This year let’s do something different!
Instead of setting the traditional depressing goals that go by the window by February - getting the promotion and increased compensation, losing 10 pounds, eating healthy, exercising, and so on - let’s focus on how we want to feel! 😁
At the end of the day, we set all these goals because reaching them should make us feel good. Whether the underlying reason is coming from a “positive” intention -more peace, joy, love- or from a “negative” intention -control, fear, approval- we set goals so tomorrow is better than today.
First, let’s go deeper, why did we want these past goals in the first place? Like most of us, my goals used to be very typical - in a nutshell, more money & success, and a better looking & healthy body. But why did I want these things. Well, if I was not slim enough I would loath myself. If I was not successful enough, I would feel shame and guilt. Not really an expansive place in terms of reasons behind my goal settings. If I go another click down, why did I feel guilt, shame and self-loathing? Because early in life and every step of the way I had been conditioned to believe that to be “a successful person” I needed all these things, and failure to do so was not acceptable. This very conditional love from my environment formatted me to run after all these goals without ever stopping once to assess if they were really my authentic goals. If reaching them would indeed make me feel better.
Spoiler Alert: they did not. And we have all been there. We get the job, the money, the spouse, the body and then realize after a few weeks that it doesn’t really bring us much more joy than before. Maybe we get more money that will be spend right away on “necessary” items, or rather items that allow us to stay in the competition with the Joneses. Competition that, authentically, we really don’t care about, but have been conditioned to really care about!
So this year, let’s cut the crap!
First, let’s uncover what that journey to our Authentic Self means.
Second, let’s bypass the middle man and focus directly on how we want to feel from an expansive perspective.
😎 Recovering your Authentic Self
❗ Before you embark on this journey, let’s be frank here, recovering one’s Authentic Self is not for the faint of heart.
✌️ First it will ask us to look at the conditioning that we are operating under. In order to disengage the auto-pilot. To consciously understand why we are thinking, doing, feeling the way we do. In the process we will realize that our caregivers (parents, school, religious institutions, communities,…) have, consciously or not, put limitations, distorted perceptions, and other niceties in our vision of the world. This is not easy to realize that the love we received (of the care if love seems an overstatement) was very conditional. Or that most of our lives had been built on others’ operating model. Their own simulations. To continue on the computer analogy, we might have been able to reach a high level at a game that was never ours to play in the first place. This is not necessary an easy place to be. But the alternative is to continue to operate blindly (and for parents to continue to pass on to their children outdated concepts based on shame, fear, guilt and so on).
✌️ Second, we will have to release these many, many, many layers of conditioning. Reformatting our software, which, by the way, will also ask for an upgrade of our hardware. Usually this is where we get stuck in limbos. Once we get the awareness of some of the layers we would like to let go, or of the version of ourselves that seems more authentic, we are on our own. How many of us have read, watched, followed programs helping us with seeing a glimpse of our Authentic Self, only to be left on the side of the road with no concrete tools to actually get closer to it. I wandered in that stage for very long. Frustrated at myself for being aware of my perceived shortcomings but incapable of thinking, acting, feeling any differently than what I had been formatted to be. Anyone who has ever tried to come to term with an engrained pattern of thinking or being (everyone I would believe!) know what I am talking about.
✌️ Third, as we become more authentic, some relationships (and goals) will fall apart. The relationships were based on a inauthentic version of us. So, logically, as we recover our authenticity, the connection with these people, things and thoughts will feel more and more tenuous. And here comes the Great Unknown: Who will we become? What will we do? Who will we be in relationships with? What will we love? What will we think about? What will we want? On one hand it can feel exhilarating to get closer to our true nature. But on the other hand, it means that what is not authentic will have to go. And as human beings, we don’t like change, we don’t like uncertainty and we certainly don’t like to let go of people and stuff before knowing what will replace them.
✌️ In a nutshell, this is a rewarding journey but not necessary an easy one. Especially when our lives are well established. Who really want to rock the boat? But who want to die having lived someone’s else life either?! Filled with regrets for what could have been. I have always been terrified to die and to be disappointed with my life, with myself. To have taken a path that was the path that “I was supposed to take” but which was not mine. In my quest for my Authentic Self, I had to leave a lot behind me - country, language, religion, parents, friends, career - but I also found a lot of fulfilling relationships, not the least with myself.
So here we are. At the crossroad. Will it be the red pill or the blue pill? Will you embark on your own personal quest, uncovering your own Authentic Self? Or will you continue more of the same, on autopilot, living a life of quiet desperation?
