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Transcript

Coming Home to Yourself: Reclaiming Who You Are After Years of Healing · The Spiritual Shitshow Podcast

• 0:00
  Julie Nguyen: Hello and welcome back to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast.
• 0:02
  Julie Nguyen: My name is Julie Nguyen, and honestly, these podcasts have turned more for me to talk it out, the messy, the ahas, the growth My healing journey has been 10 years, and I don't wanna say that I've done most of it by myself because truth be told, every time I needed somebody in my life, the universe would bring that next teacher or that next support system.
• 0:34
  Julie Nguyen: And there are so many times where I did feel like I was doing it by myself But 10 years later, well, things feel different.
• 0:47
  Julie Nguyen: And I want to share a story with you.
• 0:50
  Julie Nguyen: I haven't been to yoga class in a really, really long time.
• 0:54
  Julie Nguyen: And when I was teaching dance full-time, I was going to yoga religiously, as well as doing Pilates and working out and teaching.
• 1:03
  Julie Nguyen: I was so committed to my body.
• 1:06
  Julie Nguyen: And truth be told, even in those years, I was still under the umbrella of my body was not enough, that I was still too fat or not flexible enough, or my hips weren't square enough, or my spine wasn't lengthened enough.
• 1:21
  Julie Nguyen: And I think when I moved through all of that, actually returning to my body was a really hard thing to do because I knew how important and meaningful movement is to me.
• 1:36
  Julie Nguyen: And at the same time, I also knew the undercurrent of being in my body, which was this age-old story of it's not safe and I'm not good enough So today I cried in yoga I've heard people say that they cried on the mat, and I'm like,"Yeah, yeah.
• 2:01
  Julie Nguyen: That's cool.
• 2:01
  Julie Nguyen: Amazing.
• 2:02
  Julie Nguyen: I don't understand it." And today, that was me.
• 2:07
  Julie Nguyen: It was a Yoga Sculpt class, and again, I entered the class and I was brought back to myself 20 years ago.
• 2:14
  Julie Nguyen: And I had the weights and I had the TheraBands, and it felt like home because, you know, a yoga studio is very much like a dance studio.
• 2:22
  Julie Nguyen: I love a floor.
• 2:23
  Julie Nguyen: I love a mirror.
• 2:24
  Julie Nguyen: And I was breathing through it and just proud of myself that I got there, and as we were holding these static, grueling poses, I could feel my nervous system getting revved up.
• 2:37
  Julie Nguyen: My heart began to pound, my chest was tight, and there was this sudden sharp moment where this thought just broke through, and it was,"I don't wanna fucking do this." And it wasn't the yoga.
• 2:51
  Julie Nguyen: I, I definitely wanted to be there, but I didn't...
• 2:54
  Julie Nguyen: I couldn't.
• 2:54
  Julie Nguyen: I couldn't hold these poses.
• 2:56
  Julie Nguyen: I was beginning to want to leave the classroom.
• 2:59
  Julie Nguyen: So much started flooding back to my consciousness and into my body, so I picked up my little TheraBand and my weights, and I walked to the very back of the room, and I did all of the exercises, but I did them dancing.
• 3:17
  Julie Nguyen: Everybody else is sculpting, and I'm back there basically having my own private dance class There was this moment where I was like,"I can sit here and tough it out and be panicky, or I can do this hour my way and the way that my body wants to do this." And I am practicing cultivating joy no matter what.
• 3:44
  Julie Nguyen: So in this moment, I have time to cultivate joy And then, which I'm not surprised about, everything changed.
• 3:53
  Julie Nguyen: My body changed, my mood changed, my nervous system settled, And it reminded me of something that I know, but I have been pushing out for so long.
• 4:04
  Julie Nguyen: And what I know is dance is what regulates me.
• 4:09
  Julie Nguyen: Movement brings me home.
• 4:12
  Julie Nguyen: For somebody else, it might be walking or lifting weights or jogging, running, or just lying flat on the floor.
• 4:20
  Julie Nguyen: But for me, the body is the channel.
• 4:25
  Julie Nguyen: And lately, as I get closer and closer to this 10-year marker in my life, 2016 is when everything really shifted for me It was the last day of November 2016 that I walked away from everything, and it really wasn't because I wanted to.
• 4:43
  Julie Nguyen: It was I couldn't stay where I was any longer.
• 4:47
  Julie Nguyen: It was too much, and my spirit literally said,"Enough And that was 10 years ago.
