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 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, Brenda Winkle. Today is December 29th, 2025. We are closing out what has been a really, really big year. But for many of us, it's also been a hard year. We have had to come face to face with the things that weren't working and clear them out and release things and release patterns and release people. And while we have done it, yay us. It it has been challenging and. I. Or at least I'll speak for myself. It has been challenging, and many of the clients that I've worked with over this past year have also had to release former identities in order to step into their new identity, and they've had to release the stories that were keeping them stuck. And in doing so, they've created space for the most incredible, wonderful. Almost like so good. They wonder sometimes if they're making it up kinds of things. And I'm so excited. I'm so excited for all of us as we head into 2026, I want to tell you a couple of stories that are really sticking with me this year.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:42 So this is the year that I almost quit. And. You know, as I say this like my throat is itchy. There's definitely a part of me that doesn't want to share this with you, but I, I came into the year 2025 and my word of the year was impact. And I was thinking about this from a couple of different lenses. One lens was I wanted to be mindful of the impact that I was having on other people. In other words, how could I be more present in all of my relationships with my family, my friends, my clients who become friends? How could I really be mindful of my impact? I also wanted to create a bigger impact in the world through this podcast, through my social media, and through through my speaking engagements. And so I was looking at it from those two lens, but then I was also looking at it from the lens of what is the impact on me, of the things that I'm doing and the ways in which I'm showing up in the world and the ways I'm running my business.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:52 And I started the year and I was a part of Marie for Leo's Dream builder. I think it was Dream Dream Club or something like that. Anyway, it was fabulous and one of the things that she taught me to do literally changed my life. And it is to do a quarterly analysis of everything that I've done. And I'm going to invite you to do the same thing. In fact, I'm going to lead you through it. Inside the spiritual CEO membership, which is now hosted on school. This is going to be one of our January calls. I'm going to be guiding you through this exact process. So if you're a member, oh my gosh, look forward to that. And if you're not a member we are enrolling. It's a very accessible rate. You can come in to the spiritual CEO membership at either the monthly level and pay a monthly fee, or you can come in for an annual level and save 17% or get two months free. So that's $111 a month or $1,111 annually. We meet once a week at 11 a.m. Pacific on Wednesdays for the spiritual CEO, and it is the place where you will become the CEO of your life and your business.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:13 And so anyway, back to going through this work that Marie Forleo taught me how to do. When I did a reverse analysis on everything that I had done in quarter four of 2024, I realized that a lot of the things that were taking my time were not income producing, and they weren't even really rooted in building reciprocal relationships. They were based in busyness. They were based just in sort of spinning my wheels, so to speak, you know, showing up for people that weren't showing up for me and over giving and over committing and endless networking calls or coffee chats or different things like this that we're not leading anywhere. And it was very confronting. I'll be honest, it was very confronting to be sitting down at the beginning of 2025 thinking, this is the year everything is going to unlock, and to realize that my fourth quarter of 2024 was not what I thought it was. But I did give myself grace because in third quarter of 2024, I lost my dad in August. And so I definitely knew that that had impacted how I was showing up for myself and my business.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:34 and so I just, you know, gave myself some grace and figured that I would try to create a deeper impact for me and the people in my life in quarter one. And so in quarter one, when I discovered all of this, I set a course to really make the word impact My guiding light for the year, and I'm so glad that I have. But it has not been easy. It has been confronting again and again and again. Because when I filtered things through the lens of impact, I started to realize how many things I was doing that were not income producing. They were not honoring my time. They were not honoring my energy, and they weren't actually moving the needle in my relationships or my business. And so as I got more and more into the idea of how can I be more curious around the impact that I'm creating and that's being created for me? What do I need to do? It has led me through the depths. I mean, like I said, 2025 was the year I almost quit.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:44 In January of 2025, I recognized that a mentor that I had really admired and respected and cared about was not who I thought they were. And so I left a very expensive mastermind several months early, and I had some grief around that, because not only was I disappointed about what had happened with that mentor, but I also left behind a lot of people that I had cared about and that I had formed relationships with. And so there was immediately a sense of loss, like at the beginning of 2025, as I was dealing with the death of my dad, and then the loss of these relationships inside this mastermind. And so I knew I needed some support. And so I was very excited to continue to work in marine for Leo's Dream Club. And then when her B-School launched in February of 2024, even though I'm a seasoned business owner, I've owned a business since 2005. So my gosh, at this point it'll be almost 21 years that I've been in business. I, I was so excited to work with Marie Forleo in B-School, and I am so proud to be a B-School, and I learned so much, and I met so many wonderful people.
