The key to thriving in your life, or having success in your business or career, is all about integrating and implementing what you learn and know to be true.
I used to be a seminar junkie, conference goer, educational sponge – I was learning a ton.
In my business I definitely took the advice from the experts, and I implemented all that I learned. I had great success in my businesses because of this.
But when it came to personal development, that’s a different story. Why? Because it was all about ME: my limiting beliefs, fears, attitudes, habits…and of those kinda sucked for me.
 I would try to integrate into my life what I learned, but if what I learned did’t work immediately, I would stop. My life felt pretty mediocre and I couldn’t seem to elevate my heart rate for personal ambition.
 I would feel the ‘ra-ra’ beat of the ‘you can do anything’ seminar music for days- you know that music, right?
I would say things to myself like: “Ok Odette, you got this, just do what they say and all your fears and worries will vanish forever”. That was often the inflated promise as you ran to the back of the room with your credit card waving high in the air, desperate to be one of the chosen few.
By Monday morning, a few emails and texts in, a few phone calls later, a program I would sit down to write…busy doing the work to get it done became way more important than who I was being while I was doing the do.
So why success in business and not so much in life? Well I was a doing hound. I could out do anyone. Get the job done, at all costs, kinda gal.
But when it came to personal growth work, by the time I got home and settled into day to day living, the old fears, habits and limiting beliefs would get the better of me.
When I was doing stuff, keeping busy, I did’t have to think or feel – I just did the work robotically,
Feeling my feelings was not something I wanted to do because that would mean I would have to look fear in the eye. My fear would win every single time.
The saying ‘success is on the other side of fear’ is a wonderfully true phrase – but getting to the other side is like swimming across an alligator and snake infested river in the Amazon.
Those personal development seminars and courses are all correct in what they teach – but they fail to teach you how to integrate the learning in to your day to day life when your old habits and fearful thoughts get the better of you.
The fears and thoughts need to be stopped dead in their tracks – in the moment they are thought. If not, they take over your mind just as fast as an alligator snaps it’s prey for dinner.
I’m a big believer in the healing power of plant medicine. It’s like a decade worth of personal development work boiled into one ceremony. Our fears live deep in our psyche, often passed down from our ancestors. Our limiting beliefs are entrenched at the cellular level and show up as anxiety, depression, auto immune, cancer and so many other ways.
But not everyone is ready for a journey that takes you deep into your psyche. I get that – it’s the fear of the unknown and the stigma that they are .drugs’. These plant medicines have been healing people for thousands of years – but it’s those old white men in powerful positions in the Nixon area that have lumped together these ancient brews with dangerous drugs such as heroin or cocaine (another blog on that topic).
Once you venture inside of yourself and see where and how your pain has come to be, only then can you heal it.
And that is where integration becomes the most important part of the healing process: implementing what you learned in your daily life.
Just like the personal development seminar junkies, Spirit Plant ceremonies require you to integrate what you learned.
Where ever the message comes from doesn’t matter. What matters is that you implement what you heard.
 When you come out of a ceremony or seminar, you will still face, and be in the space of what triggers you (memories, people, circumstances).
We can’t change our external triggers, but we can change our reaction; and that’s where we need the help.
Here are a few tips to help you – and they all start with you changing the relationship you have with yourself:
– Be curious about your emotions, not a victim (stop blaming)
– Be a witness to the drama, not the star of the show
– In the heat of the moment, ask yourself; ‘I’m I coming from love or fear?’ If it doesn’t feel warm and fuzzy, it’s fear
– Talk to yourself: ‘Why do I feel this way? What’s really behind the negative feelings? Why does he/she trigger me so much?’
– Believe in the statement; ‘Everything is happening for you, not to you’
– Be grateful when someone annoys the hell out of you – it’s showing you your Holy Grail
If you are ready to really let go of those harmful reactions to your triggers, whether you’ve participated in ceremonies or seminars, check out my story at www.spiritualalliance.ca , take my 3-min “Are you ready to face your shadow?’ quiz and book a 1:1 call with me. It could be the start of a beautiful relationship with yourself ❤️