202: Diamond Mind—"Inside Out" Coaching with Bev Willcocks

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For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everybody. I'm thrilled to be here today with Bev Wilcox. Bev first reached out to me in July 2018, asking if I had ever heard of inside out coaching and saying that it would probably be of use, of interest to me and the Pivot community. And we are just now finally getting a chance to speak fun or funny fact. Right. As I went to hit record, a helicopter started hovering overhead. And I asked Bev, can you hear that? She said, yes, I can. And I said, I never know if the helicopter, a sound like that is just going to come and go and keep passing, or if it's going to stay there and it could be there for three hours, in which case we wouldn't want to delay recording. And then, Bev, what did you say in response?

I just sort of reflected on the fact that it's a bit like these uncertain times just hovering over our heads at the moment, just in the distance in the background.

Right. And this is an example, I love doing this as a coach as well, of some unexpected thing or something that seems unwelcome in our environment or surprising or out of place or new or different. It is so fun to look and say, how is that a metaphor for what we're experiencing? And so even before Bev made that comment, I was thinking, okay, helicopter hovering overhead, what does this mean for this conversation? We're traveling. Bev is all the way in Cape Town, so I'm really curious to get her take on these times, what it's like in your part of the world, Bev, and also as a coach and doing this work of inside out coaching, what transformation you're seeing. So before we start with all that, just a little more about Bev. She's an adventurer, an artist, a coach who finds freedom in coming alive to the joy and raw energy of life and helping her clients do the same. She also loves the quote by Eckhart Tolle. Life is the dancer and you are the dance. Bev, officially, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Jenny. It's lovely to be here with you.

Of all quotes and all books that you've probably read in your long career as a coach, how did you choose this one? Life is the dancer and you are the dance.

As a little girl, I love to dance, so I think it just. And there's that freedom in just dancing to music, that freedom of dancing to. To the rhythm of the music and wherever that takes you. And I think that just appeals to my sense of adventure as well. So that's really what spoke to me, what appealed to me about that particular quote. And it also feels like a bit of a juxtaposition, like it's the wrong way round.

And with the inside out. I think it just really made sense to me. Yeah.

I love this notion of being danced. There's a receptive quality to the quote. Life as the dancer, it's leading the way. And we are the dance.

Absolutely.

And it's not even we are the dancee or the danced, the dance partner. It's we are the dance itself. Isn't that interesting, too?

Yeah. There's something else going on.

Yes.

And when we get really curious about that, that's when life opens up.

There's one of the Momentum members, Joy, she sent me an email when the coronavirus stuff really started going down called Sailing Black Swan Lake or Dancing the Black Swan Ballet. Like, she had all these beautiful metaphors, and I doubt that anyone has really thought of this time as a dance, but given that we're starting with this Eckhart Tolle quote, I'm curious how it's been for you during this pandemic in Cape Town on a personal level, and even any shifts or transformations that you've been experiencing so far, experiencing, or maybe too soon to say, blessings in disguise or silver lining. But if this has impacted you in your business in any way.

Yeah, it's be, you know, South Africa locked down quite quickly. So we've been on lockdown for five weeks now, and a quite strict lockdown, and that you only allowed out to get your food. So that's been really interesting to suddenly have our wings clipped, as it were, you know, and be in lockdown and a real sense with South Africa of this, of our impoverished communities and what that has really meant for them. So for me personally, I've really had to look at.

Sort of the bigger picture, you know, and seeing, you know, it's both broken my heart and broken my heart wide open, if I can put it that way, and that there really is this sense of community, the sense of connection to, of the human spirit for the fellow, for fellow humans. You know, across any divide, any. This coronavirus, in a way, just doesn't care what your background is, what your income is, where you from. It just seems to. It just cuts through all these prejudices and ideas that we have about ourselves and about life and throws all of that wide open. And so for me, that's been really interesting to look at, to try and.

