This one skill can change your life

Do you know the difference between fear-based thoughts and what's in alignment with you? Can you tell when you're making decisions based on your comfort zone versus your values?

Today's episode is all about discernment and possessing the skill to think critically. 

This is a topic that's come up a lot for me this week with clients and in my personal life, so I knew I had to talk about it here!

This isn't about judging your thoughts, it's about knowing the difference between what are your true thoughts and beliefs, and what you were told by family, friends or teachers. 

Let's change your thoughts today to create a different tomorrow.

If you loved this episode, leave a 5-star review so more women like you can find this space 🤍

Have feedback or have a listener question? Email me at lex@alexia-eleni.com or DM me at @alexia_monda on Instagram!

Sending you loving kindness today and always, Lex xxx

Transcript

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Welcome to the Lexicon for Life podcast. I'm your host, Alexia, but you can call me Lex. Before we get into today's episode, I want to take a moment with you. Whatever you're doing, wherever you are, I want you to be where your feet are and come to the present moment with the breath. Taking a deep breath in for four, three, two, one, holding at the top for four, three, two, one, and exhaling out of the mouth for six, five, four, three, two, one. Now you may take a moment to pause here and breathe deeply again, or let the episode play. Sending loving kindness to you today and always. Enjoy. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Lexicon for Life podcast. I'm Lex, and today we're going to be talking about something that has been coming up in conversations I've been having for the last week or so. I was going to do a timeless tarot for this session, but I've honestly done so much tarot reading the last week that I'm like, I just need to take a break. I even had an hour tarot session this morning, which is really lovely and so good to actually put it out there because I was just doing it for fun with my friends, with myself, and just like doing tarot and then realizing, yeah, this is actually something I just am enjoying, um, having a good time with, and there were pretty accurate readings uh according to people that I was uh doing readings for. So yeah, it's been really nice, and now I can actually offer that as uh a service for a 30-minute, like a quick one. I call it like the lunch break tarot and a um an hour in-depth session, which has a bit more um more readings, like more cards and stuff like that. So, anywho, in these conversations that I've been having and a theme that's kind of been coming up in my life as well, is about discernment. So the power of discernment and knowing the difference between your thoughts and your feelings, also. So, really, the conversations I've been having with clients and with you know, my partner, with friends, it's all kind of this energy of how do I know if I'm scared and I have fear around something like an opportunity, um, or if it's actually aligned or not aligned for me. So, for an example, you might have a new job opportunity come up where it uh requires you to maybe move interstate. And there's lots of things that can come up with that. It's comfort zone, it's changing things, it's like quite a big change in life, moving, you know, interstate or wherever moving locations. And things can pop up where you are questioning, okay, am I hesitant to take this opportunity because it's out of fear and it's outside of my comfort zone, and it, yeah, it would be a big change. Or is it that it is or isn't aligned with what I want to do and is it worth it? So there's these tools, this tool of discernment that we can use. It's it's very hard because a lot of people aren't, we're not really taught how to use discernment or really what it is in the word until we're much older. It's not something you would learn at school, right? Like how to decipher your thoughts and feelings and what is true for you, and what is something that someone else might say, and what is something that is actually just a hell no for you, like in your body, right? Like a visceral visceral reaction. How can you tell the difference between am I uncomfortable or is it actually just not aligned for me? So this is quite a skill to to have, and I think it's such an important skill to have, especially as adults, because we need to know the difference between these things. So being able to make and grasp something that may come up as confusing or obscure, and making a judgment on it, and knowing the difference between the truth and and false, at true and false uh thoughts and things with insight and wisdom, and actually just rather than making rash decisions, discernment is about critical thinking. And this is something I learned at uni, like critical thinking was actually part of a topic at um uni when I studied international relations, because uh it's again not something that's really taught at school, uh, it is something that you need to learn to use, it's a muscle. So when we use careful slow reflection to separate what thoughts or feelings might be real and what might be something based out of fear, it is really important because this can happen on a spiritual level, on a mental and emotional level. Like there's a lot of different things that play into having a tool like discernment under your belt, and yeah, being able to know the difference between the two. And what I I saw something a while ago, like a meme or something like that, or like a text meme, and it said something along the lines of being