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. How much of your life have you been living based on permission you never received? And what I mean by that is sometimes we feel like we need permission to do something. We are so socialized in America, in our school system, in our family structures, to ask permission. We ask permission to use the bathroom. We ask permission to have a snack. We ask permission to go outside. We ask permission in so many ways that sometimes when we get into adulthood, we still think that we should be asking for permission. And in many cases, we're right, because then we go into the workplace, into corporate America, or into the education system as educators or into the health care system. And then we still find ourselves asking for permission. We have to ask for permission to take time off. We have to ask for permission to extend a deadline. And so many times we make blank, and oftentimes we end up making blanket sorts of.
Brenda Winkle 00:02:43 Sometimes we make rules for ourselves based on the permission that we have been seeking, even when it comes to our most inner lives. Permission to rest. Permission to say no. Permission to disappoint. Somebody's permission to change your mind. Permission to leave a situation. Permission to find a new situation. Permission to want more? Permission to. Want less. Permission to trust yourself. And so many times we wait, especially as empaths, for somebody to tell us. Yeah, that's a good idea. You should do that. Yes. You're being totally reasonable. It makes sense that you would think that, yes, you are allowed to do that. Yes. That's okay, yes, I approve. And if you're a high achiever, this is especially true for you because you've been chasing the gold star. So approval for you probably feels a lot like medicine, like it is so good. But the problem is that when it comes to our most inner lives. Living with our own selves. Learning to trust ourselves.
Brenda Winkle 00:03:59 Learning to chase joy and do the things that light us up. Especially as empaths and I deal with a lot of people in midlife. I myself am in midlife that permission from external places doesn't arrive, and sometimes, even when it does, it doesn't really stick. And here's why the issue isn't actually permission. The issue is do your do you. That's because the issue isn't permission, it's self trust. The issue is, do you trust yourself enough to move in the direction that you know you're being guided, whether that's to eat more fruit or move to a new house or get a different job or retire, or move states, or learn to salsa and bachata dance. Or maybe it's to learn to cook, or it's to travel full time, or it's to engage in trusted house sitters and start pet sitting in traveling. That is the work that we do inside power. We work on that self trust muscle and it is a muscle. The cool thing about that is you can strengthen it. We learn to listen to what your innermost self is actually saying and asking for.
Brenda Winkle 00:05:30 Because so many times in our lives, we have been conditioned to and rewarded for pushing down that little inner voice. So my client Jill had to give herself. My permission, Jill said. And I even shared this. My permission. My client Jill said, I don't want to live small so that everyone else can tolerate me. If she would do that, that would be asking for their permission to be who she really was. What happened inside power is she stopped waiting for approval and instead she gave herself the approval. And then it was almost like magic. She stopped waiting for permission. She didn't need it anymore because she had been approving of her own desires, dreams, impulses. She was meeting her own needs. And, Stephanie. Remember I talked about this last time. She said. Discomfort for them has required action for me, but no more. Now, she says discomfort for them does not require action from me. She lets people have the dignity of their own experience. That's a form of permission to permission to let somebody live with the consequence of their own choices.
Brenda Winkle 00:07:02 One of the most painful places this shows up is when we stay committed to decisions that don't fit us anymore. When we made them, probably it fit, probably felt good. It was probably the best thing at that time. And this applies whether we're talking about relationships or jobs or volunteer roles or obligations. Identities. Obligations. Identities because we believe. Well, I've already said yes or I've already committed or people are counting on me. And so because we're deeply empathic and we have a tendency to make other people's experiences and emotions mean more than our own. A lot of times we feel like we're not allowed to revisit the decision. In fact, we're probably overtly taught that that be a woman of your word. I've been taught that I don't know about you, but that was definitely something I was taught. Or maybe we have the feeling that while I promised I would do this, now I have to fulfill my promise again, making someone else's experience matter more than your own. You are allowed to revisit any decision.
