154. How to Separate Your Core Self from Your Thinking Brain
Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to the Empowered brain, the only podcast using science, psychology and coaching to help you rewire your brain and create a life you love with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Harvard grad physician, master coach, and mother of two.
Hey, friends, welcome back to the podcast. We are talking today about why it's important to get to know yourself. And I wanted to share a lesson with you that I recently just resonated with me at a different level. And I think it will be really helpful for all of you. And wait, before I go on, though, I need your help. So I've been asking you at the beginning of these podcasts to help me help others by really rating and reviewing this podcast. So if you're listening and you're enjoying what you're learning, I would really, really appreciate your help, please rate the podcast, please leave us a review. If you're listening to a platform where they allow reviews that don't have to be long, it can be short and sweet. But please rate and review the podcast, it really helps other people find the podcast.
Okay, so why is it important to get to know yourself? So the reason why I am sharing this with all of you is I think conceptually we all get that it's important to get to know ourselves and have that level of awareness. However, I was teaching a big group of professionals, really smart people. And I was teaching them things like the cognitive thought model, for example. And it was fascinating to me how many of them didn't think it was important to understand their thinking. And I thought that that was so fascinating. And here's the way I was able to get through to them, and really helped them grasp the importance. And I wanted to share that with you. Because if you're listening to this podcast, and you continue to listen to it, this is not something you need to grasp. But I do think it's really important just to have this lesson, you know, what I've come to realize is in the world, we want to get to know our competitors. Because when we get to know our competitors, it helps us be better, it helps us succeed. When you think about sports, for example.
So, you know, I used to play a lot of sports growing up, one of the things we would do before a game is and as we were training is we get to know, you know, the other teams go to place their players, and what their strengths were, what their weaknesses were, that's how we would get better essentially, for ourselves. And that's how we would mentally prepare ourselves for a game. So
Vanessa 02:42
when you think about that, and you know that your biggest, when you get to know your biggest competitor, it sets you up for success. And then you think about life, guess what your biggest competitor is going to be in life, your biggest competitor is not going to be the person down the street or your arch nemesis, you know from your, you know, law school or medical school. Now, your biggest competitor to your success is going to be yourself. So when you get to know what makes you tick, when you get to know yourself the most, the things that drag you down, your strengths, your weaknesses, then you have a huge advantage, and you accelerate your success. So when you get to know yourself, you really support yourself and get to know your biggest competitor. And that's not the only reason why it matters, the right to get to know yourself. Another really big reason is it leads you towards your path to authenticity. And, you know, I really see my work as the whole core purpose of a lot of what I do is to increase the level of compassion, empathy, in Universal Consciousness in the world, and to really help women and people of color liberate themselves from internalized systems of oppression.
You know, whether that's like internalized sexism, racism, ableism, whatever it is that we've been holding on to in our bodies, because of the lives that we've lived, and because of the trauma that we've inherited from our ancestors. And when you get to know yourself more, you make space to also heal yourself from the stuff you're holding on to, which supports you in creating more authenticity. And when you walk on your path towards authenticity, what happens, you are more you which is what the world needs and needs you to be the most you as possible. You create more inner peace, more fulfillment. And one of the things that I have found, which is so interesting is you tend to have more courage setting boundaries, which I think is just incredibly important because, you know, understanding that saying no is a complete sentence is so liberating. And all of that happens when you start to get to know yourself. The other thing that's really important too, is when you get to know yourself. You feel really comfortable taking steps and being on a path towards the right direction in your life, as opposed to going really fast in the wrong direction, which is what I think a lot of people that are achievers like a lot of really smart people tend to do. They go really fast to try to create success. But sometimes it's away from their values or away from their purpose. And when you are on your, on your road, on your path towards authenticity, you are walking in the direction of your purpose of your values of your intention, so you are walking in the right direction.
The other thing that this does, of course, is build self trust. So in my work inside of the journey, when I'm working with my students, one of the things we're doing over and over and over again, is teaching them how to trust themselves. Because we are really our guides, you know, our future self are great divine, that is our greatest teacher, that is also our best guide. But we are completely disconnected, most of us form our intuitive sense, because for a lot of reasons, right? The way society has programmed Women program men, the way you know, there's industries and industries out there that exist for women to not trust themselves to not love themselves. So you can buy beauty products, weight loss products, whatever it is. And when you start to do this work towards authenticity, what happens, you start to develop your intuitive sense. And you start to be able to hear yourself, listen to yourself, and trust yourself, which is humongous. And one more thing that I think is really important is as you start to get to know yourself more, you build a new level of compassion for yourself and for others, and you create a level of compassion in the world.
