September 15, 2024 • 63 mins
This episode is a raw and transparent recount of my journey through a mini Dark Night of the Soul this past summer. I hope to offer solace and encouragement to anyone experiencing similar trials. Along with practical insights to help you move through the tough bits.
I’m also sharing with you the realizations I had about myself and my business, and the changes I’m making to my work as a result. You’re going to get a behind the scenes look at the shifts I’m looking at, and how I’m working through making some big decisions.
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Disclaimer:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, I am so glad that you're back for another
episode.
Thank you for being here.
I really appreciate all of mylisteners tuning in.
I know that I've had a littlebit of a sabbatical this summer.
I haven't posted many episodesover the last few months and I'm
going to talk today about whythat is and some of the changes
(00:23):
that are going on for me, whythis is so, and none of this is
scripted.
I have not written out anynotes for today's podcast topic.
I am going to be as candid andhonest and vulnerable as I can
with you because we're all humanand we're all going through our
(00:46):
journey of learning and growingand evolving.
And I hit another edge of myown personal growth and
evolution and I wanted to sharewith you the experience of that
so that you can understand, ifyou're, you know, going through
these moments of maybe tough,challenging times that might
(01:08):
come up, and understand why theycome up and how to move through
them and what it means to comeout the other side.
If you have been following meat all on my social media, you
know that in during the summerJuly-ish, I sort of hit a little
bit of a mini Dark Night of theSoul, and I say mini because
(01:29):
I've gone through dark nights ofthe soul in my past that have
been much bigger than this, butit was still something that
shook me and something that Ineeded to work through, and
there's a few reasons why thisdark night of the soul sort of
appeared.
Looking back, I see that itdidn't come out of nowhere.
(01:50):
The straw that broke thecamel's back, I think, was my
mother's birthday on July 24th.
So my mother has passed andpast birthdays of hers have not
gotten to me.
But I think that justeverything else combined the day
(02:11):
of her birthday just broughtall the feels to the table and
everything came out.
Now, leading up to that, I cansee now I'm going through some
hormonal changes.
I can see now I'm going throughsome hormonal changes.
I'm at the age I'm inperimenopause and I can see that
(02:33):
I'm progressing through moreadvanced stages of perimenopause
.
I'm almost 46, and I can see alot of the symptoms coming up
that are indicating that I'mkind of at the last stages
before I'm going to be reachingfull menopause.
So my hormones are going allover the place and on top of
that, I've already shared withyou that I highly suspect autism
(02:53):
and ADHD All of the symptomsthat I knew that I had, that
aligned with ADHD and autism,all of a sudden became way more
pronounced as my hormones werechanging.
That, in combination with, youknow, just regular life stuff
and as well in my family herewhere I live in Quebec, canada,
(03:17):
there's a lot of projects on thego right now.
My husband has been really busythis summer.
My husband has been really busythis summer building a small
stable for his daughter's horsesso that they can live on our
property.
We have a 200 acre forestedproperty.
His daughter's horses werestabled elsewhere and she wanted
(03:40):
to bring them home and therewas a bit of a time limit in
terms of when she had to get thehorses here, which just
happened last week.
So this summer was busy.
There was a lot going on interms of my business, his work,
getting all the stuff sorted outwith building this horse stable
(04:05):
and there's so many thingsinvolved with what was involved
with making this a reality, likeinstalling water on the
property, digging for waterlines and so many different
things.
I'm not going to go into allthe details about that.
So my mom's birthday was thepinnacle of this buildup of
(04:27):
emotions, of this buildup of.
There was lots of like feelingsof unease happening and
feelings of not feeling incontrol and feelings of anxiety,
and my brain kind of felt likeit had been put in a blender.
Some of you might understandwhat that feels like.
And then I get to this point ofmy mother's birthday and all
(04:51):
the grief came up, all theemotions came up and it kind of
made me go.
Something needs realignment,and this is the thing.
This is a really importantpoint that I want to mention,
and I've mentioned it a fewtimes on my social media, so if
you've been following me there,you've probably already gotten
this message.
(05:12):
When you come up against achallenge and all the feels are
coming up, layers of old themesare coming back around and
you're like I thought I alreadydealt with this around and
you're like I thought I alreadydealt with this and the things
are coming back around againlike a spiral or a boomerang and
you're questioning, like what'sgoing on here?
(05:33):
I thought I dealt with this, Ithought I worked through this, I
thought I've moved past this,and that was a lot of what was
coming up for me around thattime.
Luckily, I've gone through thisenough times now to know that
when that happens.
It's not that I'm back at thebeginning again.
I get this, a lot clients willsay, but this is coming up and I
(05:54):
thought I've already dealt withthis.
Does this mean like I'm back atthe beginning?
Am I starting over?
Is this like have I gonebackwards?
And no, you haven't.
What this actually means is thathealing happens in a spiral and
when you're working throughthese big themes in your life,
it's not like a linear thingwhere now you're just moved past
(06:15):
it and it'll never come back.
It comes around again.
But when it comes around again,you're looking at it from a
different perspective.
And what happens is when it'scoming around again and you're
like at it from a differentperspective.
And what happens is when it'scoming around again and you're
like holy crap, I thought Idealt with this already.
That is a huge sign that onceyou move through that final
(06:36):
layer of the spiral, you'reabout to step into an up level.
There's something bigger that'sgoing to be happening on the
other side of that.
There's something bigger that'sgoing to be happening on the
other side of that.
It's like walking through thestorm so that you can get out to
the other side where the blueskies are.
I've gone through this processenough times to know that, even
though I was like stuck in themuck of it, I knew why it was
(06:59):
happening, so I wasn't freakingout.
I wasn't like, oh my godhappening.
So I wasn't freaking out.
I wasn't like, oh my god, inthe past I would have been in
the past, I've done that a lotand I knew that I just needed to
be with it and face it and sitwith it and be okay with the
fact that this difficult momentis moving through me, and I know
(07:20):
that means that, as I let itmove through, on the other side
is something more, and I'mworking through that something
more now.
And the other thing to pointout about that is it's not like
all of a sudden is the momentyou step out of the muck,
everything is going to be like Iknow exactly what's happening
now.
I wish it was that way, butit's not now.
(07:47):
I wish it was that way, butit's not.
So there's a few realizationsthat I've come to working
through these moments, and a lotof them had to do with my
business, what I'm doing and whoI'm working with, and I came up
with some huge realizations, asyou've heard me talking on this
podcast.
I've talked to you about mycareer pivot story, where I went
(08:08):
from being a clinicalnaturopathic doctor and then I
was working with people withautoimmunity and endometriosis,
especially the ones who've triedabsolutely everything all the
therapeutic diets, all thetreatments, all the medications
and, yeah, it helped to a degree, but they've plateaued or it's
only gotten them so far and theyknew that there was something
more.
And I would guide these peoplethrough this inner healing,
(08:47):
inner awakening, self-connectionjourney so that they would come
to this place where they wereno longer run by limiting
beliefs and social conditioningand they were connected to their
true selves and they were ableto live their authentic lives
and who they are actually hereto be, without worrying about
what other people are saying orthinking about them.
Essentially, they become theirown best friend.
And when, when you do that, youcome to this place where you're
so connected from withinyourself, your nervous system is
(09:08):
centered and grounded andyou're operating from this place
where you are operating in aplace that's aligned with your
soul, and when people would comeout the other side of this,
then A their symptoms wouldimprove, even if they've tried
everything else right.
I've had clients who've been onmax dose medications and their
(09:31):
symptoms were getting worse andworse and worse.
They had so many foodsensitivities.
They're on an extremely strictdiet and once they went through
this process, I've had clientswho their medical doctors then
put them down to the very.
I've had clients who theirmedical doctors then put them
down to the very minimummaintenance dose and their food
sensitivities improved and theywere able to eat more variety of
(09:53):
foods.
And their medical doctor waslike how did you do this?
Because they knew that you knowtheir patients have been
struggling for years and theirsymptoms were getting worse.
And they see over and overagain these medical doctors like
, if you're on this path of likeworsening symptoms and then
medication only takes you to adegree and now you're maxing out
(10:14):
on the medications and thingsare getting worse.
It's not going to get better,but these clients that would
come to see me they would getbetter.
Because this inner work is themissing puzzle piece that so
many people don't talk about,and especially not in the
medical system.
And I didn't learn about thiswhen I went to naturopathic
(10:36):
college.
What I guide people through nowtakes people way further than I
was ever able to guide themwhen I was working as a clinical
naturopathic doctor and so likethat's huge.
That's why I'm so passionateabout what I do now.
As you know from my story, ittook me guiding myself through
this first.
This is how I discovered thiswas because I was in a place
(10:59):
where I was bed bound for amonth and I had no answers.
I had tried everything as anaturopathic doctor that I knew
to try, and I was seeing all thedoctors and no one had answers,
including myself, and I wasstuck in bed staring at the
ceiling, going is this what therest of my life is going to be
like?
This is I can't.
I can't live like this, as Iwas watching my future.
(11:21):
You know, slip through myfingers like sand, and I knew
that I was watching my future.
You know, slip through myfingers like sand and I knew
that I was meant for more.
I knew that I was here for areason, and staring at the
ceiling lying in bed was notwhat I was here for.
I knew that, and it was thisjourney that I took myself
through, and you know you'veheard me talk a lot about it in
(11:44):
some of my past episodes andI'll continue to talk more about
some of the different aspectsof this particular journey that
I've guided myself through inthe methodology that I've
created, and it was the thingthat helped me when nothing else
could and I mean I've alreadyshared.
You know, before I really fullydeveloped this methodology and
(12:08):
went through the full journey, Ihad first discovered carnivore,
a meat only diet, which is likethe strictest therapeutic diet
that you can go on, and Iabsolutely don't suggest that
it's for everybody, but it wasthe thing that got me back on my
feet when everything else Itried wasn't working.
But the thing is is that it gotme back on my feet.
(12:31):
It gave me some energy back sothat I could start diving into
the research and I could startexploring these other avenues.
But carnivore on its own onlygot me to a certain place.
I plateaued after a while, like, yes, it was an important piece
of the journey, but it wasn'tthe whole journey.
(12:52):
And it was this deeper innerwork, this journey that I
figured out, that got me therest of the way to where I am
now, got me the rest of the wayto where I am now.
And you know, since I've gonethrough this journey, I've been
able to reintroduce foods again,which I wasn't able to before,
and this is why I became sopassionate about guiding people
(13:15):
through this journey, instead ofjust focusing on the
naturopathic things that I hadbeen doing before, like
nutrition and dietary intake andstress management and lifestyle
choices.
And while all of those thingsare absolutely important and
necessary, they will take you toa point, but they will only
take you so far if you don'taddress this other puzzle piece
(13:37):
that I now look at and I now doand I now guide my own clients
through.
And then, you know, as I wasfiguring this out and as I was
watching the people I wasguiding completely transform
their lives and becomecompletely different by the end
of their journeys with me, theywere so empowered and energized
(13:59):
and their health and theirsymptoms improved as a byproduct
of this inner work that we weredoing.
But there was so much more thanjust that their whole lives,
they felt more satisfied intheir relationships with the
work that they were doing.
