Why Healing Your Past Won't Change Your Life

The thing about the I'm not good enough and that is the most pervasive one, although the second runner-up is I'm alone. Everything that is not working, if I'm not getting fed properly, people are ignoring my needs. If I'm aware that my mother didn't want to be pregnant with me, I might form a self-sense of I'm not wanted. Wow. Whether she's said it or not. Absolutely, and it happens in the womb. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized teacher of personal transformation. Katherine Woodward Thomas. You actually cannot progress in your life when you are making home a victimization. What if all these bad things happen to us? You're traumatized, someone hurt us, they abuse us, they abandon us, shouldn't we feel victimized? So you want to look at how it's the source of it. Who is I being that allowed that to happen? No, you have to kind of put your big girl big boy panties on and really show up for yourself. Start to create from a victim like this one here. You can't create from victim like the first entry to create the evidence giving up victimization. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. I'm very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring Katherine Woodward Thomas in the house. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a New York Times bestselling author, and an internationally recognized teacher of personal transformation. She spent decades helping people clear emotional blocks align their inner world and consciously create the life and relationships they desire. I'm excited that you're here because the last time you're on was over a decade ago. It was such a powerful conversation to help people heal. You have a new book out called What's True About You. Seven steps to move beyond your painful past and manifest your brightest future. The first thing I want to ask you Katherine is about why so many people don't feel like they are enough. You have these different core beliefs that you talk about in your book that block people from manifesting their greatest future and from feeling enough. Why do you think one of the biggest core blocks that holds people back is I am not good enough? Where does that come from and how can we start to overcome that? Well, when we're young, our task is to form a sense of self and to understand who we are for others and where we fit into this world. When you're young and you can't do things for yourself and you have parents who are trying their best or overburdened or whatever. There may be older siblings who can do things that you cannot do. There's a lot of ways that we would get the message that somehow I'm small, somehow I don't have the power that I need to do the things that I would need to do. I can't get what I want. Also, children take on the emotional troubles of their parents. So, if their parents are depressed and they can't fix their parent or their parent is an alcoholic. They can't fix that. They don't internalize it. They don't have the cognitive. We didn't have the cognitive capacity to recognize the situation with any kind of complexity or holistic understanding that, oh, my mother needs AA or my parents are having money problems. It became who I am. It's somehow I am inadequate here. I cannot help this situation. I cannot do anything in this situation. I am too small. I am too insignificant. But there are also, so these are what I call relational woundings. The I'm not good enough is in relationship to someone. That's interesting. So, you have to feel I'm not good enough based on what someone else thinks of you or says about you or your interpretation of what they think or say about you. Your interpretation of what they must feel about you. All beliefs have three components to that. Okay, what are they? We're a little unsophisticated. We'll say, okay, I think I'm not enough. But what that means really is that when I'm with others, what I'm projecting onto others is that others are better than me or that others don't value me. And then also, there's a projection onto life that somehow I'm insignificant, that no matter what I do, I cannot get ahead. I have to do twice as much for half the reward. So, there's a whole worldview that's centered on who I am, what is or is not possible for me, how other people are going to treat me or how other people will feel about me. The thing about the I'm not good enough, and that is the most pervasive one, although the second runner-up is I'm alone, particularly in America, where we, you know, kind of live with rugged individualism. We're also separate and we're on our little devices, which is only increasing that. But there are actually, you know, 22 of them, which I've determined are the most common ones. 22 core beliefs. Or beliefs at the level of identity that will actually serve as the inner glass ceilings on our potentials. Now, why they get perpetuated is what's interesting to me, right? So, that's where they come from. We're forming identity before we have the cognitive capacity to understand the complexities of what's happening around us. So, everything that is not working, if I'm not getting fed properly, people are ignoring my needs, if I'm, you know, aware that my mother didn't want to be pregnant with me. I might form a self-sense if I'm not wanted. Whether she said it or not, maybe she said something about it or maybe she just gave energy that she's frustrated with you and you think, oh, she really didn't want me. Absolutely. Any interpretation, right? And it happens in the womb. There's scientific evidence, and I cite the evidence in the book. There's scientific evidence about how consciousness at the level of identity is often imprinted in the womb. Based on the mother's identity? Based on the mother's feeling towards the fetus. Oh, my goodness. So, there's one study that I, one story that I put in the book about this, this baby that was born that would not take her mother's breast when she was born. She refused the mother's breast. Of course, the doctors are crazy and they're trying to figure out what's going on because the mother has milk, but the baby won't drink the milk. They bring her to another mother who has milk and the baby drinks that milk. So, the doctor canister and says, wait a minute, what's going on? What really is happening? And the mother finally admitted, well, I didn't want to. I only had her because my husband wanted her and I really want nothing to do with the baby. She's a baby. New that. As a new. The immune system and the nervous system felt like rejected, almost probably, or something. Absolutely. Right. So, but the danger is. And what we are all struggling, because we're all like, you know, this is interesting. Like, how did these beliefs form? Where do they come from? What I'm interested in as a person who is committed to helping people to actualize their potentials become the highest and best most authentic version of themselves live out loud, be like a shining star shooting through the sky in this lifetime. Like, you know, really, that's why we all came here. So, what I'm interested in is why does that pattern keep showing up over and over and over again? And that's what the book is deconstructing. Mm hmm. Well, yeah. So, I guess one is identifying, you know, you might be living with one of these beliefs, which is, I'm alone, I am bad. I don't belong. I'm a burden. I am crazy. I am damaged goods. I'm different. I'm disgusting. I'm not enough. I'm a failure. I'm not, I'm not important. I'm invisible. All these things. Yeah. I feel like I felt all those at some point in my life, right? It's like every one of those I could identify with the time wise. I am stupid. I'm not safe. I'm powerless. I don't matter. Yeah. I'm too much. I'm unworthy. I'm not valuable. I'm not wanted. I am wrong. I can relate to all those. Yes. At some point in my life. And I can think back to when I was a child or my teens or 20, even a few years ago and say, Oh, there's a point in this where, yeah, I could relate to that. Maybe I don't live into those anymore, but I can definitely relate to feeling that and not knowing how to break free from those feelings. Exactly. Like first you have to identify. Okay. I'm saying over and over again that no one loves me. That I'm always left behind or I'm not enough or I don't matter or whatever one of these beliefs is. I'm a burden. I'm bad. I'm wrong. All these things. First of all, I'm hearing you say is like I learning to identify of what's keeping us playing small from these feelings and then figuring out how do we break free of each one that we identify with, which is really hard if you don't have the tools. Well, and I think people have been trying to do it for years. I mean, I became a psychotherapist kind of from the inside out only because I was so committed to breaking free of my own unconscious falsely. I actually call them source fracture stories, the original break and belonging, right? The original wounding. So and that I went to therapy for years and yes, it helped. Oh my gosh, it saved my life actually really because I was a compulsive operator. I had an addiction. It was severe. I was non-functional. So therapy really helped over eaters. Yeah, over eater. I was a binge eater when I was in my early teens and early 20s. It was out of control. I was even unemployable. So it kind of was a great thing really because it forced me to do my own