Podcast

  • 35 – Introducing my book: The Great Unlearning

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    My book The Great Unlearning: Awakening to Living An Aligned and Authentic Life is now available to pre-order

    This episode talks about the book finally being unveiled for the first time the title and cover. Not only that Phi shares an excerpt of the book, the introduction of The Great Unlearning: Awakening to Living An Aligned and Authentic Life.

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  • 32: What is Karma and The 12 Laws of Karma

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    All about Karma.

    This episode is all about Karma. What is Karma. The different types of Karma. The 12 laws of karma. How to work with karma. Is karma a good or bad thing? Is the universe punishing or rewarding you? Karmic relationships. Karmic contracts.

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Show Transcript

    Episode 32 - What is Karma and the 12 Laws of Karma

    This week what has come up for myself and clients is karma. So I decided to do an episode all about it. When you think of karma, you probably think what goes around comes around but there’s actually so much more to it. 

    What is Karma?

    Karma comes from the Sanskrit word karman which means action, the root of the word which is ‘to do’ or ‘to make.’ 

    Karma to me is something as a concept that gets us to be very conscious, intentional and aware of what we are doing, which isn’t a bad thing. 

    Living a life by design gives us more fulfilment and we have greater impact. Imagine everyone did, it would truly be a win, win!

    Karma is a bridge between our lifetimes if you believe in the spiritual viewpoint that our soul has lived many lives. Over the lives we live there may be things that are unresolved and unfinished. It’s taking this broader, wider perspective on life that it isn’t just your soul as it is right now, it’s the complete timeline and history of your soul — all the lives you have lived. 

    The universe takes care of karma, you don't have to or need to

    So think of it this way — you never have to go out of your way to teach someone a lesson or if you’ve been deeply hurt and wronged to enact your own justice because trust me the Universe has already set it all up. It’s not worth your time, energy or effort especially when it drags you down to their level / a lower vibration.

    Is karma a good or bad thing? Is the universe punishing or rewarding me?

    The perspective I take is that karma isn’t a bad good bad thing. It simply is. Karma simply repeats and loops itself (in what can make you feel insane) in order to create new results but in order for that to happen, something different has to change. Take the perspective it’s about accumulating awareness and knowledge to decrease ignorance. 

    The perspective that karma is simple a feedback system to help you be your most highest and aligned self. Karma is the mirror held up to you. So karma isn’t punishing and rewarding, it simply reflects and is neutral like a mirror. If you don’t like what you see it isn’t the mirror, it’s you. The mirror is the vehicle and channel. Karma is here to evolve your soul. 

    Karma is a mirror

    I love this quote by Shannon Adler, “Karma isn’t revenge; it is a mirror of your souls mistakes and for those that wish bad karma for you it is also a mirror for their mistakes. Karma was never meant to be a punishment. It is a reminder of your soul’s true self to be better than all the insecurities that hurt others because of your own fear and lack in faith that God has a plan for you.”

    How do you know if something is karmic?

    How do you know if something is karmic? 

    Often it feels very repetitive, something that keeps coming up over and over again until we move through it and gotten what we needed from that experience whether it’s a learning or unlearning. It often involves needing to confront and face your fears. 

    For example I think many of us can relate to seemingly dating the same type of person. Different person but maybe the same issues come up such as emotional unavailability or feeling like you need to win someone over in order to prove you are loveable. Now I want to put it out there karmic relationships aren’t just in romantic situations, it could be that boss of yours who is hard to get along with or a friend/family member that really triggers you.

    Karmic Contracts

    In this way comes the concept of karmic contracts. Think of them in the feedback system of balancing everything out. They aren’t always meant to be forever, most of them are temporary and end once you’ve cleared the unresolved energy between two souls, often learning, growing and expanding in the process. It may feel like an instant energetic charge. Naturally being so drawn like it is magnetic to someone that you can’t explain it or even repulsed. Like you’ve known them for a long time or they are familiar. Constantly thinking about them. Often there will be push and pull tension, highs and lows. Often there is an imbalance of power dynamics too which is accompanied by drama. 

    How to break or shift karma


    To shift the karma one must act consciously and intentionally to break the cycle. With all situations it often involves leaving and walking away which is easy in theory but harder in reality. It can help to imagine karmic contracts as scrolls and burning them to end them. It can also help to affirm for guidance, “I’d like to release this karmic situation or person. Universe please guide and help me to do so in the most loving and aligned way possible. Show me the way, show me the signs.” 

    Tools to find and understand karma

    You can look for indicators of karma based on your birth chart and human design. In human design we can look at specifically what type of karmic lifetime you have, the life theme’s you’ll encounter as well and if you’re in a relationship, doing an overlay of charts you can also see if there’s karma too. If you’re interested in a reading, I do have avails so please reach out or book through my website, I’d love to work with you.

    Types of karma

    There are different types of Karma.

    Sanchitta – accumulated karma, a field of plants, some of which comes to fruition in this lifetime and some that won’t.

    Parabda – karma that is coming into fruition in this lifetime which will shape this life.

    Agami – karma that is being created right now in this lifetime that will go on to impact future lives. Think of it as planting seeds.

    Kriyamana – instant karma that you see in the moment for example you have a negative loop spiral, lash out at someone and there behold a parking fine.

    Thus this establishes that it’s universally believed karma transcends lifetimes.

    It will even splinter into your own individual karma but also you can have ancestral/family/lineage karma passed onto you which is powerful to help break family patterns. 

    12 Laws of Karma

    Similarly to the 12 Laws of the Universe, which I have done an episode on (Episode 3).

    Did you know there are 12 Laws of Karma? 

    The Law of Cause and Effect

    What you sow, you shall reap. What you put out there, you’ll get back. If you want love, be and give love. If you start judging someone, you’ll be judged back by another. The core essence is very similar to the law of attraction. 

    The Law of Creation

    You have to be an active participant in life because you are a co creator. The most powerful takeaway is to never forget that. You are a creator in this life. You are the universe manifested physically in human form. Be a creator. Don’t just wait and manifest, take inspired action. When you’re not sure, create space for more in your life.

    The Law of Humility

    One must accept something in order to change it or the inverse: what you refuse to accept will continue for you. Start with where you are. By this its saying if you aren’t happy in your life right now, take responsibility for it. Accept that you aren’t happy. From this place, you can start. 

    The Law of Growth

    Change starts with yourself. The sentiment of “Wherever you go, there you are.” Know that the only control you have is over yourself. Focus on your own development, growth, thoughts, perspectives and actions. Growth starts within. 

    As Gandhi said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”When you grow likely life around you will grow and I see that all the time with clients. 

    They start doing the work and see how the people around them change. It’s that degree of being an energetic match. Of course as your vibration rises, everything around you will as well. You change your life when you change yourself first. There is always room for growth (not that you should feel the pressure of always improving). It’s the backdrop and context of life, we are here to evolve continually. 

    Hint: if you want to do this, let’s work together through 1:1 coaching! You aren’t meant to do it alone. I’d love to be your support and guide.

    The Law of Responsibility

    Being accountable and taking ownership of what you create whether you label it ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

    The Law of Connection

    How everything is interconnected. Interdependent. Past, present and future. Every being human to human, human to Earth, human to animals. How you interact with the world at large. You can think of this as ethics too such as caring for the environment, preservation for future generations. The ripple effect really.

    The Law of Focus

    Energy flows where focus goes. Where do you place your attention? High or low vibration? Technically this law believes we should focus on one thing at a time but as a manifesting generator in human design I disagree. Again this is going to be different for everyone but for example having worked with generators I know they can feel overwhelmed and lost without a focus.

    The Law of Hospitality and Giving

    Integrity. Our behaviour should match our actions. Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk too. What we do and say should match what we believe and preach. Life will give us opportunities to show and reflect this. A test of our character. It’s also the concept of kindness right? If you choose to be giving and generous do so from a pure place with no conditions and expectations. Help others in the ways you can, it doesn’t have to be financially, it could be through time, energy, effort as examples too.

    The Law of Here and Now

    Being here in the present moment. What’s happened in the past is done. The future is not yet here. Don’t miss the present moment because it creates the future. 

    The Law of Change

    History repeating itself. Nothing changes, if nothing changes. 

    The Law of Patience and Reward

    Simply stated, hard work will always pay off. Success will eventually follow. Know that if you do good deeds it will never be unnoticed. Maybe it won’t come to fruition in this lifetime but it could be in your next or a future one. Think of this like a GPS, putting in the exact place you want to go. You trust that eventually even if you take wrong turns, detours, redirections or whatever you’re going to get to where you need to. Apply this to your life too.

    The Law of Inspiration and Importance

    Rewarded based on energy and effort we put in. In saying that everything thing counts whether big or small. It all adds up and accumulates. It makes a difference to the whole. It could be a simple as smiling at a stranger to starting a charity. Everything is significant. You are significant. You are always contributing to the world and collective consciousness. It’s an encouragement to tap into your natural gifts and share with the world, otherwise it’s a disservice to us all. We all know that we learn from our interactions with others and forget that the same goes for us, we are also a teacher and guide to many others in our life through what we do and our actions. 

    Can you escape karma?

    There are different schools of thought as to whether you can truly ever escape and burn off all your karma through means like rituals, healings, yoga, chanting, meditation and so fourth, so I think it’s best to address ultimately how to work with karma.

    Should I be scared of karma?

    Don’t fear it if ultimately can accept and allow it’s the backdrop of life, in this game, in this experience. It’s more powerful to be aware of it. It aligns with what we know of physics, Newton’s Third Law states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That applies to energy, action and our intentions. 

    Take the perspective your soul chose specific experiences and karma to shape the lives that we ultimately live. Our soul is always acting for our highest good and with deep unconditional love. A part of that is allowing ourselves to grow through our life experiences. 

    Be self aware to improve karma

    Be self aware. The more you know yourself, the more conscious you are, the more likely you’re going to act and behave in alignment with your highest self and values. It’s about being in your power and going inwards instead of looking to blame external circumstances and lose your power to sources outside of yourself. Understand your triggers, traumas, patterns, pain and perspectives. Catch yourself going unconscious into the familiar or automatic instead of conscious choice. 

    Heal your shadows and wounds to improve karma

    Yes this involves the work but as a coach it’s so important for me to tell you this isn’t done by being angry, annoyed, frustrated at yourself and beating yourself up. It’s done with love and compassion for self. You are human. You aren’t meant to be perfect and if you were life would be so boring and pointless as you won’t get the full experience. Find a way to forgive and let go of the past. See the innocence in other souls. See the innocence of your own soul, self forgiveness and compassion. Grudges create an energetic tie towards someone, they get to live rent free in your head and energy field. I’ve also done an episode on forgiveness (number 6) and the core key there being it’s for you, not them but in the process is a win win.

    Not all of us in this lifetime will grow spiritually and learn all that we need to. By you listening, I would say that’s not you given you are listening to improve your personal self awareness and work on yourself. In challenging times look for the growth, it can always be found. 

    Gratitude and karma

    On the other hand, celebrate and appreciate karma that brings positivity and blessings into your life! An attitude of gratitude. By means of karma we deserve everything we get which includes the good stuff! 

    Inner peace and karma

    Cultivate inner peace within yourself so that you are not as disturbed by what is going on outside of you.

    Be an uplifting, beautiful soul for the most part. Check in with yourself as to the intentions behind your actions. 

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  • Episode 31: What is Human Design

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    What is Human Design?

    This episode explains what Human Design is and how it can help you.

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Show Transcript

    Episode 31 - What is Human Design

    Hi Beautiful Soul, I am so excited about today’s episode because it is about something I am very deeply passionate about which is human design! 

    I also love how more mainstream human design is becoming because the information within human design is so powerful and truly life changing.

    What is Human Design?

    So what is human design exactly? Human design is a system which helps you to better understand yourself, your human personality self which is termed your conscious self and your unconscious self which is what we call your design, your soul. 

    It’s a blend of spirituality and science of the modern day and the ancients pulling together astrology, I Ching the Chinese book of truths, Kabbalah, the Chakra System, Vedic Philosophy and quantum physics through neutrinos which carry energetic information passing through your body every second as examples. 

    It has been called the ‘science of differentiation,’ ‘the next generation of self knowledge,’ ‘new astrology,’ the ‘science of the aura,’ ‘the intersection of science and spirituality.’ It’s known as a guide, map, manual to your life as well or a snapshot of your unique energy.

    It was channeled by Alan Krakower who went by the name of Ra Uru Hu in the 80’s/90’s after having a mystical experience where he was given the system what we know as ‘the voice’. It’s only recently become more well known and mainstream.

    Human Design is based on a body graph and you’ll see a lot of numbers, symbols, shapes, lines which can be very confusing and that’s where I come in to read your chart and interpret your manual to yourself. The right hand side of the chart represents your conscious self at the time you were born whereas the left hand side represents your design imprinted three months before you were born. 

    Why Human Design?

    There are many tools and modalities which can help you understand yourself better whether its astrology, personality tests like enneagram or Myer Briggs, tarot cards but for me what stands out is human design because of the depth of information and the practicality of it. It’s not just a map to understanding who you are it, also gives you the insights and tools on what to do with this information, how to live, how you can apply it to any area of your life which I have seen with clients whether its business, career, your love life, making money, your life’s purpose and so fourth. 

    Human Design is a tool for understanding yourself better and how to best apply yourself in the most authentic and alignment way. It shows you how you are unique, there are literally over 2 billion different combinations of human design. You can have the same energy type as someone and be completely different because there are so many different parts to your human design: your energy type, your authority, your profile lines, your variables, your life energies, energetic channels, actual variables the list goes on! 

    The thing I hear the most from people who have had a reading is how validated they feel. They go ahhhh this is why I am the way I am which is a beautiful thing. To release fears that you aren’t ‘normal’ or perhaps that you’re ‘broken and messed up’ because you aren’t. 

    Working with clients the way I like to help people understand this is through this perspective. Your soul chose to come to Earth. It chose to be in your body, with your personality and agreed to various things/circumstances/people in your life to learn the curriculum it wants to. In spiritual terms, karmic bonds, soul lessons and so fourth. When we approach life like this, there’s this relief. The universe and your highest self isn’t making life difficult on purpose which very much ties into the whole theme of this podcast. You aren’t just going through life. You’re growing through it. This very much ties into the main energy of my life purpose which revolves around struggle and purpose. 

    When should you have a human design reading and why you should have a human design reading

    I have found from my own experience and working with clients, human design often finds you when you’re ready! Trust the pull and curiosity, the universe is always leaving energetic breadcrumbs for us. Why would you be drawn to human design? Any time is perfect but to call out some reasons I’ve done readings for people:

    You want to know yourself better and why you are the way you are (the ultimate permission slip to live life as your truest self). Who you really are vs who you think you are or what other people think of you. Your strengths and weaknesses. Your gifts. The life lessons you’re meant to have.

    You’re feeling stuck, stagnant, lost, confused, perhaps at a cross roads or a life transition.

    You want to know more about what you are here to do on Earth in this lifetime, your soul path and purpose. 

    You want to delve into and understand your truth.

    You want to know how to make the best decisions in your life with confidence and ease.

    You want to feel less resistance in your life and more flow, it feels like being in a stream not pushing against the currents of life.

    You want to bridge the gap of where you are now vs who you are meant to be by living in accordance with the blueprint and guide of your soul.

    You want to explore your self esteem, human design will most certainly help you see that you aren’t flawed or missing anything. You’re here to embrace who you are, to learn to use your innate gifts and be in harmony with life.

    You are interested in shadow work and integrating that within yourself to know yourself deeper and embrace how the shadows help you learn and grow. 

