Transform Your Life - Just Count Me In
Just Count Me In is a podcast designed to help us navigate and flow with our lives through conscious awareness. When we live with less resistance and more receptivity it is easier to express who we came here to be and enjoy life. We are all walking each other home.
Transform Your Life - Just Count Me In
#20 The Transformative Power of Self Trust
Have you ever felt like you needed someone else's approval before moving forward with something important? Or questioned whether you were good enough, ready enough, or worthy enough? From a young age, we're conditioned to look outside ourselves for validation—but what if the most powerful guidance you need is already inside you?
Your inner knowing is sacred and strong, even when it speaks in whispers. The journey of self-discovery isn't a destination but a beautiful unfolding that gets easier with practice. As your brain becomes familiar with this new way of being, your life will transform in ways you never imagined. Stop dimming your light and come home to yourself—because you're more powerful than you know, not because of what you've achieved, but because of who you truly are.
#FAITHOVERFEAR #INNERKNOWING # INTUITION # SPIRITUALAWAKENING # RAMDASS #ESTERABRAHAMHICKS #WAYNEDYER #TEENLIVING #HEARTCENTEREDLIFE
Thank you for joining me!
Welcome back. Welcome back to Transform your Life. Just count me in. I'm your host, sari, and I'm really thrilled that you're here today.
Speaker 1:As a coach a life coach and a tutor, I work with so many incredible people, from teens to adults and everybody's navigating big feelings and new experiences, to parents guiding their families all kinds of growth-minded individuals ready to unlock their potential, and lately, a lot has come up as far as things we want to leave behind. The number one for the past couple weeks has been self-abandonment, and that's a pretty common one for everybody and pretty easy to cure. We understand why it happens, but we can definitely take care of it. So have you ever felt like you needed someone else's approval to move forward, or you questioned whether you were good enough or you were ready? You were worthy. You maybe needed more training, a stronger foundation, maybe you were too old, maybe you were too young I think we all have. From a young age. We're really conditioned to look outside ourselves for validation. And teachers, parents, social media, test scores they all shape our self-perception, but the truth is you were born with absolutely everything you need. So this topic is foundational for every transformation it's self-trust and truly taking the time to know yourself. Think about it. How often are we looking outside ourselves for answers, for validation for what we should do? We're constantly bombarded with opinions and expectations and trends. What if the most powerful guidance you already need is inside of you? It's already there. Almost every session I had with my coach my last coach it ended up trust yourself. What's guidance telling you? Trust yourself. So this is not a new topic. This has been around a long time, actually, in the Bible, jesus was quoted as saying the kingdom of God is within you, and it's not really a metaphor, it's the truth that divine intelligence is actually your inner knowing. Wayne Dyer said you'll see it when you believe it, and actually it's not the other way around.
Speaker 1:Belief precedes manifestation. When you believe in yourself, you actually activate your ability to co-create. Abraham Hicks reminds us, when you believe in your worthiness, you're aligned with source energy, and so many people are out of alignment just because they don't trust their worth. The quieter we become, the more we can actually hear. So there were a couple of people that I studied when I was 18, actually that I studied when I was 18, actually, and it was after.
Speaker 1:I had a few times in my life where I almost gave up on a dream and the outside noise was telling me you are just not ready, you don't have the money for this, you don't have the credentials for this. Who do you think you are? And if that sounds familiar, I think it's familiar for a lot of people. But then I got still and I asked my soul what do you say? The answer was really clear I made you for this. I made you for this.
Speaker 1:When I started believing that truth, everything changed. I stopped outsourcing my power, I stopped abandoning who I was and it came back. It happened a few times during life and I mean, we wake up and we go to sleep. We wake up, we go to sleep, but every time that I don't self-abandon and every time that I do take the step you're listening to an example of it right now with the podcast it's one more time that I've got under my belt, it's one more time that I can count on. It's one more thing that brings me closer to making this familiar and making my brain feel safe, making me trust myself even more.
