reason, not the reason that your mind is telling you. But we're gonna dig deep and find the real reason. The one that lives in your body, not in your head. And when you hear it, something's gonna click because you're gonna feel it in your body. And you probably haven't had the language for it yet. The second is that we're gonna look at what is actually blocking you from having the life you know you're capable of. And it's gonna be a surprise because it's not what you think. It's not a lack of strategy, it's not that you don't know what to do, it's not a lack of discipline, it's not even a fear of failure. So many people think it must be because I'm fearing failure. It's something much more quieter that's running underneath everything. And the third is what can we do about it? Not a 10-step plan, one thing, one shift, something you can take into your week on a practical level that can change how you experience yourself from the inside. And then I'm gonna show you something I wasn't expecting to find. That the neuroscience, the psychology, and the oldest spiritual transitions on this planet are all pointing to the same thing. Even though they're

A Personal Collapse Becomes A Map

SPEAKER_00 2:40

starting from different points, and you will see the pattern, and then you won't be able to unsee it. So let's start. Why are you stuck? Why can you not do the very thing that is so important for you? Instead of reaching for the answer in your mind, just try this, just for a moment, where you are in your body right now. Not where you should be by now, not where your mind is telling you you should be, and you go into that overthinking and you just don't feel the peace. Because we believe our mind has all the answers, all the insights, all the plans already. And it might be you've tried all of that, but actually start where you are today in your body. Choose you. Carl Rogers, arguably one of the most important psychologists of the last century, proved something that changed everything. He showed that in order for a change to happen, it's not actually a better plan, it's not a better strategy, it's not even more motivation. It's acceptance. Acceptance of exactly where you are right now. If you can't accept where you are right now, you can't change the situation. And he called it congruence, closing the gap between who you've been performing as and who you actually are. And this is really important because if you're anything like me, you might have had to perform to get through the day at work and be this person that everybody expects you to be, but you're maybe dealing with something that's horrific at home or something that's really hard, and you're being that strong one. That actually means that you're living in incongruence. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person, it just means the gap between you having to perform and who you actually are, and it's very tiring. But here's what most people miss acceptance isn't slowing down because a lot of the times I didn't want to accept the situation because I thought, oh my gosh, if I accept it, I'm slowing down, or I won't be able to change anything. But it's actually the quickest way to move forward. That's what research has shown. Always start and accept where you are. Now, I know your mind is going to be saying, if I

Acceptance And Closing The Gap

SPEAKER_00 5:18

accept where I am, then you know, how am I going to fix it? I can't accept this. I need to move, I need to do something. Otherwise, I'm never going to move forward. That voice, that urgency, that is the old program running. That is the one that says, your worth is your output. That's the one that probably tells you that if you rest or you are lazy, that acceptance is actually giving up. But actually, in reality, it's the opposite. And somewhere in your body, you already know this is true. Because you've tried the other way, where you're forcing, trying loads of different things, pushing through, working harder, thinking more, planning harder, and it hasn't actually worked. Not because you're not capable, you are deeply capable, but because capacity without a settled foundation is like building a house painstakingly on sand. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you work, no matter how beautiful you make it look, is not going to stand. And that is not a character flaw, it's actually science. Your nervous system has to feel safe before your brain can do its best work. And this is key, right? Because you can't come up with really good solutions that are really right for you if your brain isn't fully accessed. So the question is not how do I do more? The question is what is blocking what is already in me? That's why you're stuck. Not because something's missing, but because something is in the way. Acceptance is the foundation, it's like the first step. And without it, everything you build is from a nervous system that is in fight mode or flight mode or freeze or fawn mode. Our brain doesn't have access to that creative mode of that nervous system. And the thing is, we need to be really clear on this. Your nervous system isn't in between, you can't be in fight mode and be creative. You might think you are, but actually, you're not really accessing your full creativity until your nervous system can go back into calm and creative mode. That's just the way it is. It's like light switches. It's either on or it's off. It's either in fight or it's in flight, or it's in freeze, or if it's in fawn, or it's in shutdown, or it's in creative rest, create mode where you're in your genius. So the prefrontal cortex, if it's not in your calm, creative mode, is offline. So then we go, okay, everything I'm building when I'm not in calm is built on shaky foundations that are not gonna hold the test of time. So here's what happens when you accept where you are. Something comes back. Rogers called it actualization tendencies, the innate drive in every human being to move towards wholeness. You know that. Everyone wants to move towards wholeness. You want to come back home to yourself. Spiritual texts say the same thing, and neurobiologically, we are desperate to move towards wholeness so we can feel like ourself again in our own body. Because then we have full access to our full resources. You do not need to force that, you don't need to manufacture it, you're really in it. And there's a sense of relief that you hear when your body is like, yeah, I'm back and I'm calm. People actually do a sigh of relief. Rumi called it. Rumi said this: your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. And the third thing, choose yourself. No one's coming to rescue you. No employer is going to be saying, Hey, I see you, I see your worth, and you're doing so well at work. I want to give you a pay rise, I want to give you this job that you really deserve. Most of the time, they want to keep you in a job that doesn't help you grow because you're doing a good job, you're competent at it, and they just want you to stay there. They're not interested in you getting into your genius mode. Knowing if your no partner is ever going to turn around and say, Hey, I finally see you and I see how much you've given to me, or a therapist is going to help give you that missing piece. Everything that you have been looking for is within you. And it starts from being you and knowing you, knowing who you are. You are the missing piece. And choosing yourself from a place of acceptance, from a settled nervous system, from the truth of who you actually are, underneath all of that performance, that's when everything changes. Not choosing yourself from willpower, not choosing yourself because you have to, choosing yourself because your body finally feels enough, safe enough to let you. But I don't want you to take my word for it. You already have evidence in your own life. Think about a time when you were everything was working for you, everything was in flow, you felt good in your body, things just happened, opportunities, you felt different in your body. Then think about the time when you felt like nothing's working, it's a struggle. You felt different in your body. And there's a saying that did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Yeah. It's like you can it can sometimes start where it starts at the beginning of the day and it just continues for the rest of the day. And you can think, I'm just having one of those bad days when nothing is working for me. Now, let me show you something about resistance that most people miss. When something is truly important to you, you're gonna feel resistance towards it. It's normal. So don't wait for motivation to suddenly come and help you through. And the resistance isn't a flaw. So many of us actually think resistance is a flaw, like there's something wrong with me because I'm not motivated. Actually, your system is working exactly how it's designed to do, it's protecting you not from failure, but from feeling of having what it is that you want. Think about it just for a moment. The resistance is not about the task. If you broke down the task enough,

