In today’s episode I interview Carrie Rowan. Carrie is a Certified Mindset Energy Coach and an International Best-Selling Author of Tell A New Story: 5 Simple Steps to Release Your Negative Stories and Bring Joy to Your Life. She is also an award-winning singer and songwriter, a Reiki Master and Host of the popular Podcast, Look for the Good.
Carrie specializes in coaching women who want more from life to go from humming a sad song about their situation to finding their voice and whistling a new upbeat tune as they skip along their journey with joy as the soundtrack of their lives.
From a very young age Carrie was a self-help junkie. She was surrounded by this growing up with her family and developed a profound interest for self-improvement. As she grew up she went into the corporate world for 10 years but found out that it did not fulfill her life. So, she went back to what was her passion as a kid, which is music. Now she finds it very fulfilling to help people find their passion, which in most cases is what we did as kids.
Her next natural step was to write her book, which is based on her deepest personal stories. All the tragedies, good times, trauma, and things that she wished did not happen but did happen are expressed in her book. Through her book she hopes to help people see how she went through all that and what she did to heal.
Accepting Our Stories
We do need to share our experiences and stories but often times we get stuck in repeating them and going through those feelings again and again, making you feel even worse. It’s important that we acknowledge that we can’t change the past or what happened to us, but we can choose to take control of our minds and the way we tell our stories because many times it’s these stories (and the way we tell them and feel about them) what holds us back from achieving what we want in life.
We might be seeing this impact in our physical health or maybe in not accomplishing a goal we have, and we tend to ask why is this happening to me? And many times, we don’t realize it could be these experiences and stories that we can’t let go of and allow ourselves to heal.
All these negative stories like the “woulda, coulda, shouldas” or the “if only” or “shame” type of stories definitely affect our mind, body and spirit because these stories contain a lot of our negative and limiting beliefs from things that happened a long time ago in our lives.
Releasing The Negative Impact of our Stories
Step one for this is get a notebook and start writing down your stories. Once you become aware of your stories you can’t go back. You will start realizing which stories are the ones that are holding you back.
The second step is using the acronym mentioned in the book Tell A New Story: S.T.O.R.Y. which are the 5 steps to follow to release the negative stories in your life:
S: State of Mind – Learn how to manage your state of mind so it doesn’t manage you.
T: True Intention – Understanding that all of our stories have an intention.
O: Outcome – Beginning with the end in mind. Realize how our stories impact others.
R: Reframe – Looking for the good even in your messiest and ugliest stories.
Y: You had the power all along – The power to change our minds has been within us since birth.
As you progress, those stories start to change themselves because you realize that these stories have been holding you back and that maybe you don’t want to keep telling them. And you’ll find yourself pulling back whenever you are telling those stories again, and that is progress right there.
If you really think about it, what is happening in our lives is essentially a repeat of our past experiences until we get enough awareness to realize that we want to change that pattern.
How Energy Balance and Creativity can Help
Spiritual and energetic activities, as well as creative ones can help because it’s all happening in our heads. When we use these tools, our bodies are more capable of releasing that stress related to our negative stories. Whether it’s reiki or meditation or a morning ritual, this will help with balancing your body’s energy and then the mind will follow.
Other activities like singing, journaling, or dancing are also necessary to release the negative impact of our stories. We must allow ourselves to do these and not hold back. When we engage in a creative activity a positive energy flows through our bodies and we get connected to the universe. We spend so much time in our minds worrying about everything, and we need to bring this down to our hearts and celebrate who we are as humans with some joy.
The Power of Gratitude
Our brains are pre-disposed to look for what’s wrong because that’s what has kept us safe through evolution. We need to stop for an upgrade now and start looking for what’s good in our lives. In order to do that we have to re-wire our brains. We have to teach our brains to start noticing what is important to us and feel genuine gratitude for the things that happen in our lives.
It’s really important to understand the science and the physiology behind this. This isn’t just something that sounds good. The science behind it shows that the vibration of gratitude is way higher than other states of being and that if we choose that state on purpose and put our focus on that it can be very healing for our bodies and our minds.
Using Meditation to Release Negative Stories
Meditation and mindfulness can help us have more awareness and train our brains to focus on what we want them to focus on.
There are so many types of meditation, the key is finding one that works for you. By being proactive and meditating every day, the benefits will accumulate over time, just like stress does with the negative impact on our bodies and our minds. And so, you will be more prepared and calmer in the moments of stress.
Remember that this doesn’t have to be overwhelming for you and that you don’t have to start meditating every day for 30 minutes starting tomorrow or start writing all your stories and aim to finish in one day. It’s important that you find a pace that works for you and that you start implementing small changes in your everyday life, because it’s those small daily steps that will lead you down the path of where you really want to be.
If you want to reach out to Carrie and learn how she can help you, please check out her website or her Instagram @carrierowanauthor. You can also check out her book Tell A New Story: 5 Simple Steps to Release Your Negative Stories and Bring Joy to Your Life.
If you want to learn more about my approach on how you can start taking better care of yourself and apply my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol so that you can get back to feeling your best, you may want to start by reading my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.
In this last trip that I made to the Amazon in Peru I took out my notebook and started writing my life story, as part of the R in my SelfC.A.R.E. protocol, which stands for Recovery Activities. I found this experience to be so liberating and it really helped me be more compassionate with myself.
In my book, I also share the quiz I developed to help you identify how stress has affected you specifically by knowing your Stress Type. You can also take this Stress Type Quiz online.
For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), it is best to meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment with me here.
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