In this episode of the Mom On Purpose Book Club, we are exploring Brianna Wiest's book "The Mountain Is You." We'll dive into the idea of self-sabotage, and how to turn it into chances for personal growth and mastery.
This episode is a guide to using emotional intelligence to start healing and to align with our most important values.
By facing our fears and being open about our weaknesses, we can learn to handle life's ups and downs and discover more about ourselves.
Join us for an episode that not only inspires but also gives you the tools to conquer your personal challenges and change the course of your life.
What you'll learn:
Featured on the Show:
Click HERE to watch this video to learn The 3 Things to Avoid When Reading Self-Help Books
How to Connect with Lara:
Web: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/j.lara.johnson/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/larajohnsoncoaching
Work with Lara: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com/work-with-me/
In this episode of the Mom On Purpose Book Club, we are exploring Brianna Wiest's book "The Mountain Is You." We'll dive into the idea of self-sabotage, and how to turn it into chances for personal growth and mastery.
This episode is a guide to using emotional intelligence to start healing and to align with our most important values.
By facing our fears and being open about our weaknesses, we can learn to handle life's ups and downs and discover more about ourselves.
Join us for an episode that not only inspires but also gives you the tools to conquer your personal challenges and change the course of your life.
What you'll learn:
Featured on the Show:
Click HERE to watch this video to learn The 3 Things to Avoid When Reading Self-Help Books
How to Connect with Lara:
Web: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/j.lara.johnson/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/larajohnsoncoaching
Work with Lara: www.larajohnsoncoaching.com/work-with-me/
Welcome to the Mom On Purpose podcast. I'm Lara Johnson and I'm here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, play more with your kids, manage your home better, get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose. With my proven method, this is possible for you, and I'll show you how. You're not alone anymore. We're in this together.
All right, everybody, welcome to another fun book club. We were talking right before that.
Our book last month, The Tipping Point, was such a good book and I had a hard time trying to incorporate it for us in the book club this month. The book is “The Mountain Is You”, and I actually felt like this one was a little easier to try and incorporate. But I do have to apologize that I did not research the author before, so I don't actually know much about her. Her name is Brianna Wiest and if anybody has researched about her, that's on book club.
Right now, you can go to the chat box and share with us. I assume that she is a coach, but I don't know anything beyond that. Typically, there's some kind of in the beginning they'll list like their credentials, or on the back they have, you know, their picture and a summary about them. There is literally nothing about her, so I really didn't research her. I really didn't research her.
And then also the other thing I thought was really funny and I didn't realize it till I went back and was planning my notes, for it was typically there's a table of contents so you can kind of get the book feel and the layout of it. And there was none of that either.
So, I was kind of surprised when I went back, I'm like, oh, I have to turn through every page and find where the chapter begins. So just know that as you're going into this book, I don't have a lot of information on that. But I was very impressed with the book. As she kind of starts, she's talking about nature, mountains, and as you know, that is my job Like I will always have some kind of metaphor when it comes to mountains and nature.
So, I appreciated that already she had drawn me in just because of that, because that's just kind of who I am. So, as we dive into this book, there are a couple things that really stood out to me, and we'll talk more about it when we get there.
She has a whole chapter about trauma and I always want to start that conversation very early, that in a coaching space we don't typically deal with trauma, and she gives, as we go into that chapter, she gives a lot of resources on how to process traumatic events or traumas that have happened in your life, and I always want to recommend that you do that with a licensed professional, a therapist or otherwise, because to me that's a very important thing.
If you're reading the book and you're applying that specific chapter and you're having a traumatic and re-triggering, I want to make sure that you're in a safe place and with someone licensed to help you work through that. So, she doesn't. There is just a chapter where she talks about that, but I just wanted to present that at the very beginning, because coaching isn't typically a space where we spend a lot of time in trauma.
We talked about emotional processing. We're talking about, like day-to-day emotions, not you know, the big E, like the big emotions that usually triggered by trauma. With that said, I have had trauma in my past and so I will talk about all of that. But again, I just want to like lay that out there. Like make sure you're always talking with your licensed professional therapist, doctor, otherwise, okay, so as we begin.
