Discovering Your True Self: Navigating Life's Challenges And Finding Your Purpose

• Amy explores how we make decisions about our identity and purpose, especially during major life transitions

• Discussion of how the human brain prioritizes safety and predictability, which can lead to fear of change

• Explanation of how our souls are designed for expansion and growth

• Advice on balancing logic and intuition when making important life decisions

• Reminder that there are often multiple "right" paths and infinite possibilities in life

• Encouragement to be gentle with yourself when making big decisions

• Preview of next week's episode, where Amy will share a personal story about her own expansion

Transcript

But if we decide who we are and what were we here for this season on the living out love podcast, we are focusing on you, who you are, what motivates you, what you're here to contribute, and how you can expand will be utilizing my leadership skills and spiritual connection. diving deep into the Enneagram and astrology. Listen every week to become intimately aware of yourself. Only then can heal and grow. Let's get to work loves Hello, love's Welcome back to the podcast. I'm always, always excited to be here. And I'm very excited today because it has been a long time. I feel like since I've done a solo episode, and this is part one of a two-episode series, the buckle up friends. All right, so here's what we're doing, we are talking about the age-old question of who you are, that's the whole theme of this season of the podcast is getting to know who you are. And if you followed along, you may be listening to the Enneagram episodes of the astrology episodes. And those are coming at it from the perspective of understanding archetypes more, which will, in theory help you to understand yourself more and understand others. So that's helpful context. What we're doing today is a little bit different. I want to talk about how we make decisions about who we are. There are times in life where it is obvious that we're going to have a direction change, or perhaps expand our area of focus. This could be graduation from college, this could be your job role changes, this could be perhaps you have a child with special needs. And so, you have to learn how to parent differently and have a new social network. Perhaps you discover a talent or a gift or a skill that you didn't really know you had. And so, then you have to decide, is this important? Does it matter? Is that a part of my life purpose? How do we do that? How do we decide who we are? And what were we here for? And the thing is these, these things, even when they're positive, they can be very unsettling. And that's, you know, that's putting it lightly. A lot of people I know that they got married, and they love their spouse, and they're happily married. And it's unsettling for them, they spent much of their life being single. And there's a sense of grief. And there's also sometimes a sense of being disoriented. It's, it's easy to feel as though you don't know who you are anymore. And to kind of wonder, Am I still the same person? That, yes, the example I gave was newlyweds. But that can happen in other ways. If you go from being an undergrad student to graduating and getting a job. That's a lovely expansion. You know, that's what the goal was, and congratulations. And then at the same time, you're not hanging out with the same people, your days look very different. And there is a sense of, how did I get here? So, who are you and who are you now? Where are you now and in this decision? This week, I've been thinking about that in this in terms of the curveball life throws a curveball at you. And this, you know, metaphor for anybody that doesn't know is a baseball analogy. And her falls are perhaps harder to swing at, I don't know, because I'm not a baseball person. But that is the way that we use the analogy that you don't see it coming comes at you sideways, it's harder to swing at. And that's a curveball. So, who are we when a curveball comes our way? And in the analogy, do you even swing at the ball? Or do you just let it pass and hope that more don't follow? What is the strategy? What is the what skill sets do we have at our disposal to decide who we are and to decide what our greatest expansion is? Or is not? When things come our way? Next week, I'm going to tell you a personal story of this and what I've learned and where I'm headed and yada yada. No surprise, I leaned heavily on astrology to help me answer those questions. But let's assume you're not into astrology. Well Let's assume you're not even into psychics and intuition, and you're here anyway, congratulations. So here, here you are, you're a person. And you're making a decision that could possibly rewrite your concept of who you are. I thought I was always going to be a dancer. I got into grad school for dance. And then all of a sudden, I decided that wasn't my path. And I knew that wasn't the right path. But I had a lot of grief around it. And then I had I had no idea what I was going to do without dance, I had no idea. That's, that's an example of who are you now? And who do you want to be now? And in the example of dance, it was a decision that I made. But there have been other things like my psychic skills, that was more of a curveball, and had I always had those skills. Yes. And had I always practice the skills, not always, but not never. But the curveball was my awareness of it. And my awareness of if I don't do the psychic thing, quote, I'm not fulfilling the entirety of my purpose here on Earth, fulfilling a great deal of it, but this, this is a part of it for me. But it was a curveball, I, I went and got a master's degree in leadership and organizational development, I was not planning on being a psychic. And then this kind of awareness happened for whatever number of reasons. And I had the choice. Well, I just want to skip this, like, I could just not, I could pretend I didn't know how psychic I was. I don't have to help people out with this. You know, I don't have to start a business I could keep fighting for the other things. I'm good at the other things I've spent my time investing in. These are decisions, we have decisions in our life that are not just about how we spend our time and how we make our money, they fundamentally come back to who am I? What do I believe in? What do I prioritize? Do you choose what seems the least risky? But might also mean a lack of growth? Or do you swing at the curveball and just hope to heck, you actually hit it? What if you're a person that's swinging at a curveball, you hit it, but you've never been taught how to run the bases? And I know that's more baseball fluff. But it also isn't. You know, my business has done fine. But let's assume I started this intuition, business and gangbusters overnight, I had 1000s of people knocking at my door, I would have had no idea how to manage that. No clue. Should I hire help? I've never hired help before. Should I get online systems I've never set up on you know, there's things that even if it goes, well, it's a lot of newness, and a lot of unknown. And that's scary. Even the positive of like, if I choose this thing, and it goes great. Am I gonna know what to do? Probably not. So, then what? Who am I then? And it's scary in the sense that what if all your life you've hit fast balls, and you're really good at hitting loose, straight, fast pitches? good at that. And then here comes this curveball. And even if that curveball has your name on it, it's coming right you can see it, it's coming right at you and you know, you could hit it. You've never hit a curveball before. There's adrenaline, there's, there's an inherent fear and excitement. And do I really want to do this the thing I've never done before? And if I don't hit it, am I going to lose the respect of my peers and my teammate in the dugout, am I going to lose the respect of the people in the stands? And yes, we're not all on a baseball field in the major leagues getting paid to hit basketballs and curveballs. However, that metaphor still holds. We do have peers in the dugout. We do have people watching it, fans watching it. And we don't want to let them down. If that's even a possibility, you know, so I just invite you to sit with the baseball analogy. I know that I'm again, I'm not a baseball expert, but I think the idea of the curveball disrupting thing.

