If your life has been feeling weird lately, like things don't hit the same anymore, well, you're in luck. Because this episode is going to explain exactly why.

Welcome to the Unfolding Podcast. I'm your host and friend, Yvonne Wink, and I'm glad you're here.

Have you ever felt like your life is shifting?

you can't fully explain why. Like, you're not who you used to be, but you're not fully who you're becoming yet.

And suddenly, you start noticing everything is shifting all around you. The way you feel about people, things, places, your friendships feel different, your conversations feel different, even your interactions with loved ones, family, lovers, partners, even the way you spend your time.

starts to change and who you spend your time with. And you're like, what in the world is happening to me?

Why am I bored in this conversation when I used to be able to hang in there, hang in there with this person, right? Why am I irritated with them now, with what they're saying? They've always said this, they've always been this way. Why am I so annoyed? We've known each other for years, but why now does this feel off?

And here's the part no one really explains. And I wish someone would have explained this to me about 10, 12 years ago, okay?

What if nothing is wrong with you?

What if this is actually a process?

Not a random face.

but something your brain, your body, your nervous system, and your life are moving through on purpose.

See, when I was going through this back in the day, didn't have, guess I didn't always have the language for this. I suspected, but I didn't understand the phases, right? The ebbs and the flows of this. I just knew something in my life started shifting. I knew I was changing. The things that I used to tolerate, I couldn't tolerate anymore. The conversations I used to entertain, they started to feel draining. Even the...

jokes that I would laugh at at other people's expense.

It didn't hit the same.

Even the way I was spending my time and who I was spending it with wasn't making sense anymore to me. Even my workout routine.

All of it. And I remember thinking, why? Why am I bored right now? Why am I irritated? Why does this feel so off? When nothing has technically changed, they're exactly the same and I'm exactly the same, right? Nothing has changed. We all look the same. Everything is the same. It's all very cohesive. It's all very normal. And nothing has changed.

something had changed. Me.

And when I actually sat with it, when I really sat with it, instead of running from it or numbing it or making myself so busy that I tuned it out, I realized something. And it was in the quiet, quiet, peaceful moments I realized. Now there's a pattern to this, a sequence that your life moves through when you're becoming who you're meant to be.

Sometimes we've been fighting it for years. We've felt the push, the pull, the calling, but we just didn't have the time or the effort that we wanted to put into it the courage or even maybe the directions on how to get there.

So over this last year, I swan dived into this, because I'm very curious. And I always want to know why, why, why, why. ⁓ And so I dove deep into this. I've lived this, I've breathed it, I've eaten, drank, slept it, I've even written about it. And I've started using it in my work with clients, in group sessions, and on a one-on-ones. Because...

I want people to understand what's happening to them. Instead of thinking something's wrong with them. So, I'm so excited to share this with you. This is one of the first times I'm really unveiling this. ⁓ And so this is what I've come up with thus far. This is the framework I'm living in right now and I'm really proud of it. I hope you enjoy it today.

hoping that this becomes some of my greatest life's work. I would say that my babies obviously are first and foremost, but I hope it's right behind that. And I call it the unfolding method. This phase we're talking about today, the unfolding method. And if you followed me on any social media platforms, specifically ⁓ Instagram and ⁓ TikTok, you'll see that I have ⁓ taken the name the unfolding.

podcast, the unfolding method. I've been, this has been in the works for a while. I've worked really diligently on it for an entire year. And so I'm gonna share it with you today. It goes a little something like this. ⁓ Okay, so how it starts, I'm gonna explain the phases. So first you uncover, then you unlearn, then you unblock, then you unfold.

And the best part of it is eventually you unleash into the wild. That's where you find me right now. I'm in the wild. But let's start where it all begins. I am hoping that many of you listeners are finding yourself here right now. If not, you've been past this phase. Maybe you're sitting in it right now in any event. Listen up here. So it starts with uncovering.

Okay, and I started that specifically because I'm gonna go deep into this, not necessarily in this episode, throughout the ⁓ other episodes. But it starts with the uncovering. That moment where you start to see yourself clearly. Your patterns, your choices, your repercussions for the choices, right? Your relationships, the good and the bad.

the, your, your taste in, in food, music, people, friends, all of it. You start to see crystal clear. Girl, let me tell you, those rose colored lenses, they come off. Not just for other people, but most importantly of yourself. The lens comes off and you are staring right back at your reflection. You are.

the man in the mirror.

