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 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 the podcast. The reason I said welcome to the podcast is my own identity is evolving in such a way that I don't feel like the podcast name resonates anymore. I don't know if you felt that for a while. I've talked about it before, but there's definitely something happening for me within my own identity, within my own business identity that the podcast name I think needs an evolution. And so if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear from you. In fact, I love hearing from you in general. And two things are really alive for me right now and I'm going to be sharing them. It's about identity and then about intuition and sort of the the merging of those two things. In fact, when I look at the episodes that you have downloaded the most and the episodes that you email me about, that you DM me on Instagram over at Brenda Winkle, about the most they have to do with identity and with intuition. And then of course, we merge all of that into different kinds of leadership, whether that means entrepreneurship or writing, authorship or just self leadership of your own life.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:35 And so I'm sort of bringing you the meta version of what we're talking about today, because I'm living through it in real time, where my own identity is evolving faster than my physical reality and my business can catch up with. And so if you've ever felt this, you're not alone. I really want you to know you're not alone in this and that evolution is a sign that things are going right, that you are growing, that you are evolving. It can be a kind of lonely process. And I want to assure you you're not alone. You're not alone in the identity upgrades, in the identity evolution. And I know it can feel lonely because when you go through these kinds of evolutions, it feels weird when you get ready to interface in relationships that you've had a long time in work relationships or work roles that you've had a long time, it can feel almost disorienting, and there can be kind of a push pull moment where you're like, okay, I don't know what to do here. I don't know if I should blow this whole thing up and walk away, or if I should talk about it or what to do.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:46 So we're going to be talking about that today on the podcast. And the truth is, your future identity is becoming more and more clear, probably to you at this point. At least that's definitely how I'm feeling. But your nervous system hasn't caught up. Your relationships haven't caught up, and the things that you're doing in the ways that you're spending time haven't completely caught up with this new identity. And so this creates that moment of hesitation where you realize that there's a new way you're being asked to step forward. And the hesitation we'll talk about in just a second. But it comes from not wanting to be too much, not wanting to be too big, and definitely comes from your deep empathy and compassion. This can also create over responsibility, where you take on too much because you know you're shifting and changing, which means you know you're not holding things that you used to hold. And so as a way to compensate, sometimes you take responsibility in areas that maybe you shouldn't. I apologize if you can hear Bentley right now.
Brenda Winkle 00:04:59 I'm just going to keep going. It also creates an energy leak, and the energy leaks come in the form of feeling exhausted, feeling like you can't respond to that text or that call or that email, or not even knowing what to say. and then it comes in collapse patterns and I'll talk about what, what that means in just a second. So this is actually a very important phase of growth. I've gone through identity evolutions multiple times, and each one has some of these components in it. It doesn't look like you're making progress when you're in it. It looks like there's deeply uncomfortable conversations that you might have to have. It looks like you might have to blow things up. It looks like you might have to walk away from people that you love, and it feels like a lot of friction and most people. Not you anymore. But most people will think that there's a problem and they misread this moment. They think I'm regressing. They think I'm overwhelmed. They think I'm doing something wrong. But what's actually happening is your identity has outgrown your habits, and your identity is growing in such a way that your standards have been raised, and you are no longer available for the same kinds of things that you used to be available for.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:28 And that's not a bad thing. That's actually a really good thing. It does also create this identity gap. This is the space between who you were and who you're becoming. Signs that you're in it would be your old behaviors feel wrong or uncomfortable. You might be disinterested in things that used to interest you a lot. This could be in terms of entertainment, the books you read, the shows you watch, the magazines you read, the social media you consume. It could be that your new behaviors feel really more comfortable for you, but they feel uncomfortable when you engage in those new behaviors around existing relationships. Your decisions could feel more high stakes. Your emotional sensitivity probably has increased, and you start to question your capacity and you start to question your choices. This is normal. This is the recalibration phase. So you are an empath probably if you're listening to this podcast and maybe you don't identify as that word. But if I describe these traits, this is probably you. You're probably a deep feeler.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:46 You have a huge range of emotions. You feel things deeply. You may not always show what you feel, but you feel it deeply. You feel other people's emotions in your own system with such an acute awareness that sometimes you make decisions to avoid having to live through their emotions because it feels like too much to carry their their emotions. Like you don't even want to manage their emotions, so you end up not sharing things because you don't trust the people around you to be able to manage their own emotions over the changes that you're making. It can. That's what makes it feel so isolating, is because there's this moment where you realize, okay, the existing me, the way I've been showing up, the way I've been doing things is a bigger version, a more aligned version of you with bigger emotions and different truths. And when you start to feel into those different truths, sometimes it can feel like you can't share yourself fully with the people who have been in your life, who are not evolving at the same pace or in the same ways that you are.
