TRANSCRIPT
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: Hello, Hello! Welcome to another episode of Inner Work for Greater Good. My name is Emily Eldridge. I'm in a different place right now. I'm actually at my parents house, and you may notice I'm dressed a little bit differently. That doesn't totally have to do with what I'm talking about today, although I did think about talking something about that. But basically I'm in my comfy clothes, my caftan. So this is an Egyptian caftan that I buy. But on Etsy, and I haven't
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number of them, and they are my favorite thing to wear, just to feel relaxed. I actually thought about doing a whole episode about, you know, like self-care comforts, and what are yours, and to really identify what those are. Integrate them into your life.
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Half hands are one of mine. So I love it. I just feel so free and so got us like queenly when I wear them. But that's actually not what I'm gonna talk about today.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: I'm gonna talk about this idea of whenever we want to make a change. What are some of the things that can get in the way of us actually making that change. This happens all the time, doesn't it? You? Maybe you wanna start a new exercise routine. Maybe you wanna have a different relationship with someone. Maybe you wanna show up differently in the world.
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and that any kind of change that we wanna make that sometimes, despite our best efforts. We still, maybe we temporarily make that change. But then we snap back. Or maybe we really just have trouble even starting to take those steps to make those changes, or to be different in our lives, or show up differently, feel different, express our different, express ourselves differently, etc.
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And so I was thinking about this, actually, because this is something that I was just even journaling about this morning because there's a change I wanna make in in terms of how I approach my work in terms of I'm trying to be like, I wanna be more productive, more effectively productive, right? Not just busy work, but really and have a consistent productivity, because sometimes what happens with me is like, I'll go through these bursts of being super
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productive, and then I'll go through periods of just real lulls. And sometimes it's because of unconscious fears I have. And so I've gotta process those. And sometimes it's because my body is just kinda like, you know what you you really push yourself hard, or that last period. Let's just take a break now. So you know, that's sort of been my my thing. But in any case, the point is, I was journaling about this this morning because I was noticing some resistance to moving forward
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on a project on sort of a new phase with my work. And so I asked myself some key questions that I tend to ask, and it brought up this idea of identity, or what I'm gonna call unconscious identity. Now, I really quickly googled this right before the show, this episode.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: and that. Apparently that is a term that some people use unconscious identity. I don't know enough about what their version or their definition of that term is. I just know how I want to express it in this episode, because I realize that that's a lot of times what gets in the way, or rather an area within ourselves that we need to explore. If we really want to make that change and make it a lasting change without a whole lot of resistance or a whole lot of snapping back into old patterns.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: So I'll just tell you that. The the okay. Here's what can for me, actually. So for me when I was thinking in terms of how can I be more consistently productive? How can I be? Really achieve more of the things that I want to achieve and also feel consistently motivated to do that, because that's just sometimes I don't know. I just sort of go through ups and downs and in terms of my motivation. And it's not that I don't
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: care about my work. It's not that I'm not passionate. It's not that. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't. I absolutely know what I'm doing in terms of my work, but there can be just kind of a I sometimes chalk it up to being like a creative type personality and artistic type personality. A very random type thinker. I mean, there are a lot of reasons why I think I'm probably you know why I am the way I am, but I still just thought I'd explore this issue of like doing
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: have any blocks when it comes to achieving the things that I want to achieve. And sure enough, of course, I asked myself this question, and this. The phrasing of this question is a good phrasing for you, I think, and generally because it does help to reveal. What are those unconscious blocks? Or in this case, what are those things that that are part of your unconscious identity, as I'm using that term that might actually be working against
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you know. moving forward or trying something new.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: or being something different than you've been before, and that is, and you may have heard me ask this question before. What am I afraid would happen if fill in the blank. So in this case, what? Something prompted me to ask the question of myself, what am I afraid would happen if
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: I became an achievement oriented person. Now, here's why this is important for me. Just side note, you know, for you. You might be very much about achievement. That might be what you value. That might be what drives you, and I know plenty of people where it's like. It's all about achievement. For me. I think that I don't tend to. I never really took on that identity, because I think because I've been valued for other things in my life.
