Balancing Being and Doing for Embodied Success as an Empathpreneur

Catherine A. Wood  00:00

Hello, hello. Welcome back to the prosperous Empath cat here. So it’s kind of wild to think that when you listen to this episode, I will be on my maternity leave learning how to take care of a new baby, my baby, which is wild, so I’m pre recording a whole batch of episodes to air while I’m on maternity leave throughout the fall. And I was thinking about, you know, what do I really want to share with you on the show? Like, what am I wanting to bring more voice and power to and what I noticed that has been really speaking to me is I want to share more about some of the mindset work that I do with clients in the background, like some of the things that I listen for as coach, some of the familiar distinctions that I share with clients, and some of the foundational work that I tend to do with all of my clients, because I want you to have a little more access to some of the power and just the transformation that coaching can open up regardless of wherever you are on your journey. So with that, I’m excited to launch this little mini series, and today’s topic feels like the perfect place to jump in, because it is certainly a topic that I jumped in on during my own coach training journey back in 2014 and it’s something that is also foundational In the work that I establish with new clients, and I can still remember the day that I learned about this distinction during my own coach training days, we were seated in this U shaped fornate formation. We have these two easels holding these large post it pads at the front of the room, and there were these two words displayed at the top of each of these large post it boards, and we were invited to define them. And these words were a bit perplexing at the time, and are increasingly more illuminating, and I am increasingly learning new parts of myself and new ways in which I embody each of these words ever since. So these words are the idea, and these two words have come to represent the essence of my work as a coach and the core of my own journey of healing, growth and transformation, as well as the journeys of so many, if not all, of my clients. And those two words are being and doing. So what does being and doing actually mean? So being and doing represent these two fundamental modes of operation, or ways of being that we all experience and exhibit in our lives, a book that I love by Nicholas Yani. It’s called leader as healer, a new paradigm for 21st century leadership. We’ll drop the link in the show notes. He defines. He defines the distinction between these two as being arises from our receptive, emotional and sensing self while doing describes action directed from the rational, analytical and strategic mind. These two distinct modes have their own unique capacities and competencies, yet they are deeply complementary. Now in an ideal world. Now, in an ideal world, we would utilize being and doing in tandem, and each mode would have equal influence on our perceptual and behavioral processes. And the thing is, is that it’s simply not how most of us operate. Most of us do not operate from this place of generating our our being, our receptive, emotional and sensing self and allowing that to activate. I Haley, I want to edit that last line. Now, in an ideal world, would you. Lies being and doing in tandem, but that’s just often not the case. Whether we’re activated by fear or scarcity or a sense of lack, like we’re not always connected with our being. We’re not always connected with this part of us that is receptive, expansive, emotional and sensing. And when that happens, when the doing of life, the doing of business, overpowers the being and doing balance this duality highlights this existential problem that that we all, that so many of us face we are so hyper focused on solving problems, and not just solving for problems, but we also listen for what problem there is to solve. We’re so hyper focused on ticking items off of our to do list. We’re so hyper focused on overly identifying with our own individual achievements, finding our sense of self, our sense of worthiness, our sense of value that we bring to the world, from what we achieve that our strategic minds have simply taken Over, resulting in this entrepreneurial and corporate environment where doing simply dominates being, and through this hyper focus on doing, we’ve become largely detached as a society from our emotional and sensing selves, thus limiting ourselves by more than half of our innate intelligence as well as The strengths and internal resources that we bring to our work, our businesses and our leadership capacity. Yani adds that this can really constrict our access to this wider field of information and inhibit our capacity to clearly sense and effectively respond to ourselves, one another, and the work of our organizations in these times of ever growing complexity and turbulence, and think about that for a moment, right like if our strategic minds have taken over, then how could we slow down to connect with our own intuition, With our own inner knowing, with their own inner sensing of the appropriate or unique or creative response for us, and by utilizing only one part of our own processing power, it’s as if we’re navigating the world with one hand tied behind our backs, right? Yani calls this operating inside of a narrow bandwidth where we think we think we think and all too rarely do we allow ourselves to feel, to sense or in to it. And something I have really come to appreciate as an ambitious empath is that this hyper focus on doing it can actually affect