Overthinking Isn’t the Problem | The Structure Beneath It, with Anita Saldana

Keith Hodge: Think about it. It's just keep going back over and over and over again. ⁓ to to ⁓ change it, change the the topical, the behavior, the tools, the diligent with my work and more focus and more thinking and then then I can well once this internal architecture keep producing automatically, then what they truly arrive with is it's an internal source. It is what you call the true North Alignment. It works. It is an Eternal source. When when we address the source, when the interpretation actually corrects, then the brain stops generating the anxiety or reactivity that it was generating con continuously because the misalignment that was producing it no longer exists. So the behavior changes as a natural consequence. Welcome to true North Alignment. There becomes a point where strategy is no longer the deciding factor. What matters most is the state that you're building from, for this shapes every decision, every move and every result. When you're aligned, things work, and when you're not they don't. This is where purpose becomes inevitable. I'm Keith Hodge, let's begin. Welcome back to True North Alignment. Today's guest is Anita Saldana from Las Vegas in the US, and she's the founder of Inner Authority, an executive coaching practice. Anita, thank you so much for joining me here today. Thank you so very much for inviting me, Keith. So speak to me about the understanding that you have that you've shared with me about like overthinking as a as a topic and and how that affects leaders. So what I have noticed ⁓ working with ⁓ high performing ⁓ people over these past 18 years is that a problem that is almost never as it appears on the surface. And it's it's such a misalignment. these are intelligent, highly intelligent, capable people, and yet they keep arriving at the same decision, the same doubts, the same exhaustion. And it's really not a thinking problem. It is a structure problem. They are trying to solve ⁓ present decisions with thinking. That was organized around something that happened long time ago. So the work I do is is really about restructuring that so that clarity becomes something consistent, something they can trust rather than something they have to chase every time a decision lens on their desk. I came to this by studying many systems, so I I'm really into neuroscience, hermetic philosophy, Jungian psychology, hypnosis, as you are, ⁓ timeline work and and finding the same principle underneath all of these systems. The quality of what we create is always a direct function of the clarity of the instrument doing the creating. So if we are not aligned, if we are not this clear instrument. Whatever we build on it, it is going to just default back to that whatever is under. So that's what my work is really about. Amazing. Yeah, we're speaking the same language. And you know, for me, we are c all creators and we can only create when the instrument, as you put it, is is clear. I call it the one true state of being. And then we have many, many pre existing states and I and I can hear that in your language if that's what you're talking about, that when the when the ⁓ the the the founders are having projects land on their desk and they're coming from the past, they're trying to think their way through it from an old state of being and then that doesn't support them. It's like how do they how do they come from coherence with every decision? So how do you how do you help your your you know, your founders or leaders to to arrive in that s level of coherence because it's not an easy space to live from, right? No. Definitely not. So I think ⁓ what I do that's a little different is that I can locate very precisely where in someone's thinking the misalignment is and then shift it. I don't manage their misalignment. I work them to actually shift it. So most of the time when people are struggling with overthinking They are treating it as a volume problem. Thinking too much, need to slow down, need to breathe more. And those things help in the moment. ⁓ I I'm not even going to argue with that. That's true. But they don't change anything structurally. Because the thinking is organized around an old interpretation of experience, something that was decided often long time ago. And until that Interpretation changes. The pattern keeps reasserting itself no matter how much discipline someone applies. So it's like what I do is more like adjusting the angle of that lens. Okay, so for example I had this ⁓ gentleman who worked for the government and ⁓ he had ⁓ Past experiences that was so precise and so much anger was around it that it it fueled it fueled his future structure, his business, whatever he was building. It was out of anger. So how it actually manifested in the body is high blood pressure. Definitely needing this constant, you know, calming down, trying different tools, meditation, guided imagery, reading books, finding coaches that would help him. And of course the tools were there, Keith. However, the internal structure was never taken care of. It was never looked at that okay, so what does this really mean? Whatever I have experienced in the future. So They never want to go back to that and revisit that because it is incredible pain. So you have a a guy that's got a lot of anger and he's coming from that anger and everything he's creating and he's tried a lot of different things, coaching tools, techniques, but none of it has helped him to identify that