Safety First Then Creativity Returns

SPEAKER_00 12:35

you would find that you'd be able to do it. It's more about what the task represents. If you start that business, you might succeed. If you write that book, people might love it. If you leave that relationship, you might find love. Someone who actually really truly loves you and sees you. You might have all those things, but in order to have those, you have to receive. You have to learn to receive success, receive love, receive recognition, receive your own worth. Not like working and struggling to receive, actually receive in your body. And for a woman that spent her whole life giving, performing, earning, proving, even though it might look on the service like she's good at receiving, actually, receiving is the hardest thing in the world to do. She might not get the support that she needs. She has to be the strong one all the time, because she doesn't know how to receive. That's the truth. Because her nervous system doesn't know how to hold it safely, because she's been set up to be a provide, to give, to produce. And actually receiving means that she has to feel the deep wounds around receiving to be able to receive. She's gonna have to feel those wounds. And because we've built our whole entire sense of self for giving to others, then it actually receiving hurts. And I know this personally because I wanted people to like me. I want people to like who I am, and I gave and gave so people would like me. And I want you to answer something honestly. You know, have you betrayed yourself so others like you? Or how many times have you said yes when you meant no? How many times have you given that you couldn't afford, like you're exhausted and you still went to that party? Maybe you give financially, energetically, emotionally, physically. Why? Is it because you want people to see you as good, as enough, as a good person, as worthy? And if you procrastinate, if you self-sabotage, if you think you will have some regrets on your last breath because you didn't actually do what was important for you, maybe get that book out, or publish, or write that book, or fulfill that potential, it's more likely than not your nervous system is protecting you from that feeling of being truly seen, to receive truly valued because that feels really vulnerable.

