S4: E11 - You’ve Done the Healing… But Now What!? 11 Ways To Trust Yourself Again

You’ve done the healing; recognised the patterns; started saying no, setting boundaries and questioning the ‘shoulds’ you’ve lived by for years… but now you’re left wondering… what the hell do I actually want?

If you’ve reached the point where your old life no longer fits, but you haven’t quite worked out what comes next, this episode is for you.

We’re talking about why so many women lose touch with their intuition, how years of conditioning disconnect us from what we truly want, and the 11 practical steps you can take to start trusting yourself again. Because a HUGE part of healing is discovering who you are underneath it all!

If you’re ready to stop living by everyone else’s expectations and "shoulds", and start embracing spiritual freedom, grab a cuppa and let’s figure it out together.

🖤 In this episode we explore:

• Why it’s easier to know what you don’t want than what you do.
• Reconnecting with your intuition and inner knowing.
• Breaking free from conditioning and people-pleasing.
• Practical ways to discover what your soul is really asking for.
• Learning to trust yourself again

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Hello, hello my lovelies, and welcome back to the Witchy Woo podcast. And you may notice, depending on where you are listening to me from, that actually now we can also see. Well, I can't see you, but you can now see me because I've been thinking about how I need to incorporate video content and how when I personally like to listen to podcasts, I also like to see them because I feel like you can pick up on the energy a lot more. And so I have decided to also create this video content so that I can hopefully connect with you even deeper. So if you are listening to me on a normal podcasting platform, please also know that you can view this on YouTube if you're like me and you prefer to consume content where you can actually see as well. So if you are seeing me for the first time, hello! Welcome into my world. Obviously, you've been a part of my world for a while, for however long you've been part of the Witchy Woo podcast, but this feels like an extra step to connecting further. So I am very excited that you have joined me. And I've actually been really looking forward to this episode as well, because this is the point within this particular series, series four, where I feel things start to turn a little bit and become really interesting. So over the last 10 episodes, we've obviously spoken about how we may have chosen at times to stay small, how we've been carrying everyone else's shit, how we've been frightened of our own potential and of never really fitting in, of believing that we were too sensitive or being told that we were too sensitive, and we've even gone right back through the history of the witch wound to understand where so much of that conditioning has come from. So if you've listened to those episodes, if you haven't, be sure to check them out now. But if you have listened to those episodes, you'll probably have had at least one moment where you've stopped and you've thought, oh my god, that actually explains so much for me. And that's brilliant because awareness is where everything starts. And if we don't know why we're behaving in a particular way, then how on earth are we supposed to change it? But I think there's a point in everyone's healing journey where understanding your pattern stops being enough. That can take you so far on your healing journey. It's a bit like if you're cleaning out a cupboard, you've taken everything off the shelves, you've looked through all of the rubbish that you've been carrying around for years, you've decided what you're keeping, you've decided what you're throwing away, and then you're in front of an empty cupboard, and you might be thinking to yourself, right, now what? So that is what we have done in this series so far. And I think that is the point where a lot of women tend to get stuck because by this point, you're probably really clear on what you don't want anymore. You don't want to keep people pleasing, you don't want to keep shrinking yourself, you don't want to keep living by everyone else's expectations or conditions or labels or shoulds that they've placed on you, worrying about whether they'll think or asking for permission before you make every bloody decision and feeling guilty every time you put yourself first. But here's the question that I don't think we often ask ourselves enough, and that is what do you want? The person that I am looking at that I'm in the ears of right now. What do you really want? And when I say that, I certainly do not mean what you should want, and not what makes the most sense, not what your family would like you to do, not what your friends think would suit you, or what your coach or your boss or your partner or some random woman on Instagram thinks your life should look like, but what do you really want? And it's such a simple question, isn't it? But I think sometimes this can be one of the hardest questions that women can ever get asked, because we've become absolute experts at working out what everyone else needs from us, and we've completely forgotten how to check in with ourselves. And I know this feeling all too well because I've been there many times. There have been many points where if you'd asked me what I wanted, I could have given you a full list of all the things that I was supposed to say to you. I could have told you what success looked like, I could have told you what a good mum should do, what a good wife should do, what a successful business owner should do, and a spiritual teacher