Unbroken

Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 68 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today with a little announcement. As you possibly saw in the title of this episode, I’ve called it pausing and stepping into quiet. I’m feeling a really strong urge lately to do just that, to pause things, step into the silence, spend a lot of time in quiet. We’re coming into summertime, here on the west coast of Vancouver Island, as I record this, and the days are getting longer and sunnier. And it’s not so much that I want to spend more time in the sun because I’m not really that type of person. But I do just want to spend time in quiet right now. And slow down a little bit and listen for wisdom, really. This episode is a little announcement letting you know that that’s what’s happening. I will keep you posted on any future directions or things that go on. Hopefully I’ll be back in a few weeks or a couple of months or whatever it is however long it lasts. I really feel drawn to just listening to wisdom, listening to my intuition, that kind of thing and following those nudges. So that’s what’s pulling me at this moment. For the next few weeks, I hope you are doing great, doing really well taking good care of yourself. Please remember that we are all always unbroken. Take care, bye. Featured image photo by Jack Church on Unsplash The post Pausing and Stepping Into Quiet appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

As we discuss so often on Unbroken, there is an intelligence and wisdom that, if we allow it to, can guide our lives to interesting and fulfilling places. As with most of us, it took Stephanie Benedetto some time to really listen to this wisdom and to trust that it would support her. When she did, she unlocked a life and a business that flow with ease, even in the challenging moments. Stephanie Benedetto is a transformational business coach, storyteller and (Un)Marketer at The Awakened Business, where she helps transformative coaches, healers and entrepreneurs unleash their heart’s message to create soulmate clients with playful (Un)Marketing — no hustle, or hype of endless social media required. You can find Stephanie Benedetto at TheAwakenedBusiness.com. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Business as a vehicle of creation Giving ourselves permission to create the lives we want Noticing what is alive within us that wants to guide us Following the nudge to make a big life change How we create our worlds based on Thought How the pressures we feel have nothing to do with what’s going on in our lives and everything to do with what’s going on in our heads How discomfort is created when our thoughts look real Paying attention to what we’re listening to How you being you is enough Resources Mentioned in this Episode The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer Transcript of Interview with Stephanie Benedetto Alexandra: Stephanie Benedetto, welcome to Unbroken. Stephanie: Thank you for having me, Alexandra, this is a great pleasure. Alexandra: I’m so pleased to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Stephanie: I have been a pretty much a lifelong entrepreneur. Definitely in my adult life. But as I reflected on my childhood, I used to play games like Office and sell at Mr. Dobbs candy shop. And I used to sell cards and things. I was actually interested in entrepreneurship, even when I was quite young. So I’ve had multiple businesses.  The most notable and successful were we’re a business as a wedding DJ, with my now ex husband for 15 years. And then we transitioned into a digital marketing business, basically, internet marketing. So I used to create courses and a membership online, for other wedding professionals to teach them about business. I’ve been in love with business for a long time.  But my first love is really people. And I love business as a vehicle of creation. It’s a way that people can create the change they’d love to see in the world, they can be of service. That’s what I see business as. And so over the years, I wanted to have deeper impact with people. And that drew me more and more into coaching.  In my prior career, it looked more like consulting, marketing strategy. And I realized that there was something missing from that, for me, that we talked about these great ideas and people that didn’t do them, because they were scared, or they felt insecure. And I saw this also in myself, because in parallel, I was on my own personal development and spiritual journey. I wanted to go deeper for me.  So I hired my first business coach. And then I wanted to do what they were doing. And it took me on this whole journey until I realized, Oh, my goodness.  The business I currently have, which is called The Awakened Business is really meant to support entrepreneurs, who want to share the truth they’ve seen, and the gifts that they have with the world. And do it in a way that really feels good. Because there’s a lot that I was taught when I was studying internet marketing inside of business that maybe we could say is unethical or feels a little weird. And certainly people who are helpers and want to be of service often have a lot of what I could call head trash about selling and marketing. None of that has to be painful or icky, like it can actually be complete joy and totally enjoyable. And so that’s what I help people do now.  As I’ve gone deeper into my journey with the Three Principles have gone from Oh, this is a cool thing to add to all the other spiritual stuff. This was like years ago, I saw no contradiction with neuro linguistic programming and Practical Magic and Access Consciousness and EFT and all the other things that I was doing. I was like, Oh, the Three Principles fits great into this mix. I really care about understanding those principles. I don’t care about explaining it to others. I’d say this to myself until I realized I started talking about three principles with other people.  Then I was like, I want to be a transformative coach. I’m interested in that until I find myself in Michael Neal’s super coach Academy and becoming a certified transformative coach. So I actually think there was a wisdom in it that I was trying not to take it seriously not to try to do it right. I just let the process unfold.  As time has gone on that is more and more, it’s really the foundation of everything that I do, not just in my business, not just with the clients I work with, but to help people to really enjoy their lives and whatever it is they’re creating, through the recognition of what they really are, who they really are, and, and how we work. How we create our experience. And when we’re really at our best, and that we can trust this intelligence that enlivens us. And when that happens, man, building a business is a piece of cake. Alexandra: Oh, that’s great, good news for all the entrepreneurs out there.  How does it look different, trusting our own wisdom, trusting the intelligence that’s flowing through us versus trying to do it all ourselves. Stephanie: Oh, my God, it is so different. I’ve been on this journey myself, for years. And of course, it’s quite natural that I also guide other people on that journey. People don’t see me this way. So often, when I say that, I used to be a total rule follower. They’re like, really? Because such a big part of my message is that you get to do it your way, you get to play the game of business the way you want to play it.  I was really devoted to doing things right. And being a good student and a good girl for much of my life.  I brought that with me into what I learned about business. And so it was doing things the way they were taught to me following the rules, and a lot of that I learned a lot from it. And some of it worked. And some of it didn’t. But at some point, the things that I was supposed to do just didn’t feel quite right. But this was, of course, mirroring what was happening inside of me.  It wasn’t until I was, I think, maybe 38 years old that I asked myself, What do I want to create in my life?  It just hadn’t really occurred to me. Asking that question sent me inward. And I began to discover, like, how do I even know what I want? That was a journey for me in itself. And then I discovered the difference between creating from my intellect, creating from the rules that somebody else gave me or the way I’ve always done it, and how limited it felt, versus those moments when I got quiet. And something would just tell me, and I would just know, to do something. So I don’t think I jumped in all at once.  I read a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, I think about maybe eight or nine years ago now. With it came alive my own surrender experiment, an exploration of what does that mean to surrender? What does that mean to let life show me? What I found and how this looks so different is that I don’t need to figure it out, which is a great relief, because I don’t think I was really that good at it. I mean, I coped well, but I can’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. And I don’t know what’s going to work and what won’t.  I’m not very good at thinking about all things that need to happen. It’s overwhelming, and it’s very stressful. And I’ve realized that I don’t have to. Everyone has an area of their life where they know this, by the way, it might be the one place where they feel like, oh, I can just relax and I’m in flow. So for some people, it’s at work, for some people it’s with their kids. For some people, it’s when they’re out in nature, maybe they do a sport.  That’s available anywhere, including inside of our business. I am still discovering this, by the way, I’m still going deeper on this, that I can go to the source of wisdom inside of me for anything and everything. And in fact, that’s what I’m looking for is what I’m really looking for is there, including the answers about how to grow my business, how to market it, how to move past things that look like they’re stopping me. And of course, the feelings, the well-being and the peace and the happiness that I’m looking for. So that’s how it looks different. I hope I have answered that question.  Alexandra: You have Thank you. I love your analogy about how it does show up for everyone in some area of their life. And sometimes we take that a little bit for granted, I think we think oh well that it’s that one specific thing that I’m good at or relaxed about. And then we don’t realize that we can feel that way, in so many other areas, if not everywhere in our lives.  Before we hit record, we were talking about our intentions for the call. And one of the things I said was that I was interested in your personal story, and you touched on it a little bit already about being a good girl. And following the rules.  On your website, there’s some detail about how you followed your wisdom out of that way of being. Can you tell us a little bit about what that looked like for you? Stephanie: When I started asking myself, what do I want, I realized that I had been making my choices, based on a role that I thought I needed to fill, I had a lot of people pleasing behaviors going on, w

We all have a built-in GPS, a guidance system that never lies and that always has our best interests at heart. We can call that guidance whatever we want – wisdom, intuition, insight, knowing; the name isn’t as important as learning to listen to it. And, as Bonnie Jarvis points out, figuring out how your guiding wisdom speaks to you makes life so much easier. Bonnie Jarvis has a BA in Graphic Design, MS in Computer Science, MA in Spiritual Psychology and has completed several coaching programs. Using the skills she learned over the years, she’s helped many coaches with the technical details of building successful and thriving online businesses. For 9 years, Bonnie worked for 3PGC, a non-profit organization with a mission to share the simplicity of The Three Principles as uncovered by Sydney Banks. She developed all areas needed for their online business to thrive and significantly expand the understanding globally. You can find Bonnie Jarvis at BonnieJarvis.com. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes On being a ‘secret seeker’ Following the breadcrumbs of insight, interest, and synchronicities How the Three Principles explain what is before other philosophies and traditions Having the courage to leap into the unknown based on inner knowing The importance of coming back to the present moment Getting really familiar with how wisdom speaks to you Resources Mentioned in this Episode 3PGC Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode Bonnie and Azul’s monthly free webinar, What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately? Bonnie and Azul’s The Heart of Service program Transcript of Interview with Bonnie Jarvis Alexandra: Bonnie Jarvis, welcome to Unbroken. Bonnie: Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me, Alexandra, I really appreciate being here. Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. I’m so thrilled to talk to you one on one. We’ve been in events together. I think I was trying to recall when that was. I think it was a class with Cathy Casey. That was last year, I think. But anyway, so it’s lovely to talk to you one on one.  Bonnie: I keep seeing your name around the community. So I’m glad that we’re getting this opportunity. Alexandra: Me too. Tell us about your background and how you discovered the Three Principles. Bonnie: Well, like so many people who have come across the Three Principles, I was looking around for a very long time. I know people come to this understanding, or the understanding finds them maybe as a better way of saying it, when people are looking for very different things. For me, my seeking, if you will, started when I was really young.  My dad was in a really horrendous accident when I was four. And this was 1960, giving away my age. I won’t into the details, but he was electrocuted to the point where two silver dollars melted in his pocket and then he fell three stories. And he obviously was given his last rites, no one thought he was going to survive back then. But he did.  And I don’t know, maybe when I was around six or seven, he shared his experience of what happened to him. Now we know of what people call near death experiences. But that term wasn’t even around back then. And I don’t really know what it was he said that impacted me so deeply. But I think the quality of what he was sharing just touched me so deeply, that I knew this physical reality was not all there was, but I didn’t know what else was out there.  I was really young then, I was going to Catholic school, and I learned really quickly to not talk about it in Catholic school, because it was not approved of, and it wasn’t a well known thing. I think that experience made me a secret seeker. I looked at so many different things, I dipped my toes into so many different things once I got out of high school, different religions. I sought out channelers, I did different self help programs that were spiritually oriented. I did a spiritual psychology master’s degree. This was over a period of like, maybe 40 ish years.  In the spiritual psychology program, the organization about 10 years after I graduated from there, they were doing a coaching program. I should say, my other parallel life was that I got a master’s degree in computer science and worked in many corporations. And definitely was a secret seeker through that because it was okay to be in a religion, but everything else was very woowoo. So I really didn’t talk about anything. But I would pop in and out of corporate America jobs at that time in the 80s and 90s. And even early 2000s, it was very easy to leave one job and find another because not a whole lot of people knew a whole lot about technology then. In 2013, I decided that was it. I was leaving corporate America for the last time. It was not where I wanted to be. And one of my very, very close friends became the admissions director of the organization that ran the spiritual psychology program. And she called and said, Well, if you don’t have any plans, which I didn’t, I just knew I didn’t want to continue on the path that I was in Corporate America why don’t you take this coaching program? I was like, okay, I have the time, I have the money, I’ll do it. It turned out to be the best thing ever, because one of the facilitators introduced a little video of someone talking about insight.  At the time, I had to go research everything. So again, it was 2013, there wasn’t a whole lot on the web at the time. But I did manage to track down what the Three Principles were, and it was on a Wikipedia page of all things that I was reading it and, and it just hit me. Like, oh, this is what is before all of those other things that I was looking at, all of those paths that I took, I couldn’t get to the beginning of them, because there was usually a lot of things to do.  And, and so I’d follow something for a year or two and then look for the next thing. I can’t say I understood anything that I was reading, but I just had a knowing. So would you like me to keep going? Alexandra: Yes, please. Bonnie: I was following breadcrumbs really. I kept looking and looking. In 2013, there were some videos, but there wasn’t a whole lot out there. I finally came across that there was a conference going on in St. Paul, Minnesota, like a month later. So I hopped on a plane, and I went to that. And then that led me to meeting the woman who would organize the 3PGC conference. And the woman that was organizing them lived near me. So we got to be friends. Then at the conference, I believe it was there, I learned that Christine Heath, who was one of the original board members for 3PGC and still is on the board, was doing a workshop in Hawaii. And I was like, Oh, I can I can go there. I’m not working now. So I went. I think it was like September, October was the conference. And then November was this workshop. And then I learned about the Pranskys doing the first practitioner retreat in February 2014. Went to that then went to Salt Spring Island.  Then I volunteered to help with the next in person conference that 3PGC was doing and got to know Chris a little bit more. Looking back, it was so much following that little voice that said, yeah, do this next, do this next. But I think when it was happening, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, that’s what I was doing.  I think it was Chris that asked me, maybe this was 2015, they were trying to start a free webinar program. And it was sort of a start and stop. She asked if I’d be interested in volunteering to do that. So I did and and then it went from one a month to two a month and that program is still running. And then the the woman who originally did their newsletters and updated the first website was leaving and and that’s when I actually went to work for 3PGC very part time and learn more about the organization and then had a ton of ideas about what we could do online because that was my background I started to talk with Chris a lot more and with the then president about what else we could do. And finally I think it was 2018 they they said yeah, go ahead and let’s build the new website. And they needed it done by the current for the in person conference in 2019.  I’m kind of telling the story because looking back I feel like my finding the Three Principles and 3PGC when I did was incredible synchronicity. Because once the new website was done and we could we could create a membership site. I think that’s when I started working for them full time for 3PGC full time and started suggesting online programs and that wasn’t really a well known thing at the time.  The board was a bit hesitant because getting the feeling in person was something they just weren’t sure of, if that could be sort of transmitted or really felt across the internet, but we finally said, Yeah, let’s do it. And we were originally shooting for a 48 hour conference, but it turned into like 54 hours of continuously running sessions, which was a lot of work to put together but it turned out to be incredible. People loved it, we had something like three or 400 people participating, people who couldn’t travel to the in person. It truly was a global event, and it was run at time periods where anybody could watch it.  And here’s the synchronicity of it. We ran it the last two days of February and the first day of March of 2020. And then the pandemic. And so we were set, we were all set up the board could see this was a great platform to do things and so we were able to build a practitioner program through and we had maybe four or five incredible programs. Not full on conferences, but programs where people could really participate in. And we were able to to really keep sharing this understanding when everybody had stay at home, basically.  So it was again, looking back, like, while I wa

