In the first half of the year, during my season of rock bottom, I’ve done nearly every imaginable healing modality there is. From the “scientifically/societally” approved ones to the more esoteric leaning to change my circumstances. They were not easy, nor were they cheap (but also a big thank you to the friends who have offered their gifts and talents for free to help me).
What I’ve noticed, though, was that I’d feel good for a few days after a session, and then I’d find myself back in my spiral and feeling like the universe hates me right after.
I genuinely thought that maybe my damage was so much worse than I thought because nothing seemed to be working.
Or maybe I was doing something wrong because if I was doing something right, I should be seeing some changes.
I was so used to over-optimizing for everything that even when it came to healing myself, I was still trying to be a high-performer. 😂
My inner dialogue was pretty much like this:
I constantly asked myself, “Am I ok now?” Is this “ok, ok enough? Lol, I constantly measured my level of ok-ness.
And if the answer was yes that day, I’d immediately follow it up with “well, then why do things still suck?!”.
And if things still suck, then clearly there was something I wasn’t doing correctly.
Everybody kept telling me to just give it time. And by everybody I mean, my therapist, my acupuncturist (both of them), my energy healer, my friend, Andrea Hypnotherapist who is also my hypnotherapist. If I were still an active practicing Catholic, I would probably add my confessor to that list.
But when you’re at rock bottom, time feels like the enemy. You didn’t want to spend one more day there. Because every day in it feels like being stabbed in your eyeball by a paper clip. But,at the same time, it feels like there’s no way out either.
As time went on, and my frustration grew, it turned out that I WAS, in fact, doing something wrong*.
So let me share with you what I was doing wrong and how I course-corrected, just in case this might be the one change you can make to get that job finally or that promotion, or even change the trajectory of your career (or maybe even more!)
*I feel weird saying that I was doing something wrong. Because I personally believe there’s no wrong or right way to healing. But I guess what I mean by this was that there were crucial shifts that I needed to do myself that I took for granted.
What I was doing wrong*:
I kept waiting for my circumstance to become better before I allowed myself to think and feel better.
In response to my frustration, my coach advised me to observe what was going on in my mind. Same thing that my yoga teacher has been saying every class, but I never followed it until my coach asked me to do the same thing.
Observing the conversations I was having in my head: as in what was I telling myself about me, other people, about my life.
When I finally did it, man, what a shit show.
Even when I was seemingly having fun, all I could see was what could be wrong. I worried about how people would take what I said, my Spanish grammar, and even about ordering the wrong thing from the menu.
In short, the conversations I was having with myself, inside my head, were the complete opposite of what I wanted me and my life to start to look like.
I was constantly pointing out to myself all of the things that were wrong — about me, about my life, about other people. Nothing ever was going right in my head.
Ever heard of the saying, “Where attention goes, energy flows”?
I was paying so much attention to the things that I didn’t want.
And whether it was the universe, my energy, or my RAS that was responding, I kept getting shown the exact same thing that I was complaining about. Effectively negating all the things I’ve been doing for “healing” by neutralizing all of them with where my attention was going.
I put myself in a stalemate.
Have you been feeling like you’re stuck in your career? For that promotion to be awarded, for that job offer to be sent to you? Or maybe for that clarity to finally grace your mind so you can finally figure out what are the right next steps for you?
I can help! Let’s take a look at what’s going on in your mind that’s blocking you from achieving your goals.
Book a one-off problem solving session OR we can talk about what continued coaching support can look like so I can help you achieve your goals in a way that’s more fun and easy for you.
Change yourself, change your life (but…)
In the spiritual communities, a lot of people talk about how you don’t really manifest what you want. You manifest who you are.
With my therapist, we talked a lot about how our identity is the foundation of whatever it is that we’re experiencing.
Meaning to say, you want to change your circumstances? You better change yourself first.
When I talk about changing oneself first before one can expect a change in one’s circumstances, I’m not coming from a place of “there’s something wrong with you”. Or that you’re not enough.
I’m coming from the opposite direction.
That, in fact, you are enough. That there’s nothing wrong with you. Actually, you are perfect as you are right now.
But what I’m asking you to change is your answer to this question:
“Do you honestly see yourself that way? Do YOU TRULY see yourself as enough?”
Because for me, when I observed my inner conversations, I pretty much saw every iteration that one could ever conceive of the statement, “I am absolutely NOT enough.”
Without realizing it, I kept repeating that to myself. And a thought repeated over time? Our minds are very likely to start accepting them as something to believe.
Every week, I’d spend an hour or two, while in therapy or something else, telling myself that I was fantastic. That my energy was exceptional. I would spend a lot of time visualizing all the good stuff, journaling about my shadows, setting intentions here and there.
But after that? I’d spend the rest of the week repeating an old story to myself that didn’t support the new story I was creating.
I was letting my mind be my own worst enemy instead of my biggest ally.
And that was what I needed to change.
Nobody to change but self.
But I don’t mean bulldogging physical actions to make things happen. But exercising DOES help.
The practical steps
When I realized this, it gave me a completely different focus. I told my therapist, my coach, and all of the people who have been helping me with my healing about this huge misalignment between my “actions” and my “goals”.
So I got to “work”.
Step 0: As I mentioned earlier, I started with observing my thoughts.
