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
46. Stay Open, Always
Today, I'm going into the transformative power of staying open - both in our hearts and minds. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with cacao, a gentle heart-opening plant medicine, and it’s inspired me to reflect on how leading with an open heart can truly shift our perspective. I also share insights from some incredible teachings I’ve been soaking up, including Michael Singer’s wisdom on keeping our hearts open during life’s challenges and a powerful parable about the importance of “emptying our cup.”
I’ll talk about how curiosity, zero-judgment, and compassion can help us stay open to life’s endless possibilities, even in the smallest moments. Staying open-minded isn’t always easy, but when we let go of fixed ideas and embrace the unknown, we create space for growth, connection, and a little bit of magic.
Join me as I reflect on how staying open can lead us toward a brighter, more connected life.
Share your experiences of staying open with me:
@thehighvibe.guide
hello@yogawithjenna.com
Subscribe to my weekly guided meditations here (only $4/month): https://thehighvibeguide.buzzsprout.com/2286124/supporters/new
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 everybody and welcome back to the High Vibe Guide. I'm feeling excited today because I'm going to be talking about something which I've been experiencing lately, and it's really only over the weekend, the last few days, that I've managed to conceptualise it and decide. This is what needs to come out of the high vibe guide today and quite simply, it's openness, staying open both in our hearts and in our minds, and I think it's such a transformative practice and it's something that I've been exploring quite deeply over the last couple of months, but, oddly, without really knowing. That's what I've been doing, and one of the ways I've been connecting to this theme is through cacao, drinking cacao. I've been drawn to it before and I've really taken to learning more about it over the last few months, and if you don't know anything about cacao, it's a really beautiful plant medicine. That's what it is. It's technically a plant medicine that's gentle, yet oddly powerful, especially when you're drinking it with the right intention and with the right attention giving to it, and it's known for its ability to open the heart. Basically, it helps us release any blocks and connects to that inner source of love and warmth, our own inner source of love and compassion, and I finally took myself along to a cacao ceremony, not really knowing what to expect, if it'd be any good, um, but I just felt that I had to do it. I just felt drawn to it, and I'm not ignoring these subtle feelings lately. I'm remaining open to everything and curious to everything, and it's really always served me everything, and it's really always served me in a strange way. But at this cacao ceremony I had a really amazing experience. Um, I didn't really end up connecting with the people hosting the experience, for reasons I'm not gonna go Sorry for those of you nosy lot, but that didn't really matter to me, because I was just really grateful for the experience that I ended up having, and so much so that I've been investing my time and my brain to learning more about it. So now I can host my own cacao ceremonies, the first of which is happening in a couple of weeks. So any of you local shrewsbury beauties, I'm going to be combining cacao with my passion so yoga and sound meditation, and my aim is to create this really beautiful shared space and experience where we can tap into this inner source of light and love and open ourselves up to this way of thinking and being as we move into the festive season.
Speaker 2:So it's on December 1st, it's the evening on a Sunday, so just in time to tune in to all the good stuff before the craziness of Christmas kind of really sets in. And who doesn't need a bit more compassion in their lives before being in such close proximity to their families over the holidays? Not me, everybody, my family. I love you all dearly and can't wait to spend Christmas with all of you, especially you, mum. If you're listening I know you'll be paranoid. I'm talking about you, I'm not. Can't wait to have you here Christmas day. I love you very much.
Speaker 2:But my theme also for Soul Circle this month is inner light, and I didn't really consciously think about that, but it's all just tied in. My life's a bit spooky at the minute, happening with lots of synchronicities like this, and especially because it's believed that our inner light resides in the heart or flows from the heart. So that has sparked this realisation for me that if we want to lead with the heart, it means staying open even when it feels hard. So today I really want to explore what it really means to stay open and how it can change your life really, starting with something I've learned from Michael Singer. I've spoken about his book a few times the Surrender Experiment Please go and read it.
