Brenda Winkle 00:00:01 Welcome to your yes filled life. I'm Brenda Winkle, energetic leadership guide, psychic, medium and somatic coach for ambitious leaders who know their gifts are real and who want to stand fully in them. Here you'll learn how to trust your intuition, embody your vision, and step into the freedom you've been craving, all without chasing more certifications or carrying stuff that does not belong to you. Every week, I'll share powerful practices and conversations with thought leaders and changemakers that help you transform your vision into embodied confidence. Claim your gifts without apology and lead with both clarity and freedom. Because your gifts aren't cute. They are powerful. They're real, and they're needed. Start today by downloading my free energy audit at Brenda Winkle. Com forward slash audit. It's the exact tool I use to track what's fueling me and what's draining me. It will help you discern between that hit of achievement and true joy, so that you can lead with more clarity and impact. This is your space to stop proving, start embodying and live fully in your gifts.
Brenda Winkle 00:01:16 Welcome to your yes filled life. Hello and welcome to your yes filled life. I'm your host friend, Winkle energetic leadership Guide, psychic, medium and somatic coach for the ambitious, intuitive, and empathic who know their gifts are real and who are ready to stand fully in them. Here on the podcast, you're going to learn how to trust your intuition, embody your vision, and step into the freedom you've been craving all without chasing, working harder, or carrying what doesn't belong to you. So let's take a deep breath together. You don't have to earn this moment. because today we're diving into something that changes everything when you really get it. We're talking about ease. What if ease isn't the reward for hard work? But if it's the strategy? So many of us have spent our lives trying to earn our piece, and we think we'll rest when this thing ends. Or if I can just get through this, or I'm going to slow down once this is handled. But if we continue to do that, we are wishing away our lives.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:34 We're wishing away our time. How do I know I've lived it, I've done it. I've been the one who says, oh my gosh, if I can just get through this concert season, or if I can just get through this lunch or whatever it is. And here's what I want to let you know. So many of us have spent our lives trying to earn peace, trying to earn ease, thinking that will rest and will make things a little bit easier for ourselves when we get through the next thing. But here's what usually happens. We get through the next thing, we're exhausted, depleted, and then we either get sick or burn out. And before we know it, we're in another cycle of doing more and more and more. And then we find ourselves right back where we started. Waiting until we just get through this next thing. So today we're going to explore why your nervous system might not yet believe in ease, and how you can start retraining your nervous system so that ease can become your new baseline.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:38 We're going to look at why it doesn't feel safe to be at ease, or even rest, or to slow down if you're a high achiever. We'll look at how to recognize when you're in a nervous system activation. And I'll explain what that means. We're going to talk about how to trust your guidance, both that internal guidance, your own intuition and the guidance that's coming from you and the guidance that's coming from your team of light, your spirit guides, angels, departed loved ones, ancestors. What your whatever your understanding is of team of light. And we're also going to talk about how to rewire your body so that it feels safe to be at ease so that you can tap into that ease. And it feels safe, powerful, and magnetic. Okay, let's dive in. This first section, we're going to talk about why we make it hard. So if you've ever caught yourself thinking, why am I making this so hard? You are not alone. I spent dozens of hours of September and October of 2025, in calls with spiritual entrepreneurs, yoga teachers, therapists, breathwork facilitators, Reiki practitioners, sound healers, even conscious business owners that don't do any work in the spiritual field, but they just have their own sense of consciousness.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:05 And here's what I what I learned from those conversations. Even if you know the nervous system science, even if you're doing all the things, if you don't tend to the part of your body that feels safe only when you're achieving, you'll just continue to achieve. It's like you're chasing the gold star forever and ever, and ease doesn't feel safe in your body for you because your body has been trained that hard. Working hard means worthy, right? Like, if you're working hard and you're exhausted, you must be doing it right? Yeah, well, our culture glorifies struggle and it glorifies overwork because you're praised for working a lot of hours, and you're praised for showing up when you don't have to. Especially as women, this happens where we are really rewarded for going above and beyond even what our own capacity is, and then we find ourselves in this sort of competition. And I know this was true definitely for me when I was a teacher. There's this competition of who's working the most, and they're just obscene, absolutely obscene hours where people are in the classroom by six in the morning and they don't leave until 5 p.m. at night, and then when they're going home at 5:00 at night, they're taking a long work that they have to do at home, even with the family, while they sit and quote unquote, relax.