E193: What If Listening Is the Brave Part?

What if the bravest thing you did today wasn't speaking up, but listening — really listening — to what's already happening inside you? 

In this episode, I share why the sentence "my body knew before my beautiful brain did" has followed me for years, and what happened in a coaching session when a client's single word — "annoyed" — became a doorway instead of a problem to fix. 

We talk about the difference between regulating our emotions and building a relationship with them, why every feeling carries information (even when it isn't telling the truth), and what it might look like to trust yourself again. 

Plus, a personal update on where I am in my thesis journey — and an invitation to join me this Thursday at The Porch Light.

Transcript

A Holiday Moment Of Presence

Cynthia 0:06

Hello, hello, my friends, and welcome back to Uncharted and Unfiltered, a journey back to you. Before I go any further, I just want to say whether you have been listening since episode one or this is the very first time you have press play, I am so grateful you are here with me, truly. I am recording this on a holiday Monday here in New Brunswick. It is New Brunswick Day, and as I'm sitting here this afternoon, the pace feels a little different. The roads are quieter, the emails are waiting, there is just a little bit more room to breathe. And this morning I went out for a run and I started with my earbuds in, like I always do when I run by myself, but somewhere along the way, I took them out. I wanted to actually be there, be present. I could feel the humidity in the air, I could hear the birds singing, the leaves rustling the beautiful way that they do every time that the wind picks up. And there was something so beautiful about just reducing the noise, even for the last 20 to 30 minutes. And that got me thinking, what if holidays aren't just an invitation to step away from work? What if they're an invitation to step back into ourselves? Or what if even creating pockets of space for us to do that? That is invitation for us to step back into ourselves. And I say that because so many of us spend so much of our lives thinking, solving, producing, and responding that we rarely give ourselves the space to simply notice what is happening within us and around us and to be present with what is. So wherever you are listening from, whether today is a holiday for you or just another ordinary day, I want to invite you into that space with me. I want to begin today

My Body Knew First

Cynthia 2:05

with a sentence that has been following me around for longer than I probably care to say. But because this is a podcast about the journey back to you, I'm willing to go there. And here is the sentence My body knew before my beautiful brain did. Now I have lived that sentence more times than I can count. And it has followed me because I've kept learning it in the same way. After the fact, never before. My body would signal something quietly to me and I would override it with logic, with being capable, with what made sense on paper. And every time, months or years later, I would realize that it had been right all along, it being my body. And this has happened before I left human resources, my last corporate job, before my divorce, before difficult conversations, um, before standing on stages, presenting anything that, you know, before my TEDx style talk in India, there was always something in me that knew. And again, it's not because I had all the answers, but because some part of me was noticing what my thinking mind hadn't caught up to yet. The problem wasn't that I couldn't hear it. The problem was that I had spent decades learning not to trust it. I trusted productivity, I trusted logic, I trusted being capable, I trusted what other people thought.

Annoyed And Explaining It Away

Cynthia 3:40

And slowly, without realizing it, I stopped trusting myself. Now, earlier today, I was sitting with a leader in a coaching session, and as always, I have changed the details to protect their confidentiality. They came into the session with one word. Annoyed. That was it. Not angry, not burned out, just annoyed. And before we were even talking for two minutes, they started doing something that I see all the time. They started explaining themselves out of what they were feeling. It's just work, it's really not that bad. I know how to work through it, I shouldn't be this frustrated. Have you ever noticed yourself doing that? I know I have. Now, what I heard was not someone struggling with annoyance. I heard someone struggling to stay in relationship with their own experience. And I think there's a difference because somewhere along the way, I think we have confused emotional intelligence with emotional distance. We have become incredibly good at regulating ourselves, but I'm not sure we have become very good at building relationships with ourselves. And again, there's a difference. One is about managing what we feel, and the other is about learning from it. And I wonder if we have become so focused on regulating our emotions that we have forgotten how to listen to them. So I asked if we could try something different, not to fix the annoyance, not to make it disappear, because there's really nothing to fix there, but simply to meet it. So I invited them to take three slow breaths in through the nose and three slow breaths out through the mouth. And not because breathing magically solves our problems, it doesn't, but because slowing our body often creates enough space for us to be able to hear what we have been talking over. And then I asked them, where do you notice the annoyance in your body? I didn't ask them why they were annoyed or what you think about it or what you want to do about it. But just where is it? And there was a long pause and I waited. And then I asked them, can you stay with it? Again, not to solve it or to explain it or breathe it away. Just stay. And I know that sounds so simple, and it isn't, because most of us have spent years becoming experts at leaving discomfort as quietly as possible. We analyze it, we minimize it, we spiritualize it, we rationalize it, we explain it, anything except remain in relationship with it, which what I which was what I was inviting. And then I asked them, what is the annoyance trying to tell you?

