Episode 19 - How Triggers Become Our Teachers

Welcome to Super Connections. I am your host, Jennifer K. Hill, helping you with the Golden Triangle of Connection, where you will super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. Join me each week as I will share from some of my favorite tips and tools for super connecting, and I'll bring in some of my favorite friends and thought leaders to help support you on your journey to super connecting to the life of your dreams. Hello friends, and welcome back to episode 19 of Super Connections. I'm Jennifer K. Hill, where we dive in each week and find ways to super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. Today I was inspired to share about what to do when we feel that somebody is triggering us. You know that person or situation— let us focus on the person for this time— the person who is like nails on a chalkboard to you, and they might not have even ever done something wrong. Maybe it is your brother or sister, old nemesis from high school, who knows, whatever it is. But somehow or another, every word that comes out of their mouth is like nails on a chalkboard. Have you ever had somebody like that in your life? Unfortunately, we all get there sometimes. So the question is, why? Why are these people in our lives? Why are these situations in our lives? And what are they here to teach us? Well, you may have heard me share in the past about this idea of soul school. Many years ago, I think I read a book by James Van Praagh called Souls. I think it was even called, oh, Adventures of the Soul is what it was called. And in the book, he talks about this idea of Soul School. So you know how we go to college and you want to get a degree in math or history or liberal arts or whatever it might be? Well, imagine that life is like that, just like that beautiful Pixar movie called Soul that came out a couple of years back. What if life is a curriculum designed for our greater unfoldment and to help teach us lessons that our soul needs to evolve? I'm gonna let that sink in for a moment. So let's play with this concept a little bit more. What if that colleague who's driving you crazy, or your sibling or old friend from years ago who, you know, just still keeps calling you all the time, or even your ex, why are they still in your life? What are they here to teach you? Well, many years, there was a beautiful story by the Kabbalists that they shared. I think it was my Kabbalistic teacher Moshe many years ago who shared the story, who says, Imagine that you receive a letter, and we'll use me since I'm the one talking, and it says it's addressed to Jennifer K. Hill, right? And that letter is in the form though of a person that you don't want to have in your life. I'm trying to think of somebody I resisted years ago. I had a nemesis in the recruiting field who she and I were always trying to like take each other down, right? So let's say that this letter comes in the form of a person and it's addressed to Jennifer Hill on the envelope, right? And yet, what do you do? You're like, I don't want to deal with this crappy situation or person. Return to sender, right? I don't want this. Return to sender. Or you let the letters pile up and pile up and pile up. Well, what happens if, let's call it the universe, is trying to send you a message? It's trying to say, hi, hi Jennifer, hi Bob, hi Susie, hi Sam, whatever your name might be. I have a message for you and it's directed to you. Well, if you don't ever open that letter that's addressed to you, you're going to have the opportunity— the universe is going to have to send you more and more and more of that same person, that same irritating situation, until you open that letter and go, oh, this is for me. And instead of being angry or frustrated or judgmental or resisting to the fact that this letter is for you, what if instead you could get curious? What if you could ask yourself, huh, I wonder why this person or situation is in my life. I wonder what lesson they're here to teach me. So let's go back to that Soul School curriculum that we were talking about from this idea of Soul School. Imagine that when you enroll in Soul School, some of us need to get a PhD in abandonment. Some of us need to get a PhD in self-confidence, and those 2 things might be entwined. You know, the person who's here to get a PhD in abandonment might have self-confidence issues for the first 10, 20, 30 years of your life. Now it's up to you. It's just like a normal school system. You can choose to extend your school system over many decades learning that same lesson, but then you don't get to evolve. So why do we want to evolve? Well, you remember it's kind of no fun when you're in school and you're learning, uh, the icky stuff that you don't really wanna learn. You're like, oh, I don't really wanna learn this abandonment thing. This sucks. You're gonna keep resisting that lesson. And some people that goes on for their entire life. But I have exciting news. What if I were to tell you the moment you open that letter and ask yourself, what is in this lesson, in this person that I'm unwilling or unable to recognize? And to learn from, the minute you do that, you upgrade to a new level. I love that David Guillaume, one of my other Kabbalistic teachers who I probably referenced here before, used to say it's kind of like going into a movie. You're gonna be in the Jennifer K. Hill or the Jim or Bob or Susie movie, right? Your whole life, you're just gonna keep watching that same movie. But the minute we go against our