Owning Your Power

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Hello,

Everybody.

Welcome back to Pretty Spiritual Podcast.

We are now in season two.

So welcome.

Kind of exciting.

I'm Annie and I'm here with Lindsay Poney.

Hey,

Everyone.

I'm Lindsay Poney.

And we have a special guest today,

Kelly.

Hey,

Friends.

I'm Kelly.

So this season,

We are going to have some changes.

We've been on a pause for over four months and just had our first episode come out about then and now.

If you haven't had listened,

Come check it out.

And today we have a really special topic that Kelly picked for us.

And this is what we'll be doing is having our guests pick the topic when they come on because we really want to use the opportunity to learn from other people's experiences and get their voices and their knowledge and learn and grow from it.

And especially after this long pause that kind of the entire world has been on Pretty Spiritual Podcast has been on a pause to due to the global pandemic,

Due just to our own personal lives.

And then also here in the US,

There's been the Black Lives Matter movement and this very direct conversation that our country has been having about racism and what it means and witnessing so many people and their courage and their strength and having the opportunity to learn and hopefully stand in solidarity with and support is really been a wonderful time to pause and think about what does it mean for owning my own power inside me?

And how have I not been able to do that in the past?

And how can I do that moving forward and in a bigger picture because so much of this shift into our season two of Pretty Spiritual Podcast is really looking at how can we start to make these changes and the spiritual growing inside ourselves so then we can be a more service out into the world.

So if I can own my power inside of myself,

How can I then be more service to people who have challenges that I've never even experienced or dreamed of?

So it's a really powerful topic you picked Kelly and we're so grateful that you did.

And why don't you let us know,

You know,

What led you to choose this and your personal experience with it?

So this topic is very important to me of taking your power back and really what I also call it is regaining self-control versus what I call others controlled meaning in this outward sense of being controlled by something that owns you,

Right?

Something that would try to come and own you.

Like for me,

You know,

I look back all the way to my childhood and there are a slew of abusers or you know whatnot that had power over me especially as a little kid because when we're little kids we just don't have a lot of agency,

You know,

A lot of say about our lives.

We're actually supposed to be nurtured and modeled self,

You know,

Emotional regulation,

Self-control,

Healthy boundaries,

Not knowing when somebody's crossing whether it be a physical or psychic emotional spiritual boundary.

Even though I grew up in the inner city,

Right?

And I grew up with a dad who was alcoholic and did drugs and I was around all that.

I said I'm gonna get out of here.

I'm not gonna be like my mom and get married at 16 and have four kids by the age of 23.

You know,

We talk about sometimes and I'll go here in the church in Christianity the tradition of being led by the Spirit.

Well that's your gut and your intuition leading you.

And so I have this pattern,

This past that I would get free,

Right?

I would regain my voice.

I'd find myself and then I'd fall right back into another situation where somebody else where I had acquiesced my self-control,

My voice to placate,

To please.

So that really ultimately so that I wouldn't get hurt.

One thing,

You know,

When I get to sit down with people who are curious about going through healing,

You know,

Even spiritual healing,

I share more also about my own story of having after growing up in an abusive,

You know,

Familial situation,

I end up,

You know,

Walking through,

Gaining a faith which helped me to get out of that dark oppressive place.

And I go to college,

But right after college,

I then fell into a spiritually abusive culture or cult.

A lot of that happened,

I believe,

Because I didn't do the work in therapy that I could have done.

You know,

Change starts with awareness.

Change starts with us becoming aware.

There's a pattern here.

I actually had a friend after I got out of this cult church,

I had a moment of awareness.

I am letting this prophet tell me how to live.

Tell me what type of birth control I should use,

What kind is not godly and what kind is and you know,

Obviously,

It's true that happened.

And so like my whole entire experience in there is honestly to that men were more spiritual and better than women.

And there were other things.

Not just in the spiritual context,

But in the worldly context turns out.

Right,

It's still the right,

Still a systemic,

Oppressive thing.

