The Sham of “Your Best Self” Free Training
What if the pursuit of “Your Best Self” is debilitating your confidence, creativity, and success by sending you the wrong message daily.
Here’s a new message to send instead…
The problem with becoming Your Best You is what you are REALLY telling yourself underneath it all that causes you to never actual become Your Best Self.
We buy into the marketing to “be your best self” or “claim your best you” - and we start to compare ourselves to not just others but to our past selves, what we used to be, what we could have been if we “kept it up” and where we should be by now if we had been more of this or less of that.
When you do this you are negating the validity and worth of who you are right now and all the versions of you from the past. Is your 50 year old best self more valid, lovable and worthy than the 40 year old you? Is a one year old who can walk more worthy of love than a 6-month old baby who can only drool and roll over?
This striving to be the “best you” has us turn against ourselves; it shames us for not already being enough, deserving, worthy just as we are right now.
It has the flavor of “you are not there yet, there is still more work to be done.”
None of this marketing would work on us, we wouldn’t buy the lie, if on some level we too didn’t believe there was something wrong with us.
And it’s this notion has women turn against themselves to supplement or augment their worth, to prove they are deserving, and that they are enough. We end up exhausted trying to become our “best self” by depleting our adrenal glands, wearing out our nervous systems, and inflaming our bodies working overtime at proving our worth, our value and our validity…for a notion that is not even true.
You were born enough. Always have been and always will be. Just as you are, you are worthy of having a life you love. It’s time to stop entertaining these untrue perceptions that distort your value. And that starts with changing some deeply held limiting beliefs you have about yourself.
My overall personal approach is to identify a single, childhood wound that solidified into a belief that you are not safe, loved, don’t belong, aren’t allowed to need, etc. and then to address this belief on different levels; this is best outlined with this hierarchal pyramid.
When you can identify this source marker then you can start to unravel the pattern that has been running. You can see how prolific it’s been, and find the foundational belief so you can revise it at the source. This is always the most impactful when you can get to the earliest childhood memory of it (even if you don’t remember it). It’s like pulling out weeds at their roots - those weeds will not come back.
Level 3 - Outcome & Integration (top) Calibration of your new chosen pattern. Focusing on what you want now
Level 2 - Structure (middle) Inspect & Update Belief Patterns - how this decision has created a theme that has played out in your adult life. Rewiring the pattern at the subconscious level for a better experience
Level 1 - Foundation (base) Experience - what happened “the wounding event”, what was decided by your younger self
Level 1 - Identify the Foundational Experience
At this level, we start by identifying a single childhood signal (wound) you received (from your parents, a traumatic experience, etc.) that translated into the message that you were not safe, didn’t belong, it wasn’t okay for you to take up space, make mistakes, receive love, feel good enough, or worthy to have needs. This early experience is usually the source of an imprint that is transmitting your current unwanted behavior as an adult.
There are questions we ask to learn more about that foundational experience and how it translated into a belief of not being safe, worthy, loved, belonging, etc. Many times this is not an experience that someone remembers from childhood because it could an association to someone else’s upset. For example if a mother was stressed during pregnancy, then the baby will feel that stress from mom and associate it to themselves. There is no cognition, its an association that turns into a belief pattern later, like “I am too much” or “I am not enough to make my mom happy.”
This identifying step is done consciously at first, then we need to access the subconscious memory bank to find out when was the very first experience of this. Its not always something you remember or are even aware of, yet its the source wound that transmits the unwanted feelings, experiences and beliefs that are putting up blocks to your feeling safe, feeling worthy, deserving, lovable, etc.
The wrinkle people run into here is assuming they know the answer as to why they don’t have what they want or feel about themselves the way they want. They stop at the symptom - “I feel anxious or overwhelmed so I am going to do things to manage my anxiety or overwhelm.” This is helpful for a time, but it only address the symptoms, not the source of the anxiety or overwhelm at a deeper level.
When doing this step, whatever belief you had that is sourcing your unwanted experience, we look at it with respect, compassion and honor. This belief was adopted by your much younger self for good reason. It served a purpose, it had an intended positive outcome, when it was formed. Your younger self didn’t have the capacities or abilities you do today to make sense of what was happening to them or around them.
We find it is not useful to shame or reject these foundational beliefs that we’ve had, grown up with and are still operating with today, even if they have caused heartbreak and devastation. These beliefs were the best option that your younger self had available to make sense of what was happening in order to emotionally, and possibly physically survive at the time. We give them the respect they deserve for helping us survive that time in our lives.