Speaker 2:Also. The Untethered Soul I'm still working my way through. I say working my way through. It's not difficult to read. I'm reading a few books through. I say working my way through. It's not difficult to read. I'm just I'm reading a few books on the go right now. But do read his books. It really opens up your mind to lots of different things. But I've started listening to his podcast as well and I've learned something from there about the importance of keeping our hearts open no matter what life throws at us, and Michael Singer talks about how vital it is to do this, to keep our hearts open, especially in times of pain or disappointment or frustration. It's so tempting to shut down that area and protect yourself. That's effectively what you're doing.
Speaker 2:But what I've come to learn is that real growth happens when we choose to remain open, because it is in that choice we have to make the choice to rise above and remain open, and this idea has been soaking into every part of me lately. It's like a sponge. And this openness, I've realized, isn't just about the heart. It ties into everything to do with the high vibe guide, everything I'm realizing, again through a different means this year, I've realized I'm just realizing in a different way, linking to stuff that I've already been talking about, to you guys on here about, and it's amazing and fascinating and slightly spooky that I keep coming to these realizations through different avenues. Whether I talk about it simply through mindset and the way we choose our thoughts, or whether I do it through yoga, or whether I do it through my more spiritual practices, it all keeps coming back and looping around and coming back to the same concepts and it's amazing and incredible and incredibly affirming. So it's quite nice. But, like I just said, this openness, it isn't just about the heart, it's about the mind too. I think we always need that balance between our mind and our hearts. So staying open-minded is and open-hearted, they're both just as crucial for personal growth.
Speaker 2:And I've also been listening to another podcast I would highly recommend by noah rachetta, and the podcast is called secular buddhism. So it goes into all of the buddhist philosophies and teachings, but without the beliefs, the more spiritual beliefs, if you like. Well, I say spiritual beliefs. It's the stereotypical meaning of spiritual. You know, people think the soul or God or anything else, but spiritual really is just the meaning you give to life and your connection to what is greater than you, whether that's God or some form of religion, or whether it's the universe, whether it's universal consciousness or whether it's science, whether it's physics, you know, there's so much about the world that we don't know yet.
Speaker 2:It's just limitless. So I really think we need to reframe how we perceive the word spiritual sometimes, but this podcast is fascinating. Um, again, he has a really amazing way of just reiterating these Buddhist teachings, but on such a simple and relatable level. And one thing that he spoke about recently on an episode that I listened to was this story, and it beautifully illustrates this idea of remaining open in your mind. And it's a story of a student going to a teacher and asking to learn how to be enlightened, how to be spiritually enlightened. The teacher says absolutely, come in. Um, ask them if you'd like some tea. Student says yes, please.
Speaker 2:The teacher starts pouring the student some tea, but he keeps pouring until the cup overflows and this goes on for a while and it's all a bit awkward. It's overflowing so much it's now spilling onto the surface and all over the floor. The student finally, confused, says um, are you going to stop pouring tea? It's, it's already full. And the teacher basically says he explains to the student that the cup of the cup that holds the tea is like the student's mind, it's already full. And to truly learn and grow, the student needs to go and empty his cup first, and I thought this was a really good analogy, because how often do we approach life with a full cup? We constantly need to be emptying our cup, I think, enable to be able to learn.
Speaker 2:So when we approach life with assumptions, preconceptions or fixed opinions, these mental habits that we have can block us from learning and experiencing something new. I know I've been incredibly guilty of this fixed mindset, the unwillingness to explore something which I don't understand or makes me feel uncomfortable. It's the ego kicking in, isn't it to protect us? It's that false sense of security keeping us safe to protect us, that's. It's that false sense of security keeping us safe. But when we embrace an open mind, we free ourselves from the grip of the ego that wanting to keep us small and safe because the ego wants control. I know the the ego gets a bad rap and the ego is very important, obviously, in so many ways, but in situations like this, it thrives on certainty and fixed beliefs. And yet when we let go of that control and accept really how little we do know, that's where we create space for magic to happen.
Speaker 2:So staying open-minded means staying curious. It means withholding judgment and letting go of that need to be right all the time, this kind of mindset. It allows us to discover opportunities we didn't even know existed. So there's the things that we do know, the things we don't know, and then there's the things we don't know. And the things that we don't even know, we don't know. Does that make sense? There are things out there you do not know exist that can help you. I can guarantee you that. So it's not about just spiritual growth, I don't think. I think it applies to everyday life and I have a really practical example that we can all relate to.
