The Missing Piece of the Spiritual Work

You've read the books, taken the courses, learned the mindset tools, and maybe even had profound breakthroughs. So why does it sometimes feel like the same patterns keep finding their way back?

In this episode, I'm unpacking one of the biggest misconceptions in the personal growth and spiritual development space: the belief that self-awareness alone creates lasting transformation. I walk through the four layers that shape your experience of reality, from the conscious mind to the subconscious, the superconscious, and the soul, and explain why so many people get stuck trying to create transformation from the wrong level.

I also share a deeply personal story about my own experience in the spiritual coaching world, how giving away my authority led me further from myself, and why the goal of this work should never be dependent on someone else's wisdom. If you've been doing the inner work but still feel like something isn't clicking, this episode may help you understand what's actually been missing.

In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why personal development alone doesn't create lasting transformation
• The four layers of consciousness and how they influence your life
• How subconscious programming shapes behavior, beliefs, and patterns that logic alone can't change
• The difference between your intuition, higher self, and soul
• Why true spiritual work should return you to your own authority, not someone else's

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to the Limitless Life Podcast, and if you're new here, welcome. I'm glad you found this one. Here's how I decide what to talk about on this podcast. I pay attention. I pay attention to a lot of things, to the conversations I'm having or hearing about, the patterns that maybe I keep seeing, the things that keep coming up in my comments or my DMs, or with the women that I work with. That's always where these nudges come from about what the episode should be about. And recently I did a free live session. It was called the Awakening Session. I had over 150 people register for that. As we were moving through the work, through the journey, the comments in the chat started coming in, and they were things like, oh my God, I've never had my system do this before. Holy crap, I feel so clear. Whoa, I feel so present. Holy shit, this is so wild. I've never experienced anything like this before. It was people experiencing their own intuitive systems, their own energy, maybe for the first time in a way that actually felt accessible and real and tangible. And they were having real conversations with their own subconscious, working with their own energy in real time. I was not doing the things I was guiding them. They were doing the things. This is a conversation that I realize I've probably been avoid going deeper on when it comes to a lot of the content I make, partially because I don't want to get lumped in with the airy fairy bullshit that's out there, or the grifters. And the more you talk about intuition and energy and the soul and spiritual things, the more you risk sounding exactly like the thing that makes a lot of women roll their eyes and walk away from the space in the first place. But honestly, there's another reason as well, and it's something I've talked a little bit about, but I haven't really talked a lot about it. Years ago, early, early in this work when I started doing this stuff, I could crack people open. Like in a way that taking plant medicine would do, but they didn't actually need to take the plant medicine. I could take them to very, very expanded states of consciousness before I fully understood what that meant, and before I understood what needed to be in place first before going into those places in the way that I am able to do it. The grounding, the energy management, the container, the circle, closing circles, all the things. Like it's a journey. I didn't know then what I know now about how to structure this type of work with integrity and with safety. And I did some damage, not with bad intentions, but I had very incomplete intentions. So part of why I've been very careful about going into the deeper spiritual stuff publicly is because I know what this work can do when it is held properly, and I also know what it can do when somebody isn't ready for it. I never want to be the reason again that somebody gets cracked open with nowhere to land. And what I know now, and what everything I literally do is built around, is that the depth is only as safe as the foundation underneath it, which is why you hear me talking a lot about foundations. You don't get to skip the grounding just to go straight to the expansion. And that's not me giving you a caution. That's an actual sequence that needs to happen if you don't want to completely mess yourself up. And to all of you who have been taken somewhere too fast by somebody who could open the door without knowing how to hold the space, I just want you to know I see you. And I understand. Maybe it was a massive event with thousands of people where somebody walked you through a meditation designed to activate every single energy center at once, no grounding, no container, no understanding or maybe not caring what that actually does to a nervous system that isn't actually ready for it. Just a room full of people having experiences that nobody actually knows how to integrate after the fact. Or maybe it was a smaller retreat, a very intimate room that felt safe, somebody who seemed to know what they were doing, and you got cracked open, and then you went home and you had no idea what to do with the stuff that comes up. These are real examples that happen with very well known names attached to them, I might add, and also with people that maybe you've never heard of. And it's one of their reasons that this conversation really matters because there's this thing that I see constantly, and listen, I did it too, I've talked about it. People come into their spiritual awakening, or they've been in it for years, and it feels weird, but it also feels exciting. And they are