Episode 22 - Navigating Uncertainty in the Workplace: How to Find Your Way with Peace and Ease (Part 2)

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Hello listeners, welcome back to Women's Career Mastery podcast. This is part two of a two-part episode. I'm here with my partner, Christine Samuel, the amazing author of the new book, “The Heart Space, Living with Grace, and Ease in an Era of Uncertainty.” If you haven't listened to the first episode, Or the first part of this series, you want to do that.

If you're going to start with part two, that's fine. But you got to go back to part one and listen, because we split the two episodes based on the book. So, part one of our part one episode is the first part of the book, which is all focused on the head space. And part two, which we're going to listen to right now is all about the heart space.

So, you have to have an understanding of both of them to get the most out of this.

So, if you haven't listened to it, please go back, and listen to it. And you might want to listen to it twice. I know I did. And there's a lot there. It's pretty deep, but it's also very practical. So, we think as you're listening, you're definitely going to be able to relate to what we're saying and to what Christine's trying to share with us from the book.

So, Christine, we're back for another episode and we're talking about the heart space, your favorite place.

I've read the second part and I'm working through the second part, practicing it with my own life and it's amazing what happens. So, I really want the listeners here to get that same feeling of how amazing it can feel when you're coming from the heart space and what a difference it can make in your life and in your career at work, at home. It definitely can help in a big way. And so, I kind of want to jump to the end of the book, just because, there's some profound things that you say there. And then we can kind of work our way back in to the individual chapters on the heart space.

Does that sound okay?

Yeah, sounds good, Laura.

Okay. So, for those of you that listened to part one and the head space. Christine talks about how it's like we get stuck in our heads. Like we get stuck in the thought process and we're, we're cutting up, she uses a metaphor of the knife, we're cutting up our thoughts into tiny little pieces and little things that we get stuck on.

And it's a challenge to be in that space because it's very limiting, it's very finite.

When you step into the heart space, it helps us to look at things in a very different way. And so, Christine, I'm going to let you take over here, and if you could just give us a little bit of a comparison of the two and kind of help us move into the heart space.

I think it's not complete if I don't speak about it from my own personal experience. I can tell one story from the book. So, during my time when I was really felt. Like I need to get out from my career, the toxic environment that I was in, but I didn't know how, and I was so afraid to make a wrong move. I took a break from a meeting, and I went to a park near me.

That's not too far from my house. And it's summer. So, I walk, and I look at the grass. I look at my feet. And for some reason I felt like closing my eyes, so I closed my eyes a little bit, and I walked along the grass. And suddenly it occurred to me that, everywhere I walk, there's always ground that holds my feet.

It's like, I can walk backward, I can decide to go to the left, the right, or walking diagonally, or whatever I decide to do, whatever choice I make on what is my next step, the ground is always there to hold my feet. And I was like, oh my God, because what happened was in my mind, in my, analytical mind I just want to know the direction.

I know I want to be clear. I want to make sure I have; I know 10 steps ahead. It's like when I get to a path where I know nothing, I never done it before. It's like, oh, should I go to the left, or right? Is it going to be right? or wrong. What is the right step? As if I make a wrong step, I can fall to the ground and there's like empty, dark place.

But it's not. That understanding of the ground, it’s always there to hold me, really make me think, well, isn't it that in life, if I look back in my life, there's no wrong move because, I always get to my path. So, from there, I kind of take a look at what else in the heart space.

And for me, my definition of the heart space is a gentle holding place where all our contradictions, our paradox, our feelings can be together and can be as they are so that when we hold it a little longer, a new insight can arise. And what I found is if I at least pause a little bit, if I slow down and I accept the uncomfortable feeling I have, is that I'm actually fine.

So, the more I'm willing to stay in my, disease, like feeling uncomfortable, the more I know actually it's fine. After that, there's always a way. I always have something in me. That I can trust that I can choose the right path. And even if it's not the right path, like it's not going to fall and cannot go back.

Thank you. That really helps to understand it through your experience. And I'll share with the listeners too. I'm following the book with Christine and I'm following it with my life. And it's like this, right? You come against a challenge. I recently came against a challenge.

And my mind went into, here's how I'm going to solution it, to get rid of the pain, right? It was painful. It was a painful challenge, like feeling uncertain, feeling fearful of what might happen. And so, I start to catastrophize it and think, well, what's the worst that could happen here and how would I fix it?

