The Most Ridiculous Sign I Asked The Universe For (And What It Taught Me About Subconscious Beliefs) [ep. #282]
There's a story I tell clients that gives them goosebumps every single time. It involves me ugly crying on my bed in 2020, an iced latte's worth of frustration, and a request I made to the universe that was so ridiculous, so unlikely, there was no way it could ever come true. A blue panda.
The universe delivered 3 days later.
And it cracked open everything I thought I understood about subconscious beliefs. I'm talking about the gap between knowing vs believing. This gap is the reason so many of you are stuck in the exact same income, same clients, same ceiling, year after year.
Because you can have the qualifications, read the books, follow the coaches, and still find yourself lowering your prices on sales calls and taking 5 days to post one piece of content. That's the gap between knowing vs believing. And the fix lives inside your reticular activating system, not your strategy.
By the end of this episode, you'll know exactly which side of that gap you're on. And what it actually takes to cross it.
Topics covered on Subconscious Beliefs:
The blue panda story, what happens when you ask the universe for a sign so ridiculous it cannot possibly come true, and it does anyway
Your subconscious beliefs are running 95% of every decision in your business so better make sure they're aligned with your goals
Your reticular activating system can be your best friend or worst enemy, this is how to hack your brain to help you smash your goals
Vision boards, journaling prompts, and New Year's decisions are not enough to shift your subconscious beliefs on their own
The subconscious mind work I did to build my self belief
Connect with Rebecca Haydon:
Quote:
"Your subconscious doesn't speak the language of information. It speaks the language of experience, of repetition, of emotion." - Rebecca Haydon
Transcription:
Our AI tried its best, but expect a few quirky typos in the transcript. Embrace the imperfections and enjoy the read!
[00:00:00] This is one of those stories that I tell on client calls all the time, and every single time I tell it, something shifts for the person on the other end of the call. I also get goosebumps still telling this story, and the teaching inside this story is one that I do not talk about enough. We spend a lot of time in this space thinking about what to do, right?
[00:00:27] What am I doing today? What's happening in my business? What, what, what? Do, do, do. And we do not spend enough time talking about what it actually feels like when the subconscious finally completely agrees with you. Like it completely agrees with where you want to go, what you want to do. Welcome back to The Subconscious Expert.
The Gap Between Subconscious Beliefs And What You Consciously Know
[00:00:51] I am your host, Rebecca Haydon. I cannot wait for this episode, and I truly believe that there is a difference between knowing something and believing it. And that gap, that very specific gap, is where most of the women in my world and who I'm working with right now are living. By the end of this episode, you are going to know exactly which side of that gap you're on and what it takes to actually cross it, because this is the heart of knowing vs believing and the subconscious beliefs that sit underneath both.
The 2020 Mastermind Call Where I Broke Down Ugly Crying
[00:01:20] So I need to take you back. Sit down, grab yourself a drink, grab yourself a little iced latte, which I'm currently obsessed with, because I want to tell you a story. We're going to go back to a very specific season in my business, and I'm going to be honest with you, it was not a pretty season.
[00:01:45] We're in 2020. I'm living in Australia. COVID's hit and I've got to make shit work. I was a mastermind. I think it was probably my first mastermind that I was in. I'd worked with a coach one-to-one and then I got access to her mastermind as well. She found me, she sold it to me through LinkedIn, which seems crazy now.
[00:02:09] She literally cold DM'd me. Is it even a DM on LinkedIn? But she cold outreached me from LinkedIn and I signed with her. Good for you, Carly. Good for you. But that seems so far back now. Anyway, besides the point. I was a mastermind, and I remember for some reason on that day I'd gone onto the mastermind call and I'd sat on my bed to do it.
[00:02:34] I think I was already down in the severe dumps about my business, about my success, about nothing working. Why isn't it happening for me? Why aren't I making 6 figures yet? I was there. I was very there. I was in the deep thick of it, and I was in the thick of it so much that I couldn't even bring myself to do the call in my office.
[00:02:56] I did it on my bed. I remember the exact bedding that I had. I remember that room, how white the walls were. I don't know, it was just a very snapshot moment in my life that I can specifically remember. We were on this call, and you know in mastermind calls, you go around and everyone's talking about what they're doing and what they're up to and what's working.
[00:03:21] Then it got to me, and I don't think I could even get the first sentence out without breaking down and fully sobbing. Sobbing. Because I was sitting there on that call thinking, "What is wrong with me?" Nothing's working, and this was all perception, by the way. Nothing's working. Nothing's growing.
