Using Stillness to Get "There" Faster

So you can go to AshleyDrummonds.com to check that out. It's right there on the homepage. Also though, if you just want to be on the newsletter that I send out every single week, which sometimes I send out a workout, sometimes I send out just a short little email saying "Hey, keep going, you've got this!". And other times I go on rants, just like this podcast, of all the reasons why you are fully capable of everything you want to do and be in life. Again, one more time, AshleyDrummonds.com. That's where you can find all of that. And now lets get into todays episode of showing you how stillness can really change your life.

Hello, you guys. So how many times have you sat there, whether you're talking to yourself or talking to your friend and you had the conversation of "I feel like I'm never going to get there. I feel like I'm not going anywhere. I feel like where I'm trying to get to is so far from where I actually am and I'm just sitting here not making any movement". First, this is what we all deal with. Its the constant pursuit of this imaginary place that we think holds the bucket at the end of the rainbow, the pot of gold, the answers to everything that we seek in life. Were all trying to get there as fast as possible and I want to cover this because I have struggled with this before. I know everybody struggles with this at some point in their life, whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're just trying to get somewhere with your health and fitness. 

So, we are going to dive into this. Part of this kind of stemmed from a story, not really a story just interaction, I was at the gym the other day and I was doing some sort of Olympic lift, I don't remember, I think it was like snatches and then overhead walking lunges and I was really just focused and like in the zone on this workout. As I'm doing this workout, I noticed this younger kid, he's probably, I don't know 16-17 years old, he's doing some stuff like in the same area that I'm in. But he's also got some curiosity as to what I'm doing. I'm just kind of like seeing him in my peripheral vision. I get done with the workout and I'm putting the weights away and the barbell away, and he's like "Hey that's really cool. I have a question. That that probably took years to get there, right?". Now, here's the thing, I could tell that this kid was brand-new in the gym, had no idea what he was doing. He's a skinnier kid, so it looked like he's trying to build some muscle, just really feel better about how he looks. If I was not somebody who loves mindset and talks about this stuff with you guys all the time, I probably would have responded to him be like "Oh my God, yeah, I've been doing for years. So, yes, it takes years to learn the stuff and do this". However, because I know how our minds work and I know what this kid needed, my response was "Actually no, what it takes is one day one workout at a time, just consistently showing up". He's like "Oh! Okay cool thanks!". Because all he needed, he didn't need to know it was years. He just needed to know "Am I ever going to get to where I want to be? Or should I just quit now? Because as soon as you tell me, its going to take ten years to get there, I'm not even going to bother trying". 

This is exactly how it works for all of us. You know, you start a new journey. You start out super fired up and motivated and excited thinking like "God, I'm never going to get there. Should I just quit now? Should I just give up?" And here's a question I ask, when I work with clients and they have this frustration and my question always is "Where is it exactly you're trying to get to?". Lets define that first. What is it? where's this place? do you even know? do you have a clear image of where it is you're trying to go? And normally, it's actually an emotional place. It's not something like "I want to leave this location and move to this location or I don't want this". It's not an actual physical thing, it's an emotional place in our mind that we think externally by getting there is going to give us an emotional feeling. So I always define this first. What is it that you're trying to get to or where? 

Normally when it's health and fitness related, its normally people saying I just want more confidence. I want to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I want to get to the point where I don't feel awkward in social situations. I want to get to a point where I can lift this or do that, always something along those lines. And same thing with, I mean, put this in any category, your job, your career, your relationship. I want to get to the point where I finally am paid what I deserve to be paid. Where I finally do what it is that I love. The thing is everything that you are seeking in the future, the only way you can actually get to it is by experiencing emotional thing that you are seeking in your present. So let me explain that again. If what you are trying to get to, I'm going to use this for entrepreneurship just because I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs this week, if what you are trying to get to is a certain financial number, "Oh man, as soon as soon as I hit seven figures", what you're really trying to get to is freedom and abundance and the opportunity to take a break and rest. Because its really all that money is going to give you, is time and freedom. That's really what you're trying to get to. If I gave you 20 bucks, that's not going to fix it, right? A million dollars isn't going to fix it if you still haven't found that within yourself. 

