Wisdom Rising

How to Stop Thinking and Start Really Living

• Christine Renee, Isabel Wells, and Shantel Ochoa • Season 2 • Episode 17

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Are you thinking your life or truly living it? In today's episode, Isabel and Shantel dive into how we can break free from the mind's constant storytelling to embrace a heart and soul-led life.

In this episode, we explore how the mind gets caught up in the stories we tell ourselves, and why taking a pause to step into awareness can change everything. We share our favorite practical tips and tricks for quieting the mind so you can connect to your Soul, and what it really means to live from the heart.

Along the way, we discuss:

  • The difference between thinking your life and truly living it
  • The impact of the mind’s constant storytelling
  • Mind vs. intuition vs. awareness
  • Subconscious programming and its influence on adulthood
  • Why we often operate from fear versus possibility
  • The importance of creating space between thoughts and reactions
  • Practical techniques for anchoring in the present moment 
  • Letting intuition guide daily decisions and testing intuitive nudges
  • The Target theory of aligned living
  • The "magic day challenge" 
  • And more!

.............

Ready to transform your relationship with intuition and mind? Join Isabel's Soul Speak Masterclass or Shantel's Soul Contracts Masterclass. Both four-week programs teach you to access soul wisdom and live with greater alignment.

Soul Speak Masterclass: https://moonrisinginstitute.circle.so/c/soul-speak-masterclass

Soul Contracts Masterclass: https://moonrisinginstitute.circle.so/c/soul-contracts-masterclass/

Moon Rising Shamanic Institute Links:
Website: https://moonrisinginstitute.com/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/moonrisinginstitute
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/moonrisingmystics
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moonrising.institute
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@moonrisinginstitute

Book a session with Isabel: https://calendly.com/into-the-deep/schedule

Book a FREE 15 minute connect call with Izzy: https://calendly.com/moonrisinginstitute/connect

Book a session with Christine: https://calendly.com/christinerenee/90-minutes-intensive

Book a FREE 10 minute connect call with Christine: https://calendly.com/christinerenee/10-minute-connect-call-srpt

Speaker 1:

It's time to remember your divine purpose and limitless potential. Welcome to Wisdom Rising, the official podcast of Moon Rising Shamanic Institute. Join shamanic Reiki practitioners Christine Rene, isabel Wells and Chantel Ochoa as we guide you on a journey of radical self-discovery and spiritual guidance. Each week, we'll dance through the realms of shamanism, mysticism, energy, healing and personal development to illuminate your path to true healing and self-sourced wisdom Through weekly inspired conversations and interviews with leading spiritual and shamanic practitioners. We are here to help you acknowledge, reconcile and balance your energy so that you can awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within. Hello, hello and welcome back to another amazing episode here on the Wisdom Rising podcast. I'm your host for today, isabel Wells, and I am joined once again with Chantel Ochoa for this episode on how we can stop thinking our lives and start really living them. This is a question that came up at the end of our last podcast episode, when we started talking about how we identify, how we use our mind, our awareness, our soul to come into balance and flow with life, so that we can get out of our heads and into our hearts and really start living life to its fullest and not be held back in the thought cycles of the mind, and so that is exactly what we cover in today's episode. We're sharing all of our own favorite tips and tricks to get out of our head and into our heart to start really living life. We also talk about a little magic experiment to see how much you can apply these practices to your own life and have a day or a week that is truly heart and soul led, so that you can experience the magic of life. So if you are interested in learning how to drop the monkey mind and get more in touch with your soul, this is the episode for you. In addition, if you're looking to take this even a step further, please know that my soul speak masterclass is still open for enrollment. We are officially one week in, but this class is set up so that you can watch the recordings and receive just as much benefit as being live with us in class.

Speaker 1:

So if you are looking for a class to teach you how to get out of your mind and into your soul and actually give your intuition a voice that is as clear as your mind, if you're looking to learn how to break the cycles of limiting beliefs and stuck emotions and really process and release those so that you can truly live life to the fullest, not only from a heart-led space, but from a soul-led space, where you know exactly what your intuition is saying and guiding you to and you know how to trust it. You know how to decipher it from your mind and know what it's saying and know how to follow it, then this soul speak masterclass is for you. We meet for four weeks and we cover everything from learning about our awareness and the psychology of our mind and cognitive dissonance to understanding the soul where it comes from, what it is, how our intuition is connected to the universe, how to get really clear answers from your intuition, how to process emotions that come up along the way and really start using your soul, your intuition, as the GPS of your life. So if you are interested in joining me, feel free to enroll now. Like I said, we're already one week in, but live classes meet on Wednesdays at 8 pm Eastern time or you can watch the recordings on your own and go through the class self-paced so the link for that will be in the show notes and know that these rules also apply to Chantel's Soul Contracts Masterclass. So if you're looking to learn more about soul contracts and how you can completely rework your worldview, to understand your soul's optimistic intentions for this lifetime. To help find ease and flow in your life, you can enroll in Chantel's Soul Contracts Masterclass and catch up on those recordings. In addition, please note that our gateway to spirit book club meets once again this Wednesday to discuss braiding sweetgrass. We'll have another round of our book club later this year, so be sure to keep an eye on these podcast intros and your email for more updates. In addition, be sure to join us in the moon rising shamanic Institute Facebook group, where we come together as a community of over 4,000 amazing individuals to walk this spiritual and shamanic path. That's also where you will learn about all of the amazing happenings that we have coming up for our Moon Rising community and some of the exciting updates and new masterclasses that we have coming out very soon. You can also follow us on Instagram, pinterest and YouTube to get more content from the Moon Rising community. And, with that said, we're so excited that you're here, that you're listening. We'd love to hear your top takeaways from this episode over in our Moon Rising Shamanic Mystics Facebook group. And, with that said, let's go to the show. Welcome.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to another amazing conversation. I'm joined here today with Chantel and we're diving into how to stop thinking your life and start living your life, and this is something that came out of our community conversation last week. This is a topic that we flowed into and we're bringing it back for round two, so if you haven't listened to our previous conversation, I encourage you to do so, because it might give you some context for what we're going to be talking about today. But this topic is really near and dear to both of our hearts because it's something that we strive to do every day is get out of our minds and into our hearts and really live life from a soul-led place. So hopefully, in today's conversation, you'll get some tips, tricks and perspective that will help you to do the same. So, chantel, do you want to kick us off this morning?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so while you're talking, I was thinking about what it really means, and we are magnets to our experiences. So everything that we think, feel resonate at is what we attract right. And so I know for some people that's a hard concept because there are a lot of things that we go through that we don't want to experience. So why would we be attracting that? But it is knowing where our mind can take us and where our, our vibration can take us, and when we have that self awareness, it really can help us to thrive. And I feel that, especially for my experiences in the past but working with a lot of clients and students is a lot of people are surviving and learning how to thrive in their life based off of their mind and their concepts and their belief systems and their conditionings and everything. And so, coming from the mind concept, yes, we are attracting everything that we are thinking, everything that we are believing in, because our mind is going to prove us right.

