The Fully Expressed Podcast

Full Transcript0:00:00 – Speaker 1
So welcome to the Fully Expressed podcast with Karenna. I’m so excited for today because I’m bringing one of the most vibrant, grounded women to the show. She is a fairy godmother for women, breaking patterns of performing perfectionism and people pleasing in their bedrooms, businesses and lives. I’d like to introduce you to Hannah Deindorfer. I’m so excited that you’re here.
0:00:26 – Speaker 2
Me too. I’m so excited that we’re getting to have this conversation.
0:00:31 – Speaker 1
Yeah, thank you so much For everyone listening. I just want to give you a little background of like when I met Hannah. Like when I first met you I’m not gonna lie like you can just tell that you were like powerful in the room, but then also like here and I met Hannah in the Phoenix path when we did our somatic certification. What was it like a year ago now, maybe? No, about a year yeah, it’s crazy how time flies by. That was like a six to seven-ish because we had a month break like program and it just flew by.
But like truly getting to know you in that program, I was like every time you spoke, I was like I resonate with this girl so much.
I was like so grateful that you were sharing and like so expressive about your experience because it also helped me like just connect with you in that way and be like I feel that like that hits too, like I resonate with that.
So that was my experience. And then just following you online like you just also come off so expressive. So you I think you’re a great representation, at least for me on this side of the screen and from getting to know you, like who you are in your real life is who you show up online and I value that so much because it’s just really great example of someone truly honoring and being in their essence, like in their fullest expression through and through, and I mean that is a journey in itself and I’d love to hear about that, obviously on today’s episode. But you can just see that you embody that. I just can’t wait to continue to witness you like evolve and express yourself into, like where you’re going. But I just got to say like kudos to you because, like, at least for someone that’s experiencing you, that’s what it feels like.
0:02:10 – Speaker 2
Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate that because I feel true to who I am online in person, like nothing that I share is, can’t share things that are inauthentic to me. It just in my body. I can’t feel it. So to hear that it resonates on the other side, the way that it feel to me, is really important. It feels really good.
0:02:32 – Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know if it was like this for you, but, like when I first started showing up online, I did try to show up like how it was, like I wanted to show up, like how other people were showing up. In a way, I was like, well, it looks like it’s working for them, like maybe I should try this thing for them. It always felt so icky, it always felt so stretchy, it always felt like why is this being forceful? And then, you know, once it kind of shifted and I would love to hear your experience like once it shifted, it was like oh, this is just me. You know, it was like almost exhausting to try and show up another way, like and show up in ways that I thought people would accept, love, want, you know, resonate with, connect with whatever, like putting myself in, like what do they want? Versus, like who am I? Was it like that for you at all?
0:03:16 – Speaker 2
I think in the beginning because I started from this place, I just want to share information, I want to share these spiritual things that I’m learning about At the beginning it felt very authentic. I was like here’s my lifting videos and here is the picture of what I ate today and here’s like this book that I’m reading, and it felt very real and authentic. And then I definitely took a turn into performing, but for me, that actually always kind of felt authentic to me too, like, I think, because I’ve spent so much time in my life in a performative state that it was like oh yeah, I know how to do this, I know how to mold myself, to make myself likable. It didn’t feel like in the moment that it was exhausting or draining, but over time it built up, like I didn’t realize it in the moment that I was creating a persona that didn’t resonate with me, but eventually it got to a place where it felt like what I was talking about I didn’t care about it.
0:04:18 – Speaker 1
What did like performing feel to you? Like I’m so curious, like if even before you were aware of it, like what was like the day to day, like if you were to like step into like that chameleon or like I can show up, I can do this, like what did that actually feel to you in like the moment?
0:04:33 – Speaker 2
Well, it actually reminds me of so. I used to perform piano and I also used to play a lot of sports, and so it felt similarly, in that I’m like, okay, I got to turn it on, I got to step on the stage, I got to shift into the other version of myself that I know how to do this and pretend to have it all together. Like in that phase of performing on a stage, playing an instrument or performing on a court, there is like a different gear that starts to happen and it’s like all of the self-doubt and the insecurity. It just it’s put all in the background because I can’t let my weakness show.
0:05:19 – Speaker 1
Like, as you’re talking and I know if you won’t be able to see this on video, but I can just see you like, want to like step into this like character, or this arming, or like this, like this piece of clothing that you’re putting on, like this is what it is right Like. I’m showing up as this.
0:05:32 – Speaker 2
It is an armor. Right, it is like I’m preparing for battle. There’s an armoring that happens. The mask, it’s a cloak, it’s something that is protective so that I don’t have to show really a lot of vulnerability. And the teaching persona that I had online for a long time with another level is that cloaking. I could be smart, I could be a teacher, and that was another way to hide really how I felt or what was true vulnerability for me. I would show bits and pieces of my story and I’d be like, oh, that’s vulnerable, but it wasn’t like in a moment vulnerability of like, oh, I’m dealing with this thing, or this is going on for me, or this is what I really think right now, or feel there was this like teacher persona. That was another kind of armoring for myself.
0:06:18 – Speaker 1
Wow, I can definitely relate to that a little bit. I’m curious what was the process like? Just like going from like noticing that you were doing this, right, at one point you became aware that you were turning on this performer persona, right, there’s like armor, that you were stepping in and like you were kind of leaving parts of you behind, the vulnerability or the insecurities or whatever else was behind One, how did you recognize that that was happening? And two, what was the process of like the undoing or like the shedding of the layers to work through them and integrate it back into your life? You know what I mean Like work through and do and come back, yeah, it?
0:06:55 – Speaker 2
was it actually like what happened externally? I didn’t really realize, I think, the extent to which I was putting on a persona externally, but when I started discovering my sexuality and really connecting to my emotions and my body, how I was showing up just changed as a result of that. It was like because I started to really be in tune with my emotions and what my body wanted and what it felt, and I tore down so much of my life as a result of discovering that I wasn’t happy and what I had created. It just started flowing on to my online space more easily because I realized what I was doing behind. This wasn’t like I’m like, oh, I’m doing this persona teacher thing online. Let me change that. It was like, oh, wow, I’m like not happy in my life, let me end my relationship. Let me discover my sexuality, let me reconnect to my body, let me do a bunch more therapy, and that changed how I showed up online just a byproduct, really, not as an intention.
0:08:06 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean it seems like it’s a byproduct, obviously, because it’s sometimes here and like it became more of your essence, your being as you did. I’d love for you to share a little bit more about what it was or what opened the doors for you like want to explore your sexuality or like what did that even look like? The opportunity come to you where you always like interested in like exploring your sexuality? Was it like someone was like, hey, I have this thing. Do you want to join? Like I’d love to hear what the door was for you. All right, my love, I’m jumping in here real quick to tell you about the fully expressed community, because the women that are in this group are phenomenal and if you’re listening to this and you’re a lady, a female, or know someone that is female or lady that is on this path of growth and wanting to continue to evolve as a human being and find their fullest authentic expression in their relationships, in their life and their business and relationships, surrounded by a community of women that are dedicated to doing the work themselves, I want you in this community, I want to invite you into this community. I really think that being surrounded by other women that are on the same path that just get you, that just totally understand where you’re coming from or where you’re going or where you want to go and wherever that path is such a safe space for you to be held in. That and encouraged in. That is so important for our healing. If you find yourself feeling an ounce or a sprinkle of anxiety or overwhelmed or just uneasiness with the thought of being in a great container, about talking about very vulnerable things, I just want to encourage you and remind you that I totally understand, I totally get it. It can be edgy, it can be scary to open yourself in that way, but in doing so, you end up creating so much more healing. I’ve had some of the biggest breakthroughs being in containers that can hold me and being surrounded by other women that are also on this path, because I feel like I’m seen and understood, and so I truly want to invite you into giving it a chance.
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0:11:43 – Speaker 2
So I had a lot of sexual trauma. My first sexual experience was non consensual. My first intimate relationship was a three year very abusive situation. And then I, through college, was very dissociated from my body and so I use that for validation and get attention and approval, and so I had never really had sex in a way that was for me, and so I had been in a about a three year relationship. At the turn, at my turning point, of bisexuality.
In that relationship my partner God bless them with, like I want you to be more sexy, like I want you to feel feminine, like I want that for you, I want you to feel more powerful, like I want you to feel into that part of you. And I was so defensive about it. Yeah, I got really upset about it. I ignored it, I didn’t want to talk about it. I think I bought a couple skirts, one point and then we took a class together through the landmark school of classes they have these seminars and we did the sex management seminar together and I started revealing oh wow, I have a lot of stories, but I have a lot of ways that I’m an authentic and sex and started to open it up that way. And then he suggested that we do this Tantra and BDSM course together and we bought the program and then we broke up because we were like so it was, the sex was really not getting better. We were just in a really top place in our relationship and right and ended the relationship, but that interest was there.
I also had made a couple friends here and often that were very sex positive and they had opened up some conversations for me.
And so after I left that relationship I was like this is a huge part of me that I just haven’t explored. And at the same time I met a DOM, a dominant person, and he and I started a sexual relationship that was very King heavy. He taught me a lot about kink and about BDSM and all of the protocol around it, with discussions leading up to it and after care and safe words and all of these things that made me feel so free for the first time in sex and like that my voice mattered and that my desires mattered and that with him I could say the craziest thing, like I say I want to have sex in the middle of the park and I want a million people to watch, and he would be like great, like that’s amazing, like how can we make that happen? But like that’s like an extreme example, but like anything I would say he would be so encouraging and that really kicked off my deepening of my relationship to my sexuality and the encouraging piece that you’re talking to.
0:14:38 – Speaker 1
I’ve definitely experienced that in my relationship and for me it was like so healing was it? And it was just something that I was like wait, you’re okay with this? What Like? Really Like, you want the messiest parts of me, what you want more of that? That’s so cool. And it was almost like inviting, in a sense of how do I say like, oh, I can give myself permission to love these parts too? Like, if he loves these parts of me too, you know, like, oh, I can now, like I am accepting of this, in a way, like it was a blessing that they were so encouraging in that moment.
Yeah you use so many words like BDSM, b-ink and Contra and I would love for you to share like yeah or those words, and what does that mean?
0:15:20 – Speaker 2
For sure, yeah, yeah, okay, a little vocab lesson here.
0:15:25 – Speaker 1
I mean, it’s hard to not assume what they are, but I’d love to hear your perspective.
0:15:30 – Speaker 2
Totally, because people who are listening may have their own preconceived notions about what kink is. I know, when I started like what I thought was kink was you know the movie Pulp Fiction. No, there’s this scene in this movie where there’s this like dungeon place and there’s like this male gimp and he’s he’s like a. He’s wearing a little gimp mask and his whole body’s covered in leather and he’s like the sex slave. That’s what I thought the kink was. I thought it was the most extreme thing where, like, you’re covered in leather and you’re being beat up and you’re tied up and chained up and it’s like this crazy extreme thing.
0:16:07 – Speaker 1
I agree, that’s exactly what I had in Mission 2. Like when we’re like it’s almost like scary, like there’s like this fear, like this, like scary image of it, of like being like threatening or being too dark or like whatever at the beginning. So I’d love for you to like feel that for sure, which it totally can be Like that is.
0:16:26 – Speaker 2
That is kink. That is one expression of what kink can be. It can be pain, it can be inflicting pain, it can be receiving pain, it can be being covered in leather and being a step stool. It can be all of those things. But my favorite definition of kink is one from Dossi Egan, who wrote a couple books about a guide to submission and a guide to dominance. She called kink gorme sex, which I love.
0:16:54 – Speaker 1
That sounds so yummy. I want gorme sex. I want it. I want a dive into the plate of sex. That sounds like that Exactly it’s more inviting.
0:17:06 – Speaker 2
It’s a more inviting definition and to expand on that a little more, I think kink. To me it represents anything that someone feels is a little taboo, a little naughty. Vanilla sex is anything that feels like it’s socially acceptable. Sex like the kind of sex that you see in movie. Most movies and TV shows very traditional kind of sex, hetero, male, female penetration, stuff like that. And then kink is anything that feels like it’s outside of that. It’s a little bit outside of the norm and taboo is different for everyone. So for some people taboo is having sex with the lights on. For some people taboo is being restrained and being pleasure at the same time, and then for some people it’s being covered in leather and being a sex slave. Like there’s such a range and what you deem as taboo is super personal. It’s anything that makes your little heart go oh, that’s maybe the kind of bad like. Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.
0:18:11 – Speaker 1
This is a little spicy, like a little spicy, yeah, and it almost like you, yeah, like stretches your edges a little bit. You’re like, oh, I haven’t done that before, but like I kind of like it. It’s like uncomfortable, but I kind of like it at the same time. That is kink, that is for sure, taboo.
I love that you said that, because it really represents almost a spectrum and it gives permission to be for anyone, however they are in expression and themselves sexually, whatever feels good for them. They get to be anywhere on that spectrum and that’s okay, right. There’s no, totally it’s quote unquote wrong for you to step in and want this X, y, z. It’s like, at the end of the day, if it’s on that spectrum for you or if it’s in that level of expression or in that edginess, that feels like a little stretchy but you kind of like it and you like think about it and you like want to step into it, like that’s here too and that’s available to you too, would you? Is that agree? Would you agree?
0:18:59 – Speaker 2
100%, yeah, like I love making kink feel more accessible because it’s also a space where your shadows can come out and play. It’s a really beautiful way I’ve found to do shadow work, to be able to bring forth parts of you that are shrouded in shame or repression or that you think aren’t good enough or are bad, and in kink all of that is celebrated. It’s in the sexual space where you can be anything that you want to be. You can play any role. If you’re very submissive and quiet and shy in your everyday life, you can step into this dominant energy in a place based in a kink space. If you feel the opposite, if you’re very dominant and controlling and you know you’re very responsible in your everyday life, you can take on that opposite side. You can be submissive, you can be owned, you can be gentle.
You can be shy in a kink space and it’s all on the table.
0:20:00 – Speaker 1
It’s all welcomed Something I’m so curious to hear your opinion on because, as you were talking about, just like dominant, submissive, like I think the traditional thing for someone to hear about is like the male or more masculine energy in the room is going to be more dominant or are, on the other end, someone more feminine, more submissive, more vulnerable, more softness like that, I mean, can you describe? Is it possible? I’m just gonna throw out an example Like is it possible for someone to bounce back and forth Like is it like you can step into a more dom space if you are someone that more is more submissive, or you don’t, if you are a male that’s usually dom and off on the outside like you can step into a more submissive role? Is that?
0:20:34 – Speaker 2
100%.
0:20:35 – Speaker 1
Yeah, okay cool, I think people just automatically think like, oh, only doms are, like only males are doms, and like they are only going to be the one that are going to be the powerful one in the room and that’s where we’re going to be, and all women have to be submissive and like anything that men want, and I think just wanting to break that a little bit, because that’s not fair to say, you know totally no, actually, when I first started my kink journey I was very submissive.
0:20:59 – Speaker 2
I played into that space a lot where I was letting go of control. I was letting my partner take the lead. I like the leader follower terminology too, for it like a dominant is leader and the submissive is the follower. The further along I’ve gotten in my journey, the more I’ve loved being in a dominant position, because it lights up again the part of me that is so different than even what I express in my everyday life, like I’m not that bossy in my everyday life, like I’m a coach, I’m a leader, but like it’s a very different than being telling my partner to get on his knees. Yeah, totally different.
0:21:38 – Speaker 1
For sure, and you and I had talked a little bit about, like that people pleasing tendencies, yeah, that I think you’ve also had to work through other people. Have I worked through that show up at all? Like, while you’ve been like stepping into this, like more of like in control role, like how, what was that process like for you? Yeah, because if I, I mean, I’d love to hear your perspective, but for me too, like for the most part, like showing up in the bedroom, I always thought I’d do anything that he wanted, right, like it was always like what can I do to make him happy? I want to make sure that they’re taken care of, like all those things, and I never, ever thought about putting myself first. But when I hear you step into this, like I want to be more of a controlling one, I want to tell my partner all these things, more of that dom, more energy. For someone that is resonates with being a people, please, around this side of the microphone of this show, like that seems a little edgy for me.
0:22:26 – Speaker 2
Like telling them what I want, you know, like saying sit down, hugely edgy, because you know, I think that generally women who are more, who tend to be more people I think this is, I guess, men too we lean towards caring for others, we lean towards caring for our partners, and in the bedroom that can show up as submissive. It can also show up as a martyr, where you’re not getting your pleasure but you’re always giving and giving and not really receiving anything. Or it can show up as feeling very uncomfortable to ask for what you want and to receive. And so when I started discovering my sexuality and really diving into it, it heals so much of my people pleasing because I learned in the bedroom how to ask specifically for what I wanted, which in that very intimate space, is like a huge challenge, right Like that’s when you’re naked, you’re like totally exposed and vulnerable.
If you can ask for what you want in that space, you can do it anywhere. If you can set boundaries and sex when there’s like that pressure there, you can do it anywhere. And then the next level of that was being dominant in the bedroom space, because then, all of a sudden, all of the decisions were on me. I could decide how I wanted my partner to sit or stand or lay, and how I wanted the whole thing to go and when. I wanted him to please me and orchestrate the whole event to match my desires. And you can definitely do that from the submissive side. But there is a totally new level of confidence that comes from being in that role and deciding, making every choice about how the experience goes, but based on your own desires.
0:24:18 – Speaker 1
Yeah, how does it feel to say that? I’m just so curious, like, as you’re saying that, like, how does that feel for you?
0:24:23 – Speaker 2
Well, I don’t think I’ve ever said that like that, like something that I thought about recently, but the way that I don’t think I’ve ever said it quite like that or it was so, quite that conclusion.
0:24:36 – Speaker 1
It was so beautifully said and like the part that like really stood out to like just being like so raw and open and naked and like asking for what you want, and that like that moment, like I think about that even outside the bedroom, like when you’re working through hard conversations and relationships or you’re just going through a really hard time and you’re like the lowest lows, right, and like inviting someone in to see you like raw and naked in the messiness and then having that okay of like, oh, I can, I can ask also for what I need in this moment. I can ask for what I want in this moment. Whoa, and you know that’s like I just have chills even thinking about that, because that, to me, has been super healing and just the fact that you just tied it all in with the bedroom to I mean, it’s just so beautiful.
0:25:17 – Speaker 2
It’s so amazing, it’s like most powerful word for people pleasers is just that those first prize, the first attempt at saying, oh, can I please have this like would it be okay if maybe I could have a hug right now, Could you please just listen to what I have to say? Or like like those little risks, like like I like to think of it in that way that you are, every time you asked for something or make a request that’s vulnerable, you’re really taking a risk because it could be rejected, it could be taken the wrong way, it could be, you know, yeah, receive poorly or reflect on you in a way like you’re already judging yourself for being mean or being a burden or whatever other stories having needs mean to you. And so when you take that, those first initial risks and those little baby steps that build so much confidence when it’s received, well, you know people actually like when you’re very specific about what you want.
0:26:17 – Speaker 1
Oh, and it creates so much trust and relationship to, I mean, person like I’ve just experienced.
Like, oh, like I’m asking you for what I want and you know what I can want, like I have this perfect example.
It just came to mind, like I was on the phone with a friend.
I was like I can really be here to support you and she’s like no, but I want to take advantage of you. And I was like wow, like I just heard that she doesn’t trust my word because I don’t know how to like trust my capacity, right. So, like, at the end of the day, to reassure her, I was like no, like I promise you, like I’m giving you capacity and I will also say I’m not going to give you that I don’t have the right to give you, that I don’t have the right capacity to be able to support you. And I’ve had to build that muscle. Versus being on the other side of the people pleaser, I can totally tell how, like they’re not trusting of my word because I’m not honoring what I truly want or need, that moment, versus once you step into, like that, like oh, I, I know what I want, know what I need, and people would be like yeah, that’s what she wants. I’m like I’m not going to give you the full body.
0:27:13 – Speaker 2
Yes, there you know absolutely like your yes is not trustworthy unless you’re solid in your know Exactly I want everyone just to hear that because it’s so freakin powerful.
0:27:24 – Speaker 1
And I now I so like. I think once I shifted for like I’m not honoring and working that through myself like now I love it when people say no to me, I’m like, okay, cool, I’m here for that, like there’s really nothing. I would be saying no, like I want you to honor your nose. I’m cool with that because and I know every time you say yes, it’s a full, like it’s a yes, right, you really mean it. Yeah, like you really mean it, like you’re really here.
0:27:47 – Speaker 2
And I think something really funny the other day about like Europeans coming to America and being really confused about what’s actually good here, because Americans are always like, oh, that’s so awesome, it’s so amazing, it’s so perfect, it’s like the best thing ever so good, and they say that about everything. And so there’s no, there’s no discernment there, and it’s similar to if you say yes to everything, you’re like that’s fine, that’s good, all that’s the line. Where’s the boundary? There’s no way to tell if that’s trustworthy.
0:28:19 – Speaker 1
Totally. I totally agree with you, and you mentioned a word discernment. Can you talk a little bit more about what discernment means? Because I think, as you go through this healing journey at least personally for me, like I’ve realized like discernment has really become like the biggest tool that you can get to know what’s for me and what’s not for me, or listening to what is applyable, what is on a pliable at the right time for me. Because when it comes to this healing journey, you could hear all these ways of doing things and I think people get can get overwhelmed with all these ways of doing things, but you do also have to try the things to experience of their things that work for you, but eventually getting to a place where you know when it applies and when it’s a yes and when it’s a no, and being your own person to guide you, and this like healing journey in this life of expression. So I’d love to hear what your perspective is when it comes to discernment.
0:29:07 – Speaker 2
So I see discernment similarly to knowing where your boundaries are and the way the metaphor that I like to use with my clients for this is imagine you just start off in this dark room and you can’t see where the walls are, but all the walls are covered with spikes. So you want to walk carefully and slowly around the room to figure out where the walls are. You and you reach out a hand, hurt a little bit, but you touch it and you’re like, oh, okay, that’s, that’s the wall, that’s where the boundary is, that’s I don’t want to, don’t want to go there anymore. You don’t want to like run full out in any direction, because then you’re gonna end up with a face full of spikes, you’re gonna get really hurt, and so it’s a discernment.
Similar way, like the older you get, the more slowly and carefully you’re walking around the room. You’re not running headfirst in any direction. You’re like, okay, I know there’s, probably at some point I’m gonna touch a wall, like I’m gonna hit the spikes. I’m gonna figure out where my boundary here is. I’m gonna figure out that this, this direction, is a no for me, and maybe in some directions the walls really, really far away and that’s a direction you want to walk for a while, but the yeah, like I said, the older you get, I think, the more you develop that ability to pace yourself in those directions and to know, okay, there’s walls over here and the room becomes more illuminated the more experiences you have.
0:30:32 – Speaker 1
Totally. Do you think boundaries can evolve and change and change 100%?
0:30:39 – Speaker 2
100% Because, like, I think of this similarly to consent, and in my world, in the sex world, consent is 100% revocable at any time. Like you can say, I’m a yes to this in this moment, five minutes passive, you’re in for it. It’s revocable. New boundaries created. That boundary didn’t exist before. Or you know, you start in a relationship and you’re very monogamous and you’re like, oh, I only want to be with this person for the rest of my life. And then you get 10 years into the relationship and you’re like, well, maybe we could go to a sex party.
There’s a different boundary, there’s a boundary shift that happens there, and I think boundaries change with our energy levels or capacity, how much leak we’ve gotten in a specific day. They change with our mood, they change with our life circumstances. They change moment to moment what a boundary is for us, and so we require more work generally to be someone that’s on the lookout for when new boundaries pop up, instead of creating blanket statements Okay, I’m always going to be this or I’m always going to be this. But I think it’s a more creative way to live to always be in communication with where are my boundaries in this? Okay, let me try this and then figure it out.
0:31:54 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it gives you a lot more play, like you can just tell from your energies, like a lot more playful, it’s a lot more flowy, it’s a lot more like well, we can just be with what’s available right now, right here, like it’s not like a forever. And I think it’s such a good reminder for me as I’m listening to you because, too, like I had to navigate what’s it called, like I’d be like, well, I promise I would always show up. You know, when I was younger and I’d make these like really hard statements of like this is how I am, this is who I be, and blah, blah, blah.
And really really having to A undo a lot of that for myself and give myself permission to like, oh, I don’t always have to be showing up or I don’t always have to keep XYZ or whatever it was that I was like keeping myself committed to and allowing my commitment to be more flowy, or like honoring my capacity, like you were talking to, or like my boundaries at this point in this season my life, because I mean, obviously we’re all over the place, but just giving myself that flexibility to be like it’s okay to say yes today and no tomorrow, you know, like there’s I don’t have to say yes all the time, but the same thing every time, and that was just such a fresh of breath air because I felt with like every yes that I committed to.
It was like, oh my God, there’s so much energy that makes me feel like I have to keep up with this commitment or the statement that I made, or this promise, or whatever Either I made in my life or relationships or even business. That’s been a whole nother thing like navigating my own evolution there, but getting a little bit more yeah, I guess just more flexible and adaptable to my state versus being like this is it is all that it can be because then by doing that, I end up putting myself in a box and then a box feels like I’m getting stuck and then a box feels like awful.
0:33:37 – Speaker 2
Yes, totally. I mean I think, like a lot of the women that I work with, fall into the categories of like either high achieving or perfectionist, or people pleaser. And these people have a tendency of this over commitment thing or also being really hard on themselves when they say I’m going to do something, I have to do it 100% or I have to do it all the way, and so there’s so much courage and healing and people like that for being able to change your mind and quit something that’s not working for you anymore or change the nature of a relationship which two people pleaser, that’s like, oh my God, death, death. And this is, I feel it.
Yeah, because it’s like, oh fuck, I’ve spent so much time building this relationship where all that I do is give here, they expect that of me, they expect that I don’t have boundaries. This happens with parents a lot. I expect my parents expect, expect that I’ll just answer the phone for them all the time, or they expect they can just butt into my life or like make decisions for me, or blah, blah, blah, blah. And so setting boundaries and changing the nature of a relationship when you’ve historically been a pleaser or a giver in that relationship can be extremely challenging because you’re breaking this unspoken contract that you have with them and people will get upset about that typically.
0:35:04 – Speaker 1
You just said the word unspoken contract. Can you expand a little bit more on that, for sure? Yeah, I’m just going to pull that a little bit because people don’t realize there’s a lot of unspoken contracts or unspoken agreements.
0:35:17 – Speaker 2
that, oh my god, yeah, I mean, we make these little deals with people that when we are in relationship with them, it’s like, okay, I’m always going to act this way and you’re always going to act this way, and this is how we relate to each other and we form these habits and patterns in relationship where, you know, with some people you show up one way and they show up that way, and then with another person, you show up this way and then they show up in their specific way, and so with each person we build over time these little grooves and patterns of our relationship dynamic and we expect that they’re going to keep acting the way they’re acting and I’m going to keep acting the way that I’m acting, forever and always going to have the same relationship.
0:36:05 – Speaker 1
What does that do to relationship?
0:36:07 – Speaker 2
Oh my god, what it does, what it does eventually to well. I’ll say this because some relationships can withstand that. Yeah, in some relationships that works, and in other relationships, typically like people change, people grow, their life circumstances change, who they are, what they want changes, and so when that happens, it changes the dynamic of the relationship and so the relationship requires a renegotiation. Okay, now that I’m this way, how are you here? And I’ll give an example of this.
Like this happened in a friendship of mine Last year, a couple years ago, where I got at the end of one of my romantic relationships. My friend was also getting out of one of her romantic relationships and so we really deeply bonded over this experience. We both just ended these traumatic relationships and we’re like, oh my gosh, we have each other and it was amazing, but we can’t be became very codependent. We were with each other all the time, hanging out all day, just constantly with each other, supporting each other. For all of a summer we were in this crew and then we both got boyfriends almost at the same time and it changed the nature of our relationship and I, both of us.
There was a lot of tension that was going on and I felt like, oh my gosh, you’re spending so much time with your boyfriend, you don’t care about me anymore. Like all of that wounding came up and she was like You’re being too needy, why do you always want to hang out with me? Still, blah, blah, blah. And all of that happened because we had this unspoken agreement that we were going to be best friends. That hung out every day forever, and then when that changed, it was hurtful for both of us in a different way, and so that is. It’s hard on a relationship to navigate that challenge, but I don’t trust any relationship that hasn’t been to the brink of annihilation.
And if it survives that shift and that change and both parties can adapt and become who they are and then meet each other in a new place.
0:38:16 – Speaker 1
That is real intimacy, in my opinion, totally, and I feel like it also keeps the relationship like really alive in like different ways. It sparks up newness and especially for, like you know, people in relationship will start with a new partnership, like, oh, this is so exciting and like I’m so in love, and it’s like, oh, my gosh, every number, amount, everything is just like going off the walls and you’re like I so want to be around this person. But I really think, like encouraging the change, encouraging us to evolve and adapt, actually can also keep us very much alive in the relationship. It’s, like you know, really leaning into those harder conversations about like hey, this is how I showed up, but I really want to show up like this now, or like this is really inviting to me. I want to lean into this space for, or I want to, I want to do this more, like I’m encouraging that and you know, I think, yes, like you said, some relationships really thrive in a more what’s the right word, I don’t want to say stagnant, but, like you know, very much more consistent relationship and and that’s that’s there for them too, and I’m never going to say that that’s wrong.
But I’m also saying, like the the encouragement of our own evolution also allows a relationship to evolve and its own evolution and can take us to deeper parts of us, can take us into further parts of ourselves and to feel more expressed because of that encouragement. But it’s it’s almost like you need an awareness of like that’s happening, because then, also to what you were talking about, was very much of like. We were in this and there was this, this contract that we ever spoke about, which is the way that we are being, and then all these things were like getting tied together and it was like so much harder to break that versus walking into relationship of like. No, like this is we’re going to evolve, we’re going to change and I’m here for that.
0:39:57 – Speaker 2
Yeah, for sure there’s a. When you were speaking, there’s this image that came to mind, a model that a couple of my teachers, andy and Libby, share, which is the infinity loop in relationship that goes from you start at stability and then the stability turns eventually into stagnation, and then for the relationship to continue on the spectrum it needs expansion, but then eventually that expansion devolves into chaos, and so then you need stability, and then eventually the stability turns into stagnation and then it requires some expansion, and then that turns into chaos, and then you keep looping on this infinity spectrum and the relationship can keep evolving in that way. You, like you said you’d have to be aware and you have to be attuned to. Okay, this is getting a little too chaotic, like, let’s rein it in and create some stability, or, oh, we’re getting a little stagnant here. Let’s do something that causes expansion for us.
0:40:52 – Speaker 1
So good. I love that I’m gonna. I love that you shared that. That makes so much sense as I reflect back on like my own personal relationship and seeing other people go through that like pattern that you shared.
0:41:05 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it helps to have that framework in mind, because you can pinpoint where you are at any given moment in time, like you can say okay, right now we’re in a stable phase, let’s ride this out and just be aware of when it turns into stagnation, and when it does, let’s look for a way to expand in that Totally so good.
Oh, we’re in an expansive phase right now. We’re traveling a lot, we’re doing a lot of things, we’re trying new things, we’re becoming something new. Let’s just keep an eye out for if it becomes a little too chaotic so we can create some stability here.
0:41:37 – Speaker 1
Totally. I can almost say like too, like you can listen. Going back to like your boundaries, your capacity to be in any of those stages, because that’s how you’ll know, and to like I guess, like switch into the next stage. Or like bring it up into like okay, we need to start trans transmuting into the next one. I’m a little overwhelmed. We’re like yeah, I’m getting too overexpanded. Or like this is too chaotic. Or like hey, this, I want to spark things up.
So I love that that’s so good yeah yeah, the one thing I really want to ask you before we even wrap up here. I can’t believe it’s already gone so fast, because I could.
0:42:08 – Speaker 2
I could.
0:42:10 – Speaker 1
I could talk to you forever, which is amazing, but like after your full journey of like, just like finding your sexuality really working through, like the people pleasing tendencies or the performing tendencies, like what has been your guide or like your invitation to being expressed through your sexuality, through your relationship, through life, through business, like what has been your, almost like your anchor, to keep leaning into that expression of yourself, that evolution of yourself.
0:42:43 – Speaker 2
I think I just love change, like I have a very curious part I have, and like this north star inside of me that just wants to experience everything. And it’s so curious and it’s so compelled towards change without really a need. It used to be that change needed to accomplish something, like I needed to set a goal and become something. Yes, yes, but the older I get, the more that it’s become, it’s become more artistic. It’s like, well, I just want to do it, to create. I just want to see what I can do. I just want to see what this might feel like, or what this experience would be like. And what if I, what if I wore this hat for a day? And that that’s my anchor is like I can’t imagine leaving this existence without having tried as much as possible to do anything that felt interesting to me have you always felt that way, like, about, like I mean I get like the, the former, changing, setting goals, growing growth, but like.
0:43:50 – Speaker 1
Has it always been there from a place of curiosity, or did that kind of start to create differently later? Like what? How would you describe it before? To like now, or has it always been consistent?
0:44:03 – Speaker 2
I think what really instilled it in me was both my parents were teachers. My mom was a first grade teacher and a third grade teacher, my dad taught special ed and so they really instilled this value of education and growth from a really early age. And so I think, even looking at like how I felt in high school and this I grew up in a very, very small town and how I felt different from everyone and wanted to leave and wanted to go explore like I think it is a direct result of my parents always being in favor of me trying new things, and you know there have been points where they’ve really questioned my judgment about things, which I think is healthy and natural, but they’ve always encouraged me to to do whatever I want yeah, that’s so great.
0:45:00 – Speaker 1
And the last thing I’m going to pull one last thread is like how has changed? Or like leaning into this change, leaning into evolution, allowing yourself to change benefited you? Or like what has it gifted you? Would have you received from that desire?
0:45:15 – Speaker 2
I have received a deep trust in myself, definitely like that’s a huge benefit that I’ve received, just like knowing that, no matter what I do or who I change into, like I’m still here with me but we can’t fail, like there’s no failure here, we can do anything.
Like there’s such an unshakable belief that, like, no matter what happens, I can turn out fine because I’m gonna have my. And the other thing that I’ve received from that is the ability to really hold people through whatever phase they’re in, like I kind of watching people grow and encouraging them to change and hopefully that naturally comes up in that process right and uncertainty that they’re feeling when they’re like, is this the right move? Should I divorce my partner? Like what’s gonna happen to me? Should I take this job? Like should I quit my job? Like should I try the thing that I’ve never done before? And from having gone through so many changes and every single time it’s always fine I can be there with them through that and say I totally get it. I get what you’re feeling and I promise you with full confidence you’re gonna be totally okay.
0:46:27 – Speaker 1
I love how you just like shared that your anchor has been such a gift for you, but it’s also been the gift that you get to share with others too yeah so beautiful yeah well.
Thank you so, so much for coming on to the fully expressed podcast with Corena that’s with me. It was such a pleasure to have you and such a gift and honestly, I feel so connected to you on this call like this right now I’m like I wish we could stay on forever. I have like the goosebumps, I have emotions in my eyes, I’m just like this is so good and so yummy and so thank you so much for taking the time to to be here with us today.
0:47:01 – Speaker 2
Thank, you for asking really good questions and, yeah, being so attuned to me and giving me this space to share, and sharing with me, yeah, thanks.

