I thought going with the flow would work. I was wrong
How taking action becomes a sacred practice
For most of my life I was a proud doer. Taking action was never really a problem for me, nothing to be avoided.
What I didn’t know a few decades ago is that taking action from a place of disconnection compounds over time and it turns action-taking heavy.
It burns you out.
I could suppress my emotions really well and show up. But in the suppressing, I was losing the great gift of action, which is to be in touch with who is actually the doer doing it.
You can move through resistance because you feel it, and in the feeling you identify your tensions, limitations, beliefs. Or you can move through resistance like I was doing before by not feeling it at all and just getting it done.
Same action here.
On both you do take the action. One causes burnout. The other one increases connection with your own essence and leads to self-discovery.
I am still a doer, but I can see the difference, how much more I am integrated with my sense of being, in such a way that being and doing are serving each other, almost as different parts of the same thing.
Charles Freligh, PhD recently shared a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh that illustrates well what I am trying to share with you today:
“The ground for action is to be, and the quality of your being determines the quality of your doing.”
For some time in my life, to get rid of the crazy doer, that woman who had headaches every day, I had to fall into the feeling more, the being....
That was actually part of my healing journey, learning to feel that there was more to life than what my eyes could see. It was moving from “I need to fix this” (the disconnected doer living in the head) to “there is nothing to be fixed, I am just experiencing this” (the deep connected feeler).
In that second phase I moved away from the “I have the solution for the world’s problems” way of being, with my focus constant in the outer world, to maybe there is no problem to be solved at all, very connected to my inner experience.
The doer in me shifted in this second phase... now it was more like do when I felt like doing - feel good, do it; feel bad, take a break.
Nobody was really watching me discover my connection with my body, so showing up in the outer world was becoming more sporadic, more passive, waiting to see what was coming my way instead of engaging more actively.
But I learned that this emotion-led approach was also coming from disconnection and high identification with my feelings, which is not the same as being sensitive.
Fluctuating with emotions is somehow similar to the first version of suppression, but in this case you suppress logic.
You don’t do what you know you should do because you’re so immersed in your emotions and the bad quality thoughts that are being generated that you forget about your vision, your desires.
And instead of going deeper, you stay on the surface.
So you don’t do it.
I was thinking that going with the flow was doing my way or when I “was guided to do”, I was clearly wrong… I misunderstood inner guidance.
Slowly I learned I was being called for more without even knowing what more even meant.
There was a third way. I had no idea it existed.
The Pattern I Had to Break
The doer in me before was operating from suppressing my feelings - being led by my head in the exclusion of my heart.
What I was calling being in my second phase was actually me finding my own heart, learning to operate from that space but still excluding my mind, the powerful doer I had in me before.
In both I was still fragmented. And in both examples real fulfillment could not be found.
My head led me to a successful career in a journey full of body pain, headaches, migraines, dark rooms, need for silence and withdrawing from any connection with the outer world because the pain was too much.
My heart led me to find my passion, my sense of how I was being called to contribute to the world, what made me lose the sense of time, what I would do without charging a penny
But in the second one, if I wasn't willing to include my head and my doer back in the game, I wouldn't be able to do that for too long.
I hit a ceiling and what was once my passion was becoming a drainer.
Without the head, my passion would only occupy the space of a hobby.
This fragmentation isn’t unique to me. I saw this pattern validated in the most unexpected place this week.
I watched an interview with Tony Robbins and Alex Hormozi that validated this so much for me. Tony talks about the art of fulfillment and the science of achievement.
I see it as our ability to honor the head and the heart.
Phil wrote a powerful piece commenting on this interview - I invite you to read more here. Also watch it for yourself, the link is in there, it’s a very good conversation.
In his essay Phil Powis ❤️⚡️ shares:
“The pattern is consistent enough that I’ll stake my credibility on it: how you build becomes how you operate.”