Speaker 2:

Either way and we were kind of talking about that last week it's like whatever you think, feel and believe, your mind's going to say, yep, that's it, the universe is going to give that to you, but when we can drop into our hearts, then it's like we're now living a heart led life. We're thriving in our life. We're seeking the things that we desire. We're seeking like. Instead of being in our like occupation, we're now in our desires and our vocation, and that is so powerful because that's a completely different frequency. When you're, you're operating from your heart versus your mind and your thoughts, and so just having that self-awareness of where are my thoughts leading me versus where I want to go, and if it's not in alignment with what you want, then just stop and take a moment to breathe, connect back with your heart, connect back with your breath and realize what you're thinking of and start doing some mind changing, really start catching those thoughts and start retraining your brain to think in a different way to help you attract what it is that you want and desire.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I think that's something that we don't talk about often enough is what a fantastic storyteller the mind is, right? It is so good at weaving these stories and making you believe that every thought you have, every feeling you have, is rooted in reality. That if you're anxious about something, it's because something bad is going to happen. That if you feel like you have to be on top of your to-do list, it's because if you drop something, then the world is going to end or you're going to lose your job or somebody's going to be mad at you. Right? Our minds are such fantastic storytellers. And this is where I think the primary difference between thinking your life and really living your life comes in. Because when we're in our mind, our mind is that subconscious ruled space, right? So 95% of our thoughts, our actions, our choices are subconscious. They're rooted in that framework that we created for our life, from the ages of zero to eight years old. And when you think about it that way, and we sit here and we say you know, do I really want to be living my life based on a program that was installed when I was a child? Probably not right, that information, a lot of it, is outdated because it was designed to keep you safe when you were young and you had to rely on other people. But now, as an adult, when you are self-sustaining, your subconscious can be really limiting because it's still playing by those old rules and those old scripts. But because of the way our mind works, it relies on those scripts. It can't make decisions outside of those. It's designed to keep us safe. It's designed to look at. Here are the rules and the way that I believe the mind or the world works, and I'm going to help you make choices that keep you safe within that, that keep you in your comfort zone, that keep you making sure you're checking off your to-do list, making sure you're playing by the rules, making sure that nobody else is upset with you, because that way you can be safe. That's how the mind works and it does a fantastic job at it. But what that means is that if we're living life from our minds, if that's our primary source of information and decision-making, we're constantly going to be making decisions from a place of fear, because the mind's job is to look for danger, to look for things that are unsafe, to look for things that are outside of the norm and say, hey, maybe that's not the best thing because it doesn't fit in this framework. And so anytime we make a decision solely from the mind, right, obviously our mind has to be involved in decision making, and that's part of being alive. We have this amazing, incredible tool, and that's part of being alive. We have this amazing, incredible tool, but we've given so much power to the mind that we can't see beyond it.

Speaker 1:

We can't realize that when it's running a script or telling a story, that it's just that, a story. It's not 100% real. Those thoughts, those emotions, they are valid. They are absolutely valid for your experience. What you're thinking, what you're feeling, it's very real, but it's not true. And what I'm trying to say by that is we often don't take a moment to stop, like Chantal was saying, and find that gap between the thought that we had. That's causing the anxiety that's making us feel like we need to check off the to-do list, that's making us feel like we have to play into the script.

Speaker 1:

The mind is running. We don't realize that we have a choice to stop and realize that it's just a thought. Just because the thought is there doesn't mean that the external reality is reflecting that. The more you think it, the more you play into that energy, the more you hold that frequency, the external reality can start to shape itself to look like that thought. So what I mean by that is the first time you have an anxious thought.

Speaker 1:

It's not because something terrible most of the time is happening in the world around you. It's because that's how your brain is wired. It's just trying to keep you safe. It's sending up a little flag of saying, hey, have you thought about this? But because we've been trained to give so much power to the mind, that little flag goes up and immediately all of our hackles are raised. Right, we're just ready for a fight. We're looking for when's the next shoe going to drop, when's the bad thing going to happen, when is this anxiety going to come true?

Speaker 1:

Because we've been trained to think that the mind knows everything, that if the thought is there, that if we plan it enough, that if we control things just enough, then we'll be okay, we'll be safe. And so when the mind raises a flag, we think we have to go all in and we have to feel the emotion. We have to think about the problem and we have to problem solve and we have to find the solution. We have to take action, all of these things, when really the first step to stop thinking our life and start living our life is recognizing that those thoughts are just because the mind is rooted in fear. It's just trying to keep you safe. The idea of keeping you safe inherently means that there's something dangerous that you have to be made safe from. So your mind is a fighter. It's constantly pushing back to try and keep you safe, to try and push away the danger. But oftentimes that danger isn't real because, again, going back to the very beginning, we're just running scripts from when we were kids and so what we really need to do instead of going all in.

