283: Joanna Hennon + Holly ~ Remember, It’s Not Just About Energy: Balancing the Inner and Outer Work

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

Joanna Hennon and I are back! Today, we talk about why it’s so important to find a balance between the inner work and the outer work, the spiritual and the practical. We’ve found that we can often get caught up in the energy and mindset work, and we “forget” about the practical action taking. We look at the imbalance that sometimes occurs, and why we often swing like a pendulum from one side to the other before finding our happy medium. We discuss why it’s not about focusing on one thing or the other, and why you have to integrate the spiritual and the practical…and how to do that. It’s all about combining the Being and Doing, and we share practical tips on how you can make this happen.

More About Joanna Hennon

Joanna is a #SoulSmart Success Mentor – she helps people to easily create more success by using the wisdom and power we all have access to at soul level. Living life from a place of soul power, in tune with your higher self and your Guides, and using the Law of Attraction with intention will literally change your life! To get started, grab one of these free resources.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

The relationship between energy work and physical reality
Why we need to be present here in physical reality
Why we sometimes have unwillingness to do something in physical reality (and how to overcome that)
Why we sometimes want the inner work to be enough, and yet we have to do the outer work too
Why we end up trapped in the energy side of things and forget that we have to do physical things as well
Why we sometimes use energy work to avoid looking at our physical reality
Why we need to make the spiritual practical, and how to do that

Things We Discussed

Connect with Joanna

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 283. This is your host Holly Worton, and I am back with another co-hosted episode with the fabulous Joanna Hennon. Today, we are going to talk about how to balance the inner work and the outer work, the spiritual and the practical, we found that we often get caught up in the energy and mindset work and we forget about the practical action-taking. Or, we do the practical action taking but it is not quite aligned. So, in this episode, we are going to look at the imbalance that sometimes occurs and why we often swing with the pendulum from one side to the other before finding a happy medium that works for us. We discuss why it is not about focussing on one thing or the other, and why you have to integrate the spiritual and the practical, and we talk about how to do that. It is all about combining the being and the doing and we share practical tips on how you can make this happen. So, today’s episode is kind of an exploration of what is going on for us, what we have seen in clients, and what you can do instead.

So, what you will learn today: we are going to talk about the relationship between energy work and physical reality and why we need to be present here in physical reality. We are going to talk about why we sometimes have unwillingness to do something in physical reality, and how to overcome that. We talk about why sometimes we want the inner work to be enough, yet we have to do the outer work too. We also discuss why we get trapped in the energy side of things and we forget that we have to do the physical side of things as well and I say “forget”. We also explore why we sometimes use energy work to avoid looking at our physical reality. Finally, we look at why we need to make the spiritual practical, and how to do that. So, this isn’t just philosophising on the inner vs outer work, it is also giving you some practical tips. So, I hope you find this episode interesting and useful. We decided to talk about this because we think not enough people are talking about this. You know it is something that I know the two of us have both discussed before, and I am sure you have heard me talk about my magical spiral staircase with the one step practical action and the one step inner work, mindset work; but we need to be talking about this more, because I think a lot of people have the tendency to kind of swing one way or the other, either focussing on the hustle, or focussing on the inner work. So, without further ado, here is the episode…

Holly: Hey Joanna!

Joanna: Hi Holly!

Holly: How are you?

Joanna: I am good!

Holly: {laughing} Good! I am really looking forward to our topic today.

Joanna: Yes, I am going to have an opportunity to vent a lot of anger! {laughing}

Holly: {laughing} I like how we are laughing about how we are going to be ranting about things!

Joanna: {laughing}

Holly: So, today is a topic that I think we both touched on more than once, but we feel the need to drive home, in this episode, about how we all exist in physical reality, most of us listening to this, I am sure there are some non-physical beings {laughing}, listening to the podcast as well but for the majority of us humans who are listening to this, we live in physical reality but sometimes we kind of forget that.

