October 17, 2023 • 35 mins
Looking for clarity in your life? Wondering how you can cultivate self-love? Mastering self-love is not an easy journey, but it's a worthy one. In episode 11, we talked about the first 2 steps to unlocking self-love. And the next step is clarity. We often get caught up in our inner critic's judgment, focusing on flaws and imperfections, and seeking approval from others. But the truth is, the key to self-love lies within us. It's about understanding who we are, what we want, and being true to ourselves.
Navigating midlife can be a challenge. Society often makes us believe that midlife means the end of dreams and aspirations. We’re here to tell you that's not true. We’ll be exploring midlife as a transformative phase, a time to ask ourselves important questions, and embark on a journey of self-discovery. Midlife is not about losing yourself; it's about finding yourself, redefining your dreams, and creating a life you love.
We’ll also be illuminating the path to reclaiming and embracing your hidden gifts. How often do we ignore our talents and passions, choosing to fit into societal norms? We'll teach you how to recognize your gifts, cultivate them, and draw inspiration from those you admire. It's time to stop limiting yourself and start embracing the infinite potential within you. Join us, as we uncover the treasures of self-love, clarity, and midlife transformation.
Join us in the Modern Midlife Mentorship.
CONNECT with Inviting Shift on Social:
Email me and tell me what you think: christina@christina-smith.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back shifters in midlife.
I am here to continue our monthof self love talk, so we
started episode 9.
I hope that you'll follow allthe way through the month of
October, because we have somereally great ways on unlocking
self love, and I know this is agiant topic, perhaps a topic
(00:21):
that makes you cringe a littlebit.
Maybe you don't know what selflove is like, and these are the
keys that I've been talkingabout this month so that you can
start experiencing just alittle bit of what self love is
and start peeling back thoselayers of self love.
So last week, in episode 11, Isuggest that you go back and
(00:44):
listen if you haven't tuned inwe talked about compassion and
curiosity, and those are twoessential steps in self love
that will help us with the onethat we're talking about this
week, which is clarity, andclarity is essential to self
love.
So often we're stuck in thatinner critic part of us which is
(01:05):
like this much of all of who weare.
This is a tiny little thoughtof who we are, and yet we're so
narrowed in on that.
When we're in our inner criticand when we're unclear about
ourselves, we think that we haveto fix these things, and what I
want us to do is get clarity onall of who we are so that we
(01:27):
can have a more balanced look.
So when we don't have clarityself love is hard because of a
lot of things we start focusingagain on that inner critic, all
of our flaws or imperfections,if you want to call them, the
things that we don't think serveus.
That's what we're focused onoften.
(01:49):
When we're unclear, we oftencompare ourselves to other
people as well.
This is so easy to do, isn't it?
Especially in our social mediaworld, where we can see the
Instagram stories of people'slives, but we're not seeing the
behind the scenes, and that'swhat we have to remember that we
aren't seeing the littleconflicts that they're having
(02:12):
within themselves or with others.
We're not seeing the thingsthat show up the way that they
didn't want to show up, and westart thinking well, you know,
suzy, it does X, y and Z.
So great, now I don't do thosethings that great.
We're also not looking at ourown gifts.
So when we're unclear, we alsoseek this external validation.
(02:38):
We think that if we are perfectenough, or we people please
enough, that people will give usthe validation that we're
looking for.
But what happens then is westart living for other people's
expectations rather than gettingreally clear on who we are and
what it is that we want and whowe want to be, which are really
(02:59):
big questions, right?
And it takes a lot of innerwork, and for many of us it's
just 10 times easier to peopleplease to overwork because we're
good at our work, or to settlein a relationship because that
person validates us, and soclarity helps us to start
(03:20):
self-validating.
It's great if we get externalconfirmation, but self-love is
about self-validating, right, sothat we are the judge of who we
are if we're good enough, ifwe're not, if we're too much,
whatever that those judgments wemight have about ourselves.
(03:41):
This is the work of clarity,right?
So clarity is part of thepractice of self-love, and
you're gonna hear me say this alot.
Self-love is a practice andclarity is one way that we
practice self-love.
And in midlife it's so easy forus to be unclear because there's
(04:01):
so much going on.
Our roles and our identitiesare changing.
Some of us are shifting jobs,some of us are looking at
retirement, some of us have letgo of children because they've
grown up and they're off ontheir own, and so all of these
roles that we held so tight tobefore are like slipping through
(04:23):
our fingers and we're startingto feel like, wow, well, who the
heck am I without my kids?
Who the heck am I if I'm not?
Whatever put in your title here?
And we start wondering what ourwhole being is, not just the
doing right, not just who am Iwhen I'm doing things, but who
(04:43):
am I when I'm not doing things.
We've also put off all thesedreams, and you know, I remember
when my kids, my kid, wasgrowing up, I was like, ah, one
day, when I don't have kids,this is what I'm gonna do, I'm
gonna spend my time doing that.
And yet I can often get stuckin a work rut, too, where I'm
just like working and fairlyliving, especially with the
(05:05):
pandemic that we had.
And so this is about usrediscovering what we're
passionate about, what we wantto do for ourselves.
And if we're only seekingexternal validation, that what
we want to do for ourselves canbe really, really hard to come
up with, because we've neverreally thought about what we
(05:26):
wanted for ourselves.
We always thought about whatother people expected from us.
So clarity can get really hardif we've always depended on that
external validation.
And the other thing thathappens by midlife is many of us
have become comfortable in ourlives.
So, maybe financially, maybeit's just emotionally, whatever
(05:47):
it is, we've created comfortzones in our lives and so
sometimes it's hard to break outof those comfort zones because
our brain sees any risk of thatcomfort zone as an unsafe thing,
not necessarily justuncomfortable and so we want to
be weary, that we can get toocomfortable, and that stops us
(06:09):
from growing and it means thatwe have to shrink our dreams, it
means that we don't get excitedabout things as much anymore,
and so we don't want that.
We want to get clear, and byusing curiosity and compassion
that we talked about in episode11, we can start getting clear.
