How do you handle yourself in an environment filled with chaos? Do you fight it? Control the situation? Or do you go with the flow and find opportunities in the crisis?

n this episode, Heather touches on chaos and why it’s not something that you should fear or resent. She will talk about what chaos truly is and how it has been presented in mythology, religion, and other beliefs. She will share the opportunities and lessons you can learn from chaos. Heather will share three best ways or tips to use chaos – plus a bonus tip that you shouldn’t miss!

She will also share her personal experience with chaos and a book about surviving through the chaos. This episode is filled with amazing lessons in life and chaos, so make sure you listen till the end!

Soul Stirring Quotes

“Chaos is really best characterized by two feelings: first is disorder and the second is confusion.”

“Chaos is uncomfortable for us because it reminds us that we can only control ourselves. It’s a very humbling experience.”

“Chaos teaches you how to find your balance between perseverance and surrender.”

“Chaos teaches you how to flow with life, to flow with what’s being presented to you instead of fighting against the forces around you.”

“Chaos is an opportunity for you to turn inward.”

“You have the power to decide who you are, whether you are in the calm or the chaos.”

“When you find yourself in a situation of chaos, instead of trying to find an answer, just embrace ‘I don’t know’ and ‘maybe’.”

“Chaos helps you to lean into self-trust and intuition.”

“When other people see obstacles in chaos, you are going to see opportunity.”

“Chaos brings problems and problems bring a chance to find a creative solution. And that’s what the market is interested in.”

“In an environment like this one of the best things you can do for yourself is to figure out what you value. What is the hill you’re going to die on?”

Welcome to the everyday intuitive podcast. I’m your host, Heather Alice Shea intuitive life coach trainer status quo, shaker and founder of Atmana Coaching Academy. Listen in each week to break up with your comfort zone claim your self confidence and radically embrace your role as an intuitive healer mentor and sought after coach let’s get within and get after it.

Today, I wanna talk a little bit about chaos and hopefully by the end of this episode, you are going to have some strategies and some skills that will help you. Not only survive uncertain times, but really thrive in them. I have been contemplating the idea and the notion of chaos ever since really, you know, the beginning of 2020, I think we all.

Began the whole COVID thing, thinking, oh, you know, pretty soon this will be over this too shall pass. And I think we are waking up or at least I know I am waking up all these almost two years later at this point. Realizing that things are never, ever, ever going to return to any type of normal. Not that I think that they should anyway, but to learn to live life in an environment that is so chaotic is something that we are all grappling with.

And I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and. My hope with this episode is to give you some skills, some tips, or some at least useful nuggets to chew on as you live, manage, navigate. And my wish for you is to do more than survive, but thrive in these uncertain times that we find ourselves in. And so if you study mythology, I’m a big fan of Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peter.

These are two really, really smart dudes who talk a lot about from the human perspective. Anyway, the two universal creative forces that govern human life in human existence. And the first is order, which is a masculine principle. And the second is chaos, which is a feminine principle. And when you look into mythology and our ancient civilizations, it’s absolutely amazing.

Almost every religious and mythological tradition. And as Joseph Campbell says, what’s the difference between religion and myth? Well, myth is somebody else’s religion. So the truth is myth and religion are, you know, really the same thing from the perspective that we are talking about it here today. But when you look.

At history and human history and you study myth, you study religion. What you find is that in every human culture they had gods for chaos and gods for order. It’s absolutely the coolest, right? And so some of the gods of chaos in the olden times, also was an Egyptian God of chaos and the Hebrew tradition, the Leviathan.

Was a God of chaos. It was this reptilian aquatic, like, you know, lizard, serpent creature, sometimes in the Hebrew tradition, they also use the image of Satan, right. And the Mesopotamian tradition. The God time at was the God of chaos and Norse mythology. They had the mid guard serpent, right? And almost every tradition.

There’s a God in the Greco. Roman, the Hydra was a God of chaos. And so you see this throughout human history, human beings, trying to grapple with like, what the hell do we do? When shit goes sideways, right? How do we handle it? And so how do we know that we’re in chaos? Where are we really finding? What does it really feel like to be there?

And so I. Chaos is really best characterized by two feelings, if you will. Right. The first is disorder and the second is confusion. If things are just out of order, right in disarray, just, you know, it’s here. It’s supposed to be there. It’s Zien when it’s supposed to be zagging. or everything just feels like, I don’t know what the hell is going on.