Joanna: We do, we do, and I think we ignore that a little bit. So this episode, this whole conversation, is going to be a reminder that life, and your success, and everything else, is not just about energy, there is another component that Holly and I feel it is easy to kind of brush away somehow and not really look at, and, of course, that component is the physical and the logical and all the non-energy stuff.

Holly: Yeah, I think that is why when I do my HEW® with clients so often, we end up working on the lower chakras: the first, the second, the third, because I think that the people I tend to work with are very advanced in the higher chakras, and not so much in the grounded, base, stuff, and so that’s what they need, that’s what blocked, that’s what needs to be focussed on, because we are so good at doing the spiritual stuff. We are good at the personal development, we are good at the energy work, we are good with the higher stuff.

Joanna: Because the higher stuff is easy, for those people, those of us who have those tendencies it is much easier. I think I have found it really hard to be in the physical for many years, even now, I forget about physical stuff, I forget to eat, or this is part of the reason why I am overweight is because I don’t pay attention to that stuff, and then I exist on cereal bars, I just forget, I forget to eat. When my husband is not at home in the evening I forget to eat and then it is 10 o’clock and I am like: oh, I am hungry!

Holly: And then you don’t want to cook and grab something…

Joanna: And then it is too late to cook, so something packaged comes out. It is just because I am more comfortable hanging out at the soul level with my spirit buddies {laughing} it sounds really weird, but it is true. It is just much easier to hang out in my head and create and think, and dream up, and connect, and visualise and all that than it is to be really fully grounded in a world that is not perfect, right? It is not an ideal world, there are a lot of really crappy things here, so it is just kind of easier to not kind of be here sometimes.

Holly: Yeah it is, because you can exist in your little fantasy world, and I feel like that’s something that I really try to drive home, for all the years that I was focussing on mindset work, is that you have to do the mindset work, and take the practical action, do the mindset work, and take the practical action. I always used to say that it is like going up a spiral staircase, where one step is the practical action, and one step is the mindset work. But you absolutely have to do both otherwise you are not going to see the results that you want. And yet I know I myself sometimes have been heavier on the mindset stuff, because I love going within, I love doing the inner work, I find it fascinating to pick apart my brain and figure out what my limiting beliefs are, and my blocks are, and then turn them on their head. I love that stuff.

Joanna: Yeah, that’s easier! I’m sorry but in every situation, in every reality, it is going to be much easier to write out your beliefs about visibility, than it is going to be to turn on the video camera and go live and tell people something about yourself, or speak your truth, or step into that energy of teacher, and leader, it is much nicer to sit there with your journal! {laughing}

Holly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Oftentimes the actions we need to take are outside of our comfort zone, so it is challenging!

Joanna: Yeah, so we started talking about this because that whole kind of online/spiritual space, has become it is not exactly anti-action, I know that, I know a lot of people kind of talk about action, but it makes us believe, it gives the impression that, I don’t know, that all you need to do is the energy work and everything else will fall into the place, and I don’t think that that’s entirely true. I do believe that energy is more important in the sense that there is no point in taking the action until your energy is aligned, so that for sure, I always talk about how it is never about the action it is more about the energy behind the action, so it doesn’t matter what action you take, as your energy is aligned and then you pick something.

Holly: And, conversely, I have sometimes taken the right actions, but with the totally wrong energy. So…

Joanna: Yeah, exactly, and then it doesn’t work, right? So in that sense the energy piece is really very important but, somehow, we really tend to not take the action or to shy away from taking the action and I have a really, really, personal example which is, I was thinking today, I am doing a bunch of content for the SoulSpace for the transition from 2018 to 2019, and I was thinking: oh I need to do something about helping people choose their word for the year, right? So we do these intuitive dream boards, and the way I teach in the SoulSpace is a lot of illustration about how I use things, I was thinking, okay, my words for this year are: “reach a wider audience”. Now, I have spent a lot of time working on beliefs and doing my journalling and thinking about it and talking to Holly {laughing}, but I haven’t actually done anything. I have not pitched to a single podcast. Holly is cringing, her face is like: what?!