Look at beyond just the obvious, to look beyond just the form of it, to what else is possible, this idea of the human potential behind it. Think that's what we all struggling with. We've all had to face this sense of uncertainty, but yet if we really look at our lives, life is never certain. You know, we always are doing the best we can in the moment or at any one moment. You know, it's like driving at night with the headlights. You only know a little bit in the distance. There's no ways you can foretell the whole path to where you're going to get to.

So it's really brought that I think is what's really come to life for so many people. This idea that maybe we, we have to understand that uncertainty is part of life. It's the nature of life itself. And we're not going to get our security by trying to control our lives. It's not going to come from there because it can be taken away at any one moment. And I mean, that is something that always been part of my coaching, but I'm really looking at it much deeper now.

Yeah, that was one of the first things that struck me as well, very early on, because New York locked down pretty early as well, is that it was just highlighting the true nature of our reality that anything could go at any time, any one of us. I mean, it just put it so front and center. And what you described too, there are these interesting layers of expanding beyond ourselves to look at how the coronavirus cuts across all peoples, all religions, all, you know, socioeconomic status. And then on the other hand, at least especially here in New York and here in the States, there's talk about even how, oh, the rich can wait out the virus in their second homes, or people who are in information work can work from home and others can't and so at the same time, there's the virus itself that doesn't distinguish or discriminate. But then there's all these measures and practices around it that show where we really need to help boost people in society. Like where there is a difference in terms of people's resources and how that affects how they respond. Even something like telling people to shelter at home, well, what if you don't have a home? What does that look like? And did we stop to consider that? And then, you know, even just the other day here in New York, a man walked up to my husband and I with papers saying, I've just been released from Rikers and it's a prison here in New York. And saying, I've been in prison for 30 years. I just got released because he's now older and they're trying to clear out the prisons. And he said, right as we finished the conversation, he said, do you think I can do this? Do you think I can make it out here was his question. And my husband and I, being who we are, we said, yes, you can, you can do this. Like, yes. Just trying to, you know, encourage him and give him some hope. But like, look at that situation compared to what so many of us have. And we're going stir crazy and that's our biggest problem. It's. It is so important to do what you said. I think of expanding this view and this vision of all as much as we can. Knowing that it's hard, I think as well to wrap our minds around. There's no way we can put ourselves in everybody's shoes but that it does seem important to try.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, and you know, I mean here in South Africa the poverty is so huge that we, I mean, we've got very real problem of people starving. They just don't, you know, they daily, they eat out a daily living and that's gone. And there's a large part of our population that does that, you know, and if the restaurants are closed, if the.

You know, there's no, there's no way for them to earn an income.

Right.

And you know, it's an already a large part of our popular population.

You know, we had a 38% unemployment before COVID that can go up to 50%. You know, that's huge. So you've got a huge part of a population and children. A lot of our schools are government schools and the poorer communities are feeding schemes. The kids come to school so they get their meal for the day and that's. The schools are closed. So Trying to reach these kids and trying to just put food on the table, you know, nothing else really matters. And we worrying about, you know, are they going to finish the year at the school? Well, they don't have computers at home. They don't have WI fi, you know, in the younger grades, they won't have cell phones, you know, so it's, it's all very well to say go online. Well, there's no online for them. They don't have. Data is expensive, relatively speaking, here, they don't have that. And you're just trying to keep people going.

Yeah. So.

It does highlight some of those universal needs like Internet access.

Yeah. And we've known that world hunger has been a problem for ages, but we've never stopped the world for world hung.

You know, and millions of people die every year from world hunger. We've never stopped the world for that, but now we have, and now we have to face that. What are we going to do about that? Yeah, and that's just one example. There's lots.

But, you know, and for me, that's. That's the one that's really sat with me. And you know, if we look up, there is enough, there are enough resources, and there always were enough resources in terms of money and technology.

And to feed all the people in the world. If we had put the systems in place to do that. And it doesn't mean that we can't be creative in finding those solutions now either, but now we need to address those. Now we need to go and find those creative solutions and we need to do them. Beyond all the ideas of the divides that we've had, all the, you know, people have made decisions. Governments have made very quick decisions. Whereas before it would take years to make the same decision, given the way things were going. Because they had to cut so many people had to be consulted and looked at and ideas. And I needed this so much.