So, what you have to get to first is you have to practice stillness experiencing the emotional feeling within yourself of freedom, plenty of time, getting in the mindset of abundance and more than enough. Then, naturally and inevitably, you are going to experience the abundance of financial freedom and the time that you are seeking in the future. However, if you do it backwards and you try to get that without first getting it within, it will always elude you because you haven't learned yet that it comes from within yourself. You do not get happiness from outside yourself. You get happy first and you discover what even makes you happy and then naturally, you will move in the direction of those things that make you happy So, how it works in regards to stillness. When you practice from stillness, instead of in a pursuit of trying to get there, you become a magnet and an attractor instead of a repellent. When you are coming from pursuing something that you don't have, so basically you're coming from a place of lack, you inevitably repel the thing that you seek. Its the whole weird irony of life. Its the concept of when you stop trying all of a sudden everything happens. When you stop chasing now, things start to show up for you. It's because you're no longer coming from a place of lack and not having, you're connecting with yourself and you're opening yourself up and allowing. 

Now in this conversation, it could be a light bulb moment, you're like "Oh, intellectually I totally understand this. This makes total sense." How you actually do that though is actually totally different and takes a lot of practice. So this kind of what were going to get into. Okay. So stillness, mindset, meditation is how we start this whole process and whatever way you get present is the right way. I'm not concerned about you sitting cross-legged on the floor, lighting a candle and burn and sage, like I do sometimes. It could just be taking a walk in nature, it could be spending time with a pet or an animal. Whatever that is for you. And the whole idea of it is is you get very present and conscious of your thoughts and aware of what is going on inside of you. So this takes practice in the very beginning. It's very hard for people if you're not used to practicing stillness but really what's happening is you're avoiding what's going on in your mind. So you have to practice.

So the way that you practice is allow whatever comes up to be there. If you first sit down and you've got millions of things running through your mind, your laundry, your to do list, what you got to buy at the grocery store, your work, your relationship, your friends, all these things. That is not mean to get up and go do them and that doesn't mean that you quit. "This doesn't work because my mind just going nuts". So here's how we practice this. You sit there, or you walk or you're in the silence and you just allow it to be there. Because if you don't allow it to be there, it's the whole idea of what you resist persists. It will just get louder and louder the more you try and push it away. Where instead, you just sit there, and you're like just going to observe this. There's is a lot going on in my mind but I'm just going to let it be there. Its kind of like this crazy frenzy fury. And then it eventually calms down. It calms down because you're no longer trying to pretend like its not there. So this is how you get in that place and this takes practice.

Sometimes when I first start working with people as their fitness and mindset coach, it's so easy, I'll write out there workouts, here's your strength training program. This is really meant to push you physically, mentally, and emotionally. And then on their days off, I tell them, I want you to take the time on your off days from your work out that you normally would have been in the gym doing your workout, block that time out and spend that time instead in stillness and meditation. And I guarantee you the days off in stillness and meditation rea going to be harder for you than the actual workouts that you're doing. Because, we don't like sitting still, we don't like dealing with our shit and what's going on in our mind and we don't like actually feeling what is happening in our bodies and in our hearts and in our souls. So if you're new to this that's what I would tell you to do too. The days that you are not going the gym and being active, see what happens if you use that same time, 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, just sitting with yourself and I guarantee you, you're going to be so antsy and like "this is stupid! I don't need to do this!" and it's always those people who say that that are the exact ones that are at a place in their life where they feel stuck, they feel lost, they feel frustrated and this is your way out of that.