Holly: Only because we have had that conversation multiple times! {laughing}

Joanna: So, you know, so maybe this doesn’t put me in the best light, but you guys you can see I am human too, I also don’t want to take the big uncomfortable action sometimes. What does that mean? That means that I didn’t accomplish the goals that I wanted to accomplish this year.

Holly: So, what does that mean for next year, are you going to continue to focus on that? Is that going to be your word of the year that rolls over, or is it going to shift at all?

Joanna: I haven’t gone through my own end of the year review as we record this, in December, so I don’t know yet. I have some thoughts about the word of the year and what it actually is, stuff like that that we can talk about another time, but I just want to illustrate that I had intentions and I had my energy work and all this stuff and it didn’t happen, what I wanted; and it didn’t happen for the very simple reason that I didn’t take the action, I didn’t take the action in the physical space so nobody knows that I want to reach lots of people. {laughing}

Holly: And new audiences specifically, like expanding.

Joanna: And new audiences, yes. So, this really, really, impacts stuff, and I get very angry about kind of getting stuck in that world, that fantasy world of just focussing on the energy and everything will be all right.

Holly: It is like we do so much work around believing: the universe has my back, and the universe will always provide for me, but it is like we can’t just sit and wait for it to do stuff.

Joanna: Yeah, I think that’s the problem exactly! It’s like it is implied through all the messaging that we get online, when we are in these spiritual business circles and spiritual circles, that that’s the end of the story, that the energy stuff is the end of the story, but it is not, it is the beginning, it is the foundation. And that’s what I have come to realise, and a huge part of what I teach is that basis. In fact, in the SoulSpace we don’t talk about business, people join the SoulSpace because they want to have a better business and have more success, but that’s not what we actually work on, because we work on the foundation, the energy foundation, and the actual business stuff comes after, or in parallel, but it is a separate thing. I feel very rant-y about all the stuff that is kind of implied in the messaging that we see.

Holly: I feel like it is not explicit enough, and I know that’s a criticism that a lot of people have had of The Secret, the book and film, because it was very much about the law of attraction, focus on what you want it will come, and not so much about practical action, it is like they are telling half the story.

Joanna: Yeah, exactly, and so it breeds a lot of frustration, because there are a lot of people sitting around doing lots of visualising {laughing}, and then either forgetting about that particular goal altogether or doing stuff that actually sabotages that particular goal and so in the end not really getting anywhere.

Holly: Yeah, and I think it is important when we say practical action, we don’t mean practical energy work, or practical mindset work. It is not the visualising, it is not the meditating, it is not doing your 5:55 affirmations, it is taking the action, if you want to lose weight it is changing how you eat, it is changing how you exercise. If you want to reach a wider audience it is pitching yourself to podcasters, it is approaching people, it is talking to new people, it is getting yourself out there, it is doing different things in physical reality, rather than the inner work, it is the outer work.

Joanna: Yes, and I think that the important kind of thing to notice in yourself, and understand for yourself, is understanding where you have kind of convinced yourself or used this energy work stuff and the fact that the universe does work on energy and all that kind of stuff, it is still truth, we are not negating that. Where in your life have you used that as an excuse to not do anything. Weight loss is a great example, because Holly and I have talked about weight for a long time, we have had loads of conversations, and now Holly found a system, a way of being that works for her, and she has been losing weight whereas I am kind of like: I am going to do the belief work, but I still want my crisps {Both: laughing}. So, listen to her, guess who is getting the better results?

Holly: Yeah, and the thing is, this is a tricky topic, because I did years of mindset work on this, this was one of the top three topics that I have been working with myself on for the last five years, and I was taking practical action, I was trying all kinds of different ways of eating and exercise and stuff to see if that worked; but it took many years of the inner work and the outer work, to finally find the thing that worked for me. It is also tricky too, because you need to try different things, you can’t just say: oh well I tried the Tim Ferris low carb diet and that didn’t work, or I tried whatever. I had to try a ton of stuff, like a ton of practical things before I found, and I had to do a ton of mindset work.