So, she talks about this whole book is transforming self-sabotage into self-mastery. And she kind of starts out, which I think is really funny defining self-sabotage and then in the second chapter she says self-sabotage isn't real. So, I think it's really important to first let's spend time on self-sabotage before we go into how it's not real, and we'll talk about what she means there.
So, her first definition that she presents is self-sabotage is simply the presence of an unconscious need that is being fulfilled by the self-sabotaging behavior. So, in a lot of what we're going to be talking about is the unconscious, okay. Or she talks about it as the subconscious versus the conscious side of our brain. So, she says the unconscious need is being fulfilled by some kind of behavior. So, this is the definition that she presents for self-sabotage.
Now she said when we get to this point, it's not easy for us to really figure out what is happening, because typically, when our unconscious or our subconscious, we don't actually know what's going on. She presents just a couple examples that some of the reasons why these things come up. So, she said, if you are aware of the real issue, you could begin working to resolve it and identify, like, the ways that you're giving your power up to these negative behaviors, but the problem is most of the time we have no idea what's coming up and identify the ways that you're giving your power up to these negative behaviors.
But the problem is most of the time we have no idea what's coming up. And she said it's important to remember that self-sabotage is one of coping mechanisms. It's usually how we meet our innermost needs and that we don't have another way of handling them. So, when we begin our healing journey, it's important to understand what is the coping mechanisms or the behaviors that we're doing and what are the actual needs that we have that we're using these behaviors to address. We're going to dive more into that.
She also says that self-sabotage is usually irrational fears. She also says that self-sabotage is usually irrational fears, something you know very like. It's a legitimate fear that we may not be aware of and that we have become so attached to over time that it then starts showing up in these unconscious ways. She said when you know going on to like these negative associations, these unconscious beliefs.
She says when we self-sabotage, it is often because we have a negative association between achieving the goal we aspire to and being the kind of person who has or does that thing. So, as I started thinking about this, like, how can we start to understand this? So, one of the examples that she presents is maybe you keep eating the wrong foods because it soothes you in some way, but have you ever stopped to ask, like, what are you trying to soothe yourself from?
And that's where we have to get to that underlying fear, that unmet need that lives in our unconscious and that can be very challenging because it's unconscious. So, a lot of the next chapters are being able to figure out how to tap into that.
She says that we also get to this point where we start self-sabotaging because of our belief systems and our capacity to feel good.
Now, if you can remember back to the book, we did “The Big Leap” and she references that in here where Gay Hendricks, the author, he talks about our upper limit. This is like our overall capacity for the amount of good or joy that we can feel. So, emotions our body will take and process these emotions. Now, when we get to the peak of this emotional sensation that our body is experiencing, it becomes very scary and vulnerable and our brain will move and our body will move us back into our comfort zone, even if it's a quote, unquote positive emotion.
So, when somebody has a capacity to like their cap on where they feel good or their upper limit, their body will start to sabotage, their brain will start to sabotage them back into a different emotion. So that's where it's really important to start understanding our behaviors, because that will help us tap into what is going on at the unconscious level.
So, she said the very first thing out of all of this to really get clear is to get out of our denial. She says when we are in denial, we tend to be in the blame mode. We look for anyone or anything to explain why we are the way we are. We start to justify.
So, I want you just to pause for a second and think about anything that has been hard in your life, any behaviors that you're like oh, I really hate this. This goes against the goals that I'm trying to achieve. I want you to pause for a second and think about the ways that you've justified that it's okay for you not to reach it, the things that you have blamed maybe the people, the life circumstances because if you were to move into any kind of healing, you have to take full responsibility.
That can be very challenging, okay, especially because, as moms, we have other people we're responsible for. I'm going to be honest. Sometimes I want to put the blame on them for why I can't do something.
So, I love what she says right here. She says take a piece of paper and pen and write down all the things you're unhappy with. Get very specific about the problems you face. If you're struggling with finances, you need a clear picture of what's wrong.
So that's kind of where I want to start again. You know, have a couple seconds where you can really get clear on some of the things that are quote unquote wrong in your life right now and really understand and get and take responsibility. Where are you not showing up where you want to?
