My relationship with my mind.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” Albert Einstein is describing my relationship with my mind.
If you know anything about me, you know that I can’t stand a victim mentality, and I’m pretty good at spotting it immediately, in other people. . . So, imagine my shock when, during a coaching session, I realized I was being a victim of my own mind! And I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.
For as long as I could remember, I have felt a deep knowing, a yearning to be of service to others. And in my work, helping CEOs create authentic leadership brands, and communicate them to the world, I thought I was doing exactly that. But the truth is, I have been playing it safe, giving into limiting and sabotaging beliefs that sounded like this: “You’re lucky you got this far.” “Stay in your lane.” “Why rock the boat?” “You have so much freedom here.” “Your story is not that special.” “Who do you think you are wanting to help others?”
I nursed an imposter syndrome that kept surfacing despite a 10-year successful branding practice built entirely by word-of-mouth recommendations from some of Canada’s top executives. And if I presented that to my mind as proof of my abilities to impact others, you know, making the case for that intense yearning in my soul, it would immediately send me down yet a deeper limiting belief — the “me, myself and I” belief, the one I created when my mother died.
I was twenty. Feeling misunderstood, I set out to be a “freebird,” to be left alone to create the life of my dreams, to live on my own terms, and become my most authentic self. And I did exactly that, so long as I stayed in the “me, myself and I” bubble. There, I could do anything, be anyone — I was at the top of my game. For more than twenty years, I accomplished so much, lived abundantly and created more freedom than anyone I know.
I am very proud of my life, but my heart has been yearning for so much more.
Five years ago, I developed anxiety, followed by the strangest most severe chronic pain in my jaw. Interestingly, it started when I began paying close attention to that nagging feeling in my gut and took steps to transition my practice into coaching — my heart’s true desire.
Maybe it was my brain creating a physical reaction to keep me in the status-quo. It is the function of the brain to protect us, after all. The brain wouldn’t know the difference between jumping off a cliff or changing a thought. Any form of change triggers what John Assaraf calls the “error detection mechanism,” sending the brain to autocorrect us, at all costs, though we may not need correcting.
The physical pain I experienced, now I know, was my caged “freebird” singing its yearning for true freedom. It turns out I had not been as authentic as I craved to be.
My heart wants to contribute — to inspire, to share, to connect with others and to impact the energy of the world. To help people move out of their own ways, as I continue to move out of mine.
It is the irony of our lives, I feel, to build the cages of our prisons with our very own hands. But, “when we know better, we do better” said Maya Angelou. So I am choosing better. I am teaching my mind new things.
“By changing our brainwaves we are able to bypass the analytical mind in order to enter the body’s operating system-otherwise known as the autonomic nervous system or the subconscious mind. Measuring in at the size of an apricot and located midbrain, directly under the neocortex (the thinking brain), exists the limbic brain, which is the seat of the autonomic nervous system. When we can consciously enter the midbrain by slowing down our thinking and changing our brainwaves, we can begin to program/reprogram our body in very specific ways.”
I am deeply appreciative of Dr. Joe Dispenza and his work in neuroscience research. I fundamentally believe in my ability to rewire my own brain. And I can tell you that my relationship with my mind is evolving.
My mind is learning to knock at the door before busting into my house uninvited, opening my fridge and putting its feet up on my couch and robbing me of the intuition of my heart. It is adapting to new software I’ve been consciously uploading into my being. A new belief system I chose to practise and meditate on, daily. A promise to myself that by doing the scariest thing I ever did, calling myself a coach, being a coach, giving of myself, being of service to others in the contexts of their whole lives not just their business lives, I am being 100% me. And only then can I be truly free.
