Hello and welcome back, everyone. This is Makena Sage, and I am recording this episode solo today. Gigi will be back with us next week.

This topic is one that we both wanted to share, and it came up in one of our recent business meetings. In our meetings, we often ask, “What is the state of your mind, and what is the state of your body?” This is one way we touch base, not just to talk about business, but also to check in and see what’s going on.

A week or so ago, Gigi shared that her mind was going a little crazy, and we laughed at that. We all have those moments, right? She was able to express that her mind was wild with thoughts, worries, and fears. We have many tools to navigate when that happens, and this is something that often comes up with the women we speak to and our clients.

Today’s episode is about when your mind goes a little crazy or your emotions are very up and down, like you’re on an emotional rollercoaster.

If you relate to feeling like you’re in a mental loop or an emotional rollercoaster, we’re going to discuss different ways to navigate that so you don’t believe your mind, believe your thoughts, and go down rabbit holes.

First and foremost, we want to say that this is completely normal. It happens to everyone. I think when our minds are going crazy, we think we’re the only ones. We think we should be able to stop, fix, or solve it by now and be more evolved or able to calm ourselves down. Of course, you can get better at this, but in general, everyone experiences this to some degree.

It might be different if you’re enlightened and have been meditating your entire life or whatever path you take to get there. For most people, however, this is a very normal part of their day-to-day experience, especially when they’re going through challenges.

This may happen at different times of the day. Maybe all day long, your thoughts are running wild, or perhaps before you go to sleep at night, which is a big one for me. I’m busy during the day, and in the evenings, I socialize, read, or watch a show. The first time I have the space to not have any inputs coming in or any action I’m taking is when I lay down to go to sleep. My mind kicks in and tries to solve everything, but this is rarely the time to solve things. It’s not when I get my best ideas. If I do get good ideas, I jot them down. Most of the time, our minds go crazy with worry or stress.

Maybe you have it before you go to sleep like me, or maybe you wake up in the middle of the night and your mind is going wild. Whatever time of day you can relate to, or maybe it’s all of the above, there’s this great quote I love attributed to Albert Einstein, though there’s some question about whether he said it: “You can’t solve a problem from the same level of thinking that created it.”

When you’re going around and around in your head, you’re probably not going to get anywhere or get very far. You’re going to cycle in the challenges or the problems because they all exist on a certain level of thinking, a certain energy or frequency. It’s important to know that nothing’s going to get solved here, even if you think it is.

Another factor is the hormonal component. For women, at least up to a certain age, there is a hormonal component to this. I know for me, when it’s close to that time of the month, everything feels a little more difficult. I feel more on edge or emotional. This can vary from month to month, but hormonal fluctuations throughout the month can really impact the way you feel.

I wish more people were talking about this. I track my cycle now and use a great app called Natural Cycles with my Oura Ring, a health tracker that syncs with the app and gives me accurate data about my cycles. This information helps me be aware of where I am in my menstrual cycle.

For example, the last few days, my mind has been more prone to think things aren’t working or feel like problems are bigger than they are. But if I zoom out, a lot is working, most things are working. I still have this tendency to get pulled off by my mind and emotions before I catch it. Knowing it’s that time of the month helps me not believe my mind or emotions right now.

That’s not to say there might not be some truth in your thoughts and emotions. I’m not suggesting you completely disregard them. Often, these things come up for a reason, but they may not be as big of a deal as they feel at the moment. That’s all I’m saying.

This loop of the mind can happen when there are challenges in your life. It might be stress around finances, worrying about someone or something. Often, moms worry about their kids, or we worry about our partners, friends, what somebody said about us, or what somebody said online. Our mind starts going around and around about this.

This can also happen when you’re stretching outside of your comfort zone. It’s not always when there are challenges. Sometimes it’s when you’re stretching yourself to do something new, like building a business or going for a bigger dream.

I’m experiencing this right now as I stretch for some bigger dreams. I’ve noticed it’s putting me at the edge of my comfort zone or even stretching me beyond it, causing more of these thoughts and feelings to arise. This happens because I’m not staying in my comfortable bubble.
This can also occur when things are going well, and then a challenge arises. It feels like you’re going along great, then something happens, and you think, “Oh my gosh, I’m going backward. Nothing’s working. I thought I had come so far, and here I am, right back where I always am. Something must be wrong. I must never have grown in the first place.”
If you’ve ever had that kind of experience or thought, we see this all the time with our coaching clients and the women we talk to.
When a challenge arises and you feel like you’re going backwards, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t mean you’ve gone backwards. It just means there are certain patterns or things you get to continue to move through and learn a different approach.
Breakdowns happen to everyone; it’s a normal, natural part of being human. When breakdowns happen, having better tools to move through them quickly and more easily keeps you from being taken off track for long. That’s what today’s episode is about.

