821. Awakening, Loneliness, and Relationship Shifts: The Realities of Spiritual Growth

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1:15Hello, world. Hello, everybody. Welcome to a solo episode with me and my best friend, Krista Williams. On the couch. 10 years. We've been together. there. What do you, the wheels are starting to come off guys. I've been, I've been public and facing for seven days straight. Yeah. It's a little, I need to go into my hole. Where's your hole? Home. It's a great question. Actually. My hole is home is where the cats are. That's my, that's my hole is where the cats are. That's my merch brand. Home is where the cats are. Home is where the babies are. Home is where my little children are. I was just texting my cat sitter.

1:55This is so, this is so embarrassing. I have friends stay or I have my PA stay. I was like, I was like, baby content, please. And she sent me baby content of the cats. There was only one cat in the picture. And she goes, this was last night. I go, oh, did she sleep with you? I was like, sometimes she claims people. So make sure you give Oogie equal love because the one that wasn't in the picture. I want to make sure that she's getting equal love. She didn't, I was trying to give Oogie love, but she's a little scared. And I gave her the sole strategy of like getting Oogie equal love. But it's so funny.

2:34It's like, as a parent, you see one cat in the photo. I'm like, where's the other one? Of course. I'm like, the other one's not getting as much love. And then you want to control exactly what's happening. For sure. And I'm like, let me walk you through the process of softening. Just a gentle suggestion. Yeah, of softening Oogie to your thing. Today, we're going to be doing a solo episode, just Lindsay and I. We're going to be doing Q &A from y 'all. So we got some really, really good questions about spirituality, about personal growth. We love to do these Q &A style ones. We've done ones on relationship.

3:00We've done general life advice and they're just so much fun. And we thought we would do some one on spirituality. Let her rip. Let her rip. I loved these, you guys. I absolutely freaking adored everything that you said. I've been feeling pulled toward a spiritual awakening, but it also is isolating. Do either of you experience loneliness? Did either of you experience loneliness during your awakening? How did you move through it? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's actually a marker of being in your spiritual awakening. Totally. Is a sense of loneliness. And I think for me, it was twofold, maybe threefold, but twofold in the sense that I think I was understanding more deeply who I am on a soul level, but also why I am the way I am based on my upbringing and not just the like 3D aspect of that, but like the energetics of my upbringing.

4:05And so that kind of kickstarted an individuation period, like yet another one from my family and it like I knew it was necessary, but it did feel like they didn't understand me or they didn't really want to at the time. And I didn't feel as close to them. So that felt a little lonely. And then with friendships, I think, you know, some of my friendships went through either a death and they were done during that time or a period of pause where I kind of needed to move through some aspects of my awakening without the opinion of like my best friend from home, you know, or, um, just the chirping of some people that felt the need to chirp.

4:52Um, and I kind of had to draw that boundary and although it was necessary, it was like a, a new silence that like at times when I thought about it enough made me feel lonely. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think about the hero's journey, you know, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. And just sort of like the mythic of the path of awakening, and a lot of it is loneliness. You know, it's leaving your identity behind old patterns, old stories, old relationships. You know, you start to feel that rumbling and that call to adventure, you know, to leave home, to become who you came here to be. So the loneliness is like essential.

5:35because you're leaving it. Like it's essential for you to become you and with yourself to figure out who you are outside of all the external noise. Um, I think I felt very lonely that, I don't know if I felt lonely. I think I have. It's interesting with me because I'm like, I'm so watery sometimes where I'm like, I felt lonely my whole life. And then I've felt surrounded by people my whole life. So I have these like kind of dueling experiences. And I think I was so driven by something that I never really like latched onto loneliness, but I definitely felt different, I think, which was helpful.

6:14But I think if you're someone that feels lonely, there is a way that you could hopefully find community and find people that are sort of on the path. But I think loneliness is essential to your spiritual awakening. I did a whole episode on this. You could say it's called Lonely on Your Spiritual Path, where I really talked about the importance of feeling alone, of feeling and leaving, of, of leaving your like old identity behind. And I do think that loneliness is sometimes a certain type of loneliness is a symptom of you being disconnected from like your true self. And so like, as I started to kind of, you know, have my own journey of getting to know myself, eventually, like I didn't, even on like Friday nights in alone, I didn't feel lonely.

