134 : Why Try Seat of the Soul: A Practice for Living A Purposeful Life

Your mind can make fear sound like logic, but your body tells the truth in seconds. Polly shares a solo, real-time personal transformation experiment she calls the “Seat of the Soul” practice: noticing when she’s operating from a fear-driven personality and learning how to return to the calmer, truer awareness underneath it. It’s not about deleting your traits or becoming “perfect” it’s about finding authentic power, where your personality becomes a vehicle for your soul.

Along the way, we connect four powerful frameworks that surprisingly agree with each other: Gary Zukav’s distinction between love and fear (and his idea that intention is the fundamental creative act), Richard Rudd’s Gene Keys shadow-to-gift spectrum (impatience to patience, doubt to inquiry), Joe Hudson’s Art of Accomplishment “welcoming practice” for emotions, and the Buddhist map of the five hindrances with the RAIN method. The common thread is somatic awareness: locate the emotion in the body, stop identifying with it, and let awareness do the transforming.

Polly also gets personal about three default patterns she’s watching closely: rushing, self-doubt, and comparison. You’ll hear a childhood story that reshapes scarcity, plus practical ways she’s changing daily decisions with gratitude, a “flow zone” approach to work, and anchor questions like “What would love do?” If you’ve been stuck in hustle, people pleasing, or defensiveness, this gives you a grounded way back to yourself.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s been living in overdrive, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s the one pattern you’re ready to catch and change first?

Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt 

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Transcript

Solo Setup And The Experiment

Polly Mertens 0:27

Hey superstars, welcome back. Paula here. I know Sam Pruitt. It is a solo episode. You get all of me today and wishing Sam well. She's having some test run today. That girl is going on her John Muir trail shortly, just a couple weeks away. Can't wait to share more about that trip upcoming. But in today's fine episode, you know, Sam and I are often doing episodes that are like things that are showing up in our coaching or what we're working on or whatnot. And, you know, as we were going to do an episode today and she had to reschedule, I was like, well, what am I working on? So always doing experiments. And so this one is just wanted to share with you, I can't even remember exactly how long I've been doing this, but I'll call it the Seed of the Soul practice. That's what I'm talking about today. Is, you know, I'm doing challenges, learning things. You know, I'm just a student and a guinea pig of personal transformation, I would say. And so in this episode, I want to share with you what, you know, if you've never heard of Seed of the Soul or if you've never booked, I'll go into that and what my experiment is looking like so far, and why am I doing this and how long am I doing this? And just some, you know, cool background on, you know, one of the things I find is people reach out to me after our episodes and are like, well, tell me more about that. And where did you hear about that? And what are you doing? You know, and stuff. And so I was like, I should share more about the things that I'm compiling into my practice, Seat of the Soul. So just be clear. I bought the Seat of the Soul book maybe, gosh, I think it's like 10 years ago, and I tried to read it and I couldn't get into it. I saw, so that's what we're gonna talk about today. So let me just, you know, tell you like, why am I doing this episode now? Is like it's timely for me. I'm not finished. This isn't like, oh, I practiced it for 90 days. Here's all the things I learned, or I've been meditating for, you know, 10 years. Here's no, this is just like I'm starting this practice living from the seat of my soul. As I've been, you know, like you hear something three times and you're like, oh shoot, I need to look at that, or like things coalesce. You hear something a third time, you're like, all right, I gotta check into that. Well, seat of the soul was one of those things recently. So I was like, hmm. So I saw Gary Zukov. I think he was on the Know Thyself podcast, which I respect both those people. And but I when I had bought his book, like I said, I just couldn't get into it. So circle 10 years later, I was listening to something he was on and just was hearing it newly. And it reminds me when I started reading his book, it was at the time about when I read The Untethered Soul. And I was like, oh, they're kind of the same. They're different. I don't know all the differences and sameness of them. I love The Untethered Soul. I freaking, that's one of my top three books of all time. So The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer. Love it. Seed of the Soul is Oprah's, one of her probably favorite books of all time. She had Gary Zukov, who's the author of the Seed of the Soul book, on, I think there's recorded like 30 episodes or something like that over the 90s and 2000s. Gary's still alive doing podcasts. He's just as awesome as ever. If you listen to the man, clearly coming from a different part of the universe than most people are coming from. And he talks about why. That's part of what was curious for me is I think in that Know Thyself podcast, he opened up more than I was getting from his books, or I would say he was saying on Main Street, mainstream podcast, or back then like Oprah's couch, you might say. And I was like, I get so he's talking about like he was he had a girlfriend who was a channeler and channeling, I forget who it was, the name of the entity or whatever, and he got to spend time with that entity and ask it all these questions, and he got some download, just all this stuff. And I was like, oh my God, Gary's like way interesting, right? So that sent me off on a little binge to learn about him and things about that. And then I was like, Cedar the soul. And one of the things that was like my favorite in that is he talked about, oh, what is it called? He calls it personal. Oh, I'll have to go back into it. Anyway, I'll share a little bit more about each one of them. But what I'm gonna do today is like weave in. Remember, I said like you hear it in threes and then you start to take action. So it was like, oh, this kind of coalesced with that. And so there's another teacher that I'm hearing about lately, and I'll share about him, Joe Hudson and the art of accomplishment. And that coalesces with something that I was picking up in the last 30 days, which is the five hindrances, which ties to my Gene Keys work, which is Richard Rudd and the study of my what are called shadows. So I'm gonna go through like this I was this is gonna be like inside of Polly's mind and how, not even my mind, but soul and like how I do these experiments or how I study and understand and discover and learn about this beautiful soul slash personality slash ego that I am, and how it it's making sense for me and what I would love to share about it with you and see if there's anything that inside of this you might get like, oh, like this may send you on like a little mini tangent, like, oh, go get that book, or go look at that, or check out the gene keys. Like I had somebody contact me last time I did an episode on self-hypnosis and the silva method, and they're like, tell me about that, you know. So I'm hoping some of these things that I'm sharing will get you sparked. And, you know, it's your truth. This isn't like the formula. Polly doesn't have your formula, nobody has your formula but you, but you may pick up on some things that are like, ooh, resonates. Okay. Like that's how it was for me when I heard Gary Zuckoff. And like there were some things that resonated, and I was like marching off to read a little bit more or learn a bit a little bit more about that. So that's what my intention is, is to get you aware of some things that may help you reach back into your soul, like I'm doing, and see what there is and discover. So let's see, let me, I've got a little outline here that I just want to make sure I've like so many yummy little things. I was like working with Claude to help me put this outline together. I'm like, oh, we gotta throw that in. Oh, we gotta throw that in. And then I was like, okay, this like 15-minute episode is gonna like suddenly we'll see how long this grows to, but it's gonna be fun. So I do want to say this is a living experiment. I'm maybe 10 days in from when I first heard Gary's podcast on Know Thyself. I hit that Know Thyself podcast, the interview they did. And so it's fresh, it's a start. It's not six months in or six years in. So you're gonna get me in this already, like bouncing around, experimenting, trying some things, learning, haven't learned everything, which is cool, you know, like just more self-awareness, I would say. So let me start to share with you. I've talked about or I dropped the names of a lot of things. So let me let me go into each one of those. So I've got a little I want to share about with so Gary Zukoff, Z-U-K-A-V, Seat of the Soul, published in 1989. You know, some people say it was one of the most important, conscious books ever written. Oprah fricking raves, has him, you know, Gary's at Oprah's house and they do all these series of things. I don't even know all the things, but they went on to teach classes from what I understand.

