EVERYDAY MENTOR

Andrew Gray

Hello Reader

Welcome!

Today I am writing to you from one of my favourite places on Earth.

Lake Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains region of Australia.

I am super excited to bring you today's article. The content below has power to transform you. For real. I have already used this exact wisdom to help thousands of other people experience freedom as a result of applying this in their own life.

"Listen To Your Heart"

If you read that title, and immediately thought of the classic Roxette song, then good for you. If you don't know what on Earth I'm referring to, google it.

When I use the phrase 'listen to your heart' I'm referring to the fact that there are moments in our journey where our heart (soul, emotions, identity, etc) is trying to give us 'hints' about the areas in which it is struggling. Another way to say this is, that our heart is trying to tell us the ways in which we are not yet fully healed or recovered from the various experiences that have harmed us on our journey.

No doubt there are days where it feels more convenient and indeed less painful to just ignore these 'hints' and distract ourselves with the next task that needs our attention. I've done that plenty of times myself.

However, the dual problem with denial mode, is that the pain/trauma/wound/need for growth doesn't go away.

It just gets buried deeper. And secondly, the retention of our infected wound causes sickness to our soul and can stunt future growth.

Through almost 30 years of mentoring, coaching, counselling, developing leaders and deployment of psychology training, I have discovered that there are two significant types of 'heart hints' that exist for everyone:

The first is what I call "Anomaly Moments"

An anomaly is an event that occurs which deviates from the standard or expected action in normal circumstances.

We have anomaly moments in our conversations and interactions with people and places.

Here is an example - Imagine you get invited to a very important event in your industry for the first time. It's a big deal and important people will be there.

As you arrive at the event, you are suddenly confronted with a great sense of overwhelm and a destructive self-talk telling you that you don't belong and are out of your depth. You are strikingly aware that your response is beyond normal nervous excitement. Something is not right. Something on the inside is reacting in an unpredictable way that is outside of your control.

Things worsen when you meet the guest speaker for the event and you break out in sweat and your skin gets blotchy. You are deep in the depths of an 'anomaly moment'

Your heart is giving you hints about something truthful and confronting about who you are, and where you are on your journey.

The hardest and yet wisest thing you can do in this moment and immediately after this moment, is to allow yourself to be intrigued and fascinated by this strange behaviour that came up from inside you without your permission. Why? Because the moment is trying to teach you something.

Your heart is trying to reveal something powerful and potentially transformative to you.

Then (with the help of a trained expert), you need to ask excavation questions such as; Why did I feel that way? Why did those emotions surface in that moment? What was my self-talk like? What other times in my life have I had this response?

At the bottom of such excavation (guided by a skilled practitioner) is a layer of personal growth gold that is difficult to harvest via any other manner.

Why would you waste that gold by leaving it buried deep on the inside???

The second type of 'heart hint' we can experience is 'Self-Talk Patterns'

These hints most often arise in the aftermath of a negative experience, either with people or circumstantially.

For example - You find yourself overlooked for an opportunity or a promotion at work, and beyond the obvious disappointment (which would be normal), your self-talk immediately descends into a destructive downward spiral declaring to yourself "that'd be right. they always pick someone else. it's never me" Or, words to that effect. When this is a pattern, an automatic response, it's probably because our heart is trying to drop us hints that we might have areas of our life that are not fully healed or recovered, and in this instance, still suffering the echos of historic rejection. Maybe?

So, what do you do? Well, the last thing I want you to do in this moment is probably the thing that we all usually do by reflex . . . Push it down as deep as possible, as quickly as possible, so that we don't have to be confronted by the pain, trauma, discomfort, embarrassment etc.

This response is understandable because . . . well . . . who really likes pain and being reminded of difficulty? Nobody really!

However, if we hastily bury this moment and try to consign it to a temporary setback, all we actually do is guarantee ourselves that we will re-visit the same moment and experience again, sooner or later.

The only way to break that painful, repetitive circuit, is to start by shining a truthful light on our response. We must find courage to say "I do feel the way I feel in this moment. I'm tired of lying to myself. Something about this experience is telling me there is a pattern of this type of pain that started somewhere in my life. I need to find out where, when, who & why"

This is our first step to seeing healing and recovery in that arena of our heart. The next step is always to open up and talk. My recommendation is to speak with someone skilled, experienced and with proven results in other people's lives.

These 'heart hints' can be incredible moments in our life if we let them. They can be the moment in our journey where we get unstuck and get growing.

If you need help in some area of your life pertaining to today's topic, reach out to me via reply email so we can discuss what kind of help is available to you.

Everyday Mentor in 2025

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