So what happened is,

Eventually,

I had given so much of myself away,

That in that church,

When I chose to stand up and begin to use my voice,

And say,

No,

That's not okay.

No,

I can't teach that because I was a reverend in that quote unquote ministry,

In which I lost a friend to cancer.

Because if you get cancer,

You know,

You get healed by faith.

And you know,

If you go to the doctor,

You have less faith,

You know,

So it's messy,

Right?

So I saw one of this mentor,

Beautiful woman who I love very much.

But anyway,

So finally,

I start seeing things in the church,

And I start realizing I've given up my own agency,

Spiritually speaking,

As well.

I'm just believing whatever this person is telling me to do,

I am drinking the Kool Aid.

I started to realize I had lost myself again,

Just like as a little girl,

Did not ever want to upset my dad,

Right?

Because it could mean you could get hurt,

You know,

And so I think it just carried over into this church spiritual cult situation.

Well,

If I speak up,

I could get hurt.

Well,

Finally,

Though,

I was like,

I don't care.

I'm standing up.

You know,

They were,

I was supposed to preach with the conference with these other ministers,

And they called me and told me what to preach.

And I stood up,

I said,

Well,

I'm not going to do that.

That's not what I'm supposed to do.

And I got a lot of pushback.

Well,

Any,

Anyways,

What ended up happening is my whole life broke into a million pieces,

Like a nervous breakdown,

Spiritual breakdown,

Like everything.

And so I basically gave so much of myself away from my childhood till I was 32 that I just lost my compass altogether,

And the shame,

And it would take another five years of therapy to get my voice back again.

And so I'm very passionate about this topic for those bite sized,

But foundational reasons.

Thank you so much,

Kelly.

So shame is such an interesting,

Little worm pile shame on top of all that when I'm listening your story going,

Wow,

At 21.

You had a fear.

Wow,

That's good.

Oh,

And then you even healed from like a cult in a church.

Oh,

My God.

And like,

I'm just thinking,

Wow,

This woman how amazing and strong that she has this insight and has been able to do this work.

And then,

You know,

We circle back around so that we can lay out the shame on what we've like crawled out from.

It's just Yep.

So yeah,

Like the shame wizard that sucks our power away.

What about you,

Pony?

What are your what's been your experience with this topic of owning your voice and owning your power?

Well,

Kelly,

Thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate what you've shared.

And Kelly has been a fan of ours since the very beginning.

And so I know a lot of her story.

And I'm really grateful for you to be willing to come on and share with us as you have so gracefully been walking this path and sharing tools and being so active on our Facebook page.

And I'm,

I'm so glad to know you and get to share this space with you.

So thank you so much.

And we have a lot,

A lot in common.

And I really appreciate you kind of getting to touch into very briefly of,

You know,

The causes and conditions and what happens for us to either not be empowered from the beginning,

Not being taught about what it's like to have agency in our own power through my own.

And I think on season two,

A pretty spiritual,

A lot of what I'm going to talk to and into the tools has a lot to do with our inner children and the type of inner child work that I've been doing that has really,

Really been so helpful to me to finding out from where I didn't have any power,

I lost power and then how to rebuild.

So I'm really excited about that.

And just on a more personal level regarding this is how that started to look for me starting from childhood and the causes and conditions was I looked out directly out from me saying if you're okay with me,

Then I'm okay with me.

And that was my first that's how I would get any type of power.

It came from outside.

And it was also very unstable,

Obviously,

Because if I am looking outwards to be okay with me,

I just had no power to begin with.

It led me looking to a lot of different things.

I was never able to build that foundation of power and self esteem because I was really my experience was constantly looking out to empower and make me okay on the inside.

So the loss of power and the dysregulation from my childhood that I carried into adulthood and my interpersonal relationships now.

So I just continued reliving that over and over again,

Looking to others,

Whether it be close relationships or the barista,

You know,

And being completely unconscious of this.