work. I couldn't progress in life unless I handled that. So I went to therapy. I went to 12 step programs. I did all sorts of things to try and heal it. Now, it helps to go back. You've got to grieve. You've got to you've got to see what happened. You have to understand it. But after that, if you just stay stuck in analyzing why you are the way you are, which I did for years because that was all that was really available, you kind of solidify the self of that story. Yeah, you stay stuck in the past as your identity, right? It's like you're staying in it rather than integrating the healing and transforming beyond it and creating a new story. Well, what we focus on grows. Yes. So if you're constantly, oh, there it is. Again, I'm not going to, oh, it's because my father and oh, it's because my mother, actually, it is because your father, it is because of what happened and how you interpreted that. And, you know, and then it's how you started to show up. This is another piece of it. How we are the source of our own experience. So in the, I'm not good enough, what we tend to do is we over function. We overgive. Yes. We do, do, do, do. That was me for a long time, which then achieve, accomplish or whatever it is. Yeah. Well, and you start over functioning with other people so that they start under functioning. Yes. So in a way, you're training people that your time is not as valuable as theirs. You're not really as good as them. You're more subservient to them. This is how we then enroll a relational field that validates that story. Yes. Because self is not a solo phenomenon. Self is relational. Yeah. And so what's happening for most of us is that we're working on our issues, but we keep going back to the past. And what happens where we get stuck is that we get victimized by our own imprinting now. Right. Now my father was this way. And now this is how I am. And I can't get out of it. And we get mad at ourselves. And we don't know how to figure out to reprogram ourselves. And so we keep going backwards to do it. I did this for well over a decade until I finally figured out when I was like around 40. And I'd been working on myself since night, you know, early 20s. Okay. For a long time to be swimming and analyzing why I am the way that I am. And then going to school to help other people analyze why they are the way they are. It's the future that actually pulls us forward. So understanding the past is a good thing, but staying there is not is what I'm here to say. That is true. It will save your life. It's not changing. Interesting. So we need we can't just bypass the past and just say, oh, I'm not going to think about it. I'm just going to only focus on the future. It's almost like we need to heal the memories of the past. Make sense in meaning of them. But then but then say, okay, that is a different chapter in my life. And I'm creating a new chapter with a new vision. And I don't have to be stuck in that belief anymore. But I will tell you, I have a new form of psychotherapy that I've developed. And I have a group of therapists. We've been working on this together. You can actually bring that a positive possible future into your preliminary work on healing the past. Right. So in other words, it's like, I know you have a big destiny. And I know that your life has been really handicapped by this, you know, history that you have with trauma. The commitment is the context of our work is within two years, you're going to be standing on that stage or you're going to be in that happy relationship. Let's get to work and clear that now so that the context is still the future. Because the future, what you initiate with the future is development. Who will I need to be in order to manifest and sustain that future? You don't necessarily initiate development in just healing the past. You look at it, you feel it, you grieve it, you know, you learn how to regulate yourself. It's not necessarily developmental in, you know, and most of us can't actualize our potential yet. Because in being stuck in past trauma, we were actually missing certain skills and capacities that would allow us to create something other than the patterns we feel stuck in. It's probably hard to think of a beautiful, possible future if we're stuck in past trauma as well. It's probably hard to let it step into it. If we always have something kind of dragging us back or weighing us down emotionally, it's, you know, I don't know, it's just going to be like in fight or flight trying to accomplish it. Well, you're in non-possibility. And by that time, living in the story of, I'm invisible because you had a narcissistic parent who punished you every time you, you know, dared speak your truth or, or shamed you, you know, inside of the I'm invisible, what's underdeveloped is the capacity to even recognize your own feelings or your own needs. And then to be able to bring that forth to others and negotiate those needs with the assumption that other people might actually care about those needs if you brought them forward. That's like a whole new concept to someone with invisibility because the invisibility projection onto others is that other people don't really care about my feelings and needs. So why would I have to tell them? Yeah, because every time I try to talk, they shut me down or they don't pay attention or it's the interpretation of what happens in relationship to others, right? Yes. And then there's a deeper level of complexity. I'm going to bring it all in because you have such a great audience who's following you and knows all this stuff already. But if you're in and now I'm invisible and you know that you need to speak up and tell your truth what you might not now is that you're speaking through the filter of other people don't really care about me and other people are selfish. If you ask somebody for what you need through the filter of other people don't care about me, you're going to, it's going to come out like, well, I want a glass of water to you know, as opposed to, hey, Annie, would you get me a glass of water? Right, right, right. Right, which then makes people defensive and will get your own, right? Which, that's how we're generating our own experience through the consciousness that we're centered in. Yeah, and you used the word early about enrolling people, we're enrolling people in our relationship on how we, we show up and how we communicate based on an interpretation of our past and based on our beliefs. Yeah, globalizing that. This happens a lot with I'm not safe. People feel I'm not safe. You know, so they're going into their close relationships like this. Okay, prove yourself. Right, right. Because the projection onto others from the own not safe, this others have ill intent, others are going to hurt me. So this is where you get love, avoidance behavior, people crazy making destabilizing in, out, push, pull, long distance, you know, all that stuff trying to manage how you can have love but not have commitment, not have anybody too close to you because people will hurt you. So in order to really evolve beyond something like love addiction or love avoidance, you really have to get to the root of it, which is this is the core belief, how old is that part of me? You have to differentiate your wise self from your wounded self. Usually when we get triggered, the wound itself is in charge in running the shell. Right. So we have to learn how to hold and contain our own younger selves that were wounded with deep compassion, presence, love, but get that little baby buckled up in the back seat of the car and not driving the car. That's got to be so hard. I mean, it was so hard for me for so many years to figure out how do I have a wise self in me when my wounds are running my life. And it's so hard to like when you feel like you're suffocating because one of these beliefs is just feels so true to you. I'm not enough. People don't listen to me. I'm wrong. I'm whatever it is. If you're just like this is true to my core. Your wounds are running your life, not the wise version of yourself, not like this, you know, 10 year in the future version of you that's had all the experience. It's it's so hard for it was so hard for me and it's so hard for everything. A lot of people to breathe and not feel some type of tension in their nervous system or clenching in their throat or pain in their stomach or fear or anxiety around how is someone going to respond to me or react to me if I don't do X, Y or Z. Yeah. It's such a fear if you haven't grown up with the experience of having a safe environment emotionally, I guess. So what's the process from identifying? Okay, I know something is off in my life and I feel anxious sometimes. I feel avoidant. I have these patterns and relationships. Once someone is able to identify that and they know they want a greater future. They want to be able to create something more beautiful in their life. What is the process afterwards to start healing and start leading with their wise self rather than the wound itself? Yeah, beautiful question. Okay. So in the seven steps of moving beyond your painful past where we begin is with a positive possible future. Now I'm not talking about a goal because goals are kind of like to me and this is my definition. So, you know, people could argue with me, but to me a goal is like the best possible situation that you could imagine given who you are and your resources. Like what's the best outcome that could possibly be predicted here? Okay. When I talk about intention, I'm talking about let's get right to the goal. Let's get outside of your current identity because the I'm not good enough is not going to think big enough and the truth is that what's coded in our souls is so much grander. I mean this is what you're waking up in people. It's why people love you because you know school of greatness. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or the or school the best you could think you could be. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah. No, it's school of greatness. Like what is that seed of greatness? Even if you have no evidence, what did you come here to create? What were you born for? Let's go. And yeah, let's go. So somebody's hungry for love. I don't want you to stay in better people. I want you to go for the gold. Even though you've never had you've always had crappy relationships. Go for the highest and the best. Go for like a Lewis and Martha situation. So or with finances. So you know, whatever it is, your career, your self-expression, your artistry, your music, whatever it is that you have in you. Now what I have found is when I sit with people and I can see that with them as the practitioners. Why I'm creating this new form of therapy and I have a coach training too. But because the practitioner sponsors that dream, most of us were not sponsored in our dreams. And as a matter of fact, if you kind of bring in the element of fairy tales, most of us were kind of cursed. Who do you think you are to do? Oh, don't you do big for your bridges. Sit down quiet. You know, you're causing too much trouble. So a lot of us were kind of cur, we fell into the spell of that curse. So we really begin with a positive possible future. There was studies, there was a study done by two women in 1986, Polynuria and Hazel Marcus. And they wrote an academic paper on it about positive possible cells. And what they saw, now positive possible cells, it's like that's case in a limped gold, what a metal winner or you know, you know, the actor standing on stage receding an Oscar. Or it could be, you know, a negative possible self, which many of us have in trying desperately to go to jail or whatever. Yes, homeless or whatever it is. But the future that we're living into, what they found is the future that we're living into actually determines our current motivation and actions even more than the past does. The future we're living into we're dreaming about. Yes. Has more impact than what was said again. Then the past. Wow. So here we are doing our work on personal development, looking at the past, the past, the past, the past, the past. Although there's some kind of mystery like if I get to the bottom of all of it, then I'll finally be free. But it's actually the future that holds the key. So claim a positive possible future, even if it just seems like the craziest idea, think about it, especially if it's the craziest. And claim it, how do we claim it is in a way of writing it down, speaking in existence, thinking about it. It's an intention, it's a visioning practice. Like what does it feel like? You know, we bring the future into the present. We're all starting to get hip to this mental rehearsal of seeing yourself obviously athletes and musicians have been doing this for years. So you bring the future into the present. And it is a, I mean, for some people who live in a very small identity, I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy as a big one. I'm not worthy. Just the idea, like just trying to get the idea of I have a million dollars just sitting in my bank account that I don't even need. For some of you as an I'm not worthy, you feel like you're on, you're being your identity is stretching on a rack. Right. So we sit with that. We open ourselves up to it. We open our receptivity. And then we bring it in like our imagination. What does it look like? Feel like sound like taste like? Who am I here? How are others relating to me? What's the intention that I could set that would initiate what I call a future pull? I think that was a Wayne Dyer originally created a future pull that begins to inform my development in the direction of that. Yeah. In my decision making today, yes. Because in order for that to be possible, I have to start doing things differently, thinking differently, acting differently, different routines, different habits, right? It's like, yeah, you can't be living based on the past story anymore. It's towards a possible future. Yes. You're living into the self of your future. I mean, this is the practical way that this looks like. So back in my 30s, when I first started to discover this, I was so shy. I could not look people in the eye. I was painfully shy. Obviously, I had problems making friends. I couldn't really get work that I wanted. I mean, life was not working for me. I'd been like kind of screwing up for many years, trying to figure myself out. I really hadn't had any successes. But I started to have this what I thought at the time was this bizarre sixth sense. And I remember even telling my mother at one point, I think I'm going to be talking to thousands of people one day, this even before the internet, right? Like, how is that going to happen? Like, you never know the how to. You can't get stopped by the how to. So I didn't know how to create something like that. I wasn't even sure I wanted something like that. That was just my sense. Like, that's the future that's calling me. We have to tune into that. And instead of dismissing it, I took it seriously. And the only thing I could think to do was to start articulating, you know, who I was in that future. I am a world class leader of love. I'm impacting, you know, hundreds of thousands of people to awaken and to expand their hearts to love. That was what I did at the time. And then I'd practice walking down the street from that center. And I remember going into Starbucks. Now my usual way of ordering my morning coffee was, I'll have a latte, please. Yeah. My little shy way. Walk in. I'll have a a grand a latte, please. Yeah. I just just try on a new way of being. Right. Because so much of it is like where we're centered at the level of identity is informing who we're being. So that's how I started to discover that that's how you begin to find your way to that future. And then what's that going to require of me? Well, at the time, I made a very good decision. Thank goodness. I thought, well, I don't know how I would even begin on that. But I do know that if I'm going to be speaking to thousands of people, I better make sure I have something to say. Yeah. Of course. Right. So then wisdom became my North Star. Like, okay. It's wisdom. Yeah. Exactly. Let's get some wisdom here. But the first step is not thinking about the past is actually claiming a positive possible future. Yes. And the second step is to name your source fracture story. Is that essentially the first time you felt wounded that caused the belief for you? So in every area of life, we tend to have one specific source fracture story that's really holding us back. One moment, one instance, not like someone might have a lot of things that happen to them. Yeah. But you're saying one kind of core. I am. I am not good enough to do that. Yeah. Yeah. That becomes the core identity in that area. I don't mind. Yeah. It's being sexually abused when I was five. Because that was like the first memory that I have. And then it was just like, oh, I'm not lovable. I'm not enough. I'm abusable. All these things. Right. It's like, and then it was almost like I've emotionally found that in every other area of my life until I was about 30. Until I was like, oh, I'm living in this kind of what you call source fracture story wound still. And I'm driven to kind of overcome that wound, but I haven't healed it yet. I'm driven to try to like feel enough to feel worthy by accomplishing and getting bigger and stronger and all these different things. Right. Well, the overcompensating is a big deal driven to over driven. But it's still didn't feel enough. It doesn't do it. Right. So it's like, what am I, you know, and it was like, why don't I still feel enough when I'm accomplishing all these things? It's like I had a big future, but I wasn't able to heal the past still. Right. So it's kind of masking. Well, I think that's where people are. That's why people are frustrated. Yeah. Yeah. Exhausted. Yeah. Yeah. And exhausted because you can't work hard enough to get over that. Oh, no. You can't analyze it enough to get over it. You can't outrun your past. You can't. But what you can do is you can isolate it with the simple question, how old are you, sweetheart? You, the adult who has wisdom and depth and capacity can turn to yourself and say, sweetheart, how old are you? And where are you in my body? Now there's two of you in the room. Right. And what we want to make sure is that you're not taking action from the wounded self because you'll only create more evidence. Yeah. And learning how to then begin to mentor that younger self. And the first way you do it is to say, I'm sorry for not loving, I'm sorry for not loving you in the way you need to be loved. You repair that within yourself because the the source of actually story gets played out in the relationship with the self. I'm sorry, sweetheart, for refusing you. Some men are uncomfortable