Shifting Our Consciousness From Fear To Curiosity

how many of you want to make a positive

impact

or even want to change the world there

certainly seems to be a lot of things

that want to change these days

there’s a reason that the hbo sitcom

silicon valley joked that every app

startup wanted to use their platform

to make the world a better place it’s

funny because it’s true

we have an inherent drive for purpose

and meaning

today i want to tell you about my new

mindset on how i approach

making positive changes in the world

i used to want to cure cancer that’s why

i got my masters in regulatory affairs

and health policy

and at 23 years old why did i choose

such a goal

simply put there was a lot of cancer in

my family

every type and at young ages my uncle

was 27 when he became a victim of cancer

for the first time

it felt pressing it felt like i could

have a direct impact on people that i

loved

at the time i couldn’t think of anything

more important or noble to which i could

dedicate myself

i had made cancer the villain of my life

story

and i was going to heroically fight it

a year into my program my dad got cancer

followed quickly by my mom getting

cancer

my mom survived thankfully

and my dad died in the spring of my last

semester

the traumatizing loss of my father

resulted in my becoming disillusioned

with the medical system

the chemo didn’t help him it hurt him

i felt derailed i had lost my dad

and the collateral damage as i had lost

the inspiration for my career

i decided that i could have a greater

impact on fighting cancer if i focused

on preventative care

i shifted to the natural products

industry and nutrition

i became obsessed with health and

wellness

in a frantic attempt to avoid getting

cancer myself

i actually convinced myself that enough

green juice and crossfit would save me

fast forward a few years i was doing a

workout in a park down the street from

my house

and i got the world’s number one

herbicide near my face

while doing push-ups and i had a

life-threatening allergic reaction

so i looked into it guess what some data

showed was a risk of exposure to that

herbicide

cancer i couldn’t escape it

somehow by trying to avoid getting sick

by being healthy and working out i had

walked right into a huge exposure of a

toxic chemical

i had found a new villain in my story

the chemical companies

i dedicated my life and my career to

shifting the agricultural system away

from toxic chemicals and towards

regenerative agriculture

a few years later i was traveling around

the country giving talks at conferences

on nutrition and toxic chemicals

i was pregnant with my second child

and i didn’t feel good i was sweating

through my clothes every night

having frequent dizzy spells and

experiencing a pretty severe depression

at the time i just thought pregnancy is

weird

turns out however weird pregnancy may or

may not be

there actually was something more

concerning going on

you may be thinking why didn’t i see a

doctor

and the truth is i was in deep denial

and i had managed to bury my concerns

under a thick layer of stretch marks

i had blinders on around the very thing

i was obsessed with

when i was two weeks postpartum i got

diagnosed with cancer

i’m going to hit pause for a second here

this is the audience participation part

of the talk

i want you to take note of the thoughts

and feelings that are moving through you

in this moment

i was 32 with two young boys and i had

cancer

as that lands on you just notice what

you’re thinking about

it landed on me like a thud

i have cancer and it was at that exact

moment

that i woke up what do i mean by wake up

as a part of a leadership training

program at work i’ve become aware of the

concept of victim consciousness

this concept was introduced to me by my

coaches at the conscious leadership

group

and what do i mean by victim

consciousness

it’s the idea that we’re often walking

around with a sense of victimhood

without really realizing it it’s

actually completely normal victimhood is

simply a state of consciousness or a

mindset

it’s a way in which we experience life

as happening to us

we’re at the effect of the world our

parents

our significant others or lack thereof

our children our world leaders our

bosses

our homework our medical diagnoses

anytime we’re living in victimhood we’re

triggered or closed

we want to be right about things to make

us feel like we’re in control

we look around and we see problems that

need solutions

things feel serious serious is cancer

at the conscious leadership group we

call this being below the line

this concept immediately resonated with

me

i took my health seriously and my job

your dad dying when you’re 25 is serious

there’s a reason people say serious as

cancer

and i realized that my whole life seemed

somewhat serious to me

and it was at this moment that i

realized all along through my

whole life and career everything i was

doing working in medicine nutrition

fighting toxic chemical companies i was

doing all of it in large part because of

my fear

and if i’m really honest with myself i

wasn’t just scared

i was terrified

below the line we’re closed we’re

defensive

we’re in a state of threat and the job

of the mind is to scan for threats

to keep us safe it’s honestly how we

stay alive

but when we’re scared we have stress

hormones running through our body and

our brain

we literally aren’t in a brain state

that supports curiosity and openness

and creativity which come in pretty

handy when you’re trying to change big

stuff in the world

and with my cancer diagnosis i started

to realize how much of my life i was

living below the line

a researcher in the 70s named stephen

karpman studied and mapped victim

consciousness

and he identified three different

personas that live below the line

it’s really three different flavors of

victimhood

the victim the villain and the hero

and he calls it the drama triangle the

victim says things like

it’s hard i can’t this isn’t fair

the victim sees a person’s circumstance

or condition

outside of themselves as doing something

to them that causes the victim’s life to

be how it is

in victim we feel powerless

the villain blames the villain says

things like it’s his

fault he did it wrong it blames other

people

the world or you can even blame yourself

by saying things like

i shouldn’t have done that i’m not a

good person

the job of the hero is to seek temporary

relief

and the key word is temporary

the hero wants themselves and others to

always feel okay

so they do or say things to try to

remove tension even if it doesn’t really

solve anything heroes say things like

no i’m fine everything will be okay

don’t worry

it’ll all work out for the best or they

can become martyrs

seeing everyone as victims who need

their help

taking on things for other people at the

expense of themselves

oh well no one else really knows how to

do this work so i’ll just do it all

think back to when i asked you to take

stock of your thoughts and feelings

after i told you about my cancer

diagnosis

what was running through your mind were

you in the drama triangle

maybe you had some villain what’s wrong

