Spoiler alert: it’s not selfish when you say, “No thanks.” Are you a people pleaser? One of the things I see most often in my clients is confusing being spiritual with being all-sacrificing. People can mistake taking on the role of the martyr in everyday life – and doing everything for other people but nothing for themselves – as a spiritual practice. As with most things, there is a middle way. In this episode, we go into a surprising way to apply mindfulness and the concepts of emptiness to saying, “No” compassionately and from a place of unconditional love.
It’s easy to blame what other people do or not do as the source of our anger and frustration. But in reality, why we are upset has nothing to do with them and everything to do with our own mind. When we grasp this concept, a whole new kind of freedom opens up for us in our relationships. You’ll learn about The Manual we all have that’s filled with expectations of how we think others should behave if they’re going to be in our lives – and how to do things differently. When we do this, we are no longer relying on how other behave behave to feel happy. And that, my friends, is a freedom unlike no other.
What does it mean on a practical level when we are taught the importance of emptiness? How does that apply to our real lives? Like at work, or in relationships, or in having dreams and goals? Are we supposed to let go of it all because it is all nothing, it is all empty in the end? Short answer: No. In this episode I’ll give you hilarious stories of my own mistakes exploring this question. I also cover some surprising examples of how the concept of emptiness can actually help you make your relationships more rich, your dreams more achievable, and your life more well-lived.
In this episode I discuss how my practice has evolved over the years – from when I first started meditating and tried desperately to fit into a culture so different from my own, to where I am now as I step into the authenticity of being on a spiritual journey guided first and foremost by my own inner Buddha. Spoiler alert: it is totally possible to meditate at a full moon rave in Thailand.
Ever feel like mindfulness seems great on the cushion or on your yoga mat, but when you step off, all hell breaks loose in your mind and you lose your sh*t all over again? Sometimes it can be hard to translate spiritual practice to practical, messy life. Like when you blow up at your partner or yell at your kids. Or when you hate your boss or feel like the whole world is against you. In this episode, I talk about how I finally found a practical way to apply the teachings to my life on a daily basis, using tools gleaned from modern science and cognitive coaching approaches.
The Buddha was a revolutionary. He found his own path and encouraged us to do the same. He gave us a recipe that he followed and offered us to try it – and said that if it didn’t work, feel free to cast it aside. What does it mean when you also have a rebellious soul and want to honor the teachings and also your own inner voice to find your own path? What if you don’t quite fit in with the usual picture of a Buddhist practitioner, peacefully smiling amidst a calm rock garden and bubbling water features? Can you want to tame your mind + strive for a spiritual life AND want it to be filled with wild adventures (and misadventures)? Can you love the solace of silent retreats AND sweating to thumping dance music at 2am? What does it mean if you sometimes overdrink, swear a lot, or party too much yet identify as a sincere Buddhist practitioner? This podcast is about going back to the grassroots nature of Buddhism, where we practice in community and explore day to day life in order to find our own path. Where we learn by talking with each other about our experiences and practice, and not just relying on guidance from a handful of teachers (if we’re lucky enough to even have such access). We do this while using the guidance of the Buddha’s experience, the wisdom of the teachings, and our community of like-minded practitioners.
When I started my business and chose “Freedom Junkie” and “Freedom Sessions” as a part of my brand, I have to admit that I was feeling pretty original. Most coaches were focused on manifesting “success” and finding your “true purpose” or your “genius work,” or living your “dreams.”
These are not bad things! However, Freedom as a word was something that a smaller, more wacky, unconventional and renegade group of coaches focused on. After call, convincing people freedom was da bomb was a lot harder than convincing them to want to be rich or successful…or happy for that matter. As with anything awesome, the word “freedom” eventually caught on in the coaching world, and now you can find the word Freedom everywhere!
But what does this really mean? Does this mean more people are actively looking for more freedom, or that more people are truly teaching how to create more freedom? I sure hope so!
Unfortunately, it seems that for most, things haven’t changed outside of the verbiage used. I’m seeing a lot people say, “Make more money and [therefore] have more freedom!” “Work from your laptop and have more freedom!” “Become an entrepreneur and have more freedom!”
While these are all fun things to have in life, these aren’t really the things that bring you TRUE freedom – they’re just twists on the words success, passion, and location-independence, for example. Do they help you with freedom? Sure! But do they address the root of freedom? No.
We use the word Freedom rather nonchalantly, but the word Freedom implies freedom from something. We can free ourselves from external constraints with financial abundance, location independence, self-employment….
But what’s the ONE THING we are all really seeking freedom from?