[00:03:45] I'm never going to get here. How are they doing this? Back then I had 3 specific coaches that I used to watch that were the pedestal coaches. You know, the coaches that you put on a pedestal and you're like, "They're so far away." I had 3 of those coaches, and I was watching their every move.
[00:04:07] I broke down to the fact that I couldn't even talk to the coach on the call because I was crying that much. I don't even think I had the session. Anyway, the call ended and I ugly cried, ugly, ugly sob. Annoyingly, when I cry, I do that silly thing where you go for hours after. Does anyone else have that? It's really irritating. It's almost like you have hiccups, but for crying.
[00:04:31] Anyway, I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and I remember sitting on my bed and literally thinking, "Right, I am fucking done." I'm done with trying to make this work. I'm done with what's missing. I'm done with trying to logic my way through it.
[00:04:53] In that moment of absolute sheer frustration, and to be honest, I just wanted it so bad. I have felt that feeling. I can anchor it in my body right now, in a not so good way. The feeling of just wanting something so bad, that's how I used to feel in the performing arts industry, which is why I can connect to it so quickly.
Why I Asked The Universe For A Ridiculous Sign
[00:05:16] I said, "Right, I'm going to do something completely ridiculous now because this has to go beyond me, because I am just not solving it." I was doing subconscious mind work at this point. I obviously had all my qualifications. I did all of my qualifications before I even started the business.
[00:05:33] So I knew the subconscious work would help me, but I couldn't even do that at that point because I was that deep in it. I thought, "Right, I'm going to ask the universe for a sign." That's it. Now, I was more woo-woo back in Australia, ironically. You would look at me now and go, "You're probably not woo-woo at all."
[00:05:56] But I was particularly more woo-woo back in Australia because I almost needed something bigger than me to really hone this belief for me that it would work. I was pulling cards every single morning. I was doing all the things. I would do anything that would help me potentially get my success.
[00:06:15] However, on reflection, I was doing everything because I felt that was the thing that was going to make it work, so it was obviously not working in the way that it should. The work that I do, I'm a scientist of the subconscious. Ironically, I didn't really like science in school, but hey ho, here we are.
[00:06:37] I love the evidence. I love the methodology. I love that I can explain things and we can replicate it, and that's how I work with the subconscious. That's why so many people come to work with me and say, "You make the intangible tangible." That's how I work. But in this particular moment, I thought, "Right, universe, you're the only thing I've got left.
[00:06:59] You're the only thing that's here to support me. Let's give it a go." I was desperate, and I think desperate people do things they normally wouldn't do. Not that asking the universe for a sign is desperate, but in that moment it was. So I said, and I actually think I said it out loud, I was that fucked off.
The Blue Panda Request I Thought Was Impossible
[00:07:23] I can go back into that annoyance. I remember being quite angry about it and I said, "Right, if this is going to..." I'm just going to swear quite profusely now because this is actually what I said, but, "If this is going to fucking work, if any of this is actually going to happen and I'm going to be successful, you're going to have to fucking prove it to me."
[00:07:45] I literally remember being that angry. All of you are like, "Wow, I've never heard Becky in this way before." But I said, "You're going to have to show me a sign. That's it. If I don't see this sign, that's it for me. I'm out. Done." This sign was basically telling me what I did with my future, which is crazy thinking about it now.
[00:08:11] Then I thought, "Actually, if we are doing this," and looking back now, I really didn't want the sign because I was so much in my victim at this point, which I know I've talked about and can talk about more. I was really deeply getting so much from being a victim to what wasn't working for me.
[00:08:32] I thought, "I'm going to make this so fucking hard that you would never be able to give me that sign. In fact, I'm going to make it so hard and ask for something that you would never be able to give me. I'm not going to ask for a feather or a rainbow or a white butterfly or a hummingbird..." Would hummingbirds be...
[00:08:55] I don't know. I wasn't going to ask for something that I see all the time. Sometimes we ask for a sign and it's everywhere anyway. I was like, "I'm going to ask for something so specific, so unlikely that there's absolutely no way that it could be a coincidence."
[00:09:14] That's what I wanted. It's like me saying, "Show me a snake or a spider" when I lived in Australia. I wanted something that was really, really hard. So for some reason, the first thing that came into my head, don't ask me why, I said, "You have to show me a blue panda." Don't ask me why.
[00:09:36] Don't ask me why. I remember thinking, "Ha ha ha ha ha. You'll never be able to show me a blue panda. It doesn't even exist." Whatever it is, even if it's a teddy, I've never really seen a blue panda teddy. Anything blue panda, I said, "You have to show me that."
