Hey Square Readers,
We’re getting to the real core of The Mountain is You by Brianna Wiest, and so far we’ve talked about why and how self-sabotage happens, how to identify your emotional triggers, and building emotional intelligence.
Now let’s dive into a big chunk of the healing process, releasing the past and building a new future.
Releasing the Past
The author explains that a big reason we feel these complex emotions is because we are holding onto things from our past. Letting go of the past and building a new future go hand in hand.
“We are in pain because though we must change our lives, we are holding onto baggage and debris from the past. As we carry unresolved emotions from day to day, we gradually move our past trauma into our future lives. Releasing the past is a process, and a practice—one that we have to learn… You cannot force yourself to let go, no matter how much you know you want to… You can only move on if you start building something new. You let go when you build a new life so immersive and engaging and exciting, you slowly, over time, forget about the past.”
Getting over our past takes confronting the pain head on, and moving through processing the feelings and events of the past.
“Though you cannot change what happened in the past, by shifting your perspective of it, you can change how you are right now… When your mind is stuck in the past, it isn’t because it wants to return there; it’s because you were impacted far more deeply than you ever realized, and the aftershocks are still rippling through you… We must be brave and confront our discomfort, sit with it even if it churns our stomachs and pinches our faces and makes us certain we will never find a way out. (We will.) We must listen to what’s wrong, feel it, move through it, allow it to be.”
What can help to let go of the past is the realization that the things you lost weren’t right for you and weren’t meant to be.
“What isn’t right for you will never remain in your life… The truth is that what is right for you will come to you and stay with you and won’t stray from you for long. The truth is that when something is right for you, it brings you clarity, and when something is wrong for you, it brings you confusion… We are simply stuck in the assumption that nothing better will replace it, that its absence will open up a well of endless, infinite suffering for which there will be no solution.”
Letting go of the Trauma takes regaining a sense of safety, which is only possible by confronting the very same thing that caused the pain and anxiety.
“Trauma is the experience of disconnecting from a fundamental feeling of safety. Unless you are able to reestablish that connection, a particularly destructive bias distorts your worldview: You become hypersensitive, which means that you will ascribe intent, overthink, overreact, become triggered by innocuous stimuli, personalize neutral situations, and remain in a mental “combat mode.” … Recovery comes down to something very simple, which is restoring the feeling of one’s safety… in the exact area of life that traumatized you.”
The author talks about the ways in which our emotions get physically stored in our bodies when we don’t get a chance to express them. Some of the strategies she discusses to release them are: meditating to feel your emotions, breath scans to release tension in the body, and fully working through your feelings through exercise and crying.
Healing is hard, takes a lot of work, and involves going through the fire in order to build a new life on the other side.
“Healing your mind is completely different, because you aren’t returning to what you were before. You are gutting yourself and becoming someone entirely new… Healing is not a lovely ascension into comfort and wellness to be experienced once and forevermore. Healing yourself is the most uncomfortable, disruptive, important thing you will ever do… Healing is not merely what makes us feel better the fastest. It is building the right life, slowly and over time… Healing is going to change everything, but it has to start with you being willing to feel what you are afraid to feel.”
Building a New Future
After clearing the past, moving forward takes connecting with your potential future self and crafting a vision for your life. Just like you’re the CEO and owner of your business, your most powerful self needs to make managerial decisions for your life.
“You want to clearly envision the most ideal version of yourself so that you know how your own life needs to grow, shift, and change… keep yourself open to whatever this person wants to share with you… Begin to ask yourself: What would the most powerful version of me do right now? What would they do with this day? How would they respond to this challenge? How would they move forward? How would they think? What would they feel?”
The author writes that core ways to lead as your most powerful self are to: be aware of your weaknesses, be willing to be disliked, act on purpose, and do your inner work. Some ways to get through trauma are to: identify the Trauma, self-sooth, reinstate safety, stop taking thoughts and feelings at face value.
“You will need to self-soothe in different ways: meditating, breathing, drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, using aromatherapy, sound therapy, or whatever else works for you. You absolutely must work to take your brain and body physically out of panic/survival mode.”
Validating other people's feelings is really powerful to make them feel heard and that it’s ok to feel things they don’t always understand. This can also help us do the more important act of processing and validating our own feelings.
“When we cannot validate our own feelings, we go on a never-ending quest to try to force others to do it for us, but it never works… This looks like needing attention, affirmation, compliments … being dramatic, negative, and focusing disproportionately on what’s wrong in our lives… [When] we grieve and cry and fall apart, we are going through a process of being reset… We are gutted, but at the same time, feel better when it’s over … you gave yourself permission to feel… And when we learn how to validate ourselves, we become stronger. We see that our emotions are no longer threats, but informants. They show us what we care about, what we want to savor, and what we want to protect.”
A key step to moving forward is adopting Principles to help guide your life and decision making process, and to prevent feeling lost and fearful.
“A principle is a fundamental truth that you can use to build the foundation of your life. A principle is not an opinion or a belief. A principle is a matter of cause and effect. Principles can be personal guidelines… If you don’t have principles, your life is not going to get better. Problems are only going to follow you and get bigger as your life does… The point of having principles is that it shifts you from short-term survival to long-term thriving… You can start working toward goals that support what you do and do not want to experience, that will make you the calmest and happiest version of yourself.”
To find your principles, the author recommends asking yourself:
- What do you value? What do you genuinely care about?
- What feelings do you want to experience in your life?
- What makes you uneasy or gives you anxiety?”
After you’ve identified your principles, it’s time to move on to Finding your Purpose, which can be as simple as being the best version of yourself and living your own best life.
“When you start thinking that you don’t know what to do with your life, what you really mean is that you don’t yet know who you are… Your purpose is, first and foremost, just to be here… The most important thing you can do to live meaningfully is to work on yourself. To consciously become the happiest, kindest, and most gracious version of yourself… Your ultimate purpose is to become the ideal version of yourself… At the end of your life, your purpose will be defined not by how you struggled, what circumstances you were in, or what you were supposed to do, but how you responded in the face of adversity, who you were to the people in your life, and what you did each day that slowly, in its own unique way, changed the course of humanity.”
We’d love to hear your answer in the comments:
- How can you identify and work through the traumas of your past that are holding you back?
- What does your potential future self’s life look like?
- What are your principles for yourself and your business? What is your purpose?
Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
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Happy reading,
Pesso