Brenda Winkle 00:09:05 And I also recognized in that, in that experience how much the things I were doing were not working. And so B-School taught me not only what to do, but what not to do. And so January and February were both very confronting, very difficult, but incredibly fruitful months because it set me up. It set me up to follow the word impact. And so then when March rolled around and B-School drew to a close and I was just kind of finishing up on my own, I realized, okay, I have to continue to do this work that I started in January when I was evaluating my fourth quarter. And so as March drew to a close, I sat down at the very beginning of April to do the same thing I'd done in January. And I went through and I listed every single thing I'd done. I listed every appointment that I had logged into or that I had held, or that I had met somebody for every single one, whether it was a client session or a coffee chat or a sales call or a group coaching program that I was logging into for for my own coaching, or whether I was hosting a group coaching call for others.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:27 I logged every single one. And when I did that in April, I realized that I had fixed some of the things that were not working, and some of the ways in which I was spinning my wheels in time. But I hadn't fixed it all. And so I knew that I had more work to do. And again, it was really confronting because in this time period between January and April, I had two failed launches. I mean epic and epic failures like no, no interest. Not only no sales, but no interest, no DMs, no comments, no nothing like two massively failed launches. And so I thought, okay, well, I have to go back to the drawing board and I have to really feel into my own intuitive knowing of what is it I'm supposed to be doing. And so that piece of the journey began in April, and I felt like I felt like I was on the right path. And I continued on a path. I taught my very first cohort that was combined Reiki and breathwork and meditation, and it was called the Self-healing certification.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:47 It's relaunching again this January. It's going to be called Heal Myself, and it's going to also include beginning schematics. But that's another story for later when we get to that point. And that went really well, and it felt so good that I decided I would launch a level two. And so I hosted a level two retreat, teaching Reiki and breathwork and meditation, and that went really well. Also, in the meantime, I figured out what was broken and why those launches had failed. Based on the work that I was doing inside B-School and the mentorship that I was receiving there, and that boosted my confidence. So I launched one more time. And this one, while not a raving success, was absolutely successful. And so we finished out the year inside my group coaching program. And it was just like the most incredible group of humans inside that program. Some of them were with me for the entire year. We met three times a week from January to December, and then in September with that other launch, we added a fourth person to our group and it was just absolutely magical.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:04 I think not, not even. I think I learned as much from them as they learned from me, for sure. At least at least as much. And the two success stories that I wanted to share with you are from this group, and they're really, really magical and they're really impactful. And so one of the members of the group has worked with me, I think, for three years now, and she has studied Reiki with me. She studied breathwork with me, she studied meditation with me, and she's been a member of my group coaching programs for at least two and a half years, maybe three years. And this year was the year it all unlocked for her. And she is also a sound healer. She's been a guest on this podcast. Her name is Jill Perrin. She is the founder of Purple Frog Healing and Sound. And oh my gosh, she's just she's so incredible. And watching her step into this version of herself that she really knew was always there has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced, and she's completely redesigned her life along with her husband, and she's building her business, and she's living a life of authenticity and happiness, and she's literally living her dream life with an incredible move that took her across country.
