You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 161.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it's all about real clients, real problems, and real coaching. And now, your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo. What's up?
Hello, my friends. Money. Listen, I love me some money.
Love money. I know that freaks some of you out. Like you think money's the root of all evil.
I do not think money is the root of all evil. I think if you are an evil person, you have evil thoughts, and you have money, you're gonna do evil things. I think if you're an amazing, wonderful, helpful, awesome person, and you have money, you're gonna do amazing, awesome, wonderful things.
So I'm gonna keep saying that I love money and keep freaking some of you out, but some of you really identify with that. And here's the thing about money. I love money for everyone.
I want everyone to have millions of dollars, not just me, not just you, but all of us, because I think the more money we have, the more fun we can have, the more we can help people. So more money is great and wonderful. And I think aspiring to more money asks us to be more of who we genuinely are.
Now, a lot of you think that the opposite of that is true. You think that the pursuit of money makes us be greedy, and it makes us treat other people terribly, and that rich people are awful, and that we shouldn't ever try and achieve wealth, and that millionaires have always hurt somebody on their way to getting millions. And these beliefs are really pervasive.
They're everywhere. People's thoughts about money seem to be their truth. They seem to think that the way they think about money is what money is, is a truth about it.
But here's what I want to tell you about money. First of all, one of the most important things that I think we can all decide together and like really believe is a truth is that money can solve a lot of problems. Money can solve a lot of problems.
And building wealth is one way to solve a lot of problems. You know what poor people need? They need money, right?
And you have to build wealth in order to have money, in order to give money. I think a lot of people believe this idea, that there's just wealth in the world, and that we all should get a fair, that it's like there's this big pot of wealth, and that we should all get a piece of it. And one of the things that I want to offer is that wealth is not something that exists, that you go and get.
Wealth is something that you create by creating value. So the way that you create your wealth in the world is by creating value in the world and claiming your wealth from that value. And there are some components to money that go with that.
But I think because of the way we are raised and taught in school, we think that there's like this pie of wealth, and when someone else gets a lot of it, we get less of it. Like the more Oprah gets, the more Warren Buffett gets, the less we get. And especially people that aren't kind, they get money, they shouldn't get money.
Only kind people should get money. That's what a lot of us believe. So just notice your thoughts about money.
And here's what I want to say. I want to challenge you on all your thoughts about money if you don't feel good about money and you don't feel like you have as much of it as you would like. So I created a training within Self-Coaching Scholars that's on money, and it's a four-part series.
The first video and the first part of it is all about money beliefs, about what we believe about money, and then go through a process on how to uncover that. The second one is about earning money and about how so many of us are limited in what we believe earns money. Most of us believe that you can earn money only from other people, you get money from them, and you only earn it based on your own time and your own effort.
And if you want to make more money, you have to give more time and more effort. And what I want to offer is that the way that you create money is by creating value. The way that you create wealth is by creating value.
If you look at someone like Oprah's life, she didn't have any more time than anybody else. She maxed out her effort, but so do many people that work at their jobs, they max out their effort and they don't make as much money as Oprah. So she put time that she had and she put effort in, how come she made so much more money than someone that was working at a nine to five job?
And the answer is the value that she created, that people wanted. And that's a really important thing. You need to ask yourself, where does wealth come from?
Is wealth just something that exists in the world, and we just pass it around to each other? Or is wealth created by value? And you look at that on a big picture, and then you also look at it on a smaller picture.
And I will tell you, from my own perspective, that what I have found is that wealth in my own life is completely proportionate to the amount of value I've created. Now, I will tell you that was true when I was an employee at Hewlett Packard, and that is true as I am the CEO of The Life Coach School. When I went to Hewlett Packard, my goal was to create value to make myself invaluable to that corporation.
So my customer was my boss, was my team within that corporation. And when I went in and put eight hours of work into that day at Hewlett Packard, it was to provide as much value as I possibly could, to think outside the box, to create the best value I could. And the way that I did that is very similar to the way I do it now.
I went in and I found out what's the most important thing to my boss? What would make his life better? How can I help him solve his problems?
He's basically my customer, right? I'm here to provide a service to his corporation, to his group within this corporation. What do they most want from me?
