I was such a good girl. Everything I did was aimed at making sure that everyone else was happy and comfortable. What I never realised about always being the good girl, was that it was actually a form of manipulation and there were large chunks of who I was that I was denying. This meant that I was not living a true and authentic life, and that I was deeply happy inside. Listen to this episode of The Living Through Heart Podcast for more on our Personas, and our Shadow, and why you need to start integrating the two. Here's the link I mention at the end: https://donnajoyusher.com/moreinfo
I was such a good girl. Everything I did was aimed at making sure that everyone else was happy and comfortable. What I never realised about always being the good girl, was that it was actually a form of manipulation and there were large chunks of who I was that I was denying.
This meant that I was not living a true and authentic life, and that I was deeply happy inside.
Listen to this episode of The Living Through Heart Podcast for more on our Personas, and our Shadow, and why you need to start integrating the two.
Here's the link I mention at the end: https://donnajoyusher.com/moreinfo
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Hi, I'm Donna Joy Usher, welcome to Living Through Heart.
Today I want to talk about something that's very dear to my heart.
As all these things are, because largely, I'm talking about me.
What I want to talk about is something actually, that I've been in my whole life that I know is very relevant to a lot of people out there.
And not just women, men also.
But for the sake of this, I'm talking about not being the good girl.
So don't be the good girl, is the topic of today.
So I mean, you can, if you're listening to this, and you're not a girl, you're a male, you can switch this to don't be the good boy, okay?
So don't be the good girl.
I have lived the majority of my life in the persona of the good girl.
And what I mean by persona, so the persona is the identity that we are that we live our life through that we have created, through the woundings that we have and how basically how we've learned to stay safe.
And we think that our persona is the truth of who we are, and how we show up in this world and, and how we act and what we think and how we do and what we react, we think that that's truly who we are.
But it's really just a whole heap of responses that have been put together, from things that we learned when we're young and things that went wrong and things that happened to us and things we observed, and what we learned about the world, and we learned about ourselves and how we've learned to stay safe within that.
So it's kind of like our persona is a conglomeration of the parts of ourselves that we have learned, we are safe to embody, and of a way of learning to be saved.
So like our learned behaviors, patterns.
So for some of us, it's the good girl, we learn to be the good girl.
And that it would be a lot of us, I would say, a large proportion of us would have the good girl, good boy, is the persona that we live our life from.
And we do this because it's by being the good girl, by being the good boy, we have learned to be safe within this.
But the problem with this is that to be the good girl, we have had to take large chunks of ourselves and force them into our shadow.
So basically, this part is not allowed, this part is not allowed.
And if you were brought up very religious, which I wasn't brought up very religious, but we, you know, did go to church, and I did go to communion, and you know, all those sort of things that Anglican church, you know, mom and dad tried to make sure that we were looked after spiritually, from that point of view that God would welcome us into heaven, even though we're going to church every week, and definitely, you know, lived from, you know, the 10 commandments were a nice place to live from, right?
So I wasn't, you know, grew up in a hugely religious household, but my ex partner did, you know, he grew up in a very Catholic household.
And within the church, it's so ironic, because, you know, we were born whole, with with all of us, and then straight away, we were taught, the parts of us aren't allowed that the evil they're not good enough.
And it's like, we're looking at God's creation and saying, God, almighty, maker of heaven and earth, you know, we surrender to you.
However, there's parts that you've created in us that aren't good enough, and we're just gonna, we're just gonna ignore those parts and cut them out, we're going to deny them, I'm going to say that they're not good enough, and they're not allowed, and they're not right.
And instead, we're going to do it, this bypass where we're just like, you know, kind and generous and giving and loving, and we're not allowed to be angry, we're not allowed to be jealous, we're not allowed to be greedy, we're not allowed to have envy, you know, all these parts of us that were taught are bad and evil, are shut down.
And we're punished if we show them.
And for some people, parts of themselves that we might as adults deemed to be beautiful parts that have forced into the shadow, and they were taught that they were not safe.
So it might be your your feminine power, or just your masculine power.
It might be the part of you that was smart.
I mean, maybe you got teased for being the geek and being smart, so you learned to hide, and maybe you even I know, some of my clients where they even would fail exams on purpose, get questions wrong on purpose, even though they were like brilliant, because it when they were turning up is brilliant, it wasn't safe, because they were bullied or mocked, or whatever.
