Blog Category: WOOOSH

Yes I know, strange and silly name, but acronyms are easy to remember! (PS: too busy to read this? I've made it available as a podcast, so be sure to check it out!)

For the first ever episode, we are going to explore something that might be very timely for some of you who have maybe made some New Year’s resolutions, particularly if those resolutions are about some aspect of yourself that you want to change (which is most of us). It doesn’t matter that we’re already in 2024, because the best time to make a change isn’t about an arbitrary date – it’s about the here and now. Let’s dive in. 

 

 

Within the BLESS Spiritual Coaching Framework I’ve identified something to help achieve your goals or generally help ensure that the transformation you’re after is within reach. Keep in mind of course that everything is always in reach for you, it depends on your mindset and what beliefs you currently hold about what you’re capable of. That in a nutshell is really all you need to know. I could stop right here but of course, human beings need it broken down more because usually change doesn’t happen the first or even second time we hear something, even if it does blow our minds. It's more like, lasting change happens after the 10^th or even 50^th time we hear it or try to action it....and that's because even change takes practice!

 

Okay, on to the framework. As I mentioned it’s like a mini-framework within my BLESS coaching framework, and I call it the WOOOSH model (W-O-O-O-S-H), and it stands for WHY, OBSTACLES, OPPORTUNITIES, OUTCOME, SYSTEM, and HABIT. The last two – system and habit – are thanks to James Clear and his amazing work, Atomic Habits. Credit where credit is due, and a testament to spirituality being everywhere, especially the Bestseller list.

 

Let’s look at the first letter, the W in WOOOSH. It stands for ‘why.’ Specifically, your why. Why are you pursuing this goal or resolution in the first place? Let’s say you have a goal to lose 15 pounds. What is lurking behind that goal? Is it coming from a place of self-love, or self-hate? You see, your why is important for a couple different reasons. 1) It sets the priority, and you need to get clear on what the priority is, and 2) The right ‘why’ will keep you going through the high points and the low points of pursuing your goal.

 

If your goal is simply to lose weight, that puts the priority on the scale, doesn’t it? This is also why language in goal-setting is extremely important, but so is asking the right questions. Let’s look at that goal again: to lose 15 pounds. What is the goal beyond that goal? What do you hope to do or feel or experience as a result of achieving that goal? How do you want your life to change as a result? Who do you intend to be? The Why can also be an implicit intention, and intention is the foundation for making any transformation happen. Going back to the goal: How could we re-create this goal from a place of self-love, so that the priority isn’t the scale, the priority is the extremely worthy individual who is making the goal, the one whose worth is completely unrelated to any number on any scale ever? 

 

Your WHY is your ticket to ride. It’s your foundation. The root system of the tiny plant you’re trying to grow. Without a strong why, when you lose steam – which is inevitable – you will find yourself on uneven ground. The obstacles will seem larger, loom taller, seem more insurmountable than they probably already feel on your best day. Your doubters will be able to creep into your thoughts, and your biggest doubter – yourself – who likely already shows up on the daily, will take the first opportunity she finds to cut you off at the knees. 

 

But I have great news. Your ‘why’ isn’t a finite resource. It won’t ever run out of juice or steam. Your why is tied directly to your heart’s desire, your soul, that eternal thing that forms the basis for your beautiful existence. Tap into that, and nothing will be able to deter you from your mission, your goal. 

 

 

The next letter in WOOOSH, is O for ‘obstacles.’ This one probably seems really self-explanatory, and for the most part it is. But here’s the thing, obstacles come in many shapes and sizes. Sometimes they look like our loved ones and friends, sometimes they look like the clock, sometimes they look like our own desires and conflicting ideas about what it is we want, sometimes they are our cultures, experiences, traumas, attitudes, and sometimes they look like the person staring back at you in the mirror. The way I think about obstacles, and what I have developed a whole workshop around, is the not-new concept of the limiting belief. Limiting beliefs are one huge way that we become our own worst enemies, without even realizing it. I mean, shadow work is a hot topic in our community and for a very good reason; the light exists alongside the darkness, and a personal inventory of both is required in order to know thyself. Limiting beliefs are a part of that shadow self, but they belong specifically to the ego, the false sense of self we’ve been constructing ever since birth. 

 

The realm of the Ego with its limiting beliefs is the single largest obstacle a human being faces when they are trying to make a change. Firstly, realizing that change is necessary requires confronting a limiting belief, doesn’t it? First, we have to admit to ourselves that things aren’t right, the limiting belief here, being, that things are perfectly fine, I don’t need to change! How many times in our lives have we heard someone say that who clearly needs to make a change? No judgements because we are all on a different journey and experiencing things for different reasons. But let’s say that you are at a point in your journey where you want to change. You know that something in your life (maybe you know exactly what it is) is preventing you from living the life you deserve, because we all deserve a beautiful life. Let nobody tell you otherwise (that too, is a limiting belief, and misery loves company is a saying for a reason). 