Speaker 1:

And when you have that anxious thought thinking, oh my gosh, what if that happens? And I need to problem solve, and I need to control it, and did I get that thing off of my to-do list? And and, and, and, and you start to feel that frenzy of activity in your mind. We don't realize that we can take a moment to pause, take a deep breath and say that's just a thought. That's one part of my being heard from. That is my mind trying to keep me safe.

Speaker 1:

But I can recognize that there is more to me than my mind. There is more to the world, to my reality, than my mind. So can I take a deep breath and make that little bit of space so that I can go within and connect to whatever you want to call it here, your heart space, your soul, your intuition, your connection to the divine, whatever that is for you? But can I make that space so that I can drop in a little deeper and say what does this other facet of my being think about this? How is the rest of me feeling? Can I recognize that my mind is not the be-all, end-all? I've been trained to think that it is. I've been trained to feel like the world begins and ends within the limits of my mind and what I can think about the world.

Speaker 1:

But really your mind is just one facet of who you are, and I think that's why this conversation is so important, because your mind can't live your life.

Speaker 1:

Your mind can only think it. That's all your mind can do. It's never going to be able to experience, it's never going to be able to have the experience of hugging your child or drinking a cup of tea, or going outside for a walk or whatever those really joyful experiences are for you. That isn't done in the mind. Your neurons might be receiving that information and putting it out to your body, but the actual experience of it is done in your heart and in your soul. And so that first step to asking, well, how do I stop thinking my life and start living my life? Is we have to realize that there's more to who we are than just our mind, that one center of thought and anxiety and whatever it is for you. There's more to us than that, and can we drop down a little bit deeper to get to that place that actually then can experience? Because if we're trying to force our mind to experience life, it's not going to work.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I feel that we are, as you know, when you're shifting from your thoughts to your heart, based, you know, living and everything it really is being accountable to our own actions too. And we are sometimes our worst enemy. And because we do let our mind run with us, we do let the storytelling happen, we do let the expansion of anxiety and stress and overwhelm take over us, and so then the mind does run with that and it does want to create this big storyline because, like you're talking about, it's trying to keep us safe, but in that it strips us away from what living really looks like. And so, if it is about anxiety, if it is about being stressed out and all of that, it's really talking to yourself and how am I creating this? Where can I make space in my life to feel that I am, that I'm loving myself, that I'm taking care of myself, I'm nurturing myself, I'm making sure that? You know, my, my to-do list isn't overwhelming. And so, especially with right now, like life is just so fast. I mean, we're already going into April and it literally was just December, you know, we're already going into April and it literally was just December, you know. And so when you see, like time is moving so quickly and they were trying to like, do this checkoff list, like you're talking about. The mind is going to say, oh my gosh, I'm so stressed out, I'm so overwhelmed. And then that's when we start getting into the fight or flight, like we talk about this. When we get into, you know, illnesses with high blood pressure and all this stuff, because the body cannot absorb all of the stress hormones that we are releasing, because the mind isn't overwhelmed. And so when you go back into the heart, that's when the breath can calm yourself down, that's when you naturally are guided to go do other things, like being in nature, taking yoga classes, taking some movement classes, taking some breath work classes, going and having Reiki sessions done. You know, all of these self-care things can start coming into your alignment and into your life because you're welcoming it in from a different frequency of thinking and thought and are more like the feeling part.

Speaker 2:

But then the mind gets on board because once you make the decision to say, hey, I'm going to go and do this and you're disciplined in it and you're accountable to yourself and you're like, you know, this is what is important to me and unfortunately, when we're in our 20s and our 30s and our teenage years, we're in, a lot of times, survival mode. We're in growing mode. We're building our career, our family, raising our children. And it's not until we get into our 40s, early 50s where people start really looking at their life and going oh my gosh, I have never taken care of myself. I put everyone first. There's this big self reevaluation and so if you're younger than that right now, this is really an invitation to say take care of you today, because you know you don't need to waste 20, 30 years to say, oh, I could have done that way back when. Right, and I love that.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of people out there that are taking life differently, with traveling the country and their, their trailers or, you know, they're traveling the world with their children because they're not getting stuck in that nine to five and they're not feeling pushed by the system and the norms they're making, making life for themselves. And I think it's such a good movement and to witness it, if not doing it, because it gives us the freedom to be able to say I can do that on some scale. Right, go on vacation, go camping, whatever it is. On some scale we can all take a break from life, but it's giving yourself the permission that you can and then go and do it. And so I was watching this lady and it's interesting because my husband says this to me all the time.

Speaker 2:

But if you're watching TV, you're out in nature. That, right there is your mind. You can now connect to what you are seeing and manifest that into your life, right. So it's like I desire that, I want that, and when you do that, you're really pulling that in to have that experience, those opportunities will start opening yourself up to it. But when you're manifesting, when you're growing that within your own psyche, your energy field and all of that, it's because you really are tuning in to that channel of I want to travel, I want that experience.

