Transcript

Brian
Hi, and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. Here we are for episode 97. Ani, how are you?

Ani
Ninety seven, we’re almost to 100.

Brian
Almost there. Wow. It’s gonna be 100.

That’s so cool. Centurians.

Ani
That’s so cool. What are we talking about today, Brian?

Brian
Oh, so today, so this is gonna be kind of fun. We’re talking about moving past the limitation of goal setting to the transformational power of intentions.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
You know, coaches love to set goals.

Ani
They do. Let’s set some goals, Brian. Yeah, and then- But how often do people actually meet the damn goals?

Let’s just be honest about that.

Brian
It’s kind of funny, you know, for years when we have run the module, the class on goal setting in our Somatic Coach Pro training.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
As soon as you say goal setting, people do like, they feel like, oh, you see people kind of shrink away, like, oh, not good. They do that little pukey kind of face. People like, they’re like- They turn green.

I’m gonna do goal goals.

Ani
And they don’t say anything.

Brian
Although some people are like, I like goals. Like, I want to do goals. Other people are like, yeah, goals.

Ani
No, but most of them are not. Most of them hate the word goal, but they don’t say anything at first. But we do do as a part of that class, like, what do you think about the words?

And then finally, people are like, I can’t stand it anymore. I hate the word goal. When I saw we were talking about that today, it was like, I don’t want to talk about that.

And by the way, I love that moment for our students because we do a lot of work around helping people to really tap into their authenticity. And we’ve just been told that we should like goals forever.

Brian
As an achievement-oriented person, it’s like, we’re achievement-oriented. We need to meet our goals.

Ani
If you’re not achievement-oriented, you’re not good enough. You know, like, yeah. So people have a lot of stuff around the G word.

Brian
And then when we ask people about intentions, they’re like, ah, I really love to think intentions.

Ani
I think I had the first class this past year where somebody was like, I hate intentions. I don’t want to talk about intentions. I was like, oh my gosh, that’s a great contrast because usually it’s the opposite.

Brian
How did they feel about goals?

Ani
They liked goals.

Brian
Oh, goals, okay.

Ani
Yeah, it was a really fun conversation because we got to see how different people felt. It’s just a word, like, but it’s a different kind of process. And then when we got to the end of the conversation and we actually showed them the differences, the really cool part was the person who said, I like goals was actually like, actually, I set my goals more like intentions.

So that was funny.

Brian
Yeah, so I thought it’d be fun to talk about the differences between the two. And so goals are good, right? Goals are important.

We just want to say that. So we’re not saying, like, intentions are better than goals. They’re actually both kind of important.

And the way I think about it is that the goals are a foundational step in an understanding of how transformational intentions can be.

Ani
I will totally buy that. I remember as an occupational therapy student in school, I had a whole class on goal setting. And I thought, well, this is going to be the easiest class ever.

And then I would get my goals back from my instructor. They had red ink all over them. And I thought, well, crap.

I mean, I thought this was going to be really easy, but it was hard. And I remember getting to the place where I could really set good goals for my patients. And, you know, on routine.

And I think you’re really right, because sometimes I think some of the holes in the process that we see when people try to create intentions are actually because of that. We’re not often taught really well how to set goals as a foundation.

Brian
Yeah, yeah. And you know, when I think about it too, I had the same experience as a physical therapist student in goal setting. I wasn’t great at setting goals.

I didn’t like writing those soap notes. Soap notes. Yeah, where the other thing is like, I didn’t really understand like all about the soap note.

It took me a long time to figure it out.

Ani
O and A.

Brian
Yeah, it’s all that stuff. And so smart goals I think are good in terms of helping people to dial into exactly, well, how do you actually write or create a good goal?

Ani
Yeah, the SMART goal process actually, I don’t remember learning smart goal process when I was in OT school, by the way.

Brian
No, not in PT school either. That would have been helpful.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
It would have been helpful. I think that’s what they were trying to teach us, but they didn’t give us a framework of how to do it.

Ani
Yeah, that acronym is actually, came after we were in school. But yeah, I agree with you. The smart goal process is really helpful.

Brian
Yeah, so can we just like, maybe just talk about smart goals really quick since we mentioned them for anybody here who is not a SMART goalie.

