Do You Wake Up Anxious Or Overwhelmed?

"Living in the present moment" is a phrase often used in the healing space, but what does it truly mean? How do you practice presence in your daily life? In this talk, Leah explores the difference between acting from the subconscious versus the conscious mind and how it relates to feelings of anxiety and overwhelm. She discusses control, awareness, and presence, and how these tools can help you stay connected to your choices, feelings, and thoughts.

Transcript

So my dad and I were taking a walk this morning.

We're here together for a few weeks this winter,

My dad,

My aunt,

Myself.

And we were talking this morning on our walk about routines and how different everyone's routines are.

And I know there's been a lot of talk recently in the past few years about morning routines and evening routines and the importance of these routines.

But when we were talking about the routines,

One thing I asked my dad is,

Do you wake up anxious?

And he said yes.

And I know in conversations with a lot of my clients,

They have told me that they wake up anxious.

And a lot of us self-medicate in different ways,

Either before bed or when we wake up or during the day,

Just to get through this kind of generalized sense of anxiety.

And so I was talking to dad about this anxiety and how common it is.

And that the reason I think so many people get into routines,

Now these are different than the morning or evening routines I just mentioned,

But people get into their own routines of how they function because everyone is seeking some level of familiarity and safety.

And when we don't feel familiar or safe,

We don't feel like we know ourselves.

Now there's good science behind this,

Studies behind this,

And I don't know all the stats,

But I will tell you what I do know,

Is that the majority of the time we are functioning from our subconscious mind.

And I talk about this kind of a lot in my work because it's really important,

Especially for those who are trying to be more aware,

Be more present,

Be more conscious in their life.

And I'm not sure that a lot of us really understand the difference between being conscious and being unconscious.

And obviously there's the type of unconscious where we're not even aware in our right mind,

But I'm talking about operating from this subconscious or unconscious part of ourselves versus operating from our conscious self.

Now most of the day for the typical person,

They're spending about 95% of their time operating from the subconscious.

And here's what that looks like when we wake up.

If we're not aware and doing our work and trying to come online consciously,

Which I'll explain in just a moment,

Then our subconscious mind will immediately kick in.

And before that immediate kick in of the subconscious mind,

There's this little space where a lot of people have that anxiety.

They wake up,

They may feel lost,

Overwhelmed,

Nervous,

Just kind of out of sorts,

If you will.

And then the moment they start behaving in ways that they are familiar with,

That could be going to the restroom,

Getting a cup of coffee,

Turning on the news or whatever is part of their routine.

Then they start to remember who they are because they're remembering who they are from the subconscious mind.

In other words,

This is not a higher mind conscious operation.

This is just kind of a takeover of the subconscious mind.

But there is some comfort in it because it signals to ourselves,

Okay,

I am me today.

I know what to expect.

I know how to feel and operate to feel familiar and safe.

If you are a person who is kind of operated out of survival mode for much of your life,

Or if you have a repetitive pattern,

A core wound,

An emotional addiction,

An imprint of anxiety or overwhelm,

Or just a generalized sense of fear and unsteadiness,

Or if maybe you haven't done much self-awareness work of who you are,

This is when that subconscious mind will take over and it will have us feeling like,

Oh yeah,

Now I know what the day is going to feel like.

Now I know that I can settle into myself in just a moment.

And is that healthy?

Well,

I'm not here to judge because I think this is,

Like I said,

One of the most common experiences that people have.

But what I will say is that there is a different way.

And I'm all the time talking about why we do our healing work.

And for some people,

It's pretty obvious.

They want to change something about their life or their behavior,

Their emotional feeling state.

They want to break patterns,

Perhaps,

In their family,

The generational traumas.

They want to break through different systems.

They want to feel more peace,

Et cetera.

But one of the main reasons that I believe that we do our healing work,

Or maybe I'll use the word should do our healing work,

Is that it allows us to become more conscious and have a different experience of reality.

The difference between being conscious and unconscious is that it's like that little window of control,

Awareness,

And presence that keeps us connected to choice,

Feeling,

Thought,

And experience in that moment.

And we talk about this a lot,

How to be present,

Be here now,

The moment is all you have.

But the practice of this,

It's challenging.

It's something we have to do every day and whatever moment of the day that we can remember to do it.

So if most of us are living subconsciously,

Like 95% of the day,

Only 5% of the day are we conscious.

