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 creating, 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're 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, Brenda Winkle. I'm a psychic, medium, intuitive guide, somatic coach, Reiki master teacher and I'm so excited for today's conversation because we're going to be diving deep into one of the least talked about reasons that people are afraid of trusting their intuition. And that is is it intuition or is it projection? And this is truly the ethical line that every practitioner must learn. And so many practitioners have such a high level of integrity. They're not even talking about this issue because by definition, projection is a psychological coping mechanism designed to help us work through internal issues externally, and because it's a psychological phenomenon, many coaches, healers and guides are reluctant to talk about it because we are not therapists, we are not psychologists. And so I want to also say I'm not a therapist or a psychologist either. But I do know that we have to have this conversation around what's intuition and what's projection. Because when we can get really clear on which is what, then we can really create the beautiful transformations for clients and for ourselves that we really need.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:44 So what is projection? Well, like I've already said, it is where we take an internal issue and we see it externally so that we can heal it. So let's say for example, maybe you have an issue with abandonment. Maybe you have abandonment wounds from childhood. And now every time that you see somebody, whether it's a friend or a client, maybe you're thinking to yourself, oh, I'm picking up on their abandonment wounds. And you talk about abandonment wounds. You see it everywhere. Well, if you're seeing abandonment wounds everywhere, chances are that's projection. Because anytime you start to see something everywhere, ask yourself, what are the chances I could actually be seeing this in all of my clients, all of my friends, all of my conversations? I'll tell you the chances they're almost zero. That's one clue that you might be into projection. The other thing is, when you're in a true state of using your intuition, you'll find that there's a level of emotional neutrality, which means you're not going to feel an emotional charge.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:55 You're not going to feel sad, angry, happy. You'll just feel neutral When there's a projection, you'll notice that you have a stake in however the other person handles things. You'll notice yourself feeling slightly more controlling. You'll feel like, oh, they just have to do it this way. That's a really big clue that there's projection. So why would there be hesitation around working with intuition if you're fearing it's projection? Well, because you have a high level of integrity and because you're afraid of causing real harm. And both of those things are noble. But here's the thing. Projection is one of the most common issues in early stage healing work. Whether you were a Reiki healer, a psychic medium, a breathwork facilitator, a somatic coach, or any other type of energy worker, coach, healer, or guide unless or until you have done the work to discern what projection feels like in your system. So if you've ever had anyone project onto you in a healing session, you know how disorienting and violating it can feel even when they mean really well.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:10 And so I want to make sure that you understand this is not an episode that's going to cause you to feel shame. Even if you've projected all over everybody, you aren't going to feel shame, because the truth is, this will happen for most practitioners at some point, especially if you have a high level of intuition, and especially if you have a high level of empathy. Awareness is what makes this a lot less likely to happen. And so we're going to talk about how to build the awareness between intuition and projection. So when a practitioner mistakes their own activation for intruding intuitive truth about somebody else, one of the giveaways is going to be you have an emotional stake in how they handle something. If you feel yourself getting really worked up, that's not neutral. That is not a state we want you in as a healer, coach or guide. You really do want to be in a neutral state, because it's not your role to tell people what to do. Even if they ask you, especially if they ask you.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:21 And this is very, very true, especially if you have a high level of intuition, if you're giving readings, if people are asking you about health concerns and those type of things, it's really important for you to know that it's not ethical for you to tell them what to do. You can give them options. You can read energy. You can use your intuition to get help them with discernment. But it's not our role as healers, coaches, guides to tell people what to do. So projection is not intuition. It is not psychic accuracy. It's not being powerful. Very commonly when you're projecting. You will feel a sense of certainty, like I know for certain. This is what you're experiencing. If you ever feel that, that is like waving the caution flag, because true intuition is not going to come through with that level of certainty. And even when I'm completely trusting my intuition, I'm completely trusting the information that's coming through. I don't know whether or not the person sitting across from me has the capacity to hear that as truth.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:38 And so if I were to approach everything that comes through me intuitively as doctrine, I could do real harm and so can you. So anytime that you feel a sense of emotional charge or you feel urgency, or you feel like it has to be this way, I'm certain this is what you're experiencing. That is a red flag of projection Anytime that you are in an energy of diagnosing caution. We don't diagnose as healers, coaches and guides. We don't diagnose, we don't diagnose mental things. We don't diagnose physical things. We will instead ask questions. We will pose invitations. And one of the big things that can happen when we're projecting onto someone, whether it's a client, a friend, a family member, is we're talking at people instead of with them. So if you notice that you're telling people how they feel, oh, I would invite you to stop. Like that is a red flag. That is a time to take a deep breath, come back to center, calm yourself and start asking questions again.