So that You have to question if I go this direction, am I not who I thought I was? I worked really hard to become this version of me. Am I just giving up on that? How? How am I going to move forward with it? There are people out there that work really hard to become CEOs or to become a certain position in their career, and then they decide to walk away. They decide they want early retirement, or they decide they're gonna go be an entrepreneur. And that is a fundamental change in how you define yourself. And not in all ways. If you were doing marketing, you're still doing marketing, well, clearly, you're still doing marketing. But if you were on one path, and now you're on another, you have to redefine yourself. It's scary. And we have a lot more choice about that than we think. I believe that life, the experience of life, the experience of having a physical body in divine energetic experience, I believe all of life truly loves us. And the human experience, far from reflects that much of the time. That being said, I think there's divine intelligence in the pit. So, in this analogy of your thrown a curveball, it's not a pitcher on the mound that's on the other team. It is divine intelligence pitching you these balls that you get to decide are you going to swing out or not. So, let's imagine you're at bat. There's divine intelligence pitching you these opportunities. Get you knows better than we do. You know, sometimes, and again, this is if we're referencing divine intelligence knows who we are, what we can hit, and our souls, deepest desires. Now, that does not mean that every ball that comes our way is meant for us to hit. But there is divine intelligence, and what's coming your way. Sometimes the lesson is not to swing. Sometimes that is the lesson. And sometimes it's not that it's something that you haven't learned before. Like, jealousy. That's been something I've worked on really hard. I've made a lot of progress EA me. But, you know, as a child, I had to learn some things around jealousy. Then in college, I had to learn some things around jealousy and dating as an adult. It's, it's, yes, I healed this. But then guess what, I step into a different arena, and it comes back. So sometimes, that pitch that's thrown at you is bait, and you're not supposed to take the bait. Sometimes you are supposed to. So just because I just want to be clear that just because I'm saying the pitcher has divine intelligence, I'm not saying that every ball that comes your way you're supposed to take. But you're supposed to trust that this ball is coming my way for a reason. And I get to decide what I do with it. And in that decision, I am making a decision about who I am and who I'm going to be moving forward. And we cannot know what is. In the baseball metaphor, we can talk about who's on base and who's at bat next. There's things we could reference. We cannot know. We're humans and our brains are amazing. And we haven't even discovered what all they can do. But we cannot know. This universe is so divine and complex beyond what we can understand. Then how do you know to swing or not swing? That's what I want to talk about. The good news is that these life decisions they typically don't happen as fast as a baseball coming at you like this is not a 90 mile an hour decision. So that's great news. The bad news is you don't get to practice necessarily. You can't predict as well. You know, in a real baseball game, you kind of know, you study the pitchers, you know what their favorite pitch Here's our blah, blah, blah, you kind of have a sense of what might happen. In life, it's much more wild than that. And so, as I said, there's the divine intelligence, teaching us these balls. And no matter what kind of pitch it is, it is for our growth, it's part of our divine plan, at some level we want, or we need this thing that's coming at us. And again, it doesn't mean we have to swing at it. Sometimes it's bait, are you going to take this bait and fall into this lesson and have to learn it once again? Or are you going to really cement for yourself? Oh, I've learned this, I've already learned that I have nothing to be jealous of. I figured that out. And this is just tempting me back into that old pattern. But I'm not going to do it. Or is this a great opportunity, this thing going to change my life? Should I start my own business? Should I marry this person? Should I have this unexpected baby like, there are things that happen, that could be blessings and miracles if you swung at it? And in large part, you get to decide what's true. The capital T truth is not something they exist here on Earth, that is the divine soul level energetic plane thing. So, the truth of whether or not the lower T truth of whether or not you were meant to take that job, or have this baby or graduate from this school, you get to decide what was the purpose? And then you get to decide that you get to believe whatever you want to believe. Loves, who are you? Who do you want to be? And when things come your way? How are you going to decide the answer to those questions?

