Episode 8
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[00:00:00] Gino Wickman: Welcome to the Shed and Shine Podcast. I am Gino Wickman. This is where Rob Dube and I help driven entrepreneurs shed their shit, free their True Selves, unlock true entrepreneurial freedom and shine. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us, and we hope to make a huge impact on you.
Hi, this is Gino Wickman and welcome to riff number four.
Now I think this is the last time I'll say this, but I strongly urge you to listen to riffs one, two, and three so that the context is clear, because what we're going to do today in this riff is I'm going to take you through two exercises. This first exercise, called the True Self exercise, I do with every audience and it is profound.
And so we're going to dive right in and get to work. And so what I'm going to ask you to do is to please get comfortable. Sit in a chair, and if you're driving, you're going to need to pull over, or do this later. Nonetheless, if you will sit comfy in your chair, sit upright, and just take a couple deep breaths with me.
And once you've done that, I want you to close your eyes. Take one more deep breath, and with eyes closed, I want you to picture you. Picture your entire life. And as you're seeing all that, I now want you to remove from your life everything. Remove your business, remove your employees, remove your accolades, remove your accomplishments, remove your family, your friends, remove your addictions, your money, your house, remove your goals.
Once you've removed everything, I ask you, what is left? Please keep your eyes closed. What is left is you, just you, completely alone, with nothing but yourself. And I ask, how do you feel? And you either feel, on one spectrum, joy, unconditional love, trust, peace, or on the other end of the spectrum, you feel empty, pain, unfulfilled, uncomfortable, sad, scared, lost, or lonely.
This is about you coming to meet you, the real you, your True Self. Now, obviously, you should feel unconditional self love, complete self trust, and peace. When you feel love and trust and peace, everything is better. If you feel empty, pain, you're not a hundred percent. You're going through life in pain and it's affecting everything.
You're on a shaky foundation. With all of that said, I now want you to bring everything back, bring it all back, bring it all back. And once everything is back, I want you to open your eyes. And with whatever you experienced, whether you felt pain on one end or peace on the other, what's important to understand is whatever it is, it's showing up in a thousand little ways with every interaction in your life, with everything and everyone.
And what I now urge you to do, assuming you have something to write on and with in front of you, I would urge you to illustrate that spectrum. So draw that line, draw that range, if you will. And on one end, if you'll write the word peace and on the other end, if you'll write the word pain, I would love for you to just simply put a hash mark on that range in terms of where you were and what you felt.
And the reality is, when you are your True Self, and your True Self is free, you will feel peace. Now, all of that said, what I find with audiences, when we do this exercise, the reactions are always different. They vary. It's not as if everyone is feeling pain or everyone is feeling peace. And so a couple examples, you know, a woman came up to me afterwards and she said that when she removed everything from her life, she said she felt such incredible peace. And then when she brought everything back she felt pain. And so that was her message, her indication that there are people in her life that have their hooks in her, are attached to her. Whatever the dynamic is, it just shows you what you need to see.
And just as quickly, we have people that when they remove it, they feel incredible pain. They feel scared. They feel lonely, they feel lost. Which sometimes helps them understand how their identity is so wrapped up in all of these things and all of these people, when at the end of the day, that's not who you really are. That's not your True Self. Nonetheless, the exercise is typically very profound. I hope it was for you and everyone's reaction and response is a little bit different.
On to exercise number two. Now, assuming you listened to the previous riff on shedding layers, we talked about all the wonderful ways, or many ways, that you can shed layers. This next exercise we're about to do is called Process One, and it is one of the many ways to shed layers.
We reference this in the Resources for Shedding Layers in the back of the book, Shine, but I'm going to take you through this exercise. And with this particular riff in its entirety, it's actually probably going to be one of the shortest riffs I'll ever do because I want you to have this riff, tool, resource, these two exercises as a resource for you in the future so that you can quickly come back to it. It's short, sweet, to the point, because you can do this many, many times to remove many, many layers or shed many, many layers. But here we go. So here's what I need you to do, once again, if you're driving, you're going to need to pull over, or I urge you to just do this later.
Ideally, sitting somewhere private, quiet, comfortable chair is the best way to do this exercise, and it's very important to have something with you to write on and with. And so if you don't have that right now, hit pause, and once you have that, here we go. So again, the exercise is called Process One. And we're basically going to walk through the process of shedding a layer.
