For Spence

This is NOT about fixing yourself. You are not broken or crazy; you’ve just been taught to believe that you are and, in turn, to not trust your own voice.

This is about teaching yourself healthy self-reliance – creating your own sense of security, stability, confidence, and self-esteem without repression, self-defeating choices, or trying to survive a white-knuckle lifestyle. The primary goal is learning to recognize when your heart/intuition is talking to you and to trust that. There is no risk. Never do or sacrifice anything you don’t want to – that’s one of the foundational tenets. There is nothing selfish about this practice or its goals; developing these things for yourself enables you to have a positive and constructive impact on others, so it’s the opposite of selfish.

You will be amazed how much using this practice will change your life for the better – even if you don’t make a single external change. Every change that you’ve seen in me came out of this practice, and it required surprisingly little effort, especially when compared to all the other “self-help” things I used in the past. Most of the benefits I’ve experienced weren’t even conscious intentions, just natural outcomes. 

There are no rules, requirements, or restrictions. This is for YOU and no one else, and you are the only one who decides how it’s done. However you do it, that’s the right way. If you decide to do this but frequently miss days, that’s completely fine. Nothing you do with this is a mistake. If you don’t do it at all, that’s just as right. If you try it and want to stop, then stop. It is impossible to fail.

My promise to you: I will never ask you about this or judge you in any way. You’re welcome to talk to me about anything that comes up – you might want some terminology clarified, for instance – but I’m not going to ask. I’m creating this as a gift because it could help with things that you’ve expressed unhappiness about. If it came with strings, expectations, or any sort of potential to disappoint, it wouldn’t be a gift anymore. If this doesn’t appeal to you, then it’s not right for you. Just because I made it doesn’t mean you’re obligated to use it. If it doesn’t appeal to you, or if you try it and it’s just not working for you, then I don’t WANT you to use it. The whole goal of this practice is to empower your voice and your choices, and that wouldn’t be possible if you had to answer to anyone other than yourself about it.

Important to remember: These messages are NEVER about judgement or criticism. You are not broken. Your choices have not been wrong. Every single thing we choose just determines the next opportunity to learn something we need to be happy. Sometimes you’ll read a card and think, “well, I don’t see how it fits but maybe.” That’s when it’s worth keeping in the back of your mind for the day and maybe a while longer; having heard the message might help you notice something that happens that you normally wouldn’t have. Sometimes you’ll read a card and think, “this doesn’t feel at all like the right message for me right now.” Trust that feeling. Choose a different card. That happens so you can learn what “no” feels like in a safe context. The way it feels when your heart says “no” is very different from the way it feels when your mind/fear say “no.”

You remarked on how on-the-nose your messages were. That seems to be how it goes in the beginning: obvious answers with an occasional obvious “doesn’t fit.” As you gain skill and confidence, the subtlety starts to creep in. That’s not something to worry about. If you misinterpret a message, nothing terrible will happen. You’ll more likely just experience a day that gives you confirmation of the actual intent. For that reason, even incorrect conclusions still build up your ability to hear and understand your heart/intuition when it’s speaking. There are NO bad outcomes. If you don’t see the significance of a message at the time, it’ll come around again. If you feel guided to do something that you don’t feel ready to do, don’t do it. The opportunity will keep presenting until you’re ready. The same thing happening over and over is usually an example of this. It’s not because there’s something wrong with you or you’re doing something wrong; it’s just something you’re working on.

Important: fear doesn’t mean you aren’t ready for something. Sometimes it’s about feeling the fear and doing it anyway because we KNOW it’s what our heart wants. Then the outcome confirms we made the best choice. Following our heart doesn’t always silence our mind/fear, but the outcome lessens that fear for the future. You’ll know if you’re feeling fear that you can overcome or if it still feels too big to surmount. There is no wrong choice. There are no mistakes. You aren’t a fuck-up or a jackass or an idiot, and you don’t deserve to be spoken to or about that way, even by yourself.

