Latest / Sacred She Reset: Awakening Your Radiant Wisdom in Midlife / How to Begin Trusting Yourself Again When You’ve Tried Everything | 003

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How to Begin Trusting Yourself Again When You’ve Tried Everything | 003 · Sacred She Reset: Awakening Your Radiant Wisdom in Midlife

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Cherie Ashana: You're listening to the Sacred She Reset podcast.
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If you're a woman in midlife who's done doing this alone and
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ready for real conversations, real wisdom, and real radiance,
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you're exactly where you need to be. I'm your host Sharia Shana.
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Your path to radiance starts here. Welcome back, beautiful
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ladies, to the Sacred She reset, awakening your radiant wisdom.
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I'm Shriya Shana, and it is an honor to have you here again for
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this next episode. And this week, we're looking at how to
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begin trusting yourself again when you're saying, "Oh, I've
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tried everything. So today we're going to dive into how there's a
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particular type of exhaustion that comes from trying again and
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again. When you've read all the books, you've bought the
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supplements, you've done all the meditation and save the
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meditations. You've started the routine, and you promised
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yourself that this time is going to be a little bit different.
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And then what happens? Life happens, right? Life gets busy.
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Someone needs you. You miss a day. The routine disappears, and
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before long, you begin telling yourself again, and a lot of the
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time, this is unconscious.
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Telling yourself again, nothing works for me, or perhaps I never
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follow through. I don't have enough discipline. I should be
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able to work this out for myself. I know I came under that
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banner a lot. I've left this too late, and this is what I hear a
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lot for for as ladies later on in life, going through the
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midlife transition of I've left it too late. It's too late for
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me. It's never too late. It's never too late to start. It's
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the time is now, today, the present moment, and so at some
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point, the fear is no longer only that the next approach will
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not work. So we get into that cycle of like, oh, another
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approach. Will it work? Will it not? And we get into this fear,
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but the deeper fear is, what if I am the reason nothing works?
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So today we're going to speak directly to that fear, because
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very often the problem is not that you're incapable of change.
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The problem is that you have been trying to create change
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inside of the same patterns that keep pulling you away from
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yourself, and that may not land for you straight away, so give
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that time to just mellow and marinate. But we're going to
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dive into this a little bit deeper on how our patterns can
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be pulling us away from ourselves. And so, when I
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reached the turning point in my life, which I I spoke into this
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in the last episode when I was 33, and I decided I need to
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become more involved in understanding my body. I
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imagined that the choice, that choice alone, would change
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everything.
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So it was a big decision, and I thought perhaps the decision
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itself would be enough. But there's work to do. There's
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always work to do. It's the first step, isn't it? That once
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I and that once I chose myself, I would suddenly know how to
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trust myself. Sometimes it begins as a very small, shaky
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voice saying, "There's, there must be another way. And I know
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that I know when I was sitting in when I've been sitting in
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some of these moments in my life, when I know that there's
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something moving and something needs to change, those have been
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the words that there must be another way. There's got to be
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another way, and so I spent a lot of time worrying and being
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afraid about getting it wrong. So I'd spent years relying on
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external authority, and if you haven't listened to that
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episode, I highly recommend you going back and just having a
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little listen to the backstory of my life, so you know where I
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am and how I how I am with you now here on this podcast. But I
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really did spend a lot of time giving giving my power away and
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relying on external authority, so doctors, specialists,
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prescriptions, procedures, and that became my cycle. That
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became the way I operated in the world.
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And so, while that was all valid and it was important and it had
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a place, I did not yet yet know how to bring my own voice into
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the conversation, so it spent so long externalizing that I I just
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I did not know the relationship with myself and my own voice and
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how to cultivate this and how to start. I swung between two
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extremes. At times, I wanted someone else to tell me exactly
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what to do, and that's that would be so nice, wouldn't it?
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Just someone telling you what to do all the time, but that is not
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empowering. And at other times, I believed I should be able to
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work everything out alone, and I can relate to that one in such a
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big way, because most of my life I have gone lone wolf, solo
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traveler, and we that also gets us stuck in a cycle of being on
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our own and in our own thoughts, and that's also it at times
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cannot be healthy. So neither of these positions created genuine
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self trust. One gave all my authority away, and the other
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one isolated me. I collected information, I studied,
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experimented, and I made lots of wonderful mistakes.