We are ALL seeking freedom from suffering. Not even freedom from pain, but from suffering! As the famous quote by the Buddhist teacher Haruki Murakami goes, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
The {often} hard truth about freedom is that it is so profoundly about the work you’re doing on the inside. In their pursuit of freedom, most people don’t remember these key points:
3 Common Mistakes People Make When Seeking Freedom
1. Forgetting that you first have to own your shit.
Freedom must begin here, with the knowing that life is in YOUR hands and no one else’s – not with your militant boss, your insensitive boyfriend or your mean sibling; not in your past with your controlling/abusive parents, not your crappy neighborhood or the fact that your parents didn’t help you pay for college, not your short stature or your frizzy hair. NONE of that has to do with your freedom in this moment, right now. Until this fact is absorbed, there will always be excuses instead of solutions. And here’s a tweetable, amiga:
2. Not knowing what you want and what it feels like
First, get clear about what freedom FEELS like to you, because freedom is a FEELING. Focus on how your body experiences freedom, what it feels like to be free, really conjure up that feeling and its vibration and tap into it. This is the only way you will truly ever be free. If you have no idea what freedom will feel like to you, you won’t ever know when it’s arrived, and you’ll keep seeking in all the different places for it – which are often simply distractions. Unless you actually FEEL free, the other stuff that’s supposed to get you there doesn’t really matter. So be sure you are clear about how you want to feel and experience this whole Freedom thing;)
Once you’re clear about what the Freedom feels like for you, start to get detailed about the other aspects of Freedom.
There are 5 “currencies” of Freedom, not to be mistaken for freedom itself. These are:
time
money
energy
creativity
location
When you are clear about what you want to achieve with each of these forms of freedom moolah, you can more easily see what ISN’T giving you freedom. For example, if you are clear about what you want in a relationship, if you are in a bad or even simply mediocre/”maybe” relationship, you can more easily walk way from it.
Why is this so? When you are clear about what you want, you can make decisions more easily and with more confidence, and you will be less likely to tolerate something that isn’t clearly what you want, or stall taking action due to being unsure or insecure.
When people vacillate about whether or not they are in a good relationship, or if they “should” be more patient with someone or consider their “potential,” this is likely because they aren’t clear about what they want.
When you are clear, you can say, “Sorry. Homegirl don’t play that.” Or, “I don’t date for potential. That’s sooooo 80s.”
Capiche?
When you’re not clear, you start wondering if it’s your shit, or if it’s because you’re tired or mean or too picky. You start wondering if it’s because you are judging them and you know that is a “bad” thing to do. However, when you are clear, it’s not personal. It’s just the facts, ma’am.
3. Not taking action (or simply taking the same actions you’ve been taking and expecting a different outcome)
Once you’re clear about what you want, it’s time to act on that. Only then will your life start to manifest more freedom. And that action needs to be different from what you’ve been doing. You can’t keep doing the same thing expecting a different outcome!
Only when you start saying, “No” when you don’t feel like doing something; when you stop tolerating, when the fear of not being free is greater than the fear of being alone and you leave an unhealthy relationship…
Only when you ACT on behalf of what you want – and you start banking your freedom currency – will freedom manifest.
It’s not enough to dream and set intentions and talk about it. It’s not enough to get a Freedom tattoo on your back or write down all the ways more money will help you get more time, energy, and passport stamps.
:: What’s my shit? What is my baggage, my mistakes, my habitual patterns that no longer serve me, MY self-limiting beliefs...what part of the way my life is right now is not a part of my creation? (Hint: none of it)
:: What DO I want?
:: What’s one thing I can do right now that will move me closer to freedom – to what freedom means for me?
What does freedom means for you, and how you’re going to start manifesting it. The more free women in the world, the more free communities and cities and countries and continents…and the more free souls to light up the universe!
If you want to join a tribe that is totally committed to creating more true freedom, inside and out, click here to learn more about the Freedom Club.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
Most often, the fear we feel is not actually saving our lives or protecting us from imminent danger. Which is what its original purpose was.
It’s just the perception of fear that we are experiencing, and it needs a gentle reminder to move along.
We can allow fear to stop us in our tracks, or we can remind ourselves, “Oh, yeah, this isn’t going to hurt me. I’m not going to die. No one’s going to die here.”
In many ways, fear serves us. It keeps us from doing things that could legitimately hurt us. It can help us make better decisions when it comes to our safety.
The thing to realize is that our brains are super-programmed for fear to help us survive, but we’ve evolved (at least theoretically 😉 and nowadays, a lot of our fear + anxiety is irrational and even unnecessary.
Simply recognizing that fear and irrational fear are going to be a part of our lives will help immensely with moving forward. Don’t obsess about “getting rid” of it. Focus on embracing it and having it be a part of our evolutionary brain.
Also, fear does not mean stop. You don’t have to be fearless to take action. Really consider this. Taking action while acknowledging fear can be one of the most powerful things that we do.
Most of the fear that we have comes from a thought in our minds, a thought that is irrational.
Let that sink in! We let this thought have sooooo much power over us.