Maybe some examples of the loop of the mind could be “what ifs.” What if my business fails? What if I never find a partner? What if I’m not good enough? Or self-doubt, which is a big one we see among women. We did a whole episode on this topic, episode 10, “The Self-Doubt Switch.”

Self-doubt includes thoughts like, “Can I really do this? Do I have what it takes? What makes what I have to say or contribute any different than what everyone else is doing?”

We also have a free guide that we mentioned in that episode. If self-doubt is something you’ve struggled with, we have a whole process around this. This process made the biggest difference for me when I was early in my journey of stepping into coaching, getting more visible, and following my dreams. Gigi walked me through a simple but powerful process to move beyond my self-doubt and pursue my dreams. I still use this process today, especially when I was struggling with self-doubt in the early days.

We created a free guide and a guided visualization that goes along with it. You can download this resource at wayofthemuse.com/doubt.

Another category is being hard on yourself. Sometimes the loop of the mind involves self-criticism, such as “I should have been able to figure this out by now,” or “Everyone else seems to have their life together, and I feel like a mess.”

So, what can you do about these thoughts when the loop of the mind goes around and around, and you feel like you just can’t handle it? First and foremost, recognize that you are not the voice inside your head. This may be a new thought for some of you, but even if you know this, it’s important to remind yourself. You are not the voice inside your head. You can notice the voice in your head and the thoughts playing out.

Gigi has a great way of approaching this. She says to watch it like you’re watching a scene in a movie. Imagine you have a movie screen and the thoughts are playing out. Or if you’re more auditory, listen to it like an audiobook playing in your ears, almost like you have AirPods in, and it’s just playing all the time in the background. You can choose to tune in and put your attention on it, or you can turn down the volume and hear what’s going on in your environment better, letting it play in the background without fully engaging with it and identifying with it. You can expand your awareness and realize, “I am more than my thoughts. I am more than that voice inside my head.”

Our minds can be really dramatic, often talking doomsday and saying terrible things and how it’s never going to work out. You don’t have to engage with or believe every single thing it tells you. Many people start to identify with their thoughts, but those thoughts are not who you are.

We like to say, you are a happy baby. When you were born, you came into this world as a bright-eyed, happy baby. Of course, you cried sometimes when you needed or wanted something. Depending on the environment you were born into, you may have had more or less trauma or challenging experiences as a child.

Every kid, pretty much without exception, starts bright-eyed, and in their experience, and that doesn’t go away. It just gets buried under our life experiences, failures, disappointments, what people have said to us, or how we’ve tried to fit in.

This is what we talk about in the Aliveness Method and something we call the curiosity spectrum, which describes how we come into this world as happy babies. For most of us, to some degree or another, our lights begin to dim and even feel like they go out, but they never really go out. That light inside is your soul.

Through the things we teach and work with our clients on, we begin to remove the layers that cover your natural light and create a life more in alignment with who you are and who you’re meant to be. Remember, underneath, you are still a happy baby. The voice in your head is not you.

We also want to give you some tools and resources to help with the loop of the mind. Two great books are “The Untethered Soul” and “Living Untethered” by Michael Singer. “Living Untethered is more accessible and describes many of the same concepts as “The Untethered Soul.”

Deepak Chopra has also written many books on these principles. Finding ways to come to a more peaceful state can include meditation and other practices.

Meditation itself can be helpful, whether you’re an avid meditator or an occasional one. Gigi goes through phases where she meditates more or less. I’m not a regular meditator, even though I’ve done extensive meditation and Vipassana retreats. In my day-to-day experience, it hasn’t felt like my path, but I’m open to that changing in the future.

I find other ways to ground and center myself. Sometimes it’s through dance or movement. I love to go on long walks with my dog. Moving meditations are powerful for me. Meditation can also just be presence, like looking around. Right now, I’m looking out my window at a beautiful sunny day. We’ve had a lot of clouds in San Diego lately, so it’s nice to have this gorgeous sunny day outside.

If I take a long walk without listening to anything on my headphones, without being distracted or multitasking on my phone, and just take in the scenery, that’s a form of meditation.