us even more viscerate. It can actually affect us even more viscerally, because as empaths, we have this extremely reactive neurological system, and research indicates that eye sensitivity affects about 20% of the population, meaning that 20% of the population has this higher and innate predisposition to sense reflect and Intuit on a deeper level than the rest and remaining 80% of the population, and we’re not using and leveraging those gifts. I and I notice through working with clients that this is often just the natural consequence of the grind culture and the hustle mentality and our own sense of internalized capitalism, but we have become so largely disconnected, disassociated and even disembodied from some of our most powerful strengths and some of our greatest assets in our business and our leadership, and oftentimes even in our relationships. Now I have really come to appreciate that. I think online marketers really exploit this, and they take advantage by using these hype marketing techniques and these manipulative tactics that. Leverage behavioral economics and they leverage persuasive language to sell their systems, their courses and their strategies through taking advantage of our own sense of fear or lack, or just promoting this idea that purchasing and simply following what the experts suggest and do will lead to more success. Now, I think that this is just so disheartening to see, and it was certainly my experience getting started in business as well. I fell for one marketing tactic after the next. I spent, gosh, 10s of 1000s of dollars investing in other people’s knowledge or systems or strategies or ways of doing business and just trying to perfect how to do what they were telling me to do, and telling me would make all the difference. And not surprisingly, it it just didn’t work. It didn’t work because I was relying on doing over being. I was relying on trusting other people’s knowledge, other people’s expertise, other people’s systems and strategies and approaches more than my own, more than my own sense of what was authentic and values aligned for me and I have it that this is just a really common experience, this idea that you know, those voices which are louder and more convincing and more persuasive. Can I uh, coincidentally, I find that this often also results in us defaulting to those learned habits of working harder, working longer, trying to solve the problem, and constantly just wrestling with our own sense of fear, our own sense of feeling unsafe, unsafe, unsettled, ungrounded, and something I just really appreciate, and have come to appreciate about fear is that fear is not the blocker. Like as entrepreneurs, we all experience fear because we are all taking on new projects, launching new business ideas that are outside of our comfort zone that we’ve never done before. So naturally, fear is going to show up when we’re taking on anything new. But what blocks us as it pertains to fear is our inability or our unwillingness to actually feel the fear we we prefer to jump into the doing, to jump into action, because that is something we can control, versus slow down and acknowledge and meet our own emotions without condition, without a sense of attachment or this sense of pressure to solve for it. And it can create this sense of relaxation. It can create this sense of acceptance, which can provide just so much clarity and access to creative problem solving and responding and intuition. So how do we balance being and doing entrepreneurship, and how does this actually look with my clients? So this is a place that I often get to, and it can be so exciting when clients realize that the way they have been approaching life, leadership, relationship, business, that they have the way they have been doing things is no longer sustainable for how they Want to experience their life, their relationships, their business. You I think it starts with acknowledging that entrepreneurship is a transformational journey. And I often joke about this, just the idea that entrepreneurship is like the greatest transformational journey that we never really knew we signed up for when we became our own boss. And I think it becomes so much. More manageable when we start to balance being and doing, when we learn how to ground into our being, our sensing, feeling selves, and then process through those limiting thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations that can disconnect us from our own deeper wisdom, our own intuitive knowing, we can, then and often only then, take action from this fundamentally different place. So what does that actually mean? Like grounding in ourselves? What I notice is that when we ground ourselves in our being, it just allows us to tap into our own creative self expression and our own full potential by recognizing the wisdom that we all possess inside of ourselves, we can save time effort and resources. And for me, this really emerged when I embraced a part of my essential being that I had previously judged, and I am talking about embracing my own empathic nature, because I recognize that I would have saved myself countless hours of hustling and endless business investments gone awry. If I had leaned into my own innate superpower of being an empath, sooner, if I had stopped listening to those louder voices than my own, those more Gosh, extroverted, confident, higher pitched voices, I would have made space for the deeper wisdom within me, and I also would have saved myself those just countless hours wait. I so I want to leave you with a handful of practices to support you in connecting with those essential ways of being that