So, here's another thing that's wrong with a baseball analogy. In baseball, you hit a ball. And let's say you're successful, you run to first base. Or if you're unsuccessful, you walk back to this. So, you are who you are. And there are an options of next steps, right? That's how it would work in an actual baseball game. But in life, not an opposite team pitcher, it's a divine intelligence pitcher, throwing these things at you, giving you these opportunities for growth, or learning for cementing what you already know. But when you hit these balls, rather than them flying back, they integrate into you. It's as if hitting the ball would change the name and the number and the color of your jersey. And then yeah, you might walk the base. But you are a different person. Because you chose to take that job because you chose to retire because you had a kid with special needs, because you got a diagnosis, you are a different person. Congratulations. So that's, you know, the baseball analogy only goes so far. Life throws things at us. It certainly feels like that, right? Like, you just get thrown. It's easy to feel like we're by standards to this world where oh, up ahead, there was a car accident. I didn't choose that. I didn't create that it was just there, and I get to decide, am I going to stay in this lane? Or am I going to swerve or am I going to try to back up? Like how am I going to navigate driving to work when there was car accident up there? Right? We feel like we're bystanders. But that that was an incident that was given to you. Maybe you need to practice patience. Maybe you need to practice flexibility. Maybe you need to practice compassion. There's a purpose behind these things. I think as humans we can't fully understand how things are not on accident. But also, there's more than one divine perfect outcome. I think as humans we it's easy to fall prey to this idea that there is a best solution. There's a best way forward. There's a most benevolent outcome. But there is more than one most benevolent outcomes we live in an infinite A universe with a divine intelligence that's so divine, we can't even agree on a name for it, or a function for it. It's wonderful. And we underestimate what's possible, which is fine, we're humans that we're, that's what we're doing. But when things happen seemingly to us, or things are thrown at us, or opportunities arise, we would do well to remember that there is an infinite amount of outcome there. And a lot more of that is at our choosing, then we can really understand even those of us that have been taught that a lot more of that is that are choosing than what we can really enter. Okay, so let's talk about how do we do this thing? Wrapped that there's a ball coming at us, we've got to make a decision, how do we do this, the first thing you need to know is that you're human, and your human brain wants to keep you safe. And the way the brain does that is it becomes a predicting machine, and it compartmentalizes things so that it can predict orderly, fast, quickly. And that safety, and that ability to predict the desire to predict so that it can keep us safe, inherently leads to discomfort with change. Even chosen change is uncomfortable. And it often leads to fear-based thinking. So that's one element of being a human that you just need to know is happening, your brain wants to keep you safe. And its definition of safety is something that it can predict. Now, logically, we know there's a lot of safety out there that we couldn't have predicted. But you have to be able to disrupt that brain pattern. Here's the other thing you need to know about being a human. Humans need tribes. Our lives literally depend on the relationships that we are in. And this isn't just from the, you know, quote, caveman days, we need tribes, although primally that is a thing. It's also we have all this research that says that we have researched the people that live the longest and are the healthiest are in healthy relationships. We've researched for that. We've researched that people that are more likely to commit suicide are people that are isolated. So, in the sense of who are you and am I or am I not going to move forward with this opportunity. Your brain sure as heck wants to make sure you have people around you that love you. And that can take care of you. And if you've already built some semblance of that for yourself, it's going to be hard to believe that if you fundamentally change that you're still going to have your people. And of course, we all know you're going to lose some people that happens whether that's through death or through conflict or through just you're not on the same page anymore. Yes, you're going to lose something. We all know that. But our brains are solving for safety. And part of the safety is predictability. And part of the safety is Do I have a tribe? Our brains will choose tribe over expansion. Our brains will choose tribe over morality. If you're not alive, morality doesn't do you any good, right? So, it's important to understand the information that your brain is going to feed you when you're making these decisions. And I'm not making the brain wrong. I'm I am in love with our brains. I am not making the brain wrong. I want you to understand that brains are tools that we can use. They are programmable computers, let's say. And they have been programmed for safety and predictability. Bribe. So, are you catching yourself in that? Can you look at your thoughts and say, but is that really true? I'm feeling like I would not be safe if I took that job. But is it really true? And how do I know it's true? So that's Our human response to change. Anything that we don't know, looks like a threat because our brain can't predict it. It's new, we can't predict it. We are inherently unsafe, and our brain is going to want to tell us no, no, some of us get high on that, like some people, it's like exciting, oh, my gosh, am I gonna be safe? I don't know. Like, there's that thrill seeking thing, that perhaps when your younger thrill seeking is bungee jumping. And skydiving, as you get older, it's gambling. I mean, I don't know. But most of us, when we see things that we don't know, we run, it literally causes fight or flight at some level. And now, that being said, I've sort of been bad mouthing, safety, right? Like, if you try and stay safe all the time, you're just going to do everything that you've done before. And that that's largely true. But he also gets a bad rap. Like, in the, in the spiritual communities, you'll hear things like, safety keeps you small, safety is an illusion. And there's some truth to those statements. But safety also keeps you alive. And safety helps you to protect and provide for yourself and provide for others. So, I'm not suggesting that we throw safety out of our thinking. I'm just suggesting that we need to be aware of when all of our thinking is focused on safety. Because we haven't done the thought work that we need to do in order to invite some other thoughts. Sometimes, it, it really doesn't even take that long, it takes five or 10 minutes of journaling of realizing, oh, I've been in XYZ thought pattern. I wasn't thinking about, oh, this job pays more, but it doesn't have benefits. You know, it could be anything. So, if

