My 40th birthday is this weekend, and instead of doing one of those “40 things I learned at 40” posts, I’m going to talk about something much, much more important, and it’s this:
It’s never about the clowns.
Before I get to that, HI! I’m Lynn and I’m the Deep Resonance Coach for capable but anxious professionals and entrepreneurs who want to finally stop overthinking, self-sabotaging, and procrastinating and actually get to doing that thing they can’t seem to do: charge more, launch that business, put out marketing, publish the book, get on stage, etc. And once we can get you doing that, then we get to work on the deeper work that makes life really worthwhile (because chances are, you didn’t incarnate into this world to start a business.)
And a few years ago, I had the pleasure of helping a client who was highly, highly capable in so many areas:
- They could navigate from point A to B without a map, relying on their gut and deeply ingrained spatial awareness
- They could fix almost anything in their environment, relying on their years of common sense knowledge
- They could talk almost anyone down from a crisis, especially in public.
They were so, so capable, smart, and strong… and yet a few things alluded them no matter how hard they tried to fix the problem.
One, there was this intractable fear of CLOWNS. Even close friends in makeup or a mask was enough to send this client into a cold sweat panic. They’d turn white, their heart would race, and they’d want to punch someone. BAD, BAD phobia.
Then there was the technophobia. Despite being raised by a computer programmer who was on track to be a VP at Texas Instruments and interviewed with Wozniak at Apple (where Woz kindly told this person that this wasn’t a good job for parents), this client had a fear of using the computer. This hampered their ability to apply for jobs, research information for themselves, and go back to school.
Finally, there was the smoking. Whenever stress hit or this client wanted a break, this persons go-to was smoking a cigarette outside for 15 minutes. Over time, those “15 minute breaks” turned into hours of wasted time and money.
So back to my point: when I work with clients in my coaching program, I know something my clients do not and it’s that their issues are almost never about whatever presenting issue they have. That presenting issue is simply what their Psyche throws up as the safest outlet for their deeper, root cause issue in their timeline and their subconscious.
For my client, it wasn’t about clowns at all. Clowns were creepy, to be sure, but they weren’t in and of themselves an issue for the client. Which is what made the physiological response so damn frustrating. This person had worked in ERs. They didn’t believe in ghosts or monsters. And yet clowns and computers stymied them.
What’s your version of “the clown”?
I can bet that there’s one area of your life or business right now that stymies you like this. For me, it was invoicing clients and charging more than $1k a project. I would get in cold sweat panics just thinking about my pricing… let alone actually invoicing for work done. And in the end, I went homeless before I enlisted help to figure this out, using the techniques I now use with clients.
➡️ I’ve seen trial-hardened lawyers who charge $500/hour to go to court feel flummoxed and anxious when getting in front of the camera to record a video for marketing purposes.
➡️ I’ve seen highly capable consultants with multi-million dollar wins struggle to raise their fees even a little, for fear that they are being “greedy” or “like one of those scammers” by charging even a little bit more in line with the documented value they bring
➡️ I’ve seen agency owners whose best clients were all in a specific niche at a specific stage of sophistication, yet refuse to niche down for fear that not being everything to everyone would somehow cause them to never get clients again.
➡️ I’ve seen women continue to chase partners who only gave them scraps, feeling like they had to “prove” themselves just to get love.
Again, these weren’t stupid, incapable, or unreasonably stubborn people. Each of these people had areas of their lives where they were flexible, highly achieving, and very motivated to succeed. In most other areas of their lives, anything they wanted to achieve, they got. They would set their vision, follow the steps, and achieve. They were ethical, heart-centered, and deeply caring about their clients, their work product, and how their choices impacted others.
So what’s NOT the problem?
I don’t need to say this but I’ll say it anyway: whatever you think is the problem, isn’t the problem, just like it wasn’t for my clients.
You don’t lack:
📖 The information or process to solve what’s holding you back. You don’t need another book, another course, another program to get out there. If your issue was a lack of intelligence, all your information-seeking would have solved it by now. You’d have implemented by now.