Many times we have resistance in doing the deeper work because we fear what it will bring up or what we will have to feel. When you notice resistance, which could be in the form of irritation, dread, procrastination, fatigue, fear, sadness, repetitive exhaustion, emotional upset or a physical discomfort…answer these questions below.
These are your limiting patterns resisting change. These distractions are uncomfortable, justifiable and seem reasonable because these patterns do not want to change. These are the exact experiences we want you to write down here. They point us where to find limiting beliefs and stuck patterns that keep you feeling unworthy, unlovable, unsafe and not enough.
Alarm Bells Exercise
When you have resistance show up, go through these questions to get to begin to unpack & reduce the intensity of what’s really going on:
1. Describe the resistance that you are experiencing.
Example: irritation and overwhelm; I want to take a nap.
2. What is the main feeling that comes up with it? (Fear, anger, sadness, despair, hopelessness, etc.) Example: anxiousness, fear and upset.
Whatever was your answer, ask “(your above answer)___how so?” Example: “fear, how so?” or “fear of whom/what?” I am afraid of being crushed. I cannot breathe.
3. What are the physical sensations that occur with the feeling? Where in your body are the physical sensations located? (Chest, stomach, head, throat, neck, jaw, back, etc.) Example: Tightness in my chest, jaw and back of my head. Headache in my forehead.
4. What kind of self-talk, if any, goes with the resistance? Example: I cannot do this. I am not smart enough. I don’t know how, it’s too much. I’m going to fail.
5. Summarize the resistance in one sentence.
Example: If I cannot do this, because it’s too much, I will be crushed.
At this level we are trying to get to the root of the original belief, so we will ask specific questions of the subconscious to find out more information.
Taking the answer from #5 above: Summarize the resistance in one sentence: “If I cannot do this, because it’s too much, I will be crushed.”
Take yourself through these questions based on your answers to #5 above:
What was the age of the youngest version of you that first had this experience, even if it wasn’t in this context?
What was happening at this time?
Who was there? Who was not there?
What was the felt experience? Where did you feel it in your body?
What did you decide about yourself at this time?
What did you decide about the world?
*There are rewiring exercises we do in another training to shift the source belief or safety pattern that you uncovered with this Alarm Bells Exercise.
Personal Story:
I always resisted travel, even though I loved to travel when I’d actually get myself on a plane. I spent decades battling my love of travel and my resistance to going. Internally it was a storm of guilt of not letting myself go, mixed with the stress of my wanting to go.
Eventually I thought to look deeper at what was going on inside so I could have the freedom to travel without the stress or guilt.
I uncovered a belief I didn’t realize I had: “it wasn’t safe to explore the world.” This belief was install by my three year old self, not knowing how to process my father’s upset. I had walked out of the gated yard, as a curious toddler does, and my father yelled at me for doing it. He was trying to keep me safe on a busy ranch of trucks, cattle and horses. In that moment I was so upset by his yelling that I associated my desire to explore my world with fear I felt from being yelled at, which linked together to create the belief: “it’s not safe for me to explore the world.”
This is not a memory I remembered, or was ever told about. In fact I’m sure my father doesn’t remember it either. It was just part of that day visiting my grandparent’s ranch. Yet my three-year-old self definitely felt upset, unsafe and ostracized for having left the yard. And her decision “it’s not safe to explore the world” shaped my experiences of travel for decades to come and I didn’t know why.
Level 2 - Inspect & Update Belief Patterns
Inspection:
This is where we look into the “safety patterns” you adopted as a result of not feeling safe, worthy, alone, not allowed to be yourself, etc.
By doing this, it helps you see the theme or patterns that have been created that run through your life. Feeling unworthy can have patterns of not being worthy of money, love or good things. Feeling unlovable prevents deep connection in romantic partners; not feeling enough can cause health events in your body, discourage promotions at work, inability to speak up or tendencies to become people pleaser, feeling repetitively exhausted, etc.
These reoccurring themes create patterns in your life that are sourced from an initial belief or wound signal most likely from early childhood. It’s important to respect your theme’s positive intended outcome of why it got installed in the first place.
We all have multiple contradictory beliefs about almost everything. So you will have beliefs of being worthy, lovable, safe, and belonging, and that is good. The issue are these foundational ones that occur during the first few years of our lives, need to be inspected to insure there’s harmony between what we desire AND our allowing ourselves to have it.
Let me illustrate what happens in the brain in a condensed way to give you an idea.
Stage 2: Somewhere in your subconscious a much younger you decided it was not safe to ask for help. This creates an imprint. This imprint from decades ago, gets triggered & alarm bells start to go off in this part of your Reptilian brain; the part of your brain that is ONLY focused on your survival.
