What Change Feels Like - L,L,&L W/ Glenn Ambrose

Welcome to Life Lessons and Laughter with your host Glen Ambrose.

Hey everybody welcome welcome welcome welcome hopefully everybody's doing well so today today I'm talking about change what it feels like this was something that was coming up a lot a couple weeks ago with with clients that happens very often actually over the years that like I work with my clients every other week basically so they're you know there's kind of a separation I'm not working with clients all month long so it's interesting because I often pick up on a pattern of what I'm discussing with clients during the week that I'm working with them and oftentimes it's a different version of the same principle so you know it looks different for for everyone I mean because their journeys are different but it's really interesting that a lot of what people are working on specifically at a particular time you know sometimes in a two-week period that there's similarities you know so I find I always find that very interesting so the similarities that I saw you know like I said two three weeks ago was we ended up talking about what change looked like so you know my clients of course are going through change so you know often time oftentimes it feels very weird you know which I'm kind of laughing because it's my job is to try to explain things and sometimes it's hard and when you start a topic by saying well it's just weird like it sometimes weird is hard to describe right that's why we use the word weird to describe it just kind of weird but weird is what it feels like so what I mean by weird is out of the ordinary not the norm a little discombobulating right so when we're feeling that and I spent I think it's especially rampant in the culture we're in right now societally because this is big thing about feelings you know like and and which it it's like most things it's good and bad right like we have to pay attention to our feelings we can't stuff our feelings we need to honor them we need to feel them we need to be aware of them we need to take them into consideration like and for tens of thousands of years people weren't really doing that and now this is you know my opinion here and then that the spiritual shift started happening probably like around 1960 and people started becoming more sensitive more their feelings would get hurt more you know like so and I think that that's part of the spiritual shift going on but there's a big transition to that so you know and to this day we're still stuffing our feelings too much I believe that to be true but by the same token if we're not stuffing our feelings it seems like the masses have fallen into this trap of staying in their feelings like that their feelings mean everything like their feelings are supposed to run their life they're supposed to determine everything that's all that matters like and and that's just not true like it's you know we're always seeking balance so becoming aware of your feelings and understanding them and interacting with them in a healthy way is extremely important but it's not the only thing there is you know like so I think we run around going well I this just doesn't feel right and it's like well why well because it doesn't and it's like well like relax we're just trying to explore the feelings we're trying to see if they're the feelings are rational trying to talk them out and people are very defensive they have a right to be angry I have a right to be angry yeah you have the right to be angry you have the right to be sad you have the right to be happy you have the right to be whatever you want but why do you defend the right to be angry so much right when anger comes up that's not a life sentence it's it's just where so anger comes up to grab our attention and say hey there's something that seems out of whack here that and and it upset you to capture your attention so you take it seriously and look at it and figure out what to do with it it's not that was supposed to be angry about that thing forever and carrying that anger around with us forever like we were supposed to work through it supposed to figure out what to do with it not supposed to carry it right so the reason I kind of just touched on that for a few minutes was because I think it plays a part we it's we honor our feelings too much we're about to you know so when you're going through change and you're like I don't know it doesn't feel right it's like well it's not supposed to feel right like when you're creating a new way of being it's not supposed to feel normal which very often is what determines what feels right and what feels wrong to us it's what we are conditioned to be it's it's basically what caused caused all our problems you know like so I use I think my story is a good example of this you know I when I was getting sober my you know and I've told said this many times my sponsor said you know did you destroy all areas of your life I said yes do you say okay any that you missed no okay did you try to destroy your life or did you try to do good I said oh I tried to do good he goes okay so if you tried to do good and yet you destroyed every area of your life would it be fair to say that your best thinking sucks and I went yes I think that that's fair to say okay and what that created was a blank slate I didn't trust my thinking anymore I didn't trust my feelings I didn't trust what seemed right to me and it wasn't just that five-minute conversation that we had it was more than that you know like because I was skeptical you know just letting go of the way that you look at things is harder than we realize we've spent a lifetime creating the way that we look at life right every experience every piece of data every information everything we've learned all compacts into the way we look at a life our particular perception how we interact with reality we've been cultivating this our entire life and now all of a sudden somebody comes to me and says that's wrong and I'm like huh like I have I'm an intelligent guy I have good reasons for