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 your yes filled life. I'm your host, Brenda Winkle. Today on the podcast, we're going to be taking a look at a question, which is what if one of the reasons you get tired or even have chronic exhaustion has nothing to do with how much you're physically doing, or even the stress that you have in your work or life, but everything to do with how much you are emotionally managing. Many emotionally intelligent people like you and me are not just living our lives. We're constantly tracking reactions, anticipating potential discomfort, softening emotionally, perhaps rolling back boundaries, maybe having different sets of standards for different people, and trying to keep everyone around us. Okay. So emotional management is absolutely exhausting. There's no two ways around it. I mean, the hypervigilance that's required to emotionally manage people in your life is profound. Think about scanning the room temperature, taking all the time, replaying conversations over and over and over in your head, or maybe even replaying conversations that haven't even happened yet.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:41 You're like front loading, the conversations with the overthinking. It's sometimes possible that you might be emotionally pre managing, meaning that you're anticipating people's emotional responses. And so you're trying to mitigate the big response and you're pre managing before anything is ever even happened. We can also see different aspects of over explaining cushioning the truth. Definitely having different sets of boundaries for different people or different groups of people or even different roles of people trying to avoid upsetting people. Oh my gosh. That in itself is exhausting. Monitoring everyone's comfort and carrying tension that is not yours. The truth is, you can become so focused on managing everyone else's emotional experience that you stop fully living your own. And that is heartbreaking and exhausting. And it's a really important cause of people feeling unheard, unseen, unacknowledged, and generally invisible. It's not that you actually are invisible, it's that you're living as though you're invisible. So when this pattern starts to change, you begin to feel more relaxed inside of your relationships. You stop monitoring every tiny emotional shift.
Brenda Winkle 00:04:09 You stop needing everyone to be okay before you can relax. And the coolest part is you stop waiting for people to disappoint you, and instead start to believe and embody the idea that the people in your life will be there. They will show up, they will support you. And that, oh my gosh, that's what we're going to talk about getting today into that place of relief. Because honestly, it is a relief for most of us. So let's talk about what starts changing. You're going to notice yourself being less hypervigilant. You're going to let people have their emotional experiences. You'll give them the dignity of their own experience. You're going to have a calmer nervous system, more energy available for yourself, and the things that light you up in your life. You'll have clearer decisions that take you less time to make, less emotional exhaustion, more authentic communication where you can really connect with somebody. You're not going to replay conversations or pre play conversations that haven't happened yet. You'll have a general sense of emotional steadiness where you're pretty grounded.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:24 Not to say you won't have emotional experiences, you will, but you'll have a steadiness and a baseline that you can come back to again and again and again. You're going to have cleaner boundaries more consistently, where you stop adjusting boundaries for different groups of people, and you're going to have an overall deeper sense of self connection. And that self connection, coupled with everything else that we've talked about, leads to an increase in self trust, which means you start to trust your intuitive knowledge. You let go of the bracing, the holding on, the anticipating. It feels so good. So this week in my Facebook memories, there was a photograph of me this week in 2021 holding up a sticker, and I was still a full time teacher in 2021. And that was the year, the school year that the first full school year of Covid. And so we had five first days of school in the district I was teaching in that year. We started with online, we moved to hybrid, we moved back to online, we moved back to hybrid, and then we moved all in.
Brenda Winkle 00:06:42 And so there were five different first days. Everyone was absolutely exhausted and depleted by the end of the year. But also I was still very much emotionally caretaking everyone in my life. And in that picture it is obvious my eyes aren't equally open. I look exhausted and truth be told, I just finished a major concert in the concert cycle for the Pacific Youth Choir, where I direct two children's choirs. Yesterday was the concert. So today I'm really thinking into the differences between finishing the concert cycle this year compared to what it was like in other parts of my life, when I was still emotionally carrying everything for everyone. And even though I am physically tired and I probably look more tired if you're watching me on YouTube, I feel so different. I still have energy left over for myself. I have the presence of mind to know that I need some respite and recovery, and so that's what I'm scheduling in for my day. Yes, I'm talking to you. I'm creating this episode, and then I'm going to go just have a really relaxing afternoon going wine tasting it one of my favorite places in the Willamette Valley.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:59 And my daughter and her partner are going to join me, and we're just going to have a really relaxing day. Maybe I'll go dancing tonight. I have to decide how my energy is, but the idea that I could even leave the house after a major concert is so different from what life was like before I stopped emotionally caretaking. And some of the other examples that changed, not just in big ways like what I'm experiencing, but it's being able to say no to people without having to write a paragraph justifying, you know, or letting someone be disappointed about whatever experience they're having, just letting them sit with that, not trying to be responsible for it. Or how about this one? This is a big one for those of us with emotional intelligence not fixing the tension immediately because you know how to regulate your system and you know how important it is for you to be regulated first, so that you build up the capacity to sit in tension or discomfort, letting people have their own experiences and be responsible for their own emotional experiences.