    How Human Design works

    Human Design is based on your exact time of birth, date and where you were born. For the most accurate reading it is vital to have this information however if you don’t, I have been able to help clients ascertain their human design because the way I do human design is intuitively more on my approach to human design later in the episode. So you input those details into a system which you can do for free as an example the website MyBodyGraph however to really get the details, nuts and bolts of your design its best to go to a reader such as myself to interpret the information and be there to guide and support you with any questions you may have. 

    Human Design Energy Types - Strategy

    Like I said human design is an in-depth system and I don’t want to overwhelm anyone so on a top-line information you know how in astrology you say you are a sun sign, rising sign and moon sign to identify yourself but the in-depth mechanics are unique to each individual. 

    This is similar to human design, you have your energy type (one of five, the majority of the world are generators – the doers which make up 70% including manifesting generators – the magnifiers and energetic powerhouses, we also have projectors – the guides 20%, manifestors – the initiators 9% and the rarest of all reflectors – the mirrors 1%). 

    Human Design - Authority - How to make the best decisions

    Then you also have an authority which is how to make the best decisions. Everyone is different, it’s very much the advice you’ll hear thrown around which is “follow your heart” or “don’t decide with your emotions.” Everyone is different!

    The different authorities are solar plexus (riding emotional waves, hi this is my one) – 47% of the population, sacral (moving quickly, trusting initiate gut reaction, listening to the sounds of your body like mmmmm or uh uh) – 35% of the population, splenic authority (in the moment intuition like a lightning bolt) – 11% of the population, environment 3.5% (sometimes also known as mental authority which is the need to voice your thoughts and perspectives), hear your voice and talk it out with others + knowing your environment deeply impacts you, self projected 3% (which is only an authority for projectors who are here to listen to their own voice and connect with the core of their identity the G center in human design), lunar 1.4% (which is for reflectors only who are to make decisions in alignment with the lunar cycle which typically runs 28 and a half days) and the rarest which is ego with just 1% (which is for a projector or manifestor who is here to follow their heart’s desires).

    Human Design personality and profile lines

    You also have numbers which represent your personality which are made up of two, the first number being your conscious personality and the second being your soul personality. Each number represents a different quality whether it’s 1 – investigator, 2 – hermit, 3 – matyr, 4 – opportunist, 5 – heretic or 6 – role model. 

    What else is covered in a human design reading?

    In a reading we will look at the specifics such as your energetic centres which represent different aspects of life which are represented by the different shapes in your body graph chart. These centres explain for conditioning and being influenced by external factors, which in turn your greatest areas of growth and wisdom whereas defined centres explain for your natural strengths however you are more fixed in nature here. 

    The chakra system has 7 centres whereas human design has 9: the head – explains for mental pressure, ajna or this eye – awareness, perspective, throat – expression, inspired action, g centre – identity, love and direction, heart – willpower, ego, self esteem, sacral – life force energy, sexuality, spleen – intuition, instinct, fears, solar plexus – emotions, highs and lows, root – pressure, adrenaline and drive. 

    You learn about what it actually means to be in alignment with your highest self and when you are not your self. Of course we delve into life energies, your soul purpose and path and in a live session you can ask me questions specifically related to your chart too.

    How did I get into human design and how has it changed my life?

    Human design came into my life maybe 2-3 years ago, I stumbled upon it on the internet and when I first saw my body graph it made no sense and so I dismissed it and went about living my life. It would somehow return into my life during my side hustle and I felt a pull towards it. So I invested in coaching and had my own readings done and I was truly blown away by how much it resonated with me. Now I know this sounds crazy but after that I just ‘got’ the system and decided to do readings for my clients. Now to give you context during this time my intuitive gifts started opening up if you listened to my last podcast episode and probably will do for future ones and I have a 2 profile line in human design – the hermit which is also known as the ‘natural genius’ for certain things. Human Design happens to be my genius. 

    I share human design based on my own interpretations and intuitive downloads whereas other readers may learn the system and do a reading based off that. Each reader will bring their own life experiences, uniqueness and skill sets! What matters is for you to always use your discernment, take what resonates and discard the rest. 

    From there I received feedback from clients who started telling friends and it just spread like wildfire. I am known for giving a lot of in-depth information and detail, the blueprints I manually put together every time are at least 70 pages and I also pick up on intuitive clues that are unique to your soul whether its a symbol or being able to read the energy of where you are in life right now or perhaps stuck. I’ve been fortunate to be the expert resident of human design for Wellweb filming an introductory series there as well as be a part of retreats such as Zero Point Yoga at the incredibly luxurious and well appointed Soma in Byron Bay where they filmed Nicole Kidman’s nine perfect strangers series.

    I don’t post anything about Human Design on my Instagram yet I was getting booked out months in advance. So really the majority of my clients have come from referrals which are huge testament to the impact of a reading on a person and I am so very grateful.

    Phi's Human Design

    One of the greatest things was learning my purpose which is the unexpected which I can very much attest to in my life. So many crazy, wild things have unexpectedly happened. The life I live today is not what I ever imaged for myself, it’s better int he best way possible. Part of my purpose is that I have the channel of struggle, which is when I have pain without purpose, yes I suffer. For all the suffering I’ve had, I’ve been able to channel into helping other people and being the life coach that I am with a breadth of life experiences whether it’s in my career, mental health journey, turbulent emotions navigating the death of my dad and of course relationships and dating. In fact this all ladders into my main life energy which is about fighting and comprehending the meaning of life: purpose. To face my shadows and my fears head on – definitely not an easy soul curriculum, a challenging and very rewarding one. This also helps me to be able to share different perspectives on life which my clients affirm are able to unblock and shift them even in one session with me!

    Human design helped me to navigate big life changes such as quitting my corporate job, moving homes and a break up to feel out how to make the big decision for me as an emotional manifesting generator I had to ride the waves. The longest one being the decision to quit my corporate job oh the ups and downs there! Learning that I am designed to be emotional has been a game changer especially when I’ve been called sensitive or moody — I now go yes that’s how I am. I was built to experience the full spectrum of emotions so understanding that has helped me particularly in tough times when I am in the emotional low, I know that the nature of emotions are waves so coming back up is inevitable as with the down. 

    My emotional authority has also helped me to help others be able to feel (especially after going numb when my dad died at 20). It’s helped me help clients reconnect with their heart and soul, to truly feel.

    In fact I’ve always been busy and on the go, multi tasking, starting things and then not finishing which I was conditioned to believe was bad but very much in the manifesting generator sphere of how we are. I’ve always also been complimented on my energy and presence and that is something my clients report feeling uplifted and energised after speaking with me, full of insights, ideas and the desire to take inspired action.

    It’s also given me permission to do business my way with predominately feminine energy validating the desire for my business to feel easy and in flow combined with the manifesting generator quality of being lit up, excited and energised by what I do. Learning that alignment for me is satisfaction leads the way for me and when I’m frustrated I know that what I’m doing isn’t for me or the way I am going about it isn’t in alignment with me. 

    With relationships, it’s helped me understand why I get along with someone and why I may butt heads with them. How I influence them and how they influence me. How our energies come together and what purpose it serves in life. 

    Human Design client testimonials of Phi

    To share some feedback of how human design has helped clients straight from from client testimonials:

    – My confidence has gone next level.

    – I learn how to exactly manifest based on what’s best for me.

    – There’s so many layers to the human design chart and I find myself relistening to our session and rereading my blueprint and each time I learn something new, it blows my mind away.

    – It confirmed many parts of myself and also helped awaken myself to parts I didn’t think or know about myself.

    – I feel so seen and understood.

    – I always knew I was different but I felt like I needed to conform or satisfy others, I lost myself. Human Design and my reading with Phi helped me call back to my own purpose, to prioritise myself. My uniqueness no longer scares me and I read my human design blueprint everyday to be more in tune with my soul.

    – Mind blowing. The amount of goosebumps during out conversation. I was nodding the whole time because everything resonated with me at a soul and visceral level. Your energy is infectious.

    – Phi has a special gift. It’s so special, affirming, enlightening, it’s truly changed my life.

    – I felt like a puzzle piece of myself with all the pieces floating around me but human design gave me the tools, closes and know how to bring it all together.

    – Phi’s reading has been a homecoming to me, simply because I have so much more clarity on me, my life, business and relationships. I’m honestly overflowing with joy and gratitude.


    Honestly there’s so many you can find them on my website or in my Instagram highlights. The best thing to do is experience it yourself! Human Design is to be lived as an experiment. It isn’t here to box or limit you, in fact it’s here to free you!

    From my own personal experience I’ve never had anyone say that their human design was not accurate. I’ve definitely had people been triggered and come back to share that in the most beautiful way because they used their human design as a portal and catalyst to their truth, perhaps uncovering even shadow work and areas to grow because whilst it didn’t initially resonate, on a deeper level it did and there was a fear to confront that aspect of themselves. Human design shares the highest expression of an energy as well as the shadow expression. 

    Types of human design readings Phi offers

    Human design is like astrology, your foundational human design never changes at its core however it does have influences that change on a daily basis thanks to the position of the Sun, Moon and the planets. Think of it as astrological weather. These readings are best down with an understanding of your foundational human design. 

    Deeper Human Design Readings

    There’s so much information that it can’t all be covered in your foundation reading which covers 4/26 life energies so of course a deeper dive will look into the rest of those energies. I also customise these based on whatever you need, it’s all likely human design cover its from the best environment for you to how you best digest food or your most intuitive sense.

    Relationship Human Design Readings

    You can look at your human design in comparison to another for a relationship reading which I do for many couples and have done for those separating to process a break up. This can be applied to all relationships. I have done readings to see the dynamics between friends, business partners, clients, teachers, mentors and family as examples.

    Business by Human Design

    I also do specific business sessions to help you get unstuck on areas in your business such as what you’re here to communicate, marketing and brand (my background in the corporate world before becoming a coach and human design expert), attracting clients, how to build and run your business in a way that feels like flow and ease. 

    Yearly Human Design Readings – Solar Transit Human Design

    Also known as a solar transit. The path for your year ahead what you can expect in terms of energetic themes and influences. This one is done yearly ideally around your birthday but can be any time. 

    Saturn Return Human Design Readings

    Aimed at those aged 27-29, whereby life provides a huge shake up for you. Specifically significant if you have a 6 profile line given you live life in three stages and your Saturn Return ushers in your second stage. For example during my Saturn Return I quit my corporate job, moved homes, got into a relationship and also got out of the same one. Huge life changes to ensure you are living in alignment with your highest self after all Saturn is about discipline. 

    Uranus Passage – Uranus Opposition Human Design Readings 

    The spiritual mid life crisis or shall I see mid life awakening aimed at those aged 39-42, but have seen clients up to 44-48. It all depends where you are in your journey and how you are feeling as life unfolds for you. Can coincide in changes in life direction. 

    Chiron Human Design Readings

    Your deepest wound in life and it becomes highlighted aged around 50. Though an interesting reading to understand as when you heal from this, often we go onto help others heal in this very area too. 

    You can book a reading on my website or contact me for more information of course!

    Human Design and Life Coaching

    Human Design is one of the tools I use in my 1:1 coaching and even clients I’ve seen for a year and beyond we still discuss and uncover different layers and aspects of their human design. In fact with some clients we will visit how human design activates their gift on a purpose journey, the wounds and karma of understanding their relationships and heart as well as prosperity, to see how one is going to be the most abundant and fruitful in their life. 

    I currently do have 1:1 coaching spots open so if you are interested please reach out to set up a free 30 minute call to see how I can best help you and if we are the right alignment and match for each other.

    I hope you enjoyed this episode on human design! It would mean the world to me if you’re able to leave a rating and review to spread the word and help others on their personal development journey too. Catch you next time beautiful soul!

    Click here to read more

  • Episode 30: I’m Back!

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    Episode Summary of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 30: Hi, I'm Back!

    It’s 2023 and after a hiatus from May 2021, I am back on the Grow Through It Podcast. This episode is catching you up on what has happened since I last released a podcast episode. The long and short of it? A LOT. 

    What you'll learn from this episode

    • Phi’s journey on a personal level and business level
    • What’s been happening in Phi’s life since 2021 including going from side hustle to a full time life coach, a breakup and moving homes

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Show Transcript

    Episode 30 - Hi I'm Back

    Hi, beautiful souls.

    I’m back!!!

    Where have I been?

    Hello, hi, oh my goodness I can’t believe it’s almost been 2 years since I did my very own podcast episode on my own podcast. That’s right the last time you heard from me here was May 2021 and goodness a whole whole lot has changed. Honestly life is unrecognisable now going from side hustling as a life coach to now a full time life coach for more than a year! First of all hi you’re listening to the growth through it podcast with Phi Dang (yes it’s me Phi speaking) and I really appreciate that you’re here whether you’ve been here since day 1 when I was inhervitality, when I first released this podcast around November 2020 or you’re new because also since 2021 my following has tripled. What even right?

    It's been since May 2021...

    So where have I been since May 2021? There’s a lot to cover so this episode is like reintroducing myself and where I am and to be honest there is sooooo much to discuss it’. In actual fact it felt somewhat overwhelming to record this episode because it’s been a while since I’ve done my own podcasting and actually I don’t think I’ve had a moment of true pausing or stop since I last had my podcast going because it’s been a crazy, wild, magical ride to where I am today since May 2021. 

    Like honestly I still remember having the idea for this podcast and being so unsure of it until my first business coach Tiff was like go for it. I was so unsure of myself, I’m like do people even care and the sweetest thing is since then so many people have messaged me asking about the podcast, wondering if I’ll do it again, being in their spotify wrapped at the end of the year… like when I started the podcast I think I may have just made my first ever $5,000 in business and that was like such a wow moment, I couldn’t believe it. 

    I remember being bright eyed, so hopeful of potential like my ex was even recording me podcasting in the cupboard in my bedroom for the best sound quality and now here I am podcasting from my open plan living room/kitchen/office space from my apartment in one of Australia’s most iconic beaches. I literally live 110 metres from the beach. Like I step outside and bam there’s the beach anyways I digress. We would both not know the success that would come from these small brave moments towards my dream like it’s funny to think once I got my side hustle going it would take 3-5 years to go full time and it took less than a year. 

    Why did the podcast stop for a while?

    Ok so first of all I want to address why this podcast stopped, the truth was I didn’t actually decide to stop. Being a new coach I was so committed to the podcast and also who I used to be I was very much ruled by rigid structures and self discipline. I literally got a panic attack if I didn’t release an episode every week, I seriously remember feeling the anxiety on a Monday when I hadn’t recorded or even prepared for an episode for every Tuesday. I would overthink everything like oh my gosh can they hear me breathing, I messed up this word, forgot to say that… I’m a different person now like I’m so fully aligned on getting the message out there and being ok if it isn’t perfect.

    In saying this, I am going to try my best to record an episode weekly but my key learning is I want to have the best energy going into every episode for you listening and as a manifesting generator with an emotional authority I’ve got to trust my sacral gut pulls and ride my emotional waves… So let’s see how this unfolds, maybe it’ll be a weekly podcast, maybe a fortnightly, a monthly or whenever I feel like it… so please subscribe with whatever platform you listen to podcasts on like Spotify, Apple podcasts so you’re updated with every new episode straight to your ears.

    When your website disappears... and so does your Podcast and Email.

    So the reason being I remember in June 2021 suddenly my website disappeared and I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t believe or understand it. All this hard work creating the website, just gone. What ended up happening is in the craziness of life, the pandemic, the side hustle of coaching is that my domain phidang.com somehow lapsed, and where I got my domain from they didn’t renew it. I was seriously devastated, I felt like all my hard work was gone. 

    For those who don’t know if you don’t renew a domain it goes into a weird limbo place before anyone else can buy it, it could be 3 months or 6 months, its up to the internet gods who I don’t even know if you can contact very much like Instagram. I thought it would honestly crush my whole business as well because I’m like can I get clients without a website? So much anxiety, so much pain. When you’re in this zone it’s very hard to think straight because the mind panics and goes into all these scenarios which never even happen but feel oh so very real in your brain.