Full Transcript
0:00:00 – Speaker 1
Welcome to the Fully Expressed Podcast. I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto, and I’m so looking forward to today’s call. I’d like to introduce you to Bryn Daylor. Bryn Daylor is the Director of Growth for Soulfire Productions and a women’s coach. So, Bryn, thank you so much for being here today.
0:00:20 – Speaker 2
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m so looking forward to our conversation and congrats on the podcast. I’m so happy to be here.
0:00:28 – Speaker 1
Thank you so much. Yeah, I’m so excited. I mean, our conversation today is going to be so connected to the birth of this podcast, so I’m so excited to have you here because it’s very similar to a lot of what I went through to even like to get to this place with this podcast.
0:00:43 – Speaker 2
So yeah, it’s such a special process to support women in birthing projects to life, and you know how connected we are to the birthing process at all times, even when it’s not a human, and so, yeah, I know those phases so well and I know what a big deal it is to finally put that out into the world. So I’m celebrating you in that.
0:01:07 – Speaker 1
Oh, thank you so much. No, I mean, the birthing process is something I wish that we all talked about some more too. Just like A, the identity shifts to get there, the undoing, the labels. So just like embodying any of the work that we at least that we want to step into with every project that we release to the community or a part of us, right? I feel like there’s this like transition period that not a lot of people talk about in the sense of like oh, there’s a whole, like you can have an idea, which is awesome, like have an idea and lean into it, but the process like fully embody the identity to launch that idea is a process.
0:01:45 – Speaker 2
Absolutely. Dreaming is easy. It’s easy to keep your head in the clouds. It’s really brave to take that idea from the clouds into reality, and I do that work individually and I do that work professionally. And you’re right your dream one of my best friends says this that your dream is perfectly curated to trigger you in all of the right ways. And I believe that at a soul level, that this is why we see people who have a deep, deep, deep dream to be like a TEDx speaker but are crippled by stage fright. It’s like what? Why didn’t God put those two together? But it’s the perfect manifestation of finally overcoming your fears and that’s usually a great way to know if it’s a dream on the right track is that it’s perfectly curated to trigger the absolute hell out of you.
0:02:40 – Speaker 1
No, it’s so true, at least like so. I love that you said that, because everything that I’ve ever stepped into has been something like so far on my reach. But there’s also this like deep knowing that that’s what I want. But getting on the way there, there’s definitely parts of me that take some time to get used to with where I’m going and get triggered and you’re like well, like, for example, like this podcast, like I feel so called to be a podcast host. I’ve been a speaker before, but when I go on stage sometimes I still get nervous and I still get butterflies and I’m like those are just beautiful signs or whispers of like me being on the right path, especially because there’s a crazy excitement that comes along with it too. It’s not just like dreadful or not necessarily something I really don’t want to do. It just sounds like there’s an excitement, but then there’s also all these butterflies or fears or edginess that comes with it as well.
0:03:27 – Speaker 2
It’s the tension of expansion and I think that’s where the real growth comes. Well, there’s so many types of growth and we were actually mentioning this before the podcast Because there’s also sometimes tension and learning how to be still, and not always, growing and expanding, and so, but yeah, I think it’s such a powerful skill to learn how to be in that tension and to not collapse under it and to hold it and to expand your ability to be with discomfort and not make it mean something about you other than maybe this is exactly where I’m supposed to be, not make it mean something about you.
0:04:04 – Speaker 1
Can you just get a little bit about that? Or like, what does that mean to you?
0:04:07 – Speaker 2
Yeah, I think, especially nowadays in the spiritual community, I think there’s this really deep phrase around being out of alignment and this idea of alignment and using alignment as an excuse to not be uncomfortable and what I really saw for myself, thinking about some of the past growth cycles I’ve had. They required deep stages of tension and discomfort and I could have looked at those stages and been like there’s something wrong, I’m out of alignment, this is too uncomfortable, or instead, I just really embraced it as a part of the process and I didn’t make it mean anything bad or wrong. If anything, I used it as affirmation that this is my next tension edge. And so, yeah, I think the making meaning piece to me comes down to looking at what’s happening and using it as an excuse to quit or seeing it as being called towards something greater. And, yeah, if you’re gonna make meaning, you might as well make it something empowering, right? Yeah?
0:05:12 – Speaker 1
so good and I love that. You also said that you made it as an affirmation. Right, it was almost like a yes, this is a part of it, this is a yes, keep leaning into it in this way, and you were able to receive it in that way, which is so beautiful, thank you, yeah, so one of the reasons why I totally reached out to you to be on this episode or for this show was because you had shared that you were going through, had been in a box and wanted to expand that box, really wanting to grow kind of somewhere to what we’re talking about. And I was going through some similar phase too and I was like, oh my gosh, I would love for you to come on here and talk about this, but I’d love to kind of share and that was a few months ago.
I don’t know where you’re at today, but I would love to share, if you’re open to like how did you identify that you were in a box? Like first, like how did you even know that you were in a box? Or like did it come to you like already wanting to expand? I mean like then noticing that you were in a box, like what was that process for you and peeling that back for yourself. Yeah, that’s a great question.
0:06:10 – Speaker 2
So I started to work for myself about gosh eight months ago. I’ve been an entrepreneur on and off my entire life and usually my role has been being somebody’s right-hand woman, where I helped to grow and start the business. I’ve always been connected to birthing things, so bringing it back full circle. I love the energy of bringing something into the world, and so as far back as I can remember, I’ve been someone’s right-hand woman, and about eight months ago I got to this place where I thought you know what? This isn’t making sense. The numbers aren’t adding up. I’m really ready to just see what’s gonna happen when I take that leap into the unknown and see what I’m made of. And especially nowadays, it’s become cool and popular to start your own business and to own your career and to work for yourself and to be an entrepreneur, and so I certainly felt the pressure of that being an Austin. But more than anything, I really just wanted to see what would happen, and I would say that initial leap was really beautiful. The money flowed, things were really exciting and shiny and new, and then, at around the six month mark, I started to notice that my energy was just being so drained by being alone as a solopreneur and I’m really big on following energy and following the pull, the excitement, the intuition, whatever you wanna call it, and I’m very aware at all times what is energy rich state and what is an energy poor state, and usually that’s the first marker for me that something’s gone astray is that I start to get into these states where the energy feels dead or dry or lacking, or even like repulsion. Right, there’s like an energy of repulsion present, and so and I also have been around long enough to know it doesn’t always mean that it’s time to completely quit or pivot, but something wants my attention, and so I started to notice it was really hard to show up online. My energy, my creative juices were drying up. I felt uninspired, unmotivated, and so I just started to take notice of that. I didn’t make it again. I didn’t make it mean anything. It wasn’t like okay, I must quit my job and start something new. The past version of me honestly probably would have done that.
I’ve leaned into intuition, meaning that I had to, like, take a leap of faith in the moment and rip the bandaid, and I think a lot of people in the coaching industry lean towards that when they’ve learned that my nervous system needs more time and spaciousness to release it with something. And so I started to observe and I started to question. I started to ask myself, like what’s here for me Right, instead of this applies in relationship to my partner. Instead of being accusatory, I got curious, like what is here for me? And so I started to track where my energy wanted to flow organically, and what I noticed was that anytime I went to share because I previously worked solely in intimacy coaching, so this looked like supporting women and couples in looking at their emotional intimacy and physical intimacy and what I noticed was I had just gone on this really beautiful trip with my partner and in the past I was really excited and motivated to share, share by experience, share my trip, share our learnings from our relationship and all of a sudden, I felt resentful.
I was like I don’t want to tell anyone. I feel really private right now and I was really curious as to why that was. You know, was it my cycle? Was it just again like a phase that I was going through? And then I went to an event and I started to really unpack and it was an event, an energetic event, and this name is Donnie Epstein and he does.
0:09:57 – Speaker 1
I just got back from Network Immersion Weekend last weekend.
0:10:00 – Speaker 2
No way I love Network Spinal. Although special, it’s changed my life in every capacity.
0:10:08 – Speaker 1
Oh, my gosh. Me too. I did it for like maybe six months here in San Diego and I was like this is the best. I just love that practice. Meting withality.
0:10:17 – Speaker 2
So I will solving it from the rooftops. It’s yeah, it’s a powerful thing. I’ve ever found so shameless plug for Network Spinal.
0:10:26 – Speaker 1
Yeah, all right. Ladies, if you are listening in, this is for you. If you have a friend or family member that is female, that is looking for community, that is looking at this path of growth and wanting to evolve as a human being, please listen in. So I wanna share with you the Fully Express community. If you haven’t heard about it, you need to hear about it, and you’re hearing about it today and I’d love for you to check it out. The Fully Express community is for women, supporting women. We have created a community where you can connect with other women that are also on this path of growth, that are interested and curious about what else is available to them. They want to see themselves living a life fully express in their lives and their relationships and their business. They wanna bring their fully authentic self into all areas of their lives so they can actually attract a life and relationships and careers and business that is so aligned to them because they are living a life fully express.
In the Fully Express community we meet online every single second Wednesday for every single month at 5.30 pm PST and also have access to a Slack channel where I draw resources, where we share information, we talk about the community. We create community. You also get access to not only the guest coaches that have been on this podcast, but also guest coaches that I have kept waiting to show you what they have to share with you when it comes to their teachings and their practitioners. So you’re not only gonna listen for me, but you’re also gonna learn from these amazing human beings that are available to you out there and here to share their gifts with you so you can live a life fully expressed.
The Fully Express community is only $27 a month and if you leave a review on this podcast, I will actually give to you one month to come. Join us for free in the Fully Express community to actually experience what it means to be in this community and these women. So if you go leave a review for me, I’ll go do that. You can also find more information in the show notes about the Fully Express community and I hope to see you there in next month, the next second Wednesday that is available to you, to be surrounded by other women. That just forget it, that just get what you’re going through.
0:12:42 – Speaker 2
I’ll see you there. But I went to Network Spinal Event and, for people who don’t know what it is, it’s working with the energy of the spine and of alignment and constantly bringing back to what is true self and what is everything that is not. And at that event, somebody made a reference of me wearing a mask and basically named that potentially this intimacy coaching was me wearing a mask and, like any feedback I ever get, I’m always interested in it. I don’t always take it again, make meaning or I look at it at face value. I’m like if it pings me, chances are there’s something here for me, and it did. It felt really confronting. So I went a layer deeper and just again got curious about what does that mean for me? And what I started to see and what came up was that when I started coaching, I just left my marriage. So I was.
I had started coaching about a year prior to that, but I was working in more of a holistic space. And then, when I left my marriage, I started intimacy coaching. And then I asked myself a question that was really uncomfortable, which was something around the lines of could it be possible that I was doing this work in an attempt to heal myself and that there was this process that I was essentially discovering what intimacy meant to me, and once I understood what that was, I really felt that I was complete with that type of coaching, and it was so confronting and it was so uncomfortable. I asked myself some really painful questions of am I out of integrity? Did I possibly harm others In this process of me healing? Was I even showing up in a way that was responsible? And the reason I kept wanting to be private was because I was like I feel complete. You don’t want to teach this anymore. And what was really interesting about that is when I really got honest with myself and I made that declaration. It felt like the shift wanted to happen immediately, and it was confronting for everyone in my life that had identified me as an intimacy coach, my partner included, because when we shift, it causes and asks people to be confronted with their own truth as well, and if this person can shift on the dime, what does that mean about me? What is she gonna do for our relationship? Is my out of integrity somewhere? And it reflects back to this person. So it was challenging because people started to get curious. They think about their own selves.
And again, though, I didn’t do anything with this information, I allowed myself to just have this awareness that, oops, it’s not even that I was in the wrong box, it was just that box was done. I was ready to retire that box. That box was the perfect box for me for four and a half years, and now that box needed to be taped and put into storage, and I was in a really lucky place that I had an income that I’d created for myself I don’t even wanna call it luck, I could work for that and so I had the spaciousness and the freedom to allow myself to get curious about now. What now? What comes next If I put this box in storage? Well, I wanna replace it, and I don’t wanna replace it from necessity or from scarcity. I wanna replace it with what lights me up and what energizes me. So I did what I always do, because it’s worked for me, as I hired someone to help me with that process Because, as you may know, it’s really challenging to find your own blind spots, and I wanted someone who was really grounded and clear and to help organize what felt like a lot of mumbled mass inside of my mind, and this process took months, mind you, months and months and months of journaling about what makes me happy, writing down some of my strengths, asking, doing an energy audit of what were the parts coaching that I loved, what were the parts that drained me?
Yeah, yeah, oh, I love that we’re so in sync. So in sync, and then it was the day that I hired this consultant to come in and support me. It was like every puzzle piece just clicked and he took all of the information that I had been spending six to eight weeks identifying and organizing and he just helped me get so clear and he helped me synthesize the things that I loved into values. So it was almost like I was approaching finding my next career move as if I was finding partner of my dreams, and he wanted me to get clear on what am I bringing to the table and what are you bringing to the table.
And that way, when this perfect person came along, I would know, because it was really obvious from both parties, and, sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. I went down this path of getting really clear and then the surrender it was like, and I would say maybe one other step in between was I got crystal clear in what I wanted, and then I told a small group of intentional people my desire, because I think that that’s how manifestation works. I think a lot of people think it’s like just throw caution to the wind and something’s supposed to volunteer lab. I don’t know. I’m like not quite. You gotta take some steps, mama.
0:17:53 – Speaker 1
I’m leaving, but I’d love to have a spaghetti on the wall and hope that it hit.
0:17:57 – Speaker 2
Huh, get that off me, yeah. And so I told a couple of really key people in my life hey, I’m open to this, I’m quietly looking, here’s what my crystal clear desires are. And then I would say, six to eight weeks after that, the perfect opportunity just came and plopped right into my lap and even with, I will say, all of the back work and preparation that I did, there was still the moment of like, oh shit, Am I actually going to take that? Could it be that easy? Could it really be the thing that’s right in front of me? But if I were to zoom out, it wasn’t easy.
It was countless hours of being confronted by my identity shifting. Will people want to support me in this new box that I’m creating for myself? Will I be good enough? Am I making a mistake? I mean so much tension and stress and worry and consideration. So it feels easy when it arrives, but it wasn’t. It was a really arduous process and I think that’s where Instagram actually really foxes up is that it looks like we have A and B, but what people don’t see is the microsteps millions of them in between. But we’ll ask you a little bit about that, please.
0:19:12 – Speaker 1
Yeah, so it sounds like I mean what I loved about you, sherry. You took all throughout your whole experience. You took these data points.
There are data points that a part of you sounds like, for the most part, was unattached from the data points. You were aware of them. You’re like, ok, data point number one, data point number two. You’re like, ok, I’m seeing all these things that are just showing me and I’m seeing them, but I’m not doing anything. Yet there was this just absorbing awareness type of piece. Did you ever like to dive a little bit deeper into, like, the mini gritty of it? And if you, if it’s not true, then it’s not true. But if it was true, were there any parts of you that were attached to, like not wanting to let go of that previous box? You know that, that identity that you had built for four and a half years, right, like I, I see all the data points you collected. But was there ever like this, like, but I don’t want to let that go yet, that’s that’s who I am, or like anything, any sense of attachment to that experience? Yes and no.
0:20:06 – Speaker 2
So I’ve done enough work at this point to really understand that in this process, the tighter my death grip is on the past identity, whatever it is I’m leaving, the harder this process is, and I’ve one of the few people I’ve ever met I think it actually comes from my upbringing. Yeah, this is how there’s gifts and curses, and our upbringing and the way, the things that we learned and my mother actually really instilled the value of change in me from a young age. We moved and changed homes a lot growing up, so I didn’t have the home that I was born in and then raised in and then my parents still live there. I’ve probably lived in 15 homes at this point in my life, possibly more. My mom just loved fresh energy, a change of pace, and so I grew up really learning and understanding the value of changing and the value of letting go and not being attached to the previous version because something better could be coming around the corner. Sometimes to a fault, I will say that, but my edge in life has actually been learning to stay and to root versus changing, so change has usually been pretty easy for me.
I would say that I had a little bit of resistance in that, the identity of an intimacy coach was sexy and I liked that. I liked the attention I got for it, because would you go to a dinner party or you meet someone and they go, what do you do? And you say I work in sexuality. Everybody’s eyes light up, some people get really uncomfortable but most people got really excited and yeah, and I would say, if anything there was a little bit of like, will I be? Will I be boring or irrelevant if I shift my niche, if I step into something different? But I really felt the larger part of me that wanted something different and this is going to get pretty spiritual for a moment, but really was driving me was my future unborn child and oh, it makes me emotional. I started connecting with her in the past several years and that looks different in many different ways. What it? What is felt like presently is me tuning into her and to ask of her what she needs from me in order for her to come in, to feel safe. And I I still feel that I’m potentially years away from that process, but I know it’s what I want and I started tuning into that future version of me.
Again, I followed where the energy wanted to flow and I get really turned on and really excited by my future self, and I started asking this little girl what she needed, and she was just like mama I need stability, I need you to be in one place and one career with money coming in, like I could feel her asking this of me. Yeah, and anyone who’s an entrepreneurship knows that it is a wild rollercoaster and it’s a fun one, and my nervous system really loved it for a long time until it didn’t, and so I really started to look for what could bring me the stability that I’m craving, while I also keep the part of me that I still really love. I love coaching women. I just don’t only want to coach women and I don’t want to do it in this nation anymore, because I feel the part of me that’s maturing and shifting, and so the part of me that was scared to let it go was smaller than the part of me that wanted what was coming. That’s amazing.
0:23:34 – Speaker 1
And I think for anyone listening right, sometimes the part of being scared is a lot bigger than being open to changing. But you definitely shared how you’ve created such a beautiful relationship of change, and part of it’s because of what you grew up, and finding stability in the change is like your growth edge, which I think is beautiful to see both sides of it, but still, the skill set that came from being open to change right, being able to adapt, being able to be unattached to the experience and feeling comfortable to create what it would be like to bring your little unborn child in this world in a safe environment. And you talked a lot about like feeling regulated or having a regulated nervous system and I’ve also experienced that in entrepreneurship or like being a coach. Online is like I was constantly triggered or constantly high end, or I was living in high functioning anxiety where I was doing all these things. Yes, I was, in a way, coaching so much and it was so amazing, but I’m also in that place, too, where I’m craving like spaciousness and stability and groundedness, not necessarily giving up things that I love, but just finding a way to bring them into this new way which you talked about.
That too, and so I’d be so curious to hear a little bit more about how did you identify that you wanted a regulated nervous system. Like, how did you know? Because we taught. I think nervous system regulation is being talked about so much right now to the point where people don’t really know what that means or why is it such a big deal and why it’s so connected to our mental health, our spiritual growth, our physical health, our like, actual like our, not physical health, but our physical well-being too, like it’s so connected to everything, and so I’d love for you to expand a little bit more about that if you’re open to sharing, totally, yeah.
0:25:18 – Speaker 2
And being brought back to a very specific moment in time where I was on the couch with my partner and I was having a rough month. I got. It was really interesting. When I quit my job and started my coaching business, I had the thing that people dream and hope happen, which is I got a crazy amount of cash and clients immediately. It was like the universe open and they said, yes, keep going. And like it was an amount of money that I had never even fathomed having. It was like all of a sudden it opened my bank account and I was like what? I was laughable. And now I see, in hindsight, everything that happened was so divine and so magical because having that amount allowed me to get the town home that I’m currently in because, as you know, trying to be an entrepreneur and prove income can be really dicey sometimes, and I happened to get this massive amount of money in my bank account right before I needed to move and to show that I had enough to support this new home that I was moving into. So there was all of this like really beautiful synchronicity, right, and in my mind I’m like this is just how it’s always going to be. I started off this way, like it’s always going to go up from here.
And then I got humbled. I got humbled several months forward. I hadn’t done a great job of preparing for quiet months in the coaching business because it just hadn’t even occurred to me. I was like a little delusional. I’m like, oh, success is inevitable. This was so easy. It’s always going to be easy.
And I had a really quiet month and I didn’t prepare my savings accordingly. And for the first time ever I was like, oh my God, am I going to have enough to pay my rent next month? And I was terrified. And I mean I remember sitting on the couch with my partner and I was literally shaking, like my body was uncontrollably shaking. I was crying, I was almost dissociated, like I was having such a hard time being present because I was so nervous about what was going to happen if I couldn’t pay my bills. And I was doing this doom spiral of like I’m going to have to move back to Florida to live with my family, I’m going to lose all of my friends. I mean it was really wild what the mind will do when it’s afraid. And I was like, oh my God, this is awful. I can’t remember the last time my body felt this unregulated and I was waking up like that and I was staying like that throughout most of my day.
And anyone who’s ever struggled financially knows the tension and the discomfort of what money challenges feel like. And I worked really hard to when I left my marriage to get to a place where I could support myself financially and I watched my mother struggle with that most of her life being a single mother, and so there’s some deep, deep lineage stuff here for me around being a woman that could provide and make money and break this pattern. And so when that came up, I was working with my therapist at the time and he was like well, are you open to asking your partner for help? If you need to? Like, let’s talk about what it looks like. And so all of this stuff was coming up. That was so edgy and so uncomfortable and I remember being like I got to do something different. Yes, I can learn and I can ask my partner for support one month, but I don’t want to do this anymore. This doesn’t feel good. So what has to occur from my nervous system to get to a place where this is not my baseline? Because this is not. This is not realistic. I can’t live this way.
And I also had to be really honest with myself that maybe people can ride those highs and lows and that feels good. And maybe in my twenties I could have had more resilience there. And there were gifts in it because I really did learn and see how, when my backs against the wall, the cover source, what can I be and what were the things that I needed to do to really support myself and get out of that dysregulation. And I knew beyond that, I wanted to make sure that that I never had a month like that ever again. And so that’s when the idea of like, well, what if I did have something that I loved, that was stable, that brought in an income, that I’m working on a team with a greater mission, where I’m using all of my gifts and I feel so energized by this and I get to have the ups and downs of entrepreneurship at the same time but it’s not making it black or white, it wasn’t, I have to have one or the other was like how do I make both work? And when that came forward, it was like that’s how I go, from shaking on the couch, crying, unable to like eat to oh, there’s a number coming in every month that I feel really good about. I’m energized by that team and I also get the pleasure of working with women, had a way that feels so much healthier for me, and I remember really anchoring in that moment like, fuck yeah, I get to have it all.
I do not have to sacrifice, maybe temporarily. I don’t want to paint this picture that it’s always right away, we get everything that we want. I worked several jobs in between A and B that were not comfortable, where I took on like marketing, contracting jobs and I did all of these like really odds and ends things to just bring in some extra cash. And so, again, I don’t want to paint the picture that it was just like I went from one extreme to the other, where I was shaking on the couch, to all of a sudden, everything was fine, but everything I did, every step that I took in between, gave me more clarity, more peace of mind, and then it could allow me to make decisions from a grounded place instead of a frantic one. So, yeah, everything happened for a reason. I can really see that now.
0:30:46 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s hard to you know. When someone says, like I don’t know, I’ve been on their side. I’m like what do you mean? Everything happens for a reason. Like it’s hard to believe. But you know what I mean. Sometimes it was just as worse. Like when people say, like you’re going to find your partner, I promise you’re just going to know. When he’s the one, and people are like what do you mean? You just know, you just know.
And so something that you shared so much about, too, is just like the experience, that of all, like you definitely had to go through the experience to learn, to see what was working and what was not working. And I think I wish I mean I’ve been through that to myself, but I wish more people where it would give themselves grace and those moments, because it’s almost like we need them as necessary to get us to the divine place that we’re talking about. Right, that we’re like wanting to step into. The other thing that I love that you just shared so openly and thank you so much for sharing all of that is it is the financial ickiness that comes with entrepreneurship, right, like there is this, especially in the coaching industry. Like and I so personally, I’ve kept my corporate job the entire time that I’ve been coaching and it has been. At first it was so interesting. I felt so much pressure from entrepreneurship, from coaches, to be like well, if you don’t let that go, are you fully committed to becoming a coach Like? You know just that language of like. If you don’t let that go, then you can’t have what you want and what I realized it has.
And I’ve always thought about this with my corporate job. I was like, whatever my corporate job is, there’s nothing wrong with it, there’s nothing abusive of it, there’s no part of your reason. But it’s been the most beautiful investment to getting to me to a place where I can receive what I want. And right, there was always this yes and like, I can build my things and I’m grateful for that. But there was always so much rocking pressure to leave your job, create your dreams. You’re going to make a lot of money, and no one talks about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, which you spoke so openly about.
So thank you for that, and beautifully to you, because I think it’s necessary and a regulated nervous system to what you talked about is what people are experiencing all the time, whether it is about finances, whether it is about relationships, whether it’s just a life-form business and feeling dysregulated like that is the worst feeling, like I’ve burnt out really badly having two jobs and I can. I just hated that and I had also so much fear come up after that of like I never want to be in that state again. Which was this interesting integration between I’m masculine and I feminine. When I was doing most of my corporate and coaching and all these things I was leading so much in my masculine, I was so disconnected from my body, so dysregulated, and then I had to learn to be in my feminine and I had to go to the process of integrating both right, bringing that structure to support me in this new yes and yeah that’s really beautiful it’s.
0:33:31 – Speaker 2
I think it’s a really mature way to look at things and it makes me really mad when I think about coaches that coach from the place of jump off the cliff. I think there’s a time and a place for it. I will say, yeah, I, because I needed to be that woman as well, both as a coach and as an individual, where someone’s actually really ready for that next step and they’re just afraid and they need that extra accountability to leap. But what I find is way more healthy and sustainable are mini leaps, taking sustained, small daily action or weekly action that moves you closer to this dream that you have and that’s the place that I’m operating from now. Is that like slow, delicious, sustained pace? And it’s not to say that I won’t have times where I want to pick up the pace and turn up the dial of whatever it is that I’m doing, because sometimes I think having too long of a runway is just our fear. Speaking like. I see this a lot of times with women where I’m like what’s your dream? They’re like I want to launch a retreat. I’m great, when do you want to do that? I’m thinking like end of 2024. I’m like, okay, that’s, you probably don’t need two years to map out the rest of your studies now. Yeah, exactly so that’s not it. But also, you know, giving my future self the runway she deserves and instead of trying to make it a three month goal, could it actually be a year goal? And being really honest with myself about does that feel an integrity, healthy and a little bit of a push in order for me to get this done?
And I remember too, because I think it’s it’s easy when you’re in a silo to make decisions on behalf of yourself that are catastrophic or supportive, because you’re the only one that is impacting right, my partner has been this beautiful mirror and challenging mirror that I’m like, oh shit, there’s somebody this impacts now and I saw they right up in bright, front and center, this part of me, this shadow in me that likes to. He called it. You know, he’s like I felt like there were times where you were just walking around the house with a hand over the detonator, like ready to just drop a bomb. He’s like I could feel the chaotic energy in you that wanted change, wanted something different, and I thought, oh my god, I’m never going to have the relationship I want with this man if every three to six months.
I’m going through some massive life transformation because, in our relationship, within the first year of us dating, I quit my job, I moved homes, I technically changed my jobs twice because I left one job, started this coaching career and then went into the place from like. I don’t want to do this type of coaching, so I had two career shifts. We traveled multiple different countries. There was so much happening at once and for most people those changes can happen maybe a handful over a lifetime and they all happened for me within a year of us dating and I remember thinking I created this, I’m the one bringing this upon myself, and if I want the type of love and and relationship that I know I’m worthy of, this shit has to stop. So he became one of my great motivators as well, and that was, I think, a really important part of this puzzle for me was realizing that my decisions now impact someone else that I deeply care about, and it was time for me to clean things up yeah, how did you?
0:36:57 – Speaker 1
I’m curious, like where was the invitation for you? And that, like, how did you find the invitation? Did your partner call you up in the invitation of like, hey, I want more stability? Was you the first one reflected to you or did you find that in yourself first before he did that’s?
0:37:11 – Speaker 2
a great question. I think a little bit of both. Okay, he’s so lovely in the way that he handles me and speaks to me and he’s never once told me what to do, what not to do. I mean, he knows damn well that would never work anyway, but he’s really lovely in the way that he just he gets curious and he asks me questions and I remember, you know, after several weeks of that, like that woman that I was describing earlier, the shaking on the couch could barely stay in her body, so ungrounded. I remember feeling like I was this broken record where I kept talking about the same thing over and over and I got sick of my shit and I thought if I’m sick of this, he’s gotta be, he’s gotta be so frustrated.
So in that moment I had an opportunity to take responsibility, but he never made me feel bad or wrong for who I was and I think that was so. Such a pivotal part of this was really welcoming me in safe and open arms, to be like Hi, I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to love this part of you because there’s a gift in it and I’m going to reflect how it impacts me so that you’re aware of that. But I’m not going to make you feel bad or wrong, and that created the perfect recipe for me to take responsibility without shame or wrongness. He’s so great at that, he’s such I just love him so much and it always reflects back. I’m not the most accepting and loving, and yeah, he’s just. He’s helped me grow in so many ways. I’m so grateful for that safe place he created for us.
0:38:51 – Speaker 1
I hope everyone lets an incandescent hear that. That is so beautiful. I think to like receive and partnership, someone that could see you and love you and also just reflect back to you. And I, you know the part of you where you said you saw the patterns right. You, you reflected back on yourself. You’re like, wow, keep repeating the same thing over and over again. Why do I keep hitting this wall? Or why do I keep getting the ceiling, why do I keep repeating this blah blah, blah blah. And then you took the opportunity, the responsibility, to look in that to yourself. And, yes, your partner was a reflection of that, but you took responsibility for what that was going to be for yourself.
0:39:25 – Speaker 2
I’m really big on personal responsibility. Responsibility must be in my chart, or my Dharma, because it has been one of the biggest challenges and the biggest blessings in my life and I personally have seen the more responsibility I take, the more my life expands. And I really it was around when I left my marriage, age 29, where I went through, I mean, four years of about to be 34, four years of radical responsibility. There was no one and nowhere to look other than myself and, oh God, it was so deeply uncomfortable. I feel it in like every one of my cells as I think back to every bucket. I had to look at every stone I had to turn over and finances, community, mental health, career, home, like you name it, taxes, like all of it. I just it was so confronting. And just the other day I made an Instagram story where I talked about you know being in the place where I can zoom out now and go.
Wow, I think I can stop and take a breath now because four years later, I have a really beautiful foundation to live from and I think that’s another really big sort of alluded to this and said it earlier. I think it’s really healthy to normalize things, taking time. I think the coaching industry paints a picture that there can be radical shifts and transformation in 90 days and there can be, but it’s a lot of times it’s just the beginning. It’s the catalyst, the momentum that is needed, that is going to take you into the integration of your day to day life. And I mean, nobody wants to be sold.
Hey, what have I told you? It’s going to take you four years to get from where you are to where you want to be. How many people would still be in the game at that point? How many people would be like, oh fuck it, it’s just easier for me to stay where I’m at. And it’s not sexy to say this is going to take four years, but it was true and it’s real and so, yeah, I’m so grateful for the part of me that I think deeply knew that. Deeply knew that it was going to just take time, and there are many times where I had temper tantrums about that, and then I just kept going, and so I think for most people that’s the difference of where you’re at and where you want to be, as you just keep going. It’s really that simple.
0:41:48 – Speaker 1
So it’s so easy on social media to see like three month programs going to change my life and you know, six months of working with this person, yes, you’re going to feel breakthroughs. Yes, you’re going to find awareness, like you’re going to awake parts of you that haven’t been but the integration period and the time and the layers and the undoing, and then, depending on, I mean there’s so much. Every single person is so unique, right, so that journey can just that journey will take its course, and it’s almost like it truly has to, like I used to want to, like put like a fast speed on it, like, well, go faster, why can I go faster? Let’s put the gas pedal on it. And it’s almost like I did myself a disservice trying to do that versus just letting myself meet each layer as they came, versus just peeling every layer as fast as possible.
0:42:37 – Speaker 2
Yeah, oh, my gosh yeah.
0:42:39 – Speaker 1
Absolutely.
0:42:40 – Speaker 2
And I always think of my future daughter, right Of like. Could I imagine looking at my baby and like, learn to walk faster, or whatever it may be right, asking her to be a faster version of herself. And the answer is always a resounding note Like how dare I rush a human having a human process? And then I think, okay, well, I can certainly extend that kindness to myself. Not always easy, but simple. Yeah, as long as we’re intentional, right.
0:43:11 – Speaker 1
We try, yeah, absolutely, and there’s still going to be parts of us that play its role and it’s almost like okay, there it was, you know, in its own way?
0:43:20 – Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely, and sometimes there’s medicine and going fast. I’m really grateful, for example, for the men that I dated. That were three month cycles where we got in, we dove super deep, fell in love and then it exploded and had that taken a year. That’s a totally different story. So sometimes there’s deep medicine and diving all in, going into the deep end. So I just want to for every woman to know how to know discernment when is it time to move fast and when is it time to take your time.
0:43:55 – Speaker 1
Yes, can you, before I would tell I want to keep talking to you because I was like gosh, I have so many other layers, but can you talk a little bit more about discernment, because I think discernment is one of the most important tools that we don’t get to talk about as much. I feel like at least you get to learn that, to going through this process of what is discernment to you versus what is discernment to everyone else, and you talk about what discernment means.
0:44:18 – Speaker 2
Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m trying to think of the way that I want to go with discernment. I remember a story that’s coming to mind. I was in a kitchen with my good friend and her partner at the time, and this was a time where I was dating and I remember her and I must have been talking about a date that I had just gone on and her partner was, I guess, listening in the background but I didn’t know and I said something about I went on one date and I just knew this wasn’t it. And so we parted ways and I closed the loop and caught his attention and he turned to me and he was like, wait a second. He was like you really think you can know someone and read someone after one date? And I knew he was confronted by this idea that I could be that quick to make a decision. And I’ll never forget the way that I phrased it, because it was so powerful for me, the way that I had this aha moment and I just said you know what I get that and maybe there will be some times where I’m wrong.
No-transcript, I would always rather bet on myself Every single time. I would always rather bet that I know in deep in my soul what is best for me and I worked too hard to get to where I’m at to bet on someone else. And so, even if nine times out of 10, I’m right and I do fuck up one of those times, I’d still rather bet on. I know what is best in my soul and I’ve just practiced a lot. I’ve practiced over and over and over, from everything from ordering an item on a menu like what do I want? What is my body desire? What do I intuitively think is best for me today, to making a decision about a piece of clothing I want, to making a decision for a home. And over the past four years, after leaving my relationship, I strengthened that discernment by making bigger decisions on a more frequent basis. But it literally started with where do I want to go work today?
0:46:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah.
0:46:18 – Speaker 2
What coffee do I want to order? What floating item do I want to wear? That was discernment. It was choosing yes, no, this, that. And then, after I flexed that and got comfortable enough, it was like this guy or this guy, this home, or this home, this job, or this job. And the decisions kept getting bigger. And then by that time came along for a decision of moving in with a partner or taking a leap in my career. I had so many reps at the discernment gym that it was easy for me to make a decision yeah, yeah.
0:46:49 – Speaker 1
It sounds like that, your discernment gym, or through working out and flexing all these muscles, you really also got to know yourself really, really well, to a point where you know you, you know what you like and what you don’t like, you know what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable, you know what’s a full body as and what’s a no, and there’s no question about it.
That’s what it is and that’s what I want. I think that’s what a lot of us want. We want to get to that place where we’re like no, I’m a definite yes and I’m a for sure no, and there’s no part of me that’s upset with myself for that decision or like I’m on board with whatever comes from that decision or I’ll be open to the experience of what comes from that decision. If I can also learn that experience and then shift, I can also go through that process. But there is this sense of like trust that sounds like you’ve built within yourself, like this trust to guide you towards your yes and you’re this trust to guide you towards your no, and surrendering to the experience that comes through that decision and knowing that you’ll be okay 100%.
0:47:48 – Speaker 2
I think that’s ultimately what it is Is. I know, no matter what, I know, even if this deep yes in this moment ends up being a total blow up and everything goes sideways after I’m a cat I’ll end up with my feet I’m good and I’m gonna keep moving, and so there’s resilience there, and my partner was talking about this morning. He’s like there’s Christmas ornaments oranges and bouncy balls and he’s like most people think that they’re Christmas ornaments, where they’re just gonna like break and shatter. And or you think you’re an orange, where you know you’re taking this like pounding and on the inside you’re like feeling terrible, old and, yeah, beaded and bruised.
He’s like we’re all bouncy balls. We always bounce back if we allow ourselves to, and I think, just like deeply believing that, that you will bounce back and it takes proof, it takes your soul seeing. Oh, I went through that really hard thing and I’m still here. And if you zoom out and look at the evidence of that, I guarantee most people have enough evidence to support that, and so it’s really just about collecting evidence at that point.
0:48:53 – Speaker 1
That was such a good little snippet to end this episode on. Like. I am so grateful that you came on. We just talked about everything from like journey of entrepreneurship to like breaking the box and like refining your box and like readjusting your nervous system and like what you want to do, to all the way to like finding discernment and trusting yourself. It’s been such a beautiful conversation to like dive deep into those details.
And again I just want to say thank you so much for being so vulnerable and so open and so detailed, because I think these are the little nuances that we all want to hear and that we all need to hear. One because A I’ve resonated so much with what you talked about and so I could say, yeah, I get totally your brim Like. This gives me so much motivation to keep going and I’m hoping that others can hear that as well. Yeah, I do have a question for you since you’ve gone through this whole expansion, with it being the fully expressed podcast, what has been your guiding factor to express? Like continue to lean into expressing yourself, or finding that discernment to express yourself in certain ways, or express yourself in your business, or express yourself with your career and where it’s evolving, what has been that little like hit of like yeah, I want to keep leaning into that and I want to keep figuring out what that is for me or for you in this terms.
0:50:13 – Speaker 2
I think it’s because for me, my expression is my art. My expression is, and to me, creation and art are essential to life. I can’t not create. When I’m not creating, I feel like I’m dying truly, and I mean we think about the great painters and sculptors and writers and poets and musicians. Creation is what makes life worth living truly, and the most basic level.
I was watching this series on Amazon or whatever Netflix, and they were talking about when the Holocaust came and World War II was present. It was a show about they were hiding and protecting all of the famous Jewish artists because they knew they’re like we must at all costs protect these people because look at what they’ve created for our people. And so it was a whole show about like hiding and protecting this subsect of our culture. And I did the writer, the artist way several years ago, and it was so profound and letting my inner artists live. And so to me, my expression is my art and I’m constantly evolving and playing in the realm of what does that look like? But I feel the most alive and the most connected to magic when I am expressing myself in an artful way, and so when I’m not expressing, it feels truly like death, and so my North Star is just how much aliveness can I experience on this earth? And therefore I’m going to keep expressing myself because of that so beautiful.
0:51:49 – Speaker 1
Thank you so much for sharing that. As we wrap up here, if anyone wants to get in contact with you or wants to connect with you or learn more about what you do, where would you want to guide them?
0:52:01 – Speaker 2
Yeah, so I have this incredible career now with Soul Fire Productions that I’m so juiced about, and I get to take all of these talents that I wasn’t using and coaching and support humans in bringing their stories and art form to life through the art of podcasting, and so that’s one subsect of what I’m doing, and then I’m also still coaching women in their own expression and evolving, and so the best way to connect whether it’s because you’ve got a podcast inside of you that wants to be birthed or you’ve got something else that you need support in Instagram, and so I storytell, I connect, I share vulnerability. This is not just me for the podcast, this is who I am every day, and so if you want any more of that than following me and sending me a DM and telling me where you found me is always the best. What’s your Instagram handle? It’s my name, so, at Bryddailer, b-r-y-n-d-a-y-l-o-r. Perfect.
0:52:58 – Speaker 1
Oh yeah, I highly suggest that everyone goes, follow us here, because I do. I love everything that you post, and that was the other reason why I was so attracted to you was because you are so honest, you are so real and I think bringing that to that space is so beautifully, just like you did today. So thank you for doing this.
0:53:13 – Speaker 2
Thank you.
0:53:14 – Speaker 1
Thank you.