Brenda Winkle 00:09:02 And I just want you to know, there's nothing wrong with you and nothing has gone wrong with this. This is just a normal part of that calibration that happens in the identity. And as an empath or as somebody with empathic tendencies, you experience this identity shift differently because you're processing more emotional information, you're processing your own emotions, but then you're processing the emotions of people around you. And that leads to more relational responsibility. And it also leads to more energetic input, meaning you're receiving more energy and more information than people who don't have the same abilities that you do. And so when your identity begins to expand, sometimes the nervous system can temporarily overload. And this creates that collapse pattern that we talked about on the last episode of the podcast, which if you haven't listened to that, I would highly recommend you go have a listen. So let's talk about some ways that this can show up in real life. Okay, so I just got back from the Intuitive Leader retreat of 2026, which by the way, it was so good.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:20 It was so beautiful. Not to toot my own horn, but beep beep. It went so well. Like the pacing was great. There was a beautiful mix between the activities that were planned and integration time. We had time on the beach. We had time doing the things that we needed to do. The food was great. I asked for help. I asked one of my closest friends, Kathy Kearns, owner of Reiki Renewal, to come help me at the retreat. And she did. And having someone else there to help me hold space and do the physical things in the house and to help, brainstorm different solutions for not only for the retreat, but for food, for housing, for the actual activities. And her approach to business is similar because she trained me. It's similar to mine, but it's also different. And she has a brick and mortar primarily as well. I mean, she does things online as well, but she also has a brick and mortar, which means that her approach to business is just slightly different.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:25 And the variance of the ways that we approach was so rich. So the content of the retreat itself was really, really good, if I do say so. Myself and the person who came to attend this retreat was able to leave the retreat with her offer dialed in, her marketing plan figured out, and she's literally ready to go. It's all been figured out, and it did. Take nervous system regulation, somatic coaching, a little bit of subconscious work, and moving energy to get all of that in place. But it happened and it was so incredible to watch and it was so much fun. We had the perfect house overlooking the silent space which is coming out of the mouth of the silence River in Lincoln City, Oregon, where it empties into the Pacific, and you can see where the water turned. And we got to watch the waves of the Pacific, and we got to see seals, and we saw eagles that were doing their fishing. It was absolutely magical. It was the best retreat I've ever hosted.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:36 This was my sixth. It was the best. It was so good. We're gonna do it again in 2027, in fact, I think I'm going to reserve the same place for 2027. So if you didn't get a chance to participate in the Intuitive Leader Retreat in 2026. DM me on Instagram at Brenda Winkle and let me know. You want information for 2027, because I already have one spot sold for that retreat in 2027, and there will only be a limited number of spots. It will be a maximum of ten spots, but it might even be less than that. So if that is something that's on your heart, DM me over on Instagram and get on the waiting list because it's going to happen. At any rate, how this intersects with the conversation around identity is that the old identity that I was living in, I felt a real compulsion to do the right thing to have over responsibility for my clients experiences, which meant I was over giving, which meant I was giving beyond my capacity to give, which led to exhaustion.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:47 Probably short temper. Just knowing myself, I don't always speak as kindly when I'm exhausted. I don't know that anybody does, but and I wasn't, I wasn't like I was mean or snappy, but I do think that there were some times that I might have been shorter than I wanted to be because I was holding too much, and this time I didn't, I didn't overhauled, I wasn't over responsible, I. In fact, one of the best moves that I made in decision making for this retreat was the decision to allow the retreat attendees to secure their own lodging. And so, as my clients did, that it meant that she was able to bring her husband along. And they had a beautiful time in Lincoln City at their own hotel experience in the evenings. And then we had a group dinner, a no host dinner. We also had charcuterie and bubbles with one of the Oregon Vintage brutes. It was such a lovely experience, and I'm so proud of the way that I have given myself permission to try and try again, and to iterate and to do things differently, and to keep trying and to say to myself and in public, what I did before didn't quite work.