Brenda Winkle 00:08:53 Intuition is very neutral. Now, if you're guiding a session, especially like if it's a reading or something. Of course, you're going to be doing a lot of talking, but if you're talking at someone that is not intuition. Intuition is not making you do that. You're choosing to do that. And I would get really curious around why? Why are you doing that? Is it production? Because it sure could be. It could also be that there's a part of you that feels like. I don't want to know if I'm wrong. I don't want to know if the client in front of me thinks they're not ready for this, so they can't see it. And so sometimes they'll be an over talking. That happens with practitioners when they're worried that their intuition is going to be proven wrong. But here's the thing the more work I've done on my own intuition, the more development I do. The more classes I take, the more trainings I get, the more I realize my intuition is pretty spot on Now, will someone be able to see what I see when I see it? Maybe.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:06 Maybe not. But I can't tell you the number of times someone will come back to me weeks, months, even years later and they'll say, hey, do you remember that time you said x, y, z? And I'll say, yeah, I do. And they'll be like, you were right. And here's how it unfolded. But we have to let go. As practitioners, coaches, healers and guides, we have to let go of needing to be certain and needing that external validation. Right now, there has to be a level of trust that we develop within ourselves that allows us to leave a session with a little bit of uncertainty, not really knowing if it's landed with the client or not. I mean, you will know if it's landed because you can say things like, well, give it some thought, feel into it, and and then they'll go from there. But so here's the thing. I remember I was in a medium development course and we were exchanging sessions and someone brand new to mediumship, I mean brand new.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:12 She had intuitive abilities and she knew that, and she thought that she had some psychic and mediumship abilities, but they weren't developed at all. She'd never held anyone in a session. And I was her very first person that she held in session. And so to begin, she to begin to begin, she drew a card and she didn't clean her energy. She didn't discern between her energetic field or my energetic field. She drew a card. And I knew as soon as she drew the card, she was projecting, because the card didn't resonate with me at all, I it was like, not true for me at all. And this person was very well intentioned, a heart of gold. But she began to share information about next steps that I should take and made them as fact. You should do this. This is the way. This is the only way. And you know, by the time that practice session ended, I was exhausted because I was feeling her projection so much on me that even though I'm pretty solid in myself and very well developed with my psychic and mediumship abilities, I was exhausted by the energetic configuration that she was trying to form on me, and I'm somebody with really pretty strong energy and it was exhausting.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:39 So imagine what this could do to somebody that didn't have the energetic sovereignty that I have. It could cause real harm. It could lead people down the wrong path. Now, obviously, this person was very excited to begin using their gifts. And obviously this person was was practicing, but. the impact can't be ignored. The impact that it had on me was I was confused about my next steps. I felt a loss of safety because I didn't feel seen or acknowledged or recognized as a sovereign being with choice. I didn't feel supported. I felt unseen, and I felt myself actually going back into old people pleasing ways because I was ending up taking care of this practitioner. That was not intuition. That was her projecting. It was unfiltered information without attuning to my system. It was not coming through neutrally, and it was not actually based on consent. There was no asking. Could I draw a card for you? There was no tuning into my energy. And so when that happened, it really gave me language around the importance about not projecting on people.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:53 And so I was really grateful for the experience, even though it was kind of hard on me. So When we have training without intuition, without really explaining to people what it means. If we're in projection, we can we can cause some harm. So let me break it down. There's three basic reasons that this can happen. One is the training without intuition. So if you've been trained on modalities or the how but you know, maybe you haven't been trained on the nuances or how information comes through for you, it's really easy to mistake how somebody else is feeling for how you're feeling. So everybody's intuition comes in in a different way. There are some maps that we use, like we talk about the six Claires, we talk about the empath tracks. Those are simply maps that we use to help us find language that's shared, so that when we talk about intuition, we can sort of say, oh yes, that comes in for me that way too. But the truth is, there's so many different nuances and combinations of intuition that until we take the time to really get clear around our intuition, speaking to each of us individually, it's easy to miss.