How to Recalibrate Your Universe...aka Push the Reset Button

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Good morning, and welcome to the Phoenix Rising podcast! I am Ashley Drummonds and this podcast is all about bringing you conversation to help inspire and empower you to connect deeper to yourself so that you can connect deeper to your life and really just to have the power to create the life that you want! One of the things over the last 12 years of working as a fitness in mindset coach and starting my own businesses, that I have always noticed comes up with clients, and even right now, I have a group of people going through the eight-week Transform Your Life boot camp.

The biggest thing in everything that you do in life is the mindset that you have about it. And I was in a call this week with one of the clients going through boot camp and I had to ask her "what's been the most challenging part of this for you?" And her response was "Oh, hands-down, the most challenging part, its not the workout and the meal plan. It's the mindset and the emotional component. However, that's also the part that is making the biggest difference of being able to see this as a lifestyle and how this is affecting other areas of my life". So, because of that and because this is something that just I've seen hundreds of people deal with over the years. I'm doing a free mindset workshop where I'm going to cover the top five mindset blocks, both men and women, struggle with when it comes to their health, their fitness and losing weight or building lean muscle and really just creating the body and the life that they want.

So, if you go to ashleydrummonds.com, you'll see it on their, Top Five Mindset Block Workshop. Immediately, all you got to do is get access. I will send you the video as soon as you sign up for that and we'll go over not only what those top five mindset blocks are, but more importantly, I will explain to you how I teach people to change it so that they can eliminate those blocks and really start to see progress moving forward towards their goal. So again, its in the show notes. If you just go to ashleydrummonds.com you can download that immediately and you'll get the video and we'll chat all about it so you can begin creating the body in the life that you want. All right, lets get in today's episode!

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, whatever time of day this is for you. Grab a cup of coffee or tea, or if its evening grab some wine, or whiskey, or whatever it is that your beverages is and lets snuggle on up. Lets have a little heart-to-heart and deep conversation all about how to recalibrate your Universe. Which, simply, all that means is how to push the reset button.

So think of this in terms of, you can recalibrate an oven, a thermometer, a thermostat, things that are a gauge. You can also recalibrate things in your life like TV media equipment. Whatever. You just hold down that reset button and you're like "You know what?, let's just hit a hard reset and start all over". Because some days we feel that way and not just days. Sometimes this is the theme in our life. We're like "Excuse me Universe. Can I please just get a redo? Can we just wipe that whiteboard nice and clean?". So that's all the things were going to talk about today.

A couple weeks ago, I did the podcast on who or what is your spirit animal? And you guys are cracking me up because, one, I want to clarify, you don't go searching for this. So, couple of you guys had sent me messages and you were like "You've really got me wondering like what my spirit animal is and I don't really know. So I've been like looking around trying to find it". That's not how Spirit Animals work! You don't go looking around, trying to find it. They just repeatedly show up in your life and it's kind of one of those subtle things where you start to notice, you're like "huh, that's really weird. I've seen three or four of these in the last few days and I don't normally see these".

A couple of you sent me messages, you were like "Is it possible for gnat to be your spirit animal?" The answer is yes and there actually is. So gnats are a nuisance, they also are very quick. Flies are too. Flies are very fast and swift and normally if these nuisances come into your life, its about quick-change, fast changes that are going on that you are trying to adjust to. So if you're constantly swatting and killing them, there might be something in there where you're trying to quickly resist the changes that are happening. And then a couple of you were like "I've no idea what you're talking about with this spirit animal thing". You know what? that's totally fine. Like I said, you take what resonates for you and if it doesn't you can just leave it. But one day you might have a lightbulb moment where you're like "Oh my God, I was listening to this podcast one time. I kind of get it now. I think this might be my spirit animal".

So thank you for all those messages. Some of them were super awesome because you guys were like "Oh yeah, this makes so much sense". Others made me crack up, but I just love that you guys are really listening and getting things out of this podcast.