Divide and we've had to just cut through all of that in order to make decisions. And so I just hope that we can see that those divides, that all these ideas that we've lived by aren't true. They really aren't true. They have no foundation, really. They're just ideas. And yet we've made them true. We've held these beliefs and we've made them personal about us and about my identity and what I need in order for me to feel secure. But we've seen all of that can be taken away from us at any moment. And when that's gone, when that idea of who I think I am. Has gone. What's left?

Well, this is a big theme of the coaching work that you do, which is that instead of trying to bend the outside world to make us comfortable, that it starts from the inside out. And I'm sure I'm going to butcher it, but there's that parable of, or the story of a man trying to make the earth more comfortable. Like, I don't know how it goes. It's like you could either carpet the planet or you could make yourself a pair of shoes. That. When I was reading about the work that you do, it struck me that this might come from the Bhagavad Gita, I gotta remember. But instead of trying to make the whole world more comfortable to walk through that, how do we focus on what's right on our own feet and how to navigate that? And just I'd love to hear your. I'd love to have you explain what inside out coaching is. And the one thing I just want to say about the government and the global response, it is crazy how we have, we have enough food on the planet to feed those who are hungry and we don't do it. And I think there is a real bittersweet quality to seeing, wow, how quickly things are getting done and this disappointment of look how fast it took when the whole global community kind of has the same shared stake in it and just knowing that that can be possible. But we have to remember we have to go through the world with a new lens, like you said, of not dividing along these invisible lines and ideas as much as we have been. So that's a lot. But can you start by telling us more about inside out coaching and the three principles?

Yeah, you know, I'll just give you a little bit of the history so that it sort of put it into perspective. There was a Scottish welder by the name of Sydney Banks and he was living in Salt Spring island up in Northern America in Canada. And he had sort of a deep realization in 1973, I think it was, that we create. 100% of our experience.

Is projected, is project. We project our experience, this ever changing reality through this power of thought that we have. We have this gift, this creative gift that we're given and to navigate our world, the human. For human consciousness is given this gift of thought, this power of thought. And in and of itself, it's not a new idea. If you look in science, they will. Will tell you, I think it's David Bohm who Bohmu said thought created the world and said, and then said, I Didn't do it. You know. So if we look at science and if we look at philosophy and if we look at spiritual traditions, they all point to the idea that thought really creates our world, creates our experience. And it's this ever changing energy.

That is this gift of thought, that is our create the way we create our experience. The good and the bad, all of it 100% of the time. But what Sid also, he came up with then, that underneath that, underneath this thought is this.

Constant.

There'S a constancy, a deeper constancy underneath this illusion of thought, of this projection of our true nature of who we really are. And that, that is available to us anytime at all times. We're born with it. It's the wholeness of who we are and that's always available to us. And it's where the source of our good ideas.

And the way to just demonstrate it. You know, they've done some research and people get their best ideas when they're in the shower, when they're driving, when they're on holiday or maybe exercising. And that's when our minds traditionally settle. And when we're not thinking so much, we're not so much on that hamster wheel. And then when the mind settles suddenly we have all these creative ideas or we get a new, an insight, a sight from within or some something comes to mind that that would be a, you know, solution to the problem, you know. And in the English language we do this, we say sleep on it because tomorrow morning, you know, maybe it won't seem so bad or I'll know what to do. So we know this, it's not something that we don't know. But so Sid had this. The way he put it was the simplicity. So his gift to the world really was the simplicity of it. And he came up with three principles. So this idea, this gift, the power of thought. And then the fact that we have this capacity for consciousness, that we can be aware of thought, that we can actually be aware of this, of the agency of thought. And then that we bring this deeper mind, we bring the intelligence of the universe that is available to life via awareness and the power of thought. So these were the three principles that he.

And you can't really split them because they all one.