She said at this point, this is where your path begins. She said sometimes rock bottom is where we begin our healing journey. She says rock bottom is a turning point, not because it is like a miserable feeling, but it's like a decision, it's a declaration, it's a resolution that you are going to become like. You're going on a life-changing journey. This is where you get to radically reinvent who you are, and I love that phrase radically reinvent.
She says it's at this point that we usually arrive at rock bottom when our coping mechanisms or the behaviors we are doing have spiraled so out of control that we can no longer resist the feelings we're attempting to hide.
Okay, so that's a really big thing when we talk about our coping mechanisms or the behaviors, we're doing start to spiral so out of control that we can't ignore whatever feeling we're using. So that's where I wanted to start at this point is to again take a moment, think about what's really hard in your life and then start thinking about what are the emotions that you are trying to cope from, what are the some of the behaviors?
So, I know for me one of the things that you know, going through this book and taking time for myself anytime I find myself eating a lot of junk food, it's typically because I'm stressed, and then I had to think, okay, like what are the things that I'm stressed about? What are? That's just like a symptom, and we're going to talk about that. How do I get deeper into that stress and being able to understand the needs that aren't being fully met? Okay, so that's just an example.
So now we move on to chapter two, where she literally starts the chapter. There's no such thing as self-sabotage. So that's what just made me kind of laugh. So, she said when you're trying to move your life forward, this is what we call skills, life skills. But if there is something that is holding you back, you call that self-sabotage.
But essentially these two things have the same function. She says the habits and behaviors you can't stop engaging with are intelligently designed by your subconscious to meet an unfulfilled need, displaced emotion or neglected desire. But when you are doing it to move yourself forward, it's essentially the same thing. There's some kind of behavior and you're moving it forward and it then becomes a skill to meet a need or a desire or an emotion.
So, I really liked that she then presented that, because I think sometimes when; and we talk so much about this in coaching like when you hear a phrase, it can have a very distinct feeling in your body based on your subconscious emotions or and thoughts. So, when I hear, when I hear self-sabotage, it has a very negative reaction in my body. But to then think about it as a skill, just with some tweaks, all of a sudden it feels so much more hopeful.
So that's where I like that she did present this right from the get-go in chapter two, like she divined self-sabotage and then she debunked it, which was kind of cool in the way that she wrote that. So, she said, at this point it's important to start understanding that really, when we come down to skills, self-sabotage you know, wherever you're at right now there's always two conflicting desires. Okay, so one wants to move your life forward and the other is the reason why you're stuck.
When we get to this spot, this is where we have to start tapping into what are some of the underlying reasons for behaving the way that we are. And she presents a whole bunch of them in the book on what these behaviors look like, and I'm just going to touch on a few of them. But this is on page 32. If you have the book with you again, because there's not, there's not a table of contents. So, this is chapter two, this is page 32.
So, the first one that she presents she'll. She presents it like this problem and then solution. So, the problem is resistance, and this is when we want to move forward on something, but we can't bring ourselves to do it. It's like we're hitting a wall.
She said resistance is not the same thing as procrastination, and oftentimes we get to this spot where we think we need more motivation or we need to push through, but it actually intensifies this feeling of resistance, and it will feel harder. She said we have to first understand what that subconscious belief is that we keep coming up against.
This is why coaching can be so effective, because we look at so much of those limiting beliefs. So, this is where you really get to start looking at, for the solution of resistance is this like an upper limit, where you are hitting your capacity to feel something positive? There's other things? Oh, I think she actually uses this as like.
So, the next one is upper limit, and she said the solution to the upper limit is, over time, you create a new baseline. This is what I call my coaching, like our home base emotion, where we get really comfortable over time, growing our feeling of feeling good, of joy, and being able to come back to that more often.
The next one that she presents, which I thought was a really interesting one, she talks about uprooting. So, in uprooting, she says, uprooting happens when you're not allowing yourself to blossom, and you are only comfortable in the process of sprouting. She said it might constantly be needing a fresh start or you haven't learned healthy ways to deal with stress or struggle or struggling with conflict resolution.