But what I was finding was alot of the people that would
come out the other side of thisjourney I would guide them
(14:22):
through and they would say youknow, I realize now that the
work that I'm doing is no longeraligned with who.
I really am Right Because whenthey first started on their work
journey, their career journey,their entrepreneur journey,
their whatever.
If they have a job, they have abusiness, they have a career,
whatever it is, the choices thatthey made going into their job,
(14:44):
business or career was based onthe.
The choices that they madegoing into their job, business
or career was based on the oldsurvival patterns that they were
operating from before theystarted this work.
So people pleasing andperfectionism and overextending
themselves in order to makeothers happy, prioritizing other
people's needs instead of theirown, because they felt that
(15:04):
they needed to make other peoplehappy in order to get their own
sense of worth and value, inorder to make sure that people
accept them and like them, toavoid feeling rejected, so that
they can belong, so that theycan feel like they fit in and
I've been absolutely guilty ofthat myself in my past.
These are really commontendencies, especially for those
(15:27):
of us who have been led tobelieve that there's something
wrong with us, that we're toosensitive, that we're too much,
that we're not enough and thatthere's something about us that
needs to be fixed.
And if we've grown up in anenvironment with people who gave
us conditional love instead ofunconditional love, who had
their own emotionaldysregulation, and it taught us
(15:50):
that we needed to operate fromthese survival states in order
to get our developmental needsmet, in order to feel like we
are safe, that we belong, thatwe're loved, in order to avoid
being rejected, because,especially in those young years,
we need to feel like thosedevelopmental needs are met and
we need to feel safe.
(16:11):
And so, coming back from thattangent, these people, who I
would guide through thisself-empowerment, inner
liberation method, and they feelfree to be themselves and
they're feeling they've releasedthemselves from the shackles of
social conditionings andlimiting beliefs and now they
(16:33):
know how to establish healthyboundaries.
And now they know who they areand what they actually want,
instead of following what otherpeople told them that they
should want or following otherpeople's expectations.
Now they're saying, wow, youknow, the choices that I made
for my job, my career, mybusiness no longer align with
who I actually am and what Iactually want.
(16:55):
Or now they're saying, wow, youknow the way I'm operating my
business.
I was overworking and I waspeople pleasing and I was
overextending myself and Ididn't have boundaries.
And all of that needs to change.
I need to enforce all of thesethings Now.
I need to make these shifts inhow I'm operating my business
and who I'm operating mybusiness with, or who I'm
(17:17):
working with, or how I'm working, especially as a highly
sensitive person, aneurodivergent person, somebody
with a chronic illness.
We need to kind of makeaccommodations for ourselves in
order to feel supported, inorder to make sure that our
nervous system doesn't feeloverwhelmed, and, like I've
(17:38):
talked about in previous podcastepisodes, is when you
positively support yourself,make the accommodations as well
as positively support yourselffrom the inside with self
compassion, which is such animportant point that you're
going to hear me talking aboutmore then.
You know, the research showsthat those of us who do have
(17:59):
sensory processing sensitivityand highly sensitive people,
neurodivergent we willexperience more vantage
sensitivity versus when we don'tsupport ourselves.
We're going to have moreoverwhelm, more emotional
reactivity, more inflammation,more flare-ups, more symptoms
(18:20):
coming out, and so this isn'tjust a nice to have.
This is a necessary thing.
This is the thing is those ofus who are within this subset of
the population.
We're here for a reason, and abig part of that reason is we're
here to break cycles.
We're here to lead a new wayforward, because a lot of these
(18:43):
chains and cycles, especially incorporate culture, especially
in society with, you know, inthe job world, is that we need
to operate in a certain wayright.
Money trumps all and the thingis is that that doesn't work for
a lot of us, especially in thissubset of the population
(19:06):
neurodivergence, chronic illness, highly sensitive we need to
operate in a different way incorporate culture, in the job
world, in society, as anentrepreneur, if you're
operating in a way that justdoesn't align with what you
(19:28):
actually want to be doing andhow you actually want to be
doing it.
Part of the work that I shiftedinto doing and making that pivot
, was to work with entrepreneurs.
I've also worked with people incorporate and people leaving
corporate to start their ownbusiness.
I found that working withentrepreneurs just seemed to
(19:48):
make sense because I'm anentrepreneur and helping them to
align their business so thatthey're actually doing what
feels most aligned for them,that they are following their
purpose, that they are feelingfulfilled and I mean, even if
they don't make any changes,following their purpose, that
they are feeling fulfilled, andI mean even if they don't make
(20:08):
any changes to their business.
A lot of people.
You know they find success inbusiness, but then they get to
this point where they realizemoney isn't enough anymore.
There's something deeper that Ineed to fulfill within myself
that money can't buy myself.
That money can't buy.
And I know, at the beginningstages of starting up a business
, your first intention and thefirst thing that you're going to
(20:28):
be looking at is I need to earna living.
We need an income in order topay for our needs.
But money in itself isn'tenough, and I see this over and
over again with the clients thatI work with, especially the
ones who have been have made itand they're doing really great
(20:48):
and they're making a substantialincome and they've got.
Some of my clients are makingmore money than they will ever
need in this entire lifetime,and now they realize there's to
be more.
I've lost connection with myself.
I don't know who I am anymore.
I've been focused so much onother people's expectations and
(21:12):
focused so much on my businessthat I've forgotten who I am and
what I want, and so I had madea pivot to my business.
Instead of working with peoplewith autoimmunity and
endometriosis, I was findingbecause my health had improved
and I had essentially put muchof my chronic illness into
(21:35):
remission.
I wasn't really relating to thechronic illness autoimmune
endometriosis sphere like I hadonce did, and so that gap was
growing, like I talked about inone of my previous podcast
episodes is, you know, as youadvance and heal and grow and
(21:55):
you're still working with maybethe same subset of the
population that you had been atthe beginning of your growth and
evolution, then you might notbe able to relate to them as
much and you have to kind ofreach back to relate to them and
that's not helpful for you andthat's not as helpful for them,
right?
Because they can start to feellike you don't really understand
(22:19):
.
And I've been finding to feellike you don't really understand
.
And I've been finding and I seethis over and over in what I'm
studying and my own personalexperience is that if you, as
you grow and evolve, is to growand evolve who you're working
with, that means that there'sgoing to be maybe a bit more of
an advanced client that you'regoing to be working with, or
someone who's farther along ontheir path, or maybe just a
(22:41):
different place in their path.
And the world needs all of us,right, the world needs people
who are working with beginners.
The world needs people that areworking with intermediates, the
world needs people that areworking with more advanced and
the world needs people who canrelate to different people on
different paths and differentpoints on the path.
People on different paths anddifferent points on the path.
(23:05):
So I knew I needed to shift awayfrom working with autoimmunity
and endometriosis specificallyand only, and so I was making
these shifts first towardsworking with highly sensitive
people and then making the shifttowards working with
entrepreneurs.
I admit that there was maybe Ihesitate to call it a mistake
because I learned a lot fromthis choice but as I was making
(23:30):
these shifts and pivots, I wasfeeling pressure.
I was feeling pressure fromwithin myself.
I knew I needed to make a shiftand there was a part of me that
needed that answer now.
And I was also getting kind ofpressure from the outside world,
from coaches and then fromobserving what's going on in the
(23:52):
coaching industry, in themarketing industry, and I was
feeling this pressure to hurryup and make a decision about who
I'm working with and what myniche is, so that I can claim it
.
And I admit that I was a littlehasty in trying to force myself
(24:13):
to figure out that nook that Ineeded to fit in.
And the reason why I say this isbecause, as I've been talking
to entrepreneurs over the pastyear year and a half and doing
my marketing to entrepreneurs, Ikeep finding people showing up
in my DMs and emailing me andgoing Michelle, I really, really
(24:37):
resonate with what you'resaying and I feel like you could
really help me, but I'm not anentrepreneur so I don't.
I don't know like, can you helpme?
Can I work with you?
And this kept happening overand over and over again.
And the other thing is, withthe entrepreneurs that I, that I
am working with and that I haveworked with, I'm not helping
(25:01):
them directly with the businessstrategy aspect of things.
Like they've got that figuredout and they come to me.
You know, like I'm not helpingthem with their copy and their
marketing and their businessstrategy.
What I'm helping them with isthis inner paradigm shift for
themselves, so that they canconnect with themselves and they
(25:23):
can connect with their truthand they can trust themselves
and they can trust their ownanswers and they can figure out
what their true soul purposereally is and step into that and
have the confidence to showthemselves and show their true
selves, their authentic side,that they had been hiding from
(25:45):
others out of worry about howother people would take them,
out of worry that peoplewouldn't understand, out of
worry that people might thinkthat that's too woo or too weird
.
Right, because they've been inthese places in their lives
where they've been judged overand over and over again for
being too sensitive, being toowoo, being too weird, being too
(26:08):
much.
So there's this fear if theystep up and actually be who
they're meant to be, then peopleare going to reject them,
they're going to lose business,they're going to have the trolls
that are scoffing at them onthe internet and they're going
to get hate mail.
And all of these things keptthem from actually connecting
(26:28):
with what they actually want andwho they really are.
And there was also, I tend tofind, this level of guilt and
shame around the fact that theyare highly sensitive.
They do have a chronic illness,they are neurodivergent and
because of that they don't workthe same way as other people.
(26:49):
They don't think the same wayas other people, and the things
that other people would say areyour strengths.
They struggle with, but theyhave strengths in other areas
that other people don't, butthey have strengths in other
areas that other people don't.
They have other types of giftsthat other people don't seem to
understand, because we make upthe minority, and so then the
(27:11):
rest of the population, whodon't make up this minority,
don't understand thesedifferences.
And so so many of my clientswould say you know, all of these
things that I thought my wholelife were deficits.
You helped me recognize thatthese are my strengths, these
are my gifts and these are thethings for me to be leveraging
(27:34):
and leading with in my work.
And when they do that, theyjust find that everything
happens and unfolds so much moreeasily.
They enjoy what they're doingso much more when they're
operating from their strengths,even if other people don't
understand, and they're nottrying to force themselves to
(27:55):
operate in ways that just don'twork for them right, trying to
force the square peg into around hole type thing.
And so, as I was going throughthis mini dark night and I was
like something's not right here,something doesn't feel aligned,
I just had this intuitiveknowing that something needs to
(28:15):
be shifted here.
And as I was sitting with thisand reflecting on this and
meditating on this, it becameclear, especially with all the
messages that I was getting fromall these people saying but I'm
not an entrepreneur, but I wantto work with you is the fact
that I'm not here just forentrepreneurs.
You know, I was very hasty inpicking a lane because I was
(28:38):
told that's what I should.
So I'm guilty of falling intothat trap too and, like I always
tell my clients when you shouldon yourself, it just makes a
big mess.
And that's exactly what I didto understand what does and
(29:05):
doesn't work and get that wholeperspective of working in the
entrepreneurial world andworking with entrepreneurs which
doesn't mean I'm not workingwith entrepreneurs, but I'm
opening up to looking at thingsfrom a different perspective.
