Coffee with Carly

EP 13: Rewiring the Subconscious: Healing, Triggers & the Power of Mindfulness with Nicholas Clay

• Carly Schade • Season 1 • Episode 13

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Is healing a lifelong journey—or are we just stuck in the loop?

In this episode of Coffee with Carly, Carly Schade sits down with Nicholas Clay, founder of Being One World and a pro-conscious meditation health coach. Together, they explore the science and spirituality of healing, from subconscious reprogramming to emotional triggers, nervous system patterns, and true growth beyond the “healing phase.”

Expect real talk on:

  • What “rewiring the subconscious” actually means
  • The difference between mindfulness and meditation (with real-life practices)
  • Why triggers are green lights, not red flags
  • Healing from stored emotions and breaking free from identity loops
  • How breathwork, intuition, and self-awareness help re-center the mind

Whether you're new to personal development or deep into your own transformation, this episode will leave you with practical tools and powerful reframes to move from self-sabotage to self-mastery.


Resources cited:

- Dr. Becky Kennedy on guilt and values 

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0:00:05 Carly: Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life. I’m your host, Carly Schade, and I’m here to uncover how good life can get. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Coffee with Carly. So I don’t know if I ever told you guys about the retreat I went to in Mexico in January. A friend of mine has been running these retreats for about four years and it combines business and spirit, spirituality.

0:00:42 Carly: There’s a lot of entrepreneurs who attend. There’s some pretty cool speakers throughout the day, a lot of both like inspiration, motivation, strategy. It really kind of combines it all and then it also mixes the rest of our time. Do doing things like breath work, meditation, cold plunge, sweat lodges, some really cool stuff. I had some very fun emotional releases that, that’s a, an episode for another time.

0:01:07 Carly: But there were about 60 of us at this event and the people were so cool. There’s a code for life right there. You know, if you’re feeling stuck, go put yourself in a new environment and go meet new people. It’s gonna spark inspiration without a doubt. So today’s guest is actually someone that I’ve met on this retreat and funny enough, I don’t think we actually talked or like officially met the entire retreat, but on the final day we sat next to each other at breakfast and ended up chatting for two hours.

0:01:38 Carly: So literally people are leaving, catching their rides and we just like sat and chatted forever. So I immediately knew I wanted him on my podcast and you’ll very quickly find out why. He has such a profound way of thinking and really unique perspectives and insane knowledge of the mind. His own journey began with his self or his journey began with his own self development. And now he’s a pro conscious meditation health coach and owner of his company. Being One World, I’m going to let him explain what all that means, but this is going to be a pretty organic conversation and I know you’ll enjoy it.

0:02:14 Carly: So with that, I’d like to introduce Nicholas Clay to the show. Hi, Nicholas.

0:02:20 Nicholas: Hi, Carly.

0:02:21 Carly: How are you?

0:02:23 Nicholas: And that was funny reflecting back on the retreat because yeah, I don’t think we did talk the whole time.

0:02:28 Carly: No, I think maybe it was like when I. You were DJing in our, in our van for the excursion day and I. So I was sitting behind you and it was like that was it. But other than that it was like we really hadn’t talked to the last day.

0:02:41 Nicholas: Yeah, that was a little bit more informal for sure.

0:02:46 Carly: That was a good day too. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. Well, yeah, like I said, I’m so excited to have you. Like, you have just such a, a unique way of thinking. And you also just, I mean, what, you’ve studied the mind for over 10 years now.

0:03:01 Nicholas: Yeah, just under, we’ll call it a.

0:03:05 Carly: Decade, we’ll make it even, you know. And I know you’ve told me a little bit about your story, but it began really, you know, your company, your business, all of that, with your own self growth, with your own transformation. Can you just, let’s start there, like, share a little bit about your story.

0:03:21 Nicholas: Yeah. When I got introduced to business for the first time through finance, I got this sense of what being independent or mostly independent was like. And then that got me into self development, into networking. And from there I became fascinated with the way you could improve the self. And for me that was a radical shift. The way I grew up, what I went through, my environment when I was around, I didn’t have exposure to that.

0:03:53 Nicholas: So for me it was a new world. And then from networking, I learned quickly that the people you surround yourself with, the conversation is different. And being reintroduced to reading and learning and surrounding myself with different people now I was also introduced to other reading materials. And so that led to one of my most recommended books, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. And at this point I read around 100 books in the nature of the mind, outside of the other credentials that I’ve, that I’ve amassed. And it’s still one of my top recommendations.

0:04:31 Nicholas: So if anything else, that’s something I would advocate for listeners to take a look at, if you haven’t already. And when I started reading that book, it was like everything made sense for the first time. It was like a substance, a nurturing that I felt like I was always craving, maybe didn’t always realize that. And immediately it went from self development to wait a second, I think, I think this information could be the access to remove the hurt and the pain that I was harboring.

0:05:02 Nicholas: And some I was aware of that I didn’t like. And then as I went through this journey, I discovered a lot more which got into more experience and more learning about just how intricate and how deep our sense of self can go. And through that I’ve been able to re. Establish a healthy connection with, with myself. And it’s just been a tremendous difference and experience. Yeah, that’s a great question. So the doctor, Dr.

0:05:30 Nicholas: Paul Gorwin, who established Quantum University, that’s his terminology. So pro consciousness is what he considers the meditation, a term that he coined for it so it’s essentially a holistic approach and understanding of mindfulness meditation, bringing in a wide array of medical knowledge as well. So although you’re not licensed, I’m not licensed to stand within the medical field. You get all the surrounding knowledge about it. So that way you can support and coach people to their optimal well being and optimal health.

0:06:11 Nicholas: So you learn about when we do breath work or things that are called the fire breath, we learn the science behind that through the university. We learn how it works. We learn the science behind Kundalini meditation. We learn the science behind the meridians and those nodes and the chakras all the way up from. Because it’s based on quantum physics. So we’re starting from the foundation of light and sound, we’re building it up to the energy in the body and then to the mind, the different components of the brain and how that all relates. So it really is a bit of a breathwork meditation, mindfulness semi medical program.

