Surviving, Thriving, & REALNESS (Creative Status: Episode 75: Hedi Schaefer)

by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness

Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life.

Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.

Get ready to ignite your full potential with Creative Status as we dive into an empowering conversation with Work-Life Innovation expert, Hedi Schaefer.

Join us for an episode where Hedi shares her transformative journey from high performer to thriving life designer, and how she’s here to support you on your own path to REALNESS.

Meet Hedi Schaefer: As an author, speaker, and Work-Life Innovation expert since 2010, Hedi brings a wealth of experience and insight to the table, empowering others to thrive in both their personal and professional lives.

From Surviving to Thriving: Hedi shares her personal journey of transformation, from navigating the challenges of high-performance culture to experiencing an identity crisis and burnout.

Learn how she turned her wounds into wisdom and redesigned her life from surviving to thriving, inspiring others to do the same.

Designing a Life of Fulfillment: Discover how to break free from the cycle of stress and pressure, and design lives fueled by fulfillment, purpose, and ease.

Creative Status: Where Inspiration Meets Transformation

Join Hedi Schaefer and Me (Oli Anderson) for an episode that ignites the spark of possibility and empowers you to thrive in every aspect of your life.

This episode is your invitation to awaken to your full potential, embrace your authentic self, and create a life filled with purpose, passion, and REALNESS.

Stay real out there,

Oli Anderson

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Episode Links:

Hedi’s main website: ⁠https://www.hedischaefer.com/⁠

Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/hedi_schaefer/⁠

Facebook: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/hedi_schaefer/⁠

YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwQI0bcLU5X499_GQYWJhEQ⁠

Spotify (Podcast: The Cognitive Billionaire): ⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/hedi-schaefer⁠

Tik Tok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@hedischaefer⁠

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Surving, Thriving, & REALNESS (Show Transcript)

Intro

Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Oli Anderson here you’re listening to Creative Status. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. This is a place where we talk about using the creative process as a vehicle for moving towards wholeness.

That means a connection to ourselves, connection to other people, connection to life itself as the creative process allows us to make the unconscious conscious so we can release some of the emotional stuff we’ve been clinging onto, maybe, and integrate some of the hidden parts of ourselves that are locked behind false identities and all of the underlying emotional ‘stuff’ that I just mentioned.

Today’s interview is with Hedi Schaefer. Hedi is a coach who helps people to turn their wounds into wisdom and to get out of survival mode and into thriving. That’s ultimately what we talk about in this conversation: what thriving is how you can start to thrive, how you can step away from all of the friction and frustration and misery that comes from being stuck in survival mode, how our perspective sometimes keeps us in that place because of self-limiting beliefs and all that kind of thing. Lots of good stuff.

So Hedi, thank you so much for your time. Everybody else, hope this helps you unblock yourself and get moving. Um, if this does help you, please share it with someone. Please leave a review. And other than that, here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.

Interview

Oli: Oh, hi there, Hedi. Thank you so much for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. We’re going to be talking kind of about how we go from a state of survival to thrival and some of the issues and ideas that may pop up along the way down that path.

Uh, before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, and also sharing what you want to get out of this conversation?

Hedi Schaefer: Love to do, yes. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, I’m Hedi. I call myself a work life innovation coach. So I’ve been in the innovation industry for, uh, since 2009, so almost 15 years and always high performer. Before that I was artist management in Germany, but then I crashed. I crashed six years ago when I had my daughter and nothing made sense anymore and I recreated myself and my work life.

I was having this innovation background so I could pick on that, but recreated everything myself, my work, my life. And today I’m this work life innovation, actually self-actualization coach who is also speaking and also authoring, so writing books and also being a mom and just living my life, being a human being and not a human doing at times. And yeah, my mission is to just get everything out there and what I’ve learned so people don’t have to have this painful experience for such a long time, but have more shortcuts.

Oli: Yeah, that’s awesome. So basically you’ve taken what you went through and you’ve kind of, I guess, packaged it up, so to speak, so that you can use your, uh, experience and your coaching services and all that kind of thing to help people avoiding the kind of crash that you were talking about. Is that a fair thing to say?

Hedi: I think it’s not avoiding, it’s exactly the crash, but using the crash as the greatest chance of your life, I think, wow, we’re in this avoiding, I don’t know, era so we don’t hear. Um. But it’s actually the path, like going through the darkness is the path into the light and going really step by step through, as some clients just said, like going through the mud but with rubber boots on.