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:06 I'm going to try again and I'm going to try it this way. And also, I have been very intentional, and I'm always very intentional about asking my clients for feedback. What did you like? What would you like different? What went well? What could have gone better? And I've done that for the last six retreats, and I did that at this one too. And what I'm learning is I'm getting more and more and more dialed in on the retreats. But the real thing was my identity going into this retreat I knew I wasn't responsible for my client's outcome. I knew I was responsible for providing a beautiful experience in a beautiful, expansive location with excellent food, nutritious food that was protein forward. I knew I was responsible for guiding breathwork, and for holding the space, and for holding the energy and creating the container. I was responsible for those things, but I let go of so much other responsibility that the transformation that happened in this retreat was incredible. It was so much bigger than any retreat I've held because I wasn't over responsible.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:22 And that is because I allowed my identity to shift. It's not comfortable to say I was overly responsible. Like, I'm not proud of that. I'm not bragging about that. But that is the truth. And if you've attended, or if you've known people who've attended my retreats, they'll probably tell you the same thing where I was sort of on 24 over seven for the entire duration of the retreat, and at a certain point I would get tired, even if I didn't want to be tired. And I was pushing through, even though I didn't want to be pushing through. But now my identity has evolved to a place where I don't allow myself to push through because I know that my energy, my frequency, is so important that I make sure I get rest and resourced and support when I need it. That was an identity shift that allowed that to happen, and I'm so proud of it. And you know what my friend Kathy? Well, we're really, really close friends. And she was somebody that I went and stayed with for quite a long time after my dad died.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:35 I just allowed myself to be held by her and her family. In that time, after my dad died. And their family means a lot to me. Oh, I'm getting emotional and evolving in front of and with and publicly is. It takes a lot of courage. I'm saying this as somebody who is doing it and has done it. It takes a lot of courage to say, I know a better way now, and it takes a lot of courage to say, I'm going to do this a different way, because I know that when I protect my own energy, everything else unlocks and follows, and it takes a certain amount of humility to be able to do that. Because the proving part of me wants to not admit that the proving part of me doesn't ever want there to be evolution. The proving part of me wants to just get it right the first time out of the gate. But the larger part of me, the larger self, my higher self, knows that this is the path, that the evolution is the way.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:47 And this is also because I'm a deep empath, meaning I don't want anyone to be disappointed in me because I'm capable of being very disappointed in myself. And if somebody's disappointed in me, then I feel it deeply. Probably a lot like you do. Which is why most people do one of three things as they're working towards an identity recalibration or an identity evolution. The three most common reactions are number one, to shrink back, to pretend that the identity isn't happening, to not admit how much you've grown, to not admit what you think differently. To not admit that you now know a better or more evolved way to do something. And so that's one of the things that I have been very intentional about growing through allowing myself the nervous system regulation. That means I'm tapping, that means I'm doing breathwork. That means I'm expanding my nervous system to allow myself to feel safe enough not to shrink. Number two, people that are going through this type of identity evolution are overworking. They're overworking to compensate because you know that as your identity evolves, it means that you get more clear about what is actually yours to manage and what is not yours to manage.
Brenda Winkle 00:20:08 And that means that as you get clear on what's not yours to manage, you're letting go of things, which means you're running the risk of disappointing people. And that disappointment, or even the threat of disappointment, keeps a lot of people with deep empathy and compassion stuck right where they are, because the disappointment feels more threatening Then just going along to get along, right? Ask me how I know. And the third thing is, people will try to think their way through this identity evolution. And that will never, ever work because you can't think your way into identity. Identity is something that you embody. Is there thought involved? Yes, of course, but it's really allowing the nervous system to feel safe enough to allow yourself to evolve, to take the necessary actions, to allow that identity to really settle and to land. So what actually creates the shift in this identity is nervous system capacity, where we expand the nervous system by, like I said, tapping or breathwork or semantics. We create better and firmer energetic boundaries so that we're no longer taking in other people's emotions or energy.
