How To Stay Connected To Your True Self

In this Talk, I’m sharing some practical ways you can live connected to your true self, including how to notice and work with the challenges that try to disconnect you from who you really are.

Listen to discover: What connection to self means, why staying connected to the true self is so important, the things that disconnect us from our true self, the power of feeling our emotions and working with triggers, and the way our daily choices impact our connection with self.

Transcript

Hello to all of my Insight Timer friends. My name is Michelle Schelfant and I'm delighted that you're here with me today. Welcome to my latest talk. And as always, After the show, I love to hear your comments. So make sure you leave a comment so I know how you liked it. We'll talk soon. And here we go with the latest episode. Hello everybody and welcome to the adult chair where we talk all about how to live as emotionally healthy adults. Because you know, We all need this. In my younger years, I was not an emotionally healthy adult. So now's the time. And the thing that I dedicate my life to is teaching people how to live this way. That was the thing that I felt like was missing when I was on my journey of doing all my personal work. You know, I mean, I think I've shared this with you guys before for sure, That I have taken just about every certification under the sun looking for that one magic, That one magic tool or technique. And what I found is it's a combo platter. And that is what the adult chair is all about. And this whole model teaches us how to live in our emotionally healthy adult self, Which is what we call our adult chair. So today's show is about just that. Really it's how to stay connected into the adult chair and at the root of the adult chair is our true self. That's what we're going for. And you know, I hear I've heard so many people over the years say, I just want to live more authentically or my goal is to live authentically. All these things, You know, Living authentically just means that you're connected into your true self because your true self is underneath all of these masks, Limiting beliefs, All the things that we learn from childhood on. And they start covering up our true self. And then we become someone else at times. It's not to say that we're always not ourselves, But we become a sort of false self and we show up differently when we're with family and we're with friends and at work. This is what I'm talking about. It's the most freeing thing to show up exactly the same and be yourself with everybody. It's living from your true self. So a few weeks ago I did the adult chair live event and that is what we do during the whole event. It's about teaching you guys how to live from your true self. How do you uncover the masks? How do you heal and transform these limiting beliefs? So anyway, So I was thinking about that live event and I just grabbed my phone. I'm like, You know, I really want to just record myself talking about how we can stay connected. What are some other ways that we can stay connected into this true self, Which again is living from the adult chair. So I grabbed my phone, Started recording myself and thought it was going to be like, You know, A few minutes, Like two or three minutes, And then I would stop recording. And it turned into a much longer recording. I just got on a roll and I kept going. So it became a podcast because I listened to it. I'm like, Dang, This is good stuff. I think that I'm going to share this because it's really, Of course there's some steps in there for you guys so you can practice every day, Staying connected to this true self, Which is going to help you to move your way through the false self and the parts of us that aren't true, The parts of us that are uncomfortable, All those things. So I think you're going to really like this show. The audio is not on a mic, Of course, It's on my phone, But I think it still sounds fine. It sounds good. So I'm just letting you know that ahead of time. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys to hear this and please let me know what you think. Hit me up on any of our social media platforms. I'm on all over the place, Instagram, Facebook. I'm in of course a lot more of that adult chair closed Facebook group. We're having a lot of fun over there. So join us. So we're going to jump right in. I just want to remind you guys for anyone that is interested in joining our army of light warriors, That is what I call my coaches. You've got just one more day. We actually closed the door on May 5th at midnight. So if you are interested in joining us for the next program, Which starts in just a few weeks, Head on over to the adult chair. Com forward slash certification. And that's all I've got for you guys. I am excited for you to hear this show. Here we go with how to stay connected to your true self. Let's talk about connection to self and why that's important. First of all, Let's talk about what does that mean? If I am connected to myself, What does that mean? Number one, It means I'm connected to my true self. This is when I am sitting in my adult chair. That's what it means. So who cares about that if you don't know what that means? So when I'm connected to my true self, I'm connected to my inner compass, Otherwise known as our inner navigation system, Meaning I am guided by something bigger than me when I am going through life. Yeah, I'm connected to something bigger than myself. As I go through