We all have one: an inner critic. That voice inside our heads that is critical of so much that we do. That voice can become debilitating, if we let it. But when we apply what we know about the Three Principles of innate health, we can teach that voice to take a back seat, where it belongs. And, on a positive note, hearing the inner critic can even become an ally in helping us to practice stepping into a better feeling. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes A neurosurgeon’s explanation for the inner critic A reminder about the purpose an unwanted habit is serving How the feeling that comes with the inner critic alerts us to its falsehood On the possibility of having a different experience at any moment The beautiful feeling that’s always available to us How our thinking can be like the grooves in a record Resources Mentioned in this Episode Mind Magic by Dr. James Doty Transcript of episode Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 65 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the inner critic or that negative voice that can dog us all the time. And this is a subject, particularly close to my heart. I feel like it’s something that I’ve wrestled with for a long time and for a long time, couldn’t see it.  Years ago, it was invisible to me, even though it was going on. And then gradually, I became more and more aware of it, but didn’t know what to do about it. And then I came into this understanding, and I put it off to the side. But it’s come up in my awareness lately. And I’ll tell you a bit more about that in just a moment. I was reading a book recently about brain science, called I think it’s either called Mind Magic or Magic Mind by Dr. James Doty. And one of the things he mentioned in there was, how his approach to our inner critical voice or his understanding of it was really interesting. And it was about the evolutionary process that we’ve gone through, and how our brains are wired to look for danger. Given the society that we live in now and how generally safe we are – I hope I can say that about you – that the part of our brain that’s looking out for danger, even looks out for it in our own behavior. So it’s able to be critical of us, or it believes it’s being critical of us, in order to serve a purpose in order to keep us safe.  I probably haven’t explained that, as well as he did in the book. But it got me thinking about the negative voice, the inner critic, that so many of us hear, and maybe don’t hear, that’s maybe silent. I find it at times just kind of running behind whatever else is going on, in my mind, and I’ll talk about in a minute how that doesn’t actually matter if we can’t specifically hear what it’s saying. So that’s some of the good news.  Let’s jump in and talk about this. The reason I wanted to bring it up was that, in the past, we’ve talked about how unwanted habits are working in our favor, even though it might not look like they are. They are a solution, not a problem. And one of the metaphors I use is that unwanted habits are like the valve on the top of a pressure cooker.  The habit itself lets off a bit of the pressure of what’s in the pressure cooker.  So this got me thinking about how that inner critic, that negative voice is contributing to the load of what’s in the pressure cooker, it’s contributing to all the stirred up thinking that’s in there, and not in a good way. It’s adding to the pressure that’s in the pressure cooker. And so that means that in a way I think it would help for all of us to look at that kind of negative thinking specifically, and learn how to deal with it, learn how to resolve it. And so that’s what we’re talking about.  Today, I’ve got three tips for helping you to deal with your inner critic. I’ve been experimenting with the tips I’m going to share for the last couple of weeks, and it really feels good. I’m really really enjoying it. It has opened up a space of a good feeling within me. It has taught me at a new level to not take my thinking so seriously, which I really really appreciate. And like I say I just feel this a greater sense of tenderness or compassion, kindness for myself since I’ve been practicing these things, and so of course, that feels really good. So let’s talk about the first tip that I’ve got for dealing with your inner critic.  The first one is pretty easy, and it’s something you’ve probably been looking at a little bit already. And that is to know that: The thinking that we have going on in our minds is not the truth with a capital T.  Thought, of course is like energy, and it’s moving through us all the time. And it is not the absolute truth, even when it looks like it is. So let’s take an example of you are walking along one day and you trip and fall. And there are so many ways that you can react to that situation. In the past, one of the ways that I’ve reacted to any kind of accidental thing that I do – I drop a bottle and it breaks or I trip and fall or the other day, I bumped my hand on a kitchen cabinet knob, and it’s quite sore – my inner critic really flares up in situations like that. So it really takes a hold, and beats me up and it takes the opportunity at that time to tell me that I’m clumsy, or I should have watched more carefully what I was doing, it really does beat me up a little bit in situations like that. And that’s been a historical pattern.  What I found is that as I’ve been using these three tips that I’m going to talk about, it’s actually been fairly easy to break that habit, given what I see now and what I hope to share with you. So we trip and fall, there’s a lot of negative talk in our heads and whatever that looks like. And so the first thing we can realize is that all that thinking that’s going on, it feels so real. And it feels so true. And it’s so easy for us to live in, in the illusion that everything we think is true, and real. And it isn’t.  How our thinking reacts to a situation like that, when we’re being hard on ourselves, is probably based on historically the way we’ve treated ourselves, and probably the way that we’ve heard other people treat us or treat themselves as well, growing up. What we can recognize, and we’re going to dive into this more in a future tip is that whatever the inner critic is saying in that moment, there are so many other possibilities for what could be true.  So to stay with this example, if I tripped and fell on the inner critic told me, or was beating me up, because it was saying I should have been paying more attention. And that’s kind of the one note that it’s playing on, just by understanding that that thinking isn’t that the truth with a capital T is really helpful.  What can be more helpful to seeing that there’s all kinds of other things that might be true in that moment, as well.  Maybe there was a little uneven spot in the sidewalk and that’s why I fell. Maybe I was getting out of the way, I tried to be kind to someone and just kind of caught my foot. Maybe my shoes are too big. There’s all kinds of reasons that that particular circumstance that could have happened, which simply points out to us that whatever the noise is, the critical, negative noise that’s going on in our heads that’s not the absolute truth with a capital T.  And again, I say, Yes, it does feel like that. And yes, it’s so easy for us to be completely wedded to that thinking and to imagine that everything we think is true. But looking in this direction, about what other possibilities are available to us, is really helpful, especially in this case of dealing with our negative thinking. So that’s tip number one. Remember, you know as often as you can, that the critical noisy thinking in your head isn’t necessarily the truth with a capital T.  The second tip is that the feeling that you have, when that negative or critical thinking is going on, is telling you that it’s not the truth.  So, in other words, we don’t need to turn this into a situation where we’re monitoring our thoughts all the time, and trying to catch them all. Because that actually will take us in the wrong direction. We will add more thought, more pressure into the pressure cooker. So we can let that go. We don’t need to manage and monitor every thought that’s happening.  Our design is built so that it lets us know when our thinking is critical.  The way that we feel when that happens is the alarm bell, or the barometric reading, however you want to call it, it’s the thing that’s going to let us know. And sometimes we can skate past that, especially if we’re used to a lot of critical thinking, and used to the inner critic. And yet, what we can do, as we gradually begin to notice this happening, the feeling that we’re having, and the fact that the feeling is alerting us to the fact that we’re having some negative thinking, it becomes a habit it becomes it becomes a habit in itself.  It becomes automatic to notice what’s going on.  I’ll give you one specific example. I experience a lot of urgency when my inner critic is really flared up. I notice that urgency pretty quickly. So I feel that in my body, I feel it in my solar plexus, like there’s a tightness, there’s a clenched feeling. And then I kind of feel it in my I would say, my chest and my shoulders that I need to, yeah, there’s just this impulse inside me, it’s almost like it’s telling me to run. And what it’s telling me is to go faster, to do more.  I know that that comes from a habit that I picked up. So as soon as I feel that feeling I can be sure that I’ve got some thinking going on, that’s not serving me that the inner critic has flared up. And those feelings in my body will always tell me the truth about what’s going on in my head.  If we’re thinking it, we’re feeling it.  When that happens, I can go back to tip number one, and thin

When it comes to our mental well-being and our physical health it can be so easy to look outspide ourselves for answers. Ellen Friedman takes a different approach; she guides her clients inward to connect with the innate wisdom and wellness that is already there. Ellen Friedman guides people home to the sacred space within, where they shift their relationship with themselves, their health, and others. She partners with people who are curious to explore a simple path to wholeness through the inside out nature of life. In addition to having a Master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology with an emphasis in Consciousness Health and Healing, Ellen has a Certificate in Soul-Centered Professional Coaching, and she shares the Three Principles understanding. Her journey has been blessed coaching nearly 1000 divine beings using a human experience to remember who they truly are. You can find Ellen Friedman at HealingHouseCalls.com. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Seeing the whole person when it comes to healing Noticing how health improves when our nervous system is downregulated Ellen’s personal discoveries experiencing chronic fatigue How mental busyness affects our physical health How fatigue can be a signal that there is pressure on our mental system Are you the source of your energy? How our feelings are a barometer for what’s going on within us Resources Mentioned in this Episode Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple Mavis Karn’s Unbroken podcast episode Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode Transcript of Interview with Ellen Friedman Alexandra: Ellen Friedman, welcome to Unbroken. Ellen: I’m so happy to be here with you, Alexandra. Alexandra: I’m so happy to have you here.  Tell our audience a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got interested in the three principles. Ellen: I’m always amused where that story begins every time. I was happily minding my own business, enjoying my career as a physical therapist, when the knock on the door to coach came in 2011. And I was like but I love what I do. I thought you had to be miserable to do something else.  Then I started feeling miserable by not following that. I got in my car one day after seeing a patient and I was like, almost without logic, and I said, Okay, I heard you, I’m coming back. So I began coaching in 2011.  Then, in 2013, in a coach training program, one of the instructors introduced a video on the inside out understanding of stress. At that time, it was a really old video. And I remember the feeling inside me, I can like, remember the chair I was sitting in. I remember the feeling. And then I also remember my personal mind going, Oh, but we’ve got techniques and tools and things to do with people. Alexandra: Moving forward from there was it difficult to get your head around the idea of no tools and techniques? Ellen: I’m not sure because what was more difficult was trying to intellectually figure out what this understanding was. I spent a long time reasoning with what I was learning, comparing it to what I had already known. Seeing where it fit in, seeing where things didn’t fit in. And at that time, at that time, there were so many free opportunities to learn. I mean, there are today, but there were so many opportunities, and you and I could participate in almost all of them. And, there were also many wonderful paid opportunities and workshops and trainings. And, and you didn’t have to choose because there weren’t the abundance that there is today. Alexandra: So this was around 2011 or 2012? Ellen: 2013 was when I first heard that, and then it stayed on the back burner until 2016. But Alexandra, I am so clear that it doesn’t matter how many years you’ve been looking in this direction or exploring the principles because we we all see what we see when we see it. And don’t you love it with when clients just see something that you don’t see? I mean, it’s so fun. Alexandra: Absolutely. Insight doesn’t really have a timeline, does it? I mean, it can happen anytime.  You mentioned being a physiotherapist.  You had an interest in healing, and helping people. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And where that began to if you know. Ellen: Where was the interest in physical therapy health? Alexandra: Well, yeah, healing and those kinds of things. Ellen: I didn’t have any exposure to physical therapy, personally or for family members. So I don’t remember exactly how I landed on it other than healthcare seemed kind of interesting. But nursing didn’t and going to medical school I had no drawn to. The allied health professions sounded fun and interesting and had a couple of opportunities to work as an aide and, and I was like, Okay, I’m going to do this. And so I went to physical therapy school. And different circumstances in school led me down the path of wanting to work with people who had chronic neurologic or new neurologic conditions. So that was a specialty for me right out right out the gates.  What I really loved about that is, you kind of had to look at the whole person; when someone has an injured back or an injured wrist or an injured knee or have had surgery, it can be very easy to be focused on the body part or the joint. But looking back, I was interested in the whole person. And I remember right out of physical therapy school, I had two patients, both of them had very similar strokes, their MRIs looked similar. And they had completely different outcomes. And I was so fascinated by that. Alexandra: Oh, that is really interesting. Wow, that is so cool. So transitioning then, I noticed on your blog, you have a post about rest and its importance. I think our culture is so not wired that way. Rest is almost a four letter word.  Can you talk about rest and its importance, and why you recommend it to your clients. Ellen: I recommend it because it works. Well, there’s so many different things that come to come to mind now. I literally was witnessing miracles or what looked like miracles in the people that I was working with, who had multiple sclerosis, ALS, stroke, brain injury, I worked with a lot of people who survived traumatic brain injury.  When their nervous system was downregulated, they did better, they had less pain, they had less more mobility. And so it just began to make sense to explore that with people and let them figure out what works for them. I worked with a lot of people with MS because I actually trained in a hospital where every patient in the hospital had multiple sclerosis; it was wild that that even existed.  This was before there were any medications to help people with their symptoms. I would notice that almost every one of my patients would be busy doing everything they could before they hit the wall of fatigue, and then they say things like, that’s all I can do for the day or, or I’m okay till noon around them okay till two o’clock.  I won’t get into the details of story, but I’m happy to share it with anyone who who inquires, a patient suddenly went from requiring rest at four hours after she woke up to eight hours. Increasing endurance from four to eight hours seemed impossible. People were taking medications to try and do that. And that wasn’t happening to them while helping.  I noticed that she and what a big part of her treatment program was, was relaxation exercises, and what I call down regulating the nervous system. Rest is the simplest form. Well, maybe not this one of the simple forms of of down regulating the nervous system. I think taking a long, deep exhale is also a very simple way and learning to rest before full exhaustion is so important for all of us neurologic condition or not. Alexandra: Do you meet resistance when you suggest this now to clients? Ellen: Well, I’m just going to explore your question a little bit more because I don’t really think that I suggest it to people. I explore with them what happens when they do. What happens when they don’t? I share stories and then they kind of come up with Well, maybe I could try that.  Now, as a physical therapist, I did recall having resistance. No, I can’t, I have to get everything done before noon, because I’m not good after that. And this other clients, she was like, Oh, I’m good to one now. Oh, I’m good till a couple of weeks later, oh, I’m good till two o’clock, oh, I’m good till three o’clock.  She goes, oh, I never have energy after four. And I said, Really, even after what’s happened? Oh, I can’t. Because if I have energy after four o’clock, then I have to make dinner and I don’t ever want to make dinner for the rest of my life. And I said, I can’t help you with, I can’t help you have energy after four, if that’s what it means to you. But maybe it could mean something else. That’s what I said, maybe it means something else. So the suggestion would come in the form of stories and explorations and experiments I love. I love the idea of experimenting. Because you can’t get it wrong in an experiment. Alexandra: Say more about what that looks like. Ellen: It could look like we’ll just experiment with resting and not sleeping, or just experiment with tuning into your body. What would it look like to go to the gas station and fill your car before the red lights going put more fuel in me? If you fill up a gas tank in a car, when it’s half full, or half empty, whichever, whichever you see it, then it takes less time to fill up the tank. And so when you rest, you are down regulating the nervous system. And there’s so many different ways to do that. It takes less time. We can even experiment in a session with you know, I have a lot of people that used to measure their fatigue, and I’m like, Let’s measure energy instead. Alexandra: So in other words, on a scale of one to 10, this is ho

We usually think of stress as coming from the circumstances that surround us: busy jobs, busy lives, difficult bosses or clients. But what if stress has another origin? What if it comes from the thinking we have in any given situation? Clare Downham is the dedicated mentor you need on your unique journey to unlock your innate potential and cultivate a thriving business aligned with your true purpose. As a certified ILM Success Mentor, she specialises in guiding emerging and established female entrepreneurs to embrace their innate mindfulness and harness it as a powerful tool for success. With a deep understanding of the inside-out nature of our human experience, Clare expertly navigates the complexities of the entrepreneurial journey, helping women to silence the inner critic, dissolve self-doubt and cultivate a strong sense of intuition and self-trust. You can find Clare Downham at ClareDownham.com and on Insight Timer at claredownham. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes On what happens when we ignore warning signs from our bodies The false messages business owners receive about having to be ‘on’ and ‘up’ all the time How motivation ebbs and flows naturally and there’s nothing wrong when we’re at a low ebb On the cyclical nature of levels of personal energy How some of our best ideas come during down or quiet times How we believe we need to be busy all the time and that resting is ‘lazy’ How we so often try to be in a different feeling state than the one we’re naturally in On overwhelm and its one cause How being in the present moment starves stress of the oxygen it needs Resources Mentioned in this Episode Insight Timer Transcript of Interview with Clare Downham Alexandra: Clare Downham, welcome to Unbroken. Clare: Hello. Lovely to be here. Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. It’s lovely to see you.  Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Clare: I was a primary school head teacher. So our primary school in the UK is aged three to 11. I was in primary education for 20 years. And the last five or so I was a head teacher to two different schools. And I became very stressed, although I didn’t know I was stressed at all, I didn’t have a clue.  I knew there were things wrong with me. But I thought those things were what was wrong with me rather than stress as the underlying cause. One day I went into work, fully intending to start my working day and I took one look at my computer. And it was like, it was like I was frozen. It was like, my body just finally went, “No, no more, let’s go, let’s leave.”  I literally did walk out of work. And I never went back in the end. Didn’t know I wasn’t going to go back. I thought it was going to have a nap, and have a little rest for a couple of weeks and then go back. But that’s not what happened.  I was initially diagnosed with depression, because I was burnt out. And it looks very similar. Because all your motivation is gone. You can’t get out of bed, you can’t really do anything. But all the way through they were saying it was depression, I kept thinking I don’t feel depressed, I’m not really in a low mood, I’ve just got no energy, it was like it had been syringed out of me.  It was a messy year. I didn’t work for a year, I was off sick for a year. And through a vast part of that it was all depression, depression, it’s depression. So obviously I was taking tablets, I was trying all sorts of things to cure myself with depression. And it was only really much later on in that journey that I realized that I burnt out and realized actually how stressed I’d been and how, as I learned about stress, how my body had been screaming the warning signs at me. But I had just ignored them or not known they were there.  I didn’t deliberately ignore them, I just didn’t know they were there. I didn’t know that’s what they were telling me. So a year went by, and eventually my governing body and the people I was working for needed to know when I was going to come back. And I just didn’t know. I couldn’t give them an answer because I was still not brilliant. And so in the end, I had to resign.  I resigned on the first of April. April fool. I think it’s quite funny that I resigned the first of April, and then didn’t know what I was going to do. Obviously at that point, apart from just, it felt like a massive, I actually got a lot better once that weight had been almost like my thinking. Now I know my thinking about going back to work was really not helping my recovery. So I didn’t know what I was going to do.  Then I got a random email 10 days afterwards which invited me to train to be a hypnotherapist. This is in 2016 I resigned. And so I thought, well, I’m interested in that  thing. I had had a bit of hypnotherapy, and it helped a bit. And I thought, You know what, I’m going to go and I’m going to go and do hypnotherapy. So that’s what I did. Not really with the intention of starting a business just, well, it’s something to do you know, something to learn, something new, I’m always interested in learning new things. And it was only like partway through the course. Well, near the end of the course, when they started to say they started talking about clients, they started talking about business, started talking about marketing, Facebook, all these things and only think about in terms of business.  It seemed I was starting a business completely by accident. That’s my first accidental business. I didn’t say it was a first accidental business. So I started this business and I guess it was probably about the autumn of 2016 when I started going networking and things like that. I started to go to these networking events where they would have somebody do a little 20 minute presentation. And a lot of them were  self development and there was a lot of messaging around, “You have to have all these big goals and you’ve got to have a plan. You got to have like a 12 week year plan, you got to have a three year massive or a five year plan and you’ve got to stick to these plans.” She was scheduling your day and there was all this stuff about time management about managing tasks.  What I  picked up from that, and wrongly held maybe, the business world seems to think this is right was that motivation wise I was supposed to be a straight line. Never fluctuating, never changing, just be motivated all the time supposed to get up every day and just smash through everything, and hustle and if I didn’t do that I was going to be a failure as a business owner.  As a result of that, I get into all these different self development things. So I’m reading books and listen to podcasts, I’m going on endless courses. And then I’m doing all the therapeutic look into the past. What’s wrong with Clare? When did she become broken? Was it as a child and those sorts of things? Counseling more, obviously, that was a hypnotherapist plenty hypnotherapist I could tap into, I was just trying so hard. Oh, Miracle Morning, every day, get up, do this  ritual in order to make yourself be okay.  That went on for about three and a half years. Now when I say that to a lot of people to go, Oh, God, I was like, for 20 years or whatever. So actually, I think three and a half years, I was very fortunate. It was only three and a half years I was like that. Then in January 2020 I can only say a miracle happened really. And again, I don’t know miracles, accidents, luck, whatever you want to call it. So a friend of mine, Peter, had just finished his training with Michael Neill. He had just done the Super Coach Academy. And he just put a post on Facebook saying, I just need some people to sort of practice on to finish my qualification off. And I was like, Oh, you can fix me then. Come on, put my hand up. Like, come on. Let me come.  I went to his office. He doesn’t live far from me. I cried through the entire first session. I can’t even remember what he said to me. Only I remember him drawing a stick person. We’d like a lot of squiggles above its head. And I’ve seen Michael Neill and other teachers draw that picture since. I remember that but I don’t remember much else other than I cried and cried and cried. There was so much frustration that I’d done all this stuff. I’ve done everything the blinking gurus have told me to do and I still wasn’t motivated all the time.  That was the starting point. I had some coaching with him. I then started to really listen to Michael Neill’s stuff first of all, I guess. He was my route in. Then lockdown came along. And my in person hypnotherapy business went poof. There it was gone, literally overnight. But actually, that was really fortuitous in the end, because I didn’t really want to do hypnotherapy anymore, anyway.  That opened up quite a lot of space for me to look in this direction. And trained then with Jules and Rudy Kennard. My fiance and I were in the last cohort of people doing pure Three Principles stuff, they’ve moved on to something a bit more multi dimensional, shall we say since then. Everything changed. Then my business began to be more about that. Nothing looks the same as how it did, particularly other people. They used to be really annoying. There are a lot of synonyms. That’s really good. My main thing was ranting about other people in their behavior and wanting other people to be different. Yeah, that’s gone. And life just looks a lot more easy.  So that’s how I came across it. And since then I’ve stayed in the conversation, is what they say, don’t they? I’ve explored lots of different teachers, done bits and pieces of all sorts of different things. Listen to a lot of podcasts. And at the moment, Amy Johnson and Clare Dimond seem to be my main people that I’m  connecting to. I’ve loved it. It’s

