E173: Trust Yourself And Watch Your Life Shift

What if the most powerful move you can make as a leader isn’t to control more, but to trust yourself more? Today I share a client story that reveals how tiny, aligned choices can turn relentless overwhelm into a grounded, confident way of being. This is a real transformation: naming inner saboteurs, learning to pause before reacting, and choosing actions that nourish rather than deplete.

We walk through the moments that mattered: recognizing the inner critic, using Positive Intelligence to build awareness, and replacing constant scanning for threats with listening inward. You’ll hear how everyday decisions—preparing a home before travel, cooking for nourishment, telling the truth in a relationship, starting therapy—stack into an identity shift. The breakthrough line still gives me chills: “I know what I’m doing.” Not because circumstances changed, but because she stopped giving her power to them.

I define leadership as presence, truth, and steadiness under pressure. When you move from overdrive to alignment, your impact changes at home and at work. Meetings feel clearer, boundaries hold, and relationships become more honest because you’re no longer abandoning yourself. If this story stirred something in you, explore The Self-Trust Arc—our coaching framework and community where we practise awareness, emotional resilience, and inner authority. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find their way back to themselves. Where will you choose one tiny shift today?

Chapters

• 0:05 Welcome And Intent
• 0:40 The Moment Control Turns Into Trust
• 1:18 Meet The Client: Overwhelm And Doubt
• 2:57 Naming Saboteurs And Building Awareness
• 4:08 Tiny Shifts That Change Reality
• 5:13 Coaching As Returning To Yourself
• 5:13 Practices: Anchoring And Pausing
• 6:33 From Scanning Outward To Listening Inward
• 7:18 Self-Respect Over Self-Sacrifice
• 8:12 The Weekend Realization: Control And Peace
• 9:22 Everyday Actions From The Inside Out
• 10:27 Embodiment, Presence, And Leadership
• 11:40 Home And Work: One Way Of Being
• 12:11 Invitation To The Self-Trust Arc
• 13:30 Gratitude, Reminders, And Next Steps

