Letting the Process Reveal Itself to You

Letting the Process Reveal Itself to You

Tell me, how many morning routines have you tried?

What about time management systems?

I’m here to tell you that there’s nothing wrong with ANY of them.

There’s also NOTHING WRONG with you if it didn’t work out for you.

On this week’s podcast, I share stories of when I didn’t follow the prescriptive methods, not even my own, and how much more trust I have in myself because I let the process reveal itself to me.

I turned embodiment on its head this weekend by distilling it to one simple question and honestly letting go of the rest.

Body, what are you craving right now?

The answers surprised me and didn’t exactly match the way I thought embodiment should look like. In doing so, I found what was really underneath the anger that I was feeling.

Listen HERE for the full episode.

This episode is especially for you if you want proof that you can trust yourself over the gurus, coaches, mentors and best practices floating around on the web (yes, including me).

P.S. True embodiment starts from within, and it can be super simple. It’s the hearing the messages from the body that we aren’t practiced at anymore. If you want to increase your sensitivity, are super curious to see how I, as an Enneagram type One, self-described Perfectionist, was able to go from in my head to in my body and would like to know my approach, then you can check out my course right here.

Resources:

Embodiment for Emotional Mastery: https://www.dominiquevandal.com/offers/UoA4NE4f/checkout 

Pick Your Perfect Project mini series: https://www.dominiquevandal.com/pick-your-perfect-project 

Songs mentioned:

Earth Melodies by Ekaterina Shelehova

Rún by Skáld

Transcript:

Welcome every One, you are listening to The Enneagram One Project Podcast, Ep 20 Letting the Process Reveal Itself to You.

What if you threw out everything you’ve ever heard from the gurus, the coaches and the mentors who told you HOW you should do something?

I won’t lie, I have absolutely done this with my clients in the past and might fall into it at times still because it’s so conditioned. It sounds something like “in order to get the best sleep ever, you need to take these steps” or “the only way to loose weight is by doing these things”. I think what’s missing in this rhetoric is the part where we admit, as coaches and the like, that these are the steps that have worked FOR us and that we are offering them for you to consider in your experiment towards reaching your goal to sleep better, lose the weight, whatever.

I do my best to say this to my clients but I don’t always succeed, sometimes I forget and sometimes, I think it’s implicit but I’ve come to realize that it’s not. Regardless of who you follow and take advice from, you are unique, you need to try for yourself and adapt following trial and error. The one-size-fits all approach is a lie. It strengthens the conditioning that you don’t know what’s best for you and keeps you looking outside of yourself for answers.

In fact, I invite you to take a moment right now and think of all the checklists, guides and different ways you’ve followed someone else’s advice and it fell flat for you. How often in that experiment did you ask yourself what you liked, what you didn’t like, and most importantly, how you could modify it to better suit you? My personal habit as a One has been to try the thing, then make it mean something about me that I needed to improve because clearly something was wrong with me if I didn’t get the promised result OR I’d get super angry and act like a victim about it, blaming them, etc. all because I didn’t ask myself how I could make it work for myself with my current personality, my current circumstances, and so on.

Even when you “know” what works for you, I offer that you are forever evolving and changing so what worked when you were 20 is probably not what will work when you’re 42. That’s usually pretty obvious with fitness, body concerns and sleep but it’s also true of beliefs that worked for you in the past and just about anything else.

What I try to do is go through my work first and then give you my practical tips with what I hope is a healthy sprinkle of “try for yourself, and then adjust”. In any case, if I’ve not been clear in the past, that’s on me and I’m being explicit in this episode. 

For instance, I have a course that’s available on my website called Embodiment for Emotional Mastery. This is what worked for me to reconnect with my body after being so very disconnected. I think it’s the most straightforward approach for Enneagram Ones and other Perfectionists and know that that is my opinion, based on my experience and based on the feedback from clients who have done it. If you’re interested in checking it out, I’ll have the link in the shownotes for you.

In today’s episode, I am going to share with you what my experiment has been like in tuning in to myself as opposed to calibrating to something outside of myself. In both cases, I hope that you’ll be able to appreciate that behind my willingness to try this experiment is the trust in myself that no matter what the outcome, I will still be my best ally, I will not make the outcome mean anything about myself other than I tried and I learned something.

The first example is of someone that told me how wonderful this new thing they were doing was going to be for me and a group I am part of. Later in the week, I wake up to news that illuminated the rest of the story, the part they hadn’t told me about. This new thing was going to impact me and people I care about, it’s still unclear how exactly, but it will. 

