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The Fear of Expansion · The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome back to the Spiritual Shit Show.
• 0:02
  My name is Julie Nguyen, and I had a realization this week that was equal parts liberating and annoying.
• 0:10
  And if you've listened to this podcast for a while, you know I love a good spiritual realization right up until I realize it means I have to change something.
• 0:19
  This is the part of the remembrance journey I am in.
• 0:23
  Inspired action, inspired alignment.
• 0:26
  And today, when I had this realization, and before you say,"Julie, haven't we talked about this before?" Yes.
• 0:34
  Yes, we have.
• 0:36
  For approximately the last decade, a huge part of my discovery in healing, which has led me to the remembrance of self, has been about the pain that I've experienced with being estranged from my sister.
• 0:53
  I'm grateful that I have friends who have the same type of experience in their lives, because unless you are estranged from somebody that you love and you have created something beautiful together, and plus it's a sibling, you may not understand what that feels like.
• 1:10
  It's a strange, like, my family's broken.
• 1:13
  It's fractured.
• 1:15
  There's this thing, it doesn't...
• 1:16
  It's not right.
• 1:17
  You hear people, like when people ask, and I never really know what to say'cause I don't wanna talk bad about what happened and my sister, and I'm trying to take personal accountability and not blame, but also the situation was really fucked up at the same time, and there's truth and acceptance.
• 1:31
  It's, layered.
• 1:32
  It's super, super layered.
• 1:34
  But when people say it, their first reaction is,"Oh, that's so sad.
• 1:37
  That makes me sad'cause that's your sister." And at first it used to make me really angry'cause it's no, it's not sad.
• 1:45
  yeah, it's sad for me that they did this to me.
• 1:49
  but, now I think it's more annoying,'cause I'm sitting here noticing how much energy this relationship still occupies in my mind And I find myself asking, when does this end?
• 2:04
  When do I stop thinking about it?
• 2:05
  When do I stop revisiting it?
• 2:07
  When do I stop trying to understand it?
• 2:09
  When do I stop grieving someone who is still alive?
• 2:12
  And as I sat with that question, something unexpected surfaced.
• 2:16
  Maybe the problem isn't that I'm still thinking about it.
• 2:19
  Maybe the problem is that I've become convinced that I can't move fully forward until I stop thinking about it.
• 2:26
  Maybe I've been waiting for some magical day where every wound is healed, every trigger is gone, every story is complete, and suddenly I graduate into peace.
• 2:34
  Lord, I am waiting to graduate into peace, and I don't know about you, but I haven't found that day yet.
• 2:41
  Because life doesn't seem to work that way.
• 2:45
  Life isn't linear.
• 2:47
  Healing isn't linear.
• 2:50
  I've actually stopped calling it my healing journey altogether because if we're not careful, healing becomes another identity, another project, another thing to fix, another mountain to climb, another lesson that I can learn for my soul.
• 3:05
  And for me, this journey has become less about healing and more about the remembrance.
• 3:09
  And this has been interesting.
• 3:11
  It's been an interesting adventure, remembering who I am beneath the story, remembering who I am beneath the loss, remembering who I am beneath the fear, remembering who I am beneath all the ways I've learned to protect myself.
• 3:22
  And here's what I'm noticing.
• 3:25
  It's an interesting adventure, that's for sure.
• 3:29
  And Growth moves in spirals, not straight lines.
• 3:35
  Expansion, contraction, expansion, contraction.
• 3:39
  And just like our breath or the tides in the ocean, like seasons, every time I find myself revisiting an old wound, thinking about my sister, feeling that pain, feeling the loss of, what I once had and here I am now, blah, blah, blah, I have this knee-jerk reaction that says,"Seriously?
• 4:02
  Here we go again." I thought we already worked on this.
• 4:05
  I thought we already healed from this.
• 4:07
  I thought I was done with this.
• 4:10
  For the love of fucking God, can I just move on?
• 4:13
  You're probably saying,"For the love of fucking God, can you just move on?" Because we're tired of listening to these podcasts about this.
• 4:19
  But what if the spiral back in, that contraction, isn't evidence that we're failing?
• 4:30
  What if it's evidence that we're expanding?
• 4:33
  And because every time we revisit something, we aren't the same person who visited it before.
• 4:39
  We're meeting it with a new awareness, with an opportunity to meet it with more love, more softness, more compassion And I've been realizing that maybe the contraction isn't actually the scary part.
• 4:51
  It's actually really familiar.
• 4:54
  I know how to contract.
• 4:56
  I have a PhD in contraction.
• 4:57
  I have a PhD in healing.
• 5:02
  I know how to survive.
• 5:05
  I know how to navigate heartbreak.
• 5:07
  I know how to sit with being uncomfortable and frustrated and annoyed.
• 5:12
  I know how to navigate uncertainty.
• 5:15
  I've spent years learning those skills.
• 5:19
  But expansion is a different story.
• 5:21
  That's where I'm at now, and what a ride it is When I sit in meditation and I am inviting myself to feel into my power, you know what shows up immediately?