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Tried things that helped and things that did not. And there
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were times when I became frustrated with myself because
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healing was not unfolding in a straight line, and so what I
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mean by that is that the healing process was very much an up and
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down journey. There was a lot of peaks and troughs, and a lot of
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the time I felt like I was going backwards. You know, it felt
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like you know, step forward, three steps back, and so I
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thought that if I had truly learned the lesson, I should
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never return to the old pattern. But healing is never like that,
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is it? It's a relationship, and relationships require us to
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return again and again. Over the years, I have seen a familiar
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pattern in women who are intelligent, capable, and highly
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aware. They often know a great deal. They know they need more
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rest. They know move movement would help. They know they need
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better boundaries. They know they feel disconnected. They may
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even know exactly what practice would support them. But knowing
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is not the same as feeling safe enough to change. A woman may
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understand boundaries intellectually while still
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feeling terrified, and saying no will make her selfish. How many
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of you can relate to that? She may know she needs rest while
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carrying a belief that her value depends on being useful. She may
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want support while feeling ashamed that she cannot manage
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everything alone. We just carry so much. It almost seems crazy,
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even speaking into this and and sharing this with you.
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But it it is a thing. This is a thing, and this is what we go
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through. And she may crave change while fearing what the
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change will ask her to confront. So she begins, then retreats,
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begins again, then judges herself. Eventually, eventually
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she uses her inconsistency as evidence, and so we weigh up
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these stats, and it's like, yeah, nothing works for me. I've
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tried everything. See, I knew I couldn't do it. But
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inconsistency is not always failure. Sometimes it is
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evidence that an old pattern or protection pattern is still
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active. Now we often speak about change as though people resist
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it because they are lazy or unmotivated, but change can
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threaten belonging, identity, relationship dynamics, the roles
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that keep us safe. Suppose you have spent decades being the
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dependable one, the peacemaker, the caretaker, the woman who
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never asked for much. If you begin expressing needs, the
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people around you may not immediately understand, right?
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If you if you rest, someone may be disappointed. If you change
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your mind, someone may accuse you of being difficult. If you
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stop over-functioning, other people may have to carry more.
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Their body understands all of these risks, so even when your
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conscious mind says, "I want to change, another part might be
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asking, will I still be loved? Will I still belong? Who will I
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be if I am no longer the woman who holds everything together?
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This is why shame rarely creates lasting transformation. Shame
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tells a nervous system that change. Is punishment.
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Compassion tells it that change can be safe, so we need to make
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that shift, and that's what we're going to move into the
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shift now. The shift for me came when I stopped treating self
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trust as a feeling I had to wait for. I began to understand it as
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something created through action. Self trust grows when
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you hear your own need to respond. When you keep a small
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promise, it's these small little steps, tiny little bite sized
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chunks. And I'm just going to throw this in here because I'm
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thinking of it right now. But one of my mentors says, "What's
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the best way to eat an elephant, and it's one bite at a time. So
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it's these small little promises, these small steps.
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When you and when you tell the truth, when you ask a question
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and you start to get curious, when you change direction
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without making yourself wrong, when you seek support rather
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than waiting until collapse. Now that one right there is, I feel,
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is a huge one in our society because I know so many of my
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beautiful sisters who, and me included here. So I'm speaking
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from personal experience, where you go full on. You're just in
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action mode. Your, you know, productivity's on. You're on,
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on, on, on, on, and then you collapse. It's like out, and and
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then you you collapse because you could have you've seen the
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signs earlier on, and you could have actually asked for help
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sooner, and so you do not have to believe with absolute
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certainty that everything will work. You only need to become
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willing to remain in relationship with yourself while
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you discover what does, and so it's this beautiful dance we get
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to do, and this is a-it's a very different way of beginning.