So they learned to not be smart, they learned to turn up and pretend that they were, you know, to dumb themselves down.
So there's parts of us that are in the shadows that, you know, the mass proportion, would say, oh yes, those parts of us are not allowed.
They're not, you know, we have to deny those parts.
But there are parts of us that we stick in our shadow that are actually beautiful, magnificent, sensual, sexual, our power.
You know, our intelligence, our creativity, our happiness.
You know, I had one client who wasn't allowed to be happy as a child because everyone in her house was depressed.
And when she was bubbling and happy, she was smacked down, so she learned not to be happy and that part of her was put into her shadow.
So what we do is we cobbled together this persona of the parts of us that are allowed, and it's safe to be.
And then our learned mechanisms of behavior with that.
And that becomes who we are how we show up in the world, how we act and react.
And our and our brain is hardwired with this, our unconscious mind actually has neurons that are linking and connecting, so that we react to things in a certain way without even having to think about it right, because of this persona of who we are, and what it is safe to be.
So for me, being the good girl, you know, a lot of people in my life would be very surprised when I talk about these things, because I was always, you know, told how strong I was, how this was and how that I was from a good point of view.
But inside, I was always like this.
And I had learned to bluff.
Put this out to the world well, inside, I was cringing and creeping around and manipulating.
You know, my safety mechanism, where it's so safe in the way I've got what I wanted, because I wasn't allowed to have it outright, I learned to manipulate situations and make and say things in such a way that other people would think it was their own idea.
And I would allow them to have that, that idea, great idea was their's, even though I had seeded it, and then and then like, watered it and manipulated and then like teased it up into them, and them owning it so that I could have what I wanted.
You know, great skill to have.
But now I own it.
And I observed myself within it.
And I know that when I'm manipulating, I'm not in my power.
So when I when I do see it, and I observe it happening, that's oh, what's going on here, and I stop, and I have to think about it, right?
The good girl for me on the surface was making sure that everybody else was happy, everybody else looked, you know, felt, or happy with me, right?
And then I could get what I wanted while they were happy.
So that's where the manipulation came in.
But then I was also sacrificing things, and parts of myself and what I wanted to make sure that everyone else was happy, because that was how I stayed safe.
The problem with that, right?
When we, when we're like the chameleon that's always bending and flexing and contorting ourselves into different ways to make sure that everyone around us and in our facility, in our energy field, and in the room is like happy and has loving energy towards us, because then we feel safe, is that we're never actually truly safe.
Because we can't control what other people think.
And we can't control what other people do.
The only person we do have control of is ourself.
And ironically, it's much more effort to try and control everybody else to stay safe, rather than just creating our safety within.
But when we're a baby, a small child, we don't know how to do that, we don't know how to self regulate, we don't know how to self soothe.
So instead, we have to manipulate others to get what we want, or we have to do what they want, or please, or make them happy or make make them laugh or whatever it is that we learned to do.
The learned behavior that we learn, allows us to have some safety.
And for some people, you know, it was a really bad situation they're in, where their caregiver was also abusive towards them, and the distortion within and the parts of them they had to fragment out, to stay safe, to feel safe means that now as adults, they're living their life with fragmented self to parts that aren't allowed.
And that's a hard place to try and heal from, to bring these parts back in when you have been so programmed, to not have them, to not be safe.
And to actually there's a lot of self hatred there for parts within that, which is then obviously a reflection of self hatred of self within those moments.
Anyway, getting distracted, so the good girl, so for me, the good girl looks like always being the bigger person, turning the other cheek, taking one for the team.
So these are all things that we get, like turn, you know that we're here, I take one for the team, you know, be the bigger person, turn the other cheek, don't hurt other people's feelings, you know, so we'll, we'll put our own feelings on hold.
And we won't say what we truly think because we don't want to hurt somebody else's feelings, right?
Better that were hurting, right.
But if it were the one that takes it, because that's safe, because we can handle that.
And we know that we're strong enough for that.
But we don't want to make other people hurt because then they might not like us.
And then we're not part of the herd anymore, and then we're not safe.
So you'll see I mean, I keep saying the word safe, right?
But that's really the hardwiring of what it all comes down to.