Even on that note, yesterday, man... So I had mentioned how when I did that spirit animal podcast, that snakes kept showing up for me. Yesterday, I saw six. Six! Who sees six snakes in one normal day? without going to the zoo or intentionally trying to do that. So, one slithered across the water on the lake. One slithered across my side walk right into my front door. One went across the pool. Then, I decided "You know what? I want to go to some Trails today, get outside be in nature". I'm walking around these trails, and I got my headphones in and got my country music playing and I'm just in my own little world. And I walk and then I stop for a second because I saw something in the corner of my eye. Turn around, take a few steps back. Three. Three snakes in like this huddle right on my walking path! Felt like a nest! I even posted about it on Instagram because I was like "This is nuts!". So like I said before, snakes are all about rebirth and transformation because they shed their old skin in order to truly become this new part of themselves. As they grow, as they evolved, that's what happens. So I mean, I kind of took that, put it in my back pocket, yep that sounds about right in my life. Lots of transformation and rebirth going on.

So, that's really what spirit animals are all about. It doesn't work if you go try searching for it. So I just wanted to preface that. This isn't a task. If you don't have one showing up right now, its totally fine. It doesn't mean you're off path and it also doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. So just don't go searching. Alright, now that that story is done. So, to reset and recalibrate your Universe. This is how it works with a domino and a ripple effect in life. And were going to start by talking about this in your day-to-day life and then I'm going to kind of bring it all together on how using his daily practice will really change your life.

So to recalibrate your Universe, essentially the concept is: You give the opposite of what you get if its different than what you want. And here's what I mean by that. You're having a pretty decent morning. You're feeling good about life. You're driving to wherever, work, the gyms, drop the kids off at day-care, and some jerk cuts you off and totally throws off your driving. Now, you're pissed off and that person just speeds away.

Okay, so this is the situation. This is the event that happens. Now in this moment you have a choice to recalibrate your universe or to accept what has happened. Normally, the situation that happens is you accept this event, you now are in a bad mood and pissed off because of something somebody else did to you. So now you create a domino effect and a ripple effect. Where now you get on the phone with your friend, your spouse, your partner. And now you're just irritable because this person cut you off in traffic. Your whole days off. You go into work and you're just not the same because you're like "God, that ass hole!".

Okay, this is what we do. We create the domino and the ripple effect. More than likely, the person who cut you off had something happen in their day that set them off and pissed them off. So that now they don't care about what they do to you and it just becomes this series of events where who knows who started the dominoes. But somebody did it and it just trickles down. Now, you have a choice when these situations happen, to recalibrate and reset your day or to take the back stance or the reactive stance and just accept it and choose that now your day is ruined. To recalibrate it, you do the opposite of what was given to you, because you are choosing what you actually want.

An example in this same situation: Somebody cuts you off in traffic. Natural response is at first you're kind of a little irritated. But, you choose to stop and you're like "You know what though? I don't feel like being pissed off today. I'm actually having a really great day." So to recalibrate this situation and the energy, I'm actually going to let somebody go in front of me. Somebody who's trying to get over, somebody who's trying to make a turn. I'm going to do the opposite of what would be the normal reaction to this because now I am changing the trickle-down effect of: I just made somebody's day because I let them in front of me. But also, I feel good about myself because I didn't give the energy that I was just given. I gave what I actually want. 

So this is recalibrating. Another very real example of this is: I was trying to record this podcast twice this morning and I was interrupted twice! First time it happened, I was fine like "You know what? no big deal". Maybe that wasn't the right timing, Ill let it go, and I totally recalibrated right. Second time, I hit the pause button and I took a very big sigh and a deep breath of like "Okay. I am not starting my day off in a bad mood. We're just going to go with the flow. I know Ill record this podcast, it's fine, this is just a situation. There's no point in me getting mad because more than likely the person who keeps interrupting me isn't even aware that I'm trying to record a podcast and they're just going about their day. 