Brenda Winkle 00:08:22 This doesn't mean you're flaky. It doesn't make you irresponsible. It means you have gathered new information. So in science, as science evolves, science changes. Let's talk about science. Let's talk about the science even around Covid. And let's think about the difference between March 2020 and July 2020. The difference between March and July 2020 was in those 2 or 3 months or however many months it was. We learned that Covid was not being spread on surfaces. In March. I don't know if you remember, but we were all cleaning surfaces and our groceries with alcohol. Or maybe that was just me and I was literally spraying down my counters with lemon scented vodka because it smelled better than rubbing alcohol. And it had, you know, I had read somewhere that it had equal germ killing. We knew by July that Covid was not spread on surfaces. We knew that it was being spread through the air. So naturally, we began to do things differently because of the new science. Why wouldn't you have the same ability to make a decision based on what you know now, which is probably different from when you first decided to do that thing? This is a huge part of the reason why it is important for you to give yourself permission to change your mind and to revisit things.
Brenda Winkle 00:09:57 We want you to give yourself permission to honor what you know now. So the permission that you've been waiting for isn't going to come from somewhere else. It is going to be an internal permission slip. It comes from learning to trust yourself enough to give it to yourself. That's really it. When you stop waiting for someone else to validate what you already know, it's so interesting because the validation actually comes faster. People will then say to you, oh yeah, you're right. This was a really great choice. I understand why you made it. In some cases, and in some cases, they never will. When I left my teaching position in 2021. I was told you are committing professional suicide, and I was told that right to my face as a way to threaten me, to get me to change my mind. So there are cases when someone is going to try to talk you out of giving yourself permission to trust yourself, and they're going to say really scary things, and they're going to say things that are going to make you second guess yourself.
Brenda Winkle 00:11:09 Trust. That's the intent. When it comes to boundaries, I always say there are only two reasons why someone would not want you to set a boundary. One is that you're setting a boundary that they don't see themselves as being able to set. And number two is you not having that boundary benefited them. I think the same thing about self trust. If somebody is having an issue with how you're trusting yourself, it's because, number one, they don't see themselves as being able to give themselves that kind of permission. And number two, they're benefiting from whatever you decided before you decided to give yourself permission. So sometimes we have to consider the source. And it really takes a lot of nervous system regulation. If I would have been trying to make that decision, and I was completely dysregulated and I didn't have any nervous system practices, I don't think I could have made that decision. By the time I left my full time teaching job in 2022, I had enrolled in my breathwork program and I was engaging in regular, consistent breathwork practices.
Brenda Winkle 00:12:23 I know that's why I was able to finally leave teaching. And when I say finally leave, it wasn't like I didn't love it, I did. I loved my students, I loved what I taught. I was very, very burnt out from the politics that were surrounding it. And so I had been plotting a course out of education for many years. I could not do it. Every time I would get ready to do it, my nervous system would seize up. And when by seize up, I mean I would get very sick or I would start to self-sabotage, or I would get ready to do the things that would mean a change. And I would get so scared and frightened and stressed I couldn't follow through. It wasn't until I engaged in the nervous system regulation practices like tapping and breathwork and somatic movement that I actually was able to change my life. It's not a coincidence. You know, I've talked about this before, but I remember being in my first skyscraper and it was in Chicago. Maybe it wasn't my first, but it was definitely a memorable one.
Brenda Winkle 00:13:35 Probably my first was in Denver, but In Chicago. I remember we had gone up to the top floor of this building, and as we were coming down, we got back down into the lobby. And the whole time that we'd been in the building, I was thinking, there must be something about these windows that's really special because they were so shiny. You could see your reflection, but you could also see through them. They were just sparkling clean. And then when we got down to the lobby, there were people cleaning the windows. It was never an accident. It was never coincidence. They didn't have some kind of special glass. They were cleaning the glass. The same thing is true for the people that allow themselves to hear their innermost desires and give themselves permission to live life on their terms. They are regulating their nervous systems. They are engaging in some type of practice, whether it's breathwork or meditation or somatic movement. Something is happening to ease that stress in the body. And that's a big part of why in everything that I do, we include nervous system regulation.
