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 for 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. It's my birthday week, and in honor of my birthday week, I wanted to share some of the things that I am taking with me into my next year and some of the things that I'm leaving behind. I'm turning 53 this year, and I have to tell you, I love my 50s and I. I'm just feeling really grateful. I love my life. I love my friends. I love the people in my life. I love my business. I love the work I do. I love the place that I live, I love my dog, I love my life, and I'm really grateful for it and so appreciative. And there is a difference between gratitude and appreciation. It's subtle, but it's really it makes a difference over time. And we'll talk about that in another podcast episode. But I just kind of wanted to plant that seed. So when I think about my birthday, it makes me reflect on other birthdays.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:30 It's a really natural marker of time. And I was thinking about my identity this year versus other years, and there's been a few really big shifts, and probably you've heard some of them on the podcast. One of the biggest shifts happened, and I didn't even know it had happened. I got an email from a creator named Chris Carr. I'm not personal friends with her, I just am on her email list and they really enjoy her content. She's a health and wellness advocate. And her email was about forgetting her cancer nursery. She is a 20 year plus survivor of stage four cancer, and she talks a lot about wellness and nutrition. And she has great books like Crazy Sexy Kitchen and I love that recipe book. Anyway, the the title of the email said I forgot my cancer first rate or something like that. And I was thinking to myself, oh, that's interesting. I wonder if I've ever forgotten a major anniversary that was a massive identity shifter I was thinking about. Let's see, what day is it? Let's see, it's February.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:47 So and so let's see what life events happened on this day. I'm literally searching the archives of my mind for this question. And then I was like, oh yeah, My divorce. My divorce was final on this exact day in February in 2008, and I was like, whoa, how many years is that? So then I was like, doing the math. I literally hadn't even stopped to think about number one, how many years it had been, number two, what day it was on. Because it doesn't matter. It's not relevant to my current identity. It's not that I don't care that it happened, but I don't care that it happened. It definitely had an impact on my identity at the time, but I no longer identify or lead with the identity of having been divorced. It's just not how my identity is shaped. And I definitely don't lead with being a survivor of domestic violence. That's not how my identity is currently shaped either. And so I was thinking to myself, wow, we've come a long way, a long way in the last many, many years.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:00 And my hope is that you can also reflect on your birthday about how your identity has shifted, and maybe you don't remember those types of identity defining moments in the way that maybe felt activating at different times either. So this year, I feel like has been more internal identity shifts than maybe any year. I remember, and I've talked a lot about identity on the podcast because I feel like my identity is going through this evolution. And so I have some things here that I would like to share with you. I have 6 or 7 things that I'm thinking about this week of my birthday, and I'm just celebrating with you openly, and I hope that you'll celebrate with me. And I also hope that you'll use the questions that I'm asking myself as perhaps reflection questions for yourself, whether or not it's your birthday. Because I can tell you that asking myself these questions, Taking these things along with me, leaving other things behind is what is behind my own identity shift. So number one is I have raised the standards in every area of my life for how I want to live, the places that I live, the people that I'm with, and I've done it in a way that I had never done before.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:23 It's not necessarily about raising my standards to certain people. That's not it at all. But what I have raised my standards for is the people that are in my life all care for themselves. They take care of themselves, they prioritize themselves, and they prioritize whatever their work, mission or purpose is. And the reason I surround myself with those types of people is I know that if they are prioritizing themselves and they're taking care of themselves. They're not going to be upset at me when I do the same thing. And if I maybe slip, they're going to call me out on it. And if they slip, they know I'm going to call them out on it, because we're rising together. And the people that are in the inner circle of my life know that in order for me to continue to rise, I have to have squeaky clean boundaries, and I have to have radical self-care, radical self-acceptance, and total self led responsibility and self leadership. And so I'm raising the standards so that the people in my life, in my inner circle, also exhibit those traits.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:45 Because if there's someone in my life who is a martyr, I know that they're going to do things around me or for me, and then it's going to come up in some codependent way that does not feel good to me and that costs me energy, time and bandwidth and quite frankly, trust. It makes me not trust those people. And so when I raise my standard to my inner circle, these are self led people. And that feels so clean and so good. And it's not that I don't have compassion for people that are martyrs or that are stuck in their codependency or stuck in the caregiving, and they won't get out of it, I do. I have utmost compassion, but I'm not co-signing on it. I'm not co-signing that. That's the way it has to be. So I'm raising my own standards for myself and for the people in my inner circle. Radical self-care, radical self leadership. And it feels so juicy. I'm telling you, the conversations that I have had over this last year, our next level, next level.
