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 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. Today on the podcast, we are going to be talking about why highly empathic, high achievers, high capacity leaders feel called to something more than success. Now, to be clear, success is very appealing to those of us that are empaths. You know, we've talked a lot about the shadow sides of being an empath or having empathic characteristics over the last few episodes of the podcast. And, I mean, there are shadow sides to everything, right? But achieving is one of those really fun parts of being an empath, because you can feel your own sense of pride and achievement, but then you also got to feel the feelings of pride and achievement and congratulations from everybody around you. And so it was one of the ways that most of us with very empathic tendencies, learned to offset some of the negative or shadow sides of having these deeply empathic and compassionate characteristics, because, oh my gosh, when you achieve and you get the gold star, you might feel it for yourself from your teacher, from your friends, from your families.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:46 Now, of course, the shadow side of this would be that sometimes there's also a message like, we don't want other people to feel bad, so don't brag about it. And that's one of the reasons why we're talking about what we're talking about today. Because for most people with a lot of empathy and compassion, it's really difficult to celebrate yourself. And when we think about why you need more than success, this is one of the reasons, because it is difficult to celebrate your achievements and your success. And but that's not all. I mean, there are there are three reasons that I have come up with why are highly empathic, high achievers and high capacity leaders need more than success? But this is just one. Okay, so you have probably known your whole life that you're here for something very specific. Maybe you are in the health care space. Maybe you're in a caring profession, like education or some type of service based work, whether you're actually a healer, like a Reiki healer, or a physical therapist, or a doctor or a somatic coach, or maybe you're an educator or you're an elementary teacher or whatever you claim to be.
Brenda Winkle 00:04:09 My guess is that you're doing something that cares for other people, and chances are, you have used your empathy and your empathic nature and probably your intuition to support you in that caring work. But here's the thing. And we're going to be talking more about this in an upcoming episode of the podcast. Your empathy and your intuition are not the same thing. A lot of times people will use those terms kind of interchangeably, and they'll even say things like empath and intuitive as though they're the same thing, but they are not. They're absolutely not the same thing. And it's a really important distinction to make, because If you have these empathic characteristics where you can feel big emotions within your own body, you can feel other people's emotions. You have that psychological understanding of how people process emotions in a really deep, unique way. All of those are considered empathic qualities. And when you have those deep empathic qualities. If you are tuned into or attuned to a person unknowingly, you can mistake their emotions for your intuition, which is why the distinction between empathy and intuition is so important to make, because you want to understand what it feels like when your empathy is the one delivering information to you, and when your intuition is the one delivering information to you because they're not the same.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:50 And if we mistake our empathy as our intuition, we can end up making some misguided decisions because we're not making decisions based on our inner knowing. We're making decisions based on somebody else's emotions, and maybe they know about our situation and maybe they don't. And so what we want to think about is, how can you get more clear on the distinction between your empathy and your intuition so that you can still have access to your own inner knowing? And this is why the conversation around success becomes so relevant. Because as an empath, as you achieved and you are successful in things as a child, you got to feel your own sense of achievement and pride and celebration, and then you got to feel it from other people as well. And it offset a lot of the more negative and hard things about having empathic tendencies. And so most of us that identify as high achieving, high capacity empathic leaders really do enjoy a high achieving moment. And if we mistake that thrill of the success as intuition, we can actually negate our own inner knowing.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:25 Let me give you an example. I love to perform, and if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that I have a background in choral music education. And that was where I spent, you know, more than two decades and I still direct two choirs part time. And I love a performance like the thrill of a performance is absolutely amazing for me. I am so energized by it. I love the feeling of creating something beautiful for the audience, creating something transformative for the singers. It's just absolutely amazing for me. I really, really enjoy it. And and this is really important. And sometimes I need a little bit of spaciousness and time alone to be able to really get clear around. How do I feel about this performance? Do I feel fueled by what I'm doing? Do I feel fueled and nourished by the performance itself, or am I being nourished and fueled by the emotions of everyone else? And because we're high achieving, high capacity empath, this is a really important thing to tap into.
