Latest / Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul / How To Create An Excellent Relationship With Yourself

Transcript

How To Create An Excellent Relationship With Yourself · Healing Her Story with Riva Jean-Paul

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to this week's episode on the Healing Her Story Podcast.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Reva Jean-Paul.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a trauma-informed somatic practitioner, coach for women, and host for your show.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I am very excited and delighted to be here with you today.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I do want to acknowledge that it's been a couple of weeks since I've had a solo episode.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: As I've shared in the last cycle check-in, I'm in a season that I'm calling the creative chaos of my life right now.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to seeing clients and working for a couple of teaching artist residencies, I'm also going to school, working towards my master's degree in art therapy and counseling.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And this has been a season that has asked a lot of me.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's been very fulfilling on so many levels.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm making so much art.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm working very closely with children right now, also making art with them.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a really special time.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm allowing myself to enjoy it as much as possible.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: And part of allowing myself to enjoy it means taking the pressure off a little bit.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so, as I've shared with many of my clients in the past, I've been wanting to lean into quality versus quantity here on the show.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you can certainly count on the Monday weekly cycle check-in episodes.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the bonus episodes and the guest interviews are going to be, let's call them bonus episodes for lack of a better term, for the time being.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: At the very least, you can count on two solo episodes for me each moon cycle.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, anything else besides that will just be kind of a bonus or an extra.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I trust that when the seasons change again, that I will eventually settle into a season where I can be doing these solo episodes in addition to the weekly cycle check-ins every week.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So until then, we'll just go with the rhythm that is organically happening and that is sustainable for me as well.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's really a big peak of big piece of this work and a big piece of this show is living life in a way that is sustainable and that honors the natural ebb and flows of our energies, of our seasons, of our inner rhythms and cycles, and of the outer rhythms and cycles.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So to be a true embodiment of that, then I really gotta honor my ebb and flow and the season that I'm in right now and the rhythm that I'm in right now.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this is where we're at today.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is all about the relationship that we have with ourselves.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe by me just giving you a little insight into how I make decisions helps you to maybe get a little insight into how I do relate to myself.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why I wanted to bring up this theme in particular today, not only one, because it's so important, just as the title has says, I truly believe, or maybe the title doesn't say this, I might change it, but I truly believe the most relationship, the most important relationship that we have is the relationship that we have with ourselves.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: How we relate to ourself is how we relate to other people.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we're all ultimately desiring quality, nourishing, fulfilling relationships in our lives that really bring value to our lives, that don't hurt us or stress us out or take us away from the version of ourselves that we are becoming.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: And as I've shared on the last episode, we won't dive, or rather, I won't dive super deep into astrology on the show.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my area of expertise.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: However, it is something that is an instrumental tool of my process.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it is part of a bigger cycle that I think we have the potential or the opportunity to work with.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe one day I'll bring an astrologer on the show to dive a little bit deeper.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: What I have done for you, if you're hearing the words Venus retrograde and you have no idea what that means, maybe astrology is new to you, maybe you've been following the moon and you know the new moon and the full moon, and you've heard of the Mercury retrograde and the eclipses, and you know that there are these things happening in the stars and in the planets.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to know more, what I invite you to do is to go to the show notes and you'll find a link to an astrology reading that comes from an astrologer who I reference very frequently in my Soma Circles, in my breathwork classes, and in my one-on-one sessions with my clients.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting no matter where I share it, definitely some more than others, but more often than not, people are like, oh my gosh, yes, that's exactly what I'm going through right now.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it can be helpful to like just give us some sense of understanding of like these larger rhythms and cycles that are happening, happening and that can influence our lives.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it allows us to work with it instead of being afraid of it or ignoring it, and when we work with it, we can begin to reshape and recalibrate our lives.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And Venus specifically has to do with relationships, it also has to do with creativity and beauty, it's very connected to this feminine frequency, and so that's another reason that I brought in this Venus energy in this episode and in the next episodes to come, because it is part of this feminine frequency.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's a deep connection to this feminine frequency, the planet of Venus.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you are wanting to really align with the feminine frequency, or rather to strengthen and awaken and fortify the feminine frequency within you, then Venus has an opportunity for you to do that.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So again, check out the show notes.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: You'll read more about Venus, you'll read more about the retrograde and what it means.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, all you really need to know for this episode is that we are being asked to review and reflect and recalibrate our relationships.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said, the most important relationship that we have is the relationship that we have with ourselves.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only relationship that we will have that will last us from the time we are born until the day we leave this earth.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, you might have your parents, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: They might live just as long as you.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking, maybe they might live longer than you too.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's a possibility as well.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: But other than our parents, there's really no other relationship that we have that lasts from the day we are born until the day we leave this earth.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: We are always with ourselves.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's no other person in our lives that we are always with constantly.