And there's safety in worthiness, and the safety and lovability and I used to think that that was the bottom was being worthy, being lovable, being you know, these things that we have these limiting beliefs that really they all tap into that needing to be safe in that primitive instinctive drive within us even though we are human.
And even though we have a conscious mind, like animals, we still have that primitive drive to survive.
And to be safe, is to survive.
So, I would always second guess myself in my head, like, I'd be bending stuff and like, oh, it's okay, because I know that they're going through this or they're feeling like this, and this might always make it okay for somebody else.
And then I'd like allow, there's a big allowing energy and being the good girl, allowing other people to walk all over you allowing other people to say things and to be rude.
And then to not call them on it.
And what fascinates me, when someone says something rude, and then when you call them back, the offense that is taken when you, you mirror them and reflect their energy back at them.
Honestly, don't do that.
Because we don't want to offend people, right?
So, you know, for me, it was definitely this enduring, I'm strong enough to take it, I'll take everybody's stuff, and I can handle it, I'm stronger than them.
I mean, how arrogant is that right?
For me to assume that I can take on their stuff, I'm strong enough, meaning I'm stronger than them, that they shouldn't have to take their own shit, that I can do it for them, that I can somehow make everything better for them make it right?
Talk about taking away from somebody else's chance.
And that journey by taking everything from them.
And this is what I've been, you know, I've talked about this before the reflection, my current understanding of how I created the relationship of 25 years that ended the way it did, in that I used to have this whole like, oh, we attract the energy to us of the known right, which is true, we do, and so much that we attracted to us, but when we find it, we swim willingly into it.
Because it's, it's a familiar, a familiar thing.
It's a familiarity for us, this energy.
And our brain knows that we can survive that, we can survive that energy, because we survived it before.
And therefore, no matter how effed up it seems, to us that's safe.
And somebody else looking at that situation, we go, Whoa, that's not safe.
That's not safe at all.
But to us, it's safe, because it's known, and we know we can survive it.
So we take this stuff, and we take it on and we take it away.
And for me, I had created this thing where I like, I had attracted this energy of the masculine that I was used to me.
And I was like, at the end of my relationship, I was like, oh, yeah, it's like, Oh, you know, the whole father energy thing.
And I was still being a victim, right?
I thought that I was being really aware and awake.
But I was still in victim mode.
Because what I hadn't realized, which is so important for us to actually create freedom in our life, right, we have to realize it's not just that the energy felt safe and familiar to us, but it's how we acted in that safe and familiar pattern of the past.
We weren't in our power, we weren't able to create something different than what were the known had been, because we were acting in the same way.
We weren't saying when things weren't okay.
Well, the weeper, but definitely me, right?
Wasn't saying, I wasn't saying when things weren't okay,
I was taking it and I was being this hurt little girl inside and I was wishing, why aren't I important enough for him to be able to read my mind and give me what I want.
When reality is we're not mind readers.
And he didn't know what I wanted because I wasn't telling him.
And look sure, at the very beginning, maybe I try, there were moments of memories where I can see that I did try, in my own limited way.
And I was kind of shut down, right?
But this was the energy I was in.
But then rather than actually going no, that's not okay.
And coming from that quiet place of power, right?
Straight away, like no, that's not okay.
I won't be treated like that.
My needs and wants are important.
This is my boundary and it will not be transgressed.
This is non negotiable.
Rather than being in the quietness of the truth of my power, I bent, and I curved, and I manipulated, I tried to make everything right, I tried to get love in different ways.
And of course, it all just blew up in the end, right?
Because 25 years on, I'm now like 50, and I don't want to be doing this anymore.
And I'm not respecting the people more either myself or him anymore.
But I created it.
I created the situation by not standing up for myself and giving him either the chance to say well actually, that's not right for me and us like going up different ways or for him to realize that the shit he was putting on to me was his past and allowing him to grow.
So that's a realization I had had and then this week, it went one step further.
And I was able to see the persona of the good girl within my relationships with women.
And I was always like, I'm insecure attachment with women.
But then I realized, you know what, not so much now as I'm older, but definitely when I was younger, and in my 20s and early 30s, maybe late 30s, as well, maybe early 40s, anyway, doesn't happen anymore, right.
And maybe it's because I just don't allow it to happen anymore.