should do, and all of those things. I had all of those answers, apart from the only one that truly mattered deep down. What did Kylie want? And that question really made me uncomfortable at times. And it wasn't because I didn't have dreams, because I feel like I've always been like a big kid at heart. I've always had this wonder and wanted as much as I possibly can have and wanted to lean into the sense of excitement. But I'd spent so much of my life trying to become the version of me that I thought everyone else could understand. That I had stopped listening to the quieter voice that was underneath it all, the one that had probably been trying to get my attention for years. And the funny thing is, I don't actually think that most of us struggle because we don't know what our intuition is saying. I think we often struggle because we don't like the answer that our intuition is giving us. Have you ever had that feeling where someone asks you to do something, and before they've even finished the sentence, your whole body has already answered. You know, your stomach is tightened, your shoulders have tensed right up, you've almost rolled your eyes internally, but then your brain, your human, joins the party and starts negotiating. Well, maybe they really need me. It'll only take an hour, or I don't want them to think that I'm selfish, I'll probably enjoy it once I'm there. But your intuition spoke first. Your conditioning, however, jumped in afterwards and spoke louder. And I honestly think that that's one of the biggest things that I've learned over the years, both through my own healing and with clients within the Akashic Records, that your soul very, very rarely screams. It doesn't throw a tantrum or demand your attention. It's actually really gentle. It's it's like it whispers and it gives you that little feeling in your chest, you know, that excitement that you can feel, or the awareness, or the little warning that you get, that knowing that you can't really explain it's everything else that makes the noise after that. Fear is really noisy, conditioning is really noisy, other people's opinions are really noisy, social media is especially noisy, but your soul just quietly waits for you to stop listening to everyone else for five minutes. And I know some of you will be listening to this or watching this now that you can watch it, thinking that's all well and good, but I genuinely don't know how to hear it anymore. Which is exactly why I wanted to record this episode. Not because I have all the answers, trust me. I really don't, but I have been there and I have learned some tools. And I still catch myself asking people what they think. I still have moments where I'm about to make a decision and I notice I'm trying to work out what the right answer is instead of asking what feels right for me internally. The difference now though is that I can catch myself much, much quicker. So I thought, seeing as it is episode 11, I would share 11 things that have genuinely really helped me start building that relationship with myself again. They're not rules because my inner teen comes out when there are rules involved and she wants to rebel. So I would never tell anyone. And how ironic would it be if I was sat here telling you to trust your intuition and ignore the shoulds and then tell you how you should do that. So, of course, these aren't rules, these aren't shoulds, they're not a list of things that you should be doing. But they are or they can be used as little experiments for you. Try them. Take the ones that have real meaning for you and make a difference for you, and ignore the ones that just don't resonate. You can come back to them in six months, in six years, and see whether they land differently, because there isn't a pass or a fail here. It's just simply seeing what works for you and me sharing what has worked for me. So the first one may well be the hardest, and this is to stop asking everyone else's opinion first. Honestly, just notice how often you do it over the next week. Spend some time catching yourself, just be really mindful. You don't have to take any action on it, but just notice when is there a decision to be made, and you are immediately turning to someone else to see what you should do. I have been really bad for this in the past. I've always been someone who is very intuitive, and I instantly get a feeling about whether I should do something, whether I shouldn't do something, what feels right for me, what feels wrong for me. But I am also someone who values other people's opinion and holds their opinion, often in the past, higher than my own. And so my soul would tell me what it is that I want to do, and I would feel that intuition. But as I said, that is much quieter than then the human brain that steps in and starts telling you that won't work, or you should seek validation before going ahead with making that decision. And I did used to do this all the time, and I do still sometimes do it now. I catch myself if I have a business idea, and before I'd even let myself get excited about it, I'd be wondering what other people would think. I think I'll just ask so and so, because she'll know, or I'll run this past my husband, or I'll see what this group of people say. Now, don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking for advice, and I often think that actually when we do have an audience, we do need to make sure that our values and what we are creating and bringing to the world truly align with what it is that they want and they need. Because after all, we are here trying to help the people that are in our world, and we want to ensure that the things that we're investing our time, our