Written by: Emily Brook, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
There’s a truth within you that lays dormant, just waiting to be tapped into. A truth so deep that it seeks to liberate you from the struggle and suffering that you’ve been experiencing. A truth so deep that it exposes the systems and stories that have been guiding your decisions up to now. A truth so deep that allows you to step into your full potential and keep growing and evolving, no matter where you’ve come from. A truth so deep that it will allow you to deepen your connection with everyone and everything around you. A truth so deep that it reveals what it truly means to be human. A truth so deep that unlocking it, hands you back your power. This is the power within you. The power that lays dormant in all of us until we start to journey into ourselves.
The journey into ourselves often doesn’t happen until we find ourselves in a place of deep suffering. A time when situations occur in life that are unexpected, unwanted and uncertain. A time when we find ourselves in a place of fear, despair, unknown, sadness, loss. A place where things don’t make sense, we search for answers and meaning. We question why me, why us, why now. Everything about the life we’ve been living is blurred, and the vision of the future has been swept away. A time when emotions feel uncontrollable, the mind goes round in circles and the body is giving you signs that you’ve yet to understand. I have no doubt that suffering is a crucial part of the human experience, and that its purpose is to invite us inwards to discover the depth of our being.
The reason why suffering can provide such a profound shift in someone’s life is because it starts to expose the beliefs that have governed our life until now and the construction of these beliefs. Think about it for a moment… we are born into this human life, into a family who have their own set of beliefs about themselves, people, family, work, life, the world. Being a part of this family means we, by default, take on these beliefs and they start to form the programming, the blueprint, of who we are and how we see the world. We have little awareness as a child to know anything different, yet our experiences as a child will dictate so much of our adult behaviour. Over time, and through repetition, beliefs become stronger and land in our subconscious mind as truth. As the way things are.
As well as the beliefs that we inherit from those around us, there are also the beliefs that we absorb from society. Beliefs about schooling and education, work ethic and career, money, relationships and marriage, family. All of these beliefs together form this invisible map of how to navigate life. We don’t really give them too much thought, we just have in mind certain milestones to reach in life.
The interesting piece is when we start to really explore what beliefs are and unpick where they come from. The truth is that beliefs are simply stories, or opinions, from other people that we have accepted as truth and as the way to do something. When we hit periods of difficulty in life, it is challenging to us because the situation is going against the belief system that we hold about how something should be. We battle with ourselves and with each other because we believe that our way, our perspective, is the right way. We put up a struggle and a fight to defend our way and are often met with resistance or criticism because the other person is equally defending their way. We’ve entered a battle of right and wrong. We suffer because we, unknowingly, cling to the programming and beliefs that we hold, and we feel shame if we haven’t lived up to the expectations of the beliefs. We have no awareness of how our thoughts are constructed and how they impact our emotions and our behaviours. We are running on autopilot.
The key to unlocking the truth that resides in all of us is to go within and journey deep into our subconscious, bringing the programming that we hold, as an individual, to the surface and curiously explore its roots. Questioning, witnessing, joining the dots. Looking closely at how these beliefs have constructed the life that we are living and the reality we find ourselves in. Exploring what suffering really is. Dwelling in the space between surviving and thriving and opening up the space of possibility and potential. Unhooking from the beliefs that no longer serve who we are and creating new beliefs about who we want to be. Letting our truth be our guide. Creating new networks in our brain and updating the programming. Becoming the driver of our mind and the creator of our life. This is the depth that we need to go to in order to create true transformation and liberate ourselves from suffering, while simultaneously expanding into our human potential. Challenges come to serve us, to usher us into a new way of being, to redirect us onto our soul’s path. It takes courage, commitment and curiosity to want to do this work, and it will be the best work you ever do. For yourself, for those around you, for your children and for the world. You truly have to be the change and it always starts within.
Emily Brook, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Emily is a multi-passionate health and life coach and mentor, with a special interest in what it means to be human and activating human potential by facilitating people to move from a state of stress, struggle and despair into a space of thriving, finding inner freedom, and activating the power within to curate a life of fulfilment.
Emily previously worked as a physiotherapist for ten years working with many different patient groups with many different health issues and gained a broad understanding of the different ways people suffer and helping them, through rehabilitation, to achieve their goals.
It wasn’t until Emily found herself in a state of emotional pain in 2019, with the sudden ending of her marriage, that her understanding of suffering opened up to a much deeper level. She embarked on a journey with mindfulness as a way of coping and found it an instrumental part of her own personal transformation that she went on to study for a diploma in mindfulness-based approaches at Bangor University. She also dove deep into the world of self-reflection and personal development.
Emily’s coaching approach fuses neuroscience and philosophy at the intersection of science and spirituality and includes core pillars of subconscious programming, emotional health and regulation, brain science, the law of attraction, and meditation and mindfulness.
Emily guides you on a journey of introspection, going within to uncover the real you, expanding self-awareness, peeling back the layers of conditioning, and activating the power and potential within. She believes the key to moving from suffering to thriving is in our ability to understand the brain and mind, process emotions, heal, learn lessons, find deeper meaning and connection, and become the architect of our own minds and life. You can find Emily on Facebook and Instagram.