But he kind of articulated them in those, in those three terms that we have this gift of thought and we bring it and we can be aware of it. And it is powered by this universal mind. And that's the basis of what I work with looking to see. Well, where are we Misusing this gift of thought. Where are we getting lost in it? Where are we getting caught up in it? And it's so sneaky, you know, I still get caught up in it all the time, every day. But when I realize and what is the nature of thought itself? So it's not so much about the content of my thinking, but the fact that I think and that that is transient energy. It comes and goes. It's not permanent. It's not who I am. I can't define myself by it. And it comes and goes.

So that is sort of the essence of what we, what we try and share.

I do find it so interesting.

The whole thing, but particularly that the times we get our best ideas are when our mind relaxes. And even for those like you, like me, that we've. We can be aware, our mind can be aware of these principles, the capacity of consciousness trying to drop thought, observe it trusting and understanding that it's powered by universal thought and universal mind. And that. Why is it so easy to forget? You know what I mean? Like, even for people who've read Eckhart Tolle, they do spiritual reading, spiritual practices, which I would guess many people who listen to this podcast do, because it's so many of the recurring themes that we talk about. Why is it that it's so easy for even those who are in theory aware to forget and keep forgetting? And is that part of the human game that we almost need to forget in moments so that we can apply the mind and go about our business? And then we also need to practice remembering?

For me, it's the way we are conditioned. It's the way we live our lives. You know, right from, you know, I've got three children and I gave them a dummy when they were little. You know, they cried and I, I gave them this dummy that the dummy would, would soothe them and that. And that I could use that dummy to soothe them. And there is the, the conditioning has already started. And as we grow up, we have all different things that we, you know, teddy bears, you give them a teddy bear to soothe them. You know, the teddy bear will make it better. Or they cut themselves and we give them a plaster, the plaster will make it better. We just condition that the outside world will make it better. And late as we grow up, we change those teddy bears and the teddy bear becomes the cell phone. I've got the car I drive, the job I've got the house I live in, the T shirt, the handbag, the whatever, and the amount of money in my bank account. And we just so we have these adult teddy bears and we. And. And the gift of thought is so real. It's 3D reality, you know, with consciousness bringing this gift of thought to life and we creating all our experience. Without that I have no experience. The world can go on outside of me, but I have no experience without those three things happening in my mind. So it happens, recognition happens in the mind. It doesn't happen out in. Happens in me.

And it's so real. It's. It's just like you're wearing this 3D glasses that you in this movie and you hearing the sounds and you smelling it and you tasting it and you touching it and you seeing it. It's just this full blown experience that we get lost in and we forget we sitting in the movie seat. It's just so real, you know, and it's. And it's the creative power. It's got such creative power to it.

I remember when I first started reading about these principles and thoughts become things and our minds create our reality. The world around us is a mirror of our inner world and our inner thoughts. And I remember when I first was trying to grasp this in my 20s, thinking no way. Like the world is real. You know, there's no way that I. My mind, my unique mind creates all the whole world and all the circumstances around me. But then there have been other moments where it is so powerful to observe how one thought can have this chain reaction of emotion and then action and energy and it affects how we show up. And even the example of waking up in a good mood one morning and the whole day feels lucky. Why? Because probably that's also people and things around us responding to our energy. And then the waking up on the wrong side of bed and then everything starts. Seems to go wrong. And it might seem like it's the outside world that's just doing that and it's all random. But I can relate so much to what you're saying, which is that as real as it feels, as an, as a sort of fact, regardless of what we're creating in the mind, the mind and the movie of the mind is so powerful that they're almost coexisting in a way. It's like yes, there is an objective reality out there because if we were to die tomorrow, the world goes on, on. And at the same time we're all creating our experience of it. I mean, I can't even really put it into words, but.