energy into, especially when it comes to a business, are things that our clients are wanting to see, that they're needing to see, but sometimes we can become over-reliant, and I think there's a difference between asking for someone's perspective and completely outsourcing your inner knowing. Because if every decision starts with somebody else's opinion, how on earth are you supposed to trust your gorgeous self? And I always think that intuition is a bit like a muscle. If somebody carried your shopping for you every single day, eventually your arms would get weaker because they wouldn't have any of the hard work to do, and trusting yourself is exactly the same. If somebody else is making your decisions for you, your intuition never gets the chance to strengthen because you've never asked it to. So here's something really simple I'd love for you to try this week. The next time that you've got a small decision to make, try not asking anybody. And it's not because you're proving a point at all, or because you're cutting yourself off from support. It's just because I want you to get curious about what your own answer is before someone else has the chance to influence it. And it could be something as simple as deciding what to do with your weekend, what book to read, whether to go to an event, whether to start that course that you've been looking at, what you should cook for dinner. That is a big one in my house. So, I mean, the complete side note, I feel that choosing dinner as an adult is one of the most boring, monotonous things that you can possibly do. And I hate that decision. And so, actually, I often find like if I'm going to a restaurant or we're ordering a takeaway, I will often ask my husband, Well, what are you getting? And it's almost as though I'm seeking that external validation, and it doesn't change my mind on what I get, but also I'm mindful of the fact that I don't want to feel that I need to know someone else's opinion or someone else's choices before choosing for myself. So that is one thing that I have become incredibly mindful of, and it's obviously a really tiny thing that isn't going to greatly impact your week if you are worried about making the wrong decision. So perhaps test yourself. Have a go at this. So before you ask your partner, before you message your best mate, before you put a poll up on Instagram, ask yourself first. And then the biggest thing, trust the answer that you get. So, number two of the 11 tips is pay attention to what gives you energy, not just what you're good at. And I think one of the biggest lies that we've been sold is that we are supposed to build our lives around what we're good at. And you know, don't get me wrong, being good at something is wonderful, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's where your soul wants to be. There are plenty of things that I'm capable of doing that I have absolutely no desire to spend my life doing. And equally, there have been things that I've started that I've been absolutely rubbish at, but I couldn't stop thinking about them because they made me feel something. I could feel that fire, and I'm a strong believer that we can genuinely do anything when we believe we can and when we take the action. Now, of course, if you want to start playing the piano because the piano lights you up and you love the sound of it and it makes you feel happy, that's wonderful. You're not obviously going to know how to play it without having some form of lesson or you know, looking in a book or looking at a YouTube video, for instance. But if it's what lights your soul up, then go with it. You are always going to improve at something that really genuinely makes you happy. And sometimes it's as simple as just starting to notice those moments. What are the conversations that make you lose track of time? You know, the gorgeous ones, the when you get so in depth with someone that speaking for five hours feels as though you've been speaking for five minutes. What are the books that you can't put down and you just want to read all in one session? What topics do you keep coming back to? What lights you up so much that you forget to look at your phone? Your soul leaves breadcrumbs all the time. The trouble is we are usually too busy convincing ourselves that they're not sensible enough to follow. Because in this left-brain world where we have to do everything in a certain way, in a masculine way, it's all about the doing, it's all about the logical. We feel as though we can't just go with our intuition. We often feel as though we can't just decide that we want to take the day off and go adventuring, I don't know, to the coast and pick up all the seashells we can find. Because logically, that's perhaps not the most productive thing that we can do. So, number three, stop trying to find your purpose and start collecting the clues along the way. Because I sometimes think that finding your purpose has become one of the most overwhelming things in the spiritual world. And it sounds as though there is this one magical job, relationship, or calling waiting for you, and if you don't find it, you've somehow failed. And I don't really think that's how it works. Your purpose isn't one giant leap, it's hundreds of tiny decisions that pull you closer and closer to yourself. So every single conversation that you enjoy, every single course that you sign up for, every single hobby that you discover or boundary that you set or brave decision that you make, they're all clues along your journey. You don't need the whole map, you just need that next little breadcrumb. And working within the Akashic Records, I often find that one of the most popular questions that I