Welcome to Chats with Susan Burrell,
And that's me.
I help strong,
Capable women who have pockets of self-doubt access their inner wisdom and clarify their own truth.
Chats with Susan Burrell is where we have rich conversations about empowerment,
Radiating your brilliance out into the world,
And loving yourself more than you would ever have before.
And who doesn't want that?
So let's get started.
Hi and welcome to part three of Live an Empowered Life,
A 30-Day Journey.
That's the name and title of my book.
And I've been talking about it over the last couple of weeks just to give everybody an idea of what it entails,
What's in it.
It's got inspiring quotes.
It has journaling prompts about the word empower,
And it also has affirmations that I wrote and worked personally myself when I was going through a very,
Very rough time,
Which I'm going to tell you a bit about today.
And the book is also interactive with my website,
Susanburrell.
Com,
Because there's videos that I've done to help support the work of the book.
There are guided meditations to help support you.
And I also have empowerment cards,
A 52-card deck that you can get as a companion to the book.
And either while you're doing the 30-Day Journey or afterwards,
If you just need to pull a card,
You can.
And so I am a firm believer that what I teach,
I must live through.
So with that said,
I decided because of the book coming out,
I needed to do my empowerment cards.
So I've been pulling a card a day.
If you go on Facebook or Instagram or Pinterest,
You'll be seeing some of the cards I've been pulling and personally working.
And so,
Woohoo and oh my,
Yes,
An empowered life is an ongoing journey,
Everybody.
Doing the work for 30 days is going to put you in the right footing,
On the right footpath to continue to empower and love yourself more than you ever have.
And the work is always there.
I think we're here doing the work on planet Earth until we die,
Until this particular lifetime ceases.
And then we go on to wherever we go and probably do more of the empowerment work.
And the empowerment work to me is about really getting in touch with that inner place within yourself,
Within your heart space really,
Where there is a divine radiance,
A divine light,
A divine wisdom,
A divine love that we forget about in our everyday meanderings and busyness and having to make a living or raise a family or get divorced or whatever you're doing at the moment.
So this is the card I pulled for today and I want to share it with you because it really kind of talks about the journey and why I created Live an Empowered Life,
The 30 Day Journey book.
So this is by a great author,
Howard Falco.
I interviewed him on my Living Your Inspired Life radio show,
Which we're now converting to podcasts.
So I don't think we've aired Howard's book and interview yet as a podcast,
But keep your eyes peeled.
So this is what he says.
It's from his book,
I think called I Am.
Okay,
He said,
When you stop fighting the truth of what is happening,
Relax and let go of fear.
There is much more calmness and clarity of mind.
This is when the answers can easily be seen and found.
And the reason why I wanted to start with that today is because the Live an Empowered Life,
A 30 Day Journey book came out of work that I did,
Like I just mentioned,
Personal inner work.
And when I,
Several years ago,
I came to a place where I had to stop fighting the truth of what was happening and relax.
And I would say I had to move into the fear in order to get through the fear,
But it helped me develop clarity.
And it also taught me how to learn to love myself more than I ever have in my life.
And so what was happening,
The reason why the affirmations that are in the book are all affirmations I wrote while I was going through a very contentious divorce.
That's a nice adjective.
What happened is when I stopped fighting the truth of what was happening and I realized that my marriage of 28 years was done,
It shattered everything.
And it shattered my heart.
It shattered my memories.
It was very hard for me to find any happy memories at that time.
And it shattered my future because I thought that this was going to be a relationship I would be in for the rest of my life.
And in that shattering,
As I was pulling away from my now ex-husband emotionally and mentally and energetically,
I realized that I was just,
I didn't know who I was.
I didn't know who I was.
I had never really,
In all the spiritual learning and teaching and seeking and questing I had done for 20 years,
I had not really cracked the inner barrier or the inner wall that surrounded my heart.
And what happened is everything shattered.
And I often describe it as crawling on my belly through shards of a kaleidoscope glass that just,
It was so many different colors and feelings and emotions.
And it was one of the more painful things I've ever experienced in my life because in the losing or the letting go of what I was so afraid of that was happening,
I didn't know what my future was.
I couldn't even see a future.
And I didn't know who I was,
Like I said earlier.
And what happened is I had to learn who I was while I was going through divorce.