Emotions As Clues Not Commands

Cynthia 6:45

What does it need? Again, I did not ask them what should you do or is it right? But simply what is it trying to show you? And here's what I have come to believe. I don't think every emotion tells the truth. I know fear doesn't, but I know shame doesn't. And I know that old wounds certainly don't. But I do believe every emotion carries information, not instructions, but information. And again, there's a difference. The emotion isn't the conclusion, it is the clue. Now researchers describe emotions as adaptive signals. They help us understand the relationship between what is happening around us and what matters most to us, our needs, our values, our goals, etc. And that doesn't mean that every feeling is an accurate reflection of reality. But it does mean that dismissing our feelings before we understand them may cause us to miss something important. And what struck me in this coaching conversation wasn't the emotion itself, it was how quickly the leader wanted to leave it. And then I realized I have spent so much of my own life doing the same thing. I don't think self-abandonment usually begins with ignoring your intuition. I think it begins much earlier than that. It begins the moment we decide our inner experience isn't worthy of our attention. I just need a better attitude. Every one of those sentences sounds responsible, professional, mature. But underneath every single one of them is a much quieter message. I don't trust what I am experiencing. And as my clients stayed with the annoyance, something shifted within them. But the annoyance wasn't saying I hate my job. It wasn't saying you need to quit. It wasn't saying everything is wrong, but it was saying I am solving problems below the level at which I naturally create value. The emotion hadn't changed here, but their relationship with it had. I wonder if that's what self-trust really is. Not trusting every emotion or distrusting every emotion, but building a relationship with your inner world because your inner world speaks in many, many languages. Fear, joy, pressure, restlessness, grief, excitement, peace, longing, even your body, what my body knew before my beautiful brain did. Maybe yours does too. So the next time something uncomfortable arises, before you ask, how do I stop feeling this? Try asking what part of me is trying to get my attention. And then listen. Not because the emotion gets the final say, but because relationships are built by listening before deciding. And maybe, just maybe, the journey back to yourself doesn't begin by thinking harder. Maybe it begins by becoming someone your own inner world can trust long enough to keep speaking to. And before we go, I want to pause and say thank you again, whether you have been with me since the beginning or you found this show yesterday. Having you here means more than you will know. I'm gonna be so honest with you. I have been deep in writing my thesis these past several months. And this is the last month of that. So if episodes are much more reflective than usual, that is why I am digging in and being in the experience of it. And with you showing up here week after like every other week is the cadence that I've created now,

Porch Light Invitation And Next Steps

Cynthia 10:50

is part of what is carrying me through the finish line. So truly, thank you. I love that. I love being here with you. And I would love to leave you with an invitation. If this conversation stirred something in you, if you have realized how quickly you explain away your own experience or how often you have been talking yourself out of what you feel, I don't want you to carry that alone. This Thursday, I will be hosting the Porch Light again. It is a space where we slow down long enough to hear ourselves again, not because we have all of the answers, but because we create enough space for the answers we already carry to begin finding us. So if today's episode resonated with you, I would love for you to join us, bring your questions, bring your uncertainty, bring your emotion you have been carrying, and trying to explain away perhaps. We will sit with it together. Because sometimes the journey back to yourself doesn't begin with finding another answer. Sometimes it begins with finding a place where it's safe enough to listen. I hope to see you there. We're there every two weeks. And until next time, keep coming back to yourself. I will meet you there. 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 jamesoncoach.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.