Hi, welcome to the first official section of dare to pivot. Really glad to have you here. I have no doubt that if you're embarking on this journey with us today, that by the time that you finish the whole course you'll feel ready and excited to create a life that feels more fulfilling and more exciting for you. So enjoy the ride and and as much as possible, try and just throw yourself into this process and commit to commit to the change and commit to the, the the adjustments that might happen as you take each step. So the first section of the course is all about connecting within. So Oftentimes, when I talk about connecting within people have no idea what I mean by that.

So let's just dive into that a little bit. Do you ever consciously take the time to ask yourself what would be most right for you for all the decisions that come your way? Probably not. Right? The norm is just to allow the standard way of doing things to be the way that you confront most choices. It's tough to live in a way.

It's, it's tough to live according to what you want. We live in a world where if you don't pay attention, it's easy to get swept up in a path that isn't right for you. the beaten path or like the normal way of doing things is really set the standard path of finishing school, getting married, buying a house, having kids climbing the corporate ladder to work harder to buy a bigger house is kind of like the default way of doing things. And I'm not saying there's anything particularly wrong with doing things in that way if that feels right and fulfilling to you, but what I'm suggesting is that it's important to stop and ask yourself whether that does feel right for you. You know, like, is the next step really kids is kids what feels most right for you? Does it feel like something that you'd be excited about and, and would fill you with joy?

Or is it something that kind of feels exhausting and that you're just kind of doing because your partner wants kids and you don't want to have to go through the hassle of, of discussing it with them, or your parents want grandchildren, or you've always just kind of accepted that the default way of doing things. things is to kind of move to that next default stat. And so what I'm suggesting here is instead of doing things by default, everything that you do, you take the time to check in with yourself and see what feels most right for you. What most aligns with your values with most aligns with what you want out of life with what most aligns with, who you really are, and what are what are the things that you want to fill your life with. And so, finally, this connecting within, for a lot of people, especially people who love to live based on analyzing and judging and critiquing based on very analytical and tangible ideas.

This whole connecting within thing can seem quite intangible. And I get that. And so I want to encourage you to just throw yourself into it, have a little bit of faith. I don't mean religious fee, I mean, just faith in the process. And the idea that as soon as you start embarking on this process and, and, and and connecting with yourself that you'll be excited and, and happy to figure out what you find. So I encourage you to embark on this process with a bit of curiosity and a bit of open mindedness to see what you'll discover to see what kind of link and what kind of relationship you can really develop with yourself if you take the time to actually do it.

So that's just to kind of give you a general idea of what connecting within means. It's just kind of taking a time to step back from the world. And seeing what feels right for you. Instead of kind of just doing things, the standard default way. So how do we do that? within the PDF for this section, I'll kind of go into more detail about the best ways I found to connect within myself.

But if you see the picture there, you're getting a little bit of a hint as to what I think is one of the best ways and that's through meditation. Which is why in this course, I've offered the additional meditation audios. And years ago, I stumbled upon meditation and it radically changed my life. It was the first time that I was given a tool that allowed me to silence out the world and really listen to myself. Get to know what habits my mind had. Get to know the things that my mind said, Get to know how my body feels, get to better understand how my body feels when I'm sensing certain emotions, so that as I confront life as I confront my days, I'm better in tuned and connected and I better hear what signals My body is giving me about how I'm feeling about certain situations, or what my mind will automatically think about certain situations.

Because sometimes we confront things and we allow our minds to be with dominate the situations. But that's not always what is most beneficial. Is happens to us to a lot in, in relationships that we have in our lives. We approach conflict, let's say and just allow our minds to be what would take charge of the situation when potentially taking a step back and really knowing what is most important to you. You can take action that is more favorable to what you're looking to achieve. So meditation has been, for me the number one tool that has helped me do that.

Connecting within, as someone who is generally quite extroverted, I have found it to be really nice and pleasant to have a space where I can just be in silence and in stillness with myself. Yeah, my mind endlessly chatters. But as I've started to have this practice, be a more regular part of my life. Little by little, I've gotten to I've become better at either managing that chatter, that internal chatter or becoming more acquainted with that inner chatter, so that I guide my life and adjust my life to to become better fulfilled and more happy considering what happens with it. So I won't go on too much more of a meditation rent. If you've never tried it, I encourage you to use the audios and try and try it out, see how it feels.

See See if it's something that can sit within you. And I encourage you to if you have to listen to the same audio seven times, listen to the same audio seven times, meditations, not something that feels comfortable right away. In the first few times you do it, it might feel quite uncomfortable. So I encourage you to give it a try and see how it goes. So besides the meditation audios in the information PDF, you'll also find information and tools to help you get into meditation and mindfulness. Because meditation is one thing so meditation is really kind of like what you see me doing the picture on the screen here.

