Deep Heartfelt Success

Finding Success in the Middle of Chaos

• Heidi Marke, The Gentle Rebel Coach • Season 1 • Episode 10

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, welcome to the Deep Heartfelt Success Podcast. Success that feels even better on the inside than it looks on the outside. Hello, I'm Heidi, Heidi Mark, transformational coach for big-hearted, driven professionals who want more, more ease, more joy, more capacity to fully experience and enjoy the success you've worked so hard for. Because real success isn't just about achieving more. Although I'm sure you want more. It's about expanding our capacity to feel confident in it, to really enjoy it. It's time to start feeling the fulfilment, the freedom, and the ease you've worked so hard for. This is where traditional success ends and deep heartfelt success begins. Welcome to the adventure. So I worked really hard, made lots of sacrifices, got my head down, studied instead of going out, did all the things, got promotion after promotion. Just worked really damn hard. And then I got really really overwhelmed. And then I had this struggle and I thought there's something wrong with me. I thought I ought to be able to cope better. So then I worked really hard at becoming more productive, better at sleeping, hacking my diet and exercise, hacking productivity, hacking all the damn things. So basically overloading myself even more to try and handle the stress of a job that I loved but it felt like it was killing me. And then eventually I burnt out. So the traditional route to success works. It works really well. If you decide to work hard and sacrifice and take the exams and get the promotions and work really hard at work, you can become very successful and you can do something you're good at. It works, right? Until it doesn't, until the conflict between the sacrificial habits of ignoring your own body, ignoring what your heart longs for, which is sometimes just to stop and have some space and recover and feel more joy. So until that point it works and then it doesn't work, and then you start getting this conflict. And the usual thing that is recommended is stress management, and that can include all sorts of things from using meditation and mindfulness and all sorts of positive psychology interventions, all sorts of things. There's there's this whole well-being industry, isn't there? But from where I'm sitting, having walked that walk really deeply and in a really dedicated way, because that's just who I am. I geek out on this stuff and I try it out, and I'm I was determined to make it work for me, but it didn't work. I mean it it worked in lots of ways, but ultimately it didn't work, and I burnt out and I quit my job. Now I could have at that point handled that crisis differently, and I could have decided not to quit. So it's not that I was forced out as in I was so burnt out. I mean I was in a terrible state emotionally and physically, but there were looking back with hindsight, there's alternative routes. So I could have made it work for longer, could have forced myself or found different ways of propping myself up or changing the role or something. But the truth was my heart and my body were by then screaming at me to leave the career, the one career that I said I would never go into, which was teaching in in schools. Because that's not where I'm supposed to be, and I don't mean that in a fatalistic way, I mean it's just not my I mean I was really good at it and I did loads of good, but it's not what I really want to be doing. This is what I really want to be doing, so I'm okay with that crisis point, but all I did then was look at what went wrong, what I can do about it, how I can help other people, and that originally was my first podcast and methodology, which was making overwhelm optional, dealing with the overwhelm, dealing with all the stuff that feels like it's wrong, as if it was used for information, and that's really really helpful, and that provides a lot of relief and a lot of guidance, and and it gets you off that hamster wheel of burnout. And then I got to a point where I realized that I wanted more, but that I was scared to have more because I was scared of going backwards into overwhelm. So it was kind of like I've recovered and I know how to look after myself properly, I understand boundaries, I've got it. However, the wanting more, more work success, more joy, just more, more energy, more, more, more. I wanted to expand in a whole nother way again. I wanted more success, as in external success, and the traditional there were bits about the traditional success path that I wanted to incorporate into this new, more chilled version of me, this better, better able to love myself version. And so that's where deep heartfelt success came out of. And I suddenly felt restricted, as you would know if you listen to the final episode of the Overwhelm is optional podcast. I suddenly felt restricted, like oh, I needed to talk about more than making overwhelm optional, because that path felt like overwhelm to ease, and that's fundamental, and it really matters. But then you can get to a stage where but what if I want more and I would lose the ease and go backwards into overwhelm. So that for me was then how do we bring it all together? How do we look at the traditional path to success and the overwhelm to ease path and bring it all together and look at what we want, what we mean by more, and what that to me means looking for more joy, more satisfaction, more success, more contentment, more, more, more, more of all the good things that we thought the traditional path would bring us. And so to me, this is just another framework, another pathway. So it's similar to me to when I first burnt out and I had this business, and I wasn't entirely sure what the framework was, but I knew what I needed to do for myself, and people coming to me were also very stressed and overwhelmed. So I was always a little bit ahead and able to teach and coach. Well, coaching doesn't require necessarily the knowledge because coaching is about helping you find