How To Live The Life You Want

When you continue to have the feeling that there must be more to life, but you’re not able put it into words or put your finger on it, you’re stepping into unfamiliar territory.  This isn’t about your inner critic, changing a bad habit, what society expects, prescriptive advice, or generating positive feelings.

If this was about checking boxes or having a bucket list, you could write a best seller on personal growth.  You’ve done what should be done and gotten the gold stars and countless accolades.  Now, you’re wondering why you don’t feel as expansive, peaceful, free, connected, fulfilled, or as alive as you thought you might after doing all of the right things.

You’re here because you’re willing to get outside of your comfort zone to learn how to create and live your best life, the life you want. Maybe you’re here because you’re a personal growth junkie. Perhaps, you want a better life than the one you’re living. I hope this blog opens you to powerful insights and shifts possibilities for you for how to live the life you want.

Whose Rules Have You Been Following?

In your current life, whose rules have you been following to live your best life? Some of the outcomes may seem super clear to you.  In that, you set a goal and exceeded expectations.  With these goals, whose goals were they?  Did you feel that you could freely choose, or were you going along with the spoken or unspoken rules that were expected of you? 

For other areas of your life (or everything else), whose rules, guidelines, and standards have you been following for a successful life or even a meaningful life?

Your own authentic rules for life may have nothing to do with what your ego or inner critic wants or what society expects, or shoulds.  Rules created by what society expects, shoulds, the ego, and the inner critic create a lot of mental clutter and confusion.

If we look at what your ego wants, but you aren’t getting what you thought you wanted, this is where it gets interesting. It’s not only about whose rules you’ve been following, but how you’re managing and making sense of not getting what you want.

Are You Living On The Effect Side Or The Cause Side Of Life?

When we believe that we’ve been putting our all into our dreams, but we aren’t getting the results we wanted, we have a choice. And there’s no right or wrong or good or bad choice. 

If you feel like the results you’re getting are a consequence of what life’s been serving to you, you’re on the effect side of the equation of life. Focusing on the effect side of life can compound our sense of helplessness or victimhood.  We can feel that life is happening to us, rather than for us. Life can feel frustrating, unsatisfying, and evasive.  

We may also be hyperfocused on what our inner critics, others, or society expects, which further depletes our energy and focus on what we truly want. On the effect side of life, you lose track of the progress you’re making and the personal growth that you’re choosing. 

It’s an unconscious comfort zone of sorts when our inner self feels like we have no choice.

In my NLP Training, learning this concept of being on the effect or cause side of life felt life-changing. This inquiry was way outside of my comfort zone!!!

I realized in parts of my life, I was fully on the cause side of life. Whereas in other aspects of my life, where I was stuck in (unknown to me) comfortable habits and patterns, I found myself on the effect side of the equation. With intention, focus, some radical changes, and powerful coaching, I moved to the cause side of the equation!

How Did I Create This?

The number one resource that supports people to shift from the effect side to the cause side of the equation is this question for your inner self: How did I create this? When you experience failure towards a goal, and ask the question, “How did I create this?” you’re on the cause side of life.

When you’re on the cause side of life, you’re getting really curious about your own sense of agency and self-responsibility.

On the cause side of life, you don’t hypercriticize, judge, or blame yourself or others.  You hold boundaries and standards for yourself, your work, and your relationships for your best life. You’re also curious as to how you are co-creating your current reality at any given moment.

You’re not making meaning of failure. You see failure as a necessary path towards experiencing a rich and meaningful life, work, and relationships.

You aren’t focused on perfection. You’re focusing on growth and evolution, which comes with its fair share of mistakes, errors, and failures.

This shift in your awareness will make a difference in how you make meaning or not of everything in your life. You’ll discover that little moments will create the biggest impact in creating your best life.

As such, you’re excited to be able to create more meaning, depth, joy, success, connection, love, belonging, and impact at the beginning of each process rather than waiting until you’ve shown up or tried to assess what worked or didn’t work.

You’ll begin to lose track of all of the painful ways you kept score of what wasn’t working or all of the “failures.” You’ll barely even skip a beat when you meet failure, as you know that life is a beta test.

Feeling Safe In The Body Is A Missing Component To Creating The Life You Want

Before you can give yourself permission to want what you want, dream big, and fully co-create it, your body needs to feel safe. This isn’t something that we can think our way through.

If you’ve ever felt terrified by making a change or taking a leap, this is where feeling safe in the body is crucial. Some mindset coaches might call this hitting your upper limit where you can’t go past where you’ve been.

Feeling safe isn’t something you can command yourself to do or feel.

This is a somatic practice of growing your felt sense of awareness and capacity to notice that you are safe in this present moment. We can’t command our nervous systems to regulate. It’s the equivalent of telling a child to calm down. Just because we’re quiet or look calm and put together, doesn’t mean we’re calm or safe.