the way that I think and look at things and all this stuff but I couldn't argue with him because he had some evidence my life was all messed up so it opened my mind enough to where I decided to play the the game of okay you know let's let's let's try this so he would tell me to do something and he didn't he wasn't real interested in what my opinion was because every time I gave it to him he would say something like well yeah but your life's all messed up and mine's not so why would I want to listen to you be like damn it that's a good point so so what I would do is I would say like he said at the beginning he is says give me three months give me three months of listening to me doing what I say and then if it doesn't work I'll gladly refund your misery I was like good point I'm miserable now I don't really have anything to risk so I might as well try it for a few months and see if it works and if it doesn't I'm gonna be in the same spot no harm no foul if it does big surprise yippee-ki-yay so I kind of went out there a little bit to prove him wrong at least some of the time definitely to prove him wrong there was certain things that he told me to do that I was like this is a hundred percent wrong I have a laundry list of reasons why that are very intellectual very clear very logical and I know he's wrong but he won't listen to me so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do what he says because who gives a crap I mean I'm used to doing stupid things so I'm gonna go do what he says even though it's stupid and then when it blows up I'm gonna shove it in his face and go see I knew this was wrong because of this this this this and this you know I was skeptical so which I think skepticism is healthy so I went out there and I would do what he told me to do and it would work and my mind would be blown because I'm like this go I had a whole laundry list and this just broke all those rules because it worked out favor favorably for me and that's when I really became a blank slate now after that happened several times I was like oh my god oh okay I don't know what I'm doing which what I just described is basically a broken-down version or explanation of what Einstein says that you can't fix a problem with the consciousness that created it we are creating our own reality and that's a hard concept for people to grasp especially when their life is all messed up it's much easier and we're socially conditioned to point the finger outward and blame life and blame circumstances and blame other people and it doesn't feel real good when we blame ourselves so we try not to do it right and this is what we need to do is we need to understand that we have created the circumstances in our life you know like my sister and me grew up in the same family now are we different people yes we are but we grew up in the same household with the same love the same parents and she came out completely different than I came out you know we thought very differently so it's and we lived very different lives why well we you know the way we learn to interact with life was differently so like so it's not like life didn't come into our family and and attack our family and destroy us which it seemed like it only attacked me and destroyed me where the other people in my family were okay so why why would life have picked me to just destroy well it didn't you know we kind of want to believe that it did but it didn't it didn't pick me to destroy what it did was I just created for many reasons I created a way of interacting with life that was dysfunctional of course I didn't see it as dysfunctional if I saw it as dysfunctional I would have been doing it but it was so when I'm letting go of that even though it was very obvious that my way wasn't working and I could grasp that and want to change and open up when I went to go do things that were different oh did did I finish that Einstein quote or did I go off on something else the Einstein quote is you can't fix a problem with the consciousness that created it right I think maybe I did say it anyway so the our consciousness the way we're interacting with life the way we look at things the way we process information and come to conclusions that creates our reality so that created if your life is in a way that you don't like it that's what did that now I'm not saying technically it's your fault like it's just you know nobody teaches us how to interact with life that's what I do now I try to teach people how to interact with life so they have better outcomes so you know when I start changing the way that that I'm interacting with life and implementing new strategies and new ways of thinking and new ways of processing information and coming to conclusions that feels very disconcerting it feels weird it feels it feels like it's probably wrong to be honest with you I mean if you know it just doesn't feel right why because it's kind of like it's kind of like hurting your hand you know like like I tore a tendon in my finger and it's almost all the way healed now I can almost close it all the way but since it's on my right hand and I'm right-handed I needed to do things left-handed some of the things right you know especially in the beginning when it was hurt so so so I if I want to use my left hand to do something that I was normally using my right hand to do it felt awkward it felt weird it didn't it like there was almost like if I were to explain what kind of feelings were going through me or thoughts might go through me in a moment of unconsciousness when I'm not really thinking clearly when I'm just kind of going by how I feel I would go be like you know go to try to do something with my right hand and say oh I can't I need to use my left hand then I would go to do it with my left hand and the coordination wasn't there so there would be a little part of my brain that goes Glenn you're not supposed to be doing this with your left hand you're supposed to be using your right hand right now of course that doesn't make sense because the whole point that I'm using my left hand is because