Ep 13 - Unstuck: Mastering the Mind, Transforming Habits, and Scaling Consciousness with Carl Lemieux

I loved this conversation with Carl Lemieux from Mindsmatter. I could talk with him for hours!

Carl is an author, workplace psychologist, management consultant, executive coach, psychotherapist, and mindfulness teacher. With 35 years of experience in corporate strategy, transformation, and leadership development, Carl understands the importance of well-being and self-awareness for himself, leaders, and the workforce.

He doesn't see himself as an expert on addiction, but in my eyes, he's a behaviour change expert with a wealth of experience.

Carl summarises this episode beautifully - " You've got a conditioned brain and a higher brain, and if you don't train the conditioned brain, you'll get stuck in your habits, patterns (and addictions) for a long time." The good news is, it is trainable!

In this episode, we discuss:

• What's getting in the way of you reaching your full potential 
• Doing the groundwork (un-layering and releasing accumulated traumas and unprocessed emotions) to allow the higher self to emerge
• What it means to scale consciousness 
• Classical psychotherapy (understanding why you do what you do) and newer modalities like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), IFS (Internal Family Systems), Breathwork, psychedelics, and Somatic work 
• Bringing awareness to what moves you away from consciousness and mindfulness and putting systems and rituals in place to condition a different way of moving forward 
• How our sense of identity and seeing life as either safe or unsafe is programmed in from an early age, becoming the filters for how you see and react/respond to the world
• Taming and befriending the automatic fast brain so the more evolved slow brain can kick in 
• The link between trauma, living from your fast brain and addiction
• The practice of mindfulness - adopting a new strategy to deal with physical discomfort and learning how to process unpleasant emotions 
• How the brain's Default Mode Network (DMN) validates your sense of identity and ego structure (perhaps you're telling yourself you're not good, funny or smart enough?) by finding information to confirm who you think you are, not the person you could be. Ouch!
• New and ancient modalities to calm down the DMN and open up new opportunities
• Psychedelics and taking the DMN offline, dropping our defence mechanisms and changing our relationship with the ego structure 
• The power of metacognition (knowing you're thinking versus being yanked around by your mind)
• Imagine observing your thoughts just like you can smell pizza!
• Detaching from and dealing with unprocessed emotions instead of staying stuck (often leading to addiction)
• Educating people on how to prepare for and use psychedelics and their risks. 

We would love to know what stood out the most for you in this episode. Please feel free to contact either of us via the links below. 

Remember to rate the podcast on Spotify or leave a review on Apple Podcasts; your support will help us reach a wider audience and help more people. 

Connect with Carl:

LinkedIn: Carl Lemieux

Website: Mindsmatter

Connect with Kerene:

Website – Mindful at Work

LinkedIn - Kerene Strochnetter

Instagram – Kerene_strochnetter

Facebook – Mindful at Work