Learning how to reset your nervous system when you get overwhelmed will serve you powerfully when beginning to explore what you really want in this rich and meaningful life you’re creating.

Each time you expand, you’ll find another edge of what feels safe consciously and unconsciously. Returning to somatic regulation tools to grow your capacity to feel safe in the present moment will be a timeless skill that you’ll return to again and again as you continue to grow and evolve with bigger dreams and more impact in this life you came to live.

Somatic Regulation And Safety Supports Us To Choose In The Present Moment

Somatic regulation practices teach you how to become present, moment to moment. When we’re present, we’re able to choose.

When we’re overwhelmed, we’re reacting to protect ourselves. This is also where habitual sensations in the body or thoughts can be misinterpreted as safe or unsafe based on our past experiences. When we’re reacting to keep ourselves safe, we don’t realize that we’re living on the effect side of life.

Reacting also limits the possibilities to make different choices in the present moment and the future to create our best lives.

Learning to grow your capacity to somatically regulate and feel safe in your body will make a huge difference in your personal growth and living your best life. Don’t worry. Fortunately or unfortunately becoming superhuman won’t happen overnight. This deep and subtle change process will have a gradual compounding effect. The way you create goals will be greatly impacted when you know that you’re safe no matter what.

If you have mental health struggles or a history of complex trauma, I recommend working with a somatic psychotherapist. If you’ve tried therapy, and your mental health is stable, you may want to explore working with a skilled somatic coach to help you to create the life of your wildest dreams!

Are You Willing To Have Your Own Back In Co-Creating The Life Of Your Wildest Dreams?

When clients come to me feeling exasperated with getting results they don’t want. I am kind, gentle, and direct. I want to know what their relationship is with having their own back for what it is they say they want. I invite them to get really curious with me about their relationship with being ALL IN with what they say they want.

At what point do they shift from being A No Matter What to feeling like “it isn’t working?”

The truth is: it’s never not working. (yes this double negative is intentional.)

Whatever outcomes we’re getting, some part of us wants them.  It’s most likely not the part of the client who believes that they’re doing whatever it takes, yet is frustrated or disappointed AF.

Spend time with anyone who wants something so intensely, yet is so over it, you come to the table with compassion, kindness, and respect for this deep change work process.

With some gentle yet potent inquiry, the client will discover that they begin to not have their own back when they fail, don’t immediately get a positive result, get no response, or the desired results are coming fast enough.

Here, we explore how to grow the capacity of the nervous system when any of these triggers appear.  We also dig into the land of secondary gain somatically not just from what we think we’re getting out of something we don’t consciously want.

How Is This Different From The Law Of Attraction?

Working on the cause side of life somatically, we are in the present moment.  We aren’t denying reality.  We’re not pushing past feelings of fear, frustration, worry, anger, boredom, resentment, dissatisfaction, or disappointment. We’re not switching on a positive mindset.

You’re being invited to know all of you.  Whenever we notice that we’re getting a particular result, some part of us wants this.  When we’re getting a result that we consciously don’t want, we can dig deep and get curious on a somatic level about actually wanting this result. 

The Law of Attraction doesn’t focus on the whole.  It focuses on what we think we want.  While there is nothing wrong or bad about the Law of Attraction, it doesn’t work for everyone.

Unlike The Law of Attraction, this way of creating the life you want points us towards our wholeness.  Nothing is being omitted, cut out, or denied. All parts of you are being invited to the grand round table of your best life, the one you’re currently living and the one you’re willing to co-create.

Co-creating The Life You Want To Live From Wholeness

Creating and living our best life from our wholeness isn’t what our inner critic or society expects. We’re reconciling the split that lives in us that keeps us disconnected from the source of our aliveness, love, and power. This includes discovering our blind spots, which hold immense untapped life force.

When we do this with the somatic practices, we’re less likely to bypass what we’re truly getting out of all of the places we’d rather not go.

For some of us, it calls us to unpack perfectionism, shame, guilt, and vulnerability from the inside out.

For others, we’re invited to unpack the juiciness of being right. It will turn what you think your “bad habits” are upside down and right-size them.

When all of us are on board with our own flavors, we have more aliveness than we did in our 20s. We often have more fun, pleasure, connection, success, and impact than we could’ve ever dreamed. Don’t get me wrong. This doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a lifelong process that we learn to delight in or at least get a good laugh at, rather than dread.

Cracking the code to living the life you want isn’t what you think it is.  It’s way more badass, fun, or funky than you could ever imagine. If people knew personal growth deep change work could be this mind-blowing, I think more people would go all in.

Love,

Amy

PS If you know a magnificent human who’d like to create and live a meaningful and rich life, please share this blog with them.  If you are a human being who would like support with somatic and mindset tools for co-creating a life of their wildest dreams, I invite you to explore private coaching with me. Apply to coach with me here.