So, when we're looking at this, like the decision-making cycle that I talk about in my coaching, where you get to the point where you have the decision this is the sprouting she talks about but you're not actually moving into implementation. That's the blossoming. So, you're constantly uprooting all of these sprouts because you haven't learned how to deal with the implementation, the stress of it, the unknown, being able to resolve conflicts in each of those.
So, in order to work through this, she says you have to first recognize the pattern, get clear on what you want and then really start. So, the first is recognizing the pattern. The second is getting clear on what you want and then being able to work through it. So, I will say there are sometimes, as she's talking about some of the solutions, it seems very trite in her suggestions. I'm like, well, just do it. Sometimes it doesn't work like that.
Okay, depending on the way your brain and body works. So just know that, as you're going through the book, that if you're like, yeah, I've tried that many times and that doesn't work, then just know we can work through that in coaching.
So, the next one she talks about a subconscious pattern is perfectionism, and this is when we expect that our work must be perfect the first time, we do it. This happens because when we're afraid of failing or feeling vulnerable or not being as good as we think others think we are, we end up avoiding the work that is required to actually become good.
I probably spent I don't know 35 years of my life living this way, to where I was so afraid of somebody else seeing me failing or someone else seeing me not being as good as I wanted to be that I would just avoid whatever it was, and I wouldn't actually try to do any of it. And oftentimes that's where a lot of my anxiety would come from was because I felt this pull, again self-sabotage to desires.
I felt this pull to move forward, but then the subconscious problem of perfectionism was pulling me back, and so I'd get stuck with these two conflicting desires. So, she said, as far as the solution goes, it's to focus on progress over perfectionism. And what an amazing phrase I feel like we could use in every one of our families and with ourselves.
Okay, so then at this point, this is where she really starts, like every chapter, I feel like, has so much information that we could literally go through the same thing on over and over and over, where she lists a problem and then she goes on to resolve it A couple other ones before we move on to the next chapter.
Is she talks about being attached to things you don't really want. She says sometimes self-sabotage functions to show us that we aren't quite on the right path yet. So, I was thinking about this with myself as I've been on my health journey right now. I've been redefining my values. I've been looking at, you know, after I had a ski accident where I tore my ACL, I broke my leg. It's been this long journey to get back to full functioning health and has really given me a lot of time to think about some of my values.
And it was interesting as I sat down the other day is I realized my value will never be exercise. It just won't. That is not anything that I value. What I do value is what exercise creates for me, and that's some kind of adventure that is, you know, climbing the mountain, which is going out and learning a new sport, that's being able to be in my yard for long amounts of time. That's what brings me joy.
Exercise will never do that. But exercise is the vehicle to take me to the things that I value. So, as I started to work through some of the self-sabotaging behaviors that was, I felt like a really great one for me to see.
She said failure is inevitable. Just make sure it's happening for the right reasons. She essentially said like if you have a fear of failure, just go fail anyway. So, this is an example of where it feels a little trite. Now I will say that when we were focusing on the decision-making cycle, it felt less like failing and more like evaluation and understanding the process. So that’s what I would say.
I would add that the solution to fear of failure is really being able to understand where you're getting stuck in the decision-making cycle so that you can help move yourself forward over and over again.
One other one that she talks about that comes up in our subconscious a lot is downplaying, and this is one that I see a lot in my coaching, but I don't think I've ever just given it the name of downplaying. She said there's typically two ways we downplay. So, the first is to try to make ourselves seem less impressive so that we're not as threatening to other people, or we're trying to avoid the sense that we've made it because we're afraid of peaking. So, one of the examples I would say with downplaying is, when someone gives you a compliment, that you then deflect it and you put it down.
I remember many years ago when I was selling Mary Kay, I realized that I can come across very intimidating to people, especially because I'm shy and I'm more of a people watcher, and I think a lot of people take that as I'm sitting back and judging, and it's very intimidating for people, I think when I'm there just watching, when in reality it's just like my shyness coming out.