And should I go to the left? Should I go to the right? Should I say this? Should I say that? Like, back and forth and back and forth. And then I, read, I think it was chapter eight or nine. And, I sat with the uncomfortableness. I really did. And I just went about my day knowing, like Christine said, I'm still here. I'm safe. The ground is like, I'm fine. Like there's, it's okay. And then all of a sudden like something emerged and it was a different way of approaching the situation. And it was a much, better way to approach the situation, definitely from the heart, coming from a space of love versus a space of fear.

And it made the whole situation much better for me to deal with and a whole much better for the receiver of it. Right. So, I wasn't in an attack mode. I wasn't in a reactionary mode. I'm coming from a caring or, heartfelt mode. So, it really worked.

And I say this because I hear this from coaching clients a lot, right?

They often ask. The coach, which way should I go? What should I do? My manager said this. I heard this happen. There's been layoff. What should I do? Should I start getting my resume together? Should I start doing this? Should I start doing that? And it really, as the coach have to hold space for them.

Like, sure, we can rattle off a few things, like, dust off your resume, but you want to hold the space for them with that uncomfortable feeling of not sure what to do so that they can come to that, like, peaceful place and that maybe there's a creative solution that they're going to come up with that can help them in that moment.

So that's why we're talking about the book. That's why we're talking about all of this because. We hear this like every day in coaching calls. We hear this all the time, and we want to make a difference here. So, Christine, your work in this space really helps. So maybe let's go to chapter six.

Let's start at the beginning of the heart space. And you have a metaphor. Christine uses metaphors a lot. They're really good. It's the one of the black dot, and maybe this will help explain things. So, I didn't see it at first, but, it was quite interesting. Do you want to share about the black dot?

Yeah.

So this is the metaphor, if you see a blank space with a dot in the middle, and if I ask you, what do you see? I will bet, is a dot or a circle, right? And we basically overlook the space, the blank space, around that tiny little dot. And that's basically the way we see things. We only see things through limitation. So, let's say we see things in front of us.

We don't see the space. We see an object, but around every single object that we see is the space. And the space is what I call the abilities from the heart where you can see those things too.

That was a big realization for me. Like when I opened up the page and you open up the page in the book, you see the black dot. It's right there in front of you. And you're like, why is there a dot on the page? And that's all you see is the black dot. Until you start reading and you realize, oh, she's not trying to show me the black dot.

She's trying to show me that all the space that's around it, that's available, right? Yeah. The other components of life and the ways of sensing and feeling the black dot represents just the finiteness that the mind can only see so much, right? It's just a small portion of what's possible.

And, also, the black dot represents, all our problem, right? When we see a problem, we see challenge. That's what we see. We go around our work. We are in a meeting. What we see is the problem. What we see is like the challenge. What we see is like our fear. What we see is like how things, if not working, right.

And what we see is like, I don't know nothing. And then, this is the thing, right? That kind of seeing is actually what we use all the time for work. What we do at work. We identify problems so we can find solution. That's basically our job, right? So, yeah.

In order to create solution to sell something like a service, you need to identify problem, which is fine, which is part of the analytical thinking. It's useful once in a while. If we know how to use it and not overusing it. So, if we have this habit of always seeing what's lacking, what's missing, then.

That's what we see, that's the habit of seeing that we see, that we don't see other things like all the opportunities around the lethal Black Dot.

So good, there's so much packed in there that. I hope our listeners are understanding that and you can picture the dot and you can picture the focus on the dot and not the focus on everything around. So, let's talk more about what's around the blank space and you talk about in chapter 7, that idea of living in discovery.

Yeah, so when I read that book one thing that's very clear to me, the difference between learning and discovery we love to learn. Like when we want to grow, we learn something new, but if you really see what's behind it, the word learning, the middle of it is earned, like, just like you remove the L, it's become earned.

So, things that you earn is what you learn, right? So, learning is like you're earning something you don't have. You don't know yet, so you have it. Or you have a little bit, you want more, so you earn it. You put an effort on it. But discovery is very different than learning. Discovery is, it's more like uncovering.

It's already there. It's already there like, finding a treasure. The treasure is already under the ground. So, you just have to kind of discover it. Uncover and look around because it's already there. So, it's like when you learn, you learn something, like you don't know it, like it's not there.