If you opted for the red pill, I will share with you over the next editions the tools I have been using to increase my level of awareness, and let go of my limiting beliefs and patterns. I will uncover the practices that have worked very well for me, as well as the ones that didn’t really do the trick. This will give you the playbook I wished I had when I started on my own Authentic Self journey more than a decade ago.
So Buckle Up, 2023 will be a fun ride!!
Thank you for reading! This post is public so feel free to share it.
😎 How do you want to feel?
I personally wanted to feel more lightness, more joy, more peace, more confidence, more zest for life, more fun. I was just so tired of feeling constantly anxious, stressed, blasée, tired, unfulfilled, fearful, ashamed, guilty, etc… I am sure many of you will relate to these different states of beings!
✌️ The first thing to feel more positive emotions is to have a look at our nervous system. Most of us are operating under constant stress which is leading to tons of hormonal imbalances - too much stress hormones are putting our bodies in a recurring flight or fight state, keeping us in an endless sub-optimal loop. Reacting to our environment versus purposefully acting. To get out of our auto-pilot mode, a calm nervous system is paramount. This is one of the necessary upgrades of our hardware I was mentioning above.
✌️ Accordingly, I take a bunch of supplements to help my nervous system calm the F$&* down. My three favorite are Ashwagandha, 5HTP, and Magnesium. I also take Omega-3 and probiotics (the gut greatly impacts the central nervous system). Follow the guidelines of the manufacturers to start and then, once you have established a baseline, test what works best for you (nighttime, daytime, quantity, frequency,…).
✌️ As I mentioned in the past, microdosing psilocybin really helped me to remove that sharp edge from my nervous system, while giving me way more focus, creativity and awareness. Currently I am taking a micro-microdose of mushrooms chocolate. Next week, I will publish a piece on “Microdosing Psilocybin for The Holidays”. You can also refer to my previous newsletter if you want to have a head-start on your new microdosing regimen. If you are not crazy about chocolate, a couple of options such as the dry mushrooms, or the jelly are also available.
✌️ Every day, I also make a point to 1) move my body; and 2) to walk outside (I know not necessarily appealing in February, in Toronto, but even more necessary to avoid the winter blues!). It can be just a 10 min stretch and a 10 min walk (with a great audiobook such as The Big Leap that I have been listening and recommending to my friends over and over!) , it doesn’t have to be very time consuming, but I know my body and mind need the movement and natural light…and yours probably too!!
✌️ In the category “Less is More”, we cannot not talk about alcohol and cigarettes. 😱 I know, how boring! However, not only drinking and smoking have a super negative effect on our overall physical health they also impact greatly our nervous system, generate (h)anxiety and disturb our sleep patterns. In the grand scheme of things, it is silly to make so much effort to feel better and then sabotage it all with drinking and smoking. If you have resistance decreasing your drinking and smoking, this is worth investigating. It was my case and I realized that peer pressure, and my terrible people pleaser mindset were blocking me in making the right choices for myself. I will go in details in a later edition on the tools I used to release these blocks that allowed me to reduce my drinking to pretty much zero and stop my smoking.
✌️ Last but not least is sleep. I have been on the receiving end of greatly disturbed sleep patterns and can relate on how difficult it is to make the right choices, to feel and look good on a few hours of sleep. In addition of assessing the promotors and detractors of great sleep (the usual suspects of screens, alcohol, heavy meals etc…) I tested several products to support my 8 hour sleep requirement. CBD oil has been working quite well for me, when I don’t need too much support. When I need to crank it up a notch, I reach for a mix of CBD and THC gummies. And every night, before going to bed, I also 1) put a few drops of lavender oil on my pillow and the soles of my feet; and 2) take some homeopathy, Nux Vomica 30CH is my go to.
❗And the most important point of it all is our intention. Set your intention to feel calm, at peace, filled with positive emotions. It is like giving our internal GPS the direction we want to reach. It also helps us to become more aware and purposeful.
😎 Key Takeaways
Let’s focus on how we want to feel in 2023 (versus the traditional depressing goal-setting)
Recovering one’s Authentic Self is not for the faint of heart.
First, we will have to look at the conditioning that we are operating under.
Second, we will have to release our many, many, many layers of conditioning.
Third, as we become more authentic, some relationships (and goals) will fall apart.
The first thing to feel more positive emotions is to calm our nervous system.
Taking supplements, microdosing psilocybin, moving our body, walking outside, cutting alcohol and cigarettes, sleeping well are the basics for a calm nervous system.
Start with the intention of being calm, at peace, filled with positive emotions.