0:06:49 Nicholas: It’s, it’s probably one of the most extensive programs that is considered a certification that a person would go through that’s.

0:06:59 Carly: Everyone should take this course or actually what I should say is every doctor, every mainstream doctor should go have this certification because it’s so important. So what I would say too, or my question so pro conscious, you know a lot about mindfulness, the mind, especially with your, your introduction. But really though, what you’ve studied is, is the whole person, the whole human, because you’re understanding what’s happening to the body when they’re doing breath work and how it pertains to the mind and, and all those, you know, connections behind the scenes.

0:07:29 Nicholas: Yeah, I look to go as, as wide as I can go without losing the, the depth as well. When I was first sparked with this insight of the possibility of removing stored emotions, I became so intrigued on how much more is there that we humans, that we know about ourselves that I just haven’t been exposed to. So I just went on a, like, like just a thirst to nourish myself with as much as possible. So yeah, that it’s gone from everything to spirituality to being encouraged to understand various religions and not that I’m an expert yet, just hearing from people that practice because I started seeing this overlap in what humans been telling ourselves all this time. And then that led to neuroscience, understanding how the brain communicates with itself into neuroplasticities, you know, the ability to change and rewire itself. And a lot of stuff I learned from Dr. Joe Dispenza, who is also a key member of putting Together the curriculum that I went through for that pro consciousness meditation, health coach certification as well. So, yeah, I’ve scavengered quite a bit.

0:08:38 Nicholas: And the more I get into it, the more there’s. You discover there’s so much more to learn, there’s so many more teachers, there’s so many more researchers and doctors. And now more than ever, more doctors are opening their mind to what we consider alternative medicine, which I find interesting that we consider the, the basic basis of medicine, like where it all started. I find it interesting that we, we consider that alternative when that’s where the foundation of medicine came from. And then this new creation of western medicine, we consider medicine.

0:09:16 Nicholas: So yeah, the whole essence is you talk about every doctor should do that. The whole point of, or at least the vision Dr. Paul’s creating this university is all about integrative medicine. It’s not saying that holistic is better than modern or vice versa. It’s about seeing that there’s a lack of capacity in everyday medicine. And if you had more certified health coaches to partner with modern medicine, you could drastically reduce costs health care. You could drastically improve people’s rate of healing themselves or discovering these other remedies to help them.

0:09:58 Nicholas: So much, if not everything, a lot of people would argue start. Starts with the mind.

0:10:03 Carly: Well, I love what you said about the alternative that, that piece of like it’s. We call it alternative medicine, but it’s actually been around so much longer. And like modern medicine as we know it is like a blip on the map in terms of, of these practices. No, I mean, and I agree of course, like with the healthcare, like, you know, we talk. It’s a huge problem of preventative medicine or just understanding like the whole person.

0:10:30 Carly: And that’s something. Even when I was a dietitian, it was like you, it’s all connected and just, just this pill or just focusing on like this one area isn’t enough. You know, I think we are so intricate and I could eat well and I could work out, but if my mindset was, was off, if my, my nervous system, my thoughts, like my brain, I couldn’t get out of my head, then it wouldn’t really matter how much I ate or how well I slept or how much I worked out because I wasn’t fully changing.

0:11:00 Carly: And so. Okay, I have a question that I want to get into since I have an expert in front of me right now. The whole idea of like subconscious and conscious maybe learning behavior is the word I’m looking for has been coming up a lot. And so you’ve talked about pro conscious, you know, where it’s like we only have, what, 5% of our brain is conscious. So that’s the part where if we can tap into that more, that’s where we can see greater success. Or is it rewiring the subconscious is where we can see success. I’ve been hearing that question a lot, so I’m wondering if you can kind of break that down for me.

0:11:35 Nicholas: Yeah. As you say that, the way I would encourage people to look at it is it’s not that one is separate from the other. It’s that there’s only a layer that’s visible at any given time. So you can think of the conscious mind as like the crust of the earth. And how that crust rejuvenates itself is from the core, is from when volcanoes erupt. And it’s always remaking itself. Another way to look at it is tilling the soil.

0:12:02 Nicholas: So essentially, we have our conscious mind that we’re programming ourselves. So you’re dropping the seeds, yet you’re not consciously aware of every single thought and belief and seed that you’ve, that you’ve held in your mind at any given time. You’ll say it once and then it’s going to drop down and it’ll go to a subconscious programming. And so if you want to remove those, this is where meditation gets deeply useful.

0:12:28 Nicholas: You’re, as Dr. Joe Dispenza says, you’ll be bringing yourself into your operating system. It’s like going into the code of your computer and you’re finding the fault code or the bug and you’re giving yourself an update. So you’re able to. We’re able to rewrite our code. And so you, you bring the unconscious conscious. You become aware of something that you didn’t realize there, let’s say a limited belief.

0:12:54 Nicholas: I didn’t realize I said that once upon a time. Classic example. We get hurt and we tell ourselves, I’ll never let that happen again. Yet we don’t realize we just built this barrier that now is preventing us because we were threatened. And instead of learning through that experience and gaining the wisdom, we position ourselves in a fixed state so that we don’t get hurt again. And when that happens over and over again, we’re mentally constructing our cage.

0:13:24 Nicholas: And so how do you remove the bars? Well, you go back into the unconscious, you rediscover that. You bring it up to the conscious mind, bringing back up into the light your conscious awareness. You rewrite the code, and then that drops back in, right back into the subconscious. And now you have a new piece of code there that’s going to allow you to move freely again. And so that’s one way at least I would describe how this, how this process works. They’re working in tandem.