By opening up our vision, byhaving less judgments right, by
(06:32):
asking ourselves questions, byusing our imagination, which is
what we're going to do today.
So Clarity comes by askingreally good questions.
And yet we often want to startwith these big questions, right?
Because if we can answer thesebig questions, boom, we'll have
(06:53):
that clarity.
And clarity let me also premiseyou with clarity also comes like
an onion.
It's in layers, so we cut offone layer and then we feel like
we're clear and then we realizethat there's another layer, that
we can always be going deeper,and this isn't a bad thing.
I know a lot of people who wantto be like I just want to get
(07:14):
clear and be done with it.
And yet that's not the way itworks.
We're really complex beings andso in order for us to be able
to imagine what that core centerlayer might look like, we have
to go through these littlechanges, and it's where our
growth is.
So it's very exciting for us tobe able to discover newer and
(07:37):
newer things about ourselves.
So what are these big questionsthat we want answered?
Let's just start with theoverview and then we can go into
the details.
I'm going to give you some waysin which you can get really
clear with yourself.
That I'm hoping you'll try out.
But the big questions we havethe biggest who am I now?
And that's kind of our sagearchetype wants to say who am I
(08:02):
now, now that maybe the role ofmy mothering has changed, maybe
the way that my job descriptionor title has changed, maybe just
not having a job title anymore?
Who am I now with all out allthese things?
Maybe I've lost friends, maybeI've shifted relationships.
(08:22):
Who am I now without thosepeople?
Or with these new people?
Who am I Right?
So who am I?
Is answered by what's mostimportant to us and also all of
who we are, not just that innercritic view, that's really,
really small, but all of us, allof our gifts, our strengths,
(08:43):
our characteristics, our values.
Those are all the things thatmake up who we are.
The second question that I getasked a lot, or that people want
to answer in midlife especially, is what do I want now?
What do I want Right?
It's such a hard question forso many of us because we've been
(09:05):
serving for so long.
It's hard to then go back intoourselves and ask, like, what do
I want now?
And some of us are afraid todream, right?
So if or even change dreamsthis is a big one too is this
changing of dreams?
Well, I have this dream and Ifeel like I'd be failing or
(09:29):
quitting if I let go of it nowor if I shifted it now.
And to that I want to say notall dreams are meant to happen.
Some of them are just meant toget us on one path so we can get
on another path, and that'sokay.
So when we know whether or notwe want to change dreams we want
to start looking at does thisalign with who I am Not?
(09:54):
Is it hard?
Am I afraid?
Is it risky?
All of those things.
But does it align with who I amIf I say that my gifts, my
magic and my values, mycharacteristics all went?
This one thing is that dreamstill in alignment with that?
(10:15):
And that's where we want to getclear.
And as far as goals, what do Iwant now?
Some people love big goals.
That's their thing.
And some of us have done somany huge goals that by midlife
we're like I'm exhausted, Ican't even imagine a new goal.
And I want you to know thateven if your goal today is just
(10:36):
I'm going to be kind of myself,that's a goal.
So I mean, these goals that wemake in midlife can be world
changing and they don't have tobe.
It's okay not to go out and tryto cure cancer.
Okay, it's okay if all we dotoday is be really kind to
ourselves, and that's our goalevery day.
(10:58):
So in midlife we get to choosewhat we want for the second half
.
The first half, we spend a lotof time doing what we think we
should.
What other people expect thatwe should.
And in the second half, thefreedom comes with us starting
being able to really dive intowhat is it that I want and
(11:19):
living our lives that way.
So who do I want to be isanother one right, and this
doesn't mean like, oh, I want tobe Beyonce.
This is more like, who do Iwant to be?
I want to be a person that hasthese certain values, that shows
up with these qualities, thatfeels a certain way.
(11:40):
What do I want to look back andthink of myself as Like, do I
want to look back and see myselfbeing generous and loving and
kind?
Or, you know, do I successfuland focused and committed?
What qualities orcharacteristics that I have?
(12:01):
Might I want to grow more as Iage, right, as I get older?
So those are our big questions.
Who am I?
What do I want?
Who do I want to be?
Right, when we love the answersto all of those just to land in
our labs, I know I certainlywould, but these are big
questions and they're hard tofocus on just like that.
(12:21):
So we're gonna have to peel backlayers, and one thing that
we're gonna have to use to peelback those layers is a bit of
imagination and the reason Iwant to bring up imagination.
It's so important.
It's something that as adultswe don't use nearly as much, at
least on the whole.
We tend to start seeing howroles and structures and the way
(12:46):
that things work and we stopquestioning if they can work a
different way.
We stop questioning if there'sa better way, if there's a way I
haven't even thought of yet orimagined yet, right?
So imagination is essential togetting clarity, and I know that
that sounds odd because somepeople are like oh yeah, just
(13:07):
what I need is more thoughts tocome in and more ideas to come
in.
Right, what if I already havetoo many ideas?
That's the point.
We want to see the wholespectrum.
Then we get to feel intoourselves and go what is
actually out of this wholespectrum of who I am, what I
(13:27):
want and who I want to be?
I get to choose.
We're offering ourselves much,much more choice with
imagination.
It's part of that curiositylesson that we talked about last
week.
So imagination is one way thatour inner wisdom speaks to us
about what's truly important toourselves.
(13:50):
So I often do visualizationswith my clients.
That's one way that they startunlocking the inner wisdom that
they have within themselves.
I don't give them the answers,I give them a scenario and their
brains fill in what that lookslike, what it feels like, what
it smells like, what happensthere, and all of those details
(14:14):
are really important becausethat's our inner wisdom,
offering up little bits ofinformation, and it's helpful to
grasp onto those little bits ofinformation and get really
curious about it, because thenwe can get clear about what's
really important to us, what itis that we value, what it is
(14:36):
that we really want to seeourselves as.
So, with that being said, I wantto talk about ways that we
start gathering this informationso that we can get really clear
, and one of them is dreaming,and this is so hard for some
(14:56):
midlife people.
Others are great.
So if you're great atimagination and dreaming of big
dreams, then this is the partfor you.