Transcript

Cynthia Jamieson: 0:05

Welcome to Uncharted and Unfiltered, The Journey Back to You. I am Cynthia Jameson, your host, and this is where we break free from the noise and dive deep into what truly matters. You. If you're tired of the shoulds, the expectations, and the pressures to fit into a mold that doesn't serve you, you're in the right place. This isn't a podcast about easy answers or sugar-coated advice. This is your invitation to reclaim your path, embrace the unknown, and become the bold, unapologetic version of yourself that's been waiting to show up. It's time to get unfiltered. Let's get started. Hello, hello, and welcome back to Uncharted and Unfiltered, a journey back to you. It is Cynthia, and today is an episode that I have been really excited to record because it captures something that I witness over and over again in this work, something that feels like magic to me each and every single time. And this is what that is. When a leader stops trying to control everything around them and starts trusting the person that they're becoming. So this is a story about a client of mine, anonymized, of course, who came into coaching feeling scattered, overwhelmed, pulled in too many directions, and unsure of where she was doing anything right. And she left coaching not because she had everything figured out, but because she had finally learned to trust herself. And that changes everything. Now, when my client started working with me, she described her life in a way that I think so many of us can recognize. Life felt stressful, chaotic, unpredictable. Like she was constantly reacting to the people around her, the variables in her home, at her workplace, the noise, the expectations, the responsibilities. She wasn't grounded and she didn't see her own value. And this is one of the things that I think is so incredibly amazing about coaching is what you can, what someone else can mirror back to you about yourself. I think I've said this on the podcast recently, but it's pretty hard to see your own patterns, your own blind spots, your own strengths that could be overused when you are inside the frame. And my client, deep down, she doubted whether she was doing things right. And her saboteurs were loud, especially the ones that were whispering to her, like maybe you're the problem. Maybe you should be more like everyone else, or maybe what you want is too much. And I want to qualify because sometimes I think I skip over this, which is a really important part. My client had not been exposed to or introduced to the positive intelligence work, or even the concept of having a saboteur or an inner critic in her own mind. And that's why this particular tool enabled her to build so much awareness because she was able to complete the survey, get the report, understand where these saboteurs came from, what was at the root cause of them, and had a tool set for how to leverage those, like leverage those concepts for herself in a way that felt more expansive, more grounding, and gave her ways to connect to her own inner guidance system. So my client was doing everything for everyone, except for herself. And she was exhausted. And what happened next, I want to be sure that I'm always transparent with you. It doesn't happen all at once, but it happens in these tiny shifts. And what's significant about these tiny shifts is even making one choice to do something differently changes your reality. And I invite you to give that a try. Like if there's something that you're used to doing in a very like, this is my pattern, this is my way of going about or leading in the world, just make a different choice and see what shifts as a result of that. For my client, these tiny shifts built upon each other. And this is the part that I want to highlight because this is the real power of coaching. Coaching is not about fixing you, it is not about giving you a new identity, it is not about telling you who to be. That just would not be something that I would be interested in doing. Coaching helps you come home to the person you already are, the one that you forgot about, the powerful creator that you are. It's re coaching helps you remember that. And that's exactly what happened for my client. So we worked on anchoring, on noticing her patterns without judging them, on dropping the stories that weren't true, on understanding her saboteurs, on listening to her body, on pausing before reacting, and on returning to what felt like her. And slowly she learned to stop scanning the whole world for cues and start listening inward. And this is the mark of one of the saboteurs, right? Like it just keeps scanning for all of the things that could go wrong instead of scanning for all of the things that could go right or even balancing it out so that we have a little bit of both. And so over the course of our work together, my client learned to put herself first and not from a place of selfishness, but from a place of self-respect. She learned to stop making meaning out of things that didn't need meaning. Not everything needs a meaning, but she learned to stop abandoning herself the moment someone else needed something. And she learned to trust that she already knew what to do. Now there was, I want to tell you about a moment that shifted everything for my client because there was a weekend that she described in our final session that really captured her evolution. She said, I finally realized that I can only control two people, me and my young daughter. Everyone else is an influence. And that realization brought me peace. Because it was then in that moment that she stopped waiting for other people to change and stopped hoping circumstances would adjust themselves to her and stopped thinking, when things get calmer, then I'll feel better. She wasn't giving her power away to things outside of herself that would have to happen before she could shift how she felt. And some examples that she shared with me. She prepared her home before upcoming travel. She cooked because it nourished her. She organized her space because she liked it to be organized. She lit candles for herself. She made the house feel like hers, not by forcing anything, but by contributing in a way that felt aligned for her. And she told the truth lovingly in her relationship. She initiated therapy for herself and invited her partner into the process. She stopped running from the discomfort and started meeting it with clarity. And she didn't overthink it. She simply lived from the inside out, not the outside end. That is self-trust. That is embodiment. That is leadership. And in these days, it really is a radical act when the entire world tells you what you should be doing, what you need to be doing, how you need to act, etc. And to come home to yourself and really ground yourself in who you are and be able to choose the next aligned action without knowing how it's all going to play out, and even letting go of and allowing that to happen in and of itself. That is such a magical and radical act. And by our final session, she said something that I will never forget. I know what I'm doing. Not I hope I'm doing the right thing. Not I need someone to tell me the answer. Not I'm afraid I'm gonna mess this up, but I know what I'm doing. And she meant it. She knew her presence was the value. And she knew that putting herself first wasn't indulgent, it was required. And what was good for her was good for everyone else. She knew that she could keep going, not because coaching was ending, but because she was the beginning. And that's the magic of this word. Now I talk a lot about leadership, not just as a job title, but as a way of being. And leadership is the ability to pause before reacting, the courage to speak truth without abandoning yourself, self-awareness to know what's yours and what isn't yours. The willingness to grow even when it's uncomfortable, and the capacity to stay rooted when life gets noisy. And coaching gives you the structure, the tools, and the supportive space to develop that personally and professionally. Because the truth is how you show up at home affects how you show up at work, but how you lead yourself affects how you lead others. And self-trust is the foundation of both. But my client didn't just become a more grounded partner or parent, she became a more grounded leader. And that is why coaching changes everything. So if you were listening to her story and thinking, I want that, I want to feel that steady, I want to trust myself like that, then I want to invite you into the place where these transformations happen every single week. The self-trust arc. And it's the coaching framework and community where leaders learn to move from overdrive to awareness to alignment to embodiment, where you stop second-guessing and start knowing. Where you stop reacting and start responding, where you stop abandoning yourself and start leading from your center. And inside the membership specifically, we coach live every month, twice a month. We're exploring the saboteurs, building emotional resiliency, reconnecting to your inner authority, and all of this to help you embody your truest, clearest leadership. It's coaching, community, and clarity all woven together to help you return to you. So if this episode stirred something in you, trust that. Your body always knows. You can join us at the link in the show notes or message me anytime if you want to explore whether the self-trust arc is right for you. And to the client whose story inspired this episode, thank you. I am always so privileged that you open your mind, your heart, you share your thoughts, your dreams, your vulnerabilities, and the things that are in the way so that we can explore them, remove those obstacles, and have you feeling as creative, resourceful, and whole as you forgot that you were. And your courage, your honesty, and your commitment to yourself is the reason this work matters. And to everyone listening, you already know. You already have the answers. Sometimes you just need a space to hear yourself again. So I will see you inside the self-trust arc or the next episode. Have a great week with so much love. I hope that you're walking away feeling more aligned with your true self, more confident in the choices ahead, and ready to leave the safe path behind, knowing you've got everything you need within. Remember, the journey to you isn't about finding one perfect direction. It's about trusting yourself enough to explore all of it. If you're ready to dive deeper, join me for the next episode and don't forget to subscribe so that you never miss the next step on your path. I invite you to join my mailing list at www.cynthia jamisoncoach.ca, where we'll deepen our relationship and you can claim your copy of your inner compass, a guide to charting your course to authenticity. Until next time, stay unfiltered, stay true, and most importantly, stay you.