    Growing through life not just going through it

    Anyways I eventually conceded and I’m like until I can get this domain back my hands are clearly tied. If people want to do coaching with me I’ll just have a link directly into my calendar booking system. And hey at least I have my podcast where I can explain what happened… dn dn dn that’s where I was wrong. 

    The way I set up my podcast and website, it’s directly intertwined so of course when I lost my website, I lost my podcast because I didn’t have a platform to upload the audio to. Alongside this I also lost access to my emails. So pretty much everything except only my Instagram. I was so upset but again this was fully out of my control. So very much in alignment with the mantra of this podcast, don’t just go through life, grow through life. I had to get out of my victimhood and ask myself, why would the universe do this to me? 

    New coach, new business, new focus

    As a new coach, business owner, entrepreneur at the beginning you focus on things that don’t actually matter in the whole scheme of everything so what do I mean about that? I was like oh my gosh I need a beautiful website so people can find me and hire me when really no people just needed a direct line to me so I was like ok the Universe clearly just wants me to focus on Instagram and coaching. Not emails. Not website. Not the podcast. It paid off because my posts were growing and I actually hid my side hustle from pretty much everyone in my personal life until my posts were going viral and people starting finding out. I’ll never forget how my heart sunk and I was so nervous when my boss and colleagues from my corporate job found out. 

    How your side hustle helps your corporate full time job

    The thing is having my side hustle actually made my performance in my corporate job exponentially better because it gave me so much joy and alignment, that it was rippling out into greater success and productivity in my corporate job even my boss had acknowledged that. Work was actually super supportive and I even had the opportunity to run company wide mindset training sessions.

    The context and behind the scenes on Phi's personal life

    Behind the scenes things were getting busy in my personal life. I decided to invest $30,000 in my own coach and personal development and that was a huge leap from investing $10,000 previously when I first started in my business coach and a course. From my own investing journey, I learnt I could gain the frameworks and tools of how to structure and run a business but my own self kept getting in my way. Fears of being seen. Fears no one would want coaching. Fears about money. It was stopping me from being my own best self, so I got my own personal development coach and that blew everything out the water. 

    If you’re listening now and feeling that pull as crazy as it is to invest in yourself such as coaching with me, trust me I get it. I used to watch from the sidelines in fear. But I knew inside there was such a full yes body, heart on fire, soul tingling desire to work with my coach that as crazy as it is I had to do it and I believe this is one of the things that truly quantum leaped me from a side hustler to full time life coach.

    Investing in yourself and the fears

    The investment represented me putting my money where my mouth was. Showing the universe, I believe in myself, I desire personal growth, I’m all in, I’m trusting my internal navigation system. Let’s go! I don’t think I told anyone about it at the time for the fear of people going you spent how much on yourself? That’s how society works, we’ll easily invest in a house, property, car, clothes, all of the things but when it comes to yourself we are like oh gosh no. Am I worthy of this investment and the answer is of course, it’s the safest bet because it’s YOU.

    Going through a busy turbulent time

    Further to that, I think there may have been doubts swirling and tension building with my ex at the time (yes another major life update since this podcast we broke up but anyways this will playout as I’m trying my best to update you in somewhat of a chronological order which is hilarious because my brain does not work like that, it’s like a pinball going ooooh this, oooh that – very manifesting generator of me again another new element to talk about in this podcast human design). 

    This is all set upon the backdrop of the pandemic which in Sydney, Australia where I’m based was playing out in all sorts. At first we had the freedom and so lucky of all places to be locked down a beach paradise and then we were free again and then locked back down honestly is anyone else’s memory blurry, did I just block it all out even though the pandemic was the best thing that happened for me in a way because without it I’m not sure if I would be a life coach today. The pandemic gave me time and space to actually start my passion project which led to where I am today – I must have spoken about my story and all in episode 1 of this podcast. At some point I’ll have to catch everyone up on the holistic story. 

    A game changing Wim Hof Retreat

    So now in the timeline it’s June 2021 and I think Sydney got a break from the lockdown, we were free and allowed out. I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw beautiful soul Shira who I was connected to on Instagram with was going and I was like ooooh there’s a space through Tommy a sort of mutual friend. Tommy I had connected through my initial post going viral on men’s mental health. 

     

    Now if you recall I already went to the World’s First Women’s Wim Hof Retreat ages ago so in my thinking I wasn’t like oh my gosh I have to go again (because truly when you learn the technique of breathing, cold showers and ice baths you have it for life). I just felt pulled to go because why not and I would potentially meet Shira. Long story short Shira didn’t end up going because she had an injury but this very retreat would change my life. It’s funny how the universe orchestrates life in beautiful, unexpected ways.

    Being divinely guided to the retreat and unlocking my intuition

    Firstly the girl I would end up giving a lift to the retreat would go onto become one of my best friends Juju who does the Go Deep Podcast! Weirdly enough we realised we had actually crossed paths as we were both in the media advertising industry said hi once and never thought about each other again. 

    Secondly on the last day of this retreat during a breathing meditation session I had visions. I had been practicing meditation on and off for a long time since my dad passed away so at this point what 7 years or something and never had anything out of the blue extraordinary happen but on this very day it did. I had a vision of myself burning at the stake, blood dripping and oozing out of my throat and my lifeless body going up in flames. I was like wow, that was my past life, I was a witch (as many of us have been – it very much explains the fear in many women of speaking up, using your voice, being authentic because it got us killed).

    Not only that I heard a very deep, old, wise soul humming and chanting – I wasn’t sure if it was part of the music and asked the collective group after, did anyone else here this old man’s voice? My instructor Leah gasped because it was her spirit guide. That’s when I started going woah, what has just happened? It was in this very moment my intuition was unlocked and broke free. After the retreat even weirder things started happening, I had very vivid visual dreams about people I had met on the retreat once and hardly spoken to. I saw things that were very personal to them that they would only know about. So with permission I asked these people, shared what I saw and to their surprise they confirmed what I saw was a very real aspect of their life. Yes the world of intuition just gets weirder and weirder. This whole experience I never sought out, it just happened in it’s own way, perfect, divine timing. In the show notes I’ll upload some pictures from the retreat so you can see.

    Human Design

    From there I would go onto introduce human design into my coaching tool belt. A couple of years ago I saw my blueprint and it made literally no sense to me. I wasn’t interested and that lay dormant until I felt the nudge to get my own reading done and this time after this unlocking of my intuition, the language of human design just made sense on every level of my soul. It validated me in so many ways this would have to be a seperate episode. 

    The most wild thing is I just started doing a few readings for existing 1:1 clients and people I knew. Of course being a 4 personality profile line which is all about people and community, the people I had done readings for would naturally refer people to me. I never advertised it yet I would end up flooded with readings and booking out months in advance through word of mouth. I currently do have availability for human design readings by the way and the calendar is open so if you’re interested check out the link in my show notes. 

     

    A book idea is born and 1:1 coaching continues

    Around the same time I was continuing to write and the idea landed for my book around August 2021 I would hire a book mentor to help me with frameworks in order for the idea to reveal itself. 

    During this whole time I had amazing 1:1 clients too off the top of my head a few stories – one manifested the money for her dream wedding, got her dream job in the fashion industry and I recently found out is pregnant with her first baby! Another client I helped made peace with her divorce, left a toxic relationship and is now moving into her dream home with her two daughters. Another client got married to her soul mate and is now also pregnant! Another client learnt the ways of feminine energetics in business and relationships and has since gotten back with her ex in a much healthier relationship dynamic and found a new flow for her business. A different client left her unfulfilling corporate job, went back to university to study health and nutrition and has met the love of her life! If you’re feeling the pull, the curiosity, yes I also have 1:1 spots open at the moment so get in touch with me, I’d love to work with you.

    The leap of faith from side hustle and corporate to full time

    Life is always happening and at the time, my corporate job in brand strategy in September 2021 gets so hectic and somehow amongst it all I end up having to take a few days off for mental health leave. At this same time I was very frustrated because I kept pushing to get a promotion to group strategy manager but if I asked in my heart did I really want it? No, I wanted the status, money and I felt it was the next logical step. Despite closing million dollar deals, winning internal awards and praise I didn’t get the promotion. 

    During this mental health leave I experienced uncontrollable shaking, I couldn’t sleep, I was so tightly wound, anxious, frazzled, not feeling my usual self and then I just knew. This was the moment. Unplanned. No safety net of $10,000 I wanted before I quit my corporate job. This was the cliff, the universe dragged me here and it was time to take the leap of faith. I had thought about it for a while but in my head I wanted to finish 2021 in my corporate job and take the leap for January 2022.

    I remember feeling so sick telling my boss over the phone that taking mental health leave gave me the space and clarity I needed to truly realise in my heart and soul that it was time for me to leave, I was quitting. I was so scared. It felt so illogical but in my gut and after riding the emotional wave all year as an emotional authority mani gen, I knew I had to do it.

    To give you the long story short, I resigned in September 2021, finished up in November 2021 and since then until now this very day in February 2023, I am a full time life coach in my own business. Despite fears I’ve never had a back up job, run out of money, had to move out of home or anything! The universe has supported me all along as I live in alignment. The timing and backdrop of this all is my Saturn Return which recently finished and wow a lot of things I mourned fell apart and on the other side I can really see how this was all for my greatest good. All along my soul has never been scared, honestly it’s been an unwavering presence of calm and faith deep down but as a human with an open head in human design there have been freak outs, doubts and imposter syndrome alone the way. 

     

    A six figure year in 2022 for Phi

    It’s wild to me that within a year I made 6 figures too in 2022. I didn’t even know, I was so busy living life, coaching that I finally got around to submitting my details to my accountant months late and I was shook. Again I never decided I had to make 6 figures, it was my big scary audacious dream goal as something to intentionally work towards and it very much happened as a byproduct doing what I loved, which is very much in line with my philosophy of why I do what I do. To help people live their best life and make a difference in this world, that is my life’s work and life purpose. It lights up my soul and in turn I am abundant for it.

    Phi is releasing a book in June 2023

    A lot of details and depth to this all is going to be released in my BOOK. Yes book that I just finished and will be released in June 2023, four months I can’t believe it. I got the book deal with my publisher shortly after in January/February 2022 after I left my corporate job. Again the universe kept nudging me with this book idea and it lay dormant and side tracked by corporate job and of course when I finished it would pop up again and be ready for the world. My book will be available in bookstores across Australia nationally as well as online via Booktopia and internationally through Book Depository and Amazon I believe. 

    What is the book about? Well all to be revealed soon but what I can share is it’s a book to spark an awakened revolution. A book of our times for the modern woman. It’s time to flip the narrative and concepts of self-help and personal development, by doing something different.

    An aligned and dream 2022

    After going full time it was an influx of soul aligned dream opportunities such as brand partnerships such as writing a series of mindset articles for Microsoft and doing human design readings for a Zero Point Yoga retreat in SOMA, Byron Bay where nine perfect strangers was shot. Honestly being paid to do the retreat in such a beautiful, lushm, luxury setting was a pinch me moment and the gratitude of the community for the insights shared in their human design readings honestly touched my heart so deeply.

    I was fortunate to go travelling when the world opened up having a stint in Singapore where I bought my first designer bag: a Louis Vuitton that was an edge to experience being in one of the most expensive cities in the world and allowing myself to use that money to buy something I desired. I didn’t need it but I desired it. It represented claiming my wealth identity. It had been on my vision board for so long.

    Behind a dream year was grief, heartache and heartbreak

    A few months later I would also travel to Europe for a 2 and a half month stint working whilst travelling in England, France, Portugal, Spain, Wales and the time also set on my relationship that I was in July  2022 after being officially together for two and a half years but really I feel like it was three given dating before that. That had been unfolding in the back half of 2022 and behind the scenes I was in so much pain and grief mourning the loss of my ex. This was when I really leaned into my superpower of having an emotional authority in human design and I wrote a lot, as a means to process everything and again that blew up going viral. I think I had two posts the week of the break up go viral to 5 million on writers, poets, moon omens, all over Instagram it was insane to have this contrast and duality going on in life. 

    Moving out of the home I shared with my ex was really a big turning point for me. It was bittersweet. I had lived in that home for I think 3.5 years, and at the beginning it was just me. I just had the urge and pull to have my own two bedroom apartment by the beach and again illogical crazy to pay so much rent on my own but I did it. In hindsight I now know why. I would meet my partner at the time who would move in with me. In the spare bedroom which used to be my closet, that is where I would start my Instagram account during the lockdown and now in turn my business. You can only really understand the soul nudges later whereas at the time you really do question yourself but from my own life I know to trust and surrender to where life takes you. I never thought I would have my own business or be a life coach but life had this grand plan for me, way better than I ever imagined and I’m so grateful I trusted my gut, my heart and soul to follow the energetic breadcrumbs of signs and gut feelings to be where I am today. 

    Caught up so far

    I think that’s mostly catching up my journey to now and whewwww I feel teary sharing this with you because I’m like wow so much has happened truly your life can change in a moment, give it a year and just mind blowing. I say the same to when I work with clients I’m like take stock of this moment because you will never be the same again. It echoes on when I catch up with old clients and see them living their dream lives, I am so proud of them because they made that decision to step into their power and change their lives for the better. 2023 has been a year of really landing and solidifying who I am now. 

    I now live in my ultimate dream apartment on the beachfront in one of Australia’s most iconic beaches and the wildest thing is four years ago I looked at an apartment on the street I lived in further back from the beach and I couldn’t afford it and now I live opposite the beach thanks to my business, I retired my mum early as well. 

    I am so grateful for you listening, the Instagram community, my clients, anyone who has ever supported me by reading my work, liking, sharing, it means the world to me. This has been my update and yeah I am so excited to be getting back into this podcast and if you have anything you want covered please reach out and let me know on Instagram @thephidang or email. If we haven’t talked before I’d love to chat too! 

    By the way I do have a lot of imposters going on and I just want to say I do not have backup accounts or secondary my only account is @thephidang. 

    As for the website? Eventually I got it back after a Chinese company bought it specialising in lapsed domains and I had to pay $1,500 USD ouch but hey it all works out in the end. In hindsight, truly the universe has always been helping me. The universe is always helping you too hence don’t just go through life, grow through it. 

    Thank you so much for listening beautiful soul! If you are interested in working with me through 1:1 coaching or human design please check out the show notes or reach out to me via a DM on Instagram. Love & Positivity, Phi. 

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  • 05: River of Misery

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    Episode Summary of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 05: River of Misery

    This episode is all about the river of misery. A deeply uncomfortable place between where you start and where you want to be. I talk about different scenarios where the river of misery happens such as in dating, relationships, ex partners, health, weight and fitness. I share practical tips on overcoming the river of misery too.

    What you'll learn from this episode

    (01:32) Why I am talking about the river of misery
    
(02:00) How you feel in the river of misery

    (02:26) What is the river of misery?

    (02:51) The pond of misery (ain’t just a river of misery!)

    (03:43) Example of river of misery (e.g. dating a commitment phobe, someone who won’t commit to you, an ex partner)

    (06:59) A willing river of misery, my battle with my weight and fitness 
    (09:47) My river of misery when I got myself got stuck (relationships related)
    (12:40) Dealing with feelings of shame, embarrassment and disappointment
    (13:23) Falling into old habits and ways of thinking

    (13:42) The hardest part of being in the river of misery

    (14:27) Truth bomb on the river of misery

    (15:42) The brain and the river of misery

    (17:39) Getting out of the river of misery

    Key Quotes from this Episode

    The river of misery won’t be comfortable or cruisy. I won’t lie to you, it’s called the river of misery for a reason.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Are you willing to swim the river of misery and go through temporary discomfort and pain to get what you want?