0:13:54 Carly: Wow, that makes so much sense. So, so how then? So it’s both. Right. It’s like we want to plant the right seeds in the subconscious, which, again, we all, you know what, we consume our thoughts. Like, hello, here’s the science that all matters, you know, And I just really don’t think that we all realize that every thought, every action, every crappy thing that we’re watching on TV is going. It’s planting seeds. It’s going to the subconscious.

0:14:23 Carly: So it’s a mix of, like, being aware of that stuff and then also being able to consciously activate it.

0:14:30 Nicholas: Yeah. And to that point, another important thing for people to realize is the mind can’t tell the difference between fiction and reality. It can’t tell the difference between the thought of something happening and what actually happens. So when you’re watching this TV program or you’re thinking these negative thoughts to the mind, it’s really happening and it’s real. And it does matter, you know, what children are watching at a young age does matter. What they’re exposed to does matter.

0:14:55 Nicholas: It’s fertile ground. And all of that is the programming. You may not be consciously aware of everything. You may think, oh, it didn’t matter. I’m not really paying attention. Another thing to understand is that the unconscious mind takes in everything. We are just only consciously aware of a limited portion of that information that’s coming in. It would be too much to handle. I don’t think the average person grasps just how much information in every moment there is to be taken in.

0:15:29 Nicholas: It’s too much for the conscious mind to, to. To hold.

0:15:33 Carly: Well, now I know why I’m so funny. It’s because I’ve been watching Seinfeld my whole life. Growing up with that in the background makes so much sense.

0:15:41 Nicholas: Yeah.

0:15:43 Carly: Okay, so then you talked about the. Did you say mindfulness or meditation? So if we want to access, and this is, I’m assuming, some of that work, you do. I, I, you know, 10 years ago had this limiting belief. I told myself this thing, you know, for your example, I was hurt. I’m never going to let myself do that again. So what are some tools that you use to. How do I access that? Is that something, you know, I would have a coach to help guide me through. Is that something I can do? On my own.

0:16:11 Carly: Where do you start with that?

0:16:12 Nicholas: Yeah. The first piece is being open to it is to recognize that you have a obstacle limitation somewhere. There’s a pain there. That’s the first piece. You have to be open to it. The second thing is to understand that everything happens in a moment. It’s always a moment, and it helps to be able to find that moment. Although that doesn’t always happen because there’s just a lot that we go through in life.

0:16:35 Nicholas: And what I mean by that is I’ll have clients get into a session, usually on the first or second one, because these are things I’ll teach quickly. And they’ll say, well, my childhood. And the mind doesn’t sit back for 10, 15 years and look at your childhood and then react to it on how it’s going to set itself up. What there was was a particular moment that happened that was deeply impactful, that had a high emotional charge. And then that belief was created within that emotional charge. So the more intense the emotion, the more deeply it’s anchored into the mind.

0:17:13 Nicholas: And so when you can discover that moment and then create a shift in perception, you can dislodge that root. You’re essentially creating another alternative way of viewing what happened. Another way to say that is what happens to us is not what scars us, it is our perception of what happens to us or the story we tell ourselves about what happens, which goes back to the mind can’t tell the difference between a story that we tell ourselves about what happens and what actually happens.

0:17:50 Nicholas: Another practical way to say that is it’s the meaning that we make from what happens that hurts us. And to think that that meaning is the sole truth of the event is not true. And so when the mind can recognize that falsehood, often what’s known as a paradigm shift, a new way of seeing the world is created and you are now stepping into a new reality. And then it gets really hard. Actually, a lot of times this happens automatically because then once you see that disproving that, it gets really hard to go back because now you’re self inducing the hurt if you want to hold on to that pain. And sometimes we do because that pain sparks a piece of our identity.

0:18:34 Nicholas: And losing pain means we need to lose the identity we created to protect ourself.

0:18:40 Carly: And a lot of us can keep ourselves stuck in the victim identity too. Right? Like, yeah, like this, this thing happened to me. Or I, you know, or even I think sometimes with these labels, you know, I have anxiety, I have depression, I’m, you know, it’s we, we. I think back to these things about our thoughts. The more that we just keep saying that to ourselves or to other people, the more that it’s going to become true. And we really love to kind of stay, stay in that mindset. I mean that’s good to know that. It’s, it’s. For most people it’s hard once you’ve experienced that shift. And I love what you said and I totally agree. It’s, I would say that that’s a universal truth in the self development coaching, whatever space is. How do we change the future? Well, we have to rewrite the past.

0:19:24 Carly: You know, we have to change the meaning around these experiences which can then okay, this, this thing that happened to me now means this and I’m going to now take different actions as a result of that and then different actions create different outcomes. So I love what you said about that. But, but yeah, I do think also for some people we can stay stuck in that victim mindset and not whether it’s not want to change.

0:19:46 Carly: You know, we’re not seeking to, to change because we’re kind of holding on to that identity too.

0:19:51 Nicholas: Well, yeah, it gives us an escape from responsibility and accountability of ourselves. It’s a way of giving up our power. And you said two things in there I wanted to touch on one big one. I’m really, really big on anyone I work with. I don’t even allow them to say that is when you say I have X, Y and Z. I’ve also learned though that the human mind is not really good about having something taken away from it. And so I’ve learned to always offer a substitute for people.

0:20:17 Nicholas: And that substitute is going to be a shift in alignment into, into truth. And so the truth is you’re experiencing anxiety, right? The truth is you’re experiencing depression. And that allows you to recognize that sensation that you’re going through that emotion or sometimes a state of consciousness without confining yourself like you contracted some virus that you can’t get rid of, which for the majority of people it’s not true that they have an anxiety or depression. They’re experiencing something that wasn’t resolved and then they get caught in a negative feedback loop with which strengthens this experience.

0:20:56 Nicholas: And so anyone like. Well, I wouldn’t say, I won’t say anyone just because I’m thinking if someone’s listening right now that has this experience, then they can most likely look back in their life when it first started and it was a little subtle, it wasn’t so, so bad and then it just started creeping up, creeping up. And if you look through the spectrum, like one of the maps I use will show this spectrum of fear, because that’s what anxiety is. It’s an unaddressed worry.

