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Unlocking the Secrets of Your Brain & Body for Change, Confidence & Creativity Ft. Maddie Storey
3.3k Plays6 months ago
OH MY GOSH, I KNOW YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE THIS EPISODE! I’m joined with Maddie Storey who is so insightful and generous with such inspiring and mind blowing advice. In this episode we discuss:
- Understanding our brain and stress response.
- Why so many of us struggle to change, and how to actually change.
- Tools for emotional processing and regulations.
- Fear vs Intuition
- How to strengthen and practice intuition
- Unlocking Performance - tapping into deep creativity, focus and determination.
This episode is an educational piece, but should not be substituted for professional help.
If you want to check out my last episode with Maddie where we cover the below, listen here!
- People Pleasing
- Sacrificing our Authenticity for Connection
- The human desire to be liked and accepted
- The neuro neuroscience and psychology behind confrontation and uncomfortable situations
- Life purpose
- Subconscious mind when it comes to manifesting.
ABOUT MADDIE:
Maddie holds tertiary qualifications in Business and Mental Health, and she is currently pursuing a masters degree in Behavioural Neuroscience at University of New England. Maddie has extensive facilitation experience and has facilitated globally, her experience spans from working with high school students to top corporate leaders.
You can find her incredible toolkits which are based on the content we chatted about here.
A big thank you to Phoebe Evers for sponsoring this episode, her book The Little Creatures can be purchased here. Use the code SMILE10 for 10% off.
Pass Around the Smile's Links below
View my website here! (My very own oracle cards, journals, meditations, courses + more magical stuff!)
Join my Facebook community group here!
Find me on Instagram here! @passaroundthesmile @cleomassey
The Pass Around the Smile podcast is recorded on Bundjalung Country, in South East Queensland, Australia. We acknowledge the Yugambeh people of the Bundjalung Nation, the traditional owners of this land. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Themes
00:00:00
Speaker
Pass Around the Smile is like your go-to friend, the one that lifts you up and backs you to the end. She's there to guide and inspire, challenge and teach, and remind you that your best self isn't out of reach. Self-development, manifestation, self-love and more, it's time to trust the process more than ever before. Welcome to Pass Around the Smile, the podcast. I'm your host, Cleo Massey, and I am so glad you're here. Let the magic begin. Hello, welcome back to the Pass Around the Smile podcast. I am so excited to share this episode with you. I cannot explain how insightful, how inspiring, how just incredible the conversation that Maddie and I have just had was.
00:00:44
Speaker
I took so much away from it it. It was really one of those conversations that I think and I hope is going to have you feeling really heard, really excited and really kind of clear with what you need to do moving forward from a spiritual side, but also from a neuroscience side. I think Maddie and I compliment each other really well in that sense is we both have very similar similar beliefs, but Maddie comes from it from a neuroscience point of view and I come from it from a spirituality point of view.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm just so excited for you guys to hear this conversation. You may know Maddie because I have already had her on the podcast before for a very powerful episode that was all around people pleasing, why we do it, how to kind of stop sacrificing our authenticity for connection. We talked about the desire as humans we have to be liked and accepted. We covered the neuroscience and psychology behind confrontation and uncomfortable situations. We talked about life purpose, subconscious mind when it comes to manifesting. This was all in the episode that was like a year ago. So I'll link that in the show notes below. If you want to go back and have a listen to that, you absolutely can.
Engagement and Sponsorship
00:01:53
Speaker
But this episode coming up, we dive even deeper and into topics that are just
00:01:59
Speaker
I just think they're so needed at the moment on a collective level. I think that we will all be able to resonate and take so much from this episode. We talk about understanding our brain and stress response. Why so many of us struggle to change. We talk about the tools for emotional processing. We talk about fear versus intuitions, how to strengthen and practice our intuition. And we talk about unlocking performance, like deep creativity, focus, and determination moving forward. So it's a good one.
00:02:28
Speaker
Please, if you have any questions for Maddie, pop them in the Facebook community group and I'll get Mads to actually reply to your question for you. And if you're listening on Spotify, you can always leave a question or a comment in the Q and&A section. um If you're listening on Apple, you can leave a review or whatever it is. Get in touch because there is so much to talk about in this episode and I hope it has you feeling just really like a part of the conversation because I think the conversation that we had we all feel like the things that we talk about is just it's like one of those conversations where you're like yes I feel that and I thought it was only me and it makes so much sense as to why I feel that now because it's actually it's it's my brain and it's science but I can change and I can move forward and it's it's inspiring it's exciting I will get into the episode in just a minute, but first I want to say the biggest thank you to today's sponsor, Phoebe Evers. She is a community member, a pass around a small community member that reached out to me asking about sponsoring the podcast because she has created the most gorgeous children's book called Meet the Creatures. She sent me the book to read to Indigo and it is such a sweet book. The illustrations are out of this world. They are also very pass around the smile. There are moons, there are suns throughout, there are beautiful animals.
00:03:48
Speaker
It's a bedtime story. It's a rhyme. So it's good. She kind of says it's good for ages one to six because it's a bedtime story. It's good for the younger ones, but it's also good for children that are learning to read. It is just, you can just feel the energy and the intention that went into this book, which makes me so proud.
00:04:08
Speaker
to share it on the podcast, especially because she is a Passaround Smile community member. I'm looking at the book right now and honestly, the illustrations are just out of this world. The story is heartwarming. It's just, it's beautiful. As a small business myself, I really believe in supporting small businesses and as we move into The festive season, the gifting season, I want to encourage you guys to support small businesses like Phoebe. This is her first book. It's so exciting. I'll pop her links in the show notes so you can look at purchasing the book. The beautiful gift for the little ones in your life this Christmas. And she's even offered a discount code.
00:04:49
Speaker
It's Smile 10 in capital letters for the Pass Around the Smile community. That'll give you 10% off her book. And Phoebe's also free for reading events in kindies and schools. So reach out if you're around the Gold Coast, reach out to Phoebe.
00:05:05
Speaker
Honestly, I'm just like the book is just beautiful. It just oozes good energy. I it's a story that I look forward to reading. Like, you know, there are the kids books where you're like, oh, I have to read this story to my kid. Like it's a bit of a drag. This is one that's like kind of for the adults as well. It's like a mindful, beautiful, relaxing experience. The colors, the illustrations.
00:05:26
Speaker
ah heartwarming and wholesome and I just I honestly love it it. It's just it's honestly just gorgeous that comes from the bottom of my heart. Really recommend this book and thank you so much Phoebe for sponsoring this episode with your beautiful book Meet the
Understanding Stress and Overthinking
00:05:41
Speaker
Creatures. Everyone look into it.
00:05:43
Speaker
Maddie Story holds tertiary qualifications in business and mental health, and she is currently pursuing a master's degree in behavioral neuroscience at the University of New England. Maddie has extensive facilitation experience and has facilitated globally. Her experience spans from working with high school students to top corporate leaders.
00:06:03
Speaker
Matt, welcome back to the Pass Around the Smile Podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be back. It feels like the right time. It is. It's the right time. We've wanted to do this for a while, but it just hasn't quite worked out until now, which I think is... Yeah, it very much meant to be, definitely. So since we chatted last on the podcast, which I have put that link in the show notes for anyone wanting to listen back to that episode, because it's such a such a juicy one.
00:06:29
Speaker
you have been studying your master's in neuroscience. Yes, I've gone back to the books for a third time. then And you're learning so much. Yeah, it's been really, I think it's just funny how life works out as well in terms of actually finding what exactly was my passion and Yeah it's the first third time I'm back studying but it doesn't feel like, like it's obviously quite challenging but it just really feels like what I'm meant to do and yeah I'm just so passionate about the content and so excited to share it and yeah it's just incredible. I just I love having you on the podcast and I know my community love you so much because you are that perfect medium between
00:07:13
Speaker
the neuroscience and the woo-woo. Like you love spirituality, you love all that stuff, but then you actually have science that backs it all up. And I think it's so important for us woo-woo girls that are like, you know, ask, believe, receive, we meditate. we It's so nice on the days where self-doubt's coming in, where we lose faith, where things don't feel magical anymore. It's so important to remind ourselves that actually there is so much science that backs the power of the mind and that's why. I love what you talk about so yeah and that's the thing it's so complex and so in a way some of the stuff we can do is so simple at the same time but we were just never given a manual and it doesn't always make sense and I think the more that you understand your mind and your body which I think we'll explore today as well
00:08:03
Speaker
it it It really just can change your life. Like you don't need to prolong certain areas of suffering. And it's just, yeah, I just wish everyone could access this knowledge. I'm so excited. Well, we're here to access it with you today, Maddie Story. You're the girl. So let's start with understanding our brain and stress response. This is something that you've been learning about and I'm very intrigued to hear more about it.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah it's an interesting one and it's quite fascinating because I've been obviously working in the mental health space for a while now and working in schools and um you know companies and different things like that but I don't think it really clicked for me until I started to really understand the neuroscience of the stress response and exactly how to manage it and also some of the things that we do that makes it worse which I don't think we realise as well so not to make it too complex, but essentially when we feel a threat um or the stress response or when we're feeling anxiety or fear or whatever it is, it's to do with a part of our brain called the amygdala. And we won't get too technical, but it's just basically an almond shaped part of our brain. And it's really the oldest and dumbest part of our brain. It's there to keep us alive, essentially. And it's a great, or but like it's obviously a fantastic part of our brain because it keeps us alive.