[00:09:59] That's it. I literally remember thinking, "You're never going to be able to show me, because it's never going to fucking happen, because this isn't going to happen for me." That's where I was. Okay, so crisis over. I probably dusted myself off, went for a dog walk, absolutely fine.
How A Blue Panda Showed Up On Top Gear 3 Days Later
[00:10:18] A couple of days later, and when I say a couple of days, I think it was literally 2 or 3 days. I should actually go back and look at my Instagram stories, because I think I put this in real time when I was going through it. Literally a couple of days later, I went into the living room in my house in Australia, and I sat down to watch TV.
[00:10:38] Now, what I will preface, for anyone who lives in Australia, I'm sorry for what I'm about to say, but Australian TV is the pits. It is so bad. English TV is particularly bad now, but Australian TV was just really bad. If you weren't watching Friends because you were on the TV channel where Friends was, or this renovation show that I loved over there, there was nothing to watch.
[00:11:04] So for some reason, we ended up watching Top Gear. Now, I never really... I mean, I love Jeremy Clarkson. I love The Farm. I love all of it. I like it. I love all the people that are on Top Gear, but it wouldn't be my choice to watch. Anyway, we started watching Top Gear. If you're not British and you don't know what Top Gear is, it's essentially about cars and men and men driving fast cars.
[00:11:32] That's it. So it's not my usual viewing, but hey-ho, it was on. The programme started, and I should actually find out what episode this was, and after this happened, which I'll tell you in a minute, this has been the longest intro to a story ever, but I'm keeping you on tenterhooks. I actually put this picture onto my vision board to remind me of this sign.
[00:11:54] So the programme started, and it was on a beach, like the start of the programme, and the whole scene of the beach was really dark. It was really dark on the beach. One of the men in the show, is it James May? I feel like I've just made that up. One of the guys started to walk forwards towards the screen and you could slightly make him out to the camera, and it was really, really dark.
[00:12:19] It was the morning, and the sun was just rising. He turned to the camera and said, "Right, today we're doing X, Y, Z," because they always do silly things with the cars. He said, "And the car that I've chosen to drive is a Panda." I went, "Hmm. Okay." Right, I've literally got full body chills.
[00:12:40] Oh my gosh, full body chills, and my eyes are watering. Why does this happen every time I tell this story? He said, "I'm going to be driving a Panda." I turned to my partner at the time and said, "If this car, if this Panda is blue, I am literally going to..." I think I said shit myself.
[00:13:09] "I am literally going to scream. If the lights go up and this car is blue, I will die." Lo and behold, the lights went up on the TV, on the scene that they were on, and it was a blue Panda.
[00:13:33] Full body chills. I just remember thinking, "Well, I'll be fucking damned. I'll be damned." Because, one, that's what I asked for, and it's been 3 days later and I've seen it. Two, I didn't even know they made cars that were a Panda. I didn't even know that Panda cars existed. The make, Panda, whatever make it is.
[00:14:01] I'm shit with cars. So that for me was the universe turning around to me saying, "You will receive this, and you will receive it in a way that you didn't even know was possible for you." That for me was a huge turning point. I genuinely think I fell off the sofa. I was that shooketh.
[00:14:25] I was so in shock that I thought, "Oh my God, I made this the hardest sign." I was about to give up, and the universe spoke to me through Top Gear. A programme that I would never really watch, that I hadn't watched in years, for a car that I didn't even know existed in a sign that I asked for. When I asked for that sign, the image in my head that was going to be was a blue panda teddy, a stuffed teddy.
[00:14:54] What else would I think about seeing? Anyway, so that happened, and I thought, "Okay. All righty. What do we do from here?" Because now I've got to believe. The universe has given me the sign.
Hack Your Brain Through The Reticular Activating System
[00:15:29] Before I get into the real teaching of the podcast, I do want to briefly explain what actually happened there, because yes, it was something bigger than me and it was this belief, and that's what I want to talk about today. But actually, that story was really about my brain and it was really about my reticular activating system, your RAS, which I know I speak about a lot on the podcast. I'll pop a couple of more episodes in the show notes if you do want more information on the RAS and you haven't had a dive into that yet.
[00:15:50] The RAS is the filter at the base of your brainstem, almost the size of your pinky fingernail, and it decides, out of the 11 million bits of information that your brain receives every second, what you notice. It takes its instructions from one place and one place only, your subconscious.
[00:16:13] So it takes its instructions from your subconscious about what you believe, what you focus on, what you've told your brain actually matters right now. So when I asked for a blue panda, I put a blue panda into my RAS. I told my brain, and quite frankly, the emotion behind me asking for a blue panda probably did enough to make my RAS really fucking serious about it.
