Introduction To Trust Your Truth: An Excerpt

Soul Feed is a space for you to remember the power within you,

So you can heal and understand the essential role you play in the healing and awakening of everyone around you.

Each week you'll receive an interview,

Inspired truth talk,

Or a meditation practice to build your capacity to learn from your past experiences,

Ground into this moment now,

And grow into who you're becoming.

One of the bravest journeys is the journey inward.

So let's dig deep,

Love big,

And wake up together.

I'm Shannon Algeo.

Welcome home to Soul Feed.

Hi Soul Warriors.

This is Shannon Algeo,

And I am so excited to be sharing this episode with you.

I.

.

.

Well,

Just to catch everyone up in case you don't know,

My book that I've been working on for almost the last three years,

Trust Your Truth,

Heal Self-Doubt,

Awaken to Your Soul's Purpose,

And Live Your Badass Life,

Is coming out March 1st,

2021.

And so I wanted to take this moment to do something special for you,

The Soul Warriors,

And for our Soul Feed community,

Because this podcast has been really the ground for me of community,

Of connection,

A sacred space to connect with so many amazing people all over the world,

Leaders and listeners,

Listeners and leaders,

One in the same,

We have gathered around this podcast to share ideas,

To clarify our visions for our lives,

To get inspired,

To heal.

And so I wanted to share with you an excerpt from the introduction to Trust Your Truth,

The first six pages of the introduction.

And this introduction means a lot to me.

And just to give you a little bit of background before I jump into it,

I wrote this in April of 2020.

And in April of 2020,

I have goosebumps right now as I'm talking about this,

I had already written most of the book,

And my final manuscript was due May 1st.

Now if you remember,

In case you've forgotten,

April 2020 was just after the pandemic,

The coronavirus pandemic hit.

And I wanted to speak to the mental,

Emotional,

Physiological,

Energetic space that I imagined that a lot of us would be in,

In March of 2021,

A new year,

A year later.

And so this book,

To me,

In my soul,

In my heart,

Feels even more poignant and potent now than I could have ever imagined.

Because so many of us have learned so much from this last year,

And we're continuing to process what matters most to us,

Who do we want to be in these lives?

What do we need to let go of?

What do we need to let burn?

In order for us to rise into who we're becoming,

What do we need to commit to?

And how can we step forward to heal self-doubt,

To live in alignment with our soul's purpose and to live our badass lives?

And so I offer this piece of the introduction to Trust Your Truth to you.

And thank you for being on this journey with me.

Thank you for committing to yourself.

And one more thing I want to say about this introduction,

I probably don't even need to say it because it's all in there.

But I just want to name that why I think Trust Your Truth is a special book is that it's about you.

And I really did my best in this book to have the book be a mirror to hold up to you,

For you to connect to what is true for you.

This book is not me telling you what's true for me,

Although sometimes I share some stories that are little examples of my personal truth and transformation.

But really the book,

The spiritual lessons,

The journaling prompts,

The meditations in the book are all about you connecting to what's true for you.

What is your truth?

Trust your truth.

Don't trust mine.

And so as you read the book,

The invitation is to really check in with yourself.

And now I'm going to get started because I'm going to end up just saying everything that's in the introduction anyway.

And if you've ordered the book already,

Make sure you're signed up to get the bonus gifts for the book.

There's a guided meditation album.

There's a meditation for each chapter and the chapters are in alignment with the chakras.

And there's also some yoga,

Nidra and deep relaxation embodied practices.

And there's a movement medicine practice in which we are going to do some yoga,

Heat up the body and get a little twerk on.

So okay,

So without further ado,

I'm going to jump into the introduction.

This is my gift to you soul warriors.

The introduction to trust your truth,

Heal self-doubt,

Awaken to your soul's purpose and live your bad-ass life published by New Harbinger Publications,

March 2021.

Here we go.

Introduction.

There is something dying in our society and our culture.

And there's something dying in us individually.

And what is dying,

I think,

Is the willingness to be in denial.

And that is extraordinary.

It's always been happening.

And when it happens in enough of us in a short enough period of time at the same time,

Then you have a tipping point and the culture begins to shift.

And where people are now is bring it on.

I have to face it.

We have to face it.

Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams,

Author of Radical Dharma,

In an interview on On Being with Krista Tippett.

On my birthday a few years ago,

My glass shower door came shattering all over me as I was taking a bath.

Little shards of glass cut into my skin as I stood there bleeding into the tub.

Happy birthday to me.

Like some kind of fucked up rite of passage,

I had to tiptoe on the glass to get from the tub to the bathroom door.

Luckily,

I was okay.

And instantly,

I knew this was a wake up call.

The moment the door shattered,

I was angry at a friend who'd canceled our dinner plans.