he's actually coming from anger. And you said to me earlier that you have a precise way of helping them to see how the mind is holding that. How do you do that? Okay. So Here's the framework around it, the process. The the thing that makes this work different and I think it's the thing people feel most relieved to hear is that you don't have to relive anything. Most approaches to work with the past, ask the person to reassociate, to go back into that experience and feel it again. It's extremely painful. So my approach is a dissociative technique. And without Content and it surprises everyone. First of all, you know, creating that beautiful trust between the conscious and the unconscious mind to go to that place. So the person doesn't need to tell me what happened. We work from above the experience at a safe distance, safety first. And we change the interpretation from there. When that shifts, when the interpretation shifts, Keith, the emotional charge releases. Not the event. The event stays the same. And what remains isn't pain. It's the learning. That's the distinction I always come back to. Learn from the past. Don't relive it. Jung actually said something that captures this beautifully that no matter how much one knows, another person's psyche always exceeds one's theories. Isn't that beautiful? And I think about that a lot. It's not a reason to abandon this rigorious work. That I'm doing. It's it's a reminder that theory exists to serve the encounter, not to replace the person sitting in front of me. I bring every framework I know into the room and then I set it aside the moment it would stand between me and what's actually happening with this particular human being. I literally assume that they know more about their psyche than I do. I simply guide them through it to recognize. themselves in it. So it's inner alignment. People don't want to sit in trauma. And they shouldn't have to. Especially high performance. They're not afraid of hard work and we know that. They are afraid of going backward with no guaranteed way out. And that messes with their mind. Once they understand that they can get the learning without re experiencing the weight, some things is opening for them. And that moment I know the work is complete. And it's very specific. The language shifts. It stops being backward facing, explaining, justifying. ⁓ there they stop seeking a witness for this is what they went through. And it becomes a forward facing declaring, designing the future rather than organizing the past. The breathing literally slows down, the voice settles. Posture changes, the body always confirms what the mind has actually released. When it comes to this and the customization for a high performer, high performers have a particular version of this that I find really interesting because they've built so much genuine competence. They're successful. And that competence sits on the top of this misinterpreted structure. They've really never examined the structure because I I I get it, it's too painful. The external success keeps telling them the structure is fine. So they are they keep performing, they're brilliant. And underneath it just does not feel fine. But I enjoy it. It's playing the playing the role, right? From the interpretation of the story on top of the emotion that they've never been able to face. That's right. I'm interested to know how how did you It sounds like you've created something unique, having studied lot some l a lot of different systems. How did you come to this? Is it something you went through yourself or did you just see it through many clients? ⁓ it's eighteen years of coaching, one on one. There very seldom someone graduates as a trainer of neurolinguistic programming and hypnosis and timeline therapy and they stay in a one on one environment. I did. I had a few trainings. I always stayed in this one on one environment. I I I loved it. I enjoyed it. And through these systems, I picked what I believed belonged to the gap, this misunderstanding. So how I look at my work and whatever I found that it's not really unique. How I put it together that that you can call it unique. However, if you look at the components keys, you know every single components that I'm using. But how I use it and how I put it together, that I think it fits in this coaching role. Did I answer your question? Yeah. And I'm interested, like, do do you track this over time? So do these breakthroughs hold over pressure and time with with your clients? ⁓ do you mean like individually tracking it with each client or my entire work and how it evolves? With each client, you know, they have this this moment where you see their posture change and and then they're speaking differently and they're creating from the future. Does does that hold or do they go back to the architecture that was for around the past? So once the interpretation corrected itself from the past, they cannot think the way how they were thinking before. They can't. So After the first session doing timeline work and they accept the concept that I'm teaching them by allowing themselves so what if, what if this really works, even though the entire work is non sensical. It is dissociated completely, working with past experiences they don't even remember. So as soon as this position changes, I mean psychology knows that, you know, you change the point of reference, how you look at things, it changes the person. You cannot look at an object or an event in the same way, feel the same way when you change your