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:37 So when I'm telling you this, I want you to know I've lived it. I've been where you are in either the place of you're working so hard, the hustle and grind is just about ready to bring you to your knees, or when you've left it all behind. And then you find yourself in almost a collapse where you can barely do anything. It's not like you feel bad. You just can't quite get anything to get traction. Even in even when you have the time to do stuff, you notice you're just like on the couch watching a show, and then you're like, why am I doing this? I promised I wouldn't do this, but here's the thing you've been rewarded for your whole life for enduring, for working hard, for pushing through. You haven't been rewarded for trusting your intuition and listening to your body. And so your body learned that chaos equals control in a good way, although it's not good, right? Your body thinks chaos equals control because, oh, I have control over this and ease equals risk.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:46 So your body thinks there's actually a threat when you start to allow some ease. You back off on the schedule. You say no to more things your body thinks. Oh my gosh, this might actually threaten our existence. This might threaten how you're showing up. Because in our culture, a lot of times that has been true. So when things begin to slow down, your nervous system may literally go into a panic because it mistakes stillness or ease or even rest as danger. And I know that this was definitely true for me when I was growing up. So my mom is of the baby boomer generation, which meant that she was the first generation of women who worked outside of the home and raised families. And so when I was born, she was a band director, and she was working full time at a little tiny school in northwestern Nebraska as a full time band director, and I had a babysitter. And if I haven't talked about her on the podcast before, you're going to get to hear a lot about her.
Brenda Winkle 00:08:52 But I definitely talked about her on my social media. Her name was Margaret Fisher. I just loved her. She was my family. I just she was so important to my entire family. She came to holidays even long after she wasn't babysitting. She met my daughter several times when my daughter was born. And then a few years later when my daughter turned, I think 2 or 3, she met her again and got to spend time with her. And, Fisher was just I called her Fisher because when I was a baby, I couldn't say Mrs. Fisher, and I definitely couldn't say Margaret, but I could say Fisher. And so I started calling her Fisher. Anyway, my mom was the first generation of people that worked outside of the home and had kids. And so it's really relevant to say that Fisher grew up and had her family and got married while living in Germany, and in the 1940s she left Germany with two children, and she thought that her husband was lost at war, and she came as a single mom to the little town where I grew up, called Chadron in northwestern Nebraska, and began to raise her family again, only to discover a couple of years later that her husband was a prisoner of war only 30 minutes from where she was.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:29 And so when the war ended, when World War Two ended, her husband was working as a farmhand for some different people, and when Fisher spelled her last name to someone he knew of another man with the same last name and asked, is there any chance this could be your husband? And she left Germany without knowing where her husband was, and ending up only 30 minutes from where he was being held as a prisoner of war during World War Two. And they were reunited. And then that's really important because Fischer came from Germany, and there's a lot of history there and a lot of stories that I can tell you, but that's not relevant for this conversation. So just know that this is a really important person in my life, and I want to tell you more about her to keep her alive, so to speak. She's passed. She passed many years ago. But I think about her literally all the time. And that's relevant for where we're going in this conversation. But the other thing that's relevant is because Fischer was German, she spoke with a German accent.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:35 And when my mom was the full time band director and Fischer was my full time babysitter, I was just learning to talk, and my mom said that when I developed a German accent as a two and a half year old, my mom knew that she wanted to come home and be an at home mom so that she could help me learn to speak in an American accent, because she felt like Fischer was spending more time with me if I was developing a German accent. So my mom came home, but my mom was in the generation of women who they had to work twice or 3 or 4 times as hard as any man to get any progress. And by the way. So is Fischer same? I mean, Fischer was one generation removed, but Fischer was supporting herself as a single woman because by that time when we met, I think she would probably have probably been in her late 50s or 60s, and her husband was gone and she supported herself with babysitting. And so I was raised with two women who worked really hard, and who had come up against all of the societal things that they had told women they could do and should do and have to do, and for different reasons.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:54 Like Fisher was, was trying to survive as a single woman in a place that, you know, didn't really reward single women after her husband passed. And my mom was trying to balance being a professional woman with a college degree, a master's degree, as a matter of fact, with being a mom. And so I was taught to work hard, and I was taught to move fast and to get it done. And there was a little bit of an edge anytime I took a break, like, why are you resting? Why isn't this done kind of a thing? And and the reason I'm telling you about the background of my mom and Fisher is I don't want you to think there's anything wrong with them. They're lovely, lovely humans that I deeply love and deeply admire and respect. And they were a product of their time and society, and so naturally, they taught me to be that way too. And so I have found that I definitely am a high achiever in unhealthy ways. Like, I will chase the gold star.