Resistance Protects You From Receiving

SPEAKER_00 15:40

To be yourself and to succeed is on a different level. To allow yourself to feel good within your body, that's where we feel most exposed. And that's where our system can get stuck. We can get busy giving, giving, giving to everyone else. And that's what's blocking us. Not a lack of effort, not a lack of capability, but a nervous system that has learned it was safer to give than to receive. And until that can shift, nothing outside will change, not permanently. You'll still be in that giving mode until you can't give anymore because you're exhausted. So now let me show you what actually shifts because this is the third thing. And I promise you, when you understand this, everything's gonna shift. The way the shift happens is not really a straight line, it's more like a spiral. Every time you give back to yourself, you go a little bit deeper into you, the more you get outside. The first thing when as you're going around that spiral is that you've got to go beyond the resistance. When we're in resistance, we're fighting. We're fighting the resistance, we're in fight mode. Like we're there's a resistance there. You're pushing through that resistance, so you're having to fight, put power into it. But when you accept where you are, you actually put all the weapons down, if you like. You're like, oh, I'm not fighting. I accept, I give up. I'm gonna return to myself and you feel the relief and you return back into your body. That's when you've stopped fighting. The second thing is you go beyond your mind. So first you go beyond the resistance, second, you go beyond the mind. Because here's what nobody tells us your mind does not have the answers. It thinks it does. It's been working over time to try and figure everything out. But the mind is trying to solve this problem, is the mind that is conditioned by the problem. Einstein said it, we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking mind that you that was used to create them in the first place. So we have to go beyond the thinking, go beyond, but right, returning to something much deeper. And that return is back to you. The third thing is to go beyond the stories. And this is so important because we'll go round and round and go through all these stories and we'll ruminate, and this happened, and that happened, and this person did this to me. That's your mind's attempt to make sense of why you're in the situation that you're in, or make sense of something it cannot feel. And when you can go beyond the stories, something else opens up. Beyond the stories is where judgment has been. And that's the fourth piece. We go beyond the judgment. If you find it hard to accept where you are, there's a reason. On some level, you're judging yourself for being there. You're giving yourself a hard time. And here's what the science shows us about this. Paul Gilbert, one of the leading researchers in this field, discovers something that changes everything. He showed that self-criticism activates the same threat system in your brain as an external threat. The amygdala fires, cortisol floods your body, the nervous system goes into fight or flight. Not because someone else is attacking you, but because you're attacking yourself. Every time you think, what's wrong with me? Why am I not doing this? Every time you think I should be further along, every time you judge yourself for being stuck, your brain is responding as if it's in danger. And what does that mean? You're then in a different state, in a state where you can't actually produce what it is that you want. This is why I really want to be honest with you. It's not fair when you judge yourself, when you're comparing yourself to somebody else who's got full access to their nervous system and they're in a different space. Do not compare yourself because you can't think clearly. Then you can't create, you cannot receive, you cannot feel, because your whole self-judgment has locked you into a threat system. And on the other side, Gilbert showed that self-compassion, accepting yourself as you are right now, activates the soothing system, the vagus nerve, the parasympathetic nervous system, oxytocin, the love hormone. The same system Porges showed is essential for safety and connection. The same system that has to be online before your prefrontal cortex can do its job. So acceptance is not a soft idea. It's not like we're not moving forward. It's like a the wrong thing to do, or I'm soft if I accept myself. It's actually smart. It's a nervous system intervention. When you stop judging yourself, you literally switch from the system that's running your body from threat to safety, from cortisol to oxytocin,

Self Criticism Triggers The Threat System

SPEAKER_00 21:10

from locked to open. This is why in different religions you've got God is love. Because it's the ointment to you getting back to yourself and helping your biology, your whole system. And that judgment is like a lock. Acceptance is the key. That's where relief comes from. Because most of the time we're not suffering because of the situation, we're suffering because of the things that we're telling ourselves off. Because we're in the situation. What will other people think? Ha, I should be further along. What's wrong with me? That judgment is what's closing the door. And when that drops, when you can finally accept yourself, whatever situation you're in, you're not accepting the situation, you're accepting yourself. And then your nervous system settles. And then that's when things get really interesting. You can feel for the first time in a long time, you can actually feel. And what we discover is that the feelings that we're struggling with the most are not fear or failure. It's not grief or anger. It's the feeling of actually having what it is we want. And we avoid that. We avoid feeling what it is that we want, the feeling of success, the feeling of being truly seen, the feeling of allowing ourselves to feel good in our own body. If you're an overthinker, you're avoiding yourself feeling good in your own body. That's the most vulnerable place we'll ever be. Because when we feel what's in our body and we receive, we feel the pain, the loss of that we didn't have it. And that's why it matters that we learn to feel not just difficult feelings, the good ones as well. That we are allowed to celebrate, allowed to be yourself and succeed, allowed to receive the love that you need. Not just give. And when you can step back and ask why this works, not just how, but why, I found something so incredible that I wasn't really expecting. Because the answer is not just in one place, it's in all of them. Remember, I said at the beginning I was going to show you something that I was not expecting to find. This is it. This is the part that changed everything for me. Because when I put the neuroscience next to the psychology, next to the biology, next to the spiritual transitions, next to the spiritual texts, they all were describing the same mechanism from completely different starting points. Science says your physiological state determines what you can access. And there's so many studies in terms of if you have the right physiological state, your nervous system is regulated and you can hold the feeling of what it is that you want in your body. Your brain reorganizes, new neural pathways form, your decisions change, your behavior changes, your results change, not because you forced it, but because your state changed. Neville Goddard said feeling is a secret. To bring something into your life, you must feel it as if it's already real. Not think it, not affirm it, feel it in your body as a lived experience. And he said this in 1944, decades later, the neuroscience arrived at the same conclusion for a completely different door. And then you have the scriptures. The Bible says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is he, not in his mind, in his heart. That inner felt state produces the outer reality. And Jesus, he embodied what it is that he wanted, and then it would come into reality. The Buddha taught, whatever arises in the mind is accompanied by sensation, not thought, sensation in the body. He did not say think your way to freedom. He said, feel what is actually happening within you. The body is how you know what is true. Guru Nanak says in the Guru Grandse, Oh my mind, you are the embodiment of light. Recognize your own origin. You're not separate from the divine, you are made of it. In the Islamic tradition, whoever knows himself knows his Lord. Self-knowledge is the path to everything. And the Quran says, God is closer to you than your own jugular vein. Not distant, not outside, right here inside. Do you see the pattern? They are all saying the same thing. From different centuries, from different continents, from different languages. Science says your state creates reality. Goddard says, feel it as if it's real. The Bible says, feel it in your heart so as you are, so you are. The Buddha says the truth lives in sensation in the body. Gurunanak says you are the light. Recognize your origin. The Islamic scholars say know yourself to know God. The convergence is no coincidence, it's confirmation. And what it confirms is this. The woman who cannot move forward, who is stuck, who