Joanna: I wonder, I would question whether you really need to try all those things or whether if you had just concentrated on the mindset and energy stuff, if you wouldn’t have anyway just eventually just happened on the thing that is right for you, and you could have really saved yourself a lot of frustration that nothing was working?

Holly: Yeah, and if I had paid attention to, and I just did a solo podcast episode on this, which is going to come out the week before this one: paying attention to the signs in your life. So the things that works for me in terms of weight loss are two things: Keto, high-fat, low-carb; and intermittent fasting. Both things I had been hearing about for years, and I was kind of drawn to them, but kind of not. And I cannot count to you the number of people that have said to me that either Keto, or the bulletproof diet, which is also high-fat low-carb, but over the last few years that word Keto has come up so many times, and I didn’t take action on it. Fasting, I was always mildly drawn to fasting, but I didn’t think I was good at it, because I used to get carb-crashes, because I wasn’t eating the right kinds of food, so it didn’t work for me. And these things kept coming up over and over, and I wasn’t paying attention to them, it was like somehow it all came together and culminated in this beautiful combination.

Joanna: Yeah, and if you had followed those signs earlier, then you could have had your results earlier as well, so there is this element of being willing to do the uncomfortable things and look at the uncomfortable things, and, yeah, I am not yet there with the weight stuff, although I will publicly say that the signs that have been coming to me for years, are for whole food living, and vegan, and those kind of things. Maybe not completely, but cutting out a lot of the animal stuff, right? But that’s hard, and it is a pain and so I haven’t really been doing it.

Holly: And I would challenge you to say: maybe do some belief work on it, see if that makes it easier, because any time that you feel that something is hard, like that’s where you can release some of the resistance through mindset work.

Joanna: I will, I will, because I feel like I am getting a better handle on the relationship between energy and the physical world, and I think, I have always been a super-logical person, although I believed in the spiritual side of things and the energy side of things, but then when I found the online business space, I seemed to have totally, become totally unhinged {laughing} in terms of my logical self and the physical world. I kind of went into this space where I was like: oh, this is much easier! I don’t have to think about the hard things in life and the hard things in my business and I am just going to focus on the energy. And, of course, that didn’t work until I was willing to take the action. And I get really upset about this because I think that a lot of people are getting stuck in this. I get a lot of people saying to me: I have done the visualisations, I have done this energy work and I have had the belief upgrades and all this stuff, and it is still not working, and my question is always: well, what are you doing? What is your strategy?

Holly: I thought, as you were saying that, I wonder, I used to be very, very, logical and very atheist, not even spiritual, and then I kind of…it is like a pendulum, it swung the other way, and I became super-spiritual, and I wonder if this is just the pendulum falling into that middle ground. I went from one extreme to the other and now I am middle-grounding it, so I wonder if maybe that’s a path that a lot of us have to walk, we have to go from one thing to the other, and then find that happy medium, where we can both be spiritual and be grounded in physical reality.

Joanna: Yeah, I agree, actually, the pendulum totally resonates with me, and that’s exactly how I feel, I am finally finding the balance and understanding the action piece, and the physical piece, right? But still I am not sure that you need to, if you are on this path, I am not sure you need to swing that far, basically; because that’s where the frustration is going to be, because you think that you are doing all the right things, but and yet nothing is going, and nothing is working. At the end of the way it has to be a balance: you have to do the energy stuff, so you are taking the action from the right energy, but you also have to be doing things, and consistently, and all that physical stuff is still really important, and when you are running a business, for example, that’s really important, the marketing piece is really important. Holly and I talked about business many times and out of those conversations I did things like decide not to anything: so, what would happen if I never made any offers? Well guess what happens? {laughing} I never made any money!

Holly: It was a good experiment though! {laughing}

Joanna: I think it was a very good experiment, I am very grateful that I was able to take that loss and do that experiment because it was really interesting. So you have to experiment for yourself and see where that line is, and you will see for yourself how much energy work that you need to do and then how much action you need to take and really keep moving. I think it is a good habit to be in, to do something towards your goal every day, because it keeps it top of mind and you know that success will be built from those little things that you are willing to do on a regular basis, right?

