Ep #24: The Labor of New Life

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Hey guys, how’s it going? So today, we’re going to continue on the create the new path, so last week, we talked about you deciding what you wanted, what you needed, what you desired and having a list of that. If you didn’t do it, you can pause this right now and go ahead and make that list if you didn’t listen to last week.

But let me share a little bit with how my morning started off. So, today was the day that I was following through with this adding a little bit of running intervals into my fitness routine. So, for those who don’t know, I had a pretty intense bout of chronic pain last year, sciatica that was pretty intense. I had 16 weeks down on my belly, on my elbows and couldn’t sit, couldn’t do anything physical actually, which kind of held me up pretty much most of the year because it took an entire six months to get over that.

I’ve currently been back on the yoga mat and the bicycle and walking. But I have not been back to any sort of running. And it’s not that I do a lot of it, but I do like to bring in a little bit of interval for cardio.

So, I’ve been debating on this for months and I’ve been procrastinating about it. And since we’re on this topic, I’m going to share with you how I do the next new thing, the next level, the things that come up and what you can do to continue moving forward. So, I figured this is pretty much helpful for you if it’s helpful for me.

So, what I want to talk about today is the labor of new life. So this came to me at the walking track as I’m doing my stretches after my run and just realized, like, this is freaking labor. And I looked it up and it’s like, “The physical or mental effort, especially when difficult. The physical activity involved in giving birth.”

And you know, it’s just like birth to a new era, a new part in our life, bringing in something different, “To exert one’s power of body or mind, especially with painful strenuous effort.” I was like, that is it. Let’s talk about the labor of new life when you are creating something new. This could be in relationships, in health, in finances, in business. It does not matter, there’s still going to be this layer of doubt, these objections, these obstacles that you’re going to have to break through in order to get to the next level.

And one of the things that you have to be willing to do is feel or dance with the shadow, you know, that tapping into the emotions that really want to shut you down. Instead, you want to turn them on and you kind of want to, like, go and investigate and figure out why they’ve turned on this defense, basically against what it is that you want to acquire or what goal you want to achieve.

And I find that most of us really, it’s this dare to feel. We just don’t want to do it, “It’s hard, it’s hot, I don’t want to wash my hair, I don’t want to have to change my clothes, my bed’s so comfortable, I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to go. It’s hot. It’s raining. It’s wet. Today was foggy.” There’s always going to be an objection. As long as you have a brain, you’re going to have an objection.

And this is the same for you guys who – I know I have a lot of followers who are dealing with chronic pain and we have this conversation even in the TMS world, and that’s something I’ll talk more about. But it’s just the mind-body syndrome, the disconnect between body and mind and how that affects our bodies and how it affects disease and illness and pain and struggling and suffering and even poverty, you know.

Everything in our life that is not working for us is like a result of something that we are not in alignment with. It’s our job to be in alignment with our life, with our desires, with our wants and taking care of ourselves, personal responsibility for our needs being met.

So, here’s what happens after you decide. So I decided, like, I like the energy, I like how I feel when I’m mixing yoga with bike-riding with running and walking. It’s my thing. It’s what my body likes and craves and I have a lot of creativity and high energy and it just works for me. It’s almost like a meditation because I count my steps and then I stop and count my steps, and then I stop. So it’s like my mind is super zoned into my body and there’s this amazing connection.

And in order to get back to that, I have to trust my body. I have to trust life itself because my body and my mind have a memory of that intense pain. This was like a really big deal, probably the worst physical thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, very much more than labor pains, speaking of laboring the new life.

So when the body has this etched memory and you go to do the thing, then there’s this sensation, kind of like this anxiety, this doubt that comes up and when you feel that, then this old story gets reactivated. So, once I decided, I started kind of feeling some things were out of whack and I kind of tried one day and it was like, you know, there’s a little pull here and there’s a little sensation here and then my foot hurt here and all of that stuff.

And I’m like, okay, I had this conversation with myself; it’s just an objection. It’s not feeling safe yet. How can I bring even that part in? Like even the fearful part, even the doubtful part, even the part that just doesn’t feel like doing it. I want what it feels like after, but I don’t want what it feels like to get started. Can you all relate to that?

So, here’s what happens; after you decide, after you set an intention, the objections appear. And I want to tell you what to do about those objections. First of all, your job, your responsibility is not to buy the objections, not to buy the excuses and not to buy the objections, but even more than that, to plan for them.