And what I see as a commonalityin all the people that I work
with, whether they'reentrepreneurs, in all the people
that I work with, whetherthey're entrepreneurs, whether
they have some other type of jobor career, whether they don't
(29:26):
have a job or career at all interms in a conventional way and
some of my clients are retiredand some of my clients are what
they would term themselvesdomestic engineers and they stay
at home and they do theimportant work of caring for
their family All of these peopleresonate with what I was
(29:54):
guiding them through to be theirauthentic self and live from
their full potential so thatthey could lead change, so that
they could create that impactthat they know that they want to
be creating in this world forthe greater good, through
breaking cycles and breaking thechains especially of the things
like that intergenerationaltrauma, and getting out of
(30:14):
survival mode so that they canthrive, so that they can lead
first and be the change thatthey want to see in the world
and lead by example and showingothers what's possible, giving
other people permission to bethemselves, because they are
leading by being themselvesfirst.
They're trailblazing this newway of being, from this
(30:36):
authentically aligned place,knowing that the truth is it's
not about do whatever you needto do to make the money, even if
it means that you have to hideyourself and be somebody else
and mask yourself and play thegame.
They know that they can'toperate like that, and I know I
can't operate like that.
(30:56):
And stepping into your ownauthenticity and being that
example is being a leader, andevery single one of my clients
are leaders in this way,starting with being a
self-leader.
This is so important becausethis is how the world is going
to change.
(31:17):
It always starts with you, andwhen you are living from this
authentically aligned place,where you are connected to your
truth and you're following yourintuition and you're doing what
lights you up and you're makingthat contribution in the way
that aligns best with yourstrengths, your highest zone of
genius, your unique gift andyour unique edge, then you're
(31:39):
making that bigger impact.
And when you are operating fromthis place, you're operating
from a place of thriving, andwhen you're thriving, your
nervous system is operating fromthis place of centeredness, of
coherence.
And so when you have this widerwindow of tolerance and you
(32:00):
have a greater level of nervoussystem coherence, then this not
only benefits you, right, whenyour nervous system is in this
place, you're going to benefitbecause you're going to feel
more centered, you're going tofeel more resilient, you're
going to be able to navigatechallenges and come back to
center.
(32:21):
No matter what storms of lifecome through, no matter what
challenges you face, you'regoing to be able to move through
them and they won't derail youand you'll be able to come back
to your own strength andresilience center so much more
quickly.
And you're going to beoperating from this place where
you know that you're thrivingwith energy and clarity and joy
(32:44):
and satisfaction when yournervous system is in this place,
and it also impacts andimproves your health.
And this is why this work helpedso much with the autoimmune and
endometriosis patients that Iwas working with, because
studies find that these areconditions of immune dysfunction
(33:04):
.
Right, both autoimmune andendometriosis are conditions of
immune dysfunction, as well asfibromyalgia and chronic fatigue
syndrome and so and a lot ofother conditions.
And what studies show is thatthe biggest trigger for immune
dysfunction is nervous systemdysregulation.
If your nervous system isdysregulated, if you have low
(33:28):
coherence, if you have a smallwindow of tolerance, then that
is going to set you up forallostatic overload and that is
going to trigger immune systemdysregulation and that is what
can trigger so many of thesechronic illness conditions that
you know.
You get to this point where,yeah, you can support the immune
(33:49):
system, you can support thehormones, you can try to change
the diet and the lifestyle tosupport all of those things, but
if you don't address thenervous system and what's
impacting the nervous system,you're never going to get these
conditions under control.
And the thing, the biggest thing, that impacts the nervous
system is your inner emotionalenvironment, and I know I've
(34:12):
said this before and it bearsrepeating.
Right, your inner emotionalenvironment is your relationship
with yourself, how you speak toyourself, how you treat
yourself, the level of respectthat you have for yourself, the
level of kindness and compassionthat you have for yourself, how
(34:32):
much you accept you.
And especially for the peoplethat I've worked with with
autoimmunity the highlysensitive people, the
neurodivergent people there is acommon thread that we feel like
something is wrong with us.
We've been conditioned tobelieve, right, that our
sensitivity, our neurodivergence, you know our differences mean
(34:57):
that there's something wrongwith us.
We're too sensitive, we're toomuch.
And those of us withautoimmunity, it's kind of
twofold.
Right, you have a chronicillness that causes you to
believe that there's somethingwrong with you.
But on the other side of thetoken, energetically, what I
found over and over again when Iwas a naturopathic doctor is
this energetic association ofyou.
(35:19):
Think about it.
Autoimmunity is your immunesystem is not accepting some
aspect of yourself, whether thatbe a system in your body or an
organ in your body.
Your immune system is rejectingit.
And, energetically, I see thisover and over and over again is
(35:40):
that what I find when we take alook at the inner emotional
environment is.
There is some aspect of thatautoimmune patient who doesn't
accept something aboutthemselves, and so they lack
self-compassion.
And those of us who areneurodivergent and highly
sensitive when we feel likethere's something wrong with us
(36:00):
and we need to change and weneed to hide ourselves and mask
ourselves, we lackself-compassion.
And this is the thing I havebeen diving into rabbit holes
lately about the research onself-compassion, and
self-compassion is the antidoteto so many things.
It's the antidote to feelingsof guilt and shame, which are
(36:21):
highly associated with chronicconditions like autoimmunity.
Self-compassion is the antidotefor rejection, sensitivity,
which is such a common thingthat we see especially with ADHD
.
And self-compassion issomething that they've even
studied with entrepreneursAnd've found that while business
strategy is an important aspectto entrepreneurial success, so
(36:46):
is self-compassion, so that youcan navigate the uncertainty of
the entrepreneurial world andcome out the other side more
successful and with less burnout.
And there's many studies thatlook at self-compassion and
healthcare practitioners, forexample, and how self-compassion
(37:09):
can minimize and preventburnout, compassion, fatigue, if
you can't tell.
I am really passionate aboutthis right now because I think
that this, I believe that thisis an important root of the root
, of the root of the root, andyou know, when I trained as a
naturopathic doctor, one of theoaths that we swear by is treat
(37:32):
the root cause always, and I'vealways done so.
But the root cause that Ithought was the root cause isn't
the root of the root, and forso much of who I'm guiding,
developing self-compassion issuch an important puzzle piece
(37:53):
here.
So you're going to hear mespeaking a lot more about
self-compassion and the scienceof it and my own process of how
I guide you to more of it,because it is a journey.
It's not something that you canjust go oh, I just need to be
compassionate with myself andlike, oh, okay, it's.
It's not an intellectual processthat you can intellectualize
(38:16):
with your mind.
It needs to come from theinside out.
It needs to come from theinside out.
It needs to come from somaticexperience, a heart-led
experience from your body,because your nervous system
speaks from your body to yourmind more than your mind to your
body.
For all of these reasons, thisis why I'm passionate about it.
(38:39):
All of this, to say in aroundabout way, I'm making some
shifts to the language of whoI'm speaking to and how, because
I don't just speak toentrepreneurs, but there's
another layer about this, interms of what I'm doing and the
shifts that you're going to beseeing me make, and I hesitate
(39:01):
to tell you all the detailsbecause it hasn't fully landed.
And this is the other thing.
When you're going through achange, when you know something
needs to shift, there's a fewdifferent stages, and I've
mentioned one of these stages,which is okay.
So stuff is coming back aroundthat I thought I dealt with
before and it's coming backaround again.
(39:23):
And I know now that that is anindication that I'm I dealt with
before and it's coming backaround again.
And I know now that that is anindication that I'm about to go
through an up level.
But there is this liminal space,the void before you.
Fully, everything fully becomesfully clear.
And I'm in this place right nowand I don't want to repeat the
(39:46):
same thing that I've done in thepast, which is I need to rush
and hastily make a decisionabout my direction.
So I don't want to make thatdecision again.
I don't want to repeat thatagain.
But do know that I have hadthis dream in the back of my
mind for quite a number of yearsnow, probably the last four
years Since I've guided myselfthrough this process that I tell
(40:10):
you about here.
I know how much it changes livesand I know how important this
is and I know this is notsomething that I learned when I
studied to be a naturopathicdoctor, and I know that my
colleagues do amazing work asnaturopathic doctors and
clinicians and practitioners.
(40:30):
And I also know that many ofthem know that there's something
more, especially when it comesto their autoimmune chronic
illness patients.
They know that they can supportthem to a degree, but they're
very difficult to treat and thispuzzle piece that I talk about
(40:53):
here is one of the reasons whythey might not get all the
results that they would want tosee that their patient receives
from treatment of these chronicillnesses.
And I also know that there aremany of my colleagues who know
this.
They already know that there'sthese underlying things going on
(41:17):
in the emotional world of theirpatient, right.
They can see that they'restressors and they can see that
they don't have a greatrelationship with themselves.
They can see that there's allkinds of inner pressure that
they're putting on themselves.
They can see, maybe, thatthere's these patterns of people
pleasing and perfectionism andcodependence and prioritizing
(41:39):
others before themselves, andthey can see that these are the
things that are keeping themfrom actually getting more of
the results than they couldpossibly be getting from all the
other treatments that they'redoing.
And the thing is is that welearn a little bit about how to
navigate and how to support that, but it goes so much deeper
than what we learned innaturopathic college and I've
(42:02):
gone through my own journey offiguring this out for myself so
I could get myself back on myfeet after being bed bound, to
come up with this methodologyand it's like a combination of
all different types of areas ofstudy that I've particularly
been certified in and put themall together and mustered up the
(42:25):
courage to walk through theflames, because it's not an easy
process to look at yourself.
It's not an easy process to dothis inner healing work because
it's not always comfortable,right, and it's human nature to
want to stick with the familiar.
You know, doing this work, togo on this journey, is not a
(42:46):
familiar process.
All of this to say that I havethis desire to teach what I have
figured out to my fellowpractitioners because, like I
said, we don't learn this innaturopathic college.
We learn it to an extent, butthere's more, and I've figured
(43:08):
out this more and I've gonethrough this whole journey for
myself, and also all theadditional certifications and
learnings and studying that I'vedone and all the rabbit holes
of research that I've dived into get to this point where
there's this calling within meto show other practitioners what
(43:31):
I figured out so that they canpass the torch, so that they can
use this puzzle piece to givetheir patients even better
results as well.
For the practitioners whoresonate with this and want to
learn this process, when you gothrough this yourself and you
get to this place of greatercoherence and you get to this
(43:52):
place where you're operatingfrom this inner knowing, from
this place where you haveawakened and individuated, not
only does this guide yourpatients to even better results,
but you're more satisfied,you're more successful, and this
is how you can operate in yourfull potential in your work,
(44:15):
without burning out, withoutgetting to the place of
compassion fatigue, because Iknow so many of us have been in
this place of burnout and I'vebeen there too.
It's not a fun place to be, andone of the solutions is when
you do get to this place whereyou're connected with yourself
and your nervous system andyou're operating from your truth
(44:38):
and you are working in the waythat's most aligned for you and
you've gone through this process.
You can lead your patientsthrough this process, so I'm
figuring out how I'm going toincorporate this into my work.
I've been wanting to do this forfour years now and there have
been a couple of times whereI've moved forward with starting
(45:00):
to create something and, forone reason or another, it wasn't
the appropriate time.
There's been a couple of timeswhere I've paired with a fellow
naturopathic doctor and you knowlife and they had to abandon
the project because of their ownpersonal life, stuff that was
(45:22):
going on.
