From Burnout to Balance | 053 - It Has to Be Me

Episode Transcript
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Tess Masters (00:00):
Oh, Lana. I couldn't sleep last night because I was so excited that I was going to have this beautiful conversation with you about energy and that dear listener, you are going to learn about this exquisite person that I know. So I want to start with this. It has to be me, or it does not have to be me. Moment for you, when you were working in the corporate world and everything shifted for you.

Ilana Kosakiewicz (00:28):
Yeah, so it was just before my 30th birthday, I had got my place where a lot of people have burnt out exhausted, you know, people pleasing, you know, not looking after myself. I wasn't partying too hard. I was salsa dancing and doing Latin dancing too much, late nights that way, which I loved. But I was burning the candle. Yeah, I'd burnt the candle. I'd worked full time and studied my CPA, which is a chartered accounting here in Australia, and my degree part time while I was working full time through my 20s. So that was 10 years of my life. And yeah, like I hadn't give myself permission, probably up until age 30, to stop and process how I thought my emotions at times. I'd had two, two major breakups. My parents had got divorced when I was 26 and I just was a, let's just, let's just, I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine. And that's all I used to get saying to myself, I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm fine. And then, yeah, just before I I'd started studying kinesiology, actually, and been working with a kinesiologist for a little while prior to me getting sick. And it's like the universe said, You can't know this stuff now and keep living this life. So we're just going to stop that for a moment. We're going to, you know, we're going to give you chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, autoimmune disorders, Lyme disease. You need to go and sort out your gut microbiome. You need to go sort out yourself, your life, your emotions, your thought patterns, your habits, your beliefs. Because while you do love accounting, it's not necessarily, probably what you've been put on earth to do. And I knew that because I was probably about 2627 where I was like, There's something like, I'm drawn to natural medicine or something holistic, but I had too much fear, which a lot of human beings do.

Oh, I think we all do, yeah, where fear

runs the show? And basically, up until age 30, fear was running the show. What was

Yeah, well, tell me a bit more.

So okay, a lot of what comes up in work with clinic and clients is we end up age recession, back to a time where something fundamentally happened that creates that fear that kind of runs that subconscious program. And for me, it was like my home life was pretty stable, apart from the fact that we had my parents didn't have a lot of money, so at times the scarcity of money, so that's a fear factor. And then I was bullied at school, so I didn't feel like I fit in anywhere. So I feel like I chose accounting because I didn't know what to do, and it was socially acceptable, you know, you can

understand them. They are what they are, and there's no you know, opinion about it, yeah, wow.

So, yeah, I chose that, I suppose, path, and I'm very grateful for it, because numbers and accounting, when you run your own business, is so such a skill that you need in your life, and even human beings as most a lot of a lot of people, we should be learning a lot of this stuff more in schools. Anyway, yeah, around money and budgeting and forecasting and all of these kinds of things. So I'm very grateful for the skills. And I always believe everything is a lesson in learning in life, yes, but that fear of security, that fear of fitting in very base chakra, that foundation of, you know, roof over your head, you know, making sure you've got enough money to survive, fitting in community support structures. That I've had to do a lot of work around that, because quite often for me, that can still trigger me at times, but I'm highly aware of it now. But yeah, that's kind of how that all evolved was,

yeah. So I want to ask you more about you said, sort of around 26 you know, sort of around this, this age, you started to go, Oh, this isn't sort of a full bodied yes anymore. I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for the security. But I'm drawn to the. Other things. So did you start to dabble in these other things and start seeking out these healing modalities once your body started shutting down and you couldn't ignore, you know, being weak and sick and all the things, or were you interested in kinesiology and some of these other things before that, before you got sick?

So I had had a compromised immune system, like I had asthma at age four, and I'd had a compromised immune system for a long time, but the age 2627 is I started to get a sore right inner ankle pain, and nothing could cure it, and I ended up at a kinesiologist store, applied Kinesiologist, last Kinesiologist store, and he started doing muscle testing and looking at emotion, and there was some nutrition deficiencies in vitamins and things like that. And he started doing muscle testing and doing a few things, and obviously there was a Chiro assessment as well, and I started to get better. So prior to that, I was almost at the point where I was going to have surgery, just so they could go and maybe have a look to see what was going on with my ankle, because I'd had physio and osteo and I'd been to the Melbourne sports specialist near Albert Park, like I'd

say, yeah, you've done the rounds I which

quite often happens, yeah. And then, because I was trying to fix a physical problem, the pain was physical, but it was a mental and emotional and spiritual problem,

Unknown (06:40):
yes,

so and what had happened my whole life up until that time is I was trying to constantly resolve physical issues, my immune system or my digestion or my allergies and those kinds of things, again with a like physical western or eastern fixes, supplements or, you know, whatever it was that I was prescribed. But that wasn't necessarily these issues, what I was telling myself, how I was thinking and how I was feeling, and that circulation that just kept looping, that was keeping me stuck and sick, because everything is physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. So even if you have a physical misalignment, there's always a mental emotion on a spiritual that's lynched and tied to it. But we quite often just look at and it is shifting, which I'm grateful for people are gaining more awareness around this. The mental, emotional, spiritual is really important too.