And I asked them what they most wanted and needed from me, and I over-delivered that in spades. Now, did I do that because I was so in love with Hewlett-Packard and wanted to make sure that their printer parts were perfect? Only because I wanted to provide as much value as I could to my boss, not because I had a passion for printer parts.
But I'll tell you what I did have a passion for. I had a passion for creating as much of value as I could with my life. And whatever I was going to be doing with my life, I was going to be providing value to the people around me.
And if people were paying me, you can be sure that they were going to be getting way more value than they were paying me for, way more than that paycheck was for. The same thing happened to me in Nordstrom. I got hired in fashion jewelry in Nordstrom.
What they wanted most from me was to sell jewelry. So I had the customer, quote unquote, that was buying the jewelry from me, and I wanted to make sure they were getting tons of value for what they were paying for. And that value included what I offered them, the story I told them about the jewelry, how to use it, what to wear it with.
But also the customer was my company, Nordstrom, and providing them with the most value that I possibly could because they were the ones paying me. The customer was paying Nordstrom, Nordstrom was paying me. And I showed up and delivered because I wanted to be a person that provided value.
And I'll tell you that a lot of times that money came back to me directly from the place where I created the value, and other times it showed up in different ways. So the work that I did at Hewlett Packard by creating value, I got promoted very quickly within that organization, and I got paid very well because of the value that I provided. But also, what I learned from myself and the experience I got also contributed to the value that I offered the world and got paid in different ways.
So I want to make sure that you don't think that just because you're providing value that there's an exact price tag on that value in that moment. The value comes by being a valuable person. You're creating value in the world.
And the way that I do that is I always over deliver. So if somebody gives you a job and says, here's your job description, you need to come in for eight hours a day and provide customer service, or you need to come in and make sales. You can be sure, I'm going to go into that job, and whatever they're asking of me, I'm going to double down.
I am going to blow their mind. They're going to know I'm there. Because they're going to be like, whoa, where did this girl come from?
Right? I'm not just going to go in and do my job and please them. I'm going to be of service.
I'm going to create value. I am going to blow my own mind in what I'm capable of doing in that job. That job doesn't owe me anything.
They owe me nothing, right? They've given me a job. I owe them.
I'm going to show them. I'm going to produce the most anyone in that job has ever produced. I am going to be the best version, not for them, for me.
I'm going to create value in the world because I know that's going to come back to me 10 times. And that's how I think about money. Money comes to us through many different ways by the amount of value and the service that we provide, what we give of ourselves to the world.
Now, if you have a belief system that money comes from time and effort, you are going to be sitting there with your hand out, wanting to get paid for your time and effort. And you're going to want to get paid the most you can for the least amount of time and effort. And what I'm going to tell you is that's going to backfire.
As an employer, I know that that backfires. As an employee, I know that that backfires. Seeing people that always want to produce more than they always want to over deliver, I notice every single one of them always gets it back 10 times.
Always. Not only in their self-esteem and in their self-confidence, but in their willingness to receive. When you've given such quality to the world, you are open to receiving all the gifts, all the abundance that the world has.
When you're constantly living in a place of scarcity, wanting to make sure you get paid for every single thing you do. And when you don't, you stop creating value, and you just live in a way where you're going to do your time and get your paycheck. You're never going to blow your own mind in terms of money, ever.
Money is actually very easy when you clean up your beliefs about it. When you allow yourself to imagine yourself breaking out of the time and effort, money, prison, you will open yourself up to so much more possibility. Here's the deal.
Most of us think we get paid for our hours, we get paid by the year, and there's a maximum amount that most of us can make based on our education. What is that number you have in your mind?
Most people are about at that point. They think about money as this is the maximum amount I'll be able to make in a year, and I have to go to someone else to pay me that, and hopefully they'll pay me what I'm worth. And if you believe that, you will get stuck in that rut.
But if you allow yourself to let go of, maybe there's not a limited amount of money that we all need to grab from that same pie. Maybe I can create my own wealth by creating my own value and offering it to the world. And that doesn't mean you have to come up with the iPhone, and that doesn't mean you have to have a talk show, and it doesn't mean you have to be the best investor in the world.