Science And Spirituality Agree On Embodiment

SPEAKER_00 27:05

is overwhelmed, who has done all the work and still feels lost. She does not need another strategy. She's not doing it wrong. She doesn't need another plan. She needs to return to herself, to go beyond the resistance, beyond the mind, beyond the stories, beyond the judgment, until she lands in a place where she can finally feel and breathe. And from that place, hold the feeling of who she actually is and what she actually wants. In her body, receive it, not in her head. That's embodiment. You can know so much, but if we can't embody it, then we can't move forward. And that's the spiral that each time you go around, you come back to yourself a little bit more. And the old programming falls away a little more until you actually come back online. And the great thing about this is it's not just about you coming back to yourself, you actually get the results in your life. It's not just a great idea, it's how human beings actually work. Science says it, spirit says it. And every woman I've ever worked with confirms it. And here's why this matters beyond just you. Because when you change your inner state, it doesn't just change your life, it changes everyone around you. Your children will feel it, your partner will feel it, the people you work with, even people you haven't even met or know, they will literally can feel you. And you'll be lighting people's fire in their bellies to be more, to achieve more by being themselves. Because we are all connected, so much more than we think. It's not just a nice idea. This is what the free masterclass walks you through. It's not a theory, it's a felt experience. How to recognize what is yours and what you're carrying, how to help your nervous system settle so your body and your mind can come back into the same conversation, and how to reconnect so that to who you truly are. And it's free, and it's the next step. If anything I've said today landed in your body, not just in your mind. So here's one thing you can do this week. It's not a big thing, it's a quiet thing, but one of the most important questions that you can ask yourself this week, when you feel overwhelmed, the guilt, and we all go through this. I want you to just pause and just ask yourself a moment. Is this mine? Because here's what I found. Most of the people that I've worked with, most of what we're carrying is inherited, is conditioned. And it's not even ours to process. We've learned to be

Two Questions To Practice This Week

SPEAKER_00 30:10

receive, we've been taught that everything is conditional. And we've been taught what good looks like. And we've been carrying it for so long, it actually starts to feel like us, or that we feel like this is what our values are. But I just want you to ask, is this mine? Is this heaviness mine? And then come back to yourself by asking, who am I? Now, you might not know who you are, but just by asking that, you will feel something shift in your body. So first ask yourself, is this mine? And then ask yourself, Who am I? And then breathe. Just take a moment to breathe. And here's what I want to leave you with today. Your inner state is not a reflection of your life. It's actually the author of it. Every tradition we've looked at today says it. The science says it. And your own experience confirms it. When you're aligned inside, everything outside responds. Not because you forced it, because you returned to yourself. And that's all this is. Not some strategy or plan, not something that you have to get right, but a return to yourself so that you can achieve what it is that you want. If I've said anything that landed in your body, not just your mind, please do look at the Free Masterclass. It walks you through this felt experience, not just a conversation. And if this episode meant something to you, please send it to someone that you know needs to hear this. Not because I've asked you to, because you know exactly who that person is and you've been thinking for her while you've been listening. I'm Dr. Emmancore, and I'm sending you so much love. Till next time.