April 16, 2025 • 13 mins
Arejay emphasizes the importance of unlearning to overcome limitations and foster creativity and innovation. She argues that adhering to existing knowledge can hinder progress and suggests suspending these beliefs to explore new possibilities. Arejay illustrates how challenging preconceived notions can lead to unexpected solutions and personal growth. She differentiates between intellectual knowing and deep, intuitive knowing, advocating for the former to be temporarily set aside to allow for fresh perspectives and new actions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arejay (00:05):
What if you want new so as we transition, a lot of
times, we make things harder forourselves, and part of what
makes it difficult is thatsometimes we're trying to
approach new situations from theknowledge we already have right.
(00:26):
And while that sometimes servesus and is great, sometimes
what's needed and will move usfurther along and let us start
actually taking action, asopposed to being in planning
mode, is to forget what we knowright? And ask ourselves like,
if, if no one told us, if wedidn't have evidence of
(00:49):
something right, what would wedo? Like, how we approach what's
in front of us right now, and weare capable of so much more than
we tend to think we are, and weare capable of so much more than
(01:13):
the old stories will have usbelieve and adhere to. So what
if you just unnew your limits,right? If you just suspended
that reality for a moment anddreamed of a possible
(01:35):
alternative, what does that looklike? What are you doing? How
are you moving? How do you doit? What would you start? Think
of it that way? And I say thisbecause a lot of times we have
(01:58):
expansive knowledge of stuff,right? And we get to a point
where we know it like and I'mtalking like logically know it,
so we don't necessarily go backand look at it from a different
perspective. We don't play withit as easily as someone who's
(02:20):
completely new to it, might playwith it. So if we're trying to
be creative or we're trying tobe innovative, taking that
perspective can help us and alsowhen we find ourselves becoming
things or wanting to do thingsthat previously we thought were
(02:43):
unavailable to us, pausing toask yourself, like, what? What
if it's not unavailable to me?Like, what if no one ever told
me that? What if I was nevershown any evidence of that? What
would I do? Like, how would Iget it? How would I do it? And
(03:05):
move from there? And when youcan learn to do that, first,
you're gonna amaze yourself withsome of the stuff that you can
do. Because you're like, Ohcrap. Like, I remember when I
thought I couldn't do this atall. And like, now I'm rocking
it right, and you're also goingto start to carry that over into
(03:27):
other things in life. So thereare a lot of tools and
techniques and so many thingsthat we work with all the time,
and we're usually brought tothem in a particular way. We're
usually told how to work withthem or shown how to work with
them in a particular way or fora particular purpose, and we
(03:53):
learned it that way. And that'sfine. That's great. Like learn.
I'm all for learning. Andthat's, you know, that's part of
it. And sometimes we need to goback and explore and experiment
and play and like, what if,because a lot of answers are
(04:15):
there, a lot of solutions arethere, and we may not be
recognizing them because we'retoo busy looking at them from
the same perspective that we'vealways known them, right? We're
too busy going, Oh, this thingis for this purpose. So this is
not my purpose. So I'm not evengoing to, like look over here at
(04:35):
this thing, right? So I'll giveyou a couple of examples to help
you understand I'm talkingabout. So when it comes to,
like, tangible, physicalsolutions, right, Product
Solutions, things like that. Iused to go to a lot of
conferences, and they'd be like,multi day conferences, so you're
(04:58):
meeting a ton of people, lots ofbusiness cards being handed out,
right? And the card cases, like,if you didn't have, well, for
me, I have a lot of stuff.Didn't have a lot of stuff in my
bag. So if I didn't have like, acard case, half the cards are
going to be lost just to, like,other things in my bag and get
bit and whatever. But the cardcases that I did find for
(05:22):
business cards were all theselittle fin things that held,
like 10 business cards. And I'mlike, What am I gonna do with 10
business cards at this massiveevent for like, five days with
1000s and 1000s of people? Like,what is happening here? And so I
was like, I need, I needsomething, right? And what I
(05:45):
ended up using, and to this day,like, if I still have to have
actual physical cards to passout at large conferences like
that, I have cigarette cases. Idon't smoke. I have them only to
hold my business cards. Why?Because you can hold a chunk of
them at a time and they fitreally nicely in like a purse or
(06:08):
whatever or pocket. So that'swhat I use. But if I was only
willing to think of based on theuse case of something based on
its prescribed use case, right?It is a cigarette case. It is
for holding cigarettes. It saysit right in the name, right?