If you're not, this is also thepart for you, because I also
had shrunken my dreams down sothat I wouldn't have to risk
(15:17):
anything, and that did not serveme at all, and so I want to ask
us to just dream about what itis that we actually want, and
usually when we start this, oreven when I ask the question of
people what is it that you want?
The answer usually starts withnot this, and so we do this
(15:38):
thing that I call getting toshore.
So if we're drowning in theocean, all we want to do is get
to shore.
And so this kind of dreaming iswe're dreaming to solve the
problems that we have right now.
We're dreaming to avoid therisks that are up right now.
We're dreaming to leave thefears that we have right now.
(16:01):
Right, like we're surviving andwe're just trying to get to
survival mode, and that is justgetting to shore.
And if that's all you can doright now, that's beautiful.
Ultimately, I want you to keepdreaming and keep dreaming until
we can get beyond shore.
Instead of just getting tosurvival, I want us to start
(16:22):
thriving, and the way that wethrive is going beyond the
shoreline right, climbing up themountain to the big old castle
in the sky.
That is thriving.
We're going towards somethingwe want.
When we're in the ocean, goingto shore, we're just trying to
run away from the immediatesafety problem, right, drowning,
(16:47):
and so that's us running away,or getting away from what hurts
us.
Thriving is all about how wedream beyond that, right, like,
not only good enough, but beyondthat, like what is our wildest
imagination and it might becrazy big information.
Some of these visualizations Ido with my clients are about,
(17:10):
like you know, you can haveanything.
Maybe you want a pink elephant,maybe you want a dinosaur.
You can have it all in yourimagination, in this dream.
Right, it doesn't mean thatjust because we dream, it
doesn't mean it all needs tocome true.
There's something reallybeautiful, there's some kind of
information that that pinkelephant or that dinosaur is
(17:32):
giving us about what it is thatwe want.
So this is realistic ornon-realistic visualizations.
Right, this is going beyond ourego, which is going to try to
go that's too big, that's toobig, let's be logical, let's be
practical.
This is not logical orpractical.
This is beyond, because we'regoing to get a lot of
(17:54):
information.
We want to dream about where wewant to live, who we want to be
with, who we want to surroundourselves, with, what we want to
do every day, what we want todo for ourselves, what we want
to do for the world, because Ithink in our hearts we all want
to give back in some way how itis that we want to show up in
(18:15):
our everyday life.
What does happy look like foryou?
And, in the end, what we'relooking for is how we feel about
that.
Yes, there's going to be somevery, very interesting pieces of
information that come up, butwhat's most important to me at
this point, right to startgetting the clarity that we need
(18:38):
.
The grasp of clarity is we allwant something, because we want
to feel a certain way.
So, if you break out that visionboard or you create a new one
based on these crazy realisticor non-realistic imaginings that
you have, what is it that youactually want, right?
(18:59):
So, let's say, I did have acastle on my vision board.
I want to look at that visionboard and ask myself, right,
well, what do I think I'm goingto feel when I have that castle?
Because that's ultimately whatwe really want.
We want that feeling, thatfeeling that comes with doing
(19:20):
being having that thing.
And so, if we think about itthat way, that's the purest form
of clarity that we can have ishow do we want to feel?
And so, after you do all thatimagining, I hope that you write
down some things.
If you want, dm me and I willdefinitely get you a
(19:42):
visualization out.
Just let me know, I will sendone to you.
I just didn't want to do one inthe middle of the podcast In
case I put people to sleep whilethey're driving, or in
imagination while they'redriving or doing something
important.
So just message me and let meknow that you want the dreaming
visualizations.
(20:02):
The second thing that we can dothat I think that a lot of
people forget about is ourgolden shadow.
So if you've never done shadowwork before, ultimately the
shadow is all those things thatwe see in other people, often
that we repress and deny aboutourselves.
They could be unusually are thethings that we talk about, are
(20:26):
the triggering things.
Oh, she does this thing and itdrives me nuts, and that's
really about me and the factthat maybe I do that or I don't,
or I force myself not to dothat, and so it's not fair that
she allows herself to do that,and so I get mad at these little
things.
(20:47):
But today I don't want to talkabout the dark shadow.
I want to talk about the goldenshadow, and this is a part of
shadow that some people forgetis that the golden shadow is all
about the things that I see inother people that I think are
brilliant or awesome or gorgeous.
I think I just heard the termshimmer the other day, the
(21:11):
opposite of a trigger whenreally beautiful things happen,
and I suddenly get a jolt of joy, right.
And so all these shimmers thatwe're seeing in other people,
they are also in us.
Because the idea behind theshadow is you wouldn't be able
to recognize them if you did notpossess them.
You wouldn't be able torecognize them if you didn't
(21:34):
possess them.
And so what you see in othersis also in you, even this good
stuff.
And you're asking me but whywould I not see that?
Why would I not show off myshimmer if I had that in me?
It can't be right.
I used to think like I can't begraceful, right.
(21:56):
I see some women with grace inthe way that they handle
situations and I'm like, maybethat's not me.
And then I learned this conceptof golden shadow and I was like
, wow, could that be me?
Could that be me?
And here's the thing we hidethese things from ourselves.
Someone told us it wasn't good.
(22:16):
Maybe For me, sensitivity wasone right, like it was always
used as a negative.
Oh, you're so sensitive.
Well, in my 40s I've reclaimedsensitivity as a gift.
So I always hid my sensitivitybecause I thought it was
terrible and so I went like 180and became really tough, big
(22:40):
walls and that didn't reallyserve me.
And now I realize that thatpart of me that's really
sensitive is really important tome.
But I find it as a gift.
I'm sensitive to other people,I'm sensitive to what's going
around me, I'm sensitive toenergy.
That's not terrible for me.
That gives me a lot ofinformation before other people
(23:03):
necessarily get it.
So I get to choose that.
But before, if I saw somebodyelse being sensitive let's say
you know, or being accused ofbeing sensitive, I would judge
that negatively.
Now I see it as a gift.
But there's also other reasonswhy we hide these golden shadows
(23:24):
.