It could also be if you’re trying to sleep and can’t fall asleep, maybe count your breaths. Inhale and exhale slowly, or count sheep—anything to distract yourself while your mind is going and going.

One thing Gigi finds helpful is writing everything down. She’ll get up in the middle of the night, write all her crazy thoughts, tear it up to signal letting it go, and then try to sleep. If she can’t sleep, she’ll lay there, breathe, relax, and rest instead of being stressed or frustrated.

Now we also want to talk about the emotional rollercoaster, something Gigi has really helped me with over the years. For me, more than the loop of the mind, the emotional aspect would really take me off track in the past. The emotional rollercoaster can occur in general life, with ups, downs, sideways, and in-between moments.

We also see this a lot in entrepreneurship. When people step into being entrepreneurs, there is this emotional rollercoaster, which I believe has to do with stretching ourselves and developing new skills.

This could show up when you’re stretching yourself toward any vision or dream. If you start moving in a direction toward something you want and then get off track, get distracted, or think, “Oh, this isn’t it,” that’s an example of the emotional rollercoaster taking you off track.

Gigi has helped me immensely with this over the years. She taught me not to believe everything my mind says because it can often feel very real. She also taught me to fully feel the emotions that come up but not to let them run my life.

Let’s talk a bit about the emotional rollercoaster in the context of entrepreneurship specifically, though you may find useful insights even if you’re not currently an entrepreneur. See where this might apply to you.

Entrepreneurship can be a rewarding and exciting pursuit, whether you’re building your own business or have been an entrepreneur for some time. However, it also has its challenges. One major challenge is taking full responsibility in a new way. You may have full responsibility in other areas, like raising kids, but there’s a unique level of personal responsibility and ownership that comes with building a business. You’re responsible for your paycheck, the heart and soul of your company, the results you create for your clients or with your product, and the people who work for you as you grow.

This learning curve involves experience and skill set development, as well as being able to ride the emotional rollercoaster of ups and downs. Any entrepreneur who has been fully committed for a while will tell you they have had moments when it felt like everything might fall apart. There will also be times when you don’t know what to do, which is a big part of growing—feeling like you don’t know what to do and then figuring it out anyway.

You may feel alone in what you’re going through, which is true in many areas of life. We hear that from women all the time: “I feel like I’m alone in this. I’m the only one going through this.” When they join our program, such as the collective, our monthly membership program, they connect with women all over the world, sharing and talking about deep topics. At the end of each call, we often ask, “What are you taking away?” A huge amount of the time, women say something like, “I’ve realized I’m not alone in this.”

Hearing women repeatedly say this shows how powerful it is for them to have that touchpoint, to connect and not feel isolated in their experiences and businesses. They realize, “I’m not alone. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go to connect for support and guidance.” This is a normal part of the emotional rollercoaster.

Gigi taught me a few things to do when this comes up. One of my favorites is to quit for the evening. It doesn’t always have to be an evening—quit for an hour, an evening, or a weekend, whatever you can do, and feel all your feelings. I did this last Sunday. I had some feelings come up in yoga class and let the emotions arise. I decided to go home, crawl in bed, journal my feelings, feel bad, watch a show, and just feel depressed. My husband knows by now that I just need a day to feel bad, and I’ll be fine in the morning. This is such a powerful practice.

You can do it in the moment if you’re able, but sometimes you can also schedule it. If you’re in the middle of your workday and can’t quit right then, schedule a time—say, Friday night—and take a couple of hours to quit. During that time, feel bad, let everything up, write, cry, watch sad movies, scream into a pillow. Most people stuff everything down, but that clouds our natural light. If your eyes are the window to the soul, bottling up emotion dims that light. Emotion is just energy in motion.

Gigi taught me to feel and release emotions so they don’t stay stuck. Otherwise, stored-up emotion becomes tiredness or a lack of inspiration and eventually frustration and resentment. Observing your thoughts without identifying with them and feeling your emotions without believing them or making them mean something helps. You can indulge in your quit time and think, “I’m going to quit everything,” but part of your mind knows it’s just for that time. The next day, you get up and go after it again, leaving it all behind.

Over time, this practice builds maturity—the strength to sit in discomfort and still hold the vision of your business or dream. You learn to hold the thoughts and emotions without letting them stop you, continuing to take action with intent. This builds confidence and trust in yourself. You know you can weather the storms and take care of yourself, emoting if needed, while keeping your commitments.