Brenda Winkle 00:14:47 It's part of the Empowered Empath Collective. It's absolutely part of power. Inside power. There are multiple on demand breathwork meditations ranging from ten minutes to an hour, and then we meet weekly for six weeks. And part of what we're meaning about is nervous system regulation. That's a big part of our live practice. And you get homework. So, you know, a specific nervous system regulation practice that you'll practice over the next week so that you can embody that and take that with you long, long, long after power ends. I have a reflection question for you. And it's this if I was going to give myself permission to do the thing I really want, the thing I would do would be. If I was going to give myself permission to do what I really want, the thing I would do would be and then fill in the blank. It might be more than one thing, or it might be a lot of things. The permission that you desire is never going to come from external sources, and the reason it's never going to come from external sources is that the people around you want to protect you.
Brenda Winkle 00:16:18 They love you. And if you're waiting for them to give you permission, they're feeling that hesitation. And because they feel and sense that hesitation, they don't know if you'll be safe if you do that thing. So if you go to them and you try to get permission to do that thing that you're a little nervous about doing. They're going to talk you out of it because they can track it, and they don't want you to get hurt. And then in the case that you're around people who are benefiting from you not giving yourself permission, they're absolutely not going to. Not going to co-sign on your permission because it would be less convenient for them. So no matter what your situation is, if you are waiting for someone external to say, yeah, you should go do that thing. It's probably not going to happen. Now, if you're involved in a community like the Empowered Empath Collective or the power Group or other really empowered types of groups of like minded individuals, then yes, indeed they will support your evolution.
Brenda Winkle 00:17:21 They will help you believe in yourself. They will help you to tap into that inner courage. But at the end of the day, it's got to come from you. You are the one that you've been waiting for. And I know that that is. It cuts both ways, right? And one sense. You are the one that you've been waiting for. So now it's up to you. And you are the one you've been waiting for. So now you can do anything. And I hope that you do. If this has sparked a little bit of curiosity in you invitation to come join me in the free masterclass, trust yourself again. We'll be live for one hour on June 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific, and there is a replay that you'll have access to for a limited time. You can register and save your spot at Brenda Winkle. And I'll put that in the show notes. And if you know you are ready to make these changes, to be the person who is going to give yourself the permission, you're ready to stop pretending like there's somebody that's going to come in on their white horse and say, yeah, go do that thing that you've been wanting to do, and you're ready to admit that's you.
Brenda Winkle 00:18:38 You are going to be so welcomed inside of power. We're enrolling now for the summer 2026 cohort. Enrollment is open through July 7th. We begin July 9th. You can find all the information at Brenda Winkle. Com forward. And this is going to be an amazing cohort. We're accepting 20 members into this cohort of power. Two spots are already spoken for. So if that sounds like something you're intrigued by, I invite you to go save your spot because you really do deserve to live the life of your dreams. You really do deserve to follow those curiosities, to find that joy, to live a life on your terms. You won't become less caring by doing that, you'll actually become more generous because your own cup is going to be full. And that's what I want for you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening today. If this has been helpful for you, would you please consider sharing it with three people you care about? And if you haven't yet left the podcast a rating and review, that is one amazing way that you can engage in some reciprocal energy.
Brenda Winkle 00:19:55 Because this podcast is not free to produce and it would mean a lot for me. I read every review, I read every comment, and I'm so grateful for it. And I just looked at the video where I'm recording. And if you're watching me on YouTube, whoa, you're going to see some little wing eating hair there. And again, I was not waiting for anyone's permission to tell me I was ready to go. I just knew this episode had to get recorded. Thanks for listening. Bye for now. Until next time.