And I see, now that 2024 hasbeen, this moment of this has
been sitting in the back of mymind, and even though I know I
(45:47):
also really love working withentrepreneurs and leaders and
you know people in the generalpublic, whether you know you're,
you have a career or a job oryou don't when you know that you
want to go through this processof inner liberation, I love
guiding you through it.
But I know, if I want to makethat bigger impact, if I can
teach fellow practitioners whatI've figured out, because I've
figured out something importantand I don't see this anywhere
(46:10):
else in terms of what I figuredout, and I want to pass this on
to the practitioners so thatthey can pass it on to their
patients, and that's how I cancreate a greater impact to the
greater good and impact morepeople than just the one-on-one
clients that are in my worldCan't tell.
I'm passionate about this, andso I'm sitting with all of this
(46:32):
right now.
I know I'm in a liminal spaceand I'm giving myself permission
to stop and allow myself tointegrate all of this instead of
trying to hastily push forwardin a direction and this is
really important for you ifyou're going through something
like this is to give yourselfthat permission.
(46:53):
And this is the thing is yourintuition speaks to you in those
moments of stillness, and soit's really important to give
yourself moments of stillness sothat you can hear the messages
of your inner knowing.
And right now, that's what I'mdoing, and I'm listening to the
messages of my inner knowing,and I know there's more to come.
(47:16):
And in the midst of all of thisas well, as I was moving through
this mini dark night and I wasmoving through all these
hormonal changes and all ofthese symptoms of ADHD and
autism were becoming moreprevalent.
As I'm moving through thesehormonal changes, I decided okay
, I want to go talk to aprofessional about this.
So I decided to find atherapist who was able and who
(47:40):
is able to do an assessment.
It took a little while to findsomebody who is able to do an
assessment.
I found many therapists who Icould see to support me but they
weren't able to do anassessment and I found that that
was a piece of the puzzlethat's going to be really
important for me to betterunderstand myself so I can help
(48:02):
the people I'm working withbetter understand themselves.
And so I've been working with atherapist now for about a month
or so.
A couple of really interestingpoints.
My therapist is floored by myprogress in such a short period
of time.
She told me that it's veryobvious how much work I've
(48:25):
already done on myself.
She said she's never had apatient move so quickly and is
in such an advanced place as Iam in terms of the realizations
and how fast I'm able to movethrough these concepts and move
through the processing.
That was a wonderfulconfirmation for me that this
(48:45):
work really it is substantialand it is important.
And oftentimes my clients haveseen therapists for years and
they tell me that this work getsthem further, faster than the
work that they did with theirtherapist.
But what I also find is doingthat initial foundation work
(49:08):
with a therapist or a counseloror other type of practitioner or
doing other types of personaldevelopment work really does
give you that foundation so thatthe work that I guide you
through will skyrocket youquickly.
So, as I'm working with thistherapist, she has officially
(49:29):
diagnosed me with ADHD, whichwas something that I was pretty
sure that I had, and she's quitecertain that it is AUDHD.
So autism and ADHD.
But she wants to take more timebefore she can really be
certain about the autismdiagnosis and I'm all for that.
I think it's really importantto be 100% certain With these
(49:53):
diagnoses.
I already knew these thingsabout me, but hearing it
confirmed it opened up anothersort of portal in my mind of
like okay, so yeah, I wasn'tgaslighting myself, I wasn't
just making stuff up like thisis a thing, and it also looking
back on so many things about mychildhood and how I was in
(50:16):
school.
Not going to go into all ofthem now, but all of these
things make sense now that I seeit and I go, oh, yeah, okay,
and I have to say that the moreI figure out how my nervous
system operates and my brainoperates and I actually
accommodate for that instead oftrying to work against it and
(50:37):
try to force myself to do thingsthat I think that I should,
just because you know that's howneurotypicals operate the more
I find my own way of operating,the more energy that I have.
That just goes to show how muchenergy we put towards trying to
operate in ways that are notaligned with our design, and
(50:59):
this is the thing as well that Iwant to point out and maybe
I'll do another podcast episodeabout.
This is oftentimes so,especially with ADHD.
There's a strong associationwith female hormones and enters
menopause that all of a sudden,maybe ADHD type symptoms that
(51:24):
were dealable all of a suddenbecome like whoa, what's
happening?
And I recognize now that that'swhat's been going on over the
last few months and that's alsowhy I think there's this big
surge in women in perimenopausewho are now getting diagnosed.
(51:44):
There's a couple of reasons forthat right those of us who are
in perimenopausal age andmenopausal age.
When we were younger, theydidn't understand everything
that they understand now when itcomes to neurodivergence and
autism and ADHD, especially infemales, because all the studies
were done on males and boys andADHD and autism in girls look
(52:08):
completely different, andespecially in women.
And by the time we become adults, we've already figured out how
to mask and how to like, try tolike, force ourselves to operate
in ways that you know, so thatwe kind of fit in and blend in
and belong.
Because these are big thingsthat we struggled with when we
were younger feeling like analien, feeling like we don't fit
(52:29):
in.
And, you know, in order tosurvive, in order to find some
sense of safety, we figured outhow to like, do what we needed
to do to fit in in some way,even if it didn't feel right.
I've often said when I wasgrowing up, I felt like
everybody else had thisinstruction manual on how to be
a human and they forgot to giveit to me, and I know that other
(52:54):
people have felt that way aswell.
My therapist, she's spent many,many years specializing in ADHD
and autism, particularly inchildren, at the beginning of
her career, and she's beenfinding in more recent years
that more and more women inperimenopausal age are showing
(53:18):
up to her practice and she'sseeing this tendency of women in
their 40s and 50s and 30s whoare starting to see like, oh,
having this diagnosis andrecognizing that I am ADHD or
autistic or both explainseverything.
(53:42):
And once you better understandhow you're built, how your
nervous system runs, how yourbrain operates and how to
navigate your particularneurotype, it empowers you.
Then you're able to work withit instead of against it.
And this is the thing.
So many people are at war withthemselves.
(54:03):
Like I mentioned earlier, somany of us don't accept how we
are, how we're designed, who weare, and the more we don't
accept, the more that we're atwar with ourselves and the more
our nervous system is on thishigh alert and the more nervous
system dysregulation triggersall these other physiological
(54:23):
issues, which causes symptomsand illness and dis-ease.
And then the more symptoms youhave, the more you don't accept
it, the more pressure on yournervous system and then the more
dysregulation to your nervoussystem, to your immune system,
to your hormones, to all of yourphysiological systems system to
your hormones, to all of yourphysiological systems.
(54:45):
Can you see the vicious cycle?
So this is where I'm at rightnow.
I know this podcast episodeprobably doesn't make all.
It's not based on oneparticular topic, and I know I
just spoke in a bunch ofparentheses.
My husband and I he kind ofpointed out out we are very
similar in the way we speak andhow we relate and I love the
(55:10):
analogy that he gives is we tendto speak in parentheses, so
we'll be talking about something, and then there's going to be
like this little side tangent,this parentheses, and then we
talk in parentheses within theparentheses.
So we'll have this little sidetangent, this parentheses, and
then we talk in parentheseswithin the parentheses.
So we'll have this little sidetangent and then it'll take us
to this other side tangent andall these parentheses, and then
we end up coming back to what wewere talking about originally.
(55:33):
So you probably noticed that Itend to talk this way in my
podcasts, especially when Idon't have a script.
So I hope that sharing some ofwhat I've been going through
lately might be helpful for you,especially if you might be kind
of questioning, maybe if you'vehad a challenging moment or a
mini dark night, or if you'refinding that like there's lots
(55:54):
of stuff coming up for you nowand maybe old stuff is coming
back around for you to look atand you're questioning why is
this coming up right now youmight be on the edge of an up
level, and what's reallyimportant here is a
understanding and being with itand not trying to avoid it or
run away from it or suppress it,because the more that you try
(56:15):
to hide it or suppress it oravoid it, it's going to have
control over you in ways thatyou don't want.
And if you're willing to sitwith it and be with the
discomfort and knowing, as withall things, this too shall
change, then on the other sideof it you're going to find more
clarity, you're going to findmore peace, you're going to find
(56:36):
an up level.
And the other piece to this isthat the clarity might not come
all in one go.
You might find as you movethrough the discomfort as with
all things, this too shallchange you're going to find a
place where it's no longer asuncomfortable, but you still
might be not in full clarity yet.
(56:57):
And to be okay with that and tounderstand that there will be
this place where you're in thisvoid, in this liminal space,
where you're not quite in thepast but you're not quite in
this new place yet and you'rekind of in the in-between, and
the more you can surrender tothat and give yourself moments
of quiet so that your innerknowing and your intuition can
(57:19):
speak to you and let you knowwhat the next steps are, instead
of trying to push through,instead, what the next steps are
, instead of trying to pushthrough, instead of trying to
occupy yourself, instead oftrying to push, push, push, work
, work, work.
Because when you avoid being inthe quiet and the stillness,
you're not going to hear themessages and things won't be
(57:39):
clear.
And I know this isn't an easyplace to be if you relate to
this and you're in this place,but the more you're willing to
be with it, the more you'regoing to be able to get through
it.
And this is the thing.
Coming from someone who's gonethrough these dark nights over
and over in my life, I've had afew of them now and some really
(58:01):
big ones and going through thisinner work and what I've gone
through it doesn't make thesemoments of challenge easier.
It's not like, oh, you knowthat was easy, but you step into
them with more clarity and moreresilience and you can move
through it more easily.
(58:22):
Yeah, there's going to be thesemoments of discomfort and it's
going to feel icky, and you knowthat that's part of the process
and you can be with it, kind oflike.
There's an analogy of I thinkit's buffalo when there's a
storm coming.
The buffalo don't try to outrunthe storm and run away from the
(58:43):
storm.
They actually turn to it andface it and move through it,
walk through the storm towardsthe storm, because they know
that that is the clearest path,the quickest path to getting to
the good weather and the blueskies on the other side.
If they try to outrun the storm, they're going to be running
and running and the storm iseventually going to catch up to
(59:05):
them and they're still going tohave to deal with the storm.
But if you face it you're goingto get through it and sure it
means that you're going to haveto deal with the storm itself.
But the more you find thatnervous system coherence, the
more that you are able to createthat wider window of tolerance,
the more you are centeredwithin yourself, the more you
(59:27):
have this self-compassion andself-acceptance and the more you
trust yourself and your innerguidance system and you trust
the process and you trust theflow of life, then you're able
to get through this so much moreeasily.
So I hope there's somethinghere that helps you in some way,
gives you're able to getthrough this so much more easily
.
So I hope there's somethinghere that helps you in some way,
gives you some insight in someway.
(59:48):
If you'd like to reach out andsend me a DM or an email and let
me know how this episode landedfor you, I would love to hear
from you.
And if you're listening to thisin September when I am
releasing this episode, knowthat I have a very limited time
special going on.
(01:00:08):
If you would like to have asession with me, I'm offering
them at a very special rate andif you would like one of those,
I will include the link in theshow notes.
If the link is in the shownotes, then they are still
available, or you can send me aDM and we can chat about that.
And if you're listening to thislater on, after the special is
(01:00:32):
over, I'm happy to chat with youabout what other options are
available for you.