And I think you talk about that objective reality and it's to see that that objective Reality is, is not the only thing on offer because we get so caught up in, in that objective reality that defines us. And when we can see that that is, that's on shifting sand, that's, that ebbs and flows, that changes all the time. You know, I think everybody has changed their mind about something at some point. And when you change your mind about something, it looks different on the outside. Suddenly something that you didn't think was possible is possible, or the other way around, I think it's possible. And then you have some kind of fearful thinking and it's not possible anymore. So we forget that within us we have the resource without the ideas that we put to color it to cover our world. You know, if you think of a diamond and you've got lots of tissue paper over it and. But the diamond's always there, it's never gone. You just need to lift the tissue paper. And if we can get rid of the tissue paper and the tissue paper, are all the ideas that we have about it what somebody's told us about ourselves or we've read or we've thought or we made assumptions along the line. Those are all the things that just cloud things. You know, it's that we are not the clouds in the sky. We are the sky. You know, and if we can just get a little bit of distance and recognize that what is thought, what is a belief made of, it's energy. It's not a thing, it's actually just energy. And if we can see the transient fluid nature of it and that it's not who we are. It was an idea we had, but if we let the idea go, it's gone. The pack of cards go. We see that, that it's not the truth. The diamond is the truth, not the wrapping paper. So when we have somewhere else to look, that's when it, that's when it really starts to shift. If we start looking in a different direction and we stop trying to manipulate the world and try and get a better idea about something or improve it. But if we can just see that.

It'S all just almost all made up and it's all up for grabs and that's where our freedom lies, that's where our security lies.

What are some of your favorite practices for helping people lift the tissue paper? I love what you said. The diamond is the truth.

It's just inquiry really. Is that really true? And looking at.

Trying to point to the illogic because we all have a logic to why we've arrived at a certain decision or idea and when we can put some light onto it and just take a step back, we can see that most of the time there isn't a logic. We can question that logic. And when we start to see the holes in the logic, we wonder if it's really true. And as soon as something doesn't look quite so true anymore, it starts dissolving.

And then something else comes up, then something else will fill that space. You'll get some fresh perspective on it. And that's where shift happens, is when we can get some fresh perspective.

Are you familiar with Byron Katie's the work?

Yes. I mean, it's fairly similar to what she, the questioning that she's looking at. Is it really true?

So she has the four questions and then you turn it around. Is there a similar inquiry path or structure in this case with inside out coaching, or is it really just boiling down to that question? Is it true and any, any underlying assumptions?

Yeah, and it's not even really is that, is there? We don't have any questions specifically. It's just exploring. And eventually what, what happens is people will kind of go, well, one, this one, and one is not making two anymore. And you see the illogic of it by just exploring it. And it becomes very practical, you know, because we all, you know, we all, as you mentioned earlier, you know, you'll wake up in the morning and feel like you're on top of the world and the next morning you'll feel terrible. And you know, when I'm feeling on top of the world, when things come at me, they don't look so daunting. It's much easier to navigate my day than the morning I wake up when I don't feel so great. So we can also just recognize that these moods, the state of mind that we in, that actually dictates how we navigate our world for the day. And so if I'm in a low state of mind and I've woken up on the wrong side of bed, as you mentioned, and my boss starts going at me, I'm probably going to be a lot more fragile in the face of that and it's just going to feel a lot worse and he's going to be the bigger, the person's going to be a bigger asshole in that moment. But compared to a morning when I wake up and I'm feeling on top of the world and somebody starts going at me, maybe it's not such a problem. So you know, even just seeing that my state of mind, where my thinking is at in the moment where I'm coming from that in itself can hugely dictate my relationship with other people. Because what it's telling, it's not telling you about the other person. It's really whatever comes out of somebody else's mouth is not telling you about me. It's telling you about where their state of mind is in the moment. So in a relationship and in business, just within a team, when people start just to realize that in itself.

You know, you stop taking things so personally because you realize they're not attacking you. It's just a reflection of what's going on in their mind. And when their mind settles, they'll come at something completely differently. And how often do we apologize, say, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean that. In the moment, when our mind settles, we kind of realized how silly that was. We made a big mountain out of a molehill. So it has very practical applications in.

Any kind of. Where you need a relationship, in a personal relationship, a family relationship, a business relationship. It can be very, very practical and very, very.

Useful for people to see how this nature of thought actually impacts our world.