with sweetheart, you know, right? Little or whatever. What do you buddy or son, son? Let me just tell you, if people can't locate their adult self, think about who you are for a friend and need. You are that person already for other people. Yes. Think about the parent you are. Think about that leader that you are at work. Yeah. Great way of, I mean, for people that are coming for the first time, it might sound weird that you're thinking there's two people in the room. But I've talked about this a lot in terms of like people understand internal family systems and it's like the different parts of you and we've had these types of conversations, similar types of conversations. So I hopefully my core audience would understand this concept. But if someone's coming for the first time to thinking, what are they talking about? There's two parts of you and one person, you know, we, have these wounded parts of us from childhood, the psychological memory within our body, that when I get triggered from something based on a wounds and if I'm not aware of it and catch myself, I'll react based on the wound versus respond based on the wisdom. Like you said, that wise are part of me. And so it's just learning how to respond to things that might trigger us from the wisest version of us, from the higher version of us rather than from the wounded version of us is what I'm hearing you say. And that's what you know, Catherine's talking about here is when you're coaching a friend who maybe is going through a bad dating experience. And let's just say the guy is not whatever being attentive or not being kind or cheating on the girl, your girlfriend or whatever it might be. And you give that person advice and say, you're better than this, you deserve more, you know, create a boundary, leave this guy, whatever it might be. But if sometimes we don't know how to do that for ourselves, but we can coach someone else. And so what I'm hearing you say is learning how to coach the wounded version of us inside of us. And how to calm down and how to say, Hey, I've got you. I'm here for you. You're safe. I'm parenting you essentially. I'm coaching you. I'm mentoring you. And let's make it a better decision together from a safer space. That's what I'm hearing you say. It's hard for me to understand that. Like if you told me this one, I was 25, but you're crazy. What is this? Like just tell me how to make money. You know, just tell me how to like get the girl. Tell me how to do something else. Because I'd be too afraid to address the parts of me that didn't feel enough. And I'd be too afraid to even speak them out loud that people thought I had a weakness. And I think there's a lot of specifically men in the world that are afraid to to even speak out loud that they have one of these beliefs that I'm bad and I don't belong. I'm a burden. I'm crazy. I'm damaged. It goes whatever it might be. And I think the the faster we can name our source fracture story and go through these seven steps you talk about, the better our life will be and manifesting faster anything we want. Well, wherever we're centered at the level of identity is where we're generating our whole lives from. There's a lot of stake here. Say them more time. Wherever we're centered at the level of identity is where we're generating our lives from. So there's a lot of stake. I can tell you a story. You know, sometimes stories help to integrate the concepts, right? So these ideas have really been informed by my privilege of teaching tens of thousands of people in live interactive classes since 2007. I don't think there's many people who can say I've had the opportunity to teach 60,000,000 people in live classes where there's interactive coaching and people writing and stuff. So it's been a I'm a clinician, right? It's on the court and I'm a transformational teacher. I didn't do that as a psychotherapist. I did it as a teacher. But these ideas are big ideas. And they're actually, they could actually turn psychotherapy into a new direction for those who are ready to move into a future forward focus and start to really take these ideas and work with them and see how quickly the work goes when you have the context of a positive, possible future and when you're willing to help your client to understand themselves as the source of the patterns and get off of the victimization, like take a zero tolerance for victimization, which doesn't mean they weren't victimized. It's just the most powerful place to be standing in life for those of us who are fierce about getting over this. So yes, you were victimized and let's not make a home of it. What happens if we make a home of being a victim to things we are victimized by? You just don't progress. You actually cannot progress in your life when you are making a home of victimization. What if something really bad happened to us? We were traumatized, someone hurt us, they abused us, they abandoned us, they left us for dead, they stole from us, they robbed from us. What if all these bad things happened to us? Yeah. Shouldn't we feel victimized and pity everyone and have everyone help us? It's not an either or. Yes, you were completely victimized, but victimization has two parts to it. One is who was I being that allowed that to happen? That's canceled in any childhood situation. Okay, cancel, cancel, you never, ever, ever responsible for anything when you were a kid. But who was I being on in that relationship that this person became so, ended up cheating on me. As an adult, as an adult, that's a smart question to ask yourself. So what might my three percent? What's my role? Yeah, yeah, it was my role. In contrast, I'm a couple of people who are so angry when they're getting separated so much to the other person's fault, they just say 97% them. What's your three percent? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you want to look at how it's the source of it. But you need, even if you were a kid and you were victimized and abandoned and abused and it wasn't your fault, why is it not worth it staying in victimhood as an adult? Well, the second part is who will I be in the face of it? Okay, that's the second part of none. It's just the refusal to be in reaction to life because we really want to be creators of life. And most of us are stuck in the being in reaction to life, which means we're not going to be able to generate the miracles that we came here for. Yes. Okay, so that's why. So you have to kind of, you know, put your big girl, big boy panties on and really show up for yourself. Because it's sort of create from a victimhood. That's what I'm hearing you say. You can't create a victimhood. The first entry to creativity is giving up victimization. And you're not free if you're a victim. You're never free. The other person is bigger than you. They have the power or the or just the interpretation of the moment or whatever happened that we've felt abandoned or abused or neglected or whatever might be, right? Yeah. And those feelings are bad. Of course. Okay, so that's where we you have to you have to you have to hold the complexity. Yeah, it's like and how long you stay in victimhood, you know, it's like what you know, it comes up, it comes up and you have to just turn towards yourself and you say, yeah, that hurt. Yeah, that was really crappy. And if I want to have a positive possible future, I can't stand that. Yeah, right? It's like, yes, that happened. Well, the context is so that the context of a positive possible future will give you a way to hold your challenges now in a way that's noble. That makes them bearable. Because you know, the whole thing about a positive possible future, I'll say, you want to have a meaningful why in your positive possible future. If you're just in it for yourself, it's okay. But if you see that you're modeling for your kids or you care about the next generation on the planet, service to others is everything. So then you're going to go farther, you know, inside of your resolve. Okay, well, I'm going to see this. This is what we're all learning now, how to be stronger, how to be wiser. This is my teacher of love. You know, some of us have very dark gurus in our lives. People who really betrayed us, really hurt us. And you know, on some level, you think about, okay, what they woke me up. I will never give my power away to another narcissist. That won't happen again. Painful though. You know, yeah, life, life lessons, man. So we got to name your source fracture story. Would that be like me naming the time I was sexually abused and be like, okay, maybe what the I am. So you're not going back into the trauma. It's looking for the identity you for one of those 22. Yeah, I'm not loved. Yeah, I'm not a love. I'm not a love. I'm not level. I'm not level. Other people don't love me. Yeah. And life is pretty barren when you're not loved. I mean, it's just kind of you can't really expect much out of life. That's true. Yeah. So it's naming your source fracture story. And then when you're mentoring that part, okay, I mean, release it with yourself. Step three then is then from the why self, you you actually tell the truth because what we distinguish you got to distinguish trauma from truth. And you were talking about when it happens, it feels true. So the first thing you say to yourself is sweetheart, that's not true. That's trauma. I'm so sorry you were wounded like that. Well, yeah. But that's not true about you. How do you believe something is not true about you when it feels so true? Well, you have to really kind of look for the evidence of it. There are parts of us that know that the story isn't true. And it can be, you know, it looks psychedelics are all about this, right? You're trying to wake people up out of the trance of the identity. And it can be big and lofty and it can certainly be you can go off into spirituality, world children of God or whatever, but it has to be related to the actual story that was created by that younger part of the self. You can't just split off and just have a new identity over here. This part of you needs a rescuing, truthfully. There was no adult there. Lewis, who was able to sit with you within 24 hours and say, honey, I'm so sorry that happened. You are so loved. You are safe now. We've got you. You're okay. Even with that, you might still be traumatized. You might still need to be reminded over and over. That's right. Have a healing journey. Right. So what? Yeah. So what's safe? Yeah. Absolutely. And what happens when we get triggered? Our own adult goes out the window. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And there's still no adult presence to wake us up. So it's almost like you got to be your own fairy godparent. And come down. You look glender the way. Yeah. Well, whoever the warlocked you, you got to come down with love. And you got to find. Now, I'll tell you was another story that showed me how easy this could be actually. So I was sitting my 20s. And I had, I was a wannabe actor in New York, you know, and obviously nothing really worked for my life. So I had a lot of rejection, a lot of failure. And I was waiting tables. And I had this great group of people I was waiting tables with. A couple of them were still my friends today. And one of them was named Billy. And I had a really bad audition that day. I'm sitting there complaining and crying. And you know, crying over my one. It was after the shift. It was a world you're going to want. And I'm crying. And nothing's ever going to happen from life. I'm never going to make anything of my life. It's over. You know, I was crappy again today. And Billy reaches across the table. He takes my hand. And he says, I'm so glad you're facing it now, Catherine. And I grabbed my hand away. I said, how dare you say that to me? He said, thank you. What was the part of me? It was like how dare you think that to me? That was the wise yourself. That was the part that just knew. This is a story. I think right now. So all of us know there is a part of all of us that do we know that that's not true. We're just so captivated by the emotions. Because the false centers have an emotion to them. Of course. So we have to train ourselves to step outside to witness to the mentor to find the part of us that actually knows a different story and to begin to work with that. And that's where we come up with power statements, power statements deconstruct. What's an example of a power statement? I am alone. I didn't come here to be alone. I was born to love and be loved. I have the power to grow my relationships, healthy, strong, vibrant, and long-lasting. Right? There's an assertion. There's a ferocity to it. It breaks up the I'm alone. It wakes you up out of the trance. Yeah. So you almost have to coach yourself in that and using those statements. Yes. That's good. Yeah. Because you talk about the next step as seeing yourself as source. What does that actually mean when you've been a victim or had bad breaks most of your life? This is one of the most important things that we can ever do is to see yourself as source. Very few of us are trained in how to do it. Most of us, when we go to say, well, what's my part? That 3% will drop into shame. See, I'm just too stupid. I have bad karma. I'm too screwed up for my parents. My parents screwed me up too badly. I'm just not good enough. We'll go back into the source fracture story. So one of the things you have to learn is how to objectively notice your own choices and behaviors without dropping into shame. The other thing that we will do is we will then, how am I the source of this? We'll go back into our psychology. Well, my sister always competed with me and said, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's why I'm the way that I am. No power in that story. Interesting story. Good to know. There's no power for a greater future. No power to generate a greater future. So what we're looking for is what's your access to power? So this skill of being able to really own your choices. So an example for my life. When I was looking at my patterns in love, as I was first writing, calling in the one, you know, 20 years ago, and I thought, you know, my pattern was unavailability and married men. So from psychological, perspective, you know, one married guy after another was really horrible. I was horrible. So to even do that, but that's what I was doing. And from psychological perspective, it's just kind of like, you know, ABC, because my father left when I was young, married a woman who didn't want anything to do with me. It wasn't allowed in their home, condition of their marriage, that it wasn't part of their family. So he used to sneak out and see me. So I'm the other woman by the age of eight. Oh my God. So you kind of get it. I mean, it's very too bad. Oh my gosh. So, you know, you were the other mistress by the age of eight. Yeah, yeah. Wow. You know, not a big mystery why I'm dating married man. Okay. Because I'm finally getting my dad to choose differently, which never actually worked. But so that was one way of seeing it, which gave me no access to power. The other way of seeing it when I looked for myself, how am I the source of this, is that I realized that inside of this deep, I am alone story. I had a corresponding belief that no one will ever really be there for me. So when I would date people from that perspective, it didn't occur to me that I needed a man who would actually be able to show up for me. Yeah, emotionally available and not in relation to power. Looking at chemistry, how cool is it? You know, like what car is he driving? I don't know what I was looking at, but it wasn't that. I wasn't looking at his character. None of the things that actually matter. So in owning that and seeing that clearly like, wow, I wasn't looking at the right things. There's no shame in that. And actually it was off my radar. Right. So there's no shame in it. But that's that was key to recreating my criteria for the man that I was looking. Yeah. Right. And then I was able to find a man and get married and have a great relationship. And so that changed my life with seeing how I was the source of it. Because once you identify the old way of relating how you were generating that story, you can just flip it to what's the new habit of here is my new list. Is this what I mean? I mean, it's I know it's it sounds easy to say, okay, once you're aware of the old way of being that you've been for so long, we can flip it into the new way of being. But we've lived an identity of that old way for my 30, 40, 50, whatever, how many years of that way of being. Yeah. How do you grieve and kill off an old identity, essentially? Maybe you're not killing off, but it's like you're shifting an entire lifetime of being and all of a sudden saying, I'm just going to be different today. And I'm going to think different and I'm never going to go back to this old past. And it's all going to be easy. Like, it's hard sometimes for people to transform into a brand new person, a new identity they've never stepped into consistently. And letting go of a familiar comfort zone, even though they might have been living in pain and suffering, it's familiar pain and suffering of an identity, right? Yeah. And even if you step into a more powerful identity, people just don't know how to do it. Yeah. It's unfamiliar. Even if it's better, absolutely right. That's exactly where we're better. It's unfamiliar. Right. So that's now you're in step six. Okay. Well, so we're at the five first. So five is new ways of a variety, identify new ways of a lady, which you will not know how to do. You don't know how to do it. You're like, I've never done this before. I don't know how to boundaries. No, I'm going to have courageous conversations. I don't know how to say. I don't know how to have faith in the goodness of life. Yeah. I'm going to trust people. Yeah, whatever you do not know how. So it's really important that we take the how to out of it. Okay. Okay. And just say, well, that's the new way of being because step six is to embrace a growth mindset. Yes. Okay. And that's when I was talking about before about when you have a positive, possible future, it will initiate growth in the direction of that dream. Yeah. You are not yet the person you will need to be to manifest and sustain that future. If you think back to when you first saw the vision of what you have today, Louis, yeah, you were not the man you needed to be for that future to happen. Not but the future excited me though. And I was like, I was hungry to learn and grow and develop. And you know, it's in two weeks, it'll be of recording this. So it'll be 13 years as I launched the show. And I remember before launching the show like a year before and I was kind of in this transition phase. And I was like, I'm, you know, I've done a lot of things. I've made