0:21:20 Nicholas: And it starts as trepidation. They’ll grow to anxiety. And what happens is it grows to panic, hence we get a panic attack. And then if that even that goes unaddressed and it gets into terror. So you’re dealing with a spectrum of intensity of an emotion that you’re experiencing, goes back into the subconscious and the unconscious mind. If it’s not addressed just because you’re not consciously aware of it, it’s running its own feedback loop in the background, just like a background process on the computer.

0:21:50 Nicholas: You may not notice a virus until you have pop ups everywhere. It doesn’t mean it just started the day you recognize the pop ups. You could have got the virus two weeks ago. And it’s just been running in the background. By the time you see it, it’s an issue. Yet if you bring it to it and they can locate the source of the code and then remove it, or that’s what you get a virus software for, scans it, finds that code, finds the root, and removes it. Well, now there’s no more malware. And the same can be done with the human mind.

0:22:20 Carly: Very rarely does anything in life just suddenly pop out of nowhere. Like, really with an, you know, a huge thing. The book Slight Edge, you know, it talks about this idea of compounding results and that there, there is no neutral. You know, we are not ever standing still. We’re always moving. And so you’re either moving in the direction of your dreams, your higher self, where you want to be in life, or you’re moving further away from it.

0:22:48 Carly: And it’s that idea, though, of compounding results. You know, I had a conversation a couple weeks ago. You know, someone was telling me about another podcast, and they’re like, yeah, all of a sudden it just like took off. And I’m like, it didn’t just take off. He’s been doing this for three years and nobody was listening for the first two. You know, it’s like every, you know, every artist. Oh my God, this artist popped up. No, he’s probably been paying. Playing in tiny little shacks last 10 years. You know, it’s like these compounding results, and like you said, these things are kind of working in the background. So very, very rarely are things just exploding. There’s been a very long time where it’s maybe a slight growth or Decline or, you know, whatever it is. But there’s. There’s been things happening.

0:23:31 Carly: It was just compounding. And you finally saw, you know, that exponential curve.

0:23:35 Nicholas: Yeah, it’s the myth of overnight success. We’re not really good at selling, showing the backstories of people because it’s not as glamorous, it’s not as entertaining. We tend to only care about people when that, that breakthrough happens. And all of a sudden it’s. It’s, you know, some big thing. Yeah, I agree.

0:23:53 Carly: I think it can also some, you know, like you said, radical responsibility. A huge. One of the core themes of. Of my business, you know, and what I want to help people through. It’s really the first step. That was the first step in my own growth journey. First step for a lot of people. But when we have this idea of like, oh, they just took off, I think it also, like you said, it takes away their responsibility. You know, it’s like, oh, that. That can’t be me. He just caught a lucky break. He can’t. Whatever. Instead of seeing the years, the countless work, the consistency, the ups and downs, like the actual commitment that they went through to get to that.

0:24:31 Nicholas: Yeah. Some of the noticeable people that come to mind as I have been designing a growth mindset workshops around Carl or Carol Dweck’s book Success and. Or actually right here, Mindset, the new psychology of success is what it’s called. So a couple noticeable mentions that is in that book is Michael Jordan, you know, who is not a natural talent, just out. A lot of people know the story of when he got cut from the JV team.

0:25:00 Nicholas: Ali, same thing. A couple women athletes that I don’t remember the name. They also predate. They were talking back in the 60s, 70s, they won a bunch of gold medals. Yet one started off as a premature baby and a mostly paralyzed leg. And then she became one of the fastest women on the planet. Babe Ruth, who was known to not be the most athletically shaped, yet one of the greatest hitters. You know, what we, what we.

0:25:27 Nicholas: What this book teaches, and a lot of what we don’t show in the world is the effort that these people put in. Kobe Bryant, another notable person, he’s in practice before the team and he’s leaving after. It’s the work that gets put in, and effort and work will beat out talent any day of the week. And it has and it does. We just, we just don’t tend. We tend not to show the effort that people are putting in because it’s. It’s nicer to have these superheroes.

0:25:57 Nicholas: And then like you said, it can. Well, that can’t be me because all that person’s just, oh, it can be. It can be. It’s just when you look at the effort it takes. I think another great example is people that get into incredible shape. That’s all effort. I think that’s one of the fairest things that we have as far as working out. And that’s one thing I love about working out is because nobody can take away that effort from you and nobody can get around it. You have to put in the work to get the results, and you also get the benefit of the results fairly from the work that you put in.

0:26:33 Carly: And I would like to add effort and bravery is, I think, you know, and I had a reel about this recently. Whereas, like, embarrassment, because it’s bravery, you have to have the courage to go do it, you know, And Michael Jordan probably felt really embarrassed or silly, you know, when he got cut or whatever, you know, or even the person, you know, who’s really overweight and trying to lose weight to. To cross that embarrassment threshold of just getting into the gym, you know, it’s.

0:27:02 Carly: It’s effort and it’s bravery. And there, there’s a. A photo I saw or like a little meme. Oh, actually probably about two years ago when I kind of first also decided, like, I’m going to figure out how to be an entrepreneur. It was like someone out there with, you know, half your IQ is making 10 extra income because they’re too stupid to doubt themselves, you know, and that is so true. Embarrassment, encourage. And bravery is absolutely a key part to everyone’s success because, you know you’re gonna fail, you’re gonna look silly, people are gonna think you’re crazy until they hit the exponential growth. And then all of a sudden, nobody thinks you’re so crazy anymore.

0:27:41 Nicholas: Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard similar things. I agree 100% on what you said. And then there’s a similar vein. I think I’ve heard a rapper say this a bunch of times. Like, you have to be delusional. You’re delusional until you make it and then you’re a genius, you know?