You can go through the mud and just get stuck all the time, but I think you don’t have to. You can really move forward. And this three C, as I call it, just three C innovation, canon framework helps you to get into this clarity, into this cleansing of your blocks of your old trauma, and then get into the creator mode, which is basically the path forward and not backwards and not stuck in this mode.

Oli: You’ve just raised so many of my favourite topics that it’s going to be hard for me to decide which direction to go in. I love what you just said about not avoiding the crash.

Ultimately in my life, some of the worst things that happened in my past where I have thought that I’ve crashed, in retrospect, actually turned out to be a blessing when I got to the other side of them. And I think if I had found a way to avoid those situations which sucked at the time, then actually I would have missed out because they taught me so many things.

They removed so many layers of bullshit that I was holding on to and stuff like that, and they ultimately showed me who I am and what life is. And it seems like with the little three steps that you’ve just given about clarity, cleansing and creativity, you’re kind of helping people to reframe or to take the lessons that the crash is offering them so that they can move into a kind of more real, truthful way of being. Is that like a fair thing to say?

Hedi: Wonderful pitch. Yes. One, um, hundred percent yes.

Oli: So let’s break that down then. So let’s look at the two different themes that are kind of coming up. So one is the avoidance of the crash. I think a lot of the time before a crash comes, we kind of do know, uh, that it may be on the way, unless it’s like an extreme act of God or something like that. But in many cases, we kind of know that the crash is coming, but we’re just putting structures and systems in place to avoid it.

And actually, like you said, that avoidance can end up causing us problems in the long term. Um, but the other thing as well is when we do eventually crash and we hit rock bottom, then we find some solid ground on which to build whatever is going to come next, as long as we can learn the lessons that it’s teaching us.

So, literally, I suppose let’s just break down that process, uh, from beginning to end. So we’ll start at the beginning, if you don’t mind bringing your personal experience into it. Obviously, that might make it more real for people as you’re talking about, but it’s totally up to you.

So you went through some kind of a crash, and, um, before you literally did crash, what was going on for you? Were you feeling overwhelmed? Were there any other signs and symptoms that something was going to happen?

Hedi: This is a build up, right? And I think this crash, um, it’s just like there’s cause and effect, right? So this is like depression, I would say. I even had a depression, which is not a thing that it’s not a symptom, it’s like building, building, and then your body shuts down. So this was my escape mechanism.

So I was having a child, I was in this high performance mode, literally. I was so tired all of a sudden of my life, of the person I was, but I had no clue. And I was also, at the time, I was always identifying with what I was doing outside. So I was in Germany working for the pop stars when I was like in my twenty s and twenty five.

I was part of this innovation consultancy. So I was jetting across the globe and being in big companies, always working, working 14 hours, totally normal, more and more, trying, achievement, achievement, achievement. Always not enough. I didn’t know that at the time, but, um, that was sort of the driver. And then I had my baby. And as you might know, or people outside know, that when you have a baby, your whole sort of childhood comes back, you realise, “Okay, wow, uh, I haven’t even mothered myself, so how can I be a mother?”

Then this whole high performance thing, I was like, what am I doing? Like, this whole meaning, I didn’t find meaning because I wanted to be with my baby and with my family. And I found peace also with this new role. But I couldn’t identify with it. Like, I had nothing to prove anymore. And I was not really, uh, before I, uh, could tell you great things, what I was doing now, I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. And the worst thing, I didn’t know who I was.

So that was really painful. And to look at that wound, to look at, okay, into the mirror and who am I? And how can I pivot this? And how can I stay home when I can’t even. I couldn’t go travel anymore. It was not possible for me anymore to go on a train, on a plane. It was just absolutely not possible. Outside, there is so much noise. I am so sorry.

Oli: No, it’s okay.

Hedi: Are you hearing this? Sorry. I’m very sorry.

Oli: Yeah. Hopefully, though, by the time this episode comes out, I will have got rid of it all. I’ll use some kind of AI magic or something. So don’t worry. Um, it’s totally cool.

Hedi: Okay. Yeah. So, um, that was the beginning of my story, basically, because I was very tired of myself, of the mask I was playing. Um, then I was realizing, okay, depression is actually a sign of deep rest, like, resting from the masks, and also up levelling.

And, uh, I was going through a very severe grieving process. So what I think people don’t realize this change process is actually very similar to a grieving process. Grieving your old identity, but not knowing what is next. And this space of this uncertainty of the unknown is very painful, and I had to heal. Extreme, um, generational trauma.