The boss example is a great one because it would be easy, let's say that your boss yells at you and in the moment to think, he or she doesn't like me, or he or she, I'm not good enough. Every story we could tell, he or she is a jerk. Okay? And then one piece. So if someone, the universal mind, said, but did you know they got in a massive car accident on their way to work? Or did you know that their family member just got diagnosed with cancer? All of a sudden, that outburst would be seen in a totally different light, where, as you said, it would be so much easier to realize, oh, that had nothing to do with me. But instead, because we don't see that, we don't extend the context of a situation, it is so much easier to take things personally. And that happens when over and over, it's what Don Miguel Ruiz, in his book the Four Agreements, he just said, assumptions are the beginning and end of hell in this world.

Absolutely.

You recently taught a course responding to coronavirus and everything that's going on, a course called Looking for a Place to Stand. Can you tell us a little more about that? And what you see are some of the biggest assumptions that we make as we move through the world. And.

Any practices that you shared, even in that course recently for how to navigate times like these.

Yeah, you know, that was it. That course was just sharing the understanding, the basics of the understanding and helping people get A sense of exercises, a sense of what we're really all looking for is we're all looking for some peace of mind. We're all looking for a deeper connection to life. And when we come from that place, there's a certain. We have much more capacity for certainty and knowing what's right to do for ourselves, uniquely for ourselves in the moment. And so we explored that. And I think particularly now, what this coronavirus has done is people. And I saw this, I teach a lot in schools as well. And one of the biggest things I'm seeing here is fear of the future. Lack of confidence and fear of the future comes up hugely amongst anxiety and worry and stress. But this, so this, this idea of fear of the future, that's what's playing out now for me very big time. And people are really struggling with this. This uncertainty is not only knowing, you know, what, what, what's going to happen, what is the government, what decisions are the government going to be doing? When can I get out of lockdown? You know, what's my business going to be doing? What's my employee going to be doing? When am I going to get the next food on the table, you know, all those things. But it's also, we kind of projecting it long term and we kind of saying, well, what is it going to be like in six months, a year's time, or in three years? You know, I'm never going to recover from this. And so, and that just is adding so many layers onto, onto this uncertainty. And, you know, the stock market, your amount of your pension fund might have gone down between 30 and 50% depending on, you know, where your money is. And so it's become. People are really worried. You know, we want to know that the future is kind of planned and laid out and then I'm okay. So that for me is the big one, is to just share with people that nobody's ever had the future that they imagined. Nobody ever has. It just is not possible to have the future you imagine. It's always going to be different. You know, tomorrow is going to be different to the way I plan it today. There's going to be something different about tomorrow. But I'll work it out. I'm perfectly designed. The human psychology is because we have this gift of thought and that we can get beyond our thinking to this huge reservoir, this well of being, this constant connection to the intelligence of the universe. We can work it out. We designed to work it out. It's who we are. And when people start to see that, it brings A lot more peace of mind, a lot more ease, and a lot more capacity to sit with what is and be okay with what is rather than fighting what isn't.

I love how you worded that. I am perfectly designed to work it out. Is. Is that what you mean when you say a deeper connection to life? And in that deeper connection, finding so much more capacity for certainty and knowing what's uniquely right for ourselves?

Absolutely. Is that the connection for me? It's your true nature. Our true nature is. Is beyond. Is beyond the form.

It's beyond.

This known universe.

It's looking to what else is possible and what has always been there. You know, if you look at little kids, I mean, if you look at them playing, they're infinitely creative. They're coming up with new ideas all the time. They're exploring. They're just going for it. And it's only when we start telling them, you can't do that, and don't put your hand there, and you must sit still, and you have to wear this. This item of clothing, otherwise Auntie's not going to be happy with you or whatever the story is, you know, and we start putting boxes. And as we start putting boxes, we make ourselves smaller and smaller. And when we get rid of the boxes, it's like, you know, it's like being in a tower. And we're looking out of one window, and they say 180 windows or 360 windows. If I shift to another window, I see a different perspective. But when I. I can only ever see whatever is out of one window. But if I go up, you know, if you go up in the elevator, you start seeing a broader view. And that's really. As we. As we can take some of the tissue paper away, if we can take the blinkers away, we get a broader view. And as we get a broader view, we see more possibility. We get a sense of what else is out there, you know, And I love Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic. She talks about this how, you know, the universe almost has a force that sort of bursts through us. And I love that idea that, in actual fact, our true nature has within its coding. You know, we're born with this creative potential that is perfectly aligned with what we meant to mean to our purpose in life, what we meant to do, you know, And I think we all have the same purpose, really. And that's to wake up. Wake up to our true nature. And from that space.