And it becomes there, it exists because you learn it, you earn it. But discovery is different. And that's okay, like if you want to learn something, because that's in our professions, we need to learn new skill. But also remember, there's another part of it with this life is discovery.

Life is abundance. And, also, I, I believe, Mental well-being, our well-being, our inner peace is innate within us. Like the way you say, Laura, like, I have something, I feel uncomfortable, I know what, what I feel. I just keep it there gently, and then suddenly I found, a new way that is more caring.

Where did it come from? You don't have to think about it. It's just like, it suddenly, from you, something arises, something that is already there that you discover, right? There are also things, our innate intelligence, our genius, is already there. We just need to be open to see the white space so we can discover it.

Oh, there's something here. Because we doubt those white space. We cannot really see things, like, if you look at the book, and the reason you can read, the words in the book, because there's blank space. So, we can kind of open a little bit and use more like a discovery mindset. Because discovery mindset is related to abundance mindset.

If it's already there, you just need to discover. And the difference is, when you wake up in the morning and think like, I should earn something, I should work hard, I should do this, you wake up with feeling like pressure, you're feeling like, Oh my God, it's another day. I have to do the work.

I have to go to work. Right. But if you wake up and have this, oh, I got to discover something, it's going to be fun, right? There's a feeling of curiosity, playfulness. It's more like, being in a playground where you can discover something in life. Even in your talents at work, you can discover something that You can learn, for example, if you have a challenge to become, a better leader, you have to be in conflict and see how you manage those conflicts so that you can be a better person and given new challenges that can expand yourself and discover what is in you. Way beyond what you know at this point, if you take the limits off of it, like don't limit it to that black dot, don't limit it to what your brain is trying to generate in terms of a solution and just get comfortable in the uncomfortable.

Something else emerges and the discovery basically expands, right? It expands you; it expands opportunities. It creates new ideas for you, how to do something. It's creative. It's just a different way of being. If You think about. every day, every situation is a discovery.

And that was opening for me because my motto was always like, learn something new every day. I'm not going to give that up, but I'm also going to be in discovery mode every day.

Yeah, and there is something about discovery than learning. I mean, I don't say learning is wrong learning is great We still need to learn something new but in discovery what happened is we become more aware of the abundance of the serendipity of resourcefulness of what we're doing.

So like, for example, let's say you move your career up, right? You get promotions. Yes, you you're doing great thing. You, you work really hard, but if you see that it's always other people who are helping you. It's always, you're working with people, you're working and something happens and you, you come to the right place.

Like it's not just you who do things, but also, it's already available around you. So, we can develop more trust. In, in life, rather than, oh, I have to do this, otherwise things not going to happen. I don't say, don't work hard. If you like working hard, that's totally fine. But also trust that it is not just you who do things that make things happen.

Like the story in my book, one day My daughter, who was five years old, at that time, we went to the same park that I with the story before. And there were a flock of birds just flying above us. And so, she noticed that. And then she asked me, Mommy, why is it when the bird fly and they don't flap their wings, but they don't fall. So, I was like, whoa, this is amazing. Like I never, this is like, so like four years old talking about graffiti. And then I look up, I look at the birds. And I just felt like, yeah, and I just realized that, yes, of course, it looks like the bird because of their wings, because their body, they can fly.

But also because of the air, the pressure, the air pressure, holding them up as they glide. And in a way, if we can see the world, our work in a relational way, right? It's, it's, it's all relational. What we do is relational with others. Our success is relational because other people play part in that too.

And when we have that discovery, oh, like, oh wow, this person also helped me. That person also helped me. There's a sense of gratitude as well. Because again, it's already there, right? It's just like, we just need to be there at the right time, the right place. And life works. For us and through us, instead of being a victim and hero mentalities like no Let life works for us and to us as well.

Yes, and there's a part in the book you give us a reflection question So, how can being in discovery alter your perception of uncertainty and change your life? And this was a great question I thought about it and before I even read it, I had a coaching session with a client who was under a lot of uncertainty at work.

There was a lot going on. This individual is doing a really good job of managing it the best that they could, knowing that if X happened, they would do Y. If the company, went to the left, they would go to the right. Like she sort of had a plan for how she was going to tackle like different parts of uncertainty and how things might unfold.