money. I've gotten out of like being broke and I've like figured this out, but I'm still not fulfilled. I didn't have like this big future beyond just not be broke and make more money. Right? That was like, it was like, get off my scissors couch, make money. But then once I got there, I was like, I'm not fulfilled. And my relationships are falling apart. Like, there's something missing. And I just kept thinking about, God, all I want to do is just sit in front of really inspiring people, learn how to be better myself and then share that with others. And that has been every single week for 13 years, showing up and doing that, doing it, not perfect all the time. And you know, go back to my old self at times, all these different things. But it's like, I'm constantly showing up. But I remember having that vision of like, this is what I want to do. And I just want to inspire people through interviewing and learning as well and sharing my story of what I'm learning. And it's just, I'm constantly doing that. And you're still growing. Still doing it. You're learning all the time. 100%. Yeah. So when you have, when you have the courage to set a bold future that's outside of who you currently know yourself to be, you can expect a jolt in the direction of growth. Yes. Which, which by the way, it doesn't, isn't always pleasant. You know, usually the first act of creation is destruction. So things start falling apart because you've got to get rid of the structures that have been locking your old identity. Old relationships that have been. Yeah, relationships, and or start things start blown up. You get fired from your job like all sorts of shenanigans happen. Like that future is not kidding. That future wants you, right? But it is to recognize. But if you know the boundaries of the key to your new life, there's a lot of books on boundaries. There's a lot of weekend works. I would rather somebody put their efforts in personal development, personal growth, transformation, and healing into that development rather than go back for the 18th time and talk about what your father did when you were four. Yeah. Okay. That's where the real goal is. So we have to recognize that this is a developmental journey. When you got stuck in trauma, there were skills and capacities that were missing. When you were alone in life because you were a latch-keke kid or you weren't neglected, you know, you were left alone for hours at a time. You didn't learn how to be vulnerable. You didn't learn how to engage conflict in a successful way. You didn't learn how to reciprocity or mutuality in relationships. You only learn self-sufficiency. Or how to receive, and really, you know, it's like, you know, it's like, you know, all the things. If you don't feel worthy, how are you going to feel like you can receive something? That's right. You know, you're going to say, now is thank you, but now whether it's a gift or someone buying you lunch or love, you're going to always kind of be emotionally psychologically or physically rejecting love. If you don't believe you're worthy of receiving it, right? In some way. We're feeling guilty by receiving it or whatever. But there is a part of the person who's worthy. That's a very hard one to overcome. And you're basically living as a servant to others when you don't have an I'm not worthy. You know, you're showing up kind of subservient to your hair. Well, that's one of the ways of being that that could generate. But if there is a part of you that knows it's a wound and not your destiny and not your truth. So that's what we're looking for. It's a, you know, and the book is there. It takes people very, very step by step. So, you know, the growth mindset is the embracing the growth mindset of step six, step seven is making those new choices and taking new action. Which is correct me if I'm wrong, how we integrate the new identity. It's like by making new choices, taking new actions, you're stepping into something you've never done. You know, 10, 20, 30, 40 years of an old identity. Now you're doing new actions, new choices. And it takes time to kind of integrate saying, I'm safe in this new identity. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's actually where the rubber meets the road. Yeah. And here's a thing. Things can change so quickly. Once you understand how you're creating evidence for the old story, and you make a different choice. And it can be very, very subtle. A lot of these things are very subtle. Yes. When I was, when I divorced my husband, which was the foundation of conscious, I'm coupling, I found myself back out on the dating pool, right, which was kind of weird, because now I've written calling in the one and I had some weird experiences there. People say, well, I'm not the next one, or whatever, you know, it was an awkward situation for sure. But I remember one of the things that happened is that I started automatically recreating the old pattern of unavailability. Really? Yeah. Like that pattern is just sitting there, you know, ready to pass. Yeah. You came out. Yeah. Like you actually have to generate your life. Yes. You have to create a different future. If you don't create something consciously, your past will determine your future. That's just what's so. That's true. So, so I noticed that that was happening. And so I went in and I did some work on it. One of my false centers, my source of consciousness, by the way, there's not only just one for every area. Sometimes they, you know, they're kind of intertwined. They're intertwined a little bit. You work with the one that has the most energy in that moment. Okay. So the one I had the most energy in that moment for me was I'm not wanted. And one of the ways being in the I'm not wanted is overgiving your energy. Sure. Because you're kind of anticipating people are going to reject you. You got to be kind of a salesperson, right? You got to be like in their face a little bit and tap dancing and you know, don't don't reject me. So, but but what happens is of course it makes people back up again. Yeah. Really? So. Needy, clingy energy. Yeah. And then people back up and see they don't want me. Exactly. That's it. That's it. So I realized that sometimes with man, if I liked them, that I would come on too strong, that that was like a nervous thing that I did. So with my beautiful partner, Michael, now on our very first date, I knew this about myself. So the new way of being was to hold my energy in. To just just bring my energy in. To kind of hold myself be more self-contained. Yeah. So that when I walked in the room, I was self-contained. I wasn't overgiving my energy. You were like a golden retriever like, ah, love me. Yeah. Yeah. Which gave him a chance to get to know me. Of course. Yeah. And he actually fell in love with me that night. So, you know, it doesn't have to be, it can be very quick for life changes. It can be. You know, so a lot of it is on your way of being. Absolutely. And being self-aware and self-responsible. What would you say then is the difference between healing yourself and transforming yourself? Well, healing, I say, is the domain of the past, but transformation is the domain of the future. So healing again is about regulating yourself, facing the truth, understanding what happened, you know, recognizing that you are not that, learning to regulate yourself, all of these beautiful things. And so, you know, there's a piece of healing. You just have to be witnessed and held with love. But there are parts of us that will always be healing. Of course. It's a journey. It will, you know, every New Year's Eve, I might feel sad because someone died on it. And so, I, it's a lot of it's about just some of these pieces of ourselves. We just need to learn how to hold them when they come up with love. We don't have to get to the bottom of them before we can have what it is that we want. And that's the message that I'm really excited to be delivering to people. Yeah. Yeah. So there's healing, which is the domain of the past, transformation, which is the domain of the future. Yeah. And it sounds like identity is the domain of like the present, almost, where it's like our way of being is our identity or our belief is our identity. That's the true you. Oh, yeah. That's the true you because the true you is in the now. Okay. Who am I really? Is it true that I'm not good enough? Or I was going to tell you, do we have time for one more story? Yeah. Okay. So I was going to tell you the story about the, the, so here I am with these big ideas. I've got all these big ideas. And I don't feel good enough to be the one to deliver them. I'm not brine. You know, I'm not at that level. Right. You know, so, so who am I to bring this forward? And I'm struggling and I'm struggling. But they so want to be born that I'm struggling with with the book proposal. I think I struggled for like three years in that trying to write this book proposal. I got frustrated and I finally just sent it to my agent like my, you know, okay, this is what I have, you know, and she read it and she said, I don't get it. Right. Mirroring. Hearing, yeah, I'm not good enough. She rejected it. Wow. And I was crushed. I was heartbroken. But this is what I realized out of it. Oh, here I am writing this book about waking up from the trans of your resource fractures story to be able to create the life that you came here to live. I'm writing it from the source