So I made a conscious choice to do that while I was mucking through the pain and spinning in the anger and peeling off the shame and humiliation of what I had subjected myself to for 28 years,
Recognizing that and what I was going through in the shattering of what my potential future was and walking out into that unknown,
Which is frightening,
Whether it's a divorce or losing your job or a health challenge,
Walking out into an unknown future is scary stuff.
And the calmness and clarity started to come eventually after I really did some deep inner work.
The first thing was that the barrier that I had been seeking to protect was really this wall that was hiding all my beliefs.
All these old beliefs that half of them weren't even mine,
But that a woman should support her man,
The man should financially take care of the woman,
That I was never going to be good enough for anyone.
Being a menopausal woman when I entered into divorce,
Who wants that body,
Right ladies?
It's like,
I can't even know how to dress that menopausal body anymore.
But the shattering of the heart was the thing that I had to rebuild.
And how I did that was by,
But the shattering of my life and my heart in the revelation that there was this barrier around these old beliefs that I didn't even know I had.
I was protecting myself from what?
I had to ask,
What am I protecting myself from?
And because my heart was so raw and so shredded,
I realized I was at a huge opportunity point to begin to find the things I liked about myself and find the things that I wanted to develop within myself.
I'm really big about working from the inside out.
You can put as many band-aids on the outside,
How you dress or how you present yourself,
Or you've got the fancy this or the beautiful that.
But in order to be an empowered person,
Especially for women,
There has to be an inner foundation built on the truth of who you are.
And we're all unique and different.
So my truth is different from your truth and your truth is different from somebody else's truth.
But we do have one thing in common,
And that is that divine spark of light that is that place of wisdom,
That is that place of healing,
That is that place of wholeness.
And so I,
In this journey to my own empowerment,
I had to really dig deep.
And I found belief systems that were my ancestors,
That they weren't even mine.
Belief systems that mostly it was about not being valued and not being valuable.
And I was reminded by a friend today when I was going through divorce and it was at like the worst part,
Which was kind of like a tsunami,
Ongoing tsunami,
Worst part.
And I thought I was not,
I didn't ever,
I didn't think I could survive it.
I didn't think that I could overcome the shame and the,
And the,
And just the sadness,
Just the brokenness,
The brokenheartedness.
And because I didn't have self-esteem,
I didn't know how to love myself.
It was never modeled for me.
I actually have a client who said the very same thing to me last night.
She goes,
I love myself.
I respect and trust myself.
And I never had that in my life.
And because it wasn't modeled in the home and her parents didn't know how to teach her.
And I think that that was true for mine and probably many people out there that if loving kindness and self-esteem and self-respect is not modeled by the people that are taking care of you at a very young age,
Chances are you probably didn't grow up with any of it.
And at some point you have to develop it.
You have to grow it within yourself.
So at this one tsunami,
Horrible time of my life,
I went out with a couple of girlfriends and I remember,
It's like,
Well,
Where is the money?
How am I going to be financially okay if I don't know how to do that?
If I don't know how to take care of myself or all that stuff.
Now I'm a smart,
Intelligent woman.
I have a master's degree.
I figured out how to balance a checkbook a long time ago,
But that fear of not being good enough and then not having enough in order to take care of myself because my belief was that the man would always provide for me.
Interesting.
That there were certain skill sets or tools I didn't develop as a strong muscle.
So I was lost.
I was literally lost.
And I remember laying on this chaise lounge where we were curled up in a fetal position,
Not nose sobbing because I was so scared.
I was so angry.
I was so miserable.
And this was all part of the ongoing journey towards my own personal empowerment.
There were big days I'd wake up,
I'm like checking in.
Okay,
I think it's okay.
I think I can leave the house and not cry.
I think I could put on some makeup today and not be a snot nose mess in five minutes while I'm doing it.
So Live an Empowered Life,
A 30-Day Journey,
My book,
Has all of that.
And it's a powerful book,
I feel.
It could just be my opinion,
But I think it's a very,
Very powerful book.
My clients are affirming to me that the work that I do with them is empowering.
And like the one said,
She never knew how to love and respect and trust herself until having done work with me,
Which is really the work I did with myself.
So I want to read something from the Live an Empowered Life book.
And this is called Journey to Receptivity.