are your unique superpowers and your unique gifts, rather than all the ways in which You have come to default in doing. And I want to just start maybe I don’t like that. I I want to leave you with six practices to support you in strengthening this new muscle of balancing being overdoing. And the first one is really simple, and it starts with literally beginning to ask yourself, What’s enough? What is enough today rather than what’s next. Wait, what is enough today rather than what’s next? And I kind of laugh, but I want you to be honest with yourself. I want you to complete whatever is that enough marker for yourself, and then stop for the moment, the hour, the day or the week, and just learned to appreciate the free time, appreciate the spaciousness that you create. Now, one of the consequences of being ambitious is that there’s always going to be more to do. There’s always going to be more on your to do list, more to achieve, more to strive for. And when we can reframe our mindset to what’s enough rather than what’s next, we can unlock and we can step off of the endless hamster wheel that it is to live inside of this achievement. Epidemic, all right. Number two, learn how to enjoy and savor the present moment. I want you to invite yourself to to create opportunities to communicate, consider, creating opportunities to communicate your enjoyment of the present moment. So whether it’s a gratitude practice each morning in your journal, as I do, or perhaps you end the day by sharing three things you appreciated from the day with your partner, as one of my clients does with her husband every night in bed. There is something so valuable in learning how to slow down and pause and appreciate and celebrate and savor the present moment, savor what’s special and what’s unique and what’s magical. It helps you in retraining your mind from a future orientation to a present based one number three is an invitation to focus on the experience of life you want to have, rather than what you want to do. Ask yourself, what’s the experience of your business that you want to have? And then begin creating the conditions in which you allow for yourself to have that experience. So I talk about the experience of joy often, right, like I shared a couple weeks ago on the podcast around my wedding planning and how when I realized that the planning process was not joyful, which was my commitment, that I paused and I really stopped to reflect. Like, what did I need to insert into the planning process, the weekend itinerary, the guest list that would bring more joy? And for me, that was that Polar Plunge on the morning of my wedding. But what is it for you? Like, what do you need to insert into your business so that you can allow yourself more of the experience that you want to have, and probably more of the experience of life that you went into business to create in the first place? Alright. Number four, reflect on who you’re in the process of becoming. Consider answering the question, like, I am a CEO who is in the process of becoming someone who, and then think about the qualities you want to nurture, the values you wish to instill, the integrity you wish to regain, the memories you want to make. This is a much more conscious way of living and creating. It is so much more intentional and purposeful. And I noticed that simply by slowing down to reconnect with your purpose for who you’re becoming or what you are creating, it allows a healthy detachment from the doing, and it allows you to re emphasize and reconnect with the way of being now this is all right number five, grow your joy muscle. Now I know I used that example before, but joy is such a creative. Number five, grow your joy muscle. Consider allowing yourself the experience of enjoying 1% more joy today and each day moving forward, it is one of the most vulnerable and enriching gifts you can provide to yourself. Like think about it. How could you allow 1% more joy in your relationship? How could you excuse me? How could you allow 1% more joy in your business, in your email, sending in how you spend your time, in how you wake up in the morning. It’s such a powerful practice, and I also think it’s just a reminder that growth happens through 1% turns not overnight success, and last but not least, consider getting comfortable with spaciousness. I find that so many of us are incredibly uncomfortable with creating and carving out spaciousness in our lives, not for busying ourselves in social media or obtaining in box zero, but truly in slowing down. It allows us to gain a sense of appreciation and wonder for the beauty that is all around us and capacity. Capacity to really create more of the environment in which we can grow our inner peace, and more of the environment in which we can become who were, who we were meant to. Yuck. Hold on. I want to read that one over. I And number six get uncomfortable and number six get comfortable with spaciousness. I find that so many of us are incredibly uncomfortable with carving out spaciousness in our lives, in our schedule, carving out spaciousness in our communication, right? Just imagine if you didn’t fill every moment with doing, fill every moment with words, fill every moment with busy, busying yourself like what would emerge. It is such a it is such an expansive practice to deepen your sense of appreciation for the beauty that is all around you. I am going to leave it here for today. I hope that you appreciated today’s conversation, and I look forward to seeing you and with that, let’s leave it here for today. I hope you appreciated today’s conversation, and I will see you next week. Bye.