We're pushed or told not to usethat part of ourselves, right.
And she talks too much, andthat used to be a bad thing in
school, right?
Not if you're an influencer,not if you have a podcast, not
if speaking becomes your thing,right.
So talking too much might havebeen sheened out of you.
(23:46):
That might be the very thingthat's going to help your
relationships, help you in yourjob, help you with your kids is
that you talk too much, right?
So just recognizing that any oneof our gifts can be construed
negatively or positively, and itwas our inner child that didn't
(24:07):
know how to deal with thecriticism of them, so she hid
them right.
So another one was like showingoff, oh, you can't show off.
Well, some of us learned thatthat means that I have to hide
my gifts, and so we put thesegifts in our shadow because
somebody told us that theyweren't good enough or they were
(24:28):
criticized or somethingnegative is related to them.
So we put them in our shadowand go I'm not showing up like
that anymore, I'm not doing thatanymore, and so that's why we
hide these gifts.
We can transform thesebeautiful gifts that we see in
other people into our own, andthe way that we do that is by
(24:50):
growing those gifts.
So here's the exercise that Iwant you to do on your own I
want you to think of threepeople that you greatly admire.
Like you think that they'reawesome, right, like and maybe
for me it would be like RuthBader Ginsburg, because she was
so committed to the cause andfair and just, and I might start
(25:12):
thinking, wow, I don't staycommitted to causes enough.
I don't give enough commitmentfor I don't know.
I always know if I'm being fairin my head, and yet those
qualities are in me because,remember, if I can see them,
they are also in me.
It may not mean that myfairness shows up like hers,
(25:37):
right?
We might have.
I'm sure that we probablydisagree on several things,
right?
So it does not mean that if Isee grace in someone else, that
my grace is going to look likeher grace, right?
We all have different shades ofthese characteristics, and so
we want to just make sure thatwe know that just because I have
(26:02):
vibrance in me does not meanit's going to look like you know
Taylor Swift's vibrance.
It's going to be different,right?
But I want you to look at thesethree people and pick some
qualities that you greatlyadmire about them.
I want you to really thinkabout, like, how you can embrace
more of that for yourself.
I want you to know that youalready have that in you, but I
(26:26):
want you to start thinking about, like, how can I explore those
gifts more?
How can I use these gifts morein my life?
Because probably they all hadto practice at these gifts to
get really good at them, right?
And so I want you to see themand then, if you had those gifts
.
If you could see yourselfreally expanding those gifts in
(26:51):
your life, how would you feel?
How would you feel aboutyourself?
Because, remember, we're goingback to feeling.
So this is your imaginationsaying if I could put that in my
life, what would it be like?
And then feel it out, what arethe feelings like?
How would I feel?
How would that help me feelabout myself that I want to feel
(27:15):
so?
Then we have all of thisinformation from the
visualizations of this gettingto shore and beyond shore, right
, what would that dream andimagination look like, looking
at these people that we admire,getting all their qualities, and
what would I feel like if Icould show up like that?
And you might be thinking likethat's a lot of information.
(27:39):
How is this getting me clearwhen we're just adding and
adding and adding information?
We're an editing generation.
I get that short text, shortposts.
We don't want to go on and on.
Get to the point, right, that'sa lot, but this is where we
start connecting.
(28:00):
Right, this is our inner wisdomsaying, wow, these things are,
some of these groups of thingsare pointing towards specific
things, and we wanna startcreating those lines and
starting to see, like what is acommon theme that's coming up
and sit in our own inner wisdomand really say, well, what is
(28:22):
all of this about?
And then what I want you to dois come up with like three to
five words tops about how is itthat you really wanna feel?
That's the clarity that you canstart with, and this is all we
talk about in the intentionaland aligned method.
We're gonna do it in a weekendin December of 23.
(28:45):
So if you're interested, let'sdo that, because this clarity is
so essential to self love, selfworth, self esteem is getting
really clear about who I am, sothat I can love me in a really
good way.
So this is about settingintentions and these become our
(29:09):
intentions, because what Ilearned in my life, especially
in my early 30s, had checked allthe boxes that I was supposed
to check, right, like I went tocollege, got the job, had the
husband and the house and thekid and I did all of those
things.
I checked all the boxes and Iwas never more miserable in my
life, even though I had beentold I would be happy when I got
(29:32):
there.
I was not happy and what Irealized was that if we wanna be
happy when we get there.
If we wanna be happy when weget all the things on our vision
board, we have to bring happywith us, and so happy meaning
whatever it is that you wannafeel, that's just the generic
term, right.
(29:52):
But if I wanna feel love,connection and peace, I'm gonna
have to bring love, connectionand peace with me.
Does that make sense?
So that becomes our intention.
I'm gonna show up every daywith love, connection and peace,
because that's what I say ismost important, and when I'm
aligned with that, more love,connection and peace is going to
(30:15):
come into my life.
So we set our intentions on theway that we want to feel.
What lights us up most.
Don't pick the hardest feelings.
Pick up the ones that, when youbring them into your heart,
they feel exciting.
You get turned on, it feelslike excitement and vibration in
(30:38):
your body.
The energy feels aligned.
Right, you might need topractice that, but that's okay
because, like I keep telling you, self-love is a practice.
So next week we're gonnacontinue our journey into
unlocking this self-love.
It's a course too, in caseyou're interested, and it does
come with the modern midlifementorship.
(31:00):
So if you join the mentorship,this is a course that you would
get on your own.
You would get thevisualizations, you would have
access to doing the course withus.
We do a half day experiencetwice a year.
You would be able to come joinus for that.
It's a little different eachtime and you could go deeper and
(31:20):
deeper and start peeling theseonions off of this huge ball of
that that is you.
That's the best way I can put itright now, anyway, so to wrap
up, in episode 11, we talkedabout compassion and curiosity,
essential steps to self-loveright and especially to getting
(31:44):
into this clarity excuse me, toget into this clarity.
This compassion and curiosity isessential because we wanna open
up, we wanna let go of thejudgments and all the
restrictions that we've put onour thinking and open up and see
the whole big picture.