Right. Everything is muddled. Everything feels confusing. Another way to describe chaos is have you ever been in a situation or an environment where everything like, absolutely everything felt super unpredictable. Like you can’t read the room, you can’t read the situation. Like you don’t have enough information, enough dots aren’t clicking.

You can’t make a pattern out right. Of the situation. It’s like you’re frozen. You don’t know what to do because everything is so unpredictable and random, right. Nothing is making sense. So these are characteristics of chaos and the reason why chaos is so frightening. Is because we don’t have a way to navigate it.

We don’t have any useful, reliable tools, right. Because it’s just this kind of poral destructive force that we intuitively feel and know ourselves to be very, very vulnerable against it. And the reason for this is because we are finite little creatures down here, right? At least from our human perspective, we’re these finite little creatures.

We have limited cognitive capabilities. We’ve got these. Mushy gooey little bodies, right? Like we don’t even like animals at least have fur claws and sharp teeth to protect themselves. We don’t have anything. Right. We just have like these big brains with a neocortex, you know, that’s our real, only real protective faculty that we have.

We’re actually quite vulnerable little creatures. And so we’re these limited finite little creatures with an understanding that we exist in an infinite. Universe that we will never, ever, ever, ever, that we fundamentally lack the ability to come to know and understand. In other words, there’s always gonna be things that we encounter in every moment of our life.

That’s beyond our capacity to cope and navigate such that we can keep ourselves in others safe. So there’s this low grade anxiety. I feel like that comes with being a human all the time. Like, especially in modern life, no wonder we’re all. So neuro, we really feel this undercurrent of, oh my God. You know, at any moment the shoe can drop.

And I think for many of us, it has, I think globally, it certainly did in the beginning of last year. And so I think we find chaos uncomfortable because it reminds us of that truth that we. Really are at the mercy of forces that we do not understand, and maybe don’t have any care or regard for us at all.

Particularly if you’re not a person who’s inclined to think from a spiritual lens. I know most people, if you’re listening to this podcast, you probably do. but many people don’t, you know, there’s a lot of people that you live with that you work with, that you talk to that have absolutely no belief in a benevolent, something that’s got their back or their best interests at heart as they live in this universe that is cold and uncaring.

And. Maybe even worse and different to their fate. How scary would that be to live with that belief? Right. So it’s uncomfortable for us because it reminds us that we can only control ourselves. And even at that, we’re kind of bad at that, right? Like most people, shit. I don’t know, man. I can’t control not having a second piece of cake, much less.

important things. Right. We’re really bad at controlling ourselves. And that’s the only thing we really have control of to begin with. And it’s another reminder that we’re ultimately only responsible for ourselves. And this is very terrifying. It’s a very terrifying prospect to realize that you actually have a command and province over almost nothing in your life, right?

Not even your kids after they hit about 13, like good luck telling a teenager what to do. Right. And it shatters our illusion. That mankind is the master of the universe, right. That we’re, you know, sort of central, we’re not at all, or at least not when chaos hits, you’re definitely gonna take a backseat.

Right. And so it reminds us, it’s a very humbling experience and the issue with chaos when it hits in our lives. And if you. Wanna take a moment to think about a time when everything just went wonk for you, right? Like everything became FUBAR, right? Absolutely FUBAR. If you have seen that movie saving private Ryan, you understand that word it’s FUBAR fucked up beyond all recognition.

That’s what that stands for. So if you wanna kind of recall a time in your life when everything went FUBAR, what happens in that moment is you try to control. Our instinct is to try to control the situation and that makes it even worse, right? Because the more we try to control that, which is fundamentally uncontrollable, the more tired, scared, frustrated, angry, whatever, insert, you know, your favorite emotion of coping here.

And ultimately the more defeated as you do that you become. Because this is one thing we will not win against. We will not win against right. We will not chaos. You know, it’s undefeated. It’s the undefeated champion, right? It is going to win. It’s like standing in a hurricane, standing on the beach while a hurricane comes in with an umbrella thinking you’re gonna protect yourself with it.

You’re not, you’re going to be bowled over by it. And so what do we do? When we feel this way, when we feel terrified and scared, whatever the emotion is. I think for me, probably the I’ve had many chaotic experiences in my life, but without question, the biggest one was when my dad died, it was absolutely mortifying.

Right? What do I do? And of course being the type, a ball busting personality that I am. Jumped into action. Like I was gonna fix something, you know, but try as I might, I couldn’t bring him back. Like, of course I couldn’t. Right. I didn’t have control over that. And so what we have to do in the moments that chaos hit is we have to remember that it isn’t up to us to control our environment and we don’t really need to in order to stay safe.