-> My clown phobia client didn’t need to learn more about phobias, or quitting smoking, or computers. He needed the trigger to never happen at all.
🔋 The motivation to get shit done. Chances are, you’re so high achieving it’s scary in EVERY OTHER PART of your life but this one area.
-> My relationship client didn’t need to keep chasing men who didn’t like them. They needed to stop engaging with this pattern altogether, so that these men never entered their orbit.
🗺️ The desire to have what you say you want. I have no doubt that you actually want to get on stage, have more clients, earn more money, and so forth.
-> My clients who couldn’t get on video didn’t need to be sold on video marketing or given more prompts or structure. They needed to feel good about marketing themselves and to feel good about being seen, flaws and all.
💗 The support from peers, family, or friends to do the thing. Chances are, they’re going to be the first in line to cheer you on when you can finally get over this hump.
What’s Actually Happening
Before I get to the solution to the clowns, it’s important to realize that humans are an incredibly, incredibly adaptable species.
We can live almost anywhere, in any culture, in any environment, and so as babies we learn what is safe and not safe through our experiences. We aren’t inherently afraid of things other animals are, like snakes. We have to learn what’s safe or not safe through our experiences. Some of those experiences happen to us and some we witness and learn from. And we learn these things very very literally.
So when your parent says, “you’re worthless”, little-You took that seriously. When you heard, “money is the root of all evil,” yeah, you took that literally. You get the gist.
And because there’s no switch when adulthood happens, we then carry those “rules of our environment” into adulthood as “just the way the world works” or “this is just how I am”… as if being chronically anxious was a permanent genetic trait and not simply how you learned to foresee when mom would start yelling at you when you were 5.
(It’s also, incidentally, why your sibling who grew up in the same environment doesn’t have the same hangups as you do. Their internal pattern-making experiences and process was different from yours. Go figure.)
Release the Clowns – How to Reimprint as an Adult
The solution is to get to the subconscious root and reintegrate what my NLP mentor calls, “the moment you didn’t master” and what my energy healing trainer Charlie Goldsmith calls, “reintegrating the parts of you.”
Basically, something happened before the age of 10 that caused you to:
- Feel INTENSE emotions which your Psyche interpreted as life or death.
- Form a BELIEF about yourself and the way the world works which would keep you safe from ever feeling/experiencing this moment again (”Asking for what I desire is selfish.”)
- Make a DECISION about dealing with anything like this in the future (”When this happens, I will run away/lash out/freeze/stop it from moving forward/eat/etc…”)
- Reorient your IDENTITY around that belief/decision (“I am someone who…”)
- You then STACK MEMORIES (a gestalt) of this throughout your life, so that this pattern keeps repeating and gets stronger over time. That relationship issue in high school, the bad job, the repeated client patterns, the friendships, the failed health goals, etc. etc.
- Sometimes, you might even add shame and guilt to the pattern which adds its own layer of belief/decision/identity. (“When I feel shame, I buy myself a treat and eat it whether I’m hungry or not.”)
The only way to fix this is to go back to your subconscious and rewire that whole moment. I won’t go into that here, but this is what I do and it happens very quickly and easily once you are ready.
Which gets me to the clowns…
It’s never about the clowns, or the smoking, or the phobia. It’s always about something deeper. For my client, almost all the issues stemmed from deeply unsettling memories with a parent they were supposed to trust. And since they couldn’t reject their parent at 4, they chose to decide that the issue was the clowns. Or the computers. Or not getting a break.
But we’ll start with the clowns, because that’s what your Psyche says is safe for you to release first. And you’d be surprised what kind of wall tumbles down once we start freeing the bricks. 🙂
Until next time,
Lynn Swayze, CHt, lynnswayze.com
P.S. For my 40th birthday, what I want is for you to feel, perhaps for the first time ever, that there is hope. This anxiety, this panic, the hives, it doesn’t have to be permanent. This response doesn’t have to be white knuckled through anymore. You CAN be done with it.
When you’re ready to explore how someone like me could help, DM me and I’ll send you my booking link for the free “Vibe Check” meeting to learn more about each other and if what I do is a fit for your situation.