Speaker 1:So I was starting to say when I was 18, a good friend of mine and my stepdad at the same time, two people put Emerson and Thoreau literally in my hands and said hey, you've got to read these books, and let's start with Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wrote an essay called Self-Reliance and if you do nothing else after this podcast, I would say just take a look at it. Emerson's core message was simple and, at the time, revolutionary. It was trust yourself. He believed that every single one of us has an inner wisdom and a unique spark, a divine reason. That's our direct connection to truth. He said and I love this who would be a man must be a non-conformist. Now he used man and that was the language of the time, but we have to. His message was clear for all of us. He meant every person.
Speaker 1:He was telling us that to truly be ourselves, we have to resist the constant pressure to conform, to blend in, to follow the crowd. So think about it for a moment, especially you teens out there. You're constantly being bombarded with what's cool, what you should wear, what you should like, things you should try at parties, parents we see this too the pressure to raise our kids a certain way, to have them achieve certain milestones by certain ages, and then people you can be a single person or a person in a relationship. There are milestones. I mean people in their 60s well, you're going to retire, right. People in your 30s well, time's a ticking, are you going to have a baby yet? I mean you could literally have your whole life written for you. You could have the whole life written for you. You could have the whole script written for you by listening to other people's expectations, or you could listen to that inner voice to direct you to your inner self.
Speaker 1:And we have to resist this constant pressure to conform, to blend in, to follow the crowd. So Emerson believed intuition over intellect. So again we're coming to this now and we talk about trusting your heart. Your heart is the strongest energy center. Trust your heart. Your mind is good for certain things, but for the big picture, your heart and your gut have the answers. So he knew it back then and I love when he said imitation is suicide. And it sounds dramatic, it really does, but when you think about it, it's suicide of the self. Each person has a unique gift and a unique purpose and trying to be someone else means you are selling out, you are losing your authentic self. He also believed in the divinity of the individual and he believed that every individual holds within them a piece of the divine. And my teacher used to say to me all the time doubt yourself, doubt God, trust yourself, trust God. And when you trust yourself, one is essentially trusting the divine within. And this connection empowers individuals to act with more courage and more integrity, because I feel the strength of so many people when I make those aligned choices.
Speaker 1:Living for itself he advocated for a life for itself, not for spectacle, and this is really blown up. This was before social media. This was before you looked at how many downloads or how many likes or how many friends you have it. Constant external validation and living life for itself and not for a spectacle means living authentically rather than performing for others and seeking constant external validation. And hey, let's face it, we all like external validation. I mean, I think every human enjoys positive feedback, myself included. But there's a difference between liking it and needing it and there's a difference between appreciating, hearing it, when you know that you're being authentically yourself, or molding yourself, shaping yourself into some kind of a mold so that you will get that validation. So just some things to think about.
Speaker 1:Henry Thoreau was actually a disciple of Emerson's and he took things a different way. They were both transcendentalists. He took those ideas into a different practice and he went into the woods and his point was to live really deliberately, not to get to the end of your life and discover that you have not lived. He went into nature life and discover that you have not lived. He went into nature. He wanted to truly understand what was just essential for him. So for people that are using screens a lot, this might mean taking a break from screens, finding a quiet space and just thinking about what makes you happy, what truly energizes you, what problems you care about that are giving you a sign that maybe you want to get involved and follow that direction.
Speaker 1:I know a couple of my families are doing a tech-free summer where the kids are only on technology if it has to do with learning for the whole summer, and I totally support that, I think it's great. I think it's a good idea to take a break, if you possibly can, for parents and growth-minded adults. It's about simplifying. It's about decluttering not just our homes but our schedules, our minds. What are the essential facts of your life when it gets down to it, what truly brings you joy, meaning and purpose? So by consciously choosing how we spend our time and energy, we get closer to knowing our true selves.
Speaker 1:This weekend, my husband and I are both very conditioned to do the things that we have to do first, and then, for dessert, we get to do the things that we really want to do, and we've been trying to live a little bit more in the flow of things. And Saturday we both woke up, we were both off and I realized you know what I really didn't feel like doing, what was on my list for the day, and he didn't either. And I looked at him and I said why don't you just do what you want to do? And I'm going to do what I want to do, and you know we'll meet up around dinner time. Let's just figure it out. This is new for both of us and I think it was harder for me than it was for him, because I work less hours than he does and so I have more of the domestic responsibility.