And I really liked how we've been talking about,

Like this spiritual path of waking up the more that like,

Right,

The eyes of the heart that we get to open,

The more that we get to see,

The more that we get to wake up is really for me the spiritual path and I'm certainly this has been a big topic for me trying to see that I have power,

I can own my power,

And that my power comes from within.

It's within me.

It's for me to harness,

It's for me to use.

And when I do that,

Then I can also be more structured and focused in how I can help others and in the world when before I just thought,

Oh,

If I help everyone else,

If I do everything for everyone else,

Then I will be validated,

Then I will be worthy,

Then I will be okay.

And I just wasn't able to have any sort of foundation.

And then I really couldn't help myself and I couldn't help anyone else.

This caused a lot of dysregulation for myself and a lot of discomfort,

My loss of personal power attempting to control and manage my life,

My relationships,

My feelings.

And then a big part of this that would happen is I would use others to self-regulate disempowering right like,

I just,

I did not know that I could,

You know,

I think about within childhood,

You know,

And looking to our mothers.

And just the long,

It's a really long kind of pathway of unearthing this mother wound and how much I looked out to her to like,

Soothe me to help me.

And I think because I didn't get that,

It's,

I'm not blaming her.

I just have to,

A big part of my path is like,

Just to continue recognizing that I had these needs,

I needed these things and that I didn't get it then.

And so not only do I have to rebuild it now,

But I actually have to go back in time and deep back into like this internal space and rebuild her power and show up for that inner child and show her how I can show up for her now and empower her and then empower myself.

So this is kind of just little me sharing a little bit of what that journey is like in my five minutes.

We're going to get there now,

But stay tuned.

You were never taught to self soothe.

Our parents are supposed to soothe us first,

Right?

So that we can then learn to be,

As we begin to individuate and find ourselves,

Then we learn to,

We begin to self soothe,

Right?

So that's,

I just want to hug everybody.

We feel your hugs.

That's right.

Across this internet recording platform.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening,

Everybody.

That was really,

Really precious.

Thank you for sharing.

Annie,

What are you going to share with us?

I am so grateful to both of you for sharing.

And I love how this podcast is this extension of our interior growth.

And so I'm excited that I get to witness Pony and all of us and myself growing.

It's really nice.

And what's been interesting for me and what I thought about when Kelly proposed the topic of owning your power,

Was that this time,

And especially during COVID and during quarantine,

When especially in the beginning when there was so much unknown,

And my wife and I,

We were really drawn in,

You know,

We were in the house and it was much more contained and quiet.

And there was just so much of me.

It was like my thinking and my thoughts and all these things that I have been working on had this really quiet and fertile space to come out and to be examined.

And I really had this moment to see that I that I'm learning to have a voice and it's been building.

But during that quiet time,

It kind of was the opportunity for it to break through the ground.

Like the little bud had been forming and the roots are going down,

It's getting watered.

But it was all of a sudden it was like my voice is like,

Okay,

I'm ready.

I think I might be ready.

You know,

I'm gonna uncurl a little tendril out of the ground.

And I'm in my early 40s.

And how interesting that I get the opportunity to do this now.

And really have some people around me that are showing me and teaching me that I get to make choices for me.

Period.

Well,

That's the end of it.

Oh no!

What?

Yeah,

I didn't understand this kind of concept of for me and not in a selfish way.

But in a way of you're an adult Annie and I love that you use that word individuate because I am just learning that word.

So my decisions and choices I get for me as an adult.

And I do that with care and compassion of how it will affect the people around me,

But not in the codependent way that I had been doing for so long that was so familiar.

And so we're all connected.

But the codependent way of connection and enmeshment,

It didn't feel right anymore for this little like 42 year old Annie that's sprouting out of the ground.

And so this is really hard,

Deep work for me.

And it's been taking a lot of practice.

And I was seeing how,

Especially during that quiet time,

I was just tamping down my nos or tamping down my yeses or my response that was,

Kelly,

You mentioned before that intuition,

That inner intuition that is God or higher power or whatever it is.