Meeting Gary Zukav Again

Polly Mertens 7:19

Anyway, so he was very influential in Oprah's wool, but I find her to be a very amazing human. So that tells me a lot, right? So I share that with you to see how, you know, this might influence you or have something for you. So Gary definitely does a good job of distinguishing your personality and your ego and how it sits separate from your soul, right? And so in the untethered soul, Michael Singer calls it the seat of the soul. That's where I was like, well, these books are the same. They're not, but whatever. But they both talk about the seat of your soul, like your awareness behind that egoic person that you think you are, that identity that you've created from ways of being and childhood and survival and behaviors and personality and all that stuff, right? So there's a distinction of your personality, and largely it's operating, Gary would say, from fear. And some of the things that it seeks are external power, control, validation, manipulation, status. He says that the soul operates from love and seeks authentic power, which is harmony, cooperation, and I love this one, reverence for life. Anytime I've hear that, like reverence for life, I'm like, oh, that's true. So I'm like, yes, speak it. So this is that word I couldn't, or that term I couldn't find earlier, but it's authentic power. I don't know if he was the original one who kind of put those two together, but we'll give him credit. So authentic power is the personality coming into service of the soul. Just like sit with that for a minute. And Oprah was like, I've seen her on the couch, like when he says it, and she's like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, you know, like something clicked for Oprah. And she talks about how that was a pivotal moment where prior to reading his book and getting that, she had been doing so much external like status and success and all this stuff, and then shifted for her when she read this into like, oh, my personality is like a servant of a vessel for, like, use it in service of what your soul is up to. So the again, authentic power, maybe not the specific exam definition, but from Gary's book is the personality coming into service of the soul. That is your authentic power. It's like when those two line up and they're working, working, they're aligning together. They're not at odds. One isn't, you know, you're not just operating from ego, fear-driven, whatever. And I'm gonna go into how I have been and I'm gonna just like be flat out, like there's a lot of transparency that's gonna come through on this, or the authenticness. So it's not the soul replacing the personality, it's not replacing your traits, your humor, your voice. That all stays, right? They just become instruments of the soul rather than fear. I was like, and I'm still like in the inquiry, like, how does that look? What does that exactly mean? So I don't have it all figured out, but I was just like, I'm signing up for that. I'm signing up for studying that, I'm signing up for practicing that, I'm signing up for being in the question of how does this personality, this polyperson that I've created, this ways of being, these, you know, things that I do or things that I am, how does that serve my soul? Like letting my soul be the captain, if you will. So that's authentic power. More from Gary's book, The Evolutionary Shift, he named, and this is like a little of the big, big picture woo-woo consciousness that Gary is. Fuck, it's amazing. He talks about five sensory humans, which is what we have been for so, so long. And then consciousness has been more and more emerging in our culture, right? And we have multi-sensory humans. That's those of us that are channeling, that are, you know, having more intuitive. I mean, I think intuition's been around a long time, but we're like really getting it now. And I heard this interesting thing in a Ram Das talk, which was from the 80s or 90s, but he actually said it and I was like, wow, that like really talks about what I was going to talk about today. And he's like, when he used to speak in rooms in the 60s, really the only people that were conscious or aware or were just sort of outside of just like, you know, the five senses, this is all that's going on, awareness. He's like, those were people who had done acid, smoked grass, you know, had some spiritual awakening and lightning moments or something, right? Like something triggered a shift for them. And he said, and he was talking about in present tense, this was a thing in the late 80s or 90s, this talk he was giving. He's like, now, those of you in this room, a lot of you haven't done acid or done drugs or whatever, but you're still awakening to that consciousness. And I was like, yeah, and it's still happening, you know, 30-something years later. So I'm all aboard on that. But anyway, if you want to go learn more, Gary's book talks a lot about that. And that's just that outer world, like the plane that he's on of seeing and like understanding more than five senses for sure. He's very much tapped into that. So let's see what else he says, the intention as the fundamental creative act. Okay, Oprah's hot on this. She talked about after hearing his book, she's he says she said that every producer that worked on her show, when they came to her with a show idea, she said, tell me what's your intention for that show? Like, what is that, what do you want from that? And I'm starting to incorporate that into our episodes, right? Which is like, what's the intention of that episode? Like, what are we, what are we here to serve and support in why would we do this? Like, why should somebody pay attention to this? Why does it matter to us and why should it matter to somebody else? So having intention behind the creative acts that you're doing, or acts of service, or just acts in the world, right? Your business, your, your causes, your nonprofits, the relationships that you have, right? The things that are important to you, like finding the fundamental intention and and understanding it and aligning it with your soul. Uh, he talked about the frightened parts, and we'll go into a little bit, I'll kind of synthesize some of these different teachers, bodies of work. I don't know what you want to call it, but so he calls it your frightened parts and parts. There's parts theory, you can go study that, and it talks about integrating your multiple parts, like your little mini personalities or your parts of you. He calls them the frightened parts, which are the anger, the jealousy, resentment, impatience, and doubt. And he says they're not flaws to fix, but they're parts of your personality not yet directed toward your soul. I would say living from your soul. So they're the fear-based personality ways of being, right? These sort of like lower energy states. And he said the root underneath every frightened part is the feeling of being intrinsically defective and fundamentally alone. In Tony Robbins' world, we would say, Tony Robbins would say the two fundamental fears every human being walking on the planet has is I'm not enough and I won't be loved. That translates, like all this stuff, you guys, all this stuff just like bing, bing, bing, bing, it just bounces off each other. So Tony Robbins' world, the two fundamental fears that every human being has is I'm not enough and I won't be loved. Gary Zukov's words are the root underneath every frightened part of you is the feeling of being intrinsically defective, i.e., I'm not enough. And I'm not enough has a little flavors like I'm not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, tall enough, rich enough, whatever. I'm not enough. And I'm fundamentally alone. Like ostragize, you know, that mammalian brain, I'll be ostra-ostracized from the tribe kind of feeling. In his book, he talks about six practices. So turning inward when the and we'll go into this a little bit later when I start talking about Joe Hudson. And I'm loving his work right now in The Art of Accomplishment. So I'll share more about that. But Gary's six practices are turn inward when pain arises. And pain isn't physical pain, emotional, like just discomfort,