Brenda Winkle 00:08:44 Because if we continue to search for the success, then sometimes it feels empty because we're living on the high. Of achievement. Because we get to feel it. Our own sense of achievement and pride, and then from other people as well. And I've told multiple stories in the podcast about this. And one of the most memorable is that last time that I directed a children's opera chorus and we sang on The Nutcracker. I was like, going, going, going, going, going, going, going. I can't remember for sure. I think it was nine performances that we had done that year, and we got done with one, and I was so exhausted. I ended up home on the couch, too tired to even lift or find a remote, and I laid there on the couch, too tired to sleep, too tired to move for about two hours before I could finally get myself off the couch. Meanwhile, all of the singers and their families had gone out to celebrate. That was an example, a very extreme example of where I was mistaking the success for actual fueling and nourishment, because at the end of that period of time, I was not nourished, I was not fueled.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:08 I was absolutely drained, depleted, sad, and quite frankly, lonely because I just didn't have the capacity to show up around any people after that point, because I had been mistaking that achievement or success for what was actually fueling me. Speaking of which, I've updated the energy audit. So if you have downloaded the energy audit and you did not get an email from me this week about getting the updated audit, send me an email or Instagram me at Brenda Winkle. DM me over there and I'll send you a link to the new energy audit. And if you haven't yet downloaded the energy audit, I really invite you to do that, because I have created some new categories that allow us to really get into the subtleties of what it's like to be an empathic leader, so we can get really clear on what is the source of our fuel, is the thing we think fueling us, actually fueling us, or is it something else? Or are there relationships involved that we're cueing off of and mistaking for our own inner knowing? So go grab that energy audit its Winkle audit so that success can override our inner knowing.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:27 That's number one. Number two is that your deep empathy because you're so attuned to your own energy, to other people's energy, you can be really aware of misalignments. And what that might look like is you can read tension in a room. You can read conflict between two people. You can read, fear or worry in other people, whether it's team members or coworkers or family members. And it can impact how you show up because you feel so called to use your energy for good. Because if you're truly someone who has these empathic gifts, and you are if you're still listening, there's no question in my mind if you've listened this far that you have these empathic abilities. We also have the unique ability to do what I call is give our energy away, and we give our energy away in service of these types of relational tensions, whether it's helping someone avoid conflict or prevent conflict, whether it's between us and that other person, or between two other people that we see or that we work with or care about or love, and your deep empathy increases your awareness of any type of misalignment.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:52 And so it becomes very easy for you to over extend to over give to over function to over deliver to over over, over. And like I was talking about on last week's episode or I guess it wasn't last week, it was last episode when I was in Madison. It was so easy and natural for me to overextend myself physically when I was caring for my mom. And that is also because of this empathy. And then here's the other thing that's happening why sometimes those of us that have these empathic abilities who are also high capacity, high achieving leaders have, as we feel called towards something new, we feel called to something that has more meaning. Oftentimes it's deeper connection to the earth, or deeper connection to the divine, or deeper connection to your closest relationships, or deeper connection to a specific community, and that call towards deeper meaning. Let's say meaning often occurs for most of us, somewhere in that midlife range between, like I would say, 35 and 70. I know 70 is not considered midlife, but my point is it happens at different times for different people based on your life path and your life experience.
Brenda Winkle 00:14:19 And so when you start to get that nudge, like there is actually something else I'm supposed to do, often it comes at a transition point and it could come in a transition point of perimenopause or menopause. It could come at the transition point of your family. Dynamic shifting as families change. Kids grow up and they go to college or they move out. So maybe you're empty nesting. It could come in. Relationship changes. It can change. It can come in transitions of career changes. Maybe you are mid-career and you're looking for an exit plan that doesn't have you retiring from your current profession. Or maybe you have already retired and you're looking for your second act. In any case, I find that this transition space is a place where a lot of people start to recognize their deep empathy as being something that is really special. Because I promise you one thing, if you identify as somebody with these deep empathic types of abilities, you probably have felt a little bit different for your whole life. Maybe not so far as to say black sheep, but I know that's how I felt.