What follows are some methods that might be helpful. Use as few or as many as you want or ignore them completely. Change it up depending on the day and how you feel. Again, however you choose to do this is the right way. If you try something and don’t like it, stop doing it. In fact, that act of trying something and recognizing that it doesn’t work for you only reinforces the ultimate goal of this practice.

1. Whenever you first pick up your phone for the day, come to this page and pick your card(s). Doing this before scrolling through any other content sets your focus. Anything else you absorb for the rest of the day will come through that filter. Even if all you can do for the day is pick one card and read it, it’ll have a positive influence on everything else. You can also do this multiple times per day, do different cards for different situations, areas of your life, when you want guidance for a particular issue or question, etc.

 2. When you have privacy, listen to the audio for the card. Reading is easier to do without drawing attention, but listening to it will have a different effect and benefit you in additional ways.

3. After listening to the card, use a voice recording app to talk out what you think or feel about the card. Don’t worry – the recording is not to save or share. Your brain handles information differently when you’re speaking instead of thinking. Speaking helps to process; thinking is prone to rumination loops that don’t get you anywhere (think about any rumination loop you’ve experienced. How likely would you be to keep repeating the same sentence if you were talking out loud rather than thinking?). The only purpose for recording is that it activates the part of your brain that involves speaking TO someone, which activates a sense of purpose in what you’re saying and creates neural patterns that’ll help you feel more confident when there’s an actual person instead of a recorder. You can delete the recording immediately after you’ve made it; the process of recording has the same effect regardless. Besides, listening to the recording won’t be helpful if you suspect that you’d second-guess, judge, or criticize yourself. You can also test this theory to make sure it’s right for you: try simply talking out loud (i.e., “talking to yourself”) and then talking to the recording app.

You can evaluate the difference for yourself. If recording while talking ends up triggering anxiety that interferes with free self-expression, then it’s NOT something that you should do. You could try just opening the app and talking to it without recording. Ooh, actually, I just thought of something that might be even better for you: you can use a picture of yourself as a kid and talk to him! Just try different things; you’ll be able to tell which one is best because it’ll be the thing that enables you to feel free to express yourself with little-to-no fear/anxiety. The name of the app I like is “Easy Voice Recorder.” I use it on Android, so I don’t know about iPhone availability, but it’s free, simple, and doesn’t limit the length of recordings. I’m sure there are lots of other things; I think I remember the iPhone OS having an integrated voice memo feature.

Absolutely anything that comes up is fine to say, even if it’s a negative reaction or that you think the message is bullshit (lol). Express every opinion or emotion that comes up. If you think it’s suggesting a change that you don’t want to make, talk about why you don’t want to do it. Give yourself permission to say anything without fear of dismissal, rejection, or punishment. There’s no minimum or maximum amount of reaction and nothing you say is wrong. It also doesn’t matter if you stumble or change your mind while talking. All that matters is that you say what’s true for you, because that’s how you start building recognition of and confidence in your own voice. The more you literally speak up without an audience, the more you’ll start to feel empowered to do that when there’s someone(s) to hear it. 

4. Keep an evidence journal. This can be digital, whatever feels safe to you. Nothing negative goes in the journal. This is only for recording experiences that confirm the validity of this practice. Absolutely anything that occurs that contributes to your confidence and/or faith in yourself should be included. Examples: 

• •  Your heart tells you to do something and your mind reacts with fear. You do the thing anyway and experience an outcome different from or better than the mind feared would happen
  • You voiced a need to the Universe and the need was met
  • You had a dream that gave you an answer and when you followed that guidance, you had a good outcome or resolved an issue
  • A card you choose says exactly what you need to hear, provides guidance you were needing, or answers a question that had been in your mind. Or, you read a message in the morning that didn’t really mean much to you, but during the day (or later) it became applicable and gave you guidance. Even just the experience of choosing a message that’s relevant is another confirmation you can trust your intuition.