So you practice this first. When you're in that, allow whatever comes up to come up and really, I mean, even emotionally if this is the first time you've sat in stillness in years, you might be surprised all of a sudden sometimes anger can come up, grief can come up, pain sadness, regret, guilt, frustration, but give yourself permission of whatever shows up it is allowed to be there. You're not going to judge it, just let it be. Because we're not there to work through years of things in this first session. We're just trying to get you to practice stillness. So then the second thing that you do once you're there. Really just slow down your thought process and bring everything to the present moment, is you immediately bring all your attention and your awareness to your breathing. Your breathing and your body language. Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. That's all you focus on. You just take deep big breaths through your belly, not through your chest, and when you do this what happens is it will send chemicals to your brain to relax because you have deepened your breathing, you are totally being present, and it is calming down all that crazy mind-chatter your brain. So, this is how we get in this space. 

If you're brand-new and you're new to this, I would highly suggest that all you do for maybe 10 to 15 minutes, is that. And that's it and see how you feel. Do you feel more calm? The things that were bothering you and stressing you out before, maybe they're not bothering you stressing you out now. How does it feel to be present? How does it feel to just totally forget about everything you have to do in 30 minutes, an hour, tomorrow, next week? and how does it feel to just truly be in this moment? This is the beginning. Once you start to do this, what happens is the more you connect in this present moment, and you're not constantly living in your past or living in your future, you get clarity. You get clarity because you're not chasing anything and you're not running away from anything. You are coming from a very grounded and an emotionally sound place, that you can ask the questions and get the answers that you're seeking because ultimately all of us are seeking something. There's nobody here that's not looking for something. Except we always forget that everything that we seek is within ourselves. In order to find this, though, you have to spend the time and stillness. There's no other way around this. You cannot have the answers in yourself and then go ask somebody else what you should do with your life. They don't know, they're not you, they don't know what you love. They don't know what lights you up and what makes you feel like you're soul is dying. They don't know. They're not you. So stop asking everybody else what you should do with your life and ask yourself. 

And then when you ask yourself, trust the answers that you get and this is really like a whole other topic I can do on going back to the power of vulnerability because were scared. We're scared we're going to sit in stillness and we're asking, all right, I'm looking for the answer to the job that is going to light me up, that doesn't feel like work and that makes me so happy and every single day I feel I'm living my purpose and passion. And we're sitting there, we're focusing on our breath, we're practising this stillness. And were just breathing, we bring it up, obviously bring it up in your mind, or you can talk out loud it doesn't matter. You are like "Okay, what is my passion? What is it that I would really love to do that makes me happy?" So we do this and we're like "I'll give this a try" and then your intuition and your soul answers you and it's like "Hey you know what? here's your passion. You should take a risk and start a brand new business and do something that you have no idea what you're going to do. But trust your gut and just trust that if you keep showing up in stillness, I'll keep giving you the answers of how to make this a successful path". You may get that answer and you go right back to your breathing and your stillness. And you're like "Nuh-uh, nope not doing that. Next answer please? what is my passion? And purpose? Hey, I already told you here's your passion, go do this, go start this business". And you're like "No, I'm gonna come back again. I don't like that answer and you keep asking and asking and asking", and because it's scary, it's super freaking scary and because you've no experience in whatever your intuition is telling you, what's the next thing you do? You start asking everybody else what to do because you don't like the answer that your intuition gives you. 

So then we create this frenzy as a society where nobody can sit still, nobody practices awareness, nobody listens to themselves, nobody is themselves because they keep getting answers that they don't like so instead they're like "No you know what? this stillness things not for me. Stillness sounds like a bad idea because this voice that keeps talking to me when I get still is nuts. It doesn't know what to do. So instead, I'm going to figure out what the rest of society is doing and I'm just going to follow that path because at least it's a little more predictable and it's not quite so scary and doesn't require me to be vulnerable and uncomfortable and to being a weird risky situation". Right? That's why stillness is important. However, if you are continually finding yourself trying to get somewhere other than exactly where you are, you are creating your own problem until you learn to go within, and ask yourself the hard questions. If you need me to ask you "You know what? come work with me. I'll ask you to hard questions and well do this together and we will get to the bottom of this" but I also will warn you I wont let you get away with avoiding what comes up. So anyways, ask yourself the hard questions, and then listen to the very clear answers that you get. That's the way that stillness works. 