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:58 I will chase the 100% on the top of my paper. I want you to be really impressed by what I'm doing. And this is this is part of like my shadow side, honestly, where I have to really watch that. I'm not trying to high achieve my way through life because I am capable of it. I can outwork anybody. I can go faster than anybody because it's part of my makeup. It's part of how I was raised. I was definitely raised to hustle harder. So when I began to dial that back, as I stepped into this role as a healer, a coach, a leader, a mystic, a medium, I was coming up against the inner parts of me that felt like I had to move fast, that I had to stay in motion. Then I had to work hard. And so when I'm teaching you this, I want you to know these are lessons that I have learned from the perspective of somebody who literally hustled for her worth for most of her life. So I want you to understand that when things slow down and your nervous system is going into, oh my gosh, I don't think we're safe.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:04 It really might mistake stillness for danger, because that may have been what you were taught to in a different scenario. Right? So maybe this sounds like you. When you start to rest, your brain floods with thoughts like, I should be doing more, I shouldn't rest right now. I still have all this to do. What if I fall behind or this seems too easy. Have I missed something? Cause you don't want to make a mistake. So as this conversation continues about finding ease, I want you to know that I get from a really personal place where this need to hustle comes from, and your story is going to be different, because you probably didn't have a babysitter that came over from Germany in the war and raised a family. Lost children, lost a husband, and then supported herself by babysitting. That probably is not true for you. You. I mean, maybe it is, I guess I don't know. And then you may not have had a mom who tried really hard to work outside of the home, ultimately decided not to.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:06 And then she started to create her own quote unquote, side hustles. She taught private woodwinds. She became a Yamaha performing artist, and she traveled all over the country as a clarinet soloist and a clarinet adjudicator and a clarinet clinician, which is the musical term for like presenter. She would go around present presenting different things. And I witnessed my dad work really hard too. My dad came from a generation, from a family where, you know, his dad was a preacher. And I don't think that they had a lot of money. I think there was some food shortages that he may have lived with as a kid, and so he was absolutely taught to work hard. And we called it, quote unquote, the Midwestern work ethic. Well, the Midwestern work ethic was just about enough to do us all in. And so I had these beliefs and fears in my whole body. I was terrified that if I stopped, everything would fall apart and I would lose it all. And by lose it all, I mean lose it all.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:05 Like, lose all my friends. Lose my home, lose my car. Lose all my money. Like lose it all. I really believed. I mean, not consciously, but a little bit consciously that if I slowed down, everything was going to fall apart. Can you relate to that? I also worried that if I slowed down, people would forget about me, that I wouldn't be relevant, that I wouldn't matter because I had a deep fear of not being enough. One morning I remember standing in the kitchen before the day had even started. I had my coffee poured and I. vividly remember it was in my house in Boise, and I had my coffee and I was pouring myself a cup of coffee to go take it into the bathroom to drink while I was putting on my makeup. And as I stood there, something made me stop and I stopped in the kitchen and I was looking around. It was a white tiled counter and it had the oak trim, you know, the, you know, the kind.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:01 And I had this realization that I was working so hard, but it wasn't for fulfillment. It was just to feel safe. I just wanted like someone to notice me and someone to acknowledge me. I just wanted to be enough. And I didn't realize at the time that that could come from inside. I was still waiting for it to come from outside, like external validation. And that realization stopped me in my tracks because I realized I was making things a lot harder than they had to be. Not because I wanted things to be hard, but because I didn't feel safe for them not to be hard. It was too unfamiliar. So if you've ever felt that, if you've ever felt yourself over complicating what could be simple or adding one more thing. To be productive, I see you. It's a form of self-protection, and it's time to rewrite that pattern. Because ease isn't an absence of effort. It's the presence of safety that allows you to think in a way that's more strategic. So you can think about how to make things a little bit easier and more effective.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:21 So let's move into part two of this conversation, which is how to recognize when you're in a nervous system activation. Let's talk about what's actually happening in the body. So when you're in stress and we've talked about stress on the podcast before, but when you're in stress, your nervous system moves from rest and repair, which is the parasympathetic nervous system. It's where sometimes called rest and digest, but it's rest and repair. It's where you're at ease. Your nervous system is literally at ease. Your calm, your vagus nerve is functioning. The vagus nerve is the largest nerve in the body. It's not a straight line. It's like a little bunch of branches that start at the base of your skull and goes all the way down to the bottom of your spine, and it has little like branches that go off into all of your major organs, including your heart and your stomach and your intestines. And when your vagus nerve is online, you feel calm. You have access to your thinking thoughts. The thinking part of your brain and all of your internal organs are functioning optimally when you're in stress as sort of an energy saving major.
