Episode 14 - Creating New Things

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This episode is packed with substance. I'm talking to you about what it really takes to create new things. And it's not what you think. 

Join me as I break down what needs to really happen in order for us to create the results we want in our lives. 

For coaching consultations email me at [email protected]


Show Transcript Below:

Episode 14 – Creating New Things

Happy New Year!!! Happy 2020. I hope you had an amazing New Years Eve – I’m recording this a few days before New Years Eve but my husband and I just have some pretty low key plans to join some friends at a restaurant here in Canada called Lonestar and then we will have them over at our place to enjoy some New Year Celebrations and we will probably do some karaoke since that has been our favourite thing to do with these particular friends of ours. So I’m very much looking forward to that. And I trust you had a beautiful New Years Eve.

So We are talking today about creating new things and this is an idea I had a while ago to do a podcast about this – I have a google doc with a list of topics that I want to podcast about that is just a running list because as ideas come – and they come ALL the time – I like ot be able to just write them down so that they don’t run away from me.

And I thought this is a PERFECT topic for New Years. And creating something new in our lives is a skill. It takes effort, it takes undergoing the process of change in order to create new results in our lives, and it is a skill that we can learn – it is a skill that we can practice and get better and better at in our lives. 

And, a few episodes back in the episode called Knowledge vs. Awareness I talked about a coaching tool called The Model – and this is a coaching tool that I use with myself to create the results I want in my life and it is a coaching tool that I use with my 1-1 clients as well as the clients in my emotional health monthly membership group.

And so go back and listen to that episode to get an basic understanding – a foundational understanding of the model. Or for a refresher.  But I’ll give you some basics of the model here. So the model is comprised of 5 components. Circumstances – Thoughts – Feelings – Actions – Results. And the main premise of the model which was developed by the wonderful amazing beautiful Brooke Castillo who is  an incredible life coach and has been an instrumental teacher in my life. The main premise of the model is that our thoughts create our results. Our thoughts create our results. And so our beliefs – our subconscious beliefs that are engrained in us, that are programmed if you will into us are actually what is creating our results.

It is not our circumstances that create our results. It is not even our ACTIONS that create our results but our THOUGHTS about our circumstances, and our THOUGHTS that drive our feelings, and our THOUGHTs that driving our actions are what creates our results.

NOW – I know that this is challenging for a lot of people to believe especially people in the trauma healing community where there is a lot of knowledge on the science of the nervous system and the science of the brain in response to emotional trauma. And what we’ve learned from Doctors like Dr. Steven Porges, Dr. Bruce Perry, and Dr. Peter Levine and even Dr. Gabor Mate. And what the new science of trauma is showing us is that our experiences of our caregivers in early life does affect the way our bodies and brains develop. And if there’s been experiences of deep trauma that our bodies and brains will be in a state of hyper-arousal, high-alert, high-vigilance (anxiety), or could be in a state of complete shut down and paralyzing fear this is (depression). HOWEVER – It IS true that our thoughts are informed by our physiological state because our nervous system is operating subconsciously picking up on cues from the environment and from the brain. Right the nervous system connects to the brain stem – the lower more primitive regions of the brain associated with survival.

And someone in my community commented that our physiological state does inform our thoughts – I agree with that. But, because we have been given our pre-frontal cortex the higher region of the brain associated with meaning and more complex thinking, we do have the ability to interrupt negative thought patterns.

And so here’s what I will say – I agree with a lot of that science in terms of the physiological components of trauma and the nervous system responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. I have intensely studied the work of the Doctor’s I’ve mentioned above. AND I do not believe that the truth of thoughts creating our results somehow invalidates the neuroscience, and the trauma healing science. I belive they work together. And that’s all I will say on that right now.
And I believe that there HAS to be focus on our thoughts and an awareness of our thoughts and how those thoughts FEEL in our bodies, AS WELL AS how we feel in terms of our sensations and emotions. THINKING in and of itself is a physiological process – as we think our thoughts, we are creating physiological effects in our brains and bodies and through thinking certain thoughts we can change our physiological state – especially if we are focusing on our bodies ours ensations and our environment.