nature, we do that thing that's hard, we open that letter from the universe, And we go, what are you here to teach me? We jump into a new movie. So this is why we want to graduate from those classes, so to speak, sooner rather than later. Because if we choose to keep resisting and fighting against that same person who's driving us crazy for the rest of our lives, we don't get to jump into that new movie. And in that new movie, you could have your soulmate, your dream job, world travels, your dream home, your dream family. And it's waiting. It's right there for you. There's another movie theater already playing that for you. And when you get into string theory and multiverse theory, we already know that this is possible, that there are multiple versions. Jean Houston teaches this in a lot of her work on quantum physics. We know that there are multiple versions of Jennifer, multiple versions of you out there just waiting to be embraced. There's a great movie I love called Everything Everywhere All at Once that if you haven't watched, Please go watch it because in the movie they illustrate this so beautifully, of the moment that you do something hard or unexpected, you jump into a new reality or you get your powers upgraded. What if life was as simple as that? So I am going to share with you another fun kabbalistic story years ago that I remember hearing from one of my favorite podcasts that I listen to called The Weekly Energy Boost. And in it, Elise Sheva and David Guillaume, this must have been 2 or 3 years ago before David had his own podcast, We are having a discussion about one of Eliyahu Sheva's kabbalistic coaching clients. And she says, David, it was hilarious. I have this student, she studied kabbalah for 10, 20 years, and she has this woman at her office who is driving her crazy. And she keeps coming to me, meaning Eliyahu Sheva, and complaining about it and saying, oh, this woman is a nightmare. She is always popping her head over my cubicle and saying, hi, do you want to grab lunch? Hi. And just really needy and coming to her for attention all the time. And so, Elie Shevard kind of digs in with her student and says, okay, well, where might you be that person for someone else? I am going to pause and let that sink in. Sometimes the reason that somebody is showing up in our lives is because we are that person for someone else. It might not be 100% of the time, but a lot of the time what we resist is because the other person is reflecting back to us some aspect of ourselves we haven't yet accepted. Pretty powerful, right? Okay, cool. So Eliyahu Sheva goes on, and she's coaching the student. The student says, I am not that person for anybody. I've studied Kabbalah. I know all of this. There's nobody in my life that I'm that annoying or needy with. And she's like, okay, well, see if you can dig deeper. Maybe there's somebody you haven't thought of. So the student goes back out into her life and comes back to Eliyahu Sheva about a week or two later and says, I got it. I figured out who I'm that person for. And she says, yeah, who is it? And the woman starts laughing and she says, my husband. My husband works from home. And when I get home and he's still transitioning from his workday, I'm totally popping over his desk and saying, hi honey, how are you? Hey honey, do you wanna spend some time together? Hi my love, let's do this. And the moment that that woman realized that, the moment she realized that she was being that same emotionally needy, annoying person to her husband that she was then receiving from this woman in her office, that woman got transferred a week later. I'll share with you another funny story that I had with somebody I was mentoring years ago. I used to run a recruiting company many, many years ago in the law firm world, and at the time I was also studying Kabbalah and mentoring some Kabbalistic students. So fast forward, there was a woman who I was mentoring at the time who happened to work in legal as well. And she was looking to leave her job. She loved her job. It was close to home. She loved the team she worked with, but HR at that particular office was just driving her crazy. She and the woman were like oil and water and couldn't get along at all. So fast forward one day, she's going in for the third and final interview at a job that's gonna actually require her to move or commute an extra hour each way every day. But she really hated this woman she worked with, right? Now, what was funny is even though I was a recruiter in the legal field, I wasn't representing her or the client, but I knew both of them on the back end. So this woman's telling me, this woman I'm mentoring, how much she wants this job and just wants to get out of this crappy firm she's in with this HR person. And the client, this law firm in Santa Monica who I personally knew, told me they had drafted an offer letter for her. So I told her something that I often tell the people, you know, say you're about to make a Big choice in your life. I invite you to try this as well. So this is what I told the young woman I was mentoring. I said, "Okay, before you go in for the final interview, I want you to say, 'Universe, if it's in my highest and best good, their highest and best good, and humanity's highest and best good, then please remove all obstacles from me getting this offer today. However, if for any reason." It's not my highest and best good, their highest and best good, or humanity's highest and best good, then please lovingly redirect me to the right job at the right time and