Actually I heard someone recently say that the belly is the spiritual intuition center.

I really love that.

So that was not wanting to be ignored anymore.

And I had this room where it was like,

Oh,

Why am I ignoring this?

And also this learning and this access to new information about how contorted I was making myself.

And I had always kind of known that I was making myself smaller to make other people happy.

And also though,

I was kind of like,

That does make me a victim because I'm delicate,

You know?

And then in this learning,

I'm like,

Oh,

Me doing that,

I've also been learning that I'm being too big.

So I'm like equally occupying not the middle.

So I'm too small because I'm like,

Whatever makes other people happy,

Okay,

But at the same time I'm taking up too much space because I'm trying to control people with this niceness or accommodation or whatever.

So it's not an entire victim role.

Like maybe I had told myself,

I'm sharing this with some perspective of not being in the thick of it.

And so wherever you are in the process,

It's not right or wrong.

This is just where I am.

And I'm feeling this,

Like Kelly mentioned,

This freedom that I hadn't had before.

And that even that keeping myself small that I mentioned,

It was really an animal instinct.

So it wasn't,

It was below the line of consciousness and it was my nervous system kind of acting in this way that felt really reasonable and like the appropriate activity to do.

And there's just been a lot of changes that have occurred and a lot of growth and so much hard work.

And I'm starting to reclaim my power that I had so freely sprinkled out to everybody else and I've been trying to stop,

Have power over other people,

Even if I think it's a very benevolent,

Gracious,

Kind power.

And it's just really interesting.

So I have some tools because this is what we do,

Right?

Is we say,

Okay,

Here's the thing we're working on and we're trying to figure it out and here's what's working for us or not.

So Kelly,

Why don't you tell us,

Tell us what tools you're working on right now when it comes to owning your power.

To preface the tool section quickly,

I just wanted to add that to Pony's point about,

It sounds just easy peasy,

One,

Two,

Three,

I sprinkled,

As Annie said,

I sprinkled my voice away all over the earth.

Like I killed myself.

I have sacrificed myself to the point of ashes and now just spread me out over the ocean because who cares?

No,

Anyway,

So I've done therapy roughly,

You know,

I'm 44,

I still come so early 40s,

About roughly eight,

Eight and a half,

Nine years just off and on from college onward.

What happened is about a year ago,

Oh God,

That's not a brag,

It's a money,

That's a serious investment.

Money,

Money,

Money,

Money.

I think I have unique,

Anyway.

I think I'll throw in there that investment in your mental health is maybe arguably the best investment you can make.

Oh God,

Yes.

A hundred percent.

A hundred percent,

I was correct.

Okay,

Do you know the damage I'm going to do if I don't?

Yeah,

Right?

You want me,

You want me to go to therapy.

I know for sure.

Kentucky,

Kentucky,

Maybe the whole 50 states overseas.

You want me to go to therapy.

Highly recommend,

Highly recommend.

So what happened is,

Like you all said,

You know,

I've read the book Codependent and More,

I've done therapy,

But a little over a year ago,

I found myself,

I realized I had an awakening,

An aha moment,

We say in therapy,

Where I was aware that this pattern had snuck back in to my life,

This codependent,

What we call it in therapy is this cognitive behavioral trauma loop that I learned as a kid.

And it's really like a noose.

I actually,

I'm very visual.

I see it as a noose.

When I fall into this,

It's a noose to choke me out,

Right?

And to choke my voice out,

Choke,

You know,

My vision,

Because when you're getting choked,

Everything becomes blurry,

Right?

Oh,

Hopefully you don't know that about choking.

But anyways,

So I became aware that I have fallen into this pattern again,

In a couple of relationships,

And totally aware all of a sudden,

I'm not speaking up on XYZ issue,

Because I'm afraid if I tell somebody what I really think,

They're gonna be mad at me.

And when I was a little kid,

I just didn't want anyone to be mad at me.

