Catie Fenn

Transcript

in case you did not realize there is a voice in your head that does not stop talking and this voice has all sorts of preferences opinions and Tiny mad ideas about whether you are okay about whether your life is okay but what if you just stopped listening to this voice completely what if you gave up the illusion of control here's what I learned for sure my mind does not know and the more that I stopped listening to it the more that life became magical and expansive and deeply fulfilling but it wasn't always this way I used to be super stuck in my head I grew

up watching a lot of after school Oprah and so I understood this from a really young age that you are responsible for your life and so ever the over planner and overachiever when I was 16 I wrote out the vision from my perfect future life I was going to be a downtown litigation lawyer I was gonna date a guy who definitely wore a suit I was gonna take trips around the world and I was gonna live downtown by the CN Tower fast forward a few laters I woke up I really was living my dream life but it was soon after realizing the Pinnacle of what

I thought would be my success that I started to get this deep nagging feeling Within Me G tug there's something off here on my long lonely Subway rides home that same feeling would come over me tug tug there's something off here the issue was I had no idea what was off because to my mind everything made sense I actually loved practicing law my relationship was loving and supportive the place that I lived in was beautiful and so because my mind couldn't figure it out it started to spiral and so I did what many of us do when our minds start to spiral and I drank

over it I smoked over it I flirted over it I netflixed over it I worked over it I did everything that I could do over it I allowed myself to get swept up into the spiral of my mind into its infinite chatter about whether I was okay my life was okay it's future tripping to things that hadn't happened it ruminating about things that happened in the past I couldn't find my footing as a result I fell further into the darkness further into the spiral of my own mind encapsulated by it and it was in the darkness of The Narrative of Shame came over what's wrong

with you get over it why can't you figure this out who are you not to be enjoying the life that you have other people would kill for your life you are so privileged so I continue to run for a really long time nobody knowing how I was feeling maintaining a shiny exterior until February 1st 2014. I received the smackdown I woke up in my bed and I was hung over as all hell and it was dark and disgusting as it often is in Toronto and the middle of February and it was in that moment that I heard this soft sweet gentle voice of my heart

come through and it said enough it's time for you to stop running so I hauled my drunk ass into a yoga class and it was there that I finally got still enough to feel and quiet enough to listen and as we were laying in our final pose the teacher said to us don't let fear a future hurt stop you from the inexplicable Joy of being alive and it was in that moment that I felt like my chest exploded because that was the whole issue I was paralyzed by fear fear of the unknown fear of disappointing others fear of admitting to myself that I was a

mess fear that I was moving in a New Direction and I had no idea where I was being pulled and scared to leave a relationship that I had outgrown with an even deeper fear that nobody was going to love me in the same way but it was also in that moment with my chest rising and falling my heart beating that I felt this electricity come over my body and there it was oh the inexplicable Joy of just being alive and it was in that moment as I was laying there feeling the love pulsating through my body I saw the spiral of my thoughts in front

of me I saw that my thoughts were not me my thoughts were just something in front of me which meant that my fears were not me because they were thoughts which meant that my fears were not real I decided that it was time to break up with my mind it was time to let my mind go because my mind did not know in fact my mind had led me to two years A Street spiraling years before of over analyzing over stimulating myself overthinking things over scheduling myself just to take me away from the present moment whereas all the pleasure and all of the love and

all of the joy was living I decided in that moment when I broke up with the mind that I would choose to live in a way that felt expansive and magical and deeply fulfilling by stepping away from the mind the spiral started to dissipate and no longer it was there and all that I had to do was just stop to open my eyes to the Beauty and the magnificence that was in front of me had I just not been aware of it because the spiral of my own mind had been blinding me thank you thank you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.