But I used to be met quite often with an aggressive, competitive energy from other women.
And in all honesty, it's probably what I was putting out in the world, right?
Because I used to often be in competition with masculines to be better than them because that was how I'd learned to stay safe.
If I was better than the boys and I used to get praise and attention and love, right.
So I was probably, obviously, I mean, let's be truthful here.
This is probably the energy that I was carrying in myself this, I'm you know, really good.
And I'm competitive.
And I'm like, you know, this and here I am this high achieving dentist and this and that, and blah, blah, blah, I always have to be the best at everything.
So this is his energy and me, right?
And then women are, are responding to that by coming in attack mode.
So women that I never even met, and didn't even know who I was, and that at heart, I was just a people pleasing good girl, right?
You would bend over backwards to make everyone happy.
They were reacting to me and my energy.
Okay, this part is just coming in now, this and I did have this come in this week that I create the competition.
So yes, okay.
It was obviously me, didn't realize that this is what I was putting out there by having to be right and be the best, right?
And they're responding to it.
But at heart, I'm actually just a really sweet person that wants everyone to love me.
By accepting me and by realizing how good I am.
So I was met with a lot of jealous competition and a lot of negativity and women who had never even met before and and heard of me and heard that she is a dentist and blah, blah, blah, and this and that.
And whatever else I you know, I was doing at that time.
The first time I would meet them, it would often be very, not nice energy like this, like really aggressive stuff.
And I would like retreat, like, Oh, what have I done wrong?
What is it about me?
I'd be hurt inside when I say anything, right?
Rather than going and saying, Oh, that's interesting.
I'm sorry, have we met before?
And saying, well, I'm not quite sure where you got that from or that opinion from, but that's actually not true, you know, or whatever it is, whatever it was coming at me, rather than actually reflecting it back at them, and allowing them to see their own shit at play in motion, right?
I just took it.
And I didn't say anything, I didn't respond.
And I was the bigger person.
And I took it on the chin and one for the team.
And then I would like be trying to make them like me, because oh my god, it's not safe when they don't like me.
And once again, not allowing them to have maybe an aha moment or revelation.
And maybe when someone quietly calls you on your shit.
You know, often the initial response is for them to then be able to like find a way to make a beat back at you right to put it back at you.
So often, when you do pull someone in their shit, right, the immediate response and reaction and they like, come back out, they attack even more, right, and they turn it back on you.
Because it's not safe for them to have you calling them on a shoot, right?
But who's not to say that a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, they might not reflect on that.
And it might give them the aha understanding moment of why they were doing that.
And you may have seeded something with them, that gives them a chance to grow and get them gives them a chance to have their journey.
So, you know, there's that whole spiritual bypassing that goes on in the spiritual world where we're like meditating and bringing in light, love, and all wonderful.
And we're not going in, we're not going in and doing the work, right?
We're not chasing the shadow, we're not finding the parts of us that actually exist and allowing them, and the thing is that when you don't feed the shadow, when you don't allow the shadow parts, they're there.
They're there in the background.
And they're not happy.
And you know, what happens when you don't stand up for yourself?
I mean, you don't show other people how to treat you by being important to yourself, enough to say no, I'm sorry, that's not acceptable.
And I'm not gonna allow that and that's okay if that's what you want to do.
But yeah, I'm just gonna leave right?
It doesn't have to be aggressive right when you're coming from that place of quiet power up your boundaries, you have to come out fighting.
What happens that we don't do that just I actually you know what, I'm not okay with that.
And I get that you want to do that, but yeah, I'm not that person.
And I'm exit stage left, right.
When we don't do that and we just take it, and we take it, and we take it, we take it, we take in, that angry part of us that's not allowed gets angrier and angrier and angrier and angrier and angrier until all all of a sudden the pressure inside is great enough to pop through that not allowed and then it's like, I always think about that Jurassic Park, I don't know, the very first movie there is that like, dinosaur?
I don't know, when they're running away, they're in the car and this dinosaur comes up.
And it's like coo, coo, coo coo like being cutesy and everything.
And then it's like, that's what we're like, right?
That's us.
That's our shadow persona coming up and coming out.
And it's like a jab.
And it's often, not often but more often than not, far more power coming up.