A little background, I have been holding on to grievances and offences by this particular someone for a while. They would say or do something and I’d convince myself that there was no need for this frustration, and I’d let it go. I guess I didn’t really let it go. This time is when it boiled over and my immediate reaction was to get very angry at the injustice. Hello type One! My body had tried to tell me, I’d get a stiff neck whenever I was with this person and a strain to my voice.

I woke up Saturday morning in a mood. Everything irritated me, I irritated me. Normally, I’d have done an embodiment practice similar to what I’ve been describing on the podcast. I’d have put on a playlist for music that helps to liberate emotions, become intimated with the emotion, and allowed my body to express it. This time, I couldn’t do it. So I gave myself permission to allow the process to reveal itself to me.

The only step required is a question. I asked my body, ok, what are you craving right now? I had heard the song Earth Melodies by Ekaterina Shelehova the day before and my body said more. So I listened to it, my body didn’t move however, it said more so I went to that “more like this” in my music app and it suggested “Rún” by“ Skáld. I did not question it, I followed the process as it was being shown to me. It’s what I needed to get deep into the shadow of this emotion and find the hidden message. I couldn’t get close to the emotion before because it wasn’t anger, it was violated. 

I only found the truth in the anger because I didn’t follow the usual method, I allowed the process to reveal itself to me, trusting I could handle it. I did spend the rest of the day getting intimate with that feeling of violated. I’d get as close to it as I felt safe to do and then I’d take a pause, do other things, live my life and then do it again.

I’d find my head start to spin in overthinking and worst case scenarios to feel less violated and I’d lovingly say to myself, yup - it makes sense that you’re doing this and now we’re taking some breaths, going to the body and asking what it craves now. So each time my survival mechanism kicked in, I supported myself by going inside. Sometimes, it was solitude and sometimes it was connection with safety, my husband. I answered from deep within and not from the mind.

I totally get that this might sound too esoteric for some and that’s ok. It’s what’s true for me now and it doesn’t have to be what’s true for you to still see the gift of calming the brain of the spin out, not using anyone else’s method, and being open to letting your own answers guide you. It’ not my usual process yet it was what I needed and I wouldn’t have seen that had I stuck to trusting the process over trusting myself.

There’s another example I want to share with you because it’s a little cheeky and goes against current ideas of how to have the best morning and overall day. As much as I love a good guide with a laid out routine, I realized I do better when I follow my own internal guide and it might change from time to time and that’s ok.

I used to be very strict with my calendar. At some point, I’d wake up before everyone else, would do some yoga and journal. Love the idea, was ok for a while and then not so much. One day I woke up an hour before my alarm for the yoga. I chose to stay in bed and not do that thing where you get out of bed right away and start your day. I went against self-development convention. I didn’t know it then, but I was letting the process reveal itself to me.

In that hour before my usual yoga, I had inspiration after inspiration. Things that had been unclear or that I was trying to make a decision about became clear, the class I was not finding a topic for became known to me. I took my cellphone and typed up some notes, also against convention that says not to pick up your phone while in bed.

I took notes of my inspiration and more came. I’d put my phone down, close my eyes and more became clear. How fun is that? I actually benefit immensely from that time in bed before the alarm goes off where my mind wonders and I don’t break the flow when I grab my phone to take notes. It’s actually when I take pen and paper to journal that my mind goes blank.

There isn’t one way. There’s the way someone tried and for whom it worked and that’s why they’re sharing it now. It doesn’t mean anything about you if it doesn’t work for you and you can always find what works for you by trying and adjusting. The modification part can only come from you. Better yet, I have found that for me, being open to the process revealing itself to me, letting go of controlling what it should look like based on best practices, is when I get to know myself more and support myself at the deepest level.

I often give myself space now to recalibrate to myself whatever that may be. I am able to do that because I’ve learn to trust myself over the gurus, coaches, mentors and best practices. As an Enneagram One and Perfectionist, getting to that point where you are your best ally, where you trust that you can support yourself no matter what, that is true freedom. I sincerely hope that you give yourself a chance. My guess is that once you live by following yourself as guide, that you’ll live a life with a lot less frustration and a lot more satisfaction. And if you want a coach in your corner that will support your journey, then I’m the coach for you.

Love to each and every One!

Thank you so much for listening to The Enneagram One Project podcast, your go-to podcast for all things One.

If you were inspired by today’s topic and would like to make a project or goal for yourself that revolves around it, I’d love to support you in my coaching program.

We’ll use this project to help you become fierce at making decisions you love. It’s a win-win; you’ll reach your goals with more efficiency and become super solid in how you make decisions resulting in a quieter inner critic and more self trust.

For more information, head over to my website dominiquevandal.com look at the top of the page for the work with me tab. Can’t wait to meet you!