Like, cigarette case, I wouldhave not even looked over there,
(06:32):
because I have nothing to dowith cigarettes. Like, that's
not in my purview. So sometimesjust being willing to say, okay,
like, what is it that I actuallyneed, right? And it's just, I
need something hard that is thisparticular size. So what else
might be this size that is alsohard? And that's how I found the
(06:54):
cigarette cases, right? Andthen, as an example of what we
get to do or achieve orexperience, if no one told you,
and if you hadn't gottenmessages that indicate a
(07:17):
particular belief or limitationand yeah, and that limitation
therefore does not exist,because it's never it's not a
thing like you've never had thatinformation. How would you do
the thing? So for me, this wasdrawing. For the longest time, I
thought I had zero artisticability. I was very sad and
(07:41):
bitter about it when I waslittle, because I have, like,
both sides of my family havequite a few creatives in them.
And I was like, the felt likethe only one who didn't have
that. And I was like, Well, howdid I not get passed out
something, right? And when I wasyounger, like, the story was
absolutely I couldn't draw atall bad draw. I, you know, would
(08:05):
draw the picture be super proud,and then someone would say,
like, Oh, that's a cute this.And like, it'd be like, Oh,
that's a cute hamster. And I, inmy mind, had drawn a bear, not a
hamster. So not only like did,so even when people weren't
saying, Oh, this is bad, right?They were still trying to be
(08:27):
encouraging. If, if what I'mtrying to represent is not at
all what you think I'mrepresenting, but I'm not doing
a good job at it, right? So, andthere were, there were people
who were just like, that,drawing is crap, you know, later
when it's not like, when you'renot like, five and just trying
and cute. And so I started, Ididn't learn to draw until, I
(08:50):
don't know, I want to say that'sprobably, it's probably 22
somewhere in there, I don'tknow, but I had, I had
discovered henna, I had gottensome done, and I thought it was
super gorgeous, and I wanted tolearn how to do it. And I was
like, I can't drop her crap,though. How am I gonna do this?
(09:12):
Like, what is happening? But Ireally wanted to learn. So it
was so beautiful. And I waslike, I really want to just be
able to do that. So there was ahenna camp. I signed up because
I really wanted to learn how todo henna. And I was like, I saw
a fucking clue how to draw. So Istarted to teach myself. And
part of it was suspending thatstory and that belief that said
(09:38):
I draw badly or I can't draw andjust learning to
recreate shapes right andrecreate what I saw. So if I
didn't have this story going,Hey, you can't draw that. You
can't draw that. If I looked atsomething and wanted to draw
that, where would I start?What's the thing that stands out
(10:02):
to me that needs to be put downfirst, right? And just try that.
And at first it was a littlerocky start, but eventually,
like I started to get the hangof things, I started to be able
to, you know, do the shapes, dothe animals and things like
that. And now am I like a superprolific artist with my
(10:27):
drawings? No, and that's notwhat I was going for. I wasn't
practicing that hard to be Ijust wanted to be able to draw
well enough that it looked good.And if I put it like if I did it
with henna and put it onsomeone's skin, it would be
cute, and people will be excitedto have it done, right? Did I
achieve that absolutely so now Ican draw, like, really cute
stuff, really cute things,little creatures and penguins
(10:50):
and sharks and all the things,and do a fairly good job of
having people know exactly whatthe creature is. But it didn't
start that way, and it neverwould have happened if I held on
to the I can't draw story,right? Because I would have not
(11:10):
tried for it. I would have,every time I tried, like had
this mudslide of thoughts comingat me that are just like, You're
bad. You can't do this. Youcan't do this right? And
instead, I just chose to go,what if that wasn't the case?
(11:33):
What if, maybe I can draw aplane. Maybe, let's see what
happens. So that willingness tokind of suspend those things and
to unknow what you think youknow, and I want to be clear,
like when I say unknow, and theknowing that I'm talking about
right now, I'm talking about,like the mental, intellectual,
(11:56):
logical knowing. I'm not talkingabout like full body, deep down
in my soul bone, knowing that'sdifferent, that's a different
type of intelligence. And it'snot something that is, it's not
it's less perspective basedright? It's more universal
(12:19):
truth, or what register at thatlevel generally. So that's not
what I'm talking about. I'mtalking about the I'm thinking
it through, and I know itbecause I was taught it, or
because I've witnessed it andseen it play out this way enough
to, quote, unquote, know. Sowhat would happen if you just
(12:42):
are willing to unknow justunknown, how do you now move?