7:04I was like, I am so content. I am. I'm with the person. I love this person. Yeah. So true. Yeah. I'm like, I love this girl. So you kind of get to, I think it's absolutely that feeling of loneliness in relation to other people is a part of the path. Yeah. And then there's also the loneliness of like, not feeling super connected to your soul. Yeah. That is like a loneliness. Yeah. Um, I think I felt lonely. It's interesting. The phases of loneliness on the spiritual path at the beginning, I felt lonely because I felt like no one understood what I was going through. I felt very different, but it's interesting now at the phase that I'm at, because I feel lonely.

7:45I felt so lonely. I don't feel this anymore, but I felt so lonely for a while because I couldn't bring everyone with me. Right. You know, I was like, Oh, I'm going to leave you behind. And so there's a loneliness of people that grow where you continue on your path in your journey of growth. and I've left, I think, every relationship. They've, you know, I've left them where I was or even worse. But, you know, I think there's that part of it too where there's like, there's just kind of multiple layers of the lonely that you feel on the path. Yeah, yeah. Okay, how do you balance the desire to be of service with the need to protect your own energy?

8:19I keep burning out trying to help everyone. I did a post on this recently because I do a lot of work with empaths and I said, just because your energy heals doesn't mean everyone should have access to it. Just because you're someone that has a healing energy, a healing vibration, you and your essence is healing doesn't mean that every single person should have access to you. And so when we are in service and we live a life of service, your service is best served when you are in your own essence, in your own frequency, in your own experience, that is the most joyful. So your service to self is service to others.

8:56I think that's where we kind of get it all twisted. We believe that to live a life of service, we have to bypass the self. We have to martyr. We have to, you know, sacrifice. We have to give up. We have to have less and lack and all of that. Actually, the greatest service that you can do to others happens through service to self. So we were on the podcast with Flynn Skye the other day, and he was talking about how there's a lot of research that - Flynn Skidmore? Flynn Skidmore. Oh, sorry. What did I say? You said Flynn Skye, which is a clothing brand. Oh my God, wow. Wow. We were on the podcast the other day with Flint Skidmore and he was talking about the research about you healing for yourself actually heals generationally and heals ancestrally.

9:33And so you being someone that is actually healing yourself will support others. Yeah. So true. I think about it in like a personal context of like within the family being of service and just kind of learning now, having had an incredibly present mom growing up, which I'm so grateful for, but there was also the aspect of like not taking care of herself and not having that just awareness of when she needed to tend to her own needs or, you know, what her body needed, what her spirit needed and how that is actually making her an even better mom or giving her the energy she needs, you know, whatever it is.

10:19And so as a mom now, I'm, I think about that a lot where there's a part of me that all I want to do is spend time with my family. And I kind of have to look at that piece of why I feel so, um, identified with that. I think it's partly because it's what I saw growing up. And then when I'm in an experience of doing something for myself and making that time, and even if it takes me away from my family, I am nine times out of 10, so much better when I come back. So it's like this, sometimes we have to push ourselves a little bit outside of our mind because our mind says something else about it to really take care of ourselves or really allow ourselves and give ourselves the permission to be in that joy, to be in doing the things that like truly light us up because everyone benefits when we do that.

11:17But it's not until you practice this and kind of push yourself to do it that you see the effects. Otherwise, you can just like think about it and be like, eh, I'm probably best served just like being here and like being with them, doing all the things that they need to do. but I've found that I kind of need to push myself a little bit and then feel what it feels like. And then be like, oh, I want to feel it again. That's right. It's like proving to myself. Yeah. That's what needs to be done. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. Also too, you know, from a parts perspective, if you are foregoing yourself to help others, you're actually doing it for yourself.