• 4:57
  Julie Nguyen: And 10 years later, 2026 has been a year of reclamation for me.
• 5:04
  Julie Nguyen: At the beginning of the year, I thought I was just feeling better, finding my footing, finding some joy again.
• 5:09
  Julie Nguyen: But now I see I've been coming home to myself, and oh my God, do you know what that feels like?
• 5:17
  Julie Nguyen: To come home to yourself, and I don't mean coming home to some new, improved, perfectly healed version of me, because I know that is not it.
• 5:27
  Julie Nguyen: I mean coming home to the woman who has been here the whole time.
• 5:35
  Julie Nguyen: Underneath the grief, underneath the anger, Underneath all the identities and the things I thought I needed to change about myself so I would never hurt like that again, or all the times I gave myself a new fancy title.
• 5:50
  Julie Nguyen: I am a energy healer.
• 5:52
  Julie Nguyen: I am a Reiki master.
• 5:53
  Julie Nguyen: I am an embodiment coach.
• 5:55
  Julie Nguyen: I am an intuitive channel.
• 6:00
  Julie Nguyen: Now I can hear I am all of it, all of it, and dance is included in that.
• 6:07
  Julie Nguyen: And I keep hearing Spirit say to me now,"Julie, be proud of yourself.
• 6:16
  Julie Nguyen: Be proud of everything that you have uncovered.
• 6:20
  Julie Nguyen: Be proud of all of the shadows that you've danced with, all of the times that you cried, all of the times that you were depressed, anxious, lost, confused." You made it through.
• 6:39
  Julie Nguyen: You made it through, and now it's time to tell a new story.
• 6:44
  Julie Nguyen: And when I say that, it makes me cry.
• 6:46
  Julie Nguyen: Again, this is why I'm recording these podcasts'cause I need to say these things out loud.
• 6:52
  Julie Nguyen: You made it through And now you get to tell a new story And honestly, I have done so much this year too.
• 7:10
  Julie Nguyen: A year of deep, deep diving into the psyche And I finally think I'm ready.
• 7:19
  Julie Nguyen: Not because I've perfectly healed everything, but I have touched upon a lot And as much as I wanna say I have forgiven everybody, I haven't, and that's okay I just don't want the healing to become a place that I live forever.
• 7:37
  Julie Nguyen: I think healing is supposed to bring us somewhere, and maybe where it's trying to bring us is home.
• 7:45
  Julie Nguyen: One of the biggest things I've learned over these 10 years is that healing takes real time.
• 7:52
  Julie Nguyen: I remember getting to three years and thinking,"Okay, surely we're done now.
• 7:55
  Julie Nguyen: I can move on.
• 7:56
  Julie Nguyen: Three years ago, it's like time to go on." Then I got to seven years, and I'm like,"Fuck, okay.
• 8:02
  Julie Nguyen: I'm not through it, but maybe it was like a seven-year spiritual sabbatical.
• 8:05
  Julie Nguyen: It's been seven years, and now I can move on." And now I'm recording this, and I'm about to hit 10 years.
• 8:15
  Julie Nguyen: And you know what?
• 8:15
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe I'm gonna be talking about this next year when I'm at 11 years But I can say confidently right now that I am nowhere near where I was two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago And I know that healing isn't linear, and sometimes unbearably tender.
• 8:43
  Julie Nguyen: If I could tell you how many times I've spent half the day on the ground crying, crying and I have a lot of compassion for myself because I know that I'm not just healing what happened.
• 8:57
  Julie Nguyen: I'm discovering where what happened went.
• 9:03
  Julie Nguyen: what happened?
• 9:06
  Julie Nguyen: Where did my life go?
• 9:07
  Julie Nguyen: Where did my family go?
• 9:08
  Julie Nguyen: What happened?
• 9:09
  Julie Nguyen: And what I'm discovering is how did it land in my body?
• 9:17
  Julie Nguyen: And how did all of that convince me to believe that these really beautiful parts of who I am was dangerous?
• 9:29
  Julie Nguyen: And then I have to ask myself, when did I stop trusting myself?
• 9:35
  Julie Nguyen: When did I leave myself And if you are in that place right now, three years in, five years in, 10 years in, and you're thinking,"Why am I still fucking dealing with this?
• 9:48
  Julie Nguyen: Oh my God, is the healing ever going to be over?" I wanna remind you, maybe nothing has gone wrong.
• 9:57
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe you're simply meeting a layer you finally have enough safety to meet, actually I know that healing requires love, self-forgiveness, compassion, tenderness, and waves of exhales to meet yourself.