On top of this though, when you practice being present, and like I said, you practice giving yourself the emotional thing that you are seeking in this "other magical place" that you think exists that you're trying to get to. You no longer are making choices from desperation and lack and you can actually think a lot clearer. So I always suggest any time you are really busy and really stressed and confused and you don't know what to do. Stop doing everything and just sit. And that seems so counter-intuitive because you're like "No I got deadlines, I got this I got to do" and I'm like right, except for you can't think clearly, you're not making wise choices because they're not coming from a good place. Instead, sit with yourself for 5 to 10 minutes, just get present, calm down, calm your central nervous system down with some breath-work, do some affirmations, tap into an energy of abundance and trusting that you have the answer. Get into all of that. And then bring up the problem that you are seeking answer to. Then get to the place of "All right, now that I'm grounded, now that I'm like back in my body and I'm very present. What should I do about this situation?". I guarantee you you're going to make a different decision then if you don't do that. So that is the point of why it's so important to do this.

So, now were going to go somewhere that I'm going to require you to be super open-minded because this is going to sound a little crazy but it's the best analogy that I can give when you tap into this. And there's different meditations you can do for this and maybe one day Ill just start something else where I'll take you through guided meditations and visualizations, but regardless. For right now, here's a way I want you to picture this in your minds eye, and just like your thinking about all this. And when you're in this still place. For the first part of our life we are mostly driven in this body by our child self. Our child self that has so much conditioning, so much trauma, so many belief systems that aren't actually our belief systems but they're belief systems that we picked up from our parents, from other people, from society. We've all this stuff. From being a kid that drives our lives up until, I don't know, until you outgrow it. If you do the work, you outgrow it. If you don't do the work, never outgrow it. And then you just are a child in an adult's body for the rest of your life. 

So we have this part of us and it creates self-sabotage in certain situations where because at some point as a kid we didn't think we were good enough or something. So therefore we carried around throughout our twenties, maybe our thirties, I don't know, maybe you carry it out longer than that. But so then that child is driving everything we do. We sabotage relationships, we sabotage job opportunities because this child is driving our mind and our body that still thinks they aren't good enough. Goes with everything. Also like pain, trauma, grief, fear, insecurities. So if you don't do this is what happens. Little you is in the driver seat. You're in the passenger seat and you're confused because you realize "Why are we going down this road when this isn't where I want to go, but I keep coming up here?". It's because the child is driving instead of the adult. In order to get past that, though, you got to work through the crap and the subconscious beliefs that you picked up in order to switch spots. Which is, I mean, this is all just part of work and that's what I do. I help you with that. But so you do this. You get through that part and here's where people get stuck. You start to understand things and you have more awareness of like "Oh I can totally see how I used to do things out of performance and accomplishments because this is how I got love and attention as a kid but now that I'm aware of that, I no longer want to be that person, instead I want to be authentic so now I'm going to go pursue this instead". 

So now you've healed this child, you put the child in the passenger seat and you are now in the driver seat. Except for you've never driven before in your life and you have no idea where you're going. So we sit here with the car and park, totally confused. "Ok well, I know where I don't want to go, which is this past life has been living. I don't totally know where I do want to go though, but I know I don't want to be here". So, what's the fastest way to get there? Okay, hopefully you're sticking with me with this analogy and hopefully, this visual image is making sense to you. So then you have this part of you, again this is where you got to be very open-minded, I call it the wiser self, the older self, the higher self. If you you have a child version, you have a present version and then you have the future version of you that I like to think of... If you think of the Disney movies that are out there, how there's always like, I don't know, there's always some Greek God that people can talk to. There's always grandmother Willow from Pocahontas. There's always some wise being that these people talk to. Call this God, actually no, don't call it God because this is a little bit different. 