life, My intuition, I get the feeling, Go this way, Go that way, Turn left, Turn right, Step into this relationship and that relationship move maybe here to this other state or country or stay put. I also know when I need to speak up for myself and not because I'm connected to myself. When I'm connected to myself, My inner compass guides me. I'm connected to my emotions. I know what I'm feeling, Right? I know what I'm feeling. I allow my emotions to come up through me and metabolize through me. And when I stay with them without storing assumption, Remember, 90 seconds and away they go. So it's so important that we stay connected to ourselves, Our true self. It helps us to live an authentic life, Which means I'm vulnerable. I speak up for myself. It's a beautiful place to live. It's a beautiful place to exist from. But there are things that disconnect us from our true self, From this beautiful state of being that we can live in. Here's some things that disconnect us. Number one, When we're not feeling our emotions. If I don't feel my emotions and I shove them down instead, It's like kinking a water hose. So when that water is trying to come through, I kink the hose. The emotions try to come through. They're rising up through us. If I choose instead to reach for a glass of wine, Netflix, Cookies, Porn, Sex, Amazon, Whatever your thing is, And we all have our things. Every human has a thing that they do not to feel. When we reach for those things, We kink the hose. So those emotions that are rising up through us get stuck. They don't come through. When we kink the hose, We disconnect from self. We lose our inner navigation. We lose the connection to the true self. When I'm connected to my true self, I've got a connection with God, Source, Whatever you want to call it. Source, Universe, All of those things, In my opinion, Mean the same thing. But if they don't to you, That's perfectly fine. But whatever your thing is that's outside of you, That is the bigger thing than you, The unconditionally loving source that we're all connected to or we're guided to or we're guided from, We lose connection with that thing. And when I lose connection with that thing, I'm not guided by something bigger than me, Something more wise than me. So when I'm living in my true self, That means that connection is coming and streaming down through me. That's why no matter what, I don't want anything to disconnect me from myself because then I know I've lost that connection as well. All right, So number one, When I don't feel my emotions. Number two, Another thing that disconnects us from true self is when we fall into story and assumption. When I fall into story and believe the story that's whether it's in my own head or someone else's story, I lose connection with myself. It's not to say you can't listen to what's coming up for you or someone else, Please do, But be careful falling totally into story. We want to maintain presence while we're listening to someone else and recognize that they are could be in a fear place or could be coming from a limiting belief place or a wounded place. So many are human, This is just what happens. So we want to instead stay present, Listen to other people with just a grounded presence. We hold space for them so they can be in whatever it is that they're in and we're not losing our connection to self. And we just sit and hold space. That's the beautiful thing that we do and I stay connected to self. Another thing that causes us to lose connection to the true self is when we're triggered. So when we are triggered, We are not connected to self. We lose that connection when we follow the trigger and get angry or fall into fear or fall into blame or fall into victim or whatever we do when we're triggered and we all get triggered including myself. The question is, When you're triggered, What do you do with that trigger? Do you come out of that trigger and say, Oops, What belief just came up for me? Or do you fall into the trigger, Into the unconscious belief that's rising up and believe that belief? Because remember what happens when we're triggered, It's because an unconscious belief that's within us, Ourselves, Rises up to the surface because someone or a circumstance outside of self caused that belief to be reflected within us. So what we want to do is not follow the anger, The victim, The blame that we want to do and instead go, Oh my goodness, This is coming up. There's something inside of me or there's a belief about myself that is coming up. It doesn't feel good, But I need to turn toward it and go figure out what the heck this belief is so it doesn't trigger me as much the next time. And every time that you sit and work with these triggers and you don't let them take you down, Every time you work with them, That trigger begins to lose its power. And every time you work with them little by little by little, That trigger begins to fade away and you become triggered less. And my friends, I speak from a lot of experience here, Not just with a lot of clients, But myself in particular. I was so triggered in my twenties, I remember, And even in my early thirties, Triggered over everything. I would lose connection to self all the time. It does not happen anymore. The way to work with a trigger, Which I talked about in that previous podcast, Is to go straight into what's triggering you and ask yourself, What is coming up inside of myself? And the first thing is typically anger or fear or blame or something else, But keep digging