Some entrepreneurs see challenging circumstances as a reason to question, “Am I on the right path?” You might think, “This should be easier. It looks easier for everyone else,” and then get distracted or think you’re too busy. Look to your past for clues: what typically stops or slows you down when you start moving something forward? Identifying these patterns helps build emotional maturity.

Emotional maturity means no longer using circumstances as an excuse to not go for it. It’s about weathering the emotional ups and downs, keeping your commitments, and not letting your mind or emotions take you out of the game.

Gigi and I still have days when our minds go crazy, our emotions are up and down, and we quit for the day. It happens regularly. Everyone experiences this. When you get deep with them, they’ll admit it. Over the years, I’ve developed much more emotional maturity, and it’s such a relief. I can have all these feelings and thoughts and still go for it. I’ll keep going and take the next step. This won’t take me off track for long.

Everyone experiences the rollercoaster. There will be days when you’re on cloud nine and days when you’re filled with fear and uncertainty. Knowing this is part of the process and part of being human helps you not spiral out of control or get completely off track.

Another great quote is, “When emotions are high, intelligence is low.” This means that when you’re having an emotional rollercoaster, it’s not the best time to make big decisions. Focus on regular day-to-day actions and wait on big decisions until you’re in a clearer space. Emotions are just energy in motion that want to move through.

To recap, don’t believe your thoughts. Don’t create or believe the story your mind makes up about why you feel the way you do. Recognize when you need a break, take time to emote, and then get back to it.

One last thing we want to touch on is something we often hear from women. When they reach a certain point in their businesses, lives, or dreams and everything is going great, they say, “Oh my gosh, I’ve had this huge transformation. Everything’s working. Life feels amazing.” They often express, “I never want to go back to the way things were. I want things to stay this way forever.”

There will be days or even moments within days where you feel this way. You think, “I don’t want it to go back to the way it was before. Everything’s always going to be this way. I don’t want any more of that hard or challenging stuff.” We see this often when using Voxer with clients, which is a voice note app.

Sometimes we’ll get a voice note from someone saying, “Everything is amazing, it’s going phenomenally well, I’m so excited!”

Then, two days later, we’ll get another message saying, “It’s terrible, nothing’s working, this is awful.” We’ll often suggest they go back and listen to the voice note they sent two days earlier and check back in with us. They usually have a good laugh because they realize they were going through the emotional rollercoaster.

When they express the desire to keep things the same, we often share a popular quote in personal growth: “What you resist persists.” When I asked Gigi why we tell women not to focus on not wanting to go back to the way things were, she explained that when you focus on what you don’t want, your attention is in the wrong place.

If you’re doing well and thinking, “I hope this stays this way forever, I don’t want to go back,” your attention starts to go to the way things were, and you worry about maintaining it. Instead of fully enjoying the present experience, you’re already worrying about keeping it the same in the future.

It’s natural to want to hold on to positive experiences, but trying to control life in this way is counterproductive because life is always changing.

I think of this visual of waves in the ocean. Waves are crashing. If you look out over the horizon, the waves are going to crash. You could think, “Oh my gosh, I need to stop these waves from crashing. I’m going to try to build a wall and control them because it’s better when it’s calm. I want to keep this moment of calm forever.”

Or, you could learn to surf or swim and go with the waves. You could enjoy the moment of calm, float on your back, and then dive into the wave and come up the other side, enjoying the adventure and experiencing more ease and flow.

When we talk about ease and flow, this is what we mean. It doesn’t mean there are no waves crashing; it just means there’s more ease. You’re either surfing the wave, swimming through the wave, or enjoying the experience, the ups and the downs. Over time, as you practice what we’re discussing in this episode, you’ll move through the emotional ups and downs more quickly. You’ll learn not to believe your mind most of the time. Things can happen, but they won’t take you off track for long.

One final thought we want to leave you with is to love yourself through all of it. Be compassionate and kind to yourself. I’ve really learned this and am always practicing; there’s always more to learn. I remember we taught a course in the collective earlier this year on self-love, “The Way of Self-Love,” and it was so cool to realize how far I’ve come in this.

When the loop of the mind or the emotional ups and downs happen, I don’t get hard on myself anymore. I just go, “It’s okay. This is just my mind trying to keep me safe. These are just my emotions moving through like waves crashing on the beach, and I love myself anyway. It’s going to be okay.”

So, we love you. Thank you for being here. Hope you enjoyed today’s episode, and we’ll see you next time.