Old-paradigm psychology can try to convince us that unwanted habits are caused by a need to feel loved or safe or cared for. It can feel like we’re using food, or other substances, to soothe or comfort ourselves. In this podcast episode we bust this myth and look toward the true origin of unwanted habits. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Are you interested in connecting with others who are exploring this understanding? Would you like some coaching and ongoing support with an eye toward resolving an unwanted habit? Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist. Show Notes The five reasons an unwanted habit has nothing to do with replacing love Does it matter where our painful thoughts about food originate? On the fluidity of thought and how it can change, morph and disappear How the feeling connected to a thought is going to tell us if it’s the truth or a lie How it’s not on us to change, manage or control our thoughts How we are not in control of the timeline of when things change Transcript of episode Hello Explorers and welcome to episode 62 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the really common myth that when we have an unwanted habit where we’re using that habit to replace love that we might feel that we are missing.  So in other words, as it said on the title card for this episode, is food really love? Or is that a myth? I’m going to tell you why I think it’s a myth. Before I say that, I should say that I think it makes sense that we came to that conclusion. And I know for me, I spent years and years trying to love myself in a way that would cause my unwanted overeating habit to disappear. And none of what I tried worked. I tried things like journaling, affirmations, radical self-compassion. What else was in that arena of loving ourselves? Cognitive behavioral therapy. I took a course I’ve talked about this before. And it was all about creating a loving feeling within ourselves. In order that our overeating habit would drop away. And none of that worked.  I’m going to talk about that today and about what I see now, when we have the thought that we’re using a substance like food to try to replace love within ourselves. Before we get into that, I want to quickly have a reminder here, that if you haven’t done so already, you can sign up for the waitlist for the Unbroken community. The address for that is AlexandraAmor.com/community. And there’s lots of information there on that page.  The community will be launching later this year in 2024. And we will be having some live coaching in the community, we’ll have an online group, we’ll have a couple calls a month live with me. And as I say, all the details are there on that page, AlexandraAmor.com/community.  Okay, so let’s get into this subject of whether or not food is love. Are we are using something like food and overeating to replace love that we believe is missing within us? The reason I’m talking about this today is that I had another coaching session with Tania Elfersy recently, and you may have listened to the episode, number 53, where Tania coached me. And so we’ve gotten together another couple of times since then.  Today, we had a conversation about this thought and feeling that I have when I’m putting food on my plate, specifically at supper time. And the thought that I have is, there’s not enough. We talked about that, and what that meant, what that thought means for me. It felt as I explained to Tania, it felt like it was saying to me that I wasn’t loved enough, that that feeling of there’s never enough I’m sort of transferring it to food, but the food represents love that might be absent in my life or had been in the past.  We talked about where that thought might have originated. And I can see that there was a time in my life when that thought probably came into being and how we innocently can assume or conclude that because of the circumstances that we’ve experienced in the past, and that we now have an unwanted habit like overeating that we are substituting one thing for another. That’s where the myth comes in that we are using food as a substitute for love.  I want to share the five things that Tania and I talked about, and explore this a little bit more and hopefully help you see what Tania has helped me to see. And what I’ve seen, during my exploration of the, the understanding that we’re exploring here are the three principles.  The first thing that I want to share is that connected to what I’ve just explained about this idea that we’re substituting food and love is that where that thought and feeling originated doesn’t really matter.  What really matters in this exploration is that we see it as thought. So that’s what seems to really create change, at least, it has done in my experience. And what I mean by that is, in the old paradigm of psychology, the outside in paradigm, if I had been coaching with Tania today, in that old paradigm, what we would have done is gone back to potentially where that thought originated. And then we would have dived into the feelings around when that thought originated, and the circumstances and the places perhaps where I felt an absence of love.  And we would have dug up a lot of the painful emotions around that, and all that kind of thing. And Sydney Banks often talked about how digging into the past to him didn’t make a lot of sense. And it was for that exact reason that digging into the past brings up all these feelings within us.  Now having said that, what I’m not implying is that we need to just bypass our past experience at all. That’s not the intention here. But what I do want to encourage you to see or to try to see is that when we’re having a thought about overeating or about a certain food, I really want you to notice that it is a thought. It’s not something written in stone, it’s not a pronouncement that’s come from someone that you can trust and believe that it’s the absolute truth.  We’re going to talk about the truth; where you can see that what that thought is bringing is not truth. I’ll talk about how you can tell that a thought like that isn’t true, that’s coming up in one of the points I want to make later. Initially, I invite you to see when you have a feeling or a thought that’s similar to the one that I’ve described, the first step really would be to see it simply as a thought. It’s creating feelings within you that thought; we can always tell what we’re thinking by the feelings that we’re having. And for me, this situation happens at the same time, this thought and feeling so the thought is there’s not enough food on my plate. And the feeling is one of a little bit of fear, a little bit of desperation, a little bit of panic, that kind of thing. Very light. It’s not huge, but it’s definitely there.  I invite you to notice in a situation like that, that what you’re experiencing is thought.  The second thing I want to talk about is an experience from the past. And what I really was able to see today in my conversation with Tania. If you’ve read one of my books, the one called It’s Not About The Food, in that book, I talk about the soda habit that I had, that I’d had for like 30 years, and how when I began to explore this understanding, that habit fell away. And what I saw today was that in the past, before that habit fell away, I felt a very similar feeling about that soda that I would have every day at lunchtime. That feeling was I need this thing, it’s a treat for me, I’m giving myself a lot of care and love by having this treat every day at lunchtime. And before I started exploring the principles, anytime I tried to let go of that habit, those feelings would rear their heads and become really tricky for me to navigate. And I was not able to do it until I came to this understanding. I quit that habit probably hundreds of times in those 30 years. But I always picked it up again, because those strong feelings of that need for love that I had projected onto the can of soda would overtake me, and I would fall back into the habit.  What I saw today, which was really fascinating was that, since that habit has dropped away, I don’t feel any less loved. In other words, the love that I feel in my life, from family, from friends from the universe, from myself, hasn’t changed at all. It hasn’t diminished at all, because I don’t have that soda habit any longer. And when I realized that as I was having the conversation with Tania, what I saw was that the nature of that thought was not true. Therefore it wasn’t telling me any bit of truth.  Now, it felt true. In the moment, for those all those years that I had that habit, absolutely, it felt true. It felt like if I don’t have this thing, I won’t feel as nurtured, I won’t feel like I’m having a treat, I will feel bereft, I will feel a sense of loss. And I would feel deprived those kinds of feelings. And so like I say, what I saw today was that that wasn’t true, because that didn’t happen when the habit fell away. I feel just as loved now as I did when I was experiencing that habit.  That also points to the idea that that habit was created by thought. And it wasn’t a truth at all. It felt like a truth, but it wasn’t. So that was the second thing that I want to share.  One other thing as well about that, that Tania pointed out was, what this also points to is the fluid nature of our thinking of thought, and our attachment to things and how fluid that can be as well. When we think of our thinking as being much more solid and real, and therefore dangerous in that way, of course it can be really hard to shift these habits that we have, these unwanted habits because the thinking that surrounds them feels so real. And what this example pointed out to both Tania and I, th

As a long-time coach, and before that an HR professional, Dominic Scaffidi points his clients back toward an awareness of their innate wisdom and ability to thrive effortlessly. He reminds us that we are always more than our human minds can grasp. As a Master Certified Coach (MCC) credentialed with the International Coaching Federation (ICF) Dominic works with leaders, teams, entrepreneurs and individuals to achieve professional and personal aspirations. He points clients to a realization of who they really are as they focus on creating what they most desire in life. Dominic is a Registered 3 Principles Practitioner who is grounded in the teaching of Sydney Banks. You can find Dominic at DominicScaffidi.com and on Facebook. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes On the overlap between the Law of Attraction and the Three Principles Being willing to sit in paradox and wait for clarity On the innate intelligence that flows through every living thing Our human ability to resist that intelligence with our thinking Manifesting: Allowing ourselves to perceive what already exists Following a good feeling toward what wants to be Your wisdom is always in a beautiful feeling How our feelings are always indicating what we’re thinking Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Neill’s TedX Talk Why aren’t we awesomer? Transcript of Interview with Dominic Scaffidi Alexandra: Dominick Scaffidi, welcome to Unbroken. Dominic: Thank you, thanks for the invitation. I’m really looking forward to our conversation. Alexandra: Me too. I’ve never spoken to you one on one. So this will be fun.  Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Dominic: I’ve been self-employed as a coach, executive coach, mostly. I deal with leaders and organizations like that. And I’ve been self-employed for about 15 years. Prior to that, tt was a corporate career that I had in very large organizations. The last corporate role that I held was a VP of HR position. And so that’s kind of a bit of that.  My career has continually moved to more and more reflection of what I’m interested in, my passion. So that kind of relates to the Three Principles, in that my purpose in life, I say, is to awaken greatness. Maybe you could say it as to reveal greatness, to reveal what’s within us. And so that’s a link to what appealed to me about the Three Principles.  Maybe seven or eight years ago, I came across the Principles and the teachings of Sydney banks, and they immediately resonated as this is true, this is pure truth. What he was pointing to, it was just obvious, it was obvious that this is just true. And so I became really interested in delving into that into that understanding, which is a deeper understanding of who I really am, my true nature and the nature of reality.  And of course, in my coaching, when I’m working with people it’s really about helping us to look more deeply into who we really are, our true nature and the nature of reality. The more we come to see and understand that, the more I’m going to say, all problems disappear. I mean, that’s just the way it is. Alexandra: Oh, I love that. And so a follow up question, then.  Do you remember how you came across the Three Principles?  Dominic: I’m a student of many teachings. And one teaching in particular are the teachings of Abraham Hicks. I was follower for many years. And that teaching focuses very similarly on we are consciousness and energy, like so it’s very similar.  I like to say that from that teaching, and teachers, the Law of Attraction, I say that I attracted the Three Principles. And so this and why I attracted them was because it was necessary to my misunderstanding of the teachings of Abraham Hicks. It had been incredibly useful for me. Much of my understanding had contributed enormously to my own thriving professionally, to my business.  I built my business following a corporate career in a way that I would say is effortless. I’ve never participated in business development and trying to get business. Because around the beginning of my self employment, I had come across Abraham Hicks. And I realized, wow, this is, I mean, it would be crazy if it worked. But if you could simply be in that state that is resonant with what you want, what you want, must come to you. And that just didn’t sound very corporate or real. But it works.  It actually works. It’s actually what happens, because it’s an accurate description of how everything we experience comes to us. So it was very impactful. And then there came some point where I needed to go further than this, to see it more deeply. And there were many misunderstandings I had of what was being taught. And the thing about the Three Principles, you’ll agree is it is so rigorous. It is so rigorous.  Even simple things like, well, you don’t need any practices. It’s so rigorous, right? It’s like, well, there’s nothing to do. It’s all about an understanding. And that part I didn’t understand or hear as clearly with Abraham Hicks. Although after I come across the principles, I would go back and say, Oh, my God, they were saying the same thing, that they’ve been saying the same thing. I couldn’t hear it, I was interpreted in my own way.  Following the Principles, it sort of cleared up, where I was a bit off around all this. And it just took it much deeper. So I say I attracted it. And the way I attracted it is I think I was on YouTube, I was listening to some Abraham Hicks stuff. And then what pops up is Michael Neill, and his TED talk, Why Aren’t We Awesome?  I’m like, Who is this guy? What is this? And then I just became intrigued on what’s he talking about. I’ve never heard of Sydney Banks. And that, of course, is the rabbit hole. Once you get a bit of a taste of that, it’s clearly it’s like, wow, this is true. This is powerful. Yeah. Alexandra: A couple of things I want to ask then is: Are there any places where you see that the Law of Attraction and the Principles don’t agree? Have you ever encountered that? Dominic: They disagree or are in conflict in my misunderstanding of one or the other teacher, not one or the other teaching. I misunderstand what Syd was saying, I will see a conflict with Abraham Hicks. And anywhere I misunderstand what Abraham Hicks is saying, is conflicting with my understanding of Sydney Banks, just as it does with teachings of non duality, just as it does with any other teaching.  All conflict is not inherent in what the teaching is pointing to. Every conflict reveals my own misunderstanding of one teaching or the other. So where you see a conflict, it’s a beautiful thing and look in the mirror and see what it is that you misunderstand these teachings, what they point to, are not to what is right or wrong about anything, because what they teach is beyond what is right or wrong is to the essence of what is expressed. They are expressed in words and words are interpreted, and where you interpret incorrectly, then you will arise in conflict. And then you will see wow, that one is wrong. Well, it is wrong according to your misunderstanding. Absolutely. It is. So you might want to clear that up. Alexandra: When that happens, what do you do or what have you done? Dominic: What I’ve learned to do, because it was interesting, because when I came across the Principles, I wanted to talk about what I saw was the same. I wanted to talk about different ways that and quite frankly, in Three Principles communities it was more of a reaction of, oh, no, you don’t need all that. Well, I’m not looking for what I need, I’m looking to understand something. But you don’t need that, this is all you need. But I don’t need any of it. What each of them will do is deepen my understanding. All teachings are simply a story, right? What’s valuable about them is what’s actually true that the essence from which they come. So most people were because eventually I came across lots of people in the Three Principles communities, who had been following Abraham Hicks or followed other teachings. And in almost every case, every one of them had said, Oh, I used to follow them until I discovered this. This is right, that’s wrong. I noticed this as a pattern with most people within Three P. “Oh, I used to do NLP. Then I realized that was all wrong. And now I do this. I used to follow this other thing. And now I follow this.”  I’m like, wait a minute. So you come across this thing and you take a vote and you say this one is better, and that one’s obviously wrong and I toss it aside and I now go forward with this. I almost went that way. And I almost did because I’m kinda like wait a minute, but this one so obviously true. And I’m not sure why. But somewhere in the middle of it, I’m like, but I keep going back to listen here. I keep going. What’s that about? Because why would you go back and listen, if it doesn’t resonate as true?  I keep going back to listen, and the more I listened, the more I’m like, Yeah, this is true. And then I noticed something curious. I noticed. Wow. In fact, this is saying the same thing as what Syd is saying. I never heard that in this teaching before. I always thought this was saying this other thing, right?  What I discovered out of this is that if you can sit in a paradox, or a bit of a dilemma of this seems contradictory to me. Oh, well, I guess I’m missing something. And just leave it alone. Right. Over time, what happened is I’d suddenly go, Oh, my God, I think I know what they’re saying.  And all of a sudden, something would pop up and you’d go, oh, that’s what this means. And so you would see something deeper. But if you’re there, and you kind of go, oh, well, that’s obviously wrong and this is right. You walk away with more reinforcement of your own