And so. That’s the opportunity of chaos. That’s the opportunity. I’m gonna give you three ways to use it to survive because I really believe that not only should we try to survive it, but actually use it as a tool to thrive. And so chaos can be a great teacher. And I wanna give you three things that when you find yourself in that place of feeling confused, overwhelmed, defeated, terrified.

You can look to these three things. How can you learn? Where do you have an opportunity to learn from the experience? Right. So the first thing that chaos teaches us is how, or it gives us an opportunity to learn, right. How to find your balance between perseverance and surrender. So in life, when is it.

Time to say to the world, no, man, I’m gonna persevere my will be done. I want this thing. I’m not giving up. I am digging my heels in. I am sticking with it versus knowing when to say, when chaos gives that opportunity, it gives us a chance to find that balance between I’m gonna stick with this until I see it through.

Or Hey, you know, maybe it’s time to let go a little. And I think that’s a beautiful lesson. Oh my goodness. That’s like a superpower. Where is that balance for you between doing and sticking with what you know you need to do versus how much of this can I let go? How much can I let go? The second is to learn how to flow with life, to flow with what’s being presented to you instead of fighting against the forces around you.

So chaos can be an agent of creativity. I think it’s, it can be an opportunity for us if we get in control of it. So to me, it’s a lot like kayaking, right? If you’re kayaking against the tide, good luck. good luck. That is going to be the hardest track end to shore ever. Versus if you just will wait and kayak, when you’re going with the tide, it’s a fun, enjoyable experience, right?

So it gives us an opportunity to look at life and say, okay, let me flow. Instead of. You’re still gonna go. You’re still going to act and move in the world, but instead you’re bringing an intention or an awareness to your behavior and your action that says, you know what, I’m gonna be smart about this.

Right? I’m gonna wait until the circumstances are favorable to me. And the third is, and boy, well, chaos teach you this. It’s an opportunity to learn, to turn inward to the only world. Where you have any real jurisdiction. The only real control you have in life is how you feel, what you think and how you choose to believe that is really it.

It is your inner world. Only that you get to truly dictate, right? Victor Frankel. He wrote the book man search for meaning he survived, I think three or four years. And the owl switched death camps. He called it the ultimate human freedom to decide the type of person that you want to be. And he wrote in his book, I’ll never forget it.

When I read it, it changed my life to read man search for meaning. He said he had this moment when he realized that the Nazis could take everything for him. And they did take everything from him that killed his old. Everybody that they could take his teeth out of his face, out of his head. You know, they could take the clothes off of his back.

They could shave his head, they can beat mutilate and abuse his body. They could kill his wife. They could kill his whole. That they could take everything from him. Absolutely everything from him, except for the character of his soul. And he said, I could decide in that prison camp, if I was going to share my last crust of bread.

The Nazis couldn’t take it from me. They can’t take that from me. I can still choose to be a generous, loving person. How amazing, how beautiful. Right? The last hu great human great freedom. This is what we have, right. the power to decide who we are, whether we are in the calm or the chaos. And I think the chaos times like this, what we’re in times like this right now, I’m recording this.

I think it’s October mid-October of 2021. It gives us an opportunity to not only see who we really are, the quality of our character, but then consciously choose to become better, to become more aligned. So to go inward, right? To the only realm where you have any real jurisdiction and decide who exactly you want to be, what a great lesson, what a great opportunity we have.

Right? And so from this lens, we could see chaos as an opportunity instead of a crisis. So right now I wanna give you three tips that you can use to help you thrive in this environment that we are in. What’s great about this is it doesn’t have anything to do with other people. Right. It’s so again, what we try to do when chaos.

As we try to control our exterior environment, we try to control other people. We try to control how they live. We try to shame them, blame them. We want them to do what we want them to do, because if they will do what we want them to do, then that will give us the false illusion of feeling safe. And it’s all garbage.

It’s all bullshit. It’s not gonna make you one bit safer, right? It’s not. So that’s what we try to do. We try to control. But the more you try, the more chaos Lynches down on you, a great example of this is the vaccine mandates, right? I’m gonna make you take a shot and make you take another, we’re gonna force other people to live, how we want them to live.

And what we really should be doing is saying we respect the sovereign of all people, right? So there’s not enough injection in the world. That’s gonna make some people feel safe. , there’s not enough masks in the world. Some people can wear to make them feel safe, right? Because you can’t control the exterior environment.