• 10:23
  Julie Nguyen: I had an experience recently in meditation where I cried so hard my whole body broke open.
• 10:29
  Julie Nguyen: I've always known inside of me that I've carried this sadness, and it's like this sadness in my bones.
• 10:35
  Julie Nguyen: And this meditation brought me to literally crying for almost two hours, so much so that I couldn't breathe.
• 10:47
  Julie Nguyen: I was like,"I can't keep doing this.
• 10:49
  Julie Nguyen: I can't breathe." And I got a little scared, and then I finally heard just a little bit longer.
• 10:54
  Julie Nguyen: So I surrendered.
• 10:56
  Julie Nguyen: I surrendered to the grief.
• 10:57
  Julie Nguyen: I surrendered to the sadness, and I surrendered to how literally uncomfortable it was in my body.
• 11:02
  Julie Nguyen: And then I heard my heart say,"The sadness is gone And can you see what is there now?
• 11:16
  Julie Nguyen: And I knew immediately it was love.
• 11:18
  Julie Nguyen: It was love.
• 11:19
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe the Julie that was three years into her spiritual shit show wasn't able to hold that depth of grief yet.
• 11:32
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe my body waited until it knew she's safe enough now.
• 11:39
  Julie Nguyen: She won't leave herself this time.
• 11:42
  Julie Nguyen: And oh my God, that again, tears.
• 11:47
  Julie Nguyen: To be able to see how often I've left myself and abandoned myself and, you know, I'm still, it's still a work in progress.
• 11:53
  Julie Nguyen: She's safe enough now.
• 11:56
  Julie Nguyen: She won't leave herself this time.
• 12:00
  Julie Nguyen: And this is the most beautiful thing healing can give us.
• 12:03
  Julie Nguyen: It's not a life where nothing hurt, but healing offers us the capacity to stay, When life hurts, are you gonna leave yourself?
• 12:17
  Julie Nguyen: or have you cultivated enough safety inside?
• 12:21
  Julie Nguyen: She's safe enough now.
• 12:23
  Julie Nguyen: She won't leave herself this time For 17 years, dance was my entire identity.
• 12:33
  Julie Nguyen: I was a dancer, a choreographer, a studio owner, and when that world ended, I didn't just lose a career, I lost the way I knew myself.
• 12:45
  Julie Nguyen: So for 10 years, I tried to leave dance, and then every once in a while, I'd dip my toe in'cause, you know, maybe I'm supposed to be fulfilling these dreams.
• 12:55
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe I'm supposed to be doing this.
• 12:57
  Julie Nguyen: And every time I would do that, I would get hurt, and I would leave it again.
• 13:01
  Julie Nguyen: and then eventually I decided,"Fuck it.
• 13:03
  Julie Nguyen: Dance is not for me anymore.
• 13:05
  Julie Nguyen: It cannot be for me anymore.
• 13:07
  Julie Nguyen: It hurts too much.
• 13:09
  Julie Nguyen: Clearly, the universe is saying,'Julie, walk away.'" And dance kept finding me My husband said to me one time,"How do you scrub something out of yourself that's literally in your DNA?" My dad was a dancer.
• 13:29
  Julie Nguyen: My grandpa was a dancer.
• 13:32
  Julie Nguyen: I come from a long line of dancers.
• 13:36
  Julie Nguyen: My dad would literally tap dance all around, and he's never once put on a pair of tap shoes.
• 13:42
  Julie Nguyen: It was just something that he did.
• 13:46
  Julie Nguyen: and it has taken me this long to realize, like, as I'm recording this today, this is why I'm recording this podcast today, because it is taking me till today that I realized that by me rejecting the dance world, I was rejecting my dance.
• 14:09
  Julie Nguyen: Dance is mine.
• 14:11
  Julie Nguyen: Movement is mine.
• 14:12
  Julie Nguyen: My body is mine.
• 14:14
  Julie Nguyen: The joy I feel when I let my body take over is mine, And I don't have to keep those things away simply because they once existed inside a very painful chapter Or dance existed in a world that I actually never wanted to be a part of in the first place.
• 14:35
  Julie Nguyen: I remember the first time I stepped into a competitive dance studio here in Colorado.
• 14:39
  Julie Nguyen: I was like,"Oh, hell no.
• 14:42
  Julie Nguyen: I don't want anything to do with this.
• 14:43
  Julie Nguyen: These parents seem crazy.