Then we can get really clear,and that's what we're talking
about expanding our vision tosee more possibilities, not
(32:08):
limiting ourselves or focusingon some specific path.
We can be all of the thingsright.
The clarity is for us to seeall the possibilities.
Next week, in episode 15, we'lltalk about how to use this
clarity, how we start movingforward, getting movement, and
(32:30):
we're gonna talk about two of myfavorite keys, which is courage
and choice.
And, of course, with that it'sgonna come a lot of fear, a lot
of inner conflict, maybe evenouter conflict, and we'll talk
about that too.
So I hope that you'll join usnext week again.
Have a great week, shifters.
Welcome back shifters in midlife.
I am here to continue our monthof self love talk, so we
started episode 9.
I hope that you'll follow allthe way through the month of
October, because we have somereally great ways on unlocking
self love, and I know this is agiant topic, perhaps a topic
(00:21):
that makes you cringe a littlebit.
Maybe you don't know what selflove is like, and these are the
keys that I've been talkingabout this month so that you can
start experiencing just alittle bit of what self love is
and start peeling back thoselayers of self love.
So last week, in episode 11, Isuggest that you go back and
(00:44):
listen if you haven't tuned inwe talked about compassion and
curiosity, and those are twoessential steps in self love
that will help us with the onethat we're talking about this
week, which is clarity, andclarity is essential to self
love.
So often we're stuck in thatinner critic part of us which is
(01:05):
like this much of all of who weare.
This is a tiny little thoughtof who we are, and yet we're so
narrowed in on that.
When we're in our inner criticand when we're unclear about
ourselves, we think that we haveto fix these things, and what I
want us to do is get clarity onall of who we are so that we
(01:27):
can have a more balanced look.
So when we don't have clarityself love is hard because of a
lot of things we start focusingagain on that inner critic, all
of our flaws or imperfections,if you want to call them, the
things that we don't think serveus.
That's what we're focused onoften.
(01:49):
When we're unclear, we oftencompare ourselves to other
people as well.
This is so easy to do, isn't it?
Especially in our social mediaworld, where we can see the
Instagram stories of people'slives, but we're not seeing the
behind the scenes, and that'swhat we have to remember that we
aren't seeing the littleconflicts that they're having
(02:12):
within themselves or with others.
We're not seeing the thingsthat show up the way that they
didn't want to show up, and westart thinking well, you know,
suzy, it does X, y and Z.
So great, now I don't do thosethings that great.
We're also not looking at ourown gifts.
So when we're unclear, we alsoseek this external validation.
(02:38):
We think that if we are perfectenough, or we people please
enough, that people will give usthe validation that we're
looking for.
But what happens then is westart living for other people's
expectations rather than gettingreally clear on who we are and
what it is that we want and whowe want to be, which are really
(02:59):
big questions, right?
And it takes a lot of innerwork, and for many of us it's
just 10 times easier to peopleplease to overwork because we're
good at our work, or to settlein a relationship because that
person validates us, and soclarity helps us to start
(03:20):
self-validating.
It's great if we get externalconfirmation, but self-love is
about self-validating, right, sothat we are the judge of who we
are if we're good enough, ifwe're not, if we're too much,
whatever that those judgments wemight have about ourselves.
(03:41):
This is the work of clarity,right?
So clarity is part of thepractice of self-love, and
you're gonna hear me say this alot.
Self-love is a practice andclarity is one way that we
practice self-love.
And in midlife it's so easy forus to be unclear because there's
(04:01):
so much going on.
Our roles and our identitiesare changing.
Some of us are shifting jobs,some of us are looking at
retirement, some of us have letgo of children because they've
grown up and they're off ontheir own, and so all of these
roles that we held so tight tobefore are like slipping through
(04:23):
our fingers and we're startingto feel like, wow, well, who the
heck am I without my kids?
Who the heck am I if I'm not?
Whatever put in your title here?
And we start wondering what ourwhole being is, not just the
doing right, not just who am Iwhen I'm doing things, but who
(04:43):
am I when I'm not doing things.
We've also put off all thesedreams, and you know, I remember
when my kids, my kid, wasgrowing up, I was like, ah, one
day, when I don't have kids,this is what I'm gonna do, I'm
gonna spend my time doing that.
And yet I can often get stuckin a work rut, too, where I'm
just like working and fairlyliving, especially with the
(05:05):
pandemic that we had.
And so this is about usrediscovering what we're
passionate about, what we wantto do for ourselves.
And if we're only seekingexternal validation, that what
we want to do for ourselves canbe really, really hard to come
up with, because we've neverreally thought about what we
(05:26):
wanted for ourselves.
We always thought about whatother people expected from us.
So clarity can get really hardif we've always depended on that
external validation.
And the other thing thathappens by midlife is many of us
have become comfortable in ourlives.
So, maybe financially, maybeit's just emotionally, whatever
(05:47):
it is, we've created comfortzones in our lives and so
sometimes it's hard to break outof those comfort zones because
our brain sees any risk of thatcomfort zone as an unsafe thing,
not necessarily justuncomfortable and so we want to
be weary, that we can get toocomfortable, and that stops us
(06:09):
from growing and it means thatwe have to shrink our dreams, it
means that we don't get excitedabout things as much anymore,
and so we don't want that.
We want to get clear, and byusing curiosity and compassion
that we talked about in episode11, we can start getting clear.
By opening up our vision, byhaving less judgments right, by
(06:32):
asking ourselves questions, byusing our imagination, which is
what we're going to do today.
So Clarity comes by askingreally good questions.
And yet we often want to startwith these big questions, right?
Because if we can answer thesebig questions, boom, we'll have
(06:53):
that clarity.
And clarity let me also premiseyou with clarity also comes like
an onion.
It's in layers, so we cut offone layer and then we feel like
we're clear and then we realizethat there's another layer, that
we can always be going deeper,and this isn't a bad thing.
I know a lot of people who wantto be like I just want to get
(07:14):
clear and be done with it.
And yet that's not the way itworks.