Authentic Power And Right Intention

Polly Mertens 15:09

right? Locate the emotion in the body, set conscious intention before action, choose love over fear repeatedly, and see others as souls with frightened active parts. I love that. See others as souls with frightened active parts. I just want to take a little detour. I was having a conversation with someone yesterday, and all of a sudden, defensive came up. And I'm noticing now defensive is a triggered response in myself or in others. So if I'm defending, if I go in defending andor judging, but defending, instantly I'm like, whoa, okay. There is a fearful part of me. There's something in there that I'm afraid of or that person is afraid of. And instead of like running from it or avoiding it or going with it, right? Like going forward with defensiveness, I'm like, oh, look, there's defensiveness, right? So yeah, that's man, that's so good. Anyway, we'll we'll circle back on that maybe. Gary has the four pillars of authentic power. So I'll just share those and then we'll go into the next teacher that I want to share with you. His four pillars of authentic power are emotional awareness. So awareness, self-awareness of what's going on in our body. Man, I tell you, this practice, if nothing else, I have been more deeply grounded in my body, emotions and otherwise pain, not feeling well, soreness from training, whatever it is, more deeply connected to the body sensations, which is a the seat of our soul, seat of our subconscious, and all of our emotions live in our body, right? Or we experience our emotions in our body. Even if we have thoughts about them in our brain, it's all like the hormonochemicals, the way that it manifests comes through our body. So sorry, let me get back. The four pillars emotional awareness, responsible choice, that's yummy, intuition, and trust in the universe. Okay, so those are the things I want to say about Gary's seat of the soul. Let me introduce the next like I said, I'm like integrating a lot of this in my study of myself under the seat of the soul. Again, it's like just all tying in all the works that you you're discovering and you're learning and you're picking up on your path. So this is the things that I've picked up on my path, where the recent path or a long time of path, that these things start to tie in and my neurons start to wire them together and go, oh, this relates to that, and helps me have better understanding of myself. So the next one, this was shared with me, a dear dear friend of mine, Jill. Thank you so much for introducing me to the Gene Keys, which is the work of Richard Rudd, which is a fabulous body of work birthed out of human design, which is something else altogether, but gene keys, you can go get your free gene keys. I think it's gene keys.com.

Gene Keys And Shadow To Gift

Polly Mertens 18:03

Understanding that, so I've been studying that for I don't know, five or six years, maybe something like that. And I'm getting more and more clear on like the core ones, like my core, you know. I wouldn't say that I did the gene keys experiments and processes exactly. So, you know, it's like we're in different classrooms at different times, whatever. But this all is weaving together. So Richard Rudd, some things that you would learn from him, or he would talk about is it's a map of your own consciousness written into your genetic code. And I'm and there's too much to describe about what he means by the genetic code, but like it's like he talks about us as being like hologenetic profiles, meaning like if I'm a being and I'm in three dimensions in space, like I have a front and a back and a top and a bottom or whatever, like I'm a holo holo whole hologenetic, or I'm a three-dimensional being. Inside of me is like a hologenetic genetic coding, like my genes are running throughout me. And he he explains it way better than me. So I'm not gonna go too much into that, but just know the consciousness has like an imprinting, it's like a fingerprint, like a snowflake inside of you, per him, based on your birthday and all this stuff. And so if you believe that and you study it, which I'm enjoying, because I'm finding little things that, like, oh, that relates to this, and oh yeah, I do see that show up in my life. So some of the essences and things I want to share with you is he talks about we have keys, we have sort of like like a pattern, like a profile, right? And so I forget how many keys there are in each human's profile, but let's say there's 10 or 15, right? And there's like four core ones, and then some other ones that are more related to your person, uh, your relationships, and some are more related to your mental state. But there's like four core ones. And one of my core four ones that I want to share with you that I've been seeing show up in various areas that really relates to this in the seat of the soul is my personal example is jean keys five. I have five in the position called my life's work. And gene key five, the okay, so each jean key has three phases. It goes from shadow or it has a shadow aspect, meaning when you're in, I would just call it negative frequency, negative vibration. They call it in human design, you're not self, which is like when you're not the essence of your key, you're in the shadow side. You've heard of shadow work probably, so that's the shadow. So gene key five's shadow is impatience. The gift is patience, and the city is timeless. City is like the highest expression, like enlightenment or whatever. So the city, S-I-D-D-H-I, that's a term you can go look up, is timelessness. I like to practice staying in the gift because I feel like you know what, if I can work on the gifts in this plane and in this lifetime, if they transform into enlightened states like timelessness or moments of timelessness, fantastic. But but I think staying at the gift level and working at that is helpful for something for me to grasp onto and work with. Timelessness, I'm like, fuck, what do I even do with that? Right. But patience, yep, I get it. I get it. And you know, I note this because I am not a mother, and I knew that if I ever became a mother from all the moms that I know, patience would be something I've heard them spout and spew, like, oh my gosh, the practice of patience. I'm like, well, I missed that, but guess what? I'm still working on it in this lifetime, definitely. So oh, and I can't wait to share with you like how that's really showing up and how I've shifted that. Anyway, so that's a little bit on the shadows. That's a personal one personal example that I'm working with. And one last thing from Richard Rudd, he says, how you hold something determines what frequency you emit from. This is like your core gene keys and it connects everything. So, like, how you so I'll share that a little bit later. I specifically brought up the example of number five. There's a couple others that I'll probably bring up in this that it also relates to, but how you hold them or are you stay, are you living from your shadow, or are you living from your gift? Is how I often think about them. All right. I want to introduce a teacher that I'm new to, probably in the, I don't know, six or eight. I get into somebody and then I like really get into them. So I've been binge watching some of his videos, Joe Hudson. He is a, I would call him a Buddhist. I don't know what he's what he is, or whatever, but he's a great coach. You know, he's got this like dynamic,