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It's a different way of starting again. It's more gentle. It's
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kind. It's softer. It's tender. Tender is such a beautiful word,
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and when we drop into tenderness for ourselves around self-trust,
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it really slows everything down. It slows the narrative down for
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us. And so today, I've got three ways that you can begin trusting
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yourself again. And one is start smaller than your perfectionism
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wants. Now, if you're anything like me in the past, I'm a
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recovering perfectionist, and there's still traits of that
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that follow through today. But just you know, dialing, just
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pulling back, pulling back, and not having this laser-focused
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attention on it needing to be perfect. Often, the greatest
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change looks unbelievably messy, and so perfectionism loves
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dramatic beginnings, the complete new routine, the
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seven-day cleanse, the two-hour morning practice. I'm laughing
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and I'm I'm smiling at myself because this all of this I share
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with you comes comes from my own journey and from my you know
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working with other women as well and seeing this pattern play out
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and then we commit to a meditate to meditate every day for the
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rest of our natural life and it's just not sustainable,
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ladies. It really isn't. It's a very enthusi. It's enthusiastic
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on Monday morning, and by Thursday, it's packed its
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suitcase and left the country.
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So instead, choose something small enough to keep. I'm always
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thinking sustainability. Is this sustainable? Can I maintain this
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for the duration of how long? And am I open to allowing it to
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shift? Am I open to allowing it to move and be fluid? Because,
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as you know, ladies, we even when we've we've come through
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menopause and we've stopped bleeding, and there's no cycle
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there. We are still cycling. Our body remembers. I know mine
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does. It remembers. It knows this. We we follow these. We're
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very cycling. We follow these patterns and flow, and the moon
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and the seasons. We're highly beautiful, sensory, intuitive
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beings, And so, instead, keeping it small enough-five minutes
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outside, one glass of water before coffee, one honest
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conversation, going to bed 20 minutes earlier-it makes a huge
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difference. Putting your hands on your heart before answering a
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request, you know, and that's the big one where we go yes
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straight away and we overcommit to people around us, and then we
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kind of let it settle for a few days, and we're going, oh, so
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no, I don't really want to do this, or I don't feel like it
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anymore. It's okay to say maybe. Can I get back to you?
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The actions may seem small, but the deeper message is powerful
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because you're sending, starting to integrate new pathways, new
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neural pathways. You're retraining, and so it's like
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when I when I hear myself, I respond. That is how self trust
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begins, and so little steps. We're not overcommitting
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ourselves, and that's step number one. Number two, we are
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going to track our evidence of return. So many of us only track
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what they did not complete, and this is like that's where you
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know cross it cross it out. That's where the mistakes begin.
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We track out how incomplete we are. You you remember the missed
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walk, and now this is actually something in our humanness that
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we have naturally have a negative bias, so naturally
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slant towards the negativity of these things. It's just the way
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we work. It's the way we're wired, and that's why I say
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we're retraining ourselves here. So it does. It feels like we're
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training a new muscle. We're going to the gym and we're
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working out and we're doing one little weight at a time, one
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little rep.
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And so, instead of trying to remember the missed walk and the
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unfinished journal and the failed boundary you didn't hold,
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and you're beating yourself up about it, a moment that you
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overlooked, and when you know you just in chaos and you break
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down. So begin tracking different evidence. That's what
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I'm inviting you to do today. Notice when you recognized
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fatigue, when you paused before saying yes, when you asked for
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help, and so you're getting these nice little gold stars on
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the board, nice little green ticks instead of these red
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crosses. Notice when you spoke without apologizing; these are
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huge steps. These are massive, and just want to add here: we
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mustn't forget to celebrate the small wins. Things like this are
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huge, especially if you're someone. I don't know. I I
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remember taking a plane trip not that long ago, and a beautiful
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couple sat next to me, and all she did was said sorry. Nearly
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every second word she said, she got up, got a sorry, sorry,
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sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm like, now that was a totally
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ingrained, unconscious pattern she was playing out.
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I found myself almost getting agitated and saying, "What are
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you apologizing for? She hasn't done anything wrong. But when we
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flip that and start recognizing and taking, like tracking this
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evidence of us improving, like spoke without apologizing, like
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I've just mentioned, it's um, it's it's great. It's progress.