an adult is knowing the difference between the thoughts that are yours and the thoughts that are someone else's, or like something like the voice that is yours and the voice of someone else in your brain. And I really love that because it is so tied into subconscious work and reprogramming and understanding where you get your thoughts and beliefs from and where your reality has come into that as well. So when we talk about your thoughts being someone else's, it can be what parents or siblings have told you, family, friends, teachers at school, colleagues, things that you've picked up along the way where, you know, those between the ages of zero and eight, you are like a sponge. You don't have logic, you don't have logical brain. Um that that part of your brain hasn't developed yet where you can have discernment. You only know things as truth, and you take things as truth because you're trusting the adults uh and the people around you to give you the truth, as well as being able to, yeah, you don't have the discernment whatsoever. So you're a sponge. You're literally taking in all of this information as true and then taking it into adulthood, um, and especially through teenage years when you have a limiting belief that may have been told to you, like you're not smart enough, for an example. Um, you may have been told that as a kid or believed that to be true because of things that happened around you. It may not have been that a parent actually said to you, you're not smart enough, but there are signs and there are verbal and non-verbal ways of communicating those things to a child that a lot of parents don't understand. And when we look at these things, you know, it's easy to blame people, but really something that we learn, especially in uh hypnotherapy and NLP, is that the saying that and the belief is people only are doing the best that they can with the resources that they have available to them. So when your parents may have made you feel like you weren't smart enough, it's not about blaming them because they didn't really know any better or they didn't know how to communicate to you that you have potential or you have whatever they were trying to tell you. Um that they just weren't able to express that. They were doing the best that they can with the resources that they had available to them, which may not have been a lot. So it's not about blaming, it is about ownership, it is about looking at okay, did this thought come from me and is it true? Or is it that this thought was from someone else that I've adopted and I've taken and accepted as truth, and now I can change it because really all beliefs can be changed, and that is basically stemming from your identity. Like your identity feeds your beliefs, which feeds into your thoughts and feelings, which feeds into your environment. That is just how it works. It's like a pyramid flaw on effect. Identity is everything. So when we're looking at things like limiting beliefs or fears and comfort zone, like comfort zone is just a result of all of the things, like I just said, it's a result of your identity, it's a result of your beliefs about yourself, and it's a result of your limiting decisions and how you see yourself in the world. That is how much your comfort zone, like that's what your comfort zone looks like, right? There's where you that's where your fears come from. So, how can we know the difference between you know the thoughts that you really have that you believe to be true? Because again, these can be questioned, and the thoughts that are from other people that you've adopted as your own thoughts. So when we ask ourselves this question, this really powerful question, is this thought coming from fear or is this true for me? Is where we can step back. This is a force of self-awareness and stepping back and zooming out away from a thought that comes up. So, like with the example I just used of the, you know, moving into state for a job. If those thoughts come up of like, oh, it's gonna be too hard, it's gonna be difficult, your life's gonna change, you're not gonna make any friends, like all of these thoughts that come up, right? And these feelings of like fear and guilt and shame, and oh, like my family's gonna miss me, or they're gonna make me feel bad for moving, or like all these things that these initial thoughts that come up, you know, this is where you can use that question of is this from fear or is this true for me? Like, is it true for me that I really want to move because I want to, you know, start my career, I want to excel, I want to do this thing now, and I want to move, and that sounds really great for me. Is this aligned? Or is it that it's not aligned because I, you know, maybe it's not the right fit. Would I take this job if it was here? Would I do this and that way? Why am I moving? Like, there's lots of different things where you can get introspective and ask yourself that is where's the fear coming from? Is it because I'm scared that my parents are gonna be angry at me for moving? Am I am I scared because it's uncertain because it's a new area, it's a new place? I have to yeah, it's gonna be a bit hard because moving, you know, if anyone who's ever moved, even just moving house, like it's it's an effort, but it's it's necessary change. You've outgrown where you are and you're going into somewhere new, right? Based on your reality and your thoughts and feelings, and then obviously beliefs and identity, like I said before. So thinking about the fear, those those thoughts that come in. Is it something that I can get past? Am I comfortable enough with the fear to move forward? Am I gonna feel the fear and do it anyway? That