All it means is that you are going to be the best version of yourself you can possibly be and create as much service to the world as you could possibly do for the sake of how amazing you will feel. And you have to not only create the value, not only create the service, but then be open to receiving. I talk about this in the earning training inside of Self-Coaching Scholars.
Earning is not just about creating value, it's about being open to receive money, be open to receive payment and not think that that's a bad thing, not think that's a negative thing, not think that you're taking from somebody else, but that you're building more and more abundance in your own life to be able to give more and more, to be an example of what is possible when you serve the world. Again, service is just being the best version of yourself. It doesn't mean that you're helping the homeless.
It doesn't mean that you're going out and helping people that are in desperate need. I mean, look at the iPhone. We weren't in desperate need of the iPhone.
Now we are, if we don't have one. If our battery is dead, we're like, oh my God, how did I ever live without an iPhone? See what I'm saying?
So you have to trust your own guidance to take you to the place. You have to stop buffering and clean up your mind and not be responding to negative emotion, to be able to access what you have that's of value. And every single one of us has something that's of value.
And every single one of us has the ability to create money. Now remember the model. How do we create money?
Now those of you who watch The Secret will think that your mind creates money, but don't forget the rest of the model. Your mind does create money because it creates your feelings and then your feelings drive your actions. So your actions create your money.
We don't usually think about creating money. We have this sense that money is something that is available or it isn't. We don't believe we can just create it.
We just notice what is there or isn't there, and then we complain or we enjoy it. Why is this? Why don't we talk in the language of creating money?
We use words like earn, borrow, find, make. Make is a seemingly good word to use, but the way we define it when it comes to money is usually associated with earning. And most of us usually associate earning money with time and effort.
So the question we need to ask ourselves is, how do those words feel when we use them in a sentence or a thought? Because how those words feel will determine what we do, and what we will do will determine how much money we have. So as part of Self-Coaching Scholars, I create a lot of questions for you guys on money.
And if you're in Self-Coaching Scholars and you go under assets, you will see that money training, and you will see the section on earning and the section on debt. I have a very different approach to debt than most people have. And so make sure you watch that part on debt.
So let's start with just a little bit of awareness by thinking about the money we do have. Think about how much money you have right now. What is the reason that you have that amount of money?
Now think about that in terms of your thoughts, your feelings, your actions. What are the feelings about how you've attained your money? What is your opinion about your money right now?
When you look through the words above, what do you notice? Are your current thoughts likely to create you more money? Is the way you're thinking about money right now likely to create you more money?
I have thoughts like money is easy. I had no idea how easy money was. Money is fun.
I love giving. I love creating value. I want to just keep creating more value and keep over delivering and keep receiving more money.
So put your thought about money in the model. Put it in the T-line and notice what result your current thought about money is getting you. I don't have enough time to make money.
Money is hard. Money is scarce. I'm never going to have enough money.
I don't have the right education. I hate my job. I don't know how to create value.
I don't know how to make money. I'm in so much debt, I'll never get out of debt. What are your current thoughts about money?
Write them down. Pay attention. Do you notice yourself resisting to realize that all of the money available for you to create, you chose to create the amount you currently have?
Do you tell yourself the story that it wasn't a choice, that you are doing the best you can or something else? Explain that to yourself. Think about what your thoughts are in making more.
When you think about making more, do you feel like, oh, that's not right? I shouldn't want more. I should be satisfied.
I shouldn't be chasing money. I don't have enough time. Are these the thoughts you want to be having on purpose?
What do you want your thoughts to be about money? You don't have to tell anyone. Like I was just coaching some of the other day.
I'm like, if you didn't care what other people thought about you, how would you think about money? And she was like, I would like all the fancy things. And she was feeling ashamed because she wants the fancy things.
And I told her, I said, you need to acknowledge how you really feel. Now, if you want to change the way you feel and think about money, you can do it purposefully, but make sure you like your reason. If the reason you don't want to admit that you like fancy things is because you're afraid of what other people will think about you, that's worth something to question.
Most of us want to keep our lids on the amount of money we make because we're afraid that other people will think we're greedy. Or that we're rich and that they'll hate us. Make sure you take a really close look at that because so many of us have committed to believing the same thing about money.