We're really complex beings andso in order for us to be able
to imagine what that core centerlayer might look like, we have
to go through these littlechanges, and it's where our
growth is.
So it's very exciting for us tobe able to discover newer and
(07:37):
newer things about ourselves.
So what are these big questionsthat we want answered?
Let's just start with theoverview and then we can go into
the details.
I'm going to give you some waysin which you can get really
clear with yourself.
That I'm hoping you'll try out.
But the big questions we havethe biggest who am I now?
And that's kind of our sagearchetype wants to say who am I
(08:02):
now, now that maybe the role ofmy mothering has changed, maybe
the way that my job descriptionor title has changed, maybe just
not having a job title anymore?
Who am I now with all out allthese things?
Maybe I've lost friends, maybeI've shifted relationships.
(08:22):
Who am I now without thosepeople?
Or with these new people?
Who am I Right?
So who am I?
Is answered by what's mostimportant to us and also all of
who we are, not just that innercritic view, that's really,
really small, but all of us, allof our gifts, our strengths,
(08:43):
our characteristics, our values.
Those are all the things thatmake up who we are.
The second question that I getasked a lot, or that people want
to answer in midlife especially, is what do I want now?
What do I want Right?
It's such a hard question forso many of us because we've been
(09:05):
serving for so long.
It's hard to then go back intoourselves and ask, like, what do
I want now?
And some of us are afraid todream, right?
So if or even change dreamsthis is a big one too is this
changing of dreams?
Well, I have this dream and Ifeel like I'd be failing or
(09:29):
quitting if I let go of it nowor if I shifted it now.
And to that I want to say notall dreams are meant to happen.
Some of them are just meant toget us on one path so we can get
on another path, and that'sokay.
So when we know whether or notwe want to change dreams we want
to start looking at does thisalign with who I am Not?
(09:54):
Is it hard?
Am I afraid?
Is it risky?
All of those things.
But does it align with who I amIf I say that my gifts, my
magic and my values, mycharacteristics all went?
This one thing is that dreamstill in alignment with that?
(10:15):
And that's where we want to getclear.
And as far as goals, what do Iwant now?
Some people love big goals.
That's their thing.
And some of us have done somany huge goals that by midlife
we're like I'm exhausted, Ican't even imagine a new goal.
And I want you to know thateven if your goal today is just
(10:36):
I'm going to be kind of myself,that's a goal.
So I mean, these goals that wemake in midlife can be world
changing and they don't have tobe.
It's okay not to go out and tryto cure cancer.
Okay, it's okay if all we dotoday is be really kind to
ourselves, and that's our goalevery day.
(10:58):
So in midlife we get to choosewhat we want for the second half
.
The first half, we spend a lotof time doing what we think we
should.
What other people expect thatwe should.
And in the second half, thefreedom comes with us starting
being able to really dive intowhat is it that I want and
(11:19):
living our lives that way.
So who do I want to be isanother one right, and this
doesn't mean like, oh, I want tobe Beyonce.
This is more like, who do Iwant to be?
I want to be a person that hasthese certain values, that shows
up with these qualities, thatfeels a certain way.
(11:40):
What do I want to look back andthink of myself as Like, do I
want to look back and see myselfbeing generous and loving and
kind?
Or, you know, do I successfuland focused and committed?
What qualities orcharacteristics that I have?
(12:01):
Might I want to grow more as Iage, right, as I get older?
So those are our big questions.
Who am I?
What do I want?
Who do I want to be?
Right, when we love the answersto all of those just to land in
our labs, I know I certainlywould, but these are big
questions and they're hard tofocus on just like that.
(12:21):
So we're gonna have to peel backlayers, and one thing that
we're gonna have to use to peelback those layers is a bit of
imagination and the reason Iwant to bring up imagination.
It's so important.
It's something that as adultswe don't use nearly as much, at
least on the whole.
We tend to start seeing howroles and structures and the way
(12:46):
that things work and we stopquestioning if they can work a
different way.
We stop questioning if there'sa better way, if there's a way I
haven't even thought of yet orimagined yet, right?
So imagination is essential togetting clarity, and I know that
that sounds odd because somepeople are like oh yeah, just
(13:07):
what I need is more thoughts tocome in and more ideas to come
in.
Right, what if I already havetoo many ideas?
That's the point.
We want to see the wholespectrum.
Then we get to feel intoourselves and go what is
actually out of this wholespectrum of who I am, what I
(13:27):
want and who I want to be?
I get to choose.
We're offering ourselves much,much more choice with
imagination.
It's part of that curiositylesson that we talked about last
week.
So imagination is one way thatour inner wisdom speaks to us
about what's truly important toourselves.
(13:50):
So I often do visualizationswith my clients.
That's one way that they startunlocking the inner wisdom that
they have within themselves.
I don't give them the answers,I give them a scenario and their
brains fill in what that lookslike, what it feels like, what
it smells like, what happensthere, and all of those details
(14:14):
are really important becausethat's our inner wisdom,
offering up little bits ofinformation, and it's helpful to
grasp onto those little bits ofinformation and get really
curious about it, because thenwe can get clear about what's
really important to us, what itis that we value, what it is
(14:36):
that we really want to seeourselves as.
So, with that being said, I wantto talk about ways that we
start gathering this informationso that we can get really clear
, and one of them is dreaming,and this is so hard for some
(14:56):
midlife people.
Others are great.
So if you're great atimagination and dreaming of big
dreams, then this is the partfor you.
If you're not, this is also thepart for you, because I also
had shrunken my dreams down sothat I wouldn't have to risk
(15:17):
anything, and that did not serveme at all, and so I want to ask
us to just dream about what itis that we actually want, and
usually when we start this, oreven when I ask the question of
people what is it that you want?
The answer usually starts withnot this, and so we do this
(15:38):
thing that I call getting toshore.
So if we're drowning in theocean, all we want to do is get
to shore.
And so this kind of dreaming iswe're dreaming to solve the
problems that we have right now.
We're dreaming to avoid therisks that are up right now.
We're dreaming to leave thefears that we have right now.
