Four Conscious Steps Into Your Self-Empowered Life - Step One: Care For Your Mind

C.A.T.S.—one acronym, four steps to build your basis for a self-determined way to live out of confidence and creative power instead of concerns: care for your mind, access the wisdom within you, take ownership of your life, serve your body.

In this interview, you dive into "Care For Your Mind" with Kevin Zoeteman and Jana. Find out why gratitude needs to come from the heart for effecting your mind and how consciousness helps you to act out of your circle of influence on life. Unlock your confidence!

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome everyone.

Thank you for joining us on this Sunday afternoon.

For those of you who don't know me,

My name is Kevin Zuterman and I am here today with our very own Jana,

Who I think most of you know.

Jana,

Welcome on the interviewee end of your own channel.

Thank you Kevin.

Actually,

That's really an exciting way to be on this podcast because it's normally me asking other questions and somehow now I ended up on the other end.

Yeah,

It's about time that the people who usually listen to you get to know you from a different perspective,

Right?

From the other side.

Jana,

People here mostly know you,

I think,

For being a meditation guide,

But you actually have more titles to you.

You're also a consciousness coach.

Let's start off with you telling a bit more about you being a consciousness coach and where especially the consciousness part comes in and why that's so important to you.

Actually,

It took me quite a while before I could pinpoint out that the right expression is consciousness coach and that has to do with looking at my own life,

I would say.

Because it took me quite a while to get to know my true reason for being in life and for quite a while it more felt like drifting instead of steering.

Trying things out and they didn't feel right.

I had kind of a clue but no clear understanding.

And for me it turned out to change things when I took my time to consciously look back into the life I lived so far,

Looking into why things turned out in a way I didn't want them to turn out repetitively.

So I looked at loops,

Finding loops and getting an understanding of,

Oh,

There are loops,

Where do they come from?

And then diving deep into that understanding.

And so beyond that understanding is a lot that has to do with our basic beliefs that carry us through life,

Which I know now.

But I didn't know that at that time.

And those beliefs can make us act in the same way again and again,

Which can bring us into circles that don't serve us in life.

So I first had to dive deep down into the consciousness,

I would say,

Under the just cognitive understanding.

And from there so,

So many things started to make sense.

From there I could see the pieces of my life puzzle.

Before that I could see they must be there,

But I didn't see the pieces themselves.

And when I started to approach it in this conscious way,

The pieces came up,

I could put them together and I could picture why my journey unfolded the way it did,

Where I am now,

How I want to unfold it differently from now on and how I want to unfold it in general.

So I got a conscious vision how I want my life to be for the future.

And that made such a big difference in how I received my life,

Understood myself,

Found confidence in myself due to consciously getting aware of who I am.

And from finding that confidence in myself,

The confidence in life developed.

I got to steering in life instead of drifting through it.

I got confident because I consciously got aware of who I am,

Gained clarity.

And I lost confusion,

Right?

And this beautiful process that you can turn your life from drifting to steering,

That you can gain a main view towards life that is driven from confidence,

That comes with consciousness.

This is something that I want to bring it to as many people as are willing to go that journey with me.

Amazing.

Sounds like an incredible journey to me of self exploration.

And also,

It sounds like it's a lot about taking ownership,

Right?

Taking control,

Ownership and responsibility of your own life.

Yes,

It is.

Every one of us knows we need to take ownership of our life.

But the significant aspect is indeed doing it.

And to me,

It was the process to get there because I really first needed to figure out who I am and what my life is about before I could take ownership.

Because taking ownership for something that you're not convinced of is nothing that you're too happy about,

Right?

Yeah.

So how do you see that translate into your coaching?

My clients come with this feeling of somehow being the servant of the life situation and they are concerned about it because they feel that they don't get a grip on it again.

We dive deep into their life as well.

What did stop them in former times to unfold already?

Beautiful.

It sounds a lot to me like the comparisons you make with setting up a GPS without knowing the starting point.

Exactly.

For a lot of people.

Yeah.

What you start with is finding out where that starting point is so you can help people move ahead.

But at the same time also focusing on why haven't you been able to figure out the starting point on your own until now?

Exactly.

What has prevented you from figuring out that starting point?

Yeah,

That's it.