Ani
Yeah, sure.

Brian
So what do we got? What’s that acronym stand for?

Ani
I’m gonna throw me under the bus.

Brian
Well, so specific, right? So the goal needs to be specific.

Ani
And then measurable. And this is the one I used to really struggle with in school for whatever reason. And then A stands for achievable.

Brian
Achievable, yep, right, yep.

Ani
Which I think is really great.

Brian
Yeah, so again, is it too lofty? Or is it like, can it actually be met sort of thing?

Ani
Yeah, what’s the, the R is the one that I, is it relatable?

Brian
The R is always the one that I miss too. The T is timely, I know that one kind of thing. So it tells you how much I actually set smart goals.

What’s the, I think it’s relatable. Relevant?

Ani
Relevant, that’s what it is, relevant. Duh. Well, I say duh because like obvious, obviously we want it to be relevant, but when you’re first learning how to set goals, that R is really important.

Because it could be easy to miss. That’s actually another one that when I first started setting goals, I would miss sometimes as a therapist because as an occupational therapist, the goal needed to be relevant to the person’s life and what they needed to be able to complete in their lives. And sometimes I just missed the mark on that because I needed them to like, work on range of motion or something, but to make it relevant.

Brian
I think all those parts of it, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely, those are all really important components of creating clarity really for where you wanna go, like a direction you wanna be, how long is it gonna be there? So whether or not we actually meet every one of those metrics that we’re creating a smart goal, I think the, well, I don’t wanna talk about the limitations of goal setting yet because I think there’s distinct limitations, but the good thing about the smart goals is that it gives us some clarity about what we’re trying to achieve. Like, what are we aiming for?

What are we shooting for? Gives us direction.

Ani
Yeah, and it’s a good foundation because different methodologies have you get more nitty gritty and more specific about goal setting in certain ways that you can do that. But the smart goals is just a really solid foundation for goal setting.

Brian
And I think we should all have probably a couple of smart goals that we have at any given time to help us move forward where we wanna go. Now, where I think that goals become limiting is in the gosh darn attachment that we have to the specific parts of the goal.

Ani
Oh, yeah.

Brian
Right? Like, so for instance, I’ve worked with clients where we have the specific thing, it’s measurable, it’s achievable, it’s relational or relative, what do we say? I’ve lost that word again, but I know it’s relevant.

And then, and it’s timely, but they didn’t meet the time part of it. And they just beat themselves up for it. And it’s like, but I didn’t do it in the amount of time that I wanted to do it in and I just failed.

And so there’s, I find with goals is that if as a human, if you’re setting a goal with a person who has issues or challenges with attachment, then the goals actually can become less helpful for people. Because then we’re not actually using it as a motivational way to make, to achieve something different. We’re actually get more attached to the specifics of the goal itself.

And we don’t meet those specifics, we can get really hard on ourselves.

Ani
Yeah, I agree. And I’m thinking that, we’re gonna meet the goal process through the lens of our core limiters, if we don’t understand our core limiters. And so it becomes, goals can become a self-fulfilling limitation process.

Brian
Got you, yeah, exactly.

Ani
So if you’re listening to this and you’ve never been able to meet your goals, you never set timely goals that are like in reasonable time, or you have some kind of something or other going on with your goal setting and or goal achievement process, likely your core limiter is getting in the way. It’s not the goal thing, it’s actually the place you’re coming from from your limitations, because that’s just gonna play out if you don’t understand how that works.

Brian
Yeah, so did you just, I just wanna make sure I heard you correctly. Did you just also say, or did you say in a way that, we actually will set the goal based on our core limiter?

Ani
We certainly can, yeah. For example, if let’s see, if I have a limiting belief and idea perspective that I’m not good enough, that I’m gonna set a goal that the timeframe is actually too short, and I’m not going to be able to achieve it.

Brian
Specifically so you don’t meet that time goal.

Ani
Yeah, because a core limiter when you, a core limiter is a self-fulfilling prophecy that just keeps happening until you know about it and then can start to rewire it. So yeah, even how you set the goal can be framed by your core limiter. Or for example, I might set a goal that really isn’t going to get me where I wanna go because my core limiter is saying, you shouldn’t be doing that.