We will live our lives, and we will find joy and fulfillment and peace of mind. And it doesn't mean that it's always going to be plain sailing, that nothing's ever going to go wrong. You're still going to have earthquakes and COVID 19 and horrible bosses and, you know, challenges in life, but.

There'S going to be a sense of grace in navigating that space that is just going to not make it so. There's not going to be so much resistance, not going to make it so hard, so seemingly hard, so exhausting, because we won't be using that energy to try and fight it. We'll be using the energy to move with it.

Yes. And flowing with the energy around us and the events and people. It's so beautifully said. Our true nature is to wake up. When I was in coach training in 2008, they said, if you could have a billboard, a blank billboard, what would it say? And my mind was wake up. That I pictured all these people driving to their commute, asleep, basically asleep in their lives, asleep at the wheel. And I love this idea of waking up to this greater intelligence. I couldn't help but wonder when you were talking.

Nonetheless, even with the best intentions, even when people on some level trust that there is a deeper intelligence or, okay, if I just let go of all my expectations and plans, I'll be shown the perfect next steps, you know, or be able to move forward with grace. And yet there are still such identity attachments and fears that come with letting go of that illusion of control. I'm curious how you help people work through their fear when intellectually they might know, you're right. Okay, I can't control anything, let alone everything. Why is it that we hold on to these identity attachments so hard and it can still be so difficult to say no or. Or end something or even know what to do? You know, it's almost like when we lose that connection to our true nature, it almost seems that more fear and confusion arises. And maybe that in itself is a sign that we're resisting the flow somehow.

The way to look at it is to move beyond the content of it. We have to look at the way the system is designed to work. And that's where this understanding really comes to its fore in the coaching is that the more we understand this nature of thought, the more we understand.

How we are designed. It's like we get to see the engineering behind the human psychology. I mean, the word psychology psych is soul or essence. So it's the logic of our essence or our soul. And when we can really connect with that and we never know. I can't Give you the ideas that are right for you. Because I don't know what your thinking is going to bring you. I don't know what resource, this wisdom or insight is going to come to you. And if I can just help people settle their minds and get really quiet and get in connection with sort of this deeper feeling of peace within them.

That is where the magic starts to happen.

The more that they can feel that that peace is available to them no matter what stormy waters are going on, and the more that they can find that and recognize that it is available, they quieten down enough and invariably find the next step. Or even, even if it is just, you know, I'm in a really tricky situation, and whereas before I was resisting it, I'm okay, okay, it's okay. Even just that, acceptance, you know, I used to do work with hospice.

And it was really interesting working with. With people even in a coma, you know, if you can sit in presence with them, the agitation quietens down and they get more restful. And so even in that space, I have seen it really. It's our true nature. It's available to all of us. And even just acceptance is a huge step that I don't need to resist this. And, you know, I mean, there are things that I do, you know, that you can just see that the fear is not necessarily real. And, you know, I think fear is also, you know, it's a psychological thing. We have this fight and flight. You know, if someone's attacking me, if a tiger's attacking me, as the cliche, you know, I need to run. But if we understand that, you know, my adrenals go and my digestive system closes down because I need all that energy for adrenals. That's the fear. So when something psychologically comes up and I'm feeling fearful, it's responding. Our physiology responds in the same way. And we get those butterflies in our stomach, but the butterflies in our stomach are not telling us anything about our capacity to do whatever we need to do. It's just telling us that we've got butterflies in our stomach. It doesn't need to stop you.

But we incorrectly think that or attach value to what's going on, that it means that I can't do it or I mustn't do it or I must stop. But it's not necessarily true. You know, even if I'm feeling nervous about giving a talk, I can still get up and give the talk. My son played rugby competitively and he used to get nervous before every rugby match, but he never Took that nervousness to mean that he couldn't play the game. He still went out and played the game. And as soon as he got into the game, his mind settled, got present with the game, his mind settled and he played the game. He got into the flow of the game. And that's true for all of us.