the answers for yourself, but I have a hybrid teaching coaching model, and that required me to really look at what had happened to me and then help others look at what was happening to them. And then suddenly I'm looking at a new pathway, and then this morning I woke up with this deep sense of contentment, which sounds ridiculously wonderful and over the top. And I'm just gonna clarify that before you think I'm some Zen-like being. I don't usually wake up feeling like that. I usually wake up well, I wake up quite slowly anyway, and I'm never quite sure whether I'm awake or still dreaming, and also, oh, so I'm trying to do this thing of lucid dreaming because I used to lucid dream years ago, and I've actually throughout my life lucid dreamed a lot. Now I want to do it intentionally, but I find it really hard. And one of the things you have to do, you have to start by remembering your dreams. But I actually find it really, really difficult on waking to remember my dreams because I can't tell the difference between the dream and whether I'm awake, and I find that activates my mind, which then makes my head hurt, so it doesn't work very well for me, but I'm still recording whatever I'm finding out every morning because that's part of the practice. But anyway, what I noticed this morning was I couldn't remember the dream, but I did feel like it was a satisfying dream. It felt actually felt quite similar to waking life. I was busy, but because it's a dream, you can visit more people because you're not doing actual travelling, are you? You're just in a dream. So I don't know, it just felt like it was a busy, fulfilling night of normal daytime stuff with some work and other I can't really remember. Anyway, I woke up with this deep sense of satisfaction and contentment, and that was really cool because I really caught it. I caught it partly because I trained myself to catch it and to notice how I'm feeling as soon as I can wake up enough to notice that, but also because I'd written I was trying to remember my dream and I thought I can't remember the dream, but I know the feeling of it, and one of the things in the instructions for lucid dreaming says write down the feeling. So I thought, well, I'll just go with that because I've definitely got that, that was really, really clear. And then I was looking out the window and I just thought, yeah, life's really good. Life's really good right now. So what's going on? Because to me it's important to recognise what's going on, what's shifted for me, because I wasn't feeling like this maybe six weeks ago, or you know, I don't feel like this all the time. So what's going on? How can I discover? Because this is the deep heartfelt success pathway. How can I discover what's going on for me that's causing these feelings of contentment? Well, obviously, the feelings of contentment are because I have spent September practicing from chaos to contentment, partly because I needed to. It was an incredibly chaotic month, but also because I'm hosting a live course in November called From Chaos to Contentment, which means that I'm walking my talk and investigating now in order to inform that coaching and teaching live experience in November. If you want to join, just click the link in the show notes or go to my website, it's a beautiful orange button for you there. Love to have you with us if this calls to you. It's going to be so good. So then I got hold of my one minute gently rebellious journal available on Amazon, but you might want to wait because version two is about to come out and it is even better than the one we've been using this year. And obviously, it's the last I'm recording this on the last day of September. Obviously, I'm recording this on the last day of September, and at some point as the month turns, I do a monthly check-in, which is in the journal. And the first thing it says is what were the highlights of this month? And I was writing down the highlights of September, and I suddenly remembered that I'd written, or I could see it as well. I mean, I was writing the highlights thinking, wow, what a month! And then I'd remembered I'd written successful September. I like alliteration. So for me, it's really helpful to have a word that's linked to my word of the year, but that just alliterates it's like a guidance thing. So I kind of had successful September and then I kind of dismissed it, but I wrote I wrote it down, but then I kind of dismissed it because I knew that September was going to be majorly chaotic just because of all the renovations going on in the house, they'd all collided, and yeah, see the last episode for that. So in my head, I was practicing from chaos to contentment, using the chaos of September and everything being in disarray to see if I could practice turning that into contentment. That was a practice, that was an experiment. But what actually happened is I've landed on the last day of the month feeling really successful, feeling like September was successful. How cool is that? So I did set that as an intention, but then I kind of didn't keep it at the forefront of my mind because I thought I was being a bit I didn't want to put pressure on myself. Like it was, it was I knew it was a lot, I knew it would call on all of my practices and really listening to myself to negotiate this month by daring to look at the chaos and say, right, I'm gonna feel contentment alongside it, or actually, even more turning using the chaos and turning it into contentment, which is really rebellious, right? Like how dare I? Because previous Heidi would have just gone for survival, and when I say just gone for survival, like you, my ability to survive is really good, and I mean at a really high level. So we're not looking at you know prehistoric survival here, are we? We're talking about holding all of the crazy full lives we have together. We're talking about kicking us at work, maintaining our relationships, looking after ourselves, like everything we want. We're we're looking at juggling it all, spinning plates on spinning plates, really successfully. So, previous