And I remember a long time ago when I was selling Mary Kay, I was like 18, 19 years old. It was an amazing experience. It was one of the most challenging things I had ever done because I am so shy, but it really taught me how to talk to people. But I remember one of my leaders saying yeah, you may come across really intimidating to people, even though you don't think you're intimidating or threatening to people.
She's like so just put a hole in your nylons and they're going to be able to see. Oh, she has a hole in her nylon. She must be a normal person and for some reason. That's always kind of made me laugh.
But now, as I've gotten older and I've been able to trust myself, what I've realized is lots of times I will downplay myself in order to help others feel more comfortable, instead of being able to inspire and lift people to come with me. So, one of the ways that she said you know again, instead of shrugging off a compliment, you can say something like thank you, I worked really hard for this and I'm happy to be here.
What an incredible way you know to be able to accept and receive a compliment. And then we get to sit in our discomfort of accepting the compliment. She said you can also acknowledge that when one part of our life improves, it radiates out to everything else. So that's what I was talking about, like being able to bring others along instead of having to downplay or make yourself small. That's something very common that women do.
Okay, so then she moves on to talk about understanding all of the different cycles that can show up in your subconscious, and I'm just going to read these because there's a lot, but as I read them, I want you to think for yourself which one resonates with you, and you can go over to the comments and if you're comfortable, you can share which one stands out to you.
She says you become more aware of what you don't want than what you do. She says you spend more time trying to impress people you don't want than what you do. She says you spend more time trying to impress people you don't like than to spend time with people you love or people who love you for who you are. You're putting your head in the sand Like, essentially, you don't know basic facts about your life. You're in denial. You may not know how much money you have in the bank. You know that kind of thing.
You care more about convincing other people that you're okay than actually being okay. Your main priority in life is to be liked, even if that comes at the expense of being happy. You're more afraid of your feelings than anything else. You're blindly chasing goals without asking yourself why you want those things. You're treating your coping mechanisms as the problem instead of asking yourself what is the emotional need that? I'm feeling doubt.
You value your doubt more than your potential. You try, you're trying to care about everything. You're waiting for someone else to open a door, to offer approval, to enter into the life that you've been waiting for, you don't realize how far you have come. That goes back to the skill of celebration we were talking about. So, when I went through that list, one of the things that really stood out to me, and I'll talk more about this as we go is I have this amazing ability to convince other people that I'm okay without actually being okay.
And it was funny because through my ski accident I literally like broke my leg, I've torn my ACL. I was in my second lesson for skiing, so I wasn't even skiing necessarily, and I was like my instructor was there. He was just down waves, and I knew I had hurt myself. I could feel it and I'm waiting for it. They call it the toboggan. It's a little sled.
It's hooked onto someone's waist. It's mortifying if you have to be dragged off the mountain in the toboggan. And I was horribly mortified and I'm in pain and the whole time I kept checking on my instructor to make sure he was okay. The whole time I kept checking on my instructor to make sure he was okay. Now this is like a 60 plus year old man who has a lot of experience skiing and as like he's a grown man and I'm making sure that like he's okay emotionally.
So when I was able to step back and I was journaling, you know, a week later after my experience, I had this like image of me literally I've come off the mountain, they're unstrapping me in the toboggan and I'm like peeking my head up and I'm like thumbs up to my instructor, that like skied down next to us because I wanted him to know I was okay. But I was like what is that about.
Now, thankfully, like I was seeing some of these patterns already and was able I was already like had gone into therapy to start unwinding some of these patterns that I knew were trauma responses from my childhood. But that was one of my very subconscious behaviors sabotaging behaviors was I was always making sure that everyone else thought I was okay so that they could feel okay, and that all comes, you know, as a trauma response, and we'll talk about that when we get to that chapter. So just recognize for yourself what some of those things are.
Now in chapter three, she starts talking about what some of our triggers are and how our triggers are actually a good thing, okay. So, I'm going to pause for a second. Miranda says sometimes I'll wait to be invited or asked to do something instead of saying what I would like to do, believing I can do it.
Oh my gosh, that is such a fabulous one to be able to recognize for yourself. I think so many of us wait to be invited and we don't always voice what we actually want to do, and that's a really common thing. I see that a lot in my Christian clients. Because they want to be of service to other people, they always want to be making sure, being that, you know, peacemaker, making sure everybody's okay, instead of really voicing and I don't mean to like speak for you, Miranda. I hope that's okay that I shared some of that.