So often we demonize our bad habits. But what if those habits are working to bring us messages about our perfect human design? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist. Show Notes Your unwanted habit is not a problem The good feeling our habits point us toward How we are designed to return to a state of calm and quiet How understanding the nature of thought resolves habits The gift of knowing where our experience is coming from Transcript of Episode When we have an unwanted habit like overeating it can feel like there’s something broken about us. Our culture tends to shame those with unwanted habits and it is widely assumed that there is something wrong with anyone who struggles with them. Judgments, including self-judgments, are made about a perceived lack of discipline or lack of self-care.  But what if an unwanted habit like overeating was a sign of all that’s right with you, not with something that’s wrong? What if your unwanted habit is a solution, not a problem? For decades, we’ve been approaching unwanted habits as though they are the enemy. How’s that working for us? Not well, I’d say. We only have to look at the rising statistics about obesity or drug and alcohol addiction to see that this seems to be a battle we’re losing. Badly. In this course, I’d like to explore turning our attitude toward unwanted habits on its head. It’s so easy to misunderstand what an unwanted habit is trying to tell us, so we’ll explore the messages habits are trying to send us and how our unwanted habits are actually a perfect part of our innate design. If that sounds absurd or ridiculous, consider that until very recently we thought we had only five senses. Scientists now identify more than 20. Things look true until we are presented with an alternative. I’m Alexandra Amor and I’m an author, a podcaster, and someone who’s searched for answers about my own unwanted overeating habit for the past three decades. Name a strategy for resolving a habit and I’ve tried it. Nothing worked. Then in 2017 I discovered a field of spiritual psychology that had me doubting my perceived brokenness and instead awakening to the innate well-being that is within all of us. This change in understanding has me looking toward my wholeness, rather than perceived brokenness, and has helped me to resolve so much of what I had been suffering with for years. It has led me back to my natural state of calm resilience. No will power required. If you are someone who has an unresolved and unwanted habit that’s what I want to share with you in this course. Lesson 1: Your habit is not a problem Hello and welcome, Have you ever found yourself engaged in a behaviour while simultaneously berating yourself for that behaviour? I’m guessing you answered yes to that question because the truth is almost all humans have this experience at one time or another. This is an unwanted habit. Smoking Drinking too much An excess of online shopping Overeating  And it’s possible, if you’re listening to this, that you’ve tried to stop an unwanted behaviour at one time or another. Our tried and not-so-true techniques to stop such habits often involve things like will power, or distracting ourselves, or tricking ourselves into avoiding the habitual behaviour. We can work really hard to try to force or convince an unwanted habit to go away and leave us alone. Unwanted habits can feel like a monkey on our back, one who is clingy and relentless when it comes to needing our attention. I personally struggled with an overeating habit for 30+ years. That habit felt like a character flaw, a failing, and a personal weakness. It was also something I was deeply ashamed of. So I traveled the self-help road for all those decades, trying to ‘fix’ myself. I focused mightily on the problematic nature of the habit; that’s where all my attention went – innocently thinking of the habit as a problem. Among the fixes I tried were talk therapy, EMDR, mindfulness, counting food points, extremely restrictive diets, hypnosis, emotional freedom technique, rational recovery, cognitive behavioural therapy….I could go on. This is by no means an exhaustive list of what i tried. None of it worked. In fact, my overeating habit got worse over the years. Looking back now I appreciate my relentless efforts to help myself. I was trying to find a solution to something that looked a problem. But what if our unwanted habits are actually an expression of the innate Intelligence that is within all of us? What if they are a sign of our mental health, not a psychological failing? What if they are a sign that we are in perfect working order? Earlier I touched on the fact that unwanted habits are universal. They cross cultural and geographic boundaries. Why is that? Why are habits and addictions such universal human experiences?  Conventional psychological theory says that when we have an unwanted habit that we are trying to bury uncomfortable feelings or soothe ourselves, cope with trauma and the bumps and bruises that occur in every life. In this course, I’m going to turn your understanding of unwanted habits on its head. I’ll explain how all unwanted habits and addictions have the same origin and how their universality actually points toward their wise nature. We’ll talk about how addictions and unwanted habits are not about the substance that’s being consumed; in other words, contrary to what the diet industry tells us, overeating is not about the food. We’ll explore the feedback and messages that your unwanted habit is trying to communicate to you and how wise these messages are. And I’ll share how easy it is to misunderstand these messages and how innocently we can get caught up in that misinterpretation. We’ll also explore alternatives to the ways we have historically dealt with an unwanted habit. Let’s begin by talking about the way that we’ve viewed unwanted habits like overeating up to now. It’s easy to experience these habits as problems, isn’t it? We have cravings and unwanted urges that seem to force us into behaviours that we don’t want to be engaging in. We find ourselves eating too much or eating foods that aren’t good for us. Or we consume vast quantities of food only to spend days punishing ourselves in response. These things can become cyclical; we engage in the overeating behaviour, only to regret it afterwards and swear we’ll never do it again. But then we do. Of course all of this seems like a problem. Especially if, like me, you end up on that quitting and then relapsing roundabout for years, if not decades.  If you’re listening to this then no doubt in an effort to help yourself get off the roundabout you’ve tried many things to break your habit: will power being a very common approach. White knuckling it through days of tuna fish and steamed vegetables. Or maybe tracking what you’re eating, writing down everything that goes into your mouth. Perhaps creating a list of forbidden foods and swearing you’ll never eat them again. Or tricking yourself into different behaviours by emptying cupboards and the fridge and starting fresh. We’ve all had experiences similar to this when it comes to trying to break a habit. So one very important thing I’d love you to hear from me today is that while you – and I – were doing all those things we were doing them because they made sense at the time. These are the tools we had access to for dealing with unwanted habits.  Restriction. Will power. Wrestling our cravings into submission. Or trying to. If you can, in this moment, I’d love for you to offer yourself some compassion around this. It might feel heavy; all the effort and subsequent lack of success that you experienced. But I’ll repeat myself and say you were doing what you knew to do at the time. It was the best solution you had to offer yourself. In this course I’d like to offer you an alternative. I’d like to show you how your unwanted habit is actually a sign of your mental health. And then explore how when we see habits through this lens our battle with them can slow down and then eventually stop entirely. Let’s begin with the next lesson where we’ll explore the intelligence behind your cravings. Lesson 2: Home Base If you’ll indulge me for a moment, I’d like you to close your eyes (if it’s safe to do so) and settle into yourself. Feel your breath going into and out of your lungs. Feel it filling up your chest like a balloon and then releasing and relaxing. Now I’d love for you to call to mind a time when you felt content and peaceful. That time might be recently or it might be long ago. Doesn’t really matter when it was. What I’d like you to bring to the front of your mind is a time when you felt a really good feeling. You might have been having a laugh with a friend, or sitting quietly in the sun, or enjoying a concert or sporting event that makes you happy. Maybe you’re creative and can recall a time when you felt particularly fulfilled by a project or the process of making something beautiful. I’ll give you a moment to bring something to mind. That feeling, however you may describe it – genuine contentment, happiness, relaxation, fulfillment – for the purposes of this lesson let’s call that good feeling home base.  That home base feeling is your birthright. It is what you are made of. Let’s do another little exercise. Think about the ideal vacation for you. Imagine for a moment what that would be. There’s no need to overthink it; you’ll know when the idea for what would look to you like an ideal vacation pops into your head. Now, let me ask you this: If I asked a group of 10 people to imagine their ideal vacation do you think everyone in that group would picture the same thing? O

One Sunday afternoon in April a traveller and a podcaster meet and share a drive through the mountains of Vancouver Island. As a result, the podcaster is deeply moved by the message the traveller, and the universe, had for her. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Clarification about the traffic light metaphor Trusting a good feeling that comes with an unusual experience Following that good feeling Listening to nudges from the universe Listening to the feeling behind the words someone is sharing Learning to relax as a spiritual practice Noting the miracles and synchronicities that happen to us Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Singer’s books are The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment Dominic Scafidi and Grace Kelly’s Living Miraculously course Transcript of Episode Hello explorers and welcome to Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. This is episode 59. Thank you for being here with me today. I want to remind you that if you’re interested in joining the Unbroken Community, or at least getting on the waitlist there, you can do that at AlexandraAmor.com/community. That’s going to be an interactive twice monthly group call, lots of interaction with me, lots of support, lots of community, as the name implies, and connection with your fellow explorers. And all the details are on that webpage. As I said, AlexandraAmor.com/community. Second thing. Last week in Episode 58, partway through, I talked about the red, yellow, green light of truth of tuning into or leaning into connecting with our intuition about moving forward, which is going to connect to today’s show, actually. My friend who listens to this episode pointed out to me, she said, “When you’re talking about the red, green, yellow light, are you seeing that visually?” which made me realize, Oh, I didn’t really explain that properly, then. The light metaphor that I used, really just explains a feeling. So when I say I would get a green light in my body, what I mean is, I feel it somewhere inside me. Now I specifically feel that feeling in my solar plexus, that’s the place where I always feel everything. You know how we talk about it, we have a gut feeling, I think that’s where that expression must come from. Because I always feel those things in the area of my solar plexus. Sort of behind my belly button. That part of my body. When I feel green light feeling it’s there. I don’t see a green light or anything. Same with red, and then yellow. The yellow light’s kind of interesting, because it’s either it’s a little bit binary, you know, it’s a yes or no, very often. And I guess sometimes it feels like a well, you know, maybe maybe not, there’s a bit of hesitation there, it’s less, perhaps less dramatic than a full a no, full stop. So that maybe we could classify that as yellow light. In your own experience, you might, if you give the traffic light metaphor a try, if you’re practicing it, your experience might be different. Maybe you feel the feeling somewhere else in your body. Or maybe it’s more of a knowing than a than a than a physical feeling. Mine has a little bit of physicality to it, it’s a knowing for sure. But it’s there’s also definitely a feeling going on, in like I say in my solar plexus. So I wanted to be clear about that. And clarify. Thank you to my friend for asking that question. I appreciate it. When I’m recording these episodes, where I it’s just me talking, I’m just staring at the computer screen and talking into the microphone. And it’s easy to get rolling along and forget to explain things as clearly maybe as I should. If someone’s not there to ask questions. It can be easy to just sort of barrel along. So if you ever have a question, same thing, and something like that, where something’s not clear, that I’ve talked about, I hope you’ll submit that and let me know. You can do that at AlexandraAmor.com/question. Okay, so on to today’s episode, which I haven’t as I’m recording this, I realize I haven’t got a title for it yet. But that’ll come next. I want to tell you a really great story about something that happened to me just three days ago. I wanted to share this for a number of reasons, which will become clearer and I’ll explain more about that as we get to the end of the actual story itself. A few days ago, I was driving home from visiting my friend, the same friend who asked the question about the traffic light. And it’s a quite a long drive. It’s three hours, I live in pretty remote area. So I was coming along through this area of Vancouver Island, it’s actually quite well known. It’s called Cathedral Grove. And you can stop and park your car. And there’s all these enormous cedar trees. It’s kind of like the redwood forest in California, these just gigantic trees. And there are trails through the trees. And it’s a really popular tourist area in the summer. The speed limit goes from 80 down to 50. You have to really slow down because there’s people crossing the road. So I was just toodling along, on my way to the last town before I get onto the highway, which is really just a two lane road, to come to my town where I live on the coast. And as I drove through this Cathedral Grove area, there was a young fellow standing on the side of the road, and he had a backpack. He had one of those cardboard signs, when you’re a hitchhiker just sort of a rectangle. And he’d written on there in sharpie, the nickname for the town where I live. The town is called Ucluelet but the nickname is Ukee. He had this sign that said Ukee. Right away, I just had the strongest feeling that I needed to pick him up. And then, for a couple of reasons, my brain got involved, and I didn’t pick him up. The first reason was that I needed to go to the next town, the last town before I came over to the west coast of the island, I needed to run a bunch of errands. And so in just a split second when I saw him and I got that knowing feeling, a green light, we could say, I need to pick this guy up. I thought I can’t do that, because I have these errands to run. And when I’m running the errands in Port Alberni, which is the name of the town, I’m not going to leave a stranger in my car while I do that, and, or make them get out of the car, and then lock the car while I’m in the store. I also didn’t want him sort of trailing around. My mind did all these calculations in like I say, a nanosecond. So that was the first thing. The second thing was that I’m a woman travelling alone. And he’s a man. And it’s not the safest thing to do in those circumstances for a woman to pick up a hitchhiker. It’s not something I do. It’s not something I had actually ever done until I moved here to the coast. I won’t go into all the details about why it happens sometimes here on the coast, but it does. But I’ve never picked up someone outside of town, let alone two hours away from where I live. And my brain also said, you don’t have to be responsible for this guy, just because he’s going to the same place that you are. So all this is racing through my mind. And simultaneously, well, the wiser part of myself just knew not only that I should pick him up, or could pick him up, but that it was meant to be that I would pick him up. I keep driving. And because of this little battle now that’s going on between my head and my and the wiser parts of myself, I start thinking, “Should I turn around, should I pull a U turn?” I’m looking for spaces on the road where I can do that. Then if I did that, I’d have to do another U turn back where he was. And then another part of me is saying, you’re not responsible for everybody. You don’t have to pick this guy up, just because he’s going where you’re going. And so I just carried on. But that little struggle continued within me for longer than what might have been typical; it really kept going. And there’s this big hill that you climb, so I’m driving up the hill thinking oh, geez, you know, I really should have picked that guy up. And then yeah, but I couldn’t I have these errands, blah, blah, blah. So around in circles I went. I come to the town Port Alberni and I go and run my errands. And it probably took me, maybe half an hour, maybe 45 minutes. Trying to remember what I did. Yeah, it probably wasn’t any longer than that I had to drive to a few different places, run these errands might have been close to an hour, but I don’t know. I go to my final stop, I do the errand. I walk back out to my car, I get in my car. And I’m sort of mentally saying to myself, Okay, is there anything else? Sort of checking my list. Is there anything else I need to do now? Or is that it? I talked to myself about it. And I say no, I think that’s it. I think I’ve done everything I needed to do. So I go to put my seatbelt on and start the car up. I say out loud in the car by myself. I say, “If I see that guy, between here and Ucluelet I’m going to pick him up.” So off I go. And sure enough, about five or seven minutes into the drive there he is on the side of the road with his little Ukee sign near a gas station coming towards the outskirts of town. So I pull over and I unlock the doors and he climbs in, puts his stuff in the back seat. And off we go. So right away, I could tell he was just the loveliest guy. He’s traveling around the world. He’s originally from France. And he’s probably 25 or 27, something like that. And this is something that he’d always he’s always wanted to do. He’s going to take about three years and really trying to a whole bunch of different places. Some places he’s going to work. Here in Canada, he doesn’t have a work visa so he was doing something called I think it’s called work away. It’s an app. And the reason he was coming to Ucluelet was some people had connected with him on the app. And he was coming to hel

Our bodies are the vehicles in which we move through life. Our thinking can be the fog that sometimes fills up the windshield we are looking through. Thankfully, we all have factory installed GPS to help guide our way. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist. Transcript of Episode Hello, explorers, and welcome to episode 58 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the windshield of life. I’ll get into that in just a moment. And it is really the one thing I think that when we see it about life, when we understand this idea, this metaphor, it really does change everything, including our ability to deal with things like anxiety, or depression, or unwanted habits like overeating. So we’ll get into that in just a second.  I do want to mention again about the Unbroken Community that I’m starting up. So if you’re interested in joining a group of like minded people, having some one-on-one coaching from me, meeting regularly, twice a month to do that, and learning from the coaching that other people receive as well, go to alexandraamorcom/community. You can learn all about what I’m thinking of for this community. And learn more about the details, including the 10% off that you’ll receive for all my books and courses, and a library of videos that will be available, all that kind of stuff, Alexandraamor.com/community. And there, you can sign up to join the waiting list.  The community hasn’t started yet, if you’re listening to this, as I’m recording in early April 2024. But I want to gauge the level of interest and just see if there’s enough interest in having a group like that. So that’s where you can go to learn more about that and sign up if you would like further information when the group comes together, and when it will be meeting and all that kind of stuff. All right, let’s get on to this metaphor that I’ve got for you today about the windscreen of life. This came to me the other day, and I jotted it down, probably more than a week ago. And I’ve been sort of contemplating it ever since. I really like it, I think it really explains a lot about what we’re trying to get our heads around when we’re exploring this inside out understanding. So it looks like this.  Picture a car, for me, any kind of car doesn’t matter what kind of car it is, could be your car could be your fantasy car, whatever it is. And that car is going to be a metaphor for us for the way that we move through life. And in every car nowadays, anyway, there’s always a windscreen protecting the driver and the passengers, the interior of the car from what’s on the outside. And so like I said, yeah, the car is a metaphor for you for your body. It’s the vehicle that you are using to move through life.  The windscreen is our ability to see. It’s as clear as possible. We want it to be clean and clear so that we can see what’s happening outside of the vehicle, outside of the car. And then what happens?  Have you ever gotten into your car and this happens here in the environment in the geographic area where I live in the fall and winter. And the atmospheric conditions are such that if the car has been sitting outside for a little while and I get in it, it has that thin film of fog on the inside of the windscreen. It’s not frost or anything on the outside, it’s on the inside. And that is going to be what we’re going to use for a metaphor for our thinking. So to a lesser or greater degree.  As we’re moving through life in this vehicle, there’s always like I say to a lesser or greater degree, there’s always a layer of that thin fog or mist inside the vehicle. And in the old paradigm of psychology, and in the self help world that so many of us are so used to being a part of, the strategy that we had for dealing with that fog on the inside of the windscreen was first of all, we were kind of oblivious that it was on the inside. Seems to me, we almost treated it as though Well, I guess the best way to say it is we, we treated it as though it was something we could control. And that it wasn’t something that was created. Just by the very nature of being in this vehicle of having a vehicle to move through life.  We treat that fog as though it’s a problem, like I say and and like something we can control. But the thing is that that fog is always there. And it’s not something we can control. And like I say it can be thinner or thicker at different times, depending on atmospheric conditions, nothing to do with us. That fog represents our thinking, it represents Thought.  And the reason I say that this is such a powerful thing to see. And that once we see this, it really does change everything. That’s because in the past, in the old paradigm of psychology, what we would do is really wrestle with that fog that’s on the inside of the windscreen. And that wrestling is exhausting, because the fog is there. It is its own energy. It’s there of its own volition. And like I say it’s thicker. Sometimes it’s thinner at other times, at times, sometimes it seems like it can go away entirely.  But other times, it seems like it’s just really thick. And we’ve got the defogger on, and we’re blowing air at it. And maybe we’ve got one of those little sponge things or a rag. And we’re trying to wipe on the inside of the windscreen to get the fog to go away. And maybe it does for a little while on one area. But then when we’re focused on another area, it comes back on the first area that we were working on. And that wrestling match that we’re having that energy that we’re expending trying to control the depth and the thickness of the fog on the inside of the windscreen really does take up a lot of our energy a lot of our time.  And it’s fruitless in a way. Because that fog is going to show up now and again. In the case of a human being, it’s kind of with us all the time, our thinking. And it’s really not a problem. So let’s imagine that it’s a kind of fog that is on the inside of the windscreen, and it’s irritating. But it’s not preventing us from driving the vehicle, we can still drive, we can see the road, it’s safe to do so. And we can move forward in our lives. When we recognize that the fog for what it is, that it’s just there. It’s not something we need to control or maneuver or manage in any way that and that actually, and this is the one of the magic points about it.  When we leave the fog completely alone, it tends to get thinner on its own.  So it will almost disappear. And our view through the windscreen becomes as clear as it can ever possibly be. But like I said when we wrestle with it when we try to control it and manage it, that’s when it fights back in a way and gets thicker and heavier and makes it more difficult for us to move through life. What happens when we recognize that the fog is just going to be there and we relax about that? First of all, there’s a couple things going on. One is that we can see or understand that the vehicle that we’re in, is perfectly fine as it is, it works. It’s in great working order. And the fact that the fog is there is not a problem. It’s in this kind of magical metaphorical fog, it’s not impeding our view of the world. And our battle with it, in the past, was the thing that was causing us the most stress and discomfort, and believing that the fog is an impediment to us, living our lives and moving our vehicle through the world, is the thing that really got in our way the most.  When we see the fog for what it is, for its ever presentness, it’s a gift, this is where the metaphor kind of breaks down a little bit. But, you know, our thinking is a gift, it’s a creative gift. And without it, we wouldn’t be able to have the experience of life that we have. So recognizing that, and recognizing that we don’t need to fight with the fog on the inside of the windscreen are two really big steps toward finding peace of mind.  Recognizing that this experience of life is on the inside of us, just like the little fog is on the inside of the vehicle. So the world out there beyond the windscreen is simply being itself and doing itself, our experience of that world is affected by the thickness or thinness, the placement of the fog on the inside of the windscreen, and we can’t have an experience of life without that windscreen being there. It’s the thing that enables us to see the road to see where we’re traveling, and that kind of thing. So without it, we can’t have this experience of life. That’s why the fog and the thinking are gifts. All of this might sound fairly simple, this metaphor about the vehicle and the fog and the wind and the windshield. But it really is that simple. And the more and more that that we begin to see where our experience of life is coming from, that it’s coming from within us and that and that it’s always coloring what we see. Like I say that’s when we stop wrestling with the fog, that’s when it can. I guess we could say that things become lighter in the vehicle. There’s not so much stress and anxiety and a lack of peace of mind. Because we understand that we’re not having to wrestle with the outside world and make things different.  I wonder where the metaphor is for the wisdom that’s carrying us through life? That’s the operation of the vehicle. So this vehicle that we’re in, which is the thing that is taking us through life has a magic GPS, it has an inner compass that’s installed into the vehicle. For every single person, there isn’t anyone who is without that inner compass or GPS. And it can guide us on the road, when we stop thinking that our job is to wrestle with the fog, and make the fog go away, and be upset about the thickness of the fog. And the placement of the fog, when we relax and understand that this GPS is on board. And it’s always ther