0:27:57 Carly: Yep.

0:27:58 Nicholas: Yeah, there was. Oh, so, you know, coming back full circle, you talk about the mind and where people, like, have to IQ succeed, a lot of that. What holds us back for those that are overthinkers or intelligent people, that’s what will happen. You’re so aware. You’ll analyze everything and then you’ll get stuck. That paralysis by analysis and this is where meditation becomes so valuable because you’re getting back in touch in tuned with your mind.

0:28:29 Nicholas: You’re getting back in touch with the source of self that comes before the thoughts. You have mindfulness paired with meditation. It’s so powerful because mindfulness teaches us a non judgmental awareness of self. And that’s the big part is not judging self. And you start to detach yourself from the thoughts. So many, I would say the majority of people actually we think that we are our thoughts and so we become that which is not true. And when you detach yourself from your thoughts, one, you can learn to quiet the mind and then second, when you start to think, you can realize that that’s just what we used to call, remember growing up, we’d say this all the time. It’s just a brainstorm.

0:29:12 Nicholas: It’s really just theories that you’re putting out there. And when you can detach from the judgment, you’re free again to think openly. You’re not scared to think about things because, oh, I can’t think that because I’m a bad person if I do that. Well, no, just when you’re free to think, that’s when you can truly be creative.

0:29:30 Carly: I love that. The brainstorm. Yeah. Of like. Actually that reminds me of just this morning I was reading a book just we should all be millionaires and it’s kind of talking about like especially wealth with women. And it was like we’re making these bad decisions and, and one of the questions we ask is like, what would you do if you could be a bad girl? Right? Like forget the shoulds, forget the whatever, you know, forget what I’m supposed to do. And that’s what reminds me. Just let yourself brainstorm, truly brainstorm. Like what do you truly desire in life? What do you truly want?

0:30:00 Carly: But you have to bring that mindfulness. Like just because you’re thinking something, that’s wild. Not judging yourself for it, just because it might be a bad thought or something you thought was, you know, inappropriate, whatever, like stop judging yourself and let your mind really reach its capacity. But okay, you know, I think bringing it back to maybe a tangible or everyday practice, because we do. You know, you talk about mindfulness and meditation.

0:30:23 Carly: So meditation, you know, I think most of us know you’re sitting there and trying to calm the mind. Correct. You know, can you bring, I guess too tangible or just like an example of, of mindfulness in our day versus meditation? Because my interpretation is meditation is I’m trying to calm the mind, you know, my brain, I’m an overthinker. I live in my head and that’s been a whole part of my journey is stepping back into my body.

0:30:48 Carly: So when I meditate, I’m truly just trying to focus on my breath and trying to bring my, you know, I’ll have my random thought and I try to bring it back to my breath. So that’s, is that kind of the correct interpretation of meditation? And then what’s an example of this mindfulness practice that we can bring into our day?

0:31:06 Nicholas: Yeah, great questions. Let’s see. We’ll start with. So meditation is, is bringing ideally a single point focus to any, any given place. You can do body scan meditations, you can do loving kindness meditations, you can do courage meditations. You’re, you’re bringing all your focus to a single point. Taking the scatteredness of say like a, like a light bulb and bringing it into a laser, you’re harnessing your focus of awareness.

0:31:34 Nicholas: Mindfulness is the non judgmental aspect of it. Now I’ll give you one practical tip now and then go a little further into it. If you look at the construct the scope of time, where is the only place you can breathe.

0:31:52 Carly: Now?

0:31:53 Nicholas: Exactly. And so taking a conscious breath, you know, taking a conscious breath is a big practice. And I say that because if you look at the, you know, past 20 minutes or so that we’ve been speaking, you most likely haven’t taken a single conscious breath. It’s just what your mind, it’s what, what our mind does for us, just like it beats our heart, that’s a system that our subconscious mind takes over for us. So when we consciously breathe, which we also learn in meditation, just being aware of your breath, you’re bringing your focus to this moment, in this moment and this moment, because there’s only now.

0:32:34 Nicholas: And that’s where meditation for a lot of practices, at least what I personally practice and what I’ve learned is where it all starts. I’m sure I can find somewhere where meditation starts somewhere else. The breath though is, you’ll find the majority of them coming into that and noticing that, that breath and there’s no doing it wrong. This is something people will say to, well, I get distracted, that’s fine.

0:32:57 Nicholas: It’s. Once you’re aware you’re distracted, then the next step is to just come back to your breath. And over time you’ll shorten that period between distraction noticing and then coming back. It gets shorter and shorter where you can just stay with your, with your breath. Notice what’s there and that’s where you Start building that deeper connection. You start going inwards. And that’s where the power is. It’s in that introspectiveness of self noticing what’s going on with you.

0:33:26 Nicholas: And that does a whole lot of things. One of the more notable things I would say is it gets you back in touch with your intuition. Because when your focus is back within yourself, you’re much more in tune to the subtle energies around you and what you’re feeling and experiencing now. You start getting a more accurate, energetic feel of your environment and people and where you’re around. And this is where a lot of big shifts in alignment can be created. May not realize that you’re putting yourself in a negative environment because you haven’t yet focus inward to pay attention to how you’re truly feeling when you’re around X, Y and Z.

0:34:03 Nicholas: So it becomes intuition is our best compass that you could ever have. Once you tap into that, it’ll start realigning itself because you’ll start noticing where you feel good and where you don’t. Where you feel more energized and where you feel kind of drained. And you start noticing a pattern. Oh, this one person. I always, I don’t feel good after leaving this person, or I feel really good with this person, or I don’t feel good when I do this. I don’t feel so good when I eat this. And then all of a sudden you can start recorrecting yourself just by noticing it’s subtle energy, though you have to be still to notice it.