Joe Hudson And Welcoming Emotions

Polly Mertens 22:41

what do you call it? He's got a great marketing team on his side behind his business called the Art of Accomplishment. He's doing real live in uh what do you call it? Time is the word I want to say. Like he's doing live coaching sessions one-on-one with his people, with his clients, and recording them, and people are allowing him to share them. So they're really juicy to see the ninja skills he has to cut away, as we coaches do, from everything that is story, everything that is in the way of our clients realizing seed of the soul moments, essences, being in their truth, being in their emotions. So I just am really fascinated and loving watching him work because I'm like, that dude's onto something right there. So good stuff over there. Kudos to Joe. So a little bit about him. Let's see what do I have here. He's a modern coach, teacher working with presence, emotional honesty. He calls it emotional flexibility. I love that. And dropping our defenses. And like I would say, like why it's resonating right now, I think, is because I'm studying seed of the soul, and I feel like Joe, in not so many words, is saying, live from the seat of your soul. He's calling it your awareness or something else. I'm not remembering exact words, but I know that like these things are coalescing, and there's a reason why I attracted Joe into my awareness because of that. So, anyway, a couple things that he would say, or let me give you some points about him. He says, uh, your defensive patterns, such as control, people pleasing, withdrawing, performing. They were brilliant survival strategies. Yep. I talk about this in a lot of my coaching sessions too, is like we survive through our younger years with these survival strategies and then they break down later, right? They become these chains that bind us, these like patterns that we condition to survive an experience or many experiences or all of childhood or trauma. But guess what? They're keeping us from our seat of our soul, our joy, our feeling, you know, fully self-expressed, if you will. So let's see, he says that they're still running when you no longer need to survive. Yeah. And how, oh, I like this from him. This was a good, like, this was a little humdinger I love. He said, he was asking this gal, like, so, so what work do you have to do today? And she said, Well, I should do X, Y, Z. And he's like, Oh, he's like, should is a shame trigger. Should is a shame signal, sorry. And I was like, Whoa, because when we should on ourselves, underlying that or inherent in that is a shame expression. Like you're ashamed, like I should be doing that, right? He's like, uh-uh. It's he transforms that, and I didn't mean to share this here now, but it's like, I get to where I want to, right? So it's like, oh, I want to this, takes the shame off the table, just puts you back in your power. So I just want to share that. I love that part of it. He calls it a welcoming practice. You know, he's really big into welcoming the emotions and moving through them. And if you study him a little bit more, he talks about like, I think where he learned this and meditated for 10 years and all these things, but man, the guy is a master at dancing with, partying with, hanging out with, like fully celebrating our emotions. Like, like literally, they're just these little things, nothing to be afraid of, not little things. They're they're just experiences in our body. They're not, they're not tigers, they're not bears. They're emotions. They're literally chemical signals and emotional, neuronal wiring and sensations in our body that we're fucking afraid of, that we're afraid to feel. Controlled, we're doing a really good job of controlling ourselves from feeling it. So his welcoming practice is just so awesome to witness. Let's see, he says the moment you welcome fear or tension without trying to change it, you've already shifted out of ego and into something deeper. Yeah, he's just like this like get into your awareness, like that seat of the soul awareness, like go back there. I kind of feel like for me, it's like out in my face is like my ego, and back in like the deeper recesses of my body and my heart is where my soul sits. It doesn't sit like out in the front, people pleasing, controlling, rushing, you know, conniving, whatever, you know, performing. It's like the seat of my soul is just like this calm, still water essence that is connected to everything. And it's not in a hurry. It's doing absolutely nothing to show off. It's doing no performing, controlling, nothing needs to change. It's just like deep awareness, right? And when we're welcoming from that place, these emotions, it's like, it's almost like a big mama saying, Come bring me your upset and let me hold it. Let me hold it with you. Let me have you get upset like a child that was never allowed to feel that upset, crankiness, whatever. And a lot of this is us not having permission to feel our feelings, right? And I love how he says he's like, he and his wife had some book called Hand in Hand, I think it was called, that they learned some of this or something with their daughters, and it's just beautiful. So I don't know about that book, but watching him work and watching the practice of being with your emotions is I've just been like totally being with them more, right? And we don't attach them as us. I just want to say that like I'm upset, I'm pissed off, I'm angry, whatever. It's like no I aming. It's like noticing it in my body. Like, oh, look, there's disgust, there's sadness, oh look, there's rejection. Oh, look, there's anxious, there's anxiety, right? Like noticing it from the seat of the soul, it's it's happening inside of me, but it's not me, right? Uh, let's see what else we want to say. So that's his welcoming practice. And this isn't self-improvement project, he says. It's understanding the way we are so we can be with the way we are. And he says, from awareness, our behaviors almost naturally transform. I love that. I love that. Like when we come from the seat of our soul and we are pure awareness, like everything is just like allowed to be. And there's nothing wrong in that place. Like when you're like when I'm in my seat of my soul, hey, I'm making better decisions. I'm not just frantic, if you will. It's like I can be with little, I don't want to say piddly emotions, but like, you know, it's like fluff it off kind of things. Let's see, let's see. He says, once something moves from subconscious to conscious, it begins to shift on its own. You don't force the change, you illuminate it. And he was doing some work with a woman recently I saw, and uh, she was forcing like like that fucking cut hustle, gotta go, you know, pushing, I think is what pressure. She was putting all this pressure on yourself on herself. And he was like, Well, how do you not push pressure? And she was like putting pressure to not put pressure, and he's like, No, no, no, no. It's not more doing. And like, she almost didn't even know how to do it. And it's just like all of a sudden there's this softening, just like, huh, like you, like you, you're pushing a boulder up the hill, and you just go, I'm gonna stop pushing, right? And it's just like a soft, I was thinking like surrender or whatever, but like, wow, you just get to be with your soul, like in your soul, nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nowhere, nothing else, you know, and then doesn't need to do anything. It's just like, I'm good, you know. Yeah, and yeah, there's he's got good work. Anyway, all right, so let's talk just briefly about another body of work that I was introduced to. I'll tell you, it's like all these little threads of life, right? The five hindrances, the five hindrances from the Buddhist framework, 25-year-old map of the mind's most common obstacles, the five hindrances the Buddhists talk about are desire, aversion, restlessness or worry,

The Five Hindrances And RAIN

Polly Mertens 30:53

sloth or torpor, and doubt. And we all have these, but we often have like a one primary one or ones we're working on repeatedly. Mine would be doubt. Thank you very much. That's my chinky, and it shows up in chinky 63, I think it is. But the the shadow side of it is doubt, and the higher frequency is trust or truth, excuse me, truth. Let's see. So it's not a judgment of character, it's a weather report for the mind. Hey, I made that up. That's cute. Okay, and the five hundreds in Buddhist, they say the rain practice, they say, is R-A-I-N, recognize, allow, investigate, and not identify. So that's what the Buddhists practice of that. And the language that shift that changes it is from I am restless, right? Like I was talking about, to there is restlessness, right? So the Buddhists also share going from I am to there is. And I love this. A I think very much. You don't have to be Buddhist for this to work. It's just an honest observation of what the mind does. Yep. Right? We can all go check, yep, the mind does that. All right. So let me just share with you, like, I want to like kind of like, what are all four of these like have to do with each other? And like, what do they agree on? So the entry point is sensation in the body. Like where I'm at right now in the seat of the soul is man, more groundedness in my body than like I was telling Sam the other day, I was