You should be doing this other thing. I see it happen all the time when people are trying to create their practices and their businesses, because they’ll create goals that really don’t actually move the needle to what they’re trying to achieve. And I think that’s really because their core limiter is speaking to them through their subconscious mind and telling their conscious mind, you should go start a podcast, you should go create a website funnel, you should go whatever business development thing actually isn’t gonna move the needle for them.

So they can have that self-fulfilling prophecy.

Brian
Yeah, interesting. So I also find that or think that one of the limitations of goals themselves is I think they’re oftentimes based not only in attachment, but also in competitiveness. Because think about sports, right?

So like at sport, like almost all the time, the objective of a sport is to score a goal, whether it’s a soccer goal or a field goal or hit a ball into a hole goal or whatever, a basket or whatever it is, right? So there’s always a competitive nature around goals. And I find it when we talk about working with natural law, right?

So natural law is not competitive. Natural law doesn’t compete with anything at all. It doesn’t have to, right?

It’s all creative, it’s not competitive. And those two energies can be at odds with one another, the competitive nature and the creative nature. And again, this goes back to goal setting.

And oftentimes you set goals, we’re the competing against ourselves, we’re competing against someone else, we’re competing against some idea, but we set it as a way to beat or to win something. And that actually, again, that’s not an evil or a bad or a wrong thing. I’m just saying it actually ends up being a limited thing.

Ani
It limits you, yeah.

Brian
Because the universe doesn’t compete.

Ani
Right, it doesn’t go along with the natural laws.

Brian
Right.

Ani
And the goals are very I focused. They’re all about me. And the way that the universal laws operate, there’s this reciprocity and co-collaboration that’s always going on.

And goals are very I focused. They’re only I focused.

Brian
Yeah, so let’s pivot now, since we’re talking about natural laws and there’s other podcasts that we’ve done on natural laws, you can go back and listen to those. That intentions, the transformational power of intention and setting intentions is really woven in with natural law.

Ani
Well, yes, and the way that we do it too, because just to say like different people set different intentions, different ways, but we actually are talking about this compare and contrast between goals and intentions, not just like, I intend to, you know, sometimes people just say intentions, like they’re, I don’t know, talking about what they had for breakfast. Yeah, we’re pretty serious about helping you to create the life that you want to create.

Brian
We’re intentional.

Ani
Through the process.

Brian
Around setting intentions.

Ani
It’s true.

Brian
So with goals, again, goals are good. They get you moving in the direction of creating something or achieving something that you don’t currently have. So I think that that’s beneficial.

And also they’re limited because they’re only gonna get you to the thing that you decided that you set the goal on, which by the way, could be set based on your core limiters and could be coming from a competitive place that if you don’t meet the goals you lose, if you do meet the goals you win, that binary experience of life, that polarized experience of life is actually limiting in itself. Because the truth is, is that the universe wants more for you than you want for yourself. The universe is aware that there’s more for you than you are aware for yourself sort of thing.

So when we move into this idea of intentions, we’re actually tapping into the universe, the universe’s intentions.

Ani
Universal intelligence, yeah.

Brian
Rather than our own local personal goals.

Ani
Which is limited. Our local personal intelligence is limited. Universal intelligence is limitless.

Brian
Limitless, right. So let’s kind of pivot into setting intentions. Like what are the differences between these two things?

Well, I find that goals are oftentimes limited and personal and competitive and there’s attachment associated with them. And intentions, we could say, are transpersonal. They include more than our local selves when we set them.

They’re more expansive than goals are in that way sort of thing. There’s no attachment to them at all and they’re creative, not competitive when we think about kind of setting intentions.

Ani
Yeah, well said.

Brian
So we have a little recipe. We have a little recipe for setting intentions.

Ani
Yeah, we don’t really like to cook food. We love to eat food, but we’re really good about recipes for personal development.

Brian
Right, exactly. So here is a personal recipe, intention, recipe, sort of thing. And as we’re talking about this, you might be like, that kind of sounds like setting a goal.

But there’s little energetic differences here that are really, really important. So step one of setting a transformational intention is to become very clear, very clear about what it is that you truly desire.

Ani
Yep.