Full Transcript0:00:00 – Speaker 1
Welcome to The Fully Expressed podcast with Karenna. Today and always, my intention is to create this space to invite you into your fullest express self in real life, in relationships and in business. My intention for this space is really to create and add that next step in your personal evolution, and so for today’s episode, I plan on talking about how the messiest parts of you are your biggest teachers. I’ve been dying to create and speak to this and to create this episode for you, and today it feels a little bit spontaneous in the sense that I was really having conversation with a friend today. We went for a walk and we were talking about it and this topic specifically came up and in our conversation about how the messiest parts of us are our biggest teachers. And it’s just feel, if you said that today I have a lot of time before the next thing that I have to go to, so I just jumped on here and hit record and so you’re getting this real raw part of me that’s coming right off the track. So I’m super excited to dive into the messiest parts of us. I really think the messiest parts of us are our biggest teachers, and so to give you a little bit of light into our conversation today and where it started from. It really started from a place of talking about our relationship with our bodies, our relationships with our image and what that was for me and what my journey was with that and how I worked through that. Through our conversation, I shared with her that I also, too, have struggled with my body image stuff. I’ve struggled with feeling confident. I’ve struggled with negatively, basically picking apart the parts of my body and how I felt about that. And so she asked me how did you get through that? And I shared with her that I really leaned into the icky, I leaned into the messiness and the parts of me that did not feel good. Right, how I did that. So to give you a little bit of background, when it came to my body image and I’ve openly talked about this on social media, I’ve openly talked about this on the podcast already, but I think I’ve had disordered eating and an unhealthy relationship with food and my body.