So, chapter three she talks about the triggers are the guides to your freedom.
She said each negative emotion we experience comes with a message, one that we do not yet know how to interpret. She said when something keeps coming up over and over, this is where a single challenge might become a chronic issue, like the thing I was describing, where I was always making sure everyone else thought I was okay so that they could feel okay.
Then she starts bringing a bunch of emotions into it and how we can start translating those and being able to understand what they're speaking to us. So, the first one's anger. She said this instead of being able to be afraid of anger, we can use that to help us see our priorities more and the things that are important to us.
She said sadness is an emotion that is usually an aftermath of disappointment, and it's only really problematic if we don't allow ourselves to go through the process of sadness. Guilt tends to affect us for what we didn't do more than what we did do. She said, what's interesting is that some of the people that have committed the most heinous acts tend to feel no remorse, but those of us that are actually doing really amazing things, we're seeing all the things we haven't done and are feeling a lot of guilt for not being able to do that, and that guilt is often an emotion we carry from childhood and then we project onto current circumstances.
Okay, I'm going to pause there. I'm going to read what Carolyn says. I don't want to be the one to decide on a movie or restaurant in case anyone doesn't like it, as if that would be my fault. I just want everyone to enjoy the situation, also a very, very common one.
I can't tell you how many times we go out with friends and everybody's saying like, like, who wants to make a choice, I will never make the choice. The one time I made the choice, I loved the restaurant and nobody else did, and I finally was to the point in my life where I was like, yeah, that's their problem, and sometimes they pick restaurants that I don't like, but I would never tell them that. So, it's become like this kind of joke that it's okay for me to like the restaurant even if nobody else does. All right, so she works through some more of these.
She talks about embarrassment or is often behaving in a way we're not proud of, and that shame is the shadow of embarrassment. This is like I always know when I'm going to go into a shame cycle because I do something that I think was wrong or I'm embarrassed of. Jealousy is a coverup emotion and oftentimes jealousy can show us some of the things that we want and we're able to really see some of our unfulfilled needs.
Resentment is okay. I'm going to read this because I thought this was very interesting. She says when we resent people, it is often because they did not live up to the expectation we had of them. In our minds, resentment, in some ways, is like projected regret, instead of showing us what we should change. It seems to want to tell us what other people should change, even though they're under no obligation to change.
So, I think that's something that's really important and so we have to be able to reverse some of that. Something that's really important, and so we have to be able to reverse some of that. And then she talks about chronic fear. Is our minds projecting what we think will happen in the future? So, then she goes on to talk about how this internal system can really guide us to know what our answers are.
So, in my coaching a lot we talk about finding our purpose and how we all have that calling inside of us, that ringing that starts to happen. What I love about it is when we really start tapping into that ringing and listening to what it is. Most of the time people already know what they want to do. They already know what they're here to do, but they're scared to actually do it.
So, when they start listening to that ringing then they will start to sabotage themselves from moving forward on that thing. So, she said that's why you have to really tap into and be very conscious about that internal guiding system. Otherwise, your subconscious will come in and take over system, Otherwise, your subconscious will come in and take over.
So, let's move on, because here she gives a bunch of ways that we do sabotage and we're not going to read through that. But that starts on page 83. Those are fantastic. So, we're going to keep going through this, because I really feel like we could spend so much time on all of this Before we move on to the next chapter.
The last thing I want to mention in this one is knowing the difference between intuitive nudges and intrusive thoughts, and she provides a really fantastic list, because this is something that I do hear my clients talk about is this a thought from God? Is this not a good thought? Is this one I've created? Is this a prompting that's stopping me from moving forward, or is this my anxiety?
And we get stuck in this weird in between of questioning and doubting and not really moving forward because we don't know if it's something we should trust. So, she said here's a couple ways that you can tell the difference between your intuition and thoughts that are informed by fear.
