Harnessing Mindset to Transform Pain and Cultivate Growth

When life threw a curveball of chronic pain my way, I was brought to my knees—until a shift in mindset became my saving grace. My co-host, Jocelyn Diles, joins me to unravel this personal transformation, and we invite you on a journey to harness the staggering impact that your mindset has on every aspect of life. From navigating societal biases to bolstering self-worth, our beliefs are the architects of our reality. This episode peels back layers of unconscious thought patterns, especially those that disproportionately affect women, and dissects the culture of numbing mechanisms that often hinder our growth. In this episode, we underscore the potential of positive thinking and the beauty of embracing setbacks as invaluable feedback.


Follow Alicia Sierra at:
Website: thealchemicalpriestess.com
Instagram: @alchemicalpriestess
Facebook: @alicia2sierra

Transcript

Alicia: 0:00

Welcome to today's episode of let's Get Intimate with Alicia Sierra and Jocelyn Diles. Today, we are going to be talking about the topic of mindset. What is mindset, why is it important and what are some tips and tricks you can do in order to increase and have a better mindset? So, jocelyn, do you have any ideas about what mindset is?

Jocelyn: 0:31

Yeah, so I love talking about mindset because it's it's a huge thing that I think is a constant practice, right, like, for example, my thumb has been injured and sometimes I, you know, feel a little bit sorry about myself, but is going down that road of it's hurting, it's going to affect me in this, it's going to do this, and then all of the things that come with a journey of being in chronic pain can bring us to a really negative space Versus. If I look at what are the positives here, what have I? What is my experience with this? Where do I know I can go with how I use my mind. Then I can really do something better for myself. But I know you are the expert in this field, and so let's hear more about what you have to say.

Alicia: 1:35

Sure, yes, I've been working on mindset for quite a while, and for those of you out there that don't don't know what mindset is or feel a little bit of confusion, because I know a lot of, there's a lot of definitions going about.

Alicia: 1:52

I'm just going to explain a little bit about what my definition about mindset is. So, for me, mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself, and it influences how people think, feel and behave in any given situation, and all that means is that what you believe about yourself impacts how you are in the world, how you show up, and it impacts your successes or failures. So, for example, if someone's walking down the street and they've been taught all their lives that black people are bad, that they're criminals, they're walking down the street and they watch or see a black person or a minority person or any other type of person that they've just been taught to view in a negative light, they will act in a way that can be negative towards that person because of their perceived beliefs Does that make sense?

Jocelyn: 2:59

It does make sense and actually I think it's also interesting because that affects black people within themselves. Right, when we have that belief that we've been told and taught through media and books and just history that black people are criminals, black people are not as smart as white people, yada, yada, yada. As a black person, that can be affected in the mindset as well. Is that? Is that correct?

Alicia: 3:30

Yes, yes, and it's just an example of how mindset plays a role, and this is more in a general sense. Another example is if you've been taught all your life that you're a bad person and you're unworthy and you will amount to nothing, then guess how that plays out in your everyday world. If you really believe that, then how you show up in the world will reflect that back to you. It will reflect you like if you have failures and it comes from these deep-seated beliefs, then your reality will reflect that right back to you. You will attract that because you won't be able to see opportunities your way because you're so focused on the negative beliefs that you have accepted and have been conditioned to believe.

Jocelyn: 4:24

That's another big one that in ways that mindset can affect people like job-wise money-wise.

Alicia: 4:32

I mean, there's so many, so many examples.

Jocelyn: 4:35

I'm just thinking of the ones that are more common, that we can use as examples, right?

Alicia: 4:42

As women, becoming people pleasers.

Alicia: 4:44

We must be nice, we must be accommodating, we must put ourselves last, because we're taught to take care of everyone else but us.

Alicia: 4:55

That's a big one for a lot of women and that's a really unconscious mindset. So a mindset is also like the belief. It's either like the belief of the glass half full or the glass half empty, and a lot of us unconsciously believe in the glass half empty and it takes effort to get to a place where you're reframing your thoughts and you're changing your thought patterns and becoming more self-aware so you can consciously choose to believe in the glass half full. That is a very big one for a lot of us and as women I feel like we have, even though a lot of women do a lot of inner work. Mindset is a very big part of that inner work. It's very easy to be anxious, especially in today's world where we have so many challenges, there's so many struggles, and it's very easy to let yourself go down the rabbit hole of anxiety and depression and really work to keep those positive thoughts and work on seeing the glass half full and just seeing the world in a positive place.

Jocelyn: 6:19

Yeah, this is so important, especially today, because I think a lot of us are so disconnected from ourselves. We're spending a lot of time looking at screens numbing, and therefore, when we're connected from ourselves, we're disconnected from our thoughts. We don't realize what we're even thinking, we're not even aware of what's going on in our minds, in our heads, and we just, if we hear something or feel something that's uncomfortable, we go straight to the numbing mechanism that works best for us, but we're not actually paying attention. What's going on in there and how can I change it? It's more oh, I know what's going on in there and I want to escape it.