Limiting beliefs, like, when you’re with a baby at home, you hear yourself talking to yourself, like, all these limiting beliefs that I wasn’t good enough for this, I was just not smart enough. I was just not getting it right. I was the only one who doesn’t get it right because people are not talking about it. And I was like, am I the only one? I was like, yeah, you’re the only one. But going outside then, luckily saved me. So that was the first step.

So I knew from my old identity, let’s say, from this innovation, you go outside and you talk to people, like, what is really the problem? And I needed to figure out what the real problem was and if I was the only one. So luckily, I went outside and I met tons of people who were in this change process, in this transition, and felt exactly the same. So I didn’t feel as shitty anymore. And I got help. I got a lot of help. And I was literally like my daughter was sleeping 3 hours, um, during the day.

So these 3 hours I took to heal my nervous system. Sleeping a lot. I was literally like sleeping sometimes, I don’t know, 19 hours a day. No, just kidding. But a lot and doing so many meditations, so many reprogramming my subconscious mind. I went into energy healing what I do also now with clients, going into the subconscious mind what I do with my clients now, because I wanted to create or I wanted.

I come from a psychology, my family is psychologist. So everything is analytical, everything is with your brain. And you have all these chapters for people or like boxes. I’m not like that. And also there’s this saying that I always, until that point kept in my, yeah, in my subconscious was like, how is that in English? Um, uh, you wear your, um, you wear your baggage all day, um, all of your lives you have this rock sack. And I didn’t believe that. I couldn’t believe that. And I was then really on a mission. I was almost like a drug addict.

What are the fastest, most effective, uh, tools to break patterns, to break limiting beliefs, to break trauma that goes back to sometimes 13th century because there’s six really, um, uh, states of um, your being where you need to look at when it comes to unblocking trauma or limiting beliefs or the shit that you carry. And I didn’t know that at the time. So now I know that it’s not just what can I just carry on? I’m like, blah, blah, blah.

Oli: No, it’s good. Ultimately though, there’s a kind of pattern that’s emerging which I think is very human. What you’re talking about is very universal in a sense. And it’s that people, they end up in this survival mode, human doing, because of all of the underlying trauma and shame and guilt that they’ve picked up. But they don’t necessarily realize it’s there. It’s driving them unconsciously.

When that kind of trauma etc. Is driving them, they have to create a kind of false, unreal version of themselves to be able to cope with it. And then they go out into the world and they try and build a life for themselves on top of what that kind of false, unreal ego, let’s say version has shown them of life. And that’s when they end up chasing all of these things like uh, power, career, responsibility, etc. And they can be good things, but they treat them as been the thing that’s the ultimate. Like it’s going to fill the void.

Actually, the only thing that can fill the void is reconnecting to the truth about who they are. If they don’t know that, then eventually something happens that reintroduces the truth back into the equation. And in your story, based on what you’ve shared, that was having your daughter, like when your daughter entered your life, it kind of cracked open this gap between how you were seeing yourself and, I suppose, how you really felt inside because of this kind of disconnection that I’m talking about.

And then you had to kind of start to raise awareness of what was actually going on and then go through the process of learning to accept yourself again so that you had a more solid foundation, and then you could start building on that foundation and start building the life that’s more real and where you can start to feel like you’re thriving.

Hedi: Absolutely. And in my case, it wasn’t really again, it was for the first time. Right. So for a lot of people, it is accepting yourself for the first time.

Oli: Wow. Yeah.

Hedi: Because, as you said, you have so much stuff from older generation, there is no blame because that’s going back centuries. Uh, but I think there’s so much beauty in us talking and in all of these transformation that’s happening that’s very outside, in the open on social media, whatever, where people actually start to make this normal and make this applicable and that it’s the first generation who breaks the curses or to cycle break.

Um, that is, to me, uh, sometimes I go to bed and I’m like, I’m so flipping grateful to be alive at this time where we can actually do this kind of work. And we have peers. We’re talking now. Okay. Six years back, I was like, I’m the only one. No, of course not. It’s universal, and people are waking up at lightning speed. And there are such heroes, and heroes sometimes. Wow. I’m, um, so in awe. What they’ve been through and how they really mend themselves like puzzle pieces to this incredible, new, real powerful version of themselves. Not taking any bullshit anymore, but just building a life, being alive.

Oli: Where do you think, um, that intergenerational trauma comes from? Maybe, uh, that’s a stupid question. How do you think that intergenerational trauma is passed down? Because it’s true. A lot of the main reasons that people are stuck in survival mode and they don’t live the lives that they want to live is because they’ve been shamed in childhood, and that shame has caused them to go into hiding, basically, and to disown the real version of themselves. Etc. Etc.