Heidi, actually, previous Heidi would have absolutely freaked and probably said, No, that is not happening in September, it has to happen in August in a school holiday. Because when I was working as a teacher, I could not cope with anything else happening in term time because it was so intense and so crazy, and the slightest thing could just throw me. So it would have happened in August because I would have forced it somehow. I don't know how, because the guy wasn't available in August. But anyway, it happened, it was all coming together in September. It wasn't just the line plastering renovations, it was other things, it was lots of renovations all happening at once. Really insane, lots of deadlines, lots of collision, no space for me, and I'm running a business, still serving clients, still serving the gentle rebel space, just like all of it going on, lots going on, all colliding. The old way of doing things would be to survive that riding high, and the new version, and I don't mean version as in a done deal, I mean the version of me that's no longer longer willing to sacrifice my health and sanity in order to just get through, and also I don't want to just get through. I believe life is for living to the full, it's it's for joy. So the person I am today who is exploring this idea of deep heartfelt success wanted to do more with this September, but the how I do that matters. So I wanted it to feel like success, but not survival. So I don't mean success as in I've successfully survived a chaotic September. No, that's not what I meant. I wanted to actually feel like September was successful. I can't remember writing that, I just know I'm a sucker for alliteration. So I don't really know what I meant by that, but I obviously set it as an intention. It's obviously gone into my subconscious, which is so powerful. And one of the things I really love about the gently rebellious one-minute journal is that you are constantly working from the inside out, you're constantly reconnecting to your body and your heart and your subconscious and your inner wisdom and what you really, really want, what you're really longing for. And so, therefore, setting an intention to feel successful at the end of September is what I did, and then I woke up on the last day of September and felt successful about September. How cool is that? Really cool. So, this is why I feel successful about September. First of all, the way I handled the chaos. So, what I've really noticed recently is that people close to me still think that I'm the person who would need everything under control in order to survive. So I I can almost sense like a bit of fear, you know, not wanting to upset me, not wanting not wanting too much chaos around me because I wouldn't cope. And I'm not that person, I haven't been that person for a very long time. But obviously, the people close to you learn your patterns, particularly if you create stress because that's very a very resonant emotion, then. For example, last month my son spontaneously decided to go to Budapest, and then on the way back, his plane was late, and then the train, something happened to trains, and then there was work anyway. It resulted in him needing picking up far far further away than expected and very late at night. And he just thought, when I picked him up, quite happily, really pleased to see him, he said to me, I didn't think you'd pick me up. But that's because the previous version of me from ten years ago that was just about coping wouldn't have picked him up, would have said, No, it's too late, I won't be able to cope with the next day. So, because he's a grown man, he's not a child, you know, there's other ways he can get home. But this version of me can do it. Yeah, it's gonna be late, but I'll be okay because I've set my life up so that if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm okay, I can cope. In fact, often I find that on days when I haven't slept particularly well for whatever reason or it's been a late night, I don't even notice anymore that I'm tired. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. But the point is I'm handling it differently. I have different expectations. So the way I handled the chaos, I really love. Instead of seeing it as negative and something to get through, like this kind of woe is me thing, oh my goodness, there's so much going on at once. No, I was just this is brilliant, this is not what I would have chosen, but this is good, because this is all what this is all chosen as in, these are the things I wanted to happen, and they're all happening, so I'm really grateful. Do I wish it had happened in a different way at a different time? Of course, but it didn't, and here it was. So let's make this work rather than I don't know, rather than collapsing in on myself and assuming that it's going to result in disaster. So not everything I did to support myself worked particularly well. I did go away to work and that worked for a bit and then it was really stressful, so I came home early, and I came home early to absolute chaos. I mean, the only place we could sit in the evening was at the kitchen table, and I mean squeezing into the kitchen table, like you couldn't even get to the chair, to one of the chairs. You had to like move stuff to get there. I mean, it was really, really cramped, and it's not actually that comfortable, is it, when you're really tired? It's not that comfortable sitting on a hard wooden chair. You really just wanna it's when you really appreciate a settee and just being able to chill out. So not only was there a lot going on, and we were doing a lot as well, but there wasn't anywhere to recover. There's no recovery space, right? So that was interesting, but in the end, I was just like, this is a bit like camping, you know, it's a bit like this temporary camping. It's remembering that it's only temporary, remembering that it's all going to pass, remembering that it's good that it's happening. I don't know, there were just there were lots of mindset reframes I was doing that were really really helpful. So the way I handled the