Speaker 2:So you're driving in your car and imagine you're behind someone that's driving too slowly, just too slowly for you, and notice what your mind immediately does. It immediately goes to judgment. If I let my mind wander off, naturally it would go oh, it must be an old person or something equally unkind. But what if you paused and stayed open? You accept that you obviously do not know everything about this situation. Do not know everything about this situation. Maybe that person is old and they're driving carefully and slowly because they no longer feel as confident, or maybe it's because they have arthritic fingers and they feel the need to be more careful now. Maybe they know their reactions aren't as quick as they used to be, so they feel the need to go slower. Or maybe they're not an old person, maybe they're lost, or maybe there's a passenger in the back seat who needs extra care. Maybe someone's in labor in the back seat and the driver's going slowly to make the journey smoother for them. Or maybe just maybe, whoever that person is, they're simply driving at a pace that feels safe for them.
Speaker 2:When we acknowledge all of these possibilities, I don't know about you, but I really feel the arrogance that we can naturally possess as human beings, myself included. And it's so funny and it's so curious. I think where the mind goes naturally when we just think of ourselves. I think where the mind goes naturally when we just think of ourselves, when the ego is just trying to protect us. And really, who are we to assume that the world is all about us, that people need to act or behave in a certain way to make us feel good, to make our day go smoothly? Who on earth are we to think that Really?
Speaker 2:But when we stay open-minded in moments like this, your whole experience shifts. So instead of irritation, you might feel compassion. You'll most likely feel compassion Instead of being stuck in negativity. You might notice in the moment the beauty that's surrounding you. Maybe you notice how lovely the sky is at that moment. I'm obsessed with the sky at the minute. If my brain was caught up with all the things it used to be caught up on, I would never notice how beautiful the sky is all the time.
Speaker 2:Maybe you notice someone walking down the street on the phone and smiling as you look out the window. Maybe you start a conversation with someone in the car with you, or maybe your train of thought goes somewhere else really positive, all from that moment of compassion and all of these things that your brain could be doing in this moment. It's all due to the fact that your mind is not consumed by negativity towards the person in front of you. And this practice of staying open has that ripple effect, just like compassion, just like kindness. How you act towards another person will then affect the way that they think, the way they feel that day, the beliefs they kind of constantly keep creating which we're always doing and this will affect their whole day and, ultimately, how they then go about acting in that day, how they go about behaving in that day, which will then affect other people and other people, and this will keep rippling outwards and it doesn't stop, regardless of space or time.
Speaker 2:Your one act of compassion that maybe you did 10 years ago could still be in effect today. Well, it will be in effect today, maybe on the other side of the world. How amazing is that concept. And this then shifts how we perceive the world. It allows us to move through life with more compassion, more presence and more curiosity, more presence and more curiosity. So by staying open to what we don't know, by acknowledging that there's this vast universe of knowledge and experiences beyond our current understanding, we start to tap into something truly spectacular.
Speaker 2:So I have a challenge for you this week. I'll be joining you. The next time you find your mind jumping to a conclusion, pause and ask yourself am I truly staying open here? Just watch your thoughts and gently question them. See how, again, it all comes back to awareness. First step of this is awareness of what's currently going on in your mind, and you'll notice that when you lead with an open heart and an open mind, you create so much space for joy, for connection and for growth just to flow into your life and it's in that space that the magic happens. So thank you guys, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for tuning in today. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Maybe you want to share with me a moment where you catch yourself judging or assuming and notice. Just notice what happens when you step back from that thought. What does staying open mean to you? Let's keep this conversation going. My contact information is always in the show notes. I have my Instagram page on there, as well as my email, so feel free to send me a message. I read every single one of them. Thank you to everybody. I really do. Thank you to everybody who gets in touch. I love hearing from you all and I will see you in the next episode. Until then, stay curious, stay open and keep looking for the good stuff. Thanks, guys.
Speaker 1: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 thehighvibeguide. Get in touch. I would love to hear hear from you. Thank you all so much for listening and I'll see you back here next time at the high vibe guide.