So I'm just going to stop. I'm gonna handle this situation, and then I'm going to move forward and I'm going to record the podcast. Because had I not done that, here's what would have happened: If I didn't pause, breathe, and then choose how to react. I would have recorded this podcast half-assed and giving you guys probably not great content because I would have been still in my head and in the energy of irritation and I would have just been checking something off my list and that is not at all what I wanted. 

So, step back, ask yourself what do I actually want? And then make the choice to move forward from that position. This is kind of a funny story, another example of this: Here's why its funny to me. It wasn't funny six or seven years ago when I first started my business. Its funny now because I have enough experience and I have built tougher skin. But I will preface this with: If you get emails from me, you only get emails from me because you signed up for them. I did not put you on anything and I actually cant do that. There's different regulations they have for anti-spam so that they track IP addresses. But I'm saying all this because it is funny now. Without failure, every time I send an email and 90% of the time, I'm sending you free workouts, free mindset, free podcast. I'm sending all this stuff out. I will get anywhere from, lets see, like 3-5 emails back in all caps and exclamation points of people who are so angry that they got the email asking me to remove them from the list. They're pissed off. All these things. 

Seven years ago, this is crazy to think about, I totally probably would have felt like "Oh my God, people hate me. I'm a total failure at business. I shouldn't even be doing this!". Now, it makes me laugh because 1) I don't even respond to those any more. I just swipe and delete. But 2) I didn't put you on my email list. You put yourself there. So you're frustrating yourself. I don't know why you're so angry that you signed up for something and now you're getting what you signed up for. But this is taking practice. 

So, I used to be very reactive to this and then it would just totally sent my morning off and I wouldn't even bother sending another email for like a month because I'm like "Oh my God, people hate the content that I'm sending, this is terrible. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this business now! Now, I'm like well that's nice. You made the choice to be on it. You can also hit the unsubscribe button and take yourself off. I don't know why you're angry with me". So there's another example of this.

So the biggest difference is there's two different roles you're playing. One role is reactive, so taking a reactive approach with what happens in your life, is you have the mindset that life happens to you and you are a victim. So you have the belief, and this is a lot of stuff, this can go all the way back to childhood, but on the surface, you believe that life happens to you. You're totally helpless. You have no control over it. And here's the truth: You have no control over what other people do or the things that come into life. However, you do have control on how you choose to show up and participate in it. 

The other way is being proactive. When being proactive, you co-create your life and you take back your power to create what you actually want. So its the exact same reality. And this is why they say two people can be in the exact same situation, if you separated them and ask them for the story of what happened, you would get two very different stories because people are filtering everything through their own perspective, their own belief system, their own mindset, and its going to come across a very different. One, will come across with the glass half-full. The other persons going to take the reactive victim approach and just be like life is terrible, and tons of self-pity. Okay.

So if you think of this. You have to become, and I'm sure I've said this plenty of times, you have to become the observer of your reality. This takes so much practice. It takes a lot of emotional maturity. It takes a lot of inner strength because it is not always easy, especially when you are being wronged. So if somebody is just treating you poorly for no reason, you have to literally have the strength within yourself 1) to recognize not to take it personally. 

Most of the things when people are giving you pain, frustration, they take advantage of you, whatever, it almost always isn't about you. It's a projection of something about them. So, when they're doing this you have to keep yourself in the observer mentality. Ask yourself: Is this really something that is about me? Or, is there a possibility that this person is being the reactive domino effect of something going on in their life and they are choosing to now just pass along the energy and the vibration that they've been given. 

