Safe To Be Seen
Join Brandon & Darci as they share raw human stories that were never meant to be hid. This is a space for truth, a home to the soul. You are safe to be seen - and to see.
Safe To Be Seen
How your identity is shaping your reality
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Your life isn’t random.
It’s a reflection of who your body believes you are.
In this episode, we break down how your identity is shaping your reality—whether you’re aware of it or not. We share how our lives didn’t change because we tried harder… they changed because we became different.
We go into the neuroscience behind identity—how your brain filters reality, how your nervous system determines what feels safe to receive, and why lasting change requires more than mindset.
And most importantly, we give you actionable steps to begin shifting your identity at the level where real transformation happens: in the body.
Because you don’t create a new life by force.
You create it by becoming the version of you who can hold it.
Holos Healing: 30 Days of Somatic Meditation: https://darci-burke.mykajabi.com/offers/FXbMNHJ7/checkout
@safe2bseen
@holos_heal
@gettinlostisbeingfound
If you look at your brain and your body, it's wired a certain way. Just like a computer system is wired a certain way to run certain programs and to be efficient in certain programs. And every once in a while, up on the monitor, you'll get that message saying an update is required. After you do the update, then your systems run more efficient. They're updated. There's new programming. You interact with your computer system differently. Our bodies are no different that you are wired a certain way based upon the circumstances in which you grew up in, the home environment you lived in, religion, culture, school, everything. Wired into a certain way of showing up in the world. And becoming the conscious braider of your life means that you become aware of all the patterns and stories that you've told yourself all this all these years, and then you consciously and actively work to rewire yourself to your fullest potential, to your true self.
SPEAKER_04So much of our lives are shaped by scripts we never consciously chose patterns around love, success, safety, and belonging. And at some point, those scripts stop working. What once protected us starts to limit us. Safe to be seen is a space for honest conversations about that moment when your body knows it's time for something new. We talk about what it means to build safety first, so growth, intimacy, and expansion don't come at the cost of yourself. This podcast is about updating outdated identities, softening survival patterns, and learning how to stay present through change. We're Darcy and Brandon, and this is Safe to DC.
SPEAKER_01There is an urban legend of a goldfish. And the legend says that the goldfish can only grow to the size of its bowl. But if you put it in a pond, it will turn into one of those big, expensive, beautiful koi fish. And we are the fish, and the bowl is our identity. And most people think they're stuck in life, but really they're just being limited by the size of their bowl. They're being limited by their identity. And the identity, your identity is the deepest layer of who you are, your self-image, your self-concept. And so today we're going to talk about identities and identity shifting and how to be a conscious creator of your life.
SPEAKER_04That's exciting. I love this topic. Um, really excited to talk about this with you today and share with our audience our own lived experience in regards to identity shifting and transformation and evolution. Um yeah, I think it's a good place to thank you for that. That's a really beautiful analogy. So true. Um I think it's important, like for me, it it's it's really important to to remember. We talk about this a lot in a lot of our episodes, but just real quickly laying a little bit of foundational work in regards to identity shifting, it it's it's really important to understand that when oftentimes in life we resort to saying or believing things like that's just the way I am. Or that's just the way we do things in my family. That's the way my my mom did it, my my grandma did it that way. It's just the way I am. It's important to understand that a large part of our human experience is from a very young age, we start to create adaptations for survival. Uh when we say survival, we don't necessarily mean literal survival. It could be, it depends on the scenario and the circumstances in which a person uh lives and is being reared and raised, of course. But mostly when we say adaptations for survival, we're talking about belonging, acceptance, love, connection. And so much of our personality comes from those layers of protection and adaptation that we accumulate along our human journey. And you know, for example, if someone says, I'm just shy, that's just the way I am. It's not that it's bad to be shy, but being shy might not be your true self. It may be that at a very young age, maybe even too young for you to remember, you had an experience wherein your expression, whatever it was, was not accepted or was shut down. And you realize that all of you is not welcome here. You're too much. All of your emotions not welcome, too much. And so you s you start to shrink, you start to kind of hide yourself. Play small, play small, you don't use your voice, and all of a sudden you become a shy person. You know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um it's so true. And I see that a lot in the work that I do with my clients, that they come and just say, like, they're talking about their personality and their personality traits. And then we like go deeper into the layers of how that personality was constructed, and they see, oh my gosh, like that's that's not even who I really am. If you look at your brain and your body just like it's it's wired a certain way, just like a computer system is wired a certain way to run certain programs and to be efficient in certain certain programs. And every once in a while, up on the monitor, you'll get that message saying an update is required. You know, and when after you do the update, then your systems run more efficient, they're updated, there's new programming, you see, you you see, you interact with your computer system differently. Our bodies are no different. That you are wired a certain way based upon the circumstances in which you grew up in, the home environment you lived in, religion, culture, school, everything wired into you a certain way of showing up in the world. And um, becoming the conscious creator of your life means that you become aware of all the patterns and stories that you've told yourself all this all these years. And then you consciously and actively work to rewire yourself to your fullest potential, to your true self. It's amazing what our bodies can do. Um, the potential that lives inside our very being is is amazing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And speaking to, you know, growing up in your environments, that's what that's what trauma does is that it disconnects you from your true self and it forms you form beliefs about yourself. So depending on what happened to you, if you grew up in a home, like you said, maybe you were safe to fully express all of your emotions, or your parents fought a lot. And the belief maybe that you formed around yourself was I'm not good enough, or I'm not lovable, or I need to like manage everybody's emotions in order to stay safe. It's those beliefs that work to create our identities that then thereby create our entire life. And also, our brains are not a camera, our brains are a projector. We are only seeing what we believe to be true about ourselves, and your reticular activating system will only um put into your awareness what you believe about yourself. So, your nervous system, your body is taking in 11 million bits of information every second. You are only consciously aware of 40 bits of that information. And the thing is, is we believe the 40 bits of information. And um, we there there's so much intelligence inside of our bodies that we're just so unaware of that can lead to growth and expansion and involvement and becoming the person that we want to be and being the conscious creator of our lives.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's important to know that like what thank you for that like explanation of kind of um like nervous system physiology, neuroscience at its most foundational basic level. It's important to know that like your brain actually isn't registering everything as reality. It's doing a lot of predicting. It's got its own algorithms that's like, okay, if if we've got this and this, that must mean this. And it like starts piecing together all these things based on predictions, based on past experiences. And it's it's just really important to know at the outset of identity shifting that your brain is not telling you the full story.