position. So that what happens? It's an immediate shift in them. And I see that right in front of me when the breathing slows down. But all of a sudden, you know, they shift into from an asymmetric to a symmetric and they lean forward. It it is so obvious how they start to reorganizing, reinterpreting their events, and now the neurology starts working differently. But there's another very interesting point because I truly believe that, you know, in this inner world, in this quantum field of our microcosm, whenever we are looking at something, we are the observer. Collapsing the wave function on that event, whatever we want to observe. So it's this inner change that immediately changes how the brain starts to predict events in the future. Fascinating. Fascinating to see a human being right in front of you and moving through these phases. And I let them talk at the beginning, of course, you know, because something once this trust established and and they know that they are safe. They're in a safe environment. No content is not required. And then all of a sudden you see these shifts beautifully evolving right in front of you. That is, in your words, it is the true North Alignment. And and it's true to its word. Alignment. This is not something that was missing from them. There's never anything that is missing from the person. It is just This continuous the world is telling me who I am and how I'm supposed to behave. I'm filling that gap. Yes, we do. However, I don't need the content of it. And so say six months or a year later, like well w this ta talk to me how how are these guys in their businesses from from the work you've done with them? It's it's calmer. Once it becomes their stable and they thought that you know that achievement that was the problem, we solved the problem. But as soon as you solve that problem You're in next level of thinking. So the entithesis, the problem, become the thesis. Now it's solved it. Now with this level, there are new opportunities. So I do not like to create codependence with my client. But when they come to this level of understanding, they need just a little reminder here and there with their ⁓ with their coaching. They do not need to come back continuously. It's done. They can learn the process through repetition and I do a lot of repetition and I do a lot of mental rehearsal. And as soon as they get the process, they have a blueprint to go to. That's inner authority. Okay, let me ask myself. I do it in a frame that is constructive, not for escape, but for excavating information from the inner self. So I see that how that immediately structures in the person's and then I have clients that I did like six years ago. We did the work, we went through the work and they're coming back because whatever is now important to them, it has nothing to do with the problem that they had anymore. But now they want to have the map and to be reminded ⁓ and they are coming back for that refresh. So literally my structure is that when someone starts out It's five two hour sessions. And then it takes care of that that is the surface problem. But we usually what they experience is the problem wasn't the problem. It was a lot different than they thought it was. But you know, when I'm not going to argue anybody with anybody's problem. My job is literally to read the body and then assess every human being is different, Keith. So how they they work with this type of inner processing, this inner interpretation, how the prediction model in their neurology changes, yeah, it's different for everyone. What what I hear is that that that you found a way to help people observe from a different place. Just like the double slit experiment, if if the audience have heard heard this neuroscience experiment where the waveform changes when when the the the experiment is observed by by a person as opposed to when it's on its own and ⁓ and so you're you're finding a way for them to observe themselves differently to shift their story and thus the waveform inside their being is tr changing shape, right? And then and then they're able to achieve different things because of that, which is a very different way of working to how I do, but there's a there's also a lot of crossover with our language. You know, for me, I I teach that every every disconnection is because of an emotion a child can't be with. And until that emotion is f faced, then then it will keep repeating the same patterns, protections, beliefs. But it doesn't need to be faced as trauma from from regoing through it. It can be done as them now, as the as the the the person that's observing who they were when when the trauma arrived. So In a sense we're crossing over as there's an observer seeing something different, that that observation changes, the story changes, the whole imprint doesn't need to remain, and thus the state of being can move into coherence with the one true state. So that's what I hear from from your sharing. Yes. So you know, it it's ⁓ the you I I make my clients understand themselves through what I have learned through these systems. But not staying complicated with it, believing in something that is bigger than us. I keep it very simple and very clean that is manageable on the horizontal plane, which we are moving, having our beings. That's the doing part. But you know, the being on the vertical axis, for most people it's very scary, especially when it comes to emotions. You know, mention an emotion, whatever your childhood shaped ⁓ dear executive, you know, so they