Those Gut Feelings.

This was the moment I was to buy my business partner out of her half of the business. I was to own the pharmacy lock, stock and barrel. Problem was, I didn't want it. I wanted to be the one selling my half, and I had wanted 'out' for a few years. The way negotiations had gone, meant I was the one to stubbornly stick to my guns.

You see, I had lost heart in the business. What I had once bounced out of bed and worked 70 hours a week for was no longer what set my soul on fire. But in the negotiations my logic and plain stubbornness meant that I was the one to continue with the 70 hours a week and a mortgage, working at something I no longer believed in.

So I was driving in my car towards that meeting with a heavy heart when my eyes just started to cry. And then from nowhere I suddenly felt so nauseous that I had to pull over, fearing I was about to throw up. The hot saliva and churning stomach, hot tears and shaking hands. It took a few minutes to settle down, sitting on the side of the road in the car thinking back to what I had just eaten, but knowing it wasn't anything to do with what I had just eaten. I was also telling myself that I was about to make a big mistake in going with this decision. However the logical part of me pulled myself together, restarted the car and I made the meeting in time.

Years later, and I now completely understand that small chain of events in the car and I marvel at how obvious it all was.

I have extensively studied a modality of coaching called mBraining. It is a new coaching, leadership and personal evolution field, based on science. It has uncovered incredible insights into human intelligence and wisdom and lets us apply these learnings to ourselves. Using up to the minute neuroscience, research has revealed that we have groups of neural networks in our hearts and guts that exhibit memory, intelligence and adaptive processing. Just like our head brains do, but in a different capacity. For example we have 'gut wisdom' and our enteric system shows that it has other functions and competencies that go way beyond simple digestion. We also have 'heart felt' conversations - which seem to come from a place other than the head. This is the intersection of neuroscience meeting ancient wisdom and it challenges our 'recent' traditional learnings (of about 150 years) that the brain in our head is the only 'brain' we have.

The collections of neurons in our hearts have a function too - emotion, values and connection with others - feelings of love or hate or indifference, compassion or dislike etc. The enteric system in our gut - the group of neurons that have traditionally been associated with the physical function of digestion also hold the function of core identity, the sense of self-safety and mobilisation. And the science has found that the function of the group of neurons in our heads (our 'brain') is for cognitive perception, thinking and making meaning.

And with hindsight being a glorious thing I can now see what was happening to me in the car as I drove to a meeting that was going to 'change' how I wanted to be in my life. My gut was telling me that this business was no longer what or who I identified with - big time! And being the source of will power what better way to stop me in my tracks than to make me want to throw up. My heart was appealing to me that there was NO value in owning the business - it was not important enough to me to even care for, not being able to summon the energy to make it successful. It was a really sad and heavy heart. And my head was trying to look at the bright side - it was making sense of what I was about to do, whilst telling me that I had to go on with it based on the determined and 'headstrong' analysis I had made.

In this logical world it is often the 'head brain' that shouts over the heart and gut. It is the rapid voice, the louder voice and the one that often gets to run the show and be noticed. However this time it was up against the strong values of the heart and the identity of the gut - formidable opponents.

What happened at the meeting? I couldn't go through with it. I came up with a solution and sold my half of the business. I ended up so happy. My decision to do that was completely 'aligned'. My whole self felt good about selling my share to my business partner.

I wonder if you remember a time when a decision didn't go so well or easily for you. We sometimes say that it is not being in flow or alignment. Also think of a time when something went really well. Maybe it was a 'no brainer' and things just went smoothly. Think of how that felt within your body. Using mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Technique) you can learn to tune into all the parts of you to make those decisions to be the best and easiest they can be.

Happiness is an aligned decision.