Does anyone experience this? Or are you in the middle of it right now?

I love this phase because this is where you start noticing things that you didn't notice before.

Like, why you over give? Why do you overextend yourself? I ask myself this all the time, not anymore, why? Why you tolerated certain behavior from certain people?

Why you stay longer than you should.

Why did you let certain people ruminate and dominate conversations and your time and take and take and you just kept giving and giving? Never reciprocated.

Why you find yourself asking why you keep proving yourself in places that were never going to choose you.

Why you're exhausted, chasing validation in rooms you don't even want to be in.

why you're working so hard at a life that doesn't even feel like yours.

And this is the part that hits because uncovering, isn't glamorous, I'll tell you that. You got the fugly cry in the mirror. ⁓ It's not, this phase, the uncovering isn't even empowering at first. It's confronting. It takes a lot of self-actualization, self-reflection, deep self-reflection, and you realize,

something. I just threw my water bottle down. You realize something really important here. You realize, ⁓ it wasn't just them. ⁓ did I do that? Was that me? Did I participate in that? Did I start that? Was I the drama?

See, you've been participating in patterns you didn't even know you were in. And what's happening now, if you're cognizant of it, if it's at the forefront of your brain, if you're listening to this going, yeah, that's me right there.

You've outgrown these patterns. And when you're in the outgrowing of the pattern phase, it can bring up a lot. Especially if you don't have the right tools or even the knowledge of like, okay, where do I go next? What's happening to me next? See, what happens sometimes in this phase is we just feel shame. We feel regret.

We feel remorse, right? We're standing in the mirror and we're thinking, gosh, I did hurt that person. I did say that. I did crush that person's soul.

Maybe there's some anger. Maybe your soul is crushed. Your heart was broken. And there's some anger. Anger at them.

But also, if you're really honest, angry at yourself.

for how long you stayed, for how long you allowed that behavior, for what you tolerated, for how much you gave, hoping that it would finally be enough.

but hear me with some gentle and loving truth. You didn't know what you didn't know. You were operating from the version of you that was simply trying to be loved.

Trying to be understood. Trying to be chosen.

trying to make it work with the tools you had at the time.

And now you have awareness, a new awareness.

and awareness changes everything. And I say this in every single episode because it's true. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Awareness changes everything. And once you see it, you don't just know better. You now lose the ability to portray yourself the same way again and again, because you can't go back to who you were. Because now you know who you are.

So it starts there, it starts with the uncovering. That is such a vital piece. Then comes the unlearning. So this one is, I find a lot of people here. This one's uncomfortable, yeah. And it's a bit awkward too, because now you're realizing some of the things that you believed culturally, politically.

spiritually, know, religiously, all of it. Some of the ways you've been showing up, you're questioning that. Some of the BS you've been tolerating.

Some of this was never actually about you.

They were taught. These patterns were taught. They were survival. They were conditioning. Yes, I said what I said, conditioning. I know everyone hates that word, but it's true. We've been conditioned. Deal with it. Because we can fix it, right? If you can name it, you can heal it. You can fix it. But I wanna get super real right now as I crisscross applesauce. Because now in this phase, you're not just seeing the pattern, right?

You're not just standing in the mirror going, gosh, that was me. You're not just seeing these patterns. You're questioning your identity. You start asking yourself, who am I without this adaptation?

Who am I when I'm not over giving and bending over backwards in full wheel, it's a yoga pose, in overextending and over giving, over explaining to people who are dead set on misunderstanding you.

Who am I without this chasing, without this proving, without shrinking, just to be accepted?

And when you're here, that can feel destabilizing.

because these patterns, they weren't random. They were the ways you learned to stay ⁓ connected, to stay in the inner circle, to stay loved, to stay safe.

to ensure you had that stamp of approval that you fit in the tribe.

but here's a little truth bomb.

When you start letting those patterns go, it can feel like you're losing something. And it actually, during this process really is, it's lonely, it's painful, it super duper sucks, ⁓ it's uncomfortable, it's you're confused, you're dazed and confused. ⁓

Let them go. Let those old patterns go. Because you know what? You're not losing yourself in this phase. You're losing the version of you that was built to survive, not to thrive.