Like, what if you knew they were going to happen so you planned ahead? Like, I know that my brain is going to not get up and go, not wash my hair, not dirty more clothes. These are the crazy excuses I come up with. I’m going to tell myself that I can go later during the day. I can go at one or I can go at seven or I don’t have anything this evening, I’ll be able to do it then.

I know, for a fact because it’s done it so many times, that that is what my brain is going to tell me. That’s what my mind thinks, like, we’ll just do it later. It’s too foggy, it’s really hot, there’s probably going to be people there, I don’t want to go at this time, you know, all of that silly, silly, silly stuff. It’s like blah, blah, blah, you’re kind of boring, right?

So, if my job is not to buy that but to plan for that, then I’ve already prepared myself for success. So if I know that I’m going to have an objection and I know my job is to overcome the objection and I already know exactly what I’m going to say, what I’m going to think and what I’m going to do. So what I did is I had my clothes ready and I just said, “Oh, aren’t you interesting? That didn’t take you long to show up, and I’m going anyway.”

So, I got dressed, I went out the door, and it was super foggy, I couldn’t see in front of me. I went to the walking park that I used to go to. I haven’t been in a while and I get started, it’s hot, it’s muggy, you know, I had all of these reasons not to. And then I start, like, getting a blister on my foot and then it got kind of boring and, you know, all of this stuff started coming up.

And as I’m going and I’m realizing what’s happening to my body, I look down and there’s this little toy, this little girl toy, and she has a Superman power-woman cape on. And I was like, awww. And so I pick her up and I take her with me and I start running again and I take her back on my journey. And then Michael Jackson comes back on, The Man in The Mirror, so that got me excited and I got back into the momentum.

And it’s basically because I chose not to buy into what the mind or the brain was telling me, which was, that’s enough for today, you’ve done enough, come back tomorrow, we can do it later this afternoon. And I’m like, no, I think I got this. I’m going to do 30 minutes, I’m going to get in what I can. I’m going to listen to my body. I’m going to listen to the blister on my foot. But that’s kind of labor, right?

Like, when you go on a really long hike or when you start running or you start biking, like, yeah, you’re going to get blisters. It’s going to be kind of hard to breathe. You’re out of practice and it’s our job to manage our mind.

So what is the story that you want to tell yourself? What is the story that you want to live? What’s the results that you want and what’s a plan that you can put in effect ahead of time? Go ahead and plan for it. Write down – so you already wrote down all of your wants, all of your needs, all of your desires. So right next to your wants and desires, I want you to write down all of the things that are going to stop that from happening.

So if it’s for more money, a change in career, relationships, write down all of the things, the reasons why you haven’t done it yet. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. What matters is what your brain is thinking, and so you want to see it on paper. You want to reveal it so that you can overcome it.

So write down all of those reasons, just like I told you all of the silly reasons why I didn’t want to go run or didn’t want to finish it, like even not washing my hair because I’m crazy. I try really hard for me not to have enough time, but I had already carved out the time because I knew I was going to have the objection, so I planned for it.

So write all that down. And then I want to take you into another little concept. So when we’re talking about the labor of new life, that’s like the labor of the new creation, the new thing, what are the labor pains that you’re going to have to suffer in order to get to the next port, to the next point, to the next level, to that thing?

And you can even think about it like this is the part where you, basically, once you make the decision, you’ve just planted the seed. The baby hasn’t even formed yet, right? You’ve just planted the seed for the opportunity and all of those objections are already coming. So it’s like you’ve got a long way to go. You haven’t even entered the labor phase because you’re barely in even the eight-month phase or the nine-month phase.

So, if you knew that that was going to happen and you planned for it and you did it anyway, then what would be the results? You would feel amazing. You would be so glad you did it. You would feel empowered and that’s what I had to keep in mind. I felt into what it used to feel like when I would finish, how I felt when I was sitting on the dock, when I was doing my stretches, when the cool breeze was coming to cool down the sweat, like creativity that was flowing through me in the moment of completion.

I brought that, that memory, that imprint, that feeling into my body and I felt it. And then I reminded myself that that was mine if I wanted it and all I had to do was stay in my lane and keep putting one foot in front of the other and keep taking one breath after the other. And it could be slow and it could be steady.

I did not have to beat the clock. It didn’t have to look any particular way. I just needed to keep moving. And for me personally, if there’s any of you who are doing some sort of beginning running or interval training, I count. This is my meditation. I count to 25 and then I stop for 25. I count for 25 so it looks like run, walk, run, walk.

And then when that starts feeling good, I will do 50, then I will do 100, and then before I know it I’m finished with two miles and I’ve basically just been in a counting meditation, just putting one foot in front of the other and just counting to the next number. It’s made it super easy for me.