That too much of it is too much of it. This may be difficult for your brain to do because we're so used to letting our default thoughts run. Thoughts about money really matter and you most likely need to change your thoughts to be the opposite of what you're currently thinking.
Money is easy. It's easy to earn money. I don't have to work harder to create more.
I love money. I love having money to give. Money solves many problems.
Rich people are wonderful. Wealth is available to me. There's plenty of money for everyone.
Action not luck creates money. Struggle is not necessary for money. We are only limited by our mind.
I will prove it to you. How much money will you realistically make this year? And in your life?
Can you be radically honest about this? How are you able to predict this? Most of you will look to your past.
Most of you will be limited by what you think is possible, by what other people have told you is possible. Why did you pick the number that you did? Be very clear about that.
Changing that number is much easier than you might think. And thinking is the only thing that needs to change. So, if you are really struggling with this, I want to invite you to come in to Scholars and take my money program.
I have so much to teach when it comes to money. And I think part of the reason why that is, is because of the way I was raised, thankfully. I was raised with money.
And so money was always very abundant in my life. I never worried about money. And so I was able to think that it was easy to get.
My mom would hand me $20 bills. I used to think that money is not a problem. Money is fun.
Money buys cool things. Some of my friends didn't have money. I was like, well, it's okay.
I got money. I was always very generous with it. I never thought like, well, this is my money, and that's your money, because there's scarcity.
I just, I always had $20 bills in my pocket. I would go to the barn with the horses, and my friends wouldn't have money. I'm like, well, I'll pay.
Why not? And that's how I still am in my life. And I want to say that I don't think you have to be raised with money to have that mentality.
My best friend, Erica, has the exact same mentality, and she didn't have as much money as I had when we were growing up, and yet she still has that mentality today, too. It's all based on the way that you think about money and the way that you chose to believe about money when you were a child and the way that you choose to believe about it now. But I want to say that you can change the way you think about it.
And here's what a lot of people think, and this is one kind of last message I want to give to you, is that a lot of people think that when they get a lot of money, that they will spend it immediately, right? It's like all I want to do is spend money. But here's what I have found to be true.
The more money I make, the less money I spend. Your relationship with money becomes a relationship with money and not a relationship with what money can buy. And that's a huge distinction for most people.
Most people have hundreds of thousands of dollars of stuff and no money. So we say that we value money, but really what we do is we value what money can buy. And the more money we have, actually the less money we spend.
So when people say to me, I want to believe that I have a lot of money, and when I believe it, it makes me want to spend money, then I realize you haven't really got it. What you really start to do is you start to value and take care of your money instead of trying to get rid of it as quick as you can. When I say I love money, I really mean it.
I don't necessarily want to spend it immediately on something. I like having money. I like having a savings account.
I like having it in the bank. I like having it in my purse. So which person are you?
Are you the person that loves money or do you love what money can buy? And do you need to understand that difference? Because otherwise, you will notice that you get rid of money as quickly as you get it if you don't have an established relationship with money and what it means.
And your relationship with money is simply your thoughts about it. So if you're really struggling with this, I want to invite you into Self-Coaching Scholars. You will immediately get access to the asset section under money.
In that class, we talk about all the questions that I talked about here. Now listen, if you can't afford Self-Coaching Scholars, and you don't want to join it, that's fine. Just re-listen to this podcast and answer all of those questions, and really focus on this yourself.
Do you want my help with it? Come on in. And here's what we're going to discuss.
The first section is all about your beliefs about money and what's holding you back there. The second lesson is all about earning money and debt. The third lesson is all about spending money and how you feel about spending money, how you spend your money, how it's all optional, and why you spend your money.
We got to change you from spending money to feel good to only spending money when you feel good. Most of us feel terrible and spend money trying to buffer and feel better. What I want to suggest is that you never spend any money unless you've planned it ahead of time and you feel good spending it.
And then the last part, we talk about having money. And that's the difference between having a relationship with money and having a relationship with what money can buy in terms of stuff. Most of us have way too much stuff and not enough money.
We talk about that in my whole concept behind minimalism and how that works with creating wealth. All right, you guys, super fun. I love talking about money.