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: But we are always with ourselves, and so it's important to remember that and keep that in mind is if you're really wanting to cultivate better relationships, you really gotta cultivate a better relationship with yourself.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are you someone that you would want to hang out with all day?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you enjoy being with yourself all day?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Are you hard on yourself?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you judge yourself?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: Do you like yourself?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you even sense that you might even be just okay?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe you don't love yourself or like yourself, but maybe you're like, I'm okay.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you on the other end of the spectrum where you you really don't like yourself?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just planting these reflection questions here at the start of our episode and at the start of this Veno Venus retrograde.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: For you to just let percolate in the background while we have today's conversation and while we continue to have this conversation over the coming weeks.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the first time I worked with a therapist, I was in the depths of my mental breakdown, mental health breakdown, and I was coming off of substances I was abusing, and I was really coming to terms with all of the dysfunctional cycles that I had found myself stuck in, specifically with substances, drugs and alcohol, and also with how I work and overworking and hustle culture, if you will.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was really tied up in that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And in the middle of the pandemic, I got to a point where I just realized that none of that was working for me anymore.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know what was going on because all of that had worked just fine before, but now all of a sudden it won wasn't.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I wasn't sure what to do.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so I began working with a therapist who at the time was a good entryway into doing this deeper work.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: I had never been to therapy before.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: And in one of our sessions, we were talking about me um going to school and working and just having a lot of things going on and pushing myself and you know, getting mad at myself and I wasn't doing it, like, oh man, like why didn't I do that?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And she asked me, how do you talk to yourself?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'll offer that same question to you here, too.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: How do you talk to yourself?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: When she asked me this, and I thought about it, which I had never thought about before, I had never thought about how I talked or related to myself, I realized, oh, I'm actually quite hard on myself.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm critical if I don't feel like doing something and I feel like it's something that I air quotes should be doing something, I will push myself and just say, oh come on, let's go, Riva.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like you just you just need to get this done, so it doesn't matter that you don't want to do it, you just you need to get this done.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: And once I had seen that, I couldn't unsee it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I then began on a journey of changing the way I related to myself.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I do want to say that wherever you are is okay, and that if you do judge yourself, if you are critical towards yourself, if you are hard on yourself in any way, that all of that is so welcome into this space.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Often when we come from a background where we have perhaps been abused or violated, or maybe we weren't abused or violated, but maybe we grew up in a home where our caretakers were very critical and very judgmental of ourselves and the people around us, it would make a lot of sense to me that there are parts inside of you that are judgmental and critical and hard on yourself.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we really want to let those parts know that it's okay.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you were criticized, I'll speak from my own experience.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up with critical parents from a well-meaning place, simply wanting the best for me.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: However, this very sensitive little girl really internalized that.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so as I got older, I continued to be the critical and judgmental voice of my parents.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where we learn these things.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: We learn these from our caretakers.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: We are not born being hard and judgmental and critical of ourselves.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is what we learn.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we learn this at a point when our nervous systems are so vulnerable.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Our brains are so vulnerable, they're still forming.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what happens to us and what we intake really does shape the pathways in our brain and in our nervous systems.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: The good news is that you can change.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you want a different kind of relationship with yourself, if you decided, like, man, I'm just, or rather, woman.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I realize they always say man a lot.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you realize, wow, like I'm so hard on myself, and and I don't want to be hard on myself, I don't like myself, and I'm tired of not liking myself, then know that you have the potential and the opportunity to change that.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: I truly believe that.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And while that may not be easy, it can be simple.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: The way I see it is we already live in a world that is so hard on us, hard on women, hard on bodies in general, hard on black and brown folks.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: The world is is hard.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: We don't live in an easy world.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so why would we on top of all of the hardness that we get from the world, why would we go and then also be hard on ourselves?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: It seems like it would be so nice to have somewhere where you can softly land.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Somewhere where you can take a deep breath out.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have not created that kind of place inside of yourself, or maybe you just haven't been able to access that or stay connected to that place inside of yourself, it can be really difficult to be in this world.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: It already is difficult to be in this world.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: So can we maybe explore being our own safe place to land?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And to do that, we really want to invite in compassion and softness and gentleness.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just like we would a little kid.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: So often that voice that we hear that is harsh or critical or judgmental, it's often, at least in my experience, I have found that that voice was not me.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't me.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't how I really felt about me.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: That was how the world had conditioned me to think about me.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the things that I was really hard on myself for were things that my caretakers, my parents, were hard on me for.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe they were important to them, but they weren't actually really important to me.