She said here's a couple of ways that you can tell the difference between your intuition and thoughts that are informed by fear. She said intuitive thoughts are always calm. Intrusive thoughts are hectic and fear inducing. And there's she lists a whole bunch of them, but I want to stop on that one because for me this is one of the most common ones.
Because for me this is one of the most common ones, even if it's a no, it's a very calm no in my body, whereas if it's an intrusive thought, there's a lot of like spinning in my mind and a lot of fear. And when I get to that point, if I haven't made the decision on whatever it is, I stay ruminating as soon as I make a decision and it feels very concrete, even if it's a no, it feels so calm and very clear in my body. She goes on to say intuitive thoughts are typically quiet.
Intrusive thoughts sometimes are so loud it makes it hard to hear the others. Intuitive thoughts sound very loving. Again, this is kind of back to the calm versus fear, while invasive or intrusive thoughts sound very scary. So that's a list like you can keep going through that. That's on page 98, all the way to 100. Okay, so this is the last one.
Intuitive thoughts show you how to respond to something. Invasive or intrusive thoughts demand that you react, and I think that's the difference, you know, between that calm and that fear, like being able to respond, feels very grounded, whereas if you're reacting to something, it's like it immediately triggers your whole nervous system.
So then at this point she starts moving into okay, well, how do we actually meet our underlying needs? Because that's how we resolve this right? And she said the answer to do that is being able to understand our emotional intelligence, EI, sometimes you'll hear it called EQ.
So, our emotional intelligence is our ability to understand, interpret and respond to our emotions, and this is like the way that we interpret the sensations. So, when I'm coaching someone, it's like closing our eyes and being able to see, like, what's lighting up in our body. Sometimes I call it dropping into our body, where we're paying attention to the sensations, because sometimes they'll kind of vibrate through.
This might be like you have a lump in your throat. It might be a heaviness in your chest. It might feel like your arms are really jittery. Your body will process emotions in all different ways, in different areas.
What was really interesting was that your brain and she lists some science about this. She said the root of self-sabotage is the lack of emotional intelligence, because without the ability to understand ourselves, we become lost. These are some of the most misunderstood aspects of our brains and bodies that leave us stuck.
So, she presents some information that it's important to know when we're working towards our emotional intelligence is that our brain is actually working against us. So, our brain releases a chemical called dopamine. Now science we've always known this as like the pleasure chemical, the thing that makes us feel good.
But what science is now starting to show is that dopamine surges right before that thing is that you want, and then it drops right after. So, you can think about it as like you really want that candy bar. It feels so good and you eat it. And then afterward you're like why did I, why did I need to eat a whole bag of those?
Like, all of a sudden, the dopamine drops off, but then you want more, right? So, this is what's happening in your brain with the chemical dopamine. So, at this point we become so what she calls enmeshed in wanting, because that is where our dopamine is the highest and we have yet to shift into a state of having.
So, one of the examples that they talk about is being able to think as soon as you reach whatever that goal is that you've been working towards your whole life. You get to that point, and you think everything should be better. And it's not all of a sudden you want something else. And I was laughing, because this is why I love watching married at first sight, because sometimes I like reality shows.
But what's so fascinating to me in that show, when you look at it from like a coaching perspective, is they all think once they're married, life will be better. And then they become married, and they have the thing that they've been wanting, and they realize it is way harder than they even thought possible and it's like their brains weren't accustomed to that because they thought once they were married it would be better.
So, she goes on to talk about how our subconscious is really the gatekeeper of our comfort zone. So, when we move out of our comfort zone, that's when your subconscious will start to bring you back like a boomerang on, like no, no, no, this isn't what we want. And she said that the most important thing to realize is that being in your comfort zone doesn't necessarily mean that you're doing good things.
Comfort zone is actually your familiar zone, whatever you are most familiar with. That's what will keep you in your comfort zone and the only way to really get out of that comfort zone is by understanding the micro shifts that have to take place, which is the emotional intelligence, like being able to understand the one, two, three type emotions you have to process, and they don't feel great.