Speaker 1:

Whatever the experience is for you, you know, and so it's just aligning everything up with it so that the opportunities start to unfold for you and you know, I think, in a way, that's one of the things that is a really great, almost litmus test, for are you thinking your life or are you living? Your life is where's the motivation? You know, like you're talking about with those people who are going outside of the norm and not working nine to fives, or they are traveling more, or all of those things that, for a lot of us, society has said well, you have to. You know, you have to get married, you have to have kids, you have to have a career, you have to do it the right way, as if there's a right way to do life right, and I love to tell our students this all the time Every rule that we ever live by right that you have to go to university when you're 18, that you need to have kids by the time you're 28, like whatever these rules are that we hear they were every single one of them, made up. Every rule, every societal structure that we have was made up, 99% of the time, by somebody's mind, which, again, your mind is only ever trying to keep you safe, which means that 99% of the structures that we live by were created out of fear. No wonder our world feels chaotic and fast and like it's out of control, because we're all trying to hold so tightly to something that we think is going to keep us safe, when in reality the thing that we're holding so tightly to didn't even exist in the first place. It's not real. It's an illusion that we have all bought into and said, maybe if I hold tightly enough to this, it'll keep me safe.

Speaker 1:

But what happens is, like you're saying, we spend our teens and our twenties and our thirties really buying into it, whether we're consciously doing it or not. Right, we are steeped in all of these structures and these to-dos and these shoulds and by the time we get to 40, 50, 60, you look back and what a lot of people see happen is they look back and they go why did I do it that way? This isn't what I wanted. I don't know who I am, I'm not enjoying my life, there's no spark here, there's no soul here. And then you feel like you have to work from the ground up because suddenly you realize that this structure that we've all been playing into of the shoulds and how you're supposed to live your life and all of these things, if you just do it right, then you'll be happy at the end. And you get to the end and you realize I'm not happy.

Speaker 1:

You know, and I think this is something that I've really been pondering lately as well in my own life my husband's in between jobs right now and it's conversation that we've been having a lot lately of what does it mean to actually live your life? What's going to make you happy in the moment? And I feel like this is a great test to see are you living from your mind or are you living from your soul? What's your primary motivation? Is it a should? Do you feel like you should be working this job, that you should be having kids, that you should be going you know, moving away from your parents, like whatever the should is for you? Is it that you feel like you're at a should juncture in your life? Well, I'm not there, but I should be, so I need to keep pushing myself so that I can do better, be more, etc.

Speaker 1:

Or are you purely just living by? This is what feels right for me, this is what I feel called to do, and that might end up looking like a nine to five. That might end up looking like getting married and having a white picket fence house right, but the motivation is what's important, that intention there of are you still tuned into all of those structures and the idea that there's a right way to do life and a wrong way to do life, and if you just try hard enough, then you'll be happy when you're done, which is very much a mind thing. Right, the mind will try for years and years and years for the idea that one day you'll get to be happy. That's how the mind works. It's okay if you don't get to be happy right now, as long as you're working to be happy in the future.

Speaker 1:

But your soul, your intuition, your heart knows that happiness isn't out there, it's not next, it's not when. It's not. If I do this, then I'll be happy. It's right now. Your life is happening right now and when we can drop into our soul and our heart space. That's what's pushing us, is what makes me feel the most alive right now and I think that's a great question to ask yourself is truly, when you think about it, do you feel alive right now, not just that you're living, not just that you're kind of going through your day to day, but do you truly feel alive? And if the answer is no, why not? What's standing in your way, what's making you feel like you can't go? Do the thing that would make you feel alive, because we all have that calling right. Everybody has even just a little teeny, tiny spark of man. It would be so cool if, or I would love to do this, and we oftentimes brush it to the side because it doesn't fit into that structure, that illusion that we've all been told is the right way to do things, and so we brush aside those dreams.

Speaker 1:

I posted something in our Facebook group the other day of a quote that I got from my intuition that plans are dreams that didn't reach their full capacity, and I feel that way about our life sometimes. Right, it's like we have the best intentions when we set up this structure of you start at university, you end at retirement, that plan, we had the best intentions with it, with the step-by-step, and yet we just fell short. Because what is right, what is alive, what is aligned, is going to look completely different for each and every single person, and if we're trying to spend our lives forcing ourselves into a box or forcing ourselves into this structure that we've just been told is the right way to do it, we are going to end up looking back and going why did I do it that way? Why did I spend so many years trying to make it happen so that one day I could be happy? Because the thing is, if you're not happy now, you're not going to be happy later.

Speaker 1:

That's not how it works.

Speaker 1:

You can't spend time building life up so that when you get to the end and you have enough time or you have enough money or you have the family or you have whatever it is your mind says you need.

Speaker 1:

What's going to happen is, let's say, that you're working a nine to five so that you have this idea that when you retire, then you'll get to travel. Right, this is a really common one. I think that you spend so much time checking off your to-do list, working your nine to five so that one day you'll be retired, you'll have the money and then you can travel. But what happens is you have the money, you retire and you've spent so long disconnected from your soul that not only do you feel like you don't have the energy to go do the thing you wanted to do, but when you go to do the thing, you don't know who you are anymore. You've spent so long within that box that when you go to step out of it you have no idea what to do and suddenly life feels like this crazy, overwhelming thing because you've spent so long being detached from it. And I think that's a really big point is there's a big difference between living your life and actually fully being alive in your life.