Since I was nine, I want to say I honestly, probably even sooner than that I’ve been constantly comparing myself to other people, looking at what I was wearing versus what they were wearing and seeing if I was good enough or if I was skinny enough, comparing my thighs to someone else’s thighs, and it just continued on. From that, I did end up realizing that I inherited or absorbed a lot of those perceptions of my body from my mom, because she also struggled with her image and her weight and was constantly something that she battled. So I absorbed a lot of that from her and also I absorbed it just through society, through social media, through being in friendships or conversations and just things about when diet culture came up and it was just. It’s been an ongoing journey and I’ll do a deep dive episode into that, but I started a lot of my healing with that in college, because it got really, really bad in college, specifically because I was navigating, grieving my grandmother’s death as well as my parents were going through a separation. So my eating disorder transformed into if I can control this, if I can control what I eat, I can control what I look like, then I can control at least something in my life. When everything felt out of control, a lot of the emotions that I wasn’t processing fully would turn into binge eating, and if anyone gets triggered by these kinds of conversations, please, please be aware that we’re going to dive into a little bit of the details here, but it would trigger into controlling myself for managing how I ate. It would turn into binge eating or it would turn into being bulimic and actively just trying to find some kind of a release, because I wasn’t really being with my body. And so I looked into a therapist. That really helped. We did a lot of talk therapy at the time and then it kind of spiked up again.

It got better and then it spiked up again post college when, again, my life felt completely out of control and it was the only thing I could control. I didn’t have a job. I was looking for what I wanted to do and it was just a chaotic season. I was living with my parents. My friends were no longer around me, I was just navigating. Everything post college of the hell is going on, and it got really bad then too.

So then I reached out to a life coach and started that process and started really talking through it, and you know, all of those tools and those healing modalities were very, very helpful for me at the time and I share this with you because I needed those at the time. I needed a space to talk about it, because for me, talking about it or admitting the fact that I was going to this stuff was really, really difficult, just to normalize the conversation. So in those spaces I was able to normalize these conversations. I was able to feel safe in these containers to share what I was thinking, what was coming up for me, and receive an unbiased reflection or opinion or perspective or advice, whatever I ended up receiving in those sessions with the therapist or the life coach, and it did get better, right. I got very aware of where things were coming from, how things were happening. I could talk to you about it. I felt very, very aware of what was going on.

Yet I still found myself feeling like I wasn’t happy with my body or I would go in ways of feeling really good to all of a sudden waking up and feeling really bad about how I looked or how I fell in my body. And that continued on for a few years. And you know I fought it. Someone was like be positive, it’s going to be okay, like you are beautiful. I used all of the affirmations and the manifestations and visualizations and I created space to really, really dive into it, and yet it still peaked up a little bit and still peaked and I was like gosh, I’m so exhausted of this feeling right Like it got to a place where fighting this part of me that was so insecure with my body or didn’t have a good relationship with food or had, was constantly nitpicking how I looked or what I felt or what was in my body so exhausting. It got so freaking exhausting and I really was just so over it. I was like why I’m so tired of fighting, and so it really wasn’t until it was a combination.

So I ended up hiring someone to someone to support me and my body image stuff, which was super helpful. We dove deep into it. We did a lot of somatic works around what I was feeling in my body and what was coming up for me, and then I actively started to do the things that were uncomfortable. So one of the things was, you know, really changing my habits or my patterns. Instead of managing how much I ate, I gave myself the freedom to eat more of intuitive eating, which was really getting comfortable with eating as much as my body wanted to eat and starting to listen to okay, I’m full, I’m not full and really starting to create the sense of trust when it came to eating food, when it came to my relationship with food and welcoming and understanding and looking at food from a more of a nutritious space versus from a place of you know, depending on how much I eat, how I’m going to look, kind of a thing, and so I really dove into that. I did that with her and it was super, super helpful, don’t get me wrong. It was so helpful.
I feel like my time with her truly transcended so many layers for me that I was really needing and wanting at that time and we were through all the stuff that came along with it, and so I understood it a little bit more, right. And then it still kept coming up right, coming up from a space of post, that, like, am I ever going to find someone that loves me and my body If I don’t look a certain way, that I’m not going to find the person that I want to attract in my life? And I was like, gosh, here we go with the stories again and they were so true and I felt every emotion that came along with that and I also realized that they were just these things that I kept struggling with and I was just like, how can I get through this? I don’t. You know, I would judge myself in a swimsuit. Still, if there is an outfit that I wore that didn’t feel good, I just didn’t do it and then I it just kept coming up for me.

And so what really really hit home for me is when I took my healing from a place of awareness and mindset work to, from that to reframing, to affirmations, to meditations and all that stuff, to to really really diving deep into the messiest parts of me, and what that actually meant was diving into the achy. So, like every single time, let’s say, I felt insecure, feeling into that being with that, learning what that part was, and instead of managing or protecting myself from feeling those things AKA trying to create a better feeling or trying to manage how much of those feeling it or not feeling it and going through all of that like I really fricking welcomed it. And in welcoming it and really feeling the achy, I mean there came a lot of tears, a lot of emotions, a lot of uncomfortability and that didn’t feel really great. It wasn’t great, but what I’ve learned, especially through my certifications, my somatic certification, as well as experience, and through books and podcasts and really living this right, was my goal, was to no longer just find a way to replace it or fix it or change it and but really just welcome and be with it. Right, and there might be a sense of surrender in that, but it’s more of being with it so fully that it starts to get on your team.

What a lot of us end up doing when we have these really heavy parts of ourselves, especially when you are dealing with parts of you that you don’t want to feel. You kind of want to put it to the side, you want to put like the black sheep, basically on the other side of the room and you want to be like I don’t see her, I don’t feel her, I don’t know why you’re talking about. She no longer exists. I might do whatever I can to just be positive and not admit that. That’s there kind of a thing. Is this the type of energy that we do? It’s almost like we stiff army.

And something that I share that really clicked for me and that I share with my clients is that what if you actually welcomed that dark, messy part of you onto your team? Because that part of you truly why it’s coming up for you in this moment, and this can apply to anything and everything in your life, the things that keep coming up. It wants your attention, it wants something from you.

It needs something from you in that moment that it hasn’t received before. And when you start to welcome it, understand it and be with it and ask it what do you need in this moment and what’s coming up for you, you can learn how to start to give it to that, because just as much as you want to push that black sheep part of you or the darkest part of you aside, it’s more of learning to understand, to give it what it needs and what it wants, and creating space to give it that love and attention and affirmation that it’s looking for On some level.

That part of you doesn’t feel loved, seen or heard, and so it wants to feel loved, seen and heard. And so when we can create the space to give it the love and the visibility and the space for it to be loved just as it is, for what it is, for who it is, for how it is and what it wants and what it means, we can create more capacity to hold these parts of ourselves along with us instead of just completely taking us out as a part of our journey. And in doing that, you create this different relationship with this part of us. It’s no longer feels like you’re trying to avoid it or leave it or shove it aside. It feels like it’s on the same team as yours and just like you as a human being. It feels so much better when you are welcomed into a space versus getting shoved out of its space.

When you are welcome into a space with a different part, you’re like ah, this feels really good. There’s a sense of relief in that and I share that with you, because this part of you is going through that same process. It’s saying, wow, I’m welcome here. What? Really no way. Okay, I can do this. I feel a little bit more safe in this, I can build my capacity to be in this, okay. And then it starts to be like wow, I feel seen, I feel heard, I feel met. Wow, I didn’t know that could happen. That’s just as healing for that part of you and in doing that right, then it’s much easier to move through these parts of us and these emotions, these parts of us that come up when they start to be on our team, because it’s no longer fighting you or getting angry with you or saying like you don’t see me. So I’m going to get louder, because that’s what they do, right?

When we don’t give the parts of us an opportunity to fully express themselves, they will get louder and it will seem more like intensely, like see me, see me, do, help me, help me, I’m going to be louder, I’m going to make it miserable for you to feel, insecure and incompetent and like this is the worst thing ever, and so on, because it doesn’t have this space to fully express itself. And so in giving, creating that space for it to be fully expressed and being in that process with it, that’s where we get to see the messiest parts of ourselves. That’s when the messiest parts of us ourselves are our biggest teachers. They show us, they show us the way to the other side that we’re all trying to get to right, the other side of feeling that light and positive, grounded, confident, fully expressed selves. But it’s through the messiness, it’s in walking through the mud, it’s in going through the ick that we create a better, a healthier relationship with those parts of ourselves.

Because the more that we ignore them, the more that we use work, distractions, avoidance, toxic positivity to avoid these parts of ourselves, the louder they come. They might get a little quiet for a little bit, but then they come back knocking at the door even louder and by that time you’re just. You’re just over it, you’re tired and you’re exhausted. And if you’ve been doing that for a long time, right. So really fighting a lot of those parts of you really using how you work or the gym or distracting yourself and your friendships or just avoiding hard conversations, right.

The more that you do that, the more that builds up for these parts of them to express, the more they want to be seen and heard, because they haven’t been created the space to do that. And when you do that, you start to create better capacity to hold. These parts of you like to love them, see them, and you get to choose the part of you that you want to listen to, part of you that feels into that safe, grounded, peaceful, aligned, high as self. However you want to call these other parts of you that you get to choose from, the hardest part is you might have heard this, you know everyone says you always have a choice. I agree with that to an extent.

If these parts of you haven’t had the space, the safe space, to express themselves, it’s really hard to make a choice that you want to make a choice, for it can be really hard to get yourself out of scarcity and a low mindset and negative thoughts when they’ve been basically hidden for such a long time. But the minute that you do that and they become on your team, they won’t be as loud and you will feel way more resource, way more resource to choose and feel and be the parts of you. And you also get to learn how to be in duality of all these parts of yourself. You get to love these parts of you as they come up. You get to love the messiest ones, love the darkest ones, because in loving them, that’s how you can be with and move through in the direction that you want to go.

And so, to wrap it all back up for you, you know, if you find yourself truly avoiding these messy parts of you, the parts of you that give you an egg, the parts of you that you can just feel in your stomach and you’re like don’t want to feel this anymore, or the anxiety that just comes through your chest and you just want to run away from it, I totally understand the desire to want to just shove it aside and pretend that it’s not there or just like ignore it I also believe and dive into it, go deep into it, find the space to be with those parts of you, and I will also say from experience if you want to take this or not. You know, as you’re leaning into the messiest parts of yourself, give yourself grace and great specific containers to really be with that. So, while you’re doing this work around diving into the messiest parts of you, really learning and loving these parts of you and giving them what they want and their need and getting you know, bringing them on your team and really integrating the light and the darkness of yourself, those seasons could be really heavy right, they could be. There’s a lot of emotional hangovers that come along with doing these practices and diving deeper. There could be a lot of lowness or low energy that comes with it, and so, instead of this is going to come from a place of me, knowing that I’ve been someone that has forced through a lot of my processing through these things. I’ve wanted to heal things as quickly as possible and I’ve pushed my own capacity and I’ve passed my own boundaries for that, and so I say this with like take your time as you dive into these messiest parts of yourself, as you start to learn these parts of yourself and start to welcome and love it and be present with it and also choose that goddess, god energy that you want to step into, that queen, cut king energy that you want to feel, because as you go through that, make sure you have also spaces to relax, to feel joy, to feel happiness, to regulate your nervous system, to feel grounded.

So really supporting not just your life but really supporting your nervous system as you dive into the messiest parts of yourself, as you dive deeper into these parts of you, really just giving your body the love and attention as it starts to feel the icky, as you start to build capacity for the ickiness, for the messiness, for the darkness, and so what that can look like in an example for those that are listening. You know, maybe you end up hiring therapists or coach or trying to do some kind of a ceremony to dive deep into these parts of yourself that you’ve been feeling. Go for it, do it and before it, you know, really do the things that help you feel the most resource. So, whether that is taking really upping yourself here, really taking care of your nutrition and your health, really getting good at night’s sleeps, taking space from heavy conversations and just being with yourself, absorbing a lot of sunlight before and then also afterwards, creating a space for that and during the integration of those pieces, you know, finding the balance between like talking and diving deep to also taking a break and giving yourself some joy and love. So you are resource to dive in deeper, to be with that, and so, yeah, I honestly think that is a lot of what I wanted to share on this specific episode, about how the messiest parts of you are your biggest teachers. They will show you not only what they need and they want, but they will show you how to show up.

It’s in the how right, something that I’ve recently really admired from people that I look up to as an example, as an embodied example. To me, it doesn’t matter what their results are or what they have, or their successes, or their titles or what they call themselves or whatever. What I admire the most is that they have learned how to do the how, how to do life, how to be with these parts of themselves and still be in the energy that they decide to be in. And so this is why I believe the messiest parts of you are your biggest teachers, because they will not only teach you how to work through and be with these parts, but they will also teach you how to pee and move through life, through just the struggles of life, the realities of layers, the realities of these things that come with us as we continue to forever evolve and into our full six breath self, as we continue to evolve on this life, into the people that we want to become, as we continue to evolve into our most truest essence. And every new level or every new level of expansion or every new level of capacity that you step into, you get to practice these tools over and over and over again. So these messy parts of ourselves are not only again going to show you what they need and what they want in the moment, but they’re also going to show you how to do life, how to move through relationship, how to work through business. It will give you the practice and the tools and not just like. You will fully actually embody that and in the embodiment. That’s how you can tell that someone has done this right, has stepped into this, because they start to apply it from one area to the next area, to the next area of life and through that process you get to see when it’s available to you, when it’s appropriate to apply it and when it’s necessary for you to dive in.

All right, ladies, if you are listening in, this is for you. If you have a friend or family member that is female, that is looking for community, that is looking at this path of growth and wanting to evolve as a human being, please listen in. So I want to share with you the fully expressed community. If you haven’t heard about it, you need to hear about it, and you’re hearing about it today and I’d love for you to check it out. The fully expressed community is for women, supporting women. We have created a community where you can connect with other women that are also on this path of growth, that are interested and curious about what else is available to them. They want to see themselves living a life fully expressed in their lives and their relationships and their business. They want to bring their fully authentic self into all areas of their lives so they can actually attract a life and relationships and careers and business that is so aligned to them because they are living a life fully expressed In the fully expressed community.

We meet online every single second Wednesday for every single month at 5.30 pm PST, and also have access to a Slack channel where I drop resources, where we share information, we talk about the community, we create community. You also get access to not only the guest coaches that have been on this podcast, but also guest coaches that I have kept waiting to show you what they have to share with you when it comes to their teachings and their practitioners. You’re not only going to listen for me, but you’re also going to learn from these amazing human beings that are available to you out there and here to share their gifts with you so that you can live a life fully expressed. The fully expressed community is only $27 a month and if you leave a review on this podcast, I will actually give to you one month to come. Join us for free in the fully expressed community to actually experience what it means to be in this community and these women. So if you go leave a review from me, I’ll go do that.

You can also find more information in the show notes about the fully expressed community and I hope to see you there next month, the next second Wednesday that is available to you to be surrounded by other women. That just forget, get it that. Just get what you’re going through. I’ll see you there, and the more that you practice that, the better, the faster you get at recognizing that and knowing that and I love that because I think that’s also a part of this journey and, like, the faster that we can get at recognizing that. Okay, this is something. This is the next part of my journey, this is the next layer I want to be with. I say step into the next level of evolution that I’m stepping into. The more we get to through that, move through that quicker and we end up moving through that quicker as we move through life. So, all right, I think that’s all that I have to share, but obviously I am so welcoming of anything that comes up for you as you listen to this podcast.

I really want to encourage you to share this episode with a friend, share with them what came up for you and what stood out for you and what resonated with you in the podcast and how you want to apply it. If that’s what it is for you, and then feel free to follow the podcast, the fully-expected podcast. Subscribe here to listen more. Go ahead and leave me a review, and if you want to talk to me directly, the best way is to look it up on, you know, on Instagram, at the fully-expected podcast. Send me a DM or send me an email at hello at carinocotocom and let’s chat about what came up for you.

Okay, like you know, I’m in the stages right now of this podcast where I want to create deeper relationships with anyone that’s listening and anyone that’s willing to, and I do hope that, through my words and through these episodes, is that it sparked something within you and I’d love to hear what it sparked. I’d love to hear what ignited what came through the body, what would fire you felt because of listening to this episode, and through that I can also support you even more. If there’s something that you wanted more of, I will totally build off of your feedback. All right, love. Well, thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you listen to the next one. Sending you lots of love, and thank you so much for being here and can’t wait for us to connect again soon.

Full Transcript0:00:00 – Speaker 1
Welcome to the Fully Expressed podcast with Karenna. I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto, and today I’m going to provide you with a few tips on how to know what’s the next step in your healing journey, or how do I identify what that is for yourself.

Depending on where you’re at on your healing journey, this episode is going to be perfect for anyone that is just starting. Maybe you’re finding yourself overwhelmed of like I don’t even know where to start, or I don’t know what to do. Or it’s going to be really, really helpful for someone that has been on this for a really long time. Maybe you’ve been doing the inner work for a while. You’ve been deep diving into just learning more about who you are, but you find yourself up against the wall of like I don’t really know where else to start. You know, or what’s the next thing that I can work on, or what’s been coming up for me. So this episode is really going to help answer that lot of those questions. So go ahead and listen in, all right? So before I dive into giving you all the tips around, what’s the next thing that you can tackle on your healing journey, or what does that mean to you at this time? One. I want to give you a little bit of light into my personal healing journey and what that really looked like.

You know, for me in my initial phases of quote unquote this healing journey or learning more about myself, I really dove into learning a lot about myself. It all started on the, on the couch of my best friend and learning about the enneagram and learning a little bit more about this personality test and the results that I got and what they meant and what they meant to me and gave me so much insight into how I show up, why I show up and where that came from. That really ended up pushing me into and kind of initiating more than anything into this space of consuming a lot of information. So I was consuming a lot of information from different books. I was reading podcasts, instagram posts, I mean anything like that. I was consuming Instagram lives and coaching programs I mean, if you guys knew how much money I’ve invested into coaching programs and then really all started to continue to kind of support me and serve in a way of showing me new information and applying that new information to my life. As well as a part of applying it, going through the undoing that came from a part of applying the information or the being with the parts of me that were attached to the information that I was taking in.

So a lot of me starting to become aware of my ego, my mind, my self awareness, you know, learning about anxiety, learning about attachment theory in relationships and attachment styles and communication styles, and you know this list of lists of things that I honestly drank from the fire hose. I loved all this information. I’m like, ooh, I was low key, obsessed, low key, wanted to learn more and more and more because it really taught me so much. A part of that was also hard to absorb, hard to understand. There was some resistance to some of the information that I was taking in because I was like, no, that’s not who I am. And as I started to work through it was like, I see, I understand now what everyone’s talking about.

So I went through this initial awakening and as I continued on this path, the next phase of my journey, I wanted to kind of really lean into being with the different parts of me that were just coming up all the time and really leaning into, I would say actively and proactively, almost finding the parts of me and I really want to lean into what I mean by proactively. So there was this part of me that was searching to find parts of me, to fix parts of me, to quote unquote, heal parts of me, to do more on doing right. I was like, well, if there’s, if there’s all of this that I’ve learned about myself, what else more is out there? And at that phase I will be honest and transparent that it wasn’t necessarily coming from a very healthy, grounded and loving and open hearted space. If anything, it was coming from a place of like, well, in the more healing that I do right, if I heal more parts of me than the more healed I am, the more worthy I am, the more enough that I am.

And it’s kind of hard not to receive that or not to let my ego take that on. And the reason I say that is because, especially when you’re on social media, especially when you’re in this world of personal development, maybe you surround yourself in communities where everyone’s growing right. It can almost turn into well, if you’re not growing, if you’re not healing, if you’re not doing any of the work, are you cool enough, are you good enough, like, and it’s very interesting how it can actually be something that’s there to support us, but then, when it turns into this, it can actually be more unsupportive and destructive in a way. And so, instead of continuing to lead my healing process from a place of I feel unworthy or I don’t feel like enough, or I want to be accepted by the personal development community, or I want to be accepted by my friends that are doing the growth work or whatever, you know, that’s all coming. If you feel the energy behind, it kind of feels a little reachy, it feels very much like well, if I can reach onto this and hold on, then maybe, maybe I’ll be okay. There’s this like idea of like, then I’ll be good enough, then I’ll be worthy enough. And and that’s where I was like we can’t, we can’t be doing this work from that space, and that’s when a lot of things ended up kind of switching from me, right.

So, instead of searching for new information as a way to prove that I wasn’t enough and that by healing these parts of me that I would be enough, it really started to lean into well, what’s what’s present for me in my life right now, and before I even did that, I just want to share something that really, really helps me and as a tool that I teach a lot of my clients as a tool that I use them every day. It’s actually a part of my language funny to say that’s part it’s. It’s called parts work. So parts work has helped me really almost identify the different parts of me within me and become more of the observer, become more of the witness of what I’m thinking.

For example, let’s say I’m having a hard conversation with my partner and there’s this part of me that there’s this part of me that’s scared of having that conversation. There’s a part of me that knows that’s important to have a conversation. There’s a part of me that feels like if I say this, then they might not love me or accept me. There’s a part of me that knows that this is genuinely true. There’s also a part of me that wants to express this, because by expressing this I know that this would be really healing for me. And so what I just did there, from what you guys just listened to, I was able to identify the different parts of me that are coming up in these situations, and that’s really parts work.

