Hey there, Katie Joy “The Global Butterfly” here. In this short podcast episode I want to share a common pattern that shows up regularly with my clients, that you may relate to; and I want to give you some insight as to what is at the root of the pattern, and what to do to change it. 

See the PODCAST EPISODE HERE: https://www.theglobalbutterfly.com/podcasts/katie-joy/episodes/2147735632 

I've also made this into a blog post, so you can choose to read it, or listen. Or both! :)

At the beginning of this month, I intuited that it would be “May Madness” regarding our emotions on an individual and a collective level. To be specific, my ‘warning’ to my clients was “beware of falling into the illusion that your fear is real. It’s a doozie this month. You will need to harness and master your energy with more discernment than ever.”

Why did I share this warning? How does it connect to how productive you are, or with the results you are manifesting?

To bring more light to this answer, it’s important to know that there is a BIG difference between “thrive” goals and “survival” goals. 

So let me introduce you to these two concepts.

Thrive goals, such as creating a new offer idea for your business, or setting a new fitness target to improve your cardio or strength, or dedicating time to a weekly “family date” for more connection, are about GROWTH and CONTRIBUTION. These are ‘thrive’ goals.

Survival goals, are things like making it throughout the day without four cups of coffee, getting to bed early to get a full night’s sleep to feel rested, dedicating daily time to practice self care (such as meditation, a nap, reading, personal hygiene, tidying up or even organising aspects of your home or office) are about refueling your tank so to speak, with energy. Another term for this is “FILLING UP YOUR CUP”.

If you are neglecting addressing your “survival” goals, you cannot accelerate with thrive goals without experiencing burnout. Sound familiar?

To go for thrive goals, while simultaneously needing to deal with ‘survival’ goals would be the equivalent of driving along in your car with one foot on the gas, and the other on the brake. It’s inefficient on fuel and creates unnecessary wear and tear. Repeated often enough, it would also create malfunction for your car. That can end up being costly, right?

Now think about how that same energy inefficiency would be burning out your mind and body. And what does that cost you in energy, time, even money?

So what’s the real problem? And how do you deal with it, so you can get into flow and thrive?

STRESS. That’s the tip of the iceberg, for what you are experiencing, that manifests as symptoms of fatigue, brain-fog, and even feeling ‘lost,’ or wondering what your actual purpose is, with your mind distracted by a million things to ‘get done’.

The thing is, with STRESS being an ever-increasing antagonist to the majority of humans roaming on this planet, who are loaded with even more responsibilities, and less time and energy to accomplish what seems like a never ending “to-do” list, we (as a human collective) have been sold into the idea of “hustling” to get ahead. 

But this doesn’t work EFFECTIVELY. You may kick your goals, in the short term, but in the mid-to-long term, under these conditions, your mind and body gets exhausted until you hit chronic fatigue, or worse, complete burn out. Or maybe you achieve your goals, but wonder “is this it?!” Leading you to reach for the next goal to validate that internal feeling you are seeking to be fulfilled. 

Hustle is push energy. And while there are limited times when this style of energy is useful, it drains your energy when you’re in a constant state of strive; it’s an energy state that is rooted in fear and struggle.

Flow is energy in alignment with your vision, values and goals; and rooted in a belief that you can accomplish your outcome with ease, grace and support; that is, you trust the process, believe you are guided, and know you will find a way to manifest your outcome in divine timing. It’s rooted in love and grace.

The idea of “hustling” is only bought into with the belief that you have to strive and push, to get things done. When you let go of that false belief, and allow yourself to relax, and rest your nervous system, your brain can clear the fog, tap into mental clarity, you feel ‘lighter’ and you have a much ‘broader’ perspective to prioritise what ACTUALLY needs to get done (by you, or by others) to move you forward, with more ease and grace. 

The problem is, most people are so ‘in’ their stressed state more often than not that they might have some sense of how stressed they are, but not be truly clear of exactly HOW stressed they are, until they finally do what I call, “slow down to speed up.”

When we are stressed and trying to ‘get things done’ we end up feeling empty or unfulfilled, even if we accomplish those things. There’s ‘something missing’ and in this state, we feel emotionally disconnected. 

That’s because, in this scenario, when we’re ‘pushing’ to accomplish something it’s usually to try to fill an unmet emotional need. We think that “when I get this done, I’ll feel better,” or “When I make this sale/money, I’ll be able to relax,” or “when I burn these calories, I’m good enough,” 

In this pursuit, it’s a reach for the external to validate how we’re feeling internally. Instead of creating from within, internally, to then seek and reflect our results externally. 