Brenda Winkle 00:08:54 We are talking about big things. We're not stuck in the daily minutia. And that's amazing, because then it gives me a chance to fully enjoy my daily minutia, then walks with Bentley every day, making the perfect cup of coffee every morning with my ground beans and the creamer of my choice, whatever it is at the moment. I guarantee you it's probably flavored vanilla. because vanilla is one of my favorite flavors and it, you know, it just I'm so grateful to have these kind of people in my life who are big thinkers. They will not let me get away with my own bullshit. So I appreciate that. And I also do that for them, reflecting back to them, hey, you are powerful. You are incredible. And we, in my opinion, need more of these people in our lives. And so that is a juicy change. Number two, I am no longer available to take advice from people who are not anyone who I would want to trade places with or who are not in the arena of life that I am.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:04 I'm no longer available for their advice. Now I want to make a clear distinction here. I'm not talking about feedback. I am open to feedback from the people in my life, my friends, my family, my clients. I do want feedback, but I'm talking about advice like as in you should fill in the blank x, y, z. I'm not. I'm not here for it. I'm not going to be taking advice from people who I wouldn't trade places with or who aren't doing the work that I am doing. So that means that if I have and this is something I'm making up, by the way, if I have a friend who, let's say is working in a bank, I'm not going to be taking business advice from that person because they're not in business, they're working for somebody, and it's a different kind of thing. So it's changing the conversations that I have. Going back to raising those standards for like, squeaky clean, self led leadership is also knowing when I'm going to take advice, and most of the time if I'm taking advice, I'm either trading my expertise for one of my peers or friend's expertise, or I'm paying for it.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:16 I'm not taking random advice. I'm just not here for it. There's a lot of advice in the world that keeps people stuck, and as an empath, I am very prone to receiving energy and energetic transmissions, and I can end up doing some misaligned things if I'm taking advice from people who I haven't had a squeaky clean relationship, that I'm going to take advice from you. So that's number two. Number three, I am unapologetically trusting my intuition. That means that I'm going to trust my intuition over what looks good on paper, over what people say, over people's reputation. I'm going to trust my intuition. And this year has solidified to me in simple ways, complex ways, easy ways, painful ways that I can trust my intuition. And if I don't, I always regret it. There's never been a time that I regretted following my intuition, but I can tell you lots of times I regretted not trusting it. Like when you have that little yellow caution flag, or maybe it's a red flag that goes up about a situation or a person.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:30 I am trusting those from now on, including the green flags. When I see somebody who's a green flag, I'm like, oh yes, maybe we should go on a coffee date and get to know each other, because maybe we could be friends and that feels super juicy. Number four, I am sharing less until things are fully formed. I love to share, and I love to have things to talk about with people that I'm excited about and often whatever it is that I'm creating is that thing that I want to share. But what I'm learning is two things can happen. One is if I share too early and then someone shares back an idea with me, it can get messed up and confusing for me, and then I can end up with something that's not fully aligned. And the second thing is I can have my ideas stolen. They're really good ideas, and I'm not saying that arrogantly. I'm saying that because I have watched massive corporations steal my ideas twice. Two different corporations, big ones, big ones.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:35 There's an app on one of the major publishing companies that is the exact name of a proposed book that I sent in as a book proposal, and it was this whole funnel of come for this workshop, come for this writer's workshop, submit your proposal. And I believe it's an idea factory. And so I'm just not sharing my ideas until they're fully formed and ready for public viewing, because I don't want them to be stolen. And I'm not saying that from scarcity or fear. I'm saying that from discernment, because now it's happened twice. number five, I resolve to spend more and more time with my loved ones, my friends, my family, my collaborators, my peers. I just feel like in the last year I've really been in hermit mode. And if you look at the astrology, there's really good reasons for that. I'm at Pisces, I'm a cancer rising Sagittarius Moon, and if you look at all those three signs, that has been a lot about what the last 12 months have been like and then moving out of it, and I can feel it.
Brenda Winkle 00:14:42 And I'm so excited for the in-person connections that are coming. And it feels really juicy to just say that is one of my top priorities moving forward into my 53rd year. Is it 53 when you turn 53 or would it be 54th? I don't know, maybe you can tell me. And then finally, I am prioritizing joy. Now, over the past 11 years, ever since I came into this space. I'm working in the healing arts. Reiki. Energy. Energy work. Energy healing. I have prioritized joy, and I'm doubling down on it because I know it matters. I know it works. I know that is the magic elixir for me. So the more joy I feel, the better things are going in my life. So I am prioritizing joy not only every week or every day, but I'm going to find joy in as many moments as I possibly can, and I invite you to do the same. So that's kind of what I'm thinking about at this birthday, and I invite you to take anything that resonates with you.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:49 Leave what doesn't. And I'm really excited for this next year, and I'm very excited. You know, we just have a few more days by the time this episode goes live of enrollment in the Intuitive Leader retreat, but I'm so excited! This is the only in-person retreat I have planned for 2026, so if you were thinking you'd like to do some in-person work together, this is as of right now. It is your chance and we're live in just a few days, March 3rd through fifth in Lincoln City, Oregon. This is going to be a chance for you to get clear on, like, what is it that you want to take with you into this next iteration? How can you step more into that joyful, self led, self responsible leadership? That's what we're doing. So I'll put the link in the show notes in case that calls to you. And if it doesn't call to you that's okay too. If you enjoyed this episode, would you consider sharing it with somebody that you care about? Please.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:44 Thank you for being along with the journey. Thank you for celebrating my birthday with me and I appreciate you more than you know. There's a lot of podcasts in this space, and it means so much that you're listening to your yes filled life. Bye for now. Until next time.