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Even though I wasn’t in my ideal situation I was and am still loveable and so are you whatever scenario you are in. Lead with love not hate.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Featured Resources on the episode

    The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 05: River of Misery​, Show Transcript

    You are listening to episode 5: River of Misery.

    [Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

    Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

    Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

    My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

    My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

    Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

    This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

    [Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

    [Episode 05 – River of Misery: Begins]

    Hi beautiful soul, are you feeling stuck and frustrated right now? Perhaps overwhelmed by everything going on in your life. If not, can you think back to a time when you were?

    Why am I asking you these questions? Well this podcast episode is all about the river of misery. Oh yes, the river of misery.

    When I first started to think about this episode I didn’t know where to begin or if I had enough material. Turns out I have a lot of information, practical examples and juicy insights to share so this episode may be on the longer side to manage your expectations.

    The reason I’m talking to you about the river of misery today is that it continually pops up in my life coaching, when I talk to my clients and loved ones. At one point or the other whether they come to me as they are in the river of misery or experience it on the journey to making their goals and dreams happen, the river of misery is something we can all relate to at some point in our lives and it is not enjoyable.

    When I think of the river of misery, I feel as if there is a lot going on against me and I feel overwhelmed. It feels like a river full of rapids coming at full force towards me and I’m struggling to stay afloat. The whole time I just feel just so damn uncomfortable. I feel tired and I just want it to end.

    It’s a horrible place to be because you feel so frustrated, trapped and annoyed.

    What is the river of misery?

    The river of misery is place where you feel deeply uncomfortable and overwhelmed by everything that’s happening in your life.

    How you end up in the river of misery may be by choice or not, but whether you continue to stay in the river of misery and end up stuck there… that’s a choice.

    Let me run you by some scenarios of how this comes to be.

    Pond of Misery

    The pond of misery is well, safe. You know what to expect in the pond. Nothing drastic is happening, nothing is going to harm you. It’s not terribly uncomfortable like a river of misery but it’s unsatisfactory. Things could be better than being in the pond at all.

    To get to where you want to be, now that’s a river of misery.

    The river of misery involves being uncomfortable and doing hard things to get the result you want.

    All these thoughts push against you going into this river for your safety, after all your brain has evolved to protect you. Your brain is always looking for danger.

    “It is going be a lot of hard work”

    “It is going to take a lot of investment. Time, energy, effort, money”

    “What if I do all this stuff and it doesn’t work out, what if it is not worth it?”

    “The pond is not that bad is it…? It’s not that bad… it’s not that bad you try to convince yourself.”

    First type of river of misery and a river of misery scenario: Dating, relationships, ex partners

    Let’s apply this example to a real life scenario such as getting stuck in and involved in an entanglement with someone you are seeing who won’t commit to being in a relationship with you or an ex partner even.

    You’re not happy with the situation, this person you’re seeing is also dating other people and you’re probably fifth priority after their work, family, friends and other people they are dating.

    I mean at least you get the occasional cuddle, probably the non strings attached intimacy (lets be real there are a lot of strings!!!), hey maybe they’ll even reply back to a text quickly once in a while.

    It’s miserable to do a degree, but you’re some what used to it and familiar with it even though you are craving a fulfilling and committed relationship where you are a priority, when they make time for you, when you feel so loved and secure.

    So in this pond of misery, no one is putting a gun to your head saying you have to keep seeing this person. Can you see the only person who got you in this pond of misery and is keeping you there is you?

    So how do you get out of this pond of misery? Jumping into the river of misery to get to the other side: land.

    The river of misery kicks it up a notch, you’re not dealing with a pond anymore, you’re dealing with a rapid river.

    The river of misery for this scenario means letting go and cutting off the person you are dating. It means being alone for the time being. It means working on yourself and reflecting on how you got into this situation. Why you are in this situation. It means eventually having to start meeting people and going on dates again. It means opening up with new people as you date.

    Your brain in this scenario starts panicking. This is hard! This is a lot of work! Let me go back to the pond! I wasn’t happy there but at least I was comfortable. I accepted it, I got used to it.

    The river of misery won’t be comfortable or cruisy. I won’t lie to you, it’s called the river of misery for a reason. But what if you knew that going through the river of misery was worth it? That on the other side on the land, is a loving person who is ready to commit and have a beautiful relationship with you.

    Are you willing to swim the river of misery and go through temporary discomfort and pain to get what you want? Like I mentioned in the previous episode number 4 on mental fitness and taking your brain to the gym, discomfort is the currency of your success just like working out at the gym to get fitter, leaner and stronger.

    So back to the river of misery. It won’t last forever.

    Eventually it gets easier as you get used to it. But in order to get to this place, you have to start in the deep end of the river of misery and swim towards land. You have to be willing to endure the river and to keep swimming until you get to the land. If you swim back to the pond, you’ll lose progress, battle the river and have to start again.

    The brain likes security and comfort, that is how it’s hardwired. Can you reassure your brain that you are going through the river of misery for a purpose?

    Can you put your purpose at the forefront of your mind? Can you feel and visualise how amazing it is going to be when you make your dreams come true?

    My river of misery: health, fitness and weight

    I’ve been in this type of river of misery lately.

    My pond was being unhappy with my body and fitness levels.

    To be completely transparent with you since COVID-19 hit, I stopped going to the gym 4 times a week where I used to weight train and do cardio based classes and now I don’t do any any exercise at all except walking and swimming.

    I started eating a lot more because I was either bored or wanted comfort during hard times. I gained weight, in fact I am the heaviest I have ever been in my life. And not it’s definitely muscle, it’s definitely fat I think.
    
Some of the clothes I own, I can no longer fit into or I have to really suck in my belly the whole time I’m wearing them – not fun and super uncomfortable.

    Sure, a quick fix is to buy bigger clothing sizes but that doesn’t address the core issue.

    Addressing the core issue is working on my mindset and getting fit – jumping into the river of misery by choice. The land is being happy, healthy and fit. So what does this river involve?

    Waking up earlier to do some exercise before work. Making time to do grocery shopping on the weekend so I can prepare healthy meals instead of turning to instant food or processed food I can reheat. I’m embarrassed to admit this to you but I always have cans of chicken noodle soup at home for when I am too busy to cook! Let’s not forget the frugal favourite Mi Goreng too – 2 minute noodles. Can you tell I really like noodles? 

    Anyway back to it.

That in itself is a river of misery, adapting to changing tastes (because I wish salads tasted as good as instant noodles or frozen pizza for lunch especially on a really busy day when it’s so comforting). 

    There is a river of misery working on my mindset, why I can’t be happy now at my body is and why it has to be when certain criteria is met. 

This whole situation is a river of misery but its worth it knowing my end result, happy, healthy and fit!

    The second type of river of misery: being stuck

    Now there’s also another river of misery which is when you are just stuck because you are so miserable with how you are, your thoughts and the world around you.

    I’ve seen this with my clients who are stuck in their past and finding it hard to get over someone because they thought they were the one. I’ve seen this in clients who think that they can’t be positive because they just have so many negative thoughts all the time and they think they are powerless to change it. I’ve seen this with my clients who continually compare themselves to other people and end up feeling insecure and jealous all the time.

    My second type of river of misery: being single

    I remember being in this type of river of misery because well I got myself there and I was keeping myself stuck (even though it took me a while to consciously and truly realise what I was doing!).

    At one point in my life when I was single, I was so frustrated and sick of dating because nothing seemed to be working out for me. At the time I felt I just kept dating people who weren’t looking for a relationship time and time again. This really sucked for me. It was made harder by the fact I had been single for long stretches of time, years!

    To get to the other side where I was happy dating and enjoying dating I needed to do the hard work to figure out why this was happening to me. After all the common denominator in all the scenarios was well… me!

    It was easy to just blame anything and everything outside of me, to be honest.

    “Oh there’s no good people to do date out there, they are all taken”

    “Everyone is a commitment phobe these days, everyone always thinks that the grass is greener on the other side”

    “It’s so hard to find a relationship these days”

    “Are there any decent and respectful people out there dating anymore?”

    Do you know what was hard, really hard?

    Realising it wasn’t any of these things at all.

    That in fact, it was in fact my thoughts.

    That was a bitter pill to swallow but do you know what was even harder than this realisation?

    Jumping into the river of misery.

    Doing the work to get to a place where I was in a good mindset, enjoying dating and seeing it as a fun journey.

    Doing the work meant confronting myself. Being honest with myself. Not pretending or saying the right things. Pure honesty.

    What was I really looking for?

    Why did I want a relationship?

    Was I looking for love outside myself before being getting to be in love with who I was and who I am?

    Did I know my worth? Did I actually think I was worthy of happy, loving and healthy relationship?

    Why was I dating people who weren’t looking for a relationship?

    Why was I choosing these people?

    I had to start moving and swimming in the river of misery instead of just staying put in the same spot of the river of misery.

    I had to be intentional with dating. I had to consciously vet out people who weren’t in alignment with what I wanted and who I wanted to be with no matter what. I had to stop settling for less then I deserved. I had to stop making excuses for people. I had to put myself out there and be vulnerable. I had to make an effort to go on dates again and get to know someone. I had to open up to people. I had to walk the walk and talk the talk.

    At first moving in the river of misery was hard. I had admit things to myself that I didn’t want to because I was ashamed of myself, I was embarrassed about my situation, I felt disappointed in myself for making mistakes and being in this situation longer than I wanted to.

    And it’s okay to feel this way, we are only human after all. Always be kind to yourself. Always do things out of love to yourself. Even though I wasn’t in my ideal situation I was and am still loveable and so are you whatever scenario you are in. Lead with love not hate.

    I had to swim through those hard emotions. At times moving in the river meant I would go backwards and fall into old habits and ways of thinking. But that’s okay, you catch yourself or make a mistake and keep moving forward. Sometimes you drift backwards a bit and then make up for it and move even more towards the land.

    The hardest part of the river of misery

    One thing is for sure the hardest part is just getting started, once I got started doing the work it got easier. An analogy of this is that it’s hard to go on your first date after you haven’t been on one in a long time. Once you’ve got on that first date, going on more dates doesn’t seem as hard as that first date.

    Another example is that it’s hard to get motivation to start going to the gym once you’ve had a long time off but it’s easier to add weights to your fitness routine or run a longer distance once you are already exercising.

    A hard truth about the river of misery

    Back to the river of misery in this scenario, I’m going to drop a truth bomb.
    
Do we stay stuck in the river of misery well because we enjoy being in misery?

    Hear me out. If you have been miserable for a while, misery starts to get comfortable. After all you are used to being miserable to the point where it becomes a part of your identity. 



    Poor me, I’m miserable. I’m miserable all the time. Misery is who I am.



    When you’re in misery it gives your brain a reason as to why you are in misery. You can them blame all of the circumstances for causing your misery. Have you ever considered if you are a source of your misery? Have you ever tried to turn the focus from everything happening to you and turn it inward? What is happening inside you to keep the misery going on?

    Can I offer you a radical thought? What if you chose to step away from the identity of being miserable. You radically actually chose to not be miserable. You choose to stop making excuses and blaming external factors and turn inwards. Take responsibility for your happiness, you aren’t stuck. Get out of the river of misery by swimming!

    Getting out of the river will feel uncomfortable but it will be worth it.

    Your brain and the river of misery

    Remember, the brain likes to be efficient. It likes routines. It likes easy. So when you break routine, when you challenge ways of thinking your brain doesn’t like it. Your brain will probably say to you “Hey you know what, you don’t have to be uncomfortable if you just stay stuck. Stop wanting more or different. Let’s continue with this current way of thinking, after all you have thought like this for ages and let’s stay comfortable doing nothing different.”

    Moreover your brain has confirmation bias, it wants to prove itself right. So if you keep on believing your thoughts keeping you stuck, your brain will continue to find evidence of your limiting beliefs and as a result you stay stuck.

    Let’s add in the fact as mentioned earlier that your brain is trying to protect you from danger too and guess what? Doing new things, having new thoughts, new actions is perceived as dangerous to your primitive mind. The cave man mind. The cave man mind was always on alert, there was always threats around without modern technology and evolution!

    You have to understand that if you want change, it means doing something different. Whatever you are doing right now is keeping you in the river of misery.

    There is no circumstance which means you can’t get out of the river of misery, as I always tell me clients – you can always do something. If you can’t change whatever is happening, you CAN change your mind.

    It means changing your thoughts intentionally. It means taking action. It means hard work. It means getting out of your comfort zone. Trust in yourself, you can do hard things. Do this for future you. Do it for you!

    If you’re in a river of misery, you can get out of there. I promise you, you can.

    Do the hard work and you get get out of there.

    Struggling in the river of misery? Need Help?

    If you’re struggling let’s chat, I’d love to connect with you this is what coaches do. A life coach helps you cross the river. A life coach shows you how you are stuck in a pond of misery. A life coach helps you master your thoughts to get across the river easier. A life coach will throw in the emergency buoy and help you.

    I am a life coach and I can help you. I have helped many people from the river of misery to land. Now? They thrive and conquer anything including rivers of misery.

    The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 05: River of Misery​ close

    Whatever you do, just keep swimming! You’ve got this.

    I’ll see you in the river of misery and I’ll see you on the land!

    Chat to you next Tuesday for the next episode of The Grow Through it Podcast with Phi Dang.

    Thanks for listening, speak soon.

    Love and Positivity.

    [Episode 05 – River of Misery: Ends]

    Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

    Click here to read more

  • 04: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym

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    Episode Summary of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 04: Mental Fitness - Take your Brain to the Gym

    You go the gym to work on your body and get fit. Why wouldn’t you take your brain to the gym? This episode is all about your mental health and fitness. Learn how to work out your brain. A powerful exploration of your mindset.

    What you'll learn from this episode

    (01:32): How coaching is like going to to the gym for your brain
    (02:56): Discomfort is the currency of your success
    (06:14): Why we focus on physical health and not mental health
    (06:52): How to workout your brain
    (07:57): Highlight – Neuroplasticity 

    Key Quotes from this Episode

    Discomfort is the price we pay to grow, as they said ‘no pain, no gain.’

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Discomfort is a part of your growth and success. Really discomfort is the currency of success.


    Phi Dang Tweet

    Try looking at the world from the eyes of a child - have curiosity, wonder and awe of what is going on around you.


    Phi Dang Tweet

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Show Transcript of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 04: Mental Fitness - Take your Brain to the Gym

    You are listening to episode 4: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym.

    [Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

    Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

    Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

    My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

    My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

    Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

    This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

    [Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

    [Episode 04: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym: Begins]

    Hello beautiful souls you’re listening to Episode #4 of the Growth Through It Podcast. This episode is all about mental fitness and how you can take your brain to the gym. I will share with you a practical 4 step mental fitness workout you can implement in your daily life.

    Before I do, I wanted to give a huge shout out to one of my beautiful clients Fiona who inspired today’s episode.

    Fiona is a huge gym goer. We had a big breakthrough session on Wednesday night and an analogy I had, really hit home for her which I would love to share with you.

    Getting life coaching is the equivalent of taking your brain to the gym.

    It’s not the only way but it’s one of the greatest ways you can take your brain to the gym. I’ll dive into this a little later into the podcast but this episode is all about.

    It is in the same way that a professional athlete has a coach to improve their performance. It doesn’t matter how good they get, they will always have a coach.

    So apply that to your own circumstances, do you have a coach for your life? Athletes need the experience, support, outside perspective and insight of their coach. This is just as true for everyone. Life is hard, it’s not a walk in the park.

    In fact some of the most well known, successful personalities in this world vouch for coaching.

    "Coaching helps you stop the crazy mind chatter in your head that tells you all the time that you’re not good enough."

