134. From Grief to Growth: How to Shift from Outer Chaos to Inner Calm

Welcome to Mind Power Meets Mystic. The show where practical mind power and mystical wisdom collide with humor and wild curiosity. Yeah,

we're not here to play it safe. I'm Cinthiav Varkevisser, your resident spiritual shit disturber. I stir things up with mystic power and bold action.

And I'm Michelle Walters, coach and Hypnotherapist. I bring strategy and transformative hypnosis to help you turn subconscious blocks into unstoppable momentum.

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connecting you with your highest self and flipping fear into strength. So

cs for this episode of spring: 2025

Thank you, Michelle, wonderful to be here with you. Thank

helpful to me and to probably: 1000

so in the culture that we live in, there's a collective consciousness, and that consciousness teaches us To relate to the world and bring meaning to it by everything that's out there. So that's what I call being outer referenced. And in this frame of reference, we are taught that we are victims of circumstances, so when something occurs in our life, that's how we see ourselves as being a victim of that circumstance, and in that frame of mind, you don't have any control over anything. You have no power over anything. So pain is inevitable. You're going to experience things in your life that are painful to experience, suffering is an option. It doesn't so it means that it's your choice what your relationship to that external event is, and as long as we believe that we are, the effect of a cause, that we are the victim of a circumstance, then we're lost. We're just swimming in this collective consciousness of being the victim. But there's another way, so if I may, I would like to explain that you have an event that happens out here in your world. That event, by itself, is just an event. It has no meaning, really. It's just the event. It's not positive, negative or neutral. In your mind, you're. Mind brings forward interpretations of that event. It puts a subtitle into the picture, and it defines how you experience that event based on those things in your mind. One is the affect bridge and you mentioned grief. So people have woundings and traumas and pains and griefs in their life that impact them, and they make a story around that. They give it an assignment of positive, negative or neutral, and that the next time something happens similar to that, they overlay what they experienced on to this new event. So you're looking at the event through the lens of all of those things in your life that you bring forward from your subconscious mind, from your unconscious, from the cellular memory, even of the painful experiences you've had. So you're not really seeing the event in relationship to what it really is. You're seeing it through the lens of those experiences. So you're projecting off onto it a meaning. That meaning is is what I call a value judge. So the when the event happens, your subconscious mind and the memories that you project off onto this event set you up for making what I call a value judgment about this event. That value judgment is either positive, negative or neutral, depending on what your affect bridge the woundings that you have that you're bringing forward, puts overlays onto that event, and that sets you up for the subtitle you put under the picture, and so you see that event through that lens.

Can I pause you here to just give it what I think is maybe a, an illustration of this that people might, might, might help people get what you're trying to say, because I've heard you say this a few times. Mm, one of the things I wrote about in my book an alignment of spirit, finding work you love is about finding a job. Because one of the things that happened to me, one of the events that happened to me over and over again in my life, was losing jobs. And in your model, what I'm hearing you say is the the when your company decides to not employ you anymore. That's an event. There's nothing really positive, negative or neutral about it. That's an event like the there's been a decision that you're not going to work there anymore. And then the next piece of it is, okay. What am I How am I going to feel about this? Am I going to feel like, great, I get to do something else or crap. How am I going to pay the mortgage? Is that, is that kind of a good example of what you mean? Or how can you how can you fix that so that it is an example of what you mean?

So, yeah, that's a good example, because tied to you being laid off, you know, it may be just a business decision for that company, but your interpretation of it is that, oh, I'm not worthy. I'm not a good person, or what's wrong with me, you know. So you take, you're putting all of these value judgments onto it that don't really belong there. It's your it's really your relationship to it. So you're either the victim of that circumstance that you can make all those assumptions about, or you're the recipient of an occurrence that's painful, that is grief producing, but it doesn't have to define you. So that's a that's the distinction between being outer and inner. What happens out there is really not a reflection of who you are. Who you are is something you get in touch with within yourself.

That makes sense. That makes sense to me. So tell us a little bit about the different types of feelings that are related to inner and outer referenced.