Brenda Winkle 00:14:27 And it is it is just absolutely incredible. And I know I keep saying it's absolutely incredible. You're probably like, find a different word, Brenda. But when I say it's incredible, it is so profound. to witness my work and her work come together. And what I mean by this is I have trusted in my abilities to be a somatic coach and guide and intuitive leader, and watching the transformation that happened in Jill's life was one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced. And so she's living this life, and I feel like I am also a beneficiary of this life. Because seeing her joy and witnessing her confidence and witnessing her clarity, and the way that she's just laser focused on what she wants and watching it all unlock and unfold for her has been incredibly rewarding. And it really boosted my confidence. Isn't that weird? Like, her life boosted my confidence and when she oh gosh, I feel emotional. Like the tears are springing behind my eyes. When she announced that she was getting ready to make this big move, I remembered that in September of 2024, I'd picked her up from the Portland airport, and we drove to Long Beach, Washington, for a retreat.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:00 And in the car she said, I really want to live in the Pacific Northwest. And this year, in 2025, she's made that happen. And it has been so incredible and rewarding to be a part of her journey and to witness that process. And, you know, like anything, it's not always easy for any of us to make big changes like that. But she did it because she decided. She made a decision that she was going to create the life that she loved, and she and her husband, and they're doing it together, and they're unapologetic about wanting to live this beautiful life and the miraculous thing is that there was a fear that it would take them further away from their family, and I don't feel like I want to share all their details because that wouldn't be appropriate. But let me just say, it has actually brought them closer to all of their family. And that has also been incredibly cool to watch. And the second person that that I want to share about is my really good friend, and she and I have been friends for a very long time.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:13 I taught her daughter in like either kindergarten or first grade, and it would have been, gosh, I don't know, 2008, 2009 somewhere in there when I met her and her family, and then I taught her son, in an All-City honor choir when I was directing that in Boise. And so when I say that, that she and I have been longtime friends, I mean, we have been long time friends. and she joined the group coaching program this year because she wanted to. Really understand herself better because she was embarking on a brand new chapter as a retired educator and retired. Doesn't mean old, it means finishing up one career. That's all it means. And she's still got a lot of life to live. And as she would self-described, she is a live wire and she just has beautiful energy and a heart of gold and wants to make an impact and has this commitment to doing really, really good, impactful, heart led work. And she called me this week and she was just wishing me a happy holiday.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:29 And we chatted and caught up. And again, you know, she became a client this year too. It wasn't the first time that she became a client, but it's of note because she was part of this program, and the things that have transpired in her life over the past several months are absolutely mind blowing. Like even she says, I am manifesting this because she understands what it's like to be embodied. She understands what it is like to be able to understand when she's having a trigger, how to support herself. And she's also been trained in Reiki. Now she's got her Reiki two certification. She was one of the people that that took that initial program, that taught Reiki breathwork and meditation together. And because of the somatic work that we did inside my group coaching program, she is breaking free from old thought patterns. She's breaking free from people pleasing patterns that really had kept her feeling stuck for her whole life. And when she set a goal to do something really unconventional, like she just wanted to live in a specific town for a few months of the year and do something that was one of her favorite activities.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:48 And I'm trying not to reveal too many specifics because I don't want to, you know, tell her story without without her permission. But when she set this as a goal, it sounded like it was something that would never happen. But it's happening. It's literally happening. Like, she leaves next week to go live in one of her favorite chosen places for a few months and do one of her favorite things. And she says it's because of the embodiment. And the embodiment came through the semantics that she experienced over this past year. And when I think about these success stories and then the other two people, oh my gosh, I don't even want to leave them out. One of the members has now been able to claim herself as a writer. And when I say claim herself as a writer, she had identified as a former educator for many, many, many years, and that was the way she described herself. Oh, I used to be a teacher. Not anymore. Now, she says, I'm a writer.
Brenda Winkle 00:20:51 And she is. And she has created a new account on Substack, and she's writing and she's planning a book and she's in. She's stepped into this new identity, and she says the same thing. It is because of the somatic work we did with the breathwork and the somatic coaching inside of the group coaching program. And then the other member who joined us joined us, and he said that the intuitive community that we had built, where he could really bring his whole self and all of his questions and all of his deep intuition was was life changing for him. And he is also all in on the semantics and the breathwork, which, by the way, is part of semantics. A lot of times people try to separate out breathwork from semantics, and it's true that there is a level of expertise that you can obtain in breathwork by itself. But breathwork is also under the umbrella of semantics. Semantics is body based. So when I think about the work that has happened for these four clients inside my group coaching program over the last year, I am so proud.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:01 I'm so proud. And to think that, you know, in August of this year I was ready to quit. I was I was ready to quit because I had had so many failed launches, and I had had a little bit of success here and a little bit of success there. And as I looked at the way that I was spending my time in those quarterly reflections, I kept realizing, oh, I have improvements to make. I have improvements to make, I have improvements to make, and I made them. And now sitting here December 29th, 2025, I am so proud of the year that we have all had. We meaning you and me and my clients, like the year we've had, has been absolutely incredible. The growth that has happened, the mindset shifts that have taken place. It's so freaking cool. It's so cool. And by the way, I had I got some stats this week from Spotify on the show and thanks to you, this show I'm wow, I am blown away.
