EP45 Dawn Wesolek: A Fresh Perspective on Problems

Explicit content warning

10/18/21 • 55 min

We talk with Dawn Wesolek, Business and Career Coach, Rewilding Guide, and student of the Three Principles, about how her relationship to problems in her life has completely transformed. Dawn now sees how when she doesn't get caught up in her analytical machinery she is much better able to navigate life's challenges. She sees challenges as opportunities for learning and growth rather than as problems.
Since seeing her relationship with her own wisdom as her primary relationship, all the other important relationships in her life have improved. For example, she used to think her child needed to be different, or she needed to find her a Dad. But since letting her mind quiet, and deepening her understanding of where her experience comes from, she realized her daughter simply wanted her to be present with her and listen to her. This alone has transformed their relationship.
Dawn also presents a beautiful example of being guided by wisdom to leave a relationship. She saw how by living in her true nature, the decision of whether to stay or go was made for her, through her, and it couldn't have been clearer.
This episode explores:

Relating to our problems differently
Seeing the opportunity in hardship
Understanding deeply that we are enough
Presence is the greatest gift we can give

Show Notes
The Joys of Spring: how Angus experiences Dawn
The Principles Don’t Solve Problems: They Make Them Disappear: Rohini's controversial blog post from 2019
Soufflé of life: Dawn's metaphor about how respecting divine timing can eliminate the illusion of a problem

Dawn Wesolek is a Business and Career Coach, Rewilding Guide and student of the three Principles. She practices worldwide focusing on helping individuals find inner resilience and renewed purpose in their careers and businesses. She has worked as a career coach with graduates, corporations, small businesses, and individuals since 2015. After a history of burnout in high-profile corporate jobs, she is now living a life transformed by the principles behind all human experience. Her practice is nestled between the sea, forest and, moors of Devon, in the UK where she offers her clients space for peace and reflection to find their inner creative guide and rewild their relationship to work. Dawn can be reached at: [email protected].
Angus Ross & Rohini Ross are “The Rewilders.” They love working with couples and helping them to reduce conflict and discord in their relationships. They co-facilitate a private couples' intensives retreat program that rewilds relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is the author of the ebook Marriage, and they are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Angus and Rohini Ross on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about their work visit: therewilders.org. Read Rohini's latest blog.
Episode 45 features the music of RhythmPharm with Los Angeles-based composer Greg Ellis.

Relating to our problems differently
Seeing the opportunity in hardship
Understanding deeply that we are enough
Presence is the greatest gift we can give

Previous Episode

EP44 Angus Ross & Rohini Ross: Embodying Our Full Experience

Angus and Rohini talk about the healing power of embodying the full human experience, or put another way, the full breadth of human emotions. They each reflect on how they used to turn to coping mechanisms to avoid their more painful emotions, but these strategies just made the experience more difficult and had a negative impact on their relationship. Their coping mechanisms tended to push the other away.
It's in resisting our emotional experience that we suffer. As Sydney Banks, the man whose teachings inspired ours, said: "if the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world." The fear-based thoughts we have about our emotional experience is what paralyzes us.
For example, Angus shares about his fear of heights and how once he saw the role his thinking was playing in magnifying that fear, he was able to just feel the emotion and still approach the activity involving the heights (like riding a roller coaster). Letting himself feel the fear instead of being stuck in the thoughts about the fear, allows him to still take part and ultimately enjoy the activity.
Embracing our emotional experience, without judgement of ourselves, also allows us to experience deeper connection with others. It is difficult to have an authentic experience with someone else if we are "white-knuckling" our way through our own emotional experience. If we aren't being authentic then we aren't being vulnerable -- and our relationships require vulnerability for there to be true connection.
This episode explores:

Resisting our emotions causes suffering
Being with our emotions is authentic and supports connection
Letting go of control is actually the most pleasurable choice
The healing power of experiencing all of our emotions

Show Notes
Knott's Berry Farm: "California's Best Theme Park" and where Angus rode a rollercoaster eyes-wide-open, screaming like a baby

Angus Ross & Rohini Ross are “The Rewilders.” They love working with couples and helping them to reduce conflict and discord in their relationships. They co-facilitate a private couples' intensives retreat program that rewilds relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is the author of the ebook Marriage, and they are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Angus and Rohini Ross on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about their work visit: therewilders.org. Read Rohini's latest blog.
Episode 44 features the music of RhythmPharm with Los Angeles-based composer Greg Ellis.

Next Episode

EP46 Having Room for Humanness in Relationships with Angus & Rohini Ross

Making room for our partner's humanness is important for the health of relationships. It is helpful to understand the inner workings of the nervous system that are at play when we and our partners are caught up so we can see their psychological innocence. Realizing that our fight, flight, or freeze responses are involuntary can help us take our partner's behavior (or lack thereof) less personally.
Ultimately the fight, flight, and freeze responses are meant to keep us safe. Our nervous system is triggered inside of us when we perceive we are in danger -- we have no control over this natural response. But what we can do is practice self-care and support our nervous system. Taking care of ourselves helps us to maintain perspective, and this helps us to have greater clarity to see what is a threat and what isn't.
Respecting a settled and relaxed state of mind is important too. The more time we spend in a settled state, the less often our nervous system is involuntarily triggered. But perhaps most important, is to understand that we're all on a learning curve with this, and our partner is acting the best way they know how for protecting themselves, even if the threat is just perceived. So if we can see the psychological innocence of our partner, and afford them that grace as their nervous system activates, we can wait for a better time to address issues and lessen the amount of escalation in the relationship. The more we see our own psychological innocence, the better we'll get at this.
This episode explores:

the nervous system is involuntary and protective
if we're suffering it's because we're identifying with our painful thinking
our partners are human and have their own responses to perceived threats
the less time we spent caught up, the more our nervous system settles

Show Notes
Spit out the dummy: To have a childish overreaction or angry outburst to a negative situation or outcome
Pear-shaped: A British idiom that means something went wrong or "went south" as Angus would also say.
Fight, fight, or freeze: Angus's version of the nervous system fear responses
Angus Ross & Rohini Ross are “The Rewilders.” They love working with couples and helping them to reduce conflict and discord in their relationships. They co-facilitate a private couples' intensives retreat program that rewilds relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is the author of the ebook Marriage, and they are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilding Community. You can also follow Angus and Rohini Ross on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about their work visit: therewilders.org. Read Rohini's latest blog.
Episode 46 features the music of RhythmPharm with Los Angeles-based composer Greg Ellis.