11:51Yes. Because you are doing it to be loved, yes. To be proven worthy, to be proven valuable. You're actually not doing it for other people. So that has helped me so much to be like, actually, it's in service to my safety, my perceived safety, my perceived worth to bypass what feels good for me and serve other people. And so when you can get really clear about that, it can be helpful. So you being yourself, you healing yourself is going to be the greatest service for anyone. Not that I'm saying service is not important, but you should be serving yourself first and then serving from a true and genuine place of overfill and abundance.

12:27Because then that energy is what's shared and served.

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16:17or Stride Bank N.A. MyPay eligibility requirements apply, and credit limit ranges$20 to$500. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See Chime.com slash fees info. Advertised annual percentage yield with Chime Plus status only. Otherwise, 1.00 % APY applies. No min balance required. Chime card on-time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See Chime.com for details and applicable terms. Sometimes I feel like I'm behind in my healing journey compared to others online. How do you stay grounded when comparison creeps into your growth? I'm curious because, you know, I'm getting curious about this question and foregoing judgment because I'm, what is being perceived about people's healing journey?

16:52Is that, are you perceiving that they're more healed because they're doing more things and they're doing ayahuasca and they're doing courses and programs and they're like, what is the perception of being on a healing journey means that you're more healed? You know, I, I think so. I think that would be accurate where they're doing more of the things. And so therefore they must be farther along on their healing path. They must be more enlightened. Yeah. I mean, that's the perception of the spiritual mountain, you know, believing that you could just heal enough to become to a place where you then love yourself.

17:30You then have wholeness. You then have enlightenment. And the most healing thing you can do is love yourself where you're at in the now moment. So this question is the work. Your perception that you're not somewhere is the work. Your belief and knowance that you are where you're meant to be is the whole, the most healing thing that you can do. Yeah. It's such a, I think, you know, we, we dog on social media. Sometimes we praise it sometimes, but there is like such an opportunity when you have a moment like this to kind of like ask the question and reflect and kind of see it over here and like how you interact with it, not as like judgment or, oh, I don't want to do that anymore.

18:07It's like, oh, wow, this is how I am when I show up here. And what can I get curious about as far as what that, the root of that is? And I can, I totally know that feeling. I feel like that I went through that in my, especially in my late twenties when we were kind of starting this off and kind of kicking off our own spiritual awakenings, or at least mine. And I would catch myself all the time just feeling like I was behind or not doing enough or, oh, I wanted to do that or, you know, seeing people have all of these experiences and wondering if I was ever going to have those experiences. and it was just like such a experience of being so out here, you know, and not actually turning off the noise to like hear what my soul, like what she wanted to do on this path.

19:07And once I was able to do that simply by like truly not looking at that stuff, it's that type of like very simple boundary of like, I'm not going to follow these people or I'm going to mute everyone or I'm going to set limits on my social media that you can actually hear, you know, and see where you are called. And also to see what I realized about so much of my awakening is it was in the mundane moments. Like I wasn't going to be hit over the head. Such a good one. You know, it's like, I'm, that would have been cool and something cool to talk about on the podcast, but like, it's not, it wasn't my journey thus far.

19:48And so once I turned off that noise, I was actually able to be in my life and realize that in these very simple mundane moments, I was having spiritual experiences. Like I was actually hearing the voice of my soul and I was like, whoa, that's real. That's interesting. Some of the most, I was thinking about this recently, some of the most profound spiritual experiences I've never told anybody. It's a weird feeling. It's almost like a sense of peace and reverence and truth so much so that I need not explain and I have no words. Totally. Like I just have so many things that I'm like, that's for me.

20:27That's not, I don't even want to talk about it. I just, yeah, it's very interesting. So even thinking about it that from that perspective, like anything that's outside of you is, you know, is ego, but also it's like, I love that point of like listening to your soul and whatever path that you're meant to be on. Maybe muting people on social media, maybe unfollowing people on social media that make you feel that way, if that's helpful on your path. And also just seeing yourself, maybe this is a little part of you that's trying to keep you small and self-sabotage. That's like, oh, they're ahead of me.