Speaker 2:

And it is time to be alive, it is time to absolutely be able to go and live, and it doesn't matter what our story is. And that, literally, is the mind trying to control the outcome, and it can't control the outcome because all it does is it makes us stagnant and it traps us in the same space, the same ideas, the same concepts, the same life experiences. And so it is time to make some shifts. It is time to get out of that comfortability and to realize that there is so much out there for us to experience, and for some, yeah, it is. You know, we have resting phases and seasons in our life right when maybe we are stagnant right now, maybe we are having to be that hermit, or we're focused on our career, we're focused on something that we're building and we're growing, and that's okay. But it's when we get stuck in that phase for years and years and we're not happy and the heart isn't satisfied and we're not content and we're always chasing that carrot. Because that's really what you're talking about is when you're looking for what is the future going to bring forward. In the reality of time and space and dimension, there is no future. The future has always become in the now, you know. And so it's like every time that we are chasing something that hasn't existed yet, hasn't happened yet, we're just pushing ourself and our time out further and further away from us. So there's never going to be this level of contentment like you're talking about, because we're always in desire of something that's outside of us. But when you go within and you're like this is what I want and this is what I can do to achieve it, but you're doing it in a way that you are intentional with everything that you do. You're intentional with your rituals. You're intentional when you're, you know, just making your tea and your coffee in the morning, or getting ready, or waking up, or setting your intentions in the morning. What do you want your day to look like? Right, if we just get up? Pounce out of bed, you know, start doing all the things. We're just aimlessly just doing it. Bounce out of bed, you know, start doing all the things. We're just aimlessly just doing it, mindless with it. Then where is the intention? Where is the flow? Where is the living in that right? Yes, we have our to-do, things that we got to do every single day, but have fun with it. Throw on some music, you know, bounce around the kitchen a little bit, laugh, have fun, you fun, joke with yourself, whatever it is that can make you feel happier in your life Instead of just thinking like, really, when was the last time that you laughed?

Speaker 2:

I facilitate a grief group and like two or three weeks ago, I had them laugh for just two minutes and they thought I was crazy. They're just like what. I'm like, yeah, we're just going to laugh, you're just going to laugh, I'm going to time you and we ended up laughing for two and a half minutes. But it was really interesting to watch them because as people, we don't just laugh at nothing, right. But once you give them a few seconds, like within 30 to 40 seconds, they're laughing with each other. They're laughing at each other. They're laughing with each other. They're laughing at each other. They're laughing at themselves because they feel, oh my gosh, this is so silly. And in the end it was like the best exercise that we did and they still talk about that. They're like I love that.

Speaker 2:

We just did that and I said yeah, because you lifted your heart, you lifted out of that vibration of grief. You remembered that you were living for just a moment long enough to raise that conscious awareness of self, and that you weren't focused on your loved one, you weren't focused on your pain, you weren't focused on your grief, and you were able to see I'm alive and I'm here having this human experience, and what do I want to get out of it? And that carried them for a couple of weeks. So every week I'd give them a different activity or something for them to really learn to go out there and thrive in life again, because grief can really suck us into this dark abyss of nothingness.

Speaker 2:

And then five, 10 years later you look up and you go, wow, that really took me out. And it can, because losing our loved ones is so devastating, but there's still purpose in you being here. And so I just really it's like go laugh, make yourself laugh, laugh at the stupid things. I like watching videos that, um, I don't know, like when people fall, like I mean they're skidding on the like the, the snow or the ice and all that, but they're not hurt, but it's just so funny. And you know, it's just like, yeah, find some silly things to like, tune into and just laugh yourself to sleep, wake up to it and see if you feel any better.

Speaker 1:

That's a little exercise for you guys. Yeah, that's a great one. The other one that I really love doing is is really seeing. How present can you get.

Speaker 1:

So, when you're making your cup of tea, when you're making your cup of coffee, when you are emptying the dishwasher, when you're doing one of those mundane brushing your teeth right One of those mundane tasks that we do every day, how into the present moment can you get? Because we don't realize how often we're making our coffee and thinking of our to-do list for work, or we're brushing our teeth and thinking about the fact that our taxes are due in a few weeks, or we're emptying. You know we're always somewhere else, we're never really here, and that, to me, is one of the biggest shifts from living your life, or from thinking your life into living your life is can you realize that there are so many times where your mind has taken over and you don't even realize it? So when you're making your coffee, can you really fully just be present with what is right in front of you? Not in your mind, not in five minutes from now, not in next week, but right in front of you? What color is your coffee cup? What texture is the coffee as it brews, what does it smell like? Can you use your five physical senses as these touchstones to bring you back into the present? Because you can't be really connected to a physical sense and anxious or thinking about the future or the past at the same time. It's not possible, because, in order to really be tuned into our physical senses, we have to be present in our bodies to be able to feel and connect to the sense.

Speaker 1:

And so can you really take a second to go? What's something I can see? What can I hear, what can I feel, what can I taste, what can I touch? And can you even take that awareness and bring it through your day? So, as you're sitting at your desk, can you find ways to engage with your five physical senses that keep you present? So, can you light a candle for the smell, can you have a pretty picture or a crystal by your desk for the sight, can you wear a pair of comfy socks.

Speaker 1:

For the sense and the touch, right, can you have a piece of chocolate that brings you back with a taste? Can you bring your five physical senses with you through the day? Because, again, that's not something that your mind can think Like. You can't sit here if you're rubbing your fingers together, right, if you just rub together your thumb and your forefinger, you can't think about what that feels like, like you can't mentally walk yourself through. Well, it kind of feels like no, you have to actually sit and feel it. You have to actually feel what does it feel like for your fingers to be touching each other?

Speaker 1:

And in that space your mind goes quiet because it's just focused on what's happening in this present moment. What's right here and I love that one, because what it does is it does drop us out of our mind and into our body and shows us in a really tangible way that there is more to life than what's happening in our head, that when we're rubbing those two fingers together, sure, our to-do list still exists, sure, our taxes still are due in a couple weeks, but right now, right here, in this moment, all that's happening is your fingers are touching each other, that's it. And you instantly notice how calm everything gets, how much space there is, because where our mind is quick and fast and scrambled and chaotic and constantly moving, presence our heart, our soul, our intuition is calm, it's spacious, it's present and it has that depth to it, and so the more we can connect to that, the more we can realize there's actually more to me, more to this than what was happening in my head. And the more you can do that, the more you can realize that what's going on in your head, all of those thoughts, that hamster wheel of activity or the grief or the anxiety or whatever it is. It's an illusion. You can step out of it. You don't have to be trapped in it.