Brenda Winkle 00:23:17 And just on Spotify, I'm pulling up my phone right now because I took pictures of them. So hang on a second. Let me look at this. Okay, so we have a 72% increase from last year, a 999% increase in new audience members from last year. We have a 39% increase in follows from last year. We have a 24% increase in total listening time from last year. We are reaching 20 countries and we are a top ten show for many, many, many fans and it just blows my mind and I'm so grateful. This show your zest for life outpaced the growth of 76% of the other shows on Spotify, and thank you for your comments on Spotify because of you. We have 91% more comments than other shows. So I am so glad I didn't quit. And the reason I'm telling you this is there are going to be seasons where you might want to quit too. You might even say things to yourself like, I have a full time job. Why am I trying to build this coaching business again? Or you might say things like, I really want to only work one job.
Brenda Winkle 00:24:48 Can I get this Reiki thing to actually pay me? I'm saying this because I've said those things, but also I get DMs all the time with things that say the exact same thing. And so there's a couple things that I want to really hone in on. If you're hesitating right now and you're thinking, gosh, I don't know if I should keep doing this thing, I want to name something for you. It's not that you don't want it badly enough, and it's not that you don't have the skills or talent for it. You do. You're feeling a little bit stuck because choosing yourself and your dream feels like it could cost you something. And for most of us, the fear isn't. Can I do this work? Because, you know, you can write. You totally know your can. You can. The real fear is, what if I try really hard and I still can't get the business to work? Or what if I get visible and people judge me? Or what if I stop playing small and I lose relationships? And this is the biggest fear that all of us have.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:02 It's this what if I bet on myself and then there's no one left to blame for whatever happens next? I have had these fears, and I've coached people through these fears. At this point, I've worked with over 400 people and these fears, they come up for all of us. They're protective. They're there. The nervous system in your brain's way of keeping you safe. Your brain doesn't want you to expand. Your brain doesn't want change because it feels threatening. And so if we don't understand that our brain is going to bring these fears right to the forefront, even for me, it's really easy to give up on our dreams. And that's why so many gifted practitioners stay just under their own edge. So my guess is, if you're still listening, some piece of this has hit, whether it's learning about the client successes this year or the fears. And look I've had them too. Like, I can't tell you the number of times this year that I was like, I wonder if I should just go back to teaching owning a business.
Brenda Winkle 00:27:22 It is not for the faint of heart, because you do have to put yourself out there. You do. You have to talk about your work. And if you don't build the nervous system capacity to be able to talk about the work, you can't do it. I mean, if you've been with me for any length of time, you have probably witnessed the transformation that I personally have gone through. And if you go back to the first episodes for this podcast back in 2022, you will absolutely see evidence of the change, the change of embodiment, which has led to change in my clarity about my message and my mission and the work that I do, and a definite change in the way I feel completely confident in doing the work that I am doing. So here's the thing that no one is really telling you, and I'm going to tell you this right now because I care about you and I care about your dreams. I care about your dreams so much because we need more empathetic and empathetic leaders in the world like you.
Brenda Winkle 00:28:27 The gifted, the intuitive. The tuned in the attuned. We need you and your gifts. Whether you're using them in your 9 to 5 job, whether you're using them in your business, it doesn't really matter. We really want you using these gifts. Now staying uncommitted. Feel safer. Ask me how I know. Like, it actually feels safer to not commit to your dreams. To just, you know, kind of toe dip. Like, you'll throw out a video here or a post there, or you'll mention it to a few people that are your neighbors that, oh, yeah, I'm doing this thing, but you aren't really going all in. It feels safer, but it's actually a lot more expensive because when you are on both sides of the fence. You haven't really committed. You always have one foot out and one foot in, and it literally feels like riding on both sides of the fence. In other words, it's not comfortable. It's painful. It's painful. Ask me how I know.
Brenda Winkle 00:29:39 The other thing that happens is you soften your pricing, because if you don't believe in your work and you don't believe in yourself, it's really hard to charge a living rate. And if you're out there hosting sessions for like $100, I mean, I'm not trying to throw shade, but $100 a session for the amount of energy that you're using on that session is a recipe for quitting. You won't keep doing the work, and you cannot make a living wage out of $100 an hour per sessions. Because you cannot hold more than four hours a day. You just physically cannot do it physically, energetically, spiritually. You can't do it. And the other thing that happens when you haven't fully committed and fully chosen yourself is you are over giving. You're over giving in your offers. You're over giving in your sessions, you're over giving to clients. You're probably giving away a lot of your work for free, and you're probably doing things. Quote unquote. I'm using air quotes on the YouTube. You can see it, you're probably doing things for exposure.