is a that is what you need to be thinking about. Why am I moving? Why am I wanting to do this? Why did I apply for the job in the first place? Like, what it's just getting curious about yourself because if you didn't want to do it, you wouldn't have applied for it. So there's obviously something there. It's a matter of knowing the difference between now I'm like uncomfortable because shit, that actually means this is real. I've gotten this job opportunity to then I've got to move. Am I excited for it? Is it actually aligned? It's all these things, okay? And when I talk about fear, I really love the acronym uh on fear, so F-E-A-R, false evidence appearing real. So fear is so many different things for so many different people. It is like physical fears, it is emotional, spiritual, mental fears, everything. Like we have fears are from childhood, they have been embedded into us. And when I talked before about that stage of life between the ages of zero and eight where you're a sponge, it's also a matter of well, you've locked that in in a way into your subconscious programming, because that's where all of your absorption goes into, goes deep deep, deep down into your subconscious. And then in adulthood or teenagehood and adulthood, those beliefs get reaffirmed. They aren't really challenged unless you challenge them. So that feeling of maybe, you know, that that belief of I'm not smart enough that you may have absorbed as a child, then is reiterated and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy when you get older because you have a belief. And so the belief manifests into reality of oh, I'm not smart enough, so I'm not even going to try studying for that test. And then you fail that test, and you're like, Yeah, it's because I'm not smart enough. Like it's this, it's this vicious cycle where you know, and then into adulthood we don't go for the jobs or for the things that we want to do because I'm not smart enough, because I don't know enough, because I'm not qualified. Like these identity patterns flow on through our whole life in different ways, shapes, and forms. So, how can we look at those things? And that's a whole nother like kettle of fish going into limiting beliefs and decisions. Um, something that we work on when we're doing hypno and NLP uh one-on-one with our clients, but it is really about understanding, not not judging yourself. You know how I always say, and if you've listened to these episodes for long enough, you know I'm always saying that you should not judge, just get curious. Like just be curious about things that come up. Don't judge the thoughts that you have, just go, okay, that's interesting, or note that down for later and just journal on that. It's like questioning it, like when you actually can step out of your thoughts and look at yourself in like a third-of-party perspective, because we are able to do that. It's like when you say, Oh, like I had a talk with myself, or you know, I thought to myself, right? That means that there's two of you, right? It's not like there's one of you. There are two minds going on here. There is the conscious and the subconscious, there is the ego, and there is the super conscious you, right? Like I was gonna say superego, but that's even more next level. Anyway, I digress. Knowing the difference, this is where you can question yourself because you don't, you're not your thoughts. Your thoughts create your reality, but your thoughts can change. So, how are you changing your thoughts today for a better tomorrow? I think something actually came up earlier in my tarot session today was that line of um yesterday's thoughts created today's reality. Do you want tomorrow to be different? You have to change your thoughts today. So if you're going off it's it's always a day later, right? It's always it's always manifesting after the fact. So when you're thinking, if you want something to change tomorrow, you have to think differently today. What can you change in your thought patterns, in your beliefs, or even just questioning yourself today that you weren't doing yesterday? Like yesterday you is so different from today you. So, how can you use yourself as that tool of discernment to go, okay, I'm deciphering between these thoughts and these feelings? Am I going from fear? Am I making decisions out of fear and comfort zone, or am I making decisions because it is or isn't aligned with me? And when I talk about alignment as well, you have to know what that means. You have to know what is in alignment with you and what isn't. And a lot of people don't stop and do this work either because it's just go to work, get the kids ready for school, do the things, make dinner, uh, like do the commitments, all the things like it, right? We're so busy in our lives, we never really take time to go inward and have that introspection and and have the thought for one second to go, am I in alignment? Am I living in alignment with what I want in my life, how I want to feel? Because that you know what misalignment feels like. Because more often than not, more likely than not, there is a part of your life or there's an area in your life where you are not aligned. So, and if you're not, like that's great. I'm glad, I'm so happy for you because that's awesome. But if you are a majority of people where there's at least one, if not many, things in your life where it doesn't feel aligned right now, or you don't feel inspired, you don't have connection to it, you don't really know where you're going, you don't have motivation, those are the things you need to question now because you need to to know the difference between what is and isn't aligned, you have to really