SPEAKER_01No, it's it's not wired for success. Yeah, it's wired for what is predictable. It's called predictive coding. And your your um default mode network, the part of your brain, it's what your it's what your reality will default to. That's why it's called the default mode network. So that's your self-concept, what you believe to be true about yourselves, and what what you repeatedly do over and over again. You know, Heb's law, neurons that fire together, wire together. The more you repeat something, the more it gets wired into you. And you continually repeat that over and over again, sometimes not even knowing why. Like people feel so stuck. Like, I can't break out of this pattern, I can't break out of this habit. It's because your body is always defaulting to what is similar.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because our brains like to conserve energy. And rewiring that and doing something different takes a lot of energy. And so that's where people experience self-sabotage, burnout, resistance. They get tired all of a sudden when they go to do a new habit or it or show up in a new way. And um, so we're gonna talk about a system to be able to rewire that and to be able to start um taking actual steps toward a new identity, new beliefs about yourself, because you can change that. Yeah, you don't have to keep on running on the same programming for the for the for your entire life. And this is where I see so many people living below their potential because they don't even know the intelligence that lives inside their very system. That can create their reality, that can create anything that they want, actually. You know, there's so much potential inside all of us.
SPEAKER_04So simply said, you can change neuroplasticity proven by science, video footage under microscopes, watching neural connections actually change. Like neuroplasticity is not it's not woo-woo, it's not out there, it's it's it's science. Neuroscience is is it's clear, right? You can change, you can rewire, like neurons are able to rewire.
SPEAKER_01Yep. And I think most people um, you know, believe that if my outside world changes first, then I'll change. They start by rewiring and redoing and transforming their lives by expecting things outside of them to change first. You know, once once my husband does this, yeah, then then I'll be happy. Or once um my job does this, or once we get a new president, once X, Y, and Z happens outside of me, then I'll change, then I'll be happy. That's just that's not the way reality works. You have to, it's transformation and identity shifting is an inside out job. And um, you know, for example, like if you let's say, well, I'll just give a personal example of this. A few years ago, I signed up to do a three-day trail fest run. I signed up for this in like March, and the run was in October. Trailfest is literally three days in a row of running a half marathon, three days in a row.
SPEAKER_04Sounds miserable. And I don't know why you would have signed up for that because you hate running.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. That's my whole point. I did it because my friends were signing up. I love being outside. And I was like, oh, adventure calling. I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna do this. But my identity was not a runner. I, you're right, I hate running. Yeah. So guess what? Because I did not identify as a runner, I didn't train at all for this. I was doing cross, like I identified at the time as a crosshair. But as a runner, no. I maybe like ran a few times and I literally Googled two days before how to train for a half marriage.
SPEAKER_04A little late. In two days, a little late in the game.
SPEAKER_01So you can you can start with most people want start to change their lives by taking an action first.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But if the identity belief that action does not align, you will go back, you will self-sabotage, you will start projects over and over and over again, you'll just return to the same default mode network identity. Yeah, it's the same with people who are trying to lose weight. If you identify, if you subconsciously identify as somebody who goes on fad diets, loses some weight, and then gains it all back and just like continues that loop over and over again, that's what you'll stay stuck in. Because your identity, you you believe about yourself. It this my my weight never stays off. It always goes back. I always gain weight. And so you can see how you can start with action, but if the identity, the beliefs about yourself underneath that don't change, you will stay stuck in that predictive coding loop that people stay stuck in for years.
SPEAKER_04So I think, yeah, first of all, understand that who you think you are might need a closer look. Um because of the the protective layers and the um the coping mechanisms and all the ways in which we um try to, like I said, survive and maintain connection.
SPEAKER_01And um so how would you define identity?
SPEAKER_04Well, I was just gonna say, yeah, I think that identity identity is is who you think you are. Identity is uh like the this culmination of your beliefs, your thoughts, the way you speak to yourself, the way you see yourself. But what's really important to remember for me, Dars, is is that you know, think about all of the things they can be maybe characteristics or traits or qualities that are given to us by others, meaning like you know, for example, if you're if you're a uh let's say you're in like fourth grade, you know, what is that, like a 10-year-old? Yeah, nine-year-old kid, you're sitting in class, you're in school, and you happen to just have a lot of energy. And it's really hard for you to sit still in class for seven hours.
