Ep 105: Getting Out of Your Head and Into Your Heart

In this week's episode, I talk about my decision to ratchet back the number of clients I'm working with in my private practice, as well as some things I've learned about overthinking in the past year.

You'll learn:

• why  overthinking doesn't always serve us
• why sometimes you just need to let things "marinate" a little longer to avoid creating something subpar or inauthentic
• how you can practice dropping into your heart and inner knowing to help you stop overthinking
• Why it's not bad to think (just don't overthink!)

=== RESOURCES ===

Episode # with Talia Joy: The 5 Intuitive Types
Check this episode out to learn more about intuition and how you can practice tuning in.
CLICK HERE

How to Create the Life You Want FREE workbook
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Schedule a Discovery Call ...
...to learn how I can help YOU stop overthinking so you can reduce stress and anxiety, be more productive, AND bring more peace and joy into your life!
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Transcript

0:51

Well, hello friends, and welcome back to real, brave and unstoppable. It's been a couple of weeks and I have to apologize to those of you who are loyal listeners and are waiting for a new episode every week. You know, I do my best to be able to do that. And I know that when there isn't a new episode there, I know I follow several podcasts where I'm like looking forward to the next episode. So if I let you down, I am sorry for that. And. I also want to share, I've had some interesting developments in my life over the last couple months. If any of you listening, if you've ever dipped your toe into entrepreneurship. It's hard, right? It's really hard. It's very uncertain. From month to month, you just don't really know what you're going to get, especially in a newer business. And I'm also a single mom. So I've gotten to a place where I've made the decision to step back a little bit from my practice, to only take on a handful of clients. And so I, well, I actually am going to be working for a company as a coach doing mental health coaching and I'm super excited about it. I'm really excited to learn new things, work with different people or, you know, new people and, just have a new experience while I kind of regroup with my business and kind of, really think about what I want it to be. And that's a vulnerable share for me, because I think, you know, as a business owner, we all want to look like, we've got it all under control. Right? We've got, we've got our shit together. And it's not that I didn't have everything under, you know, it didn't have things under control or didn't have my shit together. It really doesn't have anything to do with that. It just has to do more with what's right for me at this time. And also being an entrepreneur can be a really lonely thing. You know, it's, it's just me and I sort of was craving a little bit more connection in my life right now. So, yeah, so I'm still coaching privately. I just am really, really ratcheting back how many people I'm going to work with. So over, over the last few months there, you know, people that were with me and finishing out a program. I've gotten myself to a place where I have like one, maybe two spots open. So if you're interested in coaching with me privately, you can reach out and find more information about that. But that will be about all I have available for the next six months. So the lesson though, we can always, we can always bring a lesson into this, right. The lesson is just always being flexible with your expectations. In the past, I've been someone who's been very much like I would've, viewed taking a step back and taking a, uh, a full-time job or a part-time job with another, you know, for some working for someone else, I would have thought of that as a failure. And today I don't. I just think about it as, I was able to take, take a step back from where I was, and I was able to see what was working for me, what wasn't working for me. And then I made a decision that served me and served my family, you know that the best decision for me and my family in this moment. And that is, you know, it will probably change. My, my plan is to eventually go back to full-time private practice. I'm sort of re-evaluating, you know, what. What I want to help people with exactly. And I have aspirations to do a little bit more with helping people live a healthy lifestyle and, you know, with movement, mind, body, soul, and really learning how to create and maintain a healthy lifestyle while also caring for themselves and looking at the patterns that keep them stuck. So There's a lot of stuff marinating in my head, so to speak. And that brings me to today's topic actually. In the past, you know, I would have over-thought this. This whole thing, like, you know, shifting the core of my business and you know, who I coach, what I help people with, what the, you know, what the problems my clients face are. I would have over-thought it to the point where it wasn't what I wanted it to be because there was too much thinking-too much brain going into it and not enough heart. And so one of the things I wanted to talk about today is overthinking. And how that does and doesn't serve us. And one thing. Well, one of the most important lessons that I've learned in say the last year and a half. Was... I was in a program for an advanced certification and stirred up a lot of stuff at me. Right. Good coaching programs always do. But my mentor was constantly... if I would start talking and it was clearly coming from my brain. You know, thinking was talking, she would constantly interrupt and say, get out of your head and it, to be honest, it kind of pissed me off. But there was a lot of value in it. You know, as I kind of. Grew to like accept her way of being in that way. It taught me some things about when my brain doesn't serve me. There was a point last summer where I was trying to kind of, tweak my offerings and how I, you know, how I helped people. And, I was, I was so confused with how I wanted all this to come together. And quite honestly, like in, you know, September-ish I had kind of that same feeling of like, how do I want to marry all of these things that I love? And I want to help people with how do I marry all those things? But, um, last summer I was in a similar place. And when I have a lot of ideas in my head, I always have a lot of ideas in my head. I'm one of those multi-passionate people who I just, I have a lot of