Brenda Winkle 00:09:12 And this one, this is huge. In fact, this is such a huge topic. It is the theme for the month of June inside the Empowered Empath Collective. It is being able to share excitement without shrinking it and sharing. Excitement happens when we go through new phases of growth and evolution, and things begin to happen and we begin to grow and evolve. And if we aren't sharing and celebrating that excitement, we're not fully growing. There's still a part of us that's holding back. So this is a big deal. When you can share the excitement, you can share a success without shrinking it or minimizing it. And that feels so good. Like yesterday, for example, I was grinning from ear to ear at the end of that concert because my singers, my two choirs, they did an outstanding job and I was unapologetic about it. I was like, yeah, they are this good, aren't they? Right. In the concert, I'm bragging about them to their faces in front of the audience because I truly believe they are good, and I have the expertise and the reputation to be able to say that.
Brenda Winkle 00:10:23 And I'm really confident about that. And it feels good to not hold it back. It feels good to not pretend they're not as good as they are because they're fantastic. And I think the same thing about the podcast, like when I started the podcast, if I would have known that I was in the top 10% of the podcast when I first ranked and really promoted that. I would have been telling you all the time, but I didn't. I shared it once on a social media post and then, you know, put my nose back down to the grindstone until we got into the top 5% globally. And now I talk about it unapologetically. I say to everyone who will listen to me, this podcast is top 5% globally. Imagine what you would share if you weren't shrinking yourself. And now let's move on to another really cool example of what can happen when you stop caring people emotionally. You get to rest without guilt. That piece is one of the hardest pieces for those of us with emotional intelligence, and this can come up for a lot of different reasons.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:29 If you are a high achiever, you're part of the Gold Star Club. You try and get a gold star on everything you do. Resting can be hard, and if you were rewarded as a child for your achievement and you're an empath. Oh my gosh, you are an absolute high achiever and resting is probably tricky for you. You probably have a lot of stories come up about you don't have time to rest. You need to be productive. You're not getting enough done that type of thing. And so imagine just being able to rest like I'm going to go do later this afternoon. I am going to kick my feet up on a table. I'm going to sit in the beautiful Oregon sun. Well, as long as my skin will allow me and then I'll find some shade and I'm gonna have a glass of wine and some sparkling water and some snacks. Some really nice snacks at the tasting room that I'm a member of. And here's a big thing that is going to change when you stop carrying people emotionally, you're not going to emotionally rehearse conversations.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:30 Do you know how much time you're spending rehearsing conversations? It's a lot. A lot of time is being spent. Well, I'm going to say this and then maybe they'll say this and then I'll come back with this. But if they come back with this, then I'll say this. Ask me how I know. I used to spend my days rehearsing conversations, and I just don't do it anymore. It's not that I don't care how people respond to what I say. I am still thoughtful. I am still considerate. But I'm also not going to hold back because I'm worried about how somebody might respond to it. And one of the most important and biggest shifts that you're going to make is realizing you can love people deeply without emotionally carrying them. This is so important to get, because you're actually going to be loving them more fully, more generously when you stop emotionally carrying them, because you're going to give them the dignity of their own experience. You're going to Actually back off far enough to allow them to express their true emotions and needs with you.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:46 And honestly, life starts feeling emotionally quieter. You're not going to have the roller coaster of emotions, and it's not because nobody's ever upset that I'm not promising you that, but it's because you're going to stop treating everyone else's emotions like it's your responsibility to manage. You're going to stop feeling like you have constant fires to put out, because you're going to have a really clear sense of what's yours and what's not. What is your responsibility to shift or change and what belongs to somebody else, and what you're going to gain back when you stop carrying everybody emotionally is your own creativity more energy, more access to your own joy. You're going to have ideas on, oh, this would be fun. I should go try that. You're going to have more self trust, a bigger sense of clarity. Decisions just feel easier. Emotional spaciousness. Like you actually have time to process your own emotions instead of pushing them down or processing them later, or then needing to numb out on Netflix or toffee or popcorn or something.