So imagine the person that you are trying to become if you're 30, imagine your 40 year old self, if you're 20 imagine your 30 year old, 60 imagine 70. The person that's 10 years ahead of you who embodies everything mentally, physically and emotionally that you are trying to get to and just kind of like imagine that. Alright, it's this person who is confident and strong and smart and fun and ambitious and carefree, whatever that person looks like for you. Now when you're sitting here in your driver seat in your life right now, the child in the passenger seat, and you're like "Thank God we calmed that thing down" and have moved past our past. Except for now, I'm in the drivers seat as the adult. I don't really know who I am or what I'm doing or where I'm headed. Ok great, the good thing is you're in the drivers seat. So now that part of you that is 10 years older in your meditation and in your stillness, ask that part of you what to do and then trust answers that you get. And like I said, this is going to sound very out there and new age and like jeez were getting like deep and kind of like what the heck. But trust me because I believe you multiple versions of yourself that are available to you at all times. If you believe that and you feel this pull to go forward, you're like "God, I'm trying to get there. I'm trying to get there". Ask yourself why would I be in such a hurry trying to get there and I feel this pulling to get there if there wasn't some part of me that was there trying to help pull me in that direction? 

That makes sense? Hopefully, that makes sense. And actually, I have the perfect movie for you to watch that will explain exactly what I'm talking about. I'm not a huge Harry Potter person, I cant quote the things, but I do think the movies are kind of cool. The very last Harry Potter, if you saw it there is a part in the movie where he is trying to escape something. I don't remember what those things are called, the scary demon looking things. He's trying to escape it and he's in this situation and he's standing at the edge of a lake or a pond, this thing is chasing him and on the other side of the lake he sees this deer and this light and he thinks it's his dad. And this thing saves him, it saves him from this reality that he's in and it pulls him out of it and he's going around telling all his friends that I know it was my dad and my dad helped me, like I know it. And then the movie continues and then Harry Potter has this experience where he's in this future reality, this future situation and he is the deer in the light on the other side of the lake saving himself and he realizes "Oh my God, I saved myself". 

If you haven't seen that part of movie watch that part of the movie. That is exactly what I am talking about. It's trusting your soul is always trying to help you. When it's time for you to grow you are going to feel very uncomfortable with where you are, and your soul is going to try and help move you forward. Your soul's not going to move you forward from a place of fury and anger and frustration and resentment and whatever else. The only way it can move you forward is if you get still and you sit with it and trust that it's trying to help you and you ask the questions with that perspective of I know that there's a part of me that is already exactly where I am trying to get to and all I have to do is sit still check in with myself, imagine that part of myself that's already there and say "Hey, what is my next step? What do I need to do to move in that direction?" and then put the car in drive and follow that internal GPS because you do have an internal GPS that is always navigating you, letting you know when you're on path, when you're off path. When you're off path, you feel off path. When you're on path is when you feel like things are just synchronistically showing up. 

When there's things that are happening that you cant really explain. Like, "I don't know, this doesn't actually make any sense but this is actually a perfect setup". But all this comes back to the beginning of this, the whole topic of this is how to get from where you are to where you want to be. In the fastest way of least resistance possible, if there's a fast track with least amount of traffic, least amount of obstacles, that's what we all want. To do that, every single day check in with yourself and trust yourself. And here's the thing, is in the beginning of this process, when you do this, sometimes you're going to be wrong. Which in reality, you're never really wrong, you just get redirected, that's all. But its like a muscle that you have to build up. If you're not used to listening to your intuition, you may hear your mom's voice or your dads voice or a sibling, or an ex or a friend. You may hear that voice and assume that's your intuition and make a decision that leads you down kind of a rough path. But that's okay because your soul will redirect you and bring you back to where you're supposed to be and it takes practice and eventually over time the more and more you sit with yourself and practice stillness, the easier it is to identify which voice is yours and which voice is like a past upbringing or something from society because they feel different in your body they feel different.