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:08 So learning how your intuition comes in is essential so that you can differentiate between a projection and an intuitive hit. Because if this person had that nuance, she probably would have been able to feel like, oh yeah, this is me. I'm projecting me all over Brenda. so number two, the fear of getting it wrong when you're a brand new practitioner or energy healer or coach or guide, you want external validation, I get it, I wanted that too. But the truth is, in this line of work, there's not a level of certainty you can be confident. But even the most well-trained psychic mediums will tell you that they have around a 90% average accuracy, which means 10% of the time they don't get it right. Now, if somebody as well developed as like Tyler Henry or somebody like that can say that they have a 90% average. What makes you think your average should be higher than that? What makes you think you should have an even higher level of certainty? That's not realistic. And so when it comes to working with people with intuition, we want to do the very best we can with the highest level.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:31 Well, shoot out my tongue. The highest level of integrity that we can. But there's not going to be that certainty. It's going to come from a self trust. Which leads us to reason number three, which is no somatic literacy. When you get semantically literate, meaning you understand how sensations are rising in your body, how intuition is flowing through you. Maybe you feel it on your fingertips. Maybe you feel it in your heart. Maybe you feel it in your belly. Maybe you feel it in your legs. Maybe you hear it, or maybe you see it until you get that somatic literacy. To know how information is coming in, your brain is rushing to interpret information, which is how projections start. And then what happens is the story will take precedence over the energy. And I call that the context over the content. So the content is what we're learning, what we're experiencing, the feelings, the the life lessons and the context is how that's coming in. So like, for example, I'm recording this episode in my bedroom.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:37 I have a little makeshift desk that I set up because I'm so grateful my mom is staying with me and I gave her my office as her room. That's context. Content is I am learning to be flexible. Like really, truly. I'm learning to be flexible and learning exactly what I need to make an office space feel really, really livable and luxurious and feeling really, really good. So I have, you know, my things set up. I have if you're watching me on YouTube, I'm going to show you, I have my little bowl of crystals here that I love to record with. I have this little spirit quartz and my, my bumblebee Jasper. And then I have my little fluoride sphere. not fluoride. I'm gonna have to look that up. I'm probably putting it in the show notes. I mix it up, but you get the point. The point is that context is I have moved my office space. The content is I'm learning to flow and to stay grounded no matter what changes are happening around me.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:44 So when you don't know how to work with sensations, your mind will fill in the meaning. And that's where we can really get it wrong in projection. So if you're tuning in schematically, you'll be so much more accurate, and you'll be so much more adept at understanding what yours and what's not. So this pattern can go across different modalities. I talked to you about what it was like in a mediumship training, but this also happens with Reiki practitioners, where a brand new Reiki practitioner will think that everything they they see or they touch is exactly what they experience. Unless they're using discernment and they're tuning into their own somatic signals. So one of the things that happens for Reiki practitioners is we talk about the chakras. And that's because Reiki clears and energizes and balances all the chakras. And so it's part of the language for Reiki. And one of the things I saw happening even in people I was training is if they came in with a blocked root chakra, if they weren't using discernment, they found a blocked root chakra in everybody.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:56 And it wasn't. Everybody has a blocked root chakra like the chances of that happening statistically are not great, right? So what you notice is if everyone that you see as a Reiki practitioner has the I'm using air quotes now, the same thing that needs to be cleared, I would be highly suspect. I would be really suspect of that, because the chances of everyone that you see needing to have their root chakra cleared, it's not great. Now, if we're talking about the sacral or the throat, you know, statistically there are a lot of people with blocked sacral and throat chakras. But even then, if it's everybody, I would be suspect. Something is not quite accurate there, because if you're just tracking it without really checking in. Is this mine? Is this theirs? What intuition. My gathering. It's so easy to project. So Reiki itself does not cause the projection. Mediumship itself does not cause the projection. It's the lack of discernment. Now here's the thing. If you're afraid of overstepping, it doesn't make you insecure.
