The Internal Mirror™
Develop the Capability to Handle the Challenges & Complexities of Life
See Clearly. Cope Effectively. Act Intentionally
FREE WEBINAR
The Missing Perspective
That Changes How You Experience Life
Life is hard.
Not because there's anything wrong with you.
Because life is inherently challenging and complex.
And we are not automatically taught how to effectively navigate it.
We struggle as a result—and that struggle can show up in many different ways.
Emotions
-
anxiety / fear / worry
-
unworthiness / frustration
-
irritable / anger
-
disappointment
-
guilt / shame
-
embarrassment
Thoughts
-
overwhelmed
-
self-deprecation / negativity
-
regret / failure / perfection
-
not good enough
-
turning off your mind
-
overthinking / ruminating
Behaviors
-
sleep issues
-
impulse control
-
scrolling / screen time
-
procrastination
-
lack of self-care
-
bad habits
Physiology
-
fatigue / always tired
-
high blood pressure
-
panic attacks
-
racing heart
-
chronic pain
-
tension
Relationships
-
disconnection
-
arguments / avoidance
-
people pleasing
-
rejection / disrespect
-
betrayal / trust
-
difficulty communicating
The Unrealistic Expectation
Life is hard.
But some of our experiences contain unnecessary struggle.
We've been expecting ourselves to know how to handle life without ever having been taught.
Imagine being handed surgical instruments and told to perform surgery.
You wouldn't expect yourself to know what to do. And when you couldn't do it, you certainly wouldn't conclude that your inability meant there was something wrong with you.
You'd recognize the obvious: you were never trained to perform such a complex procedure.
Surgery is extraordinarily complex—but it occurs within a defined domain. There is an enormous body of established knowledge. Surgeons are systematically trained in anatomy, procedures, techniques, protocols, and how to respond when things go wrong.
Yet when it comes to life, we hold ourselves to an entirely different standard.
Life asks us to navigate relationships, emotions, our bodies, thoughts, uncertainty, competing needs, individual differences, loss, limited resources, change, decisions,
conflict, parenting, work, identity—often several at once.
And unlike surgery, the variables are constantly changing.
Yet somehow, we expect ourselves to know how to handle all of it.
And when we inevitably struggle...
We don't question the expectation. We question ourselves.
A New Challenge the Human Brain Isn't Innately Built to Handle
Our brain comes hardwired with a survival system to ensure that we stay alive. But it doesn't have a corresponding system to help us navigate the challenges and complexities of life not related to survival.
The survival system is incredibly effective at its assigned job. It has kept human beings alive for thousands of years. And it still works remarkably well.
For much of humanity, survival remains an immediate concern. Access to food, clean water, shelter, safety, and medical care remains a challenge.
But for some, life has changed. For those of us fortunate enough to take much of our survival for granted, a new challenge has emerged - learning how to navigate non-survival life.
Surviving and knowing how to live fulfilling lives are not the same capability.
And human beings are remarkably young at navigating fulfilling non-survival lives.
Those of us whose basic survival is largely secure are among the first humans to spend substantial portions of our lives dealing with non-survival issues.
You shouldn't already know how to do this. Humanity itself is still learning.
But that doesn't mean we're starting from scratch. There is a great deal we already know about navigating non-survival life. That knowledge simply isn't universally shared or systematically taught.
This work fills this gap in non-survival knowledge, skills, and tools.
FREE WEBINAR
The Missing Perspective That Changes How You Experience Life
The Brain's Survival Default
To complicate matters, we're bringing to those non-survival
complexities a brain with a deeply practiced survival default.
Our survival brain is constantly scanning for potential threats.
When it identifies one, its job is to protect us.
Identify the problem. Solve the problem. Stay alive.
Problem solving is the survival brain's primary tool.
Problem solving works remarkably well for problems. But not every difficulty we experience is a problem to solve.
An emotion isn't a problem.
Uncertainty isn't a problem.
Someone else's disappointment isn't a problem.
Something outside our control isn't a problem.
A painful reality isn't a problem.
When something happens—or something we want to happen doesn't—we typically have an automatic reaction before we've even done anything about the situation. We experience emotions, physiological changes, thoughts, and impulses.
What happens and our internal reaction to it are two fundamentally different parts of the whole experience.
Sometimes what happens creates an actual problem. Something stands between us and what we want or need. Problem solving is an effective way to address it.
But our internal reaction isn't a problem so it doesn't have a solution. However, it's still an experience that needs to be addressed.
Solving the problem and addressing our reaction to it require different capabilities. While we're accustomed to solving problems, we are not systematically taught how to navigate our internal experiences.
Consider two people who live together. One feels hot and wants to lower the thermostat. The other feels cold and wants to raise it.
They have an actual problem: they want different temperatures in the same house. They can use problem solving to find a practical solution. But that doesn't address their reactions to this difference.
Imagine that one person feels frustrated because they believe they're always the one who has to compromise. The other feels criticized and becomes defensive. Both may begin interpreting the disagreement as evidence that the other person doesn't care about their needs. Even if they agree on a temperature, their frustration, defensiveness, and interpretations of each other's behavior may remain. They have solved the practical problem, but they still have their reactions to navigate.
That is precisely why problem solving alone frequently isn't sufficient.
The same is true of competing needs or personal limitations. They may create genuine barriers that require practical solutions. But the frustration, disappointment, anxiety, or other reactions accompanying those difficulties require an approach different from problem solving.
Yet our survival brain doesn't automatically distinguish between a problem that needs solving and a reaction that needs a different kind of attention.