looking everywhere for the connection they can feel inside of them, but they can't quite get to it consistently. So then they go to retreats and hire people to do activations and healers and teachers and the gurus because they're waiting for somebody to hand them some secret code to something that's been inside of them this whole time. And what nobody is saying is that the thing they're reaching for isn't out there. It's never been out there. The connection isn't something you find, it's something you clear the path to. And that path runs inwards through your own layers. It's not outward through somebody else's framework or somebody else's access or somebody else's knowing. And the further inward that you are willing to go, the more of that actually opens up for you. The more things become possible, the easier it is to go to those higher levels. And that's what today's episode is about. I want to talk about the layers of the mind because the layer conversation is one that I have a lot. The women who come to work with me tell me they feel stuck or like they're in a fog or they've hit a plateau that they can't push through. And my answer every time is some version of the same thing. When this stuff is happening, when you're experiencing this type of thing, you likely haven't been working on fixing it or adjusting it or transforming it on the right layer, or based on how you're actually designed the right entry point. It's not that you're not doing enough work or that you need a different modality or a better coach or one more retreat. It's just usually most people are working at the wrong level and nobody's telling them that there are actual levels. So let's talk about these levels because I want you to have the full map today, not a partial one, because an incomplete map is actually worse than no map at all. It makes you think you've covered ground that you actually haven't touched. So I want to talk about four layers today. Most of what gets sold as personal development, in my opinion, is only reaching one of the layers, and that is the first layer, which is the conscious mind. This is the layer that is doing the listening to my voice right now. Everything you can think, reason, decide, articulate, the layer that can read the book, understand the concept, have the breakthrough, and say yes, I see exactly what is happening here. This is where almost all of personal development lives. The mindset work, the journaling, the strategy, the reframing your story, the pattern interrupts. And I want to be clear. The conscious mind isn't the enemy, it's how we make sense of things, including this conversation, but it is the surface. And it can't override what's running underneath, no matter how clearly it can see it. The second layer is the subconscious. And this is where shit starts to get real. Your subconscious is not a storage unit for the stuff you've already processed. It's where your original programming actually lives. So the beliefs that were installed before you had language to even question them, they were programmed in early childhood, in the environments you grew up in, in the dynamics you absorbed before you were old enough to have an opinion about any of it. And the subconscious doesn't feel like a belief system. It doesn't announce itself. It operates as a filter underneath every decision you make, every relationship you navigate, every piece of evidence that you accept or reject about who you are and what's actually available to you. And the most important thing I can tell you about it, subconscious beliefs don't actually feel like beliefs. They feel like reality. So you're not walking around thinking, I believe I'm not safe to be seen. But you probably are pulling back every time there's a visibility opportunity that's bigger than you're used to or that makes you uncomfortable. You're also not thinking, oh, I believe I'm going to lose everything if I take up more space. But you probably are staying smaller than you're capable of and calling it being strategic. The belief is invisible. The behavior that those beliefs are running are not invisible. And when the conscious mind tries to override a subconscious program, which is what most personal development is asking it to do, subconscious wins almost every single time. It's not because you're not trying. You cannot think your way out of a belief that doesn't feel like a belief. You're trying to use the wrong tool for the job, which is why you'll have all these massive insights and aha moments and they fade away. Because insight lives in the conscious mind. The program it's trying to override does not live in the conscious mind. And so it starts to get really frustrating and we tend to go looking outside of ourselves for answers. The most this is a strong word, but I'm going to use it. The most dangerous subconscious belief to be carrying in this space is the one that says somebody else has better access to your truth than you do. Because that belief is exactly what makes people available to be taken advantage of. You're not handing your power over to people because you're weak or naive. But sometimes we will hand our power over because our subconscious has been running a program that says the answers live outside of ourselves. And somebody who knows how to read that will find it and use it. And I know because someone found mine years ago. I had a mentor years ago. I'm not going to name her because she's not worth giving my energy to, but I am going to tell you what happened because I know a lot of you have probably got your own version of this. I know this because I have a lot of conversations with people about it. And honestly, maybe your experience wasn't with a mentor or coach, maybe it was with a psychic or a reader or someone you paid hundreds or thousands of dollars to who, after you've seen them once, start sending you messages out of the blue with free guidance, and I'm using air quotes, because you just dropped into their awareness, so they wanted to reach out. That conveniently opened the door to needing another reading or another appointment and another and another