The High Vibe Guide
You can feel happier! You can feel more positive, and it's so much easier than you think.
Whether you're a seasoned venturer or just starting out on your journey to radiating a more positive energy, my episodes will provide a wealth of inspiration, tools and wisdom to guide you in creating a more vibrant and positive life. It is possible. I have lived and breathed this journey. Let me explain how you can do it too.
The High Vibe Guide
45. The Choice in Every Moment
Ever wonder how some people manage to consistently live life as their best selves, despite having once struggled with deeply ingrained habits? Join me as I share a breakthrough moment about the power of conscious, daily choices and how they can transform our lives. We'll explore the intriguing idea that our old negative neural pathways never quite disappear; they simply lie dormant, waiting for our inattention to wake them. This episode challenges us to trust in ourselves and the unknown, emphasising the need to make deliberate choices every day that honour our growth and vision, even when the future remains uncertain.
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Welcome to the High Vibe Guide, the podcast where I demystify the concept of raising our vibration. I'm Jenna, a yoga teacher, mum of three and passionate advocate for helping others to just feel happier. Let me explain to you how we can all live more contented and fulfilled lives, and how it's so much easier than you think.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone, welcome back to the High Vibe Guide. Good morning, good morning. Well, it's good morning here for me right now, but good afternoon or good evening, wherever you are and whenever you might be listening. You will be very happy to know that I have had another little light bulb moment recently. I know you guys all love my light bulb moments, but it was another little realisation that I've had on this everlasting, ever-winding journey of self-discovery and personal growth.
Speaker 2:I would like to talk to you about a concept tied to my light bulb moment that feels very simple and quite obvious, but I think it's actually quite widely overlooked and actually incredibly profound and powerful, and it's the idea that every day is a choice. Every single day, every single moment is a choice, even after we've done a lot of the personal growth. We've created the healthier habits, we've reshaped our thought patterns, your habits. We've reshaped our thought patterns so we're experiencing more joy, more gratitude, hopefully less stress, less anxiety and self-doubt. But we're still faced with the choice to honour that change every single day. And you might be wondering why would I need to choose it every day if I've already changed my habits and rewired my brain? You know I've already done the work. Why do I keep needing to decide to live that way forever and ever, every day? Well, here's where the fascinating reality of our brain's wiring comes in. So while you have created these new positive neural pathways, you know the old ones don't just disappear. I've talked about before how neurons that fire together no, that's not it. Neurons that wire together fire together. That's it. And like I said, even though we've created these new positive ones, the old negative ones don't just go away. So the pathways that are tied to our negative thinking, our self-doubt, so the pathways that are tied to our negative thinking, our self-doubt, our stress-based habits, they're still there. They just aren't being used as much. I like to think of them like dormant trails in the forest of your mind that, if unused, they kind of grow over with time. But they are still intact and they can be walked again if we're not mindful of the path that we choose to take every single day.
Speaker 2:So if you think of it like this, let's put it into a real life example. Imagine someone who's been sober for a decade Now. That person may have built a life without alcohol or, you know, drugs, whatever kind of substance they were using, and they've built a wonderful, new and fulfilling life with it. They don't look back. You know a life where they might be at a point where their addiction doesn't consume them anymore. They found peace and satisfaction with their new way of things.
Speaker 2:But the reason that recovery groups still identify as alcoholics or whatever it is, even after years of sobriety, is because those old neural pathways remain and they might be smaller, narrower or less tempting than before. But if that person were to go into a bar and just have one drink one drink it's very likely it's going to trigger those old pathways to reconnect and refire, start wiring together again. So one drink then leads to just one more, then just one more. Then old, familiar thought patterns come back in, the destructive and the self-sabotaging ones, and before you know it you're fully flat on your back after falling off the wagon and they have to start all over again if they want to get back to that new way of life they had taken all that time and effort to create for themselves. And the same thing happens with the way that we think. Like if you, let's say, you've spent months, maybe years, reprogramming your mind to focus on gratitude, self-worth or joy instead of self-criticism, instead of worry and resentment, your brain's now more accustomed to positive thinking, and that's an amazing accomplishment. You have rewired your brain, quite literally. But to keep living in this way, in this higher vibration, you have to choose it over and over and over again Every day. You make the choices in the small moments, in the everyday moments, the mundane moments when something doesn't go your way, when someone just pushes your buttons or when an unexpected challenge hits. You know when disaster strikes. Do you react out of old habits like I said, those pathways are still there, they, they're still lying there. You just haven't walked that way for a while or do you stop and pause and choose a response that's aligned with your new mindset? Do you notice how this all ties into surrender? Can you see that too, that trust, trust that life knows what it's doing?
Speaker 2:I think it's quite funny that for me, it keeps coming back to this sense of trust and faith. I think so often the word faith is tied to religion and God, but I think it's got a much deeper and more expansive meaning. Faith is just trust right in something that's bigger than you. It's trust in the unknown, isn't it? And that can be anything, just trust in yourself. I think, at the end of the day. It's standing there in these difficult moments, knowing that you don't want to go back to your old ways and you don't know what the future lies ahead. You don't know what's going to happen in front of you, but it's choosing trust. It's choosing faith that, no matter what happens, you're going to be okay. It's whatever happens. Going forward is going to be better than how things used to be.