I wasn't trying to break the door,

But when it got stuck,

The intense energy of my frustration informed the way I handled it.

As I tried to get it unstuck,

It bent in such a way that it shattered completely all over me.

Later,

I went online and saw that the symbolic significance of glass shattering is the shattering of illusions.

Oh,

Great.

I did not want to see the deeper meaning.

Fuck the company that made this door.

Fuck my building management for installing a cheap door.

Fuck my friend.

Fuck the world.

Believe me,

I went there.

I was tempted to take no responsibility,

But I also knew there was no power or truth in blame.

This heated anger felt all too familiar,

So I knew I needed to look underneath the surface of my inner explosion.

When my friend canceled our dinner plans,

I got triggered.

As I looked underneath the surface of my pain,

I could see my old wounded narratives of abandonment and rejection.

I was mad at my friend for making me feel this way.

But,

In truth,

My old pal's unworthiness,

Not good enough,

And not in control were coming out to play.

I couldn't see past the haze of my woundedness and couldn't even come close to understanding that this had nothing to do with me.

The truth was that my friend was feeling so depressed that she couldn't get out of bed.

But my own feelings of brokenness caused the shower door to break,

And the illusion of woundedness shattered along with the glass.

I could suddenly see clearly.

I was present and open to receiving this wisdom.

Shannon,

You must heal this.

This pattern of making someone else's emotional state means something about your worth.

Time to heal this now.

Your energy is powerful,

But you are responsible for it.

Don't be reckless.

Every action you take has an impact.

No matter how much you think you can suppress your emotions,

You'll either implode or explode because the energy needs somewhere to go.

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

It can only be transferred.

Attempting to suppress emotions literally doesn't work.

It's time to feel and heal.

This lesson had come to me many times before,

But to be totally honest,

I needed the glass to shatter all over me on my birthday to ensure that I really heard it.

But just in case I missed it,

The universe came through.

The next day,

Two maintenance guys came to vacuum the glass and clean up,

And when they were done,

They called me into the bathroom to see their work.

I walked toward the shower to peek at the second glass door that still remained intact.

I touched it gently and saw that it was stuck.

Then one guy started to fidget with it,

And before I could open my mouth to tell him to stop,

The other remaining door shattered on top of all three of us.

Got it,

Universe.

I will use shower curtains from here on out,

And I will be responsible for my energy.

Message received.

The beauty of a breakdown is the opportunity it presents for a breakthrough,

For you to wake up and become the person you are here to be.

As Robert Frost said,

The best way out is always through.

We think we're locked in a room with no way out,

And then suddenly we see a doorway we somehow missed,

A light at the end of the tunnel,

A breath of hope.

Breakdown moments are humbling.

We thought our lives were certain and steady and fixed,

And then suddenly the ground falls out from underneath us.

A partner dumps you,

A loved one gets sick,

The financial markets recede,

A global pandemic breaks out,

A job is lost,

A dream is crushed.

Our knees suddenly hit the earth.

We are humbled,

Grounded.

The moments when we break through help us to see the patterns that brought us to our knees,

Build our strength to get back up and step forward onto a new path with deeper gratitude,

More wisdom,

And a keen sense of what really matters.

These moments of uncertainty and suffering,

As painful,

Confusing,

And devastating as they can be,

Are gateways to profoundly transformative healing and awakening.

Listen,

I don't want to in any way glamorize or minimize the very real pain of human suffering.

The struggle is real.

We must face the impact of harm done to us and also by us.

And at the same time,

I know from my own experience of waking up to my power and reckoning with some hard lessons that it's so often the moments of deepest despair that lead us to the richest insights,

Healing,

And transformation.

Many people miss these lessons,

Though.

Even when the lessons seem obvious looking from the outside in,

We get caught up in blaming our ex or hating our president or holding on to resentment.

We look outside of ourselves for an answer,

A scapegoat on whom we can project our discomfort and pain.

It's tempting to look for someone else to be the grown-up and take away our problems.

But few,

If any,

Spiritual awakenings come from giving our power away to someone else to do the work for us.

You are designed to become conscious of the powerful life force that you are.

The truth within you wants to be seen and felt and deeply known by you.

So when you are living in a fantasy,

Chasing some dream that you're supposed to chase because society says so,

And unconsciously causing harm to yourself or others by pounding the pavement and trying to fulfill everyone else's expectations,

The great force of life that lives within you wants you to wake up to the truth.

And my guess is,

Because you're listening to these words,

You're ready.

Life has a way of nudging us,

Of delivering the wake-up call,

So we finally hear the voice of our own truth.

At first,

Life whispers,

Wake up,

Sweetheart.

It's time.

But most of us are so busy with our emails,

Scrolling on our phones,

And attached to the certainty that we think we have,

That we don't even hear the whisper.

