The 3 levels: what a normal productivity coach would never tell you

But what I want you to know.

Hi friend,

The other day, I received a great request for a “productivity woo-woo reflection”. Here’s how someone described their productivity issue to me:

“What is getting in the way for me is my energy level and/or my state
of mind interfering with my energy levels. I'm trying to break out of
perfectionism and academic thinking and move towards more joyful,
lighthearted, and expansive feeling work. I feel a lot of ‘shoulds’
around things and at times the inner critic can be hampering. Let me
know if you need more detail.”

A few years ago—when I was trying to pass as a muggle—I would have responded to this with surface level advice on how to overcome perfectionism and self-criticism.

I would have tried to pretend to be a normal productivity coach, and normal productivity coaches don’t talk about things such as:

• other lifetimes,

• ancestral issues, or

• mass consciousness.

Well, good news: I have finally stopped trying to pass for normal! There’s nothing normal about being normal, and the sooner we show up as our authentic selves, the better. :)

Acknowledging the deeper causes

In my case, I have realized that many productivity and procrastination issues have deeper causes than is commonly acknowledged.

For instance, let’s assume for a moment that other lifetimes exist. If being outspoken once led to you getting burned at the stake, don’t you think that might impact your willingness to be openly visible in your work? Sure, your risk of that happening again is pretty dang low, but why take the chance?

Or let’s assume your ancestors almost starved during the Great Depression (or a similar event). Might that impact how you relate to resources and abundance today?

We are not an island, and our story didn’t start when we were born (or conceived). We are influenced by all that has come before us—and sometimes, what came before us causes challenging problems for us.

When I try to be muggle-friendly by avoiding “woo-woo stuff”, I can’t address those deeper issues. It’s like living in a 3-store building, but refusing to go above or below level 2.

Image by author.

Of course, people have the choice to relate to these 3 levels however they like:

• Some people really don’t want to put one foot outside of level 2 (consensus reality). These are the muggles and/or materialists.

• Some people are comfortable in level 1 and/or 3, but avoid level 2 like the plague. These are often the ungrounded, spiritual types.

While I respect everyone’s choices, I have realized that I prefer to spend time with people who I can connect with on multiple levels (pun sorta intended).

Luckily, the people who gravitate towards me tend to know their way around level 2, and are open to exploring level 1 and 3 (or they have already moved half of their furniture there, hah!).

That’s why I didn’t stick to level 2 when I responded to the person who had reached out. Here’s what I wrote:

“When it comes to what I'm sharing below, please take what resonates and ignore the rest. :) These are just impressions that I'm sharing from a distance so I could be completely off (in which case I apologize).

So, the impression I get when I check in is that for you, there's a sense of ‘heaviness’ associated with work and productivity. That ‘heaviness’ doesn't feel like it's yours, so it could be something that's coming from the ancestral level or somewhere else outside of you (culture, past lives, etc.).

Basically, I get the sense that your soul is straining against that pattern, and that it would love to create with wild abandon and experience the enjoyment of creation. The metaphor/image I get for what your soul wants is getting your hands stained with different paint colors (kind of like this picture here:)

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

The impression I get is that the challenges you are experiencing (around self-criticism, perfectionism, etc.) are built on top of that ‘heaviness’ but that the ‘heaviness’ itself is the root. If you have a background in academia, that can certainly contribute to perfectionism, but I think the ‘hook’ might be deeper than that.

So, I think removing the underlying ‘heaviness’ might remove the root cause and thus help with the changes you want to make towards more lighthearted work.

Does that make sense?

If some of these impressions resonated with you, I'm happy to share some ideas of what could be done to address this.

Also, if this brings up questions, please let me know. “

This is a lot deeper than I usually go in my first interaction with someone so I was a bit nervous about sending this off. So, it was great to hear that the person I sent this to felt it was really spot-on!

This interaction demonstrates something I have discovered:

Your issues (maybe) are not your issues

Khalil Gibran wrote a beautiful poem with the lines: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.”

The point I’m trying to make in this article could be similarly (if less poetically beautiful) summarized as: “Your issues are not always your issues. They are the accumulation of Life before your time.”

Why does this matter?

You can only fully address an issue at the level at which it originates:

You might have heard of the World Tree that connects different shamanic worlds:

• the upper world,

• the middle world, and

• the lower world.

There are things one can do in the lower world that they cannot do in the upper world or the middle world, and vice versa.

We can combine the World Tree with our 3-story house, and map productivity issues to these different levels or worlds:

• Level 2 (the middle world):
  Sometimes, productivity problems have a very wordly origin and a very worldly solution such as time management, creating good structures, having accountability, etc. This is the level normal productivity advice comes from.

• Level 3 (the upper world):
  Sometimes, productivity problems have an other-worldly origin and need an other-worldly solution: For instance, if I avoid speaking about woo-woo things in front of a group because I might have gotten hurt for doing that in a past life, regular productivity advice alone likely won’t help me move into action.

• Level 1 (the lower world):
  Sometimes, productivity problems aren’t even really your problems, they are just something you picked up, like when we get mud on our clothes. An example of those are ancestral or cultural beliefs that we don’t actually agree with.

And here’s how to address issues at different levels:

• Level 2 issues need to be solved.

• Level 3 issues need to be healed.

• Level 1 issues need to be released.

If this description resonates, I invite you to explore a productivity or procrastination issue you are struggling with, and ask yourself: “What level does this issue originate from?”

That might give you some ideas of what needs to be done to address the issue.

And if you would like to get my thoughts on this, you can participate in my woo-woo productivity reflection giveaway. Simply message me or email me your productivity or procrastination issue and I will give you some reflections on it.

This is solely for entertainment purposes. But hey, we could all use some lighthearted entertainment at the moment, right?

One small caveat: I would love to share some of the questions I receive (without names or identifying details) so that other people can also benefit from them. If you don't want me to share your question, please let me when you submit it, and I will of course respect that. :)

Warmly,
Louise

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