Yeah, so out of all of the modalities that you could have sought out, why Kinesiology?

Because Kinesiology is the modality that taps into the blueprint of your body, so our body remembers everything and anything that's ever happened to us. And I just love the fact that someone could touch my body, communicate with my body, and it would give them that feedback about this is what like, getting to that root cause of this is what is going on. So basically, Kinesiology is a language of connecting with the body on a deeper subconscious level, because the body never lies. Yeah, you know the body? You know in the book, The Body Keeps the Score.

Unknown (08:37):
Yes, I love that book. Yeah. And so Kinesiology

is a way of getting out of the conscious mind, because quite often, you know, we're not conscious of maybe the emotion, or maybe, you know, when it kind of the root cause of when it started, or what happened. We might not always be conscious of that. So we're tapping into that subconscious into that memory bank of the body and saying, Hey, buddy, I've been feeling this, or I've had this physical problem, or, you know, I've got this belief that it's no longer serving me, that I want to shift, you know, where did this start? Where did I inherit this? Where did I get this from? How can we start to shift it and move it so that I no longer have this or bring the body back into balance, back into equal equilibrium? And

it's just so extraordinary when you lie there and when I lie on your table, and you just allow your body to speak to you, and you just listen and you get some assistance with that. I mean, I think it was like a broken record when I was lying there and you

Unknown (09:49):
went, what happened? What's going on with that? Oh, yes, you're right. That is what's going on. It's

just, it's just, seriously, it's,

Unknown (09:58):
oh, you're good. Good. I think I did that 35 times too, didn't I in

the last session? No, your body sharing the information with you. Oh,

Unknown (10:12):
but you're interpreting

it and helping me see it and process it and shift it and oh, it's just so grateful for you. So take me into the next it has to be me where you experienced for yourself the power of kinesiology and the power of your own system and how it's all connected to moving to I'm going to be a kinesiologist and help other people do this?

Yeah, well, I had started studying prior to falling in a heap, my rock bottom moment, as I call it, at age 30. And then I basically took two years off from working in corporate, not necessarily intentionally, but that's what I needed. And at that stage, I was still studying, and I hadn't really figured out if I was going to be a practitioner or I was just doing it for myself, because quite often people do trainings and courses for self development, not necessarily to create it as a career, as a profession, or as a passion. Oh, thank you for

saying that. But yeah, like it's there is so much value in going and studying something just for your own healing and joy development. Does it mean you've got to go off and and do something with it? If you know what I mean, you're already doing something with it. Thank you for that. Because a

lot of people do, quite often feel this pressure, or they had this pool to do something, and then it's like, well, society's telling me that now I have to go and make money.

Unknown (11:47):
Yes, what are you going to do with that degree? You time study? What are you going to do with that? I know, just for the

pleasure of studying or learning or being in a space, like, whether it's, you know, yeah, a law degree, or, you know, a yoga teacher training, or because you know a Kinesiology course, you know dietitians, you know to play. Oh,

thank you. Yes, yes. Sorry, full bodied. Yes. About that, yeah,

through it was. It became quite evident, by the way, by the time I'd gotten halfway through and I hadn't been working, that it was an easy understanding of what my next path was going to be. Also, I was very fearful of going back to corporate, because of it's just never stops like that, that wheel for us, like we didn't have a period in, you know, like we didn't have a season of the year in my corporate job where it was, you know, a bit relaxed, or down to, like, we didn't have any of that. So I was, like, my nervous system was like, and I feel like that's why it took me so long to even get to even get to the decision of going, like, what I was going to do, because every time I thought about going back to work, my body would have like, this full blown, like, panic, yeah. And I'd almost have like, a mini relapse every time they would contact me, being like, When are you coming back to I would have, like, like you were saying before, that full body, like, not hell yes, that you just had, like, hell no, yeah. Which I knew that quite often, which

can feel similar, too, by the way, like the full bodied no and the full bodied yes come together, because a yes is always accompanied by a no and a no is always accompanied by a yes. Is that the right way to say it? How would you describe that? Yeah?