(16:01):
Right, like we're surviving andwe're just trying to get to
survival mode, and that is justgetting to shore.
And if that's all you can doright now, that's beautiful.
Ultimately, I want you to keepdreaming and keep dreaming until
we can get beyond shore.
Instead of just getting tosurvival, I want us to start
(16:22):
thriving, and the way that wethrive is going beyond the
shoreline right, climbing up themountain to the big old castle
in the sky.
That is thriving.
We're going towards somethingwe want.
When we're in the ocean, goingto shore, we're just trying to
run away from the immediatesafety problem, right, drowning,
(16:47):
and so that's us running away,or getting away from what hurts
us.
Thriving is all about how wedream beyond that, right, like,
not only good enough, but beyondthat, like what is our wildest
imagination and it might becrazy big information.
Some of these visualizations Ido with my clients are about,
(17:10):
like you know, you can haveanything.
Maybe you want a pink elephant,maybe you want a dinosaur.
You can have it all in yourimagination, in this dream.
Right, it doesn't mean thatjust because we dream, it
doesn't mean it all needs tocome true.
There's something reallybeautiful, there's some kind of
information that that pinkelephant or that dinosaur is
(17:32):
giving us about what it is thatwe want.
So this is realistic ornon-realistic visualizations.
Right, this is going beyond ourego, which is going to try to
go that's too big, that's toobig, let's be logical, let's be
practical.
This is not logical orpractical.
This is beyond, because we'regoing to get a lot of
(17:54):
information.
We want to dream about where wewant to live, who we want to be
with, who we want to surroundourselves, with, what we want to
do every day, what we want todo for ourselves, what we want
to do for the world, because Ithink in our hearts we all want
to give back in some way how itis that we want to show up in
(18:15):
our everyday life.
What does happy look like foryou?
And, in the end, what we'relooking for is how we feel about
that.
Yes, there's going to be somevery, very interesting pieces of
information that come up, butwhat's most important to me at
this point, right to startgetting the clarity that we need
(18:38):
.
The grasp of clarity is we allwant something, because we want
to feel a certain way.
So, if you break out that visionboard or you create a new one
based on these crazy realisticor non-realistic imaginings that
you have, what is it that youactually want, right?
(18:59):
So, let's say, I did have acastle on my vision board.
I want to look at that visionboard and ask myself, right,
well, what do I think I'm goingto feel when I have that castle?
Because that's ultimately whatwe really want.
We want that feeling, thatfeeling that comes with doing
(19:20):
being having that thing.
And so, if we think about itthat way, that's the purest form
of clarity that we can have ishow do we want to feel?
And so, after you do all thatimagining, I hope that you write
down some things.
If you want, dm me and I willdefinitely get you a
(19:42):
visualization out.
Just let me know, I will sendone to you.
I just didn't want to do one inthe middle of the podcast In
case I put people to sleep whilethey're driving, or in
imagination while they'redriving or doing something
important.
So just message me and let meknow that you want the dreaming
visualizations.
(20:02):
The second thing that we can dothat I think that a lot of
people forget about is ourgolden shadow.
So if you've never done shadowwork before, ultimately the
shadow is all those things thatwe see in other people, often
that we repress and deny aboutourselves.
They could be unusually are thethings that we talk about, are
(20:26):
the triggering things.
Oh, she does this thing and itdrives me nuts, and that's
really about me and the factthat maybe I do that or I don't,
or I force myself not to dothat, and so it's not fair that
she allows herself to do that,and so I get mad at these little
things.
(20:47):
But today I don't want to talkabout the dark shadow.
I want to talk about the goldenshadow, and this is a part of
shadow that some people forgetis that the golden shadow is all
about the things that I see inother people that I think are
brilliant or awesome or gorgeous.
I think I just heard the termshimmer the other day, the
(21:11):
opposite of a trigger whenreally beautiful things happen,
and I suddenly get a jolt of joy, right.
And so all these shimmers thatwe're seeing in other people,
they are also in us.
Because the idea behind theshadow is you wouldn't be able
to recognize them if you did notpossess them.
You wouldn't be able torecognize them if you didn't
(21:34):
possess them.
And so what you see in othersis also in you, even this good
stuff.
And you're asking me but whywould I not see that?
Why would I not show off myshimmer if I had that in me?
It can't be right.
I used to think like I can't begraceful, right.
(21:56):
I see some women with grace inthe way that they handle
situations and I'm like, maybethat's not me.
And then I learned this conceptof golden shadow and I was like
, wow, could that be me?
Could that be me?
And here's the thing we hidethese things from ourselves.
Someone told us it wasn't good.
(22:16):
Maybe For me, sensitivity wasone right, like it was always
used as a negative.
Oh, you're so sensitive.
Well, in my 40s I've reclaimedsensitivity as a gift.
So I always hid my sensitivitybecause I thought it was
terrible and so I went like 180and became really tough, big
(22:40):
walls and that didn't reallyserve me.
And now I realize that thatpart of me that's really
sensitive is really important tome.
But I find it as a gift.
I'm sensitive to other people,I'm sensitive to what's going
around me, I'm sensitive toenergy.
That's not terrible for me.
That gives me a lot ofinformation before other people
(23:03):
necessarily get it.
So I get to choose that.
But before, if I saw somebodyelse being sensitive let's say
you know, or being accused ofbeing sensitive, I would judge
that negatively.
Now I see it as a gift.
But there's also other reasonswhy we hide these golden shadows
(23:24):
.
We're pushed or told not to usethat part of ourselves, right.
And she talks too much, andthat used to be a bad thing in
school, right?
Not if you're an influencer,not if you have a podcast, not
if speaking becomes your thing,right.
So talking too much might havebeen sheened out of you.
(23:46):
That might be the very thingthat's going to help your
relationships, help you in yourjob, help you with your kids is
that you talk too much, right?
So just recognizing that any oneof our gifts can be construed
negatively or positively, and itwas our inner child that didn't
(24:07):
know how to deal with thecriticism of them, so she hid
them right.
So another one was like showingoff, oh, you can't show off.