chaos, even to the point of enjoying aspects of it, I'm really, really proud of. I can see how much I've changed, how much more emotionally stable I feel, how much more grounded, and also how well we did things together. So there's lots of process in renovating, isn't there, where you have to go out and find materials and you have to look at quotes and there's all this. I really have enjoyed the process of planning and doing things together. Now, if you're in a relationship, you know, well, I'm assuming that you know what it's like. For most of us, communicating with our partners, we think we've said one thing and they mean another. Like it's not that easy, is it? I mean, our closest relationships when we're going on a lot of assumptions, and it each time you do a new big thing together, you learn more about what that person actually means when they say that. Well, that's my experience, anyway. So that working through that and the assumptions and knowing what we both wanted, and for me, learning to say more clearly, actually, I don't like that, I want this, or I think we should do this because, and being clearer in my own expectations and stating what I wanted was really good for me. So the actual process, a lot of the the work that went into doing these last renovation projects, that I'm really proud of how we did that together, how I my responsibility in a relationship, I'm just really pleased. I'm really proud of myself. That feels successful in and of itself. Then the way that I've managed to work during the renovations, so obviously I've already talked about this in last week's episode, but I'm still surrounded by a relative amount of chaos in my office, but I'm okay. In fact, interestingly, even though I'm now having to step over the pile of stuff that we've selected that could go into the attic, because if it temporarily goes up there, then there'll be a little bit less chaos until we've done the next stages. We haven't put them in the attic, so I'm I'm literally having to now climb over stuff to get to my desk, but I'm not minding. I'm feeling like my skin is not as thin, I'm not as irritated because I can see what's happening and I'm just learning to deal with it better. That's been really cool, really exciting. And I've actually had a really successful month work-wise. I've got a lot done. I've finished the early bird campaign for the From Chaos to Contentment course successfully. I'm really excited about the group of incredible people gathering for that course. If you again, if you want to join, please, please, please check it out. Go to my website, heidimark.co.uk, press the orange button and check it out, or there'll be a link in the show notes. So I'm really proud of the work I'm doing. I'm also editing, I'm doing version two of the gently rebellious one-minute journal to release at the end of next month. That's exciting. There's a lot going on. Clients, the gentle rebel space membership, so much going on, and it's I have handled it really well. I've created space for it, I have focused really well, I've got really good systems in place. I'm okay, I've still made money, not everything's stopped. Woohoo! Exciting. And if any you know, for any of you who run your own businesses, you know what it's like. It's hard when other stuff is happening and it causes chaos in your work routine. It can feel really threatening because, unlike when you're employed, you don't necessarily have an income. So it can feel like an existential threat when there's chaos and change that affects your working life. However, I also know what it's like when you're employed and you're under a lot of pressure, and anything that's causing chaos and pressure can completely throw you at work and it feels like I don't know, like it could be a really dis big disaster. Like if you don't handle yourself very well at work because of pressures at home and other chaoses, that can feel like an existential threat. It's tough, isn't it? Like when we have when we have quite high stakes work, as in fulfilling hard worked for, hard-won professional respect, it matters. Our work matters to us. I've done jobs in the past that just weren't very high stakes, that you know, you could rock in, do the job, leave, and then go home. But that's not what I have now, and I know that's not what the majority of people listening to this podcast have. So I'm really pleased with the way that I've managed my work. Really pleased with it. So there's growth, there's so much growth here. But one of the things that I'm finding out about the deep heartfelt success path is that there's a real importance in pausing and acknowledging where you are and the accomplishments. So with the traditional path of success, we're very, very focused on the end result, when this, then that. The deep heartfelt success pathway, the ability to recognize when you've grown, recognize when you've handled something differently, to neutrally notice what's going on for you and find something to celebrate in that. That matters because it's not just about the end result. So, in in the traditional pathway, we're looking at the end result, we're very focused on that. In the deep heartfelt success pathway, we want the end result and we want to really enjoy the process, or if we can't enjoy the process, we want to handle it better. So, one of the things that's been really good for me today in taking stock of the month of September using the Gently Rebellious One Minute Journal, is that I can see how far I've come as a person. I can see how I've grown and changed. I'm really proud of that. I can see that a month of chaos is an opportunity to celebrate just how far I've come, and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it reminds me of the whole idea that climbing life is like climbing up a mountain. But if you're always focused on the summit, you know, that's all you're thinking about is oh, are we there? Yeah, are we there? It's really hard, right? But if you can stop at every single opportunity to take in the view, well, isn't that where the joy is? And that's what I'm thinking