Brenda Winkle 00:21:32 And number three, and probably most important is identity congruence. When we can come to a place where we are congruent with our actions, what we say and our identity, it's like we found the magic key, but it's a little bit like when you when you come home from an experience that was life changing, and then you're wearing a different style of clothing, and then everybody makes you feel away because they notice your clothing, and there's a self-consciousness that comes up like, oh, yeah, well, now I'm going to do this now. I was a teenager in the 80s. And so, you know, my identity evolved along with Cyndi Lauper and Madonna. And I remember there was a period of time when I wanted to dress like them, and then my identity shifted a little bit, and then it was kind of like rock star ish, more than pop star ish as far as my dress was concerned. And then it morphed into something different, and then I morphed into a teacher, and then my identity was professional, and that's the way my clothes worked.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:44 And so I was wearing this suits, which meant that sometimes if I went to an event with my college friends wearing a suit, I would feel deeply uncomfortable and really self-conscious. This is what I'm talking about with that identity congruence. It's so important because this is where your leadership actually changes, not because you're working harder, but because your nervous system stabilizes at that new level. So I remember when I was a teacher that the part of every year I really wanted the beginning of the year. I really wanted to breathe belief into my students. And when I was, when I was in schools and I had been in there for several years, I had had the same students year after year after year, because as a music teacher, that's what happens. You do get to know the whole students, the whole student body, and so you get to see them grow and evolve. And by the time I'd been there for several years and they were fifth graders, sometimes there was a part of me that felt really self-conscious about revisiting the norms of my classroom and the norms of the school, and when I was a really new teacher, I didn't.
Brenda Winkle 00:23:57 I would say things like, I know that you know the right thing to do, and I just expect you to do that. And I felt really self-conscious about at the beginning of every year, rehashing the same types of things as far as what are the norms, what are the expectations, what are the procedures? So you probably know, I was a music teacher for many years, and one of the things about being a music teacher is that you will continue to see the same students year after year after year, and there was a part of my identity that felt very self-conscious about leaving the school year at the end of May or beginning of June, and coming back in August or September, and then reviewing the procedures, the norms, the expectations. I felt embarrassed, and I knew that the students didn't like it. So I let that kind of lead. I didn't kind of let that lead. I absolutely let that lead for the first couple years that I was teaching. And then someone introduced me to a book called The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong.
Brenda Winkle 00:25:01 And that book changed my teaching career and really changed my life, because it was talking about how important it is to set the stage at the beginning of any new cycle where we talk about the norms and we establish the expectations, and we create procedures just so that people understand what to do, and then it's not controlling to do that. It's actually helpful because then people can meet our expectations, they can adhere to the standards and maybe even exceed the standards if they know what they are. And so even though I was still very uncomfortable at the beginning of each year, going through the new expectations for the year and felt very self-conscious, especially if any of them evolved between the end of one school year and the beginning of the next. I started to force myself to do that, and my teaching got better and better and better, and my classroom management got better and better and better, because every year I was getting more clear and more clear about my expectations, the procedures, the norms, the standards. And I've even carried that into my business, where I never make the assumption that everybody just automatically assumes what to do because they're all adults.
Brenda Winkle 00:26:17 Instead, I make the assumption that this is my container, and this is how it feels good for me to lead this container. And so here are the norms that we're going to use. And that took a certain level of evolution into my own leadership to feel comfortable saying that both as a teacher and definitely as a business owner, because there was a part of me that felt like, oh, they should know, and who am I to say all this? But now I realize this is who I am to say that because this is my standard, this is what I am available for. This is what I expect to have inside my containers. This is how I expect to be treated. This is how you can expect me to treat you. And should we talk about this as anything feel crunchy for you? That's leadership. But that required an identity evolution. And this is what I'm seeing a lot because I'm aware of it. I'll admit this is my own reticular activating system at work, that those bunch of neurons in your brain, that their sole job is to filter out unnecessary information that reticular activating system is what is behind when you go shopping for a car, a specific kind of car, let's say a red Prius.
Brenda Winkle 00:27:33 And then when you come out of the car lot, all you see is red Priuses. It's not that there's more red Priuses on the road, it's that you are aware of them because you're paying attention. That's the reticular activating system at work. And so as we think about this work as it applies to identity, of course, I'm seeing this in my own clients because I'm doing my own work around it. So what I'm seeing is really successful leaders, CEOs, doctors, presidents of organizations, retired educators, and what I'm seeing them do is navigate this gap between the identity of where they have been and the identity that they're moving into, and what's happening time after time is there are conversations that they're avoiding having, even with themselves about what they are available for, what their standards are, what they expect, and allowing themselves to fully step into their own leadership. Meaning, if you know something is not aligned, you have to change that, whether it's a conversation or an energy shift, internally, you have to address it.