Stage 1: You decide you want to update your website. Seems simple enough, you may even be excited about doing it and all the possibilities of having a new look & feel for offering your services.
Stage 3: Since your Reptilian brain cannot distinguish between what is a real threat & what is an imagined threat - this triggered imprint of “I’m not safe” becomes a very real threat. The Reptilian brain (in an effort to keep you safe) then sends all sorts of messages/experiences to stop you from taking action on updating your website…..because that is what triggered your feeling of not being safe.
The younger version of you, who first experienced “it’s not safe to need help,” is creating the block, (overwhelm & anxiety), to what your adult self wants, an updated website…and you feel stuck.
Case Study:
Contradictory Beliefs
I had this client, where her one-year-old self decided “I cannot open this box.” She tried to get help, yet her parent was too exasperated to help her. And a bit irritated at being interrupted, (which happens in everyday life.) In that moment the child decided the world: “Its not a safe place if you need help.”
Even though its obvious from the outside that she’s lived much of her life getting help from others, she does’t grow her own food or make her own clothing, (none of us do life without the help of others in some way or form)…she still freezes up instead of asking for help.
Her younger self decided something that left an imprint that her adult self is struggling to overcome in her 48 years of life. She wants to build a new website, yet every time she tries to start doing it her brain references this imprint of feeling overwhelmed, anxious and freezing up at the thought of the potential “downward tail spin” that will ensue. “SO why bother with any of it” she decides. And it’s this response to the imprint that makes her feel “cut off from my authentic self and my dreams.”
It all just seems “too hard” b/c it’s a one year old trying to do something she does not have capacities for - opening a box without help. This seemingly simple experience created a foundational imprint that keeps her adult self from pursuing her dream of having passive income, selling services that people can do on their own…her words were “it cuts me off form my authentic self and my dreams.” How this shows up in her adult life is she experiences technology as a challenge for her and she is unable to ask for help.
After going through this framework and the steps to resource her younger self appropriately, she then felt more expansive, joyful, free to play in the sun and daydream about her new website. Her younger self felt happier and she felt she could ask for help now. She felt more playful. Within days this client was working on her website with no anxiety, worry, overwhelm or fear of the “downward tail spin” that discouraged her from doing these steps earlier.
When you discover these beliefs of your much younger self, don’t fall into the trap of shaming yourself for the decisions and actions that you did that you regret. These patterns were created to keep you as safe as they could, hence why we call them “safety patterns.”
As in my personal example above, not only was it not safe for me to explore the world, it also was not safe to explore new people, relationships or take adventurous career risks. I’ve had to give myself homeopathic doses of compassion since this pattern influenced so many areas of my life. Sure I still traveled, had relationships, and changed jobs, but I struggled through those actions in ways that were unnecessary due to this limiting belief.
Be kind to yourself, give yourself compassion for doing the best you could with the options you had. Our brain will not allow us to do certain things; our brain’s neurology lights up when it can repeat this unwanted cycle. It’s helpful to know, we always choose the best option on our menu…without exception. You are still doing it and your subconscious brain is still choosing the best option it knows it can survive. Not the best option your conscious brain knows it can survive. This puts these two parts of your brain at odds with each other.
These beliefs form patterns that create the themes of our life that tend to repeat themselves for years, such as: Are you striving for that next promotion to finally feel that you “made it”? Do you experience a roller coast of money where you have it, then it’s gone just as quickly. Do you have a hard time keeping a long-term relationship? Do you not speak up or set boundaries for yourself? Do you go on overdrive trying to not experience the anxiety or overwhelm of daily life?
Update Belief Patterns
Since your brain doesn’t update its programming every few years, like your phone, you have to do it manually. And when you do this, it also allows you add more desired options to your brain’s menu so that your subconscious (reptilian) brain can choose the best option without resisting it or sabotaging it.
Battle of the Brains
Cerebral Cortex (Conscious) Brain vs the Reptilian Brain (Subconscious)
These two separate parts of your brain are not on the same team.
Cerebral Cortex brain loves change, creativity, feelings; it holds visions of how good life can be, does conscious thought and language. It tracks for the quality of your life.
The Reptilian Brain resists change, even denies it because it is not sure that the change you want is survivable. It’s running off of old patterns from your first few years of life. Its only focus is your survival. This part of the brain is responsible for the Fight, Flight or Freeze Responses.
These two parts of your brain do not communicate, do not speak the same language and are not interested in the same outcome in the same ways. They battle each other often resulting in procrastination, anxiety, overwhelm, freezing up, irritation, etc.