00:09:25
Speaker
The issue is it's kind of like a smoke alarm. And in this society, it tends to go off like a faulty smoke alarm all the time. okay If that makes sense. And there's things that we, ah some of us, and this is very dependent on, um you know, our tolerance to stress and different things that we've been through, whether we've got, you know, an anxiety disorder or whatnot, but that can tend to go off um more than it needs to essentially. And we're we're feeding it, so to speak. So what happens when we feel a threat is that that alarm goes off and then we go into that fight or flight, which is all of us can connect to, yeah is just a horrible feeling. It's absolutely horrible. But the thing that we don't realize is if we take something like overthinking, the more that we feed the overthinking cycle,
00:10:17
Speaker
the more that that we're reinforcing that stress programming. So if you're having that threat response over social situations or dating or whatever it might be, the more that you engage in the overthinking cycle, the more that you're actually building programming around that and the more that that alarm's gonna keep going off because it doesn't want you to go back to that, that like that feeling so unsafe, right?
Managing Emotional Responses and Stress
00:10:43
Speaker
okay So if we take it to what the response was designed for, like, you know, back in the day when we were, you know, walking on the, I don't know, Sahara Desert, I'm just making shit up now. I don't know exactly what happened back then. But we had, we were in like really, really harsh environments. So we had to constantly be on. So always scanning for threats, it kept us alive, right? So we might've been walking and you know we might've been talking to our friend or whoever was back in the day, I don't know what it was like, and going, okay, I'm feeling a bit anxious here and that person might be like, all right, look up, and there might be an actual predator that's coming towards us. The problem is now, when we talk about that threat response, the threats aren't always physical, they're also social.
00:11:28
Speaker
So anything that threatens your sense of belonging, your sense of self, your connections can set off the threat response. One single thought can set your threat response off. And so what actually happens to the amygdala when that stress response is set off?
00:11:47
Speaker
So that's when we go into that fight or flight. We're going into that, you know, we're feeling the tense muscles and get the physical, the physical sensation. and Yeah. And then the part of our brain that is responsible for logic and reasoning is drained of all its resources at this particular stage. So that's why I always joke like when I'm in a regulated state, like far out, I could convince myself I'm a unicorn when I'm stressed and I believe it. Yeah. And that's because when you're in that state, it drives,
00:12:17
Speaker
really distorted thinking. yeah So it drives because, and when we're in that state for a while, so when we're fueling it with overthinking um and where, and it might even be something like overthinking or avoiding the situation, or you might be seeking reassurance, everyone will kind of have something and it's about identifying that.
00:12:38
Speaker
um the more we're feeding. So fear and anxiety and stress is kind of like a cycle. The more you feed it, the longer it goes on. And then what happens is like the emotional part of your brain and the logical part of your brain, they just like as simplified terms, they stop communicating very well. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, so and then you just in that state for ages and you can't think clearly and it will, the experience will differ for every single person.
00:13:06
Speaker
ah But it's about trying to understand that sort of response for you and you just, you're not at your best self. And that's when we start to do things that are quite irrational, impulsive. um We say things that we regret.
00:13:19
Speaker
ah reactions are not oh yeah that's something that I have learned myself is I guess when I'm in that stress response it's my reactions that aren't my normal reactions and I have to just take a step back to be like I can actually perceive this conversation or what this person is doing or saying in a different way if I just let myself have a minute and like come back to myself rather than jumping in with a reaction where I'm like assuming the worst and then getting into that overthinking like as you as you were saying about the overthinking that struck a chord with me because I'm a
00:13:55
Speaker
an overthinker. And sometimes I love how- Welcome to the club. Yeah. Seriously, I think we are all over it. But when we're in that overthinking state and we're obviously feeding it, like let's say it's come from a social situation. Yes. We're out with, you know, friends at a big party and we're overstimulated and we get home and we're overthinking what we said or what we didn't say and we're feeding it. How do we then stop that cycle?
00:14:20
Speaker
Great, great question. I love it. ah I'll explain a little bit more what happens and then I'll talk about stopping it. So when I spoke about before, a thought can set off a single, um a single thought can set off a threat response. Usually because that threatens something that's very dear to you. um Sometimes it can be what we call like ego-dystonic. So it's um you know opposite to your values, opposite to what you care about.
00:14:45
Speaker
And because it sets off the threat response, it feels really real. And that's why it feels so scary. It feels really, really urgent and you want to react on it straight away. So what happens is you can't find safety in the body at that stage. So when we spoke about that stress response, it's uncomfortable. It is not nice. So what you want to do is find safety in the mind.
00:15:07
Speaker
So you go, okay, I can't deal with this uncertainty or this lack of control. I want to try and overthink it and come up with a solution. So what we think we're doing the right thing, but all we're doing is when we're in that stage, and I will say this now, no matter how much you overthink it, because the logical part and the emotional parts aren't communicating, you're never going to come up with a solution. yeah So it's just an endless cycle. You know when you see those little diagrams of spiraling?
00:15:34
Speaker
That's pretty much what it is. Good luck. You know, we've all been there before. It's a great time. So that's one thing to remember as well. Like, and a lot of the time when I'm coming into how we stop that, my next point is if I say to you right now,
00:15:49
Speaker
don't think of a pink elephant, what happened? I thought of a pink elephant. yeah So the problem is that we don't wanna put too much, this it it and it takes practice. So what I'm gonna talk about today are a couple of tools and takes a lot of practice and I'm a huge, and I'll probably say it throughout the podcast as well, I'm a huge advocate for going to a psychologist with some of this stuff that's a little bit trickier as well because it can be rooted in you know overwhelming emotional experiences and past trauma and whatnot.
00:16:17
Speaker
but It does take practice. So the more you kind of tell yourself, I don't want to think about this, I don't want to think about this, you might actually find the thought keep popping up more and more because what you're doing is fueling the threat response. So what the first thing we want to start to do is come back into the body. yeah So you want to train yourself to be uncomfortable in the uncomfortable because the more that you can build your tolerance for stress, the less likely it comes back.
00:16:47
Speaker
Okay. So when we're talking about that smoke alarm, the more that you, I guess, don't try and go and fix the, I don't know if this analogy is going to work, but let's go there. Um, the more you try and go and fix the smoke alarm and you're not a technician, the more you're just going to keep setting things off and it's just going to go worse. Right. So what you need to kind of do is almost talk to the survival part of your brain because it is the oldest and dumbest part of your brain. yeah So you just need to say, I'm okay.
00:17:13
Speaker
I mean, you don't all need to say this, but I kind of just go, oh yeah, it's my amygdala keeping me safe. yeah It's my survival brain keeping me safe. I'm okay. I'm okay. And breathe through it because what ah The research does not exact on this, but like anxiety and emotions actually probably only last for around 90 seconds. It's when we keep feeding them that they tend to increase. And that's not an exact number, the the part of my brain's where I'm like, I need to get the exact numbers in there. No, that's okay. Yeah, but it's ah it's ah it's a short it's a short time. It's because we keep feeding it that it prolongs.