if safety is important, and it is our job is not to let it be the only thing. And our job is not to disregard it entirely. Our job is to regard safety with mindfulness. And safety could look like a lot of things. It could be physical safety. AM, is my body too tired to do this physical labor job? It could be that? Or it could be if I take this risk, what is the likelihood I'm not gonna be able to provide for my family? It can be that. So, I encourage you to consider safety when making a decision. In the sense of if I hit the ball, how am I going to know that I'm safe? And the answer is, because you're going to figure it out, you always have that's the answer. But you have to get there for yourself. And the other answer is because there's no such thing as safety anyway, we're all souls, and even, even death isn't death. So, what's the worst that can happen? You're gonna die, you're still not dead, right? But that's not the experience, really. You know, that's the, that's the meta spiritual, kind of detached from emotion, truth. That's not the human truth. And that's not what you're here to learn either. That that's, that's one element of dealing with change, your brain is trying to keep you safe. We got to figure out how to stay safe, how to be safe, and we need relationships. That's a human element of these decisions that we make. Now let's look at the soul or the divine elements of change. Our souls are designed for expansion. That's what they're designed for. It's just like, embryos are designed to turn into baby, you know, like, things are designed for healing. We are designed for expansion. And often, Soul expansion looks like change. But it's not always. It could just be that you're getting better at something or you're getting bigger results at the same thing. It could be that you're having a more precise impact or that you're creating more ripple effects. Or it could be that you have a pretty big change. Soul expansion just it has a variety of forms. And as I said earlier, you know, the nature of the universe is so much more complex and infinite than we can ever imagine. I don't believe that our brains can truly imagine infinite like there are infinite possibilities for us. I don't, I don't really think our brain or at least my brain doesn't really believe that. I can tell myself that and I can get into vibrational alignment with that. Sure. But I have yet to be able to walk around with that knowing in my body the way I know gravity, right? So, the nature is divine and is complex, and there are infinite possibilities that are unfathomable to our brain. We can't, we cannot fathom it, we may or may not understand fate, we may or may not understand destiny, and we cannot fathom. All that is at play. All we know is that we're at bat and there's a ball coming at us. And we know that we're designed for expansion, we're designed for growth. And we get to decide is this ball that's coming at me a part of my growth? And so, when it comes to what do you need to know about the universe? What do you need to know about spirituality, you need to know that our expansion is Yours, Mine and Ours. What is my highest good, which could be a multitude of things, is inherently also what is your highest good. Because we are all connected by that divine intention. And I don't believe that the divine gets it wrong. And there is more than one, there's more than one perfectly divine outcome. And there's more than one choice we can make that we would regret making theirs. And we could have chosen the exact right perfect decision for us and still regret making it because that's what we decided. Just know, when life is doing what life does, and you are making decisions about it. Remember that there's infinite potential here. There's more than one vote right way more than one, quote, divine way of looking at things. And this, what is the right way, the best way? That is a mechanism of our brain trying to keep us safe? So, I would argue that when life is coming at you, you would choose what is calling you, what do you feel called to? But if you're not an intuitive person, then you choose what leads to your next expansion. And I've got, you know, I've got some questions like what if that curveball was never a curveball at all? Like, what if it was exactly what you need it and you call it to you? And it just looks like a curveball because you're surprised at how soon it came. And what if you are here to do exactly that thing that seems so random. If your expansion is supposed to be in an entirely new direction, perhaps you pass the test of phase one. Or