If you've ever made a choice and immediately wondered whether it was actually yours, this episode is for you.

Twenty years in corporate marketing trained me to operate at a speed that felt like capability but was actually conditioned reactivity. When I left and built my own business, I thought I was finally doing things differently. Instead, I brought the entire conditioned nervous system with me, and just upgraded the external authorities I was outsourcing my decisions to.

In this episode, I'm breaking down the difference between deciding and reacting, why they can feel identical in the moment, and what's actually underneath the pattern. This isn't a mindset conversation, it's an internal signal conversation.

We get into:

• The four real-time checks for knowing whether a choice is actually yours
• The difference between a yes that feels like expansion vs. one that feels like relief, and why confusing them is costing you
• Why the gap between where you are and where you want to be is almost never about strategy.
• How Human Design's defined and undefined energy centers play into reactive decision-making
• What to look for in support that expands you vs. support that contains you, and why they can look identical from the outside

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

MAY AFFIRMATIONS

Each affirmation will be repeated 3x in a row, and then it loops so you hear each affirmation a total of 9x.

As you listen, allow the words to absorb into you, as you re-program your mind, and your energy for success in all areas of life.

You can choose to repeat these affirmations out loud, or in your mind, whatever feels right for you.

For results, listen to them daily for 21 days or more.

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Here are the Affirmations that are included in this episode:

• I am choosing to trust my inner signal before I can explain it.
• I am in the process of unlearning the habit of outsourcing my clarity.
• I am the type of person who doesn't need to earn access to my own inner guidance.
• I am the type of person who trusts my energy.
• I am choosing to live from the deepest part of me, not just visit it.
• I am the type of person who lets my inner knowing lead.

Want to listen on-the-go? Check out The Limitless Life Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! Did you know the show is now ranked in the top 5% most popular shows globally!

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Let's get Social:
Join me on Substack, The Limitless Life Uncensored
Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston
Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

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And if you want to look at what's actually running underneath, the subconscious or energetic patterns that might be shaping your results, that's what my Subconscious Strategy Session is for.

It's 30 minutes. It's free. It starts with a few questions when you book, so I understand where you're at before we speak.

You'll leave with a clear read on what's actually limiting your growth, a specific direction for addressing it at the root, and a sense of whether working together feels right for you.

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

You've done the work. You know your patterns, you can name your wounds, you have a whole vocabulary for why you do what you do. And yet....here you are. Still hitting the same wall.

This episode is about the thing nobody in the personal development space really talks about: self-awareness, on its own, isn't transformation.

What get into:

• Why self-awareness and staying stuck are not mutually exclusive
• What productive tension is and why it matters
• Spiritual bypassing vs. spiritual gaslighting
• The identity of "someone who does the work" and how it can quietly become its own trap
• The one question to ask yourself that doesn't lie

Take the next step:

Book a free Subconscious Strategy Session — BOOK YOUR SESSION HERE

Join me on Substack — JOIN ME HERE

Connect on Instagram — @_BrendaJohnston

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

After Episode 231 on the beliefs you don't know you have, one question kept coming up in DMs, voice messages, and comments: if those beliefs were installed before I was seven, and I can't remember that time, how am I supposed to find them?

This episode is the answer to that question. And it goes somewhere I didn't expect, because when I started pulling on the thread of childhood memory, I kept running into a narrative in the wellness and spiritual space that I think is causing real harm. We're talking about that too.

What we cover:

• What neuroscience says about why those early years are a blur
• The specific pattern I've seen practitioners get wrong, and why being handed a story about your past is not the same as doing the work
• Why the beliefs from those years don't surface as memories
• How a thought journal functions as a diagnostic tool, not just a journaling practice
• Why the nervous system has to be on board for belief change to actually stick

Take the next step:

• Book your free Subconscious Strategy Session → BOOK YOUR SESSSION
• Subscribe to Between the Lines on Substack → Paid membership — $97/year
• The Beliefs You Don't Know You Have And Why They're Running Everything → Listen to EP. 231
• Find me on Instagram → @_brendajohnston

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

What if thw beliefs holding you back aren't the ones you've already named. They're the ones you've never once questioned — because they don't feel like beliefs at all.

They feel like facts.