00:17:49
Speaker
So kind of just telling yourself that your body actually has this really um natural way of just coming back down to an equilibrium again So you kind of again just coming back into the body and going I'm okay like I'm alright because you can't you can't use Cognitive strategies don't tend to work that well when you're in a dysregulated state. It's more just coming back into the body. What's a cognitive? stress that is exactly I know I should have explained that so that's when we try to like go I'm gonna replace that thought with a positive thought or I'm gonna try and you know try and like think differently in this stage which is and I'll jump into that a brilliant strategy it's just when you're stressed and that can sometimes actually just fuel the overthinking cycle and something that I did wrong with practicing this is
00:18:38
Speaker
because I obviously love the science behind it. I was like, okay, so my amygdala is going off, I need to breathe. And I'm like stressing myself out trying to regulate myself. myself Yeah, okay, you didn't, it took the opposite effect. Yeah, and I was fueling the, like, I guess the threat response. So it's just really kind of going, I'm okay, taking a couple of deep breaths and almost allowing the thoughts to be there and not judging them. yeah and letting them kind of, you will probably hear that analogy a lot. It takes practice, letting them kind of float away like water. Cause the less attention you give them, the less that you're telling that threat response, they're a threat. Cause by, essentially by overthinking, you're saying, Hey, this is a threat. I need to go off every two seconds. And that's when you'll start to like, let's say social situations set you off. You know, Claire, you might look at me in a funny way, which you would never do. no i wouldn't
00:19:31
Speaker
And who couldn't but it might have actually been that you just look to decide because the light flicker Which is a lot of the time the reasons why we're not making eye contact And then I'm suddenly because I'm in such a distorted overthinking cycle. Yeah, I'm like she hates me. Yep yeah And then every single one of us goes there. She hates me. I'm going to go home and analyze. And that's what your brain will do. It will find all the evidence to suggest why you hate me. And is that the reticular activating system kind of coming in? Yeah. i have I've been finding that lately, even something Luke and I were talking about. It was something that kind of happened on social media. I was worried about something that I put on TikTok and
00:20:11
Speaker
I kept going over and over, analyzing, overthinking, coming up with all of the bad things that could come from putting this video up. And Luke said to me, he's like, and really he said to me what you were saying in scientific form, but he's like, you're giving this so much attention that you are going to make it a thing in the at the end of the day. Like, and that is stepping into manifesting something that you don't want. but you're now kind of giving us the scientific reasons as to why we do that. But yeah, it's like, I just needed, and when I did, I finally let go and I slept on it and I woke up and I was like, there is nothing wrong with that video. It was like one person's comment that I deleted and then, you know.
00:20:52
Speaker
I would love to use your example if we're like if we're talking about like retraining. One of the best times, I keep i feel like I've got this like affectionate relationship with the amygdala now, but one of the best ways to retrain our brain is when we're stressed. so When you're triggered, like in your situation there, what you did was you you kind of broke your safety behavior. You kind of were like, I'm not going to overthink this. I'm going to stop. I'm okay. And the more you're actually retraining your brain in the moment that it's not a threat.
Emotional Motivation and Brain's Resistance to Change
00:21:20
Speaker
yeah So the more that you can always go, and this is a game I just want to preface, like it's very different for people who've had different emotional experiences around this, but for something like that, right?
00:21:31
Speaker
I'm like, I've got an emotional reaction here. I'm triggered. I'm going to break my safety behavior, not go into overthinking. yeah Next time you're faced with a situation like that, it's going to feel easier. Because you're training your tolerance for uncomfortability. So it's more that like you kind of go, this is actually a great thing that I'm having an emotional reaction here because I can use this as an opportunity to not go down the same track that I have previously because yeah, we do end up constantly attracting people. I really think people and situations and environments.
00:22:09
Speaker
that will continue to create those emotional reactions in us. So I think, so we have an opportunity to explore that. And I think too, we can look at like when I woke up that next day, I felt so refreshed and clear and also proud of myself for not spiraling as I used to. So I guess looking forward to those good feelings that will come from, you know, teaching yourself that lesson. And yeah, it's going to be hard in the moment, but it really does create change.
00:22:38
Speaker
And you suffer. So so that that's ah the interesting thing about it is you suffer so much more by overthinking and spiraling yeah than you do by building your tolerance. And this is what we don't get. like i am Oh, like I could probably have a degree in overthinking by now. same i And sometimes it amazes me. And that's why I'm such an advocate for understanding the brain, but not just like we can have it. And you and I have spoken about this before. or It's like you can listen to a really fantastic podcast and you can listen to all this incredible information and until you start practicing it.
00:23:17
Speaker
nothing's going to change. yeah And it's hard. Like it's really, really tricky because in your situation, you're talking about something like TikTok and social media. We're wired for connection as humans. So you're talking like social media is a social threat. Literally all the alarms are going off. There's many smoke alarms. We got a whole building going on there.
00:23:39
Speaker
ah I just I'm so thankful for this conversation and I think the community gonna be really thankful for it too because what it's doing is it's just normalizing all the things that we feel and when you can feel so lonely can't it when you're overthinking you think it's only you that must overthink in this world that only you have these feelings it was actually listening to a podcast oh it was on the imperfects I think it was Zoe Foster Blake's episode And God, like she's so amazing and personally I look at someone like her and I'm like, she must never feel.
00:24:11
Speaker
you know, any kind of threats or anxiety or overthinking. And she was saying that she lays awake in bed at night, just, you know, overthinking. And it just made me feel so normal and comforted. And yeah, so I'm really glad we're having this conversation. No, you make such a valid point. And this is what I love about the science of the brain is we all have limitations. Like every one of us has a threat response. If you don't, like let's scan your brain and figure out what's going on. You're going to a zoo. Yeah, like,
00:24:41
Speaker
Everyone has this, like everyone suffers. Suffering is universal, that's what they actually, um I think it's, I was, I love like the spiritual teachings around like Buddhism and different things like that. And one of the things that they talk about is suffering is a completely universal human experience. And we all share this. And I think like, for example, that you, like a lot of us might, um and I think it's something that we can all connect to is that particular thinking cycle, I'm a bad person.
00:25:11
Speaker
That is setting off the threat response because that's opposite of who you are. It's setting off the threat response because it doesn't align with who you are. And that shows you that you want to be a really good person. yeah And I think looking at and reframing things differently, and even this idea of i like, I don't know if this is helpful, this is more of a personal thing, but fear is kind of this And it's something I've very much struggled with, but isn't it incredible that you, you know, you love something so, so much with your whole entire being that one thought of it being jeopardized is all consuming and excruciating. Yeah. Like the fact that humans have that capacity to love just, it blows my mind.
00:25:55
Speaker
It's like beautiful and terrifying. Beautiful and terrifying, exactly. And so we're talking about all of these like things that we can kind of do in the moment to change. Why do so many of us actually struggle to change? And how how do we actually make real change that sticks? Yeah, it's an incredible question. It's something I'm actually studying at the moment, like around understanding and changing human behavior.
00:26:23
Speaker
One of the things that's interesting, soon as we, and I might have spoken about this on the podcast last time, but we're kind of battling a couple of things with our brain. Number one, it wants to save energy. Why to save energy? So it's always going to take the path path of least resistance. okay that's something to kind of keep in mind as well and we're wired for survival. What's an example of that like say our brain in the moment going like I'm going to take the path of less resistance like what would be an example? Yeah so it's kind of like why starting habits are so hard yeah as well because we like ah essentially our brain uses up so much energy of our body as well so it's kind of like an energy saver so when you want to go and do something new yeah
00:27:08
Speaker
You might find yourself having ah like a little bit of mental gymnastics. Like you might justify yourself why I don't need to do this. Yeah. um you know I'll do it tomorrow, I'll start tomorrow, it's not a great time. And you'll believe that. yeah it's It's quite quite a convicting convicting that's convincing. Convincing. Convincing. Thank you, I really needed that. I was like, that is the wrong word. Yeah, um yeah it's it is quite a convincing voice and it will really go, okay, I don't wanna change. And it's interesting again because there's another kind of,
00:27:42
Speaker
um part to this your nervous system will actually choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven oh yeah that needs to go out in a t-shirt i don't i'd wear it oh my god wear it too we remember that you want okay yeah so what I know. Why is our brain out to get us? It's literally out to get us, but it makes so much sense as to why we do the things that we do, why we make the choices that we do. This is so great because it just makes me feel like I'm not crazy. you you know
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, and you you find yourself stuck in cycles. And yeah and this is a an example of why you see children who have grown up in a really tough environment. And then they tend to be in relationships with people that mirror exactly what they were used to. They don't want that. Because that's the familiar hand. Yeah, it's the familiar. Yeah, we seek out the familiar because we're wired for patterns. It's how we survive. The great thing is we can take control. and We can change. Yes.
00:28:44
Speaker
it's I want to say hard because I'm really interested about what words do to your brain. Yeah. Challenging. Yeah. Is the word. It is challenging and often, unfortunately for a lot of people, it's like you have to hit rock bottom. And there's that emotional motivation of like, I don't want this anymore. but Like I'm so uncomfortable. I need to change. whereas a lot of people don't go, hey, not everything's, I haven't hit rock bottom yet, but I'd like to change. And- It's not enough. Yeah, it doesn't, like the emotional motivation isn't there for a lot of people. And how would you suggest like, because I'm i'm thinking and I'm hoping that most of my community aren't at rock bottom right now, but they probably do wanna create some positive change in their lives.
Practical Steps for Positive Change
00:29:30
Speaker
So how do they attach that emotion and make changes?
00:29:34
Speaker
This is the thing where I like, I would love more people to be changing at this part. Yes. Like not waiting until it comes. Yeah. The first part as well is remove expectations when you're changing behavior, because soon as you, no matter where you're at, soon as you engage in a new behavior, it's going to create resistance and anxiety because your brain wants to take the path of least resistance. So you might be telling yourself, um,
00:30:00
Speaker
yeah I, you know, I can do this tomorrow. You might even feel physical tiredness. That's how convincing your body can be. It will be different for every single person. I would encourage and a great, like a great psychologist or, you know, coach, qualified coach or whatever it is, will help you, um, you know, uncover the innate wisdom within yourself, right? Because you need to learn to trust your own body cues and what things feel like for you.