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so there is this sort of unraveling that we have to do.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we're wanting to cultivate this relationship with ourself.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: We have to start finding our own voice and getting clear on who we really are and what we really think.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Without the voice of our caretakers, without the voice of the people who have hurt us, without the voice of societal expectations, we have to get clear on what we value, what is most important to us, what we are willing to tolerate, and what we are not willing to tolerate.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've never explored these things, then you might need to re get to know yourself.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if you've been on your healing journey, chances are you've changed and you're a different person than you were one year ago, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Who were you five years ago?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know I was a completely different person.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so just like when we date someone, you take the time to really get to know them.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: What are their quirks?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: What are their tendencies?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are their likes?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: What are their dislikes?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: What are their preferences?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have to take the time to really get to know these things.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I found I was able to really get clear on who I really was and and who was me and who was other people when I started spending more time by myself.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Alone time.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: And this is alone time out in nature, perhaps just working on some art, maybe doing other things that I loved, taking myself to a dance class, or going on a solo adventure for the day.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: It took a lot of time.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that I was able to figure that out quicker when I was by myself.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: I do think being with other people teaches us a lot about ourselves too.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're really wanting to focus on building this relationship with yourself, then alone time gives us an opportunity to do that on an even deeper level.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would invite you to really start getting to know yourself on a deep and authentic level.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Who you really are, what your heart really wants, what is most important to you.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: And in that alone time that I spent after having this conversation with this therapist and going down my own road of healing and working with some of those very early patterns and wounds created from my childhood, there were a couple of things that really that really changed everything for me.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: And there was one practice in particular that I feel really taught me and showed me how to be so compassionate and so gentle and so loving with myself.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: It taught me how to meet myself exactly where I was at without needing to be anywhere else than other other than where I was.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that practice is, was, and is revelation breathwork.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: I've talked about breath work a couple times on the show.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And this month, this moon cycle, I will be doing a solo episode dedicated specifically to breath work.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And as we're talking about this idea of improving the relationship we have with ourselves, I wanted to bring it in, bring it in again here.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because it really did teach me this in a way that was embodied, in a way that connected me to those deeper layers of the body and of the nervous system.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is for me far beyond affirmations that we might create, and maybe we repeat them over and over, or maybe we look in the mirror and we we say these affirmations to ourselves.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: However, if we don't believe that, then now we're in we're we're not in coherence because our mind is saying one thing, but we're not really feeling that in the body.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that to me is not necessarily alignment, there's a disconnect there, and so breath work kind of took all of the the mindset work and the mind work out of it.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: No affirmations involved here, and it brought me directly to those deepest layers of the body and of the nervous system.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I first started doing breath work, I didn't get it, I thought it was quite strange, and yet there was something inside me that kept pulling me to this practice over and over and over and over and over again.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this is right around the time the pandemic hit.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is right after I had stopped drinking and I had gotten off Adderall and I was leaning into holistic modalities, and it was such a prime time for change and transformation for me.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so coming to this practice really couldn't have come at a better time.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And with time, as I continued to show up over and over and over again without even really knowing why, I slowly began to change that relationship with myself.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because part of the practice, which I'll talk more about in the episode dedicated to breath work, part of the practice requires that we we show up exactly as we are, and we meet ourselves with our breath.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the breath is is literally life.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: It is life loving us.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: I have a poem that I'm kind of thinking about now, and there's a line in the poem that says, The breath loves us to life.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's something so beautiful about offering your breath to yourself, meeting yourself exactly where you're at, whether you're angry or you're sad or you're depressed or you don't like yourself, or maybe you love yourself.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Wherever you are, the breath meets you there.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really hard to articulate the magic that happens when we can stay consistent with a practice like this.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Over time, it slowly reshaped the relationship that I had with myself, and it allowed me to be more compassionate with myself, to be more gentle with myself, to be more loving to myself.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I'm maybe it's hard to explain because it doesn't happen in the mind, it happens in the body.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And really, all of these things that I'm gonna be sharing here with you today, as this podcast is heavily focused on somatics, they're all going to be body-based.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: And because as I said, if we've got something that our ego or some part of our mind has made up, but the body doesn't really believe that, then we're not gonna be in coherence.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna be in alignment, and we're always gonna feel a little off if what we're thinking and what we're feeling aren't the same.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: Alignment to me is heart, mind, body all aligned.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not to say that we don't feel off or sad or low or angry or whatever.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some days you're human.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, you're gonna be up and you're gonna be down and you're gonna be all around.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's the it's the meeting of ourselves through all of that, where we can have a practice that again just allows us to be that loving, compassionate, gentle, almost like being your own mom.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Especially, I do want to acknowledge if you grew up in a childhood where you didn't have this compassionate, soft, gentle, loving, compassionate energy or behavior model to you, then this might feel a little foreign.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: It might feel a little hard, right?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: You might be like, okay, Reba, I get it.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: I need to be more compassionate and more gentle with myself, but how do I do that?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's where the breath work can come in and can help you teach your body and your nervous system how to do that.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I've offered the little child analogy, but maybe if that doesn't land with you, perhaps you could change this a bit and reflect on how you would talk to your best friend.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: If your best friend had a hard day or maybe made a mistake and came to you and was like, oh my gosh, I just did this thing.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_01: How would you talk to your friend?