what if your expansion is supposed to keep you right where you are. But it looks and feels entirely different. That that is the same, you know, I was talking to somebody about an astrological transit recently because they were looking at their year ahead and they got you know, kind of freaked out. And I had been through a very similar, quote, epic transit. Not that long before and I and I told this person, it doesn't necessarily mean that your career is gonna fall apart, your life is gonna fall apart, people are gonna hate you. Because like, I went through this transit and nothing on the outside change. I just felt different on the inside, I had a different understanding of who I was. And I had a different desire to investigate that and rewrite that. Or at least be open to rewriting it in a way that I wasn't open to before. And I don't say that because I was closed minded. I say that because I felt like I was so on my purpose and on my path in real life. Now, of course, this baseball analogy, not that simple as do I swing or do, I not swing? It's not a black and white. It's not how fast or how low do I swing the bat? Of course, it's awesome. And it's never just you in the pitcher, right? There are the people in the stands and in the dugout. There are just things. There are umpires, right, there's announcers, there's things and all of that matters, of course, all of that matters. So, when life is coming at you, and you have to decide who am I? What is my next expansion? My advice to you is to marry your gut with your logic. If you can get your heart and your mind on the same page, and that is a great solution. If you have to choose between the two, have to make sure you like your reason. Okay, I'm choosing logic, I'm choosing predictability, I'm choosing safety. But I'm doing that because I have a family to provide for, right? So that that might mean I'm letting go of the passion or whatever. And this is a hypothetical. This is not happening in my life, just so you know. But it might mean that you're letting go of what your quote heart would want to do you like your reason. And you see a way in which that choice is a part of your expansion. Or could you trust that in some way. And its opposite is true, you know, if you can't get your heart and mind on the same page, and everything in your logical mind says this doesn't make sense. But your heart says, but it's calling me calling me it's calling me it's calling me, well, then do you like your reason is your reason I won't be able to put it down until I try it is your reason I won't really be able to do the logical thing until I do this, that whatever your reason is, if you can't bring yourself to a decision where you feel every hair of your body, every bone in your body is in alignment with then you just have to like your read. What is the most loving option that I can get on board with, and I can get on board within this moment.

And be gentle with yourself on that it is so easy to come back to oh, I should have done yatta yatta should have swung? I had swung it that I wouldn't even be living here I would be married by now if I had swung at that I've yatta yatta, right? You don't know. Or when you don't know. Number two, there's infinite possibilities. Maybe there were lots of ways for you to have the career you wanted. Maybe there were lots of ways for you to have the partner you want. Maybe there were lots of different ways for you to have the expansion that you want that you're designed to have. Maybe there's no such thing as getting it wrong. Wing or don't swing, you can't get it wrong. Do you like your you like your thinking; you get to decide. You get to decide who you are and in the direction. So, stay tuned. Next week, I'm gonna have a little story for you about my expansion. And so, you providing a few more tips and things to consider when the curveballs are really big. And when you really do have to make them yes or notice. And how to how to come to be at peace with your intent is always going to include emotional processing with me. So, thank you for being here loves I'm so excited to be with you for this two-part series. And stay tuned. Hi, y'all. Thank you for listening to the living out love podcast. If this episode was helpful for you, there are three ways that you can share the love. can send this episode to family friend, neighbor. Leave me a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform or comment and ask questions on YouTube. This season is meant to be interactive. Thanks again for your presence. I appreciate you being here. Talk to you next week loves