buddy know what the alignment isn't in the first place, right? Otherwise, you're just kind of playing a massive guessing game and you know, just shooting in the dark and hoping you fucking hit the jackpot. I don't know, it's just random metaphors that come to mind. But you will keep operating out of fear and comfort zone and saying no to things that are saying no to things that might be actually right for you and saying yes to things that are wrong for you because you don't actually know the difference. You don't know what's what's good for you and what's not, you don't know what's a hell yes and what's a hell no, because you haven't actually figured it out yet. So something else that you can take away from this today, hopefully, is to do that work to just ask yourself those very simple questions of in this area of my life, let's say it's health. Um, in health, am I doing the things where I feel aligned, or what do I actually want to get out of health that will make me feel really good, that I actually want to achieve based on the values and things that I want to feel, how I want to look, how I want to go through my life, you know, what do I want out of it? What's the goal? What's the toward? Because when you're thinking of goals and stuff, and I can go into a whole nother podcast episode on values and motivation and um motivation strategies. But when we're looking at those kinds of things and getting aligned with something, thinking about what you're moving toward, not what you're moving away from. So if it was for health, you would say, you know, you would put it somehow like I want to be, I want to feel really good and I want to feel fit and I want to feel healthy and I want to, you know, be at this, you know, blah blah blah. Whatever it is, rather than moving away from I don't want injury, I don't want pain, like I don't want to feel uh bad, I don't want to feel tired, like that's a pushing away that how you know you can tell just by me saying that the difference in the energy of the away from and the toward uh language, right? So where's your language at? Where is like ask for what you want? Write down what you want, not what you don't want. If you don't want pain, don't write that, like reframe it, right? I want to feel good. Because what's the opposite of not feeling pain? What's what's the positive equivalent to that? It's feeling good. So write that down. Don't focus on the pain, don't focus on what you don't want, okay? The brain doesn't know the difference between the words don't, okay? It's just going to focus on the actual subject of pain instead of I don't want pain, because then it's just like pain, pain, pain. Okay, cool, I'll give you more of that. No worries. Uh tick. So focusing on things that you do want. Right? So to sum up, this is a bit of a tangent, but that knowing that discernment and having using it every day as a muscle, being able to question the thoughts that come up as is this true or is this fear? Is this is this true or false? Is this alignment or is it just out of fear? Just being able to to question yourself on that is a huge step forward. It's it's you don't have to do all these massive things and change your life in these big ways. These are tiny ways in which you start to see your life in a different way. You start to clean what I call like cleaning the camera lens of your perspective of life. We all have, you know, perspective perception is reality. How you perceive something is how you see reality. This is another topic that came up this week, actually, with my clients. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. That is my one of my favorite quotes from Wayne Dyer. It is so true because you and a friend can go and watch the same movie. The same movie is the movie, right? You could love that movie, and your friend could have hated that movie because you're looking for different things. Your lens and their lens are two different things, right? You're fo focusing on and looking for something different in this movie than your friend is, right? So you are needing to change if you want to, change the lens, change the perspective in which you see life and That and that small act of asking yourself, questioning yourself, questioning your thoughts, is this true or false? Is this really true for me? Is this someone else's thoughts or my own? Is this something I want to focus on? Like just these little these little questions through the day can really change your perspective on things and get you to start moving toward the life you really want, how you really want to feel, and it just makes you make better decisions because you're making decisions based on alignment rather than fear and things that are not true for you. So remember, fear is false evidence appearing real. Say it with me. False evidence appearing real. Okay, I want you to remember that because it is that is that is fear, okay. So I'm just making this one short and sweet. I just wanted to give you some guidance and just get this out onto a podcast because it's just been that, like I said, conversation I've been having so much this week. I'm like, well, I need to talk about it because if I'm having these conversations one-on-one with with clients and with other people, that means that maybe there's more people that need to hear this and to just yeah, take the learnings from what I've been what's been coming up for me. So that's all for today. Um, thank you so much for listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a five star review so more people can find my podcast, which is really fun. Uh Sunny, lots of loving kindness today and always. And I will see you on the next episode. Thanks. Bye.