Brian
Very clear about that.

Ani
Yep.

Brian
And so how do we do that? How do we go about getting clear about something?

Ani
How do you go about that?

Brian
Well, for me, I do my somatic practices. I loosen up my body, relax the nervous system, relax my nervous system, get into kind of a quiet internal state, as quiet as I can make my internal state, and then just allow, sometimes just allow images to wander through and then see kind of like what’s happening. Might also just ask myself, what is it that I really want?

What would help me experience more peace in my life? What would help me experience more joy in my life? You know, sometimes too, I just like to walk out in nature, connected with nature and just wander around for a while.

And certainly like stay off of devices and that kind of stuff, like disconnect from the technological world and to really say, what is it that I really, really want right now in my life?

Ani
I connect with my soul’s agenda, purpose state, and I just let it arise from there. Yeah. That’s what I do.

Brian
Yeah. So you just kind of check in with the, you get the sensation associated with the purpose state?

Ani
Yeah, so I might be in a place where I’m just experiencing it naturally, like for example, walking out in nature and I notice that I feel it, but if I’m intentionally trying to create intentions, I will intentionally work up my purpose state and get in that flavor and feeling and then the intentions arise from there.

Brian
Because that purpose state is actually one of the ingredients in the process, which you apparently combine kind of those two ingredients together.

Ani
I do.

Brian
To kind of come about to that truly desired experience. Now, it’s also okay, I’ve worked with people before who identify their true desire through contrast.

Ani
Absolutely.

Brian
And that’s good, right? It’s okay to say, hey, this is what I have right now and I don’t like it. And then we’ll say, well.

What do you want? And well, I know I don’t want, I was gonna say I know I don’t want coffee, but I always want coffee.

Ani
You always want coffee.

Brian
I know I don’t want tea. I know I don’t want soda. I know I don’t want a beer.

I know I don’t want alcohol. What do I want? What’s left?

Coffee, sort of thing.

Ani
Yeah, that finding your intention through contrast is something that, well, not only do we have to enlighten a lot of students and clients about because they’ve never heard it done like that before. And it gives a lot of permission. And then they’re like, oh my gosh, I’ve never heard of that before.

Well, I definitely know what I don’t want. Honestly, it’s a process that a lot of times people need some support with because to turn it around to what you do want can be tricky, especially when you’re very identified with what you don’t want in your life. So it can require some coaching.

Brian
Definitely, because the tricky thing is oftentimes people can get attached to and stuck on the thing they don’t want.

Ani
Right, and you won’t hear yourself continuing to say what you don’t want. And you think you’re saying what you do want, but you’re actually still talking about what you don’t want. And you can’t hear yourself because you can’t hear yourself.

You need some support with that. So it’s a key part to potentially get some support with.

Brian
So for some people, it takes a little time actually to filter through a bunch of the internal resistance and internal garbage to even identifying what is it that we really want.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
I mean, and that can take time.

Ani
You gotta upgrade your spam filter.

Brian
So just, we’re just saying like that takes some time. So if that is taking a day, a week, a month for you, that’s okay. Right, but don’t, you know, if you’re getting frustrated with it, just notice that’s just your inner resistance.

That’s what’s happening, but keep working with it to really continue clarifying what is it you really want and to boldly kind of claim that that is important to you. Now, Ani kind of gave us this other ingredient, which is the fuel of our purpose state. And so for us here at the Somatic Coaching Academy, we work with the soul’s agenda, but you might have other purpose processes that you’ve done before that help you to feel.

And again, the way we come at from purpose is a purpose state. So there’s definitely a sensation that’s oriented to your purpose.

Ani
Not an emotion, a sensation. I think that’s a really key difference because a bunch of people who do like intention setting actually tell you that the fuel for your intention is emotion. And I would say that is kind of inaccurate and potentially super misleading.

It’s a sensation. This podcast isn’t about that, but.

Brian
Yeah, well, I think to just circle back to what we were talking about before, is I think oftentimes our emotions can be laden with attachment.

Ani
100%.

Brian
Which is going to thwart our intention setting and then getting what we want to have.