Right, we have multi-diventural humans, we have multiple parts to us, and if you look at someone’s system, someone’s mind and the way that I think in the thought process there’s multiple layers to someone’s thought process. There’s multiple layers to someone’s habit. There’s multiple layers to why you do the things that you do. There’s multiple layers that come up when you are facing a difficult time or you’re facing a part of you that you don’t feel good about, or there’s a part of you know a difficult conversation in your relationships, or you are starting to recalibrate your relationship with relationships, right, like if you’re going through that recalibration period, there’s a lot of parts of you that come up to the mix. Right, and what I have genuinely learned with parts work, it’s learning how to be with all parts. It’s learning how to be with the most present parts at that moment and learn what they need and want.

In that time and throughout that process, I have learned that it’s not a matter of actually putting these parts aside or making them feel less than, or making them feel bad, or wanting to hide them in the closet or making sure that they never come up again. It’s been actually the most healing and the thought has been more like how can I love these parts more? How can I give them what they need and want? How can they give them space to express themselves. And through that process I have started to fully embody more loving all of these parts of me.

And so now this work, this healing journey, doesn’t come from a place of like I’m not enough or I’m not doing enough, but it’s coming from a place of like I love all parts of me so much that I want to give them all a space to express themselves. I want them to not feel anxious when they’re showing up, for example, or not wanting to shut down and run away because they’re scared. I want to show them that I love them, that I see them and that I hear them, and so that that is already coming from a loving, open and heart centered space. That I think is very important when you are on this healing journey. And so that was just a little tip bit that we’re going to throw in there, but kind of bringing it back to like. You know, if you are in this space of, let’s start like with we’re just starting this healing journey, something that you can start. Let’s start with the mind. So, if anyone knows, I believe that there’s two ways of approaching transformation. You can do that from the mind and you can do that from the body. It’s not one or either, or it’s a matter of leveraging both.

So the very first things that you can start to ask yourself and ask yourself these questions is what’s been present for you in your life right now? What has been coming up for you in your life? What has been coming up for you in business or in your career? What has been coming up for you in your relationship? How does life feel to you? How does business feel to you? How does relationship feel to you?

And then, once you’ve kind of identified that and started to give yourself kind of an overlook of what that is, I want you to ask yourself the question of like which one seems to be taking up the most space on my mind these days. Is there a part of your life that feels distant? Is there a part of your life for you in relationship or in business or just in general, that feels anxious? Is there a part of you that you’ve been avoiding or ignoring, that you know is asking for you to be present with, it’s asking you to understand more of? Is there a part of you that you want to dive into? But then you also know that you’re scared to, and so, after answering those questions. Just get really honest with yourself and get real with yourself and start there. You know you get to kind of see this and you know the next layer to this if you wanted to dive into is just check in with your body. Let’s see how your body is feeling in these different situations.

So when you hear me say or ask those questions, it’s probably possible that your body already gave yourself some kind of a signal or some kind of reaction. You can either feel the anxiety coming up to your throat, your chest or going straight to your belly, or you’re wanting to get off this episode because it was too triggering for you and anything like that. Those are signs and I’m not using it as a way to call you out or anything. It’s just. It’s more of making you aware of what could be potentially happening. You’re asking yourself these questions. Just check in with your body and see how your body responds to this. If it starts to contract, get anxious, numb out, want to run away, want to avoid, there’s a lot of resistance to it, those are usually really good signs of places that you could start this work. You can start doing your healing journey and then from there, all right, my love.

I’m jumping in here real quick to tell you about the fully expressed community, because the women that are in this group are phenomenal and if you’re listening to this and you’re a lady, a female, or know someone that is female or lady that is on this path of growth and wanting to continue to evolve as a human being and find their fullest, authentic expression in their relationships, in their life, in their business and relationships, and want to be surrounded by a community of women that are dedicated to doing the work themselves, I want you in this community, I want to invite you into this community. I really think that being surrounded by other women that are on the same path, that just get you, that just totally understand where you’re coming from or where you’re going or where you want to go and wherever that path is, and create such a safe space for you to be held in that and encouraged in, that is so important for our healing. If you find yourself feeling an ounce or a sprinkle of anxiety or overwhelmed or just uneasiness with the thought of being in a great container, about talking about very vulnerable things, I just want to encourage you and remind you that I totally understand, I totally get it. It can be edgy, it can be scary to open yourself in that way, but in doing so you end up creating so much more healing. I’ve had some of the biggest breakthroughs being in containers that can hold me and being surrounded by other women that are also on this path, because I feel like I’m seen and understood, and so I truly want to invite you into giving it a chance. I’m also offering one month free if you leave a review of the podcast, and then you will get access to the next second Wednesday to join us. So go ahead and leave a review and I will send you the invitation to see you so you can actually get a taste of what it feels like to be within the community.

Again, come join us in the Mutfully Express community, where you only don’t hear from myself and get teachings and somatic practices and meditations and guiding and network nervous system regulation, but you also get to learn from renowned practitioners, healers, coaches etc. That are doing the thing in this world and they have gifts to share with you about what is available to you, and you get to take that and crack the code for yourself and how that applies to your life and how that applies to your relationships and how that applies to your business and your brand, your career, etc. Because for all of us women, I really do envision a world, not only for the betterment of ourselves, of why we live on this earth, but as well as our community, as our collective, as the human being, a human population, really bringing and opening arms to the woman that is slowly expressed, that is living in her power, that is so confident and bold and, as well as such, in her feminine and vulnerable and soft and open to creating that space. And so here we’re going to be surrounded by other women that want that and that create that and that burning desire to be on that path. So come join us, leave a review of what I’m doing for the next one for free, and I hope to see you there.

One thing I also want to share is that, when you are in this process of identifying where to start, I want to tell you that most likely, if you start in one air of your life, so if you just start with the relationship that you have with yourself, it’s also going to impact and have an impact with the relationship that you have with someone else If you start to work on it from a place of your business and your career, and what’s been coming up for you there, I’m almost 100% positive that it’s also going to come up in your relationships or in your life in a different way. So when we have these inner wounds or these things, these habits, or, if you want to think about them as unhealthy tendencies or unhealthy relationships to the parts of ourselves, think of it as a root of a tree. The minute that it is, it’s there, right, it starts to create new roots into other areas of your life. It starts to create this pattern that you can just see play over and over in all areas of your life, and so I say that with like, you don’t have to start with this work of attacking everything, but just as tack one area of your life, whether you want to start with the anxiety that you feel in a romantic relationships, or you want to start with the anxiety that you feel like when you’re with your friendships, or if you want to start with the parts of you that are being held back in your online business or in your career. Maybe you’re not expressing yourself fully, and that’s really present for you right now. Just start there first.

Now this next step, and you can either use this or this next part. You can use this, whether you are new to the healing journey or this is something that you’ve been doing for a while. Right, you’ve been doing the inner work, you’ve been studying yourself, you understand yourself, you’ve seen some breakthroughs, you’ve seen some trans, some transformation, but then you’re like I don’t really know where to focus on. And I think this is really helpful, especially because the inner work, the self healing journey as long as you’re open to it, it will be a part of your life for a very long time, as you continue to express yourself, as you continue to evolve as a human being, as your soul continues to just crack wide open with the different experiences that come your way. Right, this is something that is so beautiful and it’s a beautiful gift to all of us because it’s a part of our evolution, and so I say that with, like, this next thing that I’m going to share is going to be such an important I want to say, almost like skill set that you will learn how to integrate slowly into your life, where this inner work and this self healing doesn’t necessarily have to become this massive task, or it’s not necessarily has to be super scary, or it’s not this huge mountain that you get to climb. It’s like almost like you’ve gotten your steps in, you understand how to do this, you get to walk through it and you get to just repeat it as new parts of you come up. So I want you to leverage your body in this instance.

So, as you know, as a somatic practitioner, I really do love using body based therapy, or body based and body mentors and practices, because our bodies actually hold a lot of our subconscious mind. It continues to hold a lot of the emotional charges that we felt throughout our lives. Remember is a lot of the wounding that we might have. Experiences has in prints of our past experience, both the good and the ones that were harmful, both the ones that we received and the way that we didn’t receive, and so our body is just this intelligence that we get to get to be with and bring on board, and it’s probably one of the most complimentary tools to anyone’s. Healing is really not only getting your mind on board right, so your mind might consciously understand, become aware of all these things. But how do we get your body on board? How do we get your body to move with you and your transformation. How do we get your body to recognize the thought and then also be the thought right? It’s not so much of just knowing, it’s in the actual being of our parts of us and our evolution and our expression and our evolution that truly, truly gets us the next step.

So I want you to do a quick check in and just ask yourself how has your body been feeling lately? Is it feeling nourished? Is it feeling at peace? Is it feeling grounded, or does it feel anxious? Or maybe it feels really disconnected and really far away? What does what does it feel like? Does it feel like it’s with you? Do you feel like you’re in your body, or do you feel like you’re out of your body?
The next question is how does your body feel when you are in a romantic relationship or when you are with your romantic partner? Does it feel safe? Does it feel grounded? Does it feel confident, or does it feel anxious? Does it feel like it wants to run away? Does it feel like kind of numb almost, or disconnected? How does your body feel when you are in the workspace, in your career? Do you feel anxious? Do you feel connected? Do you feel alive? Do you feel joyful? Do you feel a sense of ease when it comes to work. How does your body feel?

Now I’m going to take the same questions and ask you how does your body feel when you’re having hard conversations? Is there a specific topic that comes up that your body gets super anxious? You can feel almost like there’s like a frog in your throat or your heart starts racing or your belly starts to feel like super sick, like you can just feel the emotions in your gut, or you just feel really heavy. Or does it feel like you want to run away, or do you in fact feel pretty confident, pretty grounded and so on, and so you’re starting to get my just here is like you can start to use your body as a way to show you where is there an opportunity or where is there an invitation for you to learn more, where is there an invitation for you to see that next part of you, to get a little bit more curious about, to start understand these parts of you that are coming up. Maybe there is more inner healing there, maybe there is some more parts of you that want to be expressed in those areas, and a lot of the times our body will speak to us. You can feel the body when it feels open and joyful and connected and alive, almost like everything, feels like it’s in harmony.

But when that gets out of place a little bit, that’s where we start to feel disconnected, that’s when we start to feel numb, that’s when we start to feel like we’re just doing day to day the same thing over and over again, that’s when we start to feel anxious and contracted and unsafe. And so I want you to get a little curious about how your body is feeling in these moments. And then this is really going to give you your next step these answers as they come up. And so how can you do that from an integrated space? So let’s say you’ve already. You’re living your day to day. You’ve been doing this in our work, you’ve worked with the therapist, you’ve worked with the coach, you’re just kind of doing life and you have the tools to help you manage Anything that might come up for you, and you’re just curious about what that next step looks like for you in your healing journey.

As soon as you start to feel your body feel anxious in certain situations or contract again Anything that I had shared, where your body just feels really freaking uncomfortable. That’s an invitation for you to dig a little bit deeper and get really compassionately curious with what is this? Where is this coming for? What’s coming up for me? What does that feel like? And that’s probably a place where I would. I would learn a little bit more and dive deeper. And so, again, the purpose of this podcast episode was really just to give you some tools and some insight into what could be the next step in your journey, as well as where would be a really good place to start.

I find that so many people feel stuck in how do I start right, and that can, when you’re Overwhelmed and your mind doesn’t know what to do, can actually cause more of a freeze-trauma response. But right now, I’m giving you the questions and the tools and the practices that can help you move the needle forward. Right, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this, but most of our life, we’re either moving forward or we’re living in the past. So sometimes, if we find ourselves stuck, we’re just kind of reliving the same past over and over again. Versus, if we get the opportunity to move the needle forward, then we’re actually living in the present and more in what’s next and what’s available To us, and so this is the invitation for you to find that next thing for yourself. And the last thing I’ll say and I think this is the most important piece to the healing journey and this inner work path is your biggest medicine is learning how to give yourself grace. Grace is the biggest medicine to the soul, to inner work. And so, however you move through your process and whatever is next for you in your process, it’s your process.

It doesn’t have to look like your friend that’s also doing the personal development work. Maybe they are moving into being more sexually expressed and you haven’t even, you can’t even wrap your mind about what that looks like. Or maybe they’re learning into integrating both their masculine and their feminine and you’re like we, I don’t even know what that means. Or you see them really leaning into their business and their career and their purpose and finding that space, and then you find yourself super overwhelmed with what do you mean? I have to do all this work and take it from me. Your body and these questions are gonna tell you what is that next step for you.

So, if you need to go back and listen to this episode, write down the questions and take that time for yourself, go do that, but your ego is gonna want to compare to the people around you, your communities, and Also, it’s gonna be really difficult to navigate social media, as you’re consuming so much information, and that’s a whole another episode that I think we need to talk about. But, when it comes to social media, can be very overwhelming of how much information is there. So I want you to take your power back and come back to your intuition and come back to Yourself and really start to create this inner knowing within you. By asking yourself these questions, by practicing these things and by creating this inner knowing, you will also create the sense of discernment, and when it comes to discernment, that means you’ll be able to make decisions and know what’s the best next step for you. And so, yeah, I feel like that’s really what we covered here today.

So biggest takeaways are just get curious with yourself about where life is. Ask yourself the questions, use your body as a way to kind of be the signal of well, there is a new door that’s knocking at my door and I need to. I want to go, look at it’s an invitation and Remember to give yourself grace in this process. Give yourself an, an opportunity, right, because the harder that you are on yourself, the further away You’re actually gonna be from your growth. And so many people think that if I’m harder on myself or if I push myself harder, we’re gonna get there faster, and that’s actually not the case. Going at your pace and taking it slowly and going to that process is, is gonna be the biggest thing that’s actually gonna end up moving you a lot faster. Trying to go fast could actually making you go slow. I know that sounds funny but it’s true.

And then, lastly, once you kind of identify what areas you want to work into and kind of feel into which ones are Really big ones and where you want support and you want to dive in deeper, you know, look specifically for that, find a resource, find an accountability partner, find a coach, find a mentor, find a therapist that can help you dive into that specific part of you that’s coming up for you right now, in this moment, in that area of your life, and search for someone that has the expertise to support you in that, because in that space, that’s where you can really help almost fast-track your Transformation, this part of your journey. If you want that, if you feel that that is supported for you, it’s always really nice when you have someone on your team with an unbiased opinion and is willing to help you and see you in your process. So if you’re anyone that truly welcomes that, I want to encourage you to also take the space to go. Do that, all right.

Well, I would love to Hear from you if you found this helpful, if you found that you want to share with me what came up for you. I’m so open to doing that. You can send me a message on Instagram at the fully express podcast is the handle for this and send me a message there. Or you can send me an email to at hello at Karen a soto calm, and all of this will be in the show notes. But I would love to hear from you and if you found this episode supportive, please go ahead and just rate this episode. Give this a feedback so I can go ahead and reach more people in this community, because I truly believe in supporting and encouraging and inspiring and Inviting every single one of you into your fullest express self and in your personal evolution, as we continue on this lifelong journey of healing and this journey of life that we’ve been so blessed with on this earth. So, sending you lots of love and look, keep an eye out for the next one. Talk to you soon I.

