Caroline has a dream of owning her own business. She has a day job that pays the bills and provides a pretty comfy security blanket. At night, she dreams and schemes but whenever it comes time to pull the trigger and venture into the world of entrepreneurship, Caroline gets overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety and doubt. The feelings trigger thoughts like, “Who am I kidding?” and “I don’t have what it takes.” Those thoughts only serve to amplify the anxiety. Caroline is caught in an emotion loop. Emotions drive her thoughts and her thoughts fuel the emotions. Her Inner Matrix is not aligned in a way that will allow her to take the actions that will deliver the outcome she’s looking for. But it doesn’t mean she needs to give up on her dream.
One of the key things we do at our Power Series Weekend Intensives is map out the Inner Matrix. Remember, the Inner Matrix is made up of the emotions, thoughts, and nervous system sensations that live inside us and inspire the actions we take. All the patterns living in your Inner Matrix collaborate to create reality as you perceive it. If you’re operating from a state of fear, like Caroline, then you’re probably going to relate to the world as a place of danger and insecurity. The good news is, you can reconfigure your Inner Matrix and retrain your nervous system to align with your desired results.
Caroline’s patterns of feeling unworthy were likely created as far back as her early childhood. For most of us, patterns are set during the first five years of life. During these years, our brains are like sponges, soaking up everything we see, hear, and feel. Caroline’s mother was a fearful person. She viewed the world as a big scary place where doing things like taking chances, being vulnerable, and stepping outside the “norm” were strictly taboo. Taking big swings were for other people. Even if she never actually verbalized these thoughts to Caroline, her actions (or lack of action) and her emotional states were imprinted on Caroline’s developing nervous system. She received the message that chasing a dream was dangerous and that message will constantly be at odds with her desire to start her own business. Without even being aware of it, any thought of stepping out on her own triggers those feelings of unworthiness that live in her subconscious. So how does Caroline break free from the patterns that are stifling the outcomes she’s looking for?
During a Power Series weekend, we start by picking a space in life where we're experiencing pain or struggle. Relationship, Body/Health, or in Caroline’s case, Money/Career are the ripest areas in which we can create transformation. Once we’ve identified the area that needs to be tuned up, we get in touch with the emotions that are the most consistently attached to that space. For Caroline, those emotions are going to be fear, anxiety, unworthiness. When we recognize and understand the emotions that are present, we can then map out the thoughts associated with those emotions. A simple yet effective way to do that is by completing the sentence: I feel [emotion] with [space in life] because _________. Over two decades of working with more than 80,000 people through IMS, I can tell you that emotions and the thoughts that accompany them are very predictable. If we were to map out the themes of thought for each emotion, they would be very similar from one person to another. When sadness is present, our thoughts are likely focused on what we've lost...a loved one who passed away, a relationship that ended, our 28-year-old abs. When we are feeling anxiety, we're usually thinking about the bad thing that is about to happen, or the bad things from our past. Caroline’s anxiety doesn’t come from anything bad that’s actually happened, but rather from a belief that taking a chance on herself will cause something bad to happen, or at the very least, will only lead to failure.
An interesting thing about feeling vs thinking is that each of us is more in tune with one or the other...and it usually lines up with the role(s) we play in life. A scientist is more likely to be aware of what they think versus how they feel, whereas a stay-at-home parent or mental health professional is more likely to be attuned to their emotional state. And a professional athlete or body worker may be more apt to be in tune with sensations in the body than emotions or thoughts. But what underlies everything is that emotions came first. They were your first language and they are the basis for every thought we have and the choices, decisions and actions that follow. Caroline lives mostly in her emotions. She feels safe in her current job, even if she doesn’t necessarily enjoy it, because it aligns with the emotional patterns that were developed during her childhood. When she thinks about taking even the smallest step toward starting her own business, the anxiety is immediately triggered, and the anxiety fuels thoughts of not being good enough. She can’t break free from the loop and the only action she can take is no action at all. She’s stuck. But with some guidance and consistent training, Caroline can get herself unstuck.
Depending on which aspect of your Inner Matrix you hear the loudest, here's a little cheat sheet: If you're more aware of what the mind is saying, write down the thoughts that are running through the mind, and ask yourself the question: Whose opinion is this? Is this the opinion of Inspiration? or Doubt? Would Regret be expressing this thought? Or might it be Anger? That will support you to reverse engineer the emotion that is driving. If you're a feeling-first kind of person and you find it challenging to articulate the thoughts, use our handy prompt: I feel ________ with _________ because... Get those emotions and thoughts on paper so you can observe them outside of yourself. And if you're uniquely attuned to sensations in the body, and want to better understand how they interact with emotions...we've got a whole post on that very subject HERE.
So where does this leave our friend Caroline? Once she realizes she’s carrying patterns that were imprinted during childhood, she can begin to unpack them. She can begin to understand that although thoughts and emotions may be connected, may feed off of each other, they are not the same thing. With that knowledge in hand, she will be able to recognize when the old emotional patterns raise their heads and begin the process of replacing them with new ones. She can retrain the nervous system to manage her emotional states and, in the process, open her mind to new ways of thinking. When anxiety and unworthiness present themselves, Caroline can use tools and strategies to shut them down and, instead, stimulate feelings of, say, inspiration and joy. When feelings of inspiration and joy are in the driver’s seat instead of anxiety and fear, it’s going to be pretty hard to have thoughts like, “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t have what it takes”.
We’d love to have you join us in person to learn the tools and strategies to get your Inner Matrix humming. Click HERE to learn more about the Power Series and sign up today!