Because quite often the ego mind, like, if something's like a hell yes, you're excited, then the so, you know, then you know, the mind goes, Oh yeah, but, oh but, but, what about this? And what about the time or the money or the and then it becomes, it's like you talk yourself out of it to a no, yeah, yeah. But if your first reaction to something is like a drawing towards then that's when you have that, that intuitive pull, and you go with whatever. I'm always a big believer, you go with what your gut that, that first instinct, whereas mine was like, as soon as they would contact me, it wasn't like, oh, I can't wait to go back to work. It was like, Oh, my God. So yeah. So for me it was, it was, yeah, yeah. So, but when I started, when I was studying and practicing on family and friends, and at that time, because that's you have to do so many hours as a practitioner when you're studying like, it started to light me up. And I it was my healing, yeah,

do what lights you up? Oh, I love it. I love it. So I want to ask you about this, this idea of energy, because I really love your perspective about this. And I want to start from where you were talking. Talking about this idea of burnout and fatigue, because I know that you work with so many women around that and where that comes from, yeah, and so when we're feeling that burnout and fatigue, to your point before about we're feeling it in our physical body, but connecting to where the source of that is,

yeah, so quite often, the metaphysicals of burnout and fatigue are things like, you know, you've been stuck in rushing, rushing syndrome for a very long time. You've been giving too much energy, not receiving enough energy. You've been quite often, a lot of women, and I was, you know, I can put my hand up to this. We're stuck in the the masculine, not enough feminine. Creativity being nourishing, doing things that light

us up. Yeah. Can I just go back for somebody listening who maybe isn't understanding the masculine and the feminine energy in the way that we do together? How do you describe masculine energy and feminine energy? Just so we're all Springboarding off of this with the same lexicon. Yeah,

so masculine is especially from that Chinese medicine perspective, is Yang, and then feminine is the Yin. And so everything in life is a polarity between this this feminine and this masculine, but the masculine is more our, you know, our doing energy, like it's our logical mind. It's quite often when we are focused on a task, mothering, I'm going to explain this quite often is masculine, unless you're giving them a hug, or does it make sense, or you're breastfeeding a child, or you're like, Yeah, nurturing pieces exactly everything else is, is Yang, is masculine energy, right? And the feminine is more it is that nourishing and that nurturing and receiving self care is quite often, quite that feminine when we're creative, when we're doing something that doesn't feel like work. So it's like the things that light your soul on fire are quite often feminine, connecting with loved ones, quite often, depending, obviously, on the relationship, or maybe you're, you know, your best friends. Basically anything. And I quite I like to think of it quite often with the nervous system, yeah. Masculine is your sympathetic nervous system. Feminine is your Rest Digest parasympathetic nervous system, yeah. And so what has happened, especially in our western cultures, is we quite often are stuck in that sympathetic and there's not enough of the parasympathetic, so there's too much masculine, not enough feminine, and women are burning out also. Women quite often tend to hold and I know obviously you probably have listeners that are both men and women, but women quite often do second shifts, third shifts outside of their work, whether it is parenting for children or elderly, they hold the mental load quite often of their home, like bills and childcare and schooling and, you know, shopping and cooking and All of these things. And if there's not enough heart fueled joy, fun, and then obviously enough being which is just switching off from the world in whatever capacity, shape or form, lights you up, because obviously it's different. For every person, it could be yoga for some person, it could be a beach walk. It could be a bath, just where it's like you you have enough space to switch off your mind and no responsibility. We end up with burnout and exhaustion and fatigue, because the balance that yin and yang, the Polari, the up and down is to one way, and women predominantly have a lot more of that because of this second and third shift. And our minds don't switch off. Men have a part of their brains. It's like they come home from work and

Unknown (19:35):
everything just shuts down.

It's literally been proven by science that men have a do nothing switch. And I can't quote it exactly right now, like the study, but I have read it on multiple occasions. I have two, no, I have two podcasts where men have this ability to just switch off. So I hope that kind of. Helps with, you know, like sun and moon are different ones, Yin ones Yang, like night and day. So there's heaps of polarities that we can look at to explain feminine and masculine. But for me, the best one is that parasympathetic versus the sympathetic.