Body Sensation As Your Compass

Polly Mertens 32:19

like, I am feeling more, I don't know how to talk about it, but like centeredness. Like, and I'll share a little bit more, maybe more uh deeply when I share like what I'm getting out of this, but like I was like halfway out of my body, like almost like if you're running and you like, if I was like a speed demon, you know, and I would like start and there'd be a blur of me, like half of me was out of my body, out in front, rushing to get somewhere. And so I was only like partially in my body. And it's like, now I'm not in a hurry. This genky five, I'm working on, or I'm I'm practicing embodying patience, which is there's nowhere to get to, there's no rush. So fucking give it up. Just be here now, be in the present moment, be with this experience, trust in the universe, like all these like things that I've heard for so long. I'm just embodying and being with. Wow. It's like there's a so much more power in my body and my thought. Like, there's just alignment instead of, like I said, the schmeared half of me was just like this running man kind of image, half out in front. And like I wasn't fully utilizing all my power or something. So, so let's see. So let's say the the what they all agree on, these teachers that I've been sharing is the entry point is sensation. It's not necessarily an understanding, it's just starting with the body, not with the mind. Like, don't go upstairs and like try and figure all this out. Just stay down below your, you know, your neck, stay down below your chest. Like, that's where the juju's at. Stay in your heart. That's really a big part of this, is like soul, the seat, the heart, the gut, stay down there. Go up to the mind for like questions or intelligence, but like, mm-mm, it's the servant, it's not the master. They all agree that your patterns, your shadows, your frightened parts, your hindrances, whatever you want to call it, right? None of them are enemies. They're just information, right? They're like old some scars that comes from the, you know, seed of the soul. I'm sorry, the untethered soul work. It's like they're just there to show you something, right? So don't push it away. Just practice more being with it. I love this. There's nothing to fix. Awareness is the transformer. It's like through awareness, it's like we give it space. And there's so much somatic work, like not talk therapy, but like so much somatic work is being with these experiences. So they can they can move. It's almost like when people don't cry, they just get all this grief, energy, sadness bottled up. And it's like you just need a fucking good cry, man. Like cry or laugh or express or fight or something. Like just allow the experience, allow the feeling, allow the time bomb to feel like it's gonna go off. And one thing I was hearing Joe Hudson sharing with somebody who was coaching was like, she was like, Oh, there's sadness there. And he's like, Well, we'll be with the sadness. And she was afraid of the sadness. And he said, Yeah, a lot of people are afraid of the emotion because they think they're gonna get stuck in it. And it's not just get, and he goes, actually, there's relief. Like our fears that we're gonna get stuck in it, we're gonna stay in it. And you know what? Some people just like love to, because for whatever reason, but like you're like, it's like it's like a passing through. You're like, I'm gonna feel it. And he goes, typically what you feel is like a really good relief, like a good cry on the other side of that is like, ah, right? Or a good outburst is like, cool, I got that off my chest. I'm fucking back in my power, like I just needed to let that go, right? Or let off some steam or something. So really, it's about nothing to fix, just creating the awareness of it. And once something becomes conscious, it begins to shift and you start to illuminate. And that's really what I've been focusing on. I've got my core gene keys, like I have a little post-it note on my desk, and I've been like just more aware of them. I'm gonna, and I've got this vision of like making it even more aware. Like, I'm gonna put my four core ones on a little diagram and maybe make it super pretty or something. I'm like looking around my office right now, like, where could I put that bad boy? Got that as an insight on my hike this morning. I was like, yeah, I want to make that like super because I'm like, I'm just experiencing in my body, if I'm a whole hologenetic genky impression, how can I fully embody that and like work with it? Like, like I'm walking through space with that genetic profile and utilize the gifts of it, not be in the schmear of rushing forward or be afraid of, you know, by doubt or let confusion run the show or all these things. It's like owning that that is inside of me and coming from that. And the first step like was like really getting, as it said, my life's work, the core of them, which is five, which is patience, which for me just feels like being in my body, being with where I am right now, not I'm behind. Yeah, I'll talk more about that. Okay. One couple more things. The body is the compass, contraction. I would say constriction, tensing, any tightness in the body, it means you've left you, like the soul, like you've left, and expansion means you're home. So I'll just say that again. The body is the compass, contracting, tightening means you've left, expansion means you're home, like you're like you're in it. The returning is the practice. You don't arrive permanently, you build the muscle of coming back faster and faster. I love that. You know, it's just like I see Joe, and one of the things he said, and I think he's been practicing this for a long, long time, is like he said something like, I know when rejection shows up, he gets excited about it. He's like, great, like, like he gets to experience it, like another practice, almost like, yes, you know, like an opportunity to do the work and be in what his soul is here to be and experience and live, and and not like like a flat, like a flogging, you know, like, oh, like you're bad, but like like making you better, like making you your potential, not being hindered or held back by it or afraid of it, so that you can fully embody, like, yeah, fuck it, go for it. Like, doubt. Good doubt. Thanks. Okay. And let me lean towards the the you know, the gift side of that, which is like get curious, like be an inquiry, right? So I can find my truth. And so good. All right, and all of these, whether it's Gary Zuckoff, Seat of the Soul, Gene Keys, Joe Hudson, Buddhism are teaching so much is the same, right? I don't know if you've gotten the woven, like if you could weave together what I've already shared with you, I hope you're starting to see how they're coalescing and they work together. But that's just my mind anyway. I see the dots. I hope you can see the dots connecting. So let me share with you a couple of points now that I've set the stage for all of this. So, you know, I've talked a little bit about this, but your body doesn't lie. I want to, I'm gonna just kind of go into that right now. So, you know, there's a great book out there, The Body Keeps the Score. Whoo, good book. There's a reason why it was a bestseller and continues to be quoted. Okay. So, as I've said, you know, teaching that contraction is you've left your body, you're you're holding, you're trying to control, you're afraid of something, you're not in your full awareness, your grounded seat of the soul self. Expansion is like your home, like you're just welcoming it. It's like, all right, you get the the wholeness of you. So your mind will rationalize fear as logic all day long, but the body just tells you the truth. And so one of the things for me is like I'm just getting more still, getting more quiet, going, I just sort of like feel like I'm dropping down a few levels in my staircase or going, taking the elevator down instead of being upstairs in the mind when I'm checking in with myself and like, hmm, what do what do I feel about this? Like, what's true for me? Before that schmeared me, was like, go, hurry, run, you gotta get yeah, go, you know, and it was like always trying to get somewhere, letting the mind run it from fear instead of being like down in the soul going, no, I trust. I trust myself, I trust the universe, I trust things are always working out for me. Okay, what what is there to do or not do right now? And coming from that place, right? So mine, I'm like, yeah, I don't have time. And there's great work Joe talks about like experimenting with like how to talk with that monkey mine. I'll let you dive into that with him if you choose. But so how I'm using physical sensation as my real-time compass is just a like planning my day, like I'm using it like, okay, what's most important right now? So previously is like, oh, I said these like I need to do this, you know, for the next hundred days, only do it like this. And now I'm like giving myself a framework. Okay, like I'm working in, I'm calling it my flow zone. So it's like, okay, two hours flow zone. And like going inward and being like, what's most important right now? And letting inner wisdom and guidance come from there's time for this. This is important, this is meaningful, this is where my soul gets to express. Turn off the phone, turn off the things, whatever. Who cares about the past or the future, whatever? Like, what's real now? And taking in information. I'm like, you know, like sitting with, you know, what am I working on? What's important? What am I trying to accomplish? What's my intention? All of that, but fucking getting grounded in me and and then choosing what the action is, right? And so I just stop paying attention to what's upstairs in the mind. Like I'm aware of it more so than ever. You know, as a student of neuroscience, NLP, neurolinguistic programming, and hypnotherapy, there's so much beauty in like, you know, working with and reframing the mind and the neuroassociative patterns and all that stuff. And this feels like a shortcut. This feels like, yeah, yeah, yeah. All that noise up there. Like, great. And what does my soul want? What is my, and you know, and and really I feel like there's this aligning coming from that energy, like it's gonna naturally rewire what my mind is thinking. Like it comes from the a different place. Let's see, a little bit about here. So in the body, Gary Zhukov calls it these energy processing centers. Some places or some bodies of work yoga would call it like your chakras or something like that. But, you know, where are we sitting with whatever energy is is happening, like whatever an emotion is happening, what is a thought creating in us, and noticing if we're constricting or if we're fully just like, yeah, I'm cool, right? So it's it's about feeling it, it's locating it, not acting from it. For me, I would just say, you know, mostly what I want to say about this is I'm just coming from a calm, peaceful place, like a truly grounded, like all's well, man. All is fucking well, and everything is working out well. And when I'm there, yeah, let's go, right? And when I get into little fear mind about tightness or contriction or hurry, I just go, nope. Feels better to be down here in the heart, and all is well. So that's some of what I'm working on. And so let me share with you from a personal standpoint some of the three that I would say I'm most working on right now in terms of my gene keys and my self-awareness and how I'm like incorporating all of this from the seat of the soul. So, one is I was referring to as like this rushing, this impatience key, this shadow side of like