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It's all progress, and all these little pieces and these little
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steps forward all layer up. And then you'll look back in a
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year's time, or six months, or even four months, and you'll be
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like, "Wow, I've come such a long way. So it's just shifting
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the narrative, shifting your perspective. What else here? Let
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me see. What else have I got in my notes? So you've yeah, when
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you rested before you collapse. Now that, like I spoke into
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earlier, that's a huge one. Recognizing when you need rest,
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and when you need to take care of yourself, and when you felt
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joy, tracking your joy, your joy meter, that's just you know
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huge. Like when you felt joy and vibrance and vitality, when you
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changed your mind, because it's okay to change your mind.
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All of these moments matter, every single one. So you're not
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searching for evidence to become perfect, because we're we're
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bypassing that. We're actually leaving that behind. We're
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going, hey, and going to say, hey, that's not where we're
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going anymore. You're gathering evidence that you are becoming
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present. Big deep breath, becoming present in your life,
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and you're actually cultivating this awareness. It's very, very
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different, and I'm sure if you're following me here, you
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can feel that there's a difference between the two. So
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let's move on to number three. Let yourself be supported. So
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one of my early mistakes was believing I needed to work
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everything out alone, and that within itself can become quite a
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painful cycle because then we start to push others out, and
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we're not relying on people anymore or asking for help, and
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we think we can do it on our own.
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Now that within itself, later on in life, can turn into where you
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start becoming very rigid within your life, there's no movement,
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and because you think you can do it all on your own, you become
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quite stubborn and obstinate. And from the outside, people
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might look in and see that, like, oh, she's a very stubborn
20:54
old lady; she doesn't want any help. But inside, the person who
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is living that life of doing everything alone is all they
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really, really are crying out for is love and someone to
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support them. But they've gone so far down that track of being
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in that alone mode that it's become there's so many big walls
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around them, so let yourself be supported. Perhaps part of that
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is from come from not knowing who to trust. It comes from not
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knowing who to trust. Also, there's a big part which is
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pride as well playing into that, and also just really accustomed
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to surviving, and yeah, it's it can become very isolating and
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feel very lonely because then we, what can happen is we can
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then start to almost tell ourselves stories that there's
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you know the outside world is out to get us, and so you know
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that's going into the extreme. But when we isolate ourselves
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and don't don't ask for support, there's some really big patterns
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that can play out later on in our life that are not helping us
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at all. all, the belief is that you must be carrying everything
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by yourself. So support does not mean handing away your
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authority.
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You're not going to be giving anything away by asking for
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help. The right support helps you hear yourself more more
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clearly, and so that may come from a practitioner or a mentor
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or a doctor, a trusted friend, a circle of women, some other
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communities. It might be online or in person, and so the
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question is not, "Can I do this alone? And you probably can, and
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you probably have been for a long time. But how is that
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serving you? You have likely done many different things
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alone, and so I would say a better question to ask is, why
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should I have to? So feel that difference there. Can I do this
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alone? Why should I have to? And so you start to open yourself up
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to receiving rather than going. I'm going to work this all out
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on myself in my own head, in my own body, all those things. So
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there's three tips for helping to begin trusting yourself
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again. The first one, I'm just going to recap there, just to
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remind you. I'm going to put all this in the show notes as well.
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But the first one was start small, rather than what your
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perfectionism wants. So get that in check. Two, tracking your
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evidence of return. You know the times that you felt joy, and you
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felt supported, and you rested before collapse. And number
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three, let yourself be supported. Don't be on your own,
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ladies.
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Start to, you know, if you are someone out there who is on your
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own and you need support, it's time to reach out. It really is.
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We are in a time now when it's important for us to all come
24:24
together and to really support one another, and so help is
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never too far away. So, if you're a lady out there who's
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saying I've tried everything, I, I, what I hear is
24:40
disappointment, and I hear the fear of hoping again. And I've
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heard this a number of times when I've been in conversation,
24:53
you know, and it might be in a women's circle or somewhere. And
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it's a really great opportunity, I think, when we catch
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ourselves. Just want to kind of dive deeper into this for a
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little while. When we catch ourselves in conversation with
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another and going, "Oh, I've tried everything, let's just
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look at that for a second. If if you've tried everything, how how
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is that humanly Possible, like for me, I'm looking at the words
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I've, I have, tried, you've attempted everything. Listen,
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that word everything. You've you're telling me you've tried
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everything in the whole entire world on this planet, and
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nothing's worked.