This requires a ton of empathy, a ton of compassion, a ton of self-awareness, and being present because all of us as soon as this happens... So lets just say its a family member. This family member constantly makes you feel like nothing you do is ever good enough. Maybe its your spouse too, I don't know. Nothing you do is ever good enough and you have been busting your ass trying to do all kinds of things to not only improve yourself, but also improve your relationship, and also improve life. I mean, you do all this and then they come at you and they're like "Hey, so I noticed you haven't really done this for me or you haven't done that" and immediately you want to get so angry and justify to them everything you're doing and how ungrateful or unappreciative they are. 1) They are projecting something onto you because they have some deep engrained thing of not being enough. 2) If you don't take the observer approach and you respond by being pissed off, you are now projecting something on to them, right? So instead, somebody has to be the leader. Somebody has to be the leader who stops the energetic trail and decides "You know what? I'm not going to work my shit out on you like you were doing to me. Instead, what I actually want is love, peace, harmony in this relationship. So while you're laying into me about whatever. I'm going to choose instead to respond with the opposite of what you're giving me, because deep down that's what I want. Deep down, I know that's what you want. You're just doing it in a very unhealthy way and I'm choosing to reset this whole situation". 

It's the whole thing of fighting fire with fire. Nobody's going to win. Everything is just going to burn down. But that's what we do. So how this plays out in the big picture and in your overall life is when you start to do this in your day-to-day practices of just very simple things. The things that you feel like you're lacking, or that you need, you can actually reverse the situation. I've talked to people about this even with money. If you feel like you are lacking in money and finances in abundance, instead of matching the lack by now you just hoard all the money, you are cutting coupons, you're doing everything which further connects with that thought and that mindset of lack. Instead do the opposite, give the opposite to recalibrate the universe. Buy somebody a cup of coffee. If it's a dollar fifty, who cares? A cup of coffee. Give the homeless person on the side of the road five bucks. Buy your friends dinner. Buy somebody a drink because what you're doing is you are putting your energy out to match what you actually want instead of thinking, okay I don't have enough money so now I have to hold on to everything that I've gotten. Cut off all the energy. No, you're just matching that mindset. So turn it around. 

It's the same thing with love. There's not enough love. Nobody loves me. Okay, then give love. Give love and then you're recalibrating and then you'll get what you want. So how this shows up in your life on a much bigger picture and why this is so important is because most of us have a path or are on a path in life that we have taken a reactive approach to because its the life that everybody else in our family has had and it's the only life that we have known. This can show up very much in the type of person you choose to marry or partner with. This can show up in the kind of lifestyle you live. It can show up in the career path. It can show up in your money situation too. For example: Using health and fitness. There's plenty of people who I have worked with who show up and I'm like alright, so tell me your story. What's going on? And they might be extremely overweight and like "Well, my whole family is overweight, we just have really bad genes. My mom and dad are like a hundred pounds overweight. I wasn't raised to eat super healthy and all of these things. I always have to stop them and tell them "You know, you can choose differently for yourself, you know that, right? Just because this is your entire family tree in every generation that you know, that doesn't mean that you are a victim". And like, whoops, I was born into this family. So I guess this is just what I get. You can completely redo your entire path but it would require you to be proactive, to take a different approach and to really be the leader in your own life. Not the follower.

This isn't just about health and fitness, this is also with relationships and people's lifestyles. So normally, if you've never heard this analogy it all makes sense, typically people who have abusive parents, they usually are the result of their own abusive parents because they are reacting to the situation that happened to them and they are just passing it down. People who come from alcoholic families, a lot of time down the family line, somebody was alcoholic. That's just the familiar upbringing they had. So therefore they create the mindset of bringing that down, or they come from an extreme background. A lot of times people who've gone through addictive situations. It comes all the way back to the family line. What was your family life like? Were you in an extreme household where things were very on edge? You didn't know what you were walking into. Or was somebody in your family also an alcoholic and you picked up this behaviour subconsciously that has created a domino effect in your life and then if you don't choose to change that, a lot of times it passes down to the next generation where eventually somebody has to be the leader. Somebody has to be the leader that realizes, just because this happened to you doesn't mean that you have to choose it. 

There's always two stories to tell the one where you are the victim and the one where you where you are the hero. Nobody can choose your story for you. You just choose the kind of life that you want. I'm going to take a crazy guess that if you're listening to this podcast, more than likely, you don't want the victim story any more. You are not helpless. You are not powerless. Every single day you have a choice of how to react to any given situation and the kind of person that you are going to be. This is by far the most work that you will do in your life, but also the most rewarding work you will do.