Life has an unerring knack for presenting us with challenges and opportunities for change. Dr. Linda Pettit explores our innate intuitive nature and how we can use that to help us navigate the curves that life brings to us. Dr. Linda Sandel Pettit is a distinguished author known for her insightful work, including her acclaimed memoir, Leaning into Cuves: Trusting the Wild, Intuitive Way of Love. With over five decades dedicated to writing, four decades immersed in counseling psychology, and two decades serving as a spiritual mentor, Dr. Linda brings a wealth of experience and expertise to her practice as a speaker, writer and mentor. Unafraid to delve into divine wisdom, deep feminine knowing, and intuition, Dr. Linda empowers her clients to tap into their innermost truths. Through her guidance, she inspires and facilitates the release of pure love, allowing individuals to express their authentic selves fully. You can find Linda Pettit at LindaSandelPettit.com and on Instagram at lindasandelpettit. Click the image below to learn about the Unbroken Community and join the waitlist. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Discovering that anxiety is thought created  What if being calm and in a good feeling is how we’re meant to exist? The only thing that ever gets in the way of love is our thinking Using self-reporting instruments to gauge how clients were being helped by the Three Principles understanding How our intuitive knowing is a life raft for us How mystical experiences are the norm or all of us Examples of listening to intuitive knowing and letting it guide us Why waiting for the moving parts of life to align is important Resources Mentioned in this Episode Linda’s book Leaning Into Curves Book: The Butterfly Effect by Andy Andrews Transcript of Interview with Dr. Linda Pettit Alexandra: Dr. Linda Sandel Pettit, welcome to Unbroken. Linda: Thank you. Good to be here. Alexandra: It’s lovely to have you here. So why don’t we begin with a bit of your background?  Why don’t you tell us who you are and when you came across the Three Principles? Linda: I have kind of an interesting background. I started out in journalism and public relations. And then I found my way into the helping professions. I was a counseling psychologist for 30 some, 35 years. And now I do speaking, and writing and mentoring.  I came across the Three Principles about what was exactly 21 years ago. So when I met my husband, who many know in the Three Principles world, Dr. Bill Pettit, he’s a psychiatrist. And he had been mentored by Sydney Banks, the man who shared the principles originally. Or boy, even at that point, I think it had been close to 20 years. And so I got introduced through Bill.  Syd was still alive then so he would call our home just about every other weekend. And we would put him on speakerphone and he would teach, share with us. He was very interested in mentoring both of us; Bill as a psychiatrist to me as a psychologist in the understanding. I will say, it wasn’t an easy immediate sell for me. Alexandra: That was my next question. Tell us about that. Linda: Bill should be the one that it was a pretty, I believe, at one point, as I recall it, it was actually in an airport. We were waiting for a flight and I got so triggered that I said to him, “If you ever mentioned Sydney Banks, again, we are getting a divorce.”  Just to give your listeners, in case they struggle with the understanding, I certainly know that. And in a way, interestingly, it was kind of incremental. Sometimes I would struggle with it. And sometimes I wouldn’t. Because I knew right from the start that there was something there. And I could see that it was settling me so that I was having less and less anxiety.  Then as I began to see that anxiety was entirely thought created. That was really beautiful. It wasn’t something that just parked on me, sat on my head, and I was completely powerless over it. That was my, my primary struggle, I would say, was with being anxious. I’d been pretty anxious all my life. From the time of being a small child, even to the point of having some degree of obsessive compulsive behaviors, but not a full blown disorder where I had rituals and things. Although I was a counter; I used counting to calm myself, but more just a general, anxious approach to the world and a tendency to worry.  I could see that that was settling down. Although I don’t know that I could have told you exactly why. But it was kind of like, I used to think of it this way that I lived from a place of anxiety. And occasionally, maybe 20% of the time, I would stretch into these areas where I wouldn’t feel anxious, or I wouldn’t feel worried. And I would wonder about that. Where to go? How did that happen? I’m feeling pretty good right now.  Then I would snap back into that place of being anxious. As I started to get insight to how powerful thought was, and how thought was creating the experience of being anxious what I gradually felt over a number of years was that it was like, it wasn’t that I didn’t never get anxious again. But the positions reversed. So 80% of the time, I was pretty calm. And 20% of the time, I might stretch into those zones again, where I felt really anxious or worried.  But I knew what was happening. I knew I was innocently using the power of thought to create this experience that was manifesting in my body in the state that I called anxiety. And so gradually I was less and less worried and less and less anxious to the point now where I just really don’t experience it very much more. If I do it’s a momentary fleeting thing and then I come back to myself. Alexandra: As a psychologist, did you have times when you were helping others about anxiety? Linda: Yes, really my whole practice was about people who were having a lot of anxiety or depression. I’d always done a lot of work with people in transition who had had some kind of something happen in their lives that interrupted life as they knew it. And they were transitioning to some new understanding and, and along with that was coming this experience of feeling lost or anxious or depressed.  But I was committed to a thought that I had. And the thought was that I was not going to share this understanding professionally, until I really saw it personally. And so I didn’t, even though I was very aware of it and was studying it and learning about it from Bill and from Syd and others in the Three Principles world, I didn’t share it professionally for several years. And then I had an experience, which I actually talked about in my new book.  It was really one of those funny synchronistic experiences where I was kind of ticked off at bill, we, you know, we were newlyweds, and we were struggling a little bit with adjustment. We’re very different people. He’s very extroverted and outgoing. And I just tend to be by my nature, really more quiet, slower tempo. And so we were having some struggles, and I stomped downstairs to my office in a full blown, you know, like, what a jerky is kind of moment, and sat down at my desk.  I reached in for a financial file to do some work on on our finances, because I manage those and I opened the file. And I don’t know how this got there. But on the top of this particular file was an excerpt from the book, The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. And I remember thinking, how did that get there? Because I don’t like that book. I had read it. And I didn’t think much of it, which is really in itself pretty interesting. But I read the excerpt and it said, there was a conversation between two of the Pooh characters.  One of them is saying, “Oh, that Winnie the Pooh, he’s just the sweetest, kindest, most loving, tender wise knowing being.”  And the other one says, “Oh, yeah, he is all of that. And it’s just too bad that he’s the exception to the rule.”  And the other one says, “You know, that might be, but what if he’s the rule in action?”  I had this moment, Alexandra, where it was like an insight. And I just thought, what if Bill, because he’s so calm, and he’s so compassionate, and he just rolls with things, and he doesn’t get really upset with me, just kind of stays with me when I’m in these little snippets.  What if he’s not the exception to the rule? What if he’s the rule in action? What if that’s the way we’re all meant to be?  In that moment, I became a student. I thought, you know, what if? What if I don’t have to live with the level of anxiety that I do? What if I don’t have to live with a level of reactivity and drama that I sometimes do? I wasn’t out of control and we never yelled, we never had big, awful arguments or anything. But I walked around more than I wanted to in a feeling of being very stirred up inside.  He had been trying to share the Three Principles. And he will tell you now that he realizes that he was probably trying to be a teacher to someone who wasn’t a student. And so he had a role and what happened, but when I had said to him, finally, you just need to back off, he did back off. And I think when he backed off, and I had the ability to just sort of observe a little bit more without feeling pressured to be different or to change. I just created a space.  And then I found that that excerpt from Hoff’s book and it just became real clear to me that this could be the answer I’ve actually been searching for. The other thing that I think was a factor is that at the time, so this was 22. We’ve got married in 2003 so this was 21 years ago, or 20 to 21 years ago, I think the understanding was being taught primarily as a psychological understanding. And as a psychologist, I was struggling to see: How is this different from other cognitive therapies?  I was already a student of cognitive therap

When we strive for perfection are we doing ourselves a favour or adding unwanted stress into our lives? When it comes to eating well and resolving an overeating habit, I think embracing the beautiful messiness of life is much more helpful. Click the image below to learn more about the Unbroken Community. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes: The top 3 ways perfection is a mistake How needing to be perfect increases the amount of thinking we’re dealing with Why perfection is boring How important the messiness of life is On the unkindness of perfection Transcript of Episode Hello explorers and welcome to episode 56 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about perfection, and how it’s a mistake.  Before I jump into that I wanted to mention, in case you didn’t hear me last week, that I’ve put together a page of information about a community I’m starting, called the Unbroken Community. You can join a join up for the waitlist for that community at: AlexandraAmor.com/community I want to find out if there’s interest in this sort of thing. So there’s a whole bunch of information on that page that I just mentioned, about what the community will look like, when the group coaching calls that we’ll have, the pricing and all the other details about what’s involved, whether it’s a good fit for you, there’s information there about that, and whether it isn’t. I think it’s always really important in these situations to make it clear what the offering is, and one of the ways to do that is to make it clear that this might not be a good fit for you. If so, you’ll see a little list of bullet points about that as well. So lots of information there. Check it out: AlexandraAmor.com/community if you’re interested in connecting with me, connecting with others who are wanting to resolve unwanted habits, like overeating, but it could be any kind of unwanted habit as well. Because as I said last week, they all have the same root cause. So yeah, check that out. All right, so now let’s talk about perfection. In the last few weeks, since I had my coaching call with Tanya Elfersy \that you can listen to on episode 53. As I said, a couple of weeks ago, my eating habits have been way better.  I’m so grateful for that. And I’m really happy because it feels like I turned a corner. I had had more insights, learned some more stuff as we do. It’s an ongoing journey. It’s never over is it really? I think as long as we’re alive, we’re going to be continuing to learn.  Since then, since that corner that I turned, I’ve noticed some more some thinking and more thinking that I’m comfortable with about perfection about holding myself to a standard when it comes to eating that feels a little bit perfectionist. It feels a little bit like holding an elastic really tight, you know that feeling? I know from personal experience that when I hold that elastic really tight, and really hold myself to a standard of perfection, that eventually the elastic snaps and I dive into eating badly.  So what I wanted to do today was explore that a little bit, explore that feeling of wanting to be perfect, and how it can become a bit toxic in and of itself. And that’s why the title of this episode is perfection is a mistake.  What I’m going to outline is three ways that I thought of that perfection is a mistake, ways that it can become toxic. I’m sure there are many more than this. But these are the three that came top of mind as I was preparing for this episode. So here we go. Number one, perfection really gets us into our thinking. This was the first sign for me that I was leaning towards wanting to be perfect was that my thinking becomes a bit revved up. In other words, I noticed that I’m having lots of thinking about food and about what I’m eating and how I’m doing. On both ends of the spectrum notice that actually to kind of congratulating myself on one end, and feeling good about how I’m eating, which is not the end of the world, that’s not terrible.  But the problem is that then the pendulum does tend to swing to the other side as well. And it any kind of little, not any kind, actually. But there are some foods that I might want to eat that where my thinking gets more revved up than with other foods. So for example, I had a couple of glasses of wine on the weekend that just passed. That’s something that can really trigger my perfectionistic thinking. What happens, I think, when we get into having a lot of thinking about things like this, and about trying to be perfect, is that it can be a little bit like a dog chasing its tail. There’s no way to be perfect. And this is why aiming for perfection is a mistake. And if we feel or maybe I should say, if our thinking believes that we should be perfect, that we are obligated to be perfect all the time about whatever the issue is, in this case, it’s food, then that can become its own kind of problem. And it can contribute to or add itself to all the other thinking that we have about these kinds of issues. Now, I do want to do a little sidebar here and say that, as someone who’s had this unwanted overeating habit for 30 years, and has tried so hard to fix it prior to finding the Three Principles, with self help and willpower and rules and all that things.And maybe you are too. I’m just inclined to have a lot of thinking about food.  I can observe friends when we’re out for dinner, or when I’m in situations where I’m meeting with other people. And maybe, you know, maybe it’s not true, I can’t tell what other people are thinking. But it often seems like other people who have not had an overeating habit, have a lot less thinking about food. And that makes sense to me.  When we have some sort of habit that we’re trying to resolve, our thinking does get really revved up about it.  And of course in previous episodes, I’ve talked about the pressure cooker, and how the habit is a solution to all that thinking that’s going on. So what else do I want to say about that? I guess the main point is just that holding ourselves to a standard of perfection, when it comes to an unwanted habit. And this is what diets really encouraged us to do, right? You’re either on the wagon or off the wagon. And I think that’s kind of a toxic way to look at things. So what I’m realizing lately is that I’m living my life, I’m doing the very best I can. And adding a whole bunch of thinking to myself, to my world, to my life about being perfect, and having the perfect diet and eating perfectly all the time, is going to end up creating more problems than it solves. So that’s the first way that perfection is a mistake. The second way that perfection is a mistake is that perfection is really boring.  When you meet somebody who seems perfectly perfect and has it all together, I really can’t think of anything more boring. It’s the messiness of life that’s really interesting, right? We don’t like it a lot of the time. But that’s where we really connect with our fellow human beings and perhaps even more importantly, that’s where we learn. I really fell on my face at the end of 2023 and early 2024 with falling back into some overeating habits that I didn’t like.  That whole time, while it was frustrating and confounding, and I was not feeling great about myself. It created suffering for sure. I’ve mentioned that before it was a really great learning experience. It taught me a whole bunch of things, some of which I mentioned on Episode 54. It was a really good learning experience. I learned so many things.  I think I may have said this in one of the episodes, when things get tough, that’s when we learn. So if we were perfect all the time – and I know that’s our natural inclination, and we do want things to be resolved. If we were perfect all the time, we wouldn’t learn a thing, we wouldn’t have any of the experiences that lead to insight, and that lead to learning, and that help us to connect, and have empathy for others who might be going through a similar situation.  So that’s the flip side of perfection, the messy, sticky, untidy part of life, is really full of lessons and beauty and connection. And so that’s why I think being perfect is boring. And it’s not necessarily something we need to aim for, at all. The third reason I think that perfection is a mistake, is that it’s unkind. This connects back to the previous point, we are messy human beings fumbling our way through life, divine beings, as that quote from Sydney Banks that I talked about in the episode with Tania, and then the follow up episode, we are divine beings walking through this world, trying to find ourselves and that’s messy, unpredictable journey. And while we’re doing that life is throwing us curveballs all the time. And we’re just stumbling forward trying to do our best. In that circumstance of being a spiritual being having this very dense human experience it seems to me it’s really unkind to expect perfection from that human being, from that experience. And it’s interesting, because we don’t expect it of anyone else, do we? But we really do expect it of ourselves, which is such a shame. I always try to anyway, in my life, I fall back on what is the kindest thing that can happen in this moment? What is the kindest way that I can be with this person, whether it’s myself or someone else? That’s about all I have to say about kindness and perfection. So those are my three. That’s my top three list, about how perfection can be a mistake, it can get in our way.  I also want to say too, as we’re wrapping up here, that it can be our default position to expect perfection of ourselves. And that’s how our culture is set up. We’re graded in school, we are assessed for our performance at work. We, especially in the whole Instagram of it all

