Episode 84: Living in Integrity with Your Highest Self

As humans we often find ourselves making choices that go against what we really want for ourselves. This seems nonsensical, but over and over, we find ourselves living out of integrity with our highest selves. We take the easy way. We give up when it gets hard. We back out on our goals. We let our fear get in the way. And this isn’t because we are bad or weak. We’re just being deceived by our own brains.

In this episode, I’ll show you how the only thing keeping you from living the life you want is the negative emotion your own brain creates to stop you. Learn to identify the emotional discomfort created by your brain for what it is so that you can live in integrity with your highest self and get all the things you really want.

Why aren’t we living the way we want to live?

The Way Our Brain Deceives Us

There are two parts to each of us.  There is our brain.  And there is our spirit.  

Your brain is just an organ.  It isn’t you.  It is an organ that has a specific function, solely driven by survival goals. 

The highest part of you, your spirit, is driven by ideals, by love, by the divine within you, by the need to grow and stretch and develop more capacity.  And your brain is constantly trying to override that part of you.  And to do that it plays this game of self-deception.  

And if we are not living the way we want or not acting the way we want, it’s just because are buying the lies our brain is selling us.  We are living out of integrity with that highest part of us, and that feels terrible.  

As soon as we are willing to expose our own brain’s self-deception and tell ourselves the truth then we can start getting what we want.  

So I want you to think about the brain and what tools it has at its disposal.  What power does the brain have?  It can think thoughts.  And those thoughts create a chemical reaction in the body that produces feelings.  That is the power the brain has.  

The tool your brain has is thought and the associated emotion.  And that emotion is ultimately what is keeping you from doing all these things your higher self wants.  In other words, the primary mechanism of the self-deception is your feelings.   Your brain is using your feelings to keep you living the life you want.  

Embracing Emotional Discomfort

When we go to do hard things, or pursue goals or try new things, our brain makes us feel bad and we stop.  We stop to avoid feeling bad.  But what if we didn’t?  That is the key to getting the life you really want.

Remember the goal isn’t to feel good.  The goal is to live in integrity with our highest self.  

When your brain produces negative emotion to get you to stop:

1. First, know that the thoughts your brain produces aren’t inherently true.  They are just designed to produce enough negative emotion to get you to stop and keep you sae.
2. Ask yourself:  What does my highest self want?  Do I want to believe my brain?  My brain wants me to stop, but is that what I really want?  This the place where your highest self gets to choose and move forward toward what you want despite the negative emotion your brain is producing.  
3. Choose to believe different thoughts.  You don’t have to believe anything your brain tells you.  It has its survival goals.  But they are usually not what your highest self wants.

For any of the goals you have, you have to feel the emotional discomfort and the disbelief of your brain—and then you have to decide to believe something else about yourself instead.  And when you stay in belief despite the emotional discomfort your brain kicks up, your goals start delivering.

The point is not to feel good.  The point is to live in integrity with my highest self.  The point is to experience emotional discomfort if necessary in order to make the most of my time here on earth and live in integrity with my highest self.

Your most amazing life is found on the edge of your comfort…where your brain protests and where you highest self beckons you.  That is where you create a life you love, a life you are proud of, the life you came all the way to earth to live.  Don’t give into the deception of emotional discomfort your brain creates to get you to stop going after what you really want.  

Your brain only has one tool.  It thinks thoughts that produces negative emotion.  But you get to believe and you get to act and create the life you want anyway.  And that is the key to getting the most out of this life 

Mentioned on the podcast:

Learn more about Made for More

Terry Warner – The Arbinger Institute; Leadership and Self-Deception; Bonds that Make Us Free 

Simone Grace Seol

To read or download a written transcript of the entire episode, simply click the link below.