And I think that a huge strength and skill of mine – is the ability to draw from all kinds of different teachers that may seem to contradict eachother and use their work to inform my own methodology with my clients. And so Brooke Castillo’s work with the model and the work of all those amazing pioneers of developmental sciences and neurological sciences and see the paradoxes and the common threads and not use one to negate the other.

So – I will do a deeper podcast on you know the body vs. the brain – but I wanted to put that out there.

So that’s the premise of the model – is that thoughts create our results. Thoughts create results. Again – not our circumstances – not our actions – but our thoughts.

And so, if our thoughts are creating our results. If our thoughts are creating our reality right – than in order to create NEW results BETTER results – ACHIEVE our goals become more emotionally healthy and heal from past pain and trauma – we do have to go to work on our thoughts. WE do have to go to work on how we THINK about our circumstances. And we do have to examine what THOUGHTS are driving the actions that we take.

And so, in the New Year there is always a massive focus on goals. And I think that’s fine and that’s wonderful. But I think the reason why so many people are unable to actually achieve their goals is because they focus first on the actions they are taking rather than the thoughts they are thinking that acre either going to create the result they want, or sabotage their success.

And the thing we have to understand about our brains is that our mind will find evidence for what we ALREADY believe. So the brain is always scanning our environment to confirm our existing beliefs. That’s where the term confirmation bias comes from.

So, for example – if you have a goal to lose 15 lbs. And actually that is a goal of mine – I was able to lose 10 lbs last year and I’d like to lose another 15 lbs this year. What most people do is, they say what do I need to DO to create that result in my life? What ACTION do I need to take. But remember – the premise of the model is that thoughts create results. Not actions. So they say I need to go to the gym. I need to eat veggies. I need to drink 2 litres of water. And they get all psyched and motivated right. And on January first they are killing it. They are absolutely crushing their goals. But by the end of that week – their initial gusto sort of fizzles out. And the cycle repeats itself. WHY?

The reason for that – is because they focused only on action and not on thought.

So – if that person who wants to lose 15lbs were to instead focus on what they need to think and feel to consistently take the actions they need to take – NOW we’re completely increasing our chances of success here. Because the process of change is the process of becoming the person who has the result you desire.

So – instead of focusing first on the action – I want to examine what I am thinking now that causes me to feel inable to take the actions.  Right – so if I am thinking that I’m fat – that I’m ugly, that I’m disgusting, if I’m thinking that it’s too hard, if I’m thinking that I have to wait until I lose 15lbs to be happy – then it’s going to be really difficult for me to feel the feelings I need to feel to take the actions that I want to take. Because if I’m thinking those nasty thoughts I’m going to feel defeated, and depressed, and self-loathing. And people who feel defeated and depressed and self-loathing are not people who are motivated to eat healthy, and take loving care of their bodies. See?

It ALWAYS starts with the thinking.

So I want to ask myself – what do I need to think and feel to be the person who drinks lots of water, exercises consistently, doesn’t overeat, plans my meals, and drinks lots of water. What do I need to think and feel to be the person who has ALREADY lost the 15 lbs. Are you with me?

Because we are talking about creating NEW results. So in order to create new results, we need to think new thoughts. And in order to think new thoughts, we want to think from the future.

Because here’s the thing – we often have huge misconceptions about what it means to achieve our goals. We think we need to beat ourselves up to meet our goals. We think we need to punish ourselves when we fail. We think we need to obsess about our goals in order to meet them. We think that meeting our goals makes us more worthy or more acceptable. We think when we don’t meet our goals that we have a reason to hate and loathe ourselves. And we have a fantasy that when we meet our goals everything in our life is going to be perfect.

AND ALLLLLL of that toxic, harmful thinking is what needs to be transformed and healed in order to create the result you want. Right.