Brenda Winkle 00:14:59 I'm going to have some toffee today. That's why I said toffee, because of this tasting room that I go to. They have this home made by a local place. It's like boysenberry toffee or something. Very Oregonian. I'm looking forward to it. It pairs very nicely with bubbles. And that also leads me to the next thing you're going to get back, which is your own sense of desire. You'll know what you want. You'll know what brings you joy, what brings you pleasure, what you find fun. It feels like freedom to be able to access that in your life. and you're going to experience nervous system steadiness where you're going to understand what your baseline is so that when not if, when life gets life y and you get activated, you're going to know that, hey, something's something's different here. I need to come back to center. I need to regulate the goal in emotional regulation and nervous system regulation is never to not have a response again. That's not the goal. The goal is to have the tools and the muscle memory to know what to do.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:10 When life lives and you get into a nervous system activation where you're experiencing stress or you're experiencing emotionally overwhelming situations so that you know what baseline feels like so you can get back to it. And all of this combined is going to lead you to an increased sense of authenticity. Like you're not even going to have to try to find your authenticity. It's just going to be there because you stop masking. When you stop spending so much time emotionally and energetically monitoring everyone else. You finally have more energy available for your actual life. And that is not selfish. That is generous because you and I both know that you are here on the planet to do something unique and special, and it probably does not include emotionally carrying everyone else, because if you weren't exhausted by that, you wouldn't be drawn to a podcast like this. And if that doesn't fit you well, I would like to hear more. Let's just put it that way. So you're also going to start hearing yourself more clearly. You're going to notice that your intuition gets easier to understand an intuition comes in in so many different ways that if you don't have spaciousness because you're carrying everything emotionally, you miss a lot of the intuitive hits.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:45 This means your discernment gets sharper and you make better decisions because there's less emotional noise competing for your attention. Feels like freedom. So I have a couple of reflective questions for you. One would be where do I emotionally pre manage most often? For many of us we do this in one specific area predominantly. And maybe we have a second area that we do it like for example, maybe you emotionally manage in your family primarily, and then you also do it at work some of the time. Or maybe you do it with your friends and your family, or maybe it's really related to work for you. But where do you find yourself emotionally? Pre managing most often. And then follow up question is what would happen if I simply allowed someone to have their feelings without immediately trying to fix or soften or carry those feelings? What if I could just hold space and know my presence is enough? Because it's true. Your presence is enough. This is the kind of work we practice deeply inside power self trust for empathic women.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:14 And we'll be opening a cohort of power in July. The cool thing about power is that once you join, you get access to all of the live calls over three cohorts. That's a year's worth of support once you join power. So it's not just six weeks, it's a year. Now, we do take breaks in between those cohorts because you need time to implement. And I need time to go have my my life. And I have found that this specific way of structuring things is so impactful. Because if you think and by you, I'm being existential, you if you think that you're going to have to sign up for a year's worth of transformation, most of us won't do it because we have life to live. We have families to be with. We have friends to play with. We have travel to do. We don't have a year to set aside, but we might have six weeks here and six weeks there, and it makes it more sustainable. And then because it's the same program that you're coming into three different times and who knows, maybe I'll even add a fourth because it's the same program you're coming into those different times, you're going to get more and more and more practice using these skills.
Brenda Winkle 00:20:35 This is also the work we practice to a lesser extent, but we still practice it in the Empowered Empath Collective. The empathic the Empowered Empath Collective meets weekly for one hour and everything is recorded. We have a growing library of resources, breathwork, somatic experiences and trainings. None of this work is about being less caring. In fact, it's the opposite because the less you are carrying for other people, the more caring you can become because you have the bandwidth, the energy, and the space to be truly caring. And that's how we learn to stay connected to yourself while we care about other people. You're allowed to care deeply without carrying emotionally other people's stuff and honestly, that distinction changes everything. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to the podcast. Thank you for being here. If this resonated with you, would you please share this episode with someone you care about? And if you could, please leave the podcast a rating and review wherever you're listening. It would mean so much. This is not free to produce.
Brenda Winkle 00:21:49 It takes me time to come up with the episodes to script them. It costs money to host them, and one of the best things that you could do to support the podcast is to share it. Share it and give us a rating and review so that we can keep doing this work accessible for everyone. Because the podcast is totally free. It's just not free to produce. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thanks for being here. Bye for now. Until next time.