interests. I have a lot of ideas. I am a very possibility driven person. Most of the time. And I had all this stuff in my head and I didn't know how to get it out into like one program or one offering. And it was stressing me out. It just felt like chaos and confusion and nothing was coming. And the stuff that was coming out was just not like authentic and just not real. So my mentor, she coached me on confusion and what we came to was, What if. What if being confused and overwhelmed with ideas was just like, there was nothing to do with it that it was just there and it's okay for it to just be there because maybe it's not done like, you know, Quote unquote cooking yet. And I loved that so much. And it's been one of the greatest lessons that I've learned in my more recent years. So to kind of expand on In my years of coaching, one thing that I see from a lot of people. And again, including myself, is that it is very common to overthink things. Most people have a really difficult time dropping into their heart or their intuition. And really listening to their inner knowing. Why is that? Well, I think it's cause we, our brain wants to keep us protected and wants to keep us safe. And so when we think things, we sort of, it introduces this feeling of control or we're trying to create some certainty. You know, with things. And you know, maybe we're thinking like for me, I think I would overthink because I wanted it to be perfect or, you know, so there are these fear patterns that we have in us that cause us to do that overthinking. And then there's the question. What happens to us as people when we overthink things? So just think about that for a minute for yourself. And when you are done listening to this podcast and you get to a a quiet place. Maybe pull out a journal and journal on this for yourself. But some of the things that come to mind for me are when I overthink it introduces stress. I mentioned confusion, chaos, overwhelm. Also when we are overthinking things. We're in our brain. And, and we're thinking through a lens or a filter that contains all of these stories and limiting beliefs et cetera, et cetera, patterns, all of those things we're thinking through that filter. So we're not able to really see things clearly. We're not, you know, we're not thinking from a place of clarity, we're thinking from a place of, you know, kind of, I've talked about having dirty glasses. You know, we're thinking or seeing with our dirty glasses on, and we're not really getting that clear picture of what might be really important And how we want to proceed. That's in alignment with our truth and our values. Overthinking also creates, like I mentioned before, it just creates a lot of confusion and chaos and overwhelm. When there's too much stuff up there, it's really for me anyway. And I know people that I've talked to when there's too much stuff up there in your brain, it's just really hard to sift through it, to see what is important and you know, what's true. What's not true. And, you get, you can get to a point where you just really need to get stuff out. It's like a volcano that's ready to erupt. So it does, it causes a lot of stress and, Uncertainty, a lack of clarity. It really puts us into places that don't feel. In alignment, they don't feel good. And then when we overthink, like I mentioned, with my situation, Everything I was, you know, coming up with, in that overthinking place, it was fragmented. It didn't feel like me, it didn't feel authentic and it's almost like when we're overthinking, we're creating to avoid something. Then, you know, like we're avoiding not having it done or, you know, looking like a failure or whatever it is recreating to avoid something rather than creating to create something that is true and beautiful. So let's talk about thinking through, like I mentioned, When we overthink all of that thinking is, well, anytime we think we're bringing in our own. Our own experience, we're thinking You know, our own filter. It's the stuff we tell ourselves lens. So how can that impact your decisions when you're in overthinking? Well, let's go through some examples. I used the example of perfectionism. So let's start there. If my story is I never get anything. Right. But to me, right. Means perfect. So that's my story. I never get anything, right. I'm not good at anything because my measuring stick is perfect. So when I overthink things, that story is, is clouding You know, the story of, I have to get this perfect is clouding me. And that puts a lot of unnecessary pressure. So, you know, I might spiral the stories might spiral, well, I have to have this perfect. So otherwise I'm not good enough. And then it might turn into, but I don't, but I don't know what I want this to be. What if it was this? No, that's not good Um, what else could I do? That's better. And then, oh, this is better. But then. But then you start thinking about it again. Oh, that's not as good as so-and-so. So I can't do that. Like you see where I'm going with this, right. So overthinking it's like a trap. Like you get into it and your stories can actually make your thinking super unhelpful. Or let's think about a relationship. Let's just say you have a story or a narrative that, that describes what your perfect partner should be, should be like, you know, what qualities that person should have, how they should show up for you. A lot of shoulds. So you have a lot of shoulds that are, you know, clouding your filter. And so you start thinking about is this person the right person for me. So that, that story, that narrative is gonna cause that thinking to all be about how they're not measuring up. X Y and Z. And you might actually really miss the, the inner knowing of like, oh, but this feels good. And, you know, you're just very stuck in your head about what it should be like. So, if you didn't, if you weren't thinking through that lens. If you didn't have that story, you might have a very different view of your partner. Those are just a couple of examples of how thinking through our own unique you know, brain or own unique lens, that is created through our experiences, our lived experience, how that can affect our decisions and the way we show up in the world. So really what I want to offer you today is that what if, what Instead of when you're not sure about something or you're asking yourself a question or, or wanting an answer to something, what if, instead of going into your brain and, you know, going through the pros and cons, which is fine to do that too. I was fine