Full Transcript0:00:00 – Speaker 1
Welcome to the Fully Expressed Podcast with Karenna. I’m here to invite you into your fullest expression and life, relationships and business, and to inspire you into that next step of your evolution. So thanks for tuning in.
All right, you guys, today is a day of recording episodes, and if only you knew what I’m wearing right now. So I’m wearing this really big t-shirt and I have my really good friend Lizzie. She got us all of these. I don’t know if you guys know my friend Lizzie, but you probably have. Maybe you don’t, but if you don’t know her, she’s my really good friend from college and she, for her bachelorette, bought us these really big t-shirts with different animal prints on them. Each, every single bachelorette that was there or bridesmaids that was there, got a different animal print of what she reminded of, the animal that reminds her of us or us to her. Sorry, guys, I’m clearly not getting that right, but basically I’m wearing this massive t-shirt and it has a Frenchie on the on the front of it, because clearly my family reminds her of Frenchies. I have a Frenchie, my sister has a Frenchie, my mom has a Frenchie, we love Frenchies, we love Bulldogs, we love those really smush faces. So just imagine me wearing this big t-shirt and I have this green chlorophyll mask on that. I’m wearing that I absolutely love. I’ll make sure I’m totally blanking on the brand that I got it from, but I will make sure it’s something local for you in the show notes, just in case you want to. But it’s my favorite chlorophyll green mask and since I mean honestly, since I’m not recording these videos at this time, I would still show up like this on that video and I wish you just could see me. So just imagine me sharing this with you as I dive into it.
But for today’s podcast, this is going to be very specific and available to anyone that needs a gentle reminder or an encouragement that there is more for you. There is more for you in this world, there is more for you in life, there is more for you in business, there’s more for you in relationship. And if you find yourself asking the questions of is this how life is? Why is life so hard? Why are relationships so hard? Why do I keep attracting the same men in my life or women in my life? Why do I keep repeating the same patterns? Why, you know you’re just asking all these questions.
And then there’s also a part of you that is looking for something more right. Maybe you’re on the cusp. You started to have some kind of conversations. You’re starting to realize that there’s another way of being, there’s another way of showing up, there’s more to life, there’s depth to life and right now you might be experiencing something really tough, or in an unhealthy relationship, or just living a bleh life, right, and life just doesn’t feel good to you. Your business doesn’t feel good to you, your career doesn’t feel good to you, your life don’t feel good to you, but you feel like that’s the way it has to be and part of you feels like this is the way it’s always gonna be, and you’re just kind of running contently in this energy of I’m just here, I’m just going through the circles every single day. I wake up, go to work, work out, go to sleep and then do it all over the next day, and then I have a family and maybe I have kids and I’m just going to the next and the next and there’s no sense of how do I say super yumminess in your life.
And maybe you feel sprinkles of the yumminess, of the joy, of the happiness, of moments of like, yes, I’m just beyond this, but most of the time it feels a little bit more gray, a little bit more like you’re questioning yourself a little bit more, like I feel like this is just what it is. So, again, you feel meh, I guess that’s the best way. Or you feel mid. I don’t know if you guys have heard this new term terminology that the kids are using these days well, I’m clearly getting old, but they’re starting to use the word mid and so life just feels mid to you right now. And that can also be like where life just doesn’t necessarily feel bad, it doesn’t necessarily feel great either, it’s just mid.
So, if you’re listening to this and you’re in this space right now, or if you think of someone that is going through something like this, like hey, tune in, listen in and feel free to share this with them, invite them into this space, into this container, into this conversation with us, because I want to tell you right now, if you are listening to this, that there is more for you. Every part of my body right now, in this moment, I have tears coming to my eyes as I say that there is more for you. If you want more, there is more. If you have a sense of whisper that is knocking at your door and saying, hey, there’s another way to do this, there is something else that’s available to you that you haven’t tapped into yet. There is a feeling that you haven’t felt yet. There is a sense of safety and groundedness and peace and aliveness and joy. That’s available to you If you are starting to hear those whispers beautiful, amazing you have found yourself an opportunity to listen to the whispers, to find out what the whispers mean, to get curious with the whisper.
Ooh, there’s so much yumminess and curiosity, you guys, yes, it’s a little edgy, yes, it’s a little scary and unknown, but, damn, there is a curiosity. And that curiosity, especially with the whispers that come back over and over and over again, there’s something so deep there for you to explore that is worth exploring. And so, to give you a little bit of light to maybe why I’m getting a little emotional as I speak about this, because there’s a couple things. One, I get a little there’s a little bit of frustration with the way that our role is set up to not show us light into some of the things that I really wish was talked about more. They’re the types of things that I wish. These are the types of things that people talk to you and class and college and high school. They’re the kinds of lessons that are so meant to be in that life Bible that there are. No one created Right? No one gives you a guide to life. But this is one of the episodes that I wish was in that guide. If there was one, if there was a guide, a lesson book or just an overall good view of what’s available to you, this episode would for sure be in there as a chapter. And I say that because it’s so imperative for us to know that that’s available to us.
We live sometimes so looking back in my life right now and kind of bringing myself to a place where I didn’t even know this was available, and I just live my life normal quote unquote. Normal life Dated and I had relationships. They were fun and exciting, they were mid. There was a lot of hurt, a lot of pain throughout life. There was a lot of questioning and understanding, but I followed the path. I did what you were supposed to do go to high school, go to college, get a degree, find a job, get a corporate, throw the corporate ladder, do all those things I did. What quote unquote the equation of success looks like, but as a part of that, the one piece I feel like was forgotten to share was really an encouraging someone to explore their creativity, their expression, their essence and what that really means to that one person.
So, as I go back, I wish someone asked me the questions of who are you, what do you want to do? And I’m not saying like what do you want to do in life? But like what makes you feel alive, what brings you happiness, what brings you joy, what is the one thing that feels like a spiritual, freaking transmission when you do it? What are the things in life that create that for you? Those are the kinds of questions I wish someone asked me, because in that there’s more and structure that our world has created.
I believe in structure. I’m totally here for the masculine and feminine to find flow, and we do need structure to guide us, at least as human beings. It’s a lot easier to have some kind of structure, some kind of ABCD step, if you will. And this is why these conversations and this part of the journey that gets a little bit difficult, because, at the end of the day, maybe someone did it a certain way, but it isn’t the only way. It’s about your way of going about things, about your story. It’s not so much. Well, if you have a, then you add B, you’ll get C. I mean, realistically, it’s about where you’re at your journey. You can have X plus Y equals D, you know, but it’s different for every single person. But what I do know, I pee in the day.
If you are freaking curious about what else is available to you and you feel mid in your life, you feel like life is mid, or you feel like life is awful or hard or difficult and challenging. There is another way and I wanna remind you of that today. I want you to know that that’s available to you, because you are wildly capable of anything and everything that comes your way, that you come across, that you come up against, and you are so capable of handling any whisper or invitation that your soul asks you to look into, to take a peek, to start to understand, to unravel, and in that, yes, there’s gonna be so much of undoing that you’ll have to go through, but when you go for it from a place of knowing that that’s available to you, you don’t have to go through anything. You get to go through everything. You get to go through the undoing, you get to be with these parts of you that are asking of you to be here, expressed in whatever way is possible, and if you are searching for a really type of partnership or relationship and there’s a lot of parts of you that feel like they’re a stretch to reach, I say reach. I say go, go for it, no matter how much of a stretch it feels like. Don’t wait for anything less than that, because you are deserving of more. You are so deserving of more. And I will also say you are so deserving of more as you are today, so you don’t have to feel like you’re ready for more or that you have to show up in a certain way or to be perfect for the more. All you have to do, all that’s available to you, is gonna be found in the curiosity, in the willingness and in the desire to find and create what you want, and so the same thing applies for your life. If you’re wanting to live a life a certain way, if you’re wanting to create life, feel in a certain way, whether that’s exhilarating and joyful and peaceful and grounded and alive and joyful and consistent, and all the things at once, you can have it all. So sometimes, if I found myself when I was going to do this journey and you might be in this too, is that you’re living kind of more in this either, or mindset.
I wanna encourage you that you can have both. You can have it all, because in life it’s about and and people don’t share you that with you it’s almost like, well, if I’m successful, then I can’t have the relationship of my dreams because the time that I put into my business and my career and my success is gonna take over the relationship that I want. So I’m gonna compromise relationship I want just so I can be successful, or vice versa. I’m gonna end up having to compromise my successes because of the relationship that I want. And I wanna challenge you on this podcast and remind you I’m gonna call it bullshit. I’m sorry because it is bullshit, but you feel like you have to have one or the other. Because I know you can have both. Why not have both? Why not have the successes? Why not have the relationship of your dreams? Why not have the light of your dreams? And why not it be? I get to have the relationship that I want, the successes that I want in my life, and I get to have anything else that I want. You can have it all.
Just take a minute, if you’re listening to this podcast to start to think about. Imagine what would life feel like if you had the relationship of your dreams and a life and the home and the friendships and the successes. What would that look like? How would that feel? Imagine, for a second, having the relationship that you’ve always wanted, where you feel safe, grounded, inspired, alive. You feel so passionate about your relationship, so passionate about your work and you feel so passionate and grounded with yourself too.
So now we’re saying you can get all these external things and you also get to be included in that. You don’t have to leave yourself behind. What if that was available to you? What would you be doing right now? How would you start showing up if you could live a life of ands instead of what, if, or instead of either, or If you go into life, relationships and business from a place of and I want this and that, all right, get this.
And that you will start to create your own secret sauce and your own equation to how to live a life that meets you and meets every part of you, in that Every part of you gets to be expressed, every part of you gets to be seen. Every part of you gets to do that. The only person that gets to give you permission to do that is yourself. The only person that has to say yes to more is you, because, if not, at the end of the day, you are just robbing yourself of what’s available to you. It is costing you something by living in this either or kind of mindset what if you can have all of it? What if you can have both?
So I say that because I think the secret here is, as you’re starting to create more for your life. One, obviously, if you’re curious or can lean in. Two, start to decide what does the more look like for you? Start to envision that, write that down, explain that. And then three, when you’re ever faced with a either or type of thing or you have multiple parts of you playing in a role, ask yourself the question of how can I create space for this part of me to be true, as well as creating this part of me to be true to what would life look like? How would I go about this if both of these parts of me were available to me? How would I live my life if all of this was available to me? What would I do? What would that be? And show up. How would you show up if you were able to receive both or just receive all? Especially when you’re up against these types of conversations or decisions, or struggling up against how can you honor all parts of you in that moment?
It’s hard to get curious about that and create space for both, and so I wanted to really share this with you today in this short clip, because, one, this first step, is knowing that there is more for you and getting really curious about what that looks like for you and your life and your business and your relationships. And then, two, as you continue to evolve, reminding yourself that there’s still more you’re going to get to as you live this beautiful life in this human body that we have on earth, and get to continue to explore new parts of yourself. As you continue to evolve as a human being, as a partner, as an employee, as a CEO, as a mother, as a father, as a child, as a daughter, as a son, whatever that looks like for you and any of those relationships or containers you will constantly be around evolution and all of that and also in the relationship that you have with yourself. As you live this life, as you experience new things, as you become aware of, there is room for you to explore more and that personal evolution of yours, and so that is available to you. And, if you’re honestly asking me, I think that’s what life is about.
Life is about exploring these parts of you, meeting the envious parts of you, getting to know and get curious and see if that this is a right fit or not, creating relationships that feel good, life that feels good, businesses that feel good and also being with all the stuff that comes with it, that comes along with it, because this is the part of life’s journey. We get to be with what life gives us and we get to also create from the place that we know, from our deepest knowings. And as you go through these practices, as you go through this opportunity of exploring more for yourself, as you go through taking that next step in this journey and just moving the needle forward a little bit, you will create a different relationship with yourself. You will start to get more practiced at exploring that more, at seeing what is a good fit for you, at knowing when you’re the curiosity is and knowing what resonates with you and exploring that whole process for yourself. But the very first step is just deciding and knowing that there’s more, and taking a step in that direction.
And as you take a step in that direction, as you walk the walk towards something that you’re curious about or something that you want to create, you know, literally learning how to give yourself grace as you move through that, and also really getting good at what is meant for you and what’s not meant for you, and being open and available to whatever the journey has for you. As you lean into that curiosity, as you open new doors, as you walk through the doors into a new house and create a new, different world within your world, because that’s what gets to come with more. And through every new door you walk through, through every sense of curiosity, through every new layer that you shed or every part of your journey that comes to undoing, there is so much little aliveness that comes from it. On the other side, there’s so much that you get to learn about yourself from experiences, and it’s in the experiencing of things that we know. So often we want to know if something’s for us before we even experience it, but how can you know if you don’t try or explore it or try to understand it? And so, yeah, I think that’s what I really wanted to share with you today. So just really tuning into this part of you that wants more. Get a little curious about what that means to you. Write it down and go for it. Go create it, go search for it, go find it. Live your life in the direction that you feel called to feel. Feel called to share to live the more. So. Thanks so much for tuning in.
I’m going to go ahead and wrap this up now. If you found this episode super helpful, or if it gave you that little sense of sparkle that you need, that little sense of spark to light your fire to go after what you’ve been wanting in your life, in your business and in relationships, leave a comment For me on Instagram, send me a DM, write a review or share this with a friend and talk to them about it. Share with them what you want more of. Start to add these kinds of conversations with your people. Bring someone else into your inspiration and go create it, go after it. Start to take one step in that direction. That’s all it takes. And by sharing this with someone, by having the conversations, by getting someone in your corner about this that you feel safe with to talk about these things, that is taking a step in the right direction, and so don’t let the more I mean I’ll leave this with you guys one last thing Don’t let the more that’s available for you or the curiosity that you have or the opportunities that are in front of you stop you from exploring the more, from exploring what’s available to you to exploring the invitation that is right in front of you.
All right, so thanks so much again for listening to the Thboli Express podcast. Make sure you tune into the next one. I’ll always come to you with some solo episodes. I’ve got some guests coming on, so it’s just going to be a really fun ride. And, as always, you know, I love to hear from you, love to hear your feedback and, if anything that really stood out, we can cultivate this experience in this container for you as a listener, and this really gives me the opportunity to guide you. So lots of love for you today. Go find your more, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Full Transcript0:00:00 – Speaker 1
Welcome to the Fully Expressed podcast with Karenna. I am your podcast host, Karenna Soto. I am so happy to have you here. The full intention for this podcast is to be an invitation for you to fully express yourself in life, relationship and business and to continue on this personal evolution as you continue to live your life in those areas. I promise to you to always bring these raw, transformative, vulnerable, transparent, deep and factual supportive conversations to you. That is my intent for this podcast and on this episode today, I give you some light into what it was like for me as a high achiever, what it looked like to start healing from burnout and what you can actually start doing if you are on this path of go, go, go, giving your all, feeling like you never have space for you and you’re always craving this me time but feel like you have to show up in the world or you should show up in the world, and so I’m really excited for this episode. Feel free to tune in, listen in and here we go, let’s dive in.
So today I was reflecting on just what this month has been like for me, and this month has genuinely been finally a month where I feel like I am proactive in my to-dos. I feel very grounded and present with every activity or task that I’m doing and, for the most part, have created a lot of space to be. This is the biggest one. I am feeling a lot of space in my life and what does that mean to me? Basically? Really getting to a place in my life where I am present whenever my partner’s around. I am so present with my friendships. So if I go on a walk with a girlfriend, or if I’m talking to them on the phone, or if I’m on a girl’s trip, or if I’m going to a bachelorette party or if I’m at a wedding, I’m super present with those experiences. I’m fully, fully available to you with the feelings of love and gratitude and in giving and in receiving and all of those exchanges. And it wasn’t always like that. As I’m starting, obviously I don’t know why I tend to do this, but I can just feel the tears come up in my eyes Because before I really started diving deep into my high achieving patterns, my high functioning anxiety and this attachment to how much I work, how much I produce to find how worthy I am, so I was really attaching my worth to how much I did, how much I accomplished, how much I did for my friends and how much I showed up and it’s a whole long story but to give you some light into what it was like for most of my career.
So, outside of being a coach, outside of having my own business, I also started a life in corporate. I was in corporate and while I was in corporate I really did everything and everything as possible, like I raised my hand for every task because I wanted to learn, I wanted to put myself out there, I wanted people to guide me so I can learn more, so I can basically grow up that corporate ladder. And I did exactly that. And so, from a work perspective, I looked very successful. I was checking a lot of the boxes, I was creating a lot of relationships, I was closing a lot of deals. I was very involved with my company and I became one of those people that really relied on. I really took on this Runtz’s responsibility of give me any task or if you need help or if I need a solid problem, I was the one diving deep into the leads of that and it has been blessing too. So in the corporate space the company that I worked for I really did know the ins and outs. I’m a very important person to the company, right, because I have a lot of history, a lot of knowledge, I have a lot of experience on navigating all kinds of things.
But on the outside it looked like a lot of me working in the car on the way to a girls trip, or me hanging out with a friend and saying, hey, can I come over if we hang out, but then can I just get like an hour on my computer. Or me checking my phone every single morning and looking at emails. Like looking at emails became this checklist, right. Like I needed to work on the weekends. I worked all hours of the day. There were some days that I was working so hard until like 10 am and 12th am, and I used a lot of the reasons of we’re a startup company, right. Who else is going to do the work? I have to get this done, like if I don’t get this done, we won’t move the needle forward.
And there was just, like all this pressure that I put on myself, and not just that, I didn’t want to let anyone else down and so truly, truly, just really indebted in that and how I also looked in my life. It was also another way that showed up in my fitness. So with my workouts I was very committed to my fitness and how I looked and what I looked like in my health, and I wanted to do everything at 100%. So I really kind of put a lot of pressure on myself. I put a lot of pressure on me till I show up perfectly, to show up on every aspect and do all these things. The days that I did not do all these things so the days that I didn’t make it to the gym at 5 in the morning, or the days that I didn’t do the thing I wanted to do at work, for example my whole day would shift.
I would be so hard on myself, my mood would go down, I would think I was less than, and then I would revert back to OK, let’s start from the beginning, let’s set a new habit, new routines. Go back to my notebook and I would write it all down, and then I’d set myself new goals and new intentions and I never really took the time to be with. Why am I so hard on myself? I never looked into that part. I just got harder on myself.
I just more pressure on myself to execute, and so that really took place for a very long time, probably ever since I graduated from college, so six, seven years, and that was my day, every day, right, I was always exhausted and the last thing that really, I think, kept me in my exhaustion or kept me in these loops was always thinking about the next thing what’s the next thing that I can do, what’s the next thing I can help with? And it was very unconscious and I will say that a part of me like truly enjoyed being in that space, like there are parts of me that craved that go, go, go, that busyness, that next thing, that like that pressure, that overwhelmed, like that adrenaline rush of of being in it. Like there are definitely parts of me that enjoyed that. And even at points in my life, like I celebrated those parts of me. I was like, yeah, damn right, I’m a hard worker, damn right, I can get shit done. Yeah, for sure, I can show up, I am committed. Or like if I, if I chose a new diet, like execute on that. Like if I decided to dive into personal development, I went 100%, all in, all out.
And it really wasn’t coming from a place of for my own good, it was. It was coming to prove something. It was coming from a place of how can I show myself that I’m worth it, how can I show the world that I’m worth it? How can I, how can I receive everyone’s validation? And you know, the way that I got validation, if you will, was if I succeeded, if I got these things. The shitty part was that the more that I succeeded, the less that it mattered. Almost like I was like, oh yeah, that’s no big deal, and I did follow it at the cycle of not really wanting to talk about my work.
It was. It was one of those things where success every milestone or every moment or every next thing that I accomplished wasn’t that big of a deal. Like to me, it wasn’t that big of a deal because I wanted more. It just wasn’t enough and I never shared that with, like my friends or my family or my relationships. There were even parts of me that felt like I didn’t want to celebrate myself because I didn’t want to look better than everyone else. You know, as I’m sharing this, like I could feel myself just the irony and, at the end of the day, like the energy behind all of those actions felt very intense, felt very contracted, felt very focused and hyper vigilant and you know, go, go, go. If I, if I really think back to it, like I really didn’t wasn’t connected to my breath, I didn’t feel my breath, I didn’t do all those things. And you know there was lots of ups and downs, lots of I feel great, I feel not good enough, I feel good enough, amazing to I’m nothing and my negative self talk like was so, so loud and I don’t think I really realized at the time but I was really really hard on myself, so so hard on myself and you know, as I, you know biggest thing that honestly none of that stuff was a big enough deal for me until my health really really took a turn.
So a few years ago I started to literally like pass out at 3pm Like I would get up and try and work out. I was drinking as shit ten of cat feed and drinking all the energy drinks of all the pre workouts just to get my workouts in, because I literally did, had no energy to show up for my workouts and I was like I need to be at the gym by X the time. And you know I really put that into my daily routine and but I was drinking all the caffeine. I was barely eating, and if I was eating, I was eating foods that weren’t necessarily supporting a balanced diet, right Like they were for me at the time. I was also navigating and eating disorders. So I was. I wasn’t eating the best foods. I wasn’t really thinking about my nutrition, I was just thinking about getting shit done and looking a certain way, and so finally, my, my body decided that I couldn’t keep up.
So, no matter how much coffee I drank, I started to pass out at like 3pm and I vividly remember that 3 o’clock was my worst nightmare. It was the time that I got super anxious every day. It was the time that I literally just wanted to take a nap. I couldn’t keep my eyes closed anymore. I couldn’t. I couldn’t show up for any of my meetings. I just could not do more.
And you know, at this point I also felt so alone in those moments, right, and my mind would spiral as to like oh my gosh, why am I not doing more? I should be doing more, but I really need to sleep. I want to sleep and really my body took over and that’s when I experienced probably extreme, extreme burnout and I started almost like my ears perked up and it was like, and something in me told me hey, karina, like you can’t keep living like this. Your body is exhausted, you are exhausted and I remember so heartedly, believing that there has to be a better way, because I cannot continue to live my life like this. I think at the time maybe I was 26, 27 years old and I was already burnt out. I was like, holy shit, if I keep going like this. Then I was 50 to 60, 80, 70 years. Hold on, I want to live to 100, of course, or more, who knows.
But like, taking that into perspective, I was like, holy fuck, don’t want to live like this for the rest of my life. Really don’t want to live like this for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be exhausted every day. I don’t want to be hard on myself every day. I don’t want to constantly put these really intense expectations on myself every single day.
And that was the day that I finally started to just peel back the layers. So I signed up for a gut hormone rehab program, went through the process by myself, started to learn and just really started to create a different relationship for me. We started with food, with my health and in really changing the perspective from like I need to look a certain way on the outside to like how am I really feeling? And that did not just apply to just my body image, that applied to everything in my life. I was like I can be successful to everyone internally, or like I could look I’m on it to all my coworkers at work. But if I don’t feel good on the inside, like if I don’t really, if I’m like literally dying it feels like, or absolutely exhausted or miserable at the end of the day, then why is any of that worth it? Like truly, and it just wasn’t, it really wasn’t.
And so I think the day like if I really liked back to like I wasn’t freaking happy, I was a lot, I felt very alone, I was really critical about myself, I was very all the things and I wasn’t really confident. I was super shy and and, yes, I worked with like a different character that I stepped into. But until the day, like my day to day it’s not feel good, I didn’t feel seen, I didn’t feel loved, I didn’t feel grounded, I didn’t feel confident, I felt stretched all the time, exhausted all the time and, yeah, didn’t feel good. And so I dove deep into healing my relationship with myself and really starting to shift from like I need to do more in order to feel good where I want to accomplish more in order to feel great about myself. And the ways that I did that and this is you know why I really want to share with you that you’re listening today is, first, is letting you know that it is possible, it is possible to and it is available to you to feel clear, focused, grounded, stable, proactive, not like you’re running from one thing to the next all the time, not like you’re less than if you accomplish more or do less, like all of that is very possible and the way that it translates into life and into relationships and into business is.
Just just imagine for a second being able to feel your life like seeing every moment as the most clear, beautiful moment you have right, being able to look at it optimistically, but also not just see it and have a context of that, but actually believing it in your body. And with business, whether you’re in corporate or whether you are an entrepreneur or doing your own thing, you’re able to show up to your computer and to your job and to the things that you want to bring birth into this world your passions, from a place of okay, I’m here, I get to create, I feel safe, I get to give my all. I love this. I feel grounded, I feel safe, I’m not rushing, I’m fully present with this moment, that I’m giving this time with work and fully responding to emails, or fully responding to client calls, or fully responding and being present with my coworkers, or fully responding and being present with my team. It’s this harmony that you find in creation to delivery and that is available to you in your business, that is available to you in that and however you show up, whether that’s in corporate or whether that’s in having your own space, and then separately. How does this translate into relationships? What I would?
I realize, especially with relationships, and I did everything that I could. When I came to my relationships, I spread myself very thin. I showed up for every single call. I made sure I met my relationships in the way that they needed or wanted, but I completely forgot about me and that and at the end of the day, it still looked like I was half asking my friendships. They felt like, you know, I did give them my all, but I wasn’t fully present with every conversation or every experience or every moment.
And now I don’t necessarily think that there is a pressure to be super present with every moment in relationship, but I do feel like there is a calmness that we can bring to our minds while being with someone. So like for me, this energy of high function, anxiety, thinking about the next thing, high achiever, constantly accomplishing. That showed up in my time with my friends. That showed up in my time with my relationships. So like, as they were talking, as we were doing something together, I was thinking about oh my gosh, I have to do the laundry tomorrow before I go to this meeting, because if I don’t do this meeting by then, then I won’t be able to do this by then. And then I have to work on this email, and then I have to work on this presentation, and then I have to follow up with all my clients. And it was just this constant thing of like making sure that I could fit everything in. And by thinking about that, like I was in my head more than I was in my body when it came to being in relationship with someone.
And I’ll continue to talk about this, you know, as I am a focus on the life and relationships as a coach, as a mentor and as a speaker is that, when it comes to relationship, people want presence. Your partner, whether they are female or male, they want your presence and whether the other person could put words or no words to it, they can feel when you are present and when you are not present with them. And when I say presence, I’m saying all kinds of presence. I’m not just saying grounded presence. I’m saying being able to be present with whatever is going on in your body, whatever is going on for you in that moment, and inviting them into that experience with you if you feel safe, and also being able to see them and their beauty and their experience and their conversation and what they’re sharing with you, without you thinking about the million things that you have to check off. Because when you can find presence with your body and their experience or with your experience and their experience, again you find harmony in the relationship. You find this beautiful back and forth that feels safe and seen and loved and both partners feel wow, yeah, we’re here, we’re in it together, you know, and that, honestly, was probably the biggest gift that I received in my life.
So, for the most part, when I was dating, for example, as a high-acheter, I didn’t give myself like, yeah, I was present with them, but I also kind of looked at it as something I had to do. Or you know, I brought in that having to do kind of masculine energy into the relationship and I didn’t really surrender into the masculine. And, for those of you listening, I am a female, she, and used pronouns she, her, and so I was literally looking for and I am, I date him, I’m in a relationship with the masculine, the him, the him he pronouns and the male human body, and so when I was in, I wasn’t really able to fall into my feminine when it came to surrendering in relationships. And it’s all connected, you guys, you know. So this is what I’m just trying to share with you is that there was all of this masculine energy.
For me that was all about structure, due, forceful stubbornness in life, in business, in relationships, and it really didn’t create the balanced harmony of the masculine and the feminine or the flow and the surrender of life and the presence of being with, and so those kind of show you what’s available to you and so how do you actually get there, what do you actually do? And for someone that is listening and realizes all this, the very first thing I want you to invite you to is first get to a place of recognizing how this thing benefits you and what is it costing you. So this state of being that you’re in when you are in this high-functioning fight or flight, high achiever type element, or being putting your pressure on yourself to show it perfectly, or putting pressure on yourself to execute, or putting pressure on yourself to succeed, or putting pressure on yourself to show up in a certain way and doing it all right, so doing all that and leaving yourself burnt out through, with little capacity left. When you’re in those states, you take down a piece of paper and ask yourself, like, how does this benefit me right now? What is this giving me? And then, on the other side of that piece of paper, you answer the question of what is this costing me? What is this taking me away from? What is this creating that is creating tension or friction in my life? And write that down and just see that first and just become aware of that. That’s the very first step. And then the second is once you’ve become, you are able to acknowledge it, you’re able to become aware of it, accept that it’s happening, accept the fact that this is true and then get to a place of making a deep commitment to yourself, knowing that it is possible to shift this.
But it is possible to show up in life and relationship and business from a place of capacity to give versus not and start there and really anchor into your intention your commitment. Your commitment is going to be everything. You have to genuinely believe this, because when you start to do this work I’m not going to lie, it’s going to be freaking hard. You are comfortable in this Right now. Your comfortability is in go, go, go, being over rounds, being that high achiever and succeeding. That is what you feel safe in and that is where your ego is going to want to keep you.
Now, when you start to shift that, when you start to transform what that looks like, have these many breakthroughs, it’s going to be really uncomfortable, I’m not going to lie. It’s going to be really freaking uncomfortable. And in being uncomfortable, that’s when you’re going to be the most challenged, that’s when you’re going to get received with the biggest questions and those are going to be the biggest opportunities for you to start to choose something different which goes back to your level of commitment to this, because, as much as you’re conscious of this, there’s a lot of the unconscious that lives in the subconscious. A lot of your unconscious, your somatic responses, your nervous system responses are going to search for the thing that makes it feel safe. It’s going to search for the thing that it knows. And so when you’re starting to shift this, there has to be a level of desire, of willingness, of curiosity, of commitment and, lastly, grace and compassion. As you show up for this journey of shifting this, there is going to be a whole new level of love for yourself and grace and compassion. I truly believe, when it comes to the healing journey, in all freaking aspects aside from this, but this really well, and it fits in here too Grace is your biggest medicine. Giving yourself grace and learning how to show up compassionate for yourself in the middle of transforming these really big patterns, you know, is the biggest thing to come back to. And so, yes, that is one thing.
And then next, as you start to shift this, start with one thing at a time. So if you find yourself, for example, let’s start with like, over committing your schedule, I’m going to say start there, start putting space in your calendar, Start recognizing, like, what kind of energy you have to give for the next meeting or for the next commit that you have on your calendar, and what can you do to make sure you have the energy to do so? That’s one thing, and then the second thing is is, you know, getting to a place where, when you feel yourself in your body, you want to reach for more? Sit back and get curious about what that energy is, what that reaching is, that desire to do a lot. Keep going, even when you are exhausted, and ask yourself the question of do I have the capacity for this? What does my energy look like? Do a check in with yourself, do a quick, like, oh shit, yeah, I have all the capacity, let’s go, let’s show up. Or like, wow, I don’t have the capacity for this.
And the next level of that. If you find something else, way you know, very important or significant for you in your schedule of what’s coming up, prioritize that and ask yourself if I do this task or if I commit to this event, or if I show up this way, is it going to take away from the energy that I have to give in this space and this container? And the perfect example of that is if you are starting to prioritize yourself. For example, you can say you know I really want to show up and have capacity tomorrow and not feel like exhausted with my day and I want to show up and go on a walk and do all the things, but I know that if I overdo myself here tonight by going out tonight, I won’t be able to do that for myself, and so you get to make that choice If that’s something that you want to do.
Another example of that is like, let’s say, you are going on a date with someone, or you’re going on a date with your wife or husband or with your partner and you realize how important it is for you to be present in that relationship. Ask yourself, if I do this commitment today, will I have the capacity to show up for that relationship? That’s important to you. If there’s a really big business opportunity, meeting, commitment event coming up around the corner and you want to feel good about that, be proactive in asking yourself about the events that are leading up to that. Look at your calendar and say, hey, on Sunday I have this really big commitment for this opportunity and I want to feel grounded for that. I want to feel present for that. I don’t want to feel rushed for that. What can I do with the day before or the couple days before to make sure that I’m prepared for that? That is going to give you space to really show up and commit to the thing that you want to commit.
Then, lastly, I’ll say if you want to work into the subconscious patterns about what’s keeping you in this loop of giving so much or doing all the things or never having space for yourself and constantly creating space for yourself, I would highly suggest reaching out to a mentor or a coach or support and find accountability in that and not working with someone to show you your blind spots, to show you your subconscious patterns, to highlight the areas that you do not see. I think that would be the third thing, because I think for me that something that I have found that as being a high achiever, finding space or as being someone that was go, go, go all the time and doing all the things for everyone else, finding space on my calendar for me to be present with myself or to really check in with myself or to do anything like that of sorts, was really difficult for me when I did invest into something, whether that is a massage, whether that was energy work, whether that is a coaching program, whether that is one-on-one support with a mentor. Those became meetings that became a priority for me and I made them a priority. They were meetings with myself, meetings with my personal evolution, meetings with my fullest expression and my journey, that were just as important than everything else on my calendar. I really showed up for that, and creating those spaces for me has really been the biggest life change because they were check in points with me. I have started to do that with a lot of areas in my life, even finances, really investing in support and having these quarterly meetings with myself and with me and my mentor and that and my support system and that those things have really, really been a huge anchor for me.
The last thing that I really want to hone in on here before we close up here is you will start to want to shift and want to feel safe and behind me space for yourself. Most of the times, you’ve probably created that from a space of like, oh my gosh, I have literally nothing, so all I want to do is go out in nature or all I need is a massage or all I want to do is get my nails done, you create the space for that. That is coming from a place of I’ve reached my edge and now I need it. When you start to shift this, this to creating space for yourself, for your workouts or your walks or your natureing, for your grounding, for things that serve you, when you create space in your daily calendar, you’re going to want to fill it up with other things that you have to do. There is going to be this desire to like well, I have this space that I can fit in this one task that I’ve been wanting to do.
The challenge is going to be learning to feel comfortable in that space, and so that last thing I’ll say is like, as you start to create space for yourself, don’t just add more things to do in that space for you. Put things in there that serve you, put things in there that create joy, put things in there that ground you. Put things in there that regulate your nervous system, that help you be grounded in you. Don’t just add things to do because that’s what you need and, as a high functioning, if you’re high functioning anxiety or you were living in this place of energy of do, do, do, your subconscious and your ego is going to take you right back there. It’s going to say, hey, let’s go check off all these boxes. So there’s going to be huge shift for you to not do that, for you not to have to think about what’s next, for you not to think about what task you can check off, or for you not to think about what more you could do. It’s just a matter of being. So let’s start there and, honestly, let me know what you think of this podcast.
I was really feeling it on my heart today and I really, on this episode, I really felt like I wanted to share this with you guys because it’s just so top of mind today, and if you find any really key takeaways, please feel free to share them with me. So, if you haven’t already, go ahead and follow my Instagram page the fully expressed podcast and follow that Instagram handle. Send me a DM about what your takeaway was from this. If there’s something and, most importantly, if you found value in this, so you know a sister, a friend, a brother, a co-worker, a family member that you see is also in the same space as you, or you recognize that they could be doing the same thing, feel free to share this with them. You know, I think putting this into everyone’s hands is the invitation for not just yourself, but an invitation for them as well, and if you’re anything like me, I think about all the people all the time. So feel free to share this with them. Let it be something that you put on their desk or in their world or in their space and invite them to what’s more for them or what else is more available to them and for you.
Like I’m really excited for you if you start to make these shifts or define us a priority in life and want to show up with more space in your life and not so go, go, go and come from a place of grounded, stable and be successful from that place in all things life, relationship and business.
You know, share that with me. Let’s commit with it together. Tell me in the DMs that you are committed and I’ll support you, and that from a distance. And if you want further support, you know you can always reach out. But I’m just excited for you in this, and excited for you because, as you step into this journey, the last thing I will say, you will start to be able to be fully expressed. Right now, you might think you’re fully expressed from like a giving perspective, but when you can show up from a very grounded, balanced, regulated nervous system and present space, it gives you capacity to show up more as your fullest self, as your more authentic self, in all those areas of life. So yeah, all right, don’t forget to subscribe, looking forward to hearing from you and go do life with space, start creating space for you and take care of you.