So, she talks about micro shifts. Micro shifts are the little, tiny things that you do over and over and over and over and over to finally you get to this breakthrough point. You can think about this even as, like the tectonic plates when you're learning about earthquakes, those plates are always shifting tiny, tiny, little bit until suddenly an entire earthquake just goes off like that. It wasn't that the earthquake just magically went, it's that these micro shifts were happening.
So, if you want to be able to have some kind of breakthrough in your self-sabotage, you have to be willing to do the micro shifts that are so tiny that you won't even realize that you're doing them. And at this point she goes on to talk about adjustment shock, that even these micro shifts can bring so much fear out of you.
That's where the emotional intelligence and being able to process your emotions comes into play. So, the more willing you are to keep moving through these adjustment shocks, the more your emotional intelligence starts to grow. So, let's move on to the chapter five and chapter six.
This is where she's talking about releasing the past and building a new future. So, when she talks about releasing the past which I thought was very interesting she said our bodies are designed to eliminate and replace cells, to the point that one could argue we are essentially made new again every seven years, like your whole body's cell reproduction is brand new every seven years, which I thought was very cool.
It's brand new every seven years, which I thought was very cool. So, in order to do this, we have to start understanding and being able to kind of move beyond the trauma, the experiences that we've had in the past, being able to release the things that have stunted us. She said if you truly want to let go of past experience, you have to reenter it through your mind, close your eyes and find the feeling in your body that is uncomfortable.
So again, this is where, if you're doing things with big trauma, I recommend a licensed professional. She says when your mind is stuck in the past, it isn't because you want to return there, it's because you were impacted far more deeply than you ever realized, and the aftershocks are still rippling through you.
So, as I started being able to go back and work on some of these trauma behaviors that I witnessed after my accident, what I was able to see was I didn't have any. I was a very young child when the experiences happened, and I needed to appease the adults around me by not sharing the turmoil or the hard things that I was going through.
So, then that became I thought I was helping as a young child by not burdening other people with the trauma that I had experienced, which then created a like. It wired my brain into suppressing my emotions as a way to help and serve other people. So that for me was like the biggest thing, and everyone has to kind of go through that process for themselves. She lists a lot of really great things that you can read about in the book.
She said at this point it's important to remember that there is an emotional backlog and that this backlog is often stored in your body, which was very much the case for me, which, even before my accident, is why I went back to therapy in the first place, because I was very physically well like. I'm a very happy person, I have a very good life, but I kept having weird things show up in my body over and over.
So, I knew my body was trying to talk to me about something that my mind was suppressing and that I wasn't able to get clear on. So, I really had to do a lot of body work and then I was able to start tapping more into my subconscious. So, as you're starting to build and get healing, she said, healing is not merely what makes us feel better the fastest.
It's building the right life slowly, over time, and the best way that I used to describe this to people when it came to healing was the way I felt like I had healed myself was like haphazardly stitching something up and somebody came and like cut it open, because I had to clean out, like the infection, and be able to really heal it from the inside out in a very healthy, clear way.
So as you start to build your future, she lists a lot of really great tools in order to do that, but the thing that I wanted to point out the most in all of this is that, as you are building this, it's very important to get to the principles and the values that are governing your life, because as you start to do that, that becomes the foundation for all the other decisions that you're making going forward, and that's how you can truly find your purpose and the thing that you're meant to do on this earth.
So, the last thing I'll leave you with is her quote. Towards the end, she said as you are working towards this mastery, as you are tapping into your subconscious in order to understand the coping mechanisms of your sabotaging behavior, that's when you get to mastery.
She says one day, the mountain that was in front of you will be so far behind you it will barely be visible in the distance, but who you become in learning to climb it, that will stay with you forever. That is the point of the mountain.
So that's what I wanted to leave you with today is that, as you are working through these self-sabotaging, as you're using those triggers to really understand some of these unmet needs that you have, this is where, someday, you're going to look back and realize it's so far in your past that you've become a new version of yourself, someone that is powerful, that is strong, that is so solid in their purpose. That is strong, that is so solid in their purpose.
All right, so there you have it. Very quickly, this is our book for next month “The Untethered Soul”. It's an oldie, but I've heard it's a very good one and I'm excited to read it alongside of you. All right, I'll see you next month.
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