I can't use my right hand so it's not actually logical it's just it was my brain with the preconceived notions I had been using my right hand for this thing for 56 years so even though intellectually I knew that I should be doing it differently there was this part of my brain that would pop up and go hey you're doing this wrong I'd be like no quiet no I'm not I have to use my left hand that's kind of what it's like when you're going through change when you're going through change what you need to the way you need to think is different than your old way of thinking that's what change is that's what a spiritual awakening is it's just a change of perspective change of perception a way of looking at something differently so then you go to apply it or implement it in an area and it just feels weird it feels different it feels uncomfortable it doesn't feel like the way that you've always done it well of course not it's not the way that you've always done it so of course it doesn't feel like the way you've always done it it feels abnormal right and a lot of times people freeze when they experience that because we're so conditioned to listen to our feelings instead of dissecting them this is why I was trying to explain the feelings at the beginning of the podcast it's like our feelings are wonderful things and they serve purposes but we can't just blindly pay attention to them and let them guide us because that's not our intuition our feelings are not our intuition and most people consider that it's like oh because everybody goes oh follow your heart yeah well follow your heart follow your intuition follow divine guidance follow your inner voice absolutely I believe in all of that but follow your feelings does not mean the same as that that's different follow your feelings means follow your emotions and that's horrible advice your emotions you can't think clearly when you're wrapped up in emotion it clouds your judgment and clouds your vision it shuts your brain down starts forcing you into fight-or-flight like you making decisions and figuring out what to do through your feelings is horrible a horrible plan like I said we can honor them in other ways they're there for a purpose and we can use them for that purpose but we're talking about something that they're not supposed to be used for so when you're going through change and and the things that you're thinking just kind of seem wow I don't know man could this be right it kind of like it made sense when Glenn said it but now like I'm second-guessing it I don't know if I should interact with life this way that's normal that's you breaking out of a conditioned pattern that you've conditioned yourself to be in for life you know it's kind of important to trust your life coach because they're going to be exposing new ways of thinking now I'm not saying just to do absolutely everything that myself or some other life coach or advisor tells you to do I mean every once in a while there are things that like there are reasons to not do things that like I'll just use myself as an example over the years I've had there pops up instances where my clients don't do what we discussed or what I've recommended or what we've come to a conclusion on however you want to phrase it and then it comes time to do it and they don't do it and sometimes sometimes they just need to suffer more quite honestly I'm not being facetious it's they actually do they actually need to suffer more they have to go do the wrong thing make a mistake just to really hammer home that they can't trust their thinking and then they're ready for change so sometimes it's that and sometimes it's it's um that they need to learn that they're at a crux in their journey where they need to start really trusting themselves a little bit more instead of depending on me so much and they need to learn to stand up against me and say no Glenn I'm not going to do this it doesn't seem right some people need that as part of their journey this is why I never get upset if somebody doesn't do something that that I recommended or that we discussed if they don't do it I don't I don't get upset at all that's it's because it's not ego based I'm not gonna be I'm not gonna feel good if they do everything I say that's that's not my goal that's not what I'm trying to achieve so I'm not let down if they don't right and and I'm always looking for the lessons and the growth and I have to meet people where they are at that time doesn't matter how they got there or what so so if somebody doesn't do something that I suggested and then they're suffering I'm not like well what the heck man like if you just did what I said I you know I'm not like that at all I'm like okay it's okay you felt you needed to do this so you did it all right well now here we are let's figure out the best way to handle the situation now that it's a little worse and we'll start from here and move forward towards the solution you know that's fine and then sometimes I even tell them I'm like yeah you know I think you needed to I think you needed to stand up because sometimes people have a hard time speaking their truth and if they can do it with me it's kind of a safe a safe space because if somebody stands up to me and speaks their truth to me and and then I'm like okay well it's your you know it's your decision that's fine and I still respect them after and I don't start arguing with them and stuff like that well then now they just spoke their truth and they got positive feedback for speaking their truth so now they can stand in it a little bit that they're a little bit more confident in it you know so sometimes that's a situation yeah yeah I've even been in situations where where like I was you know we talked about something and I just go with what's guided see I don't second guess it so I guess every once in a blue moon sometimes the way we discussed something like usually if people don't do what we've discussed usually it turns out poorly it just does I'm not trying to toot my own horn it just usually turns out poorly otherwise if I was giving