Holly: Absolutely, and I spent the better part of this year feeling really bad about myself for not doing bigger and brighter things with my business, but that was because I was moving more towards my writing and I was moving more towards my nature stuff and that was a huge shift. It wasn’t until, I have been doing massive amounts of year-end reviewing ever since Samhain and I looked at my primary goals, some of which are wrapping up between now and the end of the year, and I realised none of them were business-based, they were all nature-based and physical based and that kind of thing; and the only reason that I am about to achieve all of those goals, between now and the end of the year, is because I have looked at them all throughout the year. My walk 1000 miles challenge, I have a spreadsheet that I update every time I go on a walk, and I have a spreadsheet that tracks: how many miles have I walked? How many miles do I have to go? How many miles do I have to do this week to stay on track? And I have been monitoring those and that’s the only way that I am achieving that particular goal, because I am taking action based on this thing that I monitor.

Joanna: Okay, those are goals that require your effort, so there is something to track right? What about things like money goals? Money goals are a little bit different, because I don’t want to say we don’t have control over it, because obviously I am a big believer in creating reality with intention, but it is a little bit different and I know, from my experience, I actually really hate tracking money on days that nothing comes in, there is nothing that will make you any worse, than if I have a tracker and all I see is zeros.

Holly: Yeah there are some goals that depend entirely on you, and there are some goals that depend on you and other parties, so that does make it more complex.

Joanna: So things like money goals are in fact, they are kind of not linked to physical reality, almost. I think that obsession, almost, with our money stuff and with tracking income, we need to track money that’s not what I am saying, but kind of with that energy of money piece, I don’t think it is good for us to be honest, because we are not tracking things that we can actually do, we are tracking things which we don’t have that much control over in the end, or that requires certain actions. You can be tracking money, or wanting to track income, but not putting out any offers, like I was doing in my little experiment. So all that considering things as energy is great, and obviously it is still the way things are, we are not going to argue that, but just focussing on that really, I feel, takes us out of a physical space, and acts as a justification or an excuse to bury our heads in the sand about some real stuff in our businesses, in our money situations, in our weight situations. It kind of gives us permission to not look at the reality, almost.

Holly: Yeah, because it is kind of a nebulous goal or project…

Joanna: Yeah, so you may have heard me talking about my money stuff, recently. I signed up for a year of working on money stuff, from a very practical point of view, I am learning about investing, and the stock market, and property and all these things that I never knew anything about; and I am kind of kicking myself the whole time, because I am thinking I really should have taken charge of this earlier, instead of sitting there and being too scared to look at it, because it is difficult, money stuff is difficult just like weight stuff is difficult and a lot of success stuff is difficult. It just brings up a lot and so for years I wasn’t actually willing to look at my spending because I made it mean a whole lot of things that were connected to past stuff and I just wasn’t willing to do it. It makes me a little bit angry and frustrated that I bought into a way of looking at things, that wasn’t the whole picture. I am not blaming anyone for this, this was totally my comfort {laughing}, those ruled those decisions, yet there is something wrong with not showing the whole picture and not talking about all the things that go into success, and all the things that go into reality creation.

Holly: Yeah, it is almost like two people need to partner up, the inner person and the outer person and kind of work together.

Joanna: I don’t know anybody who did just one side of it, basically. I think you can probably be really successful and not do the energy stuff but then it is hard, and it is a struggle all the time; but it is possible to experience success without ever doing anything? Do we know any examples Holly?

Holly: No, I don’t, and we talk about this all the time, theoretically, perhaps, there is someone so enlightened that they can create success in their lives through the inner work alone. Theoretically that should be possible, but I can’t think of any examples, everyone has always done something. It is like when we were chatting before the call, you said like Eckhart Tolle, he had to write a book.

Joanna: He was the most enlightened person I could think of. {laughing} I am sure there are others…

Holly: All the people like that, they all had to either write a book, or get out there, or be seen…

Joanna: Or at least buy a lottery ticket, there is still an action involved. A lottery ticket could be an investment. I am not sure we have anything to share in terms of solutions to this. It is just kind of an appeal for yourself to think about, as you move into the next chapter of your life, to really think about whether you are doing too much energy work and not enough of the action, because it is really easy to stay at home and journal all day. It is nice.