My first business was built from my heart, with very little integration of my mind. That became how I sustained it - mainly heart.
It felt good on the inside, but not as great on the outside.
The very opposite of Alex’s example: I didn’t feel empty inside. But I limited my impact, how much I could help others, and my own ability to create experiences in my life.
Me and him, were both operating from fragmentation.
Now you know the two extremes - head without heart leads to success without joy. Heart without head leads to passion without reach. Both leave you incomplete.
The doer needs to meet the being.
I hope my examples helped you see the power of integration. When I watch someone like Tony Robbins, I see someone who operates beautifully in that integrated space. He achieves fulfillment and extremely high levels of wealth and abundance.
His heart leads his mission, but his mind builds the systems to scale it.
That’s what becomes possible when both work together.
So I invite you to pause and see: where is your system mostly operating from? Head? Heart?
It’s not an overnight shift. But what I can tell you is you can NOW choose to integrate both.
Tim Denning posted a note that translates a form of integration of the heart and mind beautifully:
Your mind is the one who will guide you to do the strategies that work, to work on the structure, to study and understand marketing and sales, to have clarity about your own offer.
Your heart will lead all of it.
You will learn to sell something that truly matters to you, the structure will serve your flow, your essence.
Your marketing will be a mirror of how you feel in your heart. Your heart will help you attract your clients, choose your mentors. I
t will help you confirm who you should be collaborating with, partnering with. It’s a feeling you know in your body but with the clarity in your mind of why you are doing what you are doing and where you want to go.
Integration happens when your heart leads the vision and your mind becomes its sacred partner.
I don’t believe you can fully experience success excluding one or the other.
When I read this note from Dr. Julie Gurner I immediately felt, yeah, do my own thing, that’s what it is.
The being and the doer together pays off.
The game of life gets upgraded. You take action, feel the resistance, do it with all your being, and let go. People can be mad. You're doing your own thing
When Action Shows You Who You’re Not
Through my doing now, I have so much clarity of who I am not.
When you post a strong opinion and feel the fear of judgment - but you post it anyway because you’re connected to serving something bigger than you.
In that moment, you know: you are not the one who fears being judged.
When you reach out personally to someone to share your work and you feel that voice that says “who do you think you are” - but you reach out anyway.
In that moment, you know: you are pure creative energy.
When you record a video knowing people might disagree, knowing you’re exposing yourself - but you do it anyway because your heart is leading.
In that moment, you know: you are not the one who needs people agreeing.
You do it fully and you let go.
You don’t do it for the likes, the recognition, the claps. You don’t even do it to convince others, to show them you have a solution. You just do it for your own process of discovery.
You feel the resistance and the inner experience, and moving through that resistance becomes more interesting to you than whatever people will do with what you shared.
It’s in the action, in the doer now, that you have the opportunity to face the parts of you that keep you protecting, the parts of you that fear your own light.
And here, the being is grounding the doer, and that union is liberation.
You pause, you do it, you feel it, and you let go. Rinse and repeat.
The Body Knows
Like the body. If you don’t have chronic pain or any major health issue, when you’re walking or just sitting down you don’t feel tension or pain. But once you start to move is when you feel your limitations. And once you see it, you can work with them.
You can breathe through them and bring flexibility to a space where rigidity occupies.
In our embodiment class last week, Phil Powis ❤️⚡️ said something that connected so much to this:
When you’re holding a yoga posture and you reach your limit, you intensify tension in your body. You find your physical limit - you can’t open your leg more than that. But instead of leaving the posture, you stay there and you choose the breath.
As you stay and focus on the breath instead of the resistance, with every exhale your body releases a bit more. You gain flexibility. You create space for a more flexible version of you to exist. And because everything is connected, you’re also inviting flexibility to your brain, to your life, to new ways of being.
Same thing in life. If you don’t take action, if you don’t allow yourself to do what needs to be done, what life is putting in front of you, you can’t see the parts of you that block your own essence.