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Would you be like, oh my gosh, well, you're an idiot and you need to figure it out?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: You probably wouldn't say that to your best friend.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: You would reassure her, you would be there for her, you would let her know that it's okay.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so maybe that might be helpful for you as you go on this journey of building this relationship with yourself.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you are curious about breathwork and you want to give it a try, I facilitate a weekly breathwork class at Revelation Breathwork.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is where I was trained.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is where I did my very first breathwork classes.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is literally where I learned how to be loving and compassionate and gentle with myself.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: This was the first place I learned how was Revelation Breath Work.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have a special link that saves you half off your first month's membership.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: So you can come in for 30 days, give it a try.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: If it works for you, great.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: If it doesn't, that's great too.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can still uh again just get a sense of the practice and to see if it has anything that it might be able to offer you.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I've included that in the show notes.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And don't worry, this moon cycle, I'll be doing a whole episode going way deeper into breath work.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll save more for that episode.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: But for now, know that that is one place you can go and one practice that you can explore, and one practice that has really helped me to change and improve and deepen the relationship that I have with myself.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I'll offer here is something called internal family systems.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: This is a therapy modality created by Dr.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Richard Schwartz, and I highly recommend looking into internal family systems.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: You also might hear it referred to as IFS.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And essentially, IFS says, through the lens of IFS, says that inside of ourselves, there is in a system of parts of personalities and yeah, parts, parts of ourselves that sometimes live in harmony and sometimes live in dysfunction.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that a lot of these critical parts of ourselves are often, as I mentioned earlier, parts that are trying to protect ourselves.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: And they're usually trying to protect parts of ourselves that they're trying to prevent from feeling vulnerable or ashamed or feeling hurt in some way.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: And IFS has this understanding that these parts aren't bad.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing wrong with these parts.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need to fix these parts, we don't need to make these parts go away.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: What we really need to do is bring these parts in and love them and listen to them and learn from them and get curious about why they are saying those things?
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that they really need?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe I'll bring Kim back this moon cycle to talk a little bit more about IFS.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: I know she is a trained IFS practitioner, and while I've studied it and I've used it, I have not had the opportunity to go as deep as I would like with it yet.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: So one day, again, hopefully this moon cycle, I'll reach out to her.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'll bring her on and we can talk a little bit more about IFS.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're curious about IFS, I recommend checking out the book No Bad Parts.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: This is by Dr.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Rich Schwartz.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he actually has some meditations on Insight Timer that go with the practices in the book.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if you get the book and you're reading through the book and you want to try the exercises that he offers in the book, you can head on over to Insight Timer.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: And sure enough, they have IFS meditations by Dr.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: Richard Schwartz and there are other practitioners that use IFS on there as well.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: I use quite a few of those on Insight Timer.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I tell you if there's a month where I'm not able to afford going to therapy, or maybe I can only do one session.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: Meditation practices like this on Insight Timer are really what I use to keep me active in my work in a way that is economical and sustainable for me.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it also keeps me engaged with my work in between sessions.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not going, doing a session and then not going for two months and not having worked on any of the things that we've talked about.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Those meditations, specifically the IFS ones and a few other ones that I'll share as time goes by, um, really help me to stay engaged with my work and keep everything grounded and balanced.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Another thing that I'll offer here that again, maybe this moon cycle, um, we'll do an episode on menstrual cycle tracking.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: Or sometimes you might hear it called cycle sinking.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: But this was kind of the next layer that really changed the relationship that I had with myself after I had gone to therapy for the first time and had that conversation with the therapist when she had asked me, How do you talk to yourself?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I realized I was very hard and critical and judgmental from on my hard, judgmental, and critical um to and with myself.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: I had started doing breath work, going to Revelation breathwork classes, was going every week regularly, had gotten off Adderall, had stopped drinking Adderall and partying and doing destructive behaviors, and was now starting to be like, okay, well, what else can I do?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: This is all feeling really great, and I'm really liking where this is going.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: So can I have more, please?