Speaker 1:

And that's where we can bring in that question that we started to ask last week of do you really fully believe that there is more to you than your mind? And what I mean by that is, when you think about you, who you are, do you identify as your thoughts? Do you identify as your mind, as this thing that's constantly thinking and problem solving? Do you identify as your soul or your intuition, that like deeper heart space, or do you identify as something in between? The awareness of both of them? And that question opens up so much because if we are identified with our mind, if we feel like when we say I, we mean the mind, we mean our thoughts, if that's what we mean when we say I, it's going to be so much harder to stop thinking our life, because to stop thinking in that case would mean that you have to stop being.

Speaker 1:

If you're attached to your mind and you're trying to get yourself to stop thinking, you're basically trying to turn yourself off, and that's not going to work. What we have to do is realize that we aren't our mind, we aren't even fully our soul or our intuition or our heart space right, we're that observer, we are the awareness of both, and in that place we get to decide which space do I want to live my life from. And that's why that pause that Chantel and I were talking about earlier, where you have a thought and you can pause and then see what does my heart space think about that, how do I feel about that before you take action, is so important, because it reminds you that you're not your thoughts, you're not your emotions, you're not your intuition. You are this awareness of it all. And that is an incredibly empowered place to be, because from that place, you can then take in all of the information, notice all of the things, be present with your fingers as they're rubbing together and then decide which aspect of me, which aspect of this human experience that I'm having, do I want to live my life by.

Speaker 1:

Do I want to live my life with my mind and letting it make my decisions and going on the hamster wheel? That's a totally valid option. That's okay, you can do that. Do you want to be living with your soul or from that heartfelt space? Beautiful, you can do that.

Speaker 1:

But the biggest and most empowering thing we're ever going to do to switch from thinking our life to living our life is be able to make that choice in the moment of what choice am I going to make? Which aspect of me do I want to be living from? My mind or my soul, or a balance of both? Because in that choice you're no longer a slave to the mind. Your mind isn't just running away with you, it's not living on autopilot anymore. You are fully in it and saying I can see both of these. I can see my mind, I can see that soul, intuitive space, and I get to choose where am I living from? And in that choice that's what really living is is can you be conscious enough to realize that you're not your mind? You are the observer of it all, and so you get to choose, you get to make those choices. You get to have the free will, the freedom to be able to choose how you want to live your life, and that's an incredibly freeing thing to know that you have that choice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, living from what? What aspect of yourself that you want to live from? I like that because we have our, our mind, we have our heart, yes, but then there's other characteristics that come in right and the emotions that try to overpower, and so it's also seeing that in ourself is why our emotions trying to overpower what is operating here, what is running the show, and it it just is so much about coming back to awareness and I think one of our comments came in about it is literally about having that, that awareness or the clarification of opposed. Um, there's just recognizing. So, as we're recognizing where we're operating from, how we're showing up, what is like working for us and what's not working for us, and making the choices and being conscious in that and that's what I was saying before that's where accountability comes in. We can't go blaming everything and everyone. Even if it's a hard situation or a toxic relationship, in the end we have to stand in our own power and say, okay, that job doesn't work anymore or that relationship doesn't work anymore, or I just need a break from you know family situations for a minute and set some boundaries for myself to be able to drop into my heart, to be living in that space and it's not an easy thing in the beginning. And so, as we're talking about this, know that this took us years to get to this place to say you know what? I don't need to operate from there anymore. You know, because, like I have said many times, my mind has always been the one in control and I always like it wasn't that I didn't love or anything, it's just my mind was always in that survivor mode of we need to go and do so. I was very much about checking off the list, but the funny thing is is that my intuition was always guiding me and where I meant I was meant to go.

Speaker 2:

And I remember having a conversation with a really close friend of mine many years ago, like when my youngest son was first diagnosed being deaf, and I've told him I am going to learn sign language, I'm going to learn to, I'm going to work with family, I'm going to be an advocate, all this stuff, right. And he's like you don't even know the language. And I'm like, no, I don't, but I'm going to learn the language and I'm going to be able to do this. And that was my intuition, coming forward to say, hey, this is part of your life path. Now go learn it. Your son came in. You contracted into this lifetime with him so that you can learn this language, so that you can go be an advocate, an ambassador for the deaf community, all of these things.

Speaker 2:

And then it took my mind to get on board to say, yes, now what do I need to go do to make that happen? So then, logically, yes, I needed to go to school, I needed to get the certifications, I needed to learn the language, all of these things. And this is how pairing our mind and our intuition together works so beautifully, because the intuitive nudge comes and then the mind puts it in action. And then you have to be disciplined enough to go do it. And that's where your desire comes in. Do you desire it enough to put that first, to put yourself first, to say this is what I want, this is what I'm here to do and I'm going to go achieve it?

Speaker 2:

And a lot of times what happens is we have that nudge and we either ignore it or we push it away because the mind goes no, that is too much work. Right, I mean to go learn an entire language. That is a lot of work, but if you let the intuition be the guidance of it and the mind be the one that does the work, you really it's way more powerful. And then you just find all these things start happening and flowing and coming into your life and when you can look back and you go, wow, I can't believe I achieved that based off of one conversation, one comment that literally was the threat of life.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I love that. That's a fantastic place to start too. I'd love to talk about some of our favorite tips and tricks for diving in. I know we've scattered some through, but one of mine is day.

Speaker 1:

Our truest essence is that soul connection. It is the connection to the divine. Our mind was a later edition, if you will right. We kind of got our mind when we came into this physical world. We've always been connected to our soul. We've always been connected to that energy. So we have this inherent knowing of what our intuition, our soul, our heart space is leading us to in every moment. But a lot of times, because we're so stuck in our mind, we have a hard time connecting to it. And so one of my favorite ways to play with that and really lean into that awareness that your intuition gives the wisdom, the guidance your mind is what takes action that's a beautiful way of explaining that of how those tools that we've been given for this human experience work together.