Brenda Winkle 00:20:34 Your nervous system will turn off the vagus nerve, and we fire up the brain stem, which is going to trigger a fight or flight or freeze or fawn response in the body. So we're an energy saving mode as far as the brain is concerned, so that we don't waste energy. Those are big air quotes, great waste energy on things like conscious thoughts. And we turn to survival. So when you're in a chronic ongoing stress response, your brain is literally in survival mode. Okay. And so here's what that can look like. If you're in a fight, everything feels urgent. You're pushing harder. Maybe you get irritated. Maybe you're trying to fix everything all at once. If you're in flight, you might be over researching. You might be signing up for summit after summit after summit, and then listening to podcasts, and then you overthink, and then you scroll endlessly and you're working really hard to stay busy, but you're not being productive, and you're definitely not being strategic. If you're in frees, you might feel a little bit foggy or confused, or you might tell yourself you don't know what to do, or you might feel stuck.
Brenda Winkle 00:21:51 You might feel like you can't make a decision, and you definitely feel like you can't move the needle. You can't move forward. And if you're in fun, you say yes when what you really mean is no. Just to keep everybody happy because you have to be safe. And here's the thing you can move from any of those stress responses to another stress response in the blink of an eye. It's not like you're stuck in flight and then you can't move to freeze. Nope. You can actually have symptoms of both. Now there's nervous system science behind this, and I don't want to get into that in this podcast. But just know that you don't necessarily have only one stress response and you definitely don't have a say in what? Stress response your body is going to show. Your body is going to do what your body needs to do. Do any of these sound familiar to you? If they do, it's not laziness. It's not weakness. There's nothing wrong with you. It's your body trying to protect you.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:50 So here's the key. When you're activated, you may not necessarily be out of alignment, but you're definitely out of safety. And the very first step in easing and activation in your nervous system is to notice it. Just pause, pause, take a break, and then name it. You might even say, I'm noticing I'm feeling really stressed right now, or I'm feeling anxious or I'm feeling foggy. Just name it. I'm activated right now. And then invitation. And I just did this. If you're watching the YouTube video, by the way, your gas filled life is on YouTube as well. you might just touch the body. Any place that feels like needs a little touch support, I very often will touch my heart or my belly. when I'm dealing with things. Like if I'm dealing with my own personal sense of agency, I often have my hand on my belly. If I'm dealing with matters of emotion, relationships, those kinds of things. My hand is on my heart. And so add a little touch to your own body.
Brenda Winkle 00:23:57 It can be very, very healing. So you're going to just say to yourself, I'm not broken. My body is just trying to help me and then take a deep breath, make your exhale longer than your inhale. Because we know from the science that a longer exhale will actually reduce the stress response releasing anxiety. So make your exhale longer. It doesn't have to be a prescribed amount longer, just longer. And if you want a prescribed amount, try doing an inhale for two. Pausing for one count at the top, holding that inhale for one, and then exhale for eight. There was a recent study published by MIT that was re-enacting an ancient breath pattern. Done. I want to say in like Norway and Sweden. And it was an instant relaxation response that they used to use in Nordic cultures to release stress and come back to the body. And MIT just released a study around this, and they found that you can enjoy lower blood pressure, lower heart rate, and there were tons of other effects that they measured in this study.
