EP 9 Self Coaching

 Talking points and takeaways:

• Talking about triggers and how they make you feel. How we can become self aware to react differently.
• How living in a box creates our own perception of life. Perception is projection
• The Empowerment Formula. All about living at cause.
• Releasing what is out of our control.
• Value and state. Setting Achievable goals and choosing how you feel.

Soul Rhythm Activation (Homework/Practice):

• Start being more aware to how you're feeling and start thinking of yourself as a third person when feeling triggered. 
• Ask yourself Why am I feeling this way? 

Full Episode : Self Coaching

Welcome to episode 9 of The Soul Rhythm Podcast. Today's episode is a hot one and one that I've been excited about for quite a while, because it's one that really changed my life and it changed the course of my career. It's all about self coaching and how to become your best self. Now, obviously this topic is vast and there are so many tools and I'm just going to cover the tip of the iceberg. Honestly these tools I'm about to touch base on should be taught in school. if we were taught these life skills, we would be better equipped, right? So let's just get right to it. Let's get started. So a lot of this I've kind of drizzled through the previous episodes and I'm just bringing it all together. In order to self coach, you have to be very self-aware and we don't want to confuse self-awareness with self-consciousness, which we covered earlier. Self-conscious is second guessing every move self-doubting yourself. No, no, no. We don't want any of that. We want you to feel like you fully trust yourself, and you're also aware of how your actions are shifting everything and everyone around you and how they are also affecting you, because we all know we have triggers. 

I actually get excited when a trigger comes up. Sometimes I get really mad at first and then I'm like, okay, Carla, somethings up here, what do we need to uncover? What do we need to heal? So we start with that awareness. And then we question a lot. We question not our actions, but our feelings. Why am I feeling this way? What about what this person said, or what happened in this situation is making me feel in this way, because most things we can't control in life. And for those things that we can't control, we can only control how we react to them. And so being super self-aware means that you are aware of how you are reacting and that allows you to be more proactive rather than reactive. And while we are questioning those triggers and how we're feeling, then we can act in a way that is truly more aligned with who we are, because we've all had those moments where we completely blow up. We get really mad, we say something mean, and then we totally regret it. And that's because we were driving in the vehicle in the front seat of our emotions and our triggers are there to keep us safe and to help us grow and transform. They're not bad. but they can trigger us. So in order to avoid always getting triggered which don't get me wrong, there will still be times that you get triggered. But in order to minimize it and to really be at the driver's seat of our emotions, it starts with self-awareness. 

 So when we live in a box, we are limited to our own perception of our life. And they say, perception is projection. Meaning that if I'm in my box and I'm seeing a problem, I'm going to start seeing that problem everywhere because my mind starts multiplying it and projecting it. And we see through the lenses that we want to see the world, even sometimes when we are not aware that all we're seeing is problems. So when we are in our box, we sometimes don't see the options and opportunities. That's why it's always better to have that best friend that gives you a fresh perspective, because we all know we also have those people in our life that may fuel the problem So when we're talking about this box and having somebody to give you the fresh perspective, because this whole episode is about finding clarity and finding, a way to move forward and to keep going towards your dreams, desires and your goals rather than staying stuck. Right? So how do we avoid staying stuck? How do we avoid feeling in a rut? And that, of course, starts with that awareness and then having either a friend or a coach, and a lot of these tools will help you just go along your Merry way by you're on your own. But it's just important to mention that it's always nice to have somebody that provides a fresh perspective to give you the bird's eye view from outside your box. But what if you don't have that? Right? What if all your friends are busy, you can't call them and you really need to solve a problem right now, but you're so stuck in your box. Your emotions are like running wild and you feel stuck. Well, the best way to get out of your box is to view yourself as a third party. So you're viewing yourself as an outsider, and sometimes it's really funny because then you just realize how silly you're being, right, how that internal dialogue is being. It's your inner child going wild and needing attention, your ego, screaming at the top of its lungs. So instead of continuing to play with these two people, which are actually the same within you, can you view your situation as an outsider and that's going to allow you to be like, Oh, okay, well I'm obviously overreacting. And actually I have a really good example. And this is like me being super, super vulnerable and silly. So as you know, I'm getting married next month. We have this whole weekend planned and Brian is going golfing with his boys on Friday. So the wedding's on Saturday. And while they're going golfing, my plan is to go to the pool with my girls. And two of my best girlfriends, all of a sudden could not come because they had to work and they had this and they had that. And, Oh my God, my whole world ended and I'm 34. And I'm like, literally in my head acting like a high schooler, like, Oh my God, my girlfriends cannot come to the pool. I was so sad. And I immediately was like, Oh my God, Carla, like, relax. It's not the end of the world. How can we make this a better situation? So then I was like, okay, well, since they can't come to the pool until like one then I'm just going to go get a massage. I'll have a little morning to myself where I can give myself self-love and then we can all get together later, not the end of the world. Right. And then I'm still having a great day without living at effect to my friends' lives. They also have their life that they have, you know, their moms, they have their business owners there. They have a lot going on. So it's not that they didn't want to be with me, but they had things to do. But in my head I was like, no, things aren't going my way. And I need them to go my way. 