The Three Patterns I’m Watching

Polly Mertens 43:47

impatience, rushing. I'm behind, I gotta hurry, do more, put more things on my to-do list and all this stuff. And I'm really letting that go. I'm like, I'm trusting the timing and what I'm tuning into and trusting is I'm gonna be in the right rooms, I'm gonna be in the right places, I'm going to have the insights that I need to have. I'm going to make the decisions, trusting all of like my yeses and my no's from like a place of inner fucking like certainty, like where that's soul. Is as opposed to doing 33 things from a state of fear, like the rushing and the overproducing and over-achieving and stuff like that, that frantic hustle. I was like, I could do all of that and get like a tenth of the results, maybe, right? So it's like, what's most important? So if I, if you look at it like Pareto's Law, am I doing the 20% that makes 80% of the difference? I guess that's how I would liken to this shift for me, is it's not about volume, it's now about, you know, velocity and creativity and centeredness and core essence of what most wants to happen right now, not volume. So and then the second one, doubt. Good old doubt. Jinky63. The gift is, you know, inquiry and the essence, I believe the city is truth. And it's like I learned something the other day called skillful doubt. Skillful doubt. So skillful doubt is doubt has a place. Using it skillfully is what masters do. They don't let it run them and they never self-doubt. Like you never apply doubt towards yourself. Like you totally own, and I get this. Like I've definitely had periods or times or some areas of certainty in my life where I'm like, oh yeah, if I can totally trust myself. Like, yep, I got that, right? Like, speak on stage, do this, go for that. What, you know, like I was gonna do Iron Man, yep, I can do that, right? It was gonna be hard, but I could do it. It's like knowing what you're capable of and like knowing it even when you haven't had any experience of it. Just like, yeah, I could do that, right? And believing. And so I'm no longer afraid of doubt. I'm like, oh, there's doubt. Okay, what's there to, you know, or just noticing it like a little nuisance, kind of flicking it off like a fly, right? I'm I'm practicing, as Joe Hudson says, practice and experiment with how do you talk to, how do you interact with these shadow sides, these little patterns of thought, if you will, these, you know, success strategies that we create as little humans and we live into. And it's just like, oh, there's old doubt, you know, and not being like, because I thought I was doubt. Like I thought that was me. I was like doubting myself. Oh, I'm doubt, whatever. And maybe the pattern was I was, but like now it's like this thing I'm aware of, I have, or it shows up. And one thing that was super powerful for me was, and I've, you know what? You probably I've probably heard this like more than 20 times in my life, but it hit it landed the other day, which is like we're not in control of our thoughts. They are literally just popping up. They're just freaking like popcorn, like like whack-a-mole, like fucking whack-a-mole. Yeah, like who knows what's what's next? Who knows what thought you're gonna have, right? Like if you're in an argument or you know, if you're deep in conversation or something. But man, if you just like pause, the monkey mindness, the jumping around that our mind does, if we actually track those thoughts, it's ridiculous. So it's like, of course, like, okay, so doubt's gonna pop up. It's like I didn't intend it, I didn't want it, but it's like, okay, there's doubt, just like there's anxiety, there's happiness, there's joy, there's bewilderment. Okay, doubt. It's just one of the seven dwarfs of, you know, whatever the 72 dwarfs of emotions or thought patterns. Okay, but I'm not owning it. I'm not like, and I'm not applying it to myself any longer. I'm just like, yo, I am a soul. Y'all better watch out. Like, like I love Oprah's just got such great energy around this. Like, she is so insanely confident of who she is as a soul. And I'm like, yes, sister. I'm like, mm-hmm. So doubt can be a thought or it can be skillful doubt, but it's not applied to me any longer. Me, the highest me, the essence of me. And I'm certainly not clinging to it, if you will. So I'm just noticing it like a mm-mm-mm. And then the last one is like this compares. I don't, I don't even know necessarily where this one shows up. I think it's in my my gene key where the the shadow is compromise, which is 35, I think. I have to remember, I forget which one it is. Anyway, compromise is shadow, competence is the other side. I think it's 35. Might be wrong on that. Anyway, and the comparison. So I was really present. Like I was doing this body of work, I don't remember exactly what it was tied to, but it was always like money patterns. I'm like, where do these come from? And I did some like inner work and I found like an old, old story of like comparing myself as a little girl riding on the buses,

