[00:00:00] You might think your problem is overthinking. You might be told that you analyse too much,
Internally, I feel like that sounds like if only I had the right tools, the right knowledge, the right answers things would be much easier. The seeker is actually seeking certainty. Not clarity, certainty. And what do we absolutely know for sure? That nothing is certain.
So, what happens next? You stay in the loop, thinking, analysing, searching, questioning, doubting, thinking again. I'm Nicki Kuurman, and this is the Practical Mystic podcast, where universal wisdom meets modern life. Today, I'm going to be talking about the seeker pattern. This is an alignment pattern that I see come up over and over again in my work, and today I want to unpack what it might feel like for [00:01:00] you and see if you can resonate with this.
The seeker is very intelligent. They pride themselves on their intellect, their knowledge, and their ability to figure things out mentally. They're very... often very strategic and very good at their jobs. They're really insightful, and they're really deep, and they're often introverted. And when something comes up that's really stressful for them, they go inward into the mind to try to find out the answers, they'll do research, and they'll seek, they'll read books, and they'll listen to podcasts. I know this is a massive stress response for me.
But what is it I'm really seeking in that state? Often, I'm seeking clarity or a decision but instead of coming from intuition, my own knowing, I go to, [00:02:00] "What does my mind think?
What's the pattern? What's the loop here?" And I'm not consciously looking for the loop, but my mind automatically goes there, and it can be distracting when we can't find the right answer- However, the right answer is coming from your mind, and that is not always the only source, source of truth, right? Your mind is fickle.
It only knows what it knows. And it gets a new piece of information, it goes, "Oh, thank you very much. That's great," and it changes how it thinks and feels about things. So, when we are meeting a challenge and our fallback pattern is the seeker, we go looking for new knowledge because we want to change our mind, we want clarity, and we want to find the next right answer.
The hidden trap for seekers is the... on the search for clarity and answers, they're actually [00:03:00] making things more muddy. The seeker is actually seeking certainty. And so, this is why it loops. because we think if we understand this fully, I'll be safe.
If I analyse it enough, I'll avoid the pain, the disappointment, the getting it wrong, letting someone down, whatever the case may be. But life doesn't really work like that, does it? So, what happens next? You stay in the loop, And the mind convinces you, you're so close.
You've nearly got the answer. You just need the one more insight or the piece of information that somebody else has. and you go seeking them, seeking the resources outside of yourself. But you're in this constant loop of new information. Is that true? How does that fit with my belief systems? Okay, I can change my belief systems. Oh my God, [00:04:00] now I need some more information, and we go back out again. And it... so it goes, and it's looping, and it's crazy, and it's busy. I am a master at this when I'm under stress.
I go searching for all the answers, and not just in the physical plane, but also in my spiritual plane. I will go seeking, and that is not always a great source of truth too. You have to be able to discern information. You have to have the ability to trust and check in with yourself
It's not always easy. When we're struggling to make decisions, when we're second-guessing ourselves constantly, it's rattling. You don't feel safe. There is no certainty, and it makes us feel wobbly. and the doubt just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. women who come to me in my clinic who struggle with being the seeker is that they're always on the verge of burnout,
But [00:05:00] if they just get the next piece of information, it's going to stop them from burning out. And that adrenaline circle is addictive. Yeah. We're using our own adrenaline and cortisol levels to power us through, but there's always this gap between how you feel, how you want to feel, and what you'll actually allow yourself to act upon.
So even with new information, that doesn't necessarily change your decision. In fact, most times it leads to more uncertainty. The seeker in their stress response is not looking for answers. They think they are, but they're not.
She's trying to avoid being uncomfortable. She's trying to avoid incompetency, getting it wrong, and most of all, feeling out of control. [00:06:00]
And here's the truth: you don't find clarity through thinking. You find clarity through allowing. when you allow yourself to process the situation not from a, "I have to seek an answer here," but to allow the discomfort of the moment to sit with you a tiny bit longer, you will start to move that discomfort, and that will bring you clarity.
It will lead you in the next right direction. It may lead you to going down and looking for answers outside of yourself, but it won't come from a looping place. It'll come from an inspired action, and this is something we practice every week in the quick shift. How do we get in touch with that part of ourselves that intuitively knows- What it needs.
How do we allow ourselves time and [00:07:00] space, especially when we're stressed or under pressure, to actually sit with something for a few moments and allow it to drop in? We're so used to moving fast, getting onto the next thing, looking for answers, having it all together, that if we stop and pause, we're scared that we're going to lose momentum and that things are going to fall apart.
You could just notice this right now in yourself. If you think about something that's stressing you or something that has happened in the last few days that has been a conundrum, I want you to think about how you were feeling in that moment. Were you actually experiencing anything or were you just straight to thinking and decision mode?
The feeling will trigger the seeking, and it's usually a feeling of discomfort or panic because we don't know how to fix the [00:08:00] situation. what is it you're trying to figure out and what feeling was driving it? And if you just close your eyes for a moment, try and capture the essence of the feeling
And just push a little bit further. What was that feeling that I was feeling there? Because that feeling is going to lead you to a new truth. That feeling is going to tell you what's the underlying cause of your discomfort.