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Because I think that I am very much about connection and emotional well-being. Not just about well, what can I accomplish, you know, trying to like rack up awards or trying to, just, you know, fill my day with activities and achieving things. And you know, maybe maybe I'm just not built that way generally.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: but nevertheless it. What was interesting that came up when I asked myself, what am I afraid would happen if I became more achievement oriented? Basically meaning that that I really do focus more on like I want to achieve certain things. There are all kinds of fears that came up in reaction to that, that if I became that person, or more like that type of person.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: what am I afraid would happen? This is a great way to start to notice what might be, you know, going on unconsciously. And actually, that's where the identity, the unconscious identity part showed up, because, being an achievement oriented person, even though I've achieved certain things, even though I did well in school, even though I went to an amazing college, etc., and people might see me on the outside is, oh, I've achieved things.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: I don't see myself that way, and I don't see myself driven by that. And there are reasons why. But I noticed the point is, see if this happens for you when you if you do this exercise. I noticed that a part of me rose up with like a a fear of being that person or becoming that person. Because for a lot of reasons, I actually see the downside of that. I see people who are all about achievement. But then the relationship suffered, their health suffers, their well-being suffers. You know there are other. There are trade offs when you, when
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you're someone who's so achievement oriented or so driven to accomplish and be productive, that there are obviously downsides to that. There's an imbalance. There can be an imbalance there. And so I noticed that a part of me was afraid
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: of who I would become if I became more like that and but that also, you know, other people's reactions to that. If I were to become more like that, how would my relationships change, or how could they change. How would I feel differently about myself? How would they feel differently about me?
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: So, anyway, my point is is that it made me realize that there's that in terms of my unconscious identity, how I identify myself, but on an unconscious level, not like, oh, I'm a woman around this. What's my Unc? What's what's going on unconsciously with me is that I don't typically identify that way. I don't identify as that.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: And so it's important that if I want to, not that I would become this like rabidly achievement, oriented person, but if I wanted to allow myself to move forward, you know, without worrying about some of those things. I'd need to shift my identity around that. But I carry this identity, that although that's not really me
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: right, I use this approach in terms of noticing what's going on with my identity. Unconsciously, anytime, I want to make a change in my life. And I noticed this is what comes up. So, for example, if it's a big change. This was when I first started working with this was a few years ago. You know, it's my body change and I'm grew. I'm becoming an older. I'm an aging as a woman. My body's changing. And so, you know, I started to gain more weight. It used to be that I could
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really easily. And so what I did, though, was I was like, well, I guess I need to incorporate exercise more into my life. Now you may be someone who, like you, exercise. All the time you've been exercising since you were a kid. You've always done sports, whatever. I've never been. That person. Historically, I actually had asthma when I was a kid. So exercise and anything, you know, we would have to do a 10 min run at my school every time we had PE, and it was painful.
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And so I just never had that identity as being an exercise person. So that's something that I noticed when I was like, well, I want to incorporate at a more physical activity in my life. I noticed that part of as I started to work on myself and my mindset first.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: which I should preface this by saying, I always work on myself first, and I look at my unconscious stuff before I try to make those changes, because I don't want that unconscious stuff to sabotage. Whatever changes I make, or I'm trying to make
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But what I noticed is that II I've never identified myself as an athlete or as someone who exercises or someone who's very physically oriented. It's just never been part of my identity. It's never been part of my practice. But also I don't come from that kind of family like that's never been part of my family's culture, I mean, I think I remember like a brief period in the eighties when my dad jogged a little bit. You know what I mean with that
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that was like becoming popular jogging, you know I but that but like other than that, like my my family, is healthy, but they're just my my family of origin. They're healthy, but most of them are not that physically oriented. My brother was very athletic, and he was, you know, captain of all of his teams that he was on. But other than that, there, you know, there are 5 people in my family of origin not really a thing. So my point is, unconsciously.