That means where we are in the moment without expectation,

Not trying to pull upon past information to bring us comfort,

To bring us information,

Knowledge,

A sense of self,

But really aware in that specific moment of what is possible,

Of exploration,

Of curiosity,

Of openness,

Of being willing to feel and experience the moment just as it is.

And if we can learn to do that on purpose,

Of course,

Being conscious sounds like it would be on purpose,

And it is,

I guess,

The definition of it on its own.

But with this intention of being online,

That's the best way I can describe it,

Being online for yourself.

So when you wake up,

If there is anxiety,

We can take one moment,

Maybe one minute,

And become online with ourselves in the moment with senses active.

What do I see?

What do I feel?

What do I hear?

What do I taste?

What is around me?

What is my environment?

That will set us up to become more conscious the rest of the day if we utilize this skill.

And I know those things sound really simple because we use these senses all day long,

But when we're not intentional about them,

When we're not aware of them,

It's very easy for our senses to just also become second nature.

We don't even recognize the flavor of our food most of the time,

Unless it's something special or different or extremely flavorful.

I recently have been sick,

You may hear it in my voice,

And I lost my taste and my smell,

As did a lot of people during COVID,

Or maybe you have in a respiratory issue in the past.

It's amazing how different the experience of eating is,

Or even just waking and breathing,

When you don't have those senses online.

And this is just an example.

Of course,

I'm still alive and functioning and eating and doing my thing.

The lack of the senses is bringing me more awareness to the senses themselves than the usual subconscious experience of just living and breathing and eating,

Expecting what things are going to taste like,

Smell like,

Feel like in my mouth and so forth.

And that's a really good example of being subconscious and conscious.

When we're subconscious,

We're just expecting.

If I eat a sandwich,

For example,

With mayonnaise on it,

And I've eaten the sandwich many times in my life,

I know what the tomato tastes like.

I know what the turkey bacon tastes like.

I know what the lettuce tastes like.

I know what the mayonnaise tastes like.

I know what to expect when I put the sandwich in my mouth.

And if we're not conscious,

We will just eat the sandwich and take it in and file it under the same program that has always been filed of,

This is,

I just ate a sandwich.

And by and large,

We communicate with one another.

And when I say I ate a sandwich,

You know what a sandwich tastes like.

But if I become conscious about the sandwich and all of those different flavors,

How ripe is the tomato today?

Maybe the tomato tastes different today.

Maybe the turkey bacon is a different flavor or brand or something that I've eaten.

Maybe the mayonnaise is really strong today.

Maybe I can sense all of these things in a different way in this particular eating of the sandwich.

And that would be a conscious behavior of eating the sandwich.

It's that same thing throughout all of our day.

As soon as we start operating from our subconscious mind,

And we get into the routine that makes us feel safe,

Our senses diminish extremely,

Because we already have an expectation and a judgment of how everything is going to feel or be in our lives.

We're drawing that information on only one thing,

Our past experience.

And every time we're drawing from our past experience,

We're not in the present experience.

And when we're not in the present experience,

We're not conscious,

We're not aware,

We're not present to the possibilities,

To new information,

And to what is really available for us then.

Many of you know I do readings with people.

I do intuitive and mediumship readings with people.

And it's not all I do,

But for some clients,

I do a decent amount.

If I were to explain how I do that work,

Or when I'm explaining this in a workshop for other people who want to live more intuitively,

Etc.

This is part of the process.

It's a major part of the process.

I believe each of us is intuitive.

I believe each of us has the ability and skills to cross over dimensions,

To be extra sensory in everything that we hear,

That we see,

That we taste,

That we smell.

And if we can learn to use those senses,

Then we can have access into this intuitive part of ourselves much easier.

And so if you're interested in this kind of work,

Or just interested in learning about it,

This is part of the process.

When I sit with someone,

I have to remove any past or predetermined expectation or judgment or thought of what I think would be,

Could be,

Should be.

If I'm doing that,

I'm guessing,

Right?

I'm using my subconscious mind and I'm guessing.

And there are some readers out there who do cold readings,

Who read people's body language,

Etc.

They're not great readers.

And then there's other people,

Other readers who have been skilled at quieting down that subconscious mind.

And whether you want to be an intuitive or use your intuition more or not,

This is the same practice to become a more conscious,

Present human being in your life.

To inform the subconscious mind instead of be informed by it.