underneath it. Ask yourself what's under that and what's under that and what's under that. There's something in it for us. When we're triggered, There's something in it for us. So even if you're with someone that's not kind to you, If you don't hold a belief inside of self that they can trigger, Then you won't be triggered by them. If someone's mean to you, You can sit and say, Wow, That was really mean, But you're not triggered. The difference between being upset with someone and a trigger is a trigger is something that we carry with us. We can't let it go. We sit and think about it throughout the day for an hour or two or three after that person has quote unquote hurt us. Whatever hurt means, Whatever they did something or said something, When we hold onto it for hours or days or weeks or years, That's something inside of us. That's a belief inside of us that they have triggered, That they have brought up to the surface. So this is much different than just saying, Ow, That hurt. That makes me upset that you said that. And then we move on. A trigger is not like that. A trigger is lingers a little bit longer or a lot longer. So these are things that cause us to lose connection with ourself. And you want to remember holding that connection to the true self, Which means staying in our adult chair no matter what is the healthiest place for us to live. It's the most authentic place to live and it takes work. But it has to do with a lot of choices that we make throughout each and every day. You know, I was recently in a hotel for our adult chair live event. And while in that hotel, Now mind you, It is a lot of money to hold an event. And a lot of people that participated and came to this event stayed at the hotel. I rented space. I'm paying for so much audio, The whole thing. There's a lot, Thousands and thousands of thousand dollars go into one event. So and I say that because the day we were checking out of the hotel, I went down to the main lobby and I said to the girl, And this is like at nine or 10 o'clock or not. This is at nine o'clock, Right, Right before the event was starting. And I said, Oh, By the way, What time is checkout? And she said, Well, It's at noon. And I said, Well, Can I have a late checkout, Please? Just a little bit later, If that's okay. And she said, Oh no, You cannot. And the lady was rude. I'm not going to lie. Like she was just, I don't know if she was having a bad day, Whatever. I said, Okay. I said, Well, Checkout's at noon. I said, May I have a 1230 checkout? And she said, No. I said, Listen, I said, How about 1215? She said, No, You need to be out at noon. She was quite snippy with me. And I said, This is my event that we're holding here. I'm just asking for 15 minutes late. I am the speaker here for the entire day. And it's five minutes to nine. I can't go up and disassemble my room and pack up in the next five minutes. I said, Can I just do it when we have, We take a lunch break at noon. I said, Can I please have a 1215 checkout? And she looks at me and says, No, You cannot. Now I'm thinking to myself, I'm spending thousands of dollars here. I did not say that to her. And I looked at her and I said, Okay. And I got to tell you guys something. The old Michelle in my twenties and even my early thirties would have gone ballistic on this lady. And I sat there and I said, Okie doke. And I remember walking from the lobby where the person had said all this to me, All the way to the room where I was giving my presentation. And I thought to myself, I am not allowing her or anybody, And this is my mantra, And I invite you guys to take this on. I am not allowing her or anybody to disconnect me from myself. She's not going to have it. And when I get that angry, It disconnects me from me. It disconnects me from my true self, From my soul, From my whatever you want to call it, God, Higher self, Source, All the things. And I'm not having it. Nobody's going to kink my hose. That is my motto. Every single day is my mantra. And guess what? I walked all the way in the room. This gets even better. I walked into the room and I said, Okay. So I walked in and I said, Hey, I've got to run up. I said, I'm going to do a 10-15 quick bathroom break for everybody. And they said, Okay. So I did my presentation. I did the training for, You know, Till 10-15, Or the lecture, Excuse me. And I ran upstairs at 10-15. And I come downstairs with all my luggage and my bags and everything. And everyone's like, Why are you getting your bags now? And I said, Well, Because I can't get a late checkout. And I kid you not, Five people turned to me and said, What are you talking about? I got a late checkout. One person said, I'm getting out of here at two. Another person goes, Oh, She gave me till four. Another person goes, I got till 1. 