Courtney Cries A Lot

This week I realized that I avoid feeling a sense of longing, or when I feel it, I judge it. I long for more connection, belonging, adventure, meaningful work, a life that feels aligned. And unknowingly, I'd attached shame to longing. Like if I long for something, it must mean there's something wrong with me that I don't already have it.

In this episode, I talk about what Joe Hudson calls the "golden algorithm" - how the feelings we avoid often become the very experiences we keep inviting. I share how I noticed my sense of longing and what happened when I made space to connect with it and feel it. Spoiler alert: the actual feeling of the feeling is never as bad as the idea of feeling it. It actually just feels like a relief.

Joe Hudson podcast about the Golden Algorithm

In this episode, I talk about how one of the main things coming up for me as I'm on summer break is: what kind of leader do I want to be to myself? I have wide open space right now, a lot more time on my hands than I'm used to. Do I want to constantly make to-do lists, manage, evaluate, and try to earn my own approval… or can I be intentional about connecting with myself and making enjoyment the main objective?

I talk about how how I've noticed the ways that I numb out, procrastinate, or feel disconnected from my creativity, and how those behaviors actually make a lot of sense when I realize I'm still kind of relating to myself from a place of evaluation and pressure.

I have so much more fun when I'm enjoying the way I do things. But I can't force myself to enjoy things. If I'm not naturally enjoying, there's usually some resistance or pressure that needs to release first. Some emotional experience to feel into and honor. Then, the levity naturally returns.

When you try to manage yourself and your experience, it breeds more tension. When you connect with and attune to yourself, who you are at your core feels supported and it's easier to just BE. To just be instead of feel yourself trying to perform or contort or become something else. Anyway, thank you for listening

This week I had an experience that surprised me. I felt genuine joy from a great workout - one in which I sprinted as fast as I could, which I haven't done in years. And then I let myself fully feel the joy that came up - not analyze it, not brace for it to disappear, not immediately jump to what could go wrong next. Just felt the joy. I sat with it in my car and let it bubble up and radiate glitter and sparkles and a Lisa Frank aesthetic.

Somewhere along the way, I had unconsciously built a protective wall around feeling too happy because I was afraid of being disappointed, losing it, or getting crushed again. I've become much more practiced at welcoming grief, sadness, and fear - which has helped me soften tremendously. And now I'm ready to reconnect to the part of me who gets gleeful and giddy without judging herself. I've missed her. In this episode, I talk about reconnecting to that part of myself.

If I want to experience more of what I want in life, I can't resist joy anymore. I can't tense against feeling too much of it. Only feeling it for a minute and then saying "ok time to button back up because when the next bad thing happens, I'm gonna feel like a fool for feeling so joyful." If I want to be receptive to more of what I want in life, I gotta be receptive to feeling really good. Sparkly even.

References: Joe Hudson YouTube Channel

In this episode, I'm sharing what I've been learning about participation and belonging. I think on some level my formative years, and especially my high school years, taught me that belonging is something that you earn by playing your cards right.

Because I'm practicing being more open and saying yes more often to what life is bringing my way, I'm noticing that belonging is very basic. It's just showing up. As yourself. Not performing, just being. Insecurities and all.

I talk about the self-protective way that I sometimes go into new situations already assuming I don't belong. Already walking on eggshells, observing and just trying to be cool. And how guarded that makes me feel. As I'm stepping out of survival mode mentality and letting my world open up again, the practice is: the scared parts don't get to drive. Just buckle them into the car and say "you're coming with!". Show up, even if you're weird. Don't try to control how you're being perceived, just let yourself experience what's in front of you. That showing up even though you're unsure what to expect and letting yourself feel like a beginner at things - that alone makes you cool.

That's my pep talk to myself. Can you tell I'm coming out of a difficult time lol.

In this episode, I share one of the biggest insights from my 30-day experiment around receptivity, aliveness, and learning to relate to myself differently. I've observed that when we get used to living in survival mode, we also get used to choosing self-protection (and self-preservation) over participation. We ask questions like "what can I do today to spend the least amount of my energy and just make it through the day?" instead of "what feels like a fun way to participatie in the world today?"

It's easy to grow accustomed to an unconcious pattern where you're waiting for all the right conditions to arrive - the right opportunity, the right relationship, the right amount of money, the right something - before you allow yourself to participate with life differently, in a way that would support your aliveness.