will be asked is what is my soul purpose? And whilst absolutely we can look at your soul contract, we can speak with your ascended masters, we can look at your past lives and see exactly why your soul chose to incarnate and look at the things that you're doing that's making a difference. I actually believe that your purpose is much deeper and much broader, actually, than people expect it to be. I think I attract a lot of entrepreneurs, I suppose because I am in business for myself, and so naturally I connect with other business owners. And I find this a lot in business. People are wanting to know their sole purpose because they want to know that what they are bringing to the world is what they were always meant to, and they want to know if there's more that they were meant to. And what I want to say here and now is that there is always more, because your sole purpose is never your job title. You can have a hundred different job titles, and all of them be you following your purpose. Because whilst your purpose will stay the same, the way that you lean into that in this lifetime will change. So if I look at my job history, I have been, I have had many different jobs, and they've all had kind of a similar thread. So I have been a carer where I have obviously cared for. For people, I was a private carer for a gorgeous soul. And while I was working with her, it was one of the most fulfilling things that I have ever done. She had cerebral palsy, and when I first met her, she had regressed to a point that she didn't communicate through speech anymore. But because I was able to spend every day with her, and actually my daughter was a big part of the journey as well, because although actually the girl was the same physical age as me, she was the same mental age as my daughter, who was probably about I don't know, four, three, four at the time. And they got on really well. And you know, my the lady that I was caring for found my daughter absolutely hilarious. But when I was working with her, she started speaking again, and I could feel that us working together, I was helping her to gain the confidence again to start talking again, which was absolutely gorgeous. So I've done a caring role again, thinking about the thread being confidence. I went to university and trained as a counsellor and started working with people, obviously, on their mind, and a lot of it was confidence building within themselves. I then started a business as completely different, a hair and beauty stylist for weddings, and I was a hair and beauty teacher as well. And what was I doing on the morning of women's weddings? Making them feel the most confident that they possibly could within their physical. Then with this spiritual business, I feel that a huge part of my purpose is to bring confidence to the people that I'm working with so that they can fully trust themselves and they can lean all the way in to their witchiness, to their woo-ness, to their spiritual side, and really truly find themselves again. So all really, really different roles, but actually the thread was running through through all of them, and it looks like that for everyone. Obviously, not the same thing as in helping people feel more confident, but whatever your sole purpose is, you can that can come out of you in any way, and it doesn't have to be a job role either. You know, your sole purpose can be through your hobbies, can be through your family, can be through your connections, it will ooze out of you when you are really leaning into alignment fully. Your purpose will just naturally be coming out of you. So, number four, let your body have a vote. And for years I made lots of decisions from my head. I'd weigh up the pros and the cons, and I'd overthink every possible outcome. Now I am also a Libra son as well, and I do think that the indecisiveness probably partly comes from the Libra, but I would convince myself that if I thought about it for long enough, eventually I would arrive at the perfect answer. But as we know, it doesn't work like that. Now, before I make a decision, I simply just check in with my body. Does my chest feel lighter or tighter? I'm a poet and I didn't know it. Do I feel excited or exhausted? Can I breathe properly when I imagine saying yes? Because your nervous system knows long before your logical brain, your human brain, catches up. So I always find if you are looking to make a decision, ask yourself the question, do I want this? Or what do I want? Your very first initial reaction, whatever you think, whatever you feel, that is your intuition. The second thing that you think or feel is your human, your logical brain kicking in to tell you all the reasons why you shouldn't do that, because your human is responsible for keeping you safe, whereas your soul is responsible for helping you expand and grow as much as you can. So if you're really wanting to lean into your intuition, the very first thing that comes to you. So number five, be willing to disappoint people. And this one isn't pretty. And there was a lot of resistance. And me and this person went through, I'd say probably three to six months of headbutting. And I mean it wasn't completely unheard of that we would butt heads, but it was a real resistance there, and we both still loved each other dearly, but I was putting these boundaries into place, and it was actually while I was, I mentioned earlier about doing my university course, doing my counselling course, and throughout that was where I really started to find myself again, discover who I was at my core, and within doing that, I was setting stronger boundaries, and so this friction did cause some disharmony, if you like, within my life for