send them all success. Right? So that's one of my favorite mantras, prayers, affirmations that I teach people I work with. So long story short, we're actually on the call right before she goes in the final interview. I walk her through this mantra affirmation. She says it, she goes in, and the strangest thing happens. They didn't hire her. They had the offer letter already drafted, ready to hand to her in this third and final interview, and they tore it up. There was something that happened that they couldn't put their finger on. And of course she was crushed. She was so sad that she didn't get this offer. So she calls me, she says, Jen, I don't know what happened. I must have done something wrong. I said, remember, you and I had talked about this and you said, you know, let it go. If this is not meant for me, if this person, this opportunity is not meant for me, Then lovingly redirect me to where I'm meant to be. And what was beautiful is she came to acceptance with it. She didn't resist it after you know a few hours of like angst and frustration around it. She let go of her attachments to that job, and she said, "Okay, I trust this is for the good. I trust it's coming from the universe that I'm being divinely guided to the right job. I don't know what it is or when it'll happen, but I'm trusting." Right? So fast forward not two weeks later, that HR manager who was driving her crazy and was the That was the only reason she was looking to leave that job. She was frustrated by everything else, was great. It was close to her house. She loved her attorneys. That woman in HR got transferred 2 weeks later. So I'm not blowing smoke up your ass, proverbially, right? Let's say this. But I'm actually sharing with you real-life examples, first from Elie Sheva and David Guillaume in a podcast they do called Weekly Energy Boost. And secondly, in real-world circumstances, I've had that happen too with big deals that are about to happen for me. So what if in life everything is always working out for our good? What if even the most annoying situation or person that we're resisting, what if it's there to help us? Now, I don't know if I've mentioned this tool before, but I'm going to share one of my other favorite tools for letting things go when we're resisting them. It's called the Sedona Method. So with the Sedona Method, you slowly drop resistance to the person or situation. So you would say to yourself, Could I simply welcome not getting that job? No, you might say no at first. There are five questions you're going to ask yourself, or you can do this in partnership with a friend. So could you simply welcome not getting that job you wanted, or that person turning you down or ghosting you for a date or a job or whatever it might be? Could you welcome that? Could you allow not getting the job you wanted? Maybe no. Could you release? not getting the job you wanted? Would you release not getting the job you wanted? And when will you release not getting the job you wanted? I invite you, when you're feeling really triggered by something or someone, you take yourself through these 5 questions or have a buddy or partner or spouse or a friend help you through it. And you just say, could you welcome X? Could you allow X? Could you release X? Would you release X? And when will you release X? So this is something called the Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin, I believe it is. I use this all the time, even at night when it's the middle of the night. You know how you wake up at 2:00 AM and you can't fall back asleep and you're tossing and turning? Sometimes I'll do this exercise. I'll say, could I simply welcome not sleeping well? Could I simply welcome— actually, I often say, could I simply welcome being awake right now? No. Could I allow being awake right now? No. And I go through this process. Well, normally by about the 5th, 6th, 7th time, you'll notice your resistance has dropped significantly to the person, the situation, whatever it is. And by the end, you'll notice that you go from never being able to release it to all of a sudden in the moment, releasing and letting go. So these are just a couple of tools that when you find yourself triggered by something or someone, instead of resisting it and saying, oh, I wish it wasn't this way, get excited it is that way. Because on the opposite side of every challenging person or situation is the greatest miracle that you've ever desired to have. And by playing with this resistance and dancing with it and realizing that it's all a part of Soul School, then you begin to get your freedom back. Then you don't give your freedom away to the person who cut you off on the road or the person you have to see every day at work, the boss you don't like. What if you could just welcome them the way they are? What if you could open that letter that's addressed to you and instead of saying, why is this happening to me? Ask yourself, how is this person or situation happening for me? I am Jennifer Cahill. It's always a pleasure to be with you. And if you want more tips, I encourage you to go to a weekly newsletter I do called Inspired Living Tools. If you Google that, it pulls up and gets sent out every Monday on LinkedIn. So again, Inspired Living Tools is the name of that, and you can go ahead and subscribe. And I also offer other tips and tools in addition to the podcasts that we do every week. Wishing you an incredible week where you can see the people and the circumstances that are challenging you as miracles that are waiting to happen. Thank you.