Speaker 1:And I was thinking man, the house wasn't clean, the laundry was washed, dried but not put away. There was a list, there were things that normally I would get done before. I would open up a book and read or write the podcast, and I didn't do that. I literally got myself an iced peppermint tea and went out in the sun and just read and did nothing for a while, for a few hours, and then by dinnertime I was like I'm good, I filled myself. I was like I'm good, I filled myself. So it's a matter of getting back in touch with when you can do that for yourself and working those moments into your life where you can respect the flow of your life, the flow of your energy and what you actually want to do, what your real self wants to do, not the self that you want to present to the world as the good wife or the good mom or the, you know, the diligent worker or whatever, but who you actually really are inside at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:What I liked about Thoreau, and why my stepdad thought I would really like him, was because I have a very close affiliation with nature and to me, as long as I can be outside somewhere, I'm good, I'm fine, preferably by the ocean, preferably with trees, but if I can just hear birds and see grass and just breathe fresh air, that helps me to calm down and feel connected. And Thoreau taught us that nature is a really powerful teacher and when we connect with the natural world, we also find a clear connection to ourselves. It's a place where we can breathe, we can reflect, we can hear our own thoughts without interruption and we can really learn a lot from just being the observer. So he also believed in simplicity and essentialism. And now we have people that look the tiny houses, we have people that get paid to come and declutter closets. Between that and trusting nature as a teacher, I think his connection to the universal rhythms and the laws that fostered his own self-trust.
Speaker 1:And what are we getting back to now? I heard on somebody's podcast go outside if you have insomnia. Spend a few minutes in the morning after the sun first comes up to reset yourself. For the day you can look into the sun at that time just for a few minutes. It's safe. And at night, go out and walk barefoot on the grass. Now we naturally could be doing a lot of those things and we naturally did do a lot of those things for a long time. So how does this look for us? How does this look for regular people? How do we take these ideas and apply them to our lives right now? So I broke it down to five basic things I would say turn inside every day, even if there's just a small couple minutes of quiet it could be five minutes before bed or a couple minutes, or I have one person who does it on his way to school, somebody else does it while she's doing the dishes and ask yourself what am I really feeling right now? What do I truly need right now? What actually feels right for me? And if you have younger children, they can draw it. If they can't verbally articulate it, they can draw how they're feeling or show you with their bodies how they're feeling.
Speaker 1:Number two challenge the shoulds. When you feel that pressure that not to do something that you're not really into, or that pull to be someone you're not ask, or that pull to be someone you're not ask. Is this what I really want, or is it what I think I should want? And this is a really big one for all of us, whether you're a teenager learning to balance social pressures, or parents balancing family expectations with their own well-being, or just a regular person like me. At this point in my life, I'm definitely a mom and a grandmom, and also just a person who's trying to navigate life and stay true to myself and imitation, just acting like everybody else. It would be easier to do certain things to fit in for the social norms right now and I would feel like I was abandoning myself. They're not things that I feel good about, so I'm not doing them.
Speaker 1:Embrace your uniqueness. Emerson said limitation is suicide. You are uniquely you. You've got your own talents, your own little quirks, your own perspectives. So celebrate that. Don't try to be a carbon copy of other people. Your unique contribution is exactly what the world needs. You don't desire anything if it's not already yours or meant to be yours at some level. Number four I would say simplify your life. Think about what you can remove from your life that doesn't serve you, that doesn't make you feel expansive. It could be physical clutter. It could be some time you clean up in your schedule. It can be things you're subscribed to that you're done with. You've outgrown, it was good for the time and now you're done. It can be toxic influences. You're done. It can be toxic influences.
Speaker 1:We used to say that we didn't want to watch anything in the house that would be similar to someone that we wouldn't want to invite into our home, and I really strongly advocate for that. If you wouldn't invite that person or that situation into your house. I would say think about what's on your screen, think about what you're watching, because you are inviting that energy into your house. And my grandma used to say, garbage in, garbage out. And I think she was right. And I have lived both ways. I have lived where I've watched things or just kind of went along with what other people wanted to watch, and I knew that they weren't good and I knew if it was violent I was going to have nightmares or I knew I felt yucky, like I had to unwind after I watched the movie and I still watched it. But again, I don't do that anymore. I'll just remove myself from the situation if I need to. But frankly, I'm not in that situation because my husband also doesn't invite anybody into the house, on the screen or anywhere else that he wouldn't want to be sitting at the dinner table with us.