When was the last time you felt deeply heard? Nurse and Three Principles practitioner Wendy Williams shares the impact deep listening has on both the listener and those being listened to. We also discuss the priceless benefits that understanding every human’s innate resilience can have for nurses and other healers. As a nurse educator and clinician for over 25 years, Wendy Williams helps people facing extraordinary (and ordinary) challenges to move forward with grace and ease. She is an experienced mental well-being educator. As Wendy sees it (and teaches it), we are meant to thrive in this world, but sometimes we get stuck. Whether it’s being swept up in the whirlwind of everyday life or struggling to overcome a major life hurdle, getting back on track, and moving forward can, and will, happen quite naturally. Wendy’s deep experience mixed with her practical and kind-hearted teaching & education point the way forward. You can find Wendy Williams at ForwardWithWendy.com and on Facebook at Find Your Way Forward. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Paying attention to work we’re naturally drawn to Recognizing an awareness of our innate well-being How in any circumstance in life we can react in any number of ways depending on our thinking On the universal intelligence that flows through everything, including us The benefits for healers like nurses of knowing about our innate resilience The difference between deep listening and active listening Resources Mentioned in this Episode Wendy’s Deep Listening class with Lori Carpenos, April 5 to 7, 2024 Sydney Banks’ book The Missing Link Beyond Recovery Jacqueline Hollows’ book Wings of an Angel Transcript of Interview with Wendy Williams Alexandra: Wendy Williams, welcome to Unbroken.  Wendy: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here with you.  Alexandra: Oh, I’m excited, you’re here as well. So let’s begin with a little bit of your background. Tell us about yourself and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Wendy: Sure thing. Well, I live in the northeastern part of the United States near Boston, Massachusetts, I have been a nurse for more years. I got married at the ancient age of 38 to a guy that I just adore, even as we speak, I adore him.  I have been a nurse, like I say, for a very long time, specializing for years in conditions like HIV AIDS, cancer, hospice, so I’m a real pro at the bedside when people are saying goodbye. And, a lot of what I do happens to do with ongoing or chronic pain.  I’m still practicing as a nurse in that regard. But I’m also having a real focus on bringing the Three Principles to a wider community in health care, because a lot of my sisters and brothers in health care are kind of tired and burning out a little bit, especially after the pandemic. So I’m excited to extend the ripples, as I say, for the awakening, that certainly the Three Principles is brought to my life and many people that I know.  Alexandra: Wow. You’re not just dealing with giving people flu shots, and mending broken fingers.  Those are some pretty deep human experiences that people are having when you encounter them. Wendy: Absolutely. It was an interesting thing, when I was a brand new nurse I worked on what we call a medical surgical floor, which is a catch all phrase, meaning somebody broke a leg, somebody’s got appendicitis and but just kind of general routine things that you need to be in a hospital for for a bit. There were a lot of orthopedic problems on that floor, broken hips, broken, knees, whatever.  There was this one lady in there who had cancer in her bones. And so a lot of what we had to do for her was find a way to make her comfortable, we knew that the cancer wasn’t going to ever leave that was going to be, , part of her last days. And so that is what we call the report in the morning.  The new nursing staff for the day arrives at 6:30 in the morning, and gets the report from the night nurses who says this is what’s going on, this is what people need. And it was interesting to me, I said, huh, this is kind of interesting to notice that all the other nurses were like, Oh, that lady in seventh with the bone cancer. And I was like, bring the lady with the bone.  I was a young woman, I was 20 to 23. And so that was a clue. I said, Hmm, I’m drawn to that. I feel interested in that. And it became very, very clear to me that every loved one that was standing around her bed, wringing their hands, or holding their hands or crying, was also my patient. It wasn’t just the person in the bed.  As I look back, I feel very blessed that that was a gift that was given to me. A clear path was said, “You’re good at this, what you’re doing.” You’re not afraid. I used to say to other nurses, when nurses were trying to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives. To your point, some people are very well suited to bandages and broken fingers and flu shots. And some of us are drawn to other things.  I said, if you feel like when you go and buy a house, and it’s up in flames, and you feel like you want to run in and get people, you might be a cancer nurse or an oncology nurse, or a nurse who likes to work with death and dying. But if you want to run away and go call the cops or call the fire department and say I’ll be right here when they come out, but I’m not going. I said but I was one of those people said I gotta get in there and get somebody. I think it just was just kind of the way I’m built. I’m designed. Alexandra: Oh, that’s so interesting. You noticed it at such a young age. I mean, 22 that’s really young. Wendy: It was my first job. It was this general medical surgical floor and then as a result of working with that lady I found my next job at a very well established cancer center here in Boston called Dana Farber Cancer Institute. That was the next job and so I built my career on a foundation of getting to know people well at very difficult times.  Now, lots of cancer patients do very well, and go on. And I so I hope this is interesting to you. But anyway, so some nurses, again, , if they say, All right, what’s wrong? Oh, you need a flu shot? Got it. Let’s give you the flu shot. Okay, next. Okay. What do you need? You need a new bandage. Okay, got it. Next.  I was the one that said, Oh, you need chemotherapy this week? How’s it going? Did you have a good rough time last week? Oh, yeah. Okay, well, we’ll fix it this week. And then I would see them the next week, and then the next week, and then the next week. And then I might say yeah, you don’t need more chemotherapy, we’ll see when five months with your checkup. And I’ll make sure I’m there.  So there are some nurses, some healthcare providers that love that kind of longer path of relationship and building on that. And then there are some people who say, I just want to go in, take care of you and move on. Like a labor and delivery nurse. Let’s get that baby. Okay. Next, let’s get that baby next. Whereas an oncology nurse, or, , other chronic illnesses, really enjoy that longer term association with people. Alexandra: When in your career did you run into the Three Principles? And what struck you about it? Wendy: Quite late. I’ve no problem telling you, I’m almost 66 years old, and I’ve been a nurse since I was 22 or 23. But I discovered the principles, let’s see, if I had to do the math right now, I’d say like eight years ago. So when I was 57 or 58.  And it was a really interesting little rabbit hole of YouTube videos,  what I’m talking about? Alexandra: Yes. Wendy: I was working on another avenue of deep interest to me, which is relationship health, how marriages can be a soft place to land. There’s a lot of medical literature out there about people who do better after a heart attack, or do better after chemotherapy, or their symptoms aren’t as bad if they have a soft place to land at home with a really solid relationship. So that intrigued me, that kind of marriage of relationship health with physical health. That was intriguing to me.  So I was looking in the direction of developing a coaching business regarding marriage health, or relationship health, a lot of evidence bases out there for that sort of stuff. And so there was this guy, Steve Chandler, he’s really smart. He knows what he’s talking about. I was like, okay, like, as a coach, like, okay, Steve Chandler, and Steve Chandler said, the best or the smartest, or the most accomplished psychologist of the 20th century, George Pransky.  And I said, George Pransky? Never heard of that name. Now, I wasn’t always in psychological realm of nursing care. But I was like, George Pransky, I would think I would heard of him. I’ve heard a few is the best psychologist of the 20th century. So of course, I rabbit hole my way over there.  One of the videos was of George Pransky and Steve Chandler talking to each other. And if  anything, about George Pransky, and Steve Chandler,  that they talk very much like this: very articulate, very slow, very deliberate. And this was in the days before I knew that you could speed up a YouTube video. So I felt myself going, please, I’m begging you wrap it up. I know what you’re gonna say next. Could you just speak more quickly?  And the funny thing was that in the beginning of that particular video, as I recall it, Steve Chandler said to George, he said, George, have you heard that if you and I ever run out of clients, we can have another job making videos or audios for people who want to go to sleep? Isn’t that great? So the two of them just laughed and whatever. And I was like, Yeah, ha, that’s funny.  I heard something. It was like a Lego piece just went and just fell into place. There was something in the talk about the Three Principles.

Last week, on episode 53 of Unbroken, Tania Elfersy coached me around my overeating habit and the return of that habit after months of having it resolved. This week I share the moments that had the most meaning for me and also expand on some of the highlights to offer greater clarity and understanding for those who are dealing with an unwanted habit like overeating. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes How the words we use in this exploration are pointing to a feeling Why did I forget what I know about the drive to overeat? How wrestling with ‘problems’ makes them sticky How we can use even healthy food to quell the drive to overeat How our feelings are always an accurate barometer about our state of mind and/or connection to our well-being Why awareness is enough to change an unwanted habit Resources Mentioned in this Episode Episode 53, It’s Not All On You with Coach Tania Elfersy Tania’s website My new course on Insight Timer is called How To Tell If A Group Has Cult-Like Tendencies Sydney Banks’ YouTube Channel Book: It’s Not About The Food Podcast: Psychology Has It Backwards with Christine Heath and Judith Sedgeman Transcript of Episode Hello explorers and welcome to episode 54 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m back with a follow up to last week’s episode 53 with Tania Elfersy where she coached me. So I’m going to go through, as I mentioned, and pull out the things that really stuck out for me, the highlights, and talk about what resonated with me, maybe provide some clarity if things weren’t clear. Tania and I are quite good friends, we’ve known each other for over four years, we are in a mastermind group together. So I suspect that we were able to shorthand some things. So I just want to pull a couple of those things out, and make sure that it was clear to you the listening audience. Before we begin, a couple of pieces of information I wanted to share. One is that because of Tania’s coaching session with me, my eating is back on track, I’m eating in a way that really works for me that feels good. And that feels healthy. And it doesn’t feel disordered, for lack of a better word. I don’t feel that drive to overeat anymore. I just feel really good about the way I’m eating. So yay, that’s a victory. The second thing is that if you’re listening to this when it comes out, I have a new course that’s coming out on Insight Timer. And it has absolutely nothing to do with food or eating, but I thought I’d mention it anyway. If you’re familiar with Insight Timer, it’s an app that you can download to your phone, obviously. And it started out literally as a as a timer for people who wanted to meditate. And they’ve expanded the scope of their services quite a bit. I’m on there as a teacher, sharing things about unwanted habits and eating and all that kind of stuff. The way it works is that if you download the app you can access a whole ton of stuff for free. So you don’t need a membership to access a number of different files there. It’s all audio. I have two tracks on there that you can listen to. So if you just search for my name, Alexandra Amor on Insight Timer, you’ll find those two tracks. They’re very similar to what I talked about here on the podcast. And then the new course that I released. Courses, which are more than one audio track, are behind a paywall. So if you happen to be a subscriber to Insight Timer, then you’ll have access to that course. And it’s called How To Tell If A Group Has Cult-Like Tendencies. So obviously, this is based on my background, having been in a cult for 10 years in the 1990s. It’s something I’m passionate about sharing information about helping people to understand what cults are, and specifically how they work and how we can notice when we’re getting into a situation which, you know, doesn’t feel comfortable. And we can gauge or analyze whether or not it’s actually a cult. If you have a paid subscription to Insight Timer, give it a listen and give it a review if you have a moment, that would be great. It’s always helpful to have reviews and other people’s opinions about how the course is. It’s not long, it’s roughly five, five-minute audio lessons. The other thing I wanted to do was give a shout out to a couple people who reached out to me after my podcast from two weeks ago, where I was talking about how I was struggling and that kind of thing. A big shout out to Pam H who reached out to me and we have a lovely conversation and a little chat about our journeys with food and with all the things. It was really nice to connect to you Pam and I just really appreciate the kindness and the care that people exhibited by doing that. It was really really sweet to see I mean obviously that’s not why I did it, but then for that to be the reaction, the response. That was really really nice. Okay, so on to today’s call. If you haven’t listened to Episode 53, I recommend that you go back and do that first. Because pretty much everything I’m going to talk about now is related to things that come up during that conversation with Tania, where she coaches me about my relapse, as it were. I hate using that word, it sounds so serious. And I don’t know, very kind of clinical, there’s something about it, that just really bothers me. It sounds dangerous, having a relapse. need to find a different word for that. All it was that my habit came back after months of being away. I really fell on my face in terms of trying to sort it out. And then Tania helped me get myself up on my feet again. So that was great. So the first thing I want to talk about is that she, the thing that really resonated for me or one of the things was that partway through the conversation: Tania talks about how the feeling of the drive to overeat that I was experiencing was a message. Like I always say these things are feedback. We’re not broken. They’re not letting us know that there’s anything wrong with us their feedback. And she just said it’s so simply that feeling was letting me know that I had fallen off the path of truth. That’s what she had. That’s how she described it. So I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Because when she said the path of truth, I knew exactly what she meant. And the words, those words, specifically “the path of truth” aren’t what’s important in what she was saying. So that’s the phrase that worked for her and that she used, but we could say that we had become the feeling was letting us know that we’re we had become disconnected from our divinity. We could say they had pointed out that we were forgetting about our own well-being. We could say they were feedback about our thinking and our state of mind. When we get caught up in our state of mind, that’s when we forget about our innate well-being and divinity. So, if those words didn’t really ring true, or not ring true, if they were if they didn’t resonate for you exactly the path of truth. That’s okay. It’s what they’re pointing at that’s really important. The only tool we have to point to our divinity is language, is these words that we use, especially when we’re on it on a podcast format. It’s important to remember that it’s not the words themselves that matter. It’s what they’re pointing to. I’ve been listening to some Sydney Banks recorded conversations lately on his YouTube channel, and I noticed in one how much he was saying that it’s not the words that matter. It’s the feeling behind them. That’s how he phrases it. And so the feeling is what we’re pointing to. There’s another… see, it’s so hard with language, there’s something else beyond just our human experience, and, and our experience of thought. That’s what we’re trying to point to, that there’s an experience beyond, that there’s a part of us that is not limited by those things. And so that’s what Tania was pointing to, and I really got it right away. I’ve been reflecting since then, of course on why did I forget about that? Because I was saying things to myself, this is feedback. It’s telling me that I’m caught up in my thinking. And the answer is probably not perfectly clear to me. I think sometimes we just need help, sometimes we just need someone to remind us of what the truth of ourselves is. And as I talk about later in the call, and I’m trying to remember do I bring that up here? Maybe so maybe I’ll talk about this now, but later in the call. I talked about how I realized through that conversation with Tania, that I had been really wrestling with the feeling of the drive to overeat, the feeling of that, wanting to eat more than his, wanting to eat in a way that wasn’t comfortable for me. I got caught up in wrestling with that feeling and what happens when we, as I talked about all the time, when we wrestle with something, it gets sticky. That’s the thing that makes it sticky. Because we believe it’s real, we believe it’s a problem. So even though I was saying to myself, this isn’t a problem, I know it’s feedback, I still was looking at it as a problem. I guess that’s the simplest way to say it. In some part of myself, an unconscious part perhaps, I was seeing this as a problem. And what Tania was able to remind me of and bring to light is that these things aren’t a problem. They are a message from the wiser parts of ourselves. One thing, actually, in my conversation with Pam, who I spoke to after the episode two weeks ago, that I wonder if I haven’t made clear enough is that during that relapse, or whatever we’re gonna call it. I talked about being drawn to rice and potatoes. And I don’t think I spent enough time explaining that I wasn’t demonizing rice and potatoes. There’s nothing wrong with rice and potatoes. They are a healthy part of any diet, or almost any diet. And by diet, I mean, just a way of eating not a way to lose weight.