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: What more can I do?
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly enough, I had gotten this intuitive nudge to go and get my hormonal birth control removed.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: I had been on hormonal birth control for about 10 years, very long time.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: And before any of this, I had already begun working with the moon.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: I would do a meditation on YouTube every new moon and every full moon.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: I would take a bath, and I wasn't really super uh quote unquote great at doing the meditations, but I would hang out and you know enjoy the vibe, and I would try to like visualize the things she was talking about.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um that was kind of how it all started.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would just go about my my life after those new moon and full moons.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: But as I was saying, as I was, you know, starting to change this relationship with myself, I had this intuitive nudge to take out my birth control, and so I went and had my hormonal birth control removed.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if it was a book I read or maybe a video I had seen online.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: I honestly couldn't tell you where this seed got planted, but somewhere along the line, it got planted.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_01: That one area I was really pushing myself was my bleeding time.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I would take ibuprofen and drink a bunch of coffee.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time I was still very active in the fitness industry, teaching fitness classes.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think at the time I was still kind of teaching some of my own fitness classes online.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I would I would really push myself around this time, and my periods were pretty heavy and very painful and just not an enjoyable experience at all.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: And month after month, I would push myself to show up full out, often for these fitness classes on my period, on ibuprofen and coffee, and just talk about incongruence, right?
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Feeling so tired and low and energetically inside, and then having to go into an environment where I had to be very kind of outside of myself, it it wasn't a great experience.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I knew that I wanted to change this, and with whatever resources I had been using at the time, I couldn't really tell you right now.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: I decided that I would stop using pads and tampons.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was never a big fan of tampons, use pads, stop using pads.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: I would get these period panties.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: I got the thinks, they've since been discovered.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: So not promoting thinks here.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't enjoy them for many years.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think I still have one pair that I use.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: I've since replaced them.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can check out Thinks Period Panties and do your own research and um make a decision.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: One day I'll share the um the panties that I use now, and I enjoy them, and I'm still always looking for new pairs.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: But to me, there was something so beautiful about just honoring the time and allowing things to flow instead of trying to stop them or avoid them or change them in some way, and so I started resting around this time because again, I was kind of unwinding from hustle culture and pushing myself, and that was a period in my rhythm where I saw an opportunity to slow down and to rest more.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that started to change things uh again on an even deeper level because now I began being true to my cyclical nature.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that is a beautiful way to one come into a deeper relationship with myself.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: With ourselves is getting in tune with our own inner rhythms that are happening.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not bleeding, you you still have a biological rhythm that's happening inside of you.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: And really not just getting in tune with them, but um embodying them and living them just like I had started to do around my bleeding time, around my period.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped pushing myself around my period.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped faking it on my period, and I started canceling things, and I started not working on these days.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: If I could help it, I started resting more during this period.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_01: I started really honoring the low energy time of the month.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: And fast forward years later, I'm fully embodying all rhythms, all phases of my cycle now.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: But becoming attuned to that and honoring that and and really working with it also really helped to change the relationship that I have with myself.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because depending on where I'm at in my menstrual cycle, I know what my strengths are, I know what my challenges are.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: I know now not to book things around certain days or to maybe book things around certain days based on what's happening inside of me biologically because I've attuned to it.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this has been such a way to again deepen and improve the relationship that I have with myself, attuning to these rhythms, living in alignment with these rhythms and fully expressing these rhythms without trying to act like I'm feeling super social and upbeat and happy and outwardly expressed today if I'm in the dead of my inner winter.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that really allowed me to soften, that allowed me to start really trusting myself as well.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel that really improved the relationship with my body too, because my body was now feeling acknowledged and feeling more understood in its process.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something that we all really want, right?