Brenda Winkle 00:21:08 That's not it at all. It gives you a high level of integrity, and it makes you ethical. Because so many times in our industry, whether you're a coach, healer, guide, you know, you're hearing don't. Don't doubt yourself. Trust your intuition. You'll know what to do. Your intuition does know, but it still needs structure, pacing, and you need to know exactly how your unique intuition comes in for you. Now, here's the thing. I don't want you to think that projection is something that only happens to other people. I have absolutely projected on other people, especially when I was brand new in healing and coaching. So what happens for us is we have a steep learning curve when we're on the newer side. And so we're building up our own language. We're building up our own dictionaries about how different intuitive things come in. And I remember feeling like, it's interesting. I feel like everyone has this like throat chakra block thing going on. Remember what I said just a minute ago about being highly suspect? Well, I didn't have the discernment or the experience at that time to be suspect about it.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:33 So I remember vividly thinking, I remember vividly thinking, gosh, everyone I've seen today has this throat chakra block. And finally I verbalized it to my last client of the day. At that time, I was, renting space and I was having like back to back sessions, sometimes on Saturdays or Sundays, because I was still teaching full time. And I remember the last one happened to be a man. And I said something about, you know, his throat chakra seemed really blocked, and maybe he wasn't speaking his truth. And he looked at me and he's like, I don't feel that way at all. And I was a little taken aback because I was like, what do you mean you don't feel that way at all? I can clearly drag your throat. Chakra is not not doing what it's needing to be doing. He's like, I don't think that's me. And it was funny because he was not an energetically attuned kind of person, but I took him really seriously when he said, I don't think that's me.
Brenda Winkle 00:23:30 And so I went back to how I was trained, and I took my pendulum and I was swinging it over the chakras. And sure enough, his throat was not the problem. His his block, his challenge was in his solar plexus. Now, the point is not as much about where the block was or where it wasn't. The point is, I was completely projecting. I was the one who had a blocked throat chakra. I was the one not speaking my truth, and instead of dealing with that internally, I was using the psychological coping mechanism of projecting. I was seeing it everywhere else externally and trying to help solve my problem by seeing it in other people. But in the course of learning this kind of the hard way, and I'd love to short circuit this hard way learning for you, I learned that I have to get grounded in my own energy field first, so that I can feel when it's mine. And then the second thing is, I really needed to discern how information was coming to me so that I could tell if it was my own thing or if it was somebody else's thing.
Brenda Winkle 00:24:41 And I really want you to hear this projection does not make you bad. It doesn't make you weak. It means you're still learning. Awareness is what makes projection less likely. Getting it perfect. Probably not a thing you want to be aware. So ethical intuitive work requires somatic tracking. It requires permission based language giving invitations, asking for consent. It requires a neutral curiosity. If you are getting emotional, if there's any emotional charge, I would invite you to stop, take some breaths, recenter your energy because there's a really high likelihood. If you're feeling emotions, you're projecting and or you're merging energetically, which is a whole nother topic we'll address another time. One of the things that can be very supportive is creating a structured session flow. And by structure, it's not going to be like totally structured, but you're going to have a beginning and an end. And the really important part of the beginning and the end of the session are energy awareness, energetic hygiene, where you're really setting the stage and getting clear on what? Yours.