Thank you for being here, thankyou for listening and I
appreciate you listening andbeing part of my community.
I'm grateful for you and knowthat I will be publishing more
(01:00:53):
podcast episodes more regularlythan I had during the summer, so
I look forward to speaking toyou again soon.
Hello, I am so glad that you're back for another
episode.
Thank you for being here.
I really appreciate all of mylisteners tuning in.
I know that I've had a littlebit of a sabbatical this summer.
I haven't posted many episodesover the last few months and I'm
going to talk today about whythat is and some of the changes
(00:23):
that are going on for me, whythis is so, and none of this is
scripted.
I have not written out anynotes for today's podcast topic.
I am going to be as candid andhonest and vulnerable as I can
with you because we're all humanand we're all going through our
(00:46):
journey of learning and growingand evolving.
And I hit another edge of myown personal growth and
evolution and I wanted to sharewith you the experience of that
so that you can understand, ifyou're, you know, going through
these moments of maybe tough,challenging times that might
(01:08):
come up, and understand why theycome up and how to move through
them and what it means to comeout the other side.
If you have been following meat all on my social media, you
know that in during the summerJuly-ish, I sort of hit a little
bit of a mini Dark Night of theSoul, and I say mini because
(01:29):
I've gone through dark nights ofthe soul in my past that have
been much bigger than this, butit was still something that
shook me and something that Ineeded to work through, and
there's a few reasons why thisdark night of the soul sort of
appeared.
Looking back, I see that itdidn't come out of nowhere.
(01:50):
The straw that broke thecamel's back, I think, was my
mother's birthday on July 24th.
So my mother has passed andpast birthdays of hers have not
gotten to me.
But I think that justeverything else combined the day
(02:11):
of her birthday just broughtall the feels to the table and
everything came out.
Now, leading up to that, I cansee now I'm going through some
hormonal changes.
I can see now I'm going throughsome hormonal changes.
I'm at the age I'm inperimenopause and I can see that
(02:33):
I'm progressing through moreadvanced stages of perimenopause
.
I'm almost 46, and I can see alot of the symptoms coming up
that are indicating that I'mkind of at the last stages
before I'm going to be reachingfull menopause.
So my hormones are going allover the place and on top of
that, I've already shared withyou that I highly suspect autism
(02:53):
and ADHD All of the symptomsthat I knew that I had, that
aligned with ADHD and autism,all of a sudden became way more
pronounced as my hormones werechanging.
That, in combination with, youknow, just regular life stuff
and as well in my family herewhere I live in Quebec, canada,
(03:17):
there's a lot of projects on thego right now.
My husband has been really busythis summer.
My husband has been really busythis summer building a small
stable for his daughter's horsesso that they can live on our
property.
We have a 200 acre forestedproperty.
His daughter's horses werestabled elsewhere and she wanted
(03:40):
to bring them home and therewas a bit of a time limit in
terms of when she had to get thehorses here, which just
happened last week.
So this summer was busy.
There was a lot going on interms of my business, his work,
getting all the stuff sorted outwith building this horse stable
(04:05):
and there's so many thingsinvolved with what was involved
with making this a reality, likeinstalling water on the
property, digging for waterlines and so many different
things.
I'm not going to go into allthe details about that.
So my mom's birthday was thepinnacle of this buildup of
(04:27):
emotions, of this buildup of.
There was lots of like feelingsof unease happening and
feelings of not feeling incontrol and feelings of anxiety,
and my brain kind of felt likeit had been put in a blender.
Some of you might understandwhat that feels like.
And then I get to this point ofmy mother's birthday and all
(04:51):
the grief came up, all theemotions came up and it kind of
made me go.
Something needs realignment,and this is the thing.
This is a really importantpoint that I want to mention,
and I've mentioned it a fewtimes on my social media, so if
you've been following me there,you've probably already gotten
this message.
(05:12):
When you come up against achallenge and all the feels are
coming up, layers of old themesare coming back around and
you're like I thought I alreadydealt with this around and
you're like I thought I alreadydealt with this and the things
are coming back around againlike a spiral or a boomerang and
you're questioning, like what'sgoing on here?
(05:33):
I thought I dealt with this, Ithought I worked through this, I
thought I've moved past this,and that was a lot of what was
coming up for me around thattime.
Luckily, I've gone through thisenough times now to know that
when that happens.
It's not that I'm back at thebeginning again.
I get this, a lot clients willsay, but this is coming up and I
(05:54):
thought I've already dealt withthis.
Does this mean like I'm back atthe beginning?
Am I starting over?
Is this like have I gonebackwards?
And no, you haven't.
What this actually means is thathealing happens in a spiral and
when you're working throughthese big themes in your life,
it's not like a linear thingwhere now you're just moved past
(06:15):
it and it'll never come back.
It comes around again.
But when it comes around again,you're looking at it from a
different perspective.
And what happens is when it'scoming around again and you're
like at it from a differentperspective.
And what happens is when it'scoming around again and you're
like holy crap, I thought Idealt with this already.
That is a huge sign that onceyou move through that final
(06:36):
layer of the spiral, you'reabout to step into an up level.
There's something bigger that'sgoing to be happening on the
other side of that.
There's something bigger that'sgoing to be happening on the
other side of that.
It's like walking through thestorm so that you can get out to
the other side where the blueskies are.
I've gone through this processenough times to know that, even
though I was like stuck in themuck of it, I knew why it was
(06:59):
happening, so I wasn't freakingout.
I wasn't like, oh my godhappening.
So I wasn't freaking out.
I wasn't like, oh my god, inthe past I would have been in
the past, I've done that a lotand I knew that I just needed to
be with it and face it and sitwith it and be okay with the
fact that this difficult momentis moving through me, and I know
(07:20):
that means that, as I let itmove through, on the other side
is something more, and I'mworking through that something
more now.
And the other thing to pointout about that is it's not like
all of a sudden is the momentyou step out of the muck,
everything is going to be like Iknow exactly what's happening
now.
I wish it was that way, butit's not now.
(07:47):
I wish it was that way, butit's not.
So there's a few realizationsthat I've come to working
through these moments, and a lotof them had to do with my
business, what I'm doing and whoI'm working with, and I came up
with some huge realizations, asyou've heard me talking on this
podcast.
I've talked to you about mycareer pivot story, where I went
(08:08):
from being a clinicalnaturopathic doctor and then I
was working with people withautoimmunity and endometriosis,
especially the ones who've triedabsolutely everything all the
therapeutic diets, all thetreatments, all the medications
and, yeah, it helped to a degree, but they've plateaued or it's
only gotten them so far and theyknew that there was something
more.
And I would guide these peoplethrough this inner healing,
(08:47):
inner awakening, self-connectionjourney so that they would come
to this place where they wereno longer run by limiting
beliefs and social conditioningand they were connected to their
true selves and they were ableto live their authentic lives
and who they are actually hereto be, without worrying about
what other people are saying orthinking about them.
Essentially, they become theirown best friend.
And when, when you do that, youcome to this place where you're
so connected from withinyourself, your nervous system is
(09:08):
centered and grounded andyou're operating from this place
where you are operating in aplace that's aligned with your
soul, and when people would comeout the other side of this,
then A their symptoms wouldimprove, even if they've tried
everything else right.
I've had clients who've been onmax dose medications and their
(09:31):
symptoms were getting worse andworse and worse.
They had so many foodsensitivities.
They're on an extremely strictdiet and once they went through
this process, I've had clientswho their medical doctors then
put them down to the very.
I've had clients who theirmedical doctors then put them
down to the very minimummaintenance dose and their food
sensitivities improved and theywere able to eat more variety of
(09:53):
foods.
And their medical doctor waslike how did you do this?
Because they knew that you knowtheir patients have been
struggling for years and theirsymptoms were getting worse.
And they see over and overagain these medical doctors like
, if you're on this path of likeworsening symptoms and then
medication only takes you to adegree and now you're maxing out
(10:14):
on the medications and thingsare getting worse.
It's not going to get better,but these clients that would
come to see me they would getbetter.
Because this inner work is themissing puzzle piece that so
many people don't talk about,and especially not in the
medical system.
And I didn't learn about thiswhen I went to naturopathic
(10:36):
college.
What I guide people through nowtakes people way further than I
was ever able to guide themwhen I was working as a clinical
naturopathic doctor and so likethat's huge.
That's why I'm so passionateabout what I do now.
As you know from my story, ittook me guiding myself through
this first.
This is how I discovered thiswas because I was in a place
(10:59):
where I was bed bound for amonth and I had no answers.
I had tried everything as anaturopathic doctor that I knew
to try, and I was seeing all thedoctors and no one had answers,
including myself, and I wasstuck in bed staring at the
ceiling, going is this what therest of my life is going to be
like?
This is I can't.
I can't live like this, as Iwas watching my future.
(11:21):
You know, slip through myfingers like sand, and I knew
that I was watching my future.
You know, slip through myfingers like sand and I knew
that I was meant for more.
I knew that I was here for areason, and staring at the
ceiling lying in bed was notwhat I was here for.
I knew that, and it was thisjourney that I took myself
through, and you know you'veheard me talk a lot about it in
(11:44):
some of my past episodes andI'll continue to talk more about
some of the different aspectsof this particular journey that
I've guided myself through inthe methodology that I've
created, and it was the thingthat helped me when nothing else
could and I mean I've alreadyshared.
You know, before I really fullydeveloped this methodology and
(12:08):
went through the full journey, Ihad first discovered carnivore,
a meat only diet, which is likethe strictest therapeutic diet
that you can go on, and Iabsolutely don't suggest that
it's for everybody, but it wasthe thing that got me back on my
feet when everything else Itried wasn't working.
But the thing is is that it gotme back on my feet.
(12:31):
It gave me some energy back sothat I could start diving into
the research and I could startexploring these other avenues.
But carnivore on its own onlygot me to a certain place.
I plateaued after a while, like, yes, it was an important piece
of the journey, but it wasn'tthe whole journey.
(12:52):
And it was this deeper innerwork, this journey that I
figured out, that got me therest of the way to where I am
now, got me the rest of the wayto where I am now.
And you know, since I've gonethrough this journey, I've been
able to reintroduce foods again,which I wasn't able to before,
and this is why I became sopassionate about guiding people
(13:15):
through this journey, instead ofjust focusing on the
naturopathic things that I hadbeen doing before, like
nutrition and dietary intake andstress management and lifestyle
choices.
And while all of those thingsare absolutely important and
necessary, they will take you toa point, but they will only
take you so far if you don'taddress this other puzzle piece
(13:37):
that I now look at and I now doand I now guide my own clients
through.
And then, you know, as I wasfiguring this out and as I was
watching the people I wasguiding completely transform
their lives and becomecompletely different by the end
of their journeys with me, theywere so empowered and energized
(13:59):
and their health and theirsymptoms improved as a byproduct
of this inner work that we weredoing.
But there was so much more thanjust that their whole lives,
they felt more satisfied intheir relationships with the
work that they were doing.
But what I was finding was alot of the people that would
come out the other side of thisjourney I would guide them
(14:22):
through and they would say youknow, I realize now that the
work that I'm doing is no longeraligned with who.
I really am Right Because whenthey first started on their work
journey, their career journey,their entrepreneur journey,
their whatever.