    Oprah Winfrey Tweet

    “Everyone needs a coach. We all need people that give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”

    Bill Gates Tweet

    There is such power in getting life coaching. You have someone there holding space for you where you can talk about anything and everything in your life (with no need to feel bad, that’s the purpose). As a life coach I work with my clients to discover what is holding them back and support them in taking action over overcome their perceived limits so they can conquer anything.

    Bringing it back to the analogy that getting life coaching is the equivalent of taking your brain to the gym, In the same vein of the analogy, discomfort is a part of your growth and success. Really discomfort is the currency of success.

    You know when you have a big session at the gym, you feel absolutely sore and exhausted but in a good way? That’s when you know you’ve had a good proper workout. Then DOMS kicks in and your arms and legs are sore for days after, maybe you’re even wobbling and it hurts to laugh because you’re that sore but you tolerate it because the pain means that your body is changing.

    Well the equivalent of this is feeling uncomfortable and emotional during and after a life coaching session. You won’t always be emotional but you’ll most certainly be uncomfortable. It’s through discomfort we grow. Discomfort is the price we pay to grow, as they said ‘no pain, no gain.’ Will it always be this way? No. But reflect on your own life, is not when you go through the hardest, the heaviest, the most painful of times that the most growth occurs? Getting out of your comfort zone is where the most growth occurs.

    Moving further into this analogy, I find when I speak to clients and they start crying or feeling down they start to apologise. and I’m like what for!?! You’re having a huge brain workout. Just like the gym, yes it’s uncomfortable, yes you might be in pain but you’re growing! 

    Can you tolerate being uncomfortable and emotional because you are are transforming? Because you are shedding old ways of thinking and patterns? Because you are having new thoughts and creating new neural pathways in your brain? Not only that discomfort, is a part of being human – the full spectrum of it.

    As humans, we are generally willing to feel discomfort because of something. For a purpose. We don’t like going through difficult emotions unless it’s for a purpose, otherwise you’ll see it as just meaningless discomfort for you. 

    Always remember your why, your purpose. Just like gym, keeping your “why” front and center and always available to you, will help you find your strength on those dark days when motivation’s light is nowhere to be found. Take note of this affirmation: I can do hard things (it’s true because you can).

    I mean this doesn’t even just apply to coaching, it applies to your personal development. When you are working on your mindset. When you are working on your self love. When you are working on energetic principles. When you are hitting your goals, your purpose. 

    You have to be willing to feel the discomfort of growth and risk in order to achieve what you want. The more uncomfortable you are willing to be, the closer your life will align to what you want it to be. There’s a whole lot of amazing waiting for you outside of your comfort zone.

    Speaking of fitness, we have such a huge emphasis on getting fit – especially in Australia we have a huge health and fitness scene here. In fact Australians spend an average of almost $1,000 – $900 on average per year at the gym according to Canstar Blue. Why is that we are prepared to spend that much at the gym but bulk at the thought of investing in ourselves mentally whether that’s through life coaching or therapy?

    Why is it that we focus on the physical but forget about the mental? My belief is that when you work out because you can physically see it, that motivates you to keep going. Developing yourself mentally, you can’t physically see it so it can be harder to keep being inspired and motivated but I want you to know, just because you can’t see it – doesn’t mean it’s not happening. You are growing every time you work on yourself so keep going!

    It’s important to be physically fit but equally it is so important to be mentally fit too. So I want to dive in and share some practical ways that you can boost your mental fitness. So let’s dive into this 4 stage mental fitness work out example.

    Stage 1: The Warm Up

    So at the gym you would do stretches or a few exercises to kickstart your workout like push ups? You can also do the same to take a few minutes to get your mind warmed up.

    It could be taking a minute to think about what you are grateful for (which has tremendous positive benefits on your wellbeing) or taking a minute to be mindful, to be fully present in the moment. 

    Taking in a deep breath, observing what is going on around you. What can you see? What can you hear? What can you feel?

    Stage 2: The Work Out

    Did you know your brain has neuroplasticity? Dr Celeste Campbell refers to neuroplasticity as the physiological changes in the brain that happen as the result of our interactions with our environment. From the time the brain begins to develop in utero until the day we die, the connections among the cells in our brains reorganize in response to our changing needs. This dynamic process allows us to learn from and adapt to different experiences.

    How incredible is that? From the moment we are born to the moment we die, this plasticity allows your mind to adapt and change, even as you grow older. As you learn new things, you can create and strengthen neural pathways and networks. 

    This helps make your brain stronger, but it can also help make it more flexible and adaptable to change. Remember this when you think you can’t change your thoughts, you most definitely can, even as you get older.

    Let’s dive into ways you can exercise your mind.

     

    Journaling

    My personal favourite and recommendation for clients is journaling. No excuses it can be simply done on a piece of paper or any writing book you deem your journal. Journaling is a great way to check in with yourself and to get to know yourself better.

    It helps you focus on yourself and actually reduce your stress as you get everything our of your head and onto paper. When you start it could be as simple as reflecting on what you did, how you felt and what thoughts came up for you each day.

    With clients I love to prepare personalised prompts based on what they are working through. If you aren’t working with a coach you can journal to work through something that you’re going through. Perhaps its what scares you and holds you back or is there a relationship in your life you’d like to work on?

    Learn something new

    In addition to journaling I’m going to run you through additional ways to exercise your mind.

    The obvious one that comes to mind is to learn something new.

    Learning something new keeps your mind on its toe because it’s going through obstacles and challenges it hasn’t experienced before.

    In one study done on older adults in 2013, researchers had a group learn a variety of new skills such as digital photography and quilting. They then did memory tests and compared this group to another group engaged in fun non social activities but weren’t mentally challenging like listening to the radio.

    The researchers found that only those in the experiment who had learned a new skill experienced improvement on the memory tests.

    They also discovered that these memory improvements were still present when tested again a year later.

    Not only that research shows any kind of a new skill can create more dopamine neurotransmitters to be released in parts of the brain that control our reward and learning responses. A natural high ensues as nature intended. You just have to find something unique that stimulates your mind in new and exciting ways.

    Do things differently - shake up your routine

    Use your non dominant hand to switch it up. So for example if you are right handed, try using your left hand to brush your teeth, or use it to eat your meals or write. It will be difficult but that is the point.

    The reason that is, is because most of us live lour life as a series of fixed routines which makes sense as its less stressful – we have less choices to make, we perform complex tasks like driving a car with little mental effort. 

    Routines are run by our subconscious mind and require little energy. Once in a while you want to shake that up just like you do with exercise. If you keep doing the same exercises over and over again eventually they become less effective as your body has adapted.

    In addition to switching your hand to break your routine you can do it as simply as taking a different route to get to work or can you try do mundane safe household chores with your eyes closed. Closing your eyes adds difficulty to folding your clothes or washing your hair. Maybe it’s doing something upside down or backwards instead for a change!

    With clients I love to prepare personalised prompts based on what they are working through. If you aren’t working with a coach you can journal to work through something that you’re going through. Perhaps its what scares you and holds you back or is there a relationship in your life you’d like to work on?

    Food related ways to work out your brain

    The next few ideas are to do with food because well I love food!

    Do some cooking! Particularly new recipes you haven’t done before. Cooking uses all your senses — smell, touch, sight, sound and taste — which involve different parts of the brain to keep them active. 

    When you throw in eating unfamiliar foods that truly drives your mind into overdrive exercising to figure out what it thinks of it and gives you a new experience in life. New experiences in life can be hard to come by as we get older as we get more accustomed to wanting comfort in life. 

    Remember when you were a kid? Your mind used to get so blown by the simplest things. Try looking at the world from the eyes of a child – have curiosity, wonder and awe of what is going on around you.

    Think of activities that engage your physical and emotional senses like “Neurobic” exercises that are like cross-training for your brain.

    Challenge your taste buds. When eating, try to identify individual ingredients in your meal, including subtle herbs and spices. Sounds very Masterchefy right?

    Meditation

    Lastly one of the most simple in theory to do but hardest in practice. Meditation.

    Simply put meditation is being in the present moment. The majority of us like to close our eyes, focus on our breathing and let the mind do its thing. To let thoughts pass like clouds, they’re going to come and go and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.

    When you catch yourself thinking about something return your focus to your breath.

    That’s it!

    There’s all sorts of ways to meditate from staring at a candle to listening to a guided medtiation. There are so many apps out there that can help you. Some of personal favourite apps are insight timer, calm and one giant mind.

    Research continually comes out in regards to the benefits of meditation and how it actually changes your brain.

    One of the most interesting studies in the last few years was done at Yale University. Researchers found that mindfulness meditation decreases activity in the default mode network (DMN). 

    This network in your brain is responsible for monkey mind which is when your mind is wandering. This network is on when you’re not thinking about anything in particular, when your mind is bouncing from thought to thought.

    Monkey mind is typically associated with being less happy as you are ruminating or worrying about about the past and future.

    Studies showed that meditation had quieting effecting on the DMN.

    It’s impossible to completely eradicate monkey mind but if you’re a regular meditator you’ll find it’s easier to snap out of it.

    Stage 3: The Cool Down

    Cooling down after a workout is important as it allows your body temperature, bloody pressure and heart rate to return to their normal levels. Stretching helps relieve cramps and stiffness. When we are working on our mindset, it can get heavy depending how deeply we delve into our personal development.

    So our equivalent for cooling down mentally is to change your state. To bring yourself out of the mental zone and relieve any mental intensity.

    To do this, for example if you’re currently sitting down, stand up and I want you to physically shake as if you are dancing. Or it can be as simple as changing your posture or smiling. Perhaps you even want to change your environment and go to a different room – as long as you change your current state!

    Stage 4: Rest

    Just like athletes, your mind also needs a rest. Self care is so important. Resting could be in the form of naps or taking things off your plate when you are overloaded with things to do. The best rest is of course sleep at least 7 hours for adults — if you ever want to know why do yourself a favour and read “Why do we Sleep” by Matthew Walker.

    So our equivalent for cooling down mentally is to change your state. To bring yourself out of the mental zone and relieve any mental intensity.

    To do this, for example if you’re currently sitting down, stand up and I want you to physically shake as if you are dancing. Or it can be as simple as changing your posture or smiling. Perhaps you even want to change your environment and go to a different room – as long as you change your current state!

    Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 04: Mental Fitness - Take your Brain to the Gym Episode Close

    Having your own mental fitness routine takes time to establish. Like exercises, be open to trying new ways and finding what works best for you. 

    Thank you for joining me on this episode on mental fitness and taking your brain to the gym. 

    I’ll chat to you next Tuesday and if you’re looking for a coach and to take your brain to the gym check out the show notes. I currently have 1:1 coaching spots open and available – I would love to work with you.

    [Episode 04: Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the Gym: Ends]

    Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

    Click here to read more

  • 03: Beyond the Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws

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    Episode Summary of The Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang, 03: Beyond The Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws

    In this episode I explain the 12 universal laws of the Universe. I cover how they impact your life and how you can use them in your daily life through practical examples. It goes beyond the Law of Attraction and covers ones you may have never heard of such as the Law of Correspondence and the Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy.

    What you'll learn from this episode

    (01:40) – What are the Universal Laws?
    (03:15) – The Universal Laws

    Key Quotes from this Episode

    Emotions are energy in motion.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Trust that you will be compensated for what you do as long as you are open to receiving in the many ways the universe can deliver.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Nothing changes, if nothing changes.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Show Transcript

    [Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

    Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

    Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

    My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

    My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

    Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

    This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

    [Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

    [Episode 03 – Beyond the Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws: Begins]

    Hi Beautiful Souls, it’s great to connect with you again! I’m sure most of you listening have heard of the Law of Attraction? Distilled simply the law of attraction is that like attracts like. It is often brought up in relation to your thoughts. Positive thoughts attract positive outcomes, negative thoughts attract negative outcomes. 

    Whilst the Law of Attraction is well known due to its popularity in the media through books and documentaries such as The Secret, in this episode we go beyond the Law of Attraction and cover all 12 Laws of the Universe. Yes there are 12 laws of the universe! The Law of attraction co exists and works with these 11 other Laws.

    So what are the universal laws? You can think of them as the law of nature, how life is ‘set up’ in a way. They are a roadmap on how to live your best life. The laws work in our favour, we work with them – they are not here as punishments and they are not here to stop us from living our best life. We co create with them. You co create with the universe your reality. Note it can be said the universe is interchangeable with terms such as the source, creation, God, divinity and so forth.

    “The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding.”

    The Kybalion Tweet

    This is a quote from the ancient text The Kybalion, where the origins of the 12 universal laws stem from amongst other ancient teachings across time.

    For the most part of the laws, the basic principle revolves around energy because everything in the universe is energy.

    To many it sounds like ‘woo’ – vibrations, frequency however I promise you I will explain everything in clear and practical terms so you can truly understand the 12 universal laws.

    As you gain a fuller understanding of the laws, you will see how they are all related, they overlap each other and govern the world we live in.

    Another perspective you can have on the universal laws is that we can call it the game of life or we can call it the Matrix! Just like the movie. You can think of it as that we are living in the Matrix! And just like the Matrix, there are rules in how you play the game. Your purpose in this game is to be your best self, to grow and evolve.

    So let’s dive into the 12 Universal Laws.

    Law of the Universe 01: The Law of Divine Oneness

    The first and most foundational law of the universe is the Law of Divine Oneness, which highlights how everything is interconnected. For us humans it goes beyond perception of physicality (what we can see and touch), into our senses and extends to every thought, action, belief you have too. Think of it as a ripple effect.

    This is further extended in the notion we all come from one source origin which I alluded to earlier at the beginning of the podcast by saying ‘The Universe’ is an interchangeable term, it is also known as ‘the source’, divinity, consciousness, God etc.

    As a result, the law of divine oneness can be distilled as “what you wish upon others, you wish upon yourself”

    When you hurt someone, you are hurting yourself.

    You know how when you go to a yoga class they always say namaste? Namaste encapsulates this concept.

    Originally a Sanskrit word (the ancient language in Hinduism) namaste is composed of two parts—“namas” which means “bend to,” “bow to” or “honour to,” and “te” means “to you.” So Namaste means “I bow to you.” This phrase when said is often accompanied by the gesture of joining two palms together, placing them at the heart level and bowing one’s head while saying namaste.

    The spiritual meaning of namaste conveys that “the divine in me respectfully recognizes the divine in you.” Namaste invokes the feeling of spiritual oneness of heart and mind, with the person one is greeting.

    So in practical terms how does the law of Divine Oneness apply to your daily life?

    It really speaks to the power of working together in cooperation with others and to be of help and services to others. I have an analogy to showcase this for you.

    When you have a single brick, what can you do with it? Not much right, perhaps as a door stop or a very heavy paper weight.

    However if you have over a million bricks, you have so many possibilities. These bricks can be used to build a house, a hospital, a school, a business, a fireplace, driveways, a chimney and so forth. In order for this to happen all the bricks work together to create something incredible, something a single brick could never do. 

    Each individual brick is useful and important in itself but it becomes even more important and useful together with all the other bricks. Individual bricks become the support for another brick.

    So in your life, are you working alone and for your own interest? Can you help others to become greater than you are alone? Are you truly unlocking your full potential alone? Imagine you could share your skills and knowledge with others, what incredible things would happen, not only for yourself but everyone around you and connected with you?

    Law of the Universe 02: The Law of Vibration

    Vibrations used to be one of those things that was relegated to new age thinking, hippies, ‘woo’ along with healing crystals and so forth.

    Today, quantum physics, science backs the fact that vibrations exist. In fact they exist everywhere and in everything, in the chair you may be sitting on, on the ground you are running on, in your forks and plates.

    Everything in the universe is energy and in turn everything has a vibration.