fracture story. You can't create the future from the self of the past. You actually have to go into the future and begin to source yourself from there. So I asked myself what's really true about this idea? You're not good enough. Well, you know, all of us are imperfect and all of us are doing the best that we can. And life seems to have given this teaching to me. So I guess if life is good enough, it's just mine to do. Yeah. Like it's, I don't need to get into that business about who, I don't need to compete with anybody. I'm just me. Right. So I woke myself up from the trans few months later. I called my agent because she's my friend and I needed advice. And I believe that people can say no to you and they, you can still love them. They get to have boundaries. Right. They can have their perspective and they can just support you and you don't withhold your love. But I called her because she's smart and I wanted her opinion by the end of that conversation. She said, I need to revisit this book. That was because who I was being. It was different. It was different. It's different energy. It's all different energy. She got the book. She ended up shaping the book. She got me an amazing book deal. The book is integral to her. So that's what I mean. Like we're sourcing ourselves and our lives from the identity we're centered in. But the true you is actually a flexible you. If I say, okay, I'm not a perfect person. And I'm open to learning and growing and becoming who I'd need to be to grade that book. Now I'm a fluid self. The old false centers are a fixed identity. They never change. They never change. There's no fluidity and they're shame based. So if you collapse into a shame based identity, you'll stop growing. From the true you, you're open to feedback. You can learn. Setbacks don't crush you. They disappoint you, but they don't crush you. You keep going. You grow from the experience and you can stay on track to actualize the future you're committed to. When you mentioned kind of how you had this, I guess, lack of self belief or maybe I don't know if it's a insecurity. I felt insecurity was really inferior. Imposter syndrome is what I was thinking of. I'm not this right. I haven't done this yet. I'm sure there's a lot of people listening or watching that have this kind of imposter syndrome. How do we overcome that when we're trying to create a bigger, powerful future that we've never done before? Well, I think the imposter syndrome is reflective of where am I centered at the level of identity. So you look at what it is that you're committed to creating. The actual practice is to first connect with the part of you that can be a witness to your own experience that has some wisdom. You're not going to collapse into getting blended with that younger part of you. Then you think about the pattern. What usually happens in this area? I want to be a successful actor. What usually happens is I get rejected at every thing I do. Then I get bad reviews when I get cast. That's the pattern. Then you say, well, how does it feel in my body when that pattern happens? You just imagine the pattern's happening now. Can I get rejected or something? When I get rejected. How do I feel in my body? Where do I feel it? Then you say, what's the I am in the center of that feeling? Right. Not smart enough. I'm not lovable. I'm not at whatever it is. That's how you find the source for your story in that particular area. Then you identify, well, I guess then you wake up to the true you, see yourself as source, identify new ways of relating, etc. etc. Go through the process. Yes. You say that transformation lives in the future. I know I've heard Dr. Jotaspens say to remember the future. I like to ask questions on here. If you're 10 yourself in the future, it was giving you advice now. What would that wiser version of you be saying to yourself right now when you feel stuck? How do people in this process, when they're feeling stuck, what is the process you really like to tap into that wiser future self to overcome the imposter syndrome to overcome the I'm not enoughness to overcome all these feelings. So that you can actually feel good again as opposed to feeling bad. Yeah. Well, I think what you're talking about is how do I shift centers when I'm really captivated emotionally by the story of the past. Yeah, the wound itself. The wound itself, it does feel very it is very pervasive. That's sometimes why it's very hard to language. Yes. I think one of the ways that I have found helpful is to name it accurately, to really name it and to give it the age because once you give it that age, if you can't get outside of it then what I sometimes do with people is I have them imagine then like a four-year-old sitting in front of them who just had a trauma and is collapsed into this meaning and they are coming as you know the light and what might they say about this conclusion? We're talking about the conclusions we came to that limit our lives. Yes. Right. So what might they say and usually people have enough compassion if they can externalize that younger self to be able to speak to that younger self in a way that brings some light and some hope. But you're right before you talked about many of us are kind of rusty in that area. We're not used to that dialogue, but it is one of the most important things that we'll ever learn how to do. It is the thing that actually allows us to really transform beyond the pain of the past. I mean they talk about this in the sports world as like this self-talk, something that I learned all the time when I had insecurity or fear before games it was like a self-talk or before a big moment if I'm shooting a free throw when the game was on the line it was like how I spoke to myself would typically determine the results. It would influence the results. If I'm like I'm going to be a fool I'm going to mess up. It's like if I'm thinking about the negative I'm probably going to react from pain or a wound or a fear rather than seeing a bigger possible future of you've got this or stay present or be in the moment or you can do anything like speaking into a bigger future and it's a practice and really it and it could be a moment by moment thing that we need to be doing to remind ourselves these moderas the self-talk and finding tools that we can master to overcome whatever life is throwing on our way. Speaking of tools to master you've been doing this for many decades and you've mastered certain levels and gone higher and higher or deeper deeper in mastery beyond being a therapist and learning about transformation and in bigger ways to transform and heal at the same time and when you're telling me beforehand but before when you when you sold the book deal you also got the call that you had cancer around the same time or that same week. Two days later. Two days later. And so when when you feel like you've mastered these tools right for so long and you've ever come all these challenges and created a beautiful new relationship and you have this wisdom to share with the world but then you get some news like this with a new challenge or potential obstacle in your way. How did you not fall back into all patterns of wounds or whatever that I could have shown up and how did you stay focused on the future and not living in the past or the future? Well fortunately you're right I did have decades of experience of this way of being so it's actually organic to mean and out to know live from the truth of who I am and when I collapse into a story which I do because that's human. Yes. Very important people know that this doesn't really go away you have to learn how to work with it. I don't tend to stay there for very long thank goodness. Yeah that was a really wild ride right on a Wednesday you get this major book deal. Six houses were bidding on it we went with the one we loved we're so happy with Penguin Life. Two days later cancer. So and the book was due the exact same time that the cancer treatment was scheduled to be over. Oh. So I wrote the book when I was in cancer treatment but the truth is is that that helped a great deal. Like it because it was so joyful to write this book it was so uplifting and to finally be at a place I mean it's taken really decades to to to put this all together right so this is out of all the work I've done calling in one conscious on coupling this is my true purpose. Yes. Being born and it actually is the teachings underlying both of the other books and why they work but it lifted me every day so I just you know you just decide who am I going to be in the face of this and the context of the future that I was living into which is really the big future I'm living into is that this book re-contextualizes how we engage our personal development work. You know I've I've pioneered two other things into the world that I'm very proud of calling in the one even though everybody's now aware of law of attraction and your beliefs and your manifesting love it was actually the first conversation in 2004. Nobody else was trying I almost didn't get a book deal because the editors would come back and say well she's saying something nobody else is saying and I remember saying my agent at the time I think that's a good thing but I mean I don't want to brag but this is the reality of like who I get to be is that I pioneer new things into the world which I feel you know so grateful grateful grateful for and then