Yeah, and I listen, I can absolutely dwell in the masculine, and I've This is why I come to you know you and and other people, to help me access the parasympathetic and remind myself what that feels like in my body. And then I need to access it on a regular basis. I want to ask you about what you're saying about men having this off switch, and women nod, and that we're always on, and there's all these things I want to ask you about resentment, because when we don't put ourselves first and practice self care and find that balance of self care and care for others, it can breed a lot of resentment, which starts to put us into this place of quicksand. I didn't even know if that's the right way to say it right now, but, but just feeling like things are hopeless and there's no way out, and everybody else has got it easy, and I don't, and you can become quite resentful. I certainly can feel like that sometimes. Do you see that with a lot of your clients? Yeah,

quite a quite a lot. And interestingly, being a relatively new mum myself right now, I have been like, that's where I've been, not too far or not too long ago, yeah, I got to that place where I was like, I feel like I'm drowning, yeah, and a lot of it was because I had the resentment that my partner got to go off to work and have lunch on his own and and a lot of clients. You know, I work a lot with women. I also do see some men, but a lot with women. And, yeah, resentment quite often creates this imbalance in the body, which basically just stops you from having this sense of groundedness and centering. And again, you end up living in this stress state because your mind quite often, starts to play games with you, monkey mind, and then your emotions, because thoughts become emotions, become actions, and ends up becoming a circular loop, which then stops you from focusing on, maybe your work, or, You know, your business, or the passion project, or putting yourself first. Yeah,

yeah, you talked about cycles before. I want to ask you about that. We've talked about the masculine and the feminine, the sympathetic and the parasympathetic, doing, being all of these polarities. I want to ask you about cycles, right? Because as women, we're cycling every 30 days, whether we're menstruating or not. Yeah. And then, you know, if we go, if we're going by the cycles of the moon or our own rhythms, or whatever it might be that speaks to us, we are in cycles. So how do you help people navigate that and understand that? I want to get your take on that.

Yeah, so I mean, obviously we have four seasons in a year, and regardless is if you follow the moon, as you were saying, especially if you aren't bleeding, or you're pregnant or your menopausal you would obviously, quite often follow that energy of the moon as your, as your, as your cycle, and then if, obviously you're still bleeding, you have, generally, obviously, speaking, that window of 28 to 3040, days as your cycle. Because obviously, every human being is different, and their cycles aren't always going on 29 days like they would. Maybe nature would like us to be because the moon cycle is 29 days. But,

well, the perimenopausal and menopausal women are going, Yeah, okay, 28 days. Dream on. I don't know what light is any given me these

perimenopause women might have, you know, two weeks in my summer, you know, spring, winter and, you know, because sometimes they might have an eight week cycle, yeah, as their body is shifting and changing. And, you know, I'm 41 so I'm feeling like I'm starting that process. Well, actually, just before I had summer, I noticed my cycle was changing, but really it's about whatever cycle feels right for you and your body, but knowing that every you will have in you know each week of your cycle, you will have a different season, and each season will bring a different energy you might feel different among. Operations on different weeks. You might crave different foods, your borrowed probably needs different types of exercise. For instance, if you're in a winter phase, you know, maybe going for a 40k marathon run. I mean, obviously, unless you've got a marathon, and you don't necessarily get to choose which sometimes does happen, but it's more like listening to the cues of your body to move through the seasons of your cycle. Sorry, and I'm a big believer, and this is a lot of what I teach is using the body as your barometer to what you need every day and to what you need in that cycle or season of you know of your cycle, use the body, wake up. What is it that I need today? How am I feeling? Yes, obviously you may still have a to do list and responsibilities. But if you're not feeling like going for that 40k run, which is probably extreme example, maybe even a 10k run, you know when you're bleeding, or when the moon, you know, is so full moon is usually. New Moon is usually connected with, I think, week one of your cycle, which is like your winter phase, and it's quite in, you know, so listen to the listen to the body. What am I like? What am I? What Foods Am I feeling called to? You know, quite often when we're bleeding, it's comfort food, but you know, warming foods. You know, maybe chives and teas and maybe soups or curries or your mum's nostalgic dish. But I'm a big believer in, you know, obviously there is a season for each week of our for of our cycle, but using the body again kind of, because that's what, what's what kinesiology does is, you know, the body always, always trying to communicate with us, try and lean into more of that intuition of what it is that you need right now, because you'll find that if you give yourself the rest, and I'm a big believer of this, when you are in a winter phase, regardless, even the season, like the physical season of the year, if we give ourselves, which is what We're supposed to do, the permission to rest, to maybe pull back on some of the things that we might do when it's summer, you'll have more energy for spring and summer, to be more social and to be outdoors and to do all those things. And a lot of women, quite often, end up in burnout, because our Western society has forgotten that we have four seasons. Yeah, they think we just live in Summerland all the time. Produce, produce, spend, spend, make more money. Go, go, go, like, you know,

yeah, it's a really important point. I recognize that my default position is that I'm only comfortable in full moon. I want it to be full whether it's full success, full activity, Technicolor, even full drama. You know, my my central nervous system seems to be calibrated to that and not not. I've got to consciously remind myself that the waxing and the waning and the Dark Moon and the rest and the gentleness and it is so necessary, because you cannot be in that one phase all the time, or you would burst and have a heart attack or a stroke or whatever. Well,