And what is actually related to that moment, because it's all the times before where we let our boundary be transgressed and didn't say anything.
It's building and building and building, and this poor person comes along and pokes isn't it, and it's like, you know, the abscess is the volcano has launched, right?
And they're like, I'm, all I did was say this.
And it's because we're not allowing the shadow, not allowing the angry one, the one that is able to put us first and for us to be important, we're not allowing them in.
The other way it shows up right is passive aggressive behavior to the good girl, or the good boy can be very passive aggressive, because we can't be angry.
But then we have to let them know that we're not happy in some way, right?
Because they're not reading our mind, or they're not giving us what we want.
And so we make little snippy comments or do this passive aggressive stuff, withdraw, withdraw affection attention, because that's often what we were taught to do, right?
Because it was what was done to us.
We do all this stuff.
And it's all this manipulation to actually ultimately get what we want, which is love and attention, and a feeling of safety, it all comes back to that.
So what to do, what to do, if this is you, well, be honest.
And start to realize that this person who you are, is just a persona.
It's not really you, there's all these parts of you that are locked away in the shadow that you're not allowing, and that you're not admitting.
And start to be curious about what they are.
And maybe it's a sensual sexual one, maybe you were taught when you were young, that you're not allowed to be sexy or feminine, or it's maybe you were taught that it's dangerous, it's dangerous to be that you get attention to get unwanted attention, right.
And that's often what happens with people who are sexually abused as children, they learn and you know, there's often a lot of like, you know, hiding over eating, not paying attention to their appearance or how they look or their body because they want to hide and they don't want to be noticed, right?
Because it's not safe when they are noticed because of what happened to them.
And yet, there's this part of them that is sexual and sensual, you know, beautiful that's like locked away in the shadow and what happens with us when we don't actually allow our shadow and feed our shadow and bring our shadow back in and become part of the whole is that there's moments when our boundaries are down so when we're really tired or sick or drunk and the shutter comes out, so maybe you know the good girl who after she's had like a bottle of wine is like this crazy flirt on the dance floor get knocked down, because all of a sudden she can come out the shadows come out to play right and then in the morning it's like oh the shame, oh my god the shame because the shadow came out, and shadow has been locked in the closet for so long.
She just come out she came out and she had some fun.
Yeah, I remember many mornings of like, oh shame about how I behaved when really it was just me wanting to be me wanting to be home right?
Shame and guilt oh my god for the good girl.
If someone says anything that like is against you or negative towards you that, oh my god that used to be like a knife going in and oh, the shame and sometimes it would just come up and I wouldn't even know why right?
My unconscious, I don't know if it's just thinking about something and it's like putting it in or it's recognizing something at the time and then I start to get that hot flush thing coming up and it's like, I'm not good enough would come in right.
And then the need to be right would come up and then this whole is good girl thing coming on.
So obviously there's probably more persona stuff here than just a good girl.
This you know, someone that needs to be right to be safe.
There's, you know, all the stuff going on there too. But we're just talking about the good girl today.
So what to do, if you have these shadow beings, the first thing is to be totally honest with yourself and to acknowledge that they're there and you know what, it's okay.
Anger is actually not a bad thing.
When it's a bad thing is when you don't allow it and express it and recognize it and you don't in a responsible way, deal with your anger.
Because anger in a moment is never really purely about the moment right?
It's when something triggers us and we get super angry.
It's a charge from the past.
So we realized something happened in the past, that was angry that we didn't get to express because this angry presence is not allowed and now the button has been pushed, again, and comes up.
When you are able to observe the trigger, observe the anger and take yourself away and express it in privacy, right not taking it out on some poor innocent victim who just happened to press your button without even knowing about it, right.
But when we can go off and allow it, breathe into it, allow it and then even like tap into where it came from, and have that recognition of how well that part of you that is harboring that anger isn't allowed them to express through you with sound and like, ah, pillow beating and get it out of you, move this energy out, because it's trapped in your body, right?
That's where the button comes from this physiological responses, the hormones being released, it's all trapped in our body.
When you can go and do that, and release it.
And then observe the situation again, you see it from a totally different angle.
And you see that the anger was a total over response.
Maybe yeah, there's still a boundary that needs to be put in place.
So there's still a conversation that has to be had.
But it's now coming from a place of quiet power and peace, and not an overreaction, where you might even damage your relationship.