SPEAKER_01Like most kids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I'm actually I'm describing myself. So you're always in trouble because I don't see you ever being in trouble. Well, you must not know me very well. I've changed my identity a lot. But yeah, you know, and and the teacher tells you all the time something like, you're such a troublemaker. Why like like why can't you just sit still? Like identifies, like labels you and gives you like this is what you are. And you take that in and you believe it. And you you think, gosh, yeah, I guess everybody tells me that I'm this or I'm that. I'll give you an example. I remember Darks when I was like, I don't know, I think I was a sophomore, maybe junior in high school. I don't remember all the details of the circumstance, but I remember a friend of mine said something to me that I had never forgotten. Like, this is this has been like 30 years ago. And he simply said, Burke, you're hard as nails. And I I actually I took it as a compliment at the time. I remember being like, Yeah, thank you for recognizing. Because I had built this identity of being hard as nails. I had built, I had, I had this belief about myself. Again, this is based on lies I had been told by others and took it, I took in and believed, lies I told myself about myself. And it it also had to do with my trauma and my protective parts and my layers of you know protecting my heart. I I thought that being like a teenage boy, it it was required for me to be hard, to be tough, because that would equal respect. Right. But the truth is, I'm not hard as nails. I'm extremely sensitive, as you know. I cry almost every day. And I just I took that in and I made that part of my identity for years and years and years. I prided myself on being this tough, hard guy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And it's just it's really important to to to start to as you if you embark on this journey of transformation and identity shifting, you have to, I believe, start with the knowledge that who you think you are, the labels, the titles, the roles, the beliefs, the way you talk to yourself, it needs a closer look because it's often case, often is the case that it's a that that's not that's not who you really are.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and a lot of that is at a deep subconscious level that you're not even consciously aware of. And um so I think a first step in identity shifting is what we said awareness, like becoming conscious of the stories. Like the stories that we tell ourselves on repeat is the is the is the the bowl, the glass bowl that the fish lives in. That's keeping us limited in our potential. And I don't think the most the most dangerous stories aren't the ones that are completely false. The most dangerous stories are the ones that have a little bit of truth to them that you believe, that you believe about yourself. I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, I'm too old, I'm too young. If I fail, people will think X, Y, and Z about me. Um, I I'm I I I can't start my own business. I'm not good enough for that, I'm not smart enough for that. These these limiting stories that we tell ourselves is what's keeping us as a little goldfish. Yeah. And, you know, the thing about that too is that you can take that goldfish and you can put it in a pond. But if your nervous system doesn't feel safe to expand, you will still stay a goldfish inside that big pond. And so much of identity shifting is having the nervous system capacity to expand, to evolve, and to become really familiar with the state that you're in. Because you can only create your life from a state of clarity, connection, calm, um, a regulated state. That's the only state you can actively consciously create your life in. And so um Regulating your awareness, becoming aware of your patterns, the stories that you're telling yourself, the beliefs about yourself, and your identity. Like, what are your I am statements? That's what, that's what you believe about yourself. I'm too old. I'm not good enough. The the I am statements are is what is your belief about yourself.
SPEAKER_04How you talk to yourself is so important. Yeah. You know, it's I like to think, Darcy, like, you know, when you like you you you enter a room, let's say you're going to some social function of whatever kind you want to imagine. You enter the room, you socialize, you mingle, you interact, you connect, and an hour to two hours later, you leave the room. Everyone there who interacted with you and was with you in that moment is still there. What do the people say about you when you leave the room? I like to then I like to say, okay, what do I say about myself as if I just left the room? You know what I mean? Like the way that we the dialogue that we carry on with ourselves, oftentimes at an unconscious level, or very minimal awareness of how we talk to ourselves in our little brains, is almost always so negative. And you wonder why, like, we have these negative beliefs about ourselves, these these you wonder why we self-sabotage, why we limit ourselves so tremendously. It all starts with you know, I like abracadabra. I create as I speak is what that means. We have to understand the power of our words. Oftentimes to ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Our thoughts, our beliefs, you know, our our beliefs create our thoughts, our thoughts create our emotions, our emotions create our actions. So at the at the at the root of that is your belief about yourself, your identity. That's what's running the show. That's what's creating your reality. And so um awareness, nervous system regulation. And then I would I would say the next step is to become very clear about what you want your future to look like. Down to how do they look? How do they dress? How do they talk? Like, what do you want in your life? If you were to like sit down and journal for 30 minutes and write out a description of what your perfect week would look like, be delusional. Like, don't care if somebody else were to read that and to judge you. Like, what do you want out of life? What type of friends do you want? What do you want your relationship to be like? If you could have your dream job, what would that be? How many hours a week would you work? Where would you live? What would your energy feel like? Who are you associating with? How are you, what's somatically like, what's your body posture? How do you stand? How do you show up in life? Your nervous system needs something to orient toward. You need something to place your awareness on to give you movement and action toward your future self. Because everything, your future self, all versions of yourself exist at the same time. It's just aligning your frequency to that uh energy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And reality will shift to meet you there. And we always say this you don't get what you want, you get what you are. And so you have to start at the deepest level of yourself, which is your identity. And then, you know, what you again, what you place your awareness on, what you believe is what you'll create. So that's why, you know, I always say lack creates lack. Unconditional love creates unconditional love.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Like if you believe there isn't enough money, then that's what you will see. Because again, your reticular activating system is only gonna bring into your awareness what you believe to be true. It's kind of like the red car theory.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like when if you're on the way to the car dealership and you know that you want to buy a red forerunner, then all of a sudden, as you're driving to the car dealership, what do you don't you you see a bunch of red Toyota forerunners? It's not that they haven't always been there. It's just that your brain is like, oh, okay, this is important to this person. So I'm gonna show that to them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. It's a projector, like you said. It's a projector, like projecting out into the 3D, into the physical dimension, what you already believe, what you're focused on, what your awareness is placed on. But that doesn't mean that that's like the only thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And we go back to this. It's kind of the story about the um the hike that we went on in Price.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I love that story.