a while. But looking back, it was one million percent worth it because after that our relationship was even stronger for it. So, number six, try things without deciding they're forever. So I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to get everything right the first time. What if I start a business and it fails? What if I move house and I regret it? What if I cut my hair and I hate it? You know, and what if, you know, you don't have to know that something is going to become what you want forever before you're allowed to try it. So give yourself permission to experiment throughout life. Life isn't something that you have to get right first time all the time. It is all about exploring what is right for you. And if you don't like something, okay, you've learned you don't like that, so you can move on. I think one of the biggest things that especially our schooling system has drilled into us, has conditioned into us, which has really set us back in terms of connecting with ourselves, is that we have to get everything right. We are given tests and we are literally marked on those tests and told if we don't get enough of them right, then we're a failure, basically. And it has scared us into never wanting to get anything wrong. But of course, as we know, the only way or the best way that we learn is through failing. It is through trying something. If it doesn't work, try it again. As they say, you know, the only failure is giving up. Because failure, or what we perceive to be failure when something doesn't go a hundred percent right, is simply us learning, us discovering that okay, well, now I know this thing doesn't work, I can put that to bed and move on with my next thing. So, number seven, protect your quiet. And I genuinely believe that we've forgotten how noisy modern life has become, how busy it is, you know. And obviously, this is ironic me saying this, but you know, we've got podcasts playing while we're cleaning, while we're cooking. I will always do that in the kitchen or you know, wherever I am, I'll put a podcast on so that I constantly have the stimulation there, so that I'm thinking about something while I'm doing something. You know, we always listen to music in the car. Like I hate car journeys if there is a music in it. We have notifications on our phone every few minutes and social media telling us what everyone else is doing, and endless, endless opinions on how we should be living life. It's no wonder that we can't hear our beautiful inner voice. So I'd really recommend spending a little time each week with nothing, like no phone, no podcast, not even this one, even though this is of course your favourite. Just you. Because your intuition doesn't shout over chaos or noise, it just sits and waits patiently. So rather than trying to turn the dial up on your intuition, it's almost as though we have to dial down everything else around us in order to fully connect. So, number eight is to get curious about the things that you judge in other people, and this is a big one. If you are going into shadow work or if you have done shadow work, you will know how huge this is, how much we can be triggered by other people. And if something in someone else really irritates you, the best thing you can do, rather than asking why they behave in that way, why they have to do that, because it's so annoying, or whatever it is, ask yourself why am I getting so annoyed by what that person is doing? Because sometimes it's not because they're behaving badly. Obviously, sometimes it is, sometimes it's genuinely that someone is being a bit of a knob, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's either that they are giving themselves permission to do something that you've never allowed yourself to do, or sometimes it's something that you don't like in yourself that is being reflected back to you, and you can see yourself in that person, and that can be really confronting when we think, but that trait, I really don't like that trait. Sometimes it is that deep down we know that that trait is something that we don't like about ourselves, but that in itself gives us power and gives us knowledge because we know more about ourselves. But let's say, for instance, it is because you've not allowed yourself to do the thing that they are doing, maybe they are confident, maybe they're visible, maybe they don't care what other people think, maybe they say no without feeling guilty. And sometimes the people who trigger us become our greatest teachers. So whether you feel triggered because it's something that you wish you could do, or whether you become triggered because it's something that you don't like in yourself, just listen in those moments. The next time someone really winds you up, think about why I am reacting in that way, rather than why are they being annoying. So, number nine is write down your own definition of success, not what your parents want for you, not what society says, not what Instagram says, not what these coaches that are traveling around the world and flying on private jets are saying. If that's what you want, that's wonderful. But think about what success means for you. If no one was watching you, what would a successful life feel like? And notice how I said feel rather than look. Because people that I've met who have everything that they thought they ever wanted can sometimes be miserable. But I've also met people who are, you know, they have very little, but they are deeply content and happy because success isn't a number in our bank account, it's that alignment within ourselves. I remember when I going back, I don't know, 16, 17 years where I literally had nothing. I had just become homeless, and