0:34:37 Nicholas: It’s like if you’re, if you’re in a pond of water, if you’re moving around, like is how the mind works. If you’re moving around and you’re splashing and you’re causing all these other ripples, then you can’t notice the other ripples around you and where they’re coming from. Yeah, once you stay still, that’s where you get the most accurate read of what’s actually going on in the pond that you’re in.

0:35:00 Carly: And understanding is this energy actually mine? I think especially for the people pleasers and the very people who struggle, type A struggle to set boundaries. And we like to take other people’s emotions understanding, like, no, no, no, this isn’t mine. I know what mine feels like. I know what myself feels like. And this is not mine to carry. There was another woman, of course I’m going to forget to her name, but we’ll cite her in the show notes.

0:35:31 Carly: She had another topic about guilt and that was guilt is when we’re living out of alignment with our values. And again, I think this speaks to this sense of self. Our values is who we are, what is important to us, truly, those desires. It’s more important to know who you are than what you want. But she talks about. So guilt is when we’re acting out of alignment with our values. I, I yelled at the taxi drivers, for example, you know, when he was just trying to help me. And, and that’s out of alignment with my values. I feel guilty because he was just trying to help. And that’s not, you know, how I like to treat people who are trying to help me.

0:36:08 Carly: Then she said, but what a lot of people confuse guilt is, is when they’re actually aligning with their values. You know, I set a boundary over Christmas with my family because of X, Y and Z. That’s in alignment with their values. So. So what they’re experiencing is not actually guilt. It’s the fact that they disappointed a person and they are therefore taking that person’s disappointment and carrying it for them.

0:36:31 Carly: And I was like, that was my. Again, as a, you know, struggling people pleaser and all of that. So again, coming back to this mindfulness that you can provide or that everyone needs to have this strong sense of self, coming back to our values, this whole grounded person. That’s how we can set boundaries and stop people pleasing and realize that I’m not feeling guilt. I’m just trying to take this person’s disappointment and make it my own and take other people’s energies and make it my own.

0:36:59 Carly: Yeah, it’s just, it’s the first step in so much self healing.

0:37:03 Nicholas: Yeah. It’s interesting you say that because that’s a, that was part of my personal journey and noticing how much of a people pleaser that I was and also how highly empathetic I was without realizing. And when I started, I noticed that at a point, the sensitivity to feeling other people’s energy. And then I also noticed when, before I understood what you just stated, it feels like it is yours. And that took a bit to, again, just paying attention to what’s going on inside.

0:37:37 Nicholas: What I started to notice is the moment I felt my energy shift. And when that would happen, I would then look around and see, okay, what shifted. Like, for example, if I walked into a room and I knew I was feeling okay, felt good. Actually, this happened with clients. At first when I was working with people, I feel the energy and this gave me a good feedback because I would share with them, hey, are you feeling nervous right now?

0:38:08 Nicholas: I’m just saying this because I’m feeling something. So this was my way to start to see is it me or is it you? And of course we’re in there, you know, to be honest and to have a non judgment and so to their benefit to be honest with me. And what I started realizing was what I was feeling was coming from them. And there was a point, one of the most notable experience I was working with this person and I started to feel a lump in my throat, which was interesting because that’s how I used to feel when I was a kid. And I would swallow my emotions and I hadn’t felt that in a long time.

0:38:39 Nicholas: So I shared it with the person. I shared what I was feeling because it’s like a tingle I’ll feel in different locations in my body. So I share what I’m feeling and I shared where I’m feeling it. And it’s always stuck with me when they said, that’s funny you say that because that’s exactly what I’m feeling right now. And it was this ability to have this feedback with people I was working with that allowed me to understand my sensitivity even more.

0:39:04 Nicholas: And then I rolled back the tape to wow. So this must have just been my, my life as a kid. You know, I grew up around a lot of anger, hostility, a lot of emotional, sometimes physical abuse and how much was being absorbed. And so much my life, me thinking that this is me, when it was really just so much energy I was carrying from a negative environment that I was, I was swimming in. And although it takes a lot to mill that through and purify the system, I want to deeply encourage that it is possible.

0:39:41 Nicholas: Healing. One of the things that I disagree with when I hear a lot is that, you know, healing is a lifelong journey. Healing is not a lifelong journey. Growth is. I have plenty of people I’ve worked with where we’ve cleared up the paths and we’re focusing now on the future. And the past rarely comes up anymore. And then you start looking at growth. And growth looks different because there’s still obstacles.

0:40:09 Nicholas: Yet you can tell the difference because you’re not triggered anymore. You’re not triggered by past events. You don’t have residual emotions coming up and that’s how you know it’s cleared up. Then you have the challenges of the current version growing into a new version. Just like a tree adds a new ring every year, you’re adding a new layer of yourself every year. That becomes the challenge. Although it can take many, many, many years to clean up the past.

0:40:39 Nicholas: It is a finite process. There is only so much energy. There is only so much emotional storage that you’ve incurred. Although it can be immense, there is still some level of finite range to that.

0:40:55 Carly: I. That’s such a great point, I think, because people can, especially in the personal development world, really get almost sucked into it too. Too much, you know, or obsessed with the. I’m healing. I’m on the healing journey. And. And again, coming back to, in some ways, the responsibility piece that we talked about in the beginning of, like, it can almost sometimes still be this, like, I know, you know, some. Some people I work with are entrepreneurs, for example, and they’re like, well, I’m still healing. I’m still, you know, they want to share their story, they’ve gone through something, but they’re not fully healed yet. And it’s like, well, who says you can’t step and lead at the same time?

0:41:30 Carly: You know, or it can sometimes be this excuse or we’re stuck in, oh, I can’t take the forward action that I want to take because I’m still healing well. So I love your point of it is possible to just actually kind of be healed. And then two, you can still move forward while you’re still experiencing this healing.

0:41:48 Nicholas: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what I did when I started coaching. I knew I wasn’t there. I knew I had a lot to learn, and I knew I had my own personal journey still to go through. I had a deep confidence that I was onto something and that my course heading was the way to go. And then part of that was just faith. I didn’t know. I just had faith. Like, I think there’s something here. I’m not going to stop learning.