00:30:27
Speaker
So number one, it's gonna create a bit of discomfort. So take any expectation around it and realize that we wanna be breaking things down as simple and easy as possible because we don't wanna make it over complicated. I would say start training the body and mind.
00:30:44
Speaker
So, yeah, so one thing that I've, and I'm, I wouldn't say, I feel like a little bit of a fraud for doing this, but I've been working in, as I said, mental health for a while now. yeah And I've been out the front of audiences going, everyone needs to meditate and do breath work. yeah Until I really started, like the more that we learn about neuroscience, the more that the body's role is paramount.
00:31:13
Speaker
And why I say this in terms of changing behavior, I've started doing, ah probably I do like a five minute breath work and I sit for five minutes every morning and night. Amazing. And the results I have seen within that is just, i words can't even describe. Because you're learning to get more in touch with your body and your emotions and your stress responses,
00:31:40
Speaker
the more that you can go into new activities and kind of say, like to that point that we spoke about before, yeah, I'm going to get a little bit uncomfortable here, but I can handle this. yeah Yeah, this is okay. Like I'm, I'm in connection with my body because a lot of people will have that physical discomfort. It won't even necessarily be mental and be like, I don't want to feel this. This feels gross. I'm going to go back to doing whatever I was doing. So the more strategies we can put in place to help us regulate when we're changing behavior sounds Like again, until you start doing it and practicing, you'll see what I mean. You have to, knowledge won't change like behavior. Once you experience it, there's that side of it. And just like, if you want to change and say, okay, I'm just going to get up for five minutes every morning and do a breath work and visualize me, this is another science-backed technique, which will blow your mind, visualize you succeeding, yeah
00:32:36
Speaker
in whatever it is after you feel a bit more regulated. That's also a key, like when you're feeling regulated. just committing to that, even if it feels weird and unnatural, it will for a few weeks because your body's creating resistance. yeah Just commit to something small yeah and then increase, commit to something small and then increase. yeah And once you start to get a bit of those results, that will create that emotional motivation. okay And your stuff yeah you'll start to make a bit of a plan. So yeah, there's a couple, I would be using
00:33:09
Speaker
Like the thing about humans is we think we're really rational and we're not. We're actually very, we're always experiencing some in emotions. And even if we can't feel them, it doesn't mean that they're not there. So it's being really aware and using your emotional state to your advantage would be something that I would definitely, and I'm talking a lot from changing behaviors myself, like.
00:33:33
Speaker
I think I spoke about it on the podcast last time, but since in the last year I have, you know, been very diligent with going to a psychologist in terms of actually wanting to release and work through a lot of stuff that I went through. I've been very, now I'm going into the body work side of things. And I wouldn't have even believed it was possible to be functioning the way I am now. That's amazing Rose. You should be so proud.
00:33:59
Speaker
But it's so hot. It's no challenging to create that change. But how good do you feel now for doing it and proud? Oh, that then I guess steps into like what my community love is like the manifestation side. And even you were talking about the visualization and how this is all backed yeah by true facts that, you know, our brain, our mind, it's so, so powerful, but we have to allow room to get to that stage of it being so powerful.
00:34:28
Speaker
But like you say, we take the road of least resistance because it seems easier at the time. And if you don't take control of it or influence it or whatever word that you wanna call it, it's gonna take control of you. And you're gonna keep following the same cycles and the same patterns, and you're gonna keep getting the same results. And so much of our, I spoke about this last time, but 95% of what we do is driven by the unconscious. yeah you can't do it in the conscious mind. So you might feel and sit down and say, yeah, I'm ready to do this, sweet. I can go out and do that. And then you're out there in the particular moment and the body takes over, yeah the stress reactions take over, the unconscious takes over. It's like, you've got to train that every day. And I really like how you said you can start small. Everyone, no matter who you are, no matter what where you're at, you can you can take five minutes a day to do breath work, meditation, journaling,
00:35:23
Speaker
whatever it is, you can. This is what, and I have, and I don't say this with judgment because I was this person, but when someone will say, I don't have time. That's a limiting belief in itself. Oh, you have five minutes to get up in the morning. Yes, you do. Like, I could- Set your alarm earlier. Yeah, go to bed earlier, whatever it is. I can tell you what scrolling does for the dopamine in your brain. Like, we all know that. Like, take five minutes to stop and practice this stuff. That's all it takes. Actually, that you just bought this up. So lately,
00:35:53
Speaker
Okay, so I obviously, I've got a newborn. She's not a new baby anymore. I can't be like, when do I stop saying I have a newborn? I think you've got that until she's at least five. Okay, yeah. All right, great. I'll be saying that. I'll be like a 10-year-old child and still newborn, still working it out. The hormones, you know? Oh, I just have been rebalanced.
00:36:13
Speaker
So what I'm finding is, you know, that that limiting belief of, I don't have enough time, then what will happen? And I talked to my friend who also has a baby at the same age and I said, I'm getting to the end of the days at the moment and I'm so exhausted and emotionally, physically, all of spiritually, all of the things.
00:36:35
Speaker
I really need to do a meditation or journaling or a card pull, right? Card pulls I still can do every day because that's just, that has become a really positive habit for me. But the meditation side and the journaling side,
00:36:51
Speaker
I would rather, and I'm just being really honest with you, really, really sick, I would rather sit in front of the TV, eat chocolate and watch something mind numbing or scroll on social media. And that's what I've been doing the last few weeks. And I am now finding is having a very negative impact. How?
Screen Time and Emotional Processing
00:37:10
Speaker
Do I? Like, I know that sometimes, I will say, I think sometimes there is a place for, you know, we just need to chuck the bloody Kardashians on or whatever. is that emily i her emily I feel like I will get in so much trouble for her. I've been like told by my friends, stop. Like, yeah but you're right. Like sometimes we do just, they are guilty pleasures and we're allowed guilty present pleasures. We're allowed to enjoy our lives and have that time where we just rest our brain. However, for me personally,
00:37:39
Speaker
It's getting a bit much now where it's like, no, I'm, I'm losing my, my spirituality. Like, can I challenge you on something? When you say rest in your brain and I don't say this with, I don't say this with judgment. No, this is good. This is what I need. Because I, let's not talk about the hours I've watched Emily in Paris.
00:37:57
Speaker
You're not resting your brain yeah when you're scrolling. You're actually doing the opposite because... This is what I need to hear. Resting your brain is what we're talking about. So if you can't... This is what we'll see at the moment. If you can't sit for five minutes with no distractions,
00:38:13
Speaker
it means that you have unprocessed emotion. So the more that we are scrolling, and I'm not, I think there is a hundred percent of time, it's balanced. Like I'm not going around telling everyone to delete their Netflix accounts. so I'd be the biggest hypocrite in the world. yeah Like, no.
00:38:27
Speaker
um But you do need time to almost recharge your brain and actually rest your brain. yeah And it's it's like a form of like mental fitness or whatever you want to call it because when we're scrolling, we're using up our dopamine reservoirs. And our brain has this kind of like, we do, we have like, we have a limited amount of dopamine as well. And when we're using that up, we can't connect with people. You know, a lot of people talk about now not being able to like find connection.
00:38:56
Speaker
it's kind of like we're not really doing the best things in our life. If we can't sit with ourselves and be with ourselves, we can't connect and we need to be able to, our emotions need to, like we need to process our emotions every day. Like I think there's this really kind of BS sort of story out there that we need to feel good all the time because sometimes, and we're talking about behavior change, which I forgot to mention, sorry, I'm jumping all over the place, this good but They're so-called, I don't know what you want to call them, uncomfortable, negative emotions, whatever the word is. I don't really like the word negative, but like, you know, anger and sadness, they can be the biggest catalyst for change in your life when you feel them. More than the, um you know, the joy and the the gratitude. We need to know these emotions to feel the incredible ones. So if we're not, if we're dumbing ourselves out and we're, You know, like sitting there scrolling when we need to be with ourselves and figure out what we're feeling. We're not really being in touch with ourselves and we're not, we're not living consciously and we're not, we're actually not recharging our brain. Cause when we go to sleep as well, that's where we do a lot of emotional processing. So fascinated by the neuroscience of dreams. But this can, when we're scrolling before bed particularly,
00:40:12
Speaker
it can play a huge, yeah, it's just not great in terms of actually being able to reach like emotionally process and all those sort of things. And which, yeah, like everything that you're saying, I'm like, I can understand why that is so true. Why do we keep doing it? It's addictive. It's addictive. It's addictive. It's a quick hit of like, you think you'll get what you need. Yeah, it's addictive and it's so, it's so unconscious and we're just doing it and it's, yeah, like the easiest way to describe it is it's completely addictive, it's unconscious,
00:40:42
Speaker
And we don't. Even us who are i like those of us who are a little bit more like okay with feeling certain things, we don't like to feel uncomfortable emotions. We have to force ourselves. And it can be simple little things that you can do. You just commit to going, I'm not gonna go on my phone or Netflix half an hour before bed. yeah if you If you're really addicted to it 15 minutes before bed yeah and just say, I'm just gonna have a bit of a moment connecting with my body, do a couple of deep breaths, ask yourself how you were feeling.