people crappy advice on a regular basis I think that I would probably be a crappy life coach I don't think I am but I am honest and every once in a while we will discuss something and I'm guided to steer these people in a particular direction and then they choose to break away from it and do something else and it works out even better that does happen it's rare but every once in a blue moon that happens and I think I think it's just you know and I go with the information that's coming through me at that time and I know if at least a few you know a few times over the years the information I was getting it was kind of a version of what I just said they needed to learn to stand up against other people namely me in that situation and follow their intuition not their feelings I think I said feelings little few minutes ago they they they they needed to learn to follow their intuition and trust themselves and that's why I was kind of guided to give give them for lack of a better explanation kind of poor advice and they broke away from it now like I said this that happens very very very rarely you know it's only happened a few times and over a decade so it's it's very very rare but my point is is that it does happen sometimes you know that sometimes people have to stand up for themselves and stand in their intuition it's just there's a little piece of me that almost regrets saying that but I'm honest and I'm authentic authentic so I'm just you know that's fine I'm not gonna edit the video or something so the reason that I get a little you know the flash I got is like oftentimes when you say that to people they use that they weaponize it they you know that like you know now all of a sudden I can have a client that heard me say that or some my current clients probably wouldn't do it because they they've worked with me for a while and they trust me you know they understand but it's possible a new client could listen to this podcast come in and be like okay I'm gonna push back on everything Glenn says because he doesn't know everything and I need to stand my ground it's like well that's not what I was saying I was saying very rarely it happens I mean you know that the reason people go to a life coach is to hear a different perspective if your perspective was working then you wouldn't be going to a life coach you know that's that's the dynamic so why pay me money if you're just gonna do whatever the hell you want to do anyway it's a waste of your money you know so you know I'm kind of trying to explain all around this because it's a very specific topic and I can't sit there for an hour talking about what weird feels like you know but uh so it's kind of like like the way that I've described is it's kind of like bizarro world you know there was a Seinfeld episode and that's what it always reminds me of it's like common sense becomes uncommon sense and uncommon sense because it's common sense and you can't trust your thinking and it's like everything's new and it doesn't feel right and just feels off you know and it's like that's okay that's part of change it's supposed to feel like that another example of this was maybe an extreme example change does feel like this sometimes sometimes change feels extremely excruciating there are aspects of it that do but you know one of my favorite stories is my friend Brian Reid told me about this radio show where where this guy said had the scientist on because they put a camera inside of a cocoon of a butterfly you know a caterpillar changing into a butterfly and it's but it's a radio show so there's no video so that you know the host the host was like yeah so you know what's that look like and the scientist seemed it was kind of dry and he was like well did you ever see that movie aliens says yes yes yes I have says well it's kind of like that and the host is like okay you know I'm like where do we go from here like people are listening I got to fill the air here you know so he's like all right well thanks for coming on the show and he's like well wait a minute do you want to hear the audio and he says what do you mean the audio this is what we're able to put a little microphone in there too and we have the audio of the caterpillar changing into the butterfly he's like oh well yes please play that for us so he plays the video and it's like I mean the audio and it's kind of like and and he stops and he and the host is like what was that and the scientist says that's what change sounds like that's the sound of transformation and I was like oh wow what a good story you know what a that's you know change isn't supposed to be comfortable it's not comfortable the most comfortable thing to do is just to stay in a pattern that's conditioned that's that's literally why we stay in conditioned patterns it's because it's just comfortable it's just even though they're not good for us even though they're not working we just stay in them so we must there must be a reason that we keep doing things that don't work right well why is that well because it feels comfortable that's why it's just it feels comfortable it's not working but out there is the unknown that's scary that's freaky I don't know what's gonna happen you know it's kind of like the mentality that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know you know it's like I'll just I'm not happy and I don't like the way my life is going but at least I know what to expect and I'll just stay here like many many many many people live their entire lives like that the majority of people which you know hopefully we're going we're changing but that's why it's because it feels normal it feels comfortable and then when we go to do something outside of that we don't know what's gonna happen and it's disconcerting and it feels weird so people oh no I don't I'm just gonna stay over here I'm just gonna keep doing what I used to do it's like yeah but you don't like what you're getting you know but they just stay in it so this is why it feels weird it's because doing what you've been conditioned to do or what you've conditioned