If they have a job, they have abusiness, they have a career,
whatever it is, the choices thatthey made going into their job,
(14:44):
business or career was based onthe.
The choices that they madegoing into their job, business
or career was based on the oldsurvival patterns that they were
operating from before theystarted this work.
So people pleasing andperfectionism and overextending
themselves in order to makeothers happy, prioritizing other
people's needs instead of theirown, because they felt that
(15:04):
they needed to make other peoplehappy in order to get their own
sense of worth and value, inorder to make sure that people
accept them and like them, toavoid feeling rejected, so that
they can belong, so that theycan feel like they fit in and
I've been absolutely guilty ofthat myself in my past.
These are really commontendencies, especially for those
(15:27):
of us who have been led tobelieve that there's something
wrong with us, that we're toosensitive, that we're too much,
that we're not enough and thatthere's something about us that
needs to be fixed.
And if we've grown up in anenvironment with people who gave
us conditional love instead ofunconditional love, who had
their own emotionaldysregulation, and it taught us
(15:50):
that we needed to operate fromthese survival states in order
to get our developmental needsmet, in order to feel like we
are safe, that we belong, thatwe're loved, in order to avoid
being rejected, because,especially in those young years,
we need to feel like thosedevelopmental needs are met and
we need to feel safe.
(16:11):
And so, coming back from thattangent, these people, who I
would guide through thisself-empowerment, inner
liberation method, and they feelfree to be themselves and
they're feeling they've releasedthemselves from the shackles of
social conditionings andlimiting beliefs and now they
(16:33):
know how to establish healthyboundaries.
And now they know who they areand what they actually want,
instead of following what otherpeople told them that they
should want or following otherpeople's expectations.
Now they're saying, wow, youknow, the choices that I made
for my job, my career, mybusiness no longer align with
who I actually am and what Iactually want.
(16:55):
Or now they're saying, wow, youknow the way I'm operating my
business.
I was overworking and I waspeople pleasing and I was
overextending myself and Ididn't have boundaries.
And all of that needs to change.
I need to enforce all of thesethings Now.
I need to make these shifts inhow I'm operating my business
and who I'm operating mybusiness with, or who I'm
(17:17):
working with, or how I'm working, especially as a highly
sensitive person, aneurodivergent person, somebody
with a chronic illness.
We need to kind of makeaccommodations for ourselves in
order to feel supported, inorder to make sure that our
nervous system doesn't feeloverwhelmed, and, like I've
(17:38):
talked about in previous podcastepisodes, is when you
positively support yourself,make the accommodations as well
as positively support yourselffrom the inside with self
compassion, which is such animportant point that you're
going to hear me talking aboutmore then.
You know, the research showsthat those of us who do have
(17:59):
sensory processing sensitivityand highly sensitive people,
neurodivergent we willexperience more vantage
sensitivity versus when we don'tsupport ourselves.
We're going to have moreoverwhelm, more emotional
reactivity, more inflammation,more flare-ups, more symptoms
(18:20):
coming out, and so this isn'tjust a nice to have.
This is a necessary thing.
This is the thing is those ofus who are within this subset of
the population.
We're here for a reason, and abig part of that reason is we're
here to break cycles.
We're here to lead a new wayforward, because a lot of these
(18:43):
chains and cycles, especially incorporate culture, especially
in society with, you know, inthe job world, is that we need
to operate in a certain wayright.
Money trumps all and the thingis is that that doesn't work for
a lot of us, especially in thissubset of the population
(19:06):
neurodivergence, chronic illness, highly sensitive we need to
operate in a different way incorporate culture, in the job
world, in society, as anentrepreneur, if you're
operating in a way that justdoesn't align with what you
(19:28):
actually want to be doing andhow you actually want to be
doing it.
Part of the work that I shiftedinto doing and making that pivot
, was to work with entrepreneurs.
I've also worked with people incorporate and people leaving
corporate to start their ownbusiness.
I found that working withentrepreneurs just seemed to
(19:48):
make sense because I'm anentrepreneur and helping them to
align their business so thatthey're actually doing what
feels most aligned for them,that they are following their
purpose, that they are feelingfulfilled and I mean, even if
they don't make any changes,following their purpose, that
they are feeling fulfilled, andI mean even if they don't make
(20:08):
any changes to their business.
A lot of people.
You know they find success inbusiness, but then they get to
this point where they realizemoney isn't enough anymore.
There's something deeper that Ineed to fulfill within myself
that money can't buy myself.
That money can't buy.
And I know, at the beginningstages of starting up a business
, your first intention and thefirst thing that you're going to
(20:28):
be looking at is I need to earna living.
We need an income in order topay for our needs.
But money in itself isn'tenough, and I see this over and
over again with the clients thatI work with, especially the
ones who have been have made itand they're doing really great
(20:48):
and they're making a substantialincome and they've got.
Some of my clients are makingmore money than they will ever
need in this entire lifetime,and now they realize there's to
be more.
I've lost connection with myself.
I don't know who I am anymore.
I've been focused so much onother people's expectations and
(21:12):
focused so much on my businessthat I've forgotten who I am and
what I want, and so I had madea pivot to my business.
Instead of working with peoplewith autoimmunity and
endometriosis, I was findingbecause my health had improved
and I had essentially put muchof my chronic illness into
(21:35):
remission.
I wasn't really relating to thechronic illness autoimmune
endometriosis sphere like I hadonce did, and so that gap was
growing, like I talked about inone of my previous podcast
episodes is, you know, as youadvance and heal and grow and
(21:55):
you're still working with maybethe same subset of the
population that you had been atthe beginning of your growth and
evolution, then you might notbe able to relate to them as
much and you have to kind ofreach back to relate to them and
that's not helpful for you andthat's not as helpful for them,
right?
Because they can start to feellike you don't really understand
(22:19):
.
And I've been finding to feellike you don't really understand
.
And I've been finding and I seethis over and over in what I'm
studying and my own personalexperience is that if you, as
you grow and evolve, is to growand evolve who you're working
with, that means that there'sgoing to be maybe a bit more of
an advanced client that you'regoing to be working with, or
someone who's farther along ontheir path, or maybe just a
(22:41):
different place in their path.
And the world needs all of us,right, the world needs people
who are working with beginners.
The world needs people that areworking with intermediates, the
world needs people that areworking with more advanced and
the world needs people who canrelate to different people on
different paths and differentpoints on the path.
People on different paths anddifferent points on the path.
(23:05):
So I knew I needed to shift awayfrom working with autoimmunity
and endometriosis specificallyand only, and so I was making
these shifts first towardsworking with highly sensitive
people and then making the shifttowards working with
entrepreneurs.
I admit that there was maybe Ihesitate to call it a mistake
because I learned a lot fromthis choice but as I was making
(23:30):
these shifts and pivots, I wasfeeling pressure.
I was feeling pressure fromwithin myself.
I knew I needed to make a shiftand there was a part of me that
needed that answer now.
And I was also getting kind ofpressure from the outside world,
from coaches and then fromobserving what's going on in the
(23:52):
coaching industry, in themarketing industry, and I was
feeling this pressure to hurryup and make a decision about who
I'm working with and what myniche is, so that I can claim it
.
And I admit that I was a littlehasty in trying to force myself
(24:13):
to figure out that nook that Ineeded to fit in.
And the reason why I say this isbecause, as I've been talking
to entrepreneurs over the pastyear year and a half and doing
my marketing to entrepreneurs, Ikeep finding people showing up
in my DMs and emailing me andgoing Michelle, I really, really
(24:37):
resonate with what you'resaying and I feel like you could
really help me, but I'm not anentrepreneur so I don't.
I don't know like, can you helpme?
Can I work with you?
And this kept happening overand over and over again.
And the other thing is, withthe entrepreneurs that I, that I
am working with and that I haveworked with, I'm not helping
(25:01):
them directly with the businessstrategy aspect of things.
Like they've got that figuredout and they come to me.
You know, like I'm not helpingthem with their copy and their
marketing and their businessstrategy.
What I'm helping them with isthis inner paradigm shift for
themselves, so that they canconnect with themselves and they
(25:23):
can connect with their truthand they can trust themselves
and they can trust their ownanswers and they can figure out
what their true soul purposereally is and step into that and
have the confidence to showthemselves and show their true
selves, their authentic side,that they had been hiding from
(25:45):
others out of worry about howother people would take them,
out of worry that peoplewouldn't understand, out of
worry that people might thinkthat that's too woo or too weird
.
Right, because they've been inthese places in their lives
where they've been judged overand over and over again for
being too sensitive, being toowoo, being too weird, being too
(26:08):
much.
So there's this fear if theystep up and actually be who
they're meant to be, then peopleare going to reject them,
they're going to lose business,they're going to have the trolls
that are scoffing at them onthe internet and they're going
to get hate mail.
And all of these things keptthem from actually connecting
(26:28):
with what they actually want andwho they really are.
And there was also, I tend tofind, this level of guilt and
shame around the fact that theyare highly sensitive.
They do have a chronic illness,they are neurodivergent and
because of that they don't workthe same way as other people.
(26:49):
They don't think the same wayas other people, and the things
that other people would say areyour strengths.
They struggle with, but theyhave strengths in other areas
that other people don't, butthey have strengths in other
areas that other people don't.
They have other types of giftsthat other people don't seem to
understand, because we make upthe minority, and so then the
(27:11):
rest of the population, whodon't make up this minority,
don't understand thesedifferences.
And so so many of my clientswould say you know, all of these
things that I thought my wholelife were deficits.
You helped me recognize thatthese are my strengths, these
are my gifts and these are thethings for me to be leveraging
(27:34):
and leading with in my work.
And when they do that, theyjust find that everything
happens and unfolds so much moreeasily.
They enjoy what they're doingso much more when they're
operating from their strengths,even if other people don't
understand, and they're nottrying to force themselves to
(27:55):
operate in ways that just don'twork for them right, trying to
force the square peg into around hole type thing.
And so, as I was going throughthis mini dark night and I was
like something's not right here,something doesn't feel aligned,
I just had this intuitiveknowing that something needs to
(28:15):
be shifted here.
And as I was sitting with thisand reflecting on this and
meditating on this, it becameclear, especially with all the
messages that I was getting fromall these people saying but I'm
not an entrepreneur, but I wantto work with you is the fact
that I'm not here just forentrepreneurs.
You know, I was very hasty inpicking a lane because I was
(28:38):
told that's what I should.
So I'm guilty of falling intothat trap too and, like I always
tell my clients when you shouldon yourself, it just makes a
big mess.
And that's exactly what I didto understand what does and
(29:05):
doesn't work and get that wholeperspective of working in the
entrepreneurial world andworking with entrepreneurs which
doesn't mean I'm not workingwith entrepreneurs, but I'm
opening up to looking at thingsfrom a different perspective.
And what I see as a commonalityin all the people that I work
with, whether they'reentrepreneurs, in all the people
that I work with, whetherthey're entrepreneurs, whether
they have some other type of jobor career, whether they don't
(29:26):
have a job or career at all interms in a conventional way and
some of my clients are retiredand some of my clients are what
they would term themselvesdomestic engineers and they stay
at home and they do theimportant work of caring for
their family All of these peopleresonate with what I was
(29:54):
guiding them through to be theirauthentic self and live from
their full potential so thatthey could lead change, so that
they could create that impactthat they know that they want to
be creating in this world forthe greater good, through
breaking cycles and breaking thechains especially of the things
like that intergenerationaltrauma, and getting out of
(30:14):
survival mode so that they canthrive, so that they can lead
first and be the change thatthey want to see in the world
and lead by example and showingothers what's possible, giving
other people permission to bethemselves, because they are
leading by being themselvesfirst.