See – herein lies a very special golden nugget and if you get this – then you can create anything – absolutely ANYTHING you desire in your life. The golden nugget of truth is this: IT IS NOT THE GOAL THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. IT IS NOT THE ACHIEVING OF THE RESULT THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. OF COURSE there is satisfaction there. There is pride there. It feels amazing to achieve goals. I believe in goal setting. I believe in the power of that. But really, when we are creating new results in our lives, we are actually transforming ourselves into the PERSON WHO HAS THE RESULTS.

And if you do not change your thoughts along the way of getting the result, if you push yourself by action only – you will be saddened to discover that getting the result doesn’t feel as sweet. BECAUSE it’s not our circumstances that determine how we feel. It is our thoughts about them. And to take it further it is our thoughts about ourselves.

And – here’s what I will tell you – we always want to skip the awareness piece. We ALWAYS want to jump right to the actions, or blame the circumstances. Because it is very hard work to look at your thoughts and feelings and be with them, and be present with them with non-judgement, with love, and simply see them as thoughts.  But when we avoid doing that work – we cheat ourselves emotionally. Because we do not experience the depth of healing that is available to us when we heal our toxic thinking and toxic programming. If you continue to think the same way you have always thought. You will continue to get the same results. And that is VERY freeing. Because it gives us the power to change, it creates clarity and simplicity. IT doesn’t mean it is easy. But it is simple and it is doable.

NOW – I think sometimes people think of thought-work as like an overwhelming brutal thing. And – what I want to say is that thought work doesn’t mean that you sit there and monitor every single thought that goes through your mind. In the beginning – what you want to do is focus on one or two thoughts that you know are getting in the way of your goal.

So, if my goal was weight loss – I could focus on one negative thought that isn’t serving me. And the beautiful thing about the model when you plug the circumstance in and the thought that you are thinking about it in. and the feelings that thought creates and the actions that you take and the results you get. It is a beautiful way to build awareness. And the key here is awareness without judgement or shaming.

So If my circumstance is my current weight which is 150lbs
And my thought about that is: “I’m too fat”
And the feeling that creates is self-loathing.
And the actions I take when I loathe myself are: to overeat and not exercise and beat myself up and you know criticize myself in the mirror
And that creates the result of staying stuck at that weight and not losing any weight.

My job is to look at those thoughts – and look at that model that’s running in the background and have love and have compassion for myself to be able to see with neutrality – right that it is my thought that I’m too fat that is creating the result. And when I really see that is when the power to change arises organically. And this is a process that takes some time. It’s not immediate. Sometimes you have to stay with it. I call it sitting in the shit. Right. To be with ourselves and see the pain that our thoughts are causing – and grieve the way we’ve treated ourselves and have compassion for that pain and let it go. So don’t rush it right. Don’t look at that model and be like oh my god I have to change now! And if you need some support with healing self-judgement and self-loathing then email me at [email protected] and set up a consult and I can help you with that through 1-1 coaching.

I was doing a model with one of my clients in the emotional health membership group and it was a model that was causing her to get a result she wasn’t happy with and she said I know I need to change I’m trying.  And I said – actually, you don’t. I said your work right now – is the awareness – to feel in your body and throughout you how this feels to think that and have compassion for yourself and love yourself and feel the feelings right. We always want to skip to the change. – the action – the result – the outward evidence. But it is the inner-work and the awareness that lasting beautiful changes in our lives okay.

So – what are the new things – the new results you want to create this year?

Is it a new relationship?
Is it body goals?
Is it improving your existing relationships?
Is it learning to love yourself?
Is it ending cycles of codependency?
Is it setting better boundaries?
Is it overall emotional health?
Is it a financial goal – to pay off debt – accumulate more savings?
Is it a goal to change careers or start a business?
Is it a goal to create new friendships?

so – remember on your way to creating those beautiful new results – become aware of your thoughts first – your thoguhts about yourself and your ability to achieve yoru goals. Your thoughts about how capable you are. Your thoughts about change itself.

Our thoughts create our results.
As humans – we have the beautiful ability to think about our thoughts – metacognition. And, we have brains that have the ability ot learn and change – that is neuroplasticity. And so WHATEVER goal – WHATEVER result it is you want – you can have it. You can Create it by healing your thinking and creating new thoughts about yourself.