So I'd sing and dance and,

You know,

Do my artsy Kelly,

Creative Kelly,

Expressive Kelly,

You know,

Just to try to earn people's love.

And so I realized also,

To not disappoint some people in my life,

I went with something.

I went with this situation,

I went with this relationship,

To not disappoint it,

I became aware of it.

And how I became aware of it is through body scanning.

Tool number one,

Awareness.

Tool number two,

Body scanning.

How I know how a lot of times I become aware of something is that I feel it in my body.

I can tell I'm in a conversation with somebody,

I could be at Walmart.

And all of a sudden,

I feel a fist in my chest.

Well,

That lets me know I'm anxious.

I'm really anxious in this situation.

And I need to breathe.

Okay,

I need to breathe to come back and tether myself so I don't get hijacked.

So I don't get road rage.

So I don't get all of these things,

Right?

So awareness,

Body scanning.

And then I have inventory.

Like at the end of the day,

Sometimes I do it in the morning.

I like to do things at the end of the day.

And I just think about situations during the day,

Not to ruminate,

But to take inventory.

These are the questions and I'll stop here.

But am I betraying myself in any way to somebody to even myself?

Am I giving up my voice to someone or something or some situation in order to please,

In order for people to like me better?

And then I asked myself this question,

How can I control my own drawbridge?

It's from a spiritual writer I really enjoy,

Henry Nowan.

He wrote a book called Inner Voice of Love.

And I've read that almost every day for the last four years.

And for me,

It's really good.

It's fabulous.

It's helped me recover from a lot of the spiritual trauma that I mentioned earlier.

Those tools are amazing.

Are you sure?

Yes!

Miss Lindsey Pony,

What tools are you working with right now?

Oh,

Let me get into it.

Thanks,

Everybody.

I'm so glad that we could show up and talk about empowerment.

It's been so alive in my life today with the work and the healing that I'm doing.

And I'm really excited to talk a lot more about that this season of Pretty Spiritual.

I think there is so much work we can do,

Inner work that we can do that can really help us find our power.

And so I'm excited for what's to come.

We have a lot more episodes that I'm teasing for you all right now.

And as far as the most important thing and what I've been learning a lot about that I'm excited to share with you all today has everything to do with breathing.

And this is definitely like my shtick,

I guess.

I think because I was like maybe 28 and I realized that I don't know how to breathe.

Isn't that interesting?

And so recently,

I have been studying some of the yogi breathing techniques.

And it's so cool because they're like,

Oh,

Hey,

Westerners don't know how to breathe.

This gave me a made me feel really good.

Right?

Because once I realized that I'm not alone,

I really feel like,

Okay,

Now I can relax and do some healing work.

That's why I love this podcast,

Getting to come together and like try and heal together has been the best way for me to do any type of healing.

So thanks everyone for being here and I need all of us.

So what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to teach us a little bit of yogi breathing.

You know,

Kelly was talking a lot about the somatic experience,

Right and how important it is to use our bodies to be able to see when we're dysregulated,

Right,

Whether when we're activated,

What you know,

You can call it triggered.

There's so many different ways and I really highly recommend,

You know,

For me without my somatic therapist,

Not only did was I not available to be in my body,

But my body was in a safe place.

So this has taken me over a year to be able to build a safe structure,

A safe container for me to really recognize that it's safe within my body.

And so if you're new on this path,

The best place to start is just with breathing.

And I'm going to walk you through it.

And what I'm going to tell you right now is that we're going to start in the abdomen.

We're going to move up to the diaphragm,

Which is right where your ribs are essentially.

And then we're going to move up into the chest area and into the upper back.

Okay,

We're going to do some specific counts.

And don't worry if you don't understand me right now,

Or if you don't get this right now,

It's going to take practice.

So I'm going to do my best to kind of guide you through it right now.

And then I highly recommend the way that I've done this the best is that I continue practicing throughout the day at any time,

No matter what,

You'll get better.

And what's awesome is you're already be taking in more air than you do.