That means to quiet the subconscious mind,

To be totally present of what is possible in this moment right now.

What not what you think or expect,

But what is.

And if we do this practice,

Right when we wake up,

Right before we go to bed,

A lot of my clients,

I've talked to you about this before,

Then we have an opportunity to gain control over our subconscious and not be influenced by that routine of safety,

Survival,

Familiarity.

And we can be fully here.

And when we're fully here,

That's when the magic starts to happen.

That's when we feel alive.

That's when we notice the wonders of the world.

We start sensing,

Using all of our higher senses.

We start putting things together and we call it synchronicities or mystical experiences or what have you,

But really it's just coming online and being a part of what is.

It's really amazing if you think about the history of time,

Where the human came in to that history,

The intuitive sense,

The nature of evolution of all the different creatures and species of animals and mammals and all the ones,

And the people from the early times.

I think about this all the time,

Who discovered which foods we could eat,

Who discovered direction,

The stars,

Medicines,

So many different things that have been uncovered for us to get to this point that we are today.

And those people used so many of their senses.

They were tuned in because they had to be,

Number one,

For survival,

But also they weren't distracted.

Gosh,

Well now the many distractions of technology,

Of the pace of the world,

The sound pollution,

The environmental issues,

The trivial things that we've come up to spend our times with,

Et cetera.

They had,

Of course,

Their own set of issues and problems to deal with,

And the pacing and the timing,

Of course,

Was different back in that time.

But they relied upon this wisdom.

And if I were to say,

I would say they were much more conscious than we are today.

We with history,

With our family lineage,

With our ancestry,

With just how people have evolved and nature has evolved,

We have become so reliant on the past to inform the present that I believe that we're really missing what is possible.

We're really missing what is actually happening.

A lot of us have been talking in recent months and years about this higher consciousness,

This new age of consciousness.

And we do see it.

Many,

Many people are tapping in and tuning into higher frequencies,

Awarenesses,

Spiritual interest,

And what we would call the collective conscious overall.

And so we have people practicing that.

But on the day-to-day,

The day-to-day routine of living,

The average person walking around the world,

There's the separation between this higher awareness and sensing and the mundane.

And there's nothing wrong with just enjoying a simple life.

It's not about simplicity or complexity.

But if we want to have more peace and we want to actually be part of the process of evolution,

Then I think it requires us to practice not operating from the subconscious and coming more online in a very intentional way.

Now,

Seeing as we only use about 5% of our conscious mind throughout the day,

You can see we have a great amount of possibility.

I don't know that any of us would use 99% or 100% of our conscious mind and not rely on our subconscious mind because I don't think that that's possible in our experience in this form.

However,

Even if we learned to be 10% more conscious,

We would have a different experience of reality.

When we're not calling upon the information of our past to inform our present,

Now we are creating.

And as an artist,

As a healer,

As a person who's interested in just the world,

And wherever you are on that spectrum,

When we're creating,

We are alive.

We're actually involved in the whole energy of proliferation,

Of abundance,

Of pro-creativity,

Of productivity,

Of just being part of that evolutionary process,

Being part of the life cells itself,

The energy of yes,

The energy of I am part of this.

Many people feel separate,

Lonely,

Unpurposeful,

Detached,

And not really sure what they're doing here.

And I would say that people,

When we feel that way,

And when we're overwhelmed,

When we wake up with a generalized sense of anxiety,

It's because we are not intentionally tuning in and feeding and fueling the energy of growth and aliveness and creativity and productivity because we're operating from our subconscious mind.

And you might say,

Well,

Why would anyone want to operate from their subconscious mind if it's not the place that we should be operating from?

Well,

Our brains are kind of wired that way in a certain sense,

And we do come from a need to survive and a need to be informed of our past so that we remember in the future what not to do that will hurt us,

Burn us,

Make that same mistake twice,

Et cetera.

But we've become so reliant on that subconscious mind that we don't know who we are without it.

We don't know,

We don't feel safe or comfortable in the unknown of this conscious moment.

And this is very powerful work also for things like anxiety or any other kind of mental health or emotional health issues.

Because when we come to the realization that this moment is different than the ones before,

That is when we have the opportunity to break our own cycle of emotional pain and addiction.

If I am not expecting to feel depressed today,

Then the chances are that I will not feel depressed because I'm open to the possibility of what else is there.