I literally had the clothes on my back and a few bits for my daughter. And I remember at the time how I was just so wanting and desperate to have a loving family and a little home. That is all that I wanted, and I now have to keep bringing myself back to that because I now have that. I have my loving family, a really happy home. I have laughter that fill the walls, and I have my gorgeous house, and I have reached the goals of what I wanted back then, and obviously, our goals can change. My goals have certainly changed, and as we grow more, we our goals will get bigger and bigger. But we want to always remember it's about how we feel because you know, getting that nice new car or the massive home, it might make you feel happy in the moment, but is that really gonna fulfill you completely as much as having your loving family around you, for instance? So, really think about what success is for you rather than what has been sold to us as success. So, number 10, trust yourself enough to make imperfect decisions. And I think we spend so much of our life waiting for certainty that we forget that certainty doesn't usually come before the action. Confidence will come after we take the action because every decision that you've ever made will have taught you something, even the ones that you wouldn't choose again, like we said before, we learn from them. So I really think it's important for us to stop waiting until we know for definite that we're setting. Sometimes trusting you means believing in what your, you know, your handle, whatever comes next. And this is a really important one because you will never feel ready. Never on your next step. The big scary thing, you will never feel ready. I'm very excited about something on this podcast actually, which I can't share with you the full details at the moment, but I can share that yesterday I recorded a podcast with oh an idol of mine, someone who is incredible, someone who is really high profile, who I never would have dreamed would have reached out to me to ask to collaborate. But they did. So the whole of yesterday, I was literally like shitting myself, like, oh my god. And then my human brain kicked in and it started telling me that, you know, oh, it's they're probably it's a wind up, it's fake, it's not actually gonna happen. And of course, I started convincing myself of all these things, and then it came to the time of recording, and it was amazing, and it went wonderfully. And now I feel confident about it, I feel incredible about it, but I didn't before I did it. I could have very easily yesterday pulled out of this big interview because it felt so huge, it felt like I wasn't at that level yet. I know now that I have that belief in myself, and I am, but we have to take that step, take that leap before we truly believe it. And then the confidence comes once you prove to yourself, once you prove to the human, you can do it. So the last one, number 11, is remember that you're not becoming someone new. I think this might be the most important one because healing isn't about becoming a better version of yourself, it's about stripping away those old versions of yourself that you created when you were at a time when you needed them, when you needed to survive, you know, that little girl who learned to stay quiet because that was safe, the teenager who desperately wanted to fit in, the woman who carried everyone else's emotions because that felt so much safer than feeling into her own. None of those versions of you need judging. They got you right here to where you are right now, but they don't have to lead your life anymore. The woman that you're looking for isn't somewhere out there outside of you, waiting to be discovered. She's already here underneath all of that conditioning, like you being a gorgeous little onion that smells far better. Underneath all of those shoulds, underneath all of the fear that's held you back, underneath all of the expectations that have been placed on you, every time you trust yourself, you set a boundary, you choose joy, you listen to your intuition, or you say no when you mean no. You're not becoming someone else, you're simply uncovering the woman who was there all along. I mentioned earlier on about someone that I love dearly who I was batting heads with for a while when I started my course, my university course, and she felt that I was changing, but in actual fact, I was becoming more me. It wasn't that I was changing into another person, it's that I was removing those layers of shoulds and conditioning and labels that have been placed onto me and that I'd placed onto myself. I was taking all of that off, and I was becoming more me. It's almost like, you know, this muddy pair of boots that you're that you're buffering away and taking all the mud off bit by bit. And to other people, it may seem that we've changed, but to you, deep down, when you do the healing work, you know it's that you've become more you. And I think that that is a beautiful place to leave today's episode. So this week, don't overthink, don't overwhelm yourself trying to do all 11 of these things. You might want to pick one thing to just kind of explore and get curious with and play with, and just notice what shifts. And next week you could try another one if you want, because your spiritual freedom isn't built through this, you know, one huge dramatic decision that you make. It's as I said before, those hundreds of tiny moments where you stop asking the world who you should be and you start asking yourself who you already are at your core. And that's exactly what we're here to do. So until next Tuesday, my loves, let's sod the shirts and embrace spiritual freedom.