And that's the goal here.

We want to use all of our lung capacity that will help you even if you don't do this,

Quote unquote,

Perfectly.

Okay,

So don't worry about any of that.

Let's go on a little breathing adventure together.

So excited that you're here.

And when I tell you that we're going to inhale,

You're actually going to let your belly out.

Okay,

So even though we're inhaling,

We're doing deep belly breathing,

And your belly will be coming out.

Inhale at your belly out for four.

Up into the diaphragm just below the ribs for two,

And then up into your chest and back for two.

Okay,

Now we're going to exhale.

I'm gonna breathe with you now.

Okay,

Inhale through your belly 1234 up through your rib cage 12 up to your upper chest and back 12 exhale for 6123456 the last two really exhale all your air.

Now start again,

Inhale 1234 up through your diaphragm 12 up through your top of your chest 12 exhale for 6123456 all of it out through your belly.

Inhale again 1234 your belly 12 through your diaphragm 12 through the top of your chest and your back.

Exhale 12 going back down through the chest 3456 through the diaphragm and then the very last bit through your belly really exhale all the air to then inhale again 1234 through the diaphragm 12 up through the chest 12 now exhale going back down 123456.

This takes some practice.

And like I said,

What we're doing is we're just really trying to use our whole thoracic right here through our chest and our belly to get in as much air as we can and then to exhale as much air as we can and you do four on the belly really extending then you come up through the diaphragm,

Which is just your rib cage for another two and then your upper chest and back for another two.

So as you can see that's eight counts and when you exhale you do the six starting from the top of your chest again,

So you're and then through your diaphragm for the sixth and then just fully exhaling the last two.

So no matter what you're counting you're inhaling for eight breaths and then you're exhaling for eight.

My best advice for learning how to breathe is there's so many ways to breathe just start with deep belly breathing let your belly out like you never have because you've been sucking in your whole life for so many different reasons and then just get some really big inhales and some really deep exhales and you're going to be better off than you were before do at least five rounds of it.

See how you feel afterwards and then we'll have more journeys on breathing.

That is my number one tool is really learning how to use the breath to reinvigorate and empower ourselves.

Thank you Pony.

I feel rejuvenated from the inside out from your breathing tool.

Same,

Same.

Actually,

It's really,

Really good.

Keep practicing everybody.

Thanks so much.

Annie,

Do you have a tool for us?

Thank you so much Pony for sharing that and I have several tools I want to share.

But to start I want to have Kelly chime in again with this beautiful prayer that she has shared with us.

I pray all the time every day that God open the eyes of my heart so that I can see more clearly both myself and others and the world.

I love it.

I love it.

It's so wonderful and in the theme of owning our own power and our own voice what a powerful prayer that is because all these things that we've been talking about and sharing of old traumas and old operating systems and nervous systems that respond in a certain way.

A lot of this for me has been a practice of bringing my experience out of my intellectual experience and bringing it into my heart and giving credence to my heart and what it's saying because what I was sharing before of kind of tamping down nose or intuition or whatever was happening was me ignoring my heart.

Right?

So there's this kind of beat within me of like,

Go this way Annie.

Here's your desire.

Here's the direction that you're going and maybe that's my heart.

Maybe that's God.

Maybe that's my intuition.

And I was just shutting it down.

So a lot of this practice and my tools are about reconnecting to that so then when I'm in that space and I'm listening to it,

Then I can even know what it means to have a like I can even know what my voice is so that I might speak it at some point.

So my tool ties in so great with ponies breathing and Kelly mentioned the body scan.

And so I have a tool a practical tool for incorporating a body scan into your day.

So someone gave me this tool and it was for a week.

I did this exercise.

I love little projects and I set a timer for three times a day on my phone and I called it body boundaries check in.

So my little timer would go off and I do a body scan and I'd say is my jaw tight?

Is my throat clenched?

Is my belly clenched up?

Am I relaxed?

And often if I have had some boundaries cross,

Which for me is the opposite of owning my power,

Right?

