Do you ever feel like you are stuck in life? You have clear goals, burning desires, yet you’re not moving forward? That’s how I felt for too long.
You are working hard, giving your best effort, just to get burned out, frustrated and feel defeated? You consider giving up on chasing your dream but something inside won’t let you?
This can happen in any situation in your life:
- Your relationships
- Your work or business
- Your health and fitness
- Your passion, purpose and vision
- Your personal growth and development
I have been there and know it does not feel good. It is exhausting. Not only does your mental and physical health suffer – so do all other areas in your life.
Understanding the Root Cause
You ask yourself: Why is this happening? Why am I not successful? What am I missing?
In order to see the problem, you need to understand one thing.
Inside your mind there are two parts. There come with many different names:
- Adult & Child mind
- Conscious & Subconscious mind
- Head & Heart
- Logic & Emotions
The Two Parts of Your Mind
The Logical/Conscious Mind: This is the logical, thinking part of the brain, responsible for decision-making, goal-setting, and rational thought. It helps you plan, analyze, and take deliberate action.
The Emotional/Subconscious Mind: This is the emotional, automatic part of the brain that runs your habits, beliefs, and instincts. It’s responsible for our fears, self-doubt, and deeply ingrained patterns.
The subconscious mind often overrides the conscious brain, especially when faced with fear or uncertainty.
This part of the brain (the limbic system and reptilian brain) developed hundreds of millions of years before the logical part (prefrontal cortex).
The Conflict Within
In order to move forward in life, both need to be in coherence. If they are not – you get stuck.
One is pulling in one direction, the other is pulling into the other direction.
Like a car with one foot on the throttle and one on the brake. All you are doing is wasting energy and burning out the tires.
Follow your heart, but don’t forget to take your brain with you. – Jim Kwik
Understanding the Dynamic
Your subconscious mind:
- Likes what is familiar
- Seeks comfort and certainty
- Avoids risks
- Resists change, even if staying the same means suffering
Your conscious mind:
- Likes problem solving and goal setting
- Understands the benefits of stepping out of your comfort zone
- Recognizes the value of doing what is difficult
The Path to Solutions
1. Emotional Mastery
When you learn to master your emotions, you gain the ability to stay present in the logical part of your brain without letting the emotions take over.
This takes time, practice and awareness. Remember, this part was developed over millions of years. It does not change overnight.
Depending on the emotional baggage you are carrying, your current life situation and your discipline it can happen faster or take longer.
Start with one conscious breath at a time. Every time when you feel emotions developing and you are about to react. Learn to pause. Allow yourself to feel the emotions, don’t suppress them, don’t let them out onto others. Learn more about emotional mastery here.
2. Challenging Beliefs
Your beliefs, just like your habits have been formed through every single experience in your life and in the lives of your parents, their parents, and so on.
Challenging beliefs that don’t serve you any longer and replacing them with empowering beliefs will correct the direction your subconscious mind is pulling.
Once you successfully replace one belief you might realize that not all of your beliefs are valid. “I can’t might change into “I will”
3. Changing Habit
The majority of your behavior and your day to day actions are controlled by subconscious patterns created over a lifetime of experiences and your interaction with the world. Identifying habits that don’t serve you any longer and replacing them with empowering habits is crucial. Identify habits that support the identity that your logical mind wants to assume and replace those that are not in line with that identity.
Now you are on the path of creating coherence. Your subconscious beliefs, habits and motivation align with the goals your logical mind wants to achieve.
My Personal Journey
For a long time, I was stuck. I had a burning desire to do something different with my life. What I was doing did not fulfill me in any ways, I had bigger ideas and dreams.
However, I was trapped in a golden cage. There was too much comfort and certainty – changing meant taking a risk.
I always chose the easy path, avoided challenges and did what was comfortable.
Within the comfort zone is no growth, without growth there is no fulfillment and the worst part:
The longer you wait, the harder it will become to change and the more you will resist.
At some point you will break through the initial resistance. Either because you make a conscious decision to change or, because the pain becomes unbearable and you get forced to change.
What helped me to change? Breathwork.
Breathwork is a wonderful way to create more coherence in your life.
Breathwork will help you release stuck emotions, resolve old trauma, activate the parasympathetic nervous system(rest and digest) and help you regulate stress and anxiety – the first step in mastering your emotions.
Breathwork will also help you uncover limiting beliefs in your subconscious mind that drive your behavior. Bringing awareness to them is necessary in order to challenge and change them.
When you master your emotions and challenge your beliefs that were formed through years of social conditioning and your life experience, you can create new beliefs about your abilities, your self worth and your identity.
What I learned in the process:
When you master your emotions, you will no longer let them influence your actions. You create the discipline required to replace old habits with new habits.
Habits that reinforce the new beliefs about who you are. Your abilities, your self-worth and your potential.
Habits that align with the identity you need to assume in order to achieve your goals.
You need to train the subconscious part of your brain to go towards your fear, do what is difficult and step out of the comfort zone – on a daily basis.
Take small steps – stay consistent.
When you do, doing what is difficult becomes easy. Because it becomes an automatic unconscious behavior. It becomes part of who you are.
Now you are on the path of creating coherence. Your subconscious beliefs, habits and motivation align with the goals your logical mind wants to achieve.
For me, it was speaking in public. I avoided it for years. Because of one failed presentation in middle school, the most embarrassing moment in my life. The deeply engrained belief was formed: I cannot speak in public. I will fail. Neither do I have anything worth saying, nor do I have what it takes to deliver a speech.
Breathwork told me: Hey, don’t believe everything you hear. Always question and challenge it.
If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. – Vincent Van Gogh
After 30 years of avoiding speaking in public and in groups of people, which severely limited my life experience, I faced my fear; I did what I avoided, what was uncomfortable, what I believed I will never be able to do.
Now it is my passion and I am the President of our local @Toastmasters Club.
Bringing coherence to your life is not that difficult. You don’t need to feel stuck. There is a different way of living available to you. Life will become gentler, more forgiving and you will find more ease and fulfillment.
What about you?
Are you stuck in any area of your life? I know you are.
Do you let your emotions take over and influence you (re)actions and behavior? I know you do.
Do you have any limiting beliefs that you may or may not be aware of? I know you do.
Do you have any habits that are not empowering who you want to become? I know you do.
Because I know who you are.
Your head and your heart are not in coherence. You are feeling stressed, disempowered, overwhelmed and are ready to give up.
I challenge you to make a conscious effort to bring more coherence or alignment into your life.
Taking Action: A Simple Exercise
It can be as simple as taking 1- 3 conscious breaths every time you feel emotions arise, or participating in a facilitated breathwork session.
Here is one simple exercise you can do immediately to create heart-brain coherence:
Sit still, close your eyes and breathe into your heart. With every breath in, direct your focus in the area where your heart is located. You will notice your state change instantly, creating more peace and calm.
This can be visualized with an EKG and I EEG. Two waves that were previously out of sync will show coherence.
You can practice this a couple times per day for a few moments and every time when you feel doubt or indecision. The more you do it, the more you will align the direction these two are pulling you.
Next Steps:
Need help and support? Here is my free guide: Mastering your emotions: The first step to success here
If you are interested to go deeper and learn how breathwork can help you, join one of my free breathwork sessions. Reply to this email if interested