• 14:45
  Julie Nguyen: I don't wanna be teaching and being watched." I wanted to dance.
• 14:50
  Julie Nguyen: I wanted to move to LA and be a dancer And it has taken me 10 years.
• 14:55
  Julie Nguyen: I I've got both feet out the door, but also simultaneously holding the door open with my booty just in case.
• 15:03
  Julie Nguyen: But for the most part, I can say I can leave that world and I can keep the dance I wonder how many of us do this.
• 15:15
  Julie Nguyen: Something beautiful about us gets hurt, and instead of tending to the wound, we exile the beautiful thing.
• 15:23
  Julie Nguyen: maybe you loved someone with your whole heart and they broke it, so you decided you love too much.
• 15:29
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe you were sensitive, so you learned to harden.
• 15:33
  Julie Nguyen: Maybe you were playful and someone told you to grow up We begin leaving pieces of ourselves behind, not because those pieces were wrong, but because they got hurt So maybe coming home to yourself isn't about finding some person you've never been before.
• 15:49
  Julie Nguyen: It's not really about having to reinvent yourself Maybe it's turning around and gathering the pieces you left along the road.
• 16:02
  Julie Nguyen: Your softness, your sensitivity, your creativity, your joy, your dance and saying"Come with me.
• 16:15
  Julie Nguyen: I'm sorry you thought you were the problem, but you get to come home now." I spent almost 10 years learning how to heal and I don't want to spend the next 10 years identifying myself by what needed healing.
• 16:33
  Julie Nguyen: I want to live.
• 16:34
  Julie Nguyen: I'm ready to live But it has taken me this long to embody and love again who I am And now I get to create a new story, and this is my story.
• 16:51
  Julie Nguyen: I'm not the woman endlessly trying to heal from what happened.
• 16:55
  Julie Nguyen: I'm the woman who came home.
• 16:58
  Julie Nguyen: I'm the woman who can feel sadness without becoming sadness.
• 17:03
  Julie Nguyen: I'm the woman who can love without apologizing.
• 17:08
  Julie Nguyen: And I'm the woman who dances.
• 17:11
  Julie Nguyen: That part, for now, feels the most true.
• 17:16
  Julie Nguyen: So my beautiful friend, this is my invitation to you.
• 17:20
  Julie Nguyen: This is our moment to step off the endless treadmill of fixing and healing ourselves and actually start living.
• 17:31
  Julie Nguyen: Here is my call to action for you today.
• 17:35
  Julie Nguyen: I want you to stop asking,"What do I still need to heal?" And start asking,"What am I ready to reclaim?" Right now, in this very moment, think of one beautiful part of yourself that you left behind because you thought keeping it locked away would keep you safe, or you pushed it down because it hurt too bad.
• 18:00
  Julie Nguyen: And what was that for you?
• 18:01
  Julie Nguyen: Is it your creativity?
• 18:02
  Julie Nguyen: Is it your playfulness?
• 18:03
  Julie Nguyen: Is it your song?
• 18:05
  Julie Nguyen: Is it your artistry?
• 18:06
  Julie Nguyen: Is it your sensitivity?
• 18:08
  Julie Nguyen: Is it your voice?
• 18:11
  Julie Nguyen: Name it and then breathe into it.
• 18:16
  Julie Nguyen: And your action today is to make a safe space for that part to exist.
• 18:22
  Julie Nguyen: Be easy with yourself.
• 18:24
  Julie Nguyen: Baby steps But can you create a safe space for that part of you to exist?
• 18:36
  Julie Nguyen: And then tonight, I want you to put on just one song that makes your soul feel alive.
• 18:41
  Julie Nguyen: Close your eyes.
• 18:42
  Julie Nguyen: Lock the door if you need to.
• 18:44
  Julie Nguyen: Nobody's watching.
• 18:45
  Julie Nguyen: But feel your feet on the earth, take a deep breath, and let your body move exactly the way it wants to move.
• 18:52
  Julie Nguyen: Don't think.
• 18:53
  Julie Nguyen: Just let that exiled part of you breathe again Dance with this part of yourself.
• 19:05
  Julie Nguyen: You can come home now because your body remembers.
• 19:11
  Julie Nguyen: Your body knows the way home.
• 19:14
  Julie Nguyen: And coming home to yourself isn't a destination at all.
• 19:17
  Julie Nguyen: It's the moment you finally stop leaving.
• 19:20
  Julie Nguyen: and from there, we dance.