Tune into Episode 14 – The Practice of Tuning In right here in your browser, find it on your favourite platform (head here for the links) or keep reading for a transcript.
Hi, hello and welcome to this episode of the Rules Are Made Up.
I am recording this on the 1st of May which makes me go how the fuck are we in May already and where the heck did April go?
It has been such a whirlwind of a month, with getting Chewie, who is our almost four month old puppy settled into a routine a bit more and by definition, us getting settled in a routine.
I’ve had a bunch of work stress to navigate, I’ve been, you know, trying to stay on top of uni things, onboarding some clients working on some other exciting things that I might share soon and, you know, it just feels like it was the 3rd of April the other day and you blink a couple of times and boom, you’re in a new month.
And at times like this, when you know you’re so focused on not dropping some of the balls that you’re juggling, and you’re very much on autopilot, just you know zooming through the day, trying to tick off all the things on your list.
It’s at times like this, that I actually crave a pause. A little break, some rest and not just to you know, literally just take a break from all the things (’cause that is definitely helpful), but also to be able to bring a bit of awareness to what’s going on and to how I am feeling, to what I’m thinking.
Especially because it’s so easy to fall into autopilot, it is not necessarily something that comes naturally, right?
It’s like if you have a to do list and that’s miles long, or you know you have particular ideas about what you need to get done each day, it is very easy to just make sure that you, you know to just be in the zone to just get it all done without checking in, without tuning in to see, oh hey brain how you doing right?
And so bringing awareness to the present moment and what’s going on is a practice that is really, really helpful for me.
It is also something that I think is starting to get talked about a little bit more these days, you know the concept of awareness and self-awareness and how important it is and I think that’s a good thing because firstly it helps bring awareness to what’s going on, which is helpful at any time, right?
But it’s also really, really helpful when you are starting out on a journey of wanting to get to know yourself better or wanting to make some changes because by building self-awareness and by practicing that skill, you start to figure out what’s going on, and once you start to figure out what’s going on, you can start to make some tweaks, some adjustments, some changes, right?
It’s how you figure out what you might want to change, what action or thoughts you might want to change depending on what your goals or your situation is.
And building awareness is a skill that I believe we all need to learn and continue to practice – forever.
It’s not one of those things that you do for six weeks and then you get a certificate of completion and you’re done, hurray, you know whatever. No, like with a lot of things, it is a skill you keep practicing and keep working away at it and it takes a bit of focus especially at the beginning.
But as a lot of things, if you put in the reps, you’ll start to notice that you get better. You might get faster at recognizing certain things, or depending on how you practice, awareness that skill in itself might feel a bit easier overtime.
It is really a foundational skill that no matter what we’ve got going on, we need to focus on. And I believe it’s so foundational that it’s pretty much the first thing I work on with my clients, both in my 1:1 coaching containers as well as my group coaching program The Inner Compass.
Why? Exactly because of what I just said. If we don’t know what’s going on, we can’t expect to make tweaks and changes right?
If you don’t know that you’re doing a particular behavior or that a certain situation triggers certain thoughts which then generate your feelings, if we don’t know any of those things, we can’t tweak anything.
Right, we can’t figure out “oh it’s this particular situation, every single time” is there a way to not expose you to that situation?
Right, it’s like I mentioned in a previous episode about giving fucks that you know, maybe not to give as many fucks to that dickhead in your work meetings, right? But it’s basically if you don’t even know that that particular person sets you off because of how they act or how they talk – then you don’t even know how to start to equip yourself to be able to handle that differently, right to maybe work on ignoring them or actually having a conversation with them or not going to the meeting if you can.
If you don’t know any of those things that that particular person (in this specific example is the person that puts you in a foul mood), then you can’t change what’s going on, right or even work on tools or strategies to if you can’t escape that situation, if you can’t remove yourself from it, maybe you can work on techniques to navigate it right, but again, if you don’t know, you don’t know.
And so I believe building self-awareness and you know, really practicing that tuning in is a fantastic way to notice these triggers, but also noticing patterns.
Even if it’s not necessarily something that you really want to work on, just having a regular cadence of checking in with yourself, of tuning in, can be really awesome at helping you recognize shit you didn’t even know about.
Right and again then, even if it wasn’t something where you’re like “shit, I really need to or I really want to change this”, maybe by bringing awareness to it or by starting to notice it, maybe you do find that hey, actually, maybe this is something that I want to work on.
And if all this talk about awareness, well all 7 minutes of it, has made you go “OK Neens, you’ve convinced me, I think I want to work on it, but how the fuck do I even do that?”
Well – this is the point in this podcast where I will tell you that I have taken a lot of the resources I share with my clients and put them into a free mini course that teaches you exactly that.
It is 4 mini videos, and when I say mini, I mean they are really short, like the longest one is seven minutes, a workbook to note things down if needed and some extra resources.
If you never really practiced or intentionally practiced self-awareness, this mini course is a great place to start, especially before you might want to look into more foamal – foamal?? Formal coaching opportunities with me or someone else.
And if you’ve listened to this episode and you’re like “Neens, I’m in a pretty good spot like I really know how to tune in with myself, I’m pretty self-aware”.
Awesome – and I really mean that because like I mentioned earlier, I think we all need to practice this skill and if you’re already doing that then that is bloody fantastic!
However, I would recommend still checking it out because it might give you some new perspective or new ideas that you haven’t tried before.
You can always be open to trying new things and it’s free so you won’t lose out on anything, whether or not you sign up, so I’ll put the link to the course in the show notes.
All I’m asking for is your email address so I can send it to you.
And if you are listening to this episode as it goes live, if you grab the course during the month of May 2022, you will go in the draw for a free coaching call with me. So if that sweetens the deal a little bit more – there you go.
So again, the link will be in the show notes so you can grab it as soon as you’ve listened to this episode.
Thank you for tuning in – again I really appreciate your continued listenership and I’ll chat to you soon.
Links for you:
Tune In – Self-Awareness Mini Course