One of them almost like.. I don't know. I don't really know how to explain it. Everybody has different ways to do it. Like some people when they feel their intuition like the hair on the back of the neck stands up. Some people and its like a gut feeling. Some people their heart will flutter. Everybody has different ways that you just know that you know. And you have no way of explaining how you know. That's that. So wherever you're at. If you are feeling very frustrated, if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling like I'm trying to get there and I am not going anywhere more than likely, it's because you're trying to do it the way that other people have done it and following their path. Instead of turning down the volume and the noise on everything and everyone outside of yourself and spending all that time inside of like "All right, I know that there is a path that already is going to be the easiest in the most authentic for me. And in order to hear that, I have to check in with myself and really trust what it is that I'm hearing". 

So just the kind of recap all of this for you because we got deep in this episode and it was a lot and some of it you're like "What is she talking about?". That's fine, I promise it works. So if you try it. To recap though. Number one, ask yourself where it is that you are trying to get to emotionally and mentally, because that's really what you're seeking. Its not you think that its something specific of like "the love of my life? I don't know. The job that pays me this much? the friend that does this?" No, emotionally and mentally, what is it that you are wanting to feel that you think is there? Once you define that, practice sitting in stillness focus on your breath. When you're in this stillness and focusing on your breath, allow whatever comes up mentally and emotionally just to be there because you just got to bring it back to your breath work and then it kind of comes down. And then see if you can feel those things that you're seeking emotionally in that stillness coming from the places if you already have it, instead of coming from a place of lack and desperation.

Once you're there. Picture in your mind the part of yourself that is already there because you are. Now that you're there, emotionally and mentally, there is the part of you that is already there. And then just ask the question that you're seeking an answer to. "What do I do with my job? What do I do with my friend? What do I do with my relationship? What do I do with my house?". Just ask it and then be quiet and sit there and trust the answer that arises and then it is up to you to put the car in drive and moving in the direction based on the answers that you got. A lot of people get the same answer over and over and over again and then I check in with them a year later and they haven't done anything about it and they're in the exact same situation. What are you waiting for? You asked a question, you got the answer. Why didn't you put the car in drive? Which I'm not going to get into that because that's just all fear based. It's fear. That's not liking discomfort. You know, whatever. You know how I feel about that. You're ability to tolerate discomfort is typically about the ability you have to move forward and take action in your life and create the life you want. 

Alright. Ponder all that. Sit with all of that. Try it in a meditation. Challenge yourself the day that you don't go to the gym, spend that exact same time doing the stillness work and getting into meditation. You can even do a journaling practice if you want instead if that helps you getting that kind of mindset. And see if you don't start to notice you're more aware. You're less frustrated because you're really tapping into trusting yourself. And, if you don't feel like you're already starting to get answers when nothing happened other than you just going within, nothing outside yourself. There's nothing outside of yourself that can help you more than you going inside. All right, that is enough. 

This is totally different. I did want to talk about the moon, the new moon and Mercury retrograde, because a few people have been experiencing some stuff and I have to. So one, if your technology has been weird, your phones been weird, your car, computer, emails, you can thank Mercury retrograde for that. That's pretty much what its known for, like my email and my calendar all week have been so weird and its not just me, multiple people. So that's been happening. There you go, you can Google what Mercury retrograde is instead of me doing another 45 minutes on it. Number two, today is June 10th. So, June 10th today, is when the new moon peaked, your like me yesterday, you were like a spinning top that was just spinning like crazy and not going anywhere. Or if you've been feeling a little lacklustre in life. Like man, this is it? like I need something more I'm feeling really bored, I want some adventure. You can thank the new moon for that. That's all I wanted to share about that. So, its okay. I mean, there's always something. There's always something that's just it, whether its a new moon, a full moon, Mercury retrograde, Jupiter something, pandemic. I mean, there's always something. So, the faster you can learn to just navigate yourself and check in with yourself, the easier this whole roller coaster ride of life is going to be because honestly, it doesn't stop. There's always going to be change and new things happening that are going to throw you off your core. So in order to get back on, sit down, do some breath work and check in. 

If you would like to me as your personal coach go to AshleyDrummonds.com. Other than that, you haven't already, please subscribe. Leave a review. Share it with a friend who needs a little mindset and motivation and I will see you the next episode.

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

Ashley Drummonds