Brenda Winkle 00:25:58 What's mine, so that you can feel that energetic boundary and avoid the potential of projecting. So one of the things that you can begin to do is to change the way you're speaking. Just change the language. You could say things like, I may be getting this really wrong right now, but the thing that's coming through is and then you say what it is and then say, does this resonate at all? Do you feel like that could be true and have a conversation? You could also say things like, I'm noticing a sensation right now. Here's what it is. Here's how I'm experiencing it. Tell me about what you're experiencing. Give your client a chance to speak. That's again, we're talking with people, not at them. And then if it's been fairly quiet, especially like if you're a Reiki practitioner or if they have been talking for quite a while, one of the things that's important to ask is consent to share what's coming through intuitively. So ask the question. I'm sensing something. Is it okay for me to share? Is it okay for me to tell you what's coming through? Intuition becomes potentially dangerous when it skips attunement.
Brenda Winkle 00:27:11 Getting attuned is essential. So that's part of the reason why I developed this intuitive somatic healing certification. That and I have seen the different somatic makes in my clients lives. It is so much easier for them to access their inner children, for them to access their protector parts, and to actually heal and integrate those parts so that they can activate a deeper sense of self-love that changes everything for them. And so I'm going to teach inside this intuitive somatic healer certification how to avoid projection, how to avoid overstepping, how to avoid guesswork and burnout. This is going to provide a method for you to understand your unique intuitive map. I'm going to share ethical communication frameworks with you. I'm going to help you get semantically literate so that you can understand what it means when you have certain body sensations coming through, or when your clients have certain body sensations that are coming through. Each week over this six week certification program, you're going to have the opportunity to learn and practice on real people, and you're going to learn to embody these skills, which is going to build confidence in you.
Brenda Winkle 00:28:26 This is open now. We're enrolling now, and I'll put the link in the show notes for enrollment. This somatic this excuse me, this intuitive somatic healing certification is enrolling 20 people up to 20 people. And we enroll through January 2nd. So enrollment closes January 2nd or until we fill the 20 spots. This is not becoming this is not about becoming more intuitive. This is about becoming more precise with your intuition, more ethical? Really looking at where your internal implicit biases might be impacting your work. And if your system is saying, okay, I need these skills, but I also need space, I also need some business coaching. I also need to develop the offers that are going to help me to sell this type of healing. Then the next step for you is the Reset retreat. The reset retreat will be live on the Oregon Coast in Lincoln City, Oregon March 3rd through fifth, 2026. The VIP and centered levels of that retreat closed January 20th. And then if you're interested in just the retreat only that is available through February 15th.
Brenda Winkle 00:29:41 But the reason the VIP and standard level is closed January 20th is our calls start that week. That's right. We have some community building calls and some content calls that are going to prepare you for the retreat so you can come do really deep work. I'm going to put the reset retreat link in the show notes as well. So here's the thing that I really want you to understand. A big part of the work that we're doing inside the Intuitive Somatic Healing certification and the Reset Retreat, is identity work really stepping into the identity that you're not too much. You're not imagining things. You're not unskilled. In fact, you're highly skilled. You're very intuitive. Your intuition doesn't need to be louder. It just needs to be interpreted more clearly. This is about choosing refinement, choosing integrity, and choosing a structure that honors your gifts enough to allow them to flow. Thank you so much for listening to your yes filled life. If you found this helpful, would you please share it with people that you care about? And it would mean so much if you could take 30s and give the podcast a rating and review wherever you're listening.
Brenda Winkle 00:30:46 Thanks for being here. Bye for now. Until next time.