[00:16:39] But it went, "Right, this matters. Look for a blue panda." My brain, being the extraordinarily efficient machine that it is, went and found it. Had I not asked, and I think there is an element of magic here, which I never want to get rid of. I've actually done a podcast episode on manifestation versus subconscious and how it actually speaks in the same language and what that does.
[00:17:07] I'll pop that in the show notes too, because that is a really, really good episode. So I'm not taking away the magic, and the magic still very much stays for me in that story. You could hear my visceral reaction from me even telling that story, 6 years on. But had I not asked for the blue panda, I would have sat on the sofa and I would have watched Top Gear and I would have seen a man driving a car.
[00:17:33] The blue panda, I think it's a Fiat Panda. Is that right? The blue panda would have been one of the 11 million bits of information that just got filtered out. I don't need to know that it's a blue panda. I don't even need to know what it is. It's not something that I was focusing on.
[00:17:49] But because I asked, I noticed. Now, that is neuroscience. So yes, the magic's there, but it's also neuroscience. This is genuinely how you hack your brain. Like I said, I've talked about the RAS before on the podcast, and I just wanted to mention that I asked for it, so therefore I looked for it. Not taking away the magic, but it is important.
[00:18:13] It is important because we can literally program what we want to see and how we want to see it. The way that I asked for a blue panda, I've also done this again. This was 2022 when I came back from Australia and it was more about the decisions I was making, and I asked for a yellow cactus and I saw it on Love Island.
[00:18:31] There's been a couple of times where I have done this specific technique when I just want a little bit of belief in myself.
What Changed After The Blue Panda Moment
[00:18:51] That's the part that I actually want to talk about in today's episode, however many minutes we're now in. Now, what happened after the blue panda was not what you might expect. I didn't immediately hit a really huge month in the business. I didn't wake up the next morning with a fuck ton of clients and a sold out offer and an incredible launch. That's not how this works and I will never tell you it is. But what happened was simpler and to be honest, more important than that.
[00:19:15] I believed. I believed. Take me back to Polar Express when they hear the bell. I believed. I don't know why I'm getting emotional. But for the first time, I really believed in myself. I believed more than anything that what I focus on is what I get. That my subconscious is the mechanism that's running everything, and the belief that I can actually ask for what I want and I can see an opportunity and I can go and get it.
[00:20:08] I want to talk about the difference between that moment, that body level belief, and everything that came before it. Because, to be honest, like I said, I did my qualifications way before I even started my business. So before the blue panda, I knew all of this.
[00:20:32] I knew that the subconscious ran 95%. I knew the RAS filters for what you focus on. I knew that your subconscious beliefs create your results. I had the fucking qualifications. I've done the training. I was obsessed with Marie Forleo at that time. I was reading all the books. I was listening to the podcasts.
[00:20:52] I'd been doing this work with clients. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it very well, but I did not believe it. Not in my body. Not in the 95%. That gap, the gap between knowing vs believing something subconsciously, is one of the most under-talked about things in the entire personal development space.
[00:21:22] Because the gap in real life, what I see with my clients, is the woman who knows she's brilliant at what she does and still lowers her prices on the sales call, or knows her content is good and still takes 5 working days plus another 2 to actually get it done and post it, or knows that consistency is what builds a business and still turns off and goes away for 3 weeks every time she builds momentum.
[00:22:00] She knows she's capable of the next level and still finds herself in the same income, same clients, same ceiling every single time. You know, don't you? You absolutely know. Your subconscious just hasn't agreed yet. That is the gap, and that is the gap where everything either breaks down or breaks open.
[00:22:22] That blue panda, that bloody blue panda broke me open. Knowing lives in the conscious mind, knowing lives in the 5%, knowing lives in the part that reads the books, that takes the courses, that follows the coaches, that writes the journaling prompts, that decides on January 1st that this year will be different and this quarter will be different.
[00:22:48] The knowledge is there. You're very good with knowing. Believing lives in the subconscious. That's the 95%, the part that is running every decision, every piece of content, every sales call, every month you either build or disappear. Your conscious mind cannot override the subconscious, no matter how many times it decides to, no matter how much it knows.
[00:23:13] You can carry on getting all the qualifications. You can carry on getting all of the things that you've been told to do. Saying the words at the conscious level versus your subconscious sitting underneath it, that's where we need to have a look. That's why the vision boards don't work solely on their own. You can see the pictures, and you can still have a subconscious saying, "That's not for someone like you." That moment with that blue panda was, "Okay, this is my time to believe now."
[00:23:57] I needed that big sign at that moment because I was at the lowest of the low. I needed that sign to tap into that belief, but I want to be your sign to tap into that belief today.