I did a speak like a pro virtual conference many years ago, and I asked all these professional speakers I admire, do you still get nervous? Every single one of them said yes, every single one. And they said, those nerves are a sign that I'm doing something right in a way. They weren't paralyzed. They still gave the speech, they're paid professional speakers, but it let them know there was something at stake and that that was a good thing. And in fact, a lot of athletes will say, or professionals of any kind. The day I don't feel those butterflies, I know it's time to make a change again.

Yeah, absolutely. And often those butterflies are just telling us we, we are actually growing. We're going out of our comfort zone into something new, something expansive. We, we taking on more of life. And the more we can take on that, the more life can flow through us. And so there's more, more ability to have joy and fulfillment in life.

I used to give a quote, I believe it's Edward Murrow. I don't have it verbatim, I didn't look it up. But it's something like, you can't get rid of the butterflies, but you can teach them to fly in formation.

Yeah, that's lovely.

Yeah. Like harnessing this beautiful nature and this power that we have inside of us.

Yeah. You know, it reminds me also of that Einstein quote. I might not get it exactly right, but it's something around the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. And at the rational mind, it's faithful servant. And we've created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. And that speaks to this power of thought to create our world that we live in, this material world we live in, these ideas and concepts we have of ourselves and we've made those the master. But in actual fact, that's the servant. This intuitive mind, this true self is where the magic really lies.

Yes. And I love the way you put it that the teddy bears that we used to look to for comfort have just shifted. That the self soothing the teddy bear becomes, as you said, the cell phone, the house, the car, the handbag. And you know, it's funny, I still have my teddy bear from when I was 6. There was a project this has nothing to do with anything. But there was a project online. I wish I could find it where they had people submit photos of their childhood teddy bear. But it seems like a good exercise to leave listeners with. Of course.

Look for your teddy bears. Look for the things that you are turning to for comfort where comfort might not exist. And it doesn't mean you can't have your beloved teddy bear like mine. I still sleep with Michael's. Like who still has sleeps with a teddy bear. Well, I do now you all know that about me. But what are the ones that are truly, truly comforting and truly kind of a welcome piece? And where are the ones where we might all be misplacing our source of comfort, strength, stability? I wonder, Bev, if you'd add anything to that or if there's a different inquiry or a practice you'd want to leave people with.

Yeah, for me is where am I outsourcing my well being?

Where am I looking to the outside world for my sense of security and my okayness and that I'm good enough and confident enough. And is that, is that on shifting sand? Is that really true? And where, where else? Where can I really look? Where can I dip into the well of my being that is always going to be there?

That is so well said. Where am I outsourcing my well being? I love that. And then the flip side, where can I dip into the well, the true source that's always there. Bev, thank you so much. This has been really a delight to connect. Finally after all this time. Where can people find you if they're interested in learning more and if you could also let them know where to find your free open Facebook group as well, that would be great.

Okay. Just on the Facebook group that was a private group for the people that were. We created a private group for people that were on the course just to create some, you know, just some privacy where we could explore, explore deeper issues with people. But if you want to look at, you can look at. I have a page creatingshift.com that I have with my colleague Joe winchcombe in the UK. So we work together at creating shift.com or I also have my own bevitbev wilcox.com if anybody wants to email me, you can find me at bev@bevwilcox.com Perfect.

And that's creating-shift, correct, creating-shift.com.

Yes.

Okay, great.

And any courses that we have we'll, we'll put up on that page or if anybody is interested in. There will be one coming up. I think towards the end of May. If anybody is interested in either working with me or I work either individually or with small groups online and also any of the courses, just email me bev@creatingshift.com or bevwilcox.com beautiful and I'll put.

These all in the show notes as well. Bev, thank you so much. What a delight to chat with you.

Thanks Ginny.

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Remember, build first, then your first courage will follow. Hasn't it always.