Speaker 1:

One of my favorite ways of leaning into that is can you let your intuition make the decisions that your mind thinks aren't important? So what you eat for breakfast, the clothes that you wear, which direction you go to work. If there's two main ways that you can get to work, which one do you take today? Right, the things that your mind doesn't have a problem letting go of control over and it can just say okay, you know what Intuition, heart, soul, I'll let you have this one. You can take this decision. Can you just take a minute to take a deep breath, even you know, rubbing your fingers together, get connected with your physical senses, get into the present moment and then let your intuition just ask your heart's base what do you want to wear today? What do you want to eat this morning? Which direction should I turn right now? And whatever comes up first, whatever that instinctual first reaction is, do that and see what happens. See if it surprises you. See if you know the shirt that you picked. You would never have put them with the pants that you picked, but somehow it works. Or you eat something for breakfast and you feel amazing for the rest of the day, like can you let your intuition or your heart space make the decisions for you? Or when you go to find yourself, you know, scrolling on your phone or doing something mindless, can you set it down, take a deep breath, connect back into the present and ask yourself what would be more nourishing for me right now, what would help me feel more alive right now? And then go do the thing Once you have the knowing because you already know it's a choice of if you get to listen to it or not, right.

Speaker 1:

But once you have that knowing, can you use your mind to take action so that you can start rewiring yourself from thinking of your mind as this like hamster wheel of unending activity that you just want to be free from, into thinking of it as it's a tool. It's what's going to help you take action. We don't need to silence it, we don't need to kill it, we don't need to get rid of it. We need to learn how to use it as a tool. And so can you start training yourself in the little things where it's easy.

Speaker 1:

Make a small decision, go do what's going to make you feel more alive, get that intuitive nudge from within and then go take action on it and see how you feel. Once you've done it, even keep a journal of it, and even keep a journal of the times where you get the intuitive nudge and you don't do the thing how do you feel? So let's say that you're scrolling on your phone and you ask yourself what would make me feel more alive right now? And maybe you hear you know that you should go for a walk or go stand outside and take some deep breaths. And one day you do it and you notice that you feel so much better when you come in, and so you write that down.

Speaker 1:

And then the next day you just feel too tired to get up and go outside, and so you just keep scrolling on your phone and then you check in at the end and you realize I don't feel any better after doing that. I, after doing that, I feel more stuck, I feel just blech. And the more you do this, the more data it's going to give your mind to say, hey, maybe this intuition, maybe this heart-led life actually has something to it, maybe there's something here. Can I try it on something a little bit bigger? A little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, until suddenly you're living more from your heart because your mind has gotten on board. Your mind has seen the proof that, hey, this actually works, this actually makes a difference. That's one of my favorite ways.

Speaker 2:

What about you, chantal? You know, recently I've been cause it's getting warmer where I'm at as we're entering spring and stuff is um, I've been drinking my coffee out back and then just closing my eyes and just listening to the wind and the birds and everything that's going on around me. But then when I open my eyes after a period of time, how brilliant the world looks. The colors are so intense because I've blocked that one sense right, so I've heightened the sense of hearing and touch because the wind or the breeze or whatever. But then when I open my eyes, how green everything is, how blue the sky is, and it's so amazing. And I've seen these retreats where you blind yourself, you're blinded for like three days or something like that. And then I was talking with some friends at work yesterday. I go, we should do that like where we can hold space for each other to be on this, just even if it's a day or a few hours of being blindfolded and going through this sensory deprivation of not being able to see, and and then coming back into that reality of sight. And you know we're talking about that. And then the other one is also being in silence. For, you know, just give yourself, even if it's an hour. Just be in silence for an hour, no phone, no, nothing. You're just, you're walking. Go on a walkabout, go walk in nature, just sit outside in your yard, whatever it is, but be in silence for a whole hour and see what voice shows up for you. Is it the mind for an hour? Is your mind just going to think for an hour, or is your heart going to come up? Is your intuition going to rise and say, okay, mind, enough, enough. The mind will start to settle and then your intuition comes up and then suddenly you are receiving these downloads and it might be some content that you need to create or something that's going to come forward, but it's the you're nudging going forward from the intuition, from that soul voice, and for me, that really is, um, like that's what I've been doing a lot with lately, and then I started taking Tai Chi and that's been something that you know movement and learning the steps and and everything. So I've been adding a lot more into my life lately.

Speaker 2:

That is what I desire versus what I need to do, and I've, you know, never really been in this space that I'm in right now and it's really nice and it's like I give my husband a lot of things right now Cause I'm like I have the space to do it, even though I am busting my butt and working really hard, but I don't have, um, I don't feel guilty for anything. And for a long time I think I felt guilty if I wasn't working, if I wasn't doing this or whatever doing what we think is considered normal, and I don't feel like that's really as normal for me anymore. You know, I'm like I'm okay if I want to take a job here or there or do that. I mean I do at work, I put in my hours, but I don't feel the pressure to do it. I'm in more alignment now and more in flow of that, which is a great place to be. But it really does start with giving yourself permission to be able to receive that, to say I can cut all of these attachments and cords from me and I can just see what is available for me to walk into, what are the opportunities that are presenting themselves now and when it's funny you're talking about your clothes.