00:41:14
Speaker
We're really good at intellectualizing our feelings, but our feelings are in our body. So anger, where do you feel anger in your body? I like, I was joking about it with you before. I didn't know what anger was till two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And actually going, because if you're feeling anger and you're like, you're sitting there and going, felt a bit angry today, I need to set a boundary there. I need to do something because if you don't, because if you don't feel your emotions and you're numbing yourself out, which I don't mean that as a judgment. I think we all do that in today's society. It's going to come out when you don't want it.
00:41:45
Speaker
interesting and do you mean like in it could be like the next day or the next week in a completely different scenario situation you might project it on someone else there's so many different ways that it can come out it can come out and and you know you might be with your partner and you just lose your shit over something um yeah it will come out in a way that's not manageable as well. I think being able to, like, and it, a lot of us don't like to face the parts of ourselves that are a little bit more uncomfortable or what we call, because society kind of tells us, and this, this is very complicated in terms of, you know, even, have you heard of like shadow self psychology and all that stuff? Yeah, I have like shadow work and stuff. I haven't like dealt into it. Yeah, I like, I'm, yeah, I think it's a very interesting concept, but
00:42:29
Speaker
yeah the more that we kind of ignore those sort of parts of ourselves we don't like and we suppress them the more that they come out in ways that are uncontrollable as well yeah makes sense doesn't it yeah no thank you because i think what i've learned so far in this conversation for me, personally, is that I'm taking the path of least resistance. When I get, you know, Indigo goes to bed, I'm so exhausted and I just plummet on the couch and I indulge in those, you know. I wouldn't have judgement on yourself though, we all do it though. I know, I know, but I think
00:43:03
Speaker
I really want to go upstairs and I want to meditate and I want to get in touch with myself spiritually again. And I know that there's a need to it at the moment, but that's harder. And I think at the moment I'm like, that takes effort. And I know also that because of the way that my pregnancy went, I'm still not at the level of spirituality that I was pre-baby. And I know that I'm going to go upstairs and I'm not going to be satisfied with my meditation because it takes practice.
00:43:31
Speaker
So I keep putting it off because I know that it takes work. I love that example because I mentioned before expectation, take the expectation off. Yeah. okay So it's so funny, like just commit to doing that. Cause then eventually, like even when I was, it's very interesting cause I learned so like.
00:43:51
Speaker
When I was going to the psychologist, she was like, okay, as a part of your coping mechanisms of what you've been through, you intellectualise everything. And it's also probably people who study, it's kind of the way you're trained. So you almost like, it's really hard when someone says, feel sadness or anger in your body. ah talking about. I wanted to be the i don't know it' the academic. me I want to be really good at it. I was like I'm gonna feel my emotions and I'm gonna and she's like you still you're not doing it like you've got to like surrender to the process like and so much of human brilliance is
00:44:28
Speaker
without the logical mind. It's surrendering to whatever's going on. And I think soon as you go, I'm still gonna take action. I'm still gonna put in effort, but I'm taking the expectation off it. yeah there's There's a magic that happens because I started to do that and I'm like, I'm just gonna sit my bum down.
00:44:47
Speaker
and meditate. yeah And watch the, because there's interesting research that's coming out about in yoga at the moment that it's the one, because you really, it's in the meditation around connecting like your body and your mind and your breath work. And it's the time that you're most free of your what I would call like mental gymnastics so like that distorted thinking you know we have biases like we see the world through what we've been through yes it's the time where we can kind of really access that deep knowing and um it's something that takes a lot of practice because obviously we're always in an emotional state but we can be more aware of our emotions yeah
00:45:24
Speaker
And I guess the more that I just kind of committed to sitting down and doing it with no expectation, the more I was like, oh my God, like I can feel sadness coming up my throat now and I can feel that, but then I can also feel joy and it's like, it's like, you're not thinking through life anymore, you're feeling, yeah which I think is what humans were meant to do. Like obviously I want to still, I love my mind, like it's got, like I,
00:45:48
Speaker
i It's gotten me to so many incredible places and I love what it can do, but when it's too hyperactive and I'm in it all the time, I can think I'm a unicorn, in those so yeah you know? you know you have that That's how ridiculous you' you're thinking. I don't actually just for your listeners, like, you know, just so people don't think I'm crazy. um No, they
Empathy, Authenticity, and Emotional Release
00:46:08
Speaker
won't. And we are we are pretty crazy here. We're very woo woo. We go, yeah, no, I love it and I totally get it.
00:46:16
Speaker
Circling back a little bit, you said something really interesting that I would love for you to expand on. You said, we see the world through what we've been through. yeah What do you mean? But I think I know what you mean, but just expand on it. ah Very interesting. And I think you hear the word trauma a lot at the moment, and I'm very careful in using that word, especially from someone who's been through it. like it is Not everyone has been through trauma. A lot of us have been through overwhelming emotional experiences.
00:46:41
Speaker
Every time we go through something like that, that is uncomfortable or and an overwhelming emotional experience of any form, our body takes a snapshot. So we take a snapshot and we're like, oh we don't want to go back to that. So whatever we've been through, that's it none of us see things clearly. We see things through based on the experiences and the stories that we've been through.
00:47:04
Speaker
Until we choose to I guess challenge that and expand our mind and whatnot. So very important to I think that gives you a lot of compassion and empathy. Yeah, it's what I really think interesting about feeling your own emotions and more that you feel your own the more you have.
00:47:19
Speaker
empathy for other people, yeah I think, which is interesting. um But this is a body's role because when we talk about something like trauma, it changes your whole body, all your systems. You're you're actually in a reactive state, so you're like you're almost in that state 15, 10 years later until you go to like go and get help and regulate that. And that like the body needs, and not even just trauma, that overwhelming emotional experiences. So if you've got up on stage and you gave a public um presentation when you're a kid and it didn't go well, until you have more experiences to counteract that, your body's gonna hold on to that. okay And it's gonna react before your mind does, because your body is your mind, yeah your mind is your body. when like
00:48:06
Speaker
you need to be doing things to inform your body, yeah and we need to be doing things to inform our mind, which is like journaling, it's affirmations, it's all those sort of things. yeah But one doesn't go without the other. And I think like CBT, so which is cognitive behavior therapy, which is very around kind of like, you know, I have an irrational thought, I try and find evidence for and against it, and I retrain my brain.
00:48:29
Speaker
is like your gold standard. But now what we're seeing is like the amount of research that's coming out around the body and your body holds on to these emotions and how we see the world as well, which is, yeah. I see that. Yeah. Thanks for explaining that. Yeah. I don't know if that's a very... No, it is really good. It's just mind blowing. It is. Oh, yeah. Because we do choose to see the world, how we want to see the world.
00:48:54
Speaker
And it's like when people, I don't know, we've like opinions sometimes that you believe like their opinion is so wrong, but that's their opinion. They believe that their opinion is so right. And it can be just because of what we've experienced and what we've gone through. And I think what you said about, you said something really interesting when we were off air about empathy. Oh, that's so weird because this is the next thing I was about to bring out, right? You are sad. We're so in tune. Yeah, feed me the empathy because this is so interesting. So we have empathetic circuits in our brains, and which are like mirror neurons. So i like breaking it down. You ever walked into a room before someone speaks, you know what they're feeling. You know, you listen all that person's stressed. You can feel it. Humans are very empathic by nature, or most of us.
00:49:43
Speaker
Maybe psychopaths not. It's very interesting when you but study about that. um That's another episode. I still don't understand that. um But we're very empathic by nature. so what we when um A human is not internally resolved. So when I say internally resolved, we're still, we're rejecting a part of ourselves. There's that, um you know, that inner child that just wants to be so desperately accepted. And we've rejected that and we've created this polished part of ourselves for connection.