Really Sitting in stillness with myself. But mindfulness can also be a really handy tool here where we're really just trying to bring our attention into the present moment and accepting things as they are. So we have a tendency to allow our minds to obsess about the future, or overthink what happened in the past stress out about all these different times. But the only real moment that exists in life is this very moment. And mindfulness is a tool that helps you become more in touch with that present moment. And not only learning to be more present, but also learning to accept what is happening in the present moment as well.

Another tool that has been extremely handy to me has been yoga. So here I give you tools and tips and, and encouragement to kind of give that a try as well. If you've never gotten into yoga, next, journaling is extremely, extremely handy, to be able to better hear what is happening within you. So, through sitting down, whether it be by using prompts that guide you to answer certain questions, whether you just do freestyle writing based on what you're feeling every day when you wake up in the morning, or when you're confronting certain circumstances, or whether you're specifically writing about a specific thing. Writing is like a way to get your internal ideas and internal contacts out on paper so that you can then better understand what's happening and what what just what you're feeling what you want, and just everything else about you. And then finally, timing nature, time in nature has is always a very easy way to reconnect with myself.

Reconnecting with the outer world reconnecting with animals and plants and, and, and just walking on the ground barefoot. And just reconnecting in general by reconnecting with the world and nature, I find it much easier to then reconnect with myself. But so read the PDF, have a look, see what you think. I'm by no means suggesting that these are the only ways to connect within. If you're, for example, very artistic and love to do art and love to paint or love to dance and feel as though doing that allows you to better understand who you are, what you want, what you feel what's going on inside, then do that. find what works for you.

These are the things that have most worked for me. But like I said, I'm not trying to suppose that these are the only tools. They are just some tools that I think are really, really helpful. So try them out. And then more than anything, Once you finish reading the PDF document, jump into the workbook document and see, create a plan, how are you going to connect within what are you going to do, because it's very nice to just say this as an idea. But unless you get specific about how you're going to implement this into your life, you probably won't do it.

And as the first step within this process of pivoting into a new life direction that works for you. If you're not connecting within, you'll probably be making pivots to suit the needs of others instead of doing pivots that suit your needs. So I highly encourage you to get into that workbook document and make a connecting within plan. So I just have a few important tips or pieces of information for this section. First of all, Connecting with yourself is a long term process. To really be able to create a bond with yourself and better understand who you are and what is most important to you, you have to commit to this process.

And in whatever format that is if you decide to get into meditation, great if it's through journaling, again, great. Whatever it is you decide to do, commit to it and commit to it as a long term idea. And don't give up on it after you've done it three times. And don't better hear what your inner self most wants. Um, commit to the process, commit to the relationship that you have with yourself. Because it's only through having a strong and healthy relationship with yourself.

You can realistically create strong, healthy relationships with others as well as create a life path that is completely authentically right for you. So that into consideration. Also, it might feel a bit uncomfortable. I'm listening to what is going on within your hot head, within your heart, within your body, within your soul, within whatever part of you at first can be a bit intimidating, or a bit uncomfortable, might hear things that you don't like you might discover things about yourself that are, are tough, or or that you're not very comfortable with. I encourage you to just accept that discomfort, more that you can become honest with yourself about what is going on. For your for you in this world.

The more honestly you can really create a world in a context that you love. Oftentimes, people have the misconception that health, self care is selfish. And I want you to throw that in the garbage. Like I kind of said at the beginning of this important information session. If you're not going to take the time to feel your own cup of self love and self care, then what you're giving to others is like a half assed version of yourself. So take the time to see the VAT recognize the value of connecting with yourself.

So that you can then be able to give of yourself of the love that you have to others in a more genuine and honest and healthy way. It's like they say, in the planes, when you're the air mask falls, if ever there's a problem in the plane, you're not going to put your mask on to your child before you put your own mask on. Because then you might pass out due to lack of oxygen while you're putting their mask on. And then you would both be at risk. So it's the same type of thing. So you want to be caring for yourself and make sure making sure you're well taken care of, to then be able to care for others.

So get rid of that idea that self care is selfish. And finally be open minded and accepting about what you find in this time of self discovery and and getting to know and and develop this relationship with yourself. It might take you by surprise what you discover it might take you by surprise the type of person you are if all the expectations of the world and of other people are kind of released. So but with all that being said, enjoy the process can be really pleasant to become BFFs with your own self because then you always know that you'll be okay because you have yourself and all the additional relationships that you have in your life are just extra beautiful bonuses as opposed to things that you need to feel okay or to feel any sort of love. So I hope I'm You're ready for this connection within time.

Like I said, enjoy the process, and we'll see each other again in the next session. Take care