Speaker 2:

I have a certain pair of pants Like I'm. I don't wear like really flowy clothes. I love to see flowy clothes on people and I'm always like man, I wish I could pull that off and it's my own thing, whatever. But anytime I do actually put something, I get the most compliments. And I'm like that's just so funny, because my mind wants to be like, no, you're not going to wear that. And then this other part of me goes why not, it's fun and you know, and so it's out of the box for me. But hey, that's okay. And then I'm always getting these compliments. I'm like that's just so funny, and so it is stepping out of our comfort zone and letting ourself just shine in a different light sometimes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that. And you know, there's that really cliche term that growth happens at the edge of your comfort zone, or something like that. And it makes me laugh because I also sometimes think to myself that, like that's also where your heart is, because your comfort zone, your comfort zone, is a myth. First of all, it's where your heart is, because your comfort zone, your comfort zone, is a myth. First of all it's it's a set of circumstances that your brain has decided are safe, so it's an illusion, just like all the other structures in life. But when you step out of that, whether you're actually doing something you've never done before, or you're giving yourself permission to not do something because it's part of your comfort zone, but just because it feels good, that's where your heart is, that's where your intuition is, that's where the joy is, and what I love about it is, the more you get into that space, the more magic starts happening outside of you, because you're not trying to hold everything together, you're not trying to control the outcome, and so magic can happen, like magic happens in the unknown.

Speaker 1:

I have this analogy that I love to use of when you go to Target right or whatever a Target equivalent is in your area and you have your shopping list. You can go in and you can get the apples, and you can get the detergent and you can get the you know the cleaning spray and you can leave. And that's the mind version of shopping, right? But everybody knows that the magic of Target is that you walk into Target and you walk out with the things that you needed, but also like five other things that you had no idea that you needed or wanted or even existed. But now they're there and you love them. And that's what living life from your heart is like. You're still going to get your to-do list done. You're still going to make money, you're still going to check off the things that need to happen, but you're also going to get to wander along the side aisles and go on the side quests to find the things that you didn't even know you wanted to begin with, because you're leaving space for that magic to come in.

Speaker 1:

And I love that idea of like can we live life the way that we shop in Target, of just letting ourselves wander a little bit and having that confidence that you're going to get the things that are on your list? You're going to get those, you're not going to walk out. Without those. It's going to be fine. Can you give yourself that confidence with your life of you're going to do what you need to do, you're going to be able to check off your to-do list, it's going to be okay. But can you let yourself have a little bit of that fun and that adventure and that freedom along the way? Because that's where the magic is, that's where your heart is, and you'll find that often those things when you're in that heart space, when you're in that just I don't know what I'm going to find at Target, it's just going to be cool. That's when you find the best things and that's when the most magical things in life happen are. When you're aligned in yourself, when you're connected to that magic, magic can come in in your life, around you. And so that is our invitation to you today. Chantel said it so beautifully Can you give yourself permission to just go live, whatever that looks like for you?

Speaker 1:

We've given you a lot of little tools and techniques to use, whether that was using your breath to create some space after a thought or movement, or Tai Chi, or going for a walk in nature, sitting with your eyes closed or in the dark for a little bit, or even in silence and meditating, or maybe even not meditating, but just being in silence, letting your brain kind of subside, connecting with your physical senses to bring yourself back into the moment, thinking about can you pull in more in your life that you desire or that you want, instead of the things that you need or that you should do? Can you live more from that desire-led place and can you let your intuition make the small choices? What are you going to wear, what are you going to eat? And see what happens when you just let a little bit more magic, a little bit more life come into your life, even if you try it for a day, give yourself a time limit. The brain loves time limits. It loves if you say well, we're just going to do it for a day and then you can have power back after the day. Or we're just going to do it for a day and then you can. You know, you can have power back after the day, or we're just going to do it for a week.

Speaker 1:

Give yourself a timeframe of how magical can you let your life be for a day, for a week, for 30 days, what feels good to you, but what's your time limit and try it. Just try it. Give yourself permission to fully live for a day, whatever that looks like for you, and see what happens, see what brings you joy in that space, and let us know how it goes in the Facebook group. And Chantel and I will try this too. I think We'll give ourselves a day of a magic day to just live. Just do what you desire, what your heart is calling you to Take steps to make space so that your brain can kind of calm down and you can drop in and then see what happens. See what happens when you live your life like a target trip and let us know how it goes in the Facebook group.

Speaker 1:

But I hope that you have enjoyed this conversation. I hope that you've gotten some tips and tricks to how to stop thinking your life and start really living it. And that's our calling, that's our message today is you can. It's time you are allowed to go live. You are allowed to have that heart-led, joyful, soul-fulfilling spark of a life. You don't have to do it the way that you should. You're going to be okay if you let the magic in, if you let life in. You're going to be okay and it's going to be magical and it's time. Any last thoughts, chantal.

Speaker 2:

It's time. I love that the mind loves limits. That just cracked me up. I was like it's so true, but it is a great analogy with Target. Let your spirit bring in the extras, let it bring in the juiciness of life, and know that the mind just likes the limitations.

Speaker 1:

I thought that was great Beautiful. It is.

Speaker 2:

Time to live, go, live, live.

Speaker 1:

Be happy, be happy, yeah, yeah, yeah, go live, go, be happy, go, bring in the magic. Let us know how it goes. In our Shamanic Mystics Facebook group, we cannot wait to hear how your magic day or week or month goes, and we are here to support you along the way. If you're interested in working with us one-on-one or joining either of our masterclasses we both have four-week masterclasses happening now. If you're interested in working with us, feel free to send us a message, connect with us on Facebook or tune in to all of our other podcasts and we'll see you next week, and until then, may you awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within. Thanks for tuning in to today's show.

Speaker 1:

The Wisdom Rising podcast is sponsored by Moon Rising Shamanic Institute. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcasting app and be the first to know when we release a new episode. You can find us on Instagram, facebook, youtube and TikTok at Moon Rising Institute, or visit our website, moonrisinginstitutecom to learn more about our mission and find future opportunities to connect with our community of shamanic mystics. Once again, thank you for sharing space with us today, and until next time, may you awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within.