And if it's with your intimate partner, drive them away, you know, you keep coming out like that over and over and over again.
That's not a nice environment for them to be in when they get attacked, and they're not even sure why.
Just because they said something that happened to trigger you up from the past, right?
Maybe it reminded you of an ex boyfriend or an ex husband or your father or some jerk from school.
And then you're taking it out on this person.
And to be honest, that's very irresponsible of us to do that.
Because we're not taking responsibility for who we are, who we really are.
And for these parts of us that we haven't allowed, that are now coming out and attacking other people.
So observe them, when they come up, be the observer of your mind, don't be in your thought.
Don't get caught up in the program that's there.
Don't get caught up in the story, the narrative, it's just a story, a narrative.
It's just an illusion, right?
It's not really real.
I mean, what is happening?
And this is why we always feel shame afterwards, because we can see that oh, maybe I overreacted?
Yeah, yeah, of course, we overreacted because we're not being responsible.
And we're not doing the work.
So observe.
And when you see a shadow part of you, that's coming up.
And often a good way to see it is what triggers you and not just in anger.
But, you know, for me, it was cute little cute, cute women who are also like flirty, and all this sort of stuff.
What they still trigger me, right?
Let's be honest.
Because I'm just not that person.
But obviously, there's a part of me that I've stuck into the shadow that wants to be able to be all like vulnerable with a guy and like flirty and, and to have the man take care of me.
Don't throw rocks at me for admitting that, alright?
This is me just admitting, this is part of me that's been pushed to the shadow.
She's probably overreacting.
And if I was to bring her back in, it wouldn't look like that right?
But to desire a masculine that can hold me and can see me and can adore me, and can be with me in the wholeness of who I am and love me for that.
And for me to be able to surrender into that.
That's not a weakness.
That's a strength.
So don't throw rocks at me for wanting that, okay?
Anyway, where was I?
Yes, observe, observe these parts.
So when you have a trigger coming up, take time out to think about the trigger, what was the trigger?
What triggered you?
What was it in them that you were about?
Right?
Because 99.99% of the time, that thing is your shadow.
That thing that's annoying you and that person is annoying you because you're denying it in yourself.
And you hate that part of you.
You're not allowing them.
So when you see in someone else, then you hate it in them as well, right?
And it triggers you.
Sometimes people are triggering you because they've overstepped your boundary and you're not in your power and you're not putting that in.
So that's another beautiful thing to observe.
Because why am I not being in my power?
Why am I not putting my boundaries in place?
And why am I not letting them know, hey, no stop, back off.
And then the other way that triggers you is because they remind you of somebody else that triggers you.
And then let's go back to AMB for that, right.
So triggers are a blessing.
When you get into discomfort and a situation and you're out of your control, and this is happening in the you know, you find substantial control, stop, look at it, there's a trigger there.
And you can dive into that trigger and observe yourself from within it and learn so much about yourself and the parts of you.
You learned were not allowed and then start to allow them and start to integrate them back in.
It's like, what does this part of me want?
What is this part of me need?
And how would they feel when they had it?
And there's a beautiful practice that I've just learned in the tantra embodiment practitioner training I'm doing called Feed the Shadow.
And that's exactly what you do.
You bring up the shadow part, you observe them, you ask them those questions, what do you want?
What do you need?
How would you fee if you had it?
It's like, what do you want from me?
What do you need from me?
How would you feel if you had it?
And then you allow them to answer you into the energy of this part of you.
And from their energy, your answer, and you'd be surprised what the answers are.
And then you feed the shadow, you give that to them, you turn yourself into that essence, and you feed it to them. And in doing that, what's actually happening is, it's like a part therapy, where you're actually bringing that part back in and integrating back into and allowing them back into the sphere of actually who you are.
And you're rewiring your neurology in that moment, which is really exciting, right?
So what's the benefit of doing this work of going into the show and bringing it back in?
Well, one, we're not always in the pain, right?
We're not always in the pain of not being enough not being good enough of not being saved, because we're creating a safety inside.
And we're being responsible adults, where all we have to worry about is one person.
But instead, all we worry about is everybody else, right?
We worry about everybody else, trying to control it, trying to control situations, trying to keep ourselves safe.