When something uncomfortable grabs our attention, the survival system may interpret that discomfort as a threat. And because problem solving is its deeply practiced default, it applies the tool it knows - problem solving.
As a result, we often approach our own reactions—or other people's reactions—as problems that need to be solved, even when they aren't problems at all. This causes unnecessary struggle.
Furthermore, sometimes there isn't an actual problem to solve. There's simply an uncomfortable experience to navigate.
In non-survival life, many of the difficulties we encounter aren't problems. But because our survival brain approaches them as problems, we often don't recognize the difference.
Problem solving is like a hammer. When it's the only tool in our toolbox, we use it on everything.
Then we wonder why we have so many holes in our lives.
The Holes Left Behind
When we misidentify someone else's disappointment as a problem, we try to solve it by making their disappointment go away. We over-accommodate, abandon our own needs, defend our choices, or try to control their response.
When we misidentify something outside our control as a problem, we try to solve it by continuing to search for something we can do to change it. We expend energy trying to control what isn't ours to control.
When we misidentify an emotion as a problem, we try to solve it by getting rid of it. We suppress it, avoid it, judge it, or fight against it.
When we misidentify uncertainty as a problem, we try to solve it by creating certainty where certainty doesn't exist. We overthink, predict, seek reassurance, or try to control what happens next.
When we misidentify a painful reality as a problem, we try to solve it by making the reality different. We fight against what has already happened or what cannot be changed.
Problem solving doesn't just fail when we apply it to something that isn't a problem. It creates additional struggle.
These are the holes left behind when we use a hammer where there was never a nail.
There's a reason we so often misidentify what we're facing.
Our brain's survival default creates a predictable loop that helps explain why this happens.
The Survival Default Loop
Non-survival difficulty
The additional struggle is interpreted as further threat
Something uncomfortable grabs our attention
Additional struggle is created
It is interpreted as a threat through the survival system
Problem solving doesn't work because the difficulty isn't actually a problem
The survival system applies problem solving
What The Survival Loop Looks Like in Real Life
You tell a friend you can't go
to an event that they
want you to attend.
Non-survival difficulty:
The additional struggle is interpreted as further threat
They're still disappointed. Nothing I've tried has worked. Maybe I made the wrong decision. Maybe something really is wrong between us.
Something uncomfortable grabs our attention
Their disappointment grabs your attention.
Additional struggle is created
You may try harder to change how they feel, seek reassurance that the relationship is okay, second-guess or change your decision, or withdraw from the friendship—even temporarily.
Their disappointment is interpreted as a threat through the survival system
They're upset with me. That's not okay. They may not want to be my friend anymore.
Problem solving doesn't work because the difficulty isn't actually a problem
It doesn't work because you can't control how they feel. Their disappointment remains.
The survival system applies problem solving
How do I take away their disappointment?
How Do You Get Out of the Survival Loop?
Survival has a simple, clear, consistent, and shared objective - stay alive.
Living a non-survival life is complex, multidimensional, constantly changing, and different for everyone.
Our survival system focuses on potential threats because that's what's needed to keep us alive. But that narrowed focus actually acts as a barrier to handling non-survival life because the challenges and complexities of non-survival life involve far more than whatever has captured the survival system's attention. We end up trying to navigate a complex experience while seeing only part of it and automatically treating it like a threat.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Because the brain can learn.
The first step is to expand our awareness beyond whatever has captured the survival system's attention.
When we can see more of what's happening, we can begin to distinguish between an actual problem, our reactions to it, and the other aspects of the experience that need attention.
Instead of automatically trying to solve whatever feels uncomfortable, we have the opportunity to recognize what is actually occurring and determine how best to address it.
But for someone who already feels overwhelmed, expanding awareness might sound like adding even more to an already impossible load. Increasing awareness doesn't create more complexity. It reveals the complexity that's already there, allowing us to develop the clarity needed to handle it effectively.
Expanding our perspective creates the opportunity to manage that complexity with less struggle. Then, we need to learn new tools to address the different parts of the experience and a system for knowing how and when to use them.
Think back to the difficulties we discussed at the beginning.
The emotions that become overwhelming. The thoughts that won't stop. The physical exhaustion. The behaviors we wish we could change. The difficulties that arise in our relationships.
These experiences have many possible causes. Some of our struggle comes from trying to solve things that aren't problems, navigating complex situations with a limited perspective, and not having the tools and a system to address the whole experience. We are creating additional struggle while trying desperately to eliminate the struggle we're already experiencing.
And because we don't recognize what's happening, we may conclude that something is wrong with us rather than questioning how we're approaching the experience.
I created a system to change this dynamic
and fill the gap in our ability to navigate non-survival life.
It's called The Internal Mirror™.
The Internal Mirror™ — A new way to see and navigate your non-survival experiences.
The Internal Mirror™ system helps you expand your awareness, learn the tools needed to navigate the different parts of your experience, and develop the capability to handle the challenges and complexities of life.
“It's not just what happens to you, but how you handle it
that determines its impact on your life.”
— Kelly Kay Wynn
See Clearly.
Cope Effectively.
Act Intentionally.
Ready to Get Out of the Survival Loop and Expand Your Awareness?
In my free keynote, you'll learn how to expand your awareness beyond what the survival mechanism is allowing you to see—and start seeing more of what's actually happening in your experience.
This is the beginning of developing the capability to handle the challenges and complexities of life.
Remember, you cannot effectively handle what you cannot see.
But what you cannot see is still affecting your experience.