I talk about the metaphor of a bird in a cage, how frequency precedes form, and how I'm learning to cultivate the feelings I'm longing for - creativity, spaciousness, adventure, empowerment, and aliveness - without waiting for life to hand them to me first.

I love how when we set an intention around something, life shows us the reasons that thing is difficult for us in the first place. I set an intention around being more receptive, and life was like "alright, look here - this is why it's hard for you to stay open and trusting".

This last week I was able to observe a part of me that I had been grouping into the "inner critic" category, but she's more than just a critic. She's a prosecutor. She believes I'm NOT good enough, and I can't just relax and let my guards down, and she's always building a case and gathering evidence for why that's true. Her evidence is strong and convincing, but like all prosecutors, she's designed to build a biased case, not to present the whole picture.

One trigger, one fearful thought, one hard day, and if I'm tired or PMSing, this inner prosecutor can convince me that nothing has changed and all the evidence points to *not good enough*.

When this part of me gets loud, it's been hard for me not to believe her because her evidence is all true. It's just not the whole picture. She leaves out all my growth, all my progress, all the things that show I'm lovable and deserving and good enough as I am.

In this episode, I share why I was finally able to see this pattern so clearly, and how this prosecutor part isn't something to try to get rid of - just a part of me who needs to be understood and observed without judgment.

I also talk about how I've been binging Couples Therapy, what I've learned from the way Orna sets boundaries, and how I'm applying that to myself when it comes to eating processed sugar and spending too much time on my phone (two other things that deaden my receptivity).

In this episode, I talk about my realization that I've spent most of my life relating to myself through constant evaluation and moral judgment. How my fear of being "bad" has shaped my nervous system and the ways that I've tried to push/motivate myself.

This is why I love the concept of surrender and find it to be so healing to orient myself to it. Not surrender as in being passive, but as being open and receptive and remembering that it's not all on my shoulders to figure everything out in life. I feel like the best things in my life have come through me being open and riding with the flow of life instead of trying to control things.

Obviously when you're constantly judging and evaluating yourself, it's hard to stay receptive and open. I started a 30 day experiment to be more intentional about NOT relating to myself through such a moralistic lens. To not relate to myself like something that needs to be fixed or improved all the time. My intention is to relate to myself like someone who is ALREADY unconditionally loved and valuable and deserving... instead of as someone who I need to MAKE lovable or valuable by whichever actions or choices I make throughout the day.

So this episode is about this intention, this experiment, why I'm doing it, what's come up in the first few days, and how it's been really helpful so far.

In this episode, I talk about how my understanding of spirituality and manifestation has changed over the years — from believing I had to fix myself, improve myself, or earn what I wanted… to slowly experimenting with the possibility that maybe I'm already worthy of receiving love, support, abundance, and a beautiful life as I am. I share how this shift has been so helpful for my nervous system, my relationship with myself, and my overall sense of receptivity.

In this week's episode I talk a little about the astrology and emotional intensity of the past week, a nighttime heart-opening practice I've been doing lately, and then I answer 16 random questions ranging from deep to not deep at all. Like small things bringing me joy lately aka my spa headband (which I used to roll my eyes at the idea of bc all the influencers wear them) that actually makes me look forward to getting ready for bed and has added whimsical value to my life.

So if you want to just hang out with me for a bit and hear me answer random questions, come on in 🦦

I've been noticing how much better I feel lately from podcasting consistently and doing more things just because I genuinely WANT to do them.. not because I have to.

I know how obvious that sounds but you may remember from recent episodes that I'm coming out of a pretty intense period of survival mode energy - the kind where you forget what it feels like to do something you love. And even the things you love to do sound so exhausting that you have to dragggg yourself to do them. Survival mode makes you feel like you're just reacting to life as best as you can all the time, but not really living, and definitely not creating.

In this episode I talk about how being creative is life-giving. Again, duh. But that's what I'm re-learning these days. That when I do things like go on a long walk, cook dinner for myself, or read a book just for fun… it feels like something in me is softening, opening, and coming alive again.

This one is about the shift I'm feeling from living in so much "I have to" energy into "I want to, and I'm choosing this for myself because I love how it makes me feel". When pressure drops, creativity rises.

I also talk about Noah Kahan and Taylor Swift because they were both talking to me last week (in his documentary and her NYT interview) about creativity, songwriting, and other interesting tings.