But it was very anxiety ridden, like just living in that state constantly. And so, through discovery, and a coach often takes you through discovery, right? She came to realize that there was certainty within herself. In her own capacity, regardless of what decision was made and what action she took, that she would feel certain in her ability to manage it.

And that's helped to stop all the like scenario-based thinking that was going on. So, she knew. just from the session that there was this inner certainty. So, you're talking about the wind force that holds up the bird or the ground that holds you up. Sometimes it's what we have inside of us too, like knowing we are capable of doing whatever we need to do, or that we've had the strength and the power within us all along.

I think it's important to recognize that.

Yeah, I love what you're saying because we can go back to the black dot again because the black dot is like, oh, I can move this I, I create all the scenarios. I tried to be certain, and with the headspace, we tend to look outside, outside all the situations, but the white space is that inner certainty, right?

Oh, yeah. Like, for me because I'm in technology before, I experienced laid off many times. And, and if I look back, it's always working for the best. For whatever reason. It's scary in the beginning, but it's always working for the best. And the thing about fear is it's just getting us into an automatic mode, right?

It's like habit. It's like it make a jump right away or, or if not, it makes a very like hopeless and then stop thinking. So, like holding that a little bit instead of being reactive, trying to create scenarios, and I love what you're saying about, what is my feeling right now?

Because it's, it's not just about actions, about how we feel, we are human. Sometimes fear also comes with sadness, with grief, with disappointment. And if we are not able to recognize what we feel, how do we know what we need? How do we know to comfort ourselves if we don't know what we feel? So, and then by ability to comfort ourselves, and the way coach do that for the clients.

Help them to discover, give them space to hold them gently and through that, your client could see the inner certainty that she has, which is the, the wide space. Oh yeah. There's wide space around me so I don't have to worry. So that's basically a great practical example about the heart space.

Yeah, I love my coaching clients. Yeah. And you, you also mentioned, which I think is good to follow on with here is like, so we were raised or taught to focus on how to do not how to be. Right? We don't really know how to be. Or that we're taught about the known, not the unknown.

So that's what we're talking about here, right? Like how to manage through that transition from how to do to how to be.

Yeah. And you go to school to learn what is the known, how to be accountant, how to be a HR person, how to be a leader but you don't really to be with the unknown.

And I think in this time of uncertainty that after COVID everything shift, I know everything seems like going back to normal again, but it's shift within us. Like a lot of people feel kind of conflict or Unfulfilled or like nagging of something better than what it is and but doesn't know. So, it is a time where we need to kind of slow down and really pay attention and go to different places in our rooms, in our house, and using other capacities.

For me, one of the reasons I wrote this book is because we never learn to be with uncertainty. Everything that our technology and convenient in the world like we have right now is because it can help us to feel certain, more certain, right? Like, Google map, exactly how long it takes, which, road to take, but in life, in the future, we don't.

And our brain, our analytical only know from the past experience. That's how we learn. We capable to learn because we have a base knowledge of the past, so we can increase our knowledge from what we already know. But the future is something we don't know, right? And now with the AI, I think you and I live through no internet, just TV and then, and phone, cell phone and smartphone and, all this stuff like changing.

And there's nothing in this history that can help us learn what is it like to be living in the. Artificial intelligence age.

Yes, and they're calling this time and all of us generation T So the transformation generation because the transformation that's going on in the world in technology is bigger unprecedented incomprehensible to the human mind so instead of looking at What did we do in the past?

There is no, there is no history to help us through this. It's a, it's a time to discover. It's a time to create, be creative. So instead of thinking about the past or history, or, blaming your corporation for the way they structure something or your, having a, Challenge with your manager or a colleague, look for the white space to see what is it trying to tell you, so that you can make whatever decision you want to make or expand yourself in any other way that, might come to you.

It's not about keep fighting the system or fighting the process. It's changing. The rug is getting pulled out from underneath us every day. The ground is still there, but the rug is getting moved. So, you just have to keep working through this. And if you work through the heart space, it's so much easier and it's so much more fun.

Yeah. And, and one more thing, the brick and the building that we built right now, the system that we built right now the glue, the cement that glue, all the bricks come from a fear based system, that's why sometimes in organization we felt this, We're still living in survival mode, even though it feels like wealth is here or everything that we have everything we need, but the mindset still works in a survival mode, like going up, up, up and never have enough and, and work really hard and , competition spirit.

