Today’s episode is about embracing the idea that you already have all the answers inside of you. You need to learn to believe that, tune in and listen to the voice of your own inner mentor. Otherwise, you’ll end up feeling frustrated, lost, and overwhelmed. I am sharing what worked for me when I was feeling like that and how I manage to find my still in the midst of all the chaos.
Listen now:
Links that I mentioned:
- Book: Playing Big by Tara Mohr
- Book: Untamed by Glennon Doyle
- Book: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
- Podcast episode: It all starts with the mindset
- Group program: Embrace
- Work with me: 1:1 coaching and mentoring for creatives
- Book a free call with me
- Sign up to the fortnightly letters
- Connect with me on instagram @hirasahmed
Transcript of the episode:
Today I want to talk about something special. Something that I myself have only really embraced this year.
All the answers you are seeking are all inside of you, already.
It doesn’t matter what everyone else or society have you believed. No matter what everyone else says, I want you to know and really believe that all the answers you are seeking outside of you are all already inside of you. All you need to do to access the voice of your inner mentor is to be still, pay attention, and listen. Listen closely and learn to trust that voice of your inner mentor. This is especially true here because we are talking about building a creative work and life practice that works for you, If that’s the dream and I am assuming it is since you are here tuning into this second season of the podcast – if you dream of building a creative work and life practice that works for you, it all has to come from you.
What do I mean by inner mentor? The wiser, more compassionate unique inner guide of yours. Sometimes I refer to it as intuition. It is the gut feeling that makes its presence known whenever you make time to be still enough to pay attention to it. What you call it is not as important as you tuning in when you need to.
I am one of those people who choose a word of the year and my word for this year is Embrace. It came to me when I was doing a review of my last year and I noticed how many times I wrote the words overwhelmed and lost.
I have been on this journey of building a creative business for myself. A creative business that works for me and supports the kind of lifestyle I want to live and not the other way around. Not a business that defines how I live my life, not the constant hustle and always on. I don’t want a life that revolves around my business all the time but I want a business that supports that life. The kind of life I want. Simple, slow, and with loads of creative freedom and definitely more time and space to just be. Not constantly running around like a headless chicken.
I remember feeling quite frustrated with it all in the beginning and especially last year. I found myself reading, listening, researching possibly everything I could and it all led me to feel lost and overwhelmed. I couldn’t find myself or recognize myself – differentiate myself from all those external voices and all that information that I was consuming. I was reading, listening, and researching everything I could because I wanted to understand myself and it all better but it was doing the quite opposite for me. I was looking outside for all the answers, for the permission to try it and for the blue-print or academic syllabus to build a business online. It doesn’t exist and I don’t think anyone who tells you or sells you this way by claiming to buy this 5 step formula or blueprint to have a six-figure business or whatever is telling you the truth. I learned it the hard way. I was listening, reading, and believing what everyone else was saying and trying to do the things they were doing and I lost myself somewhere in that noise. I couldn’t focus on what really mattered to me and what does or doesn’t work for me. I am telling you this because I am sure you’ve had some experience with this kind of content or marketing earlier or maybe it is something you are currently struggling with. Of course, there is so much helpful and great content out there but we need a certain sense of who we are to be able to vet that content under the lens of what will and won’t work for us. What does and doesn’t speak to us. What feels right and what doesn’t feel right. This is where intuition comes in. This is where we need to find the courage to lean inwards and ask ourselves what do we really genuinely want and what ways or how we are going to make that happen while staying true to our values.
That review of the year made me realize how I was outsourcing the vision I had for my creative work and life. This is when it became clear to me how I was not actually living true to myself. You can not outsource the vision you have for your life from an external source. This is not to say all the resources, information, learning and knowledge that is available to us, that they don’t have anything valuable to add but this is what I have learned that you have to be intentional about the voices you let in when you are figuring out your very own version. They are sharing what matters to them, what they value, what worked for them, and how you can replicate that. That’s valuable indeed but not entirely. It is their version. If you want exactly the same things, way to go! But if you want a version that is truer to you, you have got to let it come from you.