Full TranscriptHi everyone, thanks for coming onto the episode. I’m so excited because today’s a very special episode. I invited my friend, Carissa Karban, onto the Fully Expressed podcast to dive deeper into my story, my personal story and my self-healing journey and what that has looked like, to really give you guys some insight into who I am and what I’ve been through and what has really unlocked for me in the last many years of just diving deeper into myself and what has been my experience and really finding me so that I could be fully expressed. I’m very excited because Carissa’s on here and to give you guys some light into who Carissa is to me and what she means to me.
Carissa and I met at a retreat. What was it, Carissa? Like a year and a half, two years ago, maybe Almost two years ago? Yep, almost two years ago. So we met almost two years ago at this point at this retreat, and honestly, that retreat for me was life-changing because I got to walk away with such amazing friendships and people in my life that I didn’t know were available to me, and Carissa was one of them. I will say that I feel like in the recent like six, nine months, our relationship has like really, really flourished, at least in the ways that I feel so deeply connected to Carissa.
What I love about Carissa is that she shows up fully for all of her friendships.
She loves with all of her heart and I find myself in some of the best freaking conversations when her and I are on the phone together and I just knew that I wanted this episode to be her interviewing me and just having one of our like phone call conversations, whether I’m calling her in the car or run them on a walk with Cusco or I’m literally just sitting on my couch and like two hours fly by. I don’t think this episode is going to be two hours, but we’re going to try and squeeze in as much as possible into this next hour. But it just kind of gives you some light into our dynamic, at least in our dynamic, like I feel so seen, so heard, so understood and honestly have a lot of similarities to, to Carissa and her journey, and it’s been so amazing to to have her in my life as a friend, as a teacher, as a support system, so I couldn’t imagine this any different and yeah, so thank you so much, Carissa, for being here.
0:02:33 – Speaker 2
Oh, my gosh, Carissa thank you so much for having me. I’m thrilled about this conversation because, as you’ve already said, some of our conversation, I just I look at the clock and think where did the time go? And I’m so grateful to have this opportunity to help introduce your listeners to who you are in a little bit more detail. Because I will say, in the two years that we’ve been friends, you’ve been such an inspiration for me. In addition to providing that safe space of feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling valued and loved as a human being, you’ve also given me so much inspiration as I’ve seen, you know the, you know the ways that you’ve come home to yourself and I see new opportunities for you to fully express yourself, even with this podcast as an example, and so for me, it swells my heart. I am I always leave our conversations with a huge smile, feeling inspired, feeling motivated, feeling ready to take action on the next step of my journey of full expression. So thank you for giving me the opportunity. I’m very excited.
0:03:39 – Speaker 1
Thank you so much for sharing that. I think, yeah, there’s just so much. I feel like our conversations are just, they literally blow my mind off. Sometimes I’m like, oh my gosh, I feel so deeply held and, at the same time, so inspired, and that was so stimulating. Like I love this conversation. Can we keep going? It’s just the best. So I’m so glad that we’re doing this today.
0:04:01 – Speaker 2
Yeah, and you know, I think it’s.
It’s such a beautiful gift that you’re giving to everyone, because I think sometimes, when I don’t know about you, but when I start listening to a new podcast, I think, okay, this topic’s really interesting or maybe there’s something for me to learn here.
But I really love to know who are the people behind these podcasts that I’m so interested in or that resonate so deeply with me, and so giving your audience the opportunity to know you is such a beautiful gift, because you are this, this full expression of love and kindness and generosity in the way that you show up for your people, is truly incredible, honestly. So I’m excited and would love to know, Karenna, you know there’s so much we could cover. Obviously, we will not be able to pack all of who you are into a short podcast episode, nor would we even pretend to try, but I’d love to know you know, as I think about doing this journey of self-development, and who we’ve been and where we’re going, and there’s so much that we can unpack. So, to kind of give us a foundation, take us back before you really started, let’s say leaning into this journey of fully expressing yourself. Tell me a little bit about who. Who was Karenna before you began doing this work.
0:05:20 – Speaker 1
I think about this question often and I, you know, I always look back at like my transformation, if you will, and I was very numb to the world, almost like just kind of rolling and moving through life. Right, I had to wake up every day, go to the gym and go to work and find a husband and, you know, live my best life with my friends. Like that was just about it and that’s kind of honestly what I did. I just did the same things all the time and you know what that looked like for me and as a person, as in relationship dynamics, I was very, very like insecure. At the end of the day, I really questioned a lot of like who I was. Like I remember specifically in the workspace and I’ll talk about with my friends too but like in the workspace, like I did everything I could just to feel like someone saw me or valued me or accepted me. And now I have the words.
But at the time I didn’t have the words right, I was just kind of doing as much as I could. I had a lot of the people pleasing tendencies. I would give as much as I could just so I could be seen in my friendship dynamics the same way. Oh my gosh, I would drop everything if a friend called. I would drop anything if my mom called, my sister called, like I would run for everything and and I really became that thing for a lot of people. So, interestingly enough, to kind of circling back to that, like in college people called me mom because I was the person that people felt like a lot of safety too, but also knew that I would take care of them and I was just known for for that like taking care of people, being there for people, supporting people, and that was really how I identified myself.
And now that I have the words, you know what I can say that at the time it really felt like it was coming from a place of love, but it was really, really coming from a place of like, because I’m doing this, because I feel unlovable and I’m hoping by doing this I will be loved, and that was, that was a really big one.
It’s a that right there, showed up everywhere, showed up in my friendships, my relationships and at work, and I cared also a lot about my body image and what it looks like like. I was consumed with, you know, wanting to look a certain way or I would attach myself worth to like my body. So like, when it came to like dating, I was always like, well, he’s not going to find me attractive, or like always second guessing, like does he think I’m I’m hot or does he like my body, and that’s a lot of the things that I use as a way to validate myself worth. So that’s the whole another layer of things to dive into. But it just felt very insecure, very alone, which is wild, because I had so many friends and I had boyfriends and I had a family that loved me, but I still felt super alone.
0:08:12 – Speaker 2
I felt like no one could actually see me or no one actually understood me and I felt like I could never really share or voice or vocalize my thoughts like honestly and transparently man, there’s so much in there, there’s so much goodness, and thank you for sharing all of that, because I think what resonates the most with me as you’re telling your story is, of course, there are elements to your story that are unique to you, right, this lived experience that you’ve had, the combination of all of your experiences and everything you’ve gone through, and as you’re describing your journey, about feeling insecure, about hustling to try to prove your worth or the fact that you were lovable.
What really hits me, Karenna, is your story is not unique.
You know, and just think about how many people out there I’m one of them who take out the specifics of your story and insert mine right, but a lot of the undercurrent of feeling like I had to keep going and accomplish and to do and to hustle that was what I thought I needed to do and I had to check all those boxes. So I think your story is unique and, unfortunately, very common right, where a lot of us are kind of masking and putting on this mask of I’m okay, I’m good because I’m reliable, people need me, and yet inside we still feel alone, we feel unseen, and that can be incredibly painful, especially when on the outside it looks like we have everything together and I imagine I’m so, I’m curious, like when you thought about the contradiction, if you will that you were so needed and that people called you mom and you knew that people would call you when they needed anything and yet you had this very lonely experience internally. What was that like to have that kind of mismatch between your experiences?
0:10:08 – Speaker 1
I don’t think I don’t think I have the words, because at the time I didn’t have the words. You know and I and going back to like you know you sharing how, like you also resonate and other people resonate like it didn’t feel like that. Then it felt so much more like I’m the only one on this, on this little island over here, that feels this way. You know, I had no concept that other people could be feeling this way. So when you ask me that question, it’s like I really don’t know, like at the time I really did not know what that meant. It felt like life was very far away from me but but also very close at the same time. Like I would get moments feeling super connected and feeling super joyful and happy and even practice very positive optimistic person outlook on life.
I always showed up as positive and optimistic, but it was crazy. The external that’s really what was happening. I think also that was a lot of what I was telling myself how to show up, if I was really honest about how I was feeling. That felt more like when it got quiet. The other thing is I used to do a lot. I was super social. I was super busy. I put so much on my plate, the moments that I felt alone. That’s when all the self-doubt came in and that’s when things felt very, almost gray, almost mute, very numb to the world. That’s the best way I could say it.
0:11:35 – Speaker 2
That’s so interesting, this notion of when things go quiet. That really resonates with me. I used to be in this hustle, and if I didn’t have something lined up every night of the week, I felt like, okay, I’m wasting time or I’m not making the most of my life. And this Carpe Diem philosophy, that pace, though, and I think about all the ways that our and the words I would use for it now are my ego kept me in that cycle. I’m curious when you thought about wanting to slow down, or when you got into those quiet places, what was that internal self-talk that made you feel like you had to go back and start hustling and get back to taking action? What were some of the key phrases or what was that self-talk that made you feel that it wasn’t okay to be in the slowness or to give yourself that space?
0:12:29 – Speaker 1
Yeah, so I can talk about that in so many different ways, but I think at the time. So, talking about the body image stuff, my eating disorder I think I’ve talked about this on social media and other people but started to have an eating disorder. I think I’ve always had disordered eating, right, so not really having a really healthy relationship with food in general, because I counted calories, I wanted to be my smallest and I wanted to get all the gains at the gym so that’s one thing you know and I managed how much food I would eat, so I would look a certain way. But my disordered eating got really bad, probably my junior year, maybe my sophomore or junior year in high school and college, and if I wasn’t going fast, then all that stuff would come up for me, because then I got really quiet and then the negative thoughts started spiraling in. I was felt so anxious in my body and I would probably end up wanting to like start binge eating or and then I would get mad at myself for binge eating. It was all this entire spiral.
But those thoughts like if I slowed down for even a second, everything that I was running away from would just catch up to me and try and think specifically what was going on at the time, whether that was going on with boys, or feeling like I wasn’t enough, or like I wasn’t doing enough at school and college, or I didn’t look a certain way, or I wasn’t putting enough energy out in order to receive in that yeah, really that I wasn’t doing enough.
That was always the biggest, the underlining story. I would say that I wasn’t doing enough and I wasn’t enough to receive at the slow pace. Right, and the slow pace is when all the anxiety in my entire body would freak out and I would spiral into my disordered eating. So sometimes I would use the running really quickly or running at a fast pace as a way to avoid food. That’d be one thing, because I would control it that way, but then I also use it as a way to distract me from the feelings of anxiety or, honestly, kind of initiating the disordered eating, because it would create this massive spiral that I couldn’t even control.
0:14:45 – Speaker 2
So what I’m hearing in that is and this is what I think is so interesting, and why I wanted to go in this direction is because oftentimes we hear these cliches like oh, we’re our own biggest enemy and we’re the ones that hold ourselves back.
But at least in my experience, when I was first starting this journey for myself, it was really hard to connect to the ways that I was holding myself back and it felt like, no, this person’s holding me back or no, it’s these circumstances or whatever it is.
And what you just talked about is this idea that, as you started to slow down and these negative thoughts or these insecure thoughts would come in, it’s like the way to overcome them or the way to not let them take control of you was to just keep hustling, stay busy, distract yourself with busyness, so you didn’t have to confront those thoughts that were coming up, as opposed to this idea now of confronting the thoughts themselves and unpacking them and questioning them. So I’m curious, as you were in this pattern and knowing you, knowing how incredibly intelligent you are, knowing how accomplished you are and you’ve been successful at the hustle right, Whether it’s in your career, whether it’s cultivating relationships, etc. So it sounds like things were working for you right. Things were going well, you were cultivating promotions and you had boyfriends, as you said, in these relationships. So I’m curious what was that turning point for you when you realized, okay, I’m doing all of these things, I’m hustling, but something isn’t working? Tell me about that turning point of how you realized that you weren’t being fully expressed.
0:16:24 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I think there’s multiple turning points in a journey. It’s like which one do I pick and talk about? But I love how you brought it all together too, chris, because it is true, like at the time, like I was running away from myself, right, I was running away from the thoughts, and that’s what really created all these unhealthy habits that I was living in, you know, and I was a spiral, it was a cycle, it was a pattern. I was like, if I avoid, then I’m going to go here, but then I’m going to continue avoiding and doing more harm to myself. And there was so much shame and guilt in that cycle that I stayed in that cycle versus like now, you know, the goal and what we’ll probably talk about is how to actually be with those thoughts instead of leaning into quote unquote the unhealthy cycle or the unhealthy pattern, so it doesn’t become this massive spiral that you can’t get out of. But at the time, like I would just continue to stay in it and keep going and to talk about what was a turning point. So well, I think it was a matter of different things that started to come into my life. So after college you know working I did have my initial life coach after college to start helping me talk about specifically my eating disorder and my relationship with food, and it really was more like talk therapy.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t really helpful. I was just venting and she was listening. It was like the first friend that I felt, like it was someone that I paid to make me feel, allow me, to feel comfortable to share with what was really happening, because I felt so ashamed to talk about with anyone. And that then led me to me and my best friend at the time sitting on her bed and we were starting to do some personal development work and starting to understand like who we are. The very first book I read was you are a badass by Johnson, sarah, and I was like God, this is the frickin Bible. Like why haven’t I learned this before? Why has no one given me this book before? I started to just so resonate with everything that she said, all the way from feeling insecure and unconfident how to feel confident, how to manifest, how to call in all these things, and I was like the heck, this is amazing, but it really wasn’t, until there’s two big events that happened. So back to sitting with my best friend on her bed talking about. We met we start.
She learned about the Enneagram through her work and the Enneagram, for anyone that’s listening, is more of a personality test. That kind of looks into who you are as a whole and what I love about the Enneagram. It also dives deeper and, chris, you can probably share a little bit more about this too but dives deeper into your personality based on how you grew up or what happened to you as you grew up or the stories and the patterns that happened to childhood. And that personality test, the Enneagram oh my gosh, it opened up my world. For anyone that’s listening that knows I’m an Enneagram too and that is the helper, the lover. At the time I was Enneagram too. So for anyone else that’s listening, you can also switch and transform long story short if you didn’t know that, and I still score pretty highly as an Enneagram too.
But the one thing about the two that really stood out to me and it’s the helper and the lover and as I was unpacking this, this is more of the people pleaser tendencies, you know, really puts everyone else before themselves, gives for love, not out of love the one thing that hit home like really woke me up and kind of shook me up a little bit was this notion that, as a helper, as a people pleaser, as the lover, as the giver, I was selfish and I was like selfish, what do you mean? Selfish? Do this for everyone else? I’m putting me besides me myself, not putting all these people first. And what was selfish about me in the time was I was using the way to help people and be there for other people and give to people to avoid the messiness, to avoid the quietness, to not be with how it felt like to be by myself or maybe alone, because if I took care of all these other people, then they were my focus and I was not my focus, and so it was selfish in the way of me using it as a way to avoid and actually give back to myself and try and hide, and I was using as a way to help people to do that and I was like, oh my God, that doesn’t feel good at all.
When I heard that, I was like, oh, this is like ripping me wide open. I was like what do you mean? And so that was the very first thing that took me down the path of all right, you got to find who you are when you aren’t helping other people. You got to find who you are when you aren’t putting other people first, or like you got to find who you are when you aren’t giving all of your energy and all this stuff. Like, who are you without that stuff?
And to be honest, at the time I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t even tell you who I was Like. I had no idea who I was, and so I started to ask the questions of like, who am I? Why do I do the things that I do, these things? And I went down this in massive.
Just you can call it an awakening, but I really think it wasn’t necessarily like the awakening that I felt in the more recent years, but it was more of like a self-awareness awakening, just starting to become very freaking aware of why I do the things that I do and why I show up in the way that I show up, or why I treat my friends the way that I treat them, or why I treat my boyfriends or partners the way that I treat them, and who I am in relationship to my parents, or who I am in relationship to my sister, or who I am in relationship to my coworkers and the company and my business, and like all this stuff, I just started unpacking a lot so I would start to see more. At that time I wasn’t necessarily. I was becoming aware of things and habits are changing, but I wouldn’t say that was like the grand awakening, but that was definitely the thing that put me on this boat of self-healing and inner work.
0:22:07 – Speaker 2
Man, there’s so much in there that is so, so beautiful. You know, I think it’s so interesting to hear you tell your story in these words because, once again, it just it really hits me that there’s so many people out there having a similar experience. You know, I think, of my own past and how typically in the past, when people would ask me you know who are you I get introduced. The first things that I list out are here are the things that I do right. Here are the roles that I play. I’m a, I’m a wife, I’m a daughter. I’m this, I’m, you know, and then insert my job title at the time, and so I think of it as how common it is for us to introduce ourselves with these roles that we play in our lives, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that. Right, it’s beautiful, and it’s also not necessarily the fullness of who we are, because these roles and you have we’ve definitely had some conversations about this as well right the roles that we play, the labels that we put on to ourselves and how much you know, you’re kind of talking about the selfishness, that component of oh I’m actually giving to people as a means of distraction or as a means to get what it is that I want, to get my needs met, and I just think about that in terms of there’s a lot of identity wrapped up and pride in the roles that we put on and in the roles that we play and the things that we do, and so I think that’s so beautiful, but I can also see that it keeps us kind of stuck in a box. It kind of keeps us from asking those hard questions of ourselves.
And so the two themes that I really heard come out of first awakening, as you described it, our curiosity. You know, I hear you asking yourself all of these questions like why do I show up the way that I do? What is my role in creating this dynamic? And so you got really curious. I hear a sense of responsibility that you started to acknowledge that maybe your ways of showing up are contributing to the dynamics and to the circumstances that you’re experiencing. And so I’m curious to, because I think this, the curiosity and the responsibility piece, is really challenging. You know, how is it that we take responsibility for our lives when we’ve been conditioned to look outside of ourselves, we’ve been conditioned to point fingers at others? So how, how did you come to take responsibility for your life and your ways of being.
0:24:37 – Speaker 1
It wasn’t always that way, I mean, you know, until, honestly, I think the moment happened when I was sitting on the bed with my best friend at the time, like that’s, when I just started to read all these things about me and I was like I was so curious, I was like what this had, what Before that, like I really did point the fingers at everyone else. So because, like really common example, like there were parts of me that felt like no one saw me or no one gave to me, or no one loved me as much as I love them, or no one showed up for me the way that they would show it for them, and I was constantly kind of putting a finger at them and being like Well, you’re not showing up for me, you’re not loving me the same amount, you know, and as I peel that part specifically, pointing the finger at like you’re the problem, not looking at me, that’s when I started to see that I was like Holy cow, like I loved on people, I helped people and give it that like yes, I meant it in like the most genuine way, because I didn’t know who I was in the moment, so I was hoping, by giving that they would love me, but when they didn’t love me, I would just point the fingers like they were the one that was wrong, not like looking at my own dynamic and that. And what’s difficult is like it’s more appealing back and the whole roles and labels thing has really become more of a highlighted thing for me in the last year of like, who am I without these roles, without these labels? I don’t want to feel without these roles, without these labels, without this I’m a daughter, I’m a girlfriend, I’m a friend, I’m the best friend. Those are all words, those are all labels that come with a ton of expectations, and I would also say that they’re not necessarily expectations that I wanted to create for myself.
It was, they were expectations that I absorbed from society, from culture, from my other dynamics, from the way that my parents raised me or how my mom’s dynamic is was with her friends, or how my dad’s dynamic is with his friends, and I just absorbed, like, all this information and that was predefined for me and so when I have the initial awakening, I have the opportunity to start to redefine what that meant to myself and I took responsibility because I was curious, I was really curious and I think, like reflecting back.
I think the curiosity came from a place of like well, now that I know this, I need to be better. So this is the other thing about journeys that I have noticed is like new parts will come up and kind of take over, and I’m not necessarily saying that was a healthy part of me, but I became obsessed and very intrigued, very, very wanting to fix now these parts of me because I found out that I’m no longer worthy, you know, or like I felt like I was in enough. So the same story of like I’m not enough continue down with my story. Now it showed up differently at this point, because now I was taking responsibility, because I felt like if I didn’t fix these parts of me then I wouldn’t be loved the way that I wanted to be loved.
0:27:30 – Speaker 2
And it’s so powerful for you to share, because I think that something you said is just really beautiful reminder that it is a journey, right, you know, I think, a lot of times speaking of conditioning, speaking of the ways that were brought up and taught to believe and taught to exist, and I think that, very much speaking of my own upbringing, you know very much ingrained in me, that there’s always a finish line that we should be heading towards. You know, and that’s how we know, okay, I’ve accomplished the goal, I’ve achieved the thing, I’ve gotten the house or the job or, you know, whatever it is, it’s just an external metrics of success and you know that we need to be hustling towards them. And it’s just, it’s so beautiful to hear you question that right to awaken into this idea of choice and kind of what. As you’re describing your story, it kind of feels like this moment where you were almost like zoomed out and you were almost able to see your life like, almost like an out of body experience where you could kind of see from a new vantage point and this idea that, okay, there’s the way I’ve been raised to live, whether it’s your household of origin, you know authority figures that shaped how you show up and thought about the world societies conditioning all of that.
But you really woke up to this idea that you have a choice in how you want to show up and in the life that you have to live. And so, as you woke up to that choice, I’m curious what were some of the initial steps that you took? It sounded like some books were meaningful to you, like describe those initial steps. How did you say, okay, I now have this choice, I have this curiosity, I’m taking responsibility for my life, here’s what I’m going to do with it. So how did you continue building your awareness or stepping into that journey?
0:29:23 – Speaker 1
So I hired a couple coaches. I hired my next coach kind of later on in my corporate life and this is when I was stuck between, like we were going through massive growing pains. So I was working at a startup and I continue, I’m still working at the same startup and well, now we’re a public company. But I hired another coach and I specifically hired him because I was like, hey, I need your career coaching to help me get a promotion. I was like I needed to first, I needed to decide if I’m staying or leaving. Because at this point I was like asking a lot of questions about what I wanted to do with my life and I realized I didn’t feel appreciated at work. Kind of falls back into all the stories you know I was overdoing, I never felt appreciated. And in my work with him I went to him to be like, hey, I need help with the promotion, you know, or I need to decide if I’m going to leave. Kind of help me out, figure it out. And I know working on for most of the time together was my relationship that I had not healed. And the minute that I figured out my relationship dynamics and how that played and I saw how it was showing up in my workspace and in my career and my position and what was keeping me from asking for more money or for asking for a promotion that I felt was well deserved. Thank you very much.
Once we healed that, that took me into like a whole nother level of awakening. I was like, oh my gosh, like I need, came for a promotion, but I feel like I needed to heal this relationship with myself. And I came out of that with like the biggest promotion that I’ve ever received to the state and title change and just so much more responsibility. And I was so stoked on that and that led me to wanting to do life coaching and and relationship coaching for other people. And then that was a frickin other throw in, because now I’m starting my own business, I decide business and no one talks to you about frickin healing or life journey or personal development journey however you want to talk about it or a huge transmute of life of building your own business. And it wasn’t that building the business part, it was the being seen by others online. Like that was a whole another initiation. And again I supported coaches.
I leaned I really really leaned into the messiest parts of me.
I started to just really just break through layer after layer and dig deeper, and dig deeper and dig deeper into my biggest wounds or my worst habits or my unhealthiest habits, and seeing how they were all just creating this, this result in my life that I didn’t want and I took responsibility from that, and that was all still driven from a place of like I’m not worthy enough, which was interesting and I want to share that too, because the I’m not worthy enough continued to show up in my personal development journey over and over and over again.