So, that means if we want to let go fear, we feel uncomfortable with the bricks falling down, but we need to go inside and really take a look at what is, what is within us and listen the way to change outside is just from, from the inside.

Right. So, when the bricks fall down. What do you want to replace it with? Like, what is that, what are you creating there? It becomes a white space. So, what do you want to do with it?

Yeah. And, also, when the bricks falling down outside, you have a better material inside.

So, it's also a paradox, right? The ideas of, yeah, we can be sad, we can get hurt, things are unsafe, we get afraid, but also there's something inside that is not changing, that is stay strong no matter what. And, and I brought in my book A metaphor from, when you see a movie in the cinema and maybe action movie, people got killed or there's some war or whatever it is an action film and your heart's beating fast or you get scared. By the end of the movie, the screen where the film projected is still the same screen. It doesn't change no matter; somebody get killed or somebody get bombed in the movie. The screen is still the same white screen.

So, can we kind of allow both? Because of course things are changing and we feel this, and we feel that and we, we always use our mind or our head or because that's how we used to. But also, by kind of holding that fear and anxiety and feeling overwhelmed a little bit more, then we can realize the white space, the things that inside us will not change no matter what.

It's beautiful, Christine. Yeah. There's a line you have in the book on page 142. And it says by expanding your way of seeing, you get to know that you always have the power to move the mountains. Yeah. And it's true.

Okay. So, we talked about a lot on this episode and There's a lot in the book. I think it's about seven chapters. They're really fast reads. Honestly, I am not the best reader. I prefer to listen, but Christine's audio books in the works, it's not ready yet. So, as I'm reading it, I'm flipping through the pages really quickly.

So, it's a really fast read. And it's the type of book you want to highlight put little, sticky notes on the pages. Cause I know for myself, I'm coming back to refer to certain things that resonated with me, but also in the back of the book towards the end, Christine has a bunch of exercises to help you through all of this.

Right? Like you can basically walk through all the different practices that she discusses in the book. Yeah. Christine, thank you for adding all of that.

Yeah. And, and I just want to. Put something in there. You know, I don't like, I don't, I don't like books or things that say five ways to lose weight or five ways to get into your heart space because there's so many ways.

It's not just five, maybe for me because I experienced it and I found looking back, I can, my brain gets it, oh, I did this, this, and this, and it's effective, but it may not be effective to you. So, what I offer in the book is like, hey, here are the practices, the exercise, just, just try it and experience it yourself and see how you feel about it.

And if you feel good, it feels it's helped you to get closer to your heart, to more like encounter and feel presence and enjoy the presence, then, then do more. Do more of those I even put more reflective questions in that chapter because that's how we learn. That's how, more like organic learning that customized to your own wisdom, to your own, knowing and curiosities and, and insights that comes from you and not from me or somebody else.

And she always gives you at least like three reflection questions. And as you read through each one, you'll say, I can't relate to that, or I can't really, but there's always one that you can relate to. And those are the ones I highlighted as well. Cause again, I'm going to go back and keep asking myself the question so that I can practice more with this.

So, Christine, what else is coming up for you that you want the listeners to know?

I think I; I want to leave with two things. One is this is the hard space way. Learn to live with questions, not answers. What I mean is, in the headspace, the trade of it is we try to learn.

Find conclusion. We want to label things so we can control it. Like when we can label something, it feels like we know it. Right? We can control it. So, we're always looking for answers. And sometimes you cannot have answer right away. Right? Because maybe it's not the right time to get it.

But through the hard space, because it's allowed you to kind of live more and be comfortable more with the unknown holding questions like you walk and you just hold this question without trying to find the answer is going to direct you into more insights that related to that question. So, at the end of the day, you get the answer, but it's not like.

Going straight to your head and going out it become embodied because the answer come from a deeper place So that's one thing and secondly, I invite you to read the book yourself. Please go to Amazon there will be the eBook paper book and Cover book that you can check it and have it in you and then reread it again whenever you need it for our listeners, we'll have links to Christine's book in her website available on the show notes.

Yeah, and if you're not ready to get the book, you can also download a free chapter from my website chapter two, that is at christinesamuel.ca.

Awesome. Thank you, Christine. It was really fun, and I hope we can continue this journey, you and I, in the heart space and we keep working. We have a lot of episodes in the queue, but we wanted to get to this one on the book.

But stay tuned, more great episodes coming with great guests. Thank you, Laura.

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