00:50:15
Speaker
which I would hazard to say every person has done that. It's just the world that we're in, right? And there's parts of ourselves that we don't want people to see. yeah But when we think about like anger and jealousy and all these different emotions, they're there to show us something if we wanna explore it. Jealousy, is it's primal, but it goes, okay, I want something different out of my life, how do I get that? But when we haven't when we're suppressing that or we're ignoring that or we're not internally resolved,
00:50:42
Speaker
humans can actually pick up on that, which is the crazy part because we have these empathetic circuits in our brain. So we can pick up, and this is a really harsh example, but when somebody doesn't think a lot of themselves, they'll tend to constantly get treated that way, right? We see that all the time. And people will treat you almost the way that you believe in yourself. Like I think authenticity comes from the ability to know yourself, the good and the bad, the resilience to handle the hard things and to be completely yourself. And you can feel people like that. You just want to mag, they're magnetizing. and They bring you in and it's like they're human. Whereas you can feel when someone is saying something, but they're not internally resolved and
00:51:29
Speaker
You tend to see this, and I have experienced this, we will attract people based on the same level of psychological wound. And I guess does that come into the whole energetics as well? I think so. yeah yeah you know If you're vibrating on a low level, you tend to attract other people that are vibrating on that low level, not just people, things, circumstances.
00:51:51
Speaker
as well, so I guess it kind of links. I think it's almost an opportunity if we see that to release that emotion. yeah If we use those, like this is that that like the spiritual side of me, and this is just a personal belief, but if we use those scenarios to release the emotion or learn the lesson that we need to, which I've definitely experienced in the last couple of years,
00:52:17
Speaker
it's incredible the next, because I don't think life is going to give you something that you're not ready for. Like let's say you really want love. Like you really, really, you desire it, but if you don't, like you have an internally resolved yourself and then you're going to get into a relationship and you're going to project on the person or whatever it is. And that's my personal belief. Like, i agree yeah. And I think that that's something that I, and even like with your, you know, career and different things like that, like when you're ready for that next level,
00:52:45
Speaker
and you're able to kind of process and do things differently. So, you know, decide to maybe sit and, you know, test yourself a little bit more or, you know, all these different things that we've spoken about today or whatever it is for you, I think you're gonna see something different. I agree. And so when you're talking about like, if say for example, if I'm a person that I am not internally resolved, can I show and feel empathy for others?
00:53:16
Speaker
You still can. You still can. Yeah, I... Oh, of course. I definitely think you can. I just think, like, my personal belief, even this is through my own experiences, the more Like hurt people, hurt people, heal people, heal people. I so believe that. Yeah. I feel the more, you know, you see people that like quote unquote, like are not great to other people. Like if they felt their own pain, it's really like, if you felt your own pain, whatever you've been through and we have, it's very, it's harder to hurt someone else. I think like, and I mean, the more that I,
00:53:56
Speaker
I'd sort of have dived into my own stuff. like it And it's human nature. We're always gonna judge. We're always gonna do it. Like these are the limitations of our brain. Like it's, we judge again because we wanna save energy. It's harder to sit there and go.
00:54:10
Speaker
Like empathy is practice, we can all start empathy tomorrow. yeah We can kind of go, okay, rather than, you know, jumping to that, co like in a lot of the time it's biases that we want to jump to because we want to avoid our own feelings that it's triggered. yeah Our own inadequacy, like that's the interesting thing about shadow self, what irritates us and other people can show us so much about yes that's not resolved within ourselves. yeah I think you get curious about it, it's quite interesting. um But yeah, I think the more that you've felt your own pain. That's what's so beautiful about it. And you've then experienced a joy on the other side.
Intuition vs Fear
00:54:46
Speaker
yeah The more that you kind of can look at someone and go, Oh, they're just like, you know, it's emotions, they demand to be felt. And I think they're beautiful when we change our relationship. And I think that's where the true
00:54:58
Speaker
When we get to our goals and these incredible things that we want out of life, that's when they become so magic. Yeah, love that. And you said something before as well, it may have been when we were off the microphone, but it was ah back on that kind of empathy yeah um topic, how even a good person, if you feel really crappy about yourself, even a good person will treat you the way that you feel, which I just thought that was really interesting.
00:55:26
Speaker
And I think we can all kind of relate to that though too. You know, when someone doesn't like, they don't almost set boundaries and standards for themselves. I think we do it a bit unconsciously. Like we tend to treat them the way that they, not all of our, or not all of us, but I think and we all really challenge ourselves. I think sometimes we,
00:55:43
Speaker
you know, we can do that and it's, it's just humans. We've got to, we've got to be, I think people are a little bit scared and that's what I love looking at the science of the brain. It's like, we just have these, these, I don't know if you want to call them limitations or it's just how we, yeah. And that's just a part of it all. Yeah. Let's jump into fear versus intuition. My favorite topic is something that I personally struggle with and I actually Yeah, it's I journal about it all the time. I'm like, is this a fear or is it intuition? And then I get all in my head. So talk to me, Maddie's story. Well, I'll ask you a question first. What's your interpretation of fear versus intuition? Okay. Well, I do know in the moment, I feel in the moment I can
00:56:30
Speaker
What's the word? Distinguish? Yeah. Distinguish, yeah. I think I used to say extinguish and I'm like, no, that's a fire. It still works. We'll go with it. Yeah. But I think now I am able to distinguish the difference in the moment. So say, let's use an example for like a ah business idea comes to me. Um, I can sit and think, okay, I am feeling fear, but it's fear because of X, Y, and Z. It's not,
00:56:59
Speaker
Oh my God, I'm not saying this right, but basically I think I can. If I have a business idea and it feels scary, I can tap into whether it feels scary for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. And I guess it's dependent on, is it feeling exciting and passionate and flowy? Or is it feeling like, am I having a physical response? Is it feeling rushed? Is it feeling like yucky? And then it's fear.
00:57:23
Speaker
You've explained that so well and they wanted to use that example. No, no, no, no. It was perfect. And there's a couple of things that we've spoken about today to build to this point um around emotions and that state clouding our brain. First of all, you need to practice. So a lot of people think they're intuitive, but they're not because I don't think a lot of us,
00:57:44
Speaker
the understand what it is. We've been taught how to use it use it. I love the neuroscience of intuition. I find it really, really fascinating. But fear again is to do with the amygdala. So anything that feels, and you use these words, rushed or urgent and loud.
00:58:01
Speaker
is fear. Like, you know, it's like a really annoying person at a party that like doesn't shut up. Sorry. Oh my god, guys, I always turn my phone on silent. Okay, we might just have to pause. I'm gonna tell the people what happened. First of all, didn't have my phone on silent. Disgusting. And then Crumbit came to the door, which was really cute. Okay, sorry, Mad. So, no I love this.
00:58:21
Speaker
Yeah, so fear and intuition. So again, fear is that it's sitting with the amygdala. It feels really urgent. it yeah And the more that you know the stress response in your body, so the more that you practice being with yourself and sitting with yourself for five minutes, the more you're going to get a lot more familiar. And to trust your body, which a lot of us don't do, um it will feel really urgent. And I was using this like um analogy before it's like that really loud annoying person at a party that won't shut up but that's all you hear uh-huh that's fear okay whereas like intuition and the reason why they're so hard to distinguish is they're both quite unconscious responses so they happen and intuition is unconscious and it's something that we practice and it's
00:59:07
Speaker
Not normally, I've heard some people describe it as not so much an internal state. It's like almost when you're feeling really present and you just get that knowing. yes And it still even if it's something that scares you, it still feels like peace in the body. I think that's that's where it's hard, isn't it? And especially if it's something that's, I don't know, in the future that you're feeling an intuition about. like you know it's it's coming up or I want it or I don't want it, yeah then being like, is it fear stopping me for a good reason or is it fear stopping me because it's not right?
00:59:41
Speaker
And then we start attach like, you know, sort of attaching that mental gymnastics to it, yeah which is the more we need to kind of like, I call it the monkey mind. And it's always going to be that ego or whatever you want to call it. The more that we learn to silence that and get in touch with this wisdom that's in our body that we're really starting to discover yeah and strengthen that. That's the, that's the magic part as well, because I think human brilliance doesn't come from the rational mind. It comes from a lot of these intuitive,
01:00:09
Speaker
creative places and it's something that we need to practice. And another interesting thing I wanted to talk about, fear verse intuition and emotions, it's quite a funny story attached to this. But if you, there's a concept called, it sounds a bit fancy, but it's not, misattribution arousal. You know when people go on like The Bachelor and they say they fall in love and then they come out of The Bachelor and they realize that they're not in love? yes I was telling my friend this actually, and she's like, I'm gonna use this on all my dates. And I was like, not quite, for the example. She went by me saying that. um So if you're all like up in a helicopter, let's say you're going in on a date with a guy and you're doing something quite like high adrenaline, right? And then you're like, oh, I'm feeling all this attraction for him. But one of the things that humans are really not great at doing, especially when it comes to our more, these sort of primal responses,
01:01:01
Speaker
Like anxiety and attraction can feel quite similar. yeah But they're they're different, right? So this is how much emotions and um you know intense emotions and these different sort of physiological responses can impact our intuition. So you might be up there like, you know, for all, I don't know why you'd be going on a helicopter for your first day, but who knows, it's a jungle out there. We're on The Bachelor. We're on The Bachelor. You're on The Bachelor with this guy and you're like, oh my God, I feel like I'm just feeling this incredible chemistry with him. And then you, and there's been cases of this where people have done that and then they've gone back and gone and got a coffee and like me like, there's nothing there. yeah Because it was adrenaline, it wasn't actually, yeah. So we, like the more, and that's why I'm like, say all these different things we've spoken about today, the more we manage our stress response, the more we get in touch with our emotions, the more we trust our body, the more we learn to distinguish between these very, very subtle differences.