Meditation helped me a lot here. I would sit down for 10-15 minutes every day, sometimes 2x a day just to “listen” to myself.
Journaling also helped a lot. A recap of the day showed me exactly where my mind was going all throughout the day.
If I’m out for a walk or if I’m running errands, I practiced real-time observation. What was going on in my head while I sat in the plaza having my morning coffee?
Step 1: I took advantage of golden hours/moments. As in, I took advantage of times and moments when my subconscious was most impressionable to start repeating to myself the story that I want to live + the identity I want to embody. And pretty much gave myself fewer opportunities to dwell on the unwanted.
Just right before falling asleep, instead of telling myself the old story of how things sucked or anticipating already the potential shit show of the coming day, I would allow myself to imagine a different and IDEAL scenario and tell myself that story instead. And this is a very effective way of instilling new beliefs to help me with the actions that I want to take.
When I’m doing mundane and familiar tasks like brushing my teeth, showering, folding laundry, or the walk to and from the store, I’d do the same. I’d repeat the IDEAL story to myself. I’d tell myself how awesome I am and how proud of myself I was for all the amazing progress I was making.
I practiced gratitude… but I also took it up a notch. I was already an expert on complaining about everything that was missing. So I strived to be an expert on being grateful. Grateful for the beautiful things that were already present (of which there are many!). AND grateful for the beautiful things that I was calling in (thereby implicitly trusting myself, and the universe, that it’s all going to happen anyway).
Step 2: I felt my feelings, but I chose which ones to stay in.
I didn’t pretend that every day was bright and shiny. There were moments that made me feel like shit, and I would find myself on the floor crying my little heart out. And it’s good to release them. I just learned not to carry those emotions with me throughout the day.
When I felt good, I celebrated the things that made me feel good. I repeated that good memory over and over so I could stay in it longer or call it back when needed. And when partnered with my practice of gratitude, it felt like there were just so many things already to feel good about.
And I really worked on being present in every moment I was in. So instead of being carried away with less than pleasant memories, I focused on what was physically in front of me and shifted from there.
These small but doable practices reinforced the therapeautic/healing sessions I went to. I’m not going to go deep on the topic of the subconscious and neuroplasticity (because it’s not my expertise…yet 😉), but pretty much this is what I took advantage of.
Important: What I’ve shared here is by no means meant to replace actual therapy.
Practicing shifting my thoughts to what I want life to look like, more and more, so my energy or my RAS (or both) can eventually have no other choice but to follow these instructions and show me the evidence.
And while I don’t want to focus on the results, there is something that I will highlight:
I started to wake up again with more pep in my step, curious for what the day would bring (on some days, I was even excited!). And the heavy pressure that sat on my chest and on my solar plexus for MONTHS started to lighten up until it disappeared.
Until one day, I finally woke up feeling like I was waking up to a completely new life. Where possibilities existed and were just waiting for me to grab them. And that feeling became a knowing. And that knowing became seeing.
And seeing became living.
Maybe it’s confirmation bias. Maybe it’s neuroplasticity. Maybe it’s Maybelline!
If you’re working through your own career goals right now and feel like nothing’s moving, I’d love to work with you to create a strategy that suits your context and circumstance.
Book a one-off problem solving session OR we can talk about what continued coaching support can look like so I can help you achieve your goals in a way that’s more fun and easy for you.
In conclusion:
You might have noticed that I haven’t been talking much about Product Management, building Products as a functional expert or a founder these days.
I’m not transitioning to a spiritual guru nor a wellness expert (at least for now; who knows later? 😂).
But I want to talk about these because we’ve been so great at optimizing for acquiring skills that make us great at work but not for skills that make us believe in our greatness.
In fact, wherever I look these days, I’m being bombarded left and right with messages about how we’re all getting left behind because we’re not enough.
No wonder we’re burning out at best or spending our day-to-day in fear of the other shoe dropping. Or when we’ve finally accomplished THAT thing we’ve been working our asses off to get, we go back to square one when the next goal appears.
Thereby creating more of the same thing… a feeling of lack and the fear of not being able to fill it. A vicious cycle.
Train your mind to look for something; it will show you that thing. Because it’s a pattern recognition machine.
So the question is, what are you training it to look for?
The good things? The possibilities? The awesomeness that has already been within you by default?
Or the exact opposite of those?
When I work with my clients now, mindset has always been a huge part it.
These days, I approach the mindset work a little differently: Rooted first in their identity so it’s sustainable and grounded.
We explore the thinking that happens behind every action, or the ones that get dragged out in response/reaction to what’s in front of them.
And then we play. For example:
What’s a better way to perceive something?
If they were already the person who had what they wanted, what would they be thinking instead about the circumstance they’re facing?
What would this version of them be deciding on next? What would they try doing?
Experimentation then becomes a huge part of the work.
When we allow ourselves to play with our thoughts and our actions, mix and match them to suit the identity we want to embody, we release the pressure to get things right immediately.
And we allow for results to come from multiple directions. Or, as I like to look at it these days, we allow for so many possibilities to unfold that our only job now is to choose which path to take.
Opportunities to pick from. Vs. fixating on a single path that we’re trying to force into being the right one.
And isn’t that wonderful?
❤️ Stay awesome!
Kax
p.s.
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