Brenda Winkle 00:25:09 So we know this works. And they studied this specific breath pattern in for two. Hold for one. Out for eight. Okay. So when you breathe, whether it's that pattern or you just take long, deep, slow breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, you are bringing your body back into the moment, and that moment is when your intuition comes back online. Because here's the truth you can't hear your guides or your intuition when you're stressed. Or at least it's much harder. For most of us, you need to calm the noise before the wisdom can come through. And that's why the regulated entrepreneur membership exists. It's where we practice this in community, so you can rewire your nervous system to support your leadership so you're not accidentally self-sabotaging. And when you practice these embodiment and nervous system regulation tools consistently, you're going to start to feel something really powerful. And that is peace feels productive. You'll learn to create that sense of ease in the body. Things don't have to be so hard.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:21 So one of the questions I get all the time from people inside my communities, inside my group coaching in my one on ones is how can I connect more with my team of light and my team of light. I'm talking about your spirit guides, your angels, your departed loved ones, your ancestors, divine helpers, whatever language feels most true for you. Although I will tell you, there's a case to be made that each one of those things are distinct. And we can talk a little bit about that even in this episode, and I'll talk more about it. My second podcast, The Table of Wu Podcast, which I don't record very often into there's I think there's only seven episodes I need to add to it. But, I do talk a little bit about this in the table of woo, so you can go listen for more specific guidance on that. But I'd love to tell you how I work with my team of light. So every morning, the very first thing I do before I even get out of bed before my heat, my feet hit the floor unless I need to use the bathroom is I do a meditation very first thing, and if I need to use the bathroom, I leave the lights off.
Brenda Winkle 00:27:31 So I'll go run in and then I'll come back and the lights off. Thing is just what I do. I like it that way because it feels like I'm not activating my daytime nervous system, so to speak. And then I'll climb back in bed and in the covers like I'm comfy. And then I do a meditation. Sometimes it's as short as seven minutes, sometimes as long as 45 minutes. It depends on what's going on, both for me internally and then also in my day, like, what do I have capacity for that day if I have an early start, probably not going to do a 45 minute meditation. It'll probably be a seven minute meditation. And then the next thing I do is I say to my guides and I say it this way guides and angels of the highest truth and compassion. What would you have me do today? Where would you have me go? What would you have me say? And to whom? And I got this from Gabby Bernstein. I have been a student of Gabby Bernstein since, like, her first book came out.
Brenda Winkle 00:28:35 I think it was 2012, maybe when she was on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday and I was like, ooh, I want to learn from her. And that little prayer has been so helpful for me, because when we can take ourselves out of our main focus and we can start to focus on how we can serve others, there's something in that that allows us to more deeply serve. And when we are in a state of service, a lot of times our problems kind of disappear. They just don't feel as serious, even if the problem itself didn't change. When you're in service, you change. And that's so profound. And then I work with them. Throughout the day, it might be that I read cards like today when I walked in to record this podcast. And you'll have to go onto my social channels to see the reading on today. When I walked in, I walked in. This morning I was working. I got a podcast ready to go and then I went out for a walk with Bentley.
Brenda Winkle 00:29:42 We walked around the neighborhood for 15 or 20 minutes, and I came back in to record this very episode. And as I was sitting down into my chair, an entire box of cards, I'm talking oracle cards fell off the shelf and it was my moon ology Oracle cards deck, and it fell off and the synchronicity card landed on the floor face up. And so I was like, ooh, I think I feel a reading coming on. And so I put that on my social channels. You'll have to go find it. I'm on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram. so go find that. But anyway, my point is, I'm always waiting and listening to allow the science to come through like a box of cards falling. Or maybe for you, it's a book falling when you walk by. Or maybe it's a reminder to call that friend. A lot of times we want it to be more complicated than it actually is. It's something that's a little nudge, like, call this friend. Send them a text, send an email, do this thing, make this post and the work is then you have to listen and you have to take the action.
Brenda Winkle 00:30:53 If you think that manifestation doesn't work, I can tell you right now what the missing part is. You're not doing the things that you are being guided to do. You're ignoring the little nudges, the ideas, and if you are taking the divine nudges and you're doing the things I guarantee you, you're seeing results in your life. Manifestation absolutely works, but you can't sit on your meditation pillow and think that that enough is alone. It's not just your energy. Your energy is really important, but it's not just your energy. You have to actually do the things that come to you in that meditation or that come to you after the meditation. When you go out and take a walk or you pour a cup of tea, there is action required. And so sometimes I'll hear a word or a phrase for the day. Sometimes I feel that nudge like, ooh, this is what you need to work on, and I follow it. I follow my nudges over my calendar, over my what's in my planner.