But what I’ve seen, like in my coaching practice is once people do become aware of the kind of thing that you’re talking about, which is that if you just face yourself ultimately and kind of ride through these crashes and start rebuilding, then it’s almost like you’re pressing a reset button and you can kind of go back to being the version of yourself that you wanted to be, and then you’re less likely to pass down the shame and so on to the next generation. And that’s going to have the ripple effect of, uh, meaning that they’re less likely to pass it on and so on and so forth. And so the chain is broken. But when we put it like that, it sounds kind of easy.

So what do you think caused the previous generations to keep in that cycle?

Hedi: To keep passing it down, not healing, as you said? Um, what do you say? Um, traumatize people or hurt people? Hurt people.

Oli: Hurt people. Hurt people.

Hedi: Yeah. And healed people, heal people. So I believe if you don’t heal your stuff, you will automatically pass it down subconsciously, because this is what. And to your question, it’s all energy. When we look at the states, what I’ve just, um, observed in my coaching practice, when we unblock it and unblock the energy, there’s one. Your adult life right now, you become aware of things like your patterns, your limiting beliefs, and then you can sort of consciously break it. Right?

You can create new patterns that are more healthy, that are more functional. Then the second, uh, state of your being is childhood. Like the first years of your life, you’re in theta mode. Like, your brain is very suceptive. It gets ingrained super easily. Like how you observe people are your parents, or, uh, how they are with you. Um, if you can actually climb a tree. Sounds stupid. Or if it’s the most dangerous thing and you’re like, “Oh, okay, I can’t really express myself, whatever it is.”

And then the third one, it’s six, right? We’re only, um, on two. So the third one is in the mother’s womb. What kind of trauma have you experienced there? What kind of choices did your mom make that is ingrained energetically in your body? The fourth one, now, it gets really freaky. Is your parents, like, belief system or the trauma that they experienced? I didn’t have a dad, but I had to. I, uh, wouldn’t say break, but I had to heal his trauma, which was sexual abuse. I was never sexually abused, but the energy was in my body.

The trauma was in my body. Now we’re on to fifth. And, um, that is all of the ancestors that came before that you are able to. I mean, not everyone’s saying, or some people are like, so do I have everything in myself? I think those people who are brave enough to feel it, they are able to heal it. Not everyone out of a family is feeling it. Uh, are cycle breakers. I don’t think everyone is. And then the 6th one is maybe also. I know it sounds freaky, but, um, your own, um, past lives.

So sometimes, or often, very often, we go back to when witches were burned. You had a gift and you were afraid to show it because you experienced this death, or you experienced another death, like stabbing. I have a lot of stabbing, believe it or not. Or like, um, war trauma, when it’s always, always about decision making. It sounds very complex. Um, but if you understand, or if you are like a detective and detect what kind of choice was made that is still ingrained in your body, for instance, life is not, um, life. I give up on life.

That is a very common, um, belief, or like a trauma that can be ingrained in your body, like from 16th, 14th century, it doesn’t matter. But, um, in order to, uh, when you detect it and cleanse it, then, yes, of course, your whole life comes completely different. And I had an, um, extreme client.

And she also realized, well, on top of that, I am a karma carrier. So someone who is like, who is taking on the shit of also other people and trying to cleanse it, and it’s like this, people, please, or whatever, it’s just energy, but from different parts of your existence. And you can just detect it. It’s in your system, it’s like your computer, and then you find sort of the default and fix it. It sounds very weird, but yeah, that’s ultimately what I think it is.

Oli: Yeah. How do we distinguish between survival energy and thrival energy? So I suppose if we’re going to make this, um, really practical, how would we distinguish between the kind of, the survival energy that we’re carrying inside us that’s maybe holding us back from the life we want to be living, and then a, um, more kind of thrival energy, if that’s the way of phrasing it, what are the things to look out for? I guess.

How do we know, um, if we’re carrying this stuff inside us and we maybe are being driven by some unconscious thing, which obviously we’re not aware of because it’s unconscious that’s causing us to keep repeating these old, unhelpful patterns that we’ve picked up from previous generations, but also that we’ve learned to identify with, actually. And we think that are part of who we are as well. So if we step beyond just the way that we look at life to the level of the energy we carrying, how do we know where we are? I guess on this continuum of surviving to thriving, if that’s not too weird of a question.