So note, listen here, your brain will try to pull you back with everything that it knows. It's like, do do do do do do do do do, it's juggling, right? Because familiar feels safe and it's trying to throw you off. But familiar feels safe even when it's not healthy and you have to recognize that.

So you will feel the urge to acquiesce, to join the crowd, to blend in with them, right? You will feel the urge. It'll come up for you to want to over explain, right? That no is your final sentence. That will be a struggle for you. You'll feel the urge to give more and give more. These are your patterns, right? You'll feel the urge to be the fixer.

and the problem solver, you'll feel the urge to go back. Your brain is trying to pull you back because it's familiar, it feels safe, it understands the outcome. It knows, it's like, we got the outcome, don't worry, this is what happens.

But unlearning is the moment you pause. You don't go back to what you now know isn't aligned. It doesn't feel right anymore. That's the shift. That's what you're feeling, that uncomfortable feeling. You stop fighting the patterns because you know they're costing you your peace. And then, and then, then, then, this next step is where I would say,

I've seen most people get stuck. I mean, it's like, come on, we need to get the excavation team in and we got to pull this one out. ⁓ We got to dig this person out ⁓ because after unlearning comes unblocking. Okay. This is where everything you've learned meets real life. Okay. This is where you actually

have to do something different. This is where you have to do the work. You, no one can do this for you. You can't even ⁓ pretend your way through this. This is kind of when everyone goes, ⁓ got it. There she is. There he is, right? Because this is everything you've learned and now you're applying it. This is where you set the boundary, where you say no and it's a complete sentence, where you don't respond.

the same way. You're not reactive. You don't chase. You don't over explain. You sit in the discomfort instead of fixing it. You don't have to fix it. It's okay. You've proven that you rise from the ashes every time, that you can sit in the pain and the heartache and you can cry and you can lay on the bathroom floor and you can rise the next day. You sit with the discomfort instead of fixing it.

and your brain says, absolutely not. We don't do this. I've talked about this before. In psychology, there's a word cognitive dissonance. I know everyone knows that word, but this is that concept right here. this is really important to understand because

What's happened is you've done all this work and your brain is now saying, absolutely not. We don't do that anymore. This doesn't make sense. This does not make sense with the values that you say you want, right? You say you want to be peaceful, loving and kind, but you're screaming and cussing out someone on the road. That was just me the other day. Just kidding. I didn't scream and cuss, but I was a little heated.

This is where the fight is happening in the brain, right? The old you, that old pattern. And then your brain is saying, absolutely not, Yvonne, we don't do this anymore. This is so important to understand because unblocking is where you start becoming unstuck. This is where you try new things.

anyone seeing themselves in any of these phases? I would love to know right now. ⁓ But becoming unstuck. love this because this is where you find your voice. This is where you speak up. This is where you walk away. You leave and you don't come back. This is where you quit. This is where you start something new. You do the thing you've been thinking about for a long time. You finally do it.

Here's a little wisdom from someone who's walked this path. Listen, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you piss people off and they just stare at you dazed and confused. what just happened here? But I want you to know that's not failure. That's ⁓ momentum, that's forward progress, that's movement.

But there is the brain battle, right? And this is where the internal battle kicks in because your brain isn't trying to evolve. It's never actually trying to evolve, by the way. It's never trying to improve. It's never trying to change and grow and be healthy, right? It's just trying to keep you safe. We all know this. This is what our brain is created to do. This is what it's wired to do.

just to keep us safe. And safe usually means familiar. That's just the way it is. This is why so many people wake up at 50, 60, 80, even 30. And they say, what in the entire bleep just happened? Where did all those years go? This isn't where I wanna be.

This isn't what I want to be doing. This isn't who I want to be doing it with. We've just been in a pattern.

So even if the old pattern was exhausting and painful, it was predictable.

That's why you keep doing the same thing over and over. And you say, well, I don't want to drink anymore, but you keep pulling into the liquor store and getting your drinks, right? I don't want to smoke anymore. I don't want to use substances anymore. I don't want to stay in this dead end job. I want more for myself.

The pattern that we're experiencing is exhausting. We hate it. It's painful. It's caused a lot of damage and harm and hurt. But you know what's more powerful? It was predictable. And that's why we kept doing it. But now in this phase, we start choosing something different. And that can feel anxious, uncomfortable. ⁓

even wrong. And you might feel the urge during this time to keep over explaining, you know, to, to go back to what you used to do just to relieve the feeling.