01:01:55
Speaker
it takes practice. yeah A lot of us have never been taught how to do it. That's why we are getting help going to a psychologist if you need. I don't mean you just always need to go to a psychologist too, because you've gone through, like obviously in my experience it's incredible, but I would like, I'd go to one for the rest of my life every two months for a top up. Everybody needs it. it's You've got 95% of your programming's unconscious,
01:02:22
Speaker
like i and Like I'm in this industry, I still have mental gymnastics, I still have biases, I still need people calling me out on this shit. Yeah, good on you, man. You're so great. No, god no. But yeah, I think that's the important part is like it takes practice and I find that really interesting and there's things like trauma bonding and different things like that. But yeah, like very like I find that an interesting example of how Emotions can cloud your intuition. um Don't use intuition when you're in an anxious or stressed state because you won't get access. okay yeah And I think that's something that we all want to do because we think that we can like tell our future or you know when we're feeling anxious and we want to or we're overthinking and we're like all right well what's gonna happen but no you can't you cannot see it you can't dictate it.
01:03:10
Speaker
I've done it. I've sat there overthinking, stressing you about something. Just going to access my intuition here. Hang on a minute. yeah i'm younna Which all I'm doing in that mode is actually just overthinking and disguising it as intuition because I want some certainty because I'm not i'm not good. I don't have a tolerance for uncertainty and sitting in my body. Agreed.
01:03:30
Speaker
yeah I'm the same and I get really um impatient because I want the thing to be fixed or I want the energy to be healed. And we'll get to how to actually kind of enhance your intuition soon. But I wanted to touch on something. So I think the fear and intuition, I think you've explained it so well.
01:03:49
Speaker
I have a question and I think it's a little bit different to the fear and intuition we might feel in like how I said, you know, I'm sitting at my desk and a business opportunity comes up and I can access or ah understand whether it's fear or intuition based and whether it's right or wrong. But I think what if I have a fear of something that I believe might happen in the future. And I'm like scared because I'm an intuitive person. We all are, we know that. But I have shown myself that I do have intuitive abilities when I do other people's card readings and I say things that they're like, what the hell? So I am like, okay, Claire, you are quite intuitive. I have this fear of something that might happen. And I'm like, is that my intuition telling my own future or is it a fear?
01:04:44
Speaker
because of something that's happened in the past. I have a couple of questions. okay First, is this fear that's going to happen in the future, is it related to, you don't have to go into details, is it related to anything that's happened to you in the past?
01:04:57
Speaker
that I think it may be related to something that I saw happen. okay It wasn't so much attached to me, but it was something bad that happened to someone else. Did you have a big emotional reaction when this happens? Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the time then what I spoke about before, our body or our subconscious mind can take an imprint and we're like, I don't want that to happen. So we're on high alert. Does this fear tend to happen? Like, is it reoccurring? Like, is it is it something that just sort of like, you just like,
01:05:26
Speaker
um i wouldn't say it's reoccurring all the time it's because it's so far in the future and it's just this like It's like how you said before how humans have the ability to just love something so, so much that they're like scared that something could tarnish or like something, you know. And does it does it create a fear response in your body when you think about it? I don't know if I've gotten to that stage yet almost. I think I'm more at the really curious stage of is this, and I'm hoping it is just a fear that I have created because something I saw and felt
01:06:05
Speaker
versus me being an intuitive and telling my own future. I, again, I'm going to take my science cap off and just go, I feel like it's fear because I want to yeah i definitely feel like it's fear because you're like, even the way you're explaining that you're trying to analyze it. And I think this is the interesting thing about intuition and what I'm learning through my own practice and learning through just I'm so like mind blown by the subject is it's not you don't need a lot of words to explain intuition it's almost just a knowing like it's not something that you like I don't know when I've had like what I know now is intuition and it's just interesting because like I always used to
01:06:54
Speaker
like I always used to kind of label myself as an anxious person and I think now I put so much work into addressing what has happened and And it's funny, like I think me in a natural state, I'm not anxious, which is really weird to say. Like I don't, even one of my good friends is like, you're actually like real chill person. I was like, out of here. Like I've never, you like afford about that. But I was like, oh, like I think at my natural state. yeah And I think I learnt to be a certain way to cope with, as we all do, to cope with things that have happened and, and it kept us alive at that particular, and there's, there's beauty in that and,
01:07:32
Speaker
Yeah. I, and I think being able to have my own experiences with intuition, the more I've had to analyze something and go on the mental loop. And I think this is the thing we we think we're not ruminating, but we've really got to catch ourselves out because we are kind of doing it in a little bit of a way. yeah The more we have to intellectualize something and understand something, I don't think it's intuition because I think it's this unconscious just knowing that we have yeah and we still don't really understand it yet. And there's there's awesome, there's a guy, he's like a psychologist and a neuroscientist. I think his name's Joel Pearson. I'll have to double check, but he's written a lot about this subject from a science perspective.
01:08:12
Speaker
um But yeah, I think it's a knowing and I think a lot of the time when we've been through or we've seen something that's encoded a fear response because the amygdala is actually very close to the memory part in your brain. okay So as soon as like fear encodes a lot of memories in our body and our brain. And that's why like, you know, if people, are you know, you someone can like, you can smell something or you can hear something and your body takes over. It's that it's encoded in your body.
01:08:39
Speaker
um no thank you that actually makes so much sense i don't know if that was a great answer it was the best answer no it really was yeah thank you i don't like the way that you were describing that and i was just trying to use those steps i was like i think you're still you're not fueling it too much well and that's why i'm not saying what it is because like you don't need to though i have no problem saying i tell my community basically everything but the the The reason why I'm not saying what it is is because I don't want to feel it. I don't want to give it any more energy because I do believe it was just a fear. It was something that I saw that happened when I was like, I was young, I was like 16. Yeah. Attached it to, oh my God, imagine if that happened to me. Yeah. or I've had so many, I could tell you countless examples I've had of that. Yeah. Countless. um And the more dysregulated I've been. And I think also when you're like, you're a new mum and I can't pretend to understand what that's like. You you know, your brain,
01:09:33
Speaker
You're fatigued. Your brain's got a lot that it's dealing with. So that's why you can see that when our brain is fatigued or we're stressed, we tend to suffer from this stuff a lot more as well. And to be honest, this has become a lot more elevated since Indi was born. And it's because I've learnt to love in a way I never ever could have imagined. There's a lot. And I think that's why this fear has become like, oh my God. Wow. All consuming. Because I'm like, fuck. like that. Oh I don't think I ever swear on passing around the smile anyway. I love that emotion. I've been holding myself back from swearing.
01:10:11
Speaker
god i love it Okay what about how for people who do want to increase their intuition? A couple of things I would say to start, um first of all your brain's really bad at probability so it's like kind of like in you know, we're scared of things that we have seen in movies. Like you don't even like AI at the moment. I'll follow you, I can't believe I'm commenting on this. But everyone's like going, oh, I'm really scared that it's going to take over. And yeah, I think we need to be practical about it. But we've seen movies like The Terminator. How many movies have we seen with robots taking over? So it's that imaginative part of our brain that takes over. Whereas
01:10:50
Speaker
Like we get in the car every day, that is probably the highest chance we have of getting in an
Self-Love and Performance
01:10:55
Speaker
accident. How many of us, unless we've had an experience to suggest otherwise, are scared or all going, shit, I'm in a stressed state today. yeah Should I take a couple of deep deep breaths before I get in the car and drive to you know um wherever you're going?
01:11:14
Speaker
Trying a lot of the big things in life, like a lot of the big decisions in life come with a lot of emotional weight. okay And we want to go and use our intuition for that straight away. So I would say start practicing with low stakes decisions because you don't have a lot of emotional weight. yeah So kind of go, I'm just going to use my intuition here. What do I feel here? There might be little things that you do at work.
01:11:34
Speaker
um And then you'll start to kind of, even you can you know journal about it and go, okay, that felt, I felt a bit of a glow in my stomach there. That felt like intuition, getting to know your body signs um and then starting to learn to trust that process. So building that muscle, sitting in the morning for five minutes. Yeah, real yeah yeah it's going to come back to that as well. Sitting there, learning to know what your stress responses are, learning to know, okay, my mind is playing mental gymnastics. I've got biases here.