Brenda Winkle 00:30:46 Look, that's not working. And then you keep wondering, like, am I ready yet? Like, could this be the year? This is not because you don't care. It's because you haven't fully stepped into the identity that would require you to trust yourself without the backup story. And this is terrifying for those of us that are high achievers that have always survived by being the best at what we do, we enjoy being liked and we love to chase a gold star. So the intuitive Somatic healing certification isn't about making you better. It's about making your work more reliable. And it's also healing your nervous system in the process. Because of the work that we do in the way that we do it. Where part of each call is learning and part of each call is application. You're going to actually experience real time somatic healing. In other words, you're going to actually experience what you'll be leading clients through. And that means you're going to have such a fast turnaround of experiences that you're going to be able to know and implement this into your sessions.
Brenda Winkle 00:32:02 So you stop overreaching, you stop over giving, you stop over intervening. You stop trying to hold everything for everybody all the time. You stop trying to have the right thing to say, and you start believing in your ability to track energy. You start believing in your intuitive. Knowing you start believing in the body language that's coming from your client. So you know not to collapse your authority just to keep people comfortable. You'll actually increase your nervous system capacity and your confidence, because you're going to be learning how to notice not only what's happening in your client's body, but in your body, which lets you respond more cleanly, more accurately. And you're going to be able to leave every session knowing that you did exactly what that client needed most. You won't second guess it. You won't overthink it. You won't go home and talk about it with your partner who knows nothing about this work, and then they give you bad advice that you know is not appropriate. And yet they're the only one you have to talk to.
Brenda Winkle 00:33:11 So you keep talking to them and then you're sort of banging your head against the wall. Ask me how I know when you get confident because of this amount of work, when your sessions end, you're done. You actually can make an energetic break and go on and have a day in a life of your own where you're fully present with your loved ones, and this is going to impact your ability to show up for your clients in a really confident way, where they trust you to be able to hold the frame of the session. And that's going to impact the amount that you can price your sessions at. Now, this isn't about getting rich. This is about being paid a living wage. And this is so important because one of the things that you are not thinking about at this stage, I guarantee you you're not thinking about this at this stage, is the transformation that happens when your clients pay you. When you give your clients an opportunity to pay you. You're giving them an opportunity to live into and embody that.
Brenda Winkle 00:34:22 They are the type of person who invests in their transformation. You are helping them in a really profound way. And practitioners who work with me and study with me tell me the biggest shift isn't confidence, although there is an increase in confidence. The biggest shift is the relief that they feel relief that their sessions are landing with their clients. Relief that their clients are actually changing their lives in the way that they want. Relief that you stop carrying things that aren't yours, and relief that you no longer have to convince anyone of anything because you just are so rock solid in your self trust and your ability to read the energy and the body language of your clients. That relief gives you back energy. And that relief is also going to create a reduced mental bandwidth, a reduced cognitive load. So you have more energy. And that energy is part of what gives you a sustainable living. It's not just about money, it's about where is your energy energy going? Where's your bandwidth going? So if you're feeling that edge right now, it doesn't mean you're not ready.
Brenda Winkle 00:35:41 It does mean you're standing at a choice point. And there's a lot of options here. Okay. So maybe the intuitive semantic healing certification sounds like it's exactly the right fit for you. You've already been trained in a couple of modalities. You're certified as a coach or you know that you want to do this work. And if so, then the intuitive somatic Healing certification is for you. We close enrollment on January 2nd and we begin on January 5th. Calls are typically on Mondays from 5 to 7 p.m. Pacific. Although there's two holidays in there and we'll be moving those to Tuesdays. This is the only completely live round of this certification. And so if you want to get in on the first cohort for this and get everything live, this is your opportunity. You don't have to force yourself, but you do have to decide whether you're done protecting yourself from your own potential or not. I'll put the links for everything in the show notes, and if you think that you want some more information, just DM me or send me an email and we'll jump on a quick call.
Brenda Winkle 00:36:56 But you'll need to act soon because enrollment does close on the second. I believe in you, and I hope that you keep going. I hope that you keep doing the things, and I wish you the happiest, happiest, happiest 2026 and I'll be back on January 1st of 2026. And I'm going to take you through a little bit of the exercise that I was talking about, having learned from Marie Forleo. And keep in mind, the spiritual CEO membership, that we'll be doing that in early January as well. So if that's something you want to join, I'll put that link there too. Thank you so much for being here, for being part of the journey. I love connecting with you each week, and I am so grateful for your messages and your texts and your calls and your comments and your ratings reviews. It means so much for me, and I'm really glad I didn't quit. And I hope you don't quit either. Bye for now. Until next time.