How do you now start? How do younow be? If you just unknow those
limiting stories, If you justunknow that limiting behavior.
(13:08):
What would come up for you. Whatcould you create.
What if you want new so as we transition, a lot of
times, we make things harder forourselves, and part of what
makes it difficult is thatsometimes we're trying to
approach new situations from theknowledge we already have right.
(00:26):
And while that sometimes servesus and is great, sometimes
what's needed and will move usfurther along and let us start
actually taking action, asopposed to being in planning
mode, is to forget what we knowright? And ask ourselves like,
if, if no one told us, if wedidn't have evidence of
(00:49):
something right, what would wedo? Like, how we approach what's
in front of us right now, and weare capable of so much more than
we tend to think we are, and weare capable of so much more than
(01:13):
the old stories will have usbelieve and adhere to. So what
if you just unnew your limits,right? If you just suspended
that reality for a moment anddreamed of a possible
(01:35):
alternative, what does that looklike? What are you doing? How
are you moving? How do you doit? What would you start? Think
of it that way? And I say thisbecause a lot of times we have
(01:58):
expansive knowledge of stuff,right? And we get to a point
where we know it like and I'mtalking like logically know it,
so we don't necessarily go backand look at it from a different
perspective. We don't play withit as easily as someone who's
(02:20):
completely new to it, might playwith it. So if we're trying to
be creative or we're trying tobe innovative, taking that
perspective can help us and alsowhen we find ourselves becoming
things or wanting to do thingsthat previously we thought were
(02:43):
unavailable to us, pausing toask yourself, like, what? What
if it's not unavailable to me?Like, what if no one ever told
me that? What if I was nevershown any evidence of that? What
would I do? Like, how would Iget it? How would I do it? And
(03:05):
move from there? And when youcan learn to do that, first,
you're gonna amaze yourself withsome of the stuff that you can
do. Because you're like, Ohcrap. Like, I remember when I
thought I couldn't do this atall. And like, now I'm rocking
it right, and you're also goingto start to carry that over into
(03:27):
other things in life. So thereare a lot of tools and
techniques and so many thingsthat we work with all the time,
and we're usually brought tothem in a particular way. We're
usually told how to work withthem or shown how to work with
them in a particular way or fora particular purpose, and we
(03:53):
learned it that way. And that'sfine. That's great. Like learn.
I'm all for learning. Andthat's, you know, that's part of
it. And sometimes we need to goback and explore and experiment
and play and like, what if,because a lot of answers are
(04:15):
there, a lot of solutions arethere, and we may not be
recognizing them because we'retoo busy looking at them from
the same perspective that we'vealways known them, right? We're
too busy going, Oh, this thingis for this purpose. So this is
not my purpose. So I'm not evengoing to, like look over here at
(04:35):
this thing, right? So I'll giveyou a couple of examples to help
you understand I'm talkingabout. So when it comes to,
like, tangible, physicalsolutions, right, Product
Solutions, things like that. Iused to go to a lot of
conferences, and they'd be like,multi day conferences, so you're
(04:58):
meeting a ton of people, lots ofbusiness cards being handed out,
right? And the card cases, like,if you didn't have, well, for
me, I have a lot of stuff.Didn't have a lot of stuff in my
bag. So if I didn't have like, acard case, half the cards are
going to be lost just to, like,other things in my bag and get
bit and whatever. But the cardcases that I did find for
(05:22):
business cards were all theselittle fin things that held,
like 10 business cards. And I'mlike, What am I gonna do with 10
business cards at this massiveevent for like, five days with
1000s and 1000s of people? Like,what is happening here? And so I
was like, I need, I needsomething, right? And what I
(05:45):
ended up using, and to this day,like, if I still have to have
actual physical cards to passout at large conferences like
that, I have cigarette cases. Idon't smoke. I have them only to
hold my business cards. Why?Because you can hold a chunk of
them at a time and they fitreally nicely in like a purse or
(06:08):
whatever or pocket. So that'swhat I use. But if I was only
willing to think of based on theuse case of something based on
its prescribed use case, right?It is a cigarette case. It is
for holding cigarettes. It saysit right in the name, right?