to do that or an Eisenhower matrix or whatever it is, Instead of doing that first or instead of solely relying on that, what if you were to just. Get still. Get quiet. Maybe put a hand on your heart. And just feel into it. Close your eyes. And just see what comes. Now, this is something that without practice is really hard to trust. And I trust me, I have been there, I've been there and sometimes it can be really hard to trust our inner knowing because we haven't really tried to listen to it before. But I promise you, we all have a very strong inner knowing and it, every one of us has it if you just learn to listen to it. And you start to be present and look for signs, feel into signs that your, your heart, your intuition, or your gut is talking to you. So that means instead of automatically jumping into being stressed about having the answer or making a decision or creating something,. You know, if the answer isn't clear, Drop in. Drop in and feel into it. If you can't, if nothing comes. So this is the second part of that. If nothing comes, most of us tend to even overthink even more because we feel like we should have the answer we want to know right now. We want to know what to do. We want to know what it's going to look like. We want to know what the experience is going to be like. We want to know right now. Uncertainty is very, very difficult for the human brain to sit with. But what if. That means when you just don't have an answer. What if that means you're not supposed to have it yet. Because it's not done, like I said before, not done cooking. Let's use art as an example. If you're an artist, the pressure to create something when it's not done like cooking in your brain yet, it's really difficult to create something that you love. Right. So, same thing with like a musician or a songwriter or a composer. If you've seen the Broadway show Hamilton, Lin manuel Miranda said that the, the song, my shots took a year for him to compose. a year for him to write. It's crazy. Right? So it wasn't done cooking. So he let it sit. All right. So what if we were to do that with our own life stuff? You know, if you're in a relationship, you're not sure about you don't have the answer, and, you know, I think with relationships, especially for, for those of us who it's our second... you know, we've been married, divorced, or we've, we've just exited a really longterm relationship and are in a new one. We kind of want to like, have it figured out. You know, is this, should I be wasting my time here or And what if, if you don't know the answer or what if you're just not supposed to have the answer yet? You're supposed to just come back to the present moment and be with the experience and see what comes. Something, that's not easy for a lot of us to do it takes practice. So let's go back to, I want to just jump back to when I talked about intuition and listening for your inner knowing really tuning into your heart. There's an episode way back when... I'll put the episode number in the show notes... with Talia Joy. She talked about, intuition and the five different types of intuition. And we talked about ways you can practice tuning into that. One of my favorite ways to practice intuition is just to do it with simple little things. Like make a game out of it. You know, how many of you out there go to a restaurant and you sit and pore over the menu for like ever? You're like the last one does decide. And when the server comes and takes everyone's order and every, everyone else knows what they want. You're like, oh, I'll go last. Raise your hand. So instead of that, maybe just scanning the menu and then just tuning in to see what does my body want right now? What does my inner knowing say that I want right now? Or, you know, if you go to the refrigerator to get a snack. What is my inner knowing my knowing or my body really say that I want? Or, you know, if you're going to watch a TV show, like just kind of tune in, what do you know anything small? What do I want to wear today? Just kind of see what comes. Those are great ways to practice, leaning into it. And also just getting really still and present. Meditation can be a really great way to just be with the present moment and sort of just get quiet and see what comes up. Really important there. So that's something else you can try. Even just being mindful of the present moment, if you're taking a walk and you're just, instead of being in your head, thinking about all the things that are on your to-do list, maybe you, you know, just drop into your body and feel your feet touching the ground, or you just notice the breath and how it feels as it it goes in and out of your body. Those are just some ideas for you. I also want to be clear that I don't think it's bad to be in your head. You know, it's not bad to think about things it's not bad to weigh your options or look at pros and cons, and look at logistics. That's a not a bad thing. It's just that sometimes, sometimes it will serve you better to kind of let go of that a little bit and just drop into to your inner, your inner self, your higher self. I like the term inner knowing. You're wise self. You're wise self, your inner knowing like your higher self, whatever you want to call it. It always knows the right answer. And sometimes it's really hard to hear it because like your brain does get in the way. But it always does know. So I want to leave you with that today. So I hope that was helpful. We're doing some shorter episodes lately, just because my schedule has changed a lot and I still want to be able to bring new episodes every week or so, if I miss a week here and there just be patient with me and reach out and say hi! One thing before I go, is this overthinking and tuning in to your inner knowing is something I help people with all the time. And it's something that I've been on my own journey with and have a ton of experience with because I'm somebody who, my default is definitely to go to my head... But I help people with us all the time and it really, really sets the foundation for some of the deeper work I do with clients to be able to navigate life in a really authentic way. So, if, you know, you struggle with that. If you struggle with tapping into your inner knowing, remember I do have one or two spots open for private coaching. So, if you would like help with that, please reach out. You can go to my website and fill out the a contact form, or you can just email me at kortney@kortneyrivard.com. Have a great rest of your week and I will be back soon!