about now. So more on that in a moment, but the last thing I wanted to say, the last two things I wanted to say, one I think I've kind of touched on, I really enjoyed the process. So when I and this was deliberate, so instead of waiting, so for example, the lime plasters were here for three weeks nearly, and we didn't know when they were going in the third week, so that's three weeks of chaos, right? Plus the bit at the beginning where we had to destroy a piano and cut a settee in half in order to clear the room out and all of that jazz. So I have deliberately looked at what's going on and found enjoyment in the process rather than waiting for them to go. So, for example, they were really nice people, like just really nice people. So I was able and they did a really good job. They were very meticulous, they were very dedicated, they work, they were very careful about not damaging our property, which I have had happen where things have been damaged in the process of other work being done, and no acknowledgement or apology, which is really really upsetting. And you there's so much trust involved in having workmen in your home, isn't there? And these guys were just top-notch people, just like really, really lovely people, very skilled, very meticulous, and very good at being in the home without disturbing me. So if I was recording a podcast, they'd talk to me about when they would need to switch the electricity off or make a noise, that kind of stuff. So good, just so lovely. So them turning up in the morning, even though that is a disruption to how I start my day, and it's so nice. I mean, one thing I'm really enjoying now is that's not happening. I've got my mornings back, and because I didn't have them, having them back brings even more joy. So, this is what I mean by enjoying the process, noticing, not just waiting for oh, it's done, and now we need to do this, and then the whole room will be done. It's the sitting in the where's the joy in the process. So, really nice people, really grateful that they're really good at their job, really grateful about how they're doing their job, really grateful that they love the dogs. All sorts of lovely things, like really grateful that they're considerate, and then every single day going into the room and seeing how it's changed and noticing, just noticing the whole process. I mean, this is a historic process, isn't it? Lime plastering, it's really interesting. And then the the feeling of of giving back to the house, you know, restoring the cottage, making it healthy, allowing it to breathe, making it beautiful again, probably making it more beautiful than it's ever been. There's so much richness in the process, and I'm sure there's a whole load of other enjoyment that I haven't even thought of yet, but enjoying the process on the way rather than just focusing on the end result. And then lastly, I'm I feel really successful in the way I looked after myself. I didn't do that very tempting thing of, oh well, I just eat that because it's there and it's easier. You know, the things that we do to cope in a crisis of oh that would just do, I don't I'll be okay, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I I don't know, it doesn't matter if I don't exercise or rest or eat properly or get outside or see friends, that kind of thing. I looked after myself properly throughout it. Now it wasn't always easy, obviously, because everything's up in the air and that's okay, but I did look after myself properly, and that's a big thing for me, because that's taken me most of my life to work out is my number one job. Look after myself properly. There's only one of me, and it's my job, not anybody else's. So I'm really, really proud of that. This is why, or this is some of the many reasons, the ones I've picked out for this episode of why I feel six that September was a success. Not just because loads of stuff has got done. So if we now move on to the traditional way of looking success, I could also tell you that the lime plastering is complete and it looks beautiful, and what else is done? The fence, the boundary fence is half completed. We've moved loads tons, I've moved tons and tons of wood. So we bought our neighbour died and we bought the wood off his son, and then that was in the winter, and we moved some of it, and then we didn't have time to move the rest. I don't know what happened. You know, life happened, and then all these stinging nettles and ivy grew over the wood, so I couldn't get to the wood, and then I decided, oh that's it, it was a really hot summer. You don't want to move tons of wood when it's really, really hot, so I thought I'd just wait. Once I realised the state of the weeds, I thought, well, I'll just wait until it's a bit cooler, and then I and then it rained instead, and then I couldn't get the wood because this is going on and on, right? And we're about to go away to America on holiday, and it really needs to be moved right now. So I've gone next door because it's still empty, and been cutting down this ivy like I'm in some kind of fairy tale. Get through that. I'm honestly ivy's so strong. Who knew? Goodness me, no wonder it's used in fairy tales. It's all just grown in the last few months. It was super strong, completely covered, basically tons of wood, and some of it's rotting, and oh my goodness, but it's worth bringing over, trying to dry out. Like this, our house runs off off wood. So there's loads more than we thought. I'm not sure how good all of it is, but I don't care. It's wood, and it's there, and we paid for it, so I need to get it over, but we're running out of time. We're now on a deadline, so I'm like, right, just do it, do it, do it. Oh, so funny. It was every time I thought I'd got all the wood, it was like a magic porridge pot of wood. There's more if I pull that piece of ivy. Oh my goodness, all these locks under there, and then moving them. And so that's been my kind of gym membership for the past two weeks, just moving literally, quite literally, tons of wood. But you know, once the fence is completed, not gonna be able to do