Hedi: No, that’s very good. Um, I think in terms of trauma or in terms of survival state, this is our brain, right? So we’re always looking for outside approval. We’re always looking for the next big thing. We can’t really be with ourselves. And this distraction can be a lot of things. Like, it can be shopping. For me, it was compulsive shopping. Uh, it could be social media, it could be sex, it could be drugs, it could be alcohol. It could be anything that you feel like you need in order to calm down your nervous system, that you feel connected, anything that you need outside. And then it’s gone.

Like, the next second is gone. Like, I needed to go shopping the next day because I didn’t even like what I was shopping. It was just, uh, the immediate satisfaction. And so that is a big sign. And not being able to really breathe and being with yourself for a longer period of time. Now, also, when I ask this question, like, who are you? Most people can’t really say. Then they talk in boxes or in labels. Uh, I was introducing myself. I’m Heaty. I’m the coolest being on earth. I’m just a fun, really loving being that just wants to experience life. That’s actually who I am. Um, uh, my purpose is love and light.

And this is also the part where it gets a bit. I mean, this is work, right? This is evolving. I found out my purpose was love and light. I was laughing because I wasn’t love and light at all. My heart was so closed off. And so all this clarity that we were talking about at the beginning and then really stepping into, okay, what is my purpose? Asking yourself, what is my purpose? If you don’t have an answer, then you can’t really thrive. I think. If you don’t know your values, how are you supposed to navigate?

Because values tell you, okay, well, this relationship is really matching, and this isn’t. And then all the visions that I’ve got, are you forward moving or in your past? Uh, are you still living in the past? Can you be present and still look out for a brighter future? So these are, I think, the most common nominators. I don’t know if that’s the word. But, uh, yeah. For the survival state and also not knowing what is actually thriving.

Oli: Yeah.

Hedi: True. Thriving.

Oli: Yeah.

Hedi: Not this excitement. No. Thriving is a state, I believe.

Oli: Yeah, I think we’ll pick that state to pieces in a second. I think that’s going to be a vital part of this conversation.

But I just think it’s so interesting what you said about people are out there, they’re in survival mode, and, um, because they’re in survival mode, they’re basically in a state of panic, let’s say. Or they’re living in a very fearful kind of way. And because they’re not ready to face the source of that fear, which I believe is the disconnection from who they really are and the kind of purpose that you’re talking about, they end up trying to kind of outsource their good feelings about themselves with some other external bullshit thing.

So in your case, it was like shopping, like compulsive shopping. For some people, it’s compulsive relationships. For some people, it’s compulsive addictions to drugs, or, I don’t know, pornography or whatever it is. People just get so caught up in these compulsions that actually make surviving a lot harder, purely because they’re disconnected from themselves and their purpose in the way that you’re talking about.

And they end up spending so much time kind of chasing the next big thing, like you were saying, which is obviously coloured, uh, by whatever it is that we’re addicted to, and we’re trying to fill the void with that. It exacerbates the problem, basically. And it makes it worse because the more time they’re spending on shopping and so on and so forth, the less time they actually spend just being still, I guess, and being with themselves. So that this sense of purpose that’s always there can kind of swim up to the surface. Sorry.

Hedi: And just to add on that, I think what you said is very interesting, because, um. They feel shittier because they did it again. I felt shittier because I did it again. Clients are feeling shittier because, again, pornography, as you said, or again. Ah. And, um. You always have to tame yourself. That’s how it feels like. And you’re so full of judgment about yourself and about other people. That is a huge sign of, uh. Not really in a thriving mode, because, uh, this whole judgment thing just. Wow. And not realizing that you are enough.

Oli: Yeah.

Hedi: Unconditionally enough.

Oli: Yeah. Ultimately, that’s what it all comes down to.

Hedi: Yes.

Oli: You’ve just hit the nail on the head. Right. Like when we’re thriving. We’ve basically got to that point where we accept ourselves unconditionally, good and bad. And in accepting that, we realize that there is some gift that we have to offer the world, which for brevity, is our purpose. Right?

When we don’t accept ourselves, we feel all of this underlying shame and fear of life itself, which turns up the volume on survival mode. And that’s when we end up getting addicted to all these different things that we’re talking about that we think are, ah, going to help us feel good in the sense of being able to avoid all of that unresolved shame and so on and so forth. The problem is, in the short term, at first, that stuff does make us feel good.

So probably the first time, let’s just hypothetically say when you first went shopping and it became something that was, uh, mood altering and that you eventually became addicted to. It did feel good. Like maybe you had a bad day, you were feeling depressed, whatever it was, you went out and you, uh, bought a nice handbag or something.

