Bonus: Jess Lively

Jess Lively is a podcaster, course maker, and all around badass teacher of getting aligned with your intuition.

Judging by the calls she and I have had together I can tell you this: she lives this out loud and all the way. She’s the genuine artifact.

Listen in this conversation especially for:

• Her insights about “ego vs intuition,” the differences between those two voices in our heads.
• Her tips for how to create a practice of writing to your own intuition.

Enjoy!

Notes from the conversation:

Eat, Pray, Love inspires her to write to her intuition.

Writing to my intuition… I started doing this because a relationship was blowing up in my life, dealing with a breakup. Had to get through the summer in a sane way. So, I started writing to my intuition to get through the summer. “I don’t know what to do next I’m too overwhelmed.“

I read eat pray love and in an early chapter she describes how she used to write questions to herself. She was looking for peaceful answers. So I wrote for the same reasons.

Started writing to get peace out of it. Answers were so consistently peaceful and clear, came from totally different part of me that, I just couldn’t understand where that was from. Asked a fearful question and got a peaceful response.

But the start was just by reading Eat Pray Love and doing what she said. I didn’t overthink it too much.

I used to wait till it was a level 10 freak out. Eventually I got faster at pulling out the letter and doing it before it was a level 10. Now I write about anything, especially things that are special. Usually it’s where there’s a disconnect between my life and what that peaceful voice is like. I choose to ask for clarity.

I start it anytime I notice the disconnect between my thoughts and mood and whether it’s peaceful or joyful. Anytime my thoughts and mood are not peaceful, that’s when I go write because it’ll help me understand the situation and see it from a better perspective.

Peace feels like this: I feel satisfied with my experience in the present moment, like after a good meal. When I’m not in that place I go write to find a way to get back to that place.

It’s not a pendulum. Eckhart Tolle talked about a vertical line. I’m peaceful from this point on. I’m not leaning forwards, I’m not leaning backwards (too much future, too much past). Peace and vertical equilibrium.

BIG DEAL: How she’s self aware about the kind of stuff her ego HAS fixated on. Eating, body image, work and self worth.

I do it gently when I can, but my ego makes it difficult 🙂 I always say ego likes to have a favorite chew toy. My ego is all about relationship right now. When it’s so fixated on that it doesn’t have the bandwidth to focus on the other stuff. Relationship, eating, body image, work + self worth. Fixated on one thing at most.

It’s also the place where you block your own flow so much. Place where you think you need answers before you move on. Whereas everything else you’re just flowing with. Not unconscious, conscious trusting or relaxing. Ego fixates and tries to effort towards a certain direction. How can I translate the faith and the feelings in my career to the other places where I don’t feel so settled right now.

That’s why journaling is not the big fish to fry here. The big fish to fry is: where am I caught up? Where am I unrelaxed, untrusting? Why am I worried about this stuff? What’s the root of it?

CHASE: affirmation might have been one of the most important parts of this to me. A good affirmation has this feeling to it. Working with affirmations has showed me all these weird secret beliefs I didn’t know I had.

What the feeling of peace is like.

David Hawkins power in emotional. We can sometimes think Peace is more like neutrality when, really, Peace is above joy. It’s the only emotion below enlightenment. So I wonder if I’m used to labeling neutrality as peace when really peace has a positive feeling to it.

We’re teaching ourselves or being taught that PEACE IS THE FEAST.

What if you instead of labeling feelings, just notice the dial. I have to pull it down sometimes. Think of it like music notes, finding your natural octave. Finding a comfortable joy. Knowing you can go higher, but keep yourself at a comfortable set point so you don’t fry yourself out. And over time you can move your comfort zone up the scale.

Chase and Jess go way too cosmonaut for a little while

Talking about alignment, noticing when you are vertically aligned, not leaning too far forward, not leaning too far backwards.

Jess’s one big piece of advice:

You have to listen. You have to wait and receive the response. That’s the difference between journaling and writing to intuition. Journaling is “I’m writing my thing.” Intuition is two distinct points of view: my point of view and my intuition’s point of view. Sounds like an interview between two different people, wise and scared. I’m receiving new information, not processing info I’ve already thought before… YOU HAVE TO LISTEN, almost as if you’re listening to someone you don’t know very well but are curious about.

Ego is like a fire hydrant in my ear. But there’s also this water well in my gut (intuition). The well is a peaceful place of knowing. Go to that place in your body outside of your head. It’s like a well. Water is thought; there’s water in the fire hydrant and the well. Fire hydrant is spewing whether I want it or not. Whereas a well, this peaceful stable source of water, you access through lowering a bucket into the well, asking a question, pulling it up, waiting for answer to arise. This is a dialogue. It will overflow, it doesn’t throw/spew at you, it can flood though.

That’s what it feels like to ignore the intuition. Most of us wait till flood mode.

Stay away from yes or no questions too. Ask open ended questions, “what can I learn about this situation? How can I be peaceful right now? How can I see this differently? How yes? How no?” SHOULDING happens all the time here.

Sometimes you can be afraid to hear the answers. “I’m not committing myself to taking the action, I’m just going to have the freedom joy and clarity of asking the question.”

And then ask for more information. When you have those fears — “what about my relationship!? What about my job!??” — those are the times to follow up about those fears. Ask about them now too. Every piece of information is an invitation to learn more. Get more information. You don’t need to leave the writing until you know enough.

Jess’s biggest thing she’s learned:

The biggest thing I’ve learned: I’ve learned to hear both answers, ego and intuition. I have learned how to hear both AND take steps towards my intuition even when my ego is throwing a hissy fit. I can hear both. I allow both voices. They’re both there! So of course I allow it. So much of our experience is the way it is because we’re afraid that one of these voices exists. Ego is always afraid. So, it’s about understanding what the fear of the ego is AND what the clarity and peacefulness of your intuition is, THEN asking yourself “which one are you going to follow?” What I’ve found is the ability to train myself to go into “uncomfortable” situations to the ego understanding the peaceful point of view of the intuition.

It’s like Liz Gilbert at Ted talking to her fear before she gets on stage. “I have to leave you here. We’ll talk about this afterwards, but I have to go do this now and I can’t bring you up there with me.”

Jess mentions this very simple and clear video about 3 journaling techniques to understand yourself better.