They're trailblazing this newway of being, from this
(30:36):
authentically aligned place,knowing that the truth is it's
not about do whatever you needto do to make the money, even if
it means that you have to hideyourself and be somebody else
and mask yourself and play thegame.
They know that they can'toperate like that, and I know I
can't operate like that.
(30:56):
And stepping into your ownauthenticity and being that
example is being a leader, andevery single one of my clients
are leaders in this way,starting with being a
self-leader.
This is so important becausethis is how the world is going
to change.
(31:17):
It always starts with you, andwhen you are living from this
authentically aligned place,where you are connected to your
truth and you're following yourintuition and you're doing what
lights you up and you're makingthat contribution in the way
that aligns best with yourstrengths, your highest zone of
genius, your unique gift andyour unique edge, then you're
(31:39):
making that bigger impact.
And when you are operating fromthis place, you're operating
from a place of thriving, andwhen you're thriving, your
nervous system is operating fromthis place of centeredness, of
coherence.
And so when you have this widerwindow of tolerance and you
(32:00):
have a greater level of nervoussystem coherence, then this not
only benefits you, right, whenyour nervous system is in this
place, you're going to benefitbecause you're going to feel
more centered, you're going tofeel more resilient, you're
going to be able to navigatechallenges and come back to
center.
(32:21):
No matter what storms of lifecome through, no matter what
challenges you face, you'regoing to be able to move through
them and they won't derail youand you'll be able to come back
to your own strength andresilience center so much more
quickly.
And you're going to beoperating from this place where
you know that you're thrivingwith energy and clarity and joy
(32:44):
and satisfaction when yournervous system is in this place,
and it also impacts andimproves your health.
And this is why this work helpedso much with the autoimmune and
endometriosis patients that Iwas working with, because
studies find that these areconditions of immune dysfunction
(33:04):
.
Right, both autoimmune andendometriosis are conditions of
immune dysfunction, as well asfibromyalgia and chronic fatigue
syndrome and so and a lot ofother conditions.
And what studies show is thatthe biggest trigger for immune
dysfunction is nervous systemdysregulation.
If your nervous system isdysregulated, if you have low
(33:28):
coherence, if you have a smallwindow of tolerance, then that
is going to set you up forallostatic overload and that is
going to trigger immune systemdysregulation and that is what
can trigger so many of thesechronic illness conditions that
you know.
You get to this point where,yeah, you can support the immune
(33:49):
system, you can support thehormones, you can try to change
the diet and the lifestyle tosupport all of those things, but
if you don't address thenervous system and what's
impacting the nervous system,you're never going to get these
conditions under control.
And the thing, the biggest thing, that impacts the nervous
system is your inner emotionalenvironment, and I know I've
(34:12):
said this before and it bearsrepeating.
Right, your inner emotionalenvironment is your relationship
with yourself, how you speak toyourself, how you treat
yourself, the level of respectthat you have for yourself, the
level of kindness and compassionthat you have for yourself, how
(34:32):
much you accept you.
And especially for the peoplethat I've worked with with
autoimmunity the highlysensitive people, the
neurodivergent people there is acommon thread that we feel like
something is wrong with us.
We've been conditioned tobelieve, right, that our
sensitivity, our neurodivergence, you know our differences mean
(34:57):
that there's something wrongwith us.
We're too sensitive, we're toomuch.
And those of us withautoimmunity, it's kind of
twofold.
Right, you have a chronicillness that causes you to
believe that there's somethingwrong with you.
But on the other side of thetoken, energetically, what I
found over and over again when Iwas a naturopathic doctor is
this energetic association ofyou.
(35:19):
Think about it.
Autoimmunity is your immunesystem is not accepting some
aspect of yourself, whether thatbe a system in your body or an
organ in your body.
Your immune system is rejectingit.
And, energetically, I see thisover and over and over again is
(35:40):
that what I find when we take alook at the inner emotional
environment is.
There is some aspect of thatautoimmune patient who doesn't
accept something aboutthemselves, and so they lack
self-compassion.
And those of us who areneurodivergent and highly
sensitive when we feel likethere's something wrong with us
(36:00):
and we need to change and weneed to hide ourselves and mask
ourselves, we lackself-compassion.
And this is the thing I havebeen diving into rabbit holes
lately about the research onself-compassion, and
self-compassion is the antidoteto so many things.
It's the antidote to feelingsof guilt and shame, which are
(36:21):
highly associated with chronicconditions like autoimmunity.
Self-compassion is the antidotefor rejection, sensitivity,
which is such a common thingthat we see especially with ADHD
.
And self-compassion issomething that they've even
studied with entrepreneursAnd've found that while business
strategy is an important aspectto entrepreneurial success, so
(36:46):
is self-compassion, so that youcan navigate the uncertainty of
the entrepreneurial world andcome out the other side more
successful and with less burnout.
And there's many studies thatlook at self-compassion and
healthcare practitioners, forexample, and how self-compassion
(37:09):
can minimize and preventburnout, compassion, fatigue, if
you can't tell.
I am really passionate aboutthis right now because I think
that this, I believe that thisis an important root of the root
, of the root of the root, andyou know, when I trained as a
naturopathic doctor, one of theoaths that we swear by is treat
(37:32):
the root cause always, and I'vealways done so.
But the root cause that Ithought was the root cause isn't
the root of the root, and forso much of who I'm guiding,
developing self-compassion issuch an important puzzle piece
(37:53):
here.
So you're going to hear mespeaking a lot more about
self-compassion and the scienceof it and my own process of how
I guide you to more of it,because it is a journey.
It's not something that you canjust go oh, I just need to be
compassionate with myself andlike, oh, okay, it's.
It's not an intellectual processthat you can intellectualize
(38:16):
with your mind.
It needs to come from theinside out.
It needs to come from theinside out.
It needs to come from somaticexperience, a heart-led
experience from your body,because your nervous system
speaks from your body to yourmind more than your mind to your
body.
For all of these reasons, thisis why I'm passionate about it.
(38:39):
All of this, to say in aroundabout way, I'm making some
shifts to the language of whoI'm speaking to and how, because
I don't just speak toentrepreneurs, but there's
another layer about this, interms of what I'm doing and the
shifts that you're going to beseeing me make, and I hesitate
(39:01):
to tell you all the detailsbecause it hasn't fully landed.
And this is the other thing.
When you're going through achange, when you know something
needs to shift, there's a fewdifferent stages, and I've
mentioned one of these stages,which is okay.
So stuff is coming back aroundthat I thought I dealt with
before and it's coming backaround again.
(39:23):
And I know now that that is anindication that I'm I dealt with
before and it's coming backaround again.
And I know now that that is anindication that I'm about to go
through an up level.
But there is this liminal space,the void before you.
Fully, everything fully becomesfully clear.
And I'm in this place right nowand I don't want to repeat the
(39:46):
same thing that I've done in thepast, which is I need to rush
and hastily make a decisionabout my direction.
So I don't want to make thatdecision again.
I don't want to repeat thatagain.
But do know that I have hadthis dream in the back of my
mind for quite a number of yearsnow, probably the last four
years Since I've guided myselfthrough this process that I tell
(40:10):
you about here.
I know how much it changes livesand I know how important this
is and I know this is notsomething that I learned when I
studied to be a naturopathicdoctor, and I know that my
colleagues do amazing work asnaturopathic doctors and
clinicians and practitioners.
(40:30):
And I also know that many ofthem know that there's something
more, especially when it comesto their autoimmune chronic
illness patients.
They know that they can supportthem to a degree, but they're
very difficult to treat and thispuzzle piece that I talk about
(40:53):
here is one of the reasons whythey might not get all the
results that they would want tosee that their patient receives
from treatment of these chronicillnesses.
And I also know that there aremany of my colleagues who know
this.
They already know that there'sthese underlying things going on
(41:17):
in the emotional world of theirpatient, right.
They can see that they'restressors and they can see that
they don't have a greatrelationship with themselves.
They can see that there's allkinds of inner pressure that
they're putting on themselves.
They can see, maybe, thatthere's these patterns of people
pleasing and perfectionism andcodependence and prioritizing
(41:39):
others before themselves, andthey can see that these are the
things that are keeping themfrom actually getting more of
the results than they couldpossibly be getting from all the
other treatments that they'redoing.
And the thing is is that welearn a little bit about how to
navigate and how to support that, but it goes so much deeper
than what we learned innaturopathic college and I've
(42:02):
gone through my own journey offiguring this out for myself so
I could get myself back on myfeet after being bed bound, to
come up with this methodologyand it's like a combination of
all different types of areas ofstudy that I've particularly
been certified in and put themall together and mustered up the
(42:25):
courage to walk through theflames, because it's not an easy
process to look at yourself.
It's not an easy process to dothis inner healing work because
it's not always comfortable,right, and it's human nature to
want to stick with the familiar.
You know, doing this work, togo on this journey, is not a
(42:46):
familiar process.
All of this to say that I havethis desire to teach what I have
figured out to my fellowpractitioners because, like I
said, we don't learn this innaturopathic college.
We learn it to an extent, butthere's more, and I've figured
(43:08):
out this more and I've gonethrough this whole journey for
myself, and also all theadditional certifications and
learnings and studying that I'vedone and all the rabbit holes
of research that I've dived into get to this point where
there's this calling within meto show other practitioners what
(43:31):
I figured out so that they canpass the torch, so that they can
use this puzzle piece to givetheir patients even better
results as well.
For the practitioners whoresonate with this and want to
learn this process, when you gothrough this yourself and you
get to this place of greatercoherence and you get to this
(43:52):
place where you're operatingfrom this inner knowing, from
this place where you haveawakened and individuated, not
only does this guide yourpatients to even better results,
but you're more satisfied,you're more successful, and this
is how you can operate in yourfull potential in your work,
(44:15):
without burning out, withoutgetting to the place of
compassion fatigue, because Iknow so many of us have been in
this place of burnout and I'vebeen there too.
It's not a fun place to be, andone of the solutions is when
you do get to this place whereyou're connected with yourself
and your nervous system andyou're operating from your truth
(44:38):
and you are working in the waythat's most aligned for you and
you've gone through this process.
You can lead your patientsthrough this process, so I'm
figuring out how I'm going toincorporate this into my work.
I've been wanting to do this forfour years now and there have
been a couple of times whereI've moved forward with starting
(45:00):
to create something and, forone reason or another, it wasn't
the appropriate time.
There's been a couple of timeswhere I've paired with a fellow
naturopathic doctor and you knowlife and they had to abandon
the project because of their ownpersonal life, stuff that was
(45:22):
going on.
And I see, now that 2024 hasbeen, this moment of this has
been sitting in the back of mymind, and even though I know I
(45:47):
also really love working withentrepreneurs and leaders and
you know people in the generalpublic, whether you know you're,
you have a career or a job oryou don't when you know that you
want to go through this processof inner liberation, I love
guiding you through it.