Sorry, I’m making a bunch of assumptions here. And it made you feel good. You’re like, oh, okay. All of that tension I was carrying by resisting myself, it’s gone in the short term. So then the next time you feel that tension, you’re like, okay, well, I’m feeling a bit shit today. Last time I was feeling shit, I went shopping and I felt this buzz, I’m going to go do it again. So then you go do it again and again and again.

Eventually the buzz starts wearing out, and you realize, oh, okay, this was just a temporary kind of feel, uh, good thing, because I’ve been able to release some of those, uh, bad feelings I was holding on to you. Now I’m addicted. And then I’ve got this extra level that you were talking about. It’s like, uh oh, I feel bad because I keep doing it. I can’t give it up. And then we just keep adding all these layers, which make us feel worse and worse and worse. And then eventually, because we’re not chasing real life, that’s when we have a crash.

Ultimately, something like that. But either way, it’s all about trying to avoid the feelings of self-worth, which can be dissolved by, I guess, facing them head on. And then we get to the thrival stage.

So I guess I got two questions for you. One is, do you agree with all this stuff I’ve just rambled about? And two, what does it tell us about actual thriving? And how do we get into that thrival state that you were talking about.

Hedi: Yeah. Very good. Yeah. First and foremost, yes, of course. I, uh, think it’s also hormonal. Right? So dopamine is a very big thing in all of that. Right? It’s like this, like on Instagram. How many likes do I have today? How many releases, and how many dopamine spikes do I have today? Shopping, or whatever it is. It’s like this spike. Also feeling alive. Also feeling alive, like, uh, my nervous system calms down.

I may be in control of something. So I go shopping. Not somebody goes shopping. Like, goes me shopping. I don’t know. I am in control of my money. Uh, it’s all of this false concept of holding on to something that is an illusion, basically. Now, thriving is not an illusion. It’s very real.

Yes, thriving is a very. I, uh, mean, it sounds Hollywood, but it’s actually a very substantial state of being and operating, as you said, because everyone has a gift. So if you know your purpose and you know what you’re here for, what your gift is, and what kind of service you also can give to the world so that other people are thriving, we’re all connected. That is the ultimate. It’s the dopamine.

I don’t know, the dopamine, uh, stage, right. You have this gratitude for being alive, for being able to be here and create a life in this crazy world, and you’re not affected. Like, thriving is also. You’re having these boundaries, and you’re not affected by anything that happens outside. I’m so bored by the news. I’m so bored by drama, by conflict, by anything that has lower vibration. I’m really bored when people try to gossip about something or someone.

I can’t handle it. I’m just extremely bored. I get so tired and have to go. I think, yeah, it’s a frequency, ultimately, it’s a frequency. I mean, if you’re looking at the scale, which often is like an aha moment for a lot of people. It was for me, uh, this, uh, scale of consciousness by Hawking’s, which is a revelation. When you see…wow.

When you’re operating, as you said, in shame, in fear, in drama, in outside recognition, you’re hyper vigilance, you’re in this constant hyper mode, or depressed. I mean, either or, but you’re not in the zone. When you’re moving up, like optimism, forgiveness, you’re really getting into your power, and that comes often already with clarity and with getting some of your old stuff, uh, that is just going hand in hand.

You’re a creator, you become more. You’re getting out of the victim state. And everything, like, life happens to me, into life happens for me, and maybe also by me. And then now you’re completely new person that creates life rather than is created by outside circumstances, by people, by how the world is. Is it now winter, is it now summer? Whatever, doesn’t matter. Life is every day. And then you are kind of moving your frequency, I guess.

And when you do that, we create our reality. And we were in a magnetic. In, uh, a quantum field. Right. So you also attract, like, these people that are surprised that you didn’t meet before because you are not vibing the same. Right. If you. I would go into a room and just tell people my drama. Those people were repelled. Now they’re not, because we like the same thing. We just like to go for a coffee and talk about weird things. The sun, maybe, or. I don’t know, angels, I don’t know. But, um, things that. Yeah, that’s thriving for me.

Oli: I was about to ask this, like, it was a really deep question, but it’s actually a little bit of a cliché as well. But anyway, thriving. It’s about letting go, isn’t it?

Ultimately, it’s just letting go and trusting life to work with you in the way that you’re talking about. And, um, the only things that we can let go of are all of the unreal things that keep us stuck in that, uh, survival mode that you’ve been talking about. So we have to let go of our needs to dramatize everything. We have to let go of our need to control everything. And like we were saying, with our addictions, whether it’s shopping or whatever else, that is about control, isn’t it?