Alicia: 7:04

Yes, escaping is a big thing for us, but one of the things I'm noticing, even for myself, is that what I've observed and realized is that everything in our lives happened because of the choices that we make right, good or bad. There are consequences to choices. So I'm learning to look at my choices and look at the effects of those choices and see, instead of viewing it as failure, view it as feedback and seeing like okay, I made this choice, this is where I'm at. What baby steps can I take to start thinking more positive and to take the baby steps to take the actions that will make that will lead me to a better outcome in the future? So what does that look like For me? That looks like taking a moment and becoming self-aware, like whether it's through journaling, taking time and space away and writing down your thoughts and examining your thoughts Like is it true, I'm a failure? Is it true, am I really a failure? Or is that just the belief you have about yourself? Did someone tell you that? Is that something you're choosing to believe? What if you're not a failure? What if this is just a temporary setback and it's gaining, it's giving you more perspective, is giving you information so that in the future, you're going to have a better outcome, you'll do it differently. So what I do is I take a negative thought and I'll ask myself what if this is just information? What if this is just a temporary setback, and what if there's something better for me that I can't see right now because I'm so stuck in the mud with my emotions. You know so there's so many different techniques, but this is just something simple. It's just examining your thoughts. Most of the time, your thoughts aren't real. Your beliefs aren't real. They're just programming, and the good thing is is that you can reprogram your mind to believe in ways that are gonna empower you and to be way more helpful than to stick to the default programming of believing and responding to your negative thoughts. So there's so many other techniques that we can use to increase our mindset.

Alicia: 9:50

For many of us, we either have a fixed mindset which is very rigid, is very woe is me. It's very. I am stressed, I am anxious, I am confused, I am lost, and unconsciously, we tend to really feel that and we tend to really get stuck by that rather than having a growth mindset which is all about. I want to change, I want more strength, I want composure, I want to be more confident, I want fulfillment. So, instead of seeing the negative of like, oh my God, I'm so anxious, I'm confused, I'm stressed, it's good to reframe it If you're stressed. Well, what is it that you want? I want peace. So at least that's a starting point. And with a starting point you can say well, what does peace look like for me? And you can write down all the ways of what peace is like for you, and then you can see it clearly and take action steps, take baby steps to see if you can get that peace, no matter how hard it is. And what it does is that at least it'll distract you from thinking, oh my God, I'm so stressed. I'm so stressed If you start thinking, all right, I want peace, how do I get peace? And focus on peace? You want to focus on the outcome rather than the state of being that you're in right now. So that's a technique that I like to use and it's very. It's all about reframing. It's about taking the state of where you are and transforming it to the state you want to become, but it more of it is about being focused on the outcome rather than the state of being you are currently in Also, a lot of things in terms of journaling is very good because you get to examine these ideas, you get to examine your belief systems and see how is that working for me?

Alicia: 11:54

I'm anxious and depressed all the time. Why am I depressed and anxious Again? Is this something that? Is there a particular belief that's keeping me stuck? Is it a particular fear? Or can you switch that around and be like, okay, I'm feeling anxious and depressed and I want to feel confident, or I want to feel strength, I want to feel composed and then take action steps to get there, whether it's through self-hypnosis, whether it's through listening to calming music, journaling, doing somatic work, anything to help you shift that state of emotion. Those are some of the ways that you can do. There are other ways that people have also done For me. For the times when I was feeling really anxious and depressed, I used a tool called the Work by Byron Katie. I was the form of self-reflection about my beliefs and judgments about people and situations that I had very strong emotions about. I found Byron Katie's work to be really, really helpful For those people who want a more formal outline of self-reflection. I think her work is really key If people are interested, you can check out theworkcom or ByronKatycom.

Jocelyn: 13:30

Yeah, I love Byron Katie. Her work has been so helpful for me. Could you just give a quick outline of the questions that she has? You ask One of the main ones for me after I've done the work, a lot that I can quickly just ask myself is this true?

Alicia: 13:51

Is this true? Are you sure that this is true? Are you 100% sure that this is the truth? How would you feel if this wasn't true? How would you act? If this was not true? Then you would change a specific sentence around. You say my job sucks. Then you would change it around and just examine this other belief my job doesn't suck. Can you find ways in which your job doesn't suck? Does it provide you with some things that don't suck? It's just a way of self-reflection and it's just a way of analyzing things and analyzing judgments and belief in a way that I feel helps you to grow and it helps you to see certain belief patterns. To me, it's very life-changing because it helps you see things in a very different way and it totally helps you shift your perspective about things.

Jocelyn: 14:59

Yeah, this is great. Great tips, Alicia. What else do we have?

Alicia: 15:03

That's it Okay.

Jocelyn: 15:06

Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us about mindset. Alicia works with businesses and team groups to help shift their mindset to be more positive and work together more efficiently. You can learn more about her in our show notes. Alicia, is there anything else you want to leave us with as we say goodbye?

Alicia: 15:31

No, you can check out my website at yalkchemicalpriestiscom. I look forward to seeing you all in the next episode. Bye.