For example, if you have a childhood limiting belief of “being seen is not safe”, then each time you try to promote your business, stand on a bigger stage or be more visible with who you are…your Reptilian brain is going to initiate the Flight, Fight or Freeze mode to keep you from doing those things.
(This typically shows up as symptoms of overwhelm, dread, procrastination, fear, confusion, anxiety, etc.) Your Reptilian brain is trying to prevent you from being “seen” because there’s a belief that you are not safe if you are seen. The Reptilian brain’s ONLY focus is your survival. This is how we can be very excited about the possibilities of doing a Tedx talk, yet never send in the application or write the speech. Our Reptilian brain overrides what the Cerebral Cortex wants (give a Tedx talk), and that has us freeze up and not take action.
We try to fight this with willpower and force - yet that is exhausting. And it’s not the best strategy for the long term because we are sending part of our brain into battle against another part. So in a battle against yourself, who wins?
This step is about giving your brain more options to choose from, options of your preferred choices for what you want now (travel the world with ease). Its about updating the options from what your 3 year old self thought was a good option for surviving the moment (don’t travel to stay safe) to the options you’d now prefer as an adult.
This is where we connect the subconscious brain, the Reptilian brain, to your conscious, Cerebral Cortex, so that new neuro-pathways and neuron nets can be formed allowing for these new choices to be on automatic.
You don’t have to affirm yourself into being more confident, or remind yourself to not people please - it just happens naturally. You have firm boundaries, you speak up and ask for what you need, you can see opportunities for what they are and better opportunities start to come your way. It allows for the Reptilian brain and the cerebral cortex to start to work together in ways they have not before. And they do it without the conflict and struggle; these two parts of your brain being on the same team allows for opportunities to show up with more ease.
So what do you want now?
Understanding that these are just limiting beliefs running, and knowing they are revisable…then the question is: what beliefs would you prefer to have instead of these “safety patterns” from childhood?
Its important to get clear about what you want. Sometimes we think we know what we want, but its really a strategy for what we want.
For example, people will tell me that they want more money. When I dig into what will having more money do for them, they eventually get to something like more freedom, joy, ease, etc. This is where they think they need more money in order to have more freedom, joy or ease - yet they can have more freedom, joy and ease now, without working harder to get more money. The money is a strategy to try and get what they want. Their having more freedom, ease and joy is much closer than they realize. And I bet what you want is much closer than you realize as well.
Here are a few questions to go through to get clarity about what you really want.
Clarity Exercise:
1. What would you like?
2. When you have that, what will having that do for you?
3. When you have that (#2 answer above), what will having that do for you?
4. When you have that (#3 answer above), what will having that do for you?
5. When you have that (#4 answer above), what will having that do for you?
6. How will you know when you have this good thing (#5 answer)?
7. What will it feel, taste, smell and look like when you have (#5 answer)?
8. Who will it most affect when you have this good thing (#5 answer)?
Once we know what you want we can rewire the patterns that prevent you from having what you want. We can anchor in other resources to help shift the belief blocks that your younger self holds to be true. We do this in another training (Your Wealthy Self course) I offer in a way that your Reptilian brain doesn’t resist the change, it knows it can survive having other good things on the menu to choose from.
Personal Story continued:
One Sunday afternoon I took my favorite tools, for connecting these two parts of my brain for creating how I wanted to feel about travel. I used them to rewire my inability to explore the world so I could travel with freedom and ease. The next day, on Monday, I got an invite to attend an acquaintance’s birthday party in New Orleans where I’d have to fly across the country, be with people I didn’t know and explore new parts of New Orleans.
My previous pattern would have said, “Aakk! No thanks I can’t do that.” My whole body would have set off alarm bells of fear, anxiety, stress, and avoidant tendencies. And I would have felt relief turning down the invite immediately due to my “work schedule.”
Guess what?! None of this went through my mind, I didn’t have to weigh the pros/cons - I just booked my flight & hotel, invited a friend to join me and it was done. It actually took me five days to realize I said yes & booked my travel without hesitation. It occurred as easy as if I was thirsty and went to get some water. It was that natural and unconsciously easy. No fretting, no resistance, no dread to work through or guilt to wrestle. I wanted to go, so I took the steps to do it. And it was a blast!
In rewiring old belief patterns it’s important to use professionals who can hold space, respect your experience, who know what they are doing and have years of experience. Not just someone who’s taken a 90-min online course in shifting limiting beliefs and got certified. You want to treat your subconscious with reverence because it always says “yes” to whatever you believe and it has phenomenal power to manifest what you believe. So if you are not getting the results or experiences you desire, then there is most likely a conflicting belief running in your subconscious. The good news is that your conflicting beliefs are revisable.