5. Keep a gratitude journal. Also can be digital, just a simple note-taking file is enough. Ideally, write down one thing every morning that you’re grateful for. Do the same thing at night, the last thing you do before you go to sleep.

6. Use affirmations. Every card includes a positive statement about yourself. Throughout the day, write that statement as many times as you have the opportunity to do so. Paper/pen or digital works. You can text it to me, if you want; I would love to hear it. At least once, speak it aloud with the recording app. Again, you can delete these, although you might like having many affirmations in your own voice to listen to when you’re feeling down. If you’re currently in the habit of listening to things while you fall asleep, the affirmations would be great for that. There are also a lot of YouTube videos available that are great to use while sleeping. Search “binaural beats sleep affirmations” – quality varies considerably, so you’ll have to try them out to find what works for you. Don’t feel like you “should” listen to anything in particular. If you don’t like it, know that it’s not for you and reject it with confidence.

Write, speak, or at least read your affirmation one more time just before sleeping. This would be after you add to your gratitude journal, if you’re doing that. Remember how much it affected you to send me the text that said, “I deserve this.” That’s the impact of affirmations. They always feel weird at first, just like that text, but the weird feeling is proof of their necessity. Repeating them really does help to re-wire your brain to commit to self-talk that builds you up instead of tears you down. Even on a day when you do no messages and nothing else on this list, you can still end the day by looking in the mirror and saying, “I’m a perfect Spence. Everyone deserves to find their own path to joy, no matter what mistakes they’ve made, including me.” You can even try simply saying, “Amber loves me.” That might have zero effect, but I felt the urge to write it, so I did…so maybe it will be helpful? If it’s not, disregard it, of course. It feels presumptuous to even suggest it (see, even I still struggle sometimes with insecurity about what my gut tells me).

7. Recognizing intuition: when your heart speaks to you, there’s a peaceful feeling associated with it. It can be hard to recognize at first, because your mind immediately reacts with fearful what-ifs, discouragement, warnings, self-deprecation, etc. A statement from your heart, even if it’s “don’t do that,” will never have anxiety attached to it because the heart has no fear; it knows there is no reason for fear. Your heart/intuition whispers things like, “Probably better not to, but whatever you decide is ok” or, “That direction won’t take you down a path that’s in alignment with who you truly are, so it’s probably going to lead to a difficult or painful lesson.” On the other hand, the mind screams, “OMG YOU WILL LITERALLY DIE IF YOU DO THAT.”

The longer you practice this, the easier it becomes to tell the difference and the louder the voice of your heart becomes (If you decide to look around the main website, I wrote an entry about this). “The mind is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.” The heart, on the other hand, is an excellent master. Since I’ve made my heart the master of my mind, I’ve been astounded by the huge number of ripple effects that one choice has had, and most of them are the opposite of what I would have predicted. I can tell you all about it if you want, but I wouldn’t have believed it without seeing it for myself.

8. Whenever you notice you’ve said something to put yourself down, repeat your affirmation for the day. For extra benefit, you can make a statement like, “Being a good person matters enough to me that I’m putting in the effort to try to figure myself out and make better choices. If I was a bad person, I wouldn’t care about doing that. I’ve always done the best I could, even when I made choices I now wish I could change. I will keep doing the best I can and that’s the most any person can do. It’s also more than most people do, and I’m proud of myself for working to resist the pressure to make myself small, to break out of what ‘everybody’ does and expects, to rise above, and to strive for more than what most people think must be accepted. That choice makes me exceptional.” 

8. Do a media detox. To whatever extent is comfortable for you, block out the noise: news, people’s opinions, social media feeds, whatever comes in from the external world. This doesn’t need to be a complete or permanent change. The goal is to create more space for you to hear your own voice. The more you limit the number of voices in your sphere, the easier it gets to identify what’s yours and what’s someone else’s. You might want to disconnect from the external completely but only for a short time while you gain confidence in recognizing your own voice. Or you might want to do that just every other day, or just limit it to after you’ve done all your you-time in the morning.