with her why didn’t she go see a doctor

sooner

is she an idiot or maybe some hero

we need to help this poor woman

or maybe you had some victim this is

really hard to listen to

or maybe you said something like this is

getting a little intense

i think i’m just gonna tune out for a

minute and

think about my grocery list which is a

way that we hear

ourselves any judgment like why is she

up there trying to get us to feel sorry

for her

these are all examples of below the line

thoughts that we have from the drama

triangle

let’s go back to the moment i found out

about my cancer

i was lying on my side in a medical bed

naked but for a soft and worn out

hospital gown

i was receiving a colonoscopy one that

they couldn’t perform

while i was pregnant and i opted to have

the procedure without any sedation

because i was nursing a newborn

so i was wide awake when the doctor and

the two nurses got

up near the junction of my small and

large intestine

and saw a tangerine-sized tumor

all of a sudden the room got very quiet

and i asked what was going on and nobody

answered

and then when the procedure was complete

my doctor insisted that we wait for my

family members to arrive before we

discussed the findings

over that next hour about a million

thoughts ran through my head

and because the drama triangle concept

was fresh for me

i saw myself doing the drama triangle

dance in real time

i saw myself being the villain blaming

and criticizing the doctor for how he

handled telling me

forcing me to wait and giving me the

silent treatment

i saw myself jump into hero mode with my

family

assuring them that everything would be

fine even though i had

no idea whatsoever if that was true

and i saw myself as a victim

i’m 32 years old i have a 2 year old and

a 2 week old

and i have cancer why me

my awareness soared up it’s like i was

truly seeing myself observing myself for

the first time

and i thought oh i’m in the drama

triangle

and i had learned that there’s actually

nothing wrong with that it’s to be

expected

but all it really means is that i’m just

really really scared

i’m constricted i’m below the line

and i breathed a few breaths of

acceptance for myself

of course i’m scared

and in that moment something shifted

i became aware that fear was running

my entire life i had been denying

literally living in a state of

functional terror

doing things from fear is exhausting

you can never outrun it and when you

ignore it it tends to get louder

it taxes your body and your mind and i

started to see that i let my fear of

cancer drive

everything i did these concepts

completely changed my experience of

getting cancer

i started recognizing when i was playing

the hero villain or victim

and when i became aware i was a victim

consciousness i thought

i’m just scared and that sense of self

acceptance

washed back over me and something new

emerged

rather than believing all my thoughts

and judgments i started getting curious

about them

take for instance the judgment my doctor

should have told me differently

what if the way he told me allowed my

family to provide much more support for

me than i would have been willing to

give to myself

what if instead of being a hero and

trying to remove the tension from my

family

by pretending everything was okay

i chose to see them as people that i can

trust to have their own experience

around my diagnosis

how might i relate to them differently

when i see them as equals

and not people who need my help to be

okay

if instead of saying why me i could open

myself

up to seeing all the ways that getting

cancer wasn’t necessarily something that

happened

to me but how is it true that in many

ways it was actually something that

happened

for me that getting cancer was

supportive

in a lot of ways believe me the list is

actually quite long

i used to worry about getting cancer all

the time and now i have like 20 doctors

that worry about it for me

i didn’t know that i have lynch syndrome

a genetic condition that predisposes me

to many types of cancer

but now i’m rigorously screened every

year as are many of my family members

and we feel a lot safer that we’ll catch

things early

so as a result i worry less

how about the fact that i got cancer at

the exact moment in my life that i was

being monitored by medical professionals

since i was pregnant

so we caught it in time

what if cancer wasn’t a problem for me

but an opportunity

for me to learn and grow and evolve

now i mostly notice how getting sick and

getting a really clear

understanding of the costs of ignoring

symptoms and information from my body

taught me to trust my body and listen to

it well

and i can’t tell you how much that has

served me

now i find myself in deep appreciation

of getting cancer

when i shift out of victim consciousness

i’m

above the line about getting cancer

i’m in creator consciousness i’m in a

state of trust

openness curiosity a brain state that’s

available for learning and creativity

things seem less serious none of this is

to say

that there are not real victims in the

world there

are and this is not to say that

suffering isn’t real

it surely is and

through all of it there’s always a place

where we have some agency

and choice even with all the challenges

that are happening in the world right

now

for each of us the state of our own

consciousness

is actually something that we do have

agency over

to me that is very empowering

i’m still interested in creating change

but i realize that those changes begin

with myself and how i relate to the

world around me

and maybe not so surprisingly now when i

endeavor to create lasting change from

above the line

i’m more creative and i have more

gratitude

i’m not fighting against reality i’m

moving in concert with it

i’m here to tell you that how we relate

to the challenges of the world

is just as important as the changes that

we want to make

this one moment when my doctor told me

the news

has become a catalyst for me

all of this new self-awareness has

inspired me to move away from changing

the world from victim consciousness

i’ve become just as focused on changing

my consciousness

as i am on changing the world and now

when challenges present themselves

rather than seeing them as a problem to

fight against

i reframe things and i wonder what is

the situation here to teach me

rather than seeing everyone and

everything as villains and victims and

playing the hero

i now choose to experience the world

around me from curiosity and openness

i am often still below the line

but now i choose to practice relating to

the world from above the line

i found these concepts and structures

both

challenging and extremely supportive

i found it so life-changing that i

decided to become a coach myself

but i don’t want you to take my word for

it

i want you to test it out for yourself

so when you notice you’re in a

challenging situation ask yourself

am i closed and defensive or am i open

and curious i invite you to try it on

and see what might be here for you

because there was and continues to be a

lot there

for me and i hope that these concepts

support you

and your journeys of creating change too

thank you