The journey to receptivity requires courage to constantly let go of anything blocking your heart and remaining open to receiving your good,
Which also means your love,
Everybody,
Your own love.
It requires metaphorically letting go with both hands and trusting that all you are is sufficient to draw to you all that you need.
It requires accepting your truth,
That you are a radiant light of love and always have been.
And as I began to really uncover that even more and embody it,
I began to heal.
And what was also showing up in these belief systems that I didn't even know I had,
And some were mine and some were my ex-husband's and some were my family of origin.
But most of it,
And like I said,
Most of it had to do with value and worth and all of that.
I realized I needed to emancipate myself.
And now a lot of people get triggered by that word.
I've used it often now and I can feel and see the body language that says,
Oh,
Emancipate,
That has to do with slavery.
Well,
Yeah,
It does.
And what I mean by it is we individuals,
Because of our family of origin,
Because of our belief systems that downloaded and we didn't know it,
Because we may not be consciously aware or awake,
We are held in shackles,
Inner shackles that keep us from having our most amazing life,
From being free,
From being loved,
From being creative and happy and all of those things.
So the book requires you to see where you are still holding yourself hostage,
Are still in shackles and how to emancipate yourself from that.
And it's all deep inner work.
And if done,
Because I know you're going to do it,
If done consistently,
Consecutively over 30 days,
There is opportunity to get rid of the garbage that you've been walking around with that you may not be aware of,
But also to develop a new path,
A new inner foundation built on love and trust and respect that you can have a happy,
Healthy,
Empowered life.
Now,
Another thing that happened actually to me today,
And I was again with a friend processing,
Which kind of sounds like whining,
But if you do it intentionally,
You get through it and then you get your wisdom hit.
I like to call it your inner answer.
So I was,
Here I am with this book,
Living Empowered Life,
A 30-day journey.
I'm so excited.
I'm going to a networking event and everybody's going to want to buy my book and everybody's going to be excited for me.
Now,
What I saw is everybody was excited for me,
But very few people wanted to come up and engage in buying the book.
And I just,
I got triggered.
And I had old wounding about being rejected because I used to be an actress.
So how many times do you get rejected in a day for some actors and you have to carry on and act like it doesn't bother you and all that stuff.
And I was watching myself,
Watching this group and wondering,
Well,
The first thing that came up is what's wrong with me.
Again,
Old wounding.
There must be something wrong with me if nobody wants to be my friend.
Ouch.
There must be whatever.
And there was starting to be this old background noise that I hadn't felt in a long time because I had done this work.
And I began to get angry,
Furious actually.
And then I had to process that.
And then I was ashamed again and had to process that.
And then I was so disappointed and was,
I don't know if I was disappointed in myself or them,
And probably I was disappointed in myself because I had high expectations.
Anybody else out there have high expectations that don't get met?
I had high expectations and they didn't get met.
And it wasn't anybody in the room's fault except for me because again,
These old belief systems that I had excavated,
Examined,
Threw away,
Caught me by the ankles and began to create that chain,
That shackle of,
Okay,
Now you're going to just stand in victimhood.
And I had to work again.
So that's why I mentioned earlier that even when we go into a journey of inner self healing and learning to love ourselves more,
There is an ongoing journey and it is a journey towards empowerment all the time.
Yeah,
When you go on a trip,
There's a destination,
But don't you want to go on another trip after that?
I know I do.
So the destination then extends itself,
Right?
And then you're constantly on a journey.
So I did my work and hence this particular topic in the podcast because I recognize that no matter where we are,
Any of us,
Whether you are awake or unconscious,
Whether you think you are highly conscious,
There are things that will always come up,
Maybe trip you up,
But it is for the inner,
It's for you to take a look,
Right,
Within yourself.
Am I still loving myself enough?
Am I still caring for myself enough?
Do I respect myself enough?
Do I trust myself enough?
And then to see where you might not be doing that on a regular basis.
So the book is Living Empowered Life,
A 30-Day Journey,
And I have an affirmation that is kind of toward the end of the book I wanted to read before I close.
Again,
It's one I wrote.
With each breath,
I expand my heart.
With my inner eyes,
I see that I am love,
Overflowing and renewing love.
I radiate love everywhere I am.
I am met with love.
I am love.
And so it is,
Namaste.