It’s often painful to slow down and listen to our needs, in that quiet space; usually until we know who we really are, and what tools and skills are available to dissolve the uncomfortable emotions, and quite frankly what often sounds like a lot of noise (which is all the unresolved thoughts and conversations that become clear and uncomfortable to listen to, until balanced and harmonised). 

So instead, we numb it out.

We numb out our emotions by:

• Buying things we don’t need, spending money we don’t have and getting further into debt, or wasting discretionary income on ‘things and stuff’ instead of investing it to release ourselves from the ‘swap my time for money rat-wheel’ trap.
• Over-eating foods, especially ‘comfort’ foods, which give us a quick dopamine rush to ‘feel good’ in the moment, but leaves us feeling guilty and feeling worse, not long after; this quickly leads to unhealthy habits that disrupt sleep, clear decision-making and lowers our confidence and self-stem, to name a few.
• Over-drinking alcohol to ‘escape’;
• Or Over-medicating, whether that’s over-the-counter pharmaceuticals or prescription medication or illicit drugs. 
• Another ‘ego escape’ is getting caught up in drama - in the ‘middle’ of ‘things’ with others, gossip, criticism, judging self or others, blaming. All these emotional strategies distract the ego from feeling the pain of not being where you think you ‘should’ be. 

Again, all to numb out. 

EMOTIONALLY. 

When we see the impact of avoiding taking the time to “slow down to speed up” with some daily self care practices such as journalling, meditation, reading, eating healthy, or moving your body, to introspect, reflect and detect what is below the surface, it’s easier to see how that ‘non-action’ leads to ‘non-results’ or poor results at best with your attempt to achieve your ‘thriving’ goals. 

When your brain and body is in ‘survival’ mode, it is in ‘fight/flight.’ Which means, the lens for which you view EVERYTHING in that moment is seeking to detect everything that is a ‘threat.’ If you believe, even as a subconscious core belief, that you are under threat, then the presumption is, you are not safe. You cannot create anything NEW, when your nervous system is in fight or flight mode. 

Do you see right now, how when you are attempting to pursue a ‘thrive’ goal without first addressing your ‘survival’ goals, you undermine your own success?

So how do you fix that?

Well, it’s simple, but not easy. 

Why? Because you’ve been running subconscious patterns and programs over and over again, DOING life a certain way for a long time, because you have been BELIEVING in some faulty ideas as “true”. Maybe at one point in your life the belief was true for you at that moment. Or maybe you adopted a belief projected onto you by a family member or someone else that you trust. But the problem is, the ‘echo’ of that belief and the images you run in your mind, is what you focus your thoughts on over and over again. It might not even be conscious. In fact, most often it’s not. But it means you are disconnected from this present moment, unable to create and thrive, while you are internally focused on an illusion that you are projecting as ‘truth’ in your mind as your future. 

It might not always seem visible what you are thinking, at an unconscious level.

But, your actions, and results will ALWAYS reflect exactly what is running in your mental operating system, with what you believe to be true, or not true, for you and your life. 

And it’s not easy to change your beliefs, certainly not overnight. While there are energetic balances and clearing tools to facilitate quickening the process, you still need to practice these new empowering thoughts daily, to bring your attention to new images, or the ‘mind movie’ that you play in your head, which evokes how you feel, then creates a physical sensation in your body, and with the energy of passion (energy), love and alignment activates you to step into action and be in flow, or hesitate and procrastinate or be be paralysed with fear because deep down you are afraid of it not working out, or being rejected, or “not getting it,” or believing “I can’t do this.” 

The burnout comes from PUSHING, with “hustle” energy, without meeting your survival needs FIRST.

Let me explain it to you with an experience of one of my clients, Bernie. 

Bernie is an amazing woman. She’s a massage therapist, energy healer and teaches energy alignment also. Over the past four years I’ve been working with Bernie, who was referred to me by her beautiful friend and past client of mine, Dianne. 

When Bernie first came to me, she had 5-6 massage clients regularly each week. She wanted to bring on more, but she was burned out, working 5 days a week “THINKING” her way forward going to networking events, BNI, talking to potential clients, but all without the success she was after. 

So the first thing I connected her with is “What does your ideal week look like? Start there. How many days per week would you like to work? What will you do with your days off? How many of your ideal dream clients per week do you want to book in? What is the energy of those clients like so that you feel energised, not exhausted, after each massage?”