A couple years ago when I was really just doing a lot of new things in the ABS Pancakes business. I remember I went through a series of months where everything I tried I just kept getting no's and it was like over and over and over, and I went outside and I remember I was taking a walk, and I remember telling the person I was taking a walk with "You know, the hardest thing about being an entrepreneur or being a business owner has nothing to do with business stuff. That's the easiest part. The hardest part is choosing to keep going and continuing to get back up every single time you're given a no. The amount of resiliency most people don't understand". Business is easy. Business is numbers. Its marketing, its creating products, its mostly logistics. But to choose to keep going when you're told no over and over and over and over, that's the hardest part. But that's what you have to develop. Using this with this analogy. Its the same exact thing. Choosing to be the leader when nobody else in your family or in your social circle, or your immediate life sees what you're doing, let alone supports it. That's the hardest part of change, its not doing workouts, its not eating healthy, its developing the mindset, the emotional maturity, the self-awareness and the choice to be the hero story instead of the victim story.

And another very real story of this in my life that has taken me years to work through, and I always have to keep it in check, is on the big picture. So, in my family, my immediate family on my mom's side, my immediate family on my dad's side and then all the way down the line. The women, the females in my life, they're raised very traditional. Its the idea that, you know, women you go to college, to get your MRS degree. You find a guy, you get married, the guys the financial breadwinner and then you just have babies and you stay home. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, that is totally fine. However, I've never really subscribed to that belief or that path in life. But that's been the most challenging thing because no other females in my family are entrepreneurs. They're not really big into "You know what? I'm gonna pave my own path", pioneers, blazing their own trail. 

So what's happened over the years, in my early twenties when I was like "I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to do health and fitness. Here's everything, this is who I am and who I want to be". It was great when things were successful. When things got hard and I was growing as an entrepreneur and I was hitting a lot of roadblocks and dealing with self-doubt and wondering if I was ever going to be successful and I had all these things going on. Nobody 1) Understood it, but 2) It's not that they didn't support it. It's just there wasn't the reinforcement in the belief that I could do that and instead it was a reinforcement of their beliefs and the life that they had. So, no joke, two days ago, I've been an entrepreneur for, I don't know, somewhere around like 10 to 12 years, something like that. I mean its been a decade at least. This is who I am. I don't know that I could ever do anything different. So, I'm expressing some of the challenges I've been experiencing with business. 

In regards to just starting new projects, there's some stuff that I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm trying to figure it out and most days I feel great and some days I'm exhausted, and I'm trying to just get some clarity. So I'm expressing this to some family members and they see the struggle. They see the struggle, not because the struggle is bad. The struggle is part of the growing pain, it's kind of like your Rites of Passage, its growth. You got to learn this, you got to overcome this. That's what I tell my clients I'm like "Struggle doesn't mean you're failing, struggle means you're learning. Remember that. It's always a learning process. You can't learn the lesson while you're in it. Once you learn the lesson the struggle ends. It's that simple". So this is my mindset. This is what I teach my clients. 