There are things you can do to feel prepared and we should do those things. But ultimately, ultimately when we seek this, the control mechanism, it doesn’t really allay things. Right. So when we’re acting out of, oh my goodness, I need to force, make myself or force other people to do things so that I can feel better.

Probably not a good idea. Right. When we’re moving from that fear based place. Okay. So we can’t control other people. We can’t force other people to do what we want them to do. We certainly can’t control life in the world around us. Right. It’s so much bigger than us, but what we can do is support other people’s health and thriving.

We can trust life. We can trust a higher power. That there is a benevolence, something out there. If you believe in God, you can call it God. If you want to call it universe, life force. I don’t care what you call it, but we can choose to believe that that is the case. And we can trust ourselves in relationship to that force.

Okay. And so here are three things that you can use. That you can think to yourself, or kind of, you know, run through your mind as you confront chaos. The first is embrace maybe. And I don’t know when you find yourself in a situation of chaos, instead of trying to find an answer, just go, I don’t know, maybe.

Maybe I’ll see. Right. I don’t know. I’ll see. chaos often, you know, it’s because things are so tumultuous, typically decisions are best made in the moment. Right, right here. Right now, present moment awareness. This is what needs to be done. So just embrace maybe. And I don’t know, in other words, get an alignment with the fact that things are out of your control.

So what this does, what it buys you and how it helps is it makes you more creative and Zi. And those are two qualities that are fantastic inoculator against fear and anxiety. When we are in states of chaos, if you can feel creative, like you’re gonna be able to come up with solutions on the fly. And if you can feel resilient, meaning you feel strong until you do come up with that solution, you’re really gonna knock it outta the park.

The second is to lean into self trust and it helps you lean in self trust and intuition. So chaos, you’re in this unmapped territory and it’s an opportunity to say, okay, you know what, no matter what happens, I’m gonna trust myself. I know I’m gonna make the right decision. And then as you do it, use it as an intuitive development opportunity.

It’s almost like you can gamify it right. Lean into self trust. So how you’ll do that is you’ll say, I don’t know, maybe, but I do know when the time comes for me to act, I will act in a way that is in the interest of myself and others’ highest. Good. Okay. I’ve got this and then you’re gonna trust your intuition.

So the third is that, and this is a really neat, especially if you’re a coach. If you have a business, this is a really kind of a strategic one. When other people see obstacles and that’s what chaos does, chaos, tears down, things that we know, and it looks like obstacles to people who aren’t writing the wave of chaos.

when other people see obstacles, you are going to see opportunity. So I want you to ask yourself as you’re moving through it, identify the obstacles and then ask yourself, how can I flip this on its head and make it an opportunity? Marcus AIS, the great stoic said the obstacle is the way the impediment to action advances action.

What was in the way becomes the way. Right. So chaos brings problems and problems. Bring a chance to find a creative solution. That’s what the market is interested in. The more creative solutions you bring, the more opportunity that you have in life and business. Okay. So embracing these three things, maybe embrace maybe, and I don’t know, lean into your self trust and definitely let your intuition guide you and then ask yourself, okay.

How can all of these obstacles be turned into opportunity? This will give you a sense of empowerment as you navigate the insanity. That is the world today. And I’m gonna give you a bonus one. I’m gonna give you a bonus one on this one. One of the things that will absolutely help you feel strong in the chaos, it doesn’t necessarily.

Provide you with answers. You know, it’s not gonna necessarily give you like specific ways of coping, but this thing I’m about to say is gonna help you feel insanely strong. The bonus is to get really clear on what you value. I’m sure you have heard the saying, you know, do you really wanna die on this hill?

Right? Like, is it really worth it to you? You know, my husband says that to me a lot because I’m a very opinionated person, you know, I’m really strong in my thoughts and my feelings about things. And, you know, he’s like, Heather, look, you know, I see what you’re saying, but is this the hill you wanna die on?

And the truth is very rarely, is it, you know, there’s very few things in life. Like, I’m gonna draw a line in the sand and go nuts. If somebody crosses it, like almost nothing in my life is that way, you know, for the most part I’m super live and let live. And I’m just kind of like, I have my thoughts on things, but like, do I really care at the end of the day?

The answer’s no, you know, you go do you, I’m gonna do me. We’re all happy. I’m a very live and let live kind of person like that. But in an environment like this, where it is so polarized and there is so much tension. And so many people are at each other’s throats and worn the hell out. I mean like proper worn the hell out, right?

In an environment like this. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to figure out what you value. What is the hill you’re gonna die on? You know, silence is a beautiful thing. You know, I don’t think that we have to be out there declaring what we think and believe and feel all the time. It’s not something that we have to do, but for you to be inside of yourself, very clear on what you value, like where is your line in the sand, what you will and will not do what you believe in what you do not believe.