yourself to do or what you've experienced over and over it just feels normal you know this is this is also why like people like it this is why people repeat patterns you know like I just said but another example of a pattern is relationship patterns you know like most people marry a version of one of their parents you know they can draw lines to how their spouse is similar to one of their parents in very foundational principle ways so why well it's because everything has a vibration everything has a frequency everything is energy so like if you're in a household that has an alcoholic parent the chances of you marrying somebody that's an alcoholic is higher and even if you hated that that's what's ironic that's that this is how unconscious we are and like people can grow up in an alcoholic home and swear that they they're never going to be around that ever again and then they end up in alcoholic relationship and they're going you know how could this possibly happen how could I have ended up it's because alcoholism just like everything else has a vibrational frequency and like so if was the frequency that was the vibration that was what the energy in which you were around for 18 years growing up there's a certain aspect of that vibration that vibrational rate that just feels comfortable to you you know you you don't like the external expressions of it and all the horror that it caused but the vibrational rate just feels normal for some reason so now all of a sudden you know you're out there meeting some people you might date right or you're dating multiple people you know you're just you date one then you date another person you date another person and these people you're dating you're just kind of like and you know that they're a nice person but no no I'm not really interested in that one oh this one I don't know man it's just something about him I just feel comfortable around them I feel like I can be myself it's like oh okay so that there's probably an aspect of them that reminds you of your household growing up and we don't know necessarily which aspect of the vibration that is you know it could be like like I was saying it could be alcoholism but it might not be it might be something else you know so you know this is I'm not gonna go into like a deep solution for that I mean that's not what this podcast is about being conscious helps I'll tell you that getting yourself into a healthy place and then choosing you know like really seeing people for who they are because that will cause you if you just feel connected to somebody and you don't know why you'll start rationalizing your behave their behaviors and not seeing red flags and stuff like this because you feel the strong attraction you feel so at home with them that you just want to be with them so you just start passing over the red flags and stuff so the more grounded you are the more you know healthy you are when you're dating you're less likely to do that you're less likely to push aside the red flags you know so but back to the topic so it's feeling weird looking at something and going like okay you know I know this is what I'm supposed to I think this is what I'm supposed to be doing but I used to do it this way and I don't know man it just doesn't it just doesn't feel right for some reason just doesn't seem right for some reason I don't know I've got doubts like that is normal and it's important to understand that as you're going through change if you're working on yourself in any way shape or form working I think like I think we can work on ourselves I've done a lot of work on myself and like solo I've also worked with other teachers and coaches and stuff like that and I've I've grown but I would say the majority of my growth has been pretty much solo it's also been very slow at times because of that you know I mean I had the benefit of waking up spiritually right at the beginning and in many many ways very profound so I was you know I had some information that I would I had to acclimate to and learn to understand and stuff like that and and and I dove into other spiritual teachers teachings and deftly for for years and years and years so it's not that I didn't do any of that stuff it's just this is my path my particular path because I try believe it or not like I to learn from other people's teachings more because I you know because logically you go of course getting information from external sources is good you know it speeds up the process so I try to do it and sometimes it works but very few times for the most part every time I try it I hit a wall and it goes and when I tune in it's like no Glenn like you're not you're not supposed to be learning like this you're supposed to be learning by going within and having the information come to you that's how you learn that's who you are that's how it's supposed to be done yes you can take some information from external sources here there little sound bites whatever like that but you need to process them on your own this it's just how I function right so I think I think I think we can all it's tough to do in this world especially but theoretically I think we all could just become who we're supposed to become all on our own if we sat around meditating and being still and diving into our feelings and doing everything that we needed to do a lot we we could probably get to where we're going without the help of other people it just takes so much longer the times where I was able to get help from people that sped things up that's kind of what I view as as a spiritual advisor I don't think that it's part of the reason why I don't think I save anybody I got it's I don't think I'm really responsible for other people's growth I think they're responsible for their growth because I can say whatever I want and if they don't implement it they're not going to grow so in that way they're responsible plus I think that even if they never met me they somehow find another way to grow you know like I'm not the end-all be-all they nobody needs me like if I wasn't here they would find another way or