 

Limiting beliefs, you say. No worries, I’ll just tell myself a different story. 

 

Here’s the thing though. Where do you think limiting beliefs live? In your head? In your heart? In your gut? They reside in the subconscious, or what I call the body conscious. Think of them as an extension of the Ego, which exists in the mind (but is not the whole mind), but the Ego of the body. There is so much information online, I’m sure you’ve seen and heard of the work of Dr. Nicole LePera, the Holistic Psychologist, who speaks often of this. There’s so much about the vagal system and our second brain, there’s The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Kolk, and so, so much more. The point being, the science backs this up. The body has its own consciousness and it remembers (some might argue that it doesn't just remember, it holds a grudge)...it just remembers differently. It carries the load of memory duty with the brain, because the brain just doesn’t have the bandwidth for over 500,000 minutes that is a human life. 

 

Limiting beliefs live in the body, and are nurtured by the mind. They must be undone if any change or transformation is to occur. Your beliefs make up your reality, and so do your limiting beliefs. But I have more great news. You can undo them, but for starters, you do have to believe that you can undo them. How? Easy. First you have to be aware of them. Look at your life, which is a confirmation of every belief you have – including every limiting belief. What stories do you tell yourself about yourself? Once you’re aware, you can start to do the work of undoing them. 

 

 

So far we’ve looked at your WHY and your OBSTACLES. Now let’s talk about your opportunities. What do I mean when I say opportunities? These are the energetic opposites of your obstacles. It is what empowers you in your journey, whether that’s events or circumstances, other people, or of course, yourself. 

 

Sometimes your opportunities might not be clear to you. Maybe you find yourself at rock bottom, maybe you’re broke and on the verge of getting kicked out of your place, maybe you’re in the depths of depression or mental illness. Maybe events outside of your control have wreaked havoc and tragedy. I’m barely scratching the surface here of all the many situations and examples of human suffering that abound, but the point is, these are the types of worst-case scenarios that can make it seem like hope is lost, that things will never get better. Suffering does not exist on a spectrum, it simply is, which means that comparing suffering is a wasted effort as comparison only exists to invalidate and cause further suffering to those being compared. There is no winning when we compare suffering, only losing, because comparison itself is a losing game. Either someone wins and they are made worse-off and thus handed the title of First Victim, or they lose and are invalidated and silenced in their pain. Lose-lose. Victimhood is a place we visit from time to time and with good reason, but it is a stop on the journey, not the place we should wish to stay. Because when we define and identify ourselves with victimhood, we give that energy to the world and of course, we get what we give. 

 

Why am I talking about suffering when the whole point of this segment is to talk about opportunities? Because the most important opportunity that you must see is the opportunity to reframe every experience, even the worst of the worst. Looking for the positives – or looking for opportunities in every situation – is something that takes practice. It is a skill. With practice and over time, you get better at it. Focused effort, consistently applied, over time, will yield results. 

 

Opportunities might look like people, places, or things, things external to you, however, as I mentioned, your most powerful opportunity lies within, and that’s your power to exert control over how you choose to see events in your life. When you revisit those obstacles, can you try and see how they could be transformed to opportunities? When you approach your life and transformation from this place, this place of openness and receptivity, you signal to the universe that you are ready for more opportunities, and less obstacles. What you focus on is what you see. What you believe is what you see. Every obstacle contains opportunity, which is an example of the Paradox Principle of the Universe. 

When you consider the end of your journey, what does it look like? Get beyond just the results that you want. Sure, it will feel good to achieve your goal, who doesn’t want that feeling of accomplishment? But get beyond the quantitative; how do you expect to feel? Embodied? At ease? Confident? What might the achievement of this goal open up for you? Maybe it will unlock something else, open another door that you never anticipated. 

 

The point that I’m trying to make is that I want you to explore the outcome of your transformation journey, whatever it is that you’re looking to change or transform in your life. Close your eyes and visualize it. Live in the body of the person who has achieved their desired results. Move around in that body. 

 

That’s what I call a surface-level exploration of change. But let’s go deeper. 

 

If you Get What You Give, and what you give to the world is Who You Are, then who you are is exactly what you get from the world in return. The outcome of your journey then isn’t just a result, it is the person you intend to be. The trick here is understanding that the person you intend to be is already the person that you are, you just can’t or won’t see them yet. The difference then, between the person you think that you are and the person you want to be, is just your misperception that the person in the mirror is your true self. 