But that feeling, that discomfort, that's not a sign you're doing it wrong. Okay? You gotta stay in it. That's your nervous system learning a new way. And I promise you, she will catch up. You're not being rejected. You're not losing control. You're not being threatened. You're going to survive this. You're not even pushing people away per se or pissing them off. Or maybe you are pissing them off. I don't know.

You see, the only people who get pissed off when you change, lay down a boundary, choose yourself, they're the ones who are used to taking from you. They're used to getting what they want from you. Because people's true colors don't show when everything is easy. They show when they don't get what they want from you. And that doesn't mean you need to cut everyone off. It just means you need to learn how to place people where they belong.

compartmentalize. Not everyone gets a front row access ticket to you anymore.

Some people are close, some are distant, and some are just awareness. I want you to think about it like this. This is a boundary, I get this a lot. Well, what is a boundary? Okay, and I know that conceptually you understand what a boundary is, but I wanna give you an example, because this is exactly what it looks like. Okay, let's say that you told me, hey, Yvonne, don't call me on Tuesdays. That's my family time, okay?

I know we work together, I know we need to talk all the time, you know, or we're good friends or we're family or whatnot, right? That is my time for myself. That is my self care day. That is my time with my kids, my family, my parents, whatever it is, I don't know, but whatnot, right? You tell me that, please don't call me on Tuesdays. I'd go, okay.

I respect your boundaries. That is a boundary you placed. It doesn't matter how weird, irrational it sounds to me. That's your boundary and I respect it. But first thing Wednesday morning, guess what? I'm dialing you up, no problem. But here's the thing. The ones who don't respect you, I want you to see this clearly because the ones who don't respect you or respect your boundaries, they get real upset or they just flat out ignore it.

or they make you the problem. See, she's so rigid, she's so difficult, she's so difficult to deal with. Why? Because I choose myself on Tuesdays? Okay, got it.

This is something I had to really come to terms with. It was like a big deal for me and I don't know why. I still can't quite figure it out. the thing is I had to realize I'm not breaking the law here. I'm interrupting a pattern. A pattern that my body has been running for years. It was on autopilot. And this is the, I call this part the messy middle. Okay, it's just messy here. There's a lot of messiness happening here.

This is where you don't fully like your old self, but you're not fully confident in your new self yet. You recognize like, yeah, but I still flip people off in the car. That's not who I want to be. Those aren't my values. It's completely, you know, not who I want to be. It's so incongruent, you know, with the life that I'm living, right? So, you know, there's that, that, that

I get it, the middle ground, right? You're not fully digging that old self, but you don't know exactly who you are. You're not super confident to step into that person yet. But this, this is where your life actually starts changing in the uncomfortableness.

because you don't get unstuck by just thinking differently, by scrolling on Instagram and TikTok and watching other people doing this work. You get unstuck by sitting in this mess and choosing differently anyway. You get in this, you get unstuck by recognizing how difficult it is to stop drinking so much, to stop using, to stop lying, to stop cheating.

to stop being a jerk. You get unstuck by recognizing it and then choosing differently in the middle of the mess. And every time you choose differently, you teach your body, this right here, body, this is the new normal. And this is where acceptance comes in. And if you stay with it,

you start to unfold. See what I did there? Voila!

So yeah, next is the unfolding, right? Seriously though, this phase is subtle at first, okay? But I'm telling you, it's one of the most powerful phases. And I remember this so clearly. This happened to me in Bali last year. I was all alone in a completely different country. And I was in the depth of this phase of my unfolding. And nothing dramatic was happening on the outside, but everything.

The earthquake was happening, the shifting was all happening on the inside. I started noticing this weird salty moisture appear in my eyeballs pretty regularly. I was like, what is this in my eyes? ⁓

The thing is, there were tears guys, you know what mean? I'm not a crier. You've established this already. the thing is, that you, you know, you still look the same. You still are the same on the outside, but the shift is happening on the inside. You still look the same. But you start choosing differently, repetitively, consistently. You start wanting different things. You start realizing this isn't actually.

the life I want for myself. This isn't the person I want to spend all my time with.

This isn't the career I am in love with, I desire.

You start becoming someone your old self doesn't fully recognize. That's why it's a little confusing because that realization it's quiet, but it does change a lot because now you're not reacting. You're aligning. Okay. So you're not trying to fix your life anymore. You're starting to listen to it. You're not trying to fix your patterns, fix yourself.