I was trying to take control of things that were out of my control. What's really cool about it all is that it ended up working out and I'm still getting a massage. I hope you can relate to that because again, even though we're grown adults, some of us, maybe some of you guys are younger, but that inner child still comes out to play. And when I started looking at myself, this was yesterday actually, um, overreacting for something so silly, it was almost embarrassing, but you know, we're not going to go down. The embarrassing path is just realizing that I'm being silly. And that was the way I was reacting was not going to get me anywhere. And that I just needed to shake it off and get out of my box, see myself as an outsider, looking at myself in the way I was acting in the way I was thinking and feeling in order to identify a new path. So that's where it's super important to have that self-awareness. And then whenever you're feeling like things are getting out of control in your head, look at yourself as an outsider and see yourself with different eyes. Because when we're in it, it's so hard to get out of it. Right. If I were an outsider i would think  okay, how am I acting? How am I reacting? Why am I feeling this? Then see how things shift, let me know how that goes. Tag me on Instagram, shoot me a DM. If you don't want to make it public, but let me know how that goes, because that one has been a game changer. 

Now, I want to talk about the empowerment formula, which we reviewed earlier in the podcast. I think it's worth mentioning because it's important for this episode. The empowerment formula is all about living at cause, which means you are living at the driver's seat of your life. In other words, you're not blaming other people. You're not finding excuses for not getting what you want. You're getting results. When you're living in effect, which is you're having excuses, you're having reasons for not getting what you want. Then you'll always stay in that little swirl of excuses. And in that box of, Oh, life is not happening for me. It's happening to me if we change it and we live at cause we are living in the driver's seat of our life and we are finding results and we are finding options and opportunities and being open to receiving them. And when things don't go our way, we understand that something better is around the corner. And I just love that because truly everything is happening to us in perfect timing.

When something doesn't work the way we want it to, we're either meant to learn something or we're meant to wait for something better that's around the corner. And that's something that I shifted in my life. I've always been faithful, but I honestly, I didn't know if I was fully faithful because nobody ever taught me to think in that way. I grew up Catholic and so I had  to have faith. And I understood it to an extent, but not fully until it was broken down into this, like, okay, everything is happening to me in perfect timing. And my efforts are fully supported because again, we can't control so much in our life. We can only control what we do and how we act and react. So then for everything else that we cannot control, we need to surrender and let go of that grip of, in my example, what my friends could or couldn't do with their time and understand that something better is right around the corner and that things are just going to work out. They always work out and I'll tell you, it's been way more fun, way more relaxed, way more joyful and less of a stress because I used to be a control freak. And I had this mentality of I have the power to influence my life completely.