Holly: Yeah, I love doing that stuff. So maybe one practical action that people could do is look at the stuff you have been journalling about, look at the stuff that you have been doing the inner work on and see, ask yourself, what is one practical action step that I could take that would move me closer to actually experiencing this in my life?

Joanna: Yes, and then do it!

Holly: And then do it. Look at the themes, what have you been working on in the inner stuff and I was very lucky that when I did my PSYCH-K® training, I had one of my instructors was really into the action plan to the point where he said: if I am working with a client and they haven’t done their action plan, I will postpone their session, I will not see them again until they have completed it and that really drove it home for me. So, I got into the habit of at the end of every session, creating the action plan with the client, because you need to create practical action, it wasn’t just go off and do your thing, I would sit with them and do the plan with them to make sure they had very clear action steps.

Joanna: Yes, Holly, I remember, {Both: laughing} I remember you being quick pushy about me identifying the action. I ask the question always when I work with people on the energy level, I always ask the question: what the next action step would be. But, to be honest, most people don’t answer that question and I have to wonder, I would hope that they answer it for themselves, and then go off and do that thing, but I suspect that they don’t. And then it is very easy to fall into frustration and say: I have done all these things and I have paid for all this energy work and I have done the energy work and yet nothing happened. Ask yourself why, if you are in that situation, and you are listening to this, there is an area in your life where you are thinking, it is not happening, there are only two answers as to why, it is either that the energy is misaligned, so you haven’t done any energy work and just trying to push through, or you got stuck in doing the energy work and haven’t done any action.

Holly: So, again the pendulum being on the extremes, too much this way or too much that way, rather than having that balance. Do you think, would you say a lot of us are using this spiritual stuff, the energy work, the mindset work as a justification for not doing this stuff we find difficult? Because it can be so easy to do all the mindset work and do all the energy work and be like: okay, I took the action I did so much.

Joanna: Yes, for sure, absolutely, my weight stuff is a great example of that. We have done loads of belief statements, haven’t we Holly? In it being easy to lose weight and, on the beliefs, I do not need to do anything, it will just come and even with those beliefs it is not quite happening! And yes, I think I have used it for years, because I don’t want to make the hard choices, I don’t want to feel certain things and there is a whole bunch of stuff in that. So, yes, I have been using that as a justification and with money as well, I have to say, I have a very, very, let’s say, colourful, financial past with a lot of mistakes. So when I discovered this world that said all I needed to do was like feel abundant and visualise I embraced it whole-heartedly, because I didn’t have to look at spending. I didn’t have to look at spending as bad, and I didn’t have to to have a budget, and all these things and although I appreciate that I had to do some of that energy work, as well, that was also an important piece for me, I definitely used it as an excuse not to look at the practical side, and not to learn about money and not to learn about things which at the end of the day are not that hard. How money works and balance sheets and income statements, these things aren’t difficult, but you have to actually sit down and do it and reading another book about the energy of money was always more appealing to me.

Holly: Yeah, yeah, clear your money blocks, change your mindset, and I have done a ton of that.

Joanna: And I am not saying it is not important, I think in this conversation we have to make that point, neither Holly nor I think that the energy or mindset stuff doesn’t need to be done but it needs to be followed up, and I think that the best way to phrase it is what we said at the beginning of this conversation. That’s not the last step, right? That’s not the end of the process, it is the beginning of the process, what you are doing with the energy is the foundation and then you need to put a plan into action. So, yes, you do need a marketing strategy, yes, you do need to talk to a financial adviser. Yes, you do need to know how to create assets, you do need to know how your body works and what makes you gain weight, what makes you lose weight, and the relationship between calories and exercise, all those things you do need to know.

Holly: Yes, you need to educate yourself on the practical stuff.