Speaker 2:But every moment, every day, we are invited to keep choosing this new life that we've created for ourselves and, like I said, we don't always know what this new life is going to look like. I mean, let's face it practically, we've never lived that life before, so how will we know if we can do it? How will we know what it even looks like? But we now have that level of awareness where we know we need to take that step off the hamster wheel and refuse to go back. And refuse to go back, that risk of the unknown, with possible enlightenment, suddenly becomes the more attractive path than the old and familiar misery. And that is a very wonderful and incredibly empowering position to be in, even though you're at the very start of your journey. And the beauty of this is that every time you choose your higher self, you are reinforcing those new neural pathways and you're making them stronger and more dominant than ever.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to share a few ways that I consciously choose each day, and the first one is a morning intention. Now do not get me wrong. I do not always get up early. I don't always get up with a smile. I don't meditate every morning and move my body. I don't cold plunge every morning and actively set an intention for the day. Sometimes I do, but very rarely do I do that. If I'm perfectly honest, it is something that I would like to do. It is on my list, it's on my agenda to prioritize that first hour in the morning for me, getting up before the rest of the house, but it has not happened yet.
Speaker 2:I have not made that commitment quite yet, but currently what my morning intention looks like is that moment before I get up, before I get out of bed and I am not a person that naturally wakes up with a spring in their step. I can still feel those old neural pathways are slightly more dominant in the morning. It's just the way my brain's wired first thing in the morning. It doesn't naturally, you know, wake up feeling light and expansive and excited for the day. It's still stepping down those neural pathways which don't serve my highest good, but I am actively trying to rewire my brain now, currently first thing in the morning, and I make myself take a moment when I open my eyes, just as that downer starts to come in.
Speaker 2:You know sometimes that mindset when you don't want to get out of bed. I just take a moment to reframe my mindset and my thoughts and I say things to myself like I get to do all of these things today, rather rather than oh, I have to do that today. That little shift is very powerful and I envision the things I have to do that day and I imagine myself smiling through them. I'm grateful that I get to experience them. How lucky I am to get to get my kids ready for school, to have the arguments with them about getting their shoes on. How lucky am I to get to have those things. But actually, how lucky am I?
Speaker 2:Even if it's mundane and boring, it's making a choice to start each day with a confirmation, to align with your higher self, to set an intention for who you want to be, even in the challenging moments, and this daily practice reinforces the life you want to lead and it takes a moment. You can sit and make it a little meditation process, kind of just sit there, lie there for a few minutes and meditate on it, but sometimes for me it's just a moment or two. It's just a moment or two before I swing my legs out of bed. So morning intention. The second one is to notice. It's that awareness again and redirection. So what I mean by this is throughout the day. It's just reinforcing this morning intention. So when you notice those old thought patterns or feelings creeping in, rather than judging them, just observe, notice and then gently redirect your thoughts towards the positive pathway that you're creating, so just steering it back to that intention you've set.
Speaker 2:And in the beginning it all comes down to awareness and sometimes it's not even catching yourself in the present. It's awareness with reflection. So, like I said, you might not always catch yourself at the time and manage to create that time to pause before you react. But what you can do is always use awareness with reflection afterwards and then with time and practice that space, that pause time when it's happening in the present. That space grows and I can't think of another way to explain that to you guys, but it does and it doesn't happen all the time. You know, I still react instantaneously every now and again. I won't lie, but nine times out of ten time that tiny bit of space you have when something's really annoying you, where you would normally instantly just react. Those old habits, those old pathways lead you down that road and you react the way you would normally Not in a great way that time you get, it just grows.
Speaker 2:Not even like you're taking more time before you react, like you're counting the seconds you know before you open your mouth or before you act. The time internally, the space that you have to process just expands, expands and you've then got much more capacity to react in a better way. Trust me, guys, it's magic, it's how it happens. So just keep that awareness and trust that it will come. And in that time where you're practicing, reflect, use the awareness and reflect it backwards. And lastly kind of tying into this, it's the end of day reflection just spend a few moments at the end of the day. Again does not have to be a long time. You don't have to chunk out a huge chunk out a huge carve of time. You don't have to carve out a huge chunk of time, wow, to do this.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, it's just a moment or two of reflection to look back on the choices that you've made. They've honoured your growth. Acknowledge the small positive choices, the tiny ones. Don't just sit there and judge yourself for all the ways you've gotten things wrong that day. Don't do that. You can definitely reflect on them, but don't do it with judgment and criticism, do it with awareness and compassion, but, more importantly, acknowledge the small positive choices that you've made that day. They're each a huge joy, mungus step in the direction of the life that you want.
Speaker 2:So I need to remember, guys, that this is not about perfection. It's about staying aware of your power to choose and, as best as you can, choosing the version of yourself that aligns with your true vision, your values and, most importantly, your inner peace. So it's all about staying mindful of the choices we make each day, and by doing that, we not only sustain the changes that we've worked hard for, but we continue to expand into greater levels of happiness, of resilience, of self-compassion. So let's make that choice today and every day, to live as our best selves. And remember, guys, I am here cheering you on in every small step along the way. So thank you, as always, for tuning in and please don't forget to share your own insights and your own choices with me. I love hearing how you are choosing to live your best life.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys thank you all so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share with your friends and family to continue spreading that positivity. You can find me on instagram at the high vibe dot guide. Get in touch. I would love to hear from you. Thank you all so much for listening and I'll see you back here next time at the high vibe guide.