    Even Einstein himself said this:

    “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

    Albert Einstein Tweet

    What Einstein says has heavy weight, after all he is the physicist who developed the theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics.

    How this applies to you in your daily life is realizing every thought, feeling, emotion has a vibrational frequency.

    Have you heard of these sayings? They embody the Law of Vibration.

    “Your vibe attracts your tribe.”

    Tweet

    “Good vibes”

    Tweet

    “Vibrate at the highest frequency”

    Tweet

    Speaking of frequency a real life example of this is your emotions. Emotions are energy in motion. Each emotion has a different frequency for example love is a high frequency whereas shame is a low frequency.

    How do you raise your vibrational frequency? 

    There are various ways to do this in your life including being conscious of your thoughts, meditating, practicing kindness and gratitude, swim in the ocean, do not saying yes to something unless you really want to, dance, decluttering, earthing (when you walk barefoot on the grass, check out my blog on my website phidang.com where I discuss this in an article 7 Unexpected Life-Changing Things I learnt on a Silent Retreat in Bali. I’ll drop the link in the show notes.

    Law of the Universe 03: The Law of Correspondence

    This law of correspondence is all about patterns that repeat throughout the universe, and on a personal level, our reality is a mirror of what’s happening inside us at that moment.

    Therefore everything is a reflection of your internal state. If you want to change what is happening in your external reality, you have to change inside first. That’s why people love to say ‘change from the inside out’ or think of it in these terms “As above, so below. As within, so without.”

    So if your current external reality is sad, chaotic or unfulfilling it is a direct result of what is happening inside you according to the law of correspondence. If you have low self-esteem, feel badly about yourself or feel hate, anger and loathing all the time then your outer world will be a place of chaos, just to show you what you are projecting.

    Now if you’re currently feeling under attacked or offended, it’s okay. Let me explain this through the concept of law and effect which is regularly used in coaching in the field of neuro linguistic programming (NLP) which is a tool I used with my clients. 

    NLP uses perceptual, behavioral, and communication techniques to make it easier for people to change their thoughts and actions.

    The concept of cause and effect is this. We ask are you on the cause side of the equation or the effect side. If you are on the cause side you know that everything is happening in your life because of a conscious or subconscious decision you have made. It is a view of personal power whereas if you are on the effect side, life is happening to you and you are the victim, you have no control.

    Now what that means in your everyday life is that if you are on the cause side and responsible for your life guess what? You have power you can change your life whereas if you are on the effect side because it is external things causing everything you have no control or ability to change your life.

    See the difference? If you’re interested in learning more about cause and effect I have it on my free ‘mini trainings’ highlight on my Instagram @thephidang (i’ll drop my handle in the show notes if we haven’t already connected).

    Therefore the law of correspondence puts you in the drivers seat of your life, you are not a victim of your life.

    Remember: Life is happening for you, not to you. How can you grow through your experiences? What do they teach you?

    One of my favourite quotes is from Wayne Dyer is:

    “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”

    Wayne Dyer Tweet

    Law of the Universe 04: The Law of Attraction

    One of the most known and talked about laws of the universe as I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.

    Simply distilled the law of attraction explains why certain things, people, events happen in our lives.

    Like attracts like. 

    There is a common misconception that this is a scary bad thing where you are punished for your bad thoughts – think of it more as a mirror.

    Let’s bring this example into real life.

    I want you to stand in front of mirror and I want you to think about what you see, what you think and what you feel when you see yourself in the mirror.

    Whatever it is, the very nature of a mirror is that it reflects back to us what we see just like the law of attraction. Think of the mirror as an amplifier of the energy that you are already embodying.

    When you look back at your reflection, you are taking in more of the same energy, whether this be positive or negative or whatever it may be. If you see flaws, you’ll continue to focus and fixate them which makes it worse OR you can choose to use that focus and energy into improving yourself as an as an example.

    How the law of attraction plays out in your real life is to be aware and conscious of the thoughts you are having. Your thoughts have an energy and are a self fulfilling prophecy. Further to that, the law of attraction is the main tenet in manifestation.

    Manifestation is bringing something tangible into your life through attraction and belief, i.e. if you think it, it will come. However, there is more to manifestation than willpower and positive thinking, it involves focus and inspired action too.

    If you want to learn more about manifestation, I have a free guide available worth $77 called the A-Z of manifestation. It’s yours free, just jump onto my website phidang.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter. 

    When you sign up you’ll immediately receive a download link for the guide. It teaches you basic concepts of manifestation and what you need to know to get started or further advance your current ways. I find i always get spammed with irrelevant and annoying newsletters so I promise i won’t do the same to you – it will be exclusive offers as well as tips and tricks on mindset, self love, energy and purpose not available in this podcast, my website or my instagram.

    Law of the Universe 05: The Law of Inspired Action

    The Law of Attraction was all about aligning your energy – your vibration, your frequency created from your thoughts. This is the first step in creating all that you desire, manifesting.

    The second step is the law of inspired action – to take action. Nothing changes, if nothing changes. You can’t sit back want, wish and hope that what you want will come to you. You have to take inspired action for it to happen.

    That old saying ‘Actions speak louder than words’ has never been truer. Are your actions supporting your desires? Are your actions supporting your dreams and supporting the life you are working so tirelessly to create for yourself? Reflect and assess.

    For example if you are single and wanting a relationship, to find a partner – are you going out and meeting people. Are you going on dates? That you’re not just at home watching Netflix and eating ice cream hoping that your perfect partner will waltz through the door?

    The subtle secret here is ‘inspired’ – it can’t feel forced like a ‘hustle’ when you are taking inspired action it feels good (it might not be easy) but it feels good e.g. in most cases you are driven by your purpose, your why

    Where most of us fall down or mistakes on this one is not taking any action at all. Action is better than no action. When you take action you get a result it either works out the way you want or you learn. A win, a win in my eyes.

    Most of us know what we want and can figure out how to get what we want but we fail to take action because we are either skeptical, feel unworthy, and not capable of achieving our dreams. At times we may even not take action because we don’t want to get out of our comfort zone. 

    Remember you don’t really grow from the comfort zone. For example you could just lie in bed all day, relax, watch TV everyday or you can choose to get up, go to the gym, work on yourself etc. It’s much easier to stay in bed but nothing really comes of that.

    Remember even a small action still counts as action. It doesn’t have to be a grand action. In fact it’s better to have consistent inspired action towards your goals and dreams as opposed to big action once in every while. Consistency moves you closer to the needle. 

    Law of the Universe 06: The Law of Perpetual Transmutation of Energy

    This law is a mouthful but such a great one as it truly affirms how much personal power you have.

    As I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, all the universal laws relate to each other and overlap in ways. The law of perpetual transmutation of energy ties in threads from the previous universal laws we spoke about – the law of vibration, the law of correspondence, the law of attraction.

    Particularly, the law of vibration: Nothing is static and everything is always transforming because everything is in constant motion and energy. You are energy therefore you have the power to change any condition in your life.

    Therefore you can transmutate everything – negative to positive energy, nothing to something… hence The law of perpetual transmutation of energy.

    Change is the only constant in life.

    Applying this to your life, producing a higher vibration consumes and transforms lower ones. Positive energy is more powerful than negative energy.  So you don’t have to worry about other people’s energy, stay focused and in your energy.

    Further to this an example is the transformation of energetic thoughts into physical reality.

    1. Your reality are circumstances, they are neutral

    2. Your thoughts create create emotion which you feel in your head and throughout your body.

    3. How you feel dictates what action or inaction you take which then leads to a result.

    Another example is the transmutation of your emotions.

    For example, anxious energy can be turned into excitement. Anger can become passion, sexual energy can become creativity.

    Law of the Universe 07: The Law of Cause and Effect

    Note the law of cause and effect is different to cause and effect which I mentioned earlier when explaining the law of correspondence. This is the universal law of cause and effect, not the NLP concept although they do interplay and have the same foundations.

    You can think of the law of cause and effect as the principle of karma – what you put out, you will get back.

    How this comes to life – ask yourself about the intention of your actions.

    Are you truly doing something out of love? Are you truly doing something for nothing in return because you want to give? Are you truly being genuine?

    If you are motivated by hate and greed, you plant the seed of suffering; when you are motivated by love and generosity then you create abundance and happiness.

    I want to take this analogy further into reality to clearly explain it to you.

    If you plant an apple seed, that seed will become a tree that has apples. Even if you really want coconuts, nothing you can do will make the apple tree grow coconuts. The only way to grow coconuts is to plant a coconut seed.

    Law of the Universe 08: The Law of Compensation

    Simply said, ”You reap what you sow.”

    Trust that you will be compensated for what you do as long as you are open to receiving in the many ways the universe can deliver.

    E.g. when I work with clients and they would like to manifest money – whilst it can happen more often than not it won’t just be a huge lump sum in your bank account. Perhaps it will come in the form of a discount off something you buy, perhaps it will come in a reimbursement or bonus you were not expecting.

    Whilst money comes to mind, this does not just apply to money.

    Spread more love, and more love will be returned to you.

    Spread more happiness, and happiness will be returned to you.

    Spread more hate, and more hate will be returned to you.

    Spread more wealth, and more wealth will be returned to you.

    Be encouraged that with every act, thought, and emotion, you are perpetuating the law of compensation.

    Law of the Universe 09: The Law of Relativity

    Simply distilled, everything is a matter of perception.

    Inherently a fundamental principle to understanding this and a core aspect of my coaching is there is nothing ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Everything is circumstances and neutral. As humans we create the meaning and labelling of ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ This is extended into something that is deemed ‘small’ vs ‘big’ and so forth.

    For example, if you are feeling ungrateful for your living situation, it could be because you are comparing to someone else’s life. Maybe you don’t like where you live, or your relationship isn’t as great as someone else’s, maybe someone else has so much more money than you and so forth.

    Instead, we’d be better off appreciating what we have without needing to compare it to something else and just remember in your everyday life, you are creating the meaning of everything. You choose whether it’s positive or negative.

    Law of the Universe 10: The Law of Polarity

    Everything in life has an opposite. There is duality in everything.

    Light and Dark.
    Hot and Cold.
    Happy and Sad.
    The North and the South Pole
    On a battery positive and negative terminals.
    Feminine and Masculine.

    Newton’s Third Law of motion sums it up nicely, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It means that energetic forces come in pairs.

    How this plays out in everyday life is well

    1) The polarities give us perspective and help us appreciate what we have. E.g. you can’t have happiness without sadness, if you were happy all the time, you wouldn’t know how special it is to be happy all the time or if you had Summer all year round you would take it for granted and miss Winter.

    2) You can use the law of polarity to draw other energies to you – like a magnet.

    A practical example for you.

    If you’re stuck in the negative state of mind, ask yourself: “What am I learning from this negative situation and what might be the positives out of this situation I can take?”

    For example: A difficult situation and thoughts to move away from might be:

    “I made a mistake and I don’t think I can bounce back from this.

    The positive polarity would be:

    “I made a mistake and that is how I learn. Next time this happens, I will know what to do”

    From that positive polarity you are more likely to feel inner peace and acceptance which in turn compels you to continue taking action to improve instead of staying in the negative polarity.

    In the negative polarity you feel sad and disappointed in yourself, so the action you take is you keep beating yourself up about it and take no action at all. This ties in closely with the law of inspired action which I spoke about earlier. 

    Law of the Universe 11: The Law of Rhythm

    The law of rhythm is how nothing every stays the same, the universe is continually flowing. Think of it like a pendulum that swings from left to right always continually, perpetually.

    Rhythm, Cycles are a natural part of the universe. Look at the ocean tides, weather seasons, moon phases, mating and migration patterns of animals. For women, specifically you can think about your time of the month and menstrual cycle.

    As a whole think of it like a year in your life. It won’t be 365 days of summer and it won’t be 365 days of winter. Summer is when we are active, we are doing things whereas Winter gives us a chance to have a break, to rest, to recuperate.

    The practicality of this to your life is practice patience, go with the flow of your internal seasons.

    Law of the Universe 12: The Law of Gender

    We see this unfold as masculine and feminine energies. The masculine as ‘yang’ and the feminine as ‘ying’. Often people think of gender as opposing forces but truly they are complementary. We all hold masculine and feminine energies.

    Masculine energy is all about taking action, fixing things, direction, purpose, logic, independence and freedom.

    Feminine is the counter balance, it’s all about flow, creativity, inspiration, feeling, intuition and connection.

    Distilled down life is a dance of patience (feminine energy) and persistence (masculine energy).

    Where I regularly see the law of gender play out with clients in their everyday life is in relationships.

    Humans need polarity for attraction. Think of it like a magnet. Intimate connection and sexual attraction will thrive in a relationship where there is a distinct polarity between the energies of the people involved.

    The more opposed the individual energies are, the stronger the attraction will be in the relationship.

    Most conflicts arise when both partners demonstrate dominant masculine energies in a relationship…This creates a constant power struggle between the two partners.

    Both want to be in charge, both want to be the decision-makers, and both want to have things their way!

    I see this in women who are very career oriented and successful. The masculine energy helps them succeed through hustling and control in their work but when it comes to their personal life, masculine energy men can find them controlling or competitive whereas feminine energy men let them do their own thing as they are comfortable with their partner leading, being the bread winner concept etc.

    The most stagnant relationship comes from two feminine dominant energies partners where neither takes charge or makes decisions. It is when relationships gets stale – it feels boring, it feels lifeless it feels like it’s lacking fun, adventure and excitement. 

    Remember there are masculine energy women and feminine energy men.

    The Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang, 03: Beyond The Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws, Episode Close

    There are lot of universal laws to be mindful of. Understanding the universal laws that govern life can give us clarity and perspective on our lives. How you can conceptualise it and integrate it into your life is unique. Everyone is different. 

    Thank you for listening to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang. I hope you’ve learnt something new and I’ll speak to you next week. Catch you soon.

    [Episode 03 – Beyond the Law of Attraction, The 12 Universal Laws: Ends]

    Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

    Click here to read more

  • 02: Life is Like a Book and You are The Author

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    Episode 02: Life is Like a Book and You are the Author Summary

    This episode explains how your life is like a book and you are the author. There are prompts and considerations which will shift how you think about your life and your personal power. This episode also includes journal prompts for your reflection.

    What you'll learn from this episode​

    (05:50) Life is Like a Book and You are The Author Set Up
    (08:49) Considerations and Musings about Life is Like a Book and You are The Author Set Up
    (09:20) An analogy you’ve probably never heard of when it comes to Life is Like a Book
    (15:30) Journaling prompts for your reflection

    Key Quotes from this episode

    You are the author of your life. The duration of your book, we don’t know but it doesn’t matter whether its short or long, it’s more how good the book is, how impactful the book is.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    The book of your life is a mixture of genres such as drama, romance, comedy, tragedy. The overarching genre that will always exist alongside everything else is suspense. We don’t know what will happen in life , we just keep turning the page.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    And remember you don’t overcome writers block by staying stuck and doing nothing. Or even waiting for the right moment. You don’t overcome it wallowing in self pity or procrastinating or even just looking up ways to overcome writer’s block… you overcome it through writing, through taking action just like your life.

    Phi Dang Tweet

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Life is Like a Book and You are the Author Show​ Transcript

    You are listening to episode 2: Life is like a Book and You are the Author

    [Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

    Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

    Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

    My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

    My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

    Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

    This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

    [Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

    [Episode 02 – Life is like a Book and You are the Author: Begins]

    Hi Beautiful Soul, I’m glad you’re here! As you probably gathered from the title, today’s podcast is all about how life is like a book and you are the author.

    Books are so magical. There is something so incredible about them. We are transported to new worlds, they let our minds run wild with imagination and guess what, your life is like a book! You are the author of this book. So many things can be said about books, amongst my favourite quotes are:

    “One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.”