• 5:36
  Fear, pulls up a seat right in front of me and says"Really?
• 5:42
  Power?
• 5:43
  We're doing this again?" Because the last time I felt powerful, my life blew apart.
• 5:50
  The last time I felt certain, everything changed.
• 5:52
  The last time I thought I knew who I was, life invited me to become someone else So maybe what I'm hearing is As I step into more and more of my light, more and more into my power And the more I notice this fear of sitting in a chair coming closer and closer Fear is actually saying, are you sure?
• 6:17
  Are you sure you're ready to become bigger than the version of yourself you've spent years learning to be?
• 6:23
  I've spent a lot of years identifying as the woman rebuilding her life, the woman healing, the woman searching, the woman trying to find her footing again this healed version of myself.
• 6:37
  And I think what's happening now is both exciting and terrifying because I can feel another version of me trying to emerge.
• 6:43
  And it's not a better version, it's not a more spiritual version, it's not actually even the healed version, but it's the more fully expressed version.
• 6:52
  And I don't know entirely who she is yet.
• 6:57
  I don't know how she thinks.
• 7:00
  I don't know how she would manage conflict.
• 7:02
  I wanna think I do, but I'm actually afraid that I won't become her, that I'll always slip back into my old tendencies, into my old self-doubt, into my old sadness We talk a lot about vulnerability as sharing our wounds, and there's another kind of vulnerability that nobody talks about, and that's the vulnerability of becoming.
• 7:31
  The vulnerability of being seen in your greatness.
• 7:35
  Ugh.
• 7:36
  I'm gonna say that again.
• 7:37
  The vulnerability of being seen in your greatness.
• 7:41
  The vulnerability of allowing yourself to want more.
• 7:45
  The vulnerability of admitting that maybe you're ready for a bigger life, not because your current life isn't beautiful, but because something inside of you is asking for expansion.
• 7:58
  And I think that's where so many women get stuck.
• 8:01
  We think our vulnerability is the wound, but often our vulnerability is the dream, the desire, the possibility, the next version of ourselves that is knocking on the door And so maybe the work isn't to suppress what we're feeling, to feel frustrated of having that thought again.
• 8:22
  That thought is keeping me where?
• 8:23
  It's keeping me comfortable.
• 8:24
  It's keeping me safe.
• 8:25
  It's keeping me in my known.
• 8:29
  And actually what I'm realizing is if I really allow myself to practice accessing my fullest expression of me, loving, beautiful teacher, talented Someone who can actually fulfill these big dreams that I have inside Expanding into that Feels way more scarier.
• 8:58
  And so the cycle of the old wound keeps coming in to keep me in the contraction The next version of ourselves is knocking on the door.
• 9:09
  It's waiting for the yes to expand.
• 9:12
  It's waiting for the allowance to express itself, for you to express yourself in the fullness of who you are And every time we tell the truth, something loosens.
• 9:24
  Every time we name the thing, it loses a little bit of its grip.
• 9:30
  And every time we share our story, we create room for someone else to breathe And maybe that's why I'm sharing this today, not because I figured it out, not because I've arrived, not because I have some perfect spiritual answer, but because I'm standing in the middle of the spiral.
• 9:46
  And if you're standing in the middle of your own spiral right now, I want you to know something.
• 9:51
  The contraction is not proof that you're moving backward.
• 9:55
  It might actually be evidence that you're preparing to expand.
• 10:00
  and maybe the question isn't, what am I healing?
• 10:02
  What do I still need to heal?
• 10:04
  How do I let go of this?
• 10:05
  How do I, please, Lord, take this, these thoughts, relinquishing relentless thoughts from me.
• 10:11
  I want to move on.
• 10:14
  The bigger question is, who am I becoming?
• 10:18
  And can I allow myself to become her?
• 10:21
  And am I willing to let her emerge?
• 10:25
  Am I willing to let her emerge Even if she's unfamiliar, even if she's bigger than the version I've known, even if she scares me, and even if that requires that I have to let go of old habits, limiting beliefs, thoughts, ideas, pains, grief, I have to let it go I have to let it go because as I am recording this, I'm having my own personal realizations per usual in real time.
• 10:57
  I am noticing that the desire to stay small has become more uncomfortable than the fear of becoming large And maybe that's what expansion feels like.
• 11:06
  It's not the absence of fear, but the presence of a deeper calling, a calling that finally becomes louder than the voice that says,"Stay where you are And if that's where you are too, welcome.
• 11:21
  I think we're standing at the edge together.
• 11:23
  Oh, that makes me so happy.
• 11:25
  So let's take a deep breath, place a hand on the belly, and practice What is the most expansive, loving, powerful version of me?
• 11:38
  I don't even wanna say look like.
• 11:39
  I just wanna say, can we just allow her to emerge fully?
• 11:45
  She just needs the route out All right.
• 11:49
  Stay tuned.
• 11:51
  Thanks for listening.
• 11:52
  Till next time