conscious on coupling kind of you know broke the glass ceiling on how we do deforestation now there's a lot of different books on it and teachings and but it so there's a there's a way that I'm given that privilege and so I see this book as the privilege that it is with that future of repositioning how we all engage personal development work to turbocharge our capacity to outgrow the imprinting of our past and create the lives that we want to be living and and and ultimately Lewis the world that we want to be living in because this is what we need to learn how to do for ourselves so we can bring it into the world that future just carried me and is carrying me today like I'm still in treatment right so it got better and you know all the all the tumors went way and they shrunk and now some of them are back and you know so you're on a journey when you're dancing with atypical cells but you see like truthfully I'm I'm just you know this is life and we all go through hardships so when you have a context of the future that you're living into it repositions the challenges that were in and you can live your life not from where you are trying to get to that future but from that future which then informs who do I need to be today yes right so it has really only truthfully increased my strength and increased my capacity to stand in that positive possible future I vision every day a future where my body is healthy I thank God every day for healing my body and at the same time I'm aware that we're all only here for a minute and we better as well you know we might as well do what God put us on this earth to do or what we feel in our souls were put here for and get busy living into that future because time is finite on this level and so I accept that I'm 68 and you know we're lucky to be living this long really because a hundred years ago people were out by 40 so yeah you know I'm grateful for my life every day and I'm really committed to the privilege of being able to burst these ideas wow that's beautiful beautiful wisdom if you could I'm I'm gonna turn 43 soon I never really celebrate in my birthday but that's my my birthday is coming up in the next couple months 43 and I just had twins which you're aware of and my audience is aware of twin girls if you could give me one piece of advice on how to best approach fatherhood for two girls yeah in the world that they're entering in right now in the life that we're having right now and what's happening in the world and the culture and everything you know I'm sure everyone's got a piece of advice on how to be a conscious parent but if you could just give one piece of advice to myself or any new parent on how you would approach fatherhood or motherhood at this season what would you say with your infinite wisdom such a sweet sweet question I mean the first thing that comes to me I know you're already doing which is to sponsor their potential greatness oh 100% speaking into it yeah all yet creating it with your work absolutely absolutely but the other thing and and once once this book is out we're we're gonna be looking at doing a parenting book children do army a little meaning making machines and making meaning out of everything you know you could probably have the best of intentions and they could interpret it and yeah maybe not the best of ways sometimes right it's like maybe who knows so it's to pay attention to the meaning that they're making at the level of identity I saw this with my daughter when she was six years old my daughter has autism and she was having a hard time socially connecting and there was something that happened at school with the kids and they kind of you know weren't nice to her or something and she immediately I could just see the collapse in her the shrinking it's not like they come to you and say I have a belief now that I I'm not gonna shift the energy shift they come back in their life just wider more in their room or whatever yeah they're not as free yeah they're not as she wasn't as free hmm she wasn't as happy and I caught it and I was able to sit with her and intercept it and I was able to language it I think what you're making it mean is but honey what it really means is this and who you are is this and I did see a shift back hmm when I was able to catch that and do that for her so I think there's a lot to be explored there because I haven't done a lot of research yet in that area but that's what I would you know encourage you to do yeah it's probably catching the when they make a weird face for their energy shifts it's like catching it and communicating with love on you know what they're trying to make meaning of I guess and trying to shift well you know children don't have the cognitive capacity to help complexity till that they're about seven so they they they that's why if you look at the Santa Claus was real you know it's like until so I'm sure about that well it's not real you know it's like you can't see the complexities of life everything is very black and white everything's black and white so so you know you you have to be careful with you know with with what how they're interpreting their experience so to just be the attention you have pay attention to be the one who helps them to hmm this is powerful I want everyone to go get this book what's true about you seven steps to move beyond your painful past and manifest your brightest future if you feel stuck or if you feel like you haven't been fully living your truest gifts or you have something you want to bring into the world but for whatever reason it's not manifesting yet make sure you go through this book because when you break free from your past you embrace the true you you unleash your brightest future and that's what everyone deserves to be living if they're willing to do the work they can get the book anywhere again what's true about you get it for a friend they can check you out on your website Catherine Woodward Thomas calm the same thing on social media and I hope everyone gets this book and shares this interview with a friend as a starting point as well I've got a couple final questions for you okay I think I might have asked this to you 11 years ago when you're on the show I'm not good but I'm not sure if I started asking these questions back then so I'd have to actually go back and reflect and see if that was the case but I I started at some point asking people a question at the very end of the episodes called the three truths and maybe I did this with you I think you did maybe I did so I can't remember if I did it in my first six minutes you did I had no idea what I said yeah all right so we'll see where you at now let me hear it later and we'll reflect back on what you said then so imagine you get to live as long as you want in this life and then and you get to create everything you want from the most powerful future version of you and it all comes to life but at the end of the day when you pass away many years away okay you have to take all of your work with you all of your messages all of your books all your conversations they're gone hypothetical scenario okay but you get to leave a final message with the world your final three lessons I call it the three truths what would those three truths that you would leave behind be you are the creator of your life the purpose of life is to create heaven on earth and the essence of who you are is love yeah yes it is before I ask the final question Catherine I want to acknowledge you for your constant journey of transformation for your personal life and for bringing your message to so many people one-on-one group settings and even more so with your content and your books and your your programs that you have online as well you know the fact that you live a life of service to help people heal and transform into the greatest self I don't know a better way to live so I want to acknowledge you for the constant journey even through the challenges you keep facing and it's a beautiful thing to witness how you approach life with everything you've been through and everything you're going through right now so I want to acknowledge you for the love you bring to so many people it's really beautiful of course my final question is what is your definition of greatness it's to live in the most expansive calling on your life for who you came here to be for the world and the gifts that you the golden gifts that only you can deliver in just the way that you can we're all needing to do that now yeah you know as the world escalates and tensions you conflict and negativity it's pushing on all of us to step into that yes to greatness that called a greatness so I'm glad we're all in it together hey man how's it thanks for being here appreciate you thank you thank you thank you I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life but you want to make it easier you want to make it flow you want to feel abundant then make sure to go to make money easy book dot com right now and get yourself a copy I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad-free listening then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on apple podcast share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on apple podcast as well let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward and I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved you are worthy and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something great