Ani
And then you’ll be the self-fulfilling prophecy of your core limiter, wondering why you can’t do it, blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Brian
Yeah. All right, so there’s another ingredient in setting intentions. And this is bringing in the law of reciprocity, the law of positive reciprocity.

So let’s just talk the law of reciprocity for a moment.

Ani
This one is the biggest one I see missing from all intention and goal setting I’ve ever seen before. And it’s really important.

Brian
To your point, goal setting is a lot of I orientation.

Ani
Correct.

Brian
And so you’re maybe not consciously bringing that in. But for intention setting, you need to bring in, if you want to set transformational intentions, you need to bring in the law of positive reciprocity. So here’s what the law of positive reciprocity says.

You’ve probably heard of this somewhere along the line. Is that basically what you put out in the world, you get back from the world, right? What we sow is what we reap.

And so.

Ani
All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray. Anyway, that’s the wrong one.

Brian
Wrong one, that’s like law of rhythm, but yeah.

Ani
No, no, I was getting to the leaves.

Brian
Anyway, something else, I’ll do that one later.

Ani
Okay.

Brian
All right.

Ani
I’ll bring it along in another time.

Brian
Bring it along later. Okay. So the law of positive reciprocity basically states that when we put out in the world, we get back from the world.

And when we put out positive things to the world or expansive things to the world, then we get expansive things back from the world. And then some people are like, but wait, like there’s somebody or a person or people in my life where I am always like giving, giving, giving, giving, giving my best out. And all I get back is like crap from them all the time.

So does this work? So this is the tricky thing. With the law of reciprocity, what it states is that what you put out in the world, you get back from the world.

If you put something positive out in the world, you get something positive back from the world, but not necessarily from the place that you’re putting it out to. So this goes back to the attachment. If we are attached, if we are attached to something good coming back directly from the place that we put it out to, then we actually will shut off the avenues of good that are coming from the rest of the universe.

Because every individual point, place, thing that we’re putting something out to is a part of the universe. And so if we see everything as an extension of the universe, and we put good out to anywhere in particular, we can get good back from anywhere because it’s all part of the universe. Like for instance, I could be doing really great stuff or putting out really positive stuff for our kids and feel like all I get back from the kids is junk.

But if I’m really attached to, I’m trying to be really nice for them, I’m trying to be a really good parent and all they’re doing is crap and all that kind of stuff, blah, blah, blah, then I’m gonna be attached to that. But if I’m like, but I’m putting really good stuff out to them, but I get really good stuff back from Ani, then I’m like, well, they’re all part of the universe. So I’m all, and I’m part of the universe too.

So I’m interacting with all of it. I see a smile on your face. It sounds like you have something going on in there.

Ani
Yeah, you get good back from me all the time, Brian.

Brian
Okay, that’s all I get. All I get, it’s all good all the time.

Ani
All good. It’s all good. All the time.

Brian
All the time.

Ani
Yeah, this, I’m sparking because it’s the biggest thing that people miss in creating the life that they want and the results that they want is they miss the opportunity for them to have the thing because it’s already in their life, but they can’t see it. And to your point, when we set goals, it’s like we have blinders on. And so the intention actually takes the blinders off so we can see things showing up in different ways, in different direction.

And it makes perfect sense because, can I just like go down a rabbit hole here for a second? Sure. Okay, so it makes perfect sense because everything is energy and energy forms into patterns and we are pattern based beings.

Our brains work on pattern prediction and that’s how we operate is on patterns, right? And so when we want something new in our lives, it’s not gonna come in patterned the way that we’re used to seeing it. It’s actually gonna come in in a different form and function in a different way that we don’t necessarily recognize and see and think, oh, that’s the thing.

And we can work through the process of the natural laws on actually transmuting the stuff that we’re getting in to be the thing that we want when in reality, what we’re transmuting is actually our limiting beliefs and our perception, not actually the thing outside of us. Okay, rabbit hole over.

Brian
That was a great, that was a great download.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
What happens.

Ani
A lot with my clients actually, like recently is this idea of being able to really see the stuff that’s already in your life to help you fulfill what you’re trying to get. It’s already there. And we’ve been working on helping them to recreate their patterning so that they can not only perceive it, but that they can harness that to be able to get the results that they want.