Brenda Winkle 00:15:37 I always felt a little bit like the black sheep. So maybe you did too. There's definitely something more you're tapping into. And I have known for my entire life that my purpose is to guide other people with deep empathy and compassion. I've known my entire life that I had connection to other people telepathically, to animals, to plants, to the land. I've known this my whole life, and I was sort of questioning it in my teens. Like I didn't know why it was happening. I didn't know why I could communicate with a girl that attended my church who was non-verbal. I didn't know why, I didn't know what that was in service of or in service to. I just knew I could. I knew I could communicate with the plants and the animals and yeah, it makes me, made me. Makes me I don't think. Makes me not current, but made me feel really weird, really different. And there were so many years of my life that I pretended like that wasn't me, that I pretended like I didn't have those abilities.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:48 And as I approached that 35 year mark, that was when my entire life shifted. That was in 2007. That was when I finally felt like I have had enough. I cannot pretend for one more day to be something I'm not. I cannot pretend that this life of fully compromising and turning myself into a pretzel is aligned for me. I cannot pretend for one more minute that I'm happy when I'm not. And for me, that was at the age of 35, and there have been several different iterations of it that have happened over the years. You know, one hit when I moved schools while I was still in Boise, and another one hit when I moved from Boise to Portland, and another one hit when I left teaching full time to do this work full time. And so there's, you know, iterations as I've gone where I feel like I've come more and more and more and more into my own alignment. But the first thing I needed to do was to understand why some things felt easy for me to move through, and some things felt really tough for me to move through and why I felt called to something bigger than myself.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:04 And now I understand because of the work that I've done with my own somatic coach and my own guides, and my own experiences and mediumship training and other trainings. Now I understand my role is to be a guide for empathic leaders, and I'm stepping fully into it unapologetically. I dream of guiding an army of you because I want more of you in the world, all over the world, in positions of leadership. Because we need you there. The world is changing. The systems that we have had for thousands of years. Hundreds of years in the US are now crumbling. And it's because something new is emerging. And that's something new is your chance. It's our chance to bring more heart centered, love based leadership with very deep empathy and compassion to the world. It's our time. And so I want you to know that if anything resonated for you today, nothing has gone wrong. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. In your phase of development. Nothing happens by accident. You're just evolving. You're stepping more fully into the version of you, which is so exciting.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:33 And I'm so happy for you. And I'm so happy for me. and I'm so happy that we have our journey together for us and for the world. Because you know who's changing the world right now? It's heart centered, empathic, compassionate leaders. And there are some men that are doing this work, but the vast majority are women. And I'm just so honored to be doing this work and to be unapologetic about this work. And let me be clear. Like, it's taken me my lifetime and I'm 52 to get to this place. So maybe you could give yourself a break, and maybe you could give yourself a little time to wrap your brain around wherever you are in this journey. And maybe it could just be okay. And one of the things that happens for those of us with deep empathy and compassion is we're so empathic and we're so attuned to what other people are doing that a lot of times it can impact us and it can impact our decisions and our ability even to show up fully. And that's why I'm hosting the masterclass when you know exactly what to do, but something stops you.
Brenda Winkle 00:20:54 You can register by going to Brenda Winkle. We're live together on April 7th. There is a limited time replay available if you can't join us live, but if you do join us live, you'll have a chance to ask your questions right there with me on the call. So it is on zoom, in case that wasn't clear and I really hope to see you there. I just have this vision. I just keep seeing this huge circle of people from all over the world that are joining together for heart centered, heart led and empathic leadership. And I'm so grateful that you're here, that you are showing up for yourself, that you're showing up in the way that feels really, really good to you. Because here's the thing. As somebody with these characteristics, these qualities, it's really easy for you to ignore your own needs. Ask me how I know. You know, it's really easy, and it's imperative that we get a handle on that so that we have bandwidth energy to serve in the way that we are being called right now to serve.
Brenda Winkle 00:22:11 I hope to see you there. And if it's not for you, it's not for you. I mean, no hard feelings. If that doesn't resonate for you, you're just like, no, Brandon, I don't want to do that. Great. Don't follow what is true for you. And I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being along with the journey with me. You know, the podcast has stayed in the top 5% globally for the last. Well, I don't know when it ranked, but it's been there. Oh my gosh, we're almost at our fourth anniversary. Can you believe it? Yeah, almost four years and we're in the top 5% globally. So thank you for listening. Thank you for your ratings and reviews. I read everyone and they mean a lot to me. Thank you for hitting that follow button wherever you are and whatever podcasting platform, because then it means it populates right in your app so you don't have to find or search for the next episode. Just saves you some time and bandwidth.
Brenda Winkle 00:23:09 And let's face it, your energy is very valuable. So anytime we can save time or bandwidth, we want to do that. And if you really enjoyed this episode, would you please consider sharing it with three people you care about? Thanks for being here. Bye for now. Until next time.
