[00:00:02] Welcome to the Business Miracles podcast. I'm Heather Dominick, founder of www.businessmiracles.com and author of the book Different The Highly Sensitive Leadership Revolution, found at www.differentthebook.com. Since 2010, I've been training Highly Sensitive Entrepreneurs and Leaders from around the globe to work less while making more impact and income by doing things differently. I'm so glad you joined me. Listen in and get ready. Get ready for a shift in the way you view yourself, your work, your life. A business miracle.
[00:00:39] This is A Course in Business Miracles podcast episode 154 Expand Your Mindset. In this podcast episode, I'm sharing how to unravel yourself from the highly sensitive tendency of limited either or thinking so that you can access a both and mindset, instead opening up a whole new world of possibilities and creative solutions.
[00:01:09] The opposite of both/and is either/or. According to Psychology Today, either/or thinking is a cognitive distortion. Please write that phrase down, cognitive distortion, which means distorted thinking, and distorted thinking increases stress and anxiety. Write that down. Distorted thinking increases stress and anxiety. Either/or thinking, also known as all or nothing thinking, is a common cognitive distortion that often happens with people who have issues related to anxiety. For us as highly sensitive entrepreneurs and leaders, this is connected to the coping cycle. Write that down.
When you engage in either/or thinking, you evaluate your life in extreme terms, it's either perfect or a
disaster. This is related to our highly sensitive shadow of perfectionism. Someone who participates in all or nothing either/or thinking might notice the following. Feeling as if you are a failure, having a sense of low self-esteem and confidence, difficulty finding middle ground or thinking of creative solutions, being less likely to take risks, an inability or unwillingness to forgive yourself, trouble asking for help, lack of resilience, less self-compassion, easily lured by outside solutions consistently, otherwise known as bright shiny object syndrome.
Either/or thinking is not bad, or either/or thinking does not mean you are a bad person. Thinking that either/or thinking makes you a bad person is either/or thinking. It's learned behavior as a result of a missed attempt to manage anxiety, which is very common experience for those of us who are highly sensitive. Not being taught at an early age how to work with a nervous system that overstimulates easily and typically quickly.
Either/or thinking is connected to the shadow of overprotection. Either/or thinking is the opposite of your commitment to hatch statement. Please write that down. And if you don't yet have a commitment to hatch statement, no worries. Either/or thinking is the opposite of the process of re-return and re-commitment. I'd like to share some examples of either/or thinking that the team compiled for me that they've either seen or heard in our forum, on check-in calls, or one-on-one calls.
As I share these examples, just take a moment, hand on heart if that's helpful, and what do you honestly recognize for yourself? No right, no wrong, no judgment, just the opportunity for awareness, which is the first step of transformation. So again, what do you honestly recognize for yourself when you hear these examples? Either I do only what I want right now or I'm stuck doing what I don't want forever. Either everything is easy and successful, not challenging, or I'm sad, stuck, stressed, angry, a failure, not having fun, don't know my purpose.
Either I meet my dire need or this program doesn't work. Either I have the money now to invest in additional business miracle support or I can't get more support. Either I focus on inner work or outer work. Either I have time to do the trainings or I have time to do all the real things in my life that are on my plate. Either my life relationships outside business are successful or my business is successful. Either I'm comfortable where I am, where I am at, or I'm pushing, stressing, getting sick in order to get ahead.
Let's take a breath in and let it out. How do we shift from either/or thinking to a both/and mindset. First, we recognize the process of transformation. AUK, awareness, understanding, knowing. That first step, awareness, is the key to begin to shift from either/or to both/and. What we just did as an exercise is that first step, an opportunity of awareness, honest awareness. Oh, I do tend towards that either/or thinking.
Next step, being able to be aware or catch yourself in the moment of either/or thinking, which can often be either/or speaking, meaning the words are so habitually coming out of your mouth before you even realize you're having the thought. Once you're aware, we can go to the next step of shift from either/or to both/and, which is to neutralize, recognizing, as already shared, that either/or thinking comes from a place of anxiety.