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: We all want to be seen and heard and understood, and so it makes a lot of sense that as a woman living in a cyclical body, that my body would also want to be heard and seen and understood.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: We'll just share three today, is something called hakomi.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I do not know much about Hakomi.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: I have experienced uh a few meditations with Hoki kind of weaved in, but essentially hikomi is all about compassion, and it goes back to what we said earlier about the key of improving the relationship that we have with ourselves is to bring in this more compassionate, gentle energy.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so Hakomi is a wonderful somatic um form of psychotherapy that uses this very compassionate, gentle, nurturing, loving energy.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: And the principles of Hikomi are mindfulness, organicy, or organ, organ city.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think that means just like organic, nonviolence, mind-body integration, and unity.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hakomi can help people discover and address unconscious thoughts and beliefs.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: So going back to those very critical judgmental voices that we were naming earlier.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: I can help heal attachment wounds and developmental trauma, going back to some of those earlier patterns that we talked about being formed during those developmental years.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: It can really help to foster a sense of safety and connection with yourself, which I think is everything.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's everything.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: Feeling safe and connected to ourselves is everything.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't listened to the last few episodes about um how to not think your way into feeling safe, why you can't think your way into feeling safe, I highly recommend going back and listening to that episode because it talks a little bit about this safety and connection piece and how it's really essential to our healing.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: If we are being hard and judgmental and critical towards ourselves, then we are not creating a safe environment for us to thrive and to do well.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: When we are being critical and judgmental and hard in ourselves, we're creating an environment internally that is unsafe.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: We're saying that it's not safe to feel how you feel, it's not safe to make mistakes, it's not safe to be who you are.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: And when we create that environment inside with our thoughts, then of course our body's not going to feel safe and connected because we're creating this environment of judgment and criticism, and so our body feels like it's not able to be as it is, it's not able to feel safe and relax because we have now created this internal environment of unsafety.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so Komi can really help to create and foster the sense of safety and connection inside.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a lot of the work that I do as well with my clients, and a lot of what the breath work practice revelation breath work that I mentioned does as well.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what I believe IFS also has the opportunity to do as well.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not really a matter of what's better or what's more effective.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think all of these modalities are very effective.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just a matter of what works best for you.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I've shared many things here today, and I'll end with saying that only you know what's best for you.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of why invitational language can be so helpful for those of us on a trauma trauma recovery journey who are just maybe trying to figure out who the fuck we are and what the fuck we like and what we don't like and what feels safe and what doesn't feel safe.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: When you receive an invitation instead of a command, it gives you the opportunity to sense into your system and make a decision of what is right for you and what isn't right for you.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's why everything that I offer here is an offering, it's an invitation.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage you to really begin this month, this moon cycle, begin really tuning into yourself.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe you try a couple of these things, maybe you don't try a couple of these things.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, and you find something else, that's great too.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: I hope that you found today's episode insightful and helpful.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: If there is someone in your life who you feel would benefit from today's show, as we are all collectively being invited to review and recalibrate our relationships.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_01: And we all have a relationship with ourselves, and I think we all could benefit from having a deeper and more connected and more authentic relationship with ourselves that is filled with love and acceptance and compassion and gentleness and softness.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: Please share this episode with that person.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the coming weeks, we'll be talking more about these modalities that I've mentioned here today: breath work, menstrual cycle tracking, hopefully IFS, hopefully, Hakomi, and maybe hopefully, someone to come on and talk about the really early childhood stuff because that is the foundation of everything.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm in my sessions with my clients, a lot of what we're doing is going back to some of these earlier childhood memories and reshaping them and changing some of these beliefs that have been implanted in our systems and our brains that aren't necessarily who we really are or not, what we really agree with.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned for those episodes.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you haven't yet, please follow the show, leave a five-star review.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_01: This helps the show so much because, as we know, the world works in algorithms these days.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if you would like to support me getting this message out, emanating this uh feminine frequency, not just in women, but in everyone in our collective, that would be so helpful and it would be so appreciated.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here today.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_01: So many other things you could be doing with your time, and I do not take for granted that you have chosen to spend this time with me today.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_01: I look forward to connecting with you on the next episode.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: And in the meantime, take care of yourself and take care of each other.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Creating the light from your wood.