SPEAKER_01That I grew up in Price, Utah. There was this amazing waterfall there the entire time. I had no idea that it was there. I didn't even knew it existed until just a few months ago, we discovered this incredible waterfall, this place to be in my hometown.
SPEAKER_04It was lit, it was like 20 minutes from where you grew up.
SPEAKER_01It was there the whole time. I just couldn't, I didn't know it was there. I couldn't see it.
SPEAKER_04And so, to you, that beautiful waterfall hike that we did did not exist. But it did exist.
SPEAKER_01I know. I know it's crazy. It's crazy. And like, so if you have the belief about yourself, I'm not lovable, I'm not good enough, nobody notices me. Okay, you're going to walk into a room and your reticular activating system is going to show you people that have their arms closed, their their arms closed, maybe their heads turned away. You're only going to see what you believe about yourself. When really in that room, there could be so many people who have open expression, who are looking at you, who are paying attention to you, and you literally cannot see them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's as if they're not there.
SPEAKER_01It's if this they're not there. You could be in a room with your soulmate. And if you believe your soulmate doesn't exist, if you believe love isn't possible, you won't even see that they're standing right there. Your dream job, you won't even know it's there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So or even, you know, it might not even be that you don't believe in love or that you'll find your soulmate. But if using your analogy or your scenario that you set up, even if you are in a state of lying to your like believing the lies about yourself, talking negatively about yourself, a dysregulated nervous system, all this chaos going on inside of you, suppressed emotions, on and on and on, we could go. You still you you might believe in love, but it would under that, under those conditions, in that state, in other words, like what you believe about yourself and your identity in that moment of in time, your soulmate still could be seat seated right across from you, and you wouldn't, you're not ready, you're not ready for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Because you're in the state that you're in is not ready to level up. You're not ready to level up to that next, like to take in a soulmate or to take your dream job. You know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And you see, oh, sorry, no, go ahead. I was gonna say, you see this a lot with people who go who are going through transitions in their life. You know, like becoming a mother, that's an identity shift. You're taking on new habits, new routines, a new way of being, a new, a new way of showing up in the world. And a lot of women go through like, you know, I don't like calling it postpartum depression. I think their their body is just adjusting to a new way of being. Like you're going through an identity shift.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then when your kids leave the home, you're gonna go through another identity shift. And I think instead of looking at those times of like, I know it's hard. Like, I'm not taking away from how hard like those transitions can be. But if you could look at it as, okay, what is this new identity that I get to shift into now? What do I want to create now? If we if we look at our whole entire life as just creation, it makes us so much more exciting and fun. What do I get to create now out of my life? I this was my identity for a certain time period of my life. And we we we hold, we hold on so tightly, we grip so tightly to those old identities because they certain they they served us for a time. Um, they kept us safe for a time. All those survival patterns and and um ways that we self-protected, it's really hard to loosen our grip on those.
SPEAKER_04It's so familiar. Like this familiarity is so like it's really important to understand how the nervous system works and how the brain works in that it will seek out an it will seek out familiarity, even if that familiarity is at your detriment.
SPEAKER_02Chaos.
SPEAKER_04Chaos or like destructive patterns or limiting beliefs, all of this, it it's it's it's just not serving you anymore. Yeah, I don't know and it did at one time, maybe. Like, like you said, it was a protective mechanism that you employed to keep your like to maintain connection to your caregiver or whatever the case may be. But um when you step into something that even if it's a big like improvement in your life in some aspect of your life, it if it's unfamiliar, it will register as a threat in the beginning. And so this whole idea this whole like identity shifting and transformation, it's it's so beautiful. Yeah, but it is hard.
SPEAKER_02It's hard.
SPEAKER_04Because I think what I have had to remind myself, Darcy, is like when you are identity shifting and you're wanting to level up, you're wanting to transform, you are not only creating a new identity, but it's simultaneously the annihilation of an old identity. And that's that's uncomfortable, it's painful, it's disorienting. It's okay, it's part of the process. Like they say that, like there's an old African proverb that says that a snake hisses its loudest right before it dies. And I think that's a good analogy to keep in mind with our identities. Like an old identity that is it, it's it's ready to move on. Like it's not serving me anymore. It did it one time, I don't need it anymore. I'm going to shed this identity and I'm gonna progress into a new identity. That it's gonna hurt. That identity, that old identity, is gonna try to hold on with everything it's got. It's gonna hiss and scream and yell, and it's gonna be like, no, don't, don't let me go. I've been here with you. I have helped you throughout this journey up to this point. Don't let me go. It's it's a it's a it's hard. It's so hard.
SPEAKER_01It is hard. But once you once you learn to play the game of life, like if it I don't really like talking about life this way because it feels not very soulful and spiritual. Well, life is a video game, basically. And you're gonna play one character to get you through a certain level of your life, and then also like on Mario, what was it called? Mario Brothers, Mario Brothers, like when the mushroom lands on him and then like yeah, he grows big. They level up, yeah. So they can go to a new level. Yeah, it's the same way.
SPEAKER_04So you can enter the tunnels. He has to be big to enter.
SPEAKER_01I played, I played that game for hours every day. I loved it. But it's the same way in our life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like we're gonna be asked to level up. Our body will tell us when it's time to shed an old identity. Yeah, and it's that's what midlife crisis is. It's not a midlife crisis, it's a midlife identity shift.
