It happened during a live call in a course I was taking called “There’s More to Life Than Thinking About Yourself”. This was my fifth time taking this course. Now, I don’t usually take courses multiple times. I don’t even tend to read books more than once, but this course has always been really helpful.

I don’t exactly know where in the call it was, but this thought came to mind, “There’s more to life”. All of a sudden, the words “there’s more to life” started flailing around like one of those air-filled tube men designed to get your attention and direct your gaze to the newest shop in town. “THERE’S MORE TO LIFE!”

Then it hit me! I realized that I’ve mainly been focusing on the “thinking about yourself” part. I’ve had many insights about how our experience of reality comes directly from our thoughts about what’s happening “out there in the world”, not from the experiences themselves. I also saw how I sometimes get in my own way because of how I use my thinking. Let’s just say I enjoy exploring thought. 🕵️

I have been so into “thinking about myself” and trying to improve and fix myself, that the part “There’s More to Life” escaped my notice! I even had to click on an email with the subject “More to life zoom link” to join the call and still didn’t notice that part.

I had spent so much time thinking about thinking… and I spent a lot of time thinking about “How am I doing? Am I measuring up?”. Now I understand all this thinking about myself is optional and completely unnecessary.

When the thought settled down, I felt relief from everything that I had been thinking about myself all the time. You know, those habitual thoughts about yourself that are less than kind or make you think you need to constantly improve. And I finally felt good and was content with where I was. But wait – there’s more! 🛑

In that quieter space, I noticed that there’s also something else. I could see clearly. I could hear what I needed to do. I thought I needed my intellect to tell me what I needed to do. I’ve always been scared to abandon or not prioritize my thinking/intellect because if I don’t have it, how will I navigate my life? How will I know what to do?! Umm, because we all have this amazing internal guidance system that won’t fail us. It’s always there, we just can’t hear it over the noise of our spinning wheels! 🧠📢

O M G. That was the point of the whole course – and of life. It’s kinda the answer to everything. That’s what I had been looking for my entire life – how do I operate my life? What do I do? I thought that I needed to use my intellect and analyze ALL OF THE THINGS to know what I needed to do to make a decision. And now … it’s just…, it’s just easy.

I realized that this is actually what I’ve been seeking the last 30 years of spiritual spelunking, soul searching, therapy, and self-helping. Now that I don’t feel like there’s something wrong with me that I need to fix because… drumroll 🥁 … I’m not broken, it was just my habitual thinking. I just kind of know what to do.

For instance, I had some medical issues that had a lot to do with the weight I had gained. I’d had a constant struggle with trying to lose weight. Because of the coaching I received and the insights I had, I understood how the human experience works and how you aren’t your thoughts. Thoughts come to you, but they aren’t yours. They’re not FROM you, they just come up from the ether or from your computer brain’s memory. You don’t have to do anything about them- AT ALL. They’ll pass if you leave them alone. 🎈

Now that I understood this, my thinking quieted down. I settled down, and the thought occurred, without any drama, “Just go to your doctor. Go talk to your doctor and tell them you need help losing weight.” And I did.

Since April of last year, I’ve lost over 100 pounds through medical weight loss using GLP1s and Roux-en-Y Gastric Bypass Surgery. I couldn’t have done that previously because I thought I had extra weight because something was wrong with me. I had all this thinking about how I didn’t have discipline, I did this to myself, I can’t lose weight until I’m happy, etc. All very unhelpful thoughts that would sabotage me because I paid attention to them and thought they were true. Logic told me, if I thought it, it must be true. I am my thoughts after all, right? 🧐 Nope. Not even close.

Without all that noisy thinking, it was just so simple. It was like any other goal that I might set out to achieve. Like finishing my college degree, booking hotel rooms for an upcoming trip, or gathering clothes together to do some laundry. I didn’t have all this thinking around losing weight and WHAT IT MEANT ABOUT ME that I hadn’t lost weight before or that I was overweight to begin with. I just had this knowing and this guidance that came to mind.

Yes, there are good feelings, a sense of well-being, and not being in a bad place mentally, but there’s also more – as if that wasn’t enough, and what I’d always wanted. But there’s a sense of clarity and knowing what to do when the noise settles. There’s your own voice. Your wants. Your desires. What to do in any given situation. It’s funny how when you’re not spending all your time thinking about all the ways you come up short, your schedule clears up for all kinds of amazing things. ⚡

I didn’t even realize how busy my mind was, nor did I EVER question the assumption that maybe there wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong with me. What if I wasn’t broken? I see now that I work perfectly – and so do you. All systems are go. Something heals a cut on your arm, breathes you, digests your food, etc. Why wouldn’t it also take care of your mental well-being, too? What if our natural state is one of wellness? What if we’re not broken? What if we don’t need fixing? What if we just have noisy minds that tell us otherwise? ✨

This is the kind of thing I work with clients on – seeing you’re not broken, understanding how thought works, getting unstuck. If you’d like to talk about what you’re going through, I offer a free initial call to see if coaching might help. Send me a message here