Like, when we’re shame driven, which is why we feel that we have to be stuck in survival mode anyway, because we’re driven by the shame and the false version of ourselves we identify with because of that, then we end up just filtering life through the same old bullshit over and over and over again, and it just holds us back. And the more of that bullshit that we let go of, which is drama, control anything else like that, then we do move up that Hawkins scale that you were talking about, where we’re just free to just, uh, be like another cliché, really. But it really is that simple.

Take forgiveness, for example. I think you said forgiveness is up near the top of the Hawkins scale. Forgiveness really is just letting go of all of the grudges and resentment and the ideas and so on that we’ve got about other people and life, so we can actually just be back in life that is thriving. And so, for me, there’s something there, like, to really thrive and scale this survival mode, we have to kind of take a leap of faith initially, maybe because we may have been in survival mode so long that we’ve just been putting this energy out that keeps bouncing back at us that it seems like life can’t be trusted, but it’s actually just a reflection of us not trusting ourselves. But anyway, if we can understand this and let go and trust, then we do move up that scale that you’ve shared, the Hawkins scale, where we’re just flowing, basically, and that’s when thriving is just flowing. Something like that.

Hedi: Absolutely.100,000%. Very nice. And it’s really, as you said, yes, get clear, yes, cleanse. But as you said, it’s more like this onion. Peeling an onion. Your gold is already there. It’s just plastered with all this stuff from all this generation, from society. And it’s not your fault.

I mean, we also have to be very…This is not judgment based. This is just how this has evolved up to this day. And I think the chance, as you said, to unravel bit by bit and then just flow. And forgiveness is just one way of letting go, forgiving yourself and others. Um, that’s just one big part. And you said something so beautiful, and I can’t remember. I wanted to. Yeah, very good. Yes.

Oli: And I think it all comes down. Um. Sorry, go on.

Hedi: Security. So, when working with clients, often or 100% of the time, obviously, it’s coming down to, if I want to control, I’m not secure. I am not secure within myself. Like, my root chakra is often not even placed where the root is. And that is so based off of this early childhood confusion and shaming, as you said. But it dictates us from the back door all of our life if we don’t look at it. And that’s how we began. Honest look makes things really.

Oli: Wow.

Hedi: Um. Speeds things up if you’re avoiding, and I was a long time, and I’m lucky because my husband then said, I think you should do something now. Um, then, yeah.

Oli: I love how you said ultimately, to cross that threshold, let’s say, and kind of pick out the main threads that we’ve been talking about, to cross that threshold of surviving to thriving. It is about taking that honest look. Like, I love how you just phrased it like, uh, that. Like, you take an honest look if you take an honest look. The only thing you’re going to see is the truth. And that is ultimately the difference between survival mode and actual thrival mode.

I found when we’re stuck in survival mode in the way we’ve been talking about, it’s because unconsciously we’re not taking an honest look because we’ve been so. Yeah, everything’s been so distorted by that intergenerational trauma and then our own self-hypnosis with self-limiting beliefs and all that kind of stuff, that we’re not ready to look at the truth. And, um, that’s when we end up kind of going down this crazy rabbit hole of getting addicted to shopping and whatever else it is people get addicted to. But if we do just take an honest look, then we’re going to see that true connection that we all have to life at all times. And it’s like you said, the gold is always there, but we just plaster it with all these different layers of, uh, self limiting beliefs and the labels and boxes that you were talking about and all that stuff. And as soon as we look beyond it, then in a way we have no choice but to thrive. Because we just move with life. Absolutely.

Hedi: And on top of that, um, speaking of shortcuts, don’t make the mistake, which I also did. A lot of people takes just a lot of time going outside, blaming others, trying to. Trying to heal others. No, you are the center of attention. Yes, maybe you’re traumatized like most people are in some way or another, but it is our duty to heal it. It’s not somebody else’s duty to heal themselves, because it’s done. It’s just energy. The energy is just in your body. It’s covering you up. And don’t be scared to look at the truth. I mean, there’s so much scarcity around, because what if I fall?

Yes, maybe you will fall, but maybe you have also people around you, or falling means also then thriving. Because I always heard, this is one thing I’ve never shared, but, um, when I was really in panic, I always asked the universe, because I didn’t trust it at the very beginning, but I heard Jim Carey say, just ask the universe. I said, okay, if Jim Carey did it, I can do it as well. And I went for a walk. And then my intuition or whatever voice comes up and says, lose yourself to find yourself. Lose yourself to find yourself.