Brenda Winkle 00:28:49 Just like with me and my students, if I continue to go in year after year after year and not say what the standards, norms, procedures, expectations are, how can I expect that? And the same thing is happening with my clients. These very high capacity, very successful people are usually doing a great job of this in many areas of their life. And then there's one area where it's sticky. Maybe it's with a certain coworker, or maybe it's with a team member that you brought on before you stepped into like the really big, full version of you. And it feels a little bit self-conscious to say, hey, the way that you're doing this in my company isn't feeling as good as it used to, and I wonder if we could talk about that. And the truth is, a lot of times one of the tells that you have work to do in this area will be that you become emotional, irritated, frustrated with that person. That's a tell. That's a tell that there's an identity thing that's happening between where you used to be and where you're going.
Brenda Winkle 00:29:58 And this might be difficult to hear, but that irritation that you're feeling is not about the person. It's always about, how do I close the identity gap between where I used to be and where I am, and maintain this relationship with this person because we don't want to leave all the relationships as we evolve. If we did leave every relationship, every time we evolved, we'd be pretty lonely. And sometimes that does happen. And sometimes it's important that it happens. But not every time. Not every relationship. If you had to start over with every every time you go through an identity upgrade, you like, leave all the relationships. Can you imagine how lonely that be? And I'm saying this as somebody who literally thought that might be the only path forward for me. I really wondered at one time if I could evolve and maintain my friendships and my relationships because I worried that they would reject me. I worried that they would abandon me. I worried that they would think I was too much. I worried that they would think like, who does she think she is? So I don't sound familiar and I don't like admitting that.
Brenda Winkle 00:31:12 And one of the things I want to be really clear on is even when that was happening for me, It did not happen across every area of my life. Usually I was excellent at maintaining my new identity in a few areas. Professionally, that was very, very easy for me to do. Like, if you asked me to step into that new identity as a teacher in my own classroom, or as I if I was speaking, if I was presenting, if I was offering a talk, if I was, giving a program, it was very easy for me to step into that identity. And then if you took me into my own school district meeting with the other music teachers, then sometimes I'd feel self-conscious. And so I get it, I get it, and there's no judgment here. But we do really want to create some stability in your nervous system, so you can let go of the need to prove, you can let go of the making yourself just a little bit smaller, or that you're overworking to compensate for the work that you're no longer doing, the emotional work, you're no longer doing so.
Brenda Winkle 00:32:18 When we think about your future self leadership, if the version of you who already lives at this level of leadership, we're making decisions. I have three questions for you. Number one, what would that version of you stop tolerating? Number two, what would that version of you stop caring for other people? And number three, what would that version of you stop explaining or justifying? Those are some good questions I invite you to journal on. I'll repeat them really quickly in case you want to jot them down. Number one, what would you stop tolerating? Number two, what would you stop carrying? And number three, what would you stop explaining? And I want to assure you that there are people who want to see you win. There are people who want to see you grow and evolve. There are people who are willing to do the journey with you. You have them in your life already, but maybe you've been too scared to have that conversation with them. And that's okay. That's okay. Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be teaching something specifically for empathetic leaders in this space because you're not a beginner.
Brenda Winkle 00:33:47 I'm not teaching to beginners, and you're not learning boundaries for the first time. You already are really good at a lot of boundaries in a lot of ways. This is for people whose identity has already expanded and whose nervous system is recalibrating. And if this episode landed for you, I hope you stay close because your next level does not require more force. It does not require you to leave every relationship in your life. It doesn't require you to stay small. It just requires a new operating system. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I'm going to invite you to DM me over on Instagram at Brenda Winkle. I want to know what questions come up for you. You are not going to be bothering me. I promise you I'll be the one that answers your DM. I really want to hear from you. What questions come up? What challenges are you facing around this idea of identity or intuition, or coming together with leadership and identity? What feels sticky? What are you celebrating? What's going really well? Tell me all the things I want to hear from you over on Instagram.
Brenda Winkle 00:34:57 It's not a bother, I promise. I really, genuinely want to be of service. And the more conversations I have, the more I learn about ways that I can provide help, the ways I can provide support. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this, would you please go give the podcast a rating and review wherever you're listening. You can give it a five star rating over on Spotify just for this episode, and you can leave comments and I'm so grateful for that. You can also leave a rating wherever you're listening, and you can leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and I so appreciate that it does more than you can possibly imagine to grow the podcast. And lastly, I have a question for you. I'm really considering a name change for the podcast because I don't think that your yes, filled life really shows the work we do here. So I'd be curious if you were going to suggest a new name for the podcast, what would it be? Go DM me over on Instagram and let me know.
Brenda Winkle 00:35:59 Thanks for being here. I appreciate you listening. Bye for now. Until next time.