Whatever feels right to you is correct, and you may want to do different things on different days. You might have several emotionally heavy days in a row and then feel like you need several days of not doing any of this stuff. That is absolutely fine and can certainly be what you need at the time. Always, always do what feels right. Pay attention to what you want/need, respect it, and honor it as much as possible. Even if you do something that feels right at the time and then you recognize later that the feeling wasn’t about “rightness” after all, that still teaches you something important that ultimately strengthens the voice of your heart/intuition and your ability to recognize/hear it. There are no mistakes. It’s impossible to fail.

9. Limit alcohol. The only strong advice here is that it’s better to not start drinking until after you’ve gotten your message for the day and recorded your thoughts/feelings about it. That said, this practice is about developing a connection with yourself and drinking is about disconnection. However much less you do of the latter, the more you’ll do the former. There’s still no wrong choice, though. This practice is not about rules, abstinence, deprivation, willpower, atonement, judgement, criticism, etc. If you want to drink, then drink. You aren’t doing anything wrong. Personally speaking, there was never a moment when I thought, “I should drink less” or required that of myself. I still drink whenever I want to; I just don’t want to very often or very much. It was never a goal or judgement of myself, just a natural outcome of this practice. Drinking too much or too often causes me to miss out, and the changes I’ve made in myself have created a life that I don’t want to miss out on. This practice is the foundation of those changes.

10. If you ever come up against a problem you don’t know how to solve, even something as simple as a negative thought you keep having about yourself, use an analysis tool I learned in QA called “The Five Whys.” You can do this with voice memos or writing, but it needs to be verbally expressed. It could be a thing you already did that you wish you’d done differently or a thing you do on a regular basis that you want to stop. First, create a problem statement that describes it. Then ask why. For instance, the problem statement could be, “I keep calling myself an idiot.” Then you’d ask “Why?” The only rule for this is that none of the answers to “why” can be a statement that you are fundamentally deficient in some way. It doesn’t matter how much you believe that to be true; it doesn’t contribute to problem-solving. You have to think of something else. This approach may lead to some surprising and useful discoveries about potential solutions. 

11. Your environment matters. Again, there are no rules. Just pay attention to how different places, situations, people, etc. affect your mindset. This is also for the purpose of recognizing and strengthening your own voice. For instance, if there’s a thought that only feels true around a certain person or people, then that thought probably isn’t coming from you. In other words, it was created externally instead of internally. Your sensitivity to the thoughts/feelings of others feels like a weakness, I know, but one of the counter-intuitive outcomes of this practice is that it enables you to appreciate what a rare gift that sensitivity is and embrace it as a strength without experiencing detrimental effects. This practice enables you to be the strongest version of yourself without shutting down a single part of yourself. It sounds impossible, I know; I’ve watched it happen and I’m still dumbfounded. Most importantly, you don’t need to try to make any of it happen.

Just follow the practice, as little or as much as you want, in whatever way you want, and don’t worry about any goal other than hearing your own voice, the voice of your heart/intuition/higher self. As much as you can and only when it feels right, follow what your heart says to do instead of what your fear says to do. If you do that, all the other amazing things will just develop naturally.

That’s all I can think of right now. 

Even if you just dabble with this a little, the effect will still be positive. If none of it feels right for you or just doesn’t work for you, that’s completely ok. Please don’t feel like I’m expecting anything of you or that it’s possible to disappoint me. You are a perfect Spence, no matter what. I’m proud of you, no matter what. I love you, no matter what. I created this because you want to feel good about yourself, lead a joyful life, and overturn any/all of those negative adjectives you used for yourself. I want to give you support that helps you accomplish those things for yourself, if I can.

Above all, I want you to feel empowered to hear your own heart and value/express your own voice, so if doing this doesn’t feel right or useful for you then I don’t want you to do it. I want you to respect your own heart/voice in every way and at all times, to have all the good self-things that derive from that primary thing. That’s what’s most important, no matter what you’re doing, where you are, or whom you’re with.