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Today I’m going to share with you, one of the tools and tips that we explored on the last Unrestricted Retreat, which is all about resources hidden in plain sight. Now, I don’t know about you, but there is something that happens when a daily resource that you’ve had (a person who you’ve connected with, a course, etc.), disappears out of your life. There’s a shift and a change that happens, where something that was so constant, just disappears.

I recently came to the end of a year with my coach, and I often do this kind of thing where I have 6-12 months of high-touch mentoring with somebody and then I have 6-18 months of integration time, where I’m applying everything that I have learned. Now, this resource may not be coaching for you, it may actually be moving house, changing career, altering your relationship status, or a big loss in your life…

But somehow, that something that was there, that we didn’t really take as a resource, just disappears. When this happens, an interesting thing goes on inside our brain where they are set to reserve and preserve energy. So, when it’s sending out these little tentacles to that resource, that’s an open loop that gets closed by that resource. That open loop, that energy that goes out to them (A) and comes back to you (B), creates a closed circuit. Once that has disappeared, that becomes an open loop, and that is something that our brains don’t really handle terribly well.

It starts to either shut down and pretend that open loop doesn’t exist, which is kind of what my brain had been doing, or it starts to find solutions to closing that loop. It’s very easy because once we start to see an open loop, we start to see open loops everywhere and I know for a lot of my mentees and attendees on our quarterly retreats, we start to forget to notice that we have all of these resources available to us! We start to look at all of the lack.

Interestingly enough, lots of bills come up and our to-do list gets longer, the ways in which we are alone in the world (the comparisonitis) gets more intense, and we forget about the resources available to us. Maybe you’ve found a similar thing in the realm of money? I’m talking about it in business, in life, in humans, throughout the pandemic…we all got that sense of isolation and loneliness. Believe it or not, the sense of loneliness as the secondary epidemic of COVID-19 is now well documented in a lot of journals. But where are the places and spaces from a money perspective, that we might feel that sense of lack of resources?

Now, I’ve done a lot of work with Denise Duffield-Thomas, and if you haven’t read her books, I highly suggest you do. They’re fantastic! She talks about finding things hidden in plain sight and that often, we get this notion in our heads that that isn’t real money.

  • A gift card isn’t real money
  • A check that we got in the mail for something random isn’t real money
  • The coins rolling around in our cars and in our bedside tables isn’t real money
  • Our PayPal account isn’t real money

But the truth is they’re real resources that are around us! And in actual fact, she goes on to say that everything you see in your house has been a value exchange generally of money, meaning it took money for that to appear in your house. And so, where are these hidden resources in our lives at times of trouble and times of seemingly lack and loneliness, that are actually hidden in plain sight, that we’ve just forgotten about?

I want to remind you that of all of the hidden resources that are available to you, there are more words in your ears, people in your mind and people in your pocket than you’ve ever had access to before. So, when you’re feeling stuck, especially in your business, I want you to hop onto your computer and look at all those downloads that you already have. Whether that’s a PDF, a meditation, a checklist, really beneficial piece of advice or piece of really actionable content – it could be the answer to the conundrum you’re finding yourself in at the moment. What else might be hidden in plain sight? The freebies downloaded on your hard drive, the Facebook groups that you are in. I event have free resources available for you here.

It’s so hard to see when you’re in a moment, that there’s actually something and someone holding out a hand for you. It definitely takes a little bravery to take it! Have you seen the anonymous section on a Facebook group where you can ask anonymous questions? We get that in the Natupreneur Hub all the time, but you could obviously phone or text a friend if you’re not too keen on the chat.

Previous coaches, mentors or groups that you’ve been in are always a source of resources and a listening ear. Even reaching out to people on Instagram via DMs, which I’ve done many times before. My point is, if you’re in a really hard space, a lifeline is always available. Like I said, you can have the access to some things that are hidden in plain sight, such as:

  • The extra money hidden in the back of your wallet in the form of a gift card you’ve forgotten about
  • Money hidden in a birthday card somewhere
  • Maybe you need to pay a little bit more attention to your furry, feathered and finned friends (your pets) – they just may be the resource that you need right now!
  • What about the exercise equipment that’s just sitting there in the garage not being used?
  • Or maybe that membership that you signed up for during the pandemic?

I know that I am guilty of this with a particular fitness app that I have on my phone. When we’re heading out to create new goals, new ways of being and we’re feeling that isolation, these types of trackers are really important and they’re hidden in plain sight on our phones or our smart devices.

  • Maybe there are books beside your bed that have the answer that you are looking for?
  • Maybe it’s guidance cards that you haven’t pulled out for ages?
  • Or some of the previous courses that you have access to that if you’re anything like me, a bit of a lifelong learner, they might have been sitting there and you might have done the first week, maybe two?

But the rest of that amazing beneficial content that you signed up for, those trainings and lessons that you promised yourself you would do, you haven’t quite got round to and it might be the ignition point that you need to move forward.

There’s also personality profiling tools. It’s nice to remember who you are and what’s important to you whether it’s values sparketypes or strengths-based personality profiling tools. Even human design and astrology can make you feel a little bit more confident in who you are and what you are here to do in the world.

Lastly, one of my favourites is resources that are hidden in plain sight, that I sometimes forget about, is water.

Recently, I was on a road trip and I had forgotten the importance and the amazing feeling for my nervous system of the resource of water. How did I do this? Because we went to places that didn’t actually have a lot of water, but it was an amazing switch up, even just to have a shower. Of course, I really wanted a bath but we didn’t have those available. But in some places, we could chuck our feet in the river or in the ocean, and if you don’t even have any of that, it’s an amazing gift to yourself to just chuck some salt in some water in a pot and stick your feet in it and see what happens.

Have you ever stopped to think that your conundrum may be an internal one and resource therapy is a great tool that reminds us that we have parts inside of us, just as we have parts available in our world? Whether those parts are on a computer, are in our education system, are in our social circles, or in our family listening ears, we also have parts inside of ourselves that we acquired in different times of our lives when we really needed to get through something.

These parts remind us of the achievements and the things that we have gone through before. They remind us that we’ve traveled and we’ve done things similar to this before. We’ve loved and lost before and we’ve done other things that, although they’re not the same, we have acquired bits of ourselves that may be able to come to the forefront and be the resource that you need.

It’s all inside you already. It’s just remembering that it’s there.

So, hopefully this has been a reminder or a remembering of the resources that are available to you. If you got something out of this blog or you know that somebody else will, please share it. Maybe another action you might want to take is to reach out to that person you’d like to talk to, find that little bit on your computer or beside your bedside table that you need or require, or reach out in Facebook group or send a DM on Instagram for any of the resources that you need and require right now. You don’t have to feel the loneliness that you feel or the isolation that you feel. It won’t last forever.

Remember, everything is always working for you in the background, and you have more resources than you can imagine.