It might come as a gut feeling,

A thought,

Or a dream.

It's hard to miss,

But somehow easy to ignore.

And so we remain numb in our busyness and stay the course.

Then,

After we've ignored the whispers long enough,

Life knocks on our door.

Excuse me,

You've got some business to attend to.

May I please have your attention?

The red flags quadruple in size.

You catch your partner in a lie.

Migraines beg you for more hydration and rest.

You keep changing jobs or moving cities,

Hoping the next stop will bring you joy and solve all your problems.

You feel the same emotional issue come up with your partner that you had with your dad and your ex.

These knocks are harder to ignore.

And yet,

We can be skillful masters at avoiding our inner work and staying numb.

Then,

Eventually,

The door breaks down.

Yeah,

You're gonna need to deal with this now.

The big thud.

The cosmic two by four.

The wake-up call that leaves you feeling naked and vulnerable.

It's just you and the whole world open in front of you.

A breakup,

A job loss,

An illness,

A global pandemic,

A sudden death.

This wake-up call cannot be ignored and finally awakens the sleeping you.

When you are committed to opening your eyes to the spiritual lessons that life brings you,

You open yourself to deeper wisdom and opportunities for healing.

Everything is connected and nothing is random.

The truth is,

Sometimes we need the glass door to come shattering down on top of us.

Sometimes we need the big loud thud from life.

Sometimes it takes death to wake us up to the preciousness of life.

But waking up to your truth doesn't always have to involve bloodshed.

As we become better at listening for,

Sensing,

And feeling the truth within us,

We don't necessarily need to wait for the shit to hit the fan.

We can also hear the knocking at the door and even the whisper in our ear.

It's becoming clear to many.

We live in a time where we are being asked to wake up,

To become conscious,

And to do the inner and outer work to heal ourselves,

Our communities,

And our world.

You can choose to become a conscious participant in your awakening,

Reclaim the power that is your birthright,

Learn the key lessons that each life experience offers you,

And heal the pieces of yourself that have gone unloved for far too long.

Or you can stay asleep at the wheel,

Give your power away to people and systems outside of you,

Be a victim to circumstance,

And hope that someone sweeps in to save you.

I've swung both ways.

Each of these choices comes with a cost.

If you choose to stay unconscious,

You'll close yourself off to the golden treasures of an empowered life,

Living instead through what seems like a series of random events that are out of your control.

If you make the courageous choice to wake up,

However,

And put in the inner work,

You'll open your heart to the possibility of connection to a greater power,

And you'll find deep meaning and profound magic in not only the highs of life,

But in the mundane and even difficult aspects of your human experience.

Trusting your truth requires presence and willingness.

The time is now,

And the world is ripe for your truth.

All right,

That is the first six pages of the introduction to trust your truth.

The introduction,

Just to give you some context,

Is about 14 pages,

So that was almost half of the introduction.

From that point,

We kind of shift gears a little bit into laying the context of the book,

How the book is in alignment with the chakras and what truth really means,

And just kind of preparing for the journey that we're going on together.

So that felt like a good kind of pausing place.

I don't want to,

You know,

Spoil the whole thing.

So,

And also,

I am the narrator of the audiobook,

Which is not too different from what you just heard.

The book publishing date is officially March 1st,

And it would mean the absolute world to me if you held a copy in your hands,

If you received this message that I've been preparing and cooking and adding spices to and putting my heart into for the last almost three years,

And it'll just make me explode inside with joy to see that the book has arrived with you.

Also,

Things that you can do if you just are like,

I want to support Trust Your Truth and I want to support Shannon,

Those reviews matter.

Sharing the first week of a book launch really determines,

In a lot of ways,

The success of the book and what happens next.

So if that first week of March,

Even if you just send some love my way,

I am going to receive it and I thank you.

And,

You know,

Also,

This book is for you.

I wrote it for you to connect with what is true on the insides of you so you can heal your own relationship with self-doubt and why self-doubt has been a part of what you struggle with.

And the reason that I teach that is because that's something that I've really struggled with,

Imposter syndrome,

Self-doubt,

Minimizing myself,

Putting other people before myself.

And so each chapter is in alignment with the chakras of the body.

So we move from the roots up to the crown and explore what is your truth on every level of your body and your being.

So thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you for being on this journey with me.

And I'm sending you so much love as we move throughout this year and this life together.

I feel so humble and grateful to be able to have written a book,

To have had the support to get it published,

And to be able to share it now with you.

I am so,

So,

So grateful.

And I don't take it lightly that you are listening to these words,

That you are reading or considering reading this book.

It means the absolute world to me.

And thank you.

I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day.

And I look forward to connecting with you soon.

Bye.