So, with pen in hand and something to write on, what I urge you to do now is I want you to think, pause, ponder, and I want you to come up with three past wounds, pains, or trauma. So whatever that means to you, think back in your life from age zero to now, and just jot down the three things that come to mind.
And it's really important that you write all three down. And if you need time to think again, simply just hit pause. But once you have your three written down, I'm just giving you some time to write so that you don't have to hit pause. Once you have written those three things down, I then want you to choose one of those three.
But what I want you to do is choose the mildest one of the three. Don't choose the heaviest one. Choose the mildest one and then just simply circle that one. And again, once you've listed your three, chosen the mildest one, circled it, I now want you to think about that one that you circled. Okay. And I want you to now get comfortable in your chair, sit back.
I want you to literally close your eyes. I want you to start to think about what you circled and what you chose. And as you're doing that, I just want you to take three deep breaths with me. So here we go.
I just want you to sit with that. I want you to think about that. And I want you to now drop into your body. I want you to just feel, are there any sensations coming up?
Assuming there's a sensation coming up somewhere in your body, I want you to just notice where it's showing up. As I've mentioned in the previous riff, for me, most of the time, it either shows up in my stomach or my chest. And I've learned that when the sensation shows up in my chest, it has something to do with the past. When it's something in my stomach, it has something to do with the future. But that's just me. It may show up anywhere. Anywhere in your body, but just notice where the sensation is coming up. And once you've done that, I now want you to think about the sensation, where it is. And if it were a shape, what shape would it be?
So just think about that shape. Think about that location. And if it were a color, what color would it be?
So now I just want you to sit, take some deep breaths. Think about the location, the shape, the color, and just breathe into it. Just breathe into it.
Now, typically, this exercise, you're able to process in just a few minutes. So we're going to just stay with us and continue to breathe.
And for some people, it will already start to dissipate. And for some, it's still there. For some, it's very extreme. That might be the case for you. Just keep breathing into it.
Now, a rule of thumb, most times it will dissipate within 60 to 90 seconds.
In other cases, it may take longer. And if you feel like you need a little more time to sit with it, then simply hit pause and just sit with it for as long as you need to. Now, what's important again, for most, it will have dissipated by now. For others, it may be extreme and you may not process it and shed that layer in this sitting.
For some, it's very deep. That's why we urge you to choose the mildest one. And for some, you may need professional help. You may need to go get help, so don't be shy about that if that's necessary. But for most of us, let's assume it has dissipated, and you have shed and removed that block. I'm just going to now bring you out of the exercise.
And I just want to share that exercise has been very profound. I've done that one on one with people. I've done that with groups. There's a gentleman, I was just with him this week, we did it a year ago. It was very profound for him. So for him, it was in his chest. It was this black ball with spikes for him.
And it was pretty heavy. He thought he chose the mildest one. It actually took him a couple months to fully process it, but he says he is a different man just from that simple exercise of processing one. And so sometimes it's simple, and again, it dissipates very quickly. Sometimes you need to work with it, stay with it.
But here's what's important to know. You don't always have to know what it is, why it's there, what it's tied to. So the idea is when you are practicing Discipline #4: Be Still, when you're sitting there in silence, things will come up. Practicing that discipline is going to help you to start to feel these sensations that come up, and you're not always going to know where it's coming from.
Like I said, my chest is from the past, my stomach's about the future, that kind of helps me narrow it down. But you don't have to know, you just simply have to remove it. Get it out of your energy field, shed that layer, remove that block, and the idea with this Process One exercise is for you just to feel that sensation, because what happens for most human beings, when that sensation comes up, there's pain.
It is said that sometimes it comes up with as much pain as you stuffed it down way back when, whatever age that was. And the idea is to let it come back up, not fear it, don't stuff it back down, and sit with it till it processes. And the goal is to process all the blocks, shed all the layers, so that you shine as bright as possible.
I am so hopeful that those two exercises were profound and powerful for you, and I urge you to come back to this riff, use this as a tool. Iām so excited to continue on this journey with you.
Thank you for listening in today. We truly appreciate you taking the time to spend with us and please tune in for the next episode.
Until then, if you'd like to see where you are on your True Self journey, go to shedandshinepodcast.com to take the True Self Assessment and receive personalized guidance. If you're all ready to begin your inner world journey with Rob and myself, please join us for the next round of the 10 Disciplines Group Coaching Program.
We wish you all the best in freeing your True Self. Stay focused and much love.