Level 3 - Integrate Desired Beliefs
At this level we create new neurological resources for a more useful experience now. Form new neuro-networks for how the brain processes this single childhood signal by using how the brain is naturally designed so that it will not resist the change we want to make.
There is a period where we need to calibrate how the revisions and resources we’ve added have aligned in your body. We calibrate the integration by checking on various aspects:
Does your younger self need more resources?
Are there any objections or resistance? If so, what?
What else might be useful for this younger you?
Reposition the imprint into the appropriate time & space.
Resource the collective younger versions of you.
Calibrate the unwanted experience - how is it now?
Time for integration, turbulence and stabilization.
Note: When you are trying to manifest something, yet there is the fear that you might not get it (because you don’t feel worthy, deserving, enough, etc.) that fear (which is likely based in childhood foundational beliefs), can negate or neutralize the intent to create what you want. This is why it’s so important to sure up the foundation of your beliefs about yourself and not just power through them using your willpower or to cover them with a fresh coat of paint, like chasing the newest version of “Your Best Self.”
What most people do that doesn’t work are mantras, vision boards and affirmations…because these are top-level activities. It’s like layering frosting over moldy, stale cake and expecting it to taste delicious. When it’s just a fresh coat of paint on a dilapidating building.
There is deeper work to do first. Once the foundation is addressed the top level activity will have more significant impact. You will be able to use your intention and vision board to create what you want…but you can’t expect to have results when the underlying foundation is crumbling.
Granted these practices of visions boards & mantras can be useful. But if you had a leaky faucet under your sink, you would not put a picture of a fixed sink with the words “you are whole and in perfect order” next to it….and expect the leak to go away.
No, you need someone to get in there and do the work.
Client Example: Real Estate sales person - did the deeper foundational work, and now she looks at her vision board for the number of houses she wants to sell each year and people show up from out of nowhere to hire her. She does little marketing.
By the time we are 6 years old, everything we believe about our worth, deserving, value, safety, and lovability is in place, if not much, much earlier in our lives. And the problem is, our brains don’t update the programming they run every few years, like your phone does. Your brain has been running the same impoverished beliefs about your worth, deserving, and lovability since you were under six years old.
And being a women adds new stresses from hidden agendas, bias, micro-aggressions,…even our own discriminations against ourselves can set off our safety patterns of not being worthy, good enough or safe to be loved, hence putting us into this need to prove our worth through additional struggle.
This is what keeps us in these patterns of always striving to be better, be more worthy, be enough, doing version 2.0 for this decade. There is no better version of you.
There are multiple versions of you. And all of them are just as equally precious, beautiful, worthy, deserving, lovable and valuable.
There is no better version in the eyes of the Universe, All That Is, God. You will continue to grow and expand in your life, but that doesn’t negate or devalue the previous version of you who hadn’t quite learned that lesson yet.
Every version of you is equally precious, beautiful and worthy of whatever it is that is important to you. There is nothing you need to do, produce, be or achieve - you already are enough.
If you are interested in doing the deeper work to sure up your foundation and have a greater sense of worth, deserving, and enough-ness just as you are…that is what I do.
My Your Wealthy Self Course focuses on revising the beliefs that has us turn against ourselves and create unneeded struggle to feel worthy or good enough.
This for women who are really wanting to unapologetically embodying the truth of who they are: beautiful, precious, enough and worthy already…just as they are.
I am not a psychologist - but I have proven tools on how to transform your experience that I currently use to coach and teach workshops. Where we do many key practices to journey toward a better sense of self worth, deserving and validly within yourself and in the world.
Next Steps:
Regardless of whether you work with me or not, let me offer some next steps because you can’t go back to the old way now.
Don’t resist your experience. It’s valid, it has valuable information for shifting from what you don’t want to what you do.
Give yourself homeopathic doses of compassion. You are always doing the best you can, choosing the best option on your menu. It’s not your fault you freeze up, shame yourself or can’t overcome your procrastination every time, it’s how your brain is designed.
Do an Alarm Bells exercise when you start to feel the safety patterns take hold. Breathe - take a walk outside.
Do the Clarity exercise on what you really want afterward taking a walk and doing the Alarm Bells exercise. What you really want is probably much closer than you imagine.
Don’t get into a battle with yourself where you shame, blame or try to contort yourself into being something different. Find ways to shift the internal beliefs so you can be your own best ally.
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