SPEAKER_04It's a midlife level up. It's a midlife, let's be done, playing small and let's go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let's be done. I don't want to do this job anymore. Who said I have to do this job time 80 years old? I don't want to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I don't want to keep on going to the mechanics of my I want of my relationship. I want more. I want deeper intimacy, you know, and you're you're being invited to to level up to deeper truths about yourself, to expand and to grow and evolve. And we we can look at it through that lens, like this is exciting. I'm changing, I'm evolving, I'm growing. And you know what you spoke to is like that death and rebirth process. We're constantly going through death and rebirth, death and rebirth over and over and over again. That cycle of life. Nature teaches us this so beautifully every year, every month.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Even like a woman's feminine cycle, every month, our cycle, we go through a death and rebirth. We're literally shedding, we're shedding old identities every month. Yeah, shedding old beliefs, old stories about ourselves so that something new can be born, something new can evolve. And it's it's fun when you start looking at it that way.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it is. So it's just in those moments of like discomfort and disorientation and even like suffering through identity shifting. Um it's really necessary to get super good at like like being okay with impermanence. Because I think it's so beautiful, Dars, too. When I really you know, I get in those moments where I'm like really feeling into my life and the different like the different versions that I have been and the different stages throughout our journey. I think it's so beautiful to have the feeling that I've actually I feel like I've lived many lives in my 46 years. And um I think that's I think that's the way it's I think we're supposed to be that way. I think we're so we're meant to evolve, to transform, not to shed old skins like a snake that just we don't need anymore because we've outgrown it. We need a new, we need new skin, you know? Yeah, and um I just I think that it's a beautiful thing to to feel like man, I feel like I've lived so many different lives.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you actually have more than just on this earth.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um so something that I do with my clients that I want to share that I hope I think could be really helpful for people. If you're watching on YouTube, if you're listening, get a piece of paper. Okay. On that piece of paper, draw a line down the middle of the paper. In the right hand corner, write down five to seven goals. Who do you want to be? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to do? Okay. Then on the left hand corner of that couple of that paper, write down your current habits, your current thoughts, your current beliefs, your patterns, your actions that you're taking every day. Be radically honest with yourself with compassion, but you have to be radically honest with the way that you're currently showing up right now. Then on the right hand column, write down if I had everything that I wanted, if I had all those goals that I listed in my right hand corner, if I had the money in the bank account that I wanted, if I had the relationship that I wanted, if I lived in my dream home, if I had the body that I wanted, okay, what would your habits, your thoughts, your patterns, your beliefs, your behavior, your actions be? Then notice the gap. Notice the gap between you where you currently are and where you want to be. That gap is where your work is.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you literally have to practice being that person every day. You don't wait for reality to shift first. You don't wait for the person in the mirror to smile back at you first. You be that person, you become that person, and then those things come into your life. So it's it's a really good visual for you to be able to look at where I'm currently at. What thoughts do I choose to entertain? What stories do I am I believing about myself? What are my habits every day? What are my actions, my behaviors? If they are aligning with your future self, you will never get there.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01You have to practice. It's almost like, it's almost like you're becoming a character in a movie. You know, like they have to, they when actors they identify as that movie character. They dress like them, they talk like them, their body posture is like them, they act like them. That's what you have to do as you are shifting identities, is you have to become that person first. Even if you don't have the thing, if you don't have the money in your bank account, you don't have the relationship that you want, um, whatever it is that you're wanting, you have to act like you already have it. Neville Goddard says, act as if the wish is fulfilled and live your life from that place. And then slowly you will start noticing reality shifting in your favor, you know. Um, just like, for example, like I got very clear, like maybe like a year ago or maybe two years ago, on my future self. How does she talk? How does she walk? How does she act? What does she want? What are her goals? And I'd put on that list, like, I wanted to share my message globally. We both did that. Like travel and sharing our message globally was something that we talked about and wrote down a while ago. I wanted to be able to share my message on other people's podcasts, write a book, you know, these things that I wanted. So I started embodying the person that have those things. And guess what? We're going to New Zealand tomorrow to share our message on stage. I wrote a book last year. I've been able to be invited on several of the podcasts to share my story. You know, so put your focus and your awareness on your future self, not on your past self.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Before we go on, I want to share a resource with you. Many people ask me how to actually start working with their nervous system in a practical way, especially if they feel stuck, anxious, or disconnected from themselves. So I created my somatic repatterning audios as a place to begin. They're designed to guide your body into safety and help shift the patterns that keep you looping, not through force, but through real embodied change. If that feels supportive for you, the link is in the show notes. Okay, back to the episode.
SPEAKER_04Well, neuroscience has actually shown, Darcy, that the way the brain works, the way the nervous system works, you I think a really simple practice that goes along with what you're saying is whenever you are presented with a situation, maybe a decision. For example, I'm really hungry. Should I go home and make a salad or should I stop it in and out? Um whatever. It could be anything, but when you're in that in that space of making a decision, or maybe you're in the space of having just been triggered, and you're in that space of, okay, how am I going to react or respond? I think it's really important to what I like to do that I found that helps me a lot is to say to myself, what would the highest version of myself do right now? Because that is the creating. It's in those micro moments, those little tiny Moments, but that happens several times throughout every single day of our lives. That we if we just take a moment and just ask ourselves, what would the highest version of me do right now? And then act accordingly. Move that way. Because identity shifting and transformation, as you've spoken to already, is not just about desiring something, wanting something. If so, it'd be so easy. Everyone We would all be there. Yeah, it's not that it doesn't work that way. It be it like you said, the universe doesn't give you what you want, it gives you what you are. And so in those moments where you're triggered or you have a decision to make, am I gonna work out today or not? Am I gonna eat healthy today or not? Am I going to withhold my love from my partner or not? Whatever it might be, take a moment and just say, what would the highest version of me do in this, in this situation? Yeah. And then just little by little, with compassion and grace and patience, it's something that does that it doesn't happen overnight. It's a very slow process to transform and to to step into a new identity. It's you've got to give yourself a lot of grace. Take it slow, understand that it's not gonna happen overnight, but in these micro moments of you making a different decision, because the decisions you used to make created the life that you have, which that's that's fine. But if you're in a situation where you do you desire something more in your life, whatever that might look like, your relationships, your jobs, your health, the way you look, the way you feel, doesn't matter. You desire something. When you desire something, that means you don't have it. Right?