you know maybe going within or maybe finding another teacher like so so it's not you know it's not this you gotta follow what I say and what I do and I'm responsible for changing people I'm not they are but it speeds up the process dramatically you know like I could never have gotten had my spiritual awakenings without somebody teaching me like I you know there's times when you need help oh again I rephrase you don't need it you might be able to do it on your own maybe but it would you know like me I guess I'm a good example you know like I don't know I don't you know maybe I couldn't get sober on my own most of the growth I might have been able to do on my own but it would have taken me a hundred years where a lot of it took eight you know that's what helping people does I think that's what life coaching spiritual advising working with people one-on-one I think that that's what it does it just speeds up the process dramatically you know and it gives you somebody else to trust to so when you're feeling weird when you're when you're told that you need to instead of thinking this way you need to think that way instead of acting this way you need to act that way it's like you can put your faith in me a little bit your trust in me a little bit because what I'm saying is resonating and then when you go to do it you feel that little fear and it doesn't feel normal well if you have some faith in me then it's like well you know I don't think Glenn would steer me wrong it can give you that courage to get over that hump a little bit you know and just lean in and do it so I guess this is kind of a little bit turned into a little bit of an overview of life coaching and how I see life coaching but you know the reason I think it kind of leaned in that direction is just because you know that's kind of what we're talking about we're talking about change and and and that's why people go to life coaches but it's okay to feel awkward and if you have somebody that you trust they're going like no man you know you got this yes it's it's I understand that it feels weird but go ahead and do it anyway it's okay you know it's supposed to feel weird it's like oh yeah okay you know understanding the process is helpful in that way to me that's why I'm doing this podcast is so you guys understand you know like when when my father passed recently one of the things that I did like right when he passed right after he passed probably within within a half an hour probably or within an hour I'd say like I went and googled on my phone even though I already know this I googled on my phone the the stages of grief and I just look for the bullet points you know I just look for an image that had the font the the stages of grief and I just read through then I'm like oh yeah okay so so if I feel denial or anger you know that's normal it's like oh yeah I just reminded myself what to expect so when it came up it didn't knock me so much and I was like oh why am I feeling like this you know when when you're off center when you're not confident in where you are or what you're going through and when the emotions are coming through you it's helpful to be like okay it's okay it's supposed to feel like this it's like oh all right it can just calm us down so you know so we can move through what we need to move through so this is along those same lines this is why I want to explain to you guys when you're going through change there is an there is an aspect of uncomfortability and weirdness and I'm you know not being sure of what you're doing that's all normal you know if you've come to the conclusion of you know like whatever your journey is that particular time whether you're working on yourself and you've got this intuitive hit where you know you need to make this change in your life then do it follow through you know don't let that uncomfortability or that fear of the unknown or that weirdness or that bizarro world dynamic to keep you stuck you know it's oh you can go talk it out with it I mean you know this I kind of talked earlier about why you don't need a life coach well this is one of the reasons why it's beneficial to have one you know like I said so you talk it out and you understand it and you're like oh okay so all right so I'm gonna do it even though it feels weird it feels weird just because it goes against my conditioned behaviors doesn't mean that it's wrong it just means I'm behaving differently and that feels weird at first you know and then you get used to it over time and then it becomes your new normal it's like oh okay this is my new norm man like now this is just how I interact with life it's my it's second nature after a while it's through that neuroplasticity you know like you start be you start processing information in a different way than you used to then the old neural pathways start breaking away because they're not being used anymore and the new neural pathways start getting stronger and more cohesive and it just becomes your new norm so you're off doing you know and you know and then like somebody hasn't seen you for 20 years and they're like wow you used to be like this now you're like this how the heck is that possible neuroplasticity I did something that felt uncomfortable over and over and over until it became my new norm right so that's really what I wanted to say I want to explain that to you guys just because it feels abnormal not only is that doesn't mean that it's abnormal usually if you're going through change that's what you're looking for you want it to feel awkward if it doesn't feel weird then you're probably doing the same thing that you have always done and if you do the same things you've always done you will get the same things you've always gotten so we have to do things differently to get different results we have to think differently to get different results and that's gonna feel weird and awkward in the beginning so just do it anyway you know follow through with that action all right hope that helps peace take care let me know if I can be of service and I will talk with you guys later