So I hope that this has given you some food for thought, some questions to think about, something to really sit down with and understand when it comes to, wait a minute, what if everything I've ever thought about money is wrong? Are you willing to be wrong about it? Because if the answer is yes, you might just create a tremendous amount of wealth in your life.
Make sure you guys stay on the line after the outro to listen to Erin. She is going to talk to you about Thriving After Addiction. She's amazing.
I'm in love with her. Do I say that all the time? I hope so because I'm so in love with all of my coaches.
Fantastic. Please enjoy. Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars.
It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the lifecoachschool.com/join.
Make sure you type in the the the lifecoachschool.com/join.
I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.
Hello, this is Erin from Thriving After Addiction, and I am so honored to be here on The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo. Brooke has been an incredible mentor to me, an inspiration, and one of my greatest gurus. And so, for those listening who are thinking about signing up for coaching with Brooke and enrolling in The Life Coach School, I highly recommend it.
And I am a recovery coach, yoga therapist, and an addict in recovery. I work with addicts in recovery who have been committed to sobriety, but reach a point in their sobriety where they realize that they've stopped taking risks. They realize that they haven't felt passionate or fiery about something in a long time.
Perhaps relationships are not as deep and meaningful as they would like, and we just crave something more, something deeper, a deeper connection. So I wanted to start off today's episode with a quote from Charlotte Gerson. All chronic and degenerative diseases are caused by two and only two major problems, toxicity and deficiency.
And so today, I want to talk about alcohol and how it can affect us to the point of almost being a disease. And if some of my listeners today are part of AA or NA, you know that one of the things that they promote to us is that we are diseased, right? And there's definitely a reason for that, because in the beginning, our mind is kind of diseased, right?
Because we've been doing these things over and over again that causes such destruction to us, to our family, to our loved ones. We see people suffer, we don't care. And if you ask me, that's definitely a disease.
That's definitely toxic. But to bring it back to the quote I read, it talked about two and only two major problems. So I talked about the toxicity, but also deficiency.
And so if we question, what is that deficiency? I have found in myself, on my road to recovery, as well as with my clients, that deficiency is a disconnect. So it starts with us, right?
We are the change we wish to see in the world. So when, as addicts, we disconnect, right? Because, you know, that's what we do.
We're very good at that. We're good at numbing out. We're good at avoidance patterns.
We're good at pleasure seeking. And so I'd like to cite an experiment from about 1960. And it was a psychological experiment based on the behavior of rats and drug addiction.
Some of you might be familiar with it. It's called the Skinner Box Experiment. So what these scientists did is basically took some rats, isolated them, put them into cages, and gave them the ability to at any time press this little lever, and all of a sudden they would get an injection of morphine.
And so this was one of the first experiments of drugs and addiction and how a person or, well, a rat would behave when given the chance to have unlimited access to a drug. And so the rats wound up pressing that lever, pressing that lever, and pressing that lever again. And so a lot of them wound up dying.
They got very sick. And it was an interesting experiment and sort of gave us the foundation of how a lot of people still think about addiction nowadays. But I want to point something out.
So they were completely isolated. They were in dark cages with no communication. The only time that they saw another being was when some food came in from some of the scientists.
And so that would lead anyone to want to do drugs, right? That would lead anyone to want to drink. And so the rat park experiment is actually an updated version of this study on addiction.
So what these new scientists did, and by the way, you can check out this experiment at www.brucekalexander.com.
They set up this rat park. So they put the rats, multiple rats, in these cages and put, like, you know, the little spinny wheels that they run on and lots of food and water, and, you know, there was much fun to be had, much sex to be had. And they also put two water bottles.
So one was just plain tap water. The other water bottle was infused with morphine. And what they found was very interesting.
The rats barely touched the morphine solution, and rather, they just drank the tap water. And so this updated version of how we view addiction through this study is so important because as far as, you know, when the big book came out, it was around 1930. And we had a certain view of humans and how we process things.
So the view back then was that, you know, the brain can't change and that, you know, the way we're set up is genetically predisposed. And, you know, once you're an addict, you're diseased permanently, and then you just manage it. And so the interesting thing about this experiment is that shows, you know, you would figure from the prior experiment that if these rats had access to drugs all the time, that they would just have no control over themselves and just do it until they died.