you feel the resistance that field already, you know, working. It's just like we don't go there, we don't go there. But when when it is observed through imagination. Because I guide them through the process that it is not in the event that they remember. I I that's not the event. That's not when it started. Because if it would have started in that event, what they remember, then they would have solved it already. ⁓ It's it's conscious. It's conscious. They're intelligent. It's not that because they're not you know in intelligent enough to figure it out, you know, how they can actually let go of this emotion. Hence, I'm going back to a place that is imagined. Because they 'cause it's so far in their blind spot they don't have memory recall of it. Exactly. Yeah. It's it's through imagination. Mm-hmm. Use your imagination. Well imagination is is the the first step to to true sensing. In my work I I take people to the precise we use very similar language to the precise moment of of formation. Yes. Through through the senses. And so imagination for people that can't sense energy is is is the first step. Yeah? Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So this is what I see in in in the in the industry. That most people are working on the surface. Mm-hmm. ⁓ leaving the source untouched. Adjusting behaviors, managing reactions, refining strategies, all of it without changing the underlying interpretive structure. Who is the interpretive structure? It's the true self. It's it's whatever is in there. But it's just so Press down, so not want to be listened to. The behavior change. The behavior change becomes very expensive. It's an expensive maintenance. It's not expensive with me. You keep having to apply the effort. Just think about it. It's just keep going back over and over and over again. ⁓ to to ⁓ change it, change the the topical, the behavior, the tools, the Mm-hmm. The more being more ⁓ diligent with my work and more focus and more thinking and then then I can well you know w once this internal architecture keeps producing automatically, then what they truly arrive with is it's an internal source. It is what you call the true North Alignment. It works, it is an eternal source. When when we address the source, when the interpretation actually corrects, then the brain stops generating the anxiety or reactivity that it was generating con continuously because the misalignment that was producing it no longer exists. So the behaviour changes as the natural consequence. The person isn't managing anymore. And in in true n in true North, for me, purpose starts to become inevitable when people live from the state of joy and creation. What is what is your purpose? Are are you are you really you know, you're working one to one with with these executives or are are you looking to build something else? Like speak to me about purpose. Okay. So a purpose. I remember when I really wanted to find my purpose and I bought all those books. Mm-hmm. The purpose finder. I mean just writing it, what is my true purpose? What is my true purpose? Well my true purpose is this I accumulated so much knowledge, you know, during these years and I have this this experience, this incredible experience working one on one with people for such a long time. My purpose is literally that either in one on one settings with an executive or in small groups or in trainings that every single person who is coming through, they will get this inner authority. Through this work, whether it is just one person that I can change them, but they I'm walking with them and they find this inner resource, they change the world. We live in a field of consciousness. Every single work that I do, every single interaction that I have is toward unity, the well being of humankind. Because when someone is operating from this inner alignment with this inner authority, can they practice greed? Can they practice immorally? They won't be able to, even if the pattern exists. It starts to shift because the misalignment starts right away. Right away. So that's my purpose. My purpose is to have this out there and and Talk to people. And what we are doing right now, the word is spread. Yeah. And I let those who have ears hear it. So I hear in what you're sharing that purpose is is inevitable for you. Anita, thank you so much for joining me on today's podcast. For anyone who would like to reach out to you, what is the best way? The best way is ⁓ via email, which is info at ⁓ anitasaldana.com or through my website, someone visiting my website, www.anitasaldana.com. That's the best way to to reach me. Perfect. And and I I would like to, you know, just share one of my favorite quotes with you. Is that okay? Please. Okay. So I have my one of my favorite authors, and that's Alifa Slavy. And ⁓ He said it in his book The Book of Splendors Tranquility of Mind is an effect of certainty. Peace of heart comes from patience and faith. Without faith, science leads to doubt. Without science, faith leads to superstition. Uniting them brings certainty, and in so doing, they must never be confused with each other. Thank you. Thank you, Keith, for having me. Thank you. Thank you, Anita. I appreciate it. And thank you for joining us today. I will see you on the next episode of True North Alignment. Thank you so very much. Thank you for being here. Take a moment. Where are you in alignment? Because in True North, nothing underneath your actions distorts them. And from that place, purpose becomes inevitable. See you next time.