0:42:14 Nicholas: And so while I’m working with people and I’m sharing a little bit, you know, it’s kind of personal. Behind the scenes is my thought process was if I can work hard enough to stay just a couple steps in front of the people I’m working with, I can continue to add value. And that also became a positive influence because I became small, so result oriented. And so I didn’t. If any. If I felt like clients were getting close, well, then it became, well, I have to. I have to work even harder because I didn’t want to lose the value I can offer people.

0:42:46 Nicholas: And so it was, it was. It worked in tandem. And I think any coach or anyone that works with people, if they, if they look closely, you’ll see that, you know, your clients are people that are a couple steps behind you. And you do help each other grow, and that’s a big part of growing. The people you work with as well, you know, the people I look for now, I wasn’t at a level where I could add value yet.

0:43:11 Nicholas: And so you just keep growing, just keep growing, keep growing. And so then you work a little bit on the past when it comes up and you keep moving forward and it all works, all works out together.

0:43:20 Carly: You only need to be 10% further along to help somebody, 100%. And again, I think that is the beauty of this thing, this, the coaching industry or all you know, is sometimes when you see someone too far in advance, it’s like, I don’t relate to that person, you know, and so I. Yeah, I guess this is maybe a message for everybody else too. If, if you want to start your own business or you want to, you know, have this service space, you want to help people. It’s like you can, like, think about who you were a year ago.

0:43:49 Carly: That’s your ideal client. You can help them get to where you were right now. You know, you can still be walking the path and bring them up to where you are. But it can sometimes be a sneaky form of resistance, you know, Right. I’m not there yet. I need another certification. I need another thing. And it’s like, no, there is someone out there that you can help 100% of the time. But it can sometimes. Yeah, be that, that resistance or whatever it is to actually breaking the barrier and starting to move towards what you want to do.

0:44:17 Nicholas: Yeah, I think there’s two things that come into that. One, it could be a fear of that, that next tier group or frequency of people, because that’s a new environment. And so it’s, it’s. You kind of. You stay in this, this loop of, I’m healing, I’m healing, healing. Because also, like you said, it keeps that relatability, and when you complete that tier or level or step, you’re not as relatable anymore. And so now you’re in a. In a new group.

0:44:47 Nicholas: Another thing that doesn’t get talked about a lot, spirituality, and you get into energy and all this, is that the ego is a really, really clever thing. You know, this piece of our mind that constructs identity and it will. It’ll use any kind of information to wrap itself up in. And so what happens, I think often, and I notice it myself as well, being transparent, is that you get to spirituality. So you have this new information, then the intellect will take that to wrap itself in. And so you create a spiritual Ego.

0:45:19 Nicholas: And so there’s those that you can see have embodied the work, and then those. There’s those that intellectualize the work. And those are two different parts of the, of the self. And it’s really difficult. It’s really difficult to see that within yourself. So that’s why it’s really helpful to have someone, whether you’re. You’re working with a coach or you have an accountability buddy, a friend that can be that mirror back.

0:45:48 Nicholas: You want to have something that’s giving you some type of objective reflection or be radically open to being able to look at yourself. And that’s what helped me. Reading Material 1. One of the things I put in place because I learned quickly about confirmation bias, and so I think that might have gave me a little edge going through all this was to curve confirmation bias. I was always looking to be wrong so that I couldn’t trick myself or get stuck in, you know, this is the right, the right way. So I look to be wrong. And so I created another mirror I could use for myself.

0:46:25 Carly: That’s a great tool. Yeah. And what you said too, of like, people can attach the intellectual to whatever loop they’re in. It just reminded me of that quote of like, those who can’t do teach, you know, and there are some times where you can, like the academia world, you know, it’s like, okay, well, we’re stuck in these. You can, you can, you know, explain this complicated theory all day, but you can’t really teach it. Right. So just. And it reminds me too of another episode with a neuropsychologist. And we talked about, like, the difference between talking the talk and walking the walk.

0:46:58 Carly: And that’s a huge thing in the health and wellness, the personal development world too is like, so many of us kind of know these ideas, these concepts, but embodying it, doing it, is very, very different. And so, yeah, you can tell the difference too, of someone who has conceptually gone on maybe their spirituality path versus actually being it now.

0:47:23 Nicholas: Yeah, and there’s some indicators. You can tell. One of the best indicators for growth is and what’s there to heal? Say you have no knowledge of anything we say. What’s say another practical tool that you can use is look at where you’re triggered. Where you’re triggered is illuminating what there is to heal. And then recognize that a healthy system doesn’t carry any triggers. And when you understand what a healthy system looks like now you have a path to work towards.

0:47:56 Nicholas: You start diffusing the landmines, you start discovering where they were set in the first place. And it helps to remember the best you can the beginning of life. We were not born into the world with these triggers. Just like 99% of people aren’t born having quote unquote anxiety or depression. Yeah, look at when these things get set and realize that they can be diffused. It’s not the same as being born five foot tall. And you’re like, well, this is my limitation of my body and this is just what I have. Well, it’s not the same thing.

0:48:32 Nicholas: You know, we, we come into this world whole incomplete and open. And although, you know, we may not be able to get into this, it gets into another, another vertical. You know, trauma is either healed or passed down and it’s all energy. And so when we come into the world, we talk about like the things you watch, what you think, what you’re around, understand that as children, as babies, we at first don’t have control of that.

0:49:03 Nicholas: So we’re at the mercy of the environment that we’re brought into. And you and I had this talk on our, on our pre discussion. Is that another thing that’s challenging is there’s nowhere is in our system where self development has to be done. And so if we don’t seek this out on our own, there’s nothing in our society that’s going to support us in taking these steps. You have to really want it for yourself and then go seek out the information.

0:49:33 Nicholas: When you do that though, you will find that there is an abundance of support and resources out there.