Brenda Winkle 00:31:59 And here's how I know the difference. If it's a nudge that is divinely guided from my team of light, I'm going to feel like a pull in my heart space. And I'm going to have a really clear idea of how to move forward. If it's my resistance or a form of self-sabotage. It's not going to feel good. It's going to feel like I'm avoiding something by scrolling or whatever, because I get stuck in that too, just like you do. And here's something I want you to really know. Your guides. They're trying to communicate with you all the time, whether we're talking guides, angels, departed loved ones, ancestors. But when you're in a deep state of fear and you're in a nervous system activation, you're very stressed. It's difficult to hear them because your own ego and your own mind are running 100 miles an hour, and they're telling you all kinds of really scary things, right? So part of the reason we want to regulate the nervous system is so that you can tune back into that guidance, that guidance that feels grounded and neutral.
Brenda Winkle 00:33:02 Because when your guidance comes through your team of light, it will feel neutral. If it comes through with a big emotion, it's not guidance. That's you. Okay. That's a really important distinction to make. So if something comes through and you instantly feel anxiety or fear or worry, that's not guidance, that's you. Because when the guidance comes through, it is neutral. So like this morning, I knew without a doubt that I needed to put a reading together. It was neutral. Did I feel ready to share that reading? No. Not particularly. If I'm being honest, I'm like, oh, do I really want to be one of those people who's out doing readings on TikTok? Well, yeah, I guess I do in a way, because I know that that's a way I can be of service, even though it's pushing up against my own visibility stuff. Yeah, I have visibility stuff too, just like you do. So when you have the guidance that comes in neutrally, it will not pressure or rush you.
Brenda Winkle 00:34:06 And that's another important distinction. If it's ego or if it's your mind, there's going to be a sense of pressure or anxiety. It'll feel frantic or urgent or heavy. So if you're ever wondering, is this my intuition or is this my anxiety? Ask yourself, does this feel expansive? Does this feel like a possibility? And there's like maybe a little bit of excitement or anxiety or butterflies, but it's pretty positive. Or does it feel constrictive? Do you feel like, oh, I don't oh, I'm scared or it's heavy. Does it feel urgent? Like is there a rushing or does it feel calm and grounded. So when it's guidance that's divinely guided, it's going to feel calm and grounded. You might feel a way about it. Like I felt a way about creating that reading today from the deck. A I don't know that deck well enough to be able to do like a really detailed reading. I still need to look at the book because, I mean, if you're watching me on YouTube, I have like 40 or 50 decks of cards, so I don't know them all to the extent that I know some of my favorites.
Brenda Winkle 00:35:13 And so I would never have read that deck as a reading because I don't have the cards memorized. But it turns out I didn't need to because I just read the energy. So that's what I'm talking about. You may feel like there may be a little bit of a part of you that's like, oh, this is scary. Like, I'm coming up against an edge here, but it's not pressure. Okay, so let me tell you about a client who really lived into this shift of knowing the difference between what her mind was telling her and what her guides and guidance and angels were telling her. Okay. Because guidance expands and fear contracts. So this this particular client I'm talking about is a brilliant entrepreneur. She has a massive heart. I mean, a huge heart. She literally gave away free content on TikTok until she built her following to 50,000. She didn't ask for. There was no call to action on any piece of content that she created until she built to 50,000 followers. But the flip side of that was she felt like she had to keep showing up for these things, these conferences, these seminars that did not feel aligned with her mission anymore.
Brenda Winkle 00:36:36 And so every time that she would get this sense that, oh, I need to cancel this, her fear would come up about like, what will the founder of this conference say when I don't attend to go speak? Because I've spoken at it for so many years, and what we worked on inside our one on one coaching is knowing the difference between a body based sensation of this is a line for me and a body based sensation of oh, I'm scared and I'm saying yes out of fear. And so then what we did is we built the nervous system capacity, meaning we did breathwork, we did some somatic coaching so that it finally felt safe enough for her to say to the the founder that hosted the event that didn't feel aligned anymore. So my client could say, hey, I'm not going to be able to come speak at your event this year. And with that reconnection to her inner guidance and to her spirit team, she learned how to ask herself, is this mine? Meaning is this decision mine? Is this guidance mine? And once we did that, oh my gosh, she was off to the races.