Brian
Yeah, and that’s really actually one of the important foundational processes we work with in our Living with the Laws program too. Like right there, what you just said, like that’s a lot of what we’re doing with people. And we do a lot of this work actually with people too to help them clarify, set intentions that carry them, like, and we work with them all year with these three parts.

Let’s just name those three parts again really quick, right? Get really clear, crystal clear on what it is that you truly desire. What’s the positive reciprocity?

How does that intention serve the universe in a more expansive way and infusing it with your purpose state?

Ani
And the reason I think it’s important to do it with a group like we do in our Laws program is that you get to see how it works for somebody else. And then you can see through the process of watching their process more information about how it works for you because the reality is that most people, it’s not just don’t understand, it’s aren’t aware of, it’s an awareness issue and we can build awareness better in group because I can see something in you that I can’t see in myself. So when I see it work in and within through you, then I can think about myself and reflect differently on my own process.

Brian
Yeah, so when you’re setting these intentions, there’s a couple of just kind of self-reflective questions to ask to say, hey, am I really actually setting a transformational intention or not? And so one of the questions is, do you feel a powerful sense of expansive resonance in your body when you focus on the intention? Does it help you feel more, you have a more expansive sensation going on in your body?

And we don’t even have to call that, you can call it an emotion if you want to, but go deeper than that and just focus on the sensory experience you’re having. Does it feel expansive? So that’s one kind of like a clearing mechanism for, oh, are you checking that box for a yes?

If that’s a yes, then, oh, you’re setting a, that’s one component of a transformational intention. So that’s one of them. The next question is, does this intention offer more life to everyone?

That’s that positive reciprocity bit right there. And if the answer is, or at least, if not to everyone, to more people than you.

Ani
Or to beings or the earth.

Brian
Right.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
And that doesn’t, by the way, mean it excludes you from, right? So we’re not setting up a martyr either because martyrdom is actually not setting an intention either in a powerful way.

Ani
So you’re not trying to take anything from anybody, including yourself.

Brian
Right, because it’s positive reciprocity. So it means you have to include your own reciprocity and your own goodness in there as well as what you’re offering the world. So you have to have both of those.

And that takes a little bit of work to kind of get through. So you’re clarifying it. Does it offer more life to the universe in general?

Let’s just put it that way. That’s really important. So we’ve got that, we’ve got that.

Now here’s a little other thing that I want to make clear to people when we’re saying these things. Because there’s a little hitchy point here. Is are you setting the intention to escape your present circumstances?

Ani
That’s a big one.

Brian
Because if you’re setting the intention to try to escape your present circumstances, then you actually always recreate your present circumstances. So just as an example of that, if you’re, let’s say you’re not bringing in as much money as you’d like every month, and you’re always falling short with your bills, you’re always feeling kind of money strapped, and you set an intention like, well, I, you know, my intention is to have double my money so that I feel better in the world. My kids will benefit and I’m be able to go on vacation, something like that. So that, that’s, I mean, the elements of that aren’t bad for an intention. But where’s it being set from? If it’s being set from you’re trying to get out of a situation, then the energy of that will always just recreate that situation again. So we have a little saying where when we’re setting intentions, we want to accept the present and intend the future. Accept the present and intend a different future. So you have to become very. Yeah, just accepting. And by the way, we say accepting it doesn’t mean we need to like it, but we need to accept it that it’s happening.

Ani
The humbleness to do that.

Brian
Stop fighting against. Stop fighting against what’s currently happening.

Ani
Stop fighting.

Brian
Yeah. You know, so it’s like we accept what’s happening in the present moment, and then we intend something different in the future. That’s like just an important little again, clarifying question around setting those really powerful transformational intentions. Yeah. What other thoughts do you have on intentions, Ani?

Ani
I’m ready to set mine. Let’s go.

Brian
All right.

Ani
No, I. I love this conversation. And it’s one that I’d love to come back to over and over again because I love to come back to my intentions. I also love to hear about other people’s intentions and also really see the light bulbs go off with people when they take this recipe and start to put it into practice because it’s not intuitive based on how we’ve been taught to think about ourselves in the world for a lot of people. And so it does require a little bit of practice, and then they can continue to create these powerful intentions over and over and over again for the rest of their lives.