My goal is to always be able to run a 5K. I don’t need to do big marathons or anything like that. I just want to be super balanced with, you know, a little bit of bike-riding because I love biking – it’s the most liberating feeling, bike-riding – as well as walking so I can hike and not ever be limited to wherever I travel and whatever I want to see, a little bit of running so if we have any kind of fundraisers or 5Ks, I want to be a part of it. I always want to be able to run that, even though it’s a run walk, I want to know I can do it. And yoga is just my lifeline. I think yoga is the absolute best for mental, emotional, physical spiritual, all of that; the best thing out there.

So, let’s talk a little bit about deconditioning and deicing because this is basically what you are planning and preparing for. The thoughts, the excuses, the reasons why you can’t do it, the procrastination, the self-sabotage is the conditioning. It is the old story, the habits, the behavior, all of that stuff that’s running.

Even I’m thinking in this particular incident where I, or anyone, goes to the doctor and they have something going on, they always, almost always tell you to stop doing what you’re doing. That was the biggest frustration in the fitness business is clients would come in, something like, oh my knee is bothering me, I have to wait and see what the doctor says.

And it’s all about protecting the body as if it’s going to break, you know, and this is where the mind-body syndrome, the TMS, this is what we’re talking about. It’s like, if you have an old injury, it’s not acute. It’s chronic. It’s just something that returns later and you feel every once in a while and that kind of stuff. That is not something that you’re going to break or ruin. Our bodies are super resilient. They know how to heal. They basically heal themselves in six weeks.

And then something comes up and it’s, “Oh I broke my ankle when I was eight and it still bothers me.”  No, that is the mind-body syndrome. That is what we’re talking about. So the deconditioning is getting rid of the suggestibility that this has to be a lifelong injury. That is not true.

I hear this all the time. Someone gets in a car accident – I had this happen this week with my massage therapist – and someone suggests, you’re going to have to get over it. It’s always going to be there. You’re going to feel this for the rest of your life. I’m like, that is not true, don’t listen, no, no, no, no, no. That’s conditioning.

Someone telling you that is conditioning and suggestible and our minds pick that up and draw it in and then we believe it and it’s not true. That’s actually what we’re working away from. We need to decondition our minds. We need to change those stories, these old habits and behaviors, this conditioning, these patterns. This is what’s holding us back from what we want.

Really think about what you want, need, desire.  It is available for you. I promise you, it is available for you. It’s available for me. It’s available for all of us. So think of deconditioning the way you think of deicing an airplane  So, you think about this, I remember sitting and we had ice on the wing and we were in the local area, so down here, we don’t have much ice and snow, but it was like a big deal. And it took like two hours for someone to come out to get a little two-inch piece of ice off.

And I remember, like, why is this such a big deal? And so then I’m looking it up, like, what’s the problem with having a little bit of ice? But it’s all about soaring and flying, being free of contaminates in order to take off safely. And then it adds extra weight and it disrupts the flow of air and the movement of the wings. So think about the conditioning and the deicing being kind of the same thing but the conditioning is of the mind. And so you can be free of this contamination in order for you to take off.

So as you’re creating this new vision, this new life, and if you bring the conditioning with you, it’s kind of like having that ice on the plane. It’s that ice on the wings. It’s just extra contamination and extra weight and it disrupts the flow from being really easy.

So if you plan for it, you do the work ahead of time, and then you prepared for the objections and then you continue, then you’re eventually going to reach your results in a way that’s more efficient, more effective, more probable, more likely and possible. The smoother the take off, then that transition into the new life is like you can do that with ease. You can do that with ease and flow and maybe more freedom.

The deconditioning, the deicing, the pruning, clearing, that’s the labor. That’s the actual labor, the contractions, the emotional pain body, the things that come up. If you can consciously choose to watch, it’s really an interesting story. It makes it crazy and it makes it fun. But I was watching myself watch myself as I’m doing this run-walk this morning and I was watching all of the stories.

I watched the part of me that got super excited because it was almost like grace, like a gift from heaven that this little toy was on the side with the Superman cape on it, like, power girl. And I was like, yes, yes, yes, you know. And then I get to the little dock and I’m doing my stretches and the sun’s coming up and it’s gorgeous. It’s foggy with the sun rising behind it.

And I put the little girl up on the ledge so I can take a picture of her on top of the water in the sun and she falls in the water. She’s face-down floating in the water. I was like, “No, my cheerleader just fell.”