Irrational fear that stops us in our tracks is often the result of a mismanaged mind.
We can overcome fear + anxiety by deciding not to believe the thoughts causing it. Instead, we can understand it, find its cause, find the thought patterns that are causing it, and then change them.
If the fear is deep-seated and hard to change, I want you to take action anyway. Why?
When you take action, all of those fears get proven wrong. You’ll be fine. It’s so important to keep taking action because when you don’t, you’re reinforcing the fear, but when you do, every time you take action – every time – you give your brain more proof that the fear was irrational.
And your courage grows.
The good news is taking action while feeling fear is a skill you can develop! I teach it in the Ziji Up! Unshakeable Confidence course because it’s too important not to.
What are you afraid of? Is it irrational? Yes? Take action anyway. You’ll see that you can survive, which also provides evidence to your brain.
What you’re really afraid of is not life or death.
It’s your own feelings that you’re scared of.
The good news is that those can be dealt with. They are completely within your control. Don’t ever forget that.
Courage is just ONE of the skills I cover in the Ziji Up! unshakeable confidence course. If you want more, join the tribe.
There’s no better investment that your mental health, right? And this is a screamin’ deal, so hop on with us! You’ll get instant access to bonuses and the course. See you there!
***
If you want to join a tribe of people that will help you navigate this wild and precious life, come check out Freedom School – for rebels like you. It’s not just personal growth for rebels. It’s Jedi training for the new world.
When I was a professional climbing guide, those were some of the most rewarding years of my life. Being in the mountains taught me a lot of things.
How to deal with 30 days of freezing rain and only three pairs of nasty socks with everything I needed on my back.
How to be really hungry and thirsty and conserve my energy so I could keep going, knowing food and water were a long way away.
How to eat pasta that had white gas spilled on it, because hey, that’s what we had (in case you’re wondering, yes, you do fart and burp it out).
How to sleep with my helmet on because we were camped under a place with notorious rockfall and no other alternatives. Not to mentioning managing my thoughts around a rock landing on my head so I could relax enough to get much-needed sleep!
How to feel pain in my hands and feet due to extreme cold for hours and hours during a climb, getting temporary respite when I had time to swing my limbs around to bring the blood flow to the tips of my fingers and toes.
How to deal with my legs going numb after hours of boredom on a hanging belay (and this was before ipods and podcasts to chip away at the time).
I could keep going on, but you get the point.
You don’t get to do cool shit without knowing how to be uncomfortable.
In the peak of my mountaineering days, I wasn’t the strongest climber. I wasn’t the most skilled climber. But I got asked to go on a lot of expeditions.
One of my favorite partners said, “I like climbing with Ana because she knows how to suffer.”
Isn’t that crazy? But what they meant was I could suffer and not bitch and moan about it all day. I could suffer and just take it, keeping focused on the task at hand. I could suffer and know how to take care of myself so that others didn’t have to. I could suffer and keep moving forward. I could suffer and still laugh and make jokes and lend my partners a hand.
That’s what you want in a climbing partner. Frankly, I think it’s what you want in any kind of partner.
It’s also what you want as a character trait if you want to do cool shit in this life.
Dr. Martin Luther King said:
“The ultimate measure of a [wo]man is not where [s]he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where [s]he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
Knowing how to suffer and be uncomfortable opened up a lot of doors for me. It wasn’t just the trips I got to go on. I also learned to do hard things, things that would possibly take a long time, and having to stick with it through and through.
I learned how to fail, sometimes literally falling on a climb and physically hurting myself. And how to get back up, over and over.
I learned how to take risks – and how fear does not help AT ALL when trying to get out of a sticky situation.
I learned how to be present despite my discomfort so that I could stay focused on the task at hand.
And so much more.
You can see how this probably helped me in a lot of other things having nothing to do with the outdoors – like starting my business. Or getting my doctorate degree. Or hanging in there with my marriage when things got tough. Or grieving the death of my parents.
This is why I don’t wish you comfort and joy. I wish you better.
I wish you the ability to be uncomfortable.
I wish you the ability to know that life inherently includes suffering and that you don’t need to run from it.
I wish you the knowledge that there’s nothing “wrong” happening when shit gets hard. It’s just the way it is.
I wish you the courage to step into discomfort, knowing that what lies on the other side will be so worth it.
I wish you the deep knowing that you can handle anything so that you don’t shy away from taking risks in life (aka ziji!)
So no, you don’t deserve comfort. You deserve better.
***
Ready to dive deeper into this? Check out Freedom School and see what everyone’s obsessed about. It’s not just group coaching. It’s a mindset revolution that you won’t want to miss.
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When I started my business and chose “Freedom Junkie” and “Freedom Sessions” as a part of my brand, I have to admit that I was feeling pretty original. Most coaches were focused on manifesting “success” and finding your “true purpose” or your “genius work,” or living your “dreams.”