That's a good belief to have to an extent, but not 100% because there are things that we can't control.I remember when I was dating people before I met Brian and I had a boyfriend here and there. And when things didn't go my way, I had meltdowns, which is embarrassing to say here, but you know, I want to be super vulnerable because I know that so many of you have gone or maybe going through things like this. So I remember one night I was laying in bed and the guy that I liked didn't text me back. And my heart started racing and I was about to have a panic attack for something so silly and that was because I was trying to grip at things and control things that were completely out of my control. Somebody else's actions are not under my control. And I would always think it was a reflection of me like what did I do wrong? Like how toxic is that mentality? Right. Let's say we go to a networking event. I remember if somebody was weird with me or did not react how I expected them to react. Then all of a sudden I was like, Oh my God, what did I do wrong? Was I too forthcoming? We have to realize that every single human walking on this earth has their own stories. They have their own problems and it's not all about us. I say it and I kind of giggle inside because most of us care too much about other people's reactions when most of the time it’s outside of us. It's not anything to do with us. Right. And so releasing that is also very, very freeing. So releasing control over everything and everyone that you cannot control is very empowering because you can only control yourself, your actions and your reactions. Now I want to read a quick little sentence and I can't take credit for this. This actually comes from my coaching book. But I think it's worth mentioning with regards to the empowerment formula of living at cause versus living at effect. So this will solidify it even more. If there's something in your life that you're not happy with or something is not going your way, you're living at the effect of someone or something else, that means you are not taking full responsibility for your life, right. You're living at effect at something or someone else. So how can you shift that? You ask yourself, how can I be at cost for this? In other words, how can I see an opportunity or an option or a change for me to take action? That's the next step in order to live at? Because you always have to take action if you don't take action, you're staying stagnant. When we take action that's when, like they say, action is the catalyst for clarity. Like when you're not clear, just take messy action when you're not sure of it. Just five, four, three, two, one, do it, just take the leap and do it because we overthink it too much. Right? And then we stay.

I mentioned the growth zone a few episodes ago and it's also part of continuing to expand yourself. You always have to live in your growth zone. When I went to summer camp, I was taught this concept of there are three circles, one inside of the other, the middle circle is your comfort zone. And that's where you feel really, really comfy on your couch and you're not growing right. You are doing the things that you are used to doing. You're in your routine. You're seeing the people that you're used to seeing. You're not getting out there and meeting other people, whatever your situation may be, whether it is expanding your network or trying something new, trying to sell skill, that kind of thing. So you're in your comfort zone. Then the next circle is your growth zone. And that's where you want to spend most of your time because that's what's going to allow you to grow without freaking out your entire nervous system. Right? So then having that self-awareness that we were talking about earlier is super important in order for you to not stay in your comfort zone and be in your growth zone most of the time, without getting to your danger zone, which is the outermost circle. So your danger zone is when you got super wild, you got super far out there and you took the leap into something that maybe is too much. So you give your system a shock and then there's trust, right? So we don't want to be traumatized. We want to transform. So we want to be in that growth zone. So depending on whatever activity it is, whether it is public speaking or climbing a climbing wall or taking a new class, learning a new skill, talking to a person that you're really intimidated by, you just have to have the awareness and ask yourself, okay, is doing this, this next action. Is that in my comfort zone, growth zone or danger zone. And then you take action based on where you are. And then two, in order to progress towards your goals, you have to be super clear of your outcome. And this is something that everyone talks about, you know, you have to have achievable goals and there has to be time and all these things yet so many of us don't set the right goals because sometimes we confuse a feeling with an actual goal. And I'm going to break this down a little bit.  So this could be like, I want to feel fulfilled. Like, what does it mean to feel fulfilled? Like when will, I know I will be fulfilled, right? That's like so ambitious and so far out there that it's really hard to quantitate. And when we want to build our confidence and feel like we're achieving something, we want to be able to know when we achieved it. And so when it's so far out there, it's really tough to do that. That's when you know, it's not bad to say, I want to feel fulfilled. You can start wiring that into your subconscious by doing affirmations and stuff, but the fulfillment will come and go because it's a feeling right. Sometimes maybe you'll feel in a rut because something didn't go your way or because you're on your flow and you're processing some triggers. And then other times you'll feel fulfilled. But the message here is that it's not very tangible. So having feelings is super important, but when we're talking about creating goals and outcomes, you want to make sure that it's super, tangible, very specific. Okay. Now the cool thing is that the feelings don't even need to be a goal because you can actually feel a certain way right now. You can choose to feel a certain way in an instant. And I'm going to show you how this one's really important for the whole episode, because being able to understand that you get to choose how you feel, changes the game for everything, because let's say you are about to approach someone to ask for a job or to ask for a speaking gig. And you're really nervous. You can choose to feel really excited. You can choose to feel really confident. So how do you do that? So in order to elicit a feeling or a state, you want to think of a time that you felt that way. So think of a time that you felt really, really confident now, close your eyes. And you're going to go back down to that time. You're going to see what you saw, hear what you heard and feel what you felt when you felt super duper, confident, and feel it in every cell of your body to make it bigger, brighter. It's all over your body. You're really confident. It just got so much bigger. And that's how you elicit a feeling. You see it, you feel it and you hear it.

