Beneath the Surface

How Undercurrents Shape Your Reality

Have you ever wondered why, despite your best intentions, you sometimes feel anxious, insecure, or disconnected? You might be doing all the right things on the surface—thinking positive thoughts, setting goals, and taking action—yet something still feels off. It’s as if there’s an invisible force at work, pulling you in directions you didn’t choose.

This force is what I like to call the undercurrent, and it’s deeply connected to the iceberg analogy. You’ve probably heard that analogy before: the idea that our conscious thoughts are just the tip of the iceberg, while the bulk of it—what’s really driving us—lies beneath the surface, unseen and often unnoticed.

The Iceberg and the Undercurrents

The visible part of the iceberg represents what we’re consciously thinking about at any given moment—those surface-level thoughts that occupy our mind. But the larger, submerged part of the iceberg is where the real action happens. This is where our deep-seated beliefs, assumptions, and stories about ourselves live. These are the undercurrents of our mind, and they have a powerful influence on our experience of life.

These undercurrents are the stories we’ve invented about who we are and how the world works. They often stem from past experiences, societal conditioning, or even things we picked up from our family without realizing it. And because they’re so deeply ingrained, we usually don’t even know they’re there. But they’re the ones creating our experience, moment by moment.

Recognizing the Undercurrents

So, how do you know when these undercurrents are at play? The answer is surprisingly simple: you feel it. When you’re feeling anxious, disconnected, or anything other than peaceful and secure, it’s a sign that these undercurrents are running the show.

Your body gives you clues all the time. If you’re feeling something viscerally—tightness in your chest, a knot in your stomach, a sense of unease—it’s worth paying attention. These sensations are your body’s way of telling you that something deeper is going on. They’re not just random feelings; they’re signals from the undercurrents that something needs to be looked at.

But here’s the thing: these undercurrents are not truths. They’re stories you’ve invented, often without realizing it. They might be stories about not being good enough, not deserving success, or believing that certain things are for others but not for you (this was a big one for me). And because these stories have been running in the background for so long, they feel like reality. But they’re not.

Forgiving and Releasing the Past

The power comes in recognizing that these stories are inventions, not facts. Once you see that, you can begin to "unsubscribe" from them. This doesn’t mean you have to dig into every single detail of your past. In fact, you don’t have to get to the crux of it all. The key is in simply noticing how the system works and forgiving yourself for unknowingly subscribing to it in the first place.

Forgiveness here is about releasing judgment. It’s about recognizing that you were doing the best you could with what you knew at the time. And now, with this new awareness, you have the opportunity to clean that story, unsubscribe, and create something different.

This is where you can start to shift your experience. By cleaning these undercurrents, you make space for your natural state of peace, security, and well-being to emerge. This isn’t something you have to force; it’s your default setting. But it can only come through when the noise of those old stories quiets down.

Returning to Peace and Well-being

When you start to see through the stories and become aware of the undercurrents, something amazing happens. You begin to realize that you don’t have to work so hard to feel good. Peace, clarity, and security are already there, waiting for you. They’re not something you have to chase; they’re what’s left when you stop believing the stories that say you can’t have them.

As a professional coach, this is the life-changing work I do with my clients. It’s not about adding more to their lives or fixing what’s wrong. It’s about peeling back the layers, seeing the undercurrents for what they are, and moving through them. When that happens, what’s left is a life lived from the inside out—a life of possibility, creativity, and deep fulfillment.

And this is available to you, too. All it takes is the willingness to look beneath the surface and see what’s really driving your experience. When you do, you might just find that everything you’ve been searching for is already within you, waiting to be uncovered. 😉

Loving you,

Bradley

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