But I know, if I want to makethat bigger impact, if I can
teach fellow practitioners whatI've figured out, because I've
figured out something importantand I don't see this anywhere
(46:10):
else in terms of what I figuredout, and I want to pass this on
to the practitioners so thatthey can pass it on to their
patients, and that's how I cancreate a greater impact to the
greater good and impact morepeople than just the one-on-one
clients that are in my worldCan't tell.
I'm passionate about this, andso I'm sitting with all of this
(46:32):
right now.
I know I'm in a liminal spaceand I'm giving myself permission
to stop and allow myself tointegrate all of this instead of
trying to hastily push forwardin a direction and this is
really important for you ifyou're going through something
like this is to give yourselfthat permission.
(46:53):
And this is the thing is yourintuition speaks to you in those
moments of stillness, and soit's really important to give
yourself moments of stillness sothat you can hear the messages
of your inner knowing.
And right now, that's what I'mdoing, and I'm listening to the
messages of my inner knowing,and I know there's more to come.
(47:16):
And in the midst of all of thisas well, as I was moving through
this mini dark night and I wasmoving through all these
hormonal changes and all ofthese symptoms of ADHD and
autism were becoming moreprevalent.
As I'm moving through thesehormonal changes, I decided okay
, I want to go talk to aprofessional about this.
So I decided to find atherapist who was able and who
(47:40):
is able to do an assessment.
It took a little while to findsomebody who is able to do an
assessment.
I found many therapists who Icould see to support me but they
weren't able to do anassessment and I found that that
was a piece of the puzzlethat's going to be really
important for me to betterunderstand myself so I can help
(48:02):
the people I'm working withbetter understand themselves.
And so I've been working with atherapist now for about a month
or so.
A couple of really interestingpoints.
My therapist is floored by myprogress in such a short period
of time.
She told me that it's veryobvious how much work I've
(48:25):
already done on myself.
She said she's never had apatient move so quickly and is
in such an advanced place as Iam in terms of the realizations
and how fast I'm able to movethrough these concepts and move
through the processing.
That was a wonderfulconfirmation for me that this
(48:45):
work really it is substantialand it is important.
And oftentimes my clients haveseen therapists for years and
they tell me that this work getsthem further, faster than the
work that they did with theirtherapist.
But what I also find is doingthat initial foundation work
(49:08):
with a therapist or a counseloror other type of practitioner or
doing other types of personaldevelopment work really does
give you that foundation so thatthe work that I guide you
through will skyrocket youquickly.
So, as I'm working with thistherapist, she has officially
(49:29):
diagnosed me with ADHD, whichwas something that I was pretty
sure that I had, and she's quitecertain that it is AUDHD.
So autism and ADHD.
But she wants to take more timebefore she can really be
certain about the autismdiagnosis and I'm all for that.
I think it's really importantto be 100% certain With these
(49:53):
diagnoses.
I already knew these thingsabout me, but hearing it
confirmed it opened up anothersort of portal in my mind of
like okay, so yeah, I wasn'tgaslighting myself, I wasn't
just making stuff up like thisis a thing, and it also looking
back on so many things about mychildhood and how I was in
(50:16):
school.
Not going to go into all ofthem now, but all of these
things make sense now that I seeit and I go, oh, yeah, okay,
and I have to say that the moreI figure out how my nervous
system operates and my brainoperates and I actually
accommodate for that instead oftrying to work against it and
(50:37):
try to force myself to do thingsthat I think that I should,
just because you know that's howneurotypicals operate the more
I find my own way of operating,the more energy that I have.
That just goes to show how muchenergy we put towards trying to
operate in ways that are notaligned with our design, and
(50:59):
this is the thing as well that Iwant to point out and maybe
I'll do another podcast episodeabout.
This is oftentimes so,especially with ADHD.
There's a strong associationwith female hormones and enters
menopause that all of a sudden,maybe ADHD type symptoms that
(51:24):
were dealable all of a suddenbecome like whoa, what's
happening?
And I recognize now that that'swhat's been going on over the
last few months and that's alsowhy I think there's this big
surge in women in perimenopausewho are now getting diagnosed.
(51:44):
There's a couple of reasons forthat right those of us who are
in perimenopausal age andmenopausal age.
When we were younger, theydidn't understand everything
that they understand now when itcomes to neurodivergence and
autism and ADHD, especially infemales, because all the studies
were done on males and boys andADHD and autism in girls look
(52:08):
completely different, andespecially in women.
And by the time we become adults, we've already figured out how
to mask and how to like, try tolike, force ourselves to operate
in ways that you know, so thatwe kind of fit in and blend in
and belong.
Because these are big thingsthat we struggled with when we
were younger feeling like analien, feeling like we don't fit
(52:29):
in.
And, you know, in order tosurvive, in order to find some
sense of safety, we figured outhow to like, do what we needed
to do to fit in in some way,even if it didn't feel right.
I've often said when I wasgrowing up, I felt like
everybody else had thisinstruction manual on how to be
a human and they forgot to giveit to me, and I know that other
(52:54):
people have felt that way aswell.
My therapist, she's spent many,many years specializing in ADHD
and autism, particularly inchildren, at the beginning of
her career, and she's beenfinding in more recent years
that more and more women inperimenopausal age are showing
(53:18):
up to her practice and she'sseeing this tendency of women in
their 40s and 50s and 30s whoare starting to see like, oh,
having this diagnosis andrecognizing that I am ADHD or
autistic or both explainseverything.
(53:42):
And once you better understandhow you're built, how your
nervous system runs, how yourbrain operates and how to
navigate your particularneurotype, it empowers you.
Then you're able to work withit instead of against it.
And this is the thing.
So many people are at war withthemselves.
(54:03):
Like I mentioned earlier, somany of us don't accept how we
are, how we're designed, who weare, and the more we don't
accept, the more that we're atwar with ourselves and the more
our nervous system is on thishigh alert and the more nervous
system dysregulation triggersall these other physiological
(54:23):
issues, which causes symptomsand illness and dis-ease.
And then the more symptoms youhave, the more you don't accept
it, the more pressure on yournervous system and then the more
dysregulation to your nervoussystem, to your immune system,
to your hormones, to all of yourphysiological systems system to
your hormones, to all of yourphysiological systems.
(54:45):
Can you see the vicious cycle?
So this is where I'm at rightnow.
I know this podcast episodeprobably doesn't make all.
It's not based on oneparticular topic, and I know I
just spoke in a bunch ofparentheses.
My husband and I he kind ofpointed out out we are very
similar in the way we speak andhow we relate and I love the
(55:10):
analogy that he gives is we tendto speak in parentheses, so
we'll be talking about something, and then there's going to be
like this little side tangent,this parentheses, and then we
talk in parentheses within theparentheses.
So we'll have this little sidetangent, this parentheses, and
then we talk in parentheseswithin the parentheses.
So we'll have this little sidetangent and then it'll take us
to this other side tangent andall these parentheses, and then
we end up coming back to what wewere talking about originally.
(55:33):
So you probably noticed that Itend to talk this way in my
podcasts, especially when Idon't have a script.
So I hope that sharing some ofwhat I've been going through
lately might be helpful for you,especially if you might be kind
of questioning, maybe if you'vehad a challenging moment or a
mini dark night, or if you'refinding that like there's lots
(55:54):
of stuff coming up for you nowand maybe old stuff is coming
back around for you to look atand you're questioning why is
this coming up right now youmight be on the edge of an up
level, and what's reallyimportant here is a
understanding and being with itand not trying to avoid it or
run away from it or suppress it,because the more that you try
(56:15):
to hide it or suppress it oravoid it, it's going to have
control over you in ways thatyou don't want.
And if you're willing to sitwith it and be with the
discomfort and knowing, as withall things, this too shall
change, then on the other sideof it you're going to find more
clarity, you're going to findmore peace, you're going to find
(56:36):
an up level.
And the other piece to this isthat the clarity might not come
all in one go.
You might find as you movethrough the discomfort as with
all things, this too shallchange you're going to find a
place where it's no longer asuncomfortable, but you still
might be not in full clarity yet.
(56:57):
And to be okay with that and tounderstand that there will be
this place where you're in thisvoid, in this liminal space,
where you're not quite in thepast but you're not quite in
this new place yet and you'rekind of in the in-between, and
the more you can surrender tothat and give yourself moments
of quiet so that your innerknowing and your intuition can
(57:19):
speak to you and let you knowwhat the next steps are, instead
of trying to push through,instead, what the next steps are
, instead of trying to pushthrough, instead of trying to
occupy yourself, instead oftrying to push, push, push, work
, work, work.
Because when you avoid being inthe quiet and the stillness,
you're not going to hear themessages and things won't be
(57:39):
clear.
And I know this isn't an easyplace to be if you relate to
this and you're in this place,but the more you're willing to
be with it, the more you'regoing to be able to get through
it.
And this is the thing.
Coming from someone who's gonethrough these dark nights over
and over in my life, I've had afew of them now and some really
(58:01):
big ones and going through thisinner work and what I've gone
through it doesn't make thesemoments of challenge easier.
It's not like, oh, you knowthat was easy, but you step into
them with more clarity and moreresilience and you can move
through it more easily.
(58:22):
Yeah, there's going to be thesemoments of discomfort and it's
going to feel icky, and you knowthat that's part of the process
and you can be with it, kind oflike.
There's an analogy of I thinkit's buffalo when there's a
storm coming.
The buffalo don't try to outrunthe storm and run away from the
(58:43):
storm.
They actually turn to it andface it and move through it,
walk through the storm towardsthe storm, because they know
that that is the clearest path,the quickest path to getting to
the good weather and the blueskies on the other side.
If they try to outrun the storm, they're going to be running
and running and the storm iseventually going to catch up to
(59:05):
them and they're still going tohave to deal with the storm.
But if you face it you're goingto get through it and sure it
means that you're going to haveto deal with the storm itself.
But the more you find thatnervous system coherence, the
more that you are able to createthat wider window of tolerance,
the more you are centeredwithin yourself, the more you
(59:27):
have this self-compassion andself-acceptance and the more you
trust yourself and your innerguidance system and you trust
the process and you trust theflow of life, then you're able
to get through this so much moreeasily.
So I hope there's somethinghere that helps you in some way,
gives you're able to getthrough this so much more easily
.
So I hope there's somethinghere that helps you in some way,
gives you some insight in someway.
(59:48):
If you'd like to reach out andsend me a DM or an email and let
me know how this episode landedfor you, I would love to hear
from you.
And if you're listening to thisin September when I am
releasing this episode, knowthat I have a very limited time
special going on.
(01:00:08):
If you would like to have asession with me, I'm offering
them at a very special rate andif you would like one of those,
I will include the link in theshow notes.
If the link is in the shownotes, then they are still
available, or you can send me aDM and we can chat about that.
And if you're listening to thislater on, after the special is
(01:00:32):
over, I'm happy to chat with youabout what other options are
available for you.
Thank you for being here, thankyou for listening and I
appreciate you listening andbeing part of my community.
I'm grateful for you and knowthat I will be publishing more
(01:00:53):
podcast episodes more regularlythan I had during the summer, so
I look forward to speaking toyou again soon.
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