    Carl Sagan Tweet

    “A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”

    William Styron Tweet

    “Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”

    Anna Quindlen Tweet

    So why books and what inspired this episode

    So why books you ask? I’d love to jump into why I wanted to do an episode today about how life is like a book and you are the author.

    In early November, my amazing boyfriend surprised me with a weekend away to Stanwell Tops.

    Stanwell Tops is a beautiful coastal town in New South Wales, Australia halfway between Sydney and Wollongong with cliff views surrounded by thick bush, in fact the royal national park. In fact Stanwell Tops is an internationally famous area for hang-gliding and paragliding. It’s so incredible looking up into the blue sky and seeing so many people flying – how majestic, it truly takes your breath away.

    As it was my birthday, my boyfriend booked a very fancy restaurant in town. You know they boast using native ingredients, fresh local produce.

    We got there and we were waiting over 10 minutes just to get a drinks menu!

    So we bailed (such a thrill for a non adrenaline junkie like me) and went to this cute lovely Thai place – Raya Thai huge shout out.

    So we get there it’s beautiful fairy lights, warm vibrant atmosphere, groups of people catching up laughing, smiling, catching up, the smell of deep fried spring rolls then a song comes on.

    “And now, the end is near

    [Phi interrupts “Now I’m not the best singer, so I am not going to sing it for you but I will read out a few of the lyrics of the song]

    And so I face the final curtain

    My friends, I’ll say it clear.”

    If you don’t recognise the song, it’s “I Did it my way” by Frank Sinatra.

    When I heard this, I immediately got chills up my spine and tears started to roll down my face because that’s the song they played at my dads funeral.

    I started to have a breakdown in the middle of the restaurant.

    The timing seemed so eerie given that the day before I had just told my boyfriend that I was really missing my dad. This felt like a sign that he was trying to communicate with me. It is after all coming up to the 7th anniversary since my dad passed away in 2013.

    How this ties back into books is that english, literature, language and reading is dear to my heart because my dad was an English teacher before he fled Vietnam.

    My dad became a teacher because at the time there was a war in Vietnam and my grandpa did not want my dad to be enlisted and sent off to war. So my dad became an english teacher.

    So when you’re a teacher, a doctor, a person in a position of an important role they consider they don’t send you off to be enlisted and in the army.

    So my dad, he ended up working for the government here in Australia as when he fled the war his university qualifications weren’t accepted here at the time. I’m also glad he fled because that’s how I came to be in existence. 

    My dad met my mum on the boat to Australia in a twist of fate I guess you could say. He wanted to go to America, the United States but there was no room on the boat so he ended up on the boat to Australia which my mum was on. 

    A fun story there but really it was quite an ordeal for my parents who were boat people in a rickety boat and I’m sure one day I’ll share the story further one day.

    Growing up I read a lot. I vividly remember my dad reading me books such as beauty and the beast and spot (does everyone remember the iconic yellow puppy?)

    So there it is a combination of factors reminiscing about my dad and my love for books and reading. Further to that my clients know that when it comes to coaching I love analogies.

    I love analogies because they give you the lightbulb moments the aha as you just get it straight away.

    Life is like a Book and You are the Author

    So let’s jump into it.

    Life is like a book and you are the author.

    You are the author of your life. The duration of your book, we don’t know but it doesn’t matter whether its short or long, it’s more how good the book is, how impactful the book is.

    You are the main character. Throughout a book we see the main character change and grow. We root for main character. We root for characters that are real and human – they aren’t perfect and they aren’t happy all the time. Characters go through challenges, testing events and we love them all the more for it.

    The main character cannot control everything that happens to them but the main character does choose how to react to what happens to them. The main character doesn’t become great in the story by being a passive participant or us seeing the character through a powerless filter, the main character becomes great through intentional actions and thoughts.

    The main character interacts with a supporting cast, the people in your life. Characters in books are just like the people we meet for the first time.

    We get to know these characters as time goes on as we spend quality time with these characters. We learn more about them, we analyse them, we make judgements… and not every character introduced on the first page will be there in the last page.

    Characters come and go and the story will always go on. Just like life and the people in our lives whether that’s by choice or the circumstances of life. Friends, family, loved ones, relationships…

    Often in the story of life, there are villains or antagonists that make life difficult. That is natural and to be expected. How the main character deals with it speaks volumes and sometimes that villain or antagonist in the story is the main character too…

    Further to that whilst you are the main character of your book, other people are the main characters of their book. Sometimes you play a supporting role in someone else’s book. Sometimes you play a minor role in someone’s book. Never forget the impact of your character in other people’s books.

    The book of your life is a mixture of genres such as drama, romance, comedy, tragedy. The overarching genre that will always exist alongside everything else is suspense. We don’t know what will happen in life , we just keep turning the page.

    Your life truly is like a book not a movie where the ending stays the same. Your book is in progress and you choose how your story is shared, you can add plot twists, you can edit and change the script.

    Speaking of editing, when you have rose-tinted glasses on that is the same as any editor who cuts out certain parts of the story to make the book better.

    Life is like a Book and You are the Author: Musings and Considerations

    Running with this analogy that life is a book and you are the author some considerations and musings for you:

    • Every morning is a blank page for you to put your pen on. Some chapters will be happy, some will be sad, some will be exciting, some will be boring but if you never turn the page you will never know what the next chapter holds. Keep going and keep moving forward. How wonderful is it that some of the best days of our lives haven’t even happened yet?

       

    • On every page of your book, no matter what is going on in the story, no matter what events are unfolding or what the words are describing, behind the words there is paper.

       

    • We never speak about the paper of books. The paper hardly draws any attention from us, we don’t really notice the paper or appreciate it but the paper we write our words on is so important. Without it, the words do not exist. They can’t exist. Our words need a canvas (and if you’re technologically savvy translate paper to your computer screen page).

       

    • Whilst the story of your life exists – you know the events that happen in your life, who you are, your wins, your losses, your memories, your achievements at the end of the day you are just. You are you.

       

    • You are like the paper behind the words of life. You are life itself, you are consciousness itself in which the story of your life plays out.

      Paper holds words. The paper itself is never impacted by the story that is on the book. The paper just is. It’s there to allow the words to be there, the words on the paper are embraced unconditionally. They are just there.

       

    • When a book comes to its end, the paper does not fear the end. It doesn’t even fear the end at the beginning of the book, half way through, three quarters through.

      The book just continues to exist through its pages even when the main character dies. The story of the main character lives on through another cast of characters. Your legacy. Death is allowed in the story on the paper. The story continues on, beyond the cycle of life and death of the cast of characters.

       

    • The book in its existence is here, in its very moment. Everything just is. Everything is acceptance. It just is. Just like your life, living in the present moment. You aren’t think about the past, or the future you are just here, living! This is you! How wonderful. How peaceful.

    • So what story is your book telling? If you are always writing, thinking and talking about negative stories that’s what your story will predominantly be about. As they say energy flows where focus goes.

       

    • Are there events or patterns that keep happening in your story? Bring your awareness to this, what is it revealing about yourself? As the saying goes insanity is doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result.

       

    • Where are you doing this in your life over and over again?

      That’s what is keeping you stuck.

      For example you can’t keep beating yourself up about past mistakes and thinking you’re not good enough if you want to love yourself. You can’t hate yourself into loving yourself. Or is it relationships? Are you dating different people but the same type of person over and over again, leading to emotionally unavailable partners? If you want a different result you have to change.

       

    • Whilst I mentioned the paper itself is here in the moment, as authors, as readers we may not always be. We often revisit past chapters from time to time but if we stay there it stops us from reading on in the book in the same way it does with our lives.

       

    • Further to that, in the book of your life, writers block my happen. If it is happens its okay. Even the best of authors experience writers block. What can you do when you get writers block?

      You can:

      – Find inspiration.
      – Take a break.
      – Freeflow and write.
      – Change things up, maybe listen to music when you write or change where you are writing your book.

      And remember you don’t overcome writers block by staying stuck and doing nothing. Or even waiting for the right moment.  You don’t overcome it wallowing in self pity or procrastinating or even just looking up ways to overcome writer’s block… you overcome it through writing, through taking action just like your life.

      And remember it’s better to write than not write at all. Eventually the rhythm and flow of your words will return.

       

    • If you’re going through hard times remember it’s just a chapter of your book not the whole story. Nothing lasts forever which is a beautiful thing depending how you see it. Impermanence teaches us to truly appreciate things. It gets us through hard times because we know that pain won’t last forever. I always tell clients if you were happy all the time and nothing went wrong in your life, you would probably be bored and take your life for granted, you wouldn’t be truly living because you wouldn’t know what that is. Death is a compelling factor to live.

    • So how does this all stack up?
      Every day is a new page.
      Every arch of your life is a new chapter.
      Every year is a new series.
      This all makes up the volume, the books of your life.

    • Just like how every page, chapter and series is important in a book as they build to tell a story. This is the same in our lives.

      Everything we go through is part of the human experience. It all happens for a reason.

      When we go through hard times it’s easy to ask why is this happening to me? and default to negative thoughts which in turn make you feel worse off. I’m not saying to always be positive but more to allow yourself to feel your feelings then choose to decide to move forward. Can you reflect on a hard time and see how it was for your higher growth? This comes from a more positive energy which leads to different actions, instead of staying stuck, you choose to continue on with life and move forward.

    • Further to this some chapters may be sweet but they may be short. It’s not always the longest chapters that have the most impact. Sometimes it’s the smallest pages, the half pages.

    Life is Like a Book and You are the Author Episode close and journal prompts for your reflection

    I hope this episode gave you some food for thought. Remember your life is like a book and you are the author. I’d love to end this episode with some journaling prompts for your reflection.

    • Are you the true author of your life or are you letting others write your story?

    • When you give your kids who give your grandkids the story of your life, what do you want to be in that story? What would they learn about you? Are you happy with your story so far?

    • What chapters are you stuck on and can you decide to turn the page?

    • What does your ideal book look like? What makes the book great? A best selling book?

    Thank you for listening to The Growth Through It Podcast With Phi Dang. I will catch you guys next Tuesday with another brand new episode on the 12 Universal Laws, Beyond The Law of Attraction. A very juicy episode indeed and yes there’s more than just the law of attraction. Speak soon and have a beautiful week, love and positivity.

    [Episode 02 – Life is like a Book and You are the Author: Ends]

    Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

    Click here to read more

  • 01: Why Grow Through It and Get to Know Me – Phi

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    Episode Summary of The Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang, 01: Why Grow Through It and Get to Kno Me - Phi


    Grow Through It honours life and life’s experiences. Life is happening for you, not to you. Learn all about what the Grow Through It Podcast is about including the four pillars of mindset, self love, energy and purpose. Get to know me, your host, Phi Dang – A clarity and confidence life coach based in Sydney Australia known as The Positivity Queen.

    What you'll learn from this episode

    (01:42) Why Grow Through It?
    (04:30) The 4 Key Pillars of the Grow Through It Podcast and Phi’s Coaching
    (09:59) My Story, My Journey
    (12:26) The turning point in my journey
    (19:46) Why Coaching
    (20:16) My old Instagram: In Her Vitality, how I got 10,000 followers in 3 months
    (22:17) Benefits of Coaching
    (23:37) Why Clarity and Confidence as a Life Coach
    (25:34) My clients

    Key Quotes from this Episode

    You plant seeds every single day, in your community, in your circle, in the world and in others, through every thought you think, every word you speak and every action you take. Are you growing flowers or weeds? The seeds you plant today are the ones you reap tomorrow.

    Phi Dang

    You have 60,000 thoughts a day. What’s going on in your head? Your mind is so powerful but it doesn’t come with a manual.

    Phi Dang

    Your intuition is your soul’s tuition.

    Phi Dang

    Featured Resources on the episode

    Show Transcript

    [Introduction to the Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang plays – Background Music: upbeat, confident, rising beat]:

    Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it.

    Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang.

    My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.”

    My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything.

    Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

    This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Ready to grow? Let’s grow!

    [Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang End of Intro]

    [Episode 01 – Why Grow Through It and Get to Know Me – Phi: Begins]

    Hello, hello beautiful soul – I am so glad you are here! Welcome to the first ever Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang episode. It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad the moment is here.

    For those who don’t already know me, Hi! I’m Phi and I am a clarity and confidence life coach known at the Positivity Queen. I help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered by overcoming your negative self talk so you can conquer anything.

    Yes my name is spelt P, h, i and you say it like fee. I have a Vietnamese background. You know how at times you may met people with ethnic names and they adopt an ‘english’ name? Well my parents decided none of that. I was going to be Phi in Vietnamese and in English. My name Phi means flying high.

    So why grow through it? As in the opening of my podcast intro, don’t just go through life, grow through it.

    The name grow through it symbolises so much to me as I hope it does to you.

    It has so much meaning that I would love to share with you.

    Grow Through It honours life and life’s experiences. Your experiences. I truly believe everything that happens in your life is for a reason. That life isn’t just happening to you, life is happening for you.

    Grow Through It honours the shadow side of life: the pain we go through, the sadness we go through, the despair we go through, the heartache we go through, the frustration we go through, the anger we go through, the disappointment we go through, the failure we go through, the pain we go through… all of these experiences help us grow. There is a purpose to it. There is a meaning to it. You are not just going through life, trudging along, you are growing.

    You plant seeds every single day, in your community, in your circle, in the world and in others, through every thought you think, every word you speak and every action you take. Are you growing flowers or weeds? The seeds you plant today are the ones you reap tomorrow. You are worthy, you are loved and you have have influence. You are making an impact in this world, this universe and you matter in every single way.

    Your life is like a garden. Just like a garden, it needs sunlight, rain, pruning, fertilising, care, space maintenance, weeding – you are the gardener, you cultivate it, you water it. In the garden of your life it doesn’t matter what crops you start with or the conditions, your garden can grow with the right conditions.

    There are different types of gardens, flowers, variety, vegetable, fruit. All unique, special and beautiful in their own way.

    Just as people enter your garden, you also enter the garden of others. Do you enjoy the garden you visit? Are you learning new things in the garden? Does the garden enrich your life? Does the garden make your life better?

    As you’ll notice throughout my podcast I love analogies. I find you just get it – the aha moment – the lightbulb moment. So I will share many analogies to articulate concepts to you and I use them a lot in my coaching to which my clients can vouch for.

    So here is to taking it one day at a time.

    Here is to every single experience we go through life.

    Here is to growing every single day.

    Here is to not just going through life, lets grow through it.

    The Grow Through It Podcast is also based on four concepts which are the four key pillars of my coaching: mindset, self love, energy and purpose. I came to these four key pillars through my own self growth journey and working with my clients.

    Mindset

    You have 60,000 thoughts a day. What’s going on in your head? Your mind is so powerful but it doesn’t come with a manual.

    Learn to master your mind for your benefit instead of becoming a slave to your thoughts.

    As you’ll learn from this podcast and if you ever work with me through coaching, your mindset dictates everything you do.

    How you think and what you think influences how you feel. Based on how you feel, you’ll either take action or none at all which lead to a result.

    Learn to master your mind for your benefit instead of becoming a slave to your thoughts. Fine tune your internal monologue instead of just living on auto pilot and accepting thoughts as reality.

    The Grow Through It Podcast is all about having a growth mindset. A mindset that is committed to growth. It’s all about embracing progress. A growth mindset is being open minded to learning from feedback, experiences and embracing challenges. A growth mindset is being determined, having resilience and grit.

    Throughout this podcast I will talk about how your brain and mind work. I will share different perspectives with you and I will question your current ways of thinking to help you grow. Learn how to overcome your limiting beliefs and roadblocks that your mind create. The Grow Through It Podcast focuses not only on your conscious mind but your subconscious mind too. Mind your mindset and expand your mind.