A Childhood Story That Rewrites Lack

Polly Mertens 48:59

and my dad lived in not great neighborhoods, and you know, that was him. Like, here's here's the shift. Okay, so I'll tell you this little story all anecdote is so what the story, what the video tape that looks like, or you know, my recollection of the video in my mind, and get it, it's like snippets. It's not like I've got the whole video, it's like, you know, what do you call it in movie production? It's like skip to like this and cut to and cut to this. So like there's these little cuts of my video. So it's not the whole thing, but it's like cut to me leaving my dad's apartment in this like not great neighborhood. And I'm just like, it's not horrible. It's not like it was so bad. Like I was scared for my life, but it was like, okay, I knew this wasn't like a sunshiny, rainbowy kind of neighborhood. And then I get on the bus and they cut to some kids are on the bus and they're dressed nicely, and they cut to this neighborhood. And I'm looking out the window and I'm seeing these like really nice houses, you know, with beautiful lawns and beautiful big houses. And I'm like, wow, just like admiring, right? And then they get off and I'm like, and then cut to me in the school bus, admiring them, not having, noticing where I just came from, but and then like cut to getting off on the school bus, you know. And I don't even, I'm sure I was aware of it because like I have this as like a I don't know if like the awareness of me doing that, or like the little me, like seeing those things, if if I if I was actually aware of, you know, feeling less than or feeling impoverished, but I think there was a thing about like me looking at other people and being like, oh, they have more than I do. They're better than me, they have nicer things, I don't have nice things, whatever. And the adult me now going back into that story and revisiting it, like from a like looking at that story, looking at those clips. I was like, the essence of me, the soul me in there was a beautiful little soul, was a beautiful little girl, was like totally perfect in all ways, you know, just as children are. And it was my dad's environment, his lack of resources, if you will, that I was in the environment of, right? It had nothing to do with me. I had no say in where we lived and how much we had and what I wore, you know. I mean, maybe a little bit of what I wore, but whatever, you know what I mean. Like that was just me growing up inside of his world and then seeing the contrast. And I at the time made it up like I wasn't enough. Like I don't have nice things. Other people have nice things, all this stuff. And then like I put this light on it and I went, that wasn't even true. Like, that was just little me, a totally beautiful young soul, six-year-old little girl, like bubbly life, whatever. And I made myself wrong or not enough because of the environment that I was growing up in. And I was like, wow, and I've lived as if that's true. And notice where in times of my life I continue to see the outer world through that little paradigm. And I was like, whoa. And it's like, A, there's nothing inherently wrong with me now, and there's nothing inherently wrong with me then, any of that, like nothing is wrong with any of us, right? Like we can have moments of being in our doubt or our confusion or whatever and incompetence or compromise. But like the essence of who I am, the seat of my soul, and there's great work on this with Joe's podcast, is like, I'm whole, complete, and perfect. And I was like, whoa, what if I start looking at the world through that lens? And part of what I'm doing around this is practicing gratitude for what I have now instead of this lackful, because I one of my woof patterns for decades has been coming at the world from a place of lackfulness and scarcity and not enough time and not enough money and resources and all these things, which is crazy because I live a very joyful, abundant life, and I'm very creative with the money that I do have and stretching it and the ability that I have from times of not having much. And I'm like, wow. So part of my practice in the seed of the soul is Joe recommends uh 10 minutes a day, twice a day, of gratitude, especially around that area that you're most working on. And for me, that's right now, like this money was showing up. And I was like, all right, so I'm doing that. It's been great. It's been really great. So I just wanted to share all of that as like this is what's happening inside of me, inside of my story, and like recognizing these patterns and not being run by them, right? So a few things I want to say. Let's see, the gene keys reframe. So my impatience is patience trying to be born through me. My doubt is clarity in its contracted form. It's like, I'm getting so, I'm so utilizing these gene keys, these essences of who I am and being aware of them as a way to transform them, as a way to live in the higher state of them, as a way to not be run by them, as a way to not be in the shadow side. It's so great. You might say, from Gary Zhukov's standpoint, it's like these parts aren't broken. They're just farting frarted, frightened parts that are not yet redirected for the soul or from the soul. So Joe Hudson would say these are brilliant survival strategies and honor them and just choose differently. And that's what I'm doing. So I'm just, you know, share a little bit about how I'm doing these experiments. I've I've said, you know, one of my questions right now is, and Sam gave me this question is like, what would love do? Right. So asking myself, what would love do in my mornings? Like I said, I'm I'm doing my gratitude practices 10 minutes in the morning, in the evening, just feeling into deep, deep gratitude for what I have now. I'm I'm questioning when, you know, an old pattern shows up, a doubt pattern, a compromise, a devaluing myself, a compare, like I catch myself now. Like I'm like there's just this spotlight on these, at least these three patterns that I was just going into the rushing, the doubting, and then the comparing. And I'm just like aware of it. And the awareness is like just dissipating. It's like, oh no, that's what I used to do. Oh no, that's that's I'm not choosing that. Or maybe I could run through it, but then I'm catching it, right? So I'm I'm just welcoming what arises and I'm just not fixing it. I'm just like, ah, okay, there it is. And I'm just going back more and more into that, like dropping down in my elevator to my seat of my soul, into my heart and into my gut, and being with me in patience, being with my most grounded self. Like I feel like I have two fucking feet on the planet right now, fully embodying me as a soul, instead of this gotta get somewhere, not enoughness, people pleasing, performing, whatever. It's like, oh, I'm like, I'm all here, baby. I'm all here. And what's arising is yeah, there's no like, like I said, it's like these little patterns, these little thought patterns of ways of being, of like old paradigms of comparing and doubting and fleeing and fighting and rushing. It's just like, I'm just like flicking them off. Just like, nope, don't need to be that. Nope, don't need to be that. And just like regrounding, just it's almost like how do I want to say this is like like I was sharing earlier, like I'm a schmear and I'm just like staying fully in the letting my soul be fully in this body. And being that means being in the present too. Like if I'm fully in my body and I'm fully in my breath in this moment, I am all of me here, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically in all of my bodies. And I just have I just want to say like superpowers, like more access to all that wants to show up, all that wants to be communicated to me and through me from the soul, from the higher consciousness, from the deep-seated self, from the future self, instead of a fearful not enough, not getting there enough, doubting if I'm doing it right. All that, excuse me, fucking monkey business that was going on is like like like there's a clearing of the windshield. You know, it's like I can see much more clearly now. And decisions are being made just I'm gonna say like slower, more slowly and more grounded. Yeah, and you know, I'm doing some of that, recognizing the shoulding and getting to and wanting to and replacing that and just spotting these patterns easier, right? Now, yeah, like I said, I'm like 10 days in. It's been amazing. And I'm really enjoying the deep dive into Joe Hudson's work and watching him work with people, and then I'm like, and you know, it's not like transformation happens when you just hear about it, read about it, see it done, whatever. And it's like, oh great, cool, that's for somebody else. It's like, and bring that into my life. Like, what do I do in this moment? How do I do it in my life and in my everyday? So that's what's most important. So, you know, these are some of my aha moments, is how I'd been living. And I was, you know, I was so keen earlier this year. Like my frequency was just vibrating at such a fear level, you know, money and time and lack, lack, lack, lack, lack. It was just this like scarcity was driving everything. And I was just like, yuck, like I couldn't, I couldn't be in my own body of that body, that frequency anymore. And now I'm just like plenty, timeless, nowhere to get to, no, no performing. All of that is like dissolved, and just have a have a yummy. If I check in, I'm kind of like there's just a nice, it's almost like there's an ohm inside of me. Uh like ohm. And it's like inside of that ohm from my from my soul resonates love. It's not performing, it's not a lackful state. So that's that's some of it. And yeah, I would say my decisions are more just like mmm, like a yeah, like a grounded yes instead of a fearful, oh, I have to, or you know, I just remember the volume I was doing. I'm still doing a lot. I'm not saying I'm like not doing, but I had this hundred days, and I was, you know, I was out to make a hundred videos on a hundred days, and I was like, blah blah. And like the franticness that I was operating from when I started that, I'm just like, and I was like, yo, this is not sustainable. And I knew it and whatever. And then last week I broke it down and I did like four in a week, and so that I could like not have that pressure of doing them each week that I was putting upon myself. It was like, now I have this spaciousness, like, okay, I've completed that and I'll come back in three weeks and I'll do four more. It just worked better. Like I made a better decision instead of trying to frantically every week get one out. I was like, yo, what if I just do all of them in a week? And then like, yo, do all this other great amazing stuff that I'm guided to. So I'm not like, like, just like that shift is like me coming from a different place, like trusting inside of me. Like, yo, Alex says Alex Hermozzi was where that idea came from, his hundred minutes a day. I was like, yo, what if I just took those hundred minutes or two hours a day and I just was in my flow and it was for the right intent? What would I be doing instead of you gotta do videos, you gotta be making video? And I was like, yo, that's not how we're doing it over here. But that was chosen from that seat of the soul. Like I made a different in determination of what worked for me, not giving up the goal, not giving up the intention. I'm still out to make 13 videos by August 31st. That is happening, but not the way that I was going about it, right? And it's like, yo, okay, right. And I'm just seeing little and small decisions and ways that being that I'm taking on in my business and choosing things that are like, yep, doing that. Nope, not doing, you know, and it's just it's like uh executive level. It's like I'm in my executive space of grounded in knowing what's right for me. And from there, not have to, you know, should do frantic what if I don't kind of energy, but like, yeah, this is this is this is what I need to do right now, like a solid fucking yes, like a hell yes. Okay. So what else do I want to share about this? So you, all right. Well, I think that's all I wanted to say about this. This has been way longer. So thank you for hanging out with me if you've been here. I want to share with you some things that, you know, as an invitation, how you can get into action. Uh, because we're Sam and I are all about like, yo, like it's great that you're listening to this, but don't fucking listen this long and not do something. All right. So this is you. So this is you, like, okay, here's what you can get up to. Just some ideas. You may have already gotten plenty of ideas. So these are just like,