So I'm in this learning/struggle process with a certain situation and I'm determined and committed to figure out a solution to this and I'm sitting there and I'm like "I know that there is a solution to this, otherwise this problem would not exist. Somebody would have found the solution or I have found the solution". I'm talking about this and I'm opening up to some family and I'm expressing. I kid you not, the response I get even after a decade of doing this from the women are actually "Have you ever thought of just putting on your vision board or writing down your goals instead of stressing yourself out like this. Ask God, or the universe to bring you a man who is so successful and so wealthy that you don't have to worry about the business. You don't have to worry about money. You don't have to figure this out. You don't have to be so stressed. He can take care of your finances. He can take care of everything and you can just do what you want". And 1) It took everything in me not to react to this with anger. So I sat there, literally, I sat there for maybe like 5 to 10 seconds and I didn't say anything because I was like "Okay, they are saying this from a place of compassion because they don't want me to have to figure this out. They understand that I'm learning right now so I'm going to have that compassion for them". 2) They are projecting their life path onto me. No harm and not do anything on purpose. Its just people project what they know. So I'm sitting there for like 5 to 10 seconds and I'm taking a deep breath and very calmly I said "You know what? 1) By you saying I should do that is implying that I myself can't be successful and cant figure out my own finances and I disagree with that belief. I believe that I can do it just as much as anybody else can do it. I don't need somebody else to do it for me". I said "2) When I come to you trusting that I'm sharing something and you already know my ambitions in the things that I want to do. The only thing I need from you is for you to remind me. "Yeah, you've been this for ten years. You'll figure this out, it's no big deal. Like, this is who you are". You need people to re-establish your belief of what you want to do". Okay so that's number two. I said "3) Please do not ever project your life path on to mine again. I've made it clear. What you want for me is not what I want for me and while I appreciate it's coming from a place of love and compassion, I ask that you respect what I have made very clear, that I want for my life, and stop projecting yours onto me". And that was all I said, and I didn't say angrily, I said it very assertively. 

And, again I was telling clients this, sometimes you have to do this with the people that are closest to you. Because when they see you learning and growing, they don't see learning and growing. They see struggle, defeat, unhappiness, and pain. So their thought process is "Oh my God, he or she is just having such a hard time. I want to fix this. So in order to fix this, just put them on the easy path. Why cant they keep doing what I've been doing? Why cant they just continue to eat and drink and do whatever? Why cant they just accept that this is the path that they're on". They do this because people project their own fears and their own energy on to you. So what you have to do when you practice this in your daily life, you take back your power, you choose the path that you want, the day that you want, the life that you want, and you no longer playing the victim role. 

It is not easy, guys, and it is so much easier when you're having good days. But my other point in this, this is why it is so important for you to have people in your life whether its one person. If you have one person in your life who can be this for you, then you are so much more blast than most people. Most people I know, even clients when I get on calls with them and I tell them "You need people in your life that remind you of who you are, and what you're capable of, not who try to hold you back, and make your reality their reality". And I say, "Do you have at least one person in your life that can do this?". 99% of the time people say, no. So if that's you, believe it or not it's totally normal. What you have to do though if that is you, you need to set the intention to find the people who do that for you. Who encourage you to not take the victim role in your life and they remind you that you have a choice. If you don't have that, you need to find a coach or somebody who can mentor you to keep you on this track because it does get hard. And I tell like, I'm not going to say, I never say names, I'm not going to, but I told one of my clients this, I said "Here's your homework this week. I want you to step outside your comfort zone. I realize that this scares the hell out of you to do this and to assert yourself in this way because you have no idea the reaction that you're going to get. More than likely you're probably going to get rejection. You're probably going to get judged. You're probably going to get put down. Its probably not going to be super positive because that's the history you have with this person. However, I want you to take 5 minutes to yourself", and I'm telling this to you guys because you can do this to your own life to. I said "I want you to take 5 minutes to yourself before you address the situation. Sit in your bed, sit in your car, go to the bathroom, take a few deep breaths so that you are super present. And I want you to get the place of: You're going to accept you might have to deal with this alone on your own path for a little bit. You might not get the reaction and the support that you want. So accept that in yourself because when you accept that while going into this situation to assert yourself, its going to be a whole lot easier and less devastating. If that happens though. I want you to remember, you go to this family member and you say, "Hey here's what's going on. I'm saying this because I want your support, but if you don't give it to me, that's not going to change what I do or what I decide. You're still going to get a call next week with me, and I will reinforce that with you"". And this is what is so important about these coaching calls with these clients is that I tell them. Is that you have a week, you might get totally knocked down, but don't worry because were going to get another call and I'm going to be right there with you as that person that's like "Hey don't do that. Don't be reactive. Don't worry about with those people say. This is the first time you're asserting yourself, expressing your desires and wants. It's very natural that you aren't always going to have the support". 