Brenda Winkle 00:37:46 She cancelled out of a bunch of different speaking engagements that did not feel aligned and almost like boom overnight had offers that felt completely aligned land without effort. And that's how you know you're on the right track when things start to happen without the effort, because it can be easy. So just like with my client, your breakthrough is on the other side of allowing yourself to let it be easy. Whether it's the idea that you're going to activate on or the person you're going to reach out. The thing is, I want you to remember you're comparing yourself wherever you are right now to somebody else's journey who's further along from you. And so when you're comparing yourself in that way, you're coming up short and you're thinking about, oh, well, I don't have as many followers as she has, or my company is not as big as theirs, or I'm not holding as many sessions as them. You need to stop that. Stop comparing yourself to somebody else's journey. Stop comparing yourself and where you are on your journey, whether it's a career or something else, to somebody else who's much further down the road.
Brenda Winkle 00:39:04 Because when you do, it's shutting down your nervous system. You're actually putting yourself into that fear response by doing that. So let yourself be where you are and celebrate your progress. Celebrate your growth. And that's a big part of what we do. Inside the Regulated entrepreneur membership is we just celebrate exactly where we are. And for my client, the minute she stopped trying to earn the answer and allowed herself to really receive it, that's when her life changed dramatically. She'd been a successful entrepreneur for years by the time she and I started working together, but all of a sudden her business felt easier and lighter. And by the way, she's making a ton more money working less now. Let's be honest, letting it be easy sounds simple. And when you hear stories like this from the client that I just told you about, you're probably thinking, well, that might be fantasy marketing. It would be fantasy marketing if I told you it happened overnight. Changes like this don't happen overnight. It takes time.
Brenda Winkle 00:40:13 It takes honing your skills. It takes getting good at communicating what it is that you're offering. Wrapping up your messaging in the right packaging. Like, I'm working with Tiffany Carter right now and she's an incredible mentor. She has a great podcast. If you're looking for podcasts that talk about manifestation and money and different things like that, and one of the things that Tiffany talks about is wrapping up packages in the wrong paper. And so there is some trial and error. There are some skills to be built as you're building a business, and those take time. Anyone who tells you that you can go from making $0 to $100,000 a year is full of shit. It hardly ever happens. It takes time. It takes building skills. It doesn't mean it has to be hard. But unless you're going to devote, you know, eight hours a day or something to your social media to grow your following, it's going to take a little bit of time. So I want to be really clear that what I'm suggesting is not going to be an instant fix.
Brenda Winkle 00:41:27 Instant fixes don't exist. If anyone is selling you an instant fix, here's what I want you to know. There's a lot of people out there who are using neuro linguistic programming, also known as hypnosis, to get you to buy programs, and that's why you feel so compelled to buy things, because there's people out there that are, like, telling you exactly what you want to hear, and then using neuro linguistic programming to make it seem like you can do it with no effort and no time. Look, that's not true. I have been in this business for three and a half years full time. I've owned a version of this company for ten years. I started in Idaho, so I had like seven years in Idaho in the last three and a half year in Oregon. And so and the first seven and a half years were very, very part time. And I'm just now feeling like I'm getting it figured out. So if you're comparing yourself to me and you're thinking, oh, I don't have it all together like she does, which maybe you're thinking that, or maybe you think, gosh, how is she good at this? I don't know what you're thinking, but let's say you are comparing yourself to me.
Brenda Winkle 00:42:39 I've been doing this for a while. I've had the podcast for a while. Give it time, put in the effort. But let it be easy. Let it be easy. Because ease is going to ask you to do something that most of us high achievers don't want to do, and that is release control. Stop managing the miracle. Let the outcomes come as they will. Learn to trust. Because I promise you, what's meant for you will never miss. You must say that again. What's meant for you will never miss you. So here's how to start living this. Ask for ease out loud. So I have a little sticky note on my computer and it says. What if this could be so easy? What would you do? Invitation to use a version of that. So asking what if this could be so easy? What would I do? You could also say show me the easy way to do this. Say it every morning. Say it before every launch, before every post, before every email, before every conversation.