Speaker 1:So trusting yourself isn't about being selfish, it's about being authentic. It's about building a strong foundation in yourself so that you can navigate challenges and make decisions that keep you aligned with your values and truly thrive. I, my life right now is absolutely 100 percent better than it's ever been. My relationships are better. I'm just so grateful for this. But I've also done the work. I also get in touch with myself and I can say, the more I trust myself, the more I become unshakable, I make decisions that align with my values and I feel like I'm more and more becoming the leader of my own life. And you take your place in this world, you take your seat.
Speaker 1:The journey of self-discovery and self-trust is continuous. It's not a destination, it's a beautiful unfolding and I promise you, when you commit to it, the more you stay on this path, the easier it is to stay on it. Because, remember, the brain likes familiar. So the more familiar this becomes, the more you're going to feel safe. Your life will begin to transform in ways that you never imagined. I, literally a year ago, I had a great life, I was very happy with my life and my life just keeps getting continuously better and better and better. And, yeah, I have my days and yeah, once in a while there's a bump in the road or a lesson I've got to learn, but generally speaking, when I look back on things, oh my gosh, just exponentially better because I'm trusting myself and I'm trusting in the universe, I'm trusting in God.
Speaker 1:So I do want to give you a couple of journaling prompts and a couple of affirmations. If you want to try, I like to take a couple minutes every day and I do sit, I do meditate, whether you meditate or not. If you could just even take a couple moments and find a quiet place just to close your eyes and take a couple deep breaths and breathe into your heart, you can even take your hand and put your hand on your heart and put your other hand on top of that hand and just let that light in your heart grow and let these words in I am safe to trust myself. I'm guided by divine wisdom. I already am who I was created to be. I'm worthy, I'm guided and I'm whole.
Speaker 1:And I would invite you to take out a journal and write down anything that might have come up for you when you were listening to those words, because very often Michael Beckwith has people do this. It's a powerful practice. Very often, when we're practicing something, we write the words down. All of a sudden, bam, you get your resistance, or you get exactly what it is you need to work on, or exactly. The uninvited guest comes into your house via the voice in your head and it gives you the guidance and sheds light on some beliefs and some mindsets that you need to shift.
Speaker 1:Some other journaling prompts that you can try are where my life have I handed away my power? And there was a list for me and what did it cost me? And this is not to feel guilty, this is just to see, to articulate it, to own it. Every single thing that I've done, all my mistakes, all my screw-ups and all the good things, I stand on all of those, they are all part of me. They're all part of who the person is that's talking right now. They made me who I am and you need to stand on yours too. Don't hide them, don't act like they didn't happen. Own them, realize them and stand on them, because they made you stronger or you wouldn't have been listening for this long to this podcast.
Speaker 1:Another question what would I do if I really trusted myself and I mean really, really trusted yourself? What would I do? What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail right now? Couldn't fail? What does my inner voice even sound like? How can I tune into it more often? What is she saying right now? Sometimes the heart speaks in whispers. What limiting beliefs am I ready to? Just let go of today? Let go of today and remember your inner knowing is sacred and strong. Hey, trusting yourself is not about being selfish, it's about being authentic. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 1:I hope that this episode inspires you to turn inward, trust your amazing self and embrace your unique journey. Come home to yourself. You are the only one that can do it. And and remember, if you have everything you need within you, just count yourself in. You're more powerful than you know, not because of what you achieved, but because of who you are. We'll be back next time with more tools and insights to help you live your most authentic and fulfilling life. Until then, stop dimming that light, be kind to yourself, trust your gut and keep transforming. Until next time. Remember you're not alone. You're guided and you can always count me in. If this episode resonates with you, please share it with a friend, leave a review, subscribe to the podcast and tag me on Instagram so I can cheer you on.