So anytime you're in a situation, and this is a lot bigger than just your day-to-day life but again going back, resetting and recalibrating your Universe to the life and what you actually want. Its the day-to-day practice of it that is going to make you stronger in your overall life. So, with this, the more time you connect with yourself being present, tapping into your own truth, your own desires, your own things that you want. You're coming from a place of empowerment. So when things happen and you have a choice to react. Stop. Breathe for just a second. Become the observer and choose that you are more powerful than to just be a victim that reacts to everything going on in life. That's not how it works. 

So to reiterate, how to reset and recalibrate your Universe, do the opposite of what you were given and give what you actually want instead of what you receive. You also have to have a place of self-worth. When you're in a place of self-worth, you know what you deserve, you know what you're capable of, you know that you actually can have what you want. But until you discover that you think that you just have to accept whatever you're getting. This happens. I've seen this happen a lot with people jobs and in dating. They just accept the first job that's given to them because they think "Well, at least somebody wants me". I'm like, you don't have to accept anything. Think of these things almost like going to a restaurant. Just because its on the menu, doesn't mean you have to eat it. You can tell the waiter or waitress what you actually want. And, a very good friend of mine, if she's listening to this, she knows this story. 

We used to go to happy hour all the time and were foodie people. And a few years ago when we first started going, there was one situation, so guys know I'm kind of like a food beverage snob a little bit, there's one situation we went to some restaurant, I don't know what it was. Normally if I'm drinking wine and I'm very in my wine mood, I'm a wine snob, I'm not going to lie about it, and people who go to dinner with me, they know this and Ill ask. I'm like "Hey, can I taste this first? Like, I'm not ordering a whole glass until I taste it". And it takes me a while because I'm trying to figure it out. So I went with this friend, this is just how I've always approached it, because in my mind I figured I am paying for this service so I'm going to get what I want. So she orders, I don't remember if it was a drink or a wine, I don't recall, but regardless she gets it and were sitting there and I'm like enjoying my wine. I get in this very happy place when I'm enjoying, I'm very satisfied with the food and the drink choice that I have. And I'm like "Ooh, how's your drink?" And she's like "Eh, Its okay, its not what I thought it was going to be" and I'm like "Tell him to make you something different" but she's like "What?" I was like "That's not what you thought it was. You want something different. You are paying $15 for this drink. Be honest with the server or the bartender and say, 'Hey, This isn't what I thought it was. Can I try something different?'". I said "A good bartender, A lot of them usually get at least", so like when people ask me about wine, I actually get really excited. What do you like? do you like Tannins? no Tannins? you like sweet? semi-sweet? Do you like full body light? But I kind of excited because its like a game for me, it's a challenge and most bartenders who really love what they're doing, they kind of like "let me craft up something for you, that I know that's gonna blow you away". These are good ones. I said "Send it back. Just because they gave it to, doesn't mean you have to accept it. Send it back". And she was so nervous. She's like, "Are you serious?". And I was so confused. I was like "You've never sent anything back?". She was like "Will you do it for me?", I was like "Give me you drink". So she gives me her drink and I was like "Hey excuse me, she thought this was whatever she thought it was, I don't remember, Here's actually what she wanted", and the bartender was super nice and was like "Oh yeah I know I could see that, this drinks a lot sweeter. Some people think it's a traditional version of this. So yeah, lets talk about what you want and she sent it back and she got what she actually wanted. 