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And I'm calling out a slight overexaggeration of that comment
25:49
there because we can we can really get stuck in that going
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back to the other thing, being being on our own, trying to do
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it all our own, or having the opinion that we know best, and
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it's really important to stay curious. It really is to stay
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curious in our lives because when we stop being curious,
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well, what's the point of us even being on this planet and
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walking this earth? What's the point? If you've tried
26:23
everything and you know everything, then okay. But I
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invite you to actually take a look at what language you're
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speaking and what what words or spells or what are you casting
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with your with your words around this, because I, you know, I'm a
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I'm a woman who's had a lot of experiences. I've had a crazy
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life, lived a lot of done a lot of different things. Crazy,
26:46
great, yeah, off the wall, whatever. I've got a huge story,
26:50
huge history. I have not tried everything, and so if you are a
26:54
woman that's saying I've tried everything, I I do.
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I hear disappointment. I hear that there's a fear there and a
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block of letting others in to support you, and and sometimes
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you have tried a lot, but you haven't tried everything, and
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there is always more in the tank for us to keep doing our best to
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keep going, to get up and start again, and I can relate to when
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you're in burnout or you've hit a wall and you've got exhaustion
27:30
and complete fatigue. Trust me, I've been there several times in
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my life, and when I'm in that space, it's almost like a space
27:38
of me feeling untouchable, where I well, I don't want to be
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touched. I don't want to be spoken to, and that's okay as
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well. It's okay to be in the cave and to be processing and to
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be integrating. But if we walk our life and go out saying,
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"I've tried everything, nothing works for me, where is the
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opportunity in that? You know, where where is the opportunity
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to keep growing. I think we limit ourselves in our
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languaging and the way we believe and the way we, you
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know, tell our stories, and we get stuck in those.
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That's what I feel. I feel we get stuck in them. I've been
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there. You've been there. We've all been there. We're human. But
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to say you've tried everything, you're not opening up to the
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possibility that something new is just around the next corner.
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And so, I feel it's important to start somewhere. Where where can
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you start? Make a list of what have you tried. What have I
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tried? What do I? What pattern do I keep bringing to everything
28:44
that I try? And so let's start asking different questions.
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Let's start shifting our perspective around this, and
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start asking the questions that actually open us up for more.
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And this is where your power truly begins. And until then,
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you'll just continue to hit that same wall over and over and
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over. So I'd love for you to ask yourself. I've got a reflection
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for you today.
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I love you to ask yourself: Where have you been using an old
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pattern as proof that change is impossible? Where have I been
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using an old pattern as proof that change is impossible? And I
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know there's something under the hood, ladies. We all have
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something there, and yeah, it just take a journal out and take
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some time and ask the question out loud. Where have I been
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using an old pattern as proof that change is impossible for
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me? Perhaps you have been calling yourself inconsistent
29:58
when you are over. Calling yourself lazy when you are
30:02
depleted, calling yourself undisciplined when the plan was
30:07
never realistic, calling yourself difficult when you are
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finally telling the truth. What would change if you stopped
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asking what is wrong with me and began asking what would help me
30:20
feel supported enough to take the next step? So, if you'd love
30:27
to explore this further, ladies, this has been a wonderful
30:30
episode. I feel like there's been quite a bit of fire in my
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belly behind this one. Big message to share. Love to hear
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from you.
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Welcome to always comment and share with me here, so inside
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the Sacred She resets circle on Facebook, it's the private
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community. I'd love to invite you along, and you can come
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along and share some of this if you're feeling really brave, and
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pop it in there, pop it in the group, and come and join us in
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the conversation. You will find the link to the community in the
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show notes, and I'm Shiriya Shana, and this is the Sacred
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Reset, awakening your radiant wisdom. You do not have to trust
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the entire path. Trust the next honest step. Your radiance
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starts here. Bye for now.