01:12:05
Speaker
I'm feeling this emotion in my body. I'm too emotional right now to use my intuition. I'm going to just let this pass and then I'm going to come back to it. And then you'll start, I've started to kind of go, Oh yeah, that, that felt intuitive to me. Like it was just knowing there wasn't so many words and I was like, yeah, okay, I know I'm so clear on that. And I'm just trying to learn to trust that now and not challenge it because it's so, it's, it's it's It's really hard to like intellectually explain to you. It's something that you have to kind of play with on your own. yeah um But you're giving us the tools to do that, which I love. This is making a lot of sense. I think a lot of the time your fear can be like a response to your internal emotional state. Like something's triggered you maybe potentially, but it's like, and then you start to kind of get this like internal state of chaos. Whereas like, I feel when I've had intuitive downloads, it's been like, I've been out,
01:12:59
Speaker
in nature. Getting out in nature is huge. Yeah. I've been at the beach and I've just been like, fuck yeah. This is what I need to do. Yeah, this is it. I know. answer are And like that's the thing. So often when we are so confused or we're stuck or we feel so clouded, the answer is always within us and we externally look like we look everywhere else except for within.
01:13:25
Speaker
And I have so many of like the community being like, no, I don't have the answers, Cleo. I don't. It's not in my heart. It's not in my soul. And I'm like, yes, it is. You just have to access it. And you make such a brilliant point because I believe the best psychologists create the internal knowledge and like allow you to access your own internal knowledge and internal wisdom.
01:13:47
Speaker
I have done that. The more you seek external validation, the more you're telling your body, your mind, your soul that you don't trust yourself. Yeah, true. And then when you don't trust yourself, you're not feeling worthy and then you're not feeling worthy and deserving of what you're asking for. You're not going to manifest what it is that you want. It's such a, it's like a ladder, isn't it? Yeah. And it's like being able to fully love yourself for all of the parts, you know, the but like loving what you've been through. Like, I think I've gotten to a stage now where it's like, I i love what I've been through, even the hard stuff, because I think I'm, I wouldn't say, I don't think you ever done, but yeah, I, even the parts of myself, and we, you know, we can talk about that in a different way, the shadow self, it's very, it's such an interesting concept.
01:14:38
Speaker
But those harder parts, the more that you reject that, and that plays into your intuition and your creative ability and these big human brilliance ideas that we have, it's all a part of that. It's all building to that to that journey of that, I think, you know, your more higher self. A hundred percent. in And what about like, we'll kind of end on you like talking about unlocking performance. So talk us through that. And I think this will be a good topic to kind of end on just to get us feeling like energise and like excited that we have the power to create really exciting change in our life. So yeah. Oh, I just love this topic because we talk so much about like you hear unconscious programming now where everyone's like going here, you're in a child and like all this sort of stuff. And it's,
01:15:22
Speaker
Yeah, so I have my feelings around TikTok and all this, you know, that yeah sometimes the information that's coming out, because it's creating a lot of stress with people too. And I think we we we don't always talk about the good stuff that comes with unlocking the, like in the shadow cell, for example, when you unlock these parts of yourself that you've repressed, there's really good parts in there as well. Because maybe as a child, you were really extroverted and you wanted to be up on stage,
01:15:49
Speaker
but for some reason that got you into trouble so you ignored that and there's a lot of creative energy in there that's stuck and hasn't been able to get eliminated. Like when we talk about the stress response, when you're stressed, like if you're not meditating you're slower and you're dumber essentially. I don't think anyone's dumb but you're just, ah it's a really simplified word, but you're not operating at your full capacity and we want, when we're regulated, we're not always regulated, we're gonna go up and down, but we're operating at our optimum capacity, like our brain's at its best, we're we're like using the creativity, we're gonna be more likely to get into those flow states, and we're able to draw on, because our unconscious is always taking in information, more than our logical mind, you know when you're just sitting in an idea and you just pull it out of nowhere? yeah That's like you're pulling that out of your unconscious mind. yeah
01:16:40
Speaker
you know you're pulling out of your own human brilliance and the more that you learn to trust that the more that you're going to perform the more that you're going to be able to connect more if you can't be with yourself like if you can't sit with yourself for five minutes and love the parts of you that aren't that are harder to love how are you going to be able to connect with another person when you connect more we perform more they're all related I think there's just so much of this stuff that like once you go down this road and once you put in some effort to looking after your brain and managing your brain the results that you're going to see you're going to be able to take more inspired action you're going to be able to go after your goals it's not going to seem as scary and this is the exciting stuff and like you're talking like these results to span over so many different
01:17:30
Speaker
like parts of your life like it's your career it's your relationships it's your like i don't know your abundance your health your wealth everything yeah and it's just exciting you will find moments which i've had when we talk about the external one this is not so much on the performance but you will be sitting there and you'll be meditating and nothing external will give you a sense of joy it's come from yourself which i think I've never experienced before and just being able to sit there and go, oh my gosh, like, yeah, I'm okay. I'm enough. yeah And I can say those words and I've said those words before and I have not met them. I didn't know I didn't mean them.
01:18:13
Speaker
But, and
Personal Journey and Self-Improvement
01:18:14
Speaker
I really think it's from, yeah, exploring all of you and this wonderful innate wisdom that we don't fully understand and you have it within yourself. There's not necessarily, I'm not going to say breathe for five minutes and do this and you've got to find what works for you. Yeah. No, I can totally relate for years. Like in the acting industry, I was, you know, saying over and over, I'm worthy and deserving. I'm good at this. All of the things that I never actually believed it.
01:18:39
Speaker
and I only understood that like a year or two ago when I asked myself the really hard questions and when I sat in stillness and I was like I realized small things like I say on a phone call with someone I didn't want to like waste their time or I didn't like stand up for myself like things like that told me that I had no self-worth and you're telling your body that everything that you're saying out loud to yourself like the mind informs the body the body informs the mind like attack it from a lens like sit there and meditate like when you're in the car
01:19:11
Speaker
I can't believe I'm going to tell people I do this because people are going to look at me and I'm driving. Turn the music down and start saying things to yourself. Yeah, absolutely. you know Being like, I'm this, I'm going to be able to do this today. yeah And even if you don't believe it, which you won't at first, it's going to feel really unnatural. Keep doing it. Keep sitting with your emotion and just like throw everything at it with no expectation. But it's like the body part has to come in as well because the mind stuff helps a hundred percent and also when we're practicing i don't know if i mentioned this already but when we're trying to practice like um i guess ah affirmations or new ways of thinking can take up to a hundred times for that to become a pathway in our brain wow so just keep hitting it
01:19:52
Speaker
Keep going, why not? It feels good. Just keep going, like that's what I would say. And like just keep at it and don't have expectation and find what works for you. And just know that like there's a couple of things again, when you're in more of a stress state, just let just let it rush through you. It's so much easier said than done. And I think if you have been through stuff, which we all have and you can't do this on your own,
01:20:19
Speaker
Like I think attack it from away and just go to a psychologist, practice this stuff, um learn about it. like It's yes challenging, but it's also exhilarating. Going on a self-spiritual development journey, it's enlightening. Yeah. Yeah. And I think also the practice part, because I've been, I think I've been guilty of this, but you become like self-development junkies. Oh my God. Yeah.
01:20:44
Speaker
and I've definitely like delved too far for a while and I've had to like pull myself out of it. Because you're like thinking like this new information that you're going to find is going to solve you. But it's like, you have to solve yourself. yes yeah um Mads, honestly, you are so unbelievable. i You really are. it's so It's such a pleasure watching you.
01:21:06
Speaker
live your purpose and it's thank you so like I feel so honored to be in the room watching you speak if you guys could see the passion on Maddie's face as she speaks literally wanting to jump out of your chair and I feel it too because that's how I feel about like all this stuff as well but empathy circuits yeah we're in that circuit and wick it's a fun So good to be here. It's great. It's just nice. I like it. But no, honestly, thank you for sharing so much wisdom. I have taken so much out of this chat. Like I honestly could just listen to you forever. You are so good at what you do. You are so inspiring. You are so intelligent. Thank you for being so um generous.
01:21:47
Speaker
Oh, thank you for having me. Honestly, like I just, it doesn't even, it just feels like we're having a conversation. It does. I'm very excited just to see where we're getting all this incredible new, you know, information and education now. And I'm feeling really hopeful for us as people.
01:22:04
Speaker
which is, yeah, amazing. And I'll pop all of Maddie's information in the show notes. If you want to find Maddie, all of her links will be there. And I do want to thank Phoebe Evers for sponsoring this podcast with her beautiful little kid's book, Meet the Creatures. All of Phoebe's information is in the show notes as well. Thanks, Mads. Thank you so much.
01:22:35
Speaker
go