Brenda Winkle 00:43:53 And let me be clear. I'm not saying easy as in you're not going to have to work. There will be work. There will be effort involved. In the sense that you got to make the post or send the email, or create the course, or do the program or whatever. There is work involved, but it can be easy in the sense that you don't have to be so burdened and so stressed and so busy. And then once you say, show me the easy way, that first whisper that you get before you, you start overthinking. That's usually your guidance. What if this could be so easy and then you're going to get an idea, go do that idea, and then make regulating your nervous system and calming your body your daily work. Because when your body is calm, your decisions become so much clearer. Remember, ease again does not mean you're not working. It means you stop working so hard. You start. You stop fighting what is already trying to unfold. And if you're afraid that ease will make you complacent, Let me loving you leave.
Brenda Winkle 00:45:03 Let me lovingly tell you the truth. Ease does not make you lazy. It makes you magnetic. Think about this. Think about the person who you really admire. And the one who's like, calm and regulated and magnetic. Maybe she moves a little bit more slowly. Maybe she talks more slowly. But she's a badass. Think about her now. Think about somebody that, you know. Maybe it's. You used to be me who is always in a hurry, always rushing, always stressed. Which one do you want to be around, then? One with ease. Right? And you get to make this choice. You get to become the one with ease. So take a deep breath with me right now. Put your hands on your heart. If you're able to safely and say this out loud. It gets to be easy. It gets to be easy I am safe in ease. I am safe in ease. Let's put it all together. It gets to be easy. I am safe in ease.
Brenda Winkle 00:46:12 Okay. If this episode has stirred something in you, that gentle exhale, it feels like. Oh, I can breathe a little bit more deeply right now. That's your inner. Yes invitation to follow it. Because ease isn't what happens after you've done enough. It's what happens when you've finally decided you are enough. And it is a decision if you want to keep practicing this work. I have two invitations for you. But before we get there, if you're not yet subscribed to the podcast, go subscribe to the podcast. Because each week I am being very intentional about making sure that you have really high value, transformative things that come to you each week on the podcast. And the podcast is also available on YouTube, both as a podcast, and I try to post the videos of the podcast on YouTube as well. So invitation, if you want to work with me in a way that you have access to me, come join us inside the regulated entrepreneur. This is a space where intuitive leaders, empaths, coaches, healers, entrepreneurs, business owners grow from grounded energy from that place of ease instead of adrenaline.
Brenda Winkle 00:47:24 You'll get monthly breathwork, monthly coaching, and a community to help you stay clear and regulated between your launches, your projects, and creative seasons. You can join us and learn more at Winkle. Com forward entrepreneur. That's Brendan Winkle, entrepreneur. And I'm putting the link in the show notes. In case spelling entrepreneur is as hard for you as it is for me. If you're craving a whole in-person reset, join me for the Clarity Retreat March 3rd through five, 2026. 26 oceanfront in Lincoln City, Oregon. This is where purpose meets peace and clarity becomes action. We'll clear what's yours, anchor into your next evolution, and create a simple plan that that feels like you. You're going to leave this retreat with the actual next step for your business or your life already mapped out, and you can apply at Brandon Winkle Forward Slash Retreat. Also, this retreat is going to be so transformational that if you're not able to travel or those dates don't work for you, still go to that website because I'm offering a virtual version of the exact same retreat where you will log in by zoom, and then, depending on where you live, you'll also have a lunch delivered for you.
Brenda Winkle 00:48:49 Each day of the retreat, you'll have a snack box sent to you with other gifts and goodies, so that it'll feel like you're a retreat from wherever you are. And all of the information and the dates are on the web page. I'll put that link in the show notes as well. And as we close, I want you to remember, ese isn't a luxury. It's a necessity for your leadership, for your evolution, and for the next version of you. And when your nervous system feels safe, your wisdom becomes magnetic. Thank you for being here, for being you and for showing up for your own yes filled life. Until next time, let's let it be easy. Thank you for being here. Would you please share this episode with a friend? If you know somebody who could also use a little bit of ease in their lives, and if you haven't left the podcast or rating review, please go do so right now. It makes such a difference. Thank you for being here. Bye for now.
Brenda Winkle 00:49:46 Until next time.