Well, some of us learned thatthat means that I have to hide
my gifts, and so we put thesegifts in our shadow because
somebody told us that theyweren't good enough or they were
(24:28):
criticized or somethingnegative is related to them.
So we put them in our shadowand go I'm not showing up like
that anymore, I'm not doing thatanymore, and so that's why we
hide these gifts.
We can transform thesebeautiful gifts that we see in
other people into our own, andthe way that we do that is by
(24:50):
growing those gifts.
So here's the exercise that Iwant you to do on your own I
want you to think of threepeople that you greatly admire.
Like you think that they'reawesome, right, like and maybe
for me it would be like RuthBader Ginsburg, because she was
so committed to the cause andfair and just, and I might start
(25:12):
thinking, wow, I don't staycommitted to causes enough.
I don't give enough commitmentfor I don't know.
I always know if I'm being fairin my head, and yet those
qualities are in me because,remember, if I can see them,
they are also in me.
It may not mean that myfairness shows up like hers,
(25:37):
right?
We might have.
I'm sure that we probablydisagree on several things,
right?
So it does not mean that if Isee grace in someone else, that
my grace is going to look likeher grace, right?
We all have different shades ofthese characteristics, and so
we want to just make sure thatwe know that just because I have
(26:02):
vibrance in me does not meanit's going to look like you know
Taylor Swift's vibrance.
It's going to be different,right?
But I want you to look at thesethree people and pick some
qualities that you greatlyadmire about them.
I want you to really thinkabout, like, how you can embrace
more of that for yourself.
I want you to know that youalready have that in you, but I
(26:26):
want you to start thinking about, like, how can I explore those
gifts more?
How can I use these gifts morein my life?
Because probably they all hadto practice at these gifts to
get really good at them, right?
And so I want you to see themand then, if you had those gifts
.
If you could see yourselfreally expanding those gifts in
(26:51):
your life, how would you feel?
How would you feel aboutyourself?
Because, remember, we're goingback to feeling.
So this is your imaginationsaying if I could put that in my
life, what would it be like?
And then feel it out, what arethe feelings like?
How would I feel?
How would that help me feelabout myself that I want to feel
(27:15):
so?
Then we have all of thisinformation from the
visualizations of this gettingto shore and beyond shore, right
, what would that dream andimagination look like, looking
at these people that we admire,getting all their qualities, and
what would I feel like if Icould show up like that?
And you might be thinking likethat's a lot of information.
(27:39):
How is this getting me clearwhen we're just adding and
adding and adding information?
We're an editing generation.
I get that short text, shortposts.
We don't want to go on and on.
Get to the point, right, that'sa lot, but this is where we
start connecting.
(28:00):
Right, this is our inner wisdomsaying, wow, these things are,
some of these groups of thingsare pointing towards specific
things, and we wanna startcreating those lines and
starting to see, like what is acommon theme that's coming up
and sit in our own inner wisdomand really say, well, what is
(28:22):
all of this about?
And then what I want you to dois come up with like three to
five words tops about how is itthat you really wanna feel?
That's the clarity that you canstart with, and this is all we
talk about in the intentionaland aligned method.
We're gonna do it in a weekendin December of 23.
(28:45):
So if you're interested, let'sdo that, because this clarity is
so essential to self love, selfworth, self esteem is getting
really clear about who I am, sothat I can love me in a really
good way.
So this is about settingintentions and these become our
(29:09):
intentions, because what Ilearned in my life, especially
in my early 30s, had checked allthe boxes that I was supposed
to check, right, like I went tocollege, got the job, had the
husband and the house and thekid and I did all of those
things.
I checked all the boxes and Iwas never more miserable in my
life, even though I had beentold I would be happy when I got
(29:32):
there.
I was not happy and what Irealized was that if we wanna be
happy when we get there.
If we wanna be happy when weget all the things on our vision
board, we have to bring happywith us, and so happy meaning
whatever it is that you wannafeel, that's just the generic
term, right.
(29:52):
But if I wanna feel love,connection and peace, I'm gonna
have to bring love, connectionand peace with me.
Does that make sense?
So that becomes our intention.
I'm gonna show up every daywith love, connection and peace,
because that's what I say ismost important, and when I'm
aligned with that, more love,connection and peace is going to
(30:15):
come into my life.
So we set our intentions on theway that we want to feel.
What lights us up most.
Don't pick the hardest feelings.
Pick up the ones that, when youbring them into your heart,
they feel exciting.
You get turned on, it feelslike excitement and vibration in
(30:38):
your body.
The energy feels aligned.
Right, you might need topractice that, but that's okay
because, like I keep telling you, self-love is a practice.
So next week we're gonnacontinue our journey into
unlocking this self-love.
It's a course too, in caseyou're interested, and it does
come with the modern midlifementorship.
(31:00):
So if you join the mentorship,this is a course that you would
get on your own.
You would get thevisualizations, you would have
access to doing the course withus.
We do a half day experiencetwice a year.
You would be able to come joinus for that.
It's a little different eachtime and you could go deeper and
(31:20):
deeper and start peeling theseonions off of this huge ball of
that that is you.
That's the best way I can put itright now, anyway, so to wrap
up, in episode 11, we talkedabout compassion and curiosity,
essential steps to self-loveright and especially to getting
(31:44):
into this clarity excuse me, toget into this clarity.
This compassion and curiosity isessential because we wanna open
up, we wanna let go of thejudgments and all the
restrictions that we've put onour thinking and open up and see
the whole big picture.
Then we can get really clear,and that's what we're talking
about expanding our vision tosee more possibilities, not
(32:08):
limiting ourselves or focusingon some specific path.
We can be all of the thingsright.
The clarity is for us to seeall the possibilities.
Next week, in episode 15, we'lltalk about how to use this
clarity, how we start movingforward, getting movement, and
(32:30):
we're gonna talk about two of myfavorite keys, which is courage
and choice.
And, of course, with that it'sgonna come a lot of fear, a lot
of inner conflict, maybe evenouter conflict, and we'll talk
about that too.
So I hope that you'll join usnext week again.
Have a great week, shifters.
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