and another, creating just enough dependency that you kept going back. You kept paying, that you kept handing your power to somebody who positioned themselves as the only one who could see what you couldn't. I've watched this happen more times than I can count, and it makes me furious. Because like I said, the women that this happens to, they are not naive. They are curious. They're seeking, they're doing their best to find something that makes sense, and there are people in this space who know exactly how to find that and use it against people. My spiritual mentor positioned herself as having access to something that the rest of us didn't. A level of perception, of knowing, of spiritual authority that she made very clear was not available to us except through her. And the way she kept that dynamic in place was very fucking calculated. The moment you started developing your own direction, your own confidence in your knowing, she would find the wound. And she knew exactly where it was and what one to push on because you had trusted her with that knowledge. So she'd use it to convince you that what you were feeling was actually darkness or your ego or something that needed to be transmuted before you could trust yourself again, and there was no way that you could do this without her guidance. She told me on multiple occasions that my intuition wasn't reliable, that my own reads on my business were not accurate, that I needed to consult her before moving ahead with things. It cost me money, time, the things that I am not getting back. She talked me out of creating things I knew in my bones would work and would help people. Things I just knew. And then she started using my language to build her own work, and I was not the only one that she did this to. And for a long time, the part that made me the angriest was my own role in it. I had knowingly given my power away, handed it over repeatedly, even when something in me knew better. And I used to call that stupid. Like I called myself stupid and then I called that stupid. Now I call it what it actually was because I understand what it actually was. It was a subconscious belief that predated her by decades that other people had better access to truth than I did. That was the belief. That the knowing inside of me wasn't as trustworthy as the authority outside of me. She didn't create that belief. She found it and she used it. That's not a stupidity story, that's a subconscious story. And it's exactly why I refuse to operate that way with the people in my world and the people I work with. It is exactly why everything I do is oriented towards returning you to your own authority, not creating a dependency on mine. It's also probably why I've never been fully comfortable being called a spiritual coach or spiritual mentor, even though that is genuinely a massive part of what I do and who I am. But because I've watched that language become a power structure and I've lived inside of one, I will not build another. So when I am talking about energy, and I talk about it constantly, I mean all of it. Our nervous systems, our intuitive systems, the information our bodies are processing before our minds catch up. Energy is not a mystical gift that certain people have access to and other people don't. It is infrastructure. It's how we are wired, it is science and understanding how you specifically are wired, not in a here's your type and your profile surface level kind of way, but at the level of how your energy systems actually move, how you're designed to make decisions, or your subconscious patterning is most likely hiding. That is what actually changes things. I digress. I went on a bit of a rant there, but it's very important. There's a lot of things that can happen in the subconscious realm, and I think it's important to talk about this stuff, especially when we are talking about clearing the way to being able to access our higher levels of consciousness. Okay, so let's get back to the layers, because there are two more. The third layer is the superconscious. This is the one that if the path from our subconscious isn't clear, things can go haywire, which is what I was just talking about in a roundabout ranty sort of way. So the superconscious is what many people, including myself, will call the higher self. I will use both terms deliberately because I want you to understand what this actually is. Your superconscious is not outside of you. It isn't something you have to earn access to by being spiritual enough or finding the right person to unlock or activate it for you. It is the most expanded, most knowing version of you. It exists above the conditioning, above the fear, above the noise of the subconscious. Here's where I want you to stay with me for a second, because this might land differently than you're expecting. You know that thing you do where you ask the universe for a sign, or you pray, or you look for guidance from something bigger than yourself? I'm not here to tell you that's wrong, but I want you to consider something. God, universe, source, whatever that word means to you speaks through you not at you, not around you, through you. Which means when something drops in fully formed that you didn't think your way to, that clear, unhurried, knowing, that is your superconscious, your higher self. You are receiving guidance from yourself, the wisest version of yourself, which is exactly why most of us don't trust the guidance that comes through in that way. Because we've been taught in a hundred different ways that the answers live outside of us. So when something comes from inside, we try to explain it away. We run it through the subconscious filter, not intentionally, but subconsciously, and that filter decides whether or not it gets to land. So one of the first things I notice when women start doing this work with me within the first few weeks is that their intuition starts showing up differently. Not necessarily like angels and trumpets going off, more in ways like it was always, always there, because it has been, but now there's just less in the way. And so they can connect with it