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that's never been part of my identity. And unconsciously it's almost like that's
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: been like part of my identity has been that I'm not that right. So this is where it's a matter of not just like what are your unconscious beliefs which we talk about, or our unconscious you know, emotional motivators or emotional blocks, or whatever, but really the identities that we carry. You know the who am I? And recognizing that we might carry these unconscious identities inside of us that could
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: we sabotaging how we show up or trying to make changes in our lives because that new change doesn't jibe with how we typically unconsciously seen ourselves or defined ourselves or identified ourselves or identified with right? Okay, so that's something important to recognize. So when it comes to making a change. It's so important, I find, to really be aware of that. I unconscious identity that you
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and like, I said, I'm gonna read this again. The phrasing that I use to help kind of ident start to recognize what might be my blocks, or even recognize what
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: might be some parts of my unconscious identity that are that are preventing me from making a change? Or what am I afraid? Write this down? What am I afraid would happen if
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: I? And then in this case, I wrote, became an achievement oriented person for you. It might be, you know. Maybe you're maybe you've shirled with weight, and it's to an unhealthy degree, and I'm not saying that we should all be losing weight. But sometimes, you know, some of us carry more fat on our bodies that are unhealthy. And so then, for health reasons, we have to make changes. Well, what if you've never been that person like what if you've never actually
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: felt thin or been a thin person. You're or you've always identified unconsciously as a heavy person or someone with fat on your a lot of fat on your body. Then, if you're trying to make a change in your life, but you're carrying this, this identity. Well, this is this is the body type that I always have been. This is my identity. But you're trying to get to this other body type. Well, you're gonna end up struggling because you haven't
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: dealt with that unconscious identity. So it's a matter of being aware of Whoa.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: that's an identity that I carry to the point where I can't even imagine being any different, or to the point where I have all these emotional blocks that are preventing me from actually making that change. Because no, this doesn't. This is so foreign for us. Or also, if I've always been identified this way, and everyone else has always seen me as this, how might they react if I were to start to change. I'll never forget. I think it was like Oprah, one of those like talk shows years and years ago.
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That was it was like a you know, one of those interview shows. And it was actually this situation where it was. The mother had always been very, very heavy, and her daughter was heavy, too, and it was fascinating to watch how the the mother had like for health reasons she'd like really worked hard, and she gotten really skinny, like very, very thin. I don't know if it was a healthy, thin, but compared to where she was, she was very thin.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: and the the one on stage crying was her daughter, and her daughter was crying because she was like my mom was always heavy.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: and that's always how I've seen her. And in a way, and the daughter was a bit heavier herself, and so it was almost like she felt comfortable when her she felt the daughter felt more comfortable with herself when her mother was that way, and so here her daughter was really upset. She understood why her mother had lost a lot of weight. But she, the daughter, was upset because it really challenged her identity within herself and herself. Of what sense of of well being
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: so, my point being that when we change, obviously, we can also trigger other people to have their emotional reactions and responses too. If they've also seen us that way. If in their eyes. We've always had that identity for them.
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So that's why it's important for us to work on ourselves, our own unconscious identity, and really decide, you know who do I want to be? How do I want to show up and notice the parts that are not that don't jibe with that that aren't aligned with that, and then do the work there. So, as always, I'm always gonna recommend. If you're talking about trying to heal these unconscious parts or heal this unconscious identity.
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Please, please, please take my free course. On changelight dot world community, dot changelight dot world. It's inside the the community. There. It's a free course, totally free. Just join the community for free
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: and take the course, and then that's gonna guide you on how to draw out these parts and drawing out, including drawing out your own identity of how you see yourself, which can be very relevant or relevatory, revelatory, revelatory revelation revelatory could be very revelatory in terms of suddenly going. Whoa! I really do see myself this way, and it could be it could. It's oftentimes negative what comes out. But it could also be positive, too, that this is, you see yourself in in certain ways as well.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: But the point is to really put it out there on paper, get it in front of you, so you can deal with it rather than it being in the unconscious, in the subconscious as this unconscious identity that you're walking around in the world with not even realizing, is there? And not even realizing is actually controlling things and calling the shots
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: as you're trying to improve yourself, or change your life in some way, or adopt new healthy practices, you know, whatever it may be for you.
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Emily Eldredge | ChangeLight.World: Alright, I hope this has been helpful, as always, I am Emily. Please do come to ChangeLight dot world. Please do listen to my podcast Dark Light Truth. It's amazing. You'll learn so much. I've got more episodes. I've been doing something kind of really processing and revamping before I start doing the weekly episodes again. But there will be more coming out. There's plenty for you to listen to in the meantime. Alright, thank you so much. I hope you have a great week, and I'll
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talk to you again soon.