Oh, I love you for asking that question. This is really important to me. It's really, really important. And I don't know many people who even talk about this subject. So let's go back to this event that occurred, right? And your mind goes through all of these evaluations of that event and gives meaning to it, what I call a value judgment. So in our culture, people think of emotions. And feelings as being the same thing. They confuse and they conflate those two terms. I like to break it down into something. So let's break it down into little segments. Okay? You have this event occur, your mind, consciously or unconsciously, has a thought that assigns a value judgment to that event, and you project that onto the event. So part of that thought, the way it leads to is that event is either good or bad or positive, negative or neutral. And if you assign a value judgment of bad to that event, then that puts you into fear. And that's all a thought. That's what I call the emotion. The emotion is the thought. The feeling attached to that thought is a physiological reaction to the thought that you come up with that you've overlaid onto this event. That physiological reaction is what we call a feeling. Now, true, they're tied together, but the difference is, if you can recognize that the emotion is a thought, you can stop that and redirect it. That's being in a reference you can it's your relationship to that event. So,

so let's walk this through. Let's walk this through for a second with my simple little example, right? Like your company, your company lets you go for whatever reason, right? So the thought that might come after that might be, oh my gosh, I'm not a good employee, and I'm I'm afraid, and I'm unconfident and I'm out of work and I'm scared and what comes next and all that kind of stuff. I think what you're saying is that that those are the thoughts that are resulting from the event of the lost job, and then the feelings are that my heart is pounding and my my hands are sweating, and my, I'm kind of in brain fog, because I don't, I don't know what to do that those are the feelings. And so I think what you're trying to say is that, if you can recognize what's the event, what's the thought, with the emotions, and what are the feelings, the physiological piece that comes after you have an opportunity to fix this middle part, the thoughts and the emotions, that changes how things go from the event to the feelings. Is that right? Fair? Yes.

So you can either. So the thoughts that you have that or what I'm identifying as the emotions being thoughts, it's not only I'm not a good enough employee, but I'm not a good enough person. I am not worthy. And here I am in a position where I depend on the income from this job and I don't have it anymore. What am I going to do? Then you go into safety, survival. How do I live? What am I going to do now? And oh, my God, here goes the mind, you know, spinning around in all circles. So if you get caught up in that, then you're lost, then you are the victim of a circumstance. You can't change the fact you've been fired, but what you can change is all of those thoughts about it. So you can step back and say, okay, it is what it is. What do I do now? And so you can look at your relationship to that whole scenario, and instead of going into fear, you can say, What do I want to create? What is it that I can bring forth from within me that can engage me in the world in a another way. Now, what is my love that? What is my work? My power come from it's not having power over anything. It's about bringing power from within. The power comes from within. Yep, did you step into the energy of that, and then you will be supported by the energy of that, because you're sourcing from a different place. I

utting on at the end of April: 2025

I Yes, back up for just a minute, because I talked about the kind of a feeling that comes up from the thought the Okay, that's the physiological reaction, yes, there are. There's another completely different kind of feeling, and that's going to segue into what you just asked. The other type of feeling comes directly from the heart. Now I don't mean the muscle that pumps blood through your arteries and veins. This is a lot more than that muscle. It's just like your mind is not your brain, your brain is software that your mind programs, right? So your brain is the vehicle that you get into and drive, but it's not so people mistake their brain as being the source of things and when it's not. That's why, in our culture, we have this propensity to medicate everything. You know, if you find the right pill, it's going to solve all your problems. But it doesn't necessarily work that way. So when you have a feeling, and this is the most important thing, I think I had to say, when you have a feeling, pay attention to how that feeling is experienced in your body. If you feel your body constricting and you're getting all uptight, you know that fear, that anxiety, or the survival instinct, the fight or flight, oh my God, what do I do now? If you experience all this constriction and tension in your body, then that's your indication that your feeling, quote, unquote, is coming from the thought you had. That's your emotion that you will relate on to the event. If, on the other hand, you have an experience in your life that triggers all of this stuff. If you can pay attention to your body and either as a soft quality to your feeling about this event, then that's your indication that that feeling is coming from your heart.

It's It's thinking specifically of my own life, and Terry's frozen, so I'm going to comment here. But I once had a job, and my immediate reaction when I was let go was one of, yeah, I'm sharing a little story. Well, while you were frozen, I I once lost a job, and for a day or two after I lost that job, I was I was really very much in the physiological feeling of constricting and worry and pain and the rest of it. And then I kind of like shifted the whole thing. I hated that boss, I hated that job, and I got to the point of going, Wait, I've been released from this place that didn't feel good for me, and now I get to create something new that's going to feel better. And I see this as an example of shifting from that constricting feeling to the expanding feeling of that actually wasn't the right job for me, wasn't a good place for me to be, and the next job I found was much better for me. Let's talk, then Terry, about the how that moves into the the maintaining balance in, in in the culture of we have today.