It's like me crossing my own internal boundaries or not pausing and acknowledging when someone else has crossed my boundaries.

So I often what happens is kind of a dissociated fog.

I get kind of fuzzy like I don't want to think about that.

Everything's fine.

Probably know his joke.

Just put some more coffee on it.

It's good.

It's good.

Just run it off.

Right.

It's pull more,

Throw more coffee at it.

Yeah.

So that three times a day for a week and it wasn't,

There wasn't any right or wrong answers,

But it was just the practice of starting to like pony did with the breathing exercise,

Come into my body.

What's going on here?

And usually when I have some discomfort,

I want to ignore it.

But then when I started to notice it,

I then I started to notice,

Have I been letting go of my power?

Have I been ignoring my voice?

So that's one of them.

The second one is coming into my body and trying to find out my true wants and listen to myself is really hard if I don't think that I have value or if I don't think what I want matters.

And so I have been taught recently to use affirmations,

Which I've heard for many years to try this thing.

And I'm always like,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And maybe I would repeat some and then I would do it once.

I'd be like,

It didn't work,

You know?

And what I'm learning is that I have to do it over time.

I have to fill up this well that's been filled with these other ideas and refill it with these affirmations.

So I'm going to share four of them that I really like.

The first one is I respect myself and I deserve respect from others.

Second is I set my boundaries for me.

There's that sneaky for me again,

Right?

Like I'm setting my boundaries for me.

I can meet new opportunities without fear.

And the fourth one is I am a child of God.

I deserve love,

Peace and prosperity for me.

So I have this whole two page sheet and I read through them every morning.

Sometimes I read,

I say to myself in Spanish because it helps me get out of my head,

But it's just this concept of filling my brain with these ideas.

So this is a multi-layered practice,

Isn't it always?

So there's like the body scan check-in,

What's going on?

Am I ignoring my own boundaries of what I need or want?

Filling myself up with these affirmations that intellectually I'm like,

I know these are true.

This is silly.

But obviously I don't on some level because I'm behaving in a way that contradicts these ideas,

Right?

I'm saying actually what I want is either embarrassing or unimportant or wrong or inappropriate for some reason.

So filling myself up with this thing,

Do them every day.

It's such a slow process.

And then also kind of addendum to that is we have talked a lot about on Pretty Spiritual,

Counteracting that negative self-thinking.

It's easy for me when I notice negative self-thinking to just compound it with more negative thinking like,

Oh my God,

You're thinking negative stuff.

God,

Knock it off.

Oh,

Failing it,

Not thinking negatively.

And so the tool someone shared with me is to praise yourself.

The example I have is I noticed I have this voice that's been going on for years around my daily meditation prayer practice where I'm like,

That's not good enough.

You don't really have a connection with a higher power.

You're half the time you do it laying down,

It doesn't count.

This cool voice that's like undermining this beautiful thing that I'm trying to create.

So what I've been doing,

Instead of trying to talk myself out of the negative thinking,

Just being like,

Oh,

This is a negative thinking and do a praise practice.

And so I'll say,

This is so sweet.

You've been doing this every day for over five years.

How sweet is that,

Annie?

How fun that you experiment with so many different things all the time and that it's always changing.

I'm really proud of you.

You know?

So it's like,

I don't have to stop the negative thinking,

Which is really ingrained,

But I can counterbalance it with this praise.

So those are my tools.

Three times a day for a week,

The body boundary check-in.

Appirmations every day,

You can write them out.

You can go online and just Google search affirmations.

They are everywhere.

Apparently people think they work.

And now I might be one of those people too.

And then,

And then praise yourself.

Yeah,

Just praising yourself.

Like I am so brutal all the time.

I'm like,

I shouldn't have said that.

Oh,

This is,

I ruined this.

And so I'm just like,

Oh,

I call that emotional cutting.

I think I've shared that with you.

When I started,

You sucked at that.

Like you said,

Like,

You didn't even get that right.