that. And then the house will be sold and blah blah blah. So that's got to happen. I can't remember why I was telling you that now. Oh, huge sense of accomplishment. I'm really proud of myself. I've been doing press ups. Oh so why am I laughing? I'm laughing because I'm still not entirely sure it looks like a press up, but I don't care. I've decided, I decided a while ago, I may have mentioned it or not, I was gonna learn to do one press up. But I damaged my wrists just before I did my yoga teacher training, and so I have to be careful. And then I thought, oh maybe women aren't you know, I listened to all the stuff, maybe women aren't designed to do press-ups. I have tiny shoulders and weak wrists, maybe I'm and I'm like, no, I just want to do it. So I thought I just want to do one press-up. I'm now on six to seven press ups, and I don't think they're that bad, actually. Anyway, because I've been doing that, I'm stronger. So when I was moving the wood, I felt really strong, and this was also part of my looking after myself. I'm still working out, I'm moving tons of wood, which is my workout, and it feels good. So whenever it's been sunny, I'm out there hurling logs across the lawn and then wheelbarrowing them down, and it's just absolutely hilarious. So that's also a sense of accomplishment for me, as I've also done that, but that's not really renovating, but it's an added deadline, and this is what happens, isn't it, when we have loads of deadlines. In fact, I want to do a whole episode on deadlines and pressures and whether you find deadlines good or really mean and really unhelpful, but that's another episode. Let's get back to why I'm feeling deeply satisfied at the moment. So there was the lime rendering going on, there's the bathroom going on, there's this fence going on with this deadline, there's these logs have to be moved, and we're going away. So there's loads and those collided. That's not even all of it, is it? But anyway, there's loads of stuff going on, and I have not just surfed it successfully without destroying my health, I have been super strong, hurling logs. So extra health, and I've eaten properly, and I've rested, and I've seen friends, and I've chilled out, and we've laughed, and life is good. September feels successful to me. But this is what's interesting to me, even though there's loads of because you know it's like you do one job and then it creates ten more, that's just normal, that's life. But even though I can see there's things that now need to be done, I feel like the house is renovated. I feel like we've finally done it. So it'll be nine years at Christmas that we moved in, and I feel like we've done it. I feel like we've rescued this beautiful old cottage which needed a lot of work doing. It feels good. I feel this huge sense of accomplishment. And what's interesting to me is when I sit in the sitting room, now li if you've ever been in a cottage with lime plastered walls, it's very different than sitting in a modern house because the walls, the edges are curved and everything's slightly wonky, and there's just something to me really beautiful and lime plaster, I mean it's drying out, so it keeps changing colour, and then there's this sunlight flooding through the walls, and there's this softness, and there's this feel to it, it's really good. And basically, I'm so damn grateful to have the space to sit on a settee in the evening, and I'm so we're both just staring at the walls because they've been so horrible, so ugly for so long, and such a big thing to do. And we've finally done this. The last renovation project, and the not the biggest one, but one of the biggest ones, and it's done, and it's so beautiful that even though we can't actually move back into the sitting room properly because we've got to do the floor and the skirting, you know, there's stuff to do, right? It doesn't matter. So, what's interesting to me is where my attention goes at the moment. When I sit in the sitting room, I'm feeling a deep sense of accomplishment, contentment, fulfilment, satisfaction, deep heartfelt success. Because when I look at the walls, they represent to me, I mean they're beautiful in and of themselves, but they represent to me that it was worth the risk of the huge mortgage to buy this property, that it was worth it, that we've done it. Woohoo! Very exciting, and what it means is my attention is going to that and that felt sense in my body rather than the horrid floor, the lack of skirting board, the moisture on the windows, we have to have the windows open all day and the fire on to gently dry out the plaster. So sitting there in the evening has been quite chilly, and we don't have any curtains, which means if there were people around they could see in, but there's not a lot of people where we live. It's not like it's finished and we can't move our stuff back in because well you don't want to move it back in if you're gonna do the floor, right? But I'm not looking at that, I'm not thinking about that. So there's lots to do still, but I'm okay because the big thing's done, and it's so beautiful. But I'm really fascinated in this felt sense of satisfaction, deep heartfelt. I can feel it as I'm as I'm talking to you, I can feel it in my heart and my my gut, the central channel of me. It's it's such a beautiful feeling, and my mind that supports my mind in focusing on that, on everything good, rather than looking at everything that needs still needs to be done, and that to me is deep heartfelt success. That deep satisfaction with now and excitement for future opportunities, what's coming next? We went to find a wood laminate floor and we found one, it's beautiful, but it probably won't, it's not gonna happen before we go away. But I'm okay with that because when I'm looking at the floor, I'm imagining I'm I'm actually seeing the wooden floor and the rug we've chosen to go over it. That's what I'm seeing. So I'm not dissatisfied with the horrible looking floor at the moment. I mean I could describe it if you want, but you can see the black creosote that was painted on concrete. Would