It’s been another great week of soulful IC goodness up in here!

Hop on over here to grab the MP3 of yesterday’s Inner Circle coaching call.

Next week’s IC call will be on TUESDAY, September 15 at 5pm/EST. Note the change of day, and we’ll see you there! 🙂

In the meantime, you can dig into the IC Archive here and stay connected with the whole crew in the FB group here!

Now, for this week’s big ideas…

Big Idea #1: Reality Testing

Here’s a really fun way to go about life: using “reality testing” to see what really works for you!

What is reality testing? It’s going out into the world and saying, “What would be another way to do things? What would be something new I can try and experiment with, to see if it might take my life to the next level?”

But in order to practice reality testing, we need to remove the correlation between an outcome and our self-esteem. Basically, this means the relationship between “needing something to go a certain way” and, “if it goes a certain way, that means we’re a good person/bad person, etc.”

If we’re stuck in this old mindset of an outcome meaning something about who we are, then it will never be fun to experiment with our reality – because we’ll be too afraid to make mistakes! Luckily, our outcomes really have nothing to do with who we are as a person – this is just a story that many of us create in our minds.

Another great way to practice reality testing is to spend time with people who already have the life we want. So if we can learn to separate our self-worth from the outcomes, and surround ourselves with people who are living in our ideal reality, we’re going to have a whole lotta fun playing around with different things in life to create the reality we really want.

Big Idea #2: Painful Experiences Can Lead to Wisdom

We all have a certain set of experiences that we’ve gained so far in life. And it can be hard to see outside of our current perspective, just because we can only see where we’ve been – not the whole picture yet! We may feel like we don’t yet have the tools that we need to get through painful experiences, and that we’re just stumbling our way blindly through them.

But here’s the thing about difficult and painful situations in our life: they ultimately lead us to gaining a deep wisdom. Because the next time we go through a similar experience, we have a deep, cellular wisdom about that situation which we gained by going through pain around it. Difficult and painful experiences are a huge intuition builder.

If we’re looking to create deep and meaningful experiences and relationships in our life, we’ve gotta know right now that we’re going to fail at times! We’re going to stumble and go over the edge, mess up, and feel pain around these things, because we’re pushing our limits to experience the most out of life.

The most courageous thing we can do is to show up in life with an open heart, and not to numb ourselves out of difficult experiences with social media, junk food or alcohol… but to feel everything fully, to embrace discomfort and uncertainty. Yes – it will feel hard! But ultimately, this is how we develop a soulful and empowered way of being, with meaningful relationships and a purpose-driven life.

Big Idea #3: A Bothered State Leads to Bothered Results

When was the last time that you made a decision or interacted with someone from a triggered place, and it led to something great? Your answer is probably “never”…!  

If you’re feeling triggered and just bothered, the ONLY thing you need to recognize in that moment is that you’re feeling that way! Your number one priority from that space is to get yourself feeling grounded, settled and in touch with a higher part of yourself. This is the space that you’re going to make better decisions and just overall show up better in life.

If we interact with people from a place of love, the chances are super high that we’re going to be received in a place of love. This is a great reason not to react and immediately respond to people if we’ve received something that bothers or triggers us – it’s just going to be received in that same type of space! So take some time, cool down and approach your relationships and interactions from a peaceful space, and you’ll see people respond to you in the same way – and life will just flow so much more easily!

Let’s connect!

What are your thoughts on the above? We’d love to hear ’em in our secret Facebook group.