Three Steps To Start Today

Polly Mertens 1:01:43

if nothing's coming for you, like, what do I, where do I start? Like, that's what I want to answer here. It's like, all right, where do I start with this? So I would say, you know, watch maybe check out some of these other resources that I've talked about. I think Joe Hudson's videos on like being with your emotions and some of his content is really great. But yo, you don't need to watch any of it. It's like finding that awareness, that sense of you, like I was talking about, it feels like it's coming from my my heart, which for me feels like going downstairs or like going into my taking the elevator down because fuck, I'm so lived my life so much up in my head, which is easy. So that's why it feels like going down. So like physiologically, down in my body. So for you, it's like, how can you be aware more so of the emotions and allowing them? Like that's first step is like, man, self-awareness, what is wanting to be felt? Stop pushing it away, stop forcing it, stop hiding it, just like whole creating coming from that place of awareness. So you're like this big old jar, big old container. I think of like this big, solid, almost like, you know, when they when there's these people that they're bomb detectors or something like that. So like they go out and they find bombs and they put them in these, like, I don't know, let's call it like a tank, and then the bomb gets to explode inside of it. And it's like, yeah, no problem. Didn't like bust out the world, didn't like break the container. Like you become a container for these emotions so they can frickin' blow up or they can be big or they can be fully expressed or whatever, and they move through you. They just, they, they, you allow the energy to flow. And one of the things I've seen with Joe's work is like people talk about when they start having emotion, even emotion like sadness, they start getting hot and they sweat. And he's like, Yeah, that's what happens. Because like there's all this fucking energy that's stored inside of us, and it's like, once it moves, like energy moves and heat flows and blood flow and all this stuff. It's so good. So that would be one of the things is like, how can you begin to really be with your emotions and allow the shit out of them? Allow like a big old bomb shelter, like go big, right? And one of the things I love, Joe says, is don't do your emotions at people. So this is like self-containment as best you can, depending on what's causing the reaction. You might be in a heated moment, but like don't open the door of your bomb shelter and like throw it at the person, right? It's like, okay, contain it, like allow it to burst. Like, and you may even need to like speak something, but don't do your emotion at that person. It's like, hey, I like I often say, like, I'm emotionally hijacked right now, and like I gotta step out if something is blowing up inside of me. I don't want to blow up on your face. I don't want to blow up in your ears right now. All right. And then you might do number two. I'm gonna do three steps. So, first one, feeling that shit out of those emotions. Let that bomb blow, baby. Um, but don't do your emotions at people. Do them with yourself, you know, enjoy them, experience them, and start to enjoy them. I mean that literally. And then number two is know your patterns. Like I became aware of my patterns thanks to my gene key study. However, you want to, whatever. You just sit with yourself. You know what? You probably, you probably already know it. If you were listening to mine, you're probably like, I got that one. Oh, yeah, I hear, I hear myself and her. So something I may have said gave you that reminder of yours or yours match some of mine, whatever. But like be aware of it, right? And so I've got three that I'm closely monitoring. Let's say where I'm like, yeah, baby, I see you. I see you because you're so frequent. You're so consistently showing up in my life almost every day that I'm gonna just like, I got, I got eyes on you. I got eyes on you, doubt. I got eyes on you, impatience. I got eyes on you comparison. Uh-uh. We're we're not, we're not, we're not living in that shadow anymore. All right, so know your top two to three fear-based defaults. It's not a shame list. This is just like you knowing, like, okay, these are the patterns that I've curated, crafted over my lifetime as survival strategies. You can do some work and then work to get to the bottom of them however you want to, but just being aware of them as we've talked about this. And then maybe, you know, a third step could be picking an anchor question, right? So I just give you the one that Sam gave to me, which is like, what would love do? You know, or could be like, Am I acting from love or fear? Because we're always doing one or the other, right? Love is where our seat of the soul is, and fear is this identity ego self, trying to protect, defend, you know, control something. So just like, what is what is a question that you could ask yourself to guide or choose from your heart, from your soul? And do an experience. Experiment. Like, like I said, I'm in the practice of it. I'm in I'm in an experiment and fucking loving it. So yeah, I just wanted to share all that. Whew, that was a lot. I didn't realize we were going to talk so much about this, but it's been good. I hope this has been helpful for you. And, you know, just know that if you like me, if we if we lose it, like yesterday I had an experience with someone not to be named and they reacted to me, like I could see they got defensive, and then like right away I had a defensive and I like shut that shit down and I was like, oh. So I called them this morning. I was like, yo, I just wanted to say I saw where I was, you know, I saw where I was showing up like that. And let's talk this out. Like I don't want to to have that be out in the space, right? So it's gonna still be there. Like I am pri I'm in the practice, right? And practice doesn't make, you know, permanent perfect practice makes perfect and permanent, but uh imperfect practice, so if I just keep doing that over and over, but I was like, yo, I see it, okay. And I felt it in my body. It was like this, this like wall when I was like defense, and I was like, whoa, look at defense. I still spoke too quickly because it was like this, you know, this is this pattern, this person I have. So anyway, enough about that. So returning to your seat of the soul is the practice, you know, and granted, you know, there's a lot of things we do in our day. I'm not saying this is a 24-7 practice. It's just living from the seat of the soul, I would say, is where the intention lies for me. So that can guide you. It's not a every moment, like, am I in the seat of

Returning To Soul And Closing

Polly Mertens 1:07:51

the soul? Am I in the seat of the soul? It's like just catching yourself, right? Especially in those moments of upset or moments you feel like you're being triggered. So, you know, so I hope, you know, teaching you about those four teachers that we talked about, maybe the different traditions, sharing with you some things that are consistent about them. I hope you have discovered something from Gary Zukoff and the four hindrances. Maybe you'll study that, the jinkeys, Joe Hudson's fabulous, and just start to see like your soul has a frequency, right? And your your essence, your awareness, like you as awareness, it helps you stop performing in the world and start living from the seat of your soul. And I'm still discovering what that means, having my, as Gary Zukov says, the authentic power, the where my personality aligns and is a is a is a vessel for is a is a vehicle for my soul. So stay tuned, may have another follow-up episode uh in a few weeks, a few weeks or a few months. So we'll see. So you know what? Try it for 10 days. Like pick something. If something inspired you about this, like find your your hindrances, maybe what's your number one most go-to hindrance, or maybe look up your gene keys and find which of the shadows, like your like doubt was like super doubt and confusion are like super obvious for me because I had been aware of them before. And so this is just putting them into a framework that I can work with. So that's it for today. And I just wanted to share all that and get into action, yo. Like, like don't have this whole episode land with you and not do something. Like, get out a piece of paper, get on something, take an action, take a step, make a promise to yourself, do something now before you get on to the next video, audio, whatever you're doing. Like, take care of you, man. Like, this matters. This fucking matters. This is such good work. So I wish that for you. I say Namaste. And as we always say here at the Everyday Awesome Project, how your life feels is more important than how it looks. And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome. Cheers, guys.