So when we catch ourselves in either/or thinking we take a moment, place hand on heart, bring hand six to eight inches from the heart, move it into vertical, find the midpoint, feeling the energy in the palm, and giving the clear command to nervous system and brain, correct neutral now, which then gives us access to the next step of shifting from either/or to both/and, which is to flip the switch. Either/or thinking means that your lid has been flipped. You've had a limbic hijack, you've lost connection to the amygdala. Awareness and then neutralize begins to bring the lid down, giving access to the amygdala, creative solutions and the opportunity to flip the switch.
Now just for fun, I thought I would take some of these examples of either/or thinking that the team compiled for me and I would flip the switch of them in real time, meaning I did not prepare these ahead. So let's see how well I do. Let's look at either I do only what I want right now or I'm stuck doing what I don't want forever. Let's flip the switch. I can both do what I need to do right now and recognize that I am moving forward step by step towards what I want. Flip of the switch.
Next one. Either I have the money now to invest in additional business miracle support or I can't get more support. Flip the switch. I am able to choose that I can both invest in additional business miracles support and learn how to generate more income as a result of that support. Either I have time to do the trainings or I have time to do all the real things in my life on my plate. Flip the switch. I can both be creative in the way I use the trainings and simultaneously take care of the things that are on my plate.
I could both listen to the trainings while I'm taking care of the things on my plate. Next, either I'm comfortable where I'm at or I'm pushing, stressing, getting sick to get ahead. I can both be comfortable with change and get ahead while being healthy. Breath in and let it out. Developing a both/and mindset is a practice. Write that down. Developing a both/and mindset has been proven via research that it is learnable and possible at any age. Write that down. Breath in and let it out.
The next place to go when you're in process with the practice of flipping the switch, and I want to highlight that phrase, when you're in process with the practice of flipping the switch, meaning it's not a one and done, right, we turn on the lights on and off many times throughout a day and throughout multiple days and multiple weeks and multiple months and multiple years. So as you're in process with the practice of flipping the switch, you can do a check-in when you flip the switch and kind of give yourself an energetic rating like the belief transformation tool.
How much do I believe this flip of the switch? Right? Well, I don't believe this flip of the switch at all. This is bullshit. That's the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. Sure I wrote it down, the words came out of my mouth, but I'm going to forget it in two seconds because I don't believe this at all. Then you stay with the process of flipping the switch until you find something that you can be like, "Yeah, you know what? I could consider that possibility. I could consider the possibility that I could both take a certain amount of time on inner work each day and that will support me with how I go about my outer work. Yeah, I could probably believe that." And then that's where we start.
So I was really thinking about this week's training, especially when I was going to my weekly gyrotonics session. And it doesn't matter if you know what gyrotonics is, but it's basically a way to work with your body to retrain the physical habits that the body falls into. So the entire class is all about like, "Oh, you've been moving your body in this way which is causing you knee pain, but you can actually move your body in this way and not have knee pain."
So I have literally been taking these weekly classes, these sessions since 2016. So this goes back to Maria saying five years, and it's amazing how much the body resists changing the way it moves, even though that change will release pain. So I'm in the middle of the class. I'm working on this one area where there's pain and I'm watching my body go like, "No, I do not want to move in that better way. I don't want to do it."
And I have to really just kind of stay with the process and shift the body into that new way. And I can't even count the number of times I've gone back week after week. Body has reverted right back to that old habitual way of moving, even though that's not the best way for my health and wellbeing. So we re-return and we re-return and we re-return, because that is what is going to bring you true transformation, peace, health, abundance and overall wellbeing.
[00:16:18] Thank you for being a part of this Business Miracles podcast episode and for beginning to dip your toe into the journey of highly sensitive leadership training. If you are ready to truly use your sensitivities as strengths in all parts of your work and life, I invite you to connect for a one on one chat. You will experience being deeply listened to and together we'll get a sense of whether the Highly Sensitive Leadership Training Programs are the best next step for you and your highly sensitive journey at this time. Just go to www.claritycall.com to schedule a conversation. We so look forward to connecting with you. Talk to you soon!