Fix everyone around you.

You're just starting to listen now. And what you're noticing is the conversations just don't land the same.

The environments don't feel the same. You might feel like the odd man out.

The version of you that used to fit doesn't quite fit anymore. And it's an awkward feeling to say the least when you find yourself here. I could feel this in real time, guys. I'd be in conversations where people's eyes would practically glaze over or crisscross the moment I started talking, the moment I opened my mouth, it's like, God.

because of whatever content I was talking, who knows? It could be anything from psychology to astrology to aliens, but I could see it in real time. The eyeballs crisscrossing, the smirks, the glances over at other people, eye rolls. And I'm like, yeah, these aren't my people.

Then I'd be in other conversations where they'd light up. We'd belly laugh until it hurt. Sometimes it was perfect strangers. We'd just connect instantly and talk about our dreams and our aspirations, not about other people.

I remember those conversations before.

And I'd say something that I was embarrassed about or even ashamed about.

And they'd say, me too. I felt that way too. Same. And I remember thinking, ⁓ this is what alignment feels like. Not forcing anything, not shrinking myself, not having to adjust my conversations depending on who I was around. Not over explaining, not adjusting myself to the crowds, right?

but just being.

Here's what I've learned. The right people, they don't tolerate you. They recognize you.

And here's another little truth bomb. This place temporarily can feel lonely. Trust me. Because you're no longer who you were. You're still growing into who you're becoming. And this is where I see a lot of people go backwards. And I know I did. You go back. Because forward feels uncertain. And I remember this phase so clearly.

because I don't know, 50 weekends spent alone. Not because I didn't have options, ⁓ but because it felt more peaceful there. Sure, I had offers, invitations, dates, opportunities to fill the space, but I saw something really powerful, really cool happening in me. I was changing.

and I could feel it and I knew it. And I would literally tell anyone who asked me out on a date, I was like, hey, listen, you don't want any part of this. I am a walking red flag right now. I am so discombobulated and literally pulling out ⁓ who knows what, but I'm pulling it all out from the attics and the locked treasure chest that I had.

I was just pulling it all out because I wanted it all out of me, all the patterns. I was just giving them up. I was calling myself on things, but I was like, go on, get. I'm just like a little baby angel right now, a bratty toddler, a rebellious teen, all in one. So it's probably best that you just go on and get. Go on.

Because what I wasn't doing anymore is distracting myself. I was trying to understand myself. I kept my circle small, tight, intentional. Not because I didn't love people, but because I was learning how to love myself differently.

But this is the part most people, I would say this is where they run. But I promise you, if you stay here, if you trust it, this is where your life starts to reorient around who you actually are.

You're not, you're not, you're not lost. You're no longer available for what once felt normal.

This is the space where your new life starts finding you.

You didn't lose your old life. You just outgrew it.

And then, eventually and finally, you unleash. Un-leash.

And this is the version of you that, listen, this person does not overthink the text, does not question their worth when you don't call back, doesn't shrink in the room, doesn't stay where they're not valued, doesn't overstay. This is the version of you that lives. She loves fully without losing herself. She creates.

without waiting for permission. She speaks without filtering her truth down to make others comfortable. She's unbothered, not because she doesn't care, but because she finally knows what's worth her energy. She knows her worth, she knows her value, and she doesn't give discounts to people who couldn't afford her at full price. Boom, mic drop.

See, she expects more, not from entitlement. This isn't the case, but this is from alignment. She rises again and again and again. And here's the most powerful part. She doesn't waste her pain. She turns all of that pain into purpose, shares it so someone else can find their way through it.

And this version of you, she was always there. She's always been there. She just needed you to uncover, to unlearn, to unblock, to unfold, so she could finally be unleashed.

You're not becoming someone new. You're finally allowing yourself to be who you were always meant to be. And listen, this, if you've listened this far, I know you're in. thank you. Slow clap. Because this isn't self-improvement, ⁓ self-help. This is self-return. Okay. The life you want is on the other side of the version of you.

you're afraid to become.

So if no one has told you this lately, you're not behind. You're not broken. You're unfolding.

Thank you for spending this time with me. Thank you for showing up and showing out. Thank you for all the beautiful messages, comments. Y'all just lift my spirits.

You have been listening to the Unfolding Podcast. And I'm your girl, Yvonne. Until next time.

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