Joanna: On the practical stuff, and a lot of people don’t want to do that or find it boring, or whatever, and I think that’s where we get ourselves into trouble because there are a lot of people sitting at home and thinking: I want to run a fulfilling business, but I don’t want to learn about marketing, well… you are going to be the best kept secret then, right?

Holly: So, what’s the solution? So people are resisting this stuff, they are really resisting making lifestyle changes, they are really resisting doing the practical money stuff, they are really resisting marketing their business. So, what should they do?

Joanna: Energy work!

Holly: I know but we are assuming they have done all the energy work, obviously they haven’t done all the energy work, because they are resisting, so at what point do you say: I am scared of doing this thing, but I have to take the action? How do people know when?

Joanna: My goodness that’s the most difficult thing that anybody has ever asked me, and we are live and recording!

Holly: If you want, I can answer it first, and then you can build on that. To me, it is taking baby steps, instead of taking the big gigantic huge steps, see how you could break that down into something smaller, or see how you could do something smaller or easier, or something, I think the more you get used to taking little steps, the more that will build up to taking the bigger steps.

Joanna: I can see that with my money stuff, for sure, I am doing this program with a couple of friends, and we have a pact to do something small every day, we have our little WhatsApp group where we are checking in all the time on our small steps and it is helping, we are really moving forward with things that we really think are pretty much impossible to move forward on. So it really does work, the baby step approach. I would say that the answer to your question is that you need to be really conscious that you are making a choice. For me it really boils down to that, because I don’t really care which choice you make, I don’t think it is actually about going bigger, or building something better, or earning more money, or any of those things. If you choose not to, that’s fine, right? It is kind of like, I always ask my soul spacers: what energy are you aligning with, what would that version of you whose reality you want to experience, what do they do? And then, if you are not doing that, then you know that you are not choosing for that reality. It is the same as people who say: I wish I could be a writer and then won’t write.

Holly: Yeah, exactly, you have got to be doing it.

Joanna: This also applies to me. {laughing} But that’s what it is, I think the writing example is a great example, because it is super clear, there are loads of people who say: I wish I could live the life of a writer but the actual sitting down at a screen everyday and writing is not a choice that they, or we, are making. So we can’t then experience the reality that we say we want. So, for me, it is an awareness of the stuff that you are saying you want.

Holly: Are you actually making that a priority and taking the action that you need to take?

Joanna: Are you choosing?

Holly: Yeah, and I think what is important is that everything is a choice, so you are choosing for that or not choosing for it? And inaction is choosing to take inaction, you are maybe not taking a conscious decision, but you are making the decision to not do it.

Joanna: Now I will also say, because I don’t want this episode to make anybody to feel bad when there is no need, because there is also an element of timing. So, Holly found the best solution for weight loss after several years of wanting to experience this, right? I have found a solution to help me with my money stuff after years and years of wanting to experience this, so there is an element of timing as well, so it is okay if you are not quite ready to take the action. That is also okay. That just means that you need to align more, you need to do more of the energy stuff, or take some smaller steps rather than jumping into something big, so there is an element of that, it is not to say that you need to be moving on all your stuff right this second.

Holly: Yeah, exactly, and there are times in your life when you are going to be focussing on somethings, and times when you are going to be focussing on other things. It is not like you have to be advancing on all of the fronts on all of the goals in all areas of your life, every single day.

Joanna: But it is just that I think what I would like, listeners, is to take from this, is that willingness to look at whether, in any area, they have stopped with the energy piece: where in your life have you made that kind of the end of the process? And I can pretty much guarantee that those will be the areas that you are most frustrated with in terms of not seeing the results you want, or not being far enough on the journey, or whatever it is?

Holly: Absolutely.

Joanna: So, if you think that you have done the energy stuff, and asking why isn’t it happening, then look at strategy and what you are actually putting in place physically.

Holly: Yeah or been trying to manifest this thing, but it is not happening.

Joanna: Yeah, exactly, what are you not doing?

Holly: What could you do differently?

Joanna: So there is an element of being, yes, and there is an element of doing, and the doing has gotten a bad rep, you know?