21:02I'm never going to get there. Right. Like watch the self-sabotage, you know, part that's like trying to keep you small, trying to keep you safe because she's scared of where you're going to go. Totally. I want to deepen my intuition, but I second guess myself constantly. What helped you build trust with your inner voice? I think when I followed her through, I've had a really beautiful relationship with my inner voice my whole life that I now see very clearly that I didn't see when I was kind of in my life. Like now I can kind of see the voice and now it's helpful in my spiritual practice, I can see my intuition.

21:38I can see God and I can see like my guide. So I'm kind of have like a deeper relationship with that. And that's, that's something you cultivate. I think what I didn't understand about spirituality is so much of the spiritual masters and teachers were gifted things. Of course, they grew up, you know, being able to see things or auras or colors, but a lot of this is through cultivation. They're like attentional awareness of something and then cultivating a relationship with your intuition and your intuition is the same. I mean, for many people in their lives, they've been incentivized to not listen to their intuition.

22:11You know, for most of their life, we were living lives that didn't feel aligned to who we truly came here to be. And so our job is really recultivating that relationship with it in life. And I feel like the more I've been able to listen and now it's interesting because the relationship I have with my intuition, I have a deep relationship, but I'm also in conversation with her. It's not like I'm listening and doing everything. I'm like, okay, I hear you. This is where I'm at. This is where my fear is. Like I actually started to engage in a dialogue with my intuition a little bit because I'll hear things and that can help you, especially if you're afraid to listen.

22:50So instead of feeling like your intuition hits, you need to listen right away and take action. Maybe your path is intuition hits. I'm going to engage with that. I'm going to engage with that in a dialogue. Hey, you're telling me to quit my job. Okay. I'm hearing you. I'm really scared. What happens if this, you know, what does that look like? Okay. You know, what would it feel like if we followed the path and just acknowledging it as an intuitive hit, I think is a really powerful path. But the biggest thing to, to deepen your connection with your intuition is getting quiet. You know, it's, it's the most unsexy and annoying thing, but it really is turning the outside noise.

23:26I was, I was off my phone for two weeks and I didn't have social media for two weeks, not intentionally, but you know, God just does his thing. And I was on a walk one of the days and I was like, Whoa, I haven't had, I had like downloads. I had not had downloads in so long. Like I had really cool ideas. Like I had two, two ideas. Like I woke up in between my sleep and awake, I was getting messages about the hero's journey. and I was like, okay, interesting hero's journey. And then I woke up and I realized I had been gifted the book by Joseph Campbell. I was talking about hero's journey a little bit.

24:02And then I was kind of like looking and I went to the book and was reading it that morning. And then I was getting this whole thing about how so many of us are on the hero's journey. And when we can see it as that, it becomes so much lighter when we're on the spiritual path. The loneliness makes sense. The darkness makes sense. The trials and tribulations make sense because we're all on the path of our hero's journey. And I just had this whole like moment and this whole like little world just landed in my mind because I had the clarity of having no phone for two weeks. And I had the clarity of being alone and being able to kind of explore the intuitive hit that I got sort of in my wake state.

24:38Yes. Oh my God. A hundred percent. Turning down the noise is number one. And we, you know, the noise looks different for different people. I think definitely looking to your phone, social media, obviously, but maybe you like always go to your group chat and you ask questions. You know, it's like kind of looking to the places that you wouldn't expect to be kind of like your daily noise. I think for me, it was important to understand

25:05how my inner voice, how I best received guidance from my inner voice. So meaning for me, it's actually really helpful to write, kind of have that like soul journaling moment, which we talk about in the book. Because, and this was good for me in the beginning, because I would doubt when I would feel or hear things. I'd be like, I don't know what that is. And I don't think that I don't trust that. Or I don't believe that that was my inner voice. I just doubted it. So it was actually really helpful to put it on paper and feel the resonance of my inner voice. And then I think for me, it was kind of this like body experience my inner voice would communicate through.