And it wasn’t until, honestly, a year and a half ago where I started to not do this work from a place of I’m not enough, from a place of I am worthy, and what that meant was that all these parts of me that I felt were messy, or my biggest teachers, or ugly or like icky right, these like icky parts of me I started to see them with like genuine love, like they were freaking lovable, and so I started to realize that this work wasn’t because I wasn’t enough, but this work is because I love myself enough and I love myself so much and that’s really been, and then that’s a whole nother can of worms we can dive into. But that has really led me into this whole part of being fully expressed.
0:33:02 – Speaker 2
I love that so much. Karenna, you know you’re talking about these kind of unappealing parts. You know these parts that you didn’t necessarily love or that you didn’t want to see the light of day. And I just want to pull on that thread a little bit because I think it’s so, so important for us to be talking about this publicly right, because I think we all have at least most people I have spoken to. If someone out there doesn’t have anything that they want to change or anything that they get down on themselves for, call me because I’d love to know your secret. But in my experience, most people have.
You know, those parts that we don’t want to see the light of day because either we’ve been told that we won’t be accepted for them broadly right Goes back to that conditioning or we’ve had specific experiences with a bully or someone that we were vulnerable with as a child and then created based on this pain that we had. We created these stories like you’re talking about, about how to show up, how to hustle for worthiness, what is acceptable, what will get us belonging around us. But I’m curious because this notion of integrating all of these messy parts and even the parts that we don’t love. It can be really scary to confront those parts. So how did you, how did you even start doing that? How did you even start making space for those parts of you that you had hidden away for so long?
0:34:27 – Speaker 1
Well, they always showed up for me as an invitation in my body, right Like as I started to become aware of, just like the external habits I also started to become aware of, like the anxiety that I felt in my body when these parts would come up. That was a really big one. And so I did network spinal care with Dr Alan Bittaker and I remember I very my very first kind of experience of him was an immersion day and it was a full day, almost like 10 hours. We received two network spinal care sessions. So, for anyone that’s listening, what is network spinal? It’s really allowing you to like heal the energy that’s in your spine, really tapping into the emotional body, and that in translate means you know, also it’s in the subconscious mind. So whatever we keep in the subconscious mind working through the emotional body and any kind of traumas that are within the body, and at this day retreat that we did, I was surrounded by really popular coaches, if you want to say, really well known coaches, and also just people that I didn’t know, and also very attractive people. Like you know, there was attractive men in that group. There were women that were so smart, like they. Just all kinds of all kinds of people and I felt myself so intimidated at that point and during these sessions. So we got one at the first session we all did the network spinal care sessions in front of each other, so there’s 10 eyes and ears looking at you while you’re diving deep into your healing and I was like sweating so hard to be like I don’t want anyone to witness me, to see me in my fullest, like literally expressing parts of me that want to cry, want to scream, want to come out or be expressed, like my body being like moving in all different ways. And I was like I feel like these people might judge me or not, like all these thoughts were coming up.
And in that moment I remember kind of giving me myself the own coaching and I was like, if I lean into this openly and allow myself to fully experience like this is going to be a huge initiation for me into more healing.
And I did that, sat on that table, or I laid on that table, I kind of expressed to them what was going on for me in my life at that point and we started in the session and they started working on my spine and then I moved to my back and then I was doing like breath work and moving all over the place in front of 10 people and crying by the end of it and I was like I just leaned into it and it was so freaking uncomfortable but it was so healing to let other people see the messiest parts of me.
In that moment and ever since that day where I allowed myself to be seen by completely random people that I don’t know and people that I think are, quote unquote healed at the time, you know, or quote unquote, have their ship together and I did it, I finally was able to receive this level of love for myself that, even if the messiest parts of me are seen by other people, that I’m still lovable and I’m still me and that those, those parts of me don’t define me or make me less of like, if anything.
Because I opened up those parts of me and allow them to be seen by this group of people. I brought them kind of on my team, you know. I got a chance to see them, how to be with them, and I just leaned into that really hard for like the next six to nine months as I continued working with Dr Alan at the time and allowing him to see me in my full expression and to see me in the messiest parts of me, whether that was screaming or crying or letting anger out and rage and doing all these things that I’ve never done in front of other people before. And then I brought that into my relationship with my current partnership, where it’s a whole nother thing. But if we want to dive into that, that was another place where I started to bring the messiest parts of me and he held me in those.
0:38:23 – Speaker 2
So our full, because I feel like what you’re describing here is it’s counterintuitive right. We’ve been taught to believe oh, you have to put your best foot forward, you have to put a smile on, and we’ve been conditioned to believe that our masks are what get us to a sense of acceptance and belonging, when in reality, it’s our masks that keep us from feeling a true sense of acceptance and belonging. Because what I heard in your story was you know this fear that I think most of us have this fear of. Okay, if I’m really vulnerable, if I show you my messy parts or the parts that I’ve kept hidden away, the fear is, if I show those to you, then you’ll abandon me or reject me. I won’t be good enough, I won’t be lovable.
When what I heard you say is that you said I see this fear, I acknowledge the fear, I understand it and I’m not going to let this fear control me. I’m going to choose to lean into this experience, to be fully open to it, to be courageous in your vulnerability with these other people that you didn’t necessarily know super well, you didn’t already have that trust established with. But you said I’m not going to let my fear dictate my actions. I’m going to lean in anyway. And then, on the other side of leaning into the fear, you actually got the thing that you were actually wanted for so long of this feeling of not just other people loving you, but, I think, the real power, and it is you loving yourself right. You opened yourself up to be vulnerable with these other people and the gift that you got on the other side of it was true love and acceptance of yourself.
0:40:11 – Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s so true and I think it’s become way more apparent or way more real for me and, like the last even six to nine months, like that was just the door opening. You know, that was just opening the door right. Like I put, I was scared to put the key in the door. And then I put the key in the door and then I saw the door and I saw what was there and then I let other people see it and that was just one part that I let people see, right, and I continue to keep opening new doors and, yes, that was a huge transformational time, that one specific day, but I had to continue to show up vulnerably, transparently, to be, and, as I did that for myself, yes, I was so I felt so much more love and compassion for myself and I also started to get almost unattached from what people thought of me if they heard this thing about me, because I also knew that an expressing this for myself, it transformed it transition into If I start to express this, because I know for me, I’m worthy enough of expressing it, I love myself to express it and I’m not I’m not here to keep these parts of me behind hidden any longer and I love myself enough to do this, to feel it for myself. That became my North Star, almost because I love for myself, which I think is crazy, because at the beginning my journey I started from a place of like I don’t love myself, I don’t love who I am, I’m not enough. You know I could be doing more to like now, because I love who I am, I want these parts of me to be expressed to. Because I love who I am, I want these layers to be shed so that more of me comes forward. And also being attached to whatever happens on the other side of that. So truly getting to a place of like hey, if I show this part of me and someone doesn’t love me for that, or someone doesn’t see me for that, or someone judges me for that, that’s their own projection, not mine. And getting to that place has probably been the most freedom, and I know there’s just so much more to unlock there to even be more fully expressed. But giving myself permission to express without worrying about what’s on the other side of my expression or how it’s going to be received, has been the most healing.
Now, because I’ve done that, I will say it has attracted people in my life that encourage my fullest expression, which is fucking amazing. It is incredible and it truly started like I started to recognize that with just my partner, with Nick, right Like we were just having this conversation the other day, I was listening to a podcast with Aubrey Marcus and I was telling him I was like, wow, you do this for me, and what Nick does for me is has been the most healing. He, anytime I feel angry which rage has always been something that I’ve struggled to express he welcomes that. He’s like you want to go there let’s fucking go there. You know he’s like you’re sad let’s be fucking sad. You’re angry, let’s be angry. He doesn’t shut my parts down, and that has been also the biggest blessing. But I will say I truly believe this to my core that if I didn’t know how to do that for myself first, I wouldn’t have been able to receive that from the people that are in my life today 100%, because you know, I think about it.
0:43:30 – Speaker 2
if you weren’t giving that to yourself, then you wouldn’t be able to feel it when, even if other people were pouring into you, were giving you the love exactly the way that you wanted it right, it’s like you weren’t in a position to be able to see and feel and experience the love at that depth and in that pureness because you hadn’t yet given that to yourself.
0:43:55 – Speaker 1
And also I would to dive back off that too. It’s also I think it’s also around the wounding around that, like around the wounding around receiving, because this is all layers right, like it’s one thing for me to love myself, but if I also don’t know how to receive and accept and fully like, put me first in that, that’s really hard to be able to even let that in Absolutely, and I think you know one thing that I thought was really interesting about your journey, too, is so, on the one hand, I definitely hear, yes, there are these distinct moments or these transformative experiences that maybe we can point to, that created, you know, an awareness or unlocked a new avenue for us to explore.
0:44:38 – Speaker 2
But it sounds like it’s really in the day to day, right, it’s in the how you show up for yourself each day, it’s in the rituals and the practices. But something that I thought was really interesting in your journey is you kind of talked about how, as you’ve been committed to this journey, as you’ve given to yourself and loved yourself, you now have relationships in your life and experiences where that is encouraged right, where people are standing in service of you and standing for your fullest expression. But it sounds like it’s been a journey to get here, and so something that I think is really also interesting and I’d love to hear your take on, is kind of that transition period of at least in my experience and I’ll kind of give you an idea of where this question is coming from In my experience when we first start doing this work for ourselves, when we start challenging that status quo or we start making changes in how we’re showing up. When we start, let’s say, setting boundaries with our loved ones.
Typically, in my experience and a lot of the experiences I’ve heard from others, it’s not smooth sailing right. Typically, when we first start engaging in this work and we start standing up for ourselves, if we have people in our lives who, historically, are benefiting from us not giving to ourselves, from us not having boundaries, there can be some pushback, there can be some challenge that comes from other people because we’re disrupting the status quo. So what was that like for you in terms of how your relationships evolved? Did you let go of people in your life who weren’t supporting your growth in this next chapter for you?
0:46:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah, and I would say I think it happened naturally, right, it was freaking sticky along the way, but it was like changing my own dynamics was a stretch for myself. But in relationship with other people that also started to create a stretch within our dynamic right that the other person would start to feel. And in navigating that, honestly, at the time I was just showing up my best to lean into what was best for me at the time, even if I didn’t have the words to fully guide or navigate the situation, the best that I could probably do now. So at the time I showed up my best and what I would say for anyone that’s going through that is communicate as much as you can, as much as you know and what, as much as available to you, as what you’re doing and why you’re doing it and why it’s important to you and how that person can hope to meet you in that. But I’ve also experienced trying to navigate that and people not understand why I’m changing or why I’m transforming or why this is better for me or why I’m setting a boundary or why I’m showing up this way now and you know, with my closest relationships I tried to communicate that as much as possible with my furthest relationships. I think naturally and organically they transitioned on their own right. Either they transitioned out or the just.
I like to think relationships just look differently. Right, it’s not so much of like completely losing this person, is just the way that we relate to one another no longer looks the same, and when it doesn’t look the same, that is very fucking uncomfortable for me and obviously for them. But I have to find my North Star and, and so that’s one thing and I would advise everyone again, like if you’re going through that yourself just over, communicating over and over again. But three is also this might be a little off to the right or to the left, but when I entered in my relationship with Nick, I really did a lot of work with myself and I entered in this relationship really unattached and throughout the whole dating process, throughout the whole relationship and kind of being like, as long as we’re both in our truth and this works out and we’re together, great.
If it doesn’t, it doesn’t like. I can’t control what tomorrow happens, what happens tomorrow, but what I can control is that I’m honoring myself and from a place of love and our truth and far if my truth is mine and his truth is his and our truth is together, then we’ll continue to be together, and I take that same perspective into all of the dynamics that I’ve had in my life. As long as I continue to honor my truth and the people that meet me in my life continue to honor their truth and know that this relationship serves them as much as it serves me, we’ll continue to stay together. But I genuinely cannot control how that looks, and so I’ve been really surrendering into expressing myself fully and honoring my truth and trusting that. You know I’ll always be met in that with the people that are in my life, if that makes sense, and the people that are meant to be in my life it makes so much sense.
Did I go down a rabbit hole? Because it feels like a rabbit hole, but I try to bring it all back.
0:49:33 – Speaker 2
No, I don’t think it’s a rabbit hole, because I think it all serves, right. I mean, we’re thinking about how do we stay committed to our own growth, our own evolution, and there are so many things that can hold us back, that or that we can use as excuses to hold ourselves back, even right, I think something I’ve learned on my own journey is man, my, my ego is just as smart as I am, and so there are these tricks that, oh well, I don’t want to sacrifice this relationship, or, you know, oh, I don’t want to rock the boat in this way. And so there are these ways that we hold ourselves back. But what’s so beautiful is it sounds like you’ve really redefined what success in a relationship looks like because of this work and what you’ve been doing to create a relationship with yourself that is loving and nourishing and wholesome, and so beautiful.
It sounds like you’ve also questioned this notion that we’ve been taught that as long as the relationship is still going, that’s a good thing, right?
You know, we measure marriage success in terms of oh, how long have you been together? Right, that’s one of the first questions we ask. Or when someone’s working at a company, how long have you been there we put this really heavy emphasis on the longevity of something. But it sounds like you have redefined success for your relationships to say are we nurturing each other? Are we helping each other grow? Are we standing in service of each other? And as long as the answer is yes on all accounts, we will continue this relationship. But it sounds like, you know, sometimes these relationships naturally come to a close right. Maybe there was something we needed to learn from them in a season, or maybe letting go of the relationship is how we can grow and evolve into our next chapter. And so I don’t think it was a rabbit hole, because it sounds like the relationship you have with yourself has really influenced and transformed the relationships that you allow in your life with other people.
0:51:39 – Speaker 1
Yeah, for sure. And the other thing that I would add there is, like, I’m really leaning into, like, as long as I continue to be fully expressed in my relationships, in my life, in my business and in my career, in my title, as I continue to lean into opening myself for full expression right, and allowing my own evolution, the rest will follow, right. And then to your point is, there is going to be some letting go, some creating more of, but there is this sense of responsibility that I have taken on for myself, and maybe it’s not so a sense of responsibility, but there’s this like genuine love for, like my soul, like for this little Karenna, for all parts of me, that I love them so much and I care about them so much and I want every single part of me to have space right, because they’ve been dormant for so long, or dormant for so long, they’ve been hidden for so long, like literally getting tears in my eyes, like there’s this sense of love that I like literally think about, like every single part of you.
I want you to be expressed, I want you to feel fully expressed, I want you to open the door if that’s what you want to do you know, and I think, looking back in my life, I constantly got to a place of keeping the door shut because of shame, guilt, insecurities, people’s judgments, people’s opinions.
You know, worrying about if I was doing this right or wrong. That’s been a huge lesson for me. You know, worrying about this is right or this is wrong, or this is the best, or if this is not the best, and I was just like I’m just going to lean to my full expression here and do that and let my own evolution and has really been almost the birth of this space right, this container that we’re having, and then talking in this podcast, because this is also a part of my fullest expression Like I felt myself in my business, feeling contracted, held in a box, and I was like no, no, no. We need to allow the parts of me that want to be expressed and how can I express them? And I believe in doing that, I will continue to evolve into the human that I’m meant to be, at a soul level, energetic body level, as a human being in this world, living as an energetic body, living a human experience.
0:53:47 – Speaker 2
Well, you know, we’ve talked to Karenna a lot about you know some of the harder aspects of doing this work and of your journey, and how one it sounds like somebody is unpleasant or uncomfortable or challenging experiences. We’re really the gateway for your own growth and evolution. But what I’m thinking about is it sounds kind of scary, you know, I think about if I were someone hearing your journey telling me that it’s messy and can be hard and can be challenging. I don’t know if I really want to raise my hand to sign up for this. So I’m curious to know, like why are you so passionate about doing this work for yourself and serving others on this journey, and what’s so good about your life that you want other people to step into this as well?
0:54:37 – Speaker 1
I think because I have felt the difference between at the beginning of the podcast, you asked me what was life like? And I felt so far away from my life, like I was living this external experience. Yet the connection that I had to the external experience wasn’t there. And now, in my most present life, today, as you guys are all listening to this podcast, at this moment that you’re listening to this podcast, I feel the most connected to myself than I’ve ever had in my entire life. And before I thought the answer wasn’t avoiding the messiness and avoiding the scary. But now I find that in the scariness there is some sense of aliveness, there’s some sense of connection that I feel to me. Versus before it felt like so far away, so distant, and even though life was anxious, it was like almost at arm’s length. I don’t know if that can make sense. And so now, because I’ve experienced what it feels like to express these parts of me that felt so scary or that still continue to feel scary right, because things that continue to come up, that continue to lean into you at different layers or different points or different areas of my life, they feel scary at first, but on the other side of that, I feel so connected and a really great experience of this, or example of this, I would say I’ve been talking more with just my community and my clients about having harder conversations and really leaning into hard conversations. And before I used to avoid hard conversations and relationships and I started practicing it. It was freaking icky at first, really leaning into hard topics and asking the hard questions.
But now that I’m being met in the hard conversations, there is a sense of deep, deep, deep connection and desire that I have for my partner every single time, or for Nick, every single time that we have a hard conversation.
And to the point where, like we had a hard conversation just a couple weeks ago, a week ago, and at the end of it like honestly, we both wanted to jump each other’s bones. Like it was like I want more of you and he was like, wow, I love you so much. And I was like I love you so much and I was like, wait, we just had a really ugly, hard conversation, but I love you so much and you know, that’s the exact, that’s the exact feeling that I get with the messiest parts of me, like I lean into these really ugly parts of me that I don’t want to have that conversation with. I don’t necessarily want to see them with, I don’t want to necessarily give them the love or give them space to express themselves, but the minute that I do, I just feel like I want to hold them and I want to love them more and give them space for more, and I feel this incredible connection after doing that every time.
0:57:13 – Speaker 2
Man. That really resonates with me, especially going from that kind of from to shift as you described, you know, feeling at arm’s length or feeling that distance from your life, because that really eloquently captures a lot of my journey as well. You know, this idea for me, the way I’ve characterized it, is kind of living in my head, right. I was afraid of being messy or clumsy or not doing things quote unquote, right when it came to interacting with other people, so oftentimes I wouldn’t speak my voice, I wouldn’t own my truth, because if I just kept everything in my head, then everything went according to plan in my head. You know, I always looked incredibly wise and incredibly kind and generous and amazing when I was the hero of my own story. Living in my head.
And so this idea of really living our lives fully right, being present in those lives, even if it’s messy or complicated or unpleasant sometimes, right, I think it’s really about learning to kind of peel back the judgment we put on ourselves of whether something’s good or bad or right or wrong and really just surrendering to it. As you’ve said, it’s surrendering and accepting. I’m here to experience the fullest of what life has to offer, even if it’s maybe not according to my plan or exactly what I want in this moment, but choosing to see the value in every experience, no matter how it unfolds, and that is incredibly powerful and really fulfilling. Yeah.
0:58:52 – Speaker 1
It’s a wild how you can go from living and seeing things in the way that this is the only way to feel or the only way to be, or at least is the right way to do things, or not the right way to do things, or wanting to control the way that things turn out, and then the minute that you just take a step back to be present with every part of that process, or like the process of getting to where you want to go it literally to your point feels so much more fulfilling. It’s almost like when you put work towards something right. It feels so much better when you have all this experience of I thought of it this way, I opened up myself this way, I worked harder and I gave myself the opportunity to do this. I put the time into this versus just receiving the thing. There’s this sense of like, oh, experience, this. I’m so grateful for this experience. I put so much time into this, I worked through this. That is so much more rewarding than just getting an answer or living with receiving the thing that you were working towards.
Does that make sense? And it’s so much more fulfilling when you go through the experience and like literally through it right, not just on the, not just jump to the other side of it just and receive the thing. It’s like I need to go through the experience and it’s so much more fulfilling going through the hard or walking through the mud because it’s like, yeah, I walked to the mud, not just like I ran through the grass. It’s like, oh, I walked in the mud and I got stronger and I became more resilient and I became more expressive and I learned this about me and I saw this about me and I didn’t realize this about me. Versus like, if it was just walking through grass, it gets to the other side and like, okay, I got it, but there’s no sense of like, yeah, I received it. You know I’m here.
1:00:32 – Speaker 2
Yeah, that sense of earning it right and this idea that we might consciously want things to be easy right, because we’re built to not want things to change.
We’re built to want things to be predictable and safe and comfortable and easy, but we are actually built to thrive through adversity, through challenge, by rising to meet whatever comes our way and really working through it and earning our way through it. So that is, yeah, so, so powerful. So, Karenna, we have covered a lot of ground here. I know, even though I have had so many conversations with you, I’m still just writing down notes, taking so much away from this conversation, and I’m so grateful for your courage, your curiosity, your willingness to own your journey and not only do it in a way that helps you live a life that is more fulfilling, more free, more full of love, but you’re also doing this in a way that creates an invitation for others to step into their own journey and to learn and come home to themselves and to love themselves fully. So, as we think about, kind of coming to the close of this conversation, what else do you want us to know about? What have I not thought to ask you, Karenna, that we need to know about you?
1:01:55 – Speaker 1
Who likes answering that question what do I want people to know about me?
I think the biggest thing that I want people to know about me and I think what I want to start to break down the barriers for anyone that’s listening to this is that I’m human, I’m just like you, like that’s really the biggest thing, like for anyone listening like I’m human and I’m just like you, I’m also going through the mud, or I’m going through the messiness, or leaning into hard conversations, or having hard realizations, or going through life seasons, like just because I continue to lean into this work and doesn’t make me more healed than anyone else.
And I think I say that because when you are living on social media or listening to these podcasts, you can have this perception or this reality that, wow, they have it all together. Or they’re better than me, or they’re more healed than me, or they’re just smarter than me and more intelligent than me. They’re more wise than me. You know all this, all this comparison, and I really want to knock that down, especially when it comes to this podcast and my community and just how I show up. And I say that because I wouldn’t be able to have these conversations if I didn’t lean into the messiness and I’m going to basically highlight the messiness, because the messiness is the most important part. No, one.
I mean, I can’t say no one is perfect, but like, really there is nothing. You know, I can’t say no one’s perfect. Maybe there is a human out there that’s a unicorn. I would love to meet you. But we all have our imperfections and we all have our messiness and I’m here just to be a part of this life ride with you. This personal journey is I’m in it for the long run and I’m continuing to lean into my own evolution and I hope that anyone that’s listening continues to listen to this as an invitation for you to be fully expressed in yourself and to lean into your own personal evolution wherever that takes you, and letting your fullest expression kind of guide you in your evolution so beautiful.
1:03:58 – Speaker 2
You know this idea that I’m on a journey with you, right? I think that’s so, so important. It’s this message of you’re not alone and we are all on our own unique journey and we are all perfect, yet imperfectly perfect. All of that good stuff, and I I, for one, Karenna am just so incredibly grateful to know you, to have you in my life, to get to witness your evolution, your unfolding, your full expression, and excited to see where it takes us. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’ve really loved getting to hear more about your story and getting to learn more about the beautiful soul that you are.
1:04:36 – Speaker 1
Thank you. I really think that, like just having you on here and doing this whole interview and this episode with me was just so juicy. I love the way that you just reflect everything back and almost like highlight and summarize the things that I’m trying to say, and I think that that in itself really, at least you know, gives the listeners here and anyone that’s tuning in an opportunity to kind of grasp what I was trying to say, really pulling it all back together, and you just do that so seamlessly. So, thank you, and I love you so, so much. Thank you so much for thank you. Thank you, thank you for doing this for me. I love you. Thank you so much.