Holly: Yeah, because there is a significant portion of the online world that’s really into the hustle; so, again, you have got the two extremes, you have got the hustle extreme and you have got the manifesting extreme, I don’t know, the spiritual.

Joanna: Yeah, it is! It is true, and if the answer is somewhere in the middle and the middle for me would be different to the middle for you, and different to the middle for someone else, but you have to play with that, and see what that balance is for you and what action you do need to take. I think I do believe that if your energy is really aligned, and you have done all that energy stuff, that foundation, then I do think that one action could produce miraculous results. I do believe that, for sure, it doesn’t mean that you have to work hard, after you do the energy stuff, but you have to find your own balance to see what kind of percentage of energy work, and what percentage of action you need to produce the results you want. I think that’s it, right?

Holly: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Joanna: I find this really, really, interesting, I am thinking through this myself as I talk, we are not really presenting an already thought through presentation thing here, but it is so interesting to talk through it, with the examples from our own experience, as well, and I am hope that it helps someone.

Holly: Yeah!

Joanna: So, is there anything else that we wanted to address here, Holly?

Holly: No, I think we have got it, I think we have said it over and over and over again in the last 40 minutes, but it is about finding that balance between the inner work, the outer work, the practical and how that balance can be different for everyone.

Joanna: That’s it, and really being conscious and being honest with yourself about where you are using the energy stuff as an excuse, an excuse as justification and where are you burying your head in the sand? That will relate, I am talking from the perspective of money mostly, because that’s what I am focussing on at the moment, is learning about that, and I am realising how may things I could have put in place earlier with not much effort, actually.

Holly: Yeah.

Joanna: So I hope that this conversation will kind of shorten the timeline for someone else. If you are struggling with a business and you have done the energy work, get your strategy sorted. And also, I think we should say, Holly, that it doesn’t need to be a linear thing, there is an element of doing the energy work first, and then taking the action, of course, but you don’t have to do all the energy work in the world.

Holly: Oh no.

Joanna: Or all of the action in the world, it is as you say that spiral staircase.

Holly: Yeah, it is step, step, step. For me, I am constantly doing the inner work, I take the action, it works or doesn’t work, or I feel like I need to do something else, but I am afraid of it, so do some more inner work and then I take the action. It is absolutely step, step, step, step, step for me.

Joanna: Yes so that’s really important for everyone to remember, I think, to keep taking those actions and learning from them, and seeing how things feel, and often people will take an action in their business and they will be like: yeah that is definitely aligned, and afterwards: I really knew it wasn’t aligned, I shouldn’t have taken this client, or I shouldn’t have agreed to this, I had a gut feeling, but then I thought it was the thing to do and that is something you need to work out for yourself.

Holly: It is all a journey, and sometimes making these “mistakes” (and I am doing air quotes as I say that), that is part of what you needed to learn for the next step.

Joanna: It shows you in a brighter light what you need to do, right, what is the actual right choice for you and what’s not.

Holly: Yes/

Joanna: Okay, I think that 40 minutes is enough!

Holly: {laughing} I think we have been clear! So, good luck, go out there and take action, that’s aligned action, and let us know how it went for you.

Joanna: And if you want to reach out with any comments, or any questions, or your own opinion, then both of us would absolutely love that. You can email me at: [email protected]

Holly: Or, [email protected]

Joanna: Yes and lets move through it together.

Holly: Yay!

Holly: So I hope you found this interesting and useful. Please drop me a line and let me know what you thought, you can email me at: [email protected] and you can join me on Patreon, if you head to http://patreon.com/hollyworton you can join me there and we can discuss what you thought of this week’s episode, what you would like to hear me talking about in the future and what things you would like Joanna and I to explore. Membership starts at just $1 a month and you get exclusive access to content I don’t share anywhere else.

So thank you for joining us today and for listening, Merry Christmas if you celebrate that kind of thing, I know it is Christmas Eve when this will be coming out. I will be back, next week, New Year’s Eve, with another solo episode.

Thank you so much for listening and remember to visit https://www.hollyworton.com/283 for the show notes on this epsidode.