Like, cigarette case, I wouldhave not even looked over there,
(06:32):
because I have nothing to dowith cigarettes. Like, that's
not in my purview. So sometimesjust being willing to say, okay,
like, what is it that I actuallyneed, right? And it's just, I
need something hard that is thisparticular size. So what else
might be this size that is alsohard? And that's how I found the
(06:54):
cigarette cases, right? Andthen, as an example of what we
get to do or achieve orexperience, if no one told you,
and if you hadn't gottenmessages that indicate a
(07:17):
particular belief or limitationand yeah, and that limitation
therefore does not exist,because it's never it's not a
thing like you've never had thatinformation. How would you do
the thing? So for me, this wasdrawing. For the longest time, I
thought I had zero artisticability. I was very sad and
(07:41):
bitter about it when I waslittle, because I have, like,
both sides of my family havequite a few creatives in them.
And I was like, the felt likethe only one who didn't have
that. And I was like, Well, howdid I not get passed out
something, right? And when I wasyounger, like, the story was
absolutely I couldn't draw atall bad draw. I, you know, would
(08:05):
draw the picture be super proud,and then someone would say,
like, Oh, that's a cute this.And like, it'd be like, Oh,
that's a cute hamster. And I, inmy mind, had drawn a bear, not a
hamster. So not only like did,so even when people weren't
saying, Oh, this is bad, right?They were still trying to be
(08:27):
encouraging. If, if what I'mtrying to represent is not at
all what you think I'mrepresenting, but I'm not doing
a good job at it, right? So, andthere were, there were people
who were just like, that,drawing is crap, you know, later
when it's not like, when you'renot like, five and just trying
and cute. And so I started, Ididn't learn to draw until, I
(08:50):
don't know, I want to say that'sprobably, it's probably 22
somewhere in there, I don'tknow, but I had, I had
discovered henna, I had gottensome done, and I thought it was
super gorgeous, and I wanted tolearn how to do it. And I was
like, I can't drop her crap,though. How am I gonna do this?
(09:12):
Like, what is happening? But Ireally wanted to learn. So it
was so beautiful. And I waslike, I really want to just be
able to do that. So there was ahenna camp. I signed up because
I really wanted to learn how todo henna. And I was like, I saw
a fucking clue how to draw. So Istarted to teach myself. And
part of it was suspending thatstory and that belief that said
(09:38):
I draw badly or I can't draw andjust learning to
recreate shapes right andrecreate what I saw. So if I
didn't have this story going,Hey, you can't draw that. You
can't draw that. If I looked atsomething and wanted to draw
that, where would I start?What's the thing that stands out
(10:02):
to me that needs to be put downfirst, right? And just try that.
And at first it was a littlerocky start, but eventually,
like I started to get the hangof things, I started to be able
to, you know, do the shapes, dothe animals and things like
that. And now am I like a superprolific artist with my
(10:27):
drawings? No, and that's notwhat I was going for. I wasn't
practicing that hard to be Ijust wanted to be able to draw
well enough that it looked good.And if I put it like if I did it
with henna and put it onsomeone's skin, it would be
cute, and people will be excitedto have it done, right? Did I
achieve that absolutely so now Ican draw, like, really cute
stuff, really cute things,little creatures and penguins
(10:50):
and sharks and all the things,and do a fairly good job of
having people know exactly whatthe creature is. But it didn't
start that way, and it neverwould have happened if I held on
to the I can't draw story,right? Because I would have not
(11:10):
tried for it. I would have,every time I tried, like had
this mudslide of thoughts comingat me that are just like, You're
bad. You can't do this. Youcan't do this right? And
instead, I just chose to go,what if that wasn't the case?
(11:33):
What if, maybe I can draw aplane. Maybe, let's see what
happens. So that willingness tokind of suspend those things and
to unknow what you think youknow, and I want to be clear,
like when I say unknow, and theknowing that I'm talking about
right now, I'm talking about,like the mental, intellectual,
(11:56):
logical knowing. I'm not talkingabout like full body, deep down
in my soul bone, knowing that'sdifferent, that's a different
type of intelligence. And it'snot something that is, it's not
it's less perspective basedright? It's more universal
(12:19):
truth, or what register at thatlevel generally. So that's not
what I'm talking about. I'mtalking about the I'm thinking
it through, and I know itbecause I was taught it, or
because I've witnessed it andseen it play out this way enough
to, quote, unquote, know. Sowhat would happen if you just
(12:42):
are willing to unknow justunknown, how do you now move?
How do you now start? How do younow be? If you just unknow those
limiting stories, If you justunknow that limiting behavior.
(13:08):
What would come up for you. Whatcould you create.
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