You’ve heard me struggle for the past few months because I’ve had a relapse into my overeating habit. I finally wised up and called in my friend Tania Elfersy to coach me. In this episode, Tania shares so much wisdom and teaches me many things including that awareness of what is truth and what isn’t is so important and that once we’re aware our divine design will take things from there. Tania Elfersy has a passion for revealing rarely discussed truths about women’s life-cycle events. She is a transformative coach, speaker, writer and educator. Since 2015, Tania has been supporting women through perimenopause and menopause, allowing them to reach natural symptom relief, and a greater sense of well-being. You can find Tania Elfersy at TheWiserWoman.com and on Facebook @TheWiserWoman. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes The truth is always in clarity, never in a bad feeling What is an unwanted habit telling us about? What happens when we fall off the path of truth? The importance of being aware of our experience in the moment How wrestling with what we’re feeling makes it ‘sticky’ How it’s not on us to fix how we feel – it will fix on it’s own once we’re aware of having fallen off the path of truth When we are calm solutions arise Transcript of Interview with Coach Tania Elfersy Alexandra: Thank you for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. And here’s the funny thing. I had a couple of insights in the last couple of days that have felt like they’ve been quite helpful. I was listening to some Sydney Banks stuff while I was cooking the other night. And I guess it doesn’t really matter what was said, but he said, “You are a divine being walking through this life trying to find yourself.” I really resonated with that. It really encapsulated everything we do, and just shifted something for me. But let’s talk about the stuff that’s tricky. Because that’s where the juice is. My main question is if you felt stuck, what do you do in that situation? Tania: That’s why I often feel stuck. Because I’m such a human. I don’t fly on my little enlightenment cushion. And sometimes, it just occurs to me that the feeling is telling me what’s true. So I fall back into the feeling. And ponder on that. I’ve checked this out now for about six, seven years. Because it’s not enough that I’ll tell you, the feeling is pointing to what’s true. And in that sense, as I’m sure you know, that is the feeling of clarity. And everything else is not true. So, again, I could tell you this, but until you’ve really experienced it. I’m still surprised when I get that. And I’ll give you an example, really, it’s not, I guess it’s not like a stuck example, but it’s an example of that. I was trying to go to sleep, I’d almost fallen asleep or I just about falling asleep. And all of a sudden there was a huge bang. I mean, boom. And so I’m going through my mind and I’m like, okay, it doesn’t sound like it with a missile. Unfortunately, I know what that sounds like. It doesn’t sound like there’s a bomb. I know that. But there was definitely something. I was just lying there. I wasn’t moving. And I suspected my husband might have heard it, but I thought maybe it was asleep. I didn’t want to wake him up. And so I was going through what maybe it’s a new kind of bomb that I haven’t heard before. And it’s a new kind of weapon and a new kind of thing. And then I was like listening for would there be sirens. Because we’re still in the war. There will be sirens and I’m not hearing any sirens or maybe it was further away but it was still quiet out there. Hang on. I got up and I checked the news and there was nothing in the news. Maybe they’re hiding it from us. Maybe it’s so bad they’re hiding. Right? So this is all going through my mind. And it is 2am. So it’s like, by the time I got up, it was 2am. I think it was like kind of falling asleep that one time. So that whole time, I was just like, lying there, having all these emotions. And then I came back to bed and I woke up my husband. “Did you hear that?” And he’s like, “It’s thunder.” I don’t know why I didn’t catch it as thunder, but I didn’t. So then I had this whole hour. And of course, if I had tuned in before, I would know. Because it’s always true. It’s always true, even if the truth we can say, is something that we would classify as uncomfortable. The truth is always in the clarity, and it’s never in the uncomfortable feeling. It’s so profound. Right? And like I said, you have to test it to believe it. Because we’re always going to say, Well, surely this this one, this one is, you know, this one is not, it’s not going to be this one isn’t. But it is and, and even if, like I said, even if there’s a situation where we think, Well, this, this is terrible, like in any sense, like, it’s not even that it’s the story we attach to the situation that’s making us feel uncomfortable. Alexandra: Okay, so applying that to myself, when I felt like I was having a relapse, that’s what I’m calling it, but holding that term lightly, in October, which is sort of when it started. I get the feeling of the drive to over eat. And what you’re saying, putting that in personal terms, is that the truth isn’t there in that feeling. It’s in clarity. When I feel that feeling, knowing that it’s not true, is one place to look. Tania: I’m sure there are a number of thoughts that are coming through at that time for you. Like what happens? Alexandra: I feel disappointed right away. I hope it’s very temporary, a day or two, which this time it wasn’t. And then I kind of went into a passive mode of just waiting for insight about it. And that eventually led to frustration. So that was my process. Does that help? Tania: Can we go back a little bit more. What happens you’re talking about, how you feel yourself. So what happens in that? You just said, I have the feeling to overeat? I can’t remember the words used or something. But what what’s that? Alexandra: The drive to overeat is what I call it. It’s this specific feeling. How can I describe it? It’s a feeling of being gripped by a drive, like I said, to eat in a way that I don’t want to eat, to engage in a behavior that I don’t want to do. And it feels so compelling that if I tried to just use willpower to not do it, which I have done in the past, it’s futile. It’s like holding a beach ball under the water. It’s just you’re fighting against Mother Nature, and it’s just going to pop up eventually. Tania: And what’s going on? Like it seems like there’s something underneath that there’s something before that. Alexandra: I don’t think so. Can you give me an example? Tania: What’s the thought there? Alexandra: It doesn’t really come as a thought initially. It’s a feeling – that’s why I call it a drive. It feels kind of desperate, and compulsive. But until that moment, I had been doing just fine. So it doesn’t feel like it’s triggered by thinking. With your example with the bombs, of course, or the thunder, that noise was the trigger that created a lot of thinking, is what you’re saying. And in this case, there isn’t really something like that. A trigger like that. Tania: But then it’s like, I want a piece of cake, or I want the whole cake. Alexandra: In this case, I want rice with my dinner, and which I’ve been trying to avoid, and wine. And, there’s a bit of, one glass of wine isn’t enough. It has to be more than that. Two or three. Tania: Okay. So, I want wine with my dinner. And then what happens? Alexandra: And then I have it, and so there’s food on my plate, and it’s too much food. I can see that it’s more food than I actually need. But I feel that feeling of desperation. And I eat it, and I feel some sense of pleasure while I’m doing that, and then afterwards, I feel sort of disgusted with myself disappointed. Unhappy. Tania: So I don’t even know if this is the right place to live. But it feels like it might be like to go back, like so you make yourself the rice. And you know that you don’t want to be eating rice. So what happens back then, that you say, I’m going to make myself rice because Alexandra: Oh, because it will come this feeling of desperation, this drive to overeat, it will make it go away temporarily. Tania: Hmm. Okay. And the feeling that away then. There’s something back there. That seems to me that’s the start. And it’s kind of a snowball, right of everything else that we can just try and excuse or say okay, or whatever, but there seems to be like something at the beginning. That’s rising up. And saying, if you’re calling it desperation with desperation for what, Alexandra: I know it’s funny now. I just react to the feeling I don’t really examine it. In a way I could say it’s desperation to just make the feeling itself go away. I feel the feeling and then I feel compelled to make it go away. And I know the thing that will make it go away, which is a large meal. And then what else what else? Tania: How can you say the feeling that will make it go away? Alexandra: Practice. I mean, it works. You know, it does work. Tania: There’s something behind the desperate like, a tiger I’m desperate to eat. I’m hungry, or I’m desperate to eat because I’m sad, lonely. What was that? Alexandra: That’s really interesting. Consciously no, there’s not that feeling there. And I know what you’re pointing to. That has been the case in the past, where before I knew about the principles, I would have a bad day or have a feel angry or upset and I would eat the thing in order to soothe myself from that experience. Now I know that my moods go up and down and I’m not trying to solve a feeling or a mood are a thought at all. It’s habitual, it happens at the same time every day. For the rest of the day, I eat just fine. And I’m happy wi

Insight creates change. This I know for sure. Not willpower. Not restriction. Not even information. Insight. But what happens when we get tired of waiting for insight? What if we want to change and just…aren’t? Can we cultivate insight? Is there a way to seek out insight without layering more thinking onto a situation? You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Struggling with being in the back of the spiral for 5 months Looking for answers in universal intelligence in an active way Are spirit guides the same as universal intelligence? Is there a way to access guidance when we need it? Not wanting to share what I’m not embodying Is unresolved trauma causing what I’m experiencing? Resources Mentioned in this Episode George Pransky’s new book The Secret to Mental Health Episode 22 of Unbroken with Maryse Godet Copans Transcript of episode Hello, explorers, and welcome to episode 52 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m happy to have you here today with me. Thank you for joining me. I’ve got a couple of housekeeping items before we launch in here. The first is – and probably no one cares about this but me – I’m going to change the numbering system of the podcasts. Again, I’m sure nobody cares. I used to number them like q&a Number five, and then regular number five for the interview episodes. But now that there’s just one episode per week going out, I’m just going to number them sequentially. I’m not going to break them out, like they were being broken out before. So if you’re wondering about that, and I’m sure you weren’t, there you go. Now you have an answer. The second little bit of housekeeping I wanted to mention is: George Pransky has a new book out, it’s called The Secret to Mental Health. I haven’t read it yet. So this isn’t a review or anything. But I wanted to mention it in case you were interested in picking that up. George Pransky has been around this understanding for a very long time. He was one of the very first students who worked with Sidney banks. He and Roger Mills and Elsie Spittle were people right at the very beginning hearing from Mr. Banks, way before he started calling it the Three Principles. It wasn’t really called anything then. He has specialized in relationships, he has a really good book called The Relationship Handbook. That’s one of his earlier works. And so this one new one is called The Secret to Mental Health. I’ve downloaded the sample to my Kindle app on my iPad. So I’ll be starting in on that very soon. When I get finished with the mystery novel that I’m reading, that I’m really enjoying, that I couldn’t put down last night. I just realized as I hit record, I haven’t figured out what the title of this episode is officially going to be when I put the little illustration up, and the blog post and everything. What I want to talk about is universal intelligence and universal wisdom and whether or not there’s a better way, a more active way, to access that. And here’s why. As I mentioned, for the last few months, I have felt like I’ve been in the back of the spiral. And if you don’t know what I mean by that, if you go back a few q&a episodes, I talk about what that means. How our learning and growth is like a spiral, like a corkscrew shape, like a corkscrew lying on its side. And it’s always moving forward. But we have these times where we’re in the back of the of that curve. And it can seem harder, and things get tougher. And yet, when we know that when we know that that’s just a natural part of growth, and learning and change and life and our progression through life, then it’s a lot easier to deal with, because we don’t think it’s a problem, or a something to fix or that we’re broken. It’s just part of the way stuff works just like winter is part of one of the seasons. We might not like it, some people love winter. But some people don’t but that doesn’t mean that winter is a problem or that it’s a broken part of mother nature or anything like that. I’ve been wanting to explore or I’ve sort of very recently come to touch on this idea of exploring different ways to connect with universal wisdom because I’ve been in the back of the spiral for really for about five months. I think it started in October 2023. And this is Leap Day 2024 as I record this and put it up. I’m late recording and I’m late recording because there’s because of being in the back of the spiral. I just feel like I’ve lost a lot of momentum in my exploration of this understanding. I don’t feel very motivated. I feel kind of like depressed except not quite as deep and dark as I’ve been depressed in the past. I just feel a little blech. And normally, I really enjoy my work and enjoy everything I do. And feeling that way has really got my attention and it’s got my attention, then it’s been going on for quite a while. The other thing that’s been going on for quite a while is that my eating habits. They were so great last year but they have slightly gotten worse since October. And I’ve been doing and I’m going to give you an analogy about that in just a second. But I’ve been doing all the things I talked about on this podcast in order to sort of manage that or deal with it. I’ve been approaching it is that the right word? Receiving it, receiving that unwanted drive to overeat as feedback, not as a problem. It’s feedback, it’s universal wisdom, and the wisdom in my body, trying to get my attention. It’s telling me about my state of mind. I’ve been looking upstream rather than downstream about that. Trying to as much as I can to look toward the nature of our experience as human beings. Look toward the nature of thought, rather than downstream, which is looking at how can I control this? How can I change my habits with willpower and structure and lots and lots of rules about what I can eat and candied? Because my experience tells me that that way madness lies. There’s just no relief in that. I’ve tried that for 30 years, it didn’t work. It just made me unhappy and feel even more broken than I already did. So I don’t want to have anything to do with that. That’s just not where I’m going to look. So I’ve been doing all the things that I talk about. And really, it hasn’t shifted, it’s been five months. And that’s too long. According to me, according to this right now, it’s just been too long. I’m suffering, and I don’t like that of course, none of us do. And so here’s what I’m also doing, which is something a little wacky, and you can decide whether you want to stay on board with me or not. A friend of mine got interested in mediumship recently. I was into all those sorts of things when I was in the cult. We talked about all that kind of stuff, channeling and spirit guides, and all those things. I had really shut that part of myself away because of the associations that I have with the cult. But when my friend started exploring, and I got interested as well, and was listening to some podcasts and it was a good distraction, actually, from the suffering that I was experiencing, about overeating. I started to think and this is very recently, like, within the last week, we talk about and I talk about universal wisdom, and universal intelligence, and the intelligence of the universe that is within all of us and within everything all the time. And it’s never separate from any of us. And so that got me thinking, well, the other thing I often talk about is that insight has its own timing. In my personal embodied experience, insight has been the thing that has created change in my life. And yet I felt at the mercy of when it would arrive. And it has done a lot. And it has created tremendous change in my life, which is fantastic. What if there was a more conscious, more mindful, more active way of tapping into insight of tapping into that universal intelligence? So then, when I started to think about the subject of spirit guides and the way that mediums talk about spirit guides. And it’s always struck me as kind of this magical mystical thing that maybe some people have access to, and some people don’t, or some people have a talent for, and some people don’t. And or some people rely on that guidance and others don’t. I started to think given that we are all one, we are all made of stardust, and the trees and the flowers and the earth, everything we are made of stardust with, the universe is made of stardust, and we are as well. And that’s a physical representation. Or way to say that we are all connected, we are all aspects of the universe that has come to this world to have this experience. And we’re all connected in that way, inside that Universal Intelligence. And we’re all connected by things like love. What if this opened a doorway, this idea of spirit guides, and I’m using finger quotes, Not to disparage them at all. But just to point out that, this new idea that I’ve it’s not a new idea, it’s an old idea, but it’s something new that I’ve stumbled across. What if there was a way to access our guidance, and to initiate insight or receive insight, be more open to it when we need it? In a more active way than I’ve learned about with the three principles. So that’s what I’m exploring lately. I don’t know if that’s if this is going to be a thing, if it’s going to help or if it’s a distraction. I suspect there’s a way to go into this in a very head like way, with a lot of thinking about it, and trying to force things to happen. And then there must be a way to go about it, which is what I’m trying to do, in a very heartfelt way. In a very calm, quiet, not needing to add more thinking to a situation, but listening. And that that idea of listening, came about via one of the mediumship podcasts that I was listening to. The host talks about how there’s that in meditation, this is her approach her practice, that

Author, therapist and coach Lori Carpenos has seen that what affects our relationships the most is our state of mind. When the couples she works with see that ‘working on’ their relationship is not the answer to a loving relationship, that’s when everything changes. Lori Carpenos opened a private individual, couples and family counseling practice, in 1994, to pass along something she had stumbled upon in 1985, when she was privileged to meet the late Sydney Banks. As a result, her life changed in ways she could never have imagined at that time. She maintains a private practice in West Hartford, CT as a therapist, life coach, business consultant, facilitator, and writer. You can find Lori Carpenos at 3PrinciplesTherapy.com. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Starting out as an art teacher Resonating with Sydney Banks’ exploration of innate mental health On recognizing that ‘working’ on a relationship only makes things harder How we all fall back into love when our minds are quiet Getting on the wrong bus with our thinking but knowing we can choose a different ride How we all always have all the love we need within us How arguments originate from our state of mind On being single and our relationship to thought about that How we are all in relationship with our thinking Transcript of Interview with Lori Carpenos Alexandra: Lori Carpenos, welcome to Unbroken. Lori: Oh, thank you, Alexandra. It’s nice to be with you. Alexandra: It’s great to have you here. I’m so happy to meet you. Tell us a bit about your background and how you came to find the Three Principles. Lori: Well, they actually found me. It was quite by happenstance. I’d never heard of Sydney Banks, never heard of the three principles. I was an art teacher in Massachusetts, and I got a master’s in expressive arts therapy. I had this idea I wanted to do art therapy. And the place for that was California. So I was 25 years old, and I decided to quit my tenured art teacher job. Much to the dismay of my parents. They tried to stop me. But I felt called in retrospect, when I realized it was not to be an art therapist, because I’m driving across the country. Because California was known as the land of New Thought and new things. And art therapy was supposedly really big. I get halfway across. And I’m listening to a program, NPR, where they’re talking about a bill that had just passed in California, eliminating art, music, all the extra curricular activities in hospitals, schools, and I couldn’t believe it. It was like I was hearing something that was not true. And I’m thinking well, I’m halfway there. I already quit my job. I don’t have a job back on the east coast. So what do I do? I decided to keep going. I didn’t have a job. I knew one person in Northern California where I was headed to. No job, a cocktail waitress with my master’s degree my pocket. And one thing led to another. Well it’s a long story not to get into. But the crux of the matter was, I got into a relationship with a boyfriend, who had gotten the degree from California trans personal psychology, and he was heading to Florida, to the Advanced Human Studies Institute, which you probably heard was the first training place in, in, in the world, actually, at that time. So I thought, well I’ll go with him, of course, I’ll go with him, I’ll be closer to my family, then. I went out to California and this is now three years later. I did get a few part time jobs as an art therapist in the VA hospital, and also in Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. And both of those were really interesting situations. So I landed at the Advanced Human Studies Institute, and I’m going to a talk by this unknown person to me, Sydney Banks, and it was like somebody turned a light on in my head, is the only way I could explain it. I suddenly realize that the trajectory of my life is not completely up to me. That there’s some flow that is beyond me. And what I realized later, is how else to describe something like that, but I was drawn, I was driven to drive all that distance, by myself alone in my car with whatever belongings I had at the time. I realized later that it was really was a calling to be part of this understanding the which now we know is the whole paradigm shift in psychology. Alexandra: And what happened next? Where did where did this road take you? Lori: At the Advanced Human Studies Institute, and I wasn’t a student, but my boyfriend was a student for a year, and I saw that he was calmer, more settled down. And so I decided to take the year training. And that’s where I met so many people from that are familiar to you and some of the listeners. I learned from them as much as I did from Syd Banks because they would have insights. And I would realize, yeah, I see that true. When you hear truth, everybody knows that. It resonates, it makes perfect sense. You can’t debate it. Alexandra: I’m just curious, was he there all the time, or was he coming and going? Lori: He would come and go, yeah, he would come and go. Roger Mills was there all the time. I know you did an interview with Jack about Modelo, the project that Roger did in the in these projects. And I wish there at that time, but I did not meet the people who were involved in Modelo until a conference many years later. And just the stories were so incredible, incredible how people’s lives changed. What was called in there was a newscast about it and they called it the wild wild west. That’s what modelo was like the Wild Wild West with drug dealers and shootings and all kinds of things. And to see these women, they were mostly women who were heads of the household, to the children. And at this conference, one of the women said that we all thought that we were third generation welfare recipients. That’s who we thought we were. So that’s how we behaved in the world. We behave according to how we think of ourselves. And then she said, one of them discovered that they were had a had a program nearby that they could get a GED. A high school certificate, and one by one, they did that. Some of them actually became social workers. Some of them to this day, you can see them on YouTube that they are providing services to other people who are troubled and don’t know who they really are. Alexandra: Wow. Oh, I didn’t realize that. That’s really interesting. Where did your professional life take you? Lori: Ah, good question. Well, there was a very good friend of mine, Hazel Fosse, and people will recognize her name, she’s no longer with us. But Hazel suggested that I get a license as a marriage and family therapist, because that was a way that I could share what I had learned and what was helping me so much, and all of my relationships. And so I did that. I followed her suggestion, how to get some extra courses and, and do an internship. I spent a year at the Advanced Human Studies Institute after my year training as a counselor. And I got a license as a marriage and family therapist. And that’s pretty much where you know what I’ve been doing ever since. Alexandra: Let’s back up a little bit. Tell me a little bit about what your life was like before you learned about this understanding, before you met Sydney Banks. And then what it was like after. Lori: Well, that’s another great question, because I didn’t realize that I was depressed. I had a lot of fun, being an art teacher and being in Boston at the time, and I had friends and boyfriends. But in my master’s program, it was recommended that we all get into therapy. So I did that. I got a diagnosis. I got a diagnosis. They sent me to the Jung Institute in San Francisco. I took a battery of tests, and they came out with dysthymia and long term depression. So that explained to me that everybody’s life was not difficult. Right, I guess so then I started to think, Oh, I really have a problem. And so you can imagine what a relief it was to be around other people who were learning from Syd, learning that there’s no such thing. There’s no such thing as mental health disorders. There’s a wonderful book coming out about that and when I was entering this world of therapy, in order for people’s insurance to pay therapists, you have to give them a diagnosis. I was so against that. But I discovered I could use a diagnosis called the adjustment disorder. And I tell people, that’s the diagnosis I use because we all go through adjustments in life. I’ll never forget what Syd said. He said that, in the future there will be one diagnosis to us. And it will be the misuse of the ability to think. And that made perfect sense to me because I did not go from having a label as depressed to going to having a pretty carefree life. I can’t say some of it was overnight, but over the years, it just keeps getting better. Because I see when I get tangled up in my personal thinking, and I let it go it’s like, why would you hold onto a hot rock? Can you drop it, you’d let it go? Because you don’t want it to burn your hand? It’s the same thing with thinking that there’s something wrong with you and thinking about all the things you don’t like, and all the judgments and expectations we take on about how life is supposed to be. And to find out that it’s all coming from me. The outside world is not telling me that I’m not good enough, or there’s something wrong with well, so I’m for people diagnose if somebody else is telling me there’s something wrong with me. So it was me telling myself a lot of hogwash, and believing it. I sometimes get these thoughts, well, you could do better but then I don’t have to believe it. I don’t have to act as though that’s who I am. It’s not who I am. And that’s really what I came to see is that we all, everybody has, in essence, a spiritual essence that goes far beyond what we