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_04So if you have a desire, great. You have to become the person that aligns with that desire. That I hate to use the word deserves, but you know what I mean? Like that is ready. I'll say it this way. You have to become the person who is ready to receive what you desire.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's building up the capacity within yourself to be able to hold the life that you want.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you're right, it takes your subconscious does not rewire through thinking about it alone. Like people spend years reading books, listening to podcasts, going to talk therapy for 10 years. Literally, I know people have stayed in talk therapy for 10 years. I'm like, you need a new therapist. Yeah. That you know. And it's because that's not the way that you rewire your life. Your subconscious learns through sensory input and through action, through movement.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You, your life, you will create so much more in your life by doing one hour of doing over 10 hours of learning. It's kind of like when you were becoming a dentist and you did how many years of just studying in your books? Did you learn more by doing that, or actually when you were in the lab, actually working on patients?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, definitely doing it.
SPEAKER_01So you have to, you have to take action toward your future self by doing it, by doing actions toward it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you want to become an entrepreneur, you have to get comfortable with posting on social media and feeling safe to be seen. And putting yourself out there, having people maybe disagree with you. You you have to be okay with that. You know, you have to take action toward your future self, whatever that future self that it is that you want to create, you have to embody that person first.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So you don't you don't need a map, you need to make a decision, right? Yeah. You don't you don't need more clarity.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04You need to act.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. I do think people need a it's like when you're building, if you build a house, you have to have a blueprint for that house to be built, right? So I think it's the same thing for identity. You need a blueprint for this identity that you're creating. That blueprint is your thoughts, your beliefs, your actions, your habits, your patterns. That's the blueprint that you go off of to create your life. So, like I said, get very clear about what you want your future to look look like. Like be delusional. The universe is not on a budget. Abundance is everywhere.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then align yourself with that person that you want to be.
SPEAKER_04Less certainty, more courage. Less certain, less certainty, more courage, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And um, if I go back, if I can, Darcy, to do I want to speak just a little bit more about desire because it's like sometimes we wait around for some message from the universe or from God, however, you choose to view your higher power, or we wait for someone, another human being to enter our life who will bring us something or change our life in some way. And I like to think of like it's not that you're gonna sometimes you do, you have these beautiful synchronicities and these um, these people enter your life at very um like right at the opportune time, right at the perfect time. I'm not saying that doesn't happen. What I'm saying is we can't wait around for like the universe or God to it's not it's not like we're gonna receive some text message or an email, right? That's like, oh, thank goodness I finally got my email from God to show me how I'm going to like enter into this life that I really want. It's the the desire within you is the message. The desire within you is the message. So stop waiting on anything or anyone else. You have a desire within you, that's the message.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_04And the disease, overweight, out of shape, autoimmune disease, chronic illness, anxiety, depression, on and on and on. The disease is the signal.
SPEAKER_01That's the message from God.
SPEAKER_04Maybe, but I'm just saying, like, for me, I view it as like the desire is the message. That's the fact that I have desire for something more. I don't need to wait on anything or anyone else. The disease that I had within me, that was the signal, right? So um that pull, that longing, you know there's something more. That's the invitation. What I'm saying is it it's all sourced within you. It's all there. It's all there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yep, it's just taking off all the layers of who you are not, yeah. So that you can be who you actually are, which is whole, which is expansive, which is love, which is possibility. When you're in survival, you don't see possibility.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Your your prefrontal cortex shuts down, goes offline. You don't notice, you can't even see in your visual field possibility or hope or change. You only see survival. You only say I'm just trying to make it through this day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So nervous system safety, capacity, that's that's a huge step in identity shifting. You're you will not you will not be able to change identities unless your nervous system is stabilized.
SPEAKER_04I agree. It's so important.
SPEAKER_01It's so important. And you do that by, I mean, we've we've had so many episodes about this, but um, you create capacity within yourself through the small actions every single day that create capacity in the times that you allow yourself to pause and to breathe, deep breathing always signals safety to your nervous system. Having a friend, a safe person you can talk to in a time of need. Taking pauses in between the transitions throughout the day, allowing yourself to rest.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Can we talk about pace for a minute? Because I think you're you're you're saying that brings up a super important point in regards to the pace of your transformation. I think what I've learned, Ars, is that it's a slow process. And if ever I feel like I'm trying to rush it, I'm trying to push it, I have to re reevaluate and get really honest with myself if my whatever I'm working on in my identity shifting, whatever I'm changing, if it I have to make sure that it's not performance-based.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That it's not to be seen a certain way, or you know.
SPEAKER_01You always say, what is the why behind?