That is a very, very powerful place to be within yourself. So, and what it does is it helps, you know, your certainty within yourself. It gives you inner certainty because you know where you stand and you know that it doesn’t matter to you. What happens in the exterior environment? I don’t care. I just know that I’m not going to do this, or I am going to do that.

Or I am going to speak out against this, or I am going to speak out and support that. Right. You get very clear. On what you stand for such that it’s worth it to you to die on that hill. And so it creates certainty in your life. And I have discovered this. I am so grateful for the last 18 months because I have been gifted the inner knowing of certitude on some of my personal core values.

One of my personal core values is human sovereignty. I believe in the sovereignty of the human soul of human flesh, right over, you know, body autonomy over our bodies. I believe in that, I believe that there are no conditions under which a human being should be allowed to force another human being, to do something with their body.

Like that’s absolute insanity to me. I do not believe that people have that. Right. So, you know, for me, I’ve had to get really clear on that in this environment, you know, I’ve remained largely silent. I firmly stand against mandates of any kind. Right. So that got real easy for me. After the mandates came out, I was like, well, yeah, not doing that.

And going to vehemently support everyone’s right. To choose. Right. So I support people’s rights to choose. I think everyone should be free to do what they choose to do. Right. Whether it. take the injection, not take the injection. I support and love everyone in their decision. Right? Absolutely. And I’m definitely not okay with the idea that we’re gonna give a certain group of people, power to enslave, lock up fire, coerce and force.

You know, I don’t care if it’s a group of people or one person, right. It’s all the same to me. I think it’s bad to do that to one human. Much less whole S swabs of the population throughout the planet who choose not to do that with their body. Right. I don’t give a shit. What the reason is. Everybody’s always got a really good reason why they wanna put a gun to somebody’s head and make them do what they wanna do.

You know? And so me being clear on that, I can’t tell you the amount of peace that it has given me. And I value that piece and I value. That belief and that value more than I value other people’s opinions of me more than I value really anything this world has to offer. I simply just don’t give a shit.

That is what I stand for. And that certainty has helped me tremendously as I have navigated the chaos of these situations. Okay. So find the gift in the chaos, speak your truth, you know, allow your. The gift of certitude. I think what you will find in these chaotic times is you’re probably a little bit more clearer about how you think and feel right now than you’re giving yourself credit for, or even giving yourself permission, you know, to even kind of reveal or know.

Right. So, you know, it’s easy to pretend we’re Luke warm or to feel Luke warm when well, we’re really kind of not, you know, At this point, it really is. You know, it’s a sifting effect, right? It’s giving us all a chance to see ourselves clearly to embrace compassion, but also take a damn stand, right? You can be a compassionate, loving person and still be a ferocious advocate for higher ordered values and principles that respect the dignity.

And the sovereign nature of all people. Okay. So I hope that this has helped, please let me know how you feel, how you navigate chaos over in our Facebook group, the intuitive coach collective. We’ve got almost 6,000 people in that group now. If you are an intuitive or a life coach who is navigating chaos, particularly as a business owner and as an intuitive head on over to our Facebook group, you’ll find links in the show notes to jump in and let me know how you handle and thrive in the chaos until next time together, we rise.

That is a wrap for today’s show. Thank you from the bottom of my feels for showing up today in your power and in your willingness to let your intuitive self lead. And if you are still working your way to your first 52, 100 K in your coaching practice, I have two incredible free resources to help you fast pass.

This process, the first is to join our free and fun Facebook group, the atmana intuitive coach collective, where myself and our om instructors do free trainings every week to help you turn your obstacles into opportunities with each and every step you take so that you can begin to achieve success on your own terms, and finally make the money that you know, you deserve.

So, if you’re interested in joining our group, just pop onto Facebook and you can search bar atmana intuitive coach collective, and we will pop up or you can check our show notes for a link. And the second resource is a V I P ticket to our next upcoming five day workshop experience. Live your purpose, launch your practice, where you are going to learn four keys to claiming your intuitive confidence calling in clients with authenticity and integrity.

And then you’re gonna create your very first or one of many. Signature programs that help you sell your services with ease and grace. That also helps you go high ticket. So head on over to Heatheraliceshea.com/intuitive coach launch to get your V I P ticket, or you can check the show notes where you can get your hot little hands on a link to both the Facebook group and the five day work.

Until next time I see you. I love you together. We rise.