that's in a nutshell, women's chronic fatigue, burnout, exhaustion, like fertility issues, quite often menopausal issues, because at some point in your life it quite often ends up biting you the butt if you haven't been Yeah, you know. And you might get to your 50 before you get that, or menopause might be the first time that the body says to you, hey, you've been running the engine dry for a very long time. Yeah, have all the symptoms you haven't been listening to the body. You've been suppressing maybe some emotions, or, you know, putting yourself last for too long. You know, there hasn't been enough joy. It's been like, go, go, go, go, you know. And every you know, yeah, I feel like at some point most women had this moment where the body goes, can't do it anymore. Yes, it's time to recalibrate

Absolutely. You know, I say this all the time in our 60 day reset, menopause doesn't happen to you. It happens for you. Mm, I think it's a wake up call to put yourself first, because it can come with such uncomfortable symptoms. It's like, no, no, don't ignore this anymore. You have to prioritize you and your health and your joy and your well being, and then you can move into that second spring you know, and make your second chapter better than your first, you know. But we do. I think we need that wake up call a lot. I certainly did, for sure. I mean, everything that you're saying just resonates so deeply. I want to ask you what you're talking about. Connecting with your intuition, if we're not able to see you or go to a kinesiologist, what are some of the tools that you can give us for just checking in, connecting with your intuition, reminding yourself to listen to your body? Yeah. I

mean, the most simple one is starting to take the time to create a relationship with your body.

Unknown (30:34):
And how do we find

white space? Because quite often we're living in our heads, we're not living in our bodies. Yeah, and we're in then connected to our ego, we're not connected to the intuition, or we're not connected to the heart, and quite often the like, yes, the intuition, if you follow your chakras, comes from your third eye, but I feel like it comes from the heart. First, the heart is going to guide the intuition so that you can then it can then whisper to you what it is that you know, you know, some people feel in their gut. But for me, the first thing would be to start to create a relationship with your body again. And the easiest way to do that is to take, like, give yourself space to connect in. So that might be through a cuppa with no noise. Might be a walking in nature. It might be putting feet on the ground. And like, taking space outside in nature is a great one. Like your lunch break outside, no maybe podcast or scrolling, or like, you know, like, and it doesn't have to be a long time, but if you did that every day for 10 minutes stopped, maybe put your hand on your heart or your belly, take three or four big, deep breaths and just allowed, you know yourself, to connect in. Eventually you would start to hear whispers. You know, obviously you could have a meditation practice as well. But for those of you who might find, oh, I can't meditate because my head doesn't shut up, you need to create space, first, to connect into the body, to just connect, just to connect in, you know, move yourself away from technology and the everyday life, so that you start to get downloads, like when people come on retreats with me, they receive so much wisdom and clarity and knowledge. Because, one, they're outside their environment. Two, I've given them permission to connect back to their body. And yeah, quite often when people come on my table, I'm doing similarly, connecting you back to the present, connecting you back to your body, connecting you back 200% being your suit yourself, not surrogating for this or being responsible for that like and they're the first things that I need to do before we even work on whatever it is that you're here to see me. But we need space. You need to carve out space like you carve out space for maybe going for a run. You know, it's prioritizing. I need to carve out space to learn to reconnect with my intuition, because most of us, after the ages of, you know, 1012, teenage years, we start to want to do what society wants, and we stop listening to the intuition. Yeah. So it's like anything in life, giving yourself the time and space. It's a practice. It's a ritual, yeah, alright, so I want to start

Unknown (33:51):
listening every Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it doesn't have to be lot,

as I said, a lot of time, but the more you do it, it's built. It's like muscle memory, yes, yes. And then next time you need to ask intuition about a yes or no question, you'll know the answer yes. You'll feel it. You'll you'll have, like, the consciousness of the body, the awareness piece. You won't have to doubt yourself as much, because you already know

Yeah, in terms of that knowing, I want to ask you about external reference versus internal reference. You know, it's just that thing of as you were saying before, listening to all these other kind of bits of stimuli and prioritizing your your intuitive yeses from you, yeah,