And that became a mantra. I hated it. I didn’t like it at all, because, again, security. But that brought me to who I am today because I was losing that version, which wasn’t me. Uh, now I am who I am. And just to make it very practical, just one example, because I know this is oftentimes very philosophical. There are two books I wrote.

One was before and one was after. I kid you not the time, because you were talking about the flow state. The time that I spent on the first was, I don’t know, I don’t want to, like a long time because of this limiting beliefs. And I wasn’t really satisfied. I hated it. Not because it was bad, just because I hated myself. And the second one, I loved it. Six weeks and it was done. So that’s what practical flow state means, because you’re just putting it on paper or whatever you’re doing, you’re putting just out. And that’s it.

Oli: Yeah, I love it. That’s my experience as well with creative work or, uh, just life in general and the creation of myself, as pretentious as that sounds, the only thing that holds us back is this false identity that we’re talking about and all of the things that we build on top of it, or the things that we try and do to cope with it, like all of the addictions and distractions we were talking about.

But when you strip all of that away, then even though life is hard, you can’t really lose the battle, because life is always moving towards more wholeness anyway. It’s always flowing in the direction that you really want to be going in, and you just have to let go. You have to lose yourself to find yourself in the way that you said, lose that false idea to find the truth and then move with it. And when you do that, you save yourself time with all this creative work, because you’re not putting obstacles in your own path.

Basically, with survival mode, a lot of the things that we’re trying to survive are, uh, just things that we’ve created without knowing because of unconscious blocks and all that kind of thing. And when you align yourself in this way, you’re talking about a lot of that stuff dissolves, and then everything just. Life starts thriving and you thrive with it. Basically, a lot of the obstacles in survival mode are just a reflection of us reflected back at us, projected out and reflected back.

So, um, we’ve been talking a long time. It’s actually gone very quick. Believe it or not, we’ve been talking for 46 minutes, and it, uh, doesn’t feel like it. And I think we found a flow as we were hopefully aiming to do. I was trying to create some kind of clever pun there, about the flow thing, but it didn’t work. But anyway, if you could wrap all this up, if that is possible, how would you do it? What are your final words of wisdom? And can you also tell people where they can find you, like online or elsewhere if you so design?

Hedi: Yeah. Now I’m trying to find something really smart to say to wrap it all up.

Oli: No pressure.

Hedi: No pressure. Thanks. So, yes, to wrap it all up. What are, uh, we talking about? Survival to thrival. We’ve said a lot. Uh, my final hope is that people become unafraid. Or let’s put it so curious to experience what the potential could be and not be like a lot of, you know, this research that when they ask people when they die, what was your biggest regret? And they’d say, not living my truth, not walking my path, not really following. That’s a huge part. Intuition, uh, not thinking, trying to control with the brain and what other people would think of me.

But not with your heart, not leading with your heart and with your soul. So this is what I would love to that people. Yeah, I think that’s very simple. To listen to your heart and love yourself. Learn to love yourself so unconditionally that because love heals, love is very high on the scale. Martin Luther King knew it, he had to die. Mahatma Gandhi knew it, he had to die. John Lennon knew it. Yet to die. So this is real.

Oli: It’s real love. You’ve kind of turned me off now. I’m scared to love in case I’m just going to drop dead or something.

Hedi: No, it’s a different time.

Oli: I’m just joking.

Hedi: I think we’re too many now. Um. A whole army? No, I mean, that’s ultimately what it is. Listen to your soul, because that is like a massive ship. And if you’re not following it and you’re going into rough water and you’re going away from it, the water gets rougher. Don’t do that to yourself. Life is more than that. And if you have that calling and if you have that crisis, there is a reason behind it. You are meant for more.

Oli: I love that.

Hedi: That’s all there is to say. You are meant for more. That’s why you have this crisis. And not everybody around you, but you have this crisis. So you can grow, you can learn, you can outgrow that stuff and create a life. Stuff versus life.

Oli: Yeah, that’s it. You’ve summed it all up. Basically, it’s about, like, I think love and acceptance are the same thing. And if you can truly accept, then you accept the truth, and then you’re going to basically dissolve a lot of these problems that we’ve been talking about and get flowing again. So, Hedi, that was awesome. I really appreciate all this, uh, insight that you shared. What’s your website and stuff like that?

Hedi: Oh, right – hedischaefer.com. You can find me also on LinkedIn, on Instagram, on Facebook, and yes, my shop is there, and also my programs, my mastermind, and my membership. So if you feel called, I’d love to meet you and help you navigate this crazy, wonderful journey called life.

Oli: Boom. Hedi, thank you so much.

Hedi: Boom.

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