But this comes up in our conversations all the time when we go out to eat or just in general when were talking about life. She was like "I remember that moment when you told me I could send something back. It was like, a mind-blowing moment to me of not just that but of life". You don't have to just accept what shows up. You have a choice. You can say no to things in life and actually ask for what you want. And here's the thing, I don't necessarily agree with this, but this is one of the things that I've heard other mindset, spiritual teachers, law of attraction they kind of talked about and I agree with it to a certain extent. So there's the idea that when something is presented to you, the universe, God, is presenting it to you as an offer. So if I can give you an analogy of how to think of this. Think of this like you are at a cocktail hour. I don't know why I'm using cocktails and dinner right now. I think its because its just something that almost everybody can relate with. Or you are at a dinner party. Somebody is serving hors d'oeuvres. Think of these hors d'oeuvres like offers from the universe and that person comes around and they're like "Hi, would you like bacon-wrapped figs with goat cheese?", I'm like "Oh my God, yes". So here's what happens. I give it a hard Yes. Take one of these and eat it and I'm like, "Oh my God, that was so good". You know what's going to happen? That same server is going to come back around in about 15 minutes and offer it to me again because I said yes. Now, had that server come around and been like "Hi, would you like a cucumber sandwich?", That's a hard no. Thank you, but no. That servers going to realize she does not like cucumber sandwiches. That server is not coming back around and offering me the same thing. This is how the universe works. 

The universe presents something like "Hey, six years ago, when you were really insecure and didn't have self worth, you used to date these kinds of people". So then you get this narcissistic person that shows up in your life super interested in you. You have a choice, you can say thank you but its a hard no for me. The person goes away. It might take a few no's, maybe 3-5 no's of like "Hey! No! Not interested. I don't like cucumber sandwiches". But what you're doing is you are calibrating, letting the universe, letting life, know. It's just bringing you what you've always gotten. So you can't get angry. So if you usually date people who are narcissistic and jerks it keeps bringing these people into your life because at one point you said yes this is what you want. If you don't want that any more, you don't have to get angry at life. "Why do people keep showing up who just take advantage of me?", well because you keep saying yes. Stop saying yes to the cucumber sandwich, say no, and then some other servers going to come around with bacon-wrapped figs with goat cheese that are going to blow your mind and you're gonna be like "Yes!, that is what I want". 

People who are awesome, truly, loving and supportive, who like themselves, who are grateful, who are doing big things in life, who take a proactive approach. That's a hard yes, you can come back around in five minutes and I'm eating another bacon-wrapped fig with goat cheese. The universe is like "Oh! you like the bacon? Okay, we'll come back around every 5 minutes and well bring you some more". But you are the gauge. You are the one calibrating everything. So if you continue to get things that you don't want, people keep cutting you off, people keep cutting you short, people keep taking advantage of you, you keep getting shitty job offers you, you keep getting shitty date offers, take back your power, quit playing the victim, make a choice to do the opposite or give the opposite, giving hard yes' and hard no's. 

So when you do the opposite, that is you saying no, somebody cut me off. I do not want anger and irritability. Therefore, I am going to give patience, love and understanding. There's my big shout-out Universe. Patience, love and understanding. Thank you very much. That is how you recalibrate that.

So work on this work on this and small things in your life because the day to day practices are going to end up translating overall in the big picture of your life and very quickly, you will start to notice "You know what? I actually am feeling really good about myself and comfortable in my own skin and assertive enough that I feel like I could really do anything in life because I understand I don't have to just react, I have a choice. I am an empowered person. We all have choices we're all presented, mostly a lot of the same realities, but the difference between those who are thriving and those who aren't are the ones who decided to be proactive in choosing how to calibrate their Universe. How to get what they want by being somebody who is an observer and then makes a choice based on an observation to move in a direction of what they want instead of just reacting, as if they have no power.

Alright guys, this is almost 45 minutes. I feel like that is good. So I hope you got a ton out of this. If you got a ton out of this let me know! I love when you guys let me know. It helps me so much and it keeps me inspired knowing that I'm helping you. If you need help with your workouts and your mindset, that is exactly what I do. This is how I help people, this is what I love. This is my passion. Go to my website, ashleydrummonds.com, send me a message. On the top-right it says one-on-one coaching and there's a form. You can fill out the application to tell me about what you want help with. And then we'll just chat and figure out a way to help you get to your goals. But I appreciate you so much, I appreciate that you listen to this and show up every single day and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your week until the next episode comes out, and go live life as if you have a choice because you absolutely do and I will see you guys next Monday!

Here's to Creating a Body & Life You Love,

Ashley Drummonds