Brian
Yeah. Yeah. Can I share… Just wrap with a little story of difference in goals and intention settings in my own life?

Ani
Sure.

Brian
So this goes way back. So when I was in middle school. When I was in middle school and… Little Brian with hair. We did, yeah. More hair than I have now. We did… I used to have the beard though.

Ani
That’s scary.

Brian
Yeah. So we had like, whatever, what do you want to be when you grow up Day. And I was like, I wanted to be a teacher. That’s what I wanted to be. Right. Both my parents are teachers. I wanted to be a teacher kind of thing. And I was so excited, I came running home. It’s like, dad, I’m gonna be a teacher. And he said, no, you’re not, because I’m a teacher. And you know, you don’t get respect, you don’t make enough money, like all these things, you’re not going to be a teacher. Go find something else. And I was like a little. I wanted to be a teacher, but I went, found something else and I decided to be a physical therapist, right. And they’re like, good, like you’ll get a job, you’ll get paid, like that kind of stuff. So I went on with the school, although those kinds of things. And then, you know, one of my first jobs out of PT school, you know, was at Craig Hospital and, and I was like 22 years old working at Craig Hospital. And there were people who’ve been working there for like 30 years.

Brian
I mean like, like a long time. Experts in forever, experts in their field. And I had the audacity as a 22 year old to start doing in services to the PT staff on orthopedic stuff because they had a lot of knowledge in neurological rehab, but they weren’t really well versed in orthopedic kind of stuff. And so I would do research and I’d, I’d create these little inservices, you know, things like frozen shoulder and hip replacement. Because sometimes you’d have, you know, actually more than sometimes you’d have people in motor vehicle accidents and climbing accidents and those skiing accidents that have multiple injuries, not just head injuries, but broken bones and all that kind of stuff that didn’t get a lot of attention. And so I started doing in services and it was really cool. And then I got my. My life started to kind of change and grow and I started doing more teaching. And like, long story short, like now I’m basically teaching full time professional development, our programs here at Somatic Coaching Academy, all those kinds of things. And it’s been an amazing journey for me to tote. Now if I had a goal, if I had a goal in seventh grade of being a teacher, right now I’d be teaching biology in middle school, right?

Brian
Cause that would have been what I was attached to as the goal.

Ani
Right. It has to look like this.

Brian
But what I held was an intention that I wanted to teach, and I wasn’t attached to how that necessarily looked. And I knew I wanted to do it in a way that just like when I. When I would teach, like, I could see people’s faces light up and their awareness and we’d ask questions, and, like, the positive reciprocity was kind of there. And for me, it just felt really good to do the research, to come up with something to share another idea, to see those light bulbs go on. And so I held that intention through my whole career. And actually, as a physical therapy and clinical practice, like, one of the things I did a lot with my own patients was educate them. That’s what I. That’s what I love to do, was to do education so that they could actually empower themselves for healing, and they weren’t dependent on me to do it. So education became a through line of everything that I did, from my days working in hospitals to my days running my own clinical practice to the days where we had our wellness center. Like, education was the whole. Like a whole thread through the whole thing.

Brian
And now my intention is kind of flourished into what I get to do every day, which is just absolutely amazing in my life.

Ani
And you could be looking at it going, I’m not a teacher.

Brian
Exactly. Yeah. Or I could have been attached to, you know, teaching 8th grade biology or 7th grade biology or whatever it was, which is what I wanted to do. So. But now I am kind of teaching biology with the physiology. So that’s what happens when you let go of the attachment of how you think it’s supposed to look, and you hold the intention and the universe has open pathways for me to live a life that I just absolutely love and adore so much more than I would have if I would have been a teacher.

Ani
Yeah. The intentions have baked within it the magic of the universe, and that’s what’s so much fun and so cool and works.

Brian
Yeah. So that’s some of the magic of setting those transformational intentions.

Ani
That story, Brian. And that you could teach at the Academy.

Brian
I do.

Ani
So good. Yeah.

Brian
Yep.

Ani
So thanks for joining us for this episode, and we can’t wait to hear about your intentions. And we will see you next week.

Brian
All right, bye.

Ani
Bye.

Brian
Bye. Bye.