differently and hear it differently and feel it differently, and they'll say things like, I just knew I didn't talk myself out of it, or I made the decision in about 30 seconds and I didn't second guess it, or I can't explain, but I just trusted and it was right. That is not a new skill arriving. That is an old signal finally getting through. Because you can't consistently access the superconscious, the higher self, when the subconscious is full of noise and static. Your signal has always been there. It's there right now. The noise underneath things has just been too loud to hear it clearly. It's not that your higher self hasn't been talking to you, it's that your subconscious has been screening the calls. It has nothing to do with how intuitive you are or think you are or think you are not. It is a sequence problem, a layer issue. You've been trying to reach the third layer but skipping over the second one, which, as a reminder, is your subconscious. Now, let's talk about the fourth layer. The fourth layer is the soul. And no, this doesn't actually have anything to do with the mind, but I think it's important to talk about it. And I want to talk about this one carefully because I also feel like it is the most misused word in this entire space. The soul is not the same as the superconscious as the higher self. Even though people treat them as interchangeable, they are very distinct. The superconscious, like I said, your higher self is the most expanded version of you in this lifetime. Above the conditioning, it's available to you now, it's speaking to this life and these decisions. The soul is the eternal layer, who you are across all of time. Of you that existed before this life and continues after it, it's your deepest essence, the purpose that doesn't just belong to this chapter, but to the entire arc of your entire existence. And most women that I've worked with have sensed their soul. They've brushed up against it. They feel it in the moments when they are most completely themselves. And when something lands that feels bigger than this version of them, they feel it then. That work is very real and it lives in a longer container than this episode. But I wanted you to have the full map. I want you to know that even the deepest layer, especially the deepest layer, is not accessible through someone else. It is yours. It is always being yours. So to recap the full picture, conscious mind, the surface where most of the work you've already done lives. The subconscious, where the actual programming and conditioning is, the layer that feels like reality, not a belief, and the layer that most inner work never actually reaches. The superconscious, your higher self, this is your own highest consciousness, the signal that has been there the whole time just waiting for the static to clear so you could hear it. The soul, your eternal lair, who you are underneath all of it and beyond all of it. The sequence here matters, it is not random that things stall out on us. It is insight when that happens. It just means you maybe haven't been working in the right area of the map where your map was incomplete and you couldn't see all the layers. Now you have it. Here's what I want to leave you with. We've now explained your map of your layers, the four levels of you, why the sequence matters, and why the work you've been doing maybe hasn't been holding or lasting. And I mean it when I say that that actually really does matter. But I also want to be honest because knowing the map is not going to move you through it. Understanding the sequence problem isn't going to resolve it. You can know exactly which layer you've been stuck at and still not shift it on your own. And it is not because you are not smart or capable, it's because this type of work requires the right container, the right tools, the right sequence to do it properly. So let me ask you something. What would your life actually look like if the thing that's been running underneath all of it that's been keeping you where you are finally cleared? What would life look like? Because that's what actually happens when this work is done at the right level. You don't gain confidence in the way that gets talked about in every coaching program. You stop having the subconscious belief that it's not safe to be seen. So then visibility stops feeling like a threat. You stop leaving money on the table, not because you learned better sales tactics, but because the belief that you'll lose people if you charge what you're worth has been transformed at the level where it actually lived. You stop attracting the same dynamic in your relationships. Not because you learned better communication skills, I mean maybe you did, but because you stopped shrinking yourself to keep other people comfortable. The opportunities were always there. You just had some unconscious things blocking you from seeing them. So imagine what becomes possible when that stops. Because you finally said yes to having the life that you actually want. That's what the Limitless Life Collective is. It's why I built it. And it isn't something I just put together. It's twelve years in the making. Every modality I've trained in, every belief I've had to dismantle, every version of myself I had to become first, it's all in there. I didn't build this as a curriculum. I built it from life, because this is about life. And I would love to have you in the room with me. Not so I can tell you who you are, but so we can strip away everything that's been covering her up. The conditioning, the programming, the static, what's underneath that has always been there. I'm gonna help you find your way back to her. And if something in this episode landed, not just intellectually, but in that quieter place, the place that knows before your mind catches up, I want you to trust that. Because it's not just wishful thinking. That is your signal coming through. And you've spent enough time talking yourself out of trusting that. So I'm gonna drop the link in the show notes so you can learn more. And if it feels right, like I said, I would love to have you in the room with me.