But if I'm expecting to feel depressed today because of my subconscious,

That is what January means,

That is what winter means,

That is what a slow work week means,

That is what all these things mean that have informed from my past,

I will call upon that information and utilize that and call myself depressed.

But is that true?

Routines are wonderful when they are intentional and when we are utilizing them for our own growth and expansion.

Routines that are not intentional can be detrimental to us.

We slip into the old version of ourselves from the routine that is informed of our subconscious mind.

Routines are hard to break.

So are habits,

So are addictions,

So are any repetitive things.

But we can certainly change them.

It just takes a few moments of intentional awareness every day.

So if you are a person who wakes up with anxiety or wakes up overwhelmed or lost or just a generalized sense of unease,

I want to invite you to take the first few moments when you wake up to become conscious,

To journal without thinking,

To say a prayer,

Tell yourself that you are here,

That you are available for whatever new possible information,

Feeling,

Senses that are there for you today,

That you are eager to explore and be curious and find out what is available for you.

And when just that little awareness and talking to your inner self,

Talking to your subconscious mind,

Writing out in free form,

Journaling or writing or what have you,

Or speaking out can change and make everything different in just a few moments.

Otherwise,

The likelihood is the rest of your day will be up to 95% driven by the subconscious mind and you will continue to have the same experience of life over and over and over.

We've all seen that movie Groundhog's Day.

Well,

I would assume most of us have.

And it looks like a dreadful experience.

So of course that was,

You know,

Identical days over and over.

But if you really think about it,

Many of us are having kind of identical days every day.

So if you want to break your routine,

Start with the available senses that you have right now.

If you claim some kind of a state of being like an anxiety disorder or OCD or repetitive thinking or what have you,

See if you can challenge yourself in the quietness of the morning or anytime during the day and ask yourself,

Is this happening right now?

Is this true?

Does this have dominion over me or do I have dominion over it?

With our conscious mind,

We can change most everything.

It is so powerful.

It's very easy to continue thinking about how things were,

How things went,

Who did what,

What happened to us before.

And we know that those things are of the past.

They're not even a reality of the present moment.

And yet we are living them over and over and over again.

It is over.

Yes,

The information exists and all information exists eternally,

But we do not have to interact with it and be informed by it in our day-to-day life.

This is not denial.

Denial is not a healthy process.

This is coming online in the moment and noticing.

Practice it right now.

Whatever you're doing,

If you're driving,

If you're cleaning the house,

Working,

What have you,

You probably have a sense of how this is going to go,

How this moment or this experience is going to go.

But can you,

For a moment,

Just wake up into a different possibility?

Notice what do you see?

What do you hear?

What is the taste in your mouth?

What do you feel on your skin?

What is the weight of the shoes on your feet?

Notice with all of your senses and start using your senses to help you be in the moment,

In the conscious mind,

To be present so that you can change your reality.

I'm really glad that you're here today.

It's funny because when I went for my walk with my father this morning,

He actually broke his routine to do that.

And I was so pleased that he came with me since we've been on our trip here.

I've been trying to get up every morning and go to the beach for the sunrise and then go back for the sunset and take a walk.

I was sick through part of it though,

So the past few days I wasn't able to go.

But this morning I said,

I'm going.

And so I bundled up and he said,

Well,

If you wait five minutes,

I'll come with you.

And we started talking about this on our walk.

And I was so pleased that he came not just to break his routine,

But to also enliven him and get his mind and his body in a different state of feeling.

And it sure did.

Just a couple blocks,

Just a few blocks,

We'll do that.

We can keep doing the same thing that we've always done.

And we know the definition of insanity is that,

Right?

And keep doing the same thing,

Expecting different results.

Or we can actually shift our awareness.

We don't always have to even do things differently to break the routine,

But often that is required.

But if we just shift our awareness into a higher state of presence,

We change our reality.

So if you are a person who is working on yourself,

Is interested in spirituality,

Frequency,

Intuition,

The possibilities of wisdom and knowledge and how we change and interact with that,

Then this simple practice will help get you there.

So I'm glad you're here.

Practice today,

However you'd like,

And we can keep practicing it together.

I hope you are well and healthy and have a day full of magic and mystical experiences that is life itself.

Reviews

Great perspective on how to shift out of the subconscious into the present and be a creator vs following past pain!!

So helpful. May not even need to change my "routine," but bring greater awareness to the moments of waking up, to confront the subconscious anxieties that have been coming up this winter. Thank you, Leah.