Oh my gosh,

Kelly,

We are borrowing that,

You know,

Physically cutting.

And then there's emotional cutting with those.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that gets really messy.

Right.

Right.

Breaks down the spirit.

Those are my tools.

And I'm just so grateful you all shared your tools.

And I'm wondering,

Kelly,

If you would say the prayer again for us as a way to close our episode.

First of all,

I just want to show gratitude for these two beautiful friends that I've made and you've sent into my life and who just remind me that I'm not alone in this journey of healing and remind me the importance of having self-control and love for the little girl inside.

So I just want to thank you for that first.

And then I just want to say,

God,

Please open the eyes of my heart so I can see more clearly both myself and others and those in the world.

I'm grateful.

I'm very grateful.

I do.

There's two things that I wanted to say that have been coming up.

I'm so I love this episode.

Thank you all so much.

And to anyone who feels disgusting about God,

I just want to say that for me personally,

I actually think I'm an atheist and it's totally fine.

You can be whoever,

However you need to be.

If you want to call on the space aliens that I promised are going to come and show me that I don't belong here and I actually belong in a different world.

Like there are many examples that I use and that I pray to that I,

You know,

It's really about being able to use that power greater than yourself.

You know,

Whatever it is.

I often,

I have this picture of this woman and she's with her lioness and it talks about how she went deep within and all of her demons she tamed and now they're like part of her that she uses as her power.

So I just,

It's really important.

I know Kelly has talked a little bit,

But about when we talk about like being abused by churches,

I have some of that in my story.

And so whenever I hear the word God,

I already am like pretty concerned about what's going to be said next.

So I just wanted to share a little bit about that.

And I also,

We talked a lot about therapy in this and I want to just talk about how that is a very privileged tool and something luxury to lots of people.

It is a worthwhile investment.

I know that before I gave up many things so that I can pay for my mental health and it was worth it.

If you go to open path collective.

Org,

That is where you can get some therapy at a reduced cost.

That's how I started getting all of my therapy was,

Has always been through reduced and sliding scale.

And if you ask them for that,

We'll be able to get that oftentimes.

So these were just some little footnotes I wanted to bring up about the episode.

Almost all therapists have a sliding scale.

Yeah.

I mean,

Not everyone,

Maybe not.

Some people have been like,

No,

I won't.

You're what someone said.

Your story's interesting and I'd love to hear more,

But I'm not,

It's 165.

And I was like,

Oh,

Well,

I wouldn't want to see that therapist anyways.

Oh,

I'm glad you loved my story.

I'm glad it's entertainment for you!

Pony thank you so much for sharing that.

And we also do have an episode called how to pray and it's such,

I think a sweet episode.

We really dive into that concept of what if prayer isn't the thing that I think it is and what if it isn't solely aligned with specific religions?

What if it's just this spiritual tool that can be accessed by anybody in any way to have any kind of communication with whatever it is that they may be communicating with.

So we really,

We always want to be mindful of having been inclusive.

And that's a,

That episode was really fun to make because we got to talk about that a lot.

And just on the note of what people may or may not call a higher power they may or may not have.

I shift all over the place and it's constantly different things.

And one word,

One phrase that's been really fun lately is great mystery.

Yeah,

A friend here in Oakland has shared that with me.

I like,

Oh,

I love that.

So it just is,

It's hard to argue with.

Yeah,

It's hard to argue with.

Kelly,

Thank you so much for sharing that with us.

Pony,

Thank you for reflecting that and just reminding everyone who's listening that this is such an inclusive space and whatever anybody believes we're a big fan of as long as it's nice to other people.

That's right.

And we have more episodes coming up for you soon.

You can connect with us on social media at pretty spiritual podcast and we totally love you.

We're so happy to be back.

We missed everybody so much.

Yes,

I miss you for the first time.

Ellie,

Thanks so much for being here.

Everybody.

We hope that you are doing well out there and we will see you soon.

We'd love you.

Bye.

Bye.