SPEAKER_04What is the why? That's the source energy of what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Why are you doing it? And so just pace yourself, just understand that this is a slow process. And if you ever feel the urge to like really push it, and like, gosh dang, I want to get that dream job like tomorrow. Or I want to be ready to receive, have the capacity and sake within myself to meet my dream person. And like, you know, it's a slow process. And if you ever feel like you're really trying to push it and rush it, just check yourself and make sure you're you're you're doing it for the for the right reasons and your your why is is in alignment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's gonna take a minute for the you know, this 3D world that we live in. We're creating something from like a 4D dimension, like this whatever, it doesn't exist yet. But we start embodying it, we start embodying that energy, it's gonna take a minute for the 3D reality, the physical, to catch up to that new frequency. So, yeah, give it some time. But I'll also say, like, it does take time and patience, but like identity shifting, you you can start noticing your reality shifting pretty quickly just by changing like your stories and the beliefs that you tell about yourself and showing up differently tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because you you'll and and creating nervous system safety, you will start seeing things there that you didn't see before. Opportunities, people, experiences. Um, like those things can start showing up in your world pretty quickly once you start like changing expanding your vision and changing your perception. I it's just so wild to me that two people can walk into a room. Like the reality hasn't changed in that room. But two people will have completely different experiences in that room based upon their wiring, their beliefs, and their self-perception.
SPEAKER_04And their nervous system state.
SPEAKER_01And their nervous system state. Yeah. So I mean, this is like this is lasting transformation work. This is not just surface level, you know, surface level work. This is the work that we do with our clients. It's deep lasting transformation that is going to completely change your life and your reality. Why? How do we know this? Because we've lived it. Yeah, we've experienced it. This isn't just something that we both learned and then we just teach other people. Like this is real life experience that we had had.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Like when I think about the way I transformed my body in recent years, you know, going from 230 pounds at six foot two, all puffy and swollen and full of cortisol and stress hormones, and eventually an autoimmune disease. Um in addition to the chaos within which after like later on in my journey, my nervous system work was able to address. But if I like if I look at that version of me, what was I like, what were my habits? Was I working out every day? No. Was I going on long walks long walks outside every day? No. Was I eating healthy? No. In fact, I was eating a bowl of ice cream every night. I wondered why I was feeling the way I.
SPEAKER_01Maybe you were eating just a bowl. You were leaning an entire pint of ice cream.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I ate a lot of ice cream. I love ice cream. I still love ice cream. But my point is, like, I like to look at this whole identity shifting thing as it's it's definitely it's a part of it. Even though we we talk about it's not what you want, it's what you are. The actionable part of identity shifting is so critically important that it is necessary to look at your habits.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_04And so like identity what I don't know, we call them like identity uh identity associated habits, whatever. Like habits that contribute to your identity. Um it's almost like, for example, if I if we're talking about like physical fitness, it's really easy. We'll use that as an example. Because obviously to be to transform your body, to be really fit to look and feel your best, to optimize your body's physical performance and potential. You have to do stuff. You have to have a movement routine, some type of exercise program that's regular and consistent. Um you have to be uh eating well, eating healthy, eating clean, whatever that looks like for you. And it's like every time you do those things, every time you go to the gym, it's like you're casting a vote in favor of the version of you that you desire to be. But it takes a physical doing. It takes like going to the gym if you want to be fit, eating clean, like making, like I said earlier, in that space of making that decision, you got to make the decision that casts a vote in favor of the version of you that you want to be. Not just doing the same old things that you've always been. There's that old saying that like keep doing the things you've been doing, keep getting the things you've been getting.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04It's like it's so simple, but that's that's the way it works.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You are the creator of your reality.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, in speaking about trauma and being a victim, no, you don't you don't get to choose the way that you get traumatized a lot of times. You you don't get to choose that. And that's a difficult reality. I you lose choice when you experience trauma. And restoring choice to your nervous system is actually how you heal from trauma. So, but I think people stay stuck in this victim mentality. This person did this to me. Everybody's out to get me, nobody likes me, I hate my life. Why did this happen to me? You stay in that victim mentality for too long, you will continue to create the same reality every single day. Yeah. You will have your brain will show you, literally, give you evidence of I'm a victim. Nobody likes me. My life sucks. I hate my life. This happened to me. I'm so mad this happened to me. So you're you're not responsible for what happened to you, but you are responsible for what you do with your life after that.
SPEAKER_03For sure.
SPEAKER_01You know, and I know it's hard, I know it's difficult, and I know some people have experienced severe traumatic experiences. It's really hard to come out of that. But you get to choose. You get to choose what you do with that experience and make your life from that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And um, you know, like I've been working with somebody who they definitely have identified as somebody who needs to be healed, somebody who needs to be fixed. And I've been trying to show them that staying stuck in that mentality that you're broken will confirm to you evidence that you are broken. You'll you'll be like, this isn't working. This isn't working, or I'm not seeing anything change. I feel the same way every day. And I said, You gotta stop identifying as somebody who is broken and that somebody needs to be healed.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Let's change that. What if you identify as somebody who is rebuilding their life? If you change that core belief of, I'm not, I don't, I'm not broken. I'm I'm not, I don't need to be healed. I'm rebuilding my life, then what will your actions be based upon that? I'm actively rebuilding my life. Then your reticular activating system will start showing you evidence of that, of you rebuilding your life. And you take action toward that every single day. And pretty soon, the more action you take towards something, because that's, you know, like again, Hebb's law, neurons that fire together, wire together. So the more that you repeatedly do something, whether good or bad, that becomes your wiring. So if you're wanna rebuild a new identity, you have to repeatedly take action every single day toward that new identity. For pretty soon it becomes your baseline. You don't even have to like consciously think about it anymore. It's just who you are.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know? Um, we're going to have a grandbaby in August. So we're going to be doing some identity shifting into grandparents.
SPEAKER_04And I already, I felt that. Like when the announcement, our daughter announced to us. I had this moment where like I knew it was coming someday. You know, I know I know so I know someday I'm going to be a grandpa. Um, but in the moment that she said it, it was like, well. It's like Abercadabra, I create as I speak. She said, I'm pregnant. Congratulations, you guys are gonna be grandparents or whatever, you know. And I'm like, even though I knew it was coming, yeah. When it actually like it was like I was stepping into a new identity in that moment. It was like, holy cow, I really am. The day is here. I'm going to be a grandpa.