In instances where our bodies and our innate wisdom are speaking to us, it can be tempting to see those messages as problems. But when we see them for the wisdom they carry and stay open to the messages these ‘problems’ have for us, we begin to see that they are always trying to help us on our paths as human beings. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes When a good sleeper encounters a bout of insomnia Discovering insightfully that is people pleasing tendencies keeping me awake How insomnia does not mean that I’m broken or that my ability to sleep is broken How insomnia, like overeating, is feedback about our mental state What is insight and how does it arrive? On the universal intelligence that is always flowing through all of us Transcript of episode Hello explorers and welcome to Q&A episode 50 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. Before we get started today, I want to have a little mini celebration with you. Because this is q&a Episode 50. That means there are 100 episodes have Unbroken now. 50 episodes like this q&a one and 50 interview episodes. I’m pretty happy and proud of that milestone and I thank you for being with me here along for the ride, however long you’ve been joining me. It’s a real pleasure for me to be here to do this every week, and to share what I see with the aim of helping others, of supporting and uplifting and sharing what has made such a big huge difference in my life. So here’s to another 100 episodes. I aim to be around for the next year as well. February 14, 2024 will be the one year anniversary of the current website and the Freedom From Overeating course and Unbroken podcast. So we’ll celebrate that as well. Today’s q&a episode is going to involve a bit of a story. I’m also going to give you some background to give some context for what I’m about to share. And this story today has to do with insight, it has to do with our unbrokenness, which is really nice given that this is the 100th episode. So let’s get started. I’ll begin by telling you that about towards the end of 2023, October or November, there came a situation. I should back up a little further. I’m on the board or I was on the board of a little nonprofit that exists here in the town where I live. It’s a nonprofit housing society, independent living for seniors in the Ucluelet area. I’ve been on the board for a couple of years. And there’s one paid position in this organization. And the building is just a small, like, it looks like an apartment building. It has 10 apartments, all for seniors. And it’s independent living, like I said, so everybody is independent. They really don’t need any kind of assistance with mental health or physical chores or that kind of thing. Some of them can get care workers to come in, but 80% 90% of them don’t. It’s like an apartment building. And there’s one paid position. And it’s an administrative position that is 15 hours a week in the building. The woman who had been doing it was of retirement age. And also, she had been with the organization for five years and had brought the people, the tenants through the pandemic. And so she was feeling a little bit burnt out. So at the end of 2023, the board kind of came to a little bit of a crisis point in that this woman wanted to retire. And we had done some interviews looking for someone to take the position and couldn’t really find anybody who we felt would be a really good fit either because they weren’t available at the times we needed them to be or that kind of thing. And in the end, I actually had an insight. I was in the shower one day, and it suddenly occurred to me, “Well, what if I did that work? What if I committed to doing it for a year?” Like I say it’s just two or three hours a day. So I could do it in addition to doing this work here that I do for Unbroken and Freedom From Overeating. And it would help with the board that I was on that was in a bit of a pickle. And it would also give this business, AlexandraAmor.com, a bit of it, it felt like it just needed some space and some time to grow and to find its feet. With any self-employment venture you know they say when you start a new business it takes three to five years before it really comes into its own and has a lot of momentum and is earning its keep so to speak, that that the finances go into the black. And so I thought, well, this job with the seniors housing is doable in terms of it’s just a couple of hours a day. And I would be earning a little bit of income on the side from that, which would give this business, a little bit of space, a little bit of space and time to evolve and to find its feet. So it seemed like a really good fit. And because the idea came to me insightfully it felt good. I sat with it for a while and then I put the idea forward, and it was accepted. So fast forward, it’s now February 2024. And the job is going really well. And I’m encountering real problems sleeping. I’ve always been a really good sleeper. I’ve never had any sort of serious bouts of insomnia. I always fall asleep the minute my head hits the pillow. And in fact, I need quite a lot of sleep. I tend to be somebody who needs eight or nine hours a night. And I come from a family of nappers, so I’m also good at napping. So when these problems with sleeping started to crop up, it became a little bit worrisome. The way it’s showing up for me is that I go to sleep okay but then I wake up in the middle of the night, sort of 1, 2, 3 o’clock, and I can’t get back to sleep. I can feel my mind just really revving up, really super revved up, I guess that’s the only word I can use with thinking. And it is about the job that I have. Sometimes it’s so churned up and so speedy, my thinking, that I can feel it in my body as well. My body has this electrical feeling. It’s not physical, a physical feeling. It’s more like, energetic. So that started happening at probably at the end of the year, end of December, and then it’s carried on through January, and into February. It’s not every single night, but I would say it’s probably four nights a week, which is not great. And what it means is that it’s interfering with my daytime routine. It’s interfering with this job, with my Freedom From Overeating stuff, my website and the podcast and everything. Because the time that I do have here at home to work on those things, I often have to have a nap. That cuts into the amount of time that I’m able to devote here. It’s been bothering me, and it’s been on my mind. And then it happened again last night. I woke up at probably about 3:30. I was awake for a couple of hours, lots and lots and lots of thinking about this job. And the challenges that we have there. What happens is that the person in my position, I’m the person that everybody brings their problems and their grievances and their questions and their concerns and to. There’s 10 tenants, so I’m the recipient of all that stuff from every tenant. And not that every tenant is complaining all the time. That’s not the case. But if there’s a challenge or a problem, I’m the logical place that the person comes to talk to. I’m also the point of contact for the board. So if they have any questions or challenges or problems, I’m also the point of contact for the contractors. So we have, so the tenants are provided with one meal a day they get their evening meal provided by the building, as it were. And so there are two chefs that are on staff that split the days between them the days of the week. And there’s a maintenance guy, and it’s just, it’s a lot. So last night, I was lying in bed, once again, awake in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling and flopping around trying to find a comfortable position so that I could fall back asleep. And it wasn’t happening. And thinking about we have a meeting today actually, as I record this, that’s going to be a bit fraught. I was thinking about all these things. And then I had a little insight, which was so nice. I was thinking about why is this challenging? I know that we live in the world of our thinking, not in the world of our experiences, I know that for sure. And I know not to be too concerned, like when my mind is really stirred up at night, and I’m lying there in the middle of the night worried about things. I know not to take it too seriously. So I really take it with a grain of salt. And just let it happen, like a thunderstorm. I just let it roll by. And don’t try not to grab on to any one of the thoughts in the middle of the night and turn them into a bigger problem. I felt like I was managing all that stuff really well. And given my understanding of the principles, too. So what I was thinking about last night was, like I said, Why? Why is my mind so sped up? I’m really familiar with this kind of administrative work, I’ve done it my entire adult life. And I’ve been self-employed basically since 1999. And the job itself, like the paperwork, and the all the things that go on is not that challenging. It’s pretty quiet, actually. Which is probably why the job is only funded for 15 hours, a weak and totally manageable. And so this is all the stuff that I was thinking about in the middle of the night. Then it struck me – this was the insight – the people pleaser in me is really struggling with pleasing all these people. And like I said, there’s a lot of them, there’s 10 tenants, there’s seven or eight board members, there’s five or six contractors. That’s a lot of people to please when you’re a people pleaser. So that struck me and was really incredibly helpful. I’ll go back into my background now a little bit and share where this people pleasing tendency came from. And then I’m going to go forward and talk about what I see about what’s going on, and also what I can do about what’s happening now that I k

Nikon Gormley had achieved success as a top-level athlete, but he was still searching for answers. He wanted to feel calm during his taekwondo matches so he began looking in all the usual places. It wasn’t until he discovered the Three Principles that things began to click into place for him. Now he coaches others about the innate resilience and well-being that we all possess. Nikon Gormley is passionate about guiding people to unleash their true, full potential so that they can experience greater levels of success, purpose, and well-being in their lives. He helps people understand and experience the beauty of how their minds work, harness the power of insight to navigate life with more clarity and ease and achieve more with less struggle, less anxiety, and less pressure. Nikon is also passionate about Taekwondo. He have been practising Taekwondo for 25+ years and has a 5th Dan Black Belt. He has trained and competed around the world as an elite athlete. You can find Nikon Gormley at NikonGormley.com and on YouTube @nikongormley. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Training as an Olympic taekwondo athlete Searching for ways to be a better athlete Growing a business at its own pace, rather than out of insecurity When the habit of being discontented stops being interesting How our feelings are always guiding us home How ‘nobody gets stupid when they’re peaceful’ On the nature of worry and its origin in thought Choosing what we pay attention to How ambition can be insecurity in disguise Resources Mentioned in this Episode Michael Neill’s book The Inside Out Revolution Mavis Karn’s book It’s That Simple Listen to my interview with Mavis Transcript of Interview with Nikon Gormley Alexandra: Nikon Gormley, welcome to Unbroken. Nikon: Thank you for having me, Alexandra. It’s pleasure to be here. Alexandra: It’s so nice to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you discovered the Three Principles. Nikon: My background started as a taekwondo athlete, as a young boy, as a martial art taken as a Korean martial art. And being called the athlete side of it, right, there’s a martial art side of it. And there’s an athlete side of it, because it was the Olympic sport in Thailand, it’s just very popular, we have it in our national Olympics, or we can get University scholarship scholarships for it. I started when I was 12. And I played for about 20 years. And being in a sport, you develop this thing where you just want to be better, you get obsessed with yourself not being good enough, and you get obsessed with wanting to be better. And apart from doing everything I physically could to be better and training, I knew I had to work on my mind. I wanted to be calm during competitions. It’s a combat sport. So there’s a lot going on, there’s people yelling at you, there’s someone trying to kick you and you got to kick them have a good story about that after so. I really went around all the houses, I studied everything I could from the law of attraction, or affirmations or like NLP, anything, in hopes that would make me a better athlete. And nothing really worked. I always thought it was my fault. Like, maybe I didn’t visualize the right details, or maybe I didn’t say the right affirmations in the right order. Maybe I didn’t write script it good enough, and then I got fed up. But it wasn’t great. And then finally, I read the Inside Out Revolution by Michael Neal. I didn’t understand it. But something clicked. There was something inside of me like this makes sense. I was like, Oh my god. Finally, finally. And then something funny happened. I was competing at the Thai National Olympics, I was competing for a province who had hired me to compete for them at the games. And I didn’t care anymore. I stopped caring about what was on my mind, I stopped caring about not being confident and just want to enjoy the game. So it’s probably one of my last Thai National Olympics. And I was like, honestly, go enjoy myself. And sure enough, everything just was flowed. I had the best time ever. I got to compete against the number one seed who I lost to, but I really enjoyed that match with him. So much so that after I lost him, I was like, Hey, that was a great match. Thank you so much for your time and energy. And how’d you do this? How’d you do that? And I’m watching myself. This guy just kicked your ass. Why are we so friendly to him? Because it didn’t make sense not to be. And then from there that was like, Okay, I need to know everything I need to know everything I can about this. And similar to you. I read all the books, talked to all the people. I hunted down all the teachers that I could find and just sit with them and talk with them and learn from them. And since then, my life has bloomed in incredible ways. In our conversation, we talk about the magic carpet ride. Dr. Joe Bailey talks about that where you get on the magic carpet ride. And it just takes you to places. From there, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just been an incredible journey where I noticed more of the time I stopped finding myself in the right place at the right time. And being more noticeable when I was off track. That’s a big thing. Being more noticeable. Like this doesn’t feel right. I’m off track or my mind. My mind is out to lunch. I’m insecure about this. I’m done. And it just kept getting better and better and better. And what to me it’s like an evergreen renewable energy source right as keep seeing more. I was telling talking to a mentor last night in a group and saying like, I think I see you about this much. But that much is enough to have a beautiful life. Alexandra: That’s such a good way to put it. Nikon: That comes from a joke. You want to hear it? The joke is Adam Sandler was receiving his Mark Twain prize, and had all his comedian friends come and share stories and send up bits for Adam. David Spade got up and he said, “Adam Sandler. $8 billion in movies. This much talent.” So if you’re listening this much is not a lot. I thought about it like, yeah, it’s kind of like us like we see this much, but that’s enough to have a beautiful life. Alexandra: Yes, that’s so well said, I love that. Nikon: And now we’re here, you know? Alexandra: Carry on, tell us about what you what you do. Nikon: So some of the things as a result was like, Okay, well, what happened? How did your life bloom and to think more, I got to work with all my favorite teachers. I got to build a beautiful taekwondo business. We have 12 branches around Thailand, we teach 400 kids a week, we have 15 staff. We recently hit like our new revenue highs. But the best part is, we didn’t really feel like we were working that hard. We’re just enjoyed doing what we’re doing. I have a coaching business that I love. I get to work with corporates and people around the world and doesn’t feel like work at all. I have a national radio show, under the Ministry of Education by Thailand, and I’m sitting here going, I don’t know how this happened. I just kept showing up. Whereas before this conversation would have been, oh, yeah, I hustled my butt. I grinded my way to this, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. And that’s how we’re here. Alexandra: Do you fold any of the ideas from the principles into when you’re teaching kids about taekwondo? Nikon: Sure, that’s a good question. I would say the thing that folds into that is sheer presence of just showing up, and really being with the kids. I’ll tell you our secret sauce for anybody listening for wondering how Super Seven Taekwondo does what we do, we only have one strategy with the kids. And our one strategy is to simply be really happy to see them. Really, really glad to see the kids. That’s all we do. Anybody can teach taekwondo but having the presence to really be with kids and be genuinely happy to see these little human beings. Alexandra: That’s so great. That makes me emotional. That’s a beautiful approach. Nikon: I think the other part of the more technical is not technical is, it’s how we build business in the taekwondo business, because it grew from like one branch to 12, from 10 kids to 400, over 10 years. That was very much the principles, because for the longest time, it was hovering around five. Once I got into the principles, it like it, like 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, like really fast. And I was wondering about it. I realized the way myself and my team approach the business changed. We stop worrying about it so much. We held it lightly. And we slowed down a lot. And we let the business grow at a pace that the business wanted to grow, not when our insecurities wanted to grow. Alexandra: That’s amazing. One of the things that I read on your website was that you were an overachiever in the past. Can you talk about that a little bit? You mentioned on your website that you were probably overachieving to escape how you were feeling. Nikon: Oh, yeah, absolutely. For anybody else’s who has ever felt not good enough. So interesting. So a lot of people feel that my reaction to that thought was if I could just achieve enough I could feel good about myself. If I could just achieve enough people would give me the time and attention that I wanted. And that was my response for most of my life. I just kept like, it was nothing interesting happens. Interesting thing happens when you have that reaction to that thought is nothing is ever good enough, either. I don’t know what the cartoon is, but something who like there’s probably a word for it. Like when you when you keep trying to feed yourself things you don’t really need so it’s never enough. Alexandra: Dr. Gabor Mate talks about the realm of hungry ghosts. They have big bellies and tiny mouths. Nikon: That’s one that one. W