30. Why did she give you a late checkout? And then someone said, Does she know that this is like your entire event and how much money is going to this hotel because of you? And I said, I told her and she didn't seem to care. And I let it go. And I said, Well, Whatever. I said, And you know, The other thing you guys is I sat there and I thought to myself, I'm not going to create drama around this. I'm not going to go into story. I'm not going to fall into victim. I am not giving what happened anything of myself. I'm not creating meaning around it and saying, Oh, Well, She didn't give me a late checkout because of X, Y, And Z. I did not go to victim. And I'm telling you these things because this is where I used to go. This is where I used to go. But I know when I did those things in the past, It cut me off from myself. I'm not doing that anymore. I said, Oh, Well. And what happened was my COO went and actually did speak with the event organizer of the hotel. And she was also, Which I didn't know, She was very nice about it. And the event organizer, The event planner of the hotel was furious and let this apparently this person know. And I was walking by that lobby desk at two o'clock in the afternoon. And this woman yells to me, She goes, Ma'am, Ma'am. She said, Here's a new room key for your late checkout. And now it's two o'clock. And I looked at her, I said, You told me I had to be out by noon. I got I cleared the room at noon. She goes, Oh, Okay. And that was it. And it was over. So I share that story for you, Because it was such a great reflection of me and how far I've come. And I said, I and this is what I invite you all to do for yourself. When experiences like this happen, It's a great reflection of where you are in connection to yourself. So for me, I sat there and I thought, Wow, Dang, I said, I thought these are the thoughts I had. I said, Wow, I'm really proud of myself. Because look at what I didn't do. Look at what I didn't allow someone outside of me to do. They didn't I didn't allow anyone outside of me to disconnect me from me. And these are beautiful thoughts to have. These are intentional thoughts to have that help to remind you just where you are on your life path. So practice this. This is not about bragging. I didn't need to brag this to anybody. And then the only reason I'm sharing it with you all is because I hope that this helps you to understand what I'm talking about as far as the world reflects where we are. And I've said this before, The world is our mirror. Everyone in the world is our mirror. So this woman in this all of this event that happened, This whole thing that happened with this person showed me where I am on my path. And I was so proud of myself, Myself. And I encourage you all to remember to become your best cheerleader because no one else is going to do it for you. And if 10 people came up to me and said, Wow, I'm so proud of you. You handled that so well. It doesn't matter. The most important opinion that I want and need is my own. So this is about supporting yourself and being your best cheerleader. We're very, Very hard on ourselves. We're very good at pointing out all the stuff that we do wrong, All the negatives. We've got to balance it out. And if even more than balance it out, Point out and notice all the good things that you do in a day. Notice all the areas of your life where you've grown, Where you've grown. So this was one of those opportunities for me. So I hope that that story helps you. It was such a beautiful experience for me. And I'm grateful for that. And I hear and witness these experiences with myself quite a bit now. So that is it. I encourage you all to practice staying connected to yourself. Let me tell you, My friends, It is a game changer. It is a game changer. The other thing that I want to note is that something that I've also worked on for many, Many years is emotional regulation and nervous system regulation, Keeping my nervous system in check and in balance. That's another reason to do this. Because when we lose ourselves and get mad and fall into victim and call everybody and tell them how we got victimized, Because this person, Like for me, It'd be like the hotel lady did this to me. It amps and ramps up our nervous system. So be careful about that. Be careful. And you want to keep yourself in balance as best that you can. I'm not saying now, I just want to say this, Not to ever get angry. That's not what I'm saying. Anger is a great emotion. I've done that on many podcasts. I love anger. This is something quite different. This is about staying connected to yourself, Staying connected to yourself. Do this as much as you can throughout the day, Each and every day. And just notice when you lose that connection with yourself and get yourself back. Get yourself back. Get present. Become mindful of your surroundings and say to yourself something like, Oops, I think that I disconnected. Let me get myself back. Because you know what? We're human. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to disconnect. I still do it too, But it's faster. I reconnect faster. And that is our goal. That my friends is how we live a life from our adult chair. Thank you so much for joining me today. I wish you a beautiful week and I'll see you next week for the next show.

Reviews

Great example of staying in the adult chair. Certain people trigger us no matter what, or as you say, it shows there’s still work to unravel. I’ll keep this in mind for a conversation I’m about to have with one of those people today. I love the comparison to the younger self, I do that too. These days the triggers are few and far between but still, why is it that one or two individuals always seem to get to us?! More work on self I suppose but i also recently learnt it could be linked to values being violated possibly going back to childhood. Thank you for the wisdom as ever Michelle ♥️✨✨

Loved this message. I am working on staying present with myself. This was so helpful.

Always gain some insight from your talks. Thank you🙏

So glad you are back putting shows on insight timer! 🙌 🥰🌟

I was delighted to see you here on Insight Timer today when I checked in. I have missed your podcasts! Best therapy ever for me!!! 💜