it have been made with concrete the house originally? I don't know. It's an o nobody really knows the age of the house. It's a stone cottage from about 1760. Who knows? Like a lot of stone cottages, it's got a concrete floor and then black anti-damp paint on it, and then it's got those 1950s grey tiles on. Nice, but they're you know, they're not it's not like they are beautifully all over the floor. It's got some left, most of them left. So it's and it's you know, it's a cold floor, it's not a nice floor. It's also got bits of glue left where the carpet was glued down. It's not a thing of beauty. Am I g and are you getting the picture here? But I don't care because I'm not seeing it. I'm not seeing it. I'm seeing the beautiful oak laminate floor and the rug and and the sunlight streaming across it. That's where I am. I can I can see it, I can feel it. It's really exciting. So I want to end by really digging into the difference between traditional success and what I'm calling deep heartfelt success. Both are pathways, so neither are finished done deals, but the difference some of the differences that I've discovered and thought about today are in the traditional model of success, time feels like there's never enough of it. So there's a shortage of time and energy, and always looking at the next thing, and that's part of the problem is because we can see all of the other things that need to be done, the pressure of the future things that need to be done cram into our heads and take up space and distract us from the one thing that we probably should be doing right now. So that just adds to the pressure. Success is measured by external things, so visible measures of success, such as uh pay rises, promotions, titles at work, signing the contract on a new house, all of those kind of things. Visible things that other people can see. Our focus is on those. This is success. When this, then that. Everything's when this is done, when I have this, when then I'll be safe, then I'll be secure, then everything will magically fall into place. Versus deep heartfelt success, which is includes the good stuff of the external success, but is also looking at internal, invisible measures of success. So how you feel about that promotion and using that thing that's just been completed to actually feel successful, like I'm doing now with these renovation projects, noticing how I've handled them, noticing who I've become, notice how much more emotionally resilient I am, noticing how better able to control my attention I am, feeling it, embodying it, becoming that person, being the person who can handle the ridiculous chaos of renovations at a very busy time, or renovations colliding. It doesn't really matter when it is, is it? It's it's insane. It was a crazy time. So deep heartfelt hang on, I'm gonna go through these again. So traditional success, no time, you're always looking to the next thing. Deep heartfelt success, you deliberately create a feeling of time by slowing time down and believing that there is time for you, creating time in the moments in between by deliberate practice. For example, pausing when you've finished a task to notice that you finished the task before going on to the next one, slows time down, and when you slow time down, you feel like you have more of it because time, although there is linear measured time in order to communicate and meet up with other people, your feeling of time changes all the time. So deliberately rooting yourself into the present moment and the goodness of the present moment, slowing time down, pausing, noticing what's unexpectedly lovely around you, celebrating yourself, noticing how you feel, maybe just mutually noticing how you feel, not even noticing the good stuff, just noticing, pausing and noticing, moving through your day, noticing, moving through your day in a state of body mindfulness. The traditional path of success looks at external, visible measures of success, and deep heartfelt success does that, plus the internal invisible measures of success that are personal to you that enable you to feel successful. So it's a felt sense in the body, it's a transformational I am becoming. You can see the person you're becoming, you're not just swayed by by whether or not that thing gets finished or you achieve that thing, you can see who you are overall. Traditional success is rooted in self-improvement and having this constant get better at list. When I'm better at this, then this will magically fall into place. When things go wrong, there's a lot of self-blame, self-judgment, or judgment of the situation or others. So it's needing to change ourselves and change the world in order to feel okay. Whereas the deep heartfelt success pathway is about self-discovery. Who am I? Getting curious and playful about this wonderful person. Who are you? Who do I want to be? What do I want to let go of? What do I need to let go of in order to allow this part of me more space so I can become more like that? Traditional success, you're taking guidance from external information. So you probably got a must-read list, a podcast list, and everything. And it's not there's anything wrong with those, there's nothing wrong with those except when it disorientates you, disconnects you from your own power and overloads you. When I've read this and listened to this, then everything will magically fall into place. So that constantly going from one thing to the next, when the truth is bits of them are all true and most of them work, but you actually need to stick at them and make them yours. So in the deep heartfelt success pathway, we're using what we found, we're being more selective with what we choose to take in, and we're really listening to ourselves that going within that comes from mindfulness meditation, body mindfulness, where you're really listening. What does my heart want? What's my body saying? Letting them weigh in on the conversation on how to navigate your life. So, one of my techniques for this is messy journaling. Sounds fluffy, don't knock it. There's a whole podcast episode on that. Highly