And even that, learning even from that, little disappointing experiences that, hey, guys, the cheerleader is us, our responsibility. This is our job. This is our creation. This is our labor. We do not need an outside source to cheer us on because we have ourselves to cheer us on.

You’re doing this for yourself. It’s your responsibility to evolve and to grow and to make the plan. You make the plan and you set yourself up to overcome the obstacles for the thing that you want to create. So, if you want to a satisfied fulfilled life where you feel energized and joyful and successful in the way of fulfillment, it’s going to come from doing these things that are going to have a few rough edges that need to be ironed out, right?

So, that way, whatever you want is more accessible, more attainable. Just smooth out the edges, make the plan, deice, decondition, get rid of the things ahead of time, recognize that they’re going to come back. They’re going to sneak back in. They’re going to say, “Hey, don’t you remember, here’s a little reminder.” But it’s your job to not buy it. Like, no thank you, I realize you’re there, I’ll bring you along with me. I’ll put you in my back pocket. I’ll put you in my backpack. Or you can run alongside me, but I am doing this thing because I’ve made the decision and I’m committed to myself.

So, once you choose, once you decide that you want more, you make a mental note, recognize the objections that are going to happen ahead of time, and you make a plan for overcoming them so you know exactly what to do, you’re prepared. Commit 100% to yourself, to the thing, completely all in, no matter what.

It doesn’t matter if it’s foggy or if it’s hot or if your hair is clean or dirty. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. You just go with the commitment and then you cultivate. And the cultivating is actually the key to creating it because when you’re cultivating, you are doing it as if it were already so.

In other words, when I’m doing the walk-run, when I’m in action, I am already the person because I already feel what it’s going to feel like when I’m done. Like, I set that ahead of time. And so I make sure that that is set in my intention. And then as I’m cultivating, as I’m in the actual action of it, I am feeling what it’s like to be the person who already did it.

We’re going to talk more on that next week, but the person that already did it, that, in my opinion, is the key to creating it because if I’m already her, I’m already motivated, I’m already feeling good, I’m already in high energy. I’ve already achieved. All I’m doing is taking the steps into the creating and the becoming because, in my mind, I’ve already achieved it.  In my body, I’ve already achieved it. I already have gratitude for achieving it.

And so the only thing left is counting one, two, three, each step. I just count and move, count and move, and keep going forward, stop, take a few breaths, move some more, stop, take a few breaths, move some more. Like, it’s just this continual walk, run, walk, run, walk, run, and then the two miles are done. The time is up. And then I get the sensations and feelings that I want, which is the motivation.

I feel inspired even by myself. I feel inspired by my actions, by my results that I actually pulled it off and did it and I let myself off of the hook for having done it a certain way.

So there is no agenda of what it’s supposed to look like and how long is it supposed to take and how hard should I push. And so it’s got that self-acceptance, self-love, compassion, empathy, understanding as well as a little badassery, I’ll call it.

So there’s a little bit of pushing the edge, like when I know I’m at the end, I’ll just, in my mind, count for 25 more steps, and then 25 more steps. And that’s pushing the edge until I know – like when I felt the blister coming out of my foot, which is just part of the labor, it’s just one of the contractions, you’re possibly going to get the blisters I had. There was spider webs, there was blisters, there was sweat in my eyes. There was all sorts of things. Those are just like the contractions, you could say, in the labor.

Alright, so let me know. Feel free to come into the Integrative Life group if you want, like, practical guidance and support when you are doing the thing, whether it’s health or wealth or relationships, whatever it is that you are creating, you are welcome to join along in the new membership site. It’s called Integration Live. And this is where we have a belief boot camp, which is the very first class in the membership.

You can join anytime. They’re all recorded, they’re in the library. You can go back. But we would love to have you doing it along with us. This is not about just listening, this is about implementing it. It’s how you can take the practical steps, get the support, get the feedback, have the accountability, have the group, the community that’s actually celebrating with you as we’re all doing it together.

It’s only $39 a month. It’s super power-packed with masterclasses. We have myself and we have other mentors. It’s going to be super fun. I just want to show up and grow with you all and let’s just celebrate together. So I’ll let you know next week how the run is going. I’m committed, so hear me here, this is me saying I’m in, I’m doing it, here’s no turning around, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt will have myself back in 5K positioning. Alrighty, have a great week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Integrative Life Coach Training for Health and Wellness Practitioners! If you’re feeling stuck on your journey to mind body integration, head over to KimGuillory.com to download your Stability First Meditation today.