All we have to worry about is here, going inside, allowing these parts creating safety within making it be safe and okay to be who we are.
Because we're accepting ourselves, when we accept ourselves and all of our fullness.
And, you know, the thing that brings me joy about this process is the amusement that I get from observing myself, petty parts of me that they're funny, right?
I can be amused by them.
And then and then the growing up, they're these little parts that were caught in these earlier moments.
And they're growing up, and they're maturing, and they're letting go right?
To allow them to come back in and to integrate means that they're not caught in the trauma in the moment when they were like splintered off from you, which is normally when they're actually a small child.
So when they're reacting, and when they're coming from this place, they're coming from a place of really immaturity.
And by allowing them to come back in and integrating them, they grow up and you keep moving into more and more wholeness.
And from that place, oh my god, that the safety that we can give ourselves, I'm not I'm not saying that I don't have any triggers.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still in the journey, right.
But I'm getting to the point where I can recognize the beauty and have moments of the stillness of the wholeness, right.
And I'm still finding blind spots, and I'm still learning and integrating stuff I'm learning and, and you know, bringing in more and more teachings and information.
But really what it is, it's about this continuing opening up of who I am, and moving deeper and deeper and deeper into the stillness of that person.
And being able to be just be that person.
And when you're in that energy, of just being, and you're not trying to be the good person or the right person, and you're trying to manipulate situation.
Your energy is totally different.
And people aren't going to see that you're a pushover a walkover.
And look, there'll be people in your life who aren't going to like it.
You know, because they've been getting something out of you being like this being the people pleaser.
And they'll go off and they'll find somebody else who's a people pleaser to give it to them.
And you know what, that's an amazing thing.
Because these people are energy vampires, we don't need them in our sphere.
So I know a lot of people are scared to do it, because they think they'll lose all their loved ones, they won't, they'll just lose the ones who don't truly love them.
The ones who loves them will will rejoice in their growth.
They'll enjoy rejoice in your growth, right.
And as you start to embody a bigger and bigger safety within yourself and move into that and like expand within yourself, you allow them to do the same, the observation of you within, and the space you can hold for them.
It's like an entrainment, you take people with you.
I can remember when I first started doing therapy was with my gorgeous girlfriend, Charlotte, who trained me and luckily my therapist and psychotherapist, and she said, as you expand and grow, people will either come with you or they'll go in the opposite direction.
And it's true.
And that's what happened with a lot of my relationships, including with my ex partner.
As I grew and expanded and wanting different things.
He went the other way and tried to control me even more and tried to stop me and tried to like tell me to stay the same way I was, we'd be happier that way.
And yet I was miserable.
And I couldn't even touch joy.
And you know, I thought initially that he'd come with me and he didn't.
And it was like that final realization that he wasn't going to come with me, and that I wasn't ever going to be able to be truly who I was within that relationship that ultimately allowed me to leave.
And you know, the journey of them being by myself and moving into all these parts, you know, and this whole journey I'm on now, right started at that moment.
So anyway, I've been rambling on for ages, I hope that you have got something out of this some food for thought.
And look, I'm going to be doing workshops in the future, I'm thinking, you will be now with July 2023, I'm thinking by 24, I'm going to start bringing, I want to create workshops that help empower people.
And they're going to be online, you know, maybe in person as well, but they're going to be online as well.
So if it's something that you would be interested in learning, like more about coming into your power, whether it be a man or a woman, saying to them, find those parts, find the shadow, embrace them, you know, power retrieval, so it's going to be, the workshops will be a combination of teachings, and then also processes that will take you through from all the different things and all the different methodologies that I've learned over the over the time.
And they're going to be beautiful, and a great place to hang out with other people.
So that the like minded on the same journey as you and to meet new people.
So if that sounds like something that you would like, look at the moment, I'm just I've just created a form you can fill out you can go on a list.
So it's livingthroughheart.com/moreinfo.
Just go on my list, you probably won't hear from me for ages until I'm ready to launch, and then I'll let you know what I'm doing when I'm doing it.
You know, the workshops and also maybe moving into couple counseling, things like that.
Counseling, I hate that word.
Therapy's bad too.
I'll come up with some other word for it.
Cuz it's like maybe couples expansion, something like that.
Okay.
Alright.
I hope you got something out of this and I will see you next time.