How To Build Self Belief At The Subconscious Level
[00:23:57] I am your blue panda. Hello. Ironically, I'm wearing a blue jumper whilst recording this. So that's where I really want you to concentrate. I really want you to believe. Shake that bell with me. For those who love Polar Express, it's one of my top Christmas films. I still remember going to the cinema to see it when I was a little kid.
[00:24:24] It's a special one in my heart. We shake the bell, and the bell will only ring if you believe. So what actually closes the gap? It's the most important thing that I've learned in the 7 years of this work, that gap between knowing and believing. A lot of the time we think, like everyone does, it's more information, it's more effort, it's more discipline, it's more deciding.
[00:25:00] That gap is closed through experience at the subconscious level. That blue panda, for me, was an experience. It's something that my conscious mind could not explain or argue with. My subconscious received it as evidence. Real, undeniable, felt it in my freaking body, still can feel it 6 years to the day, evidence.
[00:25:28] That is what shifted. That is truly where we start to have a look at the subconscious, the belief behind it, and what's not allowing you to believe right now. What's allowing you to know, but not believe. This is the work of hypnosis bypassing directly to your subconscious.
[00:25:53] That creates the experience at the level where the subconscious beliefs live. Timeline therapy, where we go back to where the beliefs are formed and update it from there. NLP, where we actually rewire the actual neural pathway underneath the pattern. To genuinely build self belief, you cannot stay at the conscious level. What I want you to know, and I know I've spoken about this, I feel like I've got a bit on my TED Talk right now, but what I want you to know is the way your subconscious receives information, that's not the language it speaks.
[00:26:30] Your subconscious speaks the language of experience, of repetition, of emotion, of things that happen in the body rather than in the prefrontal cortex, the conscious mind. Until the subconscious has an experience that updates the belief, knowing will keep sitting on the side of that gap.
[00:26:52] It will keep you sitting there, and the results that you actually want will keep sitting there as well. So that is where I want you to look. If you want to go and ask, in fact, let's all do the challenge today. What is your version of the blue panda? What are we asking for? Get into my DMs. Tell me what you're asking for, and I want you to make it as ridiculous as possible, because that felt really funny to me.
[00:27:21] That belief, yes, go and do and ask for a sign, but I want it to come deeper than that for you. I want to tell you what it feels like when the gap starts to close for me. Again, it was so powerful, and it wasn't like I woke up in the morning and everything was fine, just the way that everyone thinks subconscious mind work is going to go.
[00:27:48] It was really sitting down to create content, getting it out, saying my prices on a sales call and feeling certain, having a good month, and staying in the good month, and then having another month after that. It was just this knowing. Wrong choice of word there, Bec. It was just this believing that it was going to happen for me.
[00:28:18] It was going to happen for me because I was going to make it happen for me, and I believed it was going to happen for me. That is what happens when the subconscious agrees. The way you then show up is completely different, and you are magnetic. So magnetic. Oh, gosh, yeah, that time in my life, it was amazing.
[00:28:59] Before I close off this absolutely long-ass story, where in your business right now is there a gap between what you know and what you actually believe? Knowing vs believing, that's where I want you to start working. That is just a subconscious that has not yet had the experience that updates the belief. That's exactly what I do inside my world.
[00:29:29] I'm so excited for you to listen to this one. I know you will have already listened by the time we get here, but really, really have a look at that. If this episode has touched a spot for you, share it, please. Send it to the women in your world who are sitting in that gap right now, who need the blue panda. I am the blue panda. Send it to the women who know they are capable and cannot figure out why the fuck it is not working.
[00:29:49] She will probably need to hear this. If this woman is you, the details are in the show notes to work with me. I just want to give a shout out to Beck circa 2020 for doing the work. She did the work and I did work after I found the blue panda. The blue panda was my push to go, "Okay, I've got all the tools.
[00:30:09] Let's do something with it." But yeah, I will see you next week. I love you lots. What is your blue panda that you're going to look out for? Let me know.
More about The Subconscious Expert:
Welcome to The Subconscious Expert, the podcast where your subconscious becomes your one-way ticket to the mind-blowing results you desire in your life and business! I’m your host, Rebecca Haydon, The Subconscious Expert who went from being stuck in victim mode to a multi 6 figure business owner. Each week, I will be giving you the subconscious tools and techniques so you can become the woman who is living out her vision with a life and business that she is truly OBSESSED with. I have said it before, and I will say it 100 times again: "Your business can't outgrow your mindset, and if you want to grow your business, it always starts with growing your subconscious." So let's dive into the subconscious breakthrough you so deeply deserve!