 

But it’s not. Your belief that you’ll be better and more lovable at the end of your journey is just another aspect of your Ego, the false self, that revels in your not-enoughness. Because as long as we don’t feel like we are enough, when we embody that quality, we make ourselves NOT ENOUGH. So that even if you achieve your desired outcome, your goal, that’s not going to deliver a long-term change, not if you’ve still got that underlying programming going. But consider for a moment the strength within those who continually change, continually get their desired outcome (even if only for a short while) before reverting back. They are constantly in a battle within themselves, against their own programming, which is why they revert back after the change is made. It’s like playing a video game where the player is programmed to lose. It’s a testament to the strength of human will. But unless that programming is changed, unless those limiting beliefs are addressed, there will come a point where they don’t bounce back after the last relapse, which is usually when a choice is offered: change, or die. 

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, talking about Systems (and the next segment, which is habits) here is thanks to James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Prior to reading that book, WOOOSH was just WOOO. 

 

So, on to systems. You see, any effort directed at change must have mechanisms put in place to help make the process easier. Humans are creatures of habit. Most of the time, unless conscious effort is made through mindfulness practices, we are running on autopilot. We are living unconsciously, not in the present, but somewhere else, usually the past or the future. Our body has a system to ensure we continue breathing when we’re not thinking about breathing. Muscle memory helps us drive our vehicles when we’re completely thinking about something else. This is because we have a body consciousness, also called the subconscious, which is where our operating system resides. This is also where we have to do the work to re-code those systems that are currently operating with the habits we want to change. As I mentioned, this is also where those limiting beliefs reside, which are the very systems that need the changing. 

 

The good news is they can absolutely be re-coded, or healed. It just takes time to heal, which is exactly what time is for. 

 

Beyond that internal rewiring of systems, however, there are the external systems that can and should be put in place to help ensure that behaviour change is enabled and empowered. What can you do each day to help yourself do what needs to be done? How can your routine be re-shuffled? How can you hack your life to empower change? Time is for healing, but it is also something to be mastered, and when we’re trying to make changes, transform, and create new habits, maximizing time is critical. In James Clear’s book, he talks about something called ‘habit   stacking,’ which as he describes is “identifying a current habit you already do each day and stack your new habit on top.” At first glance it looks like multi-tasking, which I absolutely don’t believe in, but it’s not. It’s actually a brilliant way to game the operating system. What are you already doing every day – and is thus already a part of your operating system – that you could stack a new habit on to? For me, every morning I get up and pour a coffee. My goal is to exercise more, so for me, habit stacking might look like this: before pouring my coffee, I will do ten squats. I encourage everyone to read Atomic Habits; like all personal development stuff out there, it is heavily rooted in spiritual principles (though not marketed as such, probably in order to entice a wider audience), but because of the practical application aspect, it is probably one of the most helpful works I’ve read. 

 

What other systems can you put in place to empower your transformation journey?

 

 

The final aspect of WOOOSH is all about your habits. In the last segment we spoke about systems, but now, I want you to consider all the things you do that may prevent you from achieving your goal or resolution. Consider also, all the things you do that may help you from achieving your goal or resolution. The goal here is to do a rigorous personal inventory, to shed light on our behaviours so that you can move forward consciously. 

 

For me, I know that as soon as the time to exercise approaches, I always tend to find reasons to keep working because this or that is really important. Except that it’s not. That’s a habit of mine that I am aware of, and because I’m aware of it, I can put a system in place to ensure it doesn’t continue. For example, I can put a really obnoxious alarm on my phone that goes off ten minutes to workout time. The alarm will trigger a reaction on my part, a reaction that will take me away from my work. And if I put my phone far away from me, meaning that I have to physically get up to turn it off, even better. Let’s elevate it: I put that phone with its obnoxious alarm in the next room, right beside my workout clothes. This is exactly how I plan on implementing a new habit, but it first had to start with my being aware of my current bad habit. 

 

So do that inventory. You might be surprised at how many you weren’t aware of. And if you’re struggling to do it, ask yourself the following question: What do I normally do when I know I should be doing something else? 

Change is hard, but the truth is that it's the path of least resistance (which is not the same as least effort). Self-improvement and personal development IS spirituality, and using the WOOOSH model will deliver results. But it starts with you, and your intention.

For more information, and to get your FREE 12-Step Guide to Transformation (which includes the WOOOSH model plus additional tools), please visit: https://edensgate.ca/landing/12-step-transformation-guide

Remember, you are loved beyond measure.