    Self Love

    You can’t hate yourself into a version of yourself that you can love. Self love ultimately is being kind to yourself and appreciating who you are.

    When you love yourself, you make all your decisions out of love and not fear, stress, worry or anxiety.

    Self love means making the best decisions for yourself and always choosing yourself first.

    Self love is all about trusting, respecting, honouring and supporting yourself. It’s taming your inner critic and believing how amazing you are. It’s embracing all of who you are right now. It’s loving yourself as you are right now, unconditionally.

    Most of us love the things we own and the people around us but we forget to love ourselves too. 

    The Grow Through It Podcast is all about helping you ditch your self doubt and dialling up your self acceptance, self care, self esteem, self trust, self respect, self worth and self confidence. It all starts with the self, it all starts with you.

    Energy

    You are made up of matter and energy. Your thoughts and feelings create energy.

    I take the woo and confusion out of energetic principles such as the law of attraction, the universal rules, vibrations, frequencies, manifestation, flow and intuition. I make them practical and easy to understand.

    The Grow Through It Podcast will cover energetic tools that range from healing yourself to making all that you wish a reality. Get back in touch with your soul and spirit. Become more connected to who you are within, your inner guidance. Your intuition is your soul’s tuition.

    Purpose

    Purpose is who you are. It is the compass, GPS, North Star to your life.

    Live up to your full potential. Take ownership of your life. No more auto pilot. Create and live the life of your dreams. Live in alignment with your soul. Understand why you do the things you do (and why you don’t).

    The Grow Through It Podcast is all about living your life deliberately with meaning. It’s about knowing what matters to you. It is about embodying your true intention with everything that you do. It is about finding the beauty in everything that happens in your life and to fully embrace all that has happened and will happen.

    You only live one life, make the most of it.

    Stop playing small and start playing BIG.

    Before I dive into my journey I want to flag that this episode will be longer then my regular episodes. Grow Through It Podcast episodes will be usually around 20 minutes long give or take. I like being concise and sharing snappy episodes that you can listen to on the train, at the gym, getting ready – The Grow Through it Podcast fits into your life.

    This episode goes into a deep dive so lets grow!

    Phi's Journey and Story

    So how did I get into coaching? How did I become a clarity and confidence life coach known as the Positivity Queen?

    My journey? Like yours, it isn’t straightforward, perfect or always positive. In fact, I am just like you. I proud myself on being a very down to earth person despite my looks people see an asian girl with dyed blonde hair, eyelash extensions and assume a variety of things.

    My journey in no way has been all positive and even as the positivity queen I am not always positive (shock secret, no but really, it would be impossible – you would have to be a robot but I, I am human). Life will throw lemons and I make lemonade. Perhaps the alcoholic kind too…

    Through rewiring my mind, I learnt how to turn setbacks into solutions, struggles into strength and turn every experience into knowledge and growth.

    At times I felt so alone wishing that I had someone there who had been what I had been through to teach me what to do, to support me, to help me find my way… and that is why I Clarity and Confidence Life Coach. I’ll speak more about how I actually got into coaching and why coaching later but first I thought you would like to get to know more about me.

    My journey, my story.

     

    I’ve always been known to be positive from a very young age. People around me would always say I was so happy, bubbly and smiley. They are right. I am so positive in fact I am known as the positivity queen but that doesn’t mean my journey has always been positive and happy.

    I’m the only child of migrants who fled Vietnam to Australia on boats (in fact my parents met on the boat to Australia). They sacrificed everything they had to live a better life and worked hard to raise me in a comfortable and sheltered life. I was on track to continue that life. I mapped it all out based on what I was told, the people around me and what I knew from the movies and TV.

    Be the dux at my high school, go to law school, become a lawyer for a top tier firm, meet the love of my life, get married to this said love, buy a house, have a family and live happily ever after… well so I thought! (As many of us do)

    Everything I knew and thought about life came crumbling down when my dad passed away to bowel cancer when I was 20.

    All my life I had been shielded from death and in a turn of events, the first funeral I would ever attend and the first funeral I would ever plan was for my Dad.

    I questioned everything about life especially this supposed map of life. Why do all of it and suddenly I could die? What was the point of life? How can life be so cruel to me, to take away my dad when I was so young?

    In this dark point of my life, I turned to the largest unassuming danger in life: being busy and avoiding emotions. I studying two degrees law and marketing full time, working 4 days a week, side hustling as an english and economics tutor, partying on weekends, working on a huge conference at my university, being an executive on the marketing society, dating unemotionally available men.

    On a side note honestly I would need a whole other podcast to explain my dating life. I was single for 8 years until recently and gone through a whole spectrum of dating and relationship experiences. 

    My first love, my primary school sweetheart cheated on me in university. I used to date men that you would consider successful and high achievers from the outside, men in powerful positions from doctors, bankers, start up creators and so forth. Just because it looks like they have their stuff together on the outside doesn’t mean they did internally, trust me. 

    I’ve been ghosted and I’ve ghosted people. I’ve had my heart broken and I broke people’s hearts. I’ve dated commitment phobes and I was a commitment phobe. I’ve chased men and been chased by men. Predominantly most of my dating took place through apps like tinder, bumble and hinge because for most of my life my friends have had partners except me. I make note of this because dating and relationships are a lot of what I discuss with my clients given my experience but it is not the only thing.

    Back to my story – so I completely avoided feeling the pain and grief of my Dad unconsciously. I thought this was what I was meant to do, accept what happened, get on with life and move forward.

    Life has a funny way of throwing lemons at you. In In this instance it catapulted thousands of them my way in the form of my feelings. I was in such despair and depression. In an ironic twist, the feelings did quickly fade away but I was left feeling numb.

    I thought my life ended when I lost my dad and on top of this I had to cancel my backpacking trip to Europe (losing $10K) and take a semester off of university (this truly did feel like the end of the world according to my map of life).

    Whilst dealing with this all, I felt so ashamed and embarrassed. I remember not leaving the house for weeks and weeks avoiding phone calls from anyone and everyone. Not only that for the first time in my life I struggled to sleep everyday for a month. It was horrible, I went from sleeping 8-10 hours a night to maybe 1 or 2 a night. I felt like a living zombie.

    Then I had the light bulb moment. A-ha!

    I remember lying on the floor of my living room curled up in a ball for the twentieth day in a row.

    “Why are you doing this?”

    “Dad wouldn’t want you to be doing this, he wanted you to go on with your life and thrive”

    “Continuing to do this, isn’t going to change anything”…

    From there I decided enough was enough.

    Enough feeling sorry for myself.

    Enough stewing in my sadness.

    Enough being the victim of life.

    I chose right then and there to build my life back up from the ground up. I chose to be courageous, to continue living my life, inspired by all that my Dad had taught me.

    + I learnt to master my mind, my thoughts didn’t control me anymore, I controlled them.

    + I learnt to support myself and self soothe instead of turning to external validation.

    + I processed the deep pain, sadness and anger that I was avoiding and ignoring. 

    + I grew through the discomfort of confronting myself, questioning myself.

    + I transformed the way I thought. I stopped beating myself up. I stopped self sabotaging myself.

    + I stopped thinking everything was happening to me and realised I had power, I could change my life.

    + I started truly loving myself, accepting who I was, knowing my worth.

    + I dropped out of law school and went on to travel to 20 cities across the US and Europe for 3 months.

    + I began to live life on my terms. No more living to what society deemed as a perfect life and timeline.

    + I listened to my soul instead of caring what people thought about me and taking on their opinions.

    + I woke up to what really mattered to me in this amazing life I get to live.

    I transformed through a spiritual reawakening. I became conscious of my ego and shadow.

    The darkest moment of my life turned out to be the greatest teacher in my life.

    Life would go on to give me lemons in the form of dealing with anxiety, being bullied, burning out and don’t get me started on being single for 8 years after being cheated on and going on the dating merry-go-round (round and round).

    But I didn’t just go through that all, I grew through that all. And now? I know that no matter what happens in my life, no matter what lemons life throws at me, I can handle it. I can conquer it.

    I make lemonade. 🍸

    + I ended up graduating University with several merit awards, deans awards and honours.

    + I scaled the corporate ladder, getting nominated for an industry award 6 months into my career and quickly became a strategy manager at 25.

    + I called in a deep love and met my amazing partner who I live by the beach with.

    + I participated in the World’s First Women’s Only Wim Hof Retreat. If you haven’t heard of Wim Hof he is known as the ice man. In this retreat run by the dear Leah Scott, in the middle of winter I plunged, immersed and swam in ice cold water 0 degrees. In fact she had a hammer to smash through the ice! Not only that I hiked Mount Kosciuszko whilst it was snowing in the middle of winter wearing a sports bra and shorts.

    + I have over 25 countries and 40 cities around the world, mostly solo since I was 19. My favouritie places you ask? Bali, Madrid and New Orleans.

    + I consider myself a Phi-oodie. I am obsessed with food. Whilst other kids watched cartoons, I watched Rick Stein and Delia Smith.

    How I got into Coaching and the benefits of Coaching

    So why coaching?

    Coaching is a life changing experience.

    I have had coaches myself throughout the years that have helped and supported me in becoming the best version of myself before I actually became a coach.

    What prompted me to become a coach was actually the Corona virus a silver lining in it all. When it hit, for the first time in my life in a very long time since I started working when I was 15 I had a solid break. After hustling and grinding up the corporate ladder, I had time! Wow!

    So I kicked into gear and did something I always wanted to do. Help other people especially by normalising and talking about mental health.

    I started an Instagram page called in her vitality (punny I know!) and to my shock within 3 months I had a following of 10,000+ followers. What really kickstarted my growth was not being afraid to voice my opinions. At the beginning of men’s mental health week in June 2020 the 15th to the 21st, I made a post which changed my life.

    I remember hearing about mens mental health week through Sarah Davidson (she has an amazing podcast Seize the Yay) and I was shocked no one else influential or anyone really was talking about it. At the time I was a female orientated page but I knew I had to say something to do my part in mens mental health. So i made this post which you can find on my instagram @thephidang.

    On the post it said Men Cry. Men Get anxiety. Men have emotions. Men feel insecure. Men get anxious. Men get bullied. Men have suicidal thoughts. Let’s support Men. You are not alone. This was accompanied by alarming statistics from Beyond Blue such as 1 in 8 men experience depression, 6 out of 8 suicides everyday in Australia. The post went viral with over half a million people reached, it was shared over 150,00 times in the DMs alone, it was just insane.

    I will continue to vouch for mental health for everyone and especially for men given the huge stigma around men and emotions. Emotions are seen as a feminine thing which it is its from a place of feminine energy (feeling) however as humans we all have masculine and feminine energies.

    When I realised the impact I could make, I wanted to do the thing that I had put off, becoming a coach. It made sense really – I’m that go to friend – people ask me for advice when it comes to their life hence a life coach whether it be about their career, dating, getting over heartbreak, family, friendships and so forth.

    — Coaching unlocks your full potential and be fully supported along the way. Life coaching unlocks what the gym does for the body, a coach for an athlete’s performance. You go to the gym to keep fit, to feel good and love your body. Why wouldn’t you do the same for your mind?

    — Your brain does not come with a manual. Learn how to rewire your brain to serve you best. Overcome limiting beliefs and negative self-talk.

    — Breakthrough your fears, self hatred, insecurities, self sabotaging patterns, perfectionism and procrastination.

    — Get unstuck and out of a rut. Wake up energised every morning and live with purpose.

    — Give yourself the best gift of all: investing in yourself. With coaching you have a dedicated hour all about you. Talk about whatever is on your mind. You can talk about anything you like – I got you. I will hold space for you and listen.

    Why am I a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach?

    When you are clear and confident, you can handle anything that happens in your life, in fact you can conquer anything. It won’t matter if proverbial shit hits the fan. You’ll handle it. Simple.

    Clarity

    To understand the importance of clarity is knowing what life is like without it.

    – You aren’t happy with your life but you don’t know why exactly. You feel as if there is more to life than the life you are currently living.

    – If you know why you aren’t happy it still doesn’t do much for you. You’ve tried everything but nothing is working. You feel fed up and you don’t know what to do, hoping someone out there can help.

    – Life feels overwhelming, there is so much happening and you don’t know where to start.

    –  You feel as if you are missing answers.

    That is why clarity is important.

    + It’s knowing what to do with what you have right now. You are making your dreams and goals happen.

    + It’s waking up every day excited with purpose. Your values are at the heart of everything you do.

    It’s feeling fulfilled, happy and ready to conquer anything, no matter what happens in your life.

    Confidence

    At the core of it, confidence is truly loving yourself.

    + You like who you are.

    + You respect who you are.

    + You think positively about yourself.

    + You recognise how amazing you are.

    + You can handle your mind.

    + You can handle your thoughts.

    + You know you can figure things out.

    + You know you can experience any emotion and you will be okay whether that’s heartbreak, pain, humiliation, fear, disappointment, discomfort – whatever it is, you can handle it.

    + You know that if something wrong happens, if you fall down, you know you can get back up. You are capable of doing hard things.

    + You have a strong sense of self. People will have opinions but they don’t define who you are or change what you do.

    You show up and be the best version of you. Every. Single. Day.

    Coaching and my clients

    My heart and soul are so happy and appreciative to be a coach. As a coach I guide, teach and support my clients but they are the true heroes. They do they hard work to work on themselves and make their dreams a reality. 

    A huge shout out to my clients you inspire me and I am in awe of you. I’ve helped clients move on from past relationships and their past, enter new relationships with self love and confidence, kick start businesses that sell products before they even officially open, make new friends, sleep better at night –  the possibilities are endless with coaching.

    If you would like to work with me, Yes I am currently open and available to supporting more people through 1:1 coaching. If you are interested, I would love to connect and speak with you. I can help you. You can find out more information on my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang.

    Episode closing 01: Why Grow Through It and All About Me - Phi

    So this was episode 1. Why Grow Through It and Get to Know Me (Phi). I can’t wait for you to join me on this journey as you learn practical tips and strategies on how to develop and grow. To learn more about mindset, self love, energy and purpose. For the most part I foresee the podcast being solo episodes but I will have special guests on from time to time. 

    I’ve actually pre recorded so much goodness for you with juicy insights so it doesn’t just end here on episode 1 until next Tuesday when I release new episodes weekly. 

    You can also listen to Episode 2, Life is like a book and you are the author, Episode 3, Beyond the law of attraction, the 12 universal laws and Episode 4, Mental Fitness – Take your Brain to the gym. 

    Happy listening. Speak soon and chat to you next Tuesday.

    [Episode 01 – Why Grow Through It and Get to Know Me – Phi: Ends]

    Are you wanting to find out more about 1:1 Coaching or working with me? Maybe perhaps you want to know more about me. I’d love to connect with you. You can visit my website phidang.com or connect with me on Instagram @thephidang. Speak to you soon.

    Click here to read more

  • Grow Through It Podcast With Phi Dang Trailer

    Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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    About the Grow Through It Podcast

    Grow Through It, is a podcast on all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose. Hosted by Phi Dang, a clarity and confidence life coach known as ‘The Positivity Queen,’ this podcast is for you if you are looking for not just inspiration and motivation to live your best life but practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Trailer for Phi Dang's Podcast, Grow Through It With Phi Dang Show Transcript

    Don’t just go through life, grow through it. Don’t just go through life, grow through it. 

    Hi and Welcome to the Grow Through It Podcast with Phi Dang. 

    My name is Phi and I am a Clarity and Confidence Life Coach known as the “The Positivity Queen.” 

    My passion is to help you go from stuck and self critical to courageous and empowered so you can conquer anything. 

    Join me, every Tuesday, as I discuss all things mindset, self love, energy and purpose.

    This podcast won’t just inspire and motivate you, it will also provide practical tips and strategies you can implement in your daily life.

    Click here to read more