Oftentimes when this happens for me, it's I need to fix because if I can fix something and everybody else is okay, then I can be okay. and it leads me to over-caring, overstretching boundaries, and putting pressure on myself and other people
When somebody else is in discomfort or distress, I feel it so emphatically that it makes me want to resolve it. [00:09:00] And what I've learned over the years is to not touch this Nic. It's to step back and go, "Okay, can I allow myself the discomfort?" Because oftentimes I'm just getting in somebody else's way as well as my own
And it's all about control. It's all about the subtle ways our mind wants to control the situation to feel safe. And whether you're somebody who goes outwards to find answers, or whether you're someone who goes inward to find answers, we're still seeking something other than what we trust is already within us.
I find if I just give myself a moment to allow this discomfort a little bit longer, the answers drop in so much faster.
So, when you're trying to figure something out, how do you know what the right [00:10:00] answer is?
You have to start to trust your body. You have to start to listen and tune in to yourself for the answers. And this is something you have to practice, and that's where the quick shift was born from, it's how do we come back into alignment?
How do we allow ourselves three breaths, ten seconds, to actually assess the situation from a new perspective. When we react with our stress pattern, like the seeker of going out and looking for answers, we are in reactivity mode. We are reacting and not responding. When we give ourselves some breath, some space, we hold our energetic boundary, even just for a few moments.
We allow the space for new information to come in beyond our thinking mind. It's how we access higher intuition, [00:11:00] how we access deeper wisdom. You have the wisdom within you. It's about allowing your wisdom to come through. I want you to know that the seeker is not broken. This is not a broken pattern because it has been super successful for you in getting to this stage of your life.
You are not broken here. You're deeply aware. You often have a lot of intuition, a lot of insight on the situation. You can go really deep into a problem. It's when you get lost and you lose your power that you, bring it back into, is this seeking useful? And where am I outsourcing my thinking to somebody else's opinion and then turning that into my own truth and then trying to recalibrate to this new truth and not allowing my true sense of self to fully [00:12:00] integrate with it in the moment.
We can't think of these things in the moment when we're stressed. We can't. because your mind is completely reactive into, "Right, got to fix this, got to find the answer.
Go, go, go, go, go." And it's so important to take that tiny step back Where do I feel this in my body? What's happening in this moment? Is my energy up and out through the top half of my body or can I feel my whole body all the way down to my feet? when we're integrated, even when we're under stress, we can allow ourselves a moment to come back in and feel it fully.
And the embodiment, the somatic part, is the key to unlocking your stress patterns. It's the key to unlocking the go-to fundamentals of how you react and instead give you the ability to respond. [00:13:00] Responsibility is the ability to respond to a situation. It's not about taking on the blame and having to have all the answers and sorting it out.
It's about having the ability to respond in a manner that feels good for you. And that might be, I need some time to sit with this and circle back later, so that you've got time to go and do some research if there's something that needs figuring out. It can be as simple as, okay, I can see that I just want to jump to, oh well, so and so must have the answer, or I need to go listen to this next thing.
Instead of, what do I already know? What resources are already at hand that I can draw upon to find my own conclusions here?
Yes, the [00:14:00] answers may be outside of yourself, but you will not receive them until you're open to receiving. And so, no matter how much thinking and looping and information you seek, at some point you have to integrate it. You have to go, "Okay, how do I feel about this? Do I want to stay in this space? Is this a new piece of information that I want to align to?
Do I feel good about this? Or am I just pulling myself away from my true self in order to stop the discomfort?" If seeking is your main stress response, if you recognize yourself in this that you overanalyse, overthink, especially under stress, then I want you to know that it's not a big step from overthinking to having a pause and being able to respond.
But it does take practice. [00:15:00] It really does. And if you're not sure if this is your actual stress response, I've created a little quiz that you can do, and I'll link it to the show notes, so that you can go in and see which is your major stress response or which is your go-to stress response. We all do all of them at some point in time, but there'll be one that you lean into more than others
So, I want you to know that you don't have to do it alone. Even once you find out your stress response, there's always the ability to respond. It's a choice, and a choice that you can make when you're not in reaction mode. And to get out of reaction mode, you have to practice holding your own space and your own energy, and then you have much more freedom to choose what you need to seek next without just reacting, looping, overthinking, being more stressed, [00:16:00] creating more uncertainty in your life.
That feeling of overreaching to find the answers is unsettling. And when we don't trust ourselves or don't trust our ability to give ourselves a moment or two to respond to a stressful situation, we can't build that muscle very well. So, practice on the small things. Practice on small decisions or small little stresses.
How can I feel into it, think about it, give myself some space, and then choose to respond from there? You may choose exactly the same thing for a while. You may still go out seeking, listening to podcasts, um, reading books, finding out new information, googling away- All of those things may be relevant. I'm not saying don't do that.
I'm just saying [00:17:00] do that with discernment. The discernment of how does it actually fit with me, with this situation, and for the people involved.
If this has resonated with you at all, I'd love for you to come and join me for a Quick Shift Let's give you some tools to help bring that alignment into your life. And if you want to know more about how to click onto that, it's in the show notes. Please don't forget to subscribe or follow on your preferred channel.
Thank you so much for joining me this week. I'll see you next time