In this episode we get into why hidden beliefs are so hard to see, how your brain has been quietly reinforcing them for decades, and what the gap between what you consciously want and what you subconsciously expect is actually costing you.

What we cover:

• Why the beliefs running your life aren't the ones you've been working on
• How confirmation bias keeps old beliefs alive long after the original experience
• What the reticular activating system (RAS) is and why it's filtering out the opportunities you say you want
• The gap between conscious desire and subconscious expectation — and why that gap is where all the frustration lives
• The two most reliable ways to start identifying what's actually running in the background

Take the next step:

Learn more about and book a free Subconscious Strategy Session: BOOK YOUR SESSION

Read more on Substack: SUBSTACK

Connect on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

APRIL AFFIRMATIONS

Each affirmation will be repeated 3x in a row and then it loops so you hear each affirmation a total of 9x.

As you listen, allow the words to absorb into you, as you re-program you mind, and your energy, for abundance in all areas of life.

You can choose to repeat these affirmations out loud, or in your mind, whatever feels right for you.

For results, listen to them daily for 21 days or more.

****************

Here are the Affirmations that are included in this episode:

• I am in the process of trusting that what I want is already on its way

• I am choosing to stop waiting for permission to have the life I desire

• I am the type of person who receives good things without guilt

• I am in the process of letting it be easy

• I am choosing to believe I am already enough to have what I desire

• I am the type of person who expects things to work out for me

Want to listen on-the-go? Check out The Limitless Life Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts! Did you know the show is now ranked in the top 5% most popular shows globally!

****************
Let's get Social:
Join me on Substack, The Limitless Life Uncensored
Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston
Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

*****************

And

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

Intuition is not a gift. It is not a special power reserved for the chosen few who seem to have a direct line to the universe, usually while journaling in linen pants near a window.

It is a skill. And the fact that it has been packaged and sold as something mystical and exclusive, something that only certain people have a real connection to, or those who happen to have a large Instagram following and a talent for speaking in circles, is one of the more expensive myths floating around the personal development space right now.

In this episode, we go deep into how your inner guidance system works through your energy centers and how to tell the difference from fear in your body.

What we cover:

• Why intuition is a skill, not a gift, and why the "special intuitive" myth is costing you your self-trust
• The Human Design energy centers that carry intuitive intelligence
• Why "trust your sacral" doesn't apply to everyone, and what to do if you've been trying to access a response that isn't how you're wired
• What fear actually feels like in the body versus genuine intuition, and how to tell the difference
• How subconscious and energetic work clears the way for your intuition to actually come through

Take the next step:

• Book a free 30-minute Subconscious Strategy Call → BOOK YOUR SESSION
• Join me on Substack → SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE OR UPGRADE
• Download the free → Daily Energy Management Audio Practice
• Let's get social → INSTAGRAM

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston

The people holding you back aren't always who you think they are. Sometimes they're the people who love you most, and that's what makes this conversation so necessary and so rarely had.

This isn't an episode about cutting people off or finding a new tribe or “just letting them”. It's about understanding what's actually happening, what it's costing you, and how to keep building anyway, even without the permission, the applause, or the people you most wanted in your corner finally coming around.

What we cover:

• Why the people who benefit most from you playing small are often the ones who love you most
• The four relationship dynamics where this shows up, and how to recognize each one
• What it actually costs you to keep performing smallness for the people around you
• Why their discomfort with your growth is not a sign you're doing something wrong
• How to stop seeking permission from people who aren't able to give it
• Why "just find your tribe" is incomplete advice, and what to do instead

Plus, personal stories from navigating an unsupportive marriage while holding everything together financially, and being blindsided by a mentee who worked against me behind the scenes.

If you've been building something real while feeling unsupported by the people closest to you — this one is for you.

Take the next step:

Book a free 30-minute Subconscious Strategy Call → BOOK YOUR SESSION

Join me on Substack → SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE OR UPGRADE

Let's get social → INSTAGRAM (@_brendajohnston)

Take the next step

If today's episode resonated and you're ready to close the gap between what you know and what you're actually living: APPLY TO WORK WITH BRENDA

Join Between the Lines on Substack: The perfect place between episodes, for women who are done with surface-level answers.

Visit the website: brenda-johnston.com

Connect with Brenda on Instagram: @_brendajohnston