well, we all have that internal reference, that internal drawn to or drawn away, you know, and I. Quite often, and especially if you perhaps aren't aware of some of your habits or beliefs, we quite often want to do what the collective wants to do, what the tribe wants to do, what the family wants of you. Because obviously, as we're growing up, we become, obviously, we have our own personalities and identities, but quite often we want to become part of the herd. What does mom and dad want me to do? You know? And I feel like that slowly, like, obviously, a lot of this is old, I suppose, ways of being, I feel like it is starting to slowly change a lot in family dynamics, but as a collective, we want to like we want to we're human beings. What's my words? And I can feel it, but I can't say it. We are. We are hardwired for connection. That's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. And so quite often, in order to connect and fit in, we take the advice from the external, and sometimes we forget to listen to what the internal wants or needs. And again, quite often, that can bring up the fear, because we're going to be an outlier or an outsider. But if we keep doing too much of what the herd wants, and we're not internally listening to what we want, there is an imbalance there. There is a like we're drawing away from that ingrained in in innate knowing of the soul and who we are. And quite often, if we too much in the community, are not enough internally, referenced to external or not internal, that's when disease, mental, you know, chatter, emotional imbalances, can occur because We are listening to what we what, what lights up us, what we need as a human being, not what the collective needs. So,

yeah, yeah, let's, let's dive into that a bit more these, this idea of connecting with your core, why of your internal reference system, as opposed to the should the long list of shoulds that we gather over however many, however many years we've got, we've had on this planet, you know, we've all got this bag of shoulds, and the bag of shoulds is out on the counter all the time, And I know that it can get really heavy, yeah, my, my bag of shoulds is very heavy, yes, so,

because that's quite often, the shoulds are all the external pressures, yeah,

you know, there's some tools about that, about connecting with your core. Why?

Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I mean again, one way of you know, moving away from the shoulds is starting to ask questions like, do I really want this or need this in my life? Does this serve me? It's a big one I use all the time. Does this should serve me? Why am I doing it? I mean, and obviously we all have responsibilities, we have work and we have family and things, but still, you know, should you be doing it this way or that way, or like interpreting in certain ways? But a lot of times, you know, I ask, or a tool that can be used is asking questions that's obviously one another one would be connecting back to heart space quite often. And obviously, once you've created that relationship with yourself and your intuition, you know, asking the body what you need to do about this should and, yeah, see, see what comes from that. I mean,

look, that's, that's why Kinesiology is such a powerful modality. Because obviously,

Unknown (39:24):
you know, you might, there are other tools like,

sometimes you confused about the difference it because, you know, the ego is so full there and all, all of it is just so heavy. But your body is absolutely, unequivocally telling you that it's and I would usually say, if

you end up feeling like you were talking about before, like resentment or regretful, or you're feeling guilt, or there's an emotion you're stuck in quite regularly, then you're probably doing a should, yes,

oh god, that's a Mic drop. Moment, yes, if

you're like usually, if you know, and quite often, there's a suppression of whatever it is that you haven't want to be shooting for a very long time. Because as human beings, we grow and evolve, and you can set boundaries to be like, no, no, no, not doing that anymore. That doesn't serve me, which is why I came to that question before,

is that I love figuring out

where is your boundary? That's a big one, which quite often comes up in in clinic is, you know, and also might come back to reassessing your values.

Oh, ooh, talk me through how we can do that, reassessing our values, which obviously is a great thing to do all the time, checking in. How do you lead people through that?

So I mean, an easy one, because we're on a podcast, is go to Brene Brown slash values. I think it is or Brene Brown values. She has a list of them, yes. And I quite often say to clients, and quite often, when I start working with clients, and they're getting confused around who they are, what they need, where they're going, it's like, right, what are your values? And they usually look at me, sorry, will you do a values exercise? And I would say to them, you know, find your top 10 through the list. Like, go through and just like, put a little mark against the ones that you feel like are in alignment with you and your life right now. Because, like, anything, values can change. They can occur for a season, and then that season might change. So I quite often find people reevaluate them once a year, maybe every six months, depending on if their life has changed or evolved, a new baby, a different job, starting a business, you know, an end of a marriage, whatever it is. And then pick your top three. So there's 10 that maybe your core, and then there's three that are really quite they're like, your go to values that like they're non negotiables, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. And so when you're trying to make a decision, versus internally referenced versus externally referenced, you go to your values and like, okay, is this in alignment with my values? Because it helps more be from the internal place than the external place. Does this align with health and well being coming first? Nope, well, I may have to have a difficult conversation or set a boundary. Yeah, it's just another tool to navigate life and to help with the 80,000 thoughts that we have in our heads every day, and figuring out which one's internal or which one's intuition, or you're pulling or drawing to versus drawing away. Because a lot of disease is disharmony is like as human beings, we quite often disassociating from the truth the internal. And so if we start to navigate a life more from value, more from the internal, the intuition, there's probably going to be less disease, disharmony, less people in my clinic, because you're allowing yourself the space to process the emotion or to think about the habit or belief that's not serving you because we're not allowing the external to give us validation for how we're living and functioning in our in our world, in our lives. Yeah,

