It’s clear that many of you want to move forward True Self aligned careers, but are stymied by fear, stress, and all sorts of other challenges. Some comments from the True Self Assessment:
“I’m in a holding pattern of frustration and uncertainty.”
“How do I move past the fear that has eroded my self-esteem?”
“How do I get over fear, doubt, and worry when contemplating a new direction?”
These obstacles are the reason that I start working with all of my clients using the True Self Process. The first step in any True Self aligned path is to understand clearly the difference between the truth of the real you, what we call your Best Self, and your false self, what some people call your ego, which we affectionately refer to as Drama.
Your Best Self is the source life-force energy that is directly connected to the infinite creativity and possibility of the Universe.
Drama is the part of you that gets ‘contracted’ by fear. I call Drama the BIG SQUEEZE: it’s what you create when you want to birth the next version of yourself that’s more aligned with your soul…
The tricky part is that people confuse Drama with reality. This confusion shows up as people saying things like:
“That’s just who I am.” (When asked why you weren’t more honest about what you want.)
“Being my Best Self all of the time simply isn’t realistic.” (When asked why you don’t live more of your life there.)
Until you get really clear about the REAL ESSENTIAL YOU, True Self aligned anything will be elusive and hard to achieve.
The good news is that once you start to experience the power and possibility of your True Self as deeper reality, accessible primarily because you choose to be connected with the most brilliant part of yourself, the obstacles to a True Self aligned path don’t stand a chance.
Think about it. Love is 1000 times more powerful than fear. Choose to connect with the Love that is your authentic nature, and you are accessing the power that has created worlds.
Tell me, what could possibly be more exciting than that?!
And believe me, I know just how difficult it can be to make that choice – the one to BE LOVE, BE ESSENTIAL!
One of the biggest challenges you face in making the choice to BE ESSENTIAL is your brain!
In order to choose being your Best Self, it’s important to understand the relationship between your brain, Best Self, and Drama.
Current brain research demonstrates that human beings operate in two very different modes, depending on their reaction to circumstances and stimulus. These modes are states of awareness and behavior that can be regulated through skill or choice, and correspond to your Best Self and Drama.
Drama happens when you perceive a threat, or when you experience fear, anxiety, worry, or stress. Your limbic system, specifically the amygdala, takes over your thinking which can happen in about 2-4 seconds. A sympathetic nervous system response occurs: blood rushes out of the brain and toward your arms and legs, and rapid thinking takes over, albeit not necessarily your most rational thought. Drama can be a quick reaction or a persistent state of being.
Your Best Self is a more stable, emotionally neutral state that is resilient, creative, and resourceful – more conducive to thriving than surviving. You access your Best Self via your forebrain, which is designed for higher-level cognitive processing, and is slow and contemplative.
Forebrain: Your forebrain includes the cerebrum, cerebral cortex, corpus collosum, and neocortex. It includes all higher order levels of reasoning and rational thought.
Midbrain: Your midbrain includes the limbic system and the cerebellum.
In order walk down a soul-aligned path, you must be at your Best Self, and able to respond to and learn from Drama. Acting from your Essential Best can be challenging when the amygdala quickly hijacks your body with a stress response.
The solution to an amygdala hijack is to pause, take a deep breath and count to 5, and use the skill of connecting with your forebrain, and thus access your Best Self. If you feel like your midbrain has seized-up your body and mind beyond what a pause and breath can handle, you can use tools such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping to break through and release patterns of fear-based thinking lodged in your neural pathways.
The way to create consistent and persistent access to your Best Self, is to access your “whole self,” by using each of your four intelligences to build the muscle of connection to the REAL ESSENTIAL YOU. The IAM Compass guides you in this holistic approach where you will:
Think positive thoughts as much as possible;- Open your heart and experience Love;
- Use gratitude to create happiness;
- Practice daily meditation where you have a “relaxation response.”
True Self
Emotions and Intelligence
Meditation is the most powerful way to tap into your parasympathetic nervous system – the antidote to the stress response of the sympathetic nervous system. With meditation, you can integrate all of your intelligence into an embodied experience of your Best Self.
You can unconsciously allow your brain to suck you into patterns of fear and stress, or you can consciously use your brain to purposefully live as your Best Self, more and more every day.
Remember, there is no bad or wrong in your experience! Only opportunity to learn, heal, and grow from Drama and discover more of the REAL YOU in the process. You might as well get your brain on-board as soon as possible!
Let me know if you have any questions about HOW in the comment section below. I love to see what you’re thinking!