Before starting this journey of finding what works for me, I never knew that I had an inner mentor. I never knew that I could, in fact, turn inwards, be still and listen to what she had to say. When I did learn about her, I didn’t know that I could trust her. I never knew she was in it with me all this time. She is kind, gentle, and not at all pushy. Her voice was always lost somewhere in the mix of the voice of my inner critic and those external voices. But now, with time and deliberate effort, I have built a connection with her, and I have learned to recognize between her voice and the voice of my fears. It is another way of saying that I have learned to embrace listening to the voice of my intuition instead of believing the voice of my inner critic.
I am going to share a few things here with you today that have really helped me in embracing that all the answers I am seeking outside of me are all actually inside of me, already.
A few helpful resources that I’d like to share with you here that have really helped me in embracing the voice of my intuition are playing big by Tara Mohr and Untamed by Glennon Doyle. I have just finished reading it last week and I’ve loved every bit of it and I am sure you’ll quite enjoy it too.
The one decision that really helped me was to carefully vet the people whose advice I listen to and read content from and making an intentional choice of keeping that list of people very small.
So now I have only 3-4 people whose content I consume and I really resonate with. This is not to say, I don’t read anyone else at all. I do but I am always very careful about the voices I let in and I am constantly asking myself if what I am reading is resonating with me. Does it feel in alignment with who I am and what I stand for?
This is tying it back to the first episode of this season where I asked you to keep asking three questions as you listen to this season.
- What can I learn from this?
- What can I take away from this?
- What is serving me and what’s not?
- What small steps can I take to steer it towards the direction I want to be going in?
These are the exact questions that I ask myself when I read or consume someone else’s content.
This allows me to build a relationship with my inner mentor. It builds the trust that I need to have in her voice to keep tuning back inwards every time I need to. I guess it all started for me when I sat down after that review of the year and stepped back a little from everything I was doing and questioned everything that I was or wasn’t doing and I gave myself permission to listen to my intuition, my own inner mentor to guide me towards what was feeling right and in alignment with my values and my vision for the kind of life I want.
A great tool to build a connection with the voice of your inner mentor is journaling. Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s way is a brilliant book and it quite literally hooked me on writing my morning pages. I used to journal before but it completely changed the way I show up for my daily journaling practice now. You probably have seen me sharing stories of me journaling every day on my insta stories already. All I do is show up and hold space for myself. Sometimes I end up writing the intentions for the day, some days I explore what’s bothering me and not feeling right and other days I write some affirmations and explore more deeper questions, dreams, and desires. Journaling has not only served me in building a connection with my intuition but also in becoming self-aware. It has not only helped me in my creative practice but it has been a great help in my life too. I have so much to say about journaling so I guess I will share it another episode with you but if you are looking forward to building a connection with the voice of your inner mentor, journaling is a great place to start.
So an action step for you is to consciously and very carefully vet the people you choose to follow online and offline, who’s advice matters to you and who resonate with you and offline carefully choose the people whose opinion of you matters for you and gently unfollow, mute or let go the people who no longer fit into the kind of life you are envisioning for yourself. This will not only help you in building a connection with your inner mentor but also trusting her voice and letting go of the pressure and overwhelm that you might be feeling. Trust that you are on the right path and keep tuning in and keep going because I really do believe you have all the answers within you and you are already enough. You have always been so endlessly enough. and remember this is the journey of uncovering and embracing your wild.
On that note, I wanted to share that I am going to do a round two of my new program embrace (Embrace 2.0). You probably have heard me talk about it here on the podcast once or seen me share more about it on Instagram stories. Version 2.0 is exactly the same program and the only difference is that it will be three months long and there are only three spots available. It will begin in August and end in October. I just wanted to let you know In case you missed it the first time and are wanting and waiting to join in. Get in touch with me. Embrace is for you if you’d like to have a safe, warm and dedicated place to figure out your very own answers, your very own version of the kind of life you want to live, and with the support and gentle accountability of like-minded business buddies. There is no hierarchy. It is like a mastermind and a little bit like a group coaching program but not exactly like anyone of those. This is for you if you have a creative practice and want to build a sustainable business alongside it. It is something really special and I am extremely proud of myself for bringing it to life. The first round is already almost three weeks in and we are quite loving it so far. Anyway, more details about that are on my website hirasahmed.com/embrace
Yeah, this is it for today and I’d like to end with this quote:
“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
– Albert Einstein
Other episodes you might like:
-
- Ep. 16 – Giving Yourself Permission to be a Beginner
- Ep. 12 – It All Starts With The Mindset
- Ep. 15 – Defining Your Very Own Version of Success
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