recommend you check that out. That's the previous podcast, Overwhelm is optional. But that's allowing the body and the heart to write on the page, getting out of your conscious mind and allowing the subconscious to write. The traditional success pathway is predominantly mind-based. You're very smart, you can use your mind really, really well, and you overload your mind, and then you find ways to push it even harder. So you're mainly listening to your mind, and that unfortunately, the mind, in order for it to work at this very high performance level, which is needed for what you want in your full life, it really needs space. You need to be able to get into the state of flow. And we're not taught that there's a more skillful way to do this, which is to allow the mind to be supported by the body and the heart, the wisdom of the body, the discernment of the heart, mind, body, heart, all working together so you have the focus you need, the energy you need, and then mind training skills like learning to control your attention. The heart's really helpful with this because the heart knows what you really want. So using the discernment of the heart to decide where am I placing my attention, noticing what happens when you, for example, watch the news and then your heart feels heavy. Should you read the news? I don't know. It's nothing to do with me, but you know what it does to you, you know what it does to your energy. Noticing what supports you best, allowing everything to work together. So moving from a predominantly mind-based way of living to mind, body, heart in alignment based living. Traditional success, as I've already said, focuses on the end result, deep heartfelt success focuses on the how, not just the end result. How am I doing this? What am I up to? Getting curious. How can I do this in the how could I do this really difficult thing and actually enjoy it? What do I need? How can I support myself? What do I need in order to make this more fun, easier, or maybe I don't want to do it? So it's really looking at the how because the how, the how we do it is the journey, and there isn't really anything else other than the journey, apart from those momentarily momentary moments of accomplishment, which in the traditional path we don't really notice before we go on to the next thing. In the deep heartfelt success pathway, we practice an attempt to acknowledge them and pause and absorb and feel that in every cell in our body before moving on to the next thing. But we also notice how we're going about something. Am I making it harder than I need to? Is there an easier way? Is there a more joyful way? Is there a more me way? Asking questions, asking yourself, how am I going about this? What do I need to believe in order to make this go in a way that just feels better? So the traditional success path works until it doesn't, and then you want more, more ease, more joy, more more of all the good things that you automatically assumed you get and were promised if you followed the traditional method of success. And deep heartfelt success builds on that and provides a framework for deep heartfelt success, an embodied feeling of success, feeling more confident, feeling happier, feeling contentment, feeling successful, feeling more joy, feeling more ease, feeling more you, doing things your way, blah blah blah, all of the things. I'm really bad at describing this. I always I always write more ease, joy, contentment, etc. Because I just feel like there's lots to explore here. What is it you want? What is it I want? That's what we're up to. Let's find out. So that's it. I always feel when I record a podcast episode that it's messier than it should be, it should be more professional, it should be more of those kind of irritating obviously I don't want it to be this, those irritating ones where it's all tidied up and it says, in this episode, I'm gonna give you three ways to da da da da da da. And that's that's not me. So anyway, this is me speaking my way to clarity, sharing with you what's come to me this morning in my attempt to summarize the feeling of success that I woke up this morning, why September felt successful rather than just successively survived, how I stirred the chaos. Actually, I haven't really talked about that. I think it was last week. Last week I looked at how I was using the chaos to create contentment. I think there's more to come on that, but for this week I really wanted to dive into deep heartfelt success, the feeling of success, the feeling of success in your body, regardless, regardless of what's finished, allowing yourself to feel success, noticing the success that's here already, so that you can focus on the next lot that you want. I hope you enjoyed that. Love to hear your thoughts. And if you want to join me for a live group coaching teaching experience, it's gonna be amazing. First four Sundays in November. Please click the link in the show notes or go to my website, heidimark.co.uk, click the orange button and sign up now. Love to have you there. From chaos to contentment, four Sundays in November, it's gonna be amazing. Hey, thanks for being here. Thanks for listening, thanks for joining me on my own adventure into what deep heartfelt success means for me. To explore further, make sure you hit the follow button. It really does help, helps other people to find it. And if you're up for it, scroll right to the bottom of Apple where they've hidden the review section and leave me an outstandingly wonderful review. It would be just so lovely, it would make my day. And if you're ready to talk about working with me one-to-one to go deeper and explore what it looks like to create your own version of deep heartfelt success with a powerful coach walking alongside you, I invite you to book a deep heartfelt success session. There's a link in the show notes below, or you can just go to Canonly.com forward slash Heidi Mark forward slash heartfelt success. I can't wait to meet you and see what that looks like for you. So exciting. Here's to the next evolution of your success. See you in the next episode.