So if you develop a skill set of paying attention, of what feels, what you're feeling is, if it's constricting, that's and your indication is coming from your mind, it's a thought. Mm. Uh, causing a physiological reaction. If, on the other hand, you're in a situation that is painful, that you're experiencing is painful, but it has a soft quality to it, the quality that's inside of you, you can move to the softness. That's what I call the heart consciousness. That's not the heart that pumps the blood. It's the heart center, or the heart chakras. Someone would look at it as it's an energy center in the core of your being. And if you can recognize the quality of that and move in that direction, you can drop into it and reference from there the heart is a much higher consciousness than the subjective mind. It's even higher than this the subconscious mind, because the subconscious mind just takes the programming is given and it runs you with it. Yeah, that's why hypnosis works, because you can change that programming. But even above that is the wisdom and the knowing of the heart, and I mean the heart center. So that heart center is what brings balance. So there's three aspects, finding balance in the midst of chaos, learning how to be the eye of the hurricane when all this chaos is swirling around you and you're just reeling with all of these things that are creating fear. And in our present circumstances, there's fear all around us. There's people being laid off, losing their jobs. There are people who are scared to death of being able to survive. They're scared to death of having their medical issues taken care of. They're deep into fear, and that becomes a collective fear that we're swimming in. It's the ocean we're swimming in. So how do we find balance in the middle of all of that? The balance comes from developing the skill set of noticing the different types of feelings and moving in the direction of soft. The soft is the heart. So I break this down into three things. When you're knocked off your feet, there's first of all, seeking comfort. Comfort is important as the starting point, because comfort is soothing the nervous system. And if you soothe the nervous system, then you can take a breath, whereas before, it's been putting you into fight or flight or anxiety. So now you can take the breath that brings you to a place of comfort. The next step is peace of mind. That's where you step back and you look at what the mind is doing. You look at what is it's projecting off onto this event. And so you work with not being the victim of the circumstance, but being the recipient of something that's painful, but it doesn't define you, in the words of Wayne Dyer, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. So by changing your thoughts, you're creating a different energy around you that then allows you to step through the the portal to the higher consciousness, to that place inside of your heart, the heart center, or what's deep within you ends up by stepping into that higher consciousness, that's where you find serenity. So serenity is my bottom line. You go from comfort to peace of mind to serenity in the place of serenity, you are the eye of the hurricane.

It sounds like that's your recommendation on how do we, how do we make it through these turbulent times, right? It's my recommendation. Your recommendation? Yeah, so sort of working through, if I, if I can summarize, to sort of work through the process of working first on being comfortable, right? You're not You're not running, you're not fleeing, you're breathing, you're recognizing, you're still alive, you're still here, you're still present. And then moving into peace of mind, just finding a little bit of calmness, yeah, and and trying to take control of your thought pattern, right, right? And then serenity is the like, it's going to be okay. Yeah, right, gonna be okay.

It doesn't affect who I am. It doesn't define who I am. I am, who I am. And if you, if you anchor yourself in the knowing of who you are at the core of your being. It doesn't matter what happens out there, as long as you stay in that. And I have to add a little caveat to that, I think it's really, really important for the collective energy that we swim in the collective consciousness all over this world, humanity in general, the more that we can get to that place, the more we can connect with others who are in that place. And that's going to change whatever happens out there. It's going to affect it in a way that is not going to destroy us. I.

Yeah, I love that i i in my very simplistic way of understanding the wisdom of Terry, I am hearing that I should or or that it will benefit me as well of others, to live in community and to share about these things, to recognize that I'm not an island, right? And and that we're we're in this together, and that if we can move more of our energy into our our hearts, the softness side, that that's the that's the road through, that's the that's the tunnel through the darkness, that's the boat in this, you know, this life boat in the storm, whatever you want to call it, right, right? I adore working with you. Terry. Always have such big thoughts and such helpful thoughts for all of us who are making our way through through these days. Terry, I want to thank you for being on mind power meets mystic. And I want to ask if you have anything you'd like to share with our listeners.

Well, if you're interested in in what I do, or what me and my partner, does we do Grief Recovery workshops once a quarter we I do private practice all the time, working on all of the all of these issues, trying to bring people home to their true self. You can go on to my website, www, dot hoxeta. That's H, O, K, S, E, D, a.com, and you can read about all of this stuff. We're also my wife and I are working on a book. We've been doing this stuff for about 18 years now, and we're working on a book that'll hopefully be out this year. It's called here I am coming home to your true self.

I love it, so put it on your gonna read list, because Terry's book is going to be awesome. Terry's been working with a very cool designer on some cool stuff, and Terry's been presenting around at hypnosis places and other places. And the wisdom of Terry is making its way to the world. And I love, love, love it. Terry, thank you for being a guest on today's episode ofMind Power Meets Mystic, and we welcome and thank you.