Not through force, pressure, or following a long list of ‘should’s.
But through the ongoing practice of returning to yourself. Knowing yourself. And allowing more of who you are to find expression in your life.
Join Rachael, meditation teacher and coach, for insights, explorations, and moments of presence to uncover what it means to create your life The Soft Way.
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What do you do when something comes up that you really don’t want to deal with?
Maybe you overthink it, avoid it, wish it would go away, or find yourself contracting around it before it’s even happened.
In this episode, I explore what can happen when we pause before falling into our usual patterns and take a moment to choose how we want to relate to what’s in front of us.
This episode also includes a short guided reflection to help you give space to your emotions and connect with your intentions.
A question to reflect on:
What if this is leading you to a new experience of yourself?
WORKING TOGETHER If you want a space to connect with more of who you are and move towards what lights you up, I offer 1:1 depth coaching. Find out more: https://www.rachaelebanksgold.com/working-together
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Thank you!
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Your soul craves something more. Your heart wants joy, not busyness. You're done with all the shits and ready to reconnect with what truly nourishes you. Welcome, I'm Rachel and this is the Soft Way Podcast. A space to quiet the noise, release the pressure, and listen to the voice within you that's always knowing your truth. Join me for soulful practical insights to help you ground the presence, connect with your higher self, and let this version of you lead your life with playfulness and gentle power. And without the pressure to figure it all out. Because you are supported. Life is with you. So come on home. Just FYI, my cat has decided to start eating next to me rather noisily. So if you hear that, you know that's what that is. So today's exploration is around how we relate to things that we have resistance around. It might be something that's fairly small, like opening up WhatsApp, or just the full working day that's ahead of you, or a particular unpleasant task that's been on your to-do list since 2025. Or it might be something that feels much bigger, maybe a difficult conversation or conflict, or it might be a situation where you just you just don't know how things are going to turn out, and that's terrifying. So whether it's this kind of mundane resistance or something that has quite high emotional stakes, notice what happens when you contract around it. In my own experience, the default reaction can be getting into these mental loops where I think the worst, or I might try and like force myself to act how I think I should in the situation, and that tends to feel quite off in my body, or maybe complete avoidance, you know, shove it away, I'll deal with it later. I just want the people involved or the problem itself to just leave me alone, and either way, the problem just clings to us like a bad smell, and those old ways of reacting, and also the self-concepts and fears and beliefs that are driving those reactions just get reinforced. So the question that I'm posing today is what if this thing that you're resisting, whatever it is, whether it's big or small, whether it's external or internal, what if it was an opportunity to step into a new experience of who you are? And not because the situation itself is necessarily wanted or secretly wonderful, but because you get to choose how you relate to it, and in so doing, you're able to transform it from just a pain in the ass to something else. Now, two examples come to mind when I think of this approach. One is quite personal, so I'm not going to go into too many details, but um the first one is like giving presentations, holding classes, um, which you know, as is a historically shy person, quiet person, intravert, la la la, it was difficult to feel comfortable doing those things, you know, being seen, being observed. And so for me, when I had these things coming up, situations where I would be in front of a lot of people, I used to prepare incessantly. And my thoughts around them, you know, although there would be some positive thoughts and like you know, thinking about what I wanted to share, there might also be some a lot of you know, worries, I guess. Worries and fears around performance and you know, if I'm gonna do the right thing, and also just the sense of like I cannot wait until this is over, you know. I would like look at my calendar and just be like, I cannot wait for 8 pm or I cannot wait for Friday, you know, when it's this thing is in the past. And even while getting ready for these, like these events, these situations, I would almost encourage the fearful inner dialogue as I was getting ready, as if it was somehow helping me to prepare. And at some point I realized that I was just sort of reinforcing this idea that this thing was something to be afraid of, and you know, that wasn't really helping, was it? Because I would take all of that anxiety with me, you know. And it's not to say that I shouldn't have felt the anxiety, but it was the story that was weaving around it. So there was one particular turning point when I decided that I was gonna stop feeding the anxiety. Now, just note that I'm saying not saying I decided to stop feeling the anxiety because I can't decide to stop feeling the anxiety. The anxiety is going to persist for as long as it wants to, you know, it's not something I can sort of switch on and off. Um, but I was gonna stop feeding it with the fearful thoughts, you know. So noticing them and letting go of them and just remembering actually, that isn't the story that I want to keep repeating. And then I also just started tuning into okay, what is it that I want to feel? How is it that I want to be? And words like grounded, present in the flow would come to mind, and so I would imagine the future me feeling that as she presented as she spoke, and although, like as I said, the anxiety wasn't something I could switch off, you know, so it was still there, I was still physically nervous, but my thoughts began to align with the other experience that I was tuning into, you know, the experience of groundedness, of stability, of willingness, and so I would think it's okay. I'm gonna do this, and it's going to be okay. This isn't something I have to endure, this is something I can be present with, and so there was one particular presentation that I remember afterwards reflecting on, and I felt very strangely like myself while I was presenting. Very natural to me, even though again I was nervous, there was just this sense of flow and sort of responding to the moment, and it kind of blew me away that I could actually feel like that. So this kind of links to the episode that I did last week, which was called The Conflicts Between What You Want and What You Keep Doing, um, which was about expanding our sense of self beyond kind of our history. And I explored that in a more kind of theoretical way. And today I'm pointing more towards like a practical way of initiating this, of engaging this consciously. So the invitation here is first to pause when we notice that something is bringing up resistance, so coming back to ourselves, and just starting to tune in, not necessarily in a kind of you know, what should I do way or how can I control it, which can have a slightly frantic edge to it, tuning in more in the sense of how do I want to be in relation to this? How do I want to be in relation to this? Because when we try to control, we're essentially not open to accepting how things are or how they might turn out, and it's almost as if if things don't turn out in a certain way, or if things aren't a certain way, then I won't be okay. What I'm sharing here is more about getting clear on our intentions, on what we are choosing for ourselves, which builds a sense of power on the inside that allows us to meet whatever is on the outside without crumbling, and how we relate to something on the inside often does have a real impact on the outside and what happens in those real situations. So let's create some space for you to tune in to what's present for you. Okay, so gently bringing whatever it is to mind, so whatever it is that's currently bringing up resistance for you. Remembering it could be fairly small and mundane, or it might be on the heavier side.
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And first just noticing how you feel about it.
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What are the emotions that come up immediately? And just giving those feelings, those emotions, those sensations, all the space they need.
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What would be a winning outcome for all involved? Come to your awareness. Okay.
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Thank you for being open to this. And know that you don't have to make your emotions go away. And then it's not on you to change the outside. How we are internally does impact our environment and our circumstances. But in some ways, the external results don't really matter as much as what shifts inside of us. Because we're no longer in the vulnerable position of simply hoping that things will be okay. No longer waiting with an empty plate saying, please feed me. We've fed ourselves, we've awakened a different experience of ourselves. Which is gold. Thank you so much for listening and joining me on this exploration. Um if you have been tuning in to a few of these episodes and join them, I would be so grateful if you wouldn't mind just taking a moment to write the podcast. Um it's just more attractive to other people if they can see it off. There's a few people that are listening to this and liking it. Alright, well that's it for today. Wishing you a wonderful week and I'm very much looking forward to connecting with you again. Take care. Bye!