I I love what you were saying. Just a reminder that our values can change, yeah, and we get to change them. That there is, I think, this misconception, and I can certainly fall into this, that this is my identity, this is what I believe, and I'm not wavering from it. And I think that this is a huge part of our very divided world right now, that people are anchoring to ideology over facts or over their own intuition because they've aligned themselves with a particular group or ideology or set of belief systems or whatever it is, and that that is not going to change no matter what gets presented to Me, and that we we can change. Change is a really beautiful thing, and that your values can have a season, just like anything else. It doesn't actually mean that you're a fair weather person. That doesn't is not a principled person, no. So I really appreciate that reminder. You know that kind of just really dropped in when you said that. I love when you say, does it serve you? I love the other language that you use, if I may just quote you in the session, you constantly, which really activated me? I'll say, my body just immediately responded to this language, which was, Does this energize you? Does this light you up? Yeah, and when you used that language to me, it it just straight away I knew exactly where to access that in my body and whether or not it was there with that particular thing or not. You know, I really loved the way and serving and not serving works for me too, but in terms of the finding where my fire is, and where I'm prioritizing my energy in any given moment. That energy lighting up, just for me was just, was really, really powerful, which

I can share an exercise now, like, Oh, please. So, I mean, obviously, if you're driving, don't close close your eyes. But basically, you know, just close down your eyes wherever you are. You know, allow your feet to be on the ground, your buttocks on the chair if you're walking. You know, you might just take a moment to stop. And I just want you to take three gentle breaths, just noticing the gentle inhalation exhalation. And you might even place a hand on your heart space or on your belly. And I just want you to take a moment to tune in feeling the energy moving into the body as you inhale and what no longer serves you breathing out as you exhale. And I want you to think about something right now that drains your energy in your life. That might be a situation at work, maybe you're having a challenge with a child or a family member. Maybe you aren't sleeping enough, not eating well, whatever it is that feels like a dream in your in your life right now, I just want you to feel into that and see how that makes you feel. It might be in a particular part of the body, or you might just find your energy starts to feel heavy, and then we're going to take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. And now I want you to draw in a feeling or a visualization of someone you absolutely love in your life, or maybe a place in the world that just makes you feel electric, alive and vibrant, and I want you to imagine yourself at that place. Maybe it's the beach, you can smell it, or your feet are in the water. Maybe it's some fancy Island, maybe it's the snow. And I just want you to visualize an full body feel, how that makes you feel. And then taking a big, deep breath in and a big, deep breath out, and then when you're ready, you can open your eyes, and you probably find that you're already or it still feels quite vibrant and buzzy, because everything in the world is a form of energy. You know, science has proven that, quantum physics has proven that, that everything is just, you know, my crystal, you know, my lovely green water bottle, the chair I'm sitting on is all energy. We all vibrating at a certain frequency. And so if we are feeling like something, if we're feeling heavy in our lives, if we're feeling like there's too many shoulds, if we're feeling like too irresponsible or worrying too much about the external world, quite often it's heavy, it's overwhelmed, it's anxious, you know? It's whereas, if we're living more from the internally referenced is light, it's joyful, it's exciting, like it's nourishing. It has that high vibe frequency. Every emotion, every thought, has a frequency. And we get to choose how we think and feel. So if we've been stuck feeling, you know, resentful, angry or frustrated or overwhelmed or anxious, it's because there's a misalignment in your life, somewhere your thoughts, feelings and actions aren't in alignment. Because we want to live from a place where there is more joy and excitement and light and ease grace. And that's an easy tool. Like if you visualized you being at whatever that person or whatever brings you joy that place in the world every day, it would start to shift your frequency. I've been doing that meditation for a while. I connect into my heart space, my little candle in my heart, and then I visualize something that will make my frequency higher, because only you know what that is for you. That's the internal reference that can regardless of how much you've slept or how you're feeling, it'll shift you out of. Of perhaps feeling a bit heavy or tired into feeling lighter and more expansive and more energized. Yeah, so that's a beautiful tool that you can use also,

yeah, I know it is. I want to come full circle to what you were saying in the beginning about being in our head and our ego, as opposed to being in our bodies and listening to our bodies and that this place where a lot of us are, where we can be disconnected from our bodies, that it starts with permission. You know, I know you and I have spoken before where you said that you see so many people that feel like they have no choice. Yeah, they have no choices, but to keep feeling like this. It really my so many takeaways from this conversation, but my really big one that just just went right into my body was when you said, if you're feeling any of these things, anger, resentment, grief, whatever you're shooting, you're doing a should. And I just went, Oh,

Unknown (51:04):
you're doing externally reference something anyway, yeah, yes, that's not in alignment anymore.