Because when you're being more compassionate, you vibrate at a higher level. And when you're vibrating at that level, you're creating universal compassion, Universal Consciousness, you're increasing compassion in the universe. And that, my friends, is how we start walking towards self reclamation. And really, I think we are at this beautiful period where women and people of color are really just creating self reclamation. And that comes from self compassion. It comes from healing old wounds and self compassion.
So how do we do this? How do we get to know ourselves more? So I'm going to just share two things that are super simple, one is meditation. So how does meditation help you know yourself more? Well, what meditation does when you start to practice it regularly, is it allows you to create space between your core self and your thinking brain. Because my friends, as has been said, over and over again, you are not your thinking brain. And when you don't create space between what you're thinking and who you are, you think you are, you think you're your thinking brain. And then you know, create feelings that are not helpful that paralyze you that keep you stuck. And then you blame it on yourself. Instead of creating distance and saying, Hold on a second, I noticed that I'm thinking for I noticed that I'm feeling, which means the separation. If you notice, you're not saying I am a liar. You're like, I noticed that I'm thinking thoughts that are telling me that I'm a liar. Oh, fascinating. Oh, I notice how that makes how that's creating a sense of guilt inside of me. notice a difference that you don't identify with the thoughts. But you notice that thoughts are there.
So I created a podcast episode a long time ago, I think it's podcast episode number 11, which is how to start meditating. It's all super easy ways to start meditating, if you've never meditated before. So I highly recommend you listen to that podcast episode, I'll walk you through exactly what to do to get started. And the other thing as just a tool of awareness is practicing that noting, noticing when you're thinking thoughts. And so do that, though, listen to that meditation podcast, start trying and commit to meditating at least one minute per day. That's how I started. And now I'm at this beautiful space where I meditate anywhere from 3045 minutes an hour, when I can give myself the entire hour, and it is just a beautiful space for me to continue to connect with my highest self and continue to be guided forward in the direction of my highest purpose. Alright, the other tool I want to just invite all of you to practice is journaling.
So if you're not already, if you don't already have a journaling practice or you have an inconsistent journaling practice, here's your invitation to sort of double down on that, or at least consider starting one. So it doesn't have to be complicated. And cheers. The only thing I'd suggest are three simple things. Choose a time of the day, that's the easiest for you to do it. commit to doing it every day and it doesn't have to be fancy. And if you've never journaled before, I'd recommend just sit down. So when I committed to really doing this as a way to get to know myself, I started journaling, I would get up in the morning and I was so committed to this that I would get up before my kids were up. This is when my kids were young. So I'd actually set an alarm to get up before them. And my commitment to myself was, I'm just going to sit down, and I'm going to let whatever's in my mind, get out on paper and get out of my brain get out on paper for 15 minutes.
So I'd set a timer and I'd go for it. And I would write whatever was there. And if I was feeling stuck, I would just say, I'm stuck, my brain is empty, and then eventually things would just flow out. And what I noticed from doing that weeks after weeks, is that there were trends that kept showing up, you know, like, things that I wasn't happy with, that kept popping up things that I kept judging myself for things that I was questioning. And in so doing, I realized that those things lived in my subconscious mind. It's not something I thought about all the time. But when I was giving myself the space, to get all of that outside of my brain and onto paper, it created an opportunity for me to be aware of what was in my subconscious mind. And that's really important, because if you think of your brain is sort of like this triangle, the very tip of your conscious brain, which is where we think we're making most of our decisions.
But the truth is, the majority of that triangle is your subconscious mind and your autonomic habits. So the majority of where you're taking your actions from the life that you're living, all of those things are not coming from your conscious brain. And we think they are but they're not, which is why it's really important to get to know ourselves deeper and deeper and deeper. Because then we can see like, Ah, this is why I continue to create these results. Oh, I noticed this thought, This is what I don't want to be living. I noticed how this makes me feel. I noticed this, how this triggers me. And that is how we start to slowly rewire our brain and create a life that we're proud of. All right, this podcast episode was short and sweet. And I hope it was really helpful. So again, the more you get to know yourself, the happier you will be, the more authentic you will be.
And really, you are your biggest competitor. So when you get to know yourself, you are really setting yourself up to have huge success when you get to know what makes you tick. What triggers you to love what you don't love. That is how you're creating a life for yourself going to be a life well lived. It also helps you build intuition. It helps you heal generational trauma. It helps you create more compassion for yourself and for others. And the way you do it too simple. There's a ton of ways to do this. But two simple ways to get started, is choose to meditate one minute per day if you've never done it before, or start a journaling, practice or do both. Alright, sweet friends. I'm sending you so much love. And I'm leaving you today with just an invitation that may you love yourself. May you know yourself more each and every day. Alright sweet friends until next week.
Vanessa 12:48
Hey, sweet friends, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to join us in the journey. It's my all inclusive program and the best community out there giving you the education you never knew you needed to help you create a life you love. Join us at Vanessa Calderon md.com forward slash join. I'll see you there.