But what it shows is that when the rats had lively and fulfilling lives, when they had the company of other rats, and they had activities to do that brought them joy, they barely touched the stuff. And so this is sort of playing off of some of Brooke's lessons about bringing more joy into your life and studying yourself and finding your pain points. And so if we have deficiency, we open up the space to invite in these toxic elements.
So toxic thoughts because we get too caught up in our head, toxic behaviors because our mind starts running the show because we're disconnected, right? So our mind is sort of running on autopilot, which if you've been listening to The Life Coach School Podcast, you know that Brooke talks about patterns, groove patterns in the mind. In yoga, we call them samskaras.
So I mentioned that just because there's lots of literature about this type of theory. So it's been studied at depth. And so deficiency that addicts experience the most is a disconnect from ourselves and a disconnect from God.
So what is that? So for me, I practice yoga. I'm a practicing yogi.
And so I believe in universal consciousness, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience, that we can channel consciousness and we are consciousness expressed. And so when we disconnect because of trauma or we don't know how to process our feelings, we disconnect from God. And so if we continue to do that, it becomes habit.
And when we disconnect, the world is an awfully lonely place. The world is an awfully terrible place. And there is a lot of pain and suffering.
And so we develop these patterns a lot of times when we're young. We have trauma. Our parents are emotionally closed off.
We don't know how to deal with and cope. And so the vibration inside of us is so painful that we try to disconnect as a coping mechanism. And so if I am speaking to any addicts today or addicts in recovery, I want you to first have compassion and just realize that we develop this pattern as a way to save ourselves, right?
And so what can we do to bring ourselves out of this diseased state and slowly heal ourselves, right? Because I want to say as a disclaimer that this takes work, and it takes consistent work. And not just consistent work, but work that's earnest.
So you're showing up fully and present as much as you can. And it's not easy. Brooke talks about how when you're first retrain your brain, how there's a super highway and how there's like the rocky, bumpy road.
And so it takes more effort because we go from an unconscious state into a conscious state. And the unconscious state has been developed for a while. And because it's autopilot, there's less energy expended, right?
So it's a survival mechanism. So when we start to open up new pathways, it does take more effort. And for a lot of us, it's very scary because it's completely new.
And so it's unfamiliar. And so Brooke talks about how, you know, in the brain that we have these survival mechanisms. And if it's unfamiliar, the brain's like, whoa, wait, okay.
So we've been surviving down this road. Why are we changing up the road? So if you've heard that, you can understand that not only do we have a mental block towards change, but a lot of times we'll also have physiological reactions.
And for sure, if we have this past of addiction to alcohol, you know, when you got sober, you definitely had some very real physical detox reactions. And so when you start doing this work mentally, right? So it's the next layer of this work, you're probably going to have some mental detox reactions as well.
And those are very real. So at first, for example, I teach yoga teacher trainings. I have a yoga studio in Florida called Thrive Yoga and Fitness.
And I teach yoga teacher trainings. And since graduating from The Life Coach School, I incorporate some coaching because it's been an invaluable tool for me. But when these yogis start practicing yoga every day, all of a sudden, about week three or four, all their stuff comes up and they're just sort of stuck in this cloud of having to deal with their feelings because they've opened up the pathways in their body.
And so there is definitely a way that we can reconnect to our body and learn to process these feelings. I want to talk about... So we talk a lot about the power of the mind on The Life Coach School Podcast, which for sure is amazing, life-changing, game-changer.
I want to talk a little bit about the power of the body. I've been a practicing yogi for over ten years, and as I said before, I'm a yoga therapist. And I've just seen so many transformations of people who came to yoga practice.
They stepped up on the mat, and they start to have mental transformations. So for sure, the thoughts run the show, but if we have stagnant energy and emotions and built up in our system, how do we process that? And so from the website, heartmath.com, I wanted to quote this, the heart, like the brain, generates a powerful electromagnetic field.
McCready explains in The Energetic Heart, the heart generates the largest electromagnetic field in the body. The electrical field, as measured in an electrocardiogram, an ECG, is about 60 times greater in amplitude than brain waves. And so I want you to chew on that for a moment.