Yes, yeah, or you wouldn't be feeling like that Exactly,

yeah, because you haven't either set a boundary or spoken up or, you know, had I feel like you had choice to shift and have agency over the situation or your life really? Yeah,

yeah. So, so when we're feeling in that space, we just go back to taking that moment. Is that what you would say just to I would space have being in a space exactly

give the emotion the thought some space, like, quite often, like, emotion is energy demanding motion. It just wants to be acknowledged. It just wants to be felt. And quite often, as human beings again, because society says it's, you know, don't get angry and don't cry and don't do this, and you shouldn't get emotional and you shouldn't do that. You just need to feel the you know. And sometimes you might be like, Yeah, I am resentful about the fact that you know something isn't going the way I would like it to right now, and I might feel like I don't have a choice, but I also have a choice, do I get stuck and stay in resentment, or do I allow myself to feel it and move out of it and think about what is the lesson and learning here, and how do I shift this situation? And that is the gold nugget, because we quite often don't do anything to change it. We just keep getting resentful.

Yeah, another thing that you said to me in session that really resonated with me was that when we feel something and we're thinking something, where is the voice in that? How do we give voice to it, or language to it, and that sometimes you don't need to, you know, I'm, I'm very much a word person. I want to think my words. I want to say my words, and I want to share my words with the world, you know, and

Unknown (53:14):
sometimes you need to not,

you need to not. And that the voice can just be you, processing it with you, and that's enough. And sometimes voicing it to the other person isn't actually what's going to serve the the resolving of the situation. And that, that was a really important distinction for me, and so I thank you for that.

Oh, you're welcome. And again, it just comes back to intuition and knowing, yeah, when I having space to be like, do I actually need to say something about what it is, and I'm using resentful meant as a, as a, as a example, or is this just my own internal resentment, and this is something I need to move through and shift the way I'm thinking about the situation, because everything has a like the polarity anyway, yeah, but sometimes we also speak without Thinking, speak without space, and that's what gets us in trouble.

Yes, myself, because a

lot of us quite very reactive in life. And again, you're reacting externally. The internal is hurt or, you know, there's a misalignment internally with something, and so we just react to whatever it is, that's the external trigger,

yeah, and that's where sometimes you need to just in, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. It's um, and you were, you know, saying to me about the power of the pause, you know, and just sort of processing your own stuff. And it actually doesn't make you weak. Does it mean that you don't have a voice? Does it mean that you're not speaking up for yourself or or strong and advocating for yourself? And I think sometimes we can confuse those two things. I know. I certainly do well, well, I need to let them know how I feel, and then it's not okay or whatever, you know, whatever the narrative is, you

know, it also will depend, if you like, You're a natural extrovert, whereas some people listening to this might be a natural introvert, whereas time they might need to speak up, whereas you might need to not speak up. The good distinction of like, especially for listeners, which quite often happens a lot, you know, with clients, where they are the ones that never say anything, and they actually need to use words, whereas sometimes people use too many words, and they actually need to pause,

yeah, I'm in, I'm in that latter camp, as we know, yes. And so this is why I have you to help me, you know, put myself in appropriate containers, you know, like you were saying about space, putting yourself in a space where you can find that balance. And often we need help to do that, to find that space, to give ourselves permission to be in that space of, you know, the core why, as opposed to the should and the, you know all the things we've been talking about, oh gosh, thank you so much for how you show up in the world. And it's such a privilege to be on your table, experiencing your zone of genius. And you have a gift, there's no question about it. So whilst I respect the world of accountants, I'm so glad that you listened to to your call. Why? How lovely that we can all

be. And I'll just share a little like I worked for power stations, and now I help people shift their energy. So I went from one power industry to another.

Absolutely. Isn't that incredible. And, yeah, thank you for the energy shift podcast as well, because there's just so many beautiful conversations around energy, around all the things that we've been talking about in this conversation. So listen up. We've just scratched the surface of, you know the well, that is Alana's world. So definitely head on over and listen to some of these beautiful conversations that she's having about energy. So I always close every episode with the same question, which is, and you've been answering it really the entire the entire hour. But for somebody who has a dream in their heart, which is all of us, and doesn't feel like they have what it takes to make it happen, what would you say to them?

Take one step each day towards that dream. Anything is possible if you just put one foot in front of the other and you let the dream carry the vision.
Because if the dream is strong enough, you will find the path.

Thank you. Listener, I don't know if you needed to hear that today, but I absolutely needed to hear that today, so I cannot wait to lie on your table again. It's become a non negotiable part of my self care. So Oh. Listener, I'm so excited for you to enter Alana's world. Thank you. I love you

such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. You.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Burnout to Balance | 053