0:49:39 Carly: What a massive reframe that I think a lot of people need. About the triggers. That’s actually how I got here. You know, I was triggered and triggered and triggered by this health and wellness space and seeing coaches thrive and grow and help each other. And I had written off, you know, being a dietitian, being in the health space because I hated it. But I finally, finally someone called me out, right, Provided a mirror that you can provide with, with your business of like, Carly, I think that you just want to do this. And I was like, no, you know, everybody, we all, we all, not we all, but a lot of people, right? When you get triggered, you triggered me. It’s like, okay, well, that’s your trigger. It came from you. Therefore it is your responsibility to go navigate that, to go figure out what that is.

0:50:22 Carly: And like you said, triggers are not things that we carry with our whole lives. Oh, you triggered me and therefore you need to change. And this is my trigger for the rest of my life. You know, it’s A reframe, like it’s on you and it’s a thousand percent possible to lean into it, see what it’s telling you. You know, it’s a bit of a green light. And how can you resolve it and then move forward like resolve that trigger and you’ve climbed another step.

0:50:47 Nicholas: Yeah. The brain’s not good at recognizing other minds. And so we live, we live through this subjective reality thinking that that is the reality. This is also why as children we’re inherently self centered. It takes time to recognize other selves. The brain thinks everything is itself. One way to maybe help reflect back, to discover the elusive objective reality is, you know, for our listeners. If you get triggered by something, ask yourself, would that same thing trigger everyone else in a crowd of a thousand?

0:51:23 Nicholas: And the answer is going to be no. And so then there’s a subjectivity to that. It’s not objectively triggering, it’s where you are. And you have two options. You can either defend your stance egoically and then forced to want to control the external. I don’t like where you’re approaching me. I need you to move because this is my spot and I need everything around me to conform to me. Or you, you can look at where you’re standing and take a step in another direction and watch the relief from moving out of that, that point.

0:52:04 Nicholas: Because that trigger is not you. You just attached yourself to a meaning, to a thought that was created. And when you start understanding that the truth is more of a circle, it’s less of a, of a side, you know, the right side. No, it’s a circle. The truth is a collection of perspectives and perception and that’s really difficult for the mind to comprehend because the mind can’t multitask. And when you get to, to something that expansive, it can easily get dismissed.

0:52:42 Carly: I love that. Wow, that was a great, I think maybe ending, but, but before we end actually and because I think triggers is, is a really important one for a lot of people, you know, and there’s just, there’s so much magic in things that you’re resisting and things that you’re triggered by, you know, it’s, it’s a great place to start. So we’ve talked about a lot and you have done got a magical job of, of really doing an incredible explanation of some of these very complex things.

0:53:10 Carly: So if you had to give. And I don’t know if this is going to be a actually annoying question, but we’ll see. Like just advice for any, you know, everyday person, something that they can start implementing or just a knowledge bomb or something that you would like to share to, to help someone tomorrow, something that they can implement tomorrow and their mindfulness journey, their healing journey. Yeah. So whether it’s like a tip trick or just a mic drop, knowledge bomb, what would you like to share?

0:53:40 Nicholas: Couple things come to mind. I’ll restate, taking conscious breaths to do that. If you can meditate for, you know, even if you can give yourself five minutes, you know, research shows five to seven minutes, you don’t have to compete with, with, you know, advanced meditators or monks and get to hours. You, five, seven minutes will do it justice. And, you know, I’ll meet people halfway. Practice taking a pause notice when you’re triggered. And that’s okay because there’s a work to uncover that and pull it out.

0:54:20 Nicholas: If you can notice, take responsibility that you’re being triggered and practice taking a pause and responding instead of reacting. And that will make a big shift in what your world could look like. And then the next step would be asking yourself, what would life look like if you weren’t triggered in the first place?

0:54:46 Carly: That was everything I was looking for and more. Oh, my gosh. Well, I know you and I could talk forever. So as always, and with most of my guests, I’m like, there’s probably going to be some part twos in the future because, yeah, like I said, you just, you take these concepts and, and again, a lot of in the health and wellness world and, and hopefully for our listeners too, like, hopefully some of my dumb questions that I asked, or when I call them dumb questions, simple questions, helped because we do throw out a lot of these words and meditation and mindfulness. It’s like, what is, what does it all mean and what does it mean for me?

0:55:18 Carly: And you’ve just done such a wonderful job of, of simplifying some of these things. And I also just, of course, love learning about the science behind it all because everything in this alternative quote, you know, medical integrative, functional space has so much science behind it and so much validity. And so, yeah, I just thank you for taking the time to come on and share all of your knowledge and expertise with us.

0:55:44 Carly: So thank you.

0:55:46 Nicholas: Yeah, thank you, Carly. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity and I hope that people listening have found value.

0:55:52 Carly: Amazing. So, okay, just to kind of wrap it up, you have, you’re currently a coach and you have your own business being one world. Yeah. Share maybe a little bit about that. If people do want to work with you or get in touch with you. What is the best way to do that.

0:56:07 Nicholas: Yeah. Being one world dot com. If you go to the website, you’ll see a link book a discovery call. And what I’ve learned more than anything now is there’s nothing I’m going to say that’s going to convince you. It’s really just take the step. It’s a complimentary call. And what I’ve learned is that people feel out really quick when they’re working with someone of this level. Whether you align, resonate with myself or not.

0:56:30 Nicholas: And then the rest is simple. There’s no pressure. Does it make sense to move forward and does it not? That’s how simple it can be.

0:56:37 Carly: Amazing. So, as always, yeah, we’ll share all of his information in the show notes so you can reach out to him. There’s following on Instagram. As you can tell, he has a lot of knowledge, so definitely don’t be shy of utilizing him as a resource. All right, well, thank you again, Nicholas, and thank you to all of our listeners. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. And until next time, stay bold, stay balanced, and we’ll see you next week.