So Bernie described that she really wanted to have a 4-day work week, that she wanted the extra day off to swim and get into singing, ideally have 16-20 clients booked per week, and described her most favourite clients. 

She then focused on visualising this outcome, instead of the way her life had been and the fears of what had been running in the background of her mind. 

Within a few short weeks, she was booked out months in advance and in fact had 20-24 clients booked per week, committed to her 4-day work week and 3-day rest she began to thrive, enjoying her work more and even had more energy for herself even though she had a higher workload. 

Then recently, we went deeper into her subconscious blocks. Because, as usual as you succeed, you will ‘hit’ new ‘blocks’ to clear. She was ready to go MUCH deeper, now that she had plenty of evidence of thriving being possible, and lots of self care practice to meet her ‘survival’ goals. She was also activated by a lot of the external stresses going on in the world, temporarily allowing her internal state to be influenced by the external world. 

The big secret for success is to harness and master your energy for your internal state to then seek and see it reflected in your external reality. 

But sometimes, we have to go in and ‘introspect, reflect and detect’ what is often a root core false belief that is ‘holding us back,’ from thriving. 

So we went on an inner journey. And she arrived at a time in her life when she was 7-8 years old. She was in school. In math class. She had struggled for a long time to get her math ‘right.’ And this one time she did! She felt so proud of herself. So excited! And while she was in her internal delight, the girl next to her, Katherine, copied her work. The nun (Sister Josephine) walked by and assessed their results. The nun immediately presumed that Bernie had copied the other girl and accused her of cheating. She also whacked her hard across the knuckles with a ruler. That event, with the emotional experience, burned the inside of her mind, with a ‘trauma-loop.’ Seared into her consciousness, she believed in that moment “I can’t do this, I’m never going to get it.”

During the session, I helped her resource that version of herself to feel empowered, and to shift her perception around what occurred, so she could neutralize the energy and dissolve the shame, fear and false beliefs. And instead to be empowered with courage and a belief that she can do anything. 

That awareness had her jaw drop. For she realised how for decades of her life she had applied only a fraction of her attention and energy to most things to succeed, barely scraping by to accomplish things. She recognised how that root false belief HAD been driving her life, in fear of failure, fear of succeeding and still not being recognised or worse, being punished anyway. She had become a serial people pleaser. Oops.

So she stayed under the radar. And struggled to show up in her full light while under that false belief, or spell, if you like. 

Bernie, like all of us, had some false beliefs. Which we identified and “uprooted”, now allowing her to feel much ‘lighter,’ more present, and activated with more energy and poise to focus on taking aligned action with even more ease and flow than previously. 

It helped her unravel a lot of old ineffective programming around “people-pleasing”, making herself wrong, and self judgment. Releasing these, unleashed a whole new access to energy flowing through her to apply it to her goals to thrive.

Why did it take 4 years to get to this root belief to remove it? 

Because while there have been layers already dealt with, and lots of successful manifestations so far, there is always something deeper to remove. And your mind/body and soul will only be able to let go of these false beliefs the more you calm your nervous system and consistently practice harnessing and mastering your energy to do so. If you allow stress (external events) to dictate your internal state, without using the tools and skills to emotionally balance, then you lose your power until you reclaim it back by choosing your internal state, to then reflect your external reality. 

When you operate from the latter, you GAIN energy, take aligned action in FLOW, experience inner peace and more ease with yourself and your life. 

I hope today’s podcast Episode has provided a lot of value and insight.

A big thanks to my client Bernie, who has given me permission to share her experience with you in this podcast. I hope you have gained some insight, and make sure you take action in “slowing down to speed up.”

I help my clients who are Entrepreneurs, Visionaries, Healers, Artists, Conscious Creators and Decision Makers. And whether you are a parent, partner or professional, I help to clear your energy blocks, align with your soul purpose and activate your dreams into reality. I do this through group coaching, online programs and through 1:1 coaching.

Please feel free to share this with a friend or on social media to help it reach others who will also benefit from this. 

If you would like the first step to balance your energy, make sure you join our community on my website www.theglobalbutterfly.com to stay in touch and get the free gifts which include the “Heart Activation Meditation and 111 Positive Affirmations For Spiritual Ascension.”

You can also follow me on my business page on Facebook athttps://www.facebook.com/TheGlobalButterfly or personally at https://www.facebook.com/MsKatieJoy