That's a lot. And so I find that for me and for us addicts is that we have so much pain built up in our bodies that we feel like we have to constantly manage. We feel like we're diseased because we're always in some sort of dis-ease, right?
We're always in some sort of unpleasant vibration below the surface. You know what I'm talking about. And to process that, I feel like the mind and the body need to be connected.
For me, that was how I started to really uproot the disease of alcoholism. And so if we can learn to connect to the body, so focusing on the heart, so how do we do this? So the breath.
So the breath is a huge part of this process. There's sympathetic, parasympathetic nervous systems. So when we're in fight or flight mode, which a lot of us addicts, if we've drank, probably we've experimented with other things like amphetamines or uppers, I mean, even caffeine, your mind starts going really fast.
And when we get too close, we clench on to all the thoughts in our head, and we associate with them too closely, then we start to disconnect from our body. You'll notice that if you're listening to this right now, if you all of a sudden just become aware of your body, just notice if you're holding tenseness somewhere, right? If you're holding it in your shoulders or around your jaw, around your face, I've seen it all.
And so if we can first start breathing, so deep breaths in and out through the nose, nice and deep, accessing the lower lobes of the lungs so that we can have more oxygen exchange in the body. We start to open up those pathways in our body so that those built up negative emotions can start to process through. And so a great technique to do this is to start connecting the mind and body, is just take your index and thumb and press them together.
This is called Gya Mudra and it helps us to just become aware of the fingertips, because sometimes breathing and pressing our fingers together is all we can do at the moment. And so if you try that, then it's interesting because as you breathe, all of a sudden your body is going to feel like it's starting to come alive. And then once you get feeling, a more subtle feeling through your arms and through your legs, start focusing on the heart and noticing any areas where you're holding on or clenching.
And see if you can soften the outline of that area. Continue to breathe, continue to relax, and just focus on the sound of your breath and the feeling. And so this is a technique I teach some of my clients that are very caught up in their heads, and this is a technique that I use myself.
And it really helps me to ground myself back into my body, so that I can release these negative feelings. And so back to the quote I mentioned at the beginning of our episode. So the two major problems, toxicity, right?
So if we apply that to what we've learned today, a toxic buildup of not just thoughts, belief systems, but also the feeling of the emotions. And so we can learn to process this. And if I bring it back to the second part of the equation, deficiency, the cool thing is, is that when we start to flush out this toxicity from our belief systems, from physical things we've put in our body, from the emotions we've created, we start to create space.
And holding space for yourself is one of the most important things that you can do. It's the, it's the really the greatest gift that you can give to the world. Because when you have that space, you have the ability to connect consciously.
And you'll find that if you practice this and perhaps adopt a mindfulness practice, so throughout the day, I've recommended to clients that they set a little timer on their phone. And every hour, it's just like bing, or it will vibrate in your pocket. And you'll just take some deep breaths, maybe pressing your index and thumb onto one another.
And I recommend at least two minutes of this, and just removing yourself from whatever you're doing, removing yourself from your thoughts. My favorite mantra for this, and mantra is just a saying that you tell yourself, almost like a positive affirmation, I'm not my mind, I'm not my body, I'm not my thoughts. I'm not my mind, I'm not my body, I'm not my thoughts.
When you start to do this, you start to feel this wholeness, this completeness. And you start to be able to more efficiently wash away those pain patterns, wash away those pain points. And show it more clearly in the world.
I've used this technique with my clients that are addicts in recovery with amazing results. I mean to the point of I would talk to them one week, we would start this protocol, and then the next week, they're a completely different person. And so I hope that you enjoyed the tools that I gave you today.
And remember that if you're listening to The Life Coach School Podcast, and you're considering going to The Life Coach School, it was absolutely life changing for me. It allowed me to do exactly what I'm doing right now. And if I can be a testament of Brooke's work, it's worth doing.
So don't get in your head too much. Go for it. Sign up.
And today, I also wanted to offer you a free gift. So if you go to thrivingafteraddiction.com/freedashgift, you can claim a free gift I put together that includes a yoga practice guided by me, a meditation, as well as a PDF guideline with elements of how to coach yourself, as well as nutritional guidelines. Namaste.