That's it.

Moving into something slightly different as a consciousness goes,

The consciousness part is very important for you.

People who regularly listen to your guided meditations know that as well.

And with that,

You're also part of something different,

Which is a program where you focus on care for your mind,

Right?

The program is CATS and every letter stands for a different aspect.

So C is care for your mind.

A is accessing wisdom.

The T is taking ownership of your life.

And the S is serving your body.

Now the care for your mind aspect.

What does it actually mean in your own words?

Well,

All these pillars are,

In my opinion,

Very important to develop a conscious approach to life,

First of all.

Why care for your mind is such a big one for me personally is that honestly,

I have a monkey mind.

And I think I have one of the worst monkey mind that you might find.

Yeah,

Sometimes I've also been struggling with overthinking,

Which held me back from unfolding in who I am now and what I'm doing.

I mean,

We all know this saying about,

Hey,

Think positive,

Right?

Yes.

But there's more to be aware of.

It's not,

Okay,

From now on I think positive,

Like switching a light on.

And so it was the biggest relief for me to get this awareness that you are owner of your mind.

And there are things that you really concretely can do to think more positive.

So you can act consciously on positive perception of life.

And there are so many beautiful possibilities of caring for your mind in a positive way.

Meditation for me is one of the biggest ones.

I found a lot of calmness,

Clarity,

Possibilities of detaching thoughts and emotions from each other.

And this is why I guide meditations.

And this is also one aspect in the pillar care for your mind in the CATS program.

And there are other aspects.

There is the huge,

Huge effect that gratitude has.

If you practice gratitude on an emotional level.

And this is consciousness again,

Right?

You can be in your head and say,

Yes,

I'm grateful for this and I'm grateful for that.

This is not how gratitude works.

Consciousness about gratitude is,

Hey,

I know this person is in my life.

Wow.

And where do I feel that?

Where does this gratitude sit?

Observing that and letting this feeling expand.

And from there,

There's such a positive shift of your tricky mindset.

It might actually,

To an extent,

Be comforting for people listening and people who know you.

People who listen to your guided meditations to hear that the one who guides the meditations has to deal with her own monkey mind as well.

That regardless what level you're at,

That is always there.

Definitely.

It's important to me that people know about the fact because that's a trap that I myself had.

I thought that a lot of masters,

A lot of teachers I had in my life,

They never experienced my struggles with things.

And yeah,

That's why it's important for me to let people know that whatever I do comes from having practiced it myself and having found huge value in that.

According to soothing the monkey mind.

And as you mentioned,

Gratitude,

It's like a huge topic in itself.

The power of gratitude cannot be overstated.

And I'm very,

Very happy to offer people go and practice with me coming from thinking about the words to this point of feeling it on a conscious level and letting it unfold in your being.

What else is part of it?

Well,

For example,

There are our thought patterns being caught up in the so-called circle of concerns where our mind keeps us busy focusing on things that we can't change.

Finding those patterns and breaking through them and shifting this way of mindset into the so-called circle of influence.

Bringing yourself to the focus of what can I do and how will I be for doing something that makes a difference on what I want to achieve.

And this is also part of CATS.

Bringing the focus on the things you can influence in your life,

Starting to act on those and from there getting aware,

Wow,

I am way more the owner of my life that I have been thinking about.

I'm kind of at the last for word.

It sounds really interesting.

So before we end this,

Two final questions for you.

The first would be,

How would you in a few words or a few sentences summarise CATS?

CATS are the four pillars that you can from your own power unfold in your life and from there create out of steering instead of drifting.

Nice.

I like that one.

I think that is a perfect one to end with,

Jana,

With the last question,

Which essentially is if there's anything you have to tell the people who are listening before we drop off.

Thank you for being curious on consciousness and I want to leave you with a saying,

If you engage the consciousness,

It will prove itself how much it's going to affect your life.

Thank you for listening.

Beautiful.

Excellent.

Ending this with gratitude,

I think is the perfect way of wrapping this up.

Jana,

Thank you very much for being a guest on your own show.

It was very inspiring.

Thank you very much for everyone who's been listening in.

And I'm pretty confident that you've got some useful insights and some wisdom out of this.

And I wish everyone a lovely day.