SPEAKER_01I know. It's wild, it's also so exciting to think about like how do I want to identify as a grandparent? Like, what type of grandparent do I want to be? And you get to create that identity around that relationship.
SPEAKER_04You can be whatever kind of grandparent you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you don't have to be, even though we both adore our grandparents, and I would be like them any day.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you get to choose. You get to choose like what type of grandparent we get to choose what type of grandparent we want to be. We are we already told our kids we don't want to be called grandma and grandpa.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're gonna be called papa and me. And we talk all the time about the type of grandparents we're gonna be like, and we're creating we're creating our own identity around that role.
SPEAKER_04Abercadabra.
SPEAKER_01Abracadabra. We're gonna be the best dance grandparents in the world.
SPEAKER_04Can't wait. Do you think um is there anything else you want to add before we wrap things up, Darse?
SPEAKER_01Um, no, I just want to say again that you are you get to create your reality. That your life is a reflection of your internal state. And there's a lot of fear that comes with that when you realize your own power, it's like, whoa.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I have that much potential within you to create like I am the creator of my reality. Nobody, nobody else creates my reality but me. That's a lot of power to hold. But that's a lot of of possibility. That's a lot of like, wow, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I there's also oh, sorry.
SPEAKER_01It's okay.
SPEAKER_03I thought you were done.
SPEAKER_01Nope. I just I hope this episode gives people hope and possibility of what they can become and what they can create.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Very, very, very clear and specific about what you want your future life to be. Yeah. And take action toward that every day and then watch it happen. It it will happen. Yes.
SPEAKER_04And uh if you are one of our listeners desiring transformation, desiring identity shifting, need some help, give us, give one of us, reach out to one of us. Um we are here to help you. Um a simple practice that I'd like to share to wrap things up is um it can be a visual, it can be almost meditative if you want. If you want to combine um this practice with uh mindful breath, that's great. But basically, what I want you to do is to very similar to what Darcy said on the paper, I want you to imagine in as much vivid detail as you possibly can what your dream life looks like, the type of life where you have it all. And I'm not talking about necessarily financial or monetary or material, but that's included, of course. So your job, your relationship, your place in the world, your beliefs about yourself, how you look, how you feel, every possible aspect that you can think of about your dream life. I want you to get really clear about what that looks like. And then I want you to express it. And by expressing it, I mean I want you to literally speak it out loud. It's okay to do it to yourself, maybe in your car when you're all alone or on a walk. Wherever you feel comfortable, speak out loud in detail what you want your life to look like. Or write it down. Or illustrate it artistically in whatever way you desire. But express outwardly how you want your life to look. This is down to where you live, what your house looks like, everything about your life, except we haven't gotten to you yet, so don't go there yet. But in every other way, get very clear about what you want your dream life to look like. Now, I want you to imagine the version of you that could step into that life, that could receive that kind of abundance, love, wealth, safety, whatever it is that your dream life looks like, what what does the version of you look like and feel like? How does the version of you in that life move? How does the version of you in that life show up in your romantic relationship? How does the version of you in that life spend your time? If what you have to understand is that in order to level up to the life of your dreams, you have to level up. You have to become the version of you that can accept and receive that kind of life. If you do this practice, do it with compassion, do it with grace and patience. Don't be hard on yourself, and certainly do not shame yourself. That won't help at all. In fact, it'll it will halt your progress quite a bit. So this is a practice that's very simple. Um it's been very effective for me. And it just helps me remember without being hard on myself or, like I said, being shame, being shaming of myself. It helps me to check in and to realize, for example, oftentimes I will simply remind myself that, hey Brandon, the your dream life and the version of you that is ready to receive that kind of life wouldn't be wasting his time on his phone like you are right now. Or whatever, you know, whatever the ex it could be, wouldn't be withholding his love in this situation. Or whatever it is, it's just a really simple way to check in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. That was so good. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um visualized help me out.
SPEAKER_04Try it again.
SPEAKER_01Visualization is important. Like that's a huge part of it. But unless you create the feeling with that visual, it's not going to come true because it's your your emotional state is what's emitting your frequency out to the world. And again, your brain doesn't know the difference between real and proceed, between rehearsed and um what your reality is right now. So just to like, I thought about this as you were doing that, is that they had, I think they they did this at at uh I can't remember what college, I think it was at Harvard, but they brought in a group of piano players and they brought them into a room and they all played like this a beautiful piece on the piano. And then they left and then they came back into the room, and those they they didn't um when they came back into the room, they didn't actually they pretended to play the song. They didn't actually play it, and they they're they were monitoring their brains, their brains fired the exact same way as if they were really playing the piano, yeah. And so you rehearse your future self over and over again, not just through thought, but through like really embodying and feeling into your future self. How do they feel? Yeah, you know, that's when the magic starts to happen. That's when your brain's like, oh, this is the new them. Therefore, I will show them the reality to match them. It's it's amazing. Yeah, it's awesome. The other thing that I do is that on my phone, I have voice notes in my voice from my future self. Darcy, you just met this goal. I'm so proud of you. This feels so good. This is so amazing. You know, so you like my mind can get familiar with my future self talking to me as if it's the reality right now. So lots of ways to do that. That's a you know, you guys can go back to this episode and just like listen to Brandon's little short meditation over and over again and really embody the feelings associated with those visualizations.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So that's all we gotta say about that.
SPEAKER_04That's it. Thank you. Love you, babe. Love you.