That's been a game changer for me because yes, sometimes It's not going to be rainbows and butterflies and unicorns all the time. I'm not saying that this is going to help you be happy all the time because that's not life. Life is mountains and valleys. Okay? But you still get to be at the driver's seat. When you're in the valleys, you still get to be in control and you still get to feel confident while you are going through a change and a shift and a lull. You always get to change things within you. You always get to change how you feel. Although the reason I say that it's not always rainbows, unicorns and butterflies is that it's super important to also feel the negative feelings because we need to as humans process. And that's why I love breathwork. And if you've never done, breathwork head onto my Instagram. I have a bunch of IGTV tutorials that will teach you a few simple breathwork techniques, because breathwork allows you to process pent up, stagnant emotions in your body without having to associate too much with them, without you having to relive the story in your head, basically we do need to feel the negative feelings in order to transmute them, to process them. Otherwise, we're going to bottle them up. And they're going to come out in one way or another, whether it is a disease or like some pain in your body, it's just going to come out. That said, there's science behind this. This is true. So we need to process energy. And if you are not a fan of breathwork, cry it out, laugh it out, talk it out, journal it out. You have to process it and then choose a different feeling. And then that's when you're transmuting it. And sometimes I've done this and then I try, I choose to feel, let's say the opposite feeling. And there's still some of that leftover heavy energy inside me because it still needs to be processed. And you just have to trust and surrender and know that your efforts are supported and that everything is happening to you in perfect timing. And then give it some time and it will continue to be at the driver's seat, right? Continue to ask questions. Why am I feeling this way? Or what do I need to do? Don't stay stagnant, staying stagnant and not doing anything that will not get you anywhere. I remember I used to have a friendthat if she woke up and didn't feel good, she would always say, it's okay. I will just get through today and tomorrow will be a new day  Well to that. I say, screw that.

That is that person living at effect of their emotions, right? They're not doing anything to change the way they feel to process the way they feel. Let's get back to the driver's seat and take action and do our part instead of just writing it out. I hope all of this is making sense. If you have any questions, I know this is a lot. This is a heavy episode, but honestly, probably one of my favorite episodes.

 Let's wrap this up. So you want to have achievable outcomes and knowing your outcome means it's something that you need to see, feel and hear. It needs to be time-bound So it's not saying I want to feel fulfilled. I want to feel joyful. Those are all great. And again, you can elicit those now, but when we're talking about achieving something, you want it to be timeless and you want it to be achievable, which means that you're going to be able to see it, hear it and feel it. You also want to know what the steps are to achieving this thing. Right. So how am I going to go get from point a to point B and how am I going to measure the success or lack thereof of the steps. Then lastly, you want to write it out, right? So it is now, and then you set the future date and you have achieved whatever it is that you want to achieve.and then what are you seeing, hearing and feeling when you're achieving this goal? And I love this part. If you can include what reasons, what personal resources that you use in order to achieve these goals, because that in and of itself allows you to identify that you did it on your own, and it was the skills within you that built confidence